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WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHy 
 
"In Monarchies the summits of a nation are rich with verdure and glorious with light; 
 in Aristocracies a broad table-land is fertiliz^^d and rendered beautiful ; while in Common- 
 wealths, properly so called, the whole surface of society unrolls itself like a vast plain to 
 the sun, and receives the light and comfort and invigorating influence of its beams." 
 
 J. A. St. John. 
 
WILLIAM PENN 
 
 FROM NEW SOURCES. 
 
 EXTRA CHAPTER ON THE "MACAULAY CHARGES." 
 
 WILLI 
 
 PWORTH DIXON. 
 
 LKS ANOTIIEU WOTILD. 
 
 T. K. Hervet 
 
 ILSDELPHIA: 
 HiiRD AND LEA 
 
 8 51. 
 
PRINTED ^KING & BAIUD, 
 
 No, 9 Saiisom Street 
 
TO 
 
 E. H. BAILY, R.A., 
 
 WITH AN ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS ONLY EQUALLED BY 
 
 PERSONAL REGARD, 
 
 THIS HISTORY IS DEDICATED 
 
 W. H. DIXON. 
 
 I 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. The Father's House. 1620-1667. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Naval heroes — Penn family — Admiral Penn — Birth of William — Naval com- 
 mand — Family troubles — Penn at Oxford — Sent on his travels — Penn in 
 the army — Turns Quaker 13 
 
 CHAPTER 11. In the World. 1667-1670. 
 
 Philosophy of his conversion — George Fox — Enthusiasm of early Friends — 
 Penn's influence — Reconciled to his father — Controversy — Sent to the 
 Tower — Conspiracy to ruin the Admiral — Monk and Rupert — Penn in 
 Ireland — Return to London 45 
 
 CHAPTER III. Trial by Jury. 1670. 
 
 Conventicle Act — Treaty of Dover — Penn arrested — An extraordinary trial 
 
 — Rights of juries — Decision of the judges — Death of the Admiral 74 
 
 CHAPTER IV. GuLi Springett. 1670-1673. 
 
 Milton at Chalfont — Story of the Springett family — Penn in love — Thomas 
 Ellwood — More controversy — Penn again in Newgate — Travels into Ger- 
 many and Holland — Marries Guli Springett — Hicks' disputation — Penn 
 at court 102 
 
 CHAPTER V. The Beginning of the End. 1673-1678. 
 
 Religious emigrants — Penn's romantic notion — Affairs of New Jersey — 
 Foreign travel — The new Gospel abroad — Vicinity of Worms — Adven- 
 tures at Duysburg — Storm at Sea — Return to Worminghurst — Colonial 
 affairs 134 
 
 CHAPTER VI. Algernon Sidney. 1678-1680. 
 
 The Sidney family — Algernon's career — Commonwealth party — Penn before 
 Parliament — Titus Gates — The Popish Plot — Penn and Sidney prepare 
 for the future — General election — Sidney stands for Guildford — His 
 friend at work — Affairs of the nation — Another dissolution — Bramber 
 election — Penn's disgust — The Holy Experiment 152 
 
Vni CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. A New Democracy. 1680-1682. ■ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Petition for a grant of land — Penn's intentions — Description of Pennsylvania 
 — The Duke of York — East New Jersey — Negotiation — The Petition 
 granted — The province named — Colonial legislation — Sidney's Sugges- 
 tions — General laws — Locke's constitution for Carolina.; 173 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. The Holy Experiment. 1682-1683. 
 
 A tide of emigrants — Philip Ford — Markham in America — Penn's views as 
 to the treatment of native tribes — Voyage to America — Parting counsels 
 — Penn at Newcastle — The first assembly at Chester — Site of Philadel- 
 phia — The new city founded — Indian affairs — The Great Treaty — The 
 constitution amended — Penn returns to England 189 
 
 CHAPTER IX. Day of Court Influence. 1684-1688. 
 
 Ellwood in trouble — Accession of James — Murder in Maryland — Penn at 
 court — John Locke — Literature of Toleration — Argyle — Monmouth De- 
 feated — Penn's Mediation — Aaron Smith — Tolerance of James — A ludi- 
 crous mistake — Tillotson goes to Holland — Declaration of Indulgence 
 — Magdalen College — Tries to bring in the Whigs — Landing of 
 William III 221 
 
 CHAPTER X. Night and MoRxNing. 1688-1694. 
 
 Penn arrested and discharged — Prepares to sail for America — Act of Tolera- 
 tion — Again arrested — In retirement — War in Europe and America — 
 The King's design — Fuller the informer — Home-Exile — Robbed of his 
 colony — Death of Guli — Consolations of Philosophy — Peace-Congress 
 proposed — Penn restored to his honors 260 
 
 CHAPTER XL The Land of Promise. 1694-1701. 
 
 Feudalism and democracy — Death of Springett Penn — Character of William 
 — Penn marries again — The Czar of Russia— Penn in Ireland — Sails for 
 America — Piracy put down — The Manor-house — How the Penns lived 
 in America — A new constitution — The Slave question — Indian affairs — 
 Colonial regulations — Return to England 284 
 
 CHAPTER XIL The Closing Scenes. 1702-1718. 
 
 Accession of Ann — Young Penn in America — His father's troubles — The 
 faithless steward — Penn in the Fleet prison — Treaty for sale of his colony 
 to the crown — Story of George Penn — Penn struck with paralysis — His 
 gradual decline — Death — Funeral 310 
 
 EXTRA CHAPTER. "The Macaulay Charges." 338 
 
PREFACE 
 
 William Penn has been called a mythical rather than an historical 
 personage. The accounts given of him by his professed biographers — 
 Besse, Clarkson, Weems, and Lewis — are sufficiently vague, lifeless, and 
 transcendental to merit such a censure. By far the best and most com- 
 plete of these works is that by Clarkson ; but it has serious defects. 
 Beyond a reverential sympathy with Penn's religious ideas, the modern 
 philanthropist had no advantages for the task he undertook. He was 
 profoundly unacquainted with the history of the period ; he copied the 
 ignorance of Besse and others without misgiving and without acknowl- 
 edgment. Of the families of Penn and Springett he knew absolutely 
 nothing ; of their fortunes and misfortunes, though daily affecting his 
 hero's life and character, no trace appears in his pages. He had read 
 only a few books, and those were of the commonest kind. Of the vast 
 collections of MS. papers in the British Museum, in the Bodleian Library, 
 in the State Paper Office, in the Privy Council and other government 
 offices, and in the library of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, 
 — throwing ample and authentic light on his career, — he had no knowl- 
 edge, and of course made no use. I believe I may safely assert that 
 two-thirds of the facts now known about Penn were not known to Clark- 
 son. His want of information, however, was not altogether his fault. 
 Since he wrote his memoir, now forty years ago, the sources of our 
 history, and more particularly of the seventeenth century, have been 
 much more critically investigated. Hundreds of volumes, letters, des- 
 patches, family memoirs, private accounts and other original documents, 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 have been published. The chief of the contemporary papers, from 
 which I have derived valuable assistance, brought to light since my pre- 
 decessor wrote, are the following : 
 
 The Professional Life and Services of Admiral Sir "William Penn (from 
 family and state papers), by Granville Penn, in two volumes, 8vo. 1833 ; 
 The Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, in five volumes, 8vo. 
 1848 ; Life and Correspondence of the same, in two volumes, 8vo. 1841 ; 
 The Memoirs of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, in eight (half) 
 volumes, 8vo. 1825-1850 ; Henry Sidney's Diary and Correspondence of 
 the Times of Charles II., in two volumes, 8vo. 1843 ; The Annals of 
 Philadelphia, by John F. Watson, in one huge volume, 8vo. 1830 ; The 
 Philadelphia Friend, a periodical in which the Logan Correspondence 
 and many of the Founder's letters have been published, in eighteen 
 volumes folio ; Original Letters, illustrative of English History (first, 
 second, and third series), edited by Sir Henry Ellis, in ten volumes, 8vo. 
 1824 ; Hazard's Pennsylvania Register, in eight volumes, 8vo. ; Histori- 
 cal Collections of the State of Pennsylvania, by Sherman Day, in one 
 thick volume, 8vo. 1843 ; Isaac Pennington's Letters, in one volume, 
 12mo. 1828 ; Kiffin's Memoirs, in one volume, 12mo. 1823 ; Original 
 Letters of Locke, Sidney, and Shaftesbury (Furly Correspondence), in 
 one volume, 8vo. 1830 ; Blencowe's Sidney Papers, in one volmme, 8vo' 
 1837 ; and the Ellis Correspondence, in two volumes, 8vo. 1829. The 
 information contained in these volumes was, of course, inaccessible to 
 Clarkson. But besides being inaccurate, his work is heavy in style. The 
 narrative lacks life, movement, and variety. It is laid out on a dead level. 
 The reader feels no throbbing heart beneath the flowing drapery of 
 words. I write these lines with regret ; my admiration of Clarkson as 
 a man made me for a long time unwilling to admit his faults as a writer ; 
 and even now I console myself with the reflection that his fame does not 
 depend on the verdicts of literary criticism ; it being not as an author, 
 but as a Christian philanthropist that he has taken his place with the 
 Howards and the Wilberforces of our recent history. 
 
 What I have said of Clarkson applies with still greater force to the 
 other three biographers. So far, however, as the personal history of his 
 
4. XtJUX' XlVXi* 
 
 hero is concerned, Besse is truthful and authentic; and as he wrote on 
 his own immediate knowledge, and within a year or two of Penn's death, 
 he must be regarded as an original authority. The life by Weems is 
 fanciful and inaccurate, without being interesting ; it is an American 
 publication, never reprinted in this country, Lewis's is in the same posi- 
 tion ; it appeared a few years ago in successive numbers of the Friend, in 
 Philadelphia : and I am not aware that it has ever been reprinted even 
 in America. All these are Quaker-lives : no writer has yet treated of Penn 
 as a great English historical character — the champion of the Jury Laws 
 — the joint leader with Algernon Sidney of the Commonwealth men — 
 the royal councillor of 1684-8 — the courageous defender of Free Thought 
 — the Founder of Pennsylvania ! This omission I have now endeavored 
 to supply ; with what success the reader must decide. 
 
 I can say for myself that I have spared no trouble in the search for 
 materials. Some years ago, a fortunate incident threw some of Penn's 
 unpublished letters in my way; and the perusal of these first suggested 
 the idea of attempting a new life. The sneers of Burnet, the falsehoods 
 of Echard, the bold misinterpretations of Macintosh, remained on record 
 unanswered ; and as I compared Clarkson with the sources of the history 
 — and particularly with the MS. documents preserved in the State Paper 
 Office and in the British Museum — I saw that, had his work been as 
 excellent in a literary point as it is otherwise, still another attempt would 
 have been justifiable. Then came out, a little more than two years ago, 
 the first part of Mr. Macaulay's History of England, in which these 
 errors, assumptions and mistakes were again brought forward, and with 
 more than their former emphasis. This decided me. I hastened my 
 collection of materials and began to write. 
 
 The original and unpublished documents to which I am chiefly indebted 
 for information are comprised in the following list : 
 
 I. Unpublished Letters from Penn to various persons. 
 II. Letters of Hannah Penn — his widow. 
 
 III. MS. Autobiography of Lady Springett — his mother-in-law. 
 
 IV. The Sunderland Letter-Book (Domestic; "Various, 629), in State Paper 
 
 Office. 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 V. Warrant-Books of the Secretaries of State. Ditto. 
 VI. Pennsylvania State Papers. Ditto. 
 VII. Maryland State Papers. Ditto. 
 VIII. New Jersey State Papers. Ditto. 
 IX. Papers of tlie Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations. Ditto. 
 X. America and West Indies State Papers. 
 XI. New York State Papers. Ditto. 
 XII. American Proprietary State Papers. Ditto. 
 
 XIII. Copies of Penn's Speeches, in Ayscough, MSS. 44. 
 
 XIV. The Sunderland Correspondence, in Birch MSS. 4297. 
 XV. MS. Records of the Royal Society. 
 
 XVI. The Correspondence of Arnout Van Citters — from the Government 
 
 Archives at the Hague. 
 XVII. Van Citters' Letters from the Family Papers. 
 XVIII. Various Papers in the Egerton MSS. 
 
 XIX. Papers and Family Information from William Penn Gaskill, Esq. 
 
 XX. A Collection of unpublished Letters written by and to Thomas Story. 
 
 XXI. An Account of Seizures made on Quakers, in Harleian MSS. 7506. 
 XXII. A Testimony from the Quakers of Reading. 
 
 XXIII. Lithograph of an Address by Penn to the Indians, recently discovered. 
 
 XXIV. Minutes of Quarterly Meetings preserved in Devonshire House. 
 XXV. The Register of the Society of Friends. 
 
 XXVI. A Statement by Penn of his difference wiih the Fords. 
 
 XXVII. Fenwick's Correspondence with Penn, in Harl. MSS. 7001. 
 xxviii. The original Mortgage Deeds of Pennsylvania. 
 
 XXIX. Thomas Lowe to Margaret Fox concerning Penn. 
 XXX. Extracts from the Pinney Family Papers. 
 XXXI. The Axe Papers in Harl. MSS. 6845. 
 
 XXXII. An Account of the Seizure of King James at Faversham, in Harl. 
 
 MSS. 6852. 
 
 XXXIII. George Hunt's Account of the Oxford Affair, in the possession of the 
 
 President of Magdalen College. 
 
 XXXIV. Letter of Thomas Creech to Arthur Charlett, September 6, 1687, pre- 
 
 served in the Bodleian. (Ballard's Coll. MSS. xx.) 
 XXXV. Letters of Thomas Sykes to the same, September 7th, 9th, and 16fch. 
 
 (Ball. Coll. MSS. xxi.) 
 XXXVI. Privy Council Registers, 1644-1718, preserved in the Privy Council 
 Office, Whitehall. 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 So numerous, so varied, and so important are the additions made to 
 the biography of Penn from these documents and papers, that I have not 
 hesitated to describe my vfork on the title-page as "from new sources." 
 The reader will find for himself what is new in my volume : — but I may 
 be perhaps excused for saying, that my researches have not only served 
 to bring together many of the scattered points of information respecting 
 Penn, — but, in the persons of Sir William and Lady Springett, have 
 contributed two noble portraits to our historical gallery — have added im- 
 portant facts to the biography of Algernon Sidney — and opened new 
 sources for the history of our American colonies. 
 
 As for my chief subject, the Founder of Pennsylvania, I have endea- 
 vored to make him live again : his throes and his struggles, his ideas and 
 his actions, his gait and his person, his business and his amusements, the 
 habits of his domestic life, the furniture of his house, the setting out of 
 his table, every thing that makes the individuality of character, even down 
 to the contents of his cellar, the inventory of his coach-house, and the 
 completeness of his stable, I have tried to bring before the reader with 
 the same vividness with which they present themselves to my own mind. 
 In this endeavor I can, even at best, have but partially succeeded : — ■ 
 yet I hope sufficiently to have changed William Penn from a Myth into 
 a Man. 
 
 Having devoted an Extra Chapter, by way of Appendix, to the errors 
 and accusations of Mr. Macaulay, I shall do no more in this place than 
 solicit the reader's attention to it, — and leave him to pronounce a final 
 j udgment on the case. 
 
 I have, in conclusion, to express my grateful thanks to the many 
 excellent friends who have assisted my inquiries or furnished me with 
 original documents for my work. For papers and family information I 
 am particularly indebted to Granville Penn, Esq., of Pennsylvania Castle, 
 Portland Island, great grandson and lineal representative of Penn, and 
 to William Penn Gaskill, Esq., of Rolfe's Hould, near West Wycombe. 
 To Peter Penn Gaskill, Esq., of Philadelphia ; to J. C. B. Davis, Esq., 
 Secretary of Legation to the United States Embassy in London ; and to 
 Horatio Gates Jones, Esq., Foreign Corresponding Secretary to the 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 Pennsylvania Historical Society, I am beholden for valuable aid in obtain- 
 ing information, papers, and scarce books from America ; and I cannot 
 refrain from expressing, in a particular manner, my sense of the cour- 
 tesy of the Council of the Historical Society in sending me copies of their 
 minutes and other works and papers with so much kindness and prompti- 
 tude. To the kindness of Jacob Post, Esq., of Islington — the author of an 
 excellent little tract on Penn — I owe an original letter and the interesting 
 autobiography of Lady Springett. Thomas Thomson, Esq., of Liverpool, 
 is a creditor on my gratitude for several original documents of interest, 
 of which I have made ample use. Thomas Lister Jackson, Esq., F. R. S., 
 has been good enough to place in my hands Penn's MS. statement of his 
 connection with the Fords, from which I have gleaned important infor- 
 mation. To Thomas Thomson, Esq., of York, I am indebted for an exami- 
 nation of his unique collection of Story MSS. ; and to Charles Gilpin, Esq., 
 and to James Bowden, Esq., the excellent Secretary of the Society of 
 Friends, for the perusal of the rare books, the original minutes, and 
 other valuable papers preserved at Devonshire House ; as also for much 
 information from the admirably executed Register of the Society. To 
 Professor Walker, of Wadham College, Oxford, and to the Librarians of 
 the Bodleian, and to Dr. Bloxam of Magdalen College, I am obliged for 
 various communications and facilities of research. Nor can I forget my 
 obligations for much valuable suggestion to James Bruce, Esq., the 
 learned editor of the Gentleman's Magazine ; and to Peter Cunningham, 
 Esq., the accomplished historian of London. To Sir George Grey, Se- 
 cretary for the Home Department, I owe the privilege of inspecting the 
 various State Papers in his keeping ; and to the Earl Grey, Secretary 
 for the Colonies, the same obligation with respect to the national treasures 
 under his charge. To the officers of the State Paper Office I must express 
 my most grateful thanks for their kindness in facilitating my inquiries. 
 My learned friend, T. Duffus Hardly, Esq., of the Record Office, and 
 Colonel Cathcart, Deputy-Lieutenant of the Tower, deserve my best 
 acknowledgments for the trouble they were good enough to put them- 
 selves to in aid of my unvailing search for materials among the docu- 
 ments under their charge. To Bevan Braithwaite, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn, 
 
PREFACE, XV 
 
 I am indebted for sundry letters and papers. Through the kindness of 
 Miss Pinney, of Somerton Erlegh House, sister to William Pinney, Esq., 
 M.P. for Somerset, I am in possession of extracts from family papers 
 relating to the Taunton affair. To Charles Weld, Esq., I am indebted 
 for a sight of the MS. records of the Royal Society. My thanks are also 
 due to Sir Charles Trevelyan for his kindness in allowing me to examine 
 the records of the Treasury ; and to John B. Lennard, Esq., for the same 
 favor at the Privy Council Office. In conclusion, I must express my 
 particular obligation to the Government of Holland for their permission 
 to take copies of the Van Citters' Correspondence. 
 
 W. H. D. 
 
 84 St. John's Wood Terrace, 
 March 1, 1851. 
 
WILLIAM PENK 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 1620-1667. 
 THE FATHER'S HOUSE. 
 
 Sir William Penn is one of the supprest characters in 
 English history. By the general historian he is rarely men- 
 tioned, and there are some otherwise good collections of naval 
 biography in which his name does not occur. Yet in an age 
 of great sea-captains he stood in the foremost rank. By 
 the side of Blake and Batten, Ascue and Lawson, his courage 
 and capacity were equally conspicuous ; while in his profound 
 nautical science — his fertility of resource — his coolness in the 
 hour of peril, he was no unworthy rival of De Ruyter and 
 Van Tromp. If he stood second to any man in England it 
 was to Blake alone, — and the death of that great commander, 
 while Penn was still only six-and-thirty, left him without a 
 competitor in his own line of service. This fact was fully 
 acknowledged by Cromwell.^ 
 
 There is a fortune in the distribution of historical justice. 
 The sea-captains of the Commonwealth are all neglected, — 
 even Blake, the second name in our naval annals, has never 
 yet found a separate biographer ! From the day on which his 
 ashes were cast out of the grave where the piety and gratitude 
 of the nation had laid them, venal writers began to ignore his 
 merits and traduce his fame. The neglects that fell upon 
 him, fell also on his comrades in glory. The splendid services 
 
 1 The discovery of Pepys led, in a great measure, to the discovery of Sir 
 William. His descendant, Granville Penn, has still more recently collected 
 the particulars of his piihlic services in 2 vols, 8vo. 183o. 
 
 o 
 
14 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 of the navy were forgotten by leading men of all parties — and 
 Royalists and Roundheads agreed at least in doing a common 
 and continuous act of injustice to the sea-kings of the Com- 
 monwealth. The reasons for this neglect lie on the face of 
 the records of that time. The navy was neuti-al and patriotic 
 when every other power in the state sided with one or other 
 of the factions. How could the cavaliers of the Restoration, 
 bankrupt in genius and in reputation, bear to admit the merits 
 of men like Blake and Penn ! They had been the captains 
 of Cromwell. Their genius had strengthened his hands, — 
 given effect to his will, — made England under his rule the 
 arbitress of Europe. This was not to be forgiven. Round- 
 head writers had no love for the navy because it was not their 
 partisan. Whatever happened on shore, the old spirit of loy- 
 alty to the law survived on board. The seaman knew but one 
 duty — to stand by his country. If king and parliament quar- 
 relled, he could not help it ; but he shrunk with horror from 
 the thought of imbruing his hands in the blood of his country- 
 men. Holland and Spain were his fields of action : " It is 
 not for us to mind state-affairs, but to keep foreigners from 
 fooling us," was the maxim of Blake; and in the worst day 
 of his country's troubles, the British tar would have scorned 
 to stand by while a strange regiment or frigate had dared to 
 interfere. This neutral attitude was his crime in the eyes of 
 faction. — There is another reason in the overwhelming interest 
 that attaches to the purely domestic history of the period. 
 There the marine played but an inferior part. The army 
 occupies the centre of the stage. We are conscious of the 
 fact even down to this day. The defeat of Van Tromp — the 
 fall of Dunkirk — the conquest of Jamaica, excite in us little 
 more than a glow of national pride and prowess ; but Naseby 
 and Marston Moor, Dunbar and Worcester ; — these are names 
 which make the blood bound and the pulse throb in most 
 Englishmen's frames though two centuries have elapsed since 
 the day of conquest and humiliation. The deeds of the mili- 
 tary power were done at oui' own doors, — in our country houses, 
 — in our churches, castles and cathedrals. Halls and hearths 
 still exist on and around which the blood of Englishmen was 
 shed by Englishmen. In every county of the land the mate- 
 rial trophies of defeat and victory remain ; and in our arts, 
 polity and commerce still more lasting consequences of the 
 march and counter-march of armies. It is not so with the 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 15 
 
 triumphs of the fleet. The waves of the German Ocean roll 
 over the scene of De Ruyter's skill and Penn's good fortune : 
 — not a single vestige remains of the deadly struggle for the 
 lordship of the seas. If we would see the mighty results 
 achieved by the conquerors of Van Tromp, we must quit our 
 island home ; we must visit the archipelagoes of east and west ; 
 we must note the bated breath with which the once haughty 
 race of Spain now hold the last fragment of their great em- 
 pire in the new world, — we must hear the whispering humble- 
 ness with which the Dutchman still claims a settlement in that 
 Orient from which his fathers threatened to exclude the mer- 
 chants of England. To be able to appreciate the merits of 
 these heroes, we must travel far and reason calmly : — but such 
 men can afford to wait the judgments of a distant age. 
 
 The Penns were an old family in the early part of the six- 
 teenth century. For many generations they had been settled 
 in a district of Buckinghamshire, from which they received, 
 or to which they have bequeathed, their name. A branch of 
 the house removed to the north-eastern corner of Wiltshire, 
 w^here they settled on the skirts of Bradon forest, not far from 
 the town of Mintye, in the church of which one of the family, 
 William Penn, who died in 1591, lies buried in front of the 
 altar. ^ This man was grandfather to the admiral. Giles 
 Penn, the son of William of Mintye, married Miss Gilbert, of 
 a Yorkshire family, then recently settled in the county of 
 Somerset ; and the offspring of this alliance were, George — 
 who was brought up as a merchant — and, after an interval of 
 twenty years, William. George Penn, when he grew up to 
 manhood, resided much abroad, attending in person to the 
 management of his commercial ventures ; and having fallen in 
 love with a Flemish lady of Antwerp — a catholic in religion 
 — -married her and removed his house of business to Seville, 
 in the vicinity of which city he passed many years of his life.^ 
 
 His younger brother was intended for another service 
 Giles Penn, the father, was himself the captain of a merchant 
 man trading with the countries of the Levant and with the ma- 
 ritime cities of Spain and Portugal. In this vessel the future 
 admiral w^orked his way from the lowest station to the highest, 
 under the immediate vigilance of his father's eye ; the duty 
 
 • Gentleman's Mag. Ixxi. 1121. 
 
 2 Memoirs of Sir.William Penn by Granville Penn, i. 2. " 
 
16 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 of every grade was familiar to him, and he had thoroughly 
 learned how to obey before he aspired to command. The 
 merchant service of the period afforded more opportunities 
 for acquiring habits of coolness, courage and dexterity on 
 board than it does in these smoother sailing times. The Euro- 
 pean seas were then more invested with pirates than the Chi- 
 nese waters are now ; and the sea-robbers of Borneo and La- 
 buan are infants at their work compared with the Greek, the 
 Biscayan, and the Algerine who two centuries ago swept the 
 shores of the Mediterranean, prowled about the river-mouths 
 of Portugal and France, and even ventured to land on our 
 own coasts. These marauders possessed the fleetest ships 
 that ever sailed; and they were manned by the most reckless 
 and daring brigands, armed, equipped and disciplined to the 
 very highest state of efficiency. The warfare which they 
 waged against the commerce of the west was peculiarly atro- 
 cious : — they not only captured property, whenever it fell in 
 their way, but took owner and cargo with equal goodwill, and 
 sold them together in the bazaars of Tunis, Tripoli and Al- 
 giers. It was usual for the trader to sail with his argosy : 
 hence his life was a series of romantic incidents, more espe- 
 cially if his traffic lay on the shores of the Mediterranean. 
 He carried his cutlass in his hand and his pistols in his belt ; 
 and what was still more necessary to his safety, he trained 
 himself in a cautious, watchful and determined habit of mind 
 and body — prepared to sail in peace in the calmer waters or 
 to meet in an instant the most terrible emergencies. 
 
 In this school the young sailor matriculated. When he 
 entered the royal navy he was at once selected for a post of 
 command.-^ In an age when merit was the only passport to 
 eminence, he was a captain before he was twenty.^ 
 
 He married early in life. While yet in the merchant service 
 he had become acquainted with a young, handsome and intel- 
 ligent lady in Rotterdam — Margaret, the daughter of John 
 Jasper, an opulent Dutch merchant.^ On receiving his pro- 
 motion the lovers were united, January 6th, 1643, and came 
 to settle in London as most convenient for the care of their 
 
 ' Granville Penn, i. 3. 
 
 2 "Truth Rescued from Imposture," by William Penn. Works (folio edi- 
 tion), i. 497. 
 
 ^ "Hath been heretofore pretty handsome, and is now very discreet." 
 Pepys, Aug. 19th, 16G4. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. IT 
 
 worldly interests.^ They took a handsome lodging near the 
 Tower, then the fashionable quarter for naval men, even for 
 those of high rank : and when his professional duties left 
 him leisure, Penn received and paid numerous visits and kept 
 up as gay an appearance as his scanty fortunes would allow. 
 At the age of twenty-one he was a fine specimen of an English 
 sailor ; he was fond of good living — enjoyed lively conversa- 
 tion^ — had a taste for cool clarets, but indulged in no unseemly 
 prejudice against the warmer juices of the south.^ His frame 
 was strongly built — his face bold and noble in expression — 
 his manners had an air of courtliness, and his whole bearing 
 was that of a man born to rise in the world.* With his edu- 
 cation, and the personal qualities which procure powerful 
 friends, the way of life was open to him on his own terms. 
 In his ambitious fancy he saw himself high in power and 
 station, — and to crown his hopes, he soon found that he was 
 about to become a father. His resolution was to make him- 
 self a name, — to lay the foundations of a noble and powerful 
 house. His family had once been rich; it was his cherished 
 purpose, not merely to retrieve its fortunes, but to raise it to 
 a pitch of greatness beyond the day-dreams of his less ener- 
 getic fathers. Nor were these visions idle ; what he conceived 
 he felt he could execute — and he did.^ In his profession 
 merit secured promotion. He had seen others rise from the 
 lowest stations to the highest — the cabin-boy become an 
 admiral.^ Why should not he rise too? The times were 
 propitious. Holland assumed the airs of a mistress at sea, 
 and began to treat with scorn the old claim of supremacy 
 advanced by the islanders. This cause of war was ripening 
 fast. Span, too, w^as growing more and more insolent. The 
 
 ^ This date was not known to Granville Penn. It is one of the thousand 
 facts which we owe to the discovery of Pepys. January 6th, 1661, 2. 
 
 2 " Pepys, Sept. 8, 1660. The edition cited is that of 1848, 9. 
 
 ^ " Sir — If my wits can procure me a horse, I shall not fail to wait upon 
 you to-morrow. In the meantime I drink your health in good claret and 
 wish you were well stored with it, I should then be a Turk at it indeed." 
 Letter to Gen. Langhorne. " Dear Sir, — 'Tis now grown cold, and 'tis 
 thought a cup of sack would he reasonable. Now the Malaga orangemen 
 are coming home, any of your men, by your order, might bring me a quarter 
 cask. I should be very thankful, and as thankfully repay." Letter to Capt. 
 Batten. 
 
 '* His portrait, painted by Lely, is in Greenwich Hospital. 
 
 s William Penn Gaskell MSS. Granville Penn, ii. 565. 
 
 ^ Heath's Chronicle, p. 198. Deane had been a hoyman's servant at Ips- 
 wich ; Lawson, a common sailor. 
 
 2* 
 
18 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 turn whicli events were likely to take at home was a point 
 that occupied much of his attention. That the quarrel of king 
 and people would proceed to extremities he now, in 1643-4, felt 
 certain ; the men of moderate views on both sides had either 
 fallen in the field or had abandoned that moderation which was 
 necessary to a friendly solution of the difficulty. Falkland was 
 dead — Hampden was dead. These few words sum up the state 
 of affairs. The partisans of a republic openly declared them- 
 selves ; the adherents of King Charles became more absolutist 
 than ever. Confusion on all sides, Penn saw that the strong 
 arm and ready brain would find an ample market. Come what 
 might he was determined to rise in his profession ; professional 
 rank would lead to civil rank and honors : — not to the highest, 
 perhaps, there being always a prejudice against new men in 
 England ; but the work he had begun his son would finish. 
 He would be well-born. He would live at home and at college 
 with the future officers and servants of the Crown ; he would 
 slide naturally and gracefully into aristocratic life. Should 
 he have a genius for military command — a faculty for con- 
 ducting civil government, there would be no place to which 
 he might not aspire. Meanwhile, as a father he would do his 
 duty ; he would gain a name- — a fortune— and powerful friends ; 
 would deserve rewards of his country and leave the rest to 
 the future.^ One smiles to think that the child for which 
 this career of earthly greatness was marked out was William 
 Penn ! 
 
 The first business of the young seaman was to obtain active 
 employment. The dispute of the King and Commons as to 
 which should have command of the marine had just been settled 
 (1643) by the appointment of Lord Warwick, in opposition 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 high admiral ; but the 
 number of vessels was not formidable even at first, and cap- 
 ture and desertion soon reduced them to such a state of weak- 
 ness as to prevent their being troublesome to the chiefs of 
 parliament. If Captain Penn had wavered before, his doubts 
 
 ^ Pepys accuses him of rising by means of bribery, May 4th, 16G7. The 
 charge is absurd, — but it is amusing to see Pepys and the old woman sitting 
 up all night talking scandal of their neighbors, 
 
 - Ilushworth'g Collection, v. 312. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 19 
 
 were now at an end. In losing his control of the fleet, he 
 saw that the monarch had lost his mainstay, for while this 
 power was in the hands of his enemies it would be impossible 
 for his fellow-sovereigns on the continent of Europe to send 
 him succors, however much they might sympathise with him 
 in secret : — and in an open fight on English ground between 
 the friends of liberty and the supporters of royal prerogative, 
 he knew the latter would be worsted in the end. He cast in 
 his lot with the popular party ; and Warwick, who divined 
 his nautical genius, gave him at once the command of a twenty- 
 eight gun ship, which had recently been captured from Pen- 
 nington, and was then lying in the dockyard at Deptford 
 undergoing repairs. Her destination was the Irish seas, to 
 aid in the blockade of that island, and to prevent succors 
 arriving from France or Spain from entering the ports. ^ 
 
 On the 12th of October, 1644, he was ordered to sail, and 
 though Margaret was then in the most critical state of health, 
 every hour expecting to be confined, he would run no risk of 
 appearing to neglect his duty ; before day-break he went on 
 board, and at six o'clock, all being ready, slipped anchor and 
 began to drop down the river. This was on Saturday morn- 
 ing ; on the following Monday, William Penn was born. On 
 receiving this intelligence, his father appears to have hastily 
 left the vessel and returned to town. It is certain, from the 
 log-book, that the Fellowship was detained in the Thames 
 more than a fortnight : — there is little doubt as to the cause.^ 
 
 The child of hope did not disappoint its proud parent. It 
 was a boy. It seemed robust and healthy. Its form was 
 beautiful, — its eyes blue and full of light, — its head well- 
 shaped, — its face mild and intelligent. So far all had pros- 
 pered. Assured that his wife and infant were out of danger, 
 he rejoined his crew, and by slow stages made his way to the 
 station assigned to him in St. George's Channel. In this 
 service he continued for six years, where he acquired the re- 
 putation of being one of the boldest and most successful 
 cruisers in the fleet, — and the prizes taken from the enemy 
 improved both his fortune and his pofessional standing.^ At 
 twenty-three he was made rear-admiral ; at twenty-five vice- 
 
 1 Granville Penn, i. 90. 2 i^id. i. 99. 
 
 ^ Whitelocke contains numerous entries like the following : 237. " Captain 
 Penn took four vessels from the Rebels." — 294. " Three French ships taken 
 My Penn." — 528. " Penn come in with fi^e ships." 
 
20 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 admiral in the Irish sea ; and at twenty-nine vice-admiral of 
 the Straits. In the latter service, he was much engaged 
 against Prince Rupert, whom he chased along the coasts of 
 Portugal, — and was the first captain who carried the renown 
 of English arms into the Italian waters. 
 
 In the meantime his son had grown up into a promising 
 and graceful child at Wanstead in Essex, where his wife re- 
 sided in his absence^ — and great public events, without paral- 
 lel at that age in the history of Europe, had taken place in 
 England. Charles Stuart had lost his crown and his life ; 
 the hero of Dunbar and Worcester had leapt into his seat. 
 The change from the parliamentary to the protectoral govern- 
 ment provoked no change in the admiral. He attended to 
 his own duties and avoided politics. When Cromwell an- 
 nounced to the fleet, that he had taken the reins of power 
 into his own hands, he was one of the first to send in his ad- 
 hesion, with those 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 had been in conflict, Spain had treated us with 
 haughty disdain, — France had insulted us at every turn, — 
 even Holland fancied we were no longer worthy of her rivalry. 
 Cromwell soon taught them better. Ireland punished and 
 Scotland pacified, he turned his resolute face towards the 
 continent of Europe. The Dutchman lay the nearest and 
 had most provoked his wrath ; but Holland was pre-eminently 
 a naval power, and in dealing wuth 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, 
 something of his own prompt and vigorous action, he sent 
 from the camp two of his renowned captains, Blake and 
 Monk ; but these men, though filled with an energy of spirit 
 akin to their master's, were nevertheless ignorant of seaman- 
 ship. All that courage, activity and dauntless resolution 
 could efi'ect he expected them to accomplish ; but he saw the 
 necessity of placing by the side of these soldiers a captain of 
 consummate nautical ability, and for this important post he se- 
 lected the young admiral of the Straits.^ The Lord Protector 
 was aware that his admiral was not attached to him person- 
 ally, or to his ideas of government, but he needed his services, 
 
 ' Granville Penn. 2 Whitelocke, p. 555. ^ Ibid. 570. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 21 
 
 and convinced that he was a thoroughly worldly man, sup- 
 posed he would in time be able to buy him over entirely. 
 Clarendon asserts that the commander owed his rise to Crom- 
 well : but this is an obvious mistake, as he was an admiral 
 already when the Protector was himself but a major in the 
 army. He gave him employment because he thought hii"" 
 the ablest seaman in his dominions — and the result justified 
 his selection. The power of Holland was completely broken 
 in a series of brilliant engagements, most of them fought 
 under his advice and in his order and plan of battle. Crom- 
 well rewarded him with new employments and an independent 
 sphere of action.^ 
 
 The power of Holland humbled to the dust, the Protector 
 next addressed himself to the affairs of Spain, and with his 
 characteristic vigor resolved to strike a double blow — one in 
 the West Indies, the other in the Mediterranean. Two expe- 
 ditions were fitted out in the early part of 1655 ; Blake had 
 command of the one destined to act in Europe ; the other, 
 placed under the orders of Admiral Penn and General Vena- 
 bles, was ordered to sweep the Archipelago, disperse and 
 capture the Spanish fleets in those waters, and attack Hispa- 
 niola and Jamaica.^ But before the Admiral went on board, 
 he made his own terms with the Protector. Some property 
 that he had acquired in Ireland having suffered injury by the 
 course of the civil war, he demanded compensation. As 
 Cromwell gave his officers no chance of growing rich out of 
 the secret spoils of the service — as had been the custom in 
 the previous and was again in the succeeding reign^ — his ear 
 was open to all such complaints ; and in the present case he 
 admitted the claim with readiness and in the most cordial and 
 flattering manner. With his own hand he wrote to his agents 
 in the sister island commanding that, in consideration of the 
 
 ^ "Truth Rescued,"!. 497. Though ambitious of wealth and honors, 
 the admiral was certainly not a corrupt public servant. In 1650-1, he cap- 
 tured in the Mediterranean several prizes, on board one of which were five 
 chests of gold and silver, amounting to several thousand pounds. His cap- 
 tains pressed him to divide this money — offering to make it good if the 
 transaction were ever discovered. Of course he refused. He would not 
 even allow his wife to exchange a Spanish coin for its equivalent in English. 
 His son adds with mvich simplicity — "In if/io«6 times there was too great a 
 watch over men in employment, to enrich themselves at the cost of the pub- 
 lic." Ibid. i. 499. 
 
 2 Thurloe's State Papers, iii. 504 et seq. 
 
 ^ Pepys' Life and Corresp. i. 401 et seq. 
 
22 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 good and faithful services rendered by the admiral to the 
 Commonwealth, lands of the full value of three hundred 
 pounds a year, as they were let in 1640, be surveyed and set 
 apart for him in a convenient place, near to a castle or forti- 
 fied place for their better security, and with a good house 
 upon them for his residence. He made it a special — indeed 
 a personal — request that this order should be so obeyed as to 
 leave no cause of trouble to the admiral and his family in the 
 matter ; but so that they might enjoy the full benefit of the 
 estate while he was fighting his country's battles in foreign 
 lands. ^ It is clear that the Lord Protector strove to attach 
 the young sailor to his interests, as well from this case, as 
 from the general reports to that efi'ect which long obtained 
 more or less belief.^ But he failed in the attempt ; even when 
 the admiral was asking and obtaining these rewards of faith- 
 ful services to the Commonwealth, he had already betrayed 
 it in his heart. 
 
 Ever watchful over his own interests, he had observed, even 
 when the power of Cromwell was at its height, that the ma- 
 jority of the nation was royalist in opinion, and that the 
 .,/' reigning Prince held his seat only by force of his own daring 
 
 and supreme genius. The Protector could not live forever ; 
 
 ^ at his death mediocrity would succeed to his honors and perils ; 
 and this mediocrity must fall before the will of the nation. 
 Nor was this all : — with the Commonwealth would fall the men 
 who had been identified wdth it, whatever their merits or their 
 services. But for his part he had resolved to rise. He cared 
 neither for Cromwell nor for Stuart, except so far as they 
 could minister to his personal ambition. Cromwell was 
 getting old, — and he fancied it now time to pay his court and 
 make his peace in the royal quarter. With this view he 
 opened a secret correspondence with Charles Stuart, then at 
 Cologne with his dogs and his mistresses, and a few of the 
 loyal cavaliers who had ruined their estates in his father's de- 
 fence, and now amused his exile by their wit and their quarrels.^ 
 But his secret was ill kept ; not only did the man most con- 
 cerned soon become aware of this correspondence, but even 
 
 1 Granville Penn, ii. 19, 20. 2 Pepys' Diary, Nov 9, 1663. 
 
 3 Clarendon, vi. 1 — Ellis Orig. Letters, iii. 376, second series. The reader 
 "will be amused on comparing Charles's own account of his life at Cologne 
 with that given by his Chancellor. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 23 
 
 some of his political friends, and his old acquaintance Sir 
 Harry Vane began to suspect him of inconstancy.* 
 
 He either remained unaware that these suspicions had been 
 excited, or was resolved to go through his work with a high 
 hand. On the 25th of December, a few days after leaving 
 Spithead, he sent an offer to Charles to place the whole of the 
 fleet under his command at his disposal, and to run it into any 
 port that might be designated for that purpose.^ It is impos- 
 sible to relate this offer without indignation. Had the 
 Admiral been personally attached to Charles Stuart, he ought 
 not to have taken service under a soldier of fortune whom he 
 must then have regarded as an usurper. The cavalier who 
 stood by his prince through all changes of fortune may be 
 admired even by a republican : — Clarendon is as reputable a 
 character as Blake — and Falkland stands in history not un- 
 worthily by the side of Hampden. But for the man who 
 seeks a trust merely to betray it, who uses his sword to 
 strike the hand he voluntarily swears to defend, no term of 
 reprehension is too strong. Admiral Penn's case was one of 
 peculiar baseness, — for he added ingratitude to treason. 
 
 Nothing came of the offer for the moment. Charles had 
 no ports, — no money to pay seamen, — nothing for them to 
 do, unless he had turned privateer like his cousin Rupert: so 
 with many thanks for the offer, he told the sailor to go on the 
 usurper's errand, and reserve his loyalty for a more propi- 
 tious season.^ The Exiles were not sorry to see Cromwell 
 attack the Spaniards; as they expressed it, every new enemy 
 to the English Commonwealth would be a gain to them. But 
 the offer in itself gave them the greatest hopes ; it was the 
 most considerable defection that had yet taken place ; and 
 counting on his ability to surrender the fleet at the earliest op- 
 portunity, they at once applied to Spain for the loan of a 
 port."* Cromwell who had better means of knowing what 
 passed in the Exile's court than the Prince himself, was soon 
 made aware of this offer and the result ; but he kept an in- 
 scrutable silence, and the armament was allowed to leave the 
 European waters without interruption.* 
 
 1 Pepys. Nov. 9, 1663. 2 Granville Penn, ii. 14. 
 
 ^ Clarendon, vi. 6. The Clarendon used in this work is the Oxford edition, 
 7 vols. 1849 ; the only one complete. 
 
 ■* Mem. of Marquis of Ormonde. Carte's Coll. ii. 3. Clarendon, vi. 6. 
 ^ Confident in his own genius, Cromwell seldom hesitated to employ a 
 
24 WILLIAxM PENN. 
 
 It is not necessary to relate the details of this famous ex- 
 pedition. Through the incapactity of General Venables the 
 attack on Hispaniola failed. That the admiral was guiltless 
 of any share in the failure is quite clear, for he never went 
 on shore near the scene of the great disaster,^ — which would 
 have ended in the complete defeat and perhaps dispersion of 
 the troops under the walls of St. Domingo, had he not sent 
 a body of his seamen with Admiral Goodson to the rescue. 
 The whole army and navy were chagrined by the failure ; and 
 to atone in some measure for this unexpected reverse of for- 
 tune, the naval commander attacked the magnificent island 
 of Jamaica, and at a small sacrifice of life added it to the 
 British dominions.^ The tropical splendors of the island 
 enchanted the young admiral : he examined the soil and 
 natural productions with interest, and after his return to 
 England often made those far outlying provinces of the 
 empire a subject of his fire-side discourse. But another 
 cause contributed still more to make this voyage and the 
 American colonies generally a theme of constant conversa- 
 tion in the presence of the boy who was to be the founder of 
 Pennsylvania — the real or afi"ected anger of Cromwell at the 
 failure on the larger island, visited equally on admiral and 
 general. They were both summoned before the council at 
 Whitehall. Venables threw the blame on Penn ; Penn threw 
 the blame on Venables. For reasons which were not stated 
 to the council, but which are evident enough now, the Lord 
 Protector chose to consider them as equally culpable ; and at 
 his instance the pliant council stript them of their ofiices and 
 dignities, — and consigned them to separate dungeons in the 
 Tower.^ 
 
 This was a terrible blow to the admiral's family. While 
 her husband was absent on his professional duties, Margaret 
 Penn chiefly resided at the country-house in Essex, and Ijer 
 
 known intriguer if he needed him. When ^Nlonk began his secret communi- 
 cations with the Stuarts, he contented himself with writing in a bantering 
 postscript — "There is a cunning fellow in Scotland, called George Monk, 
 who lies in wait there to serve Charles Stuart — praj^ use your dilligence to 
 take him, and send him to me." Price 712 (quoted by Lingard, xi. 409). 
 
 1 Truth Rescued, i. 497. 2 Whitelocke, Sept. 1656. 
 
 3 Granville Penn, ii. 140, 1. The substance of the examination is pre- 
 served in Thurloe, iv. 28, 55 ; a glance at which will prove that the ostensi- 
 ble ground of his imprisonment was not the real one. That Penn was not 
 concerned in the failure on Hispaniola, is evident from Whitelocke, 629, and 
 rom the letters of Winslow and Butler (the fleet commissioners) in State Papers 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 25 
 
 son was sent to learn the first rudiments of scholarship at a 
 grammar-school at Chigwell, then recently founded by the 
 Archbishop of York. The family, now consisting of three 
 children, — William, Margaret and Richard, — were living at 
 Wanstead when the admiral returned, was arrested and sent 
 to prison. The eldest son, eleven years old, a quick-witted 
 and affectionate child, was overwhelmed with melancholy at 
 these events. While in this state of mind he was one day 
 surprised in his room, where he was alone, with an inward 
 and sudden sense of happiness, akin to a strong religious 
 emotion ; the chamber at the same instant appearing as if 
 filled with a soft and holy light. ^ This incident has been 
 regarded by some as a miracle, — by others as a delusion. 
 But is it out of the course of nature for a lively and sensitive 
 child, on the morrow of a grief so crushing, to fall into one 
 of th(yse morbid conditions of the mind in which the thoughts 
 and the reveries appear to stand out as apart from the in- 
 dividual ? The date of the miraculous manifestation is not 
 clearly fixed : the boy is only described as eleven years old, 
 but as his father was set at liberty by Cromwell within a few 
 days of his eleventh birthday, it is probable that the glory 
 which filled the room and the feeling which suffused his frame 
 were simply the effects of a sensitive temperament over-ex- 
 cited by the glad tidings of this release.^ Not liking the still 
 life of his dungeon, the admiral had sent a humble petition to 
 the Council, in which he acknowledged his faults, and threw 
 himself on the Protector's mercy f and Cromwell, who ad- 
 mired his genius, though he no longer hoped to win him over 
 to his own interests, generously and at once restored him to 
 his family and freedom.'' But no sooner was he again at 
 liberty than he commenced a new series of intrigues. His 
 own profession closed to him, he pretended to give up politics 
 and public business, and taking his family with him he re- 
 moved into Ireland, lived for several years in the unmolested 
 enjoyment of the estates which had been given to him for 
 faithful services to the Commonwealth, — and at the very time 
 was using his whole influence to prepare in secret a way for 
 the return of the exiled princes.^ 
 
 ' Travels into Germany and Holland, i. 92. 
 
 2 In the MS. autobiography of Lady Springet, I read of several dreams of 
 this nature. They were the common incidents of the time, 
 
 3 Burchett, 395. ^ Granville Penn, ii. 142. ^ n^ij, ii. 143^ i67. 
 
 i> 
 
26 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 During these years his son William rapidly improved, under 
 the direction of a private tutor from England, in useful and 
 elegant scholarship. He exhibited already a rare aptitude 
 for business, and his father saw no reason to apprehend that 
 he would not inherit to the full his own bold and worldly 
 ambition. In person he was tall and slender, but his limbs 
 were well knit, and he had a passionate fondness for field 
 sports, boating and other manly exercises. Altogether he 
 had made so much progress that the admiral thought him 
 ready to begin his more serious studies at the University. 
 After due consideration it was resolved that he should go to 
 Oxford.^ 
 
 This was in 1659 : an eventful year for the admiral's 
 family and for the whole of England. In the evening of the 
 second day of the September previous, a feeling of unusual 
 depth and awe had fallen on the citizens of London : — ^tt was 
 currently whispered that the Lord Protector was on his death- 
 bed ! They who had hoped for as well as they who dreaded 
 this event, moved about that night with hushed breath and 
 anxious faces. Every man felt that come what would order 
 and public tranquillity depended on the life then passing 
 away. The royalist dreamed of a return to monarchy, — 
 the Puritan thought of his classic republic, — the soldier hoped 
 for a military government under the control of a council of 
 officers, — the traders, always in favor of established authority, 
 and always in the hour of change an unconsulted and a use- 
 less class, wished to see Richard Cromwell quietly succeed. 
 More than one secret conclave was held that night in Lon- 
 don, and various projects were announced by the more daring 
 spirits ; but the great majority of the people was held in a 
 state of low and anxious melancholy by the solemn scene 
 then enacting at Whitehall. Nature too was in harmony 
 with men's minds. As the night set in it grew unusually 
 dark. The wind then rose. At first it came in sullen 
 puff's and blasts ; but as the hours wore on it became a steady 
 gale. At midnight it grew a perfect hurricane. Trees 
 were torn up by the roots in the parks around the Protector's 
 palace. In the city, houses were un-roofed and walls and chim- 
 neys blown doAvn. Vessels were snapped from their moorings 
 in the river, and dashed against each other and on the strand. 
 
 ' Besse, i. 1. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 27 
 
 The uncommon darkness brooding over all increased the con- 
 fusion and the fear. And through the whole length of that 
 terrible night the dying Cromwell prayed that his enemies 
 might be enlightened and. forgiven : — " Teach them Lord !" 
 cried the departing hero, " who look too much upon Thy in- 
 struments to depend more upon Thyself, — and pardon such 
 as desire to trample on the dust of a poor worm, for they are 
 Thy people too." Next day he died : it was the anniversary 
 of the battles of Dunbar and Worcester."^ 
 
 The news of this great event soon reached the partizans of 
 the Exile in Ireland, and for a time William Penn's removal 
 to Oxford was deferred. The admiral at once put himself 
 into communication with his Munster friends ;^ but on com- 
 paring ideas it was thought unwise to take any formal steps 
 in favor of Charles. The genius of the dead prince had in- 
 fused an energy into the march of government which served 
 for the moment to deceive mankind as to the strength of his 
 son and successor ; until that energy was spent, the courtiers 
 only dared to look on from a distance and watch the current 
 of events in the camp, — for the army was now thoroughly 
 master. During the year next after the Lord Protector's death 
 the Penns remained at their Irish estates : William pursuing 
 his studies with his tutor, his father in secret but active cor- 
 respondence with his friend Lord Broghill and other power- 
 ful malcontents in the neighborhood;^ but as soon as the 
 intelligence of Richard's deposition came to hand, he saw 
 that now the time had arrived for decisive measures, and he 
 threw off the mask, openly declared for Charles Stuart, and 
 immediately set out for the Low Countries to pay his court 
 and offer his sword to his sovereign. Charles was so glad to 
 see him that he conferred on him the honors of knighthood 
 and employed him in a special service.'' He employed his 
 time to good purpose. While the army was vacillating 
 between its duties and its wishes he was engaged in bringing 
 over the fleet to the cause of the Restoration ;^ and this point 
 "was so far gained that in a critical moment Admiral Lawson 
 
 » Clarendon, vi. 102-3. Heath, 408. Ludlow, ii. 153. The reader should 
 also consult Underwood, 12, and Thurloe, vii. 373. 
 
 2 Granville Penn, ii. 208. » Ibid. 
 
 "^ Parliamentary History, xxii. 295. There is an entry of £100 paid to 
 him for this special service. 
 
 ^ Granville Penn, ii. 21G. 
 
28 WILLIAM PEKK. 
 
 brought his ships up to the Tower and there declared in favor 
 of a free parliament — which parliament it was well known 
 would recall the Exiles. When the new writs were issued, 
 the borough of Weymouth, without solicitation on his part, 
 elected Sir William to serve as their representative in com- 
 pany with General Montague.-^ After the resolution to bring 
 the Stuarts back had been carried in both Houses, Montague 
 being appointed to command the fleet sent to the Dutch coast, 
 his colleague went with him on board, in order to be among 
 the first to welcome the king into his own navy. The monarch 
 never forgot these services.^ 
 
 The road to royal favor thus laid open, the admiral was 
 anxious that his son, — whose natural abilities appeared to 
 him of the finest order, and whose love of business and open- 
 air exercises promised a man of active habits and worldly 
 ambition, — should noAV proceed to the University. To Oxford 
 he went, where he matriculated as a gentleman commoner at 
 Christ Church in the month of October.^ During his brief 
 residence at college, Oxford was considered to be the seat of 
 wit as well as of scholarship : — and it deserved the reputation. 
 In the chair of the Dean sat the famous controversialist, 
 Doctor John Owen, an old friend of the Lord Protector, and 
 soon to become an object of royalist persecution.'' The young 
 and brilliant genius of South, long repressed by untoward 
 circumstances, had obtained a hearing, and he had now 
 reached the distinguished position of Orator to the Univer- 
 sity, thus preparing a way for the delivery of the noble ser- 
 mons which are still regarded by lovers of our old literature 
 as models of grace and masculine beauty.^ John Wilmot, too, 
 was there, scattering about him those gleams of wit and 
 devilry which in after life so much endeared the Earl of 
 Rochester to his graceless sovereign.^ But the noblest and 
 most notable of all the ornaments of Oxford at that day was 
 John Locke — an unknown student in a sequestered cloister of 
 Christ Church, devoting his serene and noble intellect to the 
 study of medicine. Being twelve years older than Penn, it is 
 not probable that these celebrated men contracted more than 
 a casual acquaintance at college : in later life they met again 
 
 1 Ibid. ii. 209. 2 i^id. ii. 221. 3 University of Records. 
 
 4 Life of Owen, prefixed to Works in 28 vols. 1826. 
 ^ Sei-mons on Several Occasions, 6 vols. 8vo. 1704. 
 6 Wadham College, MSS. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 29 
 
 — rivals in legislation, but grateful friends in the hour of 
 need.^ 
 
 As he entered on his academical career under the auspices 
 of the royal brothers, he soon obtained a position in the bril- 
 liant circle of his college. A hard student, he gave great 
 satisfaction to his superiors ; a skillful boater and adventurous 
 sportsman, he soon became a favorite with his equals.^ His 
 reading at this time was solid and extensive, and his acquisi- 
 tion of knowledge was assisted by an excellent memory. For 
 a boy, he left Oxford with a profound acquaintance with 
 history and theology. Of languages he had also more than 
 the ordinary share. Then and afterwards, while at Saumur, 
 he read the chief writers of Greece and Italy in their native 
 idioms ; and acquired a thorough knowledge of French, 
 German, Dutch and Italian. Later in life he added to this 
 stock two or three dialects of the Red men. But his great 
 pleasure and Recreation while at Christ Church was in read- 
 ing the doctrinal discussions to which the Puritan idea had 
 given rise. The profligate court of Charles had infected the 
 higher classes of society, even before the Restoration actually 
 took place ; and that splendid mixture of vice and wit, polite- 
 ness and irreligion, soon to characterise the youth of England 
 generally, had slowly begun to display itself at the Univer- 
 sity. But there were not wanting protests. Many of the 
 young men there collected, had, in their early youth, imbibed 
 better notions of religion and morality, — and they firmly 
 resisted every attempt to introduce a more lax and courtly 
 ceremonial into the services of the Church. Other incidents 
 contributed to fan the fire of discontent. Dr. Owen, made 
 Dean of Christ Church by order of Parliament in 1653, was 
 ejected from his ofiice by the Stuarts to make room for their 
 own partizan, Dr. Reynolds : a change intended, among other 
 things, to prepare for the introduction of a more picturesque 
 ritual than had latterly been in use.^ This measure was very 
 unpopular with the students of Puritan principles : and the 
 displaced Dean kept up a constant correspondence with the 
 members of his college, in which he incited them to remain 
 firm in their rejection of papistical rites and mummeries.'' 
 Under this sanction, many of them, — and William Penn 
 
 1 Christ Chiirch, MSS. ^ Wood, art. Penn. 
 
 3 Life of Owen, prefixed to works, 182G. '» Ibid. i. 220 et seq. 
 
 3* 
 
30 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 among the foremost, — boldly opposed the innovations of the 
 court. ^ Yet it was not without pain that he found his con- 
 science at war with the powers whom his father delighted to 
 honor. From the frequent references to these times made in 
 after life, it is evident that his sufferings were acute and long 
 continued.^ As the lights of truth dawned on his own mind, 
 he was surprised and terrified to find how dark all was out- 
 side. Every where, to use his own expression, he saw that a 
 reign of darkness and debauchery was commencing f and his 
 only hope for the future lay in a vague but most romantic 
 dream that a virtuous and holy empire — equally free from 
 bigotry and the dead formalism of State Religions — might 
 one day be founded in those magnificent wildernesses of the 
 New World which had so often formed a topic of the family 
 conversation. But 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 
 the city — began to preach the new doctrines taught by 
 George Fox. The neglect of forms and ceremonies in the 
 new ritual, attracted the attention of Penn and of others 
 who, like him, were in a state of revolt at the threatened 
 restoration of popish usages, and going to hear the preaching 
 of this strange word, they were excited and interested, and 
 returned again and again. Their absence from their own 
 services was noticed ; the superiors were alarmed ; and the 
 young non-conformers were all brought up and fined for the 
 irregularity.* This indignity drove them into open rebellion. 
 They banded themselves together to oppose the orders of the 
 court by force. The youngsters paraded the streets in a 
 threatening manner. They not only refused to wear the 
 gown themselves, but they declared war against all who did ; 
 and in the public promenades, in the gardens of Christ Church, 
 in the quadrangles of the colleges, they set upon and tore 
 away the hated vestments from the more courtly or timid 
 students.^ In these outrages Penn's English spirit was con- 
 
 1 G Pepys' Diary, April 28, 1662. 2 Travels, i. 92. 3 i^id. 
 
 '^ Penn to Turner, Pennsylvania Historical Society's Memoirs, i. 203. 
 ^ Besse, i. 2. 
 
 ^ Lady Springet's MS. autobiography is full of the repugnance of Puritans 
 to the vestments of tiie clergy. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 31 
 
 spicuous : — and the immediate consequence was, that he "was 
 brought up for judgment and expelled the University.^ 
 
 On hearing of the first and minor offence of nonconfor- 
 mity the admiral was grieved and astounded. The idea of a 
 child of his growing up into a fanatic seemed to his worldly 
 mind preposterous. For himself, though he pursued the 
 course of his ambition with unswerving resolution, he was 
 fond of relaxation, — often went to the play, — loved to dine 
 at a tavern with a set of jovial companions, — and was addicted 
 to all the genial weaknesses of a busy man.^ He little un- 
 derstood the working of his son's mind ; but a vague and 
 undefinable sense of coming evil cast a shadow on his spirits. 
 His friends remarked his clouded brow — the unaccustomed 
 gravity of his speech.^ The first thought was to separate his 
 heir from his present comrades ; and he consulted several 
 persons as to the wisdom of sending him at once to Cam- 
 bridge.'* Then came the expulsion. This disgrace struck 
 the proud and ambitious admiral in the heart. When William 
 came home he was received with cold and silent anger. For 
 a time he would hardly see or speak to him. The whole 
 family was plunged into misery.* But this stern discipline 
 produced no effect. The admiral observed that his son con- 
 tinued in a low and serious mood of mind, altogether unna- 
 tural as he thought at the age of eighteen, — that he avoided 
 the gay and pleasant society to which he had been accustomed 
 all his life, — and he began to fear that he was not taking the 
 wisest course to reclaim him. He still wrote to and received 
 letters from Dr. Owen ; and would not admit that he had 
 done wrong in resisting the king's commands about the 
 surplice.^ 
 
 The admiral had two other children ; Richard, described 
 by Pepys as "a notable, stout, witty boy,"^ and Margaret; 
 but his greatest hopes were built on his first-born, whose 
 bright and practical intellect had already impressed him with 
 deep respect. To quarrel with this favorite, more than was 
 needful for his own good, was what he had neither the will 
 
 I Pepys, Nov. 2. 2 ibid. May 3, 1668. ^ i^id. April 28, 1662. 
 
 4 Ibid. Jan. 25 ; Feb. 1. ^ Ibid. March 16. 
 
 6 "Sir William much troubled on receipt of letters last night. Showed me 
 one of Dr. Owen's to his son, whereby it appears he is much perverted in 
 his opinions by him ; which I now perceive is the cause that hath put Sir 
 William so long off the hooks." Pepys, April 28. 
 
 "? Pepys, Feb. 12, 1665; he died in 1673. 
 
WZ WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 nor the power to do, and after mucli thought he changed his 
 method. It had occurred to him that the best way to with- 
 draw a young man from sombre thoughts and inferior com- 
 pany would be to send him to the gay capital of Europe. He 
 had not yet seen much of the world : — he proposed to him to 
 set out almost immediately for France. Of course he was de- 
 lighted : what schoolboy does not start with pleasure at the 
 name of Paris ! Some of his college friends were about to 
 commence the grand tour, and it was arranged by all parties 
 that he should join them. They were a gay and graceful set 
 — some of them of the best blood in England. At Paris they 
 stayed some time. Penn was presented to Louis Quatorze, 
 and became a frequent and welcome guest at court.^ There 
 he made the acquaintance of Robert Spencer, son of the first 
 Earl of Sunderland and Lady Dorothy Sidney — sister of the 
 famous Algernon Sidney — and of several other persons of 
 distinction in the fashionable circles of Paris and Versailles.^ 
 In this brilliant society the young Penn soon forgot the aus- 
 tere gravity of his demeanor ; not many details of his life at 
 this period are preserved, — but the little that is known is 
 characteristic. Returning late one night from a party, he 
 was accosted in the dark street by a man who ^houted to him 
 in an angry tone to draw and defend himself. 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 
 civil salutation : — his courtesy had been slighted, and he 
 would have satisfaction made to his wounded honor. In vain 
 the young Englishman protested he had not seen him, — that 
 he could have no motive for oiFering 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 
 — his only answer was a pass with his rapier. The blood of 
 the youth was stirred ; and whipping his sword from its scab- 
 bard, 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 and 
 decide upon any points of honor which might be raised. A 
 few passes proved that Penn was the more expert swordsman ; 
 
 * Gerard Croese, History of Quakers, 41. 
 2 Letter to Sunderland, July 28, 1683. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 33 
 
 and a dexterous movement left the Frencli gallant unarmed 
 and at his mercy. ^ The company rather expected him to 
 finish his man, as they said he had a right to do by the 
 laws of honor ; but he took a difi"erent view of the case, and 
 returned the captured sword with a polite bow to its owner.^ 
 It is petty clear from such an incident that Penn was more of 
 a cavalier than a quaker at this period of his life.^ 
 
 The admiral, now a commissioner of the navy with five 
 hundred a year and a magnificent suite of rooms at the navy- 
 gardens, was so well pleased with his son's conduct in France, 
 that he desired him to remain some time in that country 
 and complete his education : in the meantime he had already 
 settled it in his own mind that when he had done with books 
 and travel he should enter the army, and consulted the Duke 
 of Ormonde and other of his intimate friends as to the need- 
 ful arrangements.'' On learning his father's wishes, Penn 
 went to Saumur and placed himself under the care of the 
 learned Moses Amyrault, professor of divinity, and one of the 
 ablest men in the reformed churches of France. With this 
 eminent scholar he read the principal fathers ; discussed the 
 history and philosophic basis of theology ; and applied him- 
 self to a thorough study of the language and literature of the 
 country. At the conclusion of this course of study he began 
 to travel, being furnished with letters of introduction to the 
 best society in France and Italy. He again joined Lord 
 Robert Spencer, and through his means it is probable that he 
 was at this time made personally acquainted with Algernon 
 Sidney, then living in honorable exile rather than compro- 
 mise his potitical faith.* Certain it is that early in life Penn 
 became known to this illustrious exile, and strongly attached 
 to his person and to his political ideas. As the great repub- 
 lican left England in 1659, and did not return until 1677, 
 when they appear to have been long intimate,^ it is necessary 
 to infer that they were now introduced. Spencer was Sidney's 
 nephew; but blood was the only thing they had in common. 
 Penn accepted his opinions as well as his friendship ; and 
 
 1 <'No Cross, no Crown," i. 313. 2 Oerard Croese, 41. ^ gesse, i. 2. 
 
 ^ Ormonde to Sir William Penn, Granville Penn, i. 429. 
 
 5 "If I could write and talk like Col. Hutchinson or Sir Gilbert Pickering, 
 I believe I might be quiet ; contempt might procure me safety ; but I had 
 rather be a vagabond all my life than buy my being in my own country at so 
 poor a rate." Hamburg, August 30th, 1660. 
 
 ^ Algernon Sidney to Furly, April 3, 1678. 
 
M WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 retained for him through life a noble and disinterested 
 affection.^ 
 
 In the summer of 1664, when he had been about two years 
 abroad, Penn was suddenly recalled from Italy. England 
 was again at war with Holland. On the day of Charles 
 Stuart's restoration, the Dutch revived their old dreams of 
 naval supremacy, and their aims and pretensions had at 
 length outwearied the patience of Whitehall. War was de- 
 clared. The Duke of York, then Lord High Admiral of 
 England, divided the fleet into three squadrons, one of which 
 he gave to Prince Rupert, a second to Lord Sandwich, and 
 the third was reserved for himself; but, as he had sense 
 enough to know, not one of the three commanders had ever 
 directed a great naval action, nor was qualified by experience 
 and ability to contend against veterans like De Ruyter and 
 De Witt.^ Sandwich was a soldier, Rupert a mere freebooter, 
 and James, though he had distinguished himself under Tu- 
 renne, was a stranger to the ocean. The occasion could not 
 be trifled with, and in spite of the jealousy of Sandwich and 
 the rage of Rupert, the royal brothers consulted the admiral 
 as to the course to be adopted, — and he recommended them 
 to employ in their service the old and dauntless captains of 
 the Commonwealth.^ James had firmness enough to resist 
 the clamor of the royalists when the advice was made known ; 
 and many of those who had served under Blake, Lawson, and 
 Penn, were named to the command of vessels. In the hour 
 of peril his naval genius made itself felt on every hand, and 
 the lord admiral looked up to him as to an infallible guide.^ 
 That the full benefit of his skill and courage might be given 
 to his country, he was named Great Captain Commander, and 
 ordered to take his station on the duke's flag-ship, so as in 
 his name to direct all the really important movements of the 
 fleet.^ 
 
 While thus employed the admiral thought proper to have 
 his son at home ; partly to look after the family aff'airs, and 
 
 1 Sidney Papers, ii. 155. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. second part. 
 
 2 Penn was but 42, yet the Duke always called liim in allusion to Ms long 
 services at sea "Old Penn." Pepy's, June 20, 1664. 
 
 3 Ibid. Nov. 6, 1665. 4 Ibid. Oct. 3, 1664. 
 
 5 Kempthorne Papers in Egerton MSS. " Sir William Penn do grow every 
 day more and more regarded by the duke." Pepys, Oct. 3. " To the office, 
 where strange to see how Sir W. Penn is flocked to by people of all sorts 
 against his going to sea." This is the testimony of an enemy. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 50 
 
 partly to ensure his personal safety, as the King of France 
 was believed to be secretly leaning towards an alliance with 
 Holland. As fast as post-horses could carry him he traversed 
 northern Italy, Savoy, and France ; and arrived in London 
 about the middle of August, 1664, being then a little less 
 than twenty years old. The change in his manners and ap- 
 pearance threw the polite world into a state of wonderment. 
 Two years before he had gone away a silent, moody boy, 
 whose whim it was to shun gay society, and to consort with a 
 set of strange men, whose habits were vulgar and whose 
 opinions fanatic. He came back a fine gentleman. Like the 
 fashionable young men he had travelled with, he wore panta- 
 loons and carried his rapier in the French mode.-^ He had 
 the graceful carriage, the easy and self-possessed manners, of 
 the best bred men of the world.^ Both the king and his 
 royal brother noticed him, — and he stepped into his place at 
 court with ease and dignity. With the ladies he was an es- 
 pecial favorite. He had learned in foreign drawing-rooms to 
 lisp the language of polished compliment, and to compose the 
 little chansons d' amour which courtly beauties loved to listen 
 to in that age of elegant frivolity.^ In person he had grown 
 from a slight and unformed youth into a graceful and hand- 
 some man. Tall and well set, his figure promised physical 
 strength and hardihood of constitution. His face was mild 
 and almost womanly in its beauty ; his eye soft and full ; his 
 brow open and ample ; his features well defined and approach- 
 ing to the ideal Greek in contour ; the lines about his mouth 
 were exquisitely sweet and yet resolute in expression. 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 
 aiassive natural ringlets. In mien and manners he seemed 
 formed by nature and stamped by art — a gentleman.'' 
 
 The admiral, delighted with his own success, took care to 
 avoid all reference to the painful past.^ To prevent the 
 
 1 Gibson to Penn, March 1712. 2 Pepys, August 30. 
 
 3 " Comes Mr. Penn to visit me. I perceive something of learning he hath 
 got ; but a great deal, if not too much, of the vanity of the French garb, 
 and affected manner of speech and gait." August 30. The reader of the 
 Diary will remember how far the censor of these vanities Avas himself above 
 them. 
 
 '^ His portrait, painted at 22, is now in possession of the Pennsylvania 
 Hist. Society. 
 
 ^ Besse, i. 2. 
 
36 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 slightest risk of a return to his old companions and his old 
 thoughts, he kept him incessantly occupied. He carried him 
 to the gallery at Whitehall, — presented him to great persons, 
 — made him pay visits. He entered him as a student at 
 Lincoln's Inn that he might acquire some knowledge of his 
 country's laws ; and to allow him no leisure to indulge in idle 
 fancies, he employed him on the King's business and in his 
 own private affairs. There seemed little fear that he would 
 again go wrong: at least so thought his worldly-minded 
 father.^ 
 
 The crisis of the Dutch war had now arrived. On the 24th 
 of March, 1665, the Duke of York, accompanied by his Great 
 Captain Commander and many other distinguished persons, 
 went on board the Royal Charles. William Penn was on his 
 father's staff and saw, the few days he remained at sea, some 
 smart service between the Dutch and English commanders f 
 but at the end of three weeks he was sent on shore with 
 despatches for the King. On the 23d of April he landed at 
 Harwich about one o'clock; but the day being Sunday there 
 was some difficulty in obtaining horses, and he lost two hours 
 before he succeeded in procuring them, when he posted off, 
 and riding all night arrived at Whitehall before it was yet 
 day-light. Not finding the King up, he sent in a message by 
 Lord Arlington that he had brought news from the duke, — 
 on hearing which Charles leaped out of bed and ran into the 
 ante-room in his night-gown. The courier delivered his let- 
 ters : — " Oh, it's you !" said the King ; '' and how is Sir 
 William?" He read the letters and chatted with the bearer 
 more than half an hour, when seeing that he was fatigued 
 with his night's ride he told him to go home and get to bed.^ 
 Penn returned to his legal studies and continued at them 
 until June, when the decisive battle was fought and won — 
 the battle which struck dow^n once more the naval pride of 
 Holland, and won for the admiral the greatest rewards his 
 sovereign had to bestow, — and the plague broke out in London 
 and compelled him to change his place of residence.'* 
 
 The plague undid in a few weeks the work of years. It 
 
 1 Gran\^lle Penn, ii. 317-8. 
 
 2 Tnith Rescued, i. 498. Granville Penn, ii. 342 
 
 3 William Penn to the Admiral, May G. 
 
 '' Penn to Turner, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 201. Pennsylvania Charter, 
 preamble. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. m 
 
 was a visitation to make the boldest pause and the least sus- 
 ceptible to religious emotions look the great question in the 
 face. The living fell down in the streets, stricken dead in a 
 moment. The darkest gloom reigned every where. Ten 
 thousand deaths were reported in a single day. The rich fled 
 away to a distance. The poor shut themselves up in their 
 houses and hardly ventured forth in search of food. The fear 
 of death was in all hearts:^ — and the shock revived the old 
 religious fervor of the young law student, and completely 
 swept away the courtly refinements in which his father de- 
 lighted to see him excel. When the admiral returned from 
 sea he was surprised and mortified to find how great a change 
 an absence of a few weeks had wrought. His son, again 
 grave and taciturn, had left off French, ceased his attendance 
 at court, paid few visits. Most of his time was now spent in 
 his closet with the great masters of controversial theology and 
 politics, and the limited number of friends in whose society 
 he seemed to find a pleasure were men of sober character 
 and devout lives. ^ Again the dazzling dreams, which to the 
 keen eye of the admiral appeared more and more easy to 
 realize in outward fact, were on the point of being dashed and 
 broken. From the gratitude of the royal brothers he had 
 already received ample rewards; besides his official residence 
 and the salary of five hundred a year as commissioner to the 
 navy, he had obtained the command of Kinsale — castle and 
 fort — worth at least four hundred a year, and a grant of land 
 of the full annual value of a thousand pounds, over and above 
 all charges, quit-rents and deductions. Nor did the royal 
 bounty end with gifts of lands and offices. The services were 
 too great to pass without still higher honors :^ — and he w as 
 given to understand that he would be raised to the peerage 
 in due time with the title of Lord Weymouth, the borough 
 which he then represented in parliament.'* But what was he 
 
 > Defoe, ix. 1-204. 2 Travels, i. 92. 
 
 ^ All classes looked up to him in the hour of danger. Pepys' meanness 
 is amusing : — " Comes Sir W. Penn to town, which I little expected, having 
 invited my lady and her daughter Pegg to dine with me to-day, which at 
 noon they did, and Sir W. Penn with them; and pretty merry we were. 
 And though I do not love him, yet I find it necessary to keep in with him. 
 His good service at Sheerncss in getting ovit the fleet being much taken 
 notice of, and reported to the king and duke, even from the prince [Rupert] 
 and the Duke of Albemarle themselves. Therefore I think it discretion, 
 great and necessary discretion, to keep in with him." July 1, 1660. 
 
 -» Granville Penn, ii. 317-18. Besse, i. 2. 
 
 4 
 
m WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 to do witli a shy and moody youth hi that splendid and dissi- 
 pated court ? He could think only of one scheme, — and that" 
 was to send him away until the mood had again passed off: 
 absence from England had formerly cured him of such follies 
 — it was easy to try the experiment again. So reasoned the 
 worldly-minded father with himself; and the idea once in his 
 mind, he lost no time in carrying it into effect. 
 
 At this period of our history the Duke of Ormonde, with 
 whose family the admiral lived on terms of intimate friend- 
 ship, was vice-king in Ireland ; and his court in Dublin was 
 renowned as one of the most refined and cultivated in Europe. 
 The grey-headed old nobleman was himself possessed of an 
 upright mind, a cheerful temper and polished manners: he 
 knew the value of wit and ease ; but he never sacrificed to 
 them the more solid qualities of intellect and virtue. About 
 his own person he had gathered all the worth and beauty of 
 the country over which he ruled ; and his court was remark- 
 able for its gaiety and correctness — the purity of its morals 
 and the brilliancy of its fashion.^ In such a circle Admiral 
 Penn had good reason to believe his son would soon forget 
 that hateful gloom. Sensible that while his mind was still 
 fresh and his worldly passions dormant, the society of those 
 profligate idlers and bravoes who swarmed about Whitehall 
 could only lead to a deeper and more radical repugnance to 
 a courtier's life, he took his measures not unwisely : only he 
 had overlooked one important fact — the Quakers were already 
 numerous in Ireland.^ 
 
 Provided with letters of introduction to the Viceroy and to 
 other chief officers of the government, Penn set out for Dublin, 
 where he arrived in the autumn of 1665, and was warmly 
 received by his father's friends. The Duke made him known 
 to his second son, the young Lord Arran, (Ossory being at 
 that time absent in his sovereign's service,) to Lord Dunagle, 
 Secretary Sir George Lane, and the other distinguished 
 persons of his court.^ Pie was charmed with the spirit, the 
 intelligence, the high breeding of his young courtier ; and in 
 a very short time the accounts sent to the admiral assured 
 him that in separating his son from his London associates he 
 had effectually changed the current of his thoughts. The 
 
 1 Carte's Life of Ormoude, and the Ormonde Correspondence. 
 ^Tliurloe, iv. 757. ^ Letters in Granville Penn, ii. 429 et seq. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 39 
 
 Ormondes were a family of soldiers : — the pomp and circum- 
 stance of war occupied nearly every thought of young Arran 
 and his companions. Penn was still considered a little too 
 grave for one-and-twenty ; but he affected no moroseness, — 
 gave up his time and talents to the occupation of the hour, — 
 and one unexpected event gave to his tastes and wishes a 
 powerful impulse towards a military career. This was an in- 
 surrection of the soldiers stationed at Carrickfergus. The 
 mutineers seized the castle and spread alarm through the 
 whole country. To the Lord Arran was assigned the arduous 
 task of reducing them to obedience; and impelled by the 
 ardor of youth, Penn offered to serve as a volunteer under Ijis 
 friend. His offer was accepted, and in the subsequent actions 
 of th^ siege he so distinguished himself by courage and cool- 
 ness as to extort general applause from his superior officers. 
 Arran was in ecstacies. The Viceroy himself wrote to the 
 admiral to express his great satisfaction with his son's con- 
 duct; and at the same time proposed that he should now join 
 the army and have a company of foot as had been agreed 
 between them before his return from France.^ 
 
 This taste of military glory made the volunteer anxious to 
 adopt the sword as a profession. The desire did not lie deep 
 in his mind perhaps ; but so long as the career of arms seemed 
 open to him he strongly urged his father to comply with the 
 Duke's proposal, and in more than one letter expressed his 
 chagrin at being kept so long in a state of uncertainty.^ His 
 impatience amused and gratified the family, then residing at 
 Walthamstow f but the admiral had now changed his views, 
 so that while he freely confessed that he felt proud of his con- 
 duct at the attack on Carrickfergus, he refused to allow him 
 to join the regular army. Penn parted from his momentary 
 dream with much regret, — and, that some remembrance of it 
 might be preserved in the family, he had himself painted — 
 the only time in his life — in his military costume. It is a 
 curious fact that the only genuine portrait of the great apostle 
 of peace existing, represents him armed and accoutred as a 
 soldier I'* 
 
 1 Ormonde to Sir William, May, 29, 1G66. 
 
 2 Granville Penn, ii. 431-2. ^ Pepys, August 30. 
 
 "* Granville Penn, ii. 431. The original portraits (there were two copies), 
 are — one of them in possession of his descendant, Granville Penn, Esq. The 
 other in the hall of the Pennsylvania Historical Society. 
 
4# WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 From this time the family affairs in Ireland occupied the 
 whole of Penn's attention for several months. The lands 
 granted by Cromwell to the admiral for his good and faithful 
 service to the Commonwealth included the town, castle and 
 manor of Macroom — then called Macromp^ — an estate in ex- 
 cellent condition, with gardens and nurseries in perfect culture, 
 — several woods of great value, — markets of grain and fruit, 
 — and various other manorial rights and dignities attached. 
 But with the Restoration came in a claimant with an indispu- 
 table title, and Macroom went back to the Earls of Clancarty. 
 The admiral, however, had taken too much care of his fortunes 
 to suffer by any new changes. The king himself wrote to the 
 Duke of Ormonde commanding him to see that his faithful 
 servant received no injury in his estate ;^ — so that in the end 
 he got in exchange for Macroom a still nobler property in the 
 barony of Imokelly, county of Cork, — including Shangarry 
 Castle and all the lands lying in its immediate neighborhood. 
 
 The new grant was of course not free from other claims ; 
 and vexatious suits were maintained against the new proprie- 
 tor for several years. On of the principal persons who disputed 
 the right of the crown to give away the Shangarry estates 
 was Colonel Wallis ; and Penn was ordered to put himself 
 into communication with this gentleman. He displayed in the 
 management of the business an address and prudence which 
 astonished the admiral, who thereupon gave up the entire 
 charge of the suit into his hands. This Irish property was 
 the chief dependence of the family, and they always enter- 
 tained the idea of settling on it as a permanent residence : — 
 a circumstance which makes the confidence of the admiral and 
 the merits of the young manager appear the more conspi- 
 cuous.^ Nor did his ducal friend overlook his marvellous 
 aptitude for affairs : he thought of some public employment — 
 now that the intention of making him a soldier was abandoned 
 — in which his services might be made available — and in a 
 short time appointed him to be what we should now call the 
 chief commissariat officer to the fleet stationed at Kinsale, 
 which responsible post he filled to the entire satisfaction of 
 his employer.^ 
 
 But it was in London, not at Kinsale or Shangarry, that 
 the great question of the Irish estates was to be settled. The 
 
 » Granville Penn, ii. 617. 2 ii^ij. n 374. 3 ibij. ii. 433. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 41 
 
 Land Commissioners appointed hj the crown to hear and 
 adjust the multitude of intricate cases wliich had arisen during 
 twenty years of grants, confiscations, forfeitures and restora- 
 tions, were then sitting ; but the admiral had begun to feel a 
 greater degree of confidence in his son's tact and judgment 
 than his own, and he wrote to desire he would get the fiimily 
 affairs into an orderly state and then come over and see the 
 Commissioners, — at the same time giving him some shrewd 
 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 not to run any risk.* Penn joyfully 
 obeyed his father's summons, as he had not seen his mother 
 and sister for more than a year, and arrived in London in the 
 month of November.^ The business was soon arranged. After 
 hearing evidence on both sides the land commissioners con- 
 firmed the grant of Shangarry ; and assured of this large 
 addition to his fixed income the admiral began to live in a 
 style of yet greater magnificence ; he kept several coaches, and 
 in face of his expected peerage proposed to buy Wanstead 
 House, one of the largest mansions in Essex.^ 
 
 Penn did not remain long in London. His father, anxious 
 to keep him apart from his old Puritan friends — and to sustain 
 the habit of devotion to his temporal interests into which he 
 seemed gradually falling, sent him again into L^eland. He 
 had no suspicion that the enemy of his peace lay in ambush 
 at the very gates of his stronghold. But the youth had not 
 resided more than a few months at Shangarry Castle before 
 one of those incidents occurred which destroy in a day the 
 most elaborate attempts to stifle the instincts of nature. When 
 the admiral in England was pluming himself on the triumphs 
 of his worldly prudence, his son, on occasion of one of his 
 frequent visits to Cork, heard by accident that Thomas Loe, 
 his old Oxford acquaintance, was in the city and intended to 
 preach that night. He thought of his boyish enthusiasm at 
 college, and wondered how the preacher's eloquence would 
 stand the censures of his riper judgment. Curiosity prompted 
 him to stay and listen.'' The fervid orator took for his text 
 the passage — "There is a faith that overcomes the world, and 
 there is a faith that is overcome by the world." The topic 
 
 1 Granville Penn, ii. 434. 2 ^^^^ Gaskell MSS. 
 
 3 Pepys, April 19.— June 25.— Granville Penn, ii. 433. " Besse, i. 2. 
 
 4* 
 
42 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 was peculiarly adapted to his own situation. Possessed by 
 strong religious instincts, but at the same time docile and affec- 
 tionate, — he had hitherto oscillated between two duties — duty 
 to God and duty to his father. The case was one in which 
 the strongest minds might waver for a time. On the one side 
 — his filial affection, the example of his brilliant friends, the 
 worldly ambition never quite a stranger to the soul of man, 
 — all pleaded powerfully in favor of his father's views. On 
 the other, there was only the low whisperings of his own heart. 
 But the still voice would not be silenced. Often as he had 
 escaped from thought into business, gay society or the smaller 
 vanities of the parade and mess-room, — the moment of repose 
 again brought back the old emotions. The crisis had come 
 at last. Under Thamas Loe's influence they were restored to 
 a permanent sway. From that night he was a Quaker in his 
 heart. ^ 
 
 He now began to attend the meetings of this despised and 
 persecuted sect, and soon learned to feel the bitter martyr- 
 dom to which he had given up all his future hopes. In no 
 part of these islands were the Quakers of that time treated 
 as men and as brethren, — and least of anywhere in Ireland. 
 Confounded by ignorant and zealous magistrates with those 
 sterner Puritans who had lately ruled the land with a rod of 
 iron, and had now fallen into the position of a vanquished 
 and prostrate party — they were held up to ridicule in polite 
 society, and pilloried by the vulgar in the market-place. On 
 the 3d of September (1667) a meeting of these harmless 
 people was being held in Cork, when a company of soldiers 
 broke in upon them, made the whole congregation prisoners, 
 and carried them before the mayor on a charge of riot and 
 tumultuous assembling. Seeing William Penn, the lord of 
 Shangarry Castle, and an intimate friend of the Viceroy, 
 among the prisoners, the worthy magistrate wished to set him 
 at liberty on simply giving his word to keep the peace, but 
 not knowing that he had violated any law he refused to enter 
 into terms and was sent to gaol with the rest. From the 
 prison he wrote to his friend the Earl of Ossory — Lord Pre- 
 sident of Munster — giving an account of his arrest and de- 
 tention. An order was of course sent to the mayor for his 
 immediate discharge ; but the incident had made knoAvn to 
 
 1 Travels, i. 92 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 43 
 
 all the gossips of Dublin the fact that the young courtier and 
 soldier had turned Quaker !^ 
 
 His friends at the vice-regal court were greatly distressed 
 at this untoward event. The earl wrote off to the admiral 
 to inform him of his son's danger, stating the bare facts just 
 as they had come to his knowledge. The family were thun- 
 derstruck. The father especially was seriously annoyed ; he 
 thought the boy's conduct not only mad, but what was far 
 worse in that libertine age — ridiculous. The world was be- 
 ginning to laugh at him and his family : — he could bear it no 
 longer.^ He wrote in peremptory terms, calling him to Lon- 
 don. William obeyed without a word of expostulation. At 
 the first interview between father and son nothing was said 
 on the subject which both had so much at heart. , The admiral 
 scrutinised the youth with searching eyes, — and as he observed 
 no change in his costume, nor in his manner any of that 
 formal stiffness which he thought the only distinction of the 
 abhorred sect, he felt re-assured. His son was still dressed 
 like a gentleman; he wore lace and ruffles, plume and rapier; 
 the graceful curls of the cavalier still fell in natural clusters 
 about his neck and shoulder : — he began to hope that his 
 noble correspondent had erred in his friendly haste. But a 
 few days served to dissipate this illusion. He was first struck 
 with the circumstance that his son omitted to uncover in the 
 presence of his elders and superiors ; and with somewhat of 
 indignation and impatience in his tone, demanded an interview 
 and an explanation.^ 
 
 William frankly owned that he was now a Quaker. The 
 admiral laughed at the idea, and treating it as a passing 
 fancy, tried to reason him out of it. But he mistook his 
 strength. The boy was the better theologian and the more 
 thorough master of all the weapons of controversy. He then 
 fell back on his own leading motives. A Quaker ! Why the 
 Quakers abjured worldly titles: — and he expected to be made 
 a peer ! Had the boy turned Independent, Anabaptist, — 
 any thing but Quaker, he might have reconciled it to his con- 
 science. But he had made himself one of a sect remarkable 
 only for absurdities which would close on him every door in 
 courtly circles. Then there w^as that question of the hat. 
 Was he to believe that his own son would refuse to uncover 
 
 Besse, i. 8. 2 Pepys, Dec. 29, 16G7. ^ Besse, i. 2 
 
44 WILLIAM PENN. ' 
 
 in his presence ? The thing was quite rebellious and unnatu- 
 ral. And to crown all, — how would he behave himself at 
 court ? Would he wear his hat in the royal presence ? Wil- 
 liam paused. He asked an hour to consider his answer, — 
 and withdrew to his own chamber.^ 
 
 This enraged the admiral more than ever. What ! a son 
 of his could hesitate at such a question ! Why, this was a 
 question of breeding — not of conscience. Every child un- 
 covered to his father — every subject to his sovereign. Could 
 any man with the feelings and the education of a gentleman 
 doubt ? And this boy — for whom he had worked so hard — 
 had won such interest — had opened such a brilliant prospect 
 —that he, with his practical and cultivated mind, should 
 throw away his golden opportunities for a mere whimsy ! He 
 felt that his patience was sorely tried.^ 
 
 After a time spent in solitude and prayer, the young man 
 returned to his father with the result of his meditation — a 
 refusal. 
 
 The indignant admiral turned him out of doors.^ 
 
 o 
 
 1 Besse, i. 4. 2 n^^^^ 
 
 ^ Travels, i. 92, The admiral's temper was hasty and choleric. "Home- 
 •wards again, and on our way met two country fellows upon one horse, which 
 I did, without much ado, give the way to, but Sir William would not ; but 
 struck them, and they him, and so passed away; but they giving some high 
 words, he went back again and struck them off their horse in a simple fury." 
 Pepys, April 18, 1661. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 45 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 16G7-1670. 
 IN THE WORLD. 
 
 It now becomes necessary to inquire into the origin of these 
 facts ; to see whether it were a reasonable conviction or a 
 mere madness which induced William Penn, not only to aban- 
 don forever the hope of attaining to the brilliant position 
 marked out for him by the admiral, but to bear exclusion from 
 the home in which he had been reared, — to brave the anger 
 of a father whom he loved, — and to forfeit in a great mea- 
 sure the society of a mother and sister to whom he was ten- 
 derly attached. 
 
 The chief part of this explanation is to be found in the 
 history of the time. When the civil troubles commenced in 
 England, the entire intellectual and moral texture of society 
 was ravelled. In looking back to that period, it is too much 
 the habit to confine attention to the extraordinary variety of 
 opinions which prevailed in politics : — the social state was 
 even more anarchial. Between Hampden and Falkland the 
 space was narrower than between Laud and Fox. If in poli- 
 tical ideas, from the school of divine right, through the edu- 
 cated democracy of Milton, down to the wild republicanism 
 of the Fifth-Monarchy Men, all was confusion, — the religion 
 of the numberless sectaries will still less reducible to order. 
 The mere names of the leading sects into which the Church 
 had dissolved itself in a few years are suggestive. Only to 
 name a few of them, there were, — Anabaptists, Antinomians, 
 Antiscripturists, Antitrinitarians, Arians, Arminians, Bap- 
 tists, Brownists, Calvinists, Enthusiasts, Familists, Fifth- 
 Monarchy Men, Independents, Libertines, Muggletonians, 
 Perfectists, Presbyterians, Puritans, Ranters, Sceptics, Seek- 
 ers, and Socinians. Feakes and Powell, worthies of the Ana- 
 baptist faith, openly preached at Blackfriars a war of con- 
 quest and extermination against the continent of Europe. 
 Their eyes lay more especially on the inheritance of the 
 Dutchman : — God, they proclaimed, had given up Holland as 
 
4$ WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 a dwelling-place for his saints, and a stronghold from which 
 they might wage war against the great harlot. The Eiftli- 
 Monarchy men protested against every kind of law and gov- 
 ernment : Christ alone, in their opinion, ought to reign on 
 earth, and in his behalf they were anxious to put down all 
 lawgivers and magistrates. The Levellers were at least as 
 mad as any sect of Communists or Red Republicans of mo- 
 dern date. The national mind was in a paroxysm of morbid 
 activity ; and the bolder sort of spirits had cast away every 
 restraint which creeds and councils, laws and experience, 
 impose on men in ordinary times. Institutions which are 
 commonly treated with a grave respect, even by the unbe- 
 lieving, were made the subject of coarse jokes and indecent 
 mummeries. In the cant of the time a church was a taber- 
 nacle of the devil, — the Lord's Supper a twopenny ordinary.^ 
 St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey were both used 
 as stables for horses and as shambles for butchers.^ Hogs 
 and horses were taken to fonts filled with foul water, and 
 baptized according to the established ritual, for the amuse- 
 ment of common soldiers and the painted women who attended 
 the camp as their paramours.^ Mares were allowed to foal 
 in cathedrals, and the lowest troopers to convert the most 
 sacred edifices into beer-shops.^ Even our venerable abbey, 
 the resting-place of kings and heroes, was for a time used as 
 a common brothel.^ The sarcasm of the soldiers was — that 
 as the horses had now begun to attend church, the reforma- 
 tion was at length complete.^ Sober and religious men were 
 equally insane. A sect arose which professed to believe that 
 a woman has no soul, no more than a goose.^ Another body 
 of grave men believed there is no difference between good 
 and evil. Atheists became numerous ; and, as usual, atheism 
 was attended with the lowest and most debasing superstitions. 
 In more than one part of the country prostitution was prac- 
 tised as a religious ordinance.^ One fellow was found with 
 no less than seven wives, — another had married his father's 
 
 * Howell's Letters, 644. 
 
 2 Foulis' Hist, of Plots and Conspiracies, 136, Oxford, 1674. — Character 
 of England, 11 et seq. 
 
 3 Edward's Gangroena, Part iii. 17. 
 
 4 Newes from Powles, (St. Paul's) 1649. 
 
 5 INIercurius Rusticus, 237. ^ Character of England, 13. 
 
 ' Fox's Journal, 6. ^ Mercurius (section Democraticus) Nos. 1-30. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 47 
 
 wife, — a third having seduced a wretched woman, gave out 
 that she was about to be delivered of the Messiah. Hundreds 
 of persons set up as prophets ; and several men, a little madder 
 than the rest, were sent to Coventry gaol for declaring them- 
 selves to be God Almighty come down from heaven ; but once 
 locked up, their godships did not enable them to open the pri- 
 son-gates.^ From Newgate downwards, the prisons were full of 
 these fanatics : fools or knaves, whom nevertheless thousands 
 o*f their countrymen regarded as holy martyrs, suffering from 
 the children of this world the injustice which has ever been 
 the portion of prophets and apostles. A fact that is particu- 
 larly curious is, that the fanaticism usually commenced in the 
 higher classes : — among magistrates, colonels in the army, 
 ministers of the gospel, and gentlemen of estate. It was 
 only by degrees that the madness descended to the lower 
 orders of society.^ A person of wealth and standing in 
 Warwickshire, shut himself and his family up in his house to 
 starve from a fanciful sense of religious duty ; and when the 
 neighbors broke into the house, they found one of the child- 
 ren already dead.^ One Sunday a respectable tailor, named 
 Evan Price, got up in one of the city churches in the middle 
 of the sermon, and declared himself to be Jesus Christ in 
 person. The incident of course made some stir, and the 
 tailor was taken before the lord mayor — a judge it is to be 
 supposed in such matters — where he maintained the correct- 
 ness of his assertion, and offered to prove it by showing the 
 marks of the nails in his hands by which he had been fast- 
 tened to the cross sixteen hundred years before !"* When 
 acting under any strong excitement, the folly of mankind is 
 illimitable. To verify the text — " Man shall not live by bread 
 alone," one of the prophets tried to do without eating. The 
 text proved to him a dead letter : for he expired just as he 
 was on the point of establishing the prediction.^ Yet these 
 were not the most revolting incidents of the revolutionary 
 period. A fiend in the guise of woman offered up her child 
 as a sacrifice in imitation of the Hebrew rites, — another cru- 
 cified her mother. Yet with all this folly, blasphemy and 
 madness, a deeply religious spirit possessed the nation ; and 
 a general toleration for the sects which grew up under the 
 
 1 Fox's Journal. 2 Lady Springett MS. 
 
 3 Torshall"3 Hypocrite Discovered, 1644. 
 
 4 News Tract, January 10, 1646. ^ Whitelocke, 624. 
 
48 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 excitement was one of the happiest issues of the Common- 
 wealth.^ 
 
 It was into a worhi thus racked and torn, politically, intel- 
 lectually and morally, that William Penn was born. The 
 very year in which his father had so fondly welcomed his 
 birth, a rude, gaunt, illiterate lad of nineteen, a shoemaker 
 by trade, and affected with the religious fervor of the age, 
 being at a country fair in his native Leicestershire, met with 
 his cousin and another friend there, — and the three youths 
 agreed to have a stoup of ale together. They accordingly 
 adjourned to a tavern in the neighborhood, and called for 
 drink. When this first supply was exhausted, the cousin and 
 his friend called for more, — began to drink healths, and said 
 that he who would not drink should pay the entire ale score. 
 The young shoemaker was alarmed at this proposal — for he 
 was low in purse, and honest in his dealings ; whereupon, as 
 he explained the circumstance afterward, he put his hand into 
 his pocket, took out a groat, laid it down on the table, and 
 said — "If it be so, I will leave you." And so he went 
 home. 
 
