USA > Pennsylvania > Chronicles of Pennsylvania from the English revolution to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1688-1748, Vol. I > Part 24
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On October 26, 1696, the day appointed for the meet- ing of the Assembly, Donnaldson and Clark were ad-
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mitted to Markham's Council, and Goodson retired from the office of Assistant. It was then learned by Markham that Arthur Cooke had had in his possession for about eighteen months, and had been forbearing to use, two commissions from Penn, one appointing Markham as Lieutenant-Governor to act acording to the laws and Charter, viz: the Frame of 1683, and the other appoint- ing Cooke and Jennings as Assistants. Cooke there- fore took Goodson's place. Markham still did not feel free to reenact the Frame, if that was necessary to its validity. The Assembly met, and elected John Sim- cock as Speaker. Then Markham presented the last message for the quota, and said, that, while he had re- ceived no authority to reenact the Frame, and had called the House under the Charter of Charles II and the usages of neighbouring Provinces, he would agree that nothing done at the session should prejudice any claim or right to the Frame. It was finally arranged by a committee of conference that a money bill be passed, and also an act for a Frame of Government with a proviso that, if the Proprietary disapproved, it should be null and void, without prejudice to him or the People in relation to the validity or invalidity of the old Frame, and that Councillors and members of Assembly meanwhile be chosen on the 10th of the following 1st month (March). Markham himself presented the heads of the new Frame, somewhat altering the old. As finally agreed upon, the new Frame was passed on November 7, 1696, with the seal of the Province affixed, as the first of five laws made at the session. By the second law, a tax of 1d. per l. and 6s. per head was levied to manifest affection to the King as well as "readiness to answer his expectations in supporting the said government as far as in conscience we can:" 3001. of the proceeds to go towards the relief of the distressed Indians above Albany in alliance with the Crown, late sufferers from the French; 300l. to Gov-
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ernor William Markham for his services; and the net balance to paying, under the order of the Governor and Council, the debts and necessary charges of the govern- ment, the Council accounting to the Assembly. In ad- vance of the collecting of this tax, 300l. were borrowed at interest, perhaps from the aforesaid bank, and sent to Fletcher, who reported that the same had been ex- pended in contingencies to feed and clothe the Indians.
One of the laws of this session was for the safety of Philadelphia and New Castle from fire: no one was allowed to clean a chimney by burning it out, or to leave it so dirty that it would flame at the top; every owner of a dwelling was to keep therein a swab twelve or fourteen feet long and a bucket or pail always ready ; and no person was to smoke tobacco in the streets day or night, and out of the twelve pence fine for doing so, one penny was to be employed in providing "leather buckets & other instruments or engines agt. fire" for the use of the town. Apparently the fine was not ex- pected to be absolutely prohibitive.
The Frame of 1696 did not arrange, like that of 1683, for the exercise of the appointing power after William Penn's death. Besides the limitation of offices and legislative seats to those of Trinitarian faith, as men- tioned in the chapter on Religious Dissension, the other important changes were: the reduction of the number of Councillors to two from each county and of their term of office to one year, and the reduction of the number of Assemblymen to four from each county, and the permission for the Assembly, as well as the Coun- cil, to originate laws, and the allowance as wages of 5s. for each day's attendance to the Councillors and the Speaker of the House, and of 4s. per day to the As- semblymen, and of 2d. per mile for travelling to and fro to Councillors and assemblymen, and, finally, the limitation of the franchise of electing or being elected Councillor or Assemblyman to such inhabitants only as
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were free denizens resident for two years before the election, aged twenty-one years or more, and possess- ing 50l. clear wealth; fifty acres of land, ten of them seated and cleared, being taken as 50l. wealth. The charge was a departure from popular government: while the shortening of the term of the Councillors made them more likely representative of the current feelings of the voters, the number of voters appears to have been cut down considerably by the disqualifying of those who merely paid "scot and lot."
