y
chanced to visit its empty halls. One gentleman rejoiced in the
possession of the mantelpiece; another had a pair of Penn's plush
breeches.

William Penn's four years of actual residence gave him all the
satisfaction which he ever got from his colonial possessions. All else
was worry, labor, and expense. The province was a sore financial burden.
As proprietor he was charged with the payment, in large part, of the
expenses of government. The returns from rents and sales were slow and
uncertain. The taxes on imports and exports, to which he had a charter
right, he had generously declined. When he asked the assembly, in
remembrance of that liberality, to send him money in his financial
straits, they were not minded to respond. Penn belonged to that high
fraternity of noble souls who do not know how to make bargains. His
impulses were generous to a fault, and he had an invincible confidence
that his neighbors would deal with him in the same spirit. The
consequence was that year by year the expenses grew, and there was but a
slender income. "O Pennsylvania," he cries, "what hast thou cost me?
Above thirty thousand pounds more than I ever got by it; two hazardous
and most fatiguing voyages, my straits and slavery here, and my child's
soul, almost."

The last allusion is to Guli's son, William, whose dissipation Penn
always attributed to a lack of fatherly care during his first visit to
the province. Penn finally sent the boy to Pennsbury, hoping that the
quiet, the absence of temptation, and the wholesome joys of a country
life, might amend him. But William went from bad to worse, was arrested
in Philadelphia in a tavern brawl, was formally excommunicated by the
Quakers, and came home to England to give his father further pain.

To the financial burdens of the province were added the difficulties of
government. Penn succeeded very well in keeping his colony,--he defended
his boundaries against Lord Baltimore, and he defeated those who would
have taken away his rule and given it to the king; but the governing of
the colony across three thousand miles of sea was another matter. The
moment he withdrew the restraining influence of his personal presence,
all manner of contentions came into the light of day.

The question of the prudence of bearing arms was vigorously debated.
James Logan, secretary of the province, and Penn's ablest counselor,
urged the need of military defenses. Conservative Friends opposed it.

Churchmen