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gentlemen employ such persons as may be necessary, to complete said Works, agreeable to the Report of the Committee appointed for that business.

Resolved, That the Commodore be directed to cause four hundred Seamen and Landsmen immediately to be recruited, for the services of the Armed Boats, and other Naval Equipments, on the same terms the other men were raised.

Upon application of Captain William Jenkins, for the payment of twenty-six Firelocks, purchased by him for the use of his Company, in Colonel Bull's Battalion, by order of the Board, an Order was drawn on Messrs. Mease and Caldwell, for eighty-eight pounds, four shillings and six pence, in his favour, being the amount of said Firelocks.

Agreeable to a recommendation of Congress, this Board discharged David Forster from his confinement, he being a person confined with others taken with Capt. Campbell.

barter among ourselves, and the commercial intercourse with Great Britain be greatly diminished, to the manifest loss to the mother country, and impoverishment of the Colony.

That the trade to the foreign ports, from whence our merchants formerly imported gold and silver, in part of their returns, is effectually obstructed by the high duties imposed on the produce of those ports, to the great detriment of our commerce with Britain; and, even when those duties shall be taken off, the gold and silver imported will be remitted, in discharge of the debts to the mother country; and, therefore, that we can have no permanent medium of commerce, without the liberty of emitting such reasonable quantities of paper Bills of Credit as may be necessary for that purpose.

That, by the policy of the English laws, the person of every debtor remains as a security to his creditor, for the performance of the contract and discharge of the debt; and, should the Legislature of this Province be restrained from making paper money a lawful tender to the creditor, in discharge of the body of the debtor, the person of every American is liable to duress and imprisonment, at the will and pleasure of his creditor.

Moved by the sincerest desire of promoting and increasing the commerce of our mother country, as well as that of oar particular Province, we beg leave further to represent, that upon this liberty of instituting a proper medium of trade, the future importations of British manufactures in a great measure depend; that we find, from incontestable vouchers, and experience, that, at all times, the importations from Great Britain have increased or diminished, in proportion to the quantity of this medium and the foreign gold and silver current. That, in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty, when the largest sums of Bills of Credit and foreign specie were circulating, the greatest quantity of English merchandise was imported that has ever been known, either before or since that period. That before this time, as the quantity of this medium was increased by the demand of the Crown, the orders of the Pennsylvania merchants grow larger, and the importations from Britain also increased. That since this period, those importations have lessened, in proportion to the sinking of those Bills of Credit, and the exportation of our gold and silver to Great Britain; and that in so great a degree as to be extremely injurious to the mutual commerce between our mother country and this Colony. That in the said year, the Bills of Credit of this Province amounted to more than five hundred thousand pounds, which, by sinking a part annually, is now reduced to about two hundred and ninety-three thousand. That a great part of the bills now current are subserving the purposes of commerce, in the Colonies of New-Jersey and Maryland, being received by them from a full solidity of the funds upon which they are established. That the commercial interest of the last mentioned Colony must hare boon greatly distressed, without their having had, for some years past, no sufficient medium of trade of her own. That before the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-three, all the Bills of Credit now current are directed to be sunk and destroyed, by the laws which emitted them. And, with the greatest concern and uneasiness we assert it, we have reason to fear our commerce with our mother country will languish and expire with them.

That the funds for calling in and sinking these Bills of Credit, have ever been formed on the best security; the real and personal estates of all the people in the Province being subject to a tax for the sinking of them. The quantity emitted, from time to time, has ever been so moderate as to be scarcely sufficient to answer the purposes of trade and the settlement of the country, even when aided by large importations of foreign gold and silver. The merchants of Great Britain have never been injured by their emission, but, on the contrary, have been greatly benefited and enriched, as it enabled our merchants to enlarge their importations, and to pay their debts with honour and punctuality, until their late distress, occasioned by the restrictions of their foreign trade, remitting our gold and silver to England, and the present diminution of the quantity of the said Bills of Credit. That the unhappy effects of this diminution of our paper currency are, already, most sensibly felt; the price of all kinds of labour is lessened; the numbers of our poor are increased; the value of our estates greatly sunk; our trade and importation from Britain evidently decreased; the further settlement of the Province is obstructed, and the people reduced to the greatest distress.

Wherefore, your petitioners, deeply affected with a view of the prosent and impending calamities which threaten His Majesty's most faithful subjects, the good people of the Province, most ardently entreat your honourable House, that you will be pleased to take the subject of their aggrievances into your serious and candid consideration, and grant them that relief which must arise from a repeal of the said statute, and the liberty thereby afforded the Legislatures of this Province, of emitting Bills of Credit as lawful tender, in all our Colony debts, from time to time, as the purposes of commerce, the settlement of the Colony, and the necessities of the Government shall reasonably require.

