20 - Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

Penned as a heartfelt letter to his son, Benjamin Franklins autobiography is not just a chronicle of his life, but also a pioneer in the self-help genre in America. The book is an intriguing blend of personal history and timeless advice on success, beautifully edited by Frank Woodworth Pine (1869-1919). Join us as we delve into Franklins wisdom-filled world. (Summary by Gary)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Chapter nineteen. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Frank Woodward Payne,

(00:21):
chapter nineteen. An agent of Pennsylvania in London, our new governor,
Captain Denny, brought over for me the before mentioned metal
from the Royal Society, which he presented to me at
an entertainment given by the city. He accompanied it with
very polite expressions of his esteem for me, having, as

(00:42):
he said, been long acquainted with my character. After dinner,
when the company, as was customary at that time, were
engaged in drinking, he took me aside into another room
and acquainted me that he had been advised by his
friends in England to cultivate a friendship with me, as
one who was capable of giving him the best advice

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and of contributing most effectually to the making of his
administration easy. That he therefore desired of all things to
have a good understanding with me, and he begged me
to be assured of his readiness on all occasions to
render me every service that might be in his power.
He said much to me also of the proprietor's good

(01:27):
disposition towards the province, and of the advantage it might
be to us all, and to me in particular, if
the opposition that had been so long continued to his
measures was dropped and harmony restored between him and the people,
in effecting which it was thought, no one could be
more serviceable than myself, and I might depend on adequate

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acknowledgments and recompenses, et cetera, et cetera. The drinkers, finding
we did not return immediately to the table, sent us
a decanner of men Dara, which the governor made liberal
use of, and in proportion became more profuse of his
solicitations and promises. My answers were to this purpose, that

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my circumstances, thanks to God, were such as to make
proprietary favors unnecessary to me, and that, being a member
of the Assembly, I could not possibly accept of any that, however,
I had no personal enmity to the proprietary and that
whatever the public measures he proposed should appear to be

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for the good of the people, no one should espouse
and forward them more zealously than myself, my past opposition
having been founded on this, that the measures which had
been urged were evidently intended to serve the proprietary interest
with great prejudice to that of the people, which I
was much obliged to him the Governor, for his profession

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of regard to me, that he might rely on everything
in my power to make his administration as easy as possible,
hoping at the same time that he had not brought
with him the same unfortunate instructions his predecessor had been
hampered with. On this he did not then explain himself,
But when he afterward came to do business with the Assembly,

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they appeared again. The disputes were renewed, and I was
as active as ever in the opposition, being the penman
first of the request to have a communication of the instructions,
and then of the remarks upon them, which may be
found in the votes of the time and in the
historical review I afterward published. But between us personally no

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enmity arose. We were often together. He was a man
of letters, had seen much of the world, and was
very entertaining and pleasing in conversation. He gave me the
first information that my old friend Jason Randolph was still alive,
that he was esteemed one of the best political writers
in England, and been employed in the dispute between Prince

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Frederick and the King, and had obtained a pension of
three hundred a year. That his reputation was indeed small
as a poet, Pope having damned his poetry in the Duncanade,
but his prose was thought as good as any man's.
Begin footnote A quarrel between George's second and his son Frederick,

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Prince of Wales, who died before his father. A satirical
poem by Alexander Pope directed against various contemporary writers, and
a footnote. The Assembly, finally, finding the proprietary obstinately persistent
in menacing their deputies and with instructions inconsistent not only
with the privileges of the people but with the service

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of the Crown, resolved to petition the King against them,
and appointed me their agent to go over to England
to present and support the petition. The House had set
up a bill to the Governor granting a sum of
sixty thousand pounds for the King's use ten thousand pounds,
of which was subject to the orders of the then General,
Lord Laudun, which the Governor absolutely refused to pass. In

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compliance with his instructions. I agreed with Captain Morris of
the Packet at New York for my passage, and my
stores were put on board. When Lord Lowden arrived at Philadelphia,
expressly as he told me, to endeavor an accommodation between
the Governor and the Assembly, that his Majesty's service might
not be obstructed by their dissensions. Accordingly, he desired the

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Governor and myself to meet him, that he might hear
what was to be said on both sides. We met
and discussed the business in behalf of the Assembly. I
urged all various arguments that may be found in the
public papers of that time, which were of my writing
and were printed with the minutes of the Assembly. And
the Governor pleaded his instructions, the bond he had given

