Papers from the Election Campaign, 1764 (II)
Broadside: Evans Microprint Edition, 9854, reproduced from an original in University of Pennsylvania Library.
To the Freeholders and other Electors for the City and County of Philadelphia, and Counties of Chester and Bucks.
Gentlemen,

The first of October, 1764, being the anniversary Day for electing Members of Assembly, &c. That great and important Day, big with the Fate of your Country. You will therefore deliberately determine, whether you will chuse for Representatives, those honest and firm Freemen who have faithfully served you a great Number of Years; whether you will refuse to be advised by your old Friends, and turn out those zealous Supporters of your Rights and Privileges, or whether you will adopt the Measures of P————y Officers, and their Tools, and make an almost total Change of the late Members of Assembly; for it seems these Enemies to your Welfare propose to have but three of the old Members continued. As there are two Parties, we find that each of them, to gain your Votes and Interest, profess a zealous Concern for the preservation of the Rights and Privileges of the good People of this Province. It is therefore incumbent on us, as your faithful Friends, to give you an Account of the Conduct and present Views of the Party for the new Ticket, that you may judge for yourselves, and not be deceived. Let us then intreat you to review for a Moment, their former Transactions.

Among them you will find, almost to a Man, the People that opposed the Friends of the Constitution, when they in a peaceable Manner came to vote at the Knock down Election, in the year 1742, by encouraging an armed Mob, whom they afterwards, in the Face of the Inhabitants of this City, screen’d from Punishment, altho’ they had knock’d down and wounded many of the worthiest Men of this Province, whose Lives were from thence in great Danger.

The same Men who encouraged the wantonly inlisting and robbing you of your Servants, in the two last Wars, and billeting Soldiers on private Houses, are all for the new Ticket.

The same Men who have left no Stone unturned to blacken and abuse the former Assemblies, for the noble stand they made, in contending that the Proprietaries Estate should be tax’d in the same just and equal Manner with those of the Peoples, are to a Man for the new Ticket.

The same Men who to recommend themselves to the P————rs, by screening their enormous Estates from being taxed by a Law, meanly offer’d to pay their Tax out of their own Pockets, these are all of them for the new Ticket.

The same great Men, and their Creatures, who have been of late Years continually using their Interest and Arguments against our having Paper Money continued to us, and that you shou’d pay more of it to them for one Shilling Sterling Money, that to other People, are all of them for the new Ticket.

The same Men who supported the P————s in the iniquitous Scheme of getting one Hundred Thousand Pounds of Paper Money, condemned by the King in Council, in your Hands, that you might be deprived of so much of your Property, and thereby be the more easily reduced to P————y Slavery, which would have been done, had not your worthy Agent Benjamin Franklin, Esq; averted the fatal Blow, by pledging his own Fortune to indemnify the P————s from an ill-grounded Suspicion of Injustice, said to be intended by you against them.—All these Men are for the new Ticket.

The same Men who advocated and palliated the horrid Crimes of the Paxton Rioters, murdering in cool Blood, the Indians at Conestogo Manor, and at Lancaster, and in their marching to this City, all are to a Man for the new Ticket.

Those who contend that without any regard to their Numbers, or the Proportion of the publick Tax they pay, each of the back Counties, should have as many Members to represent them as either of the three old populous and wealthy Counties of Philadelphia, Bucks and Chester,—these are to a Man for the new Ticket.

The People holding Commissions of all Sorts, depending on the mere Will and Pleasure of the P————s, from the C— J— down to the Nine-penny Justice, a few upright worthy Souls excepted, whose Spirits cannot brook being the despicable Tools to the Party, some of whom have even by S——h and Al—ss—n had Hints of the Loss of their Commissions, for refusing to do as they bid them, while those irreverend Gentlemen have behaved as if they had Commissions of the Peace at their Command, as much as they have Marriage Licenses;—all these Men are for the new Ticket.

Parson S——h, and his Supporters, who wrote the Brief State, and Brief View Pamphlets, published in London some Years ago, blackening the Characters of you and your Representatives, in the most impudent and base Manner, in order to deprive you of your Privileges and aggrandize the Proprietaries on your Ruin, all these are for the new Ticket.

The Corporation of the City of Philadelphia, from the M—y—r down to the lowest Common Council Man (a few worthy Souls excepted) are none of them chose by the Freeholders of the City, but are generally by Directions of some great Man or Men, whom we have before pointed out. They are elected chiefly to answer the Purpose of constantly opposing the Rights and Privileges of you and your Representatives; wherefore they are become so despicable and odious to their Fellow Citizens, to whom they never account for the large Sums they raise by Rent of the Market Stalls, Ferries, free Wharffs, Vendue Master’s Place, &c.—a Revenue of at least three Thousand Pounds a Year—that they are convinced the Electors in this City, who know them, will not take their Tickets, and therefore ’tis on you that they expect to impose them. —Of these Men beware,—as they are all Enemies to the old Assembly, and to a Man are for the new Ticket.

The P————y Officers have kept the Land-Office shut, to the great Injury of the industrious Farmer, while they, and certain great Men and their Dependents, have taken up prodigious large Tracts of the best Land; some of which they have immediately sold, at very exhorbitant Rates, and by their baseness and Injustice, have prevented the quick Settlement of the Province, and compell’d Thousands of Families to settle in other Places.—Beware therefore of these Engrossers, for they are all for the new Ticket.

[The paper goes on, at almost the same length again, to list and describe some of the views of the supporters of the “new Ticket” and some of the measures they plan to get enacted if they win control of the next Assembly. The writer specifically mentions schemes of general injustice and others prejudicial to the people of the city and the three oldest counties.]

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