family man, he thought it right to have a house of his own, besides Shangarry Castle in county Cork; and after looking through the lovely southern shires, he fixed on Worminghurst, in Sussex; as a high and healthy spot, seven miles from Shoreham, with noble timber in the park, and air kept fresh by breezes from the sea. For this estate he paid four thousand five hundred pounds; and got a bargain in it, since the surplus wood was worth, as he supposed, two thousand pounds. Sydney had a place in the neighbourhood. On this noble Sussex down Penn nursed his first-born son, and perfected his frame of government for a Free State.

When this document was finished, the trustees met and resolved on its publication in the shape of a letter, which they signed. A brief description of the soil, air, climate, natural productions, and other features of West New Jersey followed; and it is characteristic of Penn that he added a cautionary postscript to his countrymen against indulging, without sufficient cause, in the thought of seeking for a new home-of leaving their native land either out of curiosity, from a love of change, or in the spirit of gain. Yet Worminghurst was soon besieged with applications for plots of land in the Free State. Two companies were formed to establish trade and promote emigration, one in Yorkshire, and one in MiddleThe members of the Yorkshire company were chiefly creditors of Billing; as a set-off to their claims, they received from the trustees ten of the original hundred parts of land. By cancelling these

sex.

debts the property was freed.

The purchasers of land at once made preparations for the voyage. Before there was as yet a people in West New Jersey, Penn found it desirable to have an authority, legally constituted, to conduct the enterprise; and with this view he proposed to institute a provisional government-himself selecting some of its members, Fenwick's party and the two companies nominating the other members. Thomas Olive and Daniel Wills were appointed to act as commissioners by the London company; Joseph Helmsly and Robert Stacey by the Yorkshire proprietors; Richard Guy was named on behalf of the former emigrants; and to these were added Benjamin Scott, John Kinsey, and three others. These ten persons were to exercise the powers of the ten commissioners mentioned in the fundamental laws until such time as a popular government, chosen in a legal and orderly way, could be organised, on which their functions were to cease.

Penn organised the emigration, and engaged the good ship Kent, Gregory Marlow, master, to carry out the commissioners, their families and tenants, to the number of two hundred and thirty persons. The vessel was moored high up in the Thames; at the hour fixed for her departure the emigrants went on board accompanied by their friends; and the master was just on the point of weighing anchor, amid the tears and embraces of relatives about to part for ever, when a light and gilded barge was seen to be gliding over the smooth waters towards them. Something in the appearance of the Kent had caught the attention of its occupants, for the boat

men, now seen to be attired in the royal livery, used their oars as if they had been ordered to come alongside. It was the King. He asked the name of the ship and whither it was bound. Being answered, he inquired if the emigrants were all Quakers, to which they answered Yes; on which he gave them his blessing, and pulled away.

Two other vessels followed the Kent; one of them sailed from Hull with a body of emigrants from Yorkshire, the other from London freighted with a hundred and fourteen persons from the southern counties. When the new-comers arrived at their destination, Andros, governor of New York, claimed jurisdiction over them and their territory, justifying his claim by reference to the feudal law and the colonial charter; but both parties fortunately were moderate in their tone, and while the question of rights was referred to the mother country, the Quakers entered into treaties with the natives for the purchase of land, and under a sailcloth, set up in the forest of Burlington, began to assemble for public worship. The native tribes came from their hunting-grounds to confer with these peaceful strangers, who carried purses in their hands to pay for what they required, instead of muskets to seize on it by force. 'You are our brothers,' said the Sachem chiefs, after hearing their proposals, 'and we will live like brothers with you. We will have a broad path for you and us to walk in. If an Englishman falls asleep in this path, the Indian shall him by and say-He is an Englishman; he is asleep; let him alone. The path shall be plain.

pass

There shall not be in it a stump to hurt the feet.' Commenced under such auspices, West New Jersey prospered. Land was sold and cleared. The Sachems kept the peace. The population multiplied. Some letters written by the leaders of their party in England to these happy colonists are still extant; from these it would be inferred that in a very few years West New Jersey had become a new Arcadia -that the Holy Experiment was a safe successthat Penn had realised the State which Sydney had conceived and Harrington had dreamed.

151

CHAPTER XVIII.

WORK AND TRAVEL (1677).

HAVING got his Holy Experiment under shape, Penn turned his thoughts to those Dutch and Rhenish towns in which he had planted Quaker congregations. Not a few of these societies had fallen into bad ways; some were suffering persecution; some were rent by quarrels ; all were anxious for his presence. Those who suffered from their feudal lords were eager to be told about that Free State which he was helping to found in the great deserts beyond the For each he had a message full of hope. The Princess Elizabeth, who held her court at Herwerden, begged her affectionate friend' to pay her a second visit now that his affairs allowed him time.

sea.

Leaving Guli and her child at Worminghurst, he rode to Harwich, where he found George Fox, Robert Barclay, and other Quakers waiting for him. Armed with books and tracts, explanatory of Quaker doctrines, printed in various languages, English, French, Dutch, and German, they took their passage in a ship commanded by one of Admiral Penn's old officers, who out of affection for his former patron let