USA > Pennsylvania > Chronicles of Pennsylvania from the English revolution to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1688-1748, Vol. I > Part 32
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The new Charter of Privileges, or written Constitu- tion, had as its first clause practically the old law for liberty of conscience, and that all persons professing be- lief "in Jesus Christ the Saviour of the World" should
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be capable of serving the government on solemnly promising, when required, allegiance to the King, and fidelity to the Proprietor and Governor, and on taking the attests prescribed in the law passed at New Castle as recently amended and confirmed. Four members annually chosen from each county were to form an Assembly, the right to choose or be chosen being lim- ited according to the law passed at New Castle. Two persons for each county were to be chosen triennially, from whom the Governor should select the Sheriff, and two from whom the Governor should select the Coroner, the Sheriff and Coroner serving three years. Criminals should have the same privileges of witnesses and coun- sel as their prosecutors. No person should answer re- lating to property before the Governor and Council or elsewhere than in the courts of justice, unless appeals were appointed by law. No person should keep a house of public entertainment unless licensed by the Governor upon recommendation by the county Justices. The estate of any person killing himself should descend as if he had died a natural death. The Charter could be changed or diminished in effect only by the Governor and six sevenths of the Assembly met. A postscript was added allowing within the next three years the representatives of either Pennsylvania or the Lower Counties by a majority vote to withdraw from the As- sembly, and establish a separate legislature, that for Pennsylvania to consist of not less than eight members from each county and also two members from the town of Philadelphia.
When we compare the old constitution with this Frame and various other arrangements left by Penn, we can state the great result of his visit to have been a change of the government from one by the People to one by the Proprietary's friends. To be sure, while the City Corporation received somewhat greater powers than what the City's charter signed by Lloyd in 1691
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had given, and the right to elect officers and fill vacan- cies had made the new as well as the old a close cor- poration, the body was independent, and the members appointed by the charter of the new to serve at first, except Shippen, the Mayor, and Story, the Recorder, and one or two others, could hardly be called Penn's close friends. Not so, however, as to province and county. Logan wrote some years later that Penn, at a time not specified, was inclined for an aristocracy, and had designed to give to an upper element control, but was thwarted by some individ- uals. If this was the case at the preparation of the Frame of 1701, it is to be inferred that David Lloyd was the chief obstructor. Far from being democratic, what Logan says was made republican, was made mon- archic. Under the Frame of 1683, and even under that of 1696, the free men of Pennsylvania and Delaware after a short residence or at least those who had a little property, had been able not only to force or retard legislation, but, except within the sphere of the City charter of 1691, to control, by their delegates in the Provincial Council, the management of all public affairs. Under the Frame of 1701, the Governor had an absolute veto upon laws, and there was no Upper House elected to participate in executive business. All the power left in the People was that a part of the People could choose an Assembly, like the English House of Commons, to do only what the House of Com- mons at that time could do, viz : propose laws, and offer money. The acting Governor or the Governor-in-Chief behind him was to be supreme, like a local king-that is, a king of that day, no mere figure-head, like a mod- ern constitutional monarch. Furthermore, the advisers of the acting Governor, like the contemporary cabinets of kings, and unlike to-day's Parliamentary ministries, were to be independent of the voters. It also can be said that, beginning with the first Hamilton, and until
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the close of this history, the Lieutenant-Governors personally had less in common with the inhabitants than those appointed before 1700. Of those earlier ones, Blackwell, to be sure, had been a stranger, but Markham was the leader whom the purchasers from Penn had followed to their new home, and Thomas Lloyd had the respect of the majority of the settlers as a preacher and sufferer for their religion, while the other Commissioners of State and the Assistants were such as the planters, left to their own judgment, might have elected.
One explanation of the change in the constitution, or a contributing motive for it, may have been the idea that only a ruler independent of the People can pre- serve the liberties of the minority, and Penn must have foreseen that the Quakers, for whose enjoyment of privileges his colony had been started, were about to become the minority in it. He left the government well organized against the Churchmen, likely to include the poorer immigrants of the future, and to bring into co- alition with themselves the Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Baptists on the question of war and oaths. With the Quaker landholders preponderating in the Assem- bly, and with the judiciary filled as he had chosen, nothing contrary to the consciences of his fellow re- ligionists could be imposed, except by the government in London, and, being in England, he might influence those officials to be considerate.
