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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Gift of

REV. B. CLOWES CHORLEY

WILLIAM PENN
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" In Monarchies the summits of a nation are rich with verdure and glori
ous with light; in Aristocracies a broad table- land is fertilised and rendered
beautiful ; while in Commonwealths, properly so called, the whole surface
of society unrolls itself like a vast plain to the sun, and receives the light
and comrort and invigorating influence of its beams." J. A. St. JoHir.

WILLIAM PENN

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"WITH AN EXTRA CHAPTER ON "THE MACAULAY CHARGES

\

WILLIAM HEI'WORTH DIXON,
AUIHOE OP " LIFE OF HOWAED."

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" MY COUNTEt'S genius WALKS ANOTHER "VVOELD." T. K. Hervey.

LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY.

MBCCCLI.

PRINTED BT ROBSON, LtVEY, AND PEANKLTN,
Crent New Street, Fetter Lane.

TO

E. H. BAILY, E.A.

THE ARTIST AND THE FRIEND,

Ctti^ ^istotia is tltWaWa.

CatiU 0f Contents.

CHAPTER I. The Fatheb's House. 1620-1667. PACK
Naval heroes— Penn family— Admiral Penn— Birth of William-
Naval command— Family troubles — Penn at Oxford— Sent on
his travels — Penn in the army— Turns Ciuaker .... 1
CHAPTER II. In the AVoklb. 1667-1670.
Philosophy of his conversion — George Fox — Enthusiasm of early
Friends — Penn's influence — Reconciled to his father — Contro
versy — Sent to the Tower — Conspiracy to ruin the Admiral —
Monk and Rupert — Penn in Ireland— ^Return to London . . 43
CHAPTER III. Trial by Jury. 1670.
Conventicle -Act — Treaty of Dover — Penn arrested — An extraordi
nary trial — Rights of juries — Decision of the judges — Death of
the Admiral  82
CHAPTER IV. GuLi Speingett. 1670-1673.
Milton at Chalfont — Story of the Springett family— IPenn in love —
Thomas EUwood— More controversy — Penn again in Newgate —
Travels into Germany and Holland — Marries Guli Springett —
Hicks' disputation — Penn at court  120
CHAPTER "V. The Beginning of the Ene. 1673-1678.
Religious emigrants — Penn's romantic notion — Affairs of New Jersey
— Foreign ^vel — The new Gospel abroad — Vicinity of Worms — ¦
Adventures at Duysburg — Storm at sea — Return to Worming-
hurst — Colonial affairs  163
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  188

Vlll CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VII. A New Democracy. 1680-1682. FAOB
Petition for a grant of land— Penn's intentions— Description of ^enn-
sylvania— The Duke of York— East New Jersey — Negotiation—
The petition granted — The province named — Colonial legislation
—Sidney's suggestions — General laws — Locke's constitution for
Carolina  216
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 Philadelphia — The new city founded — Indian
affairs — The Great Treaty — The constitution amended — Penn
returns to England  237
CHAPTER IX. Day op Court Influence. 1684-1688.
EUwood in trouble — Accession of James — Murder in Maryland —
Penn at court — John Locke — Literature of toleration — Argyle —
Monmouth defeated — Penn's mediation — Aaron Smith — Tolerance
of James — A ludicrous mistake — Tillotson goes to Holland — De
claration of Indulgence — Magdalen CoUege — Tries to bring in
the Whigs— Landing of WiUiam III  281
CHAPTER X. Night and Moeni&g. 1688-1694.
Penn arrested and discharged — Prepares to sail for America — Act
of Toleration — Again arrested — In retirement — War in Europe
and America — The King's design — Fuller the informer — Home-
exUe — Robbed of his colony — Death of Guli — Consolations of
philosophy — Peace-Congress proposed — Penn restored to his hon
ours  334
CHAPTER XI. The Land of Promise. 1694-1701.
Feudalism and democracy — Death of Springett Penn — Character of
WilUam — Penn marries again — The Czar of Russia — Penn in Ire
land — Sails for America — Piracy put down — The M^or-house —
How the Penns lived in America — A new constitution — The Slave
question — Indian affairs — Colonial regulations— Return to England 366
CHAPTER XII. The Closing Scenes. 1702-1718.
Accession of Ann — Young Penn in America — His fether'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 ^vith paralysis— His gradual decline— Death— Funeral . 400
EXTRA CHAPTER. "Tub Macaulay Charges."

PREFACE.

William Penn has been called a mythical rather than an
historical personage. The accounts given of him by his pro
fessed biographers — Besse, Clarkson, Weems, and Le"wis— are
sufficiently vague, lifeless, and transcendental to merit such a
censure. By far the best and most complete of these "works is
that by Clarkson ; but it has serious defects. Beyond a reve
rential sympathy -with Penn's religious ideas, the modern phil
anthropist 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 misgi-ritig
and "without ackno"wledgment. 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 fe"w books,
and those were of the commonest kind. Of the vast coUections
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 PhiMelphia — thro"wing ample and authentic light
on his career— ^e had no kno"wledge, and of course made no
use. I believe I may safely assert that two-thirds of the facts
no-w kno"wn about Penn "were not known to Clarkson. 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 cen
tury, have been much more critically investigated. Hundreds of
volumes, letters, despatches, family memoirs, private accounts

peeface.

and other original documents, have been published. The chief
of these contemporary papers from which I have derived valu
able assistance, brought to light since my predecessor "wrote,
are the foUo-wing :
The Professional Life and Services of Admiral Sir WilUam
Penn (from family and state papers), by Gran"ville Penn, in
two volumes, 8vo. 1833; The Diary and Correspondence of
Samuel Pepys, in five volumes, 8vo. 1848 ; Life and Correspond
ence 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 IL, in two volumes, 8vo. 1843 ; The
Annals of Philadelphia, by John F. Watson, in one huge volume,
8vo. 1830; The PhUadelphia 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 Enghsh History (first, second, and third series),
edited by Sir Henry Ellis, in ten volumes, 8vo. 1824 ; Hazard's
Pennsylvania Kegister, in eight volumes, 8vo. ; Historical Col
lections 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 volume, 8vo. 1837,; and the EUis Correspond
ence, 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 nar
rative 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
unwiUing to admit his faults as a "writer; and even now I
console myself with the reflection that his fame does not de
pend on the verdicts of literary criticism ; it being not as an
author, but as a Christian philanthropist that he has taken his

PREFACE. XI
place with the Howards and the WUberforces of our recent
history. What I have said of Clarkson applies with stiU greater
force to the other three biographers. So far, however, as the
personal history of his hero is concerned, Besse is truthful
and authentic ; and as he wrote on his own immediate know
ledge, 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 position ; it appeared a few years ago in suc
cessive 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 Penn
sylvania ! This omission I have now endeavoured 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 unan
swered ; 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 other-
"wise, 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, assump
tions and mistakes were again brought forward, and with more
than their former emphasis. This decided me. I hastened my
coUection of materials and began to write.

xii PEEFACE.

The original and unpublished documents to which I am
chiefly indebted for information are comprised in the foUow
ing list :

1. 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.
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 the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations.
Ditto.
X. America and West Indies State Papers. Ditto.
XI. New York State Papers. Ditto.
XII. American Proprietory 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 — &om the Govern
ment 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 Gaskell, Esq.
XX. A Collection of unpublished Letters written by and to Thomas
Story.
XXI. An Account of Seizures made on Quakers, in Hsirleian Mss. 7506.
XXII. A Testimony from the Quakers of Reading.
XXIII. Lithograph of an Address by Penn to the Indians, recently dis
covered.
XXIV. Minutes of Quarterly Meetings, preserved in Devonshire House.
xxv. The Register of the Society of Friends. '
XXVI. A Statement by Penn of his differences -with 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.
xxxT. The Axe Papers in Harl. Mss. 6845.
XXXII. An Account of the Seizure of King James at Faversham, in Harl.
Mss. 6852.

PREFACE. xiii
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,
preserved in the Bodleian. (Ballard's Coll. Mss. xx.)
xxxv. Letters of Thomas Sykes to the same, September 7th, 9th, and
1 6th. (Ball. Coll. Mss. xxi.)
xxxTi. Privy-Council Registers, 1644-1718, preserved in the Privy-
Council Office, WhitehaU.
So numerous, so varied, and so important are the additions
made to the biography of Penn from these documents and
papers, that I need not hesitate to describe my work as
chiefly from original sources. The reader wiU find for him
self what is new in my volume: — but I may perhaps be
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 new portraits to our histo
rical gaUery — have added important 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 endeavoured 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 vi-vidness with which they present
themselves to my own mind. In this endeavour I can, even
at best, have but partially succeeded: — yet I hope sufficiently
to have changed him from a Myth into a Man.
Having devoted an Extra Chapter, by way of appendix,
to the errors and accusations of Mr. Macaulay, I shaU do no
more in this place than solicit the reader's attention to it,—
and leave him to pronounce a final judgment on the case.

XIV PREFACE.
I have, in conclusion, to express my grateful thanks to
the many exceUent 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 Gaskell, Esq., of EoUe's Hould, near West
Wycombe. To Peter Penn GaskeU, Esq., of Philadelphia ; to
J. C. B. Davis, Esq., Secretary of Legation to the United
States Embassy in London ; and to Horatio Grates Jones,
Esq., Foreign Corresponding Secretary to the 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 courtesy of the councU of the Historical Society
in sending me copies of their minutes and other works and
papers -with so much kindness and promptitude. 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.E.S., has
been good enough to place in my hands Penn's MS. state
ment of his connexion -with the Fords, from which I have
gleaned important information. To Thomas Thomson, Esq.,
of York, I am indebted for an examination of his unique
coUection of Story mss. ; and to Charles Gilpin, Esq., and to
James Bowden, Esq., Secretary of the Society of Friends, for
a 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 CoUege, Oxford, to
the Librarians of the Bodleian, and to Dr. Bloxam of Magdalen
CoUege, I am obliged for various communications and facUities
of research. Nor can I forget my obligations for much valu-

PREFACE. XV
able suggestion to James Bruce, Esq., the learned editor of the
Gentleman's Magazine ; and to Peter Cunningham, Esq., the
accomphshed historian of London. To Sir George Grey, Se-
cretsiry for the Home Department, I owe the privilege of in
specting 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 fi'iend, 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 themselves to in aid of my unavailing
search for materials among the documents under their charge.
To Bevan Braithwaite, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn, I am indebted
for sundry letters and papers. Through the kindness of Miss
Pinney, of Somerton Erlegh House, sister to Wilham 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 aUo-wing me to examine the
records of the Treasury ; and to John B. Lennard, Esq., for
the same favour at the Privy-Council Office. In conclusion,
I must express my particular obligation to the Government
of Holland for permission to take copies of the Van Citters
correspondence. For the Portrait which accompanies this
volume I am entirely indebted to the kindness of Gran-riUe
Penn, Esq., in whose possession the original painting stUl

W. H. D.

84 St, John's Wood Tekrace,
Marchl, 1851.

WILLIAM PENN.

CHAPTER I.
1620-1667.
Kfft dFatlitr'st House.
Sir William Penn is one of the supprest characters in
English history. By the general historian he is rarely
mentioned, and there are some otherwise good collec
tions 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 equaUy
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 with
out 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
' 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 public services, in 2 vols. 8vo, 1833.
B

WILLIAM PENN.

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 tra
duce his fame. The neglects that fell upon him, fell also
on his comrades in glory. The splendid services of t^e
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 Commonwealth. The reasons for this neglect lie
on the face of the records of that time. The navy was
neutral 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. Rounc^fgid
writers had no love for the navy because it was not their
partisan. Whatever happened on shore, the old spirit
of loyalty to the law survived on board. The seaman
knew but one duty — to stand by his country. If king
and parliament quarrelled, he could not help it ; but he
shrunk with horror from the thought of imbruing his
hands in the blood of his countrymen. Holland and
Spain were his £elds of action : " It is not for us to mind
state-affairs, but to keep foreigners from fooling us," was
the maxim qf Blake ; and in the worst day of his coun
try'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 over-

WILLIAM PENN. 3
whelming 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 Eng
lishman's frames though two centuries have elapsed since
the day of conquest and humiliation. The deeds of the
military power were done at our 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 material trophies of defeat and
¦victory remain ; and in our arts, polity and commerce
still more lasting consequences of the march and coun
ter-march of armies. It is not so with the 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 archipe
lagoes 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 empire in the new world, —
we must hear the whispering humbleness with which the
Dutchman still claims a settlement in that Orient from
which his fathers threatened to exclude the merchants
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.

4 WILLIAM PENN.
The Penns were an old family in the early part of
the sixteenth 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, where they settled on the
skirts of Bradon forest, not far from the town of Min-
tye, in the church of which one of the family, William
Penn, who died in 1591, lies buried in front of the al
tar.^ This man was grandfather to the admiral. Giles
Penn, i;he son of William of Mintye, married Miss Gil
bert, o^ 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 mer
chantman trading with the countries of the Levant and
with the maritime cities of Spain and Portugal. In
this vessel the future admiral worked his way from the
lowest station to the highest, under the immediate vigil
ance of his father's eye ; the duty of every grade was
familiar to him, and he had thoroughly learned how to
obey before he aspired to command. The merchant ser
vice of the period afforded more opportunities for ac
quiring habits of coolness, courage and dexterity on
' Gentleman's Mag. Ixxi. 1121.
» Memoirs of Sir William Penn, by Granville Penn, i. 2.

WILLIAM PENN. 5
board than it does in these smoother sailing times. The
European seas were then more infested with pirates than
the Chinese waters are now ; and the sea-robbers of Bor
neo and Labuan 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 efiiciency. The warfare which they
waged against the commerce of the west was peculiarly
atrocious : — they not only captured property, whenever
it fell in their way, but took owner and cargo with equal
good-will, and sold them together in the bazaars of Tu
nis, Tripoli and Algiers. It was usual for the trader to
sail with his argosy : hence his life was a series of ro
mantic incidents, more especially 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
' Granville Penn, i. 3.
' " Truth rescued from Imposture," by William Pep.n. Works (folia
edition), i. 497.

b WILLIAM PENN.
service he had become acquainted with a young, hand
some and intelligent lady in Rotterdam — Margaret, the
daughter of John Jasper, an opulent Dutch merchant.'
On receiving his promotion the lovers were united, Ja-:
nuary 6th, 1643, and came to settle in London as most
convenient for the care of their worldly interests.^ They
took a handsome lodging near the Tower, then the fa
shionable 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 conversation^ — 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 education, 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 himself a name, — to lay the foundations of a noble
and powerful house. His family had once been rich ; it
' " Hath been heretofore pretty handsome, and is now very discreet."
Pepys, Aug. 19th, 1664.
* This date was not known to Granville Penn. It is one of the thou
sand facts which we owe to the discovery of Pepys. January 6th,
1661,2. » 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."

WILLIAM PENN. 7
was his cherished purpose, not merely to retrieve its for
tunes, but to raise it to a pitch of greatness beyond the
day-dreams of his less energetic fathers. Nor were these
visions idle ; what he conceived he felt he could execute
— and he did.^ In his profession merit secured promo
tion. 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. Hol
land 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.
Spain too was growing more and more insolent. The
turn which 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 solu
tion 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 themselves ; 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 honours :
Letter to Gen. Langhome. " Dear Sir, — 'Tis now grown cold, and 'tis
thought a cup of sack would be reasonable. Now the Malaga orange-
men 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.
' William Penn Gaskell Mss. Granville Penn, ii. 565.
' Heath's Chronicle, p. 198. Deane had been a hoyman's servant at
Ipswich ; Lawson, a common sailor.

O WILLIAM PENN.
— not to the highest, perhaps, there being always a pre
judice 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
conducting 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 Com
mons 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, sta
tioned in the Irish seas, adhered to the royal cause imder
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 capture
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 were now at an end. In losing his control of
the fieet, 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 con-
' Pepys accuses him of rising by means of bribery, May 4th, 1667.
The charge is absurd, — but it is amusing to see Pepys and the old woman
sitting up all night to talk scandal of their neighbours.

WILLIAM PENN. 9
tinent of Europe to send him succours, however much
they might sympathise with him in secret : — and in an
open fight on English ground between the friends of li
berty 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 Pennington, 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 succours 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 morning ; on the following Mon
day William Penn was born. On receiving this intelli
gence 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 hght, — its head
well-shaped, — its face mild and intelligent. So far all
had prospered. Assured that his wiftl» 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.
2 Rushworth's Collection, v. 312.
' Granville Penn, i. 90. " Ibid. i. 99.

10 WILLIAM PENN.
George's Channel. In this service he continued for six
years, where he acquired the reputation 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 professional standing.' At twenty-three
he was made rear-admiral; at twenty-five vice-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 Itahan waters.
In the mean time his son had grown up into a
promising and graceful child at Wanstead in Essex,
where his wife resided in his absence'* — and great public
events, without parallel at that age in the history of
Europe, had taken place in England. Charles Stuart
had lost his cro-wn and life ; the hero of Dunbar and
Worcester had leapt into his seat. The change from
the parliamentary to the protectoral government provoked
no change in the admiral. He attended to his own
duties and avoided politics. When Cromwell announced
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
adhesion, with those of all the officers under his com-
mand.3 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 in
sulted us at every turn, — even Holland fancied we were
no longer worthy of her rivalry. Cromwell soon taught
^ Whitelocke contains numerous entries like the following: 237
" Captain Penn took four vessels from the rebels." — 294 " Three French
ships taken by Penn."— 528 " Penn come in with five ships." ^'

WILLIAM PENN. 1 1
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 with her his invincible in
fantry 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 cap
tains, Blake and Monk ; but these men, though filled with
an energy of spirit akin to their master's, were neverthe
less ignorant of seamanship. All that courage, activity
and dauntless resolution could effect 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 selected the young
admiral of the Straits.* The Lord Protector was aware
that his admiral was not attached to him personally, or
to his ideas of government, but he needed his services,
and convinced that he was a thoroughly worldly man,
supposed he would in time be able to buy him over en
tirely. Clarendon asserts that the commander ow^ his
rise to Cromwell ; 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 him the ablest seaman in his domi
nions — 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. Cromwell rewarded him
with new employments and an independent sphere of
action. s
2 Granville Penn. ' Whitelocke, p. 556. ¦* Ibid. 570.
* Truth rescued, i. 497. Though ambitious of wealth and honours.

12 WILLIAM PENN.
The power of Holland humbled to the dust, the
Protector next addressed himself to the affairs of Spain,
and with his characteristic vigour resolved to strike a
double blow — one in the West Indies, the other in the
Mediterranean. Two expeditions 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 Venables, was
ordered to sweep the Archipelago, disperse and capture
the Spanish fleets in those waters, and attack Hispaniola
and Jamaica.' But before the admiral went on board
he made his own terms with the Protector. Some pro
perty 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 flat —
tering manner. With his own hand he wrote to his
agents in the sister island commanding that, in conside
ration of the 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 fortified place for their better
security, and with a good house upon them for his re
sidence. He made it a special — indeed a personal —
the admiral was certainly not a corrupt public servant. In 1650-1, he
captured in the Mediterranean several prizes, on board one of which were
five chests of gold and silver, amounting to several thousand pounds. His
captains pressed him to divide this money — oifering 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 Eng-

WILLIAM PENN. 13
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 effect which
long obtained more or less belief.* But he failed in the
attempt ; even when the admiral was asking and obtain
ing these rewards of faithful services to the Common
wealth, 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 majority 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 for ever ; at his death mediocrity would succeed
to his honours 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 with it, whatever their merits or their services.
But for his part he had resolved to rise. He cared nei
ther 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
lish. His son adds with much simplicity — " In those times there was too
great a watch over men in employment, to enrich themselves at the cost
of the public." Ibid. i. 499.
¦ Thurloe's State Papers, iii. 504 et seq.
" Pepys' Life and Corresp. i. 401 et seq.
^ Granville Penn, ii. 19, 20. * Pepys' Diary, Nov. 9, 1663.

14 WILLIAM PENN.
estates in his father's defence, and now amused his
exile by their wit and their quarrels.' But his secret
was ill kept ; not only did the man most concerned soon
become aware of this correspondence, but even 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 de
signated for that purpose.' It is impossible 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 re
putable a character as Blake — and Falkland stands in
history not unworthily 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. Ad
miral Penn had none of the political fanaticism which
explain, if it do not excuse, such acts of treason.
Nothing came of the offer for the moment. Charles
' 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.
' Pepys, Nov. 9, 1663.
• 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'sColl. ii. S3. Clarendon, vi. 6.

WILLIAM PENN. 15
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 propitious 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 fieet at the ear
liest opportunity, 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 re
sult ; but he kept an inscrutable silence, and the arma
ment was allowed to leave the European waters without
interruption.^ It- is not necessary to relate the details of this fa
mous expedition. Through the incapacity of General
Venables the attack on Hispaniola failed. That the ad
miral 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 com
plete 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
^ Confident in his own genius, Cromwell seldom hesitated to employ
a known intriguer if he needed him. When Monk began his secret com
munications with the Stuarts, he contented himself with -writing in a ban
tering postscript — " There is a cunning fellow in Scotland, called George
Monk, who lies in wait there to serve Charles Stuart — pray use your
diligence to take him, and send him to me." Price 712, (quoted by Lin
gard, xi. 409).
7 Truth rescued, i, 497.

16 WILLIAM PENN.
army and navy were chagrined by the failure ; and to
atone in some measure for this unexpected reverse of
fortune, the naval commander attacked the magnificent
island of Jamaica, and at a small sacrifice of life added
it to the British dominions.' The tropical splendours 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 pro
vinces 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 conversation in the presence of the boy who was
to be the founder of Pennsylvania — the real or affected
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
offices 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 her son was sent to learn the first rudiments
of scholarship at a grammar-school at Chigwell, then re
cently founded by the Archbishop of York. The family,

' Whitelocke, Sept. 1665.
2 Granville Penn, ii. 140, 1. The substance of the examination is
preserved in Thurloe, iv. 28, 55 ; a glance at which will prove that the
ostensible ground of his imprisonment was not the real one. That Penn
was not concerned in the failure on Hispaniola, is evident from White-

WILLIAM PENN. 17
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 sud
den sense of happiness, akin to a strong religious emo
tion; 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 de
lusion. 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 those morbid conditions of the mind
in which the thoughts and the reveries appear to stand
out as apart from the individual ? The date of the mi
raculous 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
excited by the glad tidings of this release.* Not liking
the still life of his dungeon, the admiral had sent a hum
ble petition to the council in which he acknowledged
his faults and threw himself on the Protector's mercy ;*
and Cromwell, who admired 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
locke, 629, and from the letters of Winslow and Butler (the fleet com
missioners) in State Papers,
' Travels into Germany and Holland, i. 92.
¦* In the Ms. autobiography of Lady Springet, I read of several dreams
of this nature. They were the common incidents of the time.
5 Burchett, 395. C

18 WILLIAM PENN.
freedom.' But no sooner was he again at liberty than he
commenced a new series of intrigues. His own pro
fession closed to him, he pretended to give up pohtics
an^ public business, and taking his family -with him he
removed 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.^ During these years his son William rapidly im
proved, under the direction of a private tutor from
England, in useful and elegant scholarship. He ex
hibited 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 Uni
versity. 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: — it 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.
» Granville Penn, ii. 142. 2 Ibid. ii. 143, 167. » Besse, i. 1.

WILLIAM PENN. 19
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 favour of es
tablished authority and always in the hour of change an
unconsulted and a useless class, wished to see Richard
Cromwell quietly succeed. More than one secret con
clave was held that night in London, and various pro
jects 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
puffs and blasts ; but as the hours wore on it became a
steady gale. At midnight it blew 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 chimneys blown down. Vessels
were snapped from their moorings in the river, and
dashed against each other and on the strand. The un
common 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, 0 Lord !" cried the departing hero, " who look
too much upon Thy instruments 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 par-
* Clarendon, vi. 102-3. Heath, 408. Ludlow, ii. 153. The reade
should also consult Underwood, 12, and Thurloe, vii. 373.

20 WILLIAM PENN.
tisans of the Exile iu Ireland, and for a time Wilham
Penn's removal to Oxford was deferred. The admiral at
once put himself into communication vyith his Munster
friends ;' but on comparing ideas it was thought unwise
to take any formal steps in favour of Charles. The ge
nius of the dead prince had infused an energy into the
march of government which served for the moment to
deceive mankind as to the strength of his son and suc
cessor; 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 Pro
tector's death the Penns remained at their Irish estates :
William pursuing his studies with his tutor, his father
in secret but active correspondence with his friend Lord
Broghill and other powerful malcontents in the neigh
bourhood ;2 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 honours 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 bring
ing over the fleet to the cause of the restoration ;* and
this point was so far gained that in a critical moment
Admiral Lawson brought his ships up to the Tower and
there declared in favour of a free parliament — which
' Granville Penn, ii. 208. 2 m^
' Parliamentary History, xxii. 295. There is an entry of 100/. paid
to him for this special service,
< Granville Penn, ii. 216. » Ibid. ii. 209. " Ibid. ii. 221.

WILLIAM PENN. 21
parliament it was well known would recall the Exiles.
When the new writs were issued, the borough of Wey
mouth, without solicitation on his part, elected Sir Wil
liam to serve as their representative in company 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 favour thus laid open, the admiral
was anxious that his son, — whose natural abilities ap
peared to him of the finest order, and whose love of busi
ness and open-air exercises promised a man of active
habits and worldly ambition, — should now proceed to
the University. To Oxford he went, where he matri
culated 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 University, thus preparing a. way for the delivery
of the noble sermons which are still regarded by lovers
of our old literature as models of grace and masculine
beauty,9 John Wilmot too was thete, scattering about
him those gleams of wit and devilry which in after life so
' University Eecords.
^ Life of Owen, prefixed to Works in 28 vols. 1826.
' Sermons on Several Occasions, 6 vols. 8vo, 1704,

22 WILLIAM PENN.
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 — ^rivals in legislation, but grateful friends in the
hour of need.'^
As he entered on his academical career under the aus
pices of the royal brothers, he soon obtained a position
in the brilliant circle of his college. A hard student,
he gave great satisfaction to his superiors; a skilful
boater and adventurous sportsman, he soon became a
favourite with his equals.^ His reading at this time was
solid and extensive, and his acquisition 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 ordi
nary 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 reading 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, politeness and irre-
ligion, soon to characterise the youth of England gene-
1 Wadham College Mss. 2 Christ Church Mss.
' Wood, art, Penn.

WILLIAM PENN. 23
rally, 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
office by the Stuarts to make room for their own par
tisan Dr. Reynolds: a change intended, among other
things, to prepare for the introduction of a more pictu
resque ritual than had latterly been in use.* This mea
sure 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 pa
pistical rites and mummeries.^ Under this sanction,
many of them, — and William Penn among the foremost,
— ^boldly opposed the innovations of the court.^ Yet it
was not without pain that he found his conscience at
war with the powers whom his father delighted to honour.
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 outside. Every where, to use his own ex
pression, he saw that a reign of darkness and debauchery
was commencing ;® 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
* Life of Owen, prefixed to Works, 1826. * n,id. i. 220 et seq.
« Pepys' Diary, April 28, 1662. ' Travels, i. 92. « Ibid.

24 WILLIAM PENN.
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 ra
ging 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 cere
monies 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 ab
sence from their own services was noticed; the superiors
were alarmed; and the young nonconformers 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 pubhc
promenades, in the gardens of Christ Church, in the qua
drangles 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 conspicuous:
— and as an immediate consequence he was brought up
for judgment and expelled the University.*
On hearing of the first and minor offence of noncon
formity the admiral was grieved and astounded. The
' Penn to Turner, Pennsylvania Historical Society's Memoirs, i. 203.
2 Besse, i. 2.
' Lady Springet's Ms. autobiography is full of the repugnance of
Puritans to the vestments of the clergy.
. " Pepys, Nov. 2. » Ibid. May 3, 1668. ^ Ibid. April 28, 1662.
' Ibid. Jan. 25 ; Feb, 1, " Ibid, March 16.

WILLIAM PENN. 25
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 com
panions, — and was addicted to all the genial weaknesses
of a busy man.^ He little understood 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 wis
dom of sending him at once to Cambridge.^ Then came
the expulsion. This disgrace struck the proud and ambi
tious 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, and the whole
family was plunged into misery.® But this stern disci
pline produced no effect. The admiral observed that
his son continued in a low and serious mood of mind,
altogether unnatural as he thought at the age of eigh
teen, — that he avoided the gay and pleasant society to
which he had been accustomed" all his life, — and he be
gan 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, de
scribed by Pepys as " a notable, stout, witty boy," '""and
' "Sir William much troubled on receipt of letters last night.- Shewed
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, 1666 ; he died in 1673.

26 WILLIAM PENN.
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
favourite, more than was needful for his own good, was
what he had neither the will nor the power to do, and
after much thought he changed his method. It had oc
curred to him that the best way to withdraw a young man
from sombre thoughts and inferior company 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 vrith 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 acquaint
ance of Robert Spencer, son of the first Earl of Sun
derland and Lady Dorothy Sidney — sister of the fa
mous Algernon Sidney — and of several other persons of
distinction in the fashionable circles of Paris and Ver-
sailles.2 In this brilliant society the young Penn soon
forgot the austere gravity of his demeanour : 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 shouted 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
' Gerard Croese, History of Quakers, 41.
' Penn to Sunderland, July 28, 1683,

WILLIAM PENN. 27
bowed his head-and taken off his hat in civil salutation :
— his courtesy had been slighted, and he would have sa
tisfaction made to his wounded honour. In vain the
young Englishman protested he had not seen him, —
that he could have no motive for offering such an insult
to a stranger. The more he shewed 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 scabbard, he stood to the
attack. There was but little light ; yet several persons
were attracted by the clash of steel, and a number of
roysterers gathered round to see fair play and decide
upon any points of honour which might be raised.
A few passes proved that Penn was the more expert
swordsman ; and a dexterous movement left the French
gallant unarmed and at his. mercy .^ The company rather
expected liim to finish his man, as they said he had
a right to do by the laws of honour; but he took a
different view of the case, and returned the captured
sword with a polite bow to its owner,* It is pretty
clear from su<:h 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 needful ar-
 '  1  ' 
3 "No Cross, no Crown," i, 313.
* Gerard Croese, 41;, ^ Besse, i. 2.

28 WILLIAM PENN.
rangements.' 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 himself 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 honourable exile rather than compromise
his political 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 republican left England in 1659, and did not re
turn until 1677, when they appear to have been long in
timate,* it is necessary to infer that they were now intro
duced. 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 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 fi'om
Italy. England was again at war with Holland. On the
day pf Charles Stuart's restoration, the Dutch revived
their old dreams of naval supremacy, and their aims and
' Ormonde to Sir William Penn, Granville Penn, i. 429.
2 "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 30, 1660.
" Algernon Sidney to Furly, April 3, 1678,

WILLIAM PENN. 29
pretensions had at length outwearied the patience of
Whitehall. War was declared. 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 Sand-wich, 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 Sand
wich and the rage of Rupert, the royal brothers con
sulted 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 clamour of the royal
ists 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
¦• Sidney Papers, ii. 165. Penn. Hist. Soc, Mem, iii. second part.
' Penn was but 42, yet the duke always called him in allusion to his
long services at sea " Old Penn." Pepys, June 20, 1664.
« Ibid, Nov, 6, 1665. ? Ibid. Oct. 3, 1664.
^ Kempthome Papers in Egerton Mss. " Sir William Penn do
grow every day more and more regarded by the duke." Pepys, Oct. 3.

30 WILLIAM PENN.
have his son at home ; partly to look after the family
affairs, and partly to ensure his personal safety, as the
King of France was believed to be secretly leaning to
wards 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 appearance
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 frantic. He came back a fine gentleman.
Like the fashionable young men he had travelled with,
he wore pantaloons 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 especial favourite. He had
learned in foreign drawing-rooms to lisp the language uf
polished compliment, and to compose the little chan
sons d'amour which courtly beauties loved to listen to in
that age of elegant frivolity.* In person he had grown
from a slight and unfornled youth into a graceful and
handsome 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
" 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. ' Gibson to Penn, March 1712. ' Pepys, August 30.
^ "Comes Mr. Penn to visit me, I perceive something of learning he
h!ith got J but a great deal, if not too much, of the vanity of the French
gf^vb, and affected manner of speech and gait." August 30. The reader

WILLIAM PENN. 31
eye soft and full; his brow open and ample; his features
well defined and approaching to the ideal Greek in con
tour ; 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 massive na
tural 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 pre
vent the 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 en
tered 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 em
ployed him on the King's business and in his own pri
vate affairs. There seemed little fear that he would again
go wrong: at least so thought his worldly-minded fa-
ther.s The crisis of the Dutch war had now arrived. On
the 24th of March 1665, the Duke of York, accompa
nied 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;'' but at the end of
three weeks he was sent on shore with despatches for the
of the Diary will remember how far the censor of these vanities was him
self above them.
* His portrait, painted at 22, is now in possession of the Pennsylvania
Hist. Society.
' Besse, i, 2, « Granville Penn, ii. 317-8.
7 Truth rescued, i. 498. Granville Penn, ii. 342.

32 WILLIAM PENN.
King. On the 23d of April he landed at Harwich about
on© 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 mes
sage 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 letters : — " 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 imtil June, when
the decisive battle was fought and won — the battle which
struck down 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 was a visitation to make the boldest pause and the
least susceptible to reHgious 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
' William Penn to the admiral. May 6.
2 Penn to Turner, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 201. Pennsylvania Char
ter, preamble. s Defoe, ix. 1-204. ¦• Travels, i. 92.
' All classes looked up to him in the hour of danger. Pepys' mean
ness 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

WILLIAM PENN. 33
forth in search of food. The fear of death was in all
hearts :3 — and the shock revived the old religious fer
vour 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 de
vout lives,* Again the dazzling dreams, which to the
keen eye of the admiral appeared more and more easj'
to realise 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 honours -.^ —
and he was given to understand that he would be raised
to the peerage in due time with the title of Lord Wey
mouth, the borough which he then represented iii parlia-
were. And though I do not love him, yet I find it necessary to keep in
¦with him. His good service at Sheemess in getting out 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. D

34 WILLIAM PENN.
ment.' But what was he to do with a shy and moody-
youth in that splendid and dissipated 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 folhes —
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
friendship, 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 o-wn person
he had gathered all the worth and beauty of the country
over which he ruled ; and his court was remarkable 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 for
get that hateful gloom. Sensible that while his mind
was still fresh and his worldly passions dormant, the so
ciety 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 mea
sures not unvnsely : only he had overlooked one import
ant fact — the Quakers were already numerous in Ire-
land.3 Provided with letters of introduction to the -viceroy
' Granville Penn, ii. 317-18, Besse, i, 2.
2 Carte's Life of Ormonde, and the Ormonde Correspondence,

WILLIAM PENN. 35
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 kno-WTi to his second son, the young Lord Arran,
(Ossory being at that time absent in his sovereign's ser
vice,) to Lord Dunagle, Secretary Sir George Lane, and
the other distinguished persons of his court,* He was
charmed with the spirit, the intelligence, the high breed
ing of his young courtier; and in a very short time the
accounts sent to the admiral assured him that in sepa
rating his son from his London associates he had effec
tually changed the current of his thoughts. The Or
mondes were a family of soldiers : — the pomp and cir-i
cumstance of war occupied nearly every thought of youngf
Arran and his companions. Penn was still considered ai
little too grave for one-and-twenty ; but he affected nor
moroseness, — gave up his time and talents to the occu-[
pation of the hour, — and one unexpected event gave t@f
his tastes and wishes a powerful impulse towards a milig
tary career. This was an insurrection of the soldiers stai
tioned at Carrickfergus. The mutineers seized the castle
and spread alarm through the whole country. To th^
Lord Arran was assigned the arduous task of reducing
them to obedience ; and impelled by the ardour of youtfe
Penn offered to serve as a volunteer under his friendj
His offer was accepted, and in the subsequent actions ^g
the siege he so distinguished himself by courage aiyj
coolness as to extort general applause from his superjg^^
officers. Arran was in ecstasies. The viceroy hims-^
wrote to the admiral to express his great satisfact^
with his son's conduct ; and at the same time proposed
that he should now join the army and have a company
^ Thurloe, iv. 757. >¦
* Letters in Granville Penn, ii. 429 et seq. Jiocj

36 WILLIAM PENN.
of foot, as had been agreed between them before his re
turn from France.'
This taste of military glory made the volunteer an
xious to adopt the sword as a profession. The desire did
not lie deep in his mind perhaps ; but so long as the ca
reer 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;^
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 ! *
From this time the famUy 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 Ma-
cromp — an estate in excellent condition, with gardens
and nurseries in perfect culture, — several woods of great
value, — markets of grain and fruit, — and vaiious other
manorial rights and dignities attached. But with the
Restoration came in a claimant with an indisputable title,
' Ormonde to Sir William, May 29, 1666.
s Granville Penn, ii. 431-2. ^ Pepys, August 30.
* Frontispiece to this volume. Granville Penn, ii. 431. The original
portraits (there were two copies) are — one of them in possession of his

WILLIAM PENix. 37
and Macroom went back to the Earls of Clancarty. The
admiral, however, had taken too much care of his for
tunes 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 neighbourhood.
The new grant was of course not free from other
claims ; and vexatious suits were maintained against the
new proprietor for several years. One 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 entertained
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
conspicuous.^ Nor did his ducal friend overlook his mar
vellous 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 flUed to the entire satisfaction of his employer.''
descendant, G ranville Penn, Esq. The other in the hall of the Pennsylvania
Historical Society.
» Granville Penn, ii. 617. • Ibid. ii. 374. ' Ibid, ii, 433,

38 WILLIAM PENN.
But it was in London, not at Kinsale or Shangarry,
that the great question of the Irish estates was to be set
tled. The Land Commissioners appointed by the crown
to hear and adjust the multitude of intricate cases which
had arisen during twenty years of grants, confiscations,
forfeitures and restorations, were then sitting ; but the
admiral had begun to feel a greater degree of confidence
in his son's tact and judgment than in his own, and he
wrote to desire he would get the family affairs into an
orderly state and then come over and see the Commis
sioners, — at the same time giving him some shrewd
worldly hints as to the conduct of the victualling de
partment 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 e-vidence on
both sides the land commissioners confirmed 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 graduaUy falling, sent
him again into Ireland. 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
> Granville Penn, ii. 434. 2 penn Gaskell Mss,
' Pepys, April 19 j June 25, Granville Penn, ii, 433.

WILLIAM PENN. 39
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 occa
sion of one of his frequent visits to Cork, heard by acci
dent 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 won
dered 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 was peculiarly adapted to his own
situation. Possessed by strong religious instincts, but
at the same time docile and affectionate, — he had hi
therto 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 favour 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 Thomas Loe's influence they were re
stored to a permanent sway. From that night he was
a Ciuaker in his heart.^
He now began to attend the meetings of this despised
and persecuted sect, and soon learned to feel the bitter
I, i. 2. " Travels, i. 92.

40 WILLIAM PENN.
martyrdom 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
latelj- 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 sol
diers broke in upon them, made the whole congregation
prisoners and carried them before the mayor on a charge
of riot and tumultuous assembling. Seeing Wilham
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 President
of Munster — giving an account of his arrest and deten
tion. An order was of course sent to the mayor for
his immediate discharge; but the incident had made
known to 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 dis
tressed at this untoward event. The earl wrote off to
the admiral to inform him of his son's danger, stat
ing the bare facts just as they had come to his know
ledge. The family were thunderstruck. The father
especially was seriously annoyed ; he thought the boy's
conduct not only mad but what was far worse in that
' Besse, i. 3.

WILLIAM PENN. 41
libertine age — ridiculous. The world was beginning
to laugh at him and his family : — he could bear it no
longer.* He wrote in peremptory terms, calling him to
London. William obeyed without a word of expostu
lation. 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 search
ing 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 shoulders: — 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 im
patience 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 pass
ing fancy, tried to reason him out ofit. But he mistook
his strength. The boy was the better theologian and
the more thorough master of all the weapons of contro
versy. He then fell back on his own leading motives.
A Quaker 1 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 conscience. But he
had made himself one of a sect remarkable only for ab
surdities which would close on him every door in courtly
2 Pepys, Deo. 29, 1667. ' Besse, i. 2.

42 WILLIAM PENN.
circles. Then there was that question of the hat. Was
he to believe that his own son would refuse to uncover
in his presence ? The thing was quite rebellious and
unnatural. And to crown all, — how would he behave
himself at court ? Would he wear his hat in the royal
presence ? William paused. He asked an hour to con
sider 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 uncovered 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 brUliant 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 medi
tation — a refusal.
The indignant admiral turned him out of doors.'
' Besse, i. 4. 2 nid.
' Travels, i. 92. The admiral's temper was hasty and choleric.
" Homewards 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 him some high words, he went back again and struck them off
their horse in a simple fury." Pepys, April 18, 1661.

CHAPTER II.
1667-1670.
Jn t^c mavla.
It now becomes necessary to inquire into the origin of
these facts ; to see whether it were a reasonable convic
tion or a mere madness which induced William Penn, not
only to abandon for ever 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 measure the society of a
mother and sister to whom he was tenderly attached.
The chief part of this explanation is to be found in
the history of the time. When the civil troubles com
menced in England, the entire intellectual and moral
texture of society was raveUed. 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 anarchical.
Between Hampden and Falkland the space was nar
rower than between Laud and Fox. If in political ideas,
from the school of divine right, through the educated
democracy of Milton, down to the wild republicanism
of the Fifth -Monarchy Men, all was confusion, — the
religion of the numberless sectaries was still less redu
cible 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

44 WILLIAM PENN.
were, — Anabaptists, Antinomians, Antiscripturists, An-
titrinitarians, Arians, Arminians, Baptists, Brownists,
Calvinists, Enthusiasts, FamiUsts, Fifth-Monarchy men.
Independents, Libertines, Muggletonians, Perfectists,
Presbyterians, Puritans, Ranters, Sceptics, Seekers, and
Socinians. Feakes and Powell, worthies of the Ana
baptist faith, openly preached at Blackfriars a war of
conquest and extermination against the continent of Eu
rope. Their eyes lay more especially on the inheritance
of the Dutchman : — God, they proclaimed, had given up
Holland as a dwelling-place for his saints, and a strong
hold from which they might wage war against the great
harlot. The Fifth -Monarchy men protested against
every kind of law and government: 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 Com
munists or Red Republicans of modern date. The na
tional 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 unbelieving,
were made the subject of coarse jokes and indecent
mummeries. In the cant of the time a church was a
tabernacle of the devil,— the Lord's Supper a twopenny
ordinary.' St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Ab
bey were both used as stables for horses and as shambles
for butchers.2 Hogs and horses were taken to fonts
filled with foul water, and baptised according to the
¦ Howell's Letters, 644.
" Foulis' Hist, of Plots and Conspiracies, 136 ; Oxford, 1674. Charac
ter of England, 11 et seq.
» Edwards' Gangrsena, Part iii. 17.

WILLIAM PENN. 45
established ritual, for the amusement of common sol
diers and the painted women who attended the camp as
their paramours.^ Mares were allowed to foal in cathe
drals, 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 reformation was at length complete.^ Sober and re
Hgious 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 wife, — a third after 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 themselves to be God
Almighty come down from heaven ; but once locked up,
their godships did not enable them to open the prison—
gates.9 From Newgate downwards, the prisons were
full of these fanatics : fools or knaves, whom neverthe
less thousands of their countrymen regarded as holy
martyrs suffering from the children of this world the in
justice which has ever been the portion of prophets and
" Newes from Powles (St. Paul's), 1649.
* Mercurius Rusticus, 237,
^ Character of England, 13. ' Fox's Journal, 6.
' Mercurius (section Democraticus), Nos. 1-30. ' Fox's Journal,

46 WILLIAM PENN.
apostles. A fact that is particularly 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 War
wickshire shut himself and his family up in his house to
starve from a fanciful sense of religious duty ; and when
the neighbours broke into the house, they found one of the
children already dead.'^ One Sunday a respectable tai
lor, 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 correctness of his assertion, and of
fered to prove it by shewing the marks of the nails in
his hands by which he had been fastened to the cross
sixteen hundred years before [^ When acting under
any strong excitement, the folly of mankind is iUimit-
able. 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 predic
tion.* Yet these were not the most revolting incidents
of the revolutionary period. A fiend in the guise of wo
man offered up her child as a sacrifice in imitation of
the Hebrew rites, — another crucified her mother. Yet
with all this folly, blasphemy and madness, a deeply reli-
' Lady Springett Ms. ^ Torshall's Hypocrite discovered, 1644.
^ News Tract, January 10, 1646. « Whitelocke, 624.
' " One day, I, by accident, going through y" city from a country
house, could not pass through y' crowd (it being a day wherein y' Lord
Mayor was sworn), but was forced to go into a house till it was over. I,
being burthened with the vanity of this show, said to a professor that stood

WILLIAM PENN. 47
gious spirit possessed the nation ; and a general toleration
for the sects which grew up under the excitement was
one of the happiest issues of the Commonwealth.^
It was into a world thus racked and torn, politi
cally, intellectually, 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 reUgious fervour 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 ad
journed to a tavern in the neighbourhood 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 Pennsyl
vania, the republics of the west, and in no very remote
degree the vast movement of liberal ideas in Great Bri-
by me — ' What benefit have we by all this bloodshed, and Charles being
kept out of y° nation, seeing all these follies are again allowed ?' He
answered, ' None, that he knew of, except y° enjoyment of their religion.'
To which I replied, ' That is a benefit to you that have a religion, to be
protected in the exercise ofit, but it is none to me.'" Ms. Autobio
graphy of Lady Springett.

48 WILLIAM PENN.
tain 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 down, and sometimes prayed and called
to the Lord." During this 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
subtleties, 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
' Fox, 3.
' Visions and strange voices were not confined to the -vulgar in those
days of pious exaltation. Education and gentle blood had no power to
scare them 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 beauti
ful youth, dressed in grey cloth :— this was before she had ever heard of

WILLIAM PENN. 49
a dark and tempestuous sea; he struggled manfully
to get at some gleams 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 pa
rents, 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 be
gan to wander about, often without food, seldom resting
in a bed at night, but always with the Bible in his hand,
and its mysterious words rocking in his brain. " I fasted
much," he writes in his journal, " walked abroad in soli
tary 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 wanderings — 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
a Quaker. The second vision was more impressive : " The man with
greater majesty and sweetness than ever I saw any — thrown hair — black,
quick and shining eyes — fresh and ruddy complexion — affable — dominion
in his countenance, and great gentleness and kindness." Ms. Autobio
graphy. ' Fox's Journal, 3. ¦* Ibid. 7.
£

50 WILLIAM PENN.
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 walk
ing in the doctor's garden, and one of the alleys being
narrow, the truth-seeker, in turning round happened to
touch the side of a flower-bed with his foot, at which the
parson " raged as if his house had been set on flre." Poor
George went away more melancholy than he had come.
As Penn afterwards said, he felt how irreligious were aU
the religions of this world and the professors thereof!'
He went to another priest at Mansetter, in Warwick
shire, an old man, and reasoned with him about despair
and temptation and the soul's inward 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 difficulties 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 knowledge of the law, began to acquire a cer
tain clearness and cohesion in his own mind.^ Much
reading of the Book of books, — deep mental anguish, —
1 Fox, Journal, 4. " ibid. 4. » Ibid. 6 et seq.
* Men of learning and moderation, like Penn and Barclay, were
equally impressed by his manner with the vulgar. Penn calls him " an

WILLIAM PENN. 51
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 supplied the native
springs of eloquence ; familiarity with the pure and ner
vous diction of the English Bible supplied him with a vehi
cle; 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 fluency 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, pro
phets and pretenders, lords, magistrates and private in
dividuals, who refused to accept him as their teacher, —
and was ready to inflict or to suffer 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 hat — pleading a direct com
mand from God not to uncover his head or to make
angel and special messenger of God," It must be said, however, that the
expression occurs in a letter to the angel's wife. Penn to Margaret Fox,
January 8, 1678, Ms. ' Fox, Journal, 17.

