11Pennsylvania Assembly: Resolutions on the Appointment of Benjamin Franklin as Agent, [26 October 1764] (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Province of Pennsylvania, Met at Philadelphia [October 15, 1764] (Philadelphia, 1764), p. 15; also MS certified copy of the first resolution: American Philosophical Society. After the reading of the Remonstrance against Franklin’s possible appointment as agent (printed immediately above) on the morning of October 26, the...
12Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 19 November 1755 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1755–1756 (Philadelphia, 1756), p. 30. While the Assembly was considering his amendments to the £60,000 tax and defense bill, Governor Morris asked for emergency funds for protecting the frontier in the interval which would pass before the still-contested appropriation bill could take effect. He also pressed for a bill...
13Pennsylvania Assembly: Instructions to Benjamin Franklin, 31 March 1757 (Franklin Papers)
MS (fragment): American Philosophical Society On March 1, 1757, the Assembly named the same committee (plus William West) that had made the report on the Assembly grievances against the Proprietors “to bring in a Draught of the Instructions of the House to Benjamin Franklin, Esq; one of the Commissioners now about to embark for England.” Two days later they reported a draft and were ordered...
14Pennsylvania Assembly: Representation to the Proprietors, 23 August 1751 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1754–1755 (Philadelphia, 1755), pp. 44–6. To the Honourable Thomas Penn , and Richard Penn , Proprietaries of the Province of Pennsylvania, &c. The Representation of the General - Assembly of the said Province, met at Philadelphia, the Twenty-third Day of the Sixth Month, 1751. May it please the Proprietaries , The first...
15Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 29 October 1756 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1756–1757 (Philadelphia, 1757), pp. 23–4. When the newly elected Assembly met to organize on October 14, Governor Denny informed it that “several weighty Affairs” required their immediate attention: viz., an embargo on food, clothing, and warlike stores to possessions of France; provision for transporting and quartering British...
16Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 12 April 1754 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1753–1754 (Philadelphia, 1754), p. 50. Although the French had begun their advance into the upper Ohio Valley and Governor Hamilton had urged the Assembly to take steps towards defending the western frontier, that Quaker-controlled body had adjourned, March 9, for eight weeks without doing anything effective (see above, p. 259...
17Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 19 March 1755 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1754–1755 (Philadelphia, 1755), pp. 71–2. On December 3, 1754, when the Pennsylvania House had reassembled, Governor Robert Hunter Morris informed them of French advances in the Ohio region and again urged them to take defensive measures. He supported his appeal with several documents, one a letter of July 5, 1754, from Sir...
18Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 17 May 1755 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1754–1755 (Philadelphia, 1755), pp. 94–7. The Assembly met on May 12 pursuant to its adjournment. They voted Franklin their thanks for his services to the army, resolved to defray the costs of the roads being built through Cumberland County to Wills Creek and the Monongahela, paid a few bills, replied to Governor Morris’...
19Pennsylvania Assembly: Address to the Governor, 11 February 1756 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1755–1756 (Philadelphia, 1756), pp. 59–60. On Sept. 19, 1755, Gen. William Shirley had ordered his officers in Pennsylvania “in the Strongest Manner to avoid” enlisting indentured servants: protests against the practice were mounting, and in any case the approach of winter lessened the need to fill the regular regiments. By...
20Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 20 February 1756 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1755–1756 (Philadelphia, 1756), p. 68. Through the winter of 1755–56, Indian attacks along the frontier and negotiations to regain their allegiance took place simultaneously. The Indians were dependent on the white man, and had to choose between the French and English; hence in the face of growing French power, their...
21Pennsylvania Assembly: Instructions to Richard Jackson, 22 September 1764 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1763–1764 (Philadelphia, 1764), pp. 105–6. A quorum of the Assembly gathered on September 11 to begin the short final session before its dissolution. The next day Speaker Franklin laid before the House an extract from the journal of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, June 13, 1764, together with the letter to himself...
22Pennsylvania Assembly: Appointment of Franklin as Agent to Go to England, and His acceptance, [28 January 1757–3 … (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1756–1757 (Philadelphia, 1757), pp. 75, 76, 78. The sequence of events resulting in the appointment of Franklin as agent to represent the Assembly in England in its disputes over the instruction on the taxation of proprietary estates and related grievances is indicated by the following extracts from the Assembly Journals. The...
23Pennsylvania Assembly: Resolves upon the Present Circumstances, [24 March 1764] (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1763–1764 (Philadelphia, 1764), pp. 72–4. As soon as the Assembly had considered on March 10 the governor’s message of the 7th rejecting the £50,000 supply bill and had appointed a committee to bring in a new £55,000 bill, it named a second committee of eight members, including Franklin, “to draw up and bring in certain...
24Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 9 February 1757 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1756–1757 (Philadelphia, 1757), pp. 81–2. Under the quartering act of Dec. 8, 1756, public-house keepers were required to accommodate soldiers billeted on them for 4 d. per diem , a rate at which they lost money though they were subject to fines for refusing billets. They petitioned the Assembly for relief on Jan. 3, 1757, and...
25Pennsylvania Assembly: Message to the Governor, 22 March 1764 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1763–1764 (Philadelphia, 1764), pp. 64–5. The Assembly passed its £50,000 supply bill on February 24 and delivered it to Governor Penn. He held it until March 7 when he sent it back with a message of rejection. It was expressly contrary to the decree of the Privy Council of Sept. 2, 1760, he said, particularly in the following...
26Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 5 August 1755 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1754–1755 (Philadelphia, 1755), p. 121. Meeting on July 25 after receiving news of Braddock’s defeat, the Assembly resolved that £50,000 be granted for defense of the province and that a committee of the whole consider ways and means of raising it. Following adoption on the 29th of resolves to tax “all Estates, Real and...
27Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 15 May 1754 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives, 1753–1754 (Philadelphia, 1754), p. 59. The Pennsylvania Assembly had adjourned twice, on March 9 and again on April 13, without taking action to assist Virginia in the defense of the upper Ohio Valley against the French advance (see above, pp. 229 n, 258). The day after the Assembly met again on May 6, Governor Hamilton informed...
28Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 18 November 1755 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1755–1756 (Philadelphia, 1756), p. 29. After Braddock’s defeat, deteriorating relations with the Indians became one of the most troublesome and pressing concerns of the Pennsylvania authorities and an added source of conflict between the governor and the Assembly. William Penn had established the policy of fair play toward the...
29Pennsylvania Assembly: Address to William Denny, 23 August 1756 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives, 1755–1756 (Philadelphia, 1756), p. 130. The Assembly minutes, August 19, record: “The House being informed, that the Gentleman who is appointed to succeed our present Governor, is now on the Road hither from New-York, and will be in Town some Time To-morrow, Adjourned to Five a Clock To-morrow Afternoon.” In the rush to honor...
30Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 20 January 1764 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1763–1764 (Philadelphia, 1764), pp. 33–4. During the summer and early autumn of 1763 hostile Indians repeatedly attacked isolated settlements and farms on the Pennsylvania frontier, killing many whites, carrying others off into captivity, and driving the rest in terror from their homes to the relatively few garrisoned forts or...
31Pennsylvania Assembly: Petition to the King, [23–26 May 1764] (Franklin Papers)
I. Draft: Library of Congress. II. DS : Public Record Office When on the morning of May 23 the Assembly received and read the second group of the inhabitants’ petitions to the King asking him to assume the government of Pennsylvania, that body voted “by a great Majority” that a committee be appointed “to prepare and bring in the Draft of a Petition to the King from this House, to accompany the...
32Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 11 February 1764 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1763–1764 (Philadelphia, 1764), p. 43. The plan of early January to send the Indians lodged on Province Island to Sir William Johnson for safety had failed because the New York authorities had refused to cooperate. Governor Penn received a letter on Saturday, January 21, from Capt. J. Schlosser of the Royal American Regiment...
33Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 27 June 1755 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives, 1754–1755 (Philadelphia, 1755), p. 110. The Power of calling the Assembly together whenever the Publick Service requires it, in the intermediate Times of their Adjournments, we presume is, and ought to be, lodged in the Governor of this Province; and we do not recollect any Instance in which it has been either disputed or...
34Pennsylvania Assembly: Address to the Governor and Reply to the Governor’s Message, 31 August 1756 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives, 1755–1756 (Philadelphia, 1756), p. 134. In undertaking his responsibilities as governor, Denny summoned the Assembly to the council chamber on August 24 to hear a speech reminding it of his duty to protect the province, of the special responsibility of Pennsylvania in the war, since it had been declared in consequence of French...
35Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 21 August 1751 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1750–1751 (Philadelphia, 1751), p. 82. The Pennsylvania Assembly on October 19, 1750, asked that the Proprietors share the charges arising from Indian treaties. On August 16, 1751, Governor Hamilton reported their refusal. The next day a committee which included Franklin was named to prepare an answer to the governor’s message...
36Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 30 May 1764 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1763–1764 (Philadelphia, 1764), pp. 89–91. The Assembly’s message of May 26 (immediately above) had made clear to Governor Penn and his Council that the assemblymen had no intention of including in the supply bill any formal amendment of the acts of 1759 and 1760. It did include references to the Supply Act of 1760, however,...
37Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 3 December 1755 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives, 1755–1756 (Philadelphia, 1756), p. 52. The Assembly had requested information about an alleged Shawnee complaint, made at the Carlisle conference of 1753, of being cheated in land purchases; and Governor Morris, on November 19, had asked Council members Robert Strettell, Joseph Turner, and Thomas Cadwalader to investigate. Their...
38Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 15 May 1755 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1754–1755 (Philadelphia, 1755), pp. 91–2. Conditions on the ships bringing German immigrants to Pennsylvania were often nothing short of frightful. Eager to come to America, lured by baseless promises of mercenary “soul-sellers,” the redemptioners poured down the Rhine Valley into Rotterdam, where profit-hungry captains packed...
39Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 7 March 1752 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1751–1752 (Philadelphia, 1752), pp. 36–7. The Assembly passed a bill to re-emit and continue in currency the existing bills of credit and to issue an additional £40,000 in paper money; and sent it to Governor Hamilton for approval on Feb. 26, 1752. The governor and Council unanimously disapproved, and Hamilton gave their reason...
40Pennsylvania Assembly: Remonstrance to William Denny, [26 January 1757] (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1756–1757 (Philadelphia, 1757), pp. 73–4. On Nov. 24, 1756, at the Assembly’s request, Governor Denny had submitted an estimate of military expenses in the province for the coming year totaling over £127,000, and on December 15 the House resolved that £100,000 “be granted to His Majesty for the Service of the current Year.”...