USA > Pennsylvania > Chronicles of Pennsylvania from the English revolution to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1688-1748, Vol. I > Part 15
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otherwise might have been contented with the title, surroundings, and remuneration, was very disagree- able. He had to serve three masters, to whom his con- duct 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 Pro- prietary, who appointed and could supersede him, and the People, or, at least, the freemen represented in Assembly, who paid him. To the difficulty of harmoniz- ing the requirements of the King and the freemen, was added the obligation to protect the interests of the Pro- prietary, 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 exten- sion, 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 Lieutenant- Governors. 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 per- quisites. 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 solicita- tion, 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 ad- ministration satisfactory both to the King and to the
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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 peril- ous times, accepted with the expectation of being soon relieved by the return of Penn to America. The col- lection 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 thanks- giving 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
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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 fav- ored was not the Welsh attorney, but the Councillor, the latter was not one of the former Quaker office- holders, 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 num- ber 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 in- fluence, 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 adop- tion of theories and practices in the face of all ecclesi- astical 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 sharp- ened 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
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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 re- publican. Perhaps he was afraid of not appearing thoroughly loyal to the monarchical régime: he had narrowly escaped attainder as an accessory to the put- ting 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 de- clining to accuse himself by acknowledging the print- ing, 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 govern- ment was, which makes things as they now are." It 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.
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
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"suppressing of printing here, and narrowly to look after your press." This we have from an old manu- script 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 pro- Register-General, and naming Markham as first among the Justices of all the counties, the conduct of the lead- ing Quakers, on their part, was not such as to win Blackwell. Contention filled the time of his adminis- tration. Lloyd, from the first, interposed his own judg- ment 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 pres- ent being four Quakers and Darvall and Markham- that all original letters and instructions either to Com- missioners 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 Secre- tary. 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. Appar- ently Cooke and Eckley felt the same way as Lloyd,
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who made answer that the original letters had been duly considered by those lately Commissioners, and they knew of none which might now be of service, that such as contained instructions had been delivered to view, and were transcribed, and that most of the letters re- mained in his own custody with the assent of those to whom they were directed. It was at last agreed unani- mously in the Council that attested copies of the letters and of the parts of private letters should be delivered.
Lloyd also claimed the right to refuse the great seal to documents which he deemed improper, a right which would have made him a chancellor or a court to declare acts unconstitutional or a superior governor, and which would have resulted in such confusion that Penn can not be supposed to have intended it. Lloyd's first refusal was in regard to a certain commission for Justices of the Peace and holding of a County Court for Philadel- phia County, the form of the commission being dis- approved of by him. On his intending to visit New York, the Council, six being present, asked him to leave the seal for the accommodation of public business, the Quakers on this occasion adopting Blackwell's motion, Simcock saying that the Keeper should not be allowed to go away. Lloyd, in writing, declared that the action of the Council was an arbitrary disposing of the most eminent estate for life yet given in the government, that he had been unkindly dealt with, and that, being done by a minority of the members, and by vote instead of ballot,-the Frame requiring ballot in the choosing of officers and all other personal matters,- the act was unwarrantable by law and charter; and he asked that either the order be erased from the Coun- cil book, or his paper filed as a protest. Blackwell had gotten over the difficulty about the County Court by de- ciding to issue under the lesser seal the commissions in the form which he had chosen, and to refer the matter to the Proprietary. But it was not easy to do
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without Lloyd in the matter of the Supreme Court, or, as it was called, the Provincial Court, which alone could try capital crimes. The law passed while Penn was in the colony provided for five Judges appointed by the Governor under the great seal. There had been passed in 1685 a provision for a special commissioning, not requiring that seal, of three Judges by the Governor and Council, but, even if this was not abrogated by Penn's letter of 1686, it appeared to be an infringement of his right by the King's patent to appoint all Judges, and therefore void as within the exception to the power under which in 1685 the Council had represented Penn in making laws. Cooke asked that Lloyd's advice be sought, and, this being refused, Cooke left the meeting; Clark, Darvall, Jones, Coppock, Turner, and Markham remaining, it was carried unanimously to commission under the older law, and according to a form then read by Blackwell. This being sent to Lloyd, he declared it not proper for the seal, and "more moulded by fancy than formed by law, the style insecure, the powers un- warrantable, and the duration not consonant to the con- tinuance of the laws upon which it should be grounded." The Governor and Council having removed David Lloyd from the Clerkship for Philadelphia County, Thomas Lloyd, claiming the right to appoint the Clerk, commissioned David as such on 1mo. 1, 1688-9. It was resolved by the Council that this was an usurpation of the Governor's authority; and David surrendered the records in due time.
