be accounted for by him, as is the case with all public revenues.

We have noticed thus far the regular in crease of the revenue derived from this source, and the farther we advance the more rapid will its growth and development be made to appear. In a printed letter to a member of Parliament concerning the debts of the nation, published in 1701, the net revenue of the post office for the year 1699 is said to have been £90,504 10s. 6d. It was still at this time a part of the king's private rev

enue.

The correspondence of Scotland was found unable at this time to support itself, and King William, in consequence, made a grant of the whole revenue to Sir William Sinclair, with a pension of £300 a year. Finding it to operate disadvantageously to his interest, Sir William gave up the grant. The revenue arising to the government became soon after, however, very considerable.

One general post-office, as well as one general postmaster, was appointed for the United Kingdom in 1711, and all former laws repealed. The chief letter offices were located at Dublin, Edinburgh, New-York, and the West Indies. The postage on letters was increased, and the revenue, including the penny post, amounted to £111,461 178. 10d.

Eleven years after this, from an abstract of the public debts, by Archibald Hutcheson, Esq., it appears that

The gross amount of the P. O.

annual revenue was......

To be deducted

for frank cov

ers to letters £33,397 12 3 Expense of man

agement.... 70,396 1 5

or prorogation of the same, the whole of the superscription being in the handwriting of a member of the House of Lords or Commons." The forgery of franks was, by the same act, rendered punishable by transportation for seven years.

The postage of franked letters, on an average of several years, was equal to £170,000 a year, as appeared from an examination previous to the passage of this act. Under the new regulation a great portion of this large amount was added to the revenue. The gross revenue of the post-office this year amounted to £281,535. As we have seen, it was farmed in the year 1664 for £21,500; and twenty years earlier it was estimated at only £5,000. The increase of commerce, and the increased facility and dispatch in the conveyance of letters, necessarily promoted the increase of correspondence.

The rates of postage were increased in 1765, and ships bringing letters were obliged to deliver them at the post-office. The postmastergeneral was empowered to establish penny posts in any part of the kingdom he thought proper, and it was made felony to be found guilty of the embezzlement of letters, or of committing a robbery upon the mail.

PENNSYLVANIA.-ITS EARLY HISTORY, AND PROGRESS IN POPULATION, COMMERCE, TRADE, MANUFACTURES, AGRICULTURE, EDUCATION, &C.-Pennsylvania is the only state in the Union which bears, and transmits to future £201,804 1 8 ages, the name of a private individual. It is known that the natural modesty of William Penn earnestly declined the honor of having his name latinized into that of a great Ameri can province; but Charles II. of England insisted upon Pennsylvania, as being the most beautiful and appropriate name that could then be devised. It must be admitted, however, that the territory in question has now lost much of the sylvan character that it must have possessed in the days of Charles II. However great Penn's obligations may have been to the "merry monarch" for the honor conveyed in the name Pennsylvania, it is quite certain that the soil of the territory ceded to Penn, by Charles II, was far from being a gift.

£103,793 13 8

Net produce for 1722.... £98,010 8 0 Up to this time members of Parliament and other privileged persons were accustomed to frank letters by signing their names on the corners of blank covers. To this manner of ranking there seems to have been many objections, apart from its being subject to forgery. Of one fact there appears to be no doubt, that the revenues of the office were greatly injured from its operation. It was discovered, among other things, that the servants of members would solicit and receive from their masters large quantities of these franks, and would then dispose of them to persons who made a business of openly selling them in the streets. It was therefore enacted, that after the 1st of May, 1764, " no letters should be exempted from postage but such as not exceeded 2 oz. in weight, sent to any part of Great Britain or Ireland during the session of Parliament, or within forty days before, or forty days after, any summons

William Penn inherited from his father, Admiral Penn, who acquired some distinction as commander of the English fleet at the conquest of Jamaica, and in the subsequent war with the Dutch, a large fortune, to which he added remarkable abilities, both natural and acquired. His education, however, was somewhat irregular, owing to circumstances resulting from his stubborn inflexibility of purpose in all things, and particularly in regard to his religious principles. While a student at Oxford he imbibed the principles of the Quakers, and he is said to have been expelled from the University "because he would per

in various directions, until finally the whole territory occupied by them extended from Cape Henlopen to the falls of the Delaware, opposite Trenton, and to this tract of country they gave the name of New-Sweden.

