?.°-n^. ^°v* /o \ A HISTORY of WILLIAM PENN FOUNDER OF PENNSYLVANIA Bv W.'^H E P W O R T H DIXON Author of ''New America,^* ''Her Majesty' 5 Tower,'''' etc. NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY PUBLISHERS: NEW YORK, 1903 P. Publ. Preface. Twentj-one years have passed since 'William Penn, an Historical Biography', came out. The book obtained some favour, not in England only, but in Germany and America. Yet it has long been out of print ; awaiting that revision which an author who respects his public likes to give his final work. In one-and-twenty years, much light has come to us from public offices, both home and foreign ; and in dealing with a mass of new mate- rials I have been led to write my book afresh. The change of title hardly corresponds to the ma- terial change. It would be no misuse of words to say that * William Penn : Founder of Pennsylva- nia/ is substantially a new book. 6 St. James's Terrace, Regent's Park. Note. In the first edition of 'William Penn' appeared an Extra Chapter on the charges brought by Ma- caulaj against Penn. The five specific censures were confronted with the actual names and dates, and every fact alleged as ground for censure was shown to be no fact at all. With a consent most rare in matters of this kind the press accepted this defence, and almost every one expected that the calumnies would be withdrawn. On some points he gave way; especially as to William Kiffin and the Prince of Orange. In his first edition he had repres-ented Penn as being 'employed by the heartless and venal syc- ophants of Whitehall" to seduce Kiffin into the acceptance of an alderman's gown and failing to induce that sturdy Baptist to comply. I met this statement with the words of KiflBn ; words which proved that Penn was not employed 'in the work of seduction;' and that Kiffin dUJ accept 'an al- derman's gown,' Macaulay fenced wdth the first citation, but the second smote him, and he added to his text that Kiffin took the alderman's gown. In his first edition he had said in reference to the Prince of Orange : ' All men were anxious to know what he thought of the declaration Penn sent copious disquisitions to the Hague, and even went thither in the hope that his eloquence, of which he had a high opinion would pre ve irre- sistible.' It was shown that not a word in this paragraph was true. Penn sent no copious dis- quisitions to the Hague in 1687. He did not go NOTE. over in the hope that his eloquence would prove irresistible. He did not go at all. Macaulay drew his pen across this passage ; replacing what was proved to be a falsehood by a sneer. My hope was that Macaulay would in time with- draw his charges as disproved. I had some rea- son for this hope. His mind was racked by doubts, and he was often busy with this portion of his book. It is within my knowledge that his latest thoughts on earth were given to Penn and that which he had said of Penn. Some part of what he might have done, the world can guess from what he did. He ceased the work of cal- umny. In what he wrote after 1857, there is not a single sneer at Penn. His indexes were greatly changed. He struck out much that was false, and more that was abusive. Penn's Jacobitism was no longer 'scandalous,^ his word was no longer a 'falsehood.' Penn was no longer charged with ' treasonable conduct,' with ' flight to France,' and with 'renewing his plots.' What else Macau- lay might have done can only be surmised ; but it is fair to think that changes in his index would have been followed by amendments in his text. I know that he was far from satisfied with his 'Notes' of 1857, and that he was engaged in re- considering the defence of Penn when he leaned back in his chair and died. Unhappily he passed away, and made no other sign. The accusations in his text remain : and it is only just that the defence of Penn. extended and adapted to the present time, should reappear. viu Contents. CHAPTER PAGE I. Old and New Fortunes . . 11 II. SearGeneral Penn 18 m. School and College . 28 IV. The World . . a7 V. Father and Son 46 VI. Hat-Homage 55 VII. Sword and Pen 60 VIII. In the Tower 66 IX. Blasphemy and Heresy 75 X. Stillingfleet 83 XI. A Fresh Arrest 90 XII. Old Bailey 96 XIII. Trial of the Jury 107 XIV. Guli Springett 116 XV. Bond and Free 120 XVI. Married Life 128 XVII. Holy Experiment 135 XVIII. Work and Travel . 144 XIX. The World 152 XX. Algernon Sydney 159 XXI. A New Country 168 XXII. Pennsylvania 176 XXIII. Clearing Ground 184 XXIV. In the Wilderness 193 XXV. Philadelphia . 204 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XXVI. At Home 215 XXVII. At Court . . 223 XXVIII. Mediation . . 235 XXTX. In the Shade . . 248 XXX. A House of Dole . 255 XXXI. Land of Promise . 265 XXXII. Pennsbury . 274 XXXIII. Making Empire . 283 XXXIV. Closing scenes . 290 Supplementary Chapter . . 306 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. CHAPTER I. Old and New Fortunes (1644). The Penns of Penn were an old family, living in Bucks during the wars of the Red and White Roses, three or four miles from the town of Beaconsfield. in the parish from which they seem to have got their name. These Penns of Penn have long since passed away. In very old times a branch of this family re- moved to the north of Wiltshire, where they held a small estate in land, a hundred pounds a-year. on the skirts of Brad on forest, on the borders of the shire. Their seat was called Penn's Lodge, a 'genteel ancient house ' and in the town of Minety, across the border, they had a second house. The last of these old Penns of Brad on forest was Wil- liam Penn of Penn's Lodge and Minety. who sur- vived his only son also a William I'enn, and dy- ing in 1591 at a great age. was buried in Minety Church, near the altar. On the old man's death the property was sold to pay his debts, and this connexion of the Penn family with Penn's Lodge and Minety ceased. This patriarch of failing fortune left two grand- sons William and Giles, to begin the world afresh. Giles went to Bristol took to the sea and en- tered into trade. He sailed into the North Sea; he crossed the Bay of Biscay ; he visited the Sp an- il LIFE OF WILLIAM PENX. ish ports; he caught some glimpses of the pirate holds. The skipper had his iips and downs; for some of his ventures turned out ill; the rovers seized his goods, the factors cheated him ; yet on the whole he made his way. In Bristol he found a lady to his mind ; a Gilbert of Yorkshire, who had recently come into the west country ; and marrying her. he took a house in that city for her home and there his sons, George and William (the future admiral) , were in due time born, though at an interval of twenty years. George, the elder born of these two Bristol boys, was early put to work under his father's eye. He learned the business of a merchant, and spent his youth in passing from Cadiz to Antwerp and Rot- terdam, until he fell in love with a lady of Ant- werp, a Catholic in creed and a subject of the Crown of Spain, This love was happy, and on being united to the woman of his heart George Penn set up his home at San Lucar, the port of Seville, then a busy, thriving town. George, hav- ing no offspring, brought his wife's sisters from Antwerp to live with her. and made for them a pleasant home in that Morisco port, near the English hospice of St. George. William, the younger born of these two Bristol boys, was put to sea. Captain Giles Penn. his father, roved about the Spanish. Portuguese, and Flemish ports ; and William worked his way. under that father's eye. from the lowest work on board his vessel to the highest office on the quarter- deck. After George's settlement in San Lucar. Captain Giles Penn. the father, turned his keel towards the Moorish ports, then opening up a new and tempt- ing branch of trade. The Moors of Fez and Susa were in want of many things that Bristol could 12 OLD AND NEW FORTUNES. supply— tin. lead, and iron most of all— and Giles, having paid a visit to the ports, from Tetuan to Sallee. observing the course of trade and picking up the native speech, began to fetch from Bristol such commodities as he found would sell. But this new trade was only to be carried on at daily risk of life. The Spanish court had closed the Barbary ports by paper blockade —much as they had closed the American ports. Such ports were lawless in a certain sense, the natives having built and manned a swarm of boats in which they roved about the seas and preyed on vessels under every flag. ]n fact, these Barbary ports were pirate-ports. From Tunis to Sallee the African harbours sent out every spring a fleet of rovers ; some of which swept the coasts of Spain on her eastern side, some on her western side ; those pushing out as far as the Gen- oese waters, these coming up into the German and Irish seas. They chased all colours, and they seized all ships. They not only took the goods on board, but sold the officers and crews as slaves. Muley Mohammed, Emperor of Morocco, tried his best to limit this warfare of the sea to Spain ; but his seat of government was far away from the coast, and his unruly subjects of the sea-ports would not stay their hands to please a young and feeble prince. Sallee, the busiest of these pirate nests, was in revolt against his rule. A quick and able man, this Captain Penn not only knew that court favour would be useful to him in his perilous trade, but saw how favour could be won at court by simple means. King Charles was fond of falconry, and (iiles brought home with him a cast of Tetuan hawks. Charles quickly let him know that he would like more hawks, on which the Bristol skipper told him he could get these birds if the King would give him 13 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. letters of protection to the Moorish governor of the town. Lord Conway drew up letters in his favour, and Giles went back to Tetuan with the King's command to buy him Barbary horses, as well as hawks. On his return to England he came to town, when he made the acquaintance of Sir Robert Mansel. Edward Nicholas Endymion Por- ter, and other gentlemen of the court. Mansel had a great opinion of the skipper, and wrote to Lord Dorchester, then Secretary of State in his behalf. For Giles was in some trouble about a sale of car- goes in Tetuan; the proceeds had been seized, and Captain Penn was much afraid of being clapped in jail. His great friends helped him, for the King, in love with his new hawks, was eager for his agent to go out again. In passing from Bristol to Barbary for several years, Giles Penn became acquainted with the Moors their ports, their customs, and their speech. At Sallee he was pained to hear that hundreds of English captives were said to be enslaved in that pirate stronghold ; some of them were women ; but, the port of Sallee being in revolt against the em- pire nothing could be done for them in the native court. On coming home Penn laid his news before the King, with full reports of what he had seen and done, and hints of measures by which the captives might be released. His plans were laid before the Council and approved. A fleet was manned and victualled for the voyage. Admiral Rainsborough was appointed to the chief com- mand ; and there was a talk of sending out Cap- tain Penn as Rainsborough's Vice-admiral. The skipper came to London, lodged at the Black Boy. in Ave Maria Lane and saw Lord Cotting- ton and Lord Portland, who consulted him on every detail of the expedition the ships to be 14 OLD AM) NEW FORTUNES. sent out, the stores to be laid in the crews to be impressed, the mode of approaching the pirate- town, and the general policy of the voyage. But after being detained in London more than half a year he was dismissed with money and thanks; the money not much, the thanks still less. The voyage was a great success, Sallee was taken, the prisoners were released, and Muley Mohammed, on receiving back his revolted port, repaid the citizens, who had bought these English captives from Algerines the value of their liberated slaves. To prevent this traffic in English flesh and blood, the London merchants prayed the King to ap- point a consul in Sallee offering to pay all charges from the profits of their trade; and when the Council wrote to ask them who should be sent out, they answered Captain Penn. A warrant was accordingly drawn up and on the 30th of December, 1637. Giles Penn of Bristol was ap- pointed His Majesty's Consul at Sallee. WTien Captain Penn went to reside in Sallee. his son William kept his ship, until ship and man were taken together into the service of King Charles. At Rotterdam , the Bristol boy had fallen in with Margaret, a daughter of Hans Jasper— of that town — a girl with rosy flesh and nimble wit —and being taken by her comely face, had of- fered her his heart and taken up her own in pledge. But AYilliam was a prudent lover. Bent on rising in the world — perhaps rising to be Penn of Penn's Lodge —he had left the lady in her father's house on the canal, till he could lodge her in a better home than a poor skipper's cabin in a merchant-ship. In those days every vessel going out of Thames or Severn on a distant voyage was armed ; with five guns, ten guns twenty guns as the case 15 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. might need. She armed according to the seas she had to cross, the pirates to resist; and every of- ficer on board was trained in all the details of war at sea. The trading navy was a fighting navy. When the country wanted fleets, and men to officer these fleets, she had only to send for the port-reeves and masters of companies, hire the vessels, and engage the officers and crews. The commercial navy was not the reserve ; it was the actual fleet ; but only called and paid in time of war. In 1639, when the future Admiral was eighteen years and six months old, the Dutch acquired, by two great victories over Spain, a perfect com- mand of the Narrow Seas. Tromp rode within sight of Dover Cliffs, and Charles was suddenly smitten with the want of money, ships, and men. The money was refused him ; but he found no diffi- culty in procuring ships and men. The craft in which William Penn was serving as a skipper seems to have been hired by the Crown ; and thus a lad of twenty passed into the public service with lieu- tenant's rank. Even now he would not marry ; and his rosy Margaret could wait. Knowing his duty as few men know it, he was soon employed, and soon rewarded for success. At twenty-one he was a captain. A few months later, fortune still going with him, he received a regular commission in the King's service, with the promise of the first ship worthy of his fame ; and having got his com- mission in his pocket, he ran over to Rotterdam and claimed his bride. From that day forward Penn was always rising. When on shore he lived with his young wife in the naval quarter, near the Tower. His frank and jo- vial ways were highly relished. He had seen the world; he sang a stave; he loved a prank and 16 OLD AND NEW FORTUNES. jest; and drank his wine with any salt alive. •Dutch Teg,' with 'more wit than Penn himself.' says Pepys, was jeered at first, until her friends discovered that both she and Captain Penn were folks to rise. A first step for the young captain of the royal navy was to find employment for his talent. The great dispute of King and Commons as to which should command the marine had just been settled (1643) by the appointment of Warwick, in oppo- sition to the will of Charles, to the office of Lord High Admiral. A part of the fleet, stationed in the Irish seas, adhered to the royal cause under the command of Sir John Pennington, whom the King had vainly tried to make Lord Admiral ; but the number of his vessels was not formidable even at first, and capture and desertion soon reduced them to such a state of weakness as to prevent their being troublesome to the Parliamentary chiefs. One of Pennington's captured ships was the Fellowship, Captain Burley, cut out in Milford Haven ; a vessel of twenty-eight guns ; the third in size and weight then serving in the Irish seas. This ship was given to Captain Penn, who re- ceived his orders to sail in the service of his country ; and though his wife Margaret was then in a critical state, expecting to be confined, he went on board. At six o'clock in the morning, all being ready, he shipped his anchor and dropped down the Thames. But he was sud- denly recalled to his house on Tower Hill. The Fellowship was detained in the river three weeks, and during these three weeks the Founder of Pennsylvania was born into the world. The day of his birth was Monday, October the fourteenth, 1644. 2 17 CHAPTER II. Sea-Gexeral Pexx (1644-1655). After Penn of Penn, and Penn of Penn's Lodge' the boy was christened William. Round in face, with soft blue eyes and curling hair the boy was 'a love ' not only in his mother's eyes^ but in his father's heart. Captain Penn had now a son to fight for; and as soon as Peg was fit to be left, her husband joined his ship and after visiting his admiral in the Downs, pushed onto Portsmouth, where he took Lord Broghill and his company on board. With Broghill Captain Penn formed a friendship which was never broken till his death, and which descended to his son. On landing Broghill at Kinsale, Penn put to sea and cruised about the opening of St. George's Channel from Milford Haven to the Cove of Cork. In this service he remained some years; the ablest, if not the boldest cruiser in that section of the Commonwealth fleet. The prizes which he seized were sometimes rich ; and he was able to remove his wife and child from the close atmos- phere of Tower Hill to the lawns and gardens of a country house. For some brief time he hired a place at Wanstead in Essex, to which he ran on leave. A daughter Margaret and a son Richard, were in season added to the nursery in which William broke his toys ; heirs not only to their father's gains, but the fortune made in foreign lands by 'Uncle George.' The first great grief which fell upon the Wan- stead circle came as news from San Lucar in Spain. 18 SEA-GENERAL PENN. An English factor living in a Spanish port. George Penn was watched with jealous eyes by native priests and monks who had unluckily, access to his house as the confessors of his wife and of the sisters of his wife. These women were not only Catholics in faith but subjects of Philip the Fourth. Now George was a prudent man ; a fac- tor who kept his shop and held his tongue ; so that malice could find no flaw in him even though it had three or four female confessions every week to work upon. But as he grew in wealth these priests grew angry at his blameless life. How could a heretic be a blameless man ? Was he ever seen at mass? Was he known to confess his sins? Did he honour the Spanish saints? Spies were set upon him ; his ^ife was questioned ; his wife's sis- ters were examined ; and when nothing could be found against him that would justify the civil power in dealing with his case they got from the Holy Ofiice in Seville a secret warrant for his ar- rest. Officers came down from Seville to San Lucar, broke into his house, anathematized him seized his papers and books impounded his goods his plate, his jewels, his furniture, his horses, and his slaves. They seized the things in his house and magazines, as well as those on board his ships in the port. Having got his person and his goods, they separated him from his ^ife and then with holy incantations, cast him out. body and soul, from the Church of Christ and the society of men. Nothing escaped the rapacity of these brigands ; from the wine in his cellar, to the nail in his wall. The property they seized was worth tweh^e thou- sand pounds. His wife was carried off he knew not whither; he himself was dragged to Seville, where he was cast into a dungeon, only eight 19 LIFE OF WILLIAM PEXX. feet square, and dark as the grave. In this living tomb he was left with a loaf of bread and a jug of water. For seven days no one came near him ; and then the jailor brought him another loaf another jug of water, and disappeared. No one was allowed to visit him in his cell no letter or message was suffered to be sent out. He vanished from the world as completely as if the earth had opened in the night and sucked him in. At the end of the first month of his confinement there was a break in the monotony of his life. The masked familiars of the Holy Office came into his cell, took him by the arms, stript him naked, tied him fast to the iron bars of his dungeon door, and one of them, armed with a whip of knotted cords, dealt out fifty lashes on his back. Each month this flogging was repeated, the new stripes cross- ing and tearing up the former wounds until his body was one festering sore. And all this time he was unable to learn the name of his accuser and the nature of his offence. He could not see his wife. He could not learn whether she was alive or dead. At every blow they asked him to confess his crimes. What crimes? They could not say: he must confess of his own will and virtue. What was he to say? He would have told them any- thing, true or false, to stay their hands; for George was not a martyr ; and he only wished to live and trade in peace. Three years elapsed without producing the con- fessions wanted by the Holy Office. George was then brought into the trial-chamber, and in the presence of seven judges was accused of various crimes :— of being a heretic ; of denying some of the seven sacraments; of presuming to marry a Catholic lady ; of persuading his wife to change 20 SEA-GENERAL PENX. her creed ; of meaning to carry his wife into Eng- land ; of not hearing- mass in San Lucar ; of not confessing to a priest; of eating flesh on fast- days ; and of doubting the miracles wrought by Spanish saints. He pleaded not guilty. But in- stead of producing witnesses to prove his alleged crimes, the judges ordered him to be tortured in their presence, until he confessed the truth of what was charged against him. For a while his strength and resolution bore him up ; but his tormentors persevered, and at the end of four hours of excruciating and accumulating torments, he offered to confess anything they would suggest. Not satisfied with a confession which by the usages of Spain gave up his whole property to the Holy Office, the judges put him to the rack again, and by still more refined and delicate torture forced from him a terrible oath that he would live and die a Catholic, and would defend that form of faith at the risk of his life against every enemy, on pain of being burned to death. He was then cut down from the rack, placed on a hurdle, and conveyed to his former dungeon, where the surgeon had to set his broken limbs, and swathe his lacerated flesh. A little light was now let into his cell ; but ten weeks elapsed before he could be lifted from his bed of pain. Neither George himself nor those who were nurs- ing him back to life, expected that he would quit his cell for any other purpose than to make a hol- iday for the Sevillian mob. Near to his dungeon lay the public square in which heretics Jews, and Moors, were burnt in honour of Holy Church. To that infamous square every man condemned by the Inquisition, and whether he confessed his sins or not. was always led ; and George supposed that when his limbs were strong enough to bear 21 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. his weight he would be marched like others to the place of death. He could not know as yet how strong of arm, how quick to save his country was becoming, since the Stuart dynasty was put away. Captain Penn while cruising off the coast of Munster, ran down a prize called the ,SY. Patrick, bound for Bilboa in Spain on board of which he found among his prisoners Don Juan de Urbina, secretary to the Spanish Viceroy of the Low Countries. Penn seized this great official, and stripping him naked thrust him into the hold. Don Juan talked big, as men like him are apt to do; and Seilor Bernardo, Philip's envoy in Lon- don, made complaints to the Council of the in- sult offered to a man of such high birth and such official rank. Of course, apologies were made; the Don was put into softer hands ; and Admiral Swanley was instructed to inquire into the con- duct of Captain Penn. Then came out the facts. If such acts of wild justice could not be openly maintained the tale of George's suffering went to the nation's heart. Don Juan was sent home in another ship, but the prisoner of the Holy Office in whose cause he had been seized, was snatched from the burning pile. So soon as ' Uncle George' could walk he was fetched from his cell in the Inquisition by the seven judges and their households; robed in the San Benito and carried in the midst of a great procession of monks and priests through the streets of Seville to the cathedral church. In this church a scaffold was raised up which they made him mount, so that every eye could see him as his sentence was slowly read by the secretary of the Inquisition. That sentence opened in the usual way. The prisoner was a heretic ; his goods were '22 SEA-GENERAL PENN. confiscated ; hia wife was taken from him ; but for certain reasons hia life was to be spared. He was pardoned by holy Church ; but he was driven out from Spain for ever; his wife was given to a good Catholic for the salvation of her soul; and he was threatened with fire and fagot should he fall away from his newly-adopted faith. While the three children of Captain l*enn were growing up at Wanstead, Penn was getting rich and rising to higher rank. His prizes yielded him a great deal more than he got in pay ; and some of this money he laid out in land. At twenty- three he was Rear-admiral in the Irish Sea; at twenty-five he was Yice-admiral ; and at twenty- nine, under the Commonwealth, he was sent as Vice-admiral into the Straits of Gibraltar, the ports and cities of which he had known from his earliest years. Great changes were taking place on land, of which he took but distant note. Charles Stuart, for whom his father had bought hawks and horses, had lost his crown and life. The hero of Dunbar and Worcester was lord of all. But the change from parliament to protector wrought no change in Vice-admiral Penn, who stuck to his duties and avoided politics. When Cromwell announced to the fleet that he had taken the reins of power into his own hands, Penn was one of the first to send in his adhesion, with that of all the officers under his command. For the next few years the hand of genius was felt in every department of the administration. While the great powers of the State were in con- flict. Spain had treated us with haughty disdain, —France had insulted us at every turn —even Hol- land fancied we were no longer worthy of her ire. But Cromwell's arms soon taught them better. 