Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1750–1751 (Philadelphia, 1751), pp. 80–1. In Obedience to the Order of the House, we have view’d the River Schuylkill, and sounded the Depths, and try’d the Bottom in several Places from Peters’s Island, near the Ford, down to John Bartram’s, below the Lower Ferry, and are of Opinion, that the most convenient Place for a Bridge...
2Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on Expenses for Indian Affairs, 22 August 1751 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1750–1751 (Philadelphia, 1751), pp. 83–5. In Pursuance of the Order of the House, we have examined the Journals of the Proceedings of the Assemblies of this Province, on what relates to the Charges of Treaties and other Affairs with the Indians, by which we find, That the Expences on these Occasions were very inconsiderable,...
3Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on the State of the Currency, 19 August 1752 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1751–1752 (Philadelphia, 1752), pp. 51–4. On March 11 the Assembly resumed consideration of Governor Hamilton’s refusal to assent to a bill for striking £20,000 in paper currency (see above, p. 272); they then ordered that Evan Morgan, Franklin, Richard Walker, George Ashbridge, James Wright, and John Wright “be a Committee to...
4Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on Suspending Clause in Legislation, 3 September 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1752–1753 (Philadelphia, 1753), pp. 34–7. On September 1, 1753, the House appointed Evan Morgan, Franklin, Hugh Roberts, Mahlon Kirkbride, George Ashbridge, Peter Worrall, David McConnaughy, Joseph Armstrong, Moses Starr, and James Burnside a committee to consider the clause which Governor Hamilton insisted upon in his message...
5Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on the Governor’s Message, 11 September 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1752–1753, pp. 43–7. On September 7 Governor Hamilton returned to the Assembly the Bill for Striking Twenty Thousand Pounds, with a long message rebutting the arguments the House had raised in its reply of September 5 (see above, p. 29). In particular, he pointed out that in 1746 the Assembly had not objected in principle to...
6Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on the Proprietors’ Answer, 11 September 1753 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1754–1755 (Philadelphia, 1755), pp. 46–51. In August 1751 the Assembly sent a representation to the Proprietors asking them to reconsider their refusal to share in the expenses of Indian treaties (see above, IV , 188). On May 23, 1753, the Assembly asked the governor if he had yet received an answer. He sent it to them the next...
7Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on the State of the Trade, 6 February 1754 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives, 1753–1754 (Philadelphia, 1754), pp. 8–9. Continuing the efforts of previous Assemblies to increase the amount of paper money in circulation, the House appointed a committee of four, Oct. 17, 1753, “to enquire into the State and Circumstances of the Trade of this Province, with regard to the Quantity of our Paper Currency from...
8Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on Laws, 15 February 1754 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1753–1754 (Philadelphia, 1754), pp. 19–20. Soon after the opening of each October session, the Pennsylvania Assembly appointed a committee “to inspect the Laws of this Province, and report which of them are expired, or near expiring, and ought to be re-enacted; with their Opinion what Amendments to them or others may be...
9Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on the Western Bounds, 7 March 1754 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1753–1754 (Philadelphia, 1754), pp. 38–9. French military occupation of the upper Ohio Valley, which had threatened for several years, became a reality in 1753. By August French troops had built forts at Presqu’Isle (now Erie, Pa.) on the shore of Lake Erie and at Rivière aux Boeufs (French Creek), a tributary of the Allegheny,...
10Pennsylvania Assembly Committee to Robert Hunter Morris, 19 May 1755 (Franklin Papers)
LS : Historical Society of Pennsylvania The money put into the hands of the Committee of Assembly (to whom the Governor is pleas’d to direct his letter) for the purchase of Provisions and other necessaries for the service of the Kings Troops, is all laid out, and expended agreeable to the Trust reposed in them. And we have no Power over any other Publick money, nor can procure any, as the...
11Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on Three Petitions, 14 November 1755 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1755–1756 (Philadelphia, 1756), p. 54. The crucial Assembly session of November 1755 began under a deluge of petitions, mostly from frontier counties pleading for measures of defense against Indian attacks. Other representations, however, presumed to tell the Assembly how to fulfill its obligations, sometimes backing up...
12Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on the Governor’s Message, 25 November 1755 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1755–1756 (Philadelphia, 1756), pp. 42–44. A sharp message from Governor Morris on November 22, answering one from the Assembly of four days earlier, dealt principally with precedents for the amendment of money bills. Probably both weary of the dispute and sensing no advantage to be gained by further responses, the Assembly...
13Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on the Governor’s Instructions, 23 September 1756 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1755–1756 (Philadelphia, 1756), pp. 154–60. Though the chief executive officer in colonial Pennsylvania was commonly called governor and is so designated in these volumes, he was in fact a deputy of the Proprietors in England who were themselves legally the governors of the province. He was obliged by law and by personal bond...
14Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on Precedents in the House of Commons, 3 December 1756 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1756–1757 (Philadelphia, 1757), pp. 36–7. In its zeal to present strong candidates for the October 1756 Assembly election, the proprietary party nominated and elected Chief Justice William Allen in both Cumberland and Northampton Counties. When Allen chose to represent Cumberland, a new election was ordered for October 25 to...
15Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on a Conference about Quartering, 20 December 1756 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1756–1757 (Philadelphia, 1757), pp. 53–5. Joseph Fox, John Hughes, Franklin, William Masters, and William Allen were appointed a committee to confer with Governor Denny on the quartering impasse. Before they were admitted to the chamber, Denny told the Council “he chose not to enter into any Altercation, nor to refute the many...
16Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on the Governors’ Message, 24 December 1756 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1756–1757 (Philadelphia, 1757), pp. 58–9. When the Assembly met on December 21, the day after the acrimonious conference with Governor Denny, it considered the conference minutes and the written message Denny had presented at that time. After some debate, the Assembly expressed its displeasure with Denny’s conduct in a message...
17Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on the Easton Conference, 29 January 1757 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1756–1757 (Philadelphia, 1757), pp. 75–6. The serious charges of land fraud made at the Easton Indian Conference, November 1756, made certain that its minutes would receive careful attention. The Assembly asked for a copy, Nov. 24, 1756, and Governor Denny transmitted it a week later. On December 14, he appointed a Council...
18Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on the Governor’s Message, [17 February 1757] (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1756–1757 (Philadelphia, 1757), pp. 86–90. The supply bill passed by the Assembly and sent to Governor Denny on Feb. 3, 1757, differed in important respects from the rejected bill about which the House had remonstrated on January 26. It was framed as a supplement to the £60,000 act of Nov. 27, 1755, and thus did exempt the...
19Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on Grievances, 22 February 1757 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1756–1757 (Philadelphia, 1757), pp. 94–6. On Feb. 17, 1758, fourteen days after Franklin’s appointment as agent to England, the Assembly named a committee “to draw up the Heads of the several Grievances necessary to be represented Home to England for Redress.” Its report, submitted the 22d, was adopted and entered in the...
20Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on the Laws, [19 January 1763] (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1762–1763 (Philadelphia, 1763), p. 13. Throughout Franklin’s absence in England he had been re-elected to the Assembly from the city of Philadelphia every October. When the House met on Jan. 10, 1763, he appeared to take his place for the first time in about five and three-quarters years, and at once resumed an active part in...
21Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report on the Dock, [9 February 1763] (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1762–1763 (Philadelphia, 1763), p. 23. “A Remonstrance and Petition from divers Inhabitants” of Philadelphia was presented to the Assembly, Jan. 24, 1763, complaining, among other things, that the public dock or creek in the southern part of the city was “in a great Measure useless, and in its present Condition a Recepticle for...
22Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report, 21 February 1764 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1763–1764 (Philadelphia, 1764), pp. 50–1. When several clergymen and others went from Philadelphia to German-town on Monday, February 6, to talk with the Paxton Boys, they were given a “Declaration” of the frontiersmen’s grievances, which they brought back to the city and delivered to Governor Penn. Most of this paper is taken...
23Pennsylvania Assembly Committee: Report, 6 March 1764 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives , 1763–1764 (Philadelphia, 1764), pp. 57–8. On Feb. 25, 1764, a petition was read before the Assembly from a “Number” of inhabitants of Philadelphia, praying that debates in the House be henceforth open to the public and asking the House to adopt “a standing Order, that the Freemen of the Province shall have free Access, at all...