At the admiral's death, William succeeded to his father's possessions. It deeply grieved him that his Quaker brethren should endure such wrongs as were continually heaped upon them. He, therefore, formed the design of leading them forth to America. The king had owed Penn's father sixteen thousand pounds, nearly equal to eighty thousand dollars of our money. Penn offered to relinquish this claim for a grant of land; and the king readily bestowed upon him a vast region, stretching west from the river Delaware, to which was given the name of Pennsylvania. Here Penn proposed to found a state, free and self-governing. He claimed it to be his highest ambition "to make men as free and happy as they can be." When he arrived, he proclaimed to the people that he wished them to be governed by laws of their own making. He was as good as his word. The people elected their own representatives by whom a constitution was framed, and Penn signed this charter of their liberties. Penn also dealt justly and kindly with the Indians, and they showed a love for him such as they bestowed on no other Englishman. {146} Soon after his arrival, he invited the chief men of the Indian tribes to a conference. The meeting took place beneath a huge elm-tree. The ancient forest had long given way to the houses and streets of Philadelphia; but a monument still points out to the stranger the scene of this interview. They met, Penn assured them, "on the broad pathway of good faith and good will. All was to be openness and love." And Penn meant what he said. Strong in the power of truth and kindness, he bent the fierce savages of the Delaware tribe to his will. They vowed to live in love with William Penn and his children as long as the moon and the sun should endure. Long years after, aged Indians were accustomed to come from the distant forests and recount with deep emotion the words that Penn had spoken to them under the old elm-tree. The fame of Penn's settlements went abroad in all lands. An asylum was opened for the good and oppressed of every nation. Grave and God-fearing men from all the Protestant countries of Europe sought a home where they might live as conscience taught them. "For here the exiles met from every clime, And spoke in friendship every distant tongue; Men, from the blood of warring Europe sprung, Were but divided by the running brook; And happy where no Rhenish trumpet sung, The blue-eyed German changed his sword to pruning-hook." The new colony grew apace. During the first year twenty-two vessels arrived, bringing two thousand persons. In three years Philadelphia was a town of six hundred houses. Thus did Penn prove himself a benefactor to his race. May we not also consider him an instrument in the hands of God for the execution of His purposes?