Note 1341 — Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

Dr. Franklin and the Rev. William Smith are said to have had a hand in A Brief State of the Province of Pennsylvania, in which the conduct of their assemblies for several years past is impartially examined, London, 1755. (Rich, Bibl. Americana Nova (after 1700), p. 111; Thomson, Bibliog. of Ohio, 1,070; Carter-Brown, iii. nos. 1,082, 1,133; Brinley, ii. no. 3,034; Cooke, no. 2,007; a third edition bears date 1756. It was reprinted by Sabin in N. Y. in 1865.) The purpose of this tract was (in the opinion of the Quakers) to make them obnoxious to the British government by showing their factious spirit of opposition to measures calculated to advance the interests of the province; and on the other side, An Answer to an invidious pamphlet entitled A Brief State, etc., said to be by one Cross, was published the same year in London. (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,083; Cooke, no. 2,008; Brinley, ii. 3,035; Rich, Bib. Am. Nov. (after 1700), p. 111.) A sequel to the Brief State, etc., appeared in London in 1756 as A Brief View of the Conduct of Pennsylvania for the year 1755, so far as it affected the service of the British Colonies, particularly the Expedition under the late General Braddock (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,132; Thomson, Bibl. of Ohio, no. 1,072; Cooke, no. 2,006; Brinley, ii. 3,036; Menzies, 1,580-82; Field, Ind. Bibliog., 1,446; Barlow’s Rough List, no. 937), which included an account of the contemporary incursions of the Indians along the Pennsylvania frontiers. A French version was printed in Paris the same year, under the title of Etat présent de la Pensilvanie (Brinley, i. 225; Murphy, 329; Quaritch, 1885, no. 29,677, £2 10s.). The Barlow Rough List, no. 930, assigns it to the Abbé Delaville. It had “une carte particulière de cette colonie.”