The active Churchmen wished the Province and Ter- ritories put under a Governor selected by the Cabinet ministers, and holding directly under the Crown. Quary carried over to England two addresses, one, dated Oct. 25, from eight representatives of the Lower Counties, Yeates, Halliwell, Adam Pieterson, Luke Wattson Jr., William Rodeney, John Brinckloe, John Walker, and John Donnaldson, complaining of Penn's giving no satisfaction about defence. Yeates at least
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was a Churchman, and in the Lower Counties the non- Quakers were strong. The other address was from the Minister and some of the Vestry of Christ Church, dated Oct. 27, setting forth certain failures of justice under Quaker control of the judiciary. Rather un- gratefully, we should say, John Moore signed this : he was both Register-General of Wills and Attorney-Gen- eral by Penn's appointment, and was drawing, as Attorney-General, a salary directly from Penn.
Except in the case of Moore and of two or three persons sent over by Penn to hold office, the political circumstances of an Episcopalian residing in the Upper Counties at this time were not pleasant. In more cases than among the Quakers, he was one of the poor dis- qualified from voting, yet obliged to pay a tax. If, however, he had the ability and standing fitting him for office, he was discriminated against by the voters. Everybody was taxed for a gratuity to William Penn, to help pay for his having been a great man at Court, and other parts of his career which did not interest, or were disapproved of by Churchmen, and the net result of which was the maintenance on the Delaware of the political power of men who would not administer, much less require, an oath, and would not authorize, much less take part in, the defence of the colony. It may be said that the Quakers had a right to the coun- try which they had planted, and that the dissatisfied minority should have left: but that course naturally did not commend itself even to such as could afford to re- move: they were adhering to the ecclesiastical organiza- tion and customs adopted by the Anglo-Saxon race, and Pennsylvania comprised an extensive region, one of the best under the English Crown.
Penn had intended the superseding of Moore as At- torney-General, but the commission for that purpose to Paroculus Parmiter, if signed, was not made use of, it being learned that Parmiter, who was one of Penn's
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kindred, had been convicted at Bristol, England, of the capital crime of forgery, but pardoned. Penn commis- sioned Markham on 5, 27, 1703, as Register-General, but Moore claimed a freehold in the office, withheld the official seal, and sued Markham, but, after the latter's death, abandoned or lost the case.
Quary, who remained in England until July, 1702, suggested, but did not succeed in having taken up, the following solution of the problem of defence, viz: that in every colony all freemen and all immigrants be obliged to enroll themselves in a company of militia, the poor as foot soldiers, the rich as dragoons: but that Quakers and others with scruples against bearing arms were to certify their opinion in writing, and, in place of bearing arms, to do an equivalent in some pub- lic work, and to furnish their quota agreeable to their estates, said quota to be laid out in providing arms, ammunition, and all warlike stores.
Andrew Hamilton, who met the Council on November 14, 1701, and to whom Logan was instructed to make up an allowance of 200l. per annum until royal appro- bation of the appointment, and 300l. thereafter, was a native of Scotland, and had acted as Governor of one or both of the provinces of New Jersey at different times since 1689, and is mentioned in another chapter as having started an inter-colonial postal service. When Quary, before the Board of Trade, made the point against Penn of his leaving Hamilton as acting Governor without the royal approbation, Penn pleaded the necessity of the case. He had obtained the opinion of William Attwood, Chief Justice at New York, that the deputizing by a Governor-in-Chief was good until the King could be informed. Penn explained that he had chosen Hamilton because there was no other non- Quaker at hand fit for the position except Markham, whom the Crown had so lately ordered to be removed from it. Quary said that there were several others, who
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were, moreover, less liable to objection. Hamilton had been careful of Quaker interests in New Jersey, but was not personally disliked by the Churchmen. He had probably adhered to the episcopally governed clergy both in Scotland and in London, where he is said to have been a merchant.
