so as to have such new excises ready before the money now granted is expended; though we still think a well proportioned tax on property, the most equal and just way of rais. ing money.

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'If every man who received our bills of credit in payment, was obliged to keep them in his hands till the end of twenty years, to be sure the length of the term would occasion a proportionable depreciation. But they being a legal tender in all payments, and the possessor able to exchange them immediately for their value, it is not length of term, but excess of quantity, that must occasion their depreciation; and that quantity is by this bill yearly to diminish. Besides, the eighty thousand pounds we have out on loan, is now to sink in the next six years, which will greatly lessen our currency, and consequently lessen the danger of the depreciation.

'If the quantity should prove too great, which we believe it will not, a subsequent act, laying excise or duty on other commodities, encreasing the duty per gallon, raising it also from private consumption, or obtaining money by any other means for the public service, may be made, and the money applied to the more speedy sinking this sixty thousand pounds.

2. There will probably be little or no surplus left to the disposition of the assembly. People now leave the province faster than they come into it. The importation of Germans is pretty much over. Many go from us to settle where land is cheaper. The danger attending frontier settlements will probably be long remembered, even after a peace may be restored. And if our inhabitants diminish, the excise will be lessened instead of being increased. At its best, it produces, communibus annis, not more than three thousand pounds per annum.

'In former excise laws the assembly have had the disposition of the whole. They preserved the public credit; paid all public debts punctually every year; and have not abused the trust reposed in them.

"The instruction is not a royal but proprietary instruction, calculated to establish arbitrary government among us, to

distress the assembly and people, and put it out of their power to support their complaints at home. It would, moreover, deprive us of a just right and privilege, enjoyed from the first settlement of the country.

3. Lord Loudon is a nobleman distinguished by the great trust the crown hath placed in him. We have likewise received a high character of his integrity and uprightness, which induces us to confide in him. The chance of war (which heaven prevent) may, after several removes, give him a successor unknown to us. If it should be found necessary and convenient before the money is expended, the governor and assembly can at any time, by a little act, subject the remainder to the order of his successor, the commander in chief for the time being.

'4. It is true, there was a fund appropriated to sink the notes issued for the grant to the Crown-point expedition. That fund in a great measure fails by the loss of one whole county to the enemy, and the abandoning considerable parts of other counties, where lands mortgaged to the loan-office are situated. The whole sum was appropriated to the king's service. And if those notes had not been issued, that assistance could not have been given, as our affairs were then circumstanced. They cannot be redeemed in due time by that fund, without adding to the distresses of the people, already too great; and the public credit ought to be kept up, as it may be wanted on some future emergency. Besides, those notes bear interest, and at this time the province is less able than ever to pay interest. We should now save money by

all means in our power.'

10. The fund appropriated for sinking the five thousand pounds, given for the Canada expedition, was broke in upon by the late extraordinary demands for public money. Five thousand pounds was given in provisions to general Braddock, and near four thousand pounds more to cut a road for the king's service at the instance of that general; besides large sums for the maintenance of Indians, extraordinary and expensive treaties, &c. not expected or foreseen when the

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fund was laid. It may therefore fall short, and the outstand ing debts not pay the whole; but, however, the public credit ought to be supported; and the new laid excise is the most proper fund to supply deficiencies in the old.

"The house cannot be supposed insensible of the distresses of their fellow-subjects on the frontiers. Several of the members reside there. They hoped they had in this bill provided for those people the means of speedy assistance, and avoided all objections. They see none now of importance enough, in their opinion, to prevent the passage of the bill. They grant the money freely to the king's use, and cannot admit of amendments to a money-bill; they therefore persuade themselves, that the governor will consider the present circumstances of the province, and the consequences of dispiriting the inhabitants, by depriving them at this time of their privileges, without which they would think the country scarce worth defending; and that he will not suffer a proprietary instruction, new, unjust, and unseasonable, to deprive his majesty of a grant so large, so freely given, and so necessary for his service; and for the preservation of the proprietary estate, as well as the securing the lives and fortunes of the inhabitants, who promised themselves great happiness in being placed immediately under his care and protection.'

