Makers of American history

Preface

The materials for a biography of William Penn, as a distinguished member of the Society of Friends, and as the Founder of Pennsylvania, are abundant. For the most par^,they have been faithfully used. Joseph Besse, who made the first collection of his numerous writings, prefixed to them a sketch of his life, with an appendix, made up of many of his principal religious letters. The French work, by Marsillac, (" Vie de Guillaume Penn," IJ92, 8vo., two volumes in one,) is a compilation judiciously made, and contains some Pennsylvania documents. The magazines, encyclopedias, and biographical dictionaries, add some valuable materials, as do also several of the journals and letters of leading Quakers, contemporary with Penn. Clarkson had access to the family papers in possession of Penn's grandson in England, and his volumes, written with all the wisdom and candor of the author, contain but a very few inaccuracies. Ebeling's " History of Pennsylvania " affords, in its early chapters, translated by Peter S. Duponceau, and printed in Hazard's " Register of Pennsylvania," in the main, a just view of the Proprietor.

On this side of the water, William Penn has found, among our own historians and antiquarians,

Viii PREFACE

faithful guardians of his memory, and devoted approvers of his whole course through life. Proud' s " History of Pennsylvania," the least recommendation of which is its style, is careful and accurate. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has been most assiduous in collecting every document and fact relating to William Penn, and its labors have been eminently successful. The letters and papers with which its seven half volumes, already published, are enriched, are of the highest value. While all its members have engaged zealously in this work, two of them, J. Francis Fisher and John F. Watson, deserve especial mention, for their careful researches and rich contributions. A well written and accurate sketch of Penn's life, chiefly confined, however, to his religious labors, with large extracts from his writings, by Enoch Lewis, is given in " The Friends' Library," Vol. V. (Philadelphia, 1841.) Other sources of information are referred to in the notes.

Chapter I

Ancestry of William Penn. — Admiral Sir William Penn. — His public Services. — The Mother of William Penn. — Family.

William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was descended from a family distinguished for character as well as for social standing-. His ancestors, five centuries ago, dwelt at the village of Penn, in Buckinghamshire, and gave their name to several localities in the neighborhood. From a branch of the family, residing at Penn's Lodge, near Myntie, in Gloucestershire, descended Giles Penn, a captain in the royal navy, and English Consul in the Mediterranean. George, his eldest son, was a merchant in Spain, where he was cruelly imprisoned by the Inquisition for three years.*

William, the second son of Giles, and the father of the proprietary of Pennsylvania, was born in 1621. He adopted the profession of his father, and earned many high distinctions, besides that of having for his son the Quaker legislator. His monument, in the

* See his petition for redress to Cromwell ; also the petition of his nephew, our subject, to Queen Anne, 1712, 1713, given in Granville Penn's " Memorials of Admiral Penn," Vol. I. Appendix.

Church of St. Mary Redcliffe, at Bristol, records that he " was made captain at the year of twenty-one, rear-admiral of Ireland at twenty-three, vice-admiral of Ireland at twenty-five, admiral to the Straits at twenty-nine, vice-admiral of England at thirty-one, and general in the first Dutch war at thirty-two; whence returning, anno 1655, he was parliamentary representative for the town of Weymouth; 1660, made commissioner of the admiralty and navy, governor of the town and fort of Kingsale, vice-admiral of Munster, and a member of that provincial council; and anno 1664, was chosen great captain commander, under his Royal Highness, in that signal and most evidently successful fight against the Dutch fleet." He died in his fiftieth year. The thorough manner in which this naval officer performed his first service of suppressing the Irish rebellion, seems to have won for him his successive promotions. He commanded the sea forces in the expedition designed by Cromwell against Hispaniola, the ill-success of which is said not to rest with the Admiral, but with Colonel Venables, who commanded the land forces. In his journal * of this expedition we find mention of the death of our own Winslow, of Plymouth colony. During the Commonwealth, the services of Admiral Penn were numerous, and well rewarded, though he did not escape the jealousies incident then, as now, to envied places and divided responsibilities. His circumstances, like those of many moderate men, and especially those in the naval service who labored for the common in- * In Granville Penn's (t Memorials " of him.

