The Tryal of William Penn & William Mead for Causing a Tumult Part 1

The Tryal of William Penn and William Mead.

by Various.

FOREWORD

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity have been preached through all time but it was left for William Penn, the Quaker, to come nearer establis.h.i.+ng the ideal of this Trinity than any other being called Human before or since his day.

It may be argued that more was due to the Faith he held than to the Man.

Yet this must be answered that it took some more than ordinary Man to absorb and fulfill the requirements of such a Faith. There have been many Quakers and but one Penn!

Born on the 15th of October, 1644, in the angry days of the Roundhead Revolt, his early years were spent in an intensely religious atmosphere that saturated his soul, but at the same time bred detestation of bigotry and persecution. If he seemed to be performing out of his cla.s.s because of his family's eminence, it should be recalled that this was acquired, not inherited. His father, Admiral Sir William Penn, was the son of Giles Penn, a merchant navigator trading into the Mediterranean, and his wife Margaret Jasper, daughter of Hans Jasper, a sea trader of Rotterdam: From these forbears the youth received independence of thought and firmness of mind.

He was therefore less of an anomaly than he appeared to be.

The rigid religious rule of Cromwell, under which he had spent his youthful years, had pa.s.sed and in its stead befell a period of loose living and easy ways. Puritanism, though speaking and acting in the name of Liberty, possessed but little of that quality either for mind or body. In setting up for the great cause he fared as well, or better, with all his persecutions, than did his Quaker brethren in that New England which had been founded for opinion's sake.

Entering Oxford at fifteen the boy soon fell under the influence of Thomas Loe, a preacher of Quaker doctrine and became imbued with his teachings.

This clashed at once with his surroundings and the College requirements. He refused to attend chapel or to wear the customary gown, deeming it a sort of surplice. A little group of students who had accepted Loe's principles joined him in this obduracy, going so far as to strip the gowns from the persons of willing wearers. This led to his expulsion.

Samuel Pepys mentions him in his diary on October 31st, 1661, as having "but come from Oxford" and meeting his father at Pepys' house. On the 25th of January, 1662, the Admiral discussed with Pepys a plan for sending his son to Cambridge or some private college. Pepys undertook to write Dr.

Fairbrother and inquire into the merits of Hezekiah Burton at Magdalen, as an instructor for the difficult youth. It was impossible to fit him into any school under the dominion of the Church of England and in wrath his father forbade him the house. His mother interceded, with the result that he was sent to Europe for the grand tour, presumably with outward success, for on August 6, 1664, Mrs. Pepys informs Samuel that "Mr. Pen, Sir William's son, is come back from France and come to visit her. A most modish person, grown, she says, a fine gentleman."

After dinner on the 30th of the same month "comes Mr. Pen to visit me, and staid an hour talking with me. I perceive something of learning he has got, but a great deal, if not too much of the vanity of the French garb and affected manner of speech and gait. I fear all real profit he hath made of his travel will signify little."

The home coming soon stripped Penn of the "vanity of the French garb,"

and he became once more a problem. He tried the study of law, but could not interest himself in it. To keep him out of the way and repress his dangerous thoughts he was given the management in 1665, of an estate owned by the Admiral in Ireland, where he went and did as he pleased, falling in again with Thomas Loe and resuming his Quaker views. December 29th, 1667, Pepys records a call from Mrs. Turner "...and there, among other talk, she tells me that Mr. William Pen, who is lately come over from Ireland, is a Quaker again, or some very melancholy thing; that he cares for no company, nor comes into any; which is a pleasant thing, after his being abroad so long, and his father such a hypocritical rogue and at this time an Atheist."

This return he signalized by intense activity in pressing Quakerism upon the public, to the vexation of his father who was one of the notables of England, as Admiral both under Cromwell and the King. He had commanded the fleet of the Lord Protector which wrested the rich Island of Jamaica from Spain and as one of the three commissioners of the Navy, laid the foundation for that British fleet which has ever since played so large a part in the history of the world. He was the practical man of the commission, from whom James, Duke of York, afterwards, and very briefly King, took most of his advice. He reformed the higgledy-piggledy naval tactics of the time and taught the commanders to attack the enemy in line, the most important change in the sea annals of his country. Knighted in 1665 for service against the Dutch he failed of the peerage because of the public prejudice against his son, which deterred the King from giving him an honor as high as he deserved. As Clerk of the Acts, Pepys was much in contact with him socially and officially. The famous diary teems with references, many of them convivial, others most unkind. He was faithful to the commonwealth as long as it was faithful to itself. Perceiving that it could not hold together after the death of Cromwell he joined with George Monk in bringing about the restoration of the Stuarts.

Against this background of paternal distinction, the young reformer shone invidiously and brought his father great chagrin by his a.s.sociation with carpenters and weavers in their non-conformist agitations. He preached in poor halls and in the streets. The newspaper, not having arrived, he took to pamphleteering to spread his doctrines. This activity reached a crisis in 1669. Writing in his diary under date of February 12, 1669, Pepys says: "...Felling hath got me W. Pen's book against the Trinity. I got my wife to read it to me; and I find it so well writ as, I think, it is too good for him ever to have writ it, and it is a serious sort of book not fit for everybody to read."

The extended t.i.tle of this work was "The Sandy Foundation Shaken--or those ...Doctrines of one G.o.d subsisting in three distinct and separate persons; the impossibility of G.o.d's pardoning persons by an imputative refuted from the authority of scripture testimonies and right reason," etc.

