USA > Pennsylvania > Chronicles of Pennsylvania from the English revolution to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1688-1748, Vol. II > Part 34
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writer in the Gentleman's Magazine after Thomas's death passed a great eulogium upon his ability, good judgment, and, above all, integrity.
Notwithstanding recurring anxiety about his health, he lived to a good age. He died on Dec. 31, 1774,-the date is wrong in several publications,-in Upper Brook Street, London, and was buried at Willingdon, Sussex. His eldest son, William, succeeded to the baronetcy, which is now (Burke's Peerage and Baronetage and Who's Who for 1915) held by a descendant.
The departure of Lieut. Governor Thomas put the executive, or gubernatorial, power in the Council, con- posed of Anthony Palmer, Thomas Lawrence, Samuel Hasell, William Till, Abraham Taylor, Robert Strettell, James Hamilton, Benjamin Shoemaker, Joseph Turner, Lawrence Growdon, Thomas Hopkinson, and William Logan. Turner, mentioned in the last chapter, was a merchant; Growdon was the son of the early Councillor and Speaker of the name; and Hopkinson was Ad- miralty Judge. These three had been added on May 13 by the departing Lieutenant-Governor, in view of the body being reduced to seven active members, and of the requirement that four must act with the President in all business. James Logan having positively resigned on the 29th, William Logan, his eldest son, had then been selected. When, on June 6, 1747, all except Hamilton, who was beyond seas, met to assume their new powers, Palmer, as longest in service, took his seat as President. Unlike Lloyd and Shippen and Logan, former Presi- dents, this one was a Churchman.
Palmer was or had been rich. He had been a mer- chant in the parish of St. Michael, Barbados, being so described in 1704, when he bought some land in Phila- delphia County. For some years, he was often spoken of as "Captain Palmer," this indicating the occupation of sailing a trading vessel, for in 1747 he mentioned his being an entire stranger to military matters. He prob-
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ably visited the little port on the Delaware before mak- ing his home in it about 1705, when he brought with him his wife, Thomasine, and some children. Watson the Annalist credits Anthony and Thomasine with twenty- one children, and says that they all died of consump- tion. Only nine have been identified; and six of them lived long enough to marry. After residing in the city, engaged in trade, Palmer removed to the Fairman man- sion (near Beach Street and Columbia Ave.), in the region then called Shackamaxon. The tract on which it stood, he divided into lots, and called Kensington. He was a widower when he became President, his wife having died in 1745; but he had an unmarried daughter, and probably there was also with him his widowed daughter, who had married a son of Sir William Keith.
The Council early took measures to regulate, in con- junction with New Jersey, the pilots of the river and bay, and to stop the practice, of which there had been recent instances, of allowing enemies' vessels to be brought up to Philadelphia under flag of truce to return prisoners taken. On July 12, 1747, armed men from an enemy privateer, having gotten possession of a pilot boat, came ashore at Edmund Liston's plantation, about four miles above Bombay Hook, carried off three negroes, rifled the house, and compelled Liston to go with them to the adjoining plantation, belonging to James Hart. There the invaders seized a negro. Hart having bolted his door, and picked up his gun, they fired into the house, wounding Hart's wife, and threat- ened to burn the house, and so compelled him to yield, and to act as a guide: but he led them away from, in- stead of to, the other plantations until sunset, when the invaders went back to their boat, saying that it would be useless for the inhabitants to resist, for a brig and sloop were at hand. Two days later, the same party, by approaching in a pilot boat, suddenly boarded the well armed ship of Capt. Bernard Martin at Cape Henlopen,
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and overpowered him and his men. He with seven of them was put off in the pilot boat the next day, and the ship was taken for the purpose of cruising in her be- tween Delaware Bay and Cape Fear, the French com- mander saying that he expected to be in Philadelphia within six months. Among those with him was a rene- gade Englishman, who said that he was familiar with Philadelphia. On August 28, the sloop "Elizabeth," bound for Philadelphia, was captured off the coast of North Carolina by a French privateer commanded by Captain Lehay, who had already taken three English prizes. Proceeding northward, the privateer took a brigantine and two ships near the Virginia capes, and a sloop, commanded by Newbold, about fifteen leagues off the Delaware capes, and the ship "Bolton," Oswald Eves, commander, and the ship "Delaware," com- manded by - Lake, in Delaware Bay. Some of the privateer's crew were English; some, Irish; and some, Scotch.
