Here we find not only “the lock,” but that Ulysses, who is described as renowned for his art, attains to the power of throwing his antagonist by the device of Abraham Cann’s favourite kick near the ancle.
I. V.
Penn and the Indians.
This stanza is in a delightful little volume, entitled “The Desolation of Eyam; the Emigrant, a tale of the American Woods; and other poems: By William and Mary Howitt, authors of the Forest Minstrel, &c.” The feeling and beauty of one of the poems, “Penn and the Indians,” suggested the present engraving, after a celebrated print from a picture by the late Benjamin West. The following particulars are chiefly related by Mr. Clarkson, respecting the scene it represents.
King Charles II., in consideration of a considerable sum due from the crown for the services of admiral sir William Penn, granted to his son, the ever-memorable William Penn, and his heirs, in perpetuity, a great tract of land on the river Delaware, in America; with full power to erect a new colony there, to sell lands, to make laws, to create magistrates, and to pardon crimes. In August, 1682, Penn, after having written to his wife and children a letter eminently remarkable for its simplicity and patriarchal spirit, took an affectionate leave of them; and, accompanied by several friends, embarked at Deal, on board the Welcome, a ship of three hundred tons burthen. The passengers, including himself, were not more than a hundred. They were chiefly quakers, and most of them from Sussex, in which county his house at Warminghurst was seated. They sailed about the first of September, but had not proceeded far to sea, when the small-pox broke out so virulently, that thirty of their number died. In about six weeks from the time of their leaving the Downs they came in sight of the American coast, and shortly afterwards landed at Newcastle, in the Delaware river.
William Penn’s first business was to explain to the settlers of Dutch and Swedish extraction the object of his coming, and the nature of the government he designed to establish. His next great movement was to Upland, where he called the first general assembly, consisting of an equal number, for the province and for the territories, of all such freemen as chose to attend. In this assembly the frame of government, and many important regulations, were settled; and subsequently he endeavoured to settle the boundaries of his territory with Charles lord Baltimore, a catholic nobleman, who was governor and proprietor of the adjoining province of Maryland, which had been settled with persons of his own persuasion.
Penn’s religious principles, which led him to the practice of the most scrupulous morality, did not permit him to look upon the king’s patent, or legal possession according to the laws of England, as sufficient to establish his right to the country, without purchasing it by fair and open bargain of the natives, to whom, only, it properly belonged. He had therefore instructed commissioners, who had arrived in America before him, to buy it of the latter, and to make with them at the same time a treaty of eternal friendship. This the commissioners had done; and this was the time when, by mutual agreement between him and the Indian chiefs, it was to be publicly ratified. He proceeded, therefore, accompanied by his friends, consisting of men, women, and young persons of both sexes, to Coaquannoc, the Indian name for the place where Philadelphia now stands. On his arrival there he found the Sachems and their tribes assembling. They were seen in the woods as far as the eye could carry, and looked frightful both on account of their number and their arms. The quakers are reported to have been but a handful in comparison, and these without any weapon; so that dismay and terror had come upon them, had they not confided in the righteousness of their cause.
It is much to be regretted, when we have accounts of minor treaties between William Penn and the Indians, that there is not in any historian an account of this, though so many mention it, and though all concur in considering it as the most glorious of any in the annals of the world. There are, however, relations in Indian speeches, and traditions in quaker families, descended from those who were present on the occasion, from which we may learn something concerning it. It appears that, though the parties were to assemble at Coaquannoc, the treaty was made a little higher up, at Shackamaxon. Upon this Kensington now stands; the houses of which may be considered as the suburbs of Philadelphia. There was at Shackamaxon an elm tree of a prodigious size. To this the leaders on both sides repaired, approaching each other under its widely-spreading branches. William Penn appeared in his usual clothes. He had no crown, sceptre, mace, sword, halberd, or any insignia of eminence. He was distinguished only by wearing a sky-blue sash[365] round his waist, which was made of silk net-work, and which was of no larger apparent dimensions than an officer’s military sash, and much like it except in colour. On his right hand was colonel Markham, his relation and secretary, and on his left his friend Pearson; after whom followed a train of quakers. Before him were carried various articles of merchandise; which, when they came near the Sachems, were spread upon the ground. He held a roll of parchment, containing the confirmation of the treaty of purchase and amity, in his hand. One of the Sachems, who was the chief of them, then put upon his own head a kind of chaplet, in which appeared a small horn. This, as among the primitive eastern nations, and according to Scripture language, was an emblem of kingly power; and whenever the chief, who had a right to wear it, put it on, it was understood that the place was made sacred, and the persons of all present inviolable. Upon putting on this horn the Indians threw down their bows and arrows, and seated themselves round their chiefs in the form of a half-moon upon the ground. The chief Sachem then announced to William Penn, by means of an interpreter, that the nations were ready to hear him.
