Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/159

] chief justice. The executive administration was committed to the council, Lloyd being president, and Markham secretary. So rapid had been the increase of Pennsylvania that when Penn returned to England, it contained already twenty settlements and seven thousand inhabitants.

James II. ascended the throne soon after Penn's arrival, and he continued to enjoy the same favor at the hands of the king which he had received from the Duke of York. It may be worth noting, that the charter of Pennsylvania was the only one in America against which a Quo Warranto was not issued.

While Penn was in England, he was subjected to a great deal of vexation and disappointment. The same scene of contention was renewed in Pennsylvania that had often before taken place between distant proprietaries and popular bodies dissatisfied with the limited authority that they were constantly aiming to enlarge. Disputed questions arose between the governor and council on the one hand, and the Assembly on the other, in which Penn necessarily became involved. Besides being subject to continual encroachments upon his authority, he complained with reason, that the quit-rents to which he looked as a return for his heavy outlays in founding the colony, were appropriated in part to the public service, for which the Assembly refused to vote a suitable provision. He was also dissatisfied with the conduct of the council, which he superseded by live commissioners, charged with executive functions, but soon after appointed Blackwell, an old officer of Cromwell, and at the time resident in New England, who sternly insisted upon the maintenance of proprietary rights; yet to so little purpose, that after another period of dissension, Penn, anxious, to use his own words, "to settle the government so as to please the generality," determined "to throw all into their hands, that they might see the confidence he had in them, and his desire to give them all possible contentment." Thus did the council, at that time entirely popular in its constitution, become, early in 1690, invested with the chief authority, subject to the sole proviso of a veto on the part of the proprietary. Meanwhile, a printing press, the third in America, was, about 1687, set up at Philadelphia. Penn also in 1689 gave a charter to a public high school.

The downfall of James was fatal to Penn's favor at court, and subjected him to severe trials. The old settlers on the Delaware became jealous of the newly-created colony; dissensions and quarrels arose; and ended in the establishment of the three lower counties, by Penn's consent, under a separate government of their own, of which Markham became the head. Penn himself, however was very soon deprived, by an order of the Privy Council, of the administration of colonial affairs in both the Delaware counties and also in Pennsylvania.