The Assembly had adjourned to August 17, after saying farewell to Lieutenant-Governor Thomas. About the time of the arrival of the French scalp, let- ters had come from Shirley, the Massachusetts Gov- ernor, saying that the Six Nations generally had en- gaged in the war, owing largely to the influence of Col. Johnson and Mr. Lydius, who could not fulfil their promises to the Indians without supplies from the North American colonies, and that the Assembly of Massachusetts desired representation to be made to the Assembly of Pennsylvania to induce a handsome con- tribution. Kinsey and other Assemblymen then in town, on being sounded, advised that the country mem- bers be not irritated by being forced to meet before August 17, and Kinsey announced his own opinion that presents to the Indians should be given to them directly by the Province's own interpreter, and the services for which the presents were given made
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known by him. So the Council had decided to wait. Shirley had afterwards written to ask the Pennsyl- vania Assembly to send commissioners to meet com- missioners from the other governments from New Hampshire to Virginia in a Congress at New York on Sep. 2, to agree upon measures for encouraging the vigorous prosecution by the Six Nations of their incur- sions upon the enemy, and to settle upon method and proportion of raising men and money for the war, and to project plans of operations as the common interest should require. Conrad Weiser had been meanwhile sent to the Indians at Shamokin with some clothes, to be worn in remembrance of John Penn, and some hand- kerchiefs, to wipe the tears for his death. Weiser re- ported that the Long House still withheld a declaration of war. On July 13, 1747, upon receiving word of the attack upon Liston's and Hart's plantations, six Coun- cillors in Philadelphia had met at once in the absence of Palmer, who was on the river, coming back from New Castle. The six had held a conference with Kinsey and other Assemblymen in town as to whether the As- sembly would ultimately pay bills for the fitting out of a ship of war or the erecting of fortifications. These Assemblymen declined to bind the House. The Speaker said that some of the members would act up to their principles, whatever were the dangers, and that, as to his own vote, he would as soon fight as vote to ap- prove military measures, but he supposed that the House would not allow those acting as Governor to be losers pecuniarily on account of anything they did for the benefit of the Province, but would compensate them by money given for support of government or other- wise. This did not make the Councillors feel safe in incurring expense. The Assembly, moreover, was un- able, in the absence of a Governor or Lieutenant-Gov- ernor, to levy a tax. The Councillors, with Palmer at their head, took the opportunity of two vessels going to
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England to write to the Proprietaries that the want of a proper power to pass laws was at this juncture a great misfortune, or, in other words, that a fully empowered Governor was much needed. When the House met, and all these subjects awaiting action were formally re- ferred to it, the reply was, that, as to the Six Nations and the Congress, the former could not be expected to de- clare war, now that the expedition against Canada was believed to be given up, so the Congress would be of little avail, but presents would be made to the Indians, they probably being in necessitous circumstances; that, as to erecting forts, or building ships of war, not only were the principles of most of the Assemblymen op- posed thereto, but it would be difficult, if not impossible, to prevent depredations upon the scattered plantations along the length of the Bay, or to prevent the capture of a well armed vessel by a trick; that the measures suggested for defence, while of so little use, would be of great cost; that the treasury was low; and that, if the restraint upon legislation was in force, no Act whatever could be passed. Appropriation of 400l. for the Indians was duly made.
When a new Assembly met, it was asked to provide for defence, out of the public money on hand, and at the disposal of the body, also to furnish clothes and other necessaries for the Spanish prisoners who had been brought in by privateers, and of whom there were a number, quite destitute, in the work-house. The an- swer, on Oct. 16, referred the President and Council to the message of the last Assembly on the former subject, but promised a sum for the prisoners.
