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Letter Bk. IV
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again without granting any Supplies nor do I think they ever
will grant any unless the Dispute subsisting between the two
Houses should be determined by the Intervention of a supe-
riour Authority. The Journals of the Proceedings in both
Houses during this Session being pretty voluminous I cannot
send Copies of them before the June Fleet sails but I now
transmit you together with an Address of the Lower House
to me & my answer Copies of the Messages that passed
between the two Houses on the Subject of the Money Bill &
of an Address that was presented to me by the Upper House
relating to those Messages. If you will be pleased to com-
pare the Votes of the Members of the Lower House this Ses-
sion with the Votes in former Sessions, You will observe that
the Number of Opponents to the Assessment Bill is greatly
increased & as they are in general the most sensible Men in
the House there were longer & more frequent Debates upon
it this Session than have ever before been during my Admin-
istration so that it was doubtful on more occasions than one
whether those who for some years past have had the Manage-
ment of Affairs in the Lower House would be able to carry
their Points & indeed could all the Members who dislike their
Schemes have constantly attended during the whole Session
it is not improbable that they would in a great measure have
been disappointed. When the question was depending
whether they should send to the Upper House the Message
which Messrs Tilghman Murdock & the other Leaders had
prepared by way of Reply to that which they had received
from the Upper House with their negatived Assessment Bill
there was a very long & vehement Debate & most of those
who spoke were against the Message nevertheless the
Majority carried a Vote for its being sent, & a very extraor-
dinary one it seems to be, calculated to make the People
believe that the Miscarriage of all the Money Bills which have
been offered to the Upper House is owing to some unreason-
able Instruction of His Ldp's, a Notion the Faction have been
constantly propagating among their Constituents tho they
never before took the Liberty to assert so much in their pub-
lick Proceedings. As the long Address which the Lower
House thought fit to present to me seem'd calculated to con-
firm the same opinion I thought it my Duty to observe in my
answer that whatever those Members who were Favourers of
that Bill might have suggested the Dispute was not between
His Ldp & the People but between the two Houses of
Assembly or rather between the People themselves for as the
Gentlemen of the Upper House intimate in their Address to
me the People are so much divided about it that by the same
County are returned some Members who adhere to it & others
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