{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_28394/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_28394","id":"gutenberg_28394","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28394","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: History - American","Category: History - British","Category: History - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Penn, William, 1644-1718"],"text":"Produced by Carla Foust and The Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive/American Libraries.)\n\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note\n\n\nMinor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer\nerrors have been changed and are listed at the end.\n\n\n\n\nThe Riverside Biographical Series\n\n   ANDREW JACKSON, by W. G. BROWN\n   JAMES B. EADS, by LOUIS HOW\n   BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, by PAUL E. MORE\n   PETER COOPER, by R. W. RAYMOND\n   THOMAS JEFFERSON, by H. C. MERWIN\n   WILLIAM PENN, by GEORGE HODGES\n   GENERAL GRANT. (_In preparation_)\n   LEWIS AND CLARK, by WILLIAM R. LIGHTON. (_In preparation_)\n\nEach about 100 pages, 16mo, with photogravure portrait, 75 cents;\n_School Edition_, 50 cents, _net_\n\n   HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.\n   BOSTON AND NEW YORK\n\n\n\n\nThe Riverside Biographical Series\n\nNUMBER 6\n\nWILLIAM PENN\n\nBY\n\nGEORGE HODGES\n\n[Illustration:]\n\n\n\n\n   WILLIAM PENN\n\n   BY\n\n   GEORGE HODGES\n\n   [Illustration]\n\n   HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY\n\n   Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street\n   Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue\n\n   The Riverside Press, Cambridge\n\n\n\n\n   COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY GEORGE HODGES\n   ALL RIGHTS RESERVED\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n   CHAP.                                                            PAGE\n\n      I. A PURITAN BOYHOOD: WANSTEAD CHURCH AND CHIGWELL SCHOOL        1\n\n     II. AT OXFORD: INFLUENCE OF THOMAS LOE                            8\n\n    III. IN FRANCE AND IRELAND: THE WORLD AND THE OTHER WORLD         22\n\n     IV. PENN BECOMES A QUAKER: PERSECUTION AND CONTROVERSY           33\n\n      V. THE BEGINNING OF PENN'S POLITICAL LIFE: THE HOLY\n           EXPERIMENT                                                 53\n\n     VI. THE SETTLEMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA: PENN'S FIRST VISIT TO THE\n           PROVINCE                                                   68\n\n    VII. AT THE COURT OF JAMES THE SECOND, AND \"IN RETIREMENT\"        93\n\n   VIII. PENN'S SECOND VISIT TO THE PROVINCE: CLOSING YEARS          113\n\n\n\n\nWILLIAM PENN\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nA PURITAN BOYHOOD: WANSTEAD CHURCH AND CHIGWELL SCHOOL\n\n\nThe mother of William Penn came from Rotterdam, in Holland. She was the\ndaughter of John Jasper, a merchant of that city. The lively Mr. Pepys,\nwho met her in 1664, when William was twenty years of age, describes her\nas a \"fat, short, old Dutchwoman,\" and says that she was \"mighty\nhomely.\" He records a tattling neighbor's gossip that she was not a good\nhousekeeper. He credits her, however, with having more wit and\ndiscretion than her husband, and liked her better as his acquaintance\nwith her progressed. That she was of a cheerful disposition is evidenced\nby many passages of Pepys's Diary. That is all we know about her.\n\nWilliam's father was an ambitious, successful, and important person. He\nwas twenty-two years old, and already a captain in the navy, when he\nmarried Margaret Jasper. The year after his marriage he was made\nrear-admiral of Ireland; two years after that, admiral of the Straits;\nin four years more, vice-admiral of England; and the next year, a\n\"general of the sea\" in the Dutch war. This was in Cromwell's time, when\nthe naval strength of England was being mightily increased. A young man\nof energy and ability, acquainted with the sea, was easily in the line\nof promotion.\n\nThe family was ancient and respectable. Penn's father, however, began\nlife with little money or education, and few social advantages. Lord\nClarendon observed of him that he \"had a great mind to appear better\nbred, and to speak like a gentleman,\" implying that he found some\ndifficulty in so doing. Clarendon said, also, that he \"had many good\nwords which he used at adventure.\"\n\nThe Penns lived on Tower Hill, in the Parish of St. Catherine's, in a\ncourt adjoining London Wall. There they resided in \"two chambers, one\nabove another,\" and fared frugally. There William was born on the 14th\nof October, 1644.\n\nMarston Moor was fought in that year, and all England was taking sides\nin the contention between the Parliament and the king. The navy was in\nsympathy with the Parliament; and the young officer, though his personal\ninclinations were towards the king, went with his associates. But in\n1654 he appears to have lost faith in the Commonwealth. Cromwell sent an\nexpedition to seize the Spanish West Indies. He put Penn in charge of\nthe fleet, and made Venables general of the army. The two commanders,\nwithout conference one with the other, sent secret word to Charles II.,\nthen in exile on the Continent, and offered him their ships and\nsoldiers. This transaction, though it seemed for the moment to be of\nnone effect, resulted years afterward in the erection of the Colony of\nPennsylvania. Charles declined the offer; \"he wished them to reserve\ntheir affections for his Majesty till a more proper season to discover\nthem;\" but he never forgot it. It was the beginning of a friendship\nbetween the House of Stuart and the family of Penn, which William Penn\ninherited.\n\nThe expedition captured Jamaica, and made it a British colony; but in\nits other undertakings it failed miserably; and the admiral, on his\nreturn, was dismissed from the navy and committed to the Tower.\n\nAbout that same time, the admiral's young son, being then in the twelfth\nyear of his age, beheld a vision. His mother had removed with him to the\nvillage of Wanstead, in Essex. Here, as he was alone in his chamber, \"he\nwas suddenly surprised with an inward comfort, and, as he thought, an\nexternal glory in his room, which gave rise to religious emotions,\nduring which he had the strongest conviction of the being of a God, and\nthat the soul of man was capable of enjoying communication with him. He\nbelieved, also, that the seal of Divinity had been put upon him at this\nmoment, or that he had been awakened or called upon to a holy life.\"\n\nWhile William Penn the elder had been going from promotion to promotion,\nsailing the high seas, and fighting battles with the enemies of England,\nWilliam Penn the younger had been living with all possible quietness in\nthe green country, saying his prayers in Wanstead Church, and learning\nhis lessons in Chigwell School.\n\nWanstead Church was devotedly Puritan. The chief citizens had signed a\nprotest against any \"Popish innovations,\" and had agreed to punish every\noffender against \"the true reformed Protestant religion.\"\n\nThe founder of Chigwell School had prescribed in his deed of gift that\nthe master should be \"a good Poet, of a sound religion, neither Papal\nnor Puritan; of a good behaviour; of a sober and honest conversation; no\ntippler nor haunter of alehouses, no puffer of tobacco; and, above all,\napt to teach and severe in his government.\" Here William studied Lilly's\nLatin and Cleonard's Greek Grammar, together with \"cyphering and\ncasting-up accounts,\" being a good scholar, we may guess, in the\nclassics, but encountering the master's \"severe government\" in his sums.\nChigwell was as Puritan a place as Wanstead. About the time of William's\ngoing thither, the vicar had been ejected on petition from the\nparishioners, who complained that he had an altar before which he bowed\nand cringed, and which he had been known to kiss \"twice in one day.\"\n\nIt is plain that religion made up a large, interesting, and important\npart of life in these villages in which William Penn was getting his\nfirst impressions of the world. All about were great forests, whose\nshadows invited him to seclusion and meditation. All the news was of\ngreat battles, most of them fought in a religious cause, which even a\nlad could appreciate, and towards which he would readily take an\nattitude of stout partisanship. The boy was deeply affected by these\nsurroundings. \"I was bred a Protestant,\" he said long afterwards, \"and\nthat strictly, too.\" Trained as he was in Puritan habits of\nintrospection, he listened for the voice of God, and heard it. Thus the\ntone of his life was set. There were moments in his youth when \"the\nworld,\" as the phrase is, attracted him; there were times in his great\ncareer when he seemed, and perhaps was, disobedient to this heavenly\nvision; but, looking back from the end of his life to this beginning,\n\"as a tale that is told,\" it is seen to be lived throughout in the light\nof the glory which shone in his room at Wanstead. William Penn from that\nhour was a markedly religious man. Thereafter, nothing was so manifest\nor eminent about him as his religion.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nAT OXFORD: INFLUENCE OF THOMAS LOE\n\n\nOn the 22d of April, 1661, we get another glimpse of William.\n\nMr Pepys, having risen early on the morning of that day, and put on his\nvelvet coat, and made himself, as he says, as fine as he could, repaired\nto Mr. Young's, the flag-maker, in Cornhill, to view the procession\nwherein the king should ride through London. There he found \"Sir W. Pen\nand his son, with several others.\" \"We had a good room to ourselves,\" he\nsays, \"with wine and good cake, and saw the show very well.\" The streets\nwere new graveled, and the fronts of the houses hung with carpets, with\nladies looking out of all the windows; and \"so glorious was the show\nwith gold and silver, that we were not able to look at it, our eyes at\nlast being so overcome.\"\n\nThis was a glory very different from that which the lad had seen, five\nor six years before, in his room. The world was here presenting its\nattractions in competition with the \"other world\" of the earlier vision.\nThe contrast is a symbol of the contention between the two ideals, into\nwhich William was immediately to enter.\n\nThe king and the Duke of York had looked up as they passed the\nflag-maker's, and had recognized the admiral. He had gone to Ireland,\nupon his release from the Tower, and had there resided in retirement\nupon an estate which his father had owned before him. Thence returning,\nas the Restoration became more and more a probability, he had secured a\nseat in Parliament, and had been a bearer of the welcome message which\nhad finally brought Charles from his exile in Holland to his throne in\nEngland. For his part in this pleasant errand, he had been knighted and\nmade Commissioner of Admiralty and Governor of Kinsale. Thus his\nambitions were being happily attained. He had retrieved and improved his\nfortunes, and had become an associate with persons of rank and a\nfavorite with royalty.\n\nHe had immediately sent his son to Oxford. William had been entered as a\ngentleman-commoner of Christ Church, at the beginning of the Michaelmas\nterm of 1660. It was clearly the paternal intention that the boy should\nbecome a successful man of the world and courtier, like his father.\n\nSir William, however, had not reflected that while he had been pursuing\nhis career of calculating ambition and seeking the pleasure of princes,\nhis son had been living amongst Puritans in a Puritan neighborhood.\nYoung Penn went up to Oxford to find all things in confusion. The\nPuritans had been put out of their places, and the Churchmen were\nentering in. It is likely that this, of itself, displeased the new\nstudent, whose sympathies were with the dispossessed. The Churchmen,\nmoreover, brought their cavalier habits with them. In the reaction from\nthe severity which they had just escaped, they did many objectionable\nthings, not only for the pleasure of doing them, but for the added joy\nof shocking their Puritan neighbors. They amused themselves freely on\nthe Lord's day; they patronized games and plays; and they tippled and\n\"puffed tobacco,\" and swore and swaggered in all the newest fashions.\nWilliam was the son of his father in appreciation of pleasant and\nabundant living. But he was not of a disposition to enter into this\nwanton and audacious merry-making,--a gentle, serious country lad, with\na Puritan conscience.\n\nMoreover, at this moment, in the face of any possible temptation,\nWilliam's sober tastes and devout resolutions were strengthened by\ncertain appealing sermons. Here it was at Oxford, the nursery of\nenthusiasms and holy causes, that he received the impulse which\ndetermined all his after life. He spent but a scant two years in\ncollege; and the work of the lecture rooms must have suffered seriously\nduring that time from the contention and confusion of the changes then\nin progress; so that academically the college could not have greatly\nprofited him. The profit came in the influence of Thomas Loe. Loe was a\nQuaker.\n\nThe origin of the name \"Quaker\" is uncertain. It is derived by some\nfrom the fact that the early preachers of the sect trembled as they\nspoke; others deduce it from the trembling which their speech compelled\nin those who heard it. By either derivation, it indicates the earnest\nspirit of that strange people who, in the seventeenth century, were\nannoying and displeasing all their neighbors.\n\nGeorge Fox, the first Quaker, was a cobbler; and the first Quaker dress\nwas the leather coat and breeches which he made for himself with his own\ntools. Thereafter he was independent both of fashions and of tailors.\nCobbler though he was, and so slenderly educated that he did not express\nhimself grammatically, Fox was nevertheless a prophet, according to the\norder of Amos, the herdman of Tekoa. He looked out into the England of\nhis day with the keenest eyes of any man of the times, and remarked upon\nwhat he saw with the most honest and candid speech. A man of the plain\npeople, like most of the prophets and apostles, the offenses which\nchiefly attracted his attention were such as the plain people naturally\nsee.\n\nOut of the windows of his cobbler's shop, Fox beheld with righteous\nindignation the extravagant and insincere courtesies of the gentlefolk,\nand heard their exaggerated phrases of compliment. In protest against\nthe unmeaning courtesies, he wore his hat in the presence of no matter\nwhom, taking it off only in time of prayer. In protest against the\nunmeaning compliments, he addressed no man by any artificial title,\ncalling all his neighbors, without distinction of persons, by their\nChristian names; and for the plural pronoun \"you,\" the plural of dignity\nand flattery, he substituted \"thee\" and \"thou.\"\n\nThe same literalness appeared in his selection of \"Swear not at all\" as\none of the cardinal commandments, and in his application of it to the\noaths of the court and of the state. The Sermon on the Mount has in all\nages been considered difficult to enact in common life, but it would\nhave been hard to find any sentence in it which in the days of Fox and\nPenn, with their interpretation, would have brought upon a conscientious\nperson a heavier burden of inconvenience. Not only did it make the\nQuakers guilty of contempt of court and thus initially at fault in all\nlegal business, but it exposed them to a natural suspicion of disloyalty\nto the government. It was a time of political change, first the\nCommonwealth, then Charles, then James, then William; and every change\nsignified the supremacy of a new idea in religion, Puritan, Anglican,\nRoman Catholic, and Protestant. Every new ruler demanded a new oath of\nallegiance; and as plots and conspiracies were multiplied, the oath was\nrequired again and again; so that England was like an unruly school,\nwhose master is continually calling upon the pupils to declare whether\nor no they are guilty of this or that offense. The Quakers were\nforbidden by their doctrine of the oath to make answer in the form which\nthe state required. And they suffered for this scruple as men have\nsuffered for the maintenance of eternal principles.\n\nTo the social eccentricity of the irremoveable hat and the singular\npronoun, and to the civil eccentricity of the refused oath, George Fox\nand his disciples added a series of protests against the most venerable\ncustoms of Christianity. They did away with all the forms and ceremonies\nof Churchman and of Puritan alike. Not even baptism, not even the Lord's\nSupper remained. Their service was a silent meeting, whose solemn\nstillness was broken, if at all, by the voice of one who was sensibly\n\"moved\" by the Spirit of God. They discarded all orders of the ministry.\nThey refused alike all creeds and all confessions.\n\nNot content with thus abandoning most that their contemporaries valued\namong the institutions of religion, the Quakers made themselves\nobtrusively obnoxious. They argued and exhorted, in season and out of\nseason; they printed endless pages of eager and violent controversy;\nthey went into churches and interrupted services and sermons.\n\nAmongst these various denials there were two positive assertions. One\nwas the doctrine of the return to primitive Christianity; the other was\nthe doctrine of the inward light. Let us get back, they said, to those\nblessed centuries when the teaching of the Apostles was remembered, and\nthe fellowship of the Apostles was faithfully kept,--when Justin Martyr\nand Irenaeus and Ignatius and the other holy fathers lived. And let us\nlisten to the inner voice; let us live in the illumination of the light\nwhich lighteth every man, and attend to the counsels of that Holy Spirit\nwhose ministrations did not cease with the departure of the last\nApostle. God, they believed, spoke to them directly, and told them what\nto do.