1915-] BALCH— BEGINNING OF PENNSYLVANIA. 13 



Law of the seventeenth century. Towards the end of the sixteenth 

 century there grew up as a rule of international law that, in order 

 that a member of the family of nations could claim as its own a 

 newly discovered and virgin land, it was necessary for that nation 

 to actually occupy and possess that virgin land. The act of merely 

 discovering and christening such an unoccupied land did not give 

 the right of possession. The act of possession must be an actual 

 occupancy through the establishment of forts and settlements in 

 that land. Queen Elizabeth enunciated this principle clearly in 

 1580 in a notable answer she made at her court to the Spanish Am- 

 bassador, Mendoza.- It was thus recognized by England through 

 the lips of her sovereign, a sovereign who well knew how to main- 

 tain the dignity and interests of her realm abroad. That rule be- 

 came more and more recognized both by the publicists in their 

 writings and by the nations in their acts, and has remained a rule of 

 international law until the present day. 



The sovereignty of Sweden over the land now known as Penn- 

 sylvania passed later by conquest to the States General of the United 

 Netherlands, and subsequently again by conquest to the British 

 crown, by whom it was afterwards granted to William Penn. 



The fact that the sovereignty of Pennsylvania, alone of the orig- 

 inal thirteen, goes back to Sweden for its beginning and that Printz 

 was the first in the line of its governors, is known to only a very few. 

 It would seem well then, that proper monuments to Printz and his 

 Swedish settlement should be erected, so that future generations 

 may know of the beginning of this province and state. And no 

 place would seem more appropriate than the ancient hall of this 

 venerable society of learning, the oldest existing society of learning 

 not only within the bounds of Pennsylvania but also in all of the 

 new world as well, to suggest that, first a bronze tablet should be 

 erected in memory of Governor Printz and his capital called Nya 

 Goteborg on Great Tinicum Island ; and second, a bronze statue of 

 Governor Printz, either of life or heroic size, should be placed at 

 some conspicuous place in the city of Philadelphia. 



2 Camden's "Annals," 1580; see translation in Sir Travers Twiss's 

 "' Oregon Question." 



