William Penn

in a book-shop in San Francisco, and carried it in his pocket many days, reading it in street-cars and ferry-boats. He found it, he says, "in all places a peaceful a

w had some time he can call his own; a property he was never so much master of before; in which he has taken a view of himself and the world, and observed wherein he hath hit and missed the mark. And h

and magistrates to be honoured." "Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed." "Religion is the fear of God, and its demonstration good works; and faith is the root of both." "To be like Christ, then, is to be a Christian." "Some folk think they may scold, rail, hate, rob, and kill too: so it

between citizen and citizen be also enforced between nation and nation. "Now," he says, "if the sovereign princes of Europe ... for love of peace and order [would] agree to meet by their stated deputies in a general Diet, Estates or Parliament and there establish rules of justice for sovereign princes to observe one to another; and thus to meet yearly, or once in two or three years at the farthest, or as they shall see cause, and to be stiled, The Sovereign or Imperial Diet, Parliament or State of Europe: before which Sovereign Assembly should be brought all differences depending between one sovereign and another that cannot be made up by private embassies before the sessions begin; and

ike in religion and in politics. There have been many politicians to whom religion has been of no concern. There have been many religious persons in high positions who have been so shut in by church walls that they have been incapable of a wider outlook; they have accordingly been narrow,

ings during those late revolutions I have concerned myself either by words or writings, in love, pity or good will to any in distress [meaning the king] further than consisted with Truth's honor or the Church's peace, I am sorry for it." But he would not sign. To these troubles was added a greater grief

er ourselves," he had written in his "Fruits of Solitude," "if we only look at our losses. But if we consider how little we deserve what is left, our passions will cool, and our murmurs will t

ned his government and his good name. He also married a second wife, Hannah Callowh

ed wig, with full cheeks and a double chin-a pleasant, masterful, and serious person. Clarkson says that in his attire he was "very neat, though plain." Penn advised his children to choose clothes "neither unshapely nor fantastical;" and he illustrated to King James the difference between the Roman Catholic and the Quaker religions by the difference between his hat and the king's. "The only difference," he said, "lies in the ornaments

though it might tire his patience." But Dean Swift enjoyed him, and testified that "he talked very agreeably and with great spirit." The Friends of Reading Meeting even noted that he was "facetious in conversation," and

the market-hall, sometimes in the fields. Once, in Ireland, the bishop sent an officer to disperse the meeting, complaini

tuation, however, was inevitably difficult. In his relation to the king, the governor was a feudal sovereign; in his relation to the people he was, by Penn's arrangement, the executive of a democracy. Penn himself reconciled the two positions by his own tact and unselfishness, as well as by a certain masterfulness to which those about him instinctively and willingly yielded. He proved the motto of his book-plate, Dum Clavum Teneam;

ed houses, and had nearly seven thousand inhabitants. The people were at that moment in deep depression, having just been visited with a plague of yellow fever. The pestilence, however, had abated, an

ectably in Philadelphia. William put a stop to it. The importing of slaves from Africa was at that time considered by most persons to be a good thing both for the pl

all their te

ressor, for the

streets. Regarding the Constitution, about which there had been so much contention, he addressed the council and the assembly in terms of characteristic friendliness. "Friends," he said, "if in the Constitution by charter there be anything that jars, alter it. If you want a law for this or that, prepare it." He advised them, however, not to trifle with government,

e great man's looks and speech, peeped through the latchet-hole of his chamber door, and both saw and heard him at his prayers. Near Haverford, a small girl, walking a

ed." He liked to encourage young men to speak. When he himself spoke, it was in the simplest words, easy to be understood, and with many homely illustrations. At the same time, on state occasions, as the proprietor of Pennsylvania and representative of the sovereign, he used some ceremony, marching through the Philadelphia streets to the opening of the assembly with a mace-beare

e in personal superintendence of the grounds and buildings, planting vines and cutting vistas through the trees. "The country is to be preferred," he wrote in "Fruits of Solitude." "The country is both the philosophe

up," he writes to James Logan, at Philadelphia, "our great stewpan and cover, and little soup dish, and two or three pounds of coffee if sold in town, and three pounds of wicks ready for candles." M

hair for Mrs. Penn. In the river lay the barge, of which William was so fond that he wrote from England to charge that it be carefully looked after.

