THE SETTLEMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Forty years before the grant of Pennsylvania to William Penn, the
western bank of the Delaware river was settled by Swedes, as we have
already related. Penn received a territory, the soil of which was
already broken by the European planter.
Of William Penn himself, one of the most remarkable men of his age, and
the greatest of the American legislators, we must be allowed to say a
few words. By his mother’s side he was of Dutch origin, and his father
was Admiral Penn, commander of the English fleet at the conquest of
Jamaica, and who afterwards distinguished himself under the Duke of York
in the war with the Dutch.
William Penn, born in 1644, was the only son of his parents. At so early
an age as eleven, as he himself relates, he was suddenly surprised “with
an inward comfort and an external glory in the belief of God, and his
communion with the soul.” His attention was first turned to the Quakers
by the preaching of Thomas Loe; and while at Oxford he and other
students withdrew themselves from the established worship, and held
their own private religious meetings. They were fined for nonconformity,
but to no purpose; and finally were expelled for refusing to wear
surplices, which custom was then revived in the college, as well as for
disrobing others of them, as a relic of popery. His father, displeased
by these religious excesses, and hoping to turn his mind from them, sent
him to travel for two years on the continent, after which he studied law
in Lincoln’s Inn. Thus, in early manhood perfected by travel and study,
he is described as being of “engaging manners, of great natural vivacity
and gay good humour, and so skilled in the use of the sword, that he
could easily disarm his antagonist.” Every worldly advantage was
prepared for him, through the influence of his father and the favour of
his sovereign. But his mind was still deeply impressed with “a sense of
the vanity of the world, and the irreligiousness of its religion.”
In 1666 he went to Ireland to manage his father’s estates, where he
became an openly professing Quaker. “God,” says he, “in his everlasting
kindness having guided my feet, in the flower of my youth, when about
two-and-twenty years of age.” Apprehended at a Quakers’ meeting held at
Cork, he and others were committed to prison, he refusing to find bail
for himself.
Admiral Penn now summoned his son home, being greatly annoyed at this
open profession of quakerism. At home, the demeanour of his son, which
exhibited all the rigid peculiarities of the sect, still further
displeased him. He tried every means; even blows, to obtain conformity;
but in vain. As regarded “hat worship,” the admiral would have been
satisfied if his son would merely have uncovered his head in presence of
the king, the Duke of York and himself; but even that the young man
would not concede. The scoffs, jeers and wonderment of his gay London
acquaintance mattered nothing to him. He bore all meekly, steadfast to
that which appeared to him the requirements of duty; and finally his
father in anger turned him out of doors penniless.
The affection of his mother preserved him from absolute want; and soon
he became quaker preacher and author; and his “Sandy Foundation Shaken”
was published, which led to his imprisonment in the Tower. Here he
remained for seven months, during which he wrote his “No Cross, No
Crown,” the most celebrated of his works. The steadfastness of his
spirit was shown by this imprisonment. In vain the good-natured Charles
II. wished to lure him to submission; he could not or would not gainsay
his conscience. After his liberation, in 1669, he was reconciled to his
father through the intervention of the Duke of York, but his adherence
to his quaker principles remained unshaken.
The following year, the Conventicle Act being passed, Penn was one of
the first sufferers under it. He was committed to Newgate for preaching
at what was called “a riotous and seditious assembly,” which was merely
one of those out-of-doors meetings which the resolute Quakers held when
driven out by force from their meeting-houses. The famous trial of Penn
and Mead at the Old Bailey followed, in which an English jury, as
resolute in the right as the Quakers themselves, asserted and maintained
the prerogative of independent judgment in defiance of the bench, though
they were fined forty marks each, and Penn was returned to prison. The
same year Admiral Penn died, testifying to his son on his death-bed,
that if the Quakers remained true to that which was in them, they would
regenerate the world.
William Penn inherited from his father property to the value of £1,500
per annum, and a claim on government to the amount of £16,000. The
following year he was again a prisoner in Newgate, one of the most
wofully noisome prisons at that time in London, where he lay for six
months.