In the late years of his life, he befriended a young Scotchman, said to have been born in Edinburgh about 1676, who took the name of Andrew Hamilton while residing in the Virginia or Maryland "Eastern Shore," and with such name appears in history, being the great- est lawyer of his day in Pennsylvania. He is said to have emigrated from Scotland in such needs as to have his time sold to a planter, because fleeing from an actual or impending charge of murder, as the result of a fight. Despite all that has been surmised, there was probably nothing interesting about the paternity of the fugitive. He had sufficient education to assist his second employer in teaching school, and, as he at one time bore the name of Trent, he may have been related to William Trent, the Pennsylvania Councillor, or more closely to Maurice Trent, who was early in New Jersey, and afterwards of Leith, Scotland.
Without raising the objection of Hamilton's appoint- ment not having been confirmed, Halliwell, Moore, and Yeates, three of those authorized by a document known as a "dedimus potestatem" to administer to the Gov- ernor of Pennsylvania the oath required by the Act of 7 & 8 Wm. III, very captiously refused to administer the oath to Hamilton, unless the dedimus potestatem were surrendered to them. The Council thought the Secre- tary or the Master of the Rolls the proper custodian, and, as the document gave to any five of the Council with the Collector of the Port the same power as to those particularly named, Councillors Guest, Samuel Finney, and John Finney with John Bewley, Collector of the Port, administered the oath in presence of
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Councillors Carpenter, Clark, and Pusey, who joined in signing the certificate.
The membership of the Governor's Council, a few months after its establishment, was slightly changed by the death of Phineas Pemberton, Penn's staunchest friend in Bucks Co., and the admission, in accordance with Penn's wishes, of John Finney, eldest son of Samuel Finney. On the same day as John Finney, viz : April 21, 1702, Logan qualified as a member.
On the death of William III, March 8, 1701-2, Queen Mary having died previously, her sister Anne, wife of Prince George of Denmark, succeeded to the throne. Staunch as she was for the Anglican Church, she was no enemy to her old acquaintance, Penn, the friend of her father, James II. In a letter of July 14, 1706, un- signed but attributed to Penn, the writer speaks of his own steady and secret (private) and public services to her in many ways, for which not everybody besides himself had the power or talent.
Edward Hyde, by courtesy Viscount Cornbury, son of the Queen's uncle, Henry, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, having been appointed Governor of New York and Commander of the Militia of the Jerseys and Con- necticut by the late King, came to Burlington in June, 1702, and was invited to Philadelphia, where he spent the night at Shippen's, and, with a retinue thirty in number, was entertained at the Proprietary's expense at as handsome a dinner, it was said, as his Lordship had seen in America. The next day, he was escorted from Burlington to Pennsbury, and there entertained, about fifty being in company. By his manners, the Quakers were so much pleased with this cousin of the Queen that they thought, that, if proprietary govern- ment were abolished, they would be satisfied to have him as Governor. Furthermore, they were becoming indifferent to the bill before Parliament, if only certain privileges could be retained, the more spiritually
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minded thinking that acts of government were foreign to their profession, and those who loved Penn feeling that his life would be easier, and he probably happier, if he had the Proprietaryship only. Naturally, there was, however, a desire that the reflections upon the Quakers' conduct of affairs should be dispelled, and that the country should not fall under the control of the non-Quaker partisans, who had cast such reflections.
On July 10, 1702, without the receipt of an order from the English government, but preparatory to in- viting those inclined to form a militia, in view of the new war against France and Spain, proclamation of Anne's accession was made. On the 24th, the war was proclaimed. In a few days, one company of militia was started. George Lowther, a lawyer from Notting- hamshire, but of a Yorkshire family, was made the captain. But the enrolment was not a success. The Churchmen wished it a failure, so that the English government would think it necessary to take the do- minions into its own hands. The Quakers could not join the colors on account of their principles. There was, moreover, an idea that those who joined would be required to proceed to Canada. So, after great efforts, only about a score or two of the poorest men, with only six swords among them, and, we are told, just as deficient in shoes and stockings, mustered for a review.
The Aldermen of the City claimed in 1702 the right to act as Justices in the Court of Common Pleas for both County and City; and, when Hamilton and some lawyers thought them wrong, and Capt. Finney, the head of those commissioned for the County, refused to sit with the Aldermen, the Mayor's Court was held, and all fines for offences in the cognizance of those Alder- men, including fines of keepers of public houses for selling without a license, were claimed. Penn, hearing of this, hoped for some change of feeling, but was in-
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clined to recall the corporation's charter, as certain lawyers thought he could legally, and he was confident that the English government would approve.
