ghannies lay inexhaustible fields of coal; and anthracite beds of the same fossil were found in almost every part of the province. Near the banks of the Ohio lay concealed a treasury of salt-springs. Limestone was abundant; in the south-east there was a quarry of marble not unworthy of Italy and Greece. Nor was the whole of the province like the slopes of the mountain districts. Though the rock lay near the surface, it was covered with loam. Sand and alluvial deposit existed in the same locality. Brooks and streams ran down its valleys, glens, and gorges, fertilising the soil and breeding myriads of ducks, curlews, geese, and other water-fowl. Remarkable for fertility were the lower flats about the Skuykill and the Delaware. Between the head-waters of the Alleghanny and Lake Erie, and on both banks of the Susquehannah, the soil was rich and capable of culture. When the forest should be felled and the surface cleared, wheat, barley, rye, Indian corn, hemp, oats, and flax, would take their place. The climate had the softness of the south of France; and the purity of the atmosphere reminded Penn of Languedoc. The forests supplied woods of almost every kind,— cypress, cedar, chestnut, oak, and walnut. Poplars were common. Oaks of several kinds were found. The pine, the cedar, and the wild myrtle filled the air with fragrance; and a slight breeze brought from the heart of boundless woods a stimulating scent. Beasts of prey were absent; but the woods abounded in wild game, and the venison was superior to anything of the kind out of England.

Fowls grew to an uncommon size; turkeys to forty or fifty pounds weight a-piece. Partridges and pigeons made the fields vocal with their cries. The rivers yielded fish, especially perch and trout, shad and rock, roach, smelt, and eels. Oysters, crabs, cockles, conch and other shell-fish, were abundant. Fruits wild about the country-grapes, peaches, strawberries, plums, chestnuts, and mulberries; while the eye was charmed with the virgin flowers of spring and with the forest radiance of the fall.

grew

But these advantages were not all known. Penn never suspected he was asking for a kingdom in return for a debt of sixteen thousand pounds. He had no hope of making money by his province; and to his death he never dreamt that it would pay him back the money he had spent. For years it was a waste. In that age people looked on a settlement among the Alleghannies as their descendants look on a removal into the gorges of the Rocky Mountains. Men went thither who could settle nowhere else. When Gustavus Adolphus came to the throne of Sweden he found nearly the whole of the American continent in the possession of one or other power; but anxious, as he said, 'to convert the heathen and to extend his dominions; to enrich the treasury and lessen the public taxes,' he sent out colonists from Sweden to take possession of the unoccupied country on the Delaware. This colony was the beginning of a state. They found a few Dutch settlers there, who had at

first no friendly feeling

towards the new comers. But they found that

these industrious neighbours would be useful to

them; for the Swedes turned their attention to farming, while the Hollanders preferred to fetch and carry, and to buy and sell. They suited each other. With the Swedes went out a number of Finns; and a village was formed by them at Wicocoa, now within the suburbs of Philadelphia. The Swedes bestowed the name of New Suabia on the whole country, and scattered themselves far and wide over its surface. They had, however, advanced but a little way towards the formation of a state when Penn became a petitioner to the King. Not a single house had been built at Philadelphia-a spot marked out by nature as the site of a great city; for such of the Hollanders as fixed their residence at the confluence of the two rivers were content to harbour in the holes and caves.

The red men were a branch of the Lenni Lenapé. This name, signifying 'the original people,' was a common term, under which were included all the Indian tribes speaking dialects of the widely-spread Algonquin language. An obscure tradition among them pointed to a great migration from the west, in ages long ago. They may have been the remnants of a conquering race which had subdued and swept away the civilised people whose monuments still arrest attention in the great valley of the Mississippi. The northern regions were held by Iroquois-a race of red men famous in the history of New York under the name of the Six Nations. As compared with whites, the tribes presented the same general characteristics—they were hardy, cunning, cruel, brave. They claimed the lordship of the soil as

theirs by immemorial right. But as they hunted only, the grounds were of no use to them except so long as the rivers yielded fish and the forests yielded game. Men who have no fixed place of residence—no altars and no homes-have yet to acquire the means whereby a sense of property in the soil grows up. The Iroquois and the Lenapé built no cities-permanently kept no fields. Wherever the woods afforded sport the lodge was pitched. The men tightened their bows and sharpened their hatchets; the women planted a rood or two of maize; and when the forest spoils and field produce were got in, they marched to more attractive spots. Their sachem was an hereditary ruler; but the order of succession was by the female line. The children of the reigning sachem could not succeed him in his regal office, but the next son of his mother, after whom came in the sister's eldest son. Such was the country which Penn petitioned the King to grant him in lieu of his claim.

A year was wasted in debates. The Royalists lost all patience when they heard that Penn was asking for a grant of land, to put in practice certain theories held to be Utopian by wise and moderate politicians, and denounced by courtier and cavalier as dangerous to the Crown and State. Events had slackened his hold on James. Penn had publicly expressed his belief in the Popish plot; he had influenced his friends openly to support Sydney; he had himself become a leader among the Republicans. He had committed a still greater offence in the eyes of James—he had stood between

that prince and his prey. As lord-proprietor of the whole province of New Netherlands, James had claimed the right to levy an import and export tax upon all articles entering or leaving its ports. So long as James retained the land as well as the seignorial right, this claim was not disputed; consequently traders carrying goods to or from New Jersey paid to his agents a duty of ten per cent. When Billing got the land, this tax was felt to be a wrong; the colonists invited Penn to act for them; and, having considered the justice of their case, Penn proceeded against his royal guardian in the law courts. Sir William Jones decided the case in favour of Penn and the colonists; the Duke at once submitted; but it is impossible to believe that he would not feel sore at his defeat. To the coldness of the prince was added the active hostility of Lord Baltimore, whose ill-defined possessions were supposed to be invaded by the new boundary-line. Baltimore was one of those who stood in Oates's black list; he was not in the country; but he had friends at court, who watched his interests; and Penn's petition was no sooner laid before the council, than a copy of it was sent to his agent, Burke, who took such measures as he thought most likely to defeat it. All the dilatory forms of the Royal Council were used; the Lord Commissioners of Trade and Plantation wrote long letters about trifles to the Attorney-general, and the Attorney-general wrote with similar tact to the Lords Commissioners. Penn's time and hopes were wasting. Sunderland was an active friend; and Hyde, Chief Justice