court; for besides that James appears to have felt a sincere regard for him, he required for his own church that toleration which Penn wished to see extended to all alike. This credit at court led to the renewal of an old and assuredly most groundless report, that Penn was at heart a Papist-nay, that he was in priest's orders, and a Jesuit: a report which gave him much uneasiness, and which he took much pains in public and in private to contradict. The same credit, and the natural and laudable affection and gratitude towards the Stuart family which he never dissembled, caused much trouble to him after the Revolution. He was continually suspected of plotting to restore the exiled dynasty; was four times arrested, and as often discharged in the total absence of all evidence against him. During the years 1691, 1692, and part of 1693, he remained in London, living, to avoid offence, in great seclusion in the latter year he was heard in his own defence before the king and council, and informed that he need apprehend no molestation or injury. The affairs of Pennsylvania fell into some confusion during Penn's long absence. Even in the peaceable sect of Quakers there were ambitious, bustling and selfish men; and Penn was not satisfied with the conduct either of the representative Assembly, or of those to whom he had delegated his own powers. He changed the latter two or three times, without effecting the restoration of harmony: and these troubles gave a pretext for depriving him of his powers as Governor, in 1693. The real cause was probably the suspicion entertained of his treasonable correspondence with James II. But he was reinstated in August, 1694, by a royal order, in which it was complimentarily expressed that the disorders complained of were produced entirely by his absence. Anxious as he was to return, he did not find an opportunity till 1699: the interval was chiefly employed in religious travel through England and Ireland, and in the labour of controversial writing, from which he seldom had a long respite. His course as a philanthropist on his return to America is honourably marked by an endeavour to ameliorate the condition of Negro slaves. The society of Quakers in Pennsylvania had already come to a resolution, that the buying, selling, and holding men in slavery was inconsistent with the tenets of the Christian religion: and following up this honourable declaration, Penn had no difficulty in obtaining for them free admission into the regular meetings for religious worship, and in procuring that other meetings should be holden for their particular benefit. The Quakers therefore merit our respect as the earliest, as well as some of the most zealous emancipators. Mr. Clarkson says, "When Penn procured the insertion of this resolution in the Monthly Meeting book of Philadelphia, he sealed as assuredly and effectually the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and the Emancipation of the Negroes within his own province, as, when he procured the insertion of the minute relating to the Indians in the same book, he sealed the civilization of the latter; for, from the time the subject became incorporated into the discipline of the Quakers, they never lost sight of it. Several of them began to refuse to purchase Negroes at all; and others to emancipate those which they had in their possession, and this of their own accord, and purely from the motives of religion; till at length it became a law of the society that no member could be concerned, directly or indirectly, either in buying and selling, or in holding them in bondage; and this law was carried so completely into effect, that in the year 1780, dispersed as the society was over a vast tract of coun try, there was not a single Negro as a slave in the possession of an acknowledged Quaker. This example, soon after it had begun, was followed by others of other religious denominations." In labouring to secure kind treatment, to raise the character, and to promote the welfare of the Indians, Penn was active and constant, during this visit to America, as before. The legislative measures which took place while he remained, and the bickerings between the Assembly and himself, we pass over, as belonging rather to a history of Pennsylvania, than to the biography of its founder. For the same reason we omit the charges preferred against him by Dr. Franklin. The union in one person of the rights belonging both to a governor and a proprietor, no doubt is open to objection; but this cannot be urged as a fault upon Penn; and we believe that it would be difficult to name any person who has used power and privilege with more disinterested views. That he was indifferent to his powers, or his emoluments, is not to be supposed, and ought not to have been expected. He spent large sums, he bestowed much pains upon the colony: and he felt and stated it to be a great grievance, that, whereas a provision was voted to the royal governor during the period of his own suspension, not so much as a table was kept for himself; and that instead of contributing towards his expenses, even the trivial quit-rents which he had reserved remained unpaid: nay, it was sought by the Assembly, against all justice, to divert them from him, towards the support of the government. It is to be recollected that Franklin wrote for a political object, to overthrow the privileges which Penn's heirs enjoyed. The Governor returned to England in 1701, to oppose a scheme agitated in Parliament for abolishing the proprietary governments, and placing the colonies immediately under royal control: the bill, however, was dropped before he arrived. He enjoyed Anne's favour, as he had that of her father and uncle, and resided much in the neighbourhood of the court, at Kensington and Knightsbridge. In his religious labours he continued constant, as heretofore. He was much harassed by a law-suit, the result of too much confidence in a dishonest steward: which being decided against him, he was obliged for a time to reside within the Rules of the Fleet Prison. This, and the expenses, in which he had been involved by Pennsylvania, reduced him to distress, and in 1709, he mortgaged the province for £6,600. In 1712 he agreed to sell his rights to the government for £12,000, but was rendered unable to complete the transaction by three apoplectic fits, which followed each other in quick succession. He survived however in a tranquil and happy state, though with his bodily and mental vigour much broken, until July 30, 1718, on which day he died at his seat at Rushcomb, in Berkshire, where he had resided for some years. His first wife died in 1693. He married a second time in 1696; and left a family of children by both wives, to whom he bequeathed his landed property in Europe and America. His rights of government he left in trust to the Earls of Oxford and Powlett, to be disposed of; but no sale being ever made, the government, with the title of Proprietaries, devolved on the surviving sons of the second family. Penn's numerous works were collected, and a life prefixed to them, in 1726. Select editions of them have been since published. Mr. Clarkson's 'Life,' Proud's History of Pennsylvania,' and Franklin's 'Historical Review, &c. of Pennsylvania,' for a view of the exceptions which have been taken to Penn's character as a statesman, may be advantageously consulted. |