Penn. An honeft right of fair purchase. We gave the native Indians a variety of articles which they wanted; and they, in return, gave us lands which they did not want. All was amicably agreed on ;. and not a drop of blood shed to ftain our acquifition.

Cort. I am afraid there was a little fraud in the purchase. Thy followers, William Penn, are said to think that cheating, in a quiet and fober way, is no moral fin.

Penn. The righteous are always calumniated by the wicked. But it was a fight which an angel might contemplate with delight; to behold the colony which I fettled! To fee us living with the Indians like innocent lambs, and taming the ferocity of their manners by the gentleness of ours! To fee the whole country, which before was an uncultivated wilderness, rendered as fair and as fertile as the garden of Eden! O Fernando Cortez! Fernando Cortez! didft thou leave the great Mexican empire in that state? No, thou didst turn thofe delightful and populous regions into a defert, a defert flooded with blood. Doft thou not remember that most infernal scene, when the noble emperor Guatemozin was stretched out by thy foldiers upon hot burning coals, to make him discover into what part of the lake of Mexico he had thrown the royal treafures? Are not his groans ever founding in the ears of thy confcience? Do they not rend thy hard heart, and strike thee with more horror than the yells of the furies.

Cort. Alas, I was not prefent when that direful act was done! Had I been there, the mildness of my nature never would have fuffered me to endure the fight. I certainly fhould have forbidden it.

Penn. Thou waft the captain of that band of robbers, who did this horrid deed. The advantage they had drawn from thy counfels and conduct enabled them to commit it; and thy fkill faved them afterwards from the vengeance which was due to fo enormous a crime. The enraged Mexicans would have properly punished them for it, if they had not had thee for their general, thou heard-hearted, bloody-thirsty wretch.

Cort. The righteous I find can rail, William Penn. But how do you hope to preferve this admirable colony you have fettled? Your people, you tell me, live like innocent lambs.

E2

Are

Are there no wolves in America to devour thofe lambs?" Do you expect the natives will always continue in peace with your fucceffors? Or, if they fhould make war, do you expect to oppofe them by prayers and prefents? If this be your policy, your devoted colony will foon become aneafy prey to the favages of the wilderness.

Penn. We leave that to the wife Difpofer of events, who governs all nations at his will. If we conduct with strict: justice towards the Indians, He will doubtless defend us against all their invafions.

Cort. Is this the wisdom of a great legiflator! I have heard fome of your countrymen compare you to Solon! Did Solon, think you, give laws to a people, and leave thofe laws and that people to the mercy of every invader? The first bufinefs of a legiflature is to provide a military ftrength which may defend the whole fyftem. The world, William Penn, is a land of robbers. Any ftate or commonwealth erected therein must be well fenced and fecured by good military inftitutions; or, the happier it is in all other refpects, the greater will be its danger, the more speedy its deftruction. Your plan of government must be changed; these Indian nations must be extirpated, or your colony will be loft.

Penu. Thefe are fuggeftions of human wifdom. The doctrines I held were infpired. They came from above..

Cort. It is blafphemy to fay that any folly could come from the fountain of wisdom. Whatever is inconsistent with the great laws of nature cannot be the effect of infpiration.. Self-defence is as neceffary to nations as to men. And fhall individuals have a right which nations have not? True: religion, William Penn, is never inconfiftent with reafon and the great laws of nature..

Penn. Though what thou fayeft fhould be true, it does: not come well from thy mouth. A tyrant talk of reason ! : Go to the inquifition, and tell them of reason, and the great laws of nature. They will broil thee, as thy foldiers broiled the unhappy Guatemozin.Why doft thou turn pale ? Is it the name of the inquifition, or the name of Guatemo zin, which troubles and affrights thee? O wretched man!! I wonder not that thou doft tremble and shake, when thou thinkeft of the murders thou haft committed, the many thousands

many

thousands of thofe innocent- Indians thou haft butchered, without an accufation of a crime! Remember there is a day coming when thou must answer for all thy barbarities ! What wouldst thou give to part with the renown of thy conquests, and to have a confcience as pure and undisturbed as mine?

Cort.. I feel the force of thy words. They pierce me like daggers.. I can never, never be happy, while I retain any memory of the ills I have caused!!

THE WHISTLE..