 This simple village alehouse incident was one of the most 
 important events which had yet happened in the history of 
 the Anglo-Saxon race ; for out of it was to come Quakerism, 
 the writings and teachings of Penn and Barclay, the colony 
 and constitution of Pennsylvania, the republics of the west, 
 and in no very remote degree the vast movement of liberal 
 ideas in Great Britain and America in more modern times. 
 The illiterate and upright shoemaker, who would drink no 
 more ale than he could pay for, was George Fox.^ " I went 
 away," he afterwards wrote in his journal, " and when I had 
 done my business, returned home. But I did not go to bed 
 that night ; nor did I sleep : but sometimes walked up and 
 doAvn, and sometimes prayed, and called to the Lord." 
 
 ' "One clay, I, by accident, going through ye city from a country house, 
 could not pass through ye crowd (it being a day wherein ye Lord Mayor was 
 sworn), but was forced to go into a house till it was over. I, being bur- 
 thened with the vanity of this show, said to a professor that stood by me — 
 * What benefit have we by all this bloodshed, and Charles being kept out of 
 ye nation, seeing all these follies are again allowed?' He answered, 'None, 
 that he knew of, exce})t y enjoyment of Ihcir religion.' To which J replied, 
 'That is a benefit to you that have a religion, to be protected in the exercise 
 of it, but it is none to me.' " — MS. Autobiography of Lady Springett. 
 
 2 Fox, 3. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 49 
 
 During tills long night of watching and prayer, the boy- 
 thought he heard a voice from heaven, which said to him — • 
 " Thou seest how young people go together into vanity, and 
 old people into the earth : thou must forsake all, young and 
 old, keep out of all, and be a stranger unto all."^ Now, as 
 George had not yet taken a fancy to the profane arts of 
 reading and writing, he was not aware that other men have 
 a way of explaining such messages in a metaphorical sense ; 
 he stood indeed quite outside the pale of all such verbal sub- 
 tleties, and accepted the intimation in the form in which it 
 made itself known to his understanding. He got out, and, 
 without purse or scrip, began to wander about the country, 
 inclining his course towards London. On the way he was 
 troubled with many doubts as to whether he had done right 
 in leaving his father and mother ; but the Spirit urged him 
 on, and he entered the great city.^ To him it was a place of 
 worse than heathen darkness. He went to the churches and 
 to the learned and titled doctors ; but he found no peace in 
 the gospel which they taught. The strife in his own spirit 
 increased in violence and bitterness. His soul was out far 
 away on a dark and tempestuous sea ; he struggled manfully 
 to get at some gleam of light — at some assurance of safety ; 
 but his efforts were for a long time in vain. When he talked 
 to the educated priests, he found them as ignorant as himself, 
 — and he went away from them disgusted and despairing. 
 Quitting London, he returned to his home at Drayton out of 
 tender regard for his parents, who had become very anxious 
 on his account. His mother took a woman's view of his case 
 and advised him to marry. His male companions thought he 
 had better join the auxiliary band and drum his melancholy 
 away. He only marvelled at their ignorance. Again he was 
 unable to resist the urgings of the spirit ; again he begun to 
 wander about, often without food, seldom resting in a bed at 
 
 ^ Visions and strange voices wei-e not confined to tlie vulgar in those days 
 of pious exaltation. Education and gentle blood had no power to scare theni 
 away. Lady Springett, in her ecstatic dreams, twice saw and spoke with 
 the Son of God. The first time she saw him, he was a beautiful youth, 
 dressed in grey cloth : — this was before she had ever heard of a Quaker. 
 The second vision was more impressive; "The man with greater mnjesty 
 and sweetness than ever I saw any — brown hair — black, quick and shining 
 eyes — fresh and ruddy complexion — aft'able — dominion in his countenance, 
 and great gentleness and kindness." MS. Autobiography. 
 
 2 Fox's Journal, 3. 
 
 5 
 
50 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 night, but always with the Bible in his hand, and its myste- 
 rious words racking in his brain. " I fasted much," he writes 
 in his journal, " walked abroad in solitary places many days, 
 and often took my Bible and sat in hollow trees and lonesome 
 places until night came on ; and frequently in the night 
 walked mournfully about by myself. For I was a man of 
 sorrows in the first working of the Lord in me."^ 
 
 These workings of the Spirit continued for several years. 
 While the dark dream lay on him he never ceased his wander- 
 ings — he never ceased to interrogate gentle and simple, learned 
 and unlearned, as to the grounds on which they rested their 
 hopes of salvation. At that time such a course of life excited 
 no surprise. Fox only appeared to be a little more mad than 
 hundreds of others ; while he evidently had somewhat more 
 of method in his madness. Hearing of a learned doctor, 
 named Cradock, who lived at Coventry, Fox girded up his 
 loins and went to talk with him about temptation and despair, 
 and how the thought of sin came to trouble the soul of man. 
 They were walking in the doctor's garden, and one of the 
 alleys being narrow, the truth-seeker, in turning round hap- 
 pened to touch the side of a flower-bed with his foot, at which 
 the parson ''raged as if his house had been set on fire." 
 Poor George went away more melancholy than he had come. 
 As Penn afterwards said, he felt how irreligious were all the 
 religions of this world and the professors thereof l'^ 
 
 He went to another Priest at Mansetter, in Warwickshire, an 
 old man, and reasoned with him about despair and temptation 
 and the soul's inw^ard struggles. The parson listened to the 
 story of his visitor, and advised him to sing psalms and smoke 
 tobacco. Luther had told a young student of theology who 
 came to him with his troubles about fate, free-will, and pre- 
 ordination, to get well drunk and his difiiculties would speedily 
 disappear. But Fox detested tobacco, and he was too sad to 
 sing. His mischievous adviser told the milkmaids of his 
 errand, and they laughed at him, which he did not like. So 
 once more he went away empty. The doctor, he thought, 
 did not understand the disease of which he suffered. There 
 are some who will think otherwise.^ 
 
 At length comfort came to him from within. The truths 
 which he had vainly sought, at the hands of those reared in a 
 
 Fox's Journal, 7. 2 i^id. 4. 3 i^id. 4. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 51 
 
 knowledge of the law, began to acquire a certain clearness 
 and coliesion in his own mind.^ Much reading of the Book 
 of books, — deep mental anguish, — and bodily sufferings such 
 as few men have ever endured, each contributed its lesson. 
 The school of pain is hard but productive ; — and out of it 
 George Fox emerged a new man. And not only a new, but 
 to some extent a gifted man. His own earnest nature sup- 
 plied the native springs of eloquence ; familiarity with the 
 pure and nervous diction of the English Bible supplied him 
 with a vehicle ; and when the unlettered shoemaker began to 
 preach the comfort which he had found for his own troubled 
 soul, he astonished even his most sober hearers with the force 
 and dignity of his language.^ Fox himself regarded his flu- 
 ency as a miracle ; and from that time forth he never doubted 
 that he had received an appointment from God to deliver a 
 new Gospel to mankind. From that day he waged war 
 against all creeds and councils, prophets and pretenders, lords, 
 magistrates and private individuals, who refused to accept 
 him as their teacher, — and was ready to inflict or to sufler 
 any amount of pain and privation for opinion's sake. To 
 understand the perils of such a position, one must remember 
 that every third man in England was possessed by just such 
 a spirit as his own ; a spirit too fervent and exalted to take 
 heed of mere physical torture. Toleration was then only the 
 dream of a few students : — the soldiers of the cross took no 
 quarter and they gave none.^ 
 
 George Fox went into churches and disturbed the service. 
 In the midst of a sermon he would stand up and cry to the 
 minister — " This is not true gospel, come down, thou deceiver." 
 Brought before the magistrate, he refused to take off his Jiat — 
 pleading a direct command from God not to uncover his head 
 or to make obeisance to an equal, — and defended his conduct 
 in the church with a rudeness and vehemence that to men of 
 education and refinement savored of insanity. The disturber 
 was beaten and stoned by the rabble, pilloried and imprisoned 
 again and again by the magistrates."* But indignity and 
 
 1 Ibid. 6 et seq. 
 
 2 Men of learning and moderation, like Penn and Barclay, were equally 
 impressed by his manner with the vulgar. Penn calls him " an angel and 
 special messenger of God." It must be said, howeyer, that the expression 
 occurs in a letter to the angel's wife. Penn to Margaret Fox, January 8, 
 1678, MS. 3 Fox's Journal, 17. 
 
 ■* Journal, 169, and in a hundred other places. 
 
52 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 punishment produced no change in his conduct. More of his 
 time was spent in gaol than out of it ; — yet he had no fear of 
 gaols. He entered them without a murmur ; he refused to 
 leave them except with honor. King Charles once offered 
 him a pardon : he would not take it, because a pardon implied 
 a confession of guilt. ^ If the prison-gates were thrown open 
 to him unconditionally he would walk out — not else. It was 
 a part of his public mission to show that the persecuting 
 spirit may be wearied out by a man who is steadfast in suf- 
 fering: — and he achieved it.^ His constancy, his contempt of 
 pain, gained for him the sympathy of multitudes who might 
 never have been reached by hi& doctrines. Here as every- 
 where in the history of opinion, persecution became the chief 
 arm by which his influence was propagated. Whoever is right, 
 said Penn afterwards, the persecutor must be wrong.^ Hun- 
 dreds of the restless and discontented in every county of 
 England embraced his tenets ; Foxite or Quaker meeting- 
 houses sprang into existence ; and when out of gaol the founder 
 of the new sect was fully occupied in visiting these communi- 
 ties or in carrying the war still further into the enemy's camp. 
 The whole earth was his quarry, and he worked it with all 
 his might."* 
 
 Eox had got an idea in his mind : — and ideas rule the 
 world. It was not his own in the first instance ; nor did he 
 ever perceive its true relation to other systems of thought and 
 religious creeds. It was the ancient mystic idea, — adopted 
 by Origen, and faintly to be traced in the speculations of the 
 Neo-Platonists, — that there lies concealed in the mind of 
 every man a certain portion of Divine light — a real spark of 
 the infallible Godhead. In this mysterious light the Mystics 
 had found the highest guide of human conduct, and Fox had 
 somewhere caught at the doctrine. It suited his restless 
 and imperious instincts : — it made of man a god. When he 
 began to preach the doctrine, he took its boldest forms. The 
 inner light, he said, was above any outward teaching. Law, 
 history, experience, revelation itself was liable to error ; the 
 Divine light was alone infallible^ Of the diagnosis of his 
 case, he had but a confused and imperfect notion ; whether 
 
 1 Fox's Journal, 405. 2 Penn to Fox, July 5, 1674, MS. 
 
 ^ So early as 1055, the Quakers hud increased so far as to attract the 
 serious attention of foreign statesmen. Bordeaux to Cardinal Mazarin, Feb. 
 4, 1(J55. 4 Lady Springett's MS. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 53 
 
 this inner light was the thing some men call conscience — 
 others reason, was a question he never troubled himself to 
 answer ; for he had a huge distrust of human learning and 
 human inventions, but none of the promptings of his own 
 spirit.^ What he calls ^' Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and the 
 seven arts," he regarded as little better than devilry and pagan- 
 ism. The knowledge of many tongues, he said, began with re- 
 bellion against God ; at the beginning therefore languages were 
 accursed, and so they continued: it was the woman and the 
 beast which had power over tongues.^ God, he contended, 
 stood in no need of human learning ; to which South replied 
 very finely — If God does not stand in need of human learning 
 still less does He stand in need of human ignorance. But 
 Fox went on his Avay rejoicing. The inner light was enough 
 for him and for all men. Even the Scriptures were to some 
 extent superfluous ; and he ventured to reject them when they 
 could not be made to harmonize with the light within.^ Never 
 was there a greater innovator than this George Fox. Philo- 
 sophies, religions, arts, legislations, were as nothing in his 
 system. Every man was complete in himself; he stood in 
 need of no alien help; the light was free of all control — 
 above all authority external to itself. Each human being, man 
 or woman, was supreme. 
 
 Here was an intellectual basis for democracy ! In an age 
 of anarchy, when men were running to and fro in search of a 
 revelation, a doctrine like this naturally attracted to itself 
 many of the more restless and dissatisfied spirits ; and as 
 each of these added to its dogmas his own peculiar vagaries 
 and oddities, the followers of George Fox, or the Children of 
 Light, as they called themselves, were for several years only 
 known to the general religious world by the extravagance 
 of their behavior : — an extravagance which in many cases 
 amounted to a real insanity. Entering and disturbing 
 churches and dissenting congregations in the manner of their 
 Master, was the most innocent mode of displaying their new- 
 born zeal. This they considered a sacred duty : and they 
 performed it not only in England, where their tenets were 
 understood, but in foreign towns and cities very much at 
 
 • Fox, 18, and on almost any page. ^ Ibid. 280. 
 
 3 Fox, 22. He says the Sci-iptures are to be judged by the Light— without 
 which they are useless. 
 
 5* 
 
54 AVILLIAM PENN. 
 
 their personal peril.^ Divers persons among them were 
 moved of the spirit to do things — some fantastical, some in- 
 decent, some monstrous. One woman went into the house of 
 Parliament with a trenchard on her head, to denounce the 
 Lord Protector, and before the face of his government, dashed 
 the trenchard into pieces, saying aloud — " Thus shall he be 
 broken in pieces." One Sarah Goldsmith went about the 
 city in a coat of sackcloth, her hair disheveled, and her head 
 covered with dust to testify, as she said, against pride. 
 James Naylor gave himself out as the Messiah f and a woman 
 named Dorcas Ebery made oath before the judges that she 
 had been dead two days and was raised again to life by this 
 impostor.^ Gilbert Latye, a man of property and education, 
 going with Lord Oberry into the queen's private chapel, was 
 moved to stand up on one of the side altars and inveigh 
 against Popery to the astonished worshippers.'* One Solo- 
 mon Eccles went through the streets, naked above the waist, 
 with a chafing dish of coals and burning brimstone on his 
 head, — in which state he entered a Popish chapel and de- 
 nounced the Lord's vengeance against idolaters. William 
 Sympson, says Fox, who never did these things himself, was 
 moved to go at several times for three years, naked and bare- 
 footed, in markets, courts, towns and cities — to priests and 
 great men's houses, as a sign that they should be stript naked 
 even as he was stript naked. There seemed to be a general 
 emulation as to who should outstrip the rest, — and many 
 persons went about the streets of London in all the nudity of 
 nature.* Most of the zealots however kept to the decencies 
 of a sackcloth dress ; and with their faces besmeared with 
 grease and dirt they would parade about the parks and public 
 places, calling to the people as they passed that in like man- 
 ner would all their religions be besmeared. One fellow, who 
 seemed to have had more of purpose in his madness than the 
 others, went to Westminster with a drawn sword in his hand, 
 and as the representatives came down to the House he thrust 
 
 » Thurloe, iii. 422.— vii. 287. Harl. Misc. vi. 435. 
 
 2 Burton's Diary, i. 20 et seq. Parliament occupied eleven days in the in- 
 vestigation of this case. ^The wretched man was condemned to be pilloried, 
 branded on the forehead, whipped in public, to have his tongue bored through 
 with a red hot iron, and to be imprisoned in a solitary dungeon and fed with 
 bread and water. Thurloe, v. 708. The House was as mad as the poor fanatic 
 himself. 
 
 3 Hurl. Misc. 434. ^ Life of Latye, by himself, p. 54. ^ Fox, 572. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 55 
 
 at and woimded several before he could be arrested. On 
 being asked by the Speaker why he had done this, he replied 
 that he had been inspired by the Holy Ghost to kill every 
 man who sat in Parliament.^ No wonder that the prisons 
 were crowded with Quakers, as they were with enthusiasts 
 and innovators of every other kind !^ 
 
 As it has now been seen, the grotesque follies to which 
 some of the Children of Light gave themselves up in the 
 delirium of their first call, were shared by the rest of the reli- 
 gious world : what was grand and genuine in their enthusiasm 
 belonged to themselves. They succeeded, in spite of small 
 vagaries, because they were in earnest. At a time when all 
 ideas were unfixed, — when historical faith was discarded as a 
 fiction, — when every ancient system of policy and philosophy, 
 morals and religion, had lost its sanction, — and the world 
 seemed drifting down the great gulf-stream of time, rudder- 
 less and anchorless, a prey to storm and wave, the wear of 
 motion and the wrack of the elements, — these men began to 
 preach a new, a positive and a simple doctrine. The thought 
 they aimed to express was grand, — and it was complete. 
 They believed it would be able to kindle a new life in the 
 dying body of society, — to revivify and enlarge the sphere of 
 all known truths, — and to develope germs out of which a 
 fresh civilization might arise. These enthusiasts not only 
 preached the doctrines of social and political equality ; they 
 aimed at the establishment of an universal religion.^ Fox 
 himself appealed to the highest and to the lowest. He wrote 
 to admonish Innocent XI. and tried to convert the Lord 
 Protector Cromwell. He preached to milkmaids and dis- 
 cussed points of theology with ploughmen. He invoked in 
 thousands of the yeomanry of England a fervor of spirit 
 almost equal to that which possessed himself.'* He exhorted 
 the ambassadors of the great powers, then assembled at 
 Nimmeguen, to treat of peace, — and warned the citizens of 
 Oldenburgh that the fire which had recently desolated their 
 
 1 Whitelocke, Jan. 3, 1G54. 2 Tburloe, iii. 188, &c. 
 
 ^ Fox contended for the rights of servants before the magistrates. Journal, 
 17. His antipathy to the reguUir clergy arose in a great measvire out of his 
 belief that in all ages they have been leagued with governments to oppress 
 the people. Ibid. 252. 
 
 ^ Lady Springett's MS. Speaking of these inspired ploughmen, the fair 
 autobiographersays — " Their solid and weighty carriage struck a dread over 
 me." This was in her days of scoffing. 
 
56 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 city was a judgment from heaven against them on account of 
 their iniquities.^ In the excess of their zeal, delicate women 
 went into the camps of Cromwell, mixed with the rough 
 soldiers, and tried to win them over to the doctrines of peace 
 and goodwill to man.^ Innocent girls and unworldly men 
 went forth in conscious and fearless innocence to bear the 
 seeds of truth to every corner of the earth. Hester Biddle 
 forced her way into the presence of the grand monarch at 
 Versailles, and commanded him in the name of God to sheathe 
 his destroying sword.^ Othens made their way to Jerusalem 
 and to New England, — to Egypt, to China and to Japan.'* 
 One young woman of dauntless resolution carried the words 
 of peace to the successor of Mohammed in his camp at Adrian- 
 ople, who received her with the respect due to one professing 
 to come in the name of God.* Another took a message to the 
 Supreme Pontiff and his Cardinals at Rome.*" Some were 
 moved to go forth and convert the savages of the west and 
 the negroes of the south ; and one party set out in search of 
 the unknown realms of Prester John. Everywhere these 
 messengers bore the glad tidings they had themselves received ; 
 everywhere treating all men as equals and brothers ; thee-ing 
 and thou-ing high and low ; protesting against all authority 
 not springing from the light in the soul — against all powers, 
 privileges and immunities founded on carnal history and 
 tradition ; and often at the peril of their lives refusing to, lift 
 the hat or to bend the knee — except to God.^ 
 
 The public teaching of a doctrine like this was in itself a 
 revolution. Cromwell clearly understood the nature of the 
 movement ; and tolerant as he was of religious sects, he would 
 willingly have put it down. But even his mighty arm was 
 paralysed. The Children of Light were also children of 
 peace. They did what they believed to be right ; and if their 
 conduct pleased not the rulers of the earth they took the con- 
 
 1 Fox, 452. 
 
 2 Tliurloe, vi. 708. Colonels of regiments wrote to inform Cromwell tliat 
 many of their officers and men bad "begun to set their own humoi's above 
 all Scriptures, ministers and magisti'acies." Ibid vi. 168. Of course they 
 were expelled the army. vi. 241. 
 
 3 Gerard Croese, 4G8. 4 -pox, 248. 
 
 5 Thurloe, vii. 32. Sewell's Hist, of Quakers, i. 333, 
 
 6 Sewell i. 332. 
 
 ' They were mobbed in the streets of Lisbon for irreverence. Thurloe, 
 iii. 432. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 57 
 
 sequences to themselves in silence. Sects like the Anahap- 
 tists, the Levellers and the Fifth-Monarchy men he knew 
 how to cajole or coerce. Their plots and conspiracies he 
 could meet on equal terms : as it suited his purpose, he could 
 buy them with honors or crush them with the sword. But 
 fear and favor were alike lost on the followers of Fox. They 
 would neither obey his laws nor resist his troops. They 
 opposed their silence to his severity. They were readier to 
 endure than he was to inflict : — and he foresaw that their 
 patience would tire out persecution. 
 
 Quakerism was a system of polity as well as a religion. 
 It taught the equality of men in their political relations, — 
 their common right to liberty of thought and action — to 
 express opinions — to worship God — to concur in the enact- 
 ment of general laws ; but it found the sanctions of this 
 equality, not in the usages of ancient nations, like the classic 
 republicans — not in a mere convenient arrangement of checks 
 and counter-checks of power, like more modern reformers ; 
 it found these sanctions lying far deeper, in the very nature 
 of man, in that supremacy which it assigned to the divine 
 light in each separate individual. Above all things this sys- 
 tem was logical. It regarded every man's inward light, — 
 reason, conscience or by whatever name it might be called — 
 as his best and safest guide ; the theory therefore of a per- 
 fect enfranchisement of mind and body, of thought and action, 
 was the theological basis of the sect founded by George Fox. 
 To a man who had once mastered and accepted a great idea 
 like this, all minor matters — the refusal to doff the hat, to 
 bend the knee, to receive or bestow titles of honor — followed 
 of course. The Quaker was a perfect democrat, and men 
 were all his peers.^ He admitted no superior — and he could 
 pay no homage. The distinctions of prince and people, laity 
 and clergy were unknown to him : the light of God was the 
 same in all. He felt that the deference paid to worldly rank 
 was something more than a form. It involved the idea of a 
 superiority which he denied ; it was therefore a question of 
 conscience not to comply with it. The people who bent the 
 knee to prince or protector thereby confessed that in their 
 
 1 Cromwell is reporteil to have exclaimed — '' Now I see there is a people 
 risen that I cannot win either with gifts, honors, offices, or place : but all 
 other sects and people I can! " Fox, 169. 
 
 2 Barclay, 504, 541. 
 
58 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 own thoughts they were not his equals. The act was not a 
 ceremony but a sign of subjection. Having adopted views 
 like these — is it wonderful that William Penn, in the fervor 
 of youth and recent conversion, should have renounced his 
 father's worldly dreams ? 
 
 The young Quaker was not left in the streets to starve. 
 He was gladly welcomed by the friends of his sect, and his 
 mother secretly supplied him with money. But beyond this, 
 his exile from home was extremely painful to him. His temper 
 was open and unreserved; he was fond of home and the en- 
 joyments of the domestic circle. On the other hand his con- 
 solations under this trial of his strength were great. The 
 creed which he had embraced came home as the warm and 
 living blood to his heart. In it his free spirit found room for 
 unfettered action. The men who professed it, though given 
 to an extravagance at times which he could not approve, 
 were remarkable for the purity and simplicity of their lives. 
 "What they professed they practised. It was not so with the 
 worldly men and women he had known in his father's circle. 
 At the play-house, to which his mother and sister were so 
 fond of going, he had seen virtue laughed at as ridiculous and 
 female modesty put to the blush in public; th^ galleries 
 of Whitehall, where the admiral thought it an honor to be 
 seen, he knew were thronged by bravoes and harlots, and the 
 royal palace itself a nest for every sin and abomination under 
 heaven.^ Look where he would upon that grand society from 
 which he suffered this voluntary banishment, — he saw nothing 
 but rottenness. Female chastity was a thing unknown, — 
 justice was openly bought and sold, — the interests of the 
 nation were bartered away to France for a miserable pension, 
 — the peace of private and honorable families was invaded by 
 wretches who boasted in public of the shame and ruin they 
 had made.^ A young man of pure thoughts and good impulses 
 might well turn anchorite in such a world of vice. The poli- 
 tics of Quakerism had also their attractions. For five years 
 he had pored over the classic dreams of Algernon Sidney ; 
 he had read Harington and More ; and studied profoundly 
 the history of the departed Commonwealth. He saw that it had 
 brought with it peculiar evils ; more than all, it had failed He 
 wished to see the experiment of a democracy in action ; but he 
 
 1 Pepys' Diary and Grammont's Memoirs, every page. ^ Ibid. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 59 
 
 felt that some new principle was wanting. At length he fell 
 upon the principle he had sought. He found a true democracy 
 that rested on a religious idea. Penn loved the great republican 
 with more than a brother's love, — he respected and confided in 
 his masculine judgment, — but he had never yet thoroughly 
 given up his mind to that classical idea of a democracy, gov- 
 erned only by pride of soul and heroic virtue.^ Now he had 
 caught the missing link of the chain. No two men could be 
 more unlike than George Fox and Algernon Sidney ; but 
 their common disciple saw the point of union, — with the one 
 he could admire the republics of Pericles and Scipio, while he 
 could deny with the other that historical precedent is superior 
 to the laws of conscience. 
 
 After a few months' absence, Penn was allowed to return 
 home. But the admiral's anger was not appeased ; he refused 
 to see or speak with the Quaker ; and father and son continued 
 to live under the same roof as strangers to each other. William 
 now began to preach and to write in favor of his new tenets. 
 His first book had for title — " 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 now risen and 
 shines forth in the life and doctrine of the despised Quakers, 
 as the alone good way old of life and salvation."^ This work was 
 addressed to princes, priests and people, whom it called upon 
 in the most energetic terms to re-examine the grounds of their 
 belief in the divine economy of the universe, and to compare 
 the ideas in which it rested with those now set forth to engage 
 their attention. AVhat he advised he also practised. Hat on 
 head he went down to Whitehall, bearing the unbridled ridi- 
 cule of the court, to seek an interview with the powerful Duke 
 of Buckingham, upon whom he impressed the necessity of 
 toleration for Dissenters, — pleading their right to better treat- 
 ment than the stocks, stripes, pillories and prisons they were 
 accustomed to meet with at the hands of men in power. He 
 appealed to the old laws of England, — he quoted the Saxon 
 customs and the charters of Norman kings, — he made out a 
 case so convincing that the Duke pledged himself to bring a 
 
 1 Penn to Sidney, Oct. 13, 1681, MS. Penn snys in this letter that he has 
 given to Sidney "more true friendship and ateadj- kindugRfs , . . than 
 to any man living," 
 
 2 Collected Works, i. 239. 
 
60 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 bill into Parllarncnt to do them justice. It is creditable to 
 him that he kept his word, a disgrace to the Commons of Eng- 
 land that they refused to discuss his proposition.^ 
 
 The same year Penn made his second essay in controversy. 
 John Clapham, in a work called " A Guide to True Religion," 
 had treated the Quakers with harsh and unjustifiable seve- 
 rity : the young convert answered in '' The Guide Mistaken," 
 a tract written with considerable vigor, but in the coarse and 
 personal style common to the greatest polemics of that age.^ 
 He soon had his days and nights occupied mth controversy. 
 
 At this time there lived in Spitalfields one Thomas Vincent, 
 a Presbyterian minister, who had a congregation meeting at a 
 chapel in Spital Yard. Two of this man's hearers happening 
 to go to the Quakers' meeting-house to hear what the Children 
 of Light had to say for themselves, became converts ; an in- 
 cident which so enraged the pastor that he began to revile the 
 Quakers from his pulpit, and to denounce their doctrines as 
 worthy of damnation. These tirades becoming a subject of 
 general conversation, Penn and George Whitehead, one of the 
 sturdiest defenders of the new opinions, went to Vincent and 
 demanded a public opportunity of hearing and replying to his 
 attacks. At first he refused ; but on being pressed, at length 
 saw the necessity of meeting the challenge. He was allowed 
 to name his own time as well as the place of discussion. He 
 of course chose his own chapel. Such religious debates were 
 very common at that time, and were among its most curious 
 features. 
 
 When the disputants arrived, they found the room already 
 full of Vincent's friends ; and only the heads of the deputa- 
 tion could force their way in. Whitehead, as the senior, began 
 to expound the views of his sect ; but Vincent got up and 
 observed, that the shortest way would be for him to propose 
 questions, and for them to answer — as out of their own mouths 
 he would condemn them. To this proposal the audience as- 
 sented, and the defendants were obliged to submit. Vincent 
 then asked them, — if they owned one Godhead subsisting in 
 three distinct and separate persons ? Penn and Whitehead 
 
 » Penn's Fragments of an Apology for Himself. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. 
 ill. second part, 238. 
 
 2 Compare Milton's " Defence of the People of England." Works,' i. 30. 
 St. John's edition. Why does not this elegant writer and accomplished 
 scholar write us a new life of Milton ? 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 61 
 
 both asserted that the dogma as delivered by Vincent was not 
 to be found in Scripture. The latter answered this by a syl- 
 logism. Quoting the words of St. John, he said — " There 
 are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word 
 and the Holy Spirit — and these three are one." "These," 
 he proceeded to argue, "are either three manifestations, three 
 operations, three substances, or three somethings else beside 
 subsistences. — But they are not three manifestations, three 
 operations, three substances, nor any thing else beside three 
 subsistences. — Hence there are three separate subsistences yet 
 only one Deity." Whitehead rejected the term "subsistences " 
 as not of Scriptural origin, and desired an explanation of its 
 meaning. Several attempts were made to define the word ; 
 but Penn, who was deeply read in theology and metaphysics, 
 started a plausible objection to each in turn, and caused it to 
 be rejected. The subtlety of thought and dexterity in argu- 
 ment which he exhibited caused one of the audience to call him 
 a Jesuit^ a name which clung to him for the rest of his life. 
 The sum of the answers given, was, that subsistence is either 
 a person or the mode of a substance : whereupon Vincent was 
 asked if in his opinion God was to be understood as separate 
 from his substance ? The pastor appealed to his flock, and 
 they charitably ruled that he was not bound to answer that 
 question. Whitehead pressed other questions, but the uproar 
 increased then until no one could be heard. On this, Vincent 
 fell to prayer, in the course of which he accused the Quakers 
 of blasphemy ; when he had finished he told the people to go 
 home, and he himself left the pulpit. It was now midnight ; 
 the congregation began to leave ; and the defendants felt that 
 many would go away with a false impression. One of them 
 therefore got up to speak, whereupon the friends of Vincent 
 put out the candles. But in the dark, they went on ; and 
 many staying to listen, Vincent returned with a light to ask 
 them to disperse, but they would not stir until he had consented 
 to hold another meeting in the same place to end the discus- 
 sion decently.^ 
 
 This offer was a mere trick to get rid of the crowd. The 
 second meeting not being called in due course, Penn con- 
 sidered it best to lay the matter before the public, in " The 
 Sandy Foundation Shaken." — In this work, which the fash- 
 
 'Sewell, ii. 172-3. 
 6 
 
62 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 ionable friends of his father read with astonishment and 
 admiration, refusing to believe it to be the production of so 
 young a man,^ — he undertook to maintain the doctrine of a 
 unity in the Divine nature from reason and Scripture ; an 
 undertaking which brought him into conflict with more 
 formidable foes than Thomas Vincent, being no less person- 
 ages than the Bishop of London and other high dignitaries of 
 the Church. It was not to be expected that these great men 
 would enter into a public discussion about the unity or plu- 
 rality of the Divine nature. They had a far more powerful 
 argument, as they thought, in their hands ; and they applied 
 to the civil power to have the dangerous polemic placed in 
 confinement.^ At their instigation a warrant was issued 
 against him from the Secretary of State's ofiice, — on hearing 
 of which he gave himself into custody and was carried to the 
 Tower.^ An unscrupulous enemy at the same time made 
 a bold but ineffectual attempt to ruin him forever, if not to 
 bring him to the scaffold. A letter appears to have been 
 picked up near the place where Penn surrendered himself, — 
 no doubt it had been dropt there for the purpose, — which con- 
 tained matter of so perilous a kind, that on the note being 
 presented to Lord Arlington, the Secretary of State, that 
 officer at once rode down to the Tower to examine the pri- 
 soner as to its contents.'' This was not an uncommon trick of 
 the time. Arlington soon satisfied himself that Penn was not 
 a secret conspirator ; and not only behaved towards him with 
 great civility, but promised his interest in obtaining for him a 
 speedy liberation.^ 
 
 He remained in the Tower eight months and sixteen days.^ 
 Considering that his ofi"ence was not political — that no charge 
 was preferred against him in a court of law — that he had not 
 been put upon his defence — and that he stood unconvicted of 
 any crime, his confinement was monstrously severe. He was 
 kept in a solitary dungeon ; his family was not allowed access 
 to him ; nor was he permitted to see any other friend in his 
 prison save now and then his father.'^ The prelate evidently 
 
 1 Pepys, "February 12, 1668-9. Got William Perm's book against the 
 Trinity, and I find it so well writ, as I think it is too good for him to have 
 writ it; it is a serious sort of book, and not fit for everybody to read." 
 
 ^ Apology, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. second part, 239. 
 
 3 Besse, i. 6. "* Letter to Arlington. Penn's Work's, fol. i. p. 151. 
 
 5 Ibid. ^ Apology in Penn. Hitt. Soc. Mem. iii. second part, 239. 
 
 ' Ibid. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 63 
 
 wished to break his spirit; but he little knew the mettle of the 
 youth, if he indulged in any such expectation. One day his 
 servant brought him word that the Bishop of London had 
 resolved he should either publicly recant, or die in prison. 
 He only smiled at such a threat. — " They are mistaken in 
 me : I value not their threats. I will weary out their malice. 
 Neither great nor good things were ever attained without loss 
 and hardship. The man that would reap and not labor, must 
 perish in disappointment."-^ 
 
 In this spirit he prepared to endure whatever amount of 
 suffering his powerful enemies might inflict. He took to the 
 prisoner's usual solace ; he began to write, and added one 
 more glorious book to the literature of the Tower. ^ " No 
 Cross, No Crown," still a favorite with the religious public, 
 revealed in the young prisoner powers for the possession of 
 which the world had not yet given him credit. Considering 
 the shortness of time, and other untoward circumstances 
 under which it was produced, the reader is struck with the 
 grasp of thought — the power of reasoning — the lucid arrange- 
 ment of subject — and the extent of research displayed. Had 
 the style been more condensed, it would have been well en- 
 titled to claim a high place in literature. The book arose 
 naturally out of the writer's position. He was suffering for 
 his opinions : he was suffering at the hands of men who pro- 
 fessed to be the servants of God. He wished to present 
 clearly to his own mind, and to impress upon others, the 
 great Christian doctrine, that every man must bear the cross 
 who hopes to wear the crown.^ To this end he reviewed the 
 character of the age. He showed how corrupt was the laity, 
 — how proud and self-willed were the priests. In a passage, 
 pointed no doubt by personal feeling, he urges that wherever 
 
 ^ Besse, i. 6. 
 
 2 Many of the works written in the Tower are enumerated in the London 
 Prisons, c. ii. 
 
 ^ Lady Springett gives a fair idea of the struggles of the worklly heart 
 against the asceticism of Quaker doctrines. *' I never had peace or quiet 
 from a sore exercise in my mind, for many months, till I was by y^ stroke 
 of His judgment brought off all those things which I found y^ Light to 
 manifest deceit in — which things cost me many tears, and night watchings, 
 and doleful days : not at all from that time ever disputing against the doc- 
 trine (nay, not so much as in my own mind), but exercised against ye taking 
 up ye Cross; and [abandoning] ye language, fashions, customs, titles, 
 honors, and esteem of y^ world, and the place I stood outwardly in. My 
 relations made it very hard." MS. Autobiography. 
 
64 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 the clergy have been most in power and influence, confusion, 
 wrangling, sequestrations, exiles, imprisonments, and blood- 
 shed have most abounded : — in testimony of which he confi- 
 dently appeals to the records of all time.^ He spoke of the 
 chief vices which were then eating out the heart of society ; 
 and proposed remedies. This part of the subject consists of 
 eighteen copious chapters — each chapter a dissertation in 
 itself. In one of them he gave his reasons for rejecting 
 worldly honors and distinctions, — the point which was the 
 sorest trial to his father, as the prospective Lord Weymouth, 
 and in reference to which he said, "No Cross, No Crown," 
 was a serious cross to him. The second part consists of a 
 collection of the sayings of the heroes and sages of all nations 
 in favor of the same doctrine — namely, that to do well and 
 bear ill, is the only way to lasting happiness. This is the 
 most marvellous part of the work. First, he quotes numerous 
 sayings from eighty-seven celebrated pagans, all to his point ; 
 secondly, he cites various opinions from twenty-five of the 
 Apostles and Fathers of the Church ; and thirdly, he calls 
 into court thirty-nine great personages, chiefly of modern 
 times, to testify to the same eff*ect.^ This would have been 
 no mean work for a veteran author to have accomplished in 
 so short a time with the wealth of a great public library at 
 his command. On being given to the world, the book pro- 
 duced an impression highly favorable to its writer ; it went 
 ranidly through several editions, and is still frequently re- 
 printed. 
 
 The manliness of his conduct in prison won back to him 
 no small share of his father's regard. The admiral could not 
 but admire his constancy under privations which had shaken 
 his own iron obduracy, or help feeling some indignation at his 
 clerical oppressors. However much he might still disapprove 
 of his principles, and detest what he called his delusions about 
 equality and titles of honor, he could not stand aloof and 
 see him perish in his youth. He visited and talked with him 
 in his dungeon, and exerted his influence in the highest re- 
 gions of the court to obtain for him an unconditional pardon ; 
 but the off*ence being one of a purely ecclesiastical nature, 
 Charles, who had good reason to know himself suspected by 
 
 ' It was passages like this which so endeared the writings of Penn to 
 Voltaire and the Encyclopedists. Diet. Phil, article, Quaker. 
 2 No Cross, No Crown, fol. i. 374, et seq. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 65 
 
 the Church, was anxious not to give a cause of fresh offence 
 by a direct interference. The House of Commons was in a 
 bad humor ; it had recently spited him by rejecting that 
 measure of justice to Dissenters which he had solemnly 
 promised in his manifesto of Breda.^ However, to please the 
 admiral, he sent his chaplain, the courtly and accomplished 
 Stillingfleet, to talk the young man out of his errors, and to 
 persuade him to make submission, and receive a pardon 
 from the offended prelate.^ The messenger performed his 
 task with skill and kindness ; but he failed in- its object. 
 " The Tower," said Penn to his visitor, "■ is to me the worst 
 argument in the world." Stillingfleet avoided the point of 
 conscience, and spoke of the brilliant prospects which he for- 
 feited by his change of creed, — of the king's well-known 
 favor to his family : it was to no purpose. Worldly hopes 
 were as powerless as worldly fears.^ "Tell my father, who 
 I know will ask thee," said he one day to his servant, "that 
 my prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot : — for 
 I owe my conscience to no mortal man." He was quite im- 
 practicable I"* 
 
 To Arlington he wrote a manly remonstrance against the 
 treatment w^hich he had met with from those in authority. 
 He protests against the idea that in a proper state of political 
 society, men are to be punished for differences of opinion in 
 matters of religion ; it ought, he says, to satisfy the most 
 rabid sectarian that he can forbid his rival a share of heaven, 
 without also banishing him the earth. The doctrine that be- 
 cause men may not agree as to the things which belong to 
 another life, they are not to have liberty to eat, drink, sleep, 
 walk, trade, think, and speak in this, he considers supremely 
 ridiculous and dangerous. He maintains that the under- 
 standing can be appealed to only by reason — not by force : 
 in his own case, he says, his enemies have discovered their 
 mistake, and therefore dare not bring him to trial. He in- 
 vokes his born rights as an Englishman to be put on his 
 defence, so that if he must remain in prison, the world may 
 know on what grounds. He concludes — " I make no apology 
 for my letter as a trouble (the usual style of supplicants), be- 
 
 ' Com. Journ. April 28, 1688. Pari. Hist. iv. 413 et seq. 
 2 Apology, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. second part, 239. 
 ^ Apology, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. second part, 239. 
 " Besse, i. 6. 
 
 6* 
 
66 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 cause I think the honor that will accrue to thee by being just 
 and releasing the oppressed, exceeds the advantage that can 
 succeed to me."^ While this letter, and the reports of Stil- 
 lingfleet, were operating a change in his favor at Whitehall, 
 he continued to solace himself with writing.^ Several answers 
 to his ''Sandy Foundation Shaken" had appeared, in some 
 of which his views wxre much misrepresented : — to these he 
 now replied in a brief and vigorous pamphlet, which he en- 
 titled, " Innocency with her Open Face."^ This work in- 
 creased the public interest in his fate, and probably helped to 
 procure his liberation from the Tower.'* It is certain that 
 within a few days of its publication, an order was sent down 
 to Sir John Robinson, the lieutenant, to set him at liberty ; 
 but this act of grace was also connected with public events 
 and court intrigues. 
 
 The period was one of extraordinary trouble to the Penn 
 family. While his son was languishing in the Tower, a pow- 
 erful combination in the House of Commons threatened to 
 bring about the admiral's ruin. Up to the close of July, 
 1667, when the treaty of Breda put an end to hostilities, the 
 war with Holland had continued to rage with more or less 
 violence, and with varying fortunes, after the great victory 
 of 1665 ; great damage being done to trade, although no 
 peace was conquered, nor any political advantage gained. As 
 soon as Admiral Penn ceased to command at sea, reverses 
 came ; and for nearly two years the war had been disastrous 
 and dishonorable to the arms of England. More than once a 
 Dutch fleet had ventured to appear in the Thames, as if to 
 remind the country that the men of the Commonwealth were 
 out of public employments.* Monk and Rupert, men whose 
 peculiar services, or family connexions, gave them an unfor- 
 tunate influence over the royal councils, had proved them- 
 selves incompetent to contend against the nautical genius of 
 the Dutch admirals ; but in proportion to their want of skill 
 and knowledge was their passion for high naval commands. 
 Towards the old seamen of the Commonwealth the envy and 
 hatred of these oflicers were unappeasable. Ascue and Lawton 
 felt the blighting eff'ects of their jealousy ; but the heaviest 
 weight of it fell on Admiral Penn. Monk, it is true, was 
 
 ' ColL Works, i. 154. 
 
 2 Apolo-ry, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. 2d part. 289. 3 Works, ii. 260. 
 
 4 Such is the opiniou of Besse, i. 6. ^ Evelyn, July 27, 1GG7. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 67 
 
 past tlie time for very active service ; but Rupert was lioti- 
 brained and ambitious, and anxious at any price to keep his 
 old enemy and present rival at home, attending to the pacific 
 duties of the Navy Board, while he gratified his own avarice 
 and lust of power by an uncontrolled command at sea. But 
 what was the king to do ? Taught by bitter experience — for 
 the Hollanders had burnt Chatham the year before,^ — that 
 the fleet was in a deplorable condition, the royal brothers were 
 anxious to avail themselves of the first moments of tranquillity 
 to make some reforms, with a view to restore that confidence 
 to the service which had been so terribly shaken by the late 
 disasters. This work could only be effected by an admiral of 
 tact and experience, — by one who joined the reputation of a 
 strict disciplinarian with the prestige of victory : and the 
 king at last agreed with the Duke of York that the only sea- 
 man in his dominions equal to such a task was Admiral 
 Penn.^ 
 
 This choice was peculiarly annoying to his two rivals. The 
 admiral had not sought the honors of command : its duties 
 were forced on him by the stern necessities of the time.^ 
 There had been enough of landsmen blunders and misfor- 
 tunes. A seaman was wanted ; and the humors of a prince, 
 even of the blood-royal, were not to be indulged at the 
 expense of another conflagration of the dock-yards. Bupert, 
 of course, was mortified ; and both he and Albemarle vented 
 their anger and disappointment aloud.'* In his usual boastful 
 and domineering way. Monk had taken an oath that Admiral 
 Penn should never go to sea again ; and he now felt bound 
 to make good his foolish vow. With Bupert he got up a plot 
 to keep him at home. The conspirators began by secretly- 
 trying to undermine his reputation ; they spoke of his abili- 
 ties and services in slighting terms ; insinuated what they 
 dared not boldly assert, and allowed their creatures to de- 
 fame their brother ofiicer without rebuke. One day, when 
 the newly-appointed commander called at Albemarle's house, 
 
 1 Albemarle's Report, presented to the House of Commons, Feb. 10, 1668. 
 The Duke was unquestionably to blame ; but his political influence preserved 
 him from censure. The poets of the period were more impartial in their 
 verdicts. See Sir John Dcnham's " Directions to a Painter," and Andrew 
 Marvel's " Last Instructions to a Painter." 
 
 2 The Duke of York never doubted the naval genius of Cromwell's cap- 
 tains. Clarendon's Autobio<i;raphy, ii. 354. 
 
 3 Pepys, February 20, 1008. "* Ibid, February 24. 
 
68 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 to make some inquiries, the duchess, a low-bred woman, the 
 daughter of a blacksmith, and for some time mistress to the 
 man who afterwards married and raised her to the highest 
 rank of a subject — came into the room, and forgetting the 
 respect due to her own house, shouted at him, in the tone of 
 the camp, — " How dare you have the confidence to offer to go 
 to sea again, to the endangering of the nation, when you know 
 you are such a coward ?"^ But such paltry malice was of no 
 avail against the fixed resolution of the royal brothers, to 
 have the conqueror of Van Tromp again at the head of their 
 fleets ; and the two conspirators were obliged to adopt a new 
 and bolder course of action. Monk had at this time an almost 
 unbounded influence in the House of Commons, acquired by 
 the leading part he had played in the restoration of the Cava- 
 liers to their families and estates ; and this influence he now 
 resolved to strain to the uttermost, to efi'ect his own and the 
 prince's purpose. It was pretty evident to the conspirators 
 that no serious crime could be maintained against Penn ; but 
 this was of little consequence : if they could only get the 
 House to entertain some trumpery charge, which would place 
 him under accusation, and oblige him to prepare a defence, 
 their end would be answered. A person under impeachment 
 by Parliament, could not be sent out to sea in command of 
 the Kinoj's fleet : their creatures in the House could avail 
 themselves of every pretext to delay the inquiry, until it be- 
 came too late to finish it before the summer ; and in the 
 meantime, another commander must necessarily be appointed 
 to fill the vacant post. This was the game of Monk and 
 Rupert : it was a game worthy of the players, and they 
 played it well.^ 
 
 The foes of Penn calculated their forces. They were aware 
 that the party of ultra-cavaliers had never been well aff"ected 
 to him ; — for his glory and reputation belonged essentially to 
 the time of the Commonwealth ; and to add to their dislike, 
 his son and heir had given mortal off'ence by joining the 
 Quakers and writing against the doctrines of the Church. 
 They were certain of the churchmen and cavaliers going with 
 them in their attempt. Against this threatening combination 
 the admiral could only array his services and the royal con- 
 fidence in his abilities. 
 
 1 Ibid. February 29. 2 Pepys, March 27 ; April 28. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 69 
 
 In their designs against Penn, Rupert and Monk found a 
 worthy tool in Sir Robert Howard, a man described by Evelyn 
 as an insufferable boaster and a universal pretender ; this 
 writer of bad plays ^ lent himself willingly to perform the chief 
 character in the coming farce. — On the 26th of March several 
 motions were made in the House about naval matters, — 
 "Only," as Pepys says, "to give affront to Sir W. Penn, 
 whose going to sea this year doth give them matter of great 
 dislike."^ The House agreed to revive a " Committee on 
 Miscarriages," which had done its work and dissolved, to 
 make a pretence of inquiries, and so prevent the commander, 
 who was then out of town, from going on board.^ In the re- 
 sentment of the moment, the Duke of York declared, that 
 although they might prevent Penn going out. Prince Rupert 
 should not profit by the trick they were playing ; rather than 
 suffer such an outrage to find a reward, he would go on board 
 himself."* But this threat was much easier to make than to 
 fulfil ; and three days later it was settled that Rupert should 
 have the command.^ 
 
 Having gained their point, the zeal of the conspirators 
 waxed fainter, and their friends in the House obviously began 
 to cool.^ The proposal to arrest the accused was negatived ; 
 but having committed themselves so far, the members were 
 obliged to go on with it, and Sir Robert Howard was charged 
 with the conduct of the impeachment before the House of 
 Lords.^ 
 
 The Lords refused to commit the admiral on the charge 
 sent up from the Lower House : instead of this they sent for 
 him ;^ — "To Westminster Hall," says Pepys, "and saw Sir 
 W. Penn go into the House of Lords, where his impeachment 
 
 1 " The Committee"— " The IiidLan Queen"— "The Surprisal," &c. He 
 was the Bilboa in Buckingham's first draft of "The Rehearsal," afterwards 
 altered to Baycs, for Dryden. 
 
 2 Pepys' Diary, March 26, 1668. 3 Ibid. March 29 and 30 
 
 '^ Ibid. March 30. Pepys, with his usual acuteness, saw at once the im- 
 prudence of the Duke's taking this last step — "bnt I think it mighty hot 
 counsel for the.Duke of York, at this time, to go out of the way." 
 
 ^ Pepys. "April 3. This day I hear that Prince Rnpert and Holmes do 
 go to sea ; and by this there is a seeming friendship and peace "• '-- 
 great seamen ; but the devil a bit is there any love amono- tb- 
 
 6 Ibid. April 16. 
 
 "^ Reports of the proceedings in the ? „.xt. ojlu^, 
 
 by Awchetill Grey, member for Derby. .. Debates, i. p. 133 et seq. 
 
 8 Journals of the House of Lords, X..x 24th to 27th, and 20. 
 
70 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 was read to him and he used mighty civilly, the Duke of York 
 being there ; and two days hence, at his desire, he is to bring 
 in his answer."^ On the day appointed he brought in his 
 reply to the charges exhibed against him, which reply was at 
 once accepted and transmitted to the lower House f but in 
 spite of the Admiral's urgent requests, that complaisant body 
 refused to consider the documents until it was too late to be 
 settled in that session.^ On the fourth of May a moment's 
 leisure was found to refer the answer back to the impeach- 
 ment committee, with orders for it to consider the articles and 
 draw up a replication on the entire charge to be forwarded to 
 the Lords. There the matter ended. The House rose with- 
 out settling the question it had raised. The conspirators had 
 gained their point, — Rupert was at sea, — and all the world 
 soon became aware of the game they had played and won.^ 
 
 Thus months passed away, during which time William Penn 
 wrote and preached in behalf of his faith and was finally 
 committed to the Tower, and his father was only preserved 
 from the same doleful lodging by the firmness and independ- 
 ence of the House of Peers. In society the rancor of party 
 found ample food in these intrigues. The King and Duke of 
 York being for the admiral, all those who for personal ends 
 were for the moment in opposition were of course against 
 him. The people were misled by false reports of the fortune 
 he had made, — and for a few weeks a good deal of odium at- 
 tached to the family. To add to all these troubles, the sea- 
 man's health was beginning to fail. His wear and wreck of 
 life had been great, and his constitution was completely un- 
 dermined. For months he had now been seriously unwell ; 
 partly from attack of gout, partly from a general breaking up 
 of the system.* The fortunes of his house looked unusually 
 
 ^ Pepys, April 27. 
 
 2 Journal of the Lords, April 29, 1668. I have not thought it necessary 
 to enter into the nature of the charges against Penn's father in the text ; 
 they are carefully collected in Granville Penn's Memoirs, ii. p. 465 et seq, 
 
 ^ A piece of meanness like this in the representatives of a great nation 
 seems almost incredible; but the motive was well known. "To Whitehall," 
 says Pepys, " and there do hear how Sir W. Penn hath delivered in his an- 
 swer ; the Lords have sent it down to the Commons, but they have not yet 
 
 ori if --r taken »'"tice of it, so, as I believe, they will by design defer it 
 
 so he. by laying under an impeachment, may be prevented 
 
 ^ iich will vex him, and trouble the Duke of York." 
 
 ^cu Liie proceedings reported at length in Howell's State Trials, Vol. vi. 
 p. 878. ^ Pepys' Diary, May 27 ; August 9. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 71 
 
 dark and louring. But after a few months of evil fortune, 
 the prospect began to brighten. The charges which had been 
 made against him in the House of Commons fell to the 
 ground ; public opinion came round in his favor ; he stood 
 again before the world without a spot on his reputation ; while 
 Sir Robert Howard, the tool of his powerful enemies, had 
 become a laughing stock, not only to the wits of the court, 
 but to the common citizens of London.^ After an absence, 
 caused by sickness, of some months' duration. Sir William 
 was able once more to leave his house and go down to the 
 navy office. His interest was now exerted in behalf of his 
 son, — and the Duke of York spoke to his royal brother on 
 the subject ; when, possibly at the admiral's desire, Stilling- 
 fleet was sent down to the Tower by the princes to converse 
 with and re-convert the Non-conformer. How he failed in 
 his mission has been seen : there remained no other course 
 open but to set the impracticable youth at liberty without 
 conditions : and at the request of the Duke of York this was 
 immediately done.^ 
 
 The change in his son's views, and the loss of dignity to 
 the family arising from his resolution not to accept the title 
 with which the King proposed to reward his own services, 
 "were a cause of ceaseless trouble and vexation to the admiral. 
 He had no hope now that the whim would pass away : but 
 while he confessed to himself the hopelessness of continuing 
 the struggle of parental authority against conscience to any 
 useful issue, he fancied it due to himself and to his office not 
 to make or as yet to receive any advances towards a reconci- 
 liation. Still, though he would not place himself in friendly 
 relations with his son, he no longer objected to Lady Penn 
 seeing him as often as she pleased ; and through her a sort of 
 verbal correspondence took place, which ended in William 
 accepting a proposal to go over to Ireland in execution of 
 some particular trusts confided to his care, and generally to 
 
 1 Sir Robert Howard had missed the shaft of Buckingham's wit, oiily to 
 be transfixed by that of Shadwell ; he and his mistress were held up to pub- 
 lic ridicule as Sir Positive At-All and Lady Vaine, in the comedy of the 
 Sullen Lovers. " Lord ! to see how this play of Sir Positive At-All, in abuse 
 of Sir Robert Howard, do take ! All the duke's, and everj'body's talk being 
 of that, and telling more stories of him of the like nature, that it is now the 
 town and country talk." Pepys, May 8, 1668. 
 
 2 Penn to Popple, Oct. 24, 1688. 
 
72 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 take on himself the management of the family estates in that 
 country.^ 
 
 About the middle of September 1669, he quitted London, 
 and visiting his friends and relatives at Bristol on the way, 
 arrived at Shangarry Castle at the end of the following 
 month.^ As soon as he commenced his westward journey, his 
 father began to write to him directly. The letters were 
 chiefly details of business, — but the correspondence opened 
 with a passage in these words — '' If you are ordained to be 
 another cross to me, God's will be done : and I shall arm 
 myself the best I can against it."^ His health was now fast 
 failing : and, w^ith a consciously wistful looking back on his 
 old dreams, he was growing daily into a spirit more subdued 
 and reconciled. 
 
 From this time to the middle of the year 1670, more than 
 eight months, William remained in Ireland, chiefly employed 
 in attending to the affairs of the Shangarry property.'' But 
 he was not lukewarm in the cause with which he had now 
 identified himself. The very day of his arrival in Cork, he 
 went to the prison where those of his sect were confined, to 
 talk with and console them. Next day he held a meeting in 
 the prison, where he exhorted them to be steadfast in their 
 opposition to the unjust exercise of power by the magistracy.^ 
 Nor did he fairly settle down to the business which had 
 brought him into Ireland, until he had made a journey back 
 to Dublin to attend a meeting of Friends ; when an account 
 of the suffering to which Quakers had been exposed in various 
 parts of the vice-royalty, was drawn up and carried by him 
 to his friend the Duke of Ormonde.^ Nor did his zeal con- 
 tent itself with this intervention : he applied to all his old 
 friends at the vice-regal court. Sir George Lane, the Lord 
 Arran, and others, to engage them in his cause. His solicita- 
 tions were renewed from time to time, until he forced them 
 to institute an inquiry into the alleged wrongs of the various 
 persons who had been cast into prison for conscience' sake, — 
 the result of which was, that an order in council was passed 
 on the 4th of June, 1670, for their release.'' 
 
 But the larger portion of his time during these eight 
 
 ' Apology, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Second part, 210. ^ Pesse, i. 2. 
 3 MS. letter, Oct. G, IGG'J. * Granville Penn, ii. 5G0. ^ Besse, i. 6. 
 ^Apology, Penn Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. second part, 2-10. ' Besse, i. 7. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 73 
 
 months' residence in Ireland was devoted to the execution of 
 the trusts confided to him by his father. A voluminous cor- 
 respondence was kept up between Wanstead and Shangarry 
 Castle, but it is chiefly concerned with details of manage- 
 ment.^ Finding that his health was fast breaking up, the 
 admiral retired from the Navy Board — to the great regret of 
 the King and the Duke of York, who had no man equal in 
 tact and knowledge to fill his place^ — and lived quietly at his 
 country seat in Essex. At this period the admiral was anx- 
 ious to transfer his property to England, — and measures to 
 that end were among the principal topics of the correspond- 
 ence between father and son. The unsettled state of the 
 country made him desirous of selling his estate at Shangarry 
 Castle ; but a purchaser not being easy to find, he requested 
 William to inquire if any of the tenants were disposed to 
 purchase the lands they rented. In the meantime his son-in- 
 law, Anthony Lowther, was looking out for an eligible pro- 
 perty in Yorkshire for the Penns to buy; and in April wrote 
 from his seat at Maske to say that he had found a property 
 within twenty miles of his own place, that would exactly suit 
 them : but it was noAV getting too late. Two days after this 
 letter is dated, there is among the admiral's papers a note to 
 his son, in which he says — " I wish you had well done all your 
 business there, for I find myself to decline." Though cold 
 in its expression, this note clearly hinted the admiral's wish 
 to see his son again. His anger was wearied out, and on the 
 edge of the grave the great objects for which he was prema- 
 turely to give up his life began to appear of only minor con- 
 sequence. He had ceased to think. of his son's unworldly creed 
 as a whimsy. His constancy had stood the severest tests 
 unshaken — exile from home and privation abroad — the in- 
 fluence of time and the horrors of the Tower. A fancy 
 which could inspire such resolution was in his eyes at least 
 respectable. 
 
 As soon as he could arrange the great variety of affairs, 
 personal and magisterial, which he had in hand, William Penn 
 quitted Ireland. When he appeared at Wanstead, his father 
 and mother were alone. Margaret was with her husband at 
 Maske, in Yorkshire; Richard was travelling in Italy. Sir 
 William's health was failing more and more : for four or five 
 
 Granville Penn, ii. 560. 2 Pepys, Dec. 21, 1668 ; May 3, 1669. 
 
 7 
 
74 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 months he had not been able to leave the house ; and they 
 were consequently living in the greatest retirement. Such 
 a condition of domestic affairs was highly favorable to the 
 common desire for a reconciliation, — and as soon as the young 
 man arrived, it took place, to the great happiness of all parties 
 concerned.^ 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1670. 
 TRIAL BY JURY. 
 
 The happiness of the Penn family was soon disturbed by 
 new persecutions of the sect with which William had connected 
 himself.^ The great question agitating the country at this 
 time was that of Liberty of Conscience — with its conse- 
 quence, Free Worship. The Church of England was alarmed. 
 The Duke of York, the presumptive heir to the throne, was 
 an avowed Catholic. The King himself was suspected of 
 a leaning toAvards the ritual followed by his wife, his brother, 
 his brother's wife, and his own favorite mistress. Some of 
 the courtiers had recently apostatised ; and many others were 
 suspected of only waiting a more favorable moment to declare 
 themselves converts to the creed which alone found active 
 sympathy at Whitehall. But, if Popery threatened from 
 above, Puritanism was no less formidable below. The country 
 was known to swarm with the disbanded soldiers of Cromwell 
 — men as hostile to the establishment as to the monarchy. 
 Sects were daily multiplying in number. And now in the 
 midst of all these causes of dismay, the power with which 
 Parliament had armed the Church in its own defence, six 
 years before, was about to expire. This power was given 
 
 ' Granville Penn (Memoirs ii. p. 572), was of opinion that the quarrel of 
 Admiral Penn with his son was never serious; he rejects the idea of his 
 having "turned him out of doors," But AVilliam Penn's own words, are too 
 express for me to allow the slightest weight to such an opinion. — "The bitter 
 usage I underwent Avhen I returned to my father — whipping, beating, and 
 turning out of doors." Travels in Holland and Germany, i. 92. 
 
 2 Penn to his father, Sept. 5, 1670. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 75 
 
 (May 16th, 1664) by the Conventicle Act — granted as an ex- 
 periment for three years, and afterwards renewed for a se- 
 cond term, — which act declared it seditious and unlawful for 
 more than five persons, exclusive of the family, to meet 
 together for religious worship according to any other than the 
 national ritual ; and every person above the age of sixteen 
 attending meetings of the character described w^as liable, 
 for the first offence, to be fined five pounds or imprisoned 
 during three months ; for the second off"ence, to be fined ten 
 pounds or imprisoned six months ; for the third ofi'ence, to be 
 fined a hundred pounds or transported beyond the seas for 
 seven years ; and for every additional offence, an additional 
 hundred pounds fine was inflicted. This monstrous enactment 
 had fallen with the heaviest weight on Quakers Other de- 
 nominations of Dissenters, finding their excuses in the spirit 
 which prevailed against their doctrines, evaded these penalties 
 either by a pretended conformity or by secret adherence to 
 their own rules. The followers of George Fox alone braved 
 the law openly, — continuing to worship in public as before, — 
 and submitting to the fines, degradations, and imprisonments 
 wdiich the law awarded ; resolved to tire out persecution by 
 the patient spirit in which they endured affliction for con- 
 science' sake. 
 
 And now this bill was about to expire by efflux of time. 
 Ought it to be renewed — and, if so, in what shape ? These 
 were the questions of the day. The Duke of York, anxious 
 for the toleration of his own sect, wished to see the bill sink 
 into oblivion. The ministry, desirous, as they pretended, of 
 checking the growth of Popery and Socinianism, seemed will- 
 ing to include all Dissenters within the pale of the law. 
 Wilkins, Tillotson, StillingflQct, and Bruton were consulted 
 on the part of the Church ; Baxter, Bates, and Manton on 
 the part of the Nonconformists. But the Church itself 
 would not agree to the proposal of the ministry. Men of ex- 
 treme opinions, like Parker and Patrick, vehemently opposed 
 every measure which savored concession ; while others of 
 more moderate views, like Owen and Andrew Marvel, con- 
 tended for a union of all shades of Anglican theology against 
 the common enemy entrenched in Whitehall. 
 
 Could the members of the Plouse of Commons have been 
 made aware of what was passing at that time between his 
 most Catholic Majesty Louis XIV. and their own sovereign, 
 
76 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 they would probably have paused in their career of vindictive 
 legislation against Dissenters. Charles had already declared 
 himself a Catholic to the confidential servants of Louis. A 
 few days after the discussion in Parliament, the King of Eng- 
 land bound himself by the secret treaty of Dover to make 
 public profession of Popery ; to send over his fleets and 
 armies to destroy and deliver over to France, Protestant 
 Holland ; to maintain by sea and land the claims of the 
 Bourbons to the crown of Spain and the dominions of the 
 New World !^ in return for these services Louis stipulated to 
 grant the spendthrift King a large subsidy and to send 
 over an army to crush out the last remnants of the national 
 fredom, if the people should presume to resist. This treaty 
 was signed in May, 1670 ; the Conventicle Act was renewed 
 in April. Far-seeing men, of moderate conservative views, 
 began to look forward with despair.^ 
 
 William Penn soon became a victim of this enactment. 
 The Quakers, as usual, taking no notice of the attempt of 
 Parliament to interfere with their modes of worship, went on 
 the 14th of August to their meeting-house in Gracechurch 
 street. They found it closed — and the doors guarded by a com- 
 pany of soldiers.^ Unable to enter the building, the members 
 loitered about until there was a considerable crowd, when 
 William Penn took off his hat and began to address them. 
 Seeing this movement, the constables came forward and ar- 
 rested him, together with Captain William Mead, an old sol- 
 dier of the Commonwealth and now a draper in the City.'* 
 Penn demanded to be shown thtir authority for this act, and 
 the officers at once produced a warrant prepared beforehand, 
 and signed by the Lord Mayor, Sir Samuel Starling. The 
 whole of the little drama had been previously arranged by the 
 civic powers ; and Penn and Mead were instantly taken from 
 the place of meeting to undergo examination.* Knowing that 
 
 ' Secret Treaty. Note B. in Lingard, xii. 354, where it was first published. 
 
 2 " Met Mr. Evelyn, and talked of several things; but particularly of the 
 times ; and he tells me that wise men do prepare to remove abroad what 
 they have, for that we mvist be ruined ; our case being past relief, the kingdom 
 being so much in debt, and the King minding nothing but his lust, going two 
 days a week to see my Lady Castlemaine." Pepys' Diary, August 8, 1GG7. 
 
 3 It was quite common for soldiers to invade meeting-houses. Life of 
 Latye, 59. 
 
 4 Penn to his father, Aug. 15, 1670. Philadelphia Friend, vi. 170. 
 ^ The People's Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted, fol. vol. i. p. 7. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 77 
 
 Admiral Penn was on his death-bed, the petty officers of the 
 city gave a loose rein to their native insolence. When the 
 prisoner refused to doff his hat, the Lord Mayor threatened 
 to carry him to Bridewell and have him well whipped — though 
 he was the son of a Commonwealth admiral ! On being re- 
 minded that the law was against such a course of proceeding, 
 he ordered them to be sent to the Black Dog, a wretched 
 sponging-house in Newgate Market, to await their trial at the 
 Old Baily.^ From this place of durance he wrote to his father 
 in the most affectionate terms ; and, while glorying in his suf- 
 ferings for a great principle, expressed his deep regret at 
 being dragged away from home at such a time.^ 
 
 On the 1st of September, 1670, the two prisoners were 
 placed in the dock to answer the charges brought against 
 them. Every thing considered, the character of the men, the 
 interests at issue, the course of the proceedings, and the final 
 results — this is perhaps the most important trial that ever 
 took place in England. Penn stood before his judges in this 
 celebrated scene, not so much as a Quaker pleading for the 
 rights of conscience — as the Englishman contending for the 
 ancient and imprescriptible liberties of his race.^ The special 
 law on which he was arraigned, he knew very well that he 
 had violated and intended again and again to violate. His 
 religious friends took the same view of the case : they ac- 
 knowledged the Conventicle Act to be in force according to 
 the mere forms of jurisprudence ; but they contended that it 
 was in direct contradiction to the divine laws, and therefore 
 not binding. Better versed in his country's history, Penn 
 disputed its legality. He held it to be in equal hostility to 
 the Bible and the Great Charter. This therefore was the 
 point to be brought to an issue — Does an edict possess the 
 virtue and force of law, even when passed by Crown and Par- 
 liament, which abolishes any one of the fundamental rights 
 secured to the nation by the ancient constitution ? A most 
 important point in itself; and dear to England were the in- 
 terests which hung on the result. Penn foresaw how the 
 constitutional question would arise ; and that the trial might 
 be rendered a means of helping to secure the civil liberties of 
 
 1 Penn to his father, Aug. 15, 2 Pcnn to liis father, Aug. 15. 
 
 3 Penii held the fundamental laws, those of the old charters, to be unalter- 
 able— completely out of the power of the Estates of the realm to change. 
 See his "England's Present Interest Considered," fol. i. 074, 5. 
 
 7* 
 
78 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 tlie nation — now seriously menaced by a treacherous and 
 despotic court, supported by a bench equally corrupt and ser- 
 vile, — even if, as he expected, it should fail in establishing the 
 claims of conscience. Thus he reasoned with himself: If, as 
 on ordinary occasions we should feel bound to do, we now 
 plead guilty, by our punishment this wicked act will acquire 
 an additional force : but if we deny our guilt, as we may with 
 good conscience, and throw the burden of proof on the court, 
 we shall show to all the world the evil animus of our perse- 
 cutors ; and we shall also be able to raise the question, 
 whether this law be in harmony with the Great Charter. If 
 the court cannot show that it is — will a jury of Englishmen, 
 fairly appealed to, convict ? Should a precedent be set of 
 juries refusing to convict under a bad law, the arm of tyranny 
 would be at once paralysed.^ Yes: they would adopt the 
 course suggested by this train of thought. They would take 
 their stand on the old rights — make their appeal to the old 
 charters of the nation.^ 
 
 The justices who occupied the bench were ten in number : 
 Sir Samuel Starling, Lord Mayor; Alderman Sir Thomas 
 Bludworth, Alderman Sir William Peak, Alderman Sir 
 Richard Ford, Sir John Robinson, Lieutenant of the Tower, 
 and Alderman Sir John Sheldon ; Sir John Howel, the Re- 
 corder ; and the sheriffs, Richard Brown, Sir John Smith, 
 and Sir Samuel Edwards. The clerk of the Court ordered 
 the crier to call over the jury as follows — and no twelve citi- 
 zens of London have better deserved to have their names held 
 in admiring remembrance : Thomas Veer, Edward Bushel, 
 John Hammond, Charles Milson, Gregory Walklet, John 
 Brightman, William Plumstead, Henry Henley, James 
 
 1 Perm was a staunch asserter of the right — then contested, now admitted 
 — of the juroi' to judge of both law and fact. " Truth Rescued From Im- 
 posture," fol. i. 500, 
 
 2 The fundamental rights which Penn held to he peculiar to Englishmen, 
 were the four following: (1.) Security of property ; (2.) Liberty of person ; 
 (3.) The right of assisting to make every law by which that security of 
 property, or that liberty of person may be affected; (4.) A real share, by 
 means of the jury, in the actual administration of the civil law. "England's 
 Present Interest Considered," fol. i. 675. Relying on the authority of Coke, 
 Penn fully believed that all these rights had come down from the Saxon pe- 
 riod. Modern scholars have disputed the claim of the Saxons to the honor 
 of being the founders of the jury system. The point is exceedingly knotty ; 
 but I incline strongly to the old opinion, and shall take my chance of going 
 wrong on a point of legal history with Coke and Spehnan, Blackstone and 
 Turner in company. 
 
WILLIAM TENN. Y9 
 
 Damask, Henry Michel, William Lever, and John Baily. 
 These good men and true, answered to their names, and were 
 sworn to try the prisoners at the bar, and find according to 
 the evidence adduced.^ The indictment was then read aloud : 
 
 " That William Penn, gentleman, and William Mead, late 
 of London, linen draper, with divers others persons, to the 
 jury unknown, to the number of three hundred, the 15th day 
 of August, in the twenty-second year of the King, about 
 eleven of the clock in the forenoon of the same day, with force 
 and arms, &;c., in the parish of St. Bennet Gracechurch, in 
 Bridge Ward, London, in the street called Gracechurch 
 Street, unlawfully and tumultously did assemble and congre- 
 gate themselves together, to the disturbance of the peace of 
 the said lord the King : And the aforesaid William Penn and 
 William Mead, together with other persons, to the jury afore- 
 said unknown, then and there assembled and congregated 
 together ; the aforesaid William Penn, by agreement between 
 him and William Mead, before made, and by abetment of the 
 aforesaid William Mead, then and there in the open street, 
 did take upon himself to preach and speak, and then and 
 there did preach and speak unto the aforesaid William Mead, 
 and other persons there in the street aforesaid, being as- 
 sembled and congregated together, by reason whereof a great 
 concourse and tumult of people in the street aforesaid, then 
 and there, a long time did remain and continue, in contempt 
 of the said lord the King, and his law; to the great dis- 
 turbance of his peace, to the great terror and disturbance of 
 many of his liege people and subjects, to the ill-example of 
 all others in the like case ojQfenders, and against the peace of 
 the said lord the King, his crown, and dignity." 
 
 This was the form and matter of this celebrated indict- 
 ment : the one was Avorthy of the other. As a question of 
 law the only verdict that could be given, with common de- 
 cency, must have been an acquittal. In order to be safe, the 
 fanatical lord mayor had overshot his mark. Let the terms 
 of the charge engage a moment's attention. To begin, the 
 date is wrong : the meeting took place on the 14th, not on 
 the 15th. It asserted that the persons met together, were in 
 arms: of this no proofs were offered. It affirmed that Penn 
 and Mead had agreed beforehand : no evidence in support 
 
 I The People's Ancient And Just Liberties Asserted, fol. i. 9. 
 
80 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 was given. It charged Mead with abetting Penn : the wit- 
 nesses could prove only that Mead Avished to get near Penn, 
 but was unable. There were other contradictions, absurdi- 
 ties, and assertions, for which no proofs could be adduced ; 
 but these are enough to show the character of the persecu- 
 tion. 
 
 The Clerk of the Court then said aloud — ^' What say you, 
 William Penn and William Mead, are you guilty as you stand 
 indicted, in manner and form as aforesaid, or not guilty?" 
 
 Penn : It is impossible that we should be able to remember 
 the indictment verbatim, and therefore we desire a copy of it, 
 as is customary on the like occasions. 
 
 The Recorder : You must first plead to the indictment be- 
 fore you can have a copy of it. 
 
 Penn : I am unacquainted with the formality of the law, 
 and therefore before I shall answer, I request two things of 
 the court : — first, that no advantage be taken against me, nor 
 I be deprived of any benefit which I might otherwise have re- 
 ceived ; secondly, that you will promise me a fair hearing, 
 and liberty of making my defence. 
 
 Oourt : No advantage shall be taken against you : you 
 shall have liberty, you shall be heard. 
 
 Penn : Then I plead — not guilty, in matter and form. 
 
 The same questions being put to Mead, and the same 
 answers returned, full liberty of defence was given, and he 
 pleaded — not guilty. The court then adjourned until three 
 o'clock. 
 
 On resuming its functions, the court commanded the pri- 
 soners to be brought forward ; they were placed at the bar, 
 but to add insult to cruelty, were set aside while several cases 
 of common felony were tried and disposed of. Having sat 
 five hours, the court rose and adjourned for two days. Mean- 
 time the Quakers were sent back to their filthy dungeons in 
 Newgate.^ These pitiful tricks are all worthy of remark. 
 
 On the third of September, the court sat again. The pri- 
 soners would have come in with their hats on, but were pre- 
 vented by the officers stationed at the door. As this was 
 being done, the lord mayor — a character common enough in 
 all unquiet times, a man who, always siding with the strongest 
 party, had been a violent persecutor of the Cavaliers under 
 
 * The People's Ancient unci Just Liberties Asserted, fol. i. 10. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 81 
 
 Cromwell,^ and was now anxious to show his zeal for the 
 cause of the restored powers in Church and State — shouted 
 from the bench — " Sirrah ! who bid you put off their hats ? 
 Put them on again." Whereupon the officer did as he was 
 told — the prisoners offering no resistance to the wish of his 
 lordship.^ Wheh they were placed at the bar thus covered, 
 the dialogue begun : 
 
 The lieeorder : Do you know where you are ? 
 
 Penn : Yes. 
 
 Recorder : Do you know this is the King's court ? 
 
 Fenn : I know it to be a court, and I suppose it to be the 
 King's court. 
 
 Recorder : Do you know there is respect due to the court ? 
 
 JPeiin : Yes. 
 
 Recorder : Why do you not pay it then ? 
 
 Renn : I do so. 
 
 Recorder : Why do you not put off your hat, then P 
 
 Renn : Because I do not believe that to be any respect. 
 
 Recorder : Well ; the court sets forty marks a-piece on your 
 heads as a fine for contempt of court. 
 
 Penn : I desire it may be observed that we came into Court 
 with our hats off — that is, taken off — and if they have been 
 put on since, it was by order of the Bench ; and therefore not 
 we, but the Bench should be fined. 
 
 Here, the jary being again sworn, Sir John Robinson, 
 suspecting that Edward Bushel, one of the jury, known to be 
 a religious man, had an objection to take frequent oaths, pre- 
 tended not to have seen him kiss the book, and desired him to 
 be again sworn. ^ The first witness was then called :* 
 
 James Oook : I was sent for from the Exchange to go and 
 disperse a meeting in Gracechurch Street, where I saw Mr. 
 Penn speaking to the people, but I could not hear what was 
 said on account of the noise. I endeavored to make w^ay to 
 take him, but I could not get near him for the crowd of people ; 
 upon w^hich Captain Mead came to me about the kennel of the 
 street and desired me to let him go on, for when he had done 
 he would bring Mr. Penn to me. 
 
 1 Postscript to Truth Rescued, fol. i. 520. 
 
 2 The People's Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted, i. 10. 
 
 3 Truth Rescued, foL i. 604. 
 
 ^ The People's Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted, i. 11. 
 ^The People's Ancient and Just Liberties Aserted, fol. i. 11. 
 
82 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 Court : What number do you think there might he there ? 
 
 Cook : About three or four hundred people. 
 
 The second witness for the prosecution was now called and 
 sworn. 
 
 Court : What do you know concerning the prisoners at the 
 bar? 
 
 Richard Read : My lord, I went to Gracechurch Street, 
 where I found a great crowd of people, and I heard Mr. Penn 
 preach to them, and I saw Captain Mead speaking to Lieu- 
 tenant Cook, but what he said I could not tell. 
 
 3Iead : What did William Penn say ? 
 
 Read : There was such a great noise I could not tell what 
 he said. 
 
 3Iead : Observe this evidence ; he saith, he heard him 
 preach ; and yet saith, he doth not know what he said. — Take 
 notice (to the jury), he means now a clean contrary thing to 
 what he swore before the Mayor when we were committed. I 
 appeal to the Mayor himself if this be not true. 
 
 Sir Samuel refused to give an answer, yea or nay. 
 
 Examination resumed : 
 
 Court: What number do you think there might be there? 
 
 Read : About four or five hundred. 
 
 Penn : I desire to know of the witness Avhat day it w^as ? 
 
 Read : The 14th of August. 
 
 Penn : Did he speak to me, or let me know he was there ? 
 For I am very sure I never saw him. — The Court would not 
 put the question. 
 
 Another witness was called : his name not given. 
 
 Unhnoivn ivitness : My lord, I saw a great number of 
 people, and Mr. Penn I suppose was speaking, for I saw him 
 make a motion with his hands and heard some noise, but could 
 not understand what was said. But for Captain Mead, I did 
 not see him there. 
 
 Recorder : What say you, Mr. Mead, were you there ? 
 
 Mead: It is a maxim in your own law — Nemo tenetur 
 aecusare sei]jsum — which, if it be not true Latin, I am sure it 
 is true English — No man is bound to accuse himself. And 
 why dost thou offer to ensnare me with such a question ? Is 
 this like unto a judge, that ought to be counsel for prisoner 
 at the bar ? 
 
 Recorder : Hold your tongue, sir. I did not go about to 
 ensnare you. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 83 
 
 This was the case for the prosecution ! Not a single point 
 was proved : not even the preaching or the assembly for public 
 worship. Was ever such another case sent to a jury ? On 
 the last remark of Mr. Recorder Howel's, there ensued consi- 
 derable hubbub in court : the chief prisoner at length brought 
 them to a sense of their duty.^ 
 
 Penn : I desire we may come more close to the point, and 
 that silence be commanded. — The crier having shouted the 
 usual call, Penn proceeded : We confess ourselves so far from 
 recanting or declining to vindicate the assembling of ourselves 
 to preach, to pray or worship God, that we declare to all the 
 world, we believe it to be our indispensable duty to meet in- 
 cessantly on so good an account; nor shall all the powers on 
 earth be able to prevent us. 
 
 Sheriff Brown : You are not here for worshipping God, but 
 for breaking the laws. 
 
 Penn : I affirm I have broken no law ; nor am I guilty of 
 the indictment that is laid to my charge ; and to the end that 
 the Bench, the jury, myself, and those who hear us may have 
 a more direct understanding of this procedure, I desire you 
 would let me know by what law it is you prosecute me, and 
 on what law you ground your indictment. 
 
 Recorder: Upon the common law\ 
 
 Penn: Where is that common law? 
 
 Recorder : You must not think that I am able to sum up so 
 many years and ever so many adjudged cases, which we call 
 common law, to satisfy your curiosity. 
 
 Penn : This answer I am sure is very short of my question ; 
 for if it be common it should not be so very hard to produce. 
 
 Recorder (baffled by the prisoner's tact, and like other men 
 when they feel themselves foiled at their own weapons, losing 
 his temper) : Sir, will you plead to your indictment ? 
 
 Penn: Shall I plead to an indictment that has no founda- 
 tion in law ? If it contain that law you say I have broken, 
 why should you decline to produce it, since it will be impossi- 
 ble for the jury to determine, or agree to bring in their verdict, 
 who have not the law produced by which they should measure 
 the truth of the indictment. 
 
 Recorder (waxing still warmer): You are a saucy fellow. 
 Speak to the indictment. 
 
 1 The People's Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted, foL i. 11. 
 
% 
 
 84 ' WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 Penn : I say it is my place to speak to matter of law. I 
 am arraigned a prisoner. My liberty, which is next to life 
 itself, is now concerned. You are many against me ; and it 
 is hard if I must not make the best of my case. I say again, 
 unless you show me and the people the law you ground your 
 indictment upon, I shall take it for granted your proceedings 
 are merely arbitrary. 
 
 Hereupon the whole Bench set at the prisoner and by dint 
 of noise and vehemence tried to bear him down. He replied 
 calmly and with a subtle and incisive logic which galled the 
 venal ministers of justice all the more because it could not be 
 answered. After a while, the trial went on a little more de- 
 corously. 
 
 Recorder : The question is — whether you are guilty of this 
 indictment. 
 
 Penn : The question is not whether I am guilty of this in- 
 dictment, but whether this indictment be legal. It is too 
 general and imperfect an answer to say it is common law, 
 unless we know both where and what it is : for where there is 
 no law there is no transgression ;^ and that law w^hich is not 
 in being, so far from being common law, is no law at all. 
 
 Recorder : You are an impertinent fellow. Will you teach 
 the court what law is ? It is lex non scripta. That which 
 many have studied thirty or forty years to know, would you 
 have me tell you in a moment ? 
 
 Penn : Certainly, if the common law be so hard to be under- 
 stood it is far from being very common : but if the Lord Coke 
 in his Institutes (vol. ii. p. 50) be of any weight, he tells us 
 that — " Common law is common right, and common right is 
 the great charter privileges confirmed by 9 Henry III. c. 29 : 
 by 25 Edward I. c. 1 : and by 2 Edward III. c. 8. 
 
 Recorder (more and more uncomfortable every moment) : 
 Sir, you are a very troublesome fellow, and it is not for the 
 the honor of the court to allow you to go on. 
 
 Penn : I have asked but one question, and you have not 
 answered me — though the rights and privileges of every Eng- 
 lishman are concerned in it. 
 
 2 Ubi non est lex ibi non est transgressio. — Coke. The reader of the Insti- 
 tutes will find how completely William Penn had mastered both their spirit 
 and terminology. Ilis defence is almost wholly clothed in the language of 
 the great lawyer. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 85 
 
 Recorder : If I should suffer you to ask questions till to- 
 morrow morning you would be never the wiser. 
 
 Pom : That would depend upon the answers. (That was 
 a word sent home.) 
 
 Recorder: Sir, we must not stand to hear you talk all 
 night. 
 
 Penn : I design no affront to the court, but to be heard in 
 my just plea. And I must plainly tell you, that if you deny 
 me the oyer of that law which you suggest I have broken, you 
 do at once deny me an acknowledged right, and evince to the 
 whole world your resolution to sacrifice the privileges of Eng- 
 lishmen to your sinister and arbitrary designs. 
 
 Recorder (lost beyond recovery) : Take him away ! My 
 Lord, if you do not take some course with this pestilent fellow 
 to stop his mouth, we shall not be able to do any thing to- 
 night. 
 
 Lord Mayor: Take him away, take him away ! Put him 
 into the bale-dock. 
 
 Penn : These are so many vain exclamations. Is this jus- 
 tice or true judgment? Must I be taken away because I plead 
 for the fundamental laws of England? However, (addressing 
 the jury) this I leave upon your consciences, who are my sole 
 judges, that if these ancient fundamental laws, which relate 
 to liberty and property — and are not limited to particular 
 persuasions in matters of religion — must not be indispensably 
 maintained — who can say he has a right to the coat upon his 
 back? If not, our liberties are open to be invaded — our 
 wives ravished — our children enslaved — our families ruined — 
 our estates led away in triumph. The Lord of heaven and 
 earth will be judge between us in this matter.^ 
 
 Recorder : Be silent there. 
 
 But Penn would not be silent till he had completed his 
 defence. The bench had given him a solemn promise that he 
 should have liberty of speech. He asserted his right to be 
 heard by the jury ; for not only did his personal liJ3erty de- 
 pend upon the issue, but the peace of ten thousand families 
 besides. Determined to hear no more, the Lord Mayor and 
 Recorder commanded the officers of the Court to carry the 
 prisoner to the bale-dock — a well-like place at the farthest 
 end of the court, in which he could neither see nor be seen 
 
 ' Tlie heads of this speech ai^e pi-cserved in Gerard Croese, 75-77. 
 
86 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 by the bench, jury, or public. Thither he was forced under 
 a protest against their right to remove him before the jury 
 retirecl.^ Mead then addressed himself to his peers : 
 
 Mead : You men of the jury, — Here I stand to answer an 
 indictment which is a bundle of lies : for therein I am accused 
 that I met vi et armis illicite et tumultuose. Time was when 
 I had freedom to use a carnal weapon, and then I thought I 
 feared no man ; but now I fear the living God. I am a 
 peaceable man ; and therefore ask, like William Penn, an oyer 
 of the law on which our indictment is founded. 
 Recorder : I have made answer to that already. 
 The old soldier of Cromwell was not to be cowed. Turning 
 from the bench to the jury box he told them, that if the Re- 
 corder would not tell the court what constituted a riot and 
 an unlawful assembly, he would quote for them the opinions 
 of Lord Coke. A riot, said that great legal writer, Avas when 
 three or more met together to beat a man, or enter his house 
 by force, or cut his grass, or trespass on his land. — Here the 
 learned Recorder took oif his hat to the prisoner, and making 
 a low bow, said in a tone which was meant to be withering — 
 I thank you, sir, for teaching me what is law. 
 
 Mead : Thou may est put on thy hat : I have no fee to give 
 thee. 
 
 Sheriff Brown : He talks at random : one while an Inde- 
 pendent — noAV a Quaker — next a Papist. 
 
 3fead: Turpe est doctori cum culpa redarguit ipsum. 
 Lord Mayor : You deserve to have your tongue cut out. 
 Mead : Thou didst promise me I should have fair liberty 
 to be heard. Am I not to have the privilege of all English- 
 men ? 
 
 Recorder : I look upon you to be an enemy to the laws of 
 England, which ought to be observed and kept ; nor are you 
 worthy of the privileges others have. 
 
 Mead: The Lord be judge between thee and me in this 
 matter. 
 
 Hereupon the court ordered Mead to be also removed to 
 the bale-dock : and in the absence of the parties accused of 
 crime, the court proceeded to charge the jury as follows : 
 
 Recorder : You, gentlemen of the jury, have heard what 
 the indictment is : it is for preaching to the people and draw- 
 
 ^ The People's Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted, foL i, 12. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 87 
 
 ing a tumultuous company after tliem : and Mr. Penn was 
 speaking. If they should not be disturbed, you see they will 
 go on. There are three or four witnesses have proved this — 
 that Mr. Penn did preach there, that Mr. Mead did allow of 
 it. After this, you have heard by substantial witnesses what 
 is said against them. Now we are on matter of fact, which 
 you are to keep and to observe, as what hath been fully sworn, 
 at your peril. 
 
 PeMTi (from the bale-dock, at the top of his voice) : I ap- 
 peal to the jury who are my judges and to this great assem- 
 bly, whether the proceedings of the court are not most arbi- 
 trary and void of all law in offering to give the jury their 
 charge in the absence of the prisoners ! I say it is directly 
 opposed and destructive to the right of every English prisoner, 
 as declared by Coke in the 2d Institute 29, on the chapter of 
 Magna Charta. 
 
 Recorder (with a pleasant smile) : Why, you are present : 
 you do hear. Do you not ? 
 
 Penn : No, thanks to the court that commanded me into 
 the bale-dock. And you of the jury, take notice that I have 
 not been heard ; neither can you legally depart the court 
 before I have been fully heard, having at least ten or twelve 
 material points to offer in order to invalidate their indictment. 
 
 Recorder : Pull that fellow down ; pull him down. — Take 
 them to the hole. To hear them talk doth not become the 
 honor of the court. 
 
 And so they were taken out of the bale-dock and carried 
 off to the hole in Newgate — the nastiest place in the most 
 loathsome gaol in England, a den which Penn describes as so 
 noisome that the Lord Mayor would think it unfit for his pigs 
 to lie in.^ The Recorder then commanded the jury to agree 
 in their verdict according to the facts sworn. They retired : 
 but the court remained sitting : the vast concourse of people^ 
 keeping an eager eye on the door which led into the jury- 
 room, each spectator being anxious to catch the first glimpse 
 of the foreman's face, to read the result before it could be 
 spoken out in words. 
 
 An hour and a half had passed when the door opened, and 
 eight of the twelve walked into court. They said they could 
 not agree upon a verdict. The Recorder commanded the un- 
 
 1 Truth Rescued, folio, i. 50G. 2 1^,1^. fol. i. 511. 
 
$8 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 complying four to be brought into his presence : they came : 
 and the court heaped abuse upon them in a style which was 
 peculiar to that splendid and polite generation. Edward 
 Bushel was one of those who held out most strongly for the 
 right to give an honest verdict ; and the rage of the whole 
 bench was vented upon him. 
 
 Recorder: You, sir, are the cause of this disturbance, and 
 manifestly show yourself an abettor of faction. I shall set a 
 mark upon you, sir. 
 
 Sir John Robinson : I know you. You have thrust your- 
 self upon this jury. 
 
 Bushel : No, Sir John. There were three score before me 
 on the panel, and I would willingly have got oft", but could 
 not. 
 
 Sir John Robinson : I tell you, you deserve to be indicted 
 more than any man that has been indicted this day. 
 
 Jjord Mayor : Sirrah, you are an impertinent fellow ! I 
 will put a mark on you. 
 
 This is a sample of the language made use of by the bench. 
 The jury retired again : they were absent a longer time than 
 before : at length they returned, and, Penn and Mead being 
 sent for, silence was commanded. 
 
 Cle7^k : Are you agreed in your verdict ? 
 
 Thomas Veere, the Foreman : Yes. 
 
 Clerk : How say you ? Is William Penn guilty of the mat- 
 ter whereof he stands indicted in manner and form, or not 
 guilty ? 
 
 Foreman : Guilty of speaking in Gracechurch Street. 
 
 Court : Is that all ? 
 
 Foreman : That is all I have in commission. 
 
 Recorder : You had as good say nothing. 
 
 Lord Mayor : Was it not an unlawful assembly ? You mean 
 he was speaking to a tumult of people there ? 
 
 The foreman explained that on those points they were not 
 agreed. Here the court thought proper to converse with 
 each juryman separately, so as to influence them in detail : 
 some of the men expressed themselves in favor of the views 
 taken by the bench ; but EdAvard Bushel, John Hammond, 
 and two or three others, declared that they could admit no 
 such term as unlawful assembly into the verdict. By threats 
 and foul language the court tried to bear these men down — 
 the Lord Mayor, the Recorder, Sir John Robinson, and Al- 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 89 
 
 derman Bludworth, particularly distinguishing themselves by 
 their copious use of the idioms of Blackheath and Billings- 
 gate.^ 
 
 Recorder : The law of England will not allow you to de- 
 part till you have given in your verdict. 
 
 Foreman : We have given in our verdict : we can give in 
 no other. 
 
 Recorder : Gentlemen, you have not given in your verdict ; 
 you had as good say nothing as what you had said. Therefore 
 go and consider it once more. 
 
 A Juror : We desire we may have pen, ink, and paper. 
 
 This request was granted, and the court adjourned for half 
 an hour. When they returned they give in a written verdict, 
 — again finding William Penn guilty of speaking to an as- 
 sembly met together in Gracechurch Street, — and acquitting 
 William Mead. This was signed by all the twelve. On hear- 
 ing it read aloud the Lord Mayor broke out into a fearful 
 passion. "What," he shouted at the whole jury, "will you 
 be led by such a silly fellow as Bushel — an impudent, canting 
 knave ! I warrant you, you shall not come upon juries again 
 in a hurry." And then turning on Thomas Veere, exclaimed 
 — "You are a foreman, indeed! I thought you understood 
 your place better." The city lawyer came more directly to 
 the point. 
 
 Recorder : Gentlemen, you shall not be dismissed till you 
 bring in a verdict which the court will accept. You shall be 
 locked up, without meat, drink, fire, and tobacco. You shall 
 not think thus to abuse the court. We will have a verdict by 
 the help of God, or you shall starve for it. 
 
 Renn : My jury, who are my judges, ought not to be thus 
 menaced. Their verdict should be free — not forced. 
 
 Recorder : Stop that fellow's mouth, or put him out of 
 court. 
 
 Lord Mayor (to the jury) : You have heard that he 
 preached ; that he gathered a company of tumultuous people ; 
 and that they not only disobey the martial power, but the 
 civil also. 
 
 Penn : That is a mistake. We did not make the tumult, 
 but they that interrupted us. The jury cannot be so ignorant 
 
 ' The People's Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted, fol. i. 13, and Truth 
 Rescued from Imposture, folio, i. 495. 
 
 8* 
 
90 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 as to think we met there to disturb the peace, because it is 
 well known that we are a peaceable people, never offering 
 violence to any man, and were kept by force of arms out of 
 our own house. 
 
 Baffled and beaten, out-argued in law, and its evil animus 
 exposed to the public, the bench lost its temper and would 
 sit no longer. It was ordering the jury to be locked up and 
 the prisoners to be taken back to Newgate, when Penn again 
 addressed them : 
 
 Penn : The agreement of twelve men is a verdict in law ; 
 and such a one being given by the jury, I require the clerk of 
 the peace to record it — as he will answer at his peril. And 
 if after this, the jury bring in another verdict contrary 
 to this, I affirm they are perjured men. — Then, looking at the 
 jurors, he added. You are Englishmen, mind your privileges. 
 Give not away your rights. 
 
 One of the jury pleaded indisposition. 
 
 Lord Mayor : You are as strong as any of them. Hold 
 your principles and — starve. 
 
 Recorder : Gentlemen, you must be content with your hard 
 fate : let your patience overcome it. The court is resolved 
 to have a verdict. 
 
 The whole Jury: We are agreed. We are agreed. We 
 are agreed. 
 
 They were locked up. Next morning, being Sunday, the 
 court was crowded as before to see the prisoners and to hear 
 the verdict. At seven o'clock the names of the jury were 
 called over ; each man answered to his name, and the clerk 
 inquired if they were agreed, They replied they were. Guilty 
 or not guilty ? 
 
 Foreman : William Penn is guilty of speaking in Grace- 
 church Street. 
 
 Lord Mayor : To an unlawful assembly ? 
 
 Bushel : No, my lord. We give no other verdict than we 
 gave last night. 
 
 Lord Mayor : You are a factious fellow ; I'll take a course 
 with you. 
 
 Aid, Bludivorth : I knew Mr. Bushel would not yield. 
 
 Bushel : Sir Thomas, I have done according to my con- 
 science. 
 
 Lord Mayor: That conscience of yours would cut my 
 throat. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 91 
 
 Bushel: No, my lord, it never shall. 
 
 Lord Mayor : But I will cut yours as soon as I can. 
 
 Recorder: (inclined to be merry): He has inspired the 
 jury : he has the spirit of divination : methinks he begins to 
 affect me. — I will have a positive verdict, or else you shall 
 starve. 
 
 Penn : I desire to ask the Recorder a question. Do you 
 allow the verdict given of William Mead ? 
 
 Recorder : It cannot be a verdict, because you are indicted 
 for conspiracy — and one being found "Not Guilty" and not 
 the other, it is no verdict. 
 
 Penn : If " Not Guilty" be no verdict, then you make of 
 the jury and of the Great Charter a mere nose of wax. 
 
 Mead : How ! Is " Not Guilty" no verdict ? 
 
 Recorder : No, it is no verdict. 
 
 Penn : I affirm that the consent of a jury is a verdict in 
 law ; and if William Mead be not guilty, it follows that I am 
 clear, since you have indicted us for conspiracy, and I could 
 not possibly conspire alone. 
 
 The bench found it convenient not to notice this way of 
 viewing the case. Another scene of confusion followed — 
 threats on the part of the magistrates — met by unflinching firm- 
 ness from the jurors. Again they vrere sent to their room : again 
 they returned with the same verdict of " Guilty of speaking 
 in Gracechurch Street." It was clear they could do no more 
 according to the evidence which had been laid before ^ them. 
 When the Foreman announced the result of their third ex- 
 amination, the legal conductor of the trial roared out : 
 
 Recorder : What is this to the purpose ? I say, I will have 
 a verdict. (And then scowling fiercely at Edward Bushel, 
 cried,) You are a factious fellow. I will set a mark on you : 
 and whilst I have any thing to do with the city, I will have an 
 eye upon you. 
 
