e English general
thought so much of William Penn that he set a guard of soldiers round
the great elm, to prevent any one from chopping it down.

Not long after the great meeting under the elm, Penn visited some
of the savages in their wigwams. They treated him to a dinner--or
shall we say a lunch?--of roasted acorns. After their feast, some
of the young savages began to run and leap about, to show the
Englishman what they could do. When Penn was in college at Oxford
he had been fond of doing such things himself. The sight of the Indian
boys made him feel like a boy again; so he sprang up from the ground,
and beat them all at hop, skip, and jump. This completely won the
hearts of the red men.

[Illustration: STATUE OF WILLIAM PENN. (On the Tower of the new City
Hall, Philadelphia.)]

From that time, for sixty years, the Pennsylvania settlers and the
Indians were fast friends. The Indians said, "The Quakers are honest
men; they do no harm; they are welcome to come here." In New England
there had been, as we have seen,[8] a terrible war with the savages,
but in Pennsylvania, no Indian ever shed a drop of Quaker blood.

[Footnote 5: Founds: begins to build.]

[Footnote 6: Treaty: an agreement; and see paragraph 69.]

[Footnote 7: See Rev. i. 11 and iii. 7.]

[Footnote 8: See paragraph 90.]

100. How Philadelphia grew; what was done there in the Revolution;
William Penn's last years and death.--Philadelphia grew quite fast.
William Penn let the people have land very cheap, and he said to them,
"You shall be governed by laws of your own making." Even after
Philadelphia became quite a good-sized town, it had no poor-house,
for none was needed; everybody seemed to be able to take care of
himself.

When the Revolution began, the people of Pennsylvania and of the
country north and south of it sent men to Philadelphia to decide what
should be done. This meeting was called the Congress. It was held
in the old State House, a building which is still standing, and in
1776 Congress declared the United States of America independent of
England. In the war, the people of Delaware and New Jersey fought
side by side with those of Pennsylvania.

William Penn spent a great deal of money in helping Philadelphia and
other settlements. After he returned to England he was put in prison
for debt by a rascally fellow he had employed. He did not owe the
money, and proved that the man who said that he did was no better
than a thief.