52 WILLIAM PENN.
obeisance to an equal, — and defended his conduct
in the church with a rudeness and vehemence that to
men of education and refinement savoured of insanity.
The disturber was beaten and stoned by the rabble,
pilloried and imprisoned again and again by the magis
trates.' But indignity and 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 honour. 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 shew
that the persecuting spirit may be wearied out by a man
who is steadfast in suffering : — and he achieved it.* His
constancy, his contempt of pain, gained for him the sym
pathy of multitudes who might never have been reached
by his doctrines. Here as every where in the history of
opinion, persecution became the chief arm by which his
infiuence was propagated. Whoever is right, said Penn
afterwards, the persecutor must be -wrong.* Hundreds
of the restless and discontented in every county of Eng
land 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 communities 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.^
Fox had got an idea in his mind: — and ideas rule the
world. It was not his own in the first instance ; nor did
' Journal, 169, and in a hundred other places.
' Ibid. 405. ' Penn to Fox, July 5, 1674, Ms.
* So early as 1 656, the Quakers had incretised so far as to attract the

WILLIAM PENN. 53
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 con
cealed in the mind of every man a certain portion of Di
vine 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 Di
vine light was alone infalUble. Of the diagnosis of his
case he had but a confused and imperfect notion ; whe
ther this inner Ught was the thing some men call con
science — others reason, was a question he never trou
bled 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 " He
brew, Greek, and Latin, and the seven arts," he regarded
as little better than devilry and paganism. The know
ledge of many tongues, he said, began with rebelUon
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 con
tended, stood in no need of human learning ; to which
South replied very finely — If God does not stand in
need of human learning, stiU less does He stand in need
of human ignorance. But Fox went on his way rejoicing.
The inner light was enough for him and for all men.
serious attention of foreign statesmen. Bordeaux to Cardinal Mazarin,
Feb. 4, 1655. * Lady Springett's Ms.
' Fox, 18, and on almost any page. • Ibid. 280.

54 WILLIAM PENN.
Even the Scriptures were to some extent superfluous;
and he ventured to reject them when they could not be
made to harmonise 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 dissa
tisfied 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 be
haviour : — an extravagance which in many cases amount
ed 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 their personal peril.* Divers persons
among them were moved of the spirit to do things —
some fantastical, some indecent, some monstrous. One
woman went into the house of Parliament with a tren-
' Fox, 22. He says the Scriptures are to be judged by the Light —
without which they are useless.
2 Thurloe, iii. 422 ; vii. 287. Harl. Misc. vi. 436.
^ Burton's Diary, i. 20 et seq. Parliament occupied eleven days in
the investigation of this case. The wretched man was condemned to

WILLIAM PENNi 55
chard 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 dishevelled, and her head
covered with dust, to testify, as she said, against pride.
James Naylor gave himself out as the Messiah ;^ 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 Solomon 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 denounced 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 Lon
don 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
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 soli
tary dungeon and fed with bread and water. Thurloe, v. 708. The House
was as mad as the poor fanatic himself. ¦• Harl. Mise. vi. 434,
» Life of Latye, by himself, p, 64. " Fox, 67-2.

56 WILLIAM PENN.
to the people as they passed, that in like manner 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 at and wounded 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 religious world : what was grand and genuine in their
enthusiasm belonged to themselves. They succeeded,
in spite of smaU 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, rudderless and
anchorless, a prey to storm and wave, the wear of mo
tion 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
1 Whitelocke, Jan. 3, 1 654, ^ Thurloe, iii. 1 88, &c.
-¦" Fox contended for the rights of servants before the magistrates.
Journal, 17. His antipatliy to the regular clergy arose in a great measure
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

WILLIAM PENN. 57
enlarge the sphere of all known truths, — and to deve-
lope germs out of which a fresh civilisation might arise.
These enthusiasts not only preached the doctrines of
social and political equality; they aimed at the estab
lishment of an universal reUgion.3 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 discussed
points of theology with ploughmen. He invoked in thou
sands of the yeomanry of England a fervour of spirit
almost equal to that which possessed himself.* He
exhorted the ambassadors of the great powers, then as
sembled at Nimmeguen, to treat of peace, — and warned
the citizens of Oldenburgh that the fire which had re
cently desolated their 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 Biddel forced
her way into the presence of the grand monarch at Ver
sailles, and commanded him in the name of God to
sheathe his destroying sword.^ Others made their way
to Jerusalem and to New England, — to Egypt, to China
and to Japan.^ One young woman of dauntless resolu
tion carried the words of peace to the successor of Mo-
fair autobiographer says — " Their solid and weighty carriage struck a
dread over me." This was in her days of scoffing. ' Fox, 452.
^ Thurloe, vi, 708. Colonels of regiments wrote to inform Cromwell
that many of their otficers and men had " begun to set their own humours
above all Scriptures, ministries, and magistracies." Ibid vi, 168, Of
course they were expelled the army. vi. 241.
7 Gerard Croese, 268. " Fox, 248.

58 WILLIAM PENN.
hammed in his camp at Adrianople, 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 them
selves received; everywhere treating all men as equals
and brothers ; thee-ing and thou-ing high and low ; pro
testing against all authority not springing from the light
in the soul-^against all powers, pri-vileges and immuni
ties 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 Uke this was in
itself a revolution. Cromwell clearly understood the
nature of the movement; and tolerant as he was of reli
gious sects, he would willingly have put it down. But
even his mighty arm was paralysed. The Children of
Light were also the 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 consequences
to themselves in silence. Sects Uke the Anabaptists, 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 honours or crush them with the sword.
But fear and favour were alike lost on the followers of Fox.
They would neither obey his laws nor resist his troops.
' Thurloe, vii. 32. Sewell's Hist, of Quakers, i, 333,
2 Sewell, i, 332.
' They were mobbed in the streets of Lisbon for irreverence. Thur->
loe, iii. 432.

WILLIAM PENN. 59
They opposed their silence to his severity. They were
readier to endure than he was to inflict : — and he fore
saw that their patience would tire out persecution,*
Quakerism was a system of polity as well as a reli
gion. 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 con
cur in the enactment of general laws ; but it found the
sanctions of this equality, not in the usages of ancient
nations, Uke the classic republicans — not in a mere con
venient arrangement of checks and counter-checks of
power, like more modern reformers ; it found these sanc
tions 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 system was
logical. It regarded every man's inward Ught — reason,
conscience or by whatever name it might be called —
as his best and safest guide ; the theory therefore of a
perfect 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 honour — 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
* Cromwell is reported to have exclaimed — " Now I see there is
a people risen that I cannot win either with gifts, honours, ofiices, or
places : but all other sects and people I can." Fox, 169.
" Barclay, 504, 541,

60

WILLIAM PENN.

of a superiority which he denied ; it was therefore a
question of conscience not to comply with it. The peo
ple who bent the knee to prince or protector thereby
confessed that in their own thoughts they were not his
equals. The act was not a ceremony but a sign of sub
jection. Having adopted views like these — is it won
derful that William Penn, in the fervour 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 suppUed 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 enjoyments of the domestic
circle. On the other hand his consolations 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 unfet
tered 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 mo
ther and sister were so fond of going, he had seen virtue
laughed at as ridiculous, and female modesty put to the
blush in public ; the galleries of Whitehall, where the
admiral thought it an honour to be seen, he knew were
thronged by bravoes and harlots, and the royal palace
itself a nest for every sin and abomination under hea
ven.' Look where he would upon that grand society
' Pepys' Diary and Grammont's Memoirs, every page. ^ Ibid.
s Penn to Sidney, Oct. 13, 1681, Ms. Penn says iu this letter that

WILLIAM PENN. 61
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 honour
able 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 politics 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 pro
foundly 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 experi
ment of a democracy in action ; but he 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 reUgious idea. Penn loved the great
republican with more than a brother's love, — he re
spected and confided in his masculine judgment, — but
he had never yet thoroughly given up his mind to that
classical idea of a democracy, governed only by pride
of soul and an 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 histori
cal 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 ap-
he has given to Sidney " more true friendship and steady kindness . . .
than to any man living."

62 WILLIAM PENN.
peased ; 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 favour of his new tenets. His first
book had for title — " Truth Exalted ; in a short but
sure testimony against all those religious faiths and wor
ships that have been formed and followed in the dark
ness of apostacy,-^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 old way 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 beUef in the
divine economy of the universe, and to compare the
ideas in which it rested with those now set forth to en
gage their attention. What he advised he also practised.
Hat on head he went down to Whitehall, bearing the
unbridled ridicule 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 treatment 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 cus
toms and the charters of Norman kings, — he made out
a case so convincing that the Duke pledged himself to
bring a bill into Parliament to do them justice. It is
creditable to him that he kept his word ; a disgrace to
the Commons of England that they refused to discuss
his proposition,* The same year Penn made his second essay in con-
' Collected Works, i. 239.
2 Penn's Fragments of an Apology for Himself. Penn. Hist. Soc.
Mem, iii. second part, 238.

WILLIAM PENN. 63
troversy. John Clapham, in a work called " A Guide to
True Religion," had treated the Quakers with extreme
and unjustifiable severity : the young convert answered in
" The Guide Mistaken," a tract written with consider
able vigour, but in the coarse and personal style com
mon to the greatest polemics of that age.^ He soon had
his days and nights occupied with controversy;
At this time there lived in Spitalfields one Thomas
Vincent, a Presbyterian minister, who had a congrega
tion 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 incident which so en
raged 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 ge
neral 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. vSuch religious debates were very com
mon at that time, and were among its most curious fea
tures. When the disputants arrived, they found the room
already full of Vincent's friends ; and only the heads of
the deputation 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
' Compare Milton's " Defence of the People of England." Works,
i. 30 ; St. John's edition. Why does not this elegant writer and accom
plished scholar write us a new life of Milton ? '

64 WILLIAM PENN.
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 assented, and the
defendants were obUged to submit. Vincent then asked
them, — if they owned one Godhead subsisting in three
distinct and separate persons ? Penn and Whitehead
both asserted that the dogma as delivered by Vincent
was not to be found in Scripture. The latter answered
this by a syllogism. 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 sub
stances, or three somethings else beside subsistences. —
But they are not three manifestations, three operations,
three substances, nor any thing else beside three subsist
ences. — Hence there are three separate subsistences, yet
only one Deity." Whitehead rejected the term " sub
sistences" as not of scriptural origin, and desired an ex
planation 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 sub
tlety of thought and dexterity in argument which he ex
hibited caused one of the audience to call him a Jesuit,
a nam^e 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 Vin
cent was asked if in his opinion God was to be under
stood as separate from his substance ? The pastor ap
pealed to his flock, and they charitably ruled that he
was not bound to answer that question. Whitehead
' Sewell, ii. 172-3.
2 Pepys. " February 12, 1668-9. Got William Penn's book against

WILLIAM PENN. 65
then pressed other questions ; but the uproar increased
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 flnished he told the people to
go home, and he himself left the pulpit. It was now mid
night; the congregation began to leave ; and the defend
ants felt that many would go away with a false impres
sion. 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 discussion decently.'
This offer was a mere trick to get rid of the crowd.
The second meeting not being called in due course, Penn
considered it best to lay the matter before the public, in
" The Sandy Foundation shaken." — In this work, which
the fashionable friends of his father read with astonish
ment and admiration, refusing to believe it to be the
production of so young a man,* — he undertook to main
tain 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 personages 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 plurality of
the Divine nature. They had a far more powerful argu
ment, 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
the Trinity ; and I find it so well -«rrit, as I think it is too good for him to
have writ it : it is a serious sort of book, and not fit for every body to read."
'' Apology, Penn. Hist. Soc, Mem, iii. secoud part, 239,
F

66 WILLIAM PENN.
issued against him from the Secretary of State's office, —
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 for ever, 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 contained 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 prisoner
as to its contents.* This was a not 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 inte
rest in obtaining for him a speedy liberation .^
He remained in the Tower eight months and six
teen days,* Considering that his offence was not poh
tical — that no charge was preferred against him in a
court of law — that he had not been put upon his de
fence — and that he stood unconvicted of any crime,
his confinement was monstrously severe. He was kept
in a solitary dungeon; his family was not aUowed ac
cess to him; nor was he permitted to see any other
friend in his prison save now aiid then his father.* The
prelate evidently -wished to break his spirit ; but he
little knew the mettle of the youth, if he indulged in
such an expectation. One day his servant brought him
' Besse, i. 6. " Letter to Arlington. Penn's Works, foi. i. p. 151.
° Ibid. * Apology in Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii, second part, 239,
= Ibid. « Besse, i. 6.
' Many of the works written in the Tower are enumerated in the Lon
don Prisons, c. ii.
' Lady Springett gives a fair idea of the struggles of the worldly heart
against the asceticism of Quaker doctrines. " I never had peace or quiet

WILLIAM PENN. 67
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. Nei
ther great nor good things were ever attained without
loss and hardship. The man that would reap and not
labour 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 thp literature of the
Tower.7 " No Cross, No Crown," stUl a favourite
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 arrangement
of subject-^- and the extent of research displayed. Had
the style been more condensed, it would have been well
entitled 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 professed to be the servants of God. He
wished to present clearly to his own mind and to im
press upon others the great Christian doctrine that every
man must bear the cross who hopes to wear the crown.^
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 watch-
ings, and doleful days : not at all from that time ever disputing against
the doctrine (nay, not so much as in my own mind), but exercised against
y" taking up y° Cross ; and [abandoning] y° language, fashions, customs,
titles, honours, and esteem of y° world, and the place I stood outwardly
in. My relations made it very hard." Ms. Autobiography.

68 WILLIAM PENN,
To this end he reviewed the character of the age. He
shewed 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 the clergy have
been most in power and influence, confusion, -wrangling,
sequestrations, exiles, imprisonments and bloodshed have
most abounded: — in testimony of which he confidently
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 con
sists of eighteen copious chapters — each chapter a dis
sertation in itself. In one of them he gave his reasons
for rejecting worldly honours and distinctions, — the
point which was the sorest trial to his father, as the pro
spective 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 favour 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 nume
rous sayings from eighty-seven celebrated pagans, aU
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 per
sonages chiefly of modern times to testify to the same
effect.* 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 pubUc library at his com
mand. On being given to the world the book produced
an impression highly favourable to its writer: it went
' It was passages like this which so endeared the writings of Penn to
"Voltaire and the Encycloptedists. Diet, Phil,, article Quaker.
2 No Cross, no Crown, foi, i, 374 et seq.

WILLIAM PENN. 69
rapidly through several editions, and is still frequently
reprinted. 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 feel
ing some indignation at his clerical oppressors. How
ever much he might still disapprove of his principles and
detest what he called his delusions about equality and
titles 6f honour, 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
regions of the court to obtain for him an unconditional
pardon ; but the offence being one of a purely ecclesi
astical nature, Charles, who had good reason to know
himself suspected by the Church, was anxious not to
give a cause of fresh offence by a direct interference.
The House of Commons was in a bad humour ; it had
recently spited him by rejecting that measure of jus
tice to Dissenters which he had solemnly promised in
his manifesto of Breda.^ However, to please the admi
ral, 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 per
formed 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." Stilling
fleet avoided the point of conscience and spoke of the
brilliant prospects which he forfeited by his change of
creed, — of the king's well-known favour to his family:
it was to no purpose. Worldly hopes were as powerless
» Com, Journ. April 28, 1688. Pari. Hist. iv. 41 3 et seq.
* Apology, Penn. Hist. Soc, Mem. iii, second part, 239.

70 WILLIAM PENN.
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
impracticable !*
To Arlington he wrote a manly remonstrance against
the treatment which 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 pimished for dif
ferences of opinion in matters of reUgion ; 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 because 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 understanding 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
invokes 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 suppUcants), because I think the honour
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 Stillingfleet
were operating a change in his favour at Whitehall,
he continued to solace himself with writing.* Several
answers to his " Sandy Foundation shaken" had appeared,
' Apology, Penn, Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. second part, 239.
2 Besse, i. 6. » Coll. Works, i. 154.
? Apology, Penn. Hist, Soc, Mem. iii. second part, 239.

WILLIAM PENN. 71
in some of which his views were much misrepresented:
— to these he now replied in a brief and vigorous pam
phlet which he entitled " Innocency, with her open
Face. "5 This work increased the public interest in his
fate, and probably helped to procure his Uberation 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 powerful combination in the House of Commons threat
ened 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 poli
tical 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 dishonourable 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 un
fortunate influence over the royal councils, had proved
themselves 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 Com
monwealth the envy and hatred of these officers were
5 Works, i, 266. ^ Such is the opinion of Besse, i. 6.
7 Evelyn, July 27, 1667.

72

WILLIAM PENN.

unappeasable. Ascue and Lawton felt the blighting ef
fects of their jealousy ; but the heaviest weight of it feU
on Admiral Penn. Monk, it is true, was past the time
for very active service ; but Rupert was hot-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 Na-vy 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 flrst mo
ments 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 seaman in his do
minions equal to such a task was Admiral Penn.*
This choice was pecuharly annoying to his two rivals.
The admiral had not sought the honours of command: its
duties were forced on him by the stern necessities of the
time.* There had been enough of landsmen blunders
and misfortunes. A seaman was wanted ; and the hu
mours of a prince, even of the blood-royal, were not to
be indulged at the expense of another conflagration of
the dock-yards. Rupert of course was mortified ; and both
he and Albemarle vented their anger and disappointment
' 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 impart
tial in their verdicts. See Sir John Denham's " Directions to a Painter,"
and Andrew Marvel's " Last instructions to a Painter,"

WILLIAM PENN. 73
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 fooUsh vow. With Rupert he got up a plot to
keep him at home. The conspirators began by secretly
trying to undermine his reputation ; they spoke of his
abiUties and services in sUghting terms ; insinuated what
they dared not boldly assert, and allowed their creatures
to defame their brother officer without rebuke. One
day, when the newly appointed commander called at
Albemarle's house 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 mar
ried 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 ofier to go to
sea again, to the endangering of the nation, when you
know you are such a coward ? "^ But such paltry maUce
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 Cavaliers to their
families and estates ; and this influence he now resolved
to strain to the uttermost to effect his own and the
prince's purpose. It was pretty evident to the con
spirators that no serious crime could be maintained
2 The Duke of York never doubted the naval genius of Cromwell's
captains. Clarendon's Autobiography, ii. Z5i.
' Pepys, February 20, 1668, ¦* Ibid, February 24.
» Ibid. February 29,

74

WILLIAM PENN.

against Penn; but this was of little consequence: if
they could only get the House to entertain some trum
pery charge which would place him under accusation,
and oblige him to prepare a defence, their end would
be answered. A person under impeachment by Parlia
ment could not be sent out to sea in command of the
King's fleet ; their creatures in the House could avail
themselves of every pretext to delay the inquiry until it
became 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 playerSj
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 affected to him ; — for his glory and reputation be
longed essentially to the time of the Commonwealth ;
and to add to their dislike, his son and heir had given
mortal offence 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.
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
' Pepys, March 27; April 28,
2 "The Committee"— "The Indian Queen"— "The Surprisal," &c.
He was the Bilboa in Buckingham's first draft of " The Rehearsal," after
wards altered to Bayes, for Dryden.
' Pepys' Diary, March 26, 1668. " Ibid. March 29 and 30.
' Ibid. March 30. Pepys, with his usual acuteness, saw at once the
imprudence of the duke's taking this last step — " but I think it mighty
hot counsel for the Duke of York, at this time, to go out of the way."

WILLIAM PENN. 75
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 an affront to Sir W. Penn,
whose going to sea this year doth give them matter of
great dislike.'" The House agreed to revive a " Com
mittee 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 resentment 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 out
rage 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 conspi
rators waxed fainter, and their friends in the House
obviously began to cool.'' The proposal to arrest the
accused was negatived ; but having committed them
selves so far, the members were obliged to go on with
it, and Sir Robert Howard was charged with the con
duct 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.9 — " To Westminster Hall," says
^ Pepys. " April 3. This day I hear that Prince Rupert and Holmes
do go to sea ; and by this there is a seeming friendship and peace among
our great seamen ;..but the devil a bit is there any love among them, or.
can be." ? Ibid. April 16.
' Repoils of the proceedings in the Commons were taken do-wn at the
time, by Auchetill Grey, member for Derby, Grej's Debates, i. p, 133
et seq. ' Journals of the ,House of Lords,. April 24 to 27, and 29,

76

WILLIAM PENN,

Pepys, " and saw Sir W. Penn go into the House of
Lords, where his impeachment was read to him and he
used mighty civilly, the Duke ofTTork 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 exhibited against him, which reply was
at once accepted and transmitted to the lower House ; ^
but in spite of the Admiral's urgent requests, that com
plaisant body refused to consider the documents until
it was too late to be settled in that session,^ On the
4th of May a moment's leisure was found to refer the
answer back to the impeachment committee, with orders
for it to consider the articles and draw up a repUca-
tion on the entire charge to be forwarded to the Lords.
There the matter ended. The House rose without
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 Wil
liam 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 firm
ness and independence of the House of Peers. In society
the rancour of party found ample food in these intrigues.
' Pepys, April 27.
2 Journal of the Lords, April 29, 1668. I have not thought it ne
cessary 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 White
hall," says Pepys, " and there do hear how, Sir W.. Penn hath delivered
in his answer ; the Lords have sent it down to the Commons, but tSey
have not yet read it, nor taken notice ofit, so, as I believe, they will by
design defer it till they rise, and so he, by laying under an impeachment,

WILLIAM PENN. 77
The King and Duke of York being for the admiral, all
those who for personalends were for the moment in op
position were of coQrse 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 attached to
the family. To add to all these troubles, the seaman's
health was beginning to fail. His wear and wreck of
life had been great, and his constitution was completely
undermined. 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 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 favour; 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
may be prevented in his going to sea, which will vex him, and trouble the
Duke of York." April 29.
* See the proceedings reported at length in Howell's State Trials,
vol. vi. p. 878. ° Pepys' Diary^ May 27; August 9.
^ Sir Robert Howard had missed the shaft of Buckingham's wit, only
to be transfixed by that of Shadwell ; he and his mistress were held up
to public ridicule as Sir Positive At-AU 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 every
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.

78 WILLIAM PENN.
admiral's desire, Stillingfleet 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 imme
diately 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 vex
ation to the admiral. He had no hope now that the
whim would pass away : but whUe he confessed to him
self the hopelessness of continuing the struggle of pa
rental 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 reconciliation.
Still, though he would not place himself in friendly re
lations 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 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 Castie at the end of
the following month.^ As soon as he commenced his
westward journey, his father began to write to him di
rectly. The letters were chiefly details of business, —
but the correspondence opened with a passage in these
' Penn to Popple, Oct. 24, 1688.
• Apology, Penn. Hist, Soc, Mem, iii, sec, part, 240, ' Besse, i, 6.

WILLIAM PENN. 79
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, with 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, WUUam remained in Ireland, chiefly
employed in attending to the affairs of the Shangarry
property.fi 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 con
sole them. Next day he held a meeting in the prison,
where he exhorted them to be steadfast in their oppo
sition to the unjust exercise of power by the magis
tracy.^ Nor did he fairly settle down to the business
which had brought him into Ireland until he had made a
journey back to DubUn 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 content 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 solicitations
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 con
science' sake, — the result of which was that an order in
council was passed on the 4th of June 1670 for their
release.^ ' Ms. letter, Oct, 6, 1669. * Granville Penn, ii. 660. » Besse, i, 6,
7 Apology, Penn. Hist, Soc, Mem. iii, second part, 240, ^ Besse, i, 7.

80 WILLIAM PENN.
But the larger portion of his time during these eight
months' residence in Ireland was devoted to the exe
cution of the trusts confided to him by his father. A
voluminous correspondence was kept up between Wan
stead and Shangarry Castle, but it is chiefly concerned
with details of management.' 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 anxious to transfer his property to England, — and
measures to that end were among the principal topics
of the correspondence 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 WiUiam to in
quire 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 eUgible
property 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 now 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
' Granville Penn, ii. 660.
2 Pepys, Dec. 21, 1668 ; May 3, 1669.
^ 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 William Penn's own words

WILLIAM PENN. 81
see his son again. His anger was wearied out, and on
the edge of the grave the great objects for which he was
prematurely to give up his life began to appear of only
minor consequence. 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 pri
vation abroad — the influence of time and the horrors of
the Tower. A fancy which could inspire such resolu
tion 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 faUing
more and more : for four or five months he had not been
able to leave the house; and they were consequently
Uving in the greatest retirement. Such a condition of
domestic affairs was highly favourable 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.^
are too express for me to allow the slightest weight to such an opinion,
" The bitter usage I underwent when I returned to my father — whipping,
beating, and turning out of doors." Travels in Holland and Germany,
i, 92.

CHAPTER III.
1670.
Crtal bg gurj).
The happiness of the Penn family was soon disturbed by
new persecutions of the sect with wliich WilUam had
connected himself.' The great question agitating the
country at this time was that of Liberty of Conscience — •.
with its consequence, Free Worship. The Church of Eng
land was alarmed. The Duke of York, the presumptive
heir to the throne, was an avowed Catholic. The King
himself was suspected of a leaning towards the ritual fol
lowed by his wife, his brother, his brother's -wife, and
his own favourite mistress. Some of the courtiers had
recently apostatised ; and many others were suspected of
only waiting a more favourable moment to declare them
selves converts to the creed which alone foimd 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 sol
diers 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 (May 16th, 1664) by the
Conventicle Act — granted as an experiment for three
' Penn to his fether, Sept, 5, 1670.

WILLIAM PENN. 83
years, and afterwards renewed for a second term, — which
act declared it seditious and; unlawful for more than five
persons, exclusive of the family, to meet together for
reUgious worship according to any other than the na
tional ritual ; . and every person above the age of sixteen
attending meetings of the character described was liable,
for the first offence, to be fined five pounds or imprisoned
during three months ; for the second offence, to be fined
ten pounds or imprisoned six months ; for the third of
fence, to be fined a hundred pounds or transported be
yond 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 denominations of Dissen
ters, 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 which the law awarded ; resolved to tire
out persecution by the patient spirit in which they en
dured affliction for conscience' 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 williag to
include all Dissenters within the pale of the law. Wil-
kins, Tillotson, Stillingfleeti and Bruton were consulted
on the part of the Church ; Baxter, Bates, and Manton
on the part of the Nonconformists. But the Church

84 WILLIAM PENN.
itself would not agree to the proposal of the ministry.
Men of extreme opinion^ like Parker and Patrick, ve
hemently opposed every measure which savoured of
concession ; while others of more moderate views, like
Owen and Andrew Marvel, contended for a union of all
shades of Anglican theology against the common enemy
entrenched in Whitehall.
Could the members of the House of Commons have
been made aware of what was passing at that time be
tween his most Catholic Majesty Louis XIV. and their
own sovereign, 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 England 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 Hol
land; to maintain by sea and land the claims of the
Bourbons to the crown of Spain and the dominion of the
new world!' In return for these services Louis stipu
lated to grant the spendthrift King a large subsidy and
to send over an army to crush out the last remnants of
the national freedom, if the people should presume to
resist. This treaty was signed in May 1670 ; the Con
venticle Act was renewed in April. Far-seeing men, of
moderate conservative -views, had begun to look forward
with despair.2
WilUam Penn soon became a victim of this enact-
' Secret Treaty. Note B. in Lingard, xii. 364, where it was first pub
lished. 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 must be ruined ; our case being past relief,
the kingdom being so much in debt, and the King minding nothing bi'*-

WILLIAM PENN. 85
ment. 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 company of soldiers.^ Un
able 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. See
ing this movement, the constables came forward and ar
rested him, together with Captain WiUiam Mead, an old
soldier of the Commonwealth and now a draper in the
city.* Penn demanded to be shewn their authority for
this act, and the officers at once produced a warrant, pre
pared beforehand, and signed by the Lord Mayor, Sir Sa
muel 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 imdergo examination.^ Knowing that 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 reminded that the law was against such a
course of proceeding, he ordered them to be sent to the
Black Dog, a -vn-etched sponging -house in Newgate
Market, to await their trial at the Old Bailey.^ From
this place of durance he wrote to his father in the most
his lust, going two days a week to see my Lady Castlemaine.'' Pepys'
Diary, August 8, 1667.
^ It was quite common for soldiers to invade meeting-houses. Life of
Latye, 59. ,
¦• Penn to his father, Aug. 15, 1670. Philadelphia Friend, vi, 170,
* The People's ancient and just Liberties asserted, foi, vol, i, p, 7,
^ Penn to his father, Aug, 16.

86 WILLIAM PENN.
affectionate terms ; and, while glorying in his sufferings
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 pro
ceedings, 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 an Englishman contending for the ancient and
imprescriptible liberties of his race.^ The special law
on which he was arraigned, he knew very weU that he
had violated and intended again and again to violate.
His religious friends took the same view of the case :
they acknowledged 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 di-
-vine laws, and therefore not binding. Better versed in
his country's history, Penn disputed its legaUty. He
held it to be in equal hostiUty 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 Parliament, which
' Penn to his father, Aug. 16.
2 Penn held the fundamental laws, those of the old charters, to be un
alterable — completely out of the power of the Estates of the realm to
change. See his " England's present Interest considered," foi. i. 674, 6.
^ Penn was a staunch aaserter of the right — then contested, now ad
mitted — of the juror to judge of both law and fact. " Truth rescued from
Imposture," foi. i. 500.
¦• The fundamental rights which Penn held to be peculiar to English
men were the four following : (1.) Security of property ; (2.) Liberty
of person ; (3.) The right of assisting to make every law by which that

WILLIAM PENN. .,• 87
abolishes any one of the fundamental rights secured to
the nation by the ancient constitution ? A most im
portant point in itself; and dear to England were the
interests 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
ci-vil Uberties of the nation — now seriously menaced by
a treacherous and despotic court, supported by a bench
equally corrupt and servile, — even if, as he expected,
it should fail in estabhshing the claims of conscience.
Thus he reasoned with himself: If, as on ordinary oc
casions we should feel bound to do, we now plead guilty,
by our punishment this wicked act will acquire an addi
tional force : but if we deny our guilt, as we may with
good conscience, and throw the burden of proof on the
court, we shall shew to all the world the evil animus df
our persecutors ; and we shall also be able to raise the
question whether this law be in harmony with the Great
Charter. If the court cannot shew that it is — will a jury
of Englishmen, fairly appealed to, convict? Should a
precedent be set of juries refusing to con-vict under a
bad law, the arm of tyranny would be at once para
lysed.^ 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 char
ters of the nation.*
security of property or that liberty of person may be affected ; (4.) A
real share, by means of the jury, in the actual adininistration of the civil
law. " England's present Interest considered," foi. i. 675. Relying on
the authority of Coke, Penn fully believed that all these rights had come
do-tm from the Saxon period. Modem scholars have disputed the claim
of the Saxons to the honour of being the founders of the. jury system.
The point is exceedingly knotty ; but I incline strongly to the old opi
nion, and shall take my chance of going wrong on a point of legal history
with Coke and Spelman, Blackstone and Turner in company.

88

WILLIAM PENN.

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, Lieu
tenant of the Tower, and Alderman Sir John Sheldon ;
Sir John Howel, the Recorder ; and the sheriffs, Ri
chard Brown, Sir John Smith, and Sir Samuel Edwards.
The clerk of the Court ordered the crier to caU over
the jury as follows — and no twelve citizens of London
have better deserved to have their names held in admir
ing remembrance : Thomas Veer, Edward Bushel, John
Hammond, Charles Milson, Gregory Walklet, John
Brightman, William Plumstead, Henry Henley, James
Damask, Henry Michel, WilUam 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 ac
cording to the evidence adduced.' The indictment was
then read aloud :
" That William Penn, gentleman, and William Mead,
late of London, linen draper, with divers other 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
tumultuously did assemble and congregate themselves
together, to the disturbance of the peace of the said lord
the King : And the aforesaid WUliam Penn and William
Mead, together with other persons to the jury aforesaid
unknown, then and there assembled and congregated
together; the aforesaid William Penn, by agreement
between him and William Mead, before made and by
' The People's ancient and just Liberties asserted, foi, i. 9,

WILLIAM PENN. 89
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 WilUam Mead and other persons there in
the street aforesaid, being assembled and congregated
together, by reason whereof a great concourse and tu
mult 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 disturbance
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 Uke case offenders, and against the peace
of the said lord the King, his crown and dignity."
This was the form and matter of this celebrated in
dictment : the one was worthy of the other. As a ques
tion of law the only verdict that could be given with com
mon decency 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 1 5th. It asserted that the per
sons met together were in arms : of this no proofs were
offered. It affirmed that Penn and Mead had agreed
beforehand: no evidence insupport was given. It charged
Mead with abetting Penn : the witnesses could only
prove that Mead wished to get near Penn, but was un
able. There were other contradictions, absurdities and
assertions for which no proofs could be adduced; but
these are enough to shew the character of the persecu
tion. The Clerk of the Court then said aloud — " What
say you, WiUiam Penn and William Mead, are you guilty
as you stand indicted, in manner and form as aforesaid,
or not guilty ?"

90 WILLIAM PENN.
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 occa
sions. The Recorder : You must first plead to the indict
ment before you can have a copy ofit.
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 received ; secondly, that you will
promise me a fair hearing and Uberty of making my
defence. Courts No advantage shall be taken against you:
you shall have liberty, you shaU 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 untU
three o'clock.
On resuming its functions, the court commanded
the prisoners 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 dis
posed of. Ha-ving sat five hours, the court rose and
adjourned for two days. Meantime the Quakers were
sent back to their filthy dungeons in Newgate.' These
pitiful tricks are all worthy of remark.
On the 3d of September the court sat again. The
prisoners would have come in with their hats on, but
were prevented by the officers stationed at the door.
' The People's ancient and just Liberties asserted, foi. i. 10.
3 Postscript to Truth rescued, foi. i. 520.

WILLIAM PENN. 91
As this was being done, the lord mayor — a character
common enough in all unquiet times, a man who, al
ways siding with the strongest party, had been a violent
persecutor of the Cavaliers under Gromwell,*^ and was
now anxious to shew his zeal for the cause of the re
stored 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,^ When they were placed at the bar thus
covered, the dialogue begun :
The Recorder : Do you know where you are ?
Penn: Yes.
Recorder : Do you know this is the King's court ?
Penn: I know it to be a court, and I suppose it to
be the JCing's court.
Recorder : Do you know there is respect due to the
court ?
Penn: Yes.
Recorder : Why do you not pay it then ?
Penn : I do so.
Recorder : Why do you not put off your hat then ?
Penn: 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 jury being again sworn. Sir John Robin
son, suspecting that Edward Bushel, one of the jury,
known to be a religious man, had an objection to take
frequent oaths, pretended not to have seen him kiss
' The People's ancient and just Liberties asserted, i. 10.

92

WILLIAM PENN.

the book, and desired him to be again sworn.' The first
witness was then called •?¦
James Cook: 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 endea
voured to make way to take him, but I could not get near
him for the crowd of people ; upon which 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.
Court: What number do you think there might be
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 Lieutenant Cook, but what he^id
I could not tell..
Mead: What did WiUiam Penn say?
Read: There was such a great noise I could not tell
what he said.
Mead: 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 con
trary thing to what he swore before the Mayor when
we were committed.. I, appeal to the Mayor .himself if
this be not true.
1 Truth rescued, foi. i. 604,
2 The People's ancient and just Liberties asserted, i. 11.

WILLIAM PENN. 93
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 what day it
was? 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.
Unknown witness : 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 Cap
tain 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 te-
netur accusare seipsum — 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 the prisoner at the bar ?
Recorder: Hold your tongue, sir. I did not go about
to ensnare you.
This was the case for the prosecution ! Not a single
point was proved: not even the preaching or the as
sembly for public worship. Was ever such another case
sent to a jury ? On the last remark of Mr. Recorder
Howel's, there ensued considerable hubbub in court:
the chief prisoner at length brought them to a sense of
their duty.^
^ The People's ancient and just Liberties asserted, foi. i. 11.

94

WILLIAM PENN.

Penn: I desire we may come more close to the point,
and that silence be commanded. — The crier having made
the usual call, Penn proceeded : We confess ourselves so
far from recanting or declining to vindicate the assem
bling of ourselves to preach, to pray or worship God,
that we declare to all the world, we beUeve it to be our
indispensable duty to meet incessantly 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. i
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 (baffied by the prisoner's tact, and like
other men when they feel themselves foUed at their own
weapons, losing his temper) : Sir, wUl you plead to your
indictment ?
Penn: Shall I plead to an indictment that has no
foundation in law ? If it contain that law you say I have
'¦ Ubi non est lex, ibi non est transgressio. Coke. — The reader of
the Institutes will find how completely William Penn had mastered both

WILLIAM PENN. 95:
broken, why should you decline to produce it, since it
wiU be impossible 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 indict-
Dient. Recorder (wsising stiU warmer): You are a saucy
fellow. Speak to the indictment.
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 shew 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 whUe, the
trial went on a little more decorously.
Recorder: The question is — whether you are guilty
•of this inidictment.
Penn: The question is not whether I am guilty of
this indictment, 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 which is not in being, so far frojn being common
law, is no law at all.
Recorder: You are an impertinent fellow. WiU
you teach the court what law is ? It is lex non scripta.
their spirit and terminology. His defence is almost wholly clothed in
the language of the great lawyer.

96 WILLIAM PENN.
That which many have studied thirty or forty years to
know, would you have me teU you in a moment ?
Penn : Certainly if the common law be so hard to
be understood, it is far from being very common : but
if the Lord Coke in his Institutes (vol. U. p. 56) 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 IIL c. 29 : by 25 Edward I. c. 1 :
and by 2 Edward III. c. 8.
Recorder (more and more uncomfortable every mo
ment) : Sir, you are a very troublesome fellow, and
it is not for the honour 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 Englishman are concerned in it.
Recorder: If I should suffer you to ask questions
till to-morrow morning, you would be never the wiser.
Penn : 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 afiront 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 ac
knowledged right, and evince to the whole world your
resolution to sacrifice the privileges of Englishmen to
your sinister and arbitrary designs.
Recorder (lost beyond recovery) : Take him away !
My Lord, if you do not take some course with this pes
tilent fellow to stop his mouth, we shall not be able to
do any thing to-night.
' The heads of this speech are preserved in Gerard Croese, 75-77.

WILLIAM PENN. 97
Lord Mayor : Take him away, take him away ! Put
him into the bale-dock.
Penn: These are so many vain exclamations. Is
this justice 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 an
cient fundamental laws, which relate to liberty and pro
perty — and are not Umited to particular persuasions in
matters of reUgion — must not be indispensably main
tained — 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 pro
mise that he should have liberty of speech. He asserted
his right to be heard by the jury ; for not only did his
personal liberty depend 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 by the bench,
jury or public. Thither he was forced under a protest
against their right to remove him before the jury re-
tired.2 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 illicit^ et
^ The People's ancient and just Liberties asserted, foi, i, 12.
U

98 WILLIAM PENN.
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 Recorder would not tell the court what con
stituted a riot and an unlawful assembly, he would quote
for them the opinions of Lord Coke. A riot, said that
great legal writer, was 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 Re
corder took offhis 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 mayst put on thy hat: /have no fee
to give thee.
Sheriff Brown: He talks at random: one while an
Independent — now a Quaker — next a Papist.
Mead: 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
Uberty to be heard. Am I not to have the privUege of
all Englishmen ?
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 re-

WILLIAM PENN. 99
moved 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 drawing a tumultuous company after them: and
Mr. Penn was speaking. If they should not be dis
turbed, 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.
Penn (from the bale-dock, at the top of his voice):
I appeal to the jury -vvho are my judges and to this
great assembly, whether the proceedings of the court
are not most arbitrary and void of all law in offering to
give the jury their charge in the absence of the pri
soners ! 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 pre
sent : 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 de
part 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 honour of the court.
And so they were taken out of the bale-dock and

100 WILLIAM PENN.
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 Re
corder then commanded the jury to agree in their ver
dict 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 uncomplying 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 ho
nest verdict : and the rage of the whole bench was vented
upon him.
Recorder: You, sir, are the cause of this disturb
ance, and manifestly shew yourself an abettor of faction.
I shall set a mark upon you, sir.
Sir John Robinson : I know you. You have thrust
yourself upon this jury.
Bushel : No, Sir John. There were three score be
fore me on the panel, and I would willingly have got off,
but could not.
Sir John Robinson : I tell you, you deserve to be
indicted more than any man that has been indicted this
day. ' Truth rescued, folio, i, 606.
» Ibid. foi. i. 511.

WILLIAM PENN. 101
Lord Mayor: Sirrah, you are an impertinent fel
low ! 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.
Clerk : Are you agreed in your verdict ?*
Thomas Veere, the Foreman : Yes.
Clerk : How say you ? Is William Penn guilty of
the matter 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 infiuence
them in detail : some of the men expressed themselves
in favour of the views taken by the bench ; but Edward
Bushel, John Hammond, and two or three others, de
clared 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 Alderman Blud
worth 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 depart till you have given in your verdict.
° The People's ancient and just Liberties asserted, foi, i. 13, and
Truth rescued from Imposture, folio, i. 496,

102 WILLIAM PENN.
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 have
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 gave in a
written verdict, — again finding William Penn guilty of
speaking to an assembly met together in Gracechurch
Street, — and acquitting WiUiam Mead. This was signed
by all the twelve. On hearing 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, ex
claimed — " 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.
Penn : 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

WILLIAM PESN. 103
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 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.
Baffied 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 New
gate, 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 Eng
lishmen, 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 Sun
day, 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

104 WILLIAM PENN.
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
Gracechurch 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. Bludworth: I knew Mr. Bushel would not yield.
Bushel: Sir Thomas, I have done according to my
conscience. Lord Mayor : That conscience of yours would cut
my throat.
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 : 1 afflrm that the consent of a jury is a verdict
in law ; and if William Mead be not guilty, it follows
' The young bloods of the court were especially fond of this pastime.

WILLIAM PENN. 105
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
foUowed — threats on the part of the magistrates — met
by unflinching firmness from the jurors. Again they
were 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 exami
nation, the legal conductor of the trial roared out :
Recorder : What is this to the purpose 2 I say, I
will have a verdict. (And then scowling fiercely at Ed
ward 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
wiU cut his nose. (Slitting noses was a common punish
ment for offenders in those days,)'
Penn: It is intolerable that my jury should be thus
menaced. Is this according to the fundamental laws?
Are 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 re
jected ? 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 fet
ters, and stake him to the ground.
Coventry, a leading member of Parliament, was set upon in the Haymar-
ket, and his nose slit by Monmouth and his partisans. Marvell, i, 413.

106 WILLIAM PENN.
Penn: Do your will: I care not for your fetters.
(Well said, Penn !)
Recorder (suddenly enlightened) : Till now I never
understood 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 Inqui
sition, as will be seen in the sequel v^ and the avowed
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 iu 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 wiU
not conform shall not have the protection of law. Mr.
Lee (addressing a law-officer of the court), draw up an
other verdict that they may bring it in special.
Lee : I cannot tell how to do it.
A Juror : We ought not to be returnedj having all
agreed and set our hands to the verdict.
Recorder : Your verdict is nothing. You play upon
' The People's ancient and just Liberties asserted, foi. i. 17.
2 See Chap, xii, =" Truth rescued from Imposture, foi. i, 495,

WILLIAM PENN. 107
the court. I say you shall go and bring in another ver
dict 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 endure the agony of another night of raging fever
brought on by thirst and want of rest. They spent the
night in consultation. 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 trai
tors to their civil freedom and their own convictions.
Next day the court sat again. It was Monday morn
ing, 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 decision :
Crier : Silence in the court on pain of imprison
ment !^
* Penn to his father. Sept, 5, 1670. Phil. Friend, vii. 59.
* Ancient and just Liberties asserted, i, 17.

108 WILLIAM PENN.
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.
Clerk : I will read it —
Recorder : No. It is no verdict. The court will not
accept it.
Foreman : If you will not accept of it, 1 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 WUliam Penn guilty or
not guilty ?
Foreman : Not guilty. (Great movement and emo
tion among the audience,)'
Clerk : Then hearken to your verdict. (Reads) You
say William Penn is not guilty, and you say WiUiam
Mead is not guilty. Say you aU 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
' Penn to his father, Sept. 5.
2 Ancient and just Liberties asserted, i. 18.
3 Penn to his father, Sept. 6. Philadelphia Friend, vii. 69.

WILLIAM PENN. 109
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 imprisonment in Newgate till the fines
be paid.3 Penn : Being freed by the jury, I demand to be set
at Uberty.* luord 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 ex
pressly 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: 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 Inqui
sition 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 influence of Edward Bushel, they were in
duced 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 Newgate.^ Penn wrote
to his father daily; his letters breathe the most affec-
* Ancient and just Liberties asserted, i, 18. ' Ibid.
^ Freeman's Reports of Cases in Law and Equity, from 1670 to 1706,
folio, p. 2,

110 WILLIAM PENN.
tionate and devoted spirit. He much deplores the ad
miral'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 beseeches 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 justness of
his cause. 2
Up to this period the usage of the courts with regard
to verdicts had never been reduced to a legal and posi
tive form : from the days of the Tudors it had been the
occasional practice of the bench to inflict fines on con
tumacious and inconvenient 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 discre
tion as to bring in a verdict contrary to the sense of the
court. This great point was now to be decided. Bushel
and his fellow-jurors, at Penn's suggestion, brought an
action against Sir Samuel Starling and Sir John Howell,
the Lord Mayor and the Recorder of London, for unjust
imprisonment.^ On the fifth of September they were
committed to Newgate ; counsel was engaged, and ap
plication was immediately made to the Court of Com
mon Pleas, but it was not until the ninth of November
that a writ of Habeas Corpus was issued to the Go
vernor of the gaol to bring up the person of Edward
Bushel.* Newdegate, Size, Waller, and Broome appeared
as counsel for the prisoners; Scrog and Maynard for the
king — that is, for Starling and Howell, the king's jus
tices. Freeman has preserved the heads of this famous
' Penn to his father, Sept. 6, 1670. Philadelphia Friend, vii. 59,
8 Ibid. Sept. 7. 3 Ibid. Sept. 6,

WILLIAM PENN. Ill
appeal.^ The defence was taken on the ground that the
jury had brought in a verdict contrary to the laws of
England, to manifest e-vidence, 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 can
not occur until the facts are proved; here the facts were
not proved to the satisfaction 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 shewing 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 whether 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 them
selves, are presumed to be infallible. The bench, there
fore, though at liberty to offer suggestions to the jury
men for their consideration, may not lawfully coerce
them; or, as Newdegate 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 Uberty in
open court. Ten of the other eleven judges agreed in
the verdict given by Sir John Vaughan — Chief Baron
* Vaughan's Reports, foi. p, 136.
° Freeman's Reports, foi. p. 3. ^ Vaughan's Reports, foi. p, 158,

112

WILLIAM PENN.

Turner merely abstained from giving an opinion on the
point, as he had not been present in court to hear the
arguments of counsel.' The verdict may therefore be
considered as the unanimous expression of the twelve
judges. The reason appended to the judgment is cu
rious- — " because the jury may know that of their ovra
knowledge which may guide them to give their verdict
contrary to the sense of the court."^ An obvious in
terpretation of these words would be, that the judges
considered it possible the jurors might have private in
formation, 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
"reason" may be understood, is that suggested by Broome
— the impUed 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 im
mediately succeeding a time in which, even by the con
fession of men otherwise adverse to it, justice had been
incorruptibly administered; or as a stand taken once
for all upon the ancient Uberties of England against
the encroachments of an apostate king and a licenti
ous court. It established a truth which WilUam Penn
' Vaughan's Reports, foi, p. 142, marginal note.
' Freeman's Reports, folio, p. 6.
' This interpretation of the terms would imply a confusion in the
mind of the bench of the old functions of a jury — formerly a body of wit
nesses — and those of more modern date.
* Clarkson was ignorant of the appeal of Bushel to the Court of Com-

WILLIAM PENN. 113
never ceased to inculcate — that unjust laws are power
less 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, was not
omnipotent ; that there stUl remained, and ever must
remain, a grand check to unjust government in the pub
hc 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 realise 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 — results
which there is good reason to believe Penn for one fore
saw. It may be said without exaggeration that these
trials gave a new meaning — infused a new life, into the
institution of the jury. The result proved there was a
power in the state superior to the Parliament in its
palace at Westminster and the King in his palace at
Whitehall combined — that sense of justice which in
forms 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
foimd an impregnable citadel in the jury-room. In the
day of courtesan infiuencCj of unblushing venality and
-vice, the most odious laws might obtain the sanction of
a parhamentary majority: judges even might be found
to administer them : but after all, it was now discovered
mon Pleas. He was consequently unable to perceive the historical bear
ing 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. 999. I

n4 WILLIAM PENN.
with alarm and indignation, that juries chosen from the
body of the nation might refuse to convict under them,
and so in reahty 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
power in the state : a power not inferior to either King
or Commons. One of the most sacred rehcs 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 legalised the right which they
had assumed, and had other juries throughout the king
dom at once followed their example, some of the cruel
lest pages of our history had never been written — the
spirit which 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 intolerance.
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 Penn and William Mead, though they re
fused as a matter of conscience to pay the fines which
had been imposed upon them for contempt of court,
' Two years before this Sir William had openly advised the King to
put an end to the Conventicle Act. Pepys, May 3, 1 668.