 Lord Mayor (to the other jurors) : Have you no more wit 
 than to be led by such a pitiful fellow ? I will cut his noise. 
 (Slitting noses was a common punishment for offenders in 
 those days.)* 
 
 Penn: It is intolerable that my jury should be thus 
 menaced. Is this according to the fundamental laws ? Are 
 
 ' The young bloods of the courts were especially fond of this pastime. 
 Coventry, a leading member of Parliament, was set upon in the Haymarket, 
 and his nose slit by Monmouth and his partisans. Marveil, i. 413. 
 
92 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 they not my proper judges by the Great Charter of England ? 
 What hope is there of ever having justice done when juries 
 are threatened and their verdicts rejected? Has not the 
 Lieutenant of the Tower made one of us out worse than a 
 felon ? 
 
 Recorder : My lord, you must take a course with that 
 fellow ? 
 
 Lord Mayor : Stop his mouth. Gaoler, bring fetters, and 
 stake him to the ground. 
 
 Penn : Do your will : I care not for your fetters. (Well 
 said, Penn.) 
 
 Recorder (suddenly enlightened) : Till now I never under- 
 stood the reason of the policy and prudence of the Spaniards 
 in suffering the Inquisition among them : and certainly it will 
 never be well with us till something like the Inquisition be 
 brought into England.^ 
 
 Here was a doctrine to be preached in an open court and 
 by a minister of justice ! The incident is worth a thousand 
 other facts for letting in light upon the spirit which ruled in 
 high places under the restored Stuarts. Penn had some 
 family knowledge of the Spanish Inquisition, as will be seen 
 in the sequel :^ and the avow^ed hope of the London Recorder 
 that a similar institution would soon be imported into England 
 armed him with a weapon of which he knew how to make 
 good use in his subsequent appeals to the popular mind.^ — 
 The bench now told the jury they must retire until they could 
 agree upon a verdict of guilty. They refused to retire again. 
 They had consulted three several times ; they had agreed to 
 a verdict and signed it ; they could give no other. 
 
 Recorder : Gentlemen, we shall not always be at this pass 
 with you. You will find that next Session of Parliament 
 there will be a law made that such as will not conform shall 
 not have the protection of law. Mr. Lee (addressing a law 
 officer of the court), draw up another verdict that they may 
 bring it in special. 
 
 Lee : I cannot tell how to do it. 
 
 A Juror : We ought not to be returned, having all agreed 
 and set our hands to the verdict. 
 
 Recorder : Your verdict is nothing. You play upon the 
 
 J The People's Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted, fol, i. 17. 
 
 2 See Chap. xii. ^ Truth Kescued from Imposture, fol. i. 495. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 93 
 
 court. I say you shall go and bring in another verdict or 
 you shall starve ; and I will have you carted about the city as 
 in Edward the Third's time. 
 
 Foreman (famishing with his thirty hours fast) : We have 
 given in our verdict, in which we are all agreed : if we give 
 in another, it will be by force, to save our lives. 
 
 Lord Mayor : Take them up to their room. 
 
 Officer : My lord, they will not go. 
 
 The bench commanded the Sheriff to use force to compel 
 them to retire. 
 
 Thus coerced they obeyed, and were again locked up for 
 the night ; without food, without fire, without water, — to en- 
 dure the agony of another night of raging fever brought on 
 by thirst and want of rest. They spent the night in consulta- 
 tion. Some wavered and wandered in their thoughts ; — what 
 marvel ! Some would give way ; any thing was better than 
 the torture of such a situation. But the men who fought for 
 freedom of conscience — for the rights of jurors — supported 
 from within by the strong sense of martyrdom, held on 
 without a murmur. They were prepared to die if need were, 
 but not to play traitors to their civil freedom and their own 
 convictions. 
 
 Next day the court sat again. It was Monday morning, 
 and the proceedings began soon after sun-rise. Yet the room 
 was crowded.^ The prisoners being placed at the bar, the 
 jury were sent for. The men appeared pale and haggard, 
 but still firm and resolute. All the forms of legal procedure 
 were gone through in succession ; while the excited spectators 
 tried to read in the faces of the jury the nature of their de- 
 cision : 
 
 Orier : Silence in the court, on pain of imprisonment !^ 
 
 Clerk: Gentlemen, are you agreed in your verdict? 
 
 Jury : Yes. 
 
 Clerk : Who shall speak for you ? 
 
 Jury: Our foreman. 
 
 Clerk : Look upon the prisoners. What say you, is William 
 Penn guilty of the matter whereof he stands indicted in 
 manner and form, or not guilty ? 
 
 Foreman : You have our verdict in writing. 
 
 1 Penn to his father, Sept. 5, 1670. Phil. Friend, vii. 69. 
 
 2 Ancient andJust Liberties Asserted, i. 17. 
 
94 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 Cleric : I will read it — 
 
 Recorder : No. It is no verdict. The court will not accept 
 it. 
 
 Foreman : If you will not accept of it, I desire to have it 
 back again. 
 
 Court : The paper was no verdict, and no advantage shall 
 be taken of you for it. 
 
 Clerk : How say you : is William Penn guilty or not guilty ? 
 
 Foreman: Not guilty. (Great movement and emotion 
 among the audience.)^ 
 
 Clerh : Then hearken to your verdict. (Reads) You say 
 William Penn is not guilty and you say William Mead is not 
 guilty. Say you so ? 
 
 Jury : We do.^ 
 
 The dissatisfied court would not be content with this 
 answer. Each man must speak for himself. The names 
 were called over one by one in the hope that some man more 
 timid than the rest would side with the prosecution. In vain : 
 each juror answered to the call, and distinctly and without 
 qualification pronounced — not guilty. 
 
 Recorder : I am sorry, gentlemen, you have followed your 
 own judgments and opinions rather than the good advice 
 which was given you. God keep my life out of your hands ? 
 But for this the court fines you forty marks a man, and im- 
 prisonment in Newgate till the fines be paid.^ 
 
 Penn: Being freed by the jury, I demand to be set at 
 liberty.'* 
 
 Lord Mayor : No. You are in for your fines. 
 
 Penn : Fines ! What fines ? 
 
 Lord Mayor : For contempt of court. 
 
 Penn : I ask if it be according to the fundamental laws of 
 England that any Englishman should be fined except by the 
 judgment of his peers ? Since it expressly contradicts the 14th 
 and 29th chapters of the Great Charter of England, which 
 says. No free man ought to be amerced except by the oath of 
 good and lawful men of the vicinage. 
 
 Recorder (with a severe and simple logic) : Take him away ; 
 put him out of the court. 
 
 ' Penn to his father, Sept. 5. ^^ 
 
 2 Ancient and Just Liberties asserted, i. 18. 
 
 3 Penn to his father, Sept. 5. Philadelphia Friend, vii. 59. 
 ^ Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted, i. 18. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 95 
 
 Penn : I can never urge the fundamental laws of England^ 
 but you cry out, " Take him away, take him away :" but this 
 is no wonder, since the Spanish Inquisition sits so near the 
 Recorder's heart. God, who is just, will judge you all for 
 these things.^ 
 
 Prisoner and jurors alike refused to pay the fines — the first 
 as a matter of conscience, the second, because, under the in- 
 fluence of Edward Bushel, they were induced to dispute the 
 power of the court to inflict a fine for such a contempt as the 
 one they stood charged with — and were all removed to New- 
 gate.^ Penn wrote to his father daily ; his letters breathe 
 the most afl'ectionate and devoted spirit. He much deplores 
 the admiral's illness, and his own compelled absence from his 
 bed-side ; but he feels that the cause of freedom is at stake, 
 that he is detained notoriously contrary to law, and he be- 
 seeches his family not to think of paying his fine in order to 
 his being set at liberty.^ — However anxious to be near his 
 father at such a time, he would do nothing unworthy in order 
 to gratify his filial love : he would trust in God and the just- 
 ness of his cause.'* 
 
 Up to this period the usage of the courts with regard to 
 verdicts had never been reduced to a legal and positive form : 
 from the days of the Tudors it had been the occasional prac- 
 tice of the bench to inflict fines on contumacious and incon- 
 venient juries ; for centuries it had remained an unsettled 
 question of law whether the jury had, or had not, a right so 
 far to exercise its own discretion as to bring in a verdict con- 
 trary to the sense of the court. This great power was now 
 to be decided. Bushel and his fellow-jurors, at Penn's sug- 
 gestion, brought an action against Sir Samuel Starling and 
 Sir John Howell, the Lord Mayor and the Recorder of Lon- 
 don, for unjust imprisonment.^ On the fifth of September 
 they were committed to Newgate ; counsel was engaged, and 
 application was immediately made to the court of Common 
 Pleas, but it was not until the ninth of November that a 
 writ of Habeas Corpus was issued to the Governor of the 
 gaol to bring up the person of Edward Bushel.^ Newdegate, 
 
 ' Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted, i. 18. 
 
 2 Freeman's Reports of Cases in Law and Equity, from 1670 to 1706, 
 folio, p. 2. 
 
 3 Penn to his father, Sept. 6, 1670. Philadelphia Friend, vii, 59. 
 
 4 Ibid. Sept. 7. ^ Ibid. Sept. 5. ^ Vaughan's Reports, fol. p. 135. 
 
96 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 Size, "Waller, and Broome appeared as counsel for the priso- 
 ners ; Leroy and Maynard for the king — that is, for Starling 
 and Howell, the king's justices. Freeman has preserved the 
 heads of this famous appeal.^ The defence was taken on the 
 ground that the jury had brought in a verdict contrary to the 
 laws of England, to manifest evidence, and to the direction of 
 the court. Newdegate urged against this defence, — that, so 
 far as the laws of England were concerned, the defence was 
 bad — inasmuch as the question of law cannot occur until the 
 facts are proved; here the facts w^ere not proved to the satis- 
 faction of the men who were called upon by the constitution 
 to investigate them ; consequently, the laws not being invoked, 
 they could not be violated. The second point of the defence 
 Broome met by showing that it is the special function of the 
 jury to judge of the value of the evidence submitted to it, 
 and that in the eye of the law that body is presumed to be a 
 more competent judge of v/hether evidence is good or bad 
 than the court. This argument also met the last point of the 
 defence ; the bench might be deceived in its opinion — the jury 
 being agreed amongst themselves, are presumed to be infalli- 
 ble. The bench, therefore, though at liberty to offer sugges- 
 tions to the jurymen for their consideration, may not lawfully 
 coerce them ; or, as Kewdegate expressed it, the judges may 
 try " to open the eyes of the jurors, but not to lead them by 
 the nose." 
 
 The court of Common Pleas adopted these views. Sir John 
 Vaughan summed up the argument on both sides, and gave 
 a learned exposition of the question as a piece of historical 
 law, ending with a verdict for Edward Bushel on behalf of 
 himself and his fellow-prisoners.^ They were consequently 
 ordered to be set at liberty in open court. Ten of the other 
 eleven judges agreed in the verdict given by Sir John Vaugh- 
 han — Chief Baron Turner, merely abstained from giving an 
 opinion on the point, as he had not been present in the court 
 to hear the arguments of counsel.^ The verdict may therefore 
 be considered as the unanimous expression of the tAvelve Judges. 
 The reason appended to the judgment is curious — " because 
 the jury may know that of their own knowledge which may 
 guide them to give their verdict contrary to the sense of the 
 
 ' Freeman's Reports, fol. p. 3. ^ Vauglian's Reports, fol. ]3. 158. 
 
 * Vaughan's Reports, fol, p. 142, marginal note. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 97 
 
 court. "^ An obvious interpretation of these words would be, 
 that the judges considered it possible the jurors might have 
 private information, not laid before the court, to assist them 
 in forming a correct judgment ; but this supposition is not 
 tenable for a moment.^ The other sense in which the " rea- 
 son" maj be understood, is that suggested by Broome — the 
 implied superiority of the juror as a judge of what is good in 
 evidence and what is not good.^ 
 
 Be this as it may, the result was clear. The course adopted 
 by the Lord Mayor and Recorder was condemned by the 
 highest legal tribunal in the land. Bushel and his fellows 
 left Newgate as conquerors.^ 
 
 The importance of this extraordinary trial can hardly be 
 over estimated, either as a piece of history shedding light on 
 the opinions held in high places in the age immediately suc- 
 ceeding a time in which, even by the confession of men other- 
 wise adverse to it, justice had been incorruptibly administered ; 
 or as a stand taken once for all upon the ancient liberties of 
 England against the encroachments of an apostate king and 
 a licentious court. It established a truth which William Penn 
 never ceased to inculcate — that unjust laws are powerless 
 weapons when used against an upright people. It proved 
 that in England at least the ruling power of the moment, 
 even when agreed in all its branches, is not omnipotent ; that 
 there still remained, and ever must remain, a grand check to 
 unjust government in the public conscience. What is the use 
 of a severe law, if the nation repudiates it — if juries refuse 
 to convict under it ? It becomes at once a dead letter, a 
 thing which nobody will own, a statute really at large. We 
 at the present day can more distinctly realize the service ren- 
 dered to posterity — to liberty, by the noble defence offered at 
 these trials, than could contemporaries. We have seen the 
 results of the stand then made — -l^esults which there is good 
 
 ^ Freeman's Eepoi'ts, folio, p. 5, 
 
 2 This interpi-etation of the terms woul dimply a confusion in the mind of 
 the bench of the old functions of a jury — formerly a body of witnesses — and 
 those of more modern date. 
 
 '^ Clarkson was ignorant of the appeal of Bushel to the Court of Common 
 Pleas. He was consequently unable to perceive the historical bearing of 
 the whole trial. "As to the poor jurymen," he writes, "I can nowhere 
 learn what became of them, or how long they were allowed to'languish in 
 their prison." Vol. i. p. 82. 
 
 "* The material points of this famous trial are collected by Howell. State 
 Trials, vi. 'J99. 
 
 9 
 
98 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 reason to bcllevo Pcnn for one foresaw. It may be said with- 
 out exaggeration that these trials gave a new meaning — in- 
 fused a new life, into the institution of the jury. The result 
 proved there was a power in the state superior to the parlia- 
 ment in its palace at Westminster and the King in his palace 
 at Whitehall combined — that sense of justice which informs 
 the brain and nerves the heart of the English people. Driven 
 from the court, the legislative assembly, and the bench of 
 justice, the spirit of Puritan Democracy found an impregnable 
 citadel in the jury-room. In the day of courtesan influence, 
 of unblushing venality and vice, the most odious laws might 
 obtain the sanction of a parliamentary majority : judges even 
 might be found to administer them : but, after all, it was now 
 discovered with alarm and indignation, that juries chosen 
 from the^body of the nation might refuse to convict under them, 
 and so in reality annul them at the very moment they were 
 brought into action. From that day the jury ceased to be a 
 mere institution — it became a living poAver in the state ; a 
 "power not inferior to either King or Commons. One of the 
 most sacred relics of the Saxon Democracy, it suddenly re- 
 acquired its ancient importance : an importance which it has 
 ever since maintained. 
 
 By bringing the two prisoners in not guilty, Edward Bushel 
 and his compeers pronounced sentence upon the Conventicle 
 Act itself — for, according to the letter of that law, Penn 
 confessed that he was guilty. The verdict in the Court of 
 Common Pleas legalized the right which they had assumed ; 
 had other juries throughout the kingdom at once followed 
 their example, some of the crudest pages of our history had 
 never been written — the spirit whicli induced persecution for 
 conscience' sake had never again raised its head in England. 
 Some few others, encouraged by the example, did so ; but 
 many did not — either alarmed by the threats of starvation, 
 or actuated by suggestions from the genius of sectarian intol- 
 erance. Still, the germ was planted ; the principle that the 
 jury could reject the unjust law by a refusal to convict had 
 been asserted in the jury-room — asserted in a case which 
 claimed the sympathies of every liberal mind — and the right 
 had been gravely admitted by the whole bench of judges. 
 
 William Pcnn and William Mead, though they refused as a 
 matter of conscience to pay the fines which had been imposed 
 upon them for contempt of court, did not long remain in New- 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 99 
 
 gate. A day or two after their removal thither, the turnkey 
 came to them with the intelligence that some unknown friend 
 had paid their fines — and they were at liberty to depart.^ The 
 acquitted prisoner soon afterwards published an account of the 
 trial, under the title — "The People's Ancient and Just Liber- 
 ties Asserted." In an appendix to this Avork he gave a brief 
 statement of the points which would have been urged against 
 the indictment, had the course of proceedings adopted by the 
 court not led to the higher constitutional issue : and in a second 
 appendix he rehearsed the more material points of the Great 
 Charter and of its confirmation by Edward I., with some other 
 matters closely connected in interest with the main subject. 
 Ever appealing to the old charters !^ 
 
 Here we again observe William Penn enlarging the con- 
 tracted sphere of his sect. The ordinary Quaker, in the sim- 
 plicity of his heart, would have defied the unjust law, and 
 suifered like a martyr — satisfied with an appeal to conscience. 
 Penn joined a larger amount of that worldly wisdom, which, 
 like the rest, he fancied he despised, to his more ardent zeal. 
 He knew his country, and his country's history. His legal 
 studies at Lincoln's Inn had not been thrown into a barren 
 soil. The circle of his mind was large, and he never sunk 
 the Englishman in the sectarian. He was anxious about civil 
 as well as religious liberty. Wisely therefore he took his stand 
 on the old charters, and made his appeal to the public in their 
 own cause. 
 
 Admiral Sir William Penn, though still young in years, 
 was now lying on his death-bed. His career had been one to 
 try the hardiest frame ; his youth had passed amidst the hard- 
 ships which serve to develope intellect at an early age, but 
 which also plant in the constitution the seeds of premature 
 decay. During the whole of this year (1670) ill health had 
 kept him confined to his country house in Essex; the excite- 
 ment caused by his son's arrest, imprisonment, and trial, had 
 made him materially worse ; and when William hastened home 
 to Wanstead from Newgate he was alarmed to find that, in 
 the opinion of his medical attendants, he had only a few days 
 to live.^ 
 
 It is interesting to stand by the bed-side of this able, worldly, 
 
 ' Two years before this Sir "William had openly advised the King to put an 
 end to the Conventicle Act. Pepys, May 3, 1GG8. 
 
 2 Collected Works, i. 19-35. ^ Granville Penn. Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 5G0. 
 
100 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 and aspiring man — dying at forty-nine — full of rewards and 
 honors, yet far below the higher reaches of his ambition. He 
 had hoped to die a peer ; to leave behind him a noble line. 
 He felt that he had deserved this great reward at the hands 
 of his sovereign. His sovereign had offered it ; but the son 
 to whom it must have descended in the course of nature firmly 
 rejected the proffered honor. ^ Two years before he had sent 
 forth his voice from a dungeon in the Tower to denounce all 
 such appendages as grace, lordship, highness, majesty. He 
 had not only refused to receive, but even to acknowledge 
 earthly titles.^ This had been a severe blow to the father ; 
 and while he remained in health and in ofiice near the King's 
 person, it is doubtful Avhether he ever entirely forgave him ; 
 but seclusion from the world and the wiser thoughts which a 
 contemplation of his latter end brought with it, seemed to 
 have at length reconciled him to the loss of worldly rank. 
 " Son William," said the veteran only a day or two before his 
 death, " I am weary of the world : I would not live my days 
 over again, if I could command them with a wish ; for the 
 snares of life are greater than the fears of death. "^ The ad- 
 miral had apparently ceased to think of his own great disap- 
 pointment ; but he retained his patriotic ardor to the last. 
 He bewailed the corruption of the age, the profligacy in high 
 places, the daily traffic in justice, the contempt into which the 
 court had fallen, the rottenness of the nation at home, the 
 decline of its influence abroad. He gave his children three 
 maxims as a legacy : " First — Let nothing in this world tempt 
 you to wrong your conscience ; so you will keep peace at home, 
 which will be a feast to you in the day of trouble. Secondly 
 — Whatever you design to do, lay it justly and time it season- 
 ably, for that gives security and dispatch. Lastly — Be not 
 troubled at disappointments ; for if they may be recovered, 
 do it ; if they cannot, trouble is vain : if you could not have 
 helped it, be content ; there is often peace and profit in sub- 
 mitting to Providence, for afflictions make wise : if you could 
 
 ^ This is distinctly stated in one of Penn's letters to an old Quaker friend, 
 ■who had censured him unjustly. "It is more than a worldly title or patent that 
 
 hath clothed me in this place [Pennsylvania] Nor am I sitting 
 
 down in a greatness Avhich I have denied. . . . Had I sought greatness, 
 I had stayed at home, where the difference betAveen what I am here, and was 
 offered, aiid could have been there in power and wealth, is as wide as the places 
 are." 
 
 2 No Cross, no Crown, i. 321, folio ed. » Ibid. i. 433, fol. ed. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 101 
 
 have helped it, let not your trouble exceed your instruction 
 for another time. These rules," said the admiral, ''will 
 carry you with firmness and comfort through this inconstant 
 world."^ 
 
 The dying man had now risen into that region which is above 
 the fear or favor of the world. His frame of mind was calm, 
 confiding, and religious. He talked a good deal with his son : 
 and in the end came not only to forgive but to applaud his 
 erratic course. " Son William," — these were almost the last 
 words he uttered, — '' if you and your friends keep to your 
 plain way of preaching, and also keep to your plain way of 
 living, you will make an end of priests to the end of the world." 
 For himself, however, he died, as he had lived, a member of 
 the Church of England. He simply added — "Bury me near 
 my mother : live all in love. Shun all manner of evil. . . . 
 I pray to God to bless you all ; and He will bless you."^ 
 
 He died on the 16th of September, eleven days after the 
 trial, and was buried in the parish church of Redclyffe, in the 
 town of Bristol, where his monument may still be seen. With a 
 life interest in his estate reserved to Lady Penn, — his daughter 
 Margaret married,^ — he left the whole of his property, plate, 
 household furniture, money owing to him by the government, 
 lands in England and in Ireland, his gold chain and medal, 
 and the sole executorship of his last will and testament to his 
 Quaker son."* Altogether, this property was of very consi- 
 derable amount. Besides the claims on the state for money 
 lent to it and for arrears of salary — not much under 15,000L 
 — the estates brought their owner, on the average, about 
 1,500Z. a year : a large fortune in those times.* 
 
 Fearing, not without good cause, from what had already 
 
 » No Cross, no Crown. Collected Works, i. 432, 3. 2 i^id. 
 
 ^ She married Antony Lowther of Maske, who served in Parliament for 
 Appleby, in the sessions of 1678-9. Their son, William, was made a baronet 
 in 1G97. He married the heiress of Holker, and his son married into the 
 Devonshire family. 
 
 ^ Granville Penn. Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 565-7. 
 
 5 Admiral Penn died tolerably well off ; but not so wealthy as his enemies 
 gave out in order to make him unpopular. A curious instance of this system 
 of indirect scandal is recorded by Pepys. "April 20, 1668. Meeting Sir 
 William Hooker, the alderman, he did cry out mighty high against Sir William 
 Penn, for getting such an estate, and giving 15,000^. with his daughter, which 
 is more by half than he ever did give ; but this the world believes, and so let 
 them." 
 
 9* 
 
102 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 happened, that, unless held up and supported by powerful 
 friends, his son's life would be a continual act of martyrdom, 
 Sir William had sent from his death-bed to both the King and 
 the Duke of York to solicit at their hands those kind offices 
 towards his son which they had been ever ready to extend to 
 himself. The royal brothers returned the most flattering 
 answers to this request; and James more especially under- 
 took the office of guardian and protector to the young man — 
 an office which he honorably and faithfully discharged.^ This 
 was the simple and natural origin of that connection between 
 the Quaker subject and the Catholic prince which afterwards 
 created so much scandal. As Penn many years after his 
 father's death told the delegates of Magdalen College, the 
 questions which had made him so intimate with the prince 
 were such as afi'ected his property, not his religion.^ 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1G70-1673. 
 GULI. SPRINGETT. 
 
 GuLiELMA Maria, daughter of Sir William Sprlngett, of 
 Darling, in Sussex, one of the leaders of the Parliamentary 
 forces during the first years of the civil war, was residing with 
 her mother at the rustic village of Chalfont, in Buckingham- 
 shire, when her future husband first saw her. She was the 
 delight of a small but distinguished circle, including no less a 
 person than John Milton, Thomas Elhvood, his friend and 
 pupil, and the famous Isaac Pennington.^ To Pennington, 
 Guli's father-in-law, Ellwood had owed his introduction to his 
 great Master, of whose urbane and gentle manners he has left 
 so touching an account ;"• and when the ravages of the plague 
 made it necessary for the noble bard to quit his house in 
 London for a time, he naturally went down to Chalfont with 
 
 1 Penn to Popple, Oct. 24, 1688. 2 wilmot's Life of Hough, 25. 
 
 3 Lady Springett's Autobiography, MS. Ellwood's Memoirs, 233. 
 
 4 Ellwood's Memoirs, 131. Milton lived at that time in Jewin street, in 
 London. The young Quaker always speaks of him as "my master." Me- 
 moirs, 202. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 103 
 
 his pupil, knowing that friends were to be found there who 
 shared his opinions and revered his genius.^ Rarely is a 
 small and unpretending village honored with such a company 
 as Chalfont boasted in those days of mourning. The Pen- 
 ningtons occupied the Grange, which they had rebuilt and 
 beautified ; Milton lived in a neat little cottage at a short dis- 
 tance ; and Ellwood had a house about midway between the 
 residences of his friends, at one or other of which he spent 
 nearly the whole of his time.^ Guli. Springett he had known 
 from childhood ; he had been one of her little playfellows in 
 the hop-gardens of Kent, in which county her property lay 
 and his family resided ; and as he had grown up to manhood 
 had become deeply sensible of the charms of the young beauty 
 with whom he lived on such perilous terms of familiarity. 
 How far he was in mortal love with her he dared not ask 
 himself, much less avow to her, lest he might break the spell 
 which had bound them together from their common child- 
 hood.^ To be near her, to hear her laugh, to watch her form 
 expand, her soft and lovely features day by day ripen like a 
 peach into more delicate perfection, — this made him happy ; 
 while from his confessions it is clear that in his secret soul he 
 always felt that she was above his reach, and never could be- 
 come his wife.'* It is not easy to decide which of the attrac- 
 tions of Chalfont — his master or his mistress — was the greater 
 for Ellwood. To Milton he was devotedly attached ; and 
 though his love for Miss Springett was true and earnest, it 
 was not so violent as to be beyond control. Guli, who Avas 
 sought after and flattered by men of all classes, peers and 
 commoners, courtiers and puritans,^ cannot but have been 
 aware of her power over her old playfellow ; she cannot fail 
 to have felt flattered by his silent and modest homage,^ so un- 
 like the warmer forms of courtship common in that polite and 
 
 1 Ellwood's Memoirs, 223. 2 Lady Springett's Autobiography. 
 
 3 Thomas Ellwood was much loved and trusted by the Penningtons. I 
 find frequent and affectionate mention of him in Lady Springett's Auto- 
 biography. 
 
 4 Ellwood's Memoirs, 210 The history of unsuccessful love has hardly 
 any thing more charming than some of the Quaker's confessions. It was 
 possibly the example of Guli, that moved his spirit to adopt the gospel of 
 George'^ Fox : his account of his first visit to the Penningtons after they had 
 turned Quakers, is quite amusing— when he finds his old playfellow suddenly 
 grown demure, and that although the dinner is good, there is no fun over it. 
 Memoirs, 15. 
 
 5 Penn Gaskell MSS. 
 
104 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 dissipated age ; but as he never gave offence by obtruding 
 his passion on her thoughts, so she mildly and graciously re- 
 ceived and reciprocated his attentions, and contracted for him 
 a friendship which lasted without a day of coldness on either 
 side until her death. ^ 
 
 Guli was fond of music. Music was Milton's second pas- 
 sion. In the cottage of the poet, in the Grange of the phi- 
 losopher, how one can fancy the hours flying past, between 
 psalms of love, high converse from the lips of the inspired 
 bard, old stories of the Revolution, in which the elder people 
 had each had a prominent share, and perhaps the recitation 
 of favorite passages from that stupendous work which was to 
 crown the blind and aged poet, and become one of the 
 grandest heir-looms of mankind ! It was to these favored 
 friends that Milton first made known that he had been en- 
 gaged in writing "Paradise Lost;" and it was also in their 
 society that Ellwood suggested to him the theme of his "Para- 
 dise Regained."^ Immortal Chalfont ! 
 
 When Penn went dovfn to Chalfont to see his friend Pen- 
 nington, he was at once struck with the charms of the fair 
 Guli. He saw, loved, and prospered in his love. All other 
 suitors were forgotten : and the heart of Miss Springett, with 
 the consent of her mother and her protector, passed out of 
 her own keeping forever. The personal appearance, the so- 
 cial position, the character of the suitor, were all more or 
 less in his favor ; but the circumstances of the time, and the 
 recollections of the past, were not without their influence on 
 his love. To understand these influences, it is requisite to 
 look back upon the romantic story of Guli's parents. 
 
 The father of Sir William Springett died in the third year 
 of his marriage, leaving a widow and three infant children — 
 one of them unborn — to inherit a good name and a moderate 
 fortune.^ His widow devoted herself to the education of her 
 children, and they grew up to be an honor to her and useful 
 to their native land. She was herself a character ; the gen- 
 
 1 Ellwood's Memoirs, 336. 
 
 2 Ibid. 234. In liis new poem Milton clothed the dogma of these friends 
 in the language of poetry ; — 
 
 He who receives 
 Light from above, the fountain of all light, 
 No other doctrine needs. Paradise Regained. 
 
 3 Lady Springett's IMS. Autobiography, to wliich I am indebted for most 
 of the following particulars. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 105 
 
 tleness of her manners and the Largeness of her heart made 
 her warmly beloved by all who had the happiness to know 
 her, while her charity was such that at her death the poor 
 lost one of the best friends they had ever known. " To her 
 son William," says Lady Springett, in the memoir already 
 quoted, ^'she was a most tender and affectionate mother, and 
 always showed great kindness towards me ; indeed she was 
 very honorable in counselling her son not to marry for an 
 estate, and put by great ofters of persons with thousands, 
 urging him to consider what would make him happy in a 
 choice." MaryProud,^ the future memoir writer — a daughter 
 of Sir John Proud, a colonel in the service of the Dutch Re- 
 public^ — was then living in the same house with the Sprin- 
 getts ; and being a young woman of great beauty and spirit, 
 of nearly the same age as William, and of his own station in 
 society, both mother and son not unnaturally cast their eyes 
 on their fair ward. Lady Springett^ writing more than forty 
 years after these events, in describing them to her grandson, 
 William Penn's eldest son, says, — " She proposed my mar- 
 riage to him, because we were bred together from children, I 
 being nine, he twelve years old when we first came to live 
 together. She would discourse with him in this wise : — that 
 she knew me, and we were known to one another ; she said 
 she should choose me for his wife before any one with a great 
 portion even if I had no portion, because of these things and 
 of our equality in outward conditions and years. She lived 
 to see thy mother (Guli) three or four years old, and was very 
 affectionate to her and took great delight in her wisdom." 
 William, her lover, was highly educated, having earned dis- 
 tinction at Cambridge, whither he was sent "as being ac- 
 counted more sober than Oxford," but tried in vain to bring 
 down his mind to legal studies, and after residing for a short 
 period in one of the inns of court, mixing with the gay world 
 of London, enjoying the sunshine of royal favor and receiv- 
 ing the honors of knighthood,^ he retired in Kent, married 
 Miss Proud, became a zealous Puritan, and set aside the old 
 forms of the Church, being the "first of quality in those 
 parts who had refused these things," and of course causing a 
 sensation in the country for many miles round.'' 
 
 ' Lady Springett's Autobiography. ^ Penn Gaskell's IMSS. 
 
 3 Pedigree in the College of Arms, copied in the Penn Gaskell MSS. 
 * Lady Springett's Autobiography. 
 
106 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 This was in 1642. Things coming to a crisis between King 
 and Parliament, Springett joined the Puritan party, and with- 
 out beat of drum, as his wife tells us, raised eight hundred 
 men to fight for the good cause. He was made colonel of the 
 regiment which he had raised, and commanded, at the battle 
 of Edgehill, one of the infantry corps which gained so much 
 renown on that day. Afterwards he was made Deputy Lieu- 
 tenant of Kent, in which employment he exhibited a wisdom 
 and courage quite astonishing in a boy of one-and-twenty. 
 He repressed disorders with a strong hand ; encouraged the 
 timid and rebuked the carnal minded ; raised the spirits of 
 his friends when doubts occurred to them, telling them " it 
 was the cause of God, and they must trust God in it, doing 
 what in them lay to act according to their covenant, and op- 
 pose with their lives Popery and Popish innovations." But 
 it was no easy thing to maintain peace at such a time among 
 the sturdy men of Kent. Hardly had his regiment of raw 
 recruits stationed themselves at Maidstone, when a rising of 
 several thousands took place in the Vale of Kent ; and to 
 add to the young commander's troubles, his scouts brought 
 him word that Prince Rupert, with a large body of cavalry, 
 was on his march to join the rebels. "Having placed his 
 men in such order as their youth and the time would permit," 
 says Lady Springett, "he came to me (Avho had then lain in 
 about a month) to take his leave, before they encountered the 
 enemy ; but when he came, he found me in danger of being 
 put out of the house in case the enemy proceeded so far. It 
 was a great surprise to him to find me in that danger, and it 
 put him upon great difficulties to provide for my security and 
 to return to his regiment at the time appointed; but he being 
 of a diligent mind and of a quick capacity, found out a course 
 that did effect it, which was this : — He fetched a stage-coach 
 from Rochester, and in the night carried me and my child, to 
 whom I gave suck, and my maid-servant to Gravesend, where 
 he hired a barge for me to go to London, and took a solemn 
 leave as not expecting to see us again, and so posted back to 
 his regiment." In the active service upon which he now en- 
 tered, the young colonel behaved with equal gallantry and 
 prudence. At the taking of Lord Craven's house in Surrey, 
 he led the forlorn hope at the head of a select body of liis 
 troop, all of them the sons of men of substance ; at Newbury 
 he was struck by a ball, but happily its force was spent and 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 107 
 
 it did him no injury ; he carefully prevented his soldiers from 
 doing acts of pillage or otherwise exasperating the peasantry. 
 The toil and hardship of his position he bore with the con- 
 tempt of one inured to war and its privations. He often had 
 to sleep in the open field ; in consequence of the want of salt, 
 no one dare to touch flesh meat, and, like the rest of his com- 
 panions, he had frequently to dine and fight on a biscuit and 
 a piece of candied lemon. ^ 
 
 His last service was at the siege of Arundel Castle, where 
 he gained new laurels but lost his life. On the fall of the 
 stronghold. Sir William and Colonel Morley were invested 
 with the command ; but while preparing to assume the new 
 duties of his office he was suddenly struck with the sun-fever, 
 from long exposure, though it was then the depth of winter ; 
 and so convinced was he from the first that the attack would 
 prove fatal, that he wrote off to his wife, then near her con- 
 finement of Guli, to come down to him, if it were possible, at 
 all risks. This was not an easy matter to the agitated wife. 
 Snow was lying thick on the ground ; and a keen frost had 
 hardened it along the roads, so as almost to render them 
 impassible. The artificial dams had likewise been removed 
 at Newington and other places near the capital, and the roads 
 in many parts were so far under water, that people passed 
 along in boats instead of wagons, the horses had to be led 
 with strings instead of w^ith the bridle, and coaches to be 
 floated along the high-ways, at considerable risk to horses 
 and men. Besides these impediments, the country was in- 
 fested with armed bands, ready to plunder any defenceless 
 equipage. These perils so alarmed the owners of coaches in 
 London, that the spirited lady was some time before she could 
 hire any conveyance ; at length a widow woman who had re- 
 ceived many benefits from Sir William, moved by the distress 
 of his wife, let her have her coach and servants, even though 
 they might be lost by the adventure. 
 
 The interview with the dying soldier can only be related in 
 the words of his young wife, written long afterwards for the 
 perusal of his grandson, Springett Penn : " It was about 
 twelve at night when we arrived, and as soon as I had put 
 my foot in the Hall, there being a pair of stairs leading from 
 
 1 The whole of these details are derived from Lady Springett's Autobio- 
 graphy, MS. 
 
108 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 it into his chamber, I heard him cry out — Why ivill you lie 
 to me f If she he eome, let me hear her voice I which struck 
 me so I had hardly power to get up stairs ; but being borne ' 
 up by two of those present, he seeing me, the fever having 
 took his head, in a manner sprung up, as if he would come 
 out of his bed, saying — Let me embrace thee before I die. I 
 
 found most of his officers about his bed The purple 
 
 spots having come out the day before, were now struck in, 
 and as the fever had begun to touch his brain, they caused 
 him to keep his bed, which he had not been persuaded to do 
 until then. When they saw his dangerous condition (so many 
 Kentish men, both commanders and others, having died of it 
 near his quarters in a few weeks), they constrained him to 
 keep his chamber ; but such was the activeness of his spirit 
 and the stoutness of his heart, he could not yield to this ill 
 that had come upon him, but covenanted with them that he 
 would shoot birds with his cross-bow out of the window. . . . 
 After the spots went in the fever became so violent they were 
 forced to sit round the bed to keep him in ; but he spake no 
 evil, or raving words at all, but seriously about his dying, and 
 said to the doctor — What you do, do quickly , for if this doth 
 not do, 7iothiny ivill help me. He spake most affectionately 
 to me, and very wittingly to his officers about keeping their 
 prisoners, making up the breach, and keeping the watch. . . . 
 His breath was so scorching as to chap his lips ; but he find- 
 ing that my mouth was cool, would hardly permit me to take 
 it ojff to breathe, but would cry out — Oh! do7it leave me ! 
 which the doctor and my own maid and the attendants were 
 very much troubled at, looking upon the infection to be so 
 high that it endangered myself and child by taking his breath 
 into me. I being also near my time, found it a very uneasy 
 posture to be in for two hours at times, if not more, bending 
 over him to cool his lips. The physic which was ordered 
 being applied to him, he observed the manner of its operation 
 to be a signification of death, and called out to the doctor — 
 This will not do ; I am a dead man ! From the like sign, the 
 doctor had concluded upon the same, but he said nothing. He 
 called on me again and again to lay my lips to his, which I 
 did for a considerable time, and then he would lie very quiet 
 while I was able to bear this posture, and in this stillness he 
 fell asleep, which they that were by observing, constrained 
 me to go to bed, considering my condition, and leave my maid- 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 109 
 
 servant with him, who might bring me an account if it were 
 needed : I was prevailed with and went to bed. When he 
 awoke he seemed much refreshed, and took great notice of 
 the maid : You are my ivifes maid, he said ; where is my 
 wife f How does my hoy? She came up and gave me this 
 account, upon which I would have risen and come down to 
 him, but she persuaded me not, saying he would go to sleep 
 again and I should but hinder it. So I sent a message down 
 to him by her, and went to rest again, not thinking but that 
 there was a probability, from the description she made, of his 
 recovery : — so I lay late. In the morning when I came down, 
 I saw a great change upon him, and sadness upon all faces 
 about him, which thing stunned me : I having let in hope as 
 before. He spake affectionately to me. ... At last he called 
 me to him, saying — Come, my dear ! let me kiss thee before 1 
 die, which he did with that heartiness which expresses tender 
 regard. Oome, once more let me kiss thee, and take my leave 
 of thee, said he again, which he did in the same manner as 
 before ; and then added — Now, no more I no more I never, no 
 more ! which done, he fell into a very great agony. He hav- 
 ing had but about seven day's illness of this violent contagious 
 fever — which had not so much impaired his strength as in- 
 flamed his blood and heightened his spirits — and being a 
 young man, in his agony he snapt his arms and legs with that 
 force, that the veins seemed to sound like snapping of strings 
 on a musical instrument. Oh ! this was a dreadful sight to 
 me. My very heart-strings seemed to break. The doctor 
 and my husband's chaplain, and some of the chief officers 
 that were by, seeing that the bed was likely to fall to pieces 
 under him, and noticing that this befell him from taking leave 
 of me, considered together what to do, and concluded they 
 must either persuade me to leave the bed-side or remove me 
 by force ; upon which they came and desired me to go to the 
 fire, as while I stood there he could not die — which word was 
 so great that, like an amazed creature, I stamped with my 
 foot and cried — Die ! die ! must he die ? I cannot go from 
 him ! At which two of them gently lifted me in their arms 
 and carried me to the fire-place, which was a pretty distance 
 from the bed, and there they held me from coming to him 
 again. This time I did not weep, but stood silent and struck. 
 Soon after I was brought from the bed, he became very still; 
 and when they thought his sight was gone they let me go. 
 
 10 
 
110 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 Standing at his side, I saw the most amiable, pleasant coun- 
 tenance that ever I beheld, smiling like a young child when 
 (as the saying is) they see angels. . . . He lay about an hour 
 in this state ; and towards sunset turned quickly about and 
 called upon a kinsman of his — Anton?/ ! come, quick I At 
 which very instant we heard him riding into the court-yard, 
 being come many miles to see him. Soon after this he died. 
 . . . When he was dead, I could weep. As soon as the breath 
 was gone out of his body, they took me up into a chamber, 
 and would allow me to see him no more." ^ 
 
 A few weeks after this melancholy event, Guli was born. 
 Her father's zeal in the good cause had induced him to spend 
 his money in its behalf as freely as his blood. He had served 
 without pay, and had kept a mess-table for his oflficers at his 
 private expense : so that when he died at three and twenty, 
 his affairs were not a little out of order, and all the energy 
 and prudence of Lady Springett were required to prevent 
 them from falling into irretrievable ruin. This, however, was 
 done ; but other cares soon assailed the young widow. Her 
 husband had fought and died for his religious opinions, and 
 even before then he had inspired her with all his own re- 
 ligious fervor, which she, with her woman's nature, and in her 
 lonely condition, soon allowed to overmaster all her other 
 sentiments and thoughts. The details which she has left of 
 the agony of heart, suffered during the first few years of her 
 widowhood, are full of that solemn striving after a better life 
 which may be accounted wisdom or madness, according to the 
 point of view from which it is regarded. The distaste which 
 she began to feel for the pleasures natural to her age, her 
 contempt for dancing, frivolous music-meetings, gay parties 
 in town or country, grew stronger every year ; a widow at 
 twenty, she had prematurely drained the cup of life, and had 
 got to the lees ere the majority of her sex h^ve begun to taste 
 its flavor. Her sufferings during these years appears to have 
 been real and poignant. At length she met with one, like 
 herself, far out at sea, a wreck in hope, havenless and discon- 
 solate. This was the famous Isaac Pennington. In the 
 manuscript history of her life she herself relates the story : — 
 " My love was drawn to him because I found he saw the de- 
 ceits of all notions, and lay as one that refused to be com- 
 
 Lady Spriugett's Autobiography, MS. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. Ill 
 
 forted ; so that he was sick and weary of all that appeared, 
 and in this my heart clove to him, and a desire was in me to 
 be serviceable to him in his desolate condition, for he was 
 alone and miserable in the world — and I gave up much to be 
 a companion to him in this his suiFering." Some time after 
 their marriage they found the comfort they were seeking in 
 the system preached by George Fox, and of which William 
 Penn had now become a distinguished champion.^ 
 
 No wonder then that the graceful and intrepid youth should 
 be a welcome visitor at Chalfont ; no wonder that the fair 
 Guli, herself become a Quaker, should smile graciously on her 
 new suitor. " For having now arrived at a marriageable 
 age" — says Thomas Ellwood, in his confessions, "and being 
 in all respects a very desirable woman, — whether regard was 
 had to her outward person, which wanted nothing to render 
 her completely comely, or to the endowments of her mind, 
 which were very extraordinary and highly obliging, or to her 
 outward fortune, which was fair, — she was openly and se- 
 cretly sought and solicited by many, and some of them of 
 almost every rank and condition, good and bad, rich and 
 poor, friend and foe, to whom, in their respective turns, (till 
 he at length came for whom she was reserved,) she carried 
 herself with so much evenness of temper, such courteous free- 
 dom, and carried with the strictest modesty, that as it gave 
 encouragement to none, so neither did it administer any 
 matter of offence, or any just cause of complaint to any."^ 
 This is magnanimous in a rejected suitor ; but Ellwood had 
 the consolation, that until Guli was actually married, he en- 
 joyed more of her society than her future husband, for Penn 
 had work to do in the world, and he was not the man to 
 dangle about a woman's skirts.^ Other circumstances favored 
 his platonic love : — Isaac Pennington was confined for opinion's 
 sake in Reading, gaol.'* Like other members of his sect, he 
 passed a considerable part of his time in prison.^ 
 
 ^ The whole of this story of her second love is told with great simplicity 
 and beauty by the fair autobiographer. 2 Ellwood's Memoirs, 210. 
 
 ^ The account of Ellwood's journey from Chalfont into Kent, in charge of 
 his ladye love, whom he was escorting to her uncle Herbert's — the encounter 
 with the dissolute soldiers by the way, and the struggle betAveen his scruples 
 as a Quaker, and his instincts as a man, when Guli was threatened with 
 insult, is one of the most interesting passages in his confessions. See page 
 251 et seq. 
 
 4 Pennington's Letters, (12mo, 1828,) Sept. 7, 1G70. 
 
 5 Ibid. pp. 13, 21, 28, 68, 227, 358, 871. 
 
112 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 After the Interment of his father, in "which he was long 
 busied, William Penn occupied himself for a time in prepar- 
 ing the elaborate account of his trial, to which we are in- 
 debted for many of the particulars already given, and in the 
 regular offices of the ministry which he had assumed. In the 
 latter capacity he travelled from city to city, from county to 
 county, preaching the doctrines of George Fox, under the 
 more elevated aspect in which his own learning enabled him 
 to present them, disputing publicly and privately with all who 
 refused to accept the gospel which he came to offer ; and if 
 the county of Buckingham seems to have been more favored 
 by his presence and his labors at this period than other places 
 farther north or south, the reader will admit that the young 
 preacher had fair reasons for his frequent visits to the neigh- 
 borhood.^ A dispute with Jeremy Ives, at West Wycomb, at 
 which his friend Ellwood was present, made rather a sensa- 
 tion. A Baptist preacher, as was common in those times, 
 denounced the Quakers in general, and William Penn in par- 
 ticular, from his pulpit, whereupon a challenge was sent to 
 publicly discuss their several doctrines. Ives, who could not 
 refuse the challenge, feared, at the last moment, to confront 
 his adversary, and sent his brother Jeremy instead. The 
 controversy was not very decorously conducted. Ives, as the 
 attacking party, spoke first, and as soon as he had done, he 
 descended from the platform and quitted the room, hoping 
 that the audience would follow his example ; but they did not, 
 all being anxious to hear Penn's defence. Ellwood, who ex- 
 presses his dislike to all such displays, rarely having seen any 
 good come out of them, says Penn gained a great advantage, 
 — and at the close of the debate sent off to his anxious friends 
 at the Grange, a dispatch in the following words : 
 
 Pi-fevaluit Yeritas; inimica terga dedere; 
 Nos sumus in tuto ; laus tribuerida Deo. 
 
 which, for the benefit of Guli, he translated into the worthy 
 doggrel : 
 
 Truth hath prevailed ; the enemy did fly ; 
 We are in safety ; praise to God on high.^ 
 
 While residing at this time in Bucks, the tenets of the Ro- 
 man Church occupied much of Penn's attention ; and now it 
 
 » Besse, 36. 2Ellwood's Memoirs, 272. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 113 
 
 was, in his twenty-sixth year, and many years previous to the 
 accession of James, that he first published his thoughts on 
 the Catholic question. In this '' Caveat against Popery" he 
 attempts to refute what is peculiar in the doctrines of that 
 Church ; but he makes a large distinction between Catholics 
 and Catholicism, a distinction rarely made either in the laws 
 or in the public sentiment of that age, and too seldom made 
 even in our own. While he denounc d the creed as contrary 
 to reason and Scripture, to conscience and human liberty, he 
 pleaded powerfully for toleration to the man. Toleration to 
 doctrines which he was forced in his conscience to condemn ! 
 Here was a new and startling theory. Few were then prepared 
 to understand it ; fewer still to admit and act upon it ; but it 
 was a true theory nevertheless ; slowly but certainly it made 
 its way ; and more than a century and a half after it was pro- 
 mulgated by William Penn, it has been in our own time solemnly 
 ratified in the legislature.^ 
 
 These writings, in which the young controversialist expressed 
 his opinions in the strongest language he could find, sparing 
 neither doctrine nor person where they appeared to him to be 
 false and weak, brought him a host of enemies. His exposure 
 of the infamous conduct of the city magistrates on the late 
 trial, and the condemnation of their mode of dealing out justice 
 pronounced in the Court of Common Pleas, was rankling 
 deeply in their hearts. The admiral being dead, and the 
 court influence which had formerly been wielded in his behalf 
 being supposed at an end in consequence of that event, these 
 magistrates now determined to make him feel the efi'ects of 
 their anger. Their plot was pretty certain to succeed ; as it 
 was then a punishable offence to refuse the oath of allegiance 
 when ofi'ered by a magistrate, and as the Quaker could not 
 take an oath of any kind, it was only necessary to seize his 
 person and make the offer in order legally to commit. But 
 then to mask the evil animus, the arrest must be on other 
 grounds ; so they chose to consider the Quakers' meeting in 
 Wheeler Street, which he was known to attend, as an illegal 
 meeting ; though they were determined this time not to trust 
 to a jury for a verdict on the point. The baseness of their 
 intention was equalled by the baseness with which they sought 
 
 I Penn's Works, folio edition, i. 4G7. 
 10* 
 
114 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 to realize it. They set spies upon his actions, who reported 
 to them his comings and goings, his sayings and doings. They 
 not only contrived to learn which were his daily haunts ; but 
 often in the morning they were aware how he intended to 
 bestow his time during the day. Agents from the city were 
 consequently always about his heels; and as he feared no 
 evil, and had nothing to conceal, the plot soon took effect. 
 Shortly after his return from Bucks, he went to Wheeler Street 
 as usual, to perform divine service after the manner of his 
 sect, when a sergeant and piquet of soldiers entered the room, 
 and as soon as he got up to address the people, pulled him 
 down and dragged him into the street, where a constable and 
 his assistants being in readiness, they conducted him like a 
 state criminal to the Tower, placed him in a dungeon, left a 
 military guard at the door, and then despatched a message to 
 call the worthy conspirators together. After a lapse of three 
 or four hours Penn was called before them.* 
 
 Sir John Kobinson, Lieutenant of the Tower, a fellow who 
 had fawned upon the late admiral in his days of power, was 
 in the chair ; Sir Thomas Starling, Sir John Sheldon, and a 
 few others were present ; but the public were rigorously ex- 
 cluded from the examination. Part of the dialogue that 
 ensued is preserved : 
 
 Sir John Robinson : What is this person's name ? 
 
 Constable : Mr. Penn, sir. 
 
 Robinson : Is your name Penn ? 
 
 Penn : Dost thou not know me ? 
 
 Robinson : I don't know you. I don't desire to know such 
 as you. 
 
 Penn : If not, why didst thou send for me hither ? 
 
 Robinson : Is that your name, sir ? 
 
 Penn : Yes, yes, my name is Penn. I am not ashamed of 
 my name. 
 
 Robinson : Constable, where did you find him ? 
 
 Constable : At Wheeler Street, at a meeting ; speaking to 
 the people. 
 
 Robinson: You mean, he was speaking at an unlawful 
 assembly. 
 
 Constable : I don't know indeed, sir : he was there, and he 
 was speaking. 
 
 » Besse, 36, 37. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 115 
 
 Robinson : Give them their oaths. 
 
 Penn : Hold, don't swear the men ; there is no need of it. 
 I freelj acknowledge I was in Wheeler Street, and that I spoke 
 to an assembly of people there. 
 
 Robinson : He confesses it. 
 
 Penn : 1 do so. I am not ashamed of my testimony. 
 
 Robinson : No matter. Give them their oaths. . . . Mr. 
 Penn, you know the law better than I do, and you know these 
 things are contrary to law. 
 
 Penn : If thou believest me to know the law better than 
 thyself, hear me, for I know no law I have transgressed. . . 
 Now I am probably to be tried by the late Act against Con- 
 venticles ; I conceive it doth not reach me. 
 
 Robinson : No, sir. I shall not proceed upon that law. 
 
 He then named the Oxford Act ; but in a moment Penn 
 showed him that the law so called could not apply to him. The 
 conspirators thus driven to their kennell, brought out the oath 
 of allegiance, and Sir John cried out abruptly and angrily, 
 " Wilt thou take the oath?" " This is not to the purpose," 
 replied Penn, who was in the midst of an ingenious protest 
 against their endeavor to apply to his case fragments of dif- 
 ferent and dissimilar laws. "Read him the oath," shouted 
 the lieutenant. Of course, Penn refused to subscribe it ; alleg- 
 ing as his reason, that his conscience forbade him to take up 
 arms at all, much more against his sovereign. 
 
 Robinson : I am sorry you put me upon this severity. It 
 is no pleasant work to me. 
 
 Penn : These are but words. It is manifest that this is a 
 prepense malice. Thou hast several times laid the meetings 
 for me, and this day particularly. 
 
 Robinson : No. I profess I could not tell you would be 
 there. 
 
 Pe7in : Thine own corporal told me that you had intelli- 
 gence at the Tower, that I should be at Wheeler Street to-day, 
 almost as soon as I knew it myself. This is disingenuous and 
 partial. I never gave thee occasion for such unkindness. 
 
 Robinson : I knew no such thing ; but if I had, I confess 
 I should have sent for thee. 
 
 Penn: That confession might have been spared. I do 
 heartily believe it. 
 
 Robinson : I vow, Mr. Penn, I am sorry for you. You are 
 
116 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 an ingenious gentleman, all the world must allow that ; and 
 you have a plentiful estate. Why should you render yourself 
 unhappy by associating with such simple people ? 
 
 Pcnn : I confess I have made it my choice to relinquish 
 the company of those that are ingeniously wicked, to converse 
 with those who are more honestly simple. 
 
 Robinson : I wish thee wiser. 
 
 Penn : I wish thee better. 
 
 Robinson : You have been as bad as other folks. 
 
 Penn : When and where ? I charge thee tell the company 
 to my face. 
 
 Robinson : Abroad — and at home, too. 
 
 Sir John Sheldon : No, no, Sir John. That's too much. 
 
 Penn : I make this bold challenge to all men, justly to 
 accuse me with ever having heard me swear, utter a curse, or 
 speak one obscene word — much less that I make it my prac- 
 tice . . . Thy words shall be my burden, and I trample thy 
 slander under my feet. 
 
 Robinson : Well, Mr. Penn, I have no ill-will towards you. 
 Your father was my friend, and I have a great deal of kindness 
 for you. 
 
 Penn : Thou hast an ill way of expressing it 
 
 Robinson: Well, I must send you to Newgate for six 
 months, and when they are expired you will come out. 
 
 Penn : Is that all ? Thou well knowest a longer imprison- 
 ment has not daunted me. Alas, you mistake your interest ; 
 this is not the way to compass your ends. 
 
 Robinson : You bring yourself into trouble. You will be 
 heading of parties, and drawing people after you. 
 
 Penn : Thou mistakest. There is no such way as this to 
 render men remarkable. 
 
 Robinson : I wish your adhering to these things do not 
 convert you to something at last. 
 
 Penn : I would have thee and all men know that I scorn 
 that religion which is not worth suffering for, and able to 
 sustain those that are afflicted for its sake. . . . Thy religion 
 persecutes, mine forgives. I desire God to forgive you all 
 that are concerned in my commitment, and I leave you all in 
 perfect charity. 
 
 Robinson : Send a corporal with a file of musqueteers with 
 him. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 117 
 
 Penn : No, no ; send thy lacquey. I know the way to New- 
 gate.* 
 
 The matter did not end here. In his orthodox zeal the 
 lieutenant of the Tower threatened to pull down the meeting- 
 house in Wheeler Street, as he had already done one or two 
 others in the neighborhood of London.^ The property be- 
 longed to Gilbert Latye, a wealthy citizen, and a member of 
 the new society ; but as soon as he heard of this design, he 
 sub-let it to a man of straw, and set Sir John at defiance.^ 
 
 During the whole of this long period of six months, Penn 
 was busily employed in writing, and as the results of this 
 labor, not less than four important treatises came from his 
 hand : 1. The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience. 2 Truth 
 Rescued from Imposture. 3. A Postscript to Truth Exalted. 
 4. An Apology for the Quakers. Three of these works are 
 of considerable length ; and one of them, " The Great Case 
 of Liberty of Conscience once more briefly debated and de- 
 fended," is not only in itself a noble piece of composition, but 
 from the nature of its subject, one which ought to be familiar 
 to every Englishman. Besides these larger works, the prisoner 
 wrote numerous letters on public and private business. The 
 young lady of Chalfont, from whom he had so lately parted, 
 would naturally occupy not a few of his thoughts ; but the 
 cause in which they were jointly embarked had the first claims 
 on his services. Besides long letters written to a Catholic, 
 who had taken offence at his " Caveat against Popery," and 
 to the sheriffs of London, on the state of Newgate, and the 
 abuses practised by the gaolers on such as either could not, or 
 from scruples of conscience would not, buy their favors ; he 
 wrote a dignified and temperate letter to the High Court of 
 Parliament, then known to be contemplating a more rigorous 
 enforcement of the act against conventicles, explaining the 
 principles of his body, as far as civil and political affairs are 
 concerned, so as to prove that the freedom they claimed was 
 in no way dangerous to the State.^ But the House of Com- 
 mons was in a sullen mood. Charles had recently issued a 
 declaration of indulgence to tender consciences, in consequence 
 of which a great number of religious sectaries, including not 
 less than five hundred Quakers, had been set at liberty f and 
 
 » Besse, 40. 2 Life of Latye, 71. ^ Ibid. 76. 
 
 * Besse, 43. All these writings will be found in the folio edition of his 
 works. ^ Ibid. 44. 
 
118 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 althougli it was probably not even suspected at that time that 
 the King had secretly declared himself a Papist, and had 
 undertaken for a large sum of money to openly announce 
 the fact, and give encouragement to the public performance 
 of the Catholic ritual,^ the jealousy of the Commons was 
 aroused on the legal right of the King to send out such an 
 edict, without first asking and obtaining the consent of Parlia- 
 ment.^ Other causes strengthened the ill-feeling of the House 
 towards the Court. In one of the money debates, a member 
 proposed to tax the theatres ; this was resisted by the courtiers, 
 on the ground that the theatres contributed to his Majesty's 
 pleasures; on which Coventry asked whether his Majesty's 
 pleasures lay among the men or the women players. The 
 sarcasm was bitterly resented at Whitehall. Hired ruffians 
 were set upon Coventry in the street, at night, who disfigured 
 his face, and otherwise ill-treated him.^ The House took the 
 matter up warmly; Charles abandoned his agents, and the 
 bill, to spite him by fresh persecutions for opinion's sake, passed 
 the House on the first and second readings, and was only pre- 
 vented from becoming law by a dispute about privilege. Penn's 
 arguments had no efi'ect in this quarter.^ 
 
 When his term of imprisonment was up, he went abroad for 
 a time : at first into Holland, and afterwards into Germany, 
 in both of which countries he carried on the work of the min- 
 istry, and made some converts to his opinions.^ Embden was 
 one of the cities where he seems to have made a great impres- 
 sion. The first meeting was held in the house of Dr. Haesbert, 
 who was deeply struck with the new doctrines proposed by the 
 English missionary, and after giving the matter three months 
 consideration, he openly embraced them, and was the first 
 Quaker in that part of the continent. About twelve months 
 later his wife joined the new sect, and a goodly meeting was 
 in course of time formed in Embden which looked to William 
 Penn with the feelings of a converted country to the apostle 
 
 * See the account in Dalrymple, ii, 62 et seq. 
 
 2 Com. Jour., February and March. 
 
 3 Andrew Marvell, i. 413. The Duke of Monmouth was at the bottom of 
 this affair. A few nights later, Monmouth, Albemarle, and a number of other 
 roysterers set u^jon the watch, and murdered the beadle. To save his son. 
 the King pardoned all tlie murderers. Marvell describes the indignation of 
 the people — the crime and the pardon appearing to them almost equally 
 atrocious. 
 
 "^ Journals of the House of Commons, February 21 to March 11. 
 ^ Besse, 43. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 119 
 
 of its conversion.^ In the days of persecution which soon 
 came upon them — when the members of the new sect were 
 flogged in public, cast into loathsome dungeons, fed on bread 
 and water, mulcted in heavy fines, and even banished from 
 their native land — his voice was ever raised in their defence 
 and his influence used for their protection.^ The most curious 
 passage of this continental journey was, however, a visit which 
 he paid to the settlement of the sect of De Labadie, at Her- 
 werden in the Rhineland.^ 
 
 De Labadie had been a Jesuit, but not finding peace of mind 
 in the formalities of the faith in which he had been trained, he 
 deserted his order and joined one of the French Protestant 
 churches. These, however, proved as inefiicacious as the other ; 
 and in their turn he seceded from them ; even the iron Cal- 
 vinism of Geneva did not satisfy his ardent mind, so he with- 
 drew from all communion with the dead and formal churches 
 of this world. Having found two disciples. Pastor Ivon and 
 Du Lignon, he removed into the Dutch republic, where alone 
 at that time toleration for religious opinions could be found ; 
 and began to declaim so loudly against the corruptions and 
 apostacies of the priests and people there, that the clergy stirred 
 up the civil magistrates against him ; but the ex-Jesuit had 
 already placed himself under the protection of several great 
 and powerful ladies, particularly of the Princess Elizabeth of 
 the Rhine, who sheltered him in the hour of need. At Her- 
 werden, the court of the princess, he founded a sort of lay 
 convent ; and it was here that Penn, who was warmly received 
 by her highness as an Englishman of distinction, paid him the 
 first visit. He talked with the new apostle, but whether from 
 a fear of introducing a fresh doctor to his followers, or for some 
 other reason, De Labadie absolutely refused to allow Penn to 
 converse with or even to see any of his flock. A few years 
 later, he was more fortunate in this respect ; but the impres- 
 sion left upon his mind by De Labadie's conversation was not 
 favorable to that individual : " I saw the airiness and unsta- 
 bleness of the man's spirit, and that a sect-master was his 
 
 ' Travels into Germany and Holland, i. 96. 
 
 2 Penn's letter to the Senate of Embden. "Works, i. 609. 
 
 ^ Travels into Germany and Holland, i. 59. Penn wrote this account of 
 his journey for the use of his family only ; but copies of it having got into the 
 hands of several pious persons, it was found several years after it was written 
 among the Countess of Conway's papers, and was then published. 
 
120 ' WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 name." The pious princess having seen some reason to he 
 dissatisfied with her charge, De Labadie removed, with his 
 two disciples, to the mansion-house of the Somerdykes, near 
 Wiewart in the north of Holland. The Somerdykes were a 
 noble Dutch family chiefly residing at the Hague ; but three 
 of the daughters, being struck with the preaching of De La- 
 badie, resolved to withdraw themselves from the world, and 
 with their new pastors, the famous Anna Maria Schurmans 
 and several other persons, retired to the old country house at 
 Wiewart, where they were said to live in a style of great sober- 
 ness and simplicity, worshipping God without regard to forms 
 and doing such good as lay in their power in a quiet, unosten- 
 tatious manner. Subsequently Penn saw and conversed with 
 the several members of this little community, and was much 
 edified by their discourses. He repaid their confidence by 
 telling them the story of his own religious experiences, and 
 after much converse parted from them in a sober and serious 
 frame of mind.^ There were at this time many other religious 
 communities in Holland in which Penn took a deep interest — 
 various sections of the great Puritan party of England, who 
 had crossed over into that country at the return of the Stuarts, 
 with the intention of ultimately migrating to the new world. 
 To all these exiled sects, America was the land of promise, the 
 subject of their daily talk and nightly dreams. Many ship- 
 loads of emigrants had already gone out ; at religious meetings 
 and in the domestic circle the glowing accounts sent by the 
 adventurers of the perils of the sea-voyage, of the beauty and 
 fertility of the new country, were read and re-read ; and hardly 
 a year passed by that did not witness the departure of a fresh 
 band of these devout and sturdy founders of the great republic. 
 The stories told by those who for a time were left behind of 
 the trials from which they and their fellows had fled, of their 
 unconquerable desire to found a free state in the depths of the 
 wilderness, where every man should be able to worship God 
 according to the dictates of conscience, of the dangers which 
 their predecessors in the good work had encountered and over- 
 come, of their own anxiety to follow them to their new home 
 — all this was profoundly interesting to Penn, and served to 
 revive the romantic dreams in which he had found comfort 
 while at Oxford. Though his thoughts on this subject assumed 
 
 ' Travels into Germany and Holland, i. 93. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. - 121 
 
 as yet no distinct and practical shape, they became more and 
 more fixed during this sad and melancholy tour on the land to 
 which he saw the best men of his age endeavoring so earnestly 
 to export themselves.-^ The original germ of Pennsylvania 
 was evidently quickening into life. 
 
 After so long a separation, Penn was not unreasonably 
 anxious to be near Guli Springett once again. Calling to see 
 his mother at Wanstead on his way to London, he made a 
 short stay in the capital, visiting old friends, and reporting 
 the results of his journey, and then posted down to Bucks, 
 where he was received by the people of the Grange with open 
 arms, by Miss Springett as her affianced husband, and by 
 Ellwood and the Penningtons as the champion of their faith. 
 In their society he seems to have now passed a considerable 
 time, dallying with the blissful days of courtship, and slowly 
 making preparations for his marriage. He took a house in 
 the first instance at Rickmansworth, about six miles from 
 Chalfont, which being made ready for Guli's reception, the 
 marriage rites were performed in the early spring of 1672, 
 six or seven months after his liberation from Newgate, and 
 husband and wife at once took up their residence in their new 
 dwelling.^ 
 
 Their honeymoon lasted long. The spring and summer 
 came and went, but Penn still remained with his young and 
 lovely wife at Rickmansworth ; neither the flatteries of friends 
 nor the attacks of foes could draw him away from his charm- 
 ing seclusion. During these summer months he neither wrote 
 nor travelled ; that very instinct of activity, that restless and 
 aggressive spirit, which were the sources of nearly all his 
 usefulness, were, so to say, touched with the wand of the 
 enchantress and laid to rest. Since his expulsion from his 
 father's house, he had never known so much repose of mind 
 and body. Seeing him surrounded by all that makes domestic 
 happiness complete — a charming home, a beautiful and loving 
 wife, a plentiful estate, the prospect of a family, and a troop 
 of attached and admiring friends, — those who knew him only 
 at second hand imagined that the apostle of civil and religious 
 liberty was now about to subside into the quiet country gen- 
 tleman, more interested in cultivating his paternal acres, than 
 
 1 He makes many references in after years to the "great weight and suf- 
 fering" that hiy on his spirit at this time. Ibid. i. 59. 
 
 2 Besse, i, 44. 
 
 11 
 
122 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 with the progress of an unpopular doctrine and the general 
 enlightenment of mankind. But those who reasoned so, 
 knew little of William Penn, and perhaps still less of the lady 
 who had now become his wife. A few months given up to 
 love, the first transports of a virtuous passion refined into the 
 sober certainty of bliss, — Guli would herself have scorned 
 the man who, through infirmity of purpose, could have al- 
 lowed himself to sink into the mere sloth of the afi'ections, 
 who by his outward showing to the world would have repre- 
 sented her alliance as bringing weakness to his character 
 instead of strength. Penn was not that man. 
 
 His interval of rest over, the preacher again resumed his 
 work, travelling, disputing, writing, as he went along ;^ but it 
 is not necessary to trace his daily fortunes in this part of his 
 career ; enough if the more important points and most cha- 
 racteristic incidents are preserved. In the journeys in which 
 the next three years of his life were consumed he was often 
 accompanied by Guli ; but after the birth of her first son, 
 whom she called Springett in affectionate remembrance of her 
 father, he had to travel more and more frequently alone, or 
 in the society of itinerant apostles like himself — George Fox, 
 Robert Barclay, George Whitehead, and others. But besides 
 these fatiguing labors, he wrote during this period no less 
 than twenty-six books of controversy, some of them of con- 
 siderable length and consummate ability ; and two political 
 works — the "Treatise on Oaths," and "England's present 
 Interest considered," both of which display a rare acuteness 
 of thought, a mind richly stored with classical and historical 
 lore, and a profound respect for those heroes of our elder 
 annals who succeeded in establishing the laws, charters, and 
 constitutions which form the solid bases of our national rights 
 and liberties.^ 
 
 On looking back upon the history of that period, the in- 
 quirer is painfully struck with the un-English habits of mind 
 prevailing in high places : — the utter laxity in all that related 
 to moral conduct, the extreme severity in what had reference 
 to opinion. The memoirs of the Count de Grammont and 
 the journals of George Fox, give us the two sides of this me- 
 lancholy picture — the courtesan raised to the palace by her 
 
 * Besse, i. 44. 
 
 2 j^ii these works are contained in the folio edition, 2 vols. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 123 
 
 vices, the good man sent by his very virtues to a gaol. But 
 perhaps the most mehxncholy feature of the case, is the cir- 
 cumstance, evidenced by all the party writings of that time, 
 that these striking contrasts appeared to those who saw and 
 suffered under them as not unnatural ! Between sect and sect 
 there Avere few if any points of sympathy. Toleration was a 
 thing unknown ; and the severest persecutions known were 
 such as arose out of the angry vindictiveness of sect against 
 sect. Besse relates with a chuckle of delight that one of 
 William Penn's opponents "vexed himself to death" over a 
 trenchant attack from the young polemic.^ Fox continually 
 talks of turning over his foes to 'Hhe vengeance of the Lord." 
 In the midst of all the floating fanaticism of the age, the 
 Church held on her dignified and apathetic course. While 
 her overmastering intolerance had the sanction of Court and 
 Parliament, the dissenting sects indulged in a common feeling 
 of hostility towards her ; but the moment the iron grasp of 
 persecution was removed, they fell to quarreling among them- 
 selves with even more bitterness of heart than they had ever 
 before exhibited. Some part of this unamiable spirit may 
 perhaps be not unfairly attributed to the general religious 
 fervor of the times, the leaders of opinion feeling the need of 
 keeping up a continual excitement among their followers ; 
 something also to the zeal of recent converts and the ambition 
 inseparable from infant congregations : but when every rea- 
 sonable allowance is made, there still remains an amount of 
 spiritual intolerance Avhich can hardly be realized in connection 
 with the idea of pure aims and conscientious minds. William 
 Penn stood almost alone as a religious and yet a tolerant 
 man : but his tolerance was not that of the indifferent. He 
 held it to be a serious thing to be wrong in matters of faith ; 
 but opinions not depending on the will so much as on the un- 
 derstanding, he thought it was the duty of society to instruct 
 rather than to punish the erring. But having disarmed the 
 civil magistrate of power to inflict penalties for opinion's sake, 
 he reserved the free use of all the weapons of controversy, to 
 wound, to incite, to correct the unbeliever. Like Milton, he 
 felt that he was not bound to be polite to those whom he con- 
 tended with in the arena ; and although his invective was 
 often happy and powerful, it was also at times coarse and 
 
 1 Besse, i. 41. 
 
124 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 abrupt. The letter which he wrote to Louis Muggleton, was 
 addressed to him — "False prophet and imposter."^ A brief 
 account of one of his controversies with the minister of a 
 rival sect will convey a notion of the spirit in which the 
 various dissenting bodies acted towards each other at that 
 time. 
 
 Thomas Hicks, a Baptist preacher in London, finding his 
 congregation diminish week after week, and knowing that 
 most of the seceders had become listeners to the doctrines of 
 George Fox, as delivered by Penn and Barclay, brought out 
 a work in the form of a dialogue between a Christian and a 
 Quaker, wherein each party was made to argue the merits of 
 their respective creeds, — the point being to show that the 
 Quaker was not a Christian. Of course the Christian had 
 the best of the argument ; for like a prudent controversialist, 
 Mr. Hicks was careful not to let his Quaker advance any 
 thing that could not be easily refuted ; indeed, he made him 
 talk such nonsense, that there was no merit in the victory.^ 
 Penn, disgusted at the trick, immediately rejoined with his 
 "Christian Quaker and his Divine Testimony Vindicated,"^ 
 a work which contains a brief summary of the doctrines of 
 the inner Light. Hicks replied by way of continuation to 
 the former dialogue ; if that can be called a reply which never 
 once alludes to the work which it is issued to answer. Penn 
 had not named Hicks in his book ; Hicks now refused to name 
 Penn. But the matter was not to end thus smoothly ; deter- 
 mined not to let his opponent have the last word — which in 
 controversy is like leaving the field of battle to the enemy in 
 war — the young Quaker sent forth a sharp and stinging 
 attack under the title of "Reason against Railing and Truth 
 against Fiction."'* Smarting under the sarcasm and vehement 
 abuse of this work, the Baptist wrote a second continuation 
 of his dialogue, to which Penn made answer in "The Coun- 
 terfeit Christian Detected,"* a work disfigured by as much 
 violence as any thing in the pages of Milton, but which had 
 the merit of fulfilling the intention of its' writer : — Thomas 
 Hicks was completely silenced.^ The Quakers, now on the 
 vantage ground, were not yet satisfied with their victory. 
 
 1 Works, i. 45. 2 Besse, 46. 
 
 3 Collected Works, i. 521 ^ Ibid. ii. 498. 
 
 5 Collected Works, ii. 560. 
 
 6 Besse, 46, Penn's Works, i. 521 ; ii. 498 et seq. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 125 
 
 Pressing tlieir fallen foe, they appealed to the whole body of 
 the Baptists against him, and made out such a case as com- 
 pelled the leaders of that sect to call him to a public account 
 of his conduct. — A meeting was accordingly appointed to be 
 held in the Barbican, at which the charges made by and 
 against him might be heard and adjudged ; but Kiffin and 
 other of his friends contrived to fix the meeting for a day 
 when Penn and George Whitehead were in the country, and 
 too far away to be sent for at a moment's notice.^ The con- 
 sequence was, that his own party being alone present, there 
 was no proper accusation, the thing fell through, and a ma- 
 jority of voices declared the ofi'ender free from the charges 
 made against him.^ 
 
 On hearing of these transactions Penn hastened to London, 
 where he found the matter a general subject of gossip. All 
 the town was talking of himself and Hicks ; and the triumph 
 of the Baptist was discussed in every coffee-house in the city.^ 
 His first act was to write an account of the late proceedings 
 to George Fox, then a prisoner in Worcester gaol.^ Next he 
 put forth a strong appeal to the public on the unfair charac- 
 ter of the late assembly ; and concluded by demanding a new 
 meeting of the Baptists, in the Barbican or elsewhere, at 
 which he promised to attend and make good his charges. For 
 a time the body so addressed refused to comply with this re- 
 quest, on the plausible ground that a man who has been once 
 acquitted in open trial ought not to be again arraigned on the 
 same indictment ; but the Quakers were not slow to seize hold 
 of this refusal and ascribe it to fear, and the public growing 
 more and more excited about it, they at length gave way and 
 appointed a second meeting.'* 
 
 When Penn, Keith, and others of their party, arrived at 
 the meeting, they found a large and eager audience ; but 
 Hicks himself was not present. On inquiry being made, it 
 was found that he had taken up his quarters at a neighboring 
 alehouse, whence he had sent Ives, the old enemy of the 
 Quakers, to get up a row in the meeting and bring the affair 
 to a close ; a task which he endeavored manfully but in vain 
 to achieve.^ The public was too strong to be put down. Not 
 
 J Penn to Fox, July 5, 1674, MS. ^ Thomas Ellwood's Memoirs, 307. 
 
 3 Penn to Fox, .July 5, 1674, MS. " Fox's Journal, 405. 
 
 5 Ibid. 309. The Barbican Cheat Detected, by Thos. Rudyard, 4. 
 ^ Narrative of a Second Meeting, 9. Ellwood, 309. 
 
 11* 
 
126 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 less than six thousand persons, it is said, were present.^ At 
 first some of them were disposed to be riotous. " If Christ 
 was the inner Light, where was his manhood?" cried a person 
 from the body of the room, whereupon the audience, by 
 shouts and clamors, compelled the Quakers to enter into an 
 unexpected controversy on the point thus raised. How cu- 
 rious to think of a mob of six thousand persons, excited 
 almost to the length of committing a breach of the peace on 
 a subtlety like this ! It was a scene worthy of a nation of 
 Greeks. So long as the Quakers pressed towards the main 
 object of the meeting — a consideration of the charges of 
 slander, falsehood, and forgery against Hicks, — they kept up 
 a scene of confusion which prevented any thing being done. 
 Singularly enough, a discussion of doctrines was found to 
 have more attractions for them than a scene of personal abuse 
 and recrimination, — and Penn at last giving way to their hu- 
 mor, they subsided at once into silence, decorum, and good 
 order.^ 
 
 The debate was then opened on this point. The Quakers 
 affirmed the inner Light to be the same thing as the life, 
 spirit, seed, word, light, and other words of similar meaning 
 and frequent occurrence in the sacred writings. It was con- 
 fessed that these terms, so applied in Scripture, were any of 
 them equivalent to the term Christ — the name, not of a per- 
 son, but of an office or a principle. Penn and Barclay had 
 declared, again and again, that the inner Light — the Con- 
 science, is the particle of God which has been implanted in 
 man, to warn him against sin and prepare him for salvation. 
 In fact, they held this conscience to be an infallible guide ; 
 but the question then arose, if conscience be an infallible 
 guide, what is the use, in the economy of God, for Jesus 
 Christ ? What is his office ? The answer was — Christ and 
 Conscience are identical. Then came the metaphysical sub- 
 tlety : if Christ and Conscience be identical, what of Jesus ? 
 Christ was an office, or a principle ; but Jesus of Nazareth 
 was a man of flesh and blood. Are Christ and Jesus not 
 identical ? This, of course, could not be affirmed. To say 
 that Christ and Jesus were not identical, would be a denial 
 that Jesus was the Christ. How, then, was the man Jesus, 
 the son of Mary, identical with Conscience, or the inner 
 
 ^ Perm's letter to George Fox, quoted in the text. 2 gewell, ii. 232-4. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 127 
 
 Light ? This admission it was equally impossible to make, 
 without creating an after difficulty. But how avoid the di- 
 lemma ? The question was pressed upon the Quakers — Do 
 you hold the manhood to be a part of Christ ? That vast 
 assembly waited in solemn silence for the answer. How it 
 was given, is related in a letter from Penn to George Fox, 
 part of which runs as follows : — 
 
 " The question was, * If the manhood were a part of 
 Christ ?' To this we must either have answered nothing, or 
 only a Scripture, or in the terms of the question, or as we 
 did. 
 
 " If we had answered nothing, we had gratified the enemy, 
 stumbled the moderate, and grieved friends. 
 
 " If a Scripture, it had been no way satisfactory ; for the 
 question, they would have said, was not about the text, but 
 about the understanding of it ; and they would have charged 
 us with so wresting it to a mystical sense, as to shut out the 
 person that appeared in the flesh ; so that, if we had answered 
 them in any of those Scriptures, they would have asked in all 
 probability. What man do you mean? the spiritual and 
 heavenly man ? the new creature or creation ? or that out- 
 ward man, that was outwardly born of the Virgin in Pales- 
 tine, and was there outwardly crucified ? If we had said No, 
 we had been lost. That they would have put a mystical con- 
 struction on our words, if we had not answered them plainly, 
 that is, by what we understand by the Scripture, rather than 
 by the Scripture itself, I have cause to believe, because the 
 same person that proposed the question, thus expounded, after 
 the meeting, our belief in Christ, *that he was born of a 
 virgin, that is, of a virgin nature and spirit ; crucified, that 
 is, slain by sin in us ; rose, that is, rose up to rule us, and 
 the like,' — making the people believe, that we denied that 
 person, that outwardly appeared, to be the true Christ. 
 
 " Further, if we had answered in the terms of the question, 
 we had taken Christ into parts, whereas, I cried twice to 
 them, ' Christ is not to be divided into parts.' But they still 
 pressed the question, six thousand people, I believe, being 
 present, and many of them were desirous of an answer. Upon 
 this. Friends consented that it should be answered them, ' that 
 the manhood was a part of Christ.' But I feared the word 
 part, and chose rather to say, that we believed the holy man- 
 hood to be a member of the Christ of God, and ray reasons 
 
128 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 for so doing were these : First, What needed we to grant 
 more than was asked ? Friends only desired to have us grant 
 that the manhood was a part of Christ, in order to overthrow 
 Hicks' attempts to prove us no Christians ; and that was of 
 so great moment in that solemn and great assembly, as tongue 
 cannot utter. Secondly, Since we were willing to go no 
 further in our confessions than they asked at our hands, this 
 was my reason for rejecting the word part for member^ to wit, 
 that a body may be taken into members without breach of 
 union, but not into parts. A member divides not : parts di- 
 vide. Christ is called the head, that is, the most noble mem- 
 ber, the Church the body, and particulars are styled members 
 of that body. Now, calling these members divides them not 
 into loarts. Thirdly, I did not say, it was hut a member, and 
 I often repeated, that it was of and belonging to Christ ; and 
 in my confession at the close I said, that we believed in 
 Christ, both as he was the man Jesus, and God over all blessed 
 forever. And I am sure that Paul divides him more than we 
 did (Rom. ix. 5), since he makes a distinction between Christ 
 as God, and Christ as man." 
 
 The debate went on until it was quite dark. Penn then 
 called for lights ; but Kiffin and other Baptists represented 
 that the doors having been broken by the crowd, and some of 
 the seats torn out of their places, these things would need to 
 be repaired before the morrow, and it would therefore be only 
 proper to adjourn ; and as so large an assembly was very un- 
 manageable, they proposed that a deputation from each body 
 should meet at an early day and settle the dispute. This 
 proposal was accepted.^ 
 
 By this time Penn had become not only the sword of the 
 new sect, kept perpetually unsheathed to meet its enemies in 
 battle, but his more comprehensive and sober mind had made 
 itself felt even within the body of the faithful. Already he 
 had obtained that influence which enabled him to restrain the 
 madness of the few for the advantage of the many. Men's 
 minds were so much unsettled, that no amoimt of fanaticism 
 seemed surprising. Two ardent converts, fancying they felt 
 a divine revelation to that eftect, set off for Borne, to convert 
 the Pope f but they had not been long in the eternal city, ere 
 
 ' Material Passages between Quakers and Baptists, 27-30. 
 2 Gerard Croese, 271. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 129 
 
 they were arrested as dangerous heretics and placed in con- 
 finement : — one of them, John Love, was sent to the Inquisi- 
 tion, where he died in a short time, with such aids as the 
 Holy Office then made free use of for the suppression of 
 heresy ; the other, John Perrot, was sent to a hospital for the 
 insane.^ England, however, could not quite abandon her 
 children in this way ; (under Cromwell the Roman court 
 would have been required to render a satisfactory account of 
 Love f) and after a good deal of interest had been made in 
 his behalf, Perrot was set at liberty ; on which he returned to 
 his own country, where he soon gave his former friends so 
 much annoyance that many of them could hardly help wish- 
 ing him again in the Roman bedlam.^ It was in the conduct 
 of men like Perrot that the weak side of the New Christian 
 Democracy came out. Soon after his return to England, he 
 began to hold the doctrine, that even in prayer the hat should 
 not be removed, except at the instance of the divine wish 
 made manifest to the soul. This was felt by Penn to be a 
 dangerous development of his own idea. Not uncover to God ! 
 It was not only absurd, but destroyed the argument on which 
 his own refusal to unbonnet to the King had been justified. 
 Mild but firm measures were taken with the innovator ; but as 
 usual with such men, Perrot refused to conform, and was ex- 
 pelled the society. Thereupon he published a pamphlet, 
 called the "Spirit of The Hat," — which Penn answered in 
 "The Spirit of Alexander the Coppersmith." More pam- 
 phlets followed : — Penn, as usual, having the last word.^ 
 
 Energetic as ever in all that concerned his beliefs, there 
 are nevertheless very manifest traces of a mild and softening 
 influence being at this time exercised over the polemic from 
 Rickmansworth. Guli's family was increasing, and she now 
 travelled much less with her husband than she had done, 
 when her hands were free ; but her gentle voice, and woman's 
 counsel, went with him, to restrain his fierceness in the hour 
 of conflict. His rebuke became milder, his form of abjuration 
 somewhat less emphatic and severe. He was evidently grow- 
 ing a wiser and a more useful man. Living much at Rick- 
 mansworth, it was natural that the Penns should gradually 
 
 ' Fox's Journal, 242. 
 
 2 See the case recorded by Limborcli, Hist. Iquis. i. 214, 1731. 
 
 3 Fox, 241. Memoii's of Ricliard Davies, 70. 
 
 4 Penn's Works, ii. 189. 
 
130 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 collect about tliemselves a circle of friends imbued with their 
 own sentiments in reference to religion ; and the neighbor- 
 hood became so infected with the new doctrine, as to rouse 
 the ire of the famous Richard Baxter, who in passing through 
 the town was struck with the multitude of Quakers. Regard- 
 ing these people as so many lost sheep, he tried to call them 
 into his own fold. Penn and he agreed to meet and publicly 
 discuss their several tenets. For many miles round the coun- 
 try was excited with the thought of a contest in which two of 
 the foremost men in the religious world were to make a keen 
 encounter of their wits \ and on the day named, two large 
 rooms were crammed with impatient listeners, including no- 
 blemen, knights of the shire, and clergymen of the Esta- 
 blished Church. No report of this curious debate has come 
 down to us ; it is only known that the two speakers addressed 
 the two audiences in turn, that the sitting lasted seven hours, 
 and that both parties claimed the victory I no uncommon 
 termination of public debates on questions of doctrine.^ 
 ' The early part of the session of 1673 was occupied by the 
 dispute of the House of Commons and the King as to the right 
 to issue declarations of indulgence without consent of Parlia- 
 ment. The country was undoubtedly with the House on this 
 question. The Church party looked upon the royal declara- 
 tion as a direct provocative to Popery and Dissent. The 
 popular party, looking only at the political issues of the dis- 
 pute, could not but feel that if the King triumphed on this 
 point, it would consecrate his pretension to suspend the civil 
 as well as the ecclesiastical law whenever it suited his purposes. 
 This would have been to lose all that the Revolution had won. 
 They held the royal prerogative to be sufficiently well defined : 
 it rested with him, as the dispenser of mercy, to pardon the 
 violator of the law, but not to suspend its action for a single 
 moment.^ Even the Dissenters agreed, for the most part, with 
 these latter reasoners ; for the leading members of the House 
 gave out their desire to afford protection to all Protestant sects 
 in England, only that they wished to give that protection a 
 legal character ; and in the meantime it was necessary that 
 
 ' Baxter's Memoirs, Part iii. 174. Besse in the Appendix to the Life of 
 Penn, i. 167, 173. 
 
 2 See the speeches of the King and his minister, Shaftesbury, in the Lords' 
 Journals, xii. 523 et seq., and the debates in the House of Commons, Febru- 
 ary 7, and following days. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 131 
 
 tlie declaration of indulgence which had been sent out on the 
 sole authority of the crown, should be cancelled. These argu- 
 ments prevailed. A large 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 
 had exercised the power noAv in dispute. This the Commons 
 denied; which denial the King received as an insult, and 
 threatened to dissolve the House ; but his more cautious and 
 politic friend, Louis Quatorze, advised him to submit, in order 
 to gain time until peace was finally concluded with Holland, 
 when the troops then engaged on the continent could be used 
 against his enemies in England — he himself also offering to 
 supply him with money and forces from France sufficient to 
 crush every attempt to resist his royal will. Charles adopted 
 this patriotic counsel.^ The very evening on which it was 
 offered by Colbert, on behalf of his august master, the King 
 sent for a copy of the declaration and tore it up in presence 
 of his ministers. Next day this act of royal grace was made 
 public ; the two Houses of Parliament received the intelligence 
 with loud shouts of satisfaction ; and in the evening huge bon- 
 fires illumined the capital and testified the joy of the inhabi- 
 tants.^ 
 
 But this day of rejoicing was the beginning of years of 
 bitter sorrow to a large and interesting class of Englishmen. 
 The fires which lighted the eighth of March were hardly ex- 
 tinguished ere the Test Act, hurried through the Commons 
 with most 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 statutes.^ Its authors pro- 
 fessed to strike only at the Papists; and to prove their since- 
 rity they introduced another bill for the relief of Nonconform- 
 ing Protestants; but delay followed delay; the debates were 
 adjourned from time to time ; one clause after another was 
 amended or struck out ; and, in fact, prorogation overtook 
 them before their work was finished, and the whole body of 
 upright and conscientious Dissenters was left at the mercy of 
 any petty tyrant who chose to rake up against them the old 
 penal statutes.^ 
 
 1 Journals of the House of Commons, Feb. 10. 
 
 2 Dalrymple, ii. 93 ct seq. ^ Ibid. ii. 96. Lords' Jour. xii. 549. 
 * Statutes, 25, Carolus II. c. 5. Com. Jour. Feb. 28. Mar. 12 Comp. Marvell, 
 
 i.494, 5. Dalrymple, ii. 90. 
 
 ^ The progress and abandonment of this measure may be traced in the 
 
132 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 The Quakers were among the foremost sufferers.^ At this 
 juncture it was that Penn produced his work on ''England's 
 present Interest." Every line of this production seems written 
 with an indignant hand ; passion makes him eloquent and almost 
 terse. — " There is no law under heaven, which has its rise from 
 nature or grace, that forbids men to deaKhonestly 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 support of his assertions. He goes at great length into 
 the origin of English liberties ; particularly with a view to 
 show that they are older in date than our religious establish- 
 ment — were secured long before the birth of Luther or of 
 Henry: "we were a free people," he says very finely, "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 Protestantism, can never justly 
 be invalidated on account of nonconformity to any tenet or 
 fashion it may prescribe. This would be to lose by the Re- 
 formation." — His concluding advice to the ruling powers is — 
 1, To conserve all the ancient rights and liberties of the peo- 
 ple ; 2, To grant entire freedom to opinion in matters of faith ; 
 and, 3, To endeavor to promote the growth of true and prac- 
 tical piety in the nation.^ 
 
 The composition of this work kept Penn at home a consi- 
 derable part of the year ; but his attention was continually 
 diverted from it to special cases of more than common hard- 
 ship. The letters written by him at this period to magistrates, 
 sheriffs, lieutenants of counties and others in behalf of indivi- 
 dual sufferers, were very numerous.^ These have a certain 
 uniformity of style and matter, except where, as in the case 
 of Justice Fleming, some peculiar interest attached to the man 
 or the circumstances. 
 
 Justice Fleming had been an old friend of the Springetts ; 
 and some years previous to this date, had been particularly 
 kind to Guli when she was on a visit at his house in West- 
 
 Journals of the House of Lords, pp. 561, 584 ; and in the ParL Hist. vol. iv. 
 pp. 535, 575. 
 
 1 Penn's letter to the King, i. 48. 
 
 2 The entire work will repay perusal, i. 672. 
 
 * Only some of these are to be found in the collected edition (folio) of his 
 ■works. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 133 
 
 moreland. The letter of remonstrance written to him, on the 
 receipt of some complaints of his having acted very harshly 
 towards the Quakers in his magisterial capacity, is concluded 
 in language of great courtliness and beauty. One can fancy 
 Guli looking over Penn's shoulder as he wrote these words — 
 "however differing I am from other men, circa sacra, and that 
 world which, respecting men, may be said to begin when this 
 ends, I know no religion that destroys courtesy, civility and 
 kindness."^ A noble and catholic avowal ! 
 
 Penn had been five years absent from court ; but the per- 
 secutions which now arose carried him again into the region 
 of Whitehall. Mead and he went down to the palace with 
 the secretary to the duchess, to plead for the liberation of 
 George Fox, but when they arrived they found the house so 
 full of people and the duke so busy, that the secretary could 
 not obtain admission for himself. The deputation were about 
 to withdraw very sadly, when Colonel Aston, of the duke's 
 bed-chamber, seeing his old friend Penn, whom he had lost 
 sight of for a long time, asked him into the drawing-room. 
 Aston then went into the duke's closet ; and James, hearing 
 who it was, at once came out, saying how glad he was to see 
 his ward again. He listened to the request about Fox with 
 much courtesy, — and replied 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- 
 sciences only as a pretext to disturb the government ; but he 
 had considered better, and was now 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 persecuted for his 
 own belief. He would use his influence with the king. But 
 where had Penn been, and why had he not called at the palace ? 
 He had promised the admiral to look after his son ; but that 
 son had never shown himself at court. He told him to come 
 whenever he had any business in which his royal highness 
 could be of any assistance ; that he should always be pleased 
 to see him ; and would do his best to fulfill towards him all the 
 duties of a guardian.^ 
 
 1 Works, i. 157. 
 
 2 Apology, renn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. 2d part, 240-2. 
 
 12 
 
134 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1673-1678. 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 
 
 The love of country, strong in nearly all men, was one of 
 the most powerful sentiments of the English Puritan. But 
 he had other and higher inspirations. His love of personal 
 freedom — his claim to a free utterance for his thoughts — the 
 determination to bend his knee only at the shrine which his 
 conscience owned — these were instincts stronger in him than 
 even the love of life. Not lightly or hastily did the real 
 founders of empire in the New World turn their backs on 
 the land which had given them birth. Years of accumulated 
 wrong and insult were required to loosen their tenacious hold 
 of the soil which had been ploughed and reaped by their 
 Saxon forefathers ; and when the cup of misery was full, they 
 quitted the ports they were never more to behold again with 
 blessings on their lips, and with their faces, like their hearts, 
 still turned towards dear old England, departing more in sor- 
 row than in anger. ^ In the days of peace and concord, now 
 and then recurring in the most unsettled times, the tide of 
 emigration had always ebbed out slowly ; but now that the 
 act of indulgence had been cancelled by the King, and the 
 fury of persecution began to fill the gaols and stocks with 
 victims, attention was again directed to the plan, already car- 
 ried out in part, 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. 
 
 To William Penn this idea had been more or less familiar 
 from his boyhood ; but it had haunted him as a romantic 
 dream rather than possessed him like a fixed passion. At 
 twelve years old the victories of his father in the West Indies 
 had first tinged his fancy with the splendors of American 
 scenery, — during the retirement of the family in Ireland, 
 aftef the admiral's disgrace, the subject of buying an estate 
 
 I Mather, 1. iii. c. 1. "Farewell, dear England !" was the parting expres- 
 sion of the Pilgrim Fathers. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 135 
 
 in the New World had often been discussed in the social circle, 
 — in his hour of excitement and disobedience at Oxford he 
 had again turned to these earlier projects and laid out a new 
 Oceanea or Utopia in his fancy among the islands of the ar- 
 chipelago or deep in the luxurious savannahs of the mainland 
 — at the yearly meeting of his own religious society the set- 
 tlement of Quakers in Jamaica, in New England, and on the 
 Delaware, had been frequently discussed,^ and the journey 
 which he had still more recently made into Holland and Ger- 
 many, had contributed to rouse and complete the gathering 
 zeal of years. At Amsterdam, at Leyden, and in the cities of 
 the Upper Rhine, his imagination had been excited by the pe- 
 rilous stories which he had heard from the relatives and friends 
 of those who had bid adieu to Europe, crossed the Atlantic 
 in their frail barks, and settled along the sea-board of the 
 western world. The enthusiasm which these events had raised 
 in his mind grew on him with years, and at length led him 
 towards a practical trial of the Holy Experiment. 
 
