the fleet to his cause, was knighted, and shortly after elected member of parliament for Weymouth. The remaining years of Penn's life were passed in prosperity and honour, although his projects of worldly ambition were sorely crossed by the religious zeal which prompted his celebrated son William to turn Quaker. He died at Wanstead in Essex in 1670.—R. H.
PENN, William, son of the preceding, was born at London on the 14th October, 1644. His mother, Margaret Jasper, was the daughter of John Jasper, a Dutch merchant. The early childhood of William Penn was spent at Wanstead in Essex, where Admiral Penn had a country house; his maturer childhood in Ireland, where the admiral possessed considerable estates. After having been for several years under the care of a tutor at home, William Penn, when about fifteen, went to the university of Oxford. Here his comely presence, his notable faculties, his persistent diligence, his prompt and practical tendencies, all produced their due effect. But from the most unexpected quarter came a contrariety and a complication which caused the most profound chagrin to an ambitious man like Admiral Penn, who expected to leave, along with immense wealth, a peerage to his son. Thomas Loe, a follower of George Fox, preached at Oxford the doctrines of quakerism. The strange statements of still stranger principles, if repelling or amusing to most of the students, attracted, convinced others. Among these was William Penn. Having partially adopted the quaker faith, he did not shrink from some of the quaker practices. His expulsion from the university was the result. Though grieved and angry Admiral Penn did not regard his son's quakerism as more than a passing caprice. To cure William's supposed folly, the admiral sent him to travel on the continent. After an absence of two years the youth returned in 1664, with apparently little or nothing of the quaker remaining. For a short time he was now a student of Lincoln's inn, in order to obtain a knowledge of law. In the autumn of 1665 he set out for Ireland, to look after his father's estates. With the exception of a brief visit to London he resided in Ireland about two years. During an insurrection the future apostle of peace performed, not unwillingly, the part of a soldier. When on one occasion at Cork Penn heard his Oxford friend, Thomas Loe, preach, Penn's ancient fervour at once revived—his conversion was complete—he was from that hour a quaker. When attending a meeting of the quakers at Cork he and the rest of the congregation were taken prisoners by a company of soldiers, but not much influence was needed to procure his release. Exasperated beyond measure or expression at his son's relapse, the admiral felt inclined to disown, to disinherit him; and when William, full of filial love but strong in conscience, sought his father, the admiral refused to receive him under his roof. In a few months the doors of his home were thrown open to him, though the admiral was not yet in a much milder mood. To defend his new opinions William Penn preached, wrote, and entered into controversy. For a work entitled "The Sandy Foundation Shaken" he was sent to the Tower, where, in strict and solitary confinement, he remained more than eight months. So far from being crushed by the horrors of the dungeon, he wrote in the Tower, "No Cross, No Crown," a book, like many of Penn's books, still popular. From September, 1669, till the middle of 1670, William Penn was anew a resident in Ireland, managing his father's affairs. On arriving in London he resumed his relations with the quaker leaders, and though never ostentatious or rash, shunned no peril. Penn for addressing, and Captain William Mead for being present at a meeting of quakers, were apprehended, tried, and every villanous and malignant art was used to procure their condemnation. The jury, however, courageously acquitted them. On the 16th September, 1670, eleven days after the termination of the trial, Penn's father died. Not only was the admiral on his deathbed reconciled to his son, but he expressed his admiration of his heroic conduct. Penn, by his father's decease, came into a fortune of £1500 a year, besides inheriting claims on the government, finally amounting to more than £16,000. But his wealth and high position did not frighten the demon of persecution, always in watch for him. For no more heinous offence than worshipping in a fashion which, if eccentric, was surely harmless, Penn was imprisoned six months. He cheered the loneliness, brightened the darkness of his cell in Newgate, by the production of four works on the topics so dear to him. A stirring and successful missionary tour in Holland and Germany followed his deliverance from bondage. England welcomed the returning apostle to a more pleasing captivity than