When arbitration is determined on, the Quakers are enjoined to apply to persons of their own society to decide the case.  It is considered, however, as desirable, that they should not trouble their ministers, if they can help it, on these occasions, as the minds of these ought to be drawn out as little as possible into worldly concerns.  If Quakers, however, should not find among Quakers such as they would choose to employ for these purposes, or such as may not possess skill in regard to the matter in dispute, they may apply to others out of the society, sooner than go to law.

The following is a concise statement of the rules recommended by the society, in the case of arbitrations.

Each party is to choose one or two friends as arbitrators, and all the persons, so chosen, are to agree upon a third or a fifth.  The arbitrators are not to consider themselves as advocates for the party by whom they were chosen, but as men, whose duty it is to judge righteously, fearing the Lord.  The parties are to enter into engagements to abide by the award of the arbitrators.  Every meeting of the arbitrators is to be made known to the parties concerned, till they have been fully heard.  No private meetings are allowed between some of the arbitrators, or with one party separate from the other, on the business referred to them.  No representation of the case of one party, either by writing or otherwise, is to be admitted, without its being fully made known to the other; and, if required, a copy of such representation is to be delivered to the other party.  The arbitrators are to hear both parties fully, in the presence of each other, whilst either has any fresh matter to offer, for a time mutually limited.  In the case of any doubtful point of law, the arbitrators are jointly to agree upon a case, and consult counsel.  It is recommended to arbitrators to propose to the parties, that they should give an acknowledgment in writing, before the award is made; that they have been candidly and fully heard.

In the same manner as a Quaker proceeds with a Quaker in the case of any difference, he is led by his education and habits to proceed with others, who are not members of the same society.  A Quaker seldom goes to law with a person of another denomination, till he has proposed arbitration.  If the proposal be not accepted, the Quaker has then no remedy but the law.  For a person, who is out of the society, cannot be obliged upon pain of disownment, as a Quaker may, to submit to such a mode of decision, being out of the reach of the Quaker-discipline.

I shall close my observations upon this subject, by giving an account of an institution for the accommodation of differences, which took place in the year 1793, upon Quaker principles.