last the jury brought in a formal verdict of "not
guilty," which the court was compelled to accept. Thereupon the judges
fined every juryman forty marks for contempt of court; and Penn and the
jurors, refusing to pay their fines, were all imprisoned in Newgate. The
Court of Common Pleas presently reversed the judges' decision and
released the jury. Penn was also released, against his own protest, by
the payment of his fine by his father.

The admiral was in his last sickness. He was weary, he said, of the
world. It had not proved, after all, to be a satisfactory world. He did
not grieve now that his son had renounced it. At the same time, he could
not help but feel that the friendship of the world was a valuable
possession; and he had therefore requested his patron, the Duke of York,
to be his son's friend. Both the duke and the king had promised their
good counsel and protection. Thus "with a gentle and even gale," as it
says on his tombstone, "in much peace, [he] arrived and anchored in his
last and best port, at Wanstead in the county of Essex, the 16th of
September, 1670, being then but forty-nine years and four months old."

The admiral's death left his son with an annual income of about fifteen
hundred pounds. This wealth, however, made no stay in his Quaker zeal.
Before the year was ended, he was again in prison.

Sir John Robinson, the lieutenant of the Tower, had been one of the
judges in the affair of Gracious Street. He had either taken a dislike
to Penn, or else was deeply impressed with the conviction that the young
Quaker was a peril to the state. Finding that there was to be a meeting
in Wheeler Street, at which William was expected, he sent soldiers and
had him arrested. They conveyed him to the Tower, where he was examined.
"I vow, Mr. Penn," said Sir John, "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?" That was the
suspicious fact. Men in Robinson's position could not understand why
Penn should join his fortunes with those of people so different from
himself, poor, ignorant, and obscure, unless there were some hidden
motive. He must be either a political conspirator, or, as many said, a
Jesuit in disguise, which amounted to the same thing. "You do nothing,"
said Sir John, "but stir up the people to sedition." He required him to