(1644-1718)
[Illustration: William Penn. [TN]]
William Penn was born in London, October 14, 1644. He was the son of a
naval officer of the same name, who served with distinction both in the
Protectorate and after the Restoration, and who was much esteemed by
Charles II. and the Duke of York. At the age of fifteen he was entered
as a gentleman-commoner at Christchurch, Oxford. He had not been long in
residence, when he received, from the preaching of Thomas Loe, his first
bias toward the doctrines of the Quakers; and in conjunction with some
fellow-students he began to withdraw from attendance on the Established
Church, and to hold private prayer-meetings. For this conduct Penn and
his friends were fined by the college for non-conformity: and the former
was soon involved in more serious censure by his ill-governed zeal, in
consequence of an order from the king that the ancient custom of wearing
surplices should be revived. This seemed to Penn an infringement of the
simplicity of Christian worship; whereupon he, with some friends, tore
the surplices from the backs of those students who appeared in them. For
this act of violence, totally inconsistent, it is to be observed, with
the principles of toleration which regulated his conduct in after life,
he and they were very justly expelled.
Admiral Penn, who, like most sailors, possessed a quick temper and high
notions of discipline and obedience, was little pleased with this event,
and still less satisfied with his son's grave demeanor, and avoidance of
the manners and ceremonies of polite life. Arguments failing, he had
recourse to blows, and as a last resource, he turned his son out of
doors; but soon relented so far as to equip him, in 1662, for a journey
to France, in hope that the gayety of that country would expel his
new-fashioned and, as he regarded them, fanatical notions. Paris,
however, soon became wearisome to William Penn, and he spent a
considerable time at Saumur, for the sake of the instruction and company
of Moses Amyrault, an eminent Protestant divine. Here he confirmed and
improved his religious impressions, and at the same time acquired, from
the insensible influence of those who surrounded him, an increased
polish and courtliness of demeanor, which greatly gratified the admiral
on his return home in 1664.
Admiral Penn went to sea in 1664, and remained two years on service.
During this time the external effects of his son's residence in France
had worn away, and he had returned to those grave habits, and that rule
of associating only with religious people, which had before given his
father so much displeasure. To try the effect of absence and change of
associates, Admiral Penn sent William to manage his estates in Ireland,
a duty which the latter performed with satisfaction both to himself and
his employer. But it chanced that, on a visit to Cork, he again attended
the preaching of Thomas Loe, by whose exhortations he was deeply
impressed. From this time he began to frequent the Quakers' meetings;
and in September, 1667, he was imprisoned, with others, under the
persecuting laws which then disgraced the statute-book. Upon application
to the higher authorities, he was soon released. Soon after the admiral
again turned him out of doors.
In 1668, he began to preach, and in the same year he published his first
work, "Truth Exalted, etc." We cannot here notice his very numerous
works, of which the titles run, for the most part, to an extraordinary
length; but "The Sandy Foundation Shaken," published in the same year,
claims notice as having led to his first public persecution. He was
detained in prison for seven months, and treated with much severity. In
1669 he had the satisfaction of being reconciled to his father. He was
one of the first sufferers by the passing of the Conventicle Act, in
1670. He was imprisoned in Newgate, and tried for preaching to a
seditious and riotous assembly in Gracechurch Street; and this trial is
remarkable and celebrated in criminal jurisprudence for the firmness
with which he defended himself, and still more for the admirable courage
and constancy with which the jury maintained the verdict of acquittal
which they pronounced.
In the same year died Sir William Penn, in perfect harmony with his son,
toward whom he in the end felt the most cordial regard and esteem, and
to whom he bequeathed an estate computed at L1,500 a year--a large sum
in that age. Toward the end of the year he was again imprisoned in
Newgate for six months, the statutable penalty for refusing to take the
oath of allegiance, which was maliciously tendered to him by a
magistrate. This appears to have been the last absolute persecution for
religion's sake which he endured. Though his poor brethren continued to
suffer imprisonment in the stocks, fines, and whipping, as the penalty
of their peaceable meetings for divine worship, the wealthy proprietor,
though he travelled largely, both in England and abroad, and labored
both in writing and in preaching, as the missionary of his sect, both
escaped injury, and acquired reputation and esteem by his
self-devotion. To the favor of the king and the Duke of York he had a
hereditary claim, which appears always to have been cheerfully
acknowledged; and an instance of the rising consideration in which he
was held appears in his being admitted to plead, before a committee of
the House of Commons, the request of the Quakers that their solemn
affirmation should be admitted in the place of an oath.