WILLIAM PENN. 115
did not long remain in Newgate. A day or two after
their removal thither, the turnkey came to them with
the inteUigence -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 Liberties asserted." In an appebdix to this work 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 re
hearsed 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 sub
ject. Ever appealing to the old charters [^
Here we again observe William Penn enlarging the
contracted sphere of his sect. The ordinary Quaker, in
the simpUcity of his heart, would have defied the unjust
law, and suffered like a martyr — satisfied -with an ap
peal to conscience. Penn joined a larger amount of that
worldly wisdom, which, like the rest, he fancied he de
spised, 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
reUgious liberty. Wisely therefore he took his stand on
the old charters, and made his appeal to the pubUc in
their own cause. '
Admiral Sir William Penn, though still young in
years, was lying on his death-bed. His career had been
one to try the hardiest frame; his youth had passed
amidst the hardships which serve to develope intellect
= Collected Works, i. 19-36.

116 WILLIAM PENN.
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 excitement caused by his
son's arrest, imprisonment, and trial, had made him ma
terially worse ; and when WiUiam 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, and aspiring man — dying at forty-nine — full of
rewards and honours, 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 sove
reign had offered it ; but the son to whom it must have
descended in the course of nature firmly rejected the prof
fered honour.^ 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 office near the
King's person, it is doubtful whether 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
' Granville Penn. Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 660.
* 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 which I have denied, . , , Had

WILLIAM PENN. 117
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 admiral had ap
parently ceased to think of his own great disappoint
ment; but he retained his patriotic ardour 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 seasonably, 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 proflt in
submitting to Providence, for affiictions make wise: if
you could 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 favour 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 Wil
liam," — these were almost the last words he uttered, —
I sought greatness, I had stayed at home, where the difference between
what I am here, and was offered, and could have been there in power
and wealth, is as wide as the places are."
» No Cross, no Crown, i. 321, folio ed, " Ibid. i. 433, foi. ed.
* No Cross, no Crown. Collected Works, i. 432, 3.

118

WILLIAM PENN.

"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 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 Red-
clyffe 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 being married,^ —
he left the whole of his property, plate, household furni
ture, 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
considerable amount. Besides the claims on the state
for money- lent to it and for arrears of salary — not much
under 15,000^, — 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 al
ready 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 soUcit
' No Cross, no Crown. Collected Works, i. 432, 3.
* 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 1697. He married the heiress of Holker, and his son married
into the Devonshire family,
' Granville Penn. Memoirs, vol. ii. p, 566-7.
* Admiral Penn died tolerably well off; but not so wealthy as his

WILLIAM PENN. 119
at their hands those kind offices to his son which they
had been ever ready to extend towards himself. The
royal brothers returned the most flattering answers to
this request ; and James more especially undertook the
office of guardian and protector to the young man — an
office which he honourably and faithfully discharged.^
This was the simple and natural origin of that con
nexion 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 dele
gates of Magdalen College, the questions which had
made him so intimate -with the prince were such as
affected his property, not his rehgion,^
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 16,000/.
with his daughter, which is more by half than he ever did give ; but this
the world believes, and so let them."
= Penn to Popple, Oct. 24, 1688. « Wilmott's Life of Hough, 25.

CHAPTER IV.
1670-1673.
<©uli Springett.
GuLiELMA Maria, daughter of Sir WiUiam Springett,
of Darling in Sussex, one of the leaders of the Parha
mentary forces during the first years of the civil war,
was residing with her mother at the rustic village of
Chalfont, in Buckinghamshire, when her future husband
flrst saw her. She was the delight of a small but dis
tinguished circle, including no less a person than John
Milton, Thomas EUwood, his friend and pupil, and the
famous Isaac Pennington.' To Pennington, Gull's fa
ther-in-law, EUwood 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 his pupil, knowing that friends
were to be found there who shared his opinions and
revered his genius. ^ Rarely is a small and unpretend
ing village honoured with such a company as Chalfont
' Lady Springett's Autobiography, Ms. EUwood's Memoirs, 233.
^ EUwood's Memoirs, 131. Milton lived at that time in Jewin-street,
in London. The young Quaker always speaks of him as " my master."
Memoirs, 202.
' Ibid. 233. " Lady Springett's Autobiography
° Thomas EUwood was much loved and trusted by the Penningtons.
I find frequent and affectionate mention of him in Lady Springett's Auto.;
biography.

WILLIAM PENN. 121
Boasted in those days of mourning. The Penningtons
occupied the Grange, which they had rebuilt and beau
tified; Milton lived in a neat little cottage at a short
distance ; and EUwood had a house about midway be
tween 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 childhood,^ 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 per
fection, — this made him happy ; while from his confes
sions it is clear that in his secret soul he always felt
that she was above his reach, and never could become
his wife,^ It is not easy to decide which of the attrac
tions of Chalfont — his master or his mistress— was the
greater for EUwood. To Milton he was devotedly at
tached ; and though his love for Miss Springett was true
and earnest, it was not so violent as to be beyond con
trol. Guli,. who was sought after, and flattered by men
of all classes,, peers and commoners, courtiers and puri-
' EUwood'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.

122 WILLIAM PENN.
tans,' 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 unlike the warmer
forms of courtship common in that polite and dissi
pated age ; but as he never gave offence by obtruding
his passion on her thoughts, so she mildly and gra
ciously received and reciprocated his attentions, and
contracted for him a friendship which lasted -without a
day of coldness on either side until her death.^
GuU was fond of music. Music was Milton's second
passion. In the cottage of the poet, in the Grange of
the philosopher, 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 probably the recitation of favourite passages
^om 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 favoured friends
that Milton first made known that he had been en
gaged in writing " Paradise Lost ;" and it was also in
their society that EUwood suggested to him the theme
of his "Paradise Regained."^ Immortal Chalfont!
When Penn went down to Chalfont to see his friend
Pennington, 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 pro
tector, passed out of her own keeping for ever. The
' Penn Gaskell Mss. ^ EUwood's Memoirs, 336.
' Ibid. 234. In his 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,

WILLIAM PENN. 123
personal appearance, the social position, the character
of the suitor, were all more or less in his favour ; 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 GuU'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 honour to her and useful to their native land. She
was herself a character ; the gentleness 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 shewed great kindness towards me ; indeed
she was very honourable in coimseUing her son not to
marry for an estate, and put by great offers of persons
with thousands, urging him to consider what would make
him happy in a choice." Mary Proud,^ the future me
moir writer—a daughter of Sir John Proud, a colonel in
the service of the Dutch Republic^-^— was then living in
the same house with the Springetts ; 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
* Lady Springett's Ms. Autobiography, to which I am indebted for
most of the following particulars.
' Lady Springett's Aiitobiograp-hy.
* Penn Gaskell Mss,

124 WILLIAM PENN.
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
marriage 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 equaUty
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 wis
dom." William,. her lover, was highly educated, having
earned distinction at Cambridge, whither he was sent " as
being accounted more sober than Oxford," but tried in
vain to bring down his mind to legal studies, and after re
siding for a short period in one of the inns of court, mixing
with the gay world of London, enjoying the sunshine of
royal favour and receiving the honours of knighthood,' he
retired into 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.'^
This was in 1642. Things coming to a crisis between
King and Parliament, Springett joined the Puritan party,
and without heat 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 Lieutenant of
' Pedigree in the CoUege of Arms, copied in the Penn GaskeU Mss,

WILLIAM PENN, 125
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 ac
cording to their covenant, and oppose 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 (who 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 pro-vide for my
security and to return to his regiment at the time ap-
, pointed ; 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 ser-vice upon which he now
2 Lady Springett's Autobiography.

126 WILLIAM PENN.
entered 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 his troop, all of them the sons of men of sub
stance ; at Newbury he was struck by a ball, but hap
pily its force was spent and it did him no injury; he
carefully prevented his soldiers from doing acts of pil
lage or otherwise exasperating the peasantry. The toil
and hardship of his position he bore with the contempt
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 companions, 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 WilUam and Colonel Morley
were invested with the command ; but while preparing
to assume the new duties of his office h^, was suddenly
struck with the sun-fever, from long exposure, though it
was then the depth of winter ; aud so convinced was he
from the first that the attack would prove fatal, that
he wrote off to his wife, then near her confinement 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 impassable. The artificial dams had Ukewise been
removed at Newington and other places near the capi
tal, 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 with the
' The whole of these details are derived from Lady Springett's Auto
biography, Ms.

WILLIAM PENN. 127^
bridle, and coaches to be floated along the high-ways,
at considerable risk to horses and men. Besides these
impediments, the country was infested 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 received
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.
As soon as I had put my foot in the hall, there being a
pair of stairs leading from it into his chamber, I heard
him cry out — Why will you lie to me ? If she be come,
let me hear her voice ! 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 ha-ving took his
head, in a manner sprang 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 pur
ple 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 danger
ous 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 

128 WILLIAM PENN.
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, nothing will 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 finding that
my mouth was cool, would hardly permit me to take it
off to breathe, but would cry out — Oh ! don't 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 chUd 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 appUed 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 Uke sign, the doctor had
concluded upon the same, but he said nothing. He
called on me again and again to lay my Ups 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 feU asleep, which they that were by
observing, constrained me to go to bed, considering my
condition, and leave my maid-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 wife's maid, he said; where is my
wife ? How does my boy ? She came up and gave me
this account ; upon which I would have risen and come

WILLIAM PENN, 129
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 1 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 I die, which he did with that heartiness
which expresses tender regard. Come, 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 J;hen addeiP—
Now, no more ! no more ! never, no more ! which done,
he fell into a very great agony. He having had but
about seven days' illness of this violent contagious fever
— ^which had not so much impaired his strength as in
flamed his blood and heightened his spirits — and be
ing a young man, in this agony ie 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 chap
lain, 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

130

WILLIAM PENN.

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 sUent and struck. Soon
after I was brought from the bed, he became very stiU ;
and when they though this sight was gone, they let me
go. Standing at his side, I saw the most amiable,
pleasant countenance that ever I beheld, smiHng like a
young child when (as the saying is) they see angels. . . .
He lay about an hour in this state; and towards sun
set turned quickly about and called upon a kinsman of
his — Antony J come, quick ! 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 GuU 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 officers 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 pru
dence of Lady Springett were required to prevent them
from falling into irretrievable mini This, however, was
done ; but other cares soon assailed the young widow.
Her husband had fought and died for his rehgious
opinions, and even before then he had inspired her with
all his own religious fervour, which she, with her wo
man's nature, and in her lonely condition, soon allowed
to overmaster all her other sentiments and thoughts.
The details which she lias left of the agony of heart,
' Lady Springett's Autobiography, Ms,

WILLIAM PENN. 131
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-meet
ings, 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 have begun to taste its flavour.
Her suffering 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
disconsolate. 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 deceits of all notions, and lay as one
that refused to be comfoi^ted ; 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 suffering." Some time after their mar
riage 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 EUwood in his
confessions, " and being in all respects a very desirable
2 The whole of this story of her second love is told with great simpli
city and beauty by the fair autobiographer.

132 WILLIAM PENN.
woman, — whether regard was had to her outward per
son, 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 out
ward 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 freedom, 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 EUwood had the consolation,
that until Guli was actually married he enjoyed 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
favoured his platonic love : — Isaac Pennington was con
fined for opinion's sake in Reading gaol.^ Like other
members of his sect, he passed a considerable part of
his time in prison.*
After the interment of his father, in which he was
long busied, William Penn occupied himself for a time
in preparing the elaborate account of his trial, to which
we are indebted 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
' EUwood's Memoirs, 210.
2 The account of EUwood'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
between his scruples as a Quaker and his instincts as a man, when Guli

WILLIAM PENN. 133
i
from city to city, from county to county, preaching
the doctrines of George Fox under the more eslevated
aspect in which his own learning enabled him to pre
sent 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 favoured by his presence and his labours at this
period than other places farther north or south, the
reader will admit that the young preacher had fair rea
sons for his frequent -visits to the neighbourhood.^ A
dispute with Jeremy Ives, at West Wycomb, at which
his friend EUwood was present, made rather a sensation.
A Baptist preacher, as was common iii those times,
denounced the Quakers in general and William Penn
in particular from his pulpit, whereupon a challenge
was sent to publicly discuss their several doctrines.
Ives, who could not refuse the chaUenge, 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 the
audience would follow his example ; but they did not,
all being anxious to hear Penn's defence. EUwood,
who expresses 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 de
bate sent off to his anxious friends at the Grange a
dispatch in the following words :
was threatened -with insult, is one of the most interesting passages in his
confessions. See page 261 et seqq.
3 Pennington's Letters, (12mo. 1828,) Sept. 7, 1670.
* Ibid. pp. 13, 21, 28, 63, 227, 358, 371.
' Besse, 36.

134

WILLIAM PENN.

Praevaluit Veritas ; inimica terga dedere fM\
Nos sumus in tuto ; laus tribuenda Deo.
which, for the benefit of GuU, he translated into the
worthy doggrel :
Truth hath prevailed ; the enemy did fly ;
We are in safety ; praise to God on high.'
WhUe residing at this time in Bucks, the tenets
of the Roman Church occupied much of Penn's atten
tion ; and now it 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 Chm-ch ; but he
makes a large distinction between Catholics and Catho
licism, 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 denounced the creed as
contrary to reason and Scripture, to conscience and hu
man 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 start
ling 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
promulgated 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 con
duct of the city magistrates on the late trial, and the
' EUwood's Memoirs, 272.

WILLIAM PENN. 135
condemnation of their mode of dealing out justice pro
nounced 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 effects of their anger. Their plot was
pretty certain to succeed; as it was then a punishable
offence to refuse the oath of allegiance when offered 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 deter
mined this time not to trust to a jury for a verdict on
the point. The baseness of their intention was equaUed
by the baseness with which they sought to realise 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 in- -
tended 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 ser
geant and piquet of soldiers entered the room, and as
soon as he got up to address the people, puUed him
down and dragged him into the street, where a con
stable and his assistants being in readiness, they con-
" Penn's Works, folio edition, i. 467.

136 WILLIAM PENN.
ducted 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 conspi
rators together. After a lapse of three or four hours
he was brought before them.'
Sir John Robinson, Lieutenant of the Tower, a fel
low who had fawned upon the late admiral in his days
of power, was in the chair; Sir Thomas StarUng, Sir
John Sheldon, and a few others were present ; but the
public were rigorously excluded from the examination.
Part of the dialogue that ensued is preserved :
§ir 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; speak
ing 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.
Robinson: Give them their oaths.
Penn : Hold, don't swear the men ; there is no need
of it. I freely acknowledge I was in Wheeler Street,
and that I spoke to an assembly of people there. ,.
Robinson : He confesses it,
> Besse, 36, 37.

WILLIAM PENN. 137
Penn : I do so. I am not ashamed of my testimony.
Robinson : No matter. Give them their oaths, i . .
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 trans
gressed. . . . Now I am probably to be tried by the late
act against Conventicles ;. 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 shewed him that the law so called could not apply
to him. The conspirators thus driven to their kennel,
brought out the oath of allegiance, and Sir John cried
out abruptly and angrily, " WUt thou take the oath ?"
" This is not to the purpose," replied Penn, who was in
the midst of an ingenious protest against their endeavour
to apply to his case fragments of different and dissimilar
laws. "Read him the oath," shouted the lieutenant.
Of course Penn refused to subscribe it ; alleging as his
reason, that his conscience forbad him to take up arms
at all, much more against his sovereign.
Robinson : I am sorry you put me upon this severity-i
It is no pleasant work to me.
Penn: These are but words. Itismanifest that this
is & 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. Penn : Thine own corporal told me that you. had
intelligence 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.

138

WILLIAM PENN.

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 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
a simple people ?
Penn : I confess I have made it my choice to reUn-
quish 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 teU the
company to my face.
Robinson : Abroad — and ait home too.
Sir John Sheldon : No, no. Sir John. That's too
much. Penn : I make this bold chaUenge to all men, jusdy
to accuse me -with ever having heard me swear, utter a
curse, or speak one obscene word — much less that I
make it my practice . . . Thy words shall be my burden,
and I trample thy slander under my feet.
Robinson: Well, Mr. Penn, I have no iU-wiU to
wards 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 im-
,40,

WILLIAM PENN. 139
prisonment has not daunted me. Alas, you mistake your
interests ; 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 reUgion 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 iny commitment,
and I leave you all in perfect-charity.
Robinson-: Send a corporal with a file of musqueteers
with him.
Penn-: No, no ; send thy lacquey. J know the way
to Newgate.' 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 neighbourhood of London.^
The property belonged to Gilbert Latye, a wealthy citi-r
zen, 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 re
sults of this labour, not less than four important trea
tises came from his hand-: 1. The -Great Case of Li
berty of Conscience. 2. Truth rescued from Impos
ture. 3. A Postscript to Truth exalted. 4. An Apo
logy for the Quakers. Three of these works are of

' Life of Latye, 71. » Ibid, 76.

140 WILLIAM PENN.
considerable length ; and one of them, " The Great Case
of Liberty of Conscience once more briefiy debated and
defended," is not only in itself a noble piece of compo
sition, 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 consci
ence would not, buy their favours ; he wrote a dignified
and temperate letter to the High Court of Parliament,
then known to be contemplating a more rigorous enforce
ment of the act against conventicles, explaining the prin
ciples 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 tothe State,' But the House
of Commons was in a sullen mood. Charles had recently
issued a declaration of indulgence to tender consciences,
in consequence of which a great number of reUgious sec
taries, including not less than five hundred Quakers, had
been set at liberty ;'^ and although it was probably not
even suspected at that time that the King had secretiy
declared himself a Papist, and had undertaken for a large
' Besse, 43. All these writings wiU be found in the folio edition of
his works. ^ Ibid. 44.
' See the account in Dalrymple, ii. 62 et seq.
* Com. Jour., February and March,
' Andrew Marvell, i. 41 3, The Duke of Monmouth was at the bottom
of this affair, A few nights later, Monmouth, Albemarle, and a number

WILLIAM PENN. 141
sum of money to openly announce the fact, and give en
couragement 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 contri
buted to his Majesty's pleasures; on which Coventry
asked whether his Majesty's pleasures lay among the
men or the woman 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 prevented from becoming law by a dispute
about privilege. Penn's arguments had no effect 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 ministry, and made some converts to his
opinions.^ Embden was one of the cities where he seems
to have made a great impression. The first meeting
was held in the house of Dr. Haesbert, who was deeply
struck with the new doctrines proposed by the EngUsh
of other roysterers set upon the watch, and murdered the beadle. To
save his son, the King pardoned all the 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.

142 WILLIAM PENN.
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 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 in
to loathsome dijngeons, 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 protectios,^ The most curious
passage of this continental journey was, however, a visit
which he paid to the settlement of the sect of De La-
badie, at Herwerden 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 inefficacious as the other, and in their turn he se
ceded from them ; even the iron Calvinism of Geneva
did not satisfy his ardent mind, so he -withdrew from all
communion with the de^d 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
' Travels into Germany and HoUand, i. 96.
^ 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 j but copies of it having got

WILLIAM PENN. 143
against him ; but the ex-Jesuit had already placed him
self under the protection of several great and powerful
ladies, particularly of the Princess EUzabeth of the
Rhine, who sheltered him in the hour of need. At
Herwerden, 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 con
verse with or even to see any of his flock. A few years
later, he was more forttmate in this respect; but the
impression left upon his mind by De Labadie's conver
sation was not'ftivourable , to that individual: " I saw
the airiness and unstableness of the man's spirit, and
that a sect-master was his name." The pious princess
having seen some reason to be 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 Labadie, resolved to withdraw themselves from
the world, and with th^ir new pastors, the famous
Anna Maria Schurmans and several other persons, re
tired to the old country house at Wiewart, where they
were said to live in a style of great soberness and sim
plicity, worshipping God without regard to forms, and
doing such good as lay in their power in a quiet, unos
tentatious manner. Subsequently Penn saw and con-
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 pub
lished.

144' WILLIAM PENN.
versed with the several members of this little commu
nity, and was much edified by their discourses. He
repaid their confidence by telUng them the story of
his own reUgious experiences, and after much converse
parted from them in a sober and serious frame of mind.'
There were at this time many other religious commu
nities 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 ships filled with emigrants
had already gone out. At religious meetings and in the
domestic circle the glowing accounts sent by the adven
turers of th^ perils of the sea-voyage', of the beauty and
fertiUty of the new country, were read and re-read ; and
hardly a year passed by that did not witness the depar
ture 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 wUderness, 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 as yet no distinct and practical
' Travels into Germany and Holland, i, 93.
2 He makes many references in after years to the "great weight and
suffering" that lay on his spirit at this time. Ibid. i. 59.

WILLIAM PENN. 145
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 endeavouring so earnestly to
export themselves.^ The original germ of Pennsylvania
was evidently quickening into life.
After so long a separation Penn was not unreason
ably anxious to be near Guli Springett once again. CaU
ing 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 EUwood and the Pen
ningtons as the champion of their faith. In their so
ciety he seems to have now passed a considerable time,
dallying with the blissful days of courtship, and slowly
makingi preparations for his marriage. He took a house
in the first instance at Rickmansworth, about six miles
from Chalfont, which being made ready for Gull's re
ception, the marriage rites were performed in the early
spring of 1672, six or seven months after his Uberation
from Newgate, and husband and wife at once took up
their re^dence in their new dwelUng.^
Their honeymoon lastedlong. The spring and sum
mer 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 charming 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 useful^-
ness, were so to say touched with the wand of the en
chantress and laid to rest. Since his expulsion from
9 s Besse, i, 44, ^
L ^

146 WILLIAM PENN.
his father's house he had never known so much re
pose of mind and body. Seeing him surrounded by
all that makes domestic happiness complete — a charm
ing home, a beautiful and loving wife, a plentiful es
tate, 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 gentleman, more interested in cultivating
his paternal acres, than with the progress of an unpo
pular doctrine and the general enhghtenment of man
kind. But those who reasoned so, knew little of Wil
liam 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, — GuU would herself have
scorned the man who, through infirmity of purpose,
could have allowed himself to sink into the mere sloth
of the affections, and who by his outward shewing to
the world would have represented her alliance as bring
ing weakness to his character instead of strength. Penn
was not that man.
His interval of rest over, the preacher again re
sumed his work, travelling, disputing, writing, as he
went along ;' but it is not nepessary to trace his daily
fortunes in this part of his career ; enough if the more
important points and more characteristic 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 fa
ther, he had to travel more and more frequently alone,
1 Besse, 44
' All these works are contained in the folio edition, 2 vols

WILLIAM PENN. 147
or in the society of itinerant apostles like himself —
George Fox, Robert Barclay, George Whitehead, and
others. But besides these fatiguing labours, he wrote
during this period no less than twenty-six books of con
troversy, some of them of considerable length and con
summate ability; and two political works — the "Trea
tise on Oaths," and " England's present Interest con
sidered," both of which display a rare acuteness of
thought, a mind richly stored with classical and histo
rical lore, and a profound respect for those heroes of
our elder annals who succeeded in establishii;ig 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 inquirer 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 me-
-moirs of the Count de Grammont and the journals of
George Fox give us the two sides of this melancholy
picture — the courtesan raised to the palace by her vices,
the good man sent by his very virtues to a gaol. But
perhaps the most melancholy feature of the case, is the
circumstance, 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 were 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 Wil
liam Penn's opponents " vext himself to death" over a
trenchant attack from the young polemic.^ Fox contin-
^ Besse, i, 41,

148

WILLIAM PENN.

ually talks of turning over his foes to " the vengeance
of the. Lord," In the midst of all the floating fanaticism
of the age, the Church held on her dignified and apa
thetic 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 quarrelling among themselves
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 fervour 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 in
fant congregations : but when every reasonable allow
ance is made, there still remains an amount of spiritual
intolerance which can hardly be realised in connexion
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 understanding, he thought
it was the duty of society to insitruct rather than to pu
nish the erring. But having disarmed the civil magis
trate of power to inflict penalties for opinion's sake, he
reserved the free use of aU 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 v.'hom he contended with in the arena; and al
though his invective was often happy and powerful, it
was also at times coarse and abrupt. The letter which
' Works, i, 45, 2 Besse, 46.

WILLIAM PENN. 149
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, find
ing 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 forrffl of a dia
logue between a Christian arid a Quaker, wherein these
parties were made to argue the merits of their respective
creeds, — the point being to shew 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.2 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 re
plied 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. Perm had not named
Hicks in his book; Hicks now refused to name Penn.
But the matter was not to end thus smoothly; determined
not to let his opponent have the last word — which in
controversy is Uke leaving the field of battle to the
enemy in war — the young Quaker sent forth a sharp
and stinging attadk under the title of " Reason against
Railing and Truth against Fiction."* Smarting under
a Collected Works, i. 621. ¦• Ibid. ii. 498.

150 WILLIAM PENN.
the sarcasm and vehement abuse of this work, the Bap
tist wrote a second continuation of his dialogue, to
which Penn made answer in " The Counterfeit Chris
tian 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. Pressing their fallen foe, they appealed to the
whole body of the Baptists against him, and made out
such a case as compelled 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 conse
quence was, that his own party being alone present, there
was no proper accusation, the thing fell through, and a
majority of voices declared the offender 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 goal.^ Next he put forth a strong
appeal to the public ou the unfair character of the late
' Collected WorkSjii. 560.
2 Besse, 46. Penn's Works, i. 521 ; ii. 498 et seq.
» Penn to Fox, July 5, 1674, Ms.
' Thomas EUwood's Memoirs, 307.

WILLIAM PENN. 151
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 request, 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 Qua
kers 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 neighbouring alehouse, whence he had sent Ives, the
old enemy of the Quakers, to get up a row in the meet
ing and bring the affair to a close ; a task which he en
deavoured manfully but in vain to achieve.^ The public
was too strong to be put down. Not less than six thou
sand 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 clamours compelled the Quakers to enter
into an unexpected controversy on the point thus raised.
How curious 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 wor
thy of a nation of Greeks. So long as the Quakers
« Penn to Fox, July 6, 1674, Ms. « Fox's Journal, 406.
' Ibid. 309. The Barbican cheat detected, by Thos. Rudyard, 3.
' Narrative of a Second Meeting, 9. EUwood, 309.
' Penn's letter to George Fox, quoted in the text.

*%

152 WILLIAM PENN.
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 con
fusion which prevented any thing being done. Sin
gularly enough, a discussion of doctrines was found to
have qjore attractions for them than a scene of personal
abuse and recrimination, — and Penn at last giving way
to their humour, they subsided at once into silence, de
corum, 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, Ught and other words of
amilar meaning and frequent occurrence in the sacred
writings. It was confessed that these terms, so applied
in Scripture, were any of them equivalent to the term
Christ^ — the name, not of a person, but of an office or
a principle. Penn And Barclay had declared again and
again that the inner Light — the Conscience, is the par
ticle 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 me
taphysical subtlety : 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 Light ? This admission it
' Sewell, ii. 232-4.

WILLIAM PENN. 153
was equally impossible to make without creating an after
difficulty. But how avoid the dilemma ? The question
was pressed upon the Quakers — Do you hold the man
hood 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 no
thing, or only a Scripture, or in the terms of the ques
tion, 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 outward
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 construction on our words, if we had not an-.
swered them plainly, that is, by what we understood by
the Scripture father than by the ScTripture itself, I have-
cause to believev because the same person that proposed,
the question thus expounded, after the meeting,, our be
lief 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 rale us, and the like,,'

154 WILLIAM PENN.
— making the people believe, that we denied that per
son, 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 thou
sand people, I believe, being present, and liiany of them
were desirous of an answer. Upon this. Friends con
sented that it should be answered them, ' that the man
hood 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 my rea
sons 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's 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 divide, Christ is called the head, that is, the
most noble member, the Church the body, and parti
culars are styled members of that body. Now calling
these members divides them not into parts. Thirdly, I
did not say, it was but a member, and I often repeated,
that it was of and belonging to Christ, and in my con
fession at the close I said, that we believed in Christ,
both as he was the man Jesus, and God over all blessed
for ever. And I am sure that Paul divides him more
' Material passages between Quakers and Baptists, 27-30,
2 Gerard Croese, 271.

WILLIAM PENN. 155
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 mor
row, and it would therefore be only proper to adjourn,
and as so large an assembly was very unmanageable,
they proposed that a deputation from each body should
meet at an early day and settle the dispute. This pro
posal 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 amount of fanaticisfti seemed surpris
ing. Two ardent converts, fancying they felt a divine
revelation to that effect, set off for Rome to convert the
Pope ;2 but they had not been long in the eternal city
ere they were arrested as dangerous heretics and placed
in confinement: — one of them, John Love, was sent
to the Inquisition,, 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 ;*) and after a good
^ Fox's Journal, 241.
' Seethe case recorded by Limbarch, Hist. Inquis. i. 214, 1731.

156 WILLIAM PENN.
deal of interest had been made in bis behalf, Perrot was
set at liberty ; on which he returned to his own country,
where he soon gave his former friends so much annoy
ance that many of them could hardly help wishing him
again in the Roman bedlam.' It was in the conduct of
men like Perrot that the weak side of the New Chris
tian 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 jus
tified. Mild but firm measures were taken with the
innovator; but as usual with such men, Perrot refused
to conform, and was expelled the society. Thereupon
he published a pamphlet called the " Spirit of the Hat,"
— which Penn answered in " The Spirit of Alexander
the Coppersmith," More pamphlets 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
softenmg influence being at this time exercised over the
polemic from Rickmanswerth. Gull's family was in
creasing, and she now travelled much less with her hus
band 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 cridently growing a wiser
and a more useful man. Living much at Rickmansworth,
' Fox, 241. Memoirs of Richard Davies, 70.
5 Penn's Works, ii. 189.

WILLIAM PENN. 157
it was natural that the Penns should gradually coUect
about themselves a circle of friends imbued with their
own sentiments in reference to religion ; and the neigh
bourhood 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. Regarding 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 country was excited
with the thought of a contest in which two of the fore
most 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, in
cluding noblemen, knights of the shire, and clergymen
of the Established 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 ! 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 with
out consent of Parliament. The country was undoubt
edly with the House on this .question. The Church
party looked upon the royal declaration as a direct pro^
vocative to Popery and Dissent. The popular party,
looking only at the pohtical issues of the dispute, 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
' Baxter's Memoirs, Part iii. 174. Besse in the appendix to the Life
of Penn, i, 167, 173.

158. WILLIAM PENN.
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 pro
tection a legal character'; and in the meantime it was
necessary that the declaration of indulgence which had
been sent out on the sole authority of the crown, should
be cancelled. These arguments prevailed. A large ma
jority 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 now in dispute. This the Commons
denied ; which denial the King receive^ as an insult, and
threatened to dissolve the House ; but his more cautious
and politic friend, Louis Quatorze, advised him to sub
mit, in order to gain time until peace was finaUy con
cluded with Holland, when the troops then engaged on
the continent could be used against his enemies in Eng
land — 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
' See the speeches of the King and his minister, Shaftesbury, in the
Lords Journals, xii. 623 et seqq., and the debates in the House of Com
mons, February 7 and following days.
^ Journals of the House of Commons, Feb. 10.
' Dalrymple, ii. 93 et seq. ' Ibid. ii. 96, Lords Jour. xii. 549.

WILLIAM PENN. 159
of his ministers. Npxt 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 bonfires illumined the capital and tes
tified the joy of the inhabitants.*
But this day of rejoicing was the beginning of years
of bitter sorrow to a large and interesting class of Eng
lishmen. The fires which lighted the eighth of March
were hardly extinguished 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 professed
to strike only at the Papists; and to prove their sin
cerity they introduced another bill for the relief of
Nonconforming 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 conscien
tious Dissenters was ' left at the mercy of any petty
tyrant who chose to rake up against them the old
penal statutes.^
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 pro
duction 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
' Statutes, 25 Carol. II. c. 6. Com. Jour. Feb. 28. Mar, 12. Comp.
MarveU, i. 494, 6. Dalrymple, ii. 90.
^ The progress and abandonment of this measure may be traced in the
Journals of the House of Lords, pp. 661, 684 ; and in the Pari. Hist, vol.
iv. pp. 535, 675.
' Penn's letter to the King, i. 48.

160 WILLIAM PENN.
grace, that forbids men to deal honestly and plainly
with the greatest" — thus he begins ; and addressing him
self to those in authority, he proceeds to shew how the
old charters of liberty have been violated, adducing spe
cific instances of each in support of his assertions. He
goes at great length into the origin of English liber
ties ; particularly with a view to shew that they are older
in date than our religious establishment — were secured
long before the birth of Luther or of Henry : " we were
a free people," he says very finely, " by the c^reation 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 Reformation." — His concluding advice to
the ruling powers is — 1. To conserve all the ancient
rights and liberties of the people ; 2. To grant entire
freedom to opinion in matters of faith ; and, 3. To en
deavour to promote the growth of true and practical
piety in the nation.'
The composition of this work kept Penn at home
a considerable part of the year ; but his attention was
continuaUy diverted from it to special cases of more
than common hardship. The letters written by him at
this period to magistrates, sheriffs, lieutenants of coun
ties and others in behalf of indi-vidual sufferers were
very numerous.^ These have a certain uniformity of
style and matter, except where, as in the case of Jus
tice Fleming, some peculiar interest attached to the man
or the circumstances.
Justice Fleming had been an old friend of the Sprin
getts ; and some years previous to this date had been
' The entire work will repay perusal, i. 672.

WILLIAM PENN. 161
particularly kind to Guli when she was on a visit at his
house iu Westmoreland, 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 — " how
ever 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 cour
tesy, civility and kindness."* A noble and catholic
avowal !
Penn had been five years absent from court ; but
the persecutions 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. As
ton then went into the duke's closet ; and James, hear
ing 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, be
cause he thought they used their consciences only as
a pretext to disturb the government ; but he had con
sidered better, and was now willing to do to others as
" Only some of these are to be found in the collected edition (folio)
of his works. ' Works, i. 157.
M

162 WILLIAM PENN.
he hoped to be done by. He wished all men were of
that opinion ; for he was sure no man was wilUng to be
persecuted for his own belief. He would use his in
fluence with the king. But where had Penn been, and"
why hadhe not called at the palace ? He had promised
the admiral to look after his son ; but that son had never
shewn 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 fulfil towards him
all the duties of a guardian.'
¦ Apology, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. second part, 240-2.

CHAPTER V.
1673-1678.
C]^e JStgimting of ti)t ffintJ.
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 in
stincts stronger in him than even the love of life. Not
lightly nor 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 Ups, and with their faces, like
their hearts, stiU turned towards dear old England, de
parting more in sorrow 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 fiU the gaols and, stocks with victims, attention was
again directed to the plan, already carried out in part,
' Mather, 1. iii. c. 1. "Farewell, dear England!" was the parting
expression of the Pilgrim Fathers.

164 WILLIAM PENN.
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
splendours of American scenery, — during the retirement
of the family in Ireland, after the admiral's disgrace,
the subject of buying an estate 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
Oceana or Utopia in his fancy among the islands of
the archipelago or deep in the luxurious savannahs of
the mainland, — at the yearly meeting of his own reli
gious society the settlement of Quakers in Jamaica, in
New England, and on the Delaware, had been frequently
discussed,' — and the journey which he had still more re
cently made into HoUand and Germany 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 perilous
stories which he 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 enthvisiasm 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 connexion with the continent on which he
' A colony of Quakers went out to Jamaica soon after the conquest
of the island. Thurloe, vi. 834.

WILLIAM PENN. 165
was to build an enduring monument in the glorious form
of a harbour 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 English 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
Netherland, stretching from the shores of the Delaware
to Connecticut River, even before a single rood of
the land had yet been wrested from the hands of the
Dutch colonists,* Two months before the conquest,
James in his turn had granted to Lord Berkeley and Sir
George Carteret, in equal shares, the region lying be
tween the Hudson and the Delaware, When the Eng
lish forces took final possession of the country, the old
names and boundaries were removed, and in honour 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 ovniers of these colonial estates was to wring
as much money out of them as possible, it was soon seen
to be their private interest to offer such liberal conces
sions — or constitutions — as would attract that crowd 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 established in their colonial
possessions enlarged and liberal fundamental laws — the
2 Day's Pennsylvania Hist. Coll. 12.
' Watson's Annals, 10.

166

WILLIAM PENN.

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 Puri
tans already in New England set sail from the port of
New Haven, with a view to establish themselves in the
recently acquired territory, and having reached the Pas
saic, 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 prosperity ; the English Quakers began to
take an interest in its affairs, and a few of them went
thither to settle. But Berkeley 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 Ame
rica,^ the Quakers, on his report, opened a communica
tion 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 dispute arose be
tween the agent and his principal as to their respective
shares in the purchase : Fenwick, a litigious and trouble
some person as is evident from his letters,* contending
that a certain allotment of the land should be made
over to him and his heirs, to which Byllinge strenuously
' Watson's Annals, 7. ^ Fox's Journal.
3 Watson, 10. * Hari, Mss. 7001.

WILLIAM PENN.' 16"?
objected. This dispute was referred by common con
sent to William Penn. The letters stiU extant shew
that Fenwick was at first disposed 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 be
fore 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 Griffith for New Jersey.
These adventurers ascended the Delaware a considera
ble 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 harassed minds and bodies it seemed in truth a
place of peace and rest.^ Meantime Edward Byllinge,
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 obUged to
give up the management of his estate to others, his cre
ditors, having appointed Gawen Laurie of London and
Nicholas Lucas of Hertford as trustees in their own be
half, allowed him to name one of his own friends as a
third trustee for the protection of his interests ; and
William Penn was the friend whom he solicited to per
form for him this important office. At first he was not
disposed to add so large a responsibility to those already
' Harl. Mss. 7001, contains the corresp., with Fenwick's notes.
^ Watson's Annals, 11,

168 WILLIAM PENN.
weighing heavily on his time and thoughts ; but on con
sidering that the principal part of the estate to be ad
ministered 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 government of the province as he found it, simply
as a commercial 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 Ca
rolina, was open to him both as an incitement and as a
warning. These first attempts to lay the fomidations 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
was obtained by Penn after a troublesome negociation,
on giving up the best half of the estate to the agents of
the older proprietor, which henceforward was known as
the province of East New Jersey, — that retained by the
Quakers being called from its geographical position West
' The heads of the Quaker party kept up a regular correspondence
with the colonists. Hazard's Penn. Eeg. vi, 184 et seqq.

WILLIAM PENN. 169
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 operations by dividing the land, then a
complete wilderness, into a hundred lots, ten of which
were made over to John Fenwick 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 ac
quired still greater power to carry out his own ideas in
the great work of settUng the fundamental laws. As
yet the mind of the legislator was itseK in the process of
formation. The counsels of Harrington and the classic
republicans stiU exercised a powerful infiuence 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 Mayflower
were however the more immediate types of his first
efforts as a statesman ; he 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 un-
guided 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 governments
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
2 Gordon's Hist, of Jersey.
' Letters to Algernon Sidney, 1679-1681. See chapters vi, and vii.

170

WILLIAM PENN.

few words: — the rights of free worship were secured
(this was always the first point with the Puritan emi
grants) — the legislative power was given in a great
measure to the people, who were to elect their repre
sentatives, 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 office of inter
preting 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 arriving 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 unfor
tunate was encouraged to try again: by these simple
provisions and the laws which were to be enacted in ac
cordance with the general principles so laid down, Penn
beMeved 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 !'
WhUe engaged with these new and important duties,
Penn removed his place of residence from the neigh
bourhood of Rickmansworth, in Hertfordshire, to Worm-
inghurst, in Sussex.^ Less occupied at the moment
with travelling and controversy than with the practical
' See Smith's New Jersey, 528 et seq,
' Lady Springett's Ms, Autobiography, She visited the Penns at

WILLIAM PENN. 171
organisation of states and the principles 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 peaceful and profound tranquillity he worked
out and perfected his scheme of government for West
New Jersey. Gull's mother and father-in-law spent a
portion of the summer and autumn of 1676 with theiri
at their new house, and Isaac Pennington — the friend of
Milton — possibly assisted in drawing up his relation's
maiden constitution.'
As soon as this important document was finished,
the trustees 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 countrymen 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 applications for plots of land in the new Free Co
lony, and this testimony to the merits of his plan en
couraged the legislator to renewed efforts. Two large
companies were immediately formed to establish trade
and promote emigration, one in Yorkshire, the other in
Middlesex, The members of the Yorkshire company
Worminghurst in the autumn of 1676, and on the 30th of September had
the remarkable dream referred to in a former note. ^ Ibid.

172 WILLIAM PENN.
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 pro
vince had been divided. By cancelling these debts the
property was graduaUy retrieved from its embarrass
ments, 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 enter
prise ; and with this view he proposed to institute a pro
visional government — himself selecting some of its mem
bers, Fenwick's party and the two companies nominat
ing the others. This being agreed to, Thomas OUve 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 exercise 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 organised, whereupon
their functions were to cease.^
Since the sailing of the Mayflower no event had
occurred of so much interest to the Republicans of
England, WilUam Penn took a great deal of .pains in
organising the emigration, and engaged the good ship
Kent, Gregory Marlow, master, to carry out the com
missioners, their families and tenants, to the number
' Besse, 50,

WILLIAM PENN. 173
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 re
latives about to part for ever, when a light and gilded
barge was seen rapidly gliding over the smooth waters
towards them. Something in the appearance of the Kent
had evidently attracted the attention of its luxurious oc
cupants, 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 cg,lled to ask the name of the
ship and whither 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 coun
ties. When the new comers arrived at their destination,
Andros, the governor of New York, claimed jurisdic
tion over them and their territory, justifying 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 mo
ther country, the Quakers entered into treaties with the
aborigines for the purchase of their lands, and under a
2 Gordon's Hist, New Jersey.

174 WILLIAM PENN.
sail-cloth, set up in the forest of Burlington, began to
assemble for public worship.' The native tribes came
from their hunting-grounds to confer with these peace
ful strangers, who carried 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 de
gree of prosperity. Land was sold and cultivated. The
Sachems remained on the whole friendly. The popu
lation 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 real
ised in practice the State which Sidney had conceived
and Harrington had dreamed !'
Having at length got these American affairs into a
favourable state, Penn turned his thoughts towards the
continent of Europe. He had many correspondents in
Holland and on the Rhine: and in the cities formerly
visited by him the congregations which had arisen im
plored him to return, if only for a brief season, and
afford them once more the benefits of his wisdom and
' When reminded that their charter gave them none of the liberties
they claimed, they declared themselves free-born EngUshmen, and ap
pealed to the great charter of rights. Gordon's New Jersey, 47.
2 Smith's New Jersey, 100.

WILLIAM PENN. 175
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 hostility of their feudal lords ; others were li'idng
under the shade of persecution in gaols and madhouses :
all these men hoped for some consolation in his pre
sence, 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 wor
ship 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 heir court, now that his colonial
concerns weighed less heavily on his time and cares.
All his preparations being made for this new jour
ney, he left his family at Worminghurst and proceeded
to Harwich, where he found George Fox, Robert Bar
clay and several other friends awaiting his arrival.^
Pro-vided with a huge assortment of books and tracts,
explanatory of Quaker doctrines, 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 parti
cularly attentive to the comforts of his passengers, and
even allowed them to convert his quarter-deck into a
^ This correspondence is preserved in Hazard's Eegister.
¦• Province of Pennsylvania, by Franz Pastorius (one of the original
German emigrants). Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iv. 103.
* Travels into Germany and HoUand, i. 62. ^ Ibid. i. 59.

176 WILLIAM PENN.
conventicle. When they came in sight of the Brill,
Penn and Barclay, anxious to arrive at the town before
nightfall, 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 imme
diately for Rotterdam, where they held large meetings
of their Christian friends, — Penn speaking 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 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 hy
perbole is the natural language of enthusiasm. This
visit of the three great apostles of Quakerism to Rot
terdam 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 aU the towns along their routes,
and three Dutch converts, Claus, Arents, and BocUffs
came to them from Amsterdam 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
' Fox, 433. 2 Ibid.
* Travels into Germany and HoUand, i. 52,
* Fox, 334.

WILLIAM PENN. 177
their tenets, other deputies from Alchmaer and Embden
met them with welcomes and invitations. Their jour
ney through the country was like a prolonged ovation,*
At Amsterdam they organised the scattered congrega
tions 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 various countries, and
more especially the case of certain inhabitants of Dantzic,
which city then formed a part of the great Polish re
public. The heroic John Sobieski, King of Poland, was
at the time on a visit to Dantzic ; and WiUiam Penn,
trusting in the chivalric character of the prince, advised
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 worship God according to their faith. This
petition he was desired 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 pre
decessors — " 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 remonstrance.^
Leaving George Fox at Amsterdam, Penn and Bar
clay continued their journey to Herwerden, where they
were warmly welcomed by the Electress. This noble
and pious woman, daughter of Frederick, Prince Pala
tine 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
= Penn's Works, i. S3,
' See the letter at length in his CoU, Works, i. 63.
N

^78 WILLIAM PENN.
Prince Rupert — the old rival and enemy of Admiral
Penn.' Our interest in the. friendly intercourse of the
princess and her visitor is considerably enhanced 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 gratitude and respect long survived its object ; and
in one of the subsequent editions of his " No Cross,
no Crown" he incorporated her name with his noble
list of benefactors and examples to mankind. ^ In his
former visit to the court of Elizabeth some years be
fore, 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 EngUsh,
particularly of Robert Barclay the famous apologist,
whose learning and moderation had enabled him to ap
peal with great effect to the ready intelligence of these
accomphshed 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 coUege of
Duysburg; and in the course of conversation he told
them there was a " sober and seeking man of great note
in the city of Duysburg," which information deter
mined Penn to pay a visit to that place. The meetings
¦ Genealogies of the royal tamUy.
» Collected Works, i, 430-1,

WILLIAM PENN. 17^
at the palace were characteristic of the time ; and the
effect of their discourses on the audience seems to have
been overpowering. When the last service drew to a
close, Elizabeth 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 pre
sence ; 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 re
fused ; but the lady would not be denied this gratifica
tion, and they compromised the matter by ha-ving 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, while 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 mUes. Pursuing their tedious journey
through Paderborn, " a dark Popish city," and Cassel,
where they were " tenderly received," obstructed by the
heavy rains, bad roads, and their primitive vehicle, they
arrived in Frankfort just a week after leaving Herwer
den. About three miles from that famous city they
were met by two merchants who had come forth to wel
come them and report the spiritual condition of their fel-
3 Elizabeth to Penn, May 2, 1677,
¦• Travels into Germany and Holland, i, 63.

180 WILLIAM PENN.
low-citizens, many of whom they said were prepared to
receive 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 fervour Penn did not neg
lect 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 colonisation were
Von Dewalle, Dr. Schiitz, Franz Pastorius, and Daniel
Behagel, all of whom emigrated in a few years.' From
the imperial city Penn addressed a long letter to " the
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 Ufe, to rede^n the time, not vainly
striving to heap the dross that perisheth, but content
to do good and be found useful in their day and gene-
ration.2 Continuing their tour slowly along the Upper Rhine,
the travellers passed through Worms on the fifth day,
and in the evening arrived at Kircliheim — a small town
about six miles from Worms, in the territory of Pfalz-
grave. 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 Pennsyl-
1 Franz Pastorius, in Penn. Hist. Soc. Memoirs, iv. 101.
* Collected Works, i. 65.

