USA > Pennsylvania > The provincial councillors of Pennsylvania : who held office between 1733-1776, and those earlier councillors who were some time chief magistrates of the province and their descendants > Part 30
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From the first he had little sympathy with the Revolution, although he had a property-holder's dislike of taxation, and the thought may have entered his mind that if the outcome of the contention should be the admission of delegates from the Colonies into the British Parlia- ment, he might have a career in that distinguished body. He could count on the same power which made him Speaker of the Assembly to send him there by popular vote. But representation in Parliament was never asked for by the American Whigs. According to Galloway's statement to the Committee of the House of Commons, he saw nothing
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tyrannical in the Boston Port Bill. What grievances the Colonies had, he was willing for a Congress of their chief men to talk over : as one of the Committee of Correspondence of the Assembly of Penn- sylvania, he wrote in support of such a plan; he said the Assemblies were the proper bodies to name these representatives ; and he agreed as Speaker to call a session of his House. The more pronounced ad- vocates of America's cause soon became suspicious of him. Accord- ingly, when the invitation to Pennsylvania to unite in a Continental Congress was about to be laid before the Assembly, the wire-pullers. among the Whigs bent their energies to turn public opinion so strongly in favor of union with the other Colonies that the Assembly must comply. They arranged for a Convention of county committees, which, meeting just before the House, framed a long paper of "in- structions," and in a body presented it at the sitting. The personnel of the House was not distinguished. Only a few attained any promi- nence in the affairs of Pennsylvania before or since, and John Young, gr'dson of Græme the Councillor, writes : "our Honorable House made but a scurvy appearance the day the memorial was presented to them by the Committees, it was enough to make one sweat to see a parcel of Countrymen sitting with their hats on, great coarse cloth coats, leather breeches and woolen stockings in the month of July ; there was not a speech made the whole time, whether their silence proceeded from their modesty or from their inability to speak I know not." Over these men, Galloway, with his wealth, education, and political prestige, and with some claim on their gratitude as their advocate against the Proprietaries, was both Speaker and presiding genius. A few were under the control of Chief Justice Allen (see Hamilton), member from Cumberland. His loyalty to the King could be depended on, although he had not the Quakers' scruples against taking up arms against the Ministry. Both Allen and Galloway being favorable to a General Congress, it was carried unanimously in the Assembly of Pennsylvania to send delegates. But in the choice of delegates, we see the influence of Galloway. Instead of accepting Dickinson and Wilson, whom the Convention favored, the Assembly decided to send from their own number, and put Galloway at the head of the delegation. Galloway then wrote the instructions for himself and colleagues. He tells this to the Committee of the House of Com- mons, as also how he was at first unwilling to serve, but consented to do so if the instructions were to his mind. As the Congress assem- bled, Galloway did the honors. He offered them the State House,
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but they decided to meet in the Carpenters' Hall. Bancroft narrates his conduct in Congress, beginning with the statement that he "acted as a volunteer spy for the British government." He certainly went into the Congress to exert a control over it. "To the delegates from other colonies as they arrived, he insinuated that 'commissioners with full power should repair to the British Court, after the example of the Roman, Grecian, and Macedonian colonies on occasions of the like nature.' His colleagues spurned the thought of sending envoys to dangle at the heels of a minister, and undergo the scorn of Parlia- ment." We are told that it was in secret concert with the Governor of New Jersey and Lieut. Gov. Colden of New York that he proposed in Congress a government for America to consist of a President-General appointed by the King, and holding office during his pleasure, and a Grand Council chosen once in three years by the Assemblies of the various Colonies. This celebrated Scheme is given in full in the American Archives, Fourth Series, although Congress afterwards ex- punged it from the minutes. The number of members of the Grand Council was left blank, but the design was to proportion it to the population. The Council was to meet annually ; the British Parlia- ment was to have the power of revising its acts ; and it was to have a negative upon British statutes relating to the Colonies. The idea was a British and American legislature for regulating the general affairs of America. The President-General was to execute the decrees of the Grand Council. He also had the power of vetoing them. This arrangement for arbitration between America and the Mother Coun- try, which has no little resemblance to the Constitution of the United States adopted thirteen years later, differing from it in leaving the choice of the President and the second branch of the legislature to the King and British nation, whom Galloway looked upon as the source of power, instead of to the people of the United States, whom the framers of the Constitution recognized as sovereign, was the best possi- ble suggestion from those who with sincerity professed the desire to remain under the King's government. "I am as much a friend to liberty as exists," said Galloway in presenting it, "and no man shall go further in point of fortune or in point of blood than the man who now addresses you." The plan was favored by John Jay and James Duane of New York and by Edward Rutledge of South Carolina. It was rejected, says Charles Francis Adams in notes to John Adams's Writings, by the close vote of six colonies against five ; says Bancroft, no colony but perhaps New York favored it. "With this defeat,"
