Accordingly Mr Hanbury called for me and took me in his Carriage to that Nobleman’s, who receiv’d me with great Civility; and after some Questions respecting the present State of Affairs in America, & Discourse thereupon, he said to me, “You Americans have wrong Ideas of the Nature of your Constitution; you contend that the King’s Instructions to his Governors are not Laws, and think yourselves at Liberty to regard or disregard them at your own Discretion. But those Instructions are not like the Pocket Instructions given to a Minister going abroad, for regulating his Conduct in some trifling Point of Ceremony. They are first drawn up by Judges learned in the Laws; they are then considered, debated & perhaps amended in Council, after which they are signed by the King. They are then so far as relates to you, the Law of the Land; for THE KING IS THE LEGISLATOR OF THE COLONIES” I told his Lordship this was new Doctrine to me. I had always understood from our Charters, that our Laws were to be made by our Assemblies, to be presented indeed to the King for his Royal Assent, but that being once given the King could not repeal or alter them. And as the Assemblies could not make permanent Laws without his Assent, so neither could he make a Law for them without theirs. He assur’d me I was totally mistaken. I did not think so however. And his Lordship’s Conversation having a little alarm’d me as to what might be the Sentiments of the Court concerning us, I wrote it down as soon as I return’d to my Lodgings. I recollected that about 20 Years before, a Clause in a Bill brought into Parliament by the Ministry, had propos’d to make the King’s Instructions Laws in the Colonies; but the Clause was thrown out by the Commons, for which we ador’d them as our Friends & Friends of Liberty, till by their Conduct towards us in 1765, it seem’d that they had refus’d that Point of Sovereignty to the King, only that they might reserve it for themselves.

After some Days, Dr Fothergill having spoken to the Proprietaries, they agreed to a Meeting with me at Mr T. Penn’s House in Spring Garden. The Conversation at first consisted of mutual Declarations of Disposition to reasonable Accommodation; but I suppose each Party had its own Ideas of what should be meant by reasonable. We then went into Consideration of our several Points of Complaint which I enumerated. The Proprietaries justify’d their Conduct as well as they could, and I the Assembly’s. We now appeared very wide, and so far from each other in our Opinions, as to discourage all Hope of Agreement. However, it was concluded that I should give them the Heads of our Complaints in Writing, and they promis’d then to consider them. I did so soon after; but they put the Paper into the Hands of their Solicitor Ferdinando John Paris, who manag’d for them all their Law Business in their great Suit with the neighboring Proprietary of Maryland, Lord Baltimore, which had subsisted 70 Years, and wrote for them all their Papers & Messages in their Dispute with the Assembly. He was a proud angry Man; and as I had occasionally in the Answers of the Assembly treated his Papers with some Severity, they being really weak in point of Argument, and haughty in Expression, he had conceiv’d a moral Enmity to me, which discovering itself whenever we met, I declin’d the Proprietary’s Proposal that he and I should discuss the Heads of Complaint between our two selves, and refus’d treating with any one but them. They then by his Advice put the Paper into the Hands of the Attorney and Solicitor General for their Opinion and Counsel upon it, where it lay unanswered a Year wanting eight Days, during which time I made frequent Demands of an Answer from the Proprietaries but without obtaining any other than that they had not yet receiv’d the Opinion of the Attorney & Solicitor General. What it was when they did receive it I never learned, for they did not communicate it to me, but sent a long Message to the Assembly drawn & signed by Paris reciting my Paper, complaining of its want of Formality as a Rudeness on my part, and giving a flimsy Justification of their Conduct, adding that they should be willing to accommodate Matters, if the Assembly would send over some Person of Candor to treat with them for that purpose, intimating thereby that I was not such.

The want of Formality or Rudeness, was probably my not having address’d the Paper to them with their assum’d Titles of true and absolute Proprietaries of the Province of Pennsylvania, which I omitted as not thinking it necessary in a Paper the Intention of which was only to reduce to a Certainty by writing what in Conversation I had delivered viva voce. But during this Delay, the Assembly having prevail’d with Govr Denny to pass an Act taxing the Proprietary Estate in common with the Estates of the People, which was the grand Point in Dispute, they omitted answering the Message.