Chapter XXX: Conclusion: Of the CIVIL War (16)

The calm was only temporary. The day after the arrival of Cortez, a soldier, who had been sent on an errand by Cortez, returned breathless and bloody to the Spanish quarters. He had been fallen upon by a multitude of Mexicans, who endeavored to drag him away in their canoes for sacrifice, and he had only escaped after a desperate struggle. The whole city, he said, was in arms; the drawbridges were broken down: and they would soon attack the Spaniards in their strong hold.

The news was too true. The Aztecs poured along the streets like a flood, approaching the square where the Spaniards were lodged, while the terraced roofs of all the houses in the vicinity were crowded with slingers and archers, ready to shower their missiles upon the besieged. And now commenced a struggle which lasted seven days and to which there is no parallel in history. Day after day the fighting was renewed, the Spaniards either making a sally upon the besiegers, or beating them back when they advanced to storm or set fire to their quarters. The only relaxation was at night, when the Mexicans generally drew off. The Spaniards were always victorious; but their losses were considerable in every action, and the perseverance of the Mexicans alarmed them. Instead of yielding to their first defeats, they seemed to act on the conviction that they must be defeated continually until the Spaniards were all slain. This resolution astonished Cortez, who till now had undervalued the courage of the Aztecs. His soldiers, especially those who had come into the country with Narvaez, heaped reproaches upon him; although when they saw his conduct in the fray――the bravery with which he would spur his horse into the thickest of the enemy, the generosity with which he would risk his own life to rescue a comrade from the hands of a crowd of Aztecs――their reproaches were lost in admiration.

Wearied out by his incessant efforts, and perceiving the hopelessness of continuing a contest against so many myriads of enemies――for recruits were flocking in from the neighboring country to assist the Mexicans against the common foe――Cortez resolved to try the effects of negotiation, and to employ Montezuma as his intercessor. At his request, therefore, Montezuma, dressed in his imperial robes, appeared on a terraced roof, where he was visible to the multitude gathered in the great square. A silence ensued, and Montezuma was parleying with four nobles who approached him, when suddenly a shower of stones and arrows fell on the spot where he was standing. The Spanish soldiers tried to interpose their bucklers; but it was too late; Montezuma fell to the ground, his head bleeding from the effects of a blow with a stone. He was immediately removed, and every means used for his recovery: nor was the wound of itself dangerous. But his kingly spirit had received a wound which no words could heal; he had been reviled and struck by his own subjects, among whom hitherto he had walked as a sacred being: he refused to live any longer. He tore the bandages from his head, and rejected all nourishment; and in a short time the Spaniards were informed that their unhappy prisoner was dead. Cortez and many of the men could not refrain from weeping; and the body was surrendered to the Mexicans with every testimony of respect.

The fighting was now commenced with greater fury, and prodigies of valor were performed by the Spaniards; but all to no purpose. Another attempt was made to induce the enemy to come to terms. The only answer was the threat that they would all be sacrificed to the gods, and the appalling information, ‘You cannot escape; the bridges are broken down.’ At last, as death was before their eyes, it was determined by Cortez, and all the officers and soldiers, to quit the city during the night as they hoped at that time to find the enemy less alert.

Towards midnight, on the 1st of July 1520, they left their quarters secretly, most of the soldiers loading themselves with the gold which remained over and above the royal share, and proceeded as silently as possible towards the western causeway leading to Tlacopan, by which, as being the shortest of the three (two miles long), they thought it would be the easiest to effect a passage. In this causeway there were three drawbridges, separated by intervals nearly equal; and aware that these had been destroyed by the Mexicans, Cortez had provided a portable bridge, made of timber, the carriage of which he intrusted to forty picked soldiers. The van of the army was led by Sandoval, with two hundred foot and a body of horse under his command; the baggage, large guns and prisoners came next, guarded by Cortez and a band of veterans; and the rear was brought up by Pedro de Alvarado and Valasquez de Leon, commanding the strength of the infantry.