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says Bancroft, "Galloway lost his mischievous importance." On October 8th, Congress passed a resolution approving of the opposition made by the people of Massachusetts to the Act of Parliament altering the government of that colony, adding that "if the same shall be at- tempted to be carried into execution by force, all America ought to support them in opposition." Galloway thought this resolution treasonable. Duane and he asked to be allowed to enter their protest, but Congress refused, and they privately took each other's certificate that they had opposed it. Galloway then proposed to Duane to leave. Congress ; but, on consulting with his friends as to his personal safety if he did so, Galloway was advised to remain. He was re-elected to the Assembly in the Fall of 1774, but changes favorable to the ad- vanced Whigs had been made in the membership of the House. He did not attend its meetings until after the report of the proceedings of Congress had been made by his colleagues, and the Assembly had voted upon them, approving them unanimously. On Dec. 15th, the Assembly unanimously chose delegates for the Congress to meet the next May, sending back the old set, including Galloway, only omitting". Samuel Rhoads, who was unable to serve, having become Mayor of the City. In the early part of the next year, Galloway published " A Candid Examination of the Mutual Claims of Great Britain and the Colonies : with a Plan of Accommodation on Constitutional Princi- ples," printed by James Rivington in New York. The preface to its reprint in London in 1780 says that in several provinces it was burnt by the common executioner. It was a defence of his Scheme of Government.
Galloway declined to serve any longer in Congress, and was not chosen in 1775 to the Assembly. He retired to his seat in Bucks. County, where, the notes to his Examination say, " he was in the utmost danger from mobs raised by Mr. Adams to hang him at his own door. Soon after, the Congress being desirous to gain him over to their measures, and hoping that this danger might induce him to change his conduct, Dr. Franklin came up to him in Bucks, and earnestly solicited he would join in their measures, but he refused." In December, 1776, he made his way to the headquarters of Gen. Howe, the British commander, and was with him in his advance through New Jersey. He applied for a pardon in accordance with the General's proclamation of November 30, offering amnesty to all who had opposed the King's authority who should within 60 days subscribe to a declaration that they would not take up arms : but the British offi-
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cers told Galloway that his conduct required no pardon. At New York, he served the army well in procuring intelligence as to the state of the country. When the capture of Philadelphia by means of an expedition to the head of the Chesapeake was planned, he advised that the fleet proceed up Delaware Bay, which would make the trip from New York so much shorter, and on its shores recruit the Tories of the Lower Counties. But his arguments had no effect. It was decided to transport the troops to the head of the Chesapeake. Although his views were not adopted, he accompanied the expedition. After Phila- delphia was taken, he was appointed Superintendent of the Police of the City and Suburbs, of the Port, and of the Prohibited Articles. Thus he was for about five months of the British occupation the head of the civil government, and he was consulted on the business of almost all the departments of the army. Offering to raise a regiment of Pro- vincial light horse, he obtained authority to raise a small troop. He found the recruits, and properly disciplined them. He also gathered a company of Bucks Co. refugees, who served without pay ; and with these two bodies, he carried on various small military enterprises against the Americans. At the evacuation of Philadelphia, he went with the British, and, in October following, he left America, never to return. In England, in June, 1779, he was examined before a com- mittee of the House of Commons on the state of affairs in America and the conduct of the War, and his testimony, which has been pub- lished, shows the greatest blundering on the part of Sir William Howe, the commander of the British army. He also printed three Letters to a Nobleman on the Conduct of the War in the Middle Colonies to prove (in opposition to what had been set up in Howe's defence), 1st, that the country was not impracticable for military ope- rations ; 2ndly, the inhabitants were not generally desirous of inde- pendence ; 3rdly, the whole failure to conquer these colonies was owing to the incompetency of the Commander-in-Chief, who had 40,874 foot and cavalry, well-appointed, veteran troops, while the Ameri- can force did not amount to 18,000, including militia, " neglected in their health, clothing, and pay." Galloway also attacked Gen. Howe's brother, the Admiral, for neglect of duty in his branch of the service in a pamphlet entitled " A Letter to the Rt. Hon. Lord Vis- count H-e on his Naval Conduct in the American War," London, 1779. He also published "Historical and Political Reflections on the American Rebellion," London, 1780.
