Sum due on Job's right £73 16 7

48 12 6 John Fisher in right of Thomas Cooper, Dr.

3d. That the principal and interest to the time of warrant and survey were added together, and that interest was charged for that total to the time the patent was granted.

4th. That interest has been charged on the consideration money for Cooper's land, for five years ten months and eight days, before the land was surveyed.

5th. That quit-rent has also been charged for that time at 85 per cent.

6th. That the principal and interest to the time of warrant and survey were added, and interest charged for that total to the time the patent was granted, which is compound interest.

46

SIR,-In your paper of the ninth instant, I obTo these remarks of the accountant we shall serve the following paragraph, viz. The last only add, that the price of exchange between letters from Philadelphia bring accounts of the Philadelphia and London is not fixed, but rises scalping the inhabitants of the back provinces by and falls according to the demand for bills; that the Indians; at the same time the disputes beeighty-five per cent. charged for the exchange in tween the governor and the assembly are carried this account is the highest exchange that per- on to as great a heighth as ever, and the messages haps was ever given in Pennsylvania, occasioned sent from the assembly to the governor, and from by some particular scarcity of bills at a particular the governor to the assembly, are expressed in time; that the proprietor himself in his estimate terms which give very little hopes of a reconciliareckons the exchange but at 65, which is indeed tion. The bill to raise money is clogged, so as to near the medium, and this charge is twenty per prevent the governor from giving his consent to cent. above it. That the valuing the currency of it; and the obstinacy of the quakers in the asthe country according to the casual rate of ex-sembly is such, that they will in no shape alter it; change with London, is in itself a false valuation, the currency not being really depreciated in proportion to an occasional rise of exchange; since every necessary of life is to be purchased in the country, and every article of expense defrayed by that currency (English goods only excepted) at As this paragraph, like many others heretofore as low rates after as before such rise of exchange; published in the papers, is not founded in truth, that therefore the proprietor's obliging those who but calculated to prejudice the public against the purchase of him to pay their rents according to quakers and people of Pennsylvania, you are dethe rate of exchange, is unjust, the rate of ex-sired to do that injured province some justice in change including withal the risk and freight on remitting money to England; and is besides a dangerous practice, as the great sums to be yearly remitted to him, put it in the power of his own agents to play tricks with the exchange at pleasure, raise it at the time of year when they are to receive the rents, by buying a few bills at a high price, and afterwards lower it by refraining to buy till they are sold more reasonably.

By this account of the receiver-general's, it appears we have omitted two other articles in the estimation of the proprietary estate, viz.

so that while the enemy is in the heart of the country, cavils prevent any thing being done for its relief. Mr. Denny is the third governor with whom the assembly has had these disputes within a few years."

publishing the following remarks; which would have been sent you sooner had the paper come sooner to my hands.

1 That the scalping of the frontier inhabitants by the Indians is not peculiar to Pennsylvania, but common to all the colonies in proportion as their frontiers are more or less extended and exposed to the enemy. That the colony of Virginia, in which there are very few, if any, quakers, and none in the assembly, has lost more inhabitants and territory by the war than Pennsylvania. That even the colony of New York, with all its For the quit-rents of lands many years before own forces, a great body of New-England troops they are granted! encamped on its frontier, and the regular army For the interest of the purchase-money many under lord Loudon posted in different places, has years before the purchases are made! not been able to secure its inhabitants from scalpOn what pretence these articles of charge are ing by the Indians; who coming secretly in very founded, how far they may be extended, and small parties skulking in the woods, must somewhat they may amount to, is beyond our know-times have it in their power to surprise and deledge; we are therefore obliged to leave them blank till we can obtain more particular information.

Although we have not in this work taken particular notice of the numerous falsehoods and calumnies which were continually thrown out against the assembly and people of Pennsylvania, to keep alive the prejudices raised by the arts of the proprietary and his agents; yet as we think it will not be deemed improper to give the readers some specimen of them, we shall on that account, and as it affords additional light concerning the conduct and state of that province, subjoin a paper printed and published

stroy travellers, or single families settled in scattered plantations, notwithstanding all the care that can possibly be taken by any government for their protection: centinels posted round an army, while standing on their guard, with arms in their hands, are often killed and scalped by Indians. How much easier must it be for such an enemy to destroy a ploughman at work in his field?

2. That the inhabitants of the frontiers of Pennsylvania are not quakers, were in the beginning of the war supplied with arms and ammunition by the assembly, and have frequently defended themselves and repelled the enemy, being withheld by no principle from fighting; and the losses they have suffered were owing entirely to their situation, and the loose scattered manner in which

they had settled their plantations and families in the woods, remote from each other, in confidence of lasting peace.

