this for public purposes we are unable to show. His "Just and Plain Vindication" says that he fitted out two sloops against the pirates, and erected a battery of cannon, besides doing "the decent honors of the government on the King's birthday and other festivals; and Logan's answer, entitled "A More Just Vindication," does not deny this. The acquisition of the copper-mine, situated within the present limits of York County, was by virtue of an unlocated right. Keith said that it was advisable that the place should be occupied, as the Marylanders were advancing towards it it seems to have yielded him no return. The survey of seventy-five thousand five hundred and twenty acres adjoining it, as a manor for Springett Penn, who claimed the powers of government, which survey was the one referred to in the narrative as entered upon the records of the Council, provided a reservation for the Indians, and a delimited march, or belt of land, in face of the Marylanders. The claim to be directly under the Crown, which Keith made, styling himself Governor, was defensible: it could be said that the right of William Penn had become vested in the Crown by the agreement of sale and the payment of part of the purchase-money, and, as far as the Lower Counties were concerned, it was doubtful whether Penn ever had any right. The suppression of the powers which had been exercised by the Council was necessary for the carrying out of any policy, since they made it possible for three or four members of a body not recognized by the Constitution to obstruct every step desired by the Assembly, or thought wise by the Lieutenant-Governor. This was particularly unreasonable, because such a Cabinet was irresponsible, and such an Upper House represented neither the people, nor even a caste or an order. Yet Hannah Penn wrote to him to pass no laws without its concurrence, and not only this, but to send no message, and make no speech to the Assembly, without submitting the same for approval of these persons, to add nobody to the Council without the consent of the other members, and furthermore, if any had been so added, to suspend them until the others chose to

admit them. Keith refused to be bound in this way; he, not James Logan and friends, would be Governor. In the pamphlet war which followed the disclosure of Hannah Penn's instructions,-instructions to which no man of spirit would have willingly submitted,-Keith ably maintained. their illegality in a "Defence of the Constitution of the Province of Pennsylvania and the late honourable Proprietary's Character in Answer to James Logan's Memorial &ct." This, as well as his letter to Hannah Penn, is printed with the Votes of Assembly. As to the charge of betraying the interests of the Penn family, it should be remembered that while Logan was away from the Council, Keith sent back a tax bill to the Assembly, proposing an amendment, that the Proprietary's estate be exempted, and secured this immunity, for which subsequent Governors contended in vain. For the other articles published during the controversy the reader is referred to Hildeburn's " Issues of the Pennsylvania Press." If the reader is disposed to say that the Lieutenant-Governor was bound in honor to follow the instructions, he should bear in mind that they emanated from the executrix of a disputed will, and not from either Springett Penn, who claimed the Governorship as heir-at-law, or Earl Pawlett, the surviving devisee, in trust to make sale, or from the King, to whom the franchise had been sold.

Sir William Keith, in his "Discourse on the Medium of Commerce," says that in 1722 over two hundred houses in the City of Philadelphia stood empty, and many of the laboring people daily were leaving, the shopkeepers had no money to go to market, and the farmer's crop was at the lowest value, so that all European goods, as well as bread, flour, and country produce, were monopolized by four or five rich men, who retailed them at what price they pleased, and had the whole country in their debt at eight per cent. interest. This raised such a clamor that the Assembly, which met at the end of that year, authorized the issuing of paper-money. Instead of following the method of other colonies, by taxing the people to provide a sinking fund, they issued the bills as VOL. XII.-2

a loan upon landed security, to be repaid in annual instalments, with five per cent. interest. Certain persons appointed by the Assembly, styled Commissioners of the Loan Office, attended to this, lending, according to the Act of 1723, not more than two hundred pounds, nor less than twenty pounds, to any person, and taking his bond and a mortgage of land double the amount in value. Keith adds that the five per cent. interest paid to the Province was sufficient to defray the expense of government without laying any tax on the people. That an excise, customs, and county rates continued to be levied was chiefly because the Province itself and the counties borrowed a large part of the first issue to pay previous indebtedness and erect public buildings, and undertook, like individuals, to return the amount in instalments. The duty on negroes imported was not for revenue only. Keith had not the merit of originating this means of discouraging slavery, but, by re-enacting it, facilitated the subsequent extension of "free soil" to Mason and Dixon's line. Sir William thus closes his Discourse:

