Robert Barclay now returned to Amsterdam to join Fox, but Penn, accompanied by Keith, who was almost as proficient as himself in the German language, journeyed on by way of Paderborn and Cassel to Frankfort-on-the-Main, where Penn preached with great effect, winning over many influential persons to his own belief. From Frankfort the two Quaker apostles went up along the Rhine to Griesheim near Worms, where a small Quaker community had been formed. Here Penn’s plan for founding a trans-atlantic State for the free worship of their religion was received with the greatest enthusiasm, and large numbers did indeed afterward emigrate to New Jersey, where they took an important place in the colony, being among the first to condemn and abolish the slavery then existing in America, and established a reputation for German worth and integrity beyond the seas.
On his return to Cologne, Penn found a letter from the Princess Elizabeth urging him to go to Mühlheim to visit the Countess of Falkenstein, of whose piety she had already told him. In endeavoring to carry out this request of his royal patroness, however, Penn and his friend met with a misadventure. At the gates of the castle they encountered the Countess’ father, a rough, harsh man with small respect for religion of any sort. He roundly abused them for not taking off their hats to him, and on learning that they were Quakers, he had them taken into custody and escorted beyond the boundaries of his estates by a guard. Here they were left alone in the darkness, at the edge of a great forest, not knowing where they were or which way to turn. After much wandering about they finally reached the town of Duisburg, but the gates were closed and in spite of the lateness of the season they were forced to remain outside till morning.
From Amsterdam Penn went to join Fox again at Friesland, improving this opportunity to make another satisfactory visit to Herford, and parting from the noble Princess as a warm friend with whom he afterward enjoyed a frequent correspondence. Not till early in the winter did the four friends return to England, and the stormy passage, together with his nocturnal adventure at Duisburg, so affected Penn’s health that for some time he was obliged to submit himself to the care of his devoted wife, especially as the importunities of prospective emigrants gave him little chance to recuperate.
Chapter IV
The Popish Plot—Settlement of Virginia—The Royal Cession to Penn—Christening of Pennsylvania—Outlines of Penn’s Constitution
The year 1678 seemingly opened with brighter prospects for those who had suffered so severely in the past for their religious beliefs. The clearest sighted members of Parliament must have realized the detriment to England when such numbers of peaceable citizens, blameless in every respect save for their form of worship, were forced to abandon their native land, taking with them their possessions and their industries, and must have realized that such persecutions must end.
Penn, in spite of being a Quaker, had won the esteem of all classes by his high character and his ability and enjoyed the confidence of some of the most influential personages in the kingdom. Hearing of this change of attitude adopted by Parliament, he laid aside for the time being all thoughts of his transatlantic commonwealth and gave himself up to the work of securing recognition of his great principle of liberty of conscience. Profiting by the favor in which he stood with the Duke of York, he endeavored to obtain through him the submission to Parliament of an Act of Toleration. The Duke looked favorably on the plan, but being himself a member of the Church of Rome, maintained that such a law should not be restricted to Protestant dissenters only, but apply also to Catholics. All seemed to be going well and Penn’s efforts bade fair to be crowned with success, when suddenly an event occurred which deferred for years the passage of this act and added fresh fuel to the fires of persecution. This was the invention of the famous Popish Plot by an infamous wretch named Titus Oates. Formerly a clergyman in the Anglican Church, he had been deprived of his living because of his shameful excesses and fled to Spain, where he joined the Jesuits. Expelled from this order also for improper conduct, he revenged himself by turning informer and swore to the existence of a conspiracy among the Jesuits to massacre all the prominent Protestants and establish the Catholic religion in England. Even the King, for permitting the persecution of Catholics in his kingdom, was not to be spared, nor the Duke of York, who was not credited with much real devotion to that faith.
