end James, that I hear of thee?" he said. "Thou hast taken
possession of Coltness's castle. Thou knowest that it is not thine."
"That estate," Arran explained, "I paid a great price for. I received no
other reward for my expensive and troublesome embassy to France, except
this estate." "All very well, friend James," said Penn, "but of this
assure thyself, that if thou dost not give me this moment an order on
thy chamberlain for two hundred pounds to Coltness to carry him down to
his native country, and a hundred a year to subsist on till matters are
adjusted, I will make it as many thousands out of thy way with the
king." Arran complied immediately.

Again, one day after dinner, as they were drinking a glass of wine
together, one of Penn's clients said, "I can tell you how you can
prolong my life." "I am no physician," answered William, "but prithee
tell me what thou meanest." The client replied that a good friend of
his, Jack Trenchard, was in exile, and "if you," he said, "could get him
leave to come home with safety and honour, the drinking now and then a
bottle with Jack Trenchard would make me so cheerful that it would
prolong my life." Penn smilingly promised to do what he could, and in a
month the two friends were drinking his good health.

This was the kind of business which he transacted. He had found a way
to be of eminent service to his neighbors, and especially to his Quaker
brethren, and he made the most of the opportunity. There is no evidence
that he departed from the disinterested life which he had previously
lived. He attended the court of King James, as he had undertaken the
settlement of Pennsylvania, not for what he could get out of it, but for
the good he could do by means of it. What he did, he tells us, was upon
a "principle of charity." "I never accepted any commission," he says,
"but that of a free and common solicitor for sufferers of all sorts and
in all parties." Neither is there any instance of his asking anything to
increase his own estate or position.

Indeed, he was losing money; for the expenses of life at court were
great. Worse still, he was losing his good name. His Quaker friends
found him hard to understand. It was true that he had cast in his lot
with them, and had suffered for their cause,--he was their great
theologian and preacher; but he seemed, nevertheless, to be still a
cavalier and a worldly person. They heard--though there was no truth in
the report--that he had set up a