USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania, colonial and federal : a history, 1608-1903, Volume One > Part 39
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43
After the publication of Dickinson's and Galloway's speeches upon the change of government, the former, who went so far as to challenge the latter to a duel, which was declined, printed a .
546
Attempt to Change the Government
fierce invective against Galloway, charging him with extortion and various dishonorable practices. At the October election the opponents of the change of government had the support of the Presbyterians, to whom the important question was defending the province and particularly their brethren on the frontiers, and mattered comparatively little whether the Proprietaries or the richer inhabitants paid for it, and who feared that under the Crown the Church of England might become established. Dick- inson was re-elected to the Assembly, as was Norris against his expressed wish. Galloway and Franklin were defeated, the latter by 25 majority out of 4,000 votes; and only two out of the ten representatives from Philadelphia city and county were in favor of the change of government. Norris was accordingly again chosen Speaker. But the majority of the Bucks and Chester del- egation remained against Proprietary authority, and the Assembly not only refused to recall the petition to the King, the vote stand- ing 10 to 22, but even to delay its presentation, as asked by Nor- ris, this vote standing 12 to 20, and, after Norris had again and finally resigned the speakership, and Joseph Fox had succeeded him, furthermore appointed Franklin as an additional agent in London, and directed him to go with all dispatch, and his ex- penses to be paid. In all these votes, George Taylor from North- ampton county, afterwards a signer of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, was with the minority, and John Morton joined it as to the last proposition. The majority which wished to divest the Founder's descendants of their authority were the strict fol- lowers of the Founder's religion. Nathaniel Pennock, William Rodman, Charles Humphreys, and Isaac Pearson were among them. Penn granted a church charter to the Lutherans with the design of drawing that vote away from the Quakers, but subse- quently wrote : "There is no resisting the intrigues of the Yearly Meeting." Franklin sailed for England on November 8, 1764, being escorted by three hundred admirers to Chester, where he embarked. He took with him a copy of a resolution which the
547
Pennsylvania Colonial and Federal
Assembly upon hearing of Grenville's proposal of a stamp act or some other means of revenue had passed, acknowledging it a duty to grant aid to the Crown according to ability whenever required in the usual constitutional manner.
George Croghan, the deputy agent for Indian affairs, went to Fort Pitt in February, 1765, and spent some months in negotiat- ing with the Delawares, Shawanees, Senecas, and Sandusky In- dians to induce them to perform their engagements with Bouquet by delivering all the English and negroes remaining in their vil- lages, and by sending deputies to Sir William Johnson to ratify a lasting peace. At one of the pow-wows, Kyashuta, a Seneca chief, asked for a restoration of the sale of powder, lead, and rum, which had been prohibited a year or two before the recent troubles. He said : "You make rum, and have taught us to drink it : you are fond of it yourselves; therefore don't deprive us of it." Cro- ghan obtained the release of many captives, and brought about the meeting with Johnson, whereby on May 8, a definite treaty of peace was made with the Delawares. Croghan's subsequent jour- ney to the Illinois country, on which he was captured and nar- rowly escaped being burnt alive, resulted in the coming of Pon- tiac himself, who had found his schemes hopeless, to Johnson on July 23, 1766.
On setting out for Fort Pitt, Croghan had given a pass for Baynton and Wharton's goods to be brought with the remainder of his presents for the Indians by Captain Callender ; but the peo- ple of Cumberland county took the law into their own hands to prevent warlike stores being supplied to savages recently in arms. The goods were packed on eighty-one horses. On March 6, a large company started from the house of William Smith, one of the county justices, and came up with this caravan at Sideling Hill, about 17 miles beyond Fort Loudoun, and burned or pil- laged sixty-three of the horse loads. A sergeant and twelve men of the Highlanders, sent from the fort, went through the neigh- borhood, saved the rest of the goods, and captured several persons. .
