who were in the Assembly in 1709 were chosen, but the house retained its last Speaker. Governor Gookin informed them, that the Proprietary had desired him to signify to them the pleasure which their harmonious conduct of late had given him, and that he should be glad to serve the people of the Province; and that he left it to themselves to think of the means that might best conduce to their own quiet and interest. He offered, at the same time, his own ready concurrence to any thing of that nature which they should propose, consistent with the honour and interest of the Crown, of the Proprietary, and of the public welfare. He concluded his address to them by recommending them to think of a proper provision for his own support.

In return to this, the Assembly acknowledged the kind regard of the Froprietor towards them; they thanked the Governor for his own readiness to concur in the propositions of the latter, and they promised to take care of his support; which they did afterwards to his satisfaction.

But here it will be necessary to conclude our history of the Province: for William Penn having lost, in a great degree, his memory and understanding, by an apoplectic fit, in the ensuing year, we can have no motive for continuing it. While he was in his health and senses we saw him move and act. We saw him advise and direct. We took, therefore, an interest in what he did. But, when he was rendered incapable of acting, we lose our interest with his powers. And the same may be said relative to himself; for, when he was rendered incapable of his usual perceptions, the Province became as dead to him, in point of interest, as without his movements and motives it becomes to us.

CHAPTER XLI.

DECLINES - ACCOUNT

A. 1713-14-15-16-17-18.-GRADUALLY

OF

HIM

DURING THIS PERIOD-DIES AT RUSHCOMB-CONCOURSE OF PEOPLE AT HIS FUNERAL-MALEVOLENT REPORT CONCERNING HIM AFTER HIS DEATH — CERTIFICATES OF SIMON CLEMENT AND HANNAH MITCHELL-SHORT ACCOUNT OF HIS WILL.

THE account which we have of William Penn from this time, though authentic as far as it goes, is very short. It is stated, in Besse's History of his Life, that one of his intimate friends visited him once every year from the present period; and it is chiefly from him-that is, from the memorandums he left behind him of these visits-that I have been enabled to continue it.

In 1713 the Friend alluded to, being at his house some days, "found

bim, to appearance, pretty well in health, and cheerful of disposition, but defective in memory; so that, though he could relate many past transactions, yet he could not readily recollect the names of absent persons, nor could he deliver his words so readily as heretofore: yet, many savoury and sensible expressions came from him, rendering his company even yet acceptable, and manifesting the religious stability of his mind."

The same friend, in his second visit, which he made to him in the spring of 1714, found him very little altered from what he had been last year. He accompanied him in his carriage to Reading meeting. He describes him as rising up there to exhort those present; as speaking several sensible sentences, though not able to say much; and, on leaving the meeting to return home, as taking leave of his friends with much tenderness. This, as I observed before, was in the spring; but we learn something more concerning him from another quarter in the autumn of the same year. His old friend, Thomas Story, arrived at this time in England, and went to Rushcomb to see him. The account he gives of him is as follows:-" He was then," says Thomas Story, "under the lamentable effects of an apoplectic fit, which he had had some time before; for his memory was almost quite lost, and the use of his understanding suspended, so that he was not so conversible as formerly, and yet as near the Truth, in the love of it, as before, wherein appeared the great mercy and favour of God, who looks not as man looks; for, though to some this accident might look like judgment, and, no doubt, his enemies so accounted it, yet it will bear quite another interpretation, if it be considered how little time of rest he ever had from the importunities of the affairs of others, to the great hurt of his own and suspension of all his enjoyments, till this happened to him, by which he was rendered incapable of all business, and yet sensible of the enjoyment of Truth as at any time in all his life. When I went to the house I thought myself strong enough to see him in that condition; but, when I entered the room, and perceived the great defect of his expressions for want of memory, it greatly bowed my spirit under a consideration of the uncertainty of all human qualifications, and what the finest of men are soon reduced to by a disorder of the organs of that body, with which the soul is connected and acts during this present mode of being. When these are but a little obstructed in their various functions, a man of the clearest parts and finest expression becomes scarcely intelligible. Nevertheless, no insanity or lunacy at all appeared in his actions; and his mind was in an innocent state, as appeared by his very loving deportment to all that came near him; and that he had still a good sense of Truth is plain by some very clear sentences he spoke in the life and power of Truth in an evening meeting we had together there, wherein we were greatly comforted; so that I was ready to think this was a sort of sequestration of him from all the concerns of this life, which so much oppressed him, not in judgment, but in mercy, that he might have rest, and not be oppressed thereby to the end."