 His first connection with the continent on which he was to 
 build an enduring monument in the glorious form of a harbor 
 of refuge for the oppressed of all nations, was in the affairs 
 of New Jersey.^ The reader will not need to be reminded 
 that during the reign of Charles Second, many of the Eng- 
 lish colonies and conquests in America were given or sold 
 away to private proprietors ; and in accordance with the 
 principle of misrule then prevailing, the King made over to 
 his brother James, the Duke of York, the magnificent province 
 of New Netherlands, stretching from the shores of the Dela- 
 ware to Connecticut River, even before a single rood of the 
 land had yet been wrested from the hands of the Dutch Colo- 
 nists.^ Two months before the conquest, James in his turn 
 had granted to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, in 
 equal shares, the region lying between the Hudson aud the 
 Delaware. When the English forces took final possession of 
 the country, the old names and boundaries were removed, and 
 in honor of Sir George Carteret, late governor of the island 
 of Jersey in the British Channel, the entire province received 
 the appellation of New Jersey. As the object of nearly all 
 the noble owners of these colonial estates was to wring as 
 
 1 A colony of Quakers went out to Jamaica soon after the conquest of the 
 island. Thurloe, vi. 834, 
 
 2 Day's Pennsylvania Hist. Coll. 12. ^ Watson's Annals, 10. 
 
136 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 much money out of them as possible, it was soon seen to be 
 their private interest to offer such liberal concessions — or 
 constitutions — as would attract that croAvd of able, energetic, 
 and wealthy persons, who, suffering under the penal statutes 
 of the old country, were anxious to find in the new land a 
 field of enterprise and a shelter from persecution. Without, 
 therefore, being in their own persons the advocates of civil 
 and religious liberty, these speculators not unfrequently es- 
 tablished in their colonial possessions enlarged and liberal fun- 
 damental laws — the lust of gain doing in their case the work 
 of patriotism and virtue ! The two owners of New Jersey 
 having offered concessions to settlers in this spirit, a number 
 of Puritans already in New England set sail from the port of 
 New Haven, with a view to establish themselves in the re- 
 cently acquired territory, and having reached the Passaic, 
 held a council there with the Indian tribes, changed the old 
 name of the settlement to New Ark, and laid the foundations 
 of a thoroughly democratic government.^ Under their free 
 and vigorous rule the province rapidly increased in pros- 
 perity; the English Quakers began to take an interest in its 
 affairs, and a few of them went thither to settle. But Berke- 
 ley in a short time grew dissatisfied with his position ; disputes 
 about quit-rents and privileges arose ; and the noble earl 
 found his ease disturbed by the murmurs and remonstrances 
 of the men into whose hands he had passed away the reins of 
 government. These troubles made him anxious to sell his 
 share in the province ; and as George Fox had just returned 
 from a visit to the English settlements in America,^ the Qua- 
 kers, on his report, opened a communication with Berkeley, 
 who in the end agreed with one of their body, John Fenwick, 
 agent and trustee of Edward Byllinge, for the sale of his 
 share of the province for a thousand pounds.^ Before any 
 steps, however, had been taken to draw public attention to this 
 new settlement as a field of colonial enterprise, a serious dis- 
 pute arose between the agent and his principal as to their 
 respective shares in the purchase : Fenwick, a litigious and 
 troublesome person, as is evident from his letters,^ contend- 
 ing that a certain allotment of the land should be made over 
 to him and his heirs, to which Byllinge strenuously objected. 
 
 ' Watson's Annals, 7. ^ Fox's Journal. 
 
 3 Watson, 10. 4 Had. MSS. 7001. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 137 
 
 This dispute was referred by common consent to William Penn. 
 The letters still extant show that Fenwick was at first dis- 
 posed to resist the award made by the arbitrator ; but an 
 earnest rebuke from Penn, in which he spoke in noble and 
 affecting language of the meanness of such quarrels in face 
 of the great interests they professed to have at heart, brought 
 him to reason. "Thy grandchildren," said the expostulator 
 to his grasping client, "may be in the other world before the 
 land thou hast allotted will be employed."^ 
 
 The parties, reconciled by these means, Fenwick, with his 
 own family and a number of other Quaker emigrants, set sail 
 in the ship G-riffith for New Jersey. These adventurers as- 
 cended the Delaware a considerable distance, where finding a 
 fertile and pleasant spot of ground, they landed their goods 
 and chattels, and formed the germ of a settlement, calling their 
 town Salem ; for to their harrassed minds and bodies it seemed 
 in truth a place of peace and rest.^ Meantime Edward Byl- 
 linge, left behind in England, became deeply involved in his 
 circumstances, and unable to meet the demands made on him, 
 his creditors grew clamorous, and at length compelled him to 
 surrender his property into the hands of trustees for their 
 benefit. But although obliged to give up the management of 
 his estate to others, his creditors, having appointed Gawen 
 Laurie of London, and Nicholas Lucas of Hertford, as trus- 
 tees in their own behalf, allowed him to name one of his 
 own friends as a third trustee for the protection of his inter- 
 ests ; and William Penn was the friend whom he solicited to 
 perform for him this important office. At first he was not 
 disposed to add so large a responsibility to those already 
 weighing heavily on his time and thoughts ; but on consider- 
 ing that the principal part of the estate to be administered 
 was the New Jersey property, on which a number of Quakers 
 and other exiles for conscience' sake had already settled, to 
 whom his counsels would be serviceable, he consented to act.^ 
 No sooner had he acquired the power which his new position 
 gave him, than a change of system was observed. Full of his 
 old dreams of a model state, and fresh from the study of 
 Harrington and More, he was not content to carry on the 
 
 * HarL MSS. 7001, contains the correspondence, with Fenwick's notes. 
 2 Watson's Annals, 11. 
 
 ^ The heads of the Quaker party "kept up a regular correspondence with 
 the colonists. Hazard's Penn. Beg. vi. 184 et seq. 
 
 12* 
 
138 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 government of the province as he found it, simply as a com- 
 mercial venture, and without reference to the working out of 
 great ideas. The lessons of Algernon Sidney had made a 
 profound impression on the mind of the future lawgiver; and 
 the constitution which his friend Locke had but a few years 
 before formed for Carolina, was open to him both as an in- 
 citement and as a warning. These first attempts to lay the 
 foundations of a free colony for all mankind, to quote his own 
 words, were greatly obstructed by the fact of there being a 
 joint-ownership of the soil, as even within the limits prescribed 
 by law, the trustees of Edward Byllinge could only exercise 
 a semi-sovereignty while Sir George Carteret remained a co- 
 partner. The object, then, which lay in front of every future 
 effort for the good of the settlers, was such a division of the 
 province, as should separate the share of Sir George from the 
 rest ; and this result Avas obtained by Penn after a trouble- 
 some negociation, on giving up the best half of the estate to 
 the agents of the older proprietor, which henceforAvard was 
 known as the province of East New Jersey, — that retained 
 by the Quakers being called from its geographical position 
 West New Jersey. By these names the two provinces were 
 known for many years. ^ 
 
 This arrangement being completed and the trustees left with 
 power to deal with West New Jersey, they began their opera- 
 tions by dividing the land, then a complete wilderness, info a" 
 a hundred lots, ten of which were made over to John Fen wick 
 in lieu of all his claims for time, trouble and money expended 
 in the transactions with Lord Berkeley, and the other ninety 
 were put up on sale for the benefit of the creditors, whose 
 material interests being so provided for, Penn acquired still 
 greater power to carry out his own ideas in the great work of 
 settling the fundamental laws. As yet the mind of the legis- 
 lator was itself in the process of formation. The counsels of 
 Harrington and the classic republicans still exercised a power- 
 ful influence over his conceptions ; and it was not until some 
 years later that his own genius — aided by Algernon Sidney 
 — found its highest expression in the laws and charters of 
 the great province which bears his name. The constitutions 
 framed by the pilgrims who had sailed in the 3Iayfloivcr were 
 however the more immediate types of his first efforts as a states- 
 
 ' Gordon's Hist, of Jersey, 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 139 
 
 man ; lie was too wise a man to trust so important a matter as 
 the regulation of a new society to the mere suggestions of 
 reason, unformed and unguided by experience, and he had 
 been too assiduous a reader of the classic writers not to have 
 learned to feel something of that Roman pride in free govern- 
 ments which so eminently distinguished his great friend and 
 master.^ 
 
 The outlines of the new constitution prepared for West New 
 Jersey by William Penn may be given in a few words : — the 
 rights of free worship were secured (this was always the first 
 point with the Puritan emigrants) — the legislative power was 
 given in a great measure to the people, who were to elect their 
 representatives, not in the old way of acclamation, but by the 
 ballot-box, every man of mature age and free from crime being 
 an elector and eligible for election — the executive power was 
 vested in ten commissioners, to be appointed by the general 
 assembly — the ofiice of interpreting the law and pronouncing 
 verdicts was confided to the juries, as Penn had contended 
 was the case in England by the ancient charters ; and the 
 judges, elected for only two years at the utmost and always 
 removable, sat in the courts simply to assist the juries in arriv- 
 ing at a correct decision — the State was made to charge itself 
 with the education of all orphan children, and no man was to 
 be shut up in prison for debt ; his estate having been seized 
 for the benefit of his creditors, the unfortunate was encouraged 
 to try again : by these simple provisions, and the laws which 
 were to be enacted in accordance with the general principles 
 so laid down, Penn believed he had laid a foundation for those 
 who came after him to understand their liberties as men and 
 as Christians, and by observing which they could never be 
 brought into bondage except by their own consent — the whole 
 power of the State being placed in charge of the people !^ 
 
 While engaged with these new and important duties, Penn 
 removed his place of residence from the neighborhood of Rick- 
 mansworth, in Hertfordshire, to Worminghurst, in Sussex.^ 
 Less occupied at the moment with travelling and controversy 
 than with the practical organization of states and the princi- 
 
 ' Letters to Algernon Sidney, 1679-1681. See chapters vi. and vii. 
 
 2 See Smith's New Jersey, 528 et seq. 
 
 3 Lady Springeti's MS. Autobiograph}'. She visited the Penns at Worm- 
 inghurst in the autumn of 1G76, and on the oOth of September had the re- 
 markable dream referred to in a former note. 
 
140 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 pies round which human societies form themselves, he required 
 a home more free from interruption than his old house, which 
 had gradually become the head-quarters and rendezvous of 
 the Quaker body. To obtain this retirement, needed for sober 
 and continued thought, he removed to Sussex, where in peace- 
 ful and profound tranquillity he worked out and perfected his 
 scheme of government for West New Jersey. Guli's mother 
 and father-in-law spent a portion of the summer and autumn of 
 1676 with them at their new house, and Isaac Pennington — 
 the friend of Milton — possibly assisted in drawing up his rela- 
 tion's maiden constitution.^ 
 
 As soon as this important document was finished, the trus- 
 tees met together and resolved on its immediate publication 
 in the shape of a public letter, which they signed and circulated 
 in every part of the country, but more especially among the 
 members of their own church. To the letter was added a 
 description of the soil, air, climate, natural productions, and 
 other features of the new settlements ; and it is characteristic 
 of Penn that he added a cautionary postscript to his country- 
 men against indulging, without sufficient cause, in the thought 
 of seeking for a new home — of leaving their native land out 
 of curiosity, from a love of change, or in the mere spirit of 
 cupidity. Yet Worminghurst was soon besieged with applica- 
 tions for plots of land in the new Free Colony, and this tes- 
 timony to the merits of his plan encouraged the legislator 
 to renewed efforts. Two large companies were immediately 
 formed to establish trade and promote emigration, one in York- 
 shire, the other in Middlesex. The members of the York- 
 shire company were chiefly creditors of Byllinge; and as a 
 set-off against all their claims, they received from the trustees 
 ten of the original hundred parts into which the province had 
 been divided. By cancelling these debts the property was 
 gradually retrieved from its embarrassments, and its managers 
 acquired a greater freedom of action.^ 
 
 The purchasers of these lands beginning at once to make 
 preparations for the voyage, Penn's attention was drawn to 
 the evident necessity which would arise for a governing body. 
 Before there was as yet a people in West New Jersey, he saw 
 that it was desirable to have an authority, legally constituted, 
 to conduct the enterprise ; and with this view he proposed to 
 
 I Lady Springett's MS. Autobiography. 2 Besse, 50. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. - 141 
 
 institute a provisional government — himself selecting some of 
 its members, Fenwick's party and the two companies nomi- 
 nating the others. This being agreed to, Thomas Olive and 
 Daniel Wills were appointed to act as commissioners by the 
 London company ; Joseph Helmsly and Robert Stacey by the 
 Yorkshire proprietors ; Richard Guy was named on behalf of 
 the former emigrants, and to these were added Benjamin Scott, 
 John Kinsey and three others. These persons were to exer- 
 cise the powers of the ten commissioners as defined in the 
 fundamental laws until such time as a popular government, 
 chosen in a legal and orderly way, could be organized, where- 
 upon their functions were to cease. ^ 
 
 Since the sailing of the Mayfloiver no event had occurred 
 of so much interest to the Republicans of England. William 
 Penn took a great deal of pains in organizing 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 
 forever, when a light and gilded barge was seen rapidly gliding 
 over the smooth waters towards them. Something in the ap- 
 pearance of the Kent had evidently attracted the attention 
 of its luxurious 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. In a 
 few moments the graceful libertine called to ask the name of 
 the ship and whitliQr it was bound. On his question being 
 answered, he asked if the emigrants were all Quakers, to which 
 they answered yes, whereupon he gave them, as Clarkson says, 
 his blessing, — and so the monarch and subjects parted, — he 
 to continue his low amours and his viler hypocrisies, they to 
 plant a new spiritual democracy in the wilderness of the west. 
 Each to his work ! 
 
 Two other vessels soon 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 northern counties. When the new comers 
 
 * Gordon's Hist. New Jersey. 
 
142 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 arrived at their destination, Andros, the governor of New 
 York, claimed jurisdiction over them and their territory, justi- 
 fying his claim by reference to the feudal law and the colonial 
 charters ; 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 
 aborigines for the purchase of their lands, and under a sail- 
 cloth, set up in the forest of Burlington, began to assemble 
 for public worship.^ The native tribes came from their hunt- 
 ing-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 pass him by and say — he 
 is an Englishman ; he is asleep ; let him alone. The path shall 
 be plain. There shall not be in it a stump to hurt the feet."^ 
 Commenced under these promising auspices. West New Jersey 
 soon exhibited an extraordinary degree of prosperity. Land 
 was sold and cultivated. The Sachems remained on the whole 
 friendly. The population multiplied in peace. Several deeply 
 interesting letters written by the leaders of their party in 
 England to these happy colonists are still extant, and from 
 these it would be inferred that in a very few years West New 
 Jersey had become a new Arcadia — that Penn had realized 
 in practice the State which Sidney had conceived and Har- 
 rington had dreamed 1^ 
 
 Having at length got these American affairs into a favorable 
 state, Penn turned his thoughts towards the continent of Eu- 
 rope. He had many correspondents in Holland and on the 
 Rhine : and in the cities formerly visited by him the congre- 
 gations which had arisen implored him to return, if only for 
 a brief season, and afford them once more the benefit of his 
 wisdom and the example of his enthusiasm. Many members 
 of the churches which he had raised abroad had fallen on evil 
 tongues and evil days; some were suffering from the secret 
 
 * When reminded that their charter gave them none of the liberties they 
 claimed, they declared themselves free-born Englishmen, and appealed to the 
 great charter of rights. Gordon's New Jersey, 47. 
 
 2 Smith's New Jersey, 100. 
 
 2 This correspondence is preserved in Hazard's Register. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 143 
 
 hostility of their feudal lords ; others were living under the 
 shade of persecution in gaols and madhouses : all these men 
 hoped for some consolation in his presence, and not a few were 
 anxious to hear from his own lips of that New Land which 
 he was said to be preparing beyond the sea, where it would 
 not be a crime to worship God according to the dictates of 
 conscience. To these he had now a message full of hope. 
 Feeling a strong regard for the sedate and sober virtues of 
 the German artisans, he was himself anxious to offer them an 
 asylum in the province.^ His friends at Herwerden also pressed 
 him to pay them another visit; and the Princess Elizabeth 
 especially urged her '^ affectionate friend " to come over to her 
 court, now that his colonial concerns weighed less heavily on 
 his time and cares. 
 
 All his preparations being made for this new journey, he 
 left his family at Worminghurst, and proceeded to Harwich, 
 where he found George Fox, Robert Barclay, and several 
 other friends, awaiting his arrival.^ Provided Avith a huge as- 
 sortment of books and tracts, explanatory of Quaker doc- 
 trines, and printed in various languages, English, French, 
 Dutch, and German,^ they took their passage in a vessel 
 which happened to be commanded by one of the admiral's 
 former officers, who, out of affection for the son of his old 
 patron, was particularly attentive to the comforts of his pas- 
 sengers, and even allowed them to convert his quarter-deck 
 into a conventicle. When they came in sight of the Brill, 
 Penn and Barclay, anxious to arrive at the town before night- 
 fall, got into a small boat and pulled for shore ; but before 
 they could land, the sun had gone down, — the gates were 
 closed, — and there being no houses at that time outside the 
 fortified walls, they had to make their bed in a fisherman's 
 boat." Early next morning the passengers all landed at the 
 Brill, and started immediately for Rotterdam, where they 
 held large meetings of their Christian friends, — Penn speak- 
 ing in Dutch, while the eloquence of George Fox, and other 
 illiterate missionaries, had to be interpreted, word for word, 
 by a native Quaker,^ — "the Gospel was preached, the dead 
 were raised, and the living were comforted," such was the 
 
 ' Province of Pennsylvania, by Franz Pastorius (one of the original Ger- 
 man emigrants). Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iv. 103. 
 
 2 Travels into Germany and Holland, i. 52. ^ Ibid i. 59. 
 
 4 Fox, 433. 5 Ibid. 
 
144 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 ardent language in which Penn described the results of these 
 gatherings of the newly-converted ! Men's minds were at 
 this time profoundly unsettled, and hyperbole is the natural 
 language of enthusiasm. This visit of the three great apos- 
 tles of Quakerism to Rotterdam, seems to have made a great 
 sensation ; scholars, merchants, government officers, and the 
 general public, crowded every meeting to hear them preach, 
 and the houses of the most noble and learned men in the city 
 of Van der Werf and Erasmus, were thrown open to them 
 freely.^ They learned that meetings had been prepared for 
 them in all the towns along their routes, and three Dutch 
 converts, Claus, Arents, and BoclifFs came to them from Am- 
 sterdam, to conduct them on their way, in the name of the 
 faithful congregations on the Zuyder Zee. At Leyden, and 
 at Haarlem, where they held meetings and spread abroad a 
 knowledge of their tenets, other deputies, from Alchmaer and 
 Embden, met them with welcomes and invitations. Their 
 journey through the country was like a prolonged ovation.^ 
 At Amsterdam they organized the scattered congregations 
 of Quakers in Holland, and settled some of the nicer points 
 of practical doctrine — such as the non-necessity for priest 
 or magistrate, as a witness to the ceremony of marriage.^ 
 Another matter which came prominently before them, was 
 the sufferings of their disciples for conscience' sake, in va- 
 rious countries, and more especially the case of certain in- 
 habitants of Dantzic, which city then formed a part of the 
 great Polish republic. The heroic John Sobieski, King of 
 Poland, w^as at the time on a visit to Dantzic, and William 
 Penn, trusting in the chivalric character of the prince, ad- 
 vised that a petition should be presented to him, in the name 
 of the suffering citizens, briefly detailing their wrongs and 
 their opinions, and asking at his hands the free right to wor- 
 ship God according to their faith. This petition he was de- 
 sired to draw up, which he did in suitable and noble terms, 
 quoting, most happily, a saying of King Stephen, one of 
 Sobieski's most illustrious predecessors — " I am king of men, 
 but not of consciences : king of bodies, not of souls," and 
 making this the text of his powerful and yet courteous re- 
 monstrance.'' 
 
 1 Travels into Germany and Holland, i. 52. 2 Yo:s., 334, 
 
 3 Penn's Works, i. 53. 
 
 * See the Letter at length in his Coll. Works, i. 53. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 145 
 
 Leaving George Fox at Amsterdam, Penn and Barclay 
 continued their journey to Herwerden, where they were 
 warmly welcomed by the Electress. This noble and pious 
 woman, daughter of Frederick, Prince Palatine of the Rhine, 
 and King of Bohemia, was the grand-daughter of our James 
 the First, and consequently first cousin to the reigning King 
 of England, and sister to Prince Rupert — the old rival and 
 enemy of Admiral Penn.^ Our interest in the friendly inter- 
 course of the princess and her visitor, is considerably en- 
 hanced by a knowledge of this fact. The princess treated 
 Penn with uniform courtesy and affection, from the moment 
 of their first acquaintance to the day of her death : his grati- 
 tude and respect long survived its object ; and in one of the 
 subsequent "editions of his "No Cross, No Crown," he incor- 
 porated her name with his noble list of benefactors and ex- 
 amples to mankind.^ In his former visit to the court of 
 Elizabeth, some years before, the missionary had made a 
 deep impression, not only on her own mind, but likewise on 
 that of her friend and companion, the Countess de Homes. 
 This had led to correspondence, and to the visits of other 
 Quaker preachers, male and female, Dutch and English, par- 
 ticularly of Robert Barclay, the famous apologist, whose 
 learning and moderation had enabled him to appeal with 
 great effect to the ready intelligence of these accomplished 
 women.^ 
 
 Penn and Barclay stayed at the ordinary inn of the town, 
 but visited the court daily, holding meetings and discoursing 
 before her highness on the great principles of their creed. 
 They dined at the common table of their hotel, where they 
 met with many strangers, to whom they distributed books 
 and tracts. One of these strangers, a young man, who had 
 come in by the post-wagon from Bremen, was a student at 
 the college of Duysburgh ; and in the course of conversation 
 he told them there was a " sober and seeking man, of great 
 note in the city of Duysburgh," which information deter- 
 mined Penn to pay a visit to that place. The meetings at 
 the palace were characteristic of the time ; and the effect of 
 their discourses on the audience seems to have been over- 
 powering. When the last service drew to a close, Elizabeth 
 
 1 Genealogies of the royal family, 2 Collected Works, i. 430-1 
 
 3 Elizabeth to Penn, May 2, 1677. 
 
 13 
 
146 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 walked up to Penn, took him by the hand affectionately, and 
 offering to lead 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!" In a gentle tone Penn whispered some few 
 words of consolation in her ear. When she recovered the use 
 of her voice, she pressed the missionaries to visit her again on 
 their return from the Upper Rhine. Penn promised to do so 
 if they found it possible. She then tried to detain them to 
 sup with her that evening, which they at first refused ; but 
 the lady would not be denied this gratification, and they com- 
 promised the matter by having bread and wine served in the 
 room in which their religious service had been held. " So 
 we left them," says Penn, "in the love and peace of God, 
 praying that they might be kept from the evil of this world. "^ 
 Early next morning Robert Barclay set out to join George 
 Fox at Amsterdam, jwhile William Penn and George Keith 
 took their places in an open cart for Frankfort-on-the-Maine, 
 to travel in this way a distance of two hundred miles. Pur- 
 suing their tedious journey through Paderborn, " a dark 
 Popish city," and Cassel, where they were "tenderly re- 
 ceived," obstructed by the heavy rains, bad roads, and their 
 primitive vehicle, they arrived in Frankfort just a week after 
 leaving Herwerden. About three miles from that famous 
 city, they were met by two merchants who had come forth to 
 welcome them and report the spiritual condition of their fel- 
 low-citizens, many of whom, they said, were prepared to re- 
 ceive the new faith. Doctors, lawyers, ministers of the 
 Gospel, noble ladies, peasants and handworkers, crowded to 
 hear the young preacher. One enthusiastic girl, in the true 
 spirit of a martyr courting persecution, cried out — " It will 
 never be well with us until persecution come, and some of us 
 be lodged in the stadthouse," — the prison. But with all his 
 fervor, Penn did not neglect the temporal liberties and 
 worldly interests of his people. The affairs of America was 
 a topic of frequent and earnest conversation ; and among 
 those who took a deep interest in the preacher's scheme of 
 colonization were Von Dewalle, Dr. Schiitz, Franz Pastorius, 
 and Daniel Behagel, all of whom emigrated in a few years.^ 
 
 * Travels into Germany and Holland, i. 63. 
 
 2 Franz I'astorius, in Penn. Hiat. Soc. Memoirs, iv. 101. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 147 
 
 From the imperial city Penn adrlressed n, long letter to " tlie 
 Churches of Jesus throughout the world," in which he spoke 
 the language of an apostle, exhorting the faithful to take up 
 the cross boldly, to beware of the lust of the eye and the 
 pride of life, to redeem the time, not vainly striving to heap 
 the dross that perisheth, but content to do good, and be found 
 useful in their day and generation.^ 
 
 Continuing their tour slowly along the Upper Rhine, the 
 travellers passed through Worms on the fifth day, and in the 
 evening arrived at Kirchheim — a small town about six miles 
 from Worms, in the territory of Pfalzgrave. At this obscure 
 place the missionary made a most powerful impression upon 
 his hearers. People came in from the surrounding country; 
 and one of his meetings was attended by the governor, and 
 by the chief minister of the Lutheran church from Worms. 
 The fruits of this day's preaching are still visible in Penn- 
 sylvania. The home of which he told them beyond the seas, 
 was hardly less welcome to the Protestant democrats of 
 Kirchheim than that better home which he promised them be- 
 yond the skies. The hopes thrown out were readily received 
 by these true lovers of freedom ; the more ardent began to 
 quit their country in search of vessels to convey them to this 
 land of promise, the more cautious to make preparation, 
 quietly and safely, for the intended journey. In the new 
 country for which they sailed, in a few years, they won for 
 themselves an imperishable reputation, as the first colonists 
 from the old world who boldly declared it unlawful for Chris- 
 tian men to buy or to hold negro slaves ! ^ 
 
 But Penn seems to have been anxious to do something at 
 once for the relief and protection of this little handful of true 
 believers, and with this view went to Mannheim to consult 
 with the Palatine and ascertain what encouragement that 
 prince would afford to a colony of virtuous and industrious 
 families, in the event of a considerable number being willing 
 to remove into his territory, — as also to learn how they would 
 stand in respect to their refusal to take oaths, bear arms, and 
 .pay ecclesiastical taxes. This idea was probably a mere sug- 
 gestion of the moment ; for on his arrival at Mannheim, find- 
 ing the prince gone to Heidelberg, he contented himself with 
 
 J Collected Works, i. 65. 
 
 2 Bettle in the Penn. Hist. Soc. Memoirs, ii. 365. 
 
148 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 writing a letter to his liighness, and returned to Worms that 
 evening by the river.-' 
 
 From this place they dropped down the stream to Cologne, 
 the rank Popery of which city, like that, of its sister near 
 the confluence of the Maine, alarmed and horrified them. 
 Here they met their disciples at the house of a merchant, who 
 at their departure furnished them with a letter of introduction 
 to Dr. Mastricht of Duysburgh, which city they were now 
 anxious to visit, not only on account of what the student had 
 told them at Herwerden, but because they had been informed 
 by the Princess Elizabeth that the young and beautiful Coun- 
 tess von Falchenstein und Bruch, whose father resided in that 
 neighborhood, was seriously inclined.^ Her they also wished 
 to see. Even an apostle's heart is not without the romantic 
 instincts !^ 
 
 Duysburgh, a Calvinistic city, lay in the territory of the 
 Elector of Brandenburg. On their arrival they sought out 
 Dr. Mastricht, and delivered 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 cas- 
 tle and crossed the river to Mulheim, where she would, as 
 usual, spend the remainder of the day at the clergyman's 
 house. He cautioned them, hoAvever, not to make themselves 
 public — as much for the young lady's sake as for their own, — 
 as her father, a coarse and rigorous person, was already very 
 severely displeased with her on account of the serious turn of 
 her mind. Thus warned, they set out on foot to trudge the 
 six miles to Mulheim ; but on their way they met with one 
 Heinrich Schmidt, a schoolmaster, who informed them that 
 the Countess had just returned, but undertook to let her know 
 of their arrival in Duysburg. To him they gave a letter 
 which they had obtained from Dr. Mastricht, and with this 
 missile he departed, leaving them waiting by the orchard of 
 the Graf for his return. In about an hour he came back, to 
 say the Countess would be glad to see them, but knew not 
 where she could do so, as her father kept so strict a hand 
 over her. She rather inclined to think it would be best for 
 them to cross the water and go to the house of her friend the 
 clergyman. ^ While they were talking, the Graf with his at- 
 
 ' Penn to the Elector Palatine. Coll. works, i. 72. 
 
 2 Elizabeth to Penn, September 14th, 1677. 
 
 3 Travels in Germany and Holland, i. 78. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 149 
 
 tendants came forth from the castle, and seeing persons in a 
 foreign dress standing near the gate, sent one of his retinue 
 to inquire who they were, what they wanted, and whither they 
 were going. Before he could receive his answers, he walked 
 up and put the same interrogatories in person. Penn replied, 
 they were Englishmen come from Holland, and were going no 
 farther than to his own town of Mulheim ; on hearing which 
 answer, one of the Graf's gentlemen went 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 themselves before noblemen and in the presence of 
 princes ? Penn answered he was not aware of having been 
 guilty of any disrespect or unseemly behavior. "Then why 
 don't you take off your hats?" said one of them sharply. "Is 
 it respectful to stand covered in the presence of the sovereign 
 of the country ?" The Quakers took no notice of the angry 
 gesture with which this remark was accompanied, but replied 
 civilly that it was their practice in their own country, before 
 their own prince, who was a great king ; that they uncovered 
 to none but God. "Well then," said the petty prince, "get 
 out of my dominions ; you shall not go to my town." Penn 
 tried to reason with the offended majesty of Mulheim ; his 
 only answer was to call a company of soldiers, to whom he 
 gave orders to <5onduct them out of his territory, as if they 
 had been the vilest vagabonds.^ 
 
 It was now the dusk of evening, and 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 to Duysburg. The forest was three miles in length, 
 and the roads being unknown to them and the night dark, it 
 was only after wandering hither and thither, and with great 
 toil and difficulty, that they contrived to escape from beneath 
 its huge and sombre shadows. At length, however, they 
 emerged into the open country, and soon found themselves 
 under the walls of the city. Here a worse misfortune awaited 
 them. It was near ten o'clock — and all the gates were shut! 
 In vain they hailed the sentinels ; in vain they implored ad- 
 mission ; no city in the Elector's dominions was more strictly 
 guarded that night. What made their case so bad was the 
 fact that the town had no suburbs ; not a single house or 
 
 1 Penn to the Graf, September 3, 1677. 
 13* 
 
150 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 building stood beyond tlie fortifications. They were compelled 
 therefore to lie down in an open field in search of such repose 
 as they might find on the marshy ground of the Lower Rhine 
 in September. At three in the morning they got up, stiff 
 with cold, and walked about until five, comforting each other 
 with the assurance that a great day for Germany was nigh at 
 hand, " several places in that country being almost ripe for 
 the harvest" — reflections very natural and consoling in their 
 situation. Soon after the cathedral clock had struck five, the 
 soldiers opened the gates, and the wanderers returned to their 
 inn apparently none the worse for their night's adventures.^ 
 
 At Duysburg they learned something more of the Graf von 
 Falchenstein. Mastricht was ''surprised with fear (the com- 
 mon disease of this country)," says Penn, when he heard of 
 the rencontre. With the anxiety of a friend, he inquired 
 minutely what had passed ; and was greatly relieved when he 
 found they had been prudent enough not to name the Coun- 
 tess. Men like Penn and Fox might smile at pain and perse- 
 cution, but she was a young girl, with the weaknesses of 
 woman, and in the power of a jealous tyrant.^ For themselves 
 he thought they had escaped pretty well, as the Graf usually 
 amused himself by setting his dogs to worry, or his soldiers 
 to beat persons who were found loitering about the castle as 
 they had been ; but the Englishman took another view of the 
 case, and before he slept wrote and sent off to his grace a 
 manly and indignant remonstrance.^ 
 
 Penn failed in his efforts to see the young Countess ; but 
 he had the satisfaction to receive from her an affectionate 
 message by the hand of her page. In return he wrote to her 
 a long letter of spiritual consolation, for he had become deeply 
 interested in her case, and his royal friend at Herwerden had 
 told him that it would be of considerable use to her own 
 family peace to have the two pastors of Mulheim disabused 
 of some prejudices which they entertained against Quaker 
 doctrines.'* And so he departed. 
 
 Slowly dropping down the Rhine — proclaiming their double 
 mission in all towns and preparing a way for future emigra- 
 tion — the travellers at length arrived at Amsterdam.^ There 
 
 ' Travels into Germany and Holland, i. 80. 2 Ibid. i. 84. 
 3 Penn to the Graf, September 3, 1677. 
 "* Elizabetli to Penn, September 14tli, 1677. 
 
 ^ The only curious event of this journey was the conversion of an ^'attor- 
 ney to a living sense of the truth." Travels into Germany and Holland, 80. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 151 
 
 they found that George 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 Rot- 
 terdam and Harwich. On the passage home they encountered 
 a violent storm. They were at sea three days and two nights ; 
 the rain fell in torrents ; the hail beat heavily against their 
 frail canvas ; the wind set in dead against them ; the vessel 
 sprang a leak ; and the most incessant labor at the pumps, 
 night and day, could hardly keep the hold from filling. Great 
 fear fell on the superstitious minds of the seamen ; but on the 
 peril passing away they soon resumed their usual wantonness 
 of spirit, — very much to the horror and annoyance of the 
 Quakers who were on board.* 
 
 Fox and other Quakers, when they landed at Harwich, 
 proposed to hold a series of meetings in that town, and then 
 going by Colchester and other places make their way slowly 
 towards London. But Penn's thoughts were now with Guli 
 and his young family at Worminghurst, 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 on his way.^ 
 Arriving at home after an absence of just a hundred days, he 
 was delighted to find his wife and children in good health and 
 spirits, and his gratitude broke forth in the simple and sublime 
 language of the sacred writings.^ 
 
 For three weeks he had remained at home in the bosom of 
 his family, when the affairs of New Jersey again demanded 
 his presence in London. Inquiries now crowded in upon him 
 from every part of the country with respect to the new terri- 
 tory. Under his auspices, several shiploads of emigrants 
 went out from Deal and from Hull ; and although the man- 
 agement of the colony was only in part in his hands, yet such 
 was the confidence reposed in his integrity and wisdom, that 
 more than eight hundred persons of sober, industrious, and 
 wealthy families had quitted England for the province during 
 the few months which had elapsed since he undertook the task 
 of its government. Under these multiplying labors his health 
 began to fail ; the anxiety of mind also weighed heavily upon 
 his spirits ; and all Guli's care was needed to prevent him 
 
 1 Perm's Travels, &c. i. 114; Fox's Journal, 454. 
 
 2 Fox's Journal, 455. ^ Penn's Travels, i. 116. 
 
152 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 from falling into a seriously low and listless mood.^ His at- 
 tention to colonial matters was not, however, interrupted by 
 ill health ; even during a short sojourn which he made in 
 Buckinghamshire, a county for which he ever retained a pe- 
 culiar fondness,^ he allowed himself no relaxation from these 
 important duties. These events were the successive stages by 
 which the crowning act of his life was reached — the foundation 
 of his own colony of Pennsylvania. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1678-1G80. 
 ALGEKNON SIDNEY. 
 
 At this period of his life Penn lived much in the world, 
 and was received with distinction by nearly all sorts and con- 
 ditions of men; His position was indeed an uncommon one. 
 Standing aloof from all intrigues in that most intriguing of 
 courts ; taking no direct or personal part in politics ; a candi- 
 date for no office ; undesirous of any honor or emolument 
 which courts can bestow; accustomed from his youth to mix 
 freely and on equal terms with the best society ; acquainted 
 with all the leacling spirits of the day, yet possessed by none 
 of their eager ambition or devouring lust of pleasure ; no 
 man's rival in love, business, or gallantry, — his perfect neu- 
 trality as to the great objects of personal and party strife, 
 secured to him a larger share of intercourse with leading men 
 than perhaps any other individual of the time enjoyed. In 
 the good graces of the King, and particularly favored by the 
 Duke of York, it was easy for him to maintain a high stand- 
 ing with the wits, ministers, and favorites who daily thronged 
 the galleries of Whitehall ; while beyond that circle he en- 
 joyed the confidence of men whom no royal blandishments 
 could win. Not only was he intimate with the catholic Duke 
 of Ormonde, and his equally noble sons, the Earl of Ossory 
 and the Lord Arran, but also with the champion of Protestant 
 
 ' Penn to Margaret Fox, January 8, 1678. MS, 
 
 2 Ibid, George Fox's daughter had been staying with the Penns, and bore 
 this letter to her motlier. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 153 
 
 doctrine, the pious and the gentle Tillotson.^ His genius and 
 his virtues were equally appreciated by the Whig William 
 Lord Russell, the Tory Lord Hyde, and the Republican Al- 
 gernon Sidney.^ Of other men with whom he lived on terms 
 of greater or less intimacy at this time, — there were the Duke 
 of Buckingham, the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Marquis of 
 Halifax, the Earl of Sunderland, Lord Essex, Lord Churchill, 
 and many other distinguished rakes, writers, courtiers, and 
 members of parliament. Some surprise may be felt that a 
 man of Penn's character — the leader of an unworldly and 
 ascetic body of religious enthusiasts, should be found living 
 in a state of easy intercourse with persons like George Villiers 
 and Anthony Ashley Cooper. It must be recollected that 
 his youth had been passed with court gallants, with wits and 
 noble gentlemen. No harshness had ever mixed itself with 
 his graver moods. Even at the time when he first changed 
 his religious vieAVS, he had exhibited no morbid dislike to his 
 old companions ; he still retained his natural gaiety and 
 sprightliness of manner ; like his father, the admiral, he en- 
 joyed a joke, and that he talked admirably we know on no 
 less an authority than that of Swift.^ If he appeared to 
 avoid his early friends, it was not their persons which he dis- 
 liked, but their vices aud frivolities. In his idea, a religious 
 man need not shun the street, the drawing-room, the market- 
 place ; and he felt it was his duty as an individual to live in, 
 if not of, the world. But he had greater objects in view in 
 retaining that place in society which his birth and early for- 
 tunes had given him : some of these old and powerful friends 
 were already inclined to adopt his views on the great subject 
 of Toleration to Opinion : the Duke of Buckingham especially 
 seemed disposed to support a more liberal policy in parlia- 
 ment ; and Penn labored assiduously to induce him to devote 
 his splendid talents and commanding influence to effect this 
 great national reform.'* Under his influence and advice the 
 duke made more than one attempt to force the subject on the 
 attention of an unwilling legislature ; but the Church party 
 was too wary to be surprised and too powerful to be over- 
 thrown at a single onset ; and then a new face, a fresh whim, 
 a fit of the spleen, would distract the ducal thoughts, and the 
 
 ' Tillotson Cx)rrespondence in Penn's Works, i. 127-9. 
 
 2 Furly Correspondence, 84. » Swift's note to Burnet, iii. 140. 
 
 * Penn to a Friend. Clarkson, ii. 67. 
 
154 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 great business fall into complete neglect. Sunderland, Hali- 
 fax, and Cavendish wavered in opinion with the gusts of po- 
 pular feeling, or changed their views as the events of the 
 political world suggested to be prudent : in the Duke of York 
 alone of those about the King's person Penn found a stead- 
 fast friend to Liberty of Conscience. No doubt personal in- 
 terests, and even personal fears, had their share in producing 
 this constancy of his royal highness ; but his ward had no 
 right to pry into his secret motives — and he had no means of 
 judging of his ulterior designs. The prince invited his con- 
 fidence by gracious words and acts of kindness : and Penn 
 readily availed himself of the royal favor to obtain pardon 
 for his non-conforming brethren when they fell under perse- 
 cution, and to urge on the great work of securing an Act of 
 Toleration from the House of Commons.^ 
 
 But the family with which he at this time cherished the 
 most intimate relations was that of Sidney. With the several 
 members of this eminent and gifted race he lived on friendly 
 terms. Though estranged from each other, they reposed con- 
 fidence in him — appealed to his wisdom in their difficulties, 
 and sometimes placed their interests under his care and guar- 
 dianship.^ Towards Henry Sidney — Earl of Romney under 
 the Prince of Orange — a man somewhat younger than him- 
 self, he retained an affection which had commenced in early 
 life, but which rather resembled the regard a strong character 
 will sometimes contract for an amiable and petted child than 
 arose out of any serious sympathy of manhood and its opi- 
 nions.^ To his brother Algernon he was at once a friend and 
 a disciple.^ 
 
 The diiference between the two Sidneys was striking. 
 Henry was nearly twenty years younger than his illustrious 
 brother. He had seen but little of the best period of the 
 Kevolution, and had never known the purer and more mode- 
 rate of its champions. 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. 
 While yet in his teens he was noted for his gallantries ; and 
 being handsome, amiable, and a rake, was of course a favorite 
 
 1 Phil. Friend, vi. 257. ^ Furly Correspondence, 84, 89, 95. 
 
 3 Diary and Correspondence of Henry Sidney, Earl of Roniney, ii. 194, 
 &c. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iv. 1. 
 
 "^ Sidney to Furly, April 13 ; August 19, &c. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 15[» 
 
 with the ladies of his family.^ Loose in his morals, and pro- 
 fessing no political heresies, he made his way rapidly in a 
 court where to cheat at cards and seduce your friend's wife 
 were not thought inconsistent with the character of a man of 
 honor.^ In this school he was an apt scholar. Undaunted 
 by ordinary difficulties, he set no limit to his pleasures, and 
 the royal family itself did not escape the scandal of his 
 amours. Appointed master of the horse to the Duchess of 
 York, he was soon found to be engaged in a criminal intrigue 
 with his royal mistress, mother of two of the future sove- 
 reigns of England.^ A violent scene between the Duke and 
 Duchess led to his banishment from the court.*^ When he 
 returned he was a more cautious if not a wiser man. At his 
 house, Penn was a frequent visitor ; and there he met with 
 his old Paris friend Kobert Spencer — the son of Sidney's 
 sister, Lady Dorothy, the Sacharissa of Waller's Poems — 
 now Earl of Sunderland, and one of the most stirring in- 
 triguers of his day — and with other persons high in influence 
 and office, whom it was his duty to see in relation to his pri- 
 vate aifairs or in the interests of the Quaker body. True, 
 however, to his old weakness, Sidney could not refrain from 
 making love to his nephew's w^ife f the delinquents kept up a 
 voluminous correspondence, and their amours were at this 
 very time the common gossip of the French and English 
 courts.® 
 
 Between such a man and his austere and noble brother 
 there could be, and there was, no sympathy, and but little 
 affection.'^ In his infancy, Algernon Sidney had been remarka- 
 ble for his great wit and natural sweetness of disposition.^ As 
 he grew up to manhood, the Homan virtues of his soul had 
 
 1 Blencoe's Sidney Papers, 274. Devonshire letters in Lady Russel's Cor- 
 respondence, 334. 
 
 2 Grammont, 98, 99. 
 
 3 Pepys, iii. 123. "The duchess is fallen in love with her new master of 
 the horse, Harry Sidney." Nov. 17, 16G5. At this time the royal brothers 
 were both in love with Mrs. Stewart. Eugh ! Ibid. 
 
 '' The scandalous story is told at length in Grammont, 274 et seq. 
 
 5 Lady Sunderland is said by Clarendon to be "as great a jade as ever 
 lived." Autobiography, ii. 189, Evelyn describes her as one of the best of 
 women, i. 653. How competent judges may disagree ! The Princess Anne 
 agreed with her grandfather. Letter to the Princess of Orange, March 20, 
 1688. 
 
 6 Barillon, July, 1678. 
 
 ' Dalrymple, i. 339. Barillon says of Algernon— "II est fort mal avec sou 
 frere, qui est en Hollande." 
 
 ^ Collins' Sidney Papers, ii. 445. 
 
156 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 been fostered by a liberal education and the influence of com- 
 manding events During the civil war he had distinguished 
 himself by his wisdom in the council and by his valor in the 
 field. ^ A sincere republican, he had opposed the designs of 
 Cromwell with as ardent zeal as he had fought against the 
 King ; his country and his political convictions stood above 
 all private regards, and he had no more thought of submitting 
 to a military dictator than to an hereditary despot.^ He dis- 
 agreed with his fellow-ofiicers as to the policy of Charles' 
 trial and execution ; being attached to the old forms of Eng- 
 lish judicial procedure, and satisfied moreover that his deposi- 
 tion and banishment would meet the ends of justice and sound 
 policy better than the more violent course proposed.^ But 
 this prudent council was overruled by the more ardent spirits ; 
 when Algernon Sidney observed that by law no court could 
 try the crowned King, and that that court could try no man, 
 Cromwell replied — "I tell you, man, we will cut ofi" his head 
 with the crown upon it."'* Thereupon he retired from the 
 scene to his paternal residence at Penshurst ; and being abroad 
 at the Restoration,^ remained in exile rather than unsay a 
 single word of his stern and tried political faith. For seven- 
 teen years he remained abroad, during which time his friends 
 made several eff"orts to obtain for him a pardon ; but as he 
 would concede nothing, and the Stuart princes were equally 
 unyielding, the negociations failed as often as they were at- 
 tempted. The utmost that could be drawn from him — though 
 wasting away with privation and home-sickness — was a decla- 
 ration to the effect that he was willing to submit to the King, 
 since Parliament had done so, but that he could on no account 
 regret what he had done, renounce any of his old opinions, 
 or ask a pardon.^ To those who would have had him distrust 
 the instincts which made him a wanderer and a beggar in a 
 foreign land, he said very finely and nobly — "I walk in the 
 light 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 except sin 
 and shame ! God keep me from these evils, and in all things 
 else dispose of me according to His pleasure."^ 
 
 1 Journal of the Earl of Leicester. ^ Collins' Sidney Papers, i. 152. 
 
 3 Blencoe's Sidney Papers. Appendix, with the note by Mackintosh. 
 
 '* Sidney to his Father. Blencoe's Sidney Papers, 237. 
 
 ^ Letter to his father, in Blencoe. 
 
 ^ Blencoe's Sidney Papers, 233. "^ Blencoe, 163. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 157 
 
 After an absence of seventeen years he was allowed to re- 
 turn to his father's death-bed. When he again appeared in 
 society, Penn saw him frequently ; and they had many oppor- 
 tunities of discussing his new schemes of colonization and his 
 theories of colonial government. A man with Sidney's large 
 views and ardent convictions could not long remain inactive. 
 The old men of the Commonwealth — the remnants of the great 
 Puritan party — Independents, Quakers, Brownists, and many 
 others — looked up to him as their leader.^ They were a van- 
 quished body, but they had glorious traditions ; and whether 
 numerous or not in the country, they were unquestionably 
 powerful in London.^ Sidney never for a moment disguised 
 his preference of a republic to a monarchy ; but he was willing 
 to lend his services to bring about any minor changes in the 
 established government, in a liberal direction, — and the great 
 object of the men with whom he now acted was to obtain an 
 Act of Parliament giving Freedom to Conscience. The vanity 
 of Buckingham was flattered with the thought of being at the 
 head of this earnest body of reformers, but the acute agent of 
 the King of France saw how completely he was swayed by the 
 superior genius of Sidney.^ 
 
 By the influence of these men an impression was soon pro- 
 duced on the two Houses of Parliament; 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 the grievances of Dissenters ; and Willam Penn having 
 presented a petition to that body on behalf of the suff"ering 
 Quakers, — against whom there existed no penal law, but who 
 had been maliciously confounded with the followers of Rome in 
 order to involve them in a common persecution, — a special 
 committee was named to inquire into the alleged facts, and to 
 see if it were not possible to relieve the great body of English 
 Protestants from the penalties which had been legally imposed 
 on Catholics. In March, William Penn was heard by this 
 committee, when he spoke as follows : — 
 
 " Gentlemen, — If we ought to believe that it is our duty, 
 
 1 If Sidney were well informed, there were a million of Non-conformers at 
 this time in England. Collins' Sidney Papers, 101. 
 
 2 Barillon to Louis, December 5, 1680. 
 
 3 Ibid. Dorothy Sidney to Lord Halifax, July 8, 19. Buckingham boasted 
 to Barillon of his influence with the city and the Dissenters ; by their means, 
 he said, he could control the Government. Dalrymple i. 313. 
 
 u 
 
lf)8 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 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 our- 
 selves obliged to declare with all readiness when called to it 
 by so great an authority, what is not our hope ; especially 
 when our very safety is eminently concerned in so doing, and 
 when we cannot decline this discrimination of ourselves from 
 Papists 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 be- 
 longeth to him and his belief. That which gives me a more 
 than ordinary right to speak at this time, and in this place, 
 is the great abuse which I have received above any other of 
 my profession ; for of a long time I have not only been sup- 
 posed a Papist, but a Seminary, a' Jesuit, an emissary of 
 Rome, and in pay from the Pope ; a man dedicating my en- 
 deavors to the interest and advancements of that party. Nor 
 hath this been the report of the rabble, but the jealousy and 
 insinuation 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 prose- 
 cute 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 pu- 
 nishment. 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 whipping 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 false to our principles, 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; but this I submit 
 to your consideration. To conclude ; I hope we shall be held 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 159 
 
 excused of the men of that (the Roman Catholic) profession 
 in giving this distinguishing declaration, since it is not with 
 design to expose them, but, first, to pay that regard we owe 
 to the inquiry of this Committee, and in the next place, to 
 relieve ourselves from the daily spoil and ruin which now at- 
 tend and threaten many hundreds of families, by the execu- 
 tion of laws which (we humbly conceive) were never made 
 against us."^ 
 
 This speech contains a body of opinions rarely heard in 
 those days of strife and bitterness ; and never within the walls 
 of Westminster Palace. To doubt the policy of using force 
 with the Papist, was -regarded in that age as something worse 
 than treason. No other sect had yet attained to such liber- 
 ality of sentiment. The Church was possessed by a rampant 
 spirit of persecution ; the Catholic never pretended to be tole- 
 rant in his own practice ; and Puritans, Independents, Pres- 
 byterians, and Episcopalians had each appealed in turn to the 
 sword, the stocks, the prison, and the whipping-post.^ We give 
 to others the liberty we ask for ourselves ! — an extraordinary 
 sentiment to avow in that age. The committee resolved to 
 insert in the bill then before Parliament a clause providing 
 relief to the complaining parties. In this amended form the 
 bill passed the third reading in the lower House — was sent 
 under promising auspices to the Peers — and the friends of 
 toleration were already congratulating each other on their 
 first victory over the common enemies of liberty, when, from 
 an obscure and unexpected quarter, burst one of the most 
 tremendous storms which have ever swept the political atmo- 
 sphere of England ; and in the general confusion Parliament 
 was prorogued, and the bill of exemption lost for years. 
 
 Titus Gates had been a minister of the Church of England 
 until his dissolute life caused him to be expelled from its com- 
 munion. He had then joined the Roman Catholics, — entered 
 the Jesuits' College at Valladolid, and afterwards removed to 
 that of St. Omer's — from both of which, however, he was 
 thrust out with indignity. In these renowned colleges he had 
 heard many conversations on the prospects of Catholicism in 
 England, and probably various suggestions for carrying on the 
 supposed good work of its reconversion to the old faith. Out 
 of the stock of materials thus obtained, an aflluent imagination 
 enabled him to work up the grotesque and horrible concoction 
 
 1 Besse, i. 118. 2 Poulis' Hist, of Tlots, &c. 222. 
 
160 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 known in history as the Popish Plot.^ He said he had been 
 trusted by the Jesuits in Spain and France with the convey- 
 ance of certain letters and papers, — that he had opened these 
 documents out of idle curiosity, and so had become possessed 
 of their dark and terrible secrets. England, he asserted, was 
 about to be made the scene of a bloody drama. They intended 
 to kill the king. William of Orange was marked for assassi- 
 nation. Even the Catholic Duke of York was not to be spared. 
 The price of these crimes had already been paid. Every true 
 Protestant was to be murdered. A Erench army was to land 
 in Ireland to support the movement ; and as soon as the re- 
 formed faith was fairly put down, the whole country was to 
 be given up to the Jesuits.^ What the real facts underlying 
 these fables were, has never been discovered. That there was 
 a foundation of truth in the plot is probable in itself — was be- 
 lieved by the calmest and wisest men of the time — and is neces- 
 sary to explain the course of events. Algernon Sidney, than 
 whom no man in that age had a more thorough knowledge of 
 the Catholic courts, believed in the existence of a plot f so did 
 William Penn ;'' so did Sir William Temple.* The affair re- 
 mains a mystery to this day. 
 
 The nation was unfortunately in a temper to receive with 
 eagerness any monstrous story of intrigue and conspiracy. 
 For some time past the fears of every good Protestant had 
 been fed with rumors of the royal apostacy ; and the only 
 cordial friend of the reigning house, the King of France, was 
 well known to be a bigoted and intolerant Catholic. Some vague 
 idea had got abroad of the terms on which Louis supplied the 
 court so lavishly with money.^ Charles was suspected by many 
 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 Parliament, he had 
 married an Italian and a Papist ; should there be issue of this 
 alliance, there was a well-grounded fear that a line of Catholic 
 princes might succeed to the throne. The Protestant feeling 
 
 1 A true and exact Narrative of tlie horrid Plot and Conspiracy of the Popish 
 Party against the Life of his sacred Majesty, the Government, and the Pro- 
 testant religion. London, 1678. 
 
 2 Ibid. 3 Sidney's Letters to Savile, 9 et seq. 
 "* England's great interest in the choice of a new Parliament. Coll. Works, 
 
 ii. 678. 6 Temple, ii. 491. 
 
 6 It is sickening to read the supplications base of Charles for money : always 
 selling his country ! Dalrymple, i. 320 et seq. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 161 
 
 of the country was alarmed ; and monstrous as was the story 
 told by Gates, it found a willing and believing audience. Find- 
 ing the trade of informer in vogue, Bedloe, Dangerfield, and 
 other scoundrels, brought out newer and more astounding 
 revelations.-' The wiser people only laughed at these wretched 
 impostors ; but the affair of Coleman and the murder of God- 
 frey gave such a coloring to the charge, as convinced the 
 country that some act of unimaginable atrocity had been in 
 contemplation, and made it dangerous to express in public a 
 doubt as to the existence of the great conspiracy. Leading 
 men, seeing the uses to which a panic might be turned in aid 
 of their private ambition, affected to give it entire credence ; 
 and the astute Earl of Shaftesbury, from the first hour of its 
 birth, took the plot under his especial protection. Danby also 
 favored it from political and personal motives. It wanted not 
 the countenance of men high in rank and office : " Whether 
 given us by the right or left hand of Providence matters not," 
 said one deeply interested in its success.^ It was a god-send 
 to politicians ; and because it served their purposes it was al- 
 lowed to pursue its fearful course, though it sent a host of 
 innocent men to the scaffold, and carried desolation into thou- 
 sands of happy families. 
 
 Distrusting Danby and aware of the tendencies of court 
 opinion, Penn and Sidney were anxious to have the pretended 
 plot thoroughly sifted, probably expecting that some of the 
 royal intrigues, and especially the secret articles of the treaty 
 of Dover, might come to light in the course of inquiry. This 
 was the general feeling of republicans. They knew that the 
 king was closely connected with the Catholic movement and 
 with the designs of the Jesuits ; and had the truth come out 
 at once, he would have lost his credit with the nation forever. 
 Charles himself believed — to a greater extent perhaps than 
 was actually the case — that the attack on Popery was in re- 
 ality an attack on royalty.^ 
 
 The Commonwealth men, a powerful party, at whose head 
 Sidney and Penn now stood conspicuously before the world,"* 
 silently but actively prepared for the future. Foreseeing that 
 
 1 Tliese narratives are collected into a volume, B. M. 
 
 2 Settle. " A Narrative." Ibid. 
 
 3 Barillon to Louis. Dalrymple, i. 288. 
 
 ■* Barillion tells Ms master that Penn and Sidney are "a la tete d'ua 
 forte grande parti." Dal. i. 282. 
 
162 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 the intrigues of Danbj and Montague would lead to a disso- 
 lution of Parliament, Algernon began to look about for a 
 seat, and to prepare the constituencies for a more liberal and 
 enlightened public polity. Penn himself could not so far re- 
 nounce the opinions of his sect as to think of entering the 
 House of Commons, but he was deeply concerned for the 
 success of his friend and colleague. He took up his pen and 
 wrote three most excellent addresses. One of them was to his 
 own body of religionists. Fearing, in the general consterna- 
 tion, lest some might be led astray, he exhorted them not to 
 be drawn out of their sober course, by rumors of plots and 
 conspiracies, but to stand aloof, discharging their duties, in 
 the perilous times which were at hand, as men and as Chris- 
 tians.^ This done, he wrote an elaborate and masterly ad- 
 dress to Protestants of every denomination on the existing 
 crisis, and a brief tract, entitled " England's Great Interest 
 in the Choice of a New Parliament ;" the latter being more 
 especially composed with a view to promote the choice of wise 
 and liberal members at the approaching elections. In the 
 first he reviewed the moral question. He began by showing 
 the fallacy of vicarious virtue. If the people would be ho- 
 nestly governed, they must be honest themselves. Vice is 
 the disease of which nations die. No just government ever 
 perished — no unjust one ever long maintained its power. 
 Virtue is the true life-principle of society. All history 
 proves this ; but although immorality is the great destroyer, 
 a mistaken policy may be little inferior to it in mischief. 
 Foremost among such errors is the attempt to interfere with 
 the free course of thought. Act, not thought, is the subject 
 of legal regulation. To denounce the mind's conception of 
 such intangible but grand abstractions, as fate, freewill, elec- 
 tion, and the like, is political insanity. Not less mischievous 
 is the fallacy of measuring conduct by creeds. The true test 
 of faith is practice. He who acts well, believes well. Mo- 
 rality is debased when tested from above. Virtue may be 
 necessary to the state of grace, but grace is not indispensa- 
 ble to virtue. It is a grand mistake to disparage morality 
 under pretence of looking to higher things. In this world 
 there is nothing higher than goodness. — Such is the sub- 
 stance of a remarkable work, written by this profoundly re- 
 ligious man !^ 
 
 "~^ 1 Coll. Works, i. 22G. ^ Coll. Works, i. 223. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 163 
 
 His otlier work was entirely political. In its composition 
 he was probably assisted by Sidney. They were much to- 
 gether at this time ; and Algernon was a frequent and a 
 cherished guest at Worminghurst.^ He begins — "All is at 
 stake !" The crisis, he says, demands the utmost wisdom. 
 The new Parliament will have the gravest duties : — to investi- 
 gate the plot and punish its authors ;^ to impeach corrupt and 
 arbitrary ministers of state ; to detect and punish those re- 
 presentatives who had lately sold their services for money ; to 
 secure to Englishmen their ancient rights, by means of a bill 
 to shorten the duration of parliaments ; and finally, to ease 
 Protestant Dissenters. Such a work as this requires bold and 
 able men. He then sketches his ideal of a man for the 
 crisis : Algernon Sidney evidently sitting for the picture. He 
 should be able, learned, well-affected to liberty ; one who will 
 neither buy his seat nor sell his services ; he must be free 
 from the suspicion of ever having been a pensioner on court 
 or minister ; he should be a person of energy and industry, 
 free from the vices and weaknesses of town gallants ; a re- 
 specter of principles, but not of persons ; fearful of evil, but 
 courageous in good ; a true Protestant ; and above all, a man 
 unconnected by office or favor with the court.^ Such is the 
 pith of this work — a work widely circulated at the time ; but 
 the moment was one eminently unfavorable to wise and sober 
 thought. The nation was in a general ferment. From the 
 hour of its birth the Popish plot had gathered strength. The 
 court was torn by factions ; and a well-merited impeachment 
 for corrupt practices was hanging over the head of Lord 
 Danby, First Minister of the Crown.^ 
 
 In this posture of affairs the writs for a general election 
 were issued. Deceived on so many sides, the nation was be- 
 side itself with excitement and apprehension, and persons of 
 calm and philosophic views had little hope of obtaining the 
 ear of the public ; but Sidney was not a man to shrink in a 
 good cause, even from the probabilities of a personal discom- 
 fiture. Once in the House of Commons, his party felt that 
 his very name would be to them a tower of strength ; and to 
 
 1 Sidney to Furley, August 9, 19, 1678. 
 
 2 The wisest men felt the necessity of this course. Sir William Temple 
 said of the plot — ''It must of necessity be pursued as if it were true, 
 whether it were true or not." Temple, ii. 491. 
 
 3 Collected Works, ii. 681. ^ Reresby, 67. 
 
164 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 give weight to liis counsels, as the organ of republican opin- 
 ions, they resolved to bring him forward as a candidate for a 
 county town. A large body of electors in Guildford having 
 pledged themselves to return him for that important con- 
 stituency, he formally offered himself for the suffrages of its 
 inhabitants.-^ 
 
 Hitherto Penn had taken no personal part in politics. He 
 had even refrained from using his own rights as an elector, — 
 like many of his sect at the present day. It was repugnant 
 to his habits, and his moral sense was offended at a scene of 
 low corruption — the eating and drinking to excess, the revel- 
 ries and disorders, the insolence of petty officials, the envy, 
 malice, and all uncharitableness to which a popular election 
 gave rise at that period.^ But when the interests of his illus- 
 trious friend were at issue, all these scruples went for nothing. 
 For him, and for his cause, he would have done much more 
 than merely devote a few weeks to canvassing electors, mak- 
 ing liberal speeches, and rendering his countrymen more and 
 more familiar with the principles embodied in the ancient 
 charters of liberty. 
 
 The position which Penn assumed at this period, as the 
 political friend of Sidney, and co-leader with him of the re- 
 publican party, was one eminently perilous to his worldly 
 interests.^ His account with the government was still unset- 
 tled. Neither the principal nor the interest of the large 
 debts owing by the crown to the admiral, had been paid; and 
 it was evident to all his friends that the final settlement of 
 the claim would mainly depend on the favorable disposition 
 of the royal brothers. It was obviously his interest therefore 
 to stand well with the court. But how could this be possible 
 so long as he acted with Algernon Sidney, — a man who had 
 not only borne arms against the Stuarts, in his more ardent 
 youth, but who in his riper manhood still avowed himself a 
 partisan of the Commonwealth ? To lie under the least suspi- 
 cion of a leaning to the Republic, was enough to ruin any 
 public man in that age, — even the moderate and sagacious 
 Sir William Temple was hated because he was surmised to be 
 too much of Sidney's way of thinking."* When his intention 
 
 ' Penn to Sidney. Collins' Sidney Papers, i. 154. 
 
 2 Henry Sidney's Diary and Correspondence, i. 117. 
 
 3 Barillion Corresp. Dalrymple, i. 282. 
 
 4 Birch MSS. 4297, P. M. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 165 
 
 to stand for Guildford became known, the court prepared to 
 oppose the candidature of the republican leader with all its 
 influence ;^ but Penn, convinced that he was one of the no- 
 blest spirits his age had produced, paid no respect to this 
 hostile demonstration, and boldly put in peril the chief part 
 of his worldly fortune, rather than stand apart and see his 
 friend defeated by a court intrigue. 
 
 As the day of election drew nigh, the court party became 
 active. Colonel Dalmahoy was sent down to stand in its in- 
 terest;^ the mayor and the recorder of the town were bought 
 or terrified ; bribery, treating, intimidation, and all the baser 
 practices of electioneering, were brought forth. Soldiers were 
 discharged from the service on promising to vote for Dalma- 
 hoy. Non-residents were sought after and their votes taken. 
 Paupers were made to tender votes for the court candidate. 
 To make the Commonwealth men odious in the eyes of the 
 mob, they were attacked with the foulest slanders : — Penn 
 was accused of being a Jesuit, Sidney was branded as a regi- 
 cide. For three weeks the town was a scene of indescribable 
 confusion and disorder. Both parties feasted their sup- 
 porters ; the sternest political virtue in that age was held to 
 be compatible with the amenities of cakes and ale.^ 
 
 At length came the day of election. In spite of every 
 thing which the court party had done to seduce or intimidate 
 the electors, Sidney had promises of a majority of votes. 
 Penn went with his friend to the hustings, and made a pointed 
 and powerful speech to the assembled burgesses. The re- 
 corder could contain his wrath no longer. He shouted at the 
 speaker that he was a Jesuit ; but the coarse slander was 
 received as a dull joke, and the people only laughed at their 
 recorder instead of interrupting his intended victim. He then 
 called for the New Testament and tendered him the oaths — 
 well knowing that he would not take them — but Penn was 
 the better lawyer of the two, and he quietly reminded him 
 that the offer of an oath in such a place was contrary to law. 
 At this rebuke he lost all patience, called for his myrmidons, 
 and had him expelled the court by force.'* 
 
 * Sidney's Statement. Com. Jour. viii. 578. 
 
 2 The Court took a formal part in all elections at tliis time. Letter Books 
 in State Paper Office. 
 
 3 Collins' Sidney Papers, i. 154. 
 
 * Sidney's Statement. Com. Jour. viii. 578. 
 
166 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 This diversion came too late. Sidney had ah^eadj secured 
 a majority of suffrages. But having gone such lengths, and 
 not daring to offend a sovereign who was in the constant 
 habit of removing local officers and naming more pliant tools 
 to fill their places^ — the recorder refused to make out his re- 
 turn, on the plea that he was not a freeman of the borough, 
 though he had formally offered himself at the Town Hall, for 
 the purpose of being made, on the previous day, — and de- 
 clared Dalmahoy duly elected.^ Never was a more shameless 
 transaction known. Of course, the liberals did not think of 
 submitting to an act of such intolerable injustice. They held 
 a conference of their friends on the afternoon of the election, 
 at which it was resolved to petition against the return, and 
 persons were appointed to watch the movements of the enemy 
 and make reports. It was late in the evening when Penn 
 parted with Sidney, but he had been from home some time, 
 and was anxious about Guli and the children. 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 wanton indifference of so many electors to the great 
 interests of the time, — the contumely and wrong heaped on 
 his noble friend, because he and his party " had a conscien- 
 tious regard for England:" it was almost enough to make 
 him despair of the old country. When he got home he found 
 his family in good health ; but instead of giving himself up, 
 as was usual with him after a short absence, to domestic in- 
 tercourse, he retired to his chamber and wrote off to Sidney 
 the following note : — 
 
 " 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 rea- 
 sonable is this, that so soon as the articles or exceptions are 
 digested, show them to Sergeant Maynard, and get his opinion 
 of the matter. Sir Francis Winnington and Wallope have been 
 used on these occasions too. Tliou must have counsel before 
 the Committee ; and to advise first upon the reason of an ad- 
 dress or petition with them, in my opinion, is not imprudent, 
 but very fitting. If they say that (the conjuncture considered, 
 thy qualifications and alliance, and his ungratefulness to the 
 
 1 Sunderland Letter Book, 629, folio 132. S. P. 0. 
 
 2 Sidney's Statement. Com. Jour. viii. 578. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 167 
 
 House,) they believe all may amount to an unfair election, 
 then I offer to wait presently upon the Duke of Buckingham, 
 Earl of Shaftesbury, Lord Essex, Lord Halifax, Lord Hollis, 
 Lord Gray, and others, to use their utmost interest in revers- 
 ing this business. This may be done in five days, and I was 
 not willing to stay till I come, which will be with the first. 
 Kemember the non-residents on their side, as Legg and others. 
 I left order with all our interest to bestir themselves, and watch, 
 and transmit an account to thee daily. I bless God, I found all 
 w^ell at home. I hope the disappointment so strange (a hun- 
 dred and forty poll-men as we thought last night considered) 
 does not move thee. Thou, as thy friends, had a conscientious 
 regard for England ; and to be put aside by such base ways 
 is really a suffering for righteousness. Thou hast embarked 
 thyself with them that seek, and love, and choose the best 
 things ; and number is not weight with thee. I hope it is 
 retrievable, for to me it looks not a fair and clear election. 
 Forget not that soldiers were made free three weeks ago in 
 prospect of that choice (and by the way they went, as we may 
 guess, for Dalmahoy's sake), and thyself so often put by, a 
 thing not refused to one of thy condition. Of the Lower House 
 the Lord Cavendish, and especially Lord Russel, Sir Jo. Co- 
 ventry, Powell, Saychevrill, Williams, Lee, Clergis, Boskowen, 
 Titus, men, some able, some hot (ardent) and fit to be nearly 
 engaged in the knowledge of these things. 'Tis late, I am 
 weary, and hope to see thee quickly. Farewell. 
 
 "Thy faithful Friend, 
 
 "William Penn."^ 
 
 The petition was prepared and sent in to the House of Com- 
 mons. All over the country the terror of the plot had spread, 
 and never before had the constituencies of England returned 
 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 House met in a most 
 threatening mood. Its revenge was prompt. Danby was com- 
 mitted to the Tower. The Duke of York was banished the 
 realm. The Whigs — as the party led by Shaftesbury and 
 Russell may properly be called — were on the eve of a decisive 
 
 1 Collins' Sidney Papefs, i. 154. 
 
 2 Ellis' Original Letters, iv. 64. Second series. 
 
168 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 victory — when Charles again suddenly dissolved parliament 
 and appealed to the nation.^ 
 
 Sidney prepared to stand again, but not for Guildford. 
 Penn rode about the southern counties, testing the feeling of 
 constituencies, and advised him to try his new fortunes at Bram- 
 ber. It was a town in his own county : — in Kent, the very 
 name of Sidney bore with it an assurance of success. Besides 
 this great advantage, Bramber lay not remote from Guli's 
 property, and the Penns had family and other friendly con- 
 nections in the neighborhood, — the Springetts, the Ellwoods, 
 the Faggs, and the Temples, from all of whom they counted 
 on support. Penn went to work with his usual zeal, and in a 
 few days he had engaged all these families in Sidney's interest. 
 He had even hopes of enlisting the Pelhams in the same cause, 
 — though in a recent county election he had opposed that 
 family in favor of Sir John Fagg.^ As soon as the writs were 
 out he went down to Bramber, and made it his head-quarters 
 until the election was over. Alert and ardent, he soon com- 
 municated his own zeal to others, and with Sir John Fagg and 
 Sir John Temple commenced an active canvass of the electors 
 under most favorable auspices. When he spoke of the virtues 
 and genius of Algernon Sidney, the borough kindled at his 
 eloquence. From morning until night he was at work ; he 
 spared no exertion to secure success ; he made interest in every 
 house ; and kept Algernon, who was still in London, informed 
 of his progress. Two other candidates appeared in the field. 
 Mr. Parsons and Captain Goreing ; but they who knew the 
 town best considered his return at the head of the poll as cer- 
 tain.^ 
 
 In this emergency, the court, nervously anxious to keep the 
 great republican out of parliament, had recourse to the vilest 
 arts. Knowing the influence which the name of Sidney exer- 
 cised in Kent, the Earl of Sunderland, Penn's old friend and 
 fellow-traveller, now become minister to Charles, and the wily 
 genius who directed every movement at the palace, resolved 
 to oppose brother to brother — to array Sidney against Sidney. 
 His uncle Henry was weak by nature — was politically opposed 
 to his illustrious brother — and only too willing to please the 
 
 1 Temple, ii. 509, 512. 
 
 2 Lady Sunderland to Henry Sidney. Diary and Corresp. i. 123. 
 Collins' Sidney Papers, i. 155. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 169 
 
 King at any price.^ Recently he had received some proofs of 
 royal favor, 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 ;^ and he had just been 
 sent to Holland, as envoy extraordinary to the Prince of 
 Orange, where he hoped to lay the foundations of a future 
 fortune.^ He could not quarrel with Whitehall, except at the 
 peril of his worldly hopes ; so he allowed his name to be used 
 by his brother's enemies, and scandalised the family through 
 the entire county. 
 
 When this design of contesting the election was first whis- 
 pered at Bramber, Penn would not believe it. But he knew the 
 danger, should the report prove true, — as its first efi'ect would 
 be to carry the Pelham interest to the other side. He felt 
 that no time was now to be lost, and in this state of doubt as 
 to the real quarter from which resistance would come, he wrote 
 to urge Sidney to come down at once to the borough : — 
 
 " Dear Friend,— I am now at Sir John Fagg's, where I 
 and my relations dined. I haved 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 [that is] 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 Goreing 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 Sidney would be proposed to 
 that borough, or already was, and till he was sure of the con- 
 
 1 Sunderland Corresp. Birch MSS. 4297. 
 
 2 Blencoe's Sidney Papers, 86, where it is added — <' the Lord Ranelagh, for 
 the same sum (6000Z.) paid to the I-ord Sunderhmd, is made gentleman of the 
 bed chamber in his place." Letters to Savile, June 19, 1079. 
 
 3 Burnet, ii. 404. 
 
 15 
 
170 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 trarj, it would not 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 Worming- 
 hurst. Sir John Temple has that opinion of thy good reasons 
 to persuade, as well as quality to influence the electors, that, 
 with what is and will be done, the business will prosper ; which, 
 with my true good wishes that it may be so, is all at present 
 from thy true Friend, William Penn. 
 
 "Sir John Fagg salutes thee."^ 
 
 As soon as he had despatched this missile, he wrote another 
 letter to Pelham to protest against the scandal of Henry's 
 name being used in his absence to the prejudice of Algernon, 
 — and expressed his fears that this ungenerous act would lead 
 to still greater feuds in the Sidney family. To this remons- 
 trance Sir John Pelham paid little regard. Sunderland moved 
 the wires at his will ; and under the powerful influence of feast- 
 ing and drinking — the Pelhams contributing half a fat buck 
 to that end — when the day of election came, Henry obtained 
 exactly as many votes as his brother, who nevertheless received 
 the casting voice, and was declared duly and rightfully re- 
 turned.^ Penn now considered his friend as fairly about to 
 take his seat in the House, where his counsels and his example 
 might be of the most signal service to his country ; and al- 
 though fcAV other republicans were returned, their party gen- 
 erally were satisfied with their leader being once more in 
 parliament. But as soon as the House met, the return was 
 annulled by an intrigue of the royalists, and their joy was 
 turned into wrath and indignation. A second time elected of 
 his countrymen, in spite of all the devotion of his friends, and 
 never man had truer, Algernon Sidney was rejected I^ 
 
 This second disappointment seems to have made a still more 
 profound and lasting impression on the mind of Penn. It 
 almost drove the remembrance of Guildford from his thoughts. 
 That a stranger like Dalmahoy should be found willing to 
 take unfair advantages of an honest adversary, — that a petty 
 
 ' Collins' Sidney Papers, i. 155. 
 
 2 Gilbert Spencer to Henry Sidney, i. 117. 
 
 ^ Spencer tells Henry — possibly to spare his feelings — that Algernon did 
 not go to the poll. Diary and Corresp. i. 117. But the facts were as stated 
 in the text. Sidney believed himself safe in his seat. — Letters to SaAdle. On 
 the 14th December, Barillon wrote to infoi-m Louis that he was elected. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 171 
 
 official, whom the court could make or unmake at pleasure, 
 should be eager to sullj his own fame rather than risk the 
 emoluments of his place — these were conceivable. But that a 
 nephew and a brother — members of an illustrious house, and 
 men whom he had himself known for years — should willingly 
 lend themselves to serve the purposes of a base cabal, to the 
 scandal of the county and the dishonor of their own blood : 
 this appeared to him inconceivable. When the nearest rela- 
 tives of Algernon Sidney would not pause at such an act of 
 baseness, what was left for virtue and integrity but to flee 
 away from a land so cursed as England ! 
 
 Plis regard was now turned more and more steadily towards 
 America. He had made one great struggle more at home, — 
 and it had failed. But he did not despair of Freedom. Experi- 
 ence had convinced him that in the new world alone was there 
 room enough for that great trial of a free Democracy which 
 formed so prominent a feature of Sidney's conversation. That 
 in an open field, the experiment of a Commonwealth, in which 
 the whole power lay with the people, however the idea might 
 be ridiculed in that age of political infidelity, would succeed 
 and flourish he had no doubt ; but finding no reason to believe 
 that such a trial could be brought about in England, he adopted 
 the romantic resolution of giving up his fortune and his future 
 life to its realization in the new world. 
 
 A long and cogent train of incidents had led him to this 
 great resolution. Once formed, it was put into immediate 
 course of execution. In lieu of the money owing to his father, 
 he proposed to the King's council to take a certain amount of 
 territory on the Atlantic sea-board and in the interior of the 
 country, as had been done at various times by other of the 
 great colonial proprietors.* The tract of land included in his 
 petition was then a huge wilderness, with only here and there, 
 at vast distances, a solitary house of wood and thatch, ten- 
 anted by some enterprising Dutch or Swedish family ; and 
 the hush of nature lay unbroken for hundreds of miles except 
 by the occasional cry of the Indian hunter. To this unknown 
 country he proposed to lead out a colony of pious, liberal, and 
 industrious 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 a touch of classic chivalry in 
 
 * Pennsylvania Papers, vol. i. State Paper Office. 
 
172 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 such a thought. The young sokller of Kinsale, with the ad- 
 venturous genius of his race, would re-enact in modern times, 
 the feats of an ancient hero of romance. But this was the 
 least part of his design. He wished to provide out of that 
 wilderness a Free Colony for all mankind — an original and an 
 august conception : one w^hich will keep his name forever in 
 the best memories of mankind.^ His experiment was to bear 
 witness to the world that there is in human nature virtue suf- 
 ficient for self-government.^ In the colony of his brain he 
 was resolved that there should be equal laws. The entire 
 sovereignty — -judicial, representative, administrative — should 
 rest with the people. Every office of government should be 
 discharged by men elected to their functions, and paid out of 
 the public revenue for their services. The state should employ 
 the best of servants, but admit of no masters. There should 
 be no difference of rank — no privileged order — in this new 
 community. In his generous enthusiasm for equal rights, 
 Penn forgot that some of these ideas were incompatible with 
 the laws and constitutions of England.^ In the Utopia con- 
 ceived in his mind he had resolved that 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 comforts, and above 
 all the Christian gospel. The spirit of love brooded over all 
 his projects. Universal freedom of the conscience — perfect 
 equality of political and civil rights — the most sacred respect 
 for personal liberty — and a full regard to the rights of pro- 
 perty ; these were the chief points of his scheme of colonial 
 government. The design was as grand as it was novel : — in 
 every sense it was worthy of the friend of Algernon Sidney ! 
 
 * Penn to Judge Mompesson. Watson's Annals, 98. 
 
 2 Penn to Turner, February 12, 1681. 
 
 3 Attorney-General's Observations. Pennsylvania Papers, vol. i. State 
 Paper Office. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 173 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 1680-1682. 
 A NEW DEMOCRACY. 
 
 When Admiral Penn died lie left behind him claims on the 
 Government, amounting in the whole to nearly fifteen thou- 
 sand pounds. In Charles' time the exchequer was usually 
 empty, and among their other resources financiers were in the 
 habit of borrowing money from private individuals for the 
 uses of the State. The system of permanent national debts 
 had fortunately not yet come into vogue ; the security of the 
 Government, the King's honor and honesty, w^as not consi- 
 dered quite so good as that ofi*ered by a tenth-rate banker ; 
 and it consequently required no small amount of patriotism 
 to induce a man to lay his private fortunes at the disposal of 
 his country.* The cautious and forecasting admiral had acted 
 with much liberality. He had lent large sums of money to 
 the public Treasury at times when it was needed to equip the 
 fleet. He remained without his pay for years when the finan- 
 ces were embarrassed ; and as no interest was ever paid on 
 the principal lent, the debt ran up in the course of years to 
 the amount already named. Ten years had now elapsed since 
 the admiral's death; and as his son had never seriously pressed 
 for a settlement — the Princes being always in want of ready 
 money — the claim had accumulated to upwards of sixteen 
 thousand pounds — equal to more than three times that amount 
 of our present money.^ In lieu of a money settlement of this 
 claim, Penn now sent In his petition to the Council, praying 
 that his Majesty would be pleased to grant him letters-patent 
 conferring upon him and his heirs forever a tract of unoccu- 
 pied crown-land in America.^ The block of country which 
 he had selected lay to the north of the Catholic province of 
 Maryland, owned by Lord Baltimore ; for its western boun- 
 dary it had the state of New Jersey, with the affairs of which 
 
 ' Pepys, iv. 161-164, 172. 2 pgnn to Turner, April 2, 1681. 
 
 ^ Pennsylvania Papers, June 14, 1680, State Paper Office. 
 
 15* 
 
174 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 he was now become familiar. It had only one outlet into the 
 sea, — by means of the great Delaware river ; but it stretched 
 inland to an unknown and undefined extent, across the mag- 
 nificent range of the Alleghanies to the banks of the Ohio 
 on the west, and to the shores of Lake Erie on the north. 
 The length of the province was nearly three hundred miles ; 
 its width about one hundred and sixty; and it contained no 
 less than forty-seven thousand square miles of surface — being 
 little less than the whole area of England ! The entire region 
 was covered with dense forests and extended prairies. The 
 native Indians hunted the elk and the wild deer over its great 
 plains, or danced the war-dance and smoked the pipe of peace 
 beneath the shade of its majestic oaks.^ Nature had not been 
 prodigal of her bounties in this region ; the bare mountain 
 chain covered a vast portion of its area, and while the adjoin- 
 ing states of Virginia and New England resounded with in- 
 dustry and began to blossom as the rose, no one thought of 
 sitting down in this bleak and forbidding clime. The winters 
 were known to be severe on the western slopes of the moun- 
 tain range, and it was conjectured that they must be still 
 colder in the valleys on the east. Yet the land was rich in 
 many of the best elements of national wealth. The magnifi- 
 cent embouchure of the Delaware, between Cape Henlopen 
 and Cape May, offered a basin in which the commerce of a 
 great continent might find ship-room. The Susquehannah, 
 the Delaware, the Ohio, the Alleghany, and a host of minor 
 streams watered the interior of the country or washed its 
 boundaries. It was rich also in mineral treasures. Iron was 
 to be had for the search ; to the west of the Alleghanies lay 
 inexhaustible fields of bituminous coal ; and anthracite beds 
 of the same valuable fossil were to be found in almost every 
 part of the province. Near the banks of the Ohio lay con- 
 cealed a treasury of salt-springs. Lime-stone was everywhere 
 abundant ; and in the south-east was a quarry of marble, not 
 unworthy to vie with the produce of Italy and Grcifef e\^ Nor" 
 was the whole of the province like the barren slopes of the 
 mountainous districts. Though the rock often lay near the 
 surface, it was covered with a rich vegetable loam. Sand and 
 alluvial deposite existed in the same locality.^ Brooks and 
 
 1 Penn to Free Traders, August 6, 1683. 
 
 2 Macgregor's Commercial Tariffs, Part xv. 348-9. 
 
 3 Perm's Letter to the Free Traders, August 6, 1683. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 175 
 
 mountain streams innumerable crossed and recrossed the val- 
 leys in every direction, fertilizing the soil and breeding my- 
 riads of ducks, curlews, geese, and other water-fowl.-^ The 
 lower flats about the Schuylkill and the Delaware were remark- 
 able for their fertility. Between the head waters of the Alleg- 
 hany and Lake Erie, and on both banks of the Susquehan- 
 nah, the soil was wonderfully rich and capable of the very 
 highest cultivation. It waited only for the forests to be felled 
 and the surface cleared to produce wheat, barley, rye, Indian 
 corn, hemp, oats, and flax in extraordinary perfection.^ In 
 the vicinity of the sea the climate for a considerable portion 
 of the year had the balmy softness of the south of France f 
 and the purity of the atmosphere reminded Penn continually 
 of the air of Languedoc." The forests supplied woods of 
 almost every kind. The cypress, the cedar, the chestnut, the 
 oak, and the walnut were among the most plentiful. The 
 poplar attained in that climate to its highest perfection — a 
 circumstance often mentioned by the proprietor. Six precious 
 species of oak were to be found. The pine, the cedar, and 
 the wild myrtle filled the air with fragrance ; and a slight 
 breeze brought from the heart of these boundless woods scents 
 which acted on the nerves like a gentle stimulant.* Beasts 
 of prey and animals of a large size there w^ere none ; but the 
 woods abounded in wild game, and the venison they produced 
 was superior to any thing of the kind out of England. Fowls 
 grew to an enormous size in the country, and it became a 
 common thing afterwards to have turkeys of forty or fifty 
 pounds weight ; and pheasants, partridges, and pigeons made 
 the fields vocal with their cries. The rivers were ready to 
 yield abundance of fish, especially perch and trout, shad and 
 rock, roach, smelt, and eels. Oysters were plentiful and of 
 great size and delicacy, as were also crabs, cockles, conch, and 
 other shell-fish. Luscious fruits grew wild about the country 
 — the grape, the peach, the strawberry, the plum, the chestnut, 
 and the mulberry, while the eye was delighted w^ith the virgin 
 flowers of the forest, of a beauty, largeness, and splendor 
 quite unknown in the harsher latitudes of the north. ^ 
 
 These natural advantages were many of them at that time 
 
 1 Penn to the Free Traders, Aug. 6, 1683. 2 Macgregor, xi. 348, 349. 
 
 3 Penn to the Free Traders, August 6, 1683. 
 
 4 Penn to Sunderland, July 28, 1683. 5i|ji(j. 
 ^ Penn to the Free Traders, August 6. 
 
176 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 unknown. Penn himself never suspected that he was asking 
 for a kingdom in return for a trifling debt. Indeed, he had 
 no thought of making money by his province ; and to the day 
 of his death he never dreamt of the pecuniary value of his 
 acquisition.^ For years and years it had been a sort of waste 
 land, which no one believed to be worth the trouble of enclos- 
 ing. Men in that age looked upon a settlement among the 
 Alleghanies as their descendants now do upon the gorges of 
 the Rocky Mountains. They went thither who could settle no 
 where else. When Gustavus Adolphus came to the throne of 
 Sweden, he had found nearly the whole of the American con- 
 tinent in the possession of one or other of the European 
 powers ; but being anxious, as stated in the proclamation 
 issued at Stockholm, " to convert the heathen and to extend 
 his dominions, to enrich the treasury and lessen the public 
 taxes," he sent out a number of colonists from Sweden to 
 take possession of the unoccupied territory lying about the 
 upper reaches of the Delaware.^ This was the beginning of 
 a sedate, industrious, and religious community. A few Dutch 
 settlers were there before them ; and these, at first, had no 
 friendly feeling to the new comers. But they soon found 
 that their industrious neighbors would be useful to them, and 
 national jealousy was kept down by a sense of pecuniary in- 
 terest. The Swedes turned all their attention to farming : 
 the Hollanders preferred the less laborious pursuits of trade. 
 They suited each other exactly.^ With the Swedes went out 
 a number of Finns ; and a village was formed by them at 
 Wicocoa, now within the suburbs of Philadelphia.'' They 
 gave the name of New Suabia to the whole country,^ and 
 scattered themselves far and wide over its surface. They 
 had, however, advanced but a little way towards the forma- 
 tion 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 had fixed their residence at the confluence 
 of the two rivers, had been content to harbor in the holes and 
 caves with which the high bank of the Delaware abounded.^ 
 
 1 Penn Gaskill, MSS. 
 
 2 Holms' Hist. New Swedeland (Stockholm, 1702 ; reprinted by the New 
 York Hist. Society), ii. 345. a pgnn. Hist. Collections, 10. 
 
 ■^ Proud. Hist, of Penns. i. 205. Proud is now an original authority ; he 
 had access to manuscript letters and papers which are no longer in exist- 
 ence. 5 Smith's Map, 1G03. ^ pemi. Hist. Soc. Memoirs, i. 163. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 177 
 
 The native red men of the southern part of the province 
 were a branch of the Lenni Lenapd. This name, signifying 
 *' the original people," was a common term, under which were 
 included all the Indian tribes speaking dialects of the widely- 
 spread Algonquin language. An obscure tradition among 
 them pointed to a great emigration from the west, in ages 
 long passed away ; and it is probable they were the remnants 
 of a conquering race, which had subdued and swept away the 
 more civilized people, whose monuments still arrest the atten- 
 tion of the traveller in the great valley of the Mississippi.^ 
 The northern regions were held by the Iroquois, the race of 
 red men so famous in the history of New York, under the 
 name of the Six Nations. As compared with the white men, 
 these different tribes presented the same general characteris- 
 tics — hardy, hospitable, cunning, magnanimous, and cruel. 
 These semi-savages claimed the lordship of the soil, as theirs 
 by immemorial occupancy. But as they hunted only, and 
 the grounds were of use merely as long as the rivers yielded 
 fish, and the forests game, they set little value on its perma- 
 nent possession. They were in the nomadic stage of social 
 development ; and men who have no fixed place of residence 
 — no altars and no homes — have yet to acquire the means 
 whereby the sense of a sort of sacredness in the soil grows 
 up. The Iroquois and the Lenape built no cities — perma- 
 nently cultivated no fields. Wherever' the woods afforded 
 sport, the wigwam was erected. The men tightened their 
 bows and sharpened their hatchets ; the women planted a 
 rood, or so, of maize ; and as soon as the spoils of the forest 
 and the produce of the field were got in, they decamped to a 
 more attractive spot. They were not devoid of a rude sort of 
 government. The king or 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 in point of age : if 
 there were no brother, then the eldest son of his sister. This 
 practice broadly indicates the state of morals among the red 
 skins, the precaution being adopted to prevent the intrusion 
 of spurious blood into the royal house.^ 
 
 Such were the broad natural features of the country which 
 
 Penn. Hist. Soc. Collections, 5. 
 
 Perm's Letter to the Free Traders, August 6, 1G83. 
 
178 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 William Penn now petitioned the King to grant him, in lieu 
 of his claim upon the government. 
 
 The petition was strongly opposed in the Privy Council, 
 where political bigotry and private interest continued for a 
 whole year to thwart its progress. Penn's ideas were not 
 popular at Whitehall ;^ his so-called eccentricities had only 
 been tolerated out of respect for his father ; but the Royalists 
 lost all patience when it became known that he sought to ob- 
 tain a grant of land with the intention of putting in practice 
 certain theories of government held to be Utopian by wise and 
 moderate politicians, and denounced by every courtier and 
 cavalier as absolutely dangerous to the crown and state. 
 Recent events had somewhat relaxed his hold upon the Duke 
 of York. He had publicly expressed his belief in the Popish 
 Plot ; he had influenced his friends, openly and strenuously, 
 to support Algernon Sidney, against the party of the court ; 
 and had become an accepted leader of the Republicans.^ He 
 had committed a still greater offence in the eyes of James — 
 he had stood between the Prince and his prey, and had com- 
 pelled him to do an act of substantial justice. Being the 
 lord-proprietor of the whole province of New Netherlands, 
 James had claimed a right to levy an import and export tax 
 upon all articles entering or leaving its ports. So long as he 
 retained the territories in his own possession, this claim was 
 not disputed ; and consequently all persons carrying goods to 
 or from New Jersey, had paid a duty of ten per cent, ad va- 
 lorem. But after the transfer of the proprietorship to 
 Byllinge, this tax was felt by the colonists to be a grievous 
 wrong ; they drew up a protest against it, which they sent 
 home to Penn, the acting trustee for the new proprietor. 
 Having considered the justice of the case, he proceeded in 
 the name of his clients against his own patron in the courts 
 of law. Sir William Jones decided in favor of Penn and the 
 colonists ; and the Duke at once acquiesced in the decision, 
 though it is hardly possible to believe that he would not feel 
 sore at his defeat, and angry with the man who had forced 
 him to give up a considerable part of his revenue. To the 
 
 » Penn to Turner, February 12, 1681. 
 
 2 Sewell, ii. 294, James had sagacity enough, to see that the Sidney party 
 were determined to restore a republic ; he was continually representing this 
 to Charles. See his Memoirs, i. 595-632. Sidney and Shaftesbury had a 
 violent quarrel at this time. Dorothy Sidney to Lord Halifax, July 8. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 179 
 
 coldness of the Prince was added the active hostility of Lord 
 Baltimore, whose ill-defined possessions were supposed to be 
 invaded bj the new boundary line.^ Baltimore was a bigoted 
 Papist, and one of those who stood at this very moment in 
 Gates' black list of conspirators ;^ he was consequently not in 
 the country, but he had powerful friends at court, ever watch- 
 ing over his interests ; and Penn's petition was no sooner laid 
 before the council, than a copy of it was sent ofi" to his agent, 
 Mr. Burke, who thereupon took his own measures to defeat 
 it.^ Had the royal coffers been more plentifully supplied at 
 this time, it is not likely that the State of Pennsylvania, as 
 it now stands, would ever have been founded. The dilatory 
 forms of the royal council were used to prolong considera- 
 tion of the petition ; the Lords Commissioners of Trade and 
 Plantation, wrote long letters about mere trifles to the Attor- 
 ney-General, and the Attorney-General wrote with similar 
 tact and ease to the Lords Commissioners. Penn's time and 
 hopes were equally wasting.'' The Earl of Sunderland was 
 his most active friend at court ; but his interests were also 
 promoted by Lord Hyde, Chief Justice North, and the Earl 
 of Halifax.^ These politic friends advised him to be silent as 
 to his democratic intentions, until his patent was issued, and 
 he had got safely away into his new colony : the mere name 
 of freedom having an offensive sound in the neighborhood of 
 the palace ; if he wished to succeed in his attempt, he must 
 adopt the suggestions of worldly prudence. Penn followed 
 this advice.^ But his enemies were powerful in rank and in- 
 fluence ;^ and before their opposition was brought to an end, 
 they contrived for him many grievous trials and bitter disap- 
 pointments.^ 
 
 In the meantime, doubtful of the issue of his petition, but 
 determined to try his great experiment in a fair field, at his 
 own cost and risk, he seized an opportunity which offered 
 itself to become a part-proprietor of East New Jersey. Sir 
 George Carteret, tired of the responsibilities of his oSice, 
 
 ' Dunlop, Penn. Hist. Soc. Memoirs, i. 167. 
 2 True and Exact Narrative, 6. 
 
 ^ Note to Pennsylvania Papers, June 14, State Paper Office. 
 ■* This correspondence is preserved in VoL i. of Penn. Papers, in the State 
 Paper Office. 
 
 5 Penn to Sunderland, July 28, 1683. ^ Penn to Turner, April 12, 1681. 
 7 Ibid. August 25, 1681. 8 Ibid. March 5, 1681. 
 
180 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 proposed to sell his province ; and William Penn, the Earl of 
 Perth, and twentj-two others, purchased it, with a view to 
 establish a more liberal government and bring some of his 
 ideas into practical operation. The partnership completed, 
 and the purchase made, Penn drew up an account of the soil, 
 air, water, climate a,nd other natural advantages of the coun- 
 try — sketched a project for a new town, which he proposed to 
 call Perth-Amboj, out of compliment to his noble partner, — 
 and published a method of disposing of such lands as remained 
 in the colony unoccupied. His fame as a state founder had 
 now spread into every part of the British Islands ; the libe- 
 rality of the concessions attracted the notice and favor of 
 the general public, and a great number of emigrants, especi- 
 ally from Scotland, accepted the terms and repaired with 
 their families to East New Jersey.^ In these active employ- 
 ments he found a refuge from the troubles brought upon him 
 by his petition ; the delays of the council, the envy of false 
 friends, and the malice of his open foes.^ 
 
 The petition was bandied about from council to commission, 
 from commission to council. At first the Duke of York was 
 unfavorable to the grant in the form which Penn, advised by 
 Sidney, had proposed ; and the Attorney-General, Sir Joseph 
 Werden, objected to it in his name.^ But Sunderland pressed 
 the matter to a conclusion by keeping the attention of the 
 court fixed on the alternative of a settlement of the debt in 
 money.'' This great argument in its favor ultimately over- 
 came the scruples of all parties. After five months spent in 
 negociation, Sir Joseph wrote to inform Mr. Secretary Blath- 
 wayte that the Duke of York had consented to accede to 
 Penn's request.^ All that now remained was the arrangement 
 of details. But this task occupied another term of five 
 months. The chief questions which came up for discussion 
 had reference to the boundaries and the constitutions. The 
 agents of the Duke of York were heard by the Privy Coun- 
 cil ; Mr. Burke appeared on behalf of his noble employer, and 
 both parties laid objections to the boundary line as drawn by 
 the friends of Penn. The geography of the American con- 
 
 ^ Pennsylvania Papers, i. 103, State Paper Office. 
 
 2 Penn's Letter, February 6, 1683, Besse, i. 124. 
 
 3 Pennsylvania Papers, June 23, State Paper Office. 
 
 4 Penn to Sunderland, July 28, 1G83. 
 
 ^ Pennsylvania Papers, October 16, State Paper Office. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 181 
 
 tlnent was then very imperfectly known, even to the men who 
 had to dispose of it in parcels almost as large as kingdoms;^ 
 and the charters of nearly all the proprietors were drawn 
 up so as to lead to vexatious after-disputes.^ Penn's counsel 
 made the best of their position ; their client being anxious to 
 obtain a well-marked line of separation from the lands of his 
 neighbors, and especially from those of the Catholic lord of 
 Maryland ; but the parties could not agree, and the grant was 
 finally made out with no proper understanding of the ques- 
 tions in dispute, in the hope that the proprietors would them- 
 selves be able to arrange their differences.^ This omission led 
 to endless disputes."* The terms of the charter then came on 
 for consideration. Penn had forgotten some of the less liberal 
 laws and usages of England; but the Attorney-General and 
 the Lord Chief Justice took occasion to remedy this defect by 
 adding a number of clauses to the charter. They expressly 
 reserved all the royal privileges. They provided for the au- 
 thority of Parliament in all questions of trade and commerce. 
 They made it imperative that all acts of the colonial legisla- 
 ture should be submitted to the King and his council, without 
 whose formal sanction they would be void and of no effect. 
 Above all, they reserved to the mother country the full right 
 to levy taxes and customs.^ The Bishop of London got a 
 clause inserted claiming security for the National Church. 
 An instance how little Penn's tolerant spirit was understood 
 in his own day !^ 
 
 All these preliminaries being arranged, on the 24th of 
 February the Lords of Trade and Plantations submitted the 
 draft of a charter to the King, constituting Penn absolute 
 proprietor of the province. Charles at once set his signature 
 to the document, only too happy to cancel a large and trouble- 
 some debt so easily."^ 
 
 1 Sir Joseph Werden to Secretary Blathwayte, November 20, Pa. Papers, 
 State Paper Office. 
 
 2 Watson's Annals, 5. 
 
 3 There is a useful article on the boundary question between Penn and 
 Lord Baltimore in Penn. Hist. Soc. Memoirs, i. 160 ; but Mr, Dunlop had 
 not seen the important papers relating to this controversy in the State Paper 
 Office. 
 