\n\nGeorge Fox, in 1656, had brought this teaching to Oxford; and among the\ncompany of Quakers which had thus been gathered under the eaves of the\nuniversity, Thomas Loe had become a \"public Friend,\" or, as would\ncommonly be said, a minister. When William Penn entered Christ Church\nCollege, Loe was probably in the town jail. It is at least certain that\nhe was imprisoned there, with forty other Quakers, sometime in 1660.\n\nTo Loe's preaching many of the students listened with attention. It is\neasy to see how his doctrines would appeal to young manhood. The fact\nthat they were forbidden would attract some, and that the man who\npreached thus had suffered for his faith would attract others. Their\nemphasis upon entire sincerity and consistency in word and deed would\ncommend them to honest souls, while the exaltation of the inward light\nwould move then, as in all ages, the idealists, the poets, the\nenthusiasts among them. William Penn knew what the inward light was. He\nhad seen it shining so that it filled all the room where he was sitting.\nAccordingly, he not only went to hear Loe speak but was profoundly\nimpressed by what he heard.\n\nIf Penn was naturally a religious person,--by inheritance, perhaps, from\nhis mother,--he was also naturally of a political mind, by inheritance\nfrom his father. What Loe said touched both sides of this inheritance.\nFor the Quakers had already begun to dream of a colony across the sea.\nThe Churchmen had such a colony in Virginia; the Puritans had one in\nMassachusetts; somewhere else in that untilled continent there must be a\nplace for those who in England could expect no peace from either\nPuritan or Churchman. Not only had they planned to have sometime a\ncountry of their own, but they had already located it. They had chosen\nthe lands which lay behind the Jerseys. While Loe was preaching and Penn\nwas listening, Fox was writing to Josiah Cole, a Quaker who was then in\nAmerica, asking him to confer with the chiefs of the Susquehanna\nIndians. This plan Loe revealed to his student congregation. It appealed\nto Penn. He had an instinctive appreciation of large ideas, and an\nimagination and confidence which made him eager to undertake their\nexecution. It was in his blood. It was the spirit which had carried his\nfather from a lieutenancy in the navy to the position of an honored and\ninfluential member of the court. \"I had an opening of joy as to these\nparts,\" he says, meaning Pennsylvania, \"in 1661, at Oxford.\"\n\nThis meeting with Loe was therefore a crisis in Penn's life. William\nPenn will always be remembered as a leader among the early Quakers, and\nas the founder of a commonwealth. He first became acquainted with the\nQuakers, and first conceived the idea of founding at Oxford, or\nassisting to found, a commonwealth, by the preaching of Thomas Loe.\n\nIt is a curious fact that the spirit of protest will often pass by\nserious offenses and fasten upon some apparently slight occasion which\nhas rather a symbolical than an actual importance. William Penn, so far\nas we know, endured the disorders of anti-Puritan Oxford without\nprotest. He entered so far into the life of the place as to contribute,\nwith other students, to a series of Latin elegies upon the death of the\nDuke of Gloucester; and he \"delighted,\" Anthony Wood tells us, \"in manly\nsports at times of recreation.\" It is true that he may have written to\nhis father to take him away, for Mr. Pepys records in his journal, under\ndate of Jan. 25, 1662, \"Sir W. Pen came to me, and did break a business\nto me about removing his son from Oxford to Cambridge, to some private\ncollege.\" But nothing came of it. William is said, indeed, to have\nabsented himself rather often from the college prayers, and to have\njoined with other students whom the Quaker preaching had affected in\nholding prayer-meetings in their own rooms. But all went fairly well\nuntil an order was issued requiring the students, according to the\nancient custom, to wear surplices in chapel. Then the young Puritan\narose, and assisted in a ritual rebellion. He and his friends \"fell upon\nthose students who appeared in surplices, and he and they together tore\nthem everywhere over their heads.\" Not content with thus seizing and\nrending the obnoxious vestments, they proceeded further to thrust the\nwhite gowns into the nearest cesspool, into whose depths they poked them\nwith long sticks.\n\nThis incident ended William's course at college. It is doubtful whether\nhe was expelled or only suspended. He was dismissed, and never returned.\nEight years after, chancing to pass through Oxford, and learning that\nQuaker students were still subjected to the rigors of academic\ndiscipline, he wrote a letter to the vice-chancellor. It probably\nexpresses the sentiments with which as an undergraduate he had regarded\nthe university authorities: \"Shall the multiplied oppressions which thou\ncontinuest to heap upon innocent English people for their religion pass\nunregarded by the Eternal God? Dost thou think to escape his fierce\nwrath and dreadful vengeance for thy ungodly and illegal persecution of\nhis poor children? I tell thee, no. Better were it for thee thou hadst\nnever been born.\" And so on, in the controversial dialect of the time,\ncalling the vice-chancellor a \"poor mushroom,\" and abusing him\ngenerally. Elsewhere, in a retrospect which I shall presently quote at\nlength, he refers to his university experiences: \"Of my persecution at\nOxford, and how the Lord sustained me in the midst of that hellish\ndarkness and debauchery; of my being banished the college.\"\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nIN FRANCE AND IRELAND: THE WORLD AND THE OTHER WORLD\n\n\nIn his retrospect of his early life, Penn notes what immediately\nfollowed his departure from the university: \"The bitter usage I\nunderwent when I returned to my father,--whipping, beating, and turning\nout of doors in 1662.\"\n\nThe admiral was thoroughly angry. He was at best but imperfectly\nacquainted with his son, of whom in his busy life he had seen but\nlittle, and was therefore unprepared for such extraordinary conduct. He\nwas by no means a religious person. For the spiritual, or even the\necclesiastical, aspects of the matter, he cared nothing. But he had, as\nClarendon perceived, a strong desire to be well thought of by those who\ncomposed the good society of the day. He expected the members of his\nfamily to deport themselves as befitted such society. And here was\nWilliam, whom he had carefully sent to a college where he would\nnaturally consort with the sons of titled families, taking up with a\nreligious movement which would bring him into the company of cobblers\nand tinkers. It is said, indeed, that Robert Spencer, afterwards Earl of\nSunderland, helped William destroy the surplices. But this is denied;\nand even if it were true, it would be plain, from Spencer's after\ncareer, that he did it not for the principle, but for the fun of the\nthing. William was in the most sober earnest. Accordingly, the admiral\nturned his son out of doors.\n\nThe boy came back, of course. Beating and turning out of doors were not\nsuch serious events in the seventeenth century as they would be at\npresent. Most men said more, and in louder voices, and meant less. It\nwas but a brief quarrel, and father and son made it up as best they\ncould. It was plain, however, that something must be done. Whipping\nwould not avail. William's head was full of queer notions, upon which a\nstick had no effect. His father bethought himself of the pleasant\ndiversions of France. The lad, he said, has lived in the country all his\ndays, and has had no acquaintance with the merry world; he shall go\nabroad, that he may see life, and learn to behave like a gentleman; let\nus see if this will not cure him of his pious follies.\n\nAccordingly, to France the young man went, and traveled in company with\ncertain persons of rank. He stayed more than a year, and enjoyed himself\ngreatly. He was at the age when all the world is new and interesting;\nand being of attractive appearance and high spirits, with plenty of\nmoney, the world gave him a cordial welcome. So far did he venture into\nthe customs of the country, that he had a fight one night in a Paris\nstreet with somebody who crossed swords with him, and disarmed his\nantagonist. He had a right, according to the rules, to kill him, but he\ndeclined to do so. When he came home, he pleased his father much by his\ngraceful behavior and elegant attire. \"This day,\" says Mr. Pepys in his\ndiary for August 26, 1664, \"my wife tells me that Mr. Pen, Sir William's\nson, is come back from France, and came to visit her. A most modish\nperson grown, she says, a fine gentleman.\" Pepys thinks that he is even\na bit too French in his manner and conversation.\n\n\"I remember your honour very well,\" writes a correspondent years after,\n\"when you came newly out of France, and wore pantaloon breeches.\"\n\nThis journey affected Penn all the rest of his life. It restrained him\nfrom following the absurder singularities of his associates. George\nFox's leather suit he would have found impossible. He wore his hat in\nthe Quaker way, and said \"thee\" and \"thou,\" but otherwise he appears to\nhave dressed and acted according to the conventions of polite society.\nHe did, indeed, become a Quaker; but there were always Quakers who\nlooked askance at him because he was so different from them, able to\nspeak French and acquainted with the manners of drawing-rooms.\n\nIn two respects, however, his visit to France differed from that of some\nof his companions in travel. There were places to which they went\nwithout him; and there were places to which he went without them. He\nkept himself from the grosser temptations of the country. \"You have been\nas bad as other folks,\" said Sir John Robinson when Penn was on trial\nfor preaching in the street.\n\n\"When,\" cried Penn, \"and where? I charge thee tell the company to my\nface.\"\n\n\"Abroad,\" said Robinson, \"and at home, too.\"\n\n\"I make this bold challenge,\" answered Penn, \"to all men, women and\nchildren upon earth, justly to accuse me with ever having seen me drunk,\nheard me swear, utter a curse, or speak one obscene word (much less that\nI ever made it my practice). I speak this to God's glory, that has ever\npreserved me from the power of those pollutions, and that from a child\nbegot an hatred in me towards them.\"\n\nHe went away alone for some months to the Protestant college of Saumur,\nwhere he devoted himself to a study of that primitive Christianity in\nwhich, as Loe had told him, was to be found the true ideal of the\nChristian Church. Here he acquired an acquaintance with the writings of\nthe early Fathers, from whom he liked to quote.\n\nThus he returned to England in 1664, attired in French pantaloon\nbreeches, and with little French affectations in his manner, but without\nvices, and with a smattering of patristic learning. He was sent by his\nfather to study law at Lincoln's Inn. He was to be a courtier, and in\nthat position it would be both becoming and convenient to have some\nknowledge of the law. Thus he settled down among the lawyers, and it\nseemed for the moment as if his father had succeeded in his purpose. It\nseemed as if the world had effectually obscured the other world.\n\nThere are two letters, written about this time from William to his\nfather, which show a pleasant mixture of piety with a lively interest in\nthe life about him. He has been at sea for a few days with the admiral,\nand returns with dispatches to the king. \"I bless God,\" he writes, \"my\nheart does not in any way fail, but firmly believe that if God has\ncalled you out to battle, he will cover your head in that smoky day.\" He\nhastened on his errand, he says, to Whitehall, and arrived before the\nking was up; but his Majesty, learning that there was news, \"earnestly\nskipping out of bed, came only in his gown and slippers; who, when he\nsaw me, said, 'Oh! is't you? How is Sir William?'\"\n\nThat was in May. Within a week the plague came. On the 7th of June,\n1665, Mr. Pepys makes this ominous entry: \"This day,\" he says, \"much\nagainst my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with\na red cross upon the doors, and 'Lord, have mercy,' written there; which\nwas a sad sight to me, being the first of the kind that, to my\nremembrance, I ever saw.\" Day by day the pestilence increased, and\npresently there was no more studying at Lincoln's Inn. Young Penn went\nfor safety into the clean country. There, among the green fields, in the\nenforced leisure, with time to think, and the most sobering things to\nthink about, his old seriousness returned. The change was so marked that\nhis father, feeling that it were well to renew the pleasant friendship\nwith the world which had begun in France, sent him over to Ireland.\n\nAt Dublin, the Duke of Ormond, the Lord Lieutenant, was keeping a merry\ncourt. William entered heartily into its pleasures. He resided upon his\nfather's estates, at Shannagarry Castle. He so distinguished himself in\nthe suppression of a mutiny that Ormond offered him a commission in the\narmy, and William was disposed to accept it. He had his portrait\npainted, clad in steel, with lace at his throat. His dark hair is parted\nin the middle, and hangs in cavalier fashion over his shoulders. He\nlooks out of large, clear, questioning eyes; and his handsome face is\nstrong and serious.\n\nBut the young cavalier went one day to Cork upon some business, and\nthere heard that Thomas Loe was in town, and that he was to preach. Penn\nwent to hear him, and again the spoken word was critical and decisive.\n\"There is a faith,\" said the preacher, \"which overcomes the world, and\nthere is a faith which is overcome by the world.\" Such was the theme,\nand it seemed to Penn as if every word were spoken out of heaven\nstraight to his own soul. In the long contention which had been going on\nwithin him between the world and the other world, the world had been\ngetting the mastery. The attractions of a martial life had shone more\nbrightly than the light which had flamed about him in his boyhood. Then\nLoe spoke, and thenceforth there was no more perplexity. Penn's choice\nwas definitely made.\n\nIn his account of his travels in Holland and Germany, written some ten\nyears after this crisis, Penn recurs to it in an address from which I\nhave already quoted. He was speaking in Wiemart, at a meeting in the\nmansion-house of the Somerdykes, and was illustrating his exhortations\nfrom his own experience. He passed in rapid review the incidents of his\nearly life which we have recounted. \"Here I began to let them know,\" he\nsays, \"how and where the Lord first appeared unto me, which was about\nthe twelfth year of my age, in 1656; how at times, betwixt that and the\nfifteenth, the Lord visited me, and the divine impressions he gave me of\nhimself.\" Then the banishment from Oxford, and his father's turning him\nout of doors. \"Of the Lord's dealings with me in France, and in the time\nof the great plague in London, in fine, the deep sense he gave me of the\nvanity of this world, of the deep irreligiousness of the religions of\nit; then of my mournful and bitter cries to him that he would show me\nhis own way of life and salvation, and my resolution to follow him,\nwhatever reproaches or sufferings should attend me, and that with great\nreverence and tenderness of spirit; how, after all this, the glory of\nthe world overtook me, and I was even ready to give myself up unto it,\nseeing as yet no such thing as the 'primitive spirit and church' upon\nearth, and being ready to faint concerning my 'hope of the restitution\nof all things.' It was at this time that the Lord visited me with a\ncertain sound and testimony of his eternal word, through one of them the\nworld calls Quakers, namely, Thomas Loe.\"\n\nStruggling, as Penn was, against continual temptations to abandon his\nhigh ideal, getting no help from his parents, who were displeased at\nhim, nor from the clergy, whose \"invectiveness and cruelty\" he\nremembers, nor from his companions, who made themselves strange to him;\nbearing meanwhile \"that great cross of resisting and watching against\nmine own inward vain affections and thoughts,\" the only voice of help\nand strength was that of Thomas Loe. Seeking for the \"primitive spirit\nand church upon earth,\" he found it in the sect which Loe represented.\nHis mind was now resolved. He, too, would be a Quaker.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nPENN BECOMES A QUAKER: PERSECUTION AND CONTROVERSY\n\n\nWilliam now began to attend Quaker meetings, though he was still dressed\nin the gay fashions which he had learned in France. His sincerity was\nsoon tested. A proclamation made against Fifth Monarchy men was so\nenforced as to affect Quakers. A meeting at which Penn was present was\nbroken in upon by constables, backed with soldiers, who \"rudely and\narbitrarily\" required every man's appearance before the mayor. Among\nothers, they \"violently haled\" Penn. From jail he wrote to the Earl of\nOrrery, Lord President of Munster, making a stout protest. It was his\nfirst public utterance. \"Diversities of faith and conduct,\" he argued,\n\"contribute not to the disturbance of any place, where moral conformity\nis barely requisite to preserve the peace.\" He reminded his lordship\nthat he himself had not long since \"concluded no way so effectual to\nimprove or advantage this country as to dispense with freedom [i. e. to\nact freely] in all things pertaining to conscience.\"\n\nPenn wrote so much during his long life that his selected works make\nfive large volumes. Many of these pages are devoted to the statement of\nQuaker theology; some are occupied with descriptions of his colonial\npossessions; some are given to counsels and conclusions drawn from\nexperience and dealing with human life in general; but there is one idea\nwhich continually recurs,--sometimes made the subject of a thesis,\nsometimes entering by the way,--and that is the popular right of liberty\nof conscience. It was for this that he worked, and chiefly lived, most\nof his life. Here it is set forth with all clearness in the first public\nword which he wrote.