fall, is out of calculation the first, and decision the last; but whatever the number may be, or however they may happen to be principled, disposed, or endowed, the majority will by this time, probably, exclaim, enough of this governor! or, enough of this author!

But which ever should happen to be the case, pardon is asked for the necessity of proceeding a few stages farther; and patience ought to be required, to induce the reader to hold out to the end of so disagreeable a journey.

Though foiled, disgraced, and silenced this anti-Penn, this undertaker to subvert the building Penn had raised, was far from quitting the lists.

On the contrary, he lay in wait with impatience for a verification of his own predictions concerning the danger of the frontier, and the miseries the inhabitants were to sustain when the enemy should break in upon them.

When such should actually become the case, when the fugitives should on all sides, be driven either by the enemy or their own fears, or both, towards the capital; when every week should furnish some new tragedy; and rumour so practise upon credulity, that every single fact should by the help of echoes and re-echoes be multiplied into twenty; when the panic should become general, and the very distractions of the herd, and their incapacity to operate for themselves, should render them obnoxious to any imposition whatsoever then, he thought, and not altogether unjustly, their passions might be of service to him, though their reason could not; and the event will shew, that, provided he might attain his ends, he could be very indifferent about the means.

Factions he had found means to form, both in the city and the several counties; and tools and implements of all kinds, from the officious magistrate down to the prostitute writer, the whispering incendiary, and avowed desperado, he was surrounded with. The press he had made an outrageous use of; a cry he had raised; and in miniature the whole game of faction was here played by him with as little reserve, though not with as much success, as it is in greater affairs elsewhere.

The current of elections, however, still continued to set against him: those who had the most interest at stake remained firm to the interest of their country; and now nothing remained but by the dint of artifice and clamor, to compel those to be subservient to his indirect purposes, if possible, whom he could not deprive of their country's confidence and favor.

This was the true state of Pennsylvania, when the new assembly, composed chiefly of the old members, took their

seats.

On the 14th of October the house met of course, according to their constitution; but did not proceed to material, or at least, extraordinary business. The governor was not as yet sure of his crisis; and therefore, chose to feel their pulse first in manner following. His secretary being in conversation with the speaker of the assembly (the same who had served in that office for many years past) took occasion to communicate two letters to him concerning Indian affairs; and the speaker, asking, whether they were not to be laid before the house, the secretary replied, he had no such orders. The letters were of course returned; and the speaker made the house acquainted with this incident; adding, 'that he thought the said letters contained matters of great importance to the welfare of the province; but as he could not presume to charge his memory with the particulars, so as to lay them before the house for the foundation of their conduct, he could only mention the fact, and recommend it to the consideration of the house.' The house hereupon deputed two members to inform the governor, that having gone through the usual business done at the first sitting of an assembly, they were inclined to adjourn, unless he had any thing to lay before them, particularly in regard to Indian affairs, that might require their longer stay.' And the same members were farther directed to acquaint him with the time of their adjournment, in case the governor should in reply say, he had nothing to communicate. This concert upon one side, produced concert on the other. The governor replied as had been foreseen, 'that if he had had any busi

ness to lay before the house he should have done it before that time.' And being then made acquainted with the proposed time of adjournment, which was till the first of December, he said.....It was very well.

The house, therefore, having first resolved to continue the supplies granted by the former assembly to the Indians on their frontier, adjourned accordingly, having sat but four days.

Fifteen days of this adjournment were also suffered to elapse, as if all danger and apprehension were at an end. But then the governor, being armed at all points, summoned them to meet him, with all the circumstances of alarm and terror his imagination could furnish.

