USA > Pennsylvania > Chronicles of Pennsylvania from the English revolution to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1688-1748, Vol. I > Part 35
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Young Penn's natural inclinations for livelier com- pany than the older Quakers, and his knowledge that his Quaker family could not retain the government un- less non-Quakers undertook the defence of the region, made him the friend and champion of the militia offi- cers, although he still belonged to the peace-loving Society, and had written to Logan two years before: "as for the poking-iron [sword], I never had courage enough to wear one by my side." One evening, not long after the Governor's proclamation excusing the militia from watch and ward, the City watchmen, as Logan gives the account in a letter to the Proprietary, "meeting with a company at Enoch Story's, a tavern, in which some of the militia officers were, a difference arose, that ended with some rudeness. Next night, the watch coming again to the same place, and thy son happening to be in company, there was something of a fray which ended in the watch retiring." This was a euphemistic way of describing it to the young man's father, if Watson the Annalist has preserved the truth in the statement following: "Penn called for pistols to pistol them, but the lights being put out, one fell upon young Penn, and gave him a severe beating." If he did call for pistols, the case is made out that he was drunk. Before his arrival in the country, his father
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had written to Logan not to let him be in any public house after the allowed hours. The severe beating may have been confused with that given to Governor Evans after young Penn had left the colony. Isaac Norris wrote that William Penn Jr. was "in company with some extravagants that beat the watch at Enoch Story's." Logan goes on to say: "This with all the persons concerned in it, was taken notice of at the next Mayor's court that sat"-i.e. on Sep. 3, Morris being Mayor, and Lloyd being Recorder, and probably gloat- ing over the opportunity to hurt the elder Penn. The grand jury made a virtue of being no respecter of per- sons; but Logan says that the indignity of a present- ment put upon the eldest son of the founder of the Corporation, although no further action was taken, was looked upon as base by most people of moderation, and, in fact, caused some obstreperousness-he says "disorders"-at night, which he acquits William Jr. of instigating. Certainly the act of the Corporation was resented by the heir apparent himself, and afterwards by the Proprietary. Story was proceeded against for entertaining at the house certain servants of William Bevan, whereupon Story's counsel claimed that, under the Queen's order, a certain non-Quaker witness for the prosecution should be sworn. None of the Court being conscientiously able to administer an oath, the witness was allowed to be attested, and Story was convicted. He appealed to the Governor and Council on 7ber 15, and, following the Queen's order, a proclamation was issued setting aside the proceedings, and forbidding all officers from executing any writ founded thereon. William Penn Jr. attended that meeting of the Council, but none later. To show his contempt for the strict Quakers, he drank toasts, and appeared in fashionable clothes when Lady Cornbury made a visit from Bur- lington to Philadelphia,-this is the way we must trans- late Logan's statement that William Jr. "indulged
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himself in the same freedom that others take,"-but he still declared his adherence to Quaker doctrine. He entertained Lord and Lady Cornbury at Pennsbury, and came back to Philadelphia to assist in receiving Governor Seymour of Maryland, and then, having sold Williamstadt manor on the Schuylkill (now Norristown and Norriton township), left America, fated never to return.