\n\nWilliam's letter opened the jail doors. It is likely, however, that the\nsignature was more influential than the epistle; for his Quaker\nassociates seem not to have come out with him. The fact which probably\nweighed most with the Lord President was that Penn was the son of his\nfather the admiral, and the protege of Ormond. His father called him\nhome. It was on the 3d of September that William was arrested; on the\n29th of December, being the Lord's day, Mrs. Turner calls upon Mr. and\nMrs. Pepys for an evening of cheerful conversation, \"and there, among\nother talk, she tells me that Mr. William Pen, who has lately come over\nfrom Ireland, is a Quaker again, or some very melancholy thing; that he\ncares for no company, nor comes into any.\"\n\nAdmiral Penn was sorely disappointed. Neither France nor Ireland had\navailed to wean his son from his religious eccentricities. Into the\npleasant society where his father had hoped to see him shine, he\ndeclined to enter. He said \"thee\" and \"thou,\" and wore his hat.\nEspecially upon these points of manners, the young man and his father\nheld long discussions. The admiral insisted that William should refrain\nfrom making himself socially ridiculous; though even here he was\nwilling to make a reasonable compromise. \"You may 'thee' and 'thou' whom\nyou please,\" he said, \"except the king, the Duke of York, and myself.\"\nBut the young convert declined to make any exceptions.\n\nThereupon, for the second time, the admiral thrust his son out of the\nhouse. The Quakers received him. He was thenceforth accounted among them\nas a teacher, a leader: in their phrase, a \"public Friend.\" This was in\n1668, when he was twenty-four years old.\n\nThe work of a Quaker minister, at that time, was made interesting and\ndifficult not only by the social and ecclesiastical prejudices against\nwhich he must go, but by certain laws which limited free speech and free\naction. The young preacher speedily made himself obnoxious to both these\nkinds of laws. Of the three years which followed, he spent more than a\nthird of the time in prison, being once confined for saying, and twice\nfor doing, what the laws forbade.\n\nThe religious world was filled with controversy. There were discussions\nin the meeting-houses; and a constant stream of pamphlets came from the\npress, part argument and part abuse. Even mild-mannered men called each\nother names. The Quakers found it necessary to join in this rough\ngive-and-take, and Penn entered at once into this vigorous exercise. He\nbegan a long series of like documents with a tract entitled \"Truth\nExalted.\" The intent of it was to show that Roman Catholics, Churchmen,\nand Puritans alike were all shamefully in error, wandering in the\nblackness of darkness, given over to idle superstition, and being of a\ncharacter to correspond with their fond beliefs; meanwhile, the Quakers\nwere the only people then resident in Christendom whose creed was\nabsolutely true and their lives consistent with it.\n\n\"Come,\" he says, \"answer me first, you Papists, where did the Scriptures\nenjoin baby-baptism, churching of women, marrying by priests, holy water\nto frighten the devil? Come now, you that are called Protestants, and\nfirst those who are called Episcopalians, where do the Scriptures own\nsuch persecutors, false prophets, tithemongers, deniers of revelations,\nopposers of perfection, men-pleasers, time-servers, unprofitable\nteachers?\" The Separatists are similarly cudgeled: they are \"groveling\nin beggarly elements, imitations, and shadows of heavenly things.\"\n\nPresently, a Presbyterian minister named Vincent attacked Quakerism.\nJoseph Besse, Penn's earliest biographer, says that Vincent was\n\"transported with fiery zeal;\" which, as he remarks in parenthesis, is\n\"a thing fertile of ill language.\" Penn challenged him to a public\ndebate; and, this not giving the Quaker champion an opportunity to say\nall that was in his mind, he wrote a pamphlet, called \"The Sandy\nFoundation Shaken.\" The full title was much longer than this, in the\nmanner of the time, and announced the author's purpose to refute three\n\"generally believed and applauded doctrines: first, of one God,\nsubsisting in three distinct and separate persons; second, of the\nimpossibility of divine pardon without the making of a complete\nsatisfaction; and third, of the justification of impure persons by an\nimputed righteousness.\"\n\nPenn's handling of the doctrine of the Trinity in this treatise gave\nmuch offense. He had taken the position of his fellow-religionists, that\nthe learning of the schools was a hindrance to religion. He sought to\ndivest the great statements of the creed from the subtleties of mediaeval\nphilosophy. He purposed to return to the Scripture itself, back of all\ncouncils and formulas. Asserting, accordingly, the being and unity of\nFather, Son, and Holy Ghost, he so refused all the conventional phrases\nof the theologians as to seem to them to reject the doctrine of the\nTrinity itself. He did deny \"the trinity of distinct and separate\npersons in the unity of essence.\" If the word \"person\" has one meaning,\nPenn was right; if it has another meaning, he was wrong. If a \"person\"\nis an individual, then the assertion is that there are three Gods; but\nif the word signifies a distinction in the divine nature, then the unity\nof God remains. As so often happens in doctrinal contention, he and his\ncritics used the same words with different definitions. The consequence\nwas that the bishop of London had him put in prison. He was restrained\nfor seven months in the Tower.\n\nThe English prison of the seventeenth century was a place of disease of\nbody and misery of mind. Penn was kept in close confinement, and the\nbishop sent him word that he must either recant or die a prisoner. \"I\ntold him,\" says Penn, \"that the Tower was the worst argument in the\nworld to convince me; for whoever was in the wrong, those who used force\nfor religion could never be in the right.\" He declared that his prison\nshould be his grave before he would budge a jot. Thus six months passed.\n\nBut the situation was intolerable. It is sometimes necessary to die for\na difference of opinion, but it is not advisable to do so for a simple\nmisunderstanding. Penn and the bishop were actually in accord. The young\nauthor therefore wrote an explanation of his book, entitled \"Innocency\nwith her Open Face.\" At the same time he addressed a letter to Lord\nArlington, principal secretary of state. In the letter he maintained\nthat he had \"subverted no faith, obedience or good life,\" and he\ninsisted on the natural right of liberty of conscience: \"To conceit,\" he\nsaid, \"that men must form their faith of things proper to another world\nby the prescriptions of mortal men, or else they can have no right to\neat, drink, sleep, walk, trade, or be at liberty and live in this, to me\nseems both ridiculous and dangerous.\" These writings gained him his\nliberty. The Duke of York made intercession for him with the king.\n\nPenn had occupied himself while in prison with the composition of a\nconsiderable work, called \"No Cross, No Crown.\" It is partly\ncontroversial, setting forth the reasons for the Quaker faith and\npractice, and partly devotional, exalting self-sacrifice, and urging men\nto simpler and more spiritual living. Thus the months of his\nimprisonment had been of value both to him and to the religious movement\nwith which he had identified himself. The Quakers, when Penn joined\nthem, had no adequate literary expression of their thought. They were\nmost of them intensely earnest but uneducated persons, who spoke great\ntruths somewhat incoherently. Penn gave Quaker theology a systematic and\ndignified statement.\n\nWhen he came out of the Tower, he went home to his father. The admiral\nhad now recovered from his first indignation. William was still, he\nsaid, a cross to him, but he had made up his mind to endure it. Indeed,\nthe world into which he had desired his son to enter was not at that\nmoment treating the admiral well. He was suffering impeachment and the\ngout at the same time. He saw that William's religion was giving him a\nserenity in the midst of evil fortune which he himself did not possess.\nHe could appreciate his heroic spirit. He admired him in spite of\nhimself.\n\nWilliam then spent nearly a year in Ireland, administering his father's\nestates. When he returned, in 1670, he found his Quaker brethren in\ngreater trouble than before. In that perilous season of plots and\nrumors of plots, when Protestants lived in dread of Roman Catholics, and\nChurchmen knew not at what moment the Puritans might again repeat the\ntragedies of the Commonwealth, neither church nor state dared to take\nrisks. The reigns of Mary and of Cromwell were so recent an experience,\nthe Papists and the Presbyterians were so many and so hostile, that it\nseemed unsafe to permit the assembling of persons concerning whose\nintentions there could be any doubt. Any company might undertake a\nconspiracy. The result of this feeling on the part of both the civil and\nthe ecclesiastical authorities was a series of ordinances, reasonable\nenough under the circumstances, and perhaps necessary, but which made\nlife hard for such stout and frank dissenters as the Quakers. At the\ntime of Penn's return from Ireland, it had been determined to enforce\nthe Conventicle Act, which prohibited all religious meetings except\nthose of the Church of England. There was, therefore, a general\narresting of these suspicious friends of Penn's. In the middle of the\nsummer Penn himself was arrested.\n\nThe young preacher had gone to a meeting-house of the Quakers in\nGracechurch or Gracious Street, in London, and had found the door shut,\nand a file of soldiers barring the way. The congregation thereupon held\na meeting in the street, keeping their customary silence until some one\nshould be moved to speak. It was not long before the spirit moved Penn.\nHe was immediately arrested, and William Mead, a linen draper, with him,\nand the two were brought before the mayor. The charge was that they\n\"unlawfully and tumultuously did assemble and congregate themselves\ntogether to the disturbance of the king's peace and to the great terror\nand disturbance of many of his liege people and subjects.\" They were\ncommitted as rioters and sent to await trial at the sign of the Black\nDog, in Newgate Market.\n\nAt the trial Penn entered the court-room wearing his hat. A constable\npromptly pulled it off, and was ordered by the judge to replace it in\norder that he might fine the Quaker forty marks for keeping it on. Thus\nthe proceedings appropriately began. William tried in vain to learn the\nterms of the law under which he was arrested, maintaining that he was\ninnocent of any illegal act. Finally, after an absurd and unjust\nhearing, the jury, who appreciated the situation, brought in a verdict\nof \"guilty of speaking in Gracious Street.\" The judges refused to accept\nthe verdict, and kept the jury without food or drink for two days,\ntrying to make them say, \"guilty of speaking in Gracious Street to an\nunlawful assembly.\" At last the jury brought in a formal verdict of \"not\nguilty,\" which the court was compelled to accept. Thereupon the judges\nfined every juryman forty marks for contempt of court; and Penn and the\njurors, refusing to pay their fines, were all imprisoned in Newgate. The\nCourt of Common Pleas presently reversed the judges' decision and\nreleased the jury. Penn was also released, against his own protest, by\nthe payment of his fine by his father.\n\nThe admiral was in his last sickness. He was weary, he said, of the\nworld. It had not proved, after all, to be a satisfactory world. He did\nnot grieve now that his son had renounced it. At the same time, he could\nnot help but feel that the friendship of the world was a valuable\npossession; and he had therefore requested his patron, the Duke of York,\nto be his son's friend. Both the duke and the king had promised their\ngood counsel and protection. Thus \"with a gentle and even gale,\" as it\nsays on his tombstone, \"in much peace, [he] arrived and anchored in his\nlast and best port, at Wanstead in the county of Essex, the 16th of\nSeptember, 1670, being then but forty-nine years and four months old.\"\n\nThe admiral's death left his son with an annual income of about fifteen\nhundred pounds. This wealth, however, made no stay in his Quaker zeal.\nBefore the year was ended, he was again in prison.\n\nSir John Robinson, the lieutenant of the Tower, had been one of the\njudges in the affair of Gracious Street. He had either taken a dislike\nto Penn, or else was deeply impressed with the conviction that the young\nQuaker was a peril to the state. Finding that there was to be a meeting\nin Wheeler Street, at which William was expected, he sent soldiers and\nhad him arrested. They conveyed him to the Tower, where he was examined.\n\"I vow, Mr. Penn,\" said Sir John, \"I am sorry for you; you are an\ningenious gentleman, all the world must allow you, and do allow you,\nthat; and you have a plentiful estate; why should you render yourself\nunhappy by associating with such a simple people?\" That was the\nsuspicious fact. Men in Robinson's position could not understand why\nPenn should join his fortunes with those of people so different from\nhimself, poor, ignorant, and obscure, unless there were some hidden\nmotive. He must be either a political conspirator, or, as many said, a\nJesuit in disguise, which amounted to the same thing. \"You do nothing,\"\nsaid Sir John, \"but stir up the people to sedition.\" He required him to\ntake an oath \"that it is not lawful, upon any pretense whatsoever, to\ntake arms against the king, and that [he] would not endeavour any\nalteration of government either in church or state.\" Penn would not\nswear. He was therefore sentenced for six months to Newgate. \"I wish you\nwiser,\" said Robinson. \"And I wish thee better,\" retorted Penn. \"Send a\ncorporal,\" said the lieutenant, \"with a file of musqueteers along with\nhim.\" \"No, no,\" broke in Penn, \"send thy lacquey; I know the way to\nNewgate.\"\n\nWilliam continued in prison during the entire period of his sentence, at\nfirst in a room for which he paid the jailers, then, by his own choice,\nwith his fellow Quakers in the \"common stinking jail.\" Even here,\nhowever, he managed, as before, to write; and he must have had access to\nbooks, for what he wrote could not have been composed without sight of\nthe authors from whom he quoted. The most important of his writings at\nthis time was \"The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience once more briefly\nDebated and Defended by the Authority of Reason, Scripture and\nAntiquity.\"\n\nBeing released from prison, Penn set out for the Continent, where he\ntraveled in Germany and Holland, holding meetings as opportunity\noffered, and regaining such strength of body as he may have lost amidst\nthe rigors of confinement.\n\nIn 1672, being now back in England, and having reached the age of\ntwenty-seven years, he married Gulielma Maria Springett, a young and\ncharming Quakeress. Guli Springett's father had died when she was but\ntwenty-three years old, after such valiant service on the Parliamentary\nside in the civil war that he had been knighted by the Speaker of the\nHouse of Commons. Her mother, thus bereft, had married Isaac Pennington,\na quiet country gentleman, in whose company, after some search for\nsatisfaction in religion, she had become a Quaker. Pennington's\nQuakerism, together with the sufferings which it brought upon him, had\nmade him known to Penn. It was to him that Penn had written, three years\nbefore, to describe the death of Thomas Loe. \"Taking me by the hand,\"\nsaid William, \"he spoke thus: 'Dear heart, bear thy cross, stand\nfaithful for God, and bear thy testimony in thy day and generation; and\nGod will give thee an eternal crown of glory, that none shall ever take\nfrom thee. There is not another way. Bear thy cross. Stand faithful for\nGod.'\"\n\nIt was in Pennington's house that Thomas Ellwood lived, as tutor to Guli\nand the other children, to whom one day in 1655 had come his friend John\nMilton, bringing a manuscript for him to read. \"He asked me how I liked\nit, and what I thought of it, which I modestly but freely told him; and\nafter some further discourse about it, I pleasantly said to him, Thou\nhast said much here of _Paradise Lost_, but what hast thou to say about\nParadise found?\" Whereupon the poet wrote his second epic.\n\nEllwood has left a happy description of Guli Springett. \"She was in all\nrespects,\" he says, \"a very desirable woman,--whether regard was had to\nher outward person, which wanted nothing to render her completely\ncomely; or as to the endowments of her mind, which were every way\nextraordinary.\" And he speaks of her \"innocent, open, free\nconversation,\" and of the \"abundant affability, courtesy, and sweetness\nof her natural temper.\" Her portrait fits with this description, showing\na bright face in a small, dark hood, with a white kerchief over her\nshoulders. Both her ancestry and her breeding would dispose her to\nappreciate heroism, especially such as was shown in the cause of\nreligion. She found the hero of her dreams in William Penn. Thus at\nAmersham, in the spring of 1672, the two stood up in some quiet company\nof Friends, and with prayer and joining of hands were united in\nmarriage.\n\n\"My dear wife,\" he wrote to her ten years later, as he set out for\nAmerica, \"remember thou hast the love of my youth, and much the joy of\nmy life; the most beloved, as well as the most worthy of all earthly\ncomforts. God knows, and thou knowest it. I can say it was a match of\nProvidence's making.\"\n\nThe Declaration of Indulgence, the king's suspension of the penalties\nlegally incurred by dissent, came conveniently at this time to give them\na honeymoon of peace and tranquillity. They took up their residence at\nRickmansworth, in Hertfordshire. In the autumn, William set out again\nupon his missionary journeys, preaching in twenty-one towns in\ntwenty-one days. \"The Lord sealed up our labors and travels,\" he wrote\nin his journal, \"according to the desire of my soul and spirit, with his\nheavenly refreshments and sweet living power and word of life, unto the\nreaching of all, and consolating our own hearts abundantly.