As it was deemed necessary, moreover, that intending settlers should have some previous idea of the form of government to be adopted in the new colony, Penn drew up a rough outline of such a constitution as he wished to be established, and as he had no doubt would meet the approbation of all likely to be interested. This constitution embraced twenty-four articles, of which the first, named by Penn the Great Fundamental, was as follows:—‘In reverence to God, the father of light and spirits, the author as well as object of all divine knowledge, faith, and worship, I do for me and mine, declare and establish for the first fundamental of the government of my province, that every person that doth and shall reside therein shall have and enjoy the free profession of his or her faith and exercise of worship toward God, in such a way and manner as every such person in conscience shall believe is most acceptable to God.’
All the necessary preparations having been made, three ships full of emigrants set sail for Pennsylvania in the end of 1681. The superintendence of this first detachment was intrusted by Penn to his relative, Colonel Markham, assisted by commissioners. These were instructed to open up a communication with the natives, and to make all possible arrangements for the establishment of a peaceful relation between them and the future colony. With this view they carried a letter, writen in Penn’s own hand, and addressed to the Indians; of which remarkable document the following is a copy:—‘There is a great God and Power which hath made the world and all things therein, to whom you and I, and all people, owe their being and well-being, and to whom you and I must one day give an account for all that we have done in the world. This great God hath written his law in our hearts, by which we are taught and commanded to love, and to help, and to do good to one another. Now this great God hath been pleased to make me concerned in your part of the world; and the king of the country where I live hath given me a great province therein. But I desire to enjoy it with your love and consent, that we may always live together as neighbors and friends; else what would the great God do to us; who hath made us, not to devour and destroy one another, but to live soberly and kindly together in the world? Now, I would have you well observe that I am very sensible of the unkindness and injustice which have been too much exercised toward you by the people of these parts of the world, who have sought to make great advantages by you, rather than to be examples of goodness and patience unto you. This, I hear, hath been a matter of trouble to you, and caused much grudging and animosities, sometimes to the shedding of blood, which hath made the great God angry. But I am not such a man, as is well known in my own country. I have great love and regard toward you, and desire to win and gain your love and friendship by a kind, just, and peaceable life; and the people I send are of the same mind, and shall in all things behave themselves accordingly; and if in anything any shall offend you or your people, you shall have a full and speedy satisfaction for the same, by an equal number of just men on both sides, that by no means you may have just occasion of being offended against them. I shall shortly come to see you myself, at which time we may more largely and freely confer and discourse of these matters. In the meantime, I have sent my commissioners to treat with you about land, and a firm league of peace. Let me desire you to be kind to them and to the people; and receive the presents and tokens which I have sent you, as a testimony of my good-will to you, and of my resolution to live justly, peaceably, and friendly with you.
I am your loving friend, William Penn.’
