have read the governor's message, are persuaded gives him full powers to make the grants of land, which in his message of the twenty-eighth past, he proposed to make to such persons as shall now engage to go upon an expedition to remove the French from their encroachment on the river Ohio, without any purchase money, and free of quit-rent for fifteen years.' Our copy of this commission is taken from the records, and certified to be a true one, under the hand and office seal of the master of the rolls. We have examined it thoroughly to find the powers by which those grants were to be made, and unfortunately (we are sorry we are obliged to say it to the governor) there is no such thing; not even a syllable of the kind; but on the contrary, after a power given to the governor to grant lands claimed by virtue of former purchases, there is this clause, and also, by warrants to be issued as aforesaid, to grant to any person or persons who shall apply for the same, and to their heirs and assigns for ever, any vacant lands within the said province and counties, or any of them, upon, by, and under the same terms, methods, rents, and reservations, as have of late been used and practised in the said land office, but for no less price, condition, rent, or reservation in any wise.' That is, for fifteen pounds, ten shillings, per hundred acres, purchase money, and four shillings and two pence sterling quit-rent. And now will the governor give us leave to ask a question or two in our turn? how could he think that lands might be granted away, without any purchase money, and free of quit-rent for fifteen years, under the powers of a commission which expressly forbids his granting any, under less price, condition, rent, or reservation whatsoever, than has of late been used and practised in the land office? how could he think of referring us to such a commission for his power to make those grants, when he knew it was never there? how could he slight his reputation so much, as to hazard such an imposition on the assembly and whole province! one so easily detected! we make no further remarks on this, lest we should again incur the censure of treating our governor in an unbecoming manner.'

The proposal, however, the governor is pleased to say, was made with a good intention; and had we raised money for an expedition to the westward, and for encouraging settlers, he 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 us, barely mentioning the thing, and recommending to us to grant an aid to those that should become settlers.' It is remarkable how slowly and gradually this generous offer is squeezed out. We never heard a word of it during all the time of general Braddock's expedition, for which recruits were raised both in this and the neighbouring colonies, though the governor brought over with him, and had in his pocket all the while, that certain power of attorney, called a commission of property,' to which we are referred for his powers of making the offer. But as soon as the house had voted to raise fifty thousand pounds by a tax on all the estates in the province, real and personal, down comes a message,

containing a proposal to grant lands to the soldiers who should engage in the expedition; a proposal made with a good intention, as the governor says; that is, with an intention to get the proprietary estate exempted from the tax, by seeming to offer an equivalent in another manner; but worded in the most cautious terms, as became an offef made without authority and so as indeed to offer nothing that could affect the proprietary; for the quit-rent to be reserved, not being ascertained, but left in the proprietary's breast, he might, when the patents were to issue, demand a quit-rent greater than the worth of the land. This being observed, and talked of, we had another message, intimating that the quit-rent to be reserved should be only the common quit-rent of four shillings and two pence sterling, per hundred acres. But still the land was no otherwise described than as west of the Allegheny mountains; leaving the proprietary at liberty, after the conquest should be made, to pick out, according to the modern practice, all the best lands for himself and his friends, and offer the adventurers such as they would be sure not to accept of under that rent. And this being pointed out, we are now told, 'that a future proclamation is to give them the choice of the best lands; but it was not necessary to mention this to us in a message recommending to us the granting an aid to those settlers.' If we were to grant aids to the settlers on proprietary lands, was it not proper for us, as guardians of the people, to know the terms on which they were to hazard their lives, and see that those terms were good in themselves, and the offer duly ascertained? we conceive, may it please the governor, that whenever we grant an aid for the encouragement of such settlers, it will be proper to have the terms ascertained by the same law, and not left to the precarious effect of a proclamation thereafter to be made by a governor, in the proprietary's behalf, without any apparent power for so doing. If the offer is well meant, a law to ascertain it cannot hurt the proprietaries; the recovery of the country, and the settlement of the lands, are two distinct things. Let us first join equitably in the tax for the recovery; and whenever the governor shall be willing to pass such a law, we are not averse to giving the proposal of granting lands a full and mature consideration; and affording such equivalent encouragement to settlers, in provisions, &c. as we mentioned in our former message. But if he can pass such a law to grant the proprietary's lands, contrary to the prohibition in his commission, may he not full as well pass the bill for taxing the proprietaries estate?

