judges in the affair of Gracious Street. He had either taken a dislike
to Penn, or else was deeply impressed with the conviction that the young
Quaker was a peril to the state. Finding that there was to be a meeting
in Wheeler Street, at which William was expected, he sent soldiers and
had him arrested. They conveyed him to the Tower, where he was examined.
"I vow, Mr. Penn," said Sir John, "I am sorry for you; you are an
ingenious gentleman, all the world must allow you, and do allow you,
that; and you have a plentiful estate; why should you render yourself
unhappy by associating with such a simple people?" That was the
suspicious fact. Men in Robinson's position could not understand why
Penn should join his fortunes with those of people so different from
himself, poor, ignorant, and obscure, unless there were some hidden
motive. He must be either a political conspirator, or, as many said, a
Jesuit in disguise, which amounted to the same thing. "You do nothing,"
said Sir John, "but stir up the people to sedition." He required him to
take an oath "that it is not lawful, upon any pretense whatsoever, to
take arms against the king, and that [he] would not endeavour any
alteration of government either in church or state." Penn would not
swear. He was therefore sentenced for six months to Newgate. "I wish you
wiser," said Robinson. "And I wish thee better," retorted Penn. "Send a
corporal," said the lieutenant, "with a file of musqueteers along with
him." "No, no," broke in Penn, "send thy lacquey; I know the way to
Newgate."
William continued in prison during the entire period of his sentence, at
first in a room for which he paid the jailers, then, by his own choice,
with his fellow Quakers in the "common stinking jail." Even here,
however, he managed, as before, to write; and he must have had access to
books, for what he wrote could not have been composed without sight of
the authors from whom he quoted. The most important of his writings at
this time was "The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience once more briefly
Debated and Defended by the Authority of Reason, Scripture and
Antiquity."
Being released from prison, Penn set out for the Continent, where he
traveled in Germany and Holland, holding meetings as opportunity
offered, and regaining such strength of body as he may have lost amidst
the rigors of confinement.
In 1672, being now back in England, and having reached the age of
twenty-seven years, he married Gulielma Maria Springett, a young and
charming Quakeress. Guli Springett's father had died when she was but
twenty-three years old, after such valiant service on the Parliamentary
side in the civil war that he had been knighted by the Speaker of the
House of Commons. Her mother, thus bereft, had married Isaac Pennington,
a quiet country gentleman, in whose company, after some search for
satisfaction in religion, she had become a Quaker. Pennington's
Quakerism, together with the sufferings which it brought upon him, had
made him known to Penn. It was to him that Penn had written, three years
before, to describe the death of Thomas Loe. "Taking me by the hand,"
said William, "he spoke thus: 'Dear heart, bear thy cross, stand
faithful for God, and bear thy testimony in thy day and generation; and
God will give thee an eternal crown of glory, that none shall ever take
from thee. There is not another way. Bear thy cross. Stand faithful for
God.'"
It was in Pennington's house that Thomas Ellwood lived, as tutor to Guli
and the other children, to whom one day in 1655 had come his friend John
Milton, bringing a manuscript for him to read. "He asked me how I liked
it, and what I thought of it, which I modestly but freely told him; and
after some further discourse about it, I pleasantly said to him, Thou
hast said much here of _Paradise Lost_, but what hast thou to say about
Paradise found?" Whereupon the poet wrote his second epic.
Ellwood has left a happy description of Guli Springett. "She was in all
respects," he says, "a very desirable woman,--whether regard was had to
her outward person, which wanted nothing to render her completely
comely; or as to the endowments of her mind, which were every way
extraordinary." And he speaks of her "innocent, open, free
conversation," and of the "abundant affability, courtesy, and sweetness
of her natural temper." Her portrait fits with this description, showing
a bright face in a small, dark hood, with a white kerchief over her
shoulders. Both her ancestry and her breeding would dispose her to
appreciate heroism, especially such as was shown in the cause of
religion. She found the hero of her dreams in William Penn. Thus at
Amersham, in the spring of 1672, the two stood up in some quiet company
of Friends, and with prayer and joining of hands were united in
marriage.
"My dear wife," he wrote to her ten years later, as he set out for
America, "remember thou hast the love of my youth, and much the joy of
my life; the most beloved, as well as the most worthy of all earthly
comforts. God knows, and thou knowest it. I can say it was a match of
Providence's making."