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to observe them, and his ruin if he disobeyed, yet
seemed not unwilling to hazard himself if Lord Loudon would
advise it. This his Lordship did not choose to do.
Though I once thought I had nearly prevailed with him
to do it, But finally he rather chose to urge
the compliance of the Assembly, and he entreated me to

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use my endeavors with them for that purpose, declaring that
he would spare none of the King's troops for the
defense of our frontiers, and that if we did not
continue to provide for the defense ourselves, they must remain
exposed to the enemy. I acquainted the House with what
had been passed, and presenting them with a set of

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resolutions I had drawn up declaring our rights, and that
we did not relinquish our claim to those rights, but
only suspended the exercise of them on this occasion through
force against which we protested. They at length agreed to
drop that bill and frame another comfortable to the proprietary instructions. This,
of course, the Governor passed, and I was then at

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liberty to seat on my voyage. But in the meantime
the packet had sailed with my sea stores, which was
some loss to me, and my only recompense was his
Lordship's thanks for my service, all the credit of obtaining
the accommodation falling to his share. He set out for
New York before me, and as the time for despatching
the packet boats was at his disposition, and there were

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two then remaining there, one of which he said was
to sail very soon. I requested to know the precise time,
that I might not miss her by any delay of mine.
His answer was, I have given out that she is
to sail on Saturday next but I may let you
know and through announce that if you are there by
Monday morning, you will be in time. But do not

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delay longer by some accidental hindrance at a ferry. It
was Monday noon before I arrived, and I was much
afraid she might have sailed, as the wind was fair.
But I was soon made easy by the information that
she was still in the harbor and would not move
till the next day. One would imagine that I was
now on the very point of departing for Europe. I

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thought so, but I was not then so well acquainted
with his Lordship's character, of which indecision was one of
the strongest features. I shall give some instances. It was
about the beginning of April that I came to New York,
and I think it was near the end of June
before we sailed. There were then two of the packet boats,
which had been long in port, but were delayed for

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the General's letters, which were always to be ready tomorrow.
Another packet arrived, she too was detained, and before we
sailed a fourth was expected. Ours was the first to
be dispatched, as having been there the longest. Passengers were
engaged in all, and some extremely impatient to be gone,
and the merchants uneasy about their letters and the orders

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they had given for insurance, it being war time for
fall goods, but their anxiety availed nothing. His lordship's letters
were not ready, and yet whoever waited on him found
him always at his desk, pen in hand, and concluded
that he must needs write abundantly. Going myself one morning

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to pay my respects, I found in his ante chamber
one Innis, a messenger of Philadelphia, who had come from
thence express with a packet from Governor Denny for the General.
He delivered to me some letters from my friends there,
which occasioned my inquiry when he was to return, and
where he lodged, that I might send some letters by him.

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He told me he was ordered to call tomorrow at
nine for the General's answer to the Governor, and should
set off immediately I put my letters into his hand.
That same day, a fortnight after, I met him again
in the same place. So you are soon returned, innis returned. No,
I am not gone yet. How so I have called

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here by order every morning these two weeks passed for
his Lordship's letter, and it is not yet ready. Is
it possible when he is so great a writer? For
I see him constantly at his Escritsour yes, says Innes.
But he is like Saint George on the signs, always
on horseback, and never rides on. This observation of the

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messenger was it seems well founded? For when in England
I understood that mister Pitt gave it as one reason
for removing this general and sending General's Amherst and Wolfe,
that the minister never heard from him and could not
know what he was doing again footnote William Pitt, first
Earl of Chatham seventeen o eight seventeen seventy eight, a

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great English statesman and orator. Under his able administration, England
won Canada from France. He was a friend of America
at the time of our revolution and a footnote This
daily expectation of sailing and all the three packets going
down to Sandy Hook to join the fleet. There, the
passengers thought it best to be on board lest by
a sudden order the ship should sail and they be

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left behind. There. If I remember right, we were about
six weeks consuming our sea stores and obliged to procure more.
At length, the fleet sailed the General and all his
army on board, bound to Louisbourg, with the intent to
besiege and take that fortress. All the packet boats and
company ordered to attend the General's ship ready to receive

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his dispatches. When they should be ready. We were out
five days before we got a letter with leave to part,
and then our ship quitted the fleet and steered for England.
The other two packets he still detained, carrying them with
him to Halifax, where he stayed some time to exercise
the men in sham attacks upawn Sham forts. Then altered

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his mind as to besieging Louisbourg, and returned to New
York with all his troops, together with the two packets
of above mentioned and all their passengers. During his absence,
the French and Savages had taken Fort George on the
frontier of that province, and the savage had massacred many
of the garrison. After capitulation. I saw afterwards in London

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Captain Bonnell, who commanded one of those packets. He told
me that when he had been detained a month, he
acquainted his lordship that his ship was grown foul to
a degree that must necessarily hinder her fast sailing, a
point of consequence for a packet boat, and requested an
allowance of time to heave her down and clean her bottom.