3. That the disputes between the late and present governors and the assembly of Pennsylvania, were occasioned and are continued chiefly by new instructions from the proprietors to those governors, forbidding them to pass any laws to raise money for the defence of the country unless the proprietary estate, or much the greatest part of it, was exempted from the tax to be raised by virtue of such laws, and other clauses inserted in them by which the privileges long enjoyed by the people, and which they think they have a right to, not only as Pennsylvanians but as Englishmen, were to be extorted from them, under their present distresses. The quakers, who, though the first settlers, are now but a small part of the people of Pennsylvania, were concerned in these disputes only as inhabitants of the province, and not as quakers; and all the other inhabitants join in opposing those instructions, and contending for their rights, the proprietary officers and dependants only excepted, with a few of such as they can influence.

4. That though some quakers have scruples against bearing arms, they have, when most numerous in the assembly, granted large sums for the king's use, (as they express it) which have been applied to the defence of the province; for instance, in 1755 and 1756, they granted the sum of fifty-five thousand pounds to be raised by a tax on estates real and personal; and 30,000 pounds to be raised by excise on spirituous liquors; be sides near ten thousand pounds in flour, &c. to geheral Braddock, and for cutting his roads, and ten thousand pounds to general Shirley in provisions for the New England and New York forces, then on the frontiers of New York; at the same time that the contingent expenses of government, to be otherwise provided for, were greatly and necessarily enhanced. That, however, to remove all pretence for reflection on their sect, as obstructing military measures in time of war, a number of them voluntarily quitted their seats in assembly in 1756; others requested their friends not to choose them in the ensuing election, nor did any of that profession stand as candidates or request a vote for themselves at that election, many quakers refusing even to vote at all, and others voting for such men as would and did make a considerable majority in the house who were not quakers; and yet four of the quakers, who were nevertheless chosen, refused to serve, and writs were issued for new elections, when four others not quakers were chosen in their places; so that of 36 members, the number of which the house consists, there are not at the most above 12 of that denomination, and those such as are well known to be for supporting the government in defence of the country, but are too few, if they were against such a measure, to prevent it.

having long refused his assent to the bill, did, in excuse of his conduct, on lord Loudon's arrival at Philadelphia in March last, lay his reasons before his lordship, who was pleased to communicate them to one of the members of the house, and patiently to hear what that member had to say in answer, the governor himself being present; and that his lordship did finally declare himself fully satisfied with the answers made to those reasons, and give it as his opinion to the governor that he ought immediately to pass the bill, any instructions he might have to the contrary from the proprietors notwithstanding; which the governor accordingly complied with, passed the bill on the 22d of March, and the money, being 100,000l. for the service of the current year, has been ever since actually expending in the defence of the province. So that the whole story of the bill's not passing, the clogging of the bill by the assembly, and the obstinacy of the quakers preventing its passage, is absolutely a malicious and notorious falsehood.

6. The assertion of the news-writer, "that while the enemy is in the heart of the country, cavils prevent any thing being done for its relief," is so far from being true, that, 1st. The enemy is not nor ever was in the heart of the country, having only molested the frontier settlements by their parties. 2dly. More is done for the relief and defence of the country, without any assistance from the crown, than is done perhaps by any other colony in America; there having been, soon after the war broke out, the following forts erected at the province expense, in a line to cover the frontier, viz. Henshaw's fort on Delaware, fort Ha milton, fort Norris, fort Allen, fort Franklin, fort Lebanon, fort William Henry, fort Augusta, fort Halifax, fort Granville, fort Shirley, fort Littleton, and Shippensburg fort, besides several smaller stockades and places of defence, garrisoned by troops in the pay of the province; under whose protection the inhabitants, who at first abandoned their frontier settlements, returned generally to their habitations, and many yet continue, though not without some danger, to cultivate their lands; by these Pennsylvania troops, under col. Armstrong, the greatest blow was given to the enemy last year on the Ohio, that they have received during the war in burning and destroying the Indian town of Kittanning, and killing their great captain Jacobs, with many other Indians, and recovering a number of captives of their own and the neighbouring provinces; besides the garrisons in the forts, eleven hundred soldiers are maintained on the frontier in pay, being armed and accoutred, by the province, as ranging companies. And at Philadelphia fifteen iron cannon, eighteen pounders, were last year purchased in England and added to the fifty they had before, either mounted on their batteries, or ready to be mounted, besides a train of artillery, being new brass field-pieces, twelve and six pounders, with all their appurtenances in extreme good order, 5. That the bill to raise money, said in the and a magazine stored with ammunition, a quanabove article of news, to be "so clogged as to pre-tity of large bomb-shells, and above two thousand vent the governor from giving his assent," was drawn in the same form, and with the same freedom from all clogs, as that for granting sixty thousand pounds which had been passed by the governor in 1755, and received the royal approbation; that the real clogs or obstructions to its passing were not in the bill, but in the above-mentioned proprietary instructions; that the governor

new small arms lately procured, exclusive of those in the hands of the people. They have likewise this summer fitted out a twenty gun province ship of war, to scour the coast of privateers, and protect the trade of that and the neighbouring provinces, which is more than any other colony to the southward of New England has done. Pennsylvania also by its situation covers the greatest

part of New Jersey, all the government of the Delaware counties, and great part. of Maryland, from the incursions of the Indians, without receiving any contribution from those colonies, or the mother-country towards the expense.

