In my last I mentioned the petition of the ruffians who lately made me their prisoner, and that I enclosed it to Council; but forgot to do it, being hurried by the bearer of it, when I sealed that and the other letters transmitted with it. I beg leave now to enclose that petition. It may be worth preserving as evidence against the Petitioners, if it answers no other purpose.

By Mr. Hodgdon I received several advertisements, in which Council offer rewards for apprehending the villains concerned in that act of violence. I sent immediately for two active young men in whom I could confide, and engaged them to make up a party to go in quest of the offenders; and I have reason to think they might have succeeded, could the enterprize have been kept a secret; but the villains have too many abettors among those who are, or pretend to be, friends to law and regular government; and unfortunately also, the offer of the rewards was announced in the News papers printed as early as the 14th instant; and Mr. Hodgdon did not arrive till the 20th: and thus an expedition, the success of which depended on secresy has in the first attempt failed. The majority of the party, however, yet persevere, and mean to pursue the offenders as long as any chance of apprehending them remains. I have pretty certain intelligence that five of them have fled by the upper road thro’ the great swamp; and these will doubtless take refuge in the states of New-York and Connecticut. Their names, as far as I can learn them, are Daniel Earl (the other person who offered to turn State’s evidence) Solomon Earl, Daniel Taylor and Zebulon Cady.

The County Lieutenant has shown me a letter from Council which was brought up by Mr. Hodgdon. I read it with pain, because it indicated, a continuance of that extreme forbearance and indecision of government which have been the bane of every public measure to introduce the regular and full operation of law into this county. I hope Council will pardon this freedom of expression. My exertions to establish the aughority of the State in this settlement have been constant and open. They have consequently exposed me to the resentments of an ungrateful people: but expecting a due support from government, I have perseverd. Even my late ignominious imprisonment did not discourage me. Distressing as it was to me and my family, I did repine: For I consoled myself with the idea, that much public good would result from the evil: I persuaded myself that Government would now take decisive measures to produce a due submission to the laws; one is to send and station here a permanent military force, under a brave, sensible, and prudent officer. Nothing else will still the murmurs and prevent or crush the plots and conspiracies, or restrain the open violence of a trubulent unreasonably jealous people. Even among the old settlers, there appear to be few who do not anxiously wish for Franklin’s liberation. This violent attachment I have often wondered at. It cannot be merely the effect of friendship, affection and gratitude. The consideration of interest will alone solve the problem. The half share-men have derived their imaginary property thro’ Franklin, and by him only, released from prison, and placed at their head, they expect to maintain it. But besides these, who are called half-share men in the strictest sense of the phrase, there is a multitude of the old settlers to whom Franklin had the policy to grant half-share rights, to interest them in the support of his plan of opposition to Pennsylvania. But independently of the influence of these grants of half-share-rights, the old settlers, habitually jealous of the Government, and doubting whether their old rights of possession will ever be confirmed, ardently wish for Franklin’s enlargement; because, with him at their head, they may hope yet to maintain, by craft and violence, what cannot otherwise be secured. However, whether I have hit on the real cause of the people’s attachment to Franklin or not, that it is strong to an astonishing degree, and almost as general as it is strong, are serious truths.

The other measure is the confirmation of the old settlers in their rights and possession regularly acquired before the decree of Trenton, according to the tenour of the confirming law, now suspended or in    other way at least equally comprehensive. This confirming law, whether revived or not added to their other grounds of claim, it is supposed will effectually operate in a federal court to assure to this people all the land therein expressed to be given, or confirmed. And there can be no question, which will be most for the honour of the state voluntarily to establish its own grants, or to let them be established by a federal court. That their old possessions should be confirmed seems to be the general voice of all who have any knowledge of the subject. The very commissioners who passed     in favour of Pennsylvania, at the same time strongly recommended this confirmation. And such confirmation alone at that time, it is morally certain, would have given satisfaction, not a man would have lifted his voice, much less his arm, against government. Peace would have been restored, the laws introduced, and with these blessings, some thousands of orderly settlers, who would now have been good citizens, enriching the state with the surplus of their produce, and by the payment of taxes, contributing to its support. The opportunity of taking this measure, so prudent and so expedient, having been lost; and such various proceedings and events as are within the knowledge of council having since taken place, something more seems necessary now to secure the quiet of the county; and I must venture to say that nothing short of the mwasures above mentioned will produce that salutary effect.

I have dared, sir, thus freely to express my sentiments form a consideration of the duty I owe to the state, and a feeling sense of the duty I owe to myself and family. My coming hither was not originally an affair of my own seeking: It was proposed to me, it was urged upon me, on the ground of probability that I might be the instrument of giving peace and satisfaction to this settlement, and save the State from the expence of blood and money in a civil war. On this ground I applied for the office Government have been pleased to confer upon me: expecting, it is true, that those offices, joined to the convenience of managing to more advantage the lands I had taken up in the county under the state, would ultimately compensate for the difficulties I should have to encounter in effecting so desirable an issue of this inveterate dispute. I have now too much reason to repent the confidence with which I engaged in the undertaking. What have been the repeated distresses of myself and family, and what losses I must have sustained, Government can easily imagine. Whether these distresses shall be renewed, and whether I shall finally be ruined, God knows: The measures which Government shall now adopt, will probably determine my fate, and the fate of the county. I have the honour to be &c.