WHEN I was a child, at feven years old,

fays Dr. Franklin, my friends on a holiday filled my little pockets with coppers... I went directly to a fhop where they. fold toys for children; and being charmed with the found of a Whistle, which I met by the way, in the hands of an-.. other boy, I voluntarily offered, and gave all my money for one..

2. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleafed with my Whistle; but difturbing all the family. My brothers and fifters, and coufins, underftanding the bargain I had made, told me, I had given four. times as much for it, as it was worth.

3. This put me in mind of what good things I might have bought with the reft of the money. And they laughed at me fo much for my folly, that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me mare chagrin than the Whistle gave me pleasure.

4. This, however, was afterwards of ufe to me; the impreffion continuing on my mind, fo that often when I was tempted to buy fome unneceffary thing, I faid to myself, Don't give too much for the While.. And. fo I faved my money.

5. As I grew up and came into the world, and obferved the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many,, who gave too much for the whistle.

6. When 1 faw one too antious of court favors, facrificing his time in attendance at levees, his repofe, his lib.

erty,

erty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have faid to myself, This man gives too much for his Whistle..

7. When I faw another fond of popularity, conftantly employing himfelf in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by that neglect, He pays indeed, faid I, too much for his While.

8. If I knew a mifer, who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the fake of accumulating wealth, Poor man, faid I, you do indeed pay too much for the Whistle.

9. When I meet with a man of pleasure, facrificing every laudable improvement of the mind or of his fortune, to mere corporal fenfations, and ruining his health in the purfuit; Mistaken man, fay I, you are providing pain for yourself instead of pleasure; you give too much for your Whistle.

10. If I fee one fond of fine clothes, fine furniture, fine houfes, fine equipage, all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts, and ends his career in prifon; Alas! fay I, he has paid dear, very dear, for his Whifle.

II. In fhort, I conceived that great part of the miferies of mankind were brought upon them by the falfe estimates they had made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their Whistles.

TRUE PATRIOTISM, DISPLAYED AT THE SIEGE OF CALAIS.

IN 1347, the town of Calais in France was befieged by Edward III. of England, and reduced to the laft extremity by famine and the fatigue of the inhabitants. John of Vienna, the governor, forefeeing the neceflity of farrendering his fortrefs, appeared upon the walls and de-fired a parley.

2. Sir Walter Manny was fent to him by Edward, whom the e governor addreffed in the following words.. "I have been entrusted by my fovereign with the command of this town. It is almost a your fince you befieged me; and I have endeavored, as well as thofe under me, to do my

duty.

duty. But you are acquainted wirh our prefeat condition. We are perishing with hunger, and have no hopes of relief. I am willing, therefore, to furrender; and defire, as the fole condition, that you would infure the lives and liberties of these brave men, who have fo long shared with me every danger and fatigue."

3. Manny replied, that the king was fo incenfed against the townfmen of Calais for their obftinate refiftance, he was determined to take exemplary vengeance on them; and would receive no terms which fhould reftrain him in the punishment of the offenders.

4. "Confider," replied the governor, "that this is not the treatment to which brave men are entitled. If any English knight had been in my fituation, your king would have expected the fame conduct from him. The inhabitants of Calais have done for their fovereign what merits the esteem of every prince;, much more, of fo gallant a prince as Edward."

5. "But I inform you, that, if we must perish, we shall not perish unrevenged; and that we are not yet fo reduced, but we can fell our lives at a high price to the victors. It is the intereft of both fides to prevent thefe defperate extremities; and I expect that you yourself, brave knight, will interpofe your good offices with your prince in our behalf."

6. Manny was ftruck with the juftnefs of the fentiment, and reprefented to the king the danger of reprifals, if he fhould offer fuch treatment to the inhabitants. Edward was at laft perfuaded to mitigate the rigor of the conditions demanded.

7. He only infifted that fix of the most refpectable citizens fhould be fent to him, to be difpofed of as he thought proper. They were to come to his camp, carrying the keys of the city in their hands, barcheaded and barefooted, with ropes about their necks. And on these conditions, he promifed to fpare the lives of all the remainder.

8. When this intelligence was conveyed to Calais, it ftruck the inhabitants with new confternation. To facrifice fix of their fellow-citizens to certain deftruction for fignalizing their valor in a common caufe, appeared to them even more fevere than that general punishment with which

they