So Penn came out of his hiding and appeared again in the full light of London. We find a man named Narcissus Luttrell writing in his diary for December 5, 1693: "Wm. Penn, the Quaker, having for some time absconded, and having compromised the matters against him, appears now in public, and on Friday last held forth at the Bull and Mouth in St. Martin's."
As he was always an active, energetic man, William Penn had been busy writing during the time of his concealment. He had written a number of new Quaker pamphlets, and also his famous collection of maxims called "Fruits of Solitude." In a wider and more interesting field he had also written "An Essay towards the Present Peace of Europe," in which he urged that all disputes between governments be settled by a court of arbitration, and that a United States of Europe, with a general council containing representatives of each nation, should be formed.
It is said that Penn's devoted wife had gone to King James and his queen in France every year since he had lost his throne, and carried them tokens of devotion from their friends in England. She was always well received, and even the supporters of William could find little fault in so gracious an act. But Guli Penn said that she did this from friendship for the exiles, and not through any opposition to the new rulers of her land.
Soon after Penn was free to live as he pleased his gentle wife died, leaving three children, Springett, William, and Letitia. They had been a devoted couple, and Penn found this loss a very hard one to bear. Difficulties of many sorts beset him. His fortune had been spent in various ways during the troubled days of his fall from favor, and he now looked across the sea, in the hope that he might find in his province of Pennsylvania some of the peace and satisfaction he had known there on his first visit, and had dreamed of from time to time ever since.
CHAPTER XII Penn goes to America Again
King William had taken the government of Pennsylvania away from William Penn probably because he thought that a colony governed by a Quaker friend of James Stuart might easily become a prey to French greed. But when the king and Penn became reconciled, the province was given back to Penn, in August, 1694. Although he was anxious to see his new city of Philadelphia again, it was not until five years later that Penn was able to cross the Atlantic. This was largely due to the fact that he had very little money left.
His colony of Pennsylvania had cost him a great deal of money; and, although he had expected large returns from the land and natural products there, he found that the colony caused greater and greater leakage to his purse. The settlers would not pay even the very small quit-rent of one shilling a year for each hundred acres, and were constantly calling on Penn to help them. His estates in Ireland brought in no profits, and the property at Worminghurst that had belonged to Mrs. Penn had been left in trust for her oldest son, Springett Penn, who was then about nineteen years old. All that Penn received from that property was enough to support and educate the three children.
While he stayed in England he began preaching again, and found that now, under William and Mary, the Quakers were allowed the fullest liberty to hold their meetings, and that religious persecution was a thing of the past. His preaching was very successful. Wherever he spoke great crowds gathered to hear the words of a man who had had such a remarkable history, who had been a close friend of King James, and who had been in hiding for some years. Penn was unquestionably a very eloquent speaker, and his many experiences must have added very much to the interest of what he had to tell the quiet-living Quakers of the English countryside.