USA > Pennsylvania > Chronicles of Pennsylvania from the English revolution to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1688-1748, Vol. II > Part 19
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let Browne himself try the case; for if Browne did not acquit the vessel, he would be believed to have connived with the Collector, as had been reported. Browne exe- cuted a revocation of the appointment of Miranda, and gave it to the counsel for the vessel. Hearing at Tren- ton that the case had been adjourned to Philadelphia, Browne came back. Moore being sick, and his counsel absent, and Browne saying that he would act speedily, Moore obtained an injunction from Gordon as Chan- cellor against Browne trying the case.
Browne seems to have thereupon expressed himself; for, on the day after the petition for the injunction, Gordon sued him for slander, had him arrested, and, promising to protect the Sheriff, commanded the latter not to accept bail. Councillor Palmer and Lodowick Christian Sprogell, who was a merchant and Assembly- man, arriving at the jail to go bail for Browne, heard from the keeper that the Sheriff had left orders ac- cording to the Lieutenant-Governor's command. The keeper took the prisoner to Gordon's house, while Palmer and Sprogell waited, but neither the keeper nor Browne was allowed to speak to the Governor. So the Admiralty Judge was obliged to sleep in prison that night. The next day, on a writ of habeas corpus ob- tained from Lloyd, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Palmer and Sprogell went bail, but the amount was fixed at 20001. Subsequently, Gordon dropped the suit, and also dissolved the injunction, and, it is said, even asked Browne to try the seizure case, which Browne declined to do; and afterwards Browne was vindicated by a decision in favor of the defendants in an action brought by Daniel Moore in the Common Pleas for the forfeiture.
An injunction was also issued to prevent the Admi- ralty Court from hearing a suit for a sea captain's wages on contract made on land with the owners, so as
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to require such claim to be submitted to a Court of Common Pleas.
Browne made complaints in England, producing tes- timonials as to character, among them one signed by Thomas Lawrence, Sir William Keith, Patrick Græme, William Chancellor, George McCall, William Fraser, James Coutts, Thomas Willing, William Burge, Samuel Carpenter, Anthony Palmer, William Rawle, Joseph Shippen, John Dickinson (son of deceased Councillor Jonathan Dickinson), John White, and Robert Bolton. An opinion from Sir Henry Prentice, Judge of Ad- miralty, supported Browne, and spoke of Gordon's action as high-handed; and, with the vindication from the government, Browne returned to America at the end of 1730, and for a while was in New Jersey, prac- tising law. He demanded in July, 1731, that Gordon, by tendering or causing to be tendered the oath to George II, allow further qualification as Judge; but Gordon declined, on the ground that Browne had not taken such oath in England, nor, for seven months after arrival, had asked to be allowed to take it.
Gordon had Miranda discharged by Byng from the post of Deputy Receiver. Miranda died in 1732, while a resident of Lancaster County, leaving by his will con- siderable property to James Hamilton (evidently An- drew's son of that name), in case he married testator's daughter Mary : but she married some one else.
Francis Rawle, the proposer of Pennsylvania's paper currency, died on March 5, 1726-7. In his place, Wil- liam Monington, of the same political party, was chosen an Assemblyman.
Gordon, with consent of the Council, added to that body Evan Owen, Clement Plumsted, and Thomas Lawrence in the Spring of 1727.
Sir William Keith was a candidate for reelection to the Assembly of Pennsylvania in the Fall of 1727. A heavy rain the night before and on the morning of elec-
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tion day prevented country voters from coming to the polls. They, even those of Philadelphia County, being said to be generally against Keith, this rain is mentioned as explaining his success and that of his party in Phila- delphia County, where Edward Farmer was replaced by Thomas Rutter (who signed himself Junr.), and all the other representatives were reelected, and, appar- ently, as explaining why what Keith's enemies called "some indifferent hands" were chosen by Chester, William Webb being sent back, and John Wright being defeated. Bucks County, however, sent in its delega- tion one of Keith's arch-enemies, Hamilton. For the Speakership, Keith received five votes, and Lloyd was chosen. Hamilton was also chosen, the same year, a member of the Delaware Assembly, and, when Keith, who was not a member, had been promoting an address from that body to Lord Baltimore, Hamilton's presence therein was supposed to have strengthened the opposi- tion, causing the project to be dropped.
