all taxes
to be laid by officials in whose appointment they had no voice.[341]
Thomas and Richard Penn, the present proprietaries, had debarred their
deputy, the Governor, both by the terms of his commission and by special
instruction, from consenting to such taxation, and had laid him under
heavy bonds to secure his obedience. Thus there was another side to the
question than that of the Assembly; though our American writers have
been slow to acknowledge it.

[Footnote 339: The productive estates of the proprietaries were taxed
through the tenants.]

[Footnote 340: The proprietaries offered to contribute to the cost of
building and maintaining a fort on the spot where the French soon after
built Fort Duquesne. This plan, vigorously executed, would have saved
the province from a deluge of miseries. One of the reasons assigned by
the Assembly for rejecting it was that it would irritate the enemy. See
_supra_, p. 63.]

[Footnote 341: _A Brief View of the Conduct of Pennsylvania for the year
1755_.]

Benjamin Franklin was leader in the Assembly and shared its views. The
feudal proprietorship of the Penn family was odious to his democratic
nature. It was, in truth, a pestilent anomaly, repugnant to the genius
of the people; and the disposition and character of the present
proprietaries did not tend to render it less vexatious. Yet there were
considerations which might have tempered the impatient hatred with which
the colonists regarded it. The first proprietary, William Penn, had used
his feudal rights in the interest of a broad liberalism; and through
them had established the popular institutions and universal tolerance
which made Pennsylvania the most democratic province in America, and
nursed the spirit of liberty which now revolted against his heirs. The
one absorbing passion of Pennsylvania was resistance of their deputy,
the Governor. The badge of feudalism, though light, was insufferably
irritating; and the sons of William Penn were moreover detested by the
Quakers as renegades from the faith of their father. Thus the immediate
political conflict engrossed mind and heart; and in the rancor of their
quarrel with the proprietaries, the Assembly forgot the French and
Indians.

In Philadelphia and the eastern districts the Quakers could ply their
trades, tend their shops, till their farms, and discourse at their ease
on the wickedness of war. The midland counties, too, were for the most
part tolerably safe. They we