Memoirs of the life of David Rittenhouse, LLD. F.R.S., late president of the American Philosophical Society, &c. : $b interspersed with various notices of many distinguished men : with an appendix, containing sundry philosophical and other papers, most of which have not hitherto been published — John Shaqi
Memoirs of the life of David Rittenhouse, LLD. F.R.S., late president of the American Philosophical Society, &c. : $b interspersed with various notices of many distinguished men : with an appendix, containing sundry philosophical and other papers, most of which have not hitherto been publishedBarton, William
History
Memoirs of the life of David Rittenhouse, LLD. F.R.S., late president of the American Philosophical Society, &c. : $b interspersed with various notices of many distinguished men : with an appendix, containing sundry philosophical and other papers, most of which have not hitherto been published
Incorporated with that edition of the _Laws of Pennsylvania_, which
was published in the year 1810, “under the authority of the
legislature,” with Notes and References, by Charles Smith, Esq. is an
article that bears a respectful testimony to the justice and clemency
of the founder of that state: It is an important and very interesting
_Note_ to an act of assembly passed the 1st day of April, 1784,
(entitled, “An act for opening the Land-Office, for granting and
disposing of the unappropriated Lands within this State,”) containing
“a connected view of the land-titles of Pennsylvania from its first
settlement to the present time.” In this document the learned editor
speaks of the integrity and virtuous policy manifested by Penn, with
respect to his conduct towards the Indian natives of the country, to
which he had acquired the dominion under his sovereign, in these
terms.
“William Penn, although clothed with powers as full and comprehensive
as those possesed by the adventurers from Portugal and Spain, was
influenced by a purer morality and sounder policy. His religious
principles did not permit him to wrest the soil, by force, from the
people to whom God and nature gave it, nor to establish his title in
blood; but, under the shade of the lofty trees of the forest, his
right was fixed by treaties with the natives, and sanctified, as it
were, by incense smoking from the calumet of peace.”
The note from which this extract is made, (and which comprizes 156
large 8vo. pages, printed on a small type,) forms a valuable treatise,
historical as well as legal, of the territorial rights of the former
proprietaries, and of the land-titles deduced from them by the
citizens of Pennsylvania.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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