As soon as I was settled in a lodging Mr. Charles had provided for me, I went to visit Dr. Fothergill, to whom I was strongly recommended, and whose counsel respecting my proceedings I was advis’d to obtain. He was against an immediate complaint to government, and thought the proprietaries should first be personally appli’d to, who might possibly be induc’d by the interposition and persuasion of some private friends, to accommodate matters amicably. I then waited on my old friend and correspondent, Mr. Peter Collinson, who told me that John Hanbury, the great Virginia merchant, had requested to be informed when I should arrive, that he might carry me to Lord Granville’s, who was then President of the Council and wished to see me as soon as possible. I agreed to go with him the next morning. Accordingly Mr. Hanbury called for me and took me in his carriage to that nobleman’s, who receiv’d me with great civility; and after some questions respecting the present state of affairs in America and discourse thereupon, he said to me: “You Americans have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution; you contend that the king’s instructions to his governors are not laws, and think yourselves at liberty to regard or disregard them at your own discretion. But those instructions are not like the pocket instructions given to a minister going abroad, for regulating his conduct in some trifling point of ceremony. They are first drawn up by judges learned in the laws; they are then considered, debated, and perhaps amended in Council, after which they are signed by the king. They are then, so far as they relate to you, the law of the land, for the king is the Legislator of the Colonies.” I told his lordship this was new doctrine to me. I had always understood from our charters that our laws were to be made by our Assemblies, to be presented indeed to the king for his royal assent, but that being once given the king could not repeal or alter them. And as the Assemblies could not make permanent laws without his assent, so neither could he make a law for them without theirs. He assur’d me I was totally mistaken. I did not think so, however, and his lordship’s conversation having a little alarm’d me as to what might be the sentiments of the court concerning us, I wrote it down as soon as I return’d to my lodgings. I recollected that about 20 years before, a clause in a bill brought into Parliament by the ministry had propos’d to make the king’s instructions laws in the colonies, but the clause was thrown out by the Commons, for which we adored them as our friends and friends of liberty, till by their conduct towards us in 1765 it seem’d that they had refus’d that point of sovereignty to the king only that they might reserve it for themselves.我在查尔斯先生为我安排的住处安顿下来后，便去拜访福瑟吉尔博士。有人郑重向他推荐过我，并建议我就此行事务听取他的意见。他反对立即向政府控诉，认为应先亲自同领主们接触；也许在一些私人朋友的调停和劝说下，事情可以友好解决。 随后我拜访老朋友、老通信者彼得·柯林逊先生。他告诉我，弗吉尼亚大商人约翰·汉伯里曾请他在我抵达时通知一声，好带我去见格兰维尔勋爵。格兰维尔当时是枢密院院长，希望尽快见到我。我答应第二天上午同他前去。于是汉伯里先生来接我，坐他的马车去见那位贵人。 格兰维尔勋爵十分礼貌地接待了我，问了些美洲当前局势的问题，并就此交谈。随后他对我说：“你们美洲人对自己宪制的性质有错误理解。你们主张国王给州长的指令不是法律，认为自己可以凭判断选择遵从或不遵从。但这些指令并不像派往外国的大臣随身携带的便笺，只是规定某些礼节小事。它们先由精通法律的法官起草，再由枢密院审议、辩论，或加以修改，最后由国王签署。因此，只要这些指令关系到你们，它们就是当地法律，因为国王是殖民地的立法者。” 我告诉勋爵，这种说法对我来说很新。我一直从我们的宪章理解到，我们的法律应由我们的议会制定，确实要呈交国王批准；但一经批准，国王便不能废除或更改。正如议会没有国王同意不能制定永久法律，国王没有议会同意也不能为我们立法。他向我保证说我完全错了。可是我并不这样认为。勋爵的谈话使我对宫廷方面对我们的看法稍感警惕，所以一回住处便把它记了下来。 我记得大约二十年前，内阁曾向国会提交一项议案，其中有一条拟把国王给殖民地的指令变成法律，但这一条被下议院删除。我们曾因此把下议院当作朋友、当作自由的朋友来尊敬。直到一七六五年他们对我们的做法表明，他们之所以拒绝把这项主权给国王，只是为了把它保留给自己。
