Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/517

P E N N 495 His attention was at once taken up both with the disputes which had arisen within the Quaker body itself on questions of discipline, and still more with an endeavour to secure some decent measure of toleration for the Friends. He tried to gain the insertion in the Bill for the relief of Protestant Dissenters of a clause enabling Friends to affirm instead of taking the oath, and twice addressed the House of Commons committee with considerable eloquence and effect. The Bill, however, fell to the ground at the sudden prorogation. In 1678 the Popish Terror came to a head, and to calm and guide Friends in the prevailing excitement Perm wrote his Epistle to the Children of Light in this Generation. A far more important publication was An Address to Pro testants of all Persuasions, by William Penn, Protestant, in 1679. In the first part of this work he inveighs against the five crying evils of the time so far as they are "under the correction of the civil magistrates," with an address to the magistrates for redress of those evils ; the second part deals similarly with " the five capital evils that relate to the ecclesiastical state of these kingdoms " ; the whole work is a powerful exposition of the doctrine of pure toler ance and a protest against the enforcement of opinions as articles of faith. This was succeeded, at the general election which followed the dissolution of the pensionary parliament, by an important political manifesto, England s Great Interest in the Choice of this New Parliament, in which he insisted on the following points : the discovery and punishment of the plot, the impeachment of corrupt ministers and councillors, the punishment of "pensioners," the enactment of frequent parliaments, security from Popery and slavery, and ease for Pro *,a.,tant Dissenters. Next came One Project for the Good of England, perhaps the most pungent of all his political writings. A single sentence will show the homely style of illustration which Penn usually adopted. " But since the industry, rents, and taxes of the Dissenters are as current as their neighbours , who loses by such narrowness more than England, than the Government, and the magistracy 1 . . . Till it be the interest of the former to destroy his flock, to starve the horse he rides and the cow that gives him milk, it cannot be the interest of England to let a great part of her sober and useful inhabitants be destroyed for things that concern another world." But he was not merely active with his pen. He was at this time in close intimacy with Algernon Sidney, who stood successively for Guildf ord and Bamber. In each case, owing in a great degree to Penn s eager advocacy, Sidney was elected, only to have his elec tions annulled by court influence. Toleration for Dissenters seemed as far off as ever. The future of English politics must have appeared to Penn well-nigh hopeless. Encouraged by his success in the New Jersey provinces, he again turned his thoughts to America. In repayment of the debt men tioned above Penn now asked from the crown, at a council held on 24th June 1680, for "a tract of land in America north of Maryland, bounded on the east by the Delaware, on the west limited as Maryland [i.e., by New Jersey], north ward as far as plantable " ; this latter limit Penn explained to be "three degrees northwards." This formed a tract 300 miles by 160, of extreme fertility, mineral wealth, and richness of all kinds. Disputes with James, and with Lord Baltimore, who had rights over Maryland, delayed the matter until 24th March 1681, when the grant received the royal signature, and Penn was made master of the province of Pennsylvania. His own account of the name is that he suggested " Sylvania," that the king added the " Penn " in honour of his father, and that, although he strenuously objected and even tried to bribe the secretaries, he could not get the name altered. It should be added that early in 1682 Carteret, grandson of the original pro prietor, transferred his rights in East Jersey to Penn and eleven associates, who soon afterwards conveyed one- half of their interest to the earl of Perth and eleven others. It is uncertain to what extent Penn retained his interest in West and East Jersey, and when it ceased. The two provinces were united under one government in 1699, and Penn was a proprietor in 1700. In 1702 the government of New Jersey was surrendered to the crown. By the charter for Pennsylvania Penn was made proprie tary of the province. He was supreme governor ; he had the power of making laws with the advice, assent, and appro bation of the freemen, of appointing officers, and of grant ing pardons. The laws were to contain nothing contrary to English law with a saving to the crown and the English council in the case of appeals. Parliament was to be supreme in all questions of trade and commerce ; the right to levy taxes and customs was reserved to England ; an agent to represent Penn was to reside in London ; neglect on the part of Penn was to lead to the passing of the government to the crown (which event actually took place in 1692); no correspondence might be carried on with countries at war with Great Britain. A clause added at the last moment illustrates curiously both the strength and the jealousy of the Anglican Church at the time. The importunity of the bishop of London extorted the right to appoint Anglican ministers, should twenty members of the colony desire it, thus securing the very thing which Penn was anxious to avoid, the recognition of the principle of an establishment. Having appointed Colonel Markhain, his cousin, as deputy, and having in October sent out three commis sioners to manage affairs until his arrival, Penn proceeded to draw up proposals to adventurers, with an account of the resources of the colony. He negotiated, too, with James and Lord Baltimore with the view, ultimately successful, of freeing the mouth of the Delaware, wrote to the Indians in conciliatory terms, and encouraged the formation of companies to work the infant colony both in England and Germany, especially the "Free Society of Traders in Pennsylvania," to whom he sold 20,000 acres, absolutely refusing, however, to grant any monopolies. In July he drew up a body of " conditions and con cessions." This constitution, savouring strongly of Har rington s Oceana, was framed in consultation with Sidney, though to what extent is doubtful. The inferences drawn by Hepworth Dixon from a single letter of Penn to Sidney, given at length by Stoughton, are quite unjustifiable. This sketch of a constitution was democratical in the purest sense. Until the council of seventy-two (chosen by universal suffrage every three years, twenty-four retiring each year) and the assembly (chosen annually) were duly elected, a body of provisional laws was added. It was in the midst of this extreme activity that Penn was made a Fellow of the lloyal Society. Leaving his family behind him, Penn sailed with a hundred comrades from Deal in the "Welcome" on 1st September 1682. His Last Farewell to England and his letter to his wife and children contain a beautiful expression of his pious and manly nature. He landed at Newcastle on the Dela ware on 27th October, his company having lost one-third of their number by smallpox during the voyage. After receiving formal possession, and having visited New York, Penn ascended the Delaware to the Swedish settlement of L pland, to which he gave the name of Chester. The assembly at once met, and on the 7th December passed the " Great Law of Pennsylvania." The idea which informs this law is that Pennsylvania was to be a Christian state on a Quaker model. Only one condition is made necessary for office or citizenship, viz., Christianity. The constitu tion is purely democratic ; all offices, for example, are elective. In many other provisions Penn showed him-