William Penn inherited from his father a claim against the government for £16,000, which King Charles gladly paid by assigning to him the territory in the New World now called Pennsylvania,[367] in honor of the first proprietor.[368] This was a large and fertile expanse of inland country partly taken from New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. It was included between the 40th and 43d degrees of latitude, and bounded on the east by the Delaware River. The enlightened and benevolent proprietor bestowed upon the new state a Constitution that secured, as far as human ordinance was capable, freedom of faith, thought, and action. He formed some peculiar institutions for the promotion of peace and good will among his brethren, and for the protection of the widow and the orphan. By his wise and just dealings with the Indians,[369] he gained their important confidence and friendship: he sent commissioners to treat with them for the sale of their lands, and in the year 1682 met the assembled chiefs near the spot where Philadelphia now stands. The savages advanced to the place of meeting in great numbers and in warlike guise, but as the approach of the English was announced, they laid aside their weapons and seated themselves in quiet groups around their chiefs.[370] Penn came forward fearlessly with a few attendants, all unarmed, and in their usual grave and simple attire; in his hand he held a parchment on which were written the terms of the treaty. He then spoke in a few plain words of the friendship and justice that should rule the actions of all men, and guide him, and them, and their children's children. The Indians answered that they would live in peace with him and his white brothers as long as the sun and moon shall endure. And in the Quaker's parchment and the Indian's promise was accomplished the peaceful conquest of that lovely wilderness, a conquest more complete, more secure and lasting, than any that the ruthless rigor of Cortes or the stern valor of the Puritans had ever won.
The prosperity of Pennsylvania advanced with unexampled rapidity.[371] The founder took out with him two thousand well-chosen emigrants, and a considerable number had preceded him to the new country. The orderly freedom that prevailed,[372] and the perpetual peace with the Indians,[373] gave a great advantage to this colony; emigration flowed thither more abundantly than to any other settlement, and thus, although of such recent origin, this state soon equaled the most successful of its older neighbors.
FOOTNOTES:
[350] "On Hudson's return according to the English historians, he sold his title to the Dutch."—British Encyc., vol. ii., p. 236. Chalmers questions, apparently on good grounds, the validity of this odd transaction. If, as Forster asserts, Hudson not only sailed from the Texel, but was equipped at the expense of the Dutch East India Company, there was no room for sale or purchase of any kind to constitute the region Dutch.—Chalmers, vol. ii., p. 568; Charlevoix. tom. i., p. 221.
[351] "The English jurists, referring to the wide grants of Elizabeth, according to which Virginia extended far to the north of this region, insist that there had long ceased to be room for any claim to it founded on discovery. But the Dutch, who are somewhat slow in comprehension, could not see the right which Elizabeth could have to bestow a vast region, of the very existence of which she was ignorant. They therefore sent out the small colony, 1613, which was soon after compelled by Argall to acknowledge the sovereignty of England."—Murray's America, vol. i., p. 331; Fastes Chronologiques, 1613.
[352] The Dutch West Indian Company was established in 1620, and sent out colonists on a large scale.
[353] "Juet, the traveling companion of Hudson, called the island on which New York is situated Manna Hatta, which means the island of manna; in other words, a country where milk and honey flow. The name Manhattoes is said to be derived from the great Indian god Manetho, who is stated to have made this island his favorite place of residence on account of its peculiar attractions."—Knickerbocker's New York, vol. v., p. 1.
[354] "Albany bore the name of Orange when it was originally founded by the Dutch; and as a great number of this people remained in the city after it passed into the possession of England, they continued to call it Orange, and the French Canadians give it no other name."—Charlevoix, tom. i., p. 222.
"Albany received that name from the Scottish title of the Duke of York."—Bancroft.
[355] Nine years before (1655), Stuyvesant had attacked the happy and contented little colony of Swedes who were settled on the banks of the Delaware, and after a sanguinary contest, the Swedish governor, John Rising, was obliged to submit to the Dutch authority. Such was the end of New Sweden, which had only maintained an independent existence for seventeen years. Thus the Swedish settlements passed into the hands of the English at the same time as those of the Dutch. The first Swedish colonization had been projected and encouraged by the great Gustavus Adolphus in 1638. They gave their settlement on the banks of the Delaware, the name of the Land of Canaan, and to the spot where they first landed that of Canaan, so inviting and delightful did this part of the New World first appear to them. The only thing now known of this terrestrial paradise is, that its situation was near Cape Henlopen, a short distance from the sea. The colonists purchased tracts of lands of the Indians, and threw up a few fortifications; of the city they founded, Christina, there is now no trace. It was situated near Wilmington, twenty-seven miles south of Philadelphia. The Dutch, whose principal city was then New Amsterdam, pretended that the country round the Delaware belonged to them, having paid it a visit before the arrival of the Swedes. This insinuation, moreover, did not prevent the latter from settling, and, according to Charlevoix, the two nations lived in amity with each other until Stuyvesant's aggression, the Dutch being wholly devoted to commerce and the Swedes to agriculture. The Swedish settlement was at first called New Sweden, afterward New Jersey.