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At present, when the king desires supplies of his faithful subjects, and they are willing and desirous to grant them, the proprietaries intervene and say: 'Unless our private interests in certain particulars are served, nothing shall be done. This insolent tribunal VETO has long encumbered our public affairs and been productive of many mischiefs."
I've always refused to have any business dealings with 'em, and this is their way of revenge." "But I didn't know you advertised Certina in the local papers." "We don't. Proprietaries don't usually advertise in their own towns. We're so well known at home that we don't have to.
He then drew a petition "to the king's most excellent majesty in council," which humbly showed "That the government of this province by proprietaries has, by long experience, been found inconvenient, attended by many difficulties and obstructions to your majesty's service, arising from the intervention of proprietary private interests in public affairs, and disputes concerning those interests.
In this letter the proprietaries promised a donation of five thousand pounds as a free gift for the defence of the provinces threatened in so formidable a manner, provided it was regarded as a gift and not as any part of a tax upon their estates, which were to remain free according to the old feudal tenure. The Assembly upon hearing this could hold out no longer.
In Carolina, South and North, by the Ashley and Cooper rivers, and in that region called Albemarle, just back of Virginia, there arose and went on, through the remainder of the seventeenth century and in the eighteenth, struggles with the Lords Proprietaries and the Governors that these named, and behind this a more covert struggle with the Crown.
The proprietaries then put their interests in charge of Attorney-General Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden, and the Solicitor-General Charles Yorke, afterward lord chancellor. These legal luminaries consumed "a year, wanting eight days" before they were in a condition to impart light; and during that period Franklin could of course achieve nothing with the proprietaries.
At last the Assembly flatly refused to raise any money unless the proprietaries should be burdened like the rest. All should pay together, or all should go to destruction together. The Penns too stood obstinate, facing the not less resolute Assembly. It was indeed a deadlock! Yet the times were such that neither party could afford to maintain its ground indefinitely.
The estates in question consisted of vast tracts of wild land, yielding no income, and at present to a great extent worthless, being overrun by the enemy. The Quaker Assembly had refused to protect them; and on one occasion had rejected an offer of the proprietaries to join them in paying the cost of their defence.
Against this view I know it is pointed out that in the earlier part of the nineteenth century the agricultural population of Ireland was as large as is the total population of to-day; but we know the sequel. Instances are also cited of peasant proprietaries in foreign countries which maintain a high standard of living upon small, sometimes diminutive, and highly-rented holdings.
The aggrieved party revived its scheme for a transfer of the government from the proprietaries to the crown, and Franklin threw himself into the discussion with more of zeal and ardor than he had often shown.
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