Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/157

 professions. Universal toleration was proclaimed; each sect was to support itself. Every freeman had the right of voting and holding office—the only reservation being the necessity of a belief in God and abstinence from labor on the Lord's Day. Trial by jury was established. Murder alone was punishable with death. Primogeniture, with a trifling reservation, was abrogated. Marriage was regarded as a civil contract. Two wise and important provisions, must not be overlooked—every child was to be taught some useful trade, thus tending to prevent future vagabondage and crime—while the prisons were to be also workhouses, where the offender might be not only punished, but if possible, reclaimed again to the community.

Penn having proceeded to Newcastle, found the question of boundaries to be a very difficult and perplexing subject. Many of the charters had been granted in ignorance of the precise geography of the country, an ambiguity which occasioned, naturally enough, serious disputes. Such was partly the case with that of Penn's, who earnestly contended for his desired line of boundary, as being of the last importance to the future welfare of his colonists. "It was not the love or need of the land, but the water," and the facility of access and harboring, that induced him to press his claims, and, as Lord Baltimore affirmed, to encroach within the limits of his own grant. Of the merits of this dispute, which is in truth somewhat obscure, different views have been taken by different historians. Very possibly both parties believed themselves to be in the right, and after a warm and unsatisfactory debate, the negotiation was for the present broken off; it was afterwards, in the following year, resumed in England with considerable acrimony, and terminated in the assignment to Penn of half the territory between the banks of the Delaware and the Chesapeake.

The famous traditionary interview with the Indians under the great elm of Shakamaxon, commemorated by the pencil of West, was held probably not long after Penn and Lord Baltimore had met with reference to the boundary question. It was a scene of deep and touching interest; and though it is true that Penn enjoyed advantages over the older States in that the Delawares were a feeble tribe, yet his sincerity and good will cannot be doubted, and we know that no Quaker blood was ever shed in contests with the aborigines of that region.

The good understanding produced by this interview was carefully kept up. During his stay in the country Penn often met the Indians in friendly intercourse. He partook of their simple fare, and mingled in their athletic games. On one occasion, as he himself informed Oldmixon, he was involved in an awkward dilemma, from which he escaped by the exercise of his usual prudence. Having visited an Indian sachem, he had retired for the night, when he was startled by the entry of the daughter of his host, who, thus instructed by her father, came and placed herself by his side, in compliance with certain ideas of