He was acquainted with Dr. Wallis, one of its distinguished members, and Clarkson informs us that Penn wrote to him expressing his interest in the proceedings of the institution, and offering to contribute to its usefulness. The biographer thinks it was owing to this circumstance that Penn was elected a Fellow.1 About this time too, perhaps in June, 1682, Penn lost his mother, “for whom he had the deepest filial affection." He must have seen much more of her than of his father. This Dutch lady was his guardian at Wanstead, and his advocate when the troubles at Oxford and in Ireland shed darkness over their London home. Pepys gives no flattering account of the Admiral; and so unsympathetic a father could scarcely have been a very affectionate husband, so that domestic trials most likely made her cling all the more to her much-loved son. When she died, he was ill for some days. He alludes to his bereavement in a letter he wrote immediately afterwards to one of his friends, who was also in trouble. It is written in the same style as his Journal in Germany: "Both thy letters came in a few days one of the other. My sickness upon my mother's death, who was last seventh day interred, permitted me not to answer thee so soon as desired; but on a serious weighing of thine inclinations, and perceiving to last thy uneasiness under my constrained silence, it is most clear to me, to counsel thee to sink down into the seasoning, settling gift of God, and to wait to distinguish between thy own desires, and the Lord's requirings." 2

1 Clarkson's "Life of Penn," vol. i. p. 292.
2 Ibid., p. 298.

From Fox's Journal we learn that Penn continued to preach amidst all the demands of business. "William Penn went with me, and spoke at the meeting (Gracechurch Street); and while he was declaring the truth to the people, a constable came in with his great staff, and bid him give over, and come down; but William Penn held on, declaring truth in the power of God." 1

It was now time for Penn to visit his new possession; and in the prospect of departure, he wrote at Worminghurst a touching letter to his wife and children. He told her that neither sea nor land nor death could lessen his affection, and that she was the love of his youth and the joy of his life, and that their match was "of Providence's making." Then he gives advice, both spiritual and temporal, mingling business sagacity with devout solicitude. The children are particularly addressed with much solemn beauty, the father opening up to them his whole heart, yearning for their highest welfare, and as one method of promoting it, bidding them read "No Cross no Crown."

He sailed in the Welcome, from Deal, with a hundred passengers, chiefly Quakers.

1 Fox's "Journal,” vol. ii.

I

CHAPTER XI.

THE FOUNDING OF PHILADELPHIA.

CAN never forget the first glance I had, some years ago, of the banks of the Delaware. The waters, under a mid-day sun, were as a sea of glass mingled with fire; and the wooded shores flashed with crimson maple flames, amidst far-spreading leafy masses of brown and green. And "the wedded rivers," as Whittier calls them, charmed me more and more, when, as a "Pennsylvanian pilgrim," I sought to explore, to some small extent, the banks of the Schuylkill, as well as to catch glimpses of the Delaware roll of waters, in the neighbourhood of Philadelphia. The drive along the Wissahickon, between rocks embowered in trees, the stream—a fit haunt for Shakespeare's fairies, Peas-blossom and the rest-flowing through tangled brakes, wealthy in wild flowers, not to speak of the grand view from Belmont over park and city, and the charming pictures which open on every side, whilst the visitor rambles in the Laurel Cemetery; so worthy of its fame-they all live in my imagination, and often charm me as I sit by my English fireside on a winter's night. I do not think that justice has been done to American scenery -to the Hudson, like a chain of Italian lakes, to the forests of New England, and to the manifold charms of Pennsylvania; and it is too much forgotten that

there you are nearly in the same latitude as Naples, and so through a transparent atmosphere such as one breathes in the sunny south, the inhabitants see as we do not in our northern clime the glorious objects which lie around them.

But

Convenience, thoughts of commerce, the selection. of a fitting spot for a great city, the choice of a harbour for the shipping of the world, no doubt mainly determined the site of Philadelphia. utility and the picturesque often go together, as we feel on visiting the monastic remains of our country -where the ivy-decked walls are encompassed by waters full of fish and meadows full of cattle, and not far off by wide fields rich in wheat and barley. Whether the commissioners sent out by Penn, who marked the foundation for the noble metropolis of their new state, had much care for landscape beauty, I cannot say; but, at all events, they managed to secure it, even if aiming at far other things.

Nearly forty years before, Red Indians were haunting the shore about a mile from Port Nassau, and there some Dutchmen bought land from these wild children of the west, and mounted the flag of their country on a tall boundary mark as a sign of possession. This act was followed by a quarrel with neighbouring Swedes, who came and indignantly tore down the symbol of proprietorship raised by the bold Hollanders. The two European countries were rivals for the lordship of the tempting realm, but they did little indeed towards the cultivation of the soil; for between thirty and forty years afterwards the region remained infested with wolves, and the heads of these animals were brought in to be paid for by the scanty

settlers at the rate of fifty-five heads for forty guilders each. Some acres between "the land of Wiccaco," and "the land of Jurian Hartsfielder," were granted on petition in 1677 to one Peter Rambo, but on the complaint of a neighbouring family, who laid claim. to it, the grant was cancelled. This became the site of the new city.

Penn did not land there. His voyage from England lasted two months, and on its way the Welcome was scourged by the small-pox, which swept off no less than one-third of the hundred passengers who had embarked at Deal. The first point on the American coast which the vessel reached was "the Capes," on the 24th of October, 1682, and on the 28th Penn landed at Newcastle. He was "hailed there with acclamation by the Swedes and Dutch," says one authority, who informs us that the Swedes were living in log cabins and clay huts, the men dressed "in leather breeches, jerkins, and match coats,” the women "in skin jackets and linsey petticoats"; but the old records of Newcastle give a more stately description of the arrival. Penn produced two deeds of enfeoffment, and John Moll, Esq., and Ephraim Hannan, gentleman, performed livery of seisin by handing over to him turf and twig, water and soil, and with due formality the act was recorded in a document signed with nine names. The inhabitants of the little settlement afterwards gave a pledge of obedience.

Penn held "a court"-we must not attach grand ideas to the word-on the 12th of November, in the

1 Watson's "Annals,” vol. i. pp. 16, 19.

2 Hazard, p. 597.