plus of the excise, for eleven years to come, to the disposition of some of the members of your house, and to the assembly for the time being.

"The offering money in a way, and upon terms that you very well knew I could not, consistent with my duty to the crown, consent to, is, in my opinion, trifling with the king's commands, and amounts to a refusal to give at all; and I am satisfied will be seen in this light by my superiors; who, by your bill above-mentioned, which I shall lay before them, and by the whole of your conduct since you have been made acquainted with the designs of. the French, will be convinced, that your resolutions are, and have been, to take advantage of your country's danger, to aggrandize and render permanent your own power and authority, and to destroy that of the crown. That it is for this purpose, and to promote your scheme of future independency, you are grasping at the disposition of all public money, and at the power of filling all the offices of government, especially those of the revenue; and when his majesty and the nation are at the expence of sending troops for the protection of these colonies, you refuse to furnish them with provisions and necessary carriages, though your country is full of both, unless you can, at the same time, encroach upon the rights of the crown, and increase your own power, already too great for a branch of a subordinate dependant government, so remote from the principal seat of power.

"You have, gentlemen, by a vote of your own house, without the consent of the government, empowered a committee of your members to borrow money upon the credit of the assembly, and to dispose of the same to certain uses in that vote mentioned. You have also, by votes and resolves of your own house, created bills or notes of credit, made payable to the bearers thereof, to the amount of fifteen thousand pounds, which you have issued in lieu of money, and they are now circulating in this province, without the approbation of the government. You have denied me access to your journals, and refused me copies of your minutes. And you have printed and published the secretary of state's letters to Bb

me signifying his majesty's commands, not only without my consent, but contrary to an order I had issued to the printers, expressly forbidding the publication of those letters.

"Whether you have a right to the exercise of such extraordinary powers, his majesty and his ministers will judge, before whom it is my duty to lay your proceedings as soon as I can come at them, and to whom they will appear the more dangerous, as neither they nor you can know but a future assembly may use those powers against the government by which they are protected.

'While I had any the most distant hopes of your coming into measures that might promote the public service at this critical conjuncture, I suffered some parts of your conduct to remain unobserved upon; but as I am now convinced, from the hole tenor of your behavior, and from your message of yesterday, notifying your intentions to adjourn till September next, without granting the necessary supplies, that you have no design to contribute any thing towards the defence of this country, I thought it right to be no longer silent upon those heads.

'Gentlemen, when the bill to prevent the importation of the Germans, &c. was under my consideration, I took such advice upon it, and made such amendments to it, as I thought would best answer the public purposes, and put that trade upon such a footing as to prevent the many abuses that had been practised in it, and at the same time secure this city and province against the coming in and spreading of infectious distempers. How far the bill, as proposed by you, or amended by me, would, or would not, have answered those ends, was a matter proper to be considered at a conference, which you might have desired if you had thought proper, as it is the only means of bringing a bill to perfection, when the branches of the legislature differ in opinion concerning any amendments proposed to it; but instead thereof, you have sent me a message filled with unjust reflections upon the amendments proposed by me, and plainly designed to represent me, as having no regard for the health or safety of the inhabitants of this country; in doing which, I cannot think

you have paid a proper regard to truth. However, as it is not my intention to enter into a controversy with you upon that bill, which might have been agreed upon between us, had the usual method of proceeding in such cases been pursued by you, I shall say nothing more upon the head, especially as this matter seems purposely chosen to lead me and the public from considering that part of your conduct that must, in its consequences, most nearly affect the inhabitants of this province.'

It is in every reader's power to confute every article of this message from the materials before him, though not to account for the governor's reasons for so unseasonably exposing himself; but as we have heard one party, 'tis fit we should hear the other, and if they have been guilty of any partiality, or failed in any point of justice to themselves, let him supply the defect or correct the error that finds himself qualified so to do.

