When the limit of the year 1755 was reached many of the bills of credit had become so torn and defaced that the assembly ordered £10,000 in new bills to be exchanged for the old ones. In the mean time the French war had begun, and to support the troops sent over from England £60,000 were issued in bills to be given to the king’s use.
By this time Pennsylvania had become so largely in debt as to make her taxes burdensome. Notwithstanding a hesitation to increase the volume of indebtedness, her assembly felt called upon by reason of the war to contribute her share of the cost of it, and in September, 1756, a further issue of £30,000 was authorized under a law which provided for the redemption of the bills in ten years by an excise on wine, liquor, etc. If this excise should bring in more than was necessary, the “overplus” was to go into the hands of the king.[487]
Governor Keith took care to increase his popularity with the assembly, and thereby to advance his own personal interest in a greater degree than was compatible with his allegiance to the proprietary’s family. Having managed to free himself from the control of the council, who were men respecting their oaths and friends of the Penn family, he incurred the displeasure of the widow of the great Quaker, and in 1726 was superseded by Patrick Gordon. Keith and his friend David Lloyd had vainly endeavored to persuade Hannah Penn that her views concerning the council’s participation in legislative matters were erroneous, and that the council was in fact created for ornamental purposes and to be spectators of the governor’s actions. This opinion of Keith was of course in opposition to the instructions which he had received. Fully to understand the condition of affairs, we must remember that the government of this colony was as much the private property of the proprietary as the soil; and that in giving instructions to his deputy and establishing a council to assist the deputy by their advice, the proprietary did no more than a careful business man would do when compelled to absent himself from his place of business,—or at least such were the views of the Penns.
The even tenor of political life in Pennsylvania, the greater part of whose inhabitants were either Quakers, religiously opposed to any kind of strife, or Germans, totally ignorant of the modes of constitutional government, was somewhat disturbed during the first two or three years of Gordon’s administration by Keith’s intrigue as a member of the assembly, to which he was soon chosen. We are told that he endeavored by “all means in his power to divide the inhabitants, embarrass the administration, and distress the proprietary family.” He grew, however, as unpopular as he had been popular; and when he finally returned to England, where he died about 1749, the colony again enjoyed quiet for several years.
Governor Gordon had in his earlier life been bred to arms, and he had served in the army with considerable repute until the end of Queen Anne’s reign. As a soldier he had learned the value of moderation; and not forgetting it in civil life, his administration was distinguished by prudence and a regard for the interests of the province, while his peaceful Indian policy secured for the colony a period of almost unprecedented prosperity. Planted in 1682, nearly fifty years later than her neighbors, Pennsylvania could boast in 1735 that her chief city, Philadelphia, was the second in size in the colonies, and her white population larger than that of Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas.
The death of Hannah Penn, the widow of the first proprietor, in 1733, threatened to put a sudden stop to Gordon’s rule, since the assembly, deeming his authority to be derived from Hannah Penn, and to end with her death, refused him obedience. The arrival of a new commission, executed by John, Thomas, and Richard Penn, quickly settled this question, as well as another point. The king’s approval of it reserved specially to the crown the government of the Lower Counties, if it chose to claim it. Of the progress in Gordon’s time towards the settlement of the disputed boundary with Maryland, the recital is given in another chapter.[488]
Upon Gordon’s death, in 1736, James Logan, the lifelong friend of Penn, succeeded as president of the council, but gave place, after two uneventful years, to the new governor, George Thomas, who had been formerly a planter in the island of Antigua.
A promise of continued quiet was harshly disturbed when the governor authorized the enrolment of bought or indented servants in the militia. Opposed to the use of military arms under all conditions, the Quakers who owned these enrolled servants, of whom 276 had been taken, were still more aggrieved by having their own property appropriated to such uses. The assembly finally voted the sum of £2,588 to compensate the owners for the loss of their chattels, but the feeling engendered by the governor’s action was not soothed. The relations between governor and assembly became strained; the governor refusing to give his assent to acts passed by the assembly, and the latter neglecting to vote a salary for the governor. This condition of affairs may have led to the serious election riots which disturbed Philadelphia in 1742. The governor, who had only received £500 of his salary, began to be embarrassed, and was in the end induced by his straits to assent to bills beyond the pale of his instructions, while the assembly soothed him by no longer withholding his salary. In this way good feeling and quiet were restored, and when, in 1747, he decided to resign, the regret of the assembly was unfeigned.
After a short interregnum, during which Anthony Palmer, as president of the council, ruled the province, James Hamilton was appointed deputy-governor by the proprietors, Richard and Thomas Penn. He entered upon his duties with good omens. He was born in the country, and his father had somewhat earlier enjoyed an eminence from the result of the Zenger trial such as no lawyer in America had enjoyed before. For a while the assembly and Hamilton were mutually pleased; but as, in time, he withheld his assent to bills that infringed the proprietary’s right to the interest of loans, the assembly was arrayed against him, and rendered his position so unpleasant that in 1753 he sent to England his resignation, to take effect in a year. His place was taken by Robert Hunter Morris, son of the chief justice of New Jersey, who was, like Hamilton, a man thoroughly conscientious and conversant with the political life in the colonies. Very early in his term he came in conflict with the assembly on a money bill, which his instructions would not allow him to sign. Hampered by these orders, he was unable to rely upon his judgment or feelings and to act independently; hence very soon, in 1756, he resigned, and retired to New Jersey, where he died in 1764.