published _Some Account of the Province of Pennsylvania, in America, lately
granted, under the Great Seal of England, to William Penn_. This was
accompanied by a copy of the charter and a statement of the terms on which
the land was to be sold, with judicious advice addressed to those who were
disposed to transport themselves, warning them against mere fancy dreams,
or the desertion of friends, and encouraging them by all reasonable
expectations of success.
The terms of sale were, for a hundred acres of land, forty shillings
purchase money, and one shilling as an annual quit-rent. This latter
stipulation, made in perfect fairness, not unreasonable in itself, and
ratified by all who of their own accord acceded to it, was, as we shall
see, an immediate cause of disaffection, and has ever since been the
basis of a calumny against the honored and most estimable founder of
Pennsylvania.
Under date of July 11, 1681, Penn published _Certain Conditions or
Concessions to be agreed upon by William Penn, Proprietary and Governor
of the Province of Pennsylvania, and those who may become Adventurers and
Purchasers in the same Province_. These conditions relate to dividing,
planting, and building upon the land, saving mulberry-and oak-trees, and
dealing with the Indians. These documents were circulated, and imparted
sufficient knowledge of the country and its produce, so that purchasers at
once appeared, and Penn went to Bristol to organize there a company called
"The Free Society of Traders in Pennsylvania," who purchased twenty
thousand acres of land, and prepared to establish various trades in the
province.
Yet further to mature his plans, and to begin with a fair understanding
among all who might be concerned in the enterprise, Penn drew up and
submitted a sketch of the frame of government, providing for alterations,
with a preamble for liberty of conscience. On the basis of contracts and
agreements thus made and mutually ratified, three passenger ships, two from
London and one from Bristol, sailed for Pennsylvania in September, 1681.
One of them made an expeditious passage; another was frozen up in the
Delaware; and the third, driven to the West Indies, was long delayed. They
took over some of the ornamental work of a house for the proprietor.
The Governor also sent over three commissioners, whose instructions we
learn from the original document addressed to them by Penn, dated September
30, 1681. These commissioners were William Crispin, John Bezar, and
Nathaniel Allen. Their duty was that of "settling the colony." Penn refers
them to his cousin Markham, "now on the spot." He instructs them to take
good care of the people; to guard them from extortionate prices for
commodities from the earlier inhabitants; to select a site by the river,
and there to lay out a town; to have his letter to the Indians read to them
in their own tongue; to make them presents from him--adding, "Be grave;
they love not to be smiled upon"--and to enter into a league of amity with
them. Penn also instructs the commissioners to select a site for his own
occupancy, and closes with some good advice in behalf of order and virtue.
These commissioners probably did not sail until the latter part of October,
as they took with them the letter to the Indians, to which Penn refers.
This letter, bearing the date October 18, 1681, is a beautiful expression
of feeling on the part of the proprietor. He does not address the Indians
as heathen, but as his brethren, the children of the one Father. He
announces to them his accession, as far as a royal title could legitimate
it, to a government in their country; he distinguishes between himself and
those who had ill treated the Indians, and pledges his love and service.
About this time William Penn was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in
London, probably by nomination of his friend, Dr. John Wallis, one of its
founders, and with the hope that his connection with the New World would
enable him to advance its objects.
With a caution, which the experience of former purchases rendered
essential, Penn obtained of the Duke of York a release of all his claims
within the patent. His royal highness executed a quitclaim to William
Penn and his heirs on August 21, 1682. The Duke had executed, in March,
a ratification of his two former grants of East Jersey. But a certain
fatality seemed to attend upon these transfers of ducal possessions. After
various conflicts and controversies long continued, we may add, though by
anticipation, that the proprietaryship of both the Jerseys was abandoned,
and they were surrendered to the crown under Queen Anne, in April, 1702.
Penn also obtained of the Duke of York another tract of land adjoining his
patent. This region, afterward called the "Territories," and the three
"Lower Counties," now Delaware, had been successively held by the Swedes
and Dutch, and by the English at New York. The Duke confirmed it to William
Penn, by two deeds, dated August 24, 1682.
The last care on the mind of William Penn, before his embarkation, was to
prepare proper counsel and instruction for his wife and children. This he
did in the form of a letter written at Worminghurst, August 4, 1682. He
knew not that he should ever see them again, and his heart poured forth to
them the most touching utterances of affection. But it was not the heart
alone which indited the epistle. It expressed the wisest counsels of
prudence and discretion. All the important letters written by Penn contain
a singular union of spiritual and worldly wisdom. Indeed, he thought these
two ingredients to be but one element. He urged economy, filial love,
purity, and industry, as well as piety, upon his children. He favored,
though he did not insist upon, their receiving his religious views. We may
express a passing regret that he who could give such advice to his children
should not have had the joy to leave behind him anyone who could meet the
not inordinate wish of his heart.
