Penn figured that he had lost £30,000 by his province. "O Pennsylvania," he wrote, "what hast thou cost me! Above £30,000 more than I ever got by it, two hazardous and most fatiguing voyages, my straits and slavery here, and my child's soul almost.... In short, I must sell all or be undone, and disgraced into the bargain."
The man who was now acting as deputy governor of Pennsylvania was proving a poor makeshift, and conditions in the province seemed to be going from bad to worse. Opposition to Penn himself also was increasing, and presently the Assembly passed a set of resolutions that were sent to him in London. These resolutions made many complaints against his government of the province, charging him with having sided with enemies of the colony, with having extorted money from settlers in the sale of lands, with having failed to pay a former governor's salary, and ended by stating that something must be done to suppress lawlessness in the province. When it became known that the Assembly had sent such a note to Penn, the colonists at once objected to the offensiveness of its tone. Orders were given to recall the resolutions, and, in an attempt to straighten the matter out, the Assembly voted £1200 for the support of Penn's government. All might now have gone smoothly had not the deputy governor, John Evans, tried to scare the Quakers by a foolish trick. He had been wanting to build up a militia for the province, but the Quakers had objected to this. So, on the day of the annual fair, Evans arranged to have a messenger ride into Philadelphia, bringing the exciting news that a force of French soldiers had been seen on the Delaware heading toward Philadelphia. Then Evans buckled on his sword and rode up and down before the people, urging them to arm and defend their province.
There was a brief alarm, during which the larger ships on the Delaware were hurried up the river while the smaller craft were concealed in creeks. Silverware and valuables were hidden, but only four men came to the meeting-place Evans had appointed to enroll as militiamen. When it was discovered how Evans had tried to trick them, the settlers were highly indignant, and sent a complaint to Penn in England. Penn also heard that there was much criticism of his friend and secretary, James Logan.
A few of the men in whom Penn trusted, like James Logan, were entirely worthy of his trust, but there were many who were not. Among these latter was a man named Philip Ford, a Quaker, who had for some time been acting as steward of Penn's estates in England and Ireland. Penn grew very fond of Ford, as he had been very fond of James Stuart, and at length made him a present of ten thousand acres in Pennsylvania, a city lot in Philadelphia, and one hundred and fifty acres in the suburbs.
Ford sent accounts to Penn from time to time, but Penn was not a good business man, and did not bother to look into the accounts. Finally, when he did, he found the surprising fact that although Ford had received from Penn £17,000 and had only spent £16,000, nevertheless Penn owed him £10,500. Ford brought about this result by charging very large commissions, adding compound interest every six months to all money advanced, and claiming an exceedingly large salary, to say nothing of sometimes failing to credit Penn with money actually received from him.
Yet Penn, although surprised at this new debt, made no investigation into the crooked accounts, and at length, when Ford kept urging him to pay the debt, Penn was so foolish as to give Ford a deed of the province of Pennsylvania as security for this claim that he did not really owe. To make matters worse, a little later Penn accepted from Ford a lease of the province, so that it appeared that he had actually transferred the province to this corrupt steward and was now leasing it from him.
None of this strange transaction was made public until Ford died, but then his widow and son declared how the matter stood and announced that they were the legal owners of Pennsylvania. Penn, they said, was merely their tenant, and they sued him for rent amounting to £3000. They got judgment against him, and then, when he failed to pay it, had him arrested and put in prison for the debt. So now we find the owner of the great province of Pennsylvania not only shorn of his title to his property, but actually in jail on a charge of failing to pay his rent.
When the officers came to arrest him, they found him at the Quaker meeting in Gracechurch Street in London, strange to say the very place where he had first been arrested thirty-seven years before for preaching to the Quakers.
For nine months Penn had to stay in prison, while the suit against him dragged slowly through the courts of chancery. The fact that he had paid so little attention to Ford's accounts, and had made no complaint about the figures in them, made it look as if the claim against him might be just. His friends tried to straighten out the tangled matter, and meantime Penn, who was allowed fairly comfortable quarters, held small religious meetings, and kept himself as serene and untroubled as in the heyday of his fortunes. In this again the strong character of William Penn appears, for he was not cast down by misfortune. His friend Isaac Norris bore witness to this quality. "After all," said Norris, "I think the fable of the palm good in him—'the more he is pressed, the more he rises.' He seems a spirit fit to bear and rub through difficulties, and as thou observes his foundation remains. I have been at some meetings with him, and have been much comforted in them, and particularly last First-day."
Gradually public sympathy, especially among the Quakers, began to be aroused by the fact of Penn's imprisonment. He had done so much for the Quaker cause, and had tried so hard to give his province a good government, that people were indignant that he should now be so set upon by such people as the Fords. So friends raised the sum of £7600, and gave this to the Fords in settlement of their claim, and in return Penn gave his friends a mortgage on Pennsylvania to secure the repayment of the money they had lent him.