USA > Pennsylvania > Chronicles of Pennsylvania from the English revolution to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1688-1748, Vol. II > Part 2
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The Assembly, in a Remonstrance of Feb. 28, pro- tested, that, while the King's Charter, under which the courts had been established, authorized Penn or his Deputy to commission Judges and officers, and to establish forms of judicature and manner of proceeding, the power did not cover the jurisdictions and proceed- ings themselves, but that such were left to be provided for by law, for which the concurrence of the freemen was necessary. This Remonstrance was printed, and copies were circulated, but did not prevent the holding of court in the various counties. The Lieutenant-Gov- ernor pointed out, as a good reason for not giving Judges the tenure established in England, the scarcity in the colony of men educated in the law-there were now about six-and the difficulty of getting such to serve, so that laymen must be picked out, and then superseded, when others appeared to be better. He agreed that if, instead of being obliged to remove Judges upon the unproved allegations of an Assembly, he were merely authorized to do so, and if the Assem- bly would arrange for a continuing salary for a Chief Justice, so that his tenure and salary would not be
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dependent upon the good will of any temporary major- ity of the House, he, Evans, would commission any thoroughly fit man as Chief Justice to hold office dur- ing good behavior, or until removal in manner afore- said. The Assembly yielded so far as to consent that so much of its proposed bill as related to the appoint- ment and removal of Judges be omitted therefrom, and embraced in a separate bill, and that what related to the appropriation of fines and forfeitures be omitted ; but the Assembly held out for the appointment and re- moval of clerks by the Judges, and for the licensing of drinking places by the courts. The Assembly pre- senting on April 18 seven bills, and on May 7 two bills, the Lieutenant-Governor, on the latter date, made legis- lation impossible by insisting that the revival of pro- cess must come first, either in a law such as he would approve of for establishing courts, or in a separate law.
Not residing within the bounds fixed by King Charles's patent to Penn, the freemen of New Castle, Kent, and Sussex had never, like the freemen of his Province, formally received from the Crown the right by "advice, assent, and approbacon (sic)" to take part in making laws. The general consent of all the inhabi- tants to the Act of Union, involving submission to a common legislature with Pennsylvania, may be assumed : but, while the freemen of Pennsylvania could bind themselves to share their powers with the freemen of Delaware, the latter could not transfer powers which they did not possess. At most, they could bind them- selves to pay taxes, or contributions to public expenses, and could impose upon themselves police regulations ; but without confirmation by the Sovereign there could be no change in the system of jurisprudence covering that part of the world. The written and unwritten law of England, except as inappropriate in the new terri- tory, or restricted by Parliament to the old, can be deemed that system of jurisprudence, for the former
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Swedish and New York authority over the region was thought by many persons, for different reasons, to have been illegal. Confirmation by the Sovereign of any change may be deemed to have been given, when the King or Queen allowed an act to that effect of Penn and his Assembly purporting to cover the Territories : but until this allowance or failure to disallow took place, the act was not in force there. It seems that acts of the Delaware Assembly, after the Disunion, were laid before the King in Council within five years after approval by the acting Governor, but that there were temporary or other acts more or less enforced without waiting for royal confirmation. The majority of the inhabitants being Churchmen, Swedes, or Presbyteri- ans, six companies of militia were formed among them. A tax was levied, and, certain Quakers declining to pay, suffered heavy fines and costs. Logan, in a letter of 8mo. 24, 1705, spoke of these counties as having at the time "the best and most regular Militia for their number of inhabitants of any place on this continent." A law, passed about this time, for regulating and main- taining this force, exempted Quakers from contribution. Owing to this, James Coutts resigned his captaincy. About the end of November, 1706, a law received the vote of the local Assembly for maintaining a fort at New Castle, such law requiring all vessels passing it to stop, and all not belonging to the river to pay a toll, to be expended for powder. Evans, as invested with gubernatorial power, enacted this, contrary to Logan's judgment. Allowed discretion as to carrying on the work, Evans soon had the fort begun, and gave orders to demand the toll. Even the requirement to stop was resented by the traders of Philadelphia, who, without going into the question of the Delawareans' power to legislate for themselves, relied upon the grant to Wil- liam Penn, his heirs and assigns, in King Charles's patent, of "the free and undisturbed use and continu-
