Naturally, Captain Jack was more enraged than ever, but he said: “Take it, John, I’ll withdraw and turn my men, who, you know, are the best shots in the Province, over to you. They would go through hell for you.”
“Never fear,” replied Penn, and, turning to the Major, he said: “Tell General Braddock, with my compliments, that I decline to accept a commission which he has no authority to tender. As for my companion, Captain Jack (laying emphasis on the Captain) the General had his decision earlier in the day. Goodnight, Major.”
Thus terminated the “conference” which might have changed the face of history. As the result of Braddock’s pride and folly, his defeat and death are a part of history, known by every Pennsylvanian.
John Penn was wretchedly unhappy, even though Captain Jack tried to console him, when he shrewdly inferred that “Mary” had been kidnapped by emissaries of his relatives, and had not eloped with a vile serving man. His heart was too lacerated to remain longer with the Wild Hunter, now that no active service was to be experienced; so, accompanied by Monkton, the veteran of Preston, he set out the next morning for the West Branch of the Susquehanna to the unexplored countries.
At Waterford Narrows they passed the body of a trader recently killed and scalped by Indians.
“May I draw one of his teeth, sir?” said the old soldier, “and you can carry it in your pocket, for the old people say ‘The only thing that can break the enchantment of love is the tooth of a dead man’.”
Penn shook his head and rode on. For a considerable time Penn and Old Monkton visited with Dagonando (Rock Pine), a noted Indian Chief in Brush Valley (Centre County), for the young man, like the founder of Pennsylvania, possessed the same irresistible charm over the redmen.
Years afterwards, in Philadelphia, speaking to General Thomas Mifflin, Dagonando stated that had it not been for his unhappy love affairs, John Penn would have been the equal of his grandfather as Governor, and prevented the Revolutionary War. But his spirit was crushed; even a mild love affair with Dagonando’s daughter ended with shocking disaster. Reaching Fort Augusta, Penn became very ill; a “nervous breakdown” his ailment would be diagnosed today. During his illness he was robbed of his diary. He reached Philadelphia in the fall, and almost immediately set sail for England. He remained abroad until 1763, when he returned as Governor of Pennsylvania. He arrived in Philadelphia on October 30, in the midst of the terrific earthquake of that year, and on November 5, George Roberts in a letter to Samuel Powell, in describing the new Chief Magistrate, says:
“His Honor, Penn, is a little gentleman, though he may govern equal to one seven feet high.”
Charles P. Keith has thus summed up Penn’s career from the time of his first arrival in Pennsylvania: “He was one of the Commissioners to the Congress at Albany in the summer of 1754, and made several journeys to the neighboring colonies. Nevertheless, his trouble made him again despondent; he began to shun company; he would have joined Braddock’s army had any Pennsylvania troops formed part of it, and perhaps have died on the field which that officer’s imprudence made so disastrous. Some two months after the defeat he returned to England.”