NOTE.

IN the first edition of William Penn' appeared an Extra Chapter on the charges brought by Macaulay against Penn. The five specific censures were confronted with the actual names and dates, and every fact alleged as ground for censure was shown to be no fact at all. With a consent most rare in matters of this kind, the press accepted this defence, and almost every one expected that the calumnies would be withdrawn.

On some points he gave way; especially as to William Kiffin and the Prince of Orange.

In his first edition he had represented Penn as being employed by the heartless and venal sycophants of Whitehall' to seduce Kiffin into the acceptance of an alderman's gown, and failing to induce that sturdy Baptist to comply. I met this statement with the words of Kiffin; words which proved that Penn was not employed in the work of seduction; and that Kiffin did accept 'an alderman's gown.' Macaulay fenced with the first citation, but the second smote him, and he added to his text that Kiffin took the alderman's gown.

In his first edition he had said in reference to the Prince of Orange: 'All men were anxious to know what he thought of the declaration. . . . . Penn sent copious disquisitions to the Hague, and even went thither in the hope that his eloquence, of which he had a high opinion, would prove irre

sistible.'

was true.

NOTE

It was shown that not a word in this paragraph Penn sent no copious disquisitions to the Hague in 1687. He did not go over in the hope that his eloquence would prove irresistible. He did not go at all.

irresistible.

Macaulay

drew his pen across this passage; replacing what was proved to be a falsehood by a sneer.

My hope was that Macaulay would in time withdraw his charges as disproved. I had some reason for this hope. His mind was racked by doubts, and he was often busy with this portion of his book. It is within my knowledge that his latest thoughts on earth were given to Penn and that which he had said of Penn. Some part of what he might have done, the world can guess from what he did. He ceased the work of calumny. In what he wrote after 1857, there is not a single sneer at Penn. His indexes were greatly changed. He struck out much that was false, and more that was abusive. Penn's Jacobitism was no longer scandalous,' his word was no longer a 'falsehood.' Penn

6

was no longer charged with treasonable conduct,' with 'flight to France,' and with renewing his plots.' What else Macaulay might have done can only be surmised; but it is fair to think that changes in his index would have been followed by amendments in his text. I know that he was far from satisfied with his 'Notes' of 1857, and that he was engaged in reconsidering the defence of Penn when he leaned back in his chair and died.

Unhappily he passed away, and made no other sign. The accusations in his text remain: and it is only just that the defence of Penn, extended and adapted to the present time, should reappear.

LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN.

CHAPTER I.

OLD AND NEW FORTUNES (1644).

THE Penns of Penn were an old family, living in Bucks during the wars of the Red and White Roses, three or four miles from the town of Beaconsfield, in the parish from which they seem to have got their

name.

away.

These Penns of Penn have long since passed

In very old times a branch of this family removed to the north of Wiltshire, where they held a small estate in land, a hundred pounds a-year, on the skirts of Bradon forest, on the borders of the shire. Their seat was called Penn's Lodge, a 'genteel, ancient house,' and in the town of Minety, across the border, they had a second house. The last of these old Penns of Bradon forest was William Penn of Penn's Lodge and Minety, who survived his only son, also a William Penn, and dying in 1591 at a great age, was buried in Minety Church, near the altar. On the old man's death the property was sold to pay his

B