Page:Historical and biographical sketches.djvu/252

248 ye sayd Tho. Lloyd would forbear such Lowd talking, telling him he must not suffer such doings, but would take a course to suppresse it and shutt ye Doore.” The crisis had now approached, and soon afterward Penn recalled Blackwell, authorized the Council to choose a president and act as his deputy themselves, and poured oil upon the troubled waters in this wise: “Salute me to ye people in Genll. Pray send for J. Simcock, A. Cook, John Eckley and Samll Carpenter, and Lett them dispose T. L., & Sa. Richardson to that Complying temper that may tend to that loveing & serious accord yt become such a Govermt.”

After the departure of Blackwell the Council elected Lloyd their president. Richardson resumed his place for the remainder of his term, and in 1695 was returned for a further period of two years. During this time Colonel Fletcher made a demand upon the authorities of Pennsylvania for her quota of men to defend the more northern provinces against the Indians and the French, and Richardson was one of a committee of twelve, two from each county, appointed to reply to this requisition. They reported in favor of raising five hundred pounds, upon the understanding that it “should not be dipt in blood,” but be used to “feed the hungrie & cloath the naked.”

He was a judge of the county court and justice of the peace in 1688 and 1704, and for the greater part — probably the whole — of the intervening period. In the historic contest with George Keith, the leader of a schism which cause a wide breach among those early Friends in Pennsylvania, he bore a conspicuous part. A crew of river-pirates, headed by a man named Babbit, stole a sloop from a wharf in Philadelphia and committed a number of