In the mean while his deputy, Markham, acting by his instructions, was
providing him a new home by purchasing for him, of the Indians, a piece
of land, the deed of which is dated July 15th, and endorsed with a
confirmation, August 1st, and by commencing upon it the erection which was
afterward known as Pennsbury Manor.
All his arrangements being completed, William Penn, at the age of
thirty-eight, well, strong, and hopeful of the best results, embarked
for his colony, on board the ship Welcome, of three hundred tons, Robert
Greenaway master, on the last of August, 1682. While in the Downs he wrote
a _Farewell Letter to Friends, the Unfaithful and Inquiring_, in his native
land, dated August 30th, and probably many private letters. He had about
one hundred fellow-passengers, mostly Friends from his own neighborhood in
Sussex. The vessel sailed about September 1st, and almost immediately the
small-pox, that desolating scourge of the passenger-ships of those days,
appeared among the passengers, and thirty fell victims to it. The trials
of that voyage, told to illustrate the Christian spirit which submissively
encountered them, were long repeated from father to son and from mother to
daughter.
In about six weeks the ship entered the Delaware River. The old inhabitants
along the shores, which had been settled by the whites for about half a
century, received Penn with equal respect and joy. He arrived at New Castle
on October 27th. The day was not commemorated by annual observances until
the year 1824, when a meeting for that purpose was held at an inn, in
Laetitia court, where Penn had resided. While the ship and its company went
up the river, the proprietor, on the next day, called the inhabitants,
who were principally Dutch and Swedes, to the court-house, where, after
addressing them, he assumed and received the formal possession of the
country. He renewed the commissions of the old magistrates, who urged him
to unite the Territories to his government.
After a visit of ceremony to the authorities at New York and Long Island,
with a passing token to his friends in New Jersey, Penn went to Upland to
hold the first Assembly, which opened on December 4th. Nicholas Moore, an
English lawyer, and president of the Free Society of Traders, was made
speaker. After three days' peaceful debate, the Assembly ratified, with
modifications, the laws made in England, with about a score of new ones of
a local, moral, or religious character, in which not only the drinking of
healths, but the talking of scandal, was forbidden. By suggestion of his
friend and fellow-voyager, Pearson, who came from Chester, in England, Penn
substituted that name for Upland. By an act of union, passed on December
7th, the three Lower Counties, or the Territories, were joined in the
government, and the foreigners were naturalized at their own request.
On his arrival Penn had sent two messengers to Charles Calvert, Lord
Baltimore, to propose a meeting and conference with him about their
boundaries. On December 19th they met at West River with courtesy and
kindness; but after three days they concluded to wait for the more
propitious weather of the coming year. Penn, on his way back, attended a
religious meeting at a private house, and afterward an official meeting at
Choptank, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, and reached Chester again
by December 29th, where much business engaged him. About twenty-three ships
had arrived by the close of the year; none of them met with disaster,
and all had fair passages. The new-comers found a comparatively easy
sustenance. Provisions were obtained at a cheap rate of the Indians and of
the older settlers. But great hardships were endured by some, and special
providences are commemorated. Many found their first shelter in caves
scooped out in the steep bank of the river. When these caves were deserted
by their first occupants, the poor or the vicious made them a refuge; and
one of the earliest signs both of prosperity and of corruption, in the
colony, is disclosed in the mention that these rude coverts of the first
devoted emigrants soon became tippling-houses and nuisances in the misuse
of the depraved.
There has been much discussion of late years concerning the far-famed
Treaty of Penn with the Indians. A circumstance, which has all the interest
both of fact and of poetry, was confirmed by such unbroken testimony of
tradition that history seemed to have innumerable records of it in the
hearts and memories of each generation. But as there appears no document
or parchment of such _criteria_ as to satisfy all inquiries, historical
scepticism has ventured upon the absurd length of calling in question
the fact of the treaty. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, with
commendable zeal, has bestowed much labor upon the questions connected with
the treaty, and the results which have been attained can scarcely fail to
satisfy a candid inquirer. All claim to a peculiar distinction for William
Penn, on account of the singularity of his just proceedings in this matter
is candidly waived, because the Swedes, the Dutch, and the English had
previously dealt thus justly with the natives. It is in comparison with
Pizarro and Cortes that the colonists of all other nations in America
appear to an advantage; but the fame of William Penn stands, and ever will
stand, preeminent for unexceptionable justice and peace in his relations
with the natives.
