PENNSYLVANIA.

Pennsylvania is the only instance of an American colony founded without bloodshed. It was intended to be an asylum for the persecuted English Friends.

William Penn was the only son of an English admiral, who had won distinction by his conquest of Jamaica, and brilliant achievements during the war with Holland. He was born in 1644. While a student at Oxford, and at the age of sixteen, he became interested in the doctrines of the Quakers, for which he was expelled from the university. This displeased his father, who beat him and turned him out of doors, but afterwards forgave him, and sent him to travel on the continent, in the hope that by intercourse with the world his opinions would be changed. At the age of twenty-two he was sent by his father to Ireland on business, and while there became so impressed by the preaching of Thomas Loe, the Quaker minister, that he joined their society, and became so firm a convert that all his father's reproaches, and even a second expulsion from home could not change his faith. His firmness and gentleness afterward won for him the admiration and forgiveness of his father.

During the next three years he was three times imprisoned for his religion and pleading the cause of his brethren. At one time a jury was starved two days and nights to compel them to convict him. They insisted on returning a verdict of acquittal, for which they were fined.

On his release from imprisonment, he, with several others of his persuasion, embarked for Holland, distributed tracts and preached to the people. On his return to England he found the condition of the Friends as suffering as ever, and determined to found a free and happy home for them in the new world. In 1681 he obtained a tract of land on the western bank of the Delaware river, in payment of a claim against the government for sixteen thousand pounds, left him by his father. The king gave to this territory the name of Pennsylvania, "the woody land of Penn."

Within the domain granted to Penn were some Swede and Dutch settlements. These he had no desire to remove. He sent

them a copy of his grant, and a message informing them that he had no intention of usurping their rights, but intended they should be governed by their own laws.

The year before Penn was able to join his colony, he sent out a number of emigrants with instructions for building a city. He did not wish it to be a crowded city with the pure air and light of heaven shut out, but to each house there was to be a large garden attached, so that it might be a "faire greene country towne."

In November of the year 1682, Penn, with a hundred settlers, sailed for the new world in the ship Welcome. During the long voyage of nine weeks thirty of his companions died of small pox. He was warmly welcomed on his arrival by the Friends who had preceded him. He sailed up the Delaware, on the banks of which he determined to found his city. The ground was purchased from the Swedes. The city thus commenced was called Philadelphia, or city of Brotherly Love.

Soon after this Penn made his famous treaty with the Indians. They met under a large elm tree in what is now called Kensington. This tree was preserved until 1810 when it was blown down during a severe storm. A monument, which has since been erected, marks the place where it stood. Here, beside the Delaware, Penn met the chieftains. The old warriors took their seats on the ground in the form of a half moon, while the younger ones arranged themselves behind in a similar form. Their new governor, who had inspired their confidence by means of a few presents, occupied the central space before them. meet," said he, "on the broad pathway of good faith and good will. I will not call you children, for parents sometimes chide their children too severely; nor brothers only, for brothers. differ. The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain, for that the rains might rust or the falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man's body were divided into two parts. We are one flesh and one blood."

"We

The Indians trusted him and presented him with a belt of wampum as an emblem of friendship. "We will live," said they, "with William Penn and his children so long as the sun and

moon shall endure." This treaty of peace between the English Quaker and the red man of the forest was never violated. While other white settlements suffered severely from Indian wars, "not a drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian.”

The government of Pennsylvania was republican. An assembly, composed of six members from each county, was organized. All sects were tolerated. Every freeman could vote and hold office, who believed in God and abstained from work on the Sabbath. This peaceful colony grew and prospered. In 1683 Philadelphia consisted of four cottages, but in two years the houses numbered six hundred. It grew more in three years than New York did in fifty.

DELAWARE.

In 1631 the Dutch planted a feeble settlement near the present site of Lewiston, but difficulties with the natives had excited savage vengeance, and they exterminated the Dutch colony.

Gustavus Adolphus, the monarch of Sweden, determined to plant a colony in America, which should be an asylum for persecuted Christians. He died before his plans were carried out. When his daughter, Christiana, succeeded to the throne, the minister, Oxenstiern, accomplished the noble purpose which her father had formed. A church and fort were built on the site of Wilmington. The place was called Christiana, in honor of their young queen. Their territory was named New Sweden. The jealousy of the Dutch was aroused, and they resolved to expel or subdue the Swedes. For a few years Delaware was in the possession of the Dutch, although the inhabitants were Swedes.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SOUTHERN STATES.

MARYLAND.

In England, during the reign of King James, the Puritans were subjected to very severe penalties on account of their religious belief. But, although the king persecuted the Puritans for non-conformity with the rites and views of the English church, he, on the other hand, oppressed the Roman Catholics still more severely; and the Puritans also, as they became more numerous and increased in influence, raised a fierce outcry against the Romanists, persecuting them as far as they were able, even while they were themselves suffering persecution at the hands of King James and the supporters of the English church. The Roman Catholics, being thus oppressed on both sides, turned, in their distress, to America, which was, even at that early day, an asylum for the oppressed.

George Calvert, one of the most influential of the Roman Catholics, was a leading member of the London company, and he also held the office of Secretary of State at the time of the embarkation of the Pilgrims for America. For his services to his country and sovereign, he was, in 1621, created an Irish peer, with the title of Lord Baltimore.

In 1628, Lord Baltimore went to Virginia with the view of establishing a Roman Catholic colony there, but he found the Virginians hostile to the cause, opposing it as violently as the king himself. He then went beyond the Potomac, where he found a beautiful country which was as yet unoccupied. He went back to England and applied for a charter to establish a colony there. The charter was granted by Charles I. (who had ascended the throne in 1625,) after the death of Lord Baltimore, to his son Cecil, who had inherited his title and property. The province was called Maryland, in honor of the Catholic queen, Henrietta Maria.

The first company of emigrants, with Leonard Calvert, brother of Cecil, as their governor, arrived in March, 1634. They

sailed up the Chesapeake and purchased a village of the Indians, which they named St. Mary. By their honesty in paying for their land, they secured the friendship of the Indians, and being well supplied with the necessaries of life, the colony prospered.

Some time previous to the establishment of this colony, William Clayborne had obtained a license from the king to traffic with the Indians, and he, in company with others, had established trading stations at different points along the Chesapeake. Clayborne and his followers denied the authority of Lord Baltimore, and collected on the eastern border of Maryland, resolved to sustain their claims at all hazards. Their obstinacy caused some trouble, but Baltimore sent a force against them, which, after a severe skirmish, succeeded in making the insurgents prisoners. Clayborne's property was confiscated, and he was sent to England to answer to a charge of treason.

The first legislative assembly in Maryland was held at St. Mary in 1635. At this time every freeman was entitled to a voice in the enactment of laws, and it was not until 1639 that a representative government was established. At first each county chose as many representatives as it pleased, while the proprietor appointed others, but afterwards the counties were confined to four each, and the city of Annapolis was allowed two.

Although the Indians were at first amicably disposed towards the Maryland colony, they afterwards became jealous of their increasing power and began to harass them in many ways. The whites at last determined to endure their encroachments no longer, and declared war against them. This war lasted from 1642 to 1645, when peace was again restored. But now disturbances came in another direction. During this same year, William Clayborne, having been acquitted of the charge of treason in England, returned to Maryland determined on revenge. He infused a spirit of rebellion into some of the colonists, and his party became so powerful that the governor was obliged to flee into Virginia, where he remained a year and a half before the rebellion was quelled, and he was permitted to resume his office.