2.3 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. Ireland punished and Scotland pacified, he turned his resolute face towards Holland. France and Spain. The Dutchman lay the nearest and had most provoked his wTath ; but Holland was pre- eminently a naval power, and in dealing with her his invincible infantry was of little use. Genius finds its own resources. Resolved to infuse into the navy, as he had already done into the army his own heroic spirit, he employed in his fleet two captains of his camp, Blake and Monk; but these ofiicers, though filled with an energy of spirit like his own, were in a great measure ignorant of the sea. All that courage, activity, and resolution could do he expected them to accomplish ; but he saw the necessity of placing by the side of these soldiers a worthy sea-captain, and for this important post he selected the young Admiral of the Straits. The Lord Protector knew that Penn was not at- tached to his person and government; but he needed his services; and seeing that Penn was a worldly man, and of the earth most earthy, he supposed that pensions and honours could secure his sword, if not his heart. WTiat Cromwell wanted was his sword. Vice-admiral Penn had no objection to fight the countrymen of his wife. He was a sailor, as he used to say, and must be faithful to his flag. When peace was made with Holland, Cromwell turned to Spain, the old and strenuous enemy of his country. England had a thousand scores to settle with the Spanish court; and two great ex- peditions were prepared in silence in the spring of 1655 ; one expedition, under Sea-general Blake, to act in Europe, sweep the Spanish coasts, and fight the Spanish fleets wherever he could find them ; while a second expedition was to cross the ocean, search the Spanish main, alarm the coasts and 24 SEA-GENERAL PENN. islands, take possession of San Domingo and St. John's— if possible —and seize some portion of the continent such as Cartagena. Cromwell meant to break the power of Spain at sea and in the west. Penn had served as Vice-admiral under Blake, who was a Somersetshire man, and it was perhaps on Blake's suggestion that the second fleet was placed under Penn's command. Before he went on board the young Vice-admiral made his terms with Cromwell. Penn wanted money and he wanted rank. Both were heaped upon him by the Lord Protector. Under the pretence that an estate which Penn had bought near Cork had suffered by the civil war, Cromwell wrote a letter v\ith his own hand to the Irish commissioners, requesting that, in consideration of good and faithful service to the Commonwealth, lands of the full yearly value of three hundred pounds should be surveyed and set apart for Admiral Penn in a convenient place, near a castle or other fortified place, for their better security, and with a good house for him to live in. Cromwell made a special, even a personal, request that his Irish agents would obey this order in such a way as to leave no cause of trouble to either the Admiral or his family; so that they might enjoy the full benefit of this reward in peace while the gallant sailor was engaged in fighting his country's battles in a distant sea. This matter settled, there was nothing but the question of professional rank. Cromwell gave the young Admiral his heart's desire by raising him to the same high rank as Blake. Penn w^as the only regular sailor who was made a General of the Fleet. A few days after Penn set sail from Spithead. with these rewards and honours fresh about him. he despatched a secret offer to Prince Charles, 25 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. then living at Cologne, to place the whole of his great fleet and army at the prince's disposal if his highness would indicate a port in which they would be received. Ever watching for a chance to rise, Sea-general Penn observed when Cromwell's fame was highest, that he stood upon his personal merit, while the nation was rather Royalist than Oliverian, The Lord Protector could not live for ever ; after him would come a feeble youth; and then the Com- monwealth might fall. In falling it would crush the men who served it ; but, for his part he would not be crushed. Penn cared no more, in truth for Charles than Oliver. The man for whom he toiled was Admiral Penn; and with a view to the se- curity of Admiral Penn he sent that secret mes- sage to Cologne. Charles thanked the sailor for his message, and he kept his eye on Penn in after days but for the moment he declined to act. Charles had no ports in which he could receive his ships no funds to pay the seamen, nothing for a fleet to do unless, like Rupert, he was minded to embark in a pirati- cal cruise. He told the young Sea-general to com- plete his voyage, and keep his loyalty for a bet- ter time. The exiled court were glad to see the Commonwealth at war with Spain for they were eager to make friends in Seville and Madrid. Penn's message, though they had to pass it by, was welcome as a sign of disaffection in the ser- vice and supposing that the offer would be made again they moved the King of Spain, as the most powerful enemy of their country, to allow them one of his ports in which to gather up their fleet. Though Cromwell knew about the offer and the answer to it, he was silent in the Council, and 26 SEA-GENERAL PEXX. allowed the fleet from Portsmouth to proceed upon her voyage. The expedition failed. Venables who command- ed the army (and was also oftering to de.^ert his flag) , was beaten under the walls of t>an Domingo, and but for the rapid march and onset of a body of sailors, sent by Penn to his assistance, would have been completely mauled. On falling back from Hispaniola the men were so incensed by the failure that Penn resolved to attack the island of Jamaica which he conquered and annexed to England at a very slight sacrifice of life. Sea-general Penn was struck with the resources and the beauties of this island, which in after years he made a subject of his constant talk. A keen examination of the soil and climate, gave him an idea of parting with his Irish lands and laying out his money in the new plantation. But on Penn's return the Lord Protector was in angry mood affecting to regard the failure of his great design as due to the incompetency of his chiefs. Land-general Venables threw the blame on Sea-general Penn ; Sea-general Penn threw the blame on Land-general Venables. For reasons which he kept a secret. Cromwell bade his pliant council strip them of their several ofiices and dig- nities, and eend them under escort to the Tower. 27 CHAPTER III. School and College ( 1655-1661. ) Admiral Penn's arrest (September 20. 1655 ) threw his family affairs into confusion. Margaret was at Wanstead with the younger children. Peg and Richard. William was at school in Chigwell. Uncle George had just arrived with proofs of his great losses by the Inquisition : twelve thousand pounds, besides his house, his business, and his wife. He was expecting Admiral Penn to aid him with the Lord Protector, but instead of finding his famous brother powerful at White- hall, he found him fretting in a dungeon of the Tower. Margaret fetched her son William to Wanstead, where he fell into a low and feverish state of mind. One day a sort of vision came to him. Sitting in his room he was surprised by a strange feeling in his heart, and by as strange a radiance in his chamber. What it was that filled his veins and flashed into his eyes he could not tell. He was not yet eleven years old. But as he sat alone, in wretched mood, and in a darkish room, he felt a joyous rush of blood along his veins, and saw his chamber fill with what he called a soft and holy light. It was a vision and a visitation. What it meant he could not say ; but that he felt the sudden joy and saw the sacred light, he knew and held so long as he could know and hold by any incident of his early life. The Admiral made every efi'ort to procure his freedom. He was soon aware that he must pay 28 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. a heavy price for his enlargement. He must crave a pardon from the Lord Protector; he must for- mally confess his faults; he must surrender his commission as General of the Fleet ; he must quit the service of his country. Nor were these condi- tions all. He was to live in future at his Irish house, near Cork, and was to have no share in the great distribution of Jamaica lands. Unable to do better, he was forced to sign these terms; the Tower was killing him ; but on resigning his commission to the Lord Protector he was set at large. Five weeks in the Tower had all but fretted him to death. Impoverished and dismissed — no longer paid as General of the Fleet — no longer ranked as claim- ant to a share of the Jamaica lands— no longer suffered to remain near London, Penn broke up his house at Wanstead. gathered in his little folk, and sailed, a poor and discontented man, for county Cork. Macroom, his future home, a town on the river Sullane. twenty miles west of Cork, had been the property of Lord Muskerry, one of the most vigorous partizans of Charles in Ireland. ^Yhen the royal cause was lost, Macroom was seized by the victorious Roundheads, and the castle and estate were given by Cromwell's order to his 'faithful' servant. Admiral Penn. The Lord Protector's policy in Ireland was to plant in every shire an English colony, and when he gave a patch of land to any favourite, he was careful that it should be near a castle or a fort. Macroom was strong enough to shield an English colony. A troop of horse and company of foot were sta- tioned in the town, and Penn had been author- ised and expected to send out a body of skilful husbandmen. His term of power had been too short for much to have been done ; but some few 29 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. English had arrived whose industry had much in- creased the worth of Cromwell's gift. For more than three years Admiral Penn resided with his wife and little ones at Macroom, engaged in planting his estate. His eldest son, to whom this planting w^as a lesson of immense importance, was a bright and forward lad from twelve to fiaeen years of age. Though tall and slim the boy was firmly knit. He liked to run and ride, to scull and sail, and had a passionate delight in country sports. In things of business he was al- most like a man. Besides the castle town, and manor of Macroom, Penn held the neighbouring castle, town, and manor of Killcrea the whole containing many thousand acres of good land, with much conven- ient wood. He bought more land from Roger Boyle, his friend and neighbour, whom he joined in drinking secret healths to Charles. He also prayed Lord Henry Cromwell, son of Oliver, for leases of some districts near his property alleging that he wished to tenant them with English hands. With sure and patient toil, assisted by his active son, who seemed to have a natural bent that way, the Admiral improved his lands; here mending roads, there forming nurseries, in a third place planting gardens, in a fourth place building farms. In three years the estate had risen in rental from something like three hundred pounds a-year to eight hundred and fifty-eight pounds a-year. Good tutors were in plenty at Macroom and Cork, and Penn the Younger made such rapid pro- gress in his learning that at fifteen he was ripe for Oxford and the Admiral, on talking with his friends, Ormonde and Boyle, resolved that he should go to Christ Church. This matter was arranged in 1659; a year of .30 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. many changes in the Admiral's prospects. Crom- well died. So soon as sure intelligence of his death arrived in county Cork the Admiral put himself into correspondence with his royalist friends Boyle and Ormonde ; but on seeing how affairs went on in London they concluded that it would be well to wait events and not commit themselves by any overt act. They had not long to wait. Six months sufficed to wear out Richard Cromwell's force, and when the news of his deposition reached Macroom. Penn threw away his mask, declared for Charles the Second, and immediately set out for the Low Countries to kiss his master's hand. Charles was so glad to see the Admiral that he knighted him on the spot, and promised him his lasting favour. Penn returned to England where he found himself on Monk's suggestion called to serve in parliament, with his old comrade Sea- general Montagu for the town of Weymouth. When the resolution for recalling Charles the Second w.-is adopted by the two houses. Montagu was named commander of the royal fleet and Penn took ship with him. in order to be one among the first to throw himself at his future sovereign's feet. The King was kind to him; but Charles had friends much closer to his heart than Admiral Penn. Among these closer friends was Lord Mus- kerry, his father's partizan. whom he had re- cently created Earl of Clancarty. Lord Clan- carty's house was that Macroom which Penn had been improving with his capital and skill. The King was fixed on giving Lord Clancarty all that he had lost; the Penns must therefore quit Ma- croom. His Majesty was pleased to say that they should have some other lands ; but they must leave at once, in order that Clancarty might go 31 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. home in peace. To soften this hard blow, the King appointed Penn a Commissioner of the Navy, with a salary of five hundred pounds a-year, and lodgings in Navy Gardens, and he promised to make the Lords Justices of Ireland find among the forfeited estates of Roundheads something that would more than pay him for his losses in Macroom. Lady Penn being housed in her fine lodgings at the Navy Gardens, Admiral Penn was happy, though he had to keep a wistful eye on the Irish lands. He gave good dinners, kept high company, resorted, as the fashion led him, to the playhouse and the cock-pit. Lady Penn set up her coach. The Admiral, who had been a Puritan among the Puritans, became a roystering blade with the re- turning Cavaliers. He supped at the Dolphin and the Three Crowns, took the comedians into his favour, lived on easy terms with the play-writers, and paid his compliments to every pretty hussy on the stage. Dick Broome, the profligate author of ' The Jovial Crew,' became a guest in his house. Pepys calls this libeller 'Sir William's poet;' and the Navy Gardens were a scene for romps and jinks that faintly echoed the festivities of White- hall. Sir William followed in the wake of greater men, for he was bent on rising in the world. His Irish friends were gaining great rewards from Charles. Boyle was created Earl of Orrery, and named Lord President of Munster. Ormonde, with the higher grade of marquis, was become Lord Steward of the Household and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Penn was made Governor of the town and Cap- tain of the fort of Kinsale; a post which gave him the title of Admiral of Ireland, with fees amount- ing to four hundred pounds a-year. Penn had 32 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. therefore gained in these two oflBces of Naval Commissioner and Governor of Kinsale nine hun- dred pounds a-year from the grateful King. But Charles, who wished to bind him closer to his person, wrote with his own hand to the Lords Justices in Dublin that a good estate, of equal value to the one restored to Lord Clancartj, must be set aside for Penn in county Cork, as near as might be to his port and castle of Kinsale. When Admiral Penn had put his house in order, he was anxious that his son. — whose talents seemed to him of the finest order, and whose love of business and open-air exercises promised to make him a man of active habits and worldly am- bition. — should proceed to the University. In Oc- tober Penn the Younger went to Oxford, where he matriculated as a gentleman commoner at Christ Church. Oxford was then the seat of wit as well as of scholarship. In the chair of the Dean sat the famous controversialist. Dr. John Owen, soon to become an object of royalist persecution. South, too long repressed, had now obtained a hearing, and. as Orator to the University, he was preparing those sermons which are still regarded by lovers of old literature as models of grace. Jack Wilmot too was there, scattering about him those gleams of wit and devilry which in after-life endeared the Earl of Rochester to his graceless King. Most notable of all the ornaments of Ox- ford was John Locke — an unknown student of Christ Church, devoting in a sequestered cloister his serene and noble intellect to the study of medi- cine. Being twelve years older than Penn. it is not probable that these two men contracted more than a casual acquaintance at Christ Church; but in later life they met again— rivals in legisla- 3 33 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. tion and mediators for each other in the hour of need. Penn entering on his academical career under the auspices of the King and Duke of York, ob- tained a good position in the circle of his college. As a student he gave satisfaction to his superiors ; as a boater and rider he became a favourite with his set. His reading at this time was solid and ex- tensive, and his acquisition of knowledge was as- sisted by an excellent memory. For a boy. he left Oxford well acquainted with history and theology. Of languages he had more than ordinary share. Either then or afterwards he read the chief writers of Greece and Italy in their native tongues ; and gained a thorough knowledge of French. German. Dutch and Italian. Later in life he added to this stock of languages two or three dialects of the Red men. But his pleasure and recreation while at Christ Church was in reading the doctrinal dis- cussions to which the Puritans gave rise. The court of Charles had infected the higher classes of society before the Restoration actually took place ; and that mixture of vice and wit, politeness and irreligion, which was soon to characterise the youth of England, was already turning the Uni- versity into a den of rakes and dupes. There were not wanting protests. Many of the young men there collected had in early youth some better no- tion of religion and morality, — and they resisted every attempt to introduce a more lax and court- ly ceremonial into the services of the Church. Dr. Owen, made Dean of Christ Church by order of Parliament in 1658. was ejected from his office to make room for Dr. Reynolds ; a change in- tended, among other things to prepare for the introduction of a more picturesque ritual than had latterly been in use. This measure was un- 34 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. popular with the Puritan students, and Owen kept up a constant correspondence with the mem- bers of his college, in which he incited them to re- main firm in their rejection of papistical rites. Tin- der his high sanction, many of them opposed the innovations of the court. William Penn stood foremost. From the trials of his Uncle George he had learnt to loathe the practices of a persecuting Church. Yet it was not without pain that Penn found his conscience at war with the jirinces whom his father delighted to serve. From the frequent references to these times made by him in after-life, it is evident that his sufferings were acute. As the light of truth dawned on his mind he was sur- prised and terrified to find how dark all was out- side. Everywhere, to use his own expression, he saw that a reign of darkness and debauchery was commencing ; and his hope for the future came to lie in a vague, romantic fancy, that a virtuous and holy empire free from bigotry and from the formalism of a State religion — might be founded in that far-off Western World which had so often formed a topic at his father's hearth. In this fancy his mind discovered a real 'opening of joy.' While the quarrel of Cavalier and Puritan was raging at Oxford, an obscure person, named Thomas Loe— a layman of that city— took to preaching a new doctrine which was taught by one George Fox. The neglect of forms and cere- monies in the ritual of the Friends as the New People called themselves, attracted Penn and others, who like him were in revolt against the restoration of popish usages ; and going to hear the preaching of this strange word the young men got excited and returned to hear. Their absence from chapel was noticed ; their superiors became alarmed ; the young defaulters were arraigned and 35 Lin^ OF WILLIAM PENN. fined. This indignity drove them wild ; and as the fines were laid at the moment when a new rule about college gowns came out. the youngsters banded themselves together to oppose the orders of the court by force. They marched through the streets. They not only refused to wear the new gown, but declared war against all who put it on. In the gardens of Christ Church, in the quadrangles of colleges, they set upon the courtly youths and tore the vestments from their backs. In these affairs young Penn was always in the front ; and on the facts being proved against him he was cen- sured and expelled. 