In the Autumn of 1747, the population outside of the Quaker party rose as one man, and at the appeal of one man, to defend the Province. In the political struggles before that time, Benjamin Franklin, while he may have exerted some influence for individuals or measures, had not taken any considerable part. With all the utili-
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tarianism of the Quakers, but without their asceticism or spirituality, and with all the worldliness of the high non-Quaker officers, but without their attempts at ele- gance or their devotion to a chief, he could not be of one heart with either faction. He was not financially a de- pendent upon either. Hamilton, who had secured for him the printing for the Assemblies of both parts of the Penns' dominion, and with whose support he had become Clerk of the Assembly of the Upper Counties, had been, as we have seen, something of a free lance, at times the lawyer for the Proprietary family, at others thwarting the Lieutenant-Governor and Council. The other public position which Franklin held, viz: the Post- mastership, was the gift of Spotswood of Virginia, who had chosen him in order to have a competent steward, and this superior died in 1740. Nor was he socially bound to the leaders of either faction. Beginning with the step which he now took, which was an appeal to non-partisans, he became the leader of a third party, destined, as its members more numerously qualified for the suffrage, to master and finally to overwhelm the other parties. With his hitting arguments, with the general recognition of his competency in so many lines, he was, moreover, at this time clear of the prejudices and suspicions which might attach to other well known men in the minds of the masses. Except in the days of his wildest "wild oats," morally and theologically, he had as to religion much in common with most of the colonists. In the pamphlet about to be mentioned, the authorship of which he avowed, he begins with an illus- tration from Biblical history, he shows a fear of Roman Catholics, and he closes by stating what was his prayer to "the God of wisdom, strength, and power, the Lord of the armies of Israel." The warfare between sects had been changed by Whitefield and Zinzendorf into a warfare within sects, except that some small companies were so different from others as to be harmonious
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within themselves. Franklin had offended nobody, and done business with everybody, even publishing a news- paper for the Germans, as has been mentioned. Al- though he had been brought into contact in literary matters and public institutions with Logan, Allen, Hop- kinson, and others who might be called aristocrats, what political association Franklin had was with the side which lessened the poor man's burden. With his extensive acquaintance outside of those who engrossed political power, and with his democratic habits, he was looked upon as a representative of the common, or working, people. When he turned from and attacked those voting in the Assembly against military meas- ures, he could not be supposed to be thinking primarily of the safety of certain rich men's property.
About the end of October, 1747, he wrote a pamphlet entitled Plain Truth or Serious Considerations on the Present State of the City of Philadelphia and Province of Pennsylvania, and he published this as "by a Trades- man of Philadelphia." It set forth the unfortunate predicament of the middle class inhabitants, unable to flee, or to turn property into credits elsewhere, and de- fenceless for want of forts, arms, union, or discipline, unjustly refused help from public money by the As- semblymen, while the members of the opposite party, to whom were attributed the motives of disappointment in schemes for power, and unwillingness to benefit the Quakers jointly with themselves, would not use their wealth and influence to promote military education. Estimating the non-Quakers at over 60,000 fighting men, the author urged his fellows of the middle class, the country people as well as those in the city, the Scotch-Irish as well as the Germans, to take arms with- out waiting for help from others. He announced his intention shortly, if he saw a disposition favorable to a union for this purpose, to suggest articles of asso-
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ciation and also a scheme for raising the money neces- sary for defence without laying a burden upon any one.
