His Troubles There

Four months after Penn's return to England, Charles the Second died, and his brother James ascended the throne. Then began a period of great theological and political excitement in England, in the perils of which Penn became involved. He and the new king had long been personal friends; and through Penn's influence, twelve hundred persecuted Friends were released from prison, in 1686. When it was seen that James was under the powerful influence of the Jesuits, his Quaker friend was suspected of being one of them; and after the revolution that drove James from the throne, he was arrested three times, on a false charge of treason, and as often acquitted. The last time was in 1690. Meanwhile there had been great political and theological commotions in Pennsylvania, and in April, 1691, the Three Lower Counties on the Delaware, offended at the action of the council at Philadelphia, withdrew from the Union, and Penn yielded to the secessionists so far as to appoint a separate deputy governor over them.

In consequence of representations which came from Pennsylvania, the monarchs William and Mary deprived Penn of his rights as governor of his province, in 1692, and the control of the domain was placed in the hands of Governor Fletcher, of New York, who, in the spring of 1693, reunited the Delaware counties to the parent province. Fletcher appeared at the head of the council at Philadelphia on Monday, the 15th of May, with William Markham, Penn's deputy, as lieutenant-governor.

Powerful friends interceded with King William for the restoration of Penn's rights. He was called before the Privy Council to answer certain accusations, when his innocence was proven. A few months afterward his rights were all restored. That was in the summer of 1694. His fortune had been wasted, and he lingered in England, under the pressure of comparative poverty, until 1699, when, with his daughter, and his second wife, Hannah Callowhill, he sailed to Philadelphia. Meanwhile his colony under his old deputy, William Markham, had asserted their right to self-government, and made laws for themselves. Penn found them prosperous, but clamorous for political privileges guaranteed to them by law. Regarding their demands as reasonable, he gave them a new constitution or frame of government, in November, 1701, more liberal in its concessions than former ones, and perfectly satisfactory to all. Finding the people of the "Territories," or Three Lower Counties, restive under the forced union with Pennsylvania, he made provision for their permanent separation in legislation, in 1702; and the first independent legislature in Delaware was assembled at New Castle in 1703.Although Pennsylvania and Delaware ever afterward continued to have separate legislatures, they were under the same governor until the Revolution in 1776.

While Penn was in America, tidings came that measures were pending before the Privy Council, for bringing all of the proprietary governments under the crown. Penn had come to Philadelphia to live and die there; and had built a fine brick house to reside in, which stood on the corner of Second street and Norris alley, until a few years ago. But the news from England determined him to return to his native country to defend his rights. He did so late in 1701, and succeeded. He never returned to America. Harassed and wearied by business connected with his province, he was making arrangements in 1712 to sell it for sixty thousand dollars, when he was prostrated by paralysis. He survived the first shock six years, when he died, leaving his estates in America to his three sons. His family governed Pennsylvania, as proprietors, until the Revolution made it an independent State in 1776. Meanwhile the province had sustained its share of the burden of mutual defence with its sister colonies during the troubles with the French and Indians.

Let us now return to a consideration of the colonial history of the Carolinas from the formation of the "Fundamental Constitutions" by Locke and Cooper (afterward Lord Shaftesbury) for the government of the colonists of those regions, until the period of the old war for independence.

We have observed that the scheme for a splendid government was completed in 1669. The "constitutions" were signed in March, 1670, and were highly lauded in England as forming the wisest scheme for human government ever devised. Monk, duke of Albemarle, was created Palatine or viceroy for the new empire, who was to display the state parade of his office, with landgraves, barons, lords of manor, caciques, and courts of admiralty and heraldry, among the scattered settlers in the pine forest living in log-cabins with the Indians. The idea seems too ludicrous to have been seriously entertained. Yet it was entertained; and, so far as the proprietors were concerned, this splendid government was established. But the simple settlers had something to say; and when the governor of the Northern or Albemarle county colony attempted to introduce the new government, they said, "No," with peculiar emphasis, as the question was forced upon them, "Will you accept it?" They had a form of government of their own far better adapted to their social circumstances than the one sent from England, and they resolved to adhere to it.

The attempts to enforce obedience to the new form of government; the oppressive taxation imposed upon the people, and especially the commercial restrictions authorized by the English navigation laws, produced wide-spread discontent. This was fostered by refugees from Virginia, who had been implicated in "Bacon's Rebellion," and who sought personal safety among the people below the Roanoke. These refugees scattered broadcast over a generous soil the germinal ideas of popular freedom; and successful oppression was made difficult, if not impossible.