The above are facts, consistent with the knowledge of the subscriber, who but lately left Philadelphia, is now in London, is not nor never was a quaker, nor writes this at the request of any quaker; but purely to do justice to a province and people of late frequently abused in nameless papers ers and pamphlets published in England. And he hereby calls upon the writer of that article of news to produce the letters out of which he says, he has drawn those calumnies and falsehoods, or to take the shame to himself.

WILLIAM FRANKLIN.

Pennsylvania Coffee-House,

London, Sept. 16, 1757. .

the place of their destination undiscovered, upon which depended the whole of their success By great good luck, they nevertheless unexpectedly arrived at Kittanning, and succeeded as above. Encouraged by this fortunate event of their first attempt, the commissioners earnestly pressed that this blow might be followed by another of the same kind, so that the enemy might be kept in continual apprehensions of danger. But these encou ragements to the commissioners, to persist in their plan of operations, were inducements with the new governor, as they had been with his predecessor, to evade a compliance.

The darling project of a militia law was of more consequence than the preservation of the blood and treasure of people with whom he had no natural connexion. And the result is, that notwithstanding the commissioners have over and over strenuously endeavoured to have parties of rangers sent again into the enemy's country, To what is said in the foregoing letter, concerning col. Armstrong's expedition to Kittan- they have never since been able to prevail with ning, it may not be amiss to add, for the informa- the governor to send them.. On the contrary, tion of the reader, that it was with no small diffi- though they could furnish ten parties for one of culty the commissioners, who were joined with the Indians, the forces have been confined within the governor in the disposition of the money is in fact undisciplining them for Indian war) the forts, taught regular military discipline (which granted for the war, obtained the employing a and allowed to do scarce any thing but garrison part of the provincial forces as rangers. They duty. In the mean time the Indians have been repeatedly remonstrated to the governor, that suffered to come down between the forts, murder the only effectual manner of carrying on a war and scalp the inhabitants, and burn and destroy with Indians was to fight them in their own way, their settlements, with impunity. That a militia, i. e. to send parties frequently into the Indian had the governor such a one as he wishes, could country, to surprise them in their hunting and fishing, destroy their corn fields, burn their habi- not prevent these outrages, is obvious to every tations, and, by thus continually harassing them, of this have been made in Virginia, and other goman of common understanding. Frequent trials oblige them either to sue for peace, or retire far-vernments where militias have been long in use. ther into the country. The experience of many years Indian war in New England was in fayour of this measure. The governor himself could not but acknowledge its expediency. There were motives, however, which, with him, outweighed all other considerations; and induced him though publicly, to approve, yet secretly to decline carrying it into execution. A militia law was the grand object he had in view, in which he aimed to have the sole nomination of all the officers. These were of course to be proprietary minions and dependants, who, by means of their power, were to awe and influence the elections, and make a change in the assembly: for draughts of such as were most likely to give opposition might easily be made and sent to garrison the frontier. Should therefore the commissioners' scheme of carrying the war into the enemy's country, be attended with success, and a stop be thereby put to their future incursions, the governor's main pretext for a militia (which was the enabling him to defend the frontier) would of consequence have no longer any appearance of weight. The commissioners, notwithstanding, obstinately persevered in urging that parties should be sent out in the manner they recommended. The governor was at length obliged to consent and give orders to colonel Armstrong for that purpose. Under-hand measures seem however to have been taken to render this project fruitless. Such delays were given from time to time to the march of the forces, after the intention of the undertaking was publicly known (which by the bye was to have been kept a secret) that the enemy might easily have received intelligence of our designs; and moreover, such a considera- 1754, ble number of men were added to the party as and rendered it highly improbable they should reach | 1755.

The consequence of which was, that after the gothe enemy, taken the inhabitants from their sevevernors had, upon the news of any incursions of ral businesses and occupations (oftentimes farmers in the midst of harvest) furnished provisions and other necessaries, and marched them, at a great the enemy were fled, and perhaps doing mischief expense, to the place attacked, it was found that in another part of the frontier, at fifty or a hundred miles distance. The people therefore say with truth, that it would be far less expensive and inconvenient to them, to raise and pay a number of rangers to be continually employed in that service. And it is certain, that were but a few rangers properly employed, they would be more effectual in subduing such an enemy, than all the militia or regular forces on the continent of America: The sending of these against scouting parties of Indians, being, as the proverb has it, setting

a cow to catch a hare.

Account of sundry sums of money paid by the province of Pennsylvania for his majesty's service since the commencement of hostilities by the French in North America, exclusive of the general contingent expenses of the government, which have from that time increased very considerably. EXTRACTED

FROM THE JOURNALS OF THE AS

SEMBLY.

For provisions supplied
the king's forces un-
der the command of

Pennsylva. Cur

1756.

Carried over £26,387 2 11