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Lastly, that they might be able to set all imputation and misrepresentation whatsoever at defiance, they applied themselves to find out some expedient, by which the service recommended to them by the crown might be promoted as far as in them lay, even without the concurrence of the governor. In order to which, having thoroughly weighed the contents of Sir Thomas Robinson's last letter, and the state of the provincial treasury, in which there was scarce five hundred pounds remaining, they unanimously resolved to raise five thousand pounds on the credit of the province, for the accommodation of the king's troops; and impowered certain members of their own to negociate the loan, and allow such interest as should be found necessary.

The controversy, however, which this new governor had been so ingenious as to work up to such a pitch in so short a time, was, by the continuance of the same ingenuity, to be still continued as warm as ever.

Accordingly, down came another message from him, in which he complains to the assembly, of the very great obscurity, unnecessary repetitions, and unmeaning paragraphs contained in their last performance; and through the whole, manifests that spirit of perverseness, which is but too prevalent with most men on the like occasions. Of the inaccuracies before acknowledged in that performance (and which are perhaps unavoidable in pieces drawn up from a variety of suggestions, and subject to a variety of alterations and additions), he takes all the advantage he can; and does indeed foul the water, though he cannot divert the current.

It would be endless to wade through all the minutenesses of so tedious a contest; and odds if the reader did not leave the writer in the midst of it.

To be as concise as possible, therefore: his paper is as insidious as that of the assembly was candid and open. He would not allow that he had promised them a sight of his instructions, with regard to their bill for granting twenty thousand pounds to the king; which was so far true, because he could have none regarding that particular measure; he would not allow that he had represented their application for

those instructions, as having a tendency to alienate the affections of the people from the king; which was also true, because such his representation had been confined to the expressions they had made use of concerning the invasion of their civil and religious liberties; the last of which is indeed no otherwise to be accounted for, than by the demand made upon them, to establish a militia, and thereby oblige those to carry arms, who made it a point of conscience to disavow resistance by force; those expressions, he would needs have it, had the tendency he ascribed to them; because, 'he very well knew how fond the people were of their currency, and how averse to any restraint upon it.' He endeavoured to embroil them with the crown, for having called the instruction in question, an infraction of the royal charter. He reproached them both with ingratitude and with injustice, for being pleased to be angry with their proprietaries. In vindicating the affections of those gentlemen to the province, he derived his argument from their interest in it; and he is peremptory, that, instead of entertaining designs to invade the just rights and privileges of the inhabitants, there was nothing they so much detested and abhorred: he adhered to the resolution he had taken, nevertheless, not to lay his instructions before them at that time; being sensible they were no way necessary, and that the assembly, having already declared them destructive to their liberties, they were not in a proper temper for the consideration of them; to shew he was not restrained by proprietary instructions from passing bills for the defence of the country, he declares himself ready to pass a law for establishing a militia, &c. and for emitting any sum in paper-money, on proprietary terms; that is to say, on such funds as might sink the same in five years. He perseveres in maintaining, that the act of the sixth of Queen Anne had been shamefully slighted even in their province; because pieces of eight were then, and had been for many years past, current at seven shillings and six pence; whereas, according to that act, they should pass for six shillings only: as if money, like all other commodities, would not find and fix its own value, in

spite of all the precautions and provisions the wit of man could invent. He also maintained, that, on a re-examination of the provincial accounts, their revenue was seven thousand three hundred and eighty-one pounds per annum, clear of the five hundred pounds per annum for sinking the five thousand pounds, formerly given for the king's use; and, that the sums due, and which, by the laws in being, should have been paid in the September preceding, amounted at least to, fourteen thousand pounds. He averred they could not but be sensible that the twenty thousand pounds currency they proposed to give, and called a generous sum, was very insufficient to answer the exigence, and that it was not two pence in the pound, upon the just and real value of the estates of the province; and, in short, he said whatsoever else occurred to him, which could favour his purpose of figuring here at home: as if he was in all respects right, and the assembly in all respects wrong.

