of so great a sum in so short a time. We deducted the least necessary articles, and reduced it to one hundred thousand pounds, which we granted, and sent up the bill. Not that we thought this province capable of paying such a tax yearly, or any thing near it, but believing it necessary to exert ourselves at this time in an extraordinary manner, to save the country from total ruin by the enemy. The governor, to use his own polite word, REJECTS it. Your English kings, I think, are complaisant enough to say, they will advise upon it. We have no remedy here, but must obey the instruction, by which we are so confined, as to the time of rating the property to be taxed, the valuation of that property, and the sum per pound to be taxed on the valuation, that it is demonstrably impossible by such a law to raise one quarter of the money absolutely necessary to defend us. Three fourths of the troops must be disbanded, and so the country be exposed to the mercy of our enemies, rather than the least tittle of a Proprietary instruction should be deviated from! I forbear to enlarge, because the House have unanimously desired your friend Mr. Norris, and myself, to go home immediately, to assist their agents in getting these matters settled. He has not yet determined; but, if he goes, you will by him be fully informed of every thing, and my going will not, in my opinion, be necessary. If he declines it, I may possibly soon have the pleasure of seeing you. I am with great respect, Sir, &c. B. FRANKLIN. TO MRS. JANE MECOM. DEAR SISTER, Philadelphia, 21 February, 1757. I am glad to hear your son has got well home. I like your conclusion not to take a house for him till summer, and, if he stays till his new letters arrive, perhaps it would not be amiss; for a good deal depends on the first appearance a man makes. As he will keep a bookseller's shop, with his printinghouse, I don't know but it might be worth his while to set up at Cambridge. I enclose you some whisk seed; it is a kind of corn, good for creatures; it must be planted in hills, like Indian corn. The tops make the best thatch in the world; and of the same are made the whisks you use for velvet. Pray try if it will grow with you. I brought it from Virginia. Give some to Mr. Cooper, some to Mr. Bowdoin. Love to cousin Sally, and her spouse. I wish them and you much joy. Love to brother, &c. B. FRANKLIN. TO WILLIAM PARSONS. Mission to England. DEAR FRIEND, Philadelphia, 22 February, 1757. I thank you for the intelligence from Fort Allen, relating to the Indians. The commissioners have not yet settled your account, but I will press them to do it immediately. I have not heard from Mr. Stephenson, but will write to him once more. And now, my dear old friend, I am to take leave TO EDWARD AND JANE MECOM. Philadelphia, 30 December, 1756. DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER, You will receive this by the hand of your son Benjamin, on whose safe return from the West Indies I sincerely congratulate you. He has settled accounts with me, and paid the balance honorably. He has also cleared the old printing-house to himself, and sent it to Boston, where he purposes to set up his business, together with bookselling, which, considering his industry and frugality, I make no doubt will answer. He has good the same Indian names to it, and thereby take lands from the Indians which they never sold; this is fraud. Also when one king has land beyond the river, and another king has land on this side, both bounded by rivers, mountains, and springs, which cannot be moved, and the Proprietaries, greedy to purchase lands, buy of one king what belongs to another; this is likewise fraud." "All the land extending from Tohiccon Creek, over the great mountain to Wyoming, has been taken from me by fraud; for, when I had agreed to sell the land to the old Proprietary by the course of the river, the young Proprietaries came, and got it run by a straight course by the compass, and by that means took in double the quantity intended to be sold." Though these charges were not allowed to be correct, yet the commissioners thought it advisable to put an end to the complaints of the Indians by satisfying their claims, and they offered to Teedyuscung a suitable compensation. He declined accepting it, on the ground that other tribes besides his own were concerned, and must be consulted, and concluded by saying, that in the spring he would bring them together for another treaty. The manuscript minutes of this singular conference have been preserved in the archives of the American Philosophical Society. The commissioners, who attended the conference on the part of the Assembly, were not satisfied with the manner in which the minutes were reported to that body by the governor, and they signed jointly an explanatory paper, which was probably drawn up by Franklin, and which is printed in the "Votes and Proceedings of the Assembly," under the date of January 29th, 1757. credit and some money in England, and I have helped him by lending him a little more; so that he may expect a cargo of books, and a quantity of new letter, in the spring; and I shall from time to time furnish him with paper. We all join in love to you and yours. I am your loving brother, B. FRANKLIN. TO ROBERT CHARLES.* Sends Papers relating to Pennsylvania. - Bills of the SIR, Philadelphia, 1 February, 1757. By this ship you will receive a box containing sundry copies of our last years' Votes, to which are added, as you advised, the accounts of the expenditure of the fifty-five thousand pounds, and the subsequent thirty thousand. Also the papers relating to the employing of foreign officers. There is likewise in the box an authenticated copy of our late bill for granting one hundred thousand to the King's use, and of the vote appointing yourself and Mr. Partridge agents, under the great seal, with all the late messages. You will see in the Votes a copy of the Proprietary Instructions, in which a money bill is made for us by the Proprietary, sitting in his closet at one thousand leagues' distance. The governor laid before us an estimate of the necessary expense for defending the province one year, amounting to one hundred and five thousand pounds. We knew our inability to bear the raising * Many years agent in England for the Assembly of Pennsylvania. 1 of so great a sum in so short a time. We deducted the least necessary articles, and reduced it to one hundred thousand pounds, which we granted, and sent up the bill. Not that we thought this province capable of paying such a tax yearly, or any thing near it, but believing it necessary to exert ourselves at this time in an extraordinary manner, to save the country from total ruin by the enemy. The governor, to use his own polite word, REJECTS it. Your English kings, I think, are complaisant enough to say, they will advise upon it. We have no remedy here, but must obey the instruction, by which we are so confined, as to the time of rating the property to be taxed, the valuation of that property, and the sum per pound to be taxed on the valuation, that it is demonstrably impossible by such a law to raise one quarter of the money absolutely necessary to defend us. Three fourths of the troops must be disbanded, and so the country be exposed to the mercy of our enemies, rather than the least tittle of a Proprietary instruction should be deviated from! I forbear to enlarge, because the House have unanimously desired your friend Mr. Norris, and myself, to go home immediately, to assist their agents in getting these matters settled. He has not yet determined; but, if he goes, you will by him be fully informed of every thing, and my going will not, in my opinion, be necessary. If he declines it, I may possibly soon have the pleasure of seeing you. I am with great respect, Sir, &c. B. FRANKLIN. |