Schuylkill Doylestown LVANIA Abingtono sington Trenton Burlington Mt.Holly 40 nuts and ashes were blazed to indicate the lines of the streets, and PHILADELPHIA-CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE was founded. Within a month a general assembly was in session at the new capital. The people were eager that their Charter of Liberties, now to be framed, should be dated at Philadelphia. The work of legislation was begun and a form of government adopted which was essen- & tially a representative democracy. The leading officers were the governor, a council consisting of a limited number of members chosen for three years, and a larger popular assembly, to be annually elected. Penn conceded everything to the people; but the power of vetoing objectionable acts of the council was left in his hands. Chestnut Hino Bustleton o Brandywine Chester Wilmington wcastle Camden Woodbury Tinicum Id. Salem Delaware NEW JERS PHILADELPHIA AND The growth of Philadelphia was astonishing. In the summer of 1683 there were only three or four houses. The ground-squirrels still lived in their burrows, and the wild deer ran through the town without alarm. In 1685 the city contained six hundred houses; the schoolmaster had come and the printing-press had begun its work. In another year Philadelphia had outgrown New York. Penn's work of establishing a free State in America had been well and nobly done. In August of 1684 he took an affectionate farewell of his flourishing colony, and sailed for England. Thomas Lloyd was appointed as president during the absence of the proprietor, and five commissioners, members of the provincial council, were chosen to assist in the government. Nothing occurred to disturb the peace of Pennsylvania until the secession of Delaware in 1691. The three lower counties, which, ever since the arrival of Penn, had been united on terms of equality with the six counties of Pennsylvania, became dissatisfied with some acts of the general assembly and insisted on a separation. The proprietor gave a reluctant consent; Delaware withdrew from the union and received a separate deputy-governor. Such was the condition of affairs after the abdication of King James II. William Penn was a friend and favorite of the Stuart kings. It was from Charles II. that he had received the charter of Pennsylvania. Now that the royal house was overthrown, he sympathized with the fallen monarch and looked with coldness on the new sovereigns, William and Mary. For some real or supposed adherence to the cause of the exiled James II., Penn was several times arrested and imprisoned. In 1692 his proprietary rights were taken away, and by a royal commission the government of Pennsylvania was transferred to Fletcher of New York. In the following year Delaware shared the same fate; all the provinces between Connecticut and Maryland were consolidated under Fletcher's authority. In the mean time, the suspicions against Penn's loyalty were found to be groundless, and he was restored to his rights as governor of Pennsylvania. In December of 1699, Penn again visited his American commonwealth, now grown into a State. The prosperity of the province was all that could be desired; but the people were somewhat dissatisfied with the forms of government. The lower counties were again embittered against the acts of the assembly. In order to restore peace and harmony, the benevolent proprietor drew up another constitution, more liberal than the first, extending the powers of the people and omitting the objectionable features of the former charter. But Delaware had fallen into chronic discontent, and would not accept the new frame of government. In 1702 the general assemblies of the two provinces were convened apart; and in the following year Delaware and Pennsylvania were finally separated. But the rights of Penn as proprietor of the whole territory remained as before, and a common governor continued to preside over both colonies. In the winter of 1701, William Penn bade a final adieu to his friends in America and returned to England. He left Pennsylvania in a state of peace and prosperity. Though there was not a single fort within her borders, the province had been secure against invasion. With neither police nor militia, the people went abroad in safety. With no difference in rank, no preference in matters of opinion, and no proscription for religion's sake, the colony flourished and waxed strong. But the English ministers had now formed the design of abolishing all the proprietary governments, with a view to the establishment of royal governments instead. The presence and influence of Penn were especially required in England in order to prevent the success of the ministerial scheme. After much controversy his rights were recognized and secured against encroachment. In the mean time, the affairs of Pennsylvania were administered by the deputygovernors, Andrew Hamilton and John Evans. The latter, a worldly sort of man, not very faithful to the principles of the Friends, greatly troubled the province by purchasing warlike stores, building forts, and attempting to organize a regiment of militia. The assembly entered a strong protest against these proceedings, so irreconcilable with the policy of the Quakers, and in 1708 Evans was removed from office. After him