Vol. II.--41.
[Illustration: ~Penn and the Indians.~]
Yet thus could, in a savage-styled land,
A few--reviled, scorn’d, hated of the whole--
Stretch forth for Peace the unceremonious hand,
And stamp Truth, even on a sealed scroll.
They call’d not God, or men, in proof to stand:
They pray’d no vengeance on the perjured soul:
But Heaven look’d down, and, moved with wonder, saw
A compact fram’d, where Time might bring no flaw.
This stanza is in a delightful little volume, entitled “The Desolation
of Eyam; the Emigrant, a tale of the American Woods; and other poems: By
William and Mary Howitt, authors of the Forest Minstrel, &c.” The
feeling and beauty of one of the poems, “Penn and the Indians,”
suggested the present engraving, after a celebrated print from a picture
by the late Benjamin West. The following particulars are chiefly related
by Mr. Clarkson, respecting the scene it represents.
King Charles II., in consideration of a considerable sum due from the
crown for the services of admiral sir William Penn, granted to his son,
the ever-memorable William Penn, and his heirs, in perpetuity, a great
tract of land on the river Delaware, in America; with full power to
erect a new colony there, to sell lands, to make laws, to create
magistrates, and to pardon crimes. In August, 1682, Penn, after having
written to his wife and children a letter eminently remarkable for its
simplicity and patriarchal spirit, took an affectionate leave of them;
and, accompanied by several friends, embarked at Deal, on board the
Welcome, a ship of three hundred tons burthen. The passengers, including
himself, were not more than a hundred. They were chiefly quakers, and
most of them from Sussex, in which county his house at Warminghurst was
seated. They sailed about the first of September, but had not proceeded
far to sea, when the small-pox broke out so virulently, that thirty of
their number died. In about six weeks from the time of their leaving the
Downs they came in sight of the American coast, and shortly afterwards
landed at Newcastle, in the Delaware river.
William Penn’s first business was to explain to the settlers of Dutch
and Swedish extraction the object of his coming, and the nature of the
government he designed to establish. His next great movement was to
Upland, where he called the first general assembly, consisting of an
equal number, for the province and for the territories, of all such
freemen as chose to attend. In this assembly the frame of government,
and many important regulations, were settled; and subsequently he
endeavoured to settle the boundaries of his territory with Charles lord
Baltimore, a catholic nobleman, who was governor and proprietor of the
adjoining province of Maryland, which had been settled with persons of
his own persuasion.
Penn’s religious principles, which led him to the practice of the most
scrupulous morality, did not permit him to look upon the king’s patent,
or legal possession according to the laws of England, as sufficient to
establish his right to the country, without purchasing it by fair and
open bargain of the natives, to whom, only, it properly belonged. He had
therefore instructed commissioners, who had arrived in America before
him, to buy it of the latter, and to make with them at the same time a
treaty of eternal friendship. This the commissioners had done; and this
was the time when, by mutual agreement between him and the Indian
chiefs, it was to be publicly ratified. He proceeded, therefore,
accompanied by his friends, consisting of men, women, and young persons
of both sexes, to Coaquannoc, the Indian name for the place where
Philadelphia now stands. On his arrival there he found the Sachems and
their tribes assembling. They were seen in the woods as far as the eye
could carry, and looked frightful both on account of their number and
their arms. The quakers are reported to have been but a handful in
comparison, and these without any weapon; so that dismay and terror had
come upon them, had they not confided in the righteousness of their
cause.
It is much to be regretted, when we have accounts of minor treaties
between William Penn and the Indians, that there is not in any historian
an account of this, though so many mention it, and though all concur in
considering it as the most glorious of any in the annals of the world.
There are, however, relations in Indian speeches, and traditions in
quaker families, descended from those who were present on the occasion,
from which we may learn something concerning it. It appears that, though
the parties were to assemble at Coaquannoc, the treaty was made a little
higher up, at Shackamaxon. Upon this Kensington now stands; the houses
of which may be considered as the suburbs of Philadelphia. There was at
Shackamaxon an elm tree of a prodigious size. To this the leaders on
both sides repaired, approaching each other under its widely-spreading
branches. William Penn appeared in his usual clothes. He had no crown,
sceptre, mace, sword, halberd, or any insignia of eminence. He was
distinguished only by wearing a sky-blue sash[365] round his waist,
which was made of silk net-work, and which was of no larger apparent
dimensions than an officer’s military sash, and much like it except in
colour. On his right hand was colonel Markham, his relation and
secretary, and on his left his friend Pearson; after whom followed a
train of quakers. Before him were carried various articles of
merchandise; which, when they came near the Sachems, were spread upon
the ground. He held a roll of parchment, containing the confirmation of
the treaty of purchase and amity, in his hand. One of the Sachems, who
was the chief of them, then put upon his own head a kind of chaplet, in
which appeared a small horn. This, as among the primitive eastern
nations, and according to Scripture language, was an emblem of kingly
power; and whenever the chief, who had a right to wear it, put it on, it
was understood that the place was made sacred, and the persons of all
present inviolable. Upon putting on this horn the Indians threw down
their bows and arrows, and seated themselves round their chiefs in the
form of a half-moon upon the ground. The chief Sachem then announced to
William Penn, by means of an interpreter, that the nations were ready to
hear him.