\"\n\nSo he returned with the blessings of peace, \"which,\" as he said, \"is a\nreward beyond all earthly treasure.\"\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE BEGINNING OF PENN'S POLITICAL LIFE: THE HOLY EXPERIMENT\n\n\nIn 1673, George Fox came back from his travels in America, and Penn and\nhis wife had great joy in welcoming him at Bristol. No sooner, however,\nhad Fox arrived than the Declaration of Indulgence was withdrawn. It had\nmet with much opposition: partly ecclesiastical, from those who saw in\nit a scheme to reestablish relations between Rome and England; and\npartly political, from those who found but an ill precedent in a royal\ndecree which set aside parliamentary legislation. The religious liberty\nwhich it gave was good, but the way in which that liberty was given was\nbad. What was needed was not \"indulgence,\" but common justice. So the\nking recalled the Declaration, and Parliament being not yet ready to\nenact its provisions into law, the prisons were again filled with\npeaceable citizens whose offense was their religion. One of the first to\nsuffer was Fox, and in his behalf Penn went to court. He appealed to the\nDuke of York.\n\nThe incident is significant as the beginning of another phase of\nWilliam's life. Thus far, he had been a Quaker preacher. Though he was\nunordained, being in a sect which made nothing of ordination, he was for\nall practical purposes a minister of the gospel. He was the Rev. William\nPenn. But now, when he opened the door of the duke's palace, he entered\ninto a new way of living, in which he continued during most of the\nremainder of his life. He began to be a courtier; he went into politics.\nHe was still a Quaker, preaching sermons and writing books of\ntheological controversy; he gave up no religious conviction, and abated\nnothing of the earnestness of his personal piety; but he had found, as\nhe believed, another and more effective way to serve God. He now began\nto enter into that valuable but perilous heritage which had been left\nhim by his father, the friendship of royalty.\n\nPenn found the duke's antechamber filled with suitors. It seemed\nimpossible to get into the august presence. But Colonel Ashton, one of\nthe household, looked hard at Penn, and found in him an old companion, a\nfriend of the days when William was still partaking of the joys of\npleasant society. Ashton immediately got him an interview, and Penn\ndelivered his request for the release of Fox. The duke received him and\nhis petition cordially, professing himself opposed to persecution for\nreligion's sake, and promising to use his influence with the king.\n\"Then,\" says Penn, \"when he had done upon this affair, he was pleased to\ntake a very particular notice of me, both for the relation my father had\nhad to his service in the navy, and the care he had promised to show in\nmy regard upon all occasions.\" He expressed surprise that William had\nnot been to see him before, and said that whenever he had any business\nwith him, he should have immediate entrance and attention.\n\nFox was not set at liberty by reason of this interview. The king was\nwilling to pardon Fox, but Fox was not willing to be pardoned; having,\nas he insisted, done no wrong. Penn, however, had learned that the royal\nduke remembered the admiral's son. It was an important fact, and William\nthereafter kept it well in mind. That it was a turning-point in his\naffairs, appears in his reference to it in a letter which he wrote in\n1688 to a friend who had reproached him for his attendance at court. \"I\nhave made it,\" he says, \"my province and business; I have followed and\npressed it; I took it for my calling and station, and have kept it above\nthese sixteen years.\"\n\nPenn went back to Rickmansworth, and for a time life went on as before.\nWe get a glimpse of it in the good and wholesome orders which he\nestablished for the well-governing of his family. In winter, they were\nto rise at seven; in summer at five. Breakfast was at nine, dinner at\ntwelve, supper at seven. Each meal was preceded by family prayers. At\nthe devotions before dinner, the Bible was read aloud, together with\nchapters from the \"Book of Martyrs,\" or the writings of Friends. After\nsupper, the servants appeared before the master and mistress, and gave\nan account of their doings during the day, and got their orders for the\nmorrow. \"They were to avoid loud discourse and troublesome noises; they\nwere not to absent themselves without leave; they were not to go to any\npublic house but upon business; and they were not to loiter, or enter\ninto unprofitable talk, while on an errand.\"\n\nWith the canceling of the Indulgence, the persecution of the Quakers was\nrenewed. Their houses were entered, their furniture was seized, their\ncattle were driven away, and themselves thrust into jail. When no\noffense was clearly proved against them, the oath was tendered, and the\nrefusal to take it meant a serious imprisonment.\n\nUnder these circumstances, Penn wrote a \"Treatise on Oaths.\" He also\naddressed the general public with \"England's Present Interest\nConsidered,\" an argument against the attempt to compel uniformity of\nbelief. He petitioned the king and Parliament in \"The Continued Cry of\nthe Oppressed.\" \"William Brazier,\" he said, \"shoemaker at Cambridge, was\nfined by John Hunt, mayor, and John Spenser, vice-chancellor, twenty\npounds for holding a peaceable religious meeting in his own house. The\nofficer who distrained for this sum took his leather last, the seat he\nworked upon, wearing clothes, bed, and bedding.\" \"In Cheshire, Justice\nDaniel of Danesbury took from Briggs and others the value of one hundred\nand sixteen pounds, fifteen shillings and tenpence in coin, kine, and\nhorses. The latter he had the audacity to retain and work for his own\nuse,\" and so on, instance after instance. Penn's acquaintance at court\nand his friendships with persons of position never made him an\naristocrat. He was fraternally interested in farmers and cobblers, and\ncared for the plain people. Quakerism, as he held it, was indeed a\nsystem of theology which he studiously taught, but it was also, and\nquite as much, a social and intellectual democracy. What he mightily\nliked about it was that abandonment of artificial distinctions, whereby\nall Quakers addressed their neighbors by their Christian names, and that\nrefusal to be held by formulas of faith, whereby they were left free to\naccept such beliefs, and such only, as appealed to their own reason.\n\nAbout this time he engaged in controversy with Mr. Richard Baxter.\nBaxter is chiefly remembered as the author of \"The Saints' Everlasting\nRest,\" but he was a most militant person, who rejoiced greatly in a\ntheological fight. Passing by Rickmansworth, and finding many Quakers\nthere,--to him a sad spectacle,--he sought to reclaim them, and thus\nfell speedily into debate with Penn. The two argued from ten in the\nmorning until five in the afternoon, a great crowd listening all the\ntime with breathless interest. Neither could get the other to surrender;\nbut so much did William enjoy the exercise that he offered Baxter a room\nin his house, that they might argue every day.\n\nIn 1677, having now removed to an estate of his wife's at Worminghurst,\nin Sussex, Penn, in company with Fox, Barclay, and other Quakers, made a\n\"religious voyage\" into Holland and Germany, preaching the gospel. His\njournal of these travels is printed in his works. \"At Osnaburg,\" he\nwrites, \"we had a little time with the man of the inn where we lay; and\nleft him several good books of Friends, in the High and Low Dutch\ntongues, to read and dispose of.\" Then, in the next sentence, he\ncontinues, \"the next morning, being the fifth day of the week, we set\nforward to Herwerden, and came thither at night. This is the city where\nthe Princess Elizabeth Palatine hath her court, whom, and the countess\nin company with her, it was especially upon us to visit.\" Thus they\nwent, ministering to high and low alike, in their democratic Christian\nway making no distinction between tavern-keepers and princesses. As they\ntalked with Elizabeth and her friend the countess, discoursing upon\nheavenly themes, they were interrupted by the rattling of a coach, and\ncallers were announced. The countess \"fetched a deep sigh, crying out,\n'O the cumber and entanglements of this vain world! They hinder all\ngood.' Upon which,\" says William, \"I replied, looking her steadfastly in\nthe face, 'O come thou out of them, then.'\" This journey was of great\nimportance as affecting afterwards the population of Pennsylvania. Here\nit was that Penn met various communities \"of a separating and seeking\nturn of mind,\" who found in him a kindred spirit. When he established\nhis colony, many of them came out and joined it, becoming the\n\"Pennsylvania Dutch.\"\n\nDuring these travels Penn wrote letters to the Prince Elector of\nHeidelberg, to the Graf of Bruch and Falschenstein, to the King of\nPoland, together with an epistle \"To the Churches of Jesus throughout\nthe world.\" This was a kind of correspondence in which he delighted.\nLike Wesley, after him, he had taken the world for his parish. He\nconsidered himself a citizen of the planet, and took an episcopal and\npontifical interest in the affairs of men and nations. He combined in\nan unusual way the qualities of the saint and the statesman. His mind\nwas at the same time religious and political. Accordingly, as he came to\nhave a better acquaintance with himself, he entered deliberately upon a\ncourse of life in which these two elements of his character could have\nfree play. He applied himself to the task of making politics contribute\nto the advancement of religion. Many men before him had been eminently\nsuccessful in making politics contribute to the advancement of the\nchurch. Penn's purpose was deeper and better.\n\nHe came near, at this time, to getting Parliament to assent to a\nprovision permitting Quakers to affirm, without oath; but the sudden\nproroguing of that body prevented it. In the general election which\nfollowed, he made speeches for Algernon Sidney, who was standing for a\nplace in Parliament. He wrote \"England's Great Interest in the Choice of\na New Parliament,\" and \"One Project for the Good of England.\" The\nproject was that Protestants should stop contending one with another\nand unite against a common enemy.\n\nThis was in 1679. The next year he took the decisive step. He entered\nupon the fulfillment of that great plan, which had been in his mind\nsince his student days at Oxford, and with which he was occupied all the\nrest of his life. He began to undertake the planting of a colony across\nthe sea.\n\nPenn had already had some experience in colonial affairs. With the\ndownfall of the Dutch dominion in the New World, England had come into\npossession of two important rivers, the Hudson and the Delaware, and of\nthe countries which they drained. Of these estates, the Duke of York had\nbecome owner of New Jersey. He, in turn, dividing it into two portions,\nwest and east, had sold West Jersey to Lord Berkeley, and East Jersey to\nSir George Carteret. Berkeley had sold West Jersey to a Quaker, John\nFenwick, in trust for another Quaker, Edward Byllinge. These Quakers,\ndisagreeing, had asked Penn to arbitrate between them. Byllinge had\nfallen into bankruptcy, and his lands had been transferred to Penn as\nreceiver for the benefit of the creditors. Thus William had come into a\nposition of importance in the affairs of West Jersey. Presently, in\n1679, East Jersey came also into the market, and Penn and eleven others\nbought it at auction. These twelve took in other twelve, and the\ntwenty-four appointed a Quaker governor, Robert Barclay.\n\nNow, in 1680, having had his early interest in America thus renewed and\nstrengthened, Penn found that the king was in his debt to the amount of\nsixteen thousand pounds. Part of this money had been loaned to the king\nby William's father, the admiral; part of it was the admiral's unpaid\nsalary. Mr. Pepys has recorded in his diary how scandalously Charles\nleft his officers unpaid. The king, he says, could not walk in his own\nhouse without meeting at every hand men whom he was ruining, while at\nthe same time he was spending money prodigally upon his pleasures. Pepys\nhimself fell into poverty in his old age, accounting the king to be in\ndebt to him in the sum of twenty-eight thousand pounds.\n\nPenn considered his account collectible. \"I have been,\" he wrote, \"these\nthirteen years the servant of Truth and Friends, and for my testimony's\nsake lost much,--not only the greatness and preferment of the world, but\nsixteen thousand pounds of my estate which, had I not been what I am, I\nhad long ago obtained.\" It is doubtful, however, if the king would have\never paid a penny. It is certain that when William offered to exchange\nthe money for a district in America, Charles agreed to the bargain with\ngreat joy.\n\nThe territory thus bestowed was \"all that tract or part of land in\nAmerica, bounded on the east by the Delaware River, from twelve miles\nnorthward of New Castle town unto the three and fortieth degree of\nnorthern latitude. The said land to extend westward five degrees in\nlongitude, to be computed from the said eastern bounds, and the said\nlands to be bounded on the north by the beginning of the three and\nfortieth degree of northern latitude and on the south by a circle drawn\nat twelve miles distance from New Castle, northward and westward, unto\nthe beginning of the fortieth degree of northern latitude, and then by\na straight line westward to the limits of longitude above mentioned.\"\n\nThis was a country almost as large as England. No such extensive domain\nhad ever been given to a subject by an English sovereign: but none had\never been paid for by a sum of money so substantial.\n\nOn the 4th of March, 1681, the charter received the signature of Charles\nthe Second. On the 21st of August, 1682, the Duke of York signed a deed\nwhereby he released the tract of land called Pennsylvania to William\nPenn and his heirs forever. About the same time, by a like deed, the\nduke conveyed to Penn the district which is now called Delaware. Penn\nagreed, on his part, as a feudal subject, to render yearly to the king\ntwo skins of beaver, and a fifth part of all the gold and silver found\nin the ground; and to the duke \"one rose at the feast of St. Michael the\nArchangel.\"\n\nThis association of sentiment and religion with a transaction in real\nestate is a fitting symbol of the spirit in which the Pennsylvania\ncolony was undertaken. Penn received the land as a sacred trust. It was\nregarded by him not as a personal estate, but as a religious possession\nto be held for the good of humanity, for the advancement of the cause of\nfreedom, for the furtherance of the kingdom of heaven. He wrote at the\ntime to a friend that he had obtained it in the name of God, that thus\nhe may \"serve his truth and people, and that an example may be set up to\nthe nations.\" He believed that there was room there \"for such an holy\nexperiment.\"\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE SETTLEMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA: PENN'S FIRST VISIT TO THE PROVINCE\n\n\nThat Penn undertook the \"holy experiment\" without expectation or desire\nof profit appears not only in his conviction that he was thereby losing\nsixteen thousand pounds, but in his refusal to make his new estates a\nmeans of gain. \"He is offered great things,\" says James Claypole in a\nletter dated September, 1681, \"L6000 for a monopoly in trade, which he\nrefused.... He designs to do things equally between all parties, and I\nbelieve truly does aim more at justice and righteousness and spreading\nof truth than at his own particular gain.\" \"I would not abuse His love,\"\nsaid Penn, \"nor act unworthy of His providence, and so defile what came\nto me clean. No, let the Lord guide me by His wisdom, and preserve me to\nhonour His name, and serve His truth and people, that an example and\nstandard may be set up to the nations.\"\n\nSo far removed was he from all self-seeking, that he was even unwilling\nto have the colony bear his name. \"I chose New Wales,\" he says,\nrecounting the action of the king's council, \"being, as this, a pretty\nhilly country,--but Penn being Welsh for head, as Pennanmoire in Wales,\nand Penrith in Cumberland, and Penn in Buckinghamshire, the highest land\nin England--[the king] called this Pennsylvania, which is the high or\nhead woodlands; for I proposed, when the secretary, a Welshman, refused\nto have it called New Wales, Sylvania, and they added Penn to it; and\nthough I much opposed it, and went to the king to have it struck out and\naltered, he said it was past, and he would take it upon him; nor could\ntwenty guineas move the under-secretary to vary the name, for I feared\nlest it should be looked on as a vanity in me, and not as a respect in\nthe king, as it truly was, to my father, whom he often mentions with\npraise.\"\n\nThe charter gave the land to Penn as the king's tenant. He had power to\nmake laws; though this power was to be exercised, except in emergencies,\n\"with the advice, assent, and approbation of the freemen of the\nterritory,\" and subject to the confirmation of the Privy Council. He was\nto appoint judges and other officers. He had the right to assess custom\non goods laden and unladen, for his own benefit; though he was to take\ncare to do it \"reasonably,\" and with the advice of the assembly of\nfreemen. He was, at the same time, to be free from any tax or custom of\nthe king, except by his own consent, or by the consent of his governor\nor assembly, or by act of Parliament. He was not to maintain\ncorrespondence with any king or power at war with England, nor to make\nwar against any king or power in amity with the same. If as many as\ntwenty of his colonists should ask a minister from the Bishop of London,\nsuch minister was to be received without denial or molestation.\n\nThe next important document to be prepared was the Constitution, or\nFrame of Government, and to the task of composing it Penn gave a great\namount of time and care. It was preceded by two statements of\nprinciples,--the Preface and the Great Fundamental.