This would indicate that, perhaps owing to the changes in the population, there now was less liberalism among the politicians in control, in fact an instinctive tightening of the reins by the well-to-do Quakers. The Assembly had proposed three years as the time of resi- dence necessary for voting or being elected, but Mark- ham and his Council, there being present Shippen, Morris, Lloyd, Brinckloe, Clark, Hill, and Robinson, had it amended to two. Those imposing the tax at this session took care of the interests of the property holders, and showed no inclination to be munificent to the man living from hand to mouth. The tax was to be at the rate of one penny per pound on the appraised value of the capital, or in other words about four tenths of one per cent., a moderate charge when only occa- sional. The tax was to be on both personal and real estate, but the personalty was to be exclusive of all debts and of household goods and implements in use. Both personal and real estate were to be valued by the Assemblymen serving from the respective counties with the assistance of four or more of "the most substan- tial freeholders:" and we may presume that unpro- ductive land, nothwithstanding the inevitable enhance- ment for which it was being held, was not appraised very high by such assessors. The rate was kept down somewhat by there being no exemption of any male inhabitant over twenty-one years old who had six
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months previously finished his servitude. More than this, every such male inhabitant whose estate was less than seventy-two pounds contributed six shillings, the same as if his estate amounted to seventy-two pounds, the tax being changed at that sum to a rate per pound. He who had not seventy-two pounds thus paid more in proportion than he who had. Fletcher's law of 1693 imposing 1d. per l. had been different, allowing the tax- payers worth less than one hundred pounds to get off by paying six shillings. The only estates exempted by the Act of 1696 were the Proprietary's and his Deputy- Governor's. The poorer inhabitants lifted no voice against the Frame and the tax law, passed by repre- sentatives chosen by more general suffrage than was to choose their successors. When, in after times, in fact down to the American Revolution, those appointed by a small electorate passed tax laws largely copying this one, there was "taxation without representation" in Pennsylvania.
It was not with the inequalities of taxation bearing upon the poor, but with the changes in the constitution that discontent showed itself. John Goodson had pro- tested. The day for election of Councillors and As- semblymen being the same as under the old Frame, voters in Philadelphia County not aware of the altera- tion in the government, appeared, and three fourths of those present chose according to the old Frame, and two days afterwards drew up a remonstrance to the Governor, asking for their rights, but the three Coun- cillors chosen were not admitted. According to the minutes of the Council for May 10 and 12, 1697, the Sheriffs returned that the following were chosen as Councillors : Carpenter and Shippen from Philadel- phia, Growdon and Phineas Pemberton from Bucks, Simcock and Pusey from Chester, Alricks and Halliwell from New Castle, Griffith Jones and John Curtis from Kent, and Clark and John Hill from Sussex. Griffith
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Jones (apparently the one elected Councillor from Kent), Francis Rawle, Robert Turner, and Arthur Cooke, four important men, who could scarcely be said to represent a single faction, wrote to Penn on 2mo. 9, 1697, for redress of grievances, complaining of the failure to observe the forms of the old Frame in mak- ing the alterations, speaking of the promulgation of bills to be passed as "a privilege we could hardly suffi- ciently value," and declaring the change in number of representatives and in the qualification of voters a de- parture from fundamentals, and reporting as illegal the collection of the tax before Penn's ratification of the act. Jones refused to qualify as a Councillor, un- less he could be admitted under the old Charter.
In reply to a representation from Fletcher that the charge for Pennsylvania's quota for a year would be 2000l. and upwards, and that he needed fifty men for the forces required at Albany, and his request for twenty-five men or the proportionate sum, the As- sembly, which on May 12, 1697, chose John Blunston as Speaker, unanimously on the following day adopted a report prepared by a joint committee from Council and Assembly, that, as the former 300l. had not been collected and paid to those who had lent the sum, the Assembly could not raise any more money.
A letter from Secretary Blathwayt desiring an ar- ticle of association to be signed, it was on May 24 signed by Markham and the members of Council and Assembly free by their religious principles to do so. The Quaker members presented a declaration of their loyalty to the King.