During a session of the Pennsylvania Assembly a petition was circulated for more paper money, but the question was not forced upon the Lieutenant-Governor before he was freed from the presence of the man whom he and his Council feared.
With Gordon hoping that his predecessor would be shut up in jail for debt, and urging the Penns to sue out a bond against him, Sir William, although he had been able to find bail, was becoming more straightened as time elapsed since his losing a salary. In March, 1727-8, he departed from the dominion very suddenly, leaving his family, and announcing, by a letter from the capes, on his way to Great Britain, that he intended to return speedily. It was believed that he was at- tempting to escape creditors, and it was probably to avoid detention by them that he kept his plans secret, letting the ship leave Philadelphia, and following her to New Castle in a rowboat, accompanied by his friend
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William Chancellor. In the few days that the ship lay before New Castle after Keith had gone aboard, no one in that town was aware that he had done so, except the Rev. George Ross. Keith went to England, and never returned.
More than a local interest attaches to his career after his arrival there. He was the first, as far as known, to suggest that Parliament tax America by means of stamps. This he did in some observations for reform- ing the government of the colonies, drawn up, he says in the observations, during his service as Governor. They were laid before the King by Viscount Towns- hend, and referred to the Commissioners for Trade on Dec. 28, 1728. Sir William Keith's plan was for all the Crown's civil officers in America, or at least North America, to be put under the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, and to receive their appointment from the same, and to be accountable to the same for man- agement and moneys received. He also thought that a Secretary for the Colonies, or the First Lord Com- missioner should have daily access to the King, and that the rents, customs, revenues, and profits should centre in one place under a Commissioner as Treasurer, and that the surplus, after relieving the civil list of the expenses of the Board of Trade, should be applied to the purchase of Proprietary lands, the building of forts, and the extending of settlements to the Great Lakes, or uses thought proper by the King. As a revenue was necessary, it was "submitted whether the duties of stamps upon parchments and papers in England may not with good reason be extended by Act of Parliament to all the American plantations." It is to be doubted whether, had this measure been then adopted, possibly with its proposer in some important office to carry it out, it would have excited the opposition which it met with in 1764: and certainly taxation by Parliament could not have been successfully resisted so long before
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the maturity of the colonies. Keith repeated his ad- vocacy in 1739, when he printed what purported to be, and possibly was, a recommendation of a "Club of American Merchants," that a military force be main- tained for the protection of the colonies, its Com- mander-in-Chief being assisted by a Council composed of all the Colonial Governors. Its expenses were to be defrayed by the proceeds of stamps used in America. Parliament was to impose such a tax, because the sev- eral Assemblies "could never be brought in voluntarily to raise such a fund by any general and equally proportioned tax among themselves." Walpole did not take up the suggestion, saying to Lord Chesterfield: "I have old England set against me, and do you think I will have New England likewise?" Yet it was the opinion of Mckean, Signer of the Declaration of Inde- pendence,-also Chief Justice and Governor of Penn- sylvania,-that the Congress of Albany of 1754 was an attempt to carry out Keith's suggestion.
Sir William was not without friends during the rest of his career, although disappointed in obtaining steady and lucrative employment. His son, Alexander Henry Keith, was made Collector of the Port of New Castle, Delaware, in 1729. In the same year, Sir William was allowed a very considerable sum as additional pay as Surveyor-General of the Customs. He received com- pensation for later services ; and it may be that he by some means satisfied the claim of the Crown for the amount received by him of the appropriation for Queen Anne's use. He was largely entrusted with the man- agement of the treaty made in London with the Cher- okee Indians in September, 1730. With Jacob Stauber (mentioned in the chapter on the Germans), Ezekiel Harlan (also of Pennsylvania), Thomas Gould, and John Ocks (probably the John Rudolf Ochs, once associ- ated with Michel-see Virginia Mag. Hist., Vol. XXIV), Keith planned to establish a colony of Swiss Protes-
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tants west of the mountains of Virginia. The Board of Trade encouraged him, in behalf of himself and his colleagues, to petition the King for a grant of land; but, when this was done, and the matter referred back to the Board, the Penns and Lord Baltimore and also Lord Fairfax made opposition, alleging that the loca- tion infringed upon their rights. The Board's report was signed on July 20, 1732. Whether the Ohio Com- pany with which Washington became connected, grew out of this, we do not know. Sir William ran for Parliament from Aberdeenshire in 1732. On Sep. 5, 1734, he petitioned, that, as the interests of New York and New Jersey frequently conflicted, the latter be separated from New York, and that he be appointed Governor of New Jersey. Sir Robert Walpole recom- mended that this be done. However, at the end of the year, Keith went to prison for debt. He was discharged in December, 1735. After the death of Governor Crosby, William Skinner and Andrew Johnston notified Sir William, and expressed the hope that he had the influence necessary to be appointed Governor of New Jersey, and said, that, if the People had the choosing, he would be the man: so he renewed his application in July, 1736, but unsuccessfully. He wrote many essays, some on colonial affairs, and undertook to write a his- tory of all the British colonies in America, but accom- plished only that of Virginia, published in 1738.
