The want of formality or rudeness was, probably, my not having
address'd the paper to them with their 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.
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