I. 1684. cies in the life of righteousness, thou mayest be preserved to CHAP. the end. My soul prays to God for thee, that thou mayest stand in the day of trial, that thy children may be blessed of the Lord, and thy people saved by his power. My love to thee has been great, and the remembrance of thee affects mine heart and mine eyes! The God of eternal strength keep and preserve thee to his glory and thy peace." "So, dear friends," he thus concludes, " my love again salutes you all, wishing that grace, mercy, and peace, with all temporal blessings, may abound richly among you :-So says, so prays, your friend and lover in the truth, William Penn." At the period of the proprietary's departure from the province, Philadelphia already contained three hundred houses, and the population of Pennsylvania amounted altogether to six thousand souls.1 Of the increase which the inhabitants of the Delaware territory had undergone, no memorial has been preserved. VII. 1685. CHAPTER II. Penn's Favour at the Court of James the Second.-Dissensions among the Colonists their Disagreement with Penn about his Quit-Rents.-He appoints Five Commissioners of State. - Rumour of an Indian Conspiracy. - Penn dissatisfied with his Commissioners - appoints Blackwell Deputy Governor.- Arbitrary Conduct of Blackwell. - Displeasure of the Assembly. Dissension between the People of Delaware and Pennsylvania. - Delaware obtains a separate Executive Government.-George Keith's Schism in Pennsylvania.- Penn deprived of his Authority by King William.- Fletcher appointed Governor. - Penn's Authority restored.- Third Frame of Government. Quaker Accession to War. - Penn's Second Visit to his Colony.Sentiments and Conduct of the Quakers relative to Negro Slavery.-Renewal of the Disputes between Delaware and Pennsylvania.Fourth and Last Frame of Government.- Penn returns to England. - Union of Pennsylvania and Delaware dissolved. — Complaints of the Assembly against Penn. Misconduct of Governor Evans. He is superseded by Gookin.- Penn's State of Pennsylvania and Delaware at the Close Remonstrance to his people. - BOOK BIDDING adieu to the peaceful scene of his infant commonwealth, Penn transferred his presence and activity to the very dissimilar theatre of the court of England. Here the interest Penn's fa- which he possessed was soon increased to such a degree, by court of the advancement of his own patron and his father's friend, James the the Duke of York, to the throne, that, in the hope of employ vour at the Second. ing it to his own advantage, and to the general promotion of religious liberty,1 he abandoned all thoughts of returning to America, and continued to reside in the neighbourhood, and even to employ himself in the service, of the court, as long as James the Second was permitted to wear the crown:—a policy which, in the sequel, proved equally prejudicial to his reputation in England and his interests in America. The first fruit 1 The address of the quakers of England to James the Second on his accession to the throne was conceived in these brief and simple terms: "We are come to testify our sorrow for the death of our good friend Charles, and our joy for thy being made our governor. We are told thou art not of the persuasion of the church of England, no more than we wherefore we hope thou wilt grant us the same liberty which thou allowest thyself, which doing, we wish thee all manner of happiness." II. 1685. of his enhanced influence at court was the adjudication that C HA P. terminated his controversy with Lord Baltimore, and secured to him the most valuable portion of the Delaware territory.1 Fruits of a more liberal description illustrated his successful efforts to procure a suspension of the legal severities to which the members of his own religious society were obnoxious, and for the discontinuance of which he had the satisfaction of presenting an address of thanks to the king from all the quakers in England.o This year was signalized by an attempt, that originated with the annual meeting of the quaker society at Burlington in New Jersey, to communicate the knowledge (such knowledge as the teachers themselves possessed) of christian truth to the Indians. These savages readily acceded to the conferences that were proposed to them, and listened with their usual gravity and decorum to the first body of missionaries who, in professing to obey the divine command to teach and baptize all nations, ever ventured to teach that baptism was not an ordinance of christian appointment. Of the particular communications between the quaker teachers and the Indians, no account has been preserved; but the result, as reported by a quaker historian, was, that the Indians in general acknowledged at the time that what they heard was very wise, weighty, and true,—and never afterwards thought farther about it. The first successful attempts to evangelise the Indian inhabitants of New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, were not made till towards the middle of the following century, when this work was undertaken by the celebrated David Brainerd of 1 This adjudication was not so distinct as to prevent much subsequent dispute respecting the precise boundaries between Delaware and Maryland, which continued to distract the inhabitants on the borders of these provinces, till it was adjusted in 1750, by a decree pronounced in Chancery by Lord Hardwicke. Chalmers. Vesey's Reports. This decree was not finally executed till the year 1762, when "the inhabitants on the Pennsylvanian side near the boundary, agreed to employ two ingenious English mathematicians after their return from the Cape of Good Hope, (where they had been to observe the transit of Venus in 1761), finally to settle or make out the same; which was accordingly performed by them; and stone pillars erected, to render the same more durably conspicuous." Proud. Nothing was more common for a long time in the American provinces than disputes arising from uncertain boundaries. A dispute of this nature between the townships of Lyme and New London, in New England, during the seventeenth century, was decided by a solemn pugilistic combat between four champions chosen by the inhabitants of the two places. Dwight's Travels. 