The kings of Great Britain have a negative on laws as well as the deputy-governors of Pennsylvania; but then they use it as rarely as possible; and when they do, they rather demur than refuse; but the deputy-governor of Pennsylvania, having no such managements to observe, thought the peremptory style the best; and so sent down the secretary with a verbal message, which is entered in the minutes of the province in these words:

'Sir, the governor returns the bill, intitled, 'an act for striking the sum of sixty thousand pounds, in bills of credit, and giving the same to the king's use, and for providing a fund to sink the bills so to be emitted, by laying an excise upon wine, rum, brandy, and other spirits.' And his honor commands me to acquaint the house, that he will not give his assent to it; and, there being no person to judge between the

governor and the house in these parts, he will immediately transmit to his majesty his reasons for so doing.'

The remainder of that day (the 15th) as it may be sur mised, was wasted in a vain discussion of the difficulties they were involved in; for the house broke up without coming to any resolution. The next was a blank likewise; no business was done; but, on the third, having resumed the consideration of the governor's objections to their bill, the committees report thereupon, the governor's verbal message refusing his assent to the said bill, and the proprietaries instructions, prescribing to the representatives of the freemen of the province, the modes of their raising money for the king's service, they came to the following resolutions, to wit:

That the said proprietary instructions are arbitrary and unjust, an infraction of our charter, a total subversion of our constitution, and a manifest violation of our rights, as freeborn subjects of England.

"That the bill for granting sixty thousand pounds to the king's use, to which the governor has been pleased to refuse his assent, contains nothing "inconsistent with our duty to the crown, or the proprietary rights," and is agreeable to laws which have been hitherto enacted within this province, and received the royal approbation.

'That the right of granting supplies to the crown is in the assembly alone, as an essential part of our constitution, and the limitation of all such grants as to the matter, manner, measure, and time, is only in them.

'That it is the opinion of this house, that the many frivolous objections, which our governors have been advised from time to time, to make to our money-bills, were calculated with a view to embarrass and perplex the representatives of the people, to prevent their doing any thing effectual for the defence of their country, and thereby render them odious to their gracious sovereign, and to their fellow-subjects, both at home and abroad.

"That the proprietaries encreasing their restrictions upon the governor, beyond what they had ever done before, at a

time when the province is invaded by the king's enemies, and barbarous tribes of Indians are ravaging the frontier settlements; and their forbidding the passing of any bills whereby money may be raised for the defence of the inhabitants, unless those instructions are strictly complied with, is tyrannical, cruel, and oppressive, with regard to the people, and extremely injurious to the king's service; since, if the assembly should adhere to their rights, as they justly might, the whole province would be thrown into confusion, abandoned to the enemy, and lost to the crown.

'The house, reserving their rights in their full extent on all future occasions, and protesting against the proprietary instructions and prohibitions, do, nevertheless, in duty to the king and compassion for the suffering inhabitants of their distressed country, and in humble but full confidence of the justice of his majesty and a British parliament, wave their rights on this present occasion only; and do further resolve, that a new bill be brought in for granting a sum of money to the king's use, and that the same be made conformable to the said instructions."

By this new bill, both the sum and the time was reduced one half; that is to say, the sum to thirty thousand pounds, and the time for raising it, by excise, to ten years. The bill was immediately prepared and read, and the next day was sent up to the governor, who, on the 20th, condescended to signify, that he was ready to pass the same into a law, provided, a clause therein relating to the fines and forfeitures, being paid into the treasury, was first struck out; which, on account of the present exigency of affairs, having been also agreed to by the house, the said bill was, on the 21st of September, passed accordingly into a law.

Under these circumstances, in this manner, and for these considerations, had governor Denny the honor to extort this proprietary sacrifice from these honest, considerate, able, spirited men, who had stood in the gap for so many years, 、 and who had never been driven out of it, if it had been possible for them to have saved their country and its constitution

too.