In 1677, in company with George Fox and Robert Barclay, he paid a
“religious visit” to Holland and Germany, distributing pamphlets
wherever they went, seeds of liberty and truth, which sprang up into
after plentiful harvest. And not alone did they address the people, but
kings and princes, palatine-princes and magistrates, promulgating
everywhere the universal principle of truth, and awakening many souls to
its consciousness. The year after his return, Penn pleaded before a
committee of the House of Commons, that the affirmation of the Quaker
might be legalised instead of an oath; and an enactment for this purpose
would have passed but for the sudden prorogation of parliament.
The sufferings of the people to whom he was attached led William Penn to
seek for them an asylum in the New World, and his efforts on their
behalf were blessed, as we have seen, by their establishment in West
Jersey. This great and benevolent act, this planting of “the truth” on a
new and prolific soil, led to the extension of still more magnificent
plans of philanthropy; and in 1681 William Penn applied to Charles II.
for an extensive tract of land, lying on the other side of the Delaware,
in liquidation of the debt due to his father. Had Penn demanded the
amount of the debt itself from the lavish and impoverished monarch, he
would have asked in vain; but to ask the payment of a debt by a grant of
land was to make the thing easy to the monarch, while to William Penn
the land had fourfold the value of the money. The application was
seconded by the Duke of York, who had ever shown a friendly interest in
the son of his former naval associate. Besides which, it has been said,
that belonging to a persecuted sect himself, he had strong sympathy with
a man who, like Penn, had suffered so unflinchingly for conscience-sake.
“At length, after many waitings, watchings, solicitings and disputes in
council,” writes William Penn, “my country was confirmed to me under the
great seal of England. God will bless and make it the seal of a nation.”
Penn, now in the thirty-seventh year of his age, became the sovereign of
a vast province, which was called by the king, PENNSYLVANIA, though Penn
himself would have dispensed with the first syllable of the name, as
being a species of self-glorification; but the monarch insisted upon its
retention.
In April, 1681, Penn issued his proclamation as absolute proprietary, in
the following words, addressed to his subjects in the New World:—
“My Friends,—I wish you all happiness here and hereafter. These are to
let you know that it hath pleased God in his providence to cast you
within my lot and care. It is a business that, though I never
undertook before, yet God has given me an understanding of my duty and
an honest mind to do it uprightly. I hope you will not be troubled at
your change and the king’s choice, for you are now fixed at the mercy
of no governor that comes to make his fortune great. You shall be
governed by laws of your own making, and live a free, and if you will,
an industrious people. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress
his person. God has furnished me with a better resolution, and has
given me his grace to keep it. In short, whatever sober and free men
can reasonably desire for the security and improvement of their own
happiness, I shall heartily comply with. I beseech God to direct you
in the way of righteousness, and therein prosper you and your children
after you.—I am, your true friend, WILLIAM PENN.”
The grant to Penn made him sovereign proprietary not only of
Pennsylvania, but of the settlements of the Swedes, Dutch and English,
on the western bank of the Delaware and the mouth of the Schuylkill. A
royal proclamation, announcing this fact to these settlers, accompanied
by the letter to his new subjects above given, was immediately sent over
by William Penn by the hand of his young relative, William Markham. At
the same time companies were formed in London for commercial purposes,
and for the purchase of land and emigration; lands were sold at the rate
of 40_s._ for every 100 acres, the purchasers being entitled also to
lots in the city, all land being subject to a quit-rent of 1_s._ for
each 100 acres. In the course of the summer, three vessels of emigrants,
with three commissioners on board, set sail for the new land; but good
fortune seemed not to attend them; one was driven to the West Indies,
another frozen up on the Delaware.
