'for want of that timely support and assistance which it was in the power of the province to have afforded.' And having again declared, that he could not recede from his amendments, and expressed his satisfaction at their intended complaint against him, he concluded with the two following paragraphs, which are equally insidious, injurious, and unbecoming.

'Upon the whole, it appears clear to me, that you never intended that any of your bills should pass for raising money to defend the province; and this seems now to be placed beyond all dispute, since those people, under whose influence you are chiefly known to be, are said to have declared publicly to you, that they would sooner suffer than pay towards such purposes.

However, I shall put one proof more, both of your sincerity and mine, in our professions of regard for the public, by offering to agree to any bill, in the present exigency, which it is consistent with my duty to pass, lest, before our present disputes can be brought to an issue, we should neither have a privilege to dispute about, nor a country to dispute in.'

Together with this message, the secretary also brought down another altogether as extraordinary, in which the governor acquaints the house, 'that he had considered their bill, for the better ordering and regulating such as were willing and desirous to be united for military purposes within that province; and though there were many things in it of a very extraordinary nature, and that he was convinced it would never answer the purpose of defending the province, even if it could be carried into execution, in any reasonable time, which he was afraid it could not, yet, to shew he was desirous of doing any thing that had even a chance of contributing to the safety of the province, he should consent to it in the shape they had sent it, as it would be entering into new disputes, should he amend it properly.'

And what is, perhaps, more extraordinary still, the governor on the same day, namely, Saturday, November 22, re

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ceived some dispatches from the proprietaries, the contents of which he did not communicate to the house till the Monday following; by which time he was ready to unmask such a variety of batteries, as he thought would be sufficient, by their very noise alone, so to intimidate his antagonists at least, that they should not presume to make him such a return to his last message as they had done to his former.

The first was a report from his council, containing such a discussion of Indian affairs as was to be taken for a discharge in full of the Shawanese complaints mentioned in a message from the assembly, at their first sitting, in consequence of the governor's summons.

The second was a call upon them to provide for a swarm of French inhabitants banished out of Nova Scotia by governor Lawrence, and sent at a venture to be distributed through the rest of his majesty's colonies along the continent.

And the third not only notified the receipt of the proprietaries' dispatches above-mentioned, but farther specified, "That, such was their care and regard for the people, that they had no sooner received the account he had sent them of general Braddock's defeat, than they sent him an order upon their receiver-general for five thousand pounds, as a free gift to the public, to be applied to such uses as that event might make necessary for the common security of the province; that he had directed 'the said receiver-general to have the money ready as soon as possible; and that it should be paid by such persons as should be appointed by act of assembly for the disposition of any sum they might think necessary for the defence of the province in that time of danger.' Two other clauses were also added: one importing, That this timely and generous instance of the proprietaries' care and anxiety for the inhabitants, could not fail making the most lasting impression upon the minds of every wellwisher to that country;' and the other, "That the governor upon that occasion again recommended it to them to lay aside all disputes, and to grant such supplies in addition to what the proprietaries had given, as his majesty's service and the pressing exigencies of the province required.'

That they might not, however, have any merit to plead on either of these heads, but might seem to be driven by force into every such measure as was thus recommended, on the very next day after this, and before it was possible for them to come properly to any resolutions at all; came again the mayor of Philadelphia, having now also prevailed with his corporation to join him and his prompters, with a remon strance, in a style altogether dictatorial, 'reproaching them with losing their time in deliberations, while their fellow-subjects were exposed to slaughter, and in debates about privi. leges while they were deprived of the great first privilege of self-preservation, and requiring them to postpone all disputes, grant necessary supplies, and pass a reasonable law for establishing a militia; and in the close of it, recommending dispatch, as the people seemed already in a deplorable and desperate state, and they feared it would not be possible to preserve the peace and quiet of the city, or of the province itself, much longer.'

