Digital Paxton: Digital Collection, Critical Edition, and Teaching Platform

The Plain Dealer, Numb. I - 13

countable to me, why the Proprietor should be blamed for what the King in Council has done; and still more surprising, that we should abuse him for a thing that we have already approv’d by our Agent; if the decree was unjust, should not we have complained then; have represented the great Difference of the Prices of Land, and the singular goodness of the Proprietor’s Land? Is is strange that we should have to quarrel in this province, at the expence of so much Money, and danger of so many lives, about a Thing that should have been settled in England long ago. We conceive that we have spent about ten thousand pounds already, upon an embassy to London; but if that sum was not enough to get business well done, let us send again, and spend three times as much: but in the mean Time, don’t let us avenge our blunders on the Proprietor. Suppose that he has done wrong, in selling his Lands too dear, or in reserving some of his best to himself, how will the Matter be mended by getting a King’s Governor? Shall we then make laws to force the Proprietor to take up the worst land? (for he has a right to some) Or shall we force him to sell his property at whatever price we choose to give? Shall we prevent him from letting his friends have land? Or, shall we force him to refund the fourscore thousand pounds we gave to his Governors? Is he also to refund the thousands which Governor D----- re-

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