36 CHAPTER IV. The Wokli) (1661-1666). On hearing of his sou's offence of Non-conform- ity, the Admiral was deeply grieved. The world was going well with him. He was a Naval Com- missioner, a Member of Parliament. Governor of Kinsale, Admiral of Ireland, a Member of the Council of Munster, and a favourite of the Duke of York. The King was kind to him and something more. The Lords Justices had found him an es- tate in Shangarry Castle, county Cork. An Eng- lish peerage lay within his reach, and in his choice of title he had fixed his mind on Weymouth, the port for which he sat in parliament. That such a lad as his son \Yilliam. with his love of sport and business, should become a ranter and a mystic, was so droll a fancy, that the Admiral could only laugh it off. Yet he was troubled with reports from Oxford, and his rivals at the Navy Gardens noted with a secret joy his clouded brow, his wist- ful manner, and his silent tongue. The boy was brought to London, to the Navy Gardens, in the hope that a course of hard dining and late dancing might do him good. His moth- er. Lady Penn. was of a merry mood, and Peg, his sister, was a perfect romi). Sir William kept a pleasant table ; entertained the best of company ; enjoyed a supper at the Bear, and was a frequent visitor in the pit of Drary Lane. Broome's com- edy of the 'Jovial Crew,' a satire on the Puritans, was then being acted at the old Cock-pit, and Sir William took his son to see it. 'To the theatre.' ^7 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. writes Pepys under date of November 1, 1661, 'to see the Jovial Crew. At my house Sir William sent for his son, William Penn, lately come from Ox- ford.' William Penn was not corrected in his no- tions by the Jovial Crew. Sir William tried all courses with his son. He shut .him up; he took him to the play; he had him whipt ; he joked and laughed at him ; he treat- ed him with silent rage. But nothing he could do prevailed. The boy continued in a low and serious frame of mind ; he shunned society ; he sang no bal- lads ; nay. he even gave up dog and gun. He wrote to Dr. Owen, who replied to him, as to a favourite pupil ; and the young man could not be induced, by dice and cards, by plays and suppers, to admit that he was wrong in resisting the King's commands about wearing the college gown. Yet every one who came near Penn observed that he was strong in wit and purpose, even as he was soft of face. Every one liked him, and spoke well of him ; and of those who knew him well, the Admiral loved him most. To quarrel with this favourite, more than was needful for his good, was what the scheming Admiral had neither will nor power to do ; and after giving much thought to what he ought to try he changed his method of proceeding with his son. It occurred to him that the best way to withdraw a young man from sombre thought and inferior company would be to send him to the gay capital of France. His son had not yet seen the world .—he proposed to him to set out immediately for Paris. Some of his college friends were going into France to study, and it was soon arranged that he should join them. Some of these young men were of the high- est rank, and every door in France would open 38 THE WORLD. to their knock. At Paris, where they stayed a few weeks only. Penn was presented to Louis Qiiatorze and became a welcome guest at court. There he made the acquaintance of Robert Spen- cer, son of the first Earl of Sunderland, and Lady Dorothy Sydney— sister of the famous Algernon Sydney. France was very gay. and in a few weeks William Penn forgot the gravity of his life. Re- turning late one night from a party, he was ac- costed in the dark street by a man who shouted to him in angry tones to draw and defend him- self. At the same moment a sword gleamed past his eyes. The fellow would not listen to reason. Penn he said, had treated him with contempt. He had bowed his head and taken off his hat in salutation : — his courtesy had been slighted, and he would have satisfaction made to his wounded pride. In vain the young Englishman protested he had not seen him — that he could have no mo- tive for offering such an insult to a stranger. The more he showed the absurdity of the quarrel the more enraged his assailant grew ; he would say no more — the only answer which he deigned was a pass with his rapier. Penn's blood was now stirred ; and whipping his sword from its scabbard, he stood to the attack. There was but little light ; yet several persons were attracted by the clash of steel; and a number of roysterers gathered round to see fair play. A few passes proved that Penn was the more expert swordsman ; and a dexterous movement threw the French gallant's blade into the air. He might have run the man through, and those who gathered round the combatants expected him to do so. Penn picked up the fallen sword, and gave it back with his politest bow. On hearing how his son was living at Paris, Admiral Penn felt glad that he was far away from 31) LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. Puritans like John Owen and Quakers like Thomas Loe. He thought of a career in life for him, and spoke to Ormonde on the subject. Ormonde said the lad would make a soldier, and the Admiral fixed his mind on the career of arms. But William was too young- for life in camp, and he had much as yet to learn from books. He must be sent to school. His father, therefore, made arrangements with Professor Amyrault of Saumur, on the river Loire, to board and teach him, and in sunny An- jou Penn the Younger spent the two years which he should have passed in Oxford, reading the classics and the fathers, pondering over theologi- cal mysteries, and mastering the poetry, the lan- guage, and the history of France. At nineteen years of age he left Saumur and passed through Switzerland into Italy. Spencer was a companion of his travels, and in some part of his journey he fell in with Spencer's uncle, Alger- non Sydney, then in exile, and became at once his pupil and his friend. In the summer days of 1664, while William Penn was not yet twenty years of age, he was recalled to London by his father, who was no less eager to see him back on private than on public grounds. Uncle George, who had been teasing Charles for justice several years, died before his case was heard in council, leaving to his younger brother all his claims on Spain. Poor George had trudged from park to lodge waylaying Charles and James, and forcing them to hear his plaints, until the King, who knew that he had suffered grievous wrongs, proposed to send him to Madrid as envoy to the court of Philip the Fourth. If George were in Madrid, as envoy from his sovereign, justice might be done to him ; but the appointment was 40 THE WORLD. hardly made before the sufferer died ; when all his claims against the Spanish Crown devolved on Admiral Penn — a vast addition to his cares and a perpetual drain upon his purse. The sum origi- nally seized at San Lucar was twelve thousand pounds in English money. Twenty-one years had passed, and as the price of money in the South of Spain was ten or twelve per cent, the claim had grown from twelve to forty thousand pounds. If Penn demanded less he would be moderate. This affair required attention which the Admiral could not give. Sir William was in fact at sea. So soon as Charles the Second was restored the Dutch revived their ancient dream of naval su- premacy, and their pretensions had at length out- wearied the patience of Whitehall. War was de- clared. James. Duke of York, Lord Admiral of England, divided his fleet into three squadrons, one of which he gave to Prince Rupert, a second to Lord Sandwich, and the third he kept in hand. Not one of these commanders had ever directed a great naval fight ; not one was qualified, by ex- perience and ability, to contend against veterans like De Ruyter and De Witt. Sandwich was a soldier, Rupert a freebooter, and James, though he had distinguished himself under Turenne. was yet a stranger to the quarterdeck. It was not safe to trifle with such seamen as the Dutch. James wanted the best captains, the best sailors in the kingdom, and in spite of Sandwich's jealousy and Rupert's rage, the royal Duke consulted Admiral Penn. Sir William Penn advised him to employ in his service the old and dauntless captains of the Commonwealth. ' Take no notice of their religion, and I will answer for their courage.' said Penn. The Duke of York had strength enough to resist the royalist clamour when this advice was known ; 41 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. and many of Blake's old captains were appointed to commands by James. That all the benefit of Penn's skill and courage might be given to his country Penn was named Great Captain Com- mander, and ordered to take his station on the Duke's flag-ship, to direct the most important movements of the fleet. \Yhile he was thus employed at sea, Sir \Yilliani thought it well to have his son at home ; in part to watch the family affairs in Cork in part to save him from arrest in France. The French were leaning towards alliance with the Dutch and if the treaty, then in secret preparation should be signed, a hostage like the Admiral's eldest son was very likely to be seized. As fast as post could carry him Penn returned from Italy through Savoy, and arrived about the middle of August, 1664:, at the Navy Gardens to the great delight of Peg and Lady Penn. The boy was nearly twenty years of age ; but what a change from the moody, silent lad who went from home two years ago ! He had a fine outside ; a little over-fine, some critics said. ' A most modish person' little Mr. Pepys exclaimed; 'grown a fine gentleman.' He wore French panta- loons ; he carried his rapier in the French mode ; he doffed his hat on going into a room. His French was perfect and he spoke like one who had seen the Alps and the Italian cities. 'Something of learning he has got ' wTote Pepys ' but a great deal, if not too much of the vanity of the French garb, and affected manner of gait and speech.' In person he had grown into a graceful, strong, and handsome man. His face was mild and almost womanly in its beauty ; his eye was soft and full ; his brow was open and ample; his features, well defined, approached the ideal ; and the lines about 42 THE WORLD. his mouth were sweet, yet firm. Like Milton, he wore his hair long and parted in the centre of the forehead, from which it fell over his neck and shoulders in massive ringlets. In mien and man- ner he was formed by nature stamped by art — a gentleman. The Admiral took care to drop all reference to the past. To lessen what was still the risk of a return to old companions, he kept the young man constantly engaged. He carried him to the gal- lery at Whitehall —presented him to great persons, — made him pay court visits. The Navy Gardens rang with feast and jollity, for Peg was now growing up and Lady Penn was more inclined for merriment than ever. Sir William placed his son as a student at Lincoln's Inn, that he might ac- quire some scraps of law. Allowing him no leisure to indulge in idle fancies he employed him on the King's business and in his ovsti private affairs. There seemed no fear that he would now go wrong. Then came the crisis of the war. On the 24th of March, 1665, the Duke of York, accompanied by Penn as Great Captain Commander, and many great persons, went on board the Royal Charles. The younger Penn was on his father's staff, and saw during the few days he remained at sea some service between the Dutch and English fleets. Meanwhile his mother and the ladies left behind in the Navy Gardens kept high jinks. ' Going to my Lady Batten,' says Pepys, 'there found a great many women with her, in her chamber, merry ; my Lady Penn and her daughter among others, when my Lady Penn flung me down on the bed, and herself and others one after another upon me and very merry we were.' Admiral Batten was on board the fleet with Admiral Penn. The little Clerk of the Acts was the only man left 43 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. in the Navy Gardens to make pastime for these merry wives. Dick Broome himself could hardly have imagined a more 'jovial crew.' On Sunday, twenty-third day of April, 1665. Penn the Younger landed at Harwich with de- spatches from the Duke of York to Charles, and from Sir William Coventry to Lord Arlington. Secretary of State. He pressed for horses, as the Duke of York's instructions to him were — that he should get on shore, should ride as hard as horse could carry him, should go at once to the King's apartments, and should make a full report of what was being done at sea. By tearing on all night Penn reached Whitehall before the sun was up, and finding that the King was still in bed, he sent a message to Lord Arlington, who rose at once and passed into his master's bedroom. Charles leaped up on hearing that despatches from the Duke were come, and running into the ante-room, met William Penn. ' Oh, it's you 1 How is Sir William?' Having read the Duke's let- ter, chatted with the messenger, and asked about Sir William several times, Charles bade the youth go home and get to bed. In June the fight came off; a striking victory for the English flag; a glory reaped by James, as first in rank, but which his royal highness was too frank in spirit not to share with Admiral Penn. In the same month the plague broke out in London, and the havoc wrought by this disease was chiefly in the districts lying round the Tower. It was a thing to make the merriest romp in the Navy Gardens pause. When Admiral Penn came home, he was an- noyed to see how great a change this plague had wTought in his eldest son. The youth was grave and silent; he had left off speaking French; had U THP] WORLD. ceased to carry his hat in hand ; and all but ceased to show himself at court. His days were spent in reading, and the friends who came to him were men of sober life. Again the Admiral's hopes, now nearer fruit than ever, were in check. What could he do with such a moody youth? Suppose the lad turned ranter? He had tried the 'Jovial Crew' before. A good idea struck him. William might be sent to Ireland ; first to Dublin, where the Duke of Ormonde would be glad to see him ; afterwards to Shangarry Castle, where there was much for him to do, not only on his family es- tate, but in his oflBce at Kinsale. To Ireland he was sent. In order to provide him with abundant work, he was appointed Clerk of the Cheque at Kinsale harbour, and encouraged to believe that if he felt inclined to enter His Majesty's service he might get his father's com- pany of foot. 45 CHAPTER V. Father and Son (1666-1667). The Penns were fond of county Cork,. in which they had already spent some years and as their new estate — when it was free to them — would be larger than any one they could hope to buy in either Somerset or Essex, Admiral Penn was scheming for a settlement of his family in that picturesque and fertile shire. His kinsmen wished him to recover Penn's Lodge near Minety ; but the place was small and he had grown too great for the ambition of a country squire. His house at Chigwell was too paltry for the dignity of a peer. Shangarry Castle with the lands which had been set apart for him at Postilion and Inchy. gave him what he could not find in England. — an address, a residence, and a rental of a thousand pounds a-year. His eyes were therefore turned towards county Cork, as likely to become his future home. Penn sailed for Dublin ; where he waited on the Duke of Ormonde. Before going down to Cork, he was to see Sir George Lane, the Irish secre- tary, and make as many friends as he could win at court. Lord Ossory, the Duke's eldest son was absent from Dublin but Lord Arran was at home, and he and William Penn became fast friends. The Duke was pleased with Penn and in a week or two accounts were sent to the Admiral assuring him that in separating his son from his London associates he had turned the current of his thoughts. Instead of moping in his room, the 4(5 FATHER AND SON. youth was always in the circle gay and bright, with pretty foreign manners and a spirit to at- tempt the boldest things. The Butlers were a family of soldiers and the pomp and circumstance of war were topmost in the thoughts of Arran and his comrades. Penn was not behind these young- sters. While he was in Dublin, waiting on the court a mutiny took place at C'arrickfergus (May. 1666). where the insurgents seized the castle and alarmed the country-side from Antrim to Belfast. To Arran was assigned the duty of suppressing this revolt, and Penn took service with his friend. The mutineers fought well, but bit by bit were driven into the fort and then the fort itself was stormed. Young Penn was talked of as the coolest of the cool, the bravest of the brave. Lord Arran was delighted with him ; for the young swordsman of Paris had become the proud sol- dier of Carrickfergus ; and the Duke at once wTote off to tell the Admiral he was ready to confer on his son William that command of the company at Kinsale, which they had talked about for him be- fore the lad returned from France. Though Penn could not be made into a boon companion, a friend of comedians, and a partner in the romps and jinks of the Navy Gardens, there was still a chance of seeing him grow up into a soldier of his country and a bearer of his cross,— a hero of the stamp of Thomas Grey. The glory won at Carrickfergus made him long to get his company. The fit was on him and he wanted to appear at Kinsale as Captain Penn instead of Clerk of the Cheque. His zeal amused and grati- fied his parents; but the Admiral had begun to change his plans. Affairs were looking ill at court ; Sir William saw no chance of going to sea again ; and he was talking of retiring to Shan- 47 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. garry Castle and his government of Kinsale. If they should go to Cork, it would be well to keep the offices they had got; but if his son received his company of foot he must lose his highly prof- itable Clerkship of the Cheque. 'Well, Sir/ said the Duke of Ormonde to his guest before his courtiers, 'has Sir William given you his company at Kinsale?' 'He has promised it, your grace,' replied young Penn ; ' and your lordship has promised to favour his request when made.' 'But has he written nothing?' 'He is far from London, and is busy fitting out the fleet.' The Admiral affected to regard his son as being too young for such a post as Captain at Kin- sale. When Penn was eager, he requested him to live a 'sober life.' and told him in the plainest terms he was too 'young' and 'rash.' Heroes at forty-five are apt to rail at heroes of twenty-two. The veteran, when he told his son not to let his 'desires' outrun his 'discretion,' forgot that he was himself a captain at twenty-one. Before the vision of a life in camp and field was gone for ever, Penn had himself painted with his harness on his back. It was the only portrait for which he ever sat; and thus the single record which the world possesses of a man whose name is Peace displays him in a coat of shining steel. When he had warned his son to live a 'sober' life at Kinsale, the Admiral gave him hints about doing his duty to the crown, yet making money in his office of the Cheque. The post was one of some account, A Clerk of the Cheque had to deal with captains of ships ; to keep the poll-books; and to certify the accuracy of all accounts. He had the charge of govern- 48 FATHER AND SON. ment stores and property, civil and warlike. He had to give out rations and supplies, and to see that the musters on board each ship agreed with the entries on the books. As Clerk of the Cheque Penn would live in county Cork, within easy reach of the family estate, which also needed his constant care. Sir William's old friend. Roger. Earl of Orrery (known among the literary and scientific Boyles as poet and dramatist) , was living at Cork as President of Munst«r, and in this able and bril- liant nobleman Penn soon found a steadfast friend. Penn resided chiefly at Kinsale. attending to the duties of his office ; giving out rope and tar. pay- ing seamen's wages, counting tallies, and living, as the Admiral wished him to live, a 'sober' life. His superiors in the King's service were well pleased with him ; Lord Orrery gave him the rank of Ensign in a company of horse ; and during the darker days of the Dutch war we hear of Ensign Penn running to and fro ; fitting out ships, throw- ing chains across the harbour, rallying soldiers in the fort. It was still on the cards that William Penn might come to be Captain Penn. While Ensign Penn was running to and fro about the business of his post, he kept an eye on his own affairs at Shangarry Castle. As in every other grant of forfeited lands, a multitude of suits sprang up ; the royal warrant was disputed ; and the tenant, Colonel Wallis. was a man who would not yield to either duke or king. In vain the Lords Justices showed him the King's own words. ' The King has no right to give away these lands ; the law alone can say if they were forfeit to the crown.' Much prudence was required in dealing with Colonel Wallis. but the young and soft nego- 4 49 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. tiator brought the fiery old soldier to a calmer frame of mind. In London things were jogging on as usual. Margaret Penn had found 'a servant' in Antony Lowther, of Maske, in Yorkshire; a man of good family, wealthy, and devoted to her. Sir William was either at the court the Navy Office or the playhouse daily, with Sir William Coventry, Ad- miral Batten, or some other comrade, pushing his fortunes and deserving all he got. The Admiral was liked by all his equals ; and enjoyed the high- est favour of the King and Duke of York. Though growing old (and Pepys adds, 'ugly'), Lady Penn kept up her spirits. 'Supped at home, and very merry,' says their garrulous neighbour, 'and about nine to Mrs. Mercer's gate .... and there mighty merry ; my Lady Penn and Peg going thither with us. and Nan Wright, till about twelve at night ; flinging our fireworks and burning one another, and the people over the way ; and at last our business being most spent, we went into Mrs. Mercer's, and there mighty merry, smutting one another with candle-grease and soot, till most of us were like devils.' Even these high jinks were nothing to what came in the early hours. Pepys carried the whole party to his lodgings in the Navy Office, where they drank still more and then began to reel and dance. Pepys and two other men put on women's clothes. They dressed the maid-servant like a boy, and got her to dance a jig. 