Penn, William (1644–1718)

• Author: Dennis J. Mahoney
• Pages: 1892

Page 1892

The scion of a wealthy English family, William Penn attended Oxford University, studied law, and managed the family's estates before becoming a Quaker in the mid-1660s. Throughout the rest of his life Penn engaged in Quaker preaching and propaganda. He was imprisoned on at least three occasions for publishing pamphlets about his religious beliefs. His acquittal in 1670 on a charge of unlawful preaching led to BUSHELL ' SCASE, which ended the punishment of jurors who decided contrary to a judge's instructions. In the political campaigns of the late 1670s, Penn agitated for RELIGIOUS LIBERTY and frequent parliamentary elections.

Penn's involvement with America began in 1682, when he became a trustee of the colony of West Jersey, which he and eleven others had purchased for settlement by Quakers, and helped to frame its charter. King Charles II granted the proprietary colony of Pennsylvania to Penn in 1681 as settlement of a large debt that the king owed Penn's father; the following year Penn leased the area now known as Delaware and added it to the colony. Penn described his intentions for the colony as a "holy experiment" in religious and political liberty. In 1682, during a two-year sojourn in America, he wrote a Frame of Government (constitution) for the colony, granting the settlers freedom of religion, procedural guarantees in criminal cases, and limited self-government.

In 1697 Penn drafted, and submitted to the Board of Trade, the first proposal for a federal union of the English colonies in North America...