ments a reasonable one. Lastly, they made it their request, that since, at such a time as that, disputes and contentions between different parts of the government could not but be extremely prejudicial both to the king's service and the welfare of the country, they might be thenceforth laid aside; and that the governor, by passing this just and equitable bill, would lay the foundation of such an agreement as might conduce to the general benefit of all concerned, and prevent the necessity they should otherwise be under, of making an immediate application and complaint against him to their sovereign." They accompanied this message with certain extracts from the journals of parliament, concerning the claims of the lords and the perseverance of the commons in rejecting them; they also, in a separate message, applied for information concerning the Shawanese affair before-mentioned; and in a farther message they apprized him, "That their treasury was quite exhausted by the heavy expenses lately incurred, and that they knew of no way of raising money so expeditiously as that proposed by the bill then before the governor." After which they subjoined the following expressions, "It is true, the money intended to be struck, may not be current before the thirty-first of December; but as that is not more than six weeks, there is no doubt but that labour, service, and any thing else that money can purchase among us, may be had on credit for so short a time, if the bill passes; and in consideration of the necessity of affording timely assistance to the distressed inhabitants in the back counties, we sincerely hope, and once more earnestly entreat, that the governor will no longer refuse or delay his assent to it." in the same breath, they might be justly At this time the house had a militia bill under their consideration, framed in compliance with the request of sundry petitions they had received, setting forth, "that the petitioners were very willing to defend themselves and country, and desirous of being formed into regular bodies for that purpose, under proper officers, with legal authority:" the bill therefore was, as the title expressed, "for the better ordering and regulating such as are willing and desirous of being united for military purposes." It gave these the powers they desired, without compelling others who might be conscientiously against bearing arms. In which respect it conformed with the governor's particular recommendation often re This bill was sent up to him on the twentyfirst; and, at the same time, the house called upon him for his result on the bills already before him. Nothing is more true, than, that the more clearly and unanswerably you convince a man that he is in the wrong, the more you exas thereby, he said he should leave among the rest of the groundless charges against him." Condescend he did, however, to offer one amendment more, which, according to him, was to reconcile all: namely, by the addition of the following words to the exemption clause proposed to be added to the first bill, to wit: perate him against you; and never was any truth more strongly illustrated than this appears to have been in the person of this high and mighty governor. He could not forgive the assembly, because they had put him out of conceit with himself: and the poorer he found himself in arguments, the more strongly his passions excited him to make use of invec-"The estates of the honourable Thomas Penn tives. Invective became his only resource then; and the little power he had over himself, yet farther showed how unfit he was to be a governor. 99 and Richard Penn, esquires, excepted; which shall be taxed in the manner directed by a particular law, passed or to be passed for that purpose." Not willing, however, to rest the controversy here, he proceeded to declare, that their extracts from the journals of parliament proved nothing to the purpose for which they were quoted; the constitution of England and the constitution of Pennsylvania being no way similar; that how many soever of his former amendments they had admitted, their leaving out the most material one, made the proposal of a separate bill a necessary expedient: so that they had no reason for bursting out into such a lofty strain of rhetoric concerning his amending his amendments, &c. That as to the number of moneybills he had rejected, they were but five in all, and all rejected for sufficient reasons, [such as we have seen!] and that, if they were disposed to relieve their country, they had many other ways, to which he should have no ob topic, and his being treated as a stranger, he takes a retrospect of their conduct, with an intent to show, that they had treated Mr. Hamilton, though a native, with as many abuses as they had treated him; and here occurs a paragraph or two which must be inserted verbatim, viz. Having pronounced his. proposal to the assembly to be a reasonable one, and declared" himself no less astonished than grieved, that they should reject it; and, more especially, as their best argument for so doing was founded on a new and lofty claim of privilege, he endeavours both to prove the novelty and account for the assumption of it, by saying, "It had never been heard of, till towards the close of Mr. Hamilton's administration, and that the assembly being then pressed on the subject of defence, first introduced and have since continued their claim: either wholly to avoid giving money for warlike purposes, or to arrogate unwarrantable powers to themselves." To certain extracts from the minutes of the council, sent together with this message to them, he then referred for his proofs, that the governor's right to amend money-jection." Proceeding then to the personal bills was never till then questioned; and after upbraiding them, in his way, for risking the rejection of so important an act, on account of the proprietary exemption, resolved all their reason for adhering to what he called, the indirect and perplexed method of their bill, into their sovereign pleasure to have it so. The same paragraph contained also some strange insinuations, "That, not daring to trust their cause on its own bottom, they had chosen to blend both bills together, that they might