The night was dark and rainy. The Spaniards reached the causeway without being interrupted. The portable bridge was laid across the first moat or gap, and a great part of the army had gone over it in safety, and were already approaching the second gap, when, through the stillness of the night, there was heard the boom of the great drum from the top of the Mexican war temple, the rushing of myriads of pursuers along the causeway from behind, and the splashing of the oars of thousands of canoes full of warriors, which were advancing through the lake on both sides of the causeway. Showers of arrows fell on the rearguard as they were passing over the portable bridge; and the Aztecs, clambering up the sides of the causeway, grappled with the soldiers, and tried to drag them into the water. Throwing off these assailants by main strength, Alvarado and his men steadily and expeditiously moved on. Meanwhile the vanguard under Sandoval having reached the second gap, were waiting until the portable bridge should be brought up to enable them to cross it. Goaded with the arrows which were discharged upon them in clouds from the Aztec canoes, they grew impatient of the delay, and began to cast anxious glances backward along the causeway for the appearance of the bridge. Suddenly the appalling news was passed along that the bridge had stuck so fast at the first opening that it could not be pulled up. The weight of the men and heavy baggage crossing it had fastened it into the earth so firmly as to defy extrication. When this awful intelligence reached the vanguard, order and command were at an end; uproar and confusion ensued; and, seized with the instinct of self-preservation, each man tried to shift for himself. Flinging themselves headlong into the gap, they struggled with the Mexican warriors in the water, upsetting their canoes in their drowning agonies. Rank after rank followed, each trampling upon the bodies of its predecessors, and floundering among the canoes which lay between them and the opposite side. Sandoval and a few of the cavalry swam their horses across; some of the foot also were able to reach the side of the causeway and climb up; but of the vanguard, the great majority were drowned, or slain, or carried off wounded in the Mexican canoes. Meanwhile on came the rest of the army; men, carriages, guns, baggage, all were swept into the trench, which was soon choked up by the wreck. Over this bridge of broken wagons, bales of cotton, and the dead bodies of their companions and enemies, Cortez and his veterans were able to reach the other side of the trench with less difficulty. Here, joining Sandoval and the few survivors of his band, they dashed along the causeway towards the third and last opening, regardless of the darts and arrows which the Mexicans discharged among them from their canoes. Reaching the third trench, they crossed it in the same manner as the last, but without so much loss, and were rapidly approaching the mainland, when looking back through the dim morning light, they saw Alvarado and his rearguard pent up on the causeway between the second and third bridges, and almost overborne by the Mexicans who surounded them. Cortez, Sandoval, and a few of the horse instantly wheeled round to the rescue; and recrossing the third gap, shouted their battle-cry, and interposed between the Spaniards and their pursuers. This timely succor enabled most of the infantry to escape; and at length all had crossed the opening except Cortez, Sandoval, Alvarado, and a few others. Cortez, Sandoval, and the rest soon followed, carried through by their horses; and only one man remained upon the Mexican extremity of the causeway. It was Pedro de Alvarado; his horse was slain; and he was standing on the brink, surrounded by enemies ready drag him off, should he plunge into the trench. Five or six warriors were already advancing from behind to seize him, when, casting one glance at the opposite edge where his countrymen were waiting him, he planted one end of his long lance among the rubbish which choked up the gap, and, rising in the air, cleared it at a bound. The spot where this tremendous feat was executed still bears the name of _Alvarado’s Leap_.

The Mexicans now desisted from the pursuit; and the relics of the Spanish army, advancing along the remainder of the causeway, entered Tlacopan. Here they did not remain long, being anxious to place themselves beyond the reach of the Mexicans, and to arrive at Tlascala, the city of their faithful allies. They were now able to count the losses which they had sustained during the night. About four hundred and fifty Spaniards, and nearly four thousand Tlascalans, had been drowned, slain, or made prisoners during the passage along the causeway; a loss which, added to the numbers killed in the battles within the city, reduced the army to little more than a fourth of what it had been when it entered Mexico ten days before. But the most deplorable part was the loss of all the artillery, firearms, and ammunition, not so much as a musket remaining among the five hundred who survived. Still, under this accumulation of misfortunes, his heart did not sink; and his resolution was taken not to leave the country till he had regained his former footing in it, and annexed it as a province to the dominions of his sovereign.

His first object was to reach Tlascala, where he might recruit the strength of his men――almost all of whom were stiff with wounds――and arrange his future proceedings. After many difficulties, and another great battle, in which he defeated the Mexicans, he reached it on the 9th of July, 1520. They were kindly received by the generous mountaineers, who withstood all the solicitations of the Mexican sovereign, Cuitlahua, Montezuma’s brother and successor, that they would assist him in driving the Spaniards out of the country.

It was early in autumn before Cortez left Tlascala. His intention was first to punish several states of Anahuac which had revolted during his absence in Mexico, especially the districts of Tepeaca and Cachula; and then, after having reduced the whole country east of the Mexican valley, to return to the capital itself, and take it by storm. With a force so reduced as his, without cannons or other firearms, this was an apparently hopeless enterprise; but _hopeless_ was a word of which Cortez did not know the meaning. Fortunately, while engaged in subduing the eastern districts of Anahuac, he received reinforcements which he never anticipated. Velasquez, ignorant of the fate of the expedition which he had sent under Narvaez, and supposing that Cortez was by this time a prisoner in the hands of his rival, had despatched a ship with stores, arms, and ammunition to the colony of Villa Rica. The vessel touched at the port; the captain and his men disembarked, suspecting nothing, and were instantly seized by the officer of Cortez; nor did it require much persuasion to induce the whole crew to enlist under the standard of a man of whom they had heard so many eulogies. A second vessel sent by Velasquez soon afterwards shared the same fate; three ships sent by the governor of Jamaica to prosecute discoveries, and plant colonies in central America, chancing also to land at Villa Rica, their crews joined the army of Cortez; and lastly, a merchant vessel, loaded with provisions and all the necessaries of war, arrived at the Mexican coast, and was purchased by Cortez――sailors, cargo, and all.

Having completely subjugated all Anahuac to the east of the Mexican valley, Cortez resolved to found a second Spanish colony in the interior of the country, which should form a half-way station between Villa Rica and the city of Mexico. The site chosen was Tepeaca, and the name given to the settlement was Segura de la Frontera. From this spot Cortez wrote a second letter to Charles V, giving an account of the expedition from the date of the last letter down to the foundation of Segura, and announcing his intention of marching immediately to reconquer Mexico.

