Note 305 — TUESDAY, AUGUST 24.

'In 1745 my friend, Tom Cumming the Quaker, said he would not fight, but he would drive an ammunition cart.' Ante, April 28, 1783. Smollett (History of England, iv. 293) describes how, in 1758, the conquest of Senegal was due to this 'sensible Quaker,' 'this honest Quaker,' as he calls him, who not only conceived the project, but 'was concerned as a principal director and promoter of the expedition. If it was the first military scheme of any Quaker, let it be remembered it was also the first successful expedition of this war, and one of the first that ever was carried on according to the pacifick system of the Quakers, without the loss of a drop of blood on either side.' If there was no bloodshed, it was by good luck, for 'a regular engagement was warmly maintained on both sides.' It was a Quaker, then, who led the van in the long line of conquests which have made Chatham's name so famous. Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 185) says:—'Dr. Johnson told me that Cummyns (sic) the famous Quaker, whose friendship he valued very highly, fell a sacrifice to the insults of the newspapers; having declared to him on his death-bed, that the pain of an anonymous letter, written in some of the common prints of the day, fastened on his heart, and threw him into the slow fever of which he died.' Mr. Seward records (Anec. ii. 395):—'Mr. Cummins, the celebrated American Quaker, said of Mr. Pitt (Lord Chatham):—"The first time I come to Mr. Pitt upon any business I find him extremely ignorant; the second time I come to him, I find him completely informed upon it."'