Penn, though he inherited a considerable property from his father, was
not by any means a wealthy man. Owing to the liberality of his
expenditure on behalf of his suffering brethren, his circumstances were
straitened, and he had a growing family; yet such was the integrity of
his mind, that he refused £6,000 which were offered him by a London
trading company, for a monopoly of the Indian traffic between the
Delaware and the Susquehannah. Monopoly was contrary to his principles
of justice, and he replied, nobly, that “he would not abuse the love of
God, nor act unworthy of his providence, by defiling what came to him
clean.” No; his government in Pennsylvania was to be “a Holy
Experiment,” for which there was no room in England, and
self-aggrandisement, even though himself profited by it, could have no
place there.
In September, Penn sent out instructions regarding the laying out of the
new city. Wishing to avoid the fault of the cities of the Old World,
which, built during times of disquiet, were crowded within narrow
bounds, so as to be easily defended in case of need, he desired that his
new city should be laid out with ample space, allowing to each house its
garden, so as to form “a green country town.” He also sent a friendly
letter to the Indians, addressing them as brethren, as children of the
same Heavenly Father, “having the same law written in their hearts, and
alike bound to love and help to do one another good.”
The “Grand Model” constitution was not the result of more thought than
was the frame of government which the deeply religions mind of Penn
prepared for his province. According to his views, government, like
religion, was based on love, and had for its purpose the advancement and
happiness of the people, even more than the correction of evil-doers.
Although acknowledging in himself the supreme head of the state, “yet
for the matters of liberty,” said he, “I purpose that which is
extraordinary—to leave myself and successors no power of doing mischief;
that the will of one man may not hinder the good of a whole country.”
And again, “It is the great end of government to support power in
reverence with the people, and to secure the people from the abuse of
power; for liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without
liberty is slavery.” Shaftesbury counselled with Locke, and the
intellect of the age produced the “Grand Model;” Penn counselled with
Algernon Sidney and his quaker brethren, who, like himself, listened to
the Divine Voice within their own souls, and a frame of government
suitable to the “Holy Experiment” was the result; and fundamental
principles of government were acknowledged, which, though too pure for
that age and for that province even, have since become not only the
avowed basis of legislature in Pennsylvania, but in Great Britain
itself. Truth is immortal, and no “Holy Experiment” is ever tried in
vain.
According to the proposed constitution, the legislative and executive
authority was vested in a council of seventy-two persons, elected by the
freemen for three years, one-third to go out annually; the proprietary
or his deputy to preside and have a triple vote. Laws thus proposed were
to be submitted for approval or rejection to an assembly of freemen. To
this frame of government were subjoined forty “fundamental laws,” agreed
upon by Penn and his intending emigrants, religious toleration being of
course one of these. The words of this provision were:—“All persons
living in this province, who confess and acknowledge the one Almighty
and Eternal God to be the creator, upholder and ruler of the world, and
that hold themselves obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly
in civil society, shall in nowise be molested or prejudiced for their
religious persuasion or practice in matters of faith and worship.”
The proposals which Penn had published soon attracted attention; and a
“Free Society of Traders” was immediately formed, who took up, on his
terms, 20,000 acres of land, and received in consequence their
appurtenant city lots of 100 acres, constituting an entire street of the
new city. A German emigration society was also formed, and from the
neighbourhood of Frankfort and “the highlands above Worms,” where the
simple peasantry had gladly embraced quaker principles at the preaching
of Penn, Fox, and others, great numbers not only now, but for several
years, continued to flock over to the new land of hope and promise; and
Germantown, among other settlements, was founded.
In August, 1682, Penn obtained from the Duke of York a surrender of all
claims on his part to the province of Pennsylvania; and soon afterwards
a grant of the settlements on the western and southern banks of the
Delaware river and bay, which had hitherto been included in the duke’s
charter, and claimed as an appurtenance of New York. These now took the
title of “The Territories,” and furnished to Pennsylvania the important
advantage of an ocean-outlet.
