From a plate in Valentine’s N. Y. City Manual, 1851, p. 420.
Later there was the conference of commissioners of all the colonies at Albany in July, 1754, convened to treat anew with the Iroquois, and also to consider, in obedience to orders from England, a plan of confederation for all the colonies. The deliberations and conclusions of the congress in this last respect are made the subject of inquiry in a later chapter of the present volume.[479] De Lancey was accused of opposing this plan of union by his machinations. We may say that such accusation was unjust. The general assembly of the province, to whom the “representation of the state and plan for union” was referred, that they might make observations thereupon, said in their report or address to the lieutenant-governor, on the 22d of August, 1754: “We are of opinion with your Honor, that nothing is more natural and salutary than a union of the colonies for their own defence.” While he transmitted the minutes of the congress at Albany to the Lords of Trade without a word of comment, he may have used his private influence to defeat the union; but there is no reason to believe that he acted even in that wise from other than upright motives, and he had already shown, in the New Jersey boundary question, how personal associations had restrained him from interfering or giving an opinion. His sense of duty in office was perhaps exaggerated, and he could not brook censure by the home authorities. The receiver-general and other officers entrusted with the collection of the king’s revenue desired the passage of an act “for the more easy collecting his majesty’s quit-rents, and for protection of land in order thereto.” The assembly and council having passed such a bill, it came before the governor for his assent, which he readily gave, supposing that an act favored by the king’s officers could not meet with the disapproval of the government in England. The Lords of Trade, however, rebuked him, and he sent in his resignation.
GOV. MONCKTON.
From a plate in Valentine’s N. Y. City Manual, 1851.
In the mean time, the appointment of Admiral Sir Charles Hardy as governor had relieved De Lancey for a time (1755-57) from the cares of the administration. Sir Charles allowed himself to be led by his lieutenant-governor, and therefore the affairs of government went on as smoothly as of late, excepting that the assembly made occasional issues upon money bills, though that body was little inclined to press their levelling principles too strongly against their old friend, the lieutenant-governor, now that he was the adviser of the executive. Sir Charles proved less fond of the cares of office than of the sea, and after two years’ service resigned, to hoist his blue admiral’s flag under Rear Admiral Holbourn at Halifax. De Lancey had therefore to assume once more the government on the 3d of June, 1757, which he administered, with little to disturb the relations between the crown and the assembly, down to the time of his death, on July 30, 1760. This event placed his lifelong adversary, Cadwallader Colden, in the executive chair, first as president of the council, and a year later as lieutenant-governor.
The policy of the royal representative was now very quickly changed. The acquiescent bearing of De Lancey in his methods with the assembly gave place to the more peremptory manner which had been used by Clinton, whose friend Colden had always been. The records of the next few years, during which Monckton, who was connected with the Acadian deportation, was governor, show but the beginning of that struggle between prerogative and the people which resulted in the American Revolution, and a consideration of the immediate causes of that contest belongs to another volume.
The history of Pennsylvania, down to the appointment of Governor Blackwell in 1688, has been told in a previous chapter.[480] The selection of John Blackwell for the governorship was an unfortunate one. A son-in-law of the Cromwellian General Lambert and a resident of puritanical New England, he must have shared more or less in the hatred of the Friends’ religion, so that his appointment to govern a colony settled principally by this sect most likely arose from Penn’s respect and friendship for the man and from his inability to find a suitable Quaker willing to accept the office. Within two months after his arrival, he had quarrelled with his predecessor, Thomas Lloyd, then keeper of the broad seal, and the rest of the council. Shortly after this he succeeded in breaking up the assembly, and before he had been in the province one year he became convinced that his ideas of governing did not meet with the approbation of the people, and returned to England, leaving the administration in the hands of his opponent, Lloyd.
After having acquired from the Duke of York the Delaware territory, Penn endeavored to bring his province and the older settlements under one form of government; but he could not prevent the jealousies, caused often by difference of religious opinion and by desire for offices, from raising a conflict which soon after Blackwell’s departure threatened a dissolution of the nominal union. Lloyd remained president of Pennsylvania, while Penn’s cousin, Markham, was made lieutenant-governor of Delaware, under certain restrictions, as detailed in a letter from Penn, which still left the supremacy to Lloyd in matters of governing for the proprietary.
In the mean time James II. of England had been forced to give up his crown to his son-in-law, and this event brought unexpected results to the proprietary of Pennsylvania. Penn’s intimacy with the dethroned Stuart, unmarred by their different religious views, made him at once a suspicious person in the eyes of the new rulers of England. He had been arrested three times on the charges of disaffection to the existing government, of corresponding with the late king, and of adhering to the enemies of the kingdom, but had up to 1690 always succeeded in clearing himself before the Lords of the Council or the Court of King’s Bench. At last he was allowed to make preparations for another visit to his province “with a great company of adventurers,” when another order for his arrest necessitated his retirement into the country, where he lived quietly for two or three years. This blow came at a most critical time for his province, distracted as it was by political and religious disturbances, which his presence might have done much to prevent. The necessity of keeping remote from observation did not give him opportunity to answer the complaints which became current in England, that a schism among the Quakers had inaugurated a system of religious intolerance in a province founded on the principles of liberty of conscience. The result of this inopportune but enforced inactivity on Penn’s part was to deprive him of his province and its dependency (Delaware), and a commission was issued to Benjamin Fletcher, then governor of New York, to take them under his government, October 21, 1692. Fletcher made a visit to his new territory, hoping, perhaps, that his appearance might bring the opposing sections into something like harmony. Quickly disabused of his fond fancy, and disappointed in luring money from the Quakers, he returned to New York, leaving a deputy in charge. About the same time, 1694, Penn had obtained a hearing before competent authority in England, and having cleared himself successfully of all charges, he was reinvested with his proprietary rights. Not able to return to Pennsylvania immediately, he transferred his authority to Markham, who continued to act as ruler of the colony until 1699, when Penn visited his domain once more.