sist in pulling from the backs of his feliow-ernor, John Printz, as the place of his resi students those popish and unnecessary badges, dence. The first Swedish settlement in their gowns." America was that formed by the colony sent Among other things which Penn inherited out by Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, from his father-and this was, in the end, his in 1638, on Christiana Creek, near Wilming greatest inheritance-was a claim against the ton. From this place, in order to preserve government, of £16,000, of which the Admiral ther as ndency over the Dutch, who were had been plundered at the shutting up of the jealous of them, and looked upon them as inExchequer. This claim, for which there was truders, they had extended their settlements little hope of ever getting any thing, (as Charles II. was notoriously extravagant, profligate, always in want of money, and, like all such men and monarchs, slow in paying debts,) was the real cause of Penn's coming to America, though the reiterated persecu tions and imprisonments to which his peculiar religious notions exposed him may have had some influence. Penn, as a last chance of getting any thing for his claim, proposed to accept a grant of American territory, which was at that time very abundant, and not particularly valuable. To obtain, however, even such a liquidation of the claim as this, required some tact and exertion.

The first work of Penn was to conciliate the Swedes. Accordingly he commenced by sending among them the royal proclamation, announcing the recent grant to him, along with a proclamation of his own, in which he assured his new subjects that they should "live free under laws of their own making." Penn's object in coming to America was not gain or power altogether, for his ambition did not stop at such objects. He had a higher and nobler aim--that of opening an asylum in the New World, where those deprived of civil and religious liberty in the Old might find a peaceful home.

Penn was fortunate in having the support of the Duke of York, who had always been the particular friend of the late Admiral, his father, and who was always an admirer of the principles of non-resistance, though not the To induce emigration, he published a flatQuakerism, of the son. William Penn him-tering account of the province, and offered to self, though mild, gentle, and anti-bellicose, sell lands to settlers at the rate of one hunwas far from unskilful, as his biographers tell dred acres for $10.* Three ships filled with us, in the arts of a courtier, which he prac- emigrants, mostly Quakers, left England for tised, in the present case, with double energy America the same year in which the charter and effect in his guise of drab-colored Quaker was granted, 1681. The first vessel took out plainness. After the usual vexations and de- William Markham, as agent, proprietor, and lays of all suitors for governmont favor or jus- deputy-governor. Only one of these vessels tice, he finally succeeded, and on the 4th of arrived safe, one having been blown off to the March, 1681, in the thirty-seventh year of West Indies, and another was frozen up in his age, was constituted, by a royal charter, the Delaware. Markham carried out with "sovereign of a great American province himself three commissioners, together with s called Pennsylvania." The charter created plan of a city which Penn proposed to build, him "true and absolute lord” of Pennsylvania, with property in the soil, and ample powers of government, with the exception, that "the In the following year, 1682, Penn drew up advice and consent of the freemen of the what he called a "Frame of Government" and province" were necessary to the enactment of a code of laws, which were to be submitted laws. There were also some other exceptions to the colonists for their approval. His "Frame which were common to all, or to the most of of Government" Penn pronounced "extraor the other provinces. dinary," because of the "matter of liberty and At the time of Penn's receiving his charter privilege" which it contained; and because, there were already within the limits of Penn-he further states, of its leaving to himself and sylvania quite a number of settlements. At his successors "no power of doing mischiefthe mouth of the Schuylkill dwelt a large that the will of one man may not hinder the number of Swedes and Dutch, and the English good of the whole country." By this "frame" had settled along the west bank of the Dela- or constitution of Penn, the executive authorware, under grants from the governors of New-York.

and a letter of friendship from Penn to the Indians, whom he addressed as "brethren."

ity and the proposal of all laws were to be vested in a council of 72 persons, elected by freemen for three years, and one third of them to go out of office annually. The proprietary

Pennsylvania was colonized by the Swedes nearly forty years before William Penn received his grant of the territory from Charles II. As early as 1643, the Swedes had erected a fort on the island of Tinicum, in the Delaware river, a few miles below Philadelphia; purchasers were also to hold lots in a city to be laid and this island also was chosen by their gov-out.