'Nan Wright, my wife and Peg Penn' says the Navy Clerk, 'put on periwigs; thus we spent till 'three or four in the morning; mighty merry, and then parted, and to bed.' A very jovial crew 1 It was in London, not at Kinsale or Dublin, that the question of the Irish lands was to be settled. The Land Commissioners appointed by the Crown 50 FATHER AND SON. to hear the multitude of cases which had risen dur- ing twenty years of grants, confiscations, forfeit- ures, and restorations were then sitting ; but the Admiral had begun to feel a greater confidence in his son's tact and judgment than his own. He wrote to his son, desiring hiui to get the family affairs into an orderly state and then come over and see the Commissioners ; at the same time giv- ing him some worldly hints as to the conduct of the victualling department of Kinsale Castle, and begging him to make the passage in calm weather, so as to run no risk. Penn joyfully obeyed his father's summons, as he had not seen his mother and sister for a long time, and he arrived in Lon- don in the month of November. The business was arranged. After hearing evidence on both sides, the Land Commissioners confirmed the grant of Shangarry Castle to Sir William Penn. Assured of this addition to his fortune, the Ad- miral was less intent about his brother George's claims. He set up several coaches ; he arranged his daughter's marriage with Lowther ; and in the face of his expected barony of Weymouth, talked of buying Wanstead House. Antony and Peg were married, rather quietly, on the 15th of February, 1667. Sir William gave his daughter a large fortune; some said fifteen thousand pounds I His cousin, John Gorges, mem- ber for Cirencester, begged him to purchase the old place in Wiltshire; but Penn's Lodge, the ^genteel ancient house.' was not a big one, and his thoughts were steadily directed towards the county Cork, his future home. Peg's dress and jewels were like those of a duchess ; and neither the King nor the King's ministers had a coach so fine as hers. When Peg was happily married, Penn returned 51 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. to Cork, where he was wanted much. His father saw him go with pleasure ; for the romps and feasts of the Navy Gardens drove him into moody ways ; and in despatching him to Ireland he was thinking only of the active life awaiting him in county Cork, the duties of his office, and the care of his estate. Soon after Penn arrived, he heard that Thomas Loe the Quaker was about to preach in Cork. He went to hear him. wondering how his riper judgment would receive the eloquence that had stirred him when at Christ Church. Loe gave out his text, 'There is a faith that overcomes the world, and there is a faith that is overcome by the world,' a topic but too well adapted to his state of mind. That evening Penn became a Friend. Attending Loe's services, he soon began to taste the cup for which he had exchanged the world. In no corner of these islands were the Quakers treat- ed fairly, and least of anywhere in county Cork. Ignorant magistrates supposed they were the Cromwellites come back without their swords ; and only to be ruled with whips and jails. On Tues- day, September 3, 1667, a meeting of these people was called in Cork ; a body of police and soldiers broke upon them, took the congregation pris- oners, and carried them before the mayor. On see- ing in this crowd, young Ensign Penn, lord of Shangarry Castle, the mayor proposed to set him free on giving his word to keep the peace; but Penn denied that in meeting for worship, either he or any of his fellow-prisoners had been guilty of a breach of law. He would not give his word. ' Unless you give bonds for your good behaviour,' said the mayor, 'I must commit you with the rest.' 52 FATHER AND SON. 'On what authority do you act?' 'A proclamation of the year 1660/ replied the mayor. Penn knew that proclamation well. It was an act against the Fifth monarchy-men ; fiery souls, with whom king-killing was not murder; and he told the mayor of Cork that these poor Quakers met to worship God, and not to pull down thrones and states. The mayor was zealous for the King, and as the heir of Shangarry Castle would not yield, he too was lodged in jail. From his prison Penn wrote to Orrery, as Pres- ident of Munster. Lord Orrery sent an order to the mayor of Cork for Penn's discharge ; but the incident made known to all the gossips of Cork and Dublin that Ensign Penn. the volunteer of Carrickfergus. had taken up with a lot of ranters and canters. His reply to these scorners was an open appearance among the Friends, as one of that persecuted sect. The Admiral's friends in Dublin wrote to warn Sir William of his son's relapse. The Admiral was beside himself with rage. Was this the end of all his arts? Recalling his son to London, where he arrived a few days before Christmas, 1667. Sir William met him u^th a frown, which passed away as he observed his manner and attire. The young man's bearing was polite and easy, and his dress, adorned with lace and ruffles, sword and plume, was that of gentlemen at court. But in a few days he was undeceived. Observing that his son omitted to unbonnet, as the newest fashion was at court, the Admiral asked him what he meant. 'I am a Friend.' the young man said, 'and Friends take off the hat to none but God.' Then how would he behave at court? Would he, a king's officer. Ensign Penn, Clerk of the 53 LIFE or WILLIAM PENN. Cheque, the son of a Navy Commissioner, wear his hat in presence of his prince? Penn asked for time to think this question over. 'Why?' exclaimed the angry Admiral; 'in order to consult the Ranters?' 'No, sir,' said the young man softly; 'I will not see them ; let me go into my room.' Penn slipped aside, and after some time, spent in prayer, he came back to his father with his final word — he could not lift his hat to mortal man. 'Not even to the King and to the Duke of York?' 'No, sir; not even to the King and to the Duke of York?' The indignant Admiral turned him out of doors. 54 CHAPTER VI. Hat-Homage ( 1()67-1668 ) . To live an easy life and wear the coronet of an English peer? To pass through shadows and to dwell with the despised of men? Such was the choice now offered to the young swordsman of Paris , the modish gentleman of the Navy Gardens and the volunteer of Carrickfergus. Was it craze of mind which led him to offend a generous father, to renounce a pleasant home, and sacrifice his prospects in the court, about some scruple as to taking off his hat? A man of sense might think so. if this lifting of the hat were all. But lifting and not lifting of the hat was very far from be- ing all. It was a sign and one of many signs. With us to raise the hat is easy ; we are used to it. Our hats are made for lifting, and we raise the hat in cases where our fathers would have bent the knee. Hat-homage is our social creed. But in the reign of Charles the Second it was new and strange. A hat is made to wear, not carry in your hand. Men wore their hats in house and church as well as in the street and park. Men sate at meals in felt, and listened at a play in felt. '1 got a strange cold in my head.' wrote Pepys, 'by flinging my hat off at dinner.' Every one ate covered. Clarendon tells us that in his younger days he always stood uncovered in the presence of his elders, save at meals, when he and other lads put on their hats. A shopman stood behind the counter in his hat; a preacher mounted to the pulpit in his hat. The audience wore their hats, 55 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. and only doffed them at the name of God. But with the coming of Charles a hundred foreign fol- lies had come in. French words, French habits, and French fashions, were the rage. Such wits as Rochester and Sedley brought in French, and fools of fashion cried at every pause of conversation, 'You have reason, sir,' 'In fine, sir,' and the like. Sir Martin Marrall in Dryden's comedy is a type of this new race of courtiers, just as Moody is a type of the Elizabethan men. Hat-lifting, therefore, was the sign of a depraved and foreign fashion, recently brought into Eng- land from abroad. All sober men put on their hats, while wits and foplings carried them in their hands. The homely citizen wore his beaver, and the lord-in-waiting wore a periwig. To wear the hat was English, and to take it off was French. Even Cromwell had been puzzled how to act to- wards those who wedded such a doctrine as non- resistance to that of the inner light. What was he to do with men who would not meet him foot to foot, yet claimed to be a law unto themselves? How could he manage men who told him they would not accept his rule, yet offered him their cheeks and necks to smite? A sword that cut a path through Naseby field was useless in the pres- ence of this unresisting force. He tempted them with smiles, with gifts, with places, but these simple souls would have no part in him and in his rule. ' Now,' said he, ' I see there is a people risen whom 1 cannot win.' These Friends were men of peace, if what they did was wrong, they took upon their backs the burden of that sin. Such sects as Level- lers and Anabaptists he could meet as sword en- counters sword ; but with the Quakers there was nothing he could strike. They courted stripes and chains. They bowed their heads to fine and sen- 56 HAT-HOMAGE. t€nce ; taking his decrees as so much penance laid on them in love. They would not fly before his troops, and if he wished to kill them they were ready for the cross. However fixed his purpose, they were not less fixed in theirs — to weary out and overcome his strength. The system of these Friends was one of State affairs as well as Church affairs ; announcing that all men are equal before the laws ; that all men have a right to express opinions; that all men have a right to worship God according to their conscience ; not because such and such things were done by ancient tribes ; not because it is well to have certain balances and checks ; but on account of the inward, independent, indestructible light in every human soul. Each man is a separate power, and therefore has a separate right. This system met with bold denial every claim of prince and pope to curb the individual will, and every claim of prelate and inquisitor to search the individual mind. It held that every man's own light — his conscience or his reason — is the safest guide. To doff the hat, to bend the knee, to call a man by such vain names as lord and prince, was sin against the Lord and Prince of heaven. For God. the Friends declared, had made men peers, and setting up these marks of separation was dividing men without a cause, and trifling with the noblest work of God. To a young man holding such a gospel what was a baron's coronet — what a seat in the House of Lords? Shut out from his home in the Navy Gardens at the age of twenty-three. Ensign Penn was not left to starve in the streets. Lady Penn sent him money from her private purse. His new friends made him welcome in their homes ; for this young 57 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. soldier came amongst these pious people as a brand plucked out of a burning fire. This time of exile from the Navy Gardens was a trial to his faith. He loved his mother and his sister Peg. the merry matron and the romping girl ; and for the Admi- ral he entertained a high, though not unreason- ing, respect. On every side he had to count some loss. With his opinions he could not hold his Ensign's rank, he could not keep his Clerkship of the Cheque. These small things had to go the way of greater things. The set-off to his loss was not so obvious to a worldly eye and Admiral Penn could not be made to see that he had any set-off at all to count. In giving up his rank his ofiice, and his home as well as sacrificing the hope of greater things to come, the young man felt he was obeying the sum- mons to forsake his father and mother for a high- er good. He found no comfort in the romps and revels in the tavern dinners and the evening plays. The creed of Fox was to him a saving creed. Such men as Fox and Loe were notable for the purity of their lives. What they professed to be they were; not so the titled people whom he met in his father's haunts. At the theatre in Drury Lane, to which his mother and sister went so often he had seen virtue mocked , and truth abused and female modesty put to shame. The park, where his father loved to be seen, was thronged with harlots and bravoes ; with women who sold their smiles and men who were ready to sell their swords. He knew that the royal palace was a nest for every crawl- ing thing. Look where he would upon that socie- ty from which he was shut out, he saw little be- yond vanity, rottenness, and death. In the high- est place of all— that chamber in which, not long ago. Cromwell had poured out his soul in prayer, 58 HAT-HOMAGE. and Milton had pealed his organ-note — a herd of gamesters courtesans, and duellists, diced and drank the live-long night. A young man pure in heart, might well turn anchoret in such a world. The politics of Fox had also their attraction for this idealist of twenty-three. For four or five years he had been poring over Sydney's dreams. One Commonwealth had failed. He wished to see a new experiment in freedom ; an experiment con- ducted, not by orators and soldiers acting in a worldly spirit, and with personal ends in view ; but a religious and fraternal commonwealth, where every member would devote himself to God and man. Penn loved that great republican like a son, but he could never give his heart up wholly to the idea of a country governed in the pride of intel- lect and virtue. Fox supplied what Sydney want- ed—faith in things unseen and passionate belief in individual men. Penn found that he could feel and act with both these leaders ; looking up with Sydney to the free government of Pericles and Scipio, yet denying with Fox that past example is of higher use to man than inner light. After a few months of absence from the Navy Gardens, Penn was suffered to return, but still the Admiral held aloof from his rebellious son. He would not speak to him ; he would not sit at table wath him. Penn hung up his sword and coat of mail, and put into a trunk his lace and plume. He dressed in homely garments, and resigned his lu- crative Clerkship of the Cheque 59 CHAPTER YII. SWOKD AND PkX ( 1()()8 ) . Alone in his rooms at the Navj Gardens, he who had just laid down his sword, took up his pen. While the Admiral was fighting through a, court intrigue of Lord Arlington and Sir Robert How- ard, as the minions of Prince Rupert. Penn was engaged in struggling with the sins and sufferings of a host of men whom he regarded as agents of the Prince of Darkness. But his only weapon was. as yet, the pen. A startling call was made to princes, priests, and people, to examine for themselves the Quaker doctrine of the inner light, in a tract called 'Truth Exalted; in a short but sure testimony against all those religious faiths and worships that have been formed and followed in the darkness of apos- tacy,— and for that glorious Light which is risen and shines forth in the life and doctrine of the despised Quakers, is the alone good old way of life and salvation' — a boyish i)iece. signed. 'William Penn. whom divine love constrains in holy con- tempt to trample upon Egypt's glory, not fearing the King's wTath, having beheld the majesty of Him who is invisible.' This kind of protest was not relished by such courtiers and buffoons as Ar- lington ; the less so when they found how prompt the young man was to practice what he taught. In face of shrug and t7H was occupied by a disjuite in the House of Commons as to the King's right to issue declarations of Liberty of Conscience without consent of Parliament. A majority of the Commons declared that his Majesty had exceeded his powers. Charles took time to consider his answer; and at last replied that his ancestors ".lad exercised this disputed right. The Commons said it was not so ; on which his Majesty, who said he was insulted, threatened to dissolve the House. But his more cautious and politic friend. Louis 130 MARRIED LIFE. Quatorze, advised him to Hubrait, in order to gain time till peace wan finally concluded with Holland, when the regimentH engaged on the Continent could be used against his enemies in Kngland ; Louis offering to supply him with money and forces from France sufficient to crush every at- tempt to resist his royal will. Charles adopted this counsel. The very evening on which it was offered by C<^lbert on behalf of his august master, the King sent f(jr a cojjy of his declaration and tore it up in the presence of his mininters. Next day this act of grace was made jjublic ; the two Houses of Parliament received the intelligence with shouts of satisfaction; in the evening bonfires burst upon the capital, and every one seemed glad that Liberty of Conscience was withdrawn. Hardly were these fires extinguished ere the Test Act hurried through the Commons with indecent haste was sent up to the Peers, and in less than ten days one of the most disgraceful laws ever passed in England was added to the book of stat- utes. Its authors professed to strike only at the Papists; and to prove their sincerity they intro- duced another bill for the relief of Nonconforming Protestants ; but delay followed delay ; the debates were adjourned from time to time ; one clause af- ter another was amended or struck out ; and pro- rogation overtook them before their work was fini.shed. and the whole body of Dissenters was left at the mercy of any one who might be moved to rake the old penal statutes up against them. Foremost of these sufferers were the Quakers. At this juncture Penn produced his work on ' Eng- land's present Interest.' Every line of this pro- duction seems written with indignant hand— 'There is no law under heaven, which has its rise from nature or grace, that forbids men to deal honestly 131 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. and plainly with the greatest' — thus he begins ; and addressing himself to those in authority, he proceeds to show how the old charters of liberty have been violated, adducing specific instances of each. He goes at great length into the origin of English liberties ; with a view to show that they are older in date than our religious feuds. 'We were a free people.' he says, 'by the creation of God and by the careful provision of our never-to- be-forgotten ancestors ; so that our claim to these English privileges, rising higher than Protestant- ism, can never justly be invalidated on account of nonconformity to any tenet or fashion it may i)re- scribe. This would be to lose by the Reforma- tion.'— His concluding advice to the ruling power is— 1. To conserve all the ancient rights and liber- ties of the people ; 2. To grant entire freedom to opinion in matters of faith ; and. 3. To endeavour to promote the growth of true and practical piety. Though the composition of this work kept Penn at home a good part of the year, his attention was continually diverted to special cases of op- pression ; and the letters wTitten by him to magis- trates, sheriffs, lieutenants of counties and others, in behalf of individual sufferers, would fill a vol- ume. Justice Fleming had been an old friend of the Springetts. and years before this date had been very kind to Guli when she paid a visit at his house in Westmoreland. Penn's letter of remonstrance to Fleming, written on receipt of some com- plaints of his harshness towards the Quakers in his magisterial capacity, is concluded in language of much courtliness and beauty. One can fancy Guli looking over Penn's shoulder as he wrote these words—' However differing 1 am from other men circi sncrn, and that world which, respecting 132 MARRIED LIFE. men, may be said to begin when this ends i know no religion that destroys courtesy, civility, and kindness/ Penn had been five years absent from court ; but the arrest of George Fox, his spiritual chief, by the Worcester justices, and his imprisonment in Worcester Castle on a charge of refu.'-ing to take the oaths — George 'would not swear at all'— in- duced him to appear once more in that familiar scene. Penn went with Captain Mead to Sack- ville, who advised that they should see the Duke of York, as being the only man with power enough to help them. If the Duke would back their cause, then he. Charles Sackville, would assist them also; but he could not move in such a work alone. They went to the Duke's palace, and by means of the Duchess's secretary, tried to gain admission; but they found the house so full of people and the Duke so busy, that the secretary could not obtain admission for himself. They were going away very sadly, when Colonel Aston, of the Duke's bed-chamber, seeing his old friend Penn, whom he had lost for a long time, asked him into the drawing-room. Aston went into the Duke's closet; and James, on hearing who was there, at once came out. saying how glad he was to see his ward again. James listened to the request about Fox with much courtesy, and said he was against all persecution for religion's sake. In his youth, he confessed, he had been warm against sectaries, because he thought they used their con- science only as a pretext to disturb the govern- ment; but he now thought better of them, and was willing to do to others as he hoped to be done by. He wished all men were of that opinion ; for he was sure no man was willing to be perse- cuted for his own belief. He would use his in- iS3 LIFE OF WILLIAM TENN. fluence with the King. But where had Penn been all these years, and why had he not called before? ]Ie had promised the Admiral to look after his son ; but that son had never showTi himself at court. James told his ward to come whenever he had any business ; he should always be pleased to see him ; and would do his best to fulfil towards him the duties of a guardian. 134. CHAPTER XVII. Holy Experiment (1G73-1676). Love of country was one of the most powerful sentiments of a Puritan. But he had other in- spirations. Love of i)ersonal freedom— claim to the free utterance of his thoughts — determination to bend his knee only at the shrine which his con- science owned— these things were stronger than the love of country, even than the love of life. Not lightly, not hastily, did the founders of the New World turn their backs on the land which had given them birth. Years of wrong and insult were required to loosen their tenacious hold of the soil which had been ploughed and reaped by their Saxon fathers. When endurance was at length exhausted they departed more in sorrow than in anger; quitting the ports they were never more to behold again with blessings on their lips and with their faces like their hearts still ti:rned to- wards dear old England. In the days cf i eace and concord, now and then recurring in the most unsettled times, the tide of emigration ebbed ; but when the act of indulgence had been cancelled by the King, and the fury of persecution began to fill the jails with victims, plans for founding a New Home beyond the seas, away from the old political and religious rivalries of Europe for the persecuted of all creeds and nations, were revived. To Penn this dream had been more or less fa- miliar from his youth. At twelve years old the victories of his father in Jamaica turned his fan- cies towards the West. By usage Admiral Penn should have received his share of the conquered 135 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. lands and but for his arrest by Cromwell an estate -a very large one— in that island, would have come to Penn. It might come any day. The Admiral's claims against the crown were still un- settled, and the King might choose to pay his debts by giving up the lands which Cromwell had withheld, 'n the retirement of his family in Ire- land Penn had been employed in planting an English colony on foreign soil; at Wanstead and in the Navy Gardens the subject of buying an estate in the New World had been often raised ; in his hour of excitement and disobedience at Oxford, he had turned to these earlier projects and laid out a new Oceana or Utopia in his fancy; at the yearly meetings of his own religious society the settlement of the Quakers in Jamaica in New England, and on the Delaware, had been frequent- ly discussed. The journey he had recently made into Holland and Germany had roused the gath- ering zeal of years. At Amsterdam, at Leyden, in the cities of the Middle Ehine. his imagination was excited by the stories he had heard from rela- tives and friends of those who had crossed the Atlantic in their barks. At length his mind be- gan to fix itself on what he called the Holy Ex- periment of planting a religious democracy in the western world. His first connexion with the continent on which he was to build himself s(, monument was in the affairs of New Jersey. No reader need be told that in the reign of Charles the Second many of the colonies in America were either given or sold away to private persons. In accordance with his princi- ple of misrule the King made over to his brother James the province of New Netherland, then stretching from the shores of the Delaware river to the Connecticut river, even before a single rood of 186 HOLY EXPEKIMENT. land had yet been wrested from the Dutch. Two months before the conquest of that country. James in turn had granted to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, in equal shares, the region lying between the Hudson river and the Delaware river. When the English forces took possession of the country, these old names and boundaries were removed, and in honour of Sir George Carteret (a Jersey man) the province became New Jersey. As the object of nearly all noble owners of such estates was to make money, they offered such con- cessions — or constitutions — as would attract a crowd of able, energetic, and wealthy men. With- out being advocates of civil and religious liberty, the speculators not unfrequently established in their colonial possessions enlarged and liberal laws. The owners of New Jersey offered some concessions in this spirit. A number of Puritans set sail from the port of New Haven, with a view to establish themselves in the new territory ; and having reached the Passaic, they held a council there with Indian tribes, changed the name of the settlement to New Ark. and laid the foundations of a democratic state. Under their free and vigor- ous rule the province rapidly increased ; the Qua- kers took an interest in it, and a few of them went out. But Berkeley in a short time grew dis- satisfied ; disputes arose about quit-rents and privileges ; and the Earl found his ease disturbed by murmur and remonstrance from men into whose hands he had passed away the reins. These troubles made him anxious to sell his share ; and as Fox had just returned from a visit to the Eng- lish settlements in America, the Quakers opened a communication with Berkeley, who agreed to sell his share in the province for a thousand pounds. The buyers, John Fenwick and Edward Billing, 137 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. quarrelled, and the matter was referred to Penn. The letters still extant show that Fen wick was disposed to resist the award ; but a rebuke from Penn, in which he spoke in noble and affecting language of the meanness of such quarrels, brought him round. 