Richardson (ancestor of Gov. Samuel W. Penny- packer) offended Blackwell's punctiliousness by criti- cising both in and out of Council a resolution of the body, and his pride by repeated declarations that Penn's deputy was not Governor, for Penn could not appoint one. Cooke, expressing himself more mildly, scrupled at any title but Deputy-Governor. Blackwell moved that Richardson be ordered to leave while the
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Council debated the question. Richardson declared : "I will not withdraw, I was not brought hither by thee, and I will not go out by thy order; I was sent by the people, and thou hast no power to put me out." The others thought he should withdraw; and, when he had done so, it was agreed, seven members being present, that he should acknowledge his offence, and promise more respect in future, before he could be allowed to sit again.
The imperative business in the Spring of 1689 was the making of a new set of laws, the act of 3mo. 10, 1688, having provided that, except the fundamental laws, no law passed previously, or at that session, should remain in force longer than until twenty days after the end of the first session of the next Assembly. Accordingly, the Governor and Council were bound in duty to propose, as prescribed by the Frame, a code, to be published and affixed in the most public place in each county by the 20th of the 2nd month, i.e. twenty days before the meeting of the Assembly which was to accept or reject them. The election held in 1st month, 1688-9, resulted in the continuance of Simcock and Clark in the Council and the choice of John Eckley, Lloyd, William Stockdale, and John Curtis, in the place of Turner, Cooke, Cann, and Darvall, and the choice of John Hill for the vacancy from Sussex.
Questions as to right to seats prevented the Council from getting to work in time for legislation. On the ground that fifty or sixty inhabitants of the Welsh Tract had voted in Philadelphia, whereas that tract had been actually taken into Chester County, Eckley's elec- tion was declared void. The Lieutenant-Governor, pur- suant to the suspension of Richardson, issued a writ for an election in his place, as well as for an election in Eckley's. As to Lloyd, Blackwell proposed articles of impeachment. Richardson came to the Council meet- ing to take his place, justifying his former language,
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and refusing to withdraw; so that the Governor ad- journed the sitting until the afternoon. Then the ques- tion was raised whether the Council could exclude a member chosen by the people, Blackwell standing on the privilege of all courts and corporations to judge of the misbehavior of their members, and saying that he would not suffer such affronts from any person sitting at the board, and would so notify the Proprietary. Markham, the Secretary, writes this minute: "Many intemperate speeches & passages happend, fitt to be had in oblivion." The question of Lloyd's impeach- ment being then taken up, there arose warm debates, his friends objecting to framing any charges. At the next meeting, Lloyd walked into the room, saying that he had come to take his seat. The Lieutenant-Governor told him that nothing was expected from him until he answered the charges. He, replying that he had as good a right to be there as Blackwell had to be Lieutenant- Governor, accordingly refused to withdraw. Black- well then asked the other members to follow him to his lodgings. Some stayed to reason with Lloyd, among them Markham, the Secretary, but such were the "sharp and unsavory expressions" used by Lloyd, which the Lieutenant-Governor heard, he having gone no further than outside the door, that Markham induced him to return. Lloyd was again commanded to depart, and the other members followed the Lieutenant-Gov- ernor to his lodgings. On arriving there, eleven mem- bers voted to proceed with the preparation of the laws for the Assembly's action: four Quakers, Carpenter, Growdon, Yardley, and Bristow, voted no, being appar- ently unwilling to act without Lloyd, Richardson, and Eckley. On the 8th of 2nd month, at the election ordered by the Lieutenant-Governor to fill Eckley's and Richardson's places, the freemen decided to take no ballot, although the Frame required it. In Chester and the Lower Counties, the ballot had been frequently by
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black and white beans in a hat. On this occasion, by majority vote or voice, Eckley and Richardson were sent back. On the same day, there was an agreement reached in Council as to what laws were fundamental : but, it having been pointed out that the laws, to be valid under the King's letters patent, were to be published by the Proprietary or his Deputy under the seal of the Proprietary or Deputy, and it not being clear that any but the Act of Union had been passed under the great seal, a question arose whether any of the funda- mentals had been legally established.
The Councillors were turned from the subject the next morning by the Lieutenant-Governor finding fault with Growdon for promoting the printing of copies of the Frame of Government. It was this printing which caused the proceeding against Bradford, as before re- lated. Blackwell expressed a fear that, if it were known outside of the province, that Penn had granted certain privileges, it might result in a questioning of the Pro- prietary title. Growdon declined to retire during the discussion, and demanded the admission of the three excluded members. Blackwell maintained the disquali- fication of Lloyd and Richardson, and the nullity of the second election of Eckley, although politely regretting that it was not legal to admit one so fit as the last named. Blackwell refused to let the Councillors ballot upon this point, declaring it unsafe to let men who were under such factional influence vote secretly. The Quakers generally being indisposed to go into the con- sideration of the laws with three representatives of their element of the population excluded, the Lieu- tenant-Governor, then excusing from attendance all the Councillors except those required for routine business, let all legislation fail.
