of death, or other sentence, shall be given against any offender, but by the concurrence of nine of the officers So sworn. And no sentence passed against any offender by such court-martial shall be put in execution, until report be made of the whole proceedings to the governor or commander-in-chief of this province for the time being, and his directions signified thereupon.”

It is observable here, that, by the common course of justice, a man is to be tried by a jury of his neighbours and fellows, empanelled by a sheriff, in whose appointment the people have a choice. The prisoner too has a right to challenge twenty of the panel, without giving a reason, and as many more as he can give reasons for challenging; and before he can be convicted, the jury are to be unanimous; they are all to agree that he is guilty, and are therefore all accountable for their verdict. But, by this amendment, the jury (if they may be so called) are all officers of the governor's sole appointing; and not one of them can be challenged; and, though a common militia-man is to be tried, no common militia-man shall be of that jury; and, so far from requiring all to agree, a bare majority shall be sufficient to condemn you. And, lest that majority should be under any check or restraint, from an apprehension of what the world might think or say of the severity or injustice of their sentence, an oath is to be taken, never to discover the vote or opinion of any particular member.

These are some of the chains attempted to be forged for you by the proprietary faction! Who advised the governor is not difficult to know. They are the very men, who now clamor at the assembly for a proposal of bringing the trial of a particular murder to this county from another, where it was not thought safe for any man to be either juryman or witness, and call

it disfranchising the people, who are now bawling about the constitution, and pretending vast concern for your liberties. In refusing you the least means of recommending, or expressing your regard for, persons to be placed over you as officers, and who were thus to be made your judges in life and estate, they have not regarded the example of the King, our wise as well as kind master; who, in all his requisitions made to the colonies, of raising troops for their defence, directed, that, "the better to facilitate the important service, the commissions should be given to such as, from their weight and credit with the people, may be best enabled to effectuate the levies." In establishing a militia for the defence of the province, how could the "weight and credit" of men with the people be better discovered, than by the mode that bill directed, namely, by a majority of those, that were to be commanded, nominating three for each office to the governor, of which three he might take the one he liked best?

However, the courts-martial being established, and all of us thus put into his Honor's absolute power, the governor goes on to enhance the fines and penalties. Thus, in page 49 of the bill, where the assembly had proposed the fine to be ten shillings, the governor required it to be ten pounds. In page 50, where a fine of five pounds was mentioned, the governor's amendment required it to be made fifty pounds. And, in page 44, where the assembly had said, "shall forfeit and pay any sum, not exceeding five pounds," the governor's amendment says, "shall suffer death, or such other punishment as shall, according to the nature of the offence, be inflicted by the sentence of a courtmartial."

* See Secretary of State's Letters in the printed Votes.

The assembly's refusing to admit of these amendments in that bill, is one of their offences against the lord proprietary, for which that faction are now abusing them in both the languages* of the province, with all the virulence that reverend malice can dictate; enforced by numberless barefaced falsehoods, that only the most dishonest and base would dare to invent, and none but the most weak and credulous can possibly believe.

VERITAS.

* That is, the English and German languages, both of which were used in Pennsylvania. - EDITOR.

PREFACE

TO THE

SPEECH OF JOSEPH GALLOWAY,

ON THE SUBJECT OF A PETITION TO THE KING FOR CHANGING THE PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA TO A ROYAL GOVERNMENT.

While the petition to the King for a royal government in Pennsylvania was under discussion in the assembly, Mr. John Dickinson made a speech against it, which was printed in a pamphlet, with a long preface by another hand. Mr. Galloway published a reply, entitled, "The Speech of Joseph Galloway, One of the Members for Philadelphia County, in Answer to the Speech of John Dickinson, delivered in the House of Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania, May 24th, 1764." To this reply was prefixed the following Preface, written by Dr. Franklin. For sarcastic humor, point, and strength of argument, it is one of the best of his performances. The contest created a good deal of heat between the parties. Mr. Dickinson wrote an answer to Galloway's Speech, in which he defended himself ably; but his language was too strongly marked with asperity and personal invective. - EDITOR.

It is not merely because Mr. Dickinson's speech was ushered into the world by a preface, that one is made to this of Mr. Galloway. But, as in that preface a number of aspersions were thrown on our assemblies, and their proceedings grossly misrepresented, it was thought necessary to wipe those aspersions off by some proper animadversions, and, by a true state of facts, to rectify those misrepresentations.

I*

The preface begins with saying, that "Governor Denny (whose administration will never be mentioned but with disgrace in the annals of this province) was induced by considerations, to which the world is now no stranger, to pass sundry acts," &c., thus insinuating, that by some unusual base bargain, secretly made but afterwards discovered, he was induced to pass them.

It is fit, therefore, without undertaking to justify all that governor's administration, to show what those considerations were. Ever since the revenue of the quitrents first, and after that the revenue of tavern-licenses, were settled irrevocably on our proprietors and governors, they have looked on those incomes as their proper estate, for which they were under no obligations to the people; and when they afterwards concurred in passing any useful laws, they considered them as so many jobs, for which they ought to be particularly paid. Hence arose the custom of presents twice a year to the governors, at the close of each session in which laws were passed, given at the time of passing; they usually amounted to a thousand pounds per annum. But when the governors and assemblies disagreed, so that laws. were not passed, the presents were withheld. When a disposition to agree ensued, there sometimes still remained some diffidence. The governors would not pass the laws that were wanted, without being sure of the money, even all that they called their arrears; nor the assemblies give the money without being sure of the laws. Thence the necessity of some private conference, in which mutual assurances of good faith might be received and given, that the transactions should go hand in hand. What name the impartial reader will give to this kind of commerce, I cannot say. To me it appears an extortion of more money from the people, for that to which they had before an undoubted right,