Digital Paxton: Digital Collection, Critical Edition, and Teaching Platform Main Menu Introduction Will Fenton Using Digital Paxton Historical Overview Will Fenton Digital Collection Keywords GHOST RIVER Education Transcriptions Public Outreach Contact Credits The Historical Society of Pennsylvania and The Library Company of Philadelphia

The Plain Dealer, Numb. II - 6

7200
but to exasperate them more, against each other; that, by being at length wearied out by Contentions, they might be willing to make Trial of any Remedy, tho’ the least plausable, to obtain Peace: To reconcile such Conduct with the Character of a Patriot, I must submit to the superior Capacity of our Author, whose Genius at reconcileing Contraries, is without Rival.

Is it to calm the Minds of People, that he mentions the Disputes which he says began Twenty Years after the First Settlement of this Province, which he attributes solely to the Proprietaries, and which he charges them with carrying on ever since? Or, can he be found so vain as to believe, that every Thing he is pleased to advance, is to gain implicit Credit?----Certainly he must have known that there were some, who would enquire into the Truth of such Assertions, that they might, on Conviction, abandon the Interest of Men of such pernicious Dispositions; and he could not have doubted, that he must be detected in uttering Falsities, unbecoming a Peace-maker.

We should have supposed our Author would have been careful to conceal the Motives, which have had a considerable Weight in fomenting our unhappy Disputes; as no Person of the least Equity would abett so unjust a Design as to encourage Divisions for the Sake of causing Expence to their Adversaries; but, when the Strife is for Victory, every Artifice is to be essayed, and should no other succeed, plunge them into Expences, tho’ to your own Ruin, that they may be compelled to submit.

THIS has already been done, with so much success, that it is boasted, the Proprietaries have been put to the Charge of Thirty Thousand Pounds to defend themselves from unjust Designs; but how much it has cost their Opponents, ‘tis not necessary we should be informed.

I must beg leave to dissent from the Opinion of our Author, and to believe “the Cause of there miserable Con-

Contents of this annotation:

  1. The Plain Dealer, Numb. II - 6