In his despair Penn longed to build a quiet home for his people in the wilderness of America. He had heard of the happiness and prosperity of the Pilgrim settlements, and he now planned to lead his brethren across the Atlantic. The gallant admiral at his death had a claim against the government of about eighty thousand dollars. Now King Charles was a spendthrift and always in debt. Penn told the king that he would accept lands in America instead of money in payment of this claim. The easy-going monarch was only too glad to take up with this offer, for he had plenty of land in America but very little silver and gold.
On condition that he should be paid two beaver-skins every year, the king granted Penn a large tract of land on the western bank of the Delaware river, and named it Pennsylvania, or "Penn's Woodland."
=95. A Colony of Quakers established in Pennsylvania.=--Penn now planned to send his Quaker colony to the new home in America. He came over in person in the fall of 1682, and landed at New Castle, Delaware. Penn sailed in an open boat up the broad and beautiful Delaware River until he came to the place on which his chief city or capital was soon to be laid out. The "Quaker King," for thus he was called, was received with great joy by the people. They knew that he would keep his promise to secure full freedom of conscience and speech for all. He called it a "free colony for all mankind."
No person was compelled, as were the Pilgrims of New England, to attend any church or practise any form of religious worship. Only murder and treason were punished with death. Before this Penn had written to the colonists, saying, "You shall be governed by laws of your own making; I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person."
=96. Penn selects a Location for his Capital; Philadelphia, "the City of Brotherly Love."=--On a neck of land between the Schuylkill and the Delaware, Penn selected a site for his "faire and greene country towne"--a city of refuge and a home of free speech and conscience. And he generously bought the land from some Swedes, who had bought it from the Indians.
Penn now laid out his city and gave it the Bible name of Philadelphia, which means "brotherly love." As he stood with his friends on the high ground and beheld the country in its autumn foliage, the good man said: "I have seen the finest cities of Europe, but I never saw so beautiful a place for a city as this."