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- 0:00Speaker 1: Chapter six of William Penn by George Hodges. This LibriVox
- 0:05Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Read by Richard Vogel
- 0:11Speaker 1: The Settlement of Pennsylvania Penn's first visit to the province.
- 0:17Speaker 1: That Penn undertook the holy experiment without expectation or desire
- 0:22Speaker 1: of profit appears not only in his conviction that he
- 0:26Speaker 1: was thereby losing sixteen thousand pounds, but in his refusal
- 0:30Speaker 1: to make his new estates a means of gain. He
- 0:34Speaker 1: has offered great things, says James Claypole in a letter
- 0:39Speaker 1: dated September sixteen eighty one, six thousand pounds for a
- 0:44Speaker 1: monopoly in trade, which he refused. He designs to do
- 0:49Speaker 1: things equally between all parties, and I believe truly does
- 0:54Speaker 1: a more justice and righteousness in spreading of truth than
- 0:59Speaker 1: at his own particular gain. I would not abuse his love,
- 1:04Speaker 1: said Penn, nor act unworthy of his providence, and so
- 1:08Speaker 1: defile what came to me clean. No, let the Lord
- 1:13Speaker 1: guide me by his wisdom and preserve me to honor
- 1:17Speaker 1: his name and serve his truth and people, that an
- 1:21Speaker 1: example and standard may be set up to the nations.
- 1:26Speaker 1: So far was he removed from all self seeking that
- 1:29Speaker 1: he was even unwilling to have the colony bear his name.
- 1:33Speaker 1: I chose New Wales, he says, recounting the action of
- 1:37Speaker 1: the King's council, being as this a pretty hilly country,
- 1:42Speaker 1: but Penn being welch for head as Penn and nois
- 1:47Speaker 1: in Wales, and Penrith in Cumberland, and Penn in Buckinghamshire,
- 1:52Speaker 1: the highest land in England. The King called this Pennsylvania,
- 1:58Speaker 1: which is the high or head woodlands. For I proposed
- 2:02Speaker 1: when the secretary, a Welshman, refused to have it called
- 2:05Speaker 1: New Wales Sylvania, and they added Pen to it. And
- 2:11Speaker 1: though I much opposed it, and went to the King
- 2:13Speaker 1: to have it struck out and altered, he said it
- 2:16Speaker 1: was past and he would take it upon him. Nor
- 2:20Speaker 1: could twenty guineas move the younger secretary to vary the name,
- 2:25Speaker 1: for I feared lest it should be looked on as
- 2:27Speaker 1: a vanity in me, and not as a respect in
- 2:31Speaker 1: the King, as it truly was to my father, whom
- 2:34Speaker 1: he often mentions with praise. The charter gave the land
- 2:39Speaker 1: to Penn. As the King's tenant. He had power to
- 2:43Speaker 1: make laws, though this power was to be exercised except
- 2:47Speaker 1: in emergencies with the advice, assent, and approbation of the
- 2:51Speaker 1: freemen of the territory, and subject to the confirmation of
- 2:56Speaker 1: the Privy Council. He was to appoint judge and other officers.
- 3:02Speaker 1: He had the right to assess custom on goods laden
- 3:05Speaker 1: and unladen for his own benefit, though he was to
- 3:09Speaker 1: take care to do it reasonably and with the advice
- 3:13Speaker 1: of the Assembly of freemen. He was at the same
- 3:16Speaker 1: time to be free from any tax or custom of
- 3:19Speaker 1: the King, except by his own consent, or by the
- 3:23Speaker 1: consent of his governor, Assembly, or by Act of Parliament.