Having been thus called upon, he began. The Great Spirit, he said, who made him and them, who ruled the heaven and the earth, and who knew the innermost thoughts of man, knew that he and his friends had a hearty desire to live in peace and friendship with them, and to serve them to the utmost of their power. It was not their custom to use hostile weapons against their fellow-creatures, for which reason they had come unarmed. Their object was not to do injury, and thus provoke the Great Spirit, but to do good. They were then met on the broad pathway of good faith and good will, so that no advantage was to be taken on either side, but all was to be openness, brotherhood, and love. After these and other words, he unrolled the parchment, and by means of the same interpreter, conveyed to them, article by article, the conditions of the purchase, and the words of the compact then made for their eternal union. Among other things, they were not to be molested in their lawful pursuits even in the territory they had alienated, for it was to be common to them and the English. They were to have the same liberty to do all things therein relating to the improvement of their grounds, and providing sustenance for their families, which the English had. If any disputes should arise between the two, they should be settled by twelve persons, half of whom should be English and half Indians. He then paid them for the land, and made them many presents besides, from the merchandise which had been spread before them. Having done this, he laid the roll of parchment on the ground; observing again, that the ground should be common to both people. He then added, that he would not do as the Marylanders did; that is, call them children or brothers only; for often parents were apt to whip their children too severely, and brothers sometimes would differ: neither would he compare the friendship between him and them to a chain; for the rain might sometimes rust it, or a tree might fall and break it; but he should consider them as the same flesh and blood with the Christians, and the same as if one man’s body were to be divided into two parts. He then took up the parchment, and presented it to the Sachem who wore the horn in the chaplet, and desired him and the other Sachems to preserve it carefully for three generations; that their children might know what had passed between them, just as if he had remained himself with them to repeat it.
That William Penn must have done and said a great deal more on this interesting occasion than has now been represented, there can be no doubt. What has been related may be depended upon. It is to be regretted, that the speeches of the Indians on this memorable day have not come down to us. It is only known, that they solemnly pledged themselves, according to their country manner, to live in love with William Penn and his children as long as the sun and moon should endure.
Thus ended this famous treaty, of which more has been said in the way of praise than of any other ever transmitted to posterity. “This,” said Voltaire, “was the only treaty between those people and the Christians that was not ratified by an oath, and that was never broken.” “William Penn thought it right,” says the abbé Raynal, “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 principles equally beloved. Here it is the mind rests with pleasure upon modern history, and feels some kind of compensation for the disgust, melancholy, and horror, which the whole of it, but particularly that of the European settlements in America, inspires.” Noble, in his Continuation of Granger, says, “He occupied his domains by actual bargain and sale with the Indians. This fact does him infinite honour, as no blood was shed, and the Christian and the barbarian met as brothers. Penn has thus taught us to respect the lives and properties of the most unenlightened nations.”—“Being now returned,” says Robert Proud, in his History of Pennsylvania, “from Maryland to Coaquannoc, he purchased lands of the Indians, whom he treated with great justice and sincere kindness. It was at this time when he first entered personally into that friendship with them, which ever afterwards continued between them, and which for the space of more than seventy years was never interrupted, or so long as the quakers retained power in the government. His conduct in general to these people was so engaging, his justice in particular so conspicuous, and the counsel and advice which he gave them were so evidently for their advantage, that he became thereby very much endeared to them; and the sense thereof made such deep impressions on their understandings, that his name and memory will scarcely ever be effaced while they continue a people.”
The great elm-tree, under which this treaty was made, became celebrated from that day. When in the American war the British general Simcoe was quartered at Kensington, he so respected it, that when his soldiers were cutting down every tree for fire-wood, he placed a sentinel under it, that not a branch of it might be touched. In 1812 it was blown down, when its trunk was split into wood, and cups and other articles were made of it, to be kept as memorials of it.
LINES
On receiving from Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, a piece of the Tree under which William Penn made his Treaty with the Indians, and which was blown down in 1812, converted to the purpose of an Inkstand.
BY WILLIAM ROSCOE, ESQ.
