Previously, however, in August 1680, the duke of York had leased this territory for ro,000 years to William Penn, to whom he conveyed it by a deed of feoffment in August 1682; but differences in race and religion, economic rivalry between New Castle and the Pennsylvania towns, and petty political quarrels over representation and office holding, similar to those in the other American colonies, were so intense that Penn in 1691 appointed a special deputy governor for the " lower counties."
The disabilities under which a feudal owner very frequently lay gave rise to the practice of conveying land by other methods than that of feoffment with livery of seisin, that is, a handing over of the feudal possession.
It was usual to evidence the feoffment by writing in a charter or deed of feoffment; but writing was not essential until the Statute of Frauds; now, by the Real Property Act 1845, a conveyance of real property is void unless evidenced by deed, and thus feoffments have been rendered unnecessary and superfluous.
A feoffment might be a tortious conveyance, i.e.