REDUCED FAC-SIMILE OF TITLE OF “THE FRAME OF GOVERNMENT.”
The constitution which Penn proposed for his colony, together with certain laws which were accepted by purchasers in England as citizens of Pennsylvania, were issued the same year as The Frame of Government.[796] Both constitution and laws underwent considerable alteration before going into effect; although this fact has been frequently overlooked. A little brochure, of probably a like date, Information and Direction,[797] covers a description of the houses which it was supposed would be the most convenient for settlers to build.
The Free Society of Traders purchased of Penn twenty thousand acres. The Society was formed for the purpose of developing this tract, which was to be known as the Manor of Frank. Nicholas More was president, and James Claypoole treasurer. The letter-book of the latter is in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The charter of the Society will be found in Hazard’s Annals (p. 541), with other information regarding the Society; and in the same volume (p. 552) a portion of a tract[798] which is printed in full with a reduced fac-simile of titlepage in Pennsylvania Magazine of History, v. 37.
A Vindication of William Penn, by Philip Ford, in two folio pages, was published in London in 1683, to contradict stories which were circulated after Penn had sailed, to the effect that he had died upon reaching America, and had closed his career professing belief in the Church of Rome. It contains abstracts of the first letters written by Penn from America.[799]
RECEIPT AND SEAL OF THE FREE SOCIETY OF TRADERS.
The most important of all the series is a Letter from William Penn,[800] printed in 1683. It was written after Penn had been in America over nine months (dated August 16), and may be considered as a report from personal observation of what he found his colony to be. It passed through at least two editions in London; one of which contains a list of the property-holders in Philadelphia, with numbers affixed to their names indicating the lots they held, as is shown on a plan of that city which accompanies the publication, and of which a heliotype is herewith given. The letter appeared the next year (1684) in a Dutch translation[801] (two editions). Of the same date is a new description of the province, of which we have a German[802] and a French[803] text. The pamphlet contains an extended extract from Penn’s letter to the Free Society of Traders, the letter of Thomas Paschall from Philadelphia, dated Feb. 10, 1683 (N. S.), and other interesting papers, many of which were published in A Brief Account. All information in it that is not readily accessible has been lately translated by Mr. Samuel W. Pennypacker from the French edition, and is printed with fac-simile of title in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History, vi. 311.
A small tract, giving letters from a Dutch and Swiss sojourner in and near Philadelphia, was printed at Rotterdam, in 1684, as Twee Missiven.[804] The only copy of this tract which we know of is in the Library of Congress, and will be shortly published by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The copy at Washington, we are told, contains but one letter. Another, or possibly the same, copy is catalogued in Trömel’s Bibliotheca Americana, Leipzig (1861), no. 390.
The Planter’s Speech[805] (1684) and Thomas Budd’s Good Order established in Pennsylvania, etc. (1685),[806] which have been referred to in another chapter, are of like importance to Pennsylvania history. What is called “William Bradford’s Printed Letter” (1685) is quoted in the first edition of Oldmixon’s British Empire in America, p. 158. We have, however, never met with the original publication.