ter was issued he exclaimed, 'God hath given it to me in the face of the world. . . . He will bless and make it the seed of a nation.'

In this spirit he commenced his labours as a legislator. Warned by the failure of the constitution drawn up by Locke and Shaftsbury for Carolina, which their friends had declared would last for ever,-Penn resolved, at Sydney's instance, to secure a democratic basis for his scheme, and then allow the details to fall in with time. He therefore drew a frame of government, the preamble of which-like the declaration of rights and principle prefixed to modern constitutions-contained his leading ideas on the nature, origin, and object of government. His sentiments, as exhibited in this document, are liberal, wise, and noble. He begins by expressing his conviction that government is of divine origin: and bears the same sort of relation to the outer that religion does to the inner man. An outward law, he says, is needed in the world because men will not obey the inward light; in the words of an Apostle, 'The law was added on account of sin.' They err, he says, who fancy that government has only to coerce the evil-doers; it has also to encourage the well-disposed, to shield virtue, to reward merit, to foster art, to promote learning. As to models of government, he says little. Vice will vitiate every form; and while men side with their passions against their reason, neither monarchy nor democracy can preserve them from corruption. Governments depend more on men than men on governments. If men are wise and virtuous, the governments under which they must live also become wise and virtuous; it is therefore essential to the stability of a state that the people be educated in noble thoughts and virtuous deeds. A people making

their own laws and obeying them faithfully, will be a free people, while those laws exist, whatever be the name of the constitution under which they live.

The counsels of Halifax and Sunderland were not lost. Without using terms which would have roused the jealousy of Whitehall, Penn contrived to express the chief of his ideas in a clear and practical shape. He concludes his preface by saying that 'in reverence to God and good conscience towards men,' he has formed his scheme of government so as '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.'

The constitution, a rough draft only, followed. It had been drawn up with care by Penn and Sydney. Sydney went down to Worminghurst for the purpose; and there the two lawgivers drew up the first outlines. Every phrase employed was tested by the most advanced theories of democracy and by the practice of ancient and modern nations. Penn changed his terms whenever Sydney expressed a doubt. When the first rudiments were moulded into shape. Sydney carried the papers home with him to Penshurst, to consider and re-consider the various clauses; when his mind was fully satisfied as to their form and substance he brought them back. So intricate, so continuous, was this mutual aid, that it is now impossible to separate the work of one legislator from that of the other-Penn's share from Sydney's-Sydney's share from Penn's.

The constitution begins by declaring that the sovereign power resides in the governor and freemen of the province. For purposes of legislation, two bodies are to be elected by the people-a

Council and an Assembly. The proprietor, or his deputy, is to preside at the council, and to have three votes. These votes are the only power which he reserves to himself or to his agents. The functions of the council are, to prepare and propose bills-to see the laws duly executed-to watch over the peace and safety of the province to determine the sites of new towns and cities-to build ports, harbours, and markets-to make and repair roads -to inspect the public treasury-to erect courts of justice. institute primary schools, and reward the authors of useful inventions and discoveries. This body, consisting of seventy-two persons, is to be chosen by universal suffrage for three years; twenty-four of them retiring every year, whose places are to be supplied by new elections. The members of the assembly are to be elected annually. The votes are to be taken by ballot; the members are to be paid; and the suffrage is to be universal. There are no property qualifications, and the whole country is to be divided into sections. The assembly has no deliberative power. All acts of the council are to be laid before it for approval or rejection. It has the privilege of making out a list of persons to be named as justices and sheriffs, of which list the governor is bound to select one half.

To this outline of a constitution are added forty provisional laws relating to liberty of conscience, to choice of civil officers, to provision for the poor, to processes at law, to fines, arrests, and other matters of a civil nature. These provisional laws are to be in force until the council has been properly elected, when they are to be either accepted, amended, or rejected as the popular representatives think proper; Penn agreeing with Sydney, that no men can know what laws are

needful so well as those whose lives, properties. and liberties are concerned. On this point the constitutions of Pennsylvania and Delaware, and after them the constitution of the United States, owe an eternal obligation to Sydney. Penn, like More, like Harrington and the writers on Utopian schemes, desired to have a fixed system of public law. He would have drawn his constitutions and offered them to the world as the conditions of settlement in his new colony. Shaftsbury and Baltimore had adopted such a mode. With ruling instinct, Sydney saw that a democracy is incompatible with a foreign body of constitutional law. He proposed, therefore, to leave this question open. Having fixed the great boundary-lines of the system-secured freedom of thought (always Penn's first care), sacredness of person and property, popular control over all the powers of the state, financial, civil, proprietorial, and judicial—the lawgivers left the new democracy to develope itself in accordance with its natural wants. America owes much to Sydney.

An outline of the new political system being drawn up, Penn began to organise. The elements were prepared. So soon as it was whispered that the champion of trial by jury had become the owner and governor of a province in the New World, and that he proposed to settle it on the broadest principles of popular right, from nearly every large town in the three kingdoms, and from many cities of the Rhine and Holland agents were despatched to treat with the new lord for lands. Societies were formed for emigration. A German company started up at Frankfort. Franz Pastorius came to London, where he bought fifteen thousand acres lying in one tract on a navigable river, and three thousand acres within

the liberties of the new city. Liverpool furnished many purchasers and settlers, London more. At Bristol a company was organised under the name of Free Society of Traders in Pennsylvania; and in the autumn Penn rode down to that city to confer with Moore, Ford, Claypole and other adventurers on their plans. Penn was anxious to encourage skilful manufacturers of wool to migrate from the neighbourhood of Bristol and the valley of Stroud; for in the early stage of his experiment these were the staples on which he based his expectations of success. Desiring freedom for trade as well as freedom for the person, he resisted every temptation to reserve to himself profitable monopolies, just as in his constitutions he had refused to retain official patronage. A few weeks after the charter was issued, Thurston and Maryland sent an agent to offer him a fee of 6,0001. and 2% per cent. as rental, if he would allow a company to be formed with an exclusive right to trade in beaver-skins between the Delaware and Susquehannah rivers. Other proprietors granted such monopolies; Penn's right to grant them was unquestionable; but he felt that such monopolies were unjust, and he refused the money and the yearly rent. A Free Society of Traders realised one of his own ideas, and he afforded the Bristol company great facilities. Nicolas Moore, a lawyer, was appointed chairman of this company. Having bought twenty thousand acres of land, they published articles of trade, and commenced preparations for the voyage. Some persons from the principality joined the Bristol colonists, and zeal being backed by money, things were soon so far advanced that a vessel filled with emigrants, and taking out the chairman, Nicolas Moore, was ready to set sail.