by law subsists between a principal and his deputy, the intention of the charter in that particular, being no other than to impower Mr. PENN, and his heirs, to administer the government by his and their lieutenant or deputy, which being a judicial office, he could not otherwise have done; and so far is the charter, by its general tenor, from making the deputy equal to, or independent of, the principal, that it makes the proprietaries alone civilly answerable for what is done in the province, whether by themselves or their lieutenants, which would be unjust if the lieutenant by the charter was equal in power, independent of, and uncontroulable by, the person that appoints, and is answerable for his behaviour. Though I allow the opinion produced to be good, as to the point then under consideration, yet it is not applicable to all cases, which your arguments, without any foundation, suppose; and in the present one there is a wide difference, obvious to every one who considers them both with the least degree of attention; because that saving was even reserving a power to the proprietary in his own person, to repeal a law which he by his lieutenant had consented to; whereas, in the present case, the restriction amounts to nothing more than a reasonable prohibition upon their governors, as such, from passing laws to injure their estates.

I cannot help observing, that you formerly used these same arguments against the validity of royal instructions, and using them now to destroy the force of proprietary prohibitions, you would, it should seem, be willing that the lieutenant-governor should be independent of every body but yourselves.

You say, that the same proviso restrains me from letting or selling the proprietary lands; and yet I propose to give away six or seven hundred thousand acres upon the present occasion; and seem vastly surprised, that I should think myself restrained from encumbering the proprietary lands by act of assembly, and yet at liberty to give them away; for if, say you, the grant of lands, contrary to such prohibition, would be valid, why not the passing the bill for a tax? And this you call a question you cannot solve. It is something very extraordinary, that the representative body of Pennsylvania should know so little of the affairs of the province, as never to have been informed, that the governor grants the proprietary lands under a certain power of attorney, regularly proved and recorded, called a commission of property. That this power was formerly vested in private persons; but for some years past, has been given to the governors; and, being the foundation of property, cannot be unknown to any the least acquainted with the circumstances of the province. And to ask a question or two in my turn, how could you think that the lands in the province were granted under the powers of a commission that expressly prohibits the granting of any? or that the people would he so weak as to give money for lands, and take titles under such a defective power? As to the proposal itself, it was made with a good intention; and as I am accountable to the proprietaries for my conduct under that commission of property, you may be assured I did not make it without proper power to carry it into execu

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tion; and had you raised money for an expedition to the westward, and for encouraging settlers, I should then have made an offer of the lands by proclamation, letting the adventurers know, that they were to have the choice of the lands in preference to all others, with every thing else that could reduce the offer to a certainty; which there was no necessity of doing in a message to you, barely mentioning the thing, and recommending to you to grant an aid to those that should become settlers after the French were removed.

But whatever comes from the proprietaries, however just, however favorable, must be wrong, and accordingly you are determined to represent in that light a proposal generous in itself, and intended to promote the pub. lic service and safety; which may serve to shew the temper of mind you are in, but can answer no good purpose. You say, lands equally good may be had in Virginia for two shillings sterling quit-rent, and none to be paid in fifteen years; it may be so, but how does it appear that they are equally good? It is plain they are not equally convenient, because of a greater distance from a market. The quit-rent in Virginia, I suppose was the same formerly that it is now, and yet very great numbers have chosen to purchase lands in this province of the proprietaries, at the rate of fifteen pounds ten shillings per cent. and of private men at a much higher price, and in both cases under the quit-rent of four shillings and two pence sterling, when they might have had them in Virginia for much less; and the proposal ought not to be considered by comparing it with other provinces, but with the rate that lands have, for a number of years past, been sold at in this province; some of them lately in the new purchase, within a few miles of the Allegheny mountains, and others very remote, without any road of communication with this city, which is not the case as to the lands proposed to be given, there being a very good waggon road thither; and notwithstanding what you have said upon this head, I am convinced, that if you had enabled me, in conjunction with the neighbouring governments, to have sent a body of troops into that country, an offer of lands, upon the terms above-mentioned, would have had very good effects, and would have induced many to have gone and become settlers there, that would not otherwise thought of doing either, and by that means have formed a barrier for the protection and security of the province; and therefore I cannot but be astonished, that you should have taken so much pains to depreciate it.

