PENN, WILLIAM

PENN, WILLIAM, founder of the state of Pennsylvania, and the most accomplished Englishman that ever joined the Society of Friends or Quakers, was a native of London, born October 13, 1644. He was the eldest son of a brave naval officer, one of the sea-captains of the Commonwealth, who, after the Restoration, rose to the rank of admiral, was knighted by Charles II., and appointed a commissioner of the navy. In the flag-ship of the Duke of York, Admiral Penn held the post of "Great Captain Commander," and was with his royal highness in the decisive victory over the Dutch off Harwich in 1665. An intimacy was thus formed between the prince and the admiral which had an important influence on the fortunes and character of the admiral's son, the Quaker preacher and legislator. In his fifteenth year William Penn was entered a gentleman commoner of Christ Church, Oxford. Polemical controversy and religious fervour, under various forms, then agitated

the country; the university partook of the excitement, and Penn joined the serious or puritanical class of students who waged war against the surplice and high church ceremonial patronized by the court. He attended the preaching of a Quaker named Thomas Loe, neglected the college rules and discipline, and was fined: he became still more contumacious, and was expelled. Admiral Penn, a worldly, ambitious man, who looked forward to a peerage, was inexpressibly chagrined and mortified by this strange conduct on the part of his son and heir. He adopted, however, a mild and judicious mode of treatment: he sent the young Nonconformist abroad in company with some friends, to make the tour of France and Italy. The experiment was completely successful. Withdrawn from the Oxford influences, William Penn became the fine gentleman and man of the world. He remained abroad two years, and on his return to England, was introduced to the court, where his polished manners and handsome appearance soon rendered him a favourite. In order to fit him for public life, his father entered him as a student of Lincoln's Inn, and employed him also on his own private affairs. In June 1665 the plague broke out in London. That awful visitation, which carried terror to every heart and struck down thousands in the capital, revived all William Penn's serious and self-abasing impressions. He abandoned the licentious court, left off visiting the gay circles that swarmed around "the merry monarch, scandalous and poor," and, shutting himself up, took to the study of controversial and practical divinity. His father saw that it was again time to interfere. He had property in Ireland, a valuable barony in the county of Cork, which had been granted by the king in exchange for an estate bestowed on the admiral by Cromwell. The new grant was disputed by local claimants, lawsuits were instituted, and negotiations were necessary to settle the matter. William Penn had already shown his aptitude for business, and his father despatched him to Ireland, recommending him in an especial manner, by introductory letters, to the care of the Duke of Ormond, then viceroy of Ireland. At the court at Dublin Penn was a welcome visitor; and an insurrection breaking out at this time among the military at Carrickfergus, he served for a short period as a volunteer. In his capacity of soldier Penn displayed so much coolness and bravery that he was offered the command of a company. For a moment visions of military glory seem to have dazzled the future apostle of peace; but his father, not dreaming of another relapse to the Quaker rule, and sensible of the value of the services rendered to his family by his son's management of the Irish estate, opposed himself to this intended military destination. A crisis was at hand. William Penn happened to visit Cork; Thomas Loe was there on a Quaker mission; and curiosity led Penn one day to attend the preaching of his former Oxford acquaintance. The circumstance was decisive. All his former enthusiasm came back upon him with augmented force; he joined the hated and despised sect; and shortly afterwards was, with the rest of the congregation, sent to prison on the usual charge of riot and tumultuous assembling. His friends at the viceregal court procured his release, and the admiral sent for him home. The meeting must have been a painful one on both sides. To the rage and expostulations of his father the neophyte opposed calm answers and subtle arguments. He got a short time to deliberate—retired, prayed, and was immovable in his resolution to adhere to the new doctrines. His father turned him out of doors! The die was now cast; Penn was elevated to a sort of martyrdom, and he seems to have exulted in his emancipation from all worldly compulsion and restraint. He set himself vigorously to prosecute what he conceived to be his Divine mission. His father, after a few months' absence, permitted him to return home, but would not see him; and we may conceive

the astonishment and disgust with which the courtly admiral read the title-page of his son's first exposition or defence of Quakerism—a work thus set forth as a flag of defiance to all gainsayers:—

"TRUTH EXALTED, in a short but sure Testimony against all those Factions and Worship that have been formed and followed in the darkness of Apostasy; and for that Glorious Light which is now risen and shines forth in the life and doctrine of the despised Quakers, as the alone good old way of Life and Salvation. Presented to Princes, Priests, and People, that they may repent, believe, and obey. By WILLIAM PENN, whom Divine Love constrains in an holy contempt to trample on Egypt's glory—not fearing the King's wrath, having beheld the Majesty of Him who is Invisible."