The Declaration of Indulgence, the king's suspension of the penalties
legally incurred by dissent, came conveniently at this time to give them
a honeymoon of peace and tranquillity. They took up their residence at
Rickmansworth, in Hertfordshire. In the autumn, William set out again
upon his missionary journeys, preaching in twenty-one towns in
twenty-one days. "The Lord sealed up our labors and travels," he wrote
in his journal, "according to the desire of my soul and spirit, with his
heavenly refreshments and sweet living power and word of life, unto the
reaching of all, and consolating our own hearts abundantly."
So he returned with the blessings of peace, "which," as he said, "is a
reward beyond all earthly treasure."
V
THE BEGINNING OF PENN'S POLITICAL LIFE: THE HOLY EXPERIMENT
In 1673, George Fox came back from his travels in America, and Penn and
his wife had great joy in welcoming him at Bristol. No sooner, however,
had Fox arrived than the Declaration of Indulgence was withdrawn. It had
met with much opposition: partly ecclesiastical, from those who saw in
it a scheme to reëstablish relations between Rome and England; and
partly political, from those who found but an ill precedent in a royal
decree which set aside parliamentary legislation. The religious liberty
which it gave was good, but the way in which that liberty was given was
bad. What was needed was not "indulgence," but common justice. So the
king recalled the Declaration, and Parliament being not yet ready to
enact its provisions into law, the prisons were again filled with
peaceable citizens whose offense was their religion. One of the first to
suffer was Fox, and in his behalf Penn went to court. He appealed to the
Duke of York.
The incident is significant as the beginning of another phase of
William's life. Thus far, he had been a Quaker preacher. Though he was
unordained, being in a sect which made nothing of ordination, he was for
all practical purposes a minister of the gospel. He was the Rev. William
Penn. But now, when he opened the door of the duke's palace, he entered
into a new way of living, in which he continued during most of the
remainder of his life. He began to be a courtier; he went into politics.
He was still a Quaker, preaching sermons and writing books of
theological controversy; he gave up no religious conviction, and abated
nothing of the earnestness of his personal piety; but he had found, as
he believed, another and more effective way to serve God. He now began
to enter into that valuable but perilous heritage which had been left
him by his father, the friendship of royalty.
Penn found the duke's antechamber filled with suitors. It seemed
impossible to get into the august presence. But Colonel Ashton, one of
the household, looked hard at Penn, and found in him an old companion, a
friend of the days when William was still partaking of the joys of
pleasant society. Ashton immediately got him an interview, and Penn
delivered his request for the release of Fox. The duke received him and
his petition cordially, professing himself opposed to persecution for
religion's sake, and promising to use his influence with the king.
"Then," says Penn, "when he had done upon this affair, he was pleased to
take a very particular notice of me, both for the relation my father had
had to his service in the navy, and the care he had promised to show in
my regard upon all occasions." He expressed surprise that William had
not been to see him before, and said that whenever he had any business
with him, he should have immediate entrance and attention.
Fox was not set at liberty by reason of this interview. The king was
willing to pardon Fox, but Fox was not willing to be pardoned; having,
as he insisted, done no wrong. Penn, however, had learned that the royal
duke remembered the admiral's son. It was an important fact, and William
thereafter kept it well in mind. That it was a turning-point in his
affairs, appears in his reference to it in a letter which he wrote in
1688 to a friend who had reproached him for his attendance at court. "I
have made it," he says, "my province and business; I have followed and
pressed it; I took it for my calling and station, and have kept it above
these sixteen years."
Penn went back to Rickmansworth, and for a time life went on as before.
We get a glimpse of it in the good and wholesome orders which he
established for the well-governing of his family. In winter, they were
to rise at seven; in summer at five. Breakfast was at nine, dinner at
twelve, supper at seven. Each meal was preceded by family prayers. At
the devotions before dinner, the Bible was read aloud, together with
chapters from the "Book of Martyrs," or the writings of Friends. After
supper, the servants appeared before the master and mistress, and gave
an account of their doings during the day, and got their orders for the
morrow. "They were to avoid loud discourse and troublesome noises; they
were not to absent themselves without leave; they were not to go to any
public house but upon business; and they were not to loiter, or enter
into unprofitable talk, while on an errand."
