Richard S. Dunn - The World Of William Penn

The World of
WILLIAM PENN

PENN

edited by Richard S. Dunn
and Mary Maples Dunn

Preparation and publication of this volume has been assisted by the Philadelphia Center for Early American Studies

Copyright 1986 by the University of Pennsylvania Press

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The World of William Penn

Bibliography: p.

Includes index.

1. Penn, William, 16441718. 2. PennsylvaniaHistoryColonial period, ca. 16001775. 3. QuakersPennsylvaniaHistory. 4. PioneersPennsylvaniaBiography. 5. QuakersPennsylvaniaBiography. 6. QuakersEnglandHistory17th century. I. Dunn, Richard S. II. Dunn, Mary Maples.

F152.2.W65 1986 974.8020924 [B] 866970

ISBN 0-8122-8020-2

Designed by Adrianne Onderdonk Dudden

To our fellow editors of
The Papers of William Penn:

Edwin Bronner
David Fraser
Alison Hirsch
Craig Horle
Richard Ryerson
Jean Soderlund
Scott Wilds
Joy Wiltenburg
Marianne Wokeck

MARY MAPLES DUNN

HUGH BARBOUR

RICHARD S. DUNN

J. R. JONES

CAROLINE ROBBINS

JOAN THIRSK

CAROLE SHAMMAS

MICHAEL J. GALGANO

NICHOLAS CANNY

RICHARD T. VANN

STEPHEN SAUNDERS WEBB

FRANCIS JENNINGS

BARRY LEVY

NED LANDSMAN

MARIANNE S. WOKECK

MELVIN B. ENDY, JR.

J. WILLIAM FROST

EDWIN B. BRONNER

GARY B. NASH

JACOB M. PRICE

APS

American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia

BL

British Library, London

CCRO

Chester County Record Office, Chester, England

CSPD

Anne Everett Green, et al, eds., Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 16031704, 85 vols. (London, 1857-1972).

CUCRO

Cumbria County Record Office, Carlisle, Cumbria, England

DNB

Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, eds., Dictionary of National Biography, 63 vols., plus supplements (New York and London, 1885-1900)

FLL

Library of the Religious Society of Friends, London

GSP

Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

HCL

Haverford College Library, Haverford, Pennsylvania

HMC

Historical Manuscripts Commission

HSP

Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

JFHS

Journal of the Friends Historical Society (London)

LCRO

Lancashire County Record Office, Preston, Lancashire, England

Micro.

The Papers of William Penn, Microfilm edition, Historical Society of Pennsylvania (1975), fourteen reels plus guide. References are to reel and frame

Minutes of the Provincial Council

Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1852)

NLW

National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire, Wales

NNRO

Norfolk and Norwich Record Office, Norwich, Norfolk, England

PA

Samuel Hazard, et al, eds., Pennsylvania Archives (Philadelphia and Harrisburg, 1852 )

Penn, Select Works

William Penn, Select Works, 4th ed., 3 vols. (London, 1825; reprint, New York, 1971)

Penn, Works

[Joseph Besse, ed.], A Collection of the Works of William Penn, 2 vols. (London, 1726; reprint, New York, 1974)

PMHB

Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography

PRO

Public Record Office, London

PWP

Mary Maples Dunn and Richard S. Dunn, eds., The Papers of William Penn (Philadelphia, 1981 ); multivolume series in progress

TCD

Trinity College Library, Dublin

Thirsk, Agrarian History, 4

H. P. R. Finberg, ed., The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. 4, 1500-1640, ed. Joan Thirsk (Cambridge, 1967)

Thirsk, Agrarian History, 5

H. P. R. Finberg, ed., The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. 5, pt. I, 16401750, ed. Joan Thirsk (Cambridge, 1984); vol. 5, pt. II, 16401750, ed. Joan Thirsk (Cambridge, 1985).

Tolles, Meeting House

Frederick B. Tolles, Meeting House and Counting House: The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia, 16821763 (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1948)

Vann, Development of Quakerism

Richard Vann, The Social Development of English Quakerism, 16551755 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969)

WCRO

Westmorland County Record Office, Kendal, Eng.

WMQ

William and Mary Quarterly

William Penn was incontestably one of the seminal figures of the late seventeenth century. He played a crucial role in protecting and sustaining the Quaker movement during its worst period of persecution; he was a major writer of religious, political, and didactic treatises; he championed religious toleration, civil rights, participatory government, interracial brotherhood, and international peace at a time when all of these noble causes were thoroughly unpopular; he participated conspicuously in English public life, parading his heterodox opinions for four decades; and he founded a thriving colony, arguably the most successful colony in America. Yet Penn has never been an easy person to understand or appreciate. Partly this is because he combined so many seemingly contradictory attibutes: he was at one time or another a rebellious son, a doting parent, a persecuted martyr, a deferential courtier, a religious enthusiast, a political lobbyist, a patrician gentleman, a weighty Friend, a polemical disputant, a sententious moralist, a shrewd entrepreneur, an improvident spendthrift, a visionary idealist, and an absentee landlord. Penns Quakerism has generally mystified or irritated the secular-minded observers of his career. Penns close association with the autocratic and impolitic James II has sullied his credentials as a political liberal. And Penns sojourn in debtors prison has raised embarrassing doubts about his basic competence and practical sense.

There are other obstacles to understanding this man. He was truly a hybrid Anglo-American, the only major actor on the seventeenth-century colonial scene whose achievements in the Old World were approximately equivalent in significance to his achievements in the New World. Penns counterparts in Massachusetts such as John Winthrop and John Cotton, or in Virginia such as Captain John Smith and Sir William Berkeley, had very peripheral careers in England by comparison. And none of the other lords proprietor who founded colonies in the New World, nor the royal governors who came over to represent the crown, had anything like his personal impact in America. This means that the historian must take a transatlantic view of William Penn and follow his activities on both sides of the ocean, for his successes and failures in England and in America were always closely interrelated.

Furthermore, Penns milieu was exceptionally wide and variegated, and his circle of acquaintance was very large. He lived simultaneously in a Quaker world and in a non-Quaker world, and he knew personally many hundred people in both worlds. He preferred the country to the city, but spent much of his life in London, Bristol, Dublin, and Philadelphia. He was a south-of-England man, but journeyed a number of times to the dark corners of northern Britain, where many Quakers lived. He made four long visits to Ireland and lived nearly a decade there altogether, more than twice the time he spent in Pennsylvania. He made several lengthy trips to France, Holland, and Germany. All of these travels are important in understanding his career, for Penns experiences in the various regions of the British Isles and in Europe all helped to shape his actions as a colonizer in America. Thus anyone who studies this extraordinarily energetic man needs to recreate the multifaceted seventeenth-century environment in which he lived and worked.