any that he had yet borne; for, in the spring of 1672 he married Gulielma Maria, the daughter of Sir William Springell of Darling in Sussex, who had died young, as a leader on the parliamentary side in the civil war. The lady added great sweetness of temper and exalted qualities of mind to exceeding beauty. In his retreat at Rickmansworth Penn seemed to have withdrawn from all conflict and turmoil, and at a moment when the bravest of the brave were more than ever needed. But if Penn slumbered, it was to have the grander vision of future enterprise. The moral pollution, the political corruption, the confusion of sects and parties, the cruel intolerance which characterized the reign of Charles II., kindled in Penn's brain the ideal of a commonwealth to be founded far away from the anarchies and abominations of Europe. When, therefore, Penn, having devoted himself with energetic despatch to the interests of his sect in London, engaged in a second missionary tour on the continent, his tongue was not more busy in urging his hearers to suffer for the sake of conscience, than his thoughts were busy with the asylum, the paradise, which, created in the New World, the bigotries and brutalities of the Old World could never assail. His companions on the continent were George Fox and Robert Barclay. Braced, emboldened by his missionary triumphs, Penn yearned even more than of old for the consolidation of religious and political freedom in England. But the bitterness of faction, and the intenser bitterness of sectarianism, defeated the most self-sacrificing efforts of patriotic and enlightened men; and the insane excitement about the popish plot aroused ferocities which had not stirred since the time of the Tudors. In these circumstances Penn applied for a grant of land in America as an equivalent for the debt due to him by the government. A vast tract was conceded to him; it was Charles II. who, in honour of Penn, proposed the name Pennsylvania. The code of laws which Penn prepared for the province was exalted in aim, comprehensive in scope; yet with slender exceptions its details were marvellously practical, and if Penn had not the genius of the ruler he had, as few have had, the genius of the legislator. Preceded, accompanied by emigrants, Penn set sail from Deal on the 5th September, 1682, for America, whither a voyage of nine weeks brought him. The work of organization under Penn's vigorous and sagacious guidance rapidly proceeded. A few Swedes and Dutch had previously settled in Pennsylvania, but colonists from the most various regions of the Old World now poured in. Universal toleration was proclaimed, a charter of liberties was solemnly consecrated, and a democratic government was established. In his dealings with the Indians and their chiefs Penn manifested his accustomed magnanimity and justice. The capital city, Philadelphia, was planned on a scale commensurate with Pennsylvania's expected greatness. Penn's family was in England. Hearing that his wife was ill; hearing that his friend Algernon Sydney had perished on the scaffold; hearing that the fury of fanaticism was rivalling with the fury of vice; he, intrusting his unfinished undertakings to such men as he deemed competent, hurried anxiously back. His wife was better, but the maladies of the state were deeper, more dreadful, than they had been represented. When James II. ascended the throne they could not well be increased. But they grew more chaotic. For this James was blameable to a much less extent than is commonly believed, flagrant as his faults may have been. During the reign of James Penn was continually at court, yet from no selfish or servile reasons. James had been his father's friend, and he had always been glad and prompt to help Penn himself. Penn therefore entered the palace that he might give the king wise counsels, and counsels tending toward mercy. Confiding both in Penn's fidelity and skill, James commissioned him to visit the prince of Orange at the Hague, to ascertain the prince's views on some points, to furnish him with clearer, correcter notions on others. Penn succeeded indifferently; but he availed himself of the opportunity to make known far and wide on the continent that realm where rising cities and a prosperous community bade all the oppressed, all exiles, welcome. One or two services most honourable to Penn, which he performed for James on his return from Holland, have been most slanderously misrepresented. The overthrow of James was in more than one respect a misfortune for Penn. In the spring of 1690 Penn was arrested on the charge of holding treasonable correspondence with the dethroned monarch. The absurdity of the charge being swiftly and glaringly evident, Penn was set at liberty. Yet, though Penn's conduct continued to be what it had always been