It was five months after the date of their expulsion from Mexico before the Spaniards were in a condition once more to march against it. Part of the necessary preparations consisted, as we have seen, in the subjugation of those parts of Anahuac which adjoined the Mexican valley on the east; but another cause of delay was the construction of thirteen brigantines at Tlascala, under the direction of Martin Lopez, a skillful shipwright, who had accompanied Cortez. These vessels were to be taken to pieces, and transported, together with the iron-work and cordage belonging to the ships which Cortez had destroyed off Villa Rica, across the mountains to the great Mexican lake. At length all was ready, and on the 28th of December 1520 the whole army left Tlascala on its march towards Mexico. It consisted of about six hundred Spaniards, with nine cannons, and forty horses, accompanied by an immense multitude of native warriors, Tlascalans, Tepeacans, and Cholulans, amounting probably to sixteen thousand men, besides the _tamanes_, who were employed in transporting the brigantines. Garrisons had of course been left at Villa Rica and Segura.

No opposition was offered to the invaders on their march, the Mexicans fleeing at their approach; and on the 1st of January, 1521, they took possession of the city of Tezcuco. Cuitlahua, Montezuma’s successor on the throne, was now dead, and his place was occupied by his nephew, Guatemozin, yet a young man, but the most heroic and patriotic of all the Mexicans. The policy of Cortez was first to subdue all the states and cities on the margin of the five lakes, so as to leave Mexico without protection or assistance, and then to direct his whole force to the final reduction of the capital. For four months, therefore, Cortez, Sandoval, Alvarado, and his other officers were employed, sometimes separately, sometimes in concert, in reconnoitering expeditions into various parts of the Mexican valley――from Chalco, on the banks of the southernmost, to Xaltocan, an island in the northernmost lake. Scarcely a day of these four months was passed in idleness; and it would require far more space than we can afford to do justice to all the engagements in which the Spaniards were victorious, or to all the feats of personal valor performed by Cortez, Alvarado, Olid, Sandoval, and other brave cavaliers. Passing over these, as well as the account of a conspiracy among his men, which the prudence and presence of mind of Cortez enabled him to quash, and of the execution of the Tlascalan chief, Xicotencatl, for deserting the Spaniards, we hasten to the concluding scene.

On the 10th of May, 1521, the siege commenced. Alvarado, with a hundred and fifty Spanish infantry, thirty cavalry, and eight thousand Tlascalans, took up his station at Tlacopan, so as to command the western causeway; Christoval de Olid, with the same number of cavalry and Indians, and a hundred and seventy-five infantry, commanded one of the branches of the southern causeway at Cojohuacan; and Sandoval, with a force nearly equal, the other branch of the same causeway at Iztapalapan. Cortez himself took the command of the flotilla of brigantines. For several days the three captains conducted operations more or less successfully at their respective stations, one of Alvarado’s services having consisted in destroying the pipes which supplied the Mexicans with fresh water, so that, during the rest of the siege, they had no other way of procuring a supply than by means of canoes. The brigantines, when they were launched, did immense service in overturning and dispersing the Mexican canoes, and also in protecting the flanks of the causeways on which the other detachments were pursuing their operations. At length, after much resistance on the part of the Mexicans, the two causeways, the western and the southern, were completely occupied by the Spaniards; and Sandoval having, by Cortez’s orders, made a circuit of the lake, and seized the remaining causeway of Tepejeca, the city was in a state of blockade. But so impatient were the Spaniards of delay, that Cortez resolved on a general assault on the city by all the three causeways at once. Cortez was to advance into the city from Xoloc, Alvarado from his camp on the western causeway, and Sandoval from his camp on the northern, and the three detachments, uniting in the great square in the centre of the city, were to put the inhabitants to the sword. The plan had nearly succeeded. The vanguard of Cortez’s party had chased the retreating Mexicans into the city, and were pushing their way to the great square, when the horn of Guatemozin was heard to sound, and the Aztecs rallying, commenced a furious onset. The neglect of Cortez to fill up a trench in one of the causeways impeded the retreat of the Spaniards in such a way as to cause a dreadful confusion, and it was only by efforts almost superhuman that they were able to regain their quarters. Their loss amounted to upwards of a hundred men, of whom about sixty had been taken alive.

This triumph elated the Mexicans as much as it depressed the Spaniards and their allies. It was prophesied by the Mexican priests that in eight days all the Spaniards should be slain; the gods, they said, had decreed it. This prediction, reported in the quarters of the besiegers, produced an extraordinary effect on the allies. They regarded the Spaniards as doomed men, refused to fight with them, and withdrew to a little distance from the lake. In this dilemma Cortez showed his wonderful presence of mind, by ordering a total cessation of hostilities for the period specified by the Mexican gods. When the eight days were passed, the allies, ashamed of their weakness, returned to the Spanish quarters, and the siege recommenced. These eight days, however, had not been without their horrors. From their quarters the Spaniards could perceive their fellow-countrymen who had been taken prisoners by the Mexicans dragged to the top of the great war temple, compelled to dance round the sanctuary of the gods, then laid on the stone of sacrifice, their hearts torn out, and their bleeding bodies flung down into the square beneath.