- 3:29Speaker 1: He was not to maintain correspondence with any king or
- 3:32Speaker 1: power at war with England, nor to make war against
- 3:36Speaker 1: any king or power in amity with the same. If
- 3:40Speaker 1: as many as twenty of his colonists should ask a
- 3:43Speaker 1: minister from the Bishop of London, such minister was to
- 3:47Speaker 1: be received without denial or molestation. The next important document
- 3:53Speaker 1: to be prepared was the Constitution or frame of government,
- 3:58Speaker 1: and to the task of composing it, Pang gave a
- 4:01Speaker 1: great amount of time and care. It was preceded by
- 4:05Speaker 1: two statements of principles, the preface and the Great Fundamental
- 4:12Speaker 1: The preface declared the political policy of the proprietor government,
- 4:18Speaker 1: he said, seems to me a part of religion itself,
- 4:23Speaker 1: a thing sacred in its institution and end. As for
- 4:27Speaker 1: the debate between monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, I choose, he said,
- 4:33Speaker 1: to solve the controversy with this small distinction, and it
- 4:37Speaker 1: belongs to all three. Any government is free to the
- 4:42Speaker 1: people under it, whatever be the frame, where the laws rule,
- 4:47Speaker 1: and the people are party to those laws. His purpose,
- 4:51Speaker 1: he says, is to establish the great end of all government,
- 4:56Speaker 1: in other words, to support power in reverence with the people,
- 5:01Speaker 1: and to secure the people from the abuse of power,
- 5:04Speaker 1: that they may be free by their just obedience, and
- 5:08Speaker 1: the magistrates honorable for their just administration. For liberty without
- 5:15Speaker 1: obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery. In
- 5:22Speaker 1: a private letter written about the same time, Penn stated
- 5:26Speaker 1: his political position in several concrete sentences which interpret these
- 5:31Speaker 1: fine but rather vague pronouncements. For the matters of liberty
- 5:37Speaker 1: and privilege, he wrote, I propose that which is extraordinary,
- 5:42Speaker 1: and to leave myself and successors no power of doing mischiefs.
- 5:47Speaker 1: The will of one man may not hinder the good
- 5:50Speaker 1: of an old country. But to publish these things now
- 5:54Speaker 1: and here, as matters stand, would not be wise. The
- 6:00Speaker 1: great Fundamental set forth the ecclesiastical policy of the Founder.
- 6:06Speaker 1: In reverence to God, the Father of light and spirits,
- 6:10Speaker 1: the author, as well as the object of all divine knowledge, faith,
- 6:14Speaker 1: and workings, I do for me and mine declare and
- 6:19Speaker 1: establish for the first fundamental of the government of my province,
- 6:24Speaker 1: that every person that doth and shall reside there shall
- 6:28Speaker 1: have and enjoy the free profession of his or her
- 6:31Speaker 1: faith and exercise of worship towards God, in such way
- 6:36Speaker 1: and manner as every such person shall, in conscience believe
- 6:40Speaker 1: is most acceptable to God. These principles of civil and
- 6:46Speaker 1: religious liberty constituted the Holy Experiment. They made the difference
- 6:52Speaker 1: between Penn's colony and almost every other government than existing,
- 6:58Speaker 1: and their influencing can tenuines until they were at last
- 7:02Speaker 1: incorporated into the Constitution of the United States. They are
- 7:07Speaker 1: the chief contribution of William Penn to the progress of
- 7:11Speaker 1: our institutions all Europe. With amazement, saw the soul's high
- 7:17Speaker 1: freedom trammeled by no law. The Constitution was drawn up
- 7:23Speaker 1: in articles to the number of twenty four and These
- 7:26Speaker 1: were followed by forty laws. The articles provided for a
- 7:32Speaker 1: governor to be appointed by the proprietor, and for two
- 7:36Speaker 1: legislative bodies, a provincial Council and a General Assembly. The
- 7:42Speaker 1: Provincial Council was to consist of seventy two members. Of
- 7:46Speaker 1: these a third were elected for three years, and a
- 7:50Speaker 1: third for two and a third for one, so that
- 7:54Speaker 1: by the end of the service of the first third
- 7:57Speaker 1: all would have a three year term, twenty four going
- 8:01Speaker 1: out and having their places filled each year. The business
- 8:06Speaker 1: of the Council was to prepare laws, to see that
- 8:09Speaker 1: they were executed, and in general, to provide for the
- 8:13Speaker 1: good conduct of affairs. The General Assembly was to consist
- 8:18Speaker 1: of two hundred members, to be chosen annually. They had
- 8:23Speaker 1: no right to originate legislation, but were to pass upon
- 8:28Speaker 1: all bills which had been enacted by the Council, excepting
- 8:32Speaker 1: or rejecting them by a vote of y ar nay.