After some days, Dr. Fothergill having spoken to the proprietaries, they agreed to a meeting with me at Mr. T. Penn’s house in Spring Garden. The conversation at first consisted of mutual declarations of disposition to reasonable accommodations, but I suppose each party had its own ideas of what should be meant by reasonable. We then went into consideration of our several points of complaint, which I enumerated. The proprietaries justify’d their conduct as well as they could, and I the Assembly’s. We now appeared very wide, and so far from each other in our opinions as to discourage all hope of agreement. However, it was concluded that I should give them the heads of our complaints in writing, and they promis’d then to consider them. I did so soon after, but they put the paper into the hands of their solicitor, Ferdinand John Paris, who managed for them all their law business in their great suit with the neighbouring proprietary of Maryland, Lord Baltimore, which had subsisted 70 years, and wrote for them all their papers and messages in their dispute with the Assembly. He was a proud, angry man, and as I had occasionally in the answers of the Assembly treated his papers with some severity, they being really weak in point of argument and haughty in expression, he had conceived a mortal enmity to me, which discovering itself whenever we met, I declin’d the proprietary’s proposal that he and I should discuss the heads of complaint between our two selves, and refus’d treating with any one but them. They then by his advice put the paper into the hands of the Attorney and Solicitor-General for their opinion and counsel upon it, where it lay unanswered a year wanting eight days, during which time I made frequent demands of an answer from the proprietaries, but without obtaining any other than that they had not yet received the opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor-General. What it was when they did receive it I never learnt, for they did not communicate it to me, but sent a long message to the Assembly drawn and signed by Paris, reciting my paper, complaining of its want of formality, as a rudeness on my part, and giving a flimsy justification of their conduct, adding that they should be willing to accommodate matters if the Assembly would send out some person of candour to treat with them for that purpose, intimating thereby that I was not such.几天后，福瑟吉尔博士跟领主们交谈过后，他们同意在潘先生的四季花园家中跟我会面。谈话开始时，双方都表示愿意寻求合理的解决方案，但是我想双方对于“合理”一词一定各有自己的见解。接着，我们就我所列举出来的双方互相抱怨的问题进行了讨论, 领主们尽力为自己的行为辩解, 我也蔡州议会的行为辩护。当时我们分歧很大，意见也是相距十万八千里，在我看来根本无望达成什么协议，但是最后他们却要我把我们所控诉的项目写成书面文件，交给他们，他们答应加以考虑。我照办了，但没想到的是，他们竟把我们的控诉交给了他们的律师斐迪南' 约翰' 保利斯。 保利斯蔡他们处理过跟邻州马里兰的领主巴尔迪摩勋超的诉讼，这件大诉讼案已经持续了七十年之入。领主同州议会争论的所有文件和信函都是由他执笔的。这个人生性傲慢，脾气暴躁，在过去州议会的复文中，我曾对他的文件进行过择击，说他的文件论据无力，言辞无理，于是跟他结下了不解之仇。每次见面，我都能从他的表情中看出仇恨，领主们要我和他单独讨论争议的问题，我拒绝耻，除了和领主，我不会跟任何人谈判。 然后，在律师的建议下，他们把我们的控诉交给了检察长和副检察长，征求他们的意见，并希望他们提出解决办法，但是这件案子在他们手里拖了差八天就一整年的时间。在这期间，我多次要求领主们答复，但是他们都以没有得到检察长和副检察长的答复而拒绝回复。后来，他们终于接到了检察长和副检察长的意见，但同样没有告诉我那是什么。不过，他们倒是给州议会写了一封元长的咨文《由保利斯起稿和签署的)，文中引述了我的控诉书, 说我粗鲁无礼, 同时为自己的行为做了些许辩解, 最后表示，如果州议会派遣一个公正坦率的人前来谈判，他们倒是愿意和解，瞳指我并非公正坦率之人。
The want of formality or rudeness was, probably, my not having address’d the paper to them with their assum’d titles of True and Absolute Proprietaries of the Province of Pennsylvania, which I omitted as not thinking it necessary in a paper, the intention of which was only to reduce to a certainty by writing, what in conversation I had delivered viva voce.所谓举止粗俗，大概是指我在给他们的文件中没有写上他们的尊称“宾夕法尼亚真正的绝对的领主”。 我之所以省略这一称谓，是因为在这个文件中没有必要出现，此文件的目的，只在于把我口头所讲的内容用文字的形式表达出来。
But during this delay, the Assembly having prevailed with Gov’r Denny to pass an act taxing the proprietary estate in common with the estates of the people, which was the grand point in dispute, they omitted answering the message.可是就在这段拖延期间，州议会已经说服丹尼州长通过一项法案，使领主地产同人民地产一样纳税。这正是争议的核心问题，因此他们没有再答复那封咨文。
