tle
between them as long as he retain'd the government. I had my share of
it; for, as soon as I got back to my seat in the Assembly, I was put on
every committee for answering his speeches and messages, and by the
committees always desired to make the drafts. Our answers, as well as
his messages, were often tart, and sometimes indecently abusive; and,
as he knew I wrote for the Assembly, one might have imagined that, when
we met, we could hardly avoid cutting throats; but he was so
good-natur'd a man that no personal difference between him and me was
occasion'd by the contest, and we often din'd together.

One afternoon, in the height of this public quarrel, we met in the
street. "Franklin," says he, "you must go home with me and spend the
evening; I am to have some company that you will like;" and, taking me
by the arm, he led me to his house. In gay conversation over our wine,
after supper, he told us, jokingly, that he much admir'd the idea of
Sancho Panza, who, when it was proposed to give him a government,
requested it might be a government of blacks, as then, if he could not
agree with his people, he might sell them. One of his friends, who sat
next to me, says, "Franklin, why do you continue to side with these
damn'd Quakers? Had not you better sell them? The proprietor would
give you a good price." "The governor," says I, "has not yet blacked
them enough." He, indeed, had labored hard to blacken the Assembly in
all his messages, but they wip'd off his coloring as fast as he laid it
on, and plac'd it, in return, thick upon his own face; so that, finding
he was likely to be negrofied himself, he, as well as Mr. Hamilton,
grew tir'd of the contest, and quitted the government.

[13]These public quarrels were all at bottom owing to the
proprietaries, our hereditary governors, who, when any expense was to
be incurred for the defense of their province, with incredible meanness
instructed their deputies to pass no act for levying the necessary
taxes, unless their vast estates were in the same act expressly
excused; and they had even taken bonds of these deputies to observe
such instructions. The Assemblies for three years held out against
this injustice, tho' constrained to bend at last. At length Captain
Denny, who was Governor Morris's successor, ventured to disobey those
instructions; how that was brought about I shall show hereafter.

[13] My acts in Morris's time, military, etc.--[Marg. note.]

Bu