irregularly-Roman nose. Good bronze Statue of him, by Schlueter, once a
famed man, still rides on the _Lange-Bruecke_ (Long Bridge) at Berlin; and
his Portrait, in huge frizzled Louis-Quatorze wig, is frequently met with
in German Galleries. Collectors of Dutch Prints, too, know him; here a
gallant, eagle-featured little gentleman, brisk in the smiles of youth,
with plumes, with truncheon, caprioling on his war-charger, view of tents
in the distance; there a sedate, ponderous wrinkly old man, eyes slightly
puckered (eyes _busier_ than mouth), a face well plowed by Time, and not
found unfruitful; one of the largest, most laborious potent faces (in an
ocean of circumambient periwig) to be met with in that Century. There are
many Histories about him, too, but they are not comfortable to read. He
also has wanted a sacred Poet, and found only a bewildering Dryasdust.
His two grand Feats that dwell in the Prussian memory are perhaps none
of his greatest, but were of a kind to strike the imagination. They both
relate to what was the central problem of his life--the recovery of Pommern
from the Swedes. Exploit First is the famed Battle of Fehrbellin (Ferry of
Belleen), fought on June 18, 1675. Fehrbellin is an inconsiderable Town
still standing in those peaty regions, some five-and-thirty miles northwest
of Berlin, and had for ages plied its poor Ferry over the oily-looking,
brown sluggish stream called Rhin, or Rhein in those parts, without the
least notice from mankind till this fell out. It is a place of pilgrimage
to patriotic Prussians ever since Friedrich Wilhelm's exploit there. The
matter went thus:
Friedrich Wilhelm was fighting, far south in Alsace, on Kaiser Leopold's
side, in the Louis XIV War--that second one, which ended in the Treaty of
Nimwegen. Doing his best there, when the Swedes, egged on by Louis XIV,
made war upon him; crossed the Pomeranian marshes, troop after troop, and
invaded his Brandenburg Territory with a force which at length amounted to
sixteen thousand men. No help for the moment; Friedrich Wilhelm could not
be spared from his post. The Swedes, who had at first professed well,
gradually went into plunder, roving, harrying at their own will; and a
melancholy time they made of it for Friedrich Wilhelm and his People. Lucky
if temporary harm were all the ill they were likely to do; lucky if----
He stood steady, however; in his solid manner finishing the thing in hand
first, since that was feasible. He then even retired into winter-quarters
to rest his men, and seemed to have left the Swedish sixteen thousand
autocrats of the situation, who accordingly went storming about at a great
rate.
Not so, however; very far, indeed, from so. Having rested his men for
certain months, Friedrich Wilhelm silently, in the first days of June,
1675, gets them under march again; marches his Cavalry and he as first
instalment, with best speed from Schweinfurt, which is on the River Mayn,
to Magdeburg, a distance of two hundred miles. At Magdeburg, where he rests
three days, waiting for the first handful of Foot and a field-piece or two,
he learns that the Swedes are in three parties wide asunder, the middle
party of them within forty miles of him. Probably stronger, even this
middle one, than his small body (of "Six thousand Horse, Twelve hundred
Foot, and three guns")--stronger, but capable, perhaps, of being surprised,
of being cut in pieces before the others can come up? Rathenau is the
nearest skirt of this middle party: thither goes the Kurfuerst, softly,
swiftly, in the June night (June 16-17, 1675); gets into Rathenau by brisk
stratagem; tumbles out the Swedish Horse regiment there, drives it back
toward Fehrbellin.
He himself follows hard; swift riding enough in the summer night through
those damp Havel lands, in the old Hohenzollern fashion; and, indeed, old
Freisack Castle, as it chances--Freisack, scene of Dietrich von Quitzow and
_Lazy Peg_ long since--is close by. Follows hard, we say; strikes in upon
this midmost party (nearly twice his number, but Infantry for most part);
and after fierce fight, done with good talent on both sides, cuts it into
utter ruin, as proposed; thereby he has left the Swedish Army as a mere
head and tail without body; has entirely demolished the Swedish Army. Same
feat intrinsically as that done by Cromwell on Hamilton and the Scots in
1648. It was, so to speak, the last visit Sweden paid to Brandenburg, or
the last of any consequence, and ended the domination of the Swedes in
those quarters--a thing justly to be forever remembered by Brandenburg; on
a smallish modern scale, the Bannockburn, Sempach, Marathon of Brandenburg.