Penn was busy making preparations to follow the settlers, whom he had already despatched, when he was afflicted by the death of his mother, for whom he had ever manifested the greatest affection. Shortly after this melancholy event, he published in full the constitution to which we have already alluded, under the title, ‘The Frame of Government of the Province of Pennsylvania, in America, together with certain Laws agreed upon in England by the Governor and divers Freemen of the aforesaid Province, to be further explained and confirmed there by the first Provincial Council that shall be held.’ After stating in the preface that he ‘does not find a model of government in the world that time, place, and some singular emergencies have not necessarily altered, and that it is not easy to frame a civil government that shall serve all places alike,’ he proceeds to detail the arrangements which, after due deliberation and consultation, he concluded to be advisable in the meantime. The following is the summary of these arrangements, given by Penn’s biographer, Mr. Clarkson:—‘The government,’ he says, ‘was placed in the governor and freemen of the province, out of whom were to be formed two bodies; namely, a Provincial Council, and a General Assembly. These were to be chosen by the freemen; and, though the governor or his deputy was to be perpetual president, he was to have but a treble vote. The provincial council was to consist of seventy-two members. One-third part—that is, twenty-four of them—were to serve for three years; one-third for two; and the other third for only one year. It was the office of this council to prepare and propose bills; to see that the laws were executed; to take care of the peace and safety of the province; to settle the situation of ports, cities, market-towns, roads, and other public places; to inspect the public treasury; to erect courts of justice, institute schools, and reward the authors of useful discoveries. Not less than two-thirds of these were necessary to make a quorum; and the consent of not less than two-thirds of such a quorum was required in all matters of moment. The general assembly was to consist, the first year, of all the freemen; and the next of two hundred. These were to be increased afterwards according to the increase of the population of the province. They were to have no deliberative power; but when bills were brought to them from the governor and provincial council, they were to pass or reject them by a plain “Yes” or “No.” They were to present sheriffs and justices of the peace to the governor; of the number presented by them, he was to select half. They were to be elected annually. All elections of members, whether to the provincial council or to the general assembly, were to be by ballot. This charter, or frame of government, was not to be altered, changed, or diminished in any part or clause of it, without the consent of the governor, or his heirs or assigns, and six parts out of seven of the freemen both in the provincial council and general assembly.’
Another precaution which Penn took before departing for America deserves to be noticed. To prevent any future dispute between himself or his heirs, and the Duke of York and his heirs, with regard to the proprietorship of Pennsylvania, he procured from his royal highness a written surrender of all his claims, real or supposed, to the lands in question. Not only so; but being aware, also, that, adjoining the district which had been granted him by royal charter, there was a tract of land called ‘the Territories,’ already inhabited by Swedes and Dutch, and belonging to the Duke of York, the possession of which would, he conceived, be advantageous to the infant colony of Pennsylvania, he made application to the duke with a view to obtain it. The duke willingly agreed; and by a deed of feoffment, dated August 24, 1682, the Territories were formally made over to William Penn and his successors.
Nothing remained now but to take leave of his wife and children before embarking on an undertaking then more hazardous than, with our present notions of America and its distance from England, we can well conceive. This he did in a letter of counsel addressed jointly to his wife and children, some passages of which are so impressive and honorable to the writer, that we cannot refrain from giving a brief specimen:—‘My dear wife—Remember thou wast the love of my youth, and much the joy of my life—the most beloved as well as most worthy of all my earthly comforts; and the reason of that love was more thy inward than thy outward excellencies, which yet were many. God knows, and thou knowest it, I can say it was a match of Providence’s making; and God’s image in us both was the first thing, and the most amiable and engaging ornament in our eyes. Now I am to leave thee, and that without knowing whether I shall ever see thee more in this world, take my counsel into thy bosom, and let it dwell with thee in my stead while thou livest.’ He next addresses himself to his children. ‘Be obedient to your dear mother, a woman whose virtue and good name is an honor to you; for she hath been exceeded by none in her time for her integrity, humanity, virtue, and good understanding—qualities not usual among women of her worldly condition and quality. Therefore honor and obey her, my dear children, as your mother, and your father’s love and delight; nay, love her too, for she loved your father with a deep and upright love, choosing him before all her many suitors. And though she be of a delicate constitution and noble spirit, yet she descended to the utmost tenderness and care for you, performing the painfullest acts of service to you in your infancy as a mother and a nurse too. I charge you, before the Lord, honor and obey, love and cherish, your dear mother.’
On the 1st of September, 1682, the ship Welcome, of three hundred tons burthen, set sail from Deal with William Penn and about a hundred other emigrants, mostly Quakers, on board. She had not sailed many days when the small-pox broke out in the ship, and raged so violently, that about thirty of the passengers died. The rest arrived safely at their destination after a voyage of six weeks, the Welcome anchoring in the Delaware river about the middle of October.
