In our Magazine, Vol. xxv. p. 87 [487]. Vol. xxvi. p. 28. we have given a very particular account of the disputes between the assembly of Pennsylvania and the late Governor Morris, which had exactly the same cause, and produced exactly the same effects, as the late dispute between this Assembly and Mr. Denny.

The acting governor, who is only lieutenant governor, besides the royal instructions, receives instructions from the proprietaries. By these proprietary instructions the governor is required not to pass any bill for taxing their quit rents, their located unimproved lands, and their purchase money at interest, but the assembly have ever been determined to frame no money bill, in which these quit rents, lands, and money shall be exempted, for the following reasons.

1st, Because they conceive that neither the proprietaries nor any other power on earth, ought to interfere between them and their sovereign, either to modify or refuse their free gifts, and grants for his majesty’s service.

2d, Because though the governor may be under obligation to the proprietaries, yet he is under greater to the crown, and to the people he is appointed to govern, to promote the service of his majesty, and preserve the rights of his subjects, and protect them from their cruel enemies.

3d. Because a tax laid comformable to the proprietary instructions, could not possibly produce the necessary supply. By these instructions all the proprietors estate, except a trifle, and all located unimproved lands, to whomsoever belonging, are to be exempted. There remains then to be taxed, only the improved lands, houses, and personal estates of the people. Now it is well known, from the tax books, that there are not in the province more than 20,000 houses, including those of the towns with those on plantations. If these, with the improved lands annexed to them, and the personal estate of those that inhabit them, are worth, one with another, £250 each, it may, we think, be reckoned their full value; then multiply 20,000 the number of houses, by £250 the value of each estate, and the produce is £5,000,000 for the full value of all our estates, real and personal, the unimproved lands excepted. Now three per cent. on five millions is but one hundred and fifty thousand pounds; and four shillings in the pound on one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, being but a fifth part, is no more than thirty thousand pounds; so that we ought to have near seventeen millions to produce, by such a tax, one hundred thousand pounds.

4th. Because the bill which they have prepared, without the exceptions required in the proprietaries instructions, is exactly conformable to an act lately passed by a former governor, and allowed by the crown.

It is indeed matter of equal astonishment and concern, that in this time of danger and distress, when the utmost unanimity and dispatch is necessary to the preservation of life, liberty, and estate, a governor should be sent to our colonies with such instructions as must inevitably produce endless dispute and delay, and prevent the assembly from effectually opposing the French upon any other condition, than the giving up their rights as Englishmen.

The assembly, indeed, have been stigmatized as obstinate, fanatical, and disaffected; and reproached as the authors of every calamity under which they suffer. A paragraph in one of the public papers, which lately echoed the charge that has been long urged against them, has been answered by Mr. William Franklin of Philadelphia, who is now in England. We shall insert the paragraph and reply at large, as we cannot exhibit any other representation with equal authority.