Famine now assisted the arms of the Spaniards; still, with that bravery of endurance for which their race is remarkable, the Mexicans continued the defense of the city, and it was not till it had been eaten into, as it were, on all sides, by the Spaniards, that they ceased to fight. On the 14th of August a murderous assault was commenced by the besiegers. It lasted two days; and on the evening of the second some canoes were seen to leave the city, and endeavor to reach the mainland. They were chased, and captured; and on board of one of them was found Guatemozin, with his family and his principal nobles. Guatemozin’s capture was the signal of complete defeat; and on the 16th of August, 1521, the city was surrendered to the Spaniards. The population was reduced to about forty thousand, and in a few days all these had disappeared, no one knew whither. The city was in ruins, like some huge churchyard with the corpses disinterred and the tombstones scattered about.

Thus was the ancient and beautiful city of Mexico destroyed, and its inhabitants slain or dispersed. A monstrous act of unjustifiable aggression had been completed. Following up this great blow, Cortez pursued the conquest of the country generally; and in this, as well as in organizing it into a colony of Spain, he did not experience any serious difficulty. On proceeding to Spain, he was received with honor by Charles V. He returned to Mexico in 1530; and again revisiting Spain in 1540, for the purpose of procuring the redress of real or alleged grievances, he died in 1547, in the sixty-third year of his age. It is very much to be lamented that, in the execution of his purposes of colonization, the monuments of Mexican civilization were everywhere destroyed, leaving nothing to future generations but the broken relics of palaces, temples, and other objects of art, scattered amidst the wilderness. Some of these ruined monuments, recently explored by Stephens and other travelers, show that the ancient Mexicans had made remarkable advances in social life as well as in the arts, more particularly architecture; and what renders all such relics the more interesting to the archæologist, is the growing conviction, that the old Mexican civilization was of an original type――a thing noway derived from, or connected with, the civilization of Egypt, or any other nation in the eastern hemisphere.

It is consolatory to know that the Spaniards have not succeeded in making Mexico a perpetual tributary of their rapacious monarchy. The cruelties they committed seem to have contained in themselves the elements of retribution. After a career of indolence, oppression, and bigotry, extending to comparatively recent times, their yoke has been thrown off; and their feeble and ignorant successors may be said to be in the course of coming under the thraldom of their Anglo-Saxon neighbors. It is difficult to compassionate the fate which appears to await the slothful and proud race whose ancestors laid the ancient empire of Mexico in ruins.

WILLIAM PENN.

William Penn, the celebrated founder of Pennsylvania, was born in London on the 14th of October, 1644. He was the only son of Sir William Penn, a naval commander of distinction, first during the Protectorate of Cromwell, and afterwards in the service of Charles the II, from whom he received the honor of knighthood. His health having suffered from his active duties, Admiral Penn retired from service in 1666, although then only in the forty-fifth year of his age. His wife, the mother of William Penn, was the daughter of a merchant in Rotterdam.

Penn received his preliminary education at Chigwell, in Essex, near his father’s country residence. From Chigwell school he was removed, at twelve years of age, to a private academy in London; and having made great progress in all the usual branches of education, he was entered, at the age of fifteen years, as a gentleman commoner at Christ-church, Oxford. At college he is said to have been remarkable not more for his sedateness and attention to study, than for his extreme fondness for all athletic sports. His first bias, too, towards the opinions of that religious sect of which he became afterwards so distinguished an ornament, the Society of Friends, was produced at this period of his life. It was the effect of the preaching of one Thomas Loe, once a member of the university of Oxford, but who had embraced the doctrines of the Quakers, and was now a zealous propagator of the same.

Serious and thoughtful from his childhood, young Penn was strongly impressed by the views of religious truth which Loe inculcated; and the consequence was, that he and a few of his fellow-students who had been similarly affected, began to absent themselves from the established worship of the university, and to hold private meetings among themselves for devotional purposes. For this breach of the college rules a fine was imposed upon them by the authorities of the university. Neither Penn nor his associates were cured of their disposition to nonconformity by this act of severity; they still continued to hold their private meetings, and naturally became more zealous in their views as they saw those views prohibited and discountenanced. Their zeal soon manifested itself in an act of riot. An order having been sent down to Oxford by Charles II that the surplice should be worn by the students, as was customary in ancient times, Penn and his companions were so roused by what they conceived a return to popish observances, that, not content with disobeying the order themselves, they attacked those students who appeared in the obnoxious surplices, and tore them off their backs. So flagrant an outrage on college discipline could not be allowed to pass without severe punishment, and accordingly Penn and several of his companions were expelled. As may be conceived, Admiral Penn was by no means pleased when his son returned home with the stigma attached to him of having been expelled from college; nor was he more satisfied when he learned the cause. Himself untroubled with any such religious scruples as those which his son professed, he could not make any allowance for them, but, on the contrary, insisted that he should give them up, and live as any young gentleman of good family and loyal principles might be expected to do. The young man meeting his father’s remonstrances with arguments in self-defense, the hasty old admiral turned him out of doors.

