And on the third day of their sitting, they preferred a request to the governor, "That, if he had any business of importance to lay before them, particularly, if any application had been made to him for a farther supply of provisions, for the use of the King's forces then gone towards Crown Point, he would be pleased to lay it before them soon, as their year was near expired, and the time of their continuance together consequently short.”

The answer they received was verbal, by his Honor's secretary, importing, "That the government of Massachusetts Bay had ordered two thousand eight hundred men to be immediately raised, in addition to the fifteen hundred raised for the reduction of Crown Point; and that the governor had the day before received a letter from Governor Phips, desiring, at the instance of the council and assembly there, an immediate supply of provisions to be sent to Albany." And, as if this was not enough to ask of them, a supplemental paragraph was grafted upon it as follows; "The governor has also been informed, that the government of Connecticut have raised fifteen hundred men, and Rhode Island one hundred and fifty, in addition to the forces sent by those governments against Crown Point, who will also stand in need of a supply of provisions; he therefore recommends these matters to your consideration."

Two articles out of Governor Shirley's state of his own conduct, will come in not improperly here; viz. "Upon Mr. Shirley's arrival at New York (July 4th), he found a full stop put to the preparations for the expedition against Crown Point, with respect to the articles of artillery and military stores, which the governments of Massachusetts Bay and New York had agreed to furnish between them, depending, that the colonies of Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode

Island would pay their proportions of the expense; but, that not being done, the government of New York declined parting with the stores, without actual payment or security given. After having removed this obstacle to the expedition's proceeding, by putting into the hands of the government of New York a sufficient quantity of the Pennsylvania provisions, as a security for reimbursing them on account of the beforementioned articles, and advanced about one thousand pounds sterling of his own money towards the expense of transporting the artillery and ordnance stores, in confidence of being reimbursed by the New England colonies, he embarked for Albany."

The reader will make his own remarks; at least he will infer from what passed in the assembly of Pennsylvania before, in relation to orders said to have been received from and demands made by General Shirley, that the said assembly would now have been inexcusable, if they had not called upon their governor for Governor Phips's letter and the other information referred to upon this occasion; which they did by express message; and that, having been told by him in answer to that call, that he had orders from the secretary of state not to lay before the House any papers but such as he pleased, they should apply to him for a sight of such orders.

They did so, and were again refused; he signifying that, such orders being intended for his own government, he thought it improper to communicate them; and, in the name of the secretary of state, vouching, as he himself had done before, that messages from him were a sufficient foundation for them to proceed upon; but withal recurring to what he had also offered in his former message, namely, to communicate to their speaker, or a few of the House, such parts of

the information he had received from the eastward, as his Majesty's service required.

But this not proving satisfactory to the House, all proceedings on this head were for some days at a stand; and the interval was filled with a continuation of the animated controversy, which in the preceding session had so highly exasperated the two branches of the legislature against each other, and which never had been either revived, or caused, if the governor and his employers had not preferred their own private views to all the moral and equitable obligations of government.

CHAPTER XI.

The old Controversy renewed. A new one concerning the Roads opened at the Expense of the Province for the Convenience of the King's Forces. As a last Effort for the Public Service, the Assembly authorize by Vote a Loan or voluntary Subscription of Ten Thousand Pounds. A Brief State of the Province at this Period. The new Assembly, after a Session of four Days, suffered to adjourn themselves without proceeding to Business, for want of having the Intelligence then in the Governor's Hands in due Form imparted to them.

WHEN the assembly had sat nine days, and now remained in a sort of suspense, not choosing to inflame on one hand, and willing to hope the governor would find reasons to abate of his unreasonable stiffness on the other; came down a long message by way of answer to the assembly's paper of August 19th; and, sufficiently exasperated thereby, that body, now at the point of dissolution, resolved to acquit themselves with as much spirit as if they had been immortal.

To the Appendix the reader must be again referred for both pieces; they cannot, they ought not to be suppressed; they are too long to be here inserted entire, and to abridge them, at least that of the assembly, would be to maim one of the most lively pieces that liberty ever inspired or controversy produced.*

Such a reference, then, to the subject matter of both as will just serve to keep up a sort of historical connexion, is all the use to be made of them in this place.

The assembly had (very truly) charged the governor with contriving all possible methods of expense to exhaust their funds and distress their affairs; and had

* See above, page 383.

given in proof the exorbitant demand made upon them for cutting the road for the use of the army; an enterprise which they tell him they had undertaken at his instance, on a computation of its costing only eight hundred pounds. The governor, in his reply, said such a sum might have been mentioned as what it would cost in some men's private opinion; but not upon an estimate of the commissioners, nor what had been as such sent to him. Adding, "that, though they had numbered the making the road among their meritorious acts, they had in effect done it out of fear of having proper representations made of their conduct at home, and of an armed force being used to oblige the inhabitants to do this necessary work; that he had persuaded the general to compound for one road instead of two, to contract even that to two-thirds of the breadth, and not to carry it so far by many miles as directed by the quartermaster-general; by which great savings were made to the province, and thanks instead of complaints were due to him, and rewards to the commissioners who had served the province in so hazardous a task so well; that he had never made such a demand as five thousand pounds, nor could it have been made by any one, because the accounts were not come in; and that, now they were come in, the charge did not amount to three thousand pounds, which was not extravagant, considering the distance and expedition required in the work."

The assembly, in their answer, could not be so full in their own justification, and, consequently, in refuting the governor, as they might have been, because the necessary documents happened at that time to be mislaid. But, when those documents were recovered, they did themselves ample justice, by reprinting the most material in an appendix to their minutes.