Quary making charges against Penn in particular and the Quakers in general, to show their malfeasance as a cause for abolishing their government, and Penn answering, and making counter charges against Quary, there was a fruitless contention, some of the papers in which appear in the printed Penn and Logan Corre- spondence. Quary returned to America with a letter from the Commissioners of Trade, desiring him to ac- quaint the gentlemen of the Lower Counties of their letter of Oct. 25, 1701, being under consideration for their relief, and to assure them of the Queen's protec- tion and care for their welfare and security. Quary also brought a letter of protection from the Queen re- quiring all Governors, Lieutenant-Governors, magis- trates, and officers civil and military to assist him. Both letters are printed in Virginia Mag. Hist. & Biog., Vol. XXIII.
The people of the Lower Counties did not like the Charter, or Frame of Government of the Province and Territories, granted on Oct. 28, 1701, because, accord- ing to Quary, of the toleration of Deists and of the eligibility of Papists to office; and there was a denial of the validity of the Charter, in view of its not having been agreed to by a clear majority of the Assembly. On the day for the first election for Assemblymen under the Charter, none were chosen by the Lower Counties. The Upper Counties, comprising Pennsyl- vania proper, or the Province strictly so called, chose the required number, viz: Joseph Growdon, John Swift, William Paxon (now Paxson), Jeremiah Lang- horne, David Lloyd, Anthony Morris, Samuel Richard- son, Griffith Jones (formerly mentioned as a Quaker), Nicholas Pyle, Andrew Job, John Bennet, and John Worrall. These arrived in Philadelphia at the time for
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CHRONICLES OF PENNSYLVANIA.
were, moreover, less liable to objection. Hamilton had been careful of Quaker interests in New Jersey, but was not personally disliked by the Churchmen. He had probably adhered to the episcopally governed clergy both in Scotland and in London, where he is said to have been a merchant.
In the late years of his life, he befriended a young Scotchman, said to have been born in Edinburgh about 1676, who took the name of Andrew Hamilton while residing in the Virginia or Maryland "Eastern Shore," and with such name appears in history, being the great- est lawyer of his day in Pennsylvania. He is said to have emigrated from Scotland in such needs as to have his time sold to a planter, because fleeing from an actual or impending charge of murder, as the result of a fight. Despite all that has been surmised, there was probably nothing interesting about the paternity of the fugitive. He had sufficient education to assist his second employer in teaching school, and, as he at one time bore the name of Trent, he may have been related to William Trent, the Pennsylvania Councillor, or more closely to Maurice Trent, who was early in New Jersey, and afterwards of Leith, Scotland.
Without raising the objection of Hamilton's appoint- ment not having been confirmed, Halliwell, Moore, and Yeates, three of those authorized by a document known as a "dedimus potestatem" to administer to the Gov- ernor of Pennsylvania the oath required by the Act of 7 & 8 Wm. III, very captiously refused to administer the oath to Hamilton, unless the dedimus potestatem were surrendered to them. The Council thought the Secre- tary or the Master of the Rolls the proper custodian, and, as the document gave to any five of the Council with the Collector of the Port the same power as to those particularly named, Councillors Guest, Samuel Finney, and John Finney with John Bewley, Collector of the Port, administered the oath in presence of
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GOVERNMENT BY PENN'S FRIENDS.
Councillors Carpenter, Clark, and Pusey, who joined in signing the certificate.
The membership of the Governor's Council, a few months after its establishment, was slightly changed by the death of Phineas Pemberton, Penn's staunchest friend in Bucks Co., and the admission, in accordance with Penn's wishes, of John Finney, eldest son of Samuel Finney. On the same day as John Finney, viz : April 21, 1702, Logan qualified as a member.
On the death of William III, March 8, 1701-2, Queen Mary having died previously, her sister Anne, wife of Prince George of Denmark, succeeded to the throne. Staunch as she was for the Anglican Church, she was no enemy to her old acquaintance, Penn, the friend of her father, James II. In a letter of July 14, 1706, un- signed but attributed to Penn, the writer speaks of his own steady and secret (private) and public services to her in many ways, for which not everybody besides himself had the power or talent.
