As we might expect from a man of his even temper and unselfish spirit, Penn treated the Indians with kindness and justice, and won their friendship from the first. Although he held the land by a grant from the King of England, still he wished to satisfy the natives by paying them for their claims to the land. Accordingly, he called a council under the spreading branches of a now famous elm-tree, where he met the red men as friends, giving them knives, kettles, axes, beads, and various other things in exchange for the land. He declared that[Pg 100] he was of the same flesh and blood as they; and highly pleased, the Indians in return declared that they would live in love with William Penn as long as the sun and moon should shine.