In the “Conditions” between William Penn, as Proprietary and Governor of Pennsylvania, and the Adventurers and Purchasers in the same province, “in behalf of the Indians it was stipulated, that, as it had been usual with planters to overreach them in various ways, whatever was sold to them in consideration of their furs should be sold in the public market-place, and there suffer the test, whether good or bad: if good, to pass; if not good, not to be sold for good; that the said native Indians might neither be abused nor provoked. That no man should by any ways or means, in word or deed, affront or wrong any Indian, but he should incur the same penalty of the law as if he had committed it against his fellow-planter; and if any Indian should abuse, in word or deed, any planter of the province, that the said planter should not be his own judge upon the said Indian, but that he should make his complaint to the governor of the province, or his deputy, or some inferior magistrate near him, who should to the utmost of his power take care with the king of the said Indian, that all reasonable satisfaction should be made to the said injured planter. And that all differences between planters and Indians should be ended by twelve men, that is, by six planters and six Indians, that so they might live friendly together, as much as in them lay, preventing all occasions of heart-burnings and mischief. These stipulations in favour of the poor natives will for ever immortalize the name of William Penn; for, soaring above the prejudices and customs of his time, by which navigators and adventurers thought it right to consider the inhabitants of the lands they discovered as their lawful prey, or as mere animals of the brute-creation, whom they might treat, use, and take advantage of at their pleasure, he regarded them as creatures endued with reason, as men of the like feelings and passions with himself, as brethren both by nature and grace, and as persons, therefore, to whom the great duties of humanity and justice were to be extended, and who, in proportion to their ignorance, were the more entitled to his fatherly protection and care.”[366]
The identical roll of parchment given by William Penn to the Indians was shown by their descendants to some English officers some years ago. This information, with the following passages, will be found in the “Notes” to “Penn and the Indians,” the poem, by “William and Mary Howitt,” from whence the motto is taken:—
“What shows the scrupulous adherence of the Indians to their engagements in the most surprising light is, that long after the descendants of Penn ceased to possess political influence in the state, in comparatively recent times, when the Indian character was confessedly lowered by their intercourse with the whites, and they were instigated both by their own injuries and the arts of the French to make incursions into Pennsylvania, the ‘Friends’ were still to them a sacred and inviolable people. While the tomahawk and the scalping-knife were nightly doing their dreadful work in every surrounding dwelling—theirs were untouched; while the rest of the inhabitants abandoned their houses and fled to forts for security,—they found more perfect security in that friendship which the wisdom and virtue of Penn had conciliated, and which their own disinterested principles made permanent.”
In endeavouring to conclude with a specimen of the elegant poem of “William and Mary Howitt,” an unexpected difficulty of selection occurs—it is a piece of continuous beauty that can scarcely be extracted from, without injury to the stanzas selected; and therefore, presuming on the kind indulgence of the amiable authors, it is here presented entire:—
PENN AND THE INDIANS.
“I will not compare our friendship to a chain; for the rain might sometimes rust it, or a tree might fall and break it; but I shall consider you as the same flesh and blood as the Christians; and the same as if one man’s body were to be divided into two parts.”
W. Penn’s Speech to the Indians.
The authors of “Penn and the Indians” justly observe in the last note upon their exalted poem, that “it is William Penn’s peculiar honour to stand alone as a statesman, in opposing principle to expedience, in public as well as in private life. Even Aristides, the very beau-ideal of virtuous integrity, failed in this point. The success of the experiment has been as splendid as the most philosophic worshipper of abstract morals could have hoped for or imagined.” These sentences exemplify an expression elsewhere—“Politics are Morals.”
*
[365] This sash is now in the possession of Thomas Kett, Esq. of Seething-hall, near Norwich.
[366] Mr. Clarkson’s Life of W. Penn.
On the 30th of October, 1650, the celebrated George Fox being at a lecture delivered in Derby by a colonel of the parliament’s army, after the service was over addressed the congregation, till there came an officer who took him by the hand, and said, that he, and the other two that were with him, must go before the magistrates. They were examined for a long time, and then George Fox, and one John Fretwell of Staniesby, a husbandman, were committed to the house of correction for six months upon pretence of blasphemous expressions. Gervas Bennet, one of the two justices who signed their mittimus, hearing that Fox bade him, and those about him, “tremble at the word of the Lord,” regarded this admonition so lightmindedly, that from that time, he called Fox and his friends Quakers. This new and unusual denomination was taken up so eagerly, that it soon ran over all England, and from thence to foreign countries.[367] It has since remained their distinctive name, insomuch, that to the present time they are so termed in acts of parliament; and in their own declarations on certain public occasions, and in addresses to the king, they designate themselves “the people called Quakers.” The community, in its rules and minutes, for government and discipline, denominates itself “The Society of Friends.”
*
[367] Sewel.
To the Editor.
Sir,—Underneath I send you a copy of a document which “poor Keats” sent to Mr. ——, in August, 1820, just before his departure for Italy.
This paper was intended by him to operate as his last will and testament, but the sages of Doctors’ Commons refused to receive it as such, for reasons which to a lawyer would be perfectly satisfactory, however the rest of the world might deem them deficient in cogency:—
Copy.
“My share of books divide amongst my friends. In case of my death this scrap of paper may be serviceable in your possession.
“All my estate, real and personal, consists in the hopes of the sale of books, published or unpublished. Now I wish —— and you to be the first paid creditors—the rest is in nubibus—but, in case it should shower, pay —— the few pounds I owe him.”
