Quaker government went quietly on, performing its functions with vigor and system. Paper money, fully secured by individual property, as well as State credit, was issued in moderate amounts, was never depreciated, and developed business enterprise by taking the place of gold and silver drained to England to purchase the needed importation of a busy and growing population. Taxes were light and were mostly raised from tavern licenses. Indians were friendly, and were kept so by frequent presents and purchases of land. The criminal laws, while rather severe, were humanely executed, and life and property were secured by an alert magistracy and a conscientious population. Oaths were voluntary; war did not exist. There were no militia companies, but little martial feeling. All religions were free and on an equal footing. Political and personal rights were guarded with jealous care. The best men of the colony, men of the highest education, morality and property interests, held, by the choice of the people, the high offices of government. No taint of political corruption seems to have vitiated the dignity of office-holding, but there "was magistracy in reverence with the people, and kept from being hurtful to them." Could Penn have

seen this thirty years' peace, he would not have been utterly discouraged, nor deemed the "Holy Experiment" a failure.

In 1739 England and Spain went to war, and this was the beginning of the end. In another chapter military questions will be taken up. It is only necessary here to refer to the protection and extension of popular privileges indirectly resulting from the wars. War meant privateering, and privateering destroyed commerce, and this touched Pennsylvania immediately. War meant taxes, and taxes produced discontent, differences with the Governors about the rights of the Assembly, cessation of friendly feeling, and a re-creation of parties.

The Spanish war was soon over, but it was followed by one with the French and their Indian allies in 1744. This lasted in America, in some

part or other, practically continuously till 1763, and when it ended the Quaker Assembly was no

more.

Parties were now formed on new lines. They had largely disappeared during the twenties and thirties, but at this time we find a marked difference, growing more emphatic with the years between the proprietary party and the "country" party. The Quakers were now in consid

erable minority in the Province, but were practically all on one side. The Proprietors had left the Society and joined the Episcopal Church, and that body rallied around them. So also did the Presbyterians, and all who believed in a vigorous, warlike policy. These stood together for proprietary rights and interests, and had as their stronghold the Governor and Council.

The Friends and the Germans and their sympathizers maintained their ascendency in the popularly elected Assembly, where they did practically as they pleased. They opposed proprietary pretensions, favored grants to the Indians, and cut down expenses for military operations wherever possible. Their efforts during the years from 1740 to 1756 were directed to securing their rights as representatives of the people in the matters of protesting against secret and arbitrary instructions to the Governor by the Proprictors; of raising money in whatever way seemed good to them; of insistence on the large proprietary estates being subject to taxation as other similar estates were; and of independence of royal instructions when they contravened their charter.

The machinery by which the Quakers held their party together, judging from the results,

was effective. During the thirty years of peace they had become competent politicians. It is uncertain how they selected their candidates, or by what means they elected them. There is no reason to suspect any immoral proceedings, for their Assemblymen were men of excellent standing, and many of them served for a long time. Most of them were farmers, and this gave the few men who knew something about law, like David Lloyd, the two Norrises, and Benjamin Franklin, their great influence. It is probable that a loosely organized town meeting called for each case as it arose determined the choice, and that the general interest in the issue, and community of political tendencies carried the election. We hear nothing of difficulties within the party, and they were not the sort of people to tolerate bosses quietly. In these matters of liberty they were solidly and effectively united in the general struggle against Crown and Proprietor, which led up to the Revolutionary war, and held their own as honorably and as successfully as the liberty party of any other colony.

The Province very early in its history, while supplied with many of the necessities of life, was short of money. This resulted from the large