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ance in and passage unto and out of all the ports, harbors, bays, waters, rivers, isles, and inlets belong- ing or leading to or from the country." Hill, the Coun- cillor, and others, including his brother-in-law Samuel Preston and William Fishbourn, owned a sloop lading at Philadelphia for Barbados. Hill and Preston told the captain not to stop at New Castle. The sloop was duly cleared, and the Governor's pass from Philadel- phia obtained. Before weighing anchor, the captain waited upon Evans, who threatened that if the sloop did not stop, he would fire upon it, and put the cap- tain in prison. Hill, on hearing this, and meeting Evans in the street, protested vehemently. The next day, Evans went down to New Castle on horseback; while Hill, Preston, and Fishbourn went on the sloop, to see it through. As it approached New Castle, John French boarded the vessel, and even exceeded the requirement of the Act by demanding toll, and, when the captain refused, arrested him, taking him out of the sloop. Security that if allowed to proceed, he would pay any sum judicially declared due, was refused. Preston and Fishbourn went ashore to see the Lieutenant-Governor. Hill, who was an old sailor, took charge of the sloop, and kept her on her course. Seeing this, Evans fol- lowed out his threat with a shot from a cannon, and went himself in one of the boats which had been started in pursuit. The sloop escaped to New Jersey, where happened to be a vessel waiting for Lord Cornbury, and flying the Queen's flag. Putting the sloop under this protection, Hill went in Lord Cornbury's barge to Salem. Evans having sent Lowman, the Collector of New Castle, and Thomas Grey, the Deputy Secretary, to complain to Cornbury, the latter, after hearing both them and Hill, sent back the barge for French and the captain. Meanwhile, Evans boarded the sloop, and acted in such a way as to be guilty of violence to per- sons under the protection of the Queen's flag outside of
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his own jurisdiction; so that, when he too came in the barge to Salem, Cornbury told him that he had af- fronted the Queen's government. Upon Cornbury's insisting, the captain was put back on his sloop, and allowed to continue the voyage. This was on May 1st. For some days, Evans violently announced his inten- tion to enforce the Delaware law, and there was the prospect of his levying war by means of the southern People under him against the northern People under him. It was not certain that the non-Quaker mariners would confine themselves to trying to run the blockade : therefore bloodshed might result from any attempt to board. The whole mercantile community of the Prov- ince was thus turned against Evans. The Councillors hitherto so friendly to him, to the number of ten, drew up a representation to him against the law, and the House passed unanimously resolutions against the at- tempt to interfere with Philadelphia trade, the firing on the ship without even the said law authorizing it, and the refusal to accept security. So, on May 19, the Lieu- tenant-Governor complied with the Council's request for suspending the execution of the law, to the extent, at least, of waiting until the Assembly of the Lower Counties should have a chance to repeal it.
When, in the early part of May, the Assembly of Pennsylvania attempted to bring Logan to pleadings and trial upon the impeachment, for which the Lieu- tenant-Governor arranged public hearings in the two large rooms of Clark's house, the Councillors had unanimously warned the Lieutenant-Governor against sitting as Judge, in view of the silence of the Frame of 1701 as to trying the impeachments which the House was empowered to make. He accordingly told the As- sembly, that, doubting his capacity to try, he was will- ing to hear any complaints, and to redress what ap- peared well founded. The Assembly maintained that the Governor was warranted by the Constitution to
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judge, that the Council could not sit with him judicially, and that Logan should answer in writing each charge according to forms which Logan, in view of the infor- mality of the inquiry, was not observing. Thus a dead- lock was reached.
