It is observable here, that by the common course of justice, a man is to be tried by a jury of his neighbours and fellows; impannelled by a sheriff, in whose appointment the people have a choice: the prisoner too has a right to challenge twenty of the pannel, without giving a reason, and as many more as he can give reasons for challenging; and before he can be convicted, the jury are to be unanimous; they are all to agree that he is guilty, and are therefore all accountable for their verdict. But by this amendment, the jury (if they may be so called) are all officers of the governor's sole appointing, and not one of them can be challenged; and though a common militia-man is to be tried, no common militia-man shall be of that Jury; and so far from requiring all to agree, a bare majority shall be sufficient to condemn you. And lest that majority should be under any check or restraint, from an apprehension of what the world might think or say of the severity or injustice of their sentence, an oath is to be taken, never to discover the vote or opinion of any particular member!
These are some of the chains attempted to be forged for you by the proprietary faction! Who advised the g——r is not difficult to know. They are the very men, who now clamour at the assembly for a proposal of bringing the trial of a particular murder to this county, from another, where it was not thought safe for any man to be either juryman or witness; and call it disfranchising the people! who are now bawling about the constitution, and pretending vast concern for your liberties! In refusing you the least means of recommending or expressing your regard for persons to be placed over you as officers, and who were thus to be made your judges in life and estate; they have not regarded the example of the king, our wise, as well as kind master, who, in all his requisitions made to the colonies, of raising troops for their defence, directed, that "the better to facilitate the important service, the commissions should be given to such as from their weight and credit with the people may be best enabled to effectuate the levies[57]." In establishing a militia for the defence of the province, how could the "weight and credit" of men with the people be better discovered, than by the mode that bill directed; viz. by a majority of those that were to be commanded nominating three for each office to the governor, of which three he might take the one he liked best?
However, the courts-martial being established, and all of us thus put into his honour's absolute power, the governor goes on to enhance the fines and penalties; thus, in page 49 of the bill, where the assembly had proposed the fine to be ten shillings, the governor required it to be ten pounds: in page 50, where a fine of five pounds was mentioned, the governor's amendment required it to be made fifty pounds. And in page 44, where the assembly had said, "shall forfeit and pay any sum not exceeding five pounds," the governor's amendment says, "shall suffer DEATH, or such other punishment, as shall, according to the nature of the offence, be inflicted by the sentence of a court-martial!"
The assembly's refusing to admit of these amendments in that bill is one of their offences against the Lord Proprietary; for which that faction are now abusing them in both the languages[58] of the province, with all the virulence that reverend malice can dictate; enforced by numberless barefaced falshoods, that only the most dishonest and base would dare to invent, and none but the most weak and credulous can possibly believe.
VERITAS.
FOOTNOTES:
[57] See Secretary of State's Letters in the printed Votes.
[58] It is hardly necessary to mention here, that Pensylvania was settled by a mixture of German and English. B. V.
[Preface by a Member of the Pensylvanian Assembly (Dr. Franklin) to the Speech of Joseph Galloway, Esq. one of the Members for Philadelphia County; in Answer to the Speech of John Dickinson, Esq.; delivered in the House of the Assembly of the Province of Pensylvania, May 24, 1764, on Occasion of a Petition drawn up by Order, and then under the Consideration of the House, praying his Majesty for a Royal, in lieu of a Proprietary, Government][59].]
It is not merely because Mr. Dickinson's speech was ushered into the world by a preface, that one is made to this of Mr. Galloway. But as, in that preface, a number of aspersions were thrown on our assemblies, and their proceedings grossly misrepresented, it was thought necessary to wipe those aspersions off by some proper animadversions, and by a true state of facts, to rectify those misrepresentations.