CHAP. The political connections of William Penn have involved him in the obloquy which followed the overthrow of the Stuarts; and the friends to the tests, comprising nearly all the members of both the political parties, into which England was soon divided, have generally been unfriendly to his good name. But their malice has been without permanent effect. There are not wanting those who believe the many to be the most competent judge of the beautiful; every Quaker believes them the best arbiter of the just and the true. It is certain that they, and they only, are the dispensers of glory. Their final award is given freely, and cannot be shaken. Every charge of hypocrisy, of selfishness, of vanity, of dissimulation, of credulous confidence; every form of reproach, from virulent abuse to cold apology; every ill name, from tory and Jesuit to blasphemer and infidel,—has been used against Penn; but the candor of his character always triumphed over calumny. His name was safely cherished as a household word in the cottages of Wales and Ireland, and among the peasantry of Germany; and not a tenant of a wigwam from the sea to the Susquehannah doubted his integrity. His fame is now wide as the world; he is one of the few who have gained abiding glory. Was he prospered? Before engaging in his American enterprise, he had impaired his patrimony to relieve the suffering Quakers; his zeal for his provinces hurried him into colonial expenses beyond the returns; his philanthropy, establishing popular power, left him without a revenue; and he who had so often been imprisoned for religion, in his old age went to jail for debt. But what is so terrible as remorse? what so soothing as an approving conscience? William Penn was happy. "He . 1 Mackintosh, Hist. of Rev. 290. Am. ed. XVI. could say it before the Lord, he had the comfort of CHAP. having approved himself a faithful steward to his understanding and ability."1 2 Meanwhile the Quaker legislators in the woods of Pennsylvania were serving their novitiate in popular legislation. To complain, to impeach, to institute committees of inquiry, to send for persons and papers, to quarrel with the executive,-all was attempted, and all without permanent harm. But the character of parties was already evident; and the people, with an irresistible propension, tended towards the fixed design of impairing the revenues, and diminishing the little remaining authority, of their feudal sovereign. Penn had reserved large tracts of territory as his private property; he alone could purchase the soil from the natives; and he reserved quitrents on the lands which he sold. Pennsylvania, for nearly a century, sought to impair the exclusive right to preemption, and to compel an appropriation of the income from quitrents, in part at least, to the public service. Colonial jealousy of a feudal chief was early and perseveringly displayed. The maker of 1686 the first Pennsylvania almanac was censured for publishing Penn as a lord.3 The assembly originated 1685 bills without scruple; they attempted a new organization of the judiciary; they alarmed the merchants by their lenity towards debtors; they would vote no taxes; they claimed the right of inspecting the 1686. records, and displacing the officers of the courts; they 15. expelled a member who reminded them of their contra Jan. 9.. March CHAP. Vening the provisions of their charter. The executive XVI. power was also imperfectly administered; for the whole 3 council was too numerous a body for its regular exer1687. cise. A commission of five was substituted; 2 and Feb. 1. 1688. finally, when it was resolved to appoint a deputy-governor, the choice of the proprietary was not wisely made. In a word, folly and passion, not less than justice and wisdom, had become enfranchised on the Delaware, and were desperately bent on the exercise of their privileges. Free scope was opened to every whim that enthusiasts might propose as oracles from the skies, to every selfish desire that could lurk under the Quaker garb. But the smiling light of prosperity rose serenely over the little clouds of discontent, and the swelling passions of the young apprentices at legislation died away at the adjournments. To freedom and justice a fair field was given, and they were safe.5 4 Peace also was uninterrupted. Once, indeed, it was rumored, that on the Brandywine five hundred Indians were assembled to concert a massacre. Immediately Caleb Pusey, with five Friends, hastened unarmed to the scene of anticipated danger. The sachem repelled the calumnious report with indignation; and the little griefs of the tribe were canvassed and assuaged. "The great God, who made all mankind, extends his love to Indians and English. The rain and the dews fall alike on the ground of both; the sun shines on us equally; and we ought to love one another." Such 1 Votes and Proceedings, 32, cil," March 19, 1688, passed unan&c. 2 Doc. in Proud, i. 305. 4 Votes and Proceedings, 35, 36, imously. 5 Tyson's censure on Chalmers and others, in Mem. P. H. S. ii. Part ii. p. 140, 141, is to my mind strictly just. It is the language of accurate investigation. The whole "Examination" is a manly paper. was the diplomacy of the Quaker envoy. XVI. The king CHAP. of the Delawares answered, "What you say is true. Go home, and harvest the corn God has given you. 1688. We intend you no harm.”1 The white man agreed with the red man to love one another. Would he love the negro also, and refuse homage from the African? William Penn employed blacks without scruple. His first public act relating to them3 did but substitute, after fourteen years' service, the severe condition of adscripts to the soil, for that of slaves. At a later day, he endeavored to secure to the African mental and moral culture, the rights and happiness of domestic life. His efforts were not successful, and he himself died a slave-holder. On the subject of negro slavery, the German mind was least inthralled by prejudice, because Germany had never yet participated in the slave-trade. The Swedish and German colony of Gustavus Adolphus was designed to rest on free labor. If the general meeting of the Quakers for a season forbore a positive judgment, already "the poor hearts" from Kirchheim, "the little handful" of German Friends from the highlands above the Rhine, came to the resolution that it was not 1688. lawful for Christians to buy or to keep negro slaves.5 4 This decision of the German emigrants on negro slavery, was taken during the lifetime of George Fox, who recognized no distinction of race. "Let 1690. your light shine among the Indians, the blacks, and the 11. 1 Proud, i. 335, 336. 2 Penn, in Watson, 480. Matlack, in Mass. Hist. Coll. xviii. 185. 3 Charter of Free Society of Traders. 4 Penn's Works, ii. 439. 5 Bettle, in Mem. P. H. S. i. 365. Watson, 480. Haz. Reg. i. 395. Compare Cicero de Off. L. I. sect. 13:"Etiam adversus infimos jus- Dec. XVI. CHAP. Whites," was his message to Quakers on the Delaware. His heart was with the settlements of which he had been the pioneer; and, a few weeks before his death, he exhorted Friends in America to be the light of the world, the salt to preserve earth from corruption. Covetousness, he adds, is idolatry; and he bids them beware of that "idol for which so many lose morality and humanity." 1691. Jan. 13. On his death-bed, the venerable apostle of equality was lifted above the fear of dying, and, esteeming the change hardly deserving of mention, his thoughts turned to the New World. Pennsylvania, and Delaware, and West New Jersey, and now Rhode Island, and in some measure North Carolina, were Quaker states; as his spirit, awakening from its converse with shadows, escaped from the exile of fallen humanity, nearly his last words were-" Mind poor Friends in America." His works praise him. Neither time nor place can dissolve fellowship with his spirit. To his name William Penn left this short epitaph-"Many sons have done virtuously in this day; but, dear GEORGE, thou excellest them all." Were his principles thus excellent? An opposite system was developed in the dominions of the duke of York. |