We cannot leave this point, without a word or two in justification of ourselves, against the heavy charge of depreciating, from a bad temper of mind, this generous offer, that would have had such good effects in promoting the public service and safety. We would not be misunderstood; we look upon it that lands may be made a valuable encouragement, but we do not see any generosity in offering them to the recoverers at double the market price. The encouragement to adventurers is not diminished, but rather increased, by our telling them where they may, for their service in the same expedition, have lands equally good and more convenient, on

better terms. For the Virginia vacant lands are many of them nearer to navigable water than the good western lands of this province, and equally well accommodated by the waggon road made by the late army. It is true, the proprietaries price is fifteen pounds ten shillings per hundred acres, with a quit-rent of four shillings and two pence sterling. Numbers who imprudently made improvements before they obtained a title, were obliged to give that price; and the great assistance our loan office afforded, by furnishing money to poor people on low interest, and taking it again in small payments, thereby enabling them to purchase lands, an advantage they could not have elsewhere, might encourage many to stay in the country, and take up lands on those terms. But that is now over: for the act is near expiring, and it seems we are to have no more of the kind; and when that encouragement had its full force, was it ever known that any people came from Virginia to purchase here, on account of the superior goodness or convenience of our lands? on the contrary, have not many thousands of families gone from hence thither, and within these few years settled fifteen or twenty new counties in that colony? have not thousands likewise left us to settle in Carolina? had not the exorbitant price at which the proprietaries held their lands, and their neglect of Indian purchasing in order to keep up that price, driven these people from among us, this province would at this day have been in a much more flourishing condition. Our number of inhabitants and our trade would, in all probability, have been double; we should have been more able to defend the proprietary's estate, and pay his tax for him, and possibly more willing; but they are gone, and gone for ever, and numbers are going after them! and if the new politics prevail, and our distinguishing privileges are one by one to be taken from us, we may, without the gift of prophecy, venture to foretel, that the province will soon empty itself much faster than it ever filled.

In fine, this offer was in fact a mere illusion intended first to impose on the assembly, and then on the people; it was likewise to figure with at home in the eyes of the ministry. We discovered the deception, and the governor is offended that we did not keep the secret. He is "astonished that we should depreciate an offer which would have had very good effects, and induced many to have gone on the expedition and become settlers, that would not otherwise have thought of doing either." May it please the governor, as bad an opinion as he is pleased to entertain of us, we have some conscience; and would not choose, by our silence, to have any share in the disappointment and other ill consequences which might ensue to those who should have gone on that vague, empty, unwarranted offer, and not other. wise have thought of it And we, in our turn, may be astonished that the governor should expect it of us.

We are in the next place told by the governor, "that we take a very nice distinction between the proprietary as owner of land, and the proprietary as chief governor, and say, we do not tax him as governor, but as a land-holder and fellow-subject." Our words are, "We do not propose to tax him as governor, &c." but the governor by carefully omitting the word

propose, in his quotation, gives himself an opportunity of expatiating on the absurdity and insolence of our inverting the order of things, and assuming a power to tax the proprietaries, "under whom, [he is pleased to say] we derive the power of acting as an assembly." Had the word propose been honestly left in its place, there would have been no room for all this decla, mation; and the demand, How came you by a right to tax them?' might have well been spared; since, though we as an assembly have no right to tax the proprietary estate, yet the proprietary and assembly together have surely such a right; and as he is present "by his own particular representative the governor, we may have a right to propose such a thing to him, if we think it reasonable. Especially since we do not, as the governor imagines we do, derive our power of acting as an assembly from the proprietary, but from the same royal charter, that empowers him to act as go

vernor.