With the canceling of the Indulgence, the persecution of the Quakers was
renewed. Their houses were entered, their furniture was seized, their
cattle were driven away, and themselves thrust into jail. When no
offense was clearly proved against them, the oath was tendered, and the
refusal to take it meant a serious imprisonment.
Under these circumstances, Penn wrote a "Treatise on Oaths." He also
addressed the general public with "England's Present Interest
Considered," an argument against the attempt to compel uniformity of
belief. He petitioned the king and Parliament in "The Continued Cry of
the Oppressed." "William Brazier," he said, "shoemaker at Cambridge, was
fined by John Hunt, mayor, and John Spenser, vice-chancellor, twenty
pounds for holding a peaceable religious meeting in his own house. The
officer who distrained for this sum took his leather last, the seat he
worked upon, wearing clothes, bed, and bedding." "In Cheshire, Justice
Daniel of Danesbury took from Briggs and others the value of one hundred
and sixteen pounds, fifteen shillings and tenpence in coin, kine, and
horses. The latter he had the audacity to retain and work for his own
use," and so on, instance after instance. Penn's acquaintance at court
and his friendships with persons of position never made him an
aristocrat. He was fraternally interested in farmers and cobblers, and
cared for the plain people. Quakerism, as he held it, was indeed a
system of theology which he studiously taught, but it was also, and
quite as much, a social and intellectual democracy. What he mightily
liked about it was that abandonment of artificial distinctions, whereby
all Quakers addressed their neighbors by their Christian names, and that
refusal to be held by formulas of faith, whereby they were left free to
accept such beliefs, and such only, as appealed to their own reason.
About this time he engaged in controversy with Mr. Richard Baxter.
Baxter is chiefly remembered as the author of "The Saints' Everlasting
Rest," but he was a most militant person, who rejoiced greatly in a
theological fight. Passing by Rickmansworth, and finding many Quakers
there,--to him a sad spectacle,--he sought to reclaim them, and thus
fell speedily into debate with Penn. The two argued from ten in the
morning until five in the afternoon, a great crowd listening all the
time with breathless interest. Neither could get the other to surrender;
but so much did William enjoy the exercise that he offered Baxter a room
in his house, that they might argue every day.
In 1677, having now removed to an estate of his wife's at Worminghurst,
in Sussex, Penn, in company with Fox, Barclay, and other Quakers, made a
"religious voyage" into Holland and Germany, preaching the gospel. His
journal of these travels is printed in his works. "At Osnaburg," he
writes, "we had a little time with the man of the inn where we lay; and
left him several good books of Friends, in the High and Low Dutch
tongues, to read and dispose of." Then, in the next sentence, he
continues, "the next morning, being the fifth day of the week, we set
forward to Herwerden, and came thither at night. This is the city where
the Princess Elizabeth Palatine hath her court, whom, and the countess
in company with her, it was especially upon us to visit." Thus they
went, ministering to high and low alike, in their democratic Christian
way making no distinction between tavern-keepers and princesses. As they
talked with Elizabeth and her friend the countess, discoursing upon
heavenly themes, they were interrupted by the rattling of a coach, and
callers were announced. The countess "fetched a deep sigh, crying out,
'O the cumber and entanglements of this vain world! They hinder all
good.' Upon which," says William, "I replied, looking her steadfastly in
the face, 'O come thou out of them, then.'" This journey was of great
importance as affecting afterwards the population of Pennsylvania. Here
it was that Penn met various communities "of a separating and seeking
turn of mind," who found in him a kindred spirit. When he established
his colony, many of them came out and joined it, becoming the
"Pennsylvania Dutch."
During these travels Penn wrote letters to the Prince Elector of
Heidelberg, to the Graf of Bruch and Falschenstein, to the King of
Poland, together with an epistle "To the Churches of Jesus throughout
the world." This was a kind of correspondence in which he delighted.
Like Wesley, after him, he had taken the world for his parish. He
considered himself a citizen of the planet, and took an episcopal and
pontifical interest in the affairs of men and nations. He combined in
an unusual way the qualities of the saint and the statesman. His mind
was at the same time religious and political. Accordingly, as he came to
have a better acquaintance with himself, he entered deliberately upon a
course of life in which these two elements of his character could have
free play. He applied himself to the task of making politics contribute
to the advancement of religion. Many men before him had been eminently
successful in making politics contribute to the advancement of the
church. Penn's purpose was deeper and better.