Penn married in 1672, and took up his abode at Rickmansworth, in
Hertfordshire. In 1677 we find him removed to Worminghurst, in Sussex,
which long continued to be his place of residence. His first engagement
in the plantation of America was in 1676, in consequence of being chosen
arbitrator in a dispute between two quakers who had become jointly
concerned in the colony of New Jersey.
In these transactions he had the opportunity of contemplating the
glorious results which might be hoped for from a colony founded with no
interested views, but on the principles of universal peace, toleration,
and liberty; and he felt an earnest desire to be the instrument in so
great a work, more especially as it held out a prospect of deliverance
to his persecuted Quaker brethren in England, by giving them a free and
happy asylum in a foreign land. Circumstances favored his wish. The
crown was indebted to him L16,000 for money advanced by the late admiral
for the naval service. Accordingly, Penn received, in 1681, a grant by
charter of that extensive province, named Pennsylvania by Charles
himself, in honor of the admiral.
He immediately drew up and published "Some Account of Pennsylvania,
etc.;" and then "Certain Conditions or Concessions, etc.," to be agreed
on between himself and those who wished to purchase land in the
province. These having been accepted by many persons, he proceeded to
frame the rough sketch of a constitution, on which he proposed to base
the charter of the province. The price fixed on land was forty
shillings, with the annual quit-rent of one shilling, for one hundred
acres; and it was provided that no one should, in word or deed, affront
or wrong any Indian without incurring the same penalty as if the offence
had been committed against a fellow-planter; that strict precautions
should be taken against fraud in the quality of goods sold to them; and
that all differences between the two nations should be adjudged by
twelve men, six of each. And he declares his intention "to leave myself
and my successors no power of doing mischief; that the will of one man
may not hinder the good of a whole country." It was this constitution,
substantially, which Burke, in his "Account of the European Settlements
in America," describes as "that noble charter of privileges, by which he
made them as free as any people in the world, and which has since drawn
such vast numbers of so many different persuasions and such various
countries to put themselves under the protection of his laws. He made
the most perfect freedom, both religious and civil, the basis of his
establishment; and this has done more toward the settling of the
province, and toward the settling of it in a strong and permanent
manner, than the wisest regulations could have done on any other plan."
In 1682 a number of settlers, principally Quakers, having been already
sent out, Penn himself embarked for Pennsylvania, leaving his wife and
children in England. On occasion of this parting, he addressed to them a
long and affectionate letter, which presents a very beautiful picture of
his domestic character, and affords a curious insight into the minute
regularity of his daily habits. He landed on the banks of the Delaware
in October, and forthwith summoned an assembly of the freemen of the
province, by whom the frame of government, as it had been promulgated in
England, was accepted. Penn's principles did not suffer him to consider
his title to the land as valid without the consent of the natural owners
of the soil. He had instructed persons to negotiate a treaty of sale
with the Indian nations before his own departure from England; and one
of his first acts was to hold that memorable assembly, to which the
history of the world offers none alike, at which this bargain was
ratified, and a strict league of amity established. We do not find
specified the exact date of this meeting, which took place under an
enormous elm-tree, near the site of Philadelphia, and of which a few
particulars only have been preserved by the uncertain record of
tradition. Well and faithfully was that treaty of friendship kept by the
wild denizens of the woods; "a friendship," says Proud, the historian of
Pennsylvania, "which for the space of more than seventy years was never
interrupted, or so long as the Quakers retained power in the
government."