The piece that ensues was their answer. To wit:

May it please the Governor,

'When we met, in obedience to the governor's summons, on the 17th of March last, we really brought with us the sincerest inclinations to promote the public service, by granting the supplies expected by the crown; and we trust it will appear to all who impartially examine the proceedings of that session, that we did every thing in our power, as our affairs were then circumstanced; and consequently that the danger to which this country stood exposed, and his majesty's repeated and affectionate calls, had great weight with us, whatever they had with the governor.

'The bill we sent up, for striking the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds, and giving the same to the king's use, and for providing a fund to sink it, had nothing extraordinary in its nature, or differing from other bills heretofore passed or presented for like purposes in this province, excepting that the sum given was extraordinary, compared with the time proposed for sinking it; the sum for the Canada expedition, in the last war, being but five thousand pounds, to be sunk in ten years, and this sum, though five times greater, was tą

be sunk by the same fund, in the same number of years. In the bill five thousand pounds of the sum was appropriated to pay for provisions bought and given for the use of the forces in Virginia, under general Braddock; ten thousand pounds more was given to buy provisions for the New England forces under his command; five thousand pounds more was subjected to his order, and to be disposed of for the king's service as he should think fit; and the remaining five thou sand pounds was appropriated for the subsistence of Indians taking refuge in this province, payment of posts or expresses, hire of carriages, clearing of roads, and other necessary contingent expences for the king's service, as might be incumbent on this government to discharge. Thus the whole twenty-five thousand pounds was appropriated to the king's service; and almost all of it to the immediate use of general Braddock, or to such purposes as were by him especially recommended in his letters, laid before the house by the governor. The members of the house, mentioned by the governor, were to have no share in the disposition of it; it was disposed of by the bill, and they could only have the trouble of laying it out according to the appropriation, and keeping the accounts. This is truth, and well known to the governor, if he perused our bill with any degree of attention; yet how differently is it represented in the governor's message! it is called only, "a bill for striking twenty-five thousand pounds;" which is but a part of the title, the words, "and for giving the same to the king's use," being (as it would seem) carefully omitted, lest they might militate against the assertion which immediately follows, that, "twenty thousand pounds of it was subjected to the disposition of some members of the house, and of the assembly for the time being." Then it is said, "it gave general Braddock a power over no more than five thousand pounds," because it gave him a power to draw for, and appropriate as he pleased, no more than that sum, though all the twenty-five thousand pounds (except a small part for the support of Indian refugees, which is likewise for the king's service) was appropriated for his, and his army's use, or services by him required; and we cannot learn

that any other colony besides, hath given, or offered to give, that gentleman a power over as many pence. Great subtilty and dexterity appear in this manner of disguising truths, and changing appearances, but we see in it very little candor and ingenuity.

In the next paragraph of the governor's message, there are many assertions in which we think we are equally misrepresented; we are charged with "offering money in a way, and upon terms which we knew the governor could not, consistent with his duty to the crown, consent to." We really thought, and still think, it was inconsistent with his duty to the crown to refuse it; if we are mistaken, 'tis an error in judgment; we have appealed to our gracious king on this head, and we hope for a favorable determination. We are charged with "trifling with the king's commands, and refusing to give at all," though we have actually given great sums in obedience to those commands, and earnestly endeavored to give much greater, which the governor refused, unless we would give in a manner which we think inconsistent with our present just liberties and privileges, held under the royal charter. We are charged with "resolving to aggrandise our own power, and destroy that of the crown;" a charge as we conceive, utterly groundless, and for which we have never given the least foundation. We are charged with a "scheme of independency." We have no such scheme, nor ever had; nor do we, as a part of the legislature, desire any independency but what the constitution authorises, which gives us a right to judge for ourselves and our constituents, of the utility and propriety of laws, or modes of laws, about to be made; and does not yet, and we confide never will, oblige us to make laws by direction. We are charged with grasping at the disposition of all public money, and at the power of filling all the offices of government: a charge, as we conceive, equally groundless and invidious; we have, by law, a right to dispose of some public money, and we cannot be properly said to grasp at what we are in possession of; that part of the public money which the governor receives, arising by licences, &c. great as it is, he disposes of as he pleases, and