One reason which induced him to make choice of Ireland for this purpose, was his acquaintance with the Duke of Ormond, who was then lord-lieutenant of that country, as well as with several others who attended his court. The duke himself was a man of a graceful appearance, lively wit, and cheerful temper; and his court had the reputation of great gayety and splendor. The Admiral conceived, therefore, if his son were properly introduced among his friends there, that he might even yet receive a new bias and acquire a new taste. While there he joined the duke's son, the Earl of Arran, in an expedition on which he was sent to put down a mutiny of the garrison at Carrickfergus, and was reported to have "acquitted himself in that action to his no small reputation." He was offered, and seemed inclined to accept, the command of the fort at Kinsale in his father's place; but it appears from the following letter from his father that he did not favor it:

"SON WILLIAM:- -I have received two or three letters from you since I wrote any to you. Besides my former advice I can say nothing but advise to sobriety and all those things that will speak you a Christian and a gentleman, which prudence may make to have the best consistency. As to the tender made by his grace, the lordlieutenant, concerning the fort at Kinsale, I wish your youthful desires may n't outrun your discretion. grace may, for a time, dispense with my absence; yours he will not, for so he told me. God bless, direct, and protect you. Your very affectionate father, W. PENN."

His

But his religious impressions prevailed over the influ ences of court life, and he turned away with disgust from the routine of its parade and ceremonies, and the unsatisfying round of its pleasures and gayeties.

Thus disappointed again in his expectations, but not yet overcome, the Admiral had recourse to another expedient. He had large estates in Ireland, one of which, comprehending Shannigary Castle, lay in the barony of Imokelly, and the others in the baronies of Ibaune and Barryroe, all of them in the county of Cork. He determined, therefore, to give his son the sole management of these, knowing at least, while he resided upon them, that he would be far from his English connections, and at any rate that he would have ample employment for his time. William received his new commission, and was happy in the execution of it. He performed it, after a trial of many months, to the entire satisfaction, and even joy, of his father; and he was going on in the diligent performance of it, when this, his very occupation, brought him eventually into the situation which his father of all others deprecated. Being accidentally on business at Cork, he went into a shop kept by a woman, a Friend, whom he had known when a boy. He made himself known, and reminded her of the meeting held by Thomas Loe at his father's house. On her expressing surprise at his memory of the circumstances, he said he could never forget them, and that he would go a hundred miles to hear that Friend speak. She told him he need not go so far, for he was now in Cork, and was to have a meeting the next day. It was impossible that he could return to his farm without seeing the man whom he considered as his great

est human benefactor, and still more without hearing his discourse. Accordingly he attended. The preacher began with the text: "There is a faith which overcomes the world, and there is a faith which is overcome by the world." On this subject he enlarged, and this in so impressive a manner that William was deeply affected. He felt keenly that he had been allowing the world to overcome the drawings of his Heavenly Father's love, and wept much.

Reviewing his life some years afterwards, in an interview with some pious persons, he says: "I let them know how and when the Lord first appeared unto me, which was about the twelfth year of my age, and how at times, between that and my fifteenth, He continued to visit me, and the divine impressions He gave me of himself; of my persecution at Oxford, and how the Lord sustained me in the midst of the hellish darkness and debauchery of that place; of my being banished the college; the bitter usage I underwent when I returned to my father, whipping, beating, and turning out of doors; of the Lord's dealings with me in France, and in the time of the great plague in London; in fine,. the deep sense He gave me of the vanity of this world and of the irreligiousness of the religions of it; then of my mournful and bitter cries to Him, that He would show me his own way of life and salvation, and my resolution to follow Him whatever reproaches or suffering it might cost me, and that with great reverence and brokenness of spirit. How, after all this, the glory of the world overtook me, and I was even ready to give myself up unto it, seeing as yet no such things as the primitive spirit and church on earth; and

being ready to faint concerning my hope of the restitution of all things.

"It was at this time that the Lord visited me with a certain sound and testimony of his eternal Word, through one of those the world calls Quakers, namely, Thomas Loe. I related the bitter mockings and scornings that fell upon me, the displeasure of my parents, the cruelty and invective of the priests, the strangeness of all my companions, and what a sign and wonder they made of me; but, above all, that great cross of resisting and watching against my own vain affections and thoughts."

William Penn was so impressed by Thomas Loe's sermon, and by an interview which he had afterwards with him, that from that day he favored Friends as a religious body, and began to attend their meetings. At one of these, in the autumn of 1667, he was apprehended on the plea of a proclamation issued in 1660 against tumultuous assemblies, and carried before the mayor. The latter, looking at him and observing that he was not clothed as others of the Society were, offered him his liberty if he would give bond for his good behavior. But not choosing to do this, he was committed with eighteen others to prison.

He had not been there long when he wrote to Lord Orrery, then president of the council of Munster, to request his release. We find in this letter nothing either servile or degrading. It was written, on the other hand, in a manly and yet decorous manner. Religion," says he, "which is at once my crime and mine innocence, makes me a prisoner to a mayor's malice, but mine own free man." "And though to dissent from a national system

imposed by authority renders men heretics, yet I dare believe your lordship is better read in reason and theology than to subscribe a maxim so vulgar and untrue." "But I presume, my lord, the acquaintance you have had with other countries must needs have furnished you with this infallible observation, that diversities of faith and worship contribute not to the disturbance of any place, where moral uniformity is barely requisite to preserve the peace." This, his first appeal for religious toleration, of which the foregoing are a few sentences, was followed by an immediate order from the earl for his release.

The rumor that he had become a Quaker soon reached his father. It was conveyed to him by a nobleman then resident in Ireland, who addressed him purposely on the subject. The Admiral on the receipt of this letter sent for his son. William immediately obeyed, and returned home. At the first interview all appeared to be well. There was nothing discoverable in his dress or manners by which the information sent concerning him could be judged to be true. But observing on the next day that his son did not uncover his head when he came into his presence (in those days men generally wore their hats in the house), and that he used thee and thou when addressing him, the Admiral demanded an explanation.

"And here," says Joseph Besse, (the first collector of the works of William Penn with a Journal of his Life prefixed,) "my pen is diffident of her abilities to describe that most pathetic and moving contest which was between his father and him: his father actuated by natural love, principally aiming at his son's temporal honor; he, guided by a divine impulse, having chiefly in view his own eter