d Penn that he could have all
the land he wanted, and offered him a tract that was nearly as large as
the whole of England. This land belonged to the red men, but that did
not trouble King Charles. It is easy to pay debts in other people's
property. All Penn was asked to pay the king was two beaver skins every
year and one-fifth of all the gold and silver that should be mined. As
no gold or silver was ever mined the king got nothing but his beaver
skins, which were a kind of rent.

What do any of my young readers know about the Delaware River? Have any
of you seen the wide, swift stream which flows between the states of
Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and runs into the broad body of water known
as Delaware Bay? On its banks stands the great city of Philadelphia, in
which live more than a million people, and where there are thousands of
busy workshops and well-filled stores. This large and fine city came
from the way the king paid his debt. King Charles was not a good man,
but he did one thing that had a good ending.

There were white men there before the Quakers came. Many years earlier a
number of people from Sweden had come and settled along the river. Then
the Dutch from New York said the land was theirs, and took possession of
the forts of the Swedes. Then the English of New York claimed the land
as theirs. Then Quakers came and settled in New Jersey. Finally came
William Penn, in a ship called by the pretty name of the "Welcome," and
after that the land was governed by the Quakers or Friends, though the
Swedes stayed there still.

We have something very pleasant to say about good William Penn. He knew
very well that King Charles did not own the land, and had no right to
sell it or give it away. So he called the Indians together under a great
elm tree on the river bank, and had a long talk with them, and told them
he would pay them for all the land he wanted. This pleased the red men
very much, and ever afterwards they loved William Penn.

Do you not think it must have been a pretty scene when Penn and the
Quakers met the Indian chiefs under the great tree--the Indians in their
colored blankets and the Quakers in their great hats? That tree stood
for more than a hundred years afterwards, and when the British army was
in Philadelphia during the war of the Revolution their general put a
guard around Penn's treaty tree, so that the soldiers should not cut it
down for firewood. The tree is gone now, but a stone monument