e colony. "We have laid
out a town a mile long and two miles deep.... I think we have near about
eighty houses built, and about three hundred farms settled round the
town.... We have had fifty sail of ships and small vessels, since the
last summer, in our river, which shows a good beginning." "I am
mightily taken with this part of the world," he wrote to Lord Culpeper,
who had come to be governor of Virginia, "I like it so well, that a
plentiful estate, and a great acquaintance on the other side, have no
charms to remove; my family being once fixed with me, and if no other
thing occur, I am likely to be an adopted American." "Our heads are
dull," he added, "but our hearts are good and our hands strong."

In the midst of this peace and prosperity, however, there was a serious
trouble. This was a dispute with Lord Baltimore over the dividing line
between Pennsylvania and Maryland. By the inaccuracy of surveyors, the
confusion of maps, and the indefiniteness of charters, Baltimore
believed himself entitled to a considerable part of the territory which
was claimed by Penn, including even Philadelphia. The two proprietors
had already discussed the question without settlement; indeed, it
remained a cause of contention for some seventy years. As finally
settled, in 1732, between the heirs of Penn and of Baltimore, a line
was established from Cape Henlopen west to a point half way between
Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay; thence north to twelve miles west of
Newcastle, and so on to fifteen miles south of Philadelphia; thence due
west. The surveyors were Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, and the line
was thus called Mason and Dixon's Line. This boundary afterwards parted
the free States from the slave States. South of it was "Dixie."

Penn now learned that Lord Baltimore was on his way to England to lay
the question before the Privy Council. The situation demanded William's
presence. "I am following him as fast as I can," he wrote to the Duke of
York, praying "that a perfect stop be put to all his proceedings till I
come." He therefore took leave of his friends in the province,
commissioned the provincial council to act in his stead, and in August,
1684, having been two years in America, he embarked for home.

On board the Endeavour, on the eve of sailing, he wrote a farewell
letter. "And thou, Philadelphia," he said, "the virgin settlement of
this province, named before thou wert born, what love, what care, what
service and wh