“It is no wonder that you are perplexed by what you hear and see in this city.  I will seek to make the point at issue as clear to you as it may be.  You have doubtless heard of the Penn family, from whom this colony takes its name.  Much we owe to our founder—­his wisdom, liberality, and enlightenment; but his sons are hated here.  They are absent in England, but they are the proprietaries of vast tracts of land, and it is with regard to these lands that the troubles in the Assembly arise.  The proprietaries are regarded as renegades from the faith; for the Assembly here is Quaker almost to a man.  They hate the feudalism of the tenure of the proprietaries, and they are resolved to tax these lands, although they will not defend them, and although no income is at present derived from them.”

“Have they the power to do so?” asked Julian.

“Not without the consent of the Governor.  That is where the whole trouble lies.  And the Governor has no power to grant them leave to tax the proprietary lands.  Not only so, but he is expressly forbidden by the terms of his commission to permit this taxation.  But the Assembly will not yield the point, nor will they consent to furnish means for the defence of the colony until this point is conceded.  That is where the deadlock comes in.  The Governor cannot yield; his powers do not permit it.  The Assembly will not yield.  They hate the thought of war, and seem glad to shelter themselves behind this quibble.  For a while many of us, their friends, although not exactly at one with them in all things, stood by them and upheld them; but we are fast losing patience now.  When it comes to having our peaceful settlers barbarously murdered, and our western border desolated and encroached upon; when it becomes known that this is the doing of jealous France, not of the Indians themselves, then it is time to take a wider outlook.  Let the question of the proprietary lands stand over till another time; the question may then be settled at a less price than is being paid for it now, when every month’s delay costs us the lives of helpless women and children, and when humanity herself is crying aloud in our streets.”

Ashley, although he had long been on most friendly terms with the Quaker population of the town, was not by faith a Quaker, and was growing impatient with the Assembly and its stubborn policy of resistance.  He felt that his old friend Franklin should know better, and show a wider spirit.  He had acted with promptness and patriotism earlier in the year, when Braddock’s luckless expedition had applied to him for help.  But in this warfare he was sternly resolved on the victory over the Governor, and at this moment it seemed as though all Philadelphia was much more eager to achieve this than to defend the borders of the colony.