LEAVES THEY HAVE TOUCHED. 121 



liand of William Penn. He was, as we know, a scholarly man and 

 a thoughtful student. At p. 29, St. Paul's words, Devita i^rofanas 

 voGum novitates, are qvioted in Latin in the text : the annotator adds 

 in the margin with a pen the rest of the sentence — et oppositiones falsi 

 nominis scientice. At p. 277, on the expression, " glasses of steel" 

 in the text, the observation is made — " S2}eculis ex metallo, in Lat. 

 edit." — shewing that Gilbert Wats' version of the Instauratio was 

 being compared with the original. At p. 200, " fine wafer-cakes" 

 is erased, and " furmenty" substituted. An allegation in page 262 is 

 declared " false" in the margin. — The great Elm-tree under which the 

 treaty of Penn with the local aborigines was made, long continued to 

 be a venerated object. When, during the war of the Revolution, Col. 

 Simcoe was quartered at Kensington, he so respected it that when 

 his soldiers were cutting down every tree for firewood, he placed a 

 sentry under it, that not a branch of it might be touched. After 

 Montmagny, a distinguished French Governor-in- Chief of Canada, the 

 Indians used, as we know, to style all Governors-in-Chief Onontio, i.e. 

 Montmagny, Great Mountain. In the same way the natives who 

 had formed treaties with Penn, styled subsequent Governors of 

 Pennsylvania, Onus, i.e. Pen, from the name of the great white man 

 whom they had learned to respect. As the highest compliment 

 which the Indians could pay to Sir William Keith, a Governor in 

 1722, they said, " We esteem and love you, as if you were William 

 Penn himself." 



The last royal Governor of the Province of New York was Major- 

 Gen. Tryon. Happening to possess the original parchment containing 

 his commission as Colonel of the 70th Regiment, I preserve it for 

 two reasons : first, because it bears at its head the sign-manual of 

 George III., some remains of the royal seal, and some other autographs 

 of note ; secondly, because the document is to me a kind of visible 

 transition- link between the few relics which I have of the " old 

 colony days" of the southern portion of this continent, and those 

 which I have relating to later American history. 



In 1777 Gov. Tryon was seeking release from his troublesome post. 

 The Documentaiy History of the State of New York, published at 

 Albany in. 1859, contains many papers from the pen of Gov. Tryon ^ 

 and among them is a letter dated at King's Bridge Camp, 3 Oct., 

 1771, addressed to Lord George Germain, from which I give an 

 extract : " The incidents," he says, ''that have occurred to me since 

 4 