Randolph, who had a great friend in Sir Robert Southwell, one of the Commissioners of Customs, re- iterated the complaints against the colonial, and par- ticularly the Proprietary, governments. While the King's advisers were very slow in moving towards the suggested abolition of Proprietary authority, Ran-
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dolph, in spite of the Proprietaries' claim that their Lieutenant-Governors should be Vice Admirals, achieved the erection of Courts of Admiralty in each colony, with the Judge, Register, and Marshall and an Attorney-General, all appointed by the Crown; and, upon Randolph's recommendation, Robert Quary was made Judge for Penn's dominions and West Jersey. Quary, formerly of South Carolina, but at this time re- siding in, or occasionally visiting Philadelphia for pur- poses of trade,-his title of Colonel being an honorary one, connected with his public office in Carolina-is the subject of much animadversion in the published Penn and Logan Correspondence, but, against the idea of Quary's character to be obtained therefrom, it must be remembered that he was the representative of the King's rights, and had a duty in antagonism to Penn's interests. ,
The House of Lords having, on Feb. 10, 1696-7, ap- pointed a Committee to consider the state of trade, Penn appeared before it several times, maintained his right to appoint a Governor over New Castle, as the Duke of York had done, announced that the late act relating to the plantation trade had been put in execu- tion, made excuses for Markham, and suggested a series of regulations for preventing illegal trade, and that there be free trade between the colonies, without such imposts as Maryland had laid on goods destined for Pennsylvania. Presenting on March 4 some pro- posals for the advancement of trade in America, Penn was asked what objection he had to Randolph's sugges- tion that Proprietary governments be abolished. Penn replied that the soil would be worth nothing to him the moment after he lost the government: he and his family would be ruined; for he could not then sell an acre of land. He proposed that Markham, whom he had formally nominated, be approved as Deputy-Governor, and give security ; but the House of Lords, in address-
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ing the King to have the Proprietary Governors re- ceive the same instructions as Royal Governors, and to make the Proprietaries answerable for their Gover- nors' misbehavior, asked that the Proprietaries them- selves give bond for the observance of the instructions. A letter from the King, dated April 22, 1697, to the various Governors and Proprietaries, including Penn, said that great abuses must result from the insolvency
of the sureties on the bonds for taking cargoes to England, or the remissness of past and present Gov- ernors, who should duly prosecute such bonds. The letter to Penn warned him that a failure to enforce the laws might lead to a forfeiture of his patent. Subse- quently, Penn was notified to sign a bond to obey the instructions.
Capt. Daniell, coming with Acting Commodore Wager to New Castle and Philadelphia in the month fol- lowing the affair at New Castle, and being entertained by Markham, unpleasantly referred to the losing of the men, although having promised Wager not to do so. After three of Daniell's crew, on March 8, deserted from his vessel in the Patuxent River, going off at night in the barge, Daniell, while offering to entertain Mark- ham in return, if he would pay a visit, wrote to Mark- ham that he (Daniell) supposed that these three men had gone to Pennsylvania, knowing how ready Mark- ham and all under him were to entertain and protect deserters, "to the great prejudice of his Majesty's ser- vice and trade, except to your quaking subjects, that never did the King or Kingdom any service." Having been informed that deserters from his (Daniell's) ship had appeared publicly daily, and offered themselves to sea captains, Daniell added: "I wonder you should rather endeavour to gratify the men aforesaid than have a regard to his Majesty's service." Markham spiritedly replied on March 30 that the letter was "so rude and indecent that it seems rather penned in the
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cook room than in the great cabin;" he would secure the men, if found, but why was no notice taken of the fact that they must have passed through the whole length of Maryland? Yet, on a surmise that they had reached Pennsylvania, its inhabitants were vilified. Markham called attention to Daniell's carelessness; when Markham was in the navy, oars and sails were not left in the boats at night, when there was likelihood of any of the men running away. Daniell had penned this sentence : "It will be in vain for any ships to trade here so long as they have encouragement to run to your parts whence they are allowed to go trampuseing where they please." Markham, in his reply, said: "I know not what you mean by trampuseing unless you aimed at French to show your breeding which you have ill set forth in your mother tongue." Markham fin- ished by expressing disinclination to be entertained by Daniell.