Signed, by order of the House,

JOSEPH FOX, Speaker.

That your petitioners, taking into their serious consideration the act of Parliament imposing duties on His Majesty's American subjects, for the purpose of raising a Revenue, and conceiving that the said act is injurious to the rights of their constituents, as well as to the trade and commerce of the British dominions, beg leave, in the most respectful, manner, to represent those aggrievances to the Commons of Great Britain, who, they trust, ever will be the faithful guardians and supporters of British liberty.

In the latter end of the last century, our ancestors, under permission of the Crown, removed from their mother country and settled in this distant land, then a wilderness. The motives to an enterprise so arduous, expensive, and hazardous, were not only to enlarge the British empire, and extend its commerce, but to enjoy that perfect security of liberty to which they were entitled, as British subjects, in their native land. And, notwithstanding innumerable dangers and difficulties, they have peopled and improved the country into an extensive Colony, without the least expense to the mother state, whereby the British empire has been considerably enlarged, its commerce extended, and its wealth and power greatly increased. In this removal from their native country, the effects whereof have so manifestly promoted the interest and dignity of the British Government, your petitioners conceive they brought over with them the natural and constitutional rights of English subjects, which have descended to, and are now vested in their posterity, who have, by no act whatever, forfeited or surrendered them: one of which is, that no taxes, for the purpose of revenue, can be legally imposed on them but by representatives chosen by themselves; a right absolutely necessary to the security of their properly and estates, and derived to them under the ancient principles of the English Government, and which has ever been esteemed the chief pillar and support of all the other privileges, inasmuch as they apprehend they can, with no propriety, be said to enjoy more than the mere shadow of liberty, while others exercise a power, whenever they please, to take such parts and proportions of their property from them as they think proper, without their consent. In confirmation of this right, a legislative authority, founded on this first and important principle of English liberty, so essential to the happiness of the subjects, was early established in this Province, under the approbation of the Crown. This Legislature was vested with full power not only to support the internal Government of the Province, but of giving and granting to their Sovereign the necessary aids, whenever required, for the general security of His Majesty's dominions. To this Legislature requisitions have been always made for that purpose, since the establishment of the present Government, particularly in the times of King William, Queen Anne, his late most excellent Majesty, and our present most gracious Sovereign, and with the utmost cheerfulness and liberality complied with; apart of which has been, repeatedly, reimbursed by the British Parliament.

Under this right, established on the principles of English liberty, on the settled form of their own Government, and the uninterrupted usage and custom so often recognised and confirmed by the Sovereigns of the mother state, and even by the Parliament itself, the good people of this Province have settled, and esteemed themselves happy, in the enjoyment of that security of property which they conceive to be most essential to freedom, (and without which their other privileges can never be long supported or maintained,) until the late act of Parliament imposing a Stamp duty on the Colonies, which the late honourable House of Commons, united with the other branches of the British Legislature, has been pleased to repeal.

That your petitioners, after the repeal of that act, flattered themselves that His Majesty's most faithful subjects in this Province, yet labouring under a heavy load of debt, occasioned by their excess in granting of aids to the Crown, in the last war, would, in future, be left in the undisturbed possession of this most valuable and important right, which their Legislatures have exercised so perfectly to the satisfaction of the British Government, and general benefit of His Majesty's dominions. It, therefore, gave them inexpressible concern to observe another act passed, in a late session of the last Parliament, imposing duties on His Majesty's American subjects, for the purpose of revenue, and reducing them to the same unhappy condition from which, by the wisdom and justice of the British Legislature, they had been so lately relieved; for, we beg leave to represent, that, should the Parliaments of Great Britain continue to exercise a power of imposing taxes on His Majesty's subjects who are not, nor can be, represented in your august House, their property and estates must become extremely precarious, as they can have no power to judge of the propriety of those taxes f no constitutional check on the liberality in granting them; no opportunity of pointing out the easiest mode of imposing and levying them, or of explaining their grievance, when they conceive themselves injured or oppressed, without which it appears to your petitioners Impassible for the most wise and just Legislature to impose taxes with propriety and equity, or with safety to the people who are to be affected by them.

Your petitioners, confiding in the justice of your honourable House, and your attachment to the principles of liberty, entreat that you would be pleased to take the rights of His Majesty's faithful American subjects, together with the said act of Parliament, under your consideration, and grant them, so far as is in your power, relief from an aggrievance from which the people of Great Britain are exempted, a continuation whereof, we fear, will create a distinction that must naturally occasion' a disunion of interest, sentiments, and affections, between them, which, in its consequence, may be attended with great inconveniences and mischiefs to the trade and commerce of His Majesty's British, as well as American dominions.

Signed, by order of the House,

JOSEPH GALLOWAY, Speaker.

PHILADELPHIA, September 22, 1768.