WILLIAM PENN. CHAPTER I. Ancestry of William Penn. - Admiral Sir Wil liam Penn. His public Services. Mother of William Penn. - Family. The WILLIAM PENN, the founder of Pennsylvania, was descended from a family distinguished for character as well as for social standing. His ancestors, five centuries ago, dwelt at the village of Penn, in Buckinghamshire, and gave their name to several localities in the neighborhood. From a branch of the family, residing at Penn's Lodge, near Myntie, in Gloucestershire, descended Giles Penn, a captain in the royal navy, and English Consul in the Mediterranean. George, his eldest son, was a merchant in Spain, where he was cruelly imprisoned by the Inquisition for three years.* * See his petition for redress to Cromwell; also the petition of his nephew, our subject, to Queen Anne, 1712, 1713, given in Granville Penn's Memorials of Admiral Penn, Vol. I. Appendix. William, the second son of Giles, and the father of the proprietary of Pennsylvania, was born in 1621. his father, and He adopted the profession of earned many high distinctions, beside that of having for his son the Quaker legislator. His monument, in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, at Bristol, records that he was made captain at the years of twenty-one, rear-admiral of Ireland at twenty-three, viceadmiral of Ireland at twenty-five, admiral to the Straits at twenty-nine, vice-admiral of England at thirty-one, and general in the first Dutch war at thirty-two; whence returning, anno 1655, he was parliament man for the town of Weymouth; 1660, made commissioner of the admiralty and navy, governor of the town and fort of Kingsale, vice-admiral of Munster, and a member of that provincial council; and anno and anno 1664, was chosen great captain commander, under his Royal Highness, in that signal and most evidently successful fight against the Dutch fleet." He died in his fiftieth year. The thorough manner in which this naval officer performed his first service of suppressing the Irish rebellion, seems to have won for him his successive promotions. He commanded the sea forces in the expedition designed by Cromwell against Hispaniola, the ill success of which is said not to rest with the Admiral, but with Colonel Venables, who commanded the land forces. In his journal of this expedition we find mention of the death of our own Winslow, of Plymouth colony. During the Commonwealth, the services of Admiral Penn were numerous, and well rewarded, though he did not escape the jealousies incident then, as now, to envied places and divided responsibilities. His circumstances, like those of many moderate men, and especially those in the naval service who labored for the common interest of both parties in the state, enabled him to avoid identifying himself or his fortunes with the doomed republican cause. He forestalled some favor at the restoration, without being indebted for it to any treacherous meanness to individuals, or to the interests which he had espoused. Of very few public men, at that time, could it be said, that they transferred their titles and offices from a republican to a royal tenure without breach of faith or honor. Soldiers on land had been engaged in civil warfare, and the strife in the pulpits had committed their occupants, if they were sincere, to a rising or a sinking party; * In Granville Penn's Memorials of him. but those who fought upon the seas, though holding commissions from the Parliament, were rallied by the cry of England. After the restoration, Admiral Penn commanded in 1665, under the Duke of York, in the terrible sea-fight with the Dutch, for which he won honor and knighthood, and attained to court privileges of acquaintance and influence. It was from the unpaid debts due to him for his public services, and from obligations contracted to him, that his distinguished son afterwards received such patronage, and advanced the claim, which was scarcely discharged by the bestowal of lands in the New World. The admiral was likewise the author of several small tracts and other works, for improving the naval service, which had a value in their day, and perhaps cost more labor and experience than those which have been written since. He was patriotic, simple hearted, pure, and truly religious, as a Protestant of the Church of England. His family pride, increased by the additions which he himself had made to its distinctions, was sorely offended, as we shall see, by the religious profession adopted by his son, though the offence yielded to admiration of that son's sincerity. The relations between the English and the Dutch, at that time, were not wholly hostile. Indeed, the family histories of that era disclose a remarkable number of intermarriages, when the ships of the two nations were contending for the dominion of the seas. The Admiral married Margaret, daughter of John Jasper, a merchant of Rotterdam. She was a noble woman, religious, indulgent, yet judicious. Her son was largely indebted to her maternal faithfulness for his early character, and her kindness and respect sustained him, when the first anger of the father, in finding that he had a Quaker for a son, turned him out of doors before he had attained to manhood. A journal kept by the Admiral begins with his sailing from Deptford, Saturday, October 12th, 1644, two days before the birth of William. The frequent absences from home, which the naval service required of him, must have deprived him of much parental oversight of the early years of his son. When that son was engaged in the warm controversies of his new profession, he appeared as the vindicator of his father from unjust aspersions upon his courage and integrity, cast upon him after his death. An anonymous reviewer of the account, which the young Quaker published of his own |