\n\nThe Preface declared the political policy of the proprietor.\n\"Government,\" he said, \"seems to me a part of religion itself, a thing\nsacred in its institution and end.\" As for the debate between monarchy,\naristocracy, and democracy, \"I choose,\" he said, \"to solve the\ncontroversy with this small distinction, and it belongs to all three:\nany government is free to the people under it, whatever be the frame,\nwhere the laws rule, and the people are a party to those laws.\" His\npurpose, he says, is to establish \"the great end of all government,\nviz., to support power in reverence with the people, and to secure the\npeople from the abuse of power, that they may be free by their just\nobedience, and the magistrates honourable for their just administration;\nfor liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without\nliberty is slavery.\"\n\nIn a private letter, written about the same time, Penn stated his\npolitical position in several concrete sentences which interpret these\nfine but rather vague pronouncements. \"For the matters of liberty and\nprivilege,\" he wrote, \"I propose that which is extraordinary, and to\nleave myself and successors no power of doing mischief, that the will of\none man may not hinder the good of an whole country; but to publish\nthese things now and here, as matters stand, would not be wise.\"\n\nThe Great Fundamental set forth the ecclesiastical policy of the\nfounder: \"In reverence to God, the father of light and spirits, the\nauthor as well as the object of all divine knowledge, faith and\nworkings, I do, for me and mine, declare and establish for the first\nfundamental of the government of my province, that every person that\ndoth and shall reside there shall have and enjoy the free profession of\nhis or her faith and exercise of worship towards God, in such way and\nmanner as every such person shall in conscience believe is most\nacceptable to God.\"\n\nThese principles of civil and religious liberty constituted the \"holy\nexperiment.\" They made the difference between Penn's colony and almost\nevery other government then existing. In their influence and\ncontinuance, until at last they were incorporated in the Constitution of\nthe United States, they are the chief contribution of William Penn to\nthe progress of our institutions.\n\n   \"All Europe with amazement saw\n   The soul's high freedom trammeled by no law.\"\n\nThe Constitution was drawn up in Articles to the number of twenty-four,\nand these were followed by forty Laws.\n\nThe Articles provided for a governor, to be appointed by the proprietor,\nand for two legislative bodies, a provincial council and a general\nassembly. The provincial council was to consist of seventy-two members.\nOf these a third were elected for three years, a third for two, and a\nthird for one; so that by the end of the service of the first third, all\nwould have a three-year term, twenty-four going out and having their\nplaces filled each year. The business of the council was to prepare\nlaws, to see that they were executed, and in general to provide for the\ngood conduct of affairs. The general assembly was to consist of two\nhundred members, to be chosen annually. They had no right to originate\nlegislation, but were to pass upon all bills which had been enacted by\nthe council, accepting or rejecting them by a vote of yea or nay.\n\nThe Laws enjoined that \"all persons who confessed the one almighty and\neternal God to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, and who\nheld themselves obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly in\nsociety, were in no ways to be molested for their religious persuasion\nand practice, nor to be compelled at any time to frequent any religious\nplace or ministry whatever.\" All children of the age of twelve were to\nbe taught some useful trade. All pleadings, processes, and records in\nthe courts of law were to be as short as possible. The reformation of\nthe offender was to be considered as a great part of the purpose of\npunishment. At a time when there were in England two hundred offenses\npunishable by death, Penn reduced these capital crimes to two, murder\nand treason. All prisons were to be made into workhouses. No oath was to\nbe required. Drinking healths, selling rum to Indians, cursing and\nlying, fighting duels, playing cards, the pleasures of the theatre, were\nall put under the ban together.\n\nPenn's provincial council suggested the Senate of the United States. As\noriginally established, however, the disproportion of power between the\nupper and the lower house was so great as to cause much just\ndissatisfaction. The council was in effect a body of seventy-two\ngovernors; the assembly, which more directly represented the people,\ncould consider no laws save those sent down to them by the council. The\nConstitution had to be changed.\n\nOne of the good qualities of the Constitution was that it was possible\nto change it. It provided for the process of amendment. That customary\narticle with which all constitutions now end appeared for the first time\nin Penn's Frame of Government. Another good quality of the Constitution\nwas that it secured an abiding harmony between its fundamental\nstatements and all further legislation. \"Penn was the first one to hit\nupon the foundation or first step in the true principle, now the\nuniversal law in the United States, that the unconstitutional law is\nvoid.\"\n\nWhatever help Penn may have had in the framing of this legislation, from\nAlgernon Sidney and other political friends, it is plain that the best\npart of it was his own, and that he wrote it not as a politician but as\na Quaker. It is an application of the Quaker principles of democracy and\nof religious liberty to the conditions of a commonwealth. From beginning\nto end it is the work of a man whose supreme interest was religion. It\nis at the same time singularly free from the narrowness into which men\nof this earnest mind have often fallen. Religion, as Penn considered it,\nwas not a matter of ordinances or rubrics. It was righteousness, and\nfraternity, and liberty of conscience.\n\nIn this spirit he wrote a letter to the Indian inhabitants of his\nprovince. \"The great God, who is the power and wisdom that made you and\nme, incline your hearts to righteousness, love, and peace. This I send\nto assure you of my love, and to desire you to love my friends; and when\nthe great God brings me among you, I intend to order all things in such\na manner that we may all live in love and peace, one with another, which\nI hope the great God will incline both me and you to do. I seek nothing\nbut the honour of his name, and that we, who are his workmanship, may do\nthat which is well pleasing to him.... So I rest in the love of God that\nmade us.\"\n\nNow colonists began to seek this land of peace across the sea. A hundred\nacres were promised for forty shillings, with a quit-rent of one\nshilling annually to the proprietor forever. In clearing the ground,\ncare was to be taken to leave one acre of trees, for every five acres\ncleared. All transactions with the Indians were to be held in the public\nmarket, and all differences between the white man and the red were to be\nsettled by a jury of six planters and six Indians. Penn also counseled\nprospective colonists to consider the great inconveniences which they\nmust of necessity endure, and hoped that those who went would have \"the\npermission if not the good liking of their near relations.\"\n\nThere were already in the province some two thousand people, besides\nIndians,--a peaceable and industrious folk, mostly Swedes and English.\nThey had six meeting-houses; the English settlers being Quakers. They\nlived along the banks of the Delaware. In the autumn of 1681, the ship\nSarah and John brought the first of Penn's emigrants, and in December\nthe ship Bristol Factor added others. In 1682, Penn came himself.\n\nThe journey at that time was both long and perilous. If it was\naccomplished in two months, the voyage was considered prosperous. To the\nordinary dangers of the deep was added the terror of the smallpox.\nScarcely a ship crossed without this dread passenger. William,\naccordingly, as one undertaking a desperate adventure, took a tender\nleave of his family. He wrote a letter whose counsels might guide them\nin case he never returned. \"My dear wife and children,\" he said, \"my\nlove, which neither sea, nor land, nor death itself can extinguish or\nlessen towards you, most endearedly visits you with eternal embraces,\nand will abide with you forever; and may the God of my life watch over\nyou, and bless you, and do you good in this world and forever.\" \"Be\ndiligent,\" he advised his wife, \"in meetings for worship and business,\n... and let meetings be kept once a day in the family to wait upon the\nLord, ... and, my dearest, to make thy family matters easy to thee,\ndivide thy time and be regular; it is easy and sweet.... Cast up thy\nincome, and see what it daily amounts to, ... and I beseech thee to live\nlow and sparingly, till my debts are paid.\" As for the children, they\nare to be bred up \"in the love of virtue, and that holy plain way of it,\nwhich we have lived in, that the world in no part of it get into my\nfamily.\" They are to be carefully taught. \"For their learning be\nliberal, spare no cost.\" \"Agriculture is especially in my eye; let my\nchildren be husbandmen and housewives; it is industrious, healthy,\nhonest, and of good example.\" They are to honor and obey their mother,\nto love not money nor the world, to be temperate in all things. If they\ncome presently to be concerned in the government of Pennsylvania, \"I do\ncharge you,\" their father wrote, \"before the Lord God and the holy\nangels, that you be lovely, diligent and tender, fearing God, loving the\npeople, and hating covetousness. Let justice have its impartial course,\nand the law free passage. Though to your loss, protect no man against\nit; for you are not above the law, but the law above you. Live the lives\nyourselves, you would have the people live.\"\n\nUnhappily, of Guli's children, seven in number, four died before their\nmother, and one, the eldest son, Springett, shortly after. Springett\ninherited the devout spirit of his parents; his father wrote an\naffecting account of his pious death. Of the two remaining, William fell\ninto ways of dissipation, and Letitia married a man whom her father\ndisliked. Neither of them had any inheritance in Pennsylvania.\n\nPenn's ship, the Welcome, carried a hundred passengers, most of them\nQuakers from his own neighborhood. A third part died of smallpox on the\nway. On the 24th of October, he sighted land; on the 27th, he arrived\nbefore Newcastle, in Delaware; on the 28th, he landed. Here he formally\nreceived turf and twig, water and soil, in token of his ownership. On\nthe 29th, he entered Pennsylvania. Adding ten days to this date, to\nbring it into accord with our present calendar, we have November 8 as\nthe day of his arrival in the province. The place was Upland, where\nthere was a settlement already; the name was that day changed to\nChester.\n\nPenn was greatly pleased with his new possessions. He wrote a\ndescription of the country for the Free Society of Traders. The air, he\nsaid, was sweet and clear, and the heavens serene. Trees, fruits, and\nflowers grew in abundance: especially a \"great, red grape,\" and a \"white\nkind of muskadel,\" out of which he hopes it may be possible to make\ngood wine. The ground was fertile. The Indians he found to be tall,\nstraight, and well built, walking \"with a lofty chin.\" Their language\nwas \"like the Hebrew,\" and he guessed that they were descended from the\nten lost tribes of Israel. Light of heart, they seemed to him, with\n\"strong affections, but soon spent; ... the most merry creatures that\nlive.\" Though they were \"under a dark night in things relating to\nreligion,\" yet were they believers in God and immortality.\n\n\"I bless the Lord,\" he wrote in a letter, \"I am very well, and much\nsatisfied with my place and portion. O how sweet is the quiet of these\nparts, freed from the anxious and troublesome solicitations, hurries,\nand solicitations of woeful Europe!\"\n\nIn the midst of these fair regions, beside the \"wedded rivers,\" the\nDelaware and the Schuylkill, in the convenient neighborhood of quarries\nof building stone, at a place which the Indians called Coaquannoc, he\nestablished his capital city, calling it Philadelphia,--perhaps in\ntoken of the spirit of brotherly love in which it was founded, perhaps\nin remembrance of those seven cities of the Revelation wherein was that\nprimitive Christianity which he wished to reproduce.\n\nHere he had his rowers run his boat ashore at the mouth of Dock Creek,\nwhich now runs under Dock Street, where several men were engaged in\nbuilding a house, which was afterwards called the Blue Anchor Tavern.\nPenn brought a considerable company with him. In the minutes of a\nFriends' meeting held on the 8th (18th) of November, 1682, at\nShackamaxon, now Kensington, it was recorded that, \"at this time,\nGovernor Penn and a multitude of Friends arrived here, and erected a\ncity called Philadelphia, about half a mile from Shackamaxon.\"\nPresently, the Indians appeared. They offered Penn of their hominy and\nroasted acorns, and, after dinner, showed him how they could hop and\njump. He is said to have entered heartily into these exercises, and to\nhave jumped farther than any of them.\n\nThe governor had already determined the plan of the city. There were to\nbe two large streets,--one fronting the Delaware on the east, the other\nfronting the Schuylkill on the west; a third avenue, to be called High\nStreet (now Market), was to run from river to river, east and west; and\na fourth, called Broad Street, was to cross it at right angles, north\nand south. Twenty streets were to lie parallel with Broad, and to be\nnamed First Street, Second Street, and so on in order, in the plain\nQuaker fashion which had thus entitled the days of the week and the\nmonths of the year. Eight were to lie parallel with High, and to be\ncalled after the trees of the forest,--Spruce, Chestnut, Pine. In the\nmidst of the city, at the crossing of High and Broad Streets, was to be\na square of ten acres, to contain the public offices; and in each\nquarter of the city was to be a similar open space for walks. The\nfounder intended to allow no house to be built on the river banks,\nkeeping them open and beautiful. Could he have foreseen the future, he\nwould have made the streets wider. He had in mind, however, only a\ncountry town. \"Let every house be placed,\" he directed, \"if the person\npleases, in the middle of its plot, as to the breadth way of it, that so\nthere may be ground on each side for gardens or orchards or fields, that\nit may be a green country town, which will never be burnt and always\nwholesome.\"\n\nAmong those houses was his own, a modest structure made of brick,\nstanding \"on Front Street south of the present Market Street,\" and still\npreserved in Fairmont Park. He afterwards gave it to his daughter\nLetitia, and it was called Letitia House, from her ownership.\n\nIn the mean time, he was making his famous treaty with the Indians. Penn\nrecognized the Indians as the actual owners of the land. He bought it of\nthem as he needed it. The transfer of property thus made was a natural\noccasion of mutual promises. As there were several such meetings between\nthe Quakers and the Indians, it is difficult to fix a date to mark the\nfact. One meeting took place, it is said, under a spreading elm at\nShackamaxon. The commonly accepted date is the 23d of June, 1683. The\nelm was blown down in 1810. There is a persistent tradition to the\neffect that William was distinguished from his fellow Quakers in this\ntransaction by wearing a sky-blue sash of silk network. But of this, as\nof most other details of ceremony in connection with the matter, we know\nnothing.\n\nPenn gives a general description of his various conferences upon this\nbusiness. \"Their order,\" he says, \"is thus: the king sits in the middle\nof a half-moon, and has his council, the old and wise, on each hand.\nBehind them, or at a little distance, sit the younger fry in the same\nfigure.\" Then one speaks in their king's name, and Penn answers. \"When\nthe purchase was agreed great promises passed between us of kindness and\ngood neighbourhood, and that the English and the Indians must live in\nlove as long as the sun gave light, ... at every sentence of which they\nshouted, and said Amen, in their way.\" Some earnestness may have been\nadded to these assuring responses by the Indians' consciousness of the\nfact that the advantages of the bargain were not all on one side. The\nPennsylvania tribes had been thoroughly conquered by the Five Nations.\nThere was little heart left in them. But their condition detracts\nnothing from Penn's Christian brotherliness.\n\nIn some such manner the great business was enacted. \"This,\" said\nVoltaire, \"was the only treaty between these people and the Christians\nthat was not ratified by an oath, and that was never broken.\" That it\nwas never broken was the capital fact. Herein it differed from a\nthousand other treaties made before or since. In the midst of the long\nstory of the misdealings of the white men with the red, which begins\nwith Cortez and Pizarro, and is still continued in the daily newspapers,\nthis justice and honesty of William Penn is a point of light. That Penn\ntreated the Indians as neighbors and brothers; that he paid them fairly\nfor every acre of their land; that the promises which he made were ever\nafter unfailingly kept is perhaps his best warrant of abiding fame. Like\nhis constitutional establishment of civil and religious liberty, it was\na direct result of his Quaker principles. It was a manifestation of that\nrighteousness which he was continually preaching and practicing.\n\nThe kindness and courtly generosity which Penn showed in his bargains\nwith the Indians is happily illustrated in one of his purchases of land.\nThe land was to extend \"as far back as a man could walk in three days.