He came near, at this time, to getting Parliament to assent to a
provision permitting Quakers to affirm, without oath; but the sudden
proroguing of that body prevented it. In the general election which
followed, he made speeches for Algernon Sidney, who was standing for a
place in Parliament. He wrote "England's Great Interest in the Choice of
a New Parliament," and "One Project for the Good of England." The
project was that Protestants should stop contending one with another
and unite against a common enemy.
This was in 1679. The next year he took the decisive step. He entered
upon the fulfillment of that great plan, which had been in his mind
since his student days at Oxford, and with which he was occupied all the
rest of his life. He began to undertake the planting of a colony across
the sea.
Penn had already had some experience in colonial affairs. With the
downfall of the Dutch dominion in the New World, England had come into
possession of two important rivers, the Hudson and the Delaware, and of
the countries which they drained. Of these estates, the Duke of York had
become owner of New Jersey. He, in turn, dividing it into two portions,
west and east, had sold West Jersey to Lord Berkeley, and East Jersey to
Sir George Carteret. Berkeley had sold West Jersey to a Quaker, John
Fenwick, in trust for another Quaker, Edward Byllinge. These Quakers,
disagreeing, had asked Penn to arbitrate between them. Byllinge had
fallen into bankruptcy, and his lands had been transferred to Penn as
receiver for the benefit of the creditors. Thus William had come into a
position of importance in the affairs of West Jersey. Presently, in
1679, East Jersey came also into the market, and Penn and eleven others
bought it at auction. These twelve took in other twelve, and the
twenty-four appointed a Quaker governor, Robert Barclay.
Now, in 1680, having had his early interest in America thus renewed and
strengthened, Penn found that the king was in his debt to the amount of
sixteen thousand pounds. Part of this money had been loaned to the king
by William's father, the admiral; part of it was the admiral's unpaid
salary. Mr. Pepys has recorded in his diary how scandalously Charles
left his officers unpaid. The king, he says, could not walk in his own
house without meeting at every hand men whom he was ruining, while at
the same time he was spending money prodigally upon his pleasures. Pepys
himself fell into poverty in his old age, accounting the king to be in
debt to him in the sum of twenty-eight thousand pounds.
Penn considered his account collectible. "I have been," he wrote, "these
thirteen years the servant of Truth and Friends, and for my testimony's
sake lost much,--not only the greatness and preferment of the world, but
sixteen thousand pounds of my estate which, had I not been what I am, I
had long ago obtained." It is doubtful, however, if the king would have
ever paid a penny. It is certain that when William offered to exchange
the money for a district in America, Charles agreed to the bargain with
great joy.
The territory thus bestowed was "all that tract or part of land in
America, bounded on the east by the Delaware River, from twelve miles
northward of New Castle town unto the three and fortieth degree of
northern latitude. The said land to extend westward five degrees in
longitude, to be computed from the said eastern bounds, and the said
lands to be bounded on the north by the beginning of the three and
fortieth degree of northern latitude and on the south by a circle drawn
at twelve miles distance from New Castle, northward and westward, unto
the beginning of the fortieth degree of northern latitude, and then by
a straight line westward to the limits of longitude above mentioned."
This was a country almost as large as England. No such extensive domain
had ever been given to a subject by an English sovereign: but none had
ever been paid for by a sum of money so substantial.
On the 4th of March, 1681, the charter received the signature of Charles
the Second. On the 21st of August, 1682, the Duke of York signed a deed
whereby he released the tract of land called Pennsylvania to William
Penn and his heirs forever. About the same time, by a like deed, the
duke conveyed to Penn the district which is now called Delaware. Penn
agreed, on his part, as a feudal subject, to render yearly to the king
two skins of beaver, and a fifth part of all the gold and silver found
in the ground; and to the duke "one rose at the feast of St. Michael the
Archangel."