Through his mother’s intercession a reconciliation soon took place; and the admiral determined, as the best means of finishing his son’s education, and possibly of curing him of what he considered his over-religiousness, to send him to spend a year or two in France. Penn accordingly left England in 1662, and was absent on the continent till 1664. On his return to England, his father was much pleased to find him so polished in demeanor and manners, and did not doubt but his intention in sending him abroad had been in a great measure fulfilled. By his advice Penn became a student of Lincoln’s Inn, where he continued till 1666, when his father sent him over to Ireland to manage his pretty extensive estates in the county of Cork. In this commission he conducted himself entirely to his father’s satisfaction, residing sometimes on the estates themselves, sometimes in Dublin, where he had the advantage of mixing in the society attending the court of the Duke of Ormond, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and his father’s friend. While attending to his business in Ireland, however, a circumstance befell him, which might have induced his father to have acted differently, could he have foreseen it. Being accidentally one day in Cork, he heard that Thomas Loe, the person whose preaching had so deeply affected him at Oxford, was to address a meeting of Quakers in that city. Penn could not think of losing the opportunity of again seeing and hearing his old friend, and accordingly he entered the place where Loe was to preach. He took his seat, and had waited for a few minutes, when the preacher rose, and commenced his sermon with the following striking words:――‘There is a faith which overcometh the world; and there is a faith which is overcome by the world.’ The words, and the sermon which they introduced, seemed adapted to his own case. Had not his faith been one which had been overcome by the world? and was it not, therefore, a weak, poor, and useless thing? Such was the force of this reflection, strengthened as it was by intercourse with Loe, that he resolved from that day to devote himself to the service of religion, and to adhere to the sect whose principles he respected most. In short, from that time Penn became a professed Quaker.

Nonconformity in religious observances was at that time somewhat dangerous. In Scotland, a religious persecution was fiercely raging; and although in other parts of the kingdom the spirit of bigotry on the part of the government did not manifest itself to the same extent, yet everywhere throughout Great Britain and Ireland dissenters were subject to grievous annoyances; and it was in the power of any meddlesome or narrow-minded person to point to numerous persecuting laws existing in the statute-book, and to demand that they should be put in force against them. Accordingly, William Penn soon paid the price of his conscientiousness. Making it a point, ever after his meeting with Loe, to attend the religious assemblies of the Quakers in preference to those of the Established Church, he was apprehended, along with eighteen others, on the 3d of September 1667, and carried before the mayor of Cork, charged with transgressing the act against tumultuous assemblies passed seven years before. The mayor, perceiving Penn to be a gentlemen, offered him his liberty on condition that he would give security for his good behavior in future; but Penn refused to comply with this condition, and was therefore committed to prison with the others. From prison he addressed a letter to the Earl of Orrery, then lord president of Munster, and a friend probably of Admiral Penn, requesting his inteference to procure the release of himself and his companions. The earl immediately ordered the release of Penn; the others, it would appear, however, were permitted to remain in prison.

Meanwhile some friend of the family, resident in Ireland, had conveyed to the admiral the unwelcome intelligence that his son had joined the Quakers. Without any delay the old man summoned his son home; and their first interview was a stormy one. The admiral at length, finding that his son had become a confirmed Quaker, and losing hope of moving him further, only stipulated that the youth should consent to depart so far from the customs of his sect, as to take off his hat in the presence of the king, the Duke of York, and himself! After a violent struggle between filial affection and religious convictions, William announced that he could not agree even to this limited amount of hat worship, and was again turned out of doors.

Thus driven out into the world, and disqualified by his previous education for earning his livelihood by any ordinary profession, Penn would have fared badly, had not his mother, without the admiral’s knowledge, kept up a communication with him, and supplied him with money out of her own purse. Not long afterwards, being now in the twenty-fourth year of his age, he began to preach at meetings of those who, like himself, had embraced the tenets of the Quakers. About the same time, too, he commenced his career as a polemical pamphleteer――a character which he kept up till his dying day, having in the course of his life published an immense number of controversial pamphlets in defense of his sect and of religious liberty in general. The title of his first work, published in 1668, was as follows:――‘Truth Exalted, in a short but sure Testimony against all those Religions, Faiths, and Worships, that have been formed and followed in the darkness of Apostacy; and for that Glorious Light which is now risen, and shines forth in the Life and Doctrine of the despised Quakers, as the alone good old way of Life and Salvation.’ To account for the somewhat bombastic appearance of this title, as well as for much in the conduct of William Penn and other early Quakers, which might otherwise seem difficult to explain, it must be mentioned that the early Quakers differed considerably from the modern Society of Friends with respect to the ideas which they entertained regarding the importance of their own sect. George Fox, William Penn, and the early Quakers in general, regarded Quakerism as a ‘glorious light’――a new dispensation, destined to abrogate existing forms of faith, and restore Christianity to its primitive purity. Hence their sanguine mode of speaking concerning their own mode of faith; hence their extraordinary exertions to make proselytes; and hence that activity, and even restlessness in society, which distinguished the early Quakers from their modern successors.