It is doubtful whether there ever was any real foundation for this atrocious charge based by Oates upon letters and papers intrusted to him by the Jesuits and which he had opened from curiosity. Nevertheless the story was generally credited in spite of the absurdity of the statements of such a worthless wretch, and aroused the wildest excitement throughout the country, in consequence of which the established church, alarmed for its safety, enforced more rigorously than ever the edicts against all dissenters. Seeing his hopes of religious freedom in England once more fading, Penn bent his efforts the more resolutely toward the establishment of a haven in America. He had long ago decided the principles by which his new commonwealth was to be governed; namely, the equality of all men in the eyes of the law, full liberty of conscience and the free worship of religion, self-government by the people, and the inviolability of personal liberty as well as of personal property—a form of government which, if justly and conscientiously carried out, must create indeed an ideal community such as the world had never yet seen. Nor was it an impossibility, as was proved by the gratifying success of the New Jersey colony, where a part of these principles, at least, had already been put into practice.
But where was this model State to be founded? It must be on virgin soil, where no government of any kind already existed, and where the new ideas could be instituted from the beginning. As the most suitable spot for this purpose Penn’s glance had fixed upon a tract of land lying west of New Jersey and north of the royal province of Maryland, which had been founded in 1632 by a Catholic nobleman, Lord Baltimore, as a refuge for persecuted members of his own faith, but which also offered liberty to those of other sects. The only occupants of this territory were a few scattered Dutch and Swedish settlers, but they were so small in number and so widely separated that they need scarcely be taken into consideration as possible obstacles to Penn’s plans after the arrival of the class of colonists he favored in numbers sufficient to populate this wide extent of land. For the rest the country was still an unbroken wilderness, where one could wander for days hearing no sound but the songs of the countless birds that filled the vast forests. As to the natives, in spite of their undeniable cruelty and savage cunning when provoked or wronged, it was quite possible to make friends and allies of them by kindness and fair treatment, as the New Jersey settlers had already learned.
This was the territory of which Penn now determined to secure possession if possible, a task which promised no great difficulty, as the English crown claimed sovereignty over all that portion of North America lying between the thirty-fourth and the forty-fifth degrees north latitude, on the strength of the discovery of its coast line by English navigators. King James the First had given a patent for part of these possessions to an English company, the grant including all the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and some attempt had been made to found colonies and develop the riches of the country, but later this company was divided into two, one taking the northern portion, the other the southern. This latter, called the London Company, lost no time in fitting up a ship which entered Chesapeake Bay in 1607, sailed up the James River, and landed its passengers at what was afterward called Jamestown, the first English colony in America. These colonists were soon followed by others, and by the year 1621 the settlement had so increased that the London Company, which had retained the right of ownership, exercised through a governor, granted a written constitution to the province, which they named Virginia. In 1624, however, this company, having some disagreement with King James, was dissolved and Virginia became the property of the crown. This being followed by the voluntary withdrawal of the parties owning the northern half of the territory, the tract between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees, known as New England, was then deeded by James to the Plymouth Company, which made no attempt at colonization itself, but sold land to others, part of which thus came into possession of the Puritan emigrants.
In 1639, however, during the reign of Charles the First, their charter expired and the lands still belonging to them, including what were afterward the States of Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, again reverted to the crown. The district lying between the Delaware and Hudson Rivers had been claimed by the Dutch—Hudson, the English navigator who discovered it, having been then in the service of Holland; and here between Delaware Bay and the Connecticut River they had founded their colony of New Netherlands. In 1655 the adjoining territory on the west bank of the Delaware, comprising the present State of Delaware and the southern part of Pennsylvania, had been bought from the Indians by a Swedish trading company at the instigation of King Gustavus Adolphus and a settlement founded under the name of New Sweden. Not proving the commercial success hoped for, this was afterward abandoned. England’s acquisition of New Netherlands as the prize of her naval victories over Holland, the formation of the colonies of New York and New Jersey, the possession of the latter by the Quakers and the drafting of its constitution by William Penn,—all these have been related in the preceding chapter.