Having been thus called upon, he began. The Great Spirit, he said, who
made him and them, who ruled the heaven and the earth, and who knew the
innermost thoughts of man, knew that he and his friends had a hearty
desire to live in peace and friendship with them, and to serve them to
the utmost of their power. It was not their custom to use hostile
weapons against their fellow-creatures, for which reason they had come
unarmed. Their object was not to do injury, and thus provoke the Great
Spirit, but to do good. They were then met on the broad pathway of good
faith and good will, so that no advantage was to be taken on either
side, but all was to be openness, brotherhood, and love. After these and
other words, he unrolled the parchment, and by means of the same
interpreter, conveyed to them, article by article, the conditions of the
purchase, and the words of the compact then made for their eternal
union. Among other things, they were not to be molested in their lawful
pursuits even in the territory they had alienated, for it was to be
common to them and the English. They were to have the same liberty to do
all things therein relating to the improvement of their grounds, and
providing sustenance for their families, which the English had. If any
disputes should arise between the two, they should be settled by twelve
persons, half of whom should be English and half Indians. He then paid
them for the land, and made them many presents besides, from the
merchandise which had been spread before them. Having done this, he laid
the roll of parchment on the ground; observing again, that the ground
should be common to both people. He then added, that he would not do as
the Marylanders did; that is, call them children or brothers only; for
often parents were apt to whip their children too severely, and brothers
sometimes would differ: neither would he compare the friendship between
him and them to a chain; for the rain might sometimes rust it, or a tree
might fall and break it; but he should consider them as the same flesh
and blood with the Christians, and the same as if one man’s body were to
be divided into two parts. He then took up the parchment, and presented
it to the Sachem who wore the horn in the chaplet, and desired him and
the other Sachems to preserve it carefully for three generations; that
their children might know what had passed between them, just as if he
had remained himself with them to repeat it.
That William Penn must have done and said a great deal more on this
interesting occasion than has now been represented, there can be no
doubt. What has been related may be depended upon. It is to be
regretted, that the speeches of the Indians on this memorable day have
not come down to us. It is only known, that they solemnly pledged
themselves, according to their country manner, to live in love with
William Penn and his children as long as the sun and moon should endure.
Thus ended this famous treaty, of which more has been said in the way of
praise than of any other ever transmitted to posterity. “This,” said
Voltaire, “was the only treaty between those people and the Christians
that was not ratified by an oath, and that was never broken.” “William
Penn thought it right,” says the abbé Raynal, “to obtain an additional
right by a fair and open purchase from the aborigines; and thus he
signalized his arrival by an act of equity, which made his person and
principles equally beloved. Here it is the mind rests with pleasure upon
modern history, and feels some kind of compensation for the disgust,
melancholy, and horror, which the whole of it, but particularly that of
the European settlements in America, inspires.” Noble, in his
Continuation of Granger, says, “He occupied his domains by actual
bargain and sale with the Indians. This fact does him infinite honour,
as no blood was shed, and the Christian and the barbarian met as
brothers. Penn has thus taught us to respect the lives and properties of
the most unenlightened nations.”--“Being now returned,” says Robert
Proud, in his History of Pennsylvania, “from Maryland to Coaquannoc, he
purchased lands of the Indians, whom he treated with great justice and
sincere kindness. It was at this time when he first entered personally
into that friendship with them, which ever afterwards continued between
them, and which for the space of more than seventy years was never
interrupted, or so long as the quakers retained power in the government.
His conduct in general to these people was so engaging, his justice in
particular so conspicuous, and the counsel and advice which he gave them
were so evidently for their advantage, that he became thereby very much
endeared to them; and the sense thereof made such deep impressions on
their understandings, that his name and memory will scarcely ever be
effaced while they continue a people.”
The great elm-tree, under which this treaty was made, became celebrated
from that day. When in the American war the British general Simcoe was
quartered at Kensington, he so respected it, that when his soldiers were
cutting down every tree for fire-wood, he placed a sentinel under it,
that not a branch of it might be touched. In 1812 it was blown down,
when its trunk was split into wood, and cups and other articles were
made of it, to be kept as memorials of it.