This work appeared in 1668, in William Penn's twenty-fourth year. It is a crude, fanatical, acrimonious production, directed against all sects except that of the Quakers, and against all those "idolatrous, superstitious, carnal, proud, wanton, unclean, mocking, and persecuting princes, priests, and people" who should "go on to rebel against the reproofs and instructions of this holy light." Another work published by Penn the same year, entitled The Sandy Foundation Shaken, is less wildly vehement and more argumentative. It attracted a good deal of attention, and replies to it, he says, were thundered forth in books and from the pulpit. This notoriety led to a consummation very common in those persecuting times—a false charge of sedition was trumped up against Penn, and he was committed to the Tower. He was confined for eight months, the patient victim of intolerance; and he occupied himself by writing a more elaborate exposition of his doctrines and belief, which he entitled No Cross no Crown. This is the best of his theological treatises, and was the most popular. He enforces with great earnestness and ability (quoting largely from Scripture) the leading Quaker tenet, that to do well with constancy and bear ill with fortitude is the only way to attain lasting happiness; and he adds a series of "testimonies" drawn from the lives and writings of eminent men, ancient and modern. These selections evince considerable reading and research, and in subsequent editions he enlarged the number. It is worthy of remark, that though he praises the wit and morality of Cowley, he nowhere alludes to his great contemporary Milton, who was not only conspicuous for his advocacy of religious freedom, but was even suspected of a leaning towards Quakerism. Some doctrines or opinions of the Quakers Milton undoubtedly held; but his bold speculations and majestic genius were both above the range of the ordinary sectaries of his day. If known at all to men like Penn, he must have been regarded rather with fear and wonder than with confidence or admiration. The blind poet and patriot held aloof from all sects and "dwelt apart;" but in one instance at least tidings of Penn must have reached Milton in his small house in the Artillery Walk, and drawn from him, and from his friends Andrew Marvell and Cyriack Skinner expressions of warm sympathy and hearty approbation. The Conventicle Act prohibiting dissenters' meetings was renewed in the spring of 1670. William Penn was one day found addressing a crowd in the street, and, along with another Quaker named Mead, was taken up and committed to Newgate. They were tried at the next Old Bailey sessions before the mayor, recorder, aldermen, and sheriffs, and the trial was marked by all the coarse and brutal insolence which unrestrained power generates in vulgar minds. Penn, however, vindicated the principles of English freedom and the rights of conscience with admirable intrepidity and talent; the indictment was proved to be wrong both in its statements of law and of fact; and the whole proceedings were so glaringly and monstrously unjust, that the jury refused to return any severer verdict than that of "Guilty of speaking in Gracechurch Street." Again and again were they turned back and browbeat by

the bench; they were kept two days and two nights without food, fire, or water, but the stout English spirit was strong within them, and it was found impossible to extort a verdict agreeable to the court. Their last decision was "Not guilty," and for this they were fined forty marks each, with imprisonment in Newgate until the fine should be paid. Penn and Mead were also fined for contempt of court. All of them went to Newgate. The jurors appealed to the Court of Common Pleas against the mayor and recorder; the appeal was sustained; and Penn had thus the triumph of overcoming his oppressors, and establishing the principle, that it is the right and the special function of juries to judge of the value of evidence, independent of any direction or attempted coercion of the court. Penn followed up his victory by the publication of a full report of the case, The People's Ancient and Just Liberties asserted, &c., accompanying the report with some forcible and pungent remarks. Altogether this trial and publication—the firmness of the twelve London citizens, and the impartial award of the Court of Common Pleas, for all which we stand indebted to Penn—form a great landmark in the progress of our popular and constitutional liberties.

Admiral Penn was now dying. The courage and ability of his son gratified the parental pride and affection, and a complete reconciliation took place. "Son William," said the admiral, "if you and your friends keep to your plain way of preaching, and also keep to your plain way of living, you will make an end of priests!" To accomplish any approach to such a sweeping result, persecution, however, would have been necessary. When the Quakers were permitted to meet unmolested, and to speak, preach, and dress after their own peculiar fashion, their importance was gone, and their exclusive self-denying doctrines were not likely ever to become general.