By act of Mch. 6, 1778, the Assembly of Pennsylvania attainted
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Galloway of high treason unless he should appear by a certain time and stand trial, and provided for the sale of his estates, worth, accord- ing to his testimony before the Parliamentary committee, at least £40,000 stg. His house on the S. E. cor. of Sixth and High Street in Philadelphia was appropriated by the State of Pennsylvania as a residence for the President of the Supreme Executive Council, but was afterwards sold to Robert Morris.
In the latter years of his life, Galloway was a student of the Book of Revelation, finding in it a portrayal of the times in which he was living. In the course of the seven years preceding their publication, he wrote " Brief Commentaries upon such parts of the Revelation and Other Prophecies as immediately refer to the Present Times : in which the several Allegorical Types and Expressions of those Prophecies are translated into their Literal Meanings," published in 1802, a work of great ingenuity, originality, and ability, noteworthy also as a depart- ture from the ordinary run of Protestant commentaries, which have seen nothing in the Apocalypse but a promise of destruction to the Pope. Galloway's book is an interesting history of the Christian Church from a Protestant point of view worked out by paraphrasing the whole Revelation. The growth and triumph of Christianity, Galloway would explain, appeared to St. John at the opening of the seven seals, and the irruption of the barbarians, with the sounding of the first four trumpets. Then followed Mohammed-" and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit"-and the breaking forth of the Saracens, and after that the reign of the Ottomans. Synchronous with the last is the history of the Western Church contained in the " little book" which the angel which stood upon the sea and the earth held in his hand, and this history is given in the Eleventh Chapter of the Revelation. The Holy City, or the Church, was to be trodden under foot by the "Gentiles," which Galloway would translate " the Mohammedans and Papists," for " forty and two months," i. e. 1260 days, or years. Galloway explains the two witnesses who were to prophesy in sackcloth 1260 days to be the Old and New Testaments. " The beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit (the Revolution- ary power in France) shall make war against them " *
* "and their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city (Paris) * * three days and an half (the three and a half years from the banish- ment of the clergy from France in September, 1792, until the decree for tolerating religion in March, 1796)." After this, there was to be a purification of the Church, and, while it was being accomplished,
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there should occur another bloody revolution in France (which Gallo- way, had he lived, would have seen in 1871). In the 12th Chapter, St. John describes the Church in triumph in the Fourth Century, and the appearance of Papal Rome, whose superstition drew the bishops of the Western Church, or "the third part of the stars of heaven." The " war in heaven " was the Reformation ; after which Satan was " cast out into the earth", or to France. The beast which rose up out of the sea, in Chapter 13, was Papal Rome. The two horns of the beast which came up out of the earth were the two Committees of Safety, which had the executive power in France. This beast exer- cised all the crafts of its enemy the Pope, and caused the people to worship the spirit of heathen 'Rome, and to make "an image to the beast"-the personation of Reason by the woman of Momoro-and "to receive a mark "-the cockade-" in their right hand or in their fore- heads." The number of the beast, which is " the number of a man," is 666-DCLXVI, which Galloway, after arguing that it must equal the sum of the letters in the name of such a man as naturally indi- cates the Antichristian nation or power, suggests is LVD(o)VICV(s), the Latin for Louis, the name of so many kings of France. The first four of the vials of wrath mentioned in the 16th Chapter, Galloway thought, had been already poured out, the first upon France, called " the earth," the second upon the