Osmund Airy

“ In 1687 James published the Declaration of Indulgence, and Penn probably drew up the address of thanks on the part of the Quakers. It fully reflects his views, which are further ably put in the pamphlet Good Advice to the Church of England, Roman Catholics, and Protestant Dissenters, in which he showed the wisdom and duty of repealing the Test Acts and Penal Laws. At the Revolution he behaved with courage. He was one of the few friends of the king who remained in London, and, when twice summoned before the council, spoke boldly in his behalf. ”

“ Penn, however, did not venture upon emancipation; but he insisted on the instruction of negroes, permission for them to marry, repression of polygamy and adultery, and proposed regulations for their trial and punishment. The assembly, however, a very mixed body of all nations, now refused to accept any of these proposals except the last-named. His great success was with the Indians; by their treaty with him in 1700 they promised not to help any enemy of England, to traffic only with those approved by the governor, and to sell furs or skins to none but inhabitants of the province. ”

“ Hallam maintains that the only overt act of treason proved against Russell was his concurrence in the project of a rising at Taunton, which he denied, and which, Ramsay being the only witness, was not sufficient to warrant a conviction.
Russell was sentenced to die. Many attempts were made to save his life. The old earl of Bedford offered £50,000 or £100,000, and Monmouth, Legge, Lady Ranelagh, and Rochester added their intercessions. Russell himself, in petitions to Charles and James, offered to live abroad if his life were spared, and never again to meddle in the affairs of England. ”

“ By the charter for Pennsylvania Penn was made proprietary of the province. He was supreme governor; he had the power of making laws with the advice, assent and approbation of the freemen, of appointing officers, and of granting pardons. The laws were to contain nothing contrary to English law, with a saving to the Crown and the privy council in the case of appeals. Parliament was to be supreme in all questions of trade and commerce; the right to levy taxes and customs was reserved to England, an agent to represent Penn was to reside in London ”

“ After receiving formal possession, and having visited New York, Penn ascended the Delaware to the Swedish settlement of Upland, to which he gave the name of Chester. The assembly at once met, and on the 7th of December passed the "Great Law of Pennsylvania." The idea which informs this law is that Pennsylvania was to be a Christian state on a Quaker model. Philadelphia was now founded, and within two years contained 300 houses and a population of 2500. At the same time an act was passed, uniting under the same government the territories which had been granted by feoffment by James in 1682. ”

“ The importunity of the bishop of London extorted the right to appoint Anglican ministers, should twenty members of the colony desire it, thus securing the very thing which Penn was anxious to avoid—the recognition of the principle of an establishment. ”

“ Questions between Indians and settlers were to be arranged by a mixed jury (ch. xxv.) . An assembly was to meet yearly, consisting of a hundred persons, chosen by the inhabitants, freeholders and proprietors, one for each division of the province. The election was to be by ballot, and each member was to receive a shilling a day from his division, "that thereby he may be known to be the servant of the people." The executive power was to be in the hands of ten commissioners [7] chosen by the assembly. Such a constitution soon attracted large numbers of Quakers to West Jersey. ”

“ When the king, on the occasion of the Disbanding Bill, expressed his determination to leave the country, Somers boldly remonstrated, while he clearly expressed in a speech in the Lords the danger of the course that was being taken. Hitherto Somers's character had kept him free from attack at the hands of political opponents; but his connexion in 1699 with the notorious Captain William Kidd, to the cost of whose expedition Somers had given £1000, afforded an opportunity ”

“ In August 1670 he was again in Paris, and Arlington proposed that he should receive a pension from Louis; Charles II. agreed, but insisted that Sidney should return to Languedoc. In illustration of his austere principles it is related that, Louis having taken a fancy to a horse belonging to him and insisting on possessing it, Sidney shot the animal, which, he said, " was born a free creature, had served a free man, and should not be mastered by a king of slaves." His father was now very ill, and after much difficulty Sidney obtained leave to come to England in the autumn of 1677. ”

“ Penn now found himself in possession of a fortune of £1500 a year, and a claim on the Crown for £16,000, lent to Charles II. by his father. Upon his release Penn at once plunged into controversy, challenging a Baptist minister named Jeremiah Ives, at High Wycombe, to a public dispute and, according to the Quaker account, easily defeating him. No account is forthcoming from the other side. Hearing at Oxford that students who attended Friends' meeting were rigorously used, he wrote a vehement and abusive remonstrance to the vice-chancellor in defence of religious freedom. ”

“ As solicitor-general he had to conduct the prosecution of Preston and Ashton in 1691, and did so with a moderation and humanity which were in marked contrast to the customs of the former reigns. He was soon after appointed attorney-general, and in that capacity strongly opposed the bill for the regulation of trials in cases of high treason. ”

