tween the Schuylkill and the Delaware. Here he laid out and founded the city of Philadelphia-a city which sprung into existence with a rapidity and prosperity unprecedented at the day, and almost rivalling the Aladdin-like structures in our western regions, which seem the growth of a night-the work of enchantment. In August of that year, it consisted of but three or four cottages. Within two years it contained six hundred houses. one. Immediately after its selection, indeed, (March, 1683) a convention was assembled there for the purpose of forming a constitution. By that instrument it was provided that a council and assembly should be elected by the people, the first for three years, and the latter for The initiative of laws was reserved to the governor and council, and their ratification depended on the assembly, directly representing the action of the people. The governor was allowed a negative voice on the action of the council. The people received the charter, so unexpectedly liberal, with gratitude and exultation; but the former of these feelings, always short-lived with communities, was, not long after, merged in the eager desire to establish a still more complete form of democracy. When the tidings of this unexampled generosity and tolerance on the part of the proprietor reached Europe, numbers, especially of the persecuted, from the British isles, from Holland, and from Germany, flocked across the seas to share in the blessings provided by the forethought and magnanimity of a single man. The sudden growth of Philadelphia has been mentioned. That of the whole province was on a corresponding scale-outrivalling even the rapid increase of New England. "I must, without vanity, say," affirms Penn, with just pride, "I have led the greatest colony into America that ever any man did upon a private credit, and the most prosperous beginnings that ever were in it are to be found among us." His humane and glorious mission in the New World accomplished, the executive power entrusted to a commission of the council, the generous founder of Pennsylvania took an affecting leave of the people who owed him so deep a debt of gratitude. Tender remembrance and pious counsel mingled in his last words. "I have been with you," he said, "cared over you, and served you, with unfeigned love; and you are beloved of me and dear to me beyond utterance. * You are come to a quiet land, and liberty and authority are in your own hands. Rule for Him under whom the princes of this world will one day esteem it an honour to govern in their places." Returned to England, (1684,) Penn employed his fortune, his influence, his eloquence, in behalf of the oppressed. Thanks to his name, his successful enterprise, and the respect which high integrity will ever command, his voice at court was potential. At his intercession, many hundreds of his unfortunate brethren were released from the prisons in which they had been so long immured. The eagerness of the new sovereign (James II.) to secure immunity for his fellow-communicants, the Catholics, led him to listen favourably to applications in behalf of other dissenters from the Establishment. Penn, in advance of all who sought either exclusive supremacy or mere toleration for their respective creeds, boldly contended for unlimited freedom of conscience, and won immortal honour by the wisdom, the logic, and the eloquence with which his writings in behalf of that grand object continually abound. The first fruit of his generous concessions to the colonists, was the display of a rather turbulent spirit of freedom. His legislators, new to their business, soon became involved in quarrels with the executive, and evinced much jealousy even of the limited share of power and profit which the single-minded proprietor had reserved as his own. "The maker of the first Pennsylvania almanac was censured for publishing Penn as a lord. The assembly originated bills without scruple; they attempted a new organization of the judiciary; they alarmed the merchants by their lenity towards debtors; they would vote no taxes; they claimed the right of inspecting the records, and displacing the officers of the courts; they expelled a member who reminded them of their contravening the provisions of their charter." These tokens of ingratitude, leading, indeed, to no disastrous results, must have borne somewhat heavily on the heart of the benefactor of the province-that benefactor, who, having expended his estate in delivering the oppressed and founding a nation, and having relinquished in favour of his people the vast profits which avarice, or even common custom might have grasped, found himself, in old age, confined for debt within the rules of the Fleet prison. But a steadfast hope and a serene conscience, the prompters and supporters of his noble career, were equally his consolers under its unprosperous personal termination. His fame, emerging from the clouds of envy and detraction, shines, century after century, with a purer and more steady ray. His memory will ever be cherished by mankind as that of one of the wisest, worthiest, and least selfish of their race. . THE NORTHERN COLONIES, CONTINUED. CHAPTER I. SIR EDMUND ANDROS COMMISSIONED BY THE DUKE OF YORK: HIS GENERAL.-OPPRESSION IN THE COLONIES.