There were other disturbances at this time in the province. John Curtis was charged with “uttering troublesome and dangerous words against the King.”
Charges were made against several officers of the Government for extortion, and gross immoralities were practiced among the lower class of people inhabiting the caves on the banks of the Delaware. These and other things were reported with great exaggeration in England by the enemies of Penn and the Quakers. They prevented emigration and greatly affected the reputation of the Society of Friends and the Proprietary.
In 1686 Penn changed the form of executive government to a board of five commissioners, any three of whom were empowered to act. The board consisted of Thomas Lloyd, Nicholas More, James Claypoole, Robert Turner and John Eckley.
In 1688 the actions of the Assembly were marked by the usual want of unanimity and the objectionable act of laying on its members a solemn injunction of secrecy. This measure was not without an exhibition of undignified violence. Lloyd requested to be relieved from his office, and his request was reluctantly granted, and on his recommendation the Proprietary changed the plural executive into a single deputy, and named Captain John Blackwell, formerly an officer of Cromwell, under whom he had earned a distinguished reputation in England and Ireland. He was in New England when he received his commission, dated July 25, 1688.
Governor Blackwell met the Assembly in March, 1689, but through some misunderstanding between him and some of the Council the public affairs were not managed with harmony, and but little was done during his administration, which terminated in December when he returned to England, and the government of the province, according to charter, again devolved upon the Council, with Thomas Lloyd as president.
The revolution in England during 1688, which drove James from the throne, also lost for the Proprietary all his influence at the English court. He was now an object of suspicion. His religious and political principles were misrepresented. He was denounced as a Catholic, a Jesuit of St. Omers, and a self-devoted slave of despotism, and was even charged with conspiracy to restore James. He was freed of all these charges and arranged to again visit his Province of Pennsylvania, and was about to set sail when he was detained by another persecution.
He was charged with being engaged in a conspiracy of the Papists to raise a rebellion, and restore James to the throne. He narrowly escaped arrest on his return from the funeral of George Fox, the celebrated founder of the Society of Friends. Rather than suffer the ordeal of another trial he retired to privacy and his contemplated colony failed and the expense of the outfit was lost.
Governor Pattison’s Administration to Burning
of Capitol, February 2, 1897