* The lands were, however, subject to a perpetual quit-rent of about 2 mills on each acre; and the

or his deputy was to preside over this council, and have a triple vote. All laws passed by this council were to be submitted to an assembly of from 200 to 500 members, chosen by the people. At first the entire body of freemen composed this assembly.

with death. County courts were established for the administration of justice, with trial by jury. The right of primogeniture was only partially abrogated, the oldest son being allowed, as in New-England, a double share of

all his father's lands.

Penn also obtained from the Duke of York, All the laws regarding property, crimes, who claimed some territories on the west bank and the rights of citizens, comprised a code, of the Delaware, a quit-claim to Pennsyl- called the "Great Law;" and there was a vania, and a grant of a circle of territory of special provision, that the substance of all the twelve miles around Newcastle, together with laws should be taught in all the schools-an all the territory now embraced in the state of idea that it would be well to adopt at the Delaware. Having made these arrangements, present day. A knowledge of the laws of he set sail from England in September, 1682, our own country is indispensable, and in all with one hundred emigrants. Twenty-three of our schools a correct idea of the substance other ships followed him in the same year, and of them might, and ought to be imparted to all arrived safely. Penn landed at Newcastle the pupils. The idea that a pupil cannot learn with only seventy of his emigrants, thirty any thing about laws except in a law-school, having died of small-pox on the passage. The is only ridiculous. Pupils are often inquisitive number of people then in Pennsylvania was regarding the law on various subjects, and between two and three thousand-all, as they are generally put off, by being told that Penn says, "a plain, stout, industrious peo- when they are a little older they can study ple," and the land abounding in all that "an law. William Penn's idea of this matter, in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would be well 1682, was the correct one, and we would like contented with." The first business of Penn to see it adopted at the present day. It would after his arrrival was to call together the be a most salutary reform in our schools if members of the first Assembly of the prov- William Penn's idea could be adopted. ince. Instead of an attendance of the entire body of the freemen of the different counties, as Penn's "Frame of Government" proposed, there came only seventy-two delegates from the people of the entire province, bearing a petition to Penn that they might be considered as constituting both council and assembly. The reasons assigned for this entire disregard of the "Frame of Government" were "the fewness of the people, their inability in estate, and unskilfulness in matters of government." Penn, therefore, to meet these difficulties, remodelled his "Frame of Government," so that the assembly was to consist of thirty-six members only; and the council, of three members from each county; also he himself, or his deputy, when presiding, was no longer restricted to a triple vote, as before.

Several enactments were made. One naturalized the Dutch and Swedish settlers; another made every freeholder and tax-payer a freeman, with theright of voting and holding office: "faith in Christ," though, was an indispensable qualification. Toleration was extended to all who believed in the existence of God, whom they were allowed to worship after their own manner, except that none were allowed to labor on the Sabbath. This promised toleration, however, was not extended to the Roman Catholics, at least in the early days of the colony.*

The offenses expressly prohibited and severely punished were, "drinking healths, prizes, stage-plays, cards, dice, May-games, masques, revels." The criminal code was mild, murder being the only crime punishable

* See Hildreth's Hist. of U. S., p. 86.

After thus establishing the government and laws of the province, Penn hastened to Newcastle to confer with Lord Baltimore regarding the southern boundary of Pennsylvania. Baltimore's charter extended to the 40th degree of north latitude, while that of Penn fixed, as the southern boundary of Pennsylvania, a line running due west from a point on the Delaware, 12 miles above Newcastle, which point was supposed to be about the 40th parallel. Astronomical observations taken by the two parties proved that the 40th parallel crossed the Delaware above the junction of the Schuylkill, thus rendering the two charters irreconcilable. The dispute between Penn and Baltimore resulted in a downright quarrel, which was not settled during the lifetime of either party. Penn's great desire was to acquire for Pennsylvania a portion of Chesapeake bay.

