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not a voice in that legislature, not derived from, or dependent upon, you; and how came you therefore by a right to allow me a share in the disposition of money, which cannot be raised without my consent? such language may possibly be agreeable to your notions of your own superlative powers, but is not justified by the constitution established by charter, or any rights properly belonging to an assembly; and your claiming such a power, shews the extensiveness of your plan, which is no less in that respect, than to render yourselves independent, and assume a superiority over your proprietaries and governors; a plan you would not fail to carry into execution, were your power equal to your inclinations.

The proprietaries do not shrink, as you call it, at the payment of a small sum of money, nor is that the motive for insisting on their right, they having by me offered much more than their proportion of this tax can possibly amount to; but to preserve the rights of their station, which if they give up, whenever they are demanded, as claims will never be wanting, they will very soon be stripped of every thing they have a right to enjoy, both power and property.

Your answer to my fourth reason admits, that taxing the estates of proprietaries is contrary to the usage and practice in this and other governments, by saying, that custom and usage, against reason and justice, ought to have but little weight. But I do not admit that reason and justice are on your side of the question; on the contrary, I think I have shewn that they are with me, and look upon the usage and custom as a strong evidence, that the legislatures of this and other proprietary governments were of my opinion; and I am very much concerned, gentlemen, that you shall choose this time of imminent danger, when your country is invaded, to introduce a new and extraordinary claim, to the prejudice of persons that are absent; when you know, that however right, you may think it, I have it not in my power to consent to it, consistent with duty and honor.

As to myself, I think it necessary to say, that for the dispatch of the public business at this critical conjuncture, when every honest heart should be concerned for the public service, I studiously avoided every thing that could renew the disputes that subsisted between us, and earnestly recommended the same temper of mind to you; and cannot therefore but be exceedingly surprised in return to be thus injuriously treated, and represented as the hateful instrument, of reducing a free people to the abject state of vassalage. What grounds have you, gentlemen, for this heavy charge? what laws of imposition, abhorrent to common justice and common reason, have I attempted to force down your throats? have I proposed any thing to you, during the course of my short administration, but to grant supplies to the crown adequate to the exigency of the times; to assist the king's forces sent for our protection; and to put the province into a posture of defence, by establishing a militia, which is putting the sword into the hands of the people for their own security? and where can it be trusted with more safety than to themselves? are these impositions, or are they abhorrent to common justice and reason? I have, it is true, refused to give my assent to some

bills proposed by you, because they were contrary to the king's instructions; and amended others, to make them agreeable to the charter, and consistent with the safety of the people, by lodging the disposition of the public money in the hands of the legislature; and for this,, which is no more than a due obedience to the lawful commands of the crown, and the free exercise of my reason and judgment in matters of legislation, am I branded with infamy and reproach, and set up as the object of a people's resent

ment.

I am not, gentlemen, conscious to myself of having done, or intended to do, any the least injury to the people committed to my charge; and the man that has been oppressed or injured by me, let him stand forth and complain. Who is it in your province that does not enjoy the freedom of his own religious worship? whose liberty have I taken away? or whose property have I invaded? surely if I have taken advantage of the people's distress, and of your regard for your country, to force down your throats laws of imposition, abhorrent to justice and reason; if I have done or attempted any thing to deprive the people of their liberties, and reduce them to the abject state of vassalage, you will be able to point out some instances of these things; and I call upon you to do it, if you can, and make good your charge. It is not to the people I am hateful, gentlemen, but to yourselves; and that for no other reason, but doing the duty of my station, exercising my own judgment, as a branch of the legislature, with freedom and independency, and keeping you, as far as it was in my power, to thẹ duty of yours.

Had you really any tenderness for your bleeding country, would you have acted the part you have done? would you have looked tamely on, and see the French seat themselves within your borders? would you have suffered them to encrease their numbers, and fortify themselves in a place from whence, in few days, they may march an army among the inhabitants? would you have been deaf to all the affectionate warnings and calls of his majesty, the faithful guardian of his people's safety? and would you have refused the proper, necessary and timely assistance to an army, sent to protect these colonies? or would you now, when that army is defeated, waste your time in disputing about new and extraordinary claims of your own raising, when every head and hand should be employed for the public safety?

