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LETTER OF PENN AS TO

one Fisher, and an Irishman, whom I knew

not, and the last has not been in England since

the revolution, nor I in Ireland these twenty

years, nor do I so much as know him by name ; "and all their evidence upon hearsay too. It

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may be that it is the most extraordinary case "that has been known; that

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an Englishman in England, walking about "the streets, should have a bill of high treason "found against him in Ireland for a fact pre"tended to be committed in England, when a "man cannot legally be tried in one county in England for a crime committed in another.

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And the others are at ease that were accused for the same fault, and that Fuller is na

tionally staged and censured for an impostor that was the chief of my accusers; my estate "in Ireland is, notwithstanding, lately put up

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among the estates of outlaws, to be leased

for the Crown, and the collector of the hun"dred where it lies ordered to seize my rents,

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and lease it in the name of the Govern"ment, and yet though I am not convicted or "outlawed."

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FULLER'S ACCUSATION.

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I know mine enemies, and their true character

and history, and their intrinsic value to this or other Governments. I commit them to time,

with my own conduct and afflictions." 1

I commenced these remarks with Lord Macaulay's own record of the judgment of posterity on the character of William Penn-I conclude them with the echo of that judgment which comes back clear and distinct over the broad waves of the Atlantic.

"There is nothing in the history of the human "race like the confidence which the simple virtues "and institutions of William Penn inspired.

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After more than a century, the laws which "he reproved began gradually to be repealed, and the principle which he developed, secure " of immortality, is slowly, but firmly, asserting "its power over the Legislature of Great Britain. Every charge of hypocrisy, of selfishness, of vanity, of dissimulation, of credulous confidence every form of reproach, from viru"lent abuse to cold apology-every ill name, "from Tory and Jesuit to blasphemer and infi1693. JANNEY's Life of Penn, 379.

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1 Penn's letter to

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CONCLUSION.

del, has been used against Penn--but the candour of his character always triumphed over calumny.

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His name was safely cherished as a house"hold word in the cottages of Wales and Ireland, " and among the peasantry of Germany, and not

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" a tenant of a wigwam, from the sea to the Susquehanna, doubted his integrity.

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His fame is now wide in the world: he is "one of the few who have gained abiding "glory."1

1 BANCROFT'S History U. S., ii. 381, 400. JANNEY, Life of Penn, 567.

APPENDIX.

No. I.

HIS MAJESTY's gracious Declaration to all his loving Subjects for Liberty of Conscience.

JAMES R.

It having pleased Almighty God not only to bring us to the Imperial Crown of these Kingdoms through the greatest difficulties, but to preserve us by a more than ordinary Providence upon the Throne of our royal ancestors, there is nothing now that we so earnestly desire as to establish our Government on such a foundation as may make our subjects happy, and unite them to us by inclination as well as duty, which we think may be done by no means so effectually as by granting to them the free exercise of their religion for the time to come; and add that to the perfect enjoyment of their property, which has never been in any case invaded by us since our coming to the Crown -which being the two things men value most, shall ever be preserved in these Kingdoms, during our reign over them, as the truest methods of their peace and

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THE KING'S DECLARATION

our glory. We cannot but heartily wish, as it will easily be believed, that all the people of our dominions were members of the Catholick Church; yet we humbly thank Almighty God it is, and hath of long time been, our constant desire and opinion (which upon diverse occasions we have declared), that conscience ought not to be constrained, nor people forced in matters of meer religion. It has ever been directly contrary to our inclination, as we think it is to the interest of Government, which it destroys by spoiling trade, depopulating countries, and discouraging strangers; and, finally, that it never obtained the end for which it was employed. And in this we are the more confirmed by the reflections we have made upon the conduct of the four last reigns; for after all the frequent and pressing endeavours that were used in each of them to reduce this kingdom to an exact conformity in religion, it is visible the success has not answered the design, and that the difficulty is invincible. We, therefore, out of our princely care and affection unto all our loving subjects, that they may live at ease and quiet, and for the increase of trade and encouragement of strangers, have thought fit, by virtue of our royal prerogative, to issue forth this our royal Declaration of Indulgence, making no doubt of the concurrence of our two Houses of Parliament, when we shall think it convenient for them to meet.

In the first place, we do declare that we shall protect and maintain our arch-bishops, bishops, and clergy, and all other our subjects of the Church of England, in the free exercise of their religion, as by law established, and in the quiet and full enjoyment of

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