He died in the Old Bailey, London, but possibly not then a prisoner, Nov. 18, 1749, in the seventieth year of his age. His wife, who did not follow him to Europe, died before him, July 31, 1740, after some years seclu- sion from the world, having lived with one old woman in a back room of a small wooden house in Third St. below Arch, and, according to Watson's Annals, "much pinched for subsistence;" a state of affairs which must be attributed to her proud spirit, as her son, the Col- lector, and her son-in-law, Dr. Græme, can scarcely
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be supposed unwilling to provide for her. We would have thought that the tradition had confused Governor Markham's granddaughter with Governor Keith's wife, but the story is given in the diary of William Rawle for 1786 (Penna. Mag., Vol. XXIII). Lady Keith was buried in Christ Church yard. The Collector for New Castle died without issue, Oct. 5,1741; so that the baron- etcy went at Sir William's death to his third or fourth son, Robert, then serving under the patronage of his kinsman, James Keith, Field Marshal in the army of Frederick the Great of Prussia. Sir Robert afterwards was a Major-General in the Danish army: and the bar- onetcy remained dormant. His two sons, who also served in the Danish army, never married: and it is be- lieved that Sir William's only descendants are those of his daughter, Mrs. Yeeles. His step-daughter, Mrs. Græme, was the mother of Mrs. Fergusson, celebrated during the Revolutionary War.
CHAPTER XXII.
FRONTIER AND METROPOLIS.
Industries of the colony-Discontent and wan- derings of various Indians-Visit of Cayugas in 1727-Behavior of Algonquins-Logan's impor- tance in the administration, and some facts in his career-Stenton-The popular party uneasy- Assembly refuses to have Keith's seat filled, and his friends break the quorum-Suspicion as to conduct of Indian affairs-Fear of a war between Indians-Shawnees from Pechoquealon alarm people about Manatawny, and are driven off -. Murder of Indians by white men-Military meas- ures-Treaties, and hanging of the murderers- Shikallima and the Indian chief named Logan- The Shawnees move to the Ohio-Election of 1728 -Assemblymen roughly handled, and suggest mov- ing their place of meeting, but decide to have a hall in Philadelphia-Passage of another paper money bill-Liquidation of the Founder's debts, and release of the mortgage-Measure in Parlia- ment to hinder making of bar iron defeated- Lancaster County erected-Impost upon aliens, Irish servants or redemptioners, and negroes-War between Five Nations and Southern Indians- Servitude in satisfaction for debt-Change of Trustees of General Loan Office-Reemission of repaid paper money-Death of Lloyd, and appoint- ment of James Logan as Chief Justice-Character of population in the various districts-Philadel- phia-Building of Independence Hall-The Sheik -Philadelphia becomes a seat of learning-Brooke -Newspapers-Ralph-Franklin-The Junto- Books printed-Godfrey-Library Company of
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Philadelphia-Masonic lodge-Literary and other activities-The American Philosophical Society- Logan's death and bequest of his library.