William Penn was a great accession to the sect whose views he had adopted. Both by the publication of pamphlets and by public debates, he endeavored to make an impression in favor of the Quakers. One of his publications, a pamphlet, called ‘The Sandy Foundation Shaken,’ gave so much offense to some of the established clergy, and especially to the bishop of London, that Penn was apprehended, and sent as a prisoner to the Tower. During his imprisonment here, which lasted seven months, he wrote his ‘No Cross, no Crown,’ one of the most popular of all his works; the leading idea of it being, ‘that unless men are willing to lead a life of self-denial, and to undergo privations and hardships in the course of their Christian warfare; that is, unless they are willing to bear the cross, they can not become capable of wearing the crown――the crown namely, of eternal glory.’ At length Penn was discharged by an order from the king, who was probably moved to this act of leniency by his brother, the Duke of York, Admiral Penn’s friend.

The admiral by this time was disposed to be reconciled to his son, whose constancy to his opinions he could not help admiring, notwithstanding that he had no predilection for the opinions themselves. Partly to keep him out of harm’s way, he sent him a second time on a mission of business to Ireland. While dutifully fulfilling the business on which he had been sent, Penn employed a great part of his time in Ireland in preaching and writing tracts in favor of Quakerism. He likewise visited many poor persons of his sect who were suffering imprisonment for their fidelity to their convictions; and, by means of his representations and his influence he was able to procure from the lord-lieutenant the discharge of several of them. On his return to England he was kindly received by his father, and took up his abode once more in the paternal mansion.

The spirit of intolerance had, in the meantime, become more rampant in the government; and in 1670, parliament passed the famous act against conventicles, by which it was attempted to crush nonconformity in England. The Quakers of course were visited with the full severity of the act; and William Penn was one of its first victims. Proceeding one day to the place of meeting, which he attended in Gracechurch Street, he found the door guarded by a party of soldiers, who prevented him from entering. Others of the congregation coming up, gathered round the door, forming, with the chance loiterers, who were attracted by curiosity, a considerable crowd. Penn began to address them; but had hardly begun his discourse when he and another Quaker named William Mead, who was standing near him, were seized by the constables, who were already provided with warrants, for the purpose, signed by the lord mayor, and conveyed to Newgate, whence they were brought to trial at the Old Bailey sessions on the 3d of September, 1670. As this trial was really very important, we shall detail the proceedings at some length. The justices present on the bench on this occasion were Sir Samuel Starling, lord mayor of London; John Howel, recorder; five aldermen and three sheriffs. The jury consisted, as usual, of twelve men, whose names deserve to be held in honor for the noble manner in which they performed their duty. When the prisoners Penn and Mead entered the court they had their hats on, according to the custom of their sect. One of the officers of the court instantly pulled them off. On this the lord mayor became furious, and ordered the man to replace the hats on the heads of the prisoners, which was no sooner done, than the recorder fined them forty marks each for contempt of court in wearing their hats in presence of the bench. The trial then proceeded. Witnesses were called to prove that, on the 15th of August last, the prisoners had addressed a meeting of between three and four hundred persons in Gracechurch Street. Penn admitted that he and his friend were present on the occasion referred to, but contended that they had met to worship God according to their own conscience, and that they had a right to do so. One of the sheriffs here observed that they were there not for worshipping God, but for breaking the law. ‘What law?’ asked Penn. ‘The common law,’ replied the recorder. Penn insisted on knowing what law that was; but was checked by the bench, who called him ‘a saucy fellow.’ ‘The question is,’ said the recorder at length, ‘whether you are guilty of this indictment.’ ‘The question,’ replied Penn, ‘is _not_ whether I am guilty of this indictment, but whether this indictment be legal. It is too general and imperfect an answer to say it is the common law, unless we know where and what it is; for where there is no law, there is no transgression; and that law which is not in being, is so far from being common that it is no law at all.’ Upon which the recorder retorted, ‘You are an impertinent fellow, sir. Will you teach the court what law is? It is _lex non scripta_; that which many have studied thirty or forty years to know, and would you have me tell you in a moment?’ Penn immediately answered, ‘Certainly, if the common law be so hard to be understood, it is far from being very common; but if Lord Coke in his Institutes be of any consideration, he tells us that common law is common right, and that common right is the great charter privileges confirmed.’ ‘Sir,’ interrupted the recorder, ‘you are a troublesome fellow, and it is not to the honor of the court to suffer you to go on.’ ‘I have asked but one question,’ said Penn, ‘and you have not answered me, though the rights and privileges of every Englishman are concerned in it.’ ‘If,’ said the recorder, ‘I should suffer you to ask questions till to-morrow morning, you would be never the wiser.’ ‘That,’ replied the imperturable Penn, ‘is _according as the answers are_.’ After some further conversation, or rather altercation, the mayor and recorder became enraged. ‘Take him away, take him away,’ they cried to the officers of the court; ‘turn him into the bale dock.’ This order was obeyed, Penn protesting as he was removed, that it was contrary to all law for the judge to deliver the charge to the jury in the absence of the prisoners. But now a second contest commenced――a contest between the bench and the jury. The latter, after being sent out of court to agree upon their verdict, unanimously returned the following one――‘Guilty of _speaking_ in Gracechurch Street.’ The bench refused to receive this verdict; and after reproaching the jury, sent them back for half an hour to reconsider it. At the end of the half hour the court again met, and the prisoners having been brought in, the jury delivered precisely the same verdict as before, only this time they gave it in writing, with all their names attached. The court upon this became furious; and the recorder addressing the jury, said, ‘Gentlemen, you shall not be dismissed until we have such a verdict as the court will accept; and you shall be locked up without meat, drink, fire, and tobacco. You shall not think thus to abuse the court; we will have a verdict by the help of God, or you shall starve for it!’ On this Penn stood up and said: ‘My jury, who are my judges, ought not to be thus menaced; their verdict should be free, and not compelled; the bench ought to wait upon them and not to forestall them. I do desire that justice may be done me, and that the arbitrary resolves of the bench may not be made the measure of my jury’s verdict.’ The court then adjourned, the jury, including one who complained of ill health, being locked up without food, fire, or drink. Next morning, on being brought in, they still returned the same verdict. They were violently reproached and threatened; and the recorder even forgot himself so far as to say that ‘he had never till now understood the policy and prudence of the Spaniards in suffering the Inquisition among them; and that certainly it would never be well in England till something like the Spanish Inquisition were established there.’ The jury were again locked up without food, drink, tobacco, or fire, for twenty-four hours. On the third day, the natural and glorious effect of this brutality on the minds of Englishmen was produced. In place of the indirect acquittal contained in their former verdict, they now, with one voice, pronounced the prisoners ‘Not guilty!’ Upon some paltry legal pretense they were all fined for their contumacy, and sent to prison till the fine should be paid. Penn himself was shut up till he should pay the mulct for contempt of court. This he would not do; but his father, it is thought, laid down the money for him, and he was liberated.

