ever, the Lord Mayor became quite furious, and ordered the unfortunate beaver to be instantly replaced-which was no sooner done than he fined the poor culprit for appearing covered in his presence! William Penn now insisted upon knowing what law he was accused of having broken,-to which simple question the Recorder was reduced to answer, 'that he was an impertinent fellow, and that many had studied thirty or forty years to understand the law, which he was for having expounded in a 6 moment. The learned controversialist however was not to be silenced so easily ;-he quoted Lord Coke and Magna Charta on his antagonist in a moment; and chastised his insolence by one of the best and most characteristic repartees that we recollect ever to have met with. 'I tell you to be silent, cried the Recorder in a great passion, if we should suffer you to ask questions till to-morrow morning you would be never the wiser.' - That' replied the Quaker, with his immoveable tranquillity, That is, according as the answers are. '—' Take him away, take him away,' exclaimed the Mayor and the Recorder in a breath - turn bim into the Bale Dock ;'-and into the Bale Dock, a filthy and pestilent dungeon in the neighbourhood, he was accordingly turned-discoursing calmly all the way on Magna Charta and the rights of Englishmen ;-while the courtly Recorder delivered a very animated charge to the Jury, in the absence of the prisoner.

The Jury, however, after a short consultation, brought in a verdict, finding him merely guilty of speaking in Grace-Church Street. For this cautious and most correct deliverance, they were loaded with reproaches by the Court, and sent out to amend their verdict, but in half an hour they returned with the same ingenious finding, fairly written out and subscribed with all their names. The Court now became more furious than ever, and shut them up without meat, drink, or fire, till next morning, when they twice over came back with the same verdict ;-upon which they were reviled, and threatened so furiously by the Recorder, that William Penn protested against this plain intimidation of the persons, to whose free suffrages the law had entrusted his cause. The answer of the Recorder was, Stop his mouth, jailor-bring fetters and stake him to the 'ground.' William Penn replied with the temper of a Quaker, and the spirit of a martyr. Do your pleasure -I matter not your fetters. And the recorder took occasion to observe, that, till now, he never understood the policy of the Spaniards, in suffering the Inquisition among them. But now he saw that it would never be well with us, till we had something like the Spanish Inquisition in England! After this sage remark, the Jury were again sent back, and kept other twenty-four hours,

6

without food or refreshment. On the third day, the natural and glorious effect of this brutality on the spirits of Englishmen was at length produced. Instead of the special and unmeaning form of their first verdict, they now, all in one voice, declared the prisoner NOT GUILTY. The recorder again broke out into abuse and menace; and, after praying God to keep his life out of such hands,' proceeded, we really do not see on what pretext, to fine every man of them in forty merks, and to order them to prison till payment. William Penn then demanded his liberty; but was ordered into custody till he paid the fine im→ posed on him for wearing his hat; and was forthwith dragged away to his old lodging in the Baledock, while in the very act of quoting the 29th chapter of the Great Charter, Nullus liber homo,' &c. As he positively refused to acknowledge the legality of this infiiction by paying the fine, he might have lain long enough in this dungeon; but his father, who was now reconciled to him, sent the money privately, and he was at last set at liberty.

The spirit, however, which had dictated these proceedings was not likely to cease from troubling; and, within less than a year, the poor Quaker was again brought before the Magistrate on an accusation of illegal preaching; and was again about to be dismissed for want of evidence, when the worthy Justice ingeniously bethought himself of tendering to the prisoner the oath of allegiance, which, as well as every other oath, he knew that his principles would oblige him to refuse. Instead of the oath, W. Penn accordingly offered to give his reasons for not swearing; but the Magistrate refused to hear him: and an altercation ensued, in the course of which the Justice having insinuated, that, in spite of his sanctified exterior, the young preacher was as bad as other folks in his practice, the Quaker forgot, for one moment, the systematic meekness and composure of his sect, and burst out into this triumphant appeal

"I make this bold challenge to all men, women, and children upon earth, justly to accuse me with having seen me drunk, heard me swear, utter a curse, or speak one obscene word, much less that I ever made it my practice. I speak this to God's glory, who has ever preserved me from the power of these pollutions, and who from a child begot an hatred in me towards them. Thy words shall be thy burthen, and I trample thy slander as dirt under my feet. " p. 99, 100.

The greater part of the audience confirmed this statement; and the judicial caluminator had nothing for it, but to sentence this unreasonable Puritan to six months imprisonment in New

gate; where he amused himself, as usual, by writing and publishing four pamphlets in support of his opinions.

It is by no means our intention, however, to digest a chronicle either of his persecutions or his publications. In the earlier part of his career, he seems to have been in prison every six months; and, for a very considerable period of it, certainly favoured the world with at least six new pamphlets every year. In all these, as well as in his public appearances, there is a singular mixture of earnestness and sobriety-a devotedness to the cause in which he was engaged, that is almost sublime; and a temperance and patience towards his opponents, that is truly admirable: while in the whole of his private life, there is redundant testimony, even from the mouths of his enemies, that his conduct was pure and philanthropic in an extraordinary degree, and distinguished at the same time for singular prudence and judgment in all ordinary affairs. His virtues and his sufferings appear at last to have overcome his father's objections to his peculiar tenets; and a thorough and cordial reconciliation took place previous to their final separation. On his deathbed the admiral is said to have approved warmly of every part of his son's conduct; and to have predicted, that if he and his friends kept to their plain way of preaching and of living, they would speedily make an end of the priests, to the end of the world.'-By his father's death, he succeeded to a handsome estate, then yielding upwards of 1500l. a year, but made no change either in his professions or way of life. He was at the press and in Newgate, after this event, exactly as before; and defied and reviled the luxury of the age, just as vehemently, when he was in a condition to partake of it, as in the days of his poverty. Within a short time after his succession, he made a pilgrimage to Holland and Germany in company with George Fox; where it is said that they converted many of all ranks, including young ladies of quality and old professors of divinity. They were ill used, however, by a surly Graf or two, who sent them out of their dominions under a corporal's guard; an attention which they repaid, by long letters of expostulation and advice, which the worthy Grafs were probably neither able nor willing to read.