548
Attempt to Change the Government
and five rifles and four smooth guns. Justice Smith's relative, James Smith, formerly a lieutenant in the Provincial troops, ap- peared in a few days with a mob, and declared that they would die to a man rather than let the prisoners be put into Carlisle jail. Horses laden with liquors, etc., for the troops at Fort Pitt, under a pass from the commander there, arriving at Fort Loudoun about the Ist of May, had been relieved of their burden within the latter fort, and taken by their drivers out to pasture, when thirty men with their faces blackened came upon them, flogged the drivers, killed five horses, and burned all the saddles. Alarm being given, a sergeant and twelve men started from the fort, and in a battle which ensued one of the inhabitants was wounded. Another time did James Smith bring a mob to the fort, then being accompanied by three justices who demanded to search the goods. Lieutenant Charles Grant of the Highlanders, the com- mander, explained that the General had committed the goods to his care, but had ordered an inventory to be taken before a justice of the peace; this however could not be done in the presence of a mob. Justice Smith replied that he would not come again for that purpose, as he was not bound to obey the General, and con- tended that a military officer's pass was not sufficient without a magistrate's pass. Subsequently Justice Smith issued several passes through the neighborhood. The vigilance men threw off the restraints of decent appearance by issuing the following : "Advertisement. These are to give notice to all our Loyal Vol- unteers, to those that has not yet enlisted, you are to come to our Town and come to our Tavern and fill your Belly's with Liquor and your Mouth with swearing, and you will have your pass, but if not, your Back must be whipt and your mouth be gagged.
We will have Grant, the officer of Loudon, whip'd or hanged. The Governor will pardon our Crimes, and the Clergy will give us absolution, and the Country will stand by us ; so we may do what we please free toleration for drink- ing, swearing, sabbath breaking, and any outrage what we have
549
Pennsylvania Colonial and Federal
a mind to, to let those Strangers know their place. We call it Hell's town, in Cumberland county, the 25th May, 1765. Peters Township The crowning deed was on May 28. Lieutenant Grant, while riding about a mile from the fort, was fired at, and the horse starting, and he being thrown, he was seized by James Smith and others, taken six miles off, kept all night in the woods, and threatened with being carried to the mountains and detained there, and the fort taken by force unless he would give up the arms captured from the rioters. Upon Grant refusing and saying that those who put such threats into execution would be treated as rebels, they replied that they were ready for rebellion, and would take him to Carolina; but after travelling eight miles he was set at liberty on giving a bond for 40l. if he should not deliver the arms in five weeks. There is a letter printed among the Pennsylvania archives from James Smith dated June 19 : "Sir : The arms that are detained in Loudon, you may keep them, keep them, keep them."
On June 4, 1765, Governor Penn declared trade with the In- dians open from June 20 to all inhabitants of the province who should apply for and obtain his license, and requiring all the King's subjects to permit any person with such license to travel to Fort Pitt with his goods, and any person with the pass of the com- manding officer of any garrison to transport military stores.
When the Stamp Act was passed, Grenville, to conciliate the Americans, asked their agents to suggest the person to have the sale of the stamps in their respective colonies. Franklin named his friend John Hughes, who in the Assembly had been voting with the opponents of the Proprietaries; and much capital did Franklin's enemies try to make out of this participation in the introduction of the stamps, while Hughes and Galloway tried to lay the blame for the popular outburst upon the Proprietary party in both contrivance and connivance, Hughes writing to Lon- don that if the government were taken from the Penns, and a Governor who knew the people appointed, Pennsylvania could -
550
Attempt to Change the Government
easily be kept in order. The Quakers and the Baptists and such Church of England people as were not controlled by the Proprie- taries were, he said, willing to obey the stamp law.
Upon suggestion by the Massachusetts Assembly that the va- rious Houses of Representatives or Burgesses in America send committees to a meeting in New York on the first Tuesday of October, 1765, to consider a united representation to the King and Parliament, the Assembly of Pennsylvania decided unani- mously that it ought to remonstrate against the Stamp Act, and appointed as committee the Speaker and Dickinson with George Bryan and John Morton. Nine resolutions on the subject of the "unconstitutional impositions" were unanimously passed.