About the middle of June, 1707, Nanticoke Indians from seven towns came to the district on the Susque- hanna inhabited by the Indians in alliance with Penn- sylvania, the visitors being on the way to the Five Nations to take tribute from their nation, and belts to renew peace from the Governor of Maryland. The Seneca-Susquehannocks of Conestoga and Pequehan desired the Lieutenant-Governor of Pennsylvania to come to see the strangers. At the same time informa- tion was received in New Castle, where the Lieutenant- Governor was, to the effect that Nicole Godin had been trying to stir up Indians to join the French, and that the Shawnees had put to death a captured enemy at the instigation or with the participation of another French- man, Francois Lieutenant-Governor Evans accordingly hastened from New Castle, accompanied by four servants and by John French, William Tonge, Peter Bezellon, Thomas Grey, and Michel (to be men- tioned in the chapter on the Germans), and went, by way of Octorara, Martin Chartier's house, and Peque- han, to Dekanoagah (near the mouth of Conewago Creek?), nine miles from Pequehan, and at Dekanoagah met Shawnees, Ganawese, and Seneca-Susquehannocks, as well as Nanticokes. The Lieutenant-Governor prom- ised to all present his endeavor that whoever injured them should make satisfaction, and it was also agreed that a belt on behalf of Pennsylvania should be carried to the Five Nations by Andaggy-Junkquagh. Return- ing to Pequehan, Evans reassured the Shawnees of his friendship, speaking to their king Opessah. Several Shawnees had just come from the southward to settle there, and were, with Evans's consent, permitted by
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Opessah to do so. The Shawnees were alarmed at the expedition against a Shawnee town in Carolina by the Flatheaded Indians, at the instigation of the Governor of that colony, in punishment for the killing of several Christians. On July 1, Evans and company went to Conestoga, and, leaving it the next morning, arrived in the evening of the 2nd within three miles of the In- dian village called Peixtan, and, the next day, by lying in ambush just out of the village, and having Godin en- ticed out by Chartier, arrested Godin. Evans and com- pany, overawing the inhabitants of the village, carried him through it, and, by way of Tulpehocken and Mana- tawny, brought him to Philadelphia. It was decided that Godin should be tried as a natural born subject of the Queen of England, but no record as to his being convicted or punished has been seen. Francois was ar- rested during the same journey, and brought to Phila- delphia.
In the course of Michel's exploration for ore, he took with him some of the Indian traders who spoke French, viz: Bezellon, Le Tort, and Chartier, and others, and built what were spoken of as houses on the branches of the Potomac, within the supposed limits of Penn's domain. Evans had suggested Michel's taking some Indians with him; so Michel sent to the Indians of Conestoga in the name of the government a demand for laborers, whom he promised to pay : but the Indian queen and principal men deemed the proceedings a vio- lation of the league of friendship, and sent an inquiry to Philadelphia whether such a settlement and demand had been authorized. The government, on Feb. 25, 1707-8, ordered these intruders to return to their places of legal residence.
The only other incident in Indian relations during Evans's administration was the slaying of a white man by Shawnees at the instigation of another white man. Francis Letore, servant of Steelman, a trader, had de-
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parted from the latter. Steelman, offering presents, asked the Shawnees to hunt him up, and added: "or kill him." Opessah, or Wopaththa, the king, refused, and expostulated with Steelman; but certain young men, who were on their way to the woods, determined to win Steelman's presents, and, meeting Letore and some of his companions beyond the bounds of the Prov- ince and Territories, attacked and killed him.
While this Assembly and the Lieutenant-Governor were in the midst of their quarrel, the Governor-in- Chief was making some progress towards a sale to the Crown. After a request by him to the Commissioners for Trade &ct. to consider the subject, he appeared be- fore them on Jany. 31, 1706-7, and they reported on Feb. 5 that they found in him a ready concurrence and disposition to make a surrender of the government, and that it appeared that he had accomplished a very diffi- cult undertaking by improving a desolate wilderness, and had diminished his own future, not having time to reap the profits, the returns not countervailing his ex- penses. The opinion was expressed at the same time, that the privileges, immunities, and liberties stipulated for by him were capable of being extended to the dimi- nution of the royal prerogative, while a voluntary sur- render would be a great benefit, but the surrender should be absolute and unconditional, leaving the amount to be paid to Penn to her Majesty's grace and goodness, as it was found that Penn was ready to do. Replying on July 2, 1707, to certain queries, Penn said that his gains by the land ought not to be taken into consideration in valuing the government, he having bought the land from the natives at dear rates, but he had never received one fourth of his expenses; for the powers of government he asked £5000 be paid him in America and £15,000 in England, £8000 thereof in money and £7000 in English copper, with the right to
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coin it into pennies, half pennies, and farthings for the colonies.