Penn remained in America until the middle of 1684. During this time much
was done toward bringing the colony into prosperity and order. Twenty
townships were established, containing upward of seven thousand
Europeans; magistrates were appointed; representatives, as prescribed by
the constitution, were chosen, and the necessary public business
transacted. In 1683 Penn undertook a journey of discovery into the
interior: and he has given an interesting account of the country in its
wild state, in a letter written home to the Society of Free Traders to
Pennsylvania. He held frequent conferences with the Indians, and
contracted treaties of friendship with nineteen distinct tribes. His
reasons for returning to England appear to have been twofold; partly the
desire to settle a dispute between himself and Lord Baltimore,
concerning the boundary of their provinces, but chiefly the hope of
being able, by his personal influence, to lighten the sufferings and
ameliorate the treatment of the Quakers in England. He reached England
in October, 1684. Charles II. died in February, 1685. But this was
rather favorable to Penn's credit at court; for beside that James
appears to have felt a sincere regard for him, he required for his own
church that toleration which Penn wished to see extended to all alike.
The same credit, and the natural and laudable affection and gratitude
toward the Stuart family which he never dissembled, caused much trouble
to him after the Revolution. He was continually suspected of plotting to
restore the exiled dynasty; was four times arrested, and as often
discharged in the total absence of all evidence against him. During the
years 1691, 1692, and part of 1693, he remained in London, living, to
avoid offence, in great seclusion; in the latter year he was heard in
his own defence before the king and council, and informed that he need
apprehend no molestation or injury.
The affairs of Pennsylvania fell into some confusion during Penn's long
absence. Even in the peaceable sect of Quakers there were ambitious,
bustling, and selfish men; and Penn was not satisfied with the conduct
either of the representative Assembly, or of those to whom he had
delegated his own powers. He changed the latter two or three times,
without effecting the restoration of harmony; and these troubles gave a
pretext for depriving him of his powers as governor, in 1693. The real
cause was probably the suspicion entertained of his treasonable
correspondence with James II. But he was reinstated in August, 1694, by
a royal order, in which it was complimentarily expressed that the
disorders complained of were produced entirely by his absence. Anxious
as he was to return, he did not find an opportunity till 1699; the
interval was chiefly employed in religious travel through England and
Ireland, and in the labor of controversial writing, from which he seldom
had a long respite. His course as a philanthropist on his return to
America is honorably marked by an endeavor to ameliorate the condition
of Negro slaves. The society of Quakers in Pennsylvania had already come
to a resolution, that the buying, selling, and holding men in slavery
was inconsistent with the tenets of the Christian religion; and
following up this honorable declaration, Penn had no difficulty in
obtaining for the negroes free admission into the regular meetings for
religious worship, and in procuring that other meetings should be holden
for their particular benefit. The Quakers, therefore, merit our respect
as the earliest, as well as some of the most zealous, emancipators.
The governor returned to England in 1701, to oppose a scheme agitated in
Parliament for abolishing the proprietary governments and placing the
colonies immediately under royal control; the bill, however, was dropped
before he arrived. He enjoyed Anne's favor, as he had that of her father
and uncle, and resided much in the neighborhood of the court, at
Kensington and Knightsbridge. In his religious labors he continued
constant, as heretofore. He was much harassed by a lawsuit, the result
of too much confidence in a dishonest steward; which being decided
against him, he was obliged for a time to reside within the Rules of the
Fleet Prison. This, and the expenses in which he had been involved by
Pennsylvania, reduced him to distress, and in 1709 he mortgaged the
province for L6,600. In 1712 he agreed to sell his rights to the
government for L12,000, but was rendered unable to complete the
transaction by three apoplectic fits, which followed each other in quick
succession. He survived, however, in a tranquil and happy state, though
with his bodily and mental vigor much broken, until July 30, 1718, on
which day he died at his seat at Rushcomb, in Berkshire, where he had
resided for some years.
His first wife died in 1693. He married a second time in 1696; and left
a family of children by both wives, to whom he bequeathed his landed
property in Europe and America. His rights of government he left in
trust to the Earls of Oxford and Powlett, to be disposed of; but no sale
being ever made, the government, with the title of Proprietaries,
devolved on the surviving sons of the second family.