Page:Historical and biographical sketches.djvu/255

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
A LEGISLATOR OF THE OLDEN TIME.
251

sented to the governor and Council a written vindication of the action of the county court, saying it was their duty to grant the replevin upon the plaintiff giving bond, as he had done, and adding that they had good grounds for believing the sheriff to be as proper a person to secure the property “to be forthcoming in Specie, as by the replevin he is Comanded, as that they should remain in the hands of Robert Webb, who is no Proper officer, as wee Know of, to Keep the Same.” More than a year afterward, Penn, who had recently arrived in the Province on his second visit, called the attention of the Council to the subject, and to the great resentment felt by the superior powers in England at the support said to be given in Pennsylvania to piracy and illegal trade. The next day Morris surrendered the bond and the inventory of the goods, and resigned his commission. To his statement that he had for many years served as a justice to his own great loss and detriment, and that in granting the writ he had done what he believed to be right, Penn replied that his signing the replevin was a “verie indeliberate, rash and unwarrantable act.” His cup of humiliation had not yet, however, been drained. Quarry required his attendance again before the Council, and said the goods had been forcibly taken from the marshal, and “what came of ym the Sd Anthonie best knew;” that he could not plead ignorance, “having been so long a Justice yt hee became verie insolent;” and that the security having refused payment, and it being unreasonable to burden the king with the costs of a suit, he demanded that the “Sd Anthonie” should be compelled to refund their value. Morris could only reply “yt it lookt very hard yt any justice should suffer for an error in judgment; and further added that if it were to do again, he wold not do it.”

David Lloyd, the attorney in the case, when arguing