There is record of the provincial troops of Pennsylvania employed in these years in the Penna. Archives, 2d ser., vol. ii. In February, 1756, Governor Morris wrote to Shirley, describing the defences he had been erecting along the borders. (Penna. Archives, ii. 569.) There is in Ibid., xii. p. 323, a list of forts erected in Pennsylvania during this period. The enumeration shows one built in 1747, one in 1749, two in 1753, seven in 1754, eleven in 1755, twenty-one in 1756, three in 1757, three in 1758, and one in 1759. Plans are given of Forts Augusta at Shamokin, Bedford at Raystown, Ligonier at Loyalhannon, and Pitt at Pittsburgh.
In 1756, William Smith (Hist. New York, 1814, p. 243) says that William Johnson, within nine months after the arrival of Braddock, received £10,000 to use in securing the alliance and pacification of the Indians.
There was published in London in 1756 an Account of conferences and treaties between Sir William Johnson and the chief Sachems, etc., on different occasions at Fort Johnson, in 1755 and 1756 (Brinley, iii. no. 5,495), and in New York and Boston in 1757 a Treaty with the Shawanese on the west branch of the Susquehanna River, by Sir Wm. Johnson (Sabin, xv. 65,759).
[1338] Irving’s Washington, i. p. 192, etc. A map of the region under Washington’s supervision, with the position of the forts, is given in Sparks’ Washington, ii. 110. The journal of John Fontaine describes some of the forts in the Virginia backwoods. Maury’s Huguenot Family, 245, etc.
[1339] Parkman, i. 351.
[1340] The book was first published in London in 1759. (Carter-Brown, iii. 1,217.) Sparks, in reprinting it in his edition of Franklin’s Works, ii. p. 107, examines the question of Franklin’s relations to its composition and publication. The book had an appendix of original papers respecting the controversy. The copy which belonged to Thomas Penn is in the Franklin Collection, now in Washington. (U. S. Doc., no. 60.) Cf. Catal. of Franklin Books in Boston Public Library, p. 8.
[1341] Dr. Franklin and the Rev. William Smith are said to have had a hand in A Brief State of the Province of Pennsylvania, in which the conduct of their assemblies for several years past is impartially examined, London, 1755. (Rich, Bibl. Americana Nova (after 1700), p. 111; Thomson, Bibliog. of Ohio, 1,070; Carter-Brown, iii. nos. 1,082, 1,133; Brinley, ii. no. 3,034; Cooke, no. 2,007; a third edition bears date 1756. It was reprinted by Sabin in N. Y. in 1865.) The purpose of this tract was (in the opinion of the Quakers) to make them obnoxious to the British government by showing their factious spirit of opposition to measures calculated to advance the interests of the province; and on the other side, An Answer to an invidious pamphlet entitled A Brief State, etc., said to be by one Cross, was published the same year in London. (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,083; Cooke, no. 2,008; Brinley, ii. 3,035; Rich, Bib. Am. Nov. (after 1700), p. 111.) A sequel to the Brief State, etc., appeared in London in 1756 as A Brief View of the Conduct of Pennsylvania for the year 1755, so far as it affected the service of the British Colonies, particularly the Expedition under the late General Braddock (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,132; Thomson, Bibl. of Ohio, no. 1,072; Cooke, no. 2,006; Brinley, ii. 3,036; Menzies, 1,580-82; Field, Ind. Bibliog., 1,446; Barlow’s Rough List, no. 937), which included an account of the contemporary incursions of the Indians along the Pennsylvania frontiers. A French version was printed in Paris the same year, under the title of Etat présent de la Pensilvanie (Brinley, i. 225; Murphy, 329; Quaritch, 1885, no. 29,677, £2 10s.). The Barlow Rough List, no. 930, assigns it to the Abbé Delaville. It had “une carte particulière de cette colonie.”
The Quakers found a defender in An humble apology for the Quakers, occasioned by certain gross abuses and imperfect vindications of that people, ... to which are added Observations on A Brief View, and a much fairer method pointed out than that contained in The Brief State, to prevent the encroachments of the French, London, 1756. (Brinley, ii. 3,041.) The latest contribution to this controversy was A True and Impartial State of the Province of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1759. (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,232; Brinley, ii. 3,040; Cooke, no. 2,009.) Hildeburn (Century of Printing, i. no. 1,649) says it was thought to be by Franklin. Parkman (i. p. 351) calls this “an able presentation of the case of the assembly, omitting, however, essential facts.” This historian adds: “Articles on the quarrel will also be found in the provincial newspapers, especially the New York Mercury, and in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1755 and 1756. But it is impossible to get any clear and just view of it without wading through the interminable documents concerning it in the Colonial Records of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Archives.”
Parkman also traces the rise of the disturbance in his Pontiac, i. p. 83; and refers further to Proud’s Pennsylvania, app., and Hazard’s Penna. Reg., viii. 273, 293, 323.
[1342] Works, vii. pp. 78, 84, 94, etc.