Lloyd, consulting Willcox and Jones, wrote, as we are told (Penn and Logan Correspondence, Vol. I, p. 331) a "most virulent unmannerly invective" as the Representation, or Remonstrance, to the Proprietary, but, indeed, to make an invective, there was required very little change in the words of the heads agreed upon by the Assembly. These heads were viz: 1st, that the Proprietary's artifices brought all privileges and charters to be defeasible at his will and pleasure; 2nd, that all dissolutions and prorogations and calling As- semblies by writs, as authorized by commissions to the present Deputy and orders to former Deputies and Commissioners, were contrary to the charters granted; 3rd, that the Proprietary had had great sums of money for negotiating the confirmation of laws and good terms for the people, and easing as to oaths, but none of the laws were confirmed, and, by the Queen's order requir- ing oaths to be administered, the Quakers were dis- abled to sit in Courts; 4th, that there had been no Sur- veyor-General since Pennington's death, but great ex- tortions by surveyors and the other officers concerned in property by the Proprietary's refusal to pass the law regulating fees; 5th, that there was likely to be no remedy except where particularly granted by the Pro- prietary, because the present deputy called it a hard- ship on him, and the Council urged it as absurd and unreasonable, to expect any enlargement or explana- tion of what the Proprietary granted; 6th, that there was no remedy against wrong or oppression by the
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Proprietary, because his Clerk of the Court refused to make out any process, and, by the Justices appointed by the Proprietary, the latter was practically judge of his own case; 7th, that, Sheriffs and other officers commissioned by him being persons of no estates, and their security being given to him, the abused or de- frauded persons could reap no benefit; 8th, that the Commissioners of Property neglected and delayed making satisfaction where people had not the full quantity of land; and, 9th, that the Proprietary should not surrender the government, as he had intimated, and should understand how vice was growing of late. Lloyd did not show the Remonstrance to Norris, the other member of the committee of three, but showed it to Richardson, who disapproved of it. Lloyd (Penn and Logan Correspondence, Vol. II, p. 408) afterwards said that all but three of the seven members of the committee on minutes approved, and that five Assem- blymen examined the fair transcript before it was sent. Lloyd actually signed it when his term as Speaker had been ended by the new election for Assemblymen. He enclosed a copy in a letter, dated 8ber 3, to three prominent Quakers in England, George Whitehead, William Mead, and Thomas Lower, of whom Mead and Lower were known to be unfriendly to Penn, request- ing them by "such Christian methods" as they should see fit to oblige William Penn to do the People justice. There was mentioned as also enclosed a copy of the bill which the Assembly wished to pass in relation to oaths, and the persons addressed were desired to solicit the Queen in favor of it. The letter said "I suppose you will have a more ample account by others of the condition this poor province is brought to by the late revels and disorders which young William Penn and his gang of loose fellows he accompanies with are found in, to the great grief of Friends and others in this place." The letter closed with the request for an endeavor to get
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an able lawyer of sobriety and moderation, but not in Penn's interest, to be commissioned Chief Justice of the Province and Lower Counties and also the Jerseys ; a position which could be worth 400 or 500l. per annum besides fees and perquisites. The letter spoke of Mom- pesson as thought of formerly, but unable to stay, be- sides "too much in William Penn's interest, and given to drink." This letter with its enclosures was sent on a vessel which was captured by the French, and all were examined, and thrown upon the deck. A fellow passenger other than the one intrusted with them, gathered them up, and, with permission of the French officer, eventually had them put into the hands of Penn, without going to the three Quakers.
The election in October, 1704, resulted in little change in the Assembly, in fact in the loss of two or three who might have restrained the majority. At the same time, in Philadelphia County, John Budd Jr. and Benjamin Wright were chosen to be presented to the Governor for him to select one as Sheriff, that office being held by John Finney, appointed in August, 1703, on the resignation of Thomas Farmer. The Frame of Government having prescribed for the presentation every three years, Evans claimed that this could not be made until 1705, and, accordingly, he allowed John Finney to continue in office. Evans raised an inquiry as to how the Assemblymen were being qualified, but the Council satisfied him that the promise of fidelity prescribed by the law of 1700 was sufficient. He then received and addressed the Assembly without providing a chair for the Speaker, and so, although he himself was standing, gave affront to at least Lloyd, who had been re-elected Speaker. The House presented their former bills for confirmation of the Charter, and confirming property, and one, probably the same as copied for Whitehead, to authorize affirmations. The Assembly- men voted, on 8mo. 27, to add to the Remonstrance the
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aggrievance of persons by reason of quit rents on the lots in the City, especially the bank lots, and to state the Proprietary's promise of a gift of the site of the great town. No agreement on any bill was reached with the Lieutenant-Governor. He had asked for money to maintain the government by his living in becoming style, and by the exigencies of state being "prevented or timely answered;" but the Assembly- men determined not to give anything until their privi- leges were confirmed. Penn had endorsed his Lieu- tenant's stand on the bills in debate during the Summer, and one of Evans's messages said that it was strange that reasonable men could propose such an injury to the Proprietary as the bill of property, without offering an equivalent, such as a settled revenue for the support of government, and the defraying of public charges. The Assembly then offered for that purpose 1200l. and an impost on wine, cider, &ct., on condition of confirma- tion of what the members thought agreeable to the Proprietary's engagement with his People. This was not accepted.