In 1715 his intimate friend before alluded to again visited him. His memory, it appears, had become yet more deficient, but his love and sense of religious enjoyments apparently continued; for he still often went in his chariot to the meeting at Reading, and there sometimes uttered short but very sound and savoury expressions. One morning, while this friend was at his house, being about to go to the meeting, he expressed his desire to the Lord that they might receive some good from him. This year he went to Bath, but the waters there proved of no benefit to his long-continued complaint.

In 1716 the same friend and another visited him again, at whose coming he seemed glad; and though he could not then remember their names, yet by his answers it appeared he knew their persons. He was now much weaker than last year, but still expressed himself sensible at times, and particularly took his leave of them at their going away in these words:"My love is with you; the Lord preserve you, and remember me in the everlasting Covenant."

In 1717 his friend made his last visit to him. He then found his understanding so much weakened, that he scarce knew his old acquaintances; and his bodily strength so much decayed, that he could not well walk without leading, nor scarce express himself intelligibly.

We learn from this account of his friend, combined with that of Thomas Story, that his decay was gradual; and that, though his frame had been so grievously shattered and impaired, his existence under it had been left comfortable. He had sufficient sense and understanding left to exhibit the outward appearance of innocence and love, and the inward one of the enjoyment of the Deity himself by an almost constant communion with his Holy Spirit.

In the year 1718 the forementioned history of his life continues the account thus:-"After a continued and gradual declension for about six years his body now drew near to its dissolution, and on the thirtieth day of the fifth month (July), 1718, between two and three in the morning, in the seventy-fourth year of his age, his soul, prepared for a more glorious habitation, forsook the decayed tabernacle, which was committed to the earth on the fifth of the sixth month following, at Jordans, in Buckinghamshire, where his former wife and several of his family had been interred. And as he had led in this life a course of patient continuance in well-doing, and through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ had been enabled to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, the grand enemies of man's salvation, he is, we doubt not, admitted to that everlasting inheritance which God hath prepared for his people, and made partaker of the promise of Christ, Rev. iii. 21, To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am sit down with my Father in his throne.'"

His funeral was attended by a large concourse of people from all parts, by many of the most valued of the society, and by many of different religious

denominations, to pay this last tribute of respect to him. Among the former was Thomas Story. "I arrived," says Thomas Story, "at Rushcomb late in the evening, where I found the widow and most of the family together. My coming occasioned a fresh remembrance of the deceased, and also a renewed flood of many tears from all eyes. A solid time (of worship) we had together, but few words among us for some time; for it was a deep baptising season, and the Lord was near at that time. On the fifth I accompanied the corpse to the grave, where we had a large meeting; and as the Lord had made choice of him in the days of his youth for great and good services -had been with him in many dangers and difficulties of various sorts, and did not leave him in his last moments- -so he was pleased to honour this occasion with his blessed presence, and gave us a happy season of his goodness to the general satisfaction of all."