Exploit Second was four years later--in some sort a corollary to this, and
a winding up of the Swedish business. The Swedes, in further prosecution of
their Louis XIV speculation, had invaded Preussen this time, and were doing
sad havoc there. It was in the dead of winter--Christmas, 1678--more than
four hundred miles off; and the Swedes, to say nothing of their own havoc,
were in a case to take Koenigsberg, and ruin Prussia altogether, if not
prevented. Friedrich Wilhelm starts from Berlin, with the opening Year, on
his long march; the Horse-troops first, Foot to follow at their swiftest;
he himself (his Wife, his ever-true "Louisa," accompanying, as her wont
was) travels toward the end, at the rate of "sixty miles a day." He gets in
still in time; finds Koenigsberg unscathed; nay, it is even said the Swedes
are extensively falling sick, having after a long famine found infinite
"pigs near Insterburg," in those remote regions, and indulged in the fresh
pork overmuch.
I will not describe the subsequent manoeuvres, which would interest nobody;
enough if I say that on January 16, 1679, it had become of the highest
moment for Friedrich Wilhelm to get from Carwe (Village near Elbing), on
the shore of the _Frische Haf_, where he was, through Koenigsberg, to
Gilge on the _Curische Haf_, where the Swedes are, in a minimum of time.
Distance, as the crow flies, is about a hundred miles; road, which skirts
the two _Hafs_ (wide shallow _Washes_, as we should name them), is of rough
quality and naturally circuitous. It is ringing frost to-day, and for days
back. Friedrich Wilhelm hastily gathers all the sledges, all the horses of
the district; mounts Four thousand men in sledges; starts with speed of
light, in that fashion; scours along all day, and after the intervening bit
of land, again along, awakening the ice-bound silences. Gloomy _Frische
Haf_, wrapped in its Winter cloud-coverlids, with its wastes of tumbled
sand, its poor frost-bound fishing-hamlets, pine hillocks--desolate-
looking, stern as Greenland, or more so, says Busching, who travelled
there in winter-time--hears unexpected human voices, and huge grinding and
trampling; the Four thousand, in long fleet of sledges, scouring across it
in that manner. All day they rush along--out of the rimy hazes of morning
into the olive-colored clouds of evening again--with huge, loud-grinding
rumble, and do arrive in time at Gilge. A notable streak of things,
shooting across those frozen solitudes in the New Year, 1679; little short
of Karl Gustav's feat, which we heard of in the other or Danish end of the
Baltic, twenty years ago, when he took islands without ships.
This Second Exploit--suggested or not by that prior one of Karl Gustav on
the ice--is still a thing to be remembered by Hohenzollerns and Prussians.
The Swedes were beaten here on Friedrich Wilhelm's rapid arrival; were
driven into disastrous, rapid retreat Northward, which they executed in
hunger and cold, fighting continually, like Northern bears, under the grim
sky, Friedrich Wilhelm sticking to their skirts, holding by their tail,
like an angry bear-ward with steel whip in his hand; a thing which, on the
small scale, reminds one of Napoleon's experiences. Not till Napoleon's
huge fighting-flight, a Hundred and thirty-four years after, did I read of
such a transaction in those parts. The Swedish invasion of Preussen has
gone utterly to ruin.
And this, then, is the end of Sweden, and its bad neighborhood on these
shores, where it has tyrannously sat on our skirts so long? Swedish
Pommern; the Elector already had: last year, coming toward it ever since
the Exploit of Fehrbellin, he had invaded Swedish Pommern; had besieged
and taken Stettin, nay Stralsund too, where Wallenstein had failed;
cleared Pommern altogether of its Swedish guests, who had tried next in
Preussen, with what luck we see. Of Swedish Pommern the Elector might now
say, "Surely it is mine; again mine, as it long was; well won a second
time, since the first would not do." But no; Louis XIV proved a gentleman
to his Swedes. Louis, now that the Peace of Nimwegen had come, and only
the Elector of Brandenburg was still in harness, said steadily, though
anxious enough to keep well with the Elector, "They are my allies, these
Swedes; it was on my bidding they invaded you: can I leave them in such a
pass? It must not be." So Pommern had to be given back: a miss which was
infinitely grievous to Friedrich Wilhelm. The most victorious Elector
cannot hit always, were his right never so good.