 ^ The correspondence between Baltimore and Penn, their agents, and the 
 government, fills several volumes in the State Paper Office. 
 
 5 North's Memoranda, Pa. Papers, vol. i. (1080), State Paper Office. 
 
 6 Penn's Papers, February 24, 1680-1, State Paper Office. 
 ' Records of Privy Council, C. R. 16, 224, P. C. 0. 
 
 16 
 
182 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 A council was called for the fifth of March at Whitehall 
 which Penn was summoned to attend. The King was present ; 
 but the petitioner neither doffed his hat nor bent his knee be- 
 fore the majesty of England. Charles seems to have been 
 rather amused with his eccentric and unique courtier, if a 
 story which obtained currency at that time may be credited. 
 As Penn stood bonneted in the royal presence, he observed 
 the King remove his hat ; at which, it is said, he observed, 
 "Friend Charles, why dost thou not keep on thy hat?" To 
 which his majesty replied laughing — " It is the custom of this 
 place for only one person to remain covered at a time."^ — At 
 this council the charter was finally issued. The name which 
 Penn had fixed on for his province was New Wales, on ac- 
 count of its mountainous character. But Secretary Blath- 
 wayte, a Welshman, objected to have the Quaker country 
 called after his native land ; the new proprietor then proposed 
 Sylvania, on account of its magnificent forests ; and to this 
 the King himself added Penn, in honor of the great admiral. 
 It was a happy combination — the Forest Land of Penn ! The 
 proprietor, however, fearful lest it would appear an instance 
 of vanity in him to have allowed a large principality to be 
 called after his family, appealed to the King, and offered 
 twenty guineas to the Secretary, to have it altered. Had he 
 appealed to Blathwayte and bribed the King, he might have 
 succeeded. As it was, Charles took upon himself the respon- 
 sibility of the name f and the patent was issued in the usual 
 form.^ The document itself — the germ of a great nation — is 
 now in the ofiice of the Secretary of Pennsylvania ; it is 
 written on rolls of strong parchment, in the old English hand- 
 writing, each line underscored with red ink ; the borders are 
 gorgeously emblazoned with heraldic devices, and the top of 
 the first sheet exhibits a finely executed portrait of his 
 majesty, still in a state of excellent preservation. It briefly 
 sets forth the nature and reasons of the grant, and loosely 
 describes the boundaries of the province. This document, 
 although not yet two centuries old, is already regarded with 
 a sort of veneration.^ 
 
 1 The Trne Picture of Quakerism (1736), p. 7. Gray's Hudibras, i. 376, 
 note. Sewell tells the story differently, ii. 334. 
 
 2 Penn to Turner, March 5, 1681. 
 
 3 There is an attested copy in the State Paper Office. It is printed in 
 Hazard's Register, i. 293. ■* Penn. Hist. Soc. Memoirs, i. 167. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 183 
 
 To Penn himself the granting of his petition was the great 
 event of his life. He knew the grandeur of his own designs. 
 Sidney felt that the cause of freedom was at issue; but he, 
 with a simpler philosophy rising to a higher generalization, 
 felt that the question involved no less than the cause of God. 
 A more than usually profound religious sentiment swayed his 
 mind while waiting the turns of this negociation ; he saw how 
 completely a false step, a rash word, an imprudent concession, 
 might put the whole of his great scheme in peril. When the 
 charter was issued he could exclaim — " 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 labors as a legislator. 
 Warned by the utter failure of the rigid constitution so elabo- 
 rately drawn up by Locke and Shaftesbury for Carolina, and 
 which their friends had declared would last forever, — Penn 
 resolved, at the instance of Algernon Sidney,^ to secure an 
 essentially democratic basis for his scheme of government, 
 and allow the minor details to be filled in as time, events, and 
 the public good should render them necessary.^ At the out- 
 set, thepefore, he drew up a frame of government, the pre- 
 amble of which — like the declaration of rights and principles 
 prefixed to more modern constitutions — contained an exposi- 
 tion of his leading ideas on the nature, origin, and object of 
 government. His sentiments, as exhibited in this document, 
 are wise, liberal, and noble. He begins by expressing his 
 conviction that government is of divine origin — and bears the 
 same sort of relation to the outer that religion does to the 
 inner man. The outward law, he says, is needed in the world 
 because men will not always obey the inward light : ^' The 
 law, in the words of an Apostle, was added on account of 
 transgression." But they err, he says, who fancy that govern- 
 ment has only to coerce the evil-doers : it has also to en- 
 courage the well-disposed, to shield virtue, to reward merit, to 
 foster art, to promote learning. — As to particular models of 
 government, he will say little. Vice will vitiate every form ; 
 and while men side with their passions against their reason, 
 neither monarchy nor democracy can preserve them from the 
 destructive consequences. Governments depend more upon 
 
 ' Letter to Turner, March 5. Besse, i. 124. 
 
 2 Penn to Sidney, October 13, 1G81. 
 
 3 MS. Letter, February 28, 1684-5. 
 
184 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 men than men upon governments. If men are wise and vir- 
 tuous, the governments under which they live must also be- 
 come wise and virtuous ; it is therefore essential to the sta- 
 bility of a state that the people be educated in noble thoughts 
 and virtuous actions. Such a people, making its own laws 
 and obeying them faithfully, will be in reality a free people, 
 so long as the laws are suffered to rule, whatever be the name 
 of the constitution.^ 
 
 The counsels of Halifax and Sunderland had not been 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 
 saying that, "in reverence to God and good conscience to- 
 wards men," he has formed his scheme of government 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 obdience, and the magistrates honorable for their 
 just administration."^ 
 
 The constitution, a rough draft only, followed. It had been 
 drawn up with great care by Penn and Sidney together. Al- 
 gernon went down to AYorminghurst for the purpose ; and there 
 the two lawgivers drew up the first outlines of the constitution, 
 discussing the several articles word by word. Every phrase 
 employed was tested by the most advanced theories of demo- 
 cracy, and by the practice of ancient and modern nations. 
 Penn freely changed his terms whenever Sidney expressed a 
 doubt of their wisdom and fitness. When the first rudiments 
 were moulded into shape, Algernon carried the papers home 
 with him to Penshurst, to consider and reconsider the various 
 clauses at his leisure ; and when his own mind was fully satis- 
 fied as to their form and substance, he brought them back 
 finally amended. So intricate and continuous was this mutual 
 aid, that it is quite impossible to separate the exact share of 
 one legislator from that of the other.^ The constitution began 
 by declaring that the sovereign power resided in the governor 
 and freemen of the province. For purposes of legislation, two 
 bodies were to be elected by the people — a Council and an 
 Assembly. The proprietor or his deputy was to preside at 
 the council, and to have three votes : this was the only power 
 
 1 Preamble of Frame of Government. Folio, 1682. 
 
 2 Hazard's Register, i. 324. 
 
 3 Penn to Sidney, October 13, 1G81. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 185 
 
 which he reserved to himself or his agents. The functions of 
 the council were, to prepare and propose bills — to see the laws 
 duly executed — to have charge of the peace and safety of the 
 province — to determine on the sites of new towns and cities — 
 to build ports, harbors, and markets — to make and repair 
 roads — to inspect the public treasury — to erect courts of jus- 
 tice, institute primary schools, and reward the authors of useful 
 inventions and discoveries. This body, consisting of seventy- 
 two persons, was to be chosen by universal suffrage for three 
 years, twenty-four of them retiring every year, their places 
 being supplied by a new election. The members of the assem- 
 bly were to be elected annually. The votes were in all cases 
 to be taken by ballot ; the members were to be paid ; and the 
 suffrage was universal. There were no property qualifications, 
 and the whole country was to be divided into sections for 
 electoral purposes.^ The assembly, however, had no delibera- 
 tive power. The acts of the council were to be simply laid 
 before it for approval or rejection. It had the privilege of 
 making out the list of persons to be named as justices and 
 sheriffs, of which list the governor was bound to select one 
 half; this privilege is still preserved in America, to the great 
 scandal of countries in which the judgment-seat is held to be 
 the last place which ought to be invaded by popular will. Penn 
 evidently intended the assembly to be a great audit-chamber; 
 a yearly gathering of the people to sanction, if it found them 
 worthy, the measures of the government. But with time its 
 functions grew in importance ; elected every year, it repre- 
 sented public opinion more accurately than the more senate- 
 like council ; and this circumstance gave it a weight in the 
 country which the less changeable body never possessed.^ 
 
 To this outline of a constitution were added forty provi- 
 sional laws relating to liberty of conscience, the choice of civil 
 officers, provision for the poor, processes at law, fines, forfei- 
 tures, arrests, and other matters of a civil nature. These 
 provisional laws were to be in force until the council had been 
 properly elected, when they were to be accepted, amended, or 
 rejected, as the popular representatives should think proper ; 
 Penn agreeing with Sidney that no men could know what laws 
 were needful so well as those whose lives, properties, and liber- 
 
 » Frame of Government, 1682. Here are all the " six points of the Charter." 
 2 Franklin's Historical Review (1759). 
 
 16* 
 
186 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 ties would be concerned in their administration. On this point 
 the constitution of Pennsylvania, and through it that of the 
 United States, owes an eternal obligation to Algernon Sidney. 
 Penn, like More, Harrington, and the writers on Utopian 
 schemes of government, had a leaning in favor of a fixed and 
 inflexible system. He would have drawn up his own constitu- 
 tions and offered them to the world as the conditions of set- 
 tlement in his new colony. Shaftesbury and Baltimore had 
 adopted this as the only possible form. With a truer political 
 instinct, Sidney saw that a democracy was incompatible with 
 a fixed and foreign body of constitutional law. He proposed, 
 therefore, to leave this question open.^ Having fixed the great 
 boundary lines of the system — 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, 
 proprietorial, and judicial — the lawgivers left the new demo- 
 cracy to develope itself in accordance with its own natural 
 genius ; — which it did the better for being unincumbered with 
 useless formalities and laws.^ America owes much to Algernon 
 Sidney. 
 
 Penn's philosophical friend Locke had taken another course. 
 The serene and logical thinker had brought to the task of 
 forming a new government for Carolina the learning of the 
 schools and the traditions of ancient times ; Shaftesbury had 
 also contributed his knowledge of the actual world ; and these 
 two liberal and enlightened men had drawn up a form of go- 
 vernment which England received as the perfection of wisdom, 
 and their friends described as destined to endure forever.^ To 
 understand how much Penn was wiser than his age, more im- 
 bued with the principles which have found their nobler utter- 
 ances in our own, he must be measured — not only against the 
 fanatics of his sect, and unlettered men like Fox — but against 
 the highest types of learning and liberality which it afforded. 
 Between John Locke and William Penn there is a gulf like 
 that which separates the seventeenth from the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. Locke never escaped from the thraldom of local ideas ; 
 the hundred and seventy years which have passed away since 
 Penn founded the state which bears his name, seem only to 
 
 1 Penn to Sidney, October 13, 1681. ^ Ancient Laws of Pennsylvania 
 
 3 Blome's America, 138. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 187 
 
 have carried Europe so much nearer to the source from which 
 his inspirations flowed. 
 
 Locke's constitution for Carolina was essentially a tyranny. 
 It recognized four distinct estates — the proprietors, the great 
 nobles, the lesser nobles, and the commons.^ The eight pro- 
 prietors were the eight kings of the country ; the dignitary 
 was hereditary ; on the failure of issue in one, the other seven 
 were to choose a successor : they constituted a supreme body, 
 self-elected and immortal, to whom one-fifth of the entire land 
 in the province — a region larger than the whole of England, 
 Wales and Scotland — was to belong permanently and inalien- 
 ably. The oldest proprietor, with the title of palatine and a 
 large salary, was to exercise the sovereign power. The other 
 seven were to fill the ofiices of admiral, chancellor, chamber- 
 lain, constable, chief justice, high steward and treasurer.^ 
 Under these petty sovereigns two orders of nobility were to be 
 created — being an earl and two barons for every four hundred 
 and eighty thousand acres of land. Their number was never 
 to be increased or diminished ; the rank was hereditary ; and 
 in case of failure of issue, the place was to be supplied solely 
 out of the privileged class. These nobles were to be invested 
 with a second fifth part of the soil. Society was to be bound 
 hand and foot. Estates were not to accumulate or diminish. 
 The tenants, or small proprietors, were to hold ten acres of 
 land at a fixed rent ; these tenants were to be called leet-men ; 
 they were under the complete jurisdiction of their lords, with- 
 out appeal ; no leet-man or leet-woman could go from the soil 
 on which he or she was located to live elsewhere without a 
 license from the lord given under his hand and seal ; and it 
 was added in conformity to the spirit which ruled throughout, 
 "the children of leet-men shall be leet-men, and so to all 
 generations."^ Over the negro slaves every freeman had 
 power of life and death.'* 
 
 The Executive power rested solely with the Eight. They 
 had almost absolute control over the administration of justice. 
 There were seven courts and forty-two counsellors : one of the 
 Eight presided in each court ; and of the counsellors two-thirds 
 were chosen by the proprietors and nobles. One aristocratic 
 
 ' Fundamental Constitutions. The original copy is in our State Paper 
 Office, among the Records of the Board of Trade. ^ Ibid. 
 
 3 Ibid. Sections 22, 23. " Ibid. Section 110. 
 
188 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 court controlled the press, another regulated fashions and 
 sports. The Grand Council consisted of fifty members — of 
 which thirty-six represented the aristocracy, and fourteen the 
 people ; and even these fourteen had to be. elected at once and 
 for life. Power of every kind was removed beyond the reach 
 of the commons. The cultivators of the soil had no political 
 rights. Even freeholders could not exercise the franchise unless * 
 they possessed fifty acres of land and upwards ; and no one 
 was eligible to sit in Parliament unless he owned five hundred 
 acres and upwards. Trial by jury was virtually set aside. 
 Every religion was tolerated — but the Church of England was 
 declared to be alone true and orthodox ; the only one to be 
 supported out of the coifers of the State. ^ — Such are the great 
 outlines of this celebrated document. How difi*erent to the 
 constitutions of William Penn ! Locke went back to the feudal 
 times ; Penn anticipated the modern radicals. The philosopher 
 of sensation conceived a fixed aristocracy of wealth and power 
 over-riding the democratic elements of the world; the disciple 
 of the inner light had confidence in the virtues of mankind, 
 and removed every obstacle to the free and full development 
 of human energies. The project of the first signally failed, 
 as it deserved to do ; it is now buried under the dust of years ; 
 the other, slightly modified by events and seasons, lives and 
 flourishes at the present moment, an example to infant govern- 
 ments, and one of the most precious heir-looms of time. 
 
 ^ Fundamental Constitutions, Section 96. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 189 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 1682-1683. 
 THE HOLY EXPERIMENT. 
 
 The great outlines of the new political system being drawn 
 up, so as not only to meet his own ideas of the nature of a 
 free and just government, but even to satisfy for the time his 
 friends Sidney and North, Penn began to organize the emigra- 
 tion. The elements of a great movement were prepared to 
 his hand. So soon as it was whispered about that the famous 
 controversialist, the champion of trial by jury, the religious 
 democrat, had become the sole owner and governor of a mighty 
 province in the New World, and that he proposed to settle it 
 on the broadest principles of popular right, men's minds were 
 kindled with a liberal emthusiasm ; from nearly every great 
 town of the three Kingdoms, and from many cities on the 
 Rhine and Holland, agents were despatched to London to 
 treat with the new lord for lands on which colonies and com- 
 panies proposed to settle. When the concessions were given 
 to the public several minor companies were formed for the 
 purpose of emigration. A German company was set on foot 
 at Frankfort, in which the admirers of Penn at Worms, Kirch- 
 heim and other places visited by him in his travels, were largely 
 interested. They sent over Franz Pastorius to London to pur- 
 chase for them fifteen thousand acres of land lying in one tract 
 on a navigable river, and three hundred acres within the liber- 
 ties of the city to be founded by the governor.^ Liverpool, 
 then a small but rising town, furnished a considerable number 
 of purchasers and settlers — London still more. A regular 
 company was organized at Bristol under the name of the Free 
 Society of Traders in Pennsylvania ; and in the autumn of the 
 year the proprietor went down to that city to confer with Clay- 
 pole, Moore, Ford and the rest on the plans to be adopted in 
 
 ^ Pastorius wrote, in German, a Description of Pennsylvania, which has 
 recently been translated and reprinted in the Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem, iv. 
 Part ii. 83. It contains several interesting particulars not otherwise known. 
 
190 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 their novel enterprise. The west of England was even then 
 famous for its woolen cloths, and while his continental repute 
 secured a number of emigrants conversant with the most ap- 
 proved modes of cultivating the vine, Penn was anxious to 
 encourage skillful manufacturers of wool to migrate from the 
 neighborhood of Bristol and the valley of Stroud. In the 
 early stage of his plans these were the staples on which he 
 most calculated.^ As freedom for trade as well as freedom 
 for the person was his desire, he resolutely adhered to his own 
 sense of right to the detriment of his fortunes. He resisted 
 every temptation to reserve to himself profitable monopolies, 
 as in his constitution he had refused to retain official patronage. 
 A few weeks after the charter was issued, Thurston of Mary- 
 land sent his agent to offer him a fee of 6000Z. and 2 J per 
 cent, as rental, if he would allow a company to be formed with 
 an exclusive right to the trade in beaver skins between the 
 Delaware and Susquehanna rivers.^ Other proprietors granted 
 these monopolies, and his legal right to do so was unquestion- 
 able ; but in his conscience he felt that it was not just, and 
 although his funds were so low that he was obliged to adopt 
 a strict economy in his house, he refused the bribe. ^ The 
 Free Society of Traders realized one of his own favorite ideas, 
 and he afforded the company very great facilities. They 
 bought out and out twenty thousand acres of land, published 
 their articles of trade, and immediately commenced prepara- 
 tions for the voyage. A considerable number of persons from 
 the principality of Wales soon followed this example, — and 
 before many months were passed, matters had been pushed on 
 with so much zeal and method that a vessel, filled with emi- 
 grants, was ready to set sail from the port of Bristol. 
 
 One of the members of the Free Society of Traders, Philip 
 Ford, a sleek and subtle scoundrel, not unlike those types of 
 Quaker villany which were once among the stock properties 
 of every writer for the stage, became Penn's secretary and 
 man of business. This person was to him for many years an 
 evil genius and the cause of loss, disappointment and severe 
 adversity to his family. Of course his real character was un- 
 suspected by his victim, and he was consequently trusted with 
 the management of all his more formal and routine affairs.'* 
 
 ' Pastorius, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iv., Part ii. 
 
 2 Penn to Turner, Penn. Hist. Soc. i. 205. 
 
 3 Ibid. 205, 206. 4 pe^^.g ^g. Statement. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 191 
 
 The emigration from London also commenced in earnest. 
 So early as April, Penn had sent out his cousin, Colonel Mark- 
 ham, as his lieutenant, with particular instructions to take 
 possession of the province — to see and cultivate a friendly 
 feeling with the Indian kings dwelling in the neighborhood of 
 the Delaware — to search out a convenient spot of ground on 
 which to erect a governor's mansion — and to visit and try to 
 arrange with Lord Baltimore the vexed question of the boun- 
 daries.^ 
 
 In some respects Markham was an excellent choice for such 
 offices. Bold, resolute, devoted to the proprietor, business- 
 like in his habits, — he was just the man to rule, under ordi- 
 nary circumstances, an infant settlement. When he arrived 
 in the colony he set about his task with equal zeal and discre- 
 tion. He met the native sachems in solemn council, and 
 bought from them an ancient royalty on the Delaware, not 
 many miles below the Falls of Trenton. A regular deed of 
 conveyance was drawn up, and the price of the land was paid. 
 On the 1st of August, a confirmation of the sale was made, 
 and the signatures of all parties having claims on the estate 
 being obtained, he proceeded to lay out the grounds and com- 
 mence the buildings of Pennsbury.^ With Lord Baltimore 
 he was less successful : — but he conducted the negociation in 
 such a way as left a high impression of his capacity.^ 
 
 With the Quakers he never grew into a favorite. As the 
 confidential friend and relative of the proprietor he possessed 
 claims on their regard which could not decently be set aside ; 
 but in his own character he gained from them neither sym- 
 pathy nor support. The rigid settlers never forgot that he 
 was not one of themselves, or that his profession was that of 
 a soldier and a shedder of blood. 
 
 Penn had explained his views to his cousin, not only as to 
 the arrangements to be made with the English and German 
 immigrants, but also as to the line of conduct he intended to 
 pursue with the natives of the soil.'' From the time of Cortez 
 and Pizarro downwards, the European conquerors of America 
 had treated the aborigines as their property. Not content 
 
 * Maryland Papers, April 10, State Paper Office. 
 
 2 Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Partii. 176. 
 
 3 Maryland Papers, 1681-6, State Paper Office. Pennsylvania Papers, 161, 
 State Paper Office. 
 
 ■* MS. Address to the Indians. 
 
192 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 with robbing tbem of their lands, their lakes, their hunting- 
 grounds, their rude ornaments of pearl and gold ; they had 
 seized their persons and compelled them, under terror of the 
 rod, to toil and sweat for their pleasure and profit. When 
 the bolder spirits dared to resent these wrongs and fly from 
 the faces of their tyrants, they had been hunted down like 
 wild beasts, and either worried by furious blood-hounds or sent 
 to find a more lingering and painful death in the mines. 
 Though less cruel than the Spaniards in their greed of gold, 
 the English had scarcely proved themselves more just or 
 rational. Even the Puritan settlers had been at continual 
 war with the natives of the soil, and more than one scene of 
 treachery and atrocity stains the memory of the New England 
 pilgrims.^ Penn, strong in his belief in human goodness, 
 would not arm his followers even for their own defence. In 
 his province he had resolved that the sword should cease to 
 be the symbol of authority ; neither soldier nor implement of 
 war should be ever seen ;2 he would rely entirely on justice 
 and courtesy to win the confidence of those whom it had hith- 
 erto been the vice of his countrymen to treat only as enemies. 
 The world laughed at the enthusiast who thought of placing 
 his head under the scalping knives of the Lenni Lenape ; but 
 his stern lieutenant, who had known something of the horrors 
 of our civil war, did not despair of success. An eternal wit- 
 ness of Penn's sagacity is the fact, that not one drop of 
 Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian !^ 
 
 In the autumn two other vessels — the John Sarah, of a 
 hundred tons burden, commanded by Henry Smith, and a 
 barque called the Amity, Richard Dinan, master, sailed from 
 the Thames. Penn had now completed his scheme with regard 
 to the Indians,'^ and by the John Sarah he sent out three 
 commissioners, William Crispin, John Bezar, and Nathaniel 
 Allen, with written instructions to buy land from them in his 
 name, to arrange a regular course of trade, and to enter into 
 treaties of peace and friendship.^ At sea the two vessels 
 
 ^ See the destruction of the Pequods by fire and sword. Bancroft, i. 400, 
 et seq. 
 
 2 MS. Letter to Crisp, February 28, 1684-5. 
 
 3 Penn. Hist. See. Mem. i. 65. This is confirmed by Bancroft, ii. 383. 
 " The conditions are dated July 11, 1681. 
 
 5 Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. ii. 215. All the facts with regard to these com- 
 missioners are misstated by historians. Neither their names nor their num- 
 bers were known until the Hamilton MSS. were found a few years ago. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 193 
 
 parted.^ The Amity was driven by storms among the West 
 Indian islands, and did not reach the Delaware until the fol- 
 lowing spring.^ The John Sarah was the first to n ake land 
 in the New World ; but the Bristol Factor soon afterwards 
 appeared in the river. A dramatic incident attended their 
 first experience of the coast. As they slowly ascended the 
 noble stream, some of the passengers observed a few cottages 
 on the right bank, forming the Swedish village of Upland, 
 and it being nearly dark, with a long winter night before 
 them in unknown waters, they thought it best to pull up and 
 spend their first vigils for some time on land. While the ad- 
 venturers were enjoying themselves in their several modes on 
 shore, a sudden frost set in, and next morning they found to 
 their alarm that the vessel was locked in ice and the river no 
 longer navigable. The hospitable Swedes offered them such 
 protection as their scanty homesteads afforded; those who 
 could not obtain the shelter of a roof, dug holes in the ground 
 or piled up earth huts ; and here at last they determined to 
 pass the winter months.^ Many of them were still there 
 when Penn arrived in the ensuing autumn. 
 
 Meanwhile the friends of the Holy Experiment were busy 
 in England and on the Continent. The indecision of the 
 Lords of Plantation had left several sources of uncertainty 
 in the grant. The quarrel with Baltimore seemed to threaten 
 years of angry and expensive litigation ; for between the 
 Catholic lord and the Quaker proprietor irreconcileable views 
 as to the nature and scope of government came in to embitter 
 the more private dispute as to the rights of property. Colonel 
 Markham held conference after conference with Baltimore, 
 but without result.^ Each party appealed to his political 
 friends in England, where the Kiug took part with Penn, and 
 personally interested himself so far in the matter as to write 
 several letters to Baltimore about the adjustment of the boun- 
 daries.^ The unsettled claims of the Duke of York were 
 hardly less important. He had not yet given his consent to 
 forego his seignorial rights over the province ; besides which 
 the State Founder considered it essential to the success of his 
 plans that no hostile power should ever be able to shut his 
 
 1 Plant. Gen. Papers, B. T. 32. State Paper Office. 
 
 2 Watson's Annals, 14. ^ Ibid. 
 
 4 Maryland Papers, v. 60. State Paper Office. ^ Ibid. v. 83, 84. 
 
 17 
 
194 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 people out from commerce with the world — an event clearly 
 possible if the mouth of the Delaware was commanded by an 
 enemy. To prevent an evil of so much magnitude Penn 
 sought to obtain from his Royal Highness a grant of the ill- 
 defined strip of land fronting the Delaware from Coaquannoc 
 to Cape Henlopen, then called the Territories, but now form- 
 ing the state of Delaware. Months of diplomacy and nego- 
 tiation elapsed before these affairs were arranged with the 
 agents of the duke ; but on the 24th of August two drafts of 
 conveyance were drawn up and sent by his Highness to the 
 Board of Trade, in which he made over all his rights and 
 titles to these estates to Penn and his heirs forever.^ These 
 important concessions relieved the new proprietor from every 
 immediate difficulty. Throughout the whole of the protracted 
 negotiations and discussions, James behaved like a prince : — 
 can we wonder that his ward should retain a grateful con- 
 sciousness of obligation ! 
 
 Eired with new zeal by these happy events, he now pushed 
 on his preparations for the voyage with redoubled ardor. On 
 every side the opportunity of doing good presented itself. 
 His friend Wallis, the famous mathematician, suggested how 
 much he might do to extend the domains of science. States- 
 men were all at fault as to the geography of America f its na- 
 tural history was hardly better known to scholars. Penn 
 freely ofi'ered to make observations ; and the Royal Society, 
 then recently founded, admitted him into their ranks.^ 
 
 A sad event put an end for a short time to these projects : 
 — the death of Lady Penn. She was a simple, kind-hearted 
 woman ; good-looking though not beautiful ; and gentle and 
 affectionate to her son, without understanding his principles 
 or altogether approving of his conduct. In return he loved 
 her with that tenderness which strong men always bestow on 
 women who respect, when they cannot sympathize in their 
 ideas. When she died he was so unwell for several days as 
 to be unable to bear the light ; and it was weeks before the 
 usual calm returned to his heart — the habitual activity to his 
 brain. 
 
 1 Proprietary Papers, B. T. v. 5, foL 71, 72. State Paper Ofl&ce. 
 
 2 The charters of North and South Carolina each included New York; 
 that of Maryland invaded New Netherlands ; Connecticut was made to include 
 parts of New York and Pennsylvania, and to extend to the Pacific Ocean! 
 Watson's Annals, 5. ^ MS. Records of lloyal Society. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 195 
 
 The vessel wliicli was to take him to America was already 
 in the Downs. Compared with other ships then navigating 
 the Atlantic, the Welcome, carrying no less than three hun- 
 dred tons burden, was considered a stately bark. On the 
 deck might be seen about a hundred pale and anxious faces, 
 for it was already getting deep into the autumn, and a winter 
 voyage was never thought of at that time without a shudder. 
 They consisted almost entirely of persons well to do in the 
 world, and many of them had been used to the daintiest com- 
 forts of life^ As yet the governor had not gone on board ; 
 but his servants, his furniture, his wine, his horses, his provi- 
 sions, his wardrobe, the carved doors and window-frames, the 
 whole interior decoration of the house he intended to build 
 for his own habitation in the new land, were lying about ; and 
 these mixed up with a thousand other things, animate and in- 
 animate, caused the deck of the Welcome to present a scene 
 far more exciting and confused than picturesque. 
 
 The voyage might last from six to twelve or fourteen weeks 
 according to wind and weather, and every man had to be pro- 
 visioned for the longer term. It is not to be supposed that 
 the travelling Friends denied themselves the little consolations 
 of the larder by the wayside. In a list of creature-comforts 
 put on board a vessel leaving the Delaware for London on 
 behalf of a Quaker preacher, are enumerated — 32 fowls, 7 
 turkeys and 11 ducks, 2 hams, a barrel of China oranges, a 
 large keg of sweetmeats, ditto of rum, a pot of tamarinds, a 
 box of spices, ditto of dried herbs, 18 cocoa-nuts, a box of 
 eggs, six balls of chocolate, six dried codfish and five shad- 
 dock, six bottles of citron water, four bottles of Madeira, five 
 dozen of good ale, one large keg of wine and nine pints of 
 brandy.^ There was also more solid food in the shape of 
 flour, sheep and hogs. Imagine a hundred emigrants so furn- 
 ished ; the grunting of hogs, the screaming of fowls, the bah- 
 ing of sheep, the gabbling of ducks, the litter of bags and 
 boxes, the breaking of bottles, the rolling about of barrels 
 as the vessel heaves and falls with the movement of the water, 
 the shouts of the sailors, the anxious and dejected faces of 
 those about to quit forever the land which gave them birth 
 but denies them a grave : imagine all this, and the reader has 
 
 ' Watson's Annals, 65. 
 
 2 Thomas Story's MS. Papers. 
 
196 / WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 a picture of the Welcome as she Li.y off Deal on the first of 
 September, 1682, waiting the arrival of the governor. 
 
 Every thing being now arranged as to the public duties of 
 his great mission, the Colonizer gave up his last thoughts in 
 England to Guli and his children. In an age of easy tran- 
 sits, it is not easy to realize the feelings with which a man 
 then made the voyage to America. Half a century later the 
 Yorkshire or Devonshire squire thought it a necessary pre- 
 caution to make his will before starting on a month's trip to 
 London ; but still more were such painful preparations thought 
 needful when a man proposed to cross the Atlantic. At first 
 Penn had wished to take his family out with him, it being his 
 firm intention to settle in the country ; but more accurate in- 
 formation as to the perils and privations to be encountered by 
 the first settlers, consideration for Guli's health, then delicate, 
 and for the education of his children, caused him to abandon 
 this idea. Yet he was not quite at peace with himself on 
 leaving them. Death had snatched away two of those to 
 whose care and protection he could have entrusted them most 
 confidently: Isaac Pennington and Lady Penn. The ma- 
 ternal grandmother of his little children was however a host 
 in herself; and on Lady Springett, Thomas Ellwood, and 
 other attached and faithful friends, he felt that he could rely 
 in any emergency both for counsel and assistance. Yet, with 
 these solaces, it was a bitter thing to have at last to part from 
 his family for months — years — it might be forever; to en- 
 counter danger in strange and unaccustomed shapes, storms 
 at sea, tropical fevers, hardships in the wilderness ; more even 
 than these — as, in the faith of an expounder of new doctrines 
 — he was about to place himself unarmed, in the power of 
 half-barbarians, only too much accustomed to appeal to the 
 tomahawk and the scalping knife in their intercourse with 
 Europeans, — and though a fervent believer in the native vir- 
 tues of the Red Indian, when treated with truth and fairness, 
 he could not help feeling that before he could have time to 
 impress their rude minds with confidence in his integrity of 
 purpose, some unfortunate mischance might lead to sudden 
 and serious mischief. All these contingencies weighed on his 
 mind ; but he had taken his measures while looking them full 
 in front : they caused him much anxiety at the hour of his 
 departure, but they never for a moment led him to waver in 
 his purpose. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 197 
 
 He made his arrangements as if he were never to return. 
 His hope was to prepare a home for those he was now about 
 to leave behind in England, and on a future day return for 
 them ; but as, in the meantime, he was doubtful whether Pro- 
 vidence had not designed this to be his final leave, he wrote 
 out at considerable length his parting admonitions to his wife 
 and children. This testament is full of wise and noble coun- 
 sels, earnestly and tenderly offered.-^ As he foresaw that the 
 Holy Experiment would be a drain on his private means, he 
 wishes Guli to be economical, though not parsimonious, in her 
 household. She is to make one great exception however ; in 
 the education of the children she is to spare no cost ; but he 
 desires that the education be useful and practical ; Springett 
 and William are to acquire a sound knowledge of building, 
 ship-carpentry, measuring, levelling, surveying and naviga- 
 tion ; but he desires that their chief attention be directed to 
 agriculture ; Letty was to pay attention to the affairs of a 
 household as well as to the accomplishments of her sex : " Let 
 my children be husbandmen and house-wives." In his part- 
 ing moments he did not forget that his little children would 
 one day become the rulers of his province, — and his wishes on 
 this subject were recorded for their guidance with more than 
 ordinary emphasis. "As for you," he writes, "who are likely 
 to be concerned in the government of Pennsylvania, I do 
 charge you before the Lord God and his holy angels, that 
 you be lowly, diligent, and tender, fearing God, loving the 
 people and hating covetousness. Let justice have its impar- 
 tial course, and the law free passage. Though to your loss, 
 protect no man against it ; for you are not above the law, but 
 the law above you. Live therefore the lives yourselves you 
 would have the people live, and then you have right and bold- 
 ness to punish the transgressor. Keep upon the square, for 
 God sees you : therefore do your duty, and be sure you see 
 with your own eyes, and hear with your own ears. Entertain 
 no lurchers ; cherish no informers for gain or revenge ; use no 
 tricks ; fly to no devices to support or cover injustice ; but let 
 your hearts be upright before the Lord, trusting in him above 
 the contrivances of men, and none shall be able to hurt or 
 supplant you." 
 
 On the first of September, the Welcome weighed anchor a^ 
 
 ^ This letter was first printed in the London Chronicle in 17C1. 
 17* 
 
198 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 Deal, passed the Foreland with a light breeze, and Dover 
 Castle fading gradually from the emigrant's sight, he pushed 
 out boldly to sea, the weather being fine and the captain pro- 
 mising a rapid and prosperous voyage. P.enn felt lighter at 
 heart the moment they lost sight of land. He had left behind 
 him active and powerful enemies, as well as faithful and noble 
 friends ; and he was not sorry to escape from the atmosphere 
 in which he had of late been constrained to live.^ Little time, 
 however, had he to indulge in reminiscences ; events around 
 him soon began to tax his powers of mind and body in an un- 
 expected and extraordinary manner. While waiting at Deal 
 they had unfortunately shipped the smallpox, that terrible 
 ravager of the seas in those times. At first the disease de- 
 veloped itself rather mildly, and the voyage was continued ; 
 but before they had reached the middle of the Atlantic nearly 
 every man, woman, and child was sick. During two or three 
 weeks some one died every day; and the burial service never 
 ceased for thirty hours together. Of the hundred passengers 
 on board, more than thirty fell victims. Cramped up in nar- 
 row crowded cabins, it was impossible to prevent the contagion 
 spreading. All the care, the attention, the stores of the 
 governor were bestowed on the sufi'erers. He went into the 
 cabins to administer medicines, and to aiFord the solaces of 
 religion to the dying. In this pious labor he was greatly as- 
 sisted by his friend Pearson, an emigrant from Chester ; for 
 whose services he afterwards provided a characteristic reward. 
 Want of room and more complete medical supervision kept 
 the malady above their power ; and the first glance of the 
 low well-wooded banks of the Delaware was hailed with the 
 rapture of men yet struggling with the mortal dread of death. 
 The survivors never forgot the horrors of this passage. Fifty 
 years or more after the event, old people used still to speak 
 of it with fear and trembling.^ 
 
 , On the 27th of October, nine weeks after the departure 
 from Deal, the Welcome moored ofi" Newcastle, in the territo- 
 ries lately ceded by the Duke of York, and William Penn 
 first set foot in the New World.^ His landing made a general 
 
 ' Henry Sidney's Diary and Correspondence, ii. 194. 
 
 2 Watson, IG ; Day, 3U0. 
 
 3 Watson, 16; Day, 299. The landing of Penn in America is commemo- 
 rated on the 24th of October, that being the date given by Chirkson ; but the 
 diligent antiquary, Mr. J. F. Watson, has found in the records of Newcastle 
 the original entry of his arrival. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 199 
 
 holiday in the town ; young and old, Welch, Dutch, English, 
 Swedes, and Germans, crowded down to the landing-place, 
 each eager to catch a glimpse of the great man who had come 
 amongst them, less as their lord and governor than as their 
 friend. American history affords no finer subject for a great 
 national cartoon than this scene presents. In the centre of 
 the foreground, only distinguished from the few companions 
 of his voyage who have yet landed, by the nobleness of his 
 mien, and a light blue silken sash tied round his waist, stands 
 William Penn ; erect in stature, every motion indicating 
 courtly grace, his countenance lighted up with hope and ho- 
 nest pride, — in every limb and feature the expression of a 
 serene and manly beauty.^ The young officer before him, 
 dressed in the gay costume of the English service, is his lieu- 
 tenant, Markham, come to welcome his relative to the new 
 land and to give an account of his own stewardship. On the 
 right stand the chief settlers of the district, arrayed in their 
 national costumes, the light hair and quick eye of the Swede 
 finding a good foil in the stolid look of the heavy Dutchman, 
 who doffs his cap, but doubts whether he shall take the pipe 
 out of his mouth even to say welcome to the new governor. 
 A little apart, as if studying with the intense eagerness of 
 Indian skill the physiognomy of the ruler who has come with 
 his children to occupy their hunting-grounds, stands the wise 
 and noble leader of the Red Men, Taminent, and a party of 
 the Lenni Lenape in their picturesque paints and costume. 
 Behind the central figure are grouped the principal compa- 
 nions of his voyage ; and on the dancing waters of the Dela- 
 ware rides the stately. ship, while between her and the shore \ 
 a multitude of light canoes dart to and fro, bringing the pas- \ 
 sengers and merchandise to land. Part of the background 
 shows an irregular line of streets and houses, the latter with 
 the pointed roofs and fantastic gables which still delight the 
 artist's eye in the streets of Leyden or Rotterdam ; and fur- 
 ther on the view is lost in one of those grand old pine and 
 cedar forests which belong essentially to an American scene.^ 
 There are many fine elements for the artist's purposes in such 
 a theme : beauty, novelty, variety, and historic interest ; land, 
 wood, water ; motion, life, repose ; national and personal cha- 
 
 1 The portrait by West is utterly spurious and unlike. Granville Penn MSS. 
 
 2 Duponceau, in one of his discourses, suggests this scene for an historical 
 picture. 
 
200 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 racteristics, nature in its most picturesque forms, civilization, 
 in its highest expression — are all grouped, compared and con- 
 trasted in this striking scene. 
 
 Next day the people were called together in the Dutch 
 court-house, when the legal formalities of taking possession 
 were gone through to the satisfaction of all present. The 
 deeds and charters were produced and read aloud. The agents 
 of the Duke of York surrendered the territory in their mas- 
 ter's name by the usual form of earth and water. ^ His great 
 and undefined powers thus legally established, Penn rose and 
 addressed the people amid the profoundest silence. He spoke 
 of the reasons for his coming — the great idea which he had 
 nursed from his youth upwards — his desire to found a free 
 and virtuous state, in which the people should rule themselves ; 
 he then explained the nature of his powers, but assured his 
 audience of his wish to exercise them only provisionally and 
 for the general good. He adverted to the frame of govern- 
 ment which he had published for Pennsylvania as containing 
 his theory of government ; and promised the settlers on the 
 lower reaches of the Delaware that the same principles should 
 be adopted in the organization of their territory. Every man, 
 he said, in his provinces, should enjoy liberty of conscience 
 and his fair share of political power ; and as an earnest of 
 his intention to proceed on fixed and just principles in the 
 government of his colony, he ended by renewing in his own 
 name the commissions of all the existing magistrates.^ 
 
 The people listened to this speech with wonder and delight. 
 They were many of them but rude and illiterate husbandmen ; 
 but that old northern instinct which had led them from the 
 Rhine, the Elbe, the Zuyder Zee, and the Dahl to seek for 
 freedom on the shores of the Delaware, told them a new era 
 had commenced with the landing of the English Governor. 
 They had but one request to make in answer to his explana- 
 tions, and that was that he would reign over them in person, 
 and with this view they besought him to annex their territory 
 to Pennsylvania, that they might have one country, one par- 
 liament, one ruler. He promised, at their desire, to take the 
 question of a union of the two provinces into consideration, 
 and to submit it to the assembly which was about to meet at 
 Upland. And so he took his leave.^ 
 
 1 Hazard, v. 79. MVatson, 16; Besse, 123. 3 Watson, 16. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 201 
 
 Ascending the Delaware at their leisure, enjoying the rich 
 beauty of nature as every bend in the river brought some 
 new charm to sight, and breathing the mild air of that climate 
 after their terrible voyage, the adventurers soon arrived at 
 the little Swedish town of Upland or Optland, at that time 
 the place of greatest importance in the province. Here the 
 governor and his friends were hospitably received and lodged 
 in the house of Mr. Wade. The place where he stepped on 
 shore, marked by a single pine, is still shown to the stranger 
 with honest and patriotic pride. Wishing to mark the fact 
 by some striking circumstance, he turned round to his com- 
 panion Pearson, a man equally eminent for his free spirit and 
 his humane virtues, and observed — '' Providence has brought 
 us safely here ; thou hast been the companion of my toils ; 
 what wilt thou that I should call this place?" After a mo- 
 ment's thought, the modesty of Pearson not allowing him to 
 propose his own name, he replied — "Chester; in remem- 
 brance of the city whence I came." So Penn changed the 
 name from Upland to Chester, by which the town is still 
 known. ^ 
 
 Markham and the commissioners had done their work so 
 well, that in a very short time after the arrival, the first Ge- 
 neral Assembly, elected by universal suffrage, was ready to 
 meet. As the most commodious building in Chester, the 
 Friends' Meeting House, a plain brick edifice, fronting the 
 Creek, and opposite to Wade's House, where Penn remained 
 a guest, was selected for the purpose.^ Nicholas Moore, an 
 English lawyer, and already chairman to the Society of Tra- 
 ders, was elected speaker f and as soon as the governor had 
 given them assurances similar to those made in Newcastle, 
 they proceeded with more dignity than could have been ex- 
 pected in so inexperienced a body to discuss, amend, and ac- 
 cept the Frame of Government and the Provisional Laws 
 already published in England. The settlers in the lower ter- 
 ritories on the Delaware sent representatives to the Assembly, 
 and one of its first acts was to declare the two provinces 
 united.'* The Constitution was adopted without important 
 alteration ; and to the forty laws were added twenty-one 
 
 1 Day's Collection, 300, 301. 2 pay'g Collection, 301. 3 Watson, 17. 
 ■* Proprietary Papers, B. T. v. 5. State Paper Office. For a copy of the 
 Act of Union, see Hazard's Register, i. 480. 
 
202 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 otliers, and the whole body passed in due form. The laws 
 only regulated the practical working of the ideas and princi- 
 ples embodied in the Frame of Government ; the chief of 
 them providing — that every man should be free to believe in 
 any doctrines whatever not destructive of the peace and honor 
 of civil society ; that every Christian man of twenty-one years, 
 unstained by crime, should be eligible to elect or be elected a 
 member of the Colonial Parliament ; every child of twelve 
 years old, rich or poor, should be instructed in some useful 
 trade or skill, all work being honorable in a democratic state 
 and idleness a shame ; all fees of law w^ere to be fixed at a 
 low rate, and hung up in every court of justice; persons 
 wrongly imprisoned were to have double damages from the 
 prosecutor ; prisons were to be changed from nurseries of vice, 
 idleness, and misery, into houses of industry, honesty, and 
 education. With fearless confidence, these young legislators 
 adopted the humane views of their governor even where they 
 seemed to be least supported by tradition and experience. 
 The English penal laws — then and long afterwards a disgrace 
 to our statute book — were entirely at variance with Penn's 
 ideas ; and at one stroke he blotted out the whole catalogue 
 of crimes punished with the cord except two, — murder and 
 treason. The Assembly passed a law embodying this humane 
 and enlightened policy,* and also a general act of naturaliza- 
 tion for aliens. There was little talk and much work in this 
 first Pennsylvanian parliament. On the third day their ses- 
 sion was completed, and Penn prorogued them in person. 
 They had left their ploughs for half a week ; they had met 
 together and founded a State ; they went back to their homes 
 confident that they had secured to themselves and their pos- 
 terity the blessings of civil and religious freedom.^ 
 
 The reader of our country's history will not need to be re- 
 minded how securely the moral sentiment and state policy of 
 England have developed themselves in the wake of these 
 ideas. Toleration in Penn's day was only the creed of those 
 who doubted all things : religious men, of every shade, denied 
 it, as a suggestion of the evil spirit. Locke could ask for 
 charity towards error, because he found no certitude in truth ; 
 but earnest, zealous Christians, holding God's Word to be in- 
 fallible, could show no mercy to the unbeliever. Governor 
 
 * Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives. ^ Watson, 17. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 203 
 
 Bradford, one of the noblest of the Pilgrim Fathers, de- 
 nounced the folly of toleration, as tending to misrule and con- 
 fusion.^ Endicott on one occasion said to his prisoner for 
 conscience' sake — '^ Renounce your religion or die."^ Presi- 
 dent Oakes *' looked upon toleration as the first-born of all 
 abominations."^ These were all statesmen and governors: 
 the clergy were still less charitable to error. The intolerance 
 of the old catholic and episcopal parties in England is suf- 
 ficiently well known ; but it is doing them no wrong to say, 
 that the cruelties exercised by the stern religious martyrs of 
 the New World, on men who differed from them in the slight- 
 est degree, were not unworthy the best days of the Star 
 Chamber and the Court of Inquisition.^ Penn was equally 
 before his sect and country. It is only in our own time that 
 an act of Parliament — not freely conceded, as from just and 
 honorable conviction, but extorted by the threat of a new 
 civil war — has formally banished religious belief from the 
 tests of loyalty and restrictions on the exercise of political 
 power. It remained for Howard, Eden, and Romill}'-, more 
 than a century after the Colonial Assembly first met in Ches- 
 ter, to introduce his humane and judicious principles into the 
 administration of our prisons and the reformation of our penal 
 code. And with all our wealth, power and glory as a nation, 
 we have not yet provided for the public education of our chil- 
 dren, or admitted every Christian man of twenty-one years, 
 and free from crime, to the exercise of the elective franchise ! 
 The Assembly prorogued, Penn paid a few visits to the 
 neighboring seats of government in New York, Maryland, 
 and the Jerseys. At West River, Lord Baltimore came forth 
 to meet him with a great retinue of the chief persons in the 
 province. Colonel Failler offered the hospitalities of his man- 
 sion in the Ridge, Anne Arundel county, to the illustrious 
 visitors, and there they held a long and spirited conference ; 
 but it was found impossible to adjust their differences as to 
 the great question of boundary, and the two proprietors sepa- 
 rated with the resolution each to maintain his own right.* 
 Penn now set himself resolutely to the work of reducing his 
 
 1 Hist, of Boston, 49. 2 gewell, Hist. Quakers. 
 
 3 Belknap's Hist. New Hampshire, i. 71-5. 
 
 '^ Compare Knowles's Life of Roger Williams, 184-9. Mass. Hist. Coll. iiL 
 58-5, First Series. 
 
 5 Maryland Papers, B. T. B. C. P. 3. State Paper Office. 
 
204 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 magnificent wilderness into a State. He had sent out a sur- 
 veyor, Thomas Holme, some months before he himself left 
 England, and this able servant, assisted by Markham and the 
 other commissioners, had already held interviews with the In- 
 dian sachems, made extensive purchases of land, and acquired 
 so much knowledge of the interior as to enable him to divide 
 the whole province into counties.^ The land was next put up 
 for sale at four pence an acre, with a reserve of one shilling 
 for every hundred acres as quit-rent : the latter intended to 
 form a state revenue for the support of governor and pro- 
 prietor.^ In marking out the various estates, Penn set apart 
 certain and equal lots for each of his children. Two manors 
 of ten thousand acres each, he reserved as a present for his 
 guardian, the Duke of York.^ And in the midst of these 
 sales and settlements it is pleasing to find that he did not for- 
 get his old friend George Fox, for whose use and profit he set 
 aside a thousand acres of the best land in the province, free 
 of all claims for quit-rent, costs of transfer, or even of title- 
 deeds. 
 
 But the subject which occupied his most serious thoughts, 
 was the site for his new city. Markham and others had col- 
 lected a variety of information bearing on the point, accord- 
 ing to his express instructions.'* There were not wanting men 
 who wished to see Chester made the capital of the province ; 
 but the surveyor, Thomas Holme, agreed with Penn, that the 
 best locality, in almost every respect, was the narrow neck of 
 land lying at the junction of the Delaware and the Schuyl- 
 kill.* These rivers were both navigable, at least for small 
 vessels ; the Delaware being a noble stream, and the Schuyl- 
 kill at that time as broad at its mouth as the Thames at 
 Woolwich.^ In other respects the site met his preconceived 
 requirements : — facing the minor stream, the bank was bold 
 and high, the air pure and wholesome, the neighboring lands 
 were free from swamp, clay for making into brick was found 
 on the spot, and immense quarries of good stone abounded 
 within a few miles. These advantages not being found else- 
 where, Penn soon decided in its favor, and taking an open 
 boat at Chester creek, dropped down the river to the spot 
 
 1 Penn to Sunderland, July 28, 1683. 2 Watson, 13. 
 
 3 Penn to Lord Hyde, February 12, 1083. 
 
 * A copy of these instructions is printed in Penn. Hist. Soc. TMcm. 
 
 ^ Day'a Collections, 541-G. ^ p^un to Sunderland, July 28. 
 
WILLIAM PENN, 205 
 
 then called by the Indians, Wecacoae.^ The land was owned 
 by three worthy Swedes, from whom the governor purchased 
 it on their own terms ; and then with the assistance of Holme 
 drew out his plan. In everything that related to his Holy 
 Experiment, Penn thought on a grand scale. Not content 
 to begin humbly, and allow house to be added to house, and 
 street to street, as the exigences of the day might require, he 
 had formed the whole scheme of his city — its name, its form, 
 its streets, its docks and open spaces — fair and perfect in his 
 mind, before a single stone was laid, or a pine-tree had been 
 felled to make room for it. 
 
 According to the original design, Philadelphia was to have 
 covered with its houses, squares, and gardens, about twelve 
 square miles. Two noble streets, one of them facing an un- 
 rivalled row of red pines, were to front the rivers ; a great 
 public thoroughfare alone separating the houses from their 
 banks. These streets were to be connected by the High 
 Street, a magnificent avenue, perfectly straight, and a hun- 
 dred feet in width, to be adorned with lines of trees and 
 gardens surrounding the dwelling-houses. At a right angle 
 ^ith the High Street, Broad Street, of equal width, was to 
 cut the city in two from north to south. It was thus divided 
 into four sections. In the exact centre a large public square 
 of ten acres was reserved ; and in the middle of each quarter 
 a similar square of eight acres was set apart for the comfort 
 and recreation of posterity. Eight streets, fifty feet wide, 
 were to be built parallel to Broad Street, and twenty of the 
 same width, parallel to the rivers.^ He encouraged the build- 
 ing of detached houses, with rustic porches and trailing plants 
 about them ; his desire being to see Philadelphia ^' a greene 
 country towne."^ 
 
 The arrivals began to increase rapidly ere a house was 
 built or a cave dug in which to shelter the comers from the 
 cold of winter. As soon as it was known that the Governor 
 had set out for his province, hundreds of persons in the old 
 country prepared to follow him ; and since the spring not less 
 than twenty-three vessels had entered the Delaware, filled 
 with immigrants, most of them anxious to remain at the new 
 city.^ The suffering of these people must have been great, 
 
 1 Day's Collections, 546. ^ Holme's Portraiture of Philadelphia, 1683-4. 
 
 2 Day's Coll. 544. * Watson, 17. 
 
 18 
 
206 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 but they bore it with exemplary resolution. In the high bank 
 of the Schuylkill nature had formed a number of caves, and 
 these were now eagerly seized by some of the colonists, and 
 made as habitable as circumstances would permit ; others en- 
 camped under the branches of the huge pines, and he blessed 
 his stars who had been fortunate enough to secure the shelter 
 of a tree in the vicinity of the house he was building.^ No- 
 thing could daunt their spirits. Delicate women, used to all 
 the luxuries of the earth in England, went out to help their 
 fathers and husbands ; they brought in wood and water ; they 
 cooked with their own hands ; they tended sheep and pigs, 
 game and poultry, with the alacrity of negroes ; some of them 
 acted as laborers while the house was building, anxious to 
 carry mortar, or lend a hand to saw a block of wood.^ If a 
 murmur ever once arose, the thought of that " woful Europe" 
 which they had left behind, soon checked it ; and all worked 
 on cheerily. Before such enthusiasm every obstacle must 
 give way ; and in a marvellously short space of time every 
 family had found some sort of shelter from the fury of win- 
 ter.3 
 
 The first place completed was used as a tavern, a ferry- 
 house, and general place of business. For many years the 
 Blue Anchor maintained a high reputation in the province; 
 beer-house, exchange, corn-market, post-office, and landing- 
 place, all combined, this house soon became the key of the 
 infant city, and was intimately connected with the leading in- 
 cidents of its early history. This important building was 
 formed of large rafters of wood, the interstices being filled 
 with bricks brought from England, in the manner of Cheshire 
 houses of the Tudor and Stuart periods. It had twelve feet 
 of frontage towards the river, and it stood full twenty-two 
 feet backwards into what was afterwards called Dock Street.'' 
 The modern magnates of Philadelphia may smile at the hum- 
 ble dimensions of a house of so much interest to their ances- 
 tors, but posterity will feel forever grateful to the founder of 
 the city, that in an age of means so limited, and results so 
 small, he still clung to his own grand conceptions, and laid 
 down the outlines of his city with as much order and presci- 
 ence as if he had been conscious that he was rearing the capi- 
 
 ' Story, MSS. 2 ^^la. Watson, 52-3. 
 
 ^ Penn to the Society of Traders, August 16. "* Watson, 124, 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 207 
 
 tal of a miglity empire. Other houses, such as they were, 
 were soon completed. Within a few months of the founda- 
 tion, Penn could announce to the Society of Traders that 
 eighty houses and cottages were ready ; that the merchants 
 and craftsmen had fallen into the regular exercise of their 
 callings ; that the farmers had laid out and partly cleared 
 their lands ; that ships were continually arriving with goods 
 and passengers ; and that plentiful crops had already been 
 obtained from the soil.^ A spirited settler, named Carpenter, 
 built a fine quay, three hundred feet long, by the side of 
 which a vessel of five hundred tons could be safely moored. 
 The first mayor of the town made a rope-walk ; and stone 
 houses, with pointed roofs, balconies, and porches, soon ceased 
 to excite wonder.^ In one year from Penn's landing at New 
 Castle, a hundred houses had been built, the whole plan of 
 the future city laid out, sixty vessels of light or heavy tonnage 
 had arrived in the Delaware, and more than three hundred 
 farms were well settled.^ Two years later there were already 
 six hundred houses in Philadelphia.^ The Governor's corres- 
 pondence with his friends in England is full of honest exul- 
 tation. To Lord Halifax he writes — " I must, without vanity, 
 say, I have led the greatest colony into America that ever any 
 man did on private credit;"'^ and to Lord Sunderland he says 
 — " With the help of God and such noble friends, I will show 
 a province in seven years equal to her neighbor's of forty 
 years' planting."^ 
 
 But the material growth of his city occupied only a 
 part of Penn's attention. He took early and regular steps 
 for the protection of morals and the promotion of arts and 
 scholarship. Before the pines had been cleared from the 
 ground he began to build schools and set up a printing press. ^ 
 These were not the least marvellous of the novelties intro- 
 duced into Philadelphia. In other American settlements such 
 luxuries had slowly followed in the wake of great physical 
 prosperity. In December, 1683, Enoch Flower opened his 
 school in a rude hut, formed of pine and cedar planks, and 
 divided into two apartments by a wooden partition. The 
 
 1 Penn to Free Society of Traders, August 16, 1683. 
 
 2 Watson, 66, 67. ^ Penn to Lord North, September 1683. 
 4 Turner to Penn, Aug. 3, 1685. « February 9, 1683. ^ j^ly 28, 1683. 
 ' Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 101. An able article on the early literary his- 
 tory of Pennsylvania, by Thomas J. Wharton. 
 
208 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 Philadelpliian of the present age, educated in tlie elaborate 
 courses of Girard's College, may smile at the simplicity of 
 Enoch's charges and curriculum, though his ancestors thought 
 even such small matters worthy of a place in their minutes of 
 council: "To learn to read, four shillings a quarter: to 
 write, six shillings : boarding a scholar, to wit — diet, lodging, 
 washing and schooling, ten pounds the whole year."^ 
 
 Six years afterwards a public school or college was founded, 
 in which the famous George Keith was the first master. The 
 office of teacher was held in the highest estimation. He was 
 allowed fifty pounds a year, a house for his family, and a set 
 of school-rooms, over and above all the profits made by the 
 scholars ; in addition to which he received a guarantee that 
 his total income should never fall below a hundred and twenty 
 pounds in any year — a very considerable sum in those days 
 in a society so small and primitive in its habits.^ William 
 Bradford, a native of Leicester, who went out with Penn in 
 the WelcomCj was the first printer to set up his art in the 
 colony. It is worthy of remark that in Massachusetts, where 
 learning and the arts have ever been cultivated with success, 
 no book or paper was printed until eighteen years after its 
 settlement ; in New York seventy-three years elapsed ere a 
 press was got to work; in every other colony founded by 
 England the interval was much greater : the governors of 
 Virginia and Maryland set their faces against it in pious 
 horror.^ The first book printed in Philadelphia was an 
 Almanac for 1687, and must therefore have been printed in 
 the preceding year. The schism of George Keith soon found 
 more exciting work for Bradford, and from that time forward 
 there was no rest for the printing-press in Pennsylvania.'* 
 Another institution which he established deserved to be classed 
 with his intellectual legislation. The post-office had been at 
 work in England but a few years ; yet so convinced was Penn 
 of its utility that he at once issued his orders to Henry Waldy 
 to run the post and supply travellers with horses. It is in- 
 teresting to go back a few years and see how things were 
 managed in the good old times. From the Falls of Trenton 
 to Philadelphia the carriage of a letter was charged three- 
 pence — to Chester five-pence — to Newcastle seven-pence — 
 
 ' Quoted in Proud, i. 345. ^^ Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 103. 
 
 3 Ibid. i. 104, 105. 
 
 * Thomas, Hist, of Printing ; also Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 105 et seq. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 209 
 
 to Maryland nine-pence ; from Philadelphia to Chester two- 
 pence — to Newcastle four-pence — to Maryland six-pence. The 
 post travelled once a week !^ 
 
 A curious trial which happened a few months after the 
 arrival of the Welcome, served in its way to show the settlers 
 that a new era had commenced. A wretched old woman was 
 brought into court on an accusation of witchcraft a few days 
 after Enoch Flower had opened his school. The poor Swedes 
 had come out to the new world with the superstitious terrors 
 of their northern solitudes fresh in their minds — and the 
 woman being a restless and troublesome creature, they took it 
 into their heads that she must be a witch. It is but fair to 
 these poor Swedes to say that wiser people than themselves 
 believed in witchcraft both then and long afterwards. At that 
 very period, Cotton Mather, after coquetting himself with the 
 evil spirit, began to pursue witches with the fury of one pos- 
 sessed in the polished cities of Boston, Salem, and other places 
 in Massachusetts.^ Learned divines both in America and in 
 England printed their belief in " a God, a devil — and witch- 
 craft;" even the enlightened Richard Baxter reprinted in 
 England the rubbish written by Mather in America, accom- 
 panied by his own confession of faith in the statements put 
 forth. George Fox, as is well known, believed in witches and 
 in his own power to contend with and overcome them ; and 
 judges of civilized nations sent old women to the stake for 
 this offence fifty years later.^ No wonder then that a few 
 ignorant Swedes, in a land of intellectual darkness, should 
 have preferred such a charge against a troublesome old 
 woman, whose conduct was to them equally annoying and 
 unintelligible. It was fortunate for the prisoner that she was 
 not to be tried for her life at Charlestown or Boston. 
 
 Penn presided at the trial, and to provide against any dis- 
 satisfaction with the verdict, the jury was composed partly of 
 English and partly of Swedes. The whole case was gone into ; 
 witnesses, sadly ignorant and vindictive for the most part, 
 were examined and re-examined; the governor summed up 
 and the jury retired to find a verdict against the woman of 
 being guilty of having the common reputation of witchcraft, but 
 not guilty in manner and form as she stood indicted. Her 
 
 1 Pemberton MSS. Watson, 626. 2 Mather's Discourse, p. 10. 
 
 3 Voltaire's Louis XIV. c. 29. Addison in Spectator, No. 117. Black- 
 stone, iv. 60. 
 
 18* 
 
210 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 friends were simply required to give securities for lier that 
 she would keep the peace. ^ From that day to this, we are 
 assured by Bancroft, no hag has ever ridden through the air 
 on goat or broomstick in Penn's domain, and the blackest 
 dealers in magic have pretended to no power beyond the art 
 of telling fortunes to servant girls, muttering charms over 
 quack medicines, or finding with the divining rod the lost 
 treasures of the buccaneers.^ 
 
 While these concerns were in progress, Penn held much 
 and cordial intercourse with the Indians. Putting away the 
 formal stiffness of English manners, he won their simple 
 hearts by his easy confidence and familiar bearing. He 
 walked with them alone into the forests. He sat with them 
 on the ground to watch the young men dance and perform 
 their exercises. He joined in their feasts, and ate of their 
 roasted acorns and hominy. When they expressed their 
 rapturous delight at seeing the great Onas — the native name 
 of Penn — imitate their national customs, not to be outdone in 
 any of those feats of personal prowess which the Red Men 
 value so highly, he rose from his seat, entered the list with 
 the leapers, and beat them all ; at seeing which the younger 
 warriors could hardly control the extravagance of their ad- 
 miration.^ 
 
 Colonel Markham had already completed his purchase of 
 land, and entered with the natives into a treaty of peace and 
 amity .^ When he had explained to them the beneficent in- 
 tentions of the great man who was coming to live and trade 
 with them ; when he had told them that, although his King 
 had granted him the whole country, from the Cape of Hen- 
 lopen to those distant regions stretching away beyond the 
 great mountains to the northern lakes, of which they had 
 some remote tradition, still he would not take from them by 
 force a single rood of their ancient hunting-grounds, but 
 would buy it from them with their full consent and goodwill ; 
 when he had told them the great Onas would never allow his 
 children to wrong the Indians, to cheat them of their fish, 
 their wild game, or their beaver skins by lies in the market- 
 
 1 Colonial Records, i. 40. 2 Bancroft, ii. 391. 
 
 3 Mrs. Preston in Watson, 73. Mr. Watson is alarmed at "such light 
 gayety in a sage governor and a Christian chief." I see in this incident a 
 trait in perfect keeping with all the rest of his character. 
 
 * Smith's Laws of Pennsylvania, 109. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 211 
 
 place, or refuse to pay them the fair price for every article 
 purchased ; that in his just mind he had ordained that when 
 a quarrel arose between a white man and a red one, twelve 
 men, six Indians and six English, should meet together and 
 judge which of them was in the right, and settle the matter 
 accordingly ; and finally, when he had laid before them the 
 presents which he had brought as a sign of amity and good- 
 will, the sachems gave the wampum belt to the young colonel, 
 and replied with the emphasis of sincerity, " We will live in 
 peace with Onas and his children as long as the sun and moon 
 shall endure."^ 
 
 Beyond this purchase Penn felt that, for the moment, it 
 would be eminently unwise to urge the natives. Their hunt- 
 ing-grounds were dear to them, though of little use. Had he 
 shown an eager desire to possess their lands before he had 
 personally acquired their friendship, suspicions would have 
 been engendered in their minds, not easily to be allayed after- 
 wards. The experiment he had to conduct was so novel that 
 the minutest circumspection was needful at every step. It 
 would have been madness to risk offending the Iroquois, while 
 the settlers refused to wear arms even in their OAvn defence. 
 It was not until he had been upwards of seven months in the 
 country that he made fresh proposals for the purchase of their 
 unoccupied lands, though more than one treaty of peace and 
 amity had been made by his lieutenant and the commissioners 
 before his arrival. As he had now become intimate with Ta- 
 minent and other of the native kings, who cordially approved 
 of these treaties, seeing in them great advantages for their 
 own people, he proposed to hold a solemn conference with the 
 chiefs and warriors, to confirm the former treaties and form 
 with them a lasting league of peace and friendship.^ 
 
 On the banks of the Delaware, in the suburbs of the rising 
 city of Philadelphia, was a fine natural amphitheatre, used 
 from time immemorial as a place of meeting for the native 
 tribes. The name of Sakimaxing — now corrupted by the white 
 men into Shackamaxon — has a royal signification, meaning 
 the locality of kings.^ At this spot stood one of those glorious 
 
 1 Smithes Laws of Pennsylvania, 109. MS, Address to the Indians. The 
 right of a foreigner to have a jury, de mediatate lingiice, was disputed in the 
 courts, but a judicial decision confirmed its legality. Dall. Reports, 73. 
 
 2 Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 145-204. 
 * Ibid. 183, where this etymology is defended. 
 
212 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 elms wliicli so pre-eminently mark the forests of the New 
 World. It was already one hundred and fifty-five years old ;^ 
 under its spreading branches friendly nations had been wont 
 to meet, to arrange differences, and smoke the calumet of 
 peace, long before the pale faces had landed on those shores. 
 With the tact which ever distinguished him, Markham had 
 appointed this locality for his first conference with the Indians ; 
 and the land commissioners wisely followed his example. Old 
 traditions had made the place sacred to one of the contracting 
 parties, — and when Penn proposed his solemn conference, he 
 named Sakimaxing as a matter of course for its locality.^ 
 
 This conference has become one of the most striking scenes 
 in history. Artists have painted, poets have sung, philosophers 
 have applauded it ; but it is nevertheless clear, that in words 
 and colors it has been equally and generally misrepresented, 
 because painters, poets, and historians have chosen to draw on 
 their own imaginations for the features of a scene, every mark- 
 ing line of which they might have recovered from authentic 
 sources. 
 
 The great outlines of nature are easily obtained. There 
 the dense masses of cedar, pine, and chestnut, stretching far 
 away into the interior of the land ; here the noble river rolling 
 its waters down to the Atlantic ocean ; along its surface rose 
 the purple smoke of the settlers' homesteads ; on the opposite 
 shores lay the fertile and settled country of East New Jersey. 
 Here stood the gigantic elm which was to become immortal 
 from that day forward, — and there lay the verdant council 
 chamber formed by nature on the surface of the soil. In the 
 centre stood William Penn ; in costume undistinguished from 
 the surrounding group, save by the silken sash. His costume 
 was simple, but not pedantic or ungainly. An outer coat, 
 reaching to the knees, and covered with buttons ; a vest of 
 other materials, but equally ample ; trousers extremely full, 
 slashed at the sides, and tied with strings or ribbons ; a pro- 
 fusion of shirt sleeve and rufiles, — with a hat of the cavalier 
 shape (wanting only the feather), from beneath the brim of 
 which escaped the curls of a new peruke, — were its chief and 
 not ungraceful ingredients.^ At his right hand stood Colonel 
 
 • Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 97. 
 
 2 The site of the Great Treaty has been much disputed. I believe in Shac- 
 kamaxon. The evidence is collected by Day, 548; Watson, 125; and Vaux 
 in Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 79 et seq. 
 
 * Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 7G. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 213 
 
 Markham, who had met the Indians in council more than once 
 on that identical spot, and was regarded by them as a firm 
 and faithful friend ; on his left Pearson, the intrepid compan- 
 ion of his voyage ; and near his person, but a little backward, 
 a band of his most attached adherents. When the Indians 
 approached in their old forest costume, their bright feathers 
 sparkling in the sun, and their bodies painted in the most gor- 
 geous manner, the governor received them with the easy dig- 
 nity of one accustomed to mix with European courts. As soon 
 as the reception was over, the sachems retired to a short dis- 
 tance, and after a brief consultation among themselves, Tami- 
 nent, the chief sachem or king, a man whose virtues are still 
 remembered by the sons of the forest, advanced again a few 
 paces, and put upon his own head a chaplet, into which was 
 twisted a small horn ; this chaplet was his symbol of power ; 
 and in the customs of the Lenni Lenape, whenever the chief 
 placed it upon his brows, the spot became at once sacred, and 
 the person of every one present inviolable.^ The venerable 
 Indian king then seated himself on the ground, with the older 
 sachems on his right and left ; the middle-aged warriors ranged 
 themselves in the form of a crescent, or half-moon, round 
 them ; and the younger men formed a third and outer semi- 
 circle. All being seated in this striking and picturesque order, 
 the old monarch announced to the governor that the natives 
 were prepared to hear and consider his words.^ Penn then 
 rose to address them, his countenance beaming with all the 
 pride of manhood. He was at this time thirty-eight years old ; 
 light and graceful in form; "the handsomest, best-looking, 
 most lively gentleman" she had ever seen, wrote a lady who 
 was an eye witness of the ceremony.^ He addressed them in 
 their own language ; the topics were few and simple ; and the 
 beauty of his ideas would compensate with such an audience 
 for the minor errors of diction.^ The Great Spirit, he said, 
 who ruled in the heaven to which good men go after death, 
 
 ' Heckwelder. Hist, of Six Nations. 
 
 2 Penn to Sunderland, July 28, 1C83. 
 
 3 Mrs. Preston in Watson, 72. West's picture is abominable. Penn is 
 represented as an ugly, fat old fellow, — and the costumes are half a century 
 out of date. — Clarkson, who had conversed with West on the subject [Penn. 
 Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Partii.], wrote his description to agree with tlie painting. 
 It is full of errors. The essay by Messrs. Fisher and Duponccau is quite cou- 
 vincing. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Partii. 145. 
 
 * Penn to Society of Traders, August IG, 1683. 
 
214 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 who had made them and him out of nothing, and who knew 
 every secret thought that was in the heart of white man or red 
 man, knew that he and his children had a strong desire to live 
 in peace, to be their friends, to do no wrong, but to serve them 
 in every way to the extent of their power. As the Great 
 Spirit was the common Father of all, he wished them to live 
 together not merely as brothers, as the children of a common 
 parent, but as if they were joined with one head, one heart, 
 one body together; that if ill was done to one all would suffer, 
 if good was done to any all would gain. He and his children, 
 he went on to say, never used the rifle or trusted to the sword ; 
 they met the red men on the broad path of good faith and 
 goodwill. They intended to do no harm, and they had no 
 fear in their hearts. The}^ believed that their brothers of the 
 red race were just, and they were prepared to trust in their 
 friendship.* — He then unfolded the writing of the treaty of 
 friendship, and explained its clauses one after the other. It 
 recited that from that day the children of Onas and the nations 
 of the Lenni Lenape should be brothers to each other, — that 
 all paths should be free and open, — that the doors of the white 
 men should be open to the red men, and the doors of the red 
 men should be open to the white men, — that the children of 
 Onas should not believe any false reports of the Lenni Lenapd, 
 nor the Lenni Lenape of the children of Onas, but should come 
 and see for themselves as brothers to brothers, and bury such 
 false reports in a bottomless pit, — that if the Christians should 
 hear of any thing likely to be of hurt to the Lidians, or the 
 Indians hear of any thing likely to harm the Christians, they 
 should run, like true friends, and let the other know, — that if 
 any son of Onas were to do any harm to any red skin, or any 
 red skin were to do harm to a son of Onas, the sufferer should 
 not offer to right himself, but should complain to the chiefs 
 and to Onas, that the justice might be declared by twelve 
 honest men, and the wrong buried in a pit with no bottom, — 
 that the Lenni Lenap^ should assist the white men, and the 
 white men should assist the Lenni Lenap^, against all such as 
 would disturb them or do them hurt, — and lastly, that both 
 Christians and Indians should tell their children of this league 
 and chain of friendship, that it should grow stronger and 
 stronger, and be kept bright and clean, without rust or spot, 
 
 » Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 189. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 215 
 
 while the Avaters ran down the creeks and rivers, and while 
 the sun and moon and stars endured.^ He then laid the parch- 
 ment on the ground. What King Taminent replied is not 
 known, except that, in substance, he was favorable to the 
 views of Penn. The sachems received his proposal with decent 
 gravity, and accepted it for themselves and for their children. 
 No oaths, no seal, no official mummeries were used ; the treaty 
 was ratified on both sides with a yea, yea — the only one, says 
 Voltaire, that the world has known, never sworn to and never 
 broken.^ 
 
 This scene, celebrated in Europe by painters, poets, and 
 historians, ever dear to the young and hopeful, and serving 
 on every occasion to point a moral and adorn a tale, remained 
 to the two races who were witnesses and actors in it, an inheri- 
 tance of goodwill and honorable pride for an entire century. 
 From year to year, says the venerable historian of the Six 
 Nations, Heckewelder, the sachems assembled their children in 
 the woods, in a shady spot as like as they could find to that 
 in which the great Onas had conferred with them, when they 
 would spread out his words or speeches on a blanket or clean 
 piece of bark, and repeat the whole again and again to their 
 great satisfaction.^ In a few years Penn, going beyond seas 
 and never returning, became to them a sort of mythical per- 
 sonage ; they not only held his memory in the greatest vene- 
 ration, but treated the whole body of white men with more 
 kindness for his sake. To be a follower of Onas was at all 
 times a passport to their protection and hospitality.^ Nor have 
 his own countrymen been less indebted or less grateful to the 
 Great Treaty. To it, and to the strictness with which its pro- 
 visions were maintained by Penn, is owing that striking fact 
 recorded by Bancroft — that while every other colony in the 
 new world was visited in turn by the horrors of Indian war- 
 fare, no drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by a red man in 
 Pennsylvania.^ It is humiliating to the pride of the white 
 man to think that one of his race should have been the first 
 to break this noble league of peace. Forty years after the 
 
 ' No full report of the proceedings at this meeting has come down, and no 
 copy of the treaty is extant. Governor Gordon's speech to the Indians, May 
 20, 1728, preserves the heads. 
 
 2 Diet. Phil. Article Quaher. 
 
 3 Quoted Vjy Duponceau and Fisher, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 
 •^ Watson's Annals. Oldmixon (British Empire), i. 171. 
 
 5 Bancroft, ii. 383. 
 
216 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 famous treaty, and five years after the deatli of Onas, one 
 of his unworthy children murdered the first red man who lost 
 his life in Pennsylvania. The deed was attended with cir- 
 cumstances of unusual atrocity ; but it shows in a striking light 
 the power of a noble sentiment, that the Indians themselves 
 prayed that the murderer's life might be spared.* It was 
 spared ; but he died in a very short time, and they then said, 
 the Great Spirit had avenged their brother. The venerable 
 elm-tree under which the meeting took place served to mark 
 the spot until the storm of 1810 threw it to the ground. It 
 measured twenty-four feet in girth, and was found to be then 
 two hundred and eighty-three years old. A piece of it was 
 sent home to the Penn family, by whom it was mounted on a 
 pedestal with appropriate inscriptions ; and the remainder was 
 manufactured into vases, work-stands, and other relics, now 
 held sacred by their possessors.^ A plain granite monument 
 has since been erected on the spot, inscribed on each face with 
 four short and simple sentences commemorative of the Great 
 Treaty.^ 
 
 While the elections were taking place throughout the pro- 
 vince for the new Assembly, the first child of English parents 
 was born ; the family burrowed at the time in one of the 
 caves, and Penn marked the event by bestowing on the infant 
 a plot of ground. To the day of his death this man, Key, 
 was known as the first-born of the colony.'* When the elected 
 members met together, the governor found an example of the 
 inutility of making fixed laws and constitutions for a political 
 society at a distance ; for instead of the full number of mem- 
 bers indicated in the law, each county had sent up only twelve 
 men to represent it, three for the council and nine for the 
 assembly — making in all seventy-two persons, no more than 
 the number originally fixed for the council. They bore with 
 them a written statement of the reasons which had led the 
 electors to disregard the letter of the writs issued in the then 
 state of aff'airs in the colony, which statement concluded with 
 a prayer that this act of self-judgment might not cause the 
 
 J Gordon, 188. 2 i>eiin. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. t7. 
 
 ^ Day's Coll. 551. The State of Pennsylvania has recently voted a sum of 
 5000 dollars to purchase the plot of around on which the great elin formerly- 
 stood, — and a slip from the old tree was planted on the spot, and is now in a 
 flourishing state. Communication from Horatio G. Jones, Esq., Foreign Se- 
 cretary to the Penn. Hist. Soc. 
 
 ' Hazard, ix. 112. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 217 
 
 proprietor to tliink of altering their charter. Penn was no 
 formalist ; and as they had come up with full parliamentary 
 powers, he told them they were at liberty to amend, alter or 
 add to the existing laws for the public good, as he was not 
 wedded to his own forms, but would consent to any changes 
 which they might wish to make, if he could do so with a strict 
 regard to the powers vested in him by his sovereign.* 
 
 The council and assembly were then organized, and the 
 latter being left to its legislative labors, appointed Thomas 
 Wynne as its Speaker, and proceeded to consider, amend and 
 pass several bills of pressing importance. Some parts of the 
 Frame of Government had been found to act as a restraint 
 on the freedom of the assembly, especially that clause which 
 reserved to the governor and his council the sole right to pro- 
 pose laws. From the first day of meeting, the assembly set 
 this restriction at nought, and in return they wished to invest 
 the governor with a veto on all the doings of the parliament. 
 This last was indeed absolutely necessary, for as the King's 
 sanction was required to make every act of the colonial legis- 
 lature binding, it was obvious enough that no law would be 
 received in England which came unsupported by the gover- 
 nor's concurrence.^ These and other points in which a change 
 seemed desirable were discussed at great length. Amend- 
 ments were suggested and new outlines drawn up. The House 
 was especially anxious to obtain the privilege of conference 
 with the governor. At length the opinion was expressed that 
 it would be the wisest plan to throw themselves on the liber- 
 ality of their chief, and pray him to allow them to construct 
 a new charter for themselves, on the broad principles laid 
 down in the Frame of Government, but in other respects to 
 be the growth of the New World, and to bear date from the 
 capital of the province.^ 
 
 This request amounted in fact to a transfer of the legisla- 
 tive power from the council to the assembly ; and Penn saw 
 with no little uneasiness the grasping spirit of his little demo- 
 cratic parliament. He called his council together and laid 
 before them the prayer of the assembly. Had this body been 
 composed of its complete numbers, it would probably have 
 resisted the encroachment, but in its present state it feared to 
 
 1 Penn to Crisp. February 28, 1684. MS. Proud, Hist, of Penns. 
 
 2 Votes and Proceedings, 10. ^ Votes and Proceedings, 20. 
 
 19 
 
218 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 enter into a controversy with the larger house of representa- 
 tives, and advised that an open conference should be held to 
 ascertain the general opinion. The assembly was then sum- 
 moned, and the governor asked them distinctly, yea or nay, 
 whether they desired to have a new charter. They replied — 
 yea, unanimously. He then addressed them in a few words : 
 — He expressed his willingness to meet all their wishes, and 
 gave his consent to the revision of the charter ; but at the 
 same time he calmly told them they should consider their own 
 duty as well as his desire to oblige them, and he hoped it 
 would not be made difficult to reconcile the two in the re- 
 arrangement of the constitution.^ 
 
 A general committee being appointed to draw up a new 
 charter, in ten days it was prepared, and on the 30th of 
 March, 1683, it was read, approved, and signed by the pro- 
 prietor — subject, of course, to the revision of the crown law- 
 yers in England. The provincial council was reduced to 
 eighteen — the assembly to thirty-six. The governor and coun- 
 cil still retained the initiative of bills ; but the assembly ob- 
 tained some privileges and left the way open for the acquisi- 
 tion of more as circumstances might favor their designs. The 
 constitution remained essentially the same. All power was 
 vested in the people. They elected members of council and 
 members of assembly. The judges were also elected to their 
 seats ; and the governor had not even power to suspend them 
 during the term for which they were commissioned. In the 
 neighboring state of Maryland, Lord Baltimore at his own 
 will appointed all the magistrates, the officers of government, 
 the members of council, and indeed every other class of func- 
 tionaries. Penn could not name a street-sweeper or a parish- 
 constable. "I purpose," he explained to an intimate friend, 
 "to leave myself and successors no power of doing mischief, 
 that the will of one man may not hinder the good of a whole 
 country."^ 
 
 The assembly established courts of justice for each county 
 with the proper officers to each ; they voted an impost on cer- 
 tain goods exported or imported, for the governor's support, 
 which he acknowledged in a most grateful manner, but de- 
 clined; he would hear of no imposts, and the tax-gatherer 
 
 ^ 1 Penn to Crisp. February 28, 1684, MS. Council Books in Hazard's Re- 
 gister, i. 16 et seq. 
 
 2 Penn to Turner, April 12, 1681. M'Mahon, 156. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 219 
 
 was for years and years an unknown institution in Pennsyl- 
 vania.' To prevent law-suits, three peace-makers, or arbitra- 
 tors, were chosen by every county-court to hear and settle 
 disputes between man and man according to the right. Law 
 was to be resorted to only as a last resource. Twice a year 
 an orphans' court was to meet in each county to inquire into 
 and regulate the aifairs of all widows and orphans. Is this a 
 page of Harrington or More ? No : simply an extract from 
 the votes and proceedings of the first legislators in the land 
 of Penn.^ 
 
 The little parliament having finished its labors and ad- 
 journed, the governor made a journey up the river to a spot 
 where Markham was then engaged in building him a house, 
 afterwards called Pennsbury, and famous as his family resi- 
 dence, to inspect the work ; the time, however, was near when 
 he had agreed to meet the Lord Baltimore at Newcastle and 
 renew the discussion of the boundary question. They met in 
 due course, but with no greater success than the year previous. 
 There is little doubt but that, according to the terms of their 
 several grants, both proprietors could legally claim the terri- 
 tory in question ; and neither of them felt inclined to sur- 
 render what he deemed his just right without a struggle.^ As 
 soon as the conference was over, Lord Baltimore, in evident 
 bad faith, wrote off to Secretary Blaythwaite and to the Mar- 
 quis of Halifax, an account of the interview, giving it of course 
 in such a way as to serve his own interests most eff"ectually at 
 the distant court.'* The Catholic nobleman had never been 
 without powerful friends at Whitehall, even in the darkest 
 days of the Popish Plot ; but the interest of the persecuted 
 faith was again in the ascendant, and the regard of the Duke 
 of York for his uncompromising fellow-papist was well known. 
 As soon as Penn learned that his rival had written to London 
 without his privity, he suspected that he had not conveyed an 
 impartial report of what had taken place between them, and 
 instantly sat down and wrote to the Board of Trade. He 
 expressed his surprise that the Lord Baltimore should have 
 proceeded to give a report of their conference without his 
 
 ' Penn to Society of Traders, August 16, 1683. 
 
 2 Votes and Proceedings. Also Letter to Society of Traders. 
 
 3 Maryland Papers, B. T. 1. B. C. P. 21. Pennsylvania Papers, B. T. 1 . 
 State Paper Office. 
 
 4 Maryland Papers. Baltimore's Letter, July 11, 1683. State Paper Office. 
 
220 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 knowledge and consent, protested against its being received 
 as a fair report, and proceeded to give his own version of the 
 meeting at full length.^ Not satisfied with this, he sent his 
 cousin Markham as his agent to the court in London, pro- 
 vided with letters to the King himself, to the Earl of Sunder- 
 land, to Henry Sidney, and to the officers of the colonial 
 department ; that he might be represented on the spot by one 
 in w^hose truth, judgment, and fidelity he had a perfect confi- 
 dence.^ In the early spring Baltimore himself, willing to 
 exercise the whole weight of his personal influence at court, 
 quitted Maryland and repaired to London ; a movement which 
 suggested to his adversary the necessity of being likewise on 
 the spot, even had causes of deeper and more painful interest 
 than the loss of a few hundred miles of territory not began 
 to crowd upon him.^ About the time that Lord Baltimore de- 
 parted from the colony, letters from England arrived, bring- 
 ing with them an extraordinary combination of calamities. 
 His wife Guli was seriously ill ; his noble friend Algernon 
 Sidney had just perished on the block ; Shaftesbury and Es- 
 sex were in prison ; persecution of nonconformers had begun 
 to rage with unexampled fury; Oxford had put forth the 
 doctrine of passive obedience ; and his own enemies and en- 
 viers had spread malicious and unfounded reports against his 
 honor and reputation. He felt that it w^as absolutely neces- 
 sary to be in England "* 
 
 His arrangements for departure were soon made. He sum- 
 moned the chiefs of all the Indian tribes in the vicinity of 
 Pennsbury, and concluded with each a separate treaty of peace 
 and friendship for his people. He told them he was going 
 beyond the seas for a little while, but would return to them 
 again if the Great Spirit permitted him to live. He begged 
 of them to drink no more fire-water, and forbad his own sub- 
 jects to sell them brandy or rum ; he put them into the ways of 
 honest trade and husbandry, and obtained from them a solemn 
 promise that they would live at peace and amity with each 
 other and with the Christians. The new city engaged his 
 daily thoughts ; and he had some comfort in seeing this har- 
 
 » Pennsylvania Papers, August 6. State Paper Office. 
 2 Penn to Bridgeman, August 1. America and West Indies Papers. State 
 Paper Office. 
 
 ^ Letter to Leoline Jenkins, April 6, 1684. Ibid. 
 
 4 Penn to Crisp. February 28, 1685, MS. Ellwood, 325. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 221 
 
 bor of refuge steadily rising from the ground as the dark in- 
 telligence from Europe made it more and more needful as a 
 place of shelter to the children of oppression. 
 
 The brig Endeavor being now ready to leave the Delaware, 
 he named a mixed commission to conduct the affairs of gov- 
 ernment in his absence, — consisting of Thomas Loyd, presi- 
 dent; Colonel Markham, who was to return immediately, 
 secretary ; assisted by Thomas Holme, James Claypole, Ro- 
 bert Turner, and two or three others. He then went on board, 
 whence he addressed to Thomas Loyd and the rest a parting 
 letter, in which he thus apostrophises the city of his heart : — 
 
 ''And thou, Philadelphia, the virgin settlement of this pro- 
 vince, named before thou wert born, what love, what care, 
 what service, and what travail has there been to bring thee 
 forth and preserve thee from such as would abuse and defile 
 thee ! My soul prays to God for thee, that thou mayest stand 
 in the day of trial, that thy children may be blessed of the 
 Lord, and thy people saved by His power."* 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 1684-1688. 
 DAY OF COURT INFLUENCE. 
 
 When Penn arrived in England it was some consolation in 
 the midst of misfortune to find his wife convalescent and the 
 children well.^ When Guli felt herself ill, and her husband 
 at such a distance, she wrote for her old friend Ellwood to come 
 to Worminghurst and take charge of her affairs ; but he had 
 recently written a book, which a zealous friend, William Ayrs, 
 barber and apothecary, had circulated among his customers ; 
 one of whom. Sir Benjamin Tichhorn, a justice of the peace, 
 after reading it carefully, thought it contained matter danger- 
 ous to the public weal, and thereupon summoned him to appear 
 before the Bench. With the summons in his hand, Ayrs ran 
 off to Ellwood, who told him to be of good cheer, as he would 
 
 1 Letter to Thomas Loyd, August, 1684. 
 
 2 i>enn to Margaret Fox, October 29. 
 
 19* 
 
222 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 come forward on the day of trial and own himself to be the 
 writer. Shortly after giving this assurance, the letter from 
 Guli arrived. Honor forbad him to fly to Worminghurst and 
 leave the barber to answer for his book ; yet if he stayed, his 
 friend's wife might die before the trial, even should he not be 
 then cast into prison. After a little thought, he resolved to 
 ride over and take council with the justice ; Thomas Fotherly, 
 also a magistrate, happened to be there : they spoke to him 
 very harshly, and were about to commit him, when it occurred 
 to them to ask why he had appeared before the appointed day. 
 Ellwood stated the reason : — "while I thus delivered myself," 
 he writes in his memoirs, "I observed a sensible alteration in 
 the justice, and when I had done speaking, he said he was 
 very sorry for Madam Penn's illness (of whose virtues and 
 worth he spoke very highly, but not more highly than was her 
 due) : then he told me that for her sake he would do what he 
 could to further my visit. But, he added, I can assure you 
 the matter which will be laid to your charge is of greater 
 importance than you seem to think ; for your book has been 
 laid before the King and Council, and the Earl of Bridgewater 
 hath given us command to examine you about it and secure 
 you." On giving his word to appear at a stated time they 
 allowed him to depart.^ When he arrived in Sussex, Guli was 
 much better, and as she steadily improved, when her husband 
 landed on the coast, within seven miles of his own house, she 
 was able to meet him with outstretched arms and overflowing 
 heart.^ 
 
 After passing a day or two in the bosom of his family, 
 Penn went to Newmarket to pay his court to the royal bro- 
 thers ; there he saw the King and the Duke of York, both of 
 whom received him kindly, and assured him that justice should 
 be done in the great boundary question.^ Baltimore was on 
 the spot to support his claims ; but the King's health was now 
 failing rapidly, and the aff'air was suff'ered to languish, — both 
 parties probably hoping more from the justice or friendship of 
 his royal brother.^ Meanwhile the proprietor of Maryland, 
 feeling that possession was nine parts of the law, and knowing 
 that his neighbor could not with his notions of passive resist- 
 
 1 Ellwood, 325-35. 2 penn to Margaret Fox, October 2. 
 
 3 Apology in Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 235. 
 
 4 From June 30 to February 13, there is no trace of tlie dispute in State 
 Paper Office. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 223 
 
 ance oppose force to force, ordered his relative Colonel Talbot 
 to seize the territory in dispute and hold it in his name against 
 all comers. With three musqueteers this agent invaded some 
 farm-houses, proclaimed Lord Baltimore proprietor, and threat- 
 ened to expel any one who refused to admit his claim or to 
 pay their rents to his agents.^ He even threatened to make 
 a descent on Newcastle ; but the Government of Pennsylva- 
 nia having issued a declaration of their proprietor's right over 
 the disputed tract, and announced its intention to prosecute 
 the authors of the recent outrage in the English courts of law, 
 Talbot and his master thought better of their proceedings and 
 remained quiet. The feint of war, however, probably an- 
 swered its chief purpose, that of raising suspicions in England 
 as to Penn's pacific ideas. Absurd as it may appear, the mo- 
 ment this disturbance was heard of, it was rumored that the 
 preacher of peace had excited a civil war in the colonies, had 
 mounted guns and fortified his towns, had issued commissions 
 and raised an army. Some of his own sect even lent an ear 
 to these reports.^ The governor was fortunately on the spot 
 to contradict them : he explained that when he went to Ame- 
 rica a few old guns were lying on the green by the Session- 
 house at Newcastle, some on the ground, others on broken 
 carriages, but that there had been no ball, powder, or soldier 
 there from the day he landed ; and he could no more be 
 charged with warlike propensities on their account, than a 
 man could who happened to buy a house with an old musket 
 in it.^ 
 
 On the 6th of February King Charles the Second breathed 
 his last ; his brother promising to maintain the Church and 
 State as then existing, to respect the property of his subjects, 
 and to exercise the clemency which became a prince, succeeded 
 quietly to the throne.'' The late reign had been in most re- 
 spects disastrous for England : unblushing vice had reared its 
 head in the highest places, and the first rank of the peerage 
 had been filled with wantons ; the honor of the country had 
 been sold by its sworn defender to the enemy of its freedom 
 and its faith ; persecution had ravened through the land, de- 
 stroying or driving away the most conscientious, orderly, and 
 
 1 Penn to Dike of York, June 8, 1C84. 
 
 2 Penn to Crisp, February 28, 1G85, MS. ^ ^^id. 
 "^ Penn to Thomas Loyd, February, 1685. 
 
224 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 industrious of the population.^ Penn counted up tlie number 
 of families ruined for opinion-sake in the reign to more than 
 fifteen thousand. Of those who were arrested and cast into 
 noisome gaols, to rot with the felon and the murderer, not 
 less than four thousand had actually died in prison !^ By 
 w^hatever motive actuated, James, as Duke of York, had often 
 lifted up his voice against these atrocities f and as soon as he 
 came to the throne, a statement of the wrongs, in mind, body, 
 and estate, endured by his unoffending subjects, was placed in 
 his hands.* Penn waited on him at Whitehall to remind him 
 of the goodwill he had formerly professed towards all con- 
 scientious persons, and to beg his gracious interference in 
 behalf of the many hundred religious men and women then in 
 custody for no civil offence. The King was extremely ajffable. 
 He spoke to him for some time in the midst of his nobles, 
 with the old frankness and cordiality of the guardian to his 
 ward ; and when he ventured to refer to the penal laws then 
 in operation, and to express a hope that the poor Quakers 
 languishing in Marshalsea, Newgate, the Gatehouse, and 
 other prisons, would find some relief from their sufferings, 
 James took him into his private closet, where they remained 
 in conversation some time.^ Penn has preserved the substance 
 of what passed. His Majesty said he should deal openly with 
 his subjects. He was himself a Catholic, and he desired no 
 peaceable person to be disturbed on account of his opinions ; 
 but he would defer making any distinct promise until the day 
 fixed for his coronation, and even then he said he could only 
 exercise his prerogative to pardon such as were already suf- 
 fering unjustly ; with the new parliament would rest the power 
 legally to establish liberty of conscience.^ In a short time 
 James went beyond these promises. He charged the judges 
 to discourage persecutions on the score of religious differences ; 
 
 * The Book of Secret Service Money — about to be published by the Cam- 
 dem Society — contains some items which serve admirably to illustrate the 
 reigns of the Stuarts. I extract two payments for the sake of the contrast: 
 — "March 28th, Paid to Duchess of Portsmouth (in various sums), 13,341Z. 
 lOs. 4Jc?." — "June 14th, Paid to Richard Yates, son of Francis Yates, who 
 conducted Prince Charles from the field of Worcester to AVhyte Ladies, after 
 the battle, and suffered death under the usurper Cromwell, bounty, 10^. 
 10.?. Od" 
 
 2 Collected Works, ii. 772. 
 
 3 Apology, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 
 
 4 Harl. MSS. 7506. 6 Penn to Crisp, February 28, MS. 
 6 Penn to Thomas Loyd, Feb., 1085. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 225 
 
 he opened the prison gates to every person who was confined 
 for refusing to take oaths of allegiance and supremacy. 
 Twelve hundred Quakers obtained their freedom by this act 
 of justice.^ Opinions varied at that time^and vary still — 
 as to the King's motives in issuing these orders. Honest and 
 simple men saw in them only the act of a prince who had 
 himself tasted the bitterness of persecution, and was anxious 
 that it should cease in his dominions. Penn at least firmly 
 believed that the liberty of worship granted to all sects by 
 James was neither a delusion nor a snare.^ 
 
 As friend, patron, and guardian, the new King of England 
 seemed well disposed to the Governor of Pennsylvania. A 
 party arose at this time which advocated the recall of the 
 colonial charters, and the annexation of all the American pro- 
 vinces to the crown ; and every fault of government, every 
 petty grievance of the governed, was caught at and magni- 
 fied to make out a plausible case for proceeding to so extreme 
 a measure. An outrage committed by Lord Baltimore's 
 agents in Maryland, while it tended to strengthen Penn's 
 cause as against his more immediate adversary, very sensibly 
 damaged the general interests of the proprietors in America.^ 
 Like many of the disagreements which arose in that age be- 
 tween the colonies and the crown, this was a revenue case. 
 The King's ofiicers behaving in an extremely arbitrary and 
 dictatorial manner, the colonists, with that instinctive dis- 
 like to the tax collector Avhich belongs to the character of an 
 Englishman, hated the official, evaded his vigilance, and en- 
 couraged the contraband traders, who appealed from the laws 
 of the land to the laws of nature. Virginia, Maryland, Penn- 
 sylvania, New York, and other provinces, were accused, and 
 not unjustly, of favoring smugglers to the manifest injury of 
 the royal revenue."* On the whole, the proprietors had the 
 precaution to maintain at least an appearance of hostility to 
 these illegal proceedings ; but the servants of Lord Baltimore 
 acted with less caution; and had their master not been a 
 Catholic peer, and the moment one in which the Catholic 
 sovereign needed the support of every man of his own faith, 
 the charter would probably have been recalled in consequence. 
 