These measures being secured, Penn prepared to embark, together with 100
of his friends, emigrants to the new country. Penn took leave of his
wife, the noble and beautiful daughter of Isaac Pennington, to whom he
was sincerely attached, in an affecting letter, recommending his
children to her love and care, and praying her “to live sparingly till
his debts were paid;” yet, as regarded the education of the children, to
“let it be liberal; to spare in that respect no cost, for by such
parsimony all is lost,” said he, “that is saved.”
The voyage was long and disastrous, owing to the small-pox which broke
out in the ship and destroyed one-third of the passengers. On the 27th
of October, the ship arrived at Newcastle, on the Delaware, where crowds
were gathered to receive their distinguished governor. The following
day, the surrender of the Duke of York being read in the court-house,
Penn received from the duke’s agent earth and water, in token of the
solemn delivery of “the territory” into his hands. After this, he
addressed the people, recommending to them peace and sobriety, and
assuring them on his part of liberty of conscience and civil freedom. He
then proceeded up the broad majestic Delaware to Upland, or Chester,
where again crowds of rejoicing simple people, like dwellers in Arcadia,
thronged to bid him welcome.
[Illustration: RECEPTION OF PENN.]
He found the inhabitants of this province, Swedes, Dutch and English, to
amount already to between 2,000 and 3,000—“plain, strong and industrious
people.” There were six religious societies established, three of
Swedish Lutherans and three of the Quakers. “The land itself,” he wrote,
“was good, the air clear and sweet, the springs plentiful, and
provisions good and easy to come at; an innumerable quantity of
wild-fowl and fish; in fine, what an Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would be
well contented with.”
“Tradition,” says Bancroft, “describes the journey of Penn and his
friends from Chester, in an open boat, in the earliest days of November,
to the beautiful banks, fringed with pine-trees, on which the city of
Philadelphia was soon to rise.” Markham had already began to build, on
Pennsbury Manor, “a stately brick house” as the proprietary residence.
After visits to East and West Jersey and to New York, in compliment to
his friend, the duke, and after a meeting with the Friends of Long
Island, Penn returned to Chester, where the first assembly was convened.
The body of freemen present amounted to seventy-two, and these
petitioning that they, “owing to the fewness of the people and their
unskilfulness in matters of government, might constitute both assembly
and council,” it was enacted that, in future, “the assembly should
consist of thirty-six members only, six from each county, to be chosen
annually, with a council composed of three members for each county, to
hold their seats for three years, one to be chosen each year. The
governor and council to possess, jointly, the right of proposing laws.”
This latter enactment, as regarded the power of the proprietary
governor, which was now made at the special request of the assembly,
gave rise to after dissatisfaction and reproaches against Penn as a
violation of his original engagement.
It was about this time, in the winter season, that Penn made his
celebrated treaty with the Indians, under the great elm-tree of
Shakamaxon, which was then leafless, and not heavy with foliage as
represented by West. Here Penn met the delegated Indians of the
Leni-Lenape, or Delaware confederacy, not for the purchase of land, but
to cement with them the covenant of friendship of which he had written.
He had written to them as to men and brethren, to whom the same moral
obligations referred; he had promised, and his agent Markham had carried
out the same principle, that they should be secure in their pursuits and
possessions, and that all differences should be adjusted by a peaceful
tribunal, composed of an equal number of each race. The representation
of this treaty, by West, is not accurate. Bancroft gives it to us
thus:—“The delegated chiefs of the forest, men of lofty demeanour and
grave aspect, are assembled without their weapons; the old men sit in a
half-moon upon the ground; the middle-aged are in a like figure at a
little distance behind them; the young foresters form a third semicircle
in the rear. Before them stands William Penn, graceful in the summer of
life, in dress distinguishable only from his friends, principally young
men, by whom he was surrounded, by a light blue silk sash, which was
bound round his waist.”
William Penn stood thus in the dignity of noble manhood, upright
intentions and brotherly love; and gazing around, beheld, “far as his
eye would carry,” the plumed and painted chieftains of the forest
gathering round him. It was like the realisation of Christ’s own mission
of peace and good will to man; the bow and the tomahawk of the savage
were laid aside, and the oldest sachem of the peaceful Delawares
announced to the benevolent Onas that “the nations were ready to listen
to his words, believing him to be a messenger sent to them from the
Great Spirit.”
