The first separate assembly for Pennsylvania proper met at Philadelphia, in October, 1703, and by its first resolution showed that the Quakers, so dominant in the province, were beginning to acquire a taste for authority, and meant to color their religion with the hue of political power. According to the new charter, the assembly, elected annually, was to consist of four members for each county, and was to meet at Philadelphia on the 14th of October of each year, sitting upon their own adjournments. Upon the separation of the legislative bodies of the two sections, Pennsylvania claimed to be entitled to eight members for each county, which, being duly elected and met, reasserted the powers granted by the charter; but when the governor and council desired to confer with them they would adjourn without conference. Upon the objection from the governor that they could not sit wholly upon their own adjournment, they immediately decided not to sit again until the following March, and thus deprive the governor and council of every chance to come to an understanding on the matter. Before President Shippen could take any step toward settling this question, John Evans, a young Welshman, lately appointed deputy-governor by Penn, arrived in Philadelphia (December, 1703). The new-comer at once called both assemblies together, directing them to sit in Philadelphia in April, 1704, in utter disregard of the agreement of separation. He renewed Hamilton’s efforts to effect again a legislative union, and also failed, not because the Delaware members were opposed to it, but because now the Pennsylvania representatives, probably disgusted with the obstinacy of the former, absolutely refused to have anything to do with them. Governor Evans took this refusal very ill and resented it in various ways, by which the state of affairs was brought to such a pass that neither this nor the next assembly, under the speakership of David Lloyd, accomplished anything of importance, but complained bitterly to Penn of his deputy. In the latter part of the same year the first assembly for the Lower Counties met in the old town of New Castle, and was called upon by Governor Evans to raise a militia out of that class of the population who were not prevented by religious scruples from bearing arms,—soldiers being then needed for the war against France and Spain. About a year later, having become reconciled with the Pennsylvania assembly of 1706, Evans persuaded the Delaware representatives to pass a law “for erecting and maintaining a fort for her Majesty’s service at the Town of New Castle upon Delaware.” This law exacted a toll in gunpowder from every vessel coming from the sea up the river.[482]