settle a dispute between himself and Lord Baltimore,
concerning the boundary of their provinces, but chiefly the hope of
being able, by his personal influence, to lighten the sufferings and
ameliorate the treatment of the Quakers in England. He reached England
in October, 1684. Charles II. died in February, 1685. But this was
rather favorable to Penn's credit at court; for beside that James
appears to have felt a sincere regard for him, he required for his own
church that toleration which Penn wished to see extended to all alike.
The same credit, and the natural and laudable affection and gratitude
toward the Stuart family which he never dissembled, caused much trouble
to him after the Revolution. He was continually suspected of plotting to
restore the exiled dynasty; was four times arrested, and as often
discharged in the total absence of all evidence against him. During the
years 1691, 1692, and part of 1693, he remained in London, living, to
avoid offence, in great seclusion; in the latter year he was heard in
his own defence before the king and council, and informed that he need
apprehend no molestation or injury.

The affairs of Pennsylvania fell into some confusion during Penn's long
absence. Even in the peaceable sect of Quakers there were ambitious,
bustling, and selfish men; and Penn was not satisfied with the conduct
either of the representative Assembly, or of those to whom he had
delegated his own powers. He changed the latter two or three times,
without effecting the restoration of harmony; and these troubles gave a
pretext for depriving him of his powers as governor, in 1693. The real
cause was probably the suspicion entertained of his treasonable
correspondence with James II. But he was reinstated in August, 1694, by
a royal order, in which it was complimentarily expressed that the
disorders complained of were produced entirely by his absence. Anxious
as he was to return, he did not find an opportunity till 1699; the
interval was chiefly employed in religious travel through England and
Ireland, and in the labor of controversial writing, from which he seldom
had a long respite. His course as a philanthropist on his return to
America is honorably marked by an endeavor to ameliorate the condition
of Negro slaves. The society of Quakers in Pennsylvania had already come
to a resolution, that the buying, selling, and holding men in slavery
was inconsistent with the tenets of the Christian religion; and
followi