No. LXV.
There was a couple of unamiable, maiden ladies, who had cherished, for a long time, an unkindly feeling to the son of their married sister; and, whenever her temporary absence afforded a fitting opportunity, one of them would inquire of the other, if it was not a good time to lick Billy. Mr. Macaulay suffers no convenient occasion to pass, without exhibiting a practical illustration of this opinion, that it is a good time to lick Billy.
In vol. ii. page 292, Mr. Macaulay says—“Penn was at Chester (in 1687,) on a pastoral tour. His popularity and authority among his brethren had greatly declined since he had become a tool of the King and the Jesuits.” In proof of this assertion Mr. Macaulay refers to a letter, from Bonrepaux to Seignelay, and to Gerard Croese’s Quaker History. Let us see, for ourselves, what Bonrepaux says—“Penn, chef des Quakers, qu’on sait être dans les intérêts du Roi d’Angleterre, est si fort décrié parmi ceux de son parti qu’ils n’ont plus aucune confiance en lui.”
Now I ask, in the name of historical truth, if Mr. Macaulay is sustained in his assertion, by Bonrepaux? Is there a jot or tittle of evidence, in this reference, that Penn “had become a tool of the King and of the Jesuits;” or that Bonrepaux was himself of any such opinion?
Let us next present the passage from Croese—“Etiam Quakeri Pennum non amplius, ut ante, ita amabant ac magnifaciebant, quidam aversabantur ac fugiebant.”
I ask, in reference to this quotation from Croese, the same question? No possible version of these passages into English will go farther, than to show, that the Quakers were dissatisfied with Penn, about that time: in neither is there the slightest reference to Penn, as “a tool of the King and of the Jesuits.” Mr. Macaulay’s passage is so constructed, that his citation of authorities goes, not only to the fact of Penn’s unpopularity, for a time, but to the cause of it, as assigned by Mr. Macaulay himself, namely, that Penn “had become a tool of the King and of the Jesuits.”
Now it is well known, that Penn, in 1687, was in bad odor with some of the Quakers. He was suspected, by some persons, of being a Jesuit—George Keith, the Quaker renegade, called him a deist—he was said by others to be a Papist. Even Tillotson had given countenance to this foolish story, which Penn’s intimacy with King James tended to corroborate. How far Tillotston believed Penn to be a Papist, or a tool of the King, or of the Jesuits, will appear, upon the perusal of a few lines from Tillotson to Penn, written in 1686, the year before that, of which Mr. Macaulay is writing—“I am very sorry that the suspicion I had entertained concerning you, of which I gave you the true account in my former letter, hath occasioned so much trouble and inconvenience to you: and I do now declare with great joy, that I am fully satisfied, that there was no just ground for that suspicion, and therefore do heartily beg your pardon for it.” Clarkson’s Memoirs, vol. i. chap. 22.
If the authorities, cited, sustained the statement of Mr. Macaulay, their credibility would still form a serious question. In vol. ii. pages 305-7-8, Mr. Macaulay refers to Bonrepaux’s “complicity with the Jesuits.” It would have been quite agreeable to that crafty emissary of Lewis, to have had it believed, that Penn was of their fraternity. As for Gerard Croese, Chalmers speaks of him and his history, with very little respect; and states, that it dissatisfied the Quakers. However this may have been, there is not a syllable in Gerard Croese’s Historia Quakeriana, giving color to Mr. Macaulay’s assertion, that Penn “had become a tool of the King and of the Jesuits.” On the contrary, Croese, as I shall show hereafter, speaks of Penn, with great respect, on several occasions.