'Thy grandchildren.' said the expos- tulator to his client, 'may be in the other world before the land thou hast allotted will be em- ployed.' Fenwick, with his family and a number of emi- grants, set sail in the ship Griffith for New Jersey, and ascending the Delaware a considerable dis- tance, found a fertile and pleasant spot, where they landed their goods and chattels, formed a settlement, and called the town Salem— place of peace and rest. Meantime the affairs of Billing got involved. Unable to meet his creditors, Bill- ing gave up his property into the hands of trus- tees. Penn was one of these trustees. Full of his old dreams of a model state, and fresh from the study of Harrington and More, Penn was not con- tent to carry on the government of the province as he found it, simply as a commercial venture, and without regard to the working out of great ideas. Sydney's lessons had made a deep impres- sion on his mind ; and Locke's constitution for Carolina was ever present to his thoughts. The first attempt to lay the foundations of a free colony was obstructed by the joint ownership of the soil, as even within the limits prescribed by law. the trustees of Billing could only exercise a semi-sovereignty, while Sir George Carteret re- mained co-partner. The object, then, which lay in front of every effort for the good of the settlers, was such a division of the province as should separate Carteret's share from the rest ; and this result was obtained by Penn after a troublesome 138 HOLY EXPERIMENT. negotiation, on giving up the best half of the estate to the agents of the old proprietor, which was henceforth known as the province of East New Jersey— that retained by the Quakers being called from its geographical position West New Jersey. By these two names the provinces were known for many years. Left free to act, the trustees began their opera- tions by dividing the land into a hundred lots, ten of which were made over to John Fenwick in satis- faction of his claims. The other ninety lots were put up for sale, and the creditors being satisfied, Penn got power to carry out his own ideas in the work of settling a fundamental pact. As yet the mind of the legislator was itself in ferment. Harrington and the classic republicans still exer- cised a powerful influence over him ; and it was not till some years later that his genius — aided by Algernon Sydney— found its highest expression in the laws and charters of the state which bears his name. An outline of the new constitution for West New Jersey may be given in a few words : — the rights of free worship were secured— the legislative power was given in a great measure to the peo- ple—representatives were to be elected, not in the old way of acclamation, but by the ballot-box — every man of mature age and free from crime was an elector and was eligible for election — the execu- tive power was vested in ten commissioners, to be appointed by the general assembly— the office of interpreting the law and pronouncing verdicts was confided to the juries, as Penn contended was the case in England by the ancient charters— and the judges, elected for two years, sat in the courts simply to assist the juries in arriving at a correct decision — the state was made to charge itself with 139 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. the education of all orphan children— no man was to be shut up in prison for debt. By these provisions and the laws which were to follow, Penn believed he was laying a foundation for those who came after him to understand their liberties as Christians and as men. While he was toiling at the grounds of his Holy Experiment Penn had the happiness to become a father. Guli bore him a son. whom Penn called Springett, after her heroic sire. As he was now a family man, he thought it right to have a house of his own besides Shangarry Castle in county Cork ; and after looking through the lovely south- ern shires, he fixed on Worminghurst in Sussex; as a high and healthy spot, seven miles from Shoreham, with noble timber in the park and air kept fresh by breezes from the sea. For this es- state he paid four thousand five hundred pounds ; and got a bargain in it, since the surplus wood was worth, as he supposed, two thousand pounds, Sydney had a place in the neighbourhood. On this noble Sussex down Penn nursed his first-born son. and perfected his frame of government for a Free State. When this document was finished, the trustees met and resolved on its publication in the shape of a letter, which they signed. A brief description of the soil, air. climate, natural productions, and other features of West New Jersey followed ; and it is characteristic of Penn that he added a cau- tionary postscript to his countrymen against in- dulging, without sufficient cause in the thought of seeking for a new home— of leaving their native laud either out of curiosity, from a love of change, or in the spirit of gain. Yet Worminghurst was soon besieged with applications for plots of land in the Free State. Two companies were formed to 140 HOLY EXPERIMENT. establish trade and promote emigration, one in Yorkshire and one in Middlesex. The members of the Yorkshire company were chiefly creditors of Billing ; as a set-off to their claims they received from the trustees ten of the original hundred parts of land. By cancelling these debts the prop- erty was freed. The purchasers of land at once made prepara- tions for the voyage. Before there was yet a peo- ple in West New Jersey. Penn found it desirable to have an authority, legally constituted, to conduct the enterprise ; and with this view he proposed to institute a provisional government — himself select- ing some of its members. Fen wick's party and the two companies nominating the other members. Thomas Olive and Daniel Wills were appointed to act as commissioners by the London company; Joseph Helmsly and Robert Stacey by the York- shire proprietors ; Richard Guy was named on be- half of the former emigrants ; and to these were added Benjamin Scott, John Kinsey. and three others. These ten persons were to exercise the powers of the ten commissioners mentioned in the fundamental laws until such time as a popular government, chosen in a legal and orderly way, could be organised, on which their functions were to cease. Penn organised the emigration, and engaged the good ship Kent, Gregory Marlow. master, to carry out the commissioners, their families and tenants, to the number of two hundred and thirty persons. The vessel was moored high up in the Thames ; at the hour fixed for her departure the emigrants went on board accompanied by their friends; and the master was just on the point of weighing anchor, amid the tears and embraces of relatives about to part for ever, when a light and 141 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. gilded barge was seen to be gliding over the smooth waters towards them. Something in the appearance of the Kent had caught the attention of its occupants for the boatmen now seen to be attired in the royal livery, used their oars as if they had been ordered to come alongside. It was the King. He asked the name of the ship and whither it was bound. Being answered, he inquired if the emigrants were all Quakers to which they answered Yes ; on which he gave them his blessing, and pulled away. Two other vessels followed the Kent; one of them sailed from Hull with a body of emigrants from Yorkshire, the other from London freighted with a hundred and fourteen persons from the southern counties. When the new-comers arrived at their destination, Andros. governor of New York, claimed jurisdiction over them and their territory, justifying his claim by reference to the feudal law and the colonial charter; but both parties fortunately were moderate in their tone, and while the question of rights was referred to the mother country, the Quakers entered into treaties with the natives for the purchase of land, and under a sail-cloth, set up in the forest of Burlington, began to assemble for public worship. The native tribes came from their hunting-grounds to confer with these peaceful strangers, who car- ried purses in their hands to pay for what they required , instead of muskets to seize on it by force. ' You are our brothers,' said the Sachem chiefs, after hearing their proposals, 'and we will live like brothers with you. We will have a broad path for you and us to walk in. If an Englishman falls asleep in this path, the Indian shall i)ass him by and say — He is an Englishman ; he is asleep ; let him alone. The path shall be plain. There 142 HOLY EXPERIMENT. ehall not be in it a stump to hurt the feet.' Com- menced under such auspices. West New Jersey- prospered. Land was sold and cleared. The Sa- chems kept the peace. The population multiplied. Some letters written by the leaders of their party in England to these happy colonists are still ex- tant; from these it would be inferred that in a very few years West New Jersey had become a new Arcadia— that the Holy Experiment was a safe success— that Penn had realised the State which Sydney had conceived and Harrington had dreamed. 143 CHAPTER XVIII. Work and Travel (1677). Having got his Holy Experiment under shape Penn turned his thoughts to those Dutch and Rhenish towns in which he had planted Quaker congregations. Not a few of these societies had fallen into bad ways; some were suffering perse- cution ; some were rent by quarrels ; all were anx- ious for his presence. Those who suffered from their feudal lords were eager to be told about that Free State which he was helping to found in the great deserts beyond the sea. For each he had a message full of hope. The Princess Eliza- beth, who held her court at Herwerden, begged her ' affectionate friend' to pay her a second visit now that his affairs allowed him time. Leaving Guli and her child at Worminghurst. he rode to Harwich, where he found George Fox, Robert Barclay, and other Quakers waiting for him. Armed with books and tracts, explanatory of Quaker doctrines, printed in various languages, English. French. Dutch, and German, they took their passage in a ship commanded by one of Admiral Penn's old officers, who out of affection for his former patron let them convert his quar- ter-deck into a conventicle. When they came in sight of Brill, Penn and Barclay, anxious to land ere nightfall, stept into a boat. Before they got ashore, the sun went down ; the gates were closed ; and as no houses stood outside the walls, they had to make their beds in a fisherman's boat. At dawn the passengers landed and started im- mediately for Rotterdam, where they held meetings 144 WORK AND TRAVEL. of their friends. Penn spoke in Dutch while the eloquence of George Fox had to be interpreted word for word. Meetings had been prepared for them in all the towns along their route, and three Dutch converts, Claus. Arents, and Bocliffs. came to them from Amsterdam to conduct them on their way. At Lejden and at Haarlem, where they held meetings and si^read abroad a knowl- edge of their tenets, other deputies from Alchmaer and Embden met them. Their journey through the country was a triumph. At Amsterdam they organised the scattered Quakers and settled some of the nicer points of doctrine — such as the non- necessity for priest or magistrate as a witness to the ceremony of marriage. Another matter which came before them was the suffering of their disciples in various countries, especially the case of certain inhabitants of Dantzic. which city then formed a part of the Polish republic. Sobieski, King of Poland, was at the time on a visit to Dantzic; and Penn advised that a petition should be presented to him in the name of the suffering citizens, briefly detailing their wrongs and asking at his hands the right to worship God according to their faith. This petition Penn was desired to draw up, which he did in suitable and noble terms, quoting most happily a saying of Stephen one of Sobieski's most illustrious predecessors— ' I am a king of men, but not of consciences ; king of bod- ies, not of souls.' Leaving Fox at Amsterdam, Penn and Barclay went to Herwerden, where the Electress gave them a friendly welcome. This pious woman, daughter of Frederick. Prince Palatine of the Rhine and King of Bohemia was a granddaughter of James the First, a cousin to the reigning King of Eng- land and a sister of Prince Rupert— the old rival 10 145 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. and enemy of Admiral Penn. The Princess treated Penn with courtesy and affection; his gratitude survived her; and in one of the subsequent editions of 'No Cross, no Crown' he added her name to his list of benefactors and examples to mankind. Penn and Barclay stayed at an inn of the town, but visited the court daily, holding meetings and discoursing before her Highness on the principles of their creed. They dined at the common table of their hotel, where they met with many strang- ers, to whom they distributed books and tracts. One of these, a student at the college of Duys- burg told them of a 'sober and seeking man of great note in the city of Duysburg,' which de- termined Penn to pay a visit to that town. As the last service drew to a close, Elizabeth walked up to Penn took him by the hand, and leading him aside began to speak of the sense she had of God's power and presence; but emotion choked her utterance, and she sobbed out, 'I cannot speak to you ; my heart is full 1 ' Penn whispered some few words of comfort. When she gained her voice, she pressed the missionaries to visit her again on their return from the Upper Rhine. Penn promised to do so if they could. She asked them to sup with her that evening, which they at first re- fused ; but the lady would not be denied, and they yielded so far as to take some bread and wine. 'We left them.' says Penn, 'in the love and peace of God. praying that they might be kept from the evil of this world.' Next morning Barclay set out to join Fox at Amsterdam, while Penn and Keith took places in an open cart for Frankfort. Pushing on through Paderborn, 'a dark Popish city.' and Cassel, where they were 'tenderly received.' obstructed by the heavy rains, bad roads, and primitive vehicle, 14(5 WORK AND TRAVEL. they arrived in Frankfort just a week after leaving Ilerwerden. About three miles from Frankfort they were met by two merchants who came forth to welcome them and report that many of their fellow-citizens were prei)ared to receive the faith. Doctors, lawyers, ministers of the Gospel, noble ladies peasants and handworkers, came to hear them preach. One girl cried out, 'It will never be well with us till persecution comes, and some of us be lodged in the stadthouse.' Penn did not neglect the temporal liberties and worldly inter- ests of his Church. America was a theme of con- versation ; and among those who took an interest in the colony were Franz Pastorious. Von Dewalle, Dr. Schiitz, and Daniel Behagel. all of whom emi- grated in a few years. From Frankfort Penn ad- dressed a letter to ' the Churches of Jesus through- out the world.' in which he exhorted the faithful to take up the cross, to curb the pride of life, and to redeem the time. Going np the Rhine, the travellers passed through ^'orms on the fifth day, and in the even- ing arrived at Kirchheim, six miles from Worms. In this small place the missionary made a deep impression, and the fruits of that day's preaching are still visible in Pennsylvania. The home of which he told them beyond the seas was hardly less welcome to the Protestants of Kirchhgim than that better home which he promised them beyond the skies. Penn was anxious to do something for this handful of true believers, and he went to Mann- heim to consult with the Prince Palatine, and ascertain what encouragement that Prince would offer to a colony of virtuous and industrious fam- ilies, in the event of a considerable number being willing to remove into his territory ; also to learn 147 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. how they would stand in respect to their refusal to take oaths, bear arms and pay ecclesiastical taxes. On his arrival at Mannheim, finding the Prince had gone to Heidelberg, he contented him- self with writing a letter to his Highness, and re- turned to Worms that evening by the boat. From Worms they dropped down the stream to Cologne, and met their disciples at the house of a merchant who at their departure furnished them with a letter of introduction to Dr. Mastricht of Duysburg, which city they were now anxious to visit, not only on account of what the student had told them of 'the sober and seeking man of note.' but because they had been informed by the Princess Elizabeth that the young and beautiful Countess von Falkenstein, whose father lived in that neighbourhood, was seriously inclined. Duysburg. a Calvinistic city, lay in the terri- tory of the Elector of Brandenburg. On their arrival they sought out Dr. Mastricht and de- livered their letter. He told them they were very fortunate in the time of their visit, as. it being Sunday, the young Countess would have left her father's castle and crossed the river to Mulheim, where she would, as usual, spend the day at a clergyman's house. He cautioned them however, not to make themselves public, as much for the young lady's sake as for their own — her father, a coarse and rigorous person, being already much displeased with her. Thus warned, they set out for Mulheim. On their way they met with Heinrich Schmidt, a school-master, who told them the Countess had returned. To him they gave the let- ter from Dr. Mastricht. In an hour he came to say the Countess would be glad to see them, but knew not where, as her father kept so strict a hand over her. She thought it would be best for 148 WORK AND TRAVEL. them to cross the water and go to the house of her friend the clergyman. While they were talking, the Graf with his attendants came from the castle, and seeing persons in a foreign dress standing near his gate, sent one of his retinue to inquire who they were, what they wanted, and whither they were going. Before the Graf received his an- swers, he walked up and questioned them in person. Penn replied, that they were Englishmen from Holland, and were going no farther than to his own town of Mulheim ; on hearing which answer, one of the Graf's gentlemen walked up to the strangers with a frown on his face, and asked them if they knew before whom they stood ; and if they had not yet learned how to deport them- selves before noblemen and in the presence of princes? Penn answered, he was not aware of any disrespect. ' Then why don't you take off your hats?' said one. 'Is it respectful to stand cov- ered in the presence of the sovereign of the country?' The Quakers took no notice of his gesture, but replied that they uncovered to none but God. 