However, gentlemen, to conclude, let me entreat you to lay aside all heat and animosity, to consider the naked and defenceless state of the inhabitants, with a temper of mind becoming the important occasion; to look upon the French, and their Indians, as your only enemies, and the person that intend to enslave you; and be assured, that your proprietaries, or governor, have no designs to the prejudice of the people of Pennsylvania, but will continue to protect them in the enjoyment of all their just rights and privileges.

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The assembly's answer to the foregoing message,
August 19, 1755.

May it please the Governor,

HOW disagreeable soever the task may be, to wade through all the misrepresentations in the governor's long message of the thirteenth instant, a regard to truth, and to truths of importance to the welfare of our country, will oblige us to submit to it.

The governor is pleased to tell us, that when he sent down our bill for raising fifty thousand pounds, with the amendments, he expected we should have returned it with the amendments, and informed him which of them we agreed to, this being the common and ordinary method in such cases." The governor allows in this message, that we have by charter, the powers and privileges of an assembly, according to the rights of the freeborn subjects of England, and as is usual in any of the king's plantations in America.' Now, we take it to be one of those privileges and powers of an assembly, to have their money bills, granting supplies to the crown, accepted as they are tendered, if at all accepted, and that without any proposal of amendments. We think this is a privilege claimed and used by the house of commons, and as far as we know by all the assemblies in America; so that it is far from being the common and ordinary method to receive and debate on amendments proposed by the governor to such bills. It is therefore without foundation, that the governor supposes we agreed to all the other amendments, merely because we offered no reasons against any of them, but that which related to taxing the proprietary estate. For we even made that step of deviation from the common and ordinary method, entirely in consideration that the occasion for the supply was uncommon and extraordinary, hoping thereby to come more speedily to a happy conclusion in the business of the session, and without the least intention that it should ever be drawn into precedent.

The governor still insists, that taxing the proprietary estate, though it be to free it from French encroachments, will be an encumbrance on that estate. Be it so then, since the governor will have it so, for our differences are less about words than things: does this however prove the validity of the prohibitory clause in his commission? or that it is equitable and just the proprietary estate alone should be exempt from a tax, which all the estates in Britain and her colonies now bear, or must bear, to free that very estate from encroachments and encumbrance?

The governor is not fortunate enough, he is pleased to say, to comprehend the force of our reasonings on this head, that are drawn from the fourth section of the royal charter;' which, though it gives power to the 'proprietaries and their deputies and lieutenants to make laws, does not alter the relation between a principal and his deputy, or make the deputy equal to, or independent of, the principal, &c.' We will therefore, for the governor's satisfaction, endeavor to express our sentiments yet plainer, if possible, and enforce them farther. The royal charter grants full, free, and

