accounts there was an item of 1200l. which, with compound interest, reckoned every six months, amounted in the long-run to 55691. But on looking at the books, it was found that only 5007. had been paid by Ford.

Much of Penn's property was gone during the twenty years of his profitless rule in America. He sold the Worminghurst estate to Squire Butler for 60501., being 1550l. more than he gave for it, after having cut down 2000l. of wood. This money satisfied some creditors, but not all; and one of them, a man named Churchill, was so importunate as to try to stop Butler's payment of the purchase-money. Under the advice of Goldney, whose purse was as much at his friend's service as his tongue, Penn and his son William made over to Callowhill, Goldney, Oades, and several others, a deed of sale of Pennsylvania for one year, in consideration of the receipt of ten shillings, with intent that these parties might be in actual possession of the province during his settlement with the Fords. Next day the same parties took a formal mortgage of the colony, and paid into his hands 68001. The Fords were paid, their claim having first been lowered one-half.

Disorders continued in Pennsylvania. Evans behaved with far more zeal than prudence. Where he should have won the old Quaker settlers, he offended their prejudices, and broke with them about the war. Procuring a false report to arrive in the city, that the French were coming up the river, he rushed into the street sword in hand, calling on the people right and left to arm and follow him. The

terror was extreme. Some burned their effects; many fled into the woods; still more seized their arms. Fixing his standard on Society Hill, he found three hundred well-armed men, some of them Quakers, rally to the flag. His purpose was attained; he knew how many he could count on in a real attack; but the Quakers, to use the words of Logan, were disgusted at the feint, and never pardoned him the fright which he had caused.

Cultivate this

Penn was anxious to return. He seemed determined to go over, as things had always gone on smoothly under his control. But his want of means prevented him. At the end of this year he wrote to his agent, I assure thee, if the people would only settle 600l. a-year upon me as Governor, I would hasten over. the best Friends.' But the best Friends would do nothing. When the Assembly met, the quarrel with Evans was at its height. If they passed a bill, he rejected it; if he proposed a bill, they would not pass it. Nothing could be done, and Penn was forced to recall his deputy.

among

Lord Baltimore was active. After a lapse of twenty-three years, he revived his claim to the second half of the Delaware peninsula; it is possible that he only then discovered that his rival's title to the territory in question had never been completed; and though three successive sovereigns had allowed Penn's right of possession, Baltimore thought there was an opening for his claim, and he advanced it. He petitioned the Queen to repeal the Order in Council, made by her father, dividing the penin

sula, and to restore the whole to him in virtue of his original grant. Somers and Sunderland advised Penn to send in a counter-petition to the Queen. The Lords of Trade allowed the question to be opened; but they were unable to settle it on any satisfactory basis; and finding their geography and law alike at fault, they had recourse to the old plan of asking the litigants to arrange it and report. Uncertainty about the boundary-lines soon lost itself in the prior question of title. Penn contended that his deeds were made out, and were all but signed, when James had fled. High personages about the court were eager to obtain an American province; among others, the Earl of Sutherland set up a claim to the Delaware, and the government chose to consider its own claim to the territories on that river as something more than a pretence. When Colonel Gookin was sent out in 1708, and again when Sir William Keith was appointed governor in 1716, the minister gave his sanction with a special reservation of the supposed rights of the Crown in the Delaware province.

Penn was now sixty-five years old. His health was failing; his imprisonment in the Old Bailey had given him a shock. He tried Brentwood; he took a country seat at Ruscombe. Gleams of light broke in upon his later years,-dreams of an unattainable prosperity, which served at least to rouse his sinking spirits. Soon after he recovered his colony, reports arrived that a great silver-mine had been discovered. A remonstrance which he wrote to America produced a good result, and the general peace gave

reason to hope for a settlement of his old account with Spain. The silver-mine, on the report of which he built a pleasant castle in the air, was an illusion, but not a greater illusion than his claim on Spain.

Penn reminded the people of Pennsylvania of the sleepless nights and toilsome days, the expense, the load of care, the personal dangers, the family misfortunes, which he had endured for them. What had they done for him? They had found a noble field for their capital and industry; they had got lands, acquired political rights, enjoyed religious liberties; but, not yet satisfied with the enjoyment of these rights, with the increase of their worldly substance, they must turn upon himself. He spoke to them of their past misdeeds, referred to their present unbecoming and uncivil attitude towards his person and government. He made to them a fatherly appeal. The Queen, he told them, was willing to buy his colony and annex it to her crown. In spite of their ill returns, he had been faithful to his promises. He put it to them, as men and Christians, whether they had used him fairly. While they had grown rich, he had become poor; while they had acquired power, he had lost it; while they enjoyed, through his toil and forethought, wealth, influence, and freedom, he had been reduced, through their neglect and avarice, to seek the shelter of a jail. He wished to have an answer to his question, whether they desired to sunder the old connexion? If it were so, let it be declared on a fair and full election, and his course would then be clear.

The answer was emphatic. When the Assembly met after the general election, not a single man of the aggressive chamber was returned. The province had been stung with the reproaches of its founder, now in his old age enduring poverty brought on by his too great liberality; and the session which ensued was the most harmonious and most useful in the history of the Assembly. Penn was gratified with this national response; and the historian dwells on this brief interval of calm and rational legislation with the greater pleasure, since it was the last in which the founder had a conscious part. Before another gathering of the members took place, his mind was overthrown,

His latest action on the colonial legislature was in behalf of the poor Negroes. Ten years before this period he had tried in vain to get a formal recognition of their claims as human beings; but the question of slavery had been making progress, and his own ideas had become less dark. He no longer doubted the injustice of the trade in man. Four years after the rejection of his bill for regulating the morals and marriages of Negroes, the Assembly tried to discourage slavery by a duty on the importation of Negro slaves. In 1711 they passed an act prohibiting such importation for the future. But as soon as this good law reached England it was cancelled by the Crown.

Some years before this time the two Houses of Parliament had put a declaration on the statutebook of the realm to the effect that the trade in slaves was highly beneficial to the country and the colonies.