“ The difficulty felt by the Crown in this matter was a natural one. A bill was brought into the lords to convert private into Crown colonies. Penn's son appeared before the committee of the house and managed to delay the matter until his father's return. On the 15th of September Penn called the assembly together, in which the differences between the province and the territories again broke out. He succeeded, however, in calming them, appointed a council of ten to manage the province in his absence, and gave a borough charter to Philadelphia. ”

“ In each case, owing in a great degree to Penn's eager advocacy, Sidney was elected, only to have his elections annulled by court influence. Toleration for Dissenters seemed as far off as ever. Encouraged by his success in the West Jersey province, Penn again turned his thoughts to America. In repayment of the debt mentioned above he now asked from the Crown, at a council held on the 24th of June 1680, for "a tract of land in America north of Maryland, bounded on the east by the Delaware, on the west limited as Maryland [i.e. by New Jersey] , northward as far as plantable" ”

“ He visited particularly Rotterdam and all the Holland towns, renewed his intimacy with the princess Elizabeth at Herwerden, and, under considerable privations, travelled through Hanover, Germany, the lower Rhine and the electorate of Brandenburg, returning by Bremen and the Hague. It is worthy of recollection that the Germantown (Philadelphia) settlers from Kirchheim, one of the places which responded in an especial degree to Penn's teaching, are noted as the first who declared it wrong for Christians to hold slaves. Penn reached England again on the 24th of October. ”

“ In especial he vindicates the propriety of resistance to kingly oppression or misrule, upholds the existence of an hereditary nobility interested in their country's good as the firmest barrier against such oppression, and maintains the authority- of parliaments. ”

“ Legal proof being wanting of any breach of the Conventicle Act, and the Oxford or Five Mile Act also proving inapplicable, Robinson, who had some special cause of enmity against Penn, urged upon him the oath of allegiance. This, of course, the Quaker would not take, and consequently was imprisoned for six months. During this imprisonment Penn wrote several works, the most important being The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience (Feb. 1671) , a noble defence of complete toleration. Upon his release he started upon a missionary journey through Holland and Germany ”

“ Refusing to attempt to escape, he was brought before the council, when his attendance at the meeting referred to was charged against him. He was sent on the 26th of June 1683 to the Tower, and, looking upon himself as a dying man, betook himself wholly to preparation for death. Monmouth offered to appear to take his trial, if thereby he could help Russell, and Essex refused to abscond for fear of injuring his friend’s chance of escape. Before a committee of the council Russell, on the 28th of June, acknowledged his presence at the meeting, but denied all knowledge of the proposed insurrection. ”

“ Somers now became the most prominent member of the Junto, the small council which comprised the chief members of the Whig party. When William left in May 1695 to take command of the army in the Netherlands, Somers was made one of the seven lords-justices to whom the administration of the kingdom during his absence was entrusted; and he was instrumental in bringing about a reconciliation between William and the princess Anne. ”

“ With a passionate hatred and distrust of the Catholics, and an intense love of political liberty, he united the desire for ease to Protestant Dissenters. His first speech appears to have been on the 22nd of January 1673, in which he inveighed against the stop of the exchequer, the attack on the Smyrna fleet, the corruption of courtiers with French money, and “the ill ministers about the king.” He also supported the proceedings against the duke of Buckingham. In 1675 he moved an address to the king for the removal of Danby (see Leeds, Duke of) from the royal councils, and for his impeachment. ”

“ SIDNEY (or Sydney) , ALGERNON (1622–1683) , English politician, second son of Robert, 2nd earl of Leicester, and of Dorothy Percy, daughter of Henry, 9th earl of Northumberland, was born at Penshurst, Kent, in 1622. As a boy he showed much talent, which was carefully trained under his father’s eye In 1632 with his elder brother Philip he accompanied his father on his mission as ambassador extraordinary to Christian IV. of Denmark, whom he saw at Rendsburg. In May 1636 Sidney went with his father to Paris, where he became a general favourite, and from there to Rome. ”

“ The imputations upon his opinions and good citizenship, made as well by Dissenters as by the Church, he repelled in Innocency with her Open Face, in which he asserts his full belief in the divinity of Christ, the atonement, and justification through faith, though insisting on the necessity of good works. ”

“ On the 2nd of April 1645 he was given the command of a cavalry regiment in Cromwell's division of Fairfax's army, was appointed governor of Chichester on ioth May, and in December was returned to parliament for Cardiff. In July 1646 he went to Ireland, where his brother was lord-lieutenant, and was made lieutenant-general of horse in that kingdom and governor of Dublin. Leaving London on 1st of February 1647, Sidney arrived at Cork on the 22nd. ”

“ This formed a tract of 300 m. by 160, of extreme fertility, mineral wealth and richness of all kinds. Disputes with James, duke of York, and with Lord Baltimore, who had rights over Maryland, delayed the matter until the 14th of March 1681, when the grant received the royal signature, and Penn was made master of the province of Pennsylvania. ”