1683]

PENN'S CHARTER

149

what he called “Frames”; the first one contained twenty drafts, and was full of alterations, showing the care he took in its composition. He had the power to appoint judges and establish courts, his charter having conferred on him and his representatives full authority, and as the first emigration party was entirely composed of Quakers, they formed almost the whole of the council.

CHAPTER XVII

SETTLEMENT OF THE COLONY

When the news reached England of William Penn's safe arrival and settlement in North America, numbers of persons longing for peace and liberty of conscience, and others in search of ease and plenty, prepared to follow him. Vessels were chartered, and they set off from home, arriving in due time, sailing up the river Delaware to their destination. Nearly two thousand souls, mostly Quakers, had come to try their fortunes in the new world, in search of an Elysian shore. Many had brought out property in the shape of frame-houses, tools, implements, and furniture. Others were not so well provided, and had to find places of shelter as best they could. They dug caves about 3 feet deep near the river bank, so that owing to the sloping ground half the chamber was above the level. They were roofed with branches of trees overlaid with bark or sod, with chimneys of stone mortared together with clay and river reeds. The women, many of them delicately nurtured, assisted their husbands and

152

THE "FIRST BORN"

[CHAP. XVII

a

This was the first child born in the new settlement. It was considered a great event; the Governor recorded it, and presented Key and his wife with a plot of land on which to build a suitable house. This child, a boy, lived to a great age, but he never lost the name of first born to the day of his death. In a very short time three hundred houses were already erected, and the city of Philadelphia began to take shape.' Sheriffs were appointed, and a general assembly was formed. A post-office was also established, and runners carried letters between Philadelphia, Newcastle, Chester, and the Falls.

We are aware that William Penn set great store by trial by jury. The first proceedings in the new country of that nature occurred in the case of one Pickering, who with some other persons of bad character, had stolen out among the respectable settlers in their passage from England. The charge against these men was, that they had coined and stamped silver in the form of Spanish pieces with more alloy than the law allowed.

A grand jury was summoned, and the sentence passed on Pickering was, that for the space of one month he was to repay in current money all persons who brought in counterfeit coin and demanded restitution, and a notice to that effect

1 Penn said : “Philadelphia at last exists.” It had a high and dry bank to the water, and the shore was ornamented with pine tree.—Watson's Annals, p. 12.

153

1683]

“LETITIA” COTTAGE

" was proclaimed the next day by the town-crier. The pieces of money thus brought back, were to be melted down, Pickering was

Pickering was allowed to receive the value of the real metal, but was to pay a fine of £40 towards building a new courthouse.

William Penn displayed a marvellous capacity for turning his mind to every subject, whether it were government, agriculture, religion, or building. ; He was continually superintending and forwarding whatever he began, and his plan for the city of Philadelphia, carried out by Thomas Holme, was considered the work of a great architect."

As Pennsburg Manor was not yet finished, and as, moreover, he found it a little far when there was a press of business, he built a small residence in the middle of the town, facing the harbour, and called it “ Letitia” Cottage, after his little daughter in England.”

Governor Penn made a tour in the province as soon as matters were sufficiently settled for him to absent himself. In a letter he states the following :—“The country itself, the air, water, and soil are not to be despised, the climate like

1 "It was much according to the model of the city of Babylon that William Penn laid out the ground for his city of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, and were it all built according to that design, it would be the fairest and best city in America.”—History of the Old and New Testament, Dean Prideaux.

2 Penn's cottage was removed to Fairmount Park, a suburb of Philadelphia. There his grandson, Richard Penn, died in 1771.Watson's Annals, p. 37.

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