USA > Pennsylvania > Delaware County > Chester > An address, delivered at Chester, before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, on the 8th of November, 1851 > Part 1
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Gc 974.8 Ar55a 1667496
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02143 8046
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AN ADDRESS,
DELIVERED AT CHESTER,
BEFORE THE
Historical Society of Pennsylvania;
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Address
On the 8th of November, 1851.
MERCY
ENNSY
JIH
VSTICE
A
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BY EDWARD ARMSTRONG,
Recording Secretary of the Society. 4
IN CELEBRATION OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-NINTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LANDING OP WILLIAM PENN AT THAT PLACE. .
PHILADELPHIA : PUBLISHED BY J. PENINGTON, No. 10 SOUTH FIFTH ST. KING & BAIRD, PRINTER3. 1852.
1667496
HALL OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY,
Philadelphia, Nov. 25th, 1851.
DEAR SIR :
We have been appointed a Committee to request of you for publication, a copy of your excellent and highly instructive Address, delivered at Chester, on the Sth instant, at the Celebration, by the Historical Society, of the One hundred and sixty-ninth Anniversary of the Landing of William Penn, at that place.
We remain, very truly, yours,
HORATIO G. JONES, JR. WILLIAM DUANE, GEORGE NORTHROP, JOHN JORDAN, JR.
EDWARD ARMSTRONG, ESQ.
SOUTH FOURTH STREET,
November 26th, 1851.
GENTLEMEN :
I feel much obliged for the kind, though undeserved terms in which you are pleased to speak of my Address at Chester, delivered in commemoration of the landing of our Founder.
I place the manuscript at your disposal, and trust that this compliance with your request, may tend to remind us of the occasion and lead to the regular and renewed celebration of a day the most memorable in our earlier annals, and of which every true-hearted Pennsylvanian has so much reason to be proud.
I remain, yours, very truly,
EDWARD ARMSTRONG.
To
HORATIO G. JONES, JR. WILLIAM DUANE, GEORGE NORTHROP, and JOHN JORDAN, JR. ESQRS.
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ADDRESS.
GENTLEMEN OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY :
IN the month of October, 1681, within the walls of an ancient mansion in Old England, might have been seen two persons in earnest conference. The one, although some twenty years the senior of the other, felt evidently not the less respect for the well-tempered enthusiasm, the hopeful spirit, and admirably balanced judgment of his companion. Republicans from principle, the sufferings they had undergone had made them republicans from choice.
Algernon Sidney had come down from Penshurst to confer with William Penn, at Worminghurst, and frame the constitu- of a great State. A constitution, which through all time was to become the argument unanswerable, for the Divine right of the people, all over the world. Hear some of the results of their deliberations :- " Any government is free to the peo- ple under it (whatever be the frame) where the laws rule, and the people are party to those laws, and more than this is
tyranny, oligarchy, and confusion. Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad : if it be ill, they will cure it. But if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn. Some say, let us have good laws, and no matter for the men that execute them : but let them consider, that though good laws do well, good men do better : for good laws may want good men, and be abolished or invaded by ill men ; but good men will never want good laws, nor suffer ill ones. That therefore
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which makes a good constitution, must keep it, viz : men of wisdom and virtue, qualities that because they descend not with worldly inheritances, must be carefully propagated by a virtuous education of youth, for which after ages will owe more to the care and prudence of founders, and the successive magistracy, than to their parents for their private patri- monies. The great end of all government is to sup- port power in reverence with the people, and to secure the peo- ple from the abuse of power ; that they may be free by their just obedience, and the magistrates honorable for their just administration : for liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery. To carry this even- ness is partly owing to the constitution, and partly to the magistracy : where either of these fail, government will be subject to convulsions ; but where both are wanting, it must be totally subverted ; then where both meet, the government is like to endure. Which I humbly pray and hope, God will please to make the lot of Pennsylvania."*
How nobly uttered. Truths in 1681, which, by the con- firmation of millions in 1851, have been proved great, practi- cal, imperishable.
