nce, but to others, who, though with sufficient to live
comfortably where they were, were anxious to escape from the intolerant
oppression of a Court and hierarchy bent on enforcing the alternatives
of conformity to certain prescribed dogmas of their own construction, or
suffering, if not ruin, by imprisonment or deprivation of estate.

William Penn arrived in Pennsylvania in 1682, and in that year and the
two following fifty vessels came into the Delaware River, bringing
several thousand emigrants; the most of them from Great Britain, and
some from Germany. Nearly all of them were professors with Friends, and
many substantial, consistent members, who came under a sense of
religious duty, and made the practice of the religion they had embraced
the primary object of life. Some had the benefit of a liberal education,
while the great body, farmers, mechanics, or tradesmen, had acquired but
the rudiments of English school-learning. Many possessed considerable
property, paying cash for the land they took up; and generally the
others soon found means to make themselves independent.

Those who came first, as was to be expected, had to encounter the
difficulties and privations usually attending pioneers in an
uncultivated forest. Some, who brought the frames of small houses with
them, were not long in obtaining a comfortable shelter; but very many
were obliged to content themselves with hastily constructed shanties,
under the overarching branches of trees; while some dug caves in the
bank of the river, and made out to obtain in them some of the comforts
of a home. This was before William Penn came out; but Richard Townsend,
who came in the same ship with him, thus speaks of his experience: "At
our arrival we found it a wilderness; the chief inhabitants were
Indians; there were some Swedes, who received us in a friendly manner;
and although there was a great number of us, the good hand of Providence
was seen in a particular manner, in that provisions were found for us by
the Swedes and Indians, at very reasonable rates; as well as brought
from divers other parts, that were inhabited before. Our first concern
was to keep up and maintain our religious worship, and in order thereto,
we had several meetings in the houses of the inhabitants; and one
boarded meeting-house was set up, where the city was to be (near the
Delaware); and as we had nothing but love and good-will in our hearts
one to another, we had very comfortable meetings