come free of his service, and taken up and seated 50 A., or a resident paying scot or lot to the government. In these general terms, it might be supposed that women were included, but probably this was never contended.

When Penn attempted to set up the governmental machinery devised, most of the people of both Province and Territories, busy with private concerns, seem, even the Quakers, to have lost political ambition, objecting to forsaking their habitations to make rules, and not well able to spare what money they would be obliged to spend or lose in doing so: so those meeting on the 20th of 12th month (February), 1682-3, to elect the first members of the Provincial Council, declared that the twelve men then chosen from each county were enough to attend to public business, and accordingly petitioned that three of the twelve be accepted as Councillors for one, two, and three years respectively, and the nine others stand for the whole body of freemen of their county for the first regular General Assembly. The nine from each county meeting at the same time as the Council, the proposition was agreed to, and was confirmed in an Act of Settlement, with a promise by the freemen to do nothing in prejudice to the just rights of William Penn and his heirs and successors, who were thereby acknowledged true and rightful Proprietaries and Governors of the Province and Territories. By this Assembly, the laws made in the preceding December at Chester were ordered to stand in force until the end of the first session of the next Assembly, except as altered by a number of laws at this session passed. Among these was an act of indemnity for offences previously committed, and a specification that certain laws be fundamental, i.e. not to be altered, diminished, or repealed without the consent of the Governor, his heirs or assigns and six sevenths of the freemen in Council and Assembly met. All laws passed at this session, except that of indemnity, and that prescribing the fundamen

tals, were to continue in force until the publication of the laws of the first session of the next Assembly.

On 2mo. 2, 1683, with the unanimous consent of these representatives of the people, a new charter was substituted, whereby the freemen of each county were to elect, on the 10th day of every first month thereafter, one Councillor to serve for three years, and six Assemblymen to serve for one year, the treble vote was not given to the acting Governor, and he was prohibited from performing any act of state relating to justice, trade, treasury, or safety, without the consent of the Council, but, as a sort of compensation for some of the powers taken from William Penn, there was a postponement until after his death of the Provincial Council's participation with the acting Governor in the erection of courts, and of the Council's nomination to him for Judges, Treasurers, and Masters of the Rolls, and of the Assembly's annual nomination of Sheriffs, Justices, and Coroners. As in the former charter, the Governor and Council had the preparation of all laws: the quorum of the Council in this and certain other business was two thirds, and a two thirds vote of that quorum was required. The Assembly had in legislation mere assent or rejection, for which, as well as the nomination of Sheriffs, Justices of the Peace, and Coroners for appointment by the Governor, a quorum of two thirds was necessary. The Assembly had the power of impeachment; the Provincial Council, the trial of the officials impeached.

In Penn's letter of 12mo. 1, 1686, hereafter mentioned, when he was much irritated, particularly by the Councillors' neglect to attend the meetings of the Council, he threatened, as if he were a modern Czar, to dissolve the Frame of Government. Nevertheless, it remained the written Constitution of Pennsylvania and Delaware until April, 1693, and, after an interim of about two years, may be deemed to have continued such

until 1700, although for a time the tentative Frame of 1696 was followed.

Before we enter upon the story of administration, there should be noted certain of the Laws Agreed upon in England as early enacted and made fundamental, establishing the principles and judicial arrangements long followed in the colony. Carrying out Penn's great idea, his dominion was made a place of opportunity for the ecclesiastically oppressed. No person who confessed one Almighty God to be creator, upholder, and ruler of the world, and professed to be obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly in civil society, was to be in any way molested or prejudiced for religious persuasion or practice, or to be obliged to frequent or maintain any religious worship, place, or ministry; any person abusing or deriding another for different persuasion or practice in religion being punishable as a disturber of the peace; but all persons were to abstain from labor on the Lord's day, and not to swear or curse in conversation, and not tc speak loosely and profanely of Almighty God, Christ Jesus, the Holy Ghost, or the Scriptures of truth: the officers under the government, the members of Council and Assembly, and all who had a right to elect such members, were to be such as professed faith in Jesus Christ "to be the son of God, the Saviour of the world." In contrast to the breadth of this eligibility, the tests required in England, and insisted upon by the opponents of James II, included, as to members of both Houses of Parliament, by statute of 30 Car. II st. 2: "I do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God profess, testify, and declare that I do believe that in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever; and that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the Mass,

as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous." When, by the English act of 1 W. & M., c. 18, Dissenters were tolerated, such as would not take an oath were required, besides making the aforesaid declaration, to profess faith in the Trinity, and to acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration. Under the laws passed at the inauguration of Penn's government, process in civil actions was to be by summons on the complainant declaring that he believed his cause just; judgment was to be given for want of an appearance. Certain rights to bail and trial upon criminal accusations were established. Court proceedings were to be in English. As dictated by Quaker scruples, witnesses from the first were to qualify simply by solemnly promising to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This method seems to have been observed by non-Quakers and Quakers alike until the coming of Fletcher. He reenacted it, changing the word "shall" to "may," thus permitting the Quakers and Mennonites to give testimony in that way, but restoring apparently the use of the oath by Swedes and the few others who preferred it. Not until 1696 could testimony without oath be accepted in England: the Statute of 7 & 8 Wm. III, c. 34, permitting this, expressly limited it to civil actions. Even in such matters, there was a distinction between the early Pennsylvania law and the English statute, for, by the latter, the affirmant was obliged to acknowledge that he spoke "in the presence of Almighty God the witness of the truth of what I say."

The laws made before and for some time after 2mo. 2, 1683, were not laid before the King, but, apparently treated as tentative only, were usually reenacted with amendments at each Assembly, to stand in force until the end or twenty days after the end of the first session of the next Assembly. A short period to permit pub

lication, ultimately fixed at twenty days, after the end of the Assembly was allowed before new laws went into effect. The Assembly of 1686 and that of 1687 failed to continue the laws or enact new ones.

Penn claimed one strange right, not meeting with expostulation in the early days, but declared unfounded by lawyers in later times. By the letter of 12, 1, 1686, before mentioned, of which Edward Blackfan was bearer, Penn directed those named in the commission mentioned in the letter, to declare to the Assembly his abrogation of everything done since his leaving, and of all the laws except the fundamentals, and then to dismiss the Assembly, and call one again, and pass the laws afresh with any alterations. He also enclosed a proclamation exercising the power in the King's Charter of making ordinances. These instructions seem to have been disregarded, owing to the non-arrival of the commission spoken of; but, in a letter dated 4mo. 6, 1687, they were inferentially confirmed by the Proprietary's remark that he had little more to say than he had communicated of his mind already "in a former letter by Edward Blackfan." In 1688, a law was passed that all the laws formerly passed continue in force until twenty days after the end of the first session of the next Assembly, and no longer, except the fundamental laws, and certain additional laws were passed to last during the same or a shorter time.

The first visit of the Founder of Pennsylvania to the shores of the Delaware lasted twenty-one months and a half, and the only other visit twenty-three months. During the ninety and more years of rule by the Penns except during those visits, and even during the visits of the Founder's sons, John and Thomas, the power left by the subsisting frame of government to the chief executive was in the hands of the Council of the Province or of Commissioners or of a Deputy with the title of Lieutenant-Governor selected by the Governor