- 8:37Speaker 1: The laws enjoined that all persons who confessed the one,
- 8:40Speaker 1: almighty and Eternal God to be the creator, upholder, and
- 8:45Speaker 1: ruler of the world, and who held themselves obliged in
- 8:49Speaker 1: conscience to live peaceably and justly in society, were in
- 8:54Speaker 1: no ways to be molested for their religious persuasion and practice,
- 8:59Speaker 1: nor to become comp held at any time to frequent
- 9:02Speaker 1: any religious place or ministry whatever. All children of the
- 9:07Speaker 1: age of twelve were to be taught some useful trade.
- 9:11Speaker 1: All pleadings, processes, and records in the courts of law
- 9:15Speaker 1: were to be as short as possible. The reformation of
- 9:19Speaker 1: the offender was to be considered as a great part
- 9:22Speaker 1: of the purpose of punishment. At a time when there
- 9:26Speaker 1: were in England two hundred offenses punishable by death, pen
- 9:31Speaker 1: reduced these capital crimes to two murder and treason. All
- 9:38Speaker 1: prisons were to be made into workhouses. No oath was
- 9:43Speaker 1: to be required. Drinking healths, selling rum to indians, cursing
- 9:49Speaker 1: and lying, fighting duels, playing cards, the pleasures of the
- 9:54Speaker 1: theater were all put under the band together. Provincial councils
- 10:01Speaker 1: suggested the Senate of the United States as originally established. However,
- 10:07Speaker 1: the disproportion of power between the upper and lower house
- 10:11Speaker 1: was so great as to cause much just dissatisfaction. The
- 10:16Speaker 1: Council was in effect a body of seventy two governors.
- 10:20Speaker 1: The Assembly, which more directly represented to people, could consider
- 10:25Speaker 1: no laws save those sent down to them by the Council,
- 10:30Speaker 1: the Constitution had to be changed. One of the good
- 10:34Speaker 1: qualities of the Constitution was that it was possible to
- 10:38Speaker 1: change it. It provided for the process of amendment. That
- 10:43Speaker 1: customary article with which all constitutions now end appeared for
- 10:48Speaker 1: the first time in Penn's frame of government. Another gig
- 10:53Speaker 1: quality of the Constitution was that it secured an abiding
- 10:57Speaker 1: harmony between its fundamental statements in all further legislation. Penn
- 11:04Speaker 1: was the first one to hit upon the foundation, or
- 11:07Speaker 1: first step, in the true principle now their universal law
- 11:11Speaker 1: in the United States, that the unconstitutional law is void.
- 11:17Speaker 1: Whatever help and may have had in the frame of
- 11:20Speaker 1: this legislation from Algernon, Sidney and other political friends, it
- 11:25Speaker 1: is plain that the best part of it was his own,
- 11:28Speaker 1: and that he wrote it not as a politician, but
- 11:31Speaker 1: as a Quaker. It is an application of the Quaker
- 11:35Speaker 1: principles of democracy and of religious liberty to the conditions
- 11:41Speaker 1: of commonwealth. From beginning to end, it is the work
- 11:45Speaker 1: of a man whose supreme interest was religion. It is
- 11:49Speaker 1: at the same time singularly free from the narrowness into
- 11:53Speaker 1: which men of this earnest mind have often fallen religion.
- 11:58Speaker 1: As Pen considered, it was not a matter of ordinances
- 12:02Speaker 1: or rubrics. It was righteousness and fraternity and liberty of conscience.
- 12:10Speaker 1: In this spirit, he wrote a letter to the Udian
- 12:13Speaker 1: inhabitants of his province. The Great God, who is the
- 12:17Speaker 1: power and wisdom that made you and me, incline your
- 12:22Speaker 1: hearts to righteousness, love and peace. This I send to
- 12:26Speaker 1: assure you of my love and to desire you to
- 12:29Speaker 1: love my friends. And when the Great God brings me
- 12:33Speaker 1: among you, I intend to order all things in such
- 12:37Speaker 1: manner that we may all live in love and peace,
- 12:40Speaker 1: one with another, which I hope that Great God will
- 12:44Speaker 1: incline both me and you to do. I seek nothing
- 12:49Speaker 1: but the honor of his name, and that we who
- 12:52Speaker 1: are His workmanship, may do that which is well pleasing
- 12:56Speaker 1: to Him. So I rest in the love of God
- 12:59Speaker 1: that made us. Now colonists began to seek this land
- 13:05Speaker 1: of peace across the sea. One hundred acres were promised
- 13:09Speaker 1: for forty shillings, with a quick rent of one shilling
- 13:12Speaker 1: annually to the proprietor forever. In clearing the ground, care
- 13:17Speaker 1: was to be taken to leave one acre of trees
- 13:20Speaker 1: for every five acres cleared, All transactions with the Indians
- 13:25Speaker 1: were to be held in the public market, and all
- 13:29Speaker 1: differences between the white man and the red were to
- 13:32Speaker 1: be settled by a jury of six planters and six Indians.