Hughes was afraid of being mobbed, and on the night of Sep- tember 16, when there were bonfires on account of the change in the Ministry, he was armed watching for an attack on his house; there were several relatives with Mrs. Franklin at the Doctor's, while eight hundred of their friends were distributed through the streets; but at midnight those whom they feared dispersed after burning a "stamp man" in effigy. Hughes wrote to Governor John Penn and to Dickeson, the master of the ship which brought the stamps, that he had received no commission to take charge of them. The ship then lay at New Castle for fear of injury, but on October 5 she sailed up the river to Philadelphia, accompanied by a man-of-war. All the vessels in the harbor put their flags at half mast, the bells of the State House and Christ Church were muffled and tolled until evening, and two negroes with drums summoned the people to a meeting at the State House, which sent Robert Morris, Charles Thomson, and others to Hughes, who was very ill at home, asking him to resign, or at least to promise not to execute his office. The crowd, Hughes said, was stirred up by the son of Franklin's great enemy, Chief-Justice Allen, and threats were made against Hughes's person and property. On the following Monday he gave assurance that neither he nor his deputies would act until the King's pleasure be known, or the law
55I
Pennsylvania Colonial and Federal
be put into execution in the other colonies, or the Governor com- mand him. Those who held the interview with Hughes declared : "We will see who will dare put the act into execution; 'upon the Governor's appointment'-we will take care of that." It was re- . ported that the Governor left the city the day the vessel arrived.
Old Foot Warmer
Used in churches during the 18th century. Photo- graphed especially for this work by J. F. Sachse
On Monday or Tuesday, he had the stamps put upon the man-of- war. Hughes wrote soon after to the Commissioners of the Stamp Office that he would perform his duties if his hands were sufficiently strengthened ; but in due time he resigned.
The Speaker, Fox, did not go to New York, and Dickinson was called home by urgent business. At the election in October, 1765, Galloway was returned from Philadelphia county, but James -
552
Attempt to Change the Government
Pemberton and George Bryan received an equal number of votes, resulting in a second election, at which Pemberton was chosen.
On November 7, 1765, the merchants of Philadelphia assem- bled at the Court House, adopted non-importation resolutions which were embodied in an agreement soon signed by almost everybody who could be described as a merchant or trader, set- ting forth that the difficulties they labored under were owing to the restrictions, prohibitions, and ill advised resolutions in recent acts of Parliament. These measures had limited the exportation of some of the produce, increased the expense of many imported articles, and cut off the means of supplying themselves with suffi- cient specie even to pay the duties imposed. The province was heavily in debt to Great Britain for importations and the Stamp Act would tend to prevent remittances, and so, it was hoped that the people of the province would be frugal in the consumption of all manufactures except those of America or of Ireland coming directly from thence, and that the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain would find it to their interest to befriend them; therefore the subscribers agreed and pledged their honor to direct all goods to be ordered from Great Britain not to be shipped, and to cancel all former orders until the Stamp Act be repealed, the ships already cleared for Great Britain owned by the merchants being allowed to bring back the usual bulky articles, but no dry goods except dye stuffs and utensils necessary for carrying on manufactures, and furthermore to sell no articles sent on com- mission after January I. The committee which circulated this agreement for signatures, and was appointed to see to its being carried out, was composed of Thomas Willing, Samuel Mifflin, Thomas Montgomery, Samuel Howell, Samuel Wharton, John Rhea, William Fisher, Joshua Fisher, Peter Chevalier, Benjamin Fuller, and Abel James. The shopkeepers also met and agreed to buy no British goods until the repeal of the act.
On November 16, at 7 o'clock at night, Fort Loudoun was at- tacked by rioters, who, increasing in numbers, kept firing at it
553
Pennsylvania Colonial and Federal
until the afternoon of the 18th, when William McDowell said that if Lieutenant Grant would let him have the captured arms he would give a receipt to hold them subject to the Governor's orders. As the General had written to have the arms surrendered when the Governor required, and Lieutenant Grant had little ammuni- tion, and did not know when reënforcements would arrive, the arms were given to McDowell, and the receipt taken. James Smith and Samuel Owens then gave bond not to interrupt any person going or coming thereafter. Ensign Herring with thirty soldiers from Fort Bedford arrived two hours later. With this escort the garrison of Fort Loudoun retired to Fort Bedford.
