In March, the second legislative assembly of the province was held in Philadelphia, though many of the inhabitants as yet lived in hollow trees. Fifty-four representatives, nine from each of the six counties, “Swedes, Dutch and quaker preachers,” were appointed to draw up a charter of liberties which altered and amended the previous laws; William Penn having liberally announced at the opening of the assembly, that as regarded the frame of government prepared in England, “they might amend, alter, or add, and that he was ready to settle such foundations as might be for their happiness.” This principle of legislating for the happiness of the people was ever acknowledged by Penn. To his dying day he declared, even though in this Eden of his planting many poison growths had sprung up which embittered his life, that if the people needed anything to make them happier, he would grant it. The constitution now established was democratic, with the exception of an hereditary proprietary, whose power, however, was controlled by the people. As regarded a revenue, he was offered a tax on all exports, as was the case in Maryland, the revenue of Lord Baltimore being derived from a tax on tobacco; but this he declined, unwilling to “burden his colony with taxes.” What a contrast is this to the views taken by the Lords Culpepper, Arlington and Lovelace! Orphan courts were established for administering the affairs of deceased persons, and for the prevention of lawsuits three “peacemakers” were appointed in each county, thus carrying out the quaker principle of arbitration instead of action at law. Liberal and upright as was Penn’s conduct as head of a government, a signal mistake was made by the incompatible union of two opposing elements, democracy and feudality; Penn’s principles accorded to his colony the utmost popular liberty, but his circumstances made him absolute ruler. Hence for ninety years Pennsylvania was distracted with the jarring of these two discordant elements. Penn, soon after his arrival in America, visited Lord Baltimore in Maryland, partly as a visit of friendship, and partly for the arrangement of boundaries, which from the very first was an intricate and perplexing question. The defined boundaries, both of Penn’s and Baltimore’s charter, were inconsistent with each other, more especially as the number of miles contained in a degree was now altered to sixty-nine from sixty, by which measurement Baltimore’s grant had been made. This question was no way adjusted, when Penn, in 1684, having organised, as he hoped, a satisfactory government, entered into a treaty of lasting peace with the natives, and seen his city and his colony flourishing in unexampled prosperity, returned to England, “intrusting the great seal to his friend Lloyd, one of the principal quaker settlers, and the executive power to a committee of the council.”