The house, notwithstanding, to be consistent in all things, called, in the first place, upon their committee for the answer they were directed to prepare to the governor's last invective, which was ready, and in substance as follows: to wit,

"That if they could be astonished at any thing which came from their governor, they should be astonished at his repeating charges and calumnies, groundless in themselves, and so repeatedly, fully, and publicly refuted; that instead of refuting them, therefore, they should only refer to their former refutations; that what he says concerning the risk of losing so important an act was mere sophistry and amusement; that, as they had before asserted, conditional or alternative clauses were common; that in the same act there was another, namely, that in case the four year tax did not produce sixty thousand pounds the defect should be supplied by an additional tax; and, if it exceeded, the overplus should be disposed by a future act; to which the governor had made no objection; that, notwithstanding all the dust he had attempted to raise, it was therefore clear to them, that the bill was entirely un

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objectionable; that their mode was more proper than his, and as safe both for the bill, and the pretended rights of the proprietary; that his commission had no such prohibition as he affected to find in it; and that they could not, in a moneybill like this, admit of amendments not founded in reason, justice, or equity, but in the arbitrary pleasure of a governor, without betraying the trust reposed in them by their constituents, and giving up their just rights as free-born subjects of England; that by the charters their constitution was founded upon, in addition to the privileges therein specially named, they are moreover intitled to all other powers and privileges of an assembly, according to the rights of the free-born subjects of England, and as is usual in any of the king's plantations in America; that the free-born subjects of England had a right to grant their own money their own way, the governor did not deny, nor that the same was usual in other plantations; that therefore they had the same right, and should have had it if it had not been so specified in their charter; such free-born subjects, instead of losing any of their essential rights, by removing into the king's plantations, and extending the British dominions at the hazard of their lives and fortunes; being, on the contrary, indulged with particular privileges for their encouragement in so useful and meritorious an undertaking; that indeed their constitution was, in one respect, no way similar to that of England, namely, the king's having a natural connection with his people, the crown descending to his posterity, and his own power and security waxing and waning with the prosperity of his people; whereas plantation-governors were frequently transient persons, of broken fortunes, greedy of money, destitute of all concern for those they governed, often their enemies, and endeavoring not only to oppress but defame them, and thereby render them obnoxious to their sovereign, and odious to their fellow-subjects; that their present governor not only denied them the privileges of an English constitution, but had endeavored to introduce a French one, by reducing their assemblies to the insignificance to which the French parliaments had been reduced; had required them

to defend their country, and then put it out of their power, unless they would first part with some of the essentials which made it worth defending, which was in fact reducing them to an Egyptian constitution: for, that as the Egyptians were to perish by famine unless they became servants to Pharaoh, so were they by the sword, unless they also became servants to an absolute lord, or as he was pleased to style himself, absolute proprietary; that all comparisons made by the governor of himself to his immediate predecessor would be to his own disadvantage, the differences between the former gentleman and his assemblies having been but small, in comparison with those then subsisting, and conducted by him with some tenderness to his country; that how much soever the people were at that time dissatisfied with some particulars in his administration, the present had given them abundant reason to regret the change; that as to the collusion charged upon them, in not intending any of the bills they had offered for the defence of their country should pass, they could with humble confidence, appeal to the searcher of all hearts, that their intentions perfectly corresponded with their actions; that, not to mention the unfairness of ascribing to a whole people the indiscretion of a few [those who had declared they would suffer rather than pay for military measures] the governor himself must own, they could not be under the influence he supposed, when they assured him that several more votes had been given for those measures since they were petitioned against, than before; that they were totally ignorant of the many other ways of raising money, to which the governor had no objection; as also, what that other, bill might be, which he might think consistent with his duty to pass; that he thought it inconsistent with his duty to pass any bills contrary to his instructions from the proprietaries, which (like the instructions of the president and council of the north, mentioned by lord Coke, 4 inst. p. 246,) were to them impenetrable secrets; that, according to the same great lawyer's remark on governing by such instructions, misera est servitus ubi jus est vagum aut incognitum; that, therefore, it would be in vain for them to search for other ways, or