Fortunately, one of the converts to the Quaker faith, William Penn.
was the son of a close friend of Charles Ⅱ. When the older Penn died, the
King owed him a large sum of money.William Penn asked for payment of
this debt in the form of land in the NewWorld where he could make a
haven for the persecuted Friends,both from England and from Continental
75 Europe. Anxious to rid England of thisradical group, Charles in 1681,
quickly granted Penn the rights to a colonyto be called Pennsylvania on the
Delaware River near the Dutch settlementsof New Amsterdam.[1] Founded
at a time when business was good inEngland, the colony immediately pros
pered as no other early settlement did.Pennsylvania also provided an indi
cation of what America was to be: it was alarge community where differ-
ent races and religions lived under thesame government on terms of equali
ty.William Penn's liberalism helped start the great "melting pot"[2] inAmerica.