Beschreibung:

Manuscript journal titled on the cover "Rough Minutes 1721/2" being the minutes of the Assembly kept by its clerk Maurice Lisle.
Philadelphia]: 14 October 1721 to 4 August 1722. [138] pp., small folio (315 x 198mm). Written in a single hand in black ink, with numerous deletions, cross-throughs and corrections. With 8 additional lines on rear pastedown. Original marbled wrappers. Condition : some light browning; covers detached, stitching defective, one leaf loosely inserted. Provenance : Maurice Lisle; Norris family (by descent to); William Pepper Norris, Jr. the clerk's working copy of his record of the proceedings of the assembly in philadelphia during a turbulent period. Following the arrival of William Keith as Governor in 1717, Pennsylvania enjoyed a short period of peace and prosperity, with the land-owning Quaker merchant class in control of both the Assembly and Council. "By the summer of 1722, however, the political calm of Pennsylvania was shattered. A decade of economic prosperity had come to an abrupt halt about a year before as the colony felt the deflationary effects of the panic and recession in England caused by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble. Prices of Pennsylvania produce fell precipitously, trade decayed, and an acute shortage of gold and silver dampened internal trade … Economic depression led directly to the return of a radical mode of politics. At the October 1721 elections, which Logan complained were 'very mobbish and carried by a Leveling spirit,' many stalwarts of Philadelphia were swept out of office" (Nash, Quakers and Politics, p. 332). This included Isaac Norris and Jonathan Dickinson, who were replaced with anti-Proprietary representatives supported by the rising middle and lower classes. Maurice Lisle was employed as Clerk to the Assembly in 1705 and again from 1717 to 1722. His journal starts with the convening of the Assembly following the autumn "mobbish" elections of 1721, with a listing of the newly-elected representatives. The primary issues before the Assembly were how to improve the failing economy and the maintenance of Indian relations. Addressing the former, a number of Acts which regulated trade and imposed tariffs on imported goods are discussed within these minutes, including the establishment of duties on the importation of rum and slaves. Other more mundane petitions addressed by the Assembly included complaints by the city's butchers of the high cost of rent of their stalls in the newly-erected market. Regarding currency, while no mention of paper currency appears in these records (an issue which would occupy the successive session of the Assembly) a bill was read and recorded in these journals "to alter and raise the Currency" of coins. Regarding Indian relations, the journal records on April 26 the receipt of "a Copy of proceedings of a Councill he held with Indians at Conestogoe." The Assembly replies to the Governor with inquiries about the "apprehending & securing John & Edmund Cartlidge on suspicion of killing an Indian regarding the alleged murder of an Indian." Much of this term of the Assembly would be occupied with the proper course of action relating to the Cartlidge affair, fearing that it would trigger open war with the Five Nations. These fears were to a large degree laid to rest by the report of "Satcheecho." A 31 July entry records: "The Govr. By his Secty send to ye House the Report of Satcheecho the Indian Messenger who is Reported from ye 5 Nations." His speech (the text not included here) included the observation that "the Great King of the Five Nations is sorry for the Death of the Indian that was kill'd; for he was his own flesh and blood … but now it is done, there is no help for it … One life is enough to be lost; there should not two die." Other Indian related content includes a petition by the inhabitants of Chester County "setting forth the Mischief that happens or may accrue to this province by Selling of rum to the Indians and other indirect practices of the Indian traders in their Dealings with them" and requesting that specific trading locations be designated for bett