Soon after his visit to Lord Baltimore, at Newcastle, Penn held his famous interview wirh the Indians, under the great elm of Shakamaxon, commemorated by the pencil of West. The spot is now the site of Kensington, one of the suburbs of Philadelphia. Here the chiefs of the Delawares, with their armed warriors, met Penn and his unarmed associates, the latter all clad in the simple Quaker garb, which the simple Indians regarded as the habiliments of peace. Penn gave them the stipulated price for their lands, and established with them peace and friendship.

A few months after, in 1683, Penn purchased of the Swedes a tract of land at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill, disregarding entirely the pretensions of Lord Baltimore, and immediately proceeded to lay

out the city of Philadelphia. New settlers with a charter. In the same year, James II. from England soon arrived, and at the end of Penn's great patron and firm friend, was the year 82 houses were erected. Many of driven from his throne; and Penn was twice the first settlers at Philadelphia dwelt in arrested, in England, on a charge of treasoncaves dug in the banks of the Delaware, until able correspondence with the fugitive king, but was discharged for want of proof. He now again began to think of returning to America, and of building a new city on the banks of the Susquehanna.

houses could be built.

During the year 1683, Penn convoked the Assembly of the province at Philadelphia. It provided for a revenue of £2,000, for the expenses of the government in part, to be raised by a tax on spirits. It also established an orphan's court, and appointed three officers in each county, called "peacemakers," to settle disputes and prevent law-suits. He caused a large mansion-house to be erected for his residence, on the banks of the Delaware, opposite Burlington, some 20 miles above Phila delphia.

In 1691, Penn was again accused, and compelled to keep himself concealed. In 1692 his provincial government was taken from him, and transferred to Governor Fletcher, of New-York, who, in 1693, united Pennsylvania and Delaware, and extended his authority over both. In 1694, the suspicions against Penn being removed, Pennsylvania was restored to him, with all his rights. The chief instigator of the movements against Penn, which led to the depriving him of his provincial government, was one George Keith, a Scotch Quaker, who renounced his Quakerism. embraced the Church of England, and commenced a violent opposition against his former Quaker friends. Besides declaring Quakerism

In August, 1684, Penn left for England, appointing five commissioners of the provincial council as a provincial court, with Nicholas Moore for chief justice. This was the su preme court of law. The executive administration was committed to the council, of which Thomas Lloyd was appointed president. At Penn's departure, the province contained 20 inconsistent with the exercise of political ausettled townships, and 7,000 inhabitants, of which 2,000 were in the city of Philadelphia. English Quaker emigrants, and also some Dutch and German Quakers, converts made by Penn and Barclay on the continent, con tinued to arrive. It was by a party of Ger man Quakers that Germantown was settled.

thority, he also preached abolition doctrines in the streets of Philadelphia, declaring that negro slavery was inconsistent with the principles of good government. Bradford, the only printer then in Pennsylvania, was called to an account for giving countenance to the movements of Keith; and to escape further difficulties, after obtaining his discharge, he removed his press and types to New-York city-the first printing press there erected. Keith went to England soon after, (1692, ) and by his representations induced the Privy Council to deprive Penn of his government.

During Penn's absence in England, violent dissensions arose between the council and the assembly; the latter, contrary to the " Frame of Government," assumed the right of suggesting laws, a right expressly given to the governor and council alone. The assembly strove constantly to enlarge its powers, and Penn arrived a second time in America on resorted to the most violent measures. Moore, the 10th of December, 1699, and found the the chief justice, and also a member of the colony in a state of disorder. The people assembly, was expelled from it for opposing were dissatisfied, and demanded further privits usurpations, and impeached for arbitrary ileges. Philadelphia was then suffering greatly conduct in office; and his secretary also was from the ravages of yellow fever. The prov imprisoned for refusing to give up the records. ince he found, however, greatly improved. To put an end to these difficulties, Penn Penn granted a new "Frame of Government" intrusted the executive authority to five to the people, conferring on them greater commissioners, of whom Moore and Lloyd powers. The council was abolished, and the were two, the latter being the president. power of legislation vested in the governor. Lloyd, it seems, sowed dissensions among the and an assembly chosen annually. Voters colonists, and got them to believe that Penn had enriched himself at their expense. Penn denied the charge, and complained of the conduct of the assembly and of Lloyd, who finally resigned his office. Penn then appointed John Black well as lieutenant-governor of the province, with all the executive authority. Blackwell was very unpopular, and a year of violent discords followed. To restore Penn, immediately after granting this last peace, Penn placed the executive authority in charter, returned (1701) to England, where a the bands of the council again. (Feb. 1690.) project had been started by the English minis In 1687, a printing press, the third in ters to suppress all the proprietary govern America, was set up at Philadelphia. In ments in America. It would be interesting 1689, Penn established a public high-school, to pursue the career of Penn in England; but

were required to have a freehold of fifty acres of land, or $166 worth of personal property.

