Americanist History, 1650-1742, William J. Jackman
We have in the course of this history met with the sect known as Quakers,—a sect, perhaps, more than any other drawn from the humbler classes of the English people. We have found them at one time few in number, despised and persecuted; treated as the enemies of social order and morals. They were persecuted by all the sects in turn. The Puritans of New England endeavored to drive them from their shores; the Churchmen of Virginia refused them a resting place; and the politic and trading Dutch, though desirous for colonists, treated them harshly.
The Quakers loved and cherished the truths of the Bible with as much zeal as the most devoted Puritans. As non-resistants, they believed that the only evil a Christian should resist, was the evil of his own heart: as followers of the Prince of Peace, they were opposed to war. How much blood and sorrow would be spared the nations, if in this respect they were governed by the principles of Quakerism!
We have now to speak of this despised sect as the founders of a State, where their principles were to be applied to the government of men.
George Fox, their founder, had visited the American colonies; the condition of his followers touched his heart. Was there no asylum for them in the New World? Who should furnish them the means to form for themselves a settlement?
Among the few who joined them from the higher classes of English society, was one destined to exert a great influence on the sect, and to be admired and reverenced as a benefactor of his race by the good of every age. When a mere youth, his heart was touched by the conversation of a simple-minded Quaker, who spoke of the peace and comfort derived from the witnessing of God’s Spirit with his own: “the inner light,” or voice of conscience. This youth was William Penn, the son of Sir William Penn, who was distinguished as a successful naval commander in the times of Cromwell and Charles II. The position of his father afforded him great advantages. He studied at Oxford University, was then sent to the Continent to improve his mind by travel and intercourse with men, and to eradicate his tendency toward Quakerism. After the absence of two years he returned, improved it is true, but in religion still a member of that despised sect everywhere spoken against: a sect, which its enemies affirmed, would destroy every government. The ambitious and worldly-minded Admiral was angry and disappointed. He insisted that his son should renounce Quakerism. The son reflected—he loved and reverenced his father; he desired to obey and please him, but could he violate his conscience? No; he calmly resigned all earthly preferment, and became an exile from his father’s house. A mother’s love secretly relieved his pressing wants.
Before long we find him in prison for his religion. When the Bishop of London threatened him with imprisonment for life if he did not recant, he calmly replied, “Then my prison shall be my grave!” When a clergyman, the learned Stillingfleet, was sent to convince him by arguments, he referred to his prison walls, and remarked, “The Tower is to me the worst argument in the world; those who use force for religion never can be in the right!” “Religion,” said he, on another occasion, “is my crime and my innocence; it makes me a prisoner to malice, but my own freemen.” At the expiration of a year he was released, through the intercession of his father.
Promotion in the navy, royal favor, and every worldly inducement was now urged to tempt him to desert his principles; but in vain. Within a year he was arraigned again for having spoken at a Quaker meeting. As he pleaded his own cause, he told the court “that no power on earth had the right to debar him from worshipping God.” The jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. The court, determined to persecute, ordered them back to their room, saying, “We will have a verdict, or you shall starve for it.” Penn admonished them as Englishmen to remember their rights. To the great annoyance of his enemies, the jury, though they “received no refreshments for two days and two nights,” again brought in a verdict of not guilty. The court fined the jury it could not intimidate. Though thus acquitted, the recorder, under plea of contempt of court, fined Penn, and again remanded him to prison. As he was leaving the room, he mildly remarked to the angry magistrate: “Thy religion persecutes and mine forgives.” His father soon afterward paid the fine, and he was liberated. Ere long that father, when dying, became reconciled to his son, and called him to his bedside. Worldly prosperity and honor did not seem so important to the admiral in his dying hour as they h d done in other days. “Son William,” said he, “if you and your friends keep to your plain way of preaching and living, you will make an end to the priests!”
Weary of persecutions, Penn determined to seek in the New World an asylum for himself and his suffering friends. There was, perhaps, no man in the kingdom better fitted to take the lead in colonizing a State: familiar, from books as well as from observation, with the governments of Europe, and by personal intercourse with some of the most enlightened statesmen of the age; the friend and companion of man, as eminent in science and philosophy as they were in purity of morals.
His father had bequeathed him a claim of sixteen thousand pounds against the government. He offered to receive lands in payment. Charles II, always in want of money, readily granted him territory west of the Delaware river, corresponding very nearly with the present limits of the State of Pennsylvania,—a name given it by the king. The Duke of York claimed the region now known as the State of Delaware; Penn wishing to have free access to the bay obtained it from him.
