t," and "One Project for the Good of England." The
project was that Protestants should stop contending one with another
and unite against a common enemy.

This was in 1679. The next year he took the decisive step. He entered
upon the fulfillment of that great plan, which had been in his mind
since his student days at Oxford, and with which he was occupied all the
rest of his life. He began to undertake the planting of a colony across
the sea.

Penn had already had some experience in colonial affairs. With the
downfall of the Dutch dominion in the New World, England had come into
possession of two important rivers, the Hudson and the Delaware, and of
the countries which they drained. Of these estates, the Duke of York had
become owner of New Jersey. He, in turn, dividing it into two portions,
west and east, had sold West Jersey to Lord Berkeley, and East Jersey to
Sir George Carteret. Berkeley had sold West Jersey to a Quaker, John
Fenwick, in trust for another Quaker, Edward Byllinge. These Quakers,
disagreeing, had asked Penn to arbitrate between them. Byllinge had
fallen into bankruptcy, and his lands had been transferred to Penn as
receiver for the benefit of the creditors. Thus William had come into a
position of importance in the affairs of West Jersey. Presently, in
1679, East Jersey came also into the market, and Penn and eleven others
bought it at auction. These twelve took in other twelve, and the
twenty-four appointed a Quaker governor, Robert Barclay.

Now, in 1680, having had his early interest in America thus renewed and
strengthened, Penn found that the king was in his debt to the amount of
sixteen thousand pounds. Part of this money had been loaned to the king
by William's father, the admiral; part of it was the admiral's unpaid
salary. Mr. Pepys has recorded in his diary how scandalously Charles
left his officers unpaid. The king, he says, could not walk in his own
house without meeting at every hand men whom he was ruining, while at
the same time he was spending money prodigally upon his pleasures. Pepys
himself fell into poverty in his old age, accounting the king to be in
debt to him in the sum of twenty-eight thousand pounds.

Penn considered his account collectible. "I have been," he wrote, "these
thirteen years the servant of Truth and Friends, and for my testimony's
sake lost much,--not only the greatness and preferment of the world, but
sixteen thousand pounds of my estate which, had I not bee