nes! for what?" replied Penn. "For contempt of
Court," was the answer. Penn then declared that, according to the laws,
no man could be fined without a trial by jury; but the Mayor ordered him
and Mead first to the bail-dock, and then to the jail; where the jury
was likewise consigned.

But this noble stand of the jury for law and right was not allowed to
terminate in the punishment of these upright men, and the continued
gratification of the revenge of the unjust Judges. After ineffectually
demanding of the Court their release two or three times, a writ of
_habeas corpus_ was granted by Judge Vaughan; who, upon hearing the
case, decided their fine and imprisonment illegal, and set them free.

The usage of the Courts had not before been reduced to a legal and
positive form. It had been the occasional practice of the Bench to
impose fines on "inconvenient juries," and had long remained practically
an unsettled question, whether a jury had a right so far to exercise its
own discretion as to bring in a verdict contrary to the sense of the
Court. This important point was now decided; the Judges--there were
others associated with Vaughan--adopting the views that it was the
special function of the jury to judge of the evidence, and that the
Bench, though at liberty to offer suggestions for the consideration of
the jurymen, might not lawfully coerce them.

William Penn, anxious to have the cases of himself and his friend
reviewed by a Superior Court, wrote to his father, affectionately
desiring him not to interfere to have him released. But the old man, who
was fast declining, and anxious to have the company and attentions of
his son, to whom he was not only reconciled, but on whose filial
affection and care he had learned to lean for comfort and support, was
not willing to wait the tardy process of law; and therefore paid the
fines of both the Friends, and had them set free. The Admiral survived
but a few days the liberation of his son; in which time he sent one of
his friends to the King and Duke of York, to make his dying request,
that, so far as they could, they would hereafter befriend his loved
son; which both promised to do. Addressing his son shortly before his
death, he said: "Son William, if you and your friends keep to your plain
way of preaching, and your plain way of living, you will make an end of
the priests to the end of the world." Again--sensible, it is probable,
of the wrong he had before committed in his c