 1 Sewell, ii. 322. 2 gee his Letter to Quakers in Phil. Friend, vi. 257. 
 
 3 Penn to Crisp, February 28, MS. 
 
 * Plant. Gen. Papers, B. T. 32, &c., State Paper Office. The correspond- 
 ence and orders in council on this subject would fill several volumes. 
 
226 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 The president of his council, having a quarrel with the King's 
 collector-general, went on board the man-of-war in which he 
 was passing down one of the rivers of Maryland, and under 
 the feint of a reconciliation gained an opportunity to murder 
 him. An alarm was instantly given, and the captain of the 
 vessel seizing the wretched criminal, almost in the act, loaded 
 him with irons, and prepared to carry him to England for 
 trial. On hearing of these events the Maryland council 
 assembled, and deputed two of their body to go on board and 
 demand the person of their president. The captain asked 
 them in whose name they required him to be delivered over ; 
 they replied, in that of the Lord Baltimore. But he refused to 
 surrender the murderer to any but the King's justices ; and 
 as they persisted in saying that their proprietor was their 
 king, he sent them on shore and sailed away.^ 
 
 How far, in the existing state of parties, this incident 
 affected the interests of the owner of Maryland it is not easy 
 to determine. It is certain that James, who gave his earliest 
 attention to an arrangement of the dispute, was strongly in- 
 clined to support the pretensions of his rival. He directed 
 the Board of Trade to collect all the papers and facts having 
 reference to the controversy, especially the authorized and 
 sworn versions of what had taken place between Markham 
 and Baltimore and Penn and Baltimore in their private con- 
 ferences f and this being done, Penn went through the form of 
 praying that his majesty would command the Board of Trade 
 to decide the question without further delay .^ It is not 
 necessary to enter into the details of this settlement. Igno- 
 rance of the geography of America had led the original 
 grantors of the charters to include the peninsula — or at least 
 a considerable portion of it — in both patents. But as Balti- 
 more's right had priority of date, and had never been can- 
 celled, his supporters argued, with fair show of reason, that 
 the latter grant was invalid, the King not being able to give 
 away lands which were not his own in any subsequent grant.'* 
 On the other hand, the Maryland charter expressly stating 
 that only the lands which were hactenus inculta were assigned 
 to Lord Baltimore, it was urged with equal cogency that the 
 tract on the Delaware, then settled and cultivated by the 
 
 1 Penn to Crisp, February 28, MS. 
 
 2 Maryland Papers, March 17, State Paper Office. ^ jbi^i. ^^g. ig. 
 ^ Duulop in Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 161 et seq. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 22T 
 
 Dutch and Swedes, could not have been included in the patent. 
 While the Duke of York remained master of these territories, 
 the Maryland proprietor had been silent about his claims, and 
 it was only when he found the new governor about to plant a 
 democracy in his immediate neighborhood, that he became 
 anxious about the unproductive strip of ground lying between 
 the Chesapeake and the Delaware. When Penn had presented 
 his formal petition, a council was called to take the subject 
 into final consideration. The King himself was present at the 
 board ; Prince George of Denmark was on his right ; the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury and all the ministers of the crown 
 sat round the table. The claims were gone into with great 
 minuteness ;^ and James settled the question — at least for a 
 time — by dividing the territory in dispute into two equal 
 parts, the eastern half of which he transferred to Lord Balti- 
 more, as his by right, and the western half he restored to 
 the crown, so as to place it beyond the reach of future litiga- 
 tion.^ There can be no doubt but that the King's intentions 
 were friendly and honorable towards his ward ; but for some 
 reason or other the reconveyance of the lapsed provinces on 
 the Delaware was delayed. Practically Penn retained the 
 country, but his legal titles were not made out in form, — a 
 source of considerable embarrassment to him in the sequel, as 
 he was never able to prevail on Sunderland to allow the affair 
 to be settled.^ 
 
 From this date until the retirement of King James, Penn 
 was at court almost daily. That the King, to whom he was 
 bound by every tie of gratitude, was inclined in his heart to 
 pursue a wise, tolerant and legal course with regard to re- 
 ligion and religious liberty he was convinced ; that he had 
 himself some influence over the royal mind he soon became 
 aware from the great favor shown to him in public and the 
 many audiences permitted him in private. But the laws 
 against opinion passed in the previous reign, under which 
 he had himself suffered several terms of imprisonment, still 
 existed; hundreds of poor Quakers were still confined for 
 tithes or gaoler's fees which their consciences would not suffer 
 them to pay ;^ and the Church party, instead of showing a 
 
 1 Hazard's Register, ii. 225. 
 
 2 Order in Council, Nov. 13. Maryland Papers. State Paper Office. 
 
 3 Proprietary Papers, June 18, 1703. State Paper Office. 
 
 4 Life of Gilbert Latye, 57. 
 
228 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 friendly or tolerant disposition towards Dissenters, proposed 
 that the House of Commons should petition the King to put 
 all the penal laws against them into severe and immediate 
 execution.^ At such a time he felt that Providence had placed 
 him near the throne for a great end ; that upon him had fallen, 
 in that violent time, a work of daily mercy and mediation. 
 He accepted his position with a full sense of its perils and 
 responsibilities ; but he trusted to the sanctity of his assumed 
 office, "the general mediator for charity," for a liberal con- 
 struction of his conduct by every honest mind.^ To him and 
 to his people the ordinary laws of the country afforded no 
 protection ; a fine or a fee was a sentence of perpetual im- 
 prisonment to a man who in his conscience could not pay fines 
 or fees. A humane judge might order a poor wretch to be 
 set at liberty, but then the gaoler stepped forward with his 
 list of charges, and unless the judge were willing to pay them 
 out of his own purse, the poor wretch was sent back again to 
 prison.^ Conscience was at war with this intolerant law, and 
 the only hope of obtaining justice, not to speak of mercy, for 
 the suff'erers, lay in the unremitted exercise of the royal right 
 to pardon and relieve. To secure the constant exercise of this 
 power, and to urge the King to establish, not by proclama- 
 tions or orders in council, but by a general act of Parliament, 
 a perfect freedom of opinion in every part of his dominions — 
 these were the objects which kept Penn away from the city of 
 his affections and carried him every morning to the ante- 
 chambers at Whitehall.'* 
 
 He removed his residence to Holland House at Kensington, 
 and brought Guli and his family to town.'^ The house was 
 large, and he had many visitors. His influence with the 
 King was well known, and every man with a real grievance 
 found in him a counsellor and a friend. Envoys were sent 
 from the American colonies to solicit his influence in their 
 behalf; members of his own and other religious bodies who 
 had petitions to present crowded to his levees ; and sometimes 
 not less than two hundred persons were in attendance at his 
 hour of rising.^ 
 
 1 Com. Jour., May 26, 27. 
 
 2 Letter to Quakers in Phil. Friend, vi. 257. 
 
 3 Fox's Journal, 217, 258. 
 
 4 Letter to Quakers, Phil. Friend, vi. 257. 
 
 5 Lawton MS. Memoirs of Penn, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 216. 
 
 6 Gerard Croese, Hist. Quakers. Lambeth MSS., Bancroft, ii. 395. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 229 
 
 One of the earliest favors which Penn is known to have 
 begged from the King will be remembered to his honor as 
 long as a taste for letters or a love of science endures. In 
 the preceding reign, when the Earl of Shaftesbury fled away 
 to the continent, John Locke, as one of his intimate friends, 
 fell under Court suspicions ; but so serene and blameless was 
 the life he led at Oxford, that it was feared that to arrest 
 and try him would only end in an acquittal and a triumph for 
 the enemies of the royal family. King Charles therefore em- 
 ployed his creatures at Christ Church to entrap him into 
 some unwary expression — some word of sympathy for the al- 
 leged conspirators — any, even the least, remark which malice 
 might construe into an ofi*ence.-^ But he was on his guard, 
 and gave them no assistance in their design. At length, 
 treachery failing, force was used. On the 11th of November, 
 the Earl of Sunderland conveyed to the authorities of the 
 college his majesty's commands, to strip the unmoved phi- 
 losopher of his honors and dignities, and expel him from the 
 University.^ These authorities showed no want of alacrity in 
 putting their own recently promulgated doctrine of absolute 
 obedience into practice f and a week later the secretary 
 thanked the college, in his majesty's name, for their ready 
 compliance with his orders.^ Locke, then on the continent, 
 was ignominiously cast out of the University of which he was 
 the chiefest ornament, and went to reside at the Hague, 
 where he busied himself in finishing his great work on the 
 Human Understanding, and in furnishing the friends of 
 liberty with new arguments in favor of toleration.* Touched 
 with a situation in some respects so like his own in earlier 
 life, Penn put his influence to the test by asking a pardon 
 and permission for his old acquaintance to return to England. 
 That James had been a consenting party to his banishment, 
 there can be no doubt ; possibly he had been an active 
 enemy ; it was therefore regarded as a signal instance of his 
 favor that he promised all the intercessor asked for, without 
 
 ' Bishop of Oxford to Sunderland, Nov. 8. State Paper Office. 
 
 2 Sunderland Letter-Book, November 11. State Paper Office. 
 
 ^ State Tracts, ii. 153, and Somers Tracts, viii. 420-424. Passive obe- 
 dience was declared to be a "most necessary doctrine of the Chuich" en 
 the 21st of July; the very day on which Lord William Russell died for the 
 right of resisting tyranny. 
 
 "* Sunderland Letter-Book, November 20. State Paper Office. 
 
 ^ Furly C jrresp. 1-75. King's Life of Locke, passim. 
 
 20 
 
230 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 a scruple, and without conditions. Penn at once wrote off 
 with these glad tidings to the Hague ; but the exile, conscious 
 of having committed no crime, while expressing his deep 
 sense of obligation to the mediator, absolutely refused to ac- 
 cept the proffered pardon.^ And in this view of his duty to 
 himself he continued steadfast ; when the Earl of Pembroke, 
 an intimate friend of many years standing, offered his ser* 
 vices to obtain a similar concession from the King, he returned 
 the same answer.^ That he thankfully remembered the unso- 
 licited kindness of his "friend Penn,"^ will be seen in the 
 good offices he is able to render in return after the Revolution 
 changed in a measure their relative positions. His friend 
 Popple, afterwards secretary to the Lords Commissioners of 
 Trade and Plantations, was less scrupulous in using the Go- 
 vernor's influence at court. Popple was involved in some 
 troublesome affairs in France, and applied to the general me- 
 diator to aid him in recovering his position : he, being con- 
 vinced of his honor and innocence, went to the Ambassador, 
 Barillon, and procured such a representation of the affair at 
 the Court of Versailles as soon put an end to his troubles. 
 The future secretary retained a warm sense of gratitude to 
 his benefactor, and events afterwards placed it in his power, 
 as a government official, in some measure to return these 
 favors."* Nor did Locke himself scruple to ask that for others 
 which his philosophic pride rejected for himself. Ever ready 
 to exercise his interest in behalf of the unfortunate, he found 
 his friend in London equally willing to be made the instru- 
 ment of his charitable interference.^ Popple and Locke were 
 political as well as personal friends. The accidents of the 
 time had driven the Whigs from Court ; some into the retire- 
 ment of the country, others into positive exile. Penn sympa- 
 thized deeply with their political ideas ; and their misfortunes 
 gave them a claim on his regard, which he never trifled with 
 so long as his day of influence lasted. Some of the men whom 
 he saved in their hour of need, repaid him in after times with 
 the foulest ingratitude, but there were noble exceptions.^ 
 
 • Lord King's Life of Locke, i. 291, 292. 
 2 Ibid. 3 Furly Corresp. 36. 
 
 4 Lawton's Mem. Popple to Penn, October 20, 1688. Plant. Gen. Pa- 
 pers, iv. State Paper Office. 
 ^ Furly Corresp. 36. 
 6 Lawton's Mem. (Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 227.) 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 231 
 
 The first six months of James the Second's reign brought 
 back the troubles of the old civil wars. Though he mounted 
 the throne of his ancestors with as little opposition as any 
 monarch had ever done in England, the elements of confusion 
 existed around him in no ordinary force and variety. The 
 old cavaliers, who had fought for his family in many a well- 
 contested field, were either lukewarm or indifferent in his 
 cause on account of his religion. A remnant of the Republi- 
 can party, not great in point of numbers, but still formidable 
 from its energy and character, remained in Holland, watching 
 events, and only too willing to revive the good old times 
 of Naseby and Marston Moor. Nor were powerful leaders 
 wanting to these men, and both Monmouth and Argyle were 
 known to be secretly or openly preparing to invade the king- 
 dom and renew in arms the contest which was thought to have 
 been ended with the execution of Algernon Sidney.^ The 
 severities which the King felt bound to inflict on those who 
 had wronged the Duke of York, also added to the suspicions 
 and discontents which were abroad. When the informer, 
 Titus Gates, was placed in the pillory the first time after his 
 trial, the people were excited to a serious breach of the 
 peace ;^ and the zeal of fanatic churchmen was inflamed into 
 frenzy on beholding the King go to mass in public with the 
 Queen and the royal household. Sermons and speeches 
 against popery were delivered in all churches, chapels, coff'ee- 
 houses, and places of general resort : even in the royal chapel 
 at Whitehall the rites and ceremonies practised by the sove- 
 reign were denounced as contrary to the word of God and to 
 the laws of England.^ But in the midst of these sources of 
 alarm, James held on his resolute course.^ He clung to his 
 own notions of religion with a tenacity worthy of an English- 
 man ; and refused to purchase the support of his ancient 
 friends, the cavaliers, by any sacrifice of his bigotry to their 
 intolerance, even when Argyle had landed in Scotland, and the 
 signal of revolt was daily expected in the west of England. 
 
 A committee of the House of Commons, under the influence 
 of the Church party, proposed to petition the King for the 
 instant execution of all the penal statutes against Dissent. 
 
 J Penn to Crisp, February 28. MSS. Memoirs of James, ii. 3 et seq. 
 
 2 Sunderland Letter-Book, May 19, 20. State Paper Office. Barillon to 
 Louis, May 21. 
 
 3 Penn to Crisp, February 28. MS. ^ Barillon to Louis, May 14. 
 
232 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 Though some of the King's personal friends were present 
 when this proposal was made, thej offered no opposition, and 
 it was unanimously resolved to bring forward a motion in the 
 house to that effect on the following day. James, informed 
 of what had taken place, and of w^hat was intended for the 
 morrow, sent for his friends and laid before them so clearly 
 and emphatically his fixed determination to resist the peti- 
 tion, and to err, if at all, on the side of mercy, that they went 
 away convinced of his sincerity, and took their measures 
 with such success that the result w^as more satisfactory to the 
 supporters of toleration than they had dared to hope: — the 
 motion was condemned as an insult to the sovereign, and re- 
 jected without a division.-' Penn began to feel some hope 
 that Parliament would soon find itself in a temper to discuss 
 a general act for the enfranchisement of conscience ; and the 
 King of France urged James to press ths measure at once.^ 
 
 Literature also came to the aid of freedom, — and from an 
 unexpected quarter. Penn's acquaintance with the brilliant 
 Duke of Buckingham has been referred to more than once; 
 and, as the public professed to believe, it was at his instiga- 
 tion, or through his influence, that his grace now brought out 
 his Essay on Keligion.^ In this work he argues for universal 
 charity towards opinion. He says he had long been con- 
 vinced that nothing can be more anti-christian, nor more con- 
 trary to sense and reason, than to trouble and molest our 
 fellow Christians because they cannot be exactly of our minds 
 in all that relates to the worship of God."* The effusion 
 breathes this spirit throughout ; and it was not a little to the 
 author's credit that during a life of more than ordinary fickle- 
 ness of purpose and change of fortune he had never wavered 
 from this opinion. He concludes his discourse with the para- 
 phrase of a thought often expressed by Penn, to the effect 
 that if Parliament refused to adopt a more liberal policy to- 
 wards opinion, the result would be ^' a general discontent, the 
 dispeopling of our poor country, and the exposing us to the 
 conquest of a foreign nation."^ A pamphlet on such a sub- 
 
 ' Com. Jour. May 2G, 27. Barillon to Louis, June 7. 
 
 2 Louis to Barillon, June 15. 
 
 3 ^' A short Discourse on the Reasonableness of having a Religion or 
 Worship of God." The authenticity of this Avork has been doubted (Pen. 
 Cyc. Art. Buck.), but without reason. The title-page bears his name, and 
 he never denied its authorship. Barillon to Louis, May 2L 
 
 ^ Short Discourse, &c., Preface. s jj^i^j §_ 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 233 
 
 ject by the author of the " Kehearsal" naturally excited 
 much attention, and numerous answers to it appeared.^ The 
 wit of the court was answered by wits of the coffee-houses. 
 One of these is very smart in its personal raillery.^ The 
 writer pleasantly alludes to the great rake taking up with 
 Whiggism in her old age, when she is a poor cast-off mistress, 
 that even the porters and footmen turn away from wdth scorn ; 
 and wonders how his grace can think of making himself the 
 champion of anything so out of all countenance as religion 
 and toleration. The graver argument adduced by these 
 writers against any concession to the sectaries, was the al- 
 leged peril of the nation. Liberty, they said, was fraught 
 with danger. There had been liberties in the time of Charles 
 the First — and Charles the First lost his head : there was 
 toleration under the Commonwealth, — and the Common- 
 wealth fell. No weapon in the armory of logic like a syllo- 
 gism ! 
 
 This sort of reasoning of course provoked numerous rejoin- 
 ders. Penn entered the arena and wrote in defence of the 
 Duke's proposal.^ The advocates of toleration had the last 
 word ; and ultimately the wit as well as the argument was on 
 their side. One of their retorts begins thus : — " I remember 
 a time when the Lord Chancellor Hyde was at his height at 
 court, a poor woman who got her living by a piece of ground 
 which her husband used to dig, carrying her garden-stuff to mar- 
 ket, and not selling it, comes home exclaiming that she could 
 not sell her beans and cabbages, and never should have a good 
 market any more so long as that filthy Hyde was Chancellor. 
 There are some in the nation that have been, and that are, for 
 liberty of conscience ; some that have been, and that are, of 
 the wisest of the nation — such as my Lord Bacon and my 
 Lord Chief Justice Hales — who have shown their minds still 
 against the stiffness of these Churchmen, who never would be 
 got, when time was, to condescend in lesser things for the 
 sake of greater : — and here comes this gentleman now and 
 argues that all the plots, all the rebellions, and all the evils 
 that have befallen the kingdom, must be imputed to such men 
 and to such principles. This argument is the reasoning of the 
 market-woman — Soerate amhulante fiilguravit : Socrates going 
 
 ' Several of these replies are collected into a volume, B. M. 
 
 2 A Short Answer to the Duke of Buckingham's Paper. 
 
 3 Collected Works, ii. 708. 
 
 20* 
 
234 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 abroad, it lightened. This lightning did a great deal of dam- 
 age: — therefore Socrates must be sent to Newgate ! There- 
 fore liberty of conscience must be put down ! I deny the 
 argument."^ 
 
 When Penn came forward to defend in print the Duke's 
 proposition, he thought it requisite to state exactly the part 
 -which he felt it became him to take in the controversy. One 
 of the disputants had charged the versatile nobleman with 
 having been deluded by Penn into these new notions ; and 
 thus dragged into the arena, friendship to the writer, as well 
 as duty to maintain the right, urged him to add his testimony 
 to the principle of enlightened policy advocated by the pam- 
 plileteer. A vein of quiet satire runs through his discourse. 
 He expresses his great pleasure in seeing a work in defence 
 of religion from such a pen, and sincerely hopes that the witty 
 and clever Duke may soon begin to enjoy those felicities of a 
 good life which he has proved himself so well able to describe. 
 When that day arrives, he says in conclusion, he will be happy 
 to press the gentlemen of England to imitate so illustrious an 
 example.^ At first, the King affected to take no notice of this 
 literary combat ; but when he found the Church party in evi- 
 dent alarm, and heard from those about him that nothing else 
 was talked of in the coffee-houses, he began to take some in- 
 terest in it. The astute agent of the French monarch saw its 
 importance from the first ; and as soon as Buckingham's pam- 
 phlet appeared, he had caused it to be translated, and sent 
 over to his master as a key to the new and serious question 
 which was about to be agitated in England.^ 
 
 Meanwhile the expeditions under Monmouth and Argyle 
 had both failed. These events and the melancholy trials and 
 executions to which they led belong to the domain of general 
 history.'* Penn's connection with them was but slight and 
 incidental ; but so far as is known his influence was exerted 
 entirely in behalf of mercy and of a merciful construction of 
 the law.^ Nor, in our virtuous indignation, should injustice 
 be done even to the most hateful of characters. Jeffreys has 
 been called a judge after James's own heart ; in common fair- 
 
 ^ Defence of the Duke of Buckingham's Paper, p. 3. 
 
 2 Penn's Collected Works, ii. 70 J. 3 Barillon to Louis, May 21. 
 
 "* Lingard, xiv. 1-78, contains the most calm and careful narrative of these 
 events. 
 ^ See Extra Chapter, The Macaulay Charges, at the end of this volume. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 235 
 
 ness it should be remembered that Jeffreys was not a man of 
 James's seeking. He was akeady on the bench when the 
 Catholic prince came to the throne : — he had been raised to 
 the judgment-seat, almost against the wishes of King Charles, 
 by Lord Sunderland, to try his noble uncle Algernon Sidney.^ 
 Considering the King's power, the crimes of which the pri- 
 soners had been guilty, and the general disregard of legal 
 forms at that time prevailing, the calm reader of history is 
 surprised at the perfect order and regular course of law under 
 which the rebels received their sentences. The heat of battle 
 over, James forgot that he was a Stuart, and invoked the 
 ordinary laws of his country. When his generals desired to 
 know what they must do with their prisoners, he wrote to say 
 they must be reserved for regular trial. In no case would he 
 allow the soldier to play the judge. Colonel Kirk sold a few 
 pardons on his own account, and ordered his troops free quar- 
 ters in the rebel towns ; but James gave him a sharp repri- 
 mand, and threatened punishment if these offences were con- 
 tinued.^ No man, by his warrant, suffered arbitrarily. If many 
 were executed, and many more were transported to the Ameri- 
 can colonies, it was because they had been convicted, justly 
 or unjustly, of the highest crime known in the statute-book of 
 England. The royal nature was not humane, — but that so 
 much blood was shed was in a great measure due to the cruel 
 temper of Jeffreys. The King was urged by his creatures to 
 profit by the blunder which his enemies had made, and allow 
 the law to remove from his path men who might otherwise be 
 troublesome,^ — and he was weak and wicked enough to follow 
 their counsel. In these evil moments it was well that he had 
 one honest man occasionally near his person, from whose mouth 
 came words of gentleness and mercy. Between Penn and 
 Jeffreys nature and events had interposed an antipathy which 
 no royal offices could mitigate, much less remove. The Chief 
 Justice was weak, cruel, profligate, avaricious, and he had 
 been the legal doomsman of Algernon Sidney. He was a man 
 thoroughly detestable ; and Penn opposed him to the utmost 
 of his power, and in the day of his bloody triumph loudly ac- 
 cused him of being the cause of a great and needless waste of 
 human life.'' 
 
 ' Clarendon Corresp. i. 82. 
 
 2 Sunderland Letter-Book, 268 etseq. State Paper Office. ^ Burnet, iii. 66. 
 "* Ibid. How far James approved of his servant's conduct is disputed. Lin- 
 gard has collected the conflicting authorities, xiv. 77, 78. 
 
236 . WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 Beyond this loud and vehement protest, Penn had no power 
 to go. He was himself an object of suspicion to the court and 
 ministry. Not half a dozen years before the invasion of Mon- 
 mouth, he had been intimately -associated with the men who 
 were now in prison : even by the reports of Barillon he was 
 then considered as dividing with Algernon Sidney the leader- 
 ship of all the turbulent reformers in England and the Low 
 Countries.^ Though it is not to be imagined that he gave the 
 invaders any reason to believe he approved of their projects — 
 it is clear enough that they regarded him as a friend to their 
 cause, for in their plan of the campaign they had set him down 
 as one of the half dozen persons who might be relied on to bring 
 over the American colonies to accept the Protestant revolu- 
 tion.^ The ministry were conscious that his political sympa- 
 thies were not with them, and they professed to regard him as 
 a partisan of the Prince of Orange.^ Indeed his position was 
 extremely peculiar. Against these suspicions and misgivings 
 he had no protection beyond the private favor of the King : a 
 favor which had its origin in the Duke of York's affection for 
 the old admiral, and in that constancy to his plighted word 
 which made the better side of his obstinate character, rather 
 than in any community of sentiment or personal attachment. 
 So far as was possible with a man who disapproved of the 
 King's policy, and publicly and privately opposed the King's 
 ministers — Penn strove to mitigate the sufferings of the de- 
 luded men who had been drawn into rebellion. Events had 
 given him the proprietorship of a land which he had opened 
 as a general asylum for the oppressed ; and now when the 
 prisoners were sentenced to transportation beyond sea for ten 
 years, he applied to have a few of them sent to Pennsylvania, 
 where the climate would agree with them, and their offences 
 would not be regarded as very heinous.'' But this humane 
 design was not agreeable to the King's advisers. With a per- 
 versity of folly w^hich nothing can justify, the rebels ha^d set a 
 price on the King's head, and had denounced the Parliament 
 as a treasonable assembly, to be pursued with war and destruc- 
 tion.'^ This madness begot its like in the Court and Parliament. 
 Now that the rebels had fallen into their power, they shut their 
 
 ^ Barillon to Louis. Dalrymple, i. 282. 
 
 2 Wade's statement. Harl. MSS. 6845, p. 288. 
 
 3 Penn to Shrewsbury, March 7, 1689, 
 
 * Penn to Thomas Loyd, October 2, 1685. MS, SHarl. MSS. 7006. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 237 
 
 ears to the pleadings of humanity. Thej wished, if it were 
 possible, to make the punishment of the transports more terri- 
 ble than the bitterness of death. Thej gave them up there- 
 fore to the high Tory and Catholic owners of the tropical and 
 unhealthy islands of the West Indies. Sir Philip Howard 
 received two hundred ; Sir Richard White two hundred ; two 
 other knights received a hundred each ; the Queen begged 
 another hundred for some friend or favorite of her own whose 
 name is not preserved.-^ None of them w^ere allowed to go to 
 Pennsylvania, or to any other settlement where they were 
 likely to be treated with humanity.^ 
 
 When the trials in the country were over and those in Lon- 
 don began, Penn was still more anxiously and incessantly 
 employed in the work of mediation. One of the first victims 
 of royal rigor was an old acquaintance of his own. Five 
 years before this time, when the court was moving heaven and 
 earth to defeat the candidates of the Sidney party in all elec- 
 tions, two liberals, Henry Cornish and Slingsby Bethel, had 
 the courage to stand for the ofl&ce of sheriffs for the city of 
 London ; and in spite of bribery and threats, to the infinite 
 chagrin of the royal brothers, they succeeded in carrying the 
 election.^ Their success made quite a sensation in the politi- 
 cal world ; even moderate men like William Lord Russel were 
 taken by surprise. The mob gave vent to their triumph by 
 party cries ; and James took this defeat to heart as if it had 
 been a personal insult.'* From that day Cornish was a marked 
 man ; and when the Rye-House plot exploded, he was believed 
 to be involved in it past recovery. The evidence, however, 
 was not complete, and he had now been two years at large 
 after the execution of Sidney, and was congratulating himself 
 on his escape from peril, when the court suddenly obtained 
 the evidence required to make out their case. He was arrested, 
 tried, found guilty, and gibbeted in front of his own house in 
 Cheapside.^ That Cornish was accused and sentenced as the 
 accomplice of Sidney and Russell was not without its weight 
 with Penn f but the mediator took a higher view, he declared 
 his belief that the condemned was innocent of the crimes im- 
 puted to him, and begged the King to pause ere the fatal war- 
 
 J Sunderland to Jeifreys, September 14. State Paper Office, 
 2 See Extra Chapter. ^ Dorothy Sunderland to Lord Halifax, July 19. 
 -» Ibid. Burnet, ii. 248. ^ gtate Trials, vol. xi. 
 
 6 Penn to Harrison, Oct. 25, 1G85. MS. 
 
238 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 rants of execution were given out. But his arguments failed 
 to touch the cokl heart of his sovereign.^ Another case 
 pending at the same moment, interested his feelings not less 
 strongly. Elizabeth Gaunt, a lady of religious temperament 
 and of the most spotless life, whose time and fortune had been 
 spent in visiting prisons and relieving the wretched — had in a 
 moment of compassion given the shelter of her house to one of 
 the fugitive rebels ; but as the government declared its deter- 
 mination to punish those who harbored traitors with as much 
 severity as the traitors themselves, the vile scoundrel informed 
 against his humane protectress, and she was therefore arrested, 
 found guilty, and condemned to be burnt alive at Tyburn. 
 For her Penn also interceded — but in vain.^ 
 
 Both these victims suffered on the same day. Penn stood 
 near Cornish to the last, — and vindicated his memory after 
 death.^ The creatures of the court, annoyed at the indignant 
 bearing of the city merchant on the scaffold, gave out that he 
 was drunk. Penn repelled the accusation with scorn : he said 
 he could see nothing in his conduct but the natural indigna- 
 tion of an Englishman about to be murdered by form of law."* 
 From this melancholy scene he went to Tyburn. The poor 
 lady met her fate with calmness and resignation. She had 
 obeyed the merciful promptings of her heart in sheltering a 
 fellow-creature from the blood-hounds of the law ; and when 
 grave judges pronounced " this a crime worthy of fire and fa- 
 got, she submitted to the King's pleasure in silence. As she 
 arranged the straw about her feet, that the flame might do its 
 work more quickly, the whole concourse of spectators burst 
 into tears. To the last she asserted her innocence, her loy- 
 alty, her respect for the laws. But she did not repent of what 
 she had done. The cause in which she suffered was, she said, 
 the cause of humanity — the cause of God.^ As the fagots 
 were kindling, a storm arose such as had not been witnessed 
 since the eventful night of Cromwell's death; — and in the 
 midst of this war of the elements, and the still more fearful 
 strife of human passions, expired the unfortunate woman, who 
 
 * "There is daily inquisition for those concerned in the late plots. Some 
 die denying — as Alderman Cornish — others confessing, but justifying, some 
 repenting. Cornish died last sixth day (Saturday) in Cheapside for being at 
 the meeting that Lord Russel died for, but denied it most vehemently to the 
 last." Ibid.; also Burnet, iii, 66, 67. 
 
 2 State Trials, vol. xi. ^ Penn to Harrison, Oct. 25, MS. 
 
 * Burnet, iii. 66. ^ Penn to Harrison, Oct. 25, MS. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 239 
 
 in happier times might have left behind her the reputation of 
 an Elizabeth Frj.^ 
 
 Penn was able, when he afterwards pleaded with his sove- 
 reign for mercy, to quote these instances of persons who had 
 gone down to tlie grave protesting their innocence ; it was for 
 this purpose that he attended the executions, even by the re- 
 port of his enemy. Dr. Burnet. His representations had their 
 effect in softening what James thought the inflexible justice 
 of his own nature. Some slight reparation was made to Cor- 
 nish ; his mutilated and scattered limbs were gathered and 
 restored to his relatives ; and the infamous scoundrel who had 
 sworn away his life was condemned to perpetual imprison- 
 ment.^ But the mediator bought these charities at a consider- 
 able risk. The minister disliked his humane interference with 
 public business ; and to punish his presumption they contrived 
 not only to postpone the form of his legal investiture with the 
 Delaware province, though, as he enjoyed it in fact, there 
 could be no reason for withholding it, but under pretence of 
 a general measure of reform for the colonies, gave orders to 
 the crown lawyers to issue a quo warranto against his pro- 
 vince of Pennsylvania, and proceed with such vigor as to com- 
 pel him to vacate his charter.^ This mischief, however, was 
 soon arrested. James was then staying at Windsor Castle ; 
 but in less than a week, by his special command. Lord Sun- 
 derland wrote to the Attorney-General to suspend the proceed- 
 ing until further orders.^ Those orders were never issued. 
 The King evidently listened to his counsels with interest, even 
 where his own temper forbade him to follow them, — for his 
 manner was soft and winning, and he had not only clearer 
 ideas but far more wit and scholarship than the majority of 
 those who thronged the galleries of Whitehall.^ His opportu- 
 nities were nobly employed. If any fault can be found with 
 his conduct, it is that his charity was a little too universal — a 
 little too indiscriminate. The case of Aaron Smith, — a man 
 to whom he had never spoken in his life, — is an instance in 
 point. A Whig of some standing applied to Penn, rather, as 
 he himself confesses, with a view to ascertain his ideas of po- 
 litical mercy than with any hope of obtaining what he asked, 
 
 'Burnet, iii. 62. 2Luttrel's Diary, April 19, 1686. 
 
 3 Privy Council Register J., i. 228, Privy Council Office. 
 
 4 Sunderland Letter-Book, June 6, 1686. State Paper Office. 
 ^ Gerard Croese, Hist. Quak.er.s. Burnet, iii. 140. 
 
240 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 to solicit from the King a pardon. Smith's only claim was 
 that he was unknown to his mediator and in misfortune. Had 
 Penn known him better he might possibly have paused ; but 
 he heard only of his calamities, and promised to intercede. A 
 few days afterwards, when alone with James, he made this 
 request. The King started at the name, — flew into a violent 
 passion, — replied in his angriest tone that he would do no such 
 thing, — that six fellows like Smith would put the three King- 
 doms in a flame, — and threatened in his wrath to turn the im- 
 prudent petitioner out of the royal closet.-^ Still he did not 
 desist. He got with some trouble — for Smith was as obstinate 
 as he was quarrelsome — a civil letter from the delinquent ; 
 and taking an opportunity, when James was in a good humor, 
 and the scene in the closet had faded from his recollection, he 
 again pressed the suit of mercy and obtained a pardon.^ On 
 the other hand, it is not to be supposed that the old gratitude 
 of the ward to his guardian was the only sentiment that at- 
 tached the governor of Pennsylvania to his sovereign. They 
 had, apparently at least, one great political object in common : 
 — they both sought to establish Liberty of Conscience for all 
 Englishmen ! Penn believed the King sincere when he de- 
 clared himself opposed to every kind of religious tests and to 
 every species of penal laws f and, though it became the fash- 
 ion after the Revolution to consider this apparent liberality 
 in matters of conscience to be a mere Jesuitical feint to engage 
 the unwary to support his policy in favor of the Catholics, 
 abundant evidence remains to show that this was not the case. 
 That his protection was often extended to other nonconform- 
 ists, as well as to his own body, is beyond question. The 
 council books teem with examples : but one or two will sufiice. 
 One Francis Godfrey, master of a workhouse in Cambridge, 
 being expelled his office on account of his dissent, James wrote 
 to inquire if he were guilty of any other ofi"ence, and com- 
 manded, if he were not, that he should be reinstated.'* He 
 pardoned Friends almost as fast as they got into trouble.^ He 
 restrained the zeal of his own followers, when their zeal took 
 a shape off"ensive to the nation : the high-sheriff" of Hertford- 
 shire pressed to have permission to celebrate high mass in the 
 
 J Lawton's Mem. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 219-21. 
 2 Ibid. 222. 3 i]^i,|. 223. 
 
 4 Letter-Book, February 4, 1687. State Paper Office. 
 ^ Penn to Turner, April 4. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 241 
 
 townhall of Hertford, but the King objected ; and it was not 
 until he had been again strongly urged and had ample reasons 
 given that he reluctantly gave his consent.^ Even in the dis- 
 putes about ecclesiastical property, the King seems to have 
 dealt out even-handed justice. At Blackburn a Catholic named 
 Walmsly converted a chapel of which he had possession into 
 a mass-house. The vicar of the parish claimed it as Church 
 property. Walmsly could plead both private right and actual 
 possession. Yet James declared in favor of the churchman.^ 
 Penn must have known of numerous acts like these, and taken 
 in connection with the often-repeated assurances of the King, 
 they served to satisfy him that time, and a more charitable 
 frame of the public mind were alone wanting to complete the 
 great work of toleration.^ 
 
 There was a curious but a powerful bond of friendship be- 
 tween the Quaker and the Catholic, as such, in that age : — 
 They had suffered proscription, pillories, exile and death to- 
 gether in the common name of religion, and hundreds of them 
 had made acquaintance in the prisons where they were equally 
 immured for conscience' sake. Penn had never been betrayed 
 by injustice into wrong. When suffering imprisonment him- 
 self, under laws especially directed against Papists, he had 
 never proposed to escape from this unmerited punishment by 
 joining in the hue and cry after the poor Romanists. On the 
 contrary, while severely condemning their creed he contended 
 for their liberty of thought. All that he asked for himself he 
 gave to them.'* He still contended for that sacred right, even 
 now that it had become for the moment more unpopular than 
 ever. Yet not without drawing suspicion and trouble upon 
 himself. Hearing him express none of the usual cant about 
 Popery, the ignorant and the bigoted began to suspect that 
 he was a Papist in disguise. How easy the inferences of 
 ignorance ! He was often at court and enjoyed favor with 
 the King. The needy courtiers who waited in the ante- 
 chamber while he was closeted with their master, could think 
 
 1 Letter-Book, 406-408. State Paper Office. 
 
 2 Ibid. April 7, 1688. State Paper Office. 
 
 3 Penn to the Quakers, PhiL Friend, vi. 57. From the "Book of Secret 
 Service"! will quote a note illustrating James's tolerance — "To Charles 
 Meai-ne, bookseller, for several Church Bibles, Common Prayer-Books, Books 
 of Homilies, and other books delivered to the Bishop of London, to be sent 
 to the Plantations of Virginia and New England... 139^. 15*. lid" P. 122. 
 
 ^ Speech to the House of Commons, ante, pp. 157-8. 
 
 21 
 
242 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 of no other explanation of his influence. A ludicrous incident 
 made the suspicion certainty. Penn was travelling in the 
 country in a stage coach ; and as the vehicle went slowly 
 along the passengers beguiled the time by conversation on the 
 usual topics of the day. One man asked him how he and 
 Barclay and Keith came to have so much learning and such a 
 love of letters, seeing that Quakers professed to despise these 
 things ? I suppose, said Penn, it comes of my having been 
 educated at Samur. Mistaking the name, the questioner re- 
 peated every where that he had been educated at St. Omer's..^ 
 St. Omer's was the great Jesuit seminary. How easy the 
 conclusion then ! He must be, not merely a Papist, but a 
 concealed Jesuit. The mob caught at this story, as they 
 will at any wondrous tale ; and in a short time it had received 
 various additions. It was said in every coffee-house in Lon- 
 don that he had matriculated in the Jesuits' College, — had 
 taken holy orders in Rome, — and now regularly officiated at 
 the service of mass in the private chapel at Whitehall. All 
 this was said in spite of his lay habits, — his house at Charing 
 Cross, — his wife and children, — his public preaching, — his 
 Caveat against Popery !^ Nor did these simple inventions long 
 content the curious ; more mysterious and romantic incidents 
 came out. A tale got current of a monk who had abjured his 
 faith and fled away to America for safety. Attracted by its 
 high repute to Pennsylvania, the poor fellow placed himself 
 unwittingly in the power of his superior, who had him secretly 
 kidnapped by his own familiars and sent to Europe, to be 
 there delivered over to the awful retributions of the Church.^ 
 Some men of calm and sober judgment were weak enough to 
 lend a willing ear to these reports ; the temper of the public 
 
 1 Gent. Mag. vii. 495. 
 
 2 Popple to Penn, October 20. From one of his private and hitherto un- 
 published letters to his American agent, I extract a few words on the con- 
 duct of the Jesuit Court of France at this time: — "It is a time to be wise. 
 I long to be with you ; but the Eternal God do as he pleases. Oh, be you 
 watchful ! Fear and sanctify the Lord in your hearts ! In France not a 
 meeting of Protestants is left. They force all to conform by not suffering 
 them to sleep. They use drums or fling water on the drowsy, till they sub- 
 mit or run mad. They pray to be killed. But the King has ordered his 
 dragoons, that are his inquisitors and converters, to do any thing but kill 
 and ravish. Such as fly and are caught are executed or sent to the galleys. 
 Thus they use all qualities, from dukes and duchesses to the meanest." MS. 
 Letter to Harrison, October 25. 
 
 3 Popple to Penn, October 20. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 243 
 
 was unsettled, and it was suspected on fair ground that the 
 religious orders of Rome had received instructions to get 
 among the Quakers and other advanced sectaries in England.^ 
 The famous Dr. Tillotson was in this class. He had been an 
 old friend of Penn's : he admired his parts and respected his 
 integrity. When this accusation first arose, he resolved to 
 seek an explanation, that his own mind might be at rest on 
 the subject. Therefore, when Penn called at his house in the 
 usual way, he told him it was reported that he kept up a 
 secret correspondence with Rome, and particularly with some 
 of the Jesuits there, at which his visitor was both surprised 
 and amused. The conversation, however, became general, 
 and nothing more was said on that point, — nor was it renewed 
 for a long time, as the new governor went out to his province, 
 and on his return he had either forgotten the circumstance or 
 was too busy to attend to such matters.^ When the Doctor 
 heard Penn accused of being a Jesuit, he did not feel assured 
 that he could deny it on certain knowledge ; and as they were 
 well known to have been for a long time on intimate terms, 
 the gossips found a support for the rumor even in his silence. 
 It was soon noised abroad that Tillotson had afiirmed of his 
 own knowledge that Penn was a Jesuit.^ 
 
 Few men despised clamor and false representation more 
 than he did ; but he thought it time to speak out when those 
 who should have known him better were said to countenance 
 such reports. He sat down and wrote a manly complaint to 
 his old friend ; — he was grieved, he said, to hear the reports 
 in question, whether it was the public which abused Tillotson 
 or Tillotson who had misunderstood him. He would only 
 say, for he could not join in a cry to ruin those he differed 
 with, that he abhorred two principles in religion, and pitied 
 those who held them — obedience on mere authority without 
 conviction, and persecution of man on pretence of serving 
 God. He thought union was best when the truth was clear ; 
 where not, charity. He entirely agreed with Hooker, that a 
 few words spoken with meekness, humility and love are worth 
 whole volumes of controversy — which commonly destroys 
 charity, the best part of religion."* 
 
 Tillotson replied without reserve. He had, he admitted, 
 
 1 Thurloe State Papers, vii. 117. 
 
 2 Corresp. with Tillotson. Penn's Works, i. 12G, et seq. 
 
 3 Besse, 126. 4 penn to Tillotson, January 22, 1686. 
 
244 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 been troubled with doubts and had sometimes spoken of them. 
 He was sorry for it. He admired his old friend's wit and 
 zeal ; and so soon as he distinctly stated he was not a Papist, 
 he would do all in his power to correct the rumors that were 
 about. ^ Penn answered at once that he had no correspond- 
 ence with the Jesuits or with any other body at Rome — that 
 he wrote no letters to any priest of the Popish faith — that he 
 was not even acquainted with any one belonging to that com- 
 munion. Yet he added, though not a Romanist, he was a 
 Catholic ; he could not deny to others what he claimed for 
 himself — thinking faith, piety and providence a better security 
 than force : and that if truth could not succeed with her own 
 weapons, all others would fail her.^ On the receipt of this 
 letter Tillotson called on Penn and their old intimacy was 
 renewed. Tillotson did what he could to put an end to the 
 false reports ; but they whose purposes it served were unwil- 
 ling to be set right, and the rumor not only spread more and 
 more, but the doctor's name was still coupled with it as its 
 voucher. Tillotson, thereupon, placed in his friend's hands a 
 written disavowal, to be shown to such as repeated the 
 slander.^ It was years, however, before he heard the last of 
 this Jesuitism. 
 
 Meantime he pursued his own course. Every month grow- 
 ing less hopeful of the future, he would gladly have returned 
 to his colony, had he considered merely his own ease ; but the 
 King pressed him to remain in England until an Act of Par- 
 liament had legally and firmly established freedom for thought. 
 His heart yearned for the other world. The repose of the 
 Delaware, the rising greatness of Philadelphia, haunted his 
 dreams and mingled with the scenes of his daily life.'* The 
 
 1 Tillotson to Penn, Jan. 26. 2 penn to Tillotson, Jan. 29. 
 
 2 " April 29, 1686. — Sir, I am very sorry that the suspicion I had enter- 
 tained concerning you, and of which I gave you the true account in my 
 former letter, hath occasioned so much trouble and inconvenience to you : 
 and I do now declare with great joy that I am fully satisfied that there was 
 no just ground of suspicion, and therefore do heartily beg your pardon. 
 And ever since you were pleased to give me that satisfaction, I have taken 
 all occasion to vindicate you in this matter, and shall be ready to do so to 
 the person who sent you the enclosed whenever he will please to come to me. 
 I am very much in the country, but will seek the first opportunity to visit 
 you at Charing Cross and renew our acquaintance, in which I took great 
 pleasure. I rest your faithful friend, Jo. Tillotson." 
 
 4 Penn to Harrison, April 24, MS. — ''For my coming over, cheer up the 
 people. I press the matter all I can, but the great undertakings that crowd 
 on me, hinder me yet. But my heart is with you." 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 245 
 
 favor of the King liad powerful drawbacks m tlie envy and 
 suspicion with which he was regarded; and he longed to 
 escape from the atmosphere of a court into the forests ot 
 Pennsylvania.^ But a stern sense of duty kept him m l^ng- 
 land.^ By speech and writing, by his influence with the great, 
 and by his power with Dissenters, he worked day and night to 
 accomplish the great task. The chief obstacle was the mutual 
 ignorance and bigotry of court and parliament,— and he 
 strove to enlighten them on the pohcy of toleration, ihe 
 " Persuasive to Moderation" is an able and learned history of 
 opinion and experiment on the subject. He called history to 
 witness— he quoted the wisdom of the wise, and the experi- 
 ences of time, in support of his argument.^ The paper was 
 addressed to the King and council; it created a sensation 
 and contributed to procure that general pardon which set 
 some thousands of prisoners for conscience sake— including 
 twelve or thirteen hundred Quakers— at liberty.^ btili this 
 act of grace was due only to the will of the monarch ; the 
 penal laws remained in force.; the poor sufferers were hable 
 to be seized again for the same offences and again sent to 
 saol.^ Rightly or wrongly the leaders of opinion would not 
 believe in ?he sincerity of James. The bigots murmured at 
 every fresh pardon granted to a sectary; and the mainten- 
 ance of the Test Act became the avowed policy of all parties 
 in opposition. The hopes of churchmen had already urned 
 to the Hague, and the sagacious Prmce of Orange, playing 
 for no less a stake than one of the first crowns in Europe, 
 while professing liberal sentiments, took care to confirm them 
 in their opposition to the King's policy. James already felt 
 the power of his Dutch son-in-law m his kingdom ; and seeing 
 no reason to expect a majority of the House of Commons 
 favorable to his views while they were upheld by William, he 
 sent Penn over to the Hague-not m the formal character of 
 an envoy, but so accredited as to satisfy the prince that he 
 spoke by authority-to ascertain his opinions.^ ^^7^/ ^f. 
 then an^xil^ii^Holl^^ 
 
 Tliazard's Register, iv. 104. s Works ii 727 
 
 2 Penn to Harrison, April 24, 1686, MS. Works ii. /-/• 
 
 4 Penn to Harrison, April 24, MS. Besse, 128 ^ 
 
 ^ Penn was himself three times arrested at meetmgs 7, f . jj^n Pe^ 
 
 but of course got free again as soon as the King learned his situation. Fenn 
 
 to Harrison, April 24, MS. 
 6 Burnet, iii. 139. 
 
 21* 
 
246 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 English affairs was of great service to the prince ; but he was 
 a weak-headed man, unused to take large views of things, and 
 though liberal enough to desire an Act of Toleration, was 
 entirely opposed to a repeal of the tests. The Prince of 
 Orange, unfortunately for this country, had formed his idea of 
 an ecclesiastical policy for England from this bigoted church- 
 man ; and although he allowed Penn two or three long audi- 
 ences, he adhered to his own plans. The envoy was instructed 
 to make the most liberal proposals, if William would aid him 
 to pass an Act of Toleration for all creeds and opinions — to 
 obtain a repeal of the hated tests. James promised to con- 
 sult him in every thing, and to put his friends in the highest 
 places.-^ The prince remained inflexible. He would consent 
 to an Act of Toleration, but he would not consent to a re- 
 peal of the tests — the bulwarks of the Church !^ While at 
 the court of Holland, Penn mixed freely with the exiles 
 who thronged the streets — the old comrades of Sidney and 
 Argyle ; he studied their views, and made acquaintance with 
 their miseries.^ With Burnet he had long and frequent dis- 
 cussions ; but the Protestant zeal of the doctor was only in- 
 flamed by his firm adherence to his old opinions. They met 
 with suspicion, Burnet accusing Penn of a leaning to Popery — 
 Penn accusing Burnet of bigotry and intolerance ; and they 
 parted with coldness, and on one side with bitter enmity.'* 
 
 His hopes turned more and more towards Pennsylvania. 
 There he had secured a home for the oppressed. Time, he 
 knew, would make it a great nation. He would help on the 
 good work as fast as he might be able. So, having finished 
 his business at the Hague, he went to Amsterdam, where he 
 engaged the celebrated Wilhelm Sewell — an old friend and 
 correspondent — to translate his account of Pennsylvania into 
 Flemish, and circulate it among the able and industrious farm- 
 
 1 Ibid. iii. 140. 
 
 2 Van Citters, Nov. 26, Dec. 6, 1836.— " Aengaende het point der Tolle- 
 rantie wert hier nu opently voorgegeven, dat soo syn Hooglieyt als Mevrouw 
 de Princes haer daer voeren souden verclaert hebben, en dat mein in het 
 aenstaende Parlement dat mede soo debiteren zal, en dat hoogstgedaglite syn 
 hooglieyt met den bekenden Pen die Archiquaecker, wie patron is van Pen- 
 silvaniain America, daerover in 't lange soucle gesproken hebben, en denselve 
 hem dien aengaende diermaten, sonde verclaert hebben." This letter is not 
 in the archives of the Hague, but in possession of Van Citters' family. The 
 English State Papers of the period are most of them in private hands ! 
 
 3 Buchan's Lives of Fletcher of Saltoun and Thompson. 
 
 4 Burnet, iii. 141. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 247 
 
 ers of the Low Countries. He travelled through Holland and 
 into the Rhineland, bearing every where the glad tidings that 
 a land of freemen had sprung up in the New World, where 
 every man enjoyed his full share of political power, and every 
 class of opinions was respected.^ To the citizens of the Upper 
 Rhine he could report the success of the German colony. At 
 a short distance from Philadelphia their countrymen had built 
 a town, which, in affectionate remembrance of the fatherland, 
 they had called Germanopolis. It was situate in a beautiful 
 and fertile district ; on the spot were a number of fresh springs ; 
 in the vicinity were oak, walnut, and chestnut trees in abun- 
 dance ; and the surrounding country was not only in places 
 favorable to the culture of the vine, but every where afibrded 
 excellent and plentiful pasturage for cattle.^ 
 
 On his return to London he appealed to the King and 
 council in behalf of the exiles. There were two classes of 
 English in Holland. The most numerous was that of political 
 offenders. At first Penn tried to obtain a general pardon ; 
 but of this James would not hear. To individual cases he 
 was open, and several pardons were obtained from him in his 
 more gracious moods. ^ But there were many who had merely 
 fled away from religious persecution; and he reminded James 
 that it would be in strict accordance with the gracious inten- 
 tions he had formed, to offer these men an indemnity and 
 recall. Thus pressed, the King issued an order to that effect, 
 and a great number of persons, who had not been engaged in 
 treasonable acts against the government, returned to their 
 homes and families. The indemnity was traced entirely to 
 the influence of Penn ; and the posterity of some of the men 
 whom it restored to their country cherished for many years a 
 grateful remembrance of his services.^ 
 
 The failure of Penn's mission to the Prince of Orange hur- 
 ried matters to a crisis in England. James was resolved to 
 effect his purpose ; and, as a Catholic, he not unnaturally, 
 though most unwisely, began to lean more and more towards 
 his great Catholic neighbor. Penn saw the danger of such 
 an alliance more clearly than the King, and he counselled him 
 earnestly against even raising the suspicion of a desire to rely 
 
 1 Penn to Harrison, September 23, 168G, MS. 
 
 2 Pastorius (in Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem, iv. Part ii. 92.) 
 ^ Lawton's Mem. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii, 
 
 '* Buchan's Lives of Fletcher of Saltoun and Thompson, 
 
248 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 on France.^ But James was infatuated. It is not improbable 
 that, irritated by the perverse conduct of the churchmen, he 
 secretly changed his own views ; and instead of simply asking 
 toleration for the faith Avhich he believed to be right, resolved 
 to aim at a complete subversion of the Established Church. 
 There is unquestionably a change of tone in the correspond- 
 ence with Versailles. From the probabilities of gaining a 
 Bill of Toleration, the discussion assumes the King's aim to 
 be the reintroduction of Popery as the state religion.^ His 
 son-in-law ranged with his enemies, and Parliament deter- 
 mined to thwart his plans, James tried his right to suspend 
 the whole body of the penal laws which oppressed his sub- 
 jects. The question was regularly brought to issue in the 
 courts of law ; and, with the exception of Street, the judges 
 were unanimously of opinion that, according to the laws and 
 usages of England, the King had power to suspend the ob- 
 noxious enactments.^ James was not long in making full use 
 of this dangerous prerogative. On the 18th of March (1687) 
 he called the privy council together : — he told them he in- 
 tended to use his royal right. Experience had shown the 
 uselessness of penal laws. They did not prevent new sects 
 from springing up. They were a perpetual cause of soreness 
 and discontent. It was time to put an end to these civil trou- 
 bles. Conscience was a thing not to be forced ; and he was 
 resolved to give to all his people alike the right of opinion, 
 which he claimed for himself. A few days later the royal 
 proclamation appeared. It announced that the King had sus- 
 pended all the laws against religious offences ; it forbade the 
 application of any test, or the offer of any oath, to persons 
 about to take office under the state.^ 
 
 This announcement was received with different feelings. 
 The oppressed sectaries were loud in the expression of their 
 gratitude. The King's act not only opened to them their 
 prison-doors, but restored them from civil deatli to civil life. 
 Some of them entered the army, the navy, the civil service. 
 From being persecuted wretches, they suddenly acquired the 
 rights and dignities of Englishmen. Some of the more 
 
 J Van Citters' Letter, July 19-29, 1(187, MS.—" He has advised the King, 
 so long as his affairs at home are so changeable, above all to he cautious in his 
 connection ivith France.^' 
 
 ^Compare Louis to Barillon, June 15, 1685, with July 13, and the subse- 
 quent correspondence. 
 
 3 State Trials, ix. 11G5-1199. " Gazette, 2231. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 249 
 
 wealthy and intelligent were made magistrates, sheriffs, and 
 lieutenants of counties. Even the Quakers began to take 
 some share in public business ; and at the next yearly meeting 
 of the body the question was discussed whether they should 
 accept or refuse magistracies.^ All parties in the great body 
 of dissent were elated at the changes which had taken place. 
 The Anabaptists were the first to approach the throne with 
 the expression of their thanks ; the Quakers soon followed ; 
 then came the Independents, the Presbyterians, and the Ca- 
 tholics.^ The Quakers were headed by Penn : and in the 
 excess of their satisfaction they even agreed to waive the un- 
 courtly ceremony of the hat. In Sunderland's apartment the 
 deputation uncoN^ered themselves, and leaving their hats be- 
 hind, went into the presence bare-headed.^ Penn made a 
 short speech to the King, and then delivered the address from 
 the general body.^ James assured the deputation that he had 
 always been of opinion that conscience should be free, and 
 appealed to Penn in confirmation of what he then told them. 
 He said he should remain firm to the Declaration ; and he 
 hoped to establish it before he died in so regular and legal a 
 manner, that future ages should have no reason to change it.^ 
 Penn needed this assurance. He feared the King's violent 
 temper not less than the bigotry of Parliament. He had no 
 confidence in a freedom depending on the will of James ; and 
 he even asserted in the address a hope that means would be 
 taken to get the formal sanction of the legislature.^ In a 
 private audience he went still further. He told the King that 
 the only way to secure the confidence of the nation, and to 
 obtain the sanction of Parliament for the law he had so much 
 at heart, was to act on open and moderate principles — to 
 banish the Jesuits and other ultra-Papists, who now surrounded 
 him daily at Whitehall, from his presence. In this way only 
 could freedom be given to conscience in England. Had James 
 had the moral courage to follow this counsel he might have 
 died on the throne of his ancestors, and left behind him a 
 great reputation amongst our native princes. He hesitated 
 —and fell.^ 
 
 Two powerful parties received the Declaration with open 
 
 ' MS. Records in Devonshire House. ^ Konnett, 463-5. 
 
 3 Barillon to Loviis, May 12. ^ Ayscoiigh MS. 44. 
 
 5 Besse, 130. « Ayscough MSS. 44. 
 ' Van Citters, July 19, 1687, MS. 
 
250 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 hostility. The Protestant feeling of the country was alarmed 
 — and not without cause. The King was an ostentatious de- 
 votee. He spent as much as ten hours a day with his pray- 
 ers and his rosaries. It got abroad that- he was urging the 
 Princess Anne to make a new declaration of faith.^ He had 
 introduced and protected various orders of popish monks. A 
 company of Benedictines were settled at St. James'. The 
 Franciscans had built a chapel in Lincoln Fields. The Cis- 
 tercians took up their abode in the city.^ A papal nuncio was 
 received at court ; and the Jesuit Father Petre was sumptu- 
 ously lodged at Whitehall in the apartments occupied by 
 James himself when Duke of York.^ A new royal chapel, 
 adapted to the gorgeous ritual of the Roman Church, had 
 been erected near the Palace ; and, worst of all, the Jesuits 
 had founded a college in the Savoy for the education of youth, 
 which was already crowded with scholars, half of them at 
 least the children of protestant parents."* No zealous church- 
 man could think of these things without alarm and indigna- 
 tion. There were other fears in which Penn could sympathize 
 more freely. Liberal men saw the peril of such a power as 
 the King now claimed. Where was the line to be drawn ? If 
 the King could suspend the penal laws, what could prevent 
 him from suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, or even the 
 Great Charter ? James had formed a camp at Hounslow, 
 and although he there drank healths to the Church of Eng- 
 land as by law established, many moderate men suspected 
 some deep design against the liberties of the subject to be the 
 end of his military organization.^ The friends of toleration, 
 and Penn more than others, were therefore most anxious to 
 obtain the sanction of Parliament for the suspension of the 
 penal laws.^ 
 
 The Jesuits had obtained a commanding influence at White- 
 hall, and the real friends of the King began to see with alarm 
 that their pernicious counsels would bring some fatal disaster 
 on the country. Against this evil influence Penn strained 
 every nerve, — often using a boldness of expostulation which 
 James would not have brooked from any other man."^ He told 
 
 » Ellis Orig. Letters, iv. 90, 91, First Series. 
 
 2 Mem. of James the Second, 79. » Ellis, Orig. Letters, iv. 100, 1st Series. 
 
 "* Mem. of James the Second, 79. 
 
 ^ Ellis, Orig. Letters, iv. 96. First Series. 
 
 ^ Johnstone, February 6, 1688. Quo. Mackintosh, 219. 
 
 ' Clarendon Diary, June 23, 1688. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 251 
 
 him that neither Churchmen nor Dissenters would bear their 
 pride and ambition. The nation, he hinted broadly, was 
 alarmed, but still more indignant.^ He wished to see the 
 Whigs taken into greater confidence, and kept up an irregular 
 intercourse between their leaders and the court. He carried 
 Secretary Trenchard, Lord Chief Justice Treby, and Mr. 
 Lawton to the royal closet, and urged them to speak openly 
 to the King, disguising nothing of the state of the nation, 
 but placing before him in its true aspect the general opinion 
 as to his course of policy. James was sometimes deeply 
 impressed with these discourses. Trenchard was an accom- 
 plished courtier ; he had been one of the Holland exiles, and 
 owed his restoration to his native land to Penn. Lawton, a 
 young man of parts and spirit, had attracted Penn's notice ; 
 in politics he was a state Whig, and it was at his instance 
 that he had braved the King's frowns by asking a pardon for 
 Aaron Smith. One day over their wine at Popple's, where 
 Penn had carried Lawton to dine, he said to his host : — " I 
 have brought you such a man as you never saw before; for I 
 have just now asked him how I might do something for him- 
 self, and he has desired me to get a pardon for another man ! 
 I will do that if I can ; but," he added, turning to Lawton, 
 "I should be glad if thou wilt think of some kindness for 
 thyself." "Ah," said Lawton, after a moment's thought, "I 
 can tell you how you might indeed prolong my life." "How 
 so?" returned the mediator ; "I am no physician." Lawton 
 answered : " There is Jack Trenchard in exile. If you could 
 get leave for him to come home with safety and honor, the 
 drinking of a bottle noAv and then with Jack would make me 
 so cheerful that it would prolong my life." They laughed at 
 the pleasantry ; and Penn promised to do what he could. He 
 went away to the Lord Chancellor, got him to join in the 
 solicitation, and in a few days the future secretary was par- 
 doned and allowed to return to England.^ 
 
 As Trenchard knew the exiles and the opinions current in 
 Holland, Penn felt how serviceable he might be if James 
 would only listen to his advice. That together they pro- 
 duced a powerful diversion of sentiment is certain ; and things 
 were so near a change at one moment, that Penn was actually 
 
 1 Van Citters, July 19-28, 1687. MS. 
 
 2 Lawton's Mem. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part. ii. 220. ^ Ibid. 227. 
 
252 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 sent by the King to Lord Somers with an offer of the solici- 
 tor-generalship : this was before it was oifered to Sir William 
 Williams, and consequently before the trial of the seven pre- 
 lates.^ 
 
 But these favorable signs passed away ; and the next step 
 into which the King was urged by his Jesuit friends was an 
 attempt to obtain a footing for the members of his own 
 Church in the Universities. The right of Catholics, as of all 
 other Englishmen, to share in the advantages offered by our 
 national seats of learning, most liberal men now concede — 
 though the right is not yet legally admitted. To James it 
 seemed intolerable that the very descendants of the men who 
 had founded and endowed the colleges with their worldly es- 
 tates should be excluded from them because they had not 
 changed their religion ; and Penn, who saw no evil in a libe- 
 ral education for all classes, was equally anxious that his own 
 alma mater should be open to his children without any sa- 
 crifice of their conscientious scruples. But considering the 
 violent and suspicious temper of the times, the King showed 
 little tact in his mode of opening these nice discussions ; and 
 unfortunately he embroiled himself at the same moment in 
 quarrels with both Oxford and Cambridge. It had been cus- 
 tomary at the eastern University to grant honorary degrees 
 at the recommendation of the sovereign, without the usual 
 oaths or examinations. The Mohammedan secretary to the 
 Morocco embassy, and several other persons connected with 
 foreign courts, had been thus honored. Native noblemen fre- 
 quently received the distinction without examination, — and 
 Lightfoot had not been subjected to the oaths. The King or- 
 dered the Vice-Chancellor to admit Alban Francis, a Bene- 
 dictine monk and Catholic missionary in the district ; but Dr. 
 Peachey was alarmed at the idea of a papist getting into his 
 little senate, and made conscientious objections. These ob- 
 jections James received as a personal insult. He referred to 
 the customs of the University, and found there was no in- 
 stance of the royal mandate having been refused, — that ex- 
 amination had frequently been dispensed with ; and as to the 
 oaths, it was not to be endured by such a man that a scholas- 
 tic body should dispute a right which the whole bench of 
 judges had declared to pertain to the crown. Peachey was 
 
 ^ Lawton's Mem. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 227. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 253 
 
 prosecuted and dismissed his office, — though not without vio- 
 lent scenes occurring in the University.^ The Oxford affair 
 was much more serious. The presidency of Magdalen College, 
 then one of the richest foundations in Europe, was vacant. 
 James naturally desired that so important an office should be 
 filled by one not unfriendly to the Catholics, and he therefore 
 named Antony Farmer for election. But on inquiry being 
 made it was found that Farmer was not legally qualified, and 
 was besides a man of ill repute. The Fellows of the College 
 thereupon drew up a petition praying the King to name some 
 other person ; but through an error this prayer did not reach 
 his majesty for some days, and in the meantime, not hearing 
 from Whitehall, they elected Dr. Hough, a man of blameless 
 life and moderate abilities, to their president's chair.^ Hough 
 and Farmer both appealed to the King, — and he referred 
 the case to the Ecclesiastical Commission, by which tribunal 
 Hough's election was declared void, and Farmer's case was 
 quietly dropped. The friends of the court then tried to allay 
 the heats which had arisen. Several weeks were allowed to 
 elapse that passion might cool down, but the Fellows were 
 now excited to the pitch of resistance, and when James sent a 
 new mandate, ordering them to proceed to a fresh election, 
 and recommending the bishop of the diocese to their favor, 
 they boldly declared they could not obey, as Hough was alive, 
 and they regarded him as duly chosen. The King heard this 
 report with an angry scowl. When, in his journey to Bath, 
 he received at Oxford the Heads of Colleges, he upbraided 
 them in unkingly terms for their disobedience, and threatened 
 to proceed against them to extremities unless they complied 
 with his wishes. They continued firm, and his anger hurried 
 him into a course which his judgment did not approve, and 
 which he afterwards bitterly regretted.^ 
 
 There was much need of a wise and sober mediator. Penn, 
 then on a tour in the western counties, had joined the King 
 in his progress ; and deeply grieved at the turn which the 
 College affair had taken, interposed his good offices to procure 
 an amicable settlement of the dispute.'* He went to see the 
 
 1 Mem. of James the Second, ii. 125-7. State Trials, xi. 1315-40. 
 
 2 Wilmot's Life of Hough, 10 et seq. There are several letters of Hough's 
 in the Brit. Mus., Add. MSS. 9828. 
 
 ^ Mem. of James the Second, ii. 124. 
 
 * Creech to Charlett, September 6. MS. in Ballard's Collection of MS. 
 Letters, xx., Bodleian Library. 
 
 22 
 
254 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 Fellows of Magdalen ; from what lie had heard of the dis- 
 pute, he thought they might be induced to make such conces- 
 sions as would promote peace and save the King's honor. 
 But on hearing from Creech, whom he met at a dinner-party 
 immediately on his arrival at Oxford, a lengthened account 
 of what had occurred, he felt less sanguine.^ Next morning 
 he rode down to Magdalen and met the Fellows : Hough, the 
 President, Hunt, Bailey, and others, were present. Here 
 they had a long and interesting discourse. The collegians 
 cited their charters and appealed to their Protestant charac- 
 ter. Penn was soon convinced that they were in the right 
 and that the King was in the wrong ; and with the ready 
 frankness which distinguished him, he not only let the Fel- 
 lows see that he sympathized with them in their trials, but 
 offered to write to his majesty and tell him what he thought.^ 
 They, of course, gladly availed themselves of this important 
 and impartial testimony ; paper and pens were brought, and 
 in their presence he wrote a short but pregnant letter. Their 
 case, he said, was a very hard one ; they could not yield to 
 his majesty's desire without an evident breach of their oaths. 
 Such mandates, he concluded, were a force on conscience, and 
 therefore contrary to the King's own intentions. This letter 
 the collegians themselves delivered to their sovereign.^ 
 
 James continued obstinate as ever. On the day of his in- 
 terview with the College, Penn w^as obliged by his private 
 concerns to quit Oxford ; but the Fellows had already learned 
 to regard him as their friend and mediator. Of this there 
 can be no doubt. A prominent member of the College, Dr. 
 Bailey, wrote to him after he quitted Oxford, as one who had 
 been so kind as to appear in their behalf already, and was re- 
 ported by all who knew him to employ much of his time in 
 doing good to mankind, and in using his credit with the King 
 to undeceive him of any wrong impressions he might enter- 
 tain of his conscientious subjects, and to secure them from 
 prejudice and oppression.^ All the cotemporary accounts are 
 conceived in the same spirit. Creech says he appeared in 
 their behalf.^ Sykes is equally emphatic. Indeed the letter 
 
 » Creech to Charlett, September 6, MS. in Ballard's Collection of MS. 
 Letters, XX., Bodleian Library. 
 
 2 Sykes to Chai^lett, Sept. 7. MS. Ballard's MSS. xxi. 
 
 3 Ibid, ; also Creech to the same, September 6, MS. 
 
 4 Bailey to Penn, October 3. 
 
 ^ Creech to Charlett, September 6, MS. Ballard's MSS. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 255 
 
 to the King would be decisive, were there no other evidence. 
 That letter emboldened the Fellows to draw up a strong peti- 
 tion to the same effect, which they all signed and carried to 
 Lord Sunderland, who promised to present it to his Majesty.^ 
 
 The King still refused to listen. Remonstrance and en- 
 treaty were equally vain. Though Penn denounced his 
 measures as contrary to his often-avowed sentiments in favor 
 of liberty of conscience, and the Chief Justice Herbert de- 
 clared them against the law of the land, he would not re- 
 treat.^ He professed to believe it impossible for churchmen 
 to oppose the royal will. A sincere bigot himself, and scru- 
 pulously truthful in his words, he could not imagine, after the 
 declaration of unlimited obedience promulgated by the whole 
 University, that the members of a single college would dare 
 to appeal from their own dogma to the free instincts of na- 
 ture. "If you are really Church-of-England men," he said 
 to the deputation, " prove it by your obedience."^ 
 
 Magdalen had still much need of Penn's services ; and to 
 secure his goodwill and future mediation in their cause. Dr. 
 Hough and several Fellows were deputed to wait on him after 
 he had again joined the court circle at Windsor. The par- 
 ticulars of the interview then and there held are preserved by 
 Hough himself."* The conversation was continued for three 
 hours. Penn expressed his great concern for the welfare of 
 the College, and said he had made many efforts to reconcile 
 the King to what had passed. He regretted that matters 
 had gone so far before he was made aware of the dispute ; in 
 an earlier stage — before the King's self-love had been 
 wounded — it would have been comparatively easy to arrange. 
 Still he would do his best ; and if he failed, it would not be 
 for want of will to serve their cause. He then stated such 
 doubts as had occurred to him ; the Fellows answered them 
 one by one, and after some thought he confirmed his former 
 impression and confessed himself satisfied they were in the 
 right. On their way to Windsor, the deputation had feared 
 lest Penn might make some tempting offer at accommodation. 
 But on further acquaintance with the dispute, he felt that 
 they were right, and though he wished the quarrel ended, he 
 would not insult them by advising submission.^ Once he 
 
 » Sykes to Charlett, Sept. 9, MS. 2 state Trials, xi. 1063. 
 
 3 Creech to Charlett, September 6, MS. Ballard's MSS. 
 •^ Hough to his cousin, October 9. ^ Ibid. 
 
256 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 asked the Fellows, smiling, how they would like to see Hough 
 made bishop. Cradock replied, in the same vein of pleasantry 
 — they would be very glad, as the presidency and bishopric 
 would go well enough together. But Hough answered, as he 
 says, seriously; and the allusion dropped.^ The deputation 
 was possessed with the fixed idea that James intended to rob 
 them of their college. The Papists, they said, had already 
 wrested from them Christ Church and University ; the con- 
 test was now for Magdalen. This touched Penn nearly ; he 
 remembered his own writings against Catholic doctrine ; and 
 he replied with vehemence — That they shall never have. The 
 Fellows, he said, might be assured. The Catholics had got 
 two colleges : to them he did not dispute their right ; but he 
 could confide in their prudence. Honest men would defend 
 their just claims ; but should they go beyond their common 
 rights as Englishmen, and ask from royal favor what was not 
 their due, they would peril all they had acquired. He felt 
 sure they would not be so senseless. At the same time he 
 told his visitors that he thought it unfair and unwise in them 
 to attempt to close the national Universities to any class of 
 Englishmen : others besides churchmen wished to give their 
 children a learned education. To this free counsel Hough 
 made some demur ; and finding the chief of his visitors a man 
 of narrow views, Penn ceased to urge this point, though he 
 felt that, as far as liberal men were concerned, it lay at the 
 root of the question. Though he could not agree with their 
 educational politics, he said he was willing to be of use to 
 them with the King. Hough suggested that he could most 
 promote their interests by laying a true statement of the case 
 before their incensed sovereign. They produced several pa- 
 pers, which he read over carefully ; these he promised to read 
 again to the King, unless peremptorily forbidden. And so 
 the deputation withdrew.^ 
 
 James was not to be stirred from his purpose. A commis- 
 sion was sent down to Oxford, and the uncompromising cham- 
 pions of Church prerogative were all ejected from the college. 
 Yet they lost little by their temporary removal. His self-love 
 gratified, the King soon afterwards restored the Fellows to 
 
 ^ Hough to his cousin, Oct. 9, 
 
 2 Ibid. See Extra Chapter, The Macaulay Charges. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 257 
 
 their honors and emoluments ; and after the revolution Hough 
 was rewarded for his resistance with a bishopric.' 
 
 Affairs were now hastening to a crisis. When Dissenters 
 and Commonwealth men were the onlj parties likely to fall 
 under the frowns of authority, Oxford could issue precepts of 
 unconditional obedience ; but when its own rights and privi- 
 leges were placed in peril, it was the first and most obstinate 
 in resistance. A cynic would have smiled at this conversion ; 
 but Penn remembered how that infamous edict had clouded 
 the last days of Algernon Sidney, and he longed to break 
 away from a scene so full of corruption to the freedom of his 
 own virgin forests.^ In the very height of his courtly great- 
 ness, he wrote to his friends in Philadelphia in terms which 
 no one can mistake : — The Lord only, he said, knew the sor- 
 row, the expense, the hazard of his absence from the colony ; 
 but his prayers were poured out fervently and with a prostrate 
 soul to Him for aid to return to that beloved country where 
 he was anxious to live and die.^ But the King pressed him to 
 remain in England. He declared himself resolved to establish 
 toleration and to abolish the Test Act ; in which good work, 
 he said, he should have to rely much on his help and counsel.'* 
 Though his own affairs were getting daily more and more con- 
 fused by his absence from Pennsylvania, he could not desert 
 the headstrong reformer in his hour of need.* 
 
 Not satisfied with private mediation, such as he had exerted 
 in the Oxford affair, he took up his pen and wrote the elabor- 
 ate and masterly pamphlet, " Good Advice to the Church of 
 England, the Roman Catholic and Protestant Dissenters "^ — 
 in which he showed the wisdom and policy, as well as Chris- 
 tian duty, of repealing the Test Acts and penal laws against 
 opinion. He admitted frankly, as he had done to the Mag- 
 dalen delegates, that if he had to choose a State Church, he 
 
 1 Letters in Add. MSS. 9828. Mem. of James the Second, 119-124. State 
 Trials, xii. 1-112. 
 
 2 Penn to Turner, September 18. 
 
 3 Hazard's Register, iv. 105. ^ Ibid. iv. 134. 
 
 5 " The Lord hath given me g, great interest with the King — though not so 
 much as is said — and I confess I should rejoice to see England fixed, and the 
 penal laws repealed that are now suspended. If it goes well with England it can- 
 not go ill with Pennsylvania. But this I will say, no temporal honor or profit 
 can tempt me to decline from Pennsylvania, as unkindly used as I am ; and 
 no poor slave in Turkey desires more earnestly for deliverance than I do to 
 be with you." Penn to Harrison, MS. (undated.) 
 
 6 Penn's Works, ii. 749. 
 
 22* 
 
258 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 would prefer the one that was by law established to either a 
 Catholic, a Presbyterian or any other. But he rejected the 
 idea of its being necessary to have a supreme and intolerant 
 Church. Opinion ought to be free ; though at the same time 
 he thought a proper respect should be paid by small bodies of 
 sectaries to the national feeling. Therefore he urged the 
 Catholics, seeing how few they were, and how powerful the 
 feeling was against them, to be content with a bare toleration, 
 and not provoke hostility by their ambition and self-seeking.* 
 His greatest fear was that the King, under ill advice, would 
 take some dangerous step against the Church, and ruin all his 
 hopes. To counteract the rashness of his temper he procured 
 anonymous letters from influential persons, which he read to 
 him in private, without telling him from whom they came.^ 
 He took with him several churchmen to the royal closet, to 
 undeceive the King as to that passive obedience which he relied 
 on for impunity in his attacks. But James would not believe : 
 he said he knew the spirit of the English Church. That it 
 would never dare to oppose his edicts he was certain ; for had 
 not Oxford itself pledged the whole body of its followers to 
 observe obedience to the royal will, as though it were the voice 
 of God ! Lawton almost laughed in the King's face at finding 
 him so simple. "What," he said, "does any man live up to 
 the doctrines he professes ? The churchmen may believe that 
 resistance is a sin ; but they believe that swearing and drunk- 
 enness are sins also — yet many of them drink very hard and 
 swear very often." " Ha !" replied James, smiling disdainfully, 
 "you don't know the loyalty of the Church as well as I do," 
 — and the bold expostulator bowed his way out of the royal 
 closet.^ 
 
 In April of this eventful year James again renewed the De- 
 claration of Indulgence ; in the November following he prom- 
 ised that Parliament should meet ; and Penn fondly hoped that 
 the sanction of the two Houses would then be obtained for this 
 righteous law. But before that day arrived his sovereign was 
 an exile in a foreign land. In his misplaced confidence an 
 Order in Council had been issued at the same time as the royal 
 Declaration commanding it to be read in all churches. Penn 
 
 » Penn's Works, 771-3. 
 
 2 Lawton's Memoirs. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 226. 
 
 3 Ibid. 224, 5. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 259 
 
 opposed this insane proceeding ; but nothing could now save 
 the infatuated monarch.^ Bancroft and six of the bishops op- 
 posed this order ; they had now found out the folly of their 
 own doctrine of obedience, and the ministry committed them 
 to the Tower. Penn saw that this was the crisis of the ques- 
 tion. In spite of the decision of the judges, he had doubts as 
 to the King's right to suspend the penal laws without consent 
 of Parliament ; and he struggled to bring more liberal coun- 
 cillors into office. For a moment James inclined to adopt his 
 views ; he proposed to make Lawton a magistrate and a mem- 
 ber of the Lower House ; he named Trenchard, Lord Chief 
 Justice at Chester (the post he was raised to after the Revo- 
 lution) ; and sent his adviser to Lord Somers.^ When the 
 Prince of Wales was born, he urged the King to seize that 
 gracious opportunity to set the prelates at liberty, and pro- 
 nounce a general pardon for the exiles. But an evil genius 
 overruled these sagacious councils.^ The bishops were tried 
 and acquitted to the satisfaction of the whole country. That 
 was the first act of the Revolution. Then William came over 
 with his Dutchmen, — the professed friends of James aban- 
 doned him in his hour of peril, — and finding treason in the 
 court, in the camp, and in his own family, he fled before the 
 menaces of his son-in-law into France."* 
 
 That these events were a source of pain and anxiety to Penn 
 there can be no doubt. James had been throughout a kind 
 and indulgent guardian. He had rescued him from the dun- 
 geons of the Tower, into which he had been thrown by the 
 Bishop of London on a charge of heresy. He had made over 
 to him in the first instance the territories of the Delaware. 
 He had interposed in the dispute with Baltimore, and procured 
 for him a favorable settlement of that troublesome claim. Two 
 years before his downfall, when the minister of the day had 
 issued writs of quo warranto against the proprietors of Con- 
 necticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Rhode Island, the Jerseys, 
 Carolina, and the Bahama Islands, he interposed his good 
 offices and commanded Sunderland to strike the name of Penn- 
 sylvania out of the list of condemned provinces.^ 
 
 1 Lawton's Memoirs, 230. Johnstone, May 23. Quo. Macintosh, 241. 
 
 2 Ibid. Mem. Penn. Hist, Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 227. 
 
 3 Ibid. 230-1. ^ Mem. of James the Second, ii. 275 77. 
 
 5 Snnderland Letter-Book, G29, 337. Plant. Gen. Papers, B. T. v. 32. State 
 Paper Office. 
 
260 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 As a Quaker and a Democrat, Penn of course had no sym- 
 pathy with the political opinions of the King. When James 
 was put under arrest at Feversham, he was informed among 
 other disasters that Penn had been seized : he said he was 
 sorry for it, but he was sure that no serious charge could be 
 urged against him.^ His part had been open and consistent. 
 He had done his utmost to prevent the necessity for recourse 
 to a revolution ; and it was not without deep anxiety that he 
 saw the change of rulers. He believed James to be sincere 
 in his desire to establish freedom of opinion ; and as things 
 then stood in England, this freedom was of far greater im- 
 portance than any question which could seriously arise as to 
 the limits of the royal prerogative. In William of Orange 
 he saw a man of policy — not of ideas. His object was to be 
 King ; and whatever, in the secret depths of his own mind, 
 he might think of tests — unknown in his own country — there 
 was no hope that he would risk the least unpopularity by help- 
 ing to remove them from the statute-book of England.^ 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 1688-1694. 
 NIGHT AND MORNING. 
 
 The advance of William and the King's flight were the 
 signals for a general movement. The tools, the favorites, the 
 friends, the ministers of James, all thought it prudent to 
 retire from public notice. Curious were the means of escape 
 and ludicrous the incidents attending it in many instances. 
 The redoubtable Jeffreys tried to escape in the dress of a 
 common sailor ; the subtle and intriguing Sunderland quitted 
 his country in his wife's cap and petticoat.^ Of the men who 
 had stood near the throne for the last three years and a half, 
 Penn was almost the only one who remained in London. Con- 
 scious of no crime, he turned a deaf ear to every entreaty 
 of his friends to provide for his personal safety by flight. 
 
 ' Earl. MSS. 6852, Art. 26. 2 better to Popple, October 24. 
 
 3 Evelyn Mem. i. 660. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 261 
 
 They urged — and with reason — that he had been too intimate 
 with the late King to escape suspicion under the new reign ; 
 and if he did not choose to follow James into France, he had 
 still an honorable refuge open to him in America, where he 
 might remain in peace until the first heat of party vengeance 
 had abated. But he would not change his own straight course. 
 He said he had done nothing but what in his belief was for 
 the honor and good of England, — and he was not afraid to 
 answer for it before all the princes in the world. He would 
 not change his lodgings even ; or keep in the shade more than 
 he had done in his day of favor. As in the time of the late 
 King, he appeared daily at Whitehall ;^ which bold and open 
 conduct soon provoked inquiry. The Lords of the Council 
 who had assumed the general management of affairs on James' 
 flight becoming known, resolving to pass him under examina- 
 tion, sent their messenger to him as he was taking his usual 
 walk in Whitehall ; and on being told that the Lords were 
 then sitting, he at once obeyed the summons to attend. The 
 moment was one of great excitement : the mob were already 
 engaged in burning the houses of suspected persons ; and to 
 have been associated in any way with the court was enough 
 to incur in their rude judgment the penalties of suspicion. 
 When Penn appeared before them, the Lords of the Council 
 inquired into his past conduct and present opinions. He cou- 
 rageously replied, that with regard to what was passed, he 
 had always loved his country and the Protestant faith, and 
 had ever done his best to promote their true interests. As to 
 the present — the King, he said, had been his friend and his 
 father's friend, and therefore, though he no longer owed him 
 allegiance as a subject, as a man he retained for him all the 
 respect which in other days he had ever professed. He had 
 done nothing, and should do nothing, but what he was willing 
 to answer for before God and his country.^ 
 
 The Lords were at a loss what to do. They were them- 
 selves acting under a power which they had usurped; and 
 were afraid to take a step which might lead to failure and un- 
 popularity. The only thing which appeared against the pri- 
 soner was his own confession of attachment to the fugitive 
 King. Yet to discharge so conspicuous a friend of James, 
 they dared not, being unaware how far the Prince of Orange 
 
 1 Besse, i. 139. 2 n^ia. 
 
262 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 might approve of the step. They got over their difficulty by 
 taking security in 6000Z. for his appearance on the first day 
 of the following term, to answer any charges which by that 
 time might be made against him ; and with the threat of pro- 
 secution hanging above his head, he was permitted to remain 
 at large. ■^ 
 
 Meantime the desires of the Prince of Orange were crowned 
 with success ; the government was settled, as he designed it 
 should be from the first, entirely in his own interest ; and he 
 and his consort — the legitimate heir to the throne, setting the 
 young Prince of Wales aside — were crowned King and Queen. 
 But Penn was not left in peace. Some fresh cause of suspi- 
 cion arose, — low spies and informers dogged his footsteps, — 
 he was believed to be rich, and there were many about the 
 court who would gladly have shared in the spoils of his for- 
 tune, — and at the end of February the Lords in Council issued 
 a warrant for his arrest.^ But the intended victim had been 
 secretly made aware of the new accusations against him, and 
 of the low witnesses whose evidence was to be taken, and he 
 prudently declined to surrender himself up until Easter term, 
 as already fixed in his bond. However, not to sanction mali- 
 cious reports by an apparent flight, he wrote to the Duke of 
 Shrewsbury, to say that he was living at his own house in the 
 country, attending to his private affairs and the concerns of 
 his colony ; that he did not feel justified in giving himself up 
 an unbailable prisoner, seeing in how heavy a sum he was 
 already bound over to appear on the first day of the ensuing 
 term ; that he could affirm, without reserve or equivocation, 
 his entire ignorance of any plot or conspiracy against the new 
 government.^ The King seems to have acceded to his request 
 to be allowed to remain in the country until his day of trial. 
 By Easter term, however, men's minds were calmer ; and when 
 Penn appeared in court to defend himself, not one of his se- 
 cret accusers dared to confront him. Not a whisper was there 
 uttered of his being a Jesuit. No man accused him of having 
 done any wrong. The judge declared in open court that he 
 stood cleared and free of every charge that had been made 
 against him.'* 
 
 Though now believing himself to be personally safe, he was 
 
 ' Ellis Correspondence, ii. 356. 
 
 2 Privy Council Register, W. R. i. 24. Privy Council Office. 
 
 3 Penn to Shrewsbury, March 7, 1689. ^ Besse, i. 140. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 263 
 
 still anxious for his colony and his country. Even before the 
 coronation of William and Mary, he foresaw the probabilities 
 of a general war. The Prince of Orange had desired to be 
 King of England chiefly that he might become a power in 
 Europe. His thought by day and his dream by night was a 
 grand coalition of the Protestant powers of the North and a 
 war with France. A war with France, as the governor of 
 Pennsylvania knew only too well, would materially affect his 
 province ; as the declaration itself would instantly lead to 
 hostilities in North America. He was most anxious, there- 
 fore, to get out to Philadelphia before the troubles commenced 
 in that region ; and began to make preparation for the voy- 
 age.* A few weeks later the unwelcome tidings were officially 
 conveyed to all the plantations. The war with France, which 
 was to upset so many colonial governments, had actually com- 
 menced.^ 
 
 In the midst of these discouraging prospects, it was some 
 consolation to find the new King of England true to the tole- 
 rant principles which he had expressed in the Hague confer- 
 ences. At the risk of giving mortal offence to the Church 
 party, he pressed for an Act of Toleration for Dissenters, and 
 even declared it necessary to afford protection to the Papists.^ 
 His own temper was not merciful, but he was a politic prince ; 
 and he knew the vast power which the position he aimed to 
 acquire, as protector-general of Protestants, from the "fiords 
 of Norway to the banks of the Theiss and the Danube, 
 would give him in the councils of Europe ; and he naturally 
 asked himself with what effect he could interfere in behalf of 
 the Finn or the Hungarian, if he gave the Catholic at home 
 a just cause of complaint ? Even before his election to the 
 throne he had entered into treaties with the Pope and the 
 Emperor.^ 
 
 The Act of Toleration was, of course, powerfully opposed 
 by the Church ; but the King was resolved to carry it through 
 the two Houses, and he did so by a large majority. The ex- 
 istence of Dissenters was recognized. Their chapels and 
 meeting-houses were made legal. They were no longer to be 
 liable to fines and imprisonments for not attending the Es- 
 
 J Penn to Friends in Pennsylvania, January, 1689. 
 
 2 Plant. Gen. Papers, April 15. State Paper Office. 
 
 3 Burnet, iv. 21, 2. Hist. Pari. v. 184. 
 
 4 Dartmouth's Note to Bm-net, iv. 21. 
 
264 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 tablished Cliurcli. The only exception to this general rule 
 was made in the case of Unitarians. They were still beyond 
 the pale — outlaws in their own land. But the number of per- 
 sons professing simple Theism was not large in those days. 
 The Quakers were not only included in the general list of 
 Protestant sects, they were relieved from their old grievance 
 of double taxes on making a declaration of fidelity to their 
 Majesties ;^ and a special clause was introduced in their behalf 
 into the bill. Other dissenting bodies were required to take 
 the usual oaths to the government : — the followers of Fox 
 were allowed to make a simple declaration. It was enacted 
 that licenses should be taken out for the houses, chapels, or 
 other buildings to be used for the performance of public wor- 
 ship ; and that magistrates should have no power to refuse 
 the license except on good and reasonable grounds.^ Hence- 
 forth every man could worship God according to his own no- 
 tions, without the fear of stripes, stocks, fines, and imprison- 
 ment being constantly before his eyes. A great instalment 
 of justice was paid down : — but it was only an instalment. 
 The Test Act was still unrepealed. The members of the Es- 
 tablished Church alone enjoyed the full rights of Englishmen. 
 No Presbyterian, no Independent, no Quaker, could hold 
 ofiice — serve in the army or navy — sit on the bench as a ma- 
 gistrate — act as guardian to any ward — enter either of the 
 national Universities — or execute any legal trust. In relation 
 to the state he was still an outlaw. The Catholic and the 
 Socinian were in a still worse position. They were formally 
 excluded from the Act of Toleration.^ 
 
 Penn was highly gratified with the results obtained, though 
 they fell so short of his own desires. The new Act disarmed 
 the petty tyrant. It opened the prison-doors to crowds of 
 his humble brethren. He hoped it would gradually lead to a 
 still more liberal and enlightened policy, when the dominant 
 parties became aware how great an accession of union and 
 strength it would bring to the nation. But he had little time 
 to indulge in these reflections. In the spring of 1690, before 
 the King set out for Ireland, where the war was raging, a 
 band of military one day beset his house and placed him 
 under arrest. He had no conception of the cause of this 
 
 » Pari. Hist. V. 473. 2 Statutes, 1689. 
 
 3 Burnet, iv. 16. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 265 
 
 outrage ; but he was hurried off to the council, where the 
 Lords then sitting informed him that he was arrested on a 
 charge of holding treasonable correspondence with James 
 Stuart. He denied the charge, and appealed to the King in 
 person.* 
 
 The Lords of the Council, now the rigorous persecutors of 
 the exiled monarch, had some of them been the lowest fawners 
 in his day of power. Nottingham, Danby, Delamere, Henry 
 Sidney — these were some of them ! One can imagine an 
 honest man's indignation at their questioning. They were 
 good enough to admit the appeal ; and Penn was then ex- 
 amined for two hours in the royal presence.^ 
 
 At the outset he was informed that his clandestine corres- 
 pondence was known to the King's government. What clan- 
 destine correspondence ? He knew of none. An intercepted 
 letter from King James was then shown to him. It bore his 
 address ; and in it the royal writer desired him to go to his 
 assistance, and to express to him the resentments of his favor 
 and benevolence. He was asked why James Stuart wrote to 
 him ? He said he could not prevent it ; if the King chose, 
 he could write letters to any one, himself included. The 
 word "resentments" in the intercepted note puzzled the 
 council. What resentments were those which he desired ? 
 " I cannot tell," said Penn ; " but I suppose he wishes me to 
 assist in bringing about his restoration." The Lords were 
 startled at this frank interpretation. He could not, he con- 
 tinued, very well avoid being suspected of entertaining such a 
 thought ; but he could and would take care not to give just 
 grounds for the suspicion. He confessed that towards the 
 person of the exile he had felt a sincere friendship ; and 
 having loved him in his prosperity he could not now hate him 
 in his adversity. But he must also be allowed to say, that 
 he had never been able to agree with him in his political 
 views. As a private person he was willing to render the exile 
 any service in his power : as a citizen he no longer owed him 
 obedience, and had never so much as thought of aiding to 
 replace the crown which had fallen from his head.^ 
 
 William was struck with a defence so unusual. He had a 
 great desire to stand well with men capable of strong attach- 
 ments. In England only a few months, he was already tired 
 
 1 Besse, i. 140. ^ Gerard Croese's History of Quakers. ^ ii^i^j^ 
 
 23 
 
266 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 of his revolutionary friends, and had openly begun to look to 
 the Tories for support. Yet he never won the old cavaliers 
 to his cause. When Sunderland came back and regained the 
 King's confidence, he urged him to confide more in the Whigs. 
 "No," said William, "though I believe they love me best, 
 yet they do not love monarchy." " True," replied the cour- 
 tier, " the Tories are the staunchest friends of the King : — 
 but then their King is James Stuart."^ William was early 
 made aware of that grave fact. The churchmen never cordially 
 loved his person or his government. Bancroft set the example, 
 and the inferior clergy were only too ready to obey his 
 signals.^ It therefore behooved the sagacious prince not to 
 throw away any chance of support among the Dissenters. 
 For his own part he would willingly have set Penn at liberty 
 without conditions ; but the council interposed, and in order 
 to gratify their malice he allowed him to be bound over to 
 appear in Trinity Term and answer any charges which might 
 then be preferred against him. At the appointed time he 
 appeared — and was again discharged.^ 
 
 Meantime King James had landed in Ireland from France. 
 That devoted ^country rose at his call; and General Schomberg 
 was sent over with a small force to hold the insurrection 
 in check until William could himself cross the seas with a 
 larger army. The general made no head against the insur- 
 gent troops, and it was with difficulty that he maintained his 
 own position in the country. The ex-monarch counted much 
 on the factious disputes in London, and strongly urged his 
 friends to be active in his cause. This policy only made 
 William more determined to secure every place of power and 
 trust in the hands of his own adherents. The local organiza- 
 tion of towns was interfered with ; and though a similar in- 
 vasion of ancient municipal rights had been one of the greatest 
 offences of the late ruler, the Dutch prince did not scruple to 
 displace a number of mayors and appoint his own creatures 
 in their stead."* Nor was this the only irregularity. Conti- 
 nental notions in other matters came in with the continental 
 prince. William no doubt had many foes, open and secret ; 
 but it is not likely that any King of English blood and educa- 
 
 * Onslow's note, Burnet, iv. 5. 
 
 2 Buckingham's Works, ii. xiv. et seq. 
 
 3 Besse, i, 140, 
 
 ^ Warrant Books, xxii. 113. State Paper Office. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 267 
 
 tion would have dreamt, in tlie seventeenth century, of using 
 the infamous system of private lettres de cachet as a defence 
 against treason and conspiracy.-' 
 
 William went over to Ireland and soon renewed the days of 
 Cromwell in that unhappy country. Queen Mary was charged 
 with full powers in his absence, and she displayed more vigor 
 and capacity in those critical and perilous times than her 
 subjects had ever dreamt she possessed. The French fleet, 
 fighting in the interests of James, had engaged with and van- 
 quished the Dutch and English ships, and even threatened to 
 land on the coasts of Devonshire or Cornwall to rally the 
 discontents which prevailed against the new rulers.^ The 
 partisans of James began to raise their heads once more in 
 public ; but the Queen frustrated their designs by her promp- 
 titude and vigor. She called out the militia ; sent the de- 
 feated admiral. Lord Torrington, to the Tower ; appeased the 
 rising wrath of the States-General ; and seized the persons of 
 all whom she had reason to think disaffected to the new order 
 of things.^ Still the position of affairs was critical in the 
 extreme. The high churchmen hardly deigned to conceal 
 their dislike of the Dutch prince ; Archbishop Saner oft had 
 withdrawn himself from the council as soon as William's real 
 object in coming over to England was made clear ; the Bishop 
 of Ely and other prelates were equally opposed to his govern- 
 ment ; and the commonalty were incensed at the thought of 
 a new levy of four millions of taxes to support a foreign war, 
 the interests of which they did not give themselves the trouble 
 to understand.'* While things were in this state of fear and 
 confusion, the captain of a vessel then lying in the Thames 
 went to the minister, Lord Carmarthen, to inform him that 
 some suspicious persons had been to his wife and engaged with 
 her to be secretly carried over to France on a certain day in 
 her husband's vessel. He was thanked for this information, 
 and told to carry out the contract as if nothing had occurred. 
 On the day appointed three muffled and unknown persons 
 entered the vessel, secreted themselves in the hold, and having 
 given the signal to depart, the captain began to drop down 
 the river. At Gravesend, however, by the contrivance of 
 
 ^ Warrant Books, xxii. 263. A warrant to have four seals made for private 
 lettres de cachet. 2 Burnet, iv. 95. 
 