Penn had several meetings for conference and treaties with the Indians,
besides those which he held for the purchase of lands. But unbroken and
reverently cherished tradition, beyond all possibility of contradiction,
has designated one great treaty held under a large elm-tree, at Shackamaxon
(now Kensington), a treaty which Voltaire justly characterizes as "never
sworn to, and never broken." In Penn's _Letter to the Free Society of
Traders,_ dated August 16, 1683, he refers to his conferences with the
Indians. Two deeds, conveying land to him, are on record, both of which
bear an earlier date than this letter; namely, June 23d and July 14th of
the same year. He had designed to make a purchase in May; but having been
called off to a conference with Lord Baltimore, he postponed the business
till June. The "Great Treaty" was doubtless unconnected with the purchase
of land, and was simply a treaty of amity and friendship, in confirmation
of one previously held, by Penn's direction, by Markham, on the same spot;
that being a place which the Indians were wont to use for this purpose. It
is probable that the treaty was held on the last of November, 1682; that
the Delawares, the Mingos, and other Susquehanna tribes formed a large
assembly on the occasion; that written minutes of the conference were made,
and were in possession of Governor Gordon, who states nine conditions as
belonging to them in 1728, but are now lost; and that the substance of the
treaty is given in Penn's _Letter to the Free Traders_. These results
are satisfactory, and are sufficiently corroborated by known facts and
documents. The Great Treaty, being distinct from a land purchase, is
significantly distinguished in history and tradition.
The inventions of romance and imagination could scarcely gather round this
engaging incident attractions surpassing in its own simple and impressive
interest. Doubtless Clarkson has given a fair representation of it, if we
merely disconnect from his account the statement that the Indians were
armed, and all that confounds the treaty of friendship with the purchase
of lands. Penn wore a sky-blue sash of silk around his waist, as the most
simple badge. The pledges there given were to hold their sanctity "while
the creeks and rivers run, and while the sun, moon, and stars endure."
While the whites preserved in written records the memory of such covenants,
the Indians had their methods for perpetuating in safe channels their
own relations. They cherished in grateful regard, they repeated to their
children and to the whites, the terms of the Great Treaty. The Delawares
called William Penn _Miquon_, in their own language, though they seem to
have adopted the name given him by the Iroquois, _Onas_; both which terms
signify a quill or pen. Benjamin West's picture of the treaty is too
imaginative for a historical piece. He makes Penn of a figure and aspect
which would become twice the years that had passed over his head. The
elm-tree was spared in the war of the American Revolution, when there
was distress for firewood, the British officer, Simcoe, having placed a
sentinel beneath it for protection. It was prostrated by the wind on the
night of Saturday, March 3, 1810. It was of gigantic size, and the circles
around its heart indicated an age of nearly three centuries. A piece of
it was sent to the Penn mansion at Stoke Poges, in England, where it is
properly commemorated. A marble monument, with suitable inscriptions, was
"placed by the Penn Society, A.D. 1827, to mark the site of the Great Elm
Tree." Long may it stand!
Penn then made a visit to his manor of Pennsbury, up the Delaware. Under
Markham's care, the grounds had been arranged, and a stately edifice of
brick was in process of completion. The place had many natural beauties,
and is said to have been arranged and decorated in consistency both with
the office and the simple manners of the proprietor. There was a hall
of audience for Indian embassies within, and luxurious gardens without.
Hospitality had here a wide range, and Penn evidently designed it for a
permanent abode.
With the help of his surveyor, Thomas Holme, he laid out the plan of his
now beautiful city, and gave it its name of Christian signification, that
brotherly love might pervade its dwellings. He purchased the land, where
the city stands, of the Swedes who already occupied it, and who purchased
it of the Indians, though it would seem that a subsequent purchase was made
of the natives of the same site with adjacent territory some time afterward
by Thomas Holme, acting as president of the council, while Penn was in
England. The Schuylkill and the Delaware rivers gave to the site eminent
attractions. The plan was very simple, the streets running north and south
being designated by numbers, those running east and west by the names of
trees. Provision was made for large squares to be left open, and for common
water privileges. The building was commenced at once, and was carried on
with great zeal and continued success.
%LAST TURKISH INVASION OF EUROPE%
SOBIESKI SAVES VIENNA
A.D. 1683
SUTHERLAND MENZIES
After the defeat of the Turks at Lepanto, in 1571, the Ottoman power in
Europe slowly declined. But under the Sultan Mahomet IV the old Moslem
ambition for European conquest reawoke, as if for a final effort. And such
it proved to be. By the disaster before Vienna, in which John Sobieski,
King of Poland, once more saved Europe from their incursions, the Turks
were driven back within their own confines, where they have since, for the
most part, remained, making many wars, but no successful inroads, upon
European powers.
In 1682 the Hungarian magnates, who were resisting the oppression and
persecution of their people by the Austrian Government, called upon the
Turks for assistance. Listening to the proposals of Tekeli, the Hungarian
leader, who had secured the aid of Louis XIV of France, Mahomet IV decided
to break the truce he had made with Austria in 1665. In vain the Emperor
Leopold I sent an embassy to Constantinople to dissuade the Sultan from his
purpose.