The territory of Pennsylvania which William Penn had selected in North America possessed natural advantages of no ordinary kind. ‘It may be doubted,’ says one authority, ‘whether a more widely-diversified region exists upon the face of the earth, or one of similar area in which the vegetable and mineral productions are more numerous.’ Scarcely any part is level; the country is a perpetual alternation of hill and valley. Watered by many large rivers, as the Delaware, the Susquehanna, the Schuylkill, the Alleghany, the Ohio, etc., as well as by innumerable rivulets, it seemed a most inviting country for emigrants. A general perception of these advantages had no doubt actuated Penn in his choice of this particular region. At the time, however, when he made the choice, all was wild and uncultivated—a tract, for the most part, of jungly forest-land, traversed in silence by idle streams. ‘At the beginning of the year 1681,’ says the author of an American history of Philadelphia, ‘the tract of ground upon which Philadelphia now stands was covered with forests; and men and beasts had a pretty equal right to it. Tradition has preserved the anecdote, that, in the year 1678, a ship called the Shields of Stockton, the first that had ever ventured so high up the Delaware, approached so close to the shore in tacking as to run her bowsprit among the trees which then lined the bank, and the passengers on board, who were bound for Burlington, remarked upon it as an advantageous site for a town. Little could they foresee the city that was to be erected on that spot, or the contrast between its growth and that of the still humble village for which they were destined.’
Sailing up the Delaware, Penn first reached the Territories, already mentioned as having been ceded to him by the duke of York, and as being inhabited by Dutch and Swedes. These people, now Penn’s subjects, and who had been prepared for his coming by Colonel Markham, were ready to give him a hearty welcome. About three thousand of them were assembled at Newcastle, where he first landed, a little below the site of the present Philadelphia. Here there was a magistracy and a courthouse, in which Penn, after formally taking possession of the country, delivered an address, assuring the inhabitants of his intentions to govern them in a spirit of kindness and regard for their interests. From Newcastle, Penn proceeded to New York, that he might form a better idea of affairs as they stood in a part of the country already colonized. Returning to Newcastle, he summoned a general assembly of the settlers, at a place called Upland, but to which he then gave the name of Chester. When the general assembly met, it consisted of free settlers indiscriminately from the province and from the territories; all such as chose to take part in the proceedings at this first assembly being, in terms of one of the articles of the constitution, at liberty to do so. A speaker having been chosen, one of the first acts of the assembly was to pass an act uniting the territories and the province, and naturalizing Swedes, Dutch, and all foreigners within the boundaries of the entire region. The laws drawn up by Penn in England were then confirmed, with some modifications and additions. Among these additions the following deserve notice:—‘All children of the age of twelve were to be taught some useful trade or handicraft, to the end that none might be idle in the province. All pleadings, processes, and records in courts of law were to be as short as possible. All fees of law were to be moderate, and to be hung up on tables in the courts. All persons wrongfully imprisoned or prosecuted were to have double damages against the informer or prosecutor. All fines were to be moderate. With respect to the criminal part of these laws, one new principle was introduced. William Penn was of opinion, that though the deterring others from offenses must continue to be the great end of punishment, yet in a community professing itself Christian, the reformation of the offender was to be inseparably connected with it. Hence he made but two capital offenses—murder, and treason against the state; and hence also all prisons were to be considered as workshops, where the offenders might be industriously, soberly, and morally employed. Thus all was begun fairly; the settlers, most of them sensible and religious men, who had experienced the effects of intolerant and bad government, manifesting a laudable desire to lay down at the outset liberal and generous principles for the government in all time coming of the colony which they would have the responsibility of founding.
In the opinion of Penn, something was still wanting before he could proceed another step in the colonization of Pennsylvania. The greater number of his cotemporaries, to whom lands were ceded in these regions by the government at home, held that they had by that cession acquired all the necessary rights, and that no other parties were entitled to a voice in the matter. Not so, thought William Penn. We have seen how he had instructed his commissioners to open up the way to a friendly communication with the native Indians, and how he had sent a letter to the latter, expressing his wish to ‘enjoy the lands with their love and consent.’