Secret manner peculiar to itself as usuall ; and not sent home, that the Ministry might not know I was to have 500 pounds for passing it, The Offering this, I suppose, you believ'd would be a Sufficient Inducemt to Obtain my Assent to your ₤40,000 Act, your making of that offer Shews what your Notions of Virtue and Honour are, & what many of you would do, if in my Case, for a Much less Sum : but you Mistook your Man ; for if I know myself your whole ₤40,000 would not have Prevail'd upon me to have Acted so mean apart. If I recommend any bill, it shall be, (what I deem) the intrinsick goodness of it shall induce me to do it, and not any Sum you can give me, If you believ'd money would have infiuenc'd me to come into your measures, the offer should have been of a different kind, and not of such a nature, that none but a Fool would have been influenced by ; and instead of being an Inducemt to recommend your bill, or using any Interest to get it pass'd at home would be a Strong motive to the Contrary. . . .
. . . your present bill for making ₤40,000 being to put so much money into the Loan Offices without any certain Indisputable provision for the Support of the Government, I cannot think it proper for me to Assent unto it ; Had that been done : Had a Sufficient sum of money been by that bill Appropriated to the building of a House and conveniences for the Residence of a Governor, Places and Houses for the Sittings of the Council and Assembly, and for the safe keeping & preserving of the Public records of the Province, whereby many tradesmen and the poor and Labouring part of the Inhabitants of the Province, might have been Imploy'd ; & the money circulated among ourselves ; had there been any Provision made for encouraging and increasing the litle Trade, and the few Manufactures we have, whereby more Trad-men and Labourers might be Imploy'd ; I dont know how far I might have been induced, for these and other good purposes to assent to it : But as none of these things are done, nor I believe intended ; and as without these things, or something of that sort litle of the money will Circulate in this Province, or remain long in it, and consequently will fall in its value, and as the bill is full of Confus'd references, and intricate in its make ; I neither can assent to it myself, nor recommend it to have His Majesty's & by this you will save the ₤500, Intended for that Purpose.
Thus much for your bills.
F. W. Ricord and W. Nelson, editors, Documents relating to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey (Trenton, 1891), XV, 271-275 passim.