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He was asked how long that would require. He answered
three days. The General replied, if you can do it
in one day, I give leave. Otherwise not, for you
must certainly sail the day after tomorrow. So he never
obtained leave, though detained afterwards from day to day during
full three months. I saw also in London one of
Bonnell's passengers, who was so enraged against his lordship for

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deceiving and detaining him so long at New York, and
then carrying him to Halifax and back again, that he
swore he would sue him for damages. Whether he did
or not, I have not heard. As he represented the
injury to his affairs, it was very considerable on the whole,
I wondered much how such a man came to be
intrusted with so important a business as the conduct of

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a great army. But having since seen more of the
great world and the means of obtaining and motives for
giving places, my wonder is diminished. General Shirley, on whom
the command of the army devolved upon the death of Braddock, would,
in my opinion, if continued in place, have made a
much better campaign than that of Lauden in seventeen fifty seven,

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which was frivolous, expensive, and disgraceful to our nation beyond conception.
For though surely was not a bred soldier, he was
sensible and sagacious in himself, and attentive to good advice
from others, capable of forming judicious plan, and quicken active
in carrying them to execution. Loudon, instead of defending the

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colonies with his great army, left them totally exposed while
he paraded idly at Halifax, by which means Fort George
was lost. Besides, he deranged all our mercantile operations and
distressed our trade by a long embargo on the exportation
of provisions, on pretense of keeping supplies from being obtained
by the enemy, but in reality for beating down their

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price in favor of the contractors, in whose profits, it
was said, perhaps from suspicion, only he had a share.
And when at length the embargo was taken off, by
neglecting to send notice of it to Charlestown, the Carolina
fleet was detained near three months longer, whereby their bottoms
were so much damaged by the worm that a great

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part of them foundered in their passage home again footnote.
This relation illustrates the corruption that characterized English public life
in the eighteenth century. It was gradually overcome in the
early part of the next century. In footnote surely was
I believe sincerely glad of being relieved from s so
burdensome a charge as the conduct of an army must

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be to a man unacquainted with military business. I was
at the entertainment given by the City of New York
to Lord Lowden on his taking upon him the command. Surely,
though thereby superseded, was present. Also there was a great
company of officers, citizens and strangers, and some chairs having
been borrowed in the neighborhood. There was one among them,

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very low, which fell to the lot of mister Shirley.
Perceiving it as I sat by him, I said, have
they given you, sir, too low a seat? No matter,
says he, Mister Franklin, I find a low seat the easiest.
While I was, as aforementioned, detained at New York, I
received all the accounts of my provisions, et cetera that

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I had furnished to Braddock, some of which accounts could
not sooner be obtained from the different persons I had
employed to assist in the business. I presented them to
Lord Loudon, desiring to be paid the balance. He caused
them to be regularly examined by the proper Officer, who,
after comparing every article with its voucher, certified them to
be right, and the balance due for which his Lordship

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promised to give me an order on the pay master.
This was, however, put off from time to time, and
though I called often for it by appointment, I did
not get it at length. Just before my departure he
told me he had, on better consideration, concluded not to
mix his accounts with those of his predecessor. And you,
says he, when in England, have only to exhibit your

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accounts at the Treasury, and you will be paid immediately.
I mentioned, but without effect, the great and unexpected expense
I had been put to by being detained so long
in New York, as a reason for my desiring to
be presently paid, and on my observing that it was
not right I should be put to any further trouble
or delay in obtaining the money I had advanced. As

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I charged no commission for my service, Sir says he,
you must not think of persuading us that you are
no gainer. We understand better those affairs and know that
every one concerned in supplying the army finds means in
the doing it to fill his own pockets. I assured
him that was not my case, and that I had

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not pocketed a farthing, But he appeared clearly not to
believe me, and indeed I have since learnt that immense
fortunes are often made in such employments. As to my balance,
I am not paid it to this day, of which
more hereafter our captain of the packet had boasted much
before we sailed of the swiftness of his ship. Unfortunately,