\"\nWilliam walked out a day and a half of it, taking several chiefs with\nhim, \"leisurely, after the Indian manner, sitting down sometimes to\nsmoke their pipes, to eat biscuit and cheese, and drink a bottle of\nwine.\" Thus they covered less than thirty miles. In 1733, the then\ngovernor employed the fastest walker he could find, who in the second\nday and a half marked eighty-six miles.\n\nThe treaty gave the new colony a substantial advantage. The Lenni\nLenape, the Mingoes, the Shawnees accounted Penn's settlers as their\nfriends. The word went out among the tribes that what Penn said he\nmeant, and that what he promised he would fulfill faithfully. Thus the\nplanters were freed from the terror of the forest which haunted their\nneighbors, north and south. They could found cities in the wilderness\nand till their scattered farms without fear of tomahawk or firebrand.\nPenn himself went twenty miles from Philadelphia, near the present\nBristol, to lay out his country place of Pennsbury.\n\nShips were now arriving with sober and industrious emigrants; trees were\ncoming down, houses were going up. In July, 1683, Penn wrote to Henry\nSidney, in England, reminding him that he had promised to send some\nfruit-trees, and describing the condition of the colony. \"We have laid\nout a town a mile long and two miles deep.... I think we have near about\neighty houses built, and about three hundred farms settled round the\ntown.... We have had fifty sail of ships and small vessels, since the\nlast summer, in our river, which shows a good beginning.\" \"I am\nmightily taken with this part of the world,\" he wrote to Lord Culpeper,\nwho had come to be governor of Virginia, \"I like it so well, that a\nplentiful estate, and a great acquaintance on the other side, have no\ncharms to remove; my family being once fixed with me, and if no other\nthing occur, I am likely to be an adopted American.\" \"Our heads are\ndull,\" he added, \"but our hearts are good and our hands strong.\"\n\nIn the midst of this peace and prosperity, however, there was a serious\ntrouble. This was a dispute with Lord Baltimore over the dividing line\nbetween Pennsylvania and Maryland. By the inaccuracy of surveyors, the\nconfusion of maps, and the indefiniteness of charters, Baltimore\nbelieved himself entitled to a considerable part of the territory which\nwas claimed by Penn, including even Philadelphia. The two proprietors\nhad already discussed the question without settlement; indeed, it\nremained a cause of contention for some seventy years. As finally\nsettled, in 1732, between the heirs of Penn and of Baltimore, a line\nwas established from Cape Henlopen west to a point half way between\nDelaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay; thence north to twelve miles west of\nNewcastle, and so on to fifteen miles south of Philadelphia; thence due\nwest. The surveyors were Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, and the line\nwas thus called Mason and Dixon's Line. This boundary afterwards parted\nthe free States from the slave States. South of it was \"Dixie.\"\n\nPenn now learned that Lord Baltimore was on his way to England to lay\nthe question before the Privy Council. The situation demanded William's\npresence. \"I am following him as fast as I can,\" he wrote to the Duke of\nYork, praying \"that a perfect stop be put to all his proceedings till I\ncome.\" He therefore took leave of his friends in the province,\ncommissioned the provincial council to act in his stead, and in August,\n1684, having been two years in America, he embarked for home.\n\nOn board the Endeavour, on the eve of sailing, he wrote a farewell\nletter. \"And thou, Philadelphia,\" he said, \"the virgin settlement of\nthis province, named before thou wert born, what love, what care, what\nservice and what travail has there been to bring thee forth and preserve\nthee from such as would abuse and defile thee! O that thou mayest be\nkept from the evil that would overwhelm thee; that faithful to the God\nof mercies in the life of righteousness, thou mayest be preserved to the\nend. My soul prays to God for thee that thou mayest stand in the day of\ntrial, that thy children may be blessed of the Lord, and thy people\nsaved by thy power. My love to thee has been great, and the remembrance\nof thee affects mine heart and mine eye. The God of eternal strength\nkeep and preserve thee to his glory and peace.\"\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nAT THE COURT OF JAMES THE SECOND, AND \"IN RETIREMENT\"\n\n\nWhen Penn left the province in 1684, he expected to return speedily, but\nhe did not see that pleasant land again until 1699. The fifteen\nintervening years were filled with contention, anxiety, misfortune, and\nvarious distresses.\n\nIn the winter of 1684-85, Charles II. died, and the Duke of York, his\nbrother, succeeded him as James II. And James was the patron and good\nfriend of William Penn. But the king was a Roman Catholic. One of his\nfirst acts upon coming to the throne was to go publicly to mass. He was\nprivately resolved upon making the Roman Church supreme in England. Penn\nwas stoutly opposed to the king's religion. In his \"Seasonable Caveat\nagainst Popery,\" as well as in his other writings, he had expressed his\ndislike with characteristic frankness. That he had himself been accused\nof being a Jesuit had naturally impelled him to use the strongest\nlanguage to belie the accusation. Nevertheless, William Penn stood by\nthe king. He sought and kept the position of favorite and agent of the\ncourt. He upheld, and so far as he could, assisted, the projects of a\nreign which, had it continued, would probably have contradicted his most\ncherished principles, abolished liberty of conscience, and made an end\nof Quakers.\n\nThis perplexing inconsistency, which is the only serious blot on Penn's\nfair fame, appears to have been the result of two convictions.\n\nHe was sure, in the first place, of the honesty of the king; he believed\nin him with all his heart. James had been true to the trust reposed in\nhim by William's father. He had befriended William, taking him out of\nprison, increasing his estates, granting his petitions. \"Anybody,\" said\nPenn, \"that has the least pretense to good-nature, gratitude, or\ngenerosity, must needs know how to interpret my access to the king.\"\nWith his advance to the crown James's graciousness had increased. He\nkept great lords waiting without while he conversed at leisure with the\nQuaker. He liked Penn, and Penn liked him. In spite of the disparities\nin their age, rank, and creed, William Penn and James Stuart were fast\nfriends, united by the bond of genuine affection.\n\nIt was characteristic of Penn to be blind to the faults of his friends.\nHe brought great troubles both upon himself and upon his colony by his\nrefusal to believe the reports which were made to him against the\ncharacter of men whom he had appointed to office: he was unwilling to\nbelieve evil of any man. He fell into bankruptcy, and even into a\ndebtor's prison, by his blind, unquestioning confidence in the agent who\nmanaged his business. His faith in James was of a piece with his whole\ncharacter. He appears to have been temperamentally incapable of\nperceiving the unworthiness of anybody whom he liked.\n\nTogether with this conviction as to the king's honesty, and bound up\nwith it, was a like belief in the wisdom of the king's plan. The king's\nplan was to remove all disabilities arising from religion. He purposed\nnot only to put an end to the laws under which honest men were kept in\nprison, but to abolish the \"tests\" which prevented a Roman Catholic from\nholding office. And, without tarrying for the action of a cautious\nParliament, his intention was to do these things at once by a\ndeclaration of the royal will. All this was approved by William Penn.\n\nThat the laws which disturbed Protestant dissenters should be changed,\nhe argued at length in a pamphlet entitled \"A Persuasion to Moderation.\"\nModeration, as he defined it, meant \"liberty of conscience to church\ndissenters;\" a cause which, with all humility, he said, he had\nundertaken to plead against the prejudices of the times. He maintained\nthat toleration was not only a right inherent in religion, but that it\nwas for the political and commercial good of the nation. Repression and\npersecution, he said, drive men into conspiracies. The importing of\nreligious distinctions into the affairs of state deprives the country of\nthe services of some of its best men. His father, upon the occasion of\nthe first Dutch war, had submitted to the king a list of the ablest sea\nofficers in the kingdom. The striking of the names of nonconformists\nfrom this list had \"robbed the king at that time of ten men, whose\ngreater knowledge and valour, than any other ten of that fleet, had, in\ntheir room, been able to have saved a battle, or perfected a victory.\"\nAs for a declaration of indulgence, Penn deemed it \"the sovereign remedy\nof the English constitution.\"\n\nThat the \"tests\" should be removed, he urged on James's behalf upon\nWilliam of Orange, to whom he went in Holland on an informal commission\nfrom the king. William, by his marriage with James's daughter, was heir\napparent to the throne of England, and his consent was necessary to any\nserious change of national policy. He insisted on the tests.\nTheoretically, Penn was right. The ideal state imposes no religious\ntests; every good citizen, no matter what his private creed may be, is\neligible to any office. Practically, Penn was wrong, as William of\nOrange plainly saw. That prince, as appeared afterwards, was as zealous\nfor religious freedom as was Penn himself; but it was plain to him that\nas matters stood at that time in England, it was necessary to enforce\nthe tests in order to prevent the rise of an ecclesiastical party whose\nsupremacy would endanger all that Penn desired. Penn, with his stout\nfaith in the king, could not see it. There were times, indeed, when he\nwas perplexed and troubled. \"The Lord keep us in this dark day!\" he\nwrote to his steward at Pennsbury. \"Be wise, close, respectful to\nsuperiors. The king has discharged all Friends by a general pardon, and\nis courteous, though as to the Church of England, things seem pinching.\nSeveral Roman Catholics got much into places in the army, navy, court.\"\nNevertheless, the king's plan, as he understood it, gave assurance of\nliberty of conscience, and the end of persecution for opinion's sake;\nand he supported the king.\n\nUnder these conditions, misled by friendship, seeing, but not\nperceiving, Penn persuaded himself that he could excellently serve God\nand his neighbors by becoming a courtier. He took a house in London,\nwithin easy distance of Whitehall, and visited the king daily. A great\nmany people therefore visited Penn daily; sometimes as many as two\nhundred were waiting to confer with him. They desired that he would do\nthis or that for their good with the king. Most of them were Quakers;\nmany were in need of pardon, or were burdened by some oppression.\n\nFor example, Sir Robert Stuart of Coltness had been in exile as a\nPresbyterian, and on his return found his lands in the possession of the\nEarl of Arran. He brought his case to Penn. Penn went to Arran. \"What is\nthis, friend James, that I hear of thee?\" he said. \"Thou hast taken\npossession of Coltness's castle. Thou knowest that it is not thine.\"\n\"That estate,\" Arran explained, \"I paid a great price for. I received no\nother reward for my expensive and troublesome embassy to France, except\nthis estate.\" \"All very well, friend James,\" said Penn, \"but of this\nassure thyself, that if thou dost not give me this moment an order on\nthy chamberlain for two hundred pounds to Coltness to carry him down to\nhis native country, and a hundred a year to subsist on till matters are\nadjusted, I will make it as many thousands out of thy way with the\nking.\" Arran complied immediately.\n\nAgain, one day after dinner, as they were drinking a glass of wine\ntogether, one of Penn's clients said, \"I can tell you how you can\nprolong my life.\" \"I am no physician,\" answered William, \"but prithee\ntell me what thou meanest.\" The client replied that a good friend of\nhis, Jack Trenchard, was in exile, and \"if you,\" he said, \"could get him\nleave to come home with safety and honour, the drinking now and then a\nbottle with Jack Trenchard would make me so cheerful that it would\nprolong my life.\" Penn smilingly promised to do what he could, and in a\nmonth the two friends were drinking his good health.\n\nThis was the kind of business which he transacted. He had found a way\nto be of eminent service to his neighbors, and especially to his Quaker\nbrethren, and he made the most of the opportunity. There is no evidence\nthat he departed from the disinterested life which he had previously\nlived. He attended the court of King James, as he had undertaken the\nsettlement of Pennsylvania, not for what he could get out of it, but for\nthe good he could do by means of it. What he did, he tells us, was upon\na \"principle of charity.\" \"I never accepted any commission,\" he says,\n\"but that of a free and common solicitor for sufferers of all sorts and\nin all parties.\" Neither is there any instance of his asking anything to\nincrease his own estate or position.\n\nIndeed, he was losing money; for the expenses of life at court were\ngreat. Worse still, he was losing his good name. His Quaker friends\nfound him hard to understand. It was true that he had cast in his lot\nwith them, and had suffered for their cause,--he was their great\ntheologian and preacher; but he seemed, nevertheless, to be still a\ncavalier and a worldly person. They heard--though there was no truth in\nthe report--that he had set up a military company in Pennsylvania. They\nsaw with their own eyes that he lived in a style which must have seemed\nto them altogether inconsistent with simplicity, and that he consorted\nwith courtiers. And they did not like it,--they said so frankly.\n\nAs for enemies, the king's favorite had many, inevitably. The lords who\nwaited in the antechamber while Penn was closeted with James did not\nlook pleasantly at him when he came out. The stout Protestants, who\nhated the king's ways, and suspected the king's designs, could not\neasily think well of one who was so closely in his counsels. One of\nPenn's friends told him what these people said of him: \"Your post is too\nconsiderable for a Papist of an ordinary form, and therefore you must be\na Jesuit; nay, to confirm that suggestion, it must be accompanied with\nall the circumstances that may best give it an air of probability,--as\nthat you have been bred at St. Omer's in the Jesuit College; that you\nhave taken orders at Rome, and there obtained a dispensation to marry;\nand that you have since then frequently officiated as a priest in the\ncelebration of the mass, at Whitehall, St. James's, and other places.\"\nIt seems absurd enough to us, but many intelligent persons, even\nArchbishop Tillotson of Canterbury, believed it. The detail of St. Omer\ncame, probably, from a confusion of the name with Saumur. The other\nsuspicions grew out of Penn's place in the favor of the king.\n\nIt seemed as if nothing could prejudice the king's matters in the eyes\nof Penn. Monmouth's rebellion came, and the king's revenge followed.\nJudge Jeffreys went on his bloody circuit. \"About three hundred hanged,\"\nPenn wrote, \"in divers towns of the west; about one thousand to be\ntransported. I begged twenty of the king.\" It was all bad, and one\nregrets to find Penn concerned in it. Still, his twenty probably fared\nbetter than their neighbors. It is likely that he sent them to be\ncolonists in Pennsylvania.\n\nIn the matter of the maids of Taunton, William seems clearly to have had\nno part. A company of little schoolgirls, led by their teacher, had\nmarched in procession to celebrate the landing of Monmouth. For this\noffense their parents were heavily fined, and the fines were given to\nthe queen's maids of honor. These ladies wrote to a \"Mr. Penne\" to get\nhim to collect them. Macaulay thought that this pardon-broker was\nWilliam Penn. It is flagrantly inconsistent with his character, and he\nhas been adequately vindicated by various writers. The agent in this\ncase was probably George Penne, a person in that business.\n\nPenn's course is not so clear in the matter of the presidency of\nMagdalen College. One of the steps in James's plan to change the\nreligion of England was to get a foothold for teachers of his faith at\nthe universities. He intended to capture Oxford and Cambridge. He had so\nfar succeeded at Oxford as to get possession of Christ Church and\nUniversity College, and, the presidency of Magdalen falling vacant, he\nordered the fellows to elect a man of his own choice. The fellows\nrefused to obey the order,--thereupon Penn, who had at first taken their\npart with the king, advised them to surrender. \"Mr. Penn,\" said Dr.\nHough, representing the fellows, \"in this I will be plain with you. We\nhave our statutes and oaths to justify us in all that we have done\nhitherto; but, setting this aside, we have a religion to defend, and I\nsuppose yourself would think us knaves if we would tamely give it up.\nThe Papists have already gotten Christ Church and University; the\npresent struggle is for Magdalen; and in a short time they threaten they\nwill have the rest.\"\n\nTo this Penn replied with vehemence: \"That they shall never have, assure\nyourselves; if once they proceed so far they will quickly find\nthemselves destitute of their present assistance. For my part, I have\nalways declared my opinion that the preferments of the Church should not\nbe put into any other hands but such as they are at present in; but I\nhope you would not have the two universities such invincible bulwarks\nfor the Church of England, that none but they must be capable of giving\ntheir children a learned education. I suppose two or three colleges will\ncontent the Papists.