ting of
his colony. The land to which the Swedes had acquired title (by
England's release to Sweden of all claim from right of discovery, by
charter from Sweden, by purchase from the Indians, first under Minuit,
the first governor, and then under his successor, Governor Printz, and
by other purchases or agreements) was the west bank of the Delaware
River from Cape Henlopen to Trenton Falls, and thence westward to the
great fall in the Susquehanna, near the mouth of the Conewaga Creek,
which included nearly the whole of Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware.

The fortunes of war, in Europe and between the colonies, in course of
time complicated the titles to one and another portion of this
territory, but the Swedes and Dutch occupied and held the most
prominent parts of it by right of actual possession when and after
Penn's charter was granted.

PENN'S CHARTER AND ARRIVAL.

But when Penn arrived he brought with him letters patent from Charles
II., king of England, to this same district of country and the wilds
indefinitely beyond it, having also obtained from his friend, the
king's brother, the duke of York, full releases of the claims vested
in him to the "Lower Counties," which now form the State of Delaware.

Penn was accompanied by from sixty to seventy colonists--all that
survived the scourge which visited them in their passage across the
sea. He landed first at New Castle, of which the Dutch of New York had
by conquest obtained possession. To them he made known his grants and
his plans, and succeeded in securing their acquiescence in them.

Thence he came to Upland (Chester), the head-quarters of the Swedes,
who "received their new fellow-citizens with great friendliness,
carried up their goods and furniture from the ships, and entertained
them in their own houses without charge." His proposals with regard to
the establishment of a united commonwealth they also received with
much favor. And immediately thereupon he convened a general assembly
of the citizens, which sat for three days, by which an act was passed
for the consolidation of the various interests and parties on the
ground, a code of general regulations adopted, and the necessary
features of a common government enacted; all of which together formed
the basis of our present commonwealth.

HOW PENNSYLVANIA WAS NAMED.

The name which Penn had chosen for the territory of his grant was
_Sylvania_, but the king prefixed the name of Penn and called it
_