Penn’s father dying immediately after his liberation, left him a clear estate of £1500 a-year――a considerable property in those days. The old man had by this time been brought to regard his son’s conduct in a more favorable light than he had done at first; and one of his dying advices to him was, to ‘suffer nothing in this world to tempt him to wrong his conscience.’

For twelve months after his father’s death Penn proceeded as before, preaching habitually at meetings of persons of his own persuasion, writing tracts and treatises in defense of Quakerism, and on other theological and political topics, among which was an account of the recent trial of himself and Mead, and engaging also in oral controversy with several dissenting preachers who had inveighed against the Quakers from their pulpits. His activity soon brought him into fresh trouble. Towards the end of the year 1671, he was again apprehended on the charge of preaching to an illegal assembly, and brought before Sir John Robinson, lieutenant of the Tower, who was one of his judges on the former trial. Sir Samuel Starling was also present. Unable to convict the prisoner on the conventicle act, Sir John, who was resolved not to let him escape, adopted another plan, and required him to take the oath of allegiance to the king, well knowing that, as it was contrary to the principles of the Quakers to take an oath at all, he would refuse, and thereby subject himself to imprisonment. ‘I vow, Mr. Penn,’ said Sir John Robinson, on his refusal, ‘I am sorry for you. You are an ingenious gentleman; all the world must allow you, and do allow you that; and you have a plentiful estate; why should you render yourself unhappy by associating with such a simple people?’ ‘I confess,’ said Penn in reply, ‘I have made it my choice to relinquish the company of those that are ingeniously wicked, to converse with those that are more honestly simple.’ ‘I wish you wiser!’ said Sir John. ‘And I wish thee better!’ replied Penn. ‘You have been as bad as other folks,’ observed the judge? ‘When and where?’ cried Penn, his blood rising at this accusation of hypocrisy. ‘I charge thee to tell the company to my face.’ ‘Abroad and at home too,’ said Sir John. Penn, indignant at this ungenerous taunt, exclaimed, ‘I make this bold challenge to all men, women, and children upon earth, justly to accuse me with having seen me drunk, heard me swear, or speak one obscene word, much less that I ever made it a practice. I speak this to God’s glory, who has ever preserved me from the power of these pollutions.’ Then turning to his calumniator, and forgetting for a moment his wonted meekness, ‘Thy words,’ said he, ‘shall be thy burden, and I trample thy slander as dirt under my feet!’