Another miss which he had to put up with, in spite of his rights and his
good services, was that of the Silesian Duchies. The Heritage-Fraternity
with Liegnitz had at length, in 1675, come to fruit. The last Duke
of Liegnitz was dead: Duchies of Liegnitz, of Brieg, Wohlau, are
Brandenburg's, if there were right done; but Kaiser Leopold in the scarlet
stockings will not hear of Heritage-Fraternity. "Nonsense!" answers Kaiser
Leopold: "a thing suppressed at once, ages ago by Imperial power; flat
_zero_ of a thing at this time; and you, I again bid you, return me your
Papers upon it." This latter act of duty Friedrich Wilhelm would not do,
but continued insisting: "Jagerndorf, at least, O Kaiser of the world,"
said he, "Jagerndorf, there is no color for your keeping that!" To which
the Kaiser again answers, "Nonsense!" and even falls upon astonishing
schemes about it, as we shall see, but gives nothing. Ducal Preussen
is sovereign, Cleve is at peace, Hinter-Pommern ours; this Elector has
conquered much, but Silesia, and Vor-Pommern, and some other things he will
have to do without. Louis XIV, it is thought, once offered to get him made
King, but that he declined for the present.
His married and domestic life is very fine and human, especially with that
Oranien-Nassau Princess, who was his first Wife (1646-1667) Princess Louisa
of Nassau-Orange, Aunt to our own Dutch William, King William III, in time
coming: an excellent, wise Princess, from whom came the Orange Heritages,
which afterward proved difficult to settle. Orange was at last exchanged
for the small Principality of Neufchatel in Switzerland, which is Prussia's
ever since. "Oranienburg (_Orange-Burg)_" a Royal Country-house, still
standing, some Twenty miles northward from Berlin, was this Louisa's place:
she had trimmed it up into a little jewel of the Dutch type--pot-herb
gardens, training-schools for girls, and the like--a favorite abode of hers
when she was at liberty for recreation. But her life was busy and earnest;
she was helpmate, not in name only, to an ever-busy man. They were married
young, a marriage of love withal. Young Friedrich Wilhelm's courtship,
wedding in Holland; the honest trustful walk and conversation of the two
Sovereign Spouses, their journeyings together, their mutual hopes, fears,
and manifold vicissitudes, till Death, with stern beauty, shut it in: all
is human, true, and wholesome in it; interesting to look upon, and rare
among sovereign persons.
Not but that he had his troubles with his womankind. Even with this his
first Wife, whom he loved truly, and who truly loved him, there were
scenes--the Lady having a judgment of her own about everything that passed,
and the man being choleric withal. Sometimes, I have heard, "he would dash
his hat at her feet," saying symbolically, "Govern you, then, Madam! Not
the Kurfuerst Hat; a Coif is my wear, it seems!" Yet her judgment was good,
and he liked to have it on the weightiest things, though her powers of
silence might halt now and then. He has been known, on occasions, to
run from his Privy Council to her apartment, while a complex matter was
debating, to ask her opinion, hers, too, before it was decided. Excellent
Louisa, Princess full of beautiful piety, good sense, and affection--a
touch of the Nassau-Heroic in her. At the moment of her death, it is said,
when speech had fled, he felt from her hand which lay in his, three slight,
slight pressures: "Farewell!" thrice mutely spoken in that manner, not easy
to forget in this world.
His second Wife, Dorothea, who planted the Lindens in Berlin, and did other
husbandries, fell far short of Louisa in many things, but not in tendency
to advise, to remonstrate, and plaintively reflect on the finished and
unalterable. Dreadfully thrifty lady, moreover; did much in dairy produce,
farming of town-rates, provision-taxes, not to speak again of that Tavern
she was thought to have in Berlin, and to draw custom to it in an oblique
manner! "Ah! I have not my Louisa now; to whom now shall I run for advice
or help?" would the poor Kurfuerst at times exclaim.
He had some trouble, considerable trouble, now and then, with mutinous
spirits in Preussen; men standing on antique Prussian franchises and
parchments, refusing to see that the same were now antiquated incompatible,
nor to say impossible, as the new Sovereign alleged, and carrying
themselves very stiffly at times. But the Hohenzollerns had been used
to such things; a Hohenzollern like this one would evidently take his
measures, soft but strong, and even stronger to the needful pitch, with
mutinous spirits. One Buergermeister of Koenigsberg, after much stroking
on the back, was at length seized in open Hall by Electoral writ, soldiers
having first gently barricaded the principal streets, and brought cannon to
bear upon them. This Buergermeister, seized in such brief way, lay prisoner
for life, refusing to ask his liberty, though it was thought he might have
had it on asking.
