He found the inhabitants of this province, Swedes, Dutch and English, to amount already to between 2,000 and 3,000—“plain, strong and industrious people.” There were six religious societies established, three of Swedish Lutherans and three of the Quakers. “The land itself,” he wrote, “was good, the air clear and sweet, the springs plentiful, and provisions good and easy to come at; an innumerable quantity of wild-fowl and fish; in fine, what an Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would be well contented with.” “Tradition,” says Bancroft, “describes the journey of Penn and his friends from Chester, in an open boat, in the earliest days of November, to the beautiful banks, fringed with pine-trees, on which the city of Philadelphia was soon to rise.” Markham had already began to build, on Pennsbury Manor, “a stately brick house” as the proprietary residence. After visits to East and West Jersey and to New York, in compliment to his friend, the duke, and after a meeting with the Friends of Long Island, Penn returned to Chester, where the first assembly was convened. The body of freemen present amounted to seventy-two, and these petitioning that they, “owing to the fewness of the people and their unskilfulness in matters of government, might constitute both assembly and council,” it was enacted that, in future, “the assembly should consist of thirty-six members only, six from each county, to be chosen annually, with a council composed of three members for each county, to hold their seats for three years, one to be chosen each year. The governor and council to possess, jointly, the right of proposing laws.” This latter enactment, as regarded the power of the proprietary governor, which was now made at the special request of the assembly, gave rise to after dissatisfaction and reproaches against Penn as a violation of his original engagement.