There were about two thousand inhabitants,--exclusive of Indians,--mostly English, Swedes, and Dutch, when William Penn took possession of his Province. The well-known character of the Proprietor, the strong inducements offered by the system of government proposed, and the natural advantages from soil and climate of the newly-opened domain, all acted as powerful incentives to emigrate; not only to men who were struggling hardly and uncertainly at their native home for the means of subsistence, 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.