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when we came to the sea, she proved the dullest
of ninety six sail to his no small mortifications. After
many conjectures respecting the cause, when we were near another
ship almost as dull as ours, which however, gained upon us,
the captain ordered all hands to come off and stand
as near the instance daft as possible. We were passengers,

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included about forty persons. While we stood there, the ship
mended her pace and soon left her neighbor far beyond,
which proved clearly that our captain suspected that she was
loaded too much by the head. The casks of water,
it seemed, had been all placed forward. These were therefore
ordered to be moved further aft, on which the ship

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recovered her character and proved the best sailor in the fleet.
The captain said he had once gone at the rate
of thirteen knots, which is accounted thirteen miles per hour.
We had on board as a passenger Captain Kennedy of
the Navy, who contended that it was impossible, and that
no ship ever sailed so fast, and that there must

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have been some error in the division of the log
line or some mistake in heaving the log A wager
ensued between the two captains, to be decided when there
should be sufficient wind Kennedy thereupon examined rigorously the log line,
and being satisfied with it, he determined to throw the
log himself accordingly. Some days after, when the wind blew

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very fair and fresh, and the captain of the packet, Ludwig,
said he believed she then went at the rate of
thirteen knots, Kennedy made the experiment and owed his wage
lost ken Footnote. A log line is a piece of wood,
shaped and weighted so as to keep it stable within
the water. To this is attached a line not at

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regular distances. By these devices it is possible to tell
the speed of a ship. And footnote. The above fact
I give for the sake of the following observation. It
has been remarked as an imperfection in the art of shipbuilding,
that it can never be known till she has tried
whether a new ship will or will not be a
good sailor, for that the model of a good sailing

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ship has been exactly followed in a new one, which
has proved on the contrary remarkably dull. I apprehend that
this may hardly be occasioned by the different opinions of
seamen respecting the modes of lading, rigging, and sailing of
a ship. Each has his system, and the same vessel,
laden by the judgment and orders of one captain, shall

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sail better or worse than when by the orders of another. Besides,
it scarce ever, happens that a ship is formed, fitted
for the sea, and sailed by the same person. One
man builds the hull, another rigs her, third lads and
sails her. No one of these has the advantage of
knowing all the ideas and experience of the others, and

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therefore cannot draw just conclusions from a combination of the whole.
Even in the simple operation of sailing. When at sea,
I have often observed different judgments in the officers who
commanded the successive watches, the wind being the same, one
would have the sails trimmed, sharper or flatter than another,
so that they seemed to have no certain rule to

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govern by. Yet I think a set of experiments might
be instituted, first to determine the most proper for one
form of the hall for swift sailing, the best dimensions
and properest place for the masts. Then the form and
quantity of sails and their position as the wind may be.
And lastly the disposition of the lading. This is an

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age of experiments, and I think a set of accurately
made and combined would be of great use. I am
persuaded therefore that ere long some ingenious philosopher will undertake it,
to whom I wish success. We were several times chased
in our passage, but outsailed everything, and in thirty days
had soundings. We had a good observation, and the captain

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judged himself so near to our port Falmouth, that if
we made a good run in the night, we might
be off the mouth of that harbor in the morning,
and by running in that night might escape the notice
of the enemy's privateers, who often cruised near the entrance
of the channel. Accordingly, all the sail was set that
we could possibly make, and in being very fresh and fair,

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who went right before it and made great way. The captain,
after his observation, shaped his course as he thought, so
as to pass wide of the shilly isles. But it
seems there is sometimes a strong in draft setting up
Saint George's Channel, which deceives seamen and caused the loss
of Sir Cloudsley Shovel's squadron. This in draft was probably

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the cause of what happened to us. We had a
watchman placed on the bow, to whom they often called
look well out before thee and he as often answered
I I, but perhaps had his eyes shut and was
half asleep at the time they sometimes answering, as is
said mechanically, for he did not see a light just

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before us, which had been hid by the stubbing sails
from the man at the helm and from the rest
of the watch But by an accidental yaw of the
ship was discovered and occasioned a great alarm, we being
very near it, the light appearing to me as big
as a cart wheel. It was midnight, and our captain

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fast asleep. But Captain Kennedy jumped upon deck, and, seeing
the danger, ordered the ship to wear round all sails standing,
an operation dangerous to the masts, but it carried us
clear and we escaped shipwreck, for we were running right
upon the rocks on which the lighthouse was erected. Thus
deliverance impressed me strongly with the utility of lighthouses, and

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made me resolve to encourage the building more of them
in America, if I should live to return there. In
the morning, it was found by the soundings et cetera,
that we were near our port, but a thick fog
hid the land from our sight. About nine o'clock the
fog began to rise and seemed to be lifted up
from the water like a curtain at a playhouse. Discovering

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underneath the town of Falmouth, the vessels in its harbor,
and the fields that surrounded it, there was a most
pleasing spectacle to those who had been so long without
any other prospects than the uniform view of a vacant ocean,
and it gave us the more pleasure, as we were
now free from the anxieties which the state of war occasioned.