Governor Nicholson of Maryland lent a willing ear to what was reported against Pennsylvania, prejudiced as a strong Churchman against Quakers, and doubtless desirous of the achievement of the great reform sug- gested by Randolph, and hoped for by a party in Penn- sylvania, viz: the annexation of at least the Lower Counties, if not of the Province also, to Nicholson's jurisdiction. On March 27, 1697, in reply to the Com- missioners for Trade, Nicholson wrote a long letter, which as to Markham and Pennsylvania repeated much that had been said by Randolph, and reported the affair of Day and the loss of Daniell's men.
When Penn heard of this letter, almost simulta- neously came stories of the wickedness in the colony. The Quaker Justices, while getting severe against non- Quakers, were showing leniency, almost levity, when called upon to punish immorality in members of their own Society. It looked as if the Society was becoming a nobility or caste, those within which would stand
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by one another. Penn wrote in 7th month (Septem- ber), 1697, to the Council, to issue orders for suppress- ing forbidden trade and piracy and vice and looseness, until some severe laws could be passed, and to let no license be granted to keep public houses except to those who gave good security for the conducting of them, and who were known to be "of sober conversation," and that the County Courts have the approbation, if not the licensing. The result was a proclamation of the 12th of February rather vindicating the conduct of magis- trates and people, but urging them to greater efforts, and authorizing the Justices of each of the six counties after the 1st of March to nominate for said county those who alone would be licensed or permitted by the Gov- ernor to keep taverns, inns, or drinking places, which "condescension" of the Governor, limiting his right to license, was embodied in a law of 1699, together with a power in three of the Justices to disqualify from keep- ing drinking places in future those who allowed dis- orders.
The Governor of Maryland, Nicholson or whoever should be such Governor at any time, was authorized by the Admiralty on June 26, 1697, to appoint Judges, Registers, Marshalls, and Advocates for Admiralty Courts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Jersey on the death or disability of those in office. The Board of Trade summoned Penn in the Fall of 1697. Fortu- nately, the war with France was over : the question of defence was no longer a complication. Reminding the Lords that Markham had been, not Penn's, but the late Queen's choice, to serve during the war, Penn wrote on 8ber 15, offering to turn out Markham, if he had be- haved badly, but, as he ought not to be judged ex parte, asking that the Earl of Bellomont be ordered to inquire. Richard Coote, Earl of Bellomont in the peerage of Ireland, had been commissioned on June 18, 1697, as Governor of New York, Massachusetts Bay, and New
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Hampshire. Penn was able to bring to Markham's de- fence the agents upon whose presence in England Nicholson and his party were relying. Francis Jones, before mentioned, was the bearer of a later letter from Nicholson, but, although examined by the Commis- sioners for Trade, Jones regretted that his application to Nicholson against Day had eventuated in Nicholson's representation against Pennsylvania, and so Jones wrote a letter, dated 9ber 13, addressed to Penn, and read before the Commissioners, correcting some of Nicholson's statements, and saying that Markham, not- withstanding Jones's anger against him, was the best fitted man to administer the colony, having during the five years of Jones's residence or visiting there, gov- erned to the satisfaction of the substantial inhabitants and traders, until some turbulent and discontented people from other colonies, particularly one Snead from Jamaica, had arrived, and started a correspon- dence with Maryland. Nicholson, on subsequently sending over a witness to England, hoped that he would be examined before Penn could "get at him." Quary, moreover, in a letter avowed having advised Mark- ham to commission Day. Snead attributed the letter to Penn's assistance in Quary's securing most of Charles Sanders's business. Quary explained to Snead that Penn had now the King's friendship, the King writing to Penn "particularly" (personally ?) from Flanders, and satisfying him of the King's proceedings there, as if Penn were of the Privy Council. There was also a report that Penn had by letter advised Fletcher to linger in America, Penn having, it was said, no doubt about being able to get the Governorship of Maryland for Fletcher.