Various other matters had increased the estrange- ment. A "great fray," too late to be made use of by Lloyd in his letter, took place in the city on the night of November 1, 1704. Jenkins, in his Family of William Penn, has shown that this has been confused with the affair in which William Penn Jr. figured, the last named being on the seas at this time. In the catalogue of particulars prepared to accompany the Assembly's letter of 4mo. 10, 1707, is mentioned the Lieutenant- Governor's beating "Solomon Cresson, Constable of this City, when he was doing the Duty of his Office upon the Watch about two years ago," and sending him "to Prison, where he was kept till the Afternoon of the Day following, for no other Cause that we can find, but bidding a lewd Tavern-keeper disperse her Com- pany, where the Governor happened to be about One
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a Clock at Night, though the Constable knew not of his being there till he called him in, and began to beat him." This evidently gives us the starting of the "great fray," as it is called in the Minutes of the Governor's Council. Evidently Cresson sounded an alarm for help. There came to the scene the chief officers of the City. Deborah Logan has quoted a tra- dition that, the lights being put out, Joseph Willcox, who was an Alderman, seized one of the roisterers, and beat him. This happened to be the Lieutenant-Gov- ernor, suffering in his turn. When Willcox became aware whom he had hold of, he beat him again. The next day, the Attorney-General formally complained to the Governor and Council of the abuse of some gentle- men by the watch, and the support given to the latter by the Mayor, Recorder, and an Alderman, and asked whether, as it was impossible to try them in the Mayor's Court, a trial in another court should be ordered. On examination of the Mayor, Recorder, and Alderman Willcox, it was wisely decided that they had been in no way concerned in the disturbance, except to quell it.
Evans demanded from this Assembly a copy of the Remonstrance sent in the name of the preceding one, and, the members disliking Lloyd's using the word "treachery" and some other harsh expressions, word was sent to the bearer of a copy, who was supposed to be still at New York, to bring it back for further con- sideration, but he had sailed. Logan says that this As- sembly, which declined Evans's demand for a copy, re- fused to adopt the document as its own, in spite of Lloyd's wily suggestion that such adoption would make it proper to furnish the copy. The statement that the Assembly "disowned the Remonstrance" is true only as to some of its strong language. An address of 3rd month contained the following very careful expression : "Our part is to lament (as we really do) that there
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should be true occasion for such representation, or, if none, that it should be offered our Proprietary." There was, to be sure, added, without really weakening the effect, "whom we both love and honour." The address, which was the one making the conditional offer of money last mentioned, plainly declared Penn's services to the colony overpaid, if he had failed to secure the royal approbation for the beneficial laws, he having promised to do so, and having promised to make good terms for the People upon a surrender of the government, and having had 2000l. voted to him. Assurance was given, rather insultingly, that if said sum was insufficient to negotiate this, so that, as had been mentioned, he felt that he should not be at the expense of a large fee to the Attorney-General, what was right would be done by the House upon receipt of an itemized statement of disbursements. Based on the idea that the quit rents of 1s. per 100 acres had been agreed to in view of the Proprietary's extraordinary expenses in being Gover- nor, there was a complaint that it would be hard, if the purchasers, as the Proprietary was understood to ex- pect, must pay Thomas Lloyd's salary as Governor in Penn's absence, which absence was for the service of England, and not of the Province, while the business which took him home in 1684, the boundary dispute, was still unsettled, to the great discouragement of both Province and Lower Counties.
In protest against the disposition and conduct of the preceding and the sitting Assembly, a letter to Penn was prepared about 3, 23, 1705, and signed, says Logan, by "almost all the profession" (meaning Quakers), de- claring abhorrence of the Remonstrance, and willing- ness to bear all the expense of the government, but, however, itself mentioning a number of things which the signers thought honestly their due.
