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The Plain Dealer, Numb. III - 16

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tion commonly use them. Witness a late Decree. This unhappy defect in the Philosopher’s conception, having cost the province about £.10,000 may readily apologise for him in the present case. But for the Lawyer no apology can be offered.

As to the public money, I can readily count up two hundred thousand pounds, of which the Governor was not allow’d to dispose a farthing. The majority of the Commissioners were impowered by law to draw on the Trustees of the Loan office, and the Governor might, or might not consent, it made no difference. But in general the Commissioners have the disposal of all our money, and I think the Assembly appoint the Commissioners, and the Commissioners are Assemblymen, and thus they play into one another’s hands; settle their accounts by ballance of perhaps five hundred or one thousand pounds in the lump, and give one another lucrative posts, as a reward of their mutual assistance in passing such neat and compendious accounts. The Lawyer bids us examine the public accounts, which are yearly published, concerning the disposal of our money: Thus he insults the reader; he might as well have bid us go examine Jacob’s Law dictionary, for he knows that our Assemblies have not found it convenient to give us any account of the public money for several years. The Lawyer further acquaints us, that the Proprietor is accountable for the massacres on our frontiers, because The Assembly has nothing to do with the disposal of the troops. And he is sorry to tell it, That eight hundred troops have been under the sole command of a Proprietary Governor ever since the beginning of the late Indian War. But sorry am I to tell, that the Lawyer himself, and even our Quaker barrack matter, had more influence in disposing of those troops than the Governor. In the beginning of last summer the Governor requested that the Assembly would put it in his power to order the troops to the assistance of Col. Boquet, some gentlemen of the coun-

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  1. The Plain Dealer, Numb. III - 16