 3 Ibid. iv. 96, 7. -» Ibid. iv. 122. 
 
268 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 Carmarthen, there happened to be an officer of the press-gang 
 in search of sailors, who, boarding the vessel in execution of 
 his duty, found the three strangers in the hold and secured 
 their papers. The men were Lord Preston, Master Ashton, 
 a confidential agent of the Queen, Maria d'Este, and a young 
 man of the name of Elliott. Some of the papers were un- 
 intelligible ; but enough remained to reveal the fact of a plot, 
 and to implicate several persons of rank and influence in the 
 suspicion of being concerned in it ; and a proclamation was 
 immediately issued for the arrest of Lord Clarendon, the 
 Bishop of Ely, William Penn, and some others.^ Clarendon, 
 though first cousin to the Queen, was seized and committed 
 to a dungeon in the Tower ; Ashton and Lord Preston were 
 tried, found guilty of conspiracy, and condemned to the scaf- 
 fold.^ Elli@t knew nothing and was discharged. Ashton 
 died like a man ; Preston whined and shuffled, pretending to 
 be innocent himself, but trying to implicate others in the 
 guilt of conspiracy, or at least to involve them in the sus- 
 picion of being dangerously disafi'ected.^ Clarendon, through 
 the good offices of powerful friends, aided by the important 
 circumstance of his being the Queen's cousin, was ultimately 
 pardoned and set at liberty on the easy condition of remaining 
 on parole at his country house."* The Bishop of Ely and 
 Penn could not be found, says Burnet ; but this is certainly 
 false so far as the latter is concerned. No search was made 
 for him ; he even offered to surrender himself a prisoner, and 
 wrote to the Secretary of State to ask when and where he 
 should present himself.^ It seems doubtful whether Ely was 
 really involved in the treasonable correspondence ; the proofs 
 
 1 Burnet, iv. 127. 2 gtate Trials, xii. 646-822. 
 
 3 Dartmouth's Note, Burnet, iv. 154. 
 
 ^ Rochester's Letters in Life of Burnet, vi. 300. Own Times, iv. 127. 
 
 6 Penn to the Earl of Nottington, July 81, 1690, MS. As this letter has 
 not been published, I transcribe it: "My noble Friend,— As soon as I heard 
 my name was in the proclamation, I offered to surrender myself with those 
 regards to a broken health which I owe to myself and my family ; for it is 
 now six weeks that I have labored under the effects of a surfeit and relapse, 
 which was long before I knew of this mark of the government's displeasure. 
 It IS npt three days ago that I was fitter for a bed than a surrender and a 
 prison. I shall not take up time about the hardships I am under . . . but 
 since the government does not think fit to trust me, I shall trust it, and 
 submit my conveniency to the state's security and satisfaction. And there- 
 fore I humbly beg to know when and where I shall wait upon thee. Thy 
 faithful friend.— W. Penn." 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 269 
 
 of his hand-writing were not very satisfactory; and still less 
 was it made clear that the bishop, if he wrote at all, wrote in 
 the name, and with the sanction, of his prelatical brethren. 
 But the King was glad of any pretext to fill up the vacant 
 bishoprics with his own creatures ; and Ely was probably 
 sacrificed to the exigencies of his home policy, as Penn was 
 to the French war.^ 
 
 In the face of a war with France, the royal councillors 
 were anxious to bring the powers of the great American pro- 
 prietors into more absolute control of the crown. The Stuart 
 and Tudor kings had given away vast deserts to their credi- 
 tors and favorites ; but these deserts had now grown up into 
 states, and the new ruler desired a greater concentration of 
 authority in them as needful for a due prosecution of the 
 war.^ The colonial charters which had been called in for re- 
 vision towards the close of the late reign, were not restored 
 without mutilations and amendments. The free charter of 
 New England was robbed of many of its most liberal clauses f 
 and because the Quaker colonists of Pennsylvania were not 
 very forward to transfer their allegiance from a prince who 
 professed religious toleration to one who strenuously insisted 
 on a continuance of the Test Act, the pretext was seized by 
 their enemies at court to propose a resumption of the pro- 
 vince.^ Maryland was in a similar state of jeopardy. As a 
 Catholic, Lord Baltimore was equally out of favor at court 
 with his rival, — and on account of the delay which occurred 
 in proclaiming the new sovereign, he too was threatened with 
 the deprivation of his charter. From this quarter at least — 
 though his grant had not been made when the King fled^ — 
 Penn had nothing to fear. The boundary question still con- 
 tinued to excite disputes in the peninsula of the Delaware ; 
 but neither party cared to expose the quarrel to the common 
 enemy at Hampton Court. ^ Penn was anxious to go out to 
 his province ; as he had been now several times arrested on 
 mere suspicion, he felt that his life, to say nothing of his per- 
 sonal freedom, was no longer safe in England. Spies and in- 
 
 1 Comp. Ralph, ii. 260 et seq. with Burnet, iv. 127. 
 
 2 Plant. Gen. Papers, May 18, 1689. State Paper Office. 
 
 3 Mather, p. 9. 
 
 4 Pennsylvania Papers, Oct. 4, 1689 ; April 10, 1690. State Paper Office. 
 
 5 Proprietary Papers, vii. L. 38. State Paper Office. 
 
 6 Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 182. 
 
 23* 
 
270 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 formers abounded on every hand, and no accusation was too 
 monstrous not to find some who, from hatred or self-interest, 
 were willing to give it credit. Afi"airs were also going griev- 
 ously wrong in the province in consequence of his remaining 
 so long away.^ The war had commenced. New York was 
 exposed to the incursions of the French, and the people of 
 New England were burning with the desire to attack and con- 
 quer New France. Meetings were being held in the chief 
 towns to organize means of defence ; the colonists were calling 
 on each other for mutual aid ; here money was asked — there 
 men. The Puritans of New England buckled to their sides 
 those terrible long swords which their fathers had worn at 
 Naseby and Marston Moor ; and a warlike ardor which glad- 
 dened the stern and martial soul of William had spread from 
 Massachusetts to the Carolinas. The Quakers alone remained 
 calm. In the midst of this martial preparation they declared 
 that they had no quarrel with the French, and would not 
 fight. If the French and Indians came against them, they 
 said they would go out to meet them unarmed, and tell them 
 so.^ Government was deeply troubled on hearing these things 
 reported, and saw plainly enough that some extraordinary 
 measures would need to be adopted for the security of the 
 colonies in case they continued to maintain this attitude. The 
 Pennsylvanians would neither defend their own towns, nor pay 
 any war-contribution to the frontier governments of Albany 
 and New York. The governor in England took a more prac- 
 tical view of the crisis ; his colony contained others besides 
 Quakers, — Germans, Dutchmen, Swedes and English, many 
 of whom were disposed to shoulder a musket and draw the 
 sword in defence of their homes and families. These men 
 had no thought of giving up their scalps to the Iroquois, and 
 their wives to the people of Canada ; and the pacific disposi- 
 tion of the Quaker majority only lent fervor to the instinctive 
 energy of the young and the unconvinced. A war party was 
 rapidly gaining ground in the colony.^ Penn felt how neces- 
 sary it was that he should be on the spot to appease these 
 scruples, and to regulate this growing enthusiasm. England 
 had no further need of his services ; and his residence there 
 
 1 Penn to Turner, Oct. 4, 1689. 
 
 2 Pennsyl. Papers, Jan. 15, 1690-1. State Paper Office. 
 
 ^ Correspondence of Col. Fletcher, April and May, New York Papers. 
 Pennsyl. Papers, July 16 — Oct. 28. State Paper Office. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 271 
 
 had already cost him six thousand pounds — the greater part 
 of which had been given away in charities, in gaoler's fees, 
 and in other legal expenses attendant on the liberation of 
 prisoners.^ The preparations for his departure were hastily 
 made ; he engaged a vessel to carry him across the Atlantic ; 
 and the Secretary of State had even appointed a convoy to 
 protect him from the French cruisers during the voyage, 
 when he was suddenly called to the death-bed of George Fox, 
 — whose decease took place on the 13th of January, 1691.^ 
 Over his friend's grave, Penn delivered a long and eloquent 
 oration. The ceremony was at an end and the crowd had 
 just dispersed, when a party of officers arrived on the ground 
 with warrants to arrest the speaker on another charge of trea- 
 son and conspiracy. But he was gone.^ 
 
 William Fuller, an infamous wretch who lived by accusing 
 persons of distinction of monstrous crimes, to get himself out 
 of the King's Bench prison, came forward and made oath that 
 he knew Penn to be engaged in treasonous correspondence 
 with the enemies of the kingdom, whereupon the warrants 
 were issued by government for his arrest.'' To have given 
 himself up to the myrmidons of the law under the circum- 
 stances would have been an act of madness. Fuller was at 
 the time one of the witnesses against the Queen, Maria d'Este, 
 and the legitimacy of the young Prince of Wales,* — and, like 
 Dangerfield in the day of his unblushing perfidy, he stood 
 high in the opinion of those to whom he was useful.^ The 
 governor saw that the only course which he could take con- 
 sistent with his honor and his safety, was to retire awhile from 
 the public view ; but this home-exile was far from being so 
 strict a seclusion as has been supposed by Besse and others. 
 His address was well known to some of the King's council ; 
 as during the whole of his thirty months' retirement he con- 
 tinued his usual correspondence with his friends at court, par- 
 ticularly with Rochester, Halifax, and Romney.'^ As a man 
 bound by his convictions not to take oaths — and universally 
 
 > Penn to Hugh Roberts, Dec. 6, 1689. 
 
 2 Friend's Register. Penn to Lord Rochester. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iv. 
 197. 
 
 3 Besse, i. 140. 4 p^rl. Hist. v. 672. 
 
 ^ See his wretched pamphlets, "A brief Discovery of the true Mother of 
 the Prince of Wales," &c., 1699, and his "Humble Appeal," 1700. 
 6 Pari. Hist, v, 672, 3. 
 ' See the Corresp. in Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iv. 192 et seq. 
 
272 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 known for liis Immane and forgiving temper, — he was unfor- 
 tunately just the sort of quarry that was desired by the race 
 of scoundrels and informers with which the country then 
 swarmed. The villain who should wrong him most deeply 
 might hope, in his case, to escape the revenges natural to the 
 wronged ; and some of those about the King's person were 
 only too ready to entertain any accusation, however absurd, 
 against a man of his high character. Before the new war- 
 rants for his arrest were issued, a charge had been vamped up 
 against him in Dublin by the same Fuller, a confederate called 
 Fisher, and a third scoundrel, whose name has perished. On 
 hearsay evidence, and contrary to all the usages of law, the 
 grand jury found a bill against the accused, who had not been 
 in Ireland for twenty years, and was at that time walking 
 about the streets of London, where the alleged crime was sup- 
 posed to have been committed !^ 
 
 Only a few months after this accusation was made on oath, 
 the character of Fuller was brought by another train of cir- 
 cumstances, under notice of the House of Commons ; when, 
 after a careful sifting of the evidence in his behalf, it was 
 resolved that he was a notorious cheat, rogue, and false 
 accuser, that he had scandalized the magistrates and govern- 
 ment, and abused the House.^ Penn had judged rightly: "I 
 know my enemies," he said; " their true character and his- 
 tory, and their intrinsic value to this or other governments. 
 I commit them to time, with my own conduct and afflictions."^ 
 His own afflictions ! They were dark and bitter in these evil 
 days. Domestic misfortunes, heavier than all else, fell on his 
 devoted head. His wife Guli sickened with the hourly sense 
 of her husband's wrongs — and was nigh to death."* 
 
 The House of Commons demanded of the crown officers 
 that Fuller should be prosecuted in the courts of law ; and, 
 after a fair trial, he was found guilty of imposture and false 
 accusation, and sentenced to the pillory. His whole life was 
 a lie and an abomination. Ten years after this false swearing 
 against Penn, he again found himself in the toils of an enemy 
 less gentle ; he was charged at the Guildhall as a libeller, 
 convicted on clear evidence, and condemned to stand thrice in 
 the pillory, to pay a thousand marks fine, and to rot in the 
 house of correction with felons and murderers.^ 
 
 1 Penn's Letter. Ibid. iv. 199. 2 Com. Jour. Feb. 20. 
 
 3 Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iv. 200. " CoU. Works, i. 231. 
 
 ^ State Trials, xiv. 518-35. While in the iHory at Charing Cross, and 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 273 
 
 Yet, even when the vices of their witness had wholly dis- 
 credited his oath, there were those about King William's 
 person who could persuade him not to recall the warrants 
 of arrest. His own avarice and love of power helped him 
 to see the force of their reasoning ; at least while the war 
 raged with Louis Quatorze, he was anxious to have all the 
 reins of government in his own hands; and he willingly 
 listened to the advice of those who pressed him to annul the 
 colonial charters, and establish one central and imperial seat 
 of government in America. But to give a colorable pretext 
 for this illegal act, it was necessary to keep the governor of 
 Pennsylvania in the shade ; to hold the threat of a prosecu- 
 tion — which, it was well known, could not be maintained ex- 
 cept by perjury — suspended above his head ; so that, when 
 the conspiracy to defraud him of his right was ready to take 
 effect, he would be unable to appear and offer an effectual 
 resistance. To the importunities of Penn's friends, he there- 
 fore answered evasively ; he w^as always engaged ; — a manifest 
 subterfuge, adopted only to gain time.* It was now that 
 Locke offered to interpose his good offices to procure for him 
 a pardon. The offer touched his heart ; for as the common 
 herd of men had followed him into his retirement with cla- 
 mors and vehement abuse, this tribute to his merits was 
 peculiarly flattering, coming as it did, at such a moment and 
 from such a man ; but he rejected the proposal on precisely 
 the same grounds as the philosopher had done his own appeal 
 to the clemency of King James. As he had committed no 
 crime, he would receive no pardon. In his letters to Romney 
 and Rochester, he appealed, not to the King's mercy, but to 
 his justice. He desired it to be understood that he would 
 not receive his liberty on conditions. Though longing most 
 earnestly to sail for America, he would not go out under the 
 suspicion that he went as an exile. As his fortunes fell, 
 his spirit seemed to rise. In the day of his deepest misery, 
 his words were proud and almost exacting.^ 
 
 Then came the crash. On the 10th of March, 1692, an 
 order in council was issued, which deprived him of his govern- 
 again at Temple Bar, he was much beaten by the mob ; at the Royal Ex- 
 change he was used more leniently. Annals of Queen Anne, i. 53. 
 
 ^ Penn's Letters to Romney, with the answers endorsed. Penn. Hist. Soo. 
 Mem. iv. 192-5. 
 
 2 Penn to Rochester, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iv. 197. 
 
274 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 ment, and annexed it to that of New York.^ So far as the 
 King was concerned, the question seems to have been decided 
 on purely military grounds. No case was made out against 
 Penn ; no instance of incapacity or want of faith on his part 
 was cited. In order to present a bold front to the combined 
 corps of French and Iroquois, then hovering on the frontiers, 
 unity of command was judged advisable ; and Colonel Fletcher 
 was commissioned to govern Pennsylvania until the King's 
 pleasure was made further known, and to assume the command 
 of all military forces, militia and regular, in New York, Con- 
 necticut, the Jerseys, Pennsylvania and Delaware.^ Still the 
 blow was crushing. 
 
 On every side were gathering darkness and despair. His 
 whole fortune had been expended on the colony ; he had main- 
 tained the government out of his private purse, so as not to 
 burden the infant settlement ; a hundred and twenty thousand 
 pounds, an enormous sum in those days, did not cover his 
 losses.^ So long as his English property remained — while his 
 family stood above mere want — he cared little about these 
 sacrifices. But poverty had come down upon him suddenly. 
 His Irish estates had been devastated and ruined by the war ;'* 
 what remained of them was put among the Estates of Out- 
 laws, on the strength of the bill of conspiracy illegally found 
 against him in Dublin ; and the rents were confiscated to the 
 crown, though no conviction or sentence of outlawry had been 
 passed in any competent court of law.* At home, he had been 
 hardly less unfortunate ; and his wily stewards, the Fordes, 
 had contrived, by their legal chicaneries — first, to involve, 
 and then to obtain for themselves a monstrous claim on, his 
 property in Kent and Essex.^ From the distinguished posi- 
 tion of governor of a province, he had fallen to that of a pri- 
 vate individual ; ruined in his estate, deprived of his honors, 
 suspected by the government, the prey of a rapacious lawyer, 
 and deeply involved in debt. The personal inconvenience, 
 however, was the least of the evil. Most of all he was alarmed 
 for his model State. Colonel Fletcher, a mere soldier, coarse, 
 
 1 Privy Council Registers, W. R. ii. 340, 7. Privy Council Office. 
 
 2 New York Papers, April 2. State Paper Office. 
 
 3 Penn to Popple, Oct. 24, 1688. 
 
 4 Penn to Turner, Feb. 4, 1693. Letter to Roberts, Dec. G, 1689. 
 ^ Penn's Letter, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iv. 199. 
 
 ^ Penn's Statement. MS. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 275 
 
 abrupt, and unlettered, was an entire stranger to the Foun- 
 der's ideas and intentions ; and there was only too much rea- 
 son to fear he would soon overturn that peaceful and popular 
 constitution which he and Sidney had framed with so much 
 thought and industry. Penn never doubted but that in the 
 end he should be able to regain his colony, and continue, under 
 happier auspices, the great republican experiment ; but he also 
 saw that the mischief done in a day might require years of 
 patient government to retrieve. He therefore wrote a letter 
 to the newly appointed officer, in which he warned him to tread 
 softly and with caution — as the soil and the government be- 
 longed to him as much as the crown to the King : the charter, 
 he said, had neither been attacked nor recalled ; in the face 
 of the law he w^as still master of his province ; and as he was 
 an Englishman, he would maintain his right.^ 
 
 To his friends and to the officers of his government in Phil- 
 adelphia, he wrote, advising them to insist with wisdom and 
 moderation on the observance of their charters. He told them 
 to hear patiently, and to obey the crown whenever it spoke 
 in the voice of the law ; to meet the assertion that the French 
 and Indians would attack them — not by quoting their own 
 notions of war and the friendly relations of the Iroquois — 
 arguments to which the colonel would turn a deaf ear — but 
 by showing how well their territory was defended by nature, 
 being equally unassailable by land and sea.^ Fletcher began 
 his reign by an attempt to abrogate the whole body of the 
 colonial laws; being himself an ultra-royalist, the laws of 
 Pennsylvania violated all his notions of propriety. When the 
 assembly objected to this sweeping measure, he showed them his 
 commission, under the great seal of England. In reply, they 
 pointed to their charter, also under the great seal of England; 
 and some of those who held commissions from the proprietor 
 at once withdrew from the assembly.^ Before he went in 
 person to Philadelphia, he had written urgently for supplies : 
 the Quakers returned for answer, that they had nothing to 
 send him, except their good wishes. Vexed at their obstinacy, 
 as he thought it, he repaired to the seat of government, and 
 peremptorily applied for a subsidy.^ The assembly answered 
 
 ' Pennsyl. Papers, Dec. 5, 1692, State Paper Office, 
 
 2 Extracts from Penn's Corresp. attested by Col. Fletcher, Pennsyl. Papers, 
 vol. i, State Paper Office, ^ Minutes, i, 360, 
 
 4 New York Papers, Feb, 14, April 22, 1693, State Paper Office. 
 
276 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 with a long list of grievances. No terms could be made : they 
 would not give up a single law to revision. Fletcher felt him- 
 self committed ; and to save his own honor, he proposed to 
 re-enact the whole code as it then stood; but the assembly 
 would not consent. '' We are but men who represent the peo- 
 ple," said John White, ^'andwe dare not begin to re-enact 
 any one of the laws, lest we seem to admit that all the rest 
 are void." The colonel was in a dilemma. His great object 
 was to obtain a vote of money ; and the colonists would only 
 give it on their own conditions. At last he submitted. On 
 receiving from him a distinct recognition of their legislative 
 powers, the assembly granted a tax of a penny in the pound, 
 — stipulating, as a salve to tender consciences, that not a far- 
 thing of it should be dipt in blood. A permanent advantage 
 remained with the chamber at the close of this dispute: they 
 had bought the right to originate bills ; and this right they 
 ever afterwards maintained. Greatly dissatisfied with his own 
 command, Fletcher wrote a letter to the King, urging, in the 
 strongest terms, the impossibility of gaining a regular war vote 
 in Pennsylvania, and praying him to consider the propriety of 
 forming that colony. New York, the Jerseys, and Connecticut 
 into one state, with a common assembly, as the only means of 
 out-voting the Quakers, and compelling them to lend their aid 
 in the common defence.* The displeasure of William fell on 
 the absent governor ; and the Privy Council even ordered the 
 Attorney-General rigorously to inspect his patent, and see 
 if some legal flaw could not be found in it which would furnish 
 a pretext for its withdrawal altogether.^ 
 
 This alarming proposition was made just at a time when 
 Penn needed some startling intelligence to rouse him from 
 the apathy caused by domestic afiliction. Guli was dead — the 
 " one of ten thousand, the wise, chaste, humble, modest, con- 
 stant, industrious and undaunted" daughter of Lady Springett.^ 
 Her sorrows had brought her to a premature grave : — yet she 
 lived long enough to see the appearance of a turn of fortune 
 for her husband, and she died in the prospect of his restora- 
 tion to his former rank and influence. 
 
 In the later part of the year 1692, his courtly friends — 
 
 ' Ibid. Sept, 15. State Paper Office. 
 
 2 Privy Council Register, W. R. iii. 334. Privy Council Office. 
 
 3 Penn to Turner, Feb. 27, 1G93. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 277 
 
 many of whom he had deeply obliged in his day of power,— 
 but more especially the Earl of Rochester, Lord Somers, Henry 
 Sidney and Sir John Trenchard, made a joint effort to put an 
 end to the shame of seeing a noble character like Penn de- 
 prived of his liberty on pretence of an accusation made by a 
 fellow whom parliament itself had denounced as a rogue and 
 false accuser. Ranelagh, Rochester, and Romney went to 
 the King and laid the whole case before him ; Wilham an- 
 swered freely that Penn was his old acquaintance as well as 
 theirs; that he had nothing to say against him ; and that he 
 was at liberty to go about his affairs just as he pleased, ihe 
 lords pressed his majesty to send this gracious message to Sir 
 John Trenchard, then the principal Secretary of State, and 
 Romney was selected as its bearer on account of his long inti- 
 macy with Penn. Trenchard was glad to convey these tidmgs 
 to his old benefactor ; he spoke with feeling of the unsohcited 
 kindness he had received from him in the dark times of Mon- 
 mouth and Sidney ; and was pleased to have it in his power 
 to show that he was not ungrateful. But Penn was not content 
 that the matter should end in this private way. The act of 
 grace looked like a pardon :— he wanted an acquittal. He 
 asked his powerful friends to procure for him a public^ hear- 
 ing ; and in November a council was called at Westminster, 
 before which he defended his conduct so completely to the 
 Kincr's satisfaction, that he was absolved from every charge, 
 past'^and Dresent.^ The reparation came too late. <^uli was 
 now too far gone for recovery ; but the thought of her husband 
 beina; free once more, with no stain on his name, cheered her 
 descent into the grave. She died on the twenty-third of the 
 followin^T February at Hoddesden, and was buried with the 
 simple r!tes of the Society to which she belonged at Jordans in 
 the vicinity of Beaconsfield.^ 
 
 During her prolonged illness, Penn had turned his attention 
 to the policy of nations, and given up his leisure to the con- 
 solations of philosophy. Two of his most remarkable works 
 are owin<^ to these studies : one of these contains detached 
 summarie" of his experiences of men and things, and assumes 
 the form of a book of maxims on the conduct of life— alter 
 
 1 Penn to Mavkham, Feb, 4, 1G93. . ^ i i ... rl.,.M Toll 
 
 2 Friends' Register. Penn wrote a touching account of her hifct cla^s. Loii. 
 
 Works, i. 140 et seq. 
 
278 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 the manner, but not in the spirit, of Rochefoucauld.^ Speak- 
 ing of himself in the preface of this work, he says — he has 
 now had some time he could call his own, a property he has 
 ever before been short of, in which he has taken a view of 
 himself and of the Avorld, observed wherein he has gone wrong 
 or wasted good effort, — and has reached the conclusion, that 
 if he had to live his life over again, he could serve God, his 
 neighbor and himself better than he had done, and have seven 
 precious years of time to spare, though he was not an old man 
 yet, and had certainly not been one of the idlest.^ A few 
 specimens of his maxims will suffice to show the character of 
 the whole collection. — " We are in pain to make our children 
 scholars — not men ; to talk rather than to know. This is true 
 canting." — "They only have a right to censure who have a 
 heart to help : the rest is cruelty, not justice." — " Love labor : 
 if thou dost not want it for food, thou wilt for physic." — 
 " Choose thy clothes with thine own eyes — not with another's ; 
 neither unshapely nor fantastical ; and for use and decency, 
 not for pride." — "There can be no friendship where there is 
 no freedom. — " It can be no honor to maintain what it was 
 dishonorable to do." — " If thou thinkest twice before thou 
 speakest, thou wilt speak twice the better for it." — " Passion 
 is a fever of the mind : it ever leaves us weaker than it found 
 us." — " To delay justice, is injustice." — " The truest end of 
 life is, to find the life that never ends." — "To do evil that 
 good may come of it, is bungling in politics as well as in 
 morals." Many of his maxims were of a political nature : 
 the following suggests the fundamental idea of a modern 
 ministry. " Ministers of State should undertake their posts 
 at their peril ; if princes wish to over-ride them, let them 
 show the laws — and resign : if fear, gain, or flattery prevail, 
 let them answer for it to the law." These doctrines were 
 regarded as curious novelties in that age 1^ 
 
 His other work was still more original in its form and 
 character. It was entitled, " An Essay towards the present 
 and future Peace of Europe, ""* — and in it he developed views 
 which are now rapidly spreading among educated men, and 
 out of which the Peace Congresses of Brussels, Frankfort and 
 
 1 Some fruits of Solitude. ColL Works, i. 818. ^ i^id. 819. 
 
 3 Collected Works, i. 836. 
 
 * This admirable tract is not included in tlie folio edition of his works. It 
 "was t^vice printed in 1G93. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 279 
 
 Paris have grown in our own day. In the first place, he in- 
 quired into the polity of nations, — the causes which led to 
 war, — the conditions necessary to peace. He found the great 
 aim of statesmanship was to secure peace and order ; and he 
 demonstrated that these ends were to be obtained more readily 
 and certainly by justice than by war. But the question oc- 
 curred — How can justice be obtained for nations except by 
 force ? He reviewed the history of society, and he found that 
 in the partially organized body-politic of early times individu- 
 als stood in the place of states ; every man assumed the right 
 to be a judge in his own cause — every man claimed to be his 
 own avenger. As society advanced from a ruder to a more 
 civilized form, the separate individuals made laws and bound 
 themselves to submit to certain general restrictions, more 
 especially to give up the old rights of judging and avenging 
 their own quarrels, in exchange for other rights and privileges 
 not incompatible with the public good. Why, then, should 
 not Europeans do for themselves, that which Celts and Teu- 
 tons, Franks and Scandinavians had already done on a smaller 
 scale? As England had its parliament, France its States- 
 General, Germany its Diet — each in its sphere over-ruling 
 private passion and curbing disorder — so he proposed that 
 Europe should have its Congress. Before this sovereign as- 
 sembly he would have had all disputes between nation and nation 
 decided, without the vulgar interference of the sword, by the 
 wisest and justest men, acting as the representatives of every 
 state : its decisions to be final, and its judgments enforced by 
 the united power of Europe.^ After laying out the great fea- 
 tures of his scheme, he considered the details and practical 
 ''action of such a Congress. He referred to the designs of 
 Henri Quatre in favor of a general league ; and proved by 
 the example of the United Provinces that the idea was far 
 from being visionary, if princes and statesmen would only 
 take the question up in earnestness of spirit.^ The proposal 
 attracted much attention at the time, — and it is now interest- 
 ing to the friends of peace and international arbitration, both 
 as a piece of history and as a comfort to those who refuse to 
 entertain any opinion which is only of recent origin.^ 
 
 These works were already finished when Guli's death put 
 an end for a time to his intellectual labors. He was only 
 
 » Peace of Europe, Sec. iv. 2 n^i^j, ggc. xi. 3 Besse, i. 141. 
 
280 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 roused from his long torpor of soul by the intelligence from 
 America that Colonel Fletcher had proposed to the King to 
 abolish the separate charter of Pennsylvania, and to form one 
 imperial government out of the whole range of northern colo- 
 nies. This was to destroy at one blow the great purpose of 
 his existence. The war pressed ; the French were victorious 
 on the continent ; the governor of New York would not an- 
 swer for his province without a change ; and the King was 
 thought to be only too willing to grasp at any tolerable plea 
 for regaining the military powers which his predecessor had 
 given away so rashly. He believed that if he were only in 
 America, his presence would reconcile parties now at vari- 
 ance ; and so put an end to these dangerous complaints and 
 suggestions.^ But he was too poor to pay for an outfit for 
 his family. Owner of twenty million acres of land, he had 
 no means of raising a few hundreds of pounds for necessary 
 expenses ! The Irish estates had ceased for the moment to 
 yield a shilling of rental ; and his unfaithful stewards, the 
 Fordes, pretended they could hardly make his English pro- 
 perty cover the cost of his simple household.^ In the depth 
 of his difficulty and distress, a thought occurred to him : — he 
 had spent a princely fortune in his colony ; the million or so 
 of acres already sold had a small quit-rent reserved, — but 
 which, for the ease of the colonists, he had allowed to stand 
 over till good harvests came round, so that for ten years he 
 had not received a single shilling from this quarter.^ He 
 would now, he thought, apply to these prosperous settlers in 
 the land he had made for them, — recently blessed with most 
 abundant seasons, — for a loan of ten thousand pounds — a 
 hundred pounds each from a hundred persons. This money 
 would set him right ; and the quit-rents and the lands of the 
 colony would be ample security to the lenders. He wrote a 
 manly and touching letter to Robert Turner, in which he 
 opened his heart to his old friend, and made this proposal, 
 pledging himself, in the event of its success, to set sail imme- 
 diately with a large party of emigrants, who were only wait- 
 ing for the signal of his departure : if the colonists refused 
 him this kindness, he said, he knew not what he must do, so 
 very low were his affairs reduced."* It is an eternal disgrace 
 
 • Penn to Turner, Feb. 4, 1G93. 2 Penn's Statement, MS. 
 
 3 Peuu to lloberts, Feb. 17, 1698. « Penn to Turner, Feb. 4, 1693. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 281 
 
 to tlie settlers tliat tliey evcaded and postponed this request- 
 too mean to comply with grace, too cowardly to refuse with- 
 out shuffling and false pretence. The men to whom he had 
 looked for help— to whom in confidence he had laid bare his 
 private misfortunes— sought in the fact of his distress an op- 
 portunity to encroach on his just rights, and gossipped about 
 his fall, to their own shame and the scandal of the country.^ 
 They said they loved him very much— but they had no mind 
 to lend money. 
 
 Penn was not apt to be angry, but this ingratitude was too 
 much for even his placid nature. These men owed almost 
 every thing that was most dear to them in the world, to his 
 devotion, his care and forethought: their freedom— their 
 rights — in no slight degree their property itself. To his con- 
 fidential friends he complained bitterly of this insulting usage. 
 A man not inspired with a great design, disgusted with their 
 conduct, might have been tempted to revoke their charter, 
 and to sue them in the courts of law for the arrears of quit- 
 rent. But he thought only of the future,— of the handful of 
 settlers who were to become a nation; and he pursued his own 
 forward course, hurt but not daunted by the ungracious inci- 
 dent. Unable to get out to America, he resolved to fight the 
 battle to the end at home. Calling on the friends who had 
 recently done him such service, he prevailed on them to take 
 his case once more in hand, and, if possible, to procure the 
 restoration of his colonial government, with the rank and dig- 
 nities attached. In the meantime he drew up a formal peti- 
 tion to the Queen — William being abroad — praying her 
 majesty to order an inquiry into the whole tram of facts 
 alleged by him to have occurred in reference to the colony, 
 and if her majesty was satisfied, to grant him a full re-instate- 
 ment of his rights and properties.^ ^ ^ 
 
 Mary received this petition with favor. The wise and vir- 
 tuous Lady Ranelagh had prepared the royal mind— by a just 
 representation of Penn's merits and services— the^ purity of 
 his conduct and the unquestionable nature of his rights— for 
 a candid hearing of his complaint.^ She referred the petition 
 to the council, who consulted th e Board of Trade and the law 
 
 1 Fletcher's Correspondence with Government. Pennsylvania Papers, voL 
 i. State Paper Office. 
 
 2 Pennsylvania Papers, July 5, 1694. State Paper Office. 
 
 3 Penn's Memorandum. Penn Hist. Soc. Mem. iv. I Jo. 
 
 24* 
 
282 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 officers of the crown, and finding no legal flaw in the charter 
 itself, nor any subsequent act of his which could be tortured 
 into such an offence as would warrant a forfeiture, — they 
 admitted his claim to be made out ;^ and ' he was legally re- 
 invested with his old powers and functions on giving assur- 
 ances on those points which had led to the original suspen- 
 sion.^ The Lords of Trade and Plantation asserted, — as they 
 were bound to do in dealing as statesmen with a case so 
 peculiar and exceptional, — that although the soil and the 
 government belonged to Penn, as lord proprietor under the 
 great seal, the King's government, still retaining its imperial 
 right, was laid under the necessity of defending the province 
 from its enemies, as part and parcel of the common empire ; 
 but that so soon as the war was finished in Europe, and the 
 fear of invasion from Canada had subsided, the government 
 must, of course, devolve upon the owner of the soil.^ The 
 war, however, was raging more fiercely than ever ; Marshal 
 Luxembourg had defeated King William in two great battleSj 
 and had taken the important fortresses of Namur and Mens. 
 In America, the Five Nations, so long in amity with the 
 English, had been won over to the Canadian interest, — 
 numerous farms had been sacked and burnt in Albany, and 
 the settlers massacred or carried off by the enemy, — and it 
 was generally feared that the friendly and peaceable Lenni 
 Lenape would be compelled to join the great confederacy of 
 their brethren. In this event, the forests of Pennsylvania 
 would afford no protection to the unarmed towns and villages 
 scattered over the country ; and devoted as he was to the 
 doctrines of peace, Penn saw the folly of maintaining a pas- 
 sive attitude under the tomahawks of the Iroquois. He pro- 
 mised the council, therefore, that as early as it was convenient 
 he would repair to the colony in person ; and in the meantime 
 undertook to supply money and men for the general defence 
 of the frontiers.'' His own cousin Markham was a soldier ; 
 there were plenty of men in the province who had no scruple 
 against bearing arms ; and he had little fear of raising the con- 
 tingent that might be fixed by the crown as the proper quota 
 
 1 rrivy Council Registers, YV. R. iii. 444, 5 ; 453, 4, 
 
 2 Pennsylvania Papers, July 5. The reports may be compared, July 12, 
 
 Au.i^ust y. 
 
 3 Ibi.l. August 1-3. 
 
 4 Privy Couucil Registers, W. R. iii. 455. Privy Council Office. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 283 
 
 of Pennsylvania. But in case he should meet with a success- 
 ful opposition on this point from the Assembly, he stipulated 
 that he would then surrender the direction of military affairs 
 entirely into the King's hands. ^ 
 
 On the ninth of August (1694) — thirty months after the 
 appointment of Colonel Fletcher — an Order in Council was 
 made, restoring to him his government, revoking the military 
 commission, and appointing eighty men and their complete 
 equipment and charges as the contingent of Pennsylvania, to 
 be maintained on the frontiers or at New York, so long as the 
 war continued.^ 
 
 This restoration was a great solace to him in his grievous 
 domestic affliction. Not only was Guli dead : dead through 
 grief and sickness of the heart ; but Springett, his eldest and 
 favorite son, a youth of delicate frame, but endowed with rare 
 genius and nobility of mind, was seized with slow and cureless 
 consumption. In his poverty and exile, the world had frowned 
 on him, believing his fortunes to be irretrievable ; and if the 
 settlers in his own colony had behaved most scurvily, they 
 could plead in their defence the almost universal example of 
 mankind. To use his own pathetic words — his enemies had 
 darkened the very air against him. His re-installation was 
 an emphatic answer to every calumny. It is curious to find 
 that the men who stood by him in his darkest hours of trial 
 were, with some staunch exceptions, not the persons who 
 shared his religious opinions — but the more distinguished 
 order of courtiers, statesmen, divines and philosophers — men 
 like Rochester and Ranelagh, Trenchard and Popple, Tiliot- 
 son and Locke. Many of his own sect for a time looked 
 coldly on his sufferings ; and it does not appear that their in- 
 difference was entirely removed until he was fully restored to 
 his worldly rank. They had no complaint to make against 
 his morals or his life : — they only pretended to condemn the 
 too active part he had taken in the affairs of the world.^ 
 
 ' Pennsylvania Papers, August 3. State Paper Office. 
 2 Ibid. August 9. — Privy Council Registers, VV. R. ii. 454, 5. Privy Council 
 Office. 
 
 ^ Thomas Lowe to Margaret Fox. MS. 
 
284 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1694-1701. 
 THE LAND OF PROMISE. 
 
 When Algernon Sidney counselled Penn to leave all power 
 under his Charter of Liberties in the hands of the people, — 
 even power to resist the governor and to alter and annul the 
 Constitution, — he had himself but just returned from a forced 
 exile, and was still suffering daily from the spite and jealousy 
 of the court. In the ardor of the moment he overlooked the 
 fact, that if monarchy be sometimes vindictive, republics are 
 not the less proverbially ungrateful. As a point of abstract 
 political science, Sidney was right : democracy must be 
 developed from within to be true and lasting.^ But neither 
 of the lawgivers seems to have remembered that, under the 
 form in which they were about to try the great experiment, 
 two incompatible powers would be brought into presence, — 
 probably into conflict. Republican as it appeared, the Charter 
 had a foreign and irreconcileable element in its own author. 
 Towards the settlers in his province Penn stood exactly in the 
 position of a feudal lord : — the soil and the government were 
 his personal property. Though in his first charter he had 
 given up many of his rights, enough remained to create strife 
 and bitterness in men so jealous of power. It was sufficient 
 that he traced his rights to a source alien to their choice, to 
 rouse discontent : The colonists had acquired too much 
 power not to covet more. The difficulty existed in the very 
 nature of things. A democracy is a state in which every 
 thing begins and ends with the people ; but in Pennsylvania 
 there was a power, — the first and highest, — completely inde- 
 pendent and irresponsible. The ruler had to govern a free 
 people by hereditary and indefeasible right : how wise and 
 noble soever bis aims might be, the Assembly never forgot 
 that he was their master; though he stood between them and 
 the iron rule at home, they could not respect, and would barely 
 
 1 Penn to Sidney, Oct. 13, 1681. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 285 
 
 tolerate bis autliority.* From the fonnclation of the colony 
 to the last day of liis existence, his life vras one great strug- 
 gle with the intractable spirit of the settlers. His dues were 
 withheld — his orders disobeyed — his rights invaded. An 
 ultra-democratic party arose, which at one time by its impru- 
 dence led him into trouble in the colony — at another, joined 
 his English enemies in their efforts to procure a forfeiture of 
 the charter.=^ To force alone would they submit. Fletcher's 
 government was still more galling to them than their pro- 
 prietor's : yet in his case they passed and paid a war tax. A 
 salary they would not grant : and the crown was compelled to 
 allow its servant to appropriate one-half of the war-revenue 
 for his personal use.^ These facts carry with them no par- 
 ticular stain on any memory : they only prove that feudalism 
 and democracy, even in their best forms, cannot exist together. 
 There was no single governor, from first to last, who ^ could 
 maintain peace in the colony : — nor did the constitution of 
 Pennsylvania ever attain to a state of free and harmonious 
 action until the feudal element was entirely cast away at the 
 llevolution. 
 
 With Springett in a decline, Penn was unwilling to go m 
 person to Philadelphia and leave him behind ; he therefore 
 sent out a commission to Markham to act as his deputy, with 
 the express sanction of the home government.^ Not until six 
 years after the restitution of his rights, did he again set foot 
 in Pennsylvania. Two of these years he acted as a nurse to 
 his darling boy ; his almost constant companion by day and 
 night. Everything that tender nurture, parental watchful- 
 ness and medical science could do for him was done ; but m 
 spite of all, he grcAV worse and worse :— and finally died m 
 his father's arms on the 2d of April, 1696, in the twenty-first 
 year of his age.^ His other children still living,— Mary and 
 Hannah having died in infancy,— were Letitia and Wilham; 
 the latter, now his heir, and, as it seemed, the future lord 
 proprietor of Pennsylvania, was utterly unlike his deceased 
 brother in character and natural abilities.^ Springett Penn 
 
 1 Loa:an Gorresp. Phil Friend, xviii. 345 et seq. 
 
 2 QuSrry Gorresp. in Proprietary Papers, Sept. 10, 1G9< et seq. State 
 
 Paper OSce. ^ . r. -i /^i^ 
 
 3 Privy Gouncil Register, W. R. 4o7. Pnvy Gouncil Office. 
 
 4 Proprietary Papers, Nov. 24.— Pennsylvania Papers, Dec. 14. btate 
 
 ''6'Friends''Register. « Genealogy in Penn Gaskell MSS. 
 
286 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 had inherited the virtues as well as the names of his joint an- 
 cestry ; to his father's strong sense of political liberty, his 
 fervor and devotion to a great cause, he added the grace and 
 gentleness of his mother and grandmother. Of all the young 
 people about her in her old age, he had been the favorite of 
 Lady Springett ; and it was for his use and instruction that 
 she had committed the memoirs of her early life to writing.^ 
 The younger brother more resembled his grandfather the ad- 
 miral : he was bold and self-willed as a boy ; quick in quar- 
 rel ; full of pride and worldly ambition ; sensuous in his tastes 
 and scornful in his demeanor. Yet he had fine qualities : — 
 he was generous even to a fault, — had a keen sense of honor, 
 — had a turn and a capacity for business, — and that daunt- 
 less courage which seemed to be the birthright of his race.^ 
 From an early period he had shown his distaste to the simple 
 routine of his father's house : and he sought in the world the 
 illicit pleasures which were denied to him at home. It was 
 with the most anxious foreboding that Penn looked forward 
 to the day when he must, in the course of nature, give up the 
 government of his colony to this rash and inconstant youth. 
 
 Perhaps his anxieties on this head influenced him to a se- 
 cond marriage. Hannah, daughter of Thomas Callowhill of 
 Bristol, a lady whom he had long known and respected, was 
 the object of his second choice ; and they were married in 
 that city in January 1696.^ She was a woman of extraordi- 
 nary spirit, and made an admirable manager and wife. They 
 had issue four sons — Dennis, Richard, Thomas, and John — 
 and two daughters — Margaret and Hannah, the latter of 
 whom died in infancy. It is from the Thomas Penn here 
 mentioned that the present representatives of the male branch 
 of the family are descended.'* 
 
 With the peace of Ryswich the war ceased in America. 
 As there was now no pressing necessity for his voyage to 
 Pennsylvania, Colonel Markham discharging his function of 
 lieutenant-governor with vigor, wisdom, and success, — Penn 
 continued to live quietly in England, varying the ordinary 
 routine of life by a series of religious tours, and by writing 
 various works of controversy.^ His daughter Letty was now 
 
 * MS. Autobiography of Lady Springett. 
 
 2 Logan Corresp. PhiL Friend, xviii. 354-363. 
 
 3 Roger Haydock, 215. * Penn Gaskill MSS. 
 
 ^ The most notable of these were: — 1. "A Brief Account of the Kise and 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 287 
 
 growing up to womanhood, and she, as well as his wife, had 
 a disinclination to remove permanently, as he had always in- 
 tended, to their forest-home on the Delaware. The advices 
 which came with every post from the seat of government were 
 not of a nature to overcome these female objections. Colonel 
 Quarry, a revenue officer, sent to America by the crown, and 
 a zealous party to the idea of turning the proprietarial into 
 imperial colonies, found out and courted every person of in- 
 fluence in the colony who fancied he had a grievance ; and of 
 the information procured from these sources he made the most 
 adroit and malicious use in his correspondence with the home 
 ministry.^ He kept up intimate relations with the leaders of 
 the opposition, and by his office and his experience gave co- 
 hesion and importance to the floating masses of discontent. 
 Their attacks were in reality meant for and made on the go- 
 vernor and his rights ; but they did not dare to accuse him 
 directly. His lieutenant was fairer game ; and againsf Mark- 
 ham they revived old charges, and invented new, until the 
 Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations were as 
 heartily tired of their complaints as Penn himself was of an- 
 swering them. Quarry's chief reliance lay in his official 
 reports, in which he boldly charged Markham with favoring 
 smugglers and pirates, to the manifest injury of the royal 
 revenue. The lieutenant-governor defended himself against 
 these charges with spirit and success ; at least his explana- 
 tions were for a long time admitted. This war of accusations 
 continued two years. ^ 
 
 During this interval, Penn became acquainted with the 
 young Czar, Peter of Russia, then working in the dockyard 
 at Deptford as a carpenter and ship-builder. With that pas- 
 sion for converting the great which had led their brethren to 
 Rome, to Adrianople, and to Versailles, in search of royal 
 proselytes, Thomas Story and another friend, hearing that 
 the ruler of Muscovy could be easily approached, went to him 
 
 Progress of the People called Quakers," 1694; 2. "A Visitation to the 
 Jews," 1694; 3. "A Few Words to the House of Commous," 1695; 4. 
 " The Truth of God Cleared," 1698; 5. " Primitive Christianity Revived," 
 1696. 
 
 1 Proprietary Papers, Sept. 10, et seq. The Quarry Corresp. is of con- 
 siderable interest for tlie early history of the colonies : American writers 
 have little acquaintance with the treasures of our State Paper Office. 
 
 2 Proprietary Papers, Sept. 10, 1697— Sept. 12, 1699. State Paper Of- 
 fice. The latter part is particularly voluminous and violent. 
 
288 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 for the purpose of delivering what they believed to be the 
 new gopsel. They found to their surprise that the Czar 
 could speak no Latin ; and as they were ignorant of German, 
 it was impossible to converse without the. aid of an interpre- 
 ter. Peter was interested though not much edified by their 
 discourse ; but the Friends were greatly charmed with their 
 reception, and immediately reported to Penn, who spoke Ger- 
 man with great fluency, that a new field was opening in the 
 imperial mind for the spread of truth. On this hint Penn 
 went down to York Buildings, where the Czar resided when 
 not at the docks, with Prince Menzikoff, and there saw the 
 object of his visit. ^ As a man who had lived in courts and 
 seen the world, — as the son also of the renowned admiral, — 
 Penn got on much better with the young and sagacious prince 
 than the simple-hearted Story. With the practical turn of 
 mind which distinguished him through life, Peter had at once 
 gone, to what appeared to him, the heart of the matter. You 
 say you are a new people, — will you fight better than the 
 rest ? Story had told him they could not bear arms against 
 their neighbor. Then tell me, said Peter, of what use you 
 would be to any kingdom, if you will not fight ? The fact of 
 their wearing their hats in his presence rather amused than 
 offended him; but he could not be made to comprehend the 
 reason for it. Eager for knowledge of every kind, he listened 
 with courtesy and interest to the discourses of Penn ; he 
 wished, he said, to learn in a few words what the Quakers 
 taught and practised, that he might be able to distinguish 
 them readily from other men ; whereupon his visitor wrote — 
 " They teach that men must be holy, or they cannot be happy 
 — that they should be few in words, peaceable in life, suffer 
 wrongs, love enemies, deny themselves — without which faith 
 is false, worship formality, and religion hypocrisy."^ Peter 
 was not converted, but he was interested ; as he knew a little 
 English he began to attend occasionally at the meetings of 
 Friends at Deptford, where he behaved very politely and so- 
 cially, standing up or sitting down as it suited the convenience 
 and comfort of others. Some of the Quaker preachers evi- 
 dently regarded their imperial listener as a convert to the 
 faith : they were probably not aware that, as an acute ob- 
 
 ' Penn to tlie Czar, Pliil. Friend, vii. 45. 
 2 Ibid. vii. 45. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 289 
 
 server of human manners, it was his humor to attend the 
 religious services of all sects and denominations.^ 
 
 The complaints which were continually arriving from Colo- 
 nel Quarry, and the rising discontents in the colony fomented 
 by his malice, kept Penn in a state of unceasing agitation and 
 alarm. One charge against his cousin and lieutenant was not 
 cleared away before another was started ; so that his enemies 
 in the royal council had almost daily opportunities of poison- 
 ing the King's mind on that sorest of all subjects — the reve- 
 nue.^ The governor felt an unlimited confidence in the faith 
 and purity of Markham, a confidence vfhich is fully justified 
 by the facts of his administration as they are recorded in the 
 state papers ;^ but at the same time he saw that a necessity 
 was arising for his own presence in Philadelphia, and he pru- 
 dently began to make preparations for the voyage. His 
 English lawyer had got his estates into the utmost confusion, 
 — in all probability with a view to making his own fortune 
 out of the general wreck, as in later years his employer had 
 not paid that attention to his private business which the ad- 
 miral had believed would turn out to be a chief feature in his 
 character;'* and the Shangarry Castle property had not yet 
 recovered from the infliction of the wars. Nearly thirty 
 years had now passed since he had held any communication 
 with his Irish tenantry ; a desire to look on the old scenes in 
 which a great portion of his youth had been spent, grew up 
 in his mind, as well as a wish to superintend the re-settlement 
 of his property — Shangarry Castle being now his chief sup- 
 port; and hearing that Thomas Story and John Everett were 
 going into the island on a religious tour, he proposed to join 
 them, and they set out together from Bristol, where he was 
 then residing, that being the usual port from which passen- 
 gers at that time started for Dublin.^ In the Irish capital he 
 attended the half-yearly meeting of Friends ; and called on 
 the Lords Justices of Ireland, to whom he was well known, to 
 encourage in their minds a friendly disposition towards his 
 
 .1 story's Joumal, 126, 494. 
 
 2 Proprietary Papers, September 22 — Oct. 8-15 et seq. State Paper 
 Office. 
 
 ^ His answer to the accusations of Col. Quarry and Mr. Randolph, pre- 
 sented to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, is masterly and convincing. — ■ 
 America and West Indies Papers, March 1, 1700 (45 folios). State Paper 
 Office. 
 
 -» Penn's Statement, MS. ^ Bcsse, i. 144. 
 
 25 
 
290 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 religious brethren. An incident occurred on his journey 
 from Dublin to Shangarry Castle, in County Cork, character- 
 istic of the man and the times. When at Wexford he gave a 
 promise to some friends of Waterford that he would attend a 
 meeting in their town on a certain evening, and address the 
 people ; and on the day appointed he arrived at Ross, on his 
 way to W^aterford, about the time of dinner. Ordering their 
 horses to be ferried across the Nore while they were dining, 
 the travellers returned to the tavern, and refreshed them- 
 selves after their long ride.^ 
 
 After the thorough subjugation of Ireland by William and 
 his generals, the Parliament of that divided country, anxious 
 to insult and exasperate the conquered Catholics, had passed 
 a bill, by which Papists were forbidden to keep any horse or 
 horses in their possession, except the very sorriest sort of 
 hacks. To make the.- act still more galling, a clause was in- 
 serted, allowing any man to seize a horse belonging to a Ca- 
 tholic, or on which a Catholic at the time might be riding, 
 and to retain it on condition of tendering five guineas for it 
 to the nearest magistrate. The poor Papist was interrupted 
 in his journeys and his business — for all travelling was then 
 done on horseback — insulted in the streets by having the value 
 of his nag questioned, and oftentimes by being made to dis- 
 mount in public, and go before a magistrate. Military men 
 more especially took advantage of this infamous law, to fill 
 their stables with good horses at a small cost. As Penn and 
 his friends rode into the town on their high bloods, two young 
 officers of Colonel Eclin's regiment — Lieutenant Wallis and 
 Cornet Montgomery — thought proper to imagine that the 
 strangers were Papists, and their horses lawful game ; so, 
 while the unsuspecting travellers were dining, these fellows 
 went to the mayor, and on deposing that there were then in 
 Ross certain Papists with valuable horses in their possession, 
 contrary to the clauses of the late act, obtained a warrant for 
 their arrest.^ When Penn went down to the boat, he found 
 some of the horses had been carried over before the seizure ; 
 but the rest were in the hands of a picquet of dragoons. Sup- 
 posing that a few words of explanation would set the matter 
 right, he proposed to cross over and continue his journey to 
 Waterford with the horses already on the other side, 
 
 » Story's Journal, 132. 2 Ibid. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 291 
 
 ing after the meeting to recover his property. But on tlie 
 boat being drawn along the water-edge, half a dozen dragoons 
 leapt into it, and pushed away. Some officers and other per- 
 sons were standing on the quay, watching this unmannerly 
 exhibition ; and to them Penn applied — not being aware of 
 the part they had taken in the transaction — to reprove the 
 men under their command ; but they of course would not in- 
 terfere. "What !" said Penn, with scorn, "are you gentlemen 
 and officers, and will you stand here and see such insolence 
 in your open view?" He hired another boat, and continued 
 his journey, leaving his friends behind to recover the horses 
 by taking out a replevin ; and as soon as he had time, he 
 wrote to the Lords Justices, to complain of the abuse, — and 
 the guilty officers were put under arrest. Their spirit was as 
 mean as their behavior. Fearing, on good grounds, that 
 they would be broke at trial, they made a pitiful appeal to 
 Penn, through his friend, Colonel Pursel, governor of Water- 
 ford ; and he, seeing that their requests were made under a 
 proper sense of the wrong they had done, wrote again to the 
 Lord Justices, to solicit pardons for them on account of their 
 want of age and experience.* 
 
 While residing at Shangarry Castle — which he had reco- 
 vered from the list of Outlawed Estates — he saw and con- 
 versed frequently with the amiable and learned Bishop of 
 Cork on religious and theological subjects, which afterwards 
 led to a little friendly controversy in print. Some of the more 
 violent sectaries, indulging in the old habit of abuse, continued 
 to repeat calumnies and make false representations as to what 
 the Quakers believed; and to meet and dissipate these re- 
 ports, Penn put forth, with his name, two or three short papers,^ 
 copies of which he communicated to the Bishop, who received 
 them very graciously at the time, but, on further thought, saw 
 reason to doubt some of the gospel truths set forth in them 
 and published his own opinions. The writer of course again 
 defended his former tracts, and there the matter ended very 
 amicably : he was a trenchant opponent to the rude, but with 
 the courteous he could be courtliness itself.^ 
 
 The outcry against Colonel Markham and the magistrates 
 of Pennsylvania swelled louder and louder. Markham was a 
 
 ^ Story's Journal, 132. 
 
 2 "The Quaker a Christian," "Gospel Truths," and the eighth and ninth 
 chapters of his "Primitive Christianity Revived." Besse, i. 144. 
 ^ Besse, i. 145. 
 
292 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 prompt and a proud officer: in his hands the dignity of the 
 government certainly suffered no diminution. But did he 
 encourage contraband traders ? Stript of all their malice, 
 the State Papers still contain evidence which would satisfy 
 most juries that he did ; and it is certain that he behaved 
 harshly and imprudently to those whom he believed to be en- 
 gaged in a malicious conspiracy against his own honor and 
 his employer's interest. He refused to pass the Jamaica Act 
 against pirates or smugglers, although he had received it di- 
 rectly from Whitehall, with a request from the Board of Trade 
 that it should be made law.^ Randolph, one of the commis- 
 sioners appointed for the crown, he cast into prison for inso- 
 lence and outrage ;^ and, finally, he allowed David Loyd, the 
 attorney-general for the colony, to use some expressions in 
 open court, which were considered as an insult to the King's 
 person and government.^ Quarry made the utmost of these 
 imprudent acts. Penn's agents, he said, entered the King's 
 store-houses by force, and carried away the goods which had 
 been lawfully seized from the pirates ; they protected the 
 smugglers who came into the Delaware with merchandise from 
 New York and elsewhere ; they endeavored to ruin the admi- 
 ralty officers ; and even threatened their lives. A pirate ves- 
 sel, he said, had appeared in the river, but Colonel Markham 
 would not lend assistance to capture it ; and such of the 
 pirates as" were taken prisoners were merely confined in a 
 tavern, the Quakers not being willing to send them to the gaol.* 
 To put an end to these disorders, the council made an order, 
 depriving Colonel Markham of the powers which he had 
 wielded for five years very much to his relative's satisfaction, 
 and with no greater violence to the King's interests than 
 every public officer in America held himself free to commit.* 
 Intelligence which he had previously obtained — his friend 
 Popple became secretary to the Lords of Trade — had pre- 
 pared Penn to expect this measure ; and he had prudently 
 signified to the council his own intention of starting for Phi- 
 ladelphia in a few weeks. On the same day, therefore, in 
 which Markham was deposed, another Order in Council was 
 made, approving of certain suggestions from the Board of 
 
 ' Plant. Gen. Papers, August 25, 1698. State Paper Office. 
 
 2 Proprietary Papers, August 8, 9. State Paper Office. 
 
 3 Ibid. December 1— March 1, 1699. State Paper Office. * Ibid. Juno 6. 
 ^ Proprietary Papers, August 31. State Paper Office. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 293 
 
 Trade, and recommending them to Penn's attention.^ Hoping 
 to remain in America for some years, if not for the remainder 
 of his life, he prepared to take his wife and family — with the 
 exception of his son William, who would not hear of going — 
 and all the domestic and personal conveniences desirable in a 
 new country and a permanent home.^ 
 
 Embarking at Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, they sailed on 
 the 9th of September, to encounter the tedium of a three 
 months' voyage. About the time they left England, the yel- 
 low fever broke out in Philadelphia, and carried off great 
 numbers of the people ; but, when they arrived, its virulence 
 had considerably abated, and no evil arose to the family from 
 the prevalence of this dreadful contagion.^ Being Sunday 
 morning when the vessel reached Philadelphia, Penn went 
 first of all to visit his cousin — a proper attention under the 
 circumstances in which he was involved by the jealousy of his 
 enemies — and then repaired to the meeting-house to see and 
 address the inhabitants.'* His reception was most enthusiastic. 
 The people in general had long mourned over his absence, 
 says Thomas Loyd, one of the ex-deputies ; and now believ- 
 ing that he would never leave them again to become the dupes 
 of faction and the prey of designing men, they were filled 
 with joy and thanksgiving..^ 
 
 Special instructions were sent out by the council for his 
 guidance in what related to the vexed questions of piracy and 
 the imperial revenue ; and his first public act on assuming the 
 reins of government was to send forth a severe proclamation 
 against pirates and contraband traders.^ But not content with 
 proclaiming, he informed his ofiicers and council that, as they 
 were anxious to preserve his rights and their own honor, they 
 must use every endeavor to put down this illegal traffic. He 
 placed himself in friendly communication with Colonel Quarry 
 
 ' Proprietary Papers, August 31 and September 12, State Paper OflBce. 
 
 2 Besse, i. 145. 
 
 ^ Story was in Philadelphia at the time, and has left a vivid description of 
 its effects in his Journal. "Great was the fear that fell upon all flesh. I 
 saw no lofty nor airy countenance, nor heard any vain jesting to move men 
 to laughter, nor witty repartee to raise mirth, nor extravagant feasting to 
 excite the lusts and desires of the flesh ; but every face gathered paleness, 
 and many hearts were humbled, and countenances fallen, as of those who 
 waited every moment to be summoned to the grave." 
 
 "* Hazard's Register, 4. 92. * Watson's Annals, 24. 
 
 ^ America and West Indies Papers, Dec. 23, 1699. State Paper Office. 
 
 25* 
 
294 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 — who had received from the Admiralty an order to pay great 
 respect to the person of the governor^ — and discussed with 
 him the wisest course of proceeding, with a view to re-estab- 
 lish harmony and activity between the two services. The 
 revenue agent was molified by this courtesy and entered 
 readily into the governor's plans. No more complaints were 
 sent to London; and in less than three months from the 
 landing in the Delaware, Quary had become a firm friend to 
 the colony. The change was marvellous. In his letters to the 
 Lords of Trade and Plantations, he reported that Penn's 
 arrival had completely changed the state of affairs, that 
 offending officers had been displaced, that the pirates were 
 being pursued with vigor, and that two acts had been passed 
 which would meet the evils complained of for the future.^ 
 
 Anxious to put an end to the dispute as early as possible, 
 Penn called the members of his council and the general 
 assembly together some weeks before the usual time of meet- 
 ing. As yet there was no law in Pennsylvania against piracy; 
 and when the Quakers had formerly refused to commit pirates 
 to the common gaol, they could quote their code of laws in 
 justification of their refusal. This evil was the first to be 
 met. The weather was bitterly cold ; it was impossible to 
 transact the ordinary business of the session ; and as soon as 
 they had passed two enactments, one against pirates and one 
 against contraband trade, which they did on the governor's 
 most energetic remonstrance — but as it would seem some- 
 what reluctantly, — he dismissed them for the remainder of the 
 winter.^ Now that he was legally armed against them, the 
 task of putting down the pirates was rendered much more 
 easy of accomplishment. By the end of February, he was 
 able to lay before Secretary Vernon and the Board of Trade 
 a statement of his doings in behalf of the crown interests ;"* 
 and' in due time received from Whitehall an assurance that his 
 conduct was highly satisfactory to the government.* 
 
 These critical affairs got into a train for amendment, Penn 
 had leisure to settle his family at Pennsbury, his country 
 mansion, near the Falls of Trenton on the Delaware. As 
 this was the chief place of his residence while in the colony, 
 
 « riant. Gen. Papers, Sept. 12, State Paper Office. 
 
 2 Proprietary Papers, March 6, 1700. State Paper Office. 
 
 3 America and West Indies Pape s, Feb. 26, 1700. State Paper Office. 
 
 ■* Proprietary Papers, Feb. 27. State Paper Office, ^ Ibid. Aug. 23. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 295 
 
 and had alvrays been designed as his ultimate home, some 
 account of the estate and of his daily ways of life as they 
 can now be recovered from old letters, anecdotes, and tradi- 
 tions, will not be uninteresting to the reader of his memoirs. 
 The estate of Pennsbury was an ancient Indian royalty. 
 It had been chosen as the abode of chieftains for the peculiar 
 character of its situation : affluents from the great river bend- 
 ing no less than three several times round it, so as, in the 
 ruder ages of warfare, to constitute an almost impregnable 
 natural defence. When the estate was first laid out by Mark- 
 ham, it consisted of 8431 acres; but a large portion of the 
 ground was left in its forest state as a park for the governor, 
 and he from time to time reduced its dimensions by a series of 
 grants to different individuals.^ In this noble island his agents 
 had begun to build, even before his first arrival in the country, 
 a mansion worthy of the governor of a great province; and 
 during his absence in England it had been completed. The 
 front of the house, sixty feet long, faced the Delaware, and 
 the upper windows commanded a magnificent view of the 
 river and of the opposite shores of New Jersey. The depth 
 of the manor house was forty feet, and on each of the wings 
 the various outhouses were so disposed as to produce an agree- 
 able and picturesque effect.^ The brew-house, a large wooden 
 building covered with shingles, — Penn was not unused to the 
 good old Saxon drink, — was at the back, some little distance 
 from the mansion, and concealed among the trees. ^ The house 
 itself stood on a gentle eminence ; it was two stories high, and 
 was built of fine brick and covered with tiles.^ The entrance 
 led by a large and handsome porch and stone steps into a 
 spacious hall, extending nearly the whole length of the house, 
 which was used on public occasions for the entertainment of 
 distinguished guests and the reception of the Indian tribes. 
 The rooms were arranged in suites, with ample folding doors, 
 and were all wainscoted with English oak.^ A simple but 
 correct taste was observable throughout ; the interior orna- 
 ments were chaste, and the oaken capital at the porch was 
 appropriately decorated with the carving of a vine and clusters 
 of grapes. The more elaborate of these decorations had been 
 sent from England by the governor.^ The gardens were the 
 
 ' Sherman Day's Historical Collections, 153. 
 
 2 Ibid. 154. ^ Watson, 67. 
 
 " Penn. Hist. Soc Mem. i. 112; and ditto iii. Pt. ii. 04. 
 
 5 Ibid. ^ Watson, 10, and note. 
 
296 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 wonder of the colony for their extent and beauty. A country 
 house, with an ample garden, was the governor's passion ; and 
 he spared neither care nor money to make the grounds of 
 Pennsbury a little Eden. He procured in. England and from 
 Scotland the most skillful gardeners he could find. In one of 
 his letters he speaks of his good fortune in having met with 
 "a rare artist" in this line, who is to have three men under 
 him ; and if he cannot agree with Ralph, the old gardener, 
 they are to divide the grounds between them, Ralph taking 
 the upper gardens and the court-yards, the rare artist having 
 charge of all the lower grounds ; and he gives ample instruc- 
 tions as to every detail of their proceedings.^ Lawns, shrub- 
 beries and flower-beds surrounded the manor on every side. 
 A broad walk, lined with majestic poplars, led to the river 
 brink, a flight of stone steps forming the descent from the 
 higher terrace to the lower. The woods in the vicinity were 
 laid out with w^alks and drives ; the old forest trees were care- 
 fully preserved ; the most beautiful wild flowers found in the 
 country were transplanted to his gardens ; trees and shrubs 
 not indigenous to the soil were imported from Maryland ; 
 while walnuts, hawthorns, hazels, and various kinds of fruit- 
 trees, seeds, and roots, were sent for to England.^ 
 
 The furnishing of Pennsbury was to match. Mahogany 
 was a luxury then unknown ; but his spider tables and high- 
 backed carved chairs were of the finest oak. An inventory 
 of the furniture is still extant;^ there were a set of Turkey 
 worked chairs, arm-chairs for ease, and couches with plush 
 and satin cushions for luxury and beauty. In the parlor 
 stood the great leather chair of the proprietor ; in every room 
 were found cushions and curtains of satin, camlet, damask, 
 and striped linen ; and there is a carpet mentioned as being 
 in one apartment, though at that period such an article was 
 hardly ever seen except in the palaces of Kings."* His side- 
 board furniture was also that of a gentleman ; it included a 
 service of silver, — plain but massive, — blue and white china, 
 a complete set of Tonbridge ware, and a great quantity of 
 damask table-clothes and fine napkins.^ The table was served 
 as became his rank, plainly but plentifully. Ann Nichols was 
 
 ^ Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 94, An admirable paper on the do- 
 mestic life of Penn, gathered from his cash books and business letters by 
 Francis Fisher. 
 
 2 Ibid. 95. 3 Ibid. 85. 4 Ibid. 86. 5 Ibid. 85. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 297 
 
 his cook ; and he used to observe in his pleasantry — " Ah, 
 the book of cookery has outgrown the Bible, and I fear is 
 read oftener — to be sure it is of more use." — But he was no 
 favorer of excess, because, as he said, " it destroys hospitality 
 and wrongs the poor." The French cuisine, then in great 
 vogue, was a subject of his frequent ridicule. — " The sauce is 
 now prepared before the meat," says he, in his maxims, 
 ^' twelve penny worth of flesh with five shillings of cookery 
 may happen to make a fashionable dish. Plain beef and mut- 
 ton is become dull food ; but by the time its natural relish is 
 lost in the crowd of cook's ingredients, and the meat suflici- 
 ently disguised from the eaters, it passes under a French 
 name for a rare dish." His cellars werew^ell stocked; Canary, 
 claret, sack, and Madeira being the favorite wines consumed 
 by his family and their guests.^ Besides these nobler drinks 
 there was a plentiful supply, on all occasions of Indian or 
 general festivity, of ale and cider. Penn's own wine seems 
 to have been Madeira f and he certainly had no dislike to the 
 temperate pleasures of the table. In one of his letters to his 
 steward, Sotcher, he writes — ''Pray send us some two or 
 three smoked haunches of venison and pork — get them from 
 the Swedes; also some smoked shads and beefs," adding with 
 delicious unction, — " the old priest at Philadelphia had rare 
 shads. "^ 
 
 For travelling, the family had a large coach, but in conse- 
 quence of the badness of the roads, even those between 
 Pennsbury and Philadelphia, it was seldom used, — a calesh 
 in which they chiefly drove about, — and a sedan chair in 
 which Hannah and Letty went a shopping in the city, or to 
 pay visits of ceremony to their female acquaintance in the 
 near neighborhood. The governor himself went about the 
 country on horseback, and from one settlement to another in 
 his yacht. He retained the passion for boating, which he had 
 acquired at Oxford,"* to the last ; and that love of fine horses 
 which the Englishman shares with the Arab did not forsake 
 him in the New World. At his first visit to America he car- 
 ried over three blood mares, a fine white horse not of full 
 breed, and other inferior animals, not for breeding but for 
 
 * Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 84. Hannah Penn to Logan. PhiL 
 Friend, xviii. 353. 
 
 2 Penn to Logan, Sept. 14, 1705. 
 
 ^ Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Pt. ii. 84. ■* Wood's Oxon. art. Pmn. 
 
298 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 labor. His inquiries about the mares were as frequent and 
 minute as those about the gardens ; and when he went out 
 for the second time, in 1699, he took with him the magnificent 
 colt Tamerlane, by the celebrated Godolphin Barb, to which 
 the best horses in England trace their pedigree.-^ Yet Tamer- 
 lane himself could not win his master's affections from his 
 yacht, a fine vessel of six oars, with a regular crew, who re- 
 ceived their wages as such — and well deserved them while the 
 governor was in the country. In giving some directions about 
 his house and effects after his return to England, he writes of 
 this yacht — " but above all dead things, I hope nobody uses 
 her on any account, and that she is kept in a dry dock, or at 
 least covered from the weather."^ 
 
 The dress and habits of the Penns at Pennsbury had as little 
 of the sourness and formality which have been ascribed to the 
 early followers of George Fox as the mansion and its furnish- 
 ings. There was nothing to mark them as different to most 
 well-bred families of high rank in England and America at 
 the present day. Pennsbury was renowned throughout the 
 country for its judicious hospitalities. The ladies dressed like 
 gentle-women, — wore caps and buckles, silk gowns and golden 
 ornaments.^ Penn had no less than four wigs in America, all 
 purchased in the same year, at a cost of nearly twenty pounds."* 
 To innocent dances and country fairs he not only made no 
 objection, but countenanced them by his own and his family's 
 presence.^ His participation in the sports of the aborigines 
 has been referred to already. Those gentler charities which 
 had distinguished him in England continued to distinguish 
 him in Pennsylvania ; he released the poor debtor from prison, 
 — he supported out of his private purse the sick and the des- 
 titute, — many of the aged who were beyond labor and without 
 friends were regular pensioners on his bounty to the extent 
 of six shillings a fortnight, — and there were numereus persons 
 about him whom he had rescued from distress in England, 
 
 1 Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part. ii. 78. 
 
 2 Ibid. 79. » Ibid. 74, note. 
 
 ^ This in spite of John Mulliner, a Friend who wrote against pernkes. 
 Watson, 178. Penn set the fashion in America; and it became usual for 
 " genteel " Friends to wear wigs and buckles. Ibid. 
 
 ^ The cash-books contain such items as these : "By my mistress at the fair 
 21. Os. 8d. ; by expenses given to Hannah Carpenter as a fairing, 8^. ; by do. 
 to two children for comfits, by order, Is. iJd. ; by the governor going to a cau- 
 tico, 1^. 185. 4d" Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 80. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 290 
 
 and whom he supported wholly or in part until their own in- 
 dustry made them independent of his assistance. Some of the 
 best pages of his history were written in his private cash- 
 books.^ 
 
 In April the Assembly met for the ordinary session. There 
 had been already many changes introduced into the constitu- 
 tion ; and it was well known that a large part, perhaps a ma- 
 jority, of the new parliament, would be favorable to a fresh re- 
 vision. The Holy Experiment was proceeding with more pas- 
 sion and more grasping restlessness on the popular side than its 
 author had expected ; but still he would not admit even to him- 
 self that he felt discouraged. The representatives assumed the 
 right to bring in bills, — they attempted to re-organize the judi- 
 cial system, — they refused to vote any taxes, — they claimed a 
 right to inspect the records of government, — they wished to 
 displace the officers of the courts at their own will, — and they 
 expelled a member of the House for simply reminding them 
 that in making such claims as these they were violating the 
 provisions of their charter.^ Like all new legislators, they 
 betrayed a want of prudence which might have been fatal to 
 their own liberties had any other than a republican enthusiast 
 been their lord proprietor. Penn bore w^th their petulance 
 and ingratitude from motives higher and further reaching than 
 most of the rude colonists could understand : whatever conse- 
 quences might result to himself, he was resolved to realize the 
 dream of his youth, — to lay a foundation for that Holy Empire, 
 the thoughts of wdiich had cheered him in his darkest hours. 
 When the Assembly met in Philadelphia, he addressed them 
 in calm, conciliatory, and encouraging terms : — he began by 
 reminding them that though they were only nineteen years 
 old as a colony, they were already equal in numbers and pros- 
 perity to their neighbors of twice and thrice that standing ; 
 they had a good constitution though it was not perfect ; the 
 growth of the province had been so extraordinary that while 
 some of the laws were already obsolete, others were found to 
 be hurtful ; these must be looked to cautiously. If they wished 
 to have the charter amended, he said he was willing ; he only 
 asked them to lay aside all party feeling, and to do that which 
 was best for all, confident that in the end it w^ould be best for 
 
 ' Penn, Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 87. 
 2 Votes and Proceedings, 32 et seq. 
 
300 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 each. So far as regarded himself, he would simply throw out 
 one hint ; — for nineteen years he had now maintained the 
 whole charge of government out of his private purse. He 
 placed himself in their hands, and hoped. he should never be 
 compelled to leave them again. ^ 
 
 With very unceremonious eagerness, the Assembly was 
 urged by one of the ultras to take the governor at his word; 
 and, as they were now about to commence a new career, to 
 start on a good foundation — in other words, with a new con- 
 stitution. The proprietor said it was not his desire that they 
 should abolish their present charter: yet if they thought it 
 best for their own good, he would consent. They at once voted 
 it desirable to have a new constitution, rather than attempt to 
 mend the old one. No progress, however, was made in the 
 work during that session.^ The other business was of a more 
 local nature, relating to land, revenue, trade, property, and so 
 forth. One topic only needs any reference in this place. When 
 Penn landed in America, negro slaves were already on the 
 soil. Hawkins had the merit of first engaging England in the 
 African slave-trade ; but it is fair to his memory to state that 
 his royal mistress, Elizabeth, not only approved of his barba- 
 rous and marauding expeditions, but actually joined him as 
 an adventurer in the traffic.^ No suspicion that this trade in 
 human beings was infamous and damnable ever seems to have 
 crossed the mind of courtier or soldier. In all the maritime 
 and commercial countries of Europe, slavery was an ancient 
 institution. The cities of Portugal, Italy and Spain were 
 dotted with the dusky forms of negro and Moorish slaves ; in 
 every great househould in the south the sable skin was regarded 
 as an essential part of the furniture. The best and most reli- 
 gious men of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries accepted 
 the existing facts of society without a protest. Columbus in- 
 troduced the negro into America ; Cromwell did not hesitate 
 to sell his own countrymen into bondage ; Locke expressly 
 provided a place for slaves in his constitution, and forbade them 
 even to aspire to a free condition. Such was the state of opinion 
 in Europe when Penn's attention was first practically turned 
 to the subject ; nearly a century after that period the idea was 
 
 The speech is preserved in Hazard's Register, vii. 111. 
 
 Hazard's liegister, vii. Ill, 112. 
 
 Curaden, 158. Hackluyt, ii. 351-2 ; iii. 594. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 301 
 
 still general in England that the capture and sale of Africans 
 was a legitimate branch of trade, and with the blood of the 
 black man our merchants in a great measure built up the re- 
 nown of our most celebrated commercial cities, Bristol and 
 Liverpool. By a special stipulation in the Treaty of Utrecht, 
 our sovereign lady Queen Ann became for a time the largest 
 slave-merchant in the world.* 
 
 It is no demerit in Penn that he did not at once see the 
 evil, and resolutely oppose a system which Locke approved, 
 and his countrymen generally practised or applauded. Yet 
 from the first he would seem to have had doubts and misgiv- 
 ings. While acting under the counsels of Sidney, he had pro- 
 vided that, if the Society of Traders should receive negroes as 
 servants, they must at least set them partially free after four- 
 teen years' service — that is, make them adscripts of the soil, 
 the Society giving to each man a piece of land, with the ne- 
 cessary implements for its cultivation, and receiving in return 
 two-thirds of the entire produce : if the negroes themselves 
 refused these terms, they were to continue slaves.^ Many years 
 after this he spoke of slavery as a matter of course;^ and 
 though he refrained from the actual purchase of negroes, so 
 as in strict fact never to become a slave-owner, yet he con- 
 stantly hired them from their masters, and they formed a 
 regular part of the establishment at Pennsbury.'' But his 
 mind was not at rest on their account ; and his less sophisti- 
 cated followers from the Upper Rhine had already started the 
 novel doctrine that it was not Christian-like to buy and keep 
 negroes. Coming from an inland and agricultural country, 
 where the luxury and license of commercial cities were un- 
 known, the fact of good men buying and selling human beings, 
 — owning men with immortal spirits, — men who in a few years, 
 according to their own avowed belief, would become not only 
 their own equals, but the glorious peers of angels, and arch- 
 angels, — struck them as something monstrous and incredible. 
 They appealed in their concern to the Society of Friends, — 
 but the Friends as a body declined to pronounce an opinion 
 on the subject.* Still, having been started, it came up again 
 
 1 Bolingbroke (Cooke's ed.), i. 175. ^ Watson, 480. 
 
 3 Penn to Harrison, Oct. 4, 1685 
 
 4 App. to Fisher, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 103. A note will be 
 found on this subject in the following chapter. 
 
 5 Watson, 480. 
 
 26 
 
302 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 and again at their meetings. When Penn arrived the second 
 time in America, there were many who doubted the lawfulness 
 of retaining slaves ; yet, on looking at the matter calmly, he 
 felt certain that between the two races there existed an intel- 
 lectual inequality which no act of Assembly could remove, 
 and which must of necessity preclude social equality, until by 
 process of education and lapse of time the Negro had been 
 raised in the scale of being, and the Caucasian reconciled to 
 his presence. With this conviction he began to work : — first 
 he tried to get his own religious body practically to recognize 
 the fact that a black man has a soul, by taking some little 
 care for it ; whereupon a separate monthly meeting for negroes 
 was established.* Next he looked at their moral condition, — 
 and found them living in the grossest ignorance, and in their 
 homes very much like brutes. As they were liable to be sold 
 and carried away to distant parts of the country, it was not 
 convenient to their owners that they should form deep conjugal 
 attachments ; yet, as every born negro was an additional chat- 
 tel, worth so many pounds in the slave-market, criminal inter- 
 course between the sexes was encouraged, rather than rebuked. 
 Penn was anxious to check this growing evil by a formal law ; 
 and as the breach of a law necessarily involved some kind of 
 punishment, he resolved to introduce two bills into the Assem- 
 bly, which he did with the complete sanction of the colonial 
 council. The first provided for a better regulation of the 
 morals and marriages of negroes, the second provided for the 
 modes of their trial and punishment in cases of offence. After 
 a stormy debate, the Assembly rejected the first of these bills : 
 — they would not have the morals of their slaves improved !^ 
 The governor cherished his design for a more auspicious 
 season. 
 
 The session over, Penn returned to Pennsbury. The 
 condition of the original natives of the soil occupied a con- 
 siderable share of his attention. He justly regarded them as 
 very superior in calibre and character to the African race, — 
 and an impression which had seized upon his mind that they 
 were descended from the long-lost tribes of Israel, tended not 
 only to increase his concern for their interests, but to persuade 
 him that they were capable of being reclaimed to Christianity 
 and civilization.^ When he made the Great Treaty with them 
 
 1 Watson, 481. 2 i\^i^{^ ' 
 
 3 Penn's Letter to Free Society of Traders, August G, 1683. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 803 
 
 in 1682, — a treaty which thay had faithfully kept through a 
 long war under many temptations, — he had proposed to 
 himself to call a council of the chiefs and warriors twice 
 a-year, to renew the treaty of friendship, to adjust matters of 
 trade, to hear and rectify wrongs, and to smoke the pipe of 
 peace. While he remained in the colony this intention was 
 strictly carried into effect.^ His mild measures completely 
 won the noble nature of the Red Men. 
 
 The Delaware and Susquehanna tribes had now enjoyed the 
 mild and equitable rule established at the Great Treaty for 
 nearly twenty years, and were anxious to bring other of their 
 tribes within shelter of the same system of law, but more es- 
 pecially their brethren dwelling on the banks of the Potomac.^ 
 They appealed to the great Onas ; and early in April 1701, 
 he met by appointment to arrange these matters — Connoo- 
 daghtoh, king of the Susquehanna Indians — Wopatha, king of 
 the Shawanese — Weewhinjough, king of the Ganawese — and 
 Ahookassong, brother to the great Emperor of the Five 
 Nations, and about forty of their chief warriors. At this 
 conference they discussed their several interests, and a treaty 
 of peace and trade was established by mutual consent, on the 
 same terms as had formerly been granted to the Lenni Lenap^. 
 The red man and the white man were to be as one head and 
 as one heart. The Indians were to be protected from the 
 rapacity of the traders ; and as they bound themselves not 
 to sell their furs and skins out of Pennsylvania, the governor 
 gave orders that no man should trade with them except the 
 persons who were duly authorized, and therefore known and 
 responsible for any misdeeds. He thought it possible to 
 teach morals by means of commerce, and on these terms the 
 Potomac Indians were allowed to settle in the colony, the 
 Susquehanna and Delaware tribes pledging themselves for 
 their good behavior. A treaty of peace and friendship was 
 also concluded with Ahookassong as the ambassador of his 
 imperial brother, on the part of the Five Nations. This was 
 an important point gained, even in a military sense ; for the 
 war still raged on the frontiers, and this judicious measure 
 added another bulwark to Pennsylvania. The governor lost 
 
 1 Fishbourne's MSS. quoted in Watson, 445. 
 
 2 Proprietary Papers, April 23. State Paper Office. 
 
304 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 no time in transmitting the intelligence of his success in these 
 negotiations to the ministry in England.-' 
 
 Three months later, a council of ratification was held at 
 Pennsbury, attended by a great number of Indians, and by 
 all the officers of the colonial government.^ After the cere- 
 mony of reciting and accepting the treaty was over, Penn 
 entertained his guests in the great hall. Later in the day 
 they went out of the house into an open space of the garden 
 to perform their cantico — a picturesque and agreeable medley 
 of singing, dancing, and shouting — each expressive of a sense 
 of joy and victory.^ 
 
 In the intervals of his more pressing labors at home, the 
 governor kept up a series of communications with Lord Balla- 
 mont, the King's governor at New York, and with Colonel 
 Blakiston, Colonel Nicholson, and other governors of pro- 
 vinces. Many questions of general importance needed to be 
 arranged ; and a conference was held at New York for the 
 purpose of settling the heads of a general regulation for all 
 the colonies, royal and private."* Penn seems to have been 
 the leading spirit in this conference of powers. The first 
 point which engaged their attention was a suggestion of his, 
 to reduce the money then current in America to one standard. 
 The irregularity and confusion in regard to the coinage was 
 almost incredible : the same piece of money passed in Mary- 
 land for 4s. 6(i., in Virginia for 5s., in Massachussets for 6s., 
 in New York for 6s. 9d., and in Pennsylvania and the Jerseys 
 for 7s. Sd.^ A second point was a project for encouraging 
 the timber-trade in the colonies ; a third related to the regu- 
 lation of marriages — a crying abuse — the men going from 
 one colony to another, bigamy was almost as common as wed- 
 lock ; a fourth concerned the establishment of a general postal 
 system ; a fifth urged the necessity for a comprehensive act 
 of naturalization, by which the multitudes of French, Dutch, 
 and Swedes, arriving every year, might at once acquire rights 
 of property, and attain to the privileges, as well as to the 
 responsibilities, of English subjects. A calm and obvious 
 wisdom pervaded these various suggestions, but rare in that 
 age of political passion and narrow views. There were 
 
 1 Prop. Papers, April 23. State Paper Office. His letter contains a copy of 
 the Treaty. 2 Watson, 445, 6. ^ Richardsou's Journal. 
 
 ^ Proprietary Papers, Dec. 8-13. State Paper Office, 
 s Ibid. vol. vi. G. 8 (no date). 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 305 
 
 several other points of local and temporary interest dis- 
 cussed ; and one of them, strongly urged by Penn, exhibits 
 an instance of his fine political sagacity. In the settlement 
 of boundaries with the French, he indicated, as the basis of 
 agreement, the line of the great lakes, — on the double ground, 
 that those inland waters formed a strong natural defence, and 
 were the chief centres of the Indian trade. His advice was 
 afterwards adopted by the government.^ Lord Ballamont 
 having agreed to these several suggestions, Penn returned to 
 Philadelphia, embodied them in a report, and transmitted 
 them to London. The Lords of Trade and Plantations re- 
 ceived them with much satisfaction, and admitted their wisdom 
 and propriety.^ 
 
 While thus engaged in appeasing the animosities of faction 
 within, and in laying more solidly and extensively the foun- 
 dations of peace and security without, the governor received 
 intelligence from England, which disconcerted all his plans, 
 and in a few weeks forced upon him the alternative of losing 
 his colony or instantly repairing to London. The war with 
 France, and the alliance of the Canadians with the Iroquois, 
 gave the friends of an imperial colonial system an immense 
 advantage with the Dutch sovereign ; and in the absence of 
 most of the great proprietors, they had so far pushed their 
 successes as to have got a bill introduced into the House of 
 Lords for converting the private into crown colonies.^ This 
 was the startling intelligence which he now received. Of 
 course the attack on his property and private rights was veiled 
 under pretences of public good : but he saw through the dis- 
 guise, knew the men who were its authors, and felt certain 
 that after what he had already done, he should be able to 
 convince the King of his faithfulness to his great trust. He 
 had not only renewed and extended his friendly treaties with 
 the natives in his own vicinity, but by his urgent letters and 
 counsels had engaged Lord Ballamont to conclude a treaty of 
 peace for all the settlements of the English in North America 
 with the formidable Emperor of the Five Nations ;'' and within 
 his own province he had organized a regular system of signals 
 and watchers, so that the appearance of any suspicious- sail in 
 
 1 Proprietary Papers, Dec. 13, and vol. vi. G. 8. State Paper Office. 
 
 2 Ibid. Marginal notes to the report. 
 
 3 Besse, i. 145. Lords' Journals, xvi. 660. 
 * Speech to the Assembly, Sep. 15, 1701. 
 
 26* 
 
306 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 the waters of the Delaware would be instantly reported to 
 the government at Philadelphia. The question of a war con- 
 tribution had not yet properly come before the Assembly, 
 peace having been restored in Europe ; but now the great 
 drama known in history as the war of the Spanish Succession 
 was opening in all its mournful and calamitous grandeur, and 
 the King had written to Penn to have his contingent, or the 
 money equivalent, ready at the first call, — if the eighty men 
 were not furnished, a sum of 350?. was to be raised as a con- 
 tribution, and sent to NewYork. This demand he had already 
 laid before the Assembly ; but that body, as in every other 
 case where money was in question, obstinately determined not 
 to concede a point, talked of their great poverty — doubted 
 whether the other provinces had done their duty — and finally 
 resolved to postpone the further consideration of his majesty's 
 letter, until the war had actually commenced. Afi'airs were 
 in this posture, when Penn received from Lawton, to whom 
 he had left the care of his interests in London,^ the account 
 of what was passing in the House of Lords. No time was 
 to be lost. The owners of Pennsylvania property then in 
 England petitioned the House to postpone the further dis- 
 cussion of the Colonies Bill until Penn could return and be 
 heard at the bar in defence of their rights and his own f and 
 the younger William Penn kept a vigilant eye on the pro- 
 ceedings of the crown-party, some of which were far from 
 being to their credit. The House of Lords was deceived as 
 to the state of the colony, as the Board of Trade, obstinately 
 determined to annex the proprietary provinces to the crown, 
 kept back some of the more important papers, and tried to 
 seduce Parliament into a flagrant wrong by unfair representa- 
 tions.^ Young Penn appeared before a Committee of the 
 House by counsel, — and his pleas tended at least to protract 
 the inquiry.^ In the colony itself, the feeling against an act 
 of annexation to the crown was almost universal. Having 
 called the popular representatives together, the governor laid 
 the alarming intelligence which he had received before them : 
 they urged him to return at once, and defend their common 
 interests.-^ He said he could not think of such a voyage 
 
 » Proprietary Papers, Dec. 8-13, 1700. State Paper Office. 
 2 Besse, i. 145. 3 Lords' Journals, xvi. 676. 
 
 '' His activity may be traced in Lords' Journals xvi. 660, 2, 4, 6, 676, 684, 
 8> ^^7. 5 Hazard's Register, xii. 363. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 30T 
 
 without great reluctance — (his wife had recently given birth 
 to a son, and was still in a delicate state of health) — as he had 
 promised himself a quiet home amongst them in his old age ; 
 and even if he should now go away for a season, no unkind- 
 ness or disappointment would be able to change his fixed de- 
 termation to return and settle his family in the country. He 
 advised them to decide quickly as to what ought to be done 
 for the general security in his absence, — what changes were 
 needed in the existing constitution, — and what new laws 
 were required by the new circumstances which had arisen on 
 every side. He recommended the King's letter touching the 
 subsidy to their prompt and serious consideration, that being 
 the key-note of his answer to the misgivings of the court in 
 England.^ 
 
 The members thanked him in general terms for these gra- 
 cious words, and then appointed committees to draw up various 
 statements and prepare the business of the session.^ One 
 cannot read the record of their proceedings without a feeling 
 of contempt and indignation. Instead of aiding him to meet 
 the emergencies of the hour with such means as lay within 
 their reach, — instead of voting the subsidy and amending the 
 general laws, — they drew up a list of demands which were 
 equally insulting and unjust. One of these was a request 
 that the price of the unsold land should be permanently fixed 
 at the old rent of a bushel of wheat in a hundred ; so that 
 while their own estates were trebled or quintupled in value 
 with cultivation and the increase of inhabitants, his should 
 not share in the natural increase ! Another was a request 
 that he would lay out all the unsold bay-marshes, a rich and 
 highly productive soil, as common land ! There was much 
 more to the same effect. The ungrateful settlers found him 
 on the eve of a journey to England, for the purpose of enter- 
 ing into a dispute in which he might be worsted, the crown itself 
 being both judge and client, and they sought to wring out of 
 his misfortunes the largest share of personal gain for them- 
 selves. His equanimity under such an insult was surprising. 
 His feelings were deeply hurt, but he reasoned calmly and 
 logically. The inconsistency of their demands was pointed 
 out, — concessions, where no principle was involved, were made, 
 — and the Assembly, perhaps ashamed of its own rapacious 
 
 ' Speech to the Assembly, Sept. 15. 3 Besse, i. 145 
 
308 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 conduct, returned to something like a sense of its position 
 and its duties. The new charter of liberties was argued at 
 great length, — and on the 28th of October it was finally set- 
 tled and accepted in the presence of the Council and Assem- 
 bly. It contained several minor encroachments on the powers 
 of the governor and his council :— but the chief innovation of 
 a purely political nature was the right which the assembly 
 now acquired to originate bills. They had done this for some 
 time illegally and on sufferance ; they were henceforth esta- 
 blished in their usurped right by charter.^ 
 
 Then came the question of money. Penn had plenty of 
 land under cultivation, — the fields gave him corn and meat, 
 — the rivers abounded with fish, — and the air yielded stores 
 of birds for his table. To live in America with little or no 
 money was easy enough in his circumstances. But to remove 
 his family across the Atlantic was an expensive affair : — a 
 vessel must be hired, an outfit provided, wages must be paid. 
 Yet the Assembly would do nothing for him in the way of a 
 grant ; and he was ultimately obliged to sell, on any terms, 
 as much land as would cover the expenses of his voyage home.^ 
 To the last moment the Assembly refused to take upon the 
 country the charges of its own government !^ 
 
 His preparations for departure were hastily made. The 
 two ladies were in a flutter of delight at the idea of returning 
 to England. After the novelties of the scene were over, they 
 had felt no cordial love for the wilderness ; and had more than 
 once urged the governor to take them back."* They were per- 
 haps the only persons in Pennsylvania who rejoiced at their 
 departure. 
 
 As soon as the news had got abroad that Onas was about 
 to quit the Delaware, the Indians came in from all parts of 
 the country to take leave of him. A foreboding that he would 
 never more return across the great salt lake haunted their 
 untutored minds, and they clung to his assurances of amity 
 and justice with the greater force, under the fear that his 
 children would not be to them what he had been. To comfort 
 them in their distress, he introduced them to his council, and 
 again repeated his desires with respect to their humane and 
 
 ' A copy of the charter is in Proprietary Papers, Oct. 28, ,1701. State 
 Paper Office. 2 Penn to Logan, Sept. 8. 
 
 3 PhiL Friend, xviii. 345. 4 Pem^ to Logan, Sept. 8. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 309 
 
 honorable treatment ; the members of the council pledged 
 themselves to carry out his wishes just as if he were still 
 living at Pennsbury, to punish the guilty and protect the in- 
 nocent. With these promises they were obliged to be satisfied, 
 but they took their parting gifts very sorrowfully, — and after 
 the lapse of a century and a half the memory of that day 
 was still fresh in the hearts of their descendants. 
 
 The vessel in which the family were to sail being now ready, 
 he appointed James Logan his agent, and Colonel Hamilton, 
 ex-governor of the Jerseys, his deputy, with the full consent 
 of the assembly.^ The latter personage was to be assisted 
 by a council of ten ; and, at the urgent request of the repre- 
 sentatives, who fancied that affairs would necessarily proceed 
 more regularly if one of the proprietarial family were in the 
 colony, the governor promised to send over his son William 
 without delay, that he might learn betimes the nature and 
 wants of the country he would in a few years have to govern.^ 
 Penn saw no more of the Holy Experiment P 
 
 1 Proprietary Papers, Oct. 27. State Paper Office. 
 
 2 Phil. Friend, xviii. 354. 3 jjesse, i. 147. 
 
310 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 1702-1717. 
 THE CLOSING SCENES. 
 
 When Penn arrived in England he found the state of parties 
 changed and changing daily. Death was busy in the high 
 places of the earth. Less than three months before his re- 
 turn, his old guardian, the exiled King, had paid the debt of 
 nature. In little more than three months after, his son-in-law 
 was also gathered to the tomb. The game of his ambition 
 had been played out. The native ruler was laid by strangers 
 in a foreign soil : the un-English prince was interred in West- 
 minster Abbey by the side of our ancient kings. William had 
 won ; — but it was a joyless victory. He had served the ends 
 of a great party ; and that party upheld him then, and ap- 
 plaud his memory now. But he never was the King of Eng- 
 lishmen. He lived unloved, — and he died unmourned.-^ 
 
 The Princess Ann, like her sister Mary, had been a firm 
 friend, so far as her nature could be firm, to the governor of 
 Pennsylvania ; and as soon as she succeeded to the throne, 
 he became once more a frequent and a welcome guest at court.^ 
 But even before William's death, he had been somewhat re- 
 lieved from his anxieties on account of the colony. The pro- 
 tests, the examination of witnesses, the delays caused by the 
 production of papers, — the opposition made by young Penn 
 on his father's behalf, and by the Earl of Bath on his own 
 account, — had caused the session to slip away without the 
 Bill of Annexation arriving at maturity; and the process 
 would, therefore, have to commence anew in the succeeding 
 parliament.^ His fears were much abated. In the Upper 
 House he knew that he had many powerful friends whom his 
 personal influence would rouse to active exertions in his be- 
 half; and of the favorable disposition of the Commons he had 
 
 1 Burnet, iv. 539.— Onslow's note, 541, 2. 2 Besse, i. 147. 
 
 3 Lord's Journals, xvi. 736. The further progress of the bill (see note 3, 
 p. 306) may be traced, 700, 15, 17, 22, 26, 86. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 311 
 
 a strong assurance in the fact, that as soon as the members 
 of that House met together, his adroit and steadfast friend 
 Harley was chosen speaker.^ The bill introduced and dis- 
 cussed in the House of Lords the previous session was not 
 again brought forward.^ Of this bill it is enough to say, that 
 it contemplated a huge national robbery, not proposing to re- 
 purchase the colonial governments from their private owners, 
 but to seize them by pretence of law against every admitted 
 principle of justice.^ The rapacity of the party in favor of 
 crown-colonies was one of the best elements of security for 
 Penn ; as he said in one of his reports to the Queen's govern- 
 ment, they proposed to take from him the rights for which 
 twenty years ago he had cancelled a debt of sixteen thousand 
 pounds. That debt, at the legal rate of six per cent, compound 
 interest, would have been more than trebled in 1702 ; if Eng- 
 land took away his government, it would be only just to pay 
 him the money. But the annexation clique had not thought 
 of doing this ; on the contrary, they pretended that if they 
 left his civil rights untouched, it was sufficient. He replied 
 that the soil was his own by subsequent and legal purchase 
 from the natives ; that his bargain with King Charles and the 
 Duke of York was for the government of the country."* King 
 William admitted this statement of the case to be correct ; 
 and, covetous of power as he was, he declined to adopt the 
 suggestions of his friends, when they advised him to tear in 
 pieces the old charters of the colonies. The Board of Trade, 
 determined, if possible, not to be defeated with their bill in 
 the approaching session, sent to the Earl of Manchester, the 
 King's principal Secretary of State, an unfair and most ex- 
 aggerated statement of the disorders, abuses, and discontents 
 which, they said, reigned in the proprietaries ; of the greater 
 abuses and discontents which prevailed in the royal colonies 
 not a word was said ; and on the papers so placed in his hands 
 he was desired to obtain his majesty's opinion.^ The infor- 
 mation on which the Board acted was obtained for them by 
 one Randolph, — the same fellow whom Markham had sent to 
 gaol for his insolence, — and a m6re paltry basis for a serious 
 
 1 Penn to Logan, Jan. 24, 1702. 2 Besse, i. 147. 
 
 3 A copy of the bill is in State Paper Office. Proprietary Papers, April 8, 
 1702. 
 
 ■* Proprietaries, vol. vii. L. 38. State Paper Office 
 
 ^ Plant. Gen. Papers, vol. xxxvi. p. 36. State Paper Office. 
 
