Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/530

504 P E N P E N rest from various business licences. The State imposes no tax on real estate, but collects $437,77(5 from taxes on money at interest, watches, and carriages. The expenditure, exclusive of payment on debt, was 5,024,7(56. The debt was $20,225,083, with $7,992,983 of assets in the sinking fund. Thirty-eight counties report debts aggregating $76,301, 876, and there are heavy municipal debts. The value of real estate reported in 1SS2 was $1,598,430,041, of which $110,000,126 were legally exempt from taxation. Militia. Distributed over the State and organized into regiments and brigades are 137 volunteer companies, containing 8220 men and otiicers, and called collectively the "national guard." They include three batteries of artillery, three companies of cavalry, and 131 of infantry, and are armed, equipped, and supplied by the State at an annual expense of about $242,000. History. The grant of the extensive territory called Pennsyl vania, made by Charles II. in 1681 to "William PENX (q.v.), carried with it full proprietorship and dominion, saving only the king s sovereignty. Penn at once created a quick market for lands by publishing in England and on the Continent his liberal scheme of government and his intention to try the "holy experiment" of "a free colony for all mankind." In 1682, when he crossed the sea to take possession, he found the western bank of the Delaware already occupied by nearly 6000 Swedes, Dutch, and English, the Swedes having begun a settlement in 1638. To these, as to settlers from all nations, he conceded equal liberties. The desire to escape from spiritual and temporal despotisms, and the chance of acquir ing rich lands in a salubrious climate on easy terms, drew thousands of immigrants : English Quakers, Scottish and Irish Presbyterians, German Mennonites, French Huguenots, men ,of all religions, were alike welcome ; the population increased for a few years at the rate of one thousand a year ; then more rapidly, so that at the end of seventy-five years it exceeded 200,000. Penn twice visited Penn sylvania, staying each time two years. In December 1682 he .summoned delegates to meet him at Upland (now Chester) to con fer about government ; the land was divided into counties, and in March following representatives chosen by the people of these dis tricts agreed on a constitution, based upon popular suffrage, and guaranteeing liberty of conscience. All magistrates and officers were to be chosen by the people, Penn surrendering all claim for revenue by taxation, and retaining for himself and his deputies only the governorship. For his further connexion with Pennsyl vania, see PEXX. In 16S2 PHILADELPHIA (q.v.) was founded. The failure to settle the boundary-line between Pennsylvania and Maryland, in dispute between Lord Baltimore and Penn, long caused great irritation among the settlers, who were liable to double taxation.; but in 1750 Lord Hard wick s decree in Chancery con firmed the original claims of Penn, and in 1763-67 Mason and Dixon definitely fixed and marked 246 miles of the line, since made famous as the separation between free and slave States. For over sixty years the predominance of the Quakers in the assembly had prevented any legislation for public defence, of which, indeed, there was little need so long as Indians and whites kept their covenant. But in 1744 the Indians became allies of the French, then at war with Great Britain. French military posts established in western Pennsylvania not only violated the integrity of the province but threatened to confine the English to the east of the Alleghanies, and perhaps to crowd them oif the continent. The party of non-resistance was overborne by a sense of public danger, which found strong expression in a pamphlet by Franklin ; and in 1747 the assembly permitted volunteer organization. One hundred and twenty companies were soon enrolled, ten of them, of a hundred men each, in Philadelphia. But there was no efficient manage ment nor hearty co-operation with adjacent colonies. Braddock s defeat in 1754 intensified the alarm ; Fort Duquesne (site of Pitts burgh), which he aimed to reduce, was held by the French till 1758. The peace of Paris in 1763 did not quiet the lied Men. Pontiac, a famous sachem, united the western tribes in a war of extermina tion, only ended when the whites had proved their mastery. The royal council, displeased with self-governing tendencies, annulled the militia law of Pennsylvania ; but the pressure of common danger and the dread of tomahawk and torch not only led to the oiler of a bounty of $130 for Indian scalps, but taught the lessons of comradeship, and co-operation, and nourished the self-reliant courage of the generation which was to strike for independence. Though stout against the Stamp Act of 1765 and other parliamentary encroachments, Pennsylvania was not swift to move ; the assembly sought to mediate between the parliament and the colonies, but the course of events soon made neutrality impossible. A long adjournment was construed as abdication ; a committee of safety seized the reins till the people could speak