him. At your request he will with pleasure discharge the servants that may have inlisted in the forces under his command, or any others for whom you may desire a discharge; and desires that you would, for that purpose, send him their names." And again, in his letter of May the twentieth, "I have only time to thank you once more, in the name of the general and every body concerned, for the service you have done, which has been conducted throughout with the greatest prudence and most generous spirit for the public service." The general's own letter, dated the twenty-ninth of May, mentions and acknowleges the provisions given by the Pennsylvania assembly" [though the governor will allow us to have had "no hand" in it], and says, "Your regard for his majesty's service, and assistance to the present expedition, deserve my sincerest thanks," &c. Colonel Dunbar writes, in his letter of May the thirteenth, concerning the present of refreshments, and carriage horses sent up for the subalterns, "I am desired by all the gentlemen, whom the committee have been so good as to think of in so genteel a manner, to return them their hearty thanks." And again, on the twenty-first of May, "Your kind present is now all arrived, and shall be equally divided to-morrow between sir Peter Halket's subalterns and mine, which I apprehend will be agreeable to the committee's intent. This I have made known to the officers of both regiments, who unanimously desire me to return their generous benefactors their most hearty thanks, to which be pleased to add mine," &c. And sir Peter Halket, in his of the twenty-third of May, says, "The officers of my regiment are most sensible of the favors conferred on the subalterns by your assembly, who have made them so well-timed, and so handsome a present. At their request and desire I return their thanks, and to the acknowlegments of the officers, beg leave to add mine, which you, I hope, will do me the favor for the whole to offer to the assembly, and to assure them, that we shall on every occasion do them the justice due for so seasonable and welljudged an act of generosity." There are more of the same kind, but these may suffice to shew that we had " some hand

in what was done," and that we did not, as the governor supposes, deviate from the truth, when, in our just and necessary vindication against his groundless, cruel, and repeated charge, "that we had refused the proper, necessary, and timely assistance to an army sent to protect the colonies," we alleged, "that we had supplied that army plentifully with all they asked of us, and more than all, and had letters from the late general, and other principal officers, acknowleging our care, and thanking us cordially for our services." If the general ever wrote differently of us to the king's ministers, it must have been while he was under the first impressions given him by the governor to our disadvantage, and before he knew us; and we think with the governor, that if he had lived, he was too honest a man not to have retracted those mistaken accounts of us, and done us ample justice.'

What is still more unlucky for the governor, his secretary writing to the said commissioners with all the authority he could depute to him, April 25, 1755, makes use of these very words, 'What sir John St. Clair says is so far true, that had the army been ready now, and retarded by delays in matters undertaken by this province, all the mischiefs thence arising would have been justly chargeable on this province; but I am much mistaken, if they can, within a month from this date, get their artillery so far as your road.'

In the same letter he also says, 'Surely the flour will be delivered in time; or great blame may be laid with truth at the door of the commissioners.' Not the province; and, indeed, the flour was actually delivered so soon and so fast, that the general had not even provided storehouses and shelters sufficient to secure it against the weather, to which great quantities of it lay exposed in Maryland after the delivery of it there.

What spirit this gentleman (the governor) was possessed with, had been a question. The assembly would not allow him to have the spirit of government; he himself maintained, that if he had had enough of the spirit of submission, (terms generally held irreconcileable) his government would

have been more agreeable to the province. But now it can be a question no longer.

The last period of the governor's message was the very quintessence of invective. In fine, gentlemen, said he, I must remind you, that in a former message you said you were a plain people that had no joy in disputation. But let your minutes be examined for fifteen years past, not to go higher, and in them will be found more artifice, more time and money spent in frivolous controversies, more unparalleled abuses of your governors, and more undutifulness to the crown, than in all the rest of his majesty's colonies put together. And while you continue in such a temper of mind, I have very little hopes of good, either for his majesty's service, or for the defence and protection of this unfortunate country.'