In the midst of these labours and trials, he found time to marry a lady of great beauty and accomplishment; and settled himself in a comfortable and orderly house in the country--but, at the same time, remitted nothing of his zeal and activity in support of the cause in which he had embarked. When the penal statutes against Popish recusants were about to be passed, in 1678, by the tenor of which, certain grievous punishments

were inflicted upon all who did not frequent the established church, or purge themselves, upon oath, from popery, William Penn was allowed to be heard before a Committee of the House of Commons, in support of the Quakers' application for some exemption from the unintended severity of these edicts ;-and what has been preserved of his speech upon that occasion, certainly 'is not the least respectable of his performances. It required no ordinary magnanimity for any one, in the very height of the frenzy of the Popish plot, boldly to tell the House of Commons, that it was unlawful to inflict punishment upon • Catholics themselves, on account of a conscientious dissent. This, however, William Penn did, with the firmness of a true philosopher; but at the same time, with so much of the meekness and humility of the Quaker, that he was heard without offence or interruption :-and having thus put in his protest against the general principle of intolerance, he proceeded to plead his own cause and that of his brethren as follows.

pos

I was bred a Protestant, and that strictly too. I lost nothing by time or study. For years, reading, travel, and observations made the religion of my education the religion of my judgement. My alteration hath brought none to that belief; and though the ture I am in may seem odd or strange to you, yet I am conscientious; and, till you know me better, I hope your charity will call it rather my unhappiness than my crime. I do tell you again, and here solemnly declare, in presence of the Almighty God, and before you all, that the profession I now make, and the Society I now adhere to, have been so far from altering that Protestant judgement I had, that I am not conscious to myself of having receded from an iota of any one principle maintained by those first Protestants and Reformers of Germany, and our own martyrs at home, against the see of Rome. On the contrary, I do with great truth assure you, that we are of the same negative faith with the ancient Protestant church; and upon occasion shall be ready, by God's assistance, to make it appear, that we are of the same belief as to the most fundamental positive articles of her creed too: and therefore it is, we think it hard, that though we deny in common with her those doctrines of Rome so zealously protested against, (from whence the name Protestants,) yet that we should be so unhappy as to suffer, and that with extreme severity, by those very laws on purpose made against the maintainers of those doctrines which we do so deny. We chuse no suffering; for God knows what we have already suffered, and how many sufficient and trading families are reduced to great poverty by it. We think ourselves an useful people. We are sure we are a peaceable people: yet, if we must still suffer, let us not suffer as Popish Recusants, but as Protestant Dissenters. ' p. 220, 221.

About the same period we find him closely leagued with no

less a person than Algernon Sydney, and busily employed in canvassing for him in the burgh of Guilford. But the most important of his occupations at this time, were those which connected him with that region which was destined to be the scene of his greatest and most memorable exertions. An accidental circumstance had a few years before engaged him in some inquiries with regard to the state of that district in North America, since called New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. A great part of this territory had been granted by the Crown to the family of Lord Berkeley, who had recently sold a large part of it to a Quaker of the name of Billynge; and this person having fallen into pecuniary embarrassments, prevailed upon William Penn to accept of a conveyance of this property, and to undertake the management of it, as trustee for his creditors. The conscientious trustee applied himself to the discharge of this duty with his habitual scrupulousness and activity;—and having speedily made himself acquainted with the condition and capabilities of the great province in question, was immediately struck with the opportunity it afforded, both for a beneficent arrangement of the interests of its inhabitants, and for providing a pleasant and desireable retreat for such of his own communion as were willing to leave their native land in pursuit of religious liberty. The original charter had vested the proprietor, under certain limitations, with the power of legislation; and one of the first works of William Penn, was to draw up a sort of constitution for the land vested in Billynge the cardinal foundation of which was, that no man should be troubled, molested, or subjected to any disability, on account of his religion. He then superintended the embarkation of two or three ship-loads of Quakers, who set off for this land of promise ;-and continued from time to time, both to hear so much of their prosperity, and to feel how much a larger proprietor might have it in his power to promote and extend it, that be at length conceived the idea of acquiring for himself a much larger district, and founding a settlement upon a still more liberal and comprehensive plan. The means of doing this were providentially placed in his hands, by the circumstance of his father having a claim upon the dissolute and needy government of that day, for no less than 16,000Z.,-in lieu of which W. Penn proposed, that the district since called Pennsylvania should be made over to him, with such ample powers of administration, as made him little less than absolute sovereign of the country. The right of legislation was left entirely to him, and such councils as he might appoint; with no other limitation, than that his laws should be Liable to be rescinded by the Privy Council of England, within