The Assembly on January 14, 1766, addressed the House of Commons in favor of a repeal of the act of 4 George III prohib- iting bills of credit thereafter issued from being a legal tender. It was pointed out that without a proper medium of circulating cash, the trade of the colony must return to mere barter, as it had largely been before the paper money was introduced; that the trade to foreign ports, from whence the merchants formerly im- ported gold and silver, was obstructed by the high duties on the produce of those ports, and, even when such should be reduced, the gold and silver would be shipped to England in discharge of debts due in the Mother Country ; that as every debtor's person could be taken for debt, every American would be liable to im- prisonment at the pleasure of his creditor ; that the future of the importation of British manufactures depended on this liberty of issuing paper money, with the increase or diminution of which and of foreign gold and silver the importations from Great Brit- ain had increased or diminished; in 1760 they were largest, the bills of credit outstanding amounting to 500,000l., now the bills amounted to about 293,000l., and before the year 1773 all now current would be withdrawn from circulation, and it was feared the commerce with the Mother Country would "languish and ex- pire with them." On account of the scarcity of money, the debt on the province, the exhausted state of the funds, and the diffi- .
554
Attempt to Change the Government
culty of raising any, the Assembly the next day declined to aid the sufferers from the fire at Montreal; and at this time steps were taken to build a new almshouse in Philadelphia. Several mer- chants formed an association for issuing notes payable to bearer in lieu of money ; but a large number of persons remonstrated against this, telling the Assembly that they conceived "the power and right of striking bills of credit as money or otherwise form- ing a general currency, is and ought to be lodged in the legisla- ture of the province alone, and that no man or companies of men ought to be permitted to act in derogation or diminution of that power."
Governor Penn removed William Smith from the magistracy of Cumberland county, from avenging which upon Baynton and Wharton's remaining goods, his friends were with trouble re- strained. Humiliating to General Gage and Governor Penn as were these insults to the King's uniform and the inability to pun- ish them, there was more serious concern in the obstruction of communication for traders with their goods to reach the Illinois country, where the French across the Mississippi were ready to obtain an influence by commerce. While the allegiance of the Indians was thus jeopardized, white men began to creep over the mountains, and encroach upon land not yet sold by the aborigines. So Red Stone settlement was made, at the risk of another Indian war. Gage sent a detachment of Highlanders to this region to compel all whites west of the Alleghanies to return to their own provinces ; but those who left went back again with others some months later.
In February of this year, Franklin, still in England as an agent for Pennsylvania, was examined before the House of Com- mons. He said that there was not enough gold and silver in the colonies to pay the stamp duty for a year. He told of the heavy taxes laid upon Pennsylvania by its own laws, the desolation of the frontier counties, the impracticability of the people providing themselves with stamps, etc., and gave as his opinion that the
555
Pennsylvania Colonial and Federal
people of America would never submit to paying the stamp duty unless compelled by force. He estimated the white population of Pennsylvania to be about 160,000, one-third of them, perhaps, being Quakers, and another third, perhaps, being Germans. The imports of Pennsylvania from Great Britain had been computed at above 500,000l .; its exports thither, he did not suppose could exceed 40.000l. The remainder was paid by its produce carried to the West Indies, and sold in Britain's islands there or to the French, Spaniards, Danes, and Dutch, or carried to other colonies in North America, as New England, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Carolina, and Georgia, or carried to different parts of Europe, as Spain, Portugal, and Italy; in all which places were received either money, bills of exchange, or commodities which suited for remittance to Britain, which, together with all the profits on the industry of the merchants and mariners arising in those circuitous voyages and the freights made by their ships, did centre finally in Britain to discharge the remainder, and pay for British manu- factures continually used in the provinces or sold to foreigners by our traders. In his other answers, Franklin impressed Parlia- ment with the state of feeling in America, the capacity of the Americans to do for themselves, and covertly their fighting strength. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act on February 18, 1766. Conway, one of the Secretaries of State, announcing this to Governor Penn, instructed him to assure the Assembly of the King's "approbation of the wise and prudent, as well as dutiful behavior, which the province of Pennsylvania has held amidst the too prevailing distractions which have so greatly agitated the other colonies."
