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498 Providence Meeting of the 1 of American history, was opened by Mr. Clarence S. Brigham, librarian of the Rhode Island Historical Society, with a contribution 1 on " The Impressment of Seamen preceding the War of 1812 ". ( The conflicting orders of the English government and of Napoleon ' having thrown the carrying-trade into the hands of neutrals, British ! sailors rushed to man the American ships to such an extent that j Gallatin declared them to constitute 2,500 out of 4,200 of the annual j increase of the American marine. The right of impressment, ancient [ and in England undoubted, was in America regarded with feelings 1 differing on party lines, in its application to the recovery of British ; sailors, or alleged British sailors, found on American ships. Judicial 1 opinions on both sides of the ocean mostly upheld the rightfulness of ; such impressment, but the z^merican executive denied it. Few sailors had been naturalized by the required five years' residence. 1 The act of May 1796 provided for " protection papers ", or certifi- cates of citizenship. Four registers of these, from the Providence custom-house, have lately been acquired by the Rhode Island His- torical Society. But such papers were shamelessly exchanged and otherwise abused. The speaker estimated that from ten to twenty thousand British sailors were serving on American vessels before the outbreak of war. The second paper was by Professor Edward Channing on William Penn. The name of Penn, said Professor Channing, is one of the greatest of the seventeenth century, and his career has been studied most minutely. The charges of Macaulay have been refuted to the satisfaction of all investigators, )-et there are some things in the career of Penn that are hard to understand. His attitude in the boundary disputes of Pennsylvania has frequently been misunder- stood. Penn regarded his colony as a holy experiment in govern- ment but also, it should be remembered, as a great domain for him- self. Two centres of colonial activity ofifered themselves in Penn- sylvania, the valleys of the Delaware and the Susquehanna. Through the latter Penn desired to tap the northern fur-trade and with that in view sent agents to Albany to buy land from the Indians. His plans however were frustrated by Governor Dongan of New York, who maintained that the Iroquois were tributary to that colony, and who took a deed from the chiefs in his own name. In the south Penn was opposed by Baltimore, who claimed everything below the Schuylkill. Between the two Penn seemed likely to lose a large part of his grant. In addition to these territorial disputes Penn was beset with difficulties in the government of his colony. He was an idealist,