As proprietary he now drew up a proclamation for those who were about to emigrate, as well as for the settlers already on the Delaware. He proposed that they should make their own laws, and pledged himself to interfere with nothing that should be for their benefit; saying, “I propose to leave myself and successors no power of doing mischief; that the will of no one man may hinder the good of a whole country.”
With instructions to govern in accordance with law he sent his nephew William Markham, as agent. He had expended so much to aid his suffering brethren, that his estate was now nearly exhausted. When about to sail for his colony he wrote to his wife: “Live low and sparingly till my debts are paid; I desire not riches, but to owe nothing; be liberal to the poor, and kind to all.” At this time of embarrassment a very large sum was offered him by a company of traders for the exclusive right to trade between the rivers Susquehannah and Delaware. He refused to sell such right, saying each one in his colony should have an equal privilege to acquire property.
Penn, accompanied by one hundred emigrants, landed at New Castle. The Swedes, Dutch and English alike welcomed him. He passed up the river to where the capital of his province was yet to rise; there, under a spreading elm, he met a large number of sachems of the neighboring tribes, and with them entered into a treaty. No record of this treaty has been preserved, yet it remained for fifty years in force; neither party violating its provisions. The sons of the forest received the “Quaker King” as a friend, and they never had cause to regret their confidence. He promised to treat them justly; a promise observed not only by himself but by the Quaker settlers. During this year twenty-three ships laden with emigrants arrived safely in the colony; and they continued to flock thither from year to year.
Lands, lying between the Schuylkill and the Delaware, were purchased from the Swedes: a place desirable for a city, from its situation, healthy air, and springs of fresh water. It was to be a “greene country town, gardens round each house, that it might never be burned, and always be wholesome.” The streets were marked out in the primitive forest by blazing the trees—the walnut, the spruce, the chestnut. A city for all mankind, it was significantly named Philadelphia.
The new city grew very rapidly: in three years it contained more than six hundred houses while the colony had a population of nearly ten thousand. Well might the benevolent proprietary look forward to the future in cheerful hope; he had based his government on truth and justice. The rights of the Red Men were respected; no one could wrong them without incurring the same penalty as that for wronging a fellow planter. If difficulties occurred between them and the settlers, the juries to try such cases were to be composed of six Indians and six white men. In the earlier days of the colonies the natives manifested their friendship by bringing as presents the products of the chase, wild fowl and venison.
Presently the first Assembly in Pennsylvania was convened. Penn gave to the people a “charter of liberties” a representative government, and toleration in religious matters; to prevent lawsuits, three “peace-makers” were appointed for each county. Laws were made to restrain vice and to promote virtue. Labor upon the Sabbath was forbidden. The confidence which the Indians had in his integrity gave security to their friendship, and Pennsylvania was free from frontier wars, and more prosperous and happy than any other colony. Had the Red Men been treated as justly by the other colonists as by the Quakers, thousands of lives would have been spared and the general prosperity of the whole country promoted.
The interests of the young were not forgotten; efforts were made for their education, and a public high school chartered by Penn, was established at Philadelphia, where already a printing press, the third in the colonies, was doing its work.
After Penn returned to England, the people of Delaware, or the three lower counties, who sympathized but little with the Quakers, began to be restless. They feigned grievances, as a means to become independent. He yielded to their request, and appointed for them a separate deputy governor.
Being the personal friend of the Duke of York, Penn urged him when he became king, to relieve the oppressed, and in consequence more than twelve hundred Quakers were liberated, who had been imprisoned many years for conscience’ sake. His benevolence was not limited to those of his own persuasion, but extended to all, both Catholics and Protestant.
When the great revolution drove the arbitrary James into exile, and placed William of Orange on the throne, Penn was accused by his enemies of favoring the interests of the exiled monarch, with whom he corresponded. This correspondence afforded no evidence of the truth of these calumnies, but William lent them too ready an ear. He was at a loss to conceive how Penn could be the friend of James in exile, without wishing him to return to England as a sovereign. These false charges, together with rumors of dissensions in the colony, furnished the royal government a pretext for depriving Penn of his proprietary rights.
The Quakers became divided in their sentiments; a few went to the extreme of non-resistance, saying, that it was inconsistent for a Quaker to engage in public affairs, either as a magistrate or as a legislator. The prime leader in this was George Keith. After disturbing the province beyond even Quaker endurance, he was indicted by the grand jury, as a disturber of the peace and violator of the laws. He was tried, and fined for using improper language; but lest it might be thought a punishment for the free expression of opinion, the fine was remitted. The cry of persecution was raised; but time proved the falsehood of the charge.
