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liberty's call. |
87 |
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bearing severely on the royal cause, and in a measure gained the hatred of many friends of the crown, whom he often made the subÂject of his ridicule. He combined the trade of a printer with that of an upholsterer, and kept a shop in Arch street, Philadelphia, opposite the gate of the Friends' burying-ground, where he carried on " Upholstery in all its various branches," besides making his shop a depot for the circulation of his " little billets of ridicule." On the approach of the British, in 1777, Mason removed his store from the city, and abandoned for ever the " setting of types." About one year after, the following advertisement appeared in his old friend, the Pennsylvania Packet:
"John Mason, Upholder. " Carries on the Upholdstery business in all its various branches, and shall be extremely obliged to those noble and generous ladies and gentlemen who delight in employing the industrious.
" Said Mason begs leave to inform his former friends and cusÂtomers, that when the enemy marched into this city, he, the said Mason, marched out, and since that time has had many a march and counter-march, and now has had the happiness to march back again to a city where slavery could not thrive, because there liberty springs spontaneous.
" Ah! slavery, how loved, how valued Once, avails thee not; to whom Eclated or by whom begot; A painful nuisance alone
Remains of thee.-----
1Tis all thou art, and it is all
Thy proud friends and abettors shall be." |
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