have a better chance of having their chief governor and his estate subjected to their mercy." And what with his implicit confidence, that the crown, in the common method, would neither pass that or any other law for the sake of the greatest sums, if the proprietary claim to an exemption was just in itself; and what with his foresight of manifest inconveniences that might ensue from a total rejection thereof (which he himself had nevertheless persevered in doing.) The next paragraph is hardly to be deciphered at all, except that in the close of it, he attempts to justify his own uncommon method, by saying, "he had separated the two parts of the bill, that the province might be served either way; [which the assembly had been altogether as provident of before.] Any absurdity in this method he professed himself unable to discover; and the good-natured construction put upon it by them, of his intending to secure an infallible exemption to the proprietary estate "And here, was I inclined to go beyond my own times, I might begin with reminding you how contemptuously you treated the proprietary offer of four hundred pounds, for erecting a place of strength on the Ohio, together with an offer of one hundred pounds per annum towards its support; which offers were made at a time when your concurrence would probably have prevented many of the calamities we now groan under. "I might also observe, that when Mr. Hamilton first called upon you, pursuant to his majesty's orders, to grant such supplies as would enable him to draw forth the strength of the province, and to repel force by force, you would not admit that the French encroachments and fortifications on the Ohio were within our limits, or his majesty's dominions; thereby seeking an excuse to avoid doing what was required of you." He had also the disingenuity to mention the late defeat of his majesty's forces, in express terms as having happened, "for want of that timely support and assistance which it was in the power of the province to have afforded." And having again declared, that he could not recede from his amendments, and expressed | through the rest of his majesty's colonies along his satisfaction at their intended complaint the continent. against him, he concluded with the two following paragraphs, which are equally insidious, injurious, and unbecoming. Upon the whole, it appears clear to me, that you never intended that any of your bills should pass for raising money to defend the province; and this seems now to be placed beyond all dispute, since those people, under whose influence you are chiefly known to be, are said to have declared publicly to you, that they would sooner suffer than pay towards such 66 purposes. However, I shall put one proof more, both of your sincerity and mine, in our professions of regard for the public, by offering to agree to any bill, in the present exigency, which it is consistent with my duty to pass, lest, before our present disputes can be brought to an issue, we should neither have a privilege to dispute about, nor a country to dispute And the third not only notified the receipt of the proprietaries' despatches above-mentioned, but farther specified, "That, such was their care and regard for the people, that they had no sooner received the account he had sent them of general Braddock's defeat, than they sent him an order upon their receivergeneral for five thousand pounds, as a free gift to the public, to be applied to such uses as that event might make necessary for the common security of the province; that he had directed the said receiver-general to have the money ready as soon as possible; and that it should be paid by such persons as should be appointed by act of assembly for the disposition of any sum they might think necessary for the defence of the province in that time of danger." Two other clauses were also added: one importing, "That this timely and generous instance of the proprietaries' care and anxiety for the inhabitants, could not fail Together with this message, the secretary making the most lasting impression upon also brought down another altogether as ex-minds of every well-wisher to that country;" traordinary, in which the governor acquaints the house, "that he had considered their bill, for the better ordering and regulating such as were willing and desirous to be united for military purposes within that province; and though there were many things in it of a very extraordinary nature, and that he was convinced it would never answer the purpose of defending the province, even if it could be carried into execution, in any reasonable time, which he was afraid it could not, yet, to show he was desirous of doing any thing that had even a chance of contributing to the safety of the province, he should consent to it in the shape they had sent it, as it would be entering into new disputes, should he amend it properly." in." And what is, perhaps, more extraordinary still, the governor on the same day, namely, Saturday, November 22, received some despatches from the proprietaries, the contents of which he did not communicate to the house till the Monday following; by which time he was ready to unmask such a variety of batteries, as he thought would be sufficient, by their very noise alone, so to intimidate his antagonists at least, that they should not presume to make him such a return to his last message as they had done to his former. The first was a report from his council, containing such a discussion of Indian affairs as was to be taken for a discharge in full of the Shawanese complaints mentioned in a message from the assembly, at their first sitting, in consequence of the governor's summons. The second was a call upon them to provide for a swarm of French inhabitants banished out of Nova Scotia by governor Lawrence, and sent at a venture to be distributed the and the other, "That the governor upon that occasion again recommended it to them to lay aside all disputes, and to grant such supplies in addition to what the proprietaries had given, as his majesty's service and the pressing exigencies of the province required." That they might not, however, have any merit to plead on either of these heads, but might seem to be