- 13:37Speaker 1: Penn also counseled prospective colonists to consider the grat inconveniences
- 13:42Speaker 1: which they must of necessity, and Eupe would have the permission,
- 13:47Speaker 1: if not the good liking of their near relations. There
- 13:52Speaker 1: were already in the province some two thousand people besides Indians,
- 13:57Speaker 1: a peaceable and industrious s folk, mostly Swedes and English.
- 14:03Speaker 1: They had six meeting houses, the English settlers being Quakers.
- 14:08Speaker 1: They lived along the banks of the Delaware. In the
- 14:12Speaker 1: autumn sixteen eighty one, the ship Sarah and John brought
- 14:17Speaker 1: the first of Penn's immigrants, and in December the ship
- 14:21Speaker 1: Bristol Factor added others. In sixteen eighty two, Pen came himself.
- 14:29Speaker 1: The journey at that time was both long and perilous.
- 14:33Speaker 1: If it was accomplished in two months, the voyage was
- 14:36Speaker 1: considered prosperous. To the ordinary dangers of the deep was
- 14:41Speaker 1: added the tear of smallpox. Scarcely a ship crossed without
- 14:46Speaker 1: this dread. Passenger William accordingly, as one undertaking a desperate adventure,
- 14:53Speaker 1: took a tender leave of his family. He wrote a
- 14:57Speaker 1: letter whose councils might guide them in case returned my
- 15:02Speaker 1: dear wife and children, He said, My love, which neither
- 15:07Speaker 1: see nor land, nor death itself can extinguish or lessen
- 15:11Speaker 1: towards you most endearedly, visits you with eternal embraces, and
- 15:17Speaker 1: will abide with you forever. And may the God of
- 15:21Speaker 1: my life watch over you and bless you, and do
- 15:24Speaker 1: you good in this world, and forever be diligent. He
- 15:28Speaker 1: advised his wife in meetings for worship and business, and
- 15:33Speaker 1: let meetings be kept once a day in the family.
- 15:35Speaker 1: To wait upon the Lord and my dearest to make
- 15:39Speaker 1: thy family matters easy to THEE. Divide thy time and
- 15:43Speaker 1: be regular. It is easy and sweet. Cast up thy
- 15:49Speaker 1: income and see what it daily amounts to. And I
- 15:53Speaker 1: beseech THEE to live low and sparingly till my debts
- 15:56Speaker 1: are paid. As for the children there to be bred
- 16:01Speaker 1: up in the love of virtue and that holy plain
- 16:04Speaker 1: way of it which we have lived in, that the
- 16:07Speaker 1: world and no part of it get into my family.
- 16:11Speaker 1: They are to be carefully taught for their learning, be liberal,
- 16:16Speaker 1: spare no cost. Agriculture is especially in my eye. Let
- 16:22Speaker 1: my children be husbandmen and housewives. It is industrious, healthy, honest,
- 16:29Speaker 1: and of good example. They are to honor and obey
- 16:33Speaker 1: their mother, to love not money nor the world, to
- 16:37Speaker 1: be temperate in all things. If they come presently to
- 16:42Speaker 1: be concerned in the government of Pennsylvania, I do charge you.