In the closing years of that Century and the opening years of the next, there flourished the pirates most celebrated in tradition, and from works of fiction based upon their career. Some indeed were mutineers who
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had left port on an honest voyage, a few may have gathered or joined the ship's company upon a plain agreement to undertake piracy, which is defined as robbery at sea, and others, after starting on a legal errand, had yielded to the temptation presented by an opportunity to enrich themselves. Hardly ever was a naval officer of rank guilty of such capital offence; but mariners from the merchant service, intrusted with armed vessels as privateers, often made criminal use of their power. It was a legitimate war measure to offer the property at sea of the hostile people as booty to any dare-devil who would go after it. An unprin- cipled prize-seeker would not respect a neutral; a des- perate character would attack the vessels of his own nation : and all this was true often of those who had previously kept within the limits of law. The valuable products of the Indies which led Europeans to establish settlements for trade in those regions, tempted British sailors to the Indian Ocean, to waylay the cargoes being carried from one point to another of those coasts. If justice might ferret out those who attacked their own countrymen, still an Asiatic merchantman might be plundered with comparative impunity. If, indeed, the operations were mostly in distant waters, because more was found there to steal, yet the rovers came to the sparsely settled coasts of America to dispose of their spoil, or to escape punishment, and preyed upon what they found in their path. After the capture of one or two good prizes and distribution of the spoil, the crews were reduced or gradually disbanded, and various de- tachments, as opportunity presented itself, made their way to the home ports, or to the colonies, many of the individuals with the intention of finding some honest calling, or at least living peaceably upon their gains.
Villagers or farmers unused to fighting among whom any men of physical strength and some ready money came amicably, were not anxious to question any
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plausible account such men gave of themselves: even officials in England, with all their power, corruptly or in hopes of finding such experienced seamen useful, left those thought guilty undisturbed. Randolph, in 1696, furnished a list of fifteen pirates from the Red Sea who came to Philadelphia from South Carolina in 1692, and he also said that some pirates in the city, when in their cups, had boasted of capturing an eastern princess on the way to marry some great man, and of throwing her overboard after violating her. The origi- nal fifteen had come during Lloyd's rule. It was hy- pocritical in Randolph to speak of them; for he had offered to pardon all such pirates, if they would make up a sum of money to cover the expense of securing afresh the authority to pardon which he had under King James; of course a sum large enough to leave a fee for Randolph. Doing without this pardon, these early pirates had lived unmolested, some marrying and owning houses. Markham, whether under Fletcher or Penn, welcomed other settlers of this kind, as contrib- uting by their money to the prosperity of the colony. Colonial Governors, either for the presents they re- ceived, or because they were at the mercy of any large crew, or to secure some one to chase away the privateers or war vessels of France, and sometimes for all three reasons, made friends with mariners of whose previous career they were suspicious, and granted them pardon, assistance, and letters of marque. It was charged that Fletcher made large sums by this course both in New York and Pennsylvania. Markham acknowledged that some small presents had been at the same time made to himself, and that one captain of a privateer left him a legacy. Ex-pirates, ostensibly retired privateersmen, became quickly of such consequence in the various colonies, affiliating in business or social friendship or by intermarriage with the local officeholders, that they seemed intrenched: and, moreover, the leading mer-
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chants found that the most profitable ventures by sea were by the employment of captains who would bring goods without explanation; nor were men of saintly record particularly looked for in the supposedly justi- fiable enterprise of trading with red-handed sea rob- bers, or even in the desperado's game of robbing them in turn. The magistracy of the various colonies was practically given to the merchants: for scarcely was there an inhabitant financially independent of traders and trade. Penn, to be sure, was situated aloof, but his colony had so little of his presence.
The island of Madagascar, already visited by legiti- mate traders, had many spots where disorderly crews could hide. Some pirates settled there, building forts, even conquering the natives, among whom they mar- ried, and over whom they tyrannized. It is supposed that the first settlers were the followers of Captain Thomas Tew, who, after being commissioned by Gov- ernor Fletcher for privateering against the French, started as a pirate for the Red Sea. Whether with the ex-rovers settled in Madagascar, or with those pirates bringing towards it their plunder, there grew up a sur- reptitious trade from the American colonies, managed in the following way, when trade with that island be- came suspected or prohibited: a lawful cargo was carried from the colonies to Madeira; there wine and brandy were taken aboard; and thence the vessel pro- ceeded to Madagascar, where barter was made for the goods which the pirates had found; and these were brought back, and commanded high prices.
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