The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1885-06-30
WILLIAM PENN'S RAPAcITY.

dred Years.
The Delaware fishery question is an
example of the cases which have made
every lawyer of prominence in New
jersey an antiquarian, with all sorts of
curious facts at his fingers ends. EX-
Acknowledgement Robert Gilchrist en-
gagged in the fishery case in 1873, and
he has been associated with Cortland
Parker, John p. Stockton, ex-Secretary
Frelinghuysen and others in its dis
cusslon, and Secretary Bayard has
championed the claims of Delaware.
Mr.. Gilchrist's connection with the case
has made him curiously familiar with
the times of Charles H. and with the
peculiarities of the Duke of York and
that liable politician" William Penn,
who seems to have been successful in
getting almost anything he wanted
from the Duke until the latter ran away
from Whitehall and threw his great seal
as James IL into the River Thames.
One of the strange phases of the Della
ware claim to exclusive privileges on
the River Delaware and Delaware Bay
is that its people, or some of them,
fought the claim a hundred years ago
and up to near the beginning of the
present century repudiated the guileful
Quaker's claims. Mr.. Penn was
grantee under the Duke of York as a
JerSeyman, and a claimant from the
same source in Delaware and PennSyl-
yania. The Jersey grant, in 1663-64, re-
newed after the Du oh defe It in
1914, was made TO Penn among
Others, and the claim for Delaware was
subsequent to and inconsistent with
this. New Jerseys titles to land were
confirmed in 17Oz and V the Revo ution.
Delaware'S Claim to the fishing priv
leges and to tie right 10 keep Jersey
men from the waters of the river date
back to 1862. William Penn had OBJ
tanned the grant of Pennsylvania, but
when he arrived he found ten Swedes
in Delaware occupying the fair water
front. He fixed lustful eyes upon the
place, and at length got grant from
the Duke of York for the town of New
castle and all that lay within a twelve
mile circle thereof. The Duke, unfOrt-
unate!y for Penn. had no right to make
that grant, his brother, King Charles,
having never given it TO him. Penn
evidently understood the deficiency in
the grant, for when the Duke became
King he got his deed redrawn, and it
passed through the preliminary stages
and needed only the Kings great seal.
Just at this juncture King James
thought London was getting too hot for
him and ran away. 1t is recorded in
an ancient chronicle that "during an
unguarded moment that able politician,
Penn, confessed to the Board of Trade
that had King James remained two
DAYS longer at Whitehall he would have
obtained grant under the great seal
for the three counties of Delaware. In
170S the Delaware Assembly knew that
Penn had claim on the counties, but
denied its leg .timacv, and before that
the King and council had repudiated it.
There was a war over the possession in
1877 between Lord Baltimore men and
the Penn tenants, and again the council
decided that the province belonged to
the crown; and in 1894 the people OF
-.r. themselves formGn.- -
popular election, decided that the crown
had possessed the State until lis claims
had been transferred by the Revolution.
1t has seemed strange, therefore, that
the Penn grant should be made the basis
for claim in the river, which had been,
in fact, always possessed by the crown,
or general government fact the Della
wareans had used violence TO maintain.
The Penn grant, which was never
really granted, has therefore been
subject of dispute for just two hundred
and two years. Rejected at first by the
residents of the colony, admitted to be
void, fought by Lord Baltimore with
drawn swords" fretfuliy alluded to as
a source of trouble by the Delaware
Assembly one hundred and fifty years
ago, formally repudiated by the King
and Council, rejected again by the Del
awareanS, further invalidated by the
Revolution, it might have been consid-
cred as dead as the willy Penn himself il
it had not come forth As an argument
upon the question of who owned Pea
Patch Island in the Delaware River forty
years ago, and had not then been mis-
understood and misconstrued so that
Delaware was able to lay some claim TO
its genuinenesS, and, few years ago,
set up that it was, as heir TO PENIS
privileges, the sole possessor of juris-
diction over the Delaware River within
twelve miles of Newcastle, and has the
right to make Jerseymen pay license
for fishing therein. An injunction of
the United States Courts has sustained
operation since, and is admitted to be
effective still. The end is not yet, for
the case is not fully adjusted. 1t affords,
at least. glimpse of early colonial his
tory which is not without interest
Trenton IN ~ Cor. n L. Tribune.