of 1701, "I
give," he says, "to my blacks their freedom, as is under my hand
already, and to old Sam 100 acres, to be his children's after he and his
wife are dead, forever."

The Pennsbury house had a great hall in the midst, where the governor in
an oak armchair received his neighbors, the Indians. Here they came, in
paint and feathers,--"Connoondaghtoh, king of the Susquehannah Indians;
Wopaththa, king of the Shawanese; Weewinjough, chief of the Ganawese;
and Ahookassong, brother of the emperor of the five nations;" and many
other humbler braves. John Richardson, a Yorkshire Quaker, visited Penn
at Pennsbury and saw them. William gave them match-coats, he says, and
"some other things," including a reasonable supply of rum, which the
chiefs dispensed to the warriors severally in small portions: "So they
came quietly, and in a solid manner, and took their draws." He did not
smoke, a fact which the Indians must have noted as a curious
eccentricity. Then they made a small fire out of doors, and the men sat
about it in a ring, singing "a very melodious hymn," beating the ground
between the verses with short sticks, and, after a circling dance,
departed. Penn got on most happily with the Indians. The peaceful
Quakers went about unarmed and were never in danger. The only disorderly
folk thereabout were white men.

In the midst of these rural joys, news came that a movement was on foot
to put an end to proprietary governments, thereby bringing all colonies
under the immediate control of the crown. Penn felt that it was
necessary for him to return to England to block this inconvenient
legislation. On the 28th of October, he assembled the citizens of
Philadelphia, and presented them with a charter for their city. In the
Friends' meeting, he said that he "looked over all infirmities and
outwards, and had an eye to the regions of the spirit, wherein was our
sweetest tie." Then, says Norris, "in true love he took his leave of
us." Thus, after two years wherein peace and quietness prevailed over
all misunderstanding and opposition, he set sail in 1701, and never saw
Pennsylvania again.

His house at Pennsbury fell into ruins,--due in large part to the
leakage of a leaden reservoir on the roof,--and was taken down before
the Revolution. The furniture was gradually dispersed. For some years it
was "deemed a kind of pious stealth," among those who were most loyal to
the proprietor, to carry away something out of the house when the