"WHEREAS, Complaint hath been made to this House by James M'Calmont James M'Lene, John Piper and William Findley, esquires, members thereof, that on the night of Tuesday the sixth instant, the house of major Boyd, of this city, in which they resided, was riotously attacked by a number of persons, to the said members unknown, and themselves abused and insulted by reproachful language. "Resolved, That such outrageous proceedings is highly disapproved of by this House, and is a breach of the privilege of its members. "Resolved, That this resolution, together with the affidavits which the said members have thought proper to produce on the subject, be transmitted to the Supreme Executive Council, and that Council be requested to issue a proclamation, offering such rewards as they may deem necessary for apprehending the perpetrators of the said outrage, in order that they may be brought to punishment, and that this House will provide for the payment of such rewards;" and Whereas, It is highly proper that the authors of such high contempts, so inconsistent with the dignity and good order of government, and of the most pernicious example, should be immediately discovered and brought to condign punishment; WE DO, therefore, by this our proclamation, offer and promise the reward of THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS for the discovery of the rioters aforesaid, so that they be duly convicted of the same offence, to be paid out of the public treasury of this commonwealth, to the person or persons who shall furnish the necessary information concerning the premises. And we do hereby charge and require all judges, justices, sheriffs and constables to make diligent search and enquiry after and to use their utmost endeavors to apprehend and secure the said rioters, their aiders, abettors and comforters, so that they may be dealt with according to law. Given in Council, under the hand of the President, and the seal of the Attest: CHARLES BIDDLE, Sec'ry. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. God save the Commonwealth. The proclamation was matter of form; neither the Judges, nor the Justices, the Sheriffs nor the Constables exerted them- . selves to find the rioters, and the delegates chosen throughout the State assembled at the State House on the 21st of November. STATE CONVENTION. Wednesday, November 21? Sixty* of the gentlemen elected to serve in the convention met; the returns of the elections held for the city of Philadelphia and the several counties of this State were read, by * From the Pennsylvania Packet, Nov. 27. which it appeared that the following gentlemen were returned as delegates to the convention* for the said city and counties respectively, viz: Philadelphia City. Chester. George Latimer -Thomas Bull Anthony Wayne William Gibbons Stephen Chambers John Whitehill. Henry Slagle -Thomas Campbell *The minutes of the convention give but a meagre account of its proceedings, nor is there any complete report of the debates, that took place, known to exist. At first the Philadelphia papers furnished short accounts of the proceedings, but before long they reprinted from the Pennsylvania Herald what appears to have been a tolerably full report. Unfortunately this report was suspended after bringing the debates down to November 30th, and if the statement of "Centinel," is accepted it was suppressed through the efforts of the Federalists. There is but little doubt that it was prepared by Alexander James Dallas, then a young man engaged by William Spotswood, proprietor of the Pennsylvania Herald and Columbian Magazine, to edit those publications. Thomas Lloyd, a short-hand writer of some note, proposed to take down the debates and print them as soon as the convention should adjourn. But one volume of his work however appeared, and that contains little else than the speeches of Wilson and a few of those of M'Kean. The language of some of these differs from the reports made by Dallas, and has evidently been subjected to revision. Nevertheless this volume was used by Elliot, and contains all he publishes as the Debates in the Pennsylvania Convention. To give as full an account as is now possible of what was said in the Convention, the Reports of Dallas, and what else appeared in the papers of the day, have been carefully arranged, and the omissions from Lloyd's volume in part supplied, indicating in each case the authority drawn from. |