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 one as governor. "He began to question," says Mr Clarkson, "whether, under the Christian system, men ought to be consigned to unconditional slavery; whether they ought to be bought and sold. This question he determined virtuously, and in unison with the resolutions of the two fore-mentioned yearly meetings of the Quakers. He resolved, as far as his own powers went, upon incorporating the treatment of the negroes, as a matter of Christian duty, into the discipline of the religious body to which he belonged. He succeeded; and a minute was passed by the monthly meeting of Philadelphia, and properly registered there, by which a meeting was appointed more particularly for the negroes once every month; so that, besides the common opportunities they had of collecting religious knowledge by frequenting the places of public worship, there was one day in the month in which, as far as the influence of the monthly meeting extended, they could neither be temporally nor spiritually overlooked. Having secured their good treatment in a certain degree among those of his own persuasion, his next object was to secure it among others in the colony, on whom the discipline of the Quakers had no hold, by a legislative act. This was all he could do at present. To forbid the bringing of slaves into the colony was entirely out of his power. He had no command whatever over the external commerce of the mother country. He was bound, on the other hand, by his charter, to admit her imports, and at this moment she particularly encouraged the slave trade. His first step, then, was to introduce a bill into the assembly which should protect negroes from personal ill treatment, by fair trials and limited punishments, when they committed offences; and which, at the same time, by regulating their marriages, should improve their moral condition. This he did with a view of fitting them by degrees for a state of freedom; and as the bill comprehended not only those negroes who were then in the province and territories, but those who should afterwards be brought there, he hoped that it would lay the foundation of a preparatory school for civilisation

the

and liberty to all of the African race." This bill, unfortunately, he was unable to carry, at least in its full extent. But the good effects of his exertions, so far as they did succeed, were ultimately seen. From the time that the subject of negro treatment was introduced into the discipline of the Pennsylvanian Quakers by Penn, it was never lost sight of by that body. Individual Quakers began to refuse to purchase negroes, others to emancipate those in their possession; and at length it became a law of the society that no member should hold slaves. In the year 1780, not a Quaker possessed a slave in Pennsylvania; and from that time slavery dwindled away in the state, till, in the year 1810, there were only eight hundred slaves in Pennsylvania, in a population of nearly a million.

Penn's success with the Indians was similar. Unable to do much for them legislatively, he did much by his example and influence, visiting them personally, and trying by all means to establish a friendly commercial intercourse with them. Whatever advances in the arts of civilised life were made in the early part of the eighteenth century by the Indian tribes of the northwest, were due originally to William Penn; and for more than fifty years after his death, his name was remembered among them as that of a "true and good man."

Penn was roused from his quiet and benevolent labours in behalf of the colonists, the negroes, and the Indians, by the intelligence that a movement had been begun in England for the abolition of the proprietory system of governing the American colonies. Deeply interested in this intelligence, he thought it due to his interests to embark for England, where, accordingly,

he arrived in December 1701.

The bill which had brought him from America was not proceeded with; and the accession of Queen Anne to the throne in 1702 was a favourable event for his interests. Penn, however, never returned to America, but spent the remaining sixteen years of his life in England. It is melancholy to add that these last years of the existence of so good a man were clouded with misfortune. His outlay on Pennsylvania had far exceeded the immediate returns which the property could yield; and the consequence was, that he was involved in pecuniary embarrassments. To meet these, he was obliged, in 1709, to mortgage the province for £6600. The loss of a lawsuit added to his difficulties; and for some time he was a prisoner within the rules of the Fleet. In 1712, he agreed to sell his rights to government for £12,000. The bargain, however, was never concluded, owing to his being incapacitated by three apopletic fits, which, following each other rapidly, deprived him to a great extent of memory and consciousness. He lingered on, however, till the 30th of July 1718, when he died at Ruscombe, in Berkshire, in the seventy-fourth year of his age.

Penn's appearance and personal habits are thus described

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by Mr Clarkson:" He was tall in stature, and of an athletic make. In maturer years he was inclined to corpulency; but used a great deal of exercise.. His appearance at this time was that of a fine portly man. He was very neat, though plain in his dress. He walked generally with a cane. He had a great aversion to the use of tobacco. However, when he was in America, though he was often annoyed by it, he bore it with good-humour. Several of his particular friends were one day assembled at Burlington; while they were smoking their pipes, it was announced to them that the governor's barge was in sight, and coming up the river. The company supposed that he was on his way to Pennsburg, about seven miles higher up. They continued smoking; but being afterwards unexpectedly informed that he had landed at a wharf near them, and was just entering the house, they suddenly concealed their pipes. Perceiving, from the smoke, when he entered the room, what they had been doing, and discovering that the pipes had been hid, he said pleasantly, Well, friends, I am glad to see that you are at least ashamed of your old practice.' 'Not entirely so,' replied Samuel Jenings, one of the company; but we preferred laying down our pipes to the danger of offending a weak brother.' They then expressed their surprise at this abrupt visit, as, in his passage from Philadelphia, not only the tide, but the wind had been furiously against him. He replied, with a smile on his countenance, that he had been sailing against wind and tide all his life.""