We had been told in a former message, that the proprietary ought to be exempt from taxes, for he was a governor, and governors were exempt by the nature of their office. We replied, that he did not govern us, but the province supported his lieutenant to do that duty for him. On this the governor now makes the following observation, "It may be very true, as you say, that the proprietaries do not govern you; but that is not owing to any want of a legal authority in them, but from another cause, that I need not mention here." We were reproached in the beginning of this message, as playing with words; and the governor, it seems, has now caught the infection. The reason we gave why the proprietary could not be said to govern us, was a plain one; but the governor insinuates some other cause without explaining it, that there may be room for the reader's imagination to make it any thing or every thing that is bad. We dislike these dark inuendoes, and shall speak our minds openly. It may be thought rude and unpolite, perhaps, but it is at least fair and honest, and may prevent misunderstandings. If, therefore, the present proprietaries do not govern us, it is because they never assumed the government in their own persons, but, as we said before, employ a deputy; and if the deputy does not govern us, it is not because we are ungovernable or rebellious, as he would insinuate, nor for want of sufficient power in his hands by the constitution; but because he has not that spirit of government, that skill, and those abilities, that should qualify him for his station.

The governor is pleased to tell us, "that our distinction between the proprietary as owner of land, and the proprietary as chief governor, has no existence in law or reason." We shall endeavour to shew him, that it exists in both with regard to the king, and therefore presume it may with regard to the proprietary. The governor tells us likewise, as a matter of law, that the king can have no private estate, but from the dignity of his office holds his lands in right of the crown." We are not any of us lawyers by profession, and would not venture to dispute the governor's opinion, if we did not imagine we had good authority for it; we find in Viner's abridgment, an allowed book, title descent of lands, these observations, which

we hope may be satisfactory to the governor in both points. It is there said, "that the king has two capacities, for he has two bodies, of which the one is a body natural, consisting of natural members, as every other man is; the other is a body politic, and his members thereof are his subjects. He may take in his body natural, lands or tenements, as heir to any of his ancestors; and also in this capacity may purchase to him and his heirs, and his heirs shall retain it, notwithstanding that he is removed from the royal estate. And he may also take or purchase lands or tenements in fee in his body politic, that is to say, to him and to his heirs kings of England, or to him and his successors kings of England; and so his double capacity remains, as it does in other persons who have a double capacity, as bishop or dean," &c. We presume that our proprietaries hold the manors they have laid out to themselves, and the other lands they may have repurchased in their province, in their private capacities, as Thomas Penn, or Richard Penn, and not in their capacity of chief governor. The governor is pleased to allow, "that one reason why the king's fee-farm rents are taxed in England, may be, that the land tax should not fall heavier upon other lands in the same district." It seems to us a good reason, and to hold as well in our case. For should the proprietaries go on encreasing their already enormous estate, sue and recover all their mortgages, add field to field, and make purchase after purchase, till the number of freeholders in the province is reduced to a handful; can it be thought reasonable that every estate as it comes into their hands shall be exempt from taxes, and the burden of supporting the government, and defending the province, thrown all upon the remainder? and yet this must be the case if our distinction has, as the governor says, no existence in law or reason.

The governor denies that the fees and perquisites he enjoys are paid for support of government; they are, he says, "only moderate fees consented to be fixed by law, as considerations for the business done; and the public-house licences, which are the chief of them, were originally granted by charter." This latter assertion is quite unintelligible to us. We can find no such grant in the royal charter, nor can we conceive how the proprietary can grant a fee to himself by his own charter. The governor is a stranger here, and may be unacquainted with the rise and establishment of what is called the support of government among us. He will therefore permit us to relate it to him, as we have received it from our ancestors, and find traces of it on our records. When the first settlers purchased lands from the proprietary, he demanded, besides the consideration money, that a quit-rent should be reserved and paid to him and his heirs yearly for ever. They objected against this as a disagreeable and unreasonable encumbrance; but were told, that the proprietary being also governor, though he took the purchase money for the land as proprietary, he reserved the quit-rents to be paid for his support as governor; for that government must be supported, and these quit-rents would be the most equal and easy tax, and prevent the necessity of other taxes for that purpose here, as they did in the king's government of Virginia. These reasons induced them to ac