Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/518

 496 P E N N self far in advance of his time, but in none so much as where the penalty of death was abolished for all offences except murder. Lawsuits were to be superseded by arbi tration, always a favourite idea with Penn. Philadelphia was now founded, and within two years contained 300 houses and a population of 2500. At the same time an Act was passed, uniting under the same government the territories which had been granted by feoffment by James in 1682. Idealistic and entirely imaginative accounts (&amp;lt;/. Dixon, p. 270), inspired chiefly by Benjamin West s picture, have been given of the treaty which there seems no doubt Penn actually made in November 1682 with the Indians. His connexion with them was one of the most successful parts of his management, and he gained at once and retained through life their intense affection. At his death they sent to his widow a message of sorrow for the loss of their &quot;brother Onas,&quot; with some choice skins to form a cloak which might protect her &quot;while passing through the thorny wilderness without her guide.&quot; Penn now wrote an account of Pennsylvania from his own observation for the &quot;Free Society of Traders,&quot; in which he shows considerable power of artistic description. Tales of violent persecution of the Quakers, and the necessity of settling disputes which had arisen with Lord Baltimore, his neighbour in Maryland, brought Penn back to England (2d October 1 684) after an absence of two years. In the spring of 1683 he had modified the original charter at the desire of the assembly, but without at all altering its democratic character. 1 He was, in reference to this alteration, charged with selfish and deceitful dealing by the assembly. Within five months after his arrival in England Charles II. died, and Penn found himself at once in a position of great influence. His close connexion with James, dating from the death of his father, was randered doubly strong by the fact that, from different causes, each was sincerely anxious to establish complete liberty of conscience. Even before his coronation James had told Penn that &quot;he desired not that peaceable men should be disturbed for their religion.&quot; Penn now took up his abode at Kensington in Holland House, so as to be near the court. His influence there was great enough to secure the pardon of John Locke, who had been dismissed from Oxford by Charles, and of 1200 Quakers who were in prison. At this time, too, he was busy with his pen once more, writing a further account of Pennsylvania, a pam phlet in defence of Buckingham s essay in favour of tolera tion, in which he is supposed to have had some share, and his Persuasive to Moderation to Dissenting Christians, very similar in tone to the One Project for the Good of England. When Monmouth s rebellion was suppressed he appears to have done his best to mitigate the horrors of the western commission, opposing Jeffreys to the uttermost ; 2 and he stood by Cornish and Elizabeth Gaunt at their execu tions. He says himself in a letter dated 2d October 1685, &quot; About 300 hanged in divers towns in the West, about 1000 to be transported. I begged twenty of the king.&quot; Macaulay, the grotesqueness of whose blunders on this matter is equalled only by the animus that inspired them, and by the disingenuousness with which he defended them, has accused Penn of being concerned in some of the worst actions of the court at this time. His complete refutation by Forster, Paget, Dixon, and others renders it unneces sary to do more than allude to the cases of the Maids of Taunton, Alderman Kiffin, and Magdalen College (Oxford). In 1686, when making a third missionary journey to Holland and Germany, Penn was charged by James with an informal mission to the prince of Orange to endeavour to gain his assent to the removal of religious tests. Here 1 Dixou, p. 276. 2 Burnet, iii. 66 ; Dalrymple, i. 282. he met Burnet, from whom, as from the prince, he gained no satisfaction, and who greatly disliked him. On las return he went on a preaching mission through England. His position with James was undoubtedly a compromising one, and it is not strange that, wishing to tolerate Papists, he should, in the prevailing temper of England, be once more accused of being a Jesuit, while he was in con stant antagonism to their body. Even Tillotson took up this view strongly, though he at once accepted Penn s vehement disavowal. It was in reference to this that Penn wrote one of his pithy sentences : &quot; I abhor two principles in religion, and pity them that own them ; the first is obe dience upon authority without conviction ; and the other, destroying them that differ from me for God s sake. Such a religion is without judgment, though not without teeth.&quot; In 1687 James published the Declaration of Indulgence, and Penn probably drew up the address of thanks on the part of the Quakers. It fully reflects his views, which are further ably put in the pamphlet Good Advice to the Church of England, Roman Catholics, and Protestant Dis senters, in which he showed the wisdom and duty of repealing the Test Acts and Penal Laws. At the Revolution he behaved with courage. He was one of the few friends of the king who remained in London, and, when twice summoned before the council, spoke boldly in his behalf. He admitted that James had asked him to come to him in France ; but at the same time he asserted his perfect loyalty. During the absence of William in 1 690 he was proclaimed by Mary as a dan gerous person, but no evidence of treason was forthcom ing. It was now that he lost by death two of his dearest friends, Robert Barclay and George Fox. It Avas at the funeral of the latter that, upon the information of the notorious informer Fuller, an attempt Ava.s made to arrest him, but he had just left the ground; the fact that no further steps A T ere then taken shows how little the Govern ment believed in his guilt. He noAv lived in retirement in London, though his address was perfectly Avell known to his friends in the council. In 1691, again on Fuller s evidence, a proclamation Avas issued for the arrest of Penn and tAvo others as being concerned in Preston s plot. He might, on the intercession of Locke, have obtained a pardon, but refused to do so. He appears to have especially felt the suspicions that fell upon him from the members of his OAvn body. In 1692 he began to Avrite again, both on questions of Quaker discipline and in defence of the sect. Just Mea sures in an Epistle of Peace and Love, The New Athenians (in reply to the attacks of the Athenian Mercury], and A Key opening the Way to every Capacity are the principal publi cations of this year. Meantime matters had been going badly in Pennsyl vania. Penn had, in 1687, been obliged to make changes in the composition of the executive body, though in 1689 it reverted to the original constitution ; the legislative bodies had quarrelled ; and Penn could not gain his rents. He A r as closely concerned also in this year Avith a dispute between East and West Jersey regarding the dividing line, in AA hich he espoused the cause of the former (and richer) province. The chief difficulty, hoAvever, in Penn sylvania Avas the dispute between the province i.e., the country given to Penn by the charter and the &quot;territories,&quot; or the lands granted to him by the duke of York by feoff ment in August 1682, which Avere under the same Govern ment but had differing interests. No sooner had Penn by a skilful compromise settled this matter than the colony Avas torn by the religious schism caused by George Keith. The difficulties which Quaker principles placed in the way of arming the colony a matter of grave importance in the existing European complications fought most hardly against Penn s poAver. On 21st October 1692 an order of