Galloway was at the head of the committee which considered and reported upon the grievances of the Province in the “Paxtang Riot” affair following the murder of the Conestoga Indians, December, 1763.
The conduct of Galloway during the excitement attending the passage of the Stamp Act was conspicuously loyal. He feared the tyranny of mob rule more than the tyranny of Parliament.
Mr. Galloway gave expression to his views in an article signed “Americanus,” printed in the Pennsylvania Journal, in which he warned his countrymen of the evils to which their seditious conduct would lead. This article aroused great indignation against him. He was called a Tory and went by the name of “Americanus” for some time.
Mr. Galloway had an extreme aversion to the Presbyterians. He associated them with rioters, and in their support of the “Paxtang Boys” he was convinced they were dangerous characters.
Although he had taken a rather unpopular stand in the Stamp Act controversy, he was returned to the Assembly in 1766, and elected its Speaker.
Mr. Galloway approved the proposal for a Continental Congress and was one of the eight Pennsylvanians who composed the First Continental Congress. Although Dickinson was the leader, Galloway played a conspicuous but not very honorable part. According to Bancroft, he “acted as a volunteer spy for the British Government.”
It is a fact that he was a conservative in his views, and that his line of argument in his first debates tended towards political independence. He proposed a plan of colonial government, which was rejected. This plan contemplated a government with a president-general appointed by the king, and a Grand Council, chosen every three years by the colonial assemblies, who were to be authorized to act jointly with Parliament in the regulation of affairs of the colonies.
The following year Galloway was permitted to resign and thus be relieved from serving on account of the radical acts against England. He abandoned the Whigs soon as the question of independence had begun to be agitated, and thence forward he was regarded as a zealous Tory.
When the Howes issued their proclamation in 1776, granting amnesty to such Americans as would forsake the Revolutionary cause, Galloway’s courage failed him and he accepted the offer.
“Galloway has fled and joined the venal Howe;