They seem'd surpris'd that I did not immediately
comply with their proposal. "Why the d--l!" says one of them,
"you surely don't suppose that the fort will not be taken?"
"I don't know that it will not be taken, but I know that the events
of war are subject to great uncertainty." I gave them the reasons
of my doubting; the subscription was dropt, and the projectors thereby
missed the mortification they would have undergone if the firework
had been prepared. Dr. Bond, on some other occasion afterward,
said that he did not like Franklin's forebodings.
Governor Morris, who had continually worried the Assembly with message
after message before the defeat of Braddock, to beat them into
the making of acts to raise money for the defense of the province,
without taxing, among others, the proprietary estates, and had
rejected all their bills for not having such an exempting clause,
now redoubled his attacks with more hope of success, the danger
and necessity being greater. The Assembly, however, continu'd firm,
believing they had justice on their side, and that it would
be giving up an essential right if they suffered the governor
to amend their money-bills. In one of the last, indeed, which was
for granting fifty thousand pounds, his propos'd amendment was
only of a single word. The bill expressed "that all estates,
real and personal, were to be taxed, those of the proprietaries
not excepted.
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