2 Proud. s Ibid. VII. BOOK New England, and by a body of Moravians who had emigrated from Germany. Indian converts to christianity have been gained in America by catholics, puritans, and Moravians: but no instance has been recorded of the conversion of an Indian by quakers. 1685. Meanwhile, the emigration from England to Pennsylvania continued to flow with undiminished current; the stimulus that had been previously afforded by the rigours of ecclesiastical law, being amply supplied by the dislike and suspicion with which the king's civil policy was regarded,—by the accounts which had been circulated of the prosperity enjoyed by the colonists of this province,-and by the common belief that Penn's interest with the king would protect its liberties from the general wreck in which royal tyranny had involved the constitutions of the other American colonies.1 But this increase in the numbers of his colonists was now the only source of satisfaction that they were to afford to the proprietary; and his connexion with them henceforward was clouded by disappointment, and embittered by mutual dispute. It was but a few months after his departure from the province, that a spirit of Dissen- discord began to manifest itself among the planters. Moore, sions the chief justice, and Robinson, the clerk of the provincial among the colonists. court, neither of whom belonged to the quaker society, had rendered themselves disagreeable to the leading persons of this persuasion in the colony. The first was impeached by the assembly of high crimes and misdemeanours, and for refusing to answer the charge was suspended from his functions by the council; while a very disproportioned censure was passed on the other, who, for what was deemed contemptuous behaviour in answering the questions of the assembly, was not only deprived of his liberty, but voted " a public enemy to the province and territories." Of the charges against Moore not a trace has been preserved; but it is manifest that Penn considered them frivolous or unfounded. In vain he wrote to the authors of these proceedings, entreating them to moderate their tempers, and forbear from the indulgence of 1 In 1685, the number of inhabitants of Pennsylvania was 7000. Warden. 2 "For the love of God, me, and the poor country," he says in one of these letters, "be not so governmentish, so noisy, and open in your dissatisfactions. Some folks love hunting in government itself." Proud. The as II. 1685. animosities so discreditable to the colony; to value themselves C H A P. a little less, and to honour other men a little more. sembly answered by professions of the highest reverence for himself, accompanied by entreaties (unfortunately ineffectual) that he would return to live among his people; but declared withal that they thought fit " to humble that corrupt and aspiring minister of state, Nicholas Moore." The correspondence between the proprietary and this body, as well as the council, assumed in its progress an increasingly unfriendly complexion. To other causes of displeasure, were added reports of the increased consumption of spirituous liquors among the colonists,— the intemperance which they propagated among the Indians, thus recoiling upon themselves; and complaints of various abuses and extortions committed by the officers whom Penn had appointed to conduct the sales of his land. But nothing Their disseems to have mortified him more sensibly than the difficulty with Penn agreement he experienced in obtaining payment of his quit-rents, and about his the reluctance that was shown to comply with, or even pay quit-rents. any attention to, his applications for the arrears of this revenue. The people in general had rather submitted to than approved the imposition of quit-rents; and, though prospering in their circumstances, and conscious of the expenses that the proprietary had incurred for their advantage, they were as yet only beginning to reap the first fruits of the far greater expenses incurred by themselves in purchasing their possessions from him, and in transporting themselves and their families, servants, and substance to the province. Much labour and expense was yet wanting to render more than a small portion of their lands productive of advantage to them and the summons now addressed to them to pay quit-rents for the whole, and for this purpose to surrender the first earnings of their own hazard, hardship, and toil, to be expended by their proprietary in a distant country, was a proceeding ill qualified to obtain their favourable regard, and which the very munificence of the proprietary, that rendered it the more urgently necessary on his part, had by no means prepared them to expect. Penn had hoped that the council to whom he delegated his proprietary functions, would have spared him the humiliating necessity of descending to a personal solicitation of quit-rents from his people. But, so far were the council : |
