LORD LOUDON'S CHARACTER.

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Indecision and procrastination, however, were the most prominent features of Lord Loudon's character; and April, May, and much of June, went by, before the despatches he wished to send to England were ready, though promised almost daily during that long period; thus occasioning to Franklin not only great annoyance, but at least equal surprise that so inefficient a man should be intrusted with such high duties, as those which then pertained to the commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces in America. The character of Loudon, however, was soon understood by Pitt the elder, who then wielded the power of the British empire, and who, distinguished as he was for executive ability and vigor, could not long tolerate so dilatory and inefficient an agent, but speedily recalled him, to make way for the far abler and more active men, Lord Amherst and General Wolfe.

The character of Lord Loudon, as a public man, can not be more pithily described than it is in an anecdote related by Franklin. While lingering in New York as stated, he met a messenger from Philadelphia, named Innis, who had just come on with a packet from Governor Denny to Loudon, who told him to call the next morning for his answer. Two weeks after, Franklin again met Innis, and was told by him that he had called every morning on Lord Loudon for the promised reply, and it was not even yet ready. "Is it possible, when he writes so much, and is always at his desk?" said Franklin. "Yes," said Innis, “but he is like the St. George on the signs, always on horseback and never riding on."

At length, however, about the middle of June, the packet sailed, with Loudon's despatches and Franklin on board, and reached Falmouth, in the south of England, on the morning of the 17th of July, 1757. As the ship neared the English coast, at about twelve o'clock of the preceding night, she was, through the heedlessness

of the man on the lookout, in extreme peril of being wrecked on the rocks of Scilly, lying out in the sea off Land's-End, and suggesting the idea that they were once connected with that most southwesterly point of the English coast. The escape was narrow and the peril great; and the impression thereby made on Franklin's mind is abundantly evinced by the following passage from a letter to his wife, giving an account of the voyage, and written at Falmouth in the evening of the day on which he landed: "The bell ringing for church," says he, 66 we went thither immediately, and, with hearts full of gratitude, returned thanks to God for the mercies we had received. Were I a Roman Catholic, perhaps I should, on this occasion, vow to build a chapel to some saint; but as I am not, if I were to vow at all, it should be to build a lighthouse.'

GRIEVANCES OF PENNSYLVANIA

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CHAPTER XXII.

GRIEVANCES OF PENNSYLVANIA-REMONSTRANCE TO PROPRIETARIES -MISREPRESENTATIONS EXPOSED — CAUSE PREPARED FOR HEARING-EXCURSIONS IN ENGLANDFAMILY CONNECTIONS-CANADA-VISITS SCOTLANDMR. STRAHAN-MARRIAGE PROPOSED-MISS STEVENSON AND HER STUDIES-POLITICAL ABUSE-PENNSYLVANIA'S SHARE OF INDEMNITY MONEY FROM PARLIAMENT.

BEFORE entering upon the narration of Franklin's life and services in England, as the agent of Pennsylvania, it will be proper to give a brief view of the reasons for sending him thither. These reasons are well set forth in a report, dated the 22d of February, 1757, drawn up by himself as chairman of the Assembly's committee on grievances. They are founded on alleged violations of the grant made by King Charles II. to William Penn; of Penn's own charter based on that grant, and defining the forms of government under which the province was settled; of certain fundamental laws of the province mad pursuant to that charter; and finally of some of the principles and provisions of the constitution and laws of the mother-country most essential to civil liberty and justice, and from the protection of which, British subjects, wher ever dwelling, could not be rightfully excluded by ne king or his grantees.

The royal grant, which was justly regarded by the colonists as the basis of the provincial constitution, and not to be violated or modified by the grantee or his suc

cessors, gave to "William Penn, his heirs and assigns, and to his and their deputies," full power to make laws, "according to their best discretion, by and with the ad vice, assent, and approbation, of the freemen of the province or their delegates, for the good and happy government thereof," including "the raising of money, or any other end appertaining to the public state, peace, or safety," of the commonwealth thus to be constituted. This broad provision of the king's grant, it was held, precluded all those instructions which had occasioned so much trouble, controversy, and impediment to the public business, not only because it was absolutely binding on the deputy-governors as well as their principals the Proprietaries, but also because such instructions were wholly incompatible with that "best discretion" which they were bound to exercise, and this, too, in conjunction with the co-ordinate advice, assent, and approbation," of the people of the province, as expressed by their representatives, in whom, it was maintained, the grant had vested "an original right of legislation, which neither the Proprietaries nor any other person could divest, restrain, or abridge, without violating and destroying the letter, spirit, and design, of the grant."

The obnoxious instructions, therefore, were a manifest encroachment on the vested rights of the people, as well as on the legal and proper discretion of the governor; and to such an extent had they restrained and abridged just legislation, that no bill to raise supplies for the public service, howsoever "reasonable, expedient, or necessary" it might be, for the welfare and protection of the province, could be made a law, unless on complying with the instructions by wholly exempting the estates of the Proprietaries from their equal rateable assessments — though they constituted by far the largest private interest in the province, and would be proportionately bene

fited by its security, growth, and prosperity; wi.ile, by the laws of England, "the rents, honors, and castles, of the crown," though not the private property of the person wearing the crown, were actually taxed and paid "their proportion of the supplies granted for the defence of the realm and the support of the government;" and while the sovereign and his nobles, as well as all other tax-paying inhabitants of England, were thus indirectly but really contributing "their proportion toward the defence of America," including Pennsylvania, it was held to be "in a more especial manner the duty of the Proprietaries to pay their proportion" of the taxes required for the preservation of their own provincial estates. The exemption of those estates, therefore, was declared to be "as unjust as it was illegal, and as new as it was arbitrary."

It was further urged that, by virtue alike of the royal grant and of the colonial charter framed by Penn himself, the provincial Assembly, when convened and acting as a legislative body in its provincial sphere and for its legitimate purposes, was as fully endowed with all the powers and privileges of such a body as the English. House of Commons, possessing the incontestable right of granting supplies and laying taxes "in any manner they may think most easy to the people, and being the sole judges of the measure, mode, and time," of so doing; but that the instructions of the Proprietaries, nevertheless, tended directly and manifestly to subvert all those rights and privileges, especially in assuming arbitrarily to control the action of the Assembly in framing and passing bills for raising money, so as to render that body, even if it should forego its just powers and the rights of its constituents, absolutely unable to raise the supplies requisite for the defence and welfare of the province.

Another prominent ground of complaint was the con