Soon after the pamphlet appeared, it being known that Franklin had written it, persons asked him for the articles of association. He and a few others drafted such Articles, requiring those who signed them to ap- pear for drill, and to obey; the Articles also giving the army a democratic constitution in the election of each company's officers by the men, and a regiment's officers by the officers of its companies. Franklin called a mass meeting in the Whitefield building. There he spoke, and distributed copies of the Articles. As part of the general plan, he suggested a fort to defend the city, to be paid for by a lottery. Franklin mentions the pur- chase of some old but not sufficient cannon from Boston. Notwithstanding what might be called demagoguery in the pamphlet, and the granting of power to the disen- franchised, the Councillors and their friends hailed the movement as a solution of their predicament. The minutes of the Council for Nov. 26 speak of many hun- dred persons having entered into an association for the general defence, they and the City Corporation peti- tioning the Proprietaries for cannon, and the merchants petitioning the Admiralty for a man of war. The Council, on November 27, wrote to the Proprietaries in aid of both requests; and, as the necessity for cannon would be probably before any could arrive from Eng- land, the Council wrote at the end of December to every neighbouring Governor or commander likely to have any to spare, asking him to lend meanwhile. Clinton said that he could not answer before the arrival of the engineer sent by the Crown, and every day expected. The others refused. Franklin's Autobiography says that twelve hundred persons signed the Articles of As- sociation at or within a few days after the mass meet- ing, and that, copies being taken into the country, at length the whole number who had bound themselves was
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ten thousand: also that he, being now consulted by the Councillors in "every measure wherein their concur- rence was thought useful to the association," proposed and drew up the proclamation, which was issued on Dec. 9, for the observance of January 7 as a day of fasting and prayer, also that the officers of the Phila- delphia regiment chose him as Colonel, but that he, conceiving himself unfit, declined, and, on his recom- mendation, Councillor Lawrence was appointed. Whether Franklin's memory failed in precision, whether the rank was Colonel or Lieutenant-Colonel, whether he recommended Councillor Abraham Taylor or Councillor Thomas Lawrence, there was greatness in self effacement, and in the policy of handing over the command to one of the heads of the colony, instead of letting the movement appear to be putting them aside. We learn from the Council's minutes of Jany. 1, that, on that day, the Captains, Lieutenants, and Ensigns, one for each of eleven companies, after receiving their commissions, withdrew to another room, and in a little while reported their choice of Councillor Taylor as Colonel, Councillor Lawrence as Lieutenant-Colonel, and Samuel McCall as Major, whose commissions as such were ordered to be prepared. These names and the names of some of the officers of the companies indi- cate how generally the movement stirred up by Plain Truth was joined in by those who were considered above the middle classes : one Quaker, moreover, Rich- ard Renshaw became a Lieutenant, and on January 8 took an affirmation, when Taylor and the others took oath as officers. On the next day, William Moore and Samuel Flower, chosen Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel respectively of the Chester County regiment, took the oath, and they and the officers under them were com- missioned. One or more regiments from each county of the Province and Territories on Delaware were or- ganized before the end of May. Logan bought 60l.
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worth of tickets in the lottery for the battery, and told Franklin to apply to the object any prizes the tickets might happen to draw. The chief, or "great battery," was located in Weccacoe (near the foot of the present Federal Street, on land for a long time covered by the United States Navy Yard) : but there were to be others. By order sent to England, cannon were purchased and expected to be delivered in the Summer; but, on hear- ing that the engineer looked for by Clinton had arrived, the Council wrote to Clinton another letter asking him to lend some. Franklin's Autobiography tells the story how Taylor, Lawrence, William Allen, and Franklin went to New York to see Clinton, how the latter at first peremptorily refused, but how, at dinner with his Coun- cil, where, as was usual in the place, there was great drinking of madeira, he softened by degrees, saying that he would lend six, then, after a few more bumpers, he yielded ten, and at length in great good nature made the number eighteen.
When the Proprietaries heard of the Association, they were troubled, because the populace had taken up arms independently of the government's initiative. Nor was such caviling as unreasonable as the reader may think. It required but little historical knowledge to recall Bacon's rebellion, which, about seventy years be- fore, nearly overthrew the royal governor of Virginia; it required little imagination to picture the Scotch-Irish or the Germans in the near future turning themselves into an army, and holding free of rent all the territory over which they might have spread. Thomas Penn sub- mitted certain legal questions to the English Attorney- General and Solicitor-General, and, on the strength of their answers, wrote under date of March 30, 1748, to the Councillors of the Province that they could not be warranted in commissioning officers to be controlled by anybody but the Council or persons appointed by the same, for it was transferring to subjects the King's
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power of calling the subjects out for defence, and that the choosing by the Associators of a council from among themselves to make military laws, and to order the marching of armed men, seemed contrary to law. As regarded giving cannon for a battery, the Proprietaries said that they would do this when the Assembly would make a law establishing a militia and a battery, which otherwise, the fear was expressed, would be neglected as soon as built. To all this, Palmer and his fellow Councillors made answer on July 30 that they had done nothing but what they thought legal, useful, and neces- sary, whatever lawyers unacquainted with the circum- stances might think; no such criminal action had been taken or intended as the transferrence to the People of the power over the militia ; on the contrary, the inferior officers were to take orders from the superior, and these from Palmer and his associates acting as Governor; the military council elected was only to make such reg- ulations as were usually within the scope of militia laws, and the regulations were to be subject to the Gov- ernor's sanction; while, in matters of action in time of service, the orders were to be given by the Governor for the time being; in the opinion of most strangers, the Province had the best militia in America, and one of the best batteries of its size on the Continent ; and to the Association, under God, the writers must attribute the preservation of the City of Philadelphia. Ulti- mately Thomas Penn sent cannon costing over £400 stg., which arrived after the war was over.