Edward Hyde, by courtesy Viscount Cornbury, son of the Queen's uncle, Henry, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, having been appointed Governor of New York and Commander of the Militia of the Jerseys and Con- necticut by the late King, came to Burlington in June, 1702, and was invited to Philadelphia, where he spent the night at Shippen's, and, with a retinue thirty in number, was entertained at the Proprietary's expense at as handsome a dinner, it was said, as his Lordship had seen in America. The next day, he was escorted from Burlington to Pennsbury, and there entertained, about fifty being in company. By his manners, the Quakers were so much pleased with this cousin of the Queen that they thought, that, if proprietary govern- ment were abolished, they would be satisfied to have him as Governor. Furthermore, they were becoming indifferent to the bill before Parliament, if only certain privileges could be retained, the more spiritually
410
CHRONICLES OF PENNSYLVANIA.
minded thinking that acts of government were foreign to their profession, and those who loved Penn feeling that his life would be easier, and he probably happier, if he had the Proprietaryship only. Naturally, there was, however, a desire that the reflections upon the Quakers' conduct of affairs should be dispelled, and that the country should not fall under the control of the non-Quaker partisans, who had cast such reflections.
On July 10, 1702, without the receipt of an order from the English government, but preparatory to in- viting those inclined to form a militia, in view of the new war against France and Spain, proclamation of Anne's accession was made. On the 24th, the war was proclaimed. In a few days, one company of militia was started. George Lowther, a lawyer from Notting- hamshire, but of a Yorkshire family, was made the captain. But the enrolment was not a success. The Churchmen wished it a failure, so that the English government would think it necessary to take the do- minions into its own hands. The Quakers could not join the colors on account of their principles. There was, moreover, an idea that those who joined would be required to proceed to Canada. So, after great efforts, only about a score or two of the poorest men, with only six swords among them, and, we are told, just as deficient in shoes and stockings, mustered for a review.
The Aldermen of the City claimed in 1702 the right to act as Justices in the Court of Common Pleas for both County and City; and, when Hamilton and some lawyers thought them wrong, and Capt. Finney, the head of those commissioned for the County, refused to sit with the Aldermen, the Mayor's Court was held, and all fines for offences in the cognizance of those Alder- men, including fines of keepers of public houses for selling without a license, were claimed. Penn, hearing .of this, hoped for some change of feeling, but was in-
411
GOVERNMENT BY PENN'S FRIENDS.
clined to recall the corporation's charter, as certain lawyers thought he could legally, and he was confident that the English government would approve.
Quary making charges against Penn in particular and the Quakers in general, to show their malfeasance as a cause for abolishing their government, and Penn answering, and making counter charges against Quary, there was a fruitless contention, some of the papers in which appear in the printed Penn and Logan Corre- spondence. Quary returned to America with a letter from the Commissioners of Trade, desiring him to ac- quaint the gentlemen of the Lower Counties of their letter of Oct. 25, 1701, being under consideration for their relief, and to assure them of the Queen's protec- tion and care for their welfare and security. Quary also brought a letter of protection from the Queen re- quiring all Governors, Lieutenant-Governors, magis- trates, and officers civil and military to assist him. Both letters are printed in Virginia Mag. Hist. & Biog., Vol. XXIII.
The people of the Lower Counties did not like the Charter, or Frame of Government of the Province and Territories, granted on Oct. 28, 1701, because, accord- ing to Quary, of the toleration of Deists and of the eligibility of Papists to office; and there was a denial of the validity of the Charter, in view of its not having been agreed to by a clear majority of the Assembly. On the day for the first election for Assemblymen under the Charter, none were chosen by the Lower Counties. The Upper Counties, comprising Pennsyl- vania proper, or the Province strictly so called, chose the required number, viz: Joseph Growdon, John Swift, William Paxon (now Paxson), Jeremiah Lang- horne, David Lloyd, Anthony Morris, Samuel Richard- son, Griffith Jones (formerly mentioned as a Quaker), Nicholas Pyle, Andrew Job, John Bennet, and John Worrall. These arrived in Philadelphia at the time for
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