312 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 charge has perhaps never been known. This agent had worked 
 for his masters in the lowest sinks of American society ; and 
 out of prison reports and ale-house gossip he concocted a list 
 of what he called ''high crimes and misdemeanors" against 
 the proprietors of North and South Carolina, Maryland, Dela- 
 ware, Pennsylvania, East and West New Jersey, the Bahama 
 Islands, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and 
 Massachusetts.^ On these hints the Board at home acted ; 
 but William set aside such considerations with the contempt 
 they deserved. To the military question he was more alive ; 
 but he would not hear of the proprietors being dispossessed 
 of their governments by an act of parliament. Manchester 
 returned an answer to the Lords of Trade, in which he gave 
 the heads of a bill agreeable to the King's ministry. It pro- 
 vided that the King should command the entire naval and 
 military strength of the colonies, — that justice should be ad- 
 ministered in his name, — and that he should possess a nega- 
 tive on all future laws.^ The laws and charters of the colonies, 
 the civil and political powers, privileges and jurisdiction of the 
 proprietors, were left untouched. The Board opposed this 
 draft of an enactment, as not meeting the abuses, disorders, 
 and discontents, to the existence of which they now thought 
 themselves pledged. They replied that the bill formerly under 
 discussion in the House of Lords was the only measure to 
 which they could give their confidence.^ 
 
 The accession of Ann put an end for a time to these in- 
 trigues ; but troubles continued to increase on account of the 
 colony ; and family circumstances, within a year or two of 
 that event, induced Penn himself to make proposals of a sur- 
 render to the crown. As soon as he landed in England, the 
 governor had prepared to redeem his promise by sending his 
 son to Philadelphia; but in his father's absence this ill-starred 
 youth had given himself up to the worst excesses, and was 
 now little disposed to leave the brilliant and dissipated life of 
 London for the dull solitudes of a new country and the stiff 
 decorum of a Quaker city. From his school-days he had kept 
 the highest company ; and, thoroughly instructed in the w^ays 
 of vice, he had only waited his father's departure from Eng- 
 
 ' Proprietary Papers, vol. vi. G. 3. State Paper Office. 
 
 2 Ibid. vi. IL 13. State Paper Office. 
 
 3 Ibid. xxvi. 383. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 313 
 
 land, — as was then thought by all the family on an absence 
 of years, — to enter into them with all the ardor of unchecked 
 youthful passions. He drank — he roystered' about — he kept 
 women. When his father returned so suddenly and unexpect- 
 edly, he found him deep in debt, and almost ruined in consti- 
 tution.^ This was the worst stroke of all for Penn, as the 
 clever but perverted boy was the only remaining son of the 
 lost Guli, and heir to his colonial government. He had the 
 grace, however, to be ashamed of himself; and on his father 
 promising to pay his debts, he consented to go out for a time 
 to America, and study the business of the country under the 
 guidance of the newly named Deputy-Governor Evans and the 
 council. Penn wrote the most urgent letters to his old friends 
 in Philadelphia about him : "he has wit," he said, "has kept 
 top company, and must be handled with much wisdom." Lo- 
 gan undertook to give him good counsel, and to keep such an 
 eye on him as he would on a favorite son. But still the ex- 
 periment turned out most unfortunately.^ 
 
 For a few months he behaved very well. Logan retained 
 his influence ; and between the occasional visit to Philadel- 
 phia, and his dogs and gun or hunter and fishing-tackle at the 
 Manor House, his time was pleasantly and innocently, if not 
 very usefully spent. But after a while an evil intimacy sprang 
 up between the youth and Governor Evans, — -just such an ill- 
 conditioned person as himself, though with far more hypocrisy, 
 — and between them they soon contrived to bring discredit on 
 themselves and a scandal on the whole community. Young 
 Penn, as presumptive heir to the government, not only set an 
 evil example, but undertook to protect those who imitated his 
 own excesses. The young, the idle, the dissolute crowded 
 about him ; finding that he much more resembled his grand- 
 father the admiral than his pacific father, they made him 
 their chief; and the war-question being then under discussion 
 in the Assembly, he openly joined the war-party, and on his 
 own authority organized a body of troops in the Quaker city.^ 
 Nor was this his worst offence. He and his companions fre- 
 quented low taverns; they got up rows in the streets and beat 
 the watch ; they broke the city regulations. The riot of Lon- 
 
 ' Logan Correspondence, Phil. Friend, xviii. 362, ^ ibid. 354-368. 
 3 Penn to Logan, Feb. 16, 1704. — Proprietary Papers, voL v. No. 2. State 
 Paper Office. 
 
 27 
 
314 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 don and Paris seemed to have rushed at once into the midst 
 of that quiet community. A masquerade was established at 
 the house of one Simes, a publican.^ The roysterers caroused 
 till past midnight at the White Hart. Women went about 
 the streets in male attire ; and two men were brought into 
 court at the same time on a charge of being found at night 
 in women's clothes, contrary to nature and decency.^ As the 
 elders frowned, the young grew worse and worse. At length 
 came the crisis. There was a violent scene in the streets one 
 night ; the constable was beaten in the performance of his 
 duty ; and the city guard was called out to quell the disorder. 
 Some of the disturbers escaped, and others were arrested : — 
 among the former was the deputy governor, among the latter 
 was young Penn.-^ Next morning he was brought before the 
 mayor and rated severely. He replied with taunts and defi- 
 ance ; he was a gentleman, he said, and not responsible to his 
 father's petty officers. Evans took his part and annulled by 
 proclamation the proceedings of the magistrate's court.'* This 
 audacious conduct roused the Quaker spirit: — that body in- 
 dicted young Penn, and in his anger he renounced their doc- 
 trines, discipline, and jurisdiction.^ These disorders were a 
 source of in appeasable grief to the governor in England, 
 already deeply involved in his own concerns ; and they fur- 
 nished his old enemy Colonel Quarry, again active in his em- 
 ployer's work, with solid grounds of complaint against his 
 government.^ The young man soon afterwards returned to 
 England, again deep in debt, though he had sold the fine 
 estate of Williamstadt, 7000 acres, given him by his father,^ 
 and as thoroughly disgusted with America as America was 
 with him. He quitted Pennsylvania with the threat that he 
 would persuade his father to sell the colony to the crown, and 
 leave the settlers to deal with a less merciful ruler.^ 
 
 Penn had a father's pardonable weakness for this unruly 
 youth. He thought the Quakers of the colony had dealt too 
 harshly with him, — that they had not sufficiently considered 
 his youth and the temptations to which he was exposed. Al- 
 ways lenient in his OAvn constructions, he thought his friends 
 
 1 Watson, 257. 2 i^id. 
 
 3 Proprietary Papers, September 2, 1704. State Paper Office. 
 
 * Ibid. Sep. 23. State Paper Office. ^ ibid. Oct. 15. 
 
 6 Ibid. voL viii. N. 5, 7, 16. ? Phil. Friend, xix. 17. 
 
 8 Ibid. Oct. 15. State Paper Office. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 315 
 
 should have seen the misconduct of his son in its least offen- 
 sive aspect ; and it was an additional grief to him to find that 
 in whatever related to his own interests or to the private con- 
 cerns of his family, the men who had most profited by his 
 labors were always inclined to take the most uncharitable 
 course.^ 
 
 What his son desired from choice, he was impelled towards 
 by necessity. His old steward, Philip Ford, one of the vilest 
 scoundrels that ever ruined a trusting client, had died in Ja- 
 nuary, 1702,^ leaving his affairs to the management of his 
 son and his widow, — the last a woman of masculine vices, and 
 though bedridden with disease, of most unswerving energy. 
 By her the son was ruled despotically; but he would have 
 been himself as great a scoundrel as either of his parents had 
 he possessed their talents.^ The elder Ford had so contrived 
 to jumble Penn's accounts, as to keep him in a state of uncer- 
 tainty as to how they really stood. Being a Quaker, the 
 governor reposed a perfect confidence in his integrity ; and 
 when asked to sign papers and accounts as a matter of course, 
 seldom or never troubled himself to read them over, but in 
 simple faith and uprightness set his name to them and passed 
 them to his steward.'' The lawyer knew how to take advan- 
 tage of this want of worldly prudence in his client ; and in 
 an evil hour, when Penn needed money to go over to America 
 the second time, he induced him to give him — as a mere matter 
 of form — a deed of sale for the colony, on which he advanced 
 him 2,800Z. This deed w^as considered by Penn, and profes- 
 sedly considered by Ford, as a mortgage.^ Ford received 
 money on account of the province, and made such advances 
 as the governor required ; and it was not until the latter re- 
 turned to England that the first suspicion of his steward's 
 villainy crossed his mind. He was loath to entertain it ; and 
 tried for a time to think himself deceived.^ But as soon as 
 the old Quaker died, his knavery came to the full light of 
 day. Penn, from his uncertain remembrance of the various 
 sums advanced and received, believed the mortgage — or deed 
 of sale — to be nearly cancelled ; but the funeral rites were 
 hardly paid to the dead, before the widow suddenly sent in a 
 
 1 Logan to Penn. Oct. 27. 2 Friends' Register, Jan. 8, 1701-2. 
 
 3 Phil. Friend, xix. 82. "^ Penn's MS. Statement. 
 
 6 Penn to Logan, December 28, 1705. ^ MS. Statement. 
 
316 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 bill for 14,000/., and threatened to seize and sell the province 
 if it were not immediately paid.^ 
 
 Penn was thunderstruck. He asked for accounts properly 
 drawn up, with all the items of receipt and expenditure, and 
 the vouchers. Henry Goldney, a legal Friend, and Herbert 
 Springett, a near relation of his first wife, assisted him with 
 their knowledge and experience.^ When the accounts of the 
 faithless steward were re-arranged, it appeared, by his own 
 showing, that he had received on behalf of Penn 17,859?., 
 and that he had paid 16,200Z., so that he had actually received 
 1,659Z. more than he had advanced. Yet he claimed 14,000Z.P 
 That the matter should be settled on just bases, and, both 
 parties being Friends, that no scandal should be brought on 
 the society, the governor proposed to refer it to the arbitration 
 of wise and impartial persons of their own body or out of it ; 
 but the Fords rejected the proposal. They stood to their 
 bond : •thej wanted law — not equity.'* It was to no end that 
 their old master quoted the words of the elder Ford, calling 
 the living wife and daughter in as witnesses ; they said they 
 would adhere to the written instrument, — the courts would 
 give them the money which they claimed, and they would have 
 it one way or another. It was well for him that he was able 
 to find among his papers a complete set of the accounts as 
 they had been rendered from time to time, and as he had 
 passed them away so unsuspectingly.^ These accounts en- 
 abled him to unravel the whole mystery of fraud and iniquity. 
 (1.) The Fords had charged him4nterest on all their advances; 
 but had allowed none on the receipts. (2.) They had charged 
 him eight per cent, interest, though six was the fixed and 
 legal rate. (3.) They had charged compound interest on the 
 original advance of 2,800/., posting it every six months, and 
 sometimes oftener, so that the illegal overcharge of interest 
 again bore interest, though the fair balance of the account 
 was on Penn's side of the ledger. (4.) They had charged 
 fifty shillings as their commission instead of ten, for every 
 100/. received or paid — even on the overcharges of interest 
 paid to themselves, adding it to the principal every six months, 
 so as to make him pay the monstrous commission of 21. 10s, 
 
 ' MS. Statement. 2 Penn's Mortgages. MS. 
 
 3 MS. Statement. 4 pei^n to Logan, Dec. 28, 1705. 
 
 ^ "The accounts, though so voluminous, have been, through Providence 
 rather than by my carefulness, preserved entire." Ibid. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 317 
 
 to the liimdred six or seven times over on the same money ! 
 (5.) Penn had given the mortgage^ as a security for the 2,800Z. 
 advanced, reserving, of course, the right to sell more land if 
 he found purchasers ; while in the colony he had sold a lot 
 for 2,000Z., of which he sent 615?. to Ford in liquidation of 
 the debt ; but instead of posting the 615?. to the governor's 
 credit, he assumed that the deed of sale had made the entire 
 colony his own, and therefore charged the account with the 
 remaining 1,385?. of the purchase-money, as if he had actu- 
 ally advanced the money out of his pocket, and from that day 
 reckoned commission and compound interest at eight per cent, 
 on this sum also.^ No wonder that the Fords refused to sub- 
 mit their claims to arbitration ! The excess of charges on 
 the second, third, and fourth items here briefly enumerated 
 was found to amount to 9,697?., reducing the claim of 14,000?. 
 to 4,303?. This sum Penn offered to pay, and more, for the 
 sake of peace ; but his creditors sternly shook their deed of 
 sale in his face, and threatened him with a chancery suit if 
 the whole amount were not paid down by a given day. Friends 
 interfered ; some even came over from America for the pur- 
 pose ; but, conscious of being in the wrong, the younger Ford 
 grew insolent and repelled their advice.^ 
 
 Rather than submit to be ruined by such scoundrels, Penn 
 allowed the case to go before the Lord Chancellor, though 
 well aware that the uncancelled deed of sale could not be 
 disputed ; of course the court affirmed the special case of 
 debt ; and armed with this verdict. Ford grew more audacious 
 than ever. Disregarding every tie of gratitude, every con- 
 sideration of decency, he went with a constable to the Grace- 
 church Street .meeting, and attempted to arrest his old patron 
 in the gallery, while surrounded by their common friends, and 
 engaged in the act of worship. "* Herbert Springett and Henry 
 Goldney prevented this outrage by promising that he should 
 come out to them in a short time, which he did, and then by 
 Habeas Corpus threw himself, on legal advice, into the Fleet 
 prison, — not because he was unable to meet the demands made 
 upon him, but because he was counselled on all hands not to 
 gratify the knaves by compliance.^ This incident created an 
 
 ' In his Statement he never uses the words, " deed of sale." 
 
 2 MS. Statement. 
 
 3 Norris to Joseph Pike, Phil. Friend, xix. 82. 
 
 •» Ibid. xix. 105. ^ MS. Statement. 
 
 27* 
 
318 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 extraordinary sensation ; the Society of Friends was especi- 
 ally wrath with the Fords for dogging their victim 4:o the 
 meeting ; and many of those who had been lukewarm in the 
 dispute before, now zealously came forward in Penn's defence. 
 Envy itself was appeased in presence of this shameful in- 
 dignity.^ 
 
 In his old age the governor of Pennsylvania was again a 
 prisoner. His lodgings, commodious and even comfortable, 
 considering the circumstances under which he entered them, 
 were in the Old Bailey ; and there he not only held meetings 
 of his own sect for religious worship, but was visited by his 
 friends from the other end of the town.^ The Lord Treasurer, 
 Sidney Godolphin, touched with his situation, was an especial 
 friend in this hour of need ; and in his official capacity 
 favorably entertained a proposal to advance him 7000Z. for 
 the service of his colony, on the easy condition of its being 
 repaid in nine years from the date of lending.^ Penn him- 
 self now began to rely chiefly on the sale of his colony to the 
 crown to free him from all his embarrassments; his son was 
 pressingly anxious to be rid of the incubus on the family for- 
 tunes ; and the oldest and best friends of the governor in 
 Pennsylvania urged him strongly to make a bargain with the 
 Queen, though they saw well enough that the transfer would 
 make against their personal interests as settlers.'* It was a 
 dire necessity that reconciled him to the thought of giving up 
 to strange hands the guidance of his Holy Experiment, — nor 
 would he ever have dreamt of such a thing had the settlers 
 not treated him with the basest ingratitude. " I went thither," 
 he says, in a letter to the Judge Mompesson, "to lay the 
 foundations of a free colony for all mankind. .The charter I 
 granted was intended to shelter them against a violent and 
 arbitrary government imposed on us ; but, that they should 
 turn it against we, that intended it for their security, is very 
 unworthy and provoking, especially as I alone have been at 
 all the expense . . . But as a father does not usually knock 
 his children on the head when they do amiss, so I had much 
 rather they were corrected and better instructed than treated 
 to the rigor of their deservings."^ When the colonists heard 
 
 1 Norris Corresp. Phil. Friend, xix. 105. 2 Hji^l. March 6, 1708. 
 
 ^ Penn to Logan, May 3, 1708. This letter is dated from the Lord Chan- 
 cellor's house. 
 
 4 Phil. Friend, xix. 50, 73, 81. ^ Penn to Mompesson, Feb. 17, 1705. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 319 
 
 of his troubles with Ford, though most of them pretended a 
 decent concern, and some openly expressed their sympathy, 
 there were not a few secretly glad, imagining that out of a 
 doubtful and disputed title they would be able to seize some 
 advantages for themselves. Logan briefly described the feel- 
 ing of the colony : " There are few," he said to Penn in one 
 of his letters, " that think it any sin to haul what they can 
 from thee." Some, he added, were honest enough, but the 
 honest men let the rogues have their own way, saying it was 
 not their business.^ They invaded his rights, — they seized his 
 land, — they withheld his rents. Penn mourned in soul at these 
 evidences of faithlessness and ingratitude ; he attributed them 
 to ignorance of their duties, to the novelty of their position 
 as legislators, and he again and again found excuses for 
 them in his heart. With a readier logic, Logan traced their 
 meanness and avarice to an excess of freedom ; and censured 
 his friend for having given them so much better a charter than 
 they deserved.^ Against this inference the governor steadily 
 protested ; and when he came to treat with the crown for the 
 surrender of his province, he made so many conditions in 
 favor of the colonists, and for the security of their rights, that 
 the Queen's government was obliged to tell him, the remain- 
 der was hardly worth a purchase.^ Under these circumstances, 
 the negotiations went on very slowly ; Penn proposed to sell 
 the government of his colony to the Queen for 20,000?., con- 
 siderably less than he had given for it, reckoning the interest 
 at six per cent, for twenty years, on the old debt, — but stipu- 
 lated that the charter as then existing and the whole body of 
 fundamental laws should be accepted by the crown in good 
 faith and without reserve, and a guarantee given that the 
 province should be kept separate and distinct.'^ On such con- 
 ditions the Queen was not anxious to treat. The crown 
 desired to regain the private colonies, in order, by a general 
 system of defence, to strengthen the frontiers against the 
 French ; but twenty years' experience had now shown that 
 so long as Pennsylvania remained a separate colony, it would 
 be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain from it that military co- 
 operation which was deemed essential to the common safety. 
 
 ' Logan Corresp. Phil. Friend, xix. 49, 50. ^ l\)i^, 
 
 ^ Hannah Penn to Logan, Feb. 22, 1715. 
 
 4 Prop. Papers, June 18, 1703— Dec. 7, 1710. State Paper Office. 
 
320 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 It was only by means of Colonel Fletcher's plan of combining 
 the provinces in which Quaker influence was strong — Penn- 
 sylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware and West New Jersey — with 
 the Puritan and more warlike settlements of New England, that 
 the bold front could be opposed to the French, which Marl- 
 borough and the Queen's advisers thought necessary to the 
 general security. The crown steadily refused to buy the 
 colony except on terms which left it free to adopt its own 
 measures of defence ; and although negotiations were renewed 
 from time to time, no bargain had been finally made when 
 Penn was arrested by the Fords.* Yet even at this moment, 
 though a prisoner in the Fleet, his thoughts were full of that 
 free and pacific democracy which he had founded, the free 
 colony for all mankind — the peace and plenty enjoyed by the 
 settlers — and in spite of their ingratitude, their petty mean- 
 ness, their secret persecution, he would not give up to the 
 imperial government a single item of those rights which he 
 had himself granted to them as their lord proprietor.^ 
 
 Young Ford went over to Pennsylvania. He there found 
 out Quarry, David Loyd, and other factious persons who were 
 opposed to the Penn family ; and in concert with these men 
 contrived by false reports and under-hand practices still 
 further to spread discontent and embarrass the government. 
 Governor Evans had now retrieved his character, and he de- 
 fended the person and the interests of his employer with a 
 dignity and a success which astonished every one. From that 
 moment he became an object of suspicion and evil report.^ 
 Having gained over several persons to his interests, — espe- 
 cially the infamous David Loyd, — Ford returned to England 
 and held out threats of a disturbance in the colony, if his un- 
 just demands were not met. Penn taking no heed of these 
 menaces, he sent out letters to the effect that the province was 
 his — his father, he said, having bought it from Penn several 
 years ago, and relet it to him on a certain rental ; the rents 
 not having been regularly paid, he said he was now resolved 
 to take the country into his own hands, and therefore cau- 
 tioned the owners of land not to pay any moneys to the agents 
 
 ^ The progress of these negotiations may be traced in the Proprietary Papers, 
 under dates May 11, 1703; May 18, June 8, 15, 18; Jan. 2, 1705; Jan. 11, 
 March 9, May 1, June 5. 6, 20, Sept. 1, Oct. 12, 23. State Paper Office. 
 
 2 Penn's Letter, Feb. 26, 1705. Hazard's Register, xii. 3G3. 
 
 3 Phil. Friend, xix. 114. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 321 
 
 of Penn, at their proper peril.* He and his mother had im- 
 pudence enough even to petition the Queen to issue a new 
 charter, making the colony over to them.^ Up to this point 
 they had received no' check in their roguery ; but now the 
 Lord Chancellor Cowper, having heard the case argued, not 
 only gave judgment against them, but spoke so severely as 
 to the merits of the case, and the animus of their proceedings, 
 as to cow their spirits most effectually.^ 
 
 Eearing lest^ he should lose all, the younger Ford began to 
 talk of terms. Penn had offered to pay more than five hun- 
 dred pounds more than appeared to be justly due on the face 
 of the amended account ; but this offer had been rejected.'* 
 And now another instance of the elder Ford's swindling was 
 discovered. In the accounts appeared an item of 1,200?. paid 
 into the Society's stock, which, with compound interest, reck- 
 oned every six months, amounted in the long-run to 5,569?. 
 But on searching into the Society's books, it was found that 
 instead of 1,200?., as stated in the accounts, he had only paid 
 in 500Z. The balance of 700?., with the eight per cent, com- 
 pound interest, amounted to 3,249?. of overcharge on this 
 item alone ; and this being deducted from the former balance 
 of 4,303?., left only 1,054?. owing altogether, according to 
 the rules of business and equity.^ 
 
 As the Fords now showed a disposition to treat for the 
 liquidation of their claim, Penn began to raise money. Much 
 of his private property was gone to support his family during 
 the twenty years of his profitless rule in America. He sold 
 the Worminghurst estate to a Squire Butler for 6,050?., just 
 1,550?. more than he gave for it, after having cut down 2,000?. 
 worth of timber. This money satisfied some of his creditors, 
 but not all ; and one of them, a man named Churchill, was 
 so importunate, as to try to stop Butler's payment of the 
 purchase-money.^ Under the advice of Henry Goldney, the 
 lawyer, whose purse was as much at his friend's service as his 
 tongue, Penn and his son William made over to Callowhill, 
 Goldney, Oades, and several others, a deed of sale of Penn- 
 
 1 Logan's Corresp. July 13, 1705. 
 
 2 PriA'y Council Register, A. R. iii. 508. Privy Council Office. 
 ^ Norris to Logan, March 6, 1708. 
 
 4 Field to Story, July 22, 1707. Story MSS. 
 
 6 MS. Statement. 
 
 ^ Penn to Logan, May 18, 1708. 
 
322 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 sylvania for one year, in consideration of the receipt of ten 
 shillings, with intent that these parties might be in actual 
 possession of the province during the settlement with the 
 Fords and other creditors.^ This was done as a matter of 
 precaution ; but the next day the same parties took a formal 
 mortgage of the colony, and paid into his hands 6,800Z.^ 
 Henry Goldney and three friends advanced 3,300?. ; Thomas 
 Callowhill, his father-in-law, 1,000?. ; John Field and Thomas 
 Cuppage 1,000Z. ; twenty-three other persons subscribed the 
 remaining 1,500?.^ With this money the Fords were paid. 
 After much negotiation, they had reduced their monstrous 
 claim just one-half; Penn was ill satisfied with this state of 
 the account ; but his legal advisers took the matter into their 
 own hands, and arranged it to the best of their ability, he, 
 for the sake of peace, finally acquiescing. Betw^een seven 
 and eight thousand pounds were paid, and he quitted his dole- 
 ful lodgings in the Old Bailey for a house at Brentford." 
 
 Disorders continued in Pennsylvania. The vigorous mea- 
 sures adopted by Evans to protect the public rights of his 
 employer arrayed against him the whole tribe of those lawless 
 and selfish men who favored pirates, disliked the quaker re- 
 gime, and sought their own aggrandisement in the ruin of 
 their governor. Men of this stamp abound in every new set- 
 tlement ; and the extreme amenity of the laws in Pennsyl- 
 vania had attracted them to its capital from every part of the 
 continent. Evans behaved in his difficult situation with more 
 zeal than prudence. Instead of rallying round him the more 
 respectable body of the old Quaker settlers, he off'ended their 
 prejudices, and broke with them finally on the war question. 
 Procuring a false report to arrive in the city that the French 
 were coming up the river, he rushed into the street, with his 
 drawn sword in his hand, calling on the people right and left 
 to arm and follow him. The terror was extreme. Some 
 
 » Original Deeds, Oct. 6, 1708. 2 ibid. Oct. 7, 1708. 
 
 3 I am willing to preserve the names of these faithful friends : Geoffrey 
 Pinnell, lOOZ. ; Richard Champion, lOOL ; Ab. Llojd, 100/. ; James Peters, 
 1001. ; Edward Lloyd, 100/. ; Charles Jones, 100/. ; George Bridges. 100/. ; 
 Thomas Oade, 50/. ; Charles Harford, 50/. ; Peter Rosens, 50/. ; Benj. Cole, 
 50/. ; John Scandrett, 50/. ; Silvanus Cox, 50/. ; Charles Jones, 50/. ; Brice 
 Webb, 50/. ; Cornelius Sargeant, 50/. ; Benj. Moss, 50/. ; N. Kitt, 50/. ; Enoch 
 Noble, 50/. ; C. Harford, 50/. ; John Andrews, 50/. ; Jos. Vigor, 50/. ; and 
 Edward Lyne, 50/.— Ibid. 
 
 ^ Penn to Logan, May 3, 1708 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 323 
 
 burned their effects, — many fled into the woods, — still more 
 seized their arras and placed themselves under his command. 
 He fixed his standard on Society Hill, and three hundred 
 well-armed men, some of them Quakers, appeared at the 
 rendezvous.^ The deputy's purpose was answered : he had 
 discovered by the cheat how many of the inhabitants of the 
 city he could rely on in case of a real attack ; but the Quakers, 
 to use the words of Logan, were disgusted and piqued to the 
 heart, and they certainly never pardoned the clumsy con- 
 trivance.^ 
 
 Another enemy to the peace of the colony appeared in the 
 churchmen. Every opinion, political or religious, being free 
 in Pennsylvania, — and every sect having its own right of 
 worship, — several persons belonging to the Church of Eng- 
 land had settled in the province. So early as 1702, the 
 inhabitants of Philadelphia were easily divided into about 
 two equal portions : — one of these were Quakers, real or 
 professing ; the other was a curious medley of English In- 
 dependents, Irish Catholics, Scotch Presbyterians, Welsh 
 Episcopalians, German Amish, Swiss Calvinists, Swedish 
 Lutherans, and so on. Each of these sects supported its 
 own worship and ministry. Though the Quakers were in a 
 large majority over any other individual sect, they carefully 
 abstained, as a body, from giving themselves the airs of a 
 colonial church.^ And for twenty years the various churches 
 had lived in decent harmony, until the intriguing spirit of the 
 clergy at home sent pride, discord, and disunion among them. 
 To conciliate the Bishop of London and the Church party 
 generally. King William had made two grants — one of 50L 
 a year, chargeable on the customs, towa^rds the support of a 
 church and minister at Philadelphia ; the other of 30Z. a year, 
 equally chargeable on the customs, for the support of a school- 
 master.'' Nor was the tax of a penny a pound on all the 
 tobacco exported from Pennsylvania and the Delaware the 
 chief evil of this arrangement.s Under favor of this en- 
 dowment, which in itself was an outrage to every other deno- 
 mination in the colony, the Vestry of St. Paul's assumed the 
 haughty and dictatorial attitude of the Church in England. 
 
 J Logan to Penn. May 28, 1705. ^ ibid. 
 
 5 Phil. Friend, xviii. 386. 
 
 4 Privy Council Register, W. R. iv. 240. Privy Council Office. 
 
 6 Ibid. A. R. i. 114. 
 
324 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 They labored year by year to undermine and destroy the 
 power of the too tolerant proprietor, — now invoking the pro- 
 tection of Lord Cornbury, — now applying for support and 
 counsel to the see of London, — now joining with the pirate 
 party, the ultra-democrats, the anti-rent-payers, or with any 
 other party of disorder.^ Their policy was obvious and logical 
 enough. They wished to be made the national Church, to 
 obtain endowments, charters, and privileges from the state. 
 Their first measure, therefore, was to get the colony annexed 
 to the English crown. They w^ere unjust and ungenerous ; 
 but they were not, like the Quakers, and other Dissenters, 
 illogical. They pleaded the license of a party sufi'ering per- 
 secution : their clergy, they said, had not the same rank and 
 the same rights as in England : this was their grievance. In 
 a land of equals, they would be superior. They claimed im- 
 munities which were denied to all. They wished to be the 
 dominant church.^ 
 
 Penn was anxious to return to America. Every month he 
 seemed finally determined to go over, as things had always 
 gone on smoothly under his own control. But his want of 
 means continually interfered. At the end of this year he 
 wrote to his agent — " I assure thee, if the people would only 
 settle 600?. a-year upon me as governor, I would hasten over. 
 .... Cultivate this among the best Friends."^ But the 
 best Friends would do nothing. When the Assembly met the 
 quarrel with Evans was at its height : if they proposed a bill, 
 he rejected it : if he proposed a bill, they rejected it in turn. 
 Nothing was done ; and the confusion at head-quarters pa- 
 ralysed or disturbed every branch of industry in the province. 
 Penn was obliged to recall his deputy. "^ 
 
 Lord Baltimore was again active. After a lapse of twenty- 
 three years, he revived his claim to the second half of the 
 Delaware peninsula; it is possible that he only then dis- 
 covered that his rival's title to the territory in question, had 
 never been formally completed ;^ and although three succes- 
 sive sovereigns had allowed his right of possession to remain 
 
 1 Proprietary Papers, vol. vii. M. 22 ; viii. 0. 77. State Paper Office.— 
 Logan Corresp. Phil. Friend, xviii. and xix. 
 
 2 Privy Council Registers, A. R. i. 114 et seq. Privy Council Office — 
 Lop:an Corresp. Phil. Friend, xviii. 386. 
 
 3 Watson, 552. 
 
 4 Proprietary Papers, May 20, 1708. State Paper Office. 
 
 5 Ibid. vii. L. 38. State Paper Office. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 325 
 
 undisputed, he thought there was a new opening for his claim, 
 and he advanced it.^ He petitioned the Queen to repeal the 
 Order in Council, made by her father, dividing the peninsula, 
 and to restore the whole to him in virtue of his original grant. 
 Somers and Sunderland advised Penn to send in a counter- 
 petition to the Queen.^ The Lords of Trade allowed the 
 question to be re-opened ; but they were unable to settle it on 
 any satisfactory basis ; and finding their geography and law 
 equally at fault, they had recourse to the old plan of asking 
 the litigants to arrange it for themselves, and report the re- 
 sults to that board.^ The dispute remained unsettled for 
 more than another quarter of a century,^ to the great annoy- 
 ance of the proprietor and the injury of his family. But a 
 new source of trouble was opened by the dispute ; and the 
 uncertainty about boundary-lines soon lost itself in the prior 
 question of title. It was to no purpose Penn urged that his 
 deeds were made out, and were all but signed when King 
 James fled from Whitehall; there were many powerful per- 
 sonages about the court whose anxiety to obtain an American 
 province, ministers thought proper to coquet with, — among 
 others, the Earl of Sutherland set up a claim to the Dela- 
 ware,^ — and the government chose to consider its own claim 
 to the territories on that river as something more than a pre- 
 tence. When Deputy-Governor Colonel Gookin was sent out 
 in 1708, and again when Sir William Keith was appointed to 
 the same oflice in 1716, the minister gave his sanction with a 
 special reservation of the supposed right of the crown to the 
 Delaware province.^ 
 
 Penn was now sixty-five. His health was failing ; his im- 
 prisonment in the close atmosphere of the Old Bailey had 
 given a shock to his constitution, from the effects of which he 
 had never recovered. Country air had now become indispen- 
 
 i Maryland Papers, Feb. 21, 1708. — Proprietary Papers, Feb. 20, March 
 3. State Paper Office. 
 
 ^ Privy Council Registers, A. R. iv. 245, 6, 304. Privy Council Office. — 
 Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 209. 
 
 3 Maryland Papers, August 24, 1708. State Paper Office. 
 
 4 Penn. Hist Soc. Mem. i. 188. It was settled in the Law Courts in 1750. 
 
 5 Proprietary Papers, x. Q. 110. I have traced the progress of the Earl's 
 claim through Proprietary Papers, xxxi. 70. Ibid x. Q. 115, 134. America 
 and West Indies Papers, Oct. 21, 1717. The writer of colonial history should 
 consult these papers. 
 
 6 Privy Council Registers, A. R. iv. 139, and G. R. i. 481. Privy Council 
 Office. 
 
 28 
 
326 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 sable to him ; he tried Brentwood ; but that was too near 
 London, and he subsequently took a handsome country seat 
 at Ruscombe, in Berkshire, where he continued to reside until 
 the day of his death. Some fitful gleams- of light broke in 
 upon his later years ; dreams of an unattainable prosperity, 
 which served at least to rouse his attention and to exhilirate 
 his now sinking spirits. Soon after he had recovered his 
 c( lony, reports arrived that a great silver mine had been dis- 
 covered in the province ;^ a long and powerful remonstrance 
 which he wrote to his American subjects, produced the most 
 happy effects ; and the establishment of a general peace gave 
 him reason to hope for the speedy settlement of a long out- 
 standing account with the government of Spain. The silver 
 mine, — on the report of which he built a pleasant castle in 
 the air, feeling himself already relieved from the load of debt 
 and his family provided with ample means, — proved in the 
 end a bitter delusion ; and it is at least probable that the 
 Spanish affair turned out no better. 
 
 George Penn, the admiral's elder brother, having married 
 a Catholic lady of Antwerp, settled, as was said in the first 
 chapter of this history, in the south of Spain as a merchant, 
 residing chiefly at Seville, Cadiz, Malaga, and San Lucar. 
 As an English Protestant, his conduct was scrutinized with 
 jealous closeness by the officers of the Holy Inquisition; but 
 he cautiously abstained from giving grounds for offence, par- 
 ticularly in regard to the religious prejudices of the country 
 in which he lived, so that malice itself was foiled in the at- 
 tempt to draw him into a snare. But as he grew rich with 
 years of industry and success, the Church, eagerly covetous 
 of his wealth, became impatient of his blameless life, and 
 seized him on its own secret warrant. When the familiars of 
 the Holy Office broke into his house at San Lucar, they com- 
 menced their proceedings by casting him out, body and soul, 
 from the Christian Church and the fold of God. They seized 
 his money and furniture, his plate and pictures, his wearing 
 apparel and his wife's jewels, his stock of merchandise, his 
 books, papers, and accounts, and every other particle of pro- 
 perty, down to the nail in the wall. Nothing escaped their 
 rapacity.^ His wife was carried off he knew not whither ; he 
 
 ' PhiL Frien', xix. 113. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 207. 
 
 2 Humble Rcmonfc^trauce of George Penn. App. to Granville Penn, i. 150. 
 
WILLIAM TENN. 327 
 
 himself was dragged to Seville, wliere lie was cast into a loath- 
 some dungeon, only eight feet in diameter, and as 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 gaoler simply brought another loaf, and another 
 jug of water, and disappeared. This course was continued 
 for three years, — during which time he was worn to a skele- 
 ton. No one was allowed to visit him in his cell, no letter or 
 message was suffered to be sent out. He had vanished from 
 the world as completely as if the earth had opened on him in 
 the night, and then closed over him for ever. 
 
 At the end of the first month of his confinement there was 
 a break in the horrible monotony of his life. The silent and 
 masked familiars of the Ofiice came into his cell, took him by 
 the arms, stript him naked, and tied him fast to the iron bars 
 of his dungeon door ; when one of them, armed with a power- 
 ful whip, made of knotted cords, dealt out fifty merciless lashes. 
 Every month this flogging was repeated, the new stripes cross- 
 ing and tearing up the former wounds until his body was one 
 hus^e festering; sore. And all this time he was unable to learn 
 the name or nature of the crimes laid, truly or falsely, to his 
 charge ! Three years having elapsed without provoking self- 
 accusation, the prisoner was brought into the trial-chamber, 
 and in the presence of the seven judges was accused of various 
 crimes and heresies — particularly with having tried to seduce 
 his wife from the Catholic faith. He pleaded not guilty. But 
 instead 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 defied the agonies of the rack ; 
 but his tormentors persevered, and at the end of four hours of 
 excruciating and accumulating torments, he gave way and 
 offered to confess anything they wished.^ 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 if found 
 
 * Humble Remonstrance of George Penn. App. to Granville Penn, i. 552. 
 
328 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 recalcitrant. He was then cut down from the rack, placed on 
 a hurdle and conveyed to his former dungeon.^ 
 
 As soon as he was sufficiently recovered from his wounds to 
 walk, he was taken to the great Cathedral of Seville in solemn 
 procession, accompanied by the seven judges, their households, 
 by several hundred priests and friars, and by a vast multitude 
 of people, and in presence of the whole congregation was ex- 
 posed as a signal instance of the great mercy of Holy Inqui- 
 sition. His wife was taken from him and forcibly married to 
 a good Catholic ; the whole of his estate amounting in plate, 
 furniture, jewels, goods, and merchandise, to twelve thousand 
 pounds was confiscated ; the money found in his hands belong- 
 ing to other parties was seized ; and he was finally commanded 
 to quit the country in three months on pain of death. ^ This 
 last injunction only added insult to injury ; for the judges 
 well knew, that having seized his estate, the moment he left 
 the Cathedral he would be arrested for debts which he had no 
 means of discharging : — the very same day he was thrust into 
 a common gaol, with little or no hope of ever obtaining a 
 second release.^ 
 
 The exhibition in the cathedral being public, several Eng- 
 lish residents in Seville were present, — and the intelligence 
 of his brother's position soon reached the young admiral on 
 his station in the Channel. His measures were prompt and 
 characteristic. Instead of appealing to Cromwell, and setting 
 the dilatory diplomacy of London and Madrid at work to pro- 
 cure his release, he seized in one of his prizes a Spanish noble- 
 man, Juan de Urbino, then on his way to Flanders, where he 
 held the post of secretary to the government, stript him naked 
 like a common prisoner, and treated him to many indignities. 
 This act, indefensible in itself, spoke home to the Spanish 
 sovereign — and George Penn was soon released and sent back 
 to England.'* 
 
 The death of Cromwell prevented any reparation being 
 made for his losses and sufferings ; but when the restoration 
 was eifected. King Charles appointed him his Envoy at the 
 Court of Spain, with a view to his proper re-instatement in the 
 opinion of his old friends in Seville and San Lucar, and to 
 
 * Humble Remonstrance of George Penn. App. to Granville Penn, i. 552. 
 2 Case presented to Queen Anne. Granville Penn, App. i. 555. 
 ^ Humble Remonstrance of George Penn, i. 550. 
 ^ Granville Penn, i. 231-3. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 329 
 
 add weight to Ins claim for damages in body and estate. This 
 act of substantial justice, however, came too late. His aged 
 flesh had been torn, his limbs dislocated and ill-set, his body 
 starved for more than three years on bread and water : — and 
 he died in London only a few weeks after receiving the royal 
 appointment, leaving his claims as a legacy to the admiral and 
 his family.^ 
 
 The wars of Europe had hitherto oifered no eligible oppor- 
 tunity for pressing this claim, but a general peace having been 
 secured by the Treaty of Utrecht, and friendly relations be- 
 tween Spain and England restored, Penn petitioned the Queen 
 to instruct her Envoy at Madrid to prosecute this claim and 
 obtain a restitution of the amount originally seized from his 
 uncle.^ How fjxr this application was successful is uncertain : 
 it is not known that any part of the confiscated property was 
 restored. The Queen was particularly favorable to her father's 
 ancient ward ; and he had staunch friends in the all-powerful 
 Duke of Marlborough, with whom he had long corresponded,^^ 
 — in Sidney Godolphin, who employed him occasionally as a 
 neutral person in his communication with Tory statesmen,'* — 
 and in Harley, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, now the chief 
 member of the cabinet. But money once swallowed up by the 
 servants of the Holy Inquisition was like wealth cast into the 
 sea ; and the court of Spain was too poor and too immoral to 
 think of redressing a private wrong at its own expense. 
 
 The earnest remonstrance addressed to the people of Penn- 
 sylvania produced a sudden revolution in his favor. He re- 
 minded them in simple but touching language of the sleepless 
 nights and toilsome days, the expense, the load of care, the 
 personal dangers, the family misfortunes, which he had to en- 
 dure on account of the colony. He contrasted this with their 
 own case. They had found a noble field for their capital and 
 industry ; they had got lands, acquired political rights, enjoyed 
 religious liberties, denied to them in their native land. Yet 
 not satisfied with the enjoyment of these rights and privileges, 
 — with the acquisition and increase of their worldly substance, 
 — they must ungratefully turn the arms which he had supplied 
 as a defence against foreign oppression, upon himself. He 
 mournfully recited their past misdeeds — referred to their pre- 
 
 ' Case presented to Queen Anne, i, 555. ^ Ibid. i. 556. 
 
 3 MS. Letters in my own possession. " Dartmoutli's note, Burnet, vi. 8. 
 
 28* 
 
330 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 sent unbecoming and uncivil attitude towards his person and 
 government. He made to them a fatherly but a final appeal. 
 The Queen, he told them, was willing to buy the colony and 
 annex it to the crown : the only point still at issue was the one 
 aflfecting their laws and charters. In spite of their ill-returns 
 he had been faithful to all his promises. He put it to them as 
 men and as Christians whether they had used him fairly. While 
 they had grown rich — he had become poor ; while they had ac- 
 quired power — he had lost it ; while they had enjoyed through 
 his toil and fore-thought, wealth, influence, and freedom — he 
 had been reduced through their neglect and avarice to seek even 
 the shelter of a prison. He wished to have an answer to his 
 long-gathering suspicion that on their side they desired to 
 sunder the old connection ; if it were so, he concluded, let it 
 be declared on a fair and full election, and his course would 
 then be clear.* 
 
 The answer was emphatic. When the Assembly met again 
 after the general election, not a single man of the old and 
 aggressive chamber was returned. The colony had been 
 stung with the mild reproaches of its Founder, now in his okl 
 age enduring poverty brought on by his too great liberality: 
 and the session which ensued, was the most cordial and har- 
 monious, as well as the most useful, in the history of the As- 
 sembly. Penn was highly gratified with this national response f 
 and the historian dwells with an especial complacency on this 
 brief interval of calm and rational legislation, — separating, as 
 it did, the storms which preceded, and the hurricanes which 
 followed, — because it was the last session of the Colonial Par- 
 liament, of the nature and conduct of which the governor was 
 perfectly sensible. Before another gathering of the members 
 took place, his vigorous and active mind was utterly over- 
 thrown.^ 
 
 His latest action on the colonial legislature, was in behalf 
 of the poor negroes. Ten years before this period, he had 
 tried in vain to get a formal recognition of their claims as 
 human beings ;"* but the question of slavery had made rapid 
 progress in the interval, thanks to the efforts of his simple and 
 earnest disciples from Worms and Kirchheim, — and his own 
 ideas had also undergone a considerable development. He no 
 longer doubted the injustice, the inhumanity of the trade in 
 
 • Letter to Assembly, April 29, 1710. 2 penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iv. 208. 
 
 3 Hannah Penn to Logan, Oct. 13, 1712. " Chap. xi. p. 302. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 331 
 
 man. In 1705, only four years after the rejection of his pro- 
 posed act for a better regulation of the morals and marriages 
 of negroes, the Assembly tried to discourage slavery, without 
 violence to existing interests, by imposing a duty on their 
 importation from Africa, or from the neighboring colonies.^ 
 They now, in 1711, passed an act declaring their importation 
 for the future, under any condition, absolutely prohibited. This 
 was a great satisfaction to the humane governor. But as soon as 
 the law reached England, to receive the usual confirmation of 
 the crown, it was peremptorily cancelled.^ Some years before 
 this time, the two Houses of Parliament had put a declaration 
 on the statute book of the realm, to the efiect that the trade 
 in slaves was highly beneficial to the country and the colo- 
 nies f in the session then sitting, 1711, a committee of the 
 Commons had recommended the adoption of means to increase 
 the capture of negroes, that their value might be reduced in 
 the slave-markets of the plantations. The Privy Council was 
 scandalized and indignant at the Provincial Assembly, for 
 daring to propose a measure so hostile to the laws and inter- 
 ests of the parent State !^ The germs, however, of truth, 
 humanity, and justice, were planted in the colony, and in due 
 season came the harvest. Heavier duties were laid on im- 
 portations ; petition after petition was sent over to England ; 
 a disinclination to buy or sell negroes arose ; then a desire 
 not to have them in possession : — but the Home Government 
 continued steadily to oppose and cancel every act of colonial 
 legislation tending to close the abominable system.^ It was 
 only with the revolt against England, that freedom came to 
 any part of the black race in America.® 
 
 » Watson, 481. 
 
 2 Proprietary Papers, vol. ix. Q. 29. State Paper Office. 
 
 3 William III. 8 and 10, c. xxvi. * Watson, 481. 
 
 5 " The British Senate have this fortnight been prod':cing methods to make 
 more effectual that horrid traffic of selling negroes. "Horace Walpole to Sir 
 H. Mann, ii. 438. This was written Feb. 25, 1750: only a century ago ! 
 
 6 Bancroft, on the whole, just to Penn, has fallen into a mistake on the subject 
 of his views on the negro question. He points a moral with the assertion "that 
 he died a slaveholder," ii. 403. The authorities cited are the Mass. Hist. Coll. 
 xviii. 185, and Watson, 480. The evidence, aletter of T. Matlack, is the same in 
 both cases. Matlack says in this letter that P.nn left a body-servant (slave), 
 whose surname was Warder. The assertion can be fully disproved. The bill 
 of ale of this identical negro, Virgil Warder, is fortunately still in existence, 
 in the possession of George M. Justice, Esq., of Philadelphia. From this do- 
 cument it appears that he was sold in 1733, by his master, Joseph Warder, 
 in whose house he had be^n bjrn, and whose name, according to custom, he 
 
332 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 Penn was In London in the early part of 1712, when he 
 received the first of those severe shocks of paralysis, which 
 in a few months laid his reason completely prostrate. For a 
 few weeks he lay in a lethargic state, almost unconscious of 
 things around him, the medical attendants constantly at his 
 side, and all business cerefully kept from him, to prevent men- 
 tal action.-^ As he recovered, he began to pay attention to 
 affairs once more ; for his son William was now almost a 
 stranger to the family, and the whole weight of his colonial 
 duties had to be borne by him in person. But the pressure 
 was too great for his now weakened brain, and a second and 
 more violent shock was brought on at Bristol, in October of 
 the same year. From this fresh prostration his recovery was 
 extremely slow ; but in the meantime his active and able wife 
 wrote his letters of business, and conducted the affairs of his 
 government with an energy and wisdom truly masculine.^ At 
 the end of three months, while yet in a state of great debility 
 from the severity of the two attacks, he received another and 
 final shock. His daughter Letitia, married to William Au- 
 brey, was summoned to Euscombe, to his bed-side, his life 
 being thought in danger.^ The five children of his second 
 marriage, were all about him in his sickness ; but the son of 
 Guli was not there. Since his return from Pennsylvania, and 
 his public renunciation of his father's religious opinions, he 
 had been less and less under the paternal roof. Marriage, 
 and a home blessed with three beautiful and promising child- 
 ren, Guli, Springett, and William,^ produced no happy result 
 on his erratic and unstable character. He was the great thorn 
 in his father's side.^ He went into the army, but quitted it 
 again in disgust. He tried to get into Parliament, but his 
 opponent bribed higher, and he was defeated at the poll. He 
 quitted his young wife and her children, leaving them to the 
 care of strangers, to seek the lowest dregs of pleasure and 
 
 bore — to Thomas Penn. This was fifteen years after William Penn's death ! 
 Matlack's memory had evidently failed him : when he wrote the letter (in 
 1817) he was nearly ninety, and was ti'ying to relate a conversation which oc- 
 cured in 1745. The eloquent historian of America will, I am certain, re- 
 move this error from his future editions. See Tyson's Colony of Pennsyl- 
 vania, p. 61-3. 
 
 * Hannah Penn to Logan, Oct. 8, 1712, 
 
 2 Logan's Corresp. Phil. Friend, xix. 140-218. 
 
 2 Hannah Penn to Logan, Feb. 5, 1713. 
 
 4 Genealogy in Penn Gaskell MSS. 5 Penn to Logan, Feb. IG, 1704. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 333 
 
 dissipation, in the cities of continental Europe. He returned 
 no more to England. A few years later, his family heard 
 that he was living in an obscure town in France, worn out 
 morally and physically, ruined in purse and in constitution.^ 
 They never saw him again. He died in 1720, of consumption, 
 brought on by his excessess, — but full of penitence, it is said, 
 for his errors. To his father, the most mournful part of this . 
 story was never known.^ 
 
 Penn's mental weakness and debility grew upon him day 
 by day. From the time of his third attack of paralysis, he 
 was considered in a dying state : — but he lingered on in a 
 gentle and sweet decline, tasting the happiness of a repose 
 which he had sighed for many years without attaining. To 
 the devout it almost seemed like a dispensation of Providence, 
 that after so long a period of toil and perturbation, his 
 troubled spirit should have found an interval of rest. Later 
 on in his long illness, he felt a few more slight shocks of 
 paralysis ; but they soon passed ; and his bodily health on 
 the whole continued good. His temper was profoundly gentle 
 and serene. He took an extraordinary interest in the concerns, 
 the pleasures, and the amusements of his young children ; and 
 the abandoned widow of his son and her little ones were sent 
 for and housed with him at Ruscombe. When the weather 
 was fine, it was his delight to take them out into the fields and 
 meadows to gather flowers, and watch them chase butterflies. 
 He was again a little child. When the weather was unpro- 
 pitious, he gambolled with them about the rooms of the great 
 mansion, taking an infantine pleasure in running from suite to 
 suite, in looking at the fine furniture, and gazing from the 
 great windows on the snow or rain in the gardens below. The 
 large mansion was kept on by his wife, though they could ill 
 afford the expense, solely to gratify this child-like fancy. 
 Never before had he felt so happy. He could not speak very 
 much at one time ; but a constant smile of inward satisfaction 
 lighted up his face. It was only when he saw his wife looking 
 anxious, or when, on going suddenly into a room, he found 
 her writing, that a shade of melancholy thought overcast his 
 countenance ; and to prevent the evident distress which the 
 thoughts so suggested brought to his mind, she was forced to 
 
 ' rhil. Friend, xviii. 3G3-370. 
 
 2 Hannah Fenn to Logan, June 29, 1720. 
 
334 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 write the many irocessary letters to his American agents and 
 men of business in London, when he was asleep or out of 
 sight. Though unahle to write or dictate a letter, he appeared 
 to retain a vague and distant sense of trouble as connected 
 with that voluminous correspondence. In this state he lin- 
 gered for five years. His mind never regained for a single 
 moment its old vigor and elasticity ; his memory faded more 
 and more daily ; he forgot the names of his most intimate 
 friends, even when he perfectly remembered their persons ; 
 his power of distinct and fluent utterance forsook him ; he 
 spoke but seldom, and then in broken and abrupt sentences ; 
 but under all these trials the placid benignity of his character 
 came out still more strongly and distinctly. A strange at- 
 tractiveness lingered about the ruins of this noble mind. 
 Palsy had done its work very gently. The intellect was a 
 mere wreck — the temple of reason lay in confused heaps, — 
 there a broken column, here a shattered fragment of the 
 frieze, elsewhere the fallen statue of the god, — but, like the 
 remains of an ancient edifice seen under the mild radiance of 
 an Eastern night, it appeared to those who looked on it beau- 
 tiful and soothing even in its desolation.^ 
 
 The two friends who were most frequently at his side 
 during this long illness were Thomas Story and Henry Gold- 
 ney. They were neither of them in good health ; but they 
 considered it a sacred duty to be near their dying friend. 
 Towards the end of July, 1718, Story was at Ruscombe, assist- 
 ing the wife in her American afi'airs, as he had been several 
 years in that country, and knew all the parties and passions at 
 work in Pennsylvania. On the 27th he left the neighborhood 
 for a short trip to Bristol ; Hannah had taken him in her 
 coach to Reading, and not suspecting that the catastrophe 
 was so nigh, she had there parted with him, with messages to 
 John, her eldest son, then in Bristol with a merchant, learn- 
 ing business. When she returned to the house, Penn was no 
 worse than he had been for a few days past ; but the next 
 morning about noon a sudden change occurred ; he was 
 seized with fits of shivering, lowness of spirits, and other 
 alarming symptoms. She wrote a hasty letter to recall Story. 
 
 * MS. Lettei's of Hannah Pcnn. MS. Testimony of Eeading Friends, 
 March 31, 1719. Logan Corresp. Phil. Friend, xix. 156, 60, 62. Story's 
 Joui'nal, Dec. 16, 1714 et seq. Bessc, i. 150. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 335 
 
 to Huscombe, but he had gone too far, and her messenger 
 was too slow ; so that she had to face the trials of the day 
 unaided by a single friend out of her own family.^ 
 
 The cold shivers were quickly followed by unnatural heats. 
 The medical attendants believed that an intermittent fever 
 was setting in ; but on the twenty-ninth the patient had 
 grown so much worse, that they no longer entertained a hope 
 of his recovery. Hannah then sent a messenger with orders 
 to ride post haste to Bristol, to summon her son John, now a 
 youth of three-and-twenty, to his father's bed-side.^ 
 
 But death rode faster than her messenger. In the first 
 watches of the summer morning, between two and three, he 
 seemed to fall asleep. His poor widow watched his lips in 
 agony and suspense. They never moved again.^ 
 
 Under the circumstances of his family, it was a fortunate 
 incident that Penn had made his second and final will a few 
 months before the last stroke of palsy deprived him of his native 
 strength of mind, that is while suffering of a slight illness in 
 London in 1712. By a settlement effected by Guli before 
 her death, William, the son now absent from England, was 
 made heir to the Springett estates in Kent, which estates he 
 had involved through his riot and extravagance, and had sold 
 to pay his debts. The power to commit further waste of the 
 family property was therefore denied him; but his children, 
 Guli, Springett, and William, were made co-heirs to the Shan- 
 .garry property, and other estates in England, the whole being 
 at that time worth about fifteen hundred pounds a-year. Be- 
 sides this property, he bequeathed to these children, as well 
 as to his daughter Letitia, being all the descendants of the 
 Springett alliance, 10,000 acres each of the best unappropri- 
 ated land in Pennsylvania. The government of his province 
 he devised to Harlcy, Earl of Oxford, and William Earl Paw- 
 lett, friends of many years standing, in trust, to dispose of 
 to the crown or otherwise on the best conditions they could 
 obtain, leaving the money to be applied as he should after- 
 wards direct.^ The soil, rents, and other profits of Pennsyl- 
 vania he bequeathed to twelve trustees, who after laying out 
 
 > Hannah Penn to Story, July 28, MS. 
 
 2 Ibid. July 29. MS. 3 Ibid. Postscript, July 30. 
 
 4 MS. copy of will, May 27, 1712. He forgot to give these after-directions 
 as to the disposal of the money, — an omission which was held to jeopardize 
 the will, and led to a suit in Chancery. Penn, Hist. Soc, Mem. i. 222, 3. 
 
336 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 the forty thousand acres for Guli Springett's descendants, 
 were to sell as much land as would pay ofi" the whole of the 
 testator's debts, and then divide the remainder among his five 
 children by Hannah Callowliill, in such proportions as his 
 widow should think proper. A codicil reserved a pension of 
 three hundred pounds a-year — a very considerable portion of 
 the whole — to his widow out of these rents and profits. Fi- 
 nally, Hannah was made his sole executrix.' To understand 
 the nature of Penn's ideas in forming this will, it is necessary 
 to recollect that up to a period within a year or two of its 
 being drawn up, Pennsylvania had not yielded a shilling a-year 
 to the family. When the will was made, it is probable that 
 the return was not five hundred per annum ; so that in leaving 
 Shangarry and the English property to Guli's children, he 
 thought he was settling on them the best and securest part of 
 his estates. He had no conception of the enormous increase 
 of value which twenty years of peace, following on the Treaty 
 of Utrecht, would give to Pennsylvania. Hannah's children 
 became the lord proprietors of the colony, and the younger 
 branch of his family stood before the world as the more con- 
 spicuous representatives of the Great Founder.^ 
 
 William Penn was buried at the picturesque and secluded 
 village of Jordans, in Buckinghamshire, on the 5th of August, 
 1718, by the side of Guli, his first and most beloved wife, and 
 Springett, his first-born and favorite son. A great concourse 
 of people followed the bier from Ruscombe to the grave-yard, 
 consisting of the most eminent members of the Society of 
 Friends, come from all parts of the country, and the distin- 
 guished of every Christian denomination in the more immediate 
 neighborhood. When the coffin was lowered into the grave, 
 a solemn pause of religious silence ensued ; after which the 
 old and intimate friends of the dead spoke a few fitting words 
 to the assembly ; and the people dispersed to their several 
 homes subdued and chastened with the thought that a good 
 and a great man had that day disappeared from the face of 
 the earth.^ 
 
 I MS. copy of will, May 27. 2 Penn Gaskell MSS. 
 
 ^ MS. Testimony of Reading Friends, March 31, 1719. — Story's Journal, 
 G07. — Besse, i. 150. Nothing could be less imposing than the grave-yard at 
 Jordans: the meeting hovise is like an old barn in appearance, and the field 
 in which the illustrious dead repose is not even decently smoothed. There 
 are no gravel-walks, no monuments, no mournful yews, no cheerful flowers ; 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 33T 
 
 there is not even a stone to mark a spot or to record a name. When I visited 
 it with my friend Granville Penn, Esq., great-grandson of the State-Founder, 
 on the 11th of January this year, we had some difficulty in determining the 
 heap under which the great man's ashes lie. Mistakes have occurred before 
 now : and for many years pious pilgrims were shown the wrong grave ! Sup- 
 posing a to represent the small gate leading into the grave-yard, the follow- 
 ing will give its correct ; opography : 
 
 Thomas Ellwood 
 
 John Pennington 
 
 .. 
 
 a. 
 
 Penn's 
 infant 
 chil- 
 dren 
 
 Mary Ellwood 
 
 Mary Frame 
 
 Isaac Pennington 
 
 .. 
 
 Springett Penn 
 
 Lady Springett 
 
 •• 
 
 Letty Penn 
 
 Guli Penn 
 
 .. 
 
 .. .. 
 
 William Penn 
 
 Granville Penn, Esq., is disposed to mark the spot by some simple but dur- 
 able record, — a plain stone or block of granite; and if this be not done, the 
 neglect will only hasten the day on which his ancestor's remains will be car- 
 ried off to America — their proper and inevitable home ! 
 
 29 
 
338 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 EXTRA CHAPTER. 
 
 "THE MACAULAY CHARGES." 
 
 In this supplementary chapter I propose to review the charges 
 made against William Penn by Whig historians, and adopted, 
 with novelties and exaggerations of his own, by Mr. Macaulay 
 in his recent History. The reader who has traced his career 
 from Tower Hill to the grave-yard at Jordans, may hardly 
 care to read what follows ; the simple record of his life being 
 the most emphatic answer that can be given to party misre- 
 presentation : but I believe there are some who will look for 
 a more formal refutation of these charges at my hands, and 
 for their satisfaction I enter into the several points of contro- 
 versy which have been raised. Every one is conscious of the 
 animus which pervades the last Whig history. To point out 
 the capricious likes and dislikes of the historian would be 
 tedious, and is unnecessary : at the same time I will not deny 
 that his page is alive with pictures, and that the narrative 
 possesses a unity and vehemence which render it one of the 
 most useful additions to our store of historical reading since 
 the appearance of the Scotch novels. 
 
 Mr. Macaulay has written several volumes of history and 
 criticism. He must be aware that one of the fundamental 
 laws of Critical Inquiry demands, that when a fact or a cha- 
 racter has stood the tests of time, and in the progress of 
 opinion has attained to something like a fixed position in the 
 historical system, the evidence in support of any assault on it 
 must be strong and free from taint in some fair proportion to 
 the length of time and strength of opinion on which it rests. 
 This rule is deeply based in human nature. The fixity of 
 historical ideas is, in other words, the permanence of truth. 
 Once a great historical verdict is passed, the noblest instincts 
 of our being prompt us to guard it as something sacred, — to 
 be set aside only after scrupulous inquiry and conclusive evi- 
 dence against its justice. The wise man will not rashly disturb 
 the repose of ages. Our faith in history is akin to religion : 
 it is a confidence in our power to separate good from evil — 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 339 
 
 truth from fiilseliood, — to preserve in their native purity the 
 wisdom which serves to guide, and the memories which inspire 
 the best actions of mankind. Mr. Macaulay will not deny the 
 reasonableness of a rule growing out of such a feeling. He 
 would himself exact the strongest facts and the severest logic 
 from the man who should presume to dispute the laws of 
 Kepler ; and the fullest and most unquestionable evidence 
 would be required in support of an assertion that Milton was 
 a debauchee, or Buckingham a man of virtue. 
 
 I will apply this canon to his own method. That I may not 
 incur the charge of improperly assuming that Penn's reputa- 
 tion was thus historically fixed, I will cite Mr. Macaulay's 
 own reading of the verdict which more than a century and a 
 half has ratified. " Rival nations," he says, "have agreed 
 in canonizing him. England is proud of his name. A great 
 Commonwealth beyond the Atlantic regards him with a rever- 
 ence similar to that which the Athenians felt for Theseus, 
 and the Romans for Quirinus. The respectable Society of 
 which he was a member honors him as an apostle. By pious 
 men of other persuasions he is generally regarded as a bright 
 pattern of Christian virtue. Meanwhile admirers of a very 
 different sort have sounded his praises. The French philoso- 
 phers of the eighteenth century pardoned what they regarded 
 as his superstitious fancies in consideration of his contempt 
 for priests, and of his cosmopolitan benevolence, impartially 
 extended to all races and all creeds. His name has thus be- 
 come, throughout all civilized countries, a synonyme for polity 
 and philanthropy."-^ 
 
 This general verdict Mr. Macaulay challenges. He admits 
 that his attempt "requires some courage;" I think the reader 
 will agree with him, when the evidence is adduced on which 
 his challenge is supported. This evidence consists of five as- 
 sertions : — (I.) That his connection with the court in 1684, 
 while he lived at Kensington, caused his own sect to look 
 coldly on him and even treat him with obloquy.^ (II.) That 
 he " extorted money " from the girls of Taunton for the maids 
 of honor.^ (HI-) That he allowed himself to be employed in 
 the work of seducing Kifiin into a compliance with court de- 
 signs. "* (IV') That he endeavored to gain William's assent to 
 
 1 History of England, vol. i. 507. ^ ibid. i. 506. 
 
 3 Ibid. i. 656. 4 Ibid. ii. 230. 
 
840 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 the promulgated edict suspending the penal laws.^ (V.) That 
 he "did his best to seduce" the Magdelan collegians "from 
 the path of right," and Avas "a broker in simony of a pecu- 
 liarly discreditable kind."^ 
 
 These allegations I shall examine in the order in which they 
 occur. 
 
 I. I quote Mr. Macaulay's own words. " He was soon sur- 
 rounded by flatterers and suppliants. His house at Kensing- 
 ton was sometimes thronged at his hour of rising by more 
 than two hundred suitors. He paid dear, however, for this 
 seeming prosperity. Even his own sect looked coldly on him 
 and requited his services with obloquy."^ His only authority 
 for this statement is Gerard Croese (Hist. Qua. lib. ii. 1695), 
 a Dutchman, who never was in England in his life, and Avhose 
 work the Society of Friends has never recognized. Croese 
 could have no trustworthy knowledge of the opinions of the 
 Quakers, and no right to represent their opinions. The state- 
 ment is not, however, merely unsupported ; but it is positively 
 contradicted by the Devonshire House Records. These prove 
 that at this time Penn was in regular attendance at the monthly 
 meetings, and was elected to the highest offices in the body.^ 
 
 II. That the reader may understand the Taunton affair, I 
 must point out the features, with more exactness than Mr. 
 Macaulay has done, which relate to his charge against Penn. 
 When Monmouth arrived at Taunton, he found that the town 
 had pledged itself to the rebellion, by the signal act of having 
 had wrought at the public expense, a set of royal standards 
 for him and his army, by the daughters of the principal fami- 
 lies.^ The ceremony of presenting these standards was one 
 of the most important acts of the rebellion ; at the head of her 
 procession the schoolmistress carried the emblems of royal 
 power — the Bible and the sword f — and the royal banner was 
 presented to the duke as to their sovereign.'^ Thereupon 
 he assumed the name of King — set a price on his uncle's head 
 — and proclaimed the Parliament then sitting, a treasonable 
 convention, to be pursued with war and destruction.^ This 
 
 » Hist, of England, ii. 234. 2 i\^[(X ji. 298. 
 
 3 Ibid. vol. i. 506. 4 MS. Records. 
 
 ^ Oldmixon, i. 702. 
 
 ^ Mr. Macaulay forgets the sword, because Sir James Macintosh had for- 
 gotten it. Hist. Eng. 32, folio ed. '^ Oldmixon, i. 702. 
 ^ Harl. MS. 7006. Though very fond of strong language, Mr. Macaulay 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 341 
 
 Insanity cost Monmouth his head, and won a gibbet for hun- 
 dreds of his followers. The case of the maidens was not dif- 
 ferent to that of many others. They had taken with their 
 parents' knowledge, a prominent part in the rebellion ; and 
 when the day of vengeance came, they stood before the law 
 guilty of a crime for which the sentence was — death. The 
 idea of sending them to the scaffold* for faults which were 
 their parents' more than their own, was of course not thought 
 of; but that the parents might not escape punishment, the 
 power to pardon them was given by the King to the maids of 
 honor, — not likely, I must suppose, to be the most exacting 
 of creditors, — as a sort of fee or bounty.^ It is to be re- 
 membered the sale of pardons was in that age a regular pro- 
 fession; from the King — at least in Charles's time — to the 
 link-boy or the porter at his gates, almost every man and woman 
 connected with the court regularly sold his or her influence. 
 The young girls about the Queen, daughters be it remembered 
 of the first families in the land, had no proper conception of 
 the horrid wickedness of this brokerage ; and they requested 
 the Dake of Somerset to get the affair arranged for them on 
 the best terms. Somerset wrote to Sir Francis Warre, the 
 member for Bridgewater, asking him as a personal favor to 
 see the parents, as being a neighbor and likely to be known 
 to them, or to name some proper agent who might arrange 
 the business.^ Warre had evidently no wish to be mixed up 
 with an affair of this kind ; and he replied that it was already 
 in proper hands, those of one Bird, the town clerk.^ For 
 some unknown reason the maids of honor forbade this agent 
 to proceed in their behalf, and Warre was again applied to ; 
 but he refused to name a broker on the spot, excusing him- 
 self on the pleas that the schoolmistress was a woman of mean 
 birth, and the young ladies were acting at the time under her 
 orders."* Weeks elapsed and no settlement was made by the 
 parents ; nor do we know — except by inference — what was 
 done in the matter at court, until the following letter was 
 written : 
 
 softens these harsh words into simple "illegal assembly!" his evident ohject 
 being to make the after-vengeance appear unprovoked. 
 
 1 Sunderland's Letter, Feb. 13, 1686. 
 
 2 Somerset to Warre, Dec. 12, 1685. 
 
 3 Toulmin's Hist, of Taunton, 531. Ed. Savage. 
 
 "* Ibid. 532, where the correspondence Is printed. 
 
 29* 
 
342 WILLIAM PENX. 
 
 "Whitehall, Febry. \Wi, 1685-6. 
 
 u 
 
 Mr. Pexne — Her Maj''" Maids of Honor having acquain- 
 ted me that they designe to employ you and Mr. Waklen in 
 making a composition with the Relations of the Maids of 
 Taunton for the high Misdemeanor they have been guilty of, 
 I do at their request hereby let you know that His^ Maj'^ has 
 been pleased to give their Fines to the said Maids of Honor, 
 and therefore recommend it to Mr. Walden and you to make 
 the most advantageous composition you can in their behalfe. 
 '-'- 1 am, Sir, your humble servant, 
 
 ^' Sunderland P."2 
 
 To whom was this letter addressed ? Sir James Macintosh, 
 the first man who brought the letter to light, — for Mr. Ma- 
 caulay has not even the merit of originality in his errors, — ■ 
 assumed that it was addressed to William Penn;^ and in this 
 singular assumption he has been followed by his friend and 
 admirer. But Macintosh went still further : he not only as- 
 sumed, without warrant, that a letter addressed to a "Mr. 
 Penne" to engage him in a "scandalous transaction" was 
 addressed to the governor of Pennsylvania ; but he also dared, 
 in defiance of every rule of historical criticism, to assume 
 that William Penn accepted the commission that was so 
 ofi'ered.'* Mr. Macaulay, of course, copied this gross mistake 
 from Sir James, and gave it the additional currency of his 
 own volumes. This point is particularly noticeable, — that 
 Mr. Macaulay did not consult the original authorities, but 
 satisfied himself with merely quoting from the " Macintosh 
 collection."^ Now this letter was certainly not addressed to 
 William Penn. (1.) In the first place, it does not bear his 
 name : he never wrote his name "Penne," nor did others ever 
 so write it. In the Pennsylvania correspondence, in the 
 Minutes of the Privy Council, and in the letters of Van Cit- 
 ters, Locke, Lawton, Bailey, Creech and Hunt, and in the 
 correspondence of his private friends, I have seen it written 
 hundreds of times, but never once, even by accident, with an 
 
 1 In transcribing this letter from tlie State Papers, Mr. Forster writes 
 " her" majty, — a mistake which gives an erroneous countenance to Mr. Ma- 
 caulay's "scandal against Queen" Maria. 
 
 2 Sunderland Letter-Book, Feb. 13, 1G86. Domestic, various, 629, p. 324. 
 
 3 Macintosh, Hist. Eng. 32. 4 ibi^. 
 ^ Macaulay, i. 656. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 343 
 
 e final. Least of all men could Sunderland, his intimate ac- 
 quaintance from boyhood, make such a mistake. — (2.) The 
 letter is highly disrespectful, if supposed to be written to a 
 man of his rank — a man who had refused a peerage, and who 
 stood before the court, not only as a personal friend to the 
 King, but as Lord Proprietor of the largest province in 
 America ; the more especially would this be the case when it 
 is considered that the letter was written by the polite and 
 diplomatic Earl of Sunderland. — (3.) The work to be done 
 required a low, trafficking agent, who could go down to Taun- 
 ton and stay there until the business was concluded: it is ob- 
 vious that this could not be done by William Penn. — (4.) The 
 letter is evidently a reply to an ofter of service : the maids of 
 honor ^' designe to employ " Mr. Penne and Mr. Walden, be- 
 cause, as it seems to me, they had applied for the office. 
 Malice itself would shrink from the assumption that the go- 
 vernor of Pennsylvania would voluntarily solicit such an em- 
 ployment. — (5.) It is contrary to every thing else that is known 
 of Penn that he would allow himself, on any pretence, to be 
 drawn into such a business. — (6.) No mention of it occurs in 
 any of his letters : I have read some hundreds of them, and 
 although he was the most communicative of correspondents, 
 not a trace of his action, or of his having been applied to in 
 the aifair, is to be found. Knowing his epistolary habit, this 
 fact alone would have satisfied my own mind. — (7.) No mention 
 has been made of his interference by any news-writer, pam- 
 phleteer, or historian, — though, had he been concerned, the 
 hostofmaligners, who rose against him on the flight of James, 
 could certainly not have failed to point their sarcasms with 
 the "scandalous transaction" and "extortion of money." — 
 (8.) No tradition of his appearance on the scene is preserved 
 in the neighborhood ; when, had he really been the agent em- 
 ployed, it is impossible that so conspicuous a broker could 
 have faded so soon from local recollection. 
 
 But, if William Penn were not the "Mr. Penne" addressed 
 by Lord Sunderland, and designed by the ladies to be em- 
 ployed in their behalf — who was the man ? A little research 
 enables me to answer this question. Li the Registers of the 
 Privy Council, I find this entry : 
 
344 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 *«Nov. 25tli, 1687. 
 "George Penne — Upon reading the petition of George 
 "^enne, gent, setting forth that his family having been great 
 aiferers for their loyalty, He humbly begs that His Majesty 
 AYOuld be graciously pleased to grant him a patent for the sole 
 exercising the royal Oake lottery, and licensing all other 
 games, in his Majesty's plantations in America, for twenty- 
 one years. His Majesty in Council is pleased to refer this 
 matter to the consideration of the K-t. Hon. the Lords Com- 
 missioners of the Treasury, and upon what their lordships 
 report of what is fit to be done therein for the petitioner, His 
 Majesty will declare his further pleasure."^ 
 
 This man, whose fitting reward, according to his own esti- 
 mate of the value of his services, was the fief of a gaming-- 
 table, was the Mr. Penne. His name is always spelt with the 
 final e. In the first draft of the foregoing minute, the clerk 
 had spelt the name George Penn, both in the miargin and in 
 the text, but has filled the final letter in afterwards, as if 
 prophetically guarding against any confusion of this wretched 
 fellow with the great governor of Pennsylvania. He was a 
 low hanger-on about the back-doors of the court, ready for 
 any dirty work. When pardons were to be bought and sold, 
 he w^as a pardon-broker. He was actively engaged in the 
 Taunton afi'air ; and among other feats, as I am able to state 
 on the authority of a family cash-book still preserved, he 
 obtained Qbl. from Nathaniel Pinney as the ransom of his 
 brother Azariah Pinney, one of the transported rebels.^ Mr. 
 Walden was apparently an agent of the same kind, and equally 
 and deservedly obscure. For some reason, however, the 
 " designe to employ" these men miscarried, and the maids of 
 honor found another agent in the person of Brent,^ the Popish 
 lawyer, who was a regular pardon-broker,^ and was arrested 
 on the flight of King James, as I find by the minutes of 
 Privy Council.^ This fellow employed as great a rascal as 
 himself, one Crane of Bridgewater, as his sub-agent, and be- 
 tween them they settled the business, as Oldmixon relates.^ 
 
 1 Council Registers, J. i. 540. Privy Council Office. 
 
 2 Cash Book of Natlianial Pinney. 3 Oldmixon, ii. 708. 
 
 ^ Clarendon's Diary, March 9, 1G88. — Secret Services of Charles II. nnd 
 James II. (about to be published by the Camden Society), 133, 141, 161, 180, 
 7, 196, 7, 205.— Oldmixon, ii. 708. 
 
 s Council Registers, W. R. i. 24. c Oldmixon, ii. 708. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 345 
 
 Having cleared Penn from this foul and unfounded charge, 
 let me say a word or two in behalf of the maids of honor. 
 Mr. Macaulay says they " were at last forced to be content 
 with less than a third" of 7,000Z. How much less ? Is there 
 any evidence that they received a single guinea ? Dr. Toul- 
 min collected his information from the families of the girls of 
 Taunton, at a time when the children of the little rebels might 
 have been still alive, and he says merely that some of the 
 parents paid as much as fifty or a hundred pounds.* Some of 
 them ? Oldmixon tells us that the number of the scholars 
 was twenty.^ How many of twenty could be called some ? 
 Take it at ten ; if pardons were purchased for ten, five at 50/. 
 and five at 1001. this would but yield 750?. altogether. Besides 
 which Oldmixon, who had peculiar means of learning the real 
 facts, says the agent and his subordinate paid themselves 
 bountifully out of the money.^ I know of no proof that the 
 maids of honor got a shilling. 
 
 While on this digression, I may add a remark in behalf of 
 another much-abused lady. The historian counts up with 
 virtuous indignation the number of transported insurgents 
 which the Queen, Maria d'Este, selected for her private por- 
 tion of the spoil, and talks of "the thousand pounds" which 
 she made by " her unprincely greediness and her unwomanly 
 cruelty." Now we not only do not know how much, if any 
 thing at all, the Queen put into her pocket ; but we do not 
 know for certain that she received for herself a single trans- 
 port. We have no good reason to believe that she ever dreamt 
 of such a thing. The only ground for this gross charge 
 against the honor of a woman and a foreigner, is a letter of 
 Sunderland to Lord Jeffi-eys — which Mr. Macaulay, as usual, 
 has copied from the Macintosh Collection" — in which that 
 statesman, after giving a list of grants of prisoners to various 
 persons about the court, adds in a postscript — " The Queen 
 has asked for a hundred more of the rebels who are to be 
 transported ; as soon as I know for whom, you shall hear 
 from me again. ""• It is clear enough from Sunderland's words 
 that she did not ask them for herself. It is equally clear that 
 Mr. Macaulay's estimate of " the profits she cleared on the 
 cargo, after making large allowance for those who died of 
 
 » Hist, of Taunton, 532. 2 Oldmixon, ii. 702. =» Ibid. ii. 708. 
 
 4 Sunderland Letter Book, Sept. 14, 1685. State Paper Office. 
 
346 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 hunger and fever during the passage," is a mere invention. 
 The misfortunes of this Avoman should have shielded her from 
 injustice. 
 
 III. Towards the close of his reign, when the churchmen 
 openly repudiated their own doctrine of passive obedience, 
 James became anxious to secure the adhesion of his Dissent- 
 ing subjects ; and among other leading men, he selected Penn's 
 old opponent,^ William Kiffin, the Baptist, for a city magis- 
 tracy. But two of Kiffin's grandsons had been taken and 
 executed in the Western rebellion, and it was doubted whether 
 the old man would comply with the wishes of the court. At 
 this point Mr. Macaulay introduces Penn. " The heartless 
 and venal sycophants of Whitehall, judging by themselves, 
 thought that the old man would be easily propitiated by an 
 alderman's gown, and by some compensation in money, for 
 the property which his grandsons had forfeited. Penn was 
 employed in the work of seduction, but to no purpose." Now, 
 there is not the slightest foundation in history for this state- 
 ment. Mr. Macaulay here asserts that Penn was " employed" 
 by the ''heartless and venal sycophants" of the court, to 
 seduce Kiffin into an acceptance of the alderman's gown, — 
 and that he failed. The passage means this, or it means no- 
 thing. It will be allowed that on such a point Kiffin himself 
 must be the best authority : in his autobiography, lately pub- 
 lished from the original manuscript, he says, — " In a little 
 after, a great temptation attended me, which was a commission 
 from the King, to be one of the aldermen of the city of Lon- 
 don ; which, as soon as I heard of it, I used all the diligence I 
 could, to be excused, both by some lords near the King, and also 
 by Sir Nicholas Butler and Mr. Penn. But it was all in vain."^ 
 This is just the reverse of what Mr. Macaulay states. Penn 
 did not go to Kiffin ; Kiffin went to Penn. Instead of being 
 employed in the work of seduction, he was engaged in the 
 task of intercession. Mr. Macaulay makes Kiffin refuse the 
 magistracy: Kiffin says he accepted it: — ''The next court- 
 day I came to the court, and took upon me the office of alder- 
 man."4 
 
 IV. A little attention to dates will soon dispose of the 
 fourth charge against Penn. Mr. Macaulay writes — "All 
 
 ' See Chap. iv. p. 125. 2 Macaulay, ii. 230. 
 
 3 Kiffiu's Mem. 85. Ed. by Orme, 1823. ■» Ibid. 87. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 347 
 
 men were anxious to know what he [the Prince of Orange] 
 thought of the Declaration of Indulgence .... 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 prove irresistible." Now, Penn returned from Ger- 
 many in the autumn of 1686,^ and the Declaration was not 
 issued until April, 1687. After 1686, he never went to the 
 Dutch capital. There is no evidence, even, that Penn sent 
 over " copious disquisitions ;" Burnet, Mr. Macaulay's au- 
 thority, says not a word on such a subject.^ When Penn was 
 at the Hague, in the summer of 1686, the subject that was 
 under discussion related to the Tests, not the Indulgence. 
 The Declaration was unthought of at that time ; — Burnet is 
 very clear on this point.^ But there is other proof that 
 Mr. Macaulay's guess-work is wrong. In November, 1686, 
 five months before the Declaration was issued. Van Citters 
 reported to his correspondent, the substance of the conversa- 
 tions between Penn and the Prince, as it was then known in 
 court circles in London ; and in that report, no mention 
 whatever is made of the Declaration.^ 
 
 V. In the ninth chapter of the preceding memoir, I have 
 given the true history of Penn's connection with the affair of 
 Magdalen College. In this place I shall content myself with 
 a special refutation of Mr. Macaulay's errors ; first quoting 
 his material passages, and numbering them for separate remark. 
 (1) ^' Penn was at Chester, on a pastoral tour. His popularity 
 and authority among his brethren had greatly declined (2) 
 since he had become a tool of the King and the Jesuits." 
 . . . (3) " Perhaps the College might still be terrified, 
 caressed, or bribed into submission. The agency of Penn was 
 employed." . . . (4) " The courtly Quaker, therefore, 
 did his best to seduce the college from the path of right." 
 . (5) " To such a degree had his manners been cor- 
 rupted by evil communications, and his understanding ob- 
 scured by inordinate zeal for a single object, that he did not 
 scruple to become a broker in simony of a peculiarly discredit- 
 able kind", and to use a bishopric as a bait to tempt a divine 
 to perjury." These assertions may be looked at one by one, as 
 
 1 One of his MS. Letters to Harrison, now in my possession, is (Isited Lon- 
 don Sept. 23, Ui86. 2 Burnet, iii. 140, 1. =» Ibid. 
 4 Van Citters' MS. Corresp. Nov. 2G, 1G86. Westminster. 
 
3^8 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 they stand here. (1) Had Penn become in 1687 — the date of 
 Mr. MacauLaj's authority^ — unpopular and powerless with his 
 brethren ? There is, fortunately, better evidence than that 
 of an agent of Louis Quatorze :^ the evidejice of the " breth- 
 ren" themselves. The Records at Devonshire House prove 
 that his influence was high as ever in the society of Friends ; 
 he was elected to speak their sentiments ; he served their 
 most important offices ; was in accord with Fox, Crisp, and 
 the other leaders f and at the very moment when Mr. Macau- 
 lay introduces him with this disparaging comment, he was on 
 a religious tour, one of the most popular and brilliant of his 
 public ministry. To this may be added the testimony of 
 Penn himself; in one of his letters he expressly says, that it 
 is at the joint request of the Society of Friends, and of per- 
 sons in authority, that he is engaged in the business of the 
 nation.^ (2) Was he ever " a tool of the King and of the 
 Jesuits ?" No man, I venture to believe, will entertain a 
 doubt on this point, after reading the ninth chapter of these 
 memoirs, and the authorities there cited. Family experiences 
 had given him an early abhorrence of the persecuting spirit 
 of the Roman Church.^ In his youth he had written against 
 the errors of Popery, and in his riper age had pointed many 
 a sentence with honest indignation at Jesuit morals.^ 
 
 Now that the Jesuits had acquired power at court, he con- 
 tinually hazarded his influence by urging the King to banish 
 them from the royal presence. Citters, Johnstone, and Claren- 
 don, all testify clearly to this effect. The Dutch diplomatist 
 says, "Penn has had a long interview with the King, and 
 has, he thinks, shown to the King that Parliament will not 
 consent to a re ocation of the Test and Penal Laws — and 
 that he never win get a Parliament to his mind — so long as 
 he will not adopt moderate councils, and drive away from his 
 presence the immoderate Jesuits, and other Papists who sur- 
 round him daily, and whose ultra councils he now follows.'"^ 
 Johnstone says expressly, that Penn was against the order 
 commanding the Declaration to be read in the churches. s 
 
 1 Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Sep. 12, 22, 1687. ^ i^id, Sept. 12, 1687. 
 3 MS. Minutes of Quarterly Meetings. 
 
 ^ MS. letter to Harrison (undated, but placed by Harrison about or little 
 before, Sept. 23.) 5 gee chap. xii. p. 328. 
 
 ^ Caveat against Popery, Fruits of Solitude. 
 
 7 Van Citters' MS. Letters, July 29, 1687. 
 
 8 Jolinstcne Corresp May 23, 1688. Macintosh, 241, n. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 349 
 
 Clarendon says in his Diary that Penn " labored to thwart 
 the Jesuitical influence that predominated."^ On what au- 
 thority, then, does Mr. Macaulay make his assertion ? Simply 
 on his own ! Was he a tool of the King ? The idea is absurd. 
 He never sacrificed a point to the humor of James ; but he 
 often crossed that humor, and his political action was always 
 against the court. Not to go so far back as the days of 
 Sidney, when, according to Barillon, he divided the leadership 
 of thp most advanced body of Reformers with that great Re- 
 publican,^ — if his private friendship was given to Sunderland, 
 Halifax, and Rochester,^ his political sympathy was always 
 with the more liberal men of the opposition.'* The supporters 
 of Monmouth looked to him and half a dozen others to bring 
 over the American colonies to the cause of liberty and Pro- 
 testantism.^ Though he was trusted by James, he was always 
 an object of suspicion to his government.^ He plainly told 
 the King of his errors ; he advised him to expel the Jesuits 
 from Whitehall ; not to trust to his prerogative, but to meet 
 his Parliament with wise and just proposals ;^ not to insist on 
 having the Declaration read by the clergy f not to commit 
 the seven Prelates to the Tower. And when that impolitic 
 act had been committed, he advised him to take the gracious 
 opportunity afforded by the birth of a Prince of Wales to set 
 them at liberty, and still further to signalize the occasion by 
 a general amnesty to the exiles in Holland.^ He counselled 
 him to submit to the will of the nation, and to be content with 
 a simple toleration of his religion. ^° Can this man be called 
 a " tool" of the King ? Let Mr. Macaulay show another man 
 in that age with equal boldness and integrity. He braved 
 the royal frowns again and again in the cau.»e of mercy. He 
 obtained a pardon for Locke, another for Trenchard, another 
 for Aaron Smith — all of them men who had deeply offended 
 
 J Clarendon Diary, June 23, 1688. 
 
 2 Barillon to Louis, Dalrymple, i. 357. 
 
 3 Penn's Letter to Sunderland, June 8, 1684. 
 
 4 Fragments of an Apology, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 236. 
 Letter to Popple, Oct. 24, 1688. King's Life of Locke, i. 292. Lawton's 
 Memoir. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 220 
 
 5 Wade's Confession, Harl. MSS. 6845. 
 
 6 Penn to Shrewsbury, March 7, 1689. 
 
 7 Citters' MS. Letter, July 29. ^ Johnstone, May 23. 
 9 Lawton, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 230, 1. 
 
 '0 Colbctcd Works, ii. 771-3. 
 
 30 
 
350 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 James. ^ He compelled him to listen to tlie councils of the 
 leading Whigs ; and in the Oxford affair told him he was in 
 the wrong in plainer language than the usages of speech 
 would permit to ordinary men.^ This man a tool ! — (3) Was 
 the agency of Penn employed to terrify, caress, or bribe the 
 collegians into submission ? There is not even a shadow of 
 authority for this most uncharitable assertion. Penn was 
 alarmed at the quarrel, fearing it might lead, through the 
 combined obstinacy of the King and Fellows, to a loss of the 
 College Charter, and a transfer of its immense revenues to 
 the Papists — and he interposed his good offices to heal the 
 wound. Instead of looking on him as a person "employed" 
 to terrify, caress, or bribe them into submission, we have the 
 evidence of Dr. Bailey, one of the inculpated Fellows, and 
 that of Thomas Creech, a student, that the collegians regarded 
 him as a friend and mediator "in their behalf."^ — (4) Did 
 he " do his best to seduce the college from the path of right?" 
 Mr. Macaulay's knowledge of the proceeding appears to be 
 derived from "Wilmot's Life of Hough"^ — though he does 
 not quote it — and from the " State Trials."^ To these 
 sources of information must be added the MS. letters of Dr. 
 Sykes and Mr. Creech, preserved in the Bodleian Library at 
 Oxford, and the MS. papers of George Hunt, now in the pos- 
 session of the President of Magdalen College. Hunt was one 
 of the Fellows, and was present at the interview with Penn ; 
 Sykes and Creech were both of them well informed as to all 
 the incidents which occurred ; yet so far is either he, or are 
 they, from saying that he attempted to " seduce them from 
 the path of right," that they agree exactly in the emphatic 
 and conclusive statement, that, after hearing their reasons, 
 he agreed with them that they were justified in their resist- 
 ance. He even went further, he became their champion. In 
 their presence he wrote a manly English letter to his sove- 
 reign, in which he told him in very plain terms — " that their 
 case was hard; that in their circumstances they could not 
 yield without a breach of their oaths ; and that such mandates 
 were a force on conscience, and not agreeable to the King's 
 
 1 Life of Locke, i. 292. — Lawton's Memoirs, Penn. Hist. Sec. Mem. iii. 
 Part ii. 
 
 2 Lawton's Mem. Hough's Letter, Oct. 9, 1688. 
 
 3 Creech to Charlett, MS. Sept. 6.— Bailey's Letter, Oct. 3, 1G88. 
 
 4 Quarto, 1812. s Vol. xii. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 851 
 
 Other gracious indulgences."^ How singularly unfortunate is 
 Mr. Macaulay in his authorities! " Penn," he says, "ex- 
 horted the Fellows not to rely on the goodness of their cause, 
 but to submit, or at least to temporize." I defy Mr. Macau- 
 lay to give any trustworthy authority for this macchiavellian 
 council. He wisely abstains from quoting his author ; but 
 the curious reader will find it in the twelfth volume of the 
 " State Trials," in the shape of an anonymous letter which 
 was addressed by some unknown person, during the heat of 
 the dispute, to Dr. Bailey, one of the Fellows. Bailey, "from 
 the charitable purpose" of the letter, thought it might have 
 come from Penn f and to ascertain the fact, wrote a reply to 
 Penn without signing his name, saying, that if he were his 
 anonymous correspondent, he would know how to address his 
 answer. Of course no reply came. No man conversant with 
 Penn's habit of writing could for an instant mistake it for 
 his; — it commences, "Sir," — and the second person plural 
 is used throughout.^ Nor is this all the evidence against its 
 being written by Penn. The contemporary account of these 
 proceedings has written, in Hunt's hand, on the margin of 
 this letter, the words — "This letter Mr. Penn disowned."^ 
 Yet it is on the assumption that Penn actually wrote this 
 thrice-proven spurious epistle, that Mr. Macaulay has built 
 his most serious accusation ! What would be said of such evi- 
 dence in a court of justice ? Surely the memories of the 
 illustrious dead are not less precious than the property of the 
 living ! Let me say, to the credit of Macintosh, that he makes 
 no charge against Penn in this Oxford business. Here Mr. 
 Macaulay is perfectly original. (5) Did Penn deal "in simony 
 of a particularly disreputable kind, and use a bishopric as a 
 bait to tempt a divine to perjury?" Mr. Macaulay continues 
 to represent him as employed by the court ; and having, as 
 he says, failed in his attempt to terrify the collegians into 
 obedience, he " then tried a gentler tone. He had an inter- 
 view with Hough, and with some of the Fellows, and after 
 many professions of sympathy and friendship, began to hint 
 at a compromise. ... • How should you like,' said Penn, 
 *to see Dr. Hough Bishop of Oxford?'" Hereupon follows 
 the indignation about simony and perjury. 
 
 > MS. Letters to Dr. Charlett, Sept. 6, 7, 9, 1688. Life of Hough, 15. 
 
 2 Bailey's Letter, Oct. 3. 
 
 3 Sec the spurious Letter in State Trials, vol. xii. ^ Hunt MSS. 
 
352 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 Now let US see what is really known about this interview. 
 Dr. Hough, its chief subject, wrote on the evening of the day 
 on which it took place a letter to his cousin, in which he re- 
 cited the principal heads of the discourse, — and this account, 
 from one too deeply interested to be impartial, and too much 
 -excited to remember any thing but what especially concerned 
 his own prospects and position, is unfortunately the only ex- 
 isting authority.^ Hunt was not present at this interview, 
 and no account of it is preserved in the Magdalen College 
 MSS. Holden's MS. letters in the same library commence 
 posterior to the affair of Penn; and Baron Jenner's MS. ac- 
 count of the Visitation is not to be found. But let us take 
 the authority we have, imperfect though it be, and see what 
 matter can be drawn from it in support of the accusation. 
 What says Hough ? In the outset, instead of Penn being 
 " employed," as Mr. Macaulay continues to misrepresent him, 
 to solicit the Fellows, it appears that the Fellows had sent a 
 deputation to him, consisting of Hough and the principal 
 members of the college.^ Their conversation lasted three 
 hours ; the substance of it I have given in the text of the ninth 
 chapter of the memoir: Mr. Macaulay's version of it is in- 
 exact in all its essential particulars. "He then tried a gentler 
 tone." The historian does not seem to know that two inter- 
 views took place, one at Oxford, the other at Windsor, with 
 six weeks of an interval ; there is no evidence except the 
 spurious letter, that he ever used other than a gentle tone. 
 He " began to hint at a compromise :" the words of Hough are 
 — " I thank God he did not so much as offer at any proposal 
 by way of accommodation."^ How reconcile such statements ! 
 Now let us hear what Hough says of the simony and perjury. 
 Penn, who, according to Swift, " spoke agreeably and with 
 spirit,"^ was always more or less facetious in conversation. 
 Like his father, he was fond of a joke, and had that delight in 
 drollery which belongs to the highest natures.* In this very 
 conversation we see how he made his rhetoric dance — 
 " Christ Church is a noble structure. University is a plea- 
 sant place, and Magdalen College is a comely building." 
 Hough, though not the most quick-witted of men, saw that he 
 
 1 Hough's Letter, Oct. 9, *' at night." 2 Wilmot's Life of Hough, 22. 
 3 Hough's Letter, Oct. 9. " Swift's note to Burnet, iii. 140. 
 
 ^ MS. Testimonial of Reading Quakers. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 353 
 
 "had a mind to droll upon us."^ Stolid and heavy, Hough no 
 doubt reported the conversation honestly, so far as he could 
 remember and understand it. To quote his words — " Once 
 he said, smiling^ If the Bishop of Oxford die. Dr. Hough 
 may be made Bishop. What think you of that, gentlemen?" 
 Cradock one of the Fellows present, took up the tone of plea- 
 santry, and replied, "• they should be heartily glad of it — for 
 it would do very well with the presidency." Does any one 
 doubt that this was a mere pleasantry ? Observe, Penn had no 
 commission to treat with the Fellows, — that he met them at 
 their own request, to consider how he could serve their inter- 
 ests. That Cradock thought it a joke is evident from his re- 
 tort. Had the suggestion of the bishopric been in earnest, it 
 must have been offered on condition of Hough giving up the 
 presidency of his college — that being the point at issue. In 
 such a case, to talk of the combination of the two offices would 
 have been insulting and absurd. Even Hough himself, the 
 least jocular of men, understood this remark as a mere plea- 
 santry, for he instantly adds, — "But, I told him, seriousli/, I 
 had no ambition."^ And yet this innocent mirth, accepted 
 and understood as such, by all the parties concerned, after a 
 lapse of nearly two centuries, is revived and tortured into a 
 ground for one of the foulest accusations ever brought against 
 an historical reputation ! Is this English History ? 
 
 1 Hough's Letter, Oct. 9. 2 i^id. 
 
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