During the next ten years, from 1670 to 1680, Penn continued to write, preach, and hold public disputations in defence of Quakerism. He was six months in Newgate (in 1671), convicted of frequenting an "unlawful assembly;" and in those six months he wrote and published four treatises, one of which, The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience, is a good comprehensive statement of a great principle then little understood. He travelled in Holland and Germany, interceded with foreign states in favour of the victims of persecution, and in 1676 became one of the proprietors of West Jersey in America, and was instrumental in colonizing that province by the English. At home he was associated with Algernon Sidney in endeavouring to obtain some mitigation of the severity against dissenters; and before the infamous Popish plot of Titus Oates had driven the nation into a paroxysm of insane fury and intolerance, he was permitted to address the House of Commons in behalf of those persons who were suffering penalties for conscience sake. There was, however, little prospect of emancipation in England, and Penn applied himself to found a religious democracy in the New World. The government stood indebted to the family of Sir William Penn in a sum of about £15,000; the claim was just and undisputed; but the exchequer of Charles II. was rarely in a condition to meet such a demand. In lieu of a money settlement, Penn solicited, and after some delay obtained, by letters patent from the Crown, a grant of land on the River Delaware, a vast province that had belonged to the Dutch, 360 miles in length by 160 in width. It had been called New Netherlands, but as the territory was mountainous, he proposed to name it New Wales. A Welsh secretary of state, Blathwayte, objected to this appropriation; and Penn substituted Sylvania, in reference to the great forests which covered the land. King Charles, in honour of his late friend the admiral, suggested the prefix of Penn; and thus the new province bore, in the royal charter, the liquid and euphonious name of Pennsylvania.

Penn. "God hath given it me in the face of the world," said Penn in the fulness of his heart; "He will bless and make it the seed of a nation;" a prophecy which even one century, a fragment in the history of a people, saw fulfilled.

In framing a constitution for his new colony, Penn was assisted by Algernon Sidney. That fearless politician, whose tendencies were all towards republicanism, brought ample knowledge of ancient and modern governments to the task. Penn, less enlightened, but perhaps more practical, knew and felt deeply the value of religious liberty. That sheet-anchor he never would forego, and there were no traditional associations to bind the lawgivers. Two still greater men of that age, Milton and Locke, drew up forms of government. Locke's scheme was tried at Carolina, and proved a failure. Milton's ideal republic was an intellectual aristocracy that never could have been realized with Englishmen. But Penn and Sidney made their scheme of Christian democracy essentially popular in its character, with a council and assembly elected by universal suffrage, and with ample scope for the future development and improvement of the colony. (The progress of Pennsylvania, under this enlightened system of local government, will be found described under PENNSYLVANIA.) Trading companies were soon organized; and emigration proceeded from London, Bristol, and Liverpool. Penn himself sailed for his new domain in the autumn of 1682. His voyage in the ship Welcome, his enthusiastic reception, his laying out the city of Philadelphia—that city in which, as springing from the seed sown by Penn, the great declaration of American independence was discussed and adopted,—and his solemn conference with the Indian chiefs and warriors, are proud and interesting materials of history. Who can ever forget the memorable signing of the Great Treaty, the only treaty upon record, according to Voltaire, that was never sworn to and never broken? Who does not picture in imagination that scene on the banks of the Delaware, under the magnificent old elm-tree, at which the Indian king, attended by his sachems and younger warriors, and the English governor, accompanied by his pilgrim-followers, interchanged pledges of amity and brotherhood,—invoking the Great Spirit, the common Father of all, to bless and ratify that scroll which was to unite for ever the Christian and the red man, the wild children of the Six Nations with the intrepid adventurers from the Old World; who were to carry civilization and commerce, equity, mercy, and peace, into the far wildernesses of the West? The annals of conquest and diplomacy, in the moment of supreme triumph, or in halls of state, furnish no parallel in picturesque or moral beauty to this simple conference on the American plain under the open canopy of heaven.

