1774.] IlISTOUY OF DELAWARE COUNTY. 277 



our county, appear now to be engafjed more earnestly in freeing 

 their members "from the evil practice of holding slaves." 

 Through the instrumentality of visiting committees, a consider- 

 able number of Friends had been induced to liberate their ser- 

 vants for life, or to enter into an obligation to free them at a 

 certain age ; though slave-holding at this time was not a suffi- 

 cient cause for disownment. Nor was it hehl by all the Meetings 

 that even selling slaves placed the offender quite beyond the care 

 of the Society, for, in a case brought before Darby Meeting, and 

 clearly made out, the offender was regarded as being " under 

 censure of the minute of our Yearly Meeting of 1758," and in 

 the testimony adopted, they " refuse to permit him to sit in our 

 meetings of discipline, or be employed in the affairs of Truth, or 

 receive from him any contribution towards the relief of the poor 

 or other services of the Meeting." 



Great opposition was made to the road laid out in 1770 from 

 the Middle Ferry to Strasburg in Lancaster County, partly on 

 account of supposed mistakes in making the return. As a con- 

 sequence it was not opened, and this year, in pursuance of in- 

 structions from the Governor and Council, it was reviewed by 

 the Commissioners who laid it out, but they do not appear to 

 have made any material change in the route, though it is desig- 

 nated much more particularly in the second survey.* 



John Penn, who had formerly acted as Governor, and who, in 

 consequence of the death of his father, had become one of the 

 Proprietaries, returned to the Province in 1773, and assumed 

 the duties of administering the government. 



From a message by the Governor to the Assembly, it would 

 appear that £15,000 had been appropriated for building forti- 

 fications "for the security and defence" of Philadelphia, and 

 that the whole amount had been expended in the purchase of 

 Mud Island, and in the erection of a fort thereon ; the work 

 having been executed in accordance with " the opinion and ad- 

 vice of a skillful engineer, recommended by General Gage." 

 The Governor regarded the work as having been done "in a 

 masterly manner." The object of the message was to urge the 

 Assembly to make provision for finishing the work. A tem- 

 porary fortress had been erected on this island at a former period, 

 but the structure now erected was the l)eginning of, and consti- 

 tutes a material part of the present Fort Mifflin, 



We now approach the most momentous period of our history 

 as a people — a period embracing the events that severed us from 

 the mother country, and gave us a separate national existence. 

 The limited scope of this work will only permit a notice of such 



1 Col. Rec. X. 113. 