\" Finally, the king's men broke down the doors,\nturned out the professors and students, and gave the king his way. Penn\nwas thus the agent of tyranny; but he was an innocent agent. He made a\nbad blunder; but he made it honestly and ignorantly. It was in accord\nwith his democratic ideas that the universities should be places of\ninstruction for all the people; he would have liked to see not only the\nRoman Catholics, but all the great divisions of religion in England\nrepresented there. And that fine idea misled him. To hold him guilty,\nhere or elsewhere, of malice or hypocrisy, is to misread his character.\nHe was simply mistaken,--mistaken in the king, mistaken in the\napplication of his own principles.\n\nMeanwhile, the nation at large was making no mistake. The people saw\nJames as he was, and detected his designs upon the liberties of\nEngland. At last, in April, 1688, he issued a Declaration of Indulgence.\nHe added insult to injury by ordering that it should be read in every\nchurch in the realm. The seven bishops who protested were sent to the\nTower. Then the end came with speed. William of Orange was invited into\nEngland. The nation welcomed him with acclamations. James fled before\nhim into France, where he lived the remainder of an inglorious life.\n\nThis was a hard change for William Penn, and he seems to have done\nnothing to make it easier. There were courtiers who passed with\nincredible swiftness from one allegiance to the other; he was not among\nthem. Others fled to France, but he stayed. He was arrested. In his\nexamination before the Privy Council he declared that he \"had done\nnothing but what he could answer for before God and all the princes in\nthe world; that he loved his country and the Protestant religion above\nhis life, and had never acted against either; that all he had ever aimed\nat in his public endeavors was none other than what the king had\ndeclared for [religious liberty]; that King James had always been his\nfriend, and his father's friend, and that in gratitude he himself was\nthe king's, and did ever, as much as in him lay, influence him to his\ntrue interest.\" Penn was released.\n\nThe new king began his reign with the Toleration Act, which Parliament\npassed in 1688, and from which dates the establishment of actual and\nabiding religious liberty in England. Thus Penn's great purpose was\naccomplished by one with whom he was not in accord. Sometimes a\npolitical party adopts the projects for which its opponents have long\nlabored, and carries them out even more vigorously than they had been\nplanned originally. The initial reformers are glad that their ideals\nhave been realized, but their zeal must be uncommonly impersonal if the\nsuccess brings them quite so much joy as it logically ought. It is not\nlikely that the Toleration Act filled the soul of William Penn with\ngreat jubilation. Indeed, we know that he insisted to the end of his\nlife that James, if he had been let alone, would have done all that\nWilliam did, and more too, and better.\n\nThe years which followed were full of trouble. Macaulay says that in\n1689 Penn was plotting against the government; but the evidence does not\nsuffice to establish the fact. The Privy Council, in 1690, confronted\nPenn with an intercepted letter to him from James, asking for help. But,\nas Penn said, he could not hinder the king from writing to him. He\nadded, however, with characteristic boldness, that since he had loved\nKing James in his prosperity he should not hate him in his adversity. He\nwas again discharged.\n\nIn that same year, however, James invaded Ireland, and the situation of\nhis friends in England was thereby made increasingly difficult. Penn was\narrested with others, and in prison awaited trial for several months.\nThe result was as before,--he was found in no offense. But before a\nmonth had passed, he learned that another warrant was out against his\nliberty. Officers went to take him at the funeral of George Fox, but\narrived too late. By this time he had concluded that the path of\nprudence was that which led into a wise retirement. He hid himself for\nthe space of three years. He was publicly proclaimed a traitor, and was\ndeprived of the government of his colony. He was \"hunted up and down,\"\nhe says, \"and could never be allowed to live quietly in city or\ncountry.\"\n\nFinally, the government were persuaded either that Penn was innocent, or\nthat no further danger was to be apprehended from him, and several\nnoblemen, interceding with the king, procured his pardon. They\nrepresented his case, he says, as not only hard, but oppressive, there\nbeing no evidence but what \"impostors, or those that fled, or that have\nsince their pardon refused to verify (and asked me pardon for saying\nwhat they did) alleged against me.\" The king announced that Penn was his\nold acquaintance, and that he might follow his business as freely as\never, and that for his part he had nothing to say to him.\n\nThus again, and at last, the political accusations against William Penn\ncame to nothing. He had been in a hard position as the faithful friend\nof a dethroned monarch in a day when conspiracies were being made on\nevery hand. That he should have been suspected of treason was\ninevitable. That in his unconcealed affection for James and disapproval\nof William he said imprudent things is likely enough. Prudence was not\none of his virtues. He was never calculatingly careful of his own\nwelfare. But that he was ever untrue to William, or did any act, or\nconsented to any, which could reasonably be called treacherous, is not\nonly quite unproved, but is out of accord with the true William Penn as\nhe is revealed in his writings and in all his life. The only fault which\nhas been clearly established against him is that of liking James better\nthan he liked William. He was a stanch friend to his friend; that is the\nsum of his offending, wherein the only serious regret is that his friend\nwas not more worthy of his steadfast and unselfish friendship. \"At no\ntime in his life,\" says Mr. Fiske, \"does he seem more honest, brave, and\nlovable, than during the years, so full of trouble for him, that\nintervened between the accession of James and the accession of Anne.\"\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nPENN'S SECOND VISIT TO THE PROVINCE: CLOSING YEARS\n\n\nThe thoughts with which Penn's mind was occupied during the years of\nhiding appear in his book, \"Some Fruits of Solitude.\" Robert Louis\nStevenson found a copy of it in a book-shop in San Francisco, and\ncarried it in his pocket many days, reading it in street-cars and\nferry-boats. He found it, he says, \"in all places a peaceful and sweet\ncompanion;\" and he adds, \"there is not a man living, no, nor recently\ndead, that could put, with so lovely a spirit, so much honest, kind\nwisdom into words.\"\n\n\"The author blesseth God for his retirement,\" so the book begins, \"and\nkisses the gentle hand which led him into it; for though it should prove\nbarren to the world, it can never do so to him. He has now had some time\nhe can call his own; a property he was never so much master of before;\nin which he has taken a view of himself and the world, and observed\nwherein he hath hit and missed the mark. And he verily thinks, were he\nto live his life over again, he could not only, with God's grace, serve\nhim, but his neighbor and himself, better than he hath done, and have\nseven years of his life to spare.\"\n\nGovernment and Religion have the longest chapters in this volume of\nreflections, as being the matters in which William was most interested.\n\"Happy that king,\" he says, \"who is great by justice, and that people\nwho are free by obedience.\" \"Where example keeps pace with authority,\npower hardly fails to be obeyed, and magistrates to be honoured.\" \"Let\nthe people think they govern, and they will be governed.\" \"Religion is\nthe fear of God, and its demonstration good works; and faith is the root\nof both.\" \"To be like Christ, then, is to be a Christian.\" \"Some folk\nthink they may scold, rail, hate, rob, and kill too: so it be but for\nGod's sake. But nothing in us, unlike him, can please him.\" So the book\ngoes, page after page, always serious and sensible, full of simplicity\nand kindliness, cheerful and brotherly and unfailingly religious. It is\nthe work of one who is trying his best to live for his brethren and in\nChrist's spirit.\n\nAnother significant writing of this period is Penn's \"Plan for the Peace\nof Europe.\" The calamities of the war then in progress on the Continent\ngave him arguments enough for the desirableness of peace. The means of\npeace is justice, and the means of justice is government. It is plain to\nall that a state wherein any private citizen might avenge himself upon\nhis neighbor would be a place of confusion and distress. \"For this cause\nthey have sessions, terms, assizes, and parliaments, to overrule men's\npassions and resentments, that they may not be judges in their own\ncause, nor punishers of their own wrongs.\" Penn proposes that the same\nrelation between peace and justice which is enforced between citizen and\ncitizen be also enforced between nation and nation. \"Now,\" he says, \"if\nthe sovereign princes of Europe ... for love of peace and order [would]\nagree to meet by their stated deputies in a general Diet, Estates or\nParliament and there establish rules of justice for sovereign princes to\nobserve one to another; and thus to meet yearly, or once in two or three\nyears at the farthest, or as they shall see cause, and to be stiled, The\nSovereign or Imperial Diet, Parliament or State of Europe: before which\nSovereign Assembly should be brought all differences depending between\none sovereign and another that cannot be made up by private embassies\nbefore the sessions begin; and that if any of the sovereignties that\nconstitute these imperial states shall refuse to submit their claim or\npretensions to them, or to abide and perform the judgment thereof and\nseek their remedy by arms, or delay their compliance beyond the time\nprefixt in their resolutions, all the other sovereignties, united as one\nstrength, shall compel the submission and performance of the sentence,\nwith damages to the suffering party, and charges to the sovereignties\nthat obliged their submission; ... peace would be procured and\ncontinued in Europe.\" The principle of international arbitration, the\nConference at the Hague, and all like meetings which shall be held\nhereafter, are thus foreshadowed.\n\nThese two productions of Penn's season of retirement--the \"Fruits of\nSolitude,\" and the \"Plan for the Peace of Europe\"--illustrate again the\ntwo qualities which make him singularly eminent among the founders of\ncommonwealths. He was at once a philosopher and a statesman; he was\ninterested alike in religion and in politics. There have been many\npoliticians to whom religion has been of no concern. There have been\nmany religious persons in high positions who have been so shut in by\nchurch walls that they have been incapable of a wider outlook; they have\naccordingly been narrow, prejudiced, and often unpractical people; they\nhave been blind to the elemental social fact of difference; they have\nhated the thought of toleration. Penn was almost alone among the good\nmen of our era of colonization in being at the same time a man of the\nworld and a man of the other world.\n\nPenn came out of his exile in 1693 burdened with misfortune. He had been\ndeprived of his government; he was sadly in debt; he had lost many of\nhis friends. His colonists in Pennsylvania declined to lend him money.\nHis brethren in England drew up a confession of wrong-doing for him to\nsign: \"If in any things during those late revolutions I have concerned\nmyself either by words or writings, in love, pity or good will to any in\ndistress [meaning the king] further than consisted with Truth's honor or\nthe Church's peace, I am sorry for it.\" But he would not sign. To these\ntroubles was added a greater grief in the death of his wife. \"An\nexcellent wife and mother,\" he said of her, \"an entire and constant\nfriend, of a more than common capacity, and greater modesty and\nhumility; yet most equal and undaunted in danger.\" A brave soul, no\ndoubt, as befitted her parentage, and of a devout and consecrated\nspirit.\n\nBut William was ever of a serene and cheerful disposition. Neither loss,\nnor disappointment, nor bereavement could shut out the sun. His\nreligious faith strengthened him. \"We must needs disorder ourselves,\" he\nhad written in his \"Fruits of Solitude,\" \"if we only look at our losses.\nBut if we consider how little we deserve what is left, our passions will\ncool, and our murmurs will turn into thankfulness.\" \"Though our\nSaviour's passion is over, his compassion is not. That never fails his\nhumble, sincere disciples; in him they find more than all that they lose\nin the world.\"\n\nDuring the six years which followed, this strong confidence was\njustified. He regained his government and his good name. He also married\na second wife, Hannah Callowhill, a strong, sensible, and estimable\nQuaker lady of some means, living in Bristol.\n\nThe only satisfactory information as to the personal appearance of Penn\nin mature life is that which is given by Sylvanus Bevan. Bevan was a\nQuaker apothecary in London, who had a remarkable gift for carving\nportraits in ivory. After Penn's death, he made such a portrait of him\nfrom memory. The men who had known William liked it greatly. Lord\nCobham, to whom Bevan sent it, said, \"It is William Penn himself.\" It\nrepresents him in a curled wig, with full cheeks and a double chin--a\npleasant, masterful, and serious person. Clarkson says that in his\nattire he was \"very neat, though plain.\" Penn advised his children to\nchoose clothes \"neither unshapely nor fantastical;\" and he illustrated\nto King James the difference between the Roman Catholic and the Quaker\nreligions by the difference between his hat and the king's. \"The only\ndifference,\" he said, \"lies in the ornaments that have been added to\nthine.\" His dress was probably that which was common to gentlemen in his\nday, but without extremes of color or adornment. For some time after\nbecoming a Quaker he wore his sword, having consulted Fox, who said, \"I\nadvise thee to wear it as long as thou canst.\" Presently Fox, seeing him\nwithout it, said, \"William, where is thy sword?\" To which Penn replied,\n\"I have taken thy advice: I wore it as long as I could.\"\n\nThe sober cheerfulness of Penn's attire comported well with his\nconversation. It is true that Bishop Burnet, who did not like him, says\nthat \"he had a tedious, luscious way of talking, not apt to overcome a\nman's reason, though it might tire his patience.\" But Dean Swift enjoyed\nhim, and testified that \"he talked very agreeably and with great\nspirit.\" The Friends of Reading Meeting even noted that he was\n\"facetious in conversation,\" and there is a tradition of a venerable\nFriend who spoke of him \"as having naturally an excess of levity of\nspirit for a grave minister.\" A handsome, graceful, and even a merry\ngentleman it was who married Hannah Callowhill.\n\nFor a time he devoted himself again to the work of the ministry. He went\nabout, as in former days, preaching, sometimes in the market-hall,\nsometimes in the fields. Once, in Ireland, the bishop sent an officer to\ndisperse the meeting, complaining that Penn had left him \"nobody to\npreach to but the mayor, church-wardens, a few of the constables, and\nthe bare walls.\"\n\nHis heart, however, was in his province. The affairs of Pennsylvania\nhad been going badly. There had been a hot contention between the\ncouncil and the assembly, and another between the province and the\nterritory. The officials, too, whom Penn had appointed, had quarreled\namong themselves. William complained that they were excessively\n\"governmentish;\" meaning that they liked authority and that they took\ndetails very seriously. The situation, however, was inevitably\ndifficult. In his relation to the king, the governor was a feudal\nsovereign; in his relation to the people he was, by Penn's arrangement,\nthe executive of a democracy. Penn himself reconciled the two positions\nby his own tact and unselfishness, as well as by a certain masterfulness\nto which those about him instinctively and willingly yielded. He proved\nthe motto of his book-plate, _Dum Clavum Teneam_; all went well while he\nwith his own hands held the helm. But his deputies were not so\ncompetent. The colony fell into two parties, the proprietary and the\npopular, representing these two ideas. Then the governor whom the king\nhad appointed during Penn's retirement was a soldier, and his\nun-Quakerlike notions as to the right conduct of a colony brought a new\nelement of confusion into affairs which were already sufficiently\nconfounded.\n\nAt last, in 1699, it became possible for the founder to make another\nvisit to his province. He brought his family with him, evidently\nintending to stay. Philadelphia was now a city of some seven hundred\nhouses, and had nearly seven thousand inhabitants. The people were at\nthat moment in deep depression, having just been visited with a plague\nof yellow fever. The pestilence, however, had abated, and Penn was\nreceived with sober rejoicings. He took up his residence in the\n\"slate-roof house,\" a modest mansion which stood on the corner of Second\nStreet and Norris Alley; it was pulled down in 1867.\n\nNow began a season of good government. The business of piracy had for\nsome time been merrily carried on by various enterprising persons, some\nof whom lived very respectably in Philadelphia. William put a stop to\nit. The importing of slaves from Africa was at that time considered by\nmost persons to be a good thing both for the planters and for the\nslaves. Already, however, at the Pennsylvania yearly meeting of Friends\nin 1688, some who came from Kriesheim, in Germany, had protested against\nit,\n\n   \"Who first of all their testimonial gave\n   Against the oppressor, for the outcast slave.\"\n\nAnd, in consequence, though slaves were still imported, they were\nhumanely treated. Penn interested himself in the improvement of their\ncondition. He was also concerned in the progress of the prison reforms\nwhich he had proposed in the original establishment of the colony. He\nemployed a watchman to cry the news, the weather, and the time of day in\nthe Philadelphia streets. Regarding the Constitution, about which there\nhad been so much contention, he addressed the council and the assembly\nin terms of characteristic friendliness. \"Friends,\" he said, \"if in the\nConstitution by charter there be anything that jars, alter it. If you\nwant a law for this or that, prepare it.