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I set out immediately with my son for London, and
we only stopped a little by the way to view
Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, and Lord Pembroke's house and the
gardens with his very curious antiques at Wilton. We arrived
in London the twenty seventh of July seventeen fifty seven.

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As soon as I was settled in a lodging mister
Charles had provided for me, I went to visit Doctor Fothergill,
to whom I was strongly recommended, and whose council, respecting
my proceedings, I was advised to obtain. He was against
an immediate complaint to government, and thought the proprietaries should
first be personally applied to, who might possibly be induced

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by the interposition and persuasion of some private friends, to
accommodate matters amicably. I then waited on my old friend
and correspondent, mister Peter Collinson, who told me that John Halsbury,
the great Virginia Merchant, had requested to be informed when
I should arrive, that he might carry me to Lord Granville's,
who was then President of the Council, and wished to

(25:25):
see me as soon as possible. I agreed to go
with him the next morning. Accordingly, mister Hansbury called for
me and took me in his carriage to the Nobleman's,
who received me with great civility, and, after some questions
respecting the present state of affairs in America and discourse thereupon,
he said to me, you Americans have wrong ideas of

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the nature of your constitution. You contend that the King's
instructions to his governors are not laws, and think yourselves
at liberty to regard or disregard them at your own discretion.
But those in strucuctions are not like the pocket instructions
given to a minister going abroad for regulating his conduct
in some trifling point of ceremony. They are first drawn

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up by judges learned in the laws. They are considered debated,
and perhaps amended in council, after which they are signed
by the King. They are then, so far as they
relate to you, the law of the land, for the
King is the legislator of the colonies. I told his
lordship that this was new doctrine to me. I had
always understood from our charters that our laws were to

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be made by our assemblies to present it, indeed to
the King for his royal assent. But being once given,
the King could not repeal or alter them. And as
the assemblies could not make permanent laws without his assent,
so neither could he make a law for them without theirs.
He assured me, I was totally mistaken. I did not
think so, however, and his Lordship's conversation, having a little

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alarmed me as to what might be the sentiments of
the court concerning us. I wrote it down as soon
as I returned to my lodgings, I recollected that, about
twenty years before, a clause in a bill brought into
Parliament by the Ministry had proposed to make the King's
instructions laws in the colonies. But the clause was thrown
out by the Commons, for which we adored them as

(27:19):
our friends and friends of liberty, till by their conduct
towards us in seventeen sixty five it seemed that they
had refused that point of sovereignty to the King, only
that they might reserve it for themselves again footnote. This
whole passage shows how hopelessly divergent were the English and
American views on the relations between the mother country and

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her colonies. Grenville here made clear that the Americans were
to have no voice in making or amending their laws.
Parliament and the King were to have absolute power over
the colonies. No wonder Franklin was alarmed by this new doctrine.
With his keen insight into human nature and his consequent
knowledge of American character, he foresaw the inevitable result of

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such an attitude on the part of England. His conversation
with Granville makes these last pages of the autobiography, one
of his most important parts. After some days, Doctor Fothergill,
having spoken to the proprietaries, they agreed to a meeting
with me at mister T. Penn's house in spring Garden.

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The conversation at first consisted of mutual declarations of disposition
to reasonable accommodations, but I supposed each party had his
own ideas what should be meant by reasonable. We then
went into consideration of our several points of complaint, which
I enumerated. The proprietaries justified their conduct as well as

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they could, and I the assemblies. We now appeared very
wide and in so far from each other in our
opinions as to discourage all hope of agreement. However, it
was concluded that I should give them the heads of
our complaints in writing, and they promised then to consider them.
I did soon after, but they put the paper into

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the hands of their solicitor, Ferdinand John Parris, who managed
for them all their law business in their great suit
with the neighboring proprietary of Maryland, Lord Baltimore, which had
subsisted seventy years, and wrote for them all their papers
and messages in their dispute with the Assembly. He was