WILLIAM PENN. 181
•vania. The home of which he told them beyond the
seas, was hardly less welcome to the Protestant demo
crats of Kirchheim than that better home which he pro
mised them beyond the skies. The hopes thrown out
were readily received by these true lovers of freedom ;
the more ardent began to quit their countrytin 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 Christian
men to buy or to hold negro slaves !^
But Penn seems to have been anxious to do some
thing 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 co
lony of virtuous and industrious famiUes, in the event of
a considerable number being wiUing 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,
finding the prince gone to Heidelberg, he contented
himself with writing a letter to his Highness, and re
turned 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 hor
rified them. Here they met their disciples at the house
of a merchant, who at their departure furnished them
' Settle in the Penn. Hist. Soc. Memoirs, ii. 366.
* Penn to the Elector Palatine. Coll. Works, i. 72.

182 WILLIAM PENN.
with a letter of introduction to Dr. Mastricht of Duys
burg, 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 EUzabeth that the young and beautiful
Countess von Falchenstein und Bruch, whose father
resided in that neighbourhood, , was seriously incUned.'
Her they also wished to see. Even an apostle's heart
is not without the romantic instincts !^
Duysburg, a Calvinistic city, lay in the territory of
the Elector of Brandenburg. On their arrival they
sought out Dr. Mastricht, and dehvered their letter.
He told them they were very fortunate in the time of
their visit, as it being Sunday, the young Countess
would have left her father's castle and crossed the river
to Mulheim, where she would, as usual, spend the re
mainder of the day at the clergyman's house. He Cau
tioned them, however, not to make themselves pubUc —
as much for the young lady's sake as for their own, — as
her fiither, a coarse and rigorous person, was already
very severely displeased with her on account of the se
rious tum of her mind. Thus warned, they set out on
foot to trudge the six mUes to Mulheim ; but on their
way they met with one Heinrich Schmidt, a schoolmas
ter, who informed them that the Countess had just re
turned, 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 missUe
he departed, leaving them waiting by the orchard of the
^af for his return. Jn 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
' Elizabeth to Penn, September 14, 1677.
' Travels into Germany and Holland, i. 78.

WILLIAM PENN. 183
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 attendants 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 |,nd put the same interrogatories in person. Penn
replied, they were EngUshmen come from HoUand, and
were going no farther than to his own town of Mul
heim ; on hearing which answer one of the Graf's gen
tlemen 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 behaviour.
" 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 Qua
kers 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 conduct 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
» Penn to the Graf, September 3, 1677.

184

WILLIAM PENN.

forest, ^he soldiers returned to the castie 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 wander
ing 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 admission : 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 building stood beyond the fortifi
cations. 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 untU 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 wan
derers 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 common disease of this country)," says Penn,
when he heard -of the rencontre. With the anxiety of
' Travels into Germany and Holland, i. 80. * Ibid. i. 84.
^ Penn to the Graf, September 3, 1677.
* Elizabeth to Penn, September 14, 1677.

WILLIAM PENN. 185
a friend, he inquired minutely what had passed ; and was
greatly relieved when he found they had been prudent
enough not to name the Countess. Men like Penn and
Fox might smile at pain and persecution, 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 esca,ped 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 re
monstrance,' Penn failed in his efforts to see the young Countess ;
but he had the satisfaction to receive from her an affec
tionate 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 emigration — the travellers at length arrived at
Amsterdam.5 There 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 Rotterdam
* The only curious event of this journey was the conversion of an
" attorney to a living sense of tbe truth,^' Travels into Germany and
Holland, 86.

186 ' WILLIAM PENN.
and Harwich. On the passage home they encountered
a violent storm. They were at sea three days and two
nights ; the rain feU in torrents ; the hail beat heavily
against their fraU. canvass; the wind set dead against
them ; the vessel sprang a leak ; and the most incessant
labour at the pumps, night and day, could hardly keep
the hold from filling. Great fear feU on the supersti
tious minds of the seamen; but on the peril passing
away, they soon resumed their usual wantonness of spi
rit, — very much to the horror and annoyance of the
Quakers who were on board.'
Fox and other Quakers, when they landed at Har
wich, 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 GuU and his young family at Worming-
hmst, and while his friends were -wilUng to travel luxu
riously 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 chUdren 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 coun
try with respect to the new territory. Under his aus
pices, several shiploads of emigrants went out from Deal
and from HuU ; and although the management of the
colony was only in part in his hands, yet such was
the confidence reposed in his integrity and wisdom, that
' Penn's Travels, &c. i, 114 ; Fox's Journal, 454.
" Fox's Journal, 455. ^ Penn's Travels, i. 116»

WILLIAM PENN. 187
more than eight hundred persons of sober, industrious
and wealthy famUies had quitted England for the pro-
-vince during the few months which had elapsed since
he undertook the task of its government. Under these
multiplying labours his health began to fail ; the anxiety
of mind also weighed heavily upon his spirits ; and all
GuU's care was needed to prevent him from falling into
a seriously low and listless mood.* His attention 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 pecuUar 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 Penn
sylvania. " Penn to Margaret Fox, January 8, 1678. Ms. ,
* Ibid. George Fox's daughter had ieen staying with the. Penns,
and bore this letter to- her mother.

CHAPTER VL
1678-1680.
Algernon ^tUneg.
At this period of his life Penn Uved much in the world
and was received with distinction by nearly all sorts and
conditions of men. His position was indeed an uncom
mon one. Standing aloof from aU intrigues in that most
intriguing of courts ; taking no direct or personal part
in politics ; a candidate for no office ; undesirous of any
honour or emolument which courts can bestow ; accus
tomed from his youth to mix freely and on equal terms
with the best society; acquainted with all the leading
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 neutrahty
as to the great objects of personal and party strife se
cured to him a larger share of intercourse with leading
men than perhaps any other individual of the time en
joyed. In the good graces of the King, and particularly
favoured by the Duke of York, It was easy for him to
maintain a high standing with the wits, ministers, and
favourites who daily thronged the galleries of Whitehall;
while beyond that circle he enjoyed 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
' Tillotson Corresp, in Penn's Works, i, 127-9,

WILLIAM PENN. 189
Lord Arran, but also with the champion of Protestant
doctrine, the pious and gentle Tillotson.' His genius
and his virtues were equally appreciated by the Whig
William Lord RusseU, the Tory Lord Hyde, and the Re
publican Algernon 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 Shafts-
bury, the Marquis of Halifax, the Earl of Sunderland,
Lord Essex, Lord Churchill, and many other distin
guished rakes, writers, courtiers and members of parlia
ment. 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 it
self with his graver moods. Even at the time when he
first changedf his religious views, 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 enjoyed 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 disliked but their vices and
frivolities. In his idea, a reUgious man need not shun
the street, the drawing-room, the market-place; and he
felt it was his duty as an individual to Uve in, if not of,
the world. But he had greater objects in view in re
taining that place in society which his birth and early
fortunes had given him : some of these old and power
ful friends were already inclined to adopt his views on
the great subject of Toleration to Opinion: the Duke of
2 Furly Corresp. 84. ' Swift's note to Burnet, iii. 140.

190 WILLIAM PENN.
Buckingham especially seemed disposed to support a
more liberal policy in parliament ; and Penn laboured
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 overthrown at a single onset ; and then a new face, a
fresh whim, a flt of the spleen, would distract the ducal
thoughts, and the great business fall into complete neg
lect. Sunderland, Halifax, and Cavendish wavered in
opinion with the gusts of popular feeling or changed
their views as the events of the poUtical world suggested
to be prudent : in the Duke of York alone of those
about the King's person Penn found a steadfast friend
to Liberty of Conscience. No doubt personal interests,
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
in-vited his confldence by gracious words and acts of
kindness : and Penn readily avaUed himself of the royal
favour to obtain pardon for his non-conforming brethren
when they fell under persecution, 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
' Penn to a Friend. Clarkson, ii. 57. = Phil. Friend, vi. 257.
' Furly Correspondence, 84, 89, 95.
' Diary and Corresp, of Henry Sidney, Earl of Romney, ii. 194, &c.
Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iv. 1.

WILLIAM PENN. 191
lived on friendly terms. Though estranged from each
other, they reposed confidence in him — appealed to his
wisdom in their difficulties, and sometimes placed their
interests under his care and guardianship.' Towards
Henry Sidney — Earl of Romney under the Prince of
Orange — a man somewhat younger than himself, 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 opinions.* To his brother Algernon he was at once
a friend and a disciple.^
The difference between the two Sidneys was striking.
Henry was nearly twenty years younger than his illus
trious brother. He had seen but little of the best period
of the Revolution, and had never known the purer and
more moderate 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 favourite with the
ladies of his famUy.^ Loose in his morals, and profess
ing 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 honour.^ In this school he was an apt
scholar. Undaunted by ordinary difficulties, he set no
Umit to his pleasures, and the royal family itself did
not escape the scandal of his amours. Appointed mas
ter of the horse to the Duchess of York, he was soon
* Sidney to Furly, April 13, August 19, 1678,
^ Blencoe's Sidney Papers, 274. Devonshire letters in Lady Eussell's
Corresp. 334, ' Grammont, 98, 99.

192 WILLIAM PENN.
found to be engaged in a criminal intrigue with his royal
mistress, mother of two of the future sovereigns of Eng
land.' A violent scene between the Duke and Duchess
led to his banishment from the court.'^ When he re
turned 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 Robert Spencer — the son of
Sidney's sister. Lady Dorothy, the Sacharissa of WaUer's
Poems — now Earl of Sunderland and one of the most
stirring intriguers of his day — and with other persons
high in influence and office, whom it was his duty to see
in relation to his private a&irs or in the interests of the
Quaker body. True, however, to his old weakness, Sid
ney could not refrain from making love to his nephew's
wife;' the delinquents kept up a voluminous correspon
dence, and their amours were at this very time the com
mon gossip of the French and EngUsh courts.*
Between such a man and his austere and noble bro
ther there could be, and there was, no sympathy, and
but Utde affection.5 In his infancy, Algernon Sidney
had been remarkable for his great wit and natural sweet
ness of disposition.^ As he grew up to manhood, the
Roman virtues of his soul had been fostered by a liberal
education and the influence of commanding events. Dur
ing the civU war he had distinguished himself by his
wisdom in the coimcU and by his valour in the field.^
' Pepvs. iii. 123, " The duchess is fallen in love with her new mas
ter of the hor?e, Harry Sidney." Nov. 17. 1665. 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 seqq.
' Lady Sunderland is said by Clarendon to be "as great a jade as
ever Uved." 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.

WILLIAM PENN. 193
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 disagreed with his fellow-officers as to the
policy of Charles's trial and execution ; being attached
to the old forms of EngUsh judicial procedure, and satis
fied moreover that his deposition and banishment would
meet the ends of justice and sound policy better than the
more violent course proposed.^ But his prudent counsel
was overruled by the more ardent spirits ; when Alger
non 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 off 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 seventeen years he remained abroad,
during which time his friends made several efforts to ob
tain for him a pardon ; but as he would concede nothing,
and the Stuart princes were equally unyielding, the ne
gotiations failed as often as they were attempted. The
utmost that could be drawn from him — though wasting
away with privation and home-sickness — was a declara
tion to the effect that he was willing to submit to the
* Barillon, July 1678,
' Dalrymple, i. 339, Barillon says of Algernon — " II est fort mal avec
son frere, qui est en HoUande."
^ Collins' Sidney Papers, ii. 445.
' Journal of the Earl of Leicester. ' Collins' Sidney Papers, i. 152.
' Blencoe's Sidney Papers. Appendix, with the note by Macintosh.
'" Sidney to his father. Blencoe's Sidney Papers, 237,
)' Letter to his father, in Blencoe, O

194 WILLIAM PENN.
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 wan
derer and a beggar in a foreign land, he said very finely
and nobly — " I walk in the Ught 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." ^
After an absence of seventeen years he was allowed
to return to his father's death-bed. When he again ap
peared in society, Penn saw him frequently; and they
had many opportunities of discussing his new schemes
of colonisation and his theories of colonial government.
A man with Sidney's large views and ardent convictions
could not long remain mactive. 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 un
questionably powerful in London.* Sidney never for a
moment disguised his preference of a republic to a mon
archy ; but he was wilUng 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 Par
liament giving Freedom to Conscience. The vanity of
' Blencoe's Sidney Papers, 233. ^ Blencoe, 163.
^ If Sidney were well informed, there were a million of Non-cou-
formers at this time in England. Collins' Sidney Papers, 101. J
* Barillon to Louis, December 5, 1680. . • , '

WILLIAM PENN. 195
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
produced on the two houses of Parliament ; and in the
early part of 1678 there had arisen a more friendly feel
ing towards Non-conformers. The House of Commons no
longer refused to hear the grievances of Dissenters ; and
WiUiam Penn having presented a petition to that body
on behalf of the suffering Quakers, — against whom there
existed no penal law, but who had been maliciously con
founded 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 WiUiam Penn was
heard by this committee, when he- spoke as follows : —
" Gentlemen, — If we ought to believe that it is
our duty, according to the doctrine of the Apostle, to be
always ready to give an account of the hope that is in
us, to every sober and private inquirer, certainly much
more ought we to hold ourselves obliged to declare vrith
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 can
not 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
^ 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..

196 WILLIAM PENN.
suffers mutely under another character than that which
truly belongeth 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 supposed a Papist, but a Seminary,
a Jesuit, an emissary of Rome, and in pay from the
Pope ; a man dedicating my endeavours 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 Ul of us, and to
decline our conversation, but to take courage to them
selves to prosecute 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 re
form, but destroy us^ and this not for what we are,
but for what we are not. It is hard that we must thus
bear the stripes of another interest, and be their proxy
in punishment. I would not be mistaken. I am far
from thinking it fit that Papists should be whipped for
their consciences, because I exclaim against the injus
tice of whipping Quakers for Papists. No : for though
the hand, pretended to be Ufted 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 conscien
tious dissent on any hand. And I humbly take leave to
1 Besse, i. 118.

WILLIAM PENN. 197
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 considera
tion. To conclude^ I hope we shall be held 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 attend and threaten many hundreds of families, by
the execution 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 liberality of sentiment. The Church
was possessed by a rampant spirit of persecution ; the
Catholics never pretended to be tolerant in their own
practice ; and Puritans, Independents, Presbyterians 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 extraor
dinary 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
2 Foulis' Hist, of Plots, &c. 222.

198 WILLIAM PENN.
storms which have ever swept the poUtical atmosphere
of England ; and in the general confusion Parliament
was prorogued, and the bill of exemption lost for
years. Titus Oates had been a minister of the Church of
England until his dissolute life caused him to be ex
pelled from its communion. He had then joined the
Roman Catholics, — entered the Jesuits' College at Val-
ladolid, 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 affiuent imagination enabled him to work up the
grotesque and horrible concoction known in history
as the Popish Plot.' He said he had been trusted by
the Jesuits in Spain and France with the conveyance of
certain letters and papers, — that he had opened these
documents out of idle curiosity, and so had become pos
sessed 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. WilUam of
Orange was marked for assassination. Even the Catho
lic Duke of York was not to be spared. The price of
these crimes had already been paid. Every true Pro
testant was to be murdered. A French army was to
land in Ireland to support the movement; and as soon
as the reformed faith was fairly put down, the whole
' A true and exact Narrative of the horrid Plot and Conspiracy of the
Popish Party against the Life of his sacred Majesty, the Government,
and the Protestant Religion. London, 1678.
' Ibid. 3 Sidney's letters to Savile, 9 et seq.

WILLIAM PENN. 199
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 believed by the calmest
and wisest men of the time — and is necessary 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 ;' so
did WiUiam Penn ;* so did Sir WilUam Temple.5 The
affair remains a mystery to this day.
The nation was unfortunately in a temper to receive
with eagerness any monstrous story of intrigue and con
spiracy. For some time past the fears of every good
Protestant had been fed with rumours of the royal apos-
tacy ; and the only cordial friend of the reigning house,
the King of France, was well known to be a bigoted
and intolerant CathoUc. Some vague idea had got abroad
of the terms on which Louis supplied the court so la
vishly with money .^ Charles was suspected by many of
a secret leaning towards the rehgion of his wife and his .
mistresses, and the Duke of York was an avowed and
obstinate Catholic. Contrary to the wishes of Parlia
ment, 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 of the country was
alarmed ; and monstrous as was the story told by Oates,
it found a willing and beUeving audience. Finding the
trade of informer in vogue, Bedloe, Dangerfield, and
other scoundrels, brought out newer and more astound-
¦" England's great Interest in the Choice of a new Parliament. Coll,
Works, ii. 678. ° Temple, ii. 491.
" It is sickening to read the base supplications of Charles for money :
always selling his country ! Dalrymj)le, i. 320 et seq.

200 WILLIAM PENN.
ing revelations.' The -vriser people only laughed at
these wretched imposters ; but the affair of Coleman
aiid the murder of Godfrey gave such a colouring to the
charge as convinced the country that some act of unima
ginable atrocity had been in contemplation, and made it
dangerous to express in public a doubt as to the exist
ence 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 favoured it from political and personal mo
tives. 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 politi
cians; 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 dismay and
desolation into thousands of happy famiUes.
Distrusting Danby and aware of the tendencies of
court opinion, Penn and Sidney were anxious to have
the pretended plot thoroughly sifted, probably expect
ing 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 -vrith
the designs of the Jesuits ; and had the truth come out
at once, he would have lost his credit with the nation
for ever. Charles himself believed — to a greater extent
' These narratives are collected into a volume, B. M.
2 Settle. " A Narrative." Ibid.
' Barillon to Louis. Dalrymple, i. 288.

WILLIAM PENN. 201
perhaps than was actually the case— that the attack on
Popery was in reality 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 the intrigues of Danby and Montagu
would lead to a dissolution of Parliament, Algernon be
gan to look about for a seat, and to prepare the consti
tuencies for a more Uberal and enlightened public poUty.
Penn himself could not so far renounce 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
excellent addresses. One of them was to his own body
of religionists. Fearing, in the general consternation,
lest some might be led astray, he exhorted them "not
to be drawn out of their sober course by rumours of
plots and conspiracies, but to stand aloof, discharging
their duties, in the perilous times which were at hand,
as men and as Christians.^ This done, he wrote an
elaborate and masterly address to Protestants of every
denomination on the existing crisis, and a brief tract en
titled " 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
re-viewed the moral question. He began by shewing
the fallacy of -vicarious virtue. If the people would be
honestly governed, they must be honest themselves. Vice
is the disease of which nations die. No just government
ever perished — no unjust one ever long maintained its
power. Virtue is the true life-principle of society. All
^ Barillon tells his master that Penn and Sidney are " a la tete d'un
fort grand parti." Dal. i. 282. « Coll. Works, i. 226.

202 WILLIAM PENN.
history proves this ; but although immorality is the
chief destroyer, a mistaken policy may be little inferior
to it in mischief. Foremost among ^uch 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 grand but in
tangible abstractions as fate, freewill, election, 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 beUeves well.
Morality is debased when tested from above. Virtue
may be necessary to the state of grace, but grace is not
indispensable to virtue. It is a grand mistake to dispar
age morality under pretence of looking to higher things.
In this world there is nothing higher than goodness. —
Such is the substance of a remarkable work written by
this profoundly religious man !^
His other work was entirely political. In its com
position he was probably assisted by Sidney. They were
much together at this time ; and Algernon was a fre
quent and a cherished guest at Worminghurst.^ He
begins — "All is at stake!" The crisis, he says, de
mands the utmost wisdom. The new Parliament will
have the gravest duties: — to investigate the plot and
punish its authors;' to impeach corrupt and arbitrary
ministers of state ; to detect and punish those represen
tatives 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 re
quires bold and able men. He then sketches his ideal
' Coll. Works, i. 223.
' Sidney to Furly, August 9, 19, 1678.
' The wisest men felt the necessity of this course. Sir WiUiam Tem-

WILLIAM PENN. 203
of a man for the crisis : Algernon Sidney evidently sit
ting for the picture. He should be able, learned, well-
affected to Uberty; one who will neither buy his seat
nor sell his services ; he must be free from the suspicion
of ever ha-ring 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 respecter
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 favour with the court.*
Such is the pith of this work — a work widely circulated
at the time ; but the moment was one eminently unfa
vourable 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 cor
rupt 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 beside itself with excitement and apprehen
sion, 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 pro
babilities of a personal discomfiture. Once in the House
of Commons, his party felt that his very name would be
to them a tower of strength ; and to give weight to his
counsels as the organ of republican opinions, they re
solved 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 imiportant
pie said of the plot — " It must of necessity be pursued as if it were true,
whether it were true or not." Temple, ii. 491.
' Collected Works, ii. 681. ' Reresby, 67.

204 WILLIAM PENN.
constituency, he formally offered himself for the suf
frages of its inhabitants.'
Hitherto Penn had taken no personal part in poli
tics. 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 revelries and disorders, the inso
lence of petty officials, the envy, maUce, and all unchari-
tableness to which a popular election gave rise at that
period.^ But when the interests of his iUustrious 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,
making 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 republican party was one eminently perilous to his
worldly interests.' His account with the government
was still unsettled. Neither the principal nor the in
terest of the large debts owing by the crown to the ad
miral had been paid ; and it was evident to all his friends
that the final settlement of the claim would mainly de
pend on the favourable disposition of the royal brothers.
It was obviously his interest therefore to stand- well with
the court. But how could this be possible sp^long as
, he acted with Algernon Sidney, — a man whoTiad not
only borne arms against the Stuarts in his more ardent
' Penn to Sidney, Collins' Sidney Papers, i. 154.
^ Henry Sidney's Diary and Correspondence, i. 1 17.
' Barillon Corresp. Dalrymple, i. 282.
* Birch Mss. 4297, B. M.

WILLIAM PENN. 205
youth, but who in his riper manhood still avowed him
self a partisan of the commonwealth ? To lie under the
least suspicion of a leaning to the repubUc 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 to stand for Guildford
became known, the court prepared to oppose the candi
dature of the republican leader with all its influence ;5
but Penn, convinced that he was one of the noblest spi
rits his age had produced, paid no respect to this hostUe
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 interest ;^ the mayor and the recorder of the
town were bought or terrifled; bribery, treating, inti
midation, and all the baser practices of electioneering,
were brought forth. Soldiers were discharged from the
service on promising to vote for Dalmahoy. Non-resi
dents 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 regicide. For three weeks the town was a scene
of indescribable confusion and disorder. Both parties
feasted their supporters ; the sternest pohtical virtue in
that age was held to be compatible with the amenities
of cakes and ale.^
* Sidney's Statement. Com. Jour. viii. 578.
^ The Court took a formal part in all elections at this time, Letter-
Books in State-Paper Office. ' Collins' Sidney Papers, i. 154.

206 WILLIAM PENN.
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 recorder 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 in
terrupting his intended victim. He then called for the
New Testament and tendered him the oaths — well know
ing 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.'
This diversion came too late. Sidney had already
secured a majority of sufirages. 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 re
corder refused to make out his return, on the plea that
he was not a freeman of the borough, though he had
formally offered himself at the TownhaU for the pur
pose of being made on the previous day, — and declared
Dalmahoy duly elected.' Never was a more shameless
transaction known. Of course, the Uberals did not think
of submitting to an act of such intolerable injustice.
They held a conference of their friends on the after
noon 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,
' Sidney's Statement. Com. Jour. viii. 678.

WILLIAM PENN. 207
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 wit
nessed — 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 land his party
" had a conscientious 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 intercourse, 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 reasonable is this, that so soon as the
articles or exceptions are digested, shew them to Ser
geant Maynard, and get his opinion of the matter. Sir
Francis Winnington and Wallope have been used on
these occasions too. Thou must have counsel before
the Committee; and to advise first upon the reason of
an address or petition with them, in my opinion, is not
imprudent, but very fitting. If they say that (the con
juncture considered, thy qualifications and alliance, and
his ungratefulness to the House,) they beUeve all may
amount to an unfair election, then I offer to wait pre
sently upon the Duke of Buckingham, Earl of Shafts-
bury, 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
2 Sunderland Letter-Book 629, folio 132. S. P. 0.
' Sidney's Statement. Com, Jour. viii. 578.

208 WILLIAM PENN.
the first. Remember 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 well at home.
I hope the disappointment so strange (a hundred and
forty poll-men as we thought last night considered)
does not move thee. Thou, as thy friends, hadst a con
scientious 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 sol
diers were made free three weeks ago in prospect of the
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 thef^Lower
House the Lord Cavendish, and especially Lord Russel,
Sir Jo. Coventry, 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 Commons. 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 parlia
ment. 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

' Collins' Sidney Papers, i, 164.
2 Ellis' Original Letters, iv. 64 ; second series.

WILLIAM PENN. 209
to the flame : — and the HoUse met in a most threatening
mood. Its revenge was prompt. Danby was c6mmitted
to the Tower. The Duke of York was banished the
realm. The Whigs — as the party led by Shaftesbury
and RusseU may properly be called — were on the eve
of a decisive -victory — when Charles again suddenly dis
solved parliament and appealed to the nation.'
Sidney prepared to stand again, but not for Guild
ford, Penn rode about the southern counties, testing
the feeling of constituencies, and advised him to try his
new fortunes at Bramber. It was a town in his own
country : in Kent the very name of Sidney bore with it
an assurance of success. Besides this great advantage,
Bramber lay not remote from GuU's property, and the
Penns had family and other friendly connexions in the
neighbourhood, — the Springetts, the EUwoods, theFaggs,
and the Temples, on all of whom they counted for sup
port. Penn went to work with his usual zeal, and in a
few days lie had engaged all these families 'in Sidney's
interest. He had even hopes of enlisting the Pelharas
in the same cause, — though in a recent county election
he had opposed that family in favour of Sir John Fagg.*
As soon as the writs were out, he went down to Bram
ber, and made it his head-quarters until the election was
over. Alert and ardent, he soon communicated his own
zeal to others, and with Sir John Fagg and Sir John
Temple commenced an active canvass of the electors
under most favourable 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,
3 Temple, ii. 509, 512.
* Lady Sunderland to Henry Sidney. Diary and Corresp. i, 123,
P

210 WILLIAM PENN.
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 con
sidered his return at the head of the poll as certain.'
In this emergency, the court, nervously anxious to
keep the great republican out of parliament, had re
course to the vilest arts. Knowing the influence which
the name of Sidney exercised in Kent, the Earl of Sun
derland, 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 op
pose brother to brother — to array Sidney against Sid
ney. His uncle Henry was weak by nature — was poli
tically opposed to his illustrious brother — and only tod
willing to please the King at any price.^ Recently he
had received some proofs of royal favour, and had reason
given him to hope for more. He had been graciously
allowed to buy Godolphin's place of master of the robes
for six thousand pounds ;' 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 for
tune.* He could not quarrel with Whitehall, except at
the peril of his worldly hopes ; ^o 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
whispered at Bramber, Penn would not believe it. But
he knew the danger, should the report prove true, — as
its first effect 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
' Collins' Sidney Papers, i. 155.
" Sunderland Corresp. Birch Mss. 4297.
" Blencoe's Sidney Papers, 86, where it is added — " the Lord Eane-

WILLIAM PENN. 211
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 have pressed the
point with what diligence and force I could; and, to
say true. Sir John Fagg has been a most zealous, and,
he beHeves, 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
vrith thee, — which he ought less to scruple, because his
ha-riiig no interest can be no objection to his appear
ing 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 Gore
ing is thy colleague ; and this I wish, both to make
the thing easier and to prevent offence. Sir John Pel
ham 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 contrary, it would not
be decent for him to appear. Of that thou canst best
inform him. That day you come to Bramber Sir John
Fagg will meet you both ; and that night you may lie
at Wiston, and then, when thou pleasest, with us at
Worminghurst. Sir John Temple has that opinion of
thy good reasons to persuade, as well as quality to in-
lagh, for the same sum (6000?.) paid to the Lord Sunderland, is made
gentleman of the bed-chamber in his place." Letter to Savile, June 19,
1679. * Burnet, ii. 404.

212

WILLIAM PENN.

fluence 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 aU 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 pre
judice of Algernon, — and expressed his fears that this
ungenerous act would lead to still greater feuds in the
Sidney family. To this remonstrance Sir John Pelham
paid little regard. Sunderland moved the vrires at his
will ; and under the powerful influence of feasting and
drinking — the PelhamSs 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 returned. 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 although few other repubU-
cans were returned, their party generally were satisfled
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 coun
trymen, in spite of all the devotion of his friends, and
never man had truer, Algernon Sidney was rejected!'
This second disappointment seems to have made a
still more profound and lasting impression on the mind
' Collins' Sidney papers, i. 155.
2 Gilbert Spencer to Henry Sidney, i. 117.
' Spencer told Henry— possibly to spare his feelings— that Algernon
did not go to the poll. Diary and Corresp. i. 117. But the facts were as.

WILLIAM PENN. 213
of Penn. It almost drove the remembrance of Guild
ford from his thoughts. That a stranger like Dalma
hoy should be found willing to take unfair advantages
of an honest adversary, — that a petty official, whom the
court could make or unmake at pleasure, should be eager
to sully 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 wiUingly
lend themselves to serve the purposes of a base cabal,
to the scandal of the county and the dishonour of their
own blood : this appeared to him inconceivable. When
the nearest relatives 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 Eng
land! His 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. Experience had convinced him' that
in the new world alone was there room enough for that
great trial of a Free Democracy which formed so promi
nent a feature in 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 flnding
no reason to believfe that such a trial could be brought
about in Enjgland, he adopted the romantic resolution of
giving up his fortune and his future life to its realisation
in the new world.
stated in the text. Sidney beheved himself safe in his seat. Letters to
Savile. On the 1 4th December, BariUon -wrote to inform Louis that he
was elected.

214 WILLIAM PENN.
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 Ueu 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 pro
prietors.' 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, tenanted
by some enterprising Dutch or Swedish family; and the
hush of nature lay unbroken for hundreds of miles ex
cept 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 such a thought.
The young soldier of Kinsale, -with the adventurous ge
nius 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 ori
ginal and an august conception : one which wiU keep his
name for ever in the best memories of mankind.^ His
experiment was to bear witness to the world that there
are in human nature virtues sufficient for self-govern
ment.' In the colony of his brain he was resolved that
there should be equal laws. The entire sovereignty —
judicial, representative, administrative — should rest vrith
the people. Every office of government should be dis-
' Pennsylvania Papers, vol. i. State- Paper Office.
" Penn to Judge Mompesson. Watson's Annals, 98.
' Penn to Turner, February 12, 1681.

WILLIAM PENN. 215
charged by men elected to their functions, and paid out
of the public revenue for their ser-rices. 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 enthu
siasm for equal rights, Penn forgot that some of these
ideas were incompatible with the laws and constitutions
of England.* In the Utopia conceived 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 Chris
tian gospel. The spirit of love brooded over all his pro
jects. 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 property : 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 !
* Attorney-General's Observations. Pennsylvania Papers, vol. i.
State Paper Office.

CHAPTER VII.

^ jgeii) iBemotracg. '
When Admiral Penn died he left behind him claims on
the Government amounting in the whole to nearly fifteen
thousand pounds. In Charles's time the exchequer was
usually empty, and among their other resources finan
ciers 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
honour and honesty, was not considered quite so good
as that offered by a tenth-rate banker; and it conse
quently required no smaU amount of patriotism to in
duce 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 vrithout his
pay for years when the finances 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 six-
• Pepys, iv. 161-164,172.
2 Penn to Turner, April 2, 1681.

WILLIAM PENN. 217
teen thousand pound! — equal to more than three times
that amount of our present money.'^ In lieu of a money
settlement of this claim, Penn now sent iu his petition
to the Council, praying that his Majesty would be pleased
to grant him letters-patent conferring upon him and his
heirs for ever a tract of imoccupied crown-land in Ame
rica.' 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 boundary it had the
state of New Jersey, with the affairs of which 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
magnificent range of the Alieghannies 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 uo 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 moun
tain chain covered a vast portion of its area; and while
the adjoining states of Virginia and New England were
alive with industry and blossomed 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 mountain range, and it was con
jectured that they must be still colder in the valleys on
' Pennsylvania Papers, June 14, 1680. State-Paper Office.
Penn to Free Traders, August 6, 1683.

218 WILLIAM PENN.
the east. Yet the land was rich in many of the best
elements of national wealth. The magnificent embou
chure 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 Susquehan-
nah, the Delaware, the Ohio, the AUeghanny, 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 Alieghannies lay inexhaustible fields of bitu
minous coal ; and anthracite beds of the same valua:ble
fossil were to be found in almost every part of the pro
vince. Near the banks of the Ohio lay concealed a trea
sury of salt-springs. Lime-stone was everywhere abun
dant ; and in the south-east was a quarry of marble, not
unworthy to vie with the produce of Italy and Greece.'
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 deposit existed in the same
locality.^ Brooks and mountain streams innumerable
crossed and recrossed the valleys in every direction, fer
tilising the soil and breeding myriads of ducks, curlews,
geese, and other water-fowl.' The lower flats about the
Skuykill and the Delaware were remarkable for their
fertility. Between the head waters of the AUeghanny
and Lake Erie, and on both banks of the Susquehannah,
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
' Macgregor's Commercial Tariffs, Part xv. 348-9.
^ Penn's Letter to the Free Traders, August 6, 1683.
* Ibid. « Macgregor, xv. 348-9.

WILLIAM PENN. 219
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 ;5 and the purity of the atmo- .
sphere reminded Penn continually of the air of Langue-
doc,^ 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 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 were 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 ta
yield abundance of fish, especiaUy perch and trout, shad
and rock, roach, smelt and eels. Oysters were plenti
ful 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 straw- ,
berry, the plum, the chestnut, and the mulberry ;. while
the eye was delighted with the -virgin flowers of the
forest, of a beauty, largeness and splendour quite un
known in the harsher latitudes of the north.^
These natural advantages were many of them at that
= Penn to the Free Traders, August 6, 1683.
« Penn to Sunderland, July 28, 1683. ? Ibid.
' Penn to the Free Traders, August 6.

220 WILLIAM PENN.
time unknown. Penn himself never suspected that he
was asking for a kingdom in return for a triffing debt.
Indeed he had no thought of making money by his pro-
¦rince ; 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 enclosing. Men in
that age looked upon a settlement among the Alieghan
nies 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 continent 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 trea
sury and lessen the public taxes," he sent out a number
of colonists from Sweden to take possession of the un
occupied territory lying about the upper reaches of the
Delaware.^ This was the beginning of a sedate, in
dustrious and religious community. A few Dutch set
tlers were there before them ; and these at first had no
friendly feeling to the new comers. But they soon found
that their industrious neighbours would be useful to
them, and national jealousy was kept down by a sense
of pecuniary interest. The Swedes turned all their
attention to farming : the Hollanders preferred the less
laborious pursuits of trade. They suited each other ex
actly.' With the Swedes went out a number of Finns ;
and a village was formed by them at Wicocoa, now within
^ Penn Gaskill Mss,
' Holms' Hist. New Sweedland (Stockholm, 1702; reprinted by the •
New York Hist. Society), ii. 346.
* Penn. Hist. Collections, 10.

WILLIAM PENN. 221
the suburbs of Philadelphia.* They gave the name of
New Suabia to the whole country ,5 and scattered them
selves far and wide over its surface. They had, however,
advanced but a Uttle way towards the formation of a
state when Penn became a petitioner to the King. Not
a single house had been built at Philadelphia, a spot
marked out by nature as the site of a great city ; for
such of the Hollanders as had fixed their residence at
the confluence of the two rivers had been content to
harbour in the holes and caves with which the high bank
of the Delaware abounded.^
The native red men of the southern part of the pro
vince were a branch of the Lenni Lenape. This name,
signifying " the original people," was a common term,
under which were included all the Indian tribes speak
ing dialects of the widely-spread Algonquin language.
An obscure tradition among them pointed to a great emi
gration 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 civi
lised people whose monuments still arrest the attention
of the traveUer 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, the different tribes presented the same
general characteristics — hardy, hospitable, cunning, mag
nanimous 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
• Proud, Hist, of Penns. i. 205. Prond is now an original authority ;
-he had access to manuscript letters and papers which are no longer in
existence. ^ Smith's Map, 1603.
^ Penn.Hist. Soc. Memoir8,i. 163. ' Penn. Hist. CoUections, 6.

WILLIAM PENN.
merely as long as the rivers yielded fish and the forests
game, they set little value on its permanent 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 de
void 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 prac
tice broadly indicates the state of morals among the red
skins, the precaution being adopted to prevent the in
trusion of spurious blood into the royal house.'
Such were the broad natural features of the country
which William Penn now petitioned the King to grant
him in Ueu of his claim on the government.
The petition was strongly opposed in the Pri-vy Coun
cil, 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 eccentrici
ties had only been tolerated out of respect for his father ;
' Penn's Letter to the Free Traders, August 6, 1683.
' Penn to Turner, February 12, 1681.
' Sewell, ii. 294. James had sagacity enough to see that the Sidney
party were determined to restore a republic; he was continuaUy repre-

WILLIAM PENN.
but the Royalists lost all patience when it became known
that he sought to obtain a grant of land -vrith the intention
of putting in practice certain theories of government held
to be Utopian by wise and moderate poUticians, and de
nounced by every courtier and cavalier as absolutely dan
gerous to the crown and state. Recent events had some
what 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
compelled him to do an act of substantial justice. Being
the lord-proprietor of the whole province of New Ne
therlands, 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 con
sequently all persons carrying goods to or from New
Jersey had paid a duty of ten per cent ad valorem. 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. Hav
ing 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 favour of
Penn and the colonists ; and the Duke at once ac
quiesced in the decision, though it is hardly possible
to believe that he would not feel sore at his defeat,
senting this to Charles. See his Memoirs, i. 595-632. Sidney and Shaftes
bury had a violent quarrel at this time. Dorothy Sidney to Lord Halifax,
July 8.

224 WILLIAM PENN,
and angry vrith the man who had forced him to give
up a considerable part of his revenue. To the coldness
of the prince was added the active hostility of Lord
Baltimore, whose ill-defined possessions were supposed
to be invaded by the new boundary-line.' Baltimore
was a bigoted Papist, and one of those who stood at.
this very moment in Oates's black list of conspirators •?
he was consequently not in the country, but he had
•powerful friends at court, ever watching over his inter
ests ; and Penn's petition was no sooner laid before the
council than a copy of it was sent off to his agent, Mr,
Burke, who thereupon took his own measures to defeat
it.' Had the royal coffers been more plentifully sup
plied at this time, it is not likely that the State of Penn
sylvania, as it now stands, would ever have been founded.
The dilatory forms of the royal council were used to
prolong consideration of the petition ; the Lords Com
missioners of Trade and Plantation wrote long letters
about mere trifles to the Attorney-general, and the At
torney-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 pro
moted by Lord Hyde, Chief Justice North and the Earl
of Halifax,^ These politic friends adrised him to be
silent as to his democratic intentions, untU his patent
was issued, and he had got safely away injo his new
colony : the mere n&,me of freedom having an offensive
sound in the neighbourhood of the palace, if he wished
' Dunlop, Penn, Hist, Soc. Memoirs, i. 167.
^ True and Exact Narrative, 6.
-¦' Note to Pennsylvania paper, June 14. State- Paper Office.
* This correspondence is preserved in vol. i. of Penn. Papers, in the
State-Paper Office.

WILLIAM PENN. 225
to succeed in his attempt, he must adopt the suggestions
of vyorldly prudence. Penn followed this advice.^ But
his enemies were powerful in rank and influence ;^ and
before their opposition was brought to an end, they
contrived for him many grievous trials and bitter dis
appointments.' In the meantime, doubtful of the issue of his pe
tition, but determined to try his great experiment in a
fair field, at his own cost and risk, he seized an oppor
tunity which offered itself to become a part-proprietor
of East New Jersey. Sir George Carteret, tired of
the responsibilities of his office, proposed to sell his
prorince ; and William Penn, the Earl of Perth, and
twenty-two others purchased it, with a view to esta
blish a more Uberal government and bring some of his
ideas into practical operation. The partnership com
pleted, and the purchase made, Penn drew up an ac
count of the soil, air, water, climate and other natural
advantages of the country — sketched a project for a
new town, which he proposed to call Perth- Amboy, 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
liberality of the concessions attracted the -notice and
favour of the general public, and a great number of emi
grants, especially from Scotland, accepted the terms and
repaired with their families to East New Jersey. ^ In
these active employments he found a refuge from the
troubles brought upon him by his petition ; the delays
= Penn to Sunderland, July 28, 1683.
« Penn to Turner, April 12, 1681.
7 Ibid. August 25, 1681. ' "Ibid. March 6, 1681.
^ Pennsylvania Papers, i. 103. State- Paper Office.
Q

226 WILLIAM PENN.
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 unfavourable 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 favour ultimately
overcame the scruples of all parties. After five months
spent in negotiation. Sir Joseph wrote to inform Mr.
Secretary Blathwayte that the Duke of York had con
sented to accede to Penn's request.* AU that now re
mained was the arrangement of details. But this task
occupied another term of five months. The chief ques
tions 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 Council ; Mr.
Burke appeared on behalf of his noble employer ; and
both parties laid objections to the boundary-Une as
drawn by the friends of Penn. The geography of the
American continent was then very imperfectly known,
even to the men who had to dispose of it in parcels al
most 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
' Penn's Letter, February 6, 1683. Besse, i. 124.
' Pennsylvania Papers, June 23, State-Paper Office,
" Penn to Sunderland, July 28, 1683,
' Pennsylvania Papers, October 16, State-Paper Office.
' Sir Joseph Werden to Secretary Blathwayte, November 20, Pa.
Papers. State-Paper Office. ^ Watson's Annals, 5.
' There is a useful article on the boundary-question between Penn

WILLIAM PENN. 227
best of their position ; their client being anxious to ob
tain a well-marked line of separation from the lands of
his neighbours, and especially from those of the Catho
lic lord of Maryland ; but the parties could not agree,
and the grant was finally made out with no proper un
derstanding of the questions in dispute, in the hope that
the proprietors would themselves be able to arrange
their differences.^ This omission led to endless dis
putes.^ The terms of the charter then came on for
consideration. Penn had forgotten some of the less
Uberal 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 privi
leges. They provided for the authority of Parliament
in all questions of trade and commerce. They made
it imperative that all acts of the colonial legislature
should be submitted to the King and his council, with
out 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 sub
mitted the draft of a charter to the King constituting
Penn absolute proprietor of the province,'" Charles at
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.
' North's Memoranda, Pa. Papers, vol. i. (1680). State- Paper Office.
'» Pennsylvania Papers, February 24, 1680-1. State-Paper Office,

228 WILLIAM PENN.
once set his signature to the document, only too happy
to cancel a large and troublesome debt so easily.'
A council was called for the 5th of March at White
hall, which Penn was summoned to attend. The King
was present ; but the petitioner neither doffed his hat nor
bent his knee before 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 account of its mountainous character.
But Secretary Blathwayte, 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 him
self added Penn, in honour of the great admiral. It
was a happy combination — the Forest Land of Penn!
The proprietor, however, fearfril lest it would appear an
instance of vanity in him to have allowed a large prin
cipality 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 responsibility of the,
' Records of Privy Council, C. R. 16, 224, P. C. 0.
2 The True Picture of Quakerism (1736), p. 7. Gray's Hudibras,
j. 376, note. Sewell tells the story differently, ii. 334,
s Penn to Turner, Maich 6, 1681,

WILLIAM PENN. 229
name ;' and the patent was issued in the usual form.*
The document itself — the germ of a great nation — is
now in the office of the Secretary of Pennsylvania ; it is
written on rolls of strong parchment, in the old English
handwriting, each line underscored with red ink; the
borders are gorgeously emblazoned with heraldic de
vices, and the top of the first sheet exhibits a finely
executed portrait of his majesty, still in a state of excel
lent preservation. It briefly sets forth the nature and
reasons of the grant, and loosely describes the bounda
ries of the province. This document, although not yet
two centuries old, is already regarded vrith a sort of
veneration,^ 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 generalisation, felt that the question involved no
less than the cause of God. A more than usually pro
found religious sentiment swayed his mind while waiting
the turns of this negotiation ; 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 labours as a legis
lator. Warned by the utter failure of the rigid consti
tution so elaborately drawn up by Locke and Shaftes
bury for Carolina, and which their friends had declared
* 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.
•i Letter to Turner, March 5. Besse, i. 12'1.

230 WILLIAM PENN.
would last for ever, — 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 pubhc
good should render them necessary.^ At the outset,
therefore, he drew up a frame of government, the pre
amble of which — like the declaration of rights and prin
ciples prefixed to more modern constitutions — contained
an exposition 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
government has only to coerce the evil-doers ; it has also
to encourage the well-disposed, to shield virtue, to re
ward merit, to foster art, to promote learning. — As to
particular models of government, he vrill say little. Vice
will vitiate every form ; and while men side with their
passions against their reason, neither monarchy nor de
mocracy can preserve them from the destructive conse
quences. Governments depend more upon men than
men upon governments. If men are wise and rirtuous,
the governments under which they Uve must also become
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
' Penn to Sidney, October 13, 1681.
2 Ms. Letter, February 28, 1684-6.

WILLIAM PENN. 231
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 towards 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 obedience, and the magistrates honourable
for their just administration."*
The constitution, a rough draft only, followed. It
had been drawn up with great care by Penn and Sid
ney together. Algernon went down to Worminghurst
for the purpose ; and there the two lawgivers drew up
the first outUnes of the constitution, discussing the se
veral articles word by word. Every phrase employed
was tested by the most advanced theories of democracy
and by the practice of ancient and modem nations,
Penn freely changed his terms whenever Sidney ex
pressed 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 con
sider and reconsider the various clauses at his leisure ;
and when his own mind was fuUy satisfied 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
^ Preamble of Frame of Government. Folio, 1682.
< Hazard's Register, i. 324. ^ Penn to Sidney, Oct. 13, 1681.

232 WILLIAM PENN,
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 pro
prietor or his deputy was to preside at the council, and
to have three votes : this was the only power 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 prorince — to determine on the sites of new
towns and cities — to build ports, harbours, and markets
— to make and repair roads — to inspect the public trea
sury — to erect courts of justice, institute primary schools,
and reward the authors of useful inventions and disco
veries. 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 suppUed by a new election. The members of the
assembly 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 quaUfications, and the whole country was to be
divided into sections for electoral purposes.' The as
sembly, however, had no deliberative 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 pri
vilege 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 wiU.
Penn evidently intended the assembly to be a great audit-
chamber ; a yearly gathering of the people to sanction,
' iFrame of Government, 1682. Here are all the six points of the
charter !

WILLIAM PENN. 233
if it found them worthy, the measures of the govern
ment. But with time its functions grew in importance ;
elected every year, it represented 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
prorisional laws relating to Uberty of conscience, the
choice of civil officers, provision for the poor, processes
at law, fines, forfeitures, 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, proper
ties, and liberties would be concerned in their administra
tion. On this point the constitution of Pennsylvania, and
through it that of the United States, owes an eternal
obligation to Algernon Sidney. Penn, Uke More, Har
rington, and the writers on Utopian schemes of govern
ment, had a leaning in favour of a fixed and inflexible
system. He would have drawn up his own constitutions
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 in
compatible with a fixed and foreign body of constitu
tional law. He proposed, therefore, to leave this ques
tion 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
2 Franklin's Historical Review (1769),
3 Penn to Sidney, October 13, 1681,

234 WILLIAM PENN.
control over all the powers of the state, financial, ciril,
proprietorial, and judicial — the lawgivers left the new
democracy to develope itself in accordance with its own
natural genius ; — which it did the better for being unin
cumbered vrith useless formaUties 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 nevv government for Carohna 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 enUght-
ened men had drawn up a form of government which
England received as the perfection of vrisdom, and their
friends described as destined to endure for ever.^ To
understand how much Penn was wiser than his age,
more imbued with the principles which have found their
nobler utterances in our own, he must be measured —
not only against the fanatics of his sect, and unlettered
men Uke Fox — but against the highest types of learn
ing and liberality which it afforded. Between John
Locke and William Penn there is a gulf like that which
separates the seventeenth from the nineteenth century.
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 have carried Europe so much nearer to the source
from which his inspirations flowed.
Locke's constitution for CaroUna was essentially a
tyranny. It recognised four distinct estates — the pro
prietors, the great nobles, the lesser nobles, and the
' Ancient Laws of Pennsylvania. - Blome's America, 138.
' Pundamental Constitutions, The original copy is in our State-Paper
Office among the Records of the Board of Trade,

WILLIAM PENN. 235
commons.' The eight proprietors 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 per
manently and inalienably. The oldest proprietor, with
the title of palatine and a large salary, was to exercise
the sovereign power. The other seven were to fiU the
offices of admiral, chancellor, chamberlain, 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 caUed
leet-men ; they were under the complete jurisdiction of
their lords, without appeal ; no leet-man or leet-woman
could go from the soil on which, he or she was located
to live elsewhere without a licen'S'e from the lord given
under his hand and seal; and it was added in confor
mity to the spirit which ruled throughout, " the children
of leet-men shall be leet-men, and so to all genera
tions."^ Over the negro slaves every freeman had power
of life and death.^
The Executive power rested solely with the Eight.
* Ibid, * Ibid, Sect. 22, 23. « Ibid. Sect. 110.

