Benjamin Franklin | Maintaining militia discipline on the Pennsylvania frontier

Benjamin Franklin

Manuscript document signed (“BFranklin, Speaker”) as Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly, [Philadelphia], 30 May 1764, being “An Act for regulating the Officers and Soldiers in the Pay of this Province, and for continuing an Act entituled, ‘An Act for regulating the Hire of Carriages to be employed in His Majesty’s Service,’” 16 pages (324 x 229 mm), written in a neat clerical hand on rectos only on leaves of laid paper (watermarked posthorn), numbered 1–16, signed by the Governor (“John Penn,” with paraph), endorsed and countersigned by the Governor's Secretary (“Joseph Shippen Jr. Secry”), docketed on the verso of the final leaf and endorsed by the Clerk of the Assembly (“Charles Moore, Clk of Assembly”), pendant wax seal detached, but largely preserved; some browning, a number of leaves with fold separations or marginal chips neatly repaired with tissue, costing a few characters on final three leaves, pinholes in upper left corners from early joining with a straight pin. Housed in a brown cloth portfolio.

The Pennsylvania Assembly acts to protect the province’s frontiers during the Paxton Boys crisis. The present legislation, which was passed just four days after Franklin was elected to the speakership, was intended to minimize desertion and other abdication of duty by the Pennsylvania militia in the wake of the Conestoga Massacre, as well as to reassure frontier families that they would be protected from hostile Indians.

“Whereas many barbarous Hostilities have lately been perfidiously committed by the Indians on the Western and northern Frontiers of this Province; and as it is judged necessary that a Body of Forces should be taken into the Pay of this Province, to be employed in His Majesty’s service, and in protecting the Frontier Inhabitants of the Said Province: And whereas no Man can be forejudged of Life or Limb, or subjected in Time of Peace to any kind of Punishment within this Province, by martial Law, or in any other Manner, than by the Judgement of his Peers, and according to the known and established Laws of the Province; yet nevertheless, it being requisite, for the retaining such Forces in their Duty, that an exact Discipline be observed, and that Offenders be brought to a more exemplary and speedy Punishment than the usual Forms of the Law will allow, Be it therefore enacted … That from and after the Publication of this Act, if any Person who is, or shall be hereafter … an Officer; or … a Soldier,” violating a series of proscribed duties, “shall suffer Death, or such other Punishment as by a Court martial shall be inflicted.” Among the offenses listed are inciting mutiny or sedition, sleeping at one’s post, corresponding with any Indians concerned in the hostilities, and disobeying orders.

The political careers of both Franklin and Penn were threatened by the Conestoga Massacre, a retaliatory attack for a series of raids by Lenape and Shawnee warriors in Lancaster County. In two separate strikes in December 1763, a mob of rangers known as the Paxton Boys murdered all twenty residents of Conestoga Town—men, women, and children—although the Conestoga people had no involvement in the frontier attacks on white settlers. Franklin condemned the attack in print (see lot 92), and Penn ordered the arrest of the Paxton Boys, but many pioneer settlers supported the vigilantes and none of the Paxton Boys were ever held accountable for the Conestoga Massacre.

For a related manuscript Assembly Act of the same date—"An Act for Granting to His Majesty the Sum of Fifty-five Thousand Pounds and for Striking the same in Bills of Credit in the Manner hereinafter Directed”— see The Frank T. Siebert Library of the North American Indian and the American Frontier, part 1 (Sotheby’s New York, 21 May 1999), lot 174. This act stated that “Whereas many barbarous Invasions have been made on several of His Majesty's Colonies in America, & on the Frontiers of this Province in particular, by … Parties of the Northern & Western Indians, whereby a great number of the Inhabitants have been driven from their Habitations, [and] many perfidiously murdered … in manifest violation of the most solemn Treaties. … Therefore, We, the Representatives of the People of this Province, desirous of complying in the fullest Manner, with the Requisition made of them by His Majesty's said Commander in Chief, and of cooperating with such offensive Measures as shall be judged necessary for reducing the said Indians and securing the future Peace and Quiet of the Colonies … pray that … the sum of Fifty-Five Thousand Pounds … shall be given to the King’s use.”

Despite Franklin’s antipathy towards the Paxton Boys, and his genuine sympathy for the peaceful, and often Christian, Indians targeted by the mob, the refusal of many settlers to condemn the vigilantes made strong measures for frontier defense, such as those outlined by the two legislative acts of 30 May 1764, necessary to quell the frontiersfolk's growing fear of Native American ambuscades.

The accompanying pendant wax seal, originally affixed to the document, is the first seal of the Province of Pennsylvania, known as the Great Seal of William Penn. The obverse features the Penn family coat of arms (a shield, crossed horizontally by a fess or band and the motto, “Mercy, Justice”) within the circular legend “William Penn Proprietor & Governor of Pensilvania.” The reverse depicts three ears of corn, forming a trefoil, alternating with three sticks entwined with grapevines, within a band bearing the words “Truth, Peace, Love, and Plenty,” all within an outer ring of stylized wheat stalks. 

PROVENANCE

Laird U. Park Jr. (Sotheby’s New York, 29 November 2000, lot 120)