Penn landed in England on the 12th of June 1684. On the 6th of February following, Charles II. died; and Penn lost no time in waiting on the new king, and representing to him the sufferings of his Quaker brethren, imprisoned for refusing to take the oaths and attend the established church. James found that he could at once relieve the Quakers and those of his own church, the Roman Catholics; and orders were issued by which about thirteen hundred Quakers, and a still greater number of Catholics, some of whom had been confined for years, were set at liberty. Penn removed to Kensington to be near the court; he was almost daily at Whitehall closeted with the king; and such was the extent of his supposed influence, that if he had been disposed, he says, to "make a market of the fears and jealousies of the people," when James came to the throne, he could have put £20,000 into his purse, and £100,000 into his province of Pennsylvania. He declined every offer of reward or gratuity from those he was able to serve; the sordid vice of avarice was never charged against him. He experienced, however, the usual fate of courtiers, in being alternately envied and hated, applauded and tra-

duced. His contemporaries said he was a Papist, holding a correspondence with the Jesuits at Rome. That amiable and tolerant divine Tillotson for a moment gave credence to the popular clamour, but was disabused of the impression by the solemn and explicit denial of Penn, who declared that he did not know one Jesuit or priest of the Romish communion. To another friend, William Popple, secretary to the Plantation Board, Penn made a fuller communication on the subject. He visited Whitehall, he said, because he had continual business there in making solicitations for his friends. His own affairs also were unsettled; and he required royal authority to restrain encroachments on his distant property. "To this," he continues, "let me add the relation my father had to this king's service, his particular favour in getting me released out of the Tower of London in 1669, my father's humble request to him on his deathbed to protect me from the inconveniences and troubles my persuasion might expose me to, and his friendly promise to do it, and exact performance of it, from the moment I addressed myself to him: I say, when all this is considered, anybody that has the least pretence to good-nature, gratitude, or generosity, must needs know how to interpret my access to the king." That access, however, was so familiar and uninterrupted during the whole of the king's unpopular reign, that we need not wonder at its exposing Penn to obloquy and suspicion. As in the classic fable, all the footsteps pointed to the royal cave; but there were few traces of mercy or favour issuing from it. Penn had witnessed the horrors of the Bloody Assizes for which Jeffreys was rewarded by his sovereign; he was present at the burning of Elizabeth Gaunt and the execution of Henry Cornish; and he saw daily the oppressions and confiscations exercised towards the Puritans and Non-conformists, with the insane efforts of James to advance and re-establish Popery. He was in several instances employed as arbiter and negotiator. All these things, it might be imagined, would have disgusted Penn with the court, and driven him, as they did Locke and Burnet, to Holland and the Prince of Orange. But he continued a courtier and friend of King James to the last. His conduct no doubt proceeded, like most actions in life, from mixed feelings or motives. His vanity was gratified by the royal attentions he received, and by the crowd of suitors that thronged his doors at Kensington. Such distinction was a pleasing novelty to one who had felt persecution, and been thrust into Newgate and the Tower: it was a public recognition of his services as a pacificator and patriot. There was also attachment to the king as his guardian and benefactor; and, above all, there was his conscientious desire and study to "allay heats and moderate animosities." If he struck off from the court, all hope of promoting religious toleration or benefiting his oppressed brethren was at an end; he was a breakwater between the royal vengeance and the non-complying Protestants.

The latest and most brilliant of English historians, Lord Macaulay, has looked with disfavour amounting to aversion on these courtly complacencies of the Quaker negotiator. He has even charged him with direct complicity in some of the most questionable transactions of the period, and with having thereby compromised his character as a man of honour and humanity, and as a consistent supporter of religious liberty. It is evident that Penn did not know James as well as Lord Macaulay, or Lord Macaulay's readers. But the worst of the historian's accusations seem to rest on imperfect evidence. They are derived from meagre reports of personal conferences, doubtful letters, and obscure despatches, which, if full information could be obtained, might be susceptible of a totally different interpretation.

