Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

city lands, making exceptions, it appears, of what had been already sold. There was a clause for annulment on repaying the consideration expressed, viz. £5000. On 2, 24, 1686, before going to Holland, Penn wrote to friends in Pennsylvania that to raise money was hindering his return to the province-perhaps the King contributed to the journey to Holland. Penn told these friends that he had spent £3000 since he saw London, besides paying some bills drawn before leaving America. So the long term lease to Ford was replaced two years after its date by one covering also the town of New Castle, and representing £6000.

Brought by the Baltimore claim into closer intercourse not only with the court officials, but with James, who was Duke of York at Penn's return to England, but succeeded as King a few months later, William Penn, until the authority of that monarch was at an end, had great prominence and power in the realm as one of the King's personal friends. Attached to him by gratitude, and seeing in his endeavors to break down the Established Church a chance for general religious toleration, Penn pursued a political course, which, however beneficial to the Quakers and to others, has not made him popular with English historians. The Quakers should rather revere the memory of the Stuart, who, in his attempt to reconcile England to Rome, relieved their early co-religionists and other Dissenters. His "merry" brother, Charles II, although at first inclined to toleration, had yielded to the party insisting upon conformity to a Protestant liturgy, and had relinquished an idea of reestablishing Romanism, and had not stirred himself to interfere with the prosecution of the "Children of the Light:" at least he left at his death about 1200 of these non-militant persons in jail for not taking an oath, or not attending their parish church. James, by proclamation dated March 15, 1685-6, released them, and remitted their fines, and he

stopped further process and indictment. It is not strange, therefore, that, as a messenger from James, William Penn, about two months later, on a religious visit to Holland, sought William of Orange, who, failing the Princesses Mary and Anne, was heir to the British throne, to get his support for James's proposal to abolish the religious test for holding office. William would not agree, although expressing himself opposed to penal laws against faith and worship. Penn is said to have thought that a declaration of indulgence founded on a royal claim to dispense with statutes would be a mistake; but, after James, on April 4, 1687, issued his famous declaration suspending the laws against non-conformity, and dispensing with the tests which had excluded all but members of the Established Church from seats in Parliament and offices, the Yearly Meeting, on 3, 19, 1687, adopted an address thanking the King, and praying God to preserve him and those under him in so good a work, and assuring him that it was well accepted in the counties from which the attendants came, and hoping that its good effects would produce such a concurrence from the Parliament as would secure it to posterity; and Penn, at the head of a delegation for the purpose, presented the address.

Penn's right to make laws for more than Pennsylvania proper, being of even greater doubtfulness than his title to the soil of the Lower Counties, and a patent for the latter being in preparation after James II ascended the throne, a suggested form for the patent, which is preserved by the Historical Society, relieved Penn from all liability for allowing religious toleration in those parts.

When James II, by headlong disregard of the advice of Penn and other loyal and honest observers, had lost his hold upon his subjects, and nearly every one was serving the plans of the Prince of Orange, Penn did not even go to the country, and assume an appearance

of neutrality. On the day preceding that on which James, throwing the great seal into the Thames, made the first attempt at flight, Penn was walking in Whitehall, and the Lords of the Council sent for him, and took security in £6000 for his appearance to answer any charge which might be made against him. Thus, having overspent so much, he was, at the accomplishment of the Revolution, poor, in debt, and under suspicion. On Feb. 20, 1688-9, the Committee for Trade and Plantations, having called him and Lord Baltimore before them, ordered the two Proprietaries to proclaim William and Mary in Pennsylvania and Maryland respectively, and both Penn and Lord Baltimore promised to obey any order of the Committee. Three days afterwards, a letter from the Privy Council, dated the 19th, with the form of a proclamation to be used in Pennsylvania, was handed to Penn. By the infrequent, slow, and perilous communication with America in that century, this did not reach Pennsylvania until a year and six months all but a few days had elapsed. Before the end of February, 1688-9, the Council ordered Penn's arrest, he being then at his seat, Worminghurst; but, writing to the Earl of Shrewsbury, Penn protested his innocence of any part in any conspiracy against the new government, and his not knowing of any, and requested that the new King allow him to remain at his house in the country, and attend to pressing business relating to America, being under the aforesaid heavy bail. The King allowed this. At Easter Term, nothing being alleged against Penn, he was cleared and discharged by the Judges.

CHAPTER VII.

GOVERNMENT UNDER THE FRAME OF 1683.

Insignificance of the acting Governors of Penn's colony and the explanation-John BlackwellQuakers hard to manage in political affairs-His high notions of government-Control of the press -Penn partly responsible-Obstruction of business by Thomas Lloyd and others-Assembly contends for member's privileges-Question of any laws being in force-White's arrest-All laws passed before Penn's departure declared in force until he could be heard from-William and Mary recognized, and debate in Council upon arming the colony for defence against France-Blackwell relieved of the governorship, the Council succeeding with Lloyd as President-Impost for Penn discontinued-The people of the Lower Counties dissatisfied with the Pennsylvania Councillors-Failure of justice in Lower Counties-Split in Council on choice of new commissions for the DeputyshipLloyd chosen Lieutenant-Governor-Delawareans choose Cann as President-The borough Philadelphia chartered as a City-Capture of a river pirate -Penn commissions Lloyd, and makes Markham Lieut.-Governor of the Lower Counties.

While the Governorship of some of the colonies, being a rulership directly under the Crown, was often, even in pioneer days, held by a person distinguished by title of nobility, by family relationship, or by the command of expeditions, the reader will look in vain for such, unless one baronet will answer, among those who before 1776 administered the affairs of Pennsylvania

and Delaware. They with the exception of William Penn himself and Benjamin Fletcher were merely Lieutenants of a Governor-in-Chief, and so of lesser dignity. As a rule, the Penns appointed some inhabitant of the colonies or an inferior military officer. Without the prestige of a Governor-in-Chief, or "King's Governor," or "Royal Governor," and involving practically banishment from civilization, and with a stipend providing for mere daily living, the office long was what no resident of the Old World in good circumstances would accept. Edward Randolph, in 1695, making objections to all Proprietary governments, pointed out that the actual governors in such were mere stewards of the Proprietaries, and were persons of indifferent qualifications, parts, and estates, with inconsiderable maintenance and precarious tenure. The dominions of the Penns and the dominions of the Calverts alone remained subject to rule by Proprietaries after pioneer days, being in fact so subject until the American Revolution. Occasionally, matching the said Lieutenant-Governors in inferiority of designation, the actual governors of some colonies under Crown rule, as Robert Dinwiddie in Virginia, were only LieutenantGovernors, an absentee being titular Governor. The earliest Governors of Virginia were knighted upon appointment, if not already knights or higher in precedency. The dullness of Philadelphia to a non-Quaker has been spoken of: the parsimony of those who were expected to pay the stipend will appear in the early part of this history. These respective characteristics were slow in yielding to the influence of neighbouring example. Besides all this, the task of conducting the affairs of Pennsylvania was, as will be seen, peculiarly difficult; and, even when the colony equalled or exceeded some of the Royal ones in population and wealth, and furnished to a satisfactory official a good income, the situation of the Lieutenant-Governor, who

« ZurückWeiter »