ed. But I murmur not; the Lord is good to me, and the interest his truth has given me with his people nay more than repair it; for many are drawn forth to be concerned with me, and perhaps this way of satisfaction hath more the hand of God in it than a downright payment. This I can say, that I had an opening of joy as to these parts in the year 1661 at Oxford, twenty years since; and as my understand ing and inclinations have been much directed to observe and reprove mischiefs in government, so it is now put into my power to settle one. For the matters of liberty and privilege (alluding to these articles), I purpose that which is extraordinary, and leave myself and successors no power of doing mischief, that the will of one man may not hinder the good of a whole country.' "The Conditions and Frame of Government having been mutually signed, three ships full of passen gers set sail for Pennsylvania; two from London, and one from Bristol. It appears that the John and Sarah from London, Henry Smith master, arrived first; and the Bristol Factor, Roger Drew master, the next. The last vessel arrived at the place where Chester now stands. Here the passengers, seeing some houses, went on shore; and here, the river being frozen up that night, they remained all the winter. The other London ship, the Amity, Richard Dimon master, was blown off with her passengers to the West Indies, and did not arrive at the province till the spring of the next tended by several commissioners, whose object was to confer with the Indians respecting their lands, and to endeavour to make with them a league of eternal peace. With this view they were enjoined in a solemn manner to treat them with all possible candour, justice, and humanity. They were the bearers also of a letter to them, which William Penn wrote with his own hand, and of which the following is a copy; "There is a great God, and Power, which hath made the world and all things therein, to whom you, and I, and all people owe their being and well-being, and to whom you and I must one day give an account for all that we have done in the world. "This great God has written his law in our hearts, by which we are taught and commanded to love, and to help, and to do good to one another. Now this great God hath been pleased to make me concerned in your part of the world; and the king of the country where I live hath given me a great province therein: but I desire to enjoy it with your love and consent, that we may always live together as neighbours and friends; else what would the great God do to us, who hath made us (not to devour and destroy one another, but) to live soberly and kindly together in the world? Now, I would have you well observe, that I am very sensible of the unkindness and injustice which have been too much exercised toward you by the people of these parts of the world, who have sought themselves to make great advantages by you, rather than to be examples of goodness and patience unto you. This I hear hath been a matter of trouble to you, and and caused great grudging and animosities, sometimes to the shedding of blood; which hath made the great God angry. But I am not such a man, as is well known in my own country. I have great love and regard toward you, and desire to win and gain your love and friendship by a kind, just, and peaceable life; and the people I send are of the same mind, and shall in all things behave themselves accordingly; and if in any thing any shall offend you or your people, you shall have a full and speedy satisfaction for the same, by an equal number of just men on both sides, that by no means you may have just occasion of being offended against them. "I shall shortly come to see you myself, at which time we may more largely and freely confer and discourse of these matters. In the mean time I have sent my commissioners to treat with you about land and a firm league of peace. Let me desire you to be kind to them and to the people, and receive the presents and tokens which I have sent you, as a testimony of my good will to you, and of my resolution to live justly, peaceably, and friendly with you. "I am your loving friend, "WILLIAM PENN." "About this time William Penn was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He had before been acquainted with the celebrated Dr. John Wallis, who had been one of the chief instruments in founding it; but in the present year he wrote him a letter, in which he expressed to him the satisfaction he felt on hearing of the progress of the institution, as well as the high opinion he entertained of the advantages which would result to science from its labours, and in whigh (now going out to Pennsylvania) he offered to contribute to its usefulness to the utmost of his power. It is probable from this letter, that Dr. Wallis was the person who nominated him to the above honour. "About this time his mother died, for whom he had the deepest filial affection. She had often interposed in his behalf, when his father was angry with him for his dereliction of church principles and of the honours and fashions of the world, and she took him under her wing and supported him when he was turned out of doors for the same reason. It is said that he was so affected by her death, that he was ill for some days. A letter has come down to us, which he wrote at this time in answer to a friend who had solicited his advice, from which we may collect that he had been certainly indisposed on the occasion; and as the language of grief is usually short, so the conciseness of this letter, together with the sentiment contained in it, seems to imply that his mind was then oppressed by the event, and his religious consideration of it. It runs thus: "Dear Friend, "Both thy letters came in a few days one of the other. My sickness upon my mother's death, who was last seventh day interred, permitted me not to answer thee so soon as desired; but on a serious weighing of thy inclinations, and perceiving to last thy uneasiness under my constrained silence, it is most clear to me to counsel thee to sink down into the seasoning, settling gift of God, and to wait to distinguish between thy own desires and the Lord's requirings." Having paid the last earthly offices of respect to his mother, he began 1 others. But this is not all, he opens and carries the matter of government a little further: Let every soul be subject to the higher pow began by degrees to turn his mind to his American concerns. The first thing he did was to publish the Frame of Government or Constitution of Pennsylvania, mentioneders, for there is no power but of in the last chapter. To this he added a noble preface, containing his own thoughts upon the origin, nature, object, and modes of government; a preface, indeed, so beautiful, and full of wise and just sentiments, that I should fail in my duty if I were to withhold it from the reader. "When the great and wise God had made the world, of all his creatures it pleased him to choose man his deputy to rule it: and to fit him for so great a charge and trust, he did not only qualify him with skill and power, but with integrity to use them justly. This native goodness was equally his honour and his happiness; and, whilst he stood here, all went well; there was no need of coercive or compulsive means; the precept of divine love and truth in his bosom was the guide and keeper of his innocency. But lust, prevailing against duty, made a lamentable breach upon it; and the law, that had before no power over him, took place upon him and his disobedient posterity, that such as would not live conformable to the holy law within, should fall under the reproof and correction of the just law without, in a judicial administration, "This the apostle teaches in divers of his epistles. The law,' says he, was added because of transgression. In another place, knowing that the law was not made for the righteous man, but for the disobedient and ungodly, for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers,' and God. The powers that be are ordained,of God: whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God: for rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same He is the minister of God to thee for good.--Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but for conscience sake.' This settles the divine right of government beyond exception, and that for two ends: first, to terrify evil doers: secondly, to cherish those that do well; which gives government a life beyond corruption, and makes it as durable in the world as good men shall be, so that government seems to me a part of religion itself, a thing sacred in its institution and end: for, if it does not directly remove the cause, it crushes the effects of evil, and is, as such, though a ́lower, yet an emanation of the same divine Power that is both author and object of pure religion; the difference lying here, that the one is more free and mental, the other more corporal and compulsive in its operation; but that is only to evil-doers, government itself being otherwise as capable of kindness, goodness, and charity, as a more private society. They weakly err, who think there is no other use of government than correction, which is the coarsest part of it. Daily experience tells us, that the care and regulation of many other affairs, more soft and daily necessary, make up much much the greatest part of government, and which must have followed the peopling of the world, had Adam never fallen, and will continue among men on earth under the highest attainments they may arrive at by the coming of the blessed second Adam, the Lord from heaven. Thus much of government in general as to its rise and end. "For particular frames and models, it will become me to say little, and, comparatively, I will say nothing. My reasons are, first, that the age is too nice and difficult for it, there being nothing the wits of men are more busy and divided upon. - 'Tis true they seem to agree in the end; to wit, happiness; but in the means they differ, as to di vine, so to this human felicity; and the cause is much the same, not always want of light and knowledge, but want of using them rightly. Men side with their passions against their reason; and their sinister interests have so strong a bias upon their minds, that they lean to them against the good of the things they know. "Secondly, I do not find a mo. del in the world, that time, place, and some singular emergencies have not necessarily altered; nor is it easy to frame a civil government that shall serve all places alike. "Thirdly, I know what is said by the several admirers of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, which are the rule of one, of a few, and of many, and are the three common ideas of government when men discourse on that sub ject. But I choose to solve the controversy with this small distinc tion, and it belongs to all three: Any government is free to the people under it, whatever be the frame, "But, lastly, when all is said, there is hardly one frame of government in the world so ill designed by its first founders, that in good hands would not do well enough; and story tells us, that the best in ill ones can do nothing that is great and good; witness the Jewish and Roman states. Governments, likė clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad. If it be ill, they will cure it. But if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavour to warp and spoil it to their turn. I know some say, Let us havė good laws, and no matter for the men that execute them. But let them consider, that though good laws do well, good men do better for good laws may want good men, and be abolished or invaded by ill men: but good men will never want good laws, nor suffer ill ones. 'Tis true good laws have some awe upon il ministers, but that is where these have not power to escape or abolish them, and where the people are generally wise and good but a loose and depraved people (which is to the question) love laws and an administration like themselves. That therefore, which makes a good constitution, must keep it; namely, men of wisdom and virtue, qualities that, because they descend not with worldly in heritances, must be carefully propagated by a virtuous education of youth, youth, for which after-ages will owe more to the care and prudence of founders and the successive magistracy, than to their parents for their private patrimonies. "These considerations of the weight of government, and the nice and various opinions about it, made it uneasy to me to think of publishing the ensuing Frame and Con ditional Laws, foreseeing both the censures they will meet with from men of differing humours and engagements, and the occasion they may give of discourse beyond my design. "But next to the power of necessity, which is a solicitor that will take po denial, this induced me to a compliance, that we have, with reverence to God and good conscience to men, to the best of our skill contrived and composed the Frame and Laws of this go vernment to the great end of go, vernment, to support power in reverence with the people, and to secure the people from the abuse of power, that they may be free by their just obedience, and the magistrates honourable for their just administration; for liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery. To carry this evenness is partly owing to the constitution, and partly to the magistracy, Where either of these fail, government will be subject to convulsions; but where both are wanting, it must be totally subverted then where both meet, the government is like to endure, which I humbly pray and hope to God will please to make the lot of this of Pennsylvania. Amen.' "The Frame, which followed this preface, consisted of twenty-four articles; and the laws, which were annexed to the latter, were forty. " By the frame the government was placed in the governor and freemen of the province, out of whom were to be formed two bodies; namely, a provincial council and a general assembly. These were to be chosen by the freemen; and though the governor or his deputy was to be perpetual president, he was to have but a treble vote. The provincial council was to consist of seventy two inembers. One third part, that is, twenty-four of them, were to serve for three years, one third for, two, and the other third for one; so that there might be an annual succession of twenty-four new members, each third part thus continuing for three years and no longer. It was the office of this council to prepare and propose bills, to see that the laws were executed, to take care of the peace and safety of the province, to settle the situ ation of ports, cities, market towns, roads, and other public places, to inspect the public treasury, to erect courts of justice, institute schools, and reward the authors of useful discovery. Not less than two thirds of these were necessary to make a quorum; and the consent of not less than two thirds of such quorum in all matters of moment. The ge. neral assembly was to consist the first year of all the freemen, and the next of two hundred. These were to be increased afterward according to the increase of the pa pulation of the province. They were to have no deliberative power; but, when bills were brought to them from the governor and provincial council, to pass or reject them by a plain yes or no. They were to present sheriffs and justices of the peace to the governor, a double number for his choice of half. They were to be elected annually. All elections |