Papacy, called " the sea," the third upon Germany, which, he conceived, was described as "the rivers and fountains of waters," because it included more great rivers than any other country, and the fourth upon the French King. It is a pity that Galloway did not live to see that " the sun " was an image more appropriate to Napoleon, and how the power "to scorch men with fire " overthrew him at Moscow. Galloway made out that " the angel of the waters," who said "Thou art righteous, O Lord," &ct., was none other than King George III, because he presided over a nation supreme upon the ocean. The fifth, sixth, and seventh vials were yet to be poured out. The fifth was to be the further punishment of France, " the seat of the beast " and the sixth, the drying up of " the great river Euphrates," or the Turkish and Ottoman Empire, "that the way of the kings of the east," or the Russians, " might be pre- pared." There is to follow a grand confederacy of pagan idolaters, atheists, and apostates to battle against the pure remnant of the Church. This confederacy, or Babylon the Great, is to be overthrown at the pouring out of the seventh vial, apostasy and atheism are to be cast into the lake of fire, and Christ is to reign a thousand years. After this, Satan is to be unbound, and the heathen nations round
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about will rise up against God, and will be destroyed, and the general resurrection will follow. Galloway argues that the atheistical power in France was the Antichrist and the " man of sin " spoken of by St. Paul, and devotes about sixty-five pages to show that the same thing was imaged in the "little horn" of the fourth beast in the 7th Chapter of the Book of Daniel. It arose out of the midst of the ten kingdoms which came from the Roman Empire, and before it France, Holland, and Switzerland " were plucked up by the roots," it had the passions of degraded man, it uttered decrees against the Most High, and thought " to change times " (the Christian Calendar) " and laws " (morality and Natural and Revealed Religion), and the saints were given into its power "a time, times, and the dividing of time" (the three and a half years from the banishment of the clergy in the Fall of 1792 to the decree of toleration in the Spring of 1796). Galloway explained the 11th and 12th verses of the Chapter as prophesying the destruction of Romanism and the taking away of the dominion of the Babylonian, Persian, and Grecian Empires, but the survival of their idolatries " for a season and time." The book called forth a severe attack from Dean Whitaker, who expostulated against an explanation which would not keep the Pope before the world as the Antichrist. Galloway answered in another book, to explain what parts of Reve- lation did refer to the Pope : "The Prophetic or Anticipated History of the Church of Rome * Prefaced by an Address, Dedicatory, Expostulatory, and Critical to the Rev. Mr. Whitaker, Dean of Can- terbury," London, 1803. Shortly after the publication of this, Gal- loway died, at Watford, Herts, Aug. 29, 1803, bu. in the church- yard at Watford.
Issue (surname GALLOWAY) :
JOSEPH, bu. F. M. 7, 1, 1754, L. GROWDON, bu. F. M. 6, 2, 1760,
LAWRENCE GROWDON, bu. F. M. 4, 2, 1761, ELIZABETH, m. William Roberts, see below.
ELIZABETH GALLOWAY, grddau. of the Councillor, d. Apr. 7, 1815, m. William Roberts, Esq., who resided in Gloster Place, Port- man Square.
Issue (surname ROBERTS) :
ANN GRACE, d. Dec. 12, 1837, m. May 30, 1819 Benjamin Burton, Lieut. 19th lancers, d. Jany. 3, 1834, son of Sir Charles Burton of Pollacton, Co. Carlow, Bart., by his w. Hon. Catherine, dau. of John, 2nd Lord Desart,
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Growdon-Burton branch.
Issue (surname BURTON) :
CATHERINE ANNE GALLOWAY,
ADELINE SOPHIA,
CHARLES WILLIAM CUFFE, b. Jany. 13, 1823, suc- ceeded his 1st cousin, Sir Charles, as 5th bart., m. Dec. 16, 1861 Georgiana Mary, dau. of David Hali- burton Dallas,
WILLIAM ROBERT BENJAMIN LAWRENCE, d. unm. 1843,
ADOLPHUS WILLIAM DESART, b. 1827, Lieut. Col. late 7th dragoons, is C. B., m. June 11, 1863 Sophia Louisa, dau. of Gen. Sir John Slade, Bart.,
Issue (surname Burton) : Grace Ellen, b. Sep. 9, 1865, Gertrude Mary, b. Oct. 11, 1867,
AUGUSTUS, d. inf.
RICHARD PETERS.
