For in return for his land Penn agreed to pay two
beaver skins a year, and a fifth of all the gold or silver which
might be mined within his territory.
Charles not only gave Penn the land, but named it too. Penn meant
to call his new country New Wales, but a Welshman who hated the
Quakers objected to the name of his land being given to a Quaker
colony, so Penn changed it to Sylvania, meaning Woodland, because
of the magnificent forests which were there. But the King added
Penn to Sylvania thus calling it Penn's Woodlands.
William Penn, however, was afraid that people would think that this
was vanity on his part, and that he had called his province after
himself; so he tried to have the name changed. He even bribed the
King's secretary to do it, but in vain. As some one has said, if
he had bribed the King himself he might have succeeded better. As
it was he did not succeed, for King Charles was very pleased with
the name.
"No," laughed the merry monarch, when Penn asked him to change it,
"we will keep the name, but you need not flatter yourself that it
is called after you. It is so called after your gallant father."
So as the King insisted Penn had to submit, and he consoled himself
by thinking that as Penn means "hill" the name might be taken to
mean Wooded Hills.
The tract of land of which Penn now became possessed was smiling
and fertile and altogether desirable.
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