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For itself, the company looked forward to a continuing revenue from quitrents to be paid, at the rate of two shillings per hundred acres after a term of seven years from the original grant, by all save the ancient adventurers and the planters who had migrated before 1616 at their own costs.
The quitrents were rarely paid, and the tenants of the absentee landlords kept up an agitation for reform which was unceasing but which was not to be successful for a hundred years. In all three Maritime Provinces political and party controversy was little known for a generation after the Revolution.
He had on his hands an empire, rich, fertile, and inhabited by liberty-loving Anglo-Saxons and by passive Germans. He had to collect from their land the purchase money and quitrents rapidly rolling up in value with the increase of population into millions of pounds sterling, for which he was responsible to his relatives.
In a small building was his office, where quitrents were given, deeds drawn, and business transacted with his tenants. About the knoll were out-houses for his numerous servants, black and white, with stables for saddle-horses and hunters, and kennels for his hounds, for his lordship retained his keen hunting propensities, and the neighborhood abounded in game.
When quitrents were demanded some refused payment, others had nothing to offer. When actions were brought against all those who were in arrears, the poor planters murmured and complained among themselves, and were discontented at the terms of holding their lands, though, comparatively speaking, easy and advantageous. It was impossible for any governor to please both parties.
Three years rent was remitted to those who held land by grant, and four years to such as held them by survey, without grant. Such lands as had escheated to the Proprietors, were ordered to be let out or sold for their Lordships benefit. It was agreed to take the arrears of quitrents either in money or commodities, as should be most easy and convenient for the planters.
But Penn's quitrents and money from sales of land were far in arrears, and he had been and still was at great expense in starting the colony and in keeping up the plantation and country seat he had established on the Delaware River above Philadelphia. Troublesome political disputes also arose.
The fertility of the soil of New Jersey, the salubrity of the climate, the exemption from fear of hostile Indians, and other manifest advantages caused a rapid increase in the population and prosperity of the province, and nothing disturbed the general serenity of society there until in 1670, when specified quitrents of a half-penny per acre were demanded. The people murmured.
She appointed excellent deputy governors and ruled with success for eight years until her death in 1726. In her time the ocean was free from enemy cruisers, and the trade of the colony grew so rapidly that the increasing sales of land and quitrents soon enabled her to pay off the mortgage on the province and all the rest of her husband's debts.
Blackwell was not a Quaker but a "grave, sober, wise man," as Penn wrote to a friend, who would "bear down with a visible authority vice and faction." It was hoped that he would vigorously check all irregularities and bring Penn better returns from quitrents and sales of land.
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