Justice cannot be done the character of Penn, unless we view it in contrast with the age in which he lived. He foresaw the progress of freedom, and displayed no less courage, than sagacity. For the doctrines we have just quoted, were the terror of the very king from whom he received his charter ; their practical enforcement overturned the throne of his father, and were the warrant for his trial and execution ; and yet they were published and avowed by Penn; and framed, with the assistance of the lamented Sid- ney, whose life the government had then determined, if possi- ble, to take, and who, two years afterwards, for asserting upon paper the same principles of republican liberty, perished on the scaffold. Perhaps no branch of inquiry has been so much the subject of theory as the science of government. But few of those who have thought or written about it, have
* Preface to Frame of Government. 1 Col. Rec. xxiii.
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had the misfortune to suffer, to the full extent, the infliction of the evils they strove to remedy, or the good fortune to , realize their cherished speculations. Penn had both. A Charles was on the throne; Locke had not written his glori- ous letters on toleration ; the Revolution had not taken place ; the people, benumbed, as it, were, by the political convulsions through which they had just passed, slumbered, so that no oppression, however enormous, seemed sufficient to arouse them. Our Proprietary was therefore eminently fitted for the task which Providence had assigned him. Mark, how broadly he lays the foundations of religious freedom. "That all persons living in this province, who confess and acknowl- edge the one Almighty and Eternal God, to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, and that hold themselves obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly in civil society, shall in no ways be molested or prejudiced for their - religious persuasion or practice, in matters of faith and wor- ship, nor shall they be compelled at any time, to frequent or maintain any religious worship, place or ministry whatever."
Nor did he overlook that general political liberty, which is the corner-stone of religious liberty ; he felt, in the words already quoted, "that government only could be free, where the laws ruled, and the people were party to those laws.".
Locke, his friend, attempted to frame a constitution for a sister republic, but how immeasurably inferior to Penn's. Based on false principles, cumbrous and oppressive, it perished at its birth, while Penn's has flourished in immortal youth, as obvious, sensible, just, and practical now, as when it was given to the people. The modifications it has undergone since 1681, to the present period, have been but emanations of its original principles, the growth of a vigorous trunk, the result of progress, subject of course to that admirable qualification in the first charter, and to which we have re- ferred, " that although good laws may want good men, and be abolished, or invaded, by ill men, good men will never want good laws, nor suffer ill ones, for liberty without obedi- ence, is confusion, and obedience without liberty, is slavery."
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Penn's mind had early been directed to the study of political constitutions ; for we are told, by himself, that at the age of seventeen, and when at Oxford, during the period of a change in his religious views, his attention had been turned to America, in the hope of founding a colony-to use his own words, "that his understanding and inclinations had been much directed to observe and reprove mischiefs in govern- ment." There is no doubt the conviction forced itself upon a mind matured beyond its years, that the soil of England was unfriendly to the growth of the religious and political freedom he and his friends sought to implant. That in a new region only, unincumbered with the claims of prerogative and ecclesiastical power, useless customs and sturdy pre- judices, could they flourish. It appears that the Friends, even prior to the period to which Penn alludes, had fixed their eyes upon this continent. Bowden, in his History of Friends in America,* (and we do not recollect that the cir- cumstance has been stated by any of our writers,) says, "the . Quakers early had their attention drawn to the promotion of a colony in America. The whole coast from Maine to Florida, having either been colonized or claimed by parties for that purpose, it was no easy matter to obtain land for the foundation of a Quaker settlement." Josiah Cole, "who had travelled extensively as a gospel minister in America, and particularly among the Indians of the interior, on his second visit to that. country, in 1660, appears to have been commis- sioned by his brethren at home, to treat with the Susquehanna Indians, (whom he had visited about two years before) for the purchase of land. For this purpose he had interviews with them, but their being at that time involved in a deadly war with some neighboring tribes, together with the absence of William Fuller, (a Friend of considerable influence,) in Mary- land, and who had, it appears, taken some step on the subject, presented an insurmountable obstacle to any progress in the matter at that time."