Argumentatively then, if not historically, we have now the merits of the case before us, and may safely pronounce, that, if instructions may or can be construed into laws, instructions are then of more value than proclamations, which do not pretend to any such authority. That, though grants from the crown are in the first instance matter of grace, the subject may claim the benefit of them as matter of right.That when the prerogative has once laid any restraint on itself, nothing short of a positive act of forfeiture, or act of parliament, can authorise any species of resumption.-That if a subsequent instruction may cancel or obviate an original grant, charters, under all the sanctions the prerogative can give them, are no better than quicksands. That in the charter given to William Penn, Esq. and solemnly accepted as the basis of government, by his followers, there is no reserve on the behalf of the crown, to tie up the province from making the same use of its credit, which is the privilege of every private subject. That, notwithstanding all the pretended sacro-sanctitude of an instruction, probationary at first, neither renewed or referred to, directly or indirectly, by his majesty or his ministers afterwards, and virtually discharged by

a subsequent act of parliament, which expressly restrained some colonies, and consequently left the rest in possession of their ancient liberty, the governor was notoriously ready to dispense with it on proprietary terms.-That the difference between five and ten years for sinking the bills, was a point in which the national interest had no concern.-That if the eastern colonies, which were those restrained by the said act, might, nevertheless, in case of exigence, make new issues of paper-money, those unrestrained might surely do the same in the like case, on such terms, and after a mode, as appeared most reasonable to themselves.-That, according to all the representations of the governor to the assembly, if true, the fate of the province, if not of the public, depended on their giving a supply. That, consequently, no exigency could be more pressing than the present, nor emission of paper-money better warranted.--And that he could, nevertheless, leave the province exposed to all the calamities which that exigence could possibly bring upon it, or upon the service in general, rather than give up one proprietary item: whereas the difficulty imposed upon the people manifestly was, either to be a prey to their invaders, or give up every privilege that made their country worth defending: which shews, in the fullest, clearest and most unanswerable manner, that all proprietary interposition between the sovereign and subject, is alike injurious to both; and that the solecism of an imperium in imperia, could hardly be more emphatically illustrated.

To the crown, under this difficulty, the assembly now thought it high time to make their appeal; in humble confidence, that a fair and modest state of their case, would recommend them to the royal protection, and skreen them from the malignity of their adversaries.

That the governor, however, might not, in the mean time, remain ignorant of their sentiments, they made another application to him by message; in which they apprized him of what they had done, and of their joining issue with him in submitting their cause to his majesty's decision; as also, of their inclination to adjourn till May, for the sake of their own private affairs, to relieve the province from the expence

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they sat at, and suspend the uneasiness which a contest, like to be endless, and in which they were treated with so little decency, had given to them. And having thus, as they observed, reduced what immediately concerned them, within a narrow compass, they first declare, it was hard for them to conjecture, how the governor came by his knowledge of the people's fondness of their currency, and aversion to restraints on that head; seeing they had not petitioned for any increase of it, nor the assembly offered any such bill, during his administration, except that which comprehended the sum given for the king's use, and that only as the best method they could devise for making the grant effectual. On the behalf of the late assemblies, they next insinuate, that when they did offer such bills they were but for a very moderate sum, founded on minute calculations of their trade, and guarded against the danger of depreciation, by such securities as long experience had shewn to be effectual. Proceeding then to the governor's re-assertion concerning the shameful slights put on the money-act of Queen Anne, they appeal to the testimony of the board of trade in favour of their own as a reasonable act, and the royal sanction given thereto, by which it is declared, that their provincial bills of credit are lawful money of America, according to the said act of Queen Anne; as also to the course of exchange ever since, as a full confutation of his charge. They further plead a necessity to dif fer from him in his state of the public money; assure him the computations he relied upon were made without skill, or a sufficient knowledge of their laws; adhere to the justice and rectitude of their own state; maintain, that by the laws in being, seven thousand pounds was the most they had power over, which sum, since their last settlement, had been greatly reduced by the very heavy charges of government; and, having recapitulated what the governor had been pleased to say concerning the insufficience of their grant, &c. conclude in the following spirited manner:

'What the governor may think sufficient, is as much a mystery to us, as he may apprehend his proprietary instructions are; but, we presume, it may be sufficient for all the

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