through a representative convention. The convention espoused the revolution ; in Septem ber 1776 a State constitution was promulgated ; in 1778 the old charter was formally annulled and the Penn claims silenced by payment of 130,000. During the war Pennsylvania was the scene of important events, the deliberations of the Congress and the Declaration of Independence in 1776; the battles of Brandy- wine and Germantown in 1777 ; the British occupation of Phil adelphia, and the encampment of "Washington at Valley Forge, in 1777-78. A brief but violent mutiny of the unpaid soldiery of Pennsylvania in 1781 led Congress to adopt a better system of finance, under the wise guidance of Robert Morris of Philadelphia. In 1812, at the outbreak of war with Great Britain, Pennsylvania promptly furnished its quota of troops. At the opening of the war with the southern States in 1861, in response to the president s call for 14,000 men as the State s quota, Pennsylvania sent 25,975, and during the war furnished a total of 387,284. Ko other northern State was invaded. At Gettysburg, near the State border, a three days battle was fought, 30th June to 3d July 1863, resulting in a decisive victory of the Federal forces. In 1S64 Chambersburg was burned by the Confederates. For more than two centuries Penn s commonwealth has been advancing in population and prosperity, and the great body of the people have dwelt in peace. There have been five serious local disturbances. Between 1791 and 1794 there was organized resistance to the collection of a federal tax on distilled spirits, but a strong display of force quelled the insurrection without bloodshed. In 18 44 there were riots in Kensington, a suburb of Philadelphia, between " native Americans " and Catholic Irish, re sulting in the destruction of thirty dwellings, three churches, one convent, and many lives. Between 1835 and 1861 anti-slavery meetings in Philadelphia were often roughly interrupted, and in 1838 Pennsylvania Hall was burned by a pro-slavery mob. A criminal combination in the anthracite mining region, known as the " Molly Maguires," was broken up in 1876 by due course of law, twenty men being hanged for murder. In 1877 the "railroad riots," an outbreak of dissatisfied railway employes, caused a vast destruction of property at Pittsburgh and vicinity, but were quelled by the military. The constitution has been four times revised,- in 1838, 1850, 1857, 1874. (J. P. L. C. G. A.) PENRITH, a market-town of Cumberland, England, is situated near the river Eamont, and on the Lancaster and Carlisle section of the London and North-AVestern Hail way, 18 miles south of Carlisle, and 5 north-east of Ullswater. The town consists chiefly of one long and wide street. To the west once stood an ancient castle, erected as a protection against the Scots, on the site of an old Roman encampment. But it was dismantled by Charles I. ; the ruins still remain. The principal public buildings are the grammar-school, founded by Queen Eli/abeth in loGG, the- agricultural hall, the mechanics institute, and the working-men s literary institute. There are breweries, tanneries, and saw-mills, but the town depends chiefly on agriculture. The population of the urban sanitary district in 1871 was 8317, and in 1881 it was 9268. Old Penrith, the Bremetenracuin of the Romans, was about 5 miles north by west of the present town. At the Conquest the honour of Penrith was a royal franchise ; but it was alternately in the pos session of the English and Scottish kings until given to Anthony Beck, bishop of Durham, by Edward I. The town more than om-e lapsed to the crown. In 1696 it was granted to AVilliam Bentinck, earl of Portland, and in 1783 it was sold by the duke of Portland to the duke of Devonshire. PEXSACOLA, a city of the United States, capital of Escambia county, Florida, on the north-west coast of Pensacola Bay. The harbour has recently been improved so as to secure a uniform depth of 24 feet. Pensacola is the terminus of three railway lines which connect it with Mobile, Montgomery, Jacksonville, and Millview, the start ing-place of steamers plying to Cedar Keys, ic., and the seat of a large trade in lumber (mainly pitch pine), early vegetables, and winter fruits. About 7 miles west of Pen sacola lies a United States navy-yard. The value of the exports to Great Britain and the British colonies in 1882 was $1,481,702, to other foreign countries $1,091,113, and to the United States $535,225. The total imports were only 8169,082. In 1850 the population was 2164, in 1870 3347, and in 1880 6845; and it has since in creased to upwards of 8000. Pensacola Bay is said to have been discovered by Narvaez in 1528. French, and afterwards Spanish, colonists settled on the site of the town in the close of the 17th century. In 1719 it was captured by Bienville, in 1723 restored to the Spaniards, in 1763 occupied by the British, in 1781 captured by General Galvez, in 1814 taken from the British by the United States general Jackson, and again in 1818 taken by the same general from the Spaniards. In 1821, according to the treaty of 1819, it became, with the rest of Florida, part of the United States territory.