Stephens was made governor in 1667, but for ten years we hear little of the life of the colony. The inhabitants were composed of wanderers from Virginia who had obtained lands under patent from Berkeley before 1663. In that year and the year following a large number of Quakers came into the province, forming an influential body among the inhabitants. Though the lands were fertile the settlement never had much encouragement from the proprietaries. It was not exactly neglected, but occupied a minor place in their thoughts. The people were poor, the assignments of land small, and the quit-rents high, though the conditions were somewhat modified by the proprietaries.' There was no clergyman in the colony in 1670, and laws passed in that year indicate the difficulties confronting a settlement without sufficient support, and isolated from the world outside.2 Life was

purely agricultural, the only export being furs and tobacco, shipped in vessels from New England, whose merchants seem, to the vexation of the proprietaries, to have monopolized their business.

The proprietaries repeatedly urged the Albemarle colonists to open up negotiations with the southern settlement and to send their products directly to England instead of allowing them to fall into the hands of the New-Englanders. They also urged them to expand their settlement and to colonize not only the shores of the Pamlico but the valley N. C. Col. Records, I., 183-187.

1 Ante, 139.

of the Neuse as well. The colony showed little eagerness to please the proprietaries, and the latter could say in reply that "the neglect of these two [instructions] has been the cause that hitherto we have had no more regard for you as looking upon you as a people that neither understood your own nor regarded our interests.'

Stephens was succeeded in 1670 by Peter Carteret, Sir George Carteret's deputy in the colony and president of the council. To him were sent the Fundamental Constitutions and a body of temporary laws and instructions defining the form the government should take until the Fundamentals could be put into practice. But his government was not successful, for what reason it is not easy to determine. In all probability his connection with the Indian trade and the illicit trade with New England brought him into disfavor with the proprietaries. Carteret was dismissed, and in 1677 Eastchurch, speaker of the Albemarle assembly, who had gone to England to lay the matter before the proprietaries, was appointed in his stead; but he appointed Miller, collector of customs, to act as governor in his place.

Miller was hardly the man to meet the situation, and no sooner had he arrived than trouble broke out. Some hundred or more of the colonists, who

1 N. C. Col. Records, I., 228.

2 Ibid., 181-183.

3 The instructions of 1676 seem to show this. 228-230.

See ibid.,

were determined that they would not pay the penny a pound on all tobacco exported to the other colonies, rose against the government, and having imprisoned governor, president of the assembly, and all but one of the deputies, they usurped the power and controlled the colony for a year. While to personal grievances and questions of trade may be traced some of the causes of this movement, there can be little doubt, if one may judge from the Pasquotank appeal for a "free parliament," that poverty and dislike of misgovernment lay at the bottom of the popular support of the uprising. The matter was soon ended. Miller was charged with holding his office without legal authority and was ejected by the proprietaries.

In the mean time, Sothell, already mentioned in connection with Charles Town, was appointed governor by the proprietaries. Having been captured by Algerine pirates, he did not reach the colony till 1683, when he found the condition of affairs hopelessly confused. The authority of the proprietaries availed little, land titles were doubtful, the question of pirates and privateers was becoming a burning one in the colony, and a feeling of unrest seemed prevalent among the colonists.

Sothell only made matters worse, and was sharply called to account by the proprietaries,' who were already bending to the storm of the quo warranto

1

1 N. C. Col. Records, I., 350-352; for charges against Sothell, see 368-371.

inquiries. But the people saved them further trouble. Seizing Sothell, they banished him from the colony, and though he was one of the "true and absolute lords of the province," the proprietaries acquiesced in this act on the ground that he had acted contrary to the Fundamental Constitutions. They appointed Philip Ludwell governor, first of Albemarle, and in 1691 of the southern province also, and henceforth Albemarle was governed by a deputy sent from the southern colony.

Few colonies could show a more consistent discontent, more bitter party feeling and personal hostility than did Albemarle. Even more than its neighbor it suffered from foolish laws and injudicious instructions, as well as from bad governors. To the proprietaries and the Lords of Trade it must have seemed a hot-bed of bickering and discontent, yet, were the full truth known, as it cannot be because of lack of indisputable evidence, it might be seen that the discontent was due to the attempts of a body of poor though honest settlers to get the most out of the circumstances in which they were placed, despite the policy of the proprietaries and the self-seeking activities of their appointees.

VOL. V.-II

CHAPTER XI

FOUNDATION OF PENNSYLVANIA

(1680-1691)

ALMOST twenty years passe the southern portion

LMOST twenty years passed after the conquest

of the territory claimed by the Dutch was colonized by the English. The settlement of Pennsylvania was due to the deep interest already aroused among the members of the Society of Friends in the colonization of the New World. In 1653 members of this religious body began to come to America, and at one time or another sought refuge in each of the colonies there established. They came first as missionaries, and in their outspoken defence of their faith roused against themselves the hostility of the New England Puritans, who had no intention of building up a home for people who differed in religious belief from themselves.

In the years from 1653 to 1660 the Puritans banished some of the Quakers, imprisoned many, and hanged three-Robinson, Stevenson, and Mary Dyer. The commissioners of the New England Confederation recommended in 1656 that all Quakers should be kept out of the colonies, and the legislat