- 16:46Speaker 1: Their father wrote, before the Lord God and the Holy Angels,
- 16:51Speaker 1: that you be lovely, diligent, and tender, fearing God, loving
- 16:57Speaker 1: the people, and hating covetousness. Let justice have its impartial course,
- 17:04Speaker 1: and the law free passage. Though to your loss, protect
- 17:10Speaker 1: no man against it. For you are not above the law,
- 17:13Speaker 1: but the law above you live the lives yourselves. You
- 17:19Speaker 1: would have the people live unhappily. Of Julie's children, seven
- 17:24Speaker 1: in number four died before their mother, and one, the
- 17:29Speaker 1: oldest son, spring Jet. Shortly after Springjet inherited the devout
- 17:35Speaker 1: spirit of his parents, his father wrote an affecting account
- 17:40Speaker 1: of his pious death. Of the two remaining, William fell
- 17:45Speaker 1: into ways of dissipation, and Letitia married a man whom
- 17:50Speaker 1: her father disliked. Neither of them had any inheritance in Pennsylvania.
- 17:58Speaker 1: Penship carried one hundred passengers, most of them quakers from
- 18:04Speaker 1: his own neighborhood. A third part died of smallpox on
- 18:08Speaker 1: the way. On the twenty fourth October he sighted Land.
- 18:14Speaker 1: On the twenty seventh he arrived before Newcastle in Delaware.
- 18:19Speaker 1: On the twenty eighth he landed. Here, he formally received
- 18:25Speaker 1: turf and twig, water and soil in token of his ownership.
- 18:31Speaker 1: On the twenty ninth he entered Pennsylvania. Adding ten days
- 18:36Speaker 1: to this date to bring it into accord with our
- 18:39Speaker 1: present calendar, we have November eighth as the day of
- 18:43Speaker 1: his arrival in the province. The place was Upland, where
- 18:48Speaker 1: there was a settlement already. The name was that day
- 18:52Speaker 1: changed to Chester. Penn was greatly pleased with his new possessions.
- 19:00Speaker 1: He wrote a description of the country for the Free
- 19:02Speaker 1: Society of Traders. The air, he said, was sweet and clear,
- 19:08Speaker 1: and the heaven serene. Trees, fruits, and flowers grew in abundance,
- 19:14Speaker 1: especially a great red grape and a white muscadel, out
- 19:18Speaker 1: of which he hopes it may be possible to make
- 19:21Speaker 1: good wine. The ground was fertile. The Indians, he found
- 19:26Speaker 1: to be tall, straight and well built, walking with a
- 19:29Speaker 1: lofty chin. Their language was like the Hebrew, and he
- 19:35Speaker 1: guessed that they were descended from the ten Lost tribes
- 19:38Speaker 1: of Israel. Light of heart, they seemed to him with
- 19:42Speaker 1: strong affections, but soon spent the most merry creatures that live,
- 19:50Speaker 1: though they were under a dark night in things relating
- 19:53Speaker 1: to religion. Yet were they believers in God in immortality.
- 20:00Speaker 1: I blessed the Lord, he wrote in a letter. I
- 20:03Speaker 1: am very well and much satisfied with my place and portion.
- 20:08Speaker 1: Oh how sweet is the quiet of these parts, freed
- 20:12Speaker 1: from the anxious and troublesome solicitations, hurries and solicitations of
- 20:18Speaker 1: woeful Europe. In the midst of these fair regions, beside
- 20:24Speaker 1: the wetted rivers, the delaware, and the skillgel in the
- 20:29Speaker 1: convenient neighborhood of quarries of building stone, at a place
- 20:34Speaker 1: which the Indians called Coquanall, he established his capital city,
- 20:39Speaker 1: calling it Philadelphia, perhaps in token of the spirit of
- 20:44Speaker 1: brotherly love in which it was founded, perhaps in remembrance
- 20:49Speaker 1: of those Seven Cities of the Revelation, wherein was that
- 20:53Speaker 1: primitive Christianity which he wished to reproduce. He had his
- 21:00Speaker 1: rowers run his boat ashore at the mouth of Dock Creek,
- 21:04Speaker 1: which now runs under Dock Street, where several men were
- 21:09Speaker 1: engaged in building a house which was afterwards called the
- 21:14Speaker 1: Blue Anchor Tavern. Pen brought a considerable company with him.