Upon application by the Proprietaries, the British government had, some time before Oct. 29, 1747, de- cided to guard Philadelphia and her commerce in the following Spring, by means of a man-of-war cruising in Delaware Bay, and escorting vessels up the river. For this purpose the sloop "Otter," commanded by Capt. John Ballet, was sent over in company with some mer- chantmen, and with the warship "Hector," Capt.
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Maisterson, ordered to similar service at the Capes of Virginia. The two vessels after arrival at their stations were to keep in correspondence, and to assist each other.
While they were crossing the ocean, various pri- vateers, some sailing in concert, were already at work near the mouth of Delaware Bay, causing losses to those engaged in shipping from the Penn dominions, and interrupting the supply of grain to Nova Scotia and the West Indies. Pennsylvania was in those years the granary of the British possessions. A prisoner put ashore had learned of fourteen armed vessels, French or Spanish, cruising between Sandy Hook and South Carolina. The one on which he had been was the "Clin- ton," formerly sailing under English letters of marque, but, after capture by the French, sent out from Cape Francois. Among a number of prizes, the first Phila- delphia boat she took was probably the schooner "Phoenix," commanded by Pyramus Green, taken on April 15, 1748, one day out from Cape Henlopen. After transferring four of the crew and all the bread of the cargo, and throwing overboard the Indian corn, French- men manned and armed the schooner, and took her to the Capes to prey upon the English. Coming up to a brigantine, all the Frenchmen but one boarded the lat- ter, leaving the schooner loose. Green, who had not been taken off, took possession of the schooner, and escaped with it, carrying the single Frenchman as a prisoner. The boarded brigantine is not identified. The "Clin- ton," on May 16, captured one named the "Richa," cleared from Philadelphia, and, on bringing her to the Capes, the captain of the "Clinton," De Blane, tried to induce the captain of the "Richa," Benjamin Burk, and a mariner taken from the "Phoenix," Nicholas Eads, to pilot the "Clinton" to Philadelphia, but Burk and Eads stood firm. Another deed shows the quality of some of Philadelphia's sailors of that time. The sloop "Three
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Brothers," when some leagues below Cape Henlopen on the way to the city, was among those meanwhile taken by the same privateer. George Porteous, the captain, being left in the sloop with his wife and young son and an old man, under the charge of three Frenchmen, Porteous in a storm, during which they lost sight of the privateer, steered the sloop to Lewes, he and the boy and the old man overmastering the Frenchmen. Bigger vessels, however, prizes on account of which this and other privateers could afford to neglect the small craft of Green and Porteous, were taken and kept. Yet the hostile vessels had eluded observation by a British ves- sel of marque which brought French prisoners to Phila- delphia on the 20th or 21st, and by the long awaited "Otter," which arrived on the 22nd. Having been sep- arated from her companions by a fog, and having been obliged to fight out at sea, this war vessel was so badly damaged that heaving down was thought imperative by the Captain. A Spanish privateer entered the river on the 25th, and her captain, noticing a large vessel at New Castle, declared that he would capture the same, and land 120 men, and plunder and burn the town. Warning was conveyed by an English prisoner, George Proctor, who escaped in the night in a shallop, and by swimming to the Jersey shore. From there, he crossed in a boat to New Castle the next morning, arriving about an hour before the privateer, flying English colors, anchored before that town. The tide and a sud- den calm prevented the boarding of a vessel in the road- stead, which was a large ship from Jamaica. The mate of that ship, the captain being in Philadelphia, had the ship's two stern guns fired, and the townspeople made use of the four guns on the platform intended for a fort; and the privateer floated off. On the receipt, that afternoon, in Philadelphia of Proctor's notice from Salem of the privateer being in the river, Captain Ballet, who, two days before, had been banqueted by the Coun-
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