236 WILLIAM PENN.
They had almost absolute control over the administra
tion 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 court con
trolled 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 upvvards ; and no one was eUgible
to sit in Parliament unless he owned five hundred acres
and upwards. Trial by jury was -rirtually set aside.
Every religion was tolerated — but the Church of Eng
land was declared to-be alone true and orthodox; the
only one to be supported out of the coffers of the state.'
— Such are the great outlines of this celebrated docu
ment. How different to the constitutions of William
Penn ! Locke went back to the feudal times ; Penn an
ticipated the modern radicals. The philosopher of sen
sation 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 mo
dified by events and seasons, lives and flourishes at the
present moment, an example to infant governments, and
one of the most precious heir-looms of time.
' Fundamental Constitutions, Sect, 96.

CHAPTER VIII.
1682-83.
€!)« fSoIg (£j:pcrtm«nt.
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 organise the emigration. 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 pro
vince 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 enthusiasm; 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 companies proposed to settle.
When the concessions were given to the pubUc several
minor companies were formed for the purpose of emigra
tion. A German company was set on foot at Frankfort,
in which the admirers of Penn at Worms, Kirchheim and
other places visited by him in his travels, were largely
interested. They sent over Franz Pastorius to London
to purchase for them flfteen thousand acres of land lying
in one tract on a navigable river, and three hundred acres
within the liberties of the city to be founded by the go-

238 WILLIAM PENN.
vernor.' Liverpool, then a small but rising town, fur
nished a considerable number of purchasers and settlers
— London still more. A regular company was organised
at Bristol under the name of the Free Society of Traders
in Pennsylvania, and in the autumn of the year the pro
prietor went down to that city to confer with Claypole,
Moore, Ford and the rest on the plans to be adopted
in their novel enterprise. The west of England was even
then famous for its woollen cloths, and while his conti
nental repute secured a number of emigrants conversant
with the most approved modes of cultivating the vine,
Penn was anxious to encourage skilful manufacturers of
wool to migrate from the neighbourhood 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 monopoUes,
as in his constitution he had refused to retain official
patronage. A few weeks after the charter was issued,
Thurston of Maryland sent his agent to offer him a fee
of 6000/. and 2| 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 Susquehan
nah rivers.' Other proprietors granted these monopoUes,
and his legal right to do so was unquestionable ; 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
' 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.

WILLIAM PENN. 239
Free Society of Traders realised one of his own favourite
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 com
menced preparations 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 emigrants, was
ready to set sail from the port of Bristol,
One of the members of the Free Society of Traders,
PhUip Ford, a sleek and subtle scoundrel, not unlike
those types of Quaker vUlany which were once among
the stock properties of every writer for the stage, be
came Penn's secretary and man of business. This per
son 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 unsus
pected by his victim, and he was consequently trusted
with the management of all his more formal and routine
affairs.^ The emigration from London also commenced in ear
nest. So early as April, Penn had sent out his cousin
Colonel Markham as his lieutenant, with particular in
structions to take possession of the province — to see and
cultivate a friendly feeUng with the Indian kings dwell
ing in the neighbourhood of the Delaware — to search
out a convenient spot of ground on which to erect a go
vernor's mansion — and to visit and try to arrange with
Lord Baltimore the vexed question of the boundaries,®
2 Pastorius. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iv. Part ii.
' Penn to Turner, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 206.
* Ibid. 205, 206, ' Penn's Ms. Statement.
^ Maryland Papers, April 10, State-Paper Office.

240 WILLIAM PENN.
In some respects Markham was an excellent choice
for such offices. Bold, resolute, devoted to the proprie
tor, business-Uke in his habits, — he was just the man to
rule, under ordinary circumstances, an infant settlement.
When he arrived in the colony he set about his task
with equal zeal and discretion. 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 commence the buildings of Pennsbury.' With Lord
Baltimore he was less successful : — but he conducted the
negotiation in such a way as left a high impression of
his capacity.2
With the Quakers he never grew into a favourite.
As the confidential friend and relative of the proprietor
he possessed claims on their regard which could not de
cently be set aside ; but in his own character he gained
from them neither sympathy 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 -riews to his cousin, not only
as to the arrangements to be made with the EngUsh 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 Emro-
' Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Partii. 176.
2 Maryland Papers, 1 681-6. State- Paper Office. Pennsylvania Papers,
161. State- Paper Office.
^ Ms. Address to the Indians.

WILLIAM PENN. 241
pean conquerors of America had treated the aborigines
as their property. Not content vrith robbing them of
their lands, their lakes, their hunting-grounds, their rude
ornaments of pearl and gold ; they had seized their per
sons 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 a^d fly from
the faces- of their tyrants, they had been hiihted 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 Spa
niards in their greed of gold, the EngUsh had scarcely
proved themselves more just or rational. Even the Pu
ritan settlers had been at continual war with the natives
of the soil, and more than one scene of treachery and
trocity stains the memory of the New England pil
grims,* Penn, strong in his belief in human goodness,
would not arm his foUowers 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;^ he would rely
entirely on justice and courtesy to win the confidence of
those whom it had hitherto been the vice of his coun
trymen 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
vritness of Penn's sagacity is the fact, that not one drop
of Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian !®
* See the destruction of the Fequods by fire and sword. Bancroft,
i. 400 et seq.
= Penn to Crisp, February 28, 1684-5, Ms,
" Penn. Hist, Soc, Mem.i. 65. This is confirmed by Bancroft, ii. 38.3,
K

242 WILLIAM PENN.
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, WUliam Crispin,
John Bezar, and Nathaniel Allen, with written instruc
tions 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 parted.'
The Amity was driven by storms among the West Indian
islands, aud did not reach the Delaware until the follow
ing spring.* The John Sarah was the first to make land
in the New World ; but the Bristol Factor soon after
wards appeared in the river. A dramatic incident at
tended their first experience of the coast. As they slowly
ascended the noble stream, some of the passengers ob
served 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 adventurers
were enjoying themselves in their severat modes on shor.e
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 narigable. The hospitable Swedes of
fered them such protection as thei^ 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
' The conditions are dated July 11, 1681.
* Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. ii. 215. All the facts with regard to these
commissioners are misstated by historians. Neither their names nor their
numbers were known until the Hamilton Mss. were found a few years ago.

WILLIAM PENN. 243
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 liti
gation ; for between the Catholic lord and the Quaker
proprietor irreconcilable 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 Balti
more, but without result.® Each party appealed to his
political friends in England, where the King 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 boundaries.' The unsettled claims
of the Duke of York were hardly less important. He
had not yet given his consent to forego his signorial
rights over the province ; besides which the State Foun
der considered it essential to the success of his plans that
no hostile power should ever be able to shut his 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 magni
tude Penn sought to obtain from his Royal Highness a
grant of the ill-defined strip of land fronting the Dela
ware from Coaquannoc to Cape Henlopen, then called
the Territories, but now forming the state of Delaware.
Months of diplomacy and negotiation elapsed before
3 Plant. Gen. Papers, B. T. 32. State-Paper Office.
* Watson's Annals, 14.
-' Ibid. ^ Maryland Papers, v, 60. State-Paper Office.
f Ibid, v. 83, 84,

244 WILLIAM PENN.
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 for ever.' These
important concessions relieved the new proprietor from
every immediate difficulty. Throughout the whole of
the protracted negotiations and discussions James be
haved like a prince : — can we wonder that his ward
should retain a grateful consciousness of obhgation !
Fired with new zeal by these happy events, he
now pushed on his preparations for the voyage with
redoubled ardour. On every side the opportunity of
doing good presented itself His friend WalUs, the fa
mous mathematician, suggested how much he might do
to extend the domain of science. Statesmen were aU
at fault as to the geography of America ;2 its natural
history was hardly better known to scholars. Penn
freely offered to make observations ; and the Royal So
ciety, 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 sim
ple, kind-hearted woman; good-looking though not
beautiful ; and gentle and affectionate to her son, with
out understanding his principles or altogether improving
of his conduct. In return he loved her with that ten
derness which strong men always bestow on women who
respect, when they cannot sympathise in, their ideas.
When she died he was so unweU for several days as to
be unable to bear the light ; and it was weeks before the
' Proprietory Papers, B. T. v. 6, fol.,71, 72. State- Paper Office.
2 The charters of North and South Carolina each included New York;
that of Maryland invaded New Netherland ; Connecticut was made to

WILLIAM PENN. 245
usual calm returned to his heart — the habitual actirity
to his brain.
The vessel which was to take him to America was
already in the Downs. Compared with othet ships
then navigating the Atlantic, the Welcome, carrying no
less than three hundred tons burden, was considered a
stately bark. On the deck might be seen about a hun
dred 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
comforts of life.* As yet the governor had not gone
on board ; but his servants, his furniture, his wine, his
horses, his provisions, 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 inanimate,, caused
the deck of the Welcome to presfent a scene far more
exciting and, confused than picturesque.
The voyage might last from six to twelve or four
teen weeks according to wind and weather, and every
man had to be provisioned for the longeir 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 1 1 ducks, 2 hams, a barrel of china oranges, a large
keg of sweetmeats, ditto of rum, a pot of tamarinds, a
include parts of New York and Pennsylvania, and to extend to the Pacific
Ocean ! Watson's Annals, 5.
' Ms, Records of Royal Society. ' Watson's Annals, 65.

246 WILLIAM PENN.
box of spices, ditto of dried herbs, 18 cocoa-nuts, a box
of eggs, six balls of chocolate, six dried codfish and five
shaddock, six bottles of citron water, four bottles of Ma
deira, 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 hun
dred emigrants so furnished ; 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 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 for ever the land which gave them birth
but denies them a grave : — imagine all this, and the
reader has a picture of the Welcome as she lay off Deal
on the first of September 1682, waiting the arrival of
the governor.
Every thing being now arranged as to the pubhc
duties of his great mission, the Coloniser gave up his
last thoughts in England to Guli and his children. In
an age of easy transits, it is not easy to reaUse the
feelings with which a man then made the voyage to
America. Half a century later the Yorkshire or Devon
shire squire thought it a necessary precaution 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 vrith
him, it being his firm intention to settle in the country ;
but more accurate information as to the perils and pri
vations to be encountered by the first settlers, consi
deration for Gull's health, then delicate, and for the
education of his children, caused him to abandon this
' Thomas Story Mss.

WILLIAM PENN. 247
idea. Yet he was not quite at peace with himself on
learing 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 maternal grandmother of his little children
was, however, a host in herself; and on Lady Sprin
gett, Thomas EUwood, and other attached and faithful
friends, he felt that he could rely in any emergency
both for counsel and assistance. Yet, with these so
laces, it was a bitter thing to have at last to part from
his family for months — years — it might be for ever; to
encounter danger in strange and unaccustomed shapes,
storms at sea, tropical fevers, hardships in the wilder
ness; more even than these — as, in the faith of an ex
pounder of new doctrines — he was about to place him
self, 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 virtues of
the Red Indian, when treated with truth and fairness,
he could not help feeUng that before he could have time
to impress their rude minds with confidence in his in
tegrity of purpose, some unfortunate mischance might
lead to sudden and serious mischief. All these contin
gencies weighed on his mind ; but he had taken his mea
sures 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.
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 Providence had not designed this
to be his final leave, he wrote out at considerable length

248

WILLIAM PENN.

his parting admonitions to his vrife and children. This
testament is full of vrise and noble counsels, earnestly
and tenderly offered.' As he foresaw that tbe 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 WiUiam are to acquire a sound
knowledge of building, ship-carpentry, measuring, level
ling, surveying and navigation; but he desires that their
chief attention be directed to agriculture : Letty was to
pay attention to the afi&irs of a household as well as to
the accomplishments pf her sex : " Let my children be
husbandmen and honsewifes." In his parting moments
he did not forget that his Uttle children would one day
become the rulers of his province, — and his wishes on
this subject were recorded for their guidance \rith more
than ordinary emphasis. " As for you," he writes, " who
are likely to be concerned in the government of Penn
sylvania, I do charge you before the Lord God and his
holy angels, that you be lowly, diUgent, and tender, fear
ing God, loving the people and hating covetousness. Let
justice have its impartial course, and the law free pas
sage. 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 boldness to
punish the transgressor. Keep upon the square, for
God sees you : therefore do your duty, and be sure you
see with your own eyps, and hear with your own ears.
Entertain no lurchers, cherish no informers for .gain or
revenge ; use no tricks ; fly to no derices to support or
' This letter was first printed in the London Chronicle in 1761.

WILLIAM PENN. 249
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 1st of September the Welcome weighed an
chor at Deal, passed the Foreland vrith a Ught breeze,
and Dover Castle fading graduaUy from the emigrant's
sight, he pushed out boldly to sea, the weather being
flue and the captain promising a rapid and prosperous
voyage. Penn felt lighter at heart the moment they lost
sight of land. He had left behind him active and power
ful 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, how
ever, had he to indulge in reminiscences ; events around
him soon began to tax his powers of mind and body in
an unexpected and extraordinary manner. While wait
ing at Deal they had unfortunately shipped the smaU-
pox, that terrible ravager of the seas in those times. At
first the disease developed 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
narrow crowded cabins, it was impossible to prevent
the contagion spreading. All the care, the attention,
the stores of the governor were bestowed on the suf-:
ferers. He went into the cabins to administer medi
cines, and to afford the solaces of reUgion to the dying.
In this pious labour he was greatly assisted by his friend
Pearson, an emigrant from Chester ; for whose services
he afterwards provided a characteristic reward. Want
2 Henry Sidney's Diary and Corresp, ii. 194,

250 WILLIAM PENN.
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 surrivors 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 de
parture from Deal, the Welcome moored off Newcastle,
in the territories lately ceded by the Duke of York,
and William Penn first set foot in the New World,*
His landing made a general 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 cen
tre 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 honest pride, — ^in every limb
and feature the expression of a serene and manly beauty.'
The young officer before him, dressed in the gay cos
tume of the English service, is his Ueutenant Markham,
come to welcome his relative to the new land and to
give an account of his own stewardship. On the right
' Watson, 16 ; Day, 300.
- Watson, 16 j Day, 299. The landing of Penn in America is com
memorated on the 24th of October, that being the date given by Clarkson ;
but the diligent antiquary Mr. J. F. Watson has found in-'the records of
Newcastle the original entry of his arrival.

WILLIAM PENN. 251
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 wel
come to the new governor. A little apart, as if study
ing with the intense eagerness of Indian skill the phy
siognomy 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 companions of his voyage ; and on the dancing
waters of the Delaware rides the stately ship, while
between her and the shore a multitude of light canoes
dart to and fro, bringing the passengers and merchan
dise to land. Part of the background shews an irre
gular 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
further 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 characteristics, nature
in its most picturesque forms, civilisation in its highest
expression — are all grouped, compared and contrasted
in this striking scene.
Next day the people were called together in the
' The portrait by West is utterly spurious and unlike. Granville
Fenn Mss.
* Duponceau, in one of his discoiuses, suggests this scene for an his
torical picture.

252 WILLIAM PENN.
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 surren
dered the territory in their master'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 rirtuous state, in which the people should rule
themselves ; he then explained the nature of his powers,
but assured his audience of his vrish to exercise them
only prorisionally and for the general good. He ad
verted to the frame of government which he had pub
hshed for Pennsylvania as containing his theory of
government ; and promised the settlers on the lower
reaches of the Delaware that the same principles shoidd
be adopted in the organisation of their territory. Every
man, he said, in his prorinces, should enjoy Uberty of
conscience and his. fair share of poUtical power; and as
an earnest of his intention to proceed on fixed and just
principles in the government of the colony, he ended by
renewing in his own name the commissions of aU the
existing magistrates.'^
The people Ustened to this speech vrith wonder and
delight. They were many of them but rude and ilh-
terate husbtodmen ; 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 Gxjvernor. They had but
one request to make in answer to his explanations, and
' Hazard, v. 79. 2 Watson, 16 ; Besse, 123,

WILLIAM PENN. 253
that was, that he would reign over them in person; and
with this view they besought him to annex their terri
tory to Pennsylvania, that they might have one country,
one parliament, one ruler. He promised, at their desire,
to take the question of a union of the two prorinces into
consideration, and to submit it to the assembly which
was about to meet at Upland, And so he took his
leave.' 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 tbe
mild air of that climate after their terrible voyage,, the
adventurers soon arrived at the Uttle 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 shewn to the
stranger with honest and patriotic pride. Wishing to
mark the fact by some striking circumstance, he turned
round to his companion Pearson, a man equaUy 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 moment's thought,, the
modesty of Pearson not allowing him to propose his own
name, he replied — " Chester ; in remembrance 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 General Assembly, elected by universal suffrage,
was ready to meet. As the most commodious biiilding
3 Watson, 16, * Day's CoUecton, 300, 301.

254 WILLIAM PENN.
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 pur
pose.' Nicholas Moore, an English lawyer, and already
chairman to the Society of Traders, was elected speaker ;2
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 expected in so inex
perienced a body to discuss, amend, and accept the Frame
of Government and the Provisional Laws already pub
lished in England. The settlers in the lower territories
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 import
ant alteration ; and to the forty laws were added twenty-
one others, and the whole body passed in due form. The
laws only regulated the practical working of the ideas
and principles embodied in the frame of government;
the chief of them providing — that every man should be
free to believe in any doctrines whatever not destruc
tive of the peace and honour 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 honourable in a democratic state
and idleness a shame ; all fees of law were to be fixed
at a low rate, and hung up in every court of justice;
persons wrongly imprisoned were to have double dam
ages from the prosecutor ; prisons were to be changed
from nurseries of vice, idleness and misery, into houses
' Day's Collection, 301. 3 Watson, 17.
= Proprietory Papers, B. T. v, 6. State-Paper Office. For a copy of
the Act of Union, see Hazard's Register, i. 480,

WILLIAM PENN. 255
of industry, honesty and education. With fearless con
fidence, these young legislators adopted the humane
views . of their governor even where they seemed to be
least supported by tradition and experience. The Eng
lish 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 cata
logue of crimes punished with the cord except two, —
murder and treason. The Assembly passed a law em
bodying this humane and enlightened policy,* and also
a general act of naturalisation for aliens. There' was
little talk and much work in this first Pennsylvanian
parliament. On the third day their session was com
pleted, and Penn prorogued them in person. They had
left their ploughs for half a week ; they had met toge
ther and founded a State ; they went back to their homes
confident that they had secured to themselves and their
posterity the blessings of civil and religious freedom.^
The reader of our country's history will not need to
be reminded how securely the moral sentiment and state
poUcy 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 Chris
tians, holding God's Word to be infalUble, could shew
no mercy to the unbeliever. Governor Bradford, one of
the noblest of the Pilgrim Fathers, denounced the folly
of toleration as tending to misrule and confusion.^ En-
dicott on one occasion said to his prisoner for conscience'
• Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives.
5 Watson, 17.
" Hist, of Boston, 49,

256

WILLIAM PENN.

sake — " Renounce your religion or die."' President
Oakes " looked upon toleration as the first-born of aU
abominations."^ These were all statesmen and gover
nors : the clergy were stiU less charitable to error. The
intolerance of the old catholic and episcopal parties in
England is sufficiently 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 slightest degree were not unworthy the
best days of the Star Chamber and the Court of Inquisi
tion.' Penn was equaUy before his sect and country.
It is only in our own time that an act of Parliament —
not freely conceded as from just and honourable conric-
tion, but extorted by the threat of a new ciril war — has
formally banished religious beUef from the tests of loy
alty and restrictions on the exercise of poUtical power.
It remained for Howard, Eden, and Romilly, 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 prorided for the pub
lic education of our children, or admitted every Christian
man of twenty-one years and free from crime to the ex
ercise of the elective franchise !
The Assembly prorogued, Penn paid a few risits
to the neighbouring seats of government in New York,
Maryland, and the Jerseys. At West River, Lord Bal
timore came forth to meet him with a great retinue of
the chief persons in the province. Colonel FaiUer of-
' SeweU, Hist, Quakers.
2 Belknap's Hist. New Hampshire, i. 71-5.
" Compare Knowles's Life of Roger Williams, 184-9. Mass. Hist.
CoU. iii, 63-6, First Series.

WILLIAM PENN. 257
fered the hospitalities of his mansion in the Ridge, Anne
Arundel county, to the iUustrious 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
separated with the resolution each to maintain his own
right,* Penn now set himself resolutely to the work of
reducing his magnificent wilderness into a State, He
had sent out a surveyor, 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 Indian sachems, made
extensive purchases of land, and acquired so much know
ledge of the interior as to enable him to divide the whole
prorince into counties.^ The land was next put up for
sale at four pence an acre, with a reserve of one shil*
ling for every hundred acres as quit-rent: the latter
intended to form a state revenue for the support of
governor and proprietor.^ 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 forget 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
* Maryland Papers, B. T, B. C. P. 3. State-Paper Office.
5 Penn to Sunderland, July 28, 1683.
« Watson, 13^
' Penn to Lord Hyde, February 12, 1683,
S

258 WILLIAM PENN.
Others had collected a variety of information bearing on
the point, according to his express instructions.' There
were not wanting men who wished to see Chester made
the capital of the prorince ; 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 Skuylkill.2 These
rivers were both navigable, at least for small vessels;
the Delaware being a noble stream, and the SkuylldU
at that iime as broad at its mouth as the Thames at
Woolwich.' In other respects the site met his precon
ceived requirements : — facing the minor stream the
bank was bold and high, the air pure and wholesome,
the neighbouring 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 mUes.
These advantages not being found elsewhere, Penn soon
decided in its favour, and taking an open boat at Chester
creek, dropped down the river to the spot then caUed
by the Indians Wicocoa.* 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 every thing 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 exigencies
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.
' A copy of these instructions is printed in Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem.
^ Day's Collections, 544-6,
^ Penn to Sunderland, July 28.

WILLIAM PENN. 259
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 unrivalled row of red pines, were to
front the rivers ; a great public thoroughfare alone sepa
rating the houses from their banks. These streets were
to be connected by the High Street, a magnificent ave
nue perfectly straight and a hundred feet in width, to
be adorned with lines of trees and gardens surrounding
the dwelling-houses. At a right angle with 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.5 He encouraged the building 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 suf
fering of these people must have been great, but they
' Day's Collections, 546.
' Holme's Portraiture of Philadelphia, 1683-4.
« Day's Coll. 644. ? Watson, 17.

260 WILLIAM PENN.
bore it with exemplary resolution. In the high bank of
the Skuylkill 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 encamped 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.' Nothing 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 labourers while the house was buUd
ing, anxious to carry mortar, or lend a hand to saw
a block of wood.2 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 famUy
had found some sort of shelter from the fury of winter.'
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, the house soon
became the key of the infant city, and was intimately
connected with the leading incidents 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
' Story Mss. 2 jbid. Watson, 62-3.
' Penn to the Society of Traders, August 16,
* Watson, 124, ,i

WILLIAM PENN. 261
Tudor and Stuart periods. It had twelve feet of front
age 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
humble dimensions of a house of so much interest to
their ancestors, but posterity will feel for ever grate
ful 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 prescience as if he
had been conscious that he was rearing the capital of a
mighty empire. Other houses, such as they were, were
soon completed. Within a few months of the foun
dation, 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 caUings ; that the farmers had laid out
and partly cleared their lands ; that ships were contin
ually arriring with goods and passengers ; and that plen
tiful 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 mayof
of the town made a rope-walk ; and stone houses, with
pointed roofs, balconies, and porches, soon ceased to ex
cite 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 Philadel-
^ Penn to Free Society of Traders, August 16, 1683.
e Watson, 66, 67.
7 Penn to Lord North, September 1683.

262 WILLIAM PENN.
phia.' The governor's correspondence vrith his friends
in England is full of honest exultation. To Lord Hali
fax 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 wiU
shew a province in seven years equal to her neighbour'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 introduced into Philadelphia. In other
American settlements such luxuries had slowly followed
in the wake of great physical prosperity. In Decem
ber 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 Philadel-
phian of .the present age, educated in the elaborate
courses of Girard's College, may smile at the simphcity
pf 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 shU-
Ungs a quarter : to write, six shillings : boarding a scho
lar, 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
' Turner to Penn, August 3, 1686. ^ February 9, 1683.
3 July 28, 1683.
* Penn. Hist. Soc Mem. i. 101. An able article on the early literary
history of Pennsylvania by Thomas J. Wharton. .

WILLIAM PENN. 263
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 ad
dition 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 Welcome, 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 Vir
ginia 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 fyr Bradford, and from
that time forward there was no rest for the printing-
press in Pennsylvania.^ Another institution which he
estabUshed deserved to be classed vrith his intellectual
legislation. The post-office had been at work in Eng
land but a few years; yet so convinced was Penn of its
utUity that he at once issued his orders to Henry Waldy
to run the post and supply travellers with horses. It
is interesting to go back a few years and see how things
were managed in the good old times. From the Falls
* Quoted in Proud, i. 345. « Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 103.
? Ibid. i. 104, 106.
' Thomas, Hist, of Printing ; also Penn. Hist. Soc, Mem. i, 105 et seqq.

264 WILLIAM PENN.
of Trenton to Philadelphia the carriage of a letter was
charged three-pence — to Chester five-pence — to New
castle seven-pence — to Maryland nine-pence; from Phi
ladelphia 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 shew
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 creatiure, 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
hirtiself with the evil spirit, began to pursue witches
with the fury of one possessed in the poUshed 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. witchcraft;" even
the enlightened Richard Baxter reprinted in England
the rubbish written by Mather in America, accompanied
by his own confession of faith in the statements put
forth. George Fox, as is well known, beUeved in vritches
and in his own power to contend with and overcome
them ; and judges of civilised 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 intel-
' Pemberton Mss. Watson, 626,
' Mather's Discoiuse, p. 10.

WILLIAM PENN. 265
lectual 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 had not to be tried
for her life at Charlestown or Boston.
Penn presided at the trial, and to provide against any
dissatisfaction 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 ver
dict against the woman of being guilty of having the
common reputation of witchcraft, but not guilty in man
ner and form as she stood indicted. Her friends were
simply required to give securities for her 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 telUng fortunes to servant girls, muttering
charms over quack micdicines, or finding with the divin
ing 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 famiUar
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 thefr rapturous delight at seeing
» Voltaire's Louis XIV, c, 29. Addison in Spectator, No, 117. Black-
stone, iv. 60.
* Colonial Records, i. 40. * Bancroft, ii. 391.

266 WILLIAM PENN.
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 lists with the
leapers, and beat them all; at seeing which the younger
warriors could hardly control the extravagance of their
admiration,' Colonel Markham had already completed his pur
chase of land, and entered with the natives into a treaty
of peace and amity.^ When he had explained to them the
beneficent intentions 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 Henlopen to those distant
regions stretching away beyond the great mountains to
the northern lakes, of which they had some remote tra
ditions, 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 goodvrill ;
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-place, or refuse to pay them a fair price for every
article which they might purchase ; that in his just mind
he had ordained that if 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 laid before them the presents which
he had brought as a sign of amity and good-will, the
' 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. 267
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 mo
ment, it would be eminently unwise to urge the natives.
Their hunting-grounds were dear to them, though of
little use. Had he shewn 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 afterwards. The experiment he
had to conduct was so novel that the minutest circum
spection was needful at every step. It would have been
madness to risk offeijding the Iroquois, while the settlers
refused to wear arms even in their own 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 Taminent and other of the native
kings, who cordially approved of these treaties, seeing
in them great advantages for their own people, he pro
posed 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 amphi
theatre, used from time immemorial as a place of meet
ing for the native tribes. The name of Sakimaxing —
" Smith's Laws of Pennsylvania, 109. Ms. Address to the Indians. The
right of a foreigner to have a jury, de medietate lingua, was disputed in the
courts, but a judipial decision confirmed its legality. Dall, Reports, 73.
" Penn, Hist. Soc. Mem, iii. Part ii, 145-204,

268 WILLIAM PENN.
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 elms which 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 pccice, 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 con
ference 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 locahty.'
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 colours it has been equally and
generally misrepresented, because painters, poets, and
historians have chosen to draw on their imaginations for
the features of a scene, every marking 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 fer
tile and settled country of East New Jersey. Here stood
the gigantic elm which was to become immortal from that
' Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 183, where this etymology is de
fended, s Ibid. i. 97,
' The site of the Great Treaty has been much disputed. I beUeve in

WILLIAM PENN. 269
day forward, — and there lay the verdant council-cham
ber 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 profusion of shirt sleeve and
ruffies, — 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 un
graceful ingredients.* At his right hand was Colonel
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 companion of his voyage ; and near his per
son, 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 gorgeous man
ner, the governor received them with the easy dignity of
one accustomed to mix with European courts. As soon
as the reception was over, the sachems retired to a short
distance, and after a brief consultation among them
selves, Taminent, 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
Shackamaxon. The evidence is collected by Day, 548 ; Watson, 125 ;
and Vaux in Fenn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 79 et seqq.
¦• Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem, iii. Part ii. 76.

270 WILLIAM PENN.
it upon his brows, the spot became at once sacred, and
the person of every one present inriolable.' The vene
rable 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 cres
cent, or half-moon, round them ; and the younger men
formed a third and outer semicircle. All being seated
in this picturesque and striking order, the old monarch
announced to the governor that the natives were pre
pared 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-vritness 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, 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;
' Heckewelder, Hist, of Six Nations.
' Penn to Sunderland, July 28, 1683.
¦' 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

WILLIAM PENN. 271
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 good will. They intended to do no harm, and
they had no fear in their hearts. They 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 Lenape, nor the Lenni Lenape of the chil
dren 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 Indians, 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 justice
might be declared by twelve honest men, and the wrong
buried in a pit with no bottom, — that the Lenni Lenape
subject [Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii.], wrote his description to agree
with the painting. It is full of errors. The essay by Messrs, Fisher and
Duponceau is quite convincing. Penn. Hist, Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii, 145,
¦» Penn to Society of Traders, August 16, 1683,
" Penn. Hist, Soc, Mem, iii. Part ii. 189,

272 WILLIAM PENN.
should assist the white men, and the white men should
assist the Lenni Lenape, against aU such as would disturb
them or do them hurt, — and lastly, that both Christians
and Indians sfiould 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, while the waters ran down the creeks and
rivers, and while the sun and moon and stars endured.'
He then laid the scroU on the ground. What King
Taminent replied is not known, except that, in sub
stance, he was favourable to the riews of Penn. The
sachems received his proposal vrith decent grarity, and
accepted it for themselves and for thefr children. No
oaths, no seals, 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 yoimg and hopeful, and
serring on every occasion to point a moral and adorn a
tale, remained to the two races who were vritnesses and
actors in it, an inheritance of good will and honourable
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,
^ 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.
^ Diet. Phil., Article Quaker.

WILLIAM PENN. 273
going beyond seas and never returning, became to them
a sort of mythical personage ; they not only held his
meinory iu the greatest veneration, 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 pass
port 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 provisions were maintained by Penn, is owing
that striking fact recorded by Bancroft — that while
every other dolony in the New World was visited in tum
by the horrors of Indian warfare, 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 famous
treaty, and five years after the death of Onas, one of
his unworthy children murdered the first red man who
lost his life in Pennsylvania. The deed was attended
with circumstances of unusual atrocity ; but it shews 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
ofit was sent home to the Penn family, by whom it was
mounted on a pedestal with appropriate inscriptions ;
' Quoted by Duponceau and Fisher, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii.
' Watson's Annals. Oldmixon (British Empire), i. 171.
" Bancroft, ii. 3^3. « Gordon, 188.
T

274 WILLIAM PENN,
and the remainder was manufactured into vases, work-
stands, and other relics, now held sacred by their pos
sessors.' 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.2 While the elections were taking place throughout
the province 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
bestovring 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 toge
ther, the governor found an example of the inutility of
making fixed laws and constitutions for a poUtical so
ciety at a distance ; for instead of the full number of
members 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 affairs in
the colony, which statement concluded with a prayer
that this act of self-judgment might not cause the pro
prietor to think of altering thefr charter. Penn was
no formalist ; and as they had come up with full parha
mentary powers, he told them they were at Uberty to
amend, alter or add to the existing laws for the pub
lic good, as he was not wedded to his own forms, but
' Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 97.
^ Day's Coll. 651. The State of Pennsylvania has recently voted a
sum of 5000 doUars to purchase the plot of ground on which the great
elm formerly stood, — and a slit from the old tree was planted on the spot.

WILLIAM PENN. 275
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 organised,- and
the latter being left to its legislative labours, appointed
Thomas Wynne as its Speaker, and proceeded to con
sider, amend and pass several bills of pressing import
ance. 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 propose laws.
From the first day of meeting the assembly set this re
striction at nought, and in return they wished to in
vest 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 legislature binding, it was obvious
enough that no law would be received in England
which came unsupported by the governor's concurrence, ^
These and other points in which a change seemed de
sirable were discussed at great length. Amendments
were suggested and new outlines drawn up. The House
was especially anxious to obtain -the privilege of con
ference with the governor. At length the opinion was
expressed that it would be the wisest plan to throw
themselves on the Uberality 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 Go
vernment, but in other respects to be the growth of the
and is now in a flourishing state. Communication from Horatio G. Jones,
Esq., Foreign Secretary to the Penn. Hist. Soc.
» Hazard, ix. 112.
' Penn to Crisp, February 28, 1684. Ms. Proud, Hist, of Penns.
* Votes and Proceedings, 10,
*

276 WILLIAM PENN.
New World and to bear date from the capital of the
province.' This request amounted in fact to a transfer of the
legislative power from the council to the assembly ; and
Penn saw with no little uneasiness the grasping spi
rit of his little democratic 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 encroach
ment, but in its present state it feared to enter into
a controversy with the larger house of representatives,
and advised that an open conference should be held to
ascertain the general opinion. The assembly was then
summoned, 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 rerision
of the charter ; but at the same time he calmly told them
they should consider their own duty as weU as his desire
to oblige them, and he hoped it would not be made diffi
cult to reconcile the two in the re-arrangement of the
constitution, 2
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 proprietor — subject, of course, to the rerision of
the crown lawyers in England. The provincial council
was reduced to eighteen — the assembly to thirty-six.
The governor and council still retained the initiative of
bills ; but the assembly obtained some privileges and left
' Votes and, Proceedings, 20,
5 Penn to Crisp, Feb. 28, 1684. Ms. Council-Books in Hazard's
Register, i. 1 6 et seqq.

WILLIAM PENN. 277
the way open for the acquisition of more as circum
stances might favour 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 ; aud the governor had not even power to sus
pend them during the term for which they were commis
sioned. In the neighbouring state of Maryland, Lord
Baltimore at his own will appointed aU the magistrates,
the officers of government, the members of council, and
indeed every other class of functionaries. 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 certain goods exported or imported for the
governor's support, which he acknowledged in a most
grateful manner, but declined ; he would hear of no im
posts, and the tax-gatherer was for years and years an
unknown institution in Pennsylvania.* To prevent law
suits three peace-makers, or arbitrators, 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
orphan's court was to meet in each county to inquire
into and regulate the affairs 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 legis
lators in the land of Penn.^
3 Penn to Turner, April 12, 1681. M'Mahon, 156.
' Penn to Society of Traders, August 16, 1683.
' Votes and Proceedings. Also Letter to Society of Traders.

278 WILLIAM PENN.
The little parliament having finished its labours and
adjourned, 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 residence, 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 thefr
several grants, both proprietors could legally claim the
territory in question ; and neither of them felt inclined
to surrender what he deemed his just right without a
struggle.' As soon as the conference was over Lord
Baltimore, in erident bad faith, wrote off to Secretary
Blaythwaite and to the Marquis of Halifax an account
of the interview, giring it of course in such a way as to
serve his own interests most effectually at the distant
court.2 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 ot 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
" Maryland Papers, B. T. 1, B. C. P. 21, Pennsylvania Papers,
B. T. 1. State- Paper Office.
2 Maryland Papers. Baltimore's Letter, July 11, 1683. State-Paper
Office. ' Pennsylvania Papers, August 6. State-Paper Office.

WILLIAM PENN. 279
to give a report of their conference without his know
ledge 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, provided with letters to the King himself, to
the Earl of Sunderland, to Henry Sidney, and to the
officers of the colonial department; that he might be
represented on the spot by one in whose truth, judg
ment and fidelity he had a perfect confidence.* 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 like
wise on the spot, everi had causes of deeper and more
painful interest than the loss of a few hundred miles of
territory not begun to crowd upon him. About the time
that Lord Baltimore departed from the colony, letters
from England arrived, bringing with them an extraor
dinary combination of calamities. His wife Guli was
seriously ill ; his noble friend Algernon Sidney had just
perished on the block ; Shaftesbury and Essex were in
prison ; persecution of nonconformers had begun to rage
with unexampled fury ; Oxford had put forth the doc
trine of passive obedience ; and his own enemies and
en-riers had spread malicious and unfounded reports
against his honour and reputation. He felt that it was
absolutely necessary to be in England.^
His arrangements for departure were soon made.
He summoned the chiefs of all the Indian tribes in the
* Penn to Bridgeman, August 1. America and West Indies Papers.
State-Paper Office.
' Letter to Leoline Jenkins, April 6, 1684. Ibid.
• Penn to Crisp, February 28, 1685. Ms. EUwood, 325,

280 WILLIAM PENN.
ricinity to Pennsbury, and concluded vrith each a sepa
rate treaty of peace and friendship for his people. He
told them he was going beyond the seas for a little whUe,
but would return to them again if the Grreat Spirit per
mitted him to live. He begged of them to drink no
more fire-water, and forbad his o-wn subjects 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 Uve at peace and amity vrith
each other and with the Christians. The new city en
gaged his daily thoughts ; and he had some comfort in
seeing this harbour of refuge steadily rising from the
ground as the dark intelUgence from Europe made it
more and more needful as a place of shelter to the
children of oppression.
The brig Endeavour being now ready to leave the
Delaware, he named a mixed commission to conduct
the affairs of government in his absence, — consisting of
Thomas Loyd, president ; Colonel Markham, who was
to return immediately, secretary; assisted by Thomas
Holme, James Claypole, Robert 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 province, 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." '
' Letter to Thomas Loyd, August 1684.

CHAPTER IX.
1684-1688.
i@ag of Court {nflueitw.
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 EUwood 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 carefuUy, thought it contained matter dangerous to the
public weal, and thereupon summoned him to appear
before the Bench. With the summons in his hand Ayrs
ran off to EUwood, who told him to be of good cheer, as
he would come forward on the day of trial and own him-:
self to be the writer. Shortly after giving this assur
ance, the letter from Guli arrived. Honour 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
' Penn to Margaret Fox, October 29.

282 WILLIAM PENN.
him very harshly, and were about to commit him, when
it occurred to them to ask why he had appeared before
the appointed day. EUwood 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, GuU was much better, and as
she steadily improved, when her husband landed ou the
coast, within seven miles of his own house, she was able
to meet him with outstretched arms and overflovring
heart.2 After passing a day or two in the bosom of his famUy
Penn wentrto Newmarket to pay his court to the royal
brothers ; 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 affafr
was suffered to languish, — both parties probably hoping
more from the justice or friendship of his royal brother.*
Meanwhile the proprietor of Maryland, feeling that pos-
' EUwood, 325-35.
* Penn to Margaret Fox, October 2.
= Apology in Penn, Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 235.

WILLIAM PENN. 283
session was nine parts of the law, and knowing that his
neighbour could not with his notions of passive resist
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 Balti
more proprietor, and threatened 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 Pennsylvania 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, how
ever, probably answered its chief purpose, that of raising
suspicions in England as to Penn's pacific ideas. Absurd
as it may appear, the moment this disturbance was heard
of, it was rumoured that the preacher of peace had ex
cited 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
America 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,'''
' From June 30 to February 13 there is no trace of the dispute in
State- Paper Office. '' Penn to Duke of York, June 8, 1684.
6 Penn to Crisp, February 28, 1686, Ms, ? Ibid,

284 , WILLIAM PENN.
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 pro
perty of his subjects and to exercise the clemency which
became a prince, succeeded quietly to the throne.' The
late reign had been in most respects disastrous for Eng
land : unblushing rice had reared its head in the highest
places, and the first rank of the peerage had been filled
with wantons ; the honour 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 industrious of the population.^ Penn counted up
the 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 ac
tually died in prison !' By whatever motive actuated,
James, as Duke of York, had often lifted up his voice
against these atrocities ;* 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 good-vrill he had formerly professed
towards all conscientious persons, and to beg his gra
cious interference in behalf of the many hundred r.eligi-
ous men and women then in custody for no ciril offence.
The King was extremely affable. He spoke to him for
' Penn to Thomas Loyd, February 1685.
' The Book of Secret Service Money — about to be published by the
Camden 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), 13,34U. lOs. 4Jd."— " June 14th, Paid to Richard Yates, son of
Francis Yates, who conducted Prince Charles from the field of Worcester

WILLIAM PENN. 285
some time in the midst of his nobles, with the old frank
ness 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 suffer
ings, 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 desfred no peaceable person to be dis
turbed 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 suffering
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 reli
gious differences ; he opened the prison-gates to every
person who was confined for refusing to take oaths of
aUegiance and supremacy. Twelve hundred Quakers
obtained their freedom by this act of justice.* Opinions
varied at that time — and vary stiU — 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
to Whyte Ladies, after the battle, and suifered death under the usurper
Cromwell, bounty, 10/. 10s. OA"
3 Collected Works, ii. 772,
¦¦ Apology, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii.
« Harl. Mss. 7606.
^ Penn to Crisp, February 28. Ms.
7 Penn to Thomas Loyd, February 1686. » SeweU, ii. 322.

286 WILLIAM PENN.
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 Penn
sylvania. A party arose at this time which advocated
the recall of the colonial charters, and the annexation of
all the American provinces to the crown ; and every fault
of government, every pretty grievance of the governed,
was caught at and magnified to make out a plausible
case for proceeding to so extreme a measure. An out
rage 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 officers beharing in an extremely
arbitrary and dictatorial manner, the colonists, with that
instinctive disUke to the tax-coUector which belongs to
the character of an Englishman, hated the official, evaded
his vigilance, and encouraged the contraband traders,
who appealed from the laws of the land to the laws of
nature. Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York,
and other prorinces, were accused, and not unjustly, of
favouring smugglers to the manifest injury of the royal
revenue.' On the whole, the proprietors had the pre
caution to maintain at least an appearance of hostUity
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
' See his Letter to Quakers in Phil. Friend, vi. 257.
2 Penn to Crisp, February 28. Ms.
' Plant. Gen, Papers, B, T. 32, &c. State-Paper Office, The corre-

WILLIAM PENN. 287
«
of his own faith, the charter would probably have been
recalled in consequence. 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 Mary
land council assembled, and deputed two of their body
to go on board and demand the person of their presi
dent. 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 j ustices ; 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 inclined 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, es
pecially the authorised and sworn versions of what had '
taken place between Markham and Baltimore, and Penn
and Baltimore in their private conferences;^ 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 neces-
f
spondence and orders in council on this subject would fiU several volumes.
¦* Penn to Crisp, February 28. Ms.
" Maryland Papers, March 17. State-Paper Office, ^ Ibid. Aug. 18.

288 WILLIAM PENN.
sary to enter into the detaUs of this settlement. Ignor
ance of the geography of America had led the original
granters of the charters to include the Peninsula — or at
least a considerable portion of it — in both patents. But
as Baltimore's right had priority of date, and had never
been cancelled, his supporters argued, with fair show of
reason, that the later 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 assigaed to Lord Bal
timore, it was urged with equal cogency that the tract
on the- Delaware, then settled and cJultivated by the
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 im
mediate neighbourhood, that he became anxious about
the unproductive strip of ground lying between the
Cheasapeake and the Delaware. When Penn had pre
sented 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
diyiding 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
' Dunlop in Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. i. 161 et seqq.
^ Hazard's Register, ii. 225.
" Order in Council, Nov. 13. Maryland Papers. State-Paper Office.

WILLIAM PENN. 289
to the crown, so as to place it beyond the reach of fu
ture litigation.' There can be no doubt but that the
King's intentions were friendly and honourable towards
his ward ; but fqr some reason or other the reconveyance
of the lapsed provinces on the Delaware was delayed.
PracticaUy Penn retained the country, but his legal
titles were not made out in form, — a source of consi
derable 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 in
cUned in his heart to pursue a wise, tolerant and legal
course with regard to religion and religious liberty he
was convinced ; that he had himself some influence over
the royal mind he soon became aware from the great
favour shewn 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 him
self 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 shew
ing a friendly or tolerant disposititAi 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 riolent
time, a work of daily mercy and mediation. He ac
cepted his position with a full sense of its perils and
* Proprietory Papers, June 18, 1703. State- Paper Office.
» Life of Gilbert Latye, 57, « Com, Jour., May 26, 27,
U

290 WILLIAM PENN.
responsibilities ; but he trusted to the sanctity of his
assumed office, " the general mediator for charity," for
a Uberal construction 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 imprisonment 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 vrith 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 j us-
tice, not to speak of mercy, for the sufferers, lay in the
unremitted exercise of the royal right to pardon and
reUeve, To secure the constant exercise of this power,
and to urge the King to estabhsh, not by proclamations
or orders in council, but by a general act of Parliament,
a perfect freedom of opinion in every part of his do
minions — 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 HoUand House at Ken
sington, and brought Guli and his family to town,*
The house was large, and he had many risitors. His
influence with the King was weU known, and every
man -with a real grievance found in him a counsellor
and a friend. Envoys were sent fi-om the American
' Letter to Quakers in Phil. Friend, vi. 267.
' Fox's Journal, 217, 258.
' Letter to Quakers, Phil. Friend, vi. 257.
* Lawton 's Ms. Memoirs of Penn, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part
ii. 216. ' Gerard Croese, Hist, Quakers. Lambeth Mss., Bancroft, ii. 395.

WILLIAM PENN. 291
colonies to solicit his influence in thefr 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.^
One of the earliest favours which Penn is known
to have begged from the King will be remembered to
^his honour 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 suspi
cions; but so serene and blameless was the life he led
at Oxford, that it was feared that to arrest and try him
would oiUy end in an acquittal and a triumph for the
enemies of the royal family. King Charles therefore
employed his creatures at Christ Church to entrap him
into some unwary expression — some word of sympathy
for the alleged conspirators — any, even the least, remark
which malice might construe into an offence.^ 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 coUege his majesty's
commands to strip the unmoved philosopher of his hon
ours and dignities, and expel him from the University."
These authorities shewed no want of alacrity in put
ting their own recently promulgated doctrine of absolute
obedience into practice ;^ and a week later the secretary
thanked the college in his majesty's name for their ready
° Bishop of Oxford to Sunderland, Nov. 8. State-Paper Office.
' Sunderland Letter-Book, November 11. State-Paper Office.
' State Tracts, ii. 163, and Somers Tracts, viii. 420-424. Passive
obedience was declared to be a " most necessary doctrine of the Church "
on the 21st of July; the very day on which Lord William llussell died
for the right of resisting tyranny.

292 WILLIAM PENN.
compliance with his orders.' Locke, then on the con
tinent, 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 fur
nishing the friends of Uberty with new arguments in
favour of toleration.^ Touched with a situation in some
respects so like his own in earlier life, Penn put his in
fluence 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 favour
that he promised all the intercessor asked for, without
a scruple and without conditions, Penn at once wrote
off with these glad tidings to the Hague ; but the exUe,
conscious of having committed no crime, while express
ing his deep sense of obligation to the mediator, abso
lutely refused to accept 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 services to obtain a similar
concession from the King, he returned the same answer,*
That he thankfully remembered the unsolicited kindness
of his " friend Penn"^ wiU 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 Pop
ple, afterwards secretary to the Lords Commissioners of
Trade and Plantations, was less scrupulous in using the
governor's influence at court. Popple was involved in
' Sunderiand Letter-Book, November 20. State-Paper Office.
^ Furly Corresp. 1-75. King's Life of Locke, passim.
' Lord King's Life of Locke, i. 291, 292.
Ibid. » Furly Corresp. 36.