WILLIAM PENN II

terest of both parties in the State, enabled him to avoid identifying himself or his fortunes with the doomed republican cause. He forestalled some favor at the Restoration, without being indebted for it to any treacherous meanness to individuals, or to the interests which he had espoused. Of very few public men, at that time, could it be said, that they transferred their titles and offices from a republican to a royal tenure without breach of faith or honor. Soldiers on land had been engaged in civil warfare, and the strife in the pulpits had committed their occupants, if they were sincere, to a rising or a sinking party; but those who fought upon the seas, though holding commissions from the Parliament, were rallied by the cry of England.

After the Restoration, Admiral Penn commanded in 1665, under the Duke of York, in the terrible seafight with the Dutch, for which he won honor and knighthood, and attained to court privileges of acquaintance and influence. It was from the unpaid debts due to him for his public services, and from obligations contracted to him, that his distinguished son afterwards received such patronage, and advanced the claim, which was scarcely discharged by the bestowal of lands in the New World. The admiral was likewise the author of several small tracts and other works for improving the naval service, which had a value in their day, and perhaps cost more labor and experience than those which have been written since. He was patriotic, simple hearted, pure, and truly religious, as a Protestant of the Church of England. His family pride, increased by the additions which he himself had made to its distinctions, was sorely offended, as we shall see, by the religious profession adopted by his son, though the offence yielded to admiration of that son's sincerity.

The relations between the English and the Dutch, at that time, were not wholly hostile. Indeed, the family histories of that era disclose a remarkable number of intermarriages, when the ships of the two nations were contending for the dominion of the seas. The Admiral married Margaret, daughter of John Jasper, a merchant of Rotterdam. She was a noble woman, religious, indulgent, yet judicious. Her son was largely indebted to her maternal faithfulness for his early character, and her kindness and respect sustained him, when the first anger of the father, in finding that he had a Quaker for a son, turned him out of doors before he had attained to manhood.

A journal kept by the Admiral begins with his sailing from Deptford, Saturday, October 12th, 1644, two days before the birth of William. The frequent absences from home, which the naval service required of him, must have deprived him of much parental oversight of the early years of his son. When that son was engaged in the warm controversies of his new profession, he appeared as the vindicator of his father from unjust aspersions upon his courage and integrity, cast upon him after his death. An anonymous reviewer of the account, which the young Quaker published of his own trial, had made use of the occasion to cast these reflections upon the Admiral. The son was ready to reply, and he devoted a portion of his rejoinder to vindicate his father's honesty and spirit. " Not that I would be thought to justify wars." he says; " I know they arise from lusts." But this does not hinder that he should state matters of fact.*

The Admiral had a second son, Richard Penn, who survived him about three years, dying in April, 1673 ; also one daughter, Margaret Penn, who married Anthony Lowther, of Mask, Yorkshire, and died in 1 68 1 -2; her branch of the family became extinct in the fourth generation.

*" Truth rescued from Imposture." &c. Part III. "A Vindication of my deceased Father's Reputation from the False and Unworthy Reflections of this Scandalous Libeller." Penn's "Works," 2 vols. fol. Vol. I. p. 496.

Chapter II

Birth and Education of William Penn. — His Early Religious Impressions. — Enters Christ's Church, Oxford. — The Influence of Thomas Loe over him. — Is fined for Nonconformity. — Is expelled from the University. — The Anger of his Father. — Is turned out of Doors. — The Spirit of William. — Is sent to travel in France. — Studies at Saumur. — Is recalled. — Enters Lincoln's Inn. — Leaves London on Account of the Plague.