The result of the trial was, that Penn was committed to Newgate for six months. In prison he composed and published several new works, all connected with the subject of religious toleration, especially as it concerned his own sect. On his release, he made a tour through Holland and Germany, apparently for the purpose of disseminating the doctrines of Quakerism; but few particulars are known respecting this tour. On his return to England in 1673, being now in the twenty-eighth year of his age, he contracted a marriage with Gulielma Maria, daughter of Sir William Springett, of Darling, in Sussex, and a lady of great beauty and accomplishments. After their marriage, they took up their residence at Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, where his wealth would have enabled Penn, had he so chosen, to lead the life of an influential country gentleman. Nothing, however, could cool the enthusiasm of Penn in behalf of what he esteemed a great and glorious cause; and for three or four years after his marriage, he was incessantly occupied in the composition of controversial pamphlets, defending the Quakers against the attacks and misrepresentations of other sects, and in traveling from place to place for the purpose either of preaching, or of conducting a debate with an antagonist. Early in 1677, he removed his residence from Rickmansworth, in Herts, to Worminghurst, in Sussex. In the same year, in company with the celebrated George Fox and Robert Barclay, he made a second religious tour through Holland and Germany, visiting, among others, the Princess Elizabeth of the Rhine, daughter of the king of Bohemia, and granddaughter of James I of England, who had shown considerable interest in the doctrines of the Quakers, and who received him very graciously. On his return to England, we find him engaged in a remonstrance to parliament in behalf of the Quakers, which deserves some notice. At that time, as the readers of history well know, a strong feeling prevailed throughout the nation against the Roman Catholics, who were suspected of innumerable plots and conspiracies against the church and state, which, for the most part, had no existence except in the fancies of the most bigoted portion of the Protestants. The feelings against the Catholics became so high, that all the existing laws against them were rigorously put in force, and much persecution was the consequence――twenty pounds a-month being the penalty of absence from the established worship of the country.

In order, however, to distinguish between the Roman Catholics and other dissenters, so that the former alone might suffer, it was proposed in parliament that a test should be offered, whereby, on taking a particular oath, a suspected party might escape. This of course was quite a sufficient method for dissenters in general, who had no objection to take the required oath; but for Quakers, who objected to oaths altogether, the plan was of no advantage. On refusing to take the oath, they would be liable to be treated as Jesuits, or Roman Catholics in disguise. On this point William Penn presented a petition to the House of Commons, in which he prayed that, with regard to the clause for discriminating between Roman Catholics and others, the mere word of a Quaker should be deemed equivalent to an oath; with this addition, however, that if any Quaker should be found uttering a falsehood on the occasion, he should be subject to exactly the same punishment as if he had sworn falsely. Being admitted to a hearing before a committee of the House of Commons, he spoke in support of his petition, insisting that it was hard that the Quakers ‘must bear the stripes of another interest, and be their proxy in punishment.’ ‘But mark,’ he continued, in words which did him and his sect much honor, when contrasted with the general intolerance of those times, ‘I would not be mistaken. I am far from thinking it fit, because I exclaim against the injustice of whipping Quakers for Papists, that Papists should be whipped for their consciences. No: for though the hand pretended to be lifted up against them hath lighted heavily upon us, yet we do not mean that any should take a fresh aim at them, or that they should come in our room; for we must give the liberty we ask, and cannot be false to our principles, though it were to relieve ourselves; for we have good will to all men, and would have none suffer for a truly sober and conscientious dissent on any hand. And I humbly take leave to add, that those methods against persons so qualified do not seem to me to be convincing, or indeed adequate, to the reason of mankind; but this I submit to your consideration.’ The effect of Penn’s representations was such, that a clause for the relief of Quakers was actually introduced into the bill then before the House: the prorogation of parliament, however, put a stop to the progress of the bill.

Passing over Penn’s further exertions, both by speech and writing, in the cause of Quakerism and of religious toleration in England, as an account of these would not possess much interest now, we come to the most important event in his life――namely the foundation of the North American colony of Pennsylvania.

PENN LED TO TAKE AN INTEREST IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES――OBTAINS A GRANT OF PENNSYLVANIA.

After various unsuccessful attemps, two English colonies had been planted on the eastern coast of North America in the early part of the seventeenth century. The more southern of the two was called Virginia, and was colonized principally by mercantile adventurers; the more northern was called New England, and was colonized principally by Puritans, who, driven by persecution from the mother country, had crossed the Atlantic in order to enjoy liberty of conscience in a new country of their own founding. From the year 1620, a constant stream of emigrants from Great Britain had been pouring into these colonies; so that, towards the latter part of the century, the coast on both sides of the Potomac river was overspread by a British population――those on the north side of the river calling themselves New Englanders, and those on the south side Virginians. The manner in which the colonization was carried on was as follows:――The king granted to some nobleman, or to some mercantile company, a certain territory roughly marked out; this nobleman or company again either sold the property in lots to intending emigrants, or themselves organized an emigration on a large scale, and superintended the foundation of a colony on the territory in question. It is evident, therefore, that the purchase and sale of lands in America had become, in the reign of Charles II, a favorite branch of speculation; some parties buying portions of land with an actual view to settle in the new world, or at least to possess property in it, others buying with the mere intention of selling again. Now, it so happened that, in the year 1664, the Duke of York, afterwards James II, who had obtained from his brother Charles II a grant of a great part of the New England coast, conveyed over a portion of it, under the name of New Jersey, to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. Lord Berkeley again disposed of his half share to two members of the Society of Friends――John Fenwick and Edward Byllinge. It appears that some dispute arose between these two individuals respecting their shares in the land which they had purchased; for, in the year 1775, we find William Penn, who seems to have been a friend of both, acting as arbitrator between them, and endeavoring to persuade Fenwick to yield, and, for the credit of the body to which he belonged, not to carry the dispute to a court of law. His remonstrances were effectual; the difference between Fenwick and Byllinge was adjusted, and the former emigrated to New Jersey, apparently in the mere capacity of superintendent for Byllinge, while Byllinge himself remained at home.