Penn's connection with the affairs of the Colony of New * Vol. 1, pp. 389-390. *
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Jersey, was the first practical direction his mind received upon the subject of legislation. The constitution which he assisted in framing for West New Jersey, displays enlarged views of government, and would of itself be sufficient to rescue his memory from neglect. But the result of his reflec- tions and experience was soon to be exhibited on a wider field, free from conflicting rights and interests. It was the knowledge of these advantages, and his devotion to the principles of his society, that induced so many to gather around him, and which made his colony prosperous beyond example on our shores. And the respect his constancy had won, amidst temptations that would have allured one less deeply impressed with the greatness, of his purpose, abated opposition at the hands of those who might have thwarted him had they been disposed. His colonists knew him to be sincere, the government believed him to be honest. It is a question, therefore, whether under the peculiar condition of the times, any other than Penn would have been enabled to establish a colony at once so prosperous, if the King had been willing to confer upon any other a charter so liberal.
It may not be out of place, before proceeding further, to glance at the history of the Dutch and Swedish colonies, and more particularly in this region, rendered so interesting to us, as the spot on which Penn first trod the soil of Pennsylvania.
The Dutch claim to have discovered and occupied our Bay as early as 1598 .*
Hudson certainly visited it in 1609-though it is not known that he landed-and was followed by Mey, who on behalf of " certain merchants interested in maritime discovery," and under authority of the States General, set sail from Holland with five vessels, and in 1618 arrived at Delaware Bay giving a name to its eastern cape, which it has retained to this day. Mey and his companions, with the exception of Captain Hen- drickson, returned to Holland, the latter remained, and in a
* We are indebted for the materials of this sketch of the History, prior to Penn's arrival, of the Swedes and Dutch, to Mr. Hazard's valuable "Annals of Pennsylvania."
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yacht of but 16 tons burden, built at Manhattan, and sup- posed to have been the first vessel constructed in this country by Europeans, was the first to explore our Bay and River, which he ascended as high as the Schuylkill.
Hendrickson returned to Holland, and claimed, apparently without success, the privileges attendant upon his discovery.
The establishment in 1621, of the Dutch West India Com- pany, led to active preparations for peopling the Bay and River.
Mey returned to the Delaware, and in 1623, made the first settlement upon it, by the erection of Fort Nassau, at or near the site of the present town of Gloucester.
In 1626, Gustavus Adolphus conferred a charter upon the Swedish West India Company. No immediate result followed his liberal grant of powers.
The first purchase of the Indians of land, in this region, was made in 1633, for the Dutch West India Company by Arent Corssen, Commissary of Fort Nassau, to whom was conveyed "the Schuylkill and adjoining lands" and on which was afterwards erected Fort Beversrede.
The period had now arrived when the possession of our Bay and River was to become a matter of serious dispute. The attention of the Swedish West India Company appears at last to have been aroused to the advantage of its trade and settle- ment, from the flattering representations of Minuit, who having resided at Manhattan, as Director of the Dutch West India Company, became dissatisfied, and deserted their interests.
In April, 1638, a date which the industry of Mr. Hazard, has at length settled, Minuit accompanied by about 50 Swedes arrived here, and built (near the site of Wilmington) Fort Christina, which became the subject of after conflicts and the scene of the surrender of the Swedish authority to that of the Dutch, and of the latter to the arms of England.
One of the first acts of the Swedes was to purchase of the Indians the lands from Cape Henlopen to the falls at Trenton, a portion of which, however, had been already sold by them to the Dutch.
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The Dutch, at Fort Nassau, soon began to feel their trade was seriously affected by the success of their rivals, who had gained it by their liberal conduct towards the Indians. They did not know, however, in what way to rid themselves of their troublesome neighbors.
Two years after the coming of the Swedes, a fresh annoy- ance to both nations arose, from the arrival of a colony of English from New Haven, which established itself at the Schuylkill, upon the very land the Dutch had bought of the Indians. This could not be endured. I quote from the do- cument issued by the Director General and Council at Man- hattan : " It was an affair of ominous consequence, disrespect- ful of their High Mightinesses, injurious to the interests of the Company, as by it their commerce on the South River might be eventually ruined, and that it was their duty to drive these English from thence, in the best manner possible." What construction the Commissary at Fort Nassau put upon the directions he in consequence received, history was not permitted to record, for Gov. Kieft deeming the best, the most effectual manner, "by force and in a hostile way," (as the English declare,) " burnt their trading house, seized, and for some time detained their goods in it, not suffering their ser- vants so much as to take a just inventory of them." The Swedes completed what the Dutch permitted to remain undone, and so ended the adventures of the New Haven Colony on the Schuylkill. It might be interesting to speculate as to re- sults, had the English achieved a settlement. Another destiny, in that event, perhaps not the less auspicious to freedom and civil rights, might have befallen this region, but a more liberal charter of privileges, and a nobler liberty of religious opinions, could not have been their lot.