driven by force into every such measure as was thus recommended, on the very next day after this, and before it was possible for them to come properly to any resolutions at all; came again the mayor of Philadelphia, having now also prevailed with his corporation to join him and his prompters, with a remonstrance, in a style altogether dictatorial, "reproaching them with loosing their time in deliberations, while their fellowsubjects were exposed to slaughter, and in debates about privileges while they were deprived of the great first privilege of self-preservation, and requiring them to postpone all disputes, grant necessary supplies, and pass a reasonable law for establishing a militia; and in the close of it, recommending despatch, as the people seemed already in a deplorable and desperate state, and they feared it would not be possible to preserve the peace and quiet of the city, or of the province itself, much longer." The house, notwithstanding, to be consistent in all things, called, in the first place, upon their committee for the answer they were directed to prepare to the governor's last invective, which was ready, and in substance as follows; to wit, "That if they could be astonished at any thing which came from their governor, they should be astonished at his repeating charges and calumnies, groundless in themselves, and tion, but had endeavoured to introduce a so repeatedly, fully, and publicly refuted; French one, by reducing their assemblies to that instead of refuting them, therefore, they the insignificance to which the French parliashould only refer to their former refutations; ments had been reduced; had required them that what he says concerning the risk of los- to defend their country, and then put it out of ing so important an act was mere sophistry their power, unless they would first part with and amusement; that, as they had before as- some of the essentials which made it worth serted, conditional or alternative clauses were defending, which was in fact reducing them common; that in the same act there was an- to an Egyptian constitution: for, that as the other, namely, that in case the four year tax Egyptians were to perish by famine unless did not produce sixty thousand pounds, the de- they became servants to Pharaoh, so were fect should be supplied by an additional tax; they by the sword, unless they also became and, if it exceeded, the overplus should be servants to an absolute lord, or as he was disposed by a future act; to which the go- pleased to style himself, absolute proprietary; vernor had made no objection; that, notwith-that all comparisons made by the governor of standing all the dust he had attempted to raise, it was therefore clear to them, that the bill was entirely unobjectionable; that their mode was more proper than his, and as safe both for the bill, and the pretended rights of the proprietary; that his commission had no such prohibition as he affected to find in it; and that they could not, in a money-bill like this, admit of amendments not founded in reason, justice, or equity, but in the arbitrary pleasure of a governor, without betraying the trust reposed in them by their constituents, and giving up their just rights as free-born subjects of England; that by the charters their constitution was founded upon, in addition to the privileges therein specially named, thy are moreover entitled to all other 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; that the free-born subjects of England had a right to grant their own money their own way, the governor did not deny, nor that the same was usual in other plantations; that therefore they had the same right, and should have had it if it had not been so specified in their charter; such free-born subjects, instead of losing any of their essential rights, by removing into the king's plantations, and extending the British dominions at the hazard of their lives and fortunes; being, on the contrary, indulged with particular privileges for their encouragement in so useful and meritorious an undertaking; that indeed their constitution was, in one respect, no way similar to that of England, namely, the king's having a natural connexion with his people, the crown descending to his posterity, and his own power and security waxing and waning with the prosperity of his people; whereas plantation-governors were frequently transient persons, of broken fortunes, greedy his majesty should be graciously pleased to of money, destitute of all concern for those they governed, often their enemies, and endeavouring not only to oppress but defame them, and thereby render them obnoxious to their sovereign, and odious to their fellow-subjects; that their present governor not only denied them the privileges of an English constituVOL. II.... O himself to his immediate predecessor would be to his own disadvantage, the differences between the former gentleman and his assemblies having been but small, in comparison with those then subsisting, and conducted by him with some tenderness to his country; that how much soever the people were at that time dissatisfied with some particulars in his administration, the present had given them abundant reason to regret the change; that as to the collusion charged upon them, in not intending any of the bills they had offered for the defence of their country should pass, they could, with humble confidence, appeal to the searcher of all hearts, that their intentions perfectly corresponded with their actions; that, not to mention the unfairness of ascribing to a whole people the indiscretion of a few, [those who had declared they would suffer rather than pay for military measures] the governor himself must own, they could not be under the influence he supposed, when they assured him that several more votes had been given for those measures since they were petitioned against, than before; that they were totally ignorant of the many other ways of raising money, to which the governor had no objection; as also, what that other bill might be, which he might think consistent with his duty to pass; that he thought it inconsistent with his duty to pass any bills contrary to his instructions from the proprietaries, which (like the