Penn himself little suspected that he had received an empire in exchange for his claim against the crown, nor did he realize as long as he lived the full value of his newly acquired territory. The idea of enriching himself or his family was as far from his thoughts as it had been close to his father’s. With him it was purely a question of obtaining a home for his ideal Commonwealth, and he refused all the offers to purchase rights of trade there that poured in upon him as soon as the patent had been granted, even though he was in great need of money at the time and although the sale of such rights was not only perfectly legitimate, but no more than any other in his position would have done without hesitation. One merchant, for instance, offered him six thousand pounds, besides two and a half per cent of the yearly profits, for the exclusive right to trade in beaver hats between the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers. Penn was resolved that trade in his colony should be no more restricted than personal liberty or freedom of conscience, and the more widely his principles of government became known, the larger grew the number of would-be emigrants who wished to settle there. He soon found himself so overrun with agents wishing to consult him as to the sale of lands or the formation of trading companies that he scarcely knew which way to turn. There was hardly a city in the three kingdoms that did not send messengers or petitions, while offers came even from Holland and Germany, where Penn was so well known. Emigration companies were also formed for the foundation of settlements on a larger scale. To one of these, in Frankfort-on-the-Main, Penn deeded a tract of fifteen thousand acres along the banks of a navigable river, with three hundred acres in the interior on which to found the capital of the new State. A trading company in Bristol concluded a contract for the purchase of twenty thousand acres and set to work at once to fit out a ship, while in London, Liverpool, and Bristol emigrants gathered in such numbers that Penn soon had no fear as to the settlement of his colony. Among these, it is true, were many adventurers in search of a fortune only, which they hoped to make more quickly and easily under Penn’s form of government than elsewhere. But by far the greater number were victims of oppression, seeking to escape the endless persecutions to which they were subjected at home on account of their religious opinions, and taking with them little but good resolution and a pair of useful hands.