Old William Biles, who was now an Assemblyman from Bucks, was reported to have spoken thus of
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Evans : "He is but a boy; he is not fit to be our Gov- ernor. We'll kick him out; we'll kick him out." For these words, which he denied using, but which doubtless expressed an opinion and wish common among most of the Quakers, Evans sued Biles for 2000l. damages, hav- ing the writ served on him the evening that the House adjourned for three weeks. Before the County Court, composed of Evans's friends, Guest, Samuel Finney, Pidgeon, and Edward Farmer, Lloyd, as counsel for Biles, pleaded the privileges of an Assemblyman. The Court overruled this, ordered the defendant to plead over, and, on his refusal, would not grant an impar- lance, but gave judgment against him. A jury assessed damages at 300l. Evans, on June 20, sent a message to the reconvened Assembly, demanding the expulsion of Biles forthwith. The Assembly replied, that, as the words were not alleged to have been spoken in the House, it could not examine into the fact whether they had been spoken or not, that such words, the House had no intention to justify, but that the Sheriff, in summon- ing a member the very day he was attending the As- sembly, and the Justices, by their action, had committed a breach of privilege: the Governor was begged to allow Biles to wait upon him, and, wherein he found Biles faulty, to accept a submission, which the House unanimously directed should be made. Evans, infuri- ated, dismissed the Assembly.
Penn thought the arrest of Biles legal, and had strong feeling against him as a leading opponent in Bucks County, and Penn also, even before he knew the phraseology of the Remonstrance, was so incensed at the want of consideration shown him by Lloyd and other Quakers that he desired, by selling the government, to leave them in the lurch, being convinced that the Queen would annul the privileges which his charters gave. He felt that he could get more justice from his enemies than from the leaders of his co-religionists,
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for whom he had been fighting: and, in fact, Quary and Moore, of the Church party in the Province, had been friendly with his son, and would incline to the Proprietary rather than the opposite interest. Penn and Quary came into such harmony that the former in 1705 or 1706 submitted to his friends in Pennsylvania the question of admitting Quary to the Governor's Council, but this was not done. In 1707, Logan, man- aging for Penn, leased Pennsbury to Quary for seven years.
About the first of the year 1705, Penn laid before the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations a draft of an instrument of surrender and the conditions on which it was to be made.
The promise in the treaty of April 30, 1701, men- tioned in the chapter on the Red Neighbours, that the Pennsylvania government would befriend the Gana- wese and Shawnees, as well as the other Indians, was well observed in comforting them in times of appre- hension, and in sending messengers or speaking in treaties to conciliate the Five Nations, who were often reported to be preparing attacks upon the Pennsylvania Indians, and furthermore by Pennsylvania exerting in- fluence upon adjacent governments to restrain their red men and their white men. The Ganawese, after an attack on a party of them by Virginians and the loss of a man, were allowed in 1705 to remove to the Tulpe- hocken region, and dwell with the Delawares there, Menangy, the leader of the Delawares of those parts, making the request to the provincial government for the permission: but a number continued to reside at Connejaghera, or Conejohela, their location being later described as "above the fort"-Qu. the old Susque- hanna Fort at the Falls ?- and also as "several miles above Conestoga." These Ganawese were sometimes called Conewages, apparently after the name of the
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Creek at the Falls, but the name of Conoy Town was the usual one for the village.
