on the 14th of August, 1683, Lord Baltimore having previously done the same. The latter sent his agent, Colonel Talbot, with a letter to Penn, which Penn answered; and while he was on a visit to New York, in September, 1683, Lord Baltimore had proposed to make a forcible entrance upon the lower counties. Hearing of this, on his return, Penn protested, by a letter written on the 4th of October, and called his Council together. An agent was then sent to Lord Baltimore, with a copy of Penn's former letter, to be put into his own hands. Colonel Talbot still insisting upon forcing possession, the Pennsylvania government issued a declaration of their rights. It was evident that the dispute must be referred directly to the monarch, and settled, if settled at all, by him. Penn therefore resolved to return to England. Another consideration, which moved him to this step, whether of greater or less importance in his own mind, was a feeling of obligation to interpose in behalf of his fellow-Quakers, who were then suffering the heaviest inflictions of persecution in the courts and prisons of England. He knew he could do more for

of February, 1684, to the Marquis of Halifax, some particulars of his controversy with Lord Baltimore. The letters are in the Memoirs of Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Vol. I. Pt. II. p. 414-422.

their relief, than any other fellow-subject. He wished also to meet and answer the calumnies of his enemies.

Penn visited New York and New Jersey, and had many preparations to make before he could embark. The General Assembly met at New Castle, on the 10th of May, 1684, and despatched some business. Besides taking his part in this, he preached at various meetings for worship, he settled religious discipline among Friends in Pennsylvania and the Jerseys, he formed treaties and increased his acquaintance with the Indians, and quieted many local disputes about lots and river privileges. He made arrangements for the government while he should be absent, intrusting it to the Council, with Thomas Lloyd, a Quaker minister from Wales, as president, and he provided for other matters, civil and judicial. He sat in council at Sussex, on the 14th of August, 1684, and soon after embarked on board the ketch Endeavor for England. Before sailing, he wrote a letter of farewell counsels, affectionate and wise, to be read at Friends' meetings, of which we learn, by a letter of his to the wife of George Fox, that there were, at this time, eighteen in the province.

He had witnessed high prosperity, and the promises of yet greater all around him, be

neath the gentle influences of his government. He had, for the most part, industrious, pure, and religious men and women for his helpers. When he returned to England, there were about seven thousand people and three hundred houses on his patent.

CHAPTER IX.

Penn arrives in England. -He intercedes for the Quakers. James the Second. - Penn's Court Influence. - Calumnies against him. -Intercedes for Locke. - Correspondence with

Tillotson. Travels on the Continent. - Interviews with the Prince of Orange. — Burnet. - Penn's Ministry in England. Oxford. Writings. Penn's Vindication. - Letter to — Popple. The Revolution. - Penn's repeated Arrests, Examinations, and Acquittals. — Seeks Retirement. His Troubles. Deprived of his Government.

PENN arrived in England on the 6th of October, 1684, finding happiness in the health of his family and the welcome of many friends. He went at once to the King and the Duke,

about his own pressing concerns, and to intercede for his suffering fellow-believers. He was successful in bringing his difficulties with Lord. Baltimore to a temporary settlement, though, as the event proved, it was only temporary, the decision of a boundary question being then beset with geographical as well as personal obstacles. The Committee of Plantations, after a full hearing of the parties, divided the territory in dispute into two parts, giving to Lord Baltimore the part upon the Chesapeake, and allowing the remainder to relapse to the crown, though intended for Penn.*

The long period, which now elapsed before the Governor was permitted to visit his colony again, was one of strange public agitation; and Penn's fortunes present a fair representation of the varying states of the kingdom at large. Between the summit of court favor and repeated imprisonments as a suspected traitor, he was led through as remarkable a train of vicissitudes as ever checkered the lot of any public man who escaped a scaffold.

The brief limits of this biography will not allow of much detail, but must embrace here

* A Memoir of the whole controversy between Penn and Lord Baltimore, and their heirs, is given in Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Vol. I. p. 159– 196, by James Dunlop.

a sketch of Penn's experience in Europe, reserving the affairs of Pennsylvania for subsequent notice.

Penn pleaded successfully with the King in behalf of his persecuted brethren, and he obtained the promise of entire relief for them at an early period. He met the malicious charges of his enemies, and seemed to have the prospect of a felicitous result in his various undertakings. The death of Charles the Second, on the 6th of February, 1685, of which Penn gives some curious particulars, in a letter to Thomas Lloyd, so far as it affected his interests at all, seemed to advance them. James the Second, who ascended the throne, had been the pupil of his father, and was his own pledged friend. Penn took lodgings at Kensington, to be near the court, where he was constant in his attendance. His influence was such, that, at times, two hundred persons are said to have been in waiting at his gate, to ask his intercession in their behalf.

Until very recently, the admirers and apologists of William Penn have felt bound to account for and excuse his intimacy and influence with the Popish James, as if the bare fact, that the liberal Protestant dissenter, the

*In Proud and Clarkson