The proprietary of the province of Pennsylvania was born in St. Catharine's Parish, Tower Hill, London, October 14th, 1644. The country residence of his parents being then at Wanstead, he was sent to the free grammar school at Chigwell, Essex, which had been recently founded by Harsnett, Archbishop of York. His first and strongest religious impressions are ascribed to his boyhood in this school. While he was but eleven years of age, he was the subject of those deep exercises of spirit, which, in the language of the time, are represented almost as miraculous. Alone in his chamber, an external brightness around him seemed to answer to a mysterious motion within ; and thus early was confirmed to him the great fundamental principle of his subsequent faith, that there is an inward light in man, which attests the capacity of his soul for holding immediate intercourse with God. He regarded himself as called, by this experience, to a consecration of heart and life to the service of his Maker.

He was removed from Chigwell at the age of twelve, that he might be near his father's town residence, and enjoy more advantages of education in a private school, on Tower Hill, and in the help of a private tutor at home. Great pains seem to have been bestowed upon him, and not in vain ; for he was a ready scholar, and his subsequent writings give proof of an accurate attainment in elementary principles, and of a wide extent of mental discipline. His healthful frame and bodily strength, in maturer years, were evidence, however, that he was not shel-* tered in tender seclusion, but engaged in those usual sports and amusements which are the best education of the body.

William Penn was entered as a gentleman commoner, at Christ Church College, Oxford, at the age of fifteen. Amid many close friendships which he formed here, based upon moral and intellectual affinities, he numbered among his companions John Locke, to whom he offered service at the time of his expatriation in Holland. A specimen of young Penn's scholarship, at this time, is preserved in a brief Latin elegy, which was published in 1660, in a volume embracing several similar pieces, written by members of Oxford University, on the lamented decease of the Duke of Gloucester, second brother of Charles the Second.

The early religious impressions of the young student, which had not been effaced, were renewed and deepened, at this time, by the exhortations of l6 AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY

Thomas Loe. The numerous Quaker historians and writers, contemporaneous with this period, make frequent mention of the labors and imprisonments of this famous lay preacher, to whom Penn attributed his own conversion to their principles. Having once belonged to the university, which he left for the sake of his new profession, he occasionally visited it, in his itinerary ministry, and succeeded in gaining the devout attention of several of its students, while, as a matter of course, he was ridiculed and harassed by others. Of Penn, as of many other founders and prominent disciples of great sects, we may advance the paradoxical sentence, that he had already received, of his own instinctive tendencies, the views which he apparently embraced from the teaching of another. He was in fact a Quaker, before he became one by conscious or professed adhesion to Quaker principles. The doctrines, which that eminently Christian society advocated, were but a published index of the contents of many devout hearts and struggling minds. Penn at once responded to the earnest appeals of Thomas Loe, and, with a small band of his college companions, he forsook the ritual services, which the restored monarch had set up, for more congenial worship of their own, in their private apartments. All who were concerned in this grave offence were discovered, and, not denying the charge, or foregoing the practice, were fined for nonconformity. Though the fine was paid, it did not absolve wounded consciences. Penn and his companions proceeded to imitate an example, which older men had but lately set, and to insult the forms which they could not respect. The King had ordered that the students should resume their claim to their ancient title of gownsmen, and should never appear without their surplices. This Popish and formal costume, so at war, as the young converts of a simple and unadorned faith esteemed it to be, with true spirituality, excited their zeal, and they fell upon students who were thus habited in public, and tore from them their robes. For this outrage, the offenders were at once expelled from the university.

William Penn, the father, then a commissioner of the Admiralty, was enjoying his court privileges and his fashionable acquaintances at London, cherishing, all the while, hopes of high distinction for his heir; when that heir returned home, announcing his disgrace, and more than all, and worse than all, speaking and appearing with the solemn seriousness of those devout persons, whom the naval officer regarded as canting hypocrites or moon-struck fools. The offending son had but a cold reception. In vain did his father expostulate and argue with him upon his affectation of religious scruples, and the barrier which they w r ould oppose to his worldly success. Passing from words to the weightier discipline, which he had practiced on shipboard, he proceeded to beat his son, and, failing to subdue his spirit, at once forbade him the house, and drove him from it in a fit of sudden passion. The intercessions of his wife, and the relentings of his own bosom, temporarily appeased his anger, and his son was restored to his home.