The Fords, after the stating of the account with Penn as to what was owing on April 1, 1702, as men- tioned in the last chapter, were disposed to give Penn time to redeem the land of Pennsylvania and the Lower Counties, and postponed the probate of the elder Ford's will, in expectation of the family being provided for by the sums promised to be paid. Perhaps Bridget Ford had more conscience than she has been credited with about calling the original transaction an absolute sale. Probably her advisers thought that nobody at the time would give any more for the property than the re- demption price : and the widow and three children were not rich enough to hold that amount of capital in un- productive property to await future profit: otherwise, we, looking back from a time when the region has long been so valuable, must think both Penn and the Fords blind to their respective interests in not quickly effect- ing a compromise by the allotment of land at Penn's standard price in satisfaction of the amount of the Ford claim. As Penn looked over the accounts carefully, he became convinced that he had been cheated in the method of computing the debt, even that payments made by him or for him to Philip Ford had not been entered. So Penn offered, if the whole account were reopened before Quaker arbitrators mutually chosen, to pay down one half of what they found due, and give security for the payment of the other half. This the Fords refused. They determined, probably for forcing a speedy payment in full, to assert their rights accord- ing to the face of the papers, and so brought a bill in Chancery in England to have the agreement to resell to Penn cleared away, and the trusts in Philip Ford's will carried out. The family, moreover, executed a power of attorney, dated January 24, 1704-5, to David Lloyd, Isaac Norris, and John Moore to take possession
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of Pennsylvania and the Territories, and notified those attorneys in a letter of 1mo. 29, 1705, by which time about four years' interest was said to be due, that, the lease of Pennsylvania and Territories made to William Penn having expired, the latter was only tenant at will, and the attorneys were to warn the holders of land not to pay to Penn's agents any quit rents. Even then the Fords were not anxious to take the property, and Lloyd and Moore, as well as Norris, showed patience and consideration : but the instructions sounded like the death knell of Penn's authority, or perhaps rather the funeral tolling over all government commissioned by him at least since the expiration of the lease.
This letter of attorney and the instructions arrived about 5mo. 10, 1705. They appear to have caused some change in the feelings of the voters, or else it was an ordinary instance of reaction, that a great effort of the Proprietary's friends was successful in carrying the ensuing election for Assemblymen. Shippen, Carpen- ter, Pusey, and Hill, with Norris, whose sympathies were on that side, took the seats recently held by ene- mies or those acting as such. David Lloyd was rejected by the ballot of the County of Philadelphia, but, how- ever, was one of the two chosen to represent the People of the city. Growdon, his father-in-law, who had differed with him politically for some time, was one of the friendly, as against three or four "scabbed sheep," as Logan calls them, from Bucks. The result in Chester County had been thoroughly controlled. Growdon was made Speaker.
Much legislation resulted from this harmony with the executive branch. The Attorney-General of Eng- land had, on Oct. 13, 1704, reported to the Board of Trade, objections to thirty of the laws of 1700 and 1701, and observations on another, viz: that for taking lands in execution. Penn, to enable the Province to save time by making new laws on the various subjects, obtained
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and sent over a copy of this report, and possibly also suggested alterations in other laws which he knew would be opposed by the Commissioners for Trade and Navi- gation. The Province acted in nearly every case, and nearly every substituted law was allowed by the Crown. Some of the laws are in force to-day, for instance that for Defalcation, or set-off against a plaintiff's demand, and that for Taking Land in Execution, allowing a jury to declare the rents for seven years insufficient to pay the debt, and in that case having the Sheriff make sale under a writ called by its Latin words Venditioni expo- nas, and furthermore providing that mortgages be sued out by the writ called Scire facias and the premises sold under a writ called Levari, a great advance upon the proceedings in chancery for foreclosure, as clung to in other parts of the United States.
Some of the changes made were little more than formal; others were quite radical. A table of con- sanguinity and affinity was set forth within which marriages should be void, but the Assembly made a departure from English law in not including a deceased wife's sister in the table. Milder punishments for some crimes were substituted for the bloody ones which the Quakers had recently prescribed. Doubtless much to Penn's disappointment, but as a necessary compli- ance with the sentiment of British officials, the law concerning liberty of conscience was so changed as to protect only those who professed faith in the Trinity, and acknowledged the inspiration of the Scriptures.