Gordon, who was not without ability and readiness to learn the needs of the community, found on his arrival a number of iron works already in operation or starting within Pennsylvania proper, as to which and their successors and rivals the reader is referred to James M. Swank's History of the Manufacture of Iron in all Ages. There had also been an increased production of hemp, under a bounty of 1d. per pound. By the Assembly chosen in 1726, this bounty was in- creased to 1}d., and limited to such hemp as was water- rotted and dried without fire. Under a law of 1730, continuing the bounty, hemp dew-rotted or unfit for ship cordage was to be bought for the workhouse. The bounty ceased to be paid on July 1, 1732, it being found that the price was a sufficient encouragement. Gordon, in his speech to the Assembly chosen in 1726, paid to the silk raised in the dominion a compliment which he did not see was really small, in calling it "as fine and good as most of the world affords." He urged the culture as capable of employing the mean and weak of both sexes, and requiring neither the capital necessary for working iron nor the rich soil necessary for raising hemp, yet, like those, furnishing a commodity for which Britain paid high prices to other countries. This ap- parently meant raw silk, to be exported from Pennsyl- vania to England. In 1728, the British government hoped, that, by encouraging the raising of naval stores, it would induce the colonies to drop the manufacture of silk, linen, and woolen fabric. The great idea of English statesmen had been, and continued to be, the gathering of naval stores, lumber, pitch, hemp, &ct. from the American forests and the clearings therein, with the mixed object of providing industries for the
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colonists, and, as avowed in the original commissioning of the Board of Trade (see the chapter on England), of diverting the colonists from raising what could be sup- plied by the Mother Country.
It can almost be said that the curing of fish was the only manufacturing which Britain encouraged in Amer- ica. The Act of Trade, 15 Car. II, c. 7, by a proviso, had allowed salt to be imported from any part of Europe for the fisheries of New England and New- foundland. It being doubtful whether the name New England covered Pennsylvania and Delaware, the im- portation of that necessary article was restricted under fear of seizure by the Customs and Admiralty "sharks," necessarily active, for, having no salaries, they lived mostly upon forfeitures. The uncertainty as to the aforesaid Act was remedied almost contem- poraneously with Gordon's taking office. Being made aware that Delaware River and Bay and seas adjoining abounded in shad, sturgeon, bass, and other fish, which could be a source of trade, if salted, the British Parlia- ment, by Act of 13 Geo. I, c. 5, made it lawful from June 24, 1727, for subjects to carry and import salt from any part of Europe into the Province of Penn- sylvania, provided only that it be done in British ships and vessels manned and navigated according to the Act of 12 Car. II, c. 18 (see p. 276).
While Gordon found prosperity and signs of a con- tinuance and increase of it, he before long had anxiety about relations with the Indians. Such had not at- tracted attention in the colony for several years before he came, but had not been in the satisfactory state which was supposed. Contrary to the report brought from Albany by his predecessor, the Cayugas were not acknowledging the Penn title to the Susquehanna. The Pennsylvania Indians were not merely hunting in the vicinity of the French, and on land claimed by the latter as part of the region drained by the Mississippi, but
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were in detachments remaining there, settling in the goodly region called Alleghening, watered by the Alle- gheny River, or, as that river was then considered, the upper Ohio. On its banks, the Delawares had a village at Kittanning, and other tribes had their repre- sentatives, or, rather, their advanced detachments, as near or nearer to Canada. At such a distance from Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania government could exer- cise no control. The main body of each tribe, still at the old home, was more likely to have its allegiance corrupted than to guide the action of remote individ- uals. The Delawares were in fact restive. Those west of the upper Schuylkill were in silent umbrage at the presence at Tulpehocken of the Palatinates whom Keith had invited from New York. Manawkyhickon, the leader of the Delawares on the Lehigh, was then or soon afterwards mourning the loss of his near relative Wequela, hung in New Jersey, and thinking that it was high time that the English in general were destroyed. Not very long before this, the number of these Dela- wares was increased by some coming or returning from New Jersey, and settling on Durham Creek, where de- posits of iron ore seemed to call for a settlement by civilized people. If what the Shawnees afterwards said was true, the Six Nations, perhaps from observing the advance into the land claimed by the Cayugas, per- haps because of a turn of affection towards the French, were preparing for a war against one or all of the British colonies.
According to an account given by Shawnee chiefs in 1732, the Five Nations had, about nine years before, told them at Shallyschohking that they did not well to settle there, and also that there was "a great noise in the Great House," and in three years time all would know it. Towards the expiration of the three years, the Five Nations said that the land of the Five Nations was going to be taken away, and asked the Shawnees
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to join in falling upon the English. About a year after- wards, which makes the date shortly before or after the visit about to be mentioned of the Cayugas, the Five Nations reproached the Delawares and Shawnees with not hearkening to them, and said: "We will put petticoats on you, and look upon you as women for the future and not as men. Therefore you Shawanese, look back towards Ohioh, the place from whence you came, and return thitherward, for now we shall take pity on the English, and let them have all the land." The intention was also expressed of making the warriors' road from Peahohquelloman (Pechoquealon) to Mehea- hoaming, Ohio, and Woabash.