-PRO-. IN NEW ENGLAND UPON THE OCCURRENCE AT the period of the recession to England of the territories of the New Netherlands, after a brief possession by the Dutch, in 1673–4, James, Duke of York, procured a new royal patent, by which his former rights of proprietorship were secured to him, with enlarged governmental powers. He chose a fit emissary for the furtherance of his arbitrary intentions respecting his New England territory, in the person of Major Edmund Andros, who came over in the autumn of 1674, armed with nearly absolute authority, and entered upon the exercise of his office as governor at New York, in the month of October. The people of Connecticut, justly proud of the privileges bestowed upon them in the charter obtained from Charles II., by the exertions of Winthrop, made open resistance to the attempt by Andros to extend his jurisdiction over their territory as far as the Connecticut river, which he claimed to be the boundary of New York. The patent of the duke certainly covered this district, and extended eastward as far as the Kennebec. The year after his appointment, the governor, with several armed vessels, made a demonstration upon the fort at Saybrook, but such was the aspect of determination on the part of the colonial militia, and such the tone of a protest forwarded by the assembly then in session at Hartford, that he judged it prudent to withdraw. At a later period, after the accession of James II. to the throne of England, the policy of uniting the New England colonies, and sub jecting them to the sway of the royal governor, was more energet ically pursued. Andros was superseded, in 1683, by Colonel Thomas Dongan, a man of more enlarged views, and generally far more acceptable to the colonists than his predecessor. During the three years of this administration, the principal events of political interest are connected with the history of that powerful aboriginal confederacy, known as the Six Nations. Upon the demise of the crown, in 1685, the new monarch, with characteristic tyranny and short-sightedness, determined on pushing forward his scheme for a union of the provinces. The charter of Massachusetts was annulled by legal process in the English courts, New Hampshire having been previously separated from that colony, and constituted a royal province, in opposition to the wishes of its inhabitants. Writs of Quo Warranto were also issued against the authorities of Connecticut and Rhode Island, requiring them to appear and show by "what warrant" they exercised powers of government. Joseph Dudley, a native of the country, was temporarily placed at the head of affairs in the eastern colonies, but was superseded at the close of the year 1686 by Andros, now Sir Edmund, who came out as Governor-General of New England, and in whom, assisted by a royal council, were vested all powers, legislative and executive. He brought with him a small body of regular troops, then, for the first time, quartered upon the New England colonies. Andros is spoken of as a man of undoubted abilities and attainments; and he appears to have possessed a spirit of military pride which led him to respect an open and bold opposition. The principal acts of tyranny which rendered his administration unpopular, were in direct accordance with instructions from the English court. Power, such as his, can safely be entrusted with no man. Among other grievances, the liberty of the press was abolished, and the unpopular Edward Randolph, who had previously been The reli sent out as inspector of customs, was appointed censor. An assessment of taxes, by the governor and council, was at first met by a general refusal and resistance; but the levy was enforced, and obstinate defaulters were punished with severity by fines and imprisonment. A favourite and most productive method of extortion, was the impeachment of titles to lands held under the oid grants from towns or from the general assemblies, and ruinous fees were exacted from those who were thus compelled to procure new patents from the royal officials. Legal process against the governments of Connecticut and Rhode Island had been stayed upon the transmission of memorials to the king, which had been construed into submission to the royal pleasure; but the charters of these provinces had not been formally surrendered. In January of 1687, Sir Edmund proceeded in person to Rhode Island, and put an end to the existing government. He destroyed the public seal, and, without material opposition, established the royal authority, as represented by himself and his creatures. The General Assembly of Connecticut, being in session during the month of October following, was visited by the governor-general, who came, with an armed force, to compel a surrender of the charter, and to dissolve the provincial government. The treasured document was produced, and the question was discussed at great length. Night came on, and, as it was evident that Andros was fully determined to enforce his claims, a plan was concerted by which the instrument that had assured a free government to Connecticut was at least preserved, although rendered, for the time being, of no effect. The lights were extinguished, and, in the darkness and confusion which ensued, Captain Wadsworth, of Hartford, seized upon the charter, and, making his way out of the assembly-room, succeeded in depositing it unseen in a place of security, viz: the hollow of a huge oak. This tree is still living, and forms an object no less interesting from its antiquity, (being one of the few denizens of the |