=55. William Penn.= One day Thomas Loe, a Quaker preacher, ventured
into the old university town of Oxford. He talked with the students and
explained to them the beliefs of the Quakers. He declared that all men
were equal, and he refused to recognize rank or title. He taught men to
live and worship in simplicity.
[Sidenote: =William Penn converted=]
A few students believed his teachings and resolved to become members of
the hated sect of Quakers. Among them was William Penn, the son of a
great naval officer, Admiral Penn. What a buzzing there was in that old
college town when the news spread that William Penn, the fine scholar,
the skilled oarsman, the all-round athlete, had become a Quaker!
[Sidenote: =Why Penn was expelled from college=]
Some of his comrades would not believe it. But when they saw him put
off the cap and gown of his college, which some of the greatest men
in English history had worn with pride, and put on the plain garb of
the Quakers, they gave up! The college officers were also convinced
when Penn and other Quakers tore off the gowns of fellow students. The
authorities promptly expelled these young and over-enthusiastic Friends.
[Sidenote: =What Penn's family and friends thought=]
What more disgraceful thing could happen to the family of Admiral
Penn? To have a son expelled from Oxford was bad enough, but to
have him become a Quaker was a disgrace not to be borne--so thought
his family. The stern old admiral promptly drove him from home. But
William resolutely refused to give up his Quaker views, and the admiral
decided to try the plan of sending him to Paris, where life was as
un-Quaker-like as it could be.
William Penn himself looked little like a Quaker. He was then eighteen
years old, fine looking, with large eyes and long, dark, curly hair
reaching to his shoulders.
[Sidenote: =Penn in Paris=]
Young Penn, however, did not entirely waste his time in the gay life
of Paris. He attended school and traveled in Italy. At the end of two
years he came back.
[Sidenote: =Returns more of a Quaker than ever=]
It was not long before the admiral again saw Quaker signs in his son
and hastened him off to Ireland to cure him entirely. But who should
be preaching in Ireland but Thomas Loe. William went to hear his old
preacher, and this time became a Quaker forever. No suffering was great
enough to cause him ever to waver again, although fines were heaped on
him and at four different times he was thrown into foul jails to be the
companion of criminals.
[Sidenote: =Penn refuses to lift his hat=]
Penn's family now felt the disgrace very keenly, but his father
promised to forgive him if he would take off his hat to the king, to
the king's brother, and to his father. One day, the story goes, King
Charles, the merry monarch, met William Penn and others. All hats were
promptly removed except the king's and Penn's. Presently the king,
too, removed his hat. Whereupon, Penn said: "Friend Charles, why dost
thou remove thy hat?" The king replied: "Because, wherever I am, it is
customary for but one to remain covered."
[Illustration: WILLIAM PENN
_At the age of 22, from a painting in the rooms of the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania, presented by his grandson, Granville Penn of
Stoke Poges_]
Penn's father would not permit such conduct toward his royal friends.
He therefore drove his son from his home a second time.
[Illustration: THE MEETING BETWEEN WILLIAM PENN AND KING CHARLES]
[Sidenote: =William Penn makes a noble choice=]
But Penn's mother finally made peace between the father and the son
before the admiral died. William Penn, then but twenty-six years old,
came into possession of a fortune. Once more he stood "where the roads
parted." He could now be a great man and play the part of a fine
English gentleman who would always be welcome at court, or he could
remain a Quaker.
[Sidenote: =Turns to America=]
We do not know that he even thought of forsaking his Quaker comrades.
On the contrary, he resolved to devote his fortune and his life to
giving them relief. Like Winthrop for the Puritans and Baltimore for
the Catholics, Penn thought of America for his persecuted Friends. With
other Quaker leaders, he became an owner of West Jersey, part of New
Jersey.
[Sidenote: =The king pays an old debt=]
[Sidenote: =Penn's Woods=]
=56. The Founding of Pennsylvania.= King Charles II owed Penn's
father about eighty thousand dollars. William Penn asked him to pay
it in American land. Charles was only too glad to grant this request
of the son of his old sea captain. The land he gave to Penn is the
present great state of Pennsylvania. Penn wanted the colony called
Sylvania, meaning woodland, but the king declared it should be called
Pennsylvania in memory of Admiral Penn.
[Illustration: A WEATHER VANE
_Set above their mill by Penn and two partners in 1699, to show which
way the wind might blow_]
By means of letters and pamphlets Penn sent word to the Quakers
throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland. He told them of Quaker homes
across the sea, where jails would not trouble them.
There was great rejoicing among them over Penn's "Holy Experiment," as
his plan was called.
[Sidenote: =Penn invited all persecuted people=]
Penn even visited Europe, especially the country along the Rhine, and
told the persecuted and oppressed about the new colony where every sort
of Christian was to find a hearty welcome, and where no one was to be
punished for religion's sake.
[Illustration: A QUAKER]
Hundreds of settlers hastened to the new colony. When Penn reached
Newcastle on the Delaware in the fall of 1682 he met a hearty
welcome from scores of happy people who were already enjoying their
long-wished-for religious freedom.
One of Penn's first acts was to call a meeting of the colonists to talk
over their government. This pleased the people greatly, for although
the land was Penn's he not only gave them land for their houses and
farms, but he also gave them the right to choose their own rulers and
to make their own laws.
[Illustration: WILLIAM PENN'S TREATY WITH THE INDIANS
_After the painting by Benjamin West, which hangs in Independence Hall,
Philadelphia_]
[Sidenote: =The founding of Philadelphia=]
Penn next turned his attention to founding the great Quaker city to
which he gave the name Philadelphia, signifying brotherly love--a name
truly expressing Penn's feeling toward other men. He marked off the
streets right in the midst of a great forest, and called them Walnut,
Mulberry, Chestnut, and so on, after the trees that grew there. Some of
the streets in Philadelphia are still so named.
[Sidenote: =Some settlers lived in caves=]
But the settlers came faster than houses could be built, and some
families had to live in caves dug in the banks along the river.
Philadelphia grew faster than the other colonial towns, and soon led
them all.
[Sidenote: =Penn visits the Indians=]
William Penn won the love and the respect of the Indians of
Pennsylvania. He visited them in their own towns and ate with them. He
even took part in their athletic games and outran them all. Like Roger
Williams, he believed that the Indians should be paid for their lands.
Accordingly, he made them rich gifts and entered into solemn treaties
with the chiefs.
[Sidenote: =Kind treatment produced kind treatment=]
At a treaty under a great elm tree on the banks of the Delaware, Penn
said to the Indians: "We are the same as if one man's body were divided
into two parts: We are all one flesh and one blood." In return the
Indians said: "We will live in love with William Penn and his children
as long as the moon and the sun shall endure." If the Indians admired a
white man they said: "He is like William Penn."
[Sidenote: =The coming of the "Pennsylvania Dutch"=]
The news of the establishment of free government and free religious
worship brought crowds of settlers from Germany. Hundreds of German
families in the valleys of the Rhine and the Neckar escaped to "Penn's
Woods," and there their children's children are to be found to-day
under the name of the "Pennsylvania Dutch." Without boasting, William
Penn could say that no other one man, at his own expense, had planted
so great a colony in the wilds of America as he had. Few nobler men
ever lived than William Penn. He died July 30, 1718.