absolute power (not only to the proprietary and his heirs) but to his and their deputies and lieutenants, to enact any laws whatsoever, for raising money for the safety of the country, according to their best discretion, with the assent of the freemen, &c.' But the governor objects, notwithstanding this full and free power, granted by the royal charter to me as the proprietaries deputy, I cannot use my best discretion in this case, nor enact the proposed law, because there is in my commission a prohibitory clause or saving which restrains me; and if I should pass it, such prohibition notwithstanding, the law would not be valid. To this we answered, that no prohibition of the proprietaries can lessen or take away from the lieutenantgovernor any power he is vested with by the royal charter; and, in support of this, as an argument, at least to the governor, produced to him an opinion of the proprietary and governor's former council, on the case of a proviso or saving in the lieutenant's commission, that restrained, in favor of the proprietary, the power of making laws which is granted to the lieutenant in the royal charter. This opinion (which the governor allows to be a good one) declares that saving to be void in itself, and that any laws passed by the lieutenant shall be valid, the saving notwithstanding. But the governor would distinguish it away, by alleging, that though the opinion was good in that case, it is not applicable to all cases' If it is applicable to the present case, it is all that is necessary for our purpose, which was to shew, that a proviso in his commission, restricting the powers granted him by charter, was void in itself; and that if he passed a law contrary to the proviso, the law would be valid. The 'relation between the principal and his deputy' still remains entire; the deputy is dependant on the principal, and may be removed by him at pleasure. But as the principal cannot give powers to the deputy which he has not himself, so neither can he lessen the powers given to the deputy by the charter. If the proprietary can, by prohibitory clauses in his commission, restrain the deputy from passing any one law, which otherwise he had power by the charter to pass, he may by the same rule restrain him from passing every law, and so the deputy would be no deputy. That the charter makes the proprietary 'civilly answerable for what is done in the province by their lieutenants,' we conceive to be a mistake. The proprietary is by the charter, made answerable for any misdemeanor that he himself shall commit, or by any wilful default or neglect permit, against the laws of trade and navigation. But if the deputy commits a misdemeanor, which the proprietary does not permit, through his . own wilful default or neglect, we presume he is not answerable for such misdemeanor by the charter; and less, in reason, now, than when the charter was given; as by an act of parliament of later date, every deputy appointed by the proprietary, must before he can act as such, receive the royal approbation. The very nature and reason of the things, moreover, seem to us to show, that a deputy to do a thing, should have all the powers of the principal necessary for doing that thing; and every lieutenant or deputy governor, is, by the nature of his office, and the reason of his appointment, to supply or hold the place of a governor. But the royal charter

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being so express and plain in the point, leaves us under no necessity of investigating this truth by reason. Should our constituents, when they chuse us to represent them in assembly, not only instruct us, but even take bonds of us, that we should assent to no law for the better and more effectual recovery of the proprietary quit-rents, if such a law were required of us, or thought necessary by the governor; would he think such prohibitions or bonds valid? would he not say they were void in themselves, as forbidding what he thinks a just and reasonable thing, depriving us of the right of using our best discretion, and restraining the powers granted to us by charter. The case we conceive to be the same with respect to the proprietaries lieutenant (who is their representative) if he is so restrained as the governor thinks himself to be. The government, and the exercise of the government, are inseparable,' says chief justice Pollexfen, a famous lawyer, and wherever the government is granted, the exercise of that government is meant and included. If the king grant to any one the government of Jamaica, or the like,' continues he, sure no one will say, that that is not a grant of the exercise of the government there!' and we suppose this is as good law, with regard to the grant of the government of Pennsylvania.

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The governor is pleased to say, that he cannot help observing, that we formerly used the same arguments against the validity of royal instructions. We have all due respect and deference for royal instructions; the king has not any where a more dutiful and loyal people; but what does the governor intend by the validity of instructions? does he mean that they are laws in the colonies? and if the royal instructions were such, does it follow that proprietary instructions have the same validity? we apprehend there may be some difference, but at present it is not necessary to discuss it.

For our doubting in the least the governor's power to make the offered grants of land (free of purchase money and quit-rent for fifteen years) in the behalf of the proprietary, he is pleased to treat us with great contempt on account of our ignorance, observing, that it is something very extraordinary, that the representative body of Pennsylvania should know so little of the affairs of the province, as never to have been informed, that the governor grants the proprietary lands under a certain power of attorney, regularly proved and recorded, called a commission of property; that this power was formerly vested in private persons, but for some years past has been given to the governors; and being the foundation of property, cannot be unknown to any the least acquainted with the circumstances of the province. And now, continues the governor, to ask a question or two in my turn, how could you think that the lands in the province were granted under the powers of a commission [meaning his commission as lieutenant governor] which expressly prohibits the granting of any? really we should be very ignorant indeed if we thought so; but it happens, may it please the governor, that we are perfectly well acquainted with all these matters, and have even now lying before us an authentic copy of that certain power of attorney, called a commission of property, which we suppose most, who

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