Although too late to afford him any satisfaction or comfort, it did “shower” at last; and that, too, from a source which, in its general aspect, bears all the gloominess of a cloud, without any of its refreshing or fertilizing anticipations—I mean the Court of Chancery. This unexpected “shower” was sufficiently copious to enable the fulfilment of all the wishes expressed in the above note. His friends have therefore the gratification of knowing that no pecuniary loss has been (or need have been) sustained, by any one of those with whom he was connected, either by friendship or otherwise.
I am, Sir, &c. O. Z.
Fine Writing Ink!
Buy an Iron Fork, or a Shovel?
Old London Cries.
These engravings pretty well describe the occupations of the figures they represent. The cry of “Fine writing-ink” has ceased long ago; and the demand for such a fork as the woman carries is discontinued. They are copied from a set of etchings formerly mentioned—the “Cries of London,” by Lauron. The following of that series are worth describing, because they convey some notion of cries which we hear no longer in the streets of the metropolis.
Buy a new Almanack?
A woman bears book-almanacks before her, displayed in a round basket.
London’s Gazette here.
A woman holds one in her hand, and seems to have others in her lapped-up apron.
Buy any Wax or Wafers?
A woman carries these requisites for correspondence in a small hand-basket, or frail, with papers open in the other hand.
My Name, and your Name, your Father’s Name, and Mother’s Name.
A man bears before him a square box, slung from his shoulders, containing type-founders’ letters, in small cases, each on a stick; he holds one in his hand. I well remember to have heard this very cry when a boy. The type-seller composed my own name for me, which I was thereby enabled to imprint on paper with common writing ink. I think it has become wholly extinct within the last ten years.
Old Shoes for some Brooms.
A man with birch-brooms suspended behind him on a stick. His cry intimates, that he is willing to exchange them for old shoes; for which a wallet at his back, depending from his waist, seems a receptacle.
Remember the poor Prisoners!
A man, with a capacious covered basket suspended at his back by leather handles, through which his arms pass; he holds in his right hand a small, round, deep box with a slit in the top, through which money may be put: in his left hand is a short walking-staff for his support. In former times the prisoners in different gaols, without allowance, deputed persons to walk the streets and solicit alms for their support, of passengers and at dwelling-houses. The basket was for broken-victuals.
Fritters, piping hot Fritters.
A woman seated, frying the fritters on an iron with four legs, over an open fire lighted on bricks; a pan of batter by her side: two urchins, with a small piece of money between them, evidently desire to fritter it.
Buy my Dutch Biskets?
A woman carries them open in a large, round, shallow arm-basket on her right arm; a smaller and deeper one, covered with a cloth, is on her left.
Who’s for a Mutton Pie, or a Christmas Pie?
A woman carries them in a basket hanging on her left arm, under her cloak; she rings a bell with her right hand.
Lilly white Vinegar, Threepence a Quart.
The vinegar is in two barrels, slung across the back of a donkey; pewter measures are on the saddle in the space between them. The proprietor walks behind—he is a jaunty youth, and wears flowers on the left side of his hat, and a lilly white apron; he cracks a whip with his left hand; and his right fingers play with his apron strings.
Old Satin, old Taffety, or Velvet.
A smart, pretty-looking lass, in a high-peaked crowned-hat, a black hood carelessly tied under her chin, handsomely stomachered and ruffled, trips along in high-heeled shoes, with bows of ribbons on the insteps; a light basket is on her right arm, and her hands are crossed with a quality air.
Scotch or Russia Cloth.
A comfortably clothed, stout, substantial-looking, middle-aged man, in a cocked hat, (the fashion of those days,) supporting with his left hand a pack as large as his body, slung at his back; his right hand holds his yard measure, and is tucked into the open bosom of his buttoned coat; a specimen of his cloth hangs across his arm. Irish and Holland linen have superseded Scotch and Russia.
Four pair for a Shilling, Holland Socks.
A woman cries them, with a shilling’s-worth in her hand; the bulk of her ware is in an open box before her. Our ancestors took great precautions against wet from without—they took much within. They were soakers and sockers.
Long Thread Laces, long and strong.
A miserably tattered-clothed girl and boy carry long sticks with laces depending from the ends, like cats-o’-nine tails. This cry was extinct in London for a few years, while the females dressed naturally—now, when some are resuming the old fashion of stiff stays and tight-lacing, and pinching their bowels to inversion, looking unmotherly and bodiless, the cry has been partially revived.
Pretty Maids, pretty Pins, pretty Women.
A man, with a square box sideways under his left arm, holds in his right hand a paper of pins opened. He retails ha’p’orths and penn’orths, which he cuts off from his paper. I remember when pins were disposed of in this manner in the streets by women—their cry was a musical distich—