From: accran@gsusgi2.gsu.edu (Robert Nehmer)
Subject: Re: Pennsylvania
Organization: Georgia State University
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 16:48:33 GMT

C05705DA@WUVMD writes:

>If William Penn was not the conqueror, then who was?  As I have previously
>posted, this area is very hazy to me, way back in Junior High days.
>Could some please sum up the whole episode involving Penn, Dutch, England,
>New Netherlands, etc.  What I found is info on Deleware and the Jerseys,
>but not much on the treaties, etc.  thanks.

From Morison, _The Oxford History of the American People_, p. 77:

"In March 1664, before that war even began, Charles II conferred on his 
brother the biggest territorial gift ever made by any English sovereign. 
The "Duke of York's Grant" [James, Duke of York, later James II] included
not only the present state of New York, but the entire region between the
Connecticut and Delaware rivers. Thrown in for good measure were Long 
Island, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and the present state of Maine east
of Kennebec. The Duke promptly appointed Richard Nicolls his deputy governor,
and the king gave him four frigates to help him secure his prize. Nicolls
sailed into the harbor of New Amsterdam on 18 August 1664 and called upon
the governor [Pegleg Pete] to surrender. Peter Stuyvesant, after trying in
vain to persuade his subjects to resist, decided to give up without firing
a shot. By the end of October the English had taken over not only New
Amsterdam, which they renamed New York, but Fort Orange, which they renamed
Albany, and Fort Casimer on the Delaware, which they renamed Newcastle. The
province, too, was renamed New York."

p. 126:

"William Penn, born in 1644, was the indulged son of a wealthy father, 
Admiral Sir William Penn, conqueror of Jamaica and friend both to Charles II
and his brother the Duke of York. At an early age young William showed an
interest in religion which puzzled his parents. Expelled from Christ Church,
Oxford, for a prank which indicated his contempt for Anglicanism, he was 
first well thrashed by the Admiral, then sent on a grand tour of the 
European capitals. Upon returning to London he read law, then went to 
Ireland to look after the confiscated estates that Charles II had given to
his father. On a visit to Cork, young William listened to a discourse by a
Quaker preacher on the text from 1 John v. 4, "There is a faith which over-
cometh the world"; and the Friends' faith overcame him."

p.128:

"Admiral Sir William Penn, reconciled to his son, left him a small fortune
at his death. In 1676, in company with George Fox, William travelled 
through northern Europe. There he ascertained that thousands of Quakers 
and other non-tolerated Protestant sects were eager to emigrate to America
if they could have a colony of their very own where they could carry out
their ideals of the good life. The old admiral had been a friend of the
Duke of York and had even lent him large sums of money. A tactful reminder o
of this eased young Penn's application for a slice of the Duke's enormous
grant, and in March 1681 he obtained the magnificent proprietary province
that bears his name, together with a charter from Charles II guaranteeing
his possession of it."

Durant, _The Age of Louis XIV_, pp. 255-6:

"Penn was the son of Admiral William Penn who had captured Jamaica for 
England. ... However, Penn was jailed for refusing to remove his hat in
court. He was released in time to be present at his father's death (1670),
which left him a fortune of fifteen hundred pounds a year, and a claim on
the Crown for sixteen thousand pounds lent by his father to Charles II.
... In an interval of freedom, he married a wealthy woman, and bought an
interest in the western half of what is now the state of New Jersey. 
In 1677 Penn, George Fox, Robert Barclay, and George Keith crossed the
Channel to preach Quakerism on the continent. Some of Penn's converts
from Kirchheim founded Germantown in Pennsylvania, and were among the 
first to declare it wrong for Christians to have slaves. ... In 1681 the
Crown accepted his proposal to surrender his debt claim in exchange for a
grant of what we now know as Pennsylvania. He suggested the name Sylvania
for the vast and highly wooded tract; Charles II prefixed the name Penn
in memory of the admiral."


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