WILLIAM PENN. 293
some troublesome affairs in France, and applied to the
general mediator to aid him in recovering his position :
he, being convinced of his honour and innocence, went
to the ambassador Barillon, and procured such a repre
sentation of the affair at the court of Versailles as soon
put an end to his troubles. The, future secretary re
tained 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 favours,^ 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 instrument 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 retirement of the country, others into po
sitive exile. Penn sympathised deeply with their poli
tical 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.*
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
^ Lawton's Mem, Popple to Penn, October 20, 1688. Plant. Gen.
Papers, iv. State- Paper Office.
' Furly Corresp. 36.
" Lawton's Mem. (Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 227.)

294 WILLIAM PENN.
either lukewarm or indifferent in his cause on account of
his religion. A remnant of the republican 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 kingdom and renew in arms the contest which was
thought to have been ended with the execution of Alger
non 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 Oates was placed in
the pillory the first time after his trial, the people were
excited to a serious breach of the peace ;2 and the zeal
of fanatic churchmen was inflamed into frenzy on be
holding 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, coffee
houses and places of general resort: even in the royal
chapel at WhitehaU the rites and ceremonies practised
by the sovereign 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 tena
city worthy of an Englishman ; and refused to purchase
the support of his ancient friends, the cavaliers, by any
sacrifice of his bigotry to their intolerance, even when
' Penn to Crisp, February 28, Ms. Memoirs of James, ii. 3 et seqq.
" Sunderland Letter-Book, May 19,20. State- Paper Office. BariUon
lo Louis, May 21. » Penn to Crisp, February 28. Ms.
* Barillon to Louis, May 14.
" Com. Jour., May 26, 27. Barillon to Louis, June 7,

WILLIAM PENN. 295
Argyle had landed in Scotland, aud 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. Though some of the King's personal
friends were present when this proposal was made, they
offered no opposition, and it was tmanimously resolved
to bring forward a motion in the house to that effect on
the foUowing day. James, informed of what had taken
place, and of what was intended for the morrow, sent for
his friends and laid before them so clearly and emphati
cally his fixed determination to resist the petition and
to err, if at all, on the side of mercy, that they went
away convinced of his sincerity, and took thefr measures
with such success that the result was more satisfactory
to the supporters of toleration than they had dared to
hope : — the motion was condemned as an insult to the
sovereign and rejected without a division.^ Penn began
to feel some hope that Parhament would soon find itself
in a temper to discuss a general act for the enfranchise
ment of conscience ; and the King of France urged James
to press the 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 instigation, or through his influence, that
his grace now brought out his Essay on Religion.'' In
" Louis to Barillon, June 15.
' " A short Discourse on the Reasonableness of having a Eeligion or
Worship ofGod." The authenticity of this work has been doubted (Pen.
Cyc. Art. Buck.), but without reason. The title-page bears his name,
and he never denied its authorship. BariUon to Louis, May 21.

296 WILLIAM PENN.
this work he argues for universal charity towards opin
ion. He says he had long been convinced that nothing
can be more anti-christian nor more contrary to sense
and reason, than to trouble and molest our fellow Chris
tians 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 Uttle
to the author's credit that during a life of more than
ordinary fickleness of purpose and change of fortune he
had never wavered from this opinion. He concludes
his discourse with the paraphrase of a thought often ex
pressed by Penn, to the effect that if Parliament refused
to adopt a more liberal policy towards 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 subject by the
author of the " Rehearsal" naturally excited much at
tention, 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 rail
lery.* 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 with scorn ; and wonders how his grace
can think of making himself the champion of any thing
so out of aU countenance as religion and toleration. The
graver argument adduced by these writers against any
concession to the sectaries, was the alleged perU of the
nation. Liberty, they said, was fraught with danger.
There had been liberties in the time of Charles the Ffrst
— and Charles the First lost his head : there was tolera-
' Short Discourse, &c.. Preface. ' Ibid. 8.
' Several of these replies are collected into a volume, B. M.
-* A short Answer to the Duke of Buckingham's Paper.

WILLIAM PENN. 297
tion under the Commonwealth, — and the Commonwealth
fell. No weapon in the armoury of logic like a syllo
gism! This sort of reasoning of course provoked numerous
rejoinders. Penn entered the arena and wrote in de
fence of the Duke's proposal.^ The advocates of tolera
tion 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 hving by a piece of ground which'
her husband used to dig, carrying her garden-stuff to
market, 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 shewn 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 ar
gument is the reasoning of the market-woman. — Socrate
ambulante fulguravit : Socrates going abroad, it light
ened. This lightning did a great deal of damage: —
therefore Socrates must be sent to Newgate! There
fore liberty of conscience must be put down ! I deny
the argument."^ « Collected Works, ii. 708.
" Defence of the Duke of Buckingham's Paper, p. 3,

298 WILLIAM PENN.
When Penn came forward to defend in print the
Duke's proposition, he thought it requisite to state ex
actly the part which he felt it became him to take in
the controversy. One of the disputants had charged
the versatile nobleman with baring been deluded by
Penn into these new notions ; and thus dragged into the
arena, friendship to the writer, as well as duty to main
tain the right, urged him to add his testimony to the
principle of enlightened policy advocated by the pam
phleteer. A vein pf quiet satire runs through his dis
course. He expresses his great pleasure in seeing a
work in defence of religion from such a pen, and sin
cerely hopes that the witty and clever Duke may soon
begin to enjoy those feUcities of a good Ufe which he
has proved himself so weU able to describe. When
that day arrives, he says in conclusion, he wiU be happy
to press the gentlemen of England to imitate so iUus
trious an example.' At first, the King affected to take
no notice of this literary combat ; but when he found
the Church party in evident alarm, and heard from those
about him that nothing else was talked of in the coffee
houses, he began to take some interest in it. The astute
agent of the French monarch saw its importance from
the first ; and as soon as Buckingham's pamphlet ap
peared, 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 melan
choly trials and executions to which they led belong to
the domain of general history,' Penn's connexion with
• Penn's CoUected Works, ii. 709. ' BariUon to Louis, May 21.
^ Lingard, xiv. l'-78, contains the most calm and careful narrative of
these events.

WILLIAM PENN. 299
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
ness it should be remembered that Jeffreys was not a
man of James's seeking. He was afready 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 prisoners had been
guUty, 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 prison
ers, 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 quarters in the
rebel towns; but James gave him a sharp reprimand,
and threatened punishment if these offences were con
tinued.^ No man, by his warrant, suffered arbitrarily.
If many were executed, and many more were trans
ported to the American colonies, it was because they
had been convicted, justly or unjustly, of the highest
crime known in the statute-book of England. The
' See Extra Chapiee, The Macaulay Chaeges, at the end of this
volume. * Clarendon Corresp. i. 82.
•i Sunderland Letter-Book, 268 et seqq. State-Paper Office.

300 WILLIAM PENN.
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 occa
sionally 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 vvas 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 accused him of being the cause
of a great and needless waste of human life.^
Beyond this loud and vehement protest, Penn had
no power to go. He wa> himself an object of suspicion
to the court and ministry. Not half a dozen years be
fore the invasion of Monmouth, he had been intimately
associated with the men who were now in prison : even
by the reports of Barillon he was tiien considered as
dividing with Algernon Sidney the leadership of all the
turbulent reformers in England and the Low Coun
tries.' Though it is not to be imagined that he gave the
invaders any reason to believe he approved of their pro
jects — it is clear enough that they regarded him as a
friend to their cause, for in their plan of the campaign
• Burnet, iii. 66.
^ Ibid. How far James approved of his servant's conduct is disputed.
Lingard has collected the conflicting authorities, xiv. 77, 78.
^ BariUon to Louis. Dalrymple, i. 282.

WILLIAM PENN. 301
they had set him down as one of the half dozen persons
who might be relied on to bring over tiie American colo
nies to accept the Protestant revolution.* The ministry
were conscious that his political sympathies were not
with them, and they professed to regard him as a par
tisan of the Prince of Orange.^ Indeed his position was
extremely peculiar. Against these suspicions and mis
givings he had no protection beyond the private favour
of the King : a favour which had its origin in the Duke
of York's affection for the old admiral, and in that con
stancy to his plighted word which made the better side
of his obstinate character, rather than in any commu
nity 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 deluded 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 op
pressed ; and now when the prisoners vvere 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 adrisers. With a perversity
of folly which nothing can justify, the rebels had set a
price on the King's head, and had denounced the Par
liament as a treasonable assembly, to be pursued with
war and destruction.^ This madness begot its like in
the Court and Parliament. Now that the rebels had
* Wade's statement. Harl, Mss, 6845, p. 288.
° Penn to Shrewsbury, March 7, 1689.
« Penn to Thomas Loyd, October 2, 1686. Ms,
', Harl. Mss. 7006,

302

WILLIAM PENN.

fallen into their power, they shut their ears to the plead
ings of humanity. They wished, if it were possible, to
make the punishment of the transports more terrible
than the bitterness of death. They gave them up there
fore to the high Tory and Catholic owners of the tropi
cal 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
favourite of her own whose name is not preserved,'
None of them were 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 London began, Penn was still more anxiously and
incessantly employed in the work of mediation. One
of the first victims of royal rigour was an old acquaint
ance of his own. Five years before this time, when the
court was moving heaven and earth to defeat the candi
dates of the Sidney party in all elections, two liberals,
Henry Cornish and Slingsby Bethel, had the courage to
stand for -the office 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
political world ; even moderate men Uke WilUam Lord
Russell were taken by surprise. The mob gave vert to
their triumph by party cries ; and James took this defeat
to heart as if it had been a personal insult,* From that
' Sunderland to Jeffreys, September 14, State-Paper Office.
^ See Extra Chapter.
' Dorothy Sunderland to Lord Halifax, July 19.
' Ibid. Burnet, ii. 248.
' State Trials, vol. xi.
' Penn to Harrison, Oct. 26, 1686. Ms,

WILLIAM PENN. 303
day Cornish was a marked man ; and when the Rye-
House plot exploded, he was believed to be involved
in it past recoverj'. The eridence, however, was not
complete, and he had now been two years at large after
the execution of Sidney, and was congratulating him
self on his escape from perU, 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 Cor
nish was accused and sentenced as the accomplice of
Sidney and Russell was not without its weight with
Penn;^ but the mediator took a higher view, he de
clared his belief that the condemned was innocent of
the crimes imputed to him, and begged the King to
pause ere the fatal warrants of execution were given
out. But his arguments failed to touch the cold heart
of his sovereign.^ Another case, pending at the same
moment, interested his feelings not less strongly. Eli
zabeth Gaunt, a lady of religious temperament and of
the most spotless life, whose time and fortune had been
spent in visiting prisons and reUeving the wretched —
had in a moment of compassion given the shelter of her
house to one of the fugitive rebels ; but as the govern
ment declared its determination to punish those who
harboured traitors with as much severity as the traitors
themselves, the vile scoundrel informed against his hu
mane protectress, and she was therefore arrested, found
guilty, and condemned to be burnt alive at Tyburn, For
her Penn also interceded — but in vain.^
' " There is a daily inquisition for those concerned in the late plots.
Some die denying — as Alderman Cornish — others confessing, but justi
fying, some repenting. Cornish died last sixth day (Saturday) in Cheap-
side for being at the meeting that Lord Bussell died for, but denied it
most vehemently to the last," Ibid, ; also Burnet, iii, 66, 67.
8 State Trials, vol. xi.

304 WILLIAM PENN.
Both these victims suffered pn the same day. Penn
stood near Cornish to the last, — and vindicated his me
mory 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 indignation of an English
man 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 shelter
ing a fellow-creature from the blood-hounds of the law ;
and when grave judges pronounced this a crime worthy
of fire and faggot, 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 loyalty, her respect
for the laws. But she did not repent of what she had
done. The cause ui which she suffered was, she said,
the cause of humanity — the cause of God.' As the fag
gots were kindling, a storm arose such as had not been
witnessed since the eventful night of CromweU's death ;
— and in the midst of this war of the elements, and the
stiU more fearful strife of human passions, expfred the
unfortunate woman, who in happier times might have
left behind her the reputation of an Elizabeth Fry.*
Penn was able, when he afterwards pleaded with his
sovereign for mercy, to quote these instances of persons
who had gone down to the grave protesting their inno
cence ; it was for this purpose that he attended the exe-
' Penn to Harrison. Oct. 25, Ms. ' Burnet, iii. 66.
' Penn to Harrison, Oct, 25, Ms, * Burnet, iii, 62,
» Luttrel's Diary, April 19, 1686,

WILLIAM PENN. 305
cutions, even by the report 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 Cornish ; his muti
lated and scattered limbs were gathered and restored to
his relatives; and the infamous scoundrel who had sworn
away his life was condemned to perpetual imprisonment.^
But the mediator bought these charities at a considerable
risk. The ministers disliked his humane interference
vrith 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 withhold
ing it, but under pretence of a general measure of re
form for the colonies, gave orders to the crown lawyers
to issue a quo warranto against his province of Pennsyl
vania, and proceed with such vigour as to compel 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
Sunderland wrote to the attorney-general to suspend the
proceeding until further orders,''^ Those orders were
never issued. The King evidently listened to his coun
sels with interest, even where his own temper forbad 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
gaUerie's of WhitehaU.* His opportunities were nobly
employed. If any fault can be found with his conductj
it is that his charity was a little too universal — a little
too indiscriminate. The case of Aaron Smith, — a man to
" Privy-Council Eegister J., i. 228. Privy-Council Office.
' Sunderland Letter-Book, June 6, 1686. State-Paper Office.
' Gerard Croese, Hist. Quakers. Burnet, iii. 140,
X

806 WILLIAM PENN.
whom he had never spoken in his life, — ^is an instance
in point. A Whig of some standing appUed to Penn,
rather, as he himself confesses, with a view to ascertain
his ideas of political mercy than with any hope of ob
taining what he asked, to soUcit from the King a par
don. 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 kingdoms in a flame, — and threat
ened in his wrath to turn the imprudent petitioner out
of the royal closet.' StiU 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
humour, and the scene in the closet had faded from his
recollection, he again pressed the suit of mercy and ob
tained a pardon.^ On the other hand, it is not to be
supposed that the old gratitude of the ward to his guar
dian was the only sentiment that attached the governor
of Pennsylvania to his sovereign. They had, apparently
at least, one great poUtical object in common : — they
both sought to establish Liberty of Conscience for aU
Enghshmen ! Penn believed the King sincere when he
declared himself opposed to every kind of religious tests
and to every species of penal laws ;' and, though it be
came the fashion after the Revolution to consider this
' Lawton's Mem, Penn. Hist. Soc, Mem. iii. Part ii. 219-21.
¦' Ibid. 222. » Ibid. 223.
* Lettei^Book, February 4, 1687. State-Pape- Office,

WILLIAM PENN. 307
apparent liberality in matters of conscience to be a mere
Jesuitical feint to engage the unwary to support his policy
in favour of the Catholics, abundant evidence remains to
shew that this was not the case. That his protection was
often extended to other nonconformists, as well as to
his own body, is beyond question. The council-books
teem with examples : but one or two will suffice. One
Frances 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 offence,
and commanded, if he were not, that he should be re
instated.* 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 offensive to the
nation : the high-sheriff of Hertfordshire pressed to have
permission to celebrate high mass in the townha;ll 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
disputes about ecclesiastical property, the King seems
to have dealt out even-handed justice. At Blackburn a
Catholic named Walmsley converted a chapel of which
he had possession into a mass-house. The vicar of the
parish claimed it as Church property. Walmsley could
plead both private right and actual possession. Yet
James declared in favour of the churchman.^ Penn
must have known of numerous acts like these; and taken
in connexion 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.*
» Penn to Turner, April 4. « Letter-Book, 406-8. State- Pa. Office.
^ Ibid. April 7, 1688. State-Paper Office,
' Penn to the Quakers, Phil. Friend, vi. 67, From the " Book of Secret

308

WILLIAM PENN.

' There was a curious but a powerful bond of friend
ship between the Quaker and the Cathohc, as such, in
that age: — they had suffered proscription, pillories,
exile and death together in the common name of reli
gion, and hundreds of them had made acquaintance in
the prisons where they were equaUy immured for con
science' sake. Penn had never been betrayed by in
justice into wrong. When suffering imprisonment him
self, under laws especially directed against Papists, he
had never proposed to escape from this unmerited pu
nishment by joining in the hue and cry after the poor
Romanists. On the contrary, while severely condemn
ing their creed, he contended for thefr 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 favour -with the King. The needy courtiers who
waited in the ante-chamber while he was closeted with
their master, could think of no other explanation of
his influence. A ludicrous incident made the suspi
cion icertainty. Penn was travelling in the country in a
Service " I will quote a note illustrating James's tolerance — " To Charles
Meame, 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/. ISs. l\d,"
P. 122. ' Speech to the House of Commons, ante, p. 196.
2 Gent. Mag. vii. 495.
* Popple to Penn, October 20. From one of his private and hitherto
unpublished letters to his American agent, I extract a few words on the
conduct of the Jesuit Court of France at this time: — " It is a time to be

WILLIAM PENN. 309
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
lo despise these things ? I suppose, said Penn, it comes
of my having been educated at Saumur. Mistaking the
name, the questioner repeated 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 addi
tions. It was said in every coffee-house iii London that
he had matriculated in the Jesuits' College, — had taken
holy orders in Rome, — and now regularly officiated at
the serrice 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; moremys-i
terious 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
wise. I long ,to be with you ; but the Eternal God do as he pleases. Oh,
be you watchful ! F^ar 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 submit or run mad. They pray to be killed. But the King has
ordered his dragoons, that are his inquisitors and converters, to do any
tiling but kiU and ravish. Such as fly and are caught are executed or
sent to the gaUeys. Thus they use all qualities, from dukes and duchesses
to the meanest." Ms. Letter to Harrison, October 25.

310 WILLIAM PENN.
secretly kidnapped by his own famiUars and sent to
Europe, to be there deUvered over to the awful retri
butions 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 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. TiUotson 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 pro
vince, and on his return he had either forgotten the cir
cumstance, 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 rumour even in his silence. It was
soon noised abroad that TiUotson had affirmed of his
own knowledge that Penn was a Jesuit.*
Few men despised clamour and false representation
more than he did ; but he thought it time to speak out
• Popple to Penn, October 20.
¦ Thurloe State Papers, vii, 117.
' Corresp. with Tillotson, Penn's Works, i, 126 et seqq.

WILLIAM PENN. 311
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 contro
versy — which commonly destroys charity, the best part
of religion,^ Tillotson replied without reserve. He had, he ad
mitted, 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 rumours that were about.^ Penn an
swered at once that he had no correspondence 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
communion. 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 provi
dence a better security than force ; and that if truth
could not succeed with her own weapons, all others
* Besse, 126,
' Penn to Tillotson, January 22, 1686,
" TiUotson to Penn, Jan. 26.

312

WILLIAM PENN.

would fail her.' On the receipt of this letter Tillotson
caUed on Penn and their old intimacy was renewed. Til
lotson did what he could to put an end to the false re
ports ; but they whose purposes it served were unvrillin^
to be set right, and the rumour 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 shewn 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
growing less hopeful of the future, he would gladly have
returned to his colony, had he considered merely his
own ease ; but the King pressed hira to remain in Eng
land until an Act of Parliament 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 min
gled with the scenes of his daily life.' The favour of the
King had powerful drawbacks in the envy and suspicion
with which he was regarded ; and he longed to escape
from the atmosphere of a court into the forests of Penn
sylvania.* But a stern sense of duty kept him in Eng-
land.5 By speech and writing, by his influence with the
great, and by his power with Dissenters, he worked day
' Penn to TUlotson, Jan. 29.
2 " April 29, 1686. — Sir, I am very sorry that the suspicion I had en
tertained 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 wiU please
to come to me, I am very much in the country, but will seek the first

WILLIAM PENN. 313
and night to accomplish the great task. The chief ob
stacle was the mutual ignorance and bigotry of court
and parliament, — and he strove to enlighten them on
the policy of toleration. The " Persuasive to Mode
ration" is an able and learned history of opinion and
experiment on the subject. He called history to
witness — he quoted the vrisdom of the wise, and the
experiences of time, in support of his argument.^ The
paper was addressed to the King arid council; it cre
ated a sensation," and contributed to procure that ge
neral pardon which set some thousands of prisoners for
conscience' sake — including twelve or thirteen hundred
Quakers — at liberty.^ Still this act of grace was due
only to the -will of the monarch ; the penal laws re
mained in force; the poor sufferers were liable to be
seized ^ain for the same offences and again sent to
gaol.^ Rightly or wrongly the leaders of opinion would
not believe in the sincerity of James. The bigots mur
mured at every fresh pardon granted to a sectary ; and
the maintenance of the Test Act became the avowed
poUcy of all parties in opposition. The hopes of church
men had already turned to the Hague ; and the sagacious
Prince of Orange, playing for no less a stake than one of
the fir^t crowns in Europe, while professing liberal sen-
opportunity to visit you at Charing Cross and renew our acquaintance, in
which I took great pleasure, I rest your faithful friend, " Jo. TllLOTSON.''
" 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."
* Hazard's Eegister, iv. 104.
* Penn to Harrison, April 24, 1686. Ms. « Works, ii. 727.
' Penn to Harrison, April 24. Ms. Besse, 129.
* Penn was himself three times arrested at meetings -within a few
weeksi— but of course got free again as soon as the King leSriied his
situation. Penn to Harrison, April 24. Ms.

314 WILLIAM PENN,
timents, took care to confirm them in their opposition
to the King's policy. James already felt the power of
his Dutch son-in-law in his kingdom ; and seeing no
reason to expect a majority of the House of Commons
favourable to his views while they were upheld by Wil
liam, he sent Penn over to the Hague — not in the
formal character of an envoy, but so accredited as to
satisfy the prince that he spoke by authority — to ascer
tain his opinions.' Burnet was then an exile in Hol
land, and from his intimate knowledge of 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 churchman ; and although he aUowed Penn two
or three long audiences, he adhered to his own plans.
The envoy was instructed to make the most Uberal pro
posals, if William would aid him to pass an Act of Tole
ration for all creeds and opinions — to obtain a repeal of
the hated tests. James promised to consult 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 repeal of
the tests — the bulwarks of the Church !' WhUe at the
court of Holland, Penn mixed freely with the exiles who
thronged the streets — the old comrades of Sidney and
' Burnet, iii. 139. 2 Ibid. iii. 140.
' Van Citters, Nov. 26, Dec. 6, 1686.—" Aengaende het point der
ToUerantie wert hier nu opently voorgegeven, dat soo syn Hoogheyt als
Mevrouw de Princes haer daer voeren souden verclaert hebben, en dat
men in het aenstaende Parlement dat mede soo debiteren zal, eu dat
hoogstgedaghte syn hoogheyt met den bekenden Pen die Archiquaecker,
wie patron is van Pensilvania in America, daerover in t lange sonde

WILLIAM PENN. 315
Argyle ; he studied their riews, and made acquaintance
with their miseries.* With Burnet he had long and
frequent discussions ; but the Protestant zeal of the doc
tor was only inflamed 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 Pennsyl
vania. 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, baring 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 farmers 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
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 !
'' Buchan 's Lives of Fletcher of Saltoun and Thompson.
' Burnet, iii. 141.
^ Penn to Harrison, September 23, 1686. Ms.

316 WILLIAM PENN,
springs ; in the vicinity were oak, walnut, and chestnut-
trees in abundance; and the surrounding country was
not only in places favourable to the culture of the rine,
but every where afforded excellent and plentiful pastur
age 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 poUtical 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,2 But there were many who had merely fled
away fronl religious persecution ; and he reminded James
that it would be in strict accordance with the gracious
intentions 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 govern
ment, returned to their homes and families. The in
demnity 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
hurried matters to a crisis in England. James was re
solved to effect his purpose ; and, as a Catholic, he not
unnaturally, though most unwisely, began to lean more
and more towards his great Catholic neighbour. Penn
saw the danger of such an alliance more clearly than
' Pastorius (in Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iv. Part ii. 92).
2 Lawton's Mem. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part u.
' Buchan's Lives of Fletcher of Saltoun and Thompson.
' Van Citters' Letter, July 19-29, 1687. Ms.—" He has advised the

WILLIAM PENN. 317
the King, and he counselled him earnestly against even
raising the suspicion of a desire to rely on France.* But
James was infatuated. It is not improbable that, ir
ritated by the perverse conduct of the churchmen, he
secretly changed his own views ; and instead of simply
asking toleration for the faith which he believed to be
right, resolved to aim at a complete subversion of the
EstabUshed Church. There is unquestionably a change
of tone in the correspondence with Versailles. From
the probabilities of gaining a Bill of Toleration, the dis
cussion 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 determined to thwart
his plans, James tried his right to suspend the whole
body of the penal laws which oppressed his subjects.
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 obnoxious enactments,^ James was not
long in making full use of this dangerous prerogative.
On the 18th of March (1687) he caUed the privy council
together: — he told them he intended to use his royal
right. Experience had shewn the uselessness of penal
laws. They did not prevent new sects from springing
up. They were a perpetual cause of soreness and dis
content. It was time to put an end to these ciril 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

King, so long as his affairs at home are so changeable, above all to be
cautious in his connexion with France."
6 Compare Louis to BariUon, June 16, 1686, with July 13 and the
subsequent correspondence, ^ State Trials, xi. 1165-1199,

318 WILLIAM PENN.
the royal proclamation appeared. It announced that the
King had suspended all the laws against religious of
fences ; it forbad 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 feel
ings. The oppressed sectaries were loud in the expres
sion of their gratitude. The King's act not only opened
to them their prison-doors, but restored them from ciril
death 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 Eng
Ushmen. Some of the more wealthy and inteUigent
¦were made magistrates, sheriffs, and lieutenants of coun
ties. 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 ap
proach the throne with the expression of their thanks ;
the Quakers soon followed ; then came the Independ
ents, the Presbyterians and the Catholics.' The Qua
kers were headed by Penn ; and in the excess of their
satisfaction they even agreed to wave the uncourtly
ceremony of the hat. In Sunderland's apartment the
deputation uncovered themselves, and leaving their hats
behind, 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
' Gazette, 2231,
2 Ms, Eecords in Devonshire House, ' Kennett, 463-6,
* Barillon to Louis, May 12, « Ayscough Mss. 44.

WILLIAM PENN. 319
conscience should be free, and appealed to Penn in con
firmation of what he then told them. He said he should
remain firm to the Declaration : and he hoped to esta
bhsh 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 rio
lent temper not less than the bigotry of Parliament. He
had no confidence in a freedom depending on the vrill of
James ; and he even asserte4 in the address a hope that
means would be taken to get the formal sanction of the
legislature.^ In a private audience he went stiU further.
He told the King that the only way to secure the con
fidence of the nation, and to obtain the sanction of Par
hament 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 hostility. The Protestant feeling of the country
was alarmed, — and not without cause. The King was
an ostentatious devotee. He spent as much as ten hours
a day with his prayers 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 Bene
dictines ' were settled at St. James's, The Franciscans
^ Besse, 130. ' Ayscough Mss. 44.
" Van Citters, July 19, 1687. Ms.
3 ElUs, Orig. Letters, iv, 90, 91. First Series,

320 WILLIAM PENN.
had built a chapel in Lincoln Fields. The Cistercians
took up their abode in the city,' A papal nuncio was re
ceived at court; and the Jesuit Father Petre was sump
tuously 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 afready crowded
with scholars, half of them at least the children of Pro
testant parents.' No zealous churchman could think
of these things without alarm and indignation. There
were other fears in which Penn could sympathise 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 bad
formed a camp at Hounslow; and although he there
drank healths to the Church of England as by law esta
blished, many moderate men suspected some deep de
sign against the liberties of the subject to be the end
of his military organisation.* 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 Whitehall, 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
' Mem. of James II. 79. ' EUis, Orig. Letters, iv, 100. First Series.
'Mem. of James II. 79.
* EUis, Orig. Letters, iv. 96. First Series,

WILLIAM PENN. 321
boldness of expostulation which James would not have
brooked from any other man.^ He told him that neither
Churchmen nor Dissenters would bear their pride and
ambition. The nation, he hinted broadly, was alarmed,
but still more indignant.? He vrished to see the Whigs
taken into greater confidence, and kept up an irre
gular 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 dis
courses, Trenchard was an accomplished courtier ; he
had been one of the Holland exiles, and owed his resto
ration to his native land to Penn. Lawton, a young man
of parts and spirit, had attracted Penn's notice ; in poli
tics 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 nevef
saw before ; for I have just now asked him how I might
do something for himself, 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
vrilt 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 ?" re
turned the mediator ; " I am no physician." Lawton
answered: "There is Jack Trenchard in exile. If you
5 Johnstone, February 6, 1688, Quo. Macintosh, 219,
" Clarendon Diary, June 23, 1688.
7 Van Citters, July 19-29, 1687. Ms.
Y

322 WILLIAM PENN.
could get leave for him to come home with safety and
honour, the drinking of a bottle now and then with Jack
woiUd make me so cheerful that it would prolong my
Ufe.'' • They laughed at the pleasantry ; and Penn pro
mised to do what he could. He went away to the Lord
Chancellor, got him to join in the soUcitation, and in a
few days the future secretary was pardoned and allowed
to return to England.'
As Trenchard knew the exiles and the opiruons cur
rent in Holland, Penn felt how serriceable he might be
if James would only Usten to his advice. That together
they produced a powerful diversion of sentiment is cer
tain ; and things were so near a change at one moment,
that Penn was actually sent by the King to Lord Somers
with an offer of the solicitor-generalship : this was before
it was offered to Sir William Williams, and consequently
before the trial of the seven prelates, ^
But these favourable 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 mem
bers 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 coUeges with their worldly estates should be
excluded from them because they had not changed their
religion ; and Penn, who saw no evil in a liberal educa
tion for all classes, was equally anxious that his own
Alma Mater should be open to his children without any
sacrifice of their conscientious scruples. But consider
ing the violent and suspicious temper of the times, the
' Lawton'sMem,Penn.Hist.Soc.Mem.iii,Partii.220. ' Ibid,227.

WILLIAM PENN.
King shewed 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 customary at the eastern Uni
versity to grant honorary degrees at the recommenda
tion of the sovereign without the usual oaths or exami
nations. The Mohammedan secretary to the Morocco
embassy and several other persons connected with foreign
courts had been thus honoured. Native noblemen fre
quently received the distinction without examination,
— and Lightfoot had not been subjected to the oaths.
The King ordered the Vice-Chancellor to admit Alban
Francis, a Benedictine monk and Catholic missionary in
the district ; but Dr. Peachey was alarmed at the idea of
a papist getting into his Uttle senate, and made consci
entious objections. These objections James received as
a personal insult. He referred to the customs of the
University, and found there was no instance of the royal
mandate having been refused, — that examination had
frequently been dispensed vrith ; and as to the oaths, it
was not to be endured by such a man that a scholastic
body should dispute a right which the whole bench of
judges had declared to pertain to the crown. Peachey
was prosecuted and dismissed his office, — though not
without violent scenes occurring in the University.' The
Oxford affair was much more serious. The presidency
of Magdalen College, then one of the richest foundations
fri 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 Far
mer for election. But on inquiry being made it was
found that Farmer was not legally qualified, and was be
sides a man of ill repute. The Fellows of the College
= Mem. of James the Second, ii. 126-7, State Trials, xi, 1315-40.

324 WILLIAM PENN.
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 mean
time, 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 cause 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 FeUows 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- favour, 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 lyiless 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 Fellows of Magdalen ; from what
' WUmot's Life of Hough, 10 et seqq. There are several letters of
Hough's in the Brit. Mus., Add. Mss. 9828.
' Mem. of James the Second, ii. 124.

WILLIAM PENN. 325
he had heard of the dispute, he thought they might be
induced to make such concessions as would promote
peace and save the King's honour. 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 colle
gians cited their charters and appealed to their Protest
ant character. 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 Fellows see that he sympathised 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 testi
mony ; paper and pens were brought, and in their pre
sence 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 interview with the College, Penn was obliged by his
private concerns to quit Oxford; but the Fellows had
already learned to regard him as their friend and me
diator. Of this there can be no doubt. A prominent
3 Creech to Charlett, September 6. Ms. in BaUard's CoUection of Ms
Letters, xx. Bodleian Library. •• Ibid.
5 Sykes to Charlett, Sept. 7. Ms. BaUard's Mss. xxi.
^ Ibid. ; also Creech to the same, September 6. Ms,

326 WILLIAM PENN.
member of the coUege, Dr. Bailey, wrote to him after
he quitted Oxford, as one who had been so kind as to
appear in their behalf afready, and was reported 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 en
tertain of his conscientious subjects, and to secure them
from prejudice and oppression.' All the contemporary
accounts are conceived in the same spirit. Creech says
he appeared in their behalf,^ Sykes is equally emphatic.
Indeed the letter to the King would be decisive, were
there no other eridence. That letter emboldened the
Fellows to draw up a strong petition 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 Usten. Remonstrance and
entreaty were equally vain. Though Penn denounced
his measures as contrary to his often-avowed sentiments
in favour of liberty of conscience, and the Chief Jus
tice Herbert declared them against the law of the land,
he would not retreat.* He professed to believe it im
possible for churchmen to oppose the royal will. A
sincere bigot himself, and scrupulously truthful in his
words, he could not imagine, after the declaration of
unlimited obedience promulgated by the whole Univer
sity, that the members of a single college would dare to
appeal from their own dogma to the free instincts of
nature. " 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 serrices ;
and to secure his good-will and future mediation in thefr
' Bailey to Penn, October 3.
' Creech to Charlett, September 6, Ms. BaUard's Mss.
' Sykes to Charlett, Sept. 9. Ms. < State Trials, xi. 1063.

WILLIAM PENN. 327
cause. Dr. Hough and several Fellows were deputed to
wait on him after he had again joined the court circle
at Windsor. The particulars of the interview then
and there held are preserved by Hough himself.* The
conversation was continued for three hours. Penn ex
pressed 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 wUl 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 con
fessed 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 asked the Fellows, smiling, how they would
Uke 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 pos
sessed 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 Univer-
" Creech to Charlett, September 6, Ms, Ballard's Mss,
^ Hough to his cousin, October 9,
' Ibid, « Ibid,

328 WILLIAM PENN.
sity; the contest 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 thefr just
claims ; but should they go beyond their common rights
as Englishmen, and ask from royal favour what was not
their due, they would peril aU they had acquired. He
felt sure they would not be so senseless. At the same
time he told his risitors that he thought it unfair and
unwise in them to attempt to close the national Univer
sities to any class of Englishmen : others besides church
men wighed to give their children a learned education.
To this free counsel Hough made some demur ; and find
ing 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 educa
tional politics, he said he was vrilling 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 beforfe their incensed sovereign. They produced
several papers, 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
commission was sent down to Oxford, and the uncom
promising champions of church prerogative were all
' Hough to his cousin, Oct. 9. See Extra Chapter, The Macaviay
Charges. ^ Letters in Add. Mss. 9828. Mem. of James the Second, 119-124.
State Trials, xii, 1 112.

WILLIAM PENN. 329
ejected from the college. Yet they lost little by their
temporary removal. His self-love gratified, the King
soon afterwards restored the Fellows to their honours
and emoluments; and after the revolution Hough was
rewarded for his resistance with a bishopric.^
Affairs were now hastening to a crisis. When Dis
senters and Commonwealth men were the only parties
likely to fall under the frowns of authority, Oxford
could issue precepts of unconditional obedience ; but
when its own rights and privileges 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 free
dom of his own virgin forests.' In the very height of
his courtly greatness, he wrote to his friends in Phi
ladelphia in terms which no one can mistake : — The
Lord only, he said, knew the sorrow, 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 confused by his absence from Penn
sylvania, he could not desert the headstrong reformer in
his hour of need.^
^ Penn to Turner, September 18.
* Hazard's Register, iv. 105. ' * Ibid, iv, 134.
" " The Lord hath given me a great interest with the King — though
not so much as is said — and I confess I should rejoice to see England

330 WILLIAM PENN.
Not satisfied with private mediation, such as he
had exerted in the Oxford affair, he took up his pen
and wrote the elaborate and masterly pamphlet, " Good
Adrice to the Church of England, the Roman Catholic
and Protestant Dissenters"' — ^in which he shewed the
wisdom and policy, as well as Christian duty, of repeal-
. ing the Test Acts and penal laws against opinion. He
admitted frankly, as he had done to the Magdalen dele
gates, that if he had to choose a state church, he 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 great
est fear was that the King, under iU adrice, would take
some dangerous step against the Church, and ruin aU
his hopes. To counteract the rashness of his temper
he procured anonymous letters from influential persons,
which he read to him in private, vrithout 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 impu
nity in his attacks. But James would not believe : he
said he knew the spirit of the English Church. That
fixed, and the penal laws repealed that are now suspended. If it goes
well with England, it cannot go ill with Pennsylvania, But this I will
say, no temporal honour or profit can tempt me to decline from Pennsyl
vania, as unkindly used as I am ; and no poor slave in Turkey desires
more earnestly for deUverance than I do to be with you." Penn to Har
rison, Ms. (undated.)

WILLIAM PENN. 331
It would never dare to oppose his edicts he was cer
tain ; 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 flnding him so simple.
" What," he said, " does any man live up to the doctrines
he professes ? The churchmen may believe that resist
ance 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 so the bold expostulator bowed
his way out of the royal closet.*
In April of this eventful year James again renewed
the Declaration of Indulgence ; in the Novembe:^ follow
ing he promised 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 op
posed this insane proceeding; but nothing could now
save the infatuated monarch,^ Sancroft and six of the
bishops opposed this order ; they had now found out the
folly of their own doctrine of obedience, and the minis
try committed them to the To^ver. Penn saw that this
was the crisis of the question. In spite of the decision of
the judges, he had doubts as to the King's right to sus
pend the penal laws vrithout consent of Parliament ; and
1 Penn's Works, ii, 749. " Ibid. 771-3.
' Lawton's Memoirs. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 226.
' Ibid. 224, 5.
' Ibid. 230. Johnstone, May 23. Quo. Macintosh, 241,

332 WILLIAM PENN.
he struggled to bring more liberal councillors into office.
For a moment James inclined to adopt his riews ; he pro
posed to make Lawton a magistrate and a member of the
Lower -House ; he named Trenchard Lord Chief Justice
at Chester (the post he was raised to after the Revolu
tion) ; and sent his adviser to Lord Somers.' When the
Prince of Wales was born, Penn urged the King to seize
that gracious opportunity to set the prelates at liberty,
and pronounce 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 Revo
lution. Then Wilham came over with his Dutchmen,
— the professed friends of James abandoned him in his
hour of peril, — and finding treason in the court, in the
camp, and in his own family, he fied before the menaces
of his son-in-law into France.'
That these events were a source of pain and anxi
ety to Penn there can be no doubt. James had been
throughout a kind and indulgent guardian. He had
rescued him from the dungeon 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
favourable 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 Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Rhode Island,
the Jerseys, Carolina, and the Bahama Islands, he in
terposed his good offices and commanded Sunderland to
' Lawton's Mem. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 2'27.
2 Ibid. 230-1.
' Mem. of James the Second, ii. 275-77.

WILLIAfI PENN. 333
strike the name of Pennsylvania out of the list of con
demned provinces.*
As a Quaker and a democrat, Penn of course had
no sympathy 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
importance 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 — un
known in his own country — there was no hope that he
would risk the least unpopularity by helping to remove
them from the statute-book of England.^
* Sunderiand Letter-Book, 629, 337. Plant. Gen. Papers, B T. v. 32.
State- Paper Office. *,
« Harl. Mss. 6852, Art;. 26. « Penn to Popple, Oct. 24.

CHAPTER X.
1688-1694.
jgtglit antr JUotntns.
The advance of William and the King's flight were the
signals for a general movement. The tools, the favour
ites, the friends, the ministers of James, all thought it
prudent to retire from pubUc notice. Curious were the
means of escape and ludicrous the incidents attending
it in many instances. . The redoubtable Jefireys 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 en
treaty of his friends to provide for his personal safety
by flight. 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 honourable 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 honour and good of England, — and he was
not afraid to answer for it before all the princes in the
' Evelyn, Mem. i. G60,

WILLIAM PENN. 335
world. He would not change his lodgings even ; or keep
in the shade more than he had done in his day of fa
vour. As in the time of the late King, he appeared
daily at Whitehall ;2 which bold and open conduct soon
provoked inquiry. The Lords of the Council, who had
assumed the general management of affairs on James's
flight becoming known, resolving to pass him under
examination, 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 ex
citement : 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 repUed, 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 in
terests. 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 an
swer for before God and his country.'
The Lords were at a loss what to do. They were
themselves acting under a power which they had usurped ;
and were afraid to take a step which might lead to
failure and unpopularity. The only thing which ap
peared against the prisoner was his own confession of
attachment to the fugitive King. Yet to discharge so
» Besse, i, 139, ' Ibid.

336 WILLIAM PENN.
conspicuous a friend of James, they dared not, being
unaware how far the Prince of Orange might approve
of the step. They got over their difficulty by taking
security in 6000/. 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
prosecution 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 suspicion arose,
— low spies and informers dogged his footsteps, — he
was beUeved to be rich, and there were many about
the court who would gladly have shared in the spoUs of
his fortune, — and at the end of February the Lords in
council issued a warrant for his arrest.'^ But the in
tended 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 afready
fixed in his bond. However, not to sanction maUcious
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
justifled in giving himself up an imbailable prisoner,
seeing in how heavy a sum he was already bound over
' EUis Corresp. ii. 366.
2 Privy-Council Eegister, W. R. i. 24. Privy-Council Office.
' Penn to Shrewsbury, March 7, 1689.

WILLIAM PENN.

337

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 secret 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 beUeving himself to be personally safe,
he was 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, the governor of Penn
sylvania 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,
therefore, to get out to Philadelphia before the troubles
commenced in that region ; and began to make prepa
ration for the voyage.5 A few weeks later the unwel
come tidings were officiaUy conveyed to all the planta
tions. The war with France, which was to upset so
many colonial governments, had actually commenced.^
* Besse, i. 140.
* Penn to Friends in Pennsylvania, January 1689.
" Plant, Gen, Papers, April 16, State-Paper Office.
Z

338

WILLIAM PENN.

In the midst of these discouraging prospects, it was
some consolation to find the new King of England trug
to the tolerant principles which he had expressed in
the Hague conferences. At the risk of giving mortal
offence to the Church party, he pressed for an Act of
Toleration for Dissenters, and even declared it neces
sary to afford protection to the Papists.' His own tem
per was not merciful, but he was a politic prince. 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 existence of Dissenters was recognised.
Their chapels and meeting-houses were made legal.
They were no longer to be liable to fines and imprison
ments for not attending the Established Church. 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 in that day was not large.
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 in-
' Burnet, iv. 21, 2. Pari. Hist. v. 184.
2 Dartmouth's Note to Burnet, iv. 21,

WILLIAM PENN. 339
troduced into the bill in their behalf. Other dissent
ing bodies were required to take the usual oaths to the
government: — the foUowers of Fox were allowed to
make a simple declaration. It was enacted that licenses
should be taken out for the houses, chapels, or other
buUdings to be used for the performance of public wor
ship ; and that magistrates should have no power to re
fuse the license except on good and reasonable grounds.
Henceforth every man could worship God according to
his own notions, without the fear of stripes, stocks^fines
and imprisonment 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 Established Church alone enjoyed
the full rights of Englishmen. No Presbyterian, . no
Independent, no Quaker, could hold office — serve in
the army or navy — sit on the bench as a magistrate —
act as guardian to any ward — enter either of the na
tional Universities — or execute any legal trust. In rela
tion to the state he was still an outlaw. The Catholic
aud 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 feU 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 en-
Ughtened poUcy, when the dominant parties became
aware how great an accession of 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
' Pari, Hist, v. 473. * Burnet, iv. 16.

340

WILLIAM PENN.

band of military one day beset his house and placed
him under arrest. He had no conception of the cause
of this 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 correspond
ence with James Stuart. He denied the charge, and
appealed to the King in person.'
The Lords of the Council, now the rigorous perse
cutors 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 examined for two hours
in the royal presence,^
At the outset he was informed that his clandestine
correspondence was known to the King's government.
What clandestine correspondence? He knew of none.
An intercepted letter from King James was then shewn
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 favour 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 " re
sentments" in the intercepted note puzzled the council.
What resentments were those which he desired ? "1
cannot tell," said Penn ; " but I suppose he vrishes me
to assist in bringing about his restoration." The Lords
were startled at this frank interpretation. He could not,
he continued, very well avoid being suspected of enter
taining such a thought; but he could and would take
' Besse, i. 140. ' Gerard Croes6's History of Quakers.
3 Ibid.

WILLIAM PENN. 341
care not to give just grounds for the suspicion. He con
fessed that towards the person of the exile he had felt
a sincere friendship ; and having loved him in his pro
sperity, 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 vrilling to render the exile any
serrice 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 attachments. In England only a few months, he
was already tired 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 Sun
derland came back and regained the King's confidence,
he urged him to confide more in the Whigs. " No,"
said WiUiam, " though I beUeve 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. San
croft gave the signal, and the inferior clergy were onlj-
too ready to follow his example. It therefore behoved
the sagacious prince not to throw away a chance of sup
port among the Dissenters. For his own part he would
willingly have set Penn at liberty without conditions ;
but the members of the council interposed, and to gra
tify them he allowed him to be bound over to appear
in Trinity term and answer any charges which. might
* Onslow's note, Burnet, iv, 6.
^ Buckingham's Works, ii. xiv. et seqq.

342 WILLIAM PENN.
then be preferred against him. At the appointed time
lie 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 -vrith a small force to
hold the insurrection in check until William could him
self cross the seas with a larger army. The general
made no head against the insurgent troops, and it was
with difficulty that he maintained his ovrai position in
the country. The ex-monarch counted much on the fac
tious 'disputes in London, and strongly urged his friends
to be active in his cause. This policy only made Wil
liam more determined to secure every place of power
and trust in the hands of his own adherents. The local
organisation of towns was interfered -with ; and though
a similar invasion 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. Continental notions in other
matters came in with the continental prince. WilUam
no doubt had many foes, open and secret ; but it is not
probable that any King of English blood and education
would have dreamt, in the 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 renewed the days
of Cromwell in that unhappy country. Queen Mary
was charged with full powers in his absence, and she
displayed more vigour and capacity in those critical and
perilous times than her subjects had ever dreamt she

' Besse, i. 140,
' Warrant-Books, xxii. 113. State- Paper Office.

WILLIAM PENN. 343
possessed. The French fleet, fighting in the interests of
James, had engaged with and vanquished the Dutch and
English ships, and even threatened to land on the coasts
of Devonshire or Cornwall to rally the discontents which
prevaUed 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 promptitude and
vigour. She called out the militia ; sent the defeated
admiral. Lord Torrington, to the Tower ; appeased the
rising wrath of the States-General ; and seized the per
sons of all whom she had reason to think disaffectgd 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 Sancroft 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 government; 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 gave
' Ibid. xxii. 263. A warrant to have four seals made for private lettres
de cachet. ' Burnet, iv. 95.
» Ibid, iv. 96, 7. « Ibid. iv. 122.