This association of sentiment and religion with a transaction in real
estate is a fitting symbol of the spirit in which the Pennsylvania
colony was undertaken. Penn received the land as a sacred trust. It was
regarded by him not as a personal estate, but as a religious possession
to be held for the good of humanity, for the advancement of the cause of
freedom, for the furtherance of the kingdom of heaven. He wrote at the
time to a friend that he had obtained it in the name of God, that thus
he may "serve his truth and people, and that an example may be set up to
the nations." He believed that there was room there "for such an holy
experiment."
VI
THE SETTLEMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA: PENN'S FIRST VISIT TO THE PROVINCE
That Penn undertook the "holy experiment" without expectation or desire
of profit appears not only in his conviction that he was thereby losing
sixteen thousand pounds, but in his refusal to make his new estates a
means of gain. "He is offered great things," says James Claypole in a
letter dated September, 1681, "£6000 for a monopoly in trade, which he
refused.... He designs to do things equally between all parties, and I
believe truly does aim more at justice and righteousness and spreading
of truth than at his own particular gain." "I would not abuse His love,"
said Penn, "nor act unworthy of His providence, and so defile what came
to me clean. No, let the Lord guide me by His wisdom, and preserve me to
honour His name, and serve His truth and people, that an example and
standard may be set up to the nations."
So far removed was he from all self-seeking, that he was even unwilling
to have the colony bear his name. "I chose New Wales," he says,
recounting the action of the king's council, "being, as this, a pretty
hilly country,--but Penn being Welsh for head, as Pennanmoire in Wales,
and Penrith in Cumberland, and Penn in Buckinghamshire, the highest land
in England--[the king] called this Pennsylvania, which is the high or
head woodlands; for I proposed, when the secretary, a Welshman, refused
to have it called New Wales, Sylvania, and they added Penn to it; and
though I much opposed it, and went to the king to have it struck out and
altered, he said it was past, and he would take it upon him; nor could
twenty guineas move the under-secretary to vary the name, for I feared
lest it should be looked on as a vanity in me, and not as a respect in
the king, as it truly was, to my father, whom he often mentions with
praise."
The charter gave the land to Penn as the king's tenant. He had power to
make laws; though this power was to be exercised, except in emergencies,
"with the advice, assent, and approbation of the freemen of the
territory," and subject to the confirmation of the Privy Council. He was
to appoint judges and other officers. He had the right to assess custom
on goods laden and unladen, for his own benefit; though he was to take
care to do it "reasonably," and with the advice of the assembly of
freemen. He was, at the same time, to be free from any tax or custom of
the king, except by his own consent, or by the consent of his governor
or assembly, or by act of Parliament. He was not to maintain
correspondence with any king or power at war with England, nor to make
war against any king or power in amity with the same. If as many as
twenty of his colonists should ask a minister from the Bishop of London,
such minister was to be received without denial or molestation.
The next important document to be prepared was the Constitution, or
Frame of Government, and to the task of composing it Penn gave a great
amount of time and care. It was preceded by two statements of
principles,--the Preface and the Great Fundamental.
The Preface declared the political policy of the proprietor.
"Government," he said, "seems to me a part of religion itself, a thing
sacred in its institution and end." As for the debate between monarchy,
aristocracy, and democracy, "I choose," he said, "to solve the
controversy with this small distinction, and it belongs to all three:
any government is free to the people under it, whatever be the frame,
where the laws rule, and the people are a party to those laws." His
purpose, he says, is to establish "the great end of all government,
viz., to support power in reverence with the people, and to secure the
people from the abuse of power, that they may be free by their just
obedience, and the magistrates honourable for their just administration;
for liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without
liberty is slavery."
In a private letter, written about the same time, Penn stated his
political position in several concrete sentences which interpret these
fine but rather vague pronouncements. "For the matters of liberty and
privilege," he wrote, "I propose that which is extraordinary, and to
leave myself and successors no power of doing mischief, that the will of
one man may not hinder the good of an whole country; but to publish
these things now and here, as matters stand, would not be wise."
The Great Fundamental set forth the ecclesiastical policy of the
founder: "In reverence to God, the father of light and spirits, the
author as well as the object of all divine knowledge, faith and
workings, I do, for me and mine, declare and establish for the first
fundamental of the government of my province, that every person that
doth and shall reside there shall have and enjoy the free profession of
his or her faith and exercise of worship towards God, in such way and
manner as every such person shall in conscience believe is most
acceptable to God."