The Swiss and Germans settled in Pensylvania were excluded by the Act of Settlement from the glorious privilege of defending the country they had preferred to their own; were debarred from fighting in an English quarrel, which at the same time was become their own. He was aware, he said, that the Act only specified that they should be incapable of commissions; but a raw, undisciplined multitude, not only not commanded by officers of their own, but not understanding the commands of those under whom they were to serve, would introduce confusion instead of utility; and unless they might have proper officers, it would be rashness to employ the men. The framers of the Act of Settlement did not foresee that a time would come, when, from the too Christian spirit of the Quakers, and the too unchristian ambition of France, our most valuable colonies would be in immediate danger. They did not foresee that this danger would meet with a providential resource on the very spot: that an hundred thousand Germans and Swiss, animated by the most amiable principles, zeal for religion, passion for liberty, and a spirit of industry, would be actually settled in the heart of the province most exposed--if they had, would they have been patriots, if they had still narrowed the Act of Settlement to the rigour it now wore?
“No, Sir,” said he; “nor when they formed a great act on the plan of their fears, did they apprehend that England would ever be enslaved by an Army of Germans that should take America in their way. But putting the most extravagant of all suppositions, that there could hereafter be an intention of employing these almost constitutional troops against the constitution, whether would it be most likely, that Swiss Republicans, and Germans fled from Monarchy, would fight for a King attempting to make himself arbitrary, or in defence of liberty which they had travelled even to America to seek? What should induce a Saltzburgher, for instance, who had abjured his own ecclesiastic tyrant, to serve an English King in a still more unconsecrated cause? Nobody, he believed, was so visionary as to impute any such scheme to the royal person on the Throne; nor would he dwell on the experience which the nation had had for near thirty years of how capable his Majesty was of attempting to violate the most minute part of the constitution. In his long and happy reign he could recollect but one instance, which, in the most strained construction, could make the most jealous suspect that his Majesty meditated even to surprise us into subjection; and that was, by governing Hanover with so parental a hand, as if he meant to insinuate to Englishmen that they might be the happiest subjects in the world, though under an arbitrary Prince.”