venture on the apprehending and punishment of those notorious offenders? If it has not, why are you angry at those who would strengthen its hands by a more immediate royal authority? If it has, why is not the thing done? Why will the government, by its conduct, strengthen the suspicions (groundless no doubt), that it has come to a private understanding with those murderers, and that impunity for their past crimes is to be the reward of their future political services? O, but says the petition, "There are perhaps cases in all governments, where it may not be possible speedily to discover offenders.", Probably; is there any case in any government where it is not possible to endeavour such a discovery? There may be cases where it is not safe to do it. And perhaps the best thing our government can say for itself is, that that is our case. The only objection to such an apology must be, that it would justify that part of the assembly's petition to the crown which relates to the weakness of our present government.*

Still, if there is any fault, it must be in the assembly. "For," says the petition, "if the executive part of our government should seem in any case too weak, we conceive it is the duty of the assembly, and in their power, to strengthen it." This weakness, however, you have just denied. "Disturbances," you say, "have been speedily quieted, and the civil power supported;" and thereby you have deprived your insinuated charge against the assembly of its only support. But is it not a fact known to you all, that the assembly

The assembly, being called upon by the governor for their advice on that occasion, did, in a message, advise his sending for and examining the magistrates of Lancaster county and borough, where the murders were committed, in order to discover the actors; but neither that, nor any of the other measures recommended, were ever taken. Proclama tions indeed were published, but soon discontinued.

did endeavour to strengthen the hands of the government? That, at his Honor's instance, they prepared and passed in a few hours a bill for extending hither the act of Parliament for dispersing rioters? That they also passed and presented to him a militia bill, which he refused, unless powers were thereby given him over the lives and properties of the inhabitants, which the public good did not require, and which their duty to their constituents would not permit them to trust in the hands of any proprietary governor? You know the points, Gentlemen; they have been made public. Would you have had your representatives give up those points? Do you intend to give them up, when at the next election you are made assembly-men? If so, tell it us honestly beforehand, that we may know what we are to expect, when we are about to choose you.

I come now to the last clause of your petition, where, with the same wonderful sagacity with which you in another case discovered the excellency of a speech you never heard, you undertake to characterize a petition you own you never saw; and venture to assure his Majesty, that it is "exceeding grievous in its nature; that it by no means contains a proper representation of the state of this province; and is repugnant to the general sense of his numerous and loyal subjects" in it. Are, then, his Majesty's numerous and loyal subjects in this province all as great wizards as yourselves, and capable of knowing, without seeing it, that a petition is repugnant to their general sense?

But the inconsistence of your petition, Gentlemen, is not so much to be wondered at. The prayer of it is still more extraordinary; "We therefore most humbly pray, that your Majesty would be graciously pleased wholly to disregard the said petition of the assembly."

What! without inquiry! without examination! without a hearing of what the assembly might say in support of it! "wholly disregard" the petition of your representatives in assembly; accompanied by other petitions signed by thousands of your fellow subjects, as loyal, if not as wise and as good as yourselves! Would you wish to see your great and amiable prince act a part that could not become a Dey of Algiers? Do you, who are Americans, pray for a precedent of such contempt in the treatment of an American assembly! Such "total disregard" of their humble applications to the throne? Surely your Wisdoms here have overshot yourselves. But as wisdom shows itself, not only in doing what is right, but in confessing and amending what is wrong, I recommend the latter particularly to your present attention, being persuaded of this consequence, that, though you have been mad enough to sign such a petition, you never will be fools enough to present it.

There is one thing mentioned in the Preface, which I find I omitted to take notice of as I came along, the refusal of the House to enter Mr. Dickinson's protest on their minutes. This is mentioned in such a manner there and in the newspapers, as to insinuate a charge of some partiality and injustice in the assembly. But the reasons were merely these; that, though protesting may be a practice with the Lords of Parliament, there is no instance of it in the House of Commons, whose proceedings are the model followed by the assemblies of America; that there is no precedent of it in our votes, from the beginning of our present constitution; and that the introducing such a practice would be attended with inconveniences, as the representatives in assembly are not, like the Lords in Parliament, unaccountable to any constituents; and would therefore find it necessary for their own justification, if the reasons of the minority

for being against a measure were admitted in the votes, to put there likewise the reasons that induced the majority to be for it; whereby the votes, which were intended only as a register of propositions and determinations, would be filled with the disputes of members with members, and the public business be thereby greatly retarded, if ever brought to a period.

As that protest was a mere abstract of Mr. Dickinson's speech, every particular of it will be found answered in the following speech of Mr. Galloway; from which it is fit that I should no longer detain the reader.

REMARKS

ON A LATE PROTEST

AGAINST THE

APPOINTMENT OF MR. FRANKLIN AS AGENT

FOR THE

PROVINCE OF PENNSYLVANIA.

The zeal and perseverance, with which Franklin had espoused the cause of the people against the proprietaries, raised up many enemies in the adverse party. At the election for a new assembly, therefore, in the autumn of 1764, great efforts were made by his opponents to prevent his being chosen, in which they succeeded. By a small majority he lost his seat in the assembly, which he had held for fourteen years, having been annually elected, even during his absence in England, as one of the delegates from the city of Philadelphia. But, notwithstanding this defeat, when the assembly met, it was found that his friends and the friends of his measures outnumbered the proprietary party, and he was again appointed to resume his agency in England, and to take charge of a petition to the King. Dissatisfied with this step, the minority in the House drew up a formal protest, and urged its being inserted in the minutes; but it was refused, on the ground of its being irregular and unprecedented. The protest was published, and gave occasion for the following reply, written at the moment the author was preparing to depart for Europe. - EDITOR.

I HAVE generally passed over, with a silent disregard, the nameless abusive pieces that have been written against me; and, though this paper, called "A Protest," is signed by some respectable names, I was,