And now having effectually removed in your judgment my greatest objection to passing your bill, you proceed to consider my reasons in their order. And to the first, that governors, from the nature of their offices, are exempt from the payment of taxes.- -You take a very nice distinction between the proprietary as owner of land, and the proprietary as chief governor, and say, you do not tax him as governor, but as a land-holder, and fellow-subject;" though this is a distinction that has no existence in law or reason, yet I shall for the present admit it, and consider it accordingly. Have the proprietaries a right to vote in the election of representa

tives as land-holders? surely not, being hereditary governors of the province, and having a voice in the legislature by their own particular representative the governor. How then came you by a right to tax them as fellow-subjects and land-holders, seeing they had no voice in choosing you, nor were entitled to any, though owners of land in every county? From the very principles therefore of the English constitution, you have no right to tax them as freeholders or fellow subjects, as you call them; if, therefore, you tax them at all, it must be as proprietaries, and chief governors, which is the only capacity by which they are connected with, or related to, the inhabitants of this province; and under them in that capacity, you derive the power of acting as an assembly. You cannot therefore, without in, verting the order of things, have a power over those from whom you and every one else in the province derive all the power they have. They hold the government and soil of this province under the same grant, and the title to both is centered in their persons, and cannot be separated or divided without destroying their authority. It may be very true, as you say, that the proprietaries do not govern you;" but that is not owing to any want of legal authority in them, but from another cause that I need not mention here.

The support, as you call it, that is paid by the province to a lieutenantgovernor, is no other than the fees of office, and as such are due to any one that administers the government, and are not, what you would insinuate, given to the lieutenant for doing the duty of the principal; the chief of them are public-house licenses, which were originally granted by charter, not by any concession of the people (though you from time to time have taken it for granted to be so) and in favor to them, as former gover, nors took much larger sums for this service, moderate fees have been consented to be fixed by law, as considerations for the business done, not as sufficient for the support of government; all the fees and perquisites whereof do not amount, communibus annis, to more than a thousand pounds.

As to the land tax acts of parliament you refer to, they may be as you say with respect to the crown's fee-farm rents. But I do not conceive they amount to a proof that the king pays taxes, all taxes whatever being paid to him; and there seems to me an inconsistency in supposing he can both pay and receive. I take the clause you mention to have no other meaning than to appropriate part of the revenues of the crown to one public nse, which were before appropriated to another; for I must observe to you, that the king can have no private estate, but from the dignity of his office holds his lands in right of the crown. And another reason why a poundage is collected upon the crown's fee-farm rents, may be, that the land tax should not fall heavier upon the other lands in the same hundreds or districts, as the quotas of each were long ago settled as they now stand in the king's books, and cannot, without confusion, be altered upon the crown's acquiring lands in any of them.

