Excerpt from Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Vol. 7 No one can read the proceedings of the earliest English tribunal on the soil of Pennsylvania, however simple its forms, and sometimes trifling the subjects of its judgments, without receiving a clearer impression of the condition of the people than any other known source of information can impart. The attempts to plant colonies upon the Delaware proved to be failures until the Swedes, in 1638, established themselves upon its western bank, near the present Site of Wilmington. Although the Dutch were the discoverers of the river, and gave to it its earlier appellation,2 they had, to this period, failed to effect a permanent abode upon it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.