50

SETTLEMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA.

till 1702, when they were surrendered by their respective proprietors to Queen Anne.

We come now to a settlement which, whether we look at the motive, the means, or the end of the founder, we must regard with unmingled satisfaction. William Penn, because at once better acquainted with the country on the Delaware, and more interested in it, by reason of the Quaker settlements in West Jersey, was desirous of there acquiring a territory, in which the members of that sect could find a safe asylum, and where he could carry into execution his religious and political principles, according to his own views. For this purpose, he applied to Charles for a grant of land on the Delaware, in consideration of a large sum (sixteen thousand pounds), which the government had long owed to his father, Admiral Penn. After much opposition from some of the courtiers, he succeeded in 1681, and obtained a patent for the lands west of the Delaware, comprehended between three degrees of latitude and five of longitude, with the exception of a small portion cut off from the southeast corner, constituting three counties on the Delaware, which the Duke of York wished to retain. This domain he proposed to call "Sylvania," but which Charles insisted on naming Pennsylvania. Penn's charter was nearly the same as that of Maryland to Lord Baltimore. In the following year he obtained from the Duke of York a grant of the three counties which now constitute the State of Delaware.

Penn set out for his new purchase the same year it was made, with two thousand English emigrants, and landed at Chester on the banks of the Delaware, on the twenty-seventh of October, and where he found that three thousand persons-Swedes, Finns, and Dutchhad already settled.

PENN FOUNDS PHILADELPHIA.

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He formed for his new colony a political constitution in which, true to his former professions, he recognized the most liberal principles of civil freedom and unrestricted liberty of conscience. If, in carrying it into execution, it was sometimes found not practical, or failed of its purpose, we must recollect that this will ever be the case with schemes of government devised by inexperienced men.

One of his first measures was to gain the good-will and confidence of the natives. At a conference with one of their principal tribes, under an elm, long on that account held in veneration by the colonists, he assured them of his pacific principles and intentions; of his determination to respect their rights, as original lords of the soil; and to take posseesion of no lands without first obtaining the consent of the native owners.

The next year he laid out the plan of a city, which he called Philadelphia, on ground purchased of the Swedish settlers, a few miles above the junction of the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers, and extending two miles from river to river. His original plan has been scrupulously adhered to, and under his benevolent and liberal institutions, it so increased, that though fifty years younger than some other colonial towns, it was much the largest in the Union at the formation of the Constitution, and so continued until the beginning of the present century. Not more than a third of its population is now contained within the boundaries prescribed by its founder.

The Duke of York, after all doubts of his title to New York were removed by Charles' second grant, appointed Andrew Andros, then a major in the army, governor of that province, and who proved, both by talents and disposition, a fit instrument for his patron's arbitrary principles. The policy first pursued towards the people of

52

CONDUCT OF ANDROS.

the province was, at first, liberal and conciliatory. In 1683 the provincial authorities made a charter of liberties for themselves, which received the sanction of their proprietary, the Duke; but after he became sovereign of England, as James the Second, he endeavored to deprive the colony of the fruits of his concession. It seemed, indeed, to have been his settled purpose to bring all the colonies, including the proprietary governments, under the immediate dependence on the Crown, to which end he appointed the Governor of New York (now Sir Andrew Andros) Captain-general over the colonies of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Plymouth, Pemaqued, and Naragansett. Writs of quo warranto, the safe and ready instruments of his injustice, were also issued against most of the charters yet in force. After judgment, on one of these writs, had been given against Massachusetts, others were issued against Rhode Island and Connecticut. The Assembly of the first, considering resistance vain, surrendered its patent. Connecticut at first resisted, and though it evaded the surrender of its charter, by concealing it, as it is said, in a hollow oak, its Legislature finally submitted.

Andros used all his power, legitimate and usurped, to make his administration odious and oppressive, but it was soon brought to a close by the Revolution in Eug land, which placed William and Mary on the throne.

When the news of the deposition of James reached Boston, Andros and his secretary Randolph, equally odious, were seized and thrown into prison, and all the functions of government were then exercised by the colonists. Their measures afterwards received the sanction of King William, who ordered Andros and Randolph to be sent to England, to be there tried for their offences. Connecticut and Rhode Island acted under their char

LEISLER'S INSURRECTION.

53

ters, as if they had never been rescinded; and all New England was at once emancipated from the tyranny of the Stuarts.

A similar spirit was manifested at the same time in New York. Jacob Leisler took the lead on this occasion, and having declared in favor of King William, and Nicholson the Governor, who had succeeded Andros, having fled, Leisler assumed the government, and continued to discharge its functions until the arrival of Sloughter, who was appointed by William to succeed Nicholson. Even then, from a seeming unwillingness to give up his self-created power, Leisler openly resisted Sloughter's authority, and refused to surrender a fort except to an order under the king's hand. But Sloughter found no difficulty in taking possession of the government. Leisler was tried for high treason and executed. His estate, which had been forfeited, was subsequently restored to his son, in consideration of the father's fidelity to William. The king also made acknowledgments to Massachusetts for the course she had taken in his support, but, at the same time, reinstated Andros as well as Nicholson in office. That politic prince seemed to think that as they had been faithful to the interests of the Crown, they might be excused for not respecting the rights of the colonies. Andros was appointed Governor of Virginia, and Nicholson of Maryland.

Sir Andrew Andros, while Governor of Virginia, seems to have conducted himself with moderation. Perhaps he profited by the lesson he had learnt in Massachusetts, or, what is more probable, his altered course may be attributed to the different characters of the two monarchs on whose favor he was dependent. His arbitrary measures in New England, which were approved and encouraged by James, would not have been tolerated by William.

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POPULATION OF THE COLONIES.

He exhibited great zeal in behalf of the agriculture and manufactures of his colony. He thus acquired popularity; and the only complaint urged against him by Beverley is, his insisting that the laws of England, whether made before or after the charter of Virginia, had a binding force in the colony.1

There had thus been, in the seventeenth century, twelve distinct English colonies established on the American coast. They differed widely in their pursuits and religion, and somewhat in their political and social institutions. Their united population at the end of the century was probably about two hundred and fifty thousand, which may be thus distributed to the New England colonies, ninety thousand; to those between New England and the Potomac, that is New York, East Jersey and West Jersey, Pennsylvania (including Delaware) and Maryland, eighty thousand; and to Virginia and the Carolinas, eighty thousand."

Only two colleges had then been established in the colonies. These were Harvard College, in Cambridge, near Boston, in the year 1638, and the College of William and Mary in 1692, at Williamsburg in Virginia, which was soon afterwards made the seat of government.

1 Beverley's Hist. 95. Of this man, represented as so odious and tyrannical by all the historians of New England, Burk, in his history of Virginia, thus speaks: "Sir Edmund Andros is represented to have been actuated in his administration by a sound judgment, and a liberal policy; to have been exact, diligent, and methodical in the management of business; of a conciliatory deportment, and of great generosity." II. Burk, p. 316.

2 This estimate, compared with the ascertained numbers in 1790, supposes, for the aggregate population, an average duplication in twenty-two and a quarter years a rate of increase doubtless too great for the latter part of the term, but less than that of the first part, when the population was estimated by some contemporary notices, to double in twenty years.