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a proud angry man, and, as I had occasionally in
answers of the Assembly, treated his papers with some severity,
they being really weak in point of argument and haughty
in expression, he had conceived a mortal enmity to me, which,
discovering itself, whenever we met, I declined the proprietary's proposal

(29:51):
that he and I should discuss the heads of complaint
between our two selves, and refused treating with anyone but them.
They then, by his wad advice, put the paper into
the hands of the Attorney and Solicitor General for their opinion,
and council upon it, where it lay unanswered a year,
wanting eight days, during which time I made frequent demands

(30:13):
of an answer from the proprietaries, but without obtaining any
other than that they had not yet received the opinion
of the Attorney and Solicitor General. What it was when
they received it I never learned, for they did not
communicate it to me, but sent a long message to
the Assembly, drawn and signed by Paris, reciting my paper,

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complaining of its want of formality as a rudeness on
my part, and giving a flimsy justification of their conduct,
adding that they should be willing to accommodate matters if
the Assembly would send out some person of candor to
treat with them for that purpose. Intimating whereby that I
was not such want of formality or rudeness, was probably

(30:57):
my not having addressed the papers to them with the
assumed titles of true and absolute proprietaries of the Province
of Pennsylvania, which I omitted this, not thinking it necessary
in a paper, the intention of which was only to
reduce to a certainty by writing what in conversation I
had delivered vivivosa. But during this delay, the Assembly having

(31:20):
prevailed with Governor Denny, to pass an act taxing the
proprietary estate in common with the estates of the people,
which was the grand point in dispute, they omitted, answering
the message. When this act, however, came over, the proprietaries,
counseled by Paris, determined to oppose its receiving the royal assent. Accordingly,
they petitioned the King in Council, and a hearing was appointed,

(31:43):
in which two lawyers were employed by them against the
act and to by me in support of it. They
alleged that the act was intended to load the proprietary
estate in order to spare those of the people, and
that if it were suffered to continue in force, and
the proprietaries, who were in odium with the people, left
to their mercy in purporting the taxes, they would inevitably

(32:07):
be ruined. We replied that the act had no such
intention and would have no such effect, that the assessors
were honest and discreet men under an oath to us
as fairly and equitably, and that any advantage each of
them might expect in lessening his own tax by augmenting
that of the proprietaries was too trifling to induce them

(32:28):
to perjure themselves. This is the purport of what I
remember as urged by both sides, except that we insisted
strongly on the mischievous consequences that must attend a repeal,
For that the money one hundred thousand pounds being printed
and given to the king's use, expended in his service,

(32:50):
and now spread among the people, the repeal would strike
it dead in their hands, to the ruin of many,
and the total discouragement of future grants, and the selfieishness
of the proprietaries in soliciting such a general catastrophe merely
from a groundless fear of their estate being taxed too
highly was insisted upon in the strongest terms. On this

(33:12):
Lord Mansfield. One of the Council rose and beckoning me,
took me into the clerk's chamber while the lawyers were pleading,
and asked me if I was really of the opinion
that no injury would be done the proprietary estate in
the execution of the Act. I said, certainly, then, says
he you can have little objection to enter into an

(33:34):
engagement to assure that point. I answered none at all.
He then called in Paris, and after some discourse, his
Lordship's proposition was accepted on both sides. A paper to
the purpose was drawn up by the Clerk of the Council,
which I signed with mister Charles, who was also an
agent of the province for their ordinary affairs. When Lord

(33:57):
Mansfield returned to the council chamber, where finally the law
was allowed to pass. Some changes were, however, recommended, and
we also engaged they should be made by a subsequent law,
but the Assembly did not think them necessary, for one
year's tax having been levied by the Act before the
order of the Council arrived, they appointed a committee to

(34:19):
examine the proceedings of the assessors, and on this committee
they put several particular friends of the proprietaries. After a
full inquiry, they unanimously signed a report that they found
the tax had been assessed with perfect equity. The Assembly
looked into my entering into the first part of the
engagement as an essential service to the province, since it

(34:41):
secured the credit of the paper money then spread over
all the country. They gave me their thanks in form
when I returned. But the proprietaries were enraged at Governor
Denny for having passed the act, and turned him out
with threats of suing him for breach of instructions which
he had given bond to observe. He, however, having done

(35:01):
it at the insistence of the General and for his
Majesty's service, and having some powerful interest at court, despised
the threats, and they were never put in execution. Unfinished
end of Chapter nineteen