NOTABLE AUDIENCE IN MARYLAND TO HEAR GEORGE FOX, THE FOUNDER OF THE "SOCIETY OF FRIENDS" OR QUAKERS.
SETTLEMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA AND DELAWARE.
The peace-loving Quakers were among those who suffered persecution in England for conscience sake. William Penn was the son of Admiral Penn, who disliked the Quakers and had been a valiant officer for the English government. When he died, the crown owed him a large sum of money, which William offered to liquidate in return for a grant of the land now known as the State of Pennsylvania. The king willingly agreed to this, and the Duke of York, who had a strong liking for Penn, added the present State of Delaware to the grant, in which, as has been stated, the Swedes had made a number of settlements.
William Penn was one of the best and wisest rulers that had to do with the settlement of our country. The king, more as a piece of pleasantry than otherwise, insisted upon naming the province "Pennsylvania," in honor of the proprietor, much to the good man's dismay. He offered the royal secretary a liberal fee to omit the first part of the name from the charter, but it was not done. No rule could have been more kindly. Absolute freedom of conscience was permitted; in all trials by jury of an Indian, one-half of the jury were to be composed of Indians, and, although Penn was induced to permit the punishment of death for treason and murder, to be provided for in the code, no man was ever executed while Penn had anything to do with the province.
His first act, after his arrival in 1682, was characteristic. He called the Indian chiefs together, under a great spreading elm at Shackamaxon, and paid them for the land that was already his by royal grant. In addition, he made the red men many presents and signed a treaty, which neither party broke for sixty years. It has been truly said that this was the only treaty not sworn to which was kept inviolate by both parties.
Penn himself laid out the city of Philadelphia in 1683. A year later, it had a population of 7,000, and in three years more its population increased faster than that of New York in half a century. Delaware, then called the "Three Lower Counties," was given a separate government at the request of the people in 1703. They were allowed their own deputy governor, but Pennsylvania and Delaware continued substantially under one government until the Revolution.
The good ruler met with many misfortunes. In 1692, the province was taken from him, because of his friendship to James II., but restored soon afterward. In 1699, when he made his second visit, he found the people had in a great measure grown away from him, and were unwilling that he should exercise his former supervision. While absent, a dishonest steward robbed him of nearly all his property in England; and, failing in health and mind, he died in 1718. His sons became proprietors, but the people grew more and more discontented with the payment of rents. To end the disputes and quarrels, the State abolished the rents during the Revolution, paying the proprietors the sum of $650,000 for the extinguishment of their rights.
PHILADELPHIA.