It was a drastic review of the doctrine of the Trinity and as the t.i.tle implies, undertook to prove that the majestic edifice of the State Church was not founded upon a rock. It created much excitement and speedily landed its author in the Tower. Here he remained nine months, unrepentant and writing more pious sedition, to wit: "No Cross No Crown," and "Innocency With Her Open Face." These were further polemics against Episcopacy.

The King having no heart for persecution, and the Duke of York, who was a firm friend, contrived to have the prisoner released on the 4th of August and turned over to his father to be transported to some spot where he would be less troublesome. This plan was not seriously carried out. Indeed the Admiral's days were numbered. He died after a year's illness, on the 16th of September, 1670.

Penn's prominence and influence increased with the death of his father. It was plain that no ordinary mind directed his actions. Respect followed.

He took much part in public matters and as umpire in a dispute between Fenwick and Byllinge, two Quakers, over some land rights in New Jersey, he developed an interest in the New World and planned to found in it a place of refuge for those persecuted in Old and New England for opinion's sake.

This desire was readily carried out. By fortunate chance the Crown owed Admiral Penn's estate some $80,000. To pay this debt and be rid of an agitator, the shrewd King made an easy adjustment in 1681 by handing over to the heir a vast province between the Delaware and the Ohio, in return for an annual tribute of two beaver skins, to be paid for ninety-nine years.

Here the idealist created his elysium and came as close to making one as the curious animal he sought to benefit would permit. The King set forth in writing the Grant that it was due "the memory and merits of Sir William Penn in divers services, and particularly his conduct, courage and discretion under our dearest brother, James, Duke of York, in that signal battle and victory fought and obtained against the Dutch fleet commanded by the Heer Van Opdam, in 1665."

Not to be outdone by his Royal brother, James threw in the Province of Delaware to which he held the fee, "out of a special regard to the memory and many faithful and eminent services heretofore performed by the said Sir William Penn to his Majesty and Royal Highness." This under date of August 21st, 1682.

It was Penn's purpose to call his Paradise Sylvania, because of its wooded vales, but the King, with his obligation to the Admiral well in mind neatly prefixed "Penn" to the fanciful selection and it became justly and rightly "Pennsylvania" not in memory of William, but of his valiant father.

Charles II was an able politician and understood human nature. Often accused of ingrat.i.tude and seldom deserving the charge, with a willingness to perform a good action as readily as a bad one, he acted perhaps in languid memory of the mistake made by his heedless father when he stayed the departure of Cromwell for the New World, where he had resolved to go "and never see England more,"--determining that there should be no repet.i.tion of history so far as he was concerned by repressing a zealot in narrow quarters near home.

Thus Charles for once at least, belied the couplet scrawled upon his chamber door by the ribald Earl of Rochester:

Here lies our sovereign lord the King Whose word no man relies on; He never says a foolish thing Nor ever does a wise one.

His sayings, Charles aptly replied, were his own; his acts those of his ministers. He ordered well indeed when he placed Penn where he did in the New World and he meant wisely when he decreed that the red races should possess, free and forever, the lands beyond the Alleghanies. With Penn's venture we need have no more to do than to recall that so long as his control lasted or his wishes extended, the Pennsylvania Indians and their cousins of New York and Ohio, were at peace with the whites; that his words and those of his agents were trusted; that Pennsylvania sheltered the persecuted Palatines and that the Liberty Bell first rang in the city he had named Philadelphia--the City of Brotherly Love!

The Trial here recited began in London, on the first of September, 1670, a fortnight before his father's death, while the disturbance of which it was the outgrowth, occurred on the fourth of August preceding.

The text is repeated from the report embedded in the second volume of the four great folios, comprising "A Compleat Collection of State Tryals,"

covering the period of English justice and injustice from the reign of King Henry the Fourth to the end of that of Anne, printed for six venturesome London booksellers, Timothy Goodwin, John Walthoe, Benjamin Tooke, John Darby, Jacob Tonson, and John Walthoe, Junior, in 1719, where is found this first record of a legal effort to punish free speech among the English race--and by the same token to vindicate it. Reported by the accused, it no less reads fair. The "Observer" whose comments interlard and conclude the "Tryal" was Penn. It was a rare proceeding in which both prisoners and jury ended up in jail for their obduracy in maintaining that right to speak as we may, which is still one of the most difficult to maintain, and yet remains the foundation of human liberty.

D. C. S.

COS COB, CONN.,

March 15, 1919.

THE TRYAL of WILLIAM PENN _and_ WILLIAM MEAD, _at the Sessions held at the_ Old Baily _in_ London, _the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th of_ September, _1670.

Done by themselves_.

PRESENT

SAM. STARLING, _Mayor_

THO. HOWEL, _Recorder_.

THO. BLOODWORTH, _Alderman_.

WILLIAM PEAK, _Alderman_.

JOHN ROBINSON, _Alderman_.

RICHARD FORD, _Alderman_.

JOSEPH SHELDEN, _Alderman_.

JOHN SMITH, JAMES EDWARDS, RICHARD BROWNE, _Sheriffs_.

CRYER. O Yes, _Thomas Veer, Edward Bushel, John Hammond, Charles Milson, Gregory Walklet, John Brightman, William Plumsted, Henry Henley, Thomas Damask, Henry Michel, William Lever, John Baily_.

The Form of the OATH.

"You shall well and truly Try, and true Deliverance make betwixt our Sovereign Lord the King, and the Prisoners at the Bar, according to your Evidence.

_So help you G.o.d_."