The most prominent of Lord Macaulay's charges is, that Penn was a pardon-broker or extortion-agent, a character by no means uncommon in that age, when the sale of par-

mons was a regular trade. After the suppression of the Monmouth rebellion, some young girls of Taunton who had worked colours, and presented them to the unfortunate duke, were excepted from the general amnesty, and thrown into prison, in order that their relatives might purchase for them separate pardons. The money to be thus extorted was granted to the queen's maids of honour; and William Penn, according to the historian, was appointed an agent to the maids of honour, and submitted to receive instructions to make the most advantageous composition he could in their behalf. Had his name appeared on the other side as intercessor for the poor girls (who had only acted under the orders of their schoolmistress), the incident would have been in keeping with his general character; but the discredit of undertaking such a commission to gratify the rapacity of the court is foreign to all we know previously of the life of William Penn. The member for Bridgewater, Sir Francis Warre, was at first requested to exact the ransom. He excused himself, and then the Earl of Sunderland, secretary of state, wrote a letter which begins:—"Mr Penne, Her Majesty's maids of honour having acquainted me that they design you and Mr Walden in making a composition with the relations of the maids of Taunton," &c. The question arises, was the party so addressed William Penn? The slight difference in the spelling of the name Penne or Penn is a point of no consequence, for at that time, as Lord Macaulay has remarked, a proper name was thought to be well spelt if the sound were preserved. But it is of importance to ascertain whether there was not some other individual of the name to whose character, position, and circumstances, the language of Sunderland would apply. Now, it is proved that there existed at this time a certain George Penne, engaged, as the registers of the Privy Council show, as a pardon-broker at Taunton. He had been paid a sum of £65 for the ransom of Azariah Pinney, one of the persons compromised with Monmouth. The character of this man, the spelling of his name, and the circumstance of his trafficking in pardons at Taunton, all point him out as a fit agent for the maids of honour, and warrant the conclusion that he was the person addressed by Sunderland. The minister apparently had no doubt of the willingness of his intended agent to accept the scandalous commission. The maids of honour, he says, "design you and Mr Walden." Is it probable that the offer, rejected by Sir Francis Warre, would have been made in such terms to William Penn, a man high at court, and the personal friend of Sunderland and the king? But if even the insulting offer were made to William Penn, there is literally no proof that he accepted it. According to Oldmixon (a bad authority, it is true, but his word may be taken on an indifferent matter when there is nothing to controvert his statement), the composition with the Taunton maids was ultimately arranged by another pardon-broker, a lawyer named Brent, who was assisted by a local agent at Bridgewater. The name of William Penn, therefore, may, we think, be considered as standing free from this degrading association. The charge rests on what we believe to be a wrong inference from a single letter in the State-Paper Office, and it is one which only the clearest and most indubitable evidence could render credible.¹

In another case cited by Lord Macaulay, Penn, we admit, appears in a humiliating position. When the churchmen at last abandoned the doctrine of passive obedience, and refused to acquiesce in the arbitrary edicts of James, the weak and bigoted monarch endeavoured to gain over some of the more conspicuous of the dissenters. Amongst these was William Kiffin, a wealthy London merchant, and a

leader among the Baptists. Kiffin had lost two grandsons, popular young men, who had joined Monmouth's rebellion, and suffered death under circumstances that excited the public compassion, and evinced the hard and unrelenting character of the king. In consequence of this severity, it was doubtful whether Kiffin would accept the offer of a city magistracy held out to him by the court. "I used all the means I could," says the old man, "to be excused, both by some lords near the king, and also by Sir Nicholas Butler and Mr Penn, but it was all in vain. I was told that they knew I had an interest that might serve the king, and although they knew my sufferings were great in cutting off my two grandchildren and losing their estates, yet it should be made up to me, both in their estates and also in what honour or advantage I could reasonably desire for myself. But I thank the Lord these proffers were no snares to me." (Kiffin's Memoirs.) It is painful to find William Penn engaged in such a mission, and connected, as Lord Macaulay remarks, with "the heartless and venal sycophants of Whitehall." But we know not how far he was implicated in the work of seduction. The language of Kiffin is general and obscure, and the proffers to which he refers are likely to have proceeded from the "lords near the king." Penn individually may have been passive in the transaction, though led by his attachment to the king, or urged by the royal entreaties, to confer with Kiffin. The matter is to be regretted; but it is one that implies a want of feeling, not a want of principle.