John Penn on May 31, 1766, married Miss Anne Allen, niece of his predecessor in office, James Hamilton, and daughter of Chief Justice Allen, supposed to be then the richest man in the colony.
Galloway in 1766 became Speaker of the Assembly, in which position he continued nine years.
556
Attempt to Change the Government
Three items are worthy of note as showing the manners or morals of the community or different portions of it at this period. In November, 1766, a Jockey Club was started with about eighty members, Richard Penn, John's brother, being president, to "en- courage the breeding of good horses and to promote the pleasures of the turf." The members subscribed upwards of 3l. each per annum, and in October of each year there were races for the gen-
Family Bread Basket
Used by German settlers. Photographed espe- cially for this work by J. F. Sachse
tlemen's purse of 100 guineas, the sweepstakes of 25 guineas, the ladies' purse (for colts and fillies), and the City plate of 50l. con- tributed by the vintners, innkeepers, etc., benefited by the con- course of strangers. The club lasted until the Revolution. How- ever, upon the remonstrance from a great number of persons of different religious denominations, the Assembly on February 18, 1767, thus addressed the Governor : "That taking into their most serious consideration the pernicious tendency of stage plays and theatrical performances in a young colony laboring under a heavy debt to the Mother Country, besides burthensome taxes to dis- charge the expence of the last war, they cannot avoid expressing the deepest concern to find a theatre lately erected in the suburbs
557
Pennsylvania Colonial and Federal
of this city, and exhibitions of that kind repeated three times a week. That the remarkable prosperity of this province during its infant state as well as the late flourishing circumstances thereof has been under the favor of Divine Providence chiefly owing to the sobriety, frugality, and industry of the inhabitants. That the House conceive theatrical performances in this infant colony will necessarily introduce idleness, prodigality, and dissipation among the people and more especially among those who are the least able to support the expence ; that they ensnare the minds of the young and unwary, and divert others, who may be industriously dis- posed, from a due regard to those commendable virtues to which the welfare of the colony may be justly attributed, and which are evidently necessary to render them good and useful members of society. That the House, therefore, beg leave earnestly to en- treat your Honor to exert your authority to discourage and put an end to those performances, which can answer no good purpose. but manifestly tend to the impoverishment of many and to destroy those principles of frugality, industry, and virtue upon which the future prosperity of the Province essentially depends." This was prepared by a committee consisting of Thomas Livezey, Fox, Pemberton, Rodman, and Ashbridge. The Governor replied that he would consider it, and "act agreeable to his judgment without regard to persons or parties." At this very period, although a law of the province had prohibited lotteries, it was usual to raise money for church building by a lottery specially authorized by an act of Assembly, until the Assembly on January 26, 1769, voted to receive no more petitions for such acts, and recommended to succeeding Assemblies that no future lotteries be authorized ex- cept for the uses of the province; and this remaining chance for having one take place was destroyed by the King on March 6 of that year, when, by advice of the Privy Council, although he al- lowed an act for so raising 5,250l. to purchase a public landing and clean the streets of Philadelphia, he ordered the Governor on no pretense whatever to give consent to any future act for raising
558
Attempt to Change the Government
sums of money in that way without previously writing to ascer- tain the royal pleasure concerning it.
In the beginning of 1767 the British Ministry were prepared to allow a repeal of the act of Parliament preventing the paper money of the colonies from being a legal tender. It was planned to make the interest arising from the loans on which the bills were issued a revenue disposable by Parliament, but Franklin assured those who suggested this that no colony would make money on those terms; the Assemblies would never establish such funds as to make themselves unnecessary to government. Pennsylvania standing in a better light before the House of Commons than other colonies, Franklin suggested to the merchants engaged in Amer- ican trade that a petition which he had drawn might be sent in for the repeal of the act so far as Pennsylvania money was con- cerned, and this, being passed in a humor to discriminate against the other colonies, could afterwards be used as a precedent when the resentment should subside. The merchants, although willing that those trading to Philadelphia should do as they pleased, were rather averse to this, and the matter was temporarily dropped.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.