governors may abuse their power and oppress the subject, but also affects to provide for the punishment of such oppressors. But then the word oppression is left so vague and indefinite, that no subject ever did, or can, derive any benefit from it. Of all the several species of oppression, that, now practised by this man upon a whole province, was surely the most grievous; and, as it required no common share of firmness to withstand it, so it required an equal degree of prudence to temper that firmness, in such a manner as might obviate all the misconstructions and misrepresentations the withstanders had good reason to be sure would be put upon it.

Petitions from various quarters, and many of them of such an opposite tendency that they were irreconcilable with each other, poured in upon them; some of the petitioners declaring themselves highly sensible of the zeal and diligence the assembly had shown for the interest and welfare of their constituents, in contending for what ought in justice to be granted; others pretending to pray, that the House would not keep up unnecessary disputes with the governor, nor by reason of their religious scruples longer neglect the defence of the province; both requiring to have arms put into their hands; and others expressing their fervent desires, that measures might be pursued consistent with their peaceable principles, and that they would continue humbly to confide in the protection of that Almighty Power, which had hitherto been as walls and bulwarks round about them.

The assembly received all with composure; and resolved to give all the satisfaction they could to all. To the points enforced by the governor they attended first; and, to take off the panic which prevailed in the province, undertook to rectify the intelligence he had

given, which could not but contribute greatly to the increase of it. In their reply to that part of his speech, for instance, they told him, "they could not find by the letters and papers, he had been pleased to lay before them, that any such number of French and Indians were encamped on any part of the river Susquehanna." What they admitted was, "that the back settlers were greatly alarmed and terrified; that cruelties had been committed on the inhabitants by the Delaware and Shawanese Indians, principally within the lands purchased by the proprietaries at Albany but the year before; that, perhaps, there might be a few of the French Mohawks among them; but this was not very clear; and that these were to be followed, as several of the accounts said, by a large number of Indians and French from Fort Duquesne, with a design of dividing themselves into parties, in order to fall on the back settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia; and that the Indians still inclined to preserve their alliance with the province seemed, on the other hand, as much terrified, lest, provoked with these hostilities, the English generally should revenge upon them the barbarities so committed by the invaders; that, therefore, great care and judgment was, in their opinion, requisite in conducting their Indian affairs at that critical conjuncture; that, as the Six Nations were in alliance with the crown of Great Britain, and numbers of them then acting with great fidelity and bravery under General Johnson, it seemed absolutely necessary on their part to make it their request to the governor to be informed, whether he knew of any disgust or injury the Delawares or Shawanese had ever received from Pennsylvania, and by what means their affections could be so alienated, as not only to take up the hatchet against the said province, in breach of their dependence on the Six Nations, by whom they had

been so long since subdued, but also of the friendly interviews and treaties, which they (the Pennsylvanians) had so repeatedly and very lately held both with them and the Six United Nations, both before and after the defection of part of the Shawanese, for whom they had particularly interposed their good offices in procuring the liberty and sending home a number of their people, as it was apprehended, much to their satisfaction; as also, whether he had any knowledge of the inclination of the said Six Nations, or what part they had taken in relation to this cruel incursion, of the Delawares and Shawanese. They farther desired him to lay before them the Indian treaty held at Philadelphia in the September preceding; and declared themselves disposed and resolved to do every thing in their power, if it should appear they had sustained any injury at their hand, to regain their affections, rather than, by any neglect or refusal of that justice which was due both to them and all their Indian allies, entail upon themselves and their posterity the calamities of a cruel Indian war, of which they apprehended there would otherwise be but too much danger."

And, the governor, the same afternoon, sending down another message, importing, "that the enemy had fallen upon the settlements at a place called the Great Cove, and slaughtered or made prisoners such of the inhabitants as could not make their escape; that those adjoining were quitting their habitations and retreating inwards; and that he must therefore most earnestly press them to strengthen his hands, and enable him speedily to draw forth the forces of the province, as any delay might be attended with the most fatal consequences; they took the same into immediate consideration, and granted sixty thousand pounds to the King's use to be struck in bills of credit, and sunk by a tax of sixpence

VOL. III.

JJ

per pound and ten shillings per head, yearly, for four years, laid on all the estates, real and personal, and taxables within the province; and on the fourth day afterwards sent it up to the governor for his assent, who most unwarrantably and cruelly took advantage of the terrors which had seized upon the province, and which he himself had helped to accumulate, to reject it immediately; urging, "that it was of the same kind with one he had formerly refused his assent to; and that it was not consistent either with his duty or his safety to exceed, in matters of government, the powers of his commission, much less to do what his commission expressly prohibited." So that his own safety, with regard to his bond and his commission, was put into the scale against the safety of the province; and his duty to the proprietaries against his duty to the King and the public; which shows, in one word, that the whole bias of such government is eccentrical and unnatural.

His first duty was to concur with the assembly in whatever was necessary for the good and happy government of the province. The necessity of the grant in question, even for the preservation of the province, had been the burden of every one of his speeches and messages. So pressing was the extremity, so imminent the danger, so terrifying the confusion, that the least delay on the side of the assembly had been represented as productive of the most fatal consequences; and yet the smallest proprietary consideration could induce the governor to act as if he did not believe one word he had said, or had the least concern about any other consideration whatsoever.

Whether the proprietaries ought to be taxed, or not, he would no longer dispute. "It was sufficient for him," he said, "that they had given him no power in that case. He reproached them with having sat six

days, and, instead of strengthening his hands in that interval, with having sent him a message for regaining the affections of the Indians, then employed in laying waste the country and butchering the inhabitants." But then he chose to forget entirely their application to him, at their first sitting, for such intelligence as they might then have proceeded to business upon, and his express declaration, when they proposed an adjournment to him, "that he had no business to impart to them." He, nevertheless, added, "that, upon the repeated accounts he had received of the miserable situation of the back counties, his council had unanimously advised him to repair thither himself, to put things in the best order possible; and that he had hitherto declined it, that he might first know, what they had to propose on this occasion; but that, having now received a bill from them which they well knew he could not give his consent to, he despaired of their doing any thing, so should immediately set off for the back counties; that, if the people there had not all the assistance their present distresses made necessary, it would not be for want of inclination in him, but of power; that he should take a quorum of the council with him; and that, in case they should have any bills to propose that were consistent with the duties of his station, and the just rights of government, he should readily give his consent to them whenever they were brought to him."

This menace of immediately setting off for the back counties was also another piece of practice on the fears of the assembly; but, whatever effect it had without doors, it does not appear to have had much within; on the contrary, the assembly deputed two of their members, to know his determinate resolution, "whether he would or would not pass the bill," and, in the latter