The first German emigrants to Pennsylvania were Quakers in their religious views—converts of Penn and Barclay, who some years before had travelled on the continent as missionaries. These settled Germantown and the vicinity. Twenty years later, the ravages of war drove many Germans from their homes on the banks of the Rhine. These emigrated in great numbers first to England, and then to Pennsylvania. In religious views they were German Reformed and Lutherans. They chose fertile districts, settled together, and soon became celebrated as the best farmers in America. Their numbers gradually increased by accessions of emigrants from home. They did not assimilate with the English colonists: preserved inviolate their customs, their religion, and their language, which alone they permitted to be taught their children. The isolation of a population so large, had an important influence upon the people of Pennsylvania, on their system of education by common schools, on the struggle for independence, and since politically.
An attempt was now made to convert Pennsylvania and Delaware into one royal province, over which Benjamin Fletcher was appointed governor. Some of the magistrates refused to recognize his authority, and some resigned their offices. When the Assembly met, the opposition became more determined. The members of this body deemed the laws made under the charter received from Penn as valid; neither would they legislate under any other authority. The charter given by King Charles, said they, is as valid as one given by King William; and they refused to throw a suspicion over their existing laws by reenacting them. They never noticed the governor; with Quaker coolness passed and repassed his door, and in every respect ignored his presence.
Meanwhile, Penn had been persecuted and annoyed; he was arraigned three times on frivolous charges, which were as often not sustained. He prepared once more to visit his colony. Crowds of emigrants were ready to go with him, when he was arrested again. Forced to go into retirement, he determined to wait till time should bring him justice. This delay ruined the remainder of his fortune; death entered his family, and robbed him of his wife and eldest son. Treated harshly by the world, and in some instances by those whom he thought his friends, he mildly perserved; never changed his views of right and justice; conscious of the purity of his motives, he serenely waited for the time when his character should be vindicated from the aspersions cast upon it. Ere long that time came, the charges laid against him were proved to be false, and he was restored to his proprietary rights.
The want of means delayed his visit to his colony, but he sent Markham as his deputy. He called an Assembly; the people, alarmed at the recent encroachments upon their chartered rights, framed for themselves a liberal constitution. The Assembly would levy no tax until this was granted. When Penn arrived, he recognized as valid what the people had done. When the proposition was made to form a “constitution which would be firm and lasting,” he said to them, “Keep what is good in the charter and frame of government, and add what may best suit the common good.” It was agreed to surrender the old charter, and in its place frame a new constitution. The territories wished to be separate, and Delaware was permitted to have her own legislature; though the governor was to be the same as that of Pennsylvania. The two governments were never again united. All the political privileges the people desired he cheerfully granted; they enjoyed religious liberty, and annually elected their own magistrates.
A large emigration began about this period, and continued for half a century, to pour into Pennsylvania from the north of Ireland and from Scotland. These were principally Presbyterians. They settled in the eastern and middle parts of the colony, and thence gradually extended their settlements west, making roads upon the forest.
When Penn returned to the colony it was his intention to remain and make it the home of his children. Rumors, however, reached the province that the charters of all the colonies were to be taken away, and they thrown upon the tender mercies of court favorites. He had not only purchased his territory from Charles, but he had bought the land from the Indians themselves; he was therefore the sole owner of the unoccupied soil of Pennsylvania. These rumors rendered it necessary for him to return to England. Having arranged the government so as best to promote the interests of the people, he bade farewell to the colony, for which he had spent the better part of his life, and for which he breathed his parting blessing.
The virtues of William Penn saved the colony, so dear to his heart, from becoming a province ruled by royal governors and impoverished by tax-gatherers. His enemies never could persuade the court to deprive him of his property. Though in his old age so poor, on account of the sacrifices he had made, as to be compelled to go for a season to a debtor’s prison, he refused to sell his estates in America unless he could secure for the people the full enjoyment of their liberties. His death was as peaceful as his life had been benevolent. He left three sons, who were minors. For them the government was administered by deputies until the Revolution, when the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania purchased their claims for more than half a million of dollars.
Source: Jackman, William J. “History of the American Nation,” Volume I, Chapter 14, 1650-1742, Colonization of Pennsylvania, pgs. 218-227. Chicago, 1911.
Americanist History is compiled, and edited (with occasional commentary) by The Moral Liberal, Editor In Chief, Steve Farrell.