As it was usually the Onondagas who came to make treaties, the Pennsylvania officials were surprised to find that nearly all the Iroquois chiefs who appeared at Philadelphia in the Summer of 1727 were Cayugas. Civility and Satcheetchoe and some others from Cones- toga accompanied them. On July 3, the Cayuga speaker, on behalf of all the Five Nations, informed Gordon, that, when William Penn first came, he wished to buy land from them, but they refused to sell, saying that they might some day do so; now they had come to hear what was offered. They said, that, when the Gov- ernor-whom did they mean? Keith ?- was at Albany, he spoke thus to the Five Nations : "Well, my brethren, you have gained the victory: you have overcome the people and their lands are yours. We shall buy them of you. How many commanders are there among you?" They had replied that there were forty, and he had said: "Then, if you will come down to me, I will give each of these commanders a suit of clothes such as I wear." One Governor, when they were passing on a warlike expedition, had tried to buy land at Tsanandowa, where he wished to settle some people, but they had replied that they could not then attend to the matter, but on their return would lay it before their
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chiefs : now they were come to hear what the present Governor would offer. Gordon told them that the lands on the Susquehanna had been bought from the Five Nations by Col. Dongan, and transferred to Penn, and that the grant had been confirmed when Keith was at Albany. This purchase by Dongan, and this confirma- tion, the chiefs positively denied, as stated in the chap- ter on the Irish and their Kirk. Gordon denied that any bargaining for Tsanandowa had been meant by a former Governor; but Gordon thanked the chiefs for the offer to sell the lands, if not yet purchased, and he told of the expected coming of Penn's American-born son, who might treat on the subject, it being meanwhile understood that the lands would be kept for him. The Indians desired that no settlement be made up the Sus- quehanna above Pextan, and that the settlers there- abouts and the traders at Alleghening be not allowed to sell or keep rum. The Lieutenant-Governor replied that settlements above Pextan had not been allowed, but that, as persons of the younger generation grew up, they would spread, but not quickly: as to rum, the Indians could stave in the kegs they found in the woods, but not meddle with what liquor was in the houses, or drink or carry any away. The Indians were enter- tained for twelve days, ratified the covenant chain, and departed with a large quantity of presents.
The Province's attention, which, as far as the red neighbours were concerned, had been so long engrossed by those on the lower Susquehanna, was now turned to those of Algonquian stock living in the other direc- tion.
In September, 1727, a white man, Thomas Wright, was killed at the trader John Burt's house at Snake Town, forty miles above Conestoga, by Minsi Indians living on the eastern branch (now called North Branch) of the Susquehanna. All parties had been drinking, and Burt and the Indians dancing together, when, on
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a dispute with one of the Indians, Burt told Wright to knock him down. Wright caught hold of the Indian, but did not strike him, while Burt struck him several times. The two white men retiring to the house, the Indians pursued, breaking in the door. Burt tantaliz- ing the Indians, while Wright was trying to pacify them, Wright fled to the hen house, but some Indians followed, and he was found dead the next morning, from blows on the head and neck. The Pennsylvania govern- ment was never able to punish either those who did the killing, or Burt, whose blows and taunts occasioned it. He did not dare to show himself when the affair was investigated.
Manawkyhickon was endeavoring at the end of 1727 to unite the Five Nations and the Miamis, otherwise known as Twightwees, or Naked Indians, to take up arms. In the early Spring it was known that he had called home those of his own nation who were hunting, and it was said that the French Governors in Canada had told the Indians in alliance with France to hold themselves in readiness for the French King's orders. The Council thought it best to appease the Indians up the Delaware, and therefore sent a matchcoat to Man- awkyhickon, and one to Sassoonan, who had protested that he was ignorant of the movement, and one to Mrs. Montour, who had given the information. She was French by birth, but had married Carondowana, other- wise Robert Hunter, an Oneida.
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