When this act however came over, the proprietaries, counselled by Paris, determined to oppose its receiving the royal assent. Accordingly they petition’d the king in Council, and a hearing was appointed in which two lawyers were employ’d by them against the act, and two by me in support of it. They alledg’d that the act was intended to load the proprietary estate in order to spare those of the people, and that if it were suffer’d to continue in force, and the proprietaries who were in odium with the people, left to their mercy in proportioning the taxes, they would inevitably be ruined. We reply’d that the act had no such intention, and would have no such effect. That the assessors were honest and discreet men under an oath to assess fairly and equitably, and that any advantage each of them might expect in lessening his own tax by augmenting that of the proprietaries was too trifling to induce them to perjure themselves. This is the purport of what I remember as urged by both sides, except that we insisted strongly on the mischievous consequences that must attend a repeal, for that the money, £100,000, being printed and given to the king’s use, expended in his service, and now spread among the people, the repeal would strike it dead in their hands to the ruin of many, and the total discouragement of future grants, and the selfishness of the proprietors in soliciting such a general catastrophe, merely from a groundless fear of their estate being taxed too highly, was insisted on in the strongest terms. On this, Lord Mansfield, one of the counsel rose, and beckoning me took me into the clerk’s chamber, while the lawyers were pleading, and asked me if I was really of opinion that no injury would be done the proprietary estate in the execution of the act. I said certainly. “Then,” says he, “you can have little objection to enter into an engagement to assure that point.” I answer’d, “None at all.” He then call’d in Paris, and after some discourse, his lordship’s proposition was accepted on both sides; a paper to the purpose was drawn up by the Clerk of the Council, which I sign’d with Mr. Charles, who was also an Agent of the Province for their ordinary affairs, when Lord Mansfield returned to the Council Chamber, where finally the law was allowed to pass. Some changes were however recommended and we also engaged they should be made by a subsequent law, but the Assembly did not think them necessary; for one year’s tax having been levied by the act before the order of Council arrived, they appointed a committee to examine the proceedings of the assessors, and on this committee they put several particular friends of the proprietaries. After a full enquiry, they unanimously sign’d a report that they found the tax had been assess’d with perfect equity.然而，当这项法案送到英国后，领主们在保利斯的建议下，决定阻止它获得王室批准。于是他们向枢密院请愿，枢密院安排听证；领主方面聘请两名律师反对法案，我也聘请两名律师支持法案。领主方面声称，这项法案意在加重领主地产负担，以减轻人民负担；如果允许它继续有效，领主们既然已为人民所憎恶，而税额分配又听凭人民摆布，必将被毁。 我们回答说，法案没有这种目的，也不会产生这种效果。评税员都是诚实谨慎的人，并已宣誓公平合理地估税；他们即便能通过增加领主税额稍稍减轻自己的税，也不值得为这点微利而作伪誓。据我记忆，双方争论的大意如此。此外，我们强烈指出，废除此法将造成严重后果：十万英镑纸币已经印出并供国王使用，已用于王室事务，现又流通在人民手中；若废除此法，这些纸币会在人民手中立刻作废，许多人将因此破产，未来的拨款也会完全受挫。领主们仅仅因为毫无根据地担心自己的地产会被课税过重，就请求造成这样一场普遍灾难，其自私性被我们着重指出。 听到这里，律师之一曼斯菲尔德勋爵站起来，向我招手，把我带到书记官室；外面律师们仍在辩论。他问我是否真认为执行这项法案不会损害领主地产。我说当然不会。他说：“那么，你大概不会反对立约保证这一点吧。”我回答：“完全不反对。”于是他叫来保利斯。经过一番商谈，双方接受了勋爵的提议；枢密院书记官起草了一份相应文件，我同查尔斯先生一起签署。查尔斯先生也是本州日常事务的代理人。随后曼斯菲尔德勋爵回到枢密院会议室，最终这项法律获准通过。 不过，枢密院建议作若干修改，我们也承诺以后另立法律加以修改。但州议会认为没有必要；因为枢密院命令到达以前，这项法案第一年的税已经征收完毕。州议会任命一个委员会审查评税员的工作，并且为公平起见，把几位领主的特别朋友也列入委员会。经过充分调查，他们一致签署报告，证明税额评定完全公平。
The Assembly looked into my entering into the first part of the engagement, as an essential service to the Province, since it secured the credit of the paper money then spread over all the country. They gave me their thanks in form when I return’d. But the proprietaries were enraged at Governor Denny for having pass’d the act, and turn’d him out with threats of suing him for breach of instructions which he had given bond to observe. He, however, having done it at the instance of the General, and for His Majesty’s service, and having some powerful interest at court, despis’d the threats and they were never put in execution…州议会审阅了我立约担保的第一部分后，认为我对本州做出了重大贡献，因为它确保了流通于民间的纸币的信誉。在我返回费城后，他们向我郑重地致谢。由于州长批准了这项法案，领主对他恼恨有加，要撤他的职，还威胁要起诉他，认为他违背了他应该遵守的盟约。但他也是奉命行事的，并且是为了英国国王的军务，他在英国宫廷中也有一些势力，根本不把领主的威胁放在眼里，所以这些威胁最终从未实现过。
[Unfinished].