It must have required no small measure of moral courage, in a youth then in his eighteenth year, thus to forego the attractions of social life, which opened to him, and resolutely to thwart the earnest wishes of an honored parent. But something more deep and high than worldly prudence influenced the mind of the son. The religious spirit, which in his later years assumed a most calm and rational tone, was now unnaturally excited. Like the other eminent founders of his religious connection, he believed in immediate and miraculous communications made to his own mind, in a way which admitted of their being defined, expressed, and regarded as demonstrative of duty and prophetic of the future. In one of his many letters to his friend Robert Turner, then in Dublin, in 1 68 1, when he was the proprietary of Pennsylvania, Penn makes this mysterious reference : " This I can say, that I had an opening of joy, as to these parts, in the year 1661, at Oxford." * With such a revelation waiting to be realized, he might well renounce the worldly views which his father proposed to him.

His father determined on a measure, which has generally been found to have proved itself very effectual, not only in eradicating gravity and seriousness, but in implanting most opposite tendencies. He sent his son to France, in company with some persons of rank, in 1662, in order that he might be subjected to the accomplishments and gayety, which travel and residence there would be most likely to recommend. Of his stay in Paris he afterwards

* " Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania," Vol. I. p. 203.

records one single incident, which vindicates his claim to be alike a gentleman of honor and a Christian. He was attacked in the street, one evening, by a person who was affronted because his salutation of raising the hat, which Penn says he did not see, was not returned. Our young traveller, lacking three years of manhood, (whether armed or not, he does not tell us,) immediately stood to the combat with his antagonist, and disarmed him. So far, the bystanders beheld a scene which Paris afforded daily; but when the victor had the life of his antagonist in his power, and might, without harm from police or law, have run him through, he was satisfied with returning to him his sword, and the true salutation of Christian forbearance.

Of course such a one as Penn took no pleasure in the dissipation of Paris; but the opportunities of wise observation would not be lost upon him.* He soon left the capital, to reside for some months at Saumur, to enjoy the instruction of the famous Calvinistic divine and professor, Moses Amyrault, the friend of Cardinal Richelieu, to whom that prelate imparted his bold design for uniting the Roman and Protestant churches. With this learned theologian, William Penn renewed the studies, which had been summarily closed at Oxford, becoming a thorough

* It was while on this visit to France, that Penn became acquainted with the Earl of Sunderland, whom he afterwards found a serviceable friend. The fact is expressly stated by Penn, in a letter written to Sunderland, in 1683. See " Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania," Vol. II. Part I. p. 244. This statement, of course, negatives a story in the biographies of Penn, that the Earl, as Robert Spencer, had been one of his fellow-nonconformists at Oxford.

proficient in the French language, which greatly facilitated his extensive missionary labors on the Continent some years afterwards, and reading the fathers, and other standard works of theology, the good use of which appears in his numerous writings, He had reached Turin, on an intended tour through Italy, when he was recalled to the care of the family at home, by a letter from his father, announcing his necessary absence to take command of the fleet against the Dutch. He returned to England in 1664. When Penn was afterwards on trial for the offence of illegal preaching, he was taunted by his judge with having been guilty of common youthful levities and immoralities, and his strictness of manners was represented as only a revulsion from former dissipation. Reference was supposed to be made to his life when abroad. Penn repelled the charge with the indignation of a calm but most resolute denial, and challenged any one to bear witness to any departure on his part from the strictest morality. His accuser probably spoke from his own experience of himself. It is certain that Penn's challenge, uttered by a pure conscience, was received in silence. He had acquired abroad more liveliness of manners, with something of the polish and courtesy of his foreign companions ; and his father was barely satisfied with these attainments, though attended by no loss of seriousness.*

* Pepys, who was officially connected and very intimate with the Admiral and his family, enters in his Diary, under date of August 26th, 1664, " Mr. Penn, Sir William's son, is come back from France, and come to visit my wife; a most modish person, grown, she says, a fine gentleman." Vol. II. p. 214.

