OF LANCASTER COUN'TV. 75 



and the Quakers ; they prevented emigration, and greatly aftected the 

 reputation of the society of Friends and the proprietary." 



Penn changed the form of executive government to a board of iivo 

 commissioners, any three of whom were empowered to act [IGSd] Tlie 

 board consisted of Thomas Lloyd, Nichohis Moore, James (^lavpoole, 

 Eobert Turner and John Eckley. 



The next session of the legishitiire [108b] was marked by the usual 

 want of unanimity and the objectionable acts of the Assembly laying on 

 its members a solemn injunction of secrecy. This measure was not 

 without an exhibition of imdignified violence, resisted by the Council, and 

 the lack of harmony greatly obstructed legislation. Ijloyd, in conse- 

 quence, rec[uested to be released from the public affairs of government. 

 His request was reluctantly granted, and on his recommendation, the 

 proprietary changed the plural executive into a single deputy, making- 

 choice of Captain John Blackwell, formerl}' an officer of Cromwell, under 

 whom he had earned a distinguished reputation in England and Ireland. 

 He was in New England when he received his commission dated July 

 25, 1688.1 



^^ Blackwell met the Assembly in the third month, 1689; but, by rea- 

 son of some misunderstanding or dissension between him and some of 

 the Council, the public affairs were not managed with the desired har- 

 mony and satisfaction ; and but little done during his administration, 

 which continued only till the twelfth-month this year, when he returned 

 to England and the government of the province, according to charter, 

 devolved again on the Council, Thomas Lloyd, President. 



*' The appointment of BlacJauell, who was no Qualcer, to be Deputy Gov- 

 ernor, appears, by the proprietary's letters to his friends, in the ])rovince, 

 to have been because no suitable person, who was of that society, would 

 undertake the ofl&ce." - 



"By the rbvolution of 1688, which drove James from the throne, the 

 proprietary lost all influence in the English court. His intimacy with 

 that unhappy monarch covered him with dark suspicion.*^ His religious 

 and political principles were misrepresented; he was denounced as a 

 Catholic, a Jesuit of St. Omers, and a self-devoted slave to despotism, and 

 was charged with conspiring the restoration of James. It is now unne- 

 cessary to disprove these accusations ; for though his enemies caused him 

 to be thrice examined before the privy council, and to give bail for his 

 appearance in the king's bench, he was discharged by that court, no evi- 

 dence appearing against him. The ties which bound him to Europe 

 having been thus broken, he prepared to revisit his province, accom- 

 panied by another colony of five hundred persons, which he had assem- 

 bled by publication of new proposals. A convoy was appointed by 

 1 Proud. Gordon. •:: Proud. 3 Gordon. 



