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Subject Area: History
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO ROBERT HUNTER MORRIS, GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. I (1748-1757) [1889]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889-1893). Vol. I (1748-1757).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO ROBERT HUNTER MORRIS, GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA.

Winchester, 5 January, 1756.

Honble. Sir,

I am sorry it has not been in my power to acknowledge the receipt of yours till now. At the time that your letter came to Winchester, I was at Williamsburg; before I got back, it was conveyed thither; and so from place to place has it been tossing almost till this time.

There is nothing more necessary than good intelligence to frustrate a designing enemy, and nothing that requires greater pains to obtain. I shall, therefore, cheerfully come into any measures you can propose to settle a correspondence for this salutary end; and you may depend upon receiving (when the provinces are threatened) the earliest and best intelligence that I can procure.

I sympathized in [a] general concern to see the inactivity of your province in a time of eminent danger; but am pleased to find, that a feeling sense of wrongs has roused the spirit of your martial Assembly to vote a sum, which, with your judicious application, will turn to a general good.1

We took some pretty vigorous measures to collect a force upon our frontiers, upon the first alarm, which has kept us peaceable ever since. How long this may last is uncertain, since that force, which were militia, are disbanded, and the recruiting service almost stagnated.

If you propose to levy troops, and their destination is not a secret, I should be favored were I let into the scheme, that we may act conjunctly, so far as the nature of things will admit.

Pray direct to me at Alexandria, to which place I design to go in about ten days from this. I heartily wish you the compliments of the season. I am, &c.

[1 ]The warm contest between the Governor and Assembly of Pennsylvania, respecting the mode of raising money, had hitherto prevented any efficient aid being rendered by that colony for the public service. As the Proprietaries owned large estates in the province, the Assembly insisted that these estates should be taxed for the common defence, in the same proportion as the estates of the inhabitants, and reported all their bills accordingly. Prohibited by his instructions, the Governor had no power to sanction such bills. In a case so manifestly just, and involving a principle of great importance, the Assembly would not yield, and no money was granted.

At last, when the news of Braddock’s defeat reached England, the Proprietaries, alarmed at the progress of the enemy, or, as Dr. Franklin has said, “intimidated by the clamor raised against them for their meanness and injustice in giving their governor such instructions,” ordered the receiver-general to add five thousand pounds to such sums, as the Assembly should grant for the security of the province. When this was made known to the House, a new bill was framed, granting sixty thousand pounds for the use of the crown, with a clause exempting the proprietary estates from the tax.—Votes of the Pennsylvania Assembly for November, 1755.

In the May preceding, the Assembly had given fifteen thousand pounds for the King’s use, by an order appropriating funds then within their control. Five thousand pounds of this money were applied to victualling the King’s troops in Virginia, and ten thousand pounds to procuring and transporting provisions for the Massachusetts troops engaged in the King’s service.

At the same time that the above grant of sixty thousand pounds was made, a bill for establishing and disciplining a voluntary militia was drafted by Franklin, which, as he says, passed through the House with little difficulty, as the Quakers were left at liberty. Several companies were organized, but none ever joined the Virginians in any expedition against the Indians. The money was chiefly expended in building forts on the Pennsylvania frontiers, under the superintendence of Franklin, who was commissioned for that purpose by the Governor.—See Franklin’s Works, Vol. I., p. 153.—Sparks.