Meantime, while he was still in prison, his deputy governor Evans had been behaving so badly that the people of the province decided they would stand him no longer. Penn, having once felt a strong friendship for this man, would have put up with almost any injustice from him. Three prominent Quakers went to him in the Fleet Prison, however, and told him that unless he removed Evans from the governorship the people would appeal to Queen Anne to settle the matter. This might result in taking the province from him; so, reluctantly, Penn agreed to dismiss Evans from his position. Even then, however, he was so fond of Evans that he would not let him know that he disapproved of his acts. He wrote to James Logan, asking him to explain the matter to his deputy governor, and said, "Pray break it to him and that the reason why I chose to change, rather than contest with the complaints before the queen in council, is, that he may stand the fairer for any employment elsewhere; which would be very doubtful if those blemishes were aggravated in such a presence."
In place of Evans, Penn sent out as the new governor another friend of his, Colonel Charles Gookin. He wrote very flattering accounts of this new governor to the people of Philadelphia.
Stanchness in standing by his friends, even when it was shown that those friends were utterly untrustworthy, had proved nearly as disastrous to William Penn in the government of his province as it had proved to his fortunes in England in the days when he had supported James Stuart against King William. It may have been a fine fault, but a fault it was, nevertheless.
CHAPTER XIV Penn's Work Completed
When Penn left the Fleet Prison, he went to his home at Brentford, nine miles out of London, and stayed there for a short time, after which he moved with his family to a country place in the Berkshire Hills called Ruscombe. While he was here he kept up his efforts to sell Pennsylvania to the English Crown, and, as that matter dragged along with little result, he tried his best to straighten out the tangled government of his colony by sending long letters to James Logan and other officers in Philadelphia. In its early days the province had been a great pleasure to him, but now it seemed to be only a source of continual misunderstandings and debts. He felt that, however much the colony might have profited others, it had proved almost a thankless burden to himself. He wrote to some of the colonists just what his feelings were in regard to Pennsylvania. "The many combats I have engaged in," he said, "the great pains and incredible expense to your welfare and ease, to the decay of my former estate, of which (however some there would represent it) I too sensibly feel the effects, with the undeserved opposition I have met with from thence, sink me into sorrow, that if not supported by a superior hand, might have overwhelmed me long ago. And I cannot but think it hard measure, that, while that has proved a land of freedom and flourishing, it should become to me, by whose means it was principally made a country, the cause of grief, trouble, and poverty."
Although the English Crown was anxious to take over the province of Pennsylvania, there were many obstacles to their coming to an agreement with Penn. Some of these obstacles he at length compromised; for example, he agreed that he and his family should have only 800,000 acres in fee, in place of all the rights to real estate that had been granted him under the original charter. He insisted that there should be no official establishing of the Church of England in Pennsylvania, that no public money should be used for one sect in preference to others, and that public offices should be open to all settlers. After much controversy the English government drew up a new charter or constitution, modeled after those in New York and New Jersey, except that nothing whatever was said in the charter about establishing the Church of England; while the question of the right to vote on public matters was left for the people themselves to decide.
By 1710 the arrangements to take over Pennsylvania from Penn were about completed. He then wrote a long letter to the people of his province, addressing them as "My Old Friends," and setting forth what he had tried to do for them, and how of late they had pained him by their continual squabbles. His writing showed his surprise that Pennsylvania had not been the home of peace he expected it would be. In one part of the letter he said, "Friends! the eyes of many are upon you; the people of many nations of Europe look on that country as a land of ease and quiet, wishing to themselves in vain the same blessings they conceive you may enjoy; but to see the use you make of them is no less the cause of surprise to others, while such bitter complaints and reflections are seen to come from you, of which it is difficult to conceive either the sense or meaning. What are the distresses, grievances, and oppressions, that the papers, sent from thence, so often say you languish under, while others have cause to believe you have hitherto lived, or might live, the happiest of any in the Queen's dominions?" He graciously closed his letter in these words: "God give you his wisdom and fear to direct you, that yet our poor country may be blessed with peace, love, and industry, and we may once more meet good friends, and live so to the end, our relation in the Truth having but the same true interest. I am, with great truth and most sincere regard, your real friend, as well as just Proprietor and Governor, William Penn."