advantage to recollect what had passed between them and the governor in relation to the Shawanese complaint; and, with an equal regard to truth and candor, took occasion, in a message to the governor, to express themselves upon it as follows, namely;

"May it please the Governor,

"We have considered the report of the committee of the governor's council, to which he is pleased to refer us for an answer to our inquiry, relating to a claim of the Shawanese Indians, on the lands near Conedogui

net.

We are far from desiring to justify those Indians in their late outrages and murders, committed against the people of this province, in violation of the most solemn treaties. We believe that great care has generally been taken to do the Indians justice by the proprietaries, in the purchases made of them, and in all our other public transactions with them; and as they have not the same ideas of legal property in lands that we have, and sometimes think they have right, when in law they have none, but yet are cheaply satisfied for their supposed as well as real rights, we think our proprietaries have done wisely, not only to purchase their lands, but to purchase them more than once,' as the governor says they have done, rather than have any difference with them on that head, or give any handle to the enemies of the province to exasperate those people against us. It appears indeed, from the report, that they could have but a slender foundation for a claim of satisfaction for those lands; we are, however, convinced, by original minutes taken by one of the commissioners at the treaty of Carlisle, now lying before us, that the Shawanese chiefs mentioned that claim of theirs to the lands in question at that time, and were promised that the matter should be laid before

the proprietaries. It was after the public general business of the treaty was over, and was not inserted in the printed account of the treaty, perhaps because it was thought to relate more particularly to the proprietary than to the province; and one of the commissioners being himself concerned in the proprietaries' affairs, there was reason to believe he would take care to get it settled; and doubtless he would have done so, had he not, as appears by the report, entirely forgot the whole transaction. We are sorry it was not done, though probably the instigations, present situation, and power of the French, might have been sufficient, nevertheless, to have engaged those Indians in the war against us."

They also took into consideration the governor's answers to their several messages in relation to the bill for regulating the Indian trade; and resolved thereon, "That it was their opinion, the governor had evaded giving any answer, or offering any amendments to it, that it might be transcribed and sent over to the proprietaries for their opinion or assent; that the said bill was of great importance in the present critical situation of affairs; that the delay or refusal of entering into the consideration thereof at that time, might be attended

with very ill consequences; and that those conse

quences would not lie at their door."

And having before resolved to adjourn till the 1st of March ensuing, they moreover took upon them to provide for the subsistence of certain friendly Indians, settled near their frontiers, in the mean while.

Nor was this all; for, the incidents of the session having shown, that it was high time for the assembly to assert their own authority, as far forth at least as the factions and intrigues of the province, at that time

subsisting, would permit, they called for the report of their committee, appointed to sit on the several irregular and improper applications which had been made. to them during the session; and, having duly considered it, ordered it to be entered on the minutes of the House.

Everybody knows, that the reports of committees can consist of opinions only; and these gentlemen gave it as theirs, "That, though it was the undoubted right of the freemen of the province, not only to petition, but even to advise their representatives on suitable occasions, yet all applications whatever to the House, ought to be respectful, decent, pertinent, and founded in truth."

"That the petition of Moore and his thirty-five followers, concerning unnecessary disputes with the governor, when no disputes had been begun; and insinuating, that the House had neglected the security of the province from conscientious scruples, was founded on mistakes and misapprehensions of facts and circumstances." [They might have said much more, if they had thought proper.]

"That the petition entitled, 'An address of certain people called Quakers in behalf of themselves and others,' (signed by Anthony Morris and twenty-two others,) so far as it engaged for any more than themselves, and insinuated they would be under a necessity of suffering rather than paying for other than peaceable measures, had, notwithstanding the decency of its language, assumed a greater right than they were invested with; and, forasmuch as the said petitioners had not duly considered former precedents, especially the grant of two thousand pounds to the crown in the year 1711, was an unadvised and indiscreet application to the House at that time."

MM

"That the representation from the mayor of Philadelphia, and one hundred and thirty-three others, said to be of the principal inhabitants, but in reality a great part of them not freeholders, many of them strangers and obscure persons, and some of them under age, as it charged the House with not having a proper concern for the lives of the inhabitants, and dictated, in a haughty, peremptory manner, to the representative body of the whole people, what laws to make, and threatened to force a compliance, &c., if its commands were not obeyed, was a paper extremely presuming, indecent, insolent, and improper; and that the said mayor, by becoming a promoter and ringleader of such an insult on that part of the government, and, by his authority, arts, and influence, drawing in so many indiscreet or unwary persons to be partakers with him therein, had exceedingly misbehaved himself, and failed greatly in the duty of his station." Expressions equally applicable to the governor himself as chief magistrate, if the mayor, in all this, only acted as a tool of his. And, upon the whole, "That the said paper ought to be rejected."

Thus ended this memorable session, on the 3d of December; and that day two months, instead of that day three months, which was the time prefixed by their own adjournment, the governor, having in that interval left his province, in order to attend the military congress at New York, notwithstanding the preventives thrown as above by the assembly in his way, thought fit to convene them again; and, by the medium of a written message in the usual form, told them, "that he had called them together to consider of the plan of operations, concerted in the late council of war held at that place for the security of his Majesty's dominions on the continent; that he had directed the said plan

to be laid before them, under a recommendation of secrecy, that no part of it might be suffered to transpire; that the many encroachments of the French, &c. sufficiently showed what they had farther to expect, if they did not, by a united, vigorous, and steady exertion of their strength, dislodge and confine them within their own just bounds; that he was persuaded this would be found the best way of providing for their own security, and that, therefore, he must recommend it to them to grant him such supplies as might enable him to furnish what was expected from that province towards the general service; that they must be sensible their success would very much depend on their being early in motion; and that he made no doubt, they would use the greatest diligence and despatch in whatever measures their zeal for the public cause might induce them to take upon the present occasion; that every thing possible had been done for the security of the province; that a chain of forts and block-houses, extending from the river Delaware along the Kittatinny Hills [where he had formerly said the fifteen hundred French and Indians had taken post in their way to Philadelphia] to the Maryland line, was then almost complete; that they were placed at the most important passes, at convenient distances, and were all garrisoned with detachments in the pay of the province, and, he believed, in case the officers and men posted in them did their duty, they would prove a sufficient protection against such parties as had hitherto appeared on their borders; that he had directed the minutes of the several conferences held with the Indians, and other papers relating to Indian affairs, (by which it appeared that the bulk of the Indians living on the Susquehanna were not only in the French interest, but deaf to all the instances of the Six Nations thereon,) to be laid before