Note 36 — Chapter I
Reading edition
"As a friend to liberty in general, and to toleration in particular, I wish you may meet with all proper favour; but for myself I never give my vote in Parliament; and to influence my friends or direct my servants in theirs does not become my station. To leave them entirely to their own conscience and understanding is a rule I have hitherto prescribed to myself, and it is my purpose to adhere to it through the whole of my life." This was Frederick's reply to the Quaker who asked him to use his influence in favour of the bill concerning his sect; and, as Huish remarks, "could anything be more agreeable to the spirit of the British constitution?"