Intelligence (probably the same intelligence contained in the two letters communicated by his secretary to the speaker) that a party of French and Indians, to the number of fifteen hundred, as he was informed, had passed the Allegheny hills, and having penetrated as far as the Kittochtiny hills, within about eighty miles of Philadelphia, were encamped on the Susquehanna, was the business he had to impart to them; and from his manner of imparting it, he seemed more delighted than shocked with the recital. 'This invasion, said he, was what we had the greatest reason to believe would be the consequence of general Braddock's defeat, and the retreat of the regular troops.' Why did they retreat then from the actual seat of war? was the wild country on the Ohio better worth defending than Pennsylvania? was any projected acquisition of more importance to the public than the preservation of such a country? did not this very governor talk of the plenty of the province and its defenceless state, from time to time, almost in the style of invitation, as if he meant to bespeak the very event he was now expatiating upon and is not he more to be upbraided for suffering those troops to be recalled, if he did no more, without making the strongest remonstrances against it, than the assembly who besought their protection; and if it should appear from his whole conduct, that he desired nothing more ardently than that such an event should happen; and that his princi

pal endeavour was, to improve it when it did happen to proprietary purposes, at the expence of the fortunes, liberties, and lives of the inhabitants, with what abhorrence must we reflect on the pains taken in this speech, to aggravate the calamitous state of the province, and to place it to the account of those, who had in a most signal manner deserved the thanks, not only of the Pennsylvanians, but also of all the friends and lovers of liberty and virtue distributed through the British empire?

Had my hands been sufficiently strengthened (so he proceeded) I should have put this province into such a posture of defence, as might have prevented the mischiefs that have since happened.' A dose of venom apparently prepared and administered to poison the province; if the governor might have been their saviour, and was not, for want of proper powers, the assembly accused of having withheld them, were to be considered as public enemies. To be treated as such could not but follow. The populace are never so ripe for mischief as in times of most danger. A provincial dictator he wanted to be constituted; he thought this would be the surest way of carrying his point; and if the Pennsylvanians had taken so frantic a turn, they would not have been the first, who like the flock in the fable, had, in a fit of despair, taken a wolf for their shepherd.

But to return: 'That the Delaware and Shawanese Indians had been gained over by the French, under the ensnaring pretence of restoring them to their country,' constituted his next inflammatory. And then in order to magnify his own merits, he farther suggested, 'That he had sent the same intelligence, both to the king's ministers, together with a representation of the defenceless state of the province, and to the neighbouring governments, that the latter might be at once prepared to defend themselves and succour them; that the back inhabitants having upon this occasion, behaved themselves with uncommon spirit and activity, he had given commissions to such as were willing to take them, and encouragement to all to defend themselves, till the government was enabled to protect them; but that they had complained

much of want of order and discipline, as well as of arms and ammunition; and he was without power, money, or means to form them into such regular bodies, as the exigency required, &c. that the designs of the enemy could only be conjectured from their motions and numbers; and that from those and the known circumstances of the province, it was reasonable to apprehend, they had something more in view, than barely cutting off and destroying some of the frontier settlements.' And for a conclusion he summed-up his lords the proprietaries' will and pleasure, as follows:

'His majesty and the proprietaries having committed the people of this province to my charge and care, I have done, and still shall very readily do, every thing in my power to fulfil that important trust; and to that end, I think it my duty to call upon you to grant such supplies of money as his majesty's service, at this important and dangerous crisis, may require, and to prepare a bill for establishing a regular militia, exempting such as are conscientiously scrupulous of bearing arms, it being impossible, without such a law, though large sums of money should be raised, to prevent confusion and disorder, or conduct matters with any degree of regularity.

'As the enemy are now laying waste the country, and slaughtering the inhabitants, there is no time to be lost; I therefore think it necessary upon this occasion to inform you, that I am ready and willing to consent to a law for emitting any sum in paper-money the present service may require, if funds are established for sinking the same in five years; but I cannot think it consistent either with the powers of my commission, or the duty I owe the crown, to pass any bills of the same or a like tenor of those I have heretofore refused. And I hope you will not waste your time in offering me any such bills, as you must know from what has passed between me and the late assembly, and the information I now give you, it is not in my power to consent to; and I earnestly recommend it to you, to afford in time that assistance which your bleeding country stands so much in need of."