\" He advised them, however, not\nto trifle with government, and wished there were no need to have any\ngovernment at all. In general, he said, the fewer laws, the better. The\nresult was a new Constitution. It provided that the council should be\nappointed by the governor, and that the assembly should have the right\nto originate laws. It was more simple and workable than the previous\nlegislation, and lasted until the Revolution.\n\nMeanwhile, Penn was journeying about the country in his old way,\npreaching. At Merion, a small boy of the family where he was\nentertained, being much impressed with the great man's looks and speech,\npeeped through the latchet-hole of his chamber door, and both saw and\nheard him at his prayers. Near Haverford, a small girl, walking along\nthe country road, was overtaken by the governor, who took her up behind\nhim on his horse, and so carried her on her way, her bare feet dangling\nby the horse's side.\n\nClarkson, the chief of the biographers of Penn, who collected these and\nother incidents, gives us a glimpse of him as he appeared at this time\nat Quaker meetings. \"He was of such humility that he used generally to\nsit at the lowest end of the space allotted to ministers, always taking\ncare to place above himself poor ministers, and those who appeared to\nhim to be peculiarly gifted.\" He liked to encourage young men to speak.\nWhen he himself spoke, it was in the simplest words, easy to be\nunderstood, and with many homely illustrations. At the same time, on\nstate occasions, as the proprietor of Pennsylvania and representative of\nthe sovereign, he used some ceremony, marching through the Philadelphia\nstreets to the opening of the assembly with a mace-bearer before him,\nand having an officer standing at his gate on audience days, with a long\nstaff tipped with silver. Acquainted with affairs, and with a knowledge\nof the relations between government and human nature drawn from a wide\nexperience, he knew the distinction, at which some of his Quaker\nbrethren stumbled, between personal humility and the proper dignity of\nofficial station.\n\nIn the intervals left him by the demands of church and state, he busied\nhimself with the improvement of his place at Pennsbury. Here he had a\nconsiderable house in the midst of pleasant gardens. He took great\npleasure in personal superintendence of the grounds and buildings,\nplanting vines and cutting vistas through the trees. \"The country is to\nbe preferred,\" he wrote in \"Fruits of Solitude.\" \"The country is both\nthe philosopher's garden and library, in which he reads and contemplates\nthe power, wisdom, and goodness of God.\" \"The knowledge and improvement\nof it,\" he declared, is \"man's oldest business and trade, and the best\nhe can be of.\"\n\nWithin were silver plate and satin curtains, and embroidered chairs and\ncouches. The proprietor's bed was covered with a \"quilt of white Holland\nquilted in green silk by Letitia,\" his daughter. \"Send up,\" he writes to\nJames Logan, at Philadelphia, \"our great stewpan and cover, and little\nsoup dish, and two or three pounds of coffee if sold in town, and three\npounds of wicks ready for candles.\" Mrs. Penn asks Logan to provide\n\"candlesticks, and great candles, some green ones, and pewter and\nearthen basins, mops, salts, looking-glass, a piece of dried beef, and a\nfirkin or two of good butter.\"\n\nPenn rode a large white horse, and had a coach, with a black man to\ndrive it, and a \"rattling leathern conveniency,\" probably smaller, and a\nsedan chair for Mrs. Penn. In the river lay the barge, of which William\nwas so fond that he wrote from England to charge that it be carefully\nlooked after. Somebody expressed surprise one day when Penn went out in\nit against wind and tide. \"I have been sailing all my life against wind\nand tide,\" he said.\n\nMuch of the work of the estate was done by slaves. The fact troubled the\nproprietor's conscience. He laid it upon his own soul, as he did upon\nthe souls of his brethren in the colony, \"to be very careful in\ndischarging a good conscience towards them in all respects, but more\nespecially for the good of their souls, that they might, as frequent as\nmay be, come to meeting on first-days.\" A special meeting was appointed\nfor slaves once a month, and their masters were expected to come with\nthem. Finally, Penn liberated all his slaves. In his will of 1701, \"I\ngive,\" he says, \"to my blacks their freedom, as is under my hand\nalready, and to old Sam 100 acres, to be his children's after he and his\nwife are dead, forever.\"\n\nThe Pennsbury house had a great hall in the midst, where the governor in\nan oak armchair received his neighbors, the Indians. Here they came, in\npaint and feathers,--\"Connoondaghtoh, king of the Susquehannah Indians;\nWopaththa, king of the Shawanese; Weewinjough, chief of the Ganawese;\nand Ahookassong, brother of the emperor of the five nations;\" and many\nother humbler braves. John Richardson, a Yorkshire Quaker, visited Penn\nat Pennsbury and saw them. William gave them match-coats, he says, and\n\"some other things,\" including a reasonable supply of rum, which the\nchiefs dispensed to the warriors severally in small portions: \"So they\ncame quietly, and in a solid manner, and took their draws.\" He did not\nsmoke, a fact which the Indians must have noted as a curious\neccentricity. Then they made a small fire out of doors, and the men sat\nabout it in a ring, singing \"a very melodious hymn,\" beating the ground\nbetween the verses with short sticks, and, after a circling dance,\ndeparted. Penn got on most happily with the Indians. The peaceful\nQuakers went about unarmed and were never in danger. The only disorderly\nfolk thereabout were white men.\n\nIn the midst of these rural joys, news came that a movement was on foot\nto put an end to proprietary governments, thereby bringing all colonies\nunder the immediate control of the crown. Penn felt that it was\nnecessary for him to return to England to block this inconvenient\nlegislation. On the 28th of October, he assembled the citizens of\nPhiladelphia, and presented them with a charter for their city. In the\nFriends' meeting, he said that he \"looked over all infirmities and\noutwards, and had an eye to the regions of the spirit, wherein was our\nsweetest tie.\" Then, says Norris, \"in true love he took his leave of\nus.\" Thus, after two years wherein peace and quietness prevailed over\nall misunderstanding and opposition, he set sail in 1701, and never saw\nPennsylvania again.\n\nHis house at Pennsbury fell into ruins,--due in large part to the\nleakage of a leaden reservoir on the roof,--and was taken down before\nthe Revolution. The furniture was gradually dispersed. For some years it\nwas \"deemed a kind of pious stealth,\" among those who were most loyal to\nthe proprietor, to carry away something out of the house when they\nchanced to visit its empty halls. One gentleman rejoiced in the\npossession of the mantelpiece; another had a pair of Penn's plush\nbreeches.\n\nWilliam Penn's four years of actual residence gave him all the\nsatisfaction which he ever got from his colonial possessions. All else\nwas worry, labor, and expense. The province was a sore financial burden.\nAs proprietor he was charged with the payment, in large part, of the\nexpenses of government. The returns from rents and sales were slow and\nuncertain. The taxes on imports and exports, to which he had a charter\nright, he had generously declined. When he asked the assembly, in\nremembrance of that liberality, to send him money in his financial\nstraits, they were not minded to respond. Penn belonged to that high\nfraternity of noble souls who do not know how to make bargains. His\nimpulses were generous to a fault, and he had an invincible confidence\nthat his neighbors would deal with him in the same spirit. The\nconsequence was that year by year the expenses grew, and there was but a\nslender income. \"O Pennsylvania,\" he cries, \"what hast thou cost me?\nAbove thirty thousand pounds more than I ever got by it; two hazardous\nand most fatiguing voyages, my straits and slavery here, and my child's\nsoul, almost.\"\n\nThe last allusion is to Guli's son, William, whose dissipation Penn\nalways attributed to a lack of fatherly care during his first visit to\nthe province. Penn finally sent the boy to Pennsbury, hoping that the\nquiet, the absence of temptation, and the wholesome joys of a country\nlife, might amend him. But William went from bad to worse, was arrested\nin Philadelphia in a tavern brawl, was formally excommunicated by the\nQuakers, and came home to England to give his father further pain.\n\nTo the financial burdens of the province were added the difficulties of\ngovernment. Penn succeeded very well in keeping his colony,--he defended\nhis boundaries against Lord Baltimore, and he defeated those who would\nhave taken away his rule and given it to the king; but the governing of\nthe colony across three thousand miles of sea was another matter. The\nmoment he withdrew the restraining influence of his personal presence,\nall manner of contentions came into the light of day.\n\nThe question of the prudence of bearing arms was vigorously debated.\nJames Logan, secretary of the province, and Penn's ablest counselor,\nurged the need of military defenses. Conservative Friends opposed it.\n\nChurchmen had been settling in the province. One of William's oldest\nfriends, George Keith, who had accompanied him on his religious mission\nto Holland, had gone into the Episcopal ministry. Logan says, in a\nletter to Penn, that \"not suffering them to be superior\" was accounted\nby the churchmen as the equivalent of persecution.\n\nColonel Quarry, a judge of the admiralty, appointed by the British\ngovernment to enforce the navigation laws in the colony, was responsible\nto the Board of Trade in London, and independent of the governor and of\nthe assembly. He exercised his office of critic and censor to the\nannoyance of Penn.\n\nTo these various sources of trouble was added an unending strife between\nthe governor's deputy and the people. Penn's habit of looking always on\nthe best side made him a bad judge of men, and the deputies whom he sent\nwere few of them competent; some were not even respectable. Penn, with\nhis characteristic invincible blindness, took their part.\n\nFinally, the disputations, protests, and complaints, with direct attacks\nupon Penn's interests, and even upon his character, got to such a pass\nthat he addressed a letter of expostulation to the people. \"When it\npleased God to open a way for me to settle that colony,\" he wrote, \"I\nhad reason to expect a solid comfort from the services done to many\nhundreds of people.... But, alas! as to my part, instead of reaping the\nlike advantages, some of the greatest of my troubles have sprung from\nthence. The many combats I have engaged in, the great pains and\nincredible expense for your welfare and ease, to the decay of my former\nestate ... with the undeserved opposition I have met with from thence,\nsink into me with sorrow, that, if not supported by a superior hand,\nmight have overwhelmed me long ago. And I cannot but think it hard\nmeasure, that, while it has proved a land of freedom and flourishing, it\nshould become to me, by whose means it was principally made a country,\nthe cause of grief, trouble, and poverty.\"\n\nSo heavy was the financial burden, and so vexatious and disheartening\nthe bickering and ingratitude, that Penn thought seriously of selling\nhis governorship; and it was in the market for several years awaiting a\npurchaser. Indeed, in 1712, he had so far perfected a bargain to\ntransfer his proprietary rights to the crown for L12,000, that nothing\nremained to be done save the affixing of his signature. Before his name\nwas signed, he fell suddenly ill, and the transaction went no farther.\n\nIn the midst of these many troubles, in themselves serious enough, there\ncame another. Penn's business manager for his estates in England and\nIreland was Philip Ford. For a long time, Ford's payments had been less\nand less; Penn was continually complaining that he got so little from\nhis property. Still, Ford's accounts went without examination, and some\nof his financial reports were not so much as opened. William had his\ncustomary confidence in his agent's honesty. At last, when things got so\nbad that something had to be done, it appeared by Ford's books that,\ninstead of Ford's being in debt to Penn, Penn was in debt to him for\nmore than ten thousand pounds. This was the result of long, ingenious,\nand unmolested bookkeeping. And Penn had made himself liable by his\ncareless silence. Then Ford died, and his widow and children claimed\neverything which stood in Penn's name. Penn, it appeared, had borrowed\nmoney of Ford, and had given him a mortgage on his Pennsylvania estates\nas security. When the loan was paid, the mortgage had not been returned.\nNot only did Mrs. Ford retain it, but she sued Penn for three thousand\npounds rent, which was due, she said, from the property of which William\nwas once owner, but which he now held as tenant of the Fords. So far was\nthis iniquitous business pursued, that Penn was arrested as he was at a\nreligious meeting in Gracechurch Street, and was imprisoned for debt in\nthe Fleet, or its precincts.\n\nThis was the turn in the tide. Everybody disapproved of treatment so\nunjust and extortionate. William's friends raised money, and made a\ncompromise with the Fords, and got him free. In Pennsylvania, too, the\ncontentions were quieted by a good governor. And as the wars came to an\nend, trade so increased that the province presently yielded a\nsubstantial income.\n\nPenn retired to Ruscombe, in Berkshire, in the pleasant country. Here he\nhad his family about him. He was now a grandfather, his son William\nhaving a son and a daughter. \"So that now we are major, minor, and\nminimus. I bless the Lord mine are pretty well,--Johnny lively; Tommy a\nlovely, large child; and my grandson, Springett, a mere Saracen; his\nsister, a beauty.\" Of his second marriage there were six children, four\nof whom--John, Thomas, Margaret, and Richard--became proprietors of\nPennsylvania. Thomas had two sons, John and Granville; Richard had two,\nJohn and Richard. When the proprietary government ended, in 1776, it was\nin the hands of the heirs of William Penn.\n\nIn 1711, Penn wrote a preface to John Banks's Journal, dictating it, as\nhis custom was, walking to and fro with his cane in his hand, thumping\nthe floor to mark the emphasis. \"Now reader,\" he concludes, \"before I\ntake leave of thee, let me advise thee to hold thy religion in the\nspirit, whether thou prayest, praisest or ministerest to others, ...\nwhich, that all God's people may do, is, and hath long been the earnest\ndesire and fervent supplication of theirs and thy faithful friend in the\nLord Jesus Christ, W. PENN.\" This is the last word of his writing which\nremains.\n\nThe next year he had a paralytic stroke, and another, and another. This\nimpaired his memory and his mind. Thus he continued for six years, as\nhappily as was possible under the circumstances. He went often to\nmeeting, where he frequently spoke, briefly, but with \"sound and savory\nexpressions.\" He walked about his gardens, saw his friends, and\ndelighted in the company of his wife and children. Each year left him\nweaker than the year before; but his days were filled with serenity. He\nwas surrounded with all the comforts which a generous income, an\naffectionate family, the respect of his neighbors, and the approval of\nGod, could give him.\n\n\"He that lives to live forever,\" he had written in his \"Fruits of\nSolitude,\" \"never fears dying. Nor can the means be terrible to him,\nthat heartily believes the end. For though death be a dark passage, it\nleads to immortality; and that is recompense enough for suffering of\nit.... And this is the comfort of the good, that the grave cannot hold\nthem, and that they live as soon as they die.\"\n\nInto the fullness of this life he entered on the 30th of July, 1718,\nbeing seventy-four years old.\n\n\n\n\nThe chief authorities for facts concerning William Penn are--\n\n\n     1. The Select Works of William Penn (London, 1726; 3d edition,\n     1782; 5 vols). Whereof, The Trial of William Penn and William Mead\n     (vol i.), Travels in Holland and Germany (vol. iii.), and A General\n     Description of Pennsylvania (vol. iv.) contain autobiographical\n     matter. Some Fruits of Solitude and Penn's Advice to his Children\n     (vol. v.) are similarly valuable.\n\n     2. The Life of Penn prefixed to his Works, by Joseph Besse, a\n     Quaker contemporary (1726).\n\n     3. Memoirs of the Private and Public Life of William Penn, by\n     Thomas Clarkson (London, 1813).\n\n     4. The Pennsylvania Historical Society Memoirs (vols. i., ii.,\n     iii.). Also the Correspondence between William Penn and James\n     Logan, edited for this Society, by Edward Armstrong.\n\n     5. The Penns and the Penningtons, by Maria Webb (London, 1867),\n     containing family letters.\n\n     6. Recent biographies of Penn: by William Hepworth Dixon (1851), by\n     Samuel M. Janney (1852), by John Stoughton (1882), by Sydney George\n     Fisher (1900).\n\n\n\n\n   The Riverside Press\n   _Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co._\n   _Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber's note\n\n\nThe following changes have been made to the text:\n\nIn the TOC \"58\" changed to \"53\".\n\nPage 23: \"seventeeenth\" changed to \"seventeenth\".\n\nPage 42: \"Quaker brethen\" changed to \"Quaker brethren\".\n\nPage 49: \"died when he\" changed to \"died when she\".\n\nPage 57: \"serious inprisonment\" changed to \"serious imprisonment\".\n\nPage 62: \"body prevented\" changed to \"body prevented it\".","title":"William Penn","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":24744}