- 21:20Speaker 1: In the minutes of a friends meeting held on the
- 21:22Speaker 1: eighth eighteenth of November sixteen eighty two at Chacka Maxson,
- 21:28Speaker 1: now Kensington, it was recorded that at this time Governor Penn,
- 21:33Speaker 1: in a multitude of friends, arrived here and erected a
- 21:36Speaker 1: city called Philadelphia, about a half a mile from Chacka Maxon.
- 21:43Speaker 1: Presently the Indians appeared. They offered Pen with their hominy
- 21:48Speaker 1: and roasted acorns, and after dinner, showed him how they
- 21:52Speaker 1: could hop and jump. He is said to have entered
- 21:56Speaker 1: hardily into these exercises, and to have jumped farther than
- 22:00Speaker 1: any of them. The governor had already determined the plan
- 22:04Speaker 1: of the city. There was to be two large streets,
- 22:09Speaker 1: one fronting the Delaware on the east, the other confronting
- 22:13Speaker 1: the Scuco on the west. A third avenue, to be
- 22:17Speaker 1: called High Street now Market, was to run from river
- 22:21Speaker 1: to river east and west, and a fourth called Broad Street,
- 22:26Speaker 1: was to cross it at right angles north and south.
- 22:32Speaker 1: Twenty streets were to lie parallel with Broad and to
- 22:36Speaker 1: be named first Street, second Street, and so on. In
- 22:39Speaker 1: order in the plain Quaker fashion, which had thus entitled
- 22:43Speaker 1: the days of the week and the months of the year.
- 22:47Speaker 1: Eight were to lie parallel with High and to be
- 22:50Speaker 1: called after the trees of the forest spruce, chestnut, pine.
- 22:57Speaker 1: In the midst of the city, at the crossing of
- 22:59Speaker 1: High Broad Streets was to be a square of ten
- 23:03Speaker 1: acres to contain the public offices, and in each corner
- 23:08Speaker 1: of the city was to be a similar open space
- 23:12Speaker 1: for walks. The founder intended to allow no house to
- 23:16Speaker 1: be built on the riverbanks, keeping them open and beautiful.
- 23:21Speaker 1: Could he have foreseen the future, he would have made
- 23:24Speaker 1: the streets wider. He had in mind, however, only a
- 23:28Speaker 1: country town. Let every house be placed. He directed, if
- 23:34Speaker 1: the person pleases in the middle of its plot, as
- 23:37Speaker 1: to the breadthway of it, that so there may be
- 23:40Speaker 1: ground on each side for gardens or orchards or fields,
- 23:44Speaker 1: that it may be a green country town which will
- 23:48Speaker 1: never be burnt and always wholesome. Among those houses was
- 23:54Speaker 1: his own, a modest structure made of brick, standing on
- 23:58Speaker 1: Front Street, south of the present Market Street, and still
- 24:02Speaker 1: preserved in Fairmount Park. He afterwards gave it to his
- 24:07Speaker 1: daughter Letitia, and it was called Letitia House from her ownership.
- 24:14Speaker 1: In the meantime he was making his famous treaty with
- 24:17Speaker 1: the Indians. Penn recognized the Indians as the actual owners
- 24:23Speaker 1: of the land. He bought it from them as he
- 24:26Speaker 1: needed it. The transfer of property thus made was a
- 24:30Speaker 1: natural occasion of mutual promises. As there were several such
- 24:36Speaker 1: meetings between the Quakers and the Indians, it is difficult
- 24:40Speaker 1: to fix a date to mark the fact. One meeting
- 24:45Speaker 1: took place. It is said under a spreading elm at Chakamaxon.
- 24:49Speaker 1: The commonly accepted date is the twenty third of June
- 24:53Speaker 1: sixteen eighty three. The elm was blown down in eighteen ten.
- 24:59Speaker 1: There is a assistant tradition to the effect that William
- 25:03Speaker 1: was distinguished from his fellow Quakers in his transaction by
- 25:07Speaker 1: wearing a sky blue sash of silk network. But of this,
- 25:13Speaker 1: as of most other details of ceremony in connection with
- 25:16Speaker 1: the matter, we know nothing. Penn gives a general description
- 25:22Speaker 1: of his various conferences upon this business their order, he says,
- 25:27Speaker 1: is thus the king sits in the middle of a
- 25:30Speaker 1: half moon, and has its counsel, the old and wise
- 25:34Speaker 1: on each hand behind them, or at a little distance
- 25:38Speaker 1: sit the younger fry in the same figure. Then one
- 25:43Speaker 1: speaks in their king's name, and pen answers. When the
- 25:47Speaker 1: purchase was agreed, great promises passed between us of kindness
- 25:52Speaker 1: and good neighborhood, and that the English and the Indians
- 25:56Speaker 1: must live in love as long as the sun gave life.