Charles Gookin received a commission as deputy-governor and entered upon his administration in 1709. Soon afterwards Penn was well-nigh overwhelmed by the rascality of his English agent, Ford, who first involved him in debt and then had him imprisoned. From a shameful confinement of many months he was finally released, and his old age was brightened by a gleam of prosperity. But the end of his labors was at hand. In July of 1718 the magnanimous founder of Pennsylvania sank to his final rest. His estates, vast and valuable, but much encumbered with debt, were bequeathed to his three sons, John, Thomas and Richard, who thus became proprietors of Pennsylvania. By them, or their deputies, the province was governed until the American Revolution. In the year1779 the entire claims of the Penn family to the soil and jurisdiction of the State were purchased by the legislature of Pennsylvania for a hundred and thirty thousand pounds sterling. The colonial history of the State founded by William Penn and the Quakers is one of special interest and pleasure. It is a narrative that recounts the victories of peace and the triumph of the nobler virtues over violence and wrong. It is doubtful whether the history of any other colony in the world is touched with so many traits of innocence and truth. When the nations grow mercenary and the times seem full of fraud, the early annals of Pennsylvania may well be recited as a perpetual protest against the seeming success of evil. "I will found a free colony for all mankind," were the words of William Penn. How well his work was done shall be fitly told when the bells of his capital city shall ring out the first glad notes of AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. COLONIAL HISTORY.-CONTINUED. MINOR SOUTHERN COLONIES. CAPT CHAPTER XXVI. MARYLAND. APTAIN JOHN SMITH was the first white man to explore the Chesapeake and its tributaries. After him, in 1631, William Clayborne, a resolute and daring English surveyor, was sent out by the London Company to make a map of the country about the head-waters of the bay. By the second charter of Virginia the territory of that province had been extended on the north to the forty-first parallel of latitude. All of the present State of Maryland was included in this enlargement, which also embraced the whole of Delaware and the greater part of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The ambition of Virginia was greatly excited by the possession of this vast domain; to explore and occupy it was an enterprise of the highest importance. Clayborne was a member of the council of Virginia, and secretary of state in that colony. In May of 1631 he received a royal commission authorizing him to discover the sources of the Chesapeake Bay, to survey the country as far as the forty-first degree of latitude, to establish a trade with the Indians, and to exercise the right of government over the companions of his voyage. This commission was confirmed by Governor Harvey of Virginia, and in the spring of the following year Clayborne began his important and arduous work. The members of the London Company were already gathering imaginary riches from the immense furtrade of the Potomac and the Susquehanna. The enterprise of Clayborne was attended with success. A tradingpost was established on Kent Island, and another at the head of the bay, in the vicinity of Havre de Grace. The many rivers that fall into the Chesapeake were again explored and a trade opened with the natives. The limits of Virginia were about to be extended to the borders of New Netherland. But in the mean time, a train of circumstances had been prepared in England by which the destiny of several American provinces was completely changed. As in many other instances, religious persecution again contributed to lay the foundation of a new State in the wilderness. And Sir George Calvert, of Yorkshire, was the man who was destined to become the founder. Born in 1580; educated at Oxford; a man of much travel and vast experience; an ardent and devoted Cath LORD BALTIMORE. olic; a friend of humanity; honored with knighthood, and afterward with an Irish peerage and the title of LORD BALTIMORE, -he now in middle life turned aside from the dignities of rank and affluence to devote the energies of his life to the welfare of the oppressed. For the Catholics of England, as well as the dissenting Protestants, were afflicted with many and bitter persecutions. Lord Baltimore's first American enterprise was the planting of a Catholic colony in Newfoundland. King James, who was not unfriendly to the Roman Church, had granted him a patent for the southern promontory of the island; and here, in 1623, a refuge was established for distressed Catholics. But in such a place no colony could be successful. The district was narrow, cheerless, desolate. Profitable industry was impossible. French ships hovered around the coast and captured the English fishingboats. It became evident that the settlement must be removed, and Lord Baltimore wisely turned his attention to the sunny country of the Chesapeake. In 1629 he made a visit to Virginia. The general assembly offered him citizenship on condition that he would take an oath of allegiance; but the oath was of such a sort as no honest Catholic could subscribe to. |