began his government as a man of conscience, proceeded in it as a man of reason, and ended it more as a man of the world. Penn's most zealous apologist against this charge of Franklin is his biographer, Mr. Clarkson. To examine minutely the arguments on both sides, would not answer any good purpose; it may be sufficient to remark, that the charge of Franklin is founded on certain changes introduced by Penn into the political constitution of Pennsylvania, to increase his own authority as governor, and that it does not effect the general spirit in which Penn fulfilled his important trust, which was uniformly that of mildness, justice, and benevolence. It was not to be expected that a constitution or frame of government prepared on the other side of the Atlantic by the mere pen, and transplanted to the new world, would satisfy the actual wants of the colony, or require no change. Accordingly, that there should be differences of opinion between the colonists and the governor on some points, or among the various classes of the colonists themselves, was natural enough; the merit of Penn and the early Pennsylvanians was, that, notwithstanding these differences, the general spirit of the administration was healthy and tolerant. 'Governments,' said Penn himself, 'depend upon men, rather than men upon governments. Like clocks, they go from the motion which men give them. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad. If it be ill, they will cure it. No government could maintain its constitution, however excellent it was, without the preservation of virtue.' Thus it was that, although Pennsylvania at its commencement had its political disputes, it had a security for prosperity in the character of its founders.
Two objects which occupied a great share of Penn's attention in his capacity of governor of Pennsylvania, were the condition of the negroes who had been imported into the settlement, and the civilization of the North American Indians with whom the colonists were brought into contact. 'Soon after the colony had been planted,' says Mr. Clarkson, 'that is in the year 1682, when William Penn was first resident in it, some few Africans had been imported; but more had followed. At this time the traffic in slaves was not branded with infamy as at the present day. It was considered, on the other hand, as favorable to both parties: to the American planters, because they had but few laborers in comparison with the extent of their lands; and to the poor Africans themselves, because they were looked upon as persons thus redeemed out of superstition, idolatry, and heathenism. But though the purchase and sale of them had been adopted with less caution upon this principle, there were not wanting among the Quakers of Pennsylvania those who, soon after the introduction of them there, began to question the moral licitness of the traffic. Accordingly, at the yearly meeting for Pennsylvania in 1688, it had been resolved, on the suggestion of emigrants from Crisheim, who had adopted the principles of William Penn, that the buying, selling, and holding men in slavery was inconsistent with the tenets of the Christian religion. In 1696, a similar resolution had been passed at the yearly meeting of the same religious society for the same province. In consequence of these noble resolutions, the Quakers had begun to treat their slaves in a manner different from that of other people. In 1698, there were instances where they had admitted them into their meeting-houses, to worship in common with themselves.'
Penn, on his return, keenly took up the cause of the negroes, both in his private capacity as a member of the Society of Friends, and in his public
