THE QUAKER

II

It was in the year 1676 that Penn was first drawn into his connection with the great continent beyond seas, which had already for fifty years been, as it were, the safety-valve of English society,-the harbour of refuge for the persecuted, the Utopia of the visionary. A great new world of boundless fertility and freedom, hampered by no heritage from the past, open to all the theories of the future, America was at this moment the great and real romance of the English race, as well as a shelter, nowhere else to be hoped for, for all to whom their own country had become impossible through the many troubles of that period of convulsion. The despair which had driven the Pilgrim Fathers forth to the untrodden wilderness was no longer the motive of the emigrants. Persecution, indeed, had scarcely slackened, and showed little appearance of ending, even the spasmodic intervals of indulgence having no foundation. But the first bands of exiles, the forefathers of the New World, had proved that the risk of emigration was worth running, and all the first dangers of colonisation had been overcome. Things were indeed just at the point which was specially delightful to a theorist, confident of having principles

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and a system by which the perfect life both for a community and for individuals is to be obtained. The first colonists had demonstrated, not only the practicability of the experiment, but also the errors and mistakes into which men are at all times too likely to fall, and those of what we may call the second generation had warning as well as encouragement in their example. Penn's first essay in the work of colonisation was not in his own interest. The New World was at that time a most welcome resource to the prodigal court of England, by which the king paid debts and rewarded courtiers, and, still more desirable, procured for himself a little ready money as occasion served, while those to whom he granted the new-found provinces followed his example, and divided and subdivided the endless wastes, indifferent in most cases to any natural rights. In this way a Friend, Edward Byllinge or Billing by name, acquired from Lord Berkeley a portion of the state of New Jersey, but being apparently a somewhat thriftless Friend-a character not at all common-soon parted with a portion of it to another Quaker, John Fenwick, and afterwards was compelled to place it all in the hands of trustees for the satisfaction of his creditors. Penn, who though without any official rank was the chief man among the Quakers, became in the first place the arbitrator between Billing and Fenwick, settling by solid arguments, let us hope, and also by one or two letters in his usual imperative and authoritative style, a disagreement between them; and afterwards acting as principal trustee in the final arrangement.

Into this work he seems to have entered with the greatest vigour and goodwill. In all his independent state

ments, his letters and published work, it is very apparent that Penn was disposed to take very high ground as a teacher; and though profoundly tolerant in principle, and with the unusually enlightened conviction—a conviction shared by very few even of those who knew the sharpness of religious persecution in their own persons —that Papists themselves ought not to be whipped for being Papists, was yet devoutly certain that his own way was the right way, and that other professions of Christianity were but little to be trusted to. It was natural that he should seize upon the opportunity of setting forth a model state, in which his own people should find the happiest refuge that yet had been established. The early emigrants had formed their constitution after they had reached their new habitation and overcome those early initiatory difficulties which go before politics, and some of them had showed little more of the faculty of learning by their own sufferings than kings are supposed to do. In New England, for instance, Quakers were by law prohibited from entering the sacred territory of the Nonconformist state, and, if found there, were subject to instant imprisonment, with almost greater severity than had been exercised in England. In these circumstances a special refuge for the Quakers was a matter of necessity; and the exercise of a magnanimity which conceived no possibility of reprisals was now in Penn's power. His very first step was to draw out an elaborate constitution for this new colony establishing its liberties, and especially the freedom of religious conviction, with every possible guarantee.

It must be added, however, that he was not the first to

carry the principle of toleration to America. Lord Baltimore, his future neighbour and opponent, though himself a Roman Catholic, had learned his lesson better than the pious dissenters of Massachusetts, and in his domain there was no question what was the religion of the colonists. Here the two extremes of religious belief seem to have changed places. The tolerant Catholic finds little praise from the historians. His motive is supposed to be the business - like one of drawing the best men to his colony; and perhaps the fierce old Independent is a more characteristic figure who with his last breath adjures his community :

'Let men of God in court and churches watch

O'er such as do a toleration hatch,

Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice
To poison all with heresy and vice.'

Toleration, however, was the first principle in Penn's constitution; no test or question of faith such as that which made membership of the Church essential to the rights of citizenship in Massachusetts was so much as admitted in the new state. The franchise was founded on the old English basis of property, each distinct territory returning a member to the Assembly, for whom every honest man under these conditions had a right to vote, and the Assembly in its turn electing ten commissioners who were to wield the executive power. The institution of the jury, which from the early days in which an honest jury had been sent to prison for acquitting him had been held in special honour by Penn, was elevated into judicial power, and some special laws for the protection of orphan children, and of the unfortunate generally, most beneficial and necessary in

an infant community, were added to the simple charter. This brief document was, as soon as completed, published, along with a description of the natural advantages of the new settlement, its climate and fertility and space, and circulated far and wide. America was no longer an unknown country, the last resource of men in despair. So many as twenty thousand Englishmen had got themselves established there before the fate of Charles I. had been accomplished; and it was with none of the shiverings of the first pilgrims, setting out towards the unknown, but rather with the eagerness of men who saw before them an excellent chance of making their fortunes, that the new world beyond the seas was regarded.

When the letter of the Quaker managers and trustees was thus spread abroad, offers came from every part of the country for lots in the new colony. Two companies consisting of Friends were established at once for the purpose of sending out settlers, and to one of these a tenth part of the whole land was allotted. A curious anecdote is told of the setting out of the first ship, which carried the commissioners appointed by Penn and the other trustees to set the colony agoing, along with a considerable number of emigrants. While it lay in the Thames, just about to set sail, the king's barge passed by. King Charles saw the group upon the decks and the solemn bustle of departure, and with that good humour and friendliness which in a monarch covers a multitude of sins had himself rowed alongside, to ascertain where the travellers were going. When he was told their destination and intention he asked if they were all Quakers: then gave them 'his blessing,'