The year succeeding that which sealed the fate of the English colonists, marked the advent of Governor Printz, a favorite of his Queen, and the most energetic and capable of the Swedish governors.
In person he is described as very bulky-for, De Vries as- . serts, " he weighed upwards of four hundred pounds, and
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drank three drinks at every meal," apparently regretting he could not be punished for this indulgence of his taste. De Vries, however, was not in the best humor, as he had been fired at, upon passing Fort Elsinburg, then just erected near the present site of Salem. It has been suggested it was not Printz, but a relation, to whom De. Vries alludes, as the Governor would not likely forsake his residence to command this remote post.
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We fear it will not be so easy to defend Printz from a more serious charge : for it is stated that a Mr. Lamberton, having been sent to remonstrate, and to claim satisfaction for the injuries done to the New Haven colony, "the Governor demeaned himself as if he had neither Christian nor moral conscience ; getting Mr. Lamberton into his power, by feigned and false pretences, and keeping him prisoner, and some of his men. Laboring, by promises and threats, to draw them to accuse him to have conspired with the Indians to cut off the Swedes and the Dutch ; and not prevailing these ways, then by attempting to make them drink, so that he might draw something from them. And in the end, (though he could gain no testimony,) yet he forced him to pay a weight of beaver before he would set him at liberty. He is also a man very furious and passionate ; reviling the English at New Haven as runagates, &c., and he himself, with his own hands, put irons on one of Mr. Lamberton's men."
The testimony of another witness is to this effect : "That John Woolen told him, that at his, the said Woolen's, first coming into the Swede's fort, he was brought into a room in which the Governor's wife, Timothy the barber, and the watch-master came to him, and brought wine and strong beer, and gave him, with a purpose, as he conceived, to have made him drunk; and after he had largely drunk there, the Governor sent for him into his own chamber, and gave him more strong beer and wine, and drank freely with him, enter- taining of him with much respect seemingly, and with a pro- fession of a great deal of love to him, making very large promises to do very much good for him, if he would but say
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that George Lamberton had hired the Indians to cut off the Swedes. But the said John Woolen denied it. Then the Governor drank to him again, and said he would make him a man, give him a plantation, and build him a house, and he should not want for gold and silver, if he would but say as is said before. He would do more for him than the English could, for he loved him as his own child. But the said John answered that there was no such thing, and if he would give him his house full of gold, he would not say so. And then the Governor seemed to be exceeding angry, and threatened him very much, and after that drank to him again, and pressed him to confess, as before; which the said John Woolen refusing, the Governor was much enraged, and stamped with his feet, (which this deponent himself heard, being in the room under him,) and calling for irons, he put them upon the said John Woolen with his own hands, and sent him down to prison, as before is expressed. And this deponent saith, that the aforesaid Swedes' watch-master came into the prison, and brought strong beer, and drank with them about two hours in the night, and pressed the said John Woolen to say that the said George Lamberton had hired the Indians to cut off the Swedes, and he should be loosed from his irons presently ; but John Woolen said he would not say it, if he should be hanged, drawn and quartered, because he would not take away the life of a man that was innocent. Then he pressed him further, that he would speak any thing to that purpose, be it never so little, and he should be free presently ; but John Woolen said he could not say it, nor he would not say it. And he further saith, that the said watch-master pressed him, this deponent, to the same purpose, and he should have his liberty, which he also refused, know- ing no such thing. This deponent saith, that at another time, while he was in prison, Gregory, the merchants' man, came to him, and told him they were sent by the Governor to charge him with treason, which he had spoken against the Queen and lords of Sweden, namely, that he had wished them burned and hanged, which he, this deponent, utterly denied ;
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and then the said Gregory fetched a flagon of strong beer, and drank it with him, and after that fetched the said flagon full of sack, and drank that with him also, and bid him call for wine and strong beer when he listed, and questioned with him about George Lamberton's hiring the Indians as afore- said : his answer was, he knew no such thing."
