These straitened circumstances continued during the remainder of his residence in Philadelphia; and his family stood by him nobly through the trial.  Household expenses were reduced within the smallest possible limits.  His wife opened a tea-store, as an available means of increasing their income.  The simple dignity of her manners, and her pleasing way of talking, attracted many ladies, even among the fashionable, who liked to chat with the handsome Quaker matron, while they were purchasing household stores.  The elder daughters taught school, and took upon themselves double duty in the charge of a large family of younger children.  How much they loved and honored their father, was indicated by their zealous efforts to assist and sustain him.  I have heard him tell, with much emotion, how one of them slipped some of her earnings into his pocket, while he slept in his arm-chair.  She was anxious to save him from the pain of being unable to meet necessary expenses, and at the same time to keep him ignorant of the source whence relief came.

His spirit of independence never bent under the pressure of misfortune.  He was willing to deprive himself of everything, except the simplest necessaries of life; but he struggled manfully against incurring obligations.  There was a Quaker fund for the gratuitous education of children; but when he was urged to avail himself of it, he declined, because he thought such funds ought to be reserved for those whose necessities were greater than his own.

The government added its exactions to other pecuniary annoyances; but it had no power to warp the inflexibility of his principles.  He had always refused to pay the militia tax, because, in common with all conscientious Quakers, he considered it wrong to do anything for the support of war.  It seems no more than just that a sect, who pay a double school-tax, and a double pauper-tax, and who almost never occasion the state any expense by their crimes, should be excused for believing themselves bound to obey the injunction of Jesus, to return good for evil; but politicians have decided that practical Christianity is not always consistent with the duty of citizens.  Accordingly, when Friend Hopper refused to pay for guns and swords, to shoot and stab his fellow men, they seized his goods to pay the tax.  The articles chosen were often of much greater value than their demand, and were sacrificed by a hurried and careless sale.  His wife had received a handsome outfit from her father, at the time of her marriage; but she was destined to see one article of furniture after another seized to pay the military fines, which were alike abhorrent to her heart and her conscience.  Among these articles, was a looking glass, of an unusually large and clear plate, which was valuable as property, and dear to her as a bridal gift from her parents.  She could not see it carried off by the officer, to meet the expenses of military reviews, without a sigh—­perhaps a tear.  But she was not a woman ever to imply a wish to have her husband compromise his principles.