- 26:01Speaker 1: At every sentence of which they shouted and said amen
- 26:05Speaker 1: in their way. Some earnestness may have been added to
- 26:10Speaker 1: these assuring responses by the Indians consciousness of the fact
- 26:14Speaker 1: that the advantages of the bargain were not all on
- 26:17Speaker 1: one side. The Pennsylvania tribes had been thoroughly conquered by
- 26:22Speaker 1: the Five nations. There was little heart left in them.
- 26:26Speaker 1: But their condition detracts nothing from Penn's Christian brotherliness. In
- 26:33Speaker 1: some such manner, the great business was enacted. This, said Voltaire,
- 26:40Speaker 1: was the only treaty between these people and the Christians
- 26:44Speaker 1: that was not ratified by an oath, and that was
- 26:48Speaker 1: never broken. That it was never broken was the capital
- 26:52Speaker 1: fact herein it. Differed from a thousand other treaties made
- 26:57Speaker 1: before or sense in the midst of the long story
- 27:01Speaker 1: of the misdealings of the white men with the Red,
- 27:04Speaker 1: which begins with Cortes and Pizarro and is still continued
- 27:09Speaker 1: in the daily newspapers. This justice and honesty of William
- 27:14Speaker 1: Penn is a point of light. That Pen treated the
- 27:19Speaker 1: Indians as neighbors and brothers, that he paid them fairly
- 27:23Speaker 1: for every acre of their land, that the promises which
- 27:27Speaker 1: he made were ever after unfailingly kept, is perhaps his
- 27:32Speaker 1: best warrant of abiding fame. Like his constitutional establishment of
- 27:38Speaker 1: civil and religious liberty, it was a direct result of
- 27:43Speaker 1: his Quaker principles. It was a manifestation of that righteousness
- 27:48Speaker 1: which he was continually preaching and practicing. The kindness and
- 27:54Speaker 1: courtly generosity which Penn showed in his bargains with the
- 27:58Speaker 1: Indians is happily illustrated in one of his purchases of land.
- 28:04Speaker 1: The land was to extend as far back as a
- 28:07Speaker 1: man could walk in three days. William walked out a
- 28:11Speaker 1: day and a half of it, taking several chiefs with him,
- 28:15Speaker 1: leisurely after the Indian manner, sitting down sometimes to smoke
- 28:20Speaker 1: their pipes to eat biscuit and cheese and drink a
- 28:23Speaker 1: bottle of wine. Thus they covered less than thirty miles.
- 28:30Speaker 1: In seventeen thirty three, the then governor employed the fastest
- 28:35Speaker 1: walker he could find, who in the second day and
- 28:38Speaker 1: a half marked eighty six miles. The treaty gave the
- 28:43Speaker 1: new colony a substantial advantage. The Lenni, Lennape, the Mingoes,
- 28:49Speaker 1: the Shawnees accounted Penn's settlers as their friends. The word
- 28:55Speaker 1: went out among the tribes that what Penn said he meant,
- 29:00Speaker 1: and that what he promised he would fulfill faithfully. Thus
- 29:04Speaker 1: the planters were freed from the tear of the forest
- 29:07Speaker 1: which haunted their neighbors north and south. They could found
- 29:12Speaker 1: cities in the wilderness until their scattered farms without fear
- 29:16Speaker 1: of Tommyhawk, our firebrand. Penn himself went twenty miles from Philadelphia,
- 29:23Speaker 1: near the present Bristol to lay out his country place
- 29:27Speaker 1: of Pennsbury. Ships were now arriving with sober and industrious emigrants.
- 29:35Speaker 1: Trees were coming down, houses were going up. In July
- 29:41Speaker 1: sixteen eighty three, Penn wrote to Henry Sidney in England,
- 29:46Speaker 1: reminding him that he had promised to send some fruit trees,
- 29:50Speaker 1: and describing the condition of the colony. We have laid
- 29:54Speaker 1: out a town a mile long and two miles deep.
