pass an act (of settlement must be understood) with a salvo to the proprietary and people; and that he would also issue out his writs for chusing a full number of representatives on the 10th of March next ensuing, to serve in provincial council and assembly according to charter, until the proprietary's. pleasure should be known therein; and that if the proprie tary should disapprove the same, that then the said act should be void, and no ways prejudicial to him or the people in relation to the validity or invalidity of the said

charter."

To this expedient the house unanimously agreed. A bill of settlement, and a money bill, were thereupon ordered and prepared; and after some temperament, reported, agreed to, and passed.

The money bill was for raising three hundred pounds for support of government, and relieving the distressed Indians.

In the act of settlement, the rotation principle was wholly dropped. Elections both of council and assembly were to be annual and certain: the time of election, March 10th: the time of sitting, May the 10th: the members of council for each county two, for the assembly four: they were to be of the most note for virtue, wisdom, and ability, and otherwise qualified in point of fortune and residency. In the governor or his deputy, and the said assembly and council, the government was placed. The governor or his deputy was to preside in council; but at no time perform any act of state whatsoever, but by and with the advice and consent of the council, or a majority thereof: that two-thirds were to be a quorum in the upper walk of business, and one-third in the lower: that the assembly should have power to propose bills as well as the council: that both might confer on such as either of them should propose; that such as the governor in council gave his consent to, should be laws that the style of those laws should be,—By the governor, with the assent and the approbation of the freemen in general assembly met: that duplicates thereof should be transmitted to the king's council, according to the late king's patent; that the assembly should sit on their own

:

adjournments and committees, and continue to prepare and propose bills, redress grievances, impeach criminals, &c. till dismissed by the governor and council; and to remain during the year liable to serve upon his and their summons; should be allowed wages and travelling charges; two-thirds to make a quorum; all questions to be decided by a majority; affirmations to be admitted in all courts, &c. instead of oaths, where required; all persons in possession of lands by purchase or otherwise under any legal or equitable claim, so to continue; sheriffs and their substitutes to give security for office behaviour; elections were to be free, regular, incorrupt, &c. no member being permitted to serve without wages, or for less wages than by this act appointed, &c. Neither the form or effect of this act was to be diminished or altered in any part or clause thereof, contrary to the true intent or meaning thereof, without the consent of the governor and six parts in seven of the freemen in council and assembly met: it was to continue and be in force till the proprietary should by some instrument under his hand and seal, signify his pleasure to the contrary: and it was provided, that neither this act nor any other should preclude or debar the inhabitants of this province and territories from claiming, having, and enjoying any of the rights, privileges, and immunities, which the said proprietary for himself, his heirs and assigns, did formerly grant, or which of right did belong unto them the said inhabitants by virtue of any law, charter, or grant whatsoever, any thing therein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.

A new application from governor Fletcher for farther assistance, and the report of a committee of the assembly to whom it was referred (urging the infancy, poverty, and incumbered state of the colony in excuse for non-compliance) together with an act for ratifying and confirming the acts. and proceedings of the last year's assembly by some persons questioned and misrepresented, are all the remains of what passed in the assembly of 1697.

Nor does any thing material occur in the years 1698, 1699, till the arrival of the proprietary from England.

January 25th, 1699-1700, the assembly being convened for the second time, was told by the proprietary in person, that he had so convened them chiefly to reinforce the former laws; or by a new law more rigorously to discourage piracy and forbidden trade: misdemeanors which he said had exposed the government to much odium at home, which he had been much pressed by his superiors to correct, and which he, therefore, pressed most concernedly upon them.

Both these points were immediately referred to the consideration of two several committees; and one of their own members, son-in-law of their late lieutenant-governor Markham, proving to be the most obnoxious person on the first of these accounts, they proceeded so far as to commit him, till satisfied by the governor that he had given sufficient security for his appearance to answer what complaints should be brought against him.

They also took care to purge themselves on the head of forbidden or illicit trade, which appears to have been done in so effectual a manner, that the governor himself could not avoid co-operating with the council in their justification. To prove which, his answer to their several addresses (concerning a fit person to be provincial treasurer; cautions to avoid confusion in the next election, which was to be on a new model, as also the expediency of the advice and consent of the council and assembly thereon; and false information sent to England against them) here inserted, will be sufficient: to wit,

"First, as to the receiver or treasurer, that he would consider of it, and would take care to please all by his choice of a fit person: as to their address to avoid confusion in the next election, that he consented to the request of the house, and ordered by general consent of council and assembly, minutes to be made in both: that, at the next election, three should be chosen for council in each county, and six for assembly; the election to be on the usual day; but reserving to himself the specification of the term the former were to serve for, which was to be expressed in the writ:

and that as to the other point of false information sent against the colony to England, the unseasonable time of the year would not suffer the merits of the case to be thoroughly discussed, but that all the representatives both of council and assembly, had agreed in drawing up some general defence for the present.'

And before their separation it was drawn up and presented to the governor accordingly.

The next general assembly met at the usual time, and was in every respect an extraordinary one: extraordinary for the number of members superadded in the manner just recited: extraordinary for an occasional law they passed at the instance of the governor and council, to prolong the present sessions beyond the time limited by charter: and extraordinary for the debates concerning another new frame of government, which continued through the whole course of it, without producing any satisfactory temperament at last.

Found intractable, after a month's practice, they were dissolved; and in October following, a new assembly was summoned: not as before to consist of thirty-six members, but of twenty-four; that is to say, four instead of six for each county.

The place of meeting was also different; for instead of assembling as usual at Philadelphia, the members were convened at New Castle, perhaps only to gratify the inhabitants of the territories, at a time when extraordinary demands were to be made upon them for the gratification of the proprietary governor.

At the opening of this assembly, the governor said, he had called them upon urgent occasions: that they were in want of a frame of government; a body of laws; a settlement of property; and a supply for the support of government: adding, that he would give them all the assistance in his power.

With the body of laws they began, and made a considerable progress in the work: but the frame of government again met with as many difficulties as before. The conditions of union between the province and the territories, in

particular, had like to have produced an immediate separation: and the dispute which arose concerning equal privi leges or equal voices in the representative, could be no otherwise compromised than by referring the issue to the next general assembly.

The points which more immediately concerned both branches of the legislature, were the settlement of property and the supply. In the latter the governor himself was deeply interested, and almost every land-holder of the colony in the former. These, therefore, were to be first dispatched; and, accordingly, a bill for the effectual establishment and confirmation of the freeholders of both parts of the united colony, their heirs and assigns, in their lands and tenements; together with two others; one for raising of one penny per pound, and six shillings per head for support of government, &c. and one for granting and raising to the proprietary and governor two thousand pounds, upon the real value of estates real and personal, and another six shillings poll-tax; of which more than a moiety was paid by the county of Philadelphia alone. Nor ought it to be forgotten, that in the preceding session four pence in the pound and twenty-four shillings per head had been demanded for these services; and that as they paid by halves, the proprietary performed by halves; as the mention hereafter made of his charter of property will demonstrate.

The same assembly being again convened in August at Philadelphia, in consequence of a letter from his majesty, requiring an aid of three hundred and fifty pounds sterling towards the fortifications to be raised on the frontiers of New York, they excused themselves from complying; urging that the great sums lately assessed upon the colony by way of impost and taxes, over and above the arrears of quit-rents, had rendered them incapable: and these excuses were readily admitted by the government; so that the proprietary interest in this instance undeniably supplanted the royal: 'and private interest public service.

In September, 1701, the proprietary convened another assembly, consisting of four members for each of the six coun

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