eir assum'd titles of True and
Absolute Proprietaries of the Province of Pennsylvania, which I omitted
as not thinking it necessary in a paper, the intention of which was
only to reduce to a certainty by writing, what in conversation I had
delivered viva voce.

But during this delay, the Assembly having prevailed with Gov'r Denny
to pass an act taxing the proprietary estate in common with the estates
of the people, which was the grand point in dispute, they omitted
answering the message.

When this act however came over, the proprietaries, counselled by
Paris, determined to oppose its receiving the royal assent.
Accordingly they petition'd the king in Council, and a hearing was
appointed in which two lawyers were employ'd by them against the act,
and two by me in support of it. They alledg'd that the act was
intended to load the proprietary estate in order to spare those of the
people, and that if it were suffer'd to continue in force, and the
proprietaries who were in odium with the people, left to their mercy in
proportioning the taxes, they would inevitably be ruined. We reply'd
that the act had no such intention, and would have no such effect.
That the assessors were honest and discreet men under an oath to assess
fairly and equitably, and that any advantage each of them might expect
in lessening his own tax by augmenting that of the proprietaries was
too trifling to induce them to perjure themselves. This is the purport
of what I remember as urged by both sides, except that we insisted
strongly on the mischievous consequences that must attend a repeal, for
that the money, L100,000, being printed and given to the king's use,
expended in his service, and now spread among the people, the repeal
would strike it dead in their hands to the ruin of many, and the total
discouragement of future grants, and the selfishness of the proprietors
in soliciting such a general catastrophe, merely from a groundless fear
of their estate being taxed too highly, was insisted on in the
strongest terms. On this, Lord Mansfield, one of the counsel rose, and
beckoning me took me into the clerk's chamber, while the lawyers were
pleading, and asked me if I was really of opinion that no injury would
be done the proprietary estate in the execution of the act. I said
certainly. "Then," says he, "you can have little objection to enter
into an engagement to assure that point." I answer'd, "None at all."
He then call'd in Paris, and after