OF LANCASTER COUNTS'. 51 



he deiiglited: having met in the broad pathway of trutli and hcnevo- 

 lence, they ought to disdain deception, and to regulate their conduct by 

 candor, fraternity, and love." Unrolling the parchment, he explained 

 the articles of the treaty and terms of purchase. "By these,'' he con- 

 tinued, " they were protected in their lawful pursuits, even in the lands 

 they had alienated.^ Their right to improve their plantations and to 

 procure subsistence Avould be, in all respects, similar to that of the 

 English. Should disputes unfortunately arise between the two people, 

 they should be adjusted by a jury, composed of equal numbers of Indians 

 and Englishmen.'' From the merchandise before him, he then paid for 

 the land, and made them many presents. Laying the foil of parchment 

 upon the earth, he bade them observe it as a sign that the land should 

 be thenceforth common to both people. •"lie would not," he added, 

 •'like the people of Maryland, call them his children or his brethren; for 

 some parents chastised their children too severely, and brethren would 

 disagree; nor would he compare their friendship to a chain which the 

 rain might rust, or the tail of a tree destroy; but that he would consider 

 them as of one flesh and blood with the Christians, and the same as if 

 one man's body were divided in two parts." liesuming the parchment, 

 he presented it to the chief sachem, and desired that it iniglit "be care- 

 fully preserved for three generations, that their children might knoAv 

 what had passed, as if he had remained to repeat it."- 



"This treaty forms a brilliant ray of the halo which graces the head 

 of Penn. It lias been honorably noticed by eminent authors. 'This,' 

 says Voltaire, 'was the only treaty between these people and the Chris- 

 tians that was not ratified by an oath, and which was never broken.' ^ 

 •William Penn thought it just,' writes the Abbe Eajmal, 'to obtain an 

 additional right, by a fair and open purchase from the aborigines; and 

 thus he signalized his arrival by an act of equity, which made his person 

 and his principles equally beloved. Here the mind rests with pleasure 

 upon modern history, and feels some indemnification for that disgust, 

 melancholy, and horror, which the whole of it, particularly that of the 

 European settlements in America, inspires.' It has been erroneously 

 supposed that this was the first instance of the purchase of lands from 

 the aboriginal Americans. But, in this particular, Penn followed the 



1 Gordon quoting' Claikson. 



2 In ratitication of this treaty, the Indians, according to their national custom, deliv- 

 ered by their chief Sachem to William Penn'a broad belt of Wampum. It consists of 

 eighteen strings of white Wampum and has in its centre delineated in purple colored 

 l)eads two tigures, that of an Indian grasping with the hand of friendship the hand of 

 a man in the European costume wearing a hat. The belt had been carefully preserved 

 in the Penn family, and was presented to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, by 

 Granville John Penn on April 13, 1857. The proceedings are published in Mem. Hist. 

 Soc. Pa. VI. p. 305— s(i. 3 Gordon. 