There is still another case of Penn's mediation which has exposed him to censure. This is the case of Dr Hough, president of Magdalen College, Oxford, afterwards Bishop Hough, "loved and esteemed by all the nation," as Pope has written. Hough, supported by the fellows of his college, would not retire from his presidency at the dictation of the king, to make way for the infamous Parker, Bishop of Oxford. Such compliance would be a violation of their statutes and their oaths. But anxious to conciliate James, the fellows engaged the services of Penn as intercessor on their behalf. "He exhorted the fellows," says Lord Macaulay, "not to rely on the goodness of their cause, but to submit, or at least to temporize." The authority for this statement is a note addressed during the heat of the controversy to Bailey, one of the fellows of Magdalen. The note was without signature, and was not in Penn's handwriting, but Bailey believed it to proceed from him, and he replied to it in a letter addressed to Penn. Both letter and answer were printed, and afterwards, during Penn's life, were frequently reprinted, without calling forth any public contradiction from him. Hence Lord Macaulay concludes that the anonymous epistle containing such discreditable counsel was really the production of Penn. To this it is replied that Penn did deny the letter. A contemporary account of the transaction is extant among the papers of Magdalen College, and on the margin of the anonymous letter is written by Hunt, one of the fellows engaged in the conference, the distinct declaration,—"This letter Mr Penn disowned." How he disowned it, whether verbally or by letter, does not appear; but the indorsement made by Hunt seems an authentic contradiction. Having satisfied the parties most nearly interested, Penn might be unwilling for various reasons to resort to a public disavowal. He had completely failed as a mediator, and the king, in his contest with the college, had rendered himself at once odious and contemptible. Silence, therefore, was the euthanasia to be desired.

The conference with the fellows was afterwards resumed at Windsor. On this occasion Penn is charged by

Penn Lord Macaulay with having "used a bishopric as a bait to tempt a divine to perjury." The divine was Dr Hough, who, in a letter to a friend, gave the only account we possess of the interview. "I thank God," says Hough, "that he (Penn) did not offer any proposal by way of accommodation; only once, upon the mention of the Bishop of Oxford's indisposition, he said, smiling, 'If the Bishop of Oxford die, Dr Hough may be made bishop.' What think you of that, gentlemen?" And Hough adds, "When I heard him talk at this rate, I concluded he was either off his guard, or had a mind to droll upon us." The drollery was certainly ill-timed and open to misconstruction; but we cannot think that it affords any good basis for a serious accusation. Penn we believe to have been sick of the conference. He knew how utterly fruitless the whole would be; his own views were directed towards a larger measure of toleration; and, tired of the contest, he was glad to escape for a moment from unavailing argument to the shelter of even a poor jest. He had better been absent from both conferences; but the sum of his errors does not amount to criminality. He was credulous and deluded as to the king's intentions; he lived in bad times; and, considering political questions as vastly subordinate to his religious views, he was willing, in order, as he conceived, to promote the latter, and preserve peace, to concede points which his friends Sidney and Locke would have strenuously resisted or unhesitatingly condemned.

In the midst of these difficulties and contentions, Penn issued another theological treatise—Good advice to the Church of England, the Roman Catholic, and Protestant Dissenters. The work was an earnest pleading for toleration to all sects, and for the repeal of the Test Act; but it was little regarded. The nation had then entered on that great contest which resulted in the abdication and flight of the king. Penn saw the inevitable tendency of James's measures, and counselled him against the headlong defiant course which lost him his throne, but his efforts had only the effect of increasing the popular suspicion against himself. The infatuated monarch had scarcely crossed the Channel ere Penn was summoned before the lords of council, and obliged to give security, in a sum of £6000, for his appearance on the first day of next term. When that day arrived there was no charge and no accuser. But in May 1690 Penn was arrested on the grave accusation of holding a treasonable correspondence with the deposed king. James had written to Penn soliciting his assistance and renewing his professions of regard, and the letter, along with others, had been intercepted. Penn's defence was simple and direct. He could not prevent the royal exile from writing to him: he felt towards James a sincere friendship, but he had never thought of restoring him to the throne; and he had not been able to agree with him on state affairs. The new sovereign, William III., would at once have set him at liberty without imposing any conditions, but in deference to some members of council, Penn was required to give bail. Next year a similar charge was preferred against him by an infamous informer named Fuller (afterwards branded by the House of Commons as a cheat, a rogue, and false accuser), and Penn withdrew from public notice. His enemies were numerous and strong: they darkened the very air against him, he said. He retired to his seat in the country (whither he does not seem to have been pursued), and continued there for more than two years. He solaced his forced retirement by literary labour, and produced a series of Reflections and Maxims, embodying the experiences of his busy life, and an Essay towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe, in which he argued for a great European congress to settle international differences without an appeal to arms. At length, towards the close of 1692, Penn, on an urgent application to the Crown, ob-

