William Penn inherited very large possessions,part of which consisted in Crown debts due to the Vice-Admiral for sums he had advanced for the sea service.No moneys were at that time more insecure than those owing from the king.Penn was obliged to go more than once,and "thee"and "thou"King Charles and his Ministers,in order to recover the debt;and at last,instead of specie,the Government invested him with the right and sovereignty of a province of America,to the south of Maryland.Thus was a Quaker raised to sovereign power.Penn set sail for his new dominions with two ships freighted with Quakers,who followed his fortune.The country was then called Pennsylvania from William Penn,who there founded Philadelphia,now the most flourishing city in that country.The first step he took was to enter into an alliance with his American neighbours,and this is the only treaty between those people and the Christians that was not ratified by an oath,and was never infringed.The new sovereign was at the same time the legislator of Pennsylvania,and enacted very wise and prudent laws,none of which have ever been changed since his time.
The first is,to injure no person upon a religious account,and to consider as brethren all those who believe in one God.
He had no sooner settled his government,but several American merchants came and peopled this colony.The natives of the country,instead of flying into the woods,cultivated by insensible degrees a friendship with the peaceable Quakers.They loved these foreigners as much as they detested the other Christians who had conquered and laid waste America.In a little time a great number of these savages (falsely so called),charmed with the mild and gentle disposition of their neighbours,came in crowds to William Penn,and besought him to admit them into the number of his vassals.It was very rare and uncommon for a sovereign to be "thee'd"and "thou'd"by the meanest of his subjects,who never took their hats off when they came into his presence;and as singular for a Government to be without one priest in it,and for a people to be without arms,either offensive or defensive;for a body of citizens to be absolutely undistinguished but by the public employments,and for neighbours not to entertain the least jealousy one against the other.
William Penn might glory in having brought down upon earth the so much boasted golden age,which in all probability never existed but in Pennsylvania.He returned to England to settle some affairs relating to his new dominions.After the death of King Charles II.,King James,who had loved the father,indulged the same affection to the son,and no longer considered him as an obscure sectary,but as a very great man.The king's politics on this occasion agreed with his inclinations.He was desirous of pleasing the Quakers by annulling the laws made against Nonconformists,in order to have an opportunity,by this universal toleration,of establishing the Romish religion.All the sectarists in England saw the snare that was laid for them,but did not give into it;they never failing to unite when the Romish religion,their common enemy,is to be opposed.But Penn did not think himself bound in any manner to renounce his principles,merely to favour Protestants to whom he was odious,in opposition to a king who loved him.He had established a universal toleration with regard to conscience in America,and would not have it thought that he intended to destroy it in Europe,for which reason he adhered so inviolably to King James,that a report prevailed universally of his being a Jesuit.This calumny affected him very strongly,and he was obliged to justify himself in print.
However,the unfortunate King James II.,in whom,as in most princes of the Stuart family,grandeur and weakness were equally blended,and who,like them,as much overdid some things as he was short in others,lost his kingdom in a manner that is hardly to be accounted for.
All the English sectarists accepted from William III,and his Parliament the toleration and indulgence which they had refused when offered by King James.It was then the Quakers began to enjoy,by virtue of the laws,the several privileges they possess at this time.Penn having at last seen Quakerism firmly established in his native country,went back to Pennsylvania.His own people and the Americans received him with tears of joy,as though he had been a father who was returned to visit his children.All the laws had been religiously observed in his absence,a circumstance in which no legislator had ever been happy but himself.After having resided some years in Pennsylvania he left it,but with great reluctance,in order to return to England,there to solicit some matters in favour of the commerce of Pennsylvania.But he never saw it again,he dying in Ruscombe,in Berkshire,in 1718.
I am not able to guess what fate Quakerism may have in America,but I perceive it dwindles away daily in England.In all countries where liberty of conscience is allowed,the established religion will at last swallow up all the rest.Quakers are disqualified from being members of Parliament;nor can they enjoy any post or preferment,because an oath must always be taken on these occasions,and they never swear.They are therefore reduced to the necessity of subsisting upon traffic.Their children,whom the industry of their parents has enriched,are desirous of enjoying honours,of wearing buttons and ruffles;and quite ashamed of being called Quakers they become converts to the Church of England,merely to be in the fashion.