And upon this you break out into a lofty exclamation, that this is not the first instance by many, in which proprietaries and governors of petty colonies have assumed to themselves greater powers, privileges, immunities, and prerogatives, than were ever claimed by their royal master on the imperial throne of all his extensive dominions." I must acknowlege, gentlemen, that these are sounding words; but what instances among the many can you give, of that assuming behaviour in your present proprietaries? have they ever claimed any rights or prerogatives not granted to them by the royal charter, or reserved by that of their father, under which you sit ? can you lay to their charge, during the course of a long administration over you, one act of injustice or severity? have they even exercised all those powers which by the royal charter they might legally do, and to which that charter requires the people to be obedient? on the contrary, have they not given up to the people many things they had a right to insist on, and indulged them in every thing that they judged for their benefit? how just is it therefore, gentlemen, to accuse them of assuming powers and prerogatives greater than their royal master? would you turn your eyes towards your own conduct, and apply some of these significant words to yourselves, you would find them much more applicable than they are to the proprietaries. The charter under which you act, gives you the powers and privileges of an assembly, according to the rights of the free-born subjects of England, and as is usual in any of the king's plantations in America. This, gentlemen, is the foundation of your powers, which, by the royal charter, were to be consonant to the laws and constitution of England. But instead of confining yourselves to that which your wise ancestors thought fully sufficient to answer the ends of good government, and secure the liberties of the people, you have taken upon you great and mighty powers, dispensed with positive laws by the strength of your own orders, claim a right to dispose of all public money, and of keeping your proceedings a secret from the crown, with many others unknown to an English constitution, and never heard of in the other plantations in America. Who therefore can be so justly accused as yourselves of assuming unwarrantable powers, greater than ever were claimed by a British house of parliament, or, to use your own words, 'by your royal master on the imperial throne of all his extensive dominions,' who pretends to no powers but what the constitution gives him, and disclaims a right of dispensing with laws.

To these encroachments on the constitution you give the sacred name of privilege and under the mask of zeal for the public, conceal your own schemes, pretending they are all for the benefit of the people, when they can answer no purpose but to encrease your own power, and endanger the just rights that the people enjoy under the royal and proprietary charters, by making it necessary for his majesty and a British parliament to interpose their authority to save the province. The people have no way so effectually to secure themselves in the enjoyment of their liberty, as strictly adhering to the constitution established by charter, making that the foundation and standard of their proceedings, and discountenancing every deviation from it.

The second and third reasons given by me, and your answers to them being deduced from the law for raising county rates and levies, I shall consider them together.

I do not see why the proprietary estate in each county is not benefitted in common with other estates, and by the same means. The proviso therefore relating to their estates, was not inserted because he had no benefit by the money raised, but was properly a condition, upon which his governor consented to vest the whole power of choosing the tax-officers in the people, and is declarative of the rights of his situation, of which the people in general might be ignorant.

I think, with you, that the proprietary tax would not be more than an hundredth part of the whole, but cannot therefore admit, that if he is taxed, he should be excluded from any voice in the choice of those impowered to tax him, or that the votes of his officers, in their own right, can make the assessors his representatives; nor can I easily conceive, that a negative upon a choice is half the choice, or indeed any part of it; but as what you say upon this head has very little argumentative force, I shall not dwell upon it, but say something as to the law itself.

From the tenor of the act it appears to me to be intended, not only for laying and raising taxes to defray the necessary charges in every county,' but to settle the mode of raising money upon all occasions; it directs the manner of choosing commissioners, assessors, collectors, and treasurers, gives them particular powers, and regulates the conduct of those entrusted with the laying and receiving taxes. It is a positive and perpetual law, and by a special proviso expressly declares the proprietary estate not liable to taxes. You yourselves apply it to a provincial purpose by the bill under consideration, and the apparent reason why it was never applied to that purpose before is, that no provincial tax has ever been laid since the enacting of that law.

You are certainly empowered, by some temporary laws to dispose of particular monies raised by those laws, when they come into the public offices, and I do not know that this power has been disputed; the legislature that gave those laws a being, had a right to pass them in that shape, and a future legislature may do the same, if they think fit; but I do not conceive that you have from those laws a right to dispose of all money that shall be ruised, that being no part of the charter, but must depend upon the legislature that raises it, who may reserve the disposition to themselves, give it to you, or any body else they think fit.

And here I cannot help taking notice of an expression in your message, that you have allowed me a share in the disposition of the fifty thousand pounds. Is it from you, gentlemen, that I derive the right of governing this province, or from your allowance that I have a voice in the legislature? are you the sovereign disposers of power? have you a right to give and take away at pleasure? if not, whence that lofty claim of allowing your governor a share in the disposition of public money? is not the whole property of the people subject to the power of the legislature; and have I