Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/216

in 1739, m I 74 l an Alderman, was chosen Mayor in October, 1745, and while Mayor was called to a seat in the Provincial Council and qualified 17 January, 1746. Visiting England, he returned from there in November, 1748, bearing a commission from the Penns as Lieutenant-Governor of the Province. Franklin writing to James Logan 6 April, 1748, says, " You must have heard that Mr. James Hamilton is appointed our Governor; an event that gives us the more pleasure, as we esteem him a benevolent and upright, as well as a sensible man." T His instructions from home hampered him in his dealings with the Assembly, whose bills for the issue of paper money could not meet his approval as they were without the required proviso that the operations of all such should be suspended until the Royal assent to them could be had. The assembly stood firm on their privileges, and the Governor was embarrassed, for the French were threatening and the Quaker assembly, averse to appropriations for war purposes, though not so to points of money "for the King's use," which would indeed cover many an object whether for war or for peace, could only recognize the issue of bills as the surest way of raising money even for the requirements of the province. Hamilton asked to be superseded, and a month after his election as a Trustee of the Academy he was relieved of the Governorship by the arrival in October, 1754, of Robert Hunter Morris, whose success with the Assembly was no better. " Weary of a service, which he found incompatible, if not with his notions of honor, at least with his repose, he had desired to be dismissed." 2 Hamilton remained in the Council, and was active in all efforts of the authorities to thwart the ravages of the Indians on the borders, traveling even in midwinter to secure proper organization of the inhabitants and friendly Indians, for in the year after his retiring from the Governorship Braddock's defeat had thrown the whole Province into consternation. He was again commissioned Lieutenant-Governor on 19 July, 1759, when on a visit to 1 Bigelow, ii. 115. 2 'Historical Review, in Sparks, iii. 280. In Franklin's letter to David Hume, 27 September, 1760, he disclaims the authorship of this Review. Bigelow, iii. 125. But this disclaimer seems yet an open question with historians.