His wife and daughter were glad enough to return to England. The novelty and excitement of the new life had worn away by this time and they hastened as much as possible the preparations for departure. The Indians, on the contrary, were bitterly disappointed when they heard that the great Onas was to leave them again so soon. They came from near and far to bid him farewell and were only consoled by the assurance that during his absence the same justice and friendship should be shown them, to insure which Penn made both the council and his deputy, Colonel Hamilton, personally responsible. As a parting gift he presented the city of Philadelphia with a deed of grant for the land on which it stood, and after promising to send his son out at once, that he might become familiar with the nature and needs of the country over which he might one day claim ownership, Penn left the shores of America, never to return.
On his arrival in England, toward the end of 1701, he found the situation by no means so bad as he had feared. It had been merely a plot on the part of his enemies to deprive him of his ownership of Pennsylvania without any indemnification. Upon Penn’s proving that he had relinquished a claim on ten thousand pounds against the crown in exchange for his patent, which document had been drawn up in the proper legal form; that besides this he had acquired undisputed possession of the land by subsequent purchase from the Indians; and finally, that the interest on that ten thousand pounds had by this time increased it to more than double that sum, which must lawfully be paid to him if he were deprived of his province, even King William was forced to recognize the justice of his cause and the proposed bill was abandoned, never to be revived again.
Penn had not neglected to fulfil his promise to the Pennsylvanians and immediately after his arrival had ordered his son to leave as soon as possible for Philadelphia; but it was with great reluctance that he did so, for during his father’s absence the pleasure-loving youth had abandoned himself to every form of dissipation, to the great detriment not only of his health, but of his pocket. To send him out to America alone without restraint or guardianship of any kind meant merely a continuation of his dissolute career, with perhaps ruin and disgrace to the honorable name he bore. Nor was the young man any better pleased with the idea, and it was not till his father had opened his eyes to the seriousness of the situation and agreed to pay his debts that he yielded and promised to go without further protest. Before he sailed Penn wrote to some of the Friends in Philadelphia begging them to watch over his son with fatherly care and solicitude. All seemed to go well at first with young William. He troubled himself little, to be sure, as to the province or its affairs, preferring rather to spend his time in hunting and fishing; but the evil spirit in him soon broke out afresh, and he plunged once more into a life of wild excess, defying all the laws of the country, and after he had succeeded in squandering huge sums of money and making himself thoroughly detested, he went back to England, unbidden and unregretted.
The payment of these new debts contracted by his son caused Penn great financial embarrassment, which was still further increased by the unexpected and extortionate demands of a creditor. This was the successor of his former advocate and man of business, who at the time of Penn’s first journey to America had advanced him the sum of twenty-eight hundred pounds in exchange for which and ostensibly as a mere matter of form he had induced his unsuspecting client to sign a bond pledging the whole province of Pennsylvania as security. Now without any warning an account of fourteen thousand pounds was sent in to Penn with the threat that an attachment would be served if this sum were not immediately paid. After investigating this fraudulent account, he declared himself willing to settle for some four thousand pounds, all to which the creditor was justly entitled. This the latter refused to accept, however, and the owner of Pennsylvania was forced to go to a debtors’ prison as the assembly of that colony refused to make him any advances or even pay the revenues owing to him. In this emergency Penn offered for the sum of twenty thousand pounds to sell his whole province to Queen Anne, who, as the second daughter of the dethroned King James the Second, had succeeded to the throne on the death of William the Third, in 1702. She refused to take it, however, and at length he managed by great effort to raise between seven and eight thousand pounds, with which his false creditor finally agreed to content himself, Penn thereby procuring release.
The long confinement had so seriously affected Penn’s health that he now decided to leave London and moved with his family to Brentford, some eight miles distant, where he devoted himself entirely to his former vocation of preaching the gospel throughout the country and conducting meetings for his Quaker brethren. The increasing infirmities of age, however, soon put an end to these journeyings, Penn having now reached the age of sixty-five, and in 1710, therefore, he retired to Rushcombe in Buckinghamshire, where he remained until his death.
From there he addressed a communication to the settlers in Pennsylvania, reproaching them for the ingratitude with which they had rewarded his labors and sacrifices in their behalf. His last journey to England had been taken solely in their interests to prevent the absorption of that province by the crown, in which case their existing constitution would have been abolished. He had made every effort to accomplish this purpose, in spite of their indifference, with the result that he had become impoverished while they had grown rich; while they, thanks to his foresight and perseverance, were in possession of an empire, liberty, and power, and he, for their sake and because of their avarice, had been forced to languish in a debtors’ prison. He was forced to conclude, therefore, that it was their wish to sever the old relations hitherto existing between them and himself, in which case, if they would signify their desire by the choice of a successor, he would then know how to act.
This letter did not fail to impress the conscience-stricken Pennsylvanians. At the popular election which shortly followed a new assembly was chosen in place of the one that had proved so ungrateful to their benefactor, and it was no small consolation to Penn, broken as he was by trouble and ill health, that this new assembly unanimously agreed on the passage of resolutions that filled him with hope for the future of the province.
Chapter IX
Death of his Dissolute Son William—Penn’s Last Illness and Mental Decline—His Death and Will
The younger William Penn meanwhile had gone from bad to worse, to the bitter disappointment of his father, who after the untimely death of his first-born had placed all his hopes on this unworthy son. After having entirely estranged his family by his excesses, he entered the army in defiance of his father’s principles, but resigned soon after when an opening offered for election to Parliament. Failing to accomplish this, however, he abandoned his wife and children and went to the continent, where he led a life of riotous adventure in the various capitals till his death in 1720.
It may have been the arrival of some distressing news about this degenerate son that led to the apoplectic stroke with which Penn was seized early in the year 1712 and which in his feeble state of health was a serious matter, although he rallied for a time sufficiently to be able to occupy himself with colonial affairs. The question of slavery was much on his mind. He had become more and more convinced of its inhumanity and sinfulness and had great hopes of securing its abolition, as the untiring efforts of the German settlers had secured the passage of a law forbidding the importation of any more slaves.