Chapter IX

Death of his Dissolute Son William—Penn’s Last Illness and Mental Decline—His Death and Will

The younger William Penn meanwhile had gone from bad to worse, to the bitter disappointment of his father, who after the untimely death of his first-born had placed all his hopes on this unworthy son. After having entirely estranged his family by his excesses, he entered the army in defiance of his father’s principles, but resigned soon after when an opening offered for election to Parliament. Failing to accomplish this, however, he abandoned his wife and children and went to the continent, where he led a life of riotous adventure in the various capitals till his death in 1720.

It may have been the arrival of some distressing news about this degenerate son that led to the apoplectic stroke with which Penn was seized early in the year 1712 and which in his feeble state of health was a serious matter, although he rallied for a time sufficiently to be able to occupy himself with colonial affairs. The question of slavery was much on his mind. He had become more and more convinced of its inhumanity and sinfulness and had great hopes of securing its abolition, as the untiring efforts of the German settlers had secured the passage of a law forbidding the importation of any more slaves.

This first stroke, however, was soon followed by two more which left him a wreck physically and mentally. The devoted care of his wife and children helped to avert any immediate danger to his life, but the brilliant mind was hopelessly shattered. He became like a child, serene and peaceful fortunately, playing about the house or garden most of the time with his own young children and those of his son, whom with their deserted mother he had taken into his own home at Rushcombe. Occasionally there would be lucid moments when he was able to converse intelligently, and then the placid smile would vanish from his lips at the sight of his wife’s care-worn face and the realization of the burdens she had to bear not only in the management of family affairs, but also to keep up the extensive correspondence required by colonial matters.

In this condition Penn lived on for five long years, sometimes able to recognize his old friends when they came to see him and even exchange a few intelligible words with them, but toward the end the power both of speech and memory failed him. On the thirtieth of May, 1718, he passed away quietly and peacefully at the age of seventy-four, after a life of ceaseless devotion to the service of God and the welfare of humanity.

In a will made while still in full possession of his mental faculties, Penn left the following directions: His son William, having already squandered the money left him by his deceased mother as her family inheritance, was debarred from any share in the estate, the English property, yielding at that time an annual revenue of some fifteen hundred pounds, passing to his children instead. To each of the grandchildren, as well as his daughter Letty, he bequeathed ten thousand acres of the best land still unsold in Pennsylvania, and after disposing of enough more of this land to pay the expenses of his burial, the remainder was to be divided among his five children by his second wife, Hannah Callowhill, who was made executor with an annuity of three hundred pounds. The management of his colonial affairs he entrusted to his two friends the Earls of Oxford and Pawlett, with orders to dispose of his right of possession on the most favorable terms possible, either to the English crown or elsewhere, the proceeds to be invested for the benefit of these children.

Penn had arranged his worldly affairs with his usual wisdom and foresight. While it might appear by the terms of the will that he had shown a preference for his son William’s children by leaving them the English property with its assured returns, his own receiving only the doubtful American possessions which of late had yielded a revenue of little more than five hundred pounds a year, yet as a matter of fact it was quite the reverse; for during the twenty years of peace and prosperity that followed the French and Indian war the value of the colonial property increased enormously. In 1797 the government of Pennsylvania paid the descendants of William Penn the sum of one hundred and thirty thousand pounds for their rights of ownership, exclusive of all personal properties, as well as back-standing payments and rents due from the sale of lands left them by the founder of the State; while in England they also received the additional sum of five hundred thousand pounds voted by Parliament as indemnity for the losses suffered by him.

The body of William Penn was laid to rest beside those of his first wife and their eldest son in the quiet churchyard of the village of Jordan in Buckinghamshire. Hundreds came from far and near to pay their last respects to the noble Quaker, and it needed not the eulogies pronounced over his grave to proclaim to the world that a great and good man had passed away.

APPENDIX

The following is a chronological statement of the more important events in William Penn’s life:

1644 Birth 1658 Death of Oliver Cromwell 1659 Penn enters Oxford 1660 Expulsion from Oxford 1660 Visits Germany 1664 War between England and Holland 1665 Penn in the naval service 1667 Adopts the Quaker faith 1668 Begins preaching 1670 Penn’s arrest 1672 Marriage 1673 Fresh Quaker persecutions 1677 Visits Holland 1681 Royal cession of land to Penn 1682 Penn goes to America 1682 Founding of Philadelphia 1682 Treaty made with the Indians 1683 The new constitution accepted 1684 Penn returns to England 1685 Death of Charles the Second 1688 Dethronement of James 1696 Second marriage 1699 Penn returns to America 1701 Penn goes back to England 1702 Penn imprisoned for debt 1710 Penn retires to private life 1718 Death of William Penn

LIFE STORIES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

_Translated from the German by_ GEORGE P. UPTON

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