A compromise between the Anglican and Quaker friends of Penn was attempted in an act for the quali- fication of magistrates and manner of giving evidence. It allowed Councillors, Assemblymen, Commissioners, Justices, Clerks, Sheriffs, and other officers to qualify by affirmation when conscientiously unable to take an oath, but required them to subscribe the declarations and professions of faith according to the Act of Parlia-
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ment of 1 W. & M. for relieving Dissenters who scrupled at taking an oath. As regarded the compe- tency of unsworn persons to testify in court, provision was necessary, owing to the Queen's repeal of the Act passed at New Castle in 1700, and re-enacted in 1701, allowing witnesses to give evidence by "solemnly prom- ising" to speak the truth. To guard against what would be practically, but not etymologically, perjury, such act had ordered that a person convicted of wilful falsehood was to suffer the punishment which the one against whom the false testimony was given "did or should undergo." This the Attorney-General objected to, construing it to mean that a person bearing false witness against any one in a trial for felony was to be hung, even although the person tried were acquitted. The omission of religious words in the affirmation was not animadverted upon by the Attorney-General; never- theless, as Evans's political influence in England was through the Church, the members of the Assembly, who except Griffith Jones, "not in unity with Friends," and Growdon, not in regular standing, and except John Swift, were all Quakers, were constrained by Evans to prescribe, in the new act aforesaid for qualifications and giving evidence, that the affirmant answer yes or yea to the strange expression in the English act, ob- jected to by radical Quakers some years before as par- taking of the nature of an oath, viz: "Dost thou de- clare or thou shalt declare (English act says "I do declare") in the presence of Almighty God, the witness of the truth of what thou sayest" (English act, "of what I say"). However, consideration was given to the consciences of Quaker Judges, such Judges being allowed to make non-Quakers affirm, if there were no one on the bench free to administer an oath, and more- over the administration of an oath, when there were Judges who scrupled at administering one, being de- clared the act of the person administering it, and not
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of the whole bench. Evans was afraid to pass this, and only did so upon the insertion of a proviso that the act should not go into force until the 20th of September. Furthermore, he notified the Board of Trade by letter of Jany. 19, 1705-6, so as to have a decision reached, if possible, before the act should go into force. At- torney-General Northey, to whom the Board referred the act, saw the desirableness of so securing service and testimony for the courts in a Quaker colony, but objected to a provision of the same act admitting the written deposition of a sick or removing person to be evidence in all cases criminal as well as civil. Mean- while, Samuel Finney and others, we are told by Penn, employed an attorney in England to oppose the act before the Commissioners for Trade. This attorney, who was George Willcocks, pointed out, among other objections, that the form of affirmation was not an ex- press declaration that the party says the truth. The Commissioners agreed to recommend disallowance, un- less Penn gave assurance that the Assembly would enact by an additional law that no Judges could sit, unless there were one who could administer an oath, and that all who refused to take oaths be obliged to declare their refusal to be for conscientious scruple, and that only in civil cases should the written deposi- tion be accepted as evidence. Of course, Penn could give no assurance of the action of any Assembly, but only that his Lieutenant could take care by appointing enough Churchmen that rarely would a case be tried before Quakers alone. The act was disallowed by the Queen on Jany. 8, 1707-8. Thus fell, after a short life, about the only Quaker provision made by the Assembly- men chosen in 1705.
That the Indians should neither have grievances, nor hear rumors inciting them to rise against the colonists, an act, drawn up by Logan, and to remain in force for three years, was passed, and, moreover, was not re-
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pealed in England. Under its terms, any person kill- ing, wounding, beating, or abusing an Indian was made subject to the same punishment as if the injury were done to a natural born subject of England, and was to be fined in addition; a person spreading stories which might alienate the mind of the Indians was, on convic- tion by either Christian or Indian evidence, to be heav- ily fined, and to be imprisoned, and to give security for good behavior; fifty pounds a year were allowed for necessary treaties and messages ordered by the Gov- ernor and Council; no one for trading with the Indians was to go into the woods or from his plantation except to an English market town or place, unless to buy corn, venison, provisions, or skins for clothing himself or family, without a license from the Governor by order of the Governor and Council, good for one year, which license was to be granted to any natural born subject of the Crown upon his giving security to trade honestly, and observe the rules and orders made by the Governor and Council for regulating the trade; all skins, furs, and other commodities bought of the Indians by such traders were to be sold within the province.
