appoint those Commissioners, and upon neglect or refusal of such Governor and Council vests that nomination and appointment in any two or more Justices of the Peace, residing in or near such place, where your Majesty's Troops shall be quartered.

Another Provision, wherein this Law appears to us not strictly comformable to the Act of Parliament, is with respect to the Articles wherewith it is directed that your Majesty's Troops shall be supplied; These are particularly enumerated in the Act of Parliament, and, are as follows, viz Fire, Candles Vinegar, and Salt, Beding, Utensils for dressing their Victuals, and small Beer or Cyder, (not exceeding five Pints) or half a Pint of Rum mixed with a Quart of water to each Man; The Provincial Law does not recite the above particulars as enumerated in the Act of Parliament, but directs only that your Majesty's Troops shall be provided with Fire, Wood Bedding Blankets and other necessaries which have been heretofore usually furnished to the several Barracks in this Colony; And by a separate Clause further enacts that they shall be provided with Vinegar and small Beer the latter of which is limited to a less Quantity for each Man per Day than is prescribed by the Act of Parliament.

There is another Clause likewise, which provides that the Money thereby given shall not be applied to purchasing Necessaries for more than one Regiment in the Colony at any one time except during the time of relieving the Regiment quartered therein.

For these Reasons we do now, (as we did in the Case of a Law of the like nature passed in this Colony in the year 1766.) find ourselves under the repeated necessity of Laying the above Act before your Majesty for your Royal Disallowance.

Which is most humbly submitted.

CLARE.

W FITZHERBERT.

SOAME JENYNS..

THO ROBINSON.

Governor Franklin to Charles Read-The Case of John Wilkes-Benjamin Franklin's Accounts.

Dear Sir

[From the original among the MSS. of William Nelson.]

BURLINGTON June 13, 1768.

I receiv'd your Favour by M: Smith for which I am much oblig'd to you.

The Packet is arriv'd, but has brought no extraordinary News. By a Letter from Lord H.' I find that the Ministry greatly resent the circular Letter sent by the Speaker of Massachussets Ass to the several Speakers on the Continent.-Wilkes' surrendered himself to the Court of K. Bench at Westminster, but the Court determined that they could not take Cognizance of his Outlawry, as it did not come regularly before them, a Writ of Capias Utlagatum not being issued, nor had he surrendered himself to the Sheriff. But it is afterwards mentioned in the Papers that the abovement Writ has been since serv'd upon him, & the Legality of his Outlawry would be soon determin'd.-This is all the News of any Consequence in the Papers.

My Father has, I suppose, left England by this Time. He writes me that he has lately rec Nine Pounds 19s & 9 being the Ballance of Mr. Sherwood's'

1 Lord Hillsborough. The reference is doubtless to the circular letter of April 21. 2 The notorious John Wilkes, whose arrest for libel on a general warrant, April 30, 1763, and his subsequent audacity in defying the officers of the Crown, the Courts and Parliament, by all of whom he was unduly persecuted, in the view of the people (the Government spending £100,000 in prosecuting him), made him a hero in the eyes of a London mob, so that in 1768, although an enforced exile, he was nearly elected to Parliament for London, and directly after was actually chosen for Middlesex. Presenting himself before the Court of King's Bench on his outlawry, the Court tried to evade the question, intimidated, it was thought, by the mob, but he was presently committed on a capias utlagatum (a writ of outlawry), was rescued by the mob, again surrendered himself and had his outlawry reversed, but was sentenced to twenty-two months' imprisonment and £1,000 fine.-May's Constitutional Hist. England, Chapters vii, xi; Works of Benjamin Franklin, by Jared Sparks, Boston, 1840, VII., 400, 403, 413.-[W. N.].

3 Joseph Sherwood, New Jersey's Provincial Agent in England.

Ace with you, which he desires me to pay you: you will therefore charge me with that Sum. The Acc is enclos'd. I should be glad to have your Acc with me settled as soon as you conveniently can.

I am, with much Esteem,

Dear Sir, Your most obed Serv

W FRANKLIN.

[Addressed: "To The Honble Charles Read, Esq!" Endorsed in another hand: "Governor Franklin Ordr my Father to Charge him £9:9:4."]

[Enclosure:]

Benjn. Franklyn Esqr. on account of Charles Read with Jos: Sherwood.

1767. To Bill for Business done 20 3 1767. By Cash received

To Ballance due to B.

30

Letter from Governor Franklin to Secretary Hillsborough, giving an account of the manufactures, produce and trade of New Jersey.'

