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Regard they have shewed in Obedience to the aforementioned
Orders of the Lords Justices
It is well known, This Province is inhabited by a very great
Number of Roman Catholicks, and some of them of consider-
able Fortunes; It is not less notorious that in the year 1742
There was a dangerous Conspiracy amongst some of the
Indians residing in this Province, carried on in Conjunction
with a particular Nation of the Northern Indians; yet notwith-
standing these Circumstances peculiar to this Province, to-
gether with the Spanish War, and the then Uncertain Situa-
tion of Affairs with Regard to France, of General Concern-
ment to all your Majestys Dominions, The Lower house of
Assembly grasping at Power in Every Instance, ever since the
year 1738 under various Pretences refused to raise that fund
which has been from time to time continued for above twenty
years for supplying this Province with Arms and Ammunition
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Lib. C. B.
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in such manner as hath been always before practiced, and in
the Management whereof, no just Objection could be made
to the Governor and Council, with whom the Disposition was
always intrusted for the Uses to which It was appropriated by
the Act: But when the present Lower house was this Session
pressed by an Argument of the Alarming Attempt of an In-
vasion of Great Britain, and the then imminent Danger of a
War with France, as well as by the Order and Directions of
their Excellencies The Lords Justices, they passed a Bill for
Provision of Arms and Ammunition for Defence of the Prov-
ince almost of the same Import with Two Bills in the two
preceeding Sessions, and which They knew had been before
rejected, since they could not be passed, without a most severe
Reflection on the Lord Proprietary and Government as well
as that the Frame of the Bill was so defective that the Design
of raising the money might be frustrated
In this manner did They shew their Dispositions to obey
those Orders to provide for their own safety and put this
Province in a Condition of Defence and Attack, when the
News arrived of the Declaration of War, between your Majesty
and the French King; These Accounts we hoped, would have
animated them with such a Sense of their own Danger and
Duty to Your Majesty as to have made the most ample Pro-
vision, so as your Majestys Expectations & Commands signi-
fyed by the Lords Justices might be effectually answered and
obeyed; But, to Our surprize, such was their Perseverance in
their former Resolutions, that they not only slighted repeated
Importunities to put Our Militia on a better foot, and not to
leave Us without means of providing for the security of this
Province; but even endeavoured by the Stint of a Certain
Sum of Money in no manner likely to answer the purposes,
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P. 220
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