In compliance with the wishes of his father, Penn entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn, that he might acquaint himself with the laws of his country, and with more knowledge of the world. His residence here was cut short, in about a year, by the Great Plague, which induced him to leave London, in 1665, just as he became of age. The horrors of that calamity must have added yet more seriousness to his mind. Whatever knowledge of law he had acquired was destined to be of real use to him, when he became the legislator of a colony in the New World.

The portrait of him, painted about this time, presents a handsome young man with flowing locks, but by no means of a fashionable or gay appearance, though clad in armor.

Chapter III

Perm's and Barclay's Services to the Quakers. — Rise and Origin of the People called Quakers. — State of the Times. — Religious Novelties. — Wandering Preachers. — George Fox. — Excesses of the early Quakers. — Their Virtues and Endurance. — Principles of the Society.

William Penn and Robert Barclay are the names of the two most eminent members of the Society of Friends. They may be entitled to an equal measure of pure and desirable fame, the former as the practical, the latter as the theoretical, champion of their principles. But if services are to be weighed and measured by actual sum and cost, Penn, both in the labors of his life and of his pen, will receive the higher estimate. Barclay's father approved and favored the devotion of his son to a despised sect; but Penn, as we have seen, found his first foe in his best friend. Through the whole of his subsequent life, his principles cost him a large amount of suffering of body and of mind ; a loss of friends, and honors, and property; a subjection to insults and reproaches. They weighed with such a burden of care upon his active career, and were attended with such a disappointment of his most cherished wishes at his death, that we pronounce upon him the highest but well-deserved encomium in saying, that, had he foreseen the course and issue of his life, he would not have shrunk from it.

Some brief account of the origin and principles of the Society of which he was so eminent a member will properly introduce his own connection with it at an early period of his life.

The word Quaker will be freely used in this narrative, and it need scarcely be said by the writer that he intends no offence in thus continuing the use of an epithet, which was first applied in scorn. The distinguished virtues which have been associated with it have made it honorable. Indeed, Penn, and other members of the Society, used the term in their public writings, and felt no unwillingness to be designated by it, while ridicule and contempt were still associated with it. The epithet has passed through a transmutation like to that which has altered the popular use of the word Christian from the signification which it once had.

The Quakers, originally called, by themselves and by others, Professors, Children of the Light, and Friends, did more, at the period of their origin, to revive and impress anew the great vital principles of Christianity, than any other sect before or since their time has done. The active life of Penn extended through the most interesting portion of the history of the Society. The age which produced the sect exhibited a most remarkable and intensely agitated state of thought and feeling. Even science, natural and physical, as well as intellectual, felt the impulse of that general renewal, which seemed then to be working upon the spirits of men. The foundation of the Royal Society dates from the period, which in England was most fruitful in the production of innumerable religious sects.

The most appropriate motto for all the histories of the time might be given in the words of Baxter. " I know you may meet with men, who will confidently affirm, that in these times all religion was trodden under foot, and that heresy and schism were the only piety. But I give warning to all ages, that they take heed how they believe any, while they are speaking for the interest of their factions and opinions, against their real or supposed adversaries." It would have been well if Baxter himself had followed this wise rule, for this good and honored man was not wholly free from the spirit of bitterness. He says that the sect of Quakers was the last resource taken to by the Jesuits and the devil, when they found that the Seekers and Ranters would no longer serve their turn. He fell into the common opinion that the Quakers, and all other troublesome folk in those times, were disguised Papists, Jesuits, or Franciscans. The Puritan party adhered faithfully to their belief that Popery was the very " mystery of iniquity." Penn suffered more under the suspicion of being a Jesuit than for his confession that he was a Quaker. Bunyan, one of the eminent spirits of that period, feared that the age would be characterized by posterity, " as one which talked of religion most, and loved it least." The strange sects then abounding are ludicrously described by Edwards, Vicars, Pagitt, and Featley. A writer, who seems to have caught their living features, thus contrasts the spirit of the two parties throughout the Stuart dynasty, by presenting " the stern and unyielding exercise of power, as operating upon the stubbornness of conscientious dissent." Sir John Reresby, whose Memoirs give us so much of the gossip of the courts of the second Charles and James, says, " I left England at that unhappy time, (1654,) when honesty was reputed a crime, religion superstition, loyalty treason; when subjects were governors, servants masters, and no gentleman was assured of anything he possessed."