'Well, then' said the Graf, 'get out of my dominions; you shall not go to my town.' Penn tried to reason with the offended Graf von Falkenstein, who called his men, and bade them lead these Englishmen out of his estates. It was dusk ; they were alone in a strange land ; for, after conducting them to a thick forest, the soldiers returned to the castle and left them to find their own way back. This forest was three miles in length, and the roads being unknown to them, and the night dark they wandered in and out. At length they came into an open country and were soon below a city wall. What city? It was ten o'clock; the gates were shut. In vain they hailed ; no sentinel replied. The town had no 149 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. suburbs; not a single house or building- stood beyond the ditch. They lay down in an open field, in search of such repose as they might find on the marshy ground of the Lower Rhine. At three in the morning they got up. stiff with cold, and walked about till five, comforting each other with the assurance that a great day for Germany was at hand, 'several places in that country being almost ripe for the harvest." After the cathedral clock struck five the gates were opened, and the outcasts gained the shelter of their inn. Miistricht was ' surprised with fear, the common disease of this country,' says Penn. when he heard of the affair with Graf von Falkenstein. He asked minutely what had passed, and was relieved to find they had not named the Countess. For them- selves he thought they had escaped pretty well. as the Graf usually amused himself by setting his dogs to worry persons who were found loiter- ing near his castle gates. Failing to see the young Countess. Penn had the satisfaction to receive from her a message by the hand of her page. In return he wrote to her a long letter of consolation; and so he went his way. Dropping down the Rhine— proclaiming their mission in all towns and preparing men for emigration— the travellers at length arrived at Amsterdam. There they found that Fox had gone to Harlingen, whither Penn followed him; and so they stayed in Holland and in the countries about the Elbe and the Lower Rhine until the winter set in, when they again returned to England by way of Rotterdam and Harwich. On the passage home they met a violent storm. They were at sea three days and nights ; the rain fell in torrents ; the wind set dead against them ; the vessel sprang a 150 WORK AND TRAVEL. leak; and labour at the pumps both night and day, could hardly keep the hold from filling. P'ear fell on the seamen; but no sooner had the danger passed away, than they resumed their wanton mood. On landing at Harwich. Fox proposed to hold a meeting in that town and then going on by Col- chester and other jjlaces make their way towards London. Penn was anxious to be at Worming- hurst ; and while his friends were willing to travel luxuriously in a cart bedded with straw, he mounted the best horse he could find and rode away. 181 CHAPTER XIX. The World (1673). For two years after his return from Germany, Penu was much in the world and much about the court. His position was a strange one. Standing- aloof from all intrigues in that intriguing court ; taking no direct and personal part in politics ; a candidate for no office; seeking no honour, no emolument that courts can give ; accustomed from his youth to mix on equal terms with peers ; ac- quainted with the leading spirits of the day. yet free from their ambition and their lust of pleasure ; no man's rival in either love, business, or gal- lantry ; his neutrality in personal and party strife secured to him a larger share of intercourse with leading men than any other individual of the time enjoyed. While graced so highly by the Duke of York, it was easy for him to maintain a high standing with the wits, ministers, and favourites, who daily thronged the galleries of Whitehall; and far beyond that circle he enjoyed the confi- dence of men whom no such blandishments could win. Not only was he intimate with the Catholic Duke of Ormonde and his sons the Farl of Os- sory and Lord Arran but also with that cham- pion of Protestant doctrine the i)ious Tillotson. His virtues were appreciated by the Whig Lord Russell the Tory Lord Hyde and the Republican Algernon Sydney. Of other men with whom he lived at this time on terms of intimacy, there were the Duke of Buckingham the Karl of Shafts- bury, the Marquis of Halifax the Earl of Sunder- 152 THE WORLD. land, the Earl of Essex, and Lord Churcbill. Some of these friends adopted his views on the great subject of Liberty of Faith. Buckingham was supporting a more liberal policy in parlia- ment; and Penn tried very hard to induce him to devote his splendid talents to this national re- form. By Penn's advice the Duke made more than one attempt ; but the Church party was too wary to be surprised too powerful to be overthrown; and then a new face a fresh whim a fit of the spleen, would distract his grace. In the Duke of York— and in him alone — I'enn found a steadfast friend to Liberty of Conscience. Penn availed himself of the royal favour to obtain a pardon for his brethren when they fell under persecution and to urge on the great work of securing an act of Tol- eration from the House of Commons. But the family with which he held the most in- timate relations was that of Sydney. With the several members of this gifted race he lived on friendly terms. Estranged from each other, they put confidence in Penn— appealed to his wisdom in their difficulties and sometimes placed their inter- ests in his charge. Towards Henry Sydney, a man younger than himself, Penn retained an affection which had commenced in early life; but to his great brother Algernon he was at once a friend and pu- pil. Henry was nearly twenty years younger than his illustrious brother. He had seen but little of the best period of the Revolution and had never known the purer and more moderate of its chiefs. Gifted by nature with a handsome face and a voluptuous imagination he had easily taken up the courtly habits which he found in fashion when he entered life. Between the brothers there was lit- tle sympathy and not much love. In his infancy Algernon had been remarkable for his fine wit and 153 LIFE OF WILLIAM FEXX. aatiiral sweetness. In the civil war he had made a name for wisdom in the council and for valour in the tield. A sincere republican he had opposed the designs of Cromwell with as much zeal as he had shown in fighting against the King. Abroad at the Restoration he had lived in exile rather than unsay a single word of his political faith. For seventeen years had he lived abroad; his friends had made great efforts to obtain for him a par- don; but as he would concede nothing the nego- tiations had always failed. The utmost that could be drawn from him— though wasting away v>ith sickness — was a declaration to the effect that he was willing to submit to the King, since Par- liament had done so. He could on no account regret what he had done, renounce his old opin- ions, or even ask a pardon. To those who bade him distrust the instincts which made him a wan- derer and a beggar in a foreign land, he said, *I walk in the light which God hath given me. If it be dim or uncertain. I must bear the penalty of my errors. I hope to do it with patience and that no burden should be very grievous to me ex- cept sin and shame. God keep me from these evils, and in all things else dispose of me accord- ing to His pleasure.' After an absence of seventeen years Sydney was allowed to return to his father's death-bed. Penn saw him ; they discussed his schemes. A man of Sydney's strength could not remain inactive. Old Commonwealth men looked up to him. A A-an- quished body, they had great traditions; and were very powerful in the towns. If Sydney never hid his i)reference of a republic to a monarchy he was willing to help in bringing about reforms in the government —and one great object of the man with whom he acted was to procure an act 154 THE WORLD. of r'arliariient giving Freedom to ConHcieiice. Buckingham H vanity was flattered with the thought of being at the head of this body of re- formers, but the French agent, M. Harillon saw and said that he was swayed by Sydney. An imx)ression was produced on the two houses, and in the early part of 1678 there had arisen a more friendly feeling towards Non-conformers. The House of Commons no longer refused to hear of grievances ; and J'enn i)resented a petition to that body on behalf of suffering Quakers who had been confounded with the followers of Rome in order to involve them in a common fault and fine. A committee was named to see if it were possible to relieve the great body of Protestants from jjenalties which had been legally imposed on Catholics. Penn was heard by this committee. 'If,' he said, 'we ought to believe that it is our duty, according to the doctrine of the Apostle, to be always ready to give an account of the hope that is in us to every sober and private inquirer, certainly much more ought we to hold ourselves obliged to declare with all readiness, when called to it by so great an authority, what is hot our hope ; especially when our very safety is eminently concerned in so doing, and when we cannot de- cline this discrimination of ourselves from Pap- ists without being conscious to ourselves of the guilt of our own sufferings, for so must every man needs be who suffers mutely under another character than that which truly belongeth to him and his belief. That which gives me more than an ordinary right to speak at this time, and in this place, is the great abuse which 1 have re- ceived above any other of my profession ; for of a long time 1 have not only been supposed a Papist, but a Seminary, a Jesuit, an emissary of 155 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. Rome and in pay from the Pope ; a man dedicat- ing my endeavours to the interest and advance- ments of that party. Nor hath this been the re- port of the rabble but the jealousy and insinua- tion of persons otherwise sober and discreet. Nay, some zealous for the Protestant religion have been so far gone in this mistake, as not only to think ill of us, and to decline our conversation, but to take courage to themselves to pros-ecute us for a sort of concealed Papists ; and the truth is. we have been as the wool-sacks and common whipping-stock of the kingdom ; all laws have been let loose upon us, as if the design were not to reform, but destroy us; and this not for what we are but for what we are not. It is hard that we must thus bear the stripes of another interest and be their proxy in punishment. I would not be mistaken. I am far from thinking it fit that Papists should be whipped for their consciences, because I exclaim against the injustice of whip- ping Quakers for Papists. No; for though the hand, pretended to be lifted up against them hath lighted heavily on us, yet we do not mean that any should take a fresh aim at them, or that they should come in our room ; for we must give the liberty we ask ; and cannot be falee to our l)rinciples. though it were to relieve ourselves. We have good-will to all men and would have none suffer for a truly sober and conscientious dissent on any hand. And I humbly take leave to add, that those methods against persons so qualified do not seem to me to be convincing, or indeed adequate to the reason of mankind." To doubt the i)olicy of whipping Papists, was in that age fatal. Penn, however, spoke the truth ; and spoke it years before John Locke had given it form and breadth. The Church was still 156 THE WORLD. a persecuting Church ; the Catholics were intoler- ant in their practice; Puritans, Independents. Pres- byterians each appealed in turn to stocks and whipping-posts. The committee resolved to insert in a bill then before Parliament a clause providing relief ; and in this amended form the bill, having passed a third reading in the lower house went up under promis- ing auspices to the Peers. The friends of Tolera- tion were already congratulating each other on a first victory, when, from an obscure and unex- pected quarter, burst a storm. Titus Gates was a minister of the Church of England till his dissolute life had caused him to be expelled. He joined the Roman Catholics; he entered the Jesuits' College at \'alladolid ; he af- ter .vards removed to that of St. Omer; from both of which he was removed in shame. In thete col- leges he had heard conversations on the prospects of Catholicism in England, and suggestions for carrying on the good work of its recovery to the ancient faith. A quick imagination framed from these materials the Popish Plot. Gates said he had been trusted by the Jesuits in Spain and France with the conveyance of certain letters and papers ; that he had opened these documents out of curiosity ; that he had become possessed of dark and terrible secrets. England, he asserted, was to be the scene of a bloody drama. Charles was to be killed. William of Grange was to be also killed. Even James the Catholic Duke of York, would not be spared. The price of these great crimes had been already paid. Every true Protestant would be murdered. A French army was to land in Ireland. When the reformed faith was ])ut down, the whole country would be given up to the Jesuits. What the real facts— if any— underlying 157 LIFE OF WILLIAM FEXN. all these fables were, has never been discovered. Men of sober sense believe there were some facts. Sydney, than whom no man in that age had a more thorough knowledge of the Catholic courts, believed in a plot, as Penn believed in a plot, ^ir William Temple thought there was a plot. England was in a temper to receive with eager- ness a story of intrigue. The fears of every good Protestant were fed with rumours of the royal apostasy ; and the only cordial friend of the reign- ing house, the King of France, was known to be a bigoted servant of his church. Some vague idea got abroad that Louis had supplied the court with money. Charles was suspected of a secret leaning towards the religion of his wife and his mistresses, and the Duke of York was an avowed and obsti- nate Catholic. Contrary to the wishes of Parlia- ment. James had married an Italian ; should there be an issue of this alliance, there was a fear that a line of Catholic princes might succeed him. Thus, the feeling of the country was alarmed; and wild as were the stories told by Gates, they found a willing audience in the streets. On seeing how much was made of Oates by men of rank and fashion, Bedloe, Dangerfield, and other vscoundrels. brought out newer, more as- tDunding tales. The wiser people only laughed at these impostors; but the affair of Coleman and the murder of Godfrey gave such colour to the charge as made it dangerous to express in public any doubt as to the plot. 158 CHAPTER XX. Algernox Sydney (1678-1G79). Sydney and Penn were anxious to have the al- leged plot .sifted to the quick ; Sydney to uncover Royalist intrigues, and Penn to satisfy his mind about the Jesuits. Sydney looked for a convenient seat. Penn could not go into the House of Com- mons, but he used his pen to help in what he felt to be his country's need. He issued one ad- dress to Quakers. Fearing, in the general conster- nation, lest some might be led astray, he exhorted them not to be drawn out of their sober course by rumours of plots and conspiracies, but to stand aloof, discharging their duties, in the peril- ous times which were at hand. He wrote a second address to Protestants of every denomination. These duties done he wrote a tract entitled 'Eng- land's great Interest in the Choice of a new Par- liament,' composed with a view to promote the choice of wise and liberal members at the ap- proaching poll. In the address to Protestants of every i)arty, Penn reviewed the moral question. He began by showing the fallacy of vicarious virtue. If the people would be honestly governed, they must be honest themselves. Vice is the disease of which nations die. No just government ever perished — no unjust government ever long maintained its power. Virtue is the life of society. All history proves it; but if immorality is the chief destroyer of nations, unwise policy is only a little less inju- rious than active vice. Foremost among errors 159 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. of policy is the attempt to interfere with thought. Act, not thought is the proper subject of law. A man's conception of such abstractions as fate, free-will, election and the like is not a thing to punish. No less mischievous is the fallacy of measuring conduct by belief. The test of faith is practice. He who acts well believes well. Moral- ity is debased when tested from above. Virtue may be necessary to the state of grace but grace is not indispensable to virtue. It is a grand mis- take to disjiarage morality under pretence of look- ing to higher things. * England's great Interest in the choice of a new Parliament' \^as political, ^^ydney and he were much together at this time ; and iSydney's hand is traceable in the pamphlet. Sydney was a fre- quent and cherished guest at Worminghurst. ' All is at stake I ' says Penn. ' The times demand the utmost wisdom. The New Parliament will have the gravest duties : — to investigate the i)lot and punish its authors ; to impeach corrupt and arbi- trary ministers of state; to detect and punish representatives who have sold their votes to shorten the duration of parliaments ; and. finally, to ease Dissenters from the galling cruelties of the Conventicle Act and other similar acts. Such work required bold and able men.' In sketching his man for the day, he had Sydney chiefly in his mind. 'The man for England should,' he urged, ' be able, learned, well affected to liberty ; one who will neither buy his seat nor sell his services; he must be free from suspicion of being a pensioner on the court; he should be a jierson of energy and industry, free from the vices and weaknesses of to\NTi gallants ; a respecter of principles, but not of persons; fearful of evil, but he should be cour- ageous in good ; a true Protestant ; above all, a 160 ALGERNON SYDNEY. man unconnected by office and favour with the court.' The writs were issued. Sydney was proposed for Guildford. Penn was at his side. Hitherto Penn had taken no part in politics. His moral sense was hurt by scenes of low cor- ruption—by the eating and drinking, by the rev- elries and disorders, by the insolence of officials, by the envy, malice and uncharitableness to which elections then gave rise. But in the interests of his friend these scrui)les went for nothing. For Sydney and his cause Penn would have done much more than give a few weeks to canvassing elec- tors, making liberal speeches, and quoting the great charters of our liberty. But government was little pleased to see him acting as the friend of Sydney, and the government had power to make him feel the King's displeasure. His ac- count was still unsettled. Neither pritcipal nor interest of the debts owing to his father had been paid ; and it was evident that any settlement of his claim would rest on the good will of Charles and James. It was his interest therefore to be well at court. But he was acting with Sydney ; a man who had borne arms against the Stuarts in his ardent youth, and in his riper manhood still avowed himself a partisan of the Commonwealth. To lie under suspicion of republicanism was enough to ruin any public man. When Sydney's hope of sitting for Guildford became known, the Court prepared to oppose his candidature with all its power; but Penn paid no respect to this hostility, and boldly put in peril the chief part of his worldly fortune rather than stand apart. The day of election drawing nigh, the Court party became very active. Colonel Dalmahoy was sent to stand as ' a King's friend ;' the mayor and 11 161 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. recorder of the town were bought ; bribery, treat- ing, intimidation, all the baser practices, were brought to bear on Guildford. Soldiers were dis- charged from service on promising to vote for Dalmahoy. Non-residents were sought. Paupers were made to tender votes. To make the Com- monwealth-men odious. Penn was accused of be- ing a Jesuit. Sydney was branded as a regicide. For upwards of three weeks the town was a scene of disorder. Both parties feasted their supporters ; for the sternest virtue of that age was held to be compatible with cakes and ale. At length the day of election came. In spite of everything the Court could do, Sydney had prom- ises of a majority of votes. Penn went with his friend to the hustings and made a powerful speech. 'Don't listen to him; he's a Jesuit.' shouted the Recorder; but the people laughed at their Recorder, not at Penn. That officer called for a New Testa- ment and tendered Penn the oaths — well knowing that he would not take them. Penn, the better lawyer of the two, said quietly, the offer of an oath in such a place was contrary to law. At this rebuke the Recorder lost all patience, called his men, and pushed the speaker from his seat. This use of violence was made too late. Syd- ney had a majority of votes. But having gone such lengths as he had done to serve his sovereign, the Recorder refused to sanction Sydney's poll, on the plea that he was not a freeman of the to\\Ti. Penn and Sydney held a conference of their friends, at which it was resolved to petition against the return of Dalmahoy, and persons were appointed to watch the movements of the enemy and make reports. It was late in the evening when Penn parted from Sydney ; he had been from home some time; and he was getting anxious 162 ALGERNON SYDNEY. about Guli and the little folks. As he rode along, his mind was deeply troubled at the scenes he had just witnessed— the profligacy and unfairness of the Court party.— the indifference of so many electors, —the contumely heaped on his noble friend, be- cause he and his party 'had a conscientious re- gard for England.' When he got home he found his family in health ; but instead of giving himself up, as usual with him, to domestic intercourse, he went to his room and wrote to Sydney. ' Dear Friend. — I hope you got all well home, as I. by God's goodness, have done. I reflected upon the way of things past at Guildford, and that which occurs to me as reasonable is this, that so soon as the articles or exceptions are digested, we should show them to Sergeant Maynard. and get his opinion of the matter. Sir Francis Winnington and Wallope have been used on these occasions too. Thou must have counsel before the Com- mittee ; and to advise flrst upon the reason of an address or petition with them, in my opinion, is not imprudent but very fitting. If they say that (the conjecture considered, thy qualifications and alliance and his ungratefulne.ss to the House) they believe all may amount to an unfair election, then I offer to wait presently upon the Duke of Buck- ingham, Earl of Shaftsbury. Lord Essex. Lord Halifax. Lord Hollis. Lord Gray, and others, to use their utmost interest in reversing this busi- ness. This may be done in five days. I was not willing to stay till I come, which will be with the first. Remember the non-residents on their side, as Legg and others. I left order with all our in- terest to bestir themselves, and watch, and trans- mit an account to thee daily. I bless God. I found all well at home. I hope a disapiiointment so 163 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. strange (a hundred and forty poll-men as we thought last night considered) does not move thee. Thou, as thy friends, hast a conscientious regard for England ; and to be put aside by such base ways is really a suffering for righteousness. Thou hast emoarked thyself with them that seek. and love, and choose the best things ; and num- ber is not weight with thee. 'Tis late I am weary, and hope to see thee quickly. Farewell.' A petition on behalf of Sydney was sent to the House of Commons. Terror of the Popish plot had spread, and seldom before had England re- turned so implacable and intolerant a parliament. Another crisis soon came on. Monmouth had been sent into banishment, and his mother branded as a wanton. These acts of the Catholic party added fuel to the flame : — and the Houses met in a most threatening mood. Their rage was prompt. Danby was committed to the Tower. The Duke of York was banished the realm. The Whigs — the party led by Shaftsbury and Russell— were on the eve of a decisive victory — when Charles again dissolved. Sydney prepared to stand again, but not for Guildford. Penn, after riding much about the southern counties, testing the feeling of constitu- encies, urged him to try the rape of Bramber, where the name of Sydney bore with it assurance of success. The rape of Bramber lay within five miles of Worminghurst, where the Penns had strong connexions ; Springetts, Ellwoods, Faggs, Temples ; and on all of whom they felt that they might count. Penn fell to work with zeal and in a few days all these families were in Sydney's camp. He tried to enlist the Pelhams in the same cause, though in a recent county election he had opposed that family in favour of Sir John Fagg. As soon 164 ALGERNON SYDNEY. as the writs were out. Penn rode to Bramber. Quick and ardent he communicated his own zeal to others, and with Sir John Fagg and Sir John Temple as his helpers he commenced an active canvass. When he spoke of Sydney's virtues things looked well; but when hU partners in the canvass treated the men to beer in Sydney's name, they looked much better. As the rape of Bramber had scarcely a hundred inhabitants, it was not difficult to treat them all. Captain Goring, the Court can- didate, broached his ale and tossed his cakes. Parsons, the second liberal candidate treated for himself and Sydney also; meaning, if he saw no chance of carrying both seats, to yield in Syd- ney's favour at the poll. Both Fagg and Tem- ple thought their friend's election sure. In this emergency, the Court resorted to the vilest arts. Knowing the influence which the name of Sydney exercised, Lord Sunderland, whose gen- ius now directed every movement at the palace, formed the plan of opposing brother to brother — arraying one Sydney against another Sydney. Sunderland, being Sydney's nephew, was aware of the divisions in his family. He knew that Henry Sydney, weak by nature, would do anything to please the King. Henry had received some proofs of royal favour, and had reason given him to hope for more. He had been graciously allowed to buy Godolphin's place of Master of the Robes for six thousand pounds. He had been sent to Holland as envoy extraordinary to the Prince of Orange. He could not quarrel with Whitehall; and so he let his name be put up by his broth- er's foes. When this design was whispered in the rape of Bramber, Penn would not believe it. But he knew the danger, should report prove true; for the first 165 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. effect of it would be to carry the Pelham interest to the other side. Penn felt that no time should be lost, and urged on Sydney the importance of his coming down at once : ^ Dear Friend, — I am now at Sir John Fagg's, where I and my relations dined, I have pressed the point with what diligence and force I could ; and. to say true, Sir John Fagg has been a most zealous, and. he believes, a successful friend to thee. But, upon a serious consideration of the matter, it is agreed that thou comest down with all speed, but that thou takest Hall-Land in thy way. and bringest Sir John Pelham with thee. — which he ought less to scruple, because his having no interest can be no objection to his appearing with thee; the commonest civility that can be is all desired. The borough has kindled at thy name, and takes it well. If Sir John Temple may be credited, he assures me it is very likely. He is at work daily. Another, one Parsons, treats to-day, but for thee as well as himself and mostly makes his men for thee, and perhaps will be persuaded, if you two carry it not to bequeath his interest to thee, and then Captain Goring is thy colleague ; and this I wish, both to make the thing easier and to prevent offence. Sir John Pelham sent me word, he heard that thy brother Henry Sydney would be proposed to that borough, or already was. and till he was sure of the contrary, it would not be decent for him to appear. Of that thou canst best inform him. That day you come to Bramber. Sir John Fagg will meet you both; and that night you may lie at Wiston, and then, when thou pleasest, with us at Worminghurst.' Penn wrote a second letter to Pelham to pro- 16G ALGERNON SYDNEY. test against the scandal of Henry's name being- used in his absence to the prejudice of Algernon ; expressing his fears that this ungenerous act would lead to greater feuds in the t^ydney family. Sunderland moved the wires at will ; and what with feasting and drinking — the I'elhams con- tributing half a fat buck— the men of Bramber were divided at the poll. Henry obtained as many votes as his brother. Algernon got the casting voice, and was declared duly returned. Penn now considered his friend about to take his seat, where his counsels and his example might be of service to his country. But as soon as the Houses met, his return was cancelled by a court intrigue. This second disappointment made a deep im- pression on the mind of Penn. It drove the rage of Guildford from his thoughts. That Dalmahoy should be willing to take advantage of an honest adversary, that a petty official, whom the court could make or mar at pleasure, should be ready to stain his fame, were things conceivable to him. But that a nephew and a brother— members of an illustrious house, and men whom he had known for years — should serve the purpose of a base cabal, to the dishonour of their blood, these things were inconceivable to him. If the nearest rela- tives of Sydney would not pause at such an act of baseness, what was left for virtue but to flee away from a corrupt society and court? 