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252 had been shown the letters-patent from the king to the marshal, with the broad seal of the high court of admiralty attached. He said, “What is this? Do you think to scare us wt a great box and a little Babie? 'Tis true, fine pictures please children, but wee are not to be frightened at such a rate.” For the use of these words he was expelled from his seat in the Council, and for permitting them to be uttered without rebuke the three judges, Morris, Richardson and Fox, were summoned to the presence of the governor and reprimanded. Edward Shippen, being absent in New England, escaped the latter punishment.

Richardson was elected a member of the Assembly for the years 1691, '92, '93, '94, '96, '97, '98, 1700, '01, '02, '03, '06, '07, '09. He probably found the leaders of that body more congenial associates than had been the members of the Council, and, from the fact that he was sent with very unusual frequency to confer with the different governors in regard to disputed legislation, it may be presumed that he was a fair representative of the views entertained by the majority. Though doubtless identified in opinion with David Lloyd, he does not appear to have been so obnoxious to the Proprietary party as many of his colleagues, since James Logan, writing to Penn in 1704, regrets his absence that year, and on another occasion says that the delegation from Philadelphia county, consisting of David Lloyd, Joseph Wilcox, Griffith Jones, Joshua Carpenter, Francis Rawle, John Roberts, Robert Jones and Samuel Richardson, were “all bad but the last.” \ On the 20th of October, 1703, a dispute arose concerning the power of the Assembly over its own adjournment — a question long and warmly debated before — which illustrates in a rather amusing way the futile attempts frequently made by the governors and their Council to