Intestine troubles, enthusiasm, and religious dissensions had prepared the minds of the people to receive any extravagance of doctrine. As Sewel, the Quaker historian, honestly says, there were an abundance of people in England, who, having searched all sects, could nowhere find satisfaction for their hungry souls. Many, who then professed to be seekers after truth themselves, took upon them the task of being teachers of it to others. A sincere and zealous wanderer from village to village, though he may be untaught, will ever gain more converts among the mass of men than a refined and scholarlike preacher. From materials already engendered were wrought out those wild and enthusiastic dogmas, all pervaded by a religious spirit, which blazed so fiercely at the time of the Commonwealth. The Puritan preachers, who had been excluded from the pulpits, found refuge in private families as tutors, or were received as religious counsellors by social circles. The Bible, but recently put within the reach of the common people, had been diligently perused, and each reader had undertaken to interpret it for himself. The spirit of humanity and of liberty was then at work ; the bright light, which was suddenly poured upon the mass of men, blinded the eyes, and confused the understandings of some of them.

Then were opened deep questions of the design of government and of religion, and men were made sensible of the oppression of preceding times, which had insisted on dead ordinances, and had denied the supplies which the mind and the heart craved. Amid the wild and fanatical spirits of the parliamentary army, it was but natural that the working of these elements should produce confusion; for the law of their just operation, and the proper guidance of them in safe channels, could not come with the first bright perception of those ultimate truths which had been attained. The army was composed of men who had long been discontented, and who were now taken from accustomed occupations of body and of mind, and were destitute of regular employment. It must of course have embraced many individuals who were ripe for any extravagance. Officers and privates were accustomed to pray and expound the Scriptures from pulpits and from the field. Many of the most enthusiastic preachers among the early Quakers, such as Hubberthorn, Ames, Dewsbury, Naylor, and Lilburne, had been in the army.

The Quakers were not, strictly speaking, an original sect, as their views and principles were selected, refined, and harmonized from a large and confused mass of opinions about religion, politics, society, and morals, which then prevailed over the northern and central portions of England. The Familists, Antinomians, Seekers, and Ranters had successively presented to public view the phenomena, which at first drew attention to the new sect, whose members trembled or quaked at the word of the Lord. George Fox encountered many persons, who without any intercourse with each other, had singly come to the same conclusions, and, after hearing him, " found themselves in unison with him." Indeed, the noblest testimony which can be offered in behalf of any speculative principles and practical rules of virtue, the highest signature of truth which such principles and rules could receive, is that which from the first attached to Quakerism; for many earnest and serious minds had attained its conclusions by their own struggles, and found that the joy of mutual fellowship was the partnership in precious truth.

The pages of Edwards' " Gangrsena," and of Pagitt's " Heresiography," afford plain evidence that each novel opinion, each vagary of conduct, each extravagance and eccentricity, as well as each great fundamental and living truth, which entered into the received customs and tenets of the Society of Friends, had found an advocate and example before George Fox gave out his testimony. We find that " the offence of the hat," the objection to flattering titles and ornaments of dress, to sports and profane customs, to " a hireling ministry," and to oaths, to war and persecution, had already designated single or compound heresies all over the kingdom, while the interruption of public worship, for the sake of speaking according to the witness of " the inner light,"