tered and impaired, his existence under his affliction was still left comfortable. He had sufficient sense and understanding left to exhibit the outward proof of child-like innocence and love, and to relish the enjoyment of intercourse with God and his peculiar friends.

"After a continued and gradual declension for about six years," says Besse, "his body 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 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, ' To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.""

His funeral was attended by a great concourse of people from all parts, by many of the most valued members of the society of Friends, and by many of other religious denominations, who came to pay this last tribute of respect to his surpassing worth. Among the Friends present, was Thomas Story. "I arrived," says he, “at Rushcomb late in the evening, where I found the widow and most of the family together. My coming occasioned a fresh rememberance of the deceased, and a renewed flood of many tears from all eyes. A solid time we had together, but few words were spoken among us for some time; for it was a deep baptizing 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 was put in circulation that he had died mad at Bath. A man named Henry Pickworth, who had been formerly a minister among the Quakers, but had been disowned by them, if he did not invent it, made use of this story, in his opposition to the Friends, even so late as 1730, twelve years after Penn's death. He published a letter, in which he both stated that he died a lunatic at Bath, and that the lunacy was of the nature of Nebuchadnezzar's of old, which ter minated in rage and madness before the end of his days. Joseph Besse notices the two charges, and repels them thus: "But if," says he, "he never was lunatic nor mad, and did not end his days at Bath at all, then here are two falsehoods in fact." After this he produced two

certificates, one from Simon Clement, a gentleman who had been an intimate acquaintance of William Penn, and the other from Hannah Mitchell of St. Martin-le-grand, London, proving both that Penn neither died at Bath, nor was a lunatic before his death.

cate ran thus:

The former certifi

"He was indeed," says Mr. Clement, "attacked with a kind of apoplectic fit in London, in the month of May, 1712, from which he recovered, and he did go to 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 even regular and orderly, and nothing appeared in his behaviour, but a lov

ing, 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 (though 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 Bath, but at his own house at Rushcomb in Berkshire, but without ever having had any symptoms of raging 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 palsy, occasioned by a third apoplectic fit."

By his last will made in 1712, a few months before his first attack by apoplexy, Penn 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, 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 the three children before mentioned of his son William, ten thousand acres of land each, (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,) 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 £12,000; 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 state of perplexing uncertainity 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, Thomas, and Richard Penn, the surviving sons of the younger branch of the family, thenceforward the Proprietaries.

It is proper to remark, that when William Penn made his last will, his estates in England and Ireland, which produced upwards of fifteen hundred pounds annually, were esteemed of more value than all his property in America, especially as only part of the mortgage thereon of 1708 had been discharged; but during the interval of rather more than six years between that and the time of his death, a progressive increase of trade and population, almost unexampled, during a happy state of uninterrupted tranquillity, had improved the value of the Pennsylvanian

property far beyond what could have been imagined; in addition to which the Crown-lawers had given a joint opinion, which was adopted by Government, that the agreement for sale in 1712, was made void by William Penn's inability to execute the surrender in a proper

manner.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CONCLUSION.

HAVING followed William Penn from the cradle to the grave, I shall conclude by an account of his person, manners, and character, as far as I have had an opportunity of tracing them.

He was tall in stature, and of an athletic make. In maturer years he was inclined to corpulency, but using a great deal of exercise, he was ever very active.

Penn was very neat, though plain, in his dress. He was also very neat as to his person, and had a great aversion to the use of tobacco. He was however, when in America, often annoyed by it, but he bore it with good humour. We have an anecdote of him there, as it relates to this custom. Several of his particular friends were one day assembled at Burlington. While they were smoking their pipes, it was announced to them, that the Governor's barge was in sight and coming up the river. The company supposed that he was on his way to Pennsbury, about seven miles higher up. They continued smoking but being afterwards informed that he had landed at a wharf near them, and was just entering the house, they suddenly concealed their pipes. Perceiving from the smoke, when he went into the room, what they had been doing, and discovering that the pipes had been hid, he said very pleasantly, "Well, friends, I am glad that you are at last ashamed of your old practice.""Not entirely so," replied Samuel Jennings, with more