And in the reply of the assembly his own artillery was turned upon him as follows: "The minutes are printed, and in many hands, who may judge, on examining them, whether any abuses of govemors and undutifulness to the crown are to be found in them, Controversies indeed there are too many; but as our assemblies are yearly changing, while our proprietaries, during that term, have remained the same, and have probably given their governors the same instructions, we must leave others to guess from what root it is most likely that those controversies should continually spring. As to frivolous controversies, we never had so many of them as since our present governor's administration, and all raised by himself; and we may venture to say, that during that one year, scarce yet expired, there have been more "unparalleled abuses" of this people, and their representatives in assembly, than in all the years put together, since the settlement of the province.

'We are now to take our leave of the governor; and indeed, since he hopes no good from us, nor we from him, 'tis time we should be parted. If our constituents disapprove our conduct, a few days will give them an opportunity of changing us by a new election; and could the governor be as soon and as easily changed, Pennsylvania would, we appre

1

hend, deserve much less the character he gives it, of an unfortunate country.'

That, however, they might still continue to act on the same maxims, and continue to deserve the same confidence, they proceeded to contribute all they could to the advancement of the service; not only without the concurrence of the governor, but in spite of his endeavors to render them odious by all the means of prevention his wit, his malice, or his power could help him to. In what manner, the following unanimous resolutions will specify.

'That when application is made to this house by the governor, for something to be done at the request of another government, the letters and papers that are to be the foundation of our proceedings on such application, ought to be, as they have been by all preceding governors, laid before the house for their consideration.

"That a sight afforded to the speaker, or a few of the members, of papers remaining in the governor's hands, cannot be so satisfactory to the rest of the house, nor even to the speaker, and such members, as if those papers were laid before the house where they might receive several distinct readings, and be subject to repeated inspection and discussion till they were thoroughly understood; and all danger of mistakes and misconceptions through defect of attention, or of memory, in one or a few persons, effectually prevented.

'That great inaccuracies and want of exactness have been frequently observed by the house in the governor's manner of stating matters, laid before them in his messages; and therefore they cannot think such messages, without the papers therein referred to, are a sufficient foundation for the house to proceed upon, in an affair of moment, or that it would be prudent or safe so to do, either for themselves or their constituents.

"That though the governor may possibly have obtained orders not to lay the secretary of state's letters, in some cases, before the house, they humbly conceive and hope that letters from the neighbouring governments, in such cases as the present, cannot be included in those orders.

"That when an immediate assistance to neighbouring colonies is required of us; to interrupt or prevent our deliberations, by refusing us a sight of the request, is a proceeding extremely improper and unseasonable.

'But a member of this house producing a letter to himself from the honorable Thomas Hutchinson, Esq. a person of great distinction and weight in the government of Massachusetts-bay, and a member of the council of that province, mentioning the application to this governinent for provisions, and the necessity of an immediate supply; and it appearing by the resolution of the council of war, held at the carrying place, on the twenty-fourth past (an abstract of which is communicated to the speaker, by the honorable Thomas Pownal, Esq. lieutenant-governor of the Jerseys) that the army will be in want of blankets and other clothing, suitable to the approaching season; and this house being willing to afford what assistance may be in their power, under their present unhappy circumstances of an exhausted treasury, and a total refusal by the governor of their bills for raising money, resolved,

'That a voluntary subscription of any sum or sums, not exceeding ten thousand pounds, which shall be paid by any persons into the hands of Isaac Norris, Evan Morgan, Joseph Fox, John Mifflin, Reese Meredith, and Samuel Smith of the city of Philadelphia, gentlemen, within two weeks after this date, towards the furnishing of provisions and blankets, or other warm clothing, to the troops now at or near Crown-point, on the frontiers of New York, will be of service to the crown, and acceptable to the public, and the subscribers ought to be thankfully reimbursed (with interest) by future assemblies, to whom it is accordingly by this house earnestly recommended.'

And this may be called the finishing measure of this every way public-spirited assembly, the governor did not choose to be in the way to receive their reply; and so the session and the controversy for this time ended together.

Into the hands of what number of readers, or readers of what capacities, dispositions, or principles, this treatise shall