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...