After his funeral, as if malevolence had not sufficiently harassed him in life, a report got abroad that he had died mad at Bath. The report spreading, Henry Pickworth, who had been formerly a minister among the Quakers but disowned by them, availed himself of it, if he did not invent it, to wound the feelings of the latter. Accordingly, so late even as twelve. years after his death, that is, in 1730, he published a letter, in which he stated the two circumstances before mentioned; and, in adverting to the lunacy, he described it to be "of the nature of Nebuchadnezzar's of old, which terminated in rage and madness before the end of his days." Joseph Besse, in his "Answer to Patrick Smith, M.A., a clergyman of Huntingdonshire," notices the two charges, and repels them thus:-"But if," says he "he was never lunatic nor mad, and did not end his days at Bath, then here are two falsehoods in fact.” After this, he produced two certificates, to establish the falsehoods; one from Simon Clement, a gentleman who had been an intimate acquaintance of William Penn, and the other from Hannah Mitchell, of St Martin's-le-grand, London. The former ran thus :

"He was, indeed," says Mr. Clement, "attacked with a kind of apopletic fit in London, in the month of May, 1712, from which he recovered, and did go to the Bath and from thence to Bristol, where he had a second fit about September following; and in about three months after he had the third fit at his own house at Rushcomb, which impaired his memory, so that, though he knew his friends well who came to visit him, and rejoiced to see them, yet he could not hold any discourse with them, or even call them by their names. But this was so far from any show of lunacy, that his actions were regular and orderly, and nothing appeared in his behaviour but a loving, meek, quiet, easy temper, and a childish innocence, which to me seemed a great indication of his having been in a very happy frame of spirit at the time when he was surprised with this indisposition; under which he continued (but otherwise in a pretty good state of health) till the month of July, 1718, when he was taken with a fever, of which he died (not at the Bath) but at his own house at Rushcomb, in Berkshire, but without ever having had any symptoms

P

raying or madness, though the same is wickedly affirmed by this false witness Henry Pickworth."

The second was as follows:-"I think fit to acquaint the world, that the late account given by Henry Pickworth concerning my worthy master, William Penn, is notoriously false. I had the honour to wait on him from the beginning of his last indisposition, which was a palsie, occasioned by a third apopletic fit."

By his last will, made in 1712, a few months before his first attack of apoplexy, he left his estates in England and Ireland to William, his eldest surviving son by Gulielma Maria, his first wife, and to the issue of that marriage, which then consisted of his said son William, his daughter Letitia (married to William Aubrey), and three children of his son William, namely, Gulielma Maria, Springett, and William. The government of his Province of Pennsylvania and Territories, and powers thereunto belonging, he devised to his particular friends, Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, and Earl Mortimer, and William, Earl Powlett, and their heirs, upon trust, to dispose thereof to the Queen or any other person to the best advantage they could, to be applied in such manner as he should hereafter direct. He then devised to his wife Hannah Penn, together with eleven others, and to their heirs, all his lands, rents, and other profits in America, upon trust, to dispose of so much thereof as should be sufficient to discharge all his debts, and, after payment thereof, to convey to his daughter Letitia, and to each of three children before mentioned of his son William, ten thousand acres of land (the forty thousand to be set out in such places as his trustees should think fit), and then to convey all the rest of his landed property there, subject to the payment of three hundred pounds a-year to his wife for her natural life, to and amongst his children by her (John, Thomas, Margaret, Richard, and Dennis, all minors), and in such proportions and for such estates as his said wife should think fit. All his personal estate in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and arrears of rent due there, he devised to his said wife, whom he made his sole executrix, for the equal benefit of her and her children.

William Penn having made this, his last will, in 1712, and afterwards agreed, as before related, to part with the Province to government for 12,000l., a question arose, after his decease, whether what was devised to the said Earls to be sold should, as then circumstanced, be accounted part of the real or of the personal estate of the testator (the latter by the will being the property of the widow)? The two Earls, in consequence, declined to act in their trust without a decree of the Court of Chancery for their indemnity. This process, together with other difficulties that had arisen, kept the property of the family in a perplexing state of uncertainty for about eight or nine years. At length, however, all the disputed points were amicably adjusted by the respective parties interested, amongst themselves, before any decree had issued; and, in pursuance thereof, not only the Province itself, but also the government of it, descended to John,