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

The Plain Dealer, Numb. I - 15

ever attempt such a thing? You ascribe all our contentions and trouble to the Proprietor, with the same justice that you do our slavery: Your non-resisting principle began our troubles, and your obstinacy continued them. You refus’d to grant his Majesty supplies in Governor THOMAS’s time, but the Governor was obliged to take the men; and through obstinacy you sunk ten or twelve thousand pounds. What share of blame had the Proprietor in that affair? When you had lost your hold in the corporation of this city, the Governor would not assist you to be aveng’d of your successors; for which you never forgave him. Was the Proprietor to be blam’d for that quarrel? In the beginning of the late French war, you plead conscience, or unbelief, or something worse, and would grant no supplies. Was the Proprietor to blame there?-----But the Proprietor urged you so hard, to come into some measures of defence, that you never forgave him since, And as you were afterwards obliged to grant supplies, you resolv’d to manage your cards so as to give him but little ease.

And we contend, that if our Assembly had, ten years ago, consisted of men sincerely disposed to serve his Majesty and their country, by defensive measures, we might have avoided most of all our quarrels with the Governor; and should at the same time have sav’d this province one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, at least, and many thousand lives.

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