Explanatory Remarks on the Assembly's Resolves - 2
Resolve the Ninth. The purchasing or taking up large Tracts of Land on the Frontiers, to lay by for a future Market, must prevent a compact Settlement of the People, render them less defensible, and of Course encrease the Taxes necessary for their Protection.
Resolve Tenth and Eleventh. In Virginia and Carolina the People pay no Purchase Money for their Lands, and in the former only Two Shillings, and in the latter Four Shillings and Two-pence Sterling Quit-rent per Hundred Acres. In Pennsylvania the Proprietaries Waste Lands are sold for Fifteen Pounds Ten Shillings per Hundred Acres; their Manor Lands from Fifty to Sixty times that Value, with an annual Quit-rent reserved of Four Shillings and Two-pence Sterling per Hundred Acres. This exorbitant Price with the great Difficulty of obtaining Justice at the Land Office, and the continued public Disputes, occasioned by Proprietary Exactions and Instructions, have driven a great Number of wealthy Settlers into the Southern Colonies.
Resolves Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen and Fifteen, being fully explained by what is said before, and in the Assembly’s Messages, they can need no further Explanation.
Resolve the Sixteenth. The People of our Mother Country, under the immediate Government of a Sovereign who had little private Interest in the Kingdom of influence him, have thought that they had no Security in their Lives, Liberties and Properties, while the Judges of the several Courts held their Commissions during the Pleasure of the Crown. If they were right, how much more precarious and insecure are those invaluable Blessings in this Province, where so great and unjust an Attachment to the Interest of the Proprietaries is discovered, who are not only consulted in the Nomination of the Judges, but can, and often have, from Reasons of Policy only, removed them at their Pleasure? The Time may come, when the People of Pennsylvania may experience the arbitrary Policy of a Richard the Second, and a James the Second, and the unjust and cruel Determinations of the servile Belknap, and the blood-thirsty Jeffries.
Resolve the Seventeenth. Nothing was too unjust, nothing too dishonest and false to be alledged against the Assembly and People of Pennsylvania, in the late Pleadings before their Lordships of the Privy Council, and we all know by whom the Pleaders were instructed. The Pleadings themselves having been taken in Short Hand, will soon be published, and fully demonstrate the Truth of this Resolve.
Resolve the Nineteenth. However safe it may be to entrust an immediate Governor under the Crown with the Nomination of Militia Officers, who has no private Interest or Schemes of his own to promote, it certainly never can be safe to commit that Power into the Hands of a Deputy of the Proprietaries, bound by penal Obligations to obey Instructions wholly calculated to promote their private Interest. If we may judge from what we have seen, they would, no doubt, commission none but those who would implicitly obey their Orders, and pursue their Schemes for enslaving the People. This would create a vast Number of New Relations and Dependencies in the Government, all under the Controul of the Proprietaries and their Governors, who holding their Offices during their Pleasure, would no doubt conform to that Pleasure. The Officers would influence the private Men, and the whole would influence our Elections in Favour of the Proprietary System, and by these Means render their Will the sole Rule, in both the Executive and Legislative Parts of Government.
Resolve Twenty, Twenty-one and Twenty-two. These Resolves on the proposed Amendments to the Militia Bill, are so full and easily understood, that they carry Conviction with them, upon the least Attention.
Resolve the Twenty-third is fully explained by the Messages between the Governor and Assembly, lately published.
Resolve the Twenty-fourth. No sooner did the Proprietaries obtain the Opinion of our Superiors, that the Bills of Credit should not be a Tender in the Payment of their Rents, than they laid a new Scheme for putting their Purchase Money, and other Contracts, under the same Circumstances, that thereby they might not, in common with the People of this Province, suffer by a Depreciation, in case it should happen, though in common with the People they reaped all the Advantages of those Bills, and though the Protection of their Estates, in common with the Peoples, rendered the emitting them necessary. They accordingly gave Orders to their Commissioners of Property, to make their future Contracts for the Sale of Lands in Sterling; and by their Instructions to their Governor, positively forbid him to pass any Supply Bill, unless those Contracts are also exempted from being discharged by the said Bills. This seems, in the Opinion of the House, to have been one of the Causes of the Failure of the Supply Bill. To which may be added, that by the Bill, had it passed, the Proprietary Agents would be obliged to give an honest Account of their Estates, under a Penalty of Four-fold the Tax for all Property by them wittingly concealed. And when we consider the many Instances of the most unjust Claims of Exemption from Taxes by the Proprietaries, this alone will appear an Objection likely to be strong enough with their Deputy to reject the Bill, the House having complied fully with the Stipulations their Agents had entered into before the Council.
Resolve the Twenty fifth. Power, when separate from great Property, and properly restrained by salutary Laws, is so far from being prejudicial to Society, that it cannot well exist or continue without it. But Power united with great Wealth, is all that is necessary to render its Possessor absolute, and every thing, under him, at his own Disposal. Great Riches alone, says a late Writer, in a private Person, are as dangerous to the Prerogatives of the Crown as to the Rights of the Subject. It enables him to form a great Number of Dependants, much greater than is consistent with the Safety of either. They place the Subject too near a Level with his Sovereign. They form in the Mind ambitious Designs, and not only give the Hope, but create the Power, of carrying them into Execution. And if this be the Case of great Wealth alone, how much more must the Addition of all the Powers of Government in the same Persons (Three Thousand Miles distant from the Eye of the Sovereign) render the Rights of the Crown and the Privileges of the People precarious, and at the Disposal of the Proprietaries? Look through all History, and the Experience of Ages will demonstrate this Truth.
Resolve the Twenty sixth. The Reason of this Resolve is fully shewn in the Explanation of the last.
Resolve the last. By this Resolve it appears all Hopes of serving the People, or the least Degree of Happiness, under a Proprietary Government, are wholly given up by the Assembly. And that, in their Opinion, no Asylum from arbitrary Power and its mischievous Effects remains, but that of a Change of Government. And nothing is now left for the People to determine, but to inform their Representatives, whether they had rather submit to the most unjust Proprietary Instructions, subversive, and indeed effectually destructive, of their essential Privileges, and of Course become Slaves to the usurped and arbitrary Power of private Subjects; or implore the immediate Protection of a Sovereign, justly celebrated for his tender Regard to the constitutional Rights of Englishmen.
