William Penn Part 5

The question of the prudence of bearing arms was vigorously debated.

James Logan, secretary of the province, and Penn's ablest counselor, urged the need of military defenses. Conservative Friends opposed it.

Churchmen had been settling in the province. One of William's oldest friends, George Keith, who had accompanied him on his religious mission to Holland, had gone into the Episcopal ministry. Logan says, in a letter to Penn, that "not suffering them to be superior" was accounted by the churchmen as the equivalent of persecution.

Colonel Quarry, a judge of the admiralty, appointed by the British government to enforce the navigation laws in the colony, was responsible to the Board of Trade in London, and independent of the governor and of the a.s.sembly. He exercised his office of critic and censor to the annoyance of Penn.

To these various sources of trouble was added an unending strife between the governor's deputy and the people. Penn'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 them competent; some were not even respectable. Penn, with his characteristic invincible blindness, took their part.

Finally, the disputations, protests, and complaints, with direct attacks upon Penn's interests, and even upon his character, got to such a pa.s.s that he addressed a letter of expostulation to the people. "When it pleased G.o.d to open a way for me to settle that colony," he wrote, "I had reason to expect a solid comfort from the services done 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 with from thence, sink into me with sorrow, that, if not supported by a superior hand, might have overwhelmed me long ago. And I cannot but think it hard measure, that, while it has proved a land of freedom and flouris.h.i.+ng, it should become to me, by whose means it was princ.i.p.ally made a country, the cause of grief, trouble, and poverty."

So heavy was the financial burden, and so vexatious and disheartening the bickering and ingrat.i.tude, that Penn thought seriously of selling his governors.h.i.+p; and it 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 12,000, that nothing remained to be done save the affixing of his signature. Before his name was signed, he fell suddenly ill, and the transaction went no farther.

In the midst of these many troubles, in themselves serious enough, there came another. Penn's business manager for his estates in England and Ireland was Philip Ford. For a long time, Ford's payments had been less and less; Penn was continually complaining that he got so little from his property. Still, Ford's accounts went without examination, and some of his financial reports were not so much as opened. William had his customary confidence in his agent's honesty. At last, when 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 Pennsylvania estates as security. When the loan was paid, the mortgage had not been returned.

Not only did Mrs. Ford retain it, but she sued Penn for three thousand pounds rent, which was due, she said, from the property of which William was once owner, but which he now held as tenant of the Fords. So far was this iniquitous business pursued, that Penn was arrested as he was at a religious meeting in Gracechurch Street, and was imprisoned for debt in the Fleet, or its precincts.

This was the turn in the tide. Everybody disapproved of treatment so unjust and extortionate. William's friends raised money, and made a compromise with the Fords, and got him free. In Pennsylvania, too, the contentions were quieted by a good governor. And as the wars came to an end, trade so increased that the province presently yielded a substantial income.

Penn retired to Rus...o...b.., in Berks.h.i.+re, in the pleasant country. Here he had his family about him. He was now a grandfather, his son William having a son and a daughter. "So that now we are major, minor, and minimus. I bless 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, Margaret, and Richard--became proprietors of Pennsylvania. Thomas had two sons, John and Granville; Richard had two, John and Richard. When the proprietary government ended, in 1776, it was in the hands of the heirs of William Penn.

In 1711, Penn wrote a preface to John Banks's Journal, dictating it, as his custom was, walking to and fro with his cane in his hand, thumping the floor to mark the emphasis. "Now reader," he 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 G.o.d's people may do, is, and hath long been the earnest desire and fervent supplication of theirs and thy faithful friend in the Lord Jesus Christ, W. PENN." This is the last word of his writing which remains.

The next year he had a paralytic stroke, and another, and another. This impaired his memory and his mind. Thus he continued for six years, as happily as was possible under the circ.u.mstances. He went often to meeting, 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 the year before; but his days were filled with serenity. He was surrounded with all the comforts which a generous income, an affectionate family, the respect of his neighbors, and the approval of G.o.d, could give him.

"He that lives to live forever," he had written in his "Fruits of Solitude," "never fears dying. Nor can the means be terrible to him, that heartily believes the end. For though death be a dark pa.s.sage, it leads to immortality; and that is recompense enough for suffering of it.... And this is the comfort of the good, that the grave cannot hold them, and that they live as soon as they die."

Into the fullness of this life he entered on the 30th of July, 1718, being seventy-four years old.

The chief authorities for facts concerning William Penn are--

1. The Select Works of William Penn (London, 1726; 3d edition, 1782; 5 vols). Whereof, The Trial of William Penn and William Mead (vol i.), Travels in Holland and Germany (vol. iii.), and A General Description of Pennsylvania (vol. iv.) contain autobiographical matter. Some Fruits of Solitude and Penn's Advice to his Children (vol. v.) are similarly valuable.

2. The Life of Penn prefixed to his Works, by Joseph Besse, a Quaker contemporary (1726).

3. Memoirs of the Private and Public Life of William Penn, by Thomas Clarkson (London, 1813).

4. The Pennsylvania Historical Society Memoirs (vols. i., ii., iii.). Also the Correspondence between William Penn and James Logan, edited for this Society, by Edward Armstrong.

5. The Penns and the Penningtons, by Maria Webb (London, 1867), containing family letters.

6. Recent biographies of Penn: by William Hepworth Dixon (1851), by Samuel M. Janney (1852), by John Stoughton (1882), by Sydney George Fisher (1900).