Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation of Our Public Affairs - 6
It is very remarkable, that Disputes of the same Kind have arisen in ALL Proprietary Governments, and subsisted till their Dissolution; All were made unhappy by them, and found no Relief but in recurring finally to the immediate Government of the Crown. Pennsylvania and Maryland, are the only Two of the Kind remaining and both at this Instant agitated by the same Contentions between Proprietary Interest and Power and Popular Liberty. Thro’ these Contentions the good People of that Province are rendered equally unhappy with our selves, and their Proprietary, perhaps, more so than our’s; for he has no Quakers in his Assembly to saddle with the Blame of those Contentions, nor can he justify himself with the Pretence, that turning to the Church has made his People his Enemies.
Pennsylvania had scarce been settled Twenty years, when these Disputes began between the first Proprietor and the original Settlers; they continued, with some Intermissions, during his whole Life;----his Widow took them up, and continued them after his Death. Her sons resum’d them very early, (a) and they still subsist;----Mischievous and distressing as they have been found to both Proprietors and People, it does not
(a) See their Message to the Assembly, in which the Right of sitting on their own Adjournments are is denied.
