of thirty thousand pounds, and to render the repayments still easier to the borrowers, by reducing them to one sixteenth a year.

Again: in the year 1739 (George Thomas, governor) occasion was taken from the discoveries repeatedly made, that these provincial-bills had been counterfeited, not only to call them all in, in order to their being replaced with others of a new impression, &c. but also for the reasons before given, to issue the further sums of eleven thousand one hundred and ten pounds five shillings, (which, added to the sums already in circulation, made their whole capital amount to eighty thousand pounds) to be current for sixteen years.

Lastly: finding, that the like, or a greater sum, in case the province should grow still greater, would in all probability be always necessary, the assembly moreover provided, that so fast as any of the former borrowers should repay their provincial-money, the trustees of the loan-office might reemit the same sums during the said term of sixteen years, on the same conditions, either to them or others, without any new authority for that purpose.

And, upon the whole, it is to be observed, that the assembly, in establishing this paper currency, in taking upon themselves, as representatives of the province, to appoint the trustees and other officers charged with the administration of it; in providing that the said trustees and officer should be responsible to the province for their conduct in it; and in reserving to the assembly, for the time being, the disposition and application of the annual product, met not with any such objection from their governors, or the proprietaries, or the ministry here at home, as could excite the least apprehension of any such contest, as might either embroil the province, affect the interest, or incommode the govern ment of it. *

It is true, the proprietaries and their agents did, from the beginning, discover a repugnance to this measure, till they found themselves considered in it: like the snail with his horns, they had no sensations for the province, but what reached them through the nerves of power and profit. Profit,

though ranked last, they consulted first; and when possessed of one point, they thought they might wrangle more successfully for the other.

If the widow Penn acquiesced in the paper-money acts passed by Keith, she reprimanded him for passing them; and in a manner forbid him to pass any more.

Gordon (Keith's successor) having over and over again acknowledged his conviction of the conveniencies arising to the province from a reasonable increase of their paper currency, gave the assembly to understand, in so many words, that nothing but the gratification of the proprietaries in the affair of their quit-rents, would prevent the opposition they were otherwise to expect to the act then before them in England.

By special contract with the several purchasers, these quit-rents of theirs were to be paid in sterling money; and, as it was impossible, by any provision whatsoever, to make the provincial currency answer the universal purposes of gold and silver, so no provision could hinder these metals from having the preference of paper. To convert paper into specie or bullion could not of course but be attended with some cost; and hence the proprietary-remittances could not but come shorter home. When, therefore, by the eightythousand pounds act, paper was to become the provincial establishment, they would not allow their share of the provincial advantage resulting from it (which was, at least, equal to that of the province, as will hereafter become apparent) to be what it really was, an adequate consideration, but insisted, not only on having the difference between paper and specie or bulliop made up to them, and that the difference of exchange should be made up to them also; or, in other words, that the pounds sterling due to them in Pennsylvania, should be paid to them nett in England.

In short, the sum of one thousand two hundred pounds, was in this manner extorted from the province, together with an annuity of one hundred and thirty pounds, to continue during the circulation of those bills; which will serve to shew, at least, that the province could not be more stubborn,

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upon other occasions, than the proprietaries were selfish on this.

There remains yet another topic to be touched upon, which will require a more tender consideratiou from the reader than perhaps it may always find.

Mr. Penn and his followers were of that sect, who call themselves by the amiable and levelling name of Friends; and who, having been at first opprobriously called by that of Quakers, have been forced, by the joint tyranny of imposition and custom, to answer to it ever since.

Of these, the majority carried along with them a scruple better accommodated to the forming of a society and preserving it in peace, than to the protecting it from those insults and depredations which pride and lust of dominion have at all periods committed on their weaker neighbours; and from the visitation of which, no system of politics, morals, or religion, hath as yet been able to preserve mankind.

All their views, purposes, and endeavours were narrowed, therefore, to the forms and uses of civil life; and to link the several parts of their own little community in the most expedient manner together.

Nor, indeed, had they at that time any other object before them: alike to wage war against any power in alliance with England, and to correspond with any power at war with her, was expressly forbid both to the proprietary and the province, by the fifteenth section of the royal charter.

The French were too feeble in America and too remote from Pennsylvania, to be then apprehended. The provinces adjacent were branches from the same root, and responsible for their conduct to the same laws; and the Indians, from the very beginning, had been considered and treated as equally the sons of one common father.

Land wanted by us was a drug to them. The province, then to be allotted, peopled, and cultivated, had not been wrested from them by violence, but purchased for a suitable consideration. In the contract between the proprietary and his sub-adventurers, all possible care had been taken, that no cause of complaint should be administered to them: in

trade they were not to be over-reached nor imposed upon: in their persons they were not to be insulted or abused; and, in case of any complaint on either side, the subjectmatter was to be heard by the magistrates in concert with the Indian chief, and decided by a mixed jury of Indians and planters.

The same regard to conscience which led them into this wilderness adhered to them afterwards; and having thus resolved and provided, never to be aggressors, and not being sovereigns, they left the rest to Providence.

Governed by principle in all things, and believing the use of arms to be unlawful, the case of defence by arms could not come within their plan.

But then as their community was left open to Christians of all persuasions, and the conditions of union could be abhorrent to none, they might well presume on being joined by numbers, which has since happened accordingly, who, being devoid of such scruples, might be easily induced, for proper considerations, to take that difficulty out of their hands and, as to military service, under all English tenures whatsoever, no man could be compelled to serve in person, who made it his choice to serve by proxy.

Add to all this; that William Penn himself does not appear to have been under the dominion of these scruples; he having taken care in his charter from the crown (sect. 10.) to be invested with all the powers ever bestowed on a captain-general (which were also to descend to his heirs and assigns) to levy, muster, and train all sorts of men, of what condition soever, or wheresoever born, and to make war and to pursue such enemies as should make incursions into the province, as well by sea as land, even without the limits of the said province, and, by God's assistance, to vanquish and take them,' &c.

And, lastly, if ever involved in the quarrels of the mothercountry, and obliged to take their share of the common duty and the common danger, they might reasonably hope for al the protection from thence they might stand in need of on

the condition of contributing all that was in their power, consistent with their principles, towards it.

This they have occasionally done from colonel Fletcher's time downwards, and they would have done more, if the proprietary calls and those of their deputies had not put it out of their

power.

Allowing, therefore, that this unresisting principle would have been a solecism in the construction of an independent state, it was not, provincially speaking, destitute of proper palliatives.

At least, scruple of conscience is at all times, and in all cases, less blameable than the wanton experiments tried upon the province even by the proprietary's own agents: first to scatter terrors among the peaceable inhabitants, and then to plead the necessity of a military force from the effects of their own wicked devices.

Of this nature was the false alarm raised in the queen's time by Evans and Logan: a fact which stands charged against them, in the records of the assembly, at this very day; and which, as often as recollected, will ever suggest a fear, that a measure, so unwarrantably contended for, would, if obtained, be as unwarrantably made use of.

We have now such a summary of the state of Pennsylvania, from its origin, before us, as may render every branch of the controversy still depending, familiar to us: and, as facts are best seen and understood in order of time as they occurred, we shall do our best to follow the thread as it lies.

In April, 1740, when the paper currency of the province had been just encreased, as above specified, to eighty thousand pounds, and established for sixteen years, the merchants trading to the eastern colonies of America, took occasion to complain to the house of commons, of the inconveniences and discouragements brought on the commerce of Great Britain in those parts, by the excessive quantities of paper money there issued, and the depreciated condition thereof, for want of proper funds to support its credit. The house, by way of palliative, addressed the throne to put a temporary