"It is inconceivable to think what a prodigious good Effect immediately ensued. . . . The Shiping from the West of England, Scotland, and Ireland, which just before used to be detain'd five, six, and sometimes nine Months in the Country, before they could get in the Debts due to them and load, were now dispatch'd in a Month or six Weeks at farthest. The poor middling People, who had any Lands

paid off their usurious creditors: . . . lawful Interest was at this Time [by Act of Mch. 2, 1722-3] reduced from eight to six per Cent. by which means the Town was soon filled with People, and Business all over the Province increased at a great rate: The few rich Men . . . were obliged to build Ships, and launch out again into Trade, in order to convert their Paper Riches into solid Wealth; and for some Years, while that Province continued to have only a moderate Sum in Paper Money on foot, it kept an Equality with Spanish Silver and Gold, or did not fall above five per Cent for as Lands there generally rise in their Value, and are in continual Demand, the Security was unquestionably as good, if not better, than any that is given in Europe for Paper; and this most useful Scheme was not attended with any other ungrateful Consequence, but the Removal of a

Governor who, contrary to the Sentiments and private Interest of a few rich Men in that Place, had passed it into a Law."

If Keith was the inventor of this plan, providing a circulating medium, representing lands put under the control of the State, and running a government without taxation, not by borrowing money, but by lending it, he was a greater financier than many a man who has derived fame from the restoration of national credit.

It was a point in Keith's favor that he had come to the colony with, as far as we can tell, the intention of making it his home, had brought up his children there, and in the investment of money had staked his interests upon its prosperity. It was not only by obligations undertaken on or before receiving office, nor by lavish expenditure continued while the Assembly diminished and delayed his salary, that he was always in debt; he launched out in business ventures in which his money and reputation were wrecked. His projects, had they been successful, not only would have lifted him out of those necessities which were the spring of his ignoble conduct, but would have aided the development. of the country. Before he dug for copper on the Susquehanna, he started the erection of a grist-mill at Horsham. We doubt that he was a hypocrite in saying to the Assembly in January, 1721-22,—

"My mind is so fully bent upon doing this Province some effectual Service that I have lately formed the Design of a considerable Settlement amongst you, in order to manufacture and consume the Grain, for which there is, at this Time, no profitable Market Abroad. And although this Project will, doubtless, at first prove very chargeable and expensive to me, yet if it meets with your Approbation, and the Goodwill of the People, I am well assured it cannot fail of answering my Purpose, to do a real Service to the Country; and every Interest or Concern of mine shall ever be built on that Bottom."

The Assembly evinced its willingness to legislate for this industry by passing an act to prevent the exportation of inferior flour, and an act to require the making of beer and

ale from grain instead of molasses, etc. On April 6, 1723, he requested the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to continue Rev. Mr. Harrison in the Province to minister to a new congregation at Horsham, where, he says, he had lately made "a considerable settlement," and the people were attending every Sunday to hear prayers read by a layman. During the last two or three years of his residence in it he carried on an iron-works in New Castle County. The investigations of Mr. Swank, the historian of the "Manufacture of Iron in all Ages," have brought to light none earlier in Delaware, although the existence of iron there was known even to the Dutch. Alexander Spotswood, previously Governor of Virginia, came to New Castle in September, 1724, on his way to New York to embark for England, and spent about a week with Sir William, appreciating his feelings in regard to Mrs. Penn's instructions, and undertaking to be his champion in London. Spotswood was very enthusiastic about iron, and may have prompted Sir William to engage in its manufacture. Spotswood's visit to Philadelphia in October, 1722, was followed by the latter's purchase, by deed of October 29, of two hundred and sixteen acres one hundred and thirty-six perches of land lying along Christiana Creek, and including part of "the iron hills," and his subsequent sojourn with Sir William was prior to his erection of the furnace which Swedenborg's "De Ferro," published in 1734, quoted by Mr. Swank, says was in 1725. The "Just and Plain Vindication of Sir William Keith," published about the middle of 1726, says that he had laid out not only two thousand pounds on a farm, but "4000l. in another Place; where, by Erecting an IronWork, it is improved to near double the prime Cost, and this last Estate, Sir William all along, design'd as a Security to his Creditors, until they were fully satisfy'd and paid," while the "More Just Vindication" answers that scarcely any one would take the works as a gift, if obliged to maintain them. Sir William, having increased his estate in New Castle County to about eleven hundred acres, conveyed it, in February, 1726-27, to John England, in pursuance of an