167 CHAPTER XXI. A New Country (1680). Turning from the rape of Bramber and the gal- lery of Whitehall. Penn looked in mind across the ocean. He had made another effort ; he had failed ; but though he never sank in hope, he felt that there was hardly room in England for a new ex- periment in freedom to be made. The people were too much divided ; some too rich and some too poor; some too learned, some too ignorant; for a frame of government in which every man ought to be the equal of every other man. On finding that a trial could not well be made in England, Penn adopted the romantic scheme of giving up his fortune and his future life to trying this ex- periment in lands beyond the sea. In place of the great sums of money due to his deceased father — not a penny of which had yet been paid — he offered to accept a stretch of des- ert, lying backwards towards the unknown west, beyond the Delaware. jfThis tract was then a wil- derness, with here and there a house of wood and thatch, in which some Dutch or Swedish farmer lived. To this wild country he proposed to lead out a colony of citizens, to seek those fortunes and enjoy those liberties in the New World which the evil passions of the older world denied them. There was poetry and chivalry in such a thought. The soldier of Kinsale. with the ad- venturous genius of his race, would be in modern times a hero of romance. To be a leader of ad- venturers was not his highest aim. He wished to found in that wilderness a Free Colony for all na- 168 A NEW COUNTRY. tions— an original and august conception : one to keep his name for ever in the memories of man- kind. His experiment was to bear witness to the world that there is in human nature virtue for self-government. In the colony of his brain there should be equal laws. The sovereignty— judicial, representative, administrative — should be with the people. Every office should be filled by men elected to their functions, and paid out of the public revenue for their services. The state should employ the best of servants, and admit no mas- ters. There should be no privileged order. In Utopia there should be no power, not even his own, above the law. Justice should be equally administered. To the natives of the soil he would offer protection, the useful arts, European com- forts, above all the gospel. Love should brood over all his projects. Freedom of the conscience — equality of political and civil rights — respect for personal liberty—and full regard for the rights of property : these were the points of his scheme, iy The block of country lay to the north of th^ Catholic province of Maryland which was owTied by Baltimore. For eastern boundary it had the state of New Jersey, with the affairs of which Penn was now familiar. It had only one outlet to the sea ; by means of the river Delaware ; but it stretched inland over an undefined country, across the Alleghannies to the banks of the'Ohio on the west, and to Lake Erie on the north. The length of this province was nearly three hundred miles ; its width about one hundred and sixty miles ; and it contained no less than forty-seven thousand square miles of surface; little less than the entire area of England. Much of the land was hilly, and the hills were green with wood. I The Indians hunted elk and deer over its plains. ' 169 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. danced the war-dance, and smoked the pipe of peace beneath the shade of its majestic oaks. ) Nature, it is true, had not been prodigal in this region; mountain chains covered a large portion of its area ; and while the adjoining states of Vir- ginia Maryland, and New York, were alive with industry, hardly an English settler had as yet thought of sitting down in this bleaker clime. The winters were severe on the eastern slopes, and men supposed they must be colder in the valleys on the west. Yet the land was rich in many of the best elements of wealth. Between Cape Hen- lopen and Cape May, the Delaware offered a basin in which the commerce of a great continent would have room. The Susquehannah. the Delaware the Ohio, the AUeghanny, and a host of rivers either watered the interior of the country or washed its boundaries. It was rich in mineral treasures. Iron was found in a thousand mines ; to the west of the Alleghannies lay inexhaustible fields of coal; and anthracite beds of the same fossil were found in almost every part of the province. Near the banks of the Ohio lay concealed a treasury of salt- springs. Limestone was abundant ; in the south- east there was a quarry of marble not unworthy of Italy and Greece. Nor was the whole of the province like the slopes of the mountain districts. Though the rock lay near the surface, it was cov- ered with loam. Sand and alluvial deposits ex- isted in the same locality. Brooks and streams ran down its valleys, glens, and gorges fertilising the soil and breeding myriads of ducks, curlews, geese, and other water-fowl. Remarkable for fer- tility were the lower flats about the Skuykill and the Delaware. Between the head-waters of the Al- leghanny and Lake Erie and on both banks of the Susquehannah, the soil was rich and capable 170 A NEW COUNTRY. of culture. When the forest should be felled and the surface cleared , wheat, barley, rye, Indian corn, hemp. oats, and flax, would take their place. The climate had the softness of the south of France ; and the purity of the atmo.«phere reminded Penn of Languedoc. The forests supplied woods of al- most every kind, — cypress, cedar, chestnut, oak, and walnut. Poplars were common. Oaks of several kinds were found. The pine, the cedar, and the wild myrtle filled the air with fragrance ; and a slight breeze brought from the heart of bound- less woods a stimulating scent. Beasts of prey were absent; but the woods abounded in wild game, and the venison was superior to anything of the kind out of England. Fowls grew to an uncommon size; turkeys to forty or fifty pounds weight a-piece. Partridges and pigeons made the fields vocal with their cries. The rivers yielded fish, especially perch and trout, shad and rock, roach, smelt, and eels. Oysters, crabs, cockles, conch and other shell-fish, were abundant. Fruits grew wild about the country— grapes, peaches, strawberries, plums, chestnuts, and mulberries ; while the eye was charmed with the virgin flow- ers of spring and with the forest radiance of the fall. But these advantages were not all known. Penn never suspected he was asking for a kingdom in return for a debt of sixteen thousand pounds. He had no hope of making money by his province; and to his death he never dreamt that it would pay him back the money he had spent. For years it was a waste. In that age people looked on a settlement among the Alleghannies as their de- scendants look on a removal into the gorges of the Rocky Mountains. Men went thither who could set- tle nowhere else. When Gustavus Adolphus came 171 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. to the throne of Sweden he found nearly the whole of the American continent in the possession of one or other power; but anxious, as he said, ' to convert the heathen and to extend his domin- ions ; to enrich the treasury and lessen the public taxes, ' he sent out colonists from Sweden to take possession of the unoccupied country on the Dela- ware. This colony was the beginning of a state. They found a few Dutch settlers there who had at first no friendly feeling towards the new comers. But they found that these industrious neighbours would be useful to them ; for the Swedes turned their attention to farming, while the Hollanders preferred to fetch and carry, and to buy and sell. They suited each other. With the Swedes went out a number of Finns ; and a village was formed by them at Wicocoa, now within the suburbs of Philadelphia. The Swedes bestowed the name of New Suabia on the whole country, and scattered themselves far and wide over its surface. They had. however, advanced but a little way towards the formation of a state when Penn became a petitioner to the King. Not a single house had been built at Philadelphia— a spot marked out by nature as the site of a great city ; for such of the Hollanders as fixed their residence at the con- fluence of the two rivers were content to harbour in the holes and caves. \ The red men were a branch of the Lenni Lenape. This name, signifying 'the original people." was a common term, under which were included all the Indian tribes speaking dialects of the \\idely- spread Algonquin language. An obscure tradition among them pointed to a great migration from the west, in ages long ago. They may have been the remnants of a conquering race which had sub- dued and swept away the civilised people whose 172 A NEW COUNTRY. monuments still arrest attention in the great valley of the Mississippi. The northern regions were held by Iroquois— a race of red men famous in the history of New York under the name of the Six Nations. As compared with whites the tribes presented the same general characteristics— they were hardy, cunning, cruel, brave. They claimed the lordship of the soil as theirs by immemorial right. But as they hunted only, the grounds were of no use to them except so long as the rivers yielded fish and the forests yielded game. Men who have no fixed place of residence— no altars and no homes— have yet to acquire the means whereby a sense of property in the soil grows up. The Iroquois and the Lenape built no cities — permanently kept no fields. Wherever the woods afforded sport the lodge was pitched. The men tightened their bows and sharpened their hatchets ; the women planted a rood or two of maize; and when the forest spoils and field produce were got in, they marched to more attractive spots. Their sachem was an hereditary ruler; but the order of succession was by the female line. The children of the reigning sachem could not succeed him in his regal office, but the next son of his mother, after whom came in the sister's eldest son. Such was the country which Penn petitioned the King to grant him in lieu of his claim. I ^ A year was wasted in debates. The loyalists lost all patience when they heard that Penn was asking for a grant of land, to put in practice cer- tain theories held to be Utopian by wise and moderate politicians and denounced by courtier and cavalier as dangerous to the Crown and State. Events had slackened his hold on James. Penn had publicly expressed his belief in the Popish 173 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. plot ; he had influenced his friends openly to sup- port Sydney; he had himself become a leader among the Republicans. He had committed a still greater offence in the eyes of James— he had stood between that prince and his prey. As lord-pro- prietor of the whole province >f New Netherlands, James had claimed the right to levy an import and export tax upon all articles entering or leav- ing its ports. So long as James retained the land as well as the seignorial right, this claim was not disputed ; consequently traders carrying goods to or from New Jersey paid to his agents a duty of ten per cent. When Billing got the land, this tax was felt to be a wrong ; the colonists invited Penn to act for them; and, having considered the jus- tice of their case, Penn proceeded against his royal guardian in the law courts. Sir William Jones de- cided the case in favour of Penn and the colonists ; the Duke at once submitted ; but it is impossible to believe that he would not feel sore at his defeat. To the coldness of the prince was added the active hostility of Lord Baltimore, whose ill-defined pos- sessions were supposed to be invaded by the new boundary-line. Baltimore was one of those who stood in Gates' black list; he was not in the country ; but he had friends at court, who watched his interests; and Penn's petition was no sooner laid before the council, than a copy of it was sent to his agent, Burke, who took such meas- ures as he thought most likely to defeat it. All the dilatory forms of the Royal Council were used ; the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations wrote long letters about trifles to the Attorney- general, and the Attorney-general wrote with sim- ilar tact to the Lords Commissioners. Penn's time and hopes were wasting. Sunderland was an ac- tive friend; and Hyde. Chief Justice North, and 174 A NEW COUNTRY. the Earl of Halifax, were also on his side. These prudent friends advised him to be silent as to his Free Colony until his patent had been signed. The name of Freedom was offensive at Whitehall. 175 CHAPTER XXII. Pennsylvania (1680-81). At first, the Duke of York was not in favour of the grant ; and the Attorney-general, Sir Joseph Warden, was instructed to oppose it in his name. James thought the boundary line too loose, the rights of seigniory too large. But Sunderland kept the King's attention fixed on the alternative mode of paying off the score. A peerage and a sum of sixteen thousand pounds were due. If Penn were willing to accept a lordship on the Del- aware in lieu of a barony on the Wey, a patch of waste woodland in lieu of sixteen thousand pounds in money, Sunderland thought the King would make a very good bargain for the crown. Sir Thomas Thynne was hankering after Weymouth ; the royal treasury was empty ; and the King could hardly make another man Viscount Weymouth while the Admiral's dues were still unpaid. This argument in favour of the grant decided Charles. Had there been money in the coffers, Penn would not have gained his prayer, and Pennsylvania would have been reclaimed and planted by another race of men. Five months after Penn's petition was sent in. Sir Joseph wrote to inform Secretary Blathwayte that the Duke of York consented to Penn's request. What now re- mained, was the arrangement of details. But this task occupied a second five months. The chief questions which came up for discussion had refer- ence to boundaries and constitutions. Agents of the Duke of York were heard by the Privy Coun- 176 PENxNSYLVANIA. cil ; Burke appeared for Lord Baltimore ; and both parties laid do^Ti objections to the boundary-line as drawn by Penn. Penn's counsel made the best of their position ; their client being anxious to ob- tain a well-marked line ; but the parties could not come to terms. At length, the grant was made by the Council with no proper understanding of the question, in a vain hope that the proprietors would be able to arrange their differences among themselves. This omission led to much dispute in after-times. The terms of the charter then came on. Penn had forgotten some of our less liberal laws and usages; but the Attorney-general and the Lord Chief Justice remedied his defects by ad- ding clauses to the charter. They reserved all royal privileges. They provided for the authority of Parliament in questions of trade and com- merce. Acts of the colonial legislature were to be submitted to the King. Above all. they reserved to the mother country the right to levy rates. The Bishop of London got a clause inserted claim- ing security for the English Church. All these preliminaries being arranged, the Lords of Trade and Plantations submitted the draft of a charter constituting Penn proprietor of his great estates. On Thursday, February 24, 1681, Charles set his signature to the document, too happy to cancel a very large and troublesome debt. A council was called for Saturday, the 5th of March at Whitehall, which Penn was summoned to attend. The name which Penn had fixed on for his province was New Wales; but Secretary Blathwayte. a Welshman, objected to have the Quaker country called after his native land. Penn proposed Sylvania. on account of the magnifi- cent forests. Penn means great and high ; and Charles, who loved a word of double meaning, 12 177 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. added Penn to Sylvania ; partly as a compliment to his old admiral, and partly as descriptive of the country. Penn being fearful lest it would ap- pear in him a piece of vanity to allow a princi- pality to be called by his name appealed to the King- and offered twenty guineas to the Secretary, to have it changed. Had he appealed to Blath- wayte and bribed the King he might have had his wish. Put Charles took upon himself the name; and the patent was then issuer in the usual form. The document itself is in the oflBce of the Secre- tary of Pennsylvania; it is written on rolls of strong parchment, in the old English handwrit- ing each line underscored with red ink ; the bor- ders are emblazoned with devices, and the top of the first sheet exhibits a portrait of King Charles. It briefly sets forth the nature and reasons of the grant, and loosely describes the boundaries of the province. This document not yet two centuries old. is regarded in America with veneration. I Four weeks after Charles had signed his patent. Penn sent ou his cousin. Colonel William Mark- ham, with his orders to take possession of the country, to inform the natives of his coming over, and assure them of his friendly feeling j|q select a piece of land near Trenton Falls on which to build a house, and settle with Lord Baltimore the ques- tion of their frontier lines. The grant of his petition was a great event for Penn. Penn knew the grandeur and the purity of his design. If Sydney felt that the cause of free- dom was at issue, Penn believed that the experi- ment involved no less than the cause of human nature and of God. While waiting the turns of his negotiations he saw how one false step, one rash word, one imprudent concession, might put the whole of his great scheme in peril. When the char- 178 PENNSYLVANIA. ter was issued he exclaimed, 'God hath given it to me in the face of the world. ... He will bless and make it the seed of a nation.' In this spirit he commenced his labours as a legislator. Warned by the failure of the constitu- tion drawn uj) by Locke and Shaftsbury for Caro- lina which their friends had declared would last for ever,— Penn resolved, at Sydney's instance, to secure a democratic basis for his scheme, and then allow the details to fall in with time. He there- fore drew a frame of government, the preamble of which — like the declaration of rights and principle prefixed to modern constitutions — contained his leading ideas on the nature, origin, and ob- ject of government. His sentiments, as exhibited in this document, are liberal, wise, and noble. He begins by expressing his conviction that govern- ment is of divine origin : and bears the same sort of relation to the outer that religion does to the inner man. An outward law. he says, is needed in the world because men will not obey the inward light; in the words of an Apostle. 