The colony made rapid progress after Penn's death, settlers being attracted to it from all parts of the old world by the freedom of its constitution and its natural advantages. The proprietorship was vested in the heirs of Penn by his second marriage, his children by the first marriage having inherited his British estates, which, at the time of Penn's death, were of greater value than his American property. In the year 1752, while Pennsylvania was still a British colony, the French made encroachments on it from the north-west, and built Fort Duquesne-now Pittsburg. Philadelphia, the capital of Pennsylvania, speedily grew in size and importance. Its name is associated with some of the most distinguished events in the history of the United States. It was there that the delegates of the various colonies assembled in the year 1774, when they declared against the right of the mother country to tax the colonies; and it was also there that the famous declaration of independence was proclaimed in 1776. On the conclusion of the war of independence, Penn's descendants sold their right of proprietorship over Pennsylvania to the American government for £130,000. Philadelphia continued to be the seat of the federal government till the year 1800. In the present day it is a large and populous city, celebrated for the number of its foundations and benevolent institutions, all less or more originating in the philanthropic principles early introduced into Pennsylvania.

AN IRISH TALE, BY MRS S. C. HALL.

AMES HARRAGAN was as fine a specimen of an Irishman as could be met with in our own dear country, where the "human form divine," if not famous for very delicate, is at least celebrated for very strong proportions: he was, moreover, a well-educated, intelligent person; that is to say, he could read and write, keep correct accounts of his buying and selling, and managed his farm, consisting of ten good acres of the best land in a part of Ireland where all is good (the Barony of Forth), so as to secure the approbation of an excellent landlord, and his own prosperity. It was a pleasant sight to see the honest farmer bring out the well-fed horse, and the neatly-appointed car, every Saturday morning, whereon his pretty daughter Sydney journeyed into Wexford, to dispose of the eggs, butter, and poultry, the sale of which aided her father's exertions.

Sydney was rather an unusual name for a young Irish girl; but her mother had been housekeeper to a noble lady, who selected it for her, though it assimilated strangely with Harragan. The maiden herself was lithe, cheerful, industrious, and of a gentle loving nature; her brown affectionate eyes betokened, as brown eyes always do, more of feeling than of intellect; and her red lips, white teeth, and rich dark hair, entitled her to the claim of rustic beauty. Her mother had been dead about two years, and Sydney, who during her lifetime was somewhat inclined to be vain and thoughtless, had, as her father expressed it, "taken altogether a turn for good," and discharged her duties

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admirably as mistress of James Harragan's household. She had five brothers, all younger than herself; the two elder were able and willing to assist in the farm, the juniors went regularly to school.

Sorrow for the loss of his wife had both softened and humbled James Harragan's spirit; and when Sydney, disdaining any assistance, sprang lightly into the car, and seated herself in the midst of her rural treasures, her father's customary prayer, "Good luck to you, Sydney, my darling," was increased by the prayer of "May the Lord bless you, and keep you to me, now, and till the day of my death!"

The car went on, Sydney laughing and nodding to her father, while he smiled and returned her salutation, though, when she was fairly out of sight, he passed the back of his rough hand across his eyes, and murmured, "I almost wish she was not so like her mother!" When James entered his cottage, he sat by the fire, and, taking a slate that hung above the settle, began to make thereupon sundry calculations, which I do not profess to understand. How long he might have continued so occupied I cannot determine, for his cogitations were interrupted by the entrance of a gentleman, who was by his side ere he noticed his approach. The usual salutations were exchanged; the best chair dusted, and presented to the stranger; everything in the house was tendered for his acceptance. "His honour had a long walk, would he have an egg or a rasher for a snack? Sydney was out, but Bessy her cousin was above in the loft, and would get it or anything else in a minute; or maybe he'd have a glass of ale-good it was-Cherry's ale-no better in the kingdom." All Irishmen and particularly so fine and manly a fellow as James-to be seen to advantage, should be seen in their own houses-CABINS I cannot call such as are tenanted by the warm farmers of this well-cultivated district.

Mr Herrick, however, could not be tempted; he would not suffer the rasher to be cut, nor the ale to be drawn, and James looked sad because his visitor declined accepting his humble but cheerful hospitality.

66 James," ," said Mr Herrick, "I am glad I found you at home, and alone, for I wanted to speak with you. I have long considered you superior to your neighbours. I do not mean as a farmer-though you have twice received the highest prizes which the Agricultural Society bestow-but as a man."

James looked gratified, and said he was so.

"I have found you, James, the first to see improvement, and to adopt it, however much popular prejudice might be against it. You have ever been ready to listen to and act upon the advice of those your reason told you were qualified to give it; and you have not been irritated or annoyed when faults, national or individual, have been pointed out to you which can be and ought to be remedied."