After the adjournment on that day, Simcock, Grow- don, Yardley, Curtis, Carpenter, Coppock, and Stock- dale wrote a complaint to Penn-Bristow had gone
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before it was signed-of Blackwell's actions against Lloyd, Richardson, and Eckley in opposition to the Councillors' wishes, and of the putting of a stop to leg- islation. These seven told Penn that Blackwell rather watched them for evil, taking down in short hand every word they said, and preparing, when they were gone, the minutes for his servant, a Frenchman, to transcribe, and, although in many things keeping "near to the truth," frequently omitting or denying what was mate- rial, that he represented them and "the best people" as seditious &ct., for asserting in moderation their just rights, and appearing unanimous in choice of repre- sentatives, and standing together against their known enemies, and that Blackwell, instead of taking the ad- vice of those previously intrusted with the government, consulted with Jones, Robinson, and Markham. The wish was earnestly expressed that Penn return to America. "We now see the difference between an affectionate and tender father whose children we know we are and a severe hard hearted father-in-law who hath no share nor lot nor portion among us."
The Assemblymen met in no good humor. Not only were the excluded Councillors high in the estimation of some, in fact of most, of the Quakers attending, but John White, chosen a representative of New Castle County in the Assembly, had been committed to jail, and was detained there. Blackwell for several days telling the messenger of the House that there was no quorum of the Council, the House unanimously resolved that the exclusion of members of the Council from that body was a grievance of the country; and it also was unanimously resolved that the detention in prison of any person chosen to the Assembly during the time of its session was a breach of privilege, and that such person with the charge against him should be brought before the House, that the House could judge whether the charge amounted to treason or felony. Therefore
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the House issued a writ to the Sheriff of New Castle to bring before it the body of John White, and the cause of his detaining. Five members, however, Joseph Fisher, Edward Blake, Luke Watson, Jr., Samuel Gray, and James Sandelands, protested against such a writ.
On the 14th of 3rd month, Blackwell addressed the Assembly at length, reciting the Proprietary's direction to drop all laws except the fundamentals, the doubt whether laws already passed or to be passed could be valid without the great seal, the difficulty in getting Lloyd to affix the great seal-according to Blackwell, the Keeper "refusing to allow the use of it in any cases by my direction," -- and the uncertainty of the Pro- prietary's position in the state of affairs in England, and the danger to him and the colonists of passing such laws as they wished, and the Proprietary's reservation of the confirmation or annulling of any laws passed in his absence, so that their execution must be postponed until his pleasure should be known; so Blackwell an- nounced his intention of observing as Proprietary in- structions what had been enacted while Penn was in the province, unless contrary to the laws of England, and of supplying any defect therein by the laws of England. The House, by Arthur Cooke, who had been elected Speaker, appears then to have presented its resolve as to the grievance of not admitting the three Councillors. Blackwell adjourned the Council to his lodgings, against the wishes of certain members, who set up a joint power to appoint the place of meeting. His answer was that by his commission and the charter and laws, they were to attend him; not he, them. One affirming that they were not dealt with fairly, Black- well reproved him, saying that he, Blackwell, was sorry that the member did not understand things better. Three days later, he submitted to a quorum of the Councillors the question of issuing a declaration for continuing the laws formerly passed by the Proprietary
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himself until word should come from England. Sim- cock and Clark feared, that, even with such a declara- tion, justices would not feel safe in doing anything after the expiration of twenty days from the end of the Assembly's session. Blackwell said that all action by the justices would surely be confirmed by an act of in- demnity and confirmation, as government was a neces- sity. Growdon suggested to keep the laws alive by agreeing to the Assembly taking a recess, while Stock- dale and Carpenter said that the Assembly could, by its own power, take such a recess; but Blackwell said that this was in no way countenanced by the Charter, the instructions, or the laws. Bristow thought it would be well for the Governor and Council and the Assembly to join together in a declaration to the magistrates that the laws made and confirmed from the beginning and practised, continue in force until further order from the Proprietary. This pleased Blackwell, but was not followed by the Council.
The Assemblymen, adopting on the day of this debate in Council an answer to the Lieutenant-Governor's speech, said that they were credibly informed that William Penn had changed his mind about letting the laws drop, and, as far as they knew, all those passed since his departure had been sent for his refusal, and none had been declared void by him; no higher sanction was required than what had been accepted up to that time by the colony; it was hoped that no law would be imposed upon them as being made and published under the great seal by the Proprietary and Governor with the consent of the freemen, instead of as made "in the stipulated way of the Charter and Act of Settlement;" the representatives conceived all laws not adjudged void by the King under his Privy Seal to remain in force; and they deemed inconsistent with the constitu- tion the Deputy's expedient of governing, unless with the concurrence of the Council, by such laws made be-
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