The majority of those Assemblymen being in the humor to do whatever was for the Proprietary's interest, acts were passed for enforcing the payment of his quit rents, for collecting the arrears of the 20001. voted to him in 1700, and for providing for the Lieu- tenant-Governor, as well as paying debts and applica- tion to such other purposes as the Governor and Assembly might appoint. This last mentioned act levied a tax of 23d. per l. on all estates over 30l. exclu- sive of household goods and implements of use, and 10s. per head on all freemen over twenty-one who had been six months clear of apprenticeship, and were not worth 30l., also an impost for three years on certain liquors imported, and on butter and cheese, except when from Delaware, New Jersey, England, or Ireland, and on
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negro slaves and servants, except when brought from Delaware or New Jersey.
Some changes in the constitution of the government were made by this Assembly. One was in the direction of democracy. The Sheriffs and Coroners were to be selected as before, but were to serve only one year, and their bonds were to be taken in the Queen's name, and to be for the use of those injured by the acts of those officials. On the other hand, majority rule might cease under the Act for Ascertaining the Number of Assemblymen, and Regulating their Election: they were to be chosen by plurality vote; an arrangement which, whether intended so or not, enabled a well organ- ized minority, such as the Proprietary's friends could have expected to command, to seize this refuge of popu- lar government, or, rather, of the qualified voters' gov- ernment. Only by the determined rallying of a major- ity around those whom they trusted, could this be pre- vented.
The Quakers, except a few individuals, had now fallen politically into a situation as unpleasant as that of the Churchmen a short time before, and more particularly the rural, plainer, more radical families, who might be called the co-adventurers with Penn. Their expecta- tions, whether reasonable or not, of an easy, popularly controlled, and cheap government had been disap- pointed. Penn, of whose influence they had an exag- gerated idea, had failed to abolish oaths permanently, to secure an exemption from tribute on the occasion of war, and to free the disposal of the crops and the ob- taining of necessaries from jeopardy and frequent loss under Parliament's policy and Admiralty's adminis- tration. There were doubtless some individuals who were interfered with by the religious qualification just established, and there were more who disliked it. There was a disappointment throughout the Society of Friends at Evans's putting off the approval of a law
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empowering religious societies to receive and dispose of lands for their necessary uses, it being doubted whether, without such law, a Quaker Meeting could legally claim any real estate for a meeting-house or burial ground. As, in England, land granted for pious uses could not be alienated, the Vestry of Christ Church was asked whether it was willing to accept the power to do so, and the Vestry expressed objections to the bill; so that Evans feared that consenting to it might offend "the Bishop" (probably the Bishop of London, in charge of the Church in America, but possibly the aforesaid Bishop of Bangor). There were doubtless a number of landholders, non-Quakers as well as Quakers, frightened about their own possessions by the repeal of the old law about property, and the submission to William Penn, across the seas, of a new bill for con- firming grants and patents. As to the chance of gov- erning themselves, most of those pioneers or their sons who would have liked to participate in affairs, could feel themselves crowded out, except as to the Shrievalty or Coronership or membership of the Assembly: the Council contained men who had come since the summer of 1699, one member, George Roche of Antigua, having been appointed within about a year after his arrival, without there being excuse, as in the case of Mompesson and young Penn. With the increasing number of Churchmen in office, the Quakers among the Governor's advisers and most of those chosen to the Assembly in 1705, might be said to be "Pennites" first, and Quakers afterwards. Penn had received, or was collecting, under appropriations, considerable sums of money not convenient for the inhabitants to pay, and now all were being called upon to maintain in style above the sump- tuary ideas of the Quakers Penn's personal representa- tive as Governor, who had nothing in common with the earnest Quakers, whom they could neither respect like Blackwell, nor feel as a neighbour towards like Mark-
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ham, nor even make a bargain with like Fletcher. Too faithful to Penn to abate any of his prerogative, Evans was so obedient to the Queen as to interfere with the enforcement of law and order : and Penn was not show- ing himself a Roman parent as to the behavior of his son, but resenting as a piece of spite the noticing of it. The Quakers were losing one by one the benefits derived from a seigniory in the hands of one of their persuasion interposed between them and the Crown: the seigniory was likely soon to be surrendered; but if it should not be, but descend to William Penn's heir, then if the heir, who had been displeased with the Pennsylvanians, should forsake the Society of Friends, would any benefit remain ?
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3H DEC 9 1941 N PİFASE MA
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