344 WILLIAM PENN.
the signal to depart, on which the captain dropped
down the river. At Gravesend, by the contrivance of
Carmarthen, there was an officer of the press-gang
in search of sailors, who, on boarding the vessel in the
regular 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 unintelUgible ; but
enough remained to reveal the fact of a plot, and to
impUcate several persons of rank and infiuence in the
suspicion of being concerned in it. A proclamation was
immediately issued for the arrest of Lord Clarendon,
the Bishop of Ely, WiUiam 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 scaffold.^ ElUot knew nothing and was
discharged. Ashton died Uke a man ; Preston whined
and shuffled, pretending to be innocent himself, but try
ing to impUcate others in the guilt of conspfracy, or at
least to involve them in the suspicion of being danger
ously disaffected.' Clarendon, through the good offices
of powerful friends, aided by the important circum
stance of his being the Queen's cousin, was ultimately
pardoned and set at Uberty on the easy condition of re-
' Burnet, iv. 127.
2 State Trials, xii. 646-822.
' Dartmouth's Note. Burnet, iv. 164.
* Rochester's Letters in Life of Burnet, vi, 300. Own Times, iv. 127.
5 Penn to the Eari of Nottington, July 31, 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 laboured under the effects of

WILLIAM PENN. 345
maining 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 sur
render 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 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 bre
thren. 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
poUcy, as Penn was to the French war,^
In the face of a war with France, the royal coun
cillors were anxious to bring the powers of the great
American proprietors into more absolute control of the
crown. The Stuart and Tudor kings had given away
vast deserts to their creditors and favourites ; but these
deserts had now grown up into states, and the new ruler
desfred 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 revision towards
the close of the late reign, were not restored vrithout
mutilations and amendments. The free charter of New
a surfeit and relapse, which was long before I knew of this mark of the
government's displeasure. It is not 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 therefore I humbly beg to know when and
where I shall wait upon thee. Thy faithful friend, — W, Penn."
^ Comp. Ralph, ii. 260 dt seqq. with Burnet, iv. 127.
7 Plant, Gen, Papers, May 18, 1689, State-Paper Office.

346 WILLIAM PENN.
England was robbed of many of its most Uberal clauses ;'
and because the Quaker colonists of Pennsylvania were
not very forward to transfer thefr 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 re
sumption of the province.2 Maryland was in a simUar
state of jeopardy. As a Catholic, Lord Baltimore was
equally out of favour at court with his rival, — and on
account of the delay which occurred in proclaiming
the new sovereign, he too was threatened with the de
privation 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-ques
tion still continued 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 prorince ; as he had
been now several times arrested on mere suspicion, he
felt that his life, to say nothing of his personal freedom,
was no longer safe in England. Spies and informers
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. Affairs were also
going grievously wrong in the province in consequence
of his remaining so long away.^ The war had com
menced. New York was exposed to the incursions of
the French, and the people of New England were burn
ing with the desfre to attack and conquer New France.
Meetings were being held in the chief towns to organise
' Mather, p. 9.
^ Pennsylvania Papers, Oct. 4, 1689; April 10, 1690. State-Paper
Office. ' Proprietory Papers, vii, L. 38, State-Paper^Office.
¦• Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem, i. 182,

WILLIAM PENN. 347
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 warUke
ardour which gladdened the stern and martial soul of
William had spread from Massachusetts to the Caroli-
nas. 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 extraordi
nary measures would need to be adopted for the secu
rity 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 practical 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 dis
position of the Quaker majority only added zeal to the
instinctive energy of the young and the unconrinced. A
war party was rapidly gaining ground in the colony .7
Penn felt how necessary it was that he should be on
« Penn to Turner, Oct. 4, 1689.
" Pennsyl. Papers, Jan. 16, 1690-1. State-Paper Office.
' Correspondence of Col. Fletcher, April and May, New- York Papers.
Pennsyl. Papers, July 16— Oct, 28, State-Paper Office,

348 WILLIAM PENN.
the spot to appease these scruples, and to regulate this
growing enthusiasm, England had no further need of
his services ; and his residence there had already cost
him six thousand pounds — the greater part of which
had been given away in charities, in gaolers' fees, and
in other legal expenses attendant on the Uberation 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 dispers'ed, when a
party of officers arrived on the ground with warrants to
arrest the speaker on another charge of treason and con
spiracy. But he was gone.'
William Fuller, an infamous wretch who Uved by
accusing persons of distinction of monstrous crimes, to
get himself out of the King's Bench prison came for
ward 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 go
vernment for his arrest.* To have given himself up to
the myrmidons of the law under the circumstances 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,^ —
' Penn to Hugh Roberts, Dec. 6, 1689.
^ Friends' Register. Penn to Lord Rochester. Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem.
iv. 197. ^ Besse, i. 140. * Pari. Hist. v. 672.
' See his wretched pamphlets, " A brief Discovery of the true Mo-

WILLIAM PENN. 349
and, like Dangerfield in the day of his unblushing per
fidy, he stood high in the opinion of those to whom he
was useful.^ The governor saw that the only course
which he could take consistent with his honour 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 councU ; as during
the whole of his thirty months' retirement he continued
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 known for his humane and forgiving tem
per, — he was unfortunately just the sort of quarry that
was desfred 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 warrants 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 supposed to have been committed !'
ther of the Prince of Wales, &c," 1699, and his " Humble Appeal,"
1706. " Pari. Hist. v. 672, 3.
' See the Corresp. in Penn. Hist, Soc, Mem, iv, 192 et seqq,
» Penn's Letter. Ibid, iv, 199.

350 WILLIAM PENN.
Only a few months after this accusation was made on
oath, the character of Fuller was brought, by another
train of circumstances, under notice of the House of
Commons ; when, after a careful sifting of the eridence
in his behalf, it was resolved that he was a notorious
cheat, rogue, and false accuser, that he had scandaUsed
the magistrates and government, and abused the House.'
Penn had judged rightly : " I know my enemies," he
said, "their true character and history, and their intrin
sic 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 evU days.
Domestic misfortunes, heavier than all else, feU on his
devoted head. His wife GuU sickened with the hourly
sense of her husband's wrongs — and was nigh to death.'
The House of Commons demanded of the crown of
ficers that Fuller should be prosecuted in the courts of
law ; and, after a fair trial, he was found guUty of im
posture and false accusation, and sentenced to the pillory.
His whole life was a Ue 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, con-ricted 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.*
Yet, even when the vices of their witness had wholly
discredited his oath, there were those about King Wil
liam's person who could persuade him not to recaU the
warrants of arrest. His own avarice and love of power
' Com. Jour. Feb 20.
2 Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iv. 200.
' Coll. Works, i. 231.
' State Trials, xiv. 518-35, While in the pUlory at Charing Cross,

WILLIAM PENN. 351
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 wilUngly Ustened to the advice of those who pressed
him to annul the colonial charters, and establish one cen
tral and imperial seat of government in America. But to
give a colourable pretext for this illegal act, it was
necessary to keep the governor of Pennsylvania in the
shade; to hold the threat of a prosecution — which, it was
well known, could not be maintained except 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 resist
ance. To the importunities of Penn's friends, he there
fore answered evasively; he was 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 foUowed him into
his retirement with clamours and vehement abuse, this
tribute to his merits was the more 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 cle
mency 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
and again at Temple Bar, he was much beaten by the mob ; at the Royal
Exchange he was used more leniently. Annals of Queen Anne, i. 63.
* Penn's Letters to Romney, with the answers endorsed. Penn. Hist.
Soc. Mem. iv. 192-5.

352 WILLIAM PENN.
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 government, and annexed it to that of New York.^
So far as the King was concerned, the question seems
to have been decided on purely mUitary grounds. No
case was made out against Penn ; no instance of incapa
city 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 adrisable ; 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, Connecticut, the Jerseys, Pennsylvania and
Delaware.' Still the blow was crushing.
On every side were gathering darkness and despafr.
His whole fortune had been expended on the colony;
he had maintained the government out of his private
purse, so as not to burden the infant settlement ; a hun
dred and twenty thousand pounds, an enormous sum in
those days, did not cover his losses.* So long as his Eng
lish property remained — while his family stood above
mere want — he cared Uttle about these sacrifices. But
poverty had come down on him suddenly. His Irish
estates had been devastated and ruined by the war;^ what
remained of them was put among the Estates of Ouflaws,
' Penn to Rochester. Penn, Hist. Soc. Mem. iv. 197,
2 Privy-Council Registers, W. R. ii. 346, 7, Privy-Council Office,
' New- York Papers, April 2, State-Paper Office,
* Penn to Popple, Oct, 24, 1688,

WILLIAM PENN. 353
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 out
lawry 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 position of gover
nor of a province, he had fallen to that of a private in
dividual ; ruined in his estate, deprived of his honours,
suspected by the government, the prey of a rapacious
lawyer, and deeply involved in debt. The personal in
convenience, however, was the least of the evil. Most of
all he was alarmed for his model state. Colonel Fletcher,
a mere soldier, coarse, abrupt, and unlettered, was an en
tire stranger to the Founder's ideas and intentions ; and
there was only too much reason 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 dnd the government belonged 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

* Penn to Turner, Feb, 4, 1693. Penn to Roberts, Dec, 6, 1689.
^ Penn's Letter. Penn. Hist. Soc, Mem, iv, 199.
' Penn's Statement, Ms, A A

354

WILLIAM PENN.

was 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 Philadelphia, he wrote, advising them to insist with
wisdom and moderation on the observance of their char
ters. 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 — vain arguments to
such a man as the colonel — but by shewing 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 Penn
sylvania violated all his notions of propriety. When the
assembly objected to this sweeping measure, he shewed
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 com
missions from the proprietor at once withdrew from the
assembly,' Before he went in person to Philadelphia,
he had written urgently for supplies : the Quakers re
turned 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 with a long list of grievances. No terms could
be made : they would not give up a single law to revi
sion. Fletcher felt himself committed ; and to save his
own honour, he proposed to re-enact the whole code as it
^ Pennsyl. Papers, Dec. 5, 1692. State-Paper Office.
2 Extracts from Penn's CoiTCsp. attested by Col. Fletcher. Pennsyl.
Papers, vol. i. State-Paper Office. ' Minutes, i. 360.

WILLIAM PENN. 355
then stood ; but the assembly would not consent. " We
are but men who represent the people," said John White,
" and we 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 ob
tain 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 legis
lative powers, the assembly granted a tax of a penny in
the pound, — stipulating, as a salve to tender consciences,
that not a farthing of it should be dipt in blood. A per
manent 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 new command, Fletcher
wrote a letter to the King, urging, in the strongest terms,
the impossibility of gaining a regular war-vote in Penn
sylvania, and praying him to consider the propriety of
forming that colony. New York, the Jerseys, and Con
necticut into one state, with a general 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 went so far as to order the attornev-
general rigorously to inspect his patent, and see if some
legal fiaw could not be found in it which would furnish
a pretext for its withdrawal.^
This alarming proposition was made just at a time
when Penn needed soma startling intelligence to rouse
him from the apathy caused by domestic affliction. Guli
was dead — the "one often thousand, the wise, chaste,
* New-York Papers, Feb. 14, April 22, 1693. State-Paper Offices
5 ibid. Sept. 15, State-Paper Office.
« Privy-Council Register, W. R. iii. 334. Privy-Council Office.

356 WILLIAM PENN.
humble, modest, constant, 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 hus
band, and she died in the prospect of his restoration to
his former rank and influence.
In the later part of the year 1692, his courtly friends
r— 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 deprived 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 ; William answered freely that
Penn was his old acquaintance as well as theirs ; that
he had nothing to say against him ; and that he was at
Uberty to go about his affairs just as he pleased. The
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 intimacy with Penn. Trenchard was glad to
convey these tidings to his old benefactor ; he spoke with
feeling of the unsolicited kindness he had received from
him in the dark times of Monmouth and Sidney; and
was pleased to have it in his power to shew that he
was not ungrateful. But Penn was not content that the
matter should end in this private way. The act of grace
looked Uke a pardon: — he wanted an acquittal. He
asked his powerful friends to procure for him a public

' P6nn to Turner, Feb, 27, 1693.
» Penn to Markham, Feb. 4, 1693,

WILLIAM PENN. 357
hearing ; and in November a council Was called at West
minster, before which he defended his conduct so com
pletely to the King's satisfaction, that he was absolved
from every charge, past and present,^ The reparation
came too late. Guli was now too far gone for recovery ;
but the thought of her husband being free once more,
with no stain on his name, cheered her descent into the
grave. She died on the twenty-third of the following
February at Hoddesden, and was buried with the simple
rites of the Society to which she belonged at Jordans
in the vicinity of Beaconsfleld.'
During her prolonged illness, Penn had turned his
attention to the policy of nations, and given up his lei
sure to the consolations of philosophy. Two of his most
remarkable works are owing to these studies : one of
these contains detached summaries of his experiences
of men and things, and assumes the form of a book of
maxims on the conduct of life — ^ after the manner, but
not in the spirit, of Rochefoucauld.* Speaking of him
self 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 world, observed wherein he has
gone wrong or wasted good effort, — and has come to the
conclusion, that if he had to live his life over again, he
could serve God, his neighbour and himself better than
he had done, and have seven precious yea,rs of time to
spare, though he was not an old man yet, and had cer
tainly not been one of the idlest.'' A few specimens of
his maxims will suffice to shew the character of the whole
collection. — " We are in pain to make our children.
' Friends' Register. Penn -wrote a touching account of her last days.
Coll. Works, i. 140 et seqq.
* Some Fruits of SoUtude. Coll. Works, i. 818. ' Ibid. 819.

358 WILLIAM PENN.
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 jus
tice." — " Love labour : 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 free
dom." — " It can be no honour to maintain what it was
dishonourable 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 injus
tice." — " 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 thefr posts at their
peril ; if princes wish to over-ride them, let tbem shew
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 !'
His other work was still more original in its form
and substance. 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 Paris have grown in our own
day. In the first place, he inquired into the polity of na
tions, — the causes which lead to war, — the conditions ne
cessary to peace. He found that the great aim of states-
> CoUected Works, i. 836.

WILLIAM PENN. 359
manship was to secure peace and order ; and he demon
strated that these ends were to be obtained more readily
and certainly by justice than by war. But the question
occurred — How can justice be obtained for nations ex
cept by force ? He reviewed the history of society, and
he found that in the partially organised body-politic of
early times individuals 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 civilised form, the sepa
rate individuals made laws and bound themselves to sub
mit 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
Teutons, 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 dis
order, — so he proposed that Europe should have its
Congress, Before this sovereign assembly he would have
had all disputes between nation and nation decided, with
out the vulgar interference of the sword, by the wisest
andjustest men, acting as the representatives of every
state : its decisions to be final, and its judgments en
forced by the united power of Europe,' After laying
out the great features of his scheme, hfe considered the
details and practical action of such a Congress. He
referred to the designs of Henri Quatre in favour of a
general league; and proved by the example of the United
Provinces that the idea was far from being visionary, if
2 This admirable tract is not included in the folio edition of his works.
It was t-wice printed in 1693. ' Peace of Europe, sec. iv.

360 WILLIAM PENN.
princes and statesmen would only take the question up
in earnestness of spirit.' The proposal attracted much
attention at the time, — and is now interesting to the
friends of peace and international arbitration, both as a
piece of history and as a comfort to such as fear to en
tertain any opinion which has not age in its favour.^
These works were already finished when Gull's death
put an end for a time to his intellectual labours. He
was only roused from his long torpor of soul by the in
telligence from America that Colonel Fletcher had pro
posed to the King to abolish the separate charter of
Pennsylvania, and to form one imperial government out
of the whole range of northern colonies. This was to
destroy at one blow the great purpose of his existence.
The war pressed; the French were rictorious on the
continent ; the governor of New York would not answer
for his province vrithout a change; and the King was
thought to be only too vrilling to grasp at any tolerable
plea for regaining the military powers which his prede
cessor had given away so rashly. Penn believed that if
he were only in America, his presence would reconcUe
parties now at variance, and put an end to these danger
ous 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 hundred pounds for necessary expenses ! The Irish
estates had ceased for the moment to yield a shilling
of rental ; and his unfaithful stewards, the Fordes, pre
tended they could hardly make his English property
cover the cost of his simple household.* In the depth
of his difficulty and distress, a thought occm-red to him :
' Peace cf Europe, sec. xi. ' Besse, i. 141.
= Penn to Turner, Feb. 4, 1693. ' Penn's Statement. Ms.
* Penn to Roberts, Feb. 17, 1698,

WILLIAM PENN. 361
— he had spent a princely fortune in his colony; the
million or so of acres already sold had a small quit-rent
reserved, — 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 often 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 co
lony 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 pro
posal, pledging himself, in the event of its success, to set
sail immediatelyvwith a large party of emigrants, who
were only waiting 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 re
duced.^ It is an eternal disgrace to the settlers that
they evaded and postponed this request — too mean to
comply with grace, too cowardly to refuse without shuf
fling 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 opportunity 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
° Penn to Turner, Feb. 4, 1693.
' Fletcher's Correspondence with Government. Pennsylvania Papers,
vol. i. State-Paper Office.

362 WILLIAM PENN.
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 confidential friends he com
plained bitterly of this insulting usage. A man not in
spired 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 hand
ful of settlers who were to become a nation; and he
pursued his own forward course, hurt but not daunted
by the ungracious incident. Unable to get out to Ame
rica, 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 dignities at
tached. In the meantime he drew up a formal petition
to the Queen — William being abroad— praying her ma
jesty to order an inquiry into the whole train of facts
alleged by him to have occurred in reference to the co
lony, and if her majesty was satisfied, to grant him a
full re-instatement of his rights and properties.'
Mary received this petition with favour. The wise
and virtuous Lady Ranelagh had prepared the royal
mind — by a just representation of Penn's merits and
services — the purity of his conduct and the unquestion
able nature of his rights — for a candid hearing of his
complaint.* She referred the petition to the council,
who consulted the board of trade and the law officers
of the crown ; and finding no legal fiaw in the charter
' Pennsylvania Papers, July 6, 1694. State-Paper Office.
2 Penn's Memorandum. Penn. Hist. Soc, Mem. iv. 196,
* PrivyCouncil Registers, W, R, iii. 444-5, 453-4.

WILLIAM PENN. 363
itself, nor any subsequent act of his which could be tor
tured 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 assurances on those points which had led to the
original suspension.* The Lords of Trade and Planta
tion 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 govern
ment 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 battles, and had taken the important fortresses of
Namur and Mons. 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 bre
thren. 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 maintain
ing a passive attitude under the tomahawks of the Iro-
• Pennsylvania Papers, July 6, The reports may be compared, July
12, August 9.
' Ibid, August, 1-3.

364 WILLIAM PENN.
quois. He promised 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 bear
ing arms ; and he had little fear of raising the contingent
that might be fixed by the crown as the proper quota of
Pennsylvania. But in case he should meet with a suc
cessful 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 Coun
cil 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 favourite son, a youth of de
licate frame, but endowed with rare genius and nobility
of mind, was seized with slow and cureless consump
tion. In his poverty and exile, the world had frowned
on him, beUeving 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
' Privy-Council Registers, W. R. iii. 466. Privy-Council Office.
" Pennsylvania Papers, August 3. State-Paper Office.
' Ibid. August 9. Privy-Council Registers, W. R. ii, 454, 6, Privy-
Council Office.

WILLIAM PENN. 365
words — his enejnies 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,
Tillotson and Locke. Many of his own sect for a time
looked coldly on his sufferings ; and it does not appear
that their indifference was entirely removed until he
was restored to his worldly rank. They had no com
plaint 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,*
* Thomas Lowe to Margaret Fox, Ms.

CHAPTER XI.
1694-1701.
Clit %nnts of ©romfee.
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
ardour of the moment he overlooked the fact, that if
monarchy be sometimes vindictive, republics are not
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 nei
ther 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. Repub
lican as it appeared, the Charter had a foreign and ir-
reconcileable element in its own author. Towards the
settlers in his province Penn stood exactly in the posi
tion 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
1 Penn to 'Sidney, Oct. 13, 1681. ,
° Logan Corresp. Phil, Friend, xviii. 345 et seqq.

WILLIAM PENN. * 367
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 : they had
acquired too much to be satisfied with less than all.
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 indepen
dent and irresponsible. The ruler had to govern a free
people by hereditary and indefeasible right; how, wise
and noble soever his aims might be, the Assembly never
forgot that he was their master ; though he stood be
tween them and the iron rule at home, they could not
respect, and would barely tolerate his authority.^ From
the foundation of the colony 'to the last day of his ex
istence, his life was one great struggle with the intract
able 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 im
prudence led him into trouble in the colony — at an
other, joined his English enemies in their efforts to pro
cure a forfeiture of the charter,' To force alone would
they submit. Fletcher's government was still more
galling to them than their proprietor'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 feu
dalism and democracy, even in their best forms, cannot
exist together. There was no single governor, from
' Quarry Corresp. in Proprietory Papers, Sept. 10, 1697 et seqq.
State- Paper Office.
• Privy- Council Register, W. R. 457. Privy-Council Office,,

368 • WILLIAM PENN.
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 Revolution.
With Springett in a decline, Penn was unwilling to
go in 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 go
vernment.' 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. Every
thing that tender nurture, parental watchfulness and
medical skill could do for him was done; but in spite
of all, he grew worse and worse: — and finally expfred
in 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 William; 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 had inherited the
virtues as well as the names of his joint ancestry; to
his father's strong sense of political liberty, his fervour
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 favourite 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 admiral: he was bold
' Proprietory Papers, Kov. 24. — Pennsylvania Papers, Dec 14. State-
Paper Office.
2 Friends' Register. » Genealogy in Penn GaskeU Mss,

WILLIAM PENN. 369
and self-willed as a boy ; quick in quarrel ; full of pride
.and worldly ambition ; sensuous in his tastes, and scorn
ful in his demeanour. Yet he had fine qualities : — he
was generous even to a fault, — ^had a keen sense of hon
our, — ^had a turn and a capacity for business, — and that
dauntless courage which seemed to be the birthright .of
his race.® From an early period he had shewn his dis
taste to the simple routine of his father's house : and he
sought in the world the iUicit pleasures which were de
nied 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 second marriage. Hannah, daughter of Thomas Cal-
lowhill 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 extraordinary spirit, and made an admirable
manager and wife. They had issue four sons — Dennis,
Richard, Thomas, and John — and two daughters — Mar
garet 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 Ame
rica. As there was now no pressing necessity for his
voyage to Pennsylvania, Colonel Markham discharging
his function of lieutenant-governor with vigour, wisdom,
and success, — Penn continued to Uve quietly in Eng
land, varying the ordinary routine of Ufe by a series of
* Ms. Autobiography of Lady Springett.
* Logan Corresp. Phil. Friend, xviii. 354-363.
« Roger Haydook, 215. ? Penn GaskeU Mss.
B B

370 WILLIAM PENN.
religious tours and by writing various works of con
troversy.' His daughter Letty was now growing up
to womanhood, and she as well as his wife had a dis
inclination to remove permanently, as he had always
intended, 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 proprietorial into imperial colo
nies, found out and courted every person of influence
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 cohesion and importance to the
floating masses of discontent. Thefr attacks were in
reality meant for and made on the governor and his
rights ; but they did not dare to accuse him directly.
His lieutenant was fairer game ; and against Markham
they revived old charges, and invented new, untU the
Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations were as
heartily tired of their complaints as Penn himself was
of answering them. Quarry's chief reliance lay in his
official reports, in which he boldly charged Markham
with favouring smugglers and pirates, to the manifest
injury of the royal revenue. The lieutenant-governor
defended himself against these charges with spfrit and
' The most notable of these were: — 1. " A Brief Account of the Rise
and Progress of the People called Quakers," 1694; 2. " A Visitation to
the Jews," 1694; 3, "A Few Words to the House of Commons," 1695;
4, "The Truth of God cleared," 1698; 5. "Primitive Christianity re
vived," 1696.
" Proprietory Papers, Sept. 10 et seqq. The Quarry Corresp. is of

WILLIAM PENN. 371
success; at least his explanations were for a long time ad
mitted. 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-buildert
With that passion for converting the great which had
led their brethren to Rome, to Adrianople, and to Ver
sailles, in search of royal proselytes, Thomas Story and
another friend, hearing that the ruler of Muscovy could
be easily approached, went to him for the purpose of
delivering what they believed to be the new gospel. 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 interpreter.
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 German with great fluency, that a new fleld 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 Men-
zikoff, 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
. vrith the young and sagacious prince than the simple-
hearted Story. With the practical turn of mind which
distinguished hira 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
considerable interest for the early history of the colonies : American writers
have little acquaintance with the treasures of our State- Paper Office,
3 Proprietory Papers, Sept. 10, 1697— Sept. 12, 1699. State-Paper
Office. The latter part is particularly voluminous and violent,
* Penn to the Czar, PhU, Friend, vii, 45,

372 WILLIAM penn;
the rest ? Story had told him they could not bear arms
against their neighbour. 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 pre
sence 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 vrished, he said,
to learn in a few words what the Quakers taught and
practised, that he might be able to distinguisTi 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 — with
out which faith is false, worship formality, and religion
hypocrisy."' Peter was not converted, but he was inter
ested ; as he knew a little EngUsh, he began to attend
occasionally at the meetings of Friends at Deptford,
where he behaved very politely and socially, standing
up or sitting down as it suited the convenience and com
fort of others. Some of the Quaker preachers evidently
regarded their imperial listener as a convert to the faith :
they were probably not aware that, as an acute observer
of human manners, it was "his humour to attend the reU
gious services of all sects and denominations.^
The complaints which were continually arriving from
Colonel Quarry, and the rising discontents in the colony
fomented by his malice, kept Penn in a state of unceas
ing agitation and alarm. One charge against his cousin
and lieutenant was not cleared away before another was
' Penn to the Czar, Phil. Friend, vii, 45. ' Story's Journal, 126, 494.
' Proprietory Papers, September 22— Oct, 8-16 et seqq. State-Paper
Office. '' His answer to the accusations of Col. Quarry and Mr. Randolph,

WILLIAM PENN. 373
started ; so that his enemies in the royal council had
almost daily opportunities of poisoning the king's mind
on that sorest of all subjects — the revenue.' The go
vernor felt an unlimited confidence in the faith and
purity of Markham, a confidence which 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 Philadel
phia, and he prudently began to make preparations for
the voya,ge. 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 admiral 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 support ; and hearing that Thomas Story
and John Everott were going 'into the island on a reli
gious 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 passengers 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
presented to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, is masterly and con
vincing. — America and West-Indies Papers, March 1, 1700 (45 folios').
State- Paper Office.
* Penn's Statement. Ms. ° Besse, i. 144.

374 WILLIAM PENN.
encourage in their minds a friendly disposition towards-
his religious brethren. An incident occurred on his
journey from Dublin to Shangarry Castle, in County
Cork, characteristic of the man and the times. When at
Wexford he gave a promise to some friends of Water
ford 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 Waterford,
about the time of dinner. Ordering thefr horses to be
ferried across the Nore while they were dining, the tra
vellers returned to the tavern, and refreshed themselves
after their long ride.'
After the thorough subjugation of Ireland by Wil
liam and his generals, the Parliament of that dirided
country, anxious to insult and exasperate the conquered
Catholics, had passed a bUl, by which Papists were for
bidden 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 inserted, allowing any
man to seize a horse belonging to a Catholic, or on which
a Catholic at the time might be riding, and to retain it
on condition of tendering flve guineas for it to the nearest
magistrate. The poor Papist was interrupted in his jour
neys and his business — for all travelUng was then done
on horseback-^ — ^insulted in the streets by haring the value
of his nag questioned, and oftentimes by being made to
dismount in public, and go before a magisfrate. MUitary
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 tovra on their high
bloods, two young officers of Colonel Eclin's regiment —
Lieutenant Wallis and Cornet Montgomery — thought
' Story's Journal, 132.

WILLIAM PENN. 375
proper to imagine that the strangers were Papists, and
their horses lawful game; so, while the unsuspecting tra
vellers 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, — returning after the meeting to recover his
property. But on the boat being drawn along the water-
edge, half a dozen dragoons leapt into it, and pushed
away. Some officers and other persons were ' standing
on the quay, watching this unmannerly exhibition ; and
to them Penn apphed — 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 interfere.
" 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 con
tinued 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 behaviour. 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 Waterford ; and he, seeing that their
requests were made under a proper sense of the wrong
" Ibid.

376 WILLIAM PENN.
they had done, wrote again to the Lord Justices, to so
Ucit pardons for them on account 'of their want of age
and experience.'
While residing at Shangarry Castle — which he had
recovered from the list of Outlawed Estates — he saw and
conversed 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 beUeved ;
and to meet and dissipate these reports, 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 opinions. The writer of course again de
fended his former tracts, and there tbe 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 magis
trates of Pennsylvania sweUed louder and louder. Mark
ham was a prompt and a proud officer : in his hands the
dignity of the government certainly suffered no diminu
tion. 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 engaged in a malicious conspiracy
against his own honour and his employer's interests. He
' Story's Journal, 132.
^ " The Quaker a Christian," " Gospel Ti-uths," and the eighth and
ninth chapters of his " Primitive Christianity revived." Besse, i. 144.
'¦> Besse, i. 145,

WILLIAM PENN. 377
refused to pass the Jamaica act against pirates or smug
glers, although he had received it directly from White
haU, with a request from the Board of Trade that it
should be made law.* Randolph, one of the commissioners
appointed for the crown, he cast into prison for insolence
and outrage ;^ and, finally, he allowed David Loyd, the
attorney-general for the colony, to use some expres
sions 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 car
ried 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 endeavoured to ruin the admiralty offi
cers, and even threatened their lives. A pirate vessel,
he said, had appeared in the river, but Colonel Mark
ham would not lend assistance to capture it ; and such
of the pirates as were taken prisoners were merely con
fined in a tavern, the Quakers not being wUling to send
them to tiie 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 preriously obtained — his
friend Popple being secretary to the Lords of Trade —
had prepared Penn to expect this measure ; and he had
prudently signified to the council his own intention of
* Plant. Gen. Papers, Aug. 26, 1698. State-Paper Office,
' Proprietory Papers, August 8, 9. State- Paper Office.
« Ibid. Dec. 1— Mar. 1, 1699. State- Paper Office. ' Ibid. June 6.
' Proprietory Papers, August 31, State-Paper Office.

378 WILLIAM PENN.
starting for Philadelphia in a few weeks. On the same
day, therefore, in which Markham was deposed, another
Order in Council was made, approring of certain sugges
tions from the Board of 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 pre
pared to take his wife and family — with the exception of
his son WUliam, 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 yellow 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 aU to
visit his cousin — a proper attention under the circum
stances 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 believing 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 thanks
giving.'^ ' Prop. Papers, Aug. 31 and Sept. 12. S. P. O. ^ gesse, i. 145.
^ Story was in Philadelphia at the time, and has left a vivid descrip
tion of its effects in his Journal. " Great was the fear that fell upon aU
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 extrava
gant feasting to excite the lusts and desires of the flesh ; but every fiioe

WILLIAM PENN. 379
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 officers and council that, as they were anxious to
preserve his rights and their own honour, they must use
every endeavour to put down this illegal traffic. He
placed himself in friendly communication with Colonel
Quarry — 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-estabUsh harmony and activity between the
two services. The revenue agent was mollified 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,
Quarry 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 offend
ing officers had been displaced, that the pirates were
being pursued with vigour, 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
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, x. 92, ' Watson's Annals, 24.
^ Americaand West-Indies Papers, Dec. 23, 1699. State-Paper Office.
' Plant. Gen. Papers, Sept. 12. State- Paper Office.
' Proprietory Papers, March 6, 1700. State-Paper Office, '

380 WILLIAM PENN.
the general assemlaly together some weeks before the
usual time of meeting. 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 eril 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 somewhat 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
Vemon and the Board of Trade a statement of his doings
in behalf of the crown interests ;* and in due time re
ceived 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 famUy at Pennsbury, his
country mansion, near the Falls of Trenton on the Dela
ware. As this was the chief place of his residence while
in the colony, and had always been designed as his ulti
mate home, some account of the estate and of his daily
ways of life as they can now be recovered from old letters,
anecdotes, and traditions, 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 ab&de of chieftains
' America and West-Indies Papers, Feb. 26, 1700. State-Paper Office.
- Proprietory Papers, Feb. 27. State- Paper Office.
' Ibid, August 23.

WILLIAM PENN. 381
for the peculiar character of its situation : affluents from
the great river bending no less than three several times
round it, in the ruder ages of warfare constituted an
almost impregnable natural defence. When the estate
was first laid out by Markham, 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 out
houses were so disposed as to produce an agreeable 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.*
-¦ Sherman Day's Historical Collections, 153,
' Ibid, 164. 6 Watson, 67,
? Penn. Hist, Soc. Mem, i. 112 ; and ditto, iii. Pt. ii. 94. " Ibid,

382 WILLIAM PENN.
A simple but correct taste was observable throughout ;
the interior ornaments were chaste, and the oaken capital
at the porch was appropriately decorated with the carv
ing of a vine and clusters of grapes. The more elabo
rate of these decorations had been sent from England
by the governor.' The gardens were the 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 skilful gardeners he could
find. In one of his letters he speaks of his good fortune
in having met with " a rare artist" in this Une, who is to
have three men under him ; aud if he cannot agree vrith
Ralph, the old gardener, they are to diride 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 instructions as to every
detail of their proceeding.** Lawns, shrubberies 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 walks and drives; the old
forest-trees were carefully 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, haw
thorns, hazels, and various kinds of fruit-trees, seeds,
and roots, were sent for to England.'
The furnishing of Pennsbury was to match. Maho
gany was a luxury then unknown ; but his spider tables
' Watson, 16, and note.
' Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 94. An admirable paper on the

WILLIAM PENN. 383
and high-backed carved chairs were of the finest oak.
An inventory of the furniture is stUl 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 parlour 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 apart
ment, 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 plenti
fully. Ann Nichols was his cook ; and he used to ob
serve 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 favourer 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 pennyworth of flesh with five shil
lings of cookery may happen to make a fashionable dish.
Plain beef and mutton is become dull food ; but by the
time its natural relish is lost in the crowd of cook's in
gredients, and the meat sufficiently disguised from the
eaters, it passes under a French name for a rare dish."
His cellars were well stocked ; canary, claret, sack, and
Madeira being the favourite wines consumed by his family
domestic life of Penn, gathered from his cash-books and business-letters
by Francis Fisher.
3 Ibid, 95. * Jbid. 86. " Ibid. 86. » Ibid. 85.

384 WILLIAM PENN.
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 vrine seems to
have been Madeira;^ 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
consequence of the badness of the roads, even those be
tween Pennsbury and Philadelphia, it was seldom used,
— a calesh in which they chiefly drove about, — and a
sedan chair in which Hannah andLetty went a shopping
in the city, or to pay visits of ceremony to their female
acquaintance in the near neighbourhood. 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 Eng
lishman shares with the Arab did not forsake him in the
New World. At his first visit to America he carried
over three blood mares, a fine white horse not of full
breed, and other inferior animals, not for breeding but for
labour. 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
tbe magnificent colt Tamerlane, by the celebrated Godol-
' Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 84. Hannah Penn to Logan, Phil.
Friend, xviii. 363. " Penn to Logan, Sept. 14, 1705.
' Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Pt. ii. 84. * Wood's Oxon, art Penn.
¦¦* Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii, 78,
" Ibid. 79. ^ Ibid. 74, note,
' This in spite of John MuUiner, a Friend who wrote against perukes.

WILLIAM PENN. 385
phin Barb, to which the best horses in England trace
their pedigree.^ Yet Tamerlane himself could not win
his master's affections from his yacht, a fine vessel of six
oars, with a regular crew, who received their wages as
such — and weU 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 furnishings. 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 Ame
rica, 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 participa
tion 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 Pennsyl
vania; he released the poor debtor from prison, — he
supported out of his private purse the sick and the des-
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 ray mistress at
the fair, 2/. Os. Sd. ; by expenses given to Hannah Carpenter as a fairing,
Ss. ; by do. to two children for comfits, by order. Is, 6d. ; by the governor
going to a cantico, 11. 18s. id." Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 80.
C C

386 • WILLIAM PENN,
titute, — ^many of the aged who were beyond labour and
without friends were regular pensioners on his bounty
to the extent of six shillings a fortnight, — and there Were
numerous persons about him whom he had rescued from
distress in England, and whom he supported wholly or
in part until their own industry 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 constitution ; and it was well known that a large part,
perhaps a majority, of the new parliament, would be
favourable to a fresh rerision. The Holy Experiment
was proceeding with more passion and more grasping
restlessness on the popular side than its author had ex^
pected; but still he would not admit even to himself
that he felt discouraged. The representatives assumed
the right to bring in bills, — they attempted to re-orga^
nise the judicial system, — they refused to vote any taxes,
— they claimed a right to inspect the records of govern
ment, — 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 with their petulance
and ingratitude from motives higher and further reach
ing than most of the rude colonists could understand:
whatever consequences might result to himself, he was
resolved to realise the dream of his youth, — to lay a
' Penn, Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 87,
^ Votes and Proceedings, 32 et seqq.

WILLIAM PENN. 387
foundation for that Holy Empire, the thoughts of which
had cheered him in his darkest hours. When the As-
seildbly met in Philadelphia, he addressed them in calm,
conciliatory, and encouraging terms : — he began by re^
minding them that though they were only nineteen years
old as a colony, they were already equal in numbers and
prosperity to their neighbours 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 afready
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 feeUng, and to do that which was best
for all, confident that in the end it would be best for
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 constitution. 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, pro-
^ The speech is preserved in Hazard's Register, vii. Ill,
* Hazard's Register, vii. 111, 112,

388

WILLIAM PENN.

perty, 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 barbarous and ma
rauding expeditions, but actually joined him as an ad
venturer 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 household in
the south the sable skin was regarded as an essential part
of the furniture. The best and most religious men of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries accepted the
existing facts of society without a protest. Columbus
introduced 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- 'forbad 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 stUl ge
neral 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 renown of our most celebrated commercial cities,
Bristol and Liverpool. By a special stipulation in the
Treaty of Utrecht, our sovereign lady Queen Ann be
came for a time the largest slave-merchant in the world, '^
1 Camden, 158. Hackluyt, ii. 351-2; iii. 594.
2 Bolingbroke (Cooke's ed.), i. 175. ^ Watson, 480.

WILLIAM PENN. 389
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 ap
plauded. Yet from the first he would seem to have had
doubts and misgivings. While acting under the counsels
of Sidney, he had provided that, if the Society of Traders
should receive negroes as servants, they must at least
set them partially free after fourteen years' service — that
is, make them adscripts of the soil, the Society giving to
each man a piece of land, with the necessary implements
for its cultivation, and receiring 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 pur
chase of negroes, so as in strict fact never to become a
slave-owner, yet he constantly hired them from their
masters, and they formed a regular part of the establish
ment at Pennsbury .5 But his mind was not at rest on
their account; and his less sophisticated 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 glo
rious peers of angels and archangels, — struck them as
something monstrous and incredible. They appealed in
their concern to the Society of Friends, — but the Friends
' Penn to Harrison, Oct. 4, 1685.
^ App. to Fisher, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 103. A note wUl
be found on this subject iii the following chapter..

390 WILLIAM PENN.
as a body declined to pronounce an opinion on the sub
ject.' Still, having been started, it came up again 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 intellectual inequality which no
act of Assembly could remove, and which must of neces
sity preclude social equality, until by process of educa
tion and lapse of time the Negro had been raised in the
scale of being, and the Caucasian reconciled to his pre
sence. With this conviction he began to work : — ^first
he tried to get his own religious body practically to
recognise 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 at
tachments; yet, as every born negro was an additional
chattel, worth so many pounds in the slave-market, cri
minal intercourse 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 re
solved to introduce two bills into the Assembly, 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,
' Watson, 480. 2 ibjjj. 431, a Ibia.
¦• Penn's Letter to Free Society of Traders, August 6, 1683.

WILLIAM PENN. 391
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
considerable 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 civilisa
tion,* When he made the Great Treaty with them in
1682, — a treaty which they had faithfully kept through
a long war under many temptations, — he had pro
posed to himself to call a council of the chiefs and war
riors 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 Susquehannah 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 especially their brethren dwell
ing on the banks of the Potomac.^ They appealed to
the great Onas ; and early in April 1701, he met by ap
pointment to arrange these matters — Connoodaghtoh,
king of the Susquehannah Indians — Wopatha, king of
^ Fishbourne's Mss. quoted in Watson, 446.
" Proprietory Papers, April 23. State-Paper Office*

392 WILLIAM PENN.
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 mu
tual consent, on the same terms as had formerly been
granted to the Lenni Lenape. 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 authorised, and therefore
known and responsible for any misdeeds. He thought
it possible to teach morals by means of commerce, and
on these terras the Potomac Indians were allowed to
settle in the colony, the Susquehannah and Delaware
tribes pledging themselves for their good behaviour. 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
no time in transmitting the inteUigence 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 ceremony 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
' Prop. Papers, April 23. State- Pa. Office. His letter contains a copy
of the Treaty. = Watson, 445, 6. ^ Richai-dson's J - '.-nal.

WILLIAM PENN. 393
of the gardeii 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 labours at home,
the governor kept up a series of communications with
Lord Ballamont, the King's governor at New York, and
with Colonel Blakistoii, Colonel Nicholson, and other
governors of provinces. Many questions of general im
portance 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 con
ference 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 frregu-
larity and confusion in regard to the coinage was almost
incredible : the same piece of money passed in Maryland
for 4*. 6d., in Virginia for 5s,, in Massachussets for 6s,,
in New York for 6s. 9^^., and in Pennsylvania and the
Jerseys for 7s. 8d,^ A second point was a project for
encouraging the timber-trade in the colonies ; a third
related to the regulation of marriages — a crying abuse —
the men going from one colony to another, bigamy was
almost as common as wedlock; a fourth concerned the
establishmept of a general postal system ; a fifth urged
the necessity for a comprehensive act of naturalisation,
by which the multitudes of French, Dutch, and Swedes,
arriving every year, might at once acquire rights of pro
perty, and attain to the privileges, as well as to the re
sponsibilities, of EngUsh subjects. A calm and obvious
wisdom pervaded these various suggestions, but rare in
that age of political passion and narrow views. There
< Proprietory Papers, Dec, 8-13. State-Paper Office.
« Ibid, vol, vi. G. 8 (no date).

394 WILLIAM PENN.
were several other points of local and temporary interest
discussed ; 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, em
bodied them in a report, and transmitted them to London.
The Lords of Trade and Plantations received them with
much satisfaction, and admitted their wisdom and pro
priety.^ While thus engaged in appeasing the animosities
of faction within, and in laying more solidly and ex
tensively the foundations 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 ad
vantage 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 disguise, knew the men
^ Proprietory Papers, Dec. 13, and vol. vi. G. 8. State-Paper Office.
^ Ibid. Marginal notes to the report.
° Besse, i. 146. Lords Journals, xvi. 660.

WILLIAM PENN. 395
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
Hot 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 organised a regular system of signals and watchers,
so that the appearance of any suspicious sail in the
waters of the Delaware would be instantly reported to
the government at Philadelphia. The question of a war
contribution had not yet properly come before the As
sembly, 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 3501. was to be raised as a contribution, and sent
to New York. 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 con
sideration of his majesty's letter, until the war had ac
tually commenced. Affairs 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.
< Speech to the Assembly, Sept. 16, 1701.
' Proprietory Papers, Dec, 8-13, 1700. State-Paper Office.

396 WILLIAM PENN.
The owners of Pennsylvania property then in England
petitioned the House to postpone the further discussion
of the Colonies Bill until Penn could return and be
heard at the bar in defence of their rights and his own ;'
and the younger WilUam Penn kept a vigilant eye on
the proceedings 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 proprietory
provinces to the crown, kept back some of the more
important papers, and tried to seduce Parliament into a
flagrant wrong by unfair representations.^ 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 annex
ation 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 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 unkindness or dis
appointment would be able to change his fixed determi
nation to return and settle his famUy 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
^ Besse, i. 145. 2 Lords Journals, xvi. 676,
•' His activity may be traced in Lords Journals, xvi. 660, 2, 4, 6, 676,
684, 8, 697,

WILLIAM PENN. 397
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
gracious words, and then appointed committees to draw
up various statements and prepare the business of the
session.^ One cannot read the record of their proceed
ings without a feeling of contempt and indignation.
Instead of aiding him !o 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 in
sulting 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 entering into a dispute in
which he might 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 sur
prising. His feelings were deeply hurt, but he reasoned
calmly and logically. The inconsistency of their de
mands was pointed out, — concessions, where no prin'
ciple was involved, were made, — and the Assembly, per-
¦* Hazard's Register, xii. 363.
' Speech to the Assembly, Sept. 16. * Besse, i. l45.

398 WILLIAM PENN.
haps ashamed of its own rapacious 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 settled and
accepted in the presence of the Council and Assembly.
It contained several minor encroachments on the powers
of the governor and his council : — but the chief inno
vation 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 established in thefr 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 circum
stances. 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 wilder
ness; and had more than once urged the governor to
take them back.* They were perhaps the only persons
in Pennsylvania who rejoiced at their departure.
' A copy of the charter is in Proprietory Papers, Oct. 28, 1701. State-
Paper Office. ^ Penn to Logan, Sept. 8.

WILLIAM PENN. 399
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 fore
boding 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 dis
tress, he introduced them to his council, and again re
peated his desires with respect to their humane and hon
ourable 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 innocent. 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 per
sonage was to be assisted by a council of ten ; and, at the
urgent request of the representatives, who fancied that
affairs would necessarily proceed more regularly if one
of the proprietorial family were in the colony, the go
vernor promised to send over his son WUliam 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 !''
" Phil. Friend, xviii. 346. * Penn to Logan, Sept. 8.
* Proprietory Papers, Oct, 27, State-Paper Office,
" Phil. Friend, xviii. 364. ' Besse, i. 147.

CHAPTER XII.
1702-1717.
€i)e Clo£!tits ^ctmS.
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 return, 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 Westminster 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
applaud his memory now. But he never was the King
of Englishmen. He Uved unloved, — and he died un-
mourned.' 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 WilUam's
death, he had been somewhat relieved from his anxieties
^ Burnet, iv. 539.— Onslow's note, 541, 2. " Besse, i. 147.
^ Lords Journals, xvi. 736. The further progress of the bill (see note
3, p. 396) may be traced, 700, 15, 17, 22, 26, 36.

WILLIAM PENN. 401
on account of the colony. The protests, the examina
tion 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 ac
count, — 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 suc
ceeding 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 behalf; and of the favourable disposition
of the Commons he had a strong assurance in the fact,
that as soon as the members of that House met toge
ther, his adroit and steadfast friend Harley was chosen
speaker.* The bill introduced and discussed in the House
of Lords the previous session was not again brought
forward.^ Of this bill it is enough to say, that it con
templated 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 favour 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 government, 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 England
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
-• Penn to Logan, Jan. 24, 1702, ^ Besse, i. 147.
* A- copy of the bill is in State-Paper Office. Proprietory Papers,
April 8, 1702,
D D

402 WILLIAM PENN.
that if they left his civil rights untouched, it was suffi
cient. He replied that the soil was his own by subse
quent 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 ad
mitted 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 exaggerated statement of the disorders,
abuses, and discontents which, they said, reigned in the
proprietories; 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 information 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 more paltry basis for a serious
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 gos
sip he concocted a list of what he called " high crimes
and misdemeanours" against the proprietors of North
and South Carolina, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania,
East and West New Jersey, the Bahama Islands, Con
necticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Massa
chusetts,' On these hints the Boai-d at home acted;
but William set aside such considerations with the con-
' Proprieties, vol. vii. L. 38. State-Paper Office.
* Plant. Gen. Papers, vol. xxxvi. p. 36. State- Paper Office.
' Proprietory Papers, vol. vi. G. 3. State-Paper Office.

WILLIAM PENN. 403
»
tempt they deserved. To the military question he wa!s
more alive ; but he would not hear of the proprietors
being dispossessed of their governments by an act of par
liament. Manchester returned an answer to the Lords
of Trade, in which he gave the heads of a bill agree
able to the King's ministry. It provided that the King
should command the entire naval and military strength
of the colonies, — that justice should be administered in
his name, — and that he should possess a negative 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 re
pUed that the bill formerly under discussion in the House
of Lords was the only measure to which they could give
tiiefr confidence.^
The accession of Ann put an end for a time to these
intrigues ; 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 pro
posals of a surrender 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 ways
of vice, he had only waited his father's departure from
* Proprietory Papers, vi. H. 13. State- Paper Office,
* Ibid. xxvi. 383.

404 WILLIAM PENN.
England,- — as was then thought by all the family on an
absence of years,— to enter into them with all the ardour
of unchecked youthful passions. He drank — ^he roystered
about — he kept women. When his father returned so
suddenly and unexpectedly, he found him deep in debt,
and almost ruined in constitution.* 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 hefr 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 Ame
rica, 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." Logan undertook to give
him good counsel, and to keep such an eye on him as
he would on a favourite son. But stiU the experiment
turned out most unfortunately.'^
For a few months he behaved very well. Logan
retained his influence ; and between the occasional visit
to Philadelphia, and his dogs and gun or hunter and
fishing-tackle at the Manor House, his time was plea
santly 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-condi
tioned person as himself, though with far more hypo
crisy, — and between them they soon contrived to bring
discredit on themselves and a scandal on the whole com
munity. Young Penn, as presumptive heir to the go-

' Logan Corresp, PhU. Friend, xviii. 362.
2 Ibid. 354-363.

