public service is removed; and we shall have more leisure to carry our intentions coolly into execution. If the decision be against us, I believe the most zealous amongst us will grant it would be madness to expect success in any other contest. This will be a single point, and cannot meet with such difficulties, as the procuring a total alteration of the government. Therefore by separating it from other matters, we shall soon obtain a determination, and know what chance we have of succeeding in things of greater value. Let us try our fortune. Let us take a cast or two of the dice for smaller matters, before we dip deeply. Few gamesters are of so sanguine a temper, as to stake their whole wealth on one desperate throw at first. If we are to play with the public happiness, let us act at least with as much deliberation, as if we were betting out of our private purses.

PERHAPS a little delay may afford us the pleasure of finding our constituents more unanimous in their opinions on this interesting occasion: and I should choose to see a vast majority of them join with a calm resolution in the measure, before I should think myself justifiable in voting for it, even if I approved of it.

THE present question is utterly foreign from the purposes, for which we were sent into this place,

There was not the least probability at the time we were elected, that this matter could come under our consideration. We are not debating how much money we shall raise: what laws we shall pass for the regulation of property; nor on any thing of the same kind, that arises in the usual parliamentary course of business. We are now to determine, whether, a step shall be taken, that may produce an entire change of our constitution.

IN forming this determination, one striking reflection should be preserved in our minds; I mean, "that we are the servants of the people of Pennsyl"vania”—of that people, who have been induced by the excellence of the present constitution, to settle themselves under its protection.

THE inhabitants of remote countries, impelled by that love of liberty which all-wise Providence bas planted in the human heart, deserting their native soils, committed themselves with their helpless families to the mercy of winds and waves, and braved all the terrors of an unknown wilderness, in hopes of enjoying in these woods, the exercise of those invaluable rights, which some unhappy circumstance had denied to mankind in every other part of the earth.

THUS, sir, the people of Pennsylvania may be

said to have purchased an inheritance in its constitution, at a prodigious price; and I cannot believe, unless the strongest evidence be offered, that they are now willing to part with that, which has cost them so much toil and expence.

THEY have not hitherto been disappointed in their wishes. They have obtained the blessings they sought for.

WE have received these seats by the free choice of this people, under this constitution; and to preserve it in its utmost purity and vigour, has always been deemed by me, a principal part of the trust committed to my care and fidelity. The measure now proposed has a direct tendency to endanger this constitution; and therefore in my opinion, we have no right to engage in it, without the almost universal consent of the people, exprest in the plain

est manner.

I THINK, I should improperly employ the attention of this house, if I should take up much time in proving, that the deputies of a people have not a right by any law divine or human, to change the government under which their authority was delegated to them, without such a consent as has been mentioned. The position is so consonant to natural justice and common sense, that I believe it

never has been seriously controverted. All the learned authors that I recollect to have mentioned this matter, speak of it as an indisputable maxim.

It may be

jection,

said perhaps, in answer to this ob"that it is not intended to change the government, but the governor." This, I apprehend, is a distinction only in words. The government is certainly to be changed from proprietary to royal; and whatever may be intended, the question is, whether such a change will not expose our present privileges to danger.

Ir may also be said, "that the petitions lying "on the table, are a proof of the people's con"sent." Can petitions so industriously carried about, and after all the pains taken, signed only by about thirty-five hundred persons, be looked on as the plainest expressions of the almost universal consent of the many thousands that fill this province? No one can believe it.

Ir cannot be denied, sir, that much the greatest part of the inhabitants of this province, and among, them men of large fortunes, good sense, and fair characters, who value very highly the interest they have in the present constitution, have not signed

This was frequently said in the house.

these petitions, and as there is reason to apprehend, are extremely averse to a change at this time. Will they not complain of such a change? And if it is not attended with all the advantages they now enjoy, will they not have reason to complain? It is not improbable, that this measure may lay the foundation of more bitter, and more lasting dissen

tions among us, than any we have yet experienced."

BEFORE I close this catalogue of unhappy consequences, that I expect will follow our request of a change, I beg leave to take notice of the terms of the petition that is now under the consideration of the house.

THEY equally excite in my breast-surprize, and grief, and terror. This poor province is already sinking under the weight of the discredit and reproaches, that by some fatality for several years past, have attended our public measures; and we not only seize this unfortunate season to engage her in new difficulties, but prepare to pour on her devoted head, a load that must effectually crush her. -We inform the king by this petition, that Pennsylvania is become a scene of confusion and anarchy that armed mobs are marching from one place to another: that such a spirit of violence and riot prevails, as exposes his majesty's good subjects to constant alarms and danger: that this