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JULY

The King: “Well, then, I hope you will not complain when they come to treat you in the
Same manner.”

Mr. Penn: “I am not afraid of it.”

King Charles: “Ah! How will you avoid it? You mean to get their hunting grounds, too, I   suppose?”

William Penn: “Yes, but not by driving these poor people away from them.”

The King: “No, indeed? How then will you get their lands?”

Mr. Penn: “I mean to buy their lands of them.”

The King: “Buy their lands of them?” Why, man, you have already bought them of me!”

Mr. Penn: “Yes, I know I have, and at a dear rate, too; but I did it only to get thy good will, not that I thought thou hadst any right to their lands.”

The King: “How, man? No right to their lands?”

Mr. Penn: “No, friend Charles, no right; no right at all: what right hast thou to their lands?”

The King: “Why, the right of discovery, to be sure; the right which the Pope and all Christian kings have agreed to give one another.”

Mr. Penn: “The right of discovery? A strange kind of right, indeed. Now suppose, friend Charles, that some canoe load of these Indians, crossing the sea, and discovering this island of Great Britain, were to claim it as their own, and vet it up for sale over thy head, what wouldst thou think of it?”

King Charles II. “Why—why—why—I must confess, I should think it a piece of great impudence in them.”

William Penn: “Well, then, how canst thou, a Christian, and a Christian prince, too, do that which thou so utterly condemnest in these people whom thou callest savages? And suppose, again, that these Indians, on thy refusal to give up thy island were to make war on thee add, having weapons more destructive than thine, were to destroy many of thy subjects, and drive the rest away—wouldst thou not think it horribly cruel?”

The King: “I must say, friend William, that I should; how can I say otherwise?”

Mr. Penn: “Well, then, how can I, who call myself a Christian, do what I should abhor even in the heathen? No. I will not do it. But I will buy the right of the proper owners, even of the Indians themselves. By doing this, I shall imitate God Himself in His justice and mercy, and thereby insure His blessing on my colony, if I should ever live to plant one in North America.”

     The Indians will be so impressed with the justice and good will of Mr. Penn and his associates, that the Quaker dress will often serve as a sure protection when other settlers are trembling for their lives.
    

 

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