Another gentleman, a Baron von Kalkstein, of old Teutsch-Ritter kin, of
very high ways, in the Provincial Estates _(Staende)_ and elsewhere, got
into lofty, almost solitary, opposition, and at length, into mutiny proper,
against the new "Non-Polish" Sovereign, and flatly refused to do homage at
his accession--refused, Kalkstein did, for his share; fled to Warsaw; and
very fiercely, in a loud manner, carried out his mutinies in the Diets and
Court Conclaves there, his plea being, or plea for the time, "Poland is our
liege lord" (which it was not always), "and we cannot be transferred to
you except by our consent asked and given," which, too, had been a little
neglected on the former occasion of transfer; so that the Great Elector
knew not what to do with Kalkstein, and at length (as the case was
pressing) had him kidnapped by his Embassador at Warsaw; had him "rolled in
a carpet" there, and carried swiftly in the Embassador's coach, in the
form of luggage, over the frontier, into his native Province, there to be
judged, and, in the end (since nothing else would serve him), to have the
sentence executed, and his head cut off; for the case was pressing. These
things, especially this of Kalkstein, with a boisterous Polish Diet and
parliamentary eloquence in the rear of him, gave rise to criticisms, and
required management on the part of the Great Elector.
Of all his ancestors, our little Fritz, when he grew big, admired this
one--a man made like himself in many points. He seems really to have loved
and honored this one. In the year 1750 there had been a new Cathedral got
finished at Berlin; the ancestral bones had to be shifted over from the
vaults of the old one--the burying-place ever since Joachim II, that
Joachim who drew his sword on Alba. King Friedrich, with some attendants,
witnessed the operation, January, 1750. When the Great Kurfuerst's coffin
came, he bade them open it; gazed in silence on the features for some time,
which were perfectly recognizable; laid his hand on the hand long dead, and
said, "_Messieurs, celui ci a fait de grandes choses_!" ("This one did a
grand work").
%WILLIAM PENN RECEIVES THE GRANT OF PENNSYLVANIA%
FOUNDING OF PHILADELPHIA
A.D. 1681
GEORGE E. ELLIS
Although European settlers had occupied portions of the present State of
Pennsylvania for fifty years before William Penn arrived in that territory,
the real foundation of the great commonwealth named after him is justly
dated from his time.
Penn was an English "Friend," or Quaker, and was descended from a long line
of sailors. He was born in London in 1644, his father being Admiral
Sir William Penn of the English navy. The son was educated at Oxford
University, and became a preacher of the Society of Friends. This calling
brought him into collision with the authorities. He was several times
arrested, and for a while was imprisoned in the Tower for "urging the cause
of freedom with importunity."
Through the influence of his family and the growing weight of his own
character, he escaped the heavier penalties inflicted upon some of his
coreligionists, and, by the shrewdness and tact which he united with
spiritual fervor, he rapidly advanced in public position.
In 1675 Penn became part proprietor of West New Jersey, where a colony of
English Friends was settled. Five years later, through his influence at
court and the aid of wealthy persons, he was enabled to purchase a large
tract in East New Jersey, where he designed to establish a similar colony
on a larger plan. But this project was soon superseded by a much greater
one, of which the execution is here related.
The interest of William Penn having been engaged for some time in the
colonization of an American province, and the idea having become familiar
to his mind of establishing there a Christian home as a refuge for Friends,
and the scene for a fair trial of their principles, he availed himself of
many favorable circumstances to become a proprietary himself. In various
negotiations concerning New Jersey he had had a conspicuous share, and the
information which his inquiring mind gathered from the adventures in the
New World gave him all the knowledge which was requisite for his further
proceedings. Though he had personal enemies in high places, and the project
which he designed crossed the interests of the Duke of York[1] and of Lord
Baltimore, yet his court influence was extensive, and he knew how to use
it.
[Footnote 1: Afterward James II. He was proprietor of New York, and Lord
Baltimore of Maryland.]
The favor of Charles II and of his brother the Duke of York had been sought
by Penn's dying father for his son, and freely promised. But William Penn
had a claim more substantial than a royal promise of those days. The
crown was indebted to the estate of Admiral Penn for services, loans, and
interest, to the amount of sixteen thousand pounds. The exchequer, under
the convenient management of Shaftesbury, would not meet the claim. Penn,
who was engaged in settling the estate of his father, petitioned the King,
in June, 1680, for a grant of land in America as a payment for all these
debts.
