The exalted expectations formed of him by the public were not disappointed. Heartily a lover of man and the friend of equal rights, he had scarcely taken his seat in the legislature before he had to turn the torrent of his honest indignation against the proprietaries and their creatures the Governors.
The reader will please here be reminded that in the year 1680, that great good man, William Penn, a quaker, was paid off a large claim against Charles II. of England, by a grant of lands in North America. To make the best of a bad bargain, honest William gathered together a caravan of his poor persecuted brethren, and taking ship came over to North America.
The good angel that guided the steps of pious Jacob as he sojourned from Padan-aram to the land Uz, seeking a rest, guided Penn and his gentle followers to the mouth of the Delaware bay. He followed the stately flood in all its wanderings among the green marshes and forests of the new found world, until he reached the pleasant spot where now Philadelphia stands. The majestic grove that shaded the extended level on the western bank, bordered on the back by the beautiful serpentine river called by the natives, the Schuylkill, struck his eye as a fine site for his future city.
Abhorring the idea of killing his fellow men, the poor natives, and taking away their lands, he sent around among them the Calumet, or pipe of peace, inviting them to "a friendly talk." Painted in red ochre, and decked in all the savage pomp of wild skins and feathers, the kings of the soil with all their simple tribes assembled themselves together. The meeting was in the summer of 1681, under the trees near the margin of the great river. The scene was lovely to the eye of humanity. The red and white men from different continents were seen to meet, not as enemies for mutual slaughter, but as brothers for loving commerce. The shores were covered with British merchandize. The eyes of the simple children of nature sparkled on those rich wares, the like of which they had never seen before.
Penn gave them every thing. He gave them precious axes to master the forests; and still more magic guns to master the wolves and panthers. He gave them warm clothes for defence against the cold, and plough-shares and hoes for plentiful harvests. In return they gave him that large tract of land in their country, which, in honour of this good man, has been called Pennsylvania. Instantly the aged forests began to resound with the strokes of axes and the crash of falling trees. And the corner stone was laid of the new city, which, with great propriety, was named of Penn, Philadelphia, or the city of brotherly love.
Having thus laid, the foundation of this colony in justice to the poor natives, and in generosity to his own followers in the great cheapness of his lands, in perfect liberty of conscience, and in the exceeding moderation of his government, this wise statesman then looked to God for his blessings. Nor did he look in vain, The fame of "Penn Colony" resounded throughout Great Britain. An immense emigration were quickly on their way to Pennsylvania. The young city grew apace, and farms and fair buildings in the country, spread in every direction with a rapidity unequalled in history.
But alas! when honest William fell asleep, there rose after him a race of heirs "who knew not Joseph;" who not content, like him, with modest drab, and simple dinners, and aspiring to the true happiness of imitating God in godlike loves and deeds, basely prostituted their hearts to carnal lusts and pride.
The worship of these gods, though contemptible, is costly; and to these wet-quaker successors of the good William Penn, nothing promised such a swelling revenue as a bold rise in the price of their lands. And in this pitiful kind of management they soon gave the Pennsylvanians to understand that like Rehoboam of old, "their little fingers were heavier than their father's loins." I have not been able to procure any thing like certainty as to the sum that good William Penn gave to the natives for the vast tract of land he purchased of them. But that he hardly gave at the rate of a hatchet for what is now a noble farm, may be very fairly inferred. In 1754, which was seventy years later than the first purchase, the house of Penn bought of the Indians seven millions of acres lying within the royal grant. And what do you suppose they gave for it? what do you suppose they gave for seven millions of acres of rich, heavy timbered Pennsylvania land? why not quite two thousand dollars! not three cents the hundred acres! And what do you suppose they immediately asked for it? why fifteen pounds ten shillings! near fifty thousand cents per hundred acres! And yet with such a bank of millions in hand they were not willing to bear their part of the taxes for public good!!
Like the starched Pharisees of old, they could throw heavy weights on other men's shoulders, but not suffer a fly to light on theirs. They could smile when they saw the officer going round with his ink horn and pen, noting down the poor man's paddock, but if he but looked at their princely manors and parks they would make the whole colony ring with it.
Grown beyond calculation rich by the sales and rents of their lands in America, they scorned the country of their illustrious predecessor, and went over to London, where they mimicked the pride and pageantry of princes.