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large Sums of Money, advanced by the Crown, for the Payment of
which, the Credit of the Province stood engaged by the Resolves
of the late Lower Houses, and of this House, and to defraying other
Expences, necessarily incurred for his Majesty's Service, and the
Defence and Protection of our Frontier Inhabitants. From this
Insinuation, we cannot help inferring, that you would be willing to
bring the public Faith of the Province into Disgrace, and to suffer
very many necessary Expences to remain undefrayed, whatever may
be the fatal Consequences to the Public, or to Individuals, and more
especially those, who have suffered so greatly by Quartering his
Majesty's Regular Troops, or by actual Service on, and large Ex-
pences towards, the Security of our Western Frontiers. Your
Honours are pleased to observe, that if all the real and personal
Property in the Province were to be taxed, agreeable to our Plan,
could it be carried into Execution, a Sum twice as great as what
we have mentioned, would be raised even in one Year. We are at a
Loss how to understand, from your Expression, whether you mean
the whole Sum proposed to be raised by the Bill, or the particular
Sum appropriated in the Bill, for the Levying, Paying, and Cloath-
ing, the Number of Men to be raised: If you mean even the latter,
we cannot avoid observing, how extremely your Sentiments are
changed since April 1758, when you could not discover by what
Rule or Principle, the Lower House could infer a Capital, which
would raise Forty-five Thousand Pounds in Three Years, by a
Pound-Rate equal to that which you now are of Opinion, would
raise Thirty Thousand Pounds in less than One Year, and that not
upon the whole Property, as was nearly the Case in the Bill of 1758:
Your Honours at that Time thought, that diminishing the Ability of
the Province, was a proper Method to encounter the Bill, then before
you; but now, when you imagine the same good Cause may be served
by a contrary Supposition, you don't stick at making it, however
glaringly it may infer the Mutability of your Sentiments.
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L. H. J.
Liber No. 52
April 15
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You are pleased to Question if our Bill can be carried into Execu-
tion, and to assert, that if it could, Discord and Confusion among the
Inhabitants, would be the Consequence: We can only say, that Plans
of this Kind have not only been thought practicable, but found, by
long Experience, to be eligible in our Mother Country, and most of
the neighbouring Colonies, and we could wish your Honours would
only give the People of this Province an Opportunity of making an
Experiment of it. If it were really such, as you would represent it,
our Constituents would soon disapprove it, and your Honours would
no more be troubled about it; at present we judge it most agreeable
to their common Interest, and we know it to be most suitable to their
Inclinations; and therefore we think it more probable, that Discord
and Confusion among the Inhabitants would ensue from your
Refusal to assent to a Mode of Taxation so equitable and so much
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p. 50
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