instructions of the president and council of the north, mentioned by lord Coke, 4 inst. p. 246,) were to them impenetrable secrets; that, according to the same great lawyer's remark on governing by such insructions, misera est survitus ubi jus est vagum aut incognitum; that, therefore, it would be in vain for them to search for other ways, or frame other bills; and that here the matter must rest till relieve them; since, with the governor, they could no otherwise hope to end their unhappy divisions, than by submitting to one part or the other of the miserable alternative mentioned by him; either not to have privilege worth disputing about, or be deprived of a country to dispute it in." But though this answer was, in every par- | ticular, conformable to the sense of the house, and was afterwards printed in the appendix to their proceedings, they declined making use of it; and that for the present reported by the committee was to the effect following: to wit, "that the bulk of the governor's long message consisted of groundless charges and calumnies, which having been repeatedly refuted, might be safely left to themselves; that though they had prepared a full answer to the rest, yet as there were now some hopes of an agreement with him in the money-bill, which was the principal business of the session, they submitted it to the house, whether it would not be more consistent with their prudence and moderation to suppress it; that there being, however, one or two new charges brought against the assemblies of that province, it might be proper to take some notice of them; that the first of these was, that they contemptuously treated the proprietary offer of four hundred pounds, for erecting a place of strength on the Ohio, and of one hundred pounds per annum towards its support; that this contemptuous treatment was not specified, but might be explained, by a passage out of the Brief State, [a proprietary pamphlet] where it is said, "the house refused this proposal a place in their minutes;" that the fact was, however, otherwise; that the said proposal appears in several pages there specified; and that nothing farther than what is there, could properly be made a part of those records; and the reason thereof is then assigned in the following narrative; which, for various reasons, deserves to be made a part of this discourse. "The late governor Hamilton, after sending the message of the thirteenth of August, 1751, requested a private meeting with some of the members of that house, but without any authority from the assembly. invade our country.' Treaty, page 8. The same sentiments appeared among the Six Nations, at the Albany treaty; that the English and French were only contending which of them should have their lands.' The reasoning made use of by the members at this private conference with the late governor was, that the land were they proposed to build it was claimed by the crown, and was very probably beyond the limits of Pennsylvania; that at least it would be beyond the reach of our laws, as appeared by the people already settled on Juniata, just beyond the North mountain; that this, instead of healing, might create irreconcileable breaches with our Indians, considering what sort of people would probably reside there; that the Indians had never heartily requested it, nor did it seem to be their interest so to do; and if they had requested it, as they were in subjection to the Six Nations, it would be necessary to have their assent; that this precipitate act would probably create a jealousy in the French, and give them some pretence of an infraction of the treaty of Utrecht on our part, and might finally engage the British nation in a war with France. These, and many other reasons, were urged at that private conference, as several of those members apprehended, to governor Hamilton's satisfaction. And it appears by George Croghan's journal, that those Indians neither did, nor did they think they could, give leave to build a house on the Ohio, without the express consent of the Six Nations; and accordingly they took two months to acquaint the Onondago council with this transaction, and then to send us word, which they never complied with. "It appears further, by the assembly's message to governor Hamilton, on the twentyfirst of August, 1751, taken from the informations of Conrad Weiser, and Andrew Montour, 'that the request inserted in George Croghan's journal as made by the Indians at Ohio to this government, to erect a strong trading house in their country, as well as the danger 'tis there said they apprehended from the attempts of the French, was misunderstood, or misrepresented by the person, the governor confided in for the management of that treaty.' But it may be unnecessary to pursue this inquiry into an affair wherein George Croghan thought himself unkindly, if not unjustly, sacrificed to private ends, as is well known to such as were acquainted with this affair, and appears in the letters and other papers sent by himself to some of the mem "At this meeting governor Hamilton offered, on behalf of the proprietaries, four hundred pounds, towards building such a house upon or near the Ohio, (but not a syllable of maintaining or supporting it.) The Indians were so far from pressing our engaging in it, that instructions were drawn by this government to require it of them, at a treaty held by G. Croghan, in May, 1751, and they evidently showed themselves apprehensive, such an attempt might give umbrage to the French, and bring them down the Ohio with an armed force, to take possession of those lands. And about two years afterwards, these very Ohio Indians, at the treaty held at Carlisle, in Oc-bers of that assembly." tober, 1753, say to our government, I desire you would hear and take notice of what I am about to say; the governor of Virginia desired leave to build a strong house on Ohio, which came to the ears of the governor of Canada, and we suppose this caused him to Coming then to the other new charge, namely, that the assembly would not admit, that the French encroachments were within the king's dominions, they maintain that this charge is as ill-founded as the other; "For, say they, though the house never took upon |