'The law was added on account of sin.' They err, he says who fancy that government has only to coerce the evil-doers; it has also to encourage the well-dis- posed, to shield virtue, to reward merit, to foster art, to promote learning. As to models of govern- ment, he says little. Vice will vitiate every form ; and while men side with their passions against their reason, neither monarchy nor democracy can preserve them from corruption. Governments depend more on men than men on governments. If men are vnse and virtuous, the governments un- der which they must live also become wise and virtuous ; it is therefore essential to the stability of a state that the people be educated in noble thoughts and virtuous deeds. A people making 179 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. their own laws and obeying them faithfully, will be a free people, while those laws exist, whatever be the nnine of the constitution under which they live. The counsels of Halifax and Sunderland were not lost. Without using terms which would have roused the jealousy of Whitehall. Penn contrived to express the chief of his ideas in a clear and practical shape. He concludes his preface by say- ing that ' in reverence to God and good conscience towards men,' he has formed his scheme of gov- ernment so as ' to support power in reverence with the people, and to secure the people from the abuse of power, that they may be free by their just obedience, and the magistrates honourable for their just administration.' The constitution, a rough draft only, followed. It had been drawn up with care by Penn and Syd- ney. Sydney went down to Worminghurst for the purpose; and there the two lawgivers drew up the first outlines. Every phrase employed was tested by the most advanced theories of democ- racy and by the practice of ancient and modern nations. Penn changed his terms whenever Syd- ney expressed a doubt. When the first rudiments were moulded into shape Sydney carried the pa- pers home with him to Penshurst, to consider and re-consider the various clauses ; when his mind was fully satisfied as to their form and substance he brought them backo So intricate, so continuous, was this mutual aid, that it is now impossible to separate the work of one legislator from that of the other— Penn' s share from Sydney's— Sydney's share from Penn's. The constitution begins by declaring that the sovereign power resides in the governor and free- men of the province. For purposes of legislation, two bodies are to be elected by the people— a 180 PENNSYLVANIA. Council and an Assembly. The proprietor, or his deputy, is to preside at the council, and to have three votes. These votes are the only power which he reserves to himself or to his agents. The func- tions of the council are to prepare and propose bills — to see the laws duly executed — to watch over the peace and safety of the province — to determine the sites of new towns and cities — to build ports, harbours, and markets — to make and repair roads — to inspect the public treasury — to erect courts of justice institute primary schools, and reward the authors of useful inventions and discoveries. This body, consisting of seventy-two persons, is to be chosen by universal suffrage for three years ; twenty-four of them retiring every year, whose places are to be supplied by new elections. The members of the assembly are to be elected annu- ally. The votes are to be taken by ballot; the members are to be paid ; and the suffrage is to be universal. There are no property qualifications, and the whole country is to be divided into sec- tions. The assembly has no deliberative power. All acts of the council are to be laid before it for approval or rejection. It has the privilege of mak- ing out a list of persons to be named as justices and sheriffs of which list the governor is bound to select one half. To this outline of a constitution are added forty provisional laws relating to liberty of conscience, to choice of civil officers, to provision for the poor, to processes at law, to fines, arrests, and other matters of a civil nature. These provisional laws are to be in force until the council has been properly elected, when they are to be either ac- cepted, amended, or rejected as the popular rep- resentatives think proper; Penn agreeing with Sydney, that no men can know what laws are 181 LIFE OF WILLIAM FEXX. needful so well as those whose lives, properties, and liberties are concerned. On this point the con- stitutions of Pennsylvania and Delaware and after them the constitution of the United States, owe an eternal obligation to Sydney. Penn like More like Harrington and the writers on Utopian schemes, desired to have a fixed system of public law. He would have drawn his constitutions and offered them to the world as the conditions of set- tlement in his new colony, Shaftsbury and Balti- more had adopted such a mode. With ruling in- stinct. Sydney saw that a democracy is incompati- ble with a foreign body of constitutional law. He proposed, therefore, to leave this question open. Having fixed the great boundary-lines of the sys- tem — secured freedom of thought (always Penn's first care) . sacredness of person and property, popular control over all the powers of the state, financial, civil, jiroprietorial. and judicial — the lawgivers left the new democracy to develope itself in accordance with its natural wants. America owes much to Sydney. An outline of the new political system being drawn up. Penn began to organise. The elements were prepared. So soon as it was whispered that the champion of trial by jury had become the ovsTier and governor of a province in the New World, and that he proi)osed to settle it on the broadest principles of i)Oi)ular right, from nearly every large town in the three kingdoms and from many cities of the Rhine and Holland agents were despatched to treat with the new lord for lands. Societies were formed for emigration. A German company started up at Frankfort. Franz Pastorius came to London, where he bought fifteen thousand acres lying in one tract on a navigable river, and three thousand acres within 182 PENNSYLVANIA. the liberties of the new city. Liverpool furnished many purchasers and settlers, London more. At Bristol a company was organised under the name of Free Society of Traders in Pennsylvania; and in the autumn Penn rode down to that city to confer with Moore. Ford. Claypole and other ad- venturers on their plans. Penn was anxious to encourage skilful manufacturers of wool to mi- grate from the neighbourhood of Bristol and the valley of Stroud ; for in the early stage of his experiment these were the staples on which he based his expectations of success. Desiring free- dom for trade as well as freedom for the person. he resisted every temptation to reserve to himself profitable monopolies, just as in his constitutions he had refused to retain official patronage. A few weeks after the charter was issued, Thurston and Maryland gent an agent to offer him a fee of 6.000/. and 2% per cent, as rental, if he would allow a company to be formed with an exclusive right to trade in beaver-skins between the Dela- ware and Susquehannah rivers. Other proprietors granted such monopolies; Penn's right to grant them was unquet^tionable; but he felt that such monopolies were unjust, and he refused the money and the yearly rent. A Free Society of Traders realised ench descent upon our coasts was hourly expected. But how could Avaux tell his master anything about the state of public feeling? Avaux was at home in France. He had sailed from Cork in the pre- ceding spring. Avaux's letter shows the proper dale of his intelligence; he is speaking of the months of May and June 1689; a very different time to June 1690. The place from which Avaux forwards news of importance (from May and June 1689) is Scot- land—not p]ngland, as Macaulay says. In May and June 1689, England was calm, and London busy in preparing for the coronation. Scotland was in arms for her ancient line. Dundee was call- ing for troops, and Avaux trying to persuade his master to adventure in the strife. We see that Avaux. when he comes to business, puts the Scotch affairs in front. 'The good effect, sire, which these letters from Scotland and England have produced.' &c. Louis, in replying, treats the news from England as of no importance, while he answers very carefully as to the Scotch af- fair. I give the French king's answer to Avaux :— ' VersaUle.^volu- tion en sa faveur dans ledit rojaume que contre mon opinion, sa seule presence seroit capable de reduire enti}rement la ville d'Edimbourg a son obeissance. faire casser tout ce que la convention des rebelles a fait contre I'autoritj dudit Roy. et restablir tellement ses affaires dans tout 1" Escosse qu'elle donneroit de nouvelles forces A tons les Anglois qui sont niecontens du Prince d'Orange; il faut luy laisser prendre dans ces evenemens extraordinaires les r^' solutions qu'il croira luy estre les plus avantageuses en sorte qu"il ne puisse pas se plaindre qu'on luy ait fait manquer 1" occasion de rentrer dan ses estats ; mais la principale appli- cation qu'il doit avoir Ti present est de pourvoir a sa deffense et a la seuretj de ce qu'il possede en Irlande a quoy il faut esperer qu'il pourra reussir, si toutes les troupes qu'il a sur pied font bien leur devoir.' The person from whom Macaulay says that Avaux got his first news was William Penn; but Avaux nowhere says so. He only mentions M. Pen. Who was Avaux's * M. Pen?' There is no evidence to show that he was William Penn. and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that he was nol. That there were other 'M. Pens' about the court we know. There was George Penne the par- don-broker. There was Neville Penn a secret agent of the exiled court. This Neville Penn (whose name is spelt by different persons Pen. Penn Pain and Payne) was then in England on a secret mission, and the only fair construction of the words of Avaux is, that the news sent from 330 SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER. England by ' M. Pen' were from the King's paid agent, Neville Penn. This Neville Penn was a zealous Catholic a man of talent, and a Jacobite by feeling even more than by his dubious trade. That he was hated in the English Court we know too well. A few months after Avaux sent his news to Louis Neville Penn, on flying from England into Scotland, fell into the power of the new gov- ernment, where he was screwed and torn ; a first time by command of Mary, and a second time by command of William ; till the oldest and least scrupulous politician left the council-table and the torture-chamber in disgust. (Leven and MeUrillc Fdpers, p. 582.) But let this *M. Pen' be whom he may. it is clear that a letter from him in the early part of 1689 cannot have been written by William Penn in connexion \^ith events in June 1690. VIII. Penn is accused of falsehood : ' Penn was brought before the Privy Council. He said . . . This was a falsehood ; and William was probably aware that it was so.'— i//\sv. Euy. iii. 600. No such interview as Macaulay pictures could have taken place. The dates forbid us to believe it. Macaulay fixes his imaginary interview imme- diately before the King's departure for Ireland. Now, the King left London on the 4th of June, 1690 {Evelyn's Diarij, iii. 294). The proclama- tion for Penn's arrest was not issued until King William had been gone twenty days (Priry Coun- cil Reg. June 24, 1690) ; and Penn was still at large on the 31st of July {Penn to Nottinf/hmn, July 31). On the 15th of August Penn was dis- charged from custody {Privy Council Reg. Aug. 831 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. 15. 1690). William arrived at Kensington Sep- tember 10 {Gazette, Sept. 1690). It is therefore physically impossible that the interview described by Macaiilay could have taken place and there- fore physically impossible that Penn could have told the King a falsehood, which William proba- bly knew to be a falsehood. IX. Penn is described as flying from arrest, stealing down to the Sussex coast, and escaping into France — an enemy's country : 'A warrant was issued against Penn and he narrowly escaped the messenger Penn w^as conspicuous among those who committed the corpse [of Fox] to the earth He instantly took flight He lay hid in London during some months and then stole down to the coast of Sussex and made his escape to France.'— i/isi. Eng. iv. 23, 30, 31. This paragraph is one mass of error, as the dates alone suffice to prove. Fox was buried at Bunhill Fields on the 16th of January. 1691 (Journal of Fox, p. 366). The order for Penn's arrest was not given until three weeks later (Prinj Council Reg. Feb. 5, 1691). Penn neither stole down to Sussex nor escaped into France. He lived in London, and occasionally at Worminghurst. Croese writes : 'Penn withdrew himself more and more from business, and at length he confined himself to his new house in London'. (7//V. (jiia/.-. ii. 102.) Luttrel, indeed, heard in a London coffee-house a report that Penn had escaped to France but the report was false. On turning to Penn's Works. the reader will find abundant fruit of the leisure 332 SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER. now enjoyed by Penn in his own house. (Pcnn^s Collected Works, i. 818 892; ii. 774-807). This 'escape to France' has disappeared from Macau- lay's revised index (Ilixt. Eikj. v. 327). X. Penn told Sydney something ' very like a lie ' and supported that lie by something ' very like an oath' : 'A short time after his disappearance. Sydney received from him a strange communication. Penn begged for an interview, but insisted on a promise that he should be suffered to return un- molested to his hiding-place. Sydney obtained the royal permission to make an appointment on these terms. Penn came to the rendezvous, and spoke at length in his o^ti defence. He declared that he was a faithful subject of King William and Queen Mary, and that if he knew of any design against them he would discover it. Departing from his Yea and Nay he protested as in the I)resence of God, that he knew^ of no plot and that he did not believe that there was any plot unless the ambitious projects of the French gov- ernment might be called plots. Sydney, amazed probably by hearing a person who had such an abhorrence of lies that he would not use the common forms of civility and such an abhorrence of oaths that he would not kiss the book in a court of justice tell something very like a lie and confirm it by something very like an oath asked how if there were really no plot the letters and minutes which had been found on Ashton were to be explained. This question Penn evaded.' — Hht. EiKj. iv. 30. 31. As Macaulay cites Sydney's letter to William for his version of this strange interview. I give Syd- ney's letter to the King in full : — 'Fe}>. 21. 1691. * Sir — About ten days ago Mr. Penn sent his brother-in-law. Mr. Lowther, to me to let me know that he would be very glad to see me if I 333 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. would give him leave and promise him to let him return without being molested, I sent him word 1 would if the Queen would permit it. He then de- sired me not to mention it to anyone but the Queen, I said I would not. On Monday he sent me to know what time I would appoint. I named Wednesday, in the evening; and accordingly I went to the place at the time, where I found him, just as he used to be, not at all disguised, but in the same clothes and the same humour I formerly have seen him in. It would be too long for your Majesty to read a full account of all our discourse ; but in short it was this that he was a true and faithful servant to King William and Queen Mary, and if he knew anything that was prejudicial to them or their government he would readily dis- cover it. He protested, in the presence of God that he knew of no plot ; nor did he believe there was any one in Europe but what King Lewis hath laid ; and he was of opinion that King James knew the bottom of this plot as little as other people. He saith he knows your Majesty hath a great many enemies ; and some that came over with you. and some that joined you soon after your arrival, he was sure were more inveterate and more dangerous than the Jacobites ; for he saith there is not one man among them that hath common understanding. To the letters that were found with my Lord Preston, and the papers of the conference, he would not give any positive answer, but said if he could have the honour to see the King and that he would be pleased to believe the sincerity of what he saith, and pardon the ingenuity of what he confessed he would freely tell everything he knew of himself and other things that would be much for his Majesty's ser- vice and interest to know but if he cannot obtain this favour he must be obliged to quit the king- dom ; which he is very unwilling to do. He saith he might have gone away twenty times if he had pleased but he is so confident of giving your Majesty satisfaction if you would hear him that he was resolved to expect your return before he took any sort of measures. What he intends to do, is all he can do for your service, for he can't be a witness if he would, it being as he saith, 334 SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER. against his conscience and his principles to take an oath. This is the sum of our conference and I am sure your Majesty will jud^e as you ought to do of it, without any of my reflections.' — Balrym- pWs Mem. iii. 183. Here is a wholly different tale. Sydn.^y never hints that Penn was in a "hiding-place.' Sydney says, ' I found him ju;-.t as he used to be ; not at all disguised, but in the same clothes and the same humoui* I have formerly seen him in.' Syd- ney nowhere suggests that he thought Penn was telling ' something very like a lie.' Macaulay adds. Penn assured Sydney that 'the most formidable enemies of the government were the discontented Whigs.' Sydney never mentions these 'discon- tented Whigs.' Sydney never asked 'how the let- ters and minutes which had been found on Ashton were to be explained.' Macaulay makes Penn say, abmirdly. that 'the Jacobites are not dangerous.' Sydn3y reports him as saying, what was very true, that some of those who had come over with William, and some of those who had been the first to join him, were ' more dangerous than the Ja- cobites.' XI. Penn is accused of trying to persuade James to invade England at the head of thirty thousand men. ' After about three years of wandering and lurk- ing, he made his peace with the government and again ventured to resume his ministrations. The return which he made for the lenity w^tll which he had been treated does not much raise his character. Scarcely had he again begun to harangue in public about the unlawfulness of war. than he sent a message earnestly exhorting James to make an immediate descent on England with thirty thou- sand men.'— ///i/. Eng, iv. 31. 335 LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. The authority for this absurd statement is 'a paper dra'v\Ti up at St. Germain's under Melfort's direction,, Dec. 1828. 1693.' This paper, which the reader will find in Mac- pherson's 'Original Papers,' i. -459-4:63 never men- tions the name of Penn. It gives a list of many leading men in England who are said to be in- terested for the exiled family ; but the name of Penn is not among these men. Annexed to the ' paper' are two reports from spies in one of which occurs the name Mr. Penn. But there is nothing to suggest that this 'Mr. Penn' is William Penn, the Founder and Lord Proprietor of Pennsylvania, while there is plenty of evidence to show that he is Neville Penn. The spy was one Williamson, who was in London, earning dirty money by the dirt- iest of all dirty trades. He sent word over to Versailles that certain peers and gentlemen. — the Earls of Clarendon, Yarmouth. Aylesbury and Arran, Sir James Montgomery, Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe, and Sir John Friend, Mr. Stroude, Mr. Louton, Mr. Ferguson, Mr. Penn, and Col. Graham, — implored the King to make a descent on England. Here is what this spy reports, of 'Mr. Penn' :— 'Mr. Penn says that your Majesty has had several occasions but never any so favourable as the present ; and he hopes that your Majesty will be earnest with the most Christian King not to neglect it; that a descent with thirty thousand men will not only re-establish your Majesty, but according to all appearances will break the T^eague; that your Majesty's kingdom will be wretched while the confederates are united, for while there is a fool in England the Prince of Orange will have a pensioned parliament who will give him money.' — MacphersorCs Original Papers, 1, 488. 386 SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER. With the utmost confidence I say that William Penn never spoke and never wrote this stuff. Penn never used the phrase ' Your Majesty.' here used four times in as many lines. Penn never called Louis the Fourteenth the 'most Christian King.' The firtt impression shows that 'Mr. Penn' was not a Quaker, the second expression shows that 'Mr. Penn ' n-ai^ a Catholic. Williamson puts his 'Mr. Penn" b.low such men as Mr. Stroude. Mr. Louton, and Mr. Ferguson. Was there any ' Air. Penn' in James's pay whose place in such a list would be where Captain Williamson puts him? Y^es; we know there was. ' Mr. Penn' was Neville Penn. Neville Penn was acquainted with Williamson. Neville Penn was a paid agent. Neville Penn was inti- mate with Ferguson, and was connected with Montgomery. Neville Penn was a Roman Cath- olic. Neville Penn would address James as ' Your Majesty.' and assuredly speak of Louis as the 'most Christian King.' Neville Penn would be sure to call King William 'the Prince of Orange,' and the two houses 'a pensioned parliament.' It is a second case of mistaken names. As ' Mr. Penne' who sold pardons in Somerset proved to be George Penne, so 'Mr. Penn* who recommended James to invade England with thirty thousand men. appears to have been Neville Penn. Thus vanishes the last of eleven charges against the private honour and public service of the Founder of Pennsylvania. For the sake of Lord Macaulay's credit as a writer, it will never cease to be a matter of regret that the amended ver- sions of his index were not introduced into his text. 22 337 THE COMMONWEALTH LIBRARY A Series of Valuable Works at a low price, includ- ing almost every department of literature except Fic- tion, but exceptionally strong in American History, Early American Exploration, Rare Americana, and the Masterpieces of English Literature ; particularly those works that have usually been obtainable only at high prices. The books will be a rather unusual size ; small enough to be carried in the pocket and yet large enough to be clearly and legibly printed. The Paper is specially made for the series. The Portraits are printed from photogravure plates spe- cially made for this series. The Maps are reduced facsimiles of the originals in the rare editions. The price is ^i .00 net, per volume ; thus bring- ing the series within the means of everyone. The Works selected for publication during 1902 are as follows : HISTORY OF THE EXPEDITION UNDER THE COMMAND OF CAPTAINS LEWIS AND CLARK. To the Sources of the Missouri, across the Rocky Mountains, down the Columbia River to the Pacific in 1 804-6. An unabridged reprint of the edition of 1 8 1 4 to which all the members of the expedition contributed. With portraits and maps. 3 vols. THE HISTORY OF THE FIVE INDIAN NATIONS OF CANADA Which are dependent on the Province of New York, and are a barrier between the English and the French in that part of the world. By Hon. Cadwallader Golden. With map and portrait. 2 vols. Mr. Golden lived among and studied the ** Five Nations" — the celebrated Iroquois — for years, and his book is a masterpiece in its intimate and compre- hensive review of Indian Life. LITERATURE AND DOGMA, An Essay towards a better Apprehension of the Bible. By Matthew Arnold, D.G.L. With portrait. I vol. Literature and Dogma is one of the famous books of the world's literature. Never has literary style been carried to greater perfection than here. Consequently it is held as a model to all future writers. Apart from its grace and beauty of style, its vigorous, straightforward argument will always command for it multitudes of readers. MACKENZIE'S VOYAGES TO THE FROZEN AND PACIFIC OCEANS IN 1789 AND 1793. With an Account of the Rise and State of the Fur Trade. By Alexander Mackenzie. With portrait and map. 2 vols. This rare work has never been reprinted since 1 8 14. As Mackenzie was the first white man to cross the Rocky Mountains, as he discovered the great Mackenzie River which he followed to the Arctic Ocean, as he wrote a History of the Early Fur Trade, it will be evident how important his book is to modern readers. THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. By P. H. Go55E, ^^*ith frontispiece. i \ - . There is no '< dry-as-dust " writing in this re- markable work. It is the true naturalist's contem- plation of the life histories of the creatures around him, written with sympathy and accurate knowl- edge. Mr. Thompson-Seton never accomplished better work in this field. THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE. Re\-ised and Edited by J. Haix Friswell. With portrait. i vol. No one needs to be told that the Essays of Montaigne are the most interesting and remarkable in the world. The trouble with them, however, for the ordinary reader, is their verbosity. In this edition the editor has retained everything of interest. THE WILD NORTHLAND Being the Story of a Winter Journey, with Dog, across Northern North America. By Gex. Sir Wm. Francis Butler, K.C.B. With portrait and a route map. i vol. By common accord. Gen. Butler's account of his lonely ride and tramp through the ice-bound regions of the North has been placed high among the many masterly books of travel. The reader follows Butler and his dog, Cerf-Vola, with sympathetic interest from first to last. The vivid descriptions of the strange, unknown country on the border of the ** Barren Lands" are unsurpassed, if not unsur- passable. Sold either in sets or singly. NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY 156 Fifth Avenue :: :: New York 1993 PRES.H.AIIUN ItCHNOLOGIES L~P 1111 nom^.on Park nriuo -on Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 V .>l >• rut^ja