- 29:58Speaker 1: I think we have near ab eighty houses built, and
- 30:01Speaker 1: about three hundred farms settled around the town. We have
- 30:06Speaker 1: had fifty sail ships and small vessels since the last
- 30:10Speaker 1: summer in our river, which shows a good beginning. I
- 30:14Speaker 1: am mightily taken with this part of the world, he
- 30:17Speaker 1: wrote to Lord Culpeper, who had come to be governor
- 30:20Speaker 1: of Virginia. I like it so well that a plentiful
- 30:24Speaker 1: estate and a great acquaintance on the other side have
- 30:28Speaker 1: no charms to remove my family being once fixed with me,
- 30:33Speaker 1: and if no other thing occur, I am likely to
- 30:37Speaker 1: be an adopted American. Our heads are dully added, but
- 30:42Speaker 1: our hearts are good and our hands strong. In the
- 30:47Speaker 1: midst of this peace and prosperity, however, there was serious trouble.
- 30:52Speaker 1: This was a dispute with Lord Baltimore over the dividing
- 30:56Speaker 1: line between Pennsylvania and Maryland, the inaccuracy of surveyors, the
- 31:02Speaker 1: confusion of maps, and the indefiniteness of charters. Baltimore believed
- 31:08Speaker 1: himself entitled to a considerable part of the territory which
- 31:12Speaker 1: was claimed by Penn, including even Philadelphia. The two proprietors
- 31:19Speaker 1: had already discussed the question without settlement. Indeed, it remained
- 31:24Speaker 1: a cause of contention for some seventy years, as finally
- 31:29Speaker 1: settled in seventeen thirty two between the heirs of Penn
- 31:32Speaker 1: and of Baltimore. A line was established from Cape Henlopen
- 31:37Speaker 1: west to a point halfway between Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay,
- 31:43Speaker 1: thence north to twelve miles west of Newcastle, and so
- 31:47Speaker 1: on to fifteen miles south of Philadelphia, thence due west.
- 31:53Speaker 1: The surveyors were Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, and the
- 31:57Speaker 1: line was thus called Mason and Dixon's Line. This boundary
- 32:03Speaker 1: afterwards parted the Free States from the Slave States. South
- 32:08Speaker 1: of it was Dixie. And now learned that Lord Baltimore
- 32:13Speaker 1: was on his way to England to lay the question
- 32:16Speaker 1: before the Privy Council. The situation demanded William's presence. I
- 32:22Speaker 1: am following him as fast as I can. He wrote
- 32:25Speaker 1: to the Duke of York, praying that a perfect stop
- 32:29Speaker 1: be put to all his proceedings till I come. He
- 32:32Speaker 1: therefore took leave of his friends in the province commissioned
- 32:37Speaker 1: the provincial council to act in his stead, and in
- 32:40Speaker 1: August sixteen eighty four, having been two years in America,
- 32:45Speaker 1: he embarked for home on board the Endeavor. On the
- 32:50Speaker 1: eve of sailing, he wrote a farewell letter. And now Philadelphia,
- 32:56Speaker 1: he said, the virgin settlement of this province name before
- 33:00Speaker 1: thou wert born? What love, what care, what service, and
- 33:05Speaker 1: what travail has there been to bring THEE forth and
- 33:10Speaker 1: preserve THEE from such as would abuse and defile THEE. Oh,
- 33:15Speaker 1: that thou mayst be kept from the evil that would
- 33:17Speaker 1: overwhelm THEE. That faithful to the God of mercies and
- 33:22Speaker 1: the life of righteousness, thou mayst be preserved to the end.
- 33:28Speaker 1: My soul prays to God for THEE, that thou mayest
- 33:31Speaker 1: stand in the day of trial, that thy children may
- 33:34Speaker 1: be blessed to the Lord, and thy people saved by
- 33:38Speaker 1: Thy power. My love to THEE has been great, and
- 33:43Speaker 1: the remembrance of THEE affects my heart and mine eye.
- 33:48Speaker 1: The God of eternal strength keep and preserves THEE to
- 33:52Speaker 1: his glory and peace. End of Chapter six. Eyes