WILLIAM TILUHMAN. 43 



It is the misfortune of Pennsylvania that the want 

 of a Court of Chancery has left her tribunals no al- 

 ternative but that of attempting this difficult incorpo- 

 ration. Her Chancery history is short and striking. 



There was no such Court among the institutions of 

 "William Penn, or of his day. That this was the con- 

 sequence of a jealousy of the principles and practice of 

 that Court entertained by the people, is not indicated 

 by their early juridical history. It was more proba- 

 bly owing to a question connected with tlie introduc- 

 tion of the Court, and under the influence of which 

 it met an early fate, — in whom, according to the con- 

 stitutional law of that day, the office of Chancellor 

 ought to vest, and whether it could be legally exe- 

 cuted except by one, who under the great seal of 

 England, acted as tlie king's representative. The 

 prerogative lawyers of the colony held the negative 

 of that question ; yet the alleged necessity for the 

 Court was such, and such the attacliment to both its 

 forms and principles, that the Legislature, by a mere 

 resolution, requested Sir William Kieth, to hold a 

 Court of Chancery, and it was accordingly opened un- 

 der the proclamation of that Governor, in August, 

 1720. During the rule of a less popular Governor in 

 1736, the organization of the Court v/as denounced 

 by the Assembly as a violation of the Charter of Pri- 

 vileges, and at the same session a Bill was sent up 

 for the approbation of Governor Gordon, establishing 

 Superior and Inferior Courts of Equity in the ordi- 

 nary way. The prerogative objection recuiTed, it 