The various surrenders which Evans made to public feeling were too late to rehabilitate him in the eyes of Pennsylvanians, or of Penn, or of the Quakers of Eng- land, whose respect for Penn was diminishing while he continued to be represented by such a Lieutenant. Be- fore the affair of the sloop, Penn thought of sending back William Jr. to take Evans's place, but Norris, who was visiting England, boldly told the elder William that it would not do, that the colony required as good a head as most of the other plantations. Mompesson was then thought of. The address of the Assembly to the Proprietary voted in 10th month was duly re- ceived by Whitehead, Mead, and Lower, and communi- cated by them to him. He, on 3mo. (May) 15, 1707, wrote to Evans to exert his authority to the utmost in punishing vice, and to reduce the number of public houses, and to allow none in the city except upon rec- ommendation by the City magistrates, and none in the county except upon recommendation by the county Jus- tices in open court. Penn also took the occasion to censure Evans for his beating the constable, counte- nancing the false alarm, and enforcing against non- resistants the fines imposed by a militia law of the Lower Counties.
Norris's explanations were able somewhat to lessen the effect of the Assembly's expressions upon White- head, who was a kinsman of Norris. Penn's financial prospects at the same time seemed temporarily to brighten. There had been some hope of a body of Ger- man or Swiss immigrants taking up land, and Quakers of means began considering some scheme for his relief, so that he was glad that the Susquehanna project had expired, and he did not press the negotiation with the Crown. On a hearing in 3rd mo., 1707, the Lord Chancellor rather encouraged Penn's lawyers in the
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view that the deed to Ford was only a mortgage, al- though deciding adversely the application to reopen the account. The Fords having arrested Penn in an action for £2000 rent, the case went over until Michaelmas Term, 1707, while certain Friends, at the request of George Whitehead, examined the accounts, and decided, that, as the elder Ford had actually had £1000 more than he paid, the most liberal allowance for interest, salary, &ct would be between £4000 and £5000.
More substantial at the time was the help that came to the Proprietary from that son upon whom Quaker history has been so severe, and the closer relations with him gave the elder William some happiness. Wil- liam Jr. had, in the beginning of 1705, unsuccessfully run for Parliament, and had subsequently joined Lord Fairfax, Admiral Rooth, Robert West, and W. Russell in sending an unprofitable expedition to search for wrecks supposed to contain treasure, and had, more re- cently, been disappointed as to obtaining a government position. The letter dated July 14, 1706, quoted in the chapter on Government by Penn's Friends, unsigned but evidently from Penn, without address, but apparently to Secretary of State Harley, is very bitter against somebody, evidently the Earl of Godolphin, Lord Treasurer, for offering to recommend the writer's son for a captaincy under the Duke of Ormond in Ireland, when the person making the offer had frequently prom- ised a position of at least £600 per an. The letter goes on: "Ned Southwell secretary of that Kingdom, and my son captain of a foot company! He shall go dig potatoes first." The aversion of the son, as well as of the father, to a military employment is mentioned. A civil employment even in Ireland of £500 or £600 is asked for, or else for the officials to "give him £1000 to pay his two years expenses in fruitless waiting and let him go live of his own." Not long after the date of this letter, William Jr. and his wife recognized that they
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must leave their home at Worminghurst; and William Jr., in exchange for some prospective settlement, let this inheritance from his mother be sold, and the pro- ceeds applied to the father's and his own debts, which is very different from Maria Webb's conjecture, voic- ing the Quaker prejudice against William Jr., that he "probably squandered the proceeds." The father speaks of the profit made out of Worminghurst, which having cost £4500, sold for £6050, "after I had cut down £2000 of timber." When the sale had been made, every obligation except those to William Jr. and William Aubrey, and except that to the Fords was cleared off; for a number of creditors agreed to take drafts on Logan, whose accounts had been showing not only un- collected money due, but funds in hand awaiting oppor- tunity for forwarding.
As the time for the new trial at law approached, William Mead, notwithstanding previous and recent failures to induce the Fords to compromise, expressed the opinion that they might do so for perhaps £5000 or at most £8000, and is said to have promised his supposed influence to bring this about, and the project of certain Quakers was to take all Penn's property, probably exclusive of the Governorship, pay all his debts, allow him £500 a year, and reimburse themselves gradually.
