Many magistrates,
before whom they were carried in the early times of their institution
occasioned their sufferings to be greater merely on this account. They
were often abused and beaten by others, and sometimes put in danger of
their lives. It was a common question put to a Quaker in those days,
who addressed a great man in this new and simple manner, "why you ill
bred clown do you thou me?" The rich and mighty of those times thought
themselves degraded by this mode of address, as reducing them from a
plural magnitude to a singular, or individual, or simple station in
life. "The use of thou, says George Fox, was a sore cut to proud flesh,
and those who sought self-honour."
George Fox, finding that both he and his followers were thus subject to
much persecution on this account, thought it right the world should
know, that, in using this little particle which had given so much
offence, the Quakers were only doing what every grammarian ought to do,
if he followed his own rules. Accordingly a Quaker-work was produced,
which was written to shew that in all languages thou was the proper and
usual form of speech to a single person, and you to more than one. This
was exemplified by instances, taken out of the scriptures, and out of
books of teaching in about thirty languages.
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