tained a public hearing in council, and was fully acquitted of all the charges and suspicions that had so long hung over him. A brighter day seemed at length to be at hand. A new series of troubles, however, sprung up regarding his American colony—that "Holy Experiment" which lay so near his heart. The success of the French in the war then raging rendered it necessary to strengthen the frontiers, and form one imperial government out of the northern colonies. The separate charter of Pennsylvania would require to be abolished in order to secure military co-operation, and in such a step, however liberally the government might be disposed to act in acquiring the province, the governor saw the destruction of all his long-cherished hopes and plans. The calamity was averted by Penn relinquishing in part his pacific Quaker principles, and agreeing to furnish a contingent of eighty men, with the necessary equipments, during the continuance of the war. The peace of Ryswick afterwards removed this difficulty, and no military organization was attempted. Discontent, however, began to spread in Pennsylvania, and Penn was resolved to proceed once more to his colony. In September 1699 he embarked for America, and arriving in safety at Pennsylvania, continued to reside there for a period of three years. His presence had the effect of appeasing the animosities of rival factions. He renewed and extended his friendly treaties with the natives, and, in conjunction with his council and assembly, arranged another governmental code or charter for the province. In all these transactions—difficult and delicate as many of them, with a mixed body of settlers, must have proved—the justice, benevolence, and generosity of Penn are strikingly apparent. His exertions in the New World were, however, threatened with total destruction at home. A strong effort was made to convert the private into Crown colonies. A Bill of Annexation had been drawn up and brought into the House of Lords; and Penn hastened back to England to vindicate his rights. He was again successful; but other calamities awaited the governor of Pennsylvania. His son, whom he had sent out as his representative to the colony, disgraced his birth, and alienated the affections of the people by flagrant misconduct; and the executors of a crafty steward, whom he had long trusted, preferred against him a claim amounting to £14,000, at the same time threatening to seize and sell the province if the sum were not immediately paid. The accounts were complicated; a Chancery suit followed; and Penn, acting under legal advice, sought shelter from successful knavery in the Fleet Prison. In this extremity of his fortunes he contemplated the sale of Pennsylvania to the Crown. For the soil and government of the province he asked a sum of £20,000, with a guarantee that it should remain a separate and distinct colony, and enjoy the free institutions established by its founder. A considerable portion of the settlers had grown lukewarm or hostile to their old benefactor, animated by that grasping and selfish spirit too often the concomitant of young colonies struggling for wealth and power. But Penn remembered the principles on which he had founded his Christian democracy, and still desired to legislate for future generations. The imperial government declined his offer, restricted by the conditions to which he adhered; and Penn was able by the help of friends, to effect a settlement with his rapacious creditors. He was again at liberty, and he retired to a country seat which he had taken in Berkshire. His long confinement in the close atmosphere of the Old Bailey, his griefs, disappointments, and losses, and the pressure of more than threescore years, had seriously impaired his health and vigour. He still corresponded on the affairs of his colony, his latest efforts being directed towards the relief of the poor Negroes. But in 1712 he sustained several shocks of paralysis, and ere the year closed the once active and fertile mind of William Penn was laid in ruins. He lingered

on for nearly six more years, lost to the world, but free from suffering—a child in intellect, and delighting in his children, his fields, and flowers, till death came to his release, July 29, 1718. "The traveller," says a local historian, "in passing from Beaconsfield to the neighbouring village of Chalfont St Giles in Bucks, passes a small inclosure on the right-hand side of the road, known as the Friends' or Jourdan's burial-ground. But though no monumental stone attracts attention, and the sunken graves hidden in the tall grass escape the passing glance of a stranger, it well deserves to be recorded as the resting-place of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania." Two of Milton's friends—Thomas Ellwood, who read to the poet in his blindness, and Isaac Pennington—were buried in the same sequestered graveyard. Near it is the cottage in which Milton resided during the prevalence of the plague in London, and where he is supposed, at the suggestion of Ellwood, to have written his Paradise Regained; and a few miles off, separated from Chalfont by green lanes and groves of beech and elm, are the last residences and the graves of Waller and Burke. Amidst scenes thus consecrated by genius and patriotism, and rich in natural beauty, the ashes of William Penn—an English worthy of the old simple heroic stamp—have found a fitting place of repose. (n. c.—s.)