[From P. R. O. America and West Indies, Vol. 173, (191).]

The Right Honble the Earl of Hillsborough.

BURLINGTON, New Jersey, June 14th, 1768.

My Lord,

Your Lordships Letter. N. 3, enclosing a Duplicate of the Address to His Majesty from the House of Commons of the 27th of March 1766 I have had the

1 Writing to his son, the Governor, under date of March 13, 1768, Benjamin Franklin says: "Mr. Grenville complained in the House, that the Governors of New Jersey, New Hampshire, East and West Florida, had none of them obeyed the orders sent them, to give an account of the Mannfactures carried on in their respective provinces. Upon hearing this, I went up after the House was up, and got a sight of the reports made by the other Governors. They are all much in the same strain, that there are no manufactures of any consequence, These

*

*

accounts are very satisfactory here, and induce the Parliament to despise and take

Honor to receive. The Lords Commissioners for Trade & Plantations did, as your Lordship mentions, transmit to me a Copy of that Address, which I receiv'd in Dec 1766; and it appears, by my Letter Book, that in January 1767 I sent their Lordships an Account of the Manufactures of this Colony, and at the same Time sent the like Account to Mr Lowndes Secretary to the Treasury.' The Occasion of my Sending it to the latter was, my having apprehended that in a Letter I had received from him, and which was then mislaid, he had signified that the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury likewise required such an Account to be transmitted to them: But this I afterwards found to be a Mistake.

As to the Manufactures in this Colony, I can assure your Lordship, that there are none either of woolen or Linen which deserve to be call'd by that Name. It is true that many Families who live on Farms make some coarse Cloathing for themselves or Servants, but it is by no means sufficient for their Consumption. And tho' a considerable Number of People have, since the Affair of the Stamp Act, gone more into the Raising of Sheep than before, and have puff'd away in the News Papers of what great Matters they had done in that Way, yet it appeared by an exact Return of the several Species of Property, such as Horses, Cat

no notice of the Boston resolutions. I wish you would send your account before the meeting of the next Parliament. You have only to report a Glass house for coarse window glass and bottles, and some domestic manufactures of linen and woolen for family use, that do not half clothe the inhabitants, all the finer goods coming from England and the like. I believe you will be puzzled to find any other, though I see great puffs in the papers."-Works of Benjamin Franklin. VII., 393. The glass house referred to was doubtless that established by Caspar Wistar, în 1738, on Alloway Creek, Salem county, and carried on after his death in 1752, by his son, Richard, until 1781, and for some time thereafter by the latter's son, John Wistar. Visitors used to journey many miles to see the rare and interesting sight of a glass factory.-R. M. Acton, in Penn. Hist. Magazine, for October, 1885, 344. The information desired by Mr. Grenville had been asked for by the Lords of Trade in a dispatch of August 1, 1766.-N. J. Archives, IX., 503.—[W. N.]

Neither of these reports has been found.

tle, Sheep, &c. which was laid before the Assembly in April last, that there were not Three Pounds of Wool for every House even in those Counties which had gone most into the Raising of Sheep. So that when the Numbers that each Family consists of is considered, it is evident that there is not Wool enough produced to supply the Inhabitants with Stockings.

There are in this Colony Eight Blast Furnaces for the making of Pig-Iron, and Forty-two Forges for beating out Bar-Iron. There are likewise One SlittingMill, One Steel-Furnace, and one Plating-Mill, which were erected before the Act of Parliament respecting those Works. I am told that none of the three latter are carried on with Vigor, and that scarce anything has been done at the Steel-Furnace for several Years past.

The

A Glass House was erected about Twenty Years ago in Salem County, which makes Bottles, and a very coarse Green Glass for Windows, used only in some of the Houses of the poorer Sort of People, Profits made by this Work have not hitherto been sufficient it seems to induce any Persons to set up more of the like kind in this Colony; but since the late Act of Parliament laying a Duty on Glass exported to the Colonies, there has been a Talk of erecting others, but I cannot learn that any are yet begun. It seems probable that, notwithstanding the Duty, Fine Glass can still be imported into America cheaper than it can be made there. Nothing but Grain and Lumber, Pig and Bar Iron are manufactured here for Exportation. Great Part of the two last are sent to Britain.

All the finer kind of Goods consum'd here are imported from Great Britain (except some Linen from Ireland) into the Ports of New York or Philadelphia. There are indeed but few articles but what may now be imported and sold cheaper than they can be manufactured here, owing to the high Price of Labour.