“We meet,” said William Penn, in reply, “on the broad pathway of good
works and good will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all
shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, for parents
sometimes chide their children too severely; nor brothers only, for
brothers differ. The friendship between me and you I will not compare to
a chain, for that the rains might rust, or a falling tree break. We are
the same as if one man’s body were divided into two parts; we are all
one flesh and blood.”
The simple sons of the forest, believers in the “Great Spirit,”
comprehended these words in their inmost soul; and receiving in good
faith Penn’s presents, returned the wampum belt of peace. “We will
live,” said they, “in love with Father Onas and his children as long as
moon and sun shall endure;” and so saying, the treaty was formally
signed, the chieftains marking the emblems of their various tribes. The
purchases of Markham were ratified, and others made.
[Illustration: PENN AND THE INDIANS.]
As regards the tree which was in its prime when this group, beautiful in
the sight of heaven, stood under its branches, our readers may have an
interest in knowing that it was situate on the northern side of
Philadelphia, and was standing until March 3rd, 1810, when it was blown
down. A marble monument now marks the place where it stood. “It was a
remarkably wide-spreading rather than lofty tree, its main branch
measuring 150 feet; its age, as computed by its circles of annual
growth, was 283 years. While it stood, the Methodists and Baptists held
their summer meetings under its shade.” It was truly a “gospel tree.”
The treaty of peace made on this occasion was never broken on either
side for seventy years—as long as the Quakers retained the government of
the province. The terrible and bloody Indian war of New England was but
a few years passed; Maryland and Virginia were in a state of continual
hostility with these very Algonquin or Delaware Indians, who were
naturally inclined for peace; so also the Dutch. It remained alone for
William Penn and his friends, who believing God’s word implicitly—that
Christ’s law was one of love, not of violence—came in the guise of
peace; and through all the numerous records of quaker life in America,
even in the midst of Indian warfare and outrage, not one drop of quaker
blood was shed. To be a Quaker, to possess no “weapon of war,” was to be
safe from Indian danger. Many a beautiful and touching narrative is
related, in the early Friends’ books, of solitary dwellers in the great
woods of Virginia and Maryland, when, on the approach of the Indians,
who had left fire and desolation behind them, “the fierce dogs that
usually kept the place” were cowed into silence, and the pious people,
to use their own phraseology, “not having been free in their minds” to
take in the string which lifted the latch—their only means of
security—lay wakeful, listening to the coming footsteps of the foe, who,
on finding the latch-string trustfully outside the door, “spake a few
Indian words, and went on.”
Once only was the calm of peace disturbed. A rumour passed through the
province, in the year 1688, that 500 Indians were assembled on the
Brandywine to massacre the settlers. On this, Caleb Pusey and five other
Friends presented themselves unarmed before them, to inquire the cause
of this report. “The great God,” said the Quaker, addressing the sachem,
“who made all mankind, extends his love to Indians and English. The
rains and the dews fall alike on the ground of both; the sun shines on
us equally, and we ought to love one another.” “What you say is true,”
returned the red chieftain; “go home, and harvest the corn which God has
given you: we mean you no harm.”