The request was laid before the privy council, and then before the
committee of trade and plantations. Penn's success must have been owing
to great interest made on his behalf; for both the Duke of York, by his
attorney, and Lord Baltimore opposed him. As proprietors of territory
bounding on the tract which he asked for, and as having been already
annoyed by the conflict of charters granted in the New World, they were
naturally unfairly biassed. The application made to the King succeeded
after much debate. The provisions in the charter of Lord Baltimore were
adopted by Penn with slight alterations. Sir William Jones objected to one
of the provisions, which allowed a freedom from taxation, and the Bishop of
London, as the ecclesiastical supervisor of plantations, proposed another
provision, to prevent too great liberty in religious matters. Chief Justice
North having reduced the patent to a satisfactory form, to guard the King's
prerogative and the powers of Parliament, it was signed by writ of privy
seal at Westminster, March 4, 1681. It made Penn the owner of about forty
thousand square miles of territory.
This charter is given at length by Proud and other writers. The preamble
states that the design of William Penn was to enlarge the British empire
and to civilize and convert the savages. The first section avers that his
petition was granted on account of the good purposes of the son and the
merits and services of the father. The bounds of the territory are thus
defined: "All that tract or part of land, in America, with the islands
therein contained, as the same is bounded on the east by Delaware River,
from twelve miles distance northward of New Castle town, unto the
three-and-fortieth degree of northern latitude, if the said river doth
extend so far northward; but if the said river shall not extend so far
northward, then, by the said river, so far as it doth extend; and from
the head of the said river, the eastern bounds are to be determined by a
meridian line to be drawn from the head of the said river, unto the said
forty-third degree. The said land to extend westward five degrees in
longitude to be computed from the said eastern bounds; and the said lands
to be bounded on the north by the beginning of the three-and-fortieth
degree of northern latitude, and on the south by a circle drawn at twelve
miles' distance from New Castle, northward and westward, unto the beginning
of the fortieth degree of northern latitude; and then by a straight line
westward to the limits of longitude above mentioned."
Though these boundaries appear to be given with definiteness and precision,
a controversy, notwithstanding, arose at once between Penn and Lord
Baltimore, which outlasted the lives of both of them, and, being continued
by their representatives, was not in fact closed until the Revolutionary
War.
The charter vested the perpetual proprietaryship of this territory in
William Penn and his heirs, on the fealty of the annual payment of two
beaver-skins; it authorized him to make and execute laws not repugnant
to those of England, to appoint judges, to receive those who wished to
transport themselves, _to establish a military force_, to constitute
municipalities, and to carry on a free commerce. It required that an agent
of the proprietor should reside in or near London, and provided for the
rights of the Church of England. The charter also disclaimed all taxation,
except through the proprietor, the governor, the assembly, or Parliament,
and covenanted that if any question of arms or conditions should arise
it should be decided in favor of the proprietor. By a declaration to
the inhabitants and planters of Pennsylvania, dated April 2d, the King
confirmed the charter, to ratify it for all who might intend to emigrate
under it, and to require compliance from all whom it concerned.
By a letter from Penn to his friend Robert Turner, written upon the day on
which the charter was signed, we learn that the proprietor designed to call
his territory "New Wales"; but the under-secretary, a Welshman, opposed it.
Penn then suggested "Sylvania," as applicable to the forest region; but the
secretary, acting under instructions, prefixed "Penn" to this title. The
modest and humble Quaker offered the official twenty guineas as a bribe
to leave off his name. Failing again, he went to the King and stated his
objection; but the King said he would take the naming upon himself, and
insisted upon it as doing honor to the old admiral.
Penn now resigned the charge of West New Jersey, and devoted himself to the
preliminary tasks which should make his province available to himself and
others. He sent over, in May, his cousin and secretary, Colonel William
Markham, then only twenty-one years old, to make such arrangements for
his own coming as might be necessary. This gentleman, who acted as Penn's
deputy, carried over from him a letter, dated London, April 8, 1681,
addressed "For the Inhabitants of Pennsylvania; to be read by my Deputy."
This was a courteous announcement of his proprietaryship and intentions
to the Dutch, Swedes, and English, who, to the number, probably, of about
three thousand, were then living within his patent.