In spite of the difficulties he had so often experienced with the law courts, Penn was now looked upon with favor by both King Charles and his brother the Duke of York. His father, Sir William, had never been paid all the money that was due him as a naval officer; the government was therefore in debt to Penn to the amount of £16,000, and Penn knew that the king was always hard pressed for money to keep up his very expensive court. Penn knew also that the king would make difficulties about paying him the money that was owed, but he thought that Charles might be glad to give him some of the unoccupied land in North America in place of payment in money. Therefore he now, in 1680, sent a petition to King Charles asking that in payment of the money owed to his father he be granted a tract of land "bounded on the east by the Delaware River, on the west limited as Maryland, and northward to extend as far as plantable." The petition was referred to a committee of the Privy Council, where much discussion followed as to whether such a grant would not conflict with other grants to some of the New England colonies. There was much confusion in the plans, and great doubt as to the boundaries of Maryland. But when the grant was finally made to Penn, it covered a vast stretch of territory, including more than forty thousand square miles of land, the largest grant that had ever been made to one person in America. The tract was larger than Ireland, and not very much smaller than all of England. One reason for such liberality on the part of the king may have been that it canceled a debt of considerable money; another reason was that Charles was particularly well disposed toward the son of his friend Admiral Penn. Now let us learn how our great State of Pennsylvania was named. On March 4, 1681, the king signed the charter. Penn wrote, "This day my country was confirmed to me under the great seal of England, with large powers and privileges, by the name of Pennsylvania; a name the King would give it in honor of my father. I chose New Wales, being as this is a pretty hilly country, but Penn being Welsh for a head, as Pennanmoire in Wales, and Penrith in Cumberland, and Penn in Buckinghamshire, the highest land in England, called this Pennsylvania, which is the high or head woodlands; for I proposed when the secretary, a Welshman, refused to have it called New Wales, Sylvania, and they added Penn to it; and though I much opposed it, and went to the King to have it struck out and altered, he said it was past and would take it upon him; nor could twenty guineas move the under secretary to vary the name; for I feared lest it should be looked on as a vanity in me, and not as a respect in the King, as it truly was, to my father, whom he often mentions with praise." So, in spite of William Penn's modesty, the new colony was christened, as it were by chance, one of the most beautiful names in all the new continent.