In January, or the First Month, as Friends called it, of 1683, the
ground having been purchased from the Swedes, who had already a church
there, the new city was laid out on a neck of land between the
confluence of the Schuylkill and the Delaware, “a situation,” said
William Penn, “unsurpassed by any of the many places he had seen in the
world.” To the infant city, thus pleasantly situated, the name of
Philadelphia, or the City of Brotherly Love, was given. The streets were
designated from the native groves of chesnut, pine or walnut through
which they ran; and so rapid was the growth of the city, that it
contained eighty houses by the end of the year; and in two years time it
contained 2,500 inhabitants; schools were established, and a
printing-press was at work. In three years it was larger than New York
in half a century. Well might Penn observe, that he might without vanity
say that he had led the greatest colony into America that ever man did
on private credit, and that the most prosperous beginnings which ever
were are to be found among them. Well might he say so; for in 1682
alone, the year in which Philadelphia was founded, twenty-two vessels,
bringing over 2,000 persons, arrived. Many, coming late in the autumn,
took up their temporary abode in caves dug in the river banks to receive
them; and provisions falling short, they were fed, as if by Providence,
by unusual flocks of pigeons and extraordinary “draughts of fishes,”
while the friendly Indians themselves brought them game which they had
hunted.
In March, the second legislative assembly of the province was held in
Philadelphia, though many of the inhabitants as yet lived in hollow
trees. Fifty-four representatives, nine from each of the six counties,
“Swedes, Dutch and quaker preachers,” were appointed to draw up a
charter of liberties which altered and amended the previous laws;
William Penn having liberally announced at the opening of the assembly,
that as regarded the frame of government prepared in England, “they
might amend, alter, or add, and that he was ready to settle such
foundations as might be for their happiness.” This principle of
legislating for the happiness of the people was ever acknowledged by
Penn. To his dying day he declared, even though in this Eden of his
planting many poison growths had sprung up which embittered his life,
that if the people needed anything to make them happier, he would grant
it. The constitution now established was democratic, with the exception
of an hereditary proprietary, whose power, however, was controlled by
the people. As regarded a revenue, he was offered a tax on all exports,
as was the case in Maryland, the revenue of Lord Baltimore being derived
from a tax on tobacco; but this he declined, unwilling to “burden his
colony with taxes.” What a contrast is this to the views taken by the
Lords Culpepper, Arlington and Lovelace! Orphan courts were established
for administering the affairs of deceased persons, and for the
prevention of lawsuits three “peacemakers” were appointed in each
county, thus carrying out the quaker principle of arbitration instead of
action at law. Liberal and upright as was Penn’s conduct as head of a
government, a signal mistake was made by the incompatible union of two
opposing elements, democracy and feudality; Penn’s principles accorded
to his colony the utmost popular liberty, but his circumstances made him
absolute ruler. Hence for ninety years Pennsylvania was distracted with
the jarring of these two discordant elements.
Penn, soon after his arrival in America, visited Lord Baltimore in
Maryland, partly as a visit of friendship, and partly for the
arrangement of boundaries, which from the very first was an intricate
and perplexing question. The defined boundaries, both of Penn’s and
Baltimore’s charter, were inconsistent with each other, more especially
as the number of miles contained in a degree was now altered to
sixty-nine from sixty, by which measurement Baltimore’s grant had been
made. This question was no way adjusted, when Penn, in 1684, having
organised, as he hoped, a satisfactory government, entered into a treaty
of lasting peace with the natives, and seen his city and his colony
flourishing in unexampled prosperity, returned to England, “intrusting
the great seal to his friend Lloyd, one of the principal quaker
settlers, and the executive power to a committee of the council.”
As yet not a cloud dimmed the social or civil horizon of Pennsylvania;
and leaving his mansion of Pennsbury, “the sweet quiet” of which seems
to have been delicious to his soul, he thus wrote, on board, a farewell
to the people of his land of promise, which he sent to them before he
sailed:—“My love and my life,” said he, “are to you and with you, and no
water can quench it, nor distance bring it to an end. I have been with
you, cared for you, and served you with unfeigned love; and you are
beloved of me and dear to me beyond utterance. I bless you in the name
and power of the Lord, and may God bless you with his righteousness,
peace and plenty all the land over! You are come to a quiet land,”
continued he, “and liberty and authority are in your hands. Rule for Him
under whom the princes of this world will one day esteem it their honour
to govern.” Then, addressing the city which he had planted, he breaks
forth like an apostle to one of the churches: “And thou Philadelphia,
the virgin settlement of this province, my soul prays to God for thee
that thou mayst stand in the day of trial, and that thy children may be
blessed.”