WILLIAM PENN, 405
vernment, not only set an evil example, but undertook
to protect those who imitated his own excesses. Tbe
young, the idle, the dissolute crowded about him ; find
ing that he much more resembled his grandfather 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 organised a body of troops in the
Quaker city.' Nor was this his worst offence. He and
his companions frequented low taverns ; they got up
rows in the streets and beat tbe watch ; they broke the
city regulations. The riot of London and Paris seemed
to have rushed at once into the midst of that quiet com
munity. 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 .5 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 caUed out to quell the dis
order. Some of the disturbers escaped, and others were
arrested: — among the fornier 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 defiance ; he was a gentle
man, he said, and not responsible to his father's petty
officers. Evans took his part and annulled by procla-
^ Penn to Logan, Feb. 16, 1704:. — Proprietory Papers, vol, t, X. 2.
State-Paper Office. •• Watson, 257, « Ibid.
" Proprietory Papers, Sept. 2, 1704, State-Paper Qffixse.

406 WILLIAM PENN.
mation the proceedings of the magistrate's court.' This
audacious conduct roused the Quaker spirit: — that body
indicted young Penn, and in his anger he renounced
their doctrines, discipline and jurisdiction.^ These dis
orders were a source of inappeasable grief to the go
vernor in England, already deeply involved in his own
concerns ; and they fumished his old enemy Colonel
Quarry, again active in his employer'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. Always lenient in his own con
structions, he thought his friends should have seen the
misconduct of his son in its least offensive aspect ; and
it was an additional grief to him to find that in what
ever related to his own interests or to the private con
cerns of his family, the men who had most profited by
his labours were always inclined to take the most un
charitable course.®
What his son desfred from choice, he was impelled
' Proprietory Papers, Sept. 23. State-Paper Office.
- Ibid. Oct. IS. » Ibid, vol. viii. N. 6, 7, 16.
* Phil. Friend, xix. 17.
« Proprietory Papers, Oct. 16. State-Paper Office.

WILLIAM PENN. " 407
towards by necessity. His old steward, Philip Ford,
one of the vilest scoundrels that ever ruined a trusting
client, had died in January 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 pos
sessed their talents,' The elder Ford had so contrived
to jumble Penn's accounts, as to keep him in a state of
uncertainty as to how they really stood. Being a Quaker,
the governor reposed a perfect confidence in his inte
grity ; 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 advantage 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 was considered by
Penn, and professedly considered by Ford, as a mort
gage.'" Ford received money on account of the province,
and made such advances as the governor required ; and
it was not until the latter returned to England that the
first suspicion of his steward's villany 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,
* Logan to Penn, Oct, 27. ' Friends' Register, Jan. 8, 1701-2.
8 Phil. Friend, xix. 82, » Penn's Ms, Statement,
'<> Penn to Logan, December 28th, 1705,
" Ms, Statement.

408 WILLIAM PENN.
from his uncertain remembrance of the various sums ad
vanced 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 bill for 14,000Z., and threatened to seize and seU
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 expe-
rience.2 When the accounts of the faithless steward
were re-arrangedj it appeared, by his own shewing, that
he had received on behalf of Penn 17,859^., and that he
had paid 16,200^., so that he had actually received 1,659Z.
more than he had advanced. Yet he claimed 14,0G0Z. !'
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 : they wanted law
—not equity.* It was to no end that their old master
quoted the words of the elder Ford, calling the bring
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 unsus-
' Ms. Statement.
'' Penn's Mortgages. Ms. ' Ms. Statement,
' Penn to Logan, Dec. 28, 1706.

WILLI.\M PENN. 409
pectingly.^ These accounts enabled him to unravel the
whole mystery of fraud and iniquity. (1.) The Fords had
charged him interest ou all their advances ; but had al
lowed 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 overr
charges 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. to the hundred six
or seven times over on the same money ! (5.) Penn
had given the mortgage^ as a security for the 2,800/.
advanced, reserving, of course, the right to sell more
land if he found purchasers ; while in the colony he
had sold a lot for 2,000^., of which he sent 615/. to
Ford in liquidation of the debt; but instead of post
ing this 615^ to this 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
13851. of the purchase-money, as if he bad actually ad
vanced 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 submit thefr claims to arbitration ! The ex
cess of charges on the second, third, and fourth items
• " The accounts, though so voluminous, have been, through Provi
dence rather than by my carefulness, preserved entire." Ibid.
° In his Statement he never uses the words, " deed of sale."
' Ms. Statement

410 WILLIAM PENN.
here briefly enumerated was found to amount to 9697^.,
reducing the claim of 14,000/. to 4303^. 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
purpose ; but, conscious of being in the wrong, the
younger Ford grew insolent and repelled their advice,'
Rather than submit to be ruined by such scoun
drels, Penn allowed the case to go before the Lord Chan
cellor, 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 consideration of decency,
he went with a constable to the Gracechurch 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 extraordinary
sensation ; the Society of Friends was especially wrath
with the Fords for dogging their victim to the meeting ;
and many of those who had been lukewarm in the dis
pute before, now zealously came forward in Penn's de-
' Norris to Joseph Pike, Phil. Friend, xix. 82.
' Ibid. xix. 106. ' Ms. Statement.
• Norris Corresp. Phil. Friend, xix. 105. " Ibid. March 6, 1708.

WILLIAM PENN. 411
fence. Envy itself was appeased in presence of this
shameful indignity.*
In his old age the governor of Pennsylvania was again
a prisoner. His lodgings, commodious and even com
fortable 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 risked by his friends from the other end of the
town.5 The Lord Treasurer, Sidney Godolphin, touched
with his situation, was an especial friend in this hour of
need; and in his official capacity favourably entertained
a proposal to advance him 7000/. for the service of his
colony, on the easy condition of its being repaid in
nine years from the date of lending.^ Penn himself
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 fortunes ; 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 in
terests as settlers.' It was a dire necessity that recon
ciled 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 char
ter I granted was intended to shelter them against a
violent and arbitrary government imposed on us ; but,
that they should turn it against me, that intended it for
* Penn to Logan, May 3, 1708. This letter is dated from the Lord
Chancellor's house.
' Phil. Friend, xix. 60, 73, 81.

412

WILLIAM PENN.

their security, is very unworthy and provoking, espe
cially 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
rigour of their deservings."' When the colonists heard
of his troubles with Ford, though most of them pre
tended a decent concern, and some openly expressed
their sympathy, there were not a few secretly glad, ima
gining that out of a doubtful and disputed title they
would be able to seize some advantages for themselves.
Logan briefly described the feeling 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 con
ditions in favour of the colonists, and for the security
of their rights, that the Queen's government was obliged
' Penn to Mompesson, Feb. 17, 1705.
^ Logan Corresp. Phil. Friend, xix. 49, 50. ' Ibid.
' Hannah Penn to Logan, Feb. 22, 1716.
' Prop. Papers, June 18, 1703— Dec 7, 1710, State-Paper Office,

WILLIAM PENN. 413
to tell him, the remainder was hardly- worth a pur
chase.* Under these circumstances, the negotiations
went on very slowly ; Penn proposed to sell the govern
ment of his colony to the Queen for 20,000/., Consider
ably less than he had given for it, reckoning the interest
at six per cent, for twenty years, on the old debt, — but
stipulated that the charter as then existing and tbe
whole body of fundamental laws should be accepted by
the crown in good faith and without reserve, and a gua
rantee given that the province should be kept separate
and distinct.5 On such conditions the Queen was not
anxious to treat. The crown desfred to regain the pri
vate colonies, in order, by a general system of defence, to
strengthen the frontiers against the French ; but twenty
years' experience had now shewn that so long as Penn
sylvania remained a separate colony, it would be diffi
cult, if not impossible, to obtain from it that military
co-operation which was deemed essential to the common
safety. It was only by means of Colonel Fletcher's
plan of combining the provinces in which Quaker in
fluence was strong — Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, De
laware 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
* The progress of these negotiations may be traced in the Proprietory
Papers, under dates May 11, 1703; May 18, June 8, 15, 18 ; Jan. 2, 1705;
Jan, 11, March 9, May I, June 6, 6, 20, Sept, 1, Oct. 12, 23, State-
Paper Office.

414 WILLIAM PENN.
even at this moment, though a prisoner in the Fleet,
his thoughts were full of that free and pacific demo
cracy which he had founded, the free colony for all man
kind, — 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 pro
prietor.' Young Ford went over to Pennsylvania. He there
found out Quarry, David Loyd, and other factious per
sons 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 defended the per
son 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 re-
port,2 Having gained over several persons to his in
terests, — especially the infamous David Loyd, — Ford
returned to England and held out threats of a disturb
ance in the colony, if his unjust demands were not met,
Penn taking no heed of these menaces, he sent out let
ters 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
cautioned the owners of land not to pay any moneys
to the agents of Penn, at their proper peril.' He and
' Penn's Letter, Feb. 26, 1705. Hazard's Register, xii. 363.
2 Phil. Friend, xix. 114. = Logan's Corresp. July 13, 1706,
* Privy-Council Register, A. R. iii. 608. Privy-Council Office.

WILLIAM PENN. 415
his mother had impudence 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.^
Fearing lest he should lose all, the younger Ford
began to talk of terms. Penn had offered to pay five
hundred 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 ap
peared an item of 1,200/. paid into the Society's stock,
which, with compound interest, reckoned 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 500/. The balance of 700/., with the eight
per cent compound interest, amounted to 3,249/. of
overcharge on this item alone ; and this being deduc
ted 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 shewed a disposition to treat for
the liquidation of their claim, Penn began to raise
money. Much of his private property was gone to sup
port 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
« Norris to Logan, March 6, 1708.
« Field to Story, July 22, 1707. Story Mss.
' Ms. Statement,

416 WILLIAM PENN.
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 impor
tunate, as to try to stop Butler's payment of the pur
chase-money.' Under the advice of Henry Goldney,
the lawyer, whose purse was as much at his friend's
serrice as his tongue, Penn and his son William made
over to Callowhill, Goldney, Oades, and several others, a
deed of sale of Pennsylvania for one year, in considera
tion of the receipt of ten shillings, with intent that these
parties might be in actual possession of the province dur
ing the settlement with the Fords and other creditors.^
This was done as a matter of precaution ; b'ut the next
day the same parties took a formal mortgage of the co
lony, and paid into his hands 6,800/.' Henry Goldney
and three friends advanced 3,300/. ; Thomas CallowhUl,
bis father-in-law, 1,000/.; John Field and Thomas Cup-
page 1,000/.; 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 acqui
escing. Between seven and eight thousand pounds were
paid, and he quitted his doleful lodgings iu the Old
Bailey for a house at Brentford.^
Disorders continued in Pennsylvania. The vigorous
measures adopted by Evans to protect the public rights
' Penn to Logan, May 18, 1708,
2 Original Deeds, Oct. 6, 1708. » Ibid. Oct. 7, 1708.
' I am wiUing to preserve the names of these faithful friends :
Geoffrey Pinnell, 100/.; Richard Champion, lOOi; Ab. Lloyd, 100/.;
James Peters, 100?.j Edward Lloyd, 100/.; Charles Jones, 100/.; George
Bridges, 100/.; Thomas Oade, 50/.; Charles Harford, 60/.; Peter

WILLIAM PENN. 417
of his employer arrayed against him the whole tribe of
those lawless and selfish men who favoured pirates, dis
liked the Quaker regime, and sought their own aggran
disement in the ruin of their governor. Men of this
stamp abound in every new settlement; and the ex
treme amenity of the laws in Pennsylvania 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 offended
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, call
ing on the people right and left to arm and follow him.
The terror was extreme. Some burned their effects, —
many fled into the woods, — still more seized their arms
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 inhabi
tants 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 cer
tainly never pardoned the clumsy contrivance.^
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
Rosens, 50/. ; Benj. Cole, 50/. ; John Scandrett, 50/. ; Silvanus Cox,
SO/. ; Charles Jones, 60/. ; Brice Webb, 60/. ; Cornelius Sargeant, 60/. ;
Benj. Moss, 60/.; N. Kitt, 60/.; Enoch Noble, 50/.; C. Harford, 50/.;
John Andrews, 50/. ; Jos. Vigor, 50/. ; and Edward Lyne, 60/. — Ibid.
» Penn to Logan, May 3, 1708.
« Logan to Penn, May 28, 170.5. ? Ibid.
E E

418

WILLIAM PENN.

own right of worship, — several persons belonging to the
Church of England had settled in the province. So early
as 1702, the inhabitants of Philadelphia were easily di
vided into about two equal portions: — one of these were
Quakers, real or professing ; the other was a curious
medley of EngUsh Independents, Irish Catholics, Scotch
Presbyterians, Welsh Episcopalians, German Amish,
Svriss 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 afrs 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 50/, a year, chargeable on the customs, towards
the support of a church and minister at Philadelphia ;
the other of 30/. a year, equally chargeable on the cus
toms, for the support of a schoolmaster.^ Nor was the
tax of a penny a pound on all the tobacco exported from
Pennsylvania and the Delaware the chief evil of this ar
rangement,' Under favour of this endowment, which in
itself was an outrage to every other denomination in the
colony, the vestry of St. Paul's assumed the haughty
and dictatorial attitude of the Chm'ch in England.
They laboured year by year to undermine and destroy
the power of the too tolerant proprietor, — now invoking
' Phil. Friend, xviii. 386.
' Privy-Council Register, W. R. iv. 240. Privy-Council Office.
' Ibid. A. R. i. 114.
* Proprietory Papers, vol. vii. M. 22 ; viii. O. 77. State-Paper Office.
— Logan Corresp. Phil. Friend, xviii. and xix.

WILLIAM PENN. 419
the protection 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 mea
sure therefore was to get the colony annexed to the
English crown. They were unjust and ungenerous; but
they were not, like the Quakers, and other Dissenters,
illogical. They pleaded the license of a party suffering
persecution : 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 immunities 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 re
jected it; if he proposed a bill, they rejected it in turn.
Nothing was done ; and the confusion at head-quarters
paralysed or disturbed every branch of industry in the
prorince. Penn was obliged to recal his deputy.'
° Privy-Council Registers, A. R. i. 1 14 et seqq. Privy-Council Office,
— Logan Corresp, Phil, Friend, xviii. 386.
« Watson, 652.
' Proprietory Papers, May 20, 1708. State-Paper Office,

420 WILLIAM PENN.
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 discovered that his rival's title to the territory
in question had never been formally completed ;' and
although three successive sovereigns had allowed his
right of possession to remain 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 re
course to the old plan of asking the litigants to arrange
it for themselves, and report the results to that board.*
The dispute remained unsettled for more than another
quarter of a century,^ to the great annoyance of the pro
prietor and the injury of his family. But a new source
of trouble was opened by the dispute ; and the uncer
tainty 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 WhitehaU : there were many
powerful personages about the court whose anxiety to
obtain an American province ministers thought proper
' Proprietory Papers, vii. L. 38. State- Paper Office.
' Maryland Papers, Feb. 21, 1708. — Proprietory 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.
-¦ Maryland Papers, August 24, 1708. State-Paper Office.
' Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem.i. 188. It was settled in the law-courts in 1750.

WILLIAM PENN. 421
to coquet with, — among others, the Earl of Sutherland
set up a claim to the Delaware,^ — and the government
chose to consider its own claim to the territories on
that river as something more than a pretence. When
Deputy-governor Colonel Gookin was sent out in 1708,
and again when Sir William Keith was appointed to the
same office 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-flve. His health was failing ;
his imprisonment in the close atmosphere of the Old
Bailey had given a shock to his constitution, from the
effects of which he never recovered. Country air had
now become indispensable 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 exhilarate his now
sinking spirits. Soon after he had recovered his colony,
reports arrived that a great silver mine had been dis
covered in the province ;^ a long and powerful remon
strance which he wrote to his American subjects pro
duced the most happy effects ; and the establishment of
a general peace gave him reason to hope for the speedy
settlement of a long outstanding account with the go
vernment of Spain. The silver mine, — on the report
" Proprietory Papers, x. Q, 110. I have traced the progress of the
Earl's claim through Proprietory 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.
' Privy-Council Registers, A. R. iv. 139, and G. R. i. 481. Privy-
Council Office.
» PhU. Friend, xix. 113, Penn, Hist. Soc, Mem, i.,207.

422 WILLIAM PENN.
of which he built a pleasant castle in the air, feeUng
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 scrutinised with jealous closeness by the officers of
the Holy Inquisition ; but he cautiously abstained from
giving grounds for offence, particularly in regard to the
religious prejudices of the country in which he lived, so
that malice itself was foiled in the attempt 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 Ufe, and seized him
on its own secret warrant. When the famiUars 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 property down to the nail in
the wall. Nothing escaped their rapacity.' His wife
was carried off he knew not whither ; he himself was
dragged to Seville, where he was cast into a loathsome
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
' Humble Remonstrance of George Penn, App. to GianviUe Penn,
i. 150,

WILLIAM PENN. 423
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 skeleton. 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 com
pletely 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 Office came into
his cell, took him by the arms, stript him naked, and
tied bim fast to the iron bars of his dungeon door; when
one of them, armed with a powerful 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 huge 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 haring 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 per
severed, and at the end of four hours of excruciating and
accumulating torments, he gave way and offered to con
fess any thing they wished.^ Not satisfied with a con-
2 Ibid. i. 652. *

424

WILLIAM PENN.

fession 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 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
Serille 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 exposed as a signal in
stance of the great mercy of the Holy Inquisition. His
vrife 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 thou
sand pounds, was confiscated ; the money found in his
hands belonging 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 in
sult to injury; for the judges weU 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
English residents in Seville were present, — and the
' Humble Remonstrance of George Penn. App. to Granville Penn,
i. 552. ' Case presented to Queen Ann. Granville Penn, App, i. 565.

WILLIAM PENN. 425
intelligence of his brother's position soon reached the
young admiral on his station in the Channel. His mea
sures were prompt and characteristic. Instead of ap
pealing to Cromwell, and setting the dUatory diplomacy
of London and Madrid at work to procure his release,
he seized in one of his prizes a Spanish nobleman, 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 vrith many in
dignities. 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 effected. King Charles appointed him
his Envoy at the Court of Spain, with a view to his pro
per re-instatement in the opinion of his old friends in
Seville and San Lucar, and to add weight to his 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, learing his claims as a legacy to the
admfral and his family.^
The wars of Europe had hitherto offered no eligible
opportunity for pressing this claim, but a general peace
having been secured by the Treaty of Utrecht, and friend
ly relations between Spain and England restored, Penn
petitioned the Queen to instruct her Envoy at Madrid
to prosecute this claim and obtain a restitution of the
' Humble Remonstrance of George Penn, i, 560.
* Granville Penn, i, 231-3,
' Case presented to Queen Ann, i. 656,

426 WILLIAM PENN.
amount originally seized from his uncle.' How far this
application was successful is uncertain : it is not known
that any part of the confiscated property was restored.
The Queen was particularly favourable 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 occasionaUy as a neutral person in his communica
tion with Tory statesmen,' — and in Harley Earl of Ox
ford 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
Pennsylvania produced a sudden revolution in his favour.
He reminded them in simple but touching language of
the sleepless nights and toilsome days, the expense, the
load of care, the personal dangers, the family misfor
tunes, which he had to endure 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 poUtical rights, enjoyed religious Uber
ties, denied to them in their native land. Yet not satis
fied with the enjoyment of these rights and privileges, —
with the acquisition and increase of their worldly sub
stance, — they must ungratefully turn the arms which
he had supplied as a defence against foreign oppression
upon himself. He mournfully recited their past mis
deeds — referred to their present unbecoming and uncivil
attitude towards his person and government. He made
' Case presented to Queen Ann, i, 666,
' Ms. Letters in my own possession.
* Dartmouth's note, Burnet, vi. 8,

WILLIAM PENN. 427
to them a fatherly but a final appeal. The Queen, he
told them, was wUling to buy the colony and annex it
to the crown : the only point still at issue was the one
affecting 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 acquired 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 connexion ; 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 old age, enduring poverty brought
on by his too great liberality : and the session which
ensued was the most cordial and harmonious, as well as
the most useful, in the history of the Assembly. Penn
was highly gratified with this national response ;5 and the
historian dwells with an especial complacency on this
brief interval of calm and rational legislation, — separat-.
ing, as it did, the storms which preceded and the hurri
canes which followed, — because it was the last session
of the Colonial Parliament, of the nature and conduct
of which the governor was perfectly sensible. Before

< Letter to Assembly, April 29, 1710.
' Penn. Hist. Soc, Mem, iv, 208,

428

WILLIAM PENN.

another gathering of the members took place, his rigor
ous and active mind was utterly overthrown.'
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 thefr
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 man. In 1705,
only four years after the rejection of his proposed act
for a better regulation of the morals and marriages of
negroes, the Assembly tried to discourage slavery, with
out violence to existing interests, by imposing a duty
on their importation from Africa or from the neighbour
ing colonies.' They now, in 1711, passed an act de
claring thefr importation for the future, under any con
dition, absolutely prohibited. This was a great satisfac
tion to the humane governor. But as soon as the law
reached England to receive the usual confirmation of
the crown, it was peremptorily canceUed.* Some years
before this time the two Houses of Parliament had put
* Hannah Penn to Logan, October 13, 1712,
2 Chap, xi. p. 390. » Watson, 481.
¦* Proprietory Papers, vol. ix. Q. 29. State-Paper Office.
« William IIL 8 and 10, u. xxvi. « Watson, 481.
' " The British Senate have this fortnight been producing methods
to make more effectual that horrid traffic of selling negroes." Horace
Walpole to Sir H. Mann, ii. 438. This was written Feb. 26, 1750 : only
a century ago !
* 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. 186, and Watson, 480. The evidence,
a letter of T. Matlack, is the same in both cases. Matlack says in this

WILLIAM PENN. 429
a declaration on the statute-book of the realm to the
effect that the trade in slaves was highly beneficial to
the country and the colonies;^ in the session then sit
ting, 1711, a committee of the Commons had recom
mended 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
scandaUsed and indignant at the Provincial Assembly
for daring to propose a measure so hostile to the la,ws
and interests of the parent state !^ The germs, how
ever, of truth, humanity, and justice were planted in the
colony, and in due season came the harvest. Heavier
duties were laid on importations ; petition after peti
tion 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 le
gislation tending to close the abominable system.' It
was only vrith the revolt against England that freedom
came to any part of the black race in America.^
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 pros
trate. For some weeks he lay in a lethargic state, almost
letter that Penn left a body-servant (slave), whose surname was Warder.
The assertion can be fully disproved. The bill of sale of this identical
negro, Virgil Warder, is fortunately still in existence, in the possession
of George M. Justice, Esq., of Philadelphia. From this document it ap
pears that he was sold in 1733, by his master, Joseph Warder, in whose
house he had been bom, and whose name, according to custom, he 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 trying to relate a conversation
which occurred in 1745. The eloquent historian of America will, I am
certain, remove this error from his future editions. See Tyson's Colony
of Pennsylvania, p. 61-3.

430

WILLIAM PENN.

unconscious of things around him, the medical attendants
constantly at his side, and all business carefully kept
from him to prevent mental 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 rio
lent 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 WiUiam Aubrey, was sum
moned to Ruscombe to his bed-side, his Ufe 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 Pennsyl
vania, 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 beau
tiful and promising chUdren, Guli, Springett, and WU
liam,* produced no happy result on his erratic and un
stable character. He was the great thorn in his father's
side.5 He went into the army; but quitted it again in
disgust. He tried to get into Parliament ; but his op
ponent bribed higher, and he was defeated at the poll.
He quitted his young vrife and her children, leaving
' Hannah Penn to Logan, Oct. 8, 1712.
' Logan Corresp. Phil. Friend, xix. 140-218.
» Hannah Penn to Logan, Feb. 6, 1713.

WILLIAM PENN. 431
them to the care of strangers, to seek the lowest dregs
of pleasure and 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 phy
sically, ruined in purse and in constitution, ^ They
never saw him again. He died in 1720 of consumption,
brought on by llts excesses, — 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 para
lysis, he was considered in a dying state : — but he lin
gered on in a gentle and sweet decline, tasting the hap
piness 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 pe
riod 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 con
cerns, 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 Rus
combe. 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 unpropi-
tious, he gambolled with them about the rooms of the
* Genealogy in Penn Gaskell Mss. ' Penn to Logan, Feb. 16, 1704.
« Phil. Friend, xviii. 363-370.
' Hannah Penn to Logan, June 29, 1720.

432 WILLIAM PENN.
great mansion, taking an infantine pleasure in running
from suite to suite, in looking at the flue 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 chUd-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 anxi
ous, or when, on going suddenly into a room, he found
her writing, that a shade of melancholy thought over
cast his countenance ; and to prevent the erident distress
which the thoughts so suggested brought to his mind,
she was forced to write the many necessai-y letters to
his American agents and men of business in London,
when he was asleep or out of sight. Though unable to
write or dictate a letter, he appeared to retain a vague
and distant sense of trouble as connected with that vo
luminous correspondence. In this state he Ungered for
five years. His mind never regained for a single mo
ment its old vigour 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 stiU more strongly
and distinctly. A strange attractiveness Ungered 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,
' Ms. Letters of Hannah Penn. Ms. Testimony of Reading Friends,
March 31, 1719. Logan Corresp. Phil. Friend, xix. 156, 60, 62. Story's
Journal, Dec. 15, 1714 et seqq. Besse, i. 160.

WILLIAM PENN. 433
here a shattered fragment of the frieze, elsewhere the
faUen statue of the god, — but, Uke the remains of an an
cient edifice seen under the mild radiance of an Eastern
night, it appeared to those who looked on it beautiful
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 Goldney. 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, assisting the wife in her American
affairs, as he had been several years in that country,
and knew all the parties and passions at work in Penn
sylvania. On the 27th he left the neighbourhood for a
short trip to Bristol; Hannah had taken him in her
coach to Reading, and not suspecting that the catas
trophe was so nigh, she had there parted with him, with
messages to John, her eldest son, then in Bristol with
a merchant, learning 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 sud
den change occurred ; he was seized with fits of shiver
ing, lowness of spirits, and other alarming symptoms.
She wrote a hasty letter to recall Story to Ruscombe,
but he had gone too far or 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 unna
tural heats. The medical attendants believed that an
intermittent fever was setting in ; but on the 29th thp
patient had grown so much worse, that they no longer
entertained a hope of his recovery. Hannah then sent
2 Hannah Penn to Story, July 28. Ms.
F F

434

WILLIAM PENN.

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 for
tunate 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, WiUiam, 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 pro
perty was therefore denied him ; but his chUdren, Guli,
Springett, and WilUam, 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. Besides 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 unappropriated land in Pennsylvania. The
government of his province he devised to Harley Earl
of Oxford and William Earl Pawlett, friends of many
years standing, in trust, to dispose of to the crown or
otherwise on the best conditions they could obtain, leav
ing the money to be applied as he should afterwards
direct.' The soil, rents, and other profits of Pennsyl-
' Hannah Penn to Story, July 29, Ms. ' Ibid. Postscript, July 30.
' 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

WILLIAM PENN. 435
vania he bequeathed to twelve trustees, who after laying
out the forty thousand acres for Guli Springett's de
scendants, were to sell as much land as would pay off
the whole of the testator's debts, and then divide the
remainder among his five children by Hannah Callow
hill, in such proportions as his widow should think pro
per, 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. Finally,
Hannah was made his sole executrix.* To understand
the nature of Penn's ideas in forming this will, it is ne
cessary 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 Eng-^
lish property to Gull's children, he thought he was set
tling 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
conspicuous 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 fa
vourite 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
to jeopardise the will, and led to a suit in Chancery. Penn. Hist. Soc.
Mem, i. 222, 3,
¦• Ms. copy of will. May 27. -' Penn Gaskell Mss,

436

WILLIAM PENN.

from all parts of the country, and the distinguished of
every Christian denomination in the more immediate
neighbourhood. 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 dis
persed 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,'
' Ms. Testimony of Reading Friends, March 31, 1719. — Story's
Journal, 607. — Besse, i. 150. Nothing could be less imposing than the
grave-yard at Jordans : the meeting-house is Uke an old barn in appear^
ance, and the iield in which the iUustrious dead repose is not even de
cently smoothed. There are no gravel-walks, no monuments, no mournful
yews, no cheerful flowers ; there is not even a stone to mark a spot or to
record a name. When I visited it with my friend GranviUe Penn, Esq.,
great-grandson of the State-Founder, on the Uth 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 shewn the wrong grave ! Supposing a to represent
the small gate leading into the grave-yard, the foUowing will give its
correct topography :

Thomas EUwood

John Pennington

u>

Penn's infant Chil
dren.

Mary EUwood

Mary Frame

Isaac Pennington

Springett Penn Lady Springett

Letty Penn

Guli Penn

.. .. 1 .. ..

William Penn

Granville Penn, Esq. is disposed to mark the spot by some simple but
durable 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 carried off to America — their proper and inevitable home !

EXTRA CHAPTER.
" C:f)e iMacaulag CijargeS."
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 HiU 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 misrepresentation : but I be
lieve 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 controversy
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 aUve 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 fun
damental laws of Critical Inquiry demands that when a
fact or a character has stood the tests of time, and in the
progress of opinion has attained to something like a fixed

438 WILLIAM PENN.
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 his
torical 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 — truth from falsehood, — 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 feeUng. 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 eridence 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 reputation was thus historically fixed, I vriU 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 canonising him. England is
proud of his name. A great Commonwealth beyond the
Atlantic regards him with a reverence simUar to that
which the Athenians felt for Theseus, and the Romans
for Quirinus. The respectable Society of which he was
1 History of England, vol. i. 507.
a Ibid. i. 506.

WILLIAM PENN. 439
a member honours 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
philosophers of the eighteenth century pardoned what
they regarded as his superstitious fancies in considera
tion of his contempt for priests, and of his cosmopolitan
benevolence, impartially extended to all races and all
creeds. His name has thus become, throughout all civi
lised countries, a synonyme for polity and philanthropy."'
This general verdict Mr, Macaulay challenges. He
admits that his attempt " requires some courage ;" 1
think the reader will agree with him, when the evidence is
adduced on which his chaUenge is supported. This evi
dence consists of five assertions : — (I,) That his connex
ion 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 honour.* (111.)
That he allowed himself to be employed in the work of
seducing Kiffin into a compliance with court designs,*
(IV.) That he endeavoured to gain William's assent to
the promulgated edict suspending the penal laws.^ (V.)
That he " did his best to seduce" the Magdalen col
legians " from the path of right," and was " a broker in
simony of a peculiarly 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 surrounded by flatterers and suppliants. His
house at Kensington was sometimes thronged at his
hour of rising by more ^than two hundred suitors. He
» Ibid. i. 656. * Ibid, ii, 230.
' Ibid. ii. 234. « Ibid, ii, 298,

440 WILLIAM PENN.
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
whose work the Society of Friends has never recog
nised. Croese could have no trustworthy knowledge of
the opinions of Quakers, and no right to represent thefr
opinions. The statement is not, however, merely un
supported ; but it is positively contradicted by the De
vonshire 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
afiair, I must point out the features, with more ex
actness 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 haring had wrought, at
the public expense, a set of royal standards for him and
his army, by the daughters of the principal famUies.*
The ceremony of presenting these standards was one of
the most important acts of the rebeUion ; at the head of
her procession the schoolmistress carried the emblems of
royal power — the Bible and the sword ;* — and the royal
banner was presented to the duke as to thefr 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 insanity cost Mon-
' Hist, of England, vol. i. 506. ' Ms. Records.
* Oldmixon, i. 702.
' Mr. Macaulay forgets the sword, because Sir James Macintosh had
forgotten it. Hist. Eng. 32, folio ed. ' Oldmixon, i, 702.

WILLIAM PENN. 441
mouth his head, and won a gibbet for hundreds of his
followers. The case of the maidens was not different
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 honour,
— not likely, I must suppose, to be the most exacting
of creditors, — as a sort of fee or bounty.^ It is to
be remembered that the sale of pardons was in that
age a regular profession; 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 afiair ar
ranged for them on the best terms. Somerset wrote to
Sir Francis Warre, the member for Bridgwater, asking
him as a personal favour to see the parents, as being a
neighbour 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 repUed that it was already in
* Harl, Mss. 7006. Though very fond of strong language, Mr, Macau
lay softens these harsh words into simple " illegal assembly ! " his evident
object being to make the after-vengeance appear unprovoked.
^ Sunderland's Letter, Feb. 13, 1686.
« Somerset to Warre, Dec. 12, 1685.

442

WILLIAM PENN.

proper hands, those of one Bird, the town clerk.' For
some unknown reason the maids of honour forbad this
agent to proceed in their behalf, and Warre was again
applied to ; but he refused to name a broker on the spot,
excusing himself on the pleas that the schoolmistress was
a woman of mean birth, and the young ladies were act
ing 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 :
" Whitehall, Febry 13th, 1685-6.
" Mr. Pen ne— Her Majt'^^ Maids of Honour having
acquainted me that they designe to employ you and Mr.
Walden 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*y 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 thefr behalfe.
" I am. Sir, your humble servant,
" Sunderland P."*
To whom was this letter addressed ? Sfr James Mac
intosh, the first man who brought the letter to light, —
for Mr. Macaulay has not even the merit of originality
in his errors, — assumed that it was addressed to William
Peim;^ and in this singular assumption he has been
followed by his friend and admfrer. But Macintosh
' Toulmin's Hist, of Taunton, 531. ed. Savage.
* Ibid. 532, where the correspondence is printed.
' In transcribing this letter from the State Papers, Mr. W. B. Forster
writes "her" majw, — a mistake which gives an erroneous countenance to
Mr. Macaulay's " scandal against Queen" Maria,

WILLIAM PENN. 443
went still further: he not only assumed, without war^-
rant, 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 ^very rule of historical criticism, to assume that Wil
liam Penn accepted the commission that was so offered.®
Mr. Macaulay, of course, copied this gross mistake from
Sir James, and gave it the additional currency of his
own volumes. The point is particularly noticeablci
that Mr, Macaulay did not consult the original autho
rities, 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 Penn
sylvania correspondence, in the Minutes of the Privy
Council, and in the letters of Van Citters, Locke, Law-
ton, 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 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,
* Sunderland Letter- Book, Feb, 13, 1686. Domestic, various, 629,
324. = Macintosh, Hist. Eng. 32, « Ibid.
' Macaulay, i, 656.

444

WILLIAM PENN.

trafficking agent, who could go down to Taunton and
stay there until the business was concluded : it is obri-
ous that this could not be done by William Penn. — (4,)
The letter is evidently a reply to an offer of service :
the maids of honour " designe to employ" Mr, Penne
and Mr. Walden, because, as it seems to me, they had
appUed for the office. Malice itself would shrink from
the assumption that the governor of Pennsylvania would
voluntarily soUcit such an employment. — (5.) It is con
trary 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 ofit occurs in any
of his letters : I have read some hundreds of them, and
although he was the most communicative of correspon
dents, not a trace of his action, or of his having been
applied to, in the affair is to be found. Knowing his
epistolary habit, this fact alone would have satisfied mj
own mind. — (7.) No mention has been made of his inter
ference by any news-writer, pamphleteer, or historian,
— though, had he been concerned, the host of maligners,
who rose against him on the fiight of James, could cer
tainly 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 preser
ved in the neighbourhood ; when, had he really been the
agent employed, 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" ad
dressed by Lord Sunderland, and designed by the ladies
to be employed in their behalf — who was the man ? A
little research enables me to answer this question. In
the Registers of the Privy CouncU, I find this entry :
' Council Registers, J. R. i, 540, Privy-CouncU Office,

WILLIAM PENN. 445
" Nov, 25th, 1687.
" George Penne — Upon reading the petition of
George Penne, gent, setting forth that his family having
been great sufferers for their loyalty. He humbly begs
that His Majesty would be graciously pleased to grant
him a patent for the sole exercising the royal Oake lot
tery, and licensing all other games, in his Majesty's plan
tations in America, for twenty-one years. His Majesty
in Council is pleased to refer this matter to the conside
ration of the Rt. Hon. the Lords Commissioners 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 estimate of the value of his serrices, 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 margin 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
was a pardon-broker. He was actively engaged in the
Taunton affair; and among other feats, as I am able to
state on the authority of a family cash-book still pre
served, he obtained 65^. from Nathaniel Pinney as the
ransom of his brother Azariah Pinney, one of the trans
ported 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
* Cash-Book of Nathaniel Pinney.

446 WILLIAM PENN.
men miscarried, and the maids of honour 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 Coun
cil, ^ This fellow employed as great a rascal as himself,
one Crane of Bridgewater as his sub-agent, and between
them they settled the business, as Oldmixon relates.*
Having cleared Penn from this foul and unfounded
charge, let me say a word or two in behalf of the maids
of honour. Mr. Macaulay says they " were at last
forced to be content with less than a third" of 7,0001.
How much less ? Is there any evidence that they re
ceived a single guinea? Dr. Toulmin collected his in
formation from the families of.fbe girls of Taunton, at a
time when the children of the Uttle 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 pur
chased 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 bounti
fully out of the money .^ I know of no proof that the
maids of honour got a shilling.
While on this digression, I may add a remark in be
half 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
' Oldmixon, ii. 708.
2 Clarendon's Diary, March 9, 1688. — Secret Services of Charles II.
and James II. (about to be published by the Camden Society), 133, 141,
161, 180, 7, 196, 7, 205.— Oldmixon, ii. 708.

WILLIAM PENN. 447
her private portion of the spoil, and talks of " the thou
sand pounds" which she made by " her unprincely gree
diness 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 transport. We have
no good reason to believe that she ever asked for one.
The only ground for this gross charge against the honour
of a woman and a foreigner, is a letter of Sunderland
to Lord Jeffreys — 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 fc- 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 allow
ance for those who died of hunger and fever during the
passage," is a mere invention. The misfortunes of this
woman should have shielded her from injustice,
III. Towards the close of his reign, when the
churchmen openly repudiated their own doctrine of pas
sive obedience, James became anxious to secure the
adhesion of his dissenting subjects ; and among other
leading men he courted Penn's old opponent,^ William
Kiffin, by the offer of a city magistracy. But two of
Kiffin's grandsons had been taken and executed in the
western rebeUion, and it was doubted whether the old
•< CouncU Registers, W. R. i. 24. * Oldmixon, ii. 708.
" Hist, of Taunton, 532. « Oldmixon, ii. 702. ' Ibid. ii. 708.
» Sunderland Letter-Book, Sept. 14, 1G85. State-Paper Office.
" See Chap. iv. p. 150,

448

WILLIAM PENN.

man would comply with the wishes of the court. At
this point Mr. Macaulay introduces Penn. " The heart
less 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 com
pensation in money for the property which his grand
sons 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 statement. 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 nothing. It will be allowed that on such a point
Kiffin himself must be the best authority : in his au
tobiography, lately published from the original manu
script, 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 London ; which, as
soon as I heard of it, T 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, "2 This is just the reverse of what Mr. Macau
lay states. Penn did not go to Kiffin ; Kiffin went to
Penn. Instead of being employed in the work of seduc
tion, 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 alderman."^
IV. A little attention to dates will soon dispose of
the fourth charge against Penn. Mr. Macaulay writes
— " all men were anxious to know what he [the Prince
' Macaulay, ii. 230.
2 Kiffin's Mem. 85. ed. by Orme, 1823. » Ibid, 87.

WILLIAM PENN. 449
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 Germany 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 authority, 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 Indul
gence. 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 conversations 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 connexion 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
¦* One of his Ms. Letters to Harrison, now in my possession, is dated
London, Sept. 23, 1686. ' Burnet, ui. 140, 1. « Ibid.
' Van Citters' Ms. Corresp. Nov. 26, 1686, Westminster,
a G

450 WILLIAM PENN.
submission. The agency of Penn was employed." . . .
(4) "The courtly Quaker therefore did his best to seduce
the coUege from the path of right." ... (5) " To such
a degree had his manners been corrupted by evil com
munications, and his understanding obscured by inordi- .
nate 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
dirine to perjury." These assertions may be looked at
one by one as they stand here. (1) Had Penn become
in 1687 — the date of Mr. Macaulaj-'s authority'^^unpo-
pular and powerless with his brethren ? There is fortu
nately better evidence than that of an agent of Louis
Quatorze •? the evidence of the " brethren" themselves.
The Records at Devonshire House prove that his infiu
ence 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 ;^ and at the very moment when Mr,
Macaulay 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 So
ciety of Friends, and of persons in authority, that he is
engaged in the business of the nation.* (2) Was he ever
" a tool of the King and the Jesuits ?" No man, I venture
to believe, will entertain a doubt on this point after read
ing the ninth chapter of these memoirs, and the autho-
' Bourepaux to Seignelay, Sept. 12, 22, 1687. ^ Ibid.
^ Ms. minutes of Quarterly Meetings.
' Ms. letter to Harrison (undated, but placed by Harrison about, or
a little before, Sept. 23).
° See chap. xii. p. 422.

WILLIAM PENN. 451
rities 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 sen
tence with honest indignation at Jesuit morals.^ Now
that the Jesuits had acquired power at court, he con
tinuaUy hazarded his infiuence by urging the King to
banish them from the royal presence. Citters, John
stone, and Clarendon, all testify clearly to this effect.
The Dutch diplomatist says, " Penn has had a long in
terview with the King, and has, he thinks, shewn to the
King that Parliament will not consent to a revocation of
the Test and Penal Laws — and that he never will 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 surround him
daily, and whose ultra councils he now follows."''' John
stone says expressly, that Penn was against the order
commanding the Declaration to be read in churches.*
Clarendon says in his Diary that Penn " laboured to
thwart the Jesuitical infiuence that predominated.''^ On
what authority then does Mr. Macaulay make his asser
tion? Simply on his own! Was he a tool of the King?
The idea is absurd. He never sacrificed a point tp the
humour of James ; but he often crossed that humour, 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 dirided the leadership of the most ad
vanced body of Reformers with that great Republican,'"
* Caveat against Popery. Fruits of Solitude.
' Van Citters' Ms. Letters, July 29, 1687.
' Johnstone Corresp. May 23, 1688. Macintosh, 241, n.
» Clarendon Diary, June 23, 1688.
"• Barillon to Louis, Dalrymple, i. 357.

452 WILLIAM PENN.
— if his private friendship was given to Sunderland, Hali
fax, and Rochester,' his political sympathy was always
with the more liberal men of the opposition.^ The sup
porters of Monmouth looked to him and half a dozen
others to bring over the American colonies to the cause
of liberty and Protestantism.* 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 WhitehaU ; not
to trust to his prerogative, but to meet his ParUament
with wise and just proposals ;^ not to insist on haring
the declaration read by the clergy ;^ not to commit the
seven Prelates to the Tower. And when that impoUtic
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 signal
ise the occasion by a general amnesty to the exiles in
Holland.' He counselled him to submit to the wiU of
the nation, and to be content vrith a simple toleration
of his religion.* Can this man be called a " tool" of the
King ? Let Mr. Macaulay shew another man in that age
with equal boldness and integrity. He braved the royal
frowns again and again in the cause of mercy. He ob
tained a pardon for Locke, another for Trenchard, an
other for Aaron Smith — all of them men who had deeply
offended James.^ He compelled him to listen to the
councils of the leading Whigs ; and in the Oxford aflfair
told him he was in the wrong in plainer language than
' Penn's Letter to Sunderland, June 8, 1 684.
^ 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.
' Wade's Confession, Harl. Mss. 6845.
¦* Penn to Shrewsbury, March 7, 1689.
» Citters' Ms. Letter, July 29. « Johnstone, May 23.

WILLIAM PENN. 453
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 CoUege 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 colle
gians 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 infor
mation 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 posses
sion 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 at
tempted to " seduce them from the path of right," that
7 Lawton, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem. iii. Part ii. 230, 1.
8 CoUected Works, ii. 771-3.
' Life of Locke, i. 292. — Lawton's Memoirs, Penn. Hist. Soc. Mem.
iii. Part ii.
"> Lawton's Mem. Hough's Letter, Oct. 9, 1688.
" Creech to Chariett, Ms. Sept. 6.— Bailey's Letter, Oct. 3, 1688.
"2 Quarto, 1812. " Vol, xii,
gg2

454 WILLIAM PENN.
they agree exactly in the emphatic and conclusive state
ment, that, after hearing their reasons, he agreed with
them that they were justified in their resistance. He
even went further, and became their champion. In their
presence he wrote a manly English letter to his sovereign,
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 other gracious indulgences."' How sin
gularly unfortunate is Mr. Macaulay in his authorities !
" Penn," he says, " exhorted the FeUows not to rely on
the goodness of their cause, but to submit, or at least to
temporise." I defy Mr. Macaulay to give any trustwor
thy 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 v/as addressed
by some unknown person during the heat of the dispute
to Dr. Bailey, one of the FeUows. Bailey, " from the
charitable purpose" of this letter, thought it might have
come from Penn ;* 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 in
stant 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
' Ms. Letters to Dr. Charlett, Sept, 6, 7, 9, 1688,— Life of Hough, 16.
2 Bailey's Letter, Oct. 3.

WILLIAM PENN. 455
assumption that Penn actuaUy wrote this thrice-proved
spurious epistie, that Mr. Macaulay has built his most
serious accusation ! What would be said of such evidence
in a court of justice ? Let me say, to the credit of
Macintosh, that he makes no charge against Penn in this
Oxford business. Here Mr. Macaulay is perfectly ori
ginal. (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 re
present him as employed by the court ; and having, as
he says, failed in his attempt to terrify the collegian into
obedience, he " then tried a gentler tone. He had an
interview 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. Now let us see what is really known about
this interriew. 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 recited the principal heads of the
discourse, — and this account, from one too deeply inte
rested to be impartial, and too much excited to remember
any thing but what especially concerned his own pros
pects and position, is unfortunately the only existing
authority.^ Hunt was not present at this interview, and
no account of it is preserved iu the Magdalen College
MSS. Holden's ms. letters in the same library commence
posterior to the affair of Penn ; and Baron Jenner's ms.
account of the Visitation is not to be found. But let us
take the autnority we have, imperfect though it be, and
see what matter can be drawnfrom it in support of the
^ See the spurious letter in State Trials, vol. xii.
* Hunt Mss. ' Hough's Letter, Oct. 9, " at night."

456 WILLIAM PENN.
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 ofit is inexact in all its
essential particulars. " He then tried a gentler tone."
The historian does not seem to know that two inter-
riews took place, one at Oxford, the other at Windsor,
with six weeks of an interval : there is no eridence, ex
cept 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 the
imperfect report of this very conversation we see how he
played with the subject: — " Christ's Church is a noble
structure, University is a pleasant place, and Magdalen
College is a comely building." Hough, though uot the
most quick-witted of men, saw that he " 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
' Wilmot's Life of Hough, 22. " Hough's Letter, Oct, 9.
' Swift's note to Burnet, iii. 140.

WILLIAM PENN. 457
that, gentlemen ?" Cradock, one of the Fellows pre
sent, took up the tone of pleasantry, and replied, " they
should be heartily glad of it — for it would do very well
vrith the presidency." Does any one doubt that this
was a mere pleasantry ? Observe, Penn had no com
mission to treat with the Fellows, — that he met them
at their own request, to consider how he could serve
their interests. That Cradock thought it a joke is evi
dent from his retort. 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 pleasantry, for
he instantly adds, — " But I told him, seriously, /had
no ambition."^ The playful allusion is Mr. Macaulay's
"hint at a compromise:" but the attempt to make it
look like a serious proposal is perfectly absurd in the
face of Hough's emphatic declaration, that "he did not so
much as offer at any proposal by way of accommodation."
And yet this innocent mirth, accepted and understood as
such by aU 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 his
torical reputation ! Is this English History ?
* Ms. Testimonial of Reading Quakers.
s Hough's Letter, Oct. 9. « Ibid.

THE END.

PRINTED ET LEVEY, ROBSON, ASD FBATTKLTN,
Great New Street, Fetter Lane*

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