Consideration. I have not yet heard whether their Lordships reported in its Favour or not. They will probably make the same objections to the Mode in which that Provision is made as they did to the former Act. But there was no Possibility of having it altered in that Respect, and I was obliged at the last Sessions of Assembly either to consent to just such another Act for the current Year, or to let the King's Troops be unprovided with the Necessaries required by Act of Parliament. The only Difference indeed is about the Mode, not the Essentials, for the Assembly does not refuse to furnish the Troops with every Article required by the Act, but they insist on doing it in their own Manner, and as has been heretofore customary in this Province. The Council, when the last Bill came before them, amended it so as to make it comformable in every respect to the Act of Parliament, but the House unanimously refused to admit the Amendments, and adhered to their Bill; so that the Council, rather than His Majesty's Troops should suffer, receded from their Amendments, and advised me to pass the Bill as it was tendered; which I accordingly did, induced, as they were, by the Urgency of the Occasion.

All the Acts passed at the last Session, held at Amboy in April and May last, together with the Minutes of Council, are now Copying, and will be transmitted to your Lordship by the next Opportunity. The printed Minutes of the Assembly I send herewith.

By Advice of the Council, I dissolv'd the Assembly by Proclamation, soon after the last Session, and issued Writs for a new Election, returnable the 25th of this Month.

I have the Honour to be, with the greatest Respect, My Lord, Your Lordship's

most obedient & most humble Servant W FRANKLIN

Letter from Governor Franklin to Secretary Hillsborough, relative to a letter from the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay.

[From P. R. O., America and West Indies, Vol. 173 (191).]

BURLINGTON, June 16, 1768. The Right Honble the Earl of Hillsborough. My Lord,

I am just honoured with your Lordships Letter, N° 6, dated the 21st. of April last, enclosing a Copy of a Letter from the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Colony of Massachusets Bay, addressed to the Speaker of the Assembly of Each Colony in North America. It never fell in my Way to see a Copy of that Letter before, nor did I know that such a Letter had been receiv'd by the Speaker of the Assembly of this Colony, till I saw it mentioned on their Minutes that such a Letter had been laid before the House, and that a Committee was appointed to prepare & bring in a Draft of a Letter in Answer thereto. I then made Enquiry concerning it, and learnt that it was not likely to have much Weight with the Assembly. And tho' a Committee was at first appointed to answer the Letter, yet I cannot find that any such Answer was ever sent, or even prepared. The House, however, agreed, that an humble, dutiful, & loyal Address to His Majesty, respecting the late Acts of Parliament imposing Duties on the Colonies, should be prepared and transmittted to the Agent, to be presented by him, which was accordingly done, as appears by their Minutes; but I never saw it till the Minutes were printed. On the whole, I have no reason to believe that there is at present a Disposition in the

People of this Colony to enter into any unwarrantable Combination with the Massachuset's Assembly; I shall, however, not fail to be on my Guard, and use my utmost Endeavors to prevent any Thing which may have that Tendency.

I am with the greatest Respect,

My Lord, Your Lordship's

most obedient & most humble Servant

W FRANKLIN

Circular Letter from the Earl of Hillsborough to the Governors in America, directing them to transmit their duplicates by the first opportunity that offers.

Sir

[From New York Colonial Documents, Vol. VIII, p. 82.]

WHITEHALL, July 11, 1768.

As I observe it frequently happens that intelligence of Public Transactions in the Colonies is received by private Persons in this City long before any Official Communication of it comes to me, for his Majesty's Information, I conceive this Inconvenience must arise in great measure from his Majesty's Governors not availing themselves of such casual Opportunities of Writing by private Ships as frequently happens, but confining themselves to the Channel of the Packets only; for this reason I desire that you will for the future send your Dispatches by the first opportunity that offers, and Duplicates of them by the next Packet, or in case the Packet shall be the first Opportunity that offers, then you will send your Duplicates by the Next private Conveyance.

I am &c

HILLSBOROUGH.

Letter from Gov. Franklin to Secretary Hillsborough, relative to a letter from the Speaker of the Massachusetts Bay.

[From P. R. O. America and West Indies, Vol. 173 (191).]

BURLINGTON, July 11, 1768

To the Right Honble the Earl of Hillsborough.

My Lord,

I acquainted your Lordship in my Letter N° 5, that I could not then learn that the Assembly of this Province had sent any Answer to the Letter they had receiv'd from the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Colony of Massachusets Bay. I was induced to believe they had not, as I could find no account of such Transaction on their Minutes, and as I had not the least Intimation thereof from Mr Skinner, the Speaker of the Assembly of New Jersey, who is His Majesty's Attorney General for this Province, and from whom I had a Right to expect Information of all Matters of a new or extraordinary Nature, which might be agitated in the Assembly. But I have since discovered that an Answer was wrote to the Massachusets Letter on the 9th of May, and tho' signed, as it appears, by the Speaker" in the Name and by Order of the House" yet no Notice whatever is taken of it on their Minutes;-A printed Copy of the Letter I send your Lordship herewith.-The Assembly of this Province have since dissolv'd, and a new one elected, in which there are many new Members. But I have no reason to believe that the last Assembly had any Intentions of uniting farther with [that] of Massachuset's Bay than in Petitioning his Majesty, nor have I any cause to expect that the present Assembly would act

otherwise were they conven'd, which, however, it is not intended they shall be till May next, unless His Majesty's Service or some Emergency should make it necessary to call them together before.

I have the Honor to be, with the greatest Respect, My Lord, Your Lordship's

most obedient & most humble Servant

P.S. I take the Freedom to enclose to your Lordship a pamphlett publish'd in New York & reprinted at Philad.-the author unknown

Affidavit of Stephen Skinner,' relative to the robbery of the East New Jersey Treasury.

[From N. Y. Col. MSS., Vol. XCV., p. 46, in the State Library at Albany.] NEW JERSEY, CITY OF

PERTH AMBOY,

SS:

Personally appeared before Frederick Smyth Esq. Chief Justice of the Province of New Jersey this twenty fifth Day of July in the year of our Lord one Thousand Seven hundred and Sixty Eight, Stephen Skinner Esq. Treasurer of the Eastern Division of New Jersey, who being duly sworn deposeth and Saith that about six o'clock on Friday Morning the twenty second Instant he was waked up by his Negro boy who told the Deponent that the Office Window was broke

1 Stephen Skinner, Treasurer of the Eastern Division of New Jersey, had his office at Perth Amboy. It was broken open, as above stated, and robbed of £6,570, 9s 4d in coin and bills. There was a protracted wrangle over the matter between the Governor and the Assembly, the latter body imputing negligence, if no worse, to the Treasurer, and using the circumstance as an argument in favor of vesting the appointment in the Assembly, which the Governor conceded to them on the resignation (Feb. 23, 1774), of Mr. Skinner. The Treasurer blamed one Samuel Ford, who had carried on an extensive counterfeiting enterprise in Morris county with being the robber, but could never fasten the crime clearly on him. A detailed narrative of the affair, by Wm. A. Whitehead, will be found in the N. J. Hist. Soc. Proc. for September, 1850; Contributions to East Jersey History, p. 111; Gordon's Hist. N. J., 150; Sedgwick's Livingston, 161-6; Duer's Life of Lord Stirling, 97-101; "Early History of Morris County," by Rev. Dr. J. F. Tuttle, in Proc. N. J. Hist. Soc., May, 1869, in which many important facts are given not elsewhere published.-[W. N.]