The Rev. Richard Peters was born about 1704, and was a son of Ralph Peters, town clerk of Liverpool. Ralph Peters's wife was a sis- ter of the Thomas Preeson who m. Elizabeth Brown of Accomac, Va., and probably also sister of Joseph Preeson, the 1st husband of An- drew Hamilton's wife. From Jeremiah Langhorne's letter to Ed- mund Gibson, Bp. of London, May 28, 1736, we learn that Richard Peters was sent when very young to Westminster School, where he finished before he was fifteen, and had particular favors shown him by Dr. Froude. There it was, and at an age barely competent to contract, that he was deluded by a servant maid at the house where he lodged into a Fleet marriage; a clandestine union very common at that time, entered into before some clerical inmate of the prison, whose wretched circumstances made him independent of all penal laws requiring the publication of bans. " His parents hearing of it, altered their mind as to the remaining part of his education, and instead of sending him to Oxford, removed him to Leyden, where he was three years ; and upon his return was put to study the law under the care of Mr. Bootle
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Peters.
of the Inner Temple, by the command of his Father, against his will, for he was always inclined to go into orders. He was five years in the Inner Temple, and tho' capable of practising the law to great advant- age, yet, his religious turn of mind increasing, his Father was pre- vailed upon to let him take orders, which were conferred upon him by the late Bishop of Winchester-in the year 1730 to be deacon, and the year following at Chelsea to be priest. Some little time after, Mr. Bootle collated him to Latham Chapel, a donative in the parish of Ormskirk in the County of Lancaster and Diocese of Chester, in which neighborhood he has lived ever since, and was there taken notice of by the late Earl of Derby and intrusted with the education of two of his relations, and lived with his Lordship in his palace of Knowsley till the first of July last. During all this time, knowing in what a base manner he was tricked by the woman, he never cohabited with her, nor gave himself any trouble about her, and about three years ago upon his return from Leyden-where he had been to place the two young gentlemen, my Lord's relations-he was congratulated by his friends in a public manner for his deliverance from the woman, who, they told him, had died, while he was in Holland; and her death came con- firmed afterwards by several letters from his friends in London. Taking himself and being taken by the whole neighborhood to be at full liberty, he made his public addresses to Miss Stanley, sister to the two young gentlemen whom he had placed in Leyden, and married her, Christmas was twelve months," which would make the date of the ceremony Dec. 25, 1734. " In June last it was discovered that the woman was alive, upon which he voluntarily, with the consent of his wife,"-he meant Miss Stanley, we suppose,-" came over here." Peter Evans wrote to his brother-in-law, Rev. Dr. Thomas Moore : " Some here say he was too busy at election, which occasioned some of the adverse party who knew his former wife to send for her," she at that time working, according to Evans, as a charwoman about West- minster. He fled to Bristol, Pennsylvania, the residence of Andrew Hamilton's wife, whose first husband had been his relative on his mother's side, and afterwards he became one of Clement Plumsted's household.
He assisted the Rev. Archibald Cummings at Christ Church, Phila- delphia, and it was for a license to him to be such assistant that Lang- horne, who was not a Churchman, but a kinsman of the Bishop, wrote the letter. Evans's letter is dated in the following year, and goes on to say that " he wriggled himself into the affections of the multitude, who have generally been bred dissenters," and served Hamilton's
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Peters.
spite against the Rector, and raised dissension in the congrega- tion, finally preaching two sermons in which he withdrew from fur- ther connection with Mr. Cummings, and how a secret meeting of some vestrymen was held at a tavern, and an address to the Bp. of London was there framed in his favor. Whatever may have been the merits of the quarrel, the views of Peter Evans seem to have been held by the clergymen of the vicinity, and adopted by the Bishop. Peter's license as assistant was suspended ; and secular employment had to be found for him. In a short time he became Secretary of the Land Office ; and for more than twenty-five years continued in that capacity, being in fact real estate agent for the Proprietaries. It was his duty to prepare warrants authorizing the Surveyor-General to have the land applied for surveyed ; and upon a description of such survey being returned by that officer, and the purchase-money being paid to the Receiver-General, to make out patents conveying the full legal title. The waiving of the strict rules of the office was, however, largely in his discretion ; and that tranquility was preserved between squatters, Indians, and claimants from other colonies, and the authority of the Penn family recognized, shows how well their confidence in him was justified. In the latter part of 1738, he was one of the two com- missioners on the part of Pennsylvania for running a provisional boundary line with Maryland.
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