If this account is not too highly colored, and the Governor was inclined to something more than an excessive hospitality, his pertinacity was equalled only by his victims' superior powers of resistance to temptation, and their honest fortitude. To us this narration gives a more vivid idea of the condition of things, and the policy at that time of the rule upon the Delaware, than could be presented by the most labored de- scription.
Fort Christina being too far from Fort Nassau, Printz, with much sagacity, erected Fort Gottenberg, (near the La- zaretto,) on the island of Tinicum, and thus no little annoyed his neighbors, and acquired much additional control of the river. He also here built Printz Hall, or the " palace," as it was called, which was standing at the beginning of this century, and it will be recollected became the scene of many incidents in Swedish history.
In 1643, he turned his attention to fortifying the avenues of the Schuylkill, in order to obtain the trade of the Indians at Kingsessing, which the Dutch had secured by the erection of Fort Beversrede. For this purpose he built a fort upon the Schuylkill near, it is supposed, the site of Bartram's Gar- den, also a mill and a block house, which it is thought were situated on Cobbs' creek, near the Blue Bell.
Kieft was, in 1647, succeeded at New Amsterdam by Stuyvesant, and Printz in 1653 by Rysingh, under whose administrations the closing scenes of the existence of their respective governments were to be enacted.
Rysingh, in coming up the river, captured from the Dutch Fort Casimir, (which stood upon the site of New Castle,) a fatal act, in violation of his instructions, and which precipi- tated the downfall of the Swedish power upon the Delaware.
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It is gratifying to be able to say, that this error of judgment, was mitigated by a wise stroke of domestic policy, for although we may condemn the soldier, we must commend the citizen ; and I am sure, the character of the last Swedish Governor will, in the eyes of many of my audience, stand greatly redeemed, when I inform them that one of his first official acts was, a letter which he addressed to the Minister of Swe- den, in which he says, "I pray your Excellency to procure for me a good wife, relying for this object upon your Excel- lency, with more confidence than on any other person in the world."
I do not know whether his wish was accomplished, or if gratified, whether he had reason to regret his Excellency's choice, but the commission displays more confidence in another's judgment, than is generally reposed in these de- generate days.
Stuyvesant having seized a Swedish ship, which, bound for the Delaware, by mistake put into the North river, sought to retaliate the loss of Fort Casimir, or secure its restoration. Tedious negotiations ensued, in the course of which, the Dutch invites the Swedish Governor to visit New Amsterdam, assuring him he will "receive a cordial reception, with com- fortable lodgings and courteous treatment to his full satisfac- tion, without the least embarrassment to his honor and suite, goods or vessels."
Rysingh did not accept this invitation, and as Mr. Hazard suggests, probably found his lodgings equally comfortable at Fort Casimir. We may readily imagine the gleam of satis- faction that passed over the face of the shrewd Dutch Go- vernor as he despatched this invitation, and the smile of perfect contentment, which illuminated that of his rival, when he received it. Stratagem failing, Stuyvesant resorted to more active measures, and with his usual vigor and decision, at once and with secrecy, began to make arrange- ments for a descent upon the Delaware. With seven ves- sels and six or seven hundred men, he retakes Fort Casi- mir, and proceeds to Fort Christina, which cost him fourteen days of preparation, before he accomplished his purpose, al-
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though its garrison was weak, and might have been compelled to a surrender in as many hours. A record of the movements of the assailing party, was preserved by Rysingh, from which it appears, that the gradual approaches of Stuyvesant, were made with great military precision and immense ceremony. " On the second day," he says, "the Dutch showed them- selves in considerable numbers on the opposite bank of creek, but attempted no hostile operations; on the third they hoisted their flag on our shallop ; on the fourth they planted gabions and so forth ; they now began to encroach upon us more and more every day ; on the fourteenth day, having · nearly completed their works, they brought the guns of all their batteries to bear upon us." We are satisfied that Rysingh's patience must have at last become exhausted, and believe, although no document records it, that he more than once exclaimed, " If you intend to take me, why dont you, and have an end of it !" Christina subdued, Gottenberg soon fell, and with it the Swedish power on the Delaware, without the loss of blood on either side.
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