otherwise might have been contented with the title, surroundings, and remuneration, was very disagreeable. He had to serve three masters, to whom his conduct was reported by independent officers, by business agents, or by intractable politicians respectively; the three masters being the King, chiefly in matters of war, customs revenue, and trade regulations, who could force his removal, and otherwise punish him, the Proprietary, who appointed and could supersede him, and the People, or, at least, the freemen represented in Assembly, who paid him. To the difficulty of harmonizing the requirements of the King and the freemen, was added the obligation to protect the interests of the Proprietary, and, lest gratitude or fear of removal might not be sufficient to induce the Lieutenant to follow this obligation, instructions and limitations of power were put upon him. William Penn himself, not only, as we have seen, made reservations capable of great extension, but also began the giving of instructions.

In the matter of previous career, more can be said of John Blackwell than of most of the other LieutenantGovernors. He, as Captain John Blackwell Junr. from Mortlake, Co. Essex, had been a Treasurer of the Army in the time of the Commonwealth, and afterwards had refused a great office in Ireland under Charles II and James II because its emolument was derived from perquisites. Blackwell had married General Lambert's daughter, and was a Puritan, of whom Nathaniel Mather wrote in 1684 (Mass. Hist. Coll.): "For serious reall piety & nobleness of spirit, prudence, &ct., I have not been acquainted with many that equall him." He was residing in New England, when, without solicitation, Penn selected him, hoping that, while Blackwell's conscience would leave him free to perform military service, his high character would command the respect of the Quakers, and that thus there would be an administration satisfactory both to the King and to the

colonists. Penn does not appear to have taken into account the antipathy between a Puritan and a Quaker, who had scarcely anything in common but opposition to the Church of England, and were inclined to tolerate one of its adherents rather than each other. Blackwell, rather as a favor to Penn, to whom or to whose father he may have felt gratitude for something in those perilous times, accepted with the expectation of being soon relieved by the return of Penn to America. The collection of the quit rents was also given to Blackwell, and the percentage allowed to him with the fines and forfeitures accruing to the Governor seems to have been his entire or the chief part of his remuneration. He thus being an interested party, when he had sat as magistrate in trials where fines or forfeitures might be found due, the Assembly, but not by unanimous vote, took a stand for the impartiality of the judiciary, and declared such a course a grievance. He arrived in Philadelphia on Dec. 17, 1688, before news had come of the landing of the Prince of Orange in England. Blackwell's first act, on assuming office on the 18th, was, it happened, the setting apart, according to an order received, of a day for "solemn thanksgiving to Almighty God for His inestimable blessing to his Majesty's kingdoms and dominions by the birth of a Prince," the poor little baby who in later history was commonly known as the Pretender, who on the thanksgiving day was in France for safety.

The Councillors when Blackwell arrived were the following: from Philadelphia County, Turner and Carpenter and Samuel Richardson; from Bucks, Cooke and Joseph Growdon and William Yardley; from Chester, Simcock and John Bristow and Bartholomew Coppock; from New Castle, John Cann, Peter Alricks, and Johannes De Haes; from Kent, William Darvall, ex-Lieutenant-Governor Markham, and Griffith Jones, a Quaker, evidently identical with the Philadelphia

merchant, and from Sussex, William Clark and Luke Watson, there being a vacancy owing to the dismissal of William Dyer, who was a son of the Quaker martyr, Mary Dyer, put to death in Boston. Besides Jones, Clark and all those from the Upper Counties were Quakers. If the Jones whom Blackwell so much favored was not the Welsh attorney, but the Councillor, the latter was not one of the former Quaker officeholders, and consideration shown to him rather excited their jealousy.