ards them in all respects, but more especially for the good of their souls, that they might, as frequent as may be, come to meeting on first-days." A special meeting was appointed for slaves once a month, and their masters were expected to

Richardson, a Yorkshire Quaker, visited Penn at Pennsbury and saw them. William gave them match-coats, he says, and "some other things," including a reasonable supply of rum, which the chiefs dispensed to the warriors severally in small portions: "So they came quietly, and in a solid manner, and took their draws." He did not smoke, a fact which the Indians must have noted as a curi

s inconvenient legislation. On the 28th of October, he assembled the citizens of Philadelphia, and presented them with a charter for their city. In the Friends' meeting, he said that he "looked over all infirmities and outwards, and had an eye to the regions

e was gradually dispersed. For some years it was "deemed a kind of pious stealth," among those who were most loyal to the proprietor, to carry away something out

ports and exports, to which he had a charter right, he had generously declined. When he asked the assembly, in remembrance of that liberality, to send him money in his financial straits, they were not minded to respond. Penn belonged to that high fraternity of noble souls who do not know how to make bargains. His impulses were generous to a fault, and he had an invincibl

lly sent the boy to Pennsbury, hoping that the quiet, the absence of temptation, and the wholesome joys of a country life, might amend him. But William went from

gainst Lord Baltimore, and he defeated those who would have taken away his rule and given it to the king; but the governing of the colony across three thousand

James Logan, secretary of the province, and Penn's ablest counselor,

ed him on his religious mission to Holland, had gone into the Episcopal ministry. Logan says, in a letter to

ation laws in the colony, was responsible to the Board of Trade in London, and independent of the

's habit of looking always on the best side made him a bad judge of men, and the deputies whom he sent were few of

e to many hundreds of people.... But, alas! as to my part, instead of reaping the like advantages, some of the greatest of my troubles have sprung from thence. The many combats I have engaged in, the great pains and incredible expense for your welfare and ease, to the decay of my former estate ... with the undeserved opposition I have met

t was in the market for several years awaiting a purchaser. Indeed, in 1712, he had so far perfected a bargain to transfer his proprietary rights to the crown for

things got so bad that something had to be done, it appeared by Ford's books that, instead of Ford's being in debt to Penn, Penn was in debt to him for more than ten thousand pounds. This was the result of long, ingenious, and unmolested bookkeeping. And Penn had made himself liable by his careless silence. Then Ford died, and his widow and children claimed everything which stood in Penn's name. Penn, it appeared, had borrowed money of Ford, and had given him a mortgage on his

oney, and made a compromise with the Fords, and got him free. In Pennsylvania, too, the contentions were quieted by a go

the Lord mine are pretty well,-Johnny lively; Tommy a lovely, large child; and my grandson, Springett, a mere Saracen; his sister, a beauty." Of his second marriage there were six children, four of whom-John, Thomas, Margar

concludes, "before I take leave of thee, let me advise thee to hold thy religion in the spirit, whether thou prayest, praisest or ministerest to others, ... which, that all God's people may

g, where he frequently spoke, briefly, but with "sound and savory expressions." He walked about his gardens, saw his friends, and delighted in the company of his wife and children. Each year left him weaker than th

him, that heartily believes the end. For though death be a dark passage, it leads to immortality; and that is recompense enough fo

e entered on the 30th of July, 1

s for facts concerni

am Mead (vol i.), Travels in Holland and Germany (vol. iii.), and A General Description of Pennsylvania (vol. iv.) cont

his Works, by Joseph Besse,

lic Life of William Penn, by T

, iii.). Also the Correspondence between William Penn and

, by Maria Webb (London, 1867

ixon (1851), by Samuel M. Janney (1852), by John

versid

printed by H. O

e, Mass.

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