Do good with what thou hast

Do good with what thou hast; or it will do thee no good.  

If thou wouldst be happy bring thy mind to thy condition, and have an indifferency for more than what is sufficient.[1]

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[1] These quotations are from William Penn, in the Temporal Happiness section of Fruits of Solitude.  Penn was born in England in 1644 to Anglican parents, Admiral Sir William Penn and Margaret Jasper. For much of his young life he knocked about, getting expelled from Oxford, learning law at Lincoln’s Inn, studying in the Huguenot Academy at Saumer, and managing his father’s estates in Ireland. Soon after hearing the famous apostle Thomas Loe, he converted to Quakerism. Then in his mid twenties, he quickly involved himself in the Quaker cause, landing in prison several times for his ‘radical’ preaching for personal, property, and religious rights. In 1672 he married Gulielma Maria Springett, and five years later traveled in the company of George Fox to Holland.

In 1677 he also wrote the Concessions and Agreements charter for a group of Quaker colonists who were settling in the newly acquired New Jersey. Among its provisions were the right to trial by jury, the freedom from arbitrary imprisonment for debt, and edict against capital punishment. Penn also strongly argued for religious freedom.

Penn, though wealthy and though a Quaker, lived beyond his means. In order to raise some funds he called in a debt owed his father by Charles II. In 1681 he obtained the charter for Pennsylvania, and in 1682 he gained the rights to Delaware from his friend James, the Duke of York. Penn planned to make money by selling tracts of land, and although he was able to attract a good number of investors he never realized the profit he imagined. However, he saw this venture as more than a money-making exercise; it was, in his famous words, a “holy experiment” which would become, as he confidently predicted, “the seed of a nation.” Penn imagined a “free, sober and industrious people” living by their own laws. In 1682 he sought to delineate these laws in the First Frame of government; and though somewhat less liberal than his New Jersey bill, it provided many of the same rights.

Penn first arrived at his new colony in the fall of 1682 and stayed only until August of 1684. It was at this time that he signed his famous treaty with the Delaware (Leni Lenape) at Shackamaxon. And though no copy of such an agreement exists, we do have a wampum belt allegedly given to Penn by the Indians. The first treaty document in existence is one dated July 15, 1682 in which Penn obtains land from Idquahon and several other Leni Lenape leaders. In the next year Penn would broker at least eight other land transactions with the Delaware. He was busy with man other tasks as well. During his first stay, Penn began building his mansion and attending to numerous details of colony building, including a border dispute with Lord Baltimore, who controlled the territory south of Pennsylvania.

He returned to England to continue his dispute with Baltimore, not to return to Pennsylvania until 1699. England of the 1690s was a tumultuous place, especially for an outspoken, liberal Quaker. Penn never shrank from the political fray, as did many of his fellow Quakers, though his forthrightness proved dangerous. Under suspicion of treason, Penn briefly lost control of his colony from 1692 to 1694. He received another setback when his wife died in 1694; a year and a half later he married Hannah Callowhill.

Back in Pennsylvania, political squabbling had set in and various leadership changes took place. In 1691 George Keith led a religious schism, and Pennsylvania and Delaware separated into two provinces. And in 1696, William Markham’s (Penn’s secretary and then governor of Delaware) charter replaced the earlier Frame, though when Penn returned in 1701 he would again revise this version. By the time he left for good in November of that year, the colony’s Assembly was elected yearly and enjoyed a more powerful position than the governor, who despite his veto power, was secondary to the legislative body. Though Penn planned to stay in the New World, settling at his manor Pennsbury, (up the Delaware from Philadelphia) further political troubles in England forced his return. 

In 1712 Penn suffered an attack of apoplexy which disabled him. His wife Hannah managed his affairs until he died in 1718, and after her death in 1727 the proprietorship of Pennsylvania passed to their sons, John, Thomas, and Richard. (Source: William Penn: Visionary Proprietor by Tuomi J. Forrest, University of Virginia – xroads.virginia.edu)