One of Penn’s first acts was to impress the assembly with the necessity of discouraging illicit trade and suppressing piracy. He did it with so much success that the assembly not only passed two laws to this effect, but also took a further step to clear the government of Pennsylvania from all imputations by expelling one of its members, James Brown, a son-in-law of Governor Markham, who was more or less justly accused of piracy. He was equally successful with his recommendations to the assembly concerning a new charter, the slave-trade, and the treatment and education of the negroes already in the province. But when, in 1701, he asked in the king’s name for a contribution of £350 towards the fortifications on the frontiers of New York, the assembly decided to refer the consideration of this matter to another meeting, or “until more emergent occasions shall require our further proceedings therein.” The evident intention of the ministry in England to reduce the proprietary governments in the English colonies to royal ones, “under pretence of advancing the prerogatives of the crown,” compelled Penn to return to England in the latter part of 1701. But before he could leave a quarrel broke out in the assembly between the deputies from the Lower Counties, now Delaware, and those of the province. The former were accused of having obtained some exclusive powers or rights for themselves which the others would not allow them, and in consequence the men of the Lower Counties withdrew from the assembly in high dudgeon. After long discussions, and by giving promises to agree to a separation of that district from the province under certain conditions, Penn at last managed to patch up a peace between the two factions. He then went to England.