Early in the spring of 1683 Sultan Mahomet marched forth from his capital
with a large army, which at Belgrad he transferred to the command of the
Grand Vizier Kara Mustapha. Tekeli formed a junction with the Turks at
Essek. In vain did Ibrahim, the experienced Pacha of Buda, endeavor to
persuade Kara Mustapha first of all to subdue the surrounding country, and
to postpone until the following year the attack upon Vienna; his advice was
scornfully rejected, and, indeed, the audacity of the Grand Vizier seemed
justified by the scant resistance he had met with. He talked of renewing
the conquests of Solyman: he assembled, it is said, seven hundred thousand
men, one hundred thousand horses, and one thousand two hundred guns--an
army more powerful than any the Turks had set on foot since the capture of
Constantinople. All of which may be reduced to one hundred fifty thousand
barbarian troops without discipline, the last conquering army which the
degenerate race of the Osmanlis produced wherewith to invade Hungary.
Hostilities commenced in March, 1683; for the Turks, who had not been
accustomed to enter upon a campaign before the summer season, had begun
their march that year before the end of winter. Some prompt and easy
successes exalted the ambition of Kara Mustapha; and in spite of the
contrary advice of Tekeli, Ibrahim Pacha, and several other personages,
he determined to besiege Vienna. He accordingly advanced direct upon that
capital and encamped under its walls on July 14th. It was just at the
moment that Louis XIV had captured Strasburg, and at which his army
appeared ready to cross the Rhine: all Europe was in alarm, believing that
an agreement existed between France and the Porte for the conquest and
dismemberment of Germany. But it was not so. The Turks, without giving
France any previous warning, had of themselves made their invasion of
Hungary; Louis XIV was delighted at their success, but nevertheless
disposed, if it went too far, to check them, in order to play the part of
saviour of Christendom.
It was fortunate for the Emperor Leopold that he had upon the frontiers of
Poland an ally of indomitable courage in King John Sobieski, and that he
found the German princes loyal and prompt on this occasion, contrary to
their custom, in sending him succor. Moreover, in Duke Charles of Lorraine
he met with a skilful general to lead his army. Consternation and confusion
prevailed, however, in Vienna, while the Emperor with his court fled to
Linz. Many of the inhabitants followed him; but the rest, when the
first moments of terror had passed, prepared for the defence, and the
dilatoriness of the Turks, who amused themselves with pillaging the
environs and neighboring _châteaux_, allowed the Duke of Lorraine to throw
twelve thousand men as a garrison into the city; then, as he was unable
with his slender force to bar the approach of the Turkish army, he kept
aloof and waited for the King of Poland.
Leopold solicited succor on all sides, and the Pope made an appeal to the
piety of the King of France. Louis XIV, on the contrary, was intriguing
throughout Europe in order that the Christian princes should not quit their
attitude of repose, and he only offered to the Diet of Ratisbon the aid
of his arms on condition that it should recognize the recent usurpations
decreed by the famous Chambers of Reunion,[1] and that it should elect his
son king of the Romans. He reckoned, if it should accept his offers, to
determine the Turks to retreat and to effect a peace which, by bringing
the imperial crown into his house, would have been the death-stroke for
Austria. All these combinations miscarried through the devotedness of the
Poles.
[Footnote 1: The Chambers of Reunion were special courts established in
France by Louis XIV (1680). These courts declared for the annexation to
France of various territories along the eastern frontier.--ED.]
When Leopold supplicated Sobieski to come to his aid, Louis XIV tried to
divert him from it; he reassured him upon the projects of the Turks by
a letter of the Sultan, he made him see his real enemies in Austria,
Brandenburg, and that power of the North, which the Dutch gazettes had
begun to call "His Russian Majesty"; he reminded him, in fine, that the
house of Austria, saved by the French on the day of St. Gothard, had
testified its gratitude to them by allowing the victors to die of hunger
and by envenoming their difference with the Porte. But it was all useless;
hatred of the infidels prevailed, and the Polish squadrons hurried to the
deliverance of Vienna.
Count Rudiger de Starhemberg was made commandant of the city, and showed
himself alike bold and energetic in everything that could contribute to its
defence. The Turkish camp encircled Vienna and its suburbs, spreading over
the country all round to the distance of six leagues. Two days afterward,
Kara Mustapha opened the trenches, and his artillery battered the walls
in order to make a breach. Great efforts, moreover, were made in digging
mines, with the design of blowing up bastions or portions of the wall, so
that the city might be carried by assault, wherein the Turks hoped to find
an immense booty. But the besieged made an obstinate defence, and repaired
during the night the damage done on the previous day. During sixty days
forty mines and ten counter-mines were exploded; the Turks delivered
eighteen assaults, the besieged made twenty-four sorties. Each inch of
ground was only obtained by dint of a hard and long struggle, in which an
equal stubbornness both in attack and defence was exhibited.