The Assembly having, on 1mo. 1, 1706-7, voted to send extracts from their minutes to Whitehead and others and also a remonstrance to Penn, this Remon- strance was adopted on 4mo. (June) 10. It threatened to lay before the Queen the mal-administration of Penn's Deputy and the ill carriage and actions of the Secretary, unless the same were speedily redressed. It asked relief in the matters complained of in the former Representation signed by the Speaker accord- ing to heads agreed upon by the House on 6mo. 26, 1704. It asked consideration of the address adopted
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on December 4. Incidentally referring to the "vile abominations" committed by some who lately went with the Lieutenant-Governor to visit the Indians, it said that he was allowing dangerous persons from Canada to trade with them. It complained of the Lieutenant- Governor's attitude as to the bill for courts, and as to the impeachment of Logan, and of the Lieutenant-Gov- ernor's action under the law of New Castle. It closed by saying that, whereas the Lieutenant-Governor ought "by a sober and virtuous conversation to have been a good example to the Queen's subjects he hath by his excesses and misdemeanours dishonoured both God and the Queen," and that nothing would atone for the "great and public scandals" and the arbitrary pro- ceedings before mentioned but his immediate dismissal. On the same day, a letter to Whitehead, Mead, and Lower was adopted, requesting them to use their ut- most endeavors with the Proprietary for redress and relief and, especially, the removal of both the Lieuten- ant and Secretary, and, if the Proprietary refused, then to make application to the "Superiors" for speedy help from the sore afflictions. A catalogue of particulars was sent with this last letter. It mentions, among other things, the exemptions still continued in favor of the Philadelphia militia from serving as watchmen and constables, although there had been no muster since the false alarm of May, 1706, the granting of a commission in June 1706 for privateering for one year to Thomas Hurst, without any power from the Admiralty, and Evans committing excesses & debaucheries in his house a mile from town "not fit to be rehearsed."
It apparently was after receipt of this communica- tion, and of news of the affair of the sloop, or after reflection, and with conclusions strengthened by such cumulative evidence of the unhappy circumstances of Friends in Pennsylvania, that Mead suspended en- deavors in favor of Penn. Instead of turning false,
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as Penn's friends complained, it may be said that Mead showed what rustics would call "horse sense;" but he put it in the following pious language, or something very close to it, to those who now conferred with him: "The query ran through me from the Lord, how can I be instrumental to clear William Penn of this incum- brance and set or establish him in that Government over that People, until he redresses their grievances, and eases them of their abuses?" So he sent to Penn for signature a written stipulation to relieve, redress, ease, and right wrongs of the People of Pennsylvania. Penn, deeming the form of the instrument a confession of guilt upon unjust charges made against him, refused to sign. Penn subsequently wrote to Carpenter, Owen, Story, Pusey, Hill, and Rowland Ellis, for circulation in Pennsylvania, a letter telling of his letter to Evans, and promising not to be wanting in any other matters wherein the inhabitants were "really aggrieved," and which it was in the Proprietary's power to redress. This, if it otherwise would have influenced the election of that year, was not written until after it had taken place.
The Assemblymen chosen in 1707 were nearly the same as those chosen in 1706, and reelected Lloyd as Speaker. On meeting them, Evans made a disagree- able speech. The House made a spirited reply. Then the Lieutenant-Governor, by a still more violent mes- sage, speaking of the unjust imputations, reflections, and invectives, and saying that he would not waste the country's and his own time by repeating his arguments, prorogued the House until the last day of the term for which the members were elected, unless the Queen's command or some exigency should require it to meet.
In Michaelmas Term, a verdict was obtained by the Fords against Penn. Several persons advised him not to pay, but go to prison, as a testimony against the extortion, pending a decision as to the whole indebted-
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ness in Chancery, or on appeal to the House of Lords. A third course was possible, viz : to abscond, for by the time that the law courts would next sit, the Chancery was likely to give a decision. He neither paid nor ran away, and on Fourth day, 11mo. 7, 1707-8, the bailiffs went to Grace Church Street meeting to seize him, and were only prevented from taking him out of the gallery by the promise made by Henry Gouldney and Herbert Springett that he would come to them in a few hours. This he did, and by habeas corpus turned himself over to the Fleet. He got good quarters in the Old Bailey.
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