[365] "The importation and use of negroes were prohibited; no rum was allowed to be introduced, and no one was permitted to trade with the Indians without special license. The colonists complained that without negroes it was impossible to clear the grounds and cut down the thick forests, though the honest Highlanders always reprobated the practice, and denied that any necessity for it existed."[366]—Murray, vol. i., p. 360.
[366] "Slavery," says Oglethorpe, "is against the Gospel, as well as the fundamental law of England. We refused, as trustees, to make a law permitting such a horrid crime."—Memoirs of Sharpe, vol. i., p. 234; Stephen's Journal, quoted by Bancroft. In 1751, however, after Oglethorpe had finally left Georgia, his humane restrictions were withdrawn. Whitefield, who believed that God's providence would certainly make slavery terminate for the advantage of the Africans, pleaded before the trustees in its favor. At last even the Moravians (who in a body emigrated to Georgia in 1733) began to think that negro slaves might be employed in a Christian spirit, and it was agreed that if the negroes are treated in a Christian manner, their change of country would prove to them a benefit. A message from Germany served to crush their scruples: "If you take slaves in faith, and with the intent of conducting them to Christ, the action will not be a sin, but may prove a benediction."—Urlsperger, vol. iii., p. 479, quoted by Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 448.
[367] "He accepted this grant, because it secured them against any other claimant from Europe. It gave him a title in the eyes of the Christian world, but he did not believe that it gave him any other title."—Colonization and Civilization, p. 358.
[368] "Etablissement de la Pennsylvanie, dans le pays qui avoit porté le nom de Nouvelle Suéde: Cette colonie a reçu son nom de son fondateur, le Chevalier Guillaume Penn, Anglais à qui Charles II., Roi de la Grande Bretagne, conceda ce pays en 1680 et qui cette année 1681, y mena les Quakers ou trembleurs d'Angleterre, dont il étoit le chef. Lorsqu'il y arriva, il y trouva un grand nombre de Hollandois et de Suédois. Les premiers, pour la plupart, occupoient les endroits situés le long du golphe, et les seconds, les bords de la Rivière De la Warr, ou du midi. Il paroit par une de ses lettres, qu'il n'étoit pas content des Hollandois; mais il dit que les Suédois étoient une nation simple, sans malice, industrieuse, robuste, se souciant peu de l'abondance et se contentant du nécessaire."—Fastes Chronologiques, 1681.
[369] "Even Penn, however, did not fully admit into his scheme of colonization the notion of retaining for the Indians a property in a part of the soil they once occupied. He gave the natives free leave to settle in certain parts of his territory, but, unfortunately, he did not treat any definite tract of the soil as their property, which would rise in value along with other tracts, and thus afford a stimulus to their gradual improvement. It was the want of systematic views in this and other respects, which rendered the benevolent intentions of Penn toward the natives of little ultimate avail; so that, after all, the chief good which he effected was by setting an example of benevolence and justice in the principle of his dealings with them."—Merivale on Colonization, vol. ii., p. 173.
[370] "William Penn of course came unarmed, in his usual plain dress, without banners, or mace, or guard, or carriages, and only distinguished from his companions by wearing a blue sash of silk net-work (which, it seems, is still preserved by Mr. Kett, of Seething Hall, near Norwich), and by having in his hand a roll of parchment, on which was engrossed the confirmation of the treaty of purchase and amity."—Edinburgh Review of Clarkson's Life of William Penn, p. 358.
"The scene at Shachamaxon, quoted by Howitt, forms the subject of one of the pictures of West. Thus ended this famous treaty, of which Voltaire has remarked with so much truth and severity, 'That it was the only one ever concluded which was not ratified by an oath, and the only one that never was broken.'"—Howitt. p. 360.
[371] "In three years from its foundation, Philadelphia gained more than New York had done in half a century."—Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. ii., p. 394.
[372] "Virtue had never, perhaps, inspired a legislation better calculated to promote the fidelity of mankind. The opinions, the sentiments, and the morals corrected whatever might be deficient in it."—Raynal, vol. vii., p. 292.
"Beautiful," said the philosophic Frederick of Prussia, when he read the account of the government of Pennsylvania; "it is perfect, if it can endure."—Herder, p. 13, 116. Quoted by Bancroft, vol. ii., p. 392.