The House, upon Review of the Messages that have passed between your Honour and them, concerning the Money Bill, beg Leave to declare, that they had the sincerest Desire to comply with the Requisitions of His Majesty’s General, and therefore immediately, at your Honour’s Instance, voted the Number of Men required, and the Sum necessary to raise, cloathe and pay them; and are sorry they should be obliged to say, that the Delays and Difficulties they have met with in compleating a Bill to carry that Vote in Execution, have arisen wholly from the Intervening of Proprietary Interests and Instructions, which your Honour, who are “no Stranger to the long Disputes and Differences that unhappily subsisted, for many Years, between the two Branches of the Legislature, on Bills of the Like Nature,” Must know were ever the great and sole Obstruction to His Majesty’s Service in this Province.

To prevent a Revival of those Dispute’s, the House have, in the present Bill, complied, to the Best of their Understanding, with the Opinion of the Lords of the Commitee, approved by this Late Majesty, respecting our Supply Bills, and therefore had the Greatest Reason to hope that no Objection could now arise to its Passage.

But your Honour is pleased to refuse your Assent to the Bill, unless in two of the six Alterations proposed by their Lordships, the very Terms by them made use of in their Report are inserted in the Bill, Alledging that you cannot in Duty deviate from them.

Such a Reason for not passing this Bill appears the more extraordinary to us, as the six Articles in that Report are evidently Heads only of proposed Amendments, and do not appear to be ever intended as formed Clauses, the very Words of which were to be inserted in our future Supply Bills.

For Instances, one is, “That the real Estates to be taxed be defined with Precision, so as not to include the unsurveyed waste Lands belonging to the Proprietaries.” Can it be thought that these Words ought to make a Part of the Bill? Another is, “That the Governor’s Consent and Approbation be made necessary to every Issue and Application of the Money to be raised by Virtue of such Act.” Another, “That Provincial Commissioners be named to hear and determined Appeals brought on the part of the Inhabitants, as well as of the Proprietaries.” Another, “That the Payments by the Tenants to the Proprietaries of their Rents, shall be according to the Terms of their respective Grants, as if such Acts had never been passed.” All these appeared to us to be merely Heads of Provisions to be made in the Bill, and the Provisions are accordingly made, though in very different Words, but such as fully and particularly express the same Meaning: Thus the last, “That the Payments by the Tenants to the Proprietaries of their Rents, shall be according to the Terms of their respective Grants, as if such Act had never been passed,” is provided for in the Clause that makes the Paper Money a Legal Tender in all Payments whatsoever, by adding these Words, “the sterling Rents due, or to become due, to the Proprietaries of this Province only expected;” which Words we conceived would effectually answer that Purpose. And these Changes your Honour has not disapproved. If the “very Terms” of the Order in Council are so sacred that they must be made use of, and no other, and your Honour cannot in Duty deviate from them, the House are at a Loss to account for your agreeing to all those Alterations, and particularly to the latter, without the least Objection.

Their lordships Words, relating to the Points now under Consideration, are these:

“That the located uncultivated Lands belonging to the Proprietaries, shall not be assessed higher than the lowest Rate at which any located uncultivated Lands belonging to the Inhabitants shall be assessed.” And, “That all Lands not granted by the Proprietaries within Boroughs and Towns, be deemed located uncultivated Lands, and rated accordingly, and not as Lots.”

Those Provisions in our Bill are thus expressed, viz.

And be it further enacted and provided nevertheless, that the located uncultivated Lands belonging to the Proprietaries of this Province shall not, by Virtue of this Act, be assessed higher than the lowest Rate at which any located uncultivated Lands belonging to the Inhabitants thereof, under the same Circumstances of Situation, Kind and Quality, shall be assessed; and that all Lands not granted by the Proprietaries within Boroughs and Towns, be deemed located and uncultivated Lands, and rated accordingly, any Thing in this Act to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding.

We thought, may it please your Honour, that we had herein expressed the true Intention of those two Articles; but you have been pleased to let us know that you think otherwise, and that, in your Opinion, “the Words made use of in those Articles convey a meaning very different from the Provisions made respecting these Matters in the present Bill.” We then, by a Message, requested your Honour would be pleased to acquaint us, what Meaning you conceive they do convey. This you have refused. We then endeavoured to conjecture, from the former Tenor of Proprietary Measures, what Sense your Honour might possibly be willing to understand them in; and by another Message, after setting forth, that as your Honour and the House Differed in their Opinion of the Meaning of those Articles, it was very probable the Commissioners and Assessors of the Several Counties, who were to execute the Act, Might, if the same Terms only were used, differ likewise in their Opinion, and thence differ in the modes of Taxation, we requested you would be pleased to acquaint us, whether you understood the Meaning to be, that the best and most valuable of the Proprietaries Lands and Lots, should be taxed no higher than the worst and least valuable of The Lands belonging to the People? This your Honour has been pleased neither to own nor deny; but continue to insist, that the Words of those Articles are so clear and explicit, that any Additions to them will rather tend to perplex than explain them; and therefore urge us again to put them, and no others, in the Bill.

We beg your Honour would be pleased to reflect for a Moment, how absurd it would be for the two Branches of the Legislature to agree to pass an Act in terms which both of them have, in public Messages, declared beforehand that they understand very differently; and particularly, how extremely wrong in the Assembly, when the other Branch, the Executive, will not declare what it understands by those Terms, but reserves that till the Law shall come to be executed.

Under these Circumstances it is impossible for us to use, in this Bill, the Terms unexplained, which your Honour insists upon.

We do therefore unanimously adhere to our Bill, and once more earnestly request your Honour would be pleased to pass the same without further Delay, as His Majesty’s Service, and the present deplorable Circumstances of the Frontiers, require its being carried into immediate Execution. Signed by Order of the House,