William Penn reached London in October, 1684, after an absence of two
years; and the hot dispute between himself and Lord Baltimore, regarding
boundaries, was submitted to a Committee of Trade and Plantations, by
which it was decided that the so-called Territories, now constituting
the state of Delaware, and which Lord Baltimore claimed, formed no part
of Maryland. They were therefore once more formally assigned to Penn, to
whom was thus secured that outlet to the ocean which he so much coveted.
The northern line of boundary was settled the following year, and that
again to the disadvantage of Baltimore.
When the Duke of York ascended the throne as James II., Penn used his
influence with him to obtain general liberty of conscience; and through
his means 1,200 Quakers alone were liberated from imprisonment for
conscience-sake. Nor did his own people only claim his interposition of
mercy; it was suffering humanity for which he appealed, and so widely
extended was the reputation of his philanthropy and power, that all the
oppressed thronged to him for aid; even Massachusetts, just then in the
agony of losing her charter, sent to the head of “the abominable sect of
Quakers” to beseech his interference on their behalf with the king. And
though he could not save the chartered liberties of the other
sister-states, yet so great was the esteem with which the monarch
regarded him, that Pennsylvania was the only one against whose charter a
_quo warranto_ was not issued.
[Illustration: PENN’S DEPARTURE.]
It has been endeavoured to throw obloquy on Penn’s name from his
political connexion with James II.; but as the tree must be known by its
fruits, Penn’s reputation may safely be left to the test of his works.
He founded a state based on the most liberal principles; self-exaltation
or self-aggrandisement never formed a part of his plan; and the
soundness of his legislative wisdom is shown by the fundamental
principles of his government remaining to be those of Pennsylvania to
the present time. Penn’s happiness in his province was, like all human
happiness, of a very mixed character. Discontents and heart-burnings
arose; a democratic assembly warred against a feudal proprietary, each
wronging the other, because they were brought into unnatural
juxtaposition. Besides the anxieties arising from the dissatisfied
condition of a province which he had established with so much care and
hope, Penn was harassed by embarrassed circumstances. Nobly refusing a
revenue from his state, he was imprisoned for debt in his advancing
years; and, to add still further to his distress, when his friend James
II. was deposed, and an exile in France, he was imprisoned on an
unsupported charge of keeping up a treasonable correspondence with him.
In 1692, the government of Pennsylvania was taken from him, and placed
in the hands of Fletcher, governor of New York. Two years afterwards,
the suspicions against him being removed, he was restored to his
rights—“the Territories,” or three lower counties on the Delaware, which
in 1691 had withdrawn from their connexion with Pennsylvania and been
indulged with a deputy-governor by Penn, now becoming once more a
portion of his jurisdiction, having been reunited to the larger state by
Fletcher, during his governorship.
The only drawback that appears in the character of the philanthropic
legislator of Pennsylvania, is at the same time so incongruous with the
spirit of his life and actions, that it seems to stand forth in
startling deformity. This refers to negro slaves, whom he held
apparently without much sense of injustice. True, he used his influence
to insure the slave “moral and religious culture, and the rights and
comforts of domestic life,” yet, when he was unsuccessful in so doing,
he continued to hold slaves, as, indeed, did other Friends. The poor
Germans, “the little handful of Friends from the highlands above the
Rhine,” in accordance with the doctrines of George Fox, were the only
body in Pennsylvania who at that time saw clearly that it was not lawful
for Christians to keep slaves. The unlettered Swedes, half a century
before, who settled on the western bank of the Delaware, and now were
numbered among William Penn’s people had, however, early borne their
testimony against slavery. “The Swedes,” said they, arguing from the
sound principle of human nature, “will gain more with a free people,
with wives and children, than by slaves, who labour with reluctance and
soon perish by hard usage.” The simple wisdom of these peasants was, in
this respect, superior to the wisdom of more elevated men whether of
that age or the present.