PENN, WILLIAM% the proprietor and legislator of Penn sylvania, was born at London, in the year 1644. He was the only son of William Penn, of the Penn's of Penns lodge in the county of Wilts, Vice Admiral of England in the time of Cromwell, and afterwards knighted by king Charles II. for his successful services against the Dutch.
lie appears to have been seriously inclined from his youth, having imbibed religious impressions as early as the twelfth year of his age, which were soon afterwards indelibly confirmed by the ministry of Thomas Loe, an eminent preacher among the Quakers, who was then newly associated in religious fellowship with that people. In his fifteenth year he was notwithstanding entered as a gentleman commoner of Christ Church, Oxford, where, meeting with some other students who were devoutly in clined, they ventured to hold private conferences among themselves, wherein they both preached and prayed. This gave great offence to the heads of the College, by whom these zealous tyros were at first only fined for non conformity, but persisting in their religious exercises, they were finally expelled the university. On his return home his father endeavoured in vain to divert him from his religious pursuits, as being likely to stand in the way of his promotion in the world ; and at length finding him in flexible in what he now conceived to be his religious duty, beat him severely, and turned him out of doors. Relenting however, at the intercession of his mother, and hoping to gain his point by other means, he sent his son to Paris in company with some persons of quality, whence he return ed so well skilled in the French language, and other polite accomplishments, that he was again joyfully received at home.
After young Penn's return from France he was admitted of Lincoln's Inn, with a view of studying the law, where he continued till his twenty-second year, when his father committed to him the management of a considerable estate in Ireland; a circumstance which unexpectedly proved the occasion of his finally adhering to the despised cause of the Quakers, and devoting himself to a religious life. For at Cork he met again with Thomas Loe, the person whose preaching had affected him so early in life. At a meeting in that city Loe began his declaration with these penetra ting words. " There is a faith that overcomes the world, and there is a faith that is overcome by the world ;" which so reached Penn's feelings that from that time he constantly attended the meetings of the Quakers, though in a time of hot persecution. He was soon afterwards with many others
taken at a meeting in Cork, and carried before the mayor, by whom they were all committed to prison ; but young Penn was soon released, on application to the Earl of Orrery, then lord president of :Munster. His father being informed of his conduct remanded him home, and finding him unalterably determined to abide by his own convic tions of duty, in respect to plainness of speech and deport ment, he would have compounded with him in other cases if he would only consent to remain uncovered before the King, the Duke (afterward James II.) and himself. Being disappointed in this, he could no longer endure the sight of his son, and a second time drove him from his family. Yet after a while becoming convinced of his integrity and uprightness, he permitted him to return home, and though he never openly countenanced his dissent from the es tablished church, he would use his interest to get him re leased, when he had been imprisoned for his attendance at religious meetings.
It was in the year 1668, the twenty-fourth of his age, that William Penn first appeared as a minister and an author; and it was on account of his second essay, entitled " The sandy foundation shaken," that he was imprisoned in the tower, where he remained seven months; during which time he wrote his most celebrated work, " No Cross no Crown ;" and finally obtained his release from confinement by an exculpatory vindication, under the title of " Inno cency with her open face." In 1670 the meetings of dissenters were forbidden under severe penalties; the Quakers, however, believing it their indispensable ditty, continued to meet as usual, and when forcibly kept out of their meeting houses they assembled as near to them as they could in the streets. At one of these meetings William Penn preached to the people thus assembled for divine worship ; for which pious action he was committed to Newgate,and at the next session at the Old Bailey was indicted for " being present at and preaching to an unlawful seditious and riotous assembly." He plead ed his own cause, though menaced by the recorder, and was finally acquitted by the jury, but he was nevertheless detained in Ncwgate, and the jury fined. Such was English liberty in those clays.