Roderick Barclugh was not in the habit of jumping at conclusions. Thus in the selection of his bride he had weighed every influence upon the future of his posterity and his estate. He had calculated that his helpmate must be capable of maintaining, by means of her accomplishments, grace of person, and intellect, his exalted social eminence. She must be respected by the Colonial social leaders in order that the administration of the vice-regal office should be deservedly popular. Though to make doubly sure of his results, Barclugh had determined to wed before his mission to America was divulged and before his emoluments and honors were known. If he were to be accepted in his proposals for marriage he would be desired for himself, and not as Viceroy of the most powerful monarch on earth. Once settled in his marital affairs he could open up to his bride the honors of his position, and the power which would rest in her hands. Dreams of William the Conqueror parcelling out estates and titles to his favorites welled up in the mind of Barclugh.
“What woman would not enjoy such a position?” thought he. “Not a vestige of the former principles of equality and democracy would be tolerated; every semblance of the principles of the Declaration of Independence would be crushed.”
But who was to be the fortunate or unfortunate object of all these plans and conceptions of power and grandeur,—the one on whom would devolve all the prestige of founding a new order of barons,—whose will might be the arbiter and maker of titles for American families in the new regime of nobility and aristocracy?
CHAPTER XIV
In 1699 the ebb and flow of the Delaware’s tide were slipping placidly by the City of Brotherly Love, when the founder of Dorminghurst first saw the sphere of his future labors. He was but five and twenty years of age, and the good ship Canterbury brought him hither as secretary of the Proprietor and Governor of Pennsylvania.
He was tall and athletic; a fine scholar, versed in Latin, Greek, French and Spanish. He was a member of the Society of Friends. Imbued with all the ambition of a young, vigorous and refined manhood, James Greydon prospered under the patronage of his benefactor, William Penn. He attended to all the official correspondence of the Colony of Pennsylvania, and to all the private accounts and business of the Proprietor of the Colony. He was a faithful steward to a good and liberal man. He attended all the meetings which William Penn held with the Indian tribes for the purpose of buying lands west of the Susquehanna. The details of these vast transactions rested in the able hands of James Greydon.
All that tract of land lying on both sides of the Susquehanna and the lakes adjacent, in or near the Province of Pennsylvania, was confined at this time by several treaties entered into with the Conostogas, the Shawnees, the Iroquois, the Susquehannas and the Onondagas,—all of whom loved Penn and his friends; so that the language of the treaty had these remarkable words of brotherly relationship:
“They shall for ever hereafter be as one head and one heart, and live in true friendship and amity as one people.”