A Quaker community in the time when nearly every member had experienced a call to seriousness was more moral probably than the same number of persons of any other religious denomination, although the number of accusations in the early records of Pennsylvania, as well as those of the Territories Annexed, surprises us. Physical violence was utterly inconsistent with Quaker habits, so that in this respect, under Quaker influence, at least Pennsylvania proper was law-abiding. Politically, however, the Quaker freemen were hard to manage, apart from any question of obeying God rather than man, as they felt on the subject of war and oaths. A characteristic of the Children of the Light was not docility. They had begun by the adoption of theories and practices in the face of all ecclesiastical tradition known to them, and of the customs of their neighbours; and the tendency of such reformers was to be opinionated, censorious, and intractable. Years of subjection to persecution had hardened their character, had accustomed them to the status of rebels, and had made them fearless. Disputations had sharpened the wits of their leaders, and embittered their language. It will be seen, particularly at the attempts to enforce privileges, perquisites, and impositions which landlords and rulers had usually exacted, and which elsewhere had been agreed to as matters of course, how far the Quakers of Pennsylvania were

from being a flock of sheep uncomplainingly allowing themselves to be fleeced.

Blackwell was dignified and fairly courteous, but very exacting of deference, unflinching in following what he deemed his duty, and requiring everybody to observe the letter of the law. His participation in the Civil War had made him more military than republican. Perhaps he was afraid of not appearing thoroughly loyal to the monarchical régime: he had narrowly escaped attainder as an accessory to the putting to death of Charles I, having, in the course of business as Treasurer, paid for building the scaffold. Commissioned, it appears, as Governor, instead of Lieutenant-Governor, by Penn, Blackwell had high ideas of the prerogative with which the appointment invested him. When he examined William Bradford on the charge of printing without authorization the Frame of Government, and, finally, on Bradford's declining to accuse himself by acknowledging the printing, bound Bradford in 500l. to print nothing without the Governor's "imprimatur," Blackwell remarked: "I question whether there hath been a Governor here before or not, or those which understood what government was, which makes things as they now are." is most probable that until his arrival he was not aware how Penn's charter embodying the Frame of 1683 had neutralized the seigniorial powers conferred upon the Proprietary by the King: and Blackwell doubted the validity of such neutralizing. Blackwell was either very astute in raising legal questions, or appreciative of points, suggested, perhaps, by Griffith Jones the lawyer.

It

Perhaps Penn expected Blackwell to set things right, a sentence of some instructions telling him to "rule the meek meekly, others that will not be so ruled, rule with authority." Moreover, Penn had given to Blackwell, so the latter told Bradford, a particular order for

"suppressing of printing here, and narrowly to look after your press." This we have from an old manuscript account of Bradford's examination. Before the Council, Blackwell said that Penn had declared himself against the use of the printing press.

With Blackwell, on his part, feeling, as might have been expected, no predilection for the Quakers, and putting Jones in the commission of the peace for at least three counties, making Patrick Robinson proRegister-General, and naming Markham as first among the Justices of all the counties, the conduct of the leading Quakers, on their part, was not such as to win Blackwell. Contention filled the time of his administration. Lloyd, from the first, interposed his own judgment in matters where it seemed to be his duty to obey orders. Blackwell, being referred by his commission to such instructions as had been sent to the President and Council, or to the Commissioners of State, called for "the letter sent by the hands of Edward Blackfan,” and secured resolutions from the Council-those present being four Quakers and Darvall and Markham— that all original letters and instructions either to Commissioners of State or President and Council should be delivered to the Secretary, and such parts of other letters to any of them as gave instructions should be transcribed, and the transcripts certified for the Secretary. Perhaps Lloyd and those in his confidence had been concealing Penn's threat, in the letter of 12mo. 1, 1686, to dissolve the Frame; perhaps they thought it injudicious to publish his order to abrogate the laws, deeming such order illegal, or not representing his later wish, or in fact obsolete. At any rate, Lloyd allowed Blackwell to read only some parts of the letter, and then Lloyd took a month to consult the others to whom this and other letters were addressed as to complying with the request for delivery to the Secretary. Apparently Cooke and Eckley felt the same way as Lloyd,