Nothing, however, would satisfy the people of the lower counties, now Delaware, but secession, or separation from Pennsylvania, which took place in 1703. The same gor ernor, however, continued to preside over both, Delaware being separate only in legislation.

we must be brief. Penn died in England in 1718, leaving his interests in Pennsylvania and Delaware to his sons, John, Thomas, and Richard Penn, who managed the provinces, principally by deputies, down to the time of the American Revolution, at which time the commonwealth of Pennsylvania purchased all their claims in the province for about half a million of dollars.

At the time of the death of Penn, the population of Pennsylvania was increasing, from emigration, at the rate of five or six thousand annually. The principal product of the province was wheat, which was exported in con siderable quantities to Spain, Portugal, and the West Indies. Lands then sold at $15 per hudred acres, the proprietors always reserving for themselves, out of every purchase, a tenth part of the best lands, under the name of manors, as their private property. In 1741, Philadelphia contained 12,000 inhabitants.

together with an almost constant warfare carried on with the Indians of the western frontiers, which also embarrassed trade. From 1776 to 1783, Pennsylvania had but little or no foreign trade. It was then, however, not idle. Its citizens were among the foremost in the glorious struggle for independence, aiding it by their example, their money, and their personal services.

The first bank established in the United States was the Bank of Pennsylvania, opened at Philadelphia on the 17th of July, 1780, with a capital of £300,000—its special object being to supply the American army with provisions. This bank continued until the Bank of North America went into operation in 1782, which latter continued until the United States Bank commenced operations in 1791. Paper money, however, was first manufactured in Pennsylva nia, in the year 1722, under Governor Keith. A " paper money loan system" was invented by him, and loan offices were established in every county. Bills to the amount of $150,000 were issued in 1723. In 1730, the money was found to be so much depreciated, that further issues were suspended.

Of the early commerce of Pennsylvania we know but little. The first trade was that carried on with the Indians in skins and furs, and the first product of the soil was tobacco, of which the province exported, in 1688-9, fourteen cargoes; but the competition of Maryland and Virginia caused the Pennsyl At the close of the Revolutionary War, vanians to abandon the cultivation of tobacco in 1783, the trade of the colonies revived. for that of wheat. The trade of the province Commercial relations were entered into was greatly injured by the war between Eng- with most of the European nations, and the land and France, continuing from 1688 to resources of the country began a rapid 1697. It caused much distress and poverty development. The wars commenced by in the colony, in which money was so scarce, France, in 1792, with the other European that in Philadelphia, it is said, "even pieces powers, and which were continued till the of tin and lead were current for small change." abdication of Napoleon, in 1814, affected From 1697 to 1776, the trade of Pennsyl- our commerce considerably. Our foreign vania appears to have increased slowly. There trade flourished beyond all precedent, and was, however, in almost every year during large fortunes were made by hundreds of this long period of seventy-nine years, a vast our citizens, in consequence. Pennsylvania excess of imports over exports. During the shared largely in this prosperity. Large wars between England, France, and Spain, the importations were made from China and depredations of privateers almost entirely in- India into Philadelphia for re-exportation terrupted the foreign trade of the province; to European markets. Our ships enjoyed besides, when these depredations were absent, the carrying trade of the world. The popthe trade suffered from heavy exactions made ulation of Philadelphia in 1790 was 42,000. on all vessels entering the Delaware. The The following table shows the progress exports in 1697 amounted to £3,347. We of the foreign trade of Pennsylvania, from compile the following table, to give some idea 1791 to 1850:of the progress of the trade of Pennsylvania from 1697 to 1774:

Imports.

1791.

Exports.
$3,436,093