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message,—‘yet I hope you will not refuse to feed the
hungrie, and clothe the naked.’
The assembly was
willing to give alms to the sufferers round
Albany; but it claimed the right of making specific appropriations, and collecting and disbursing the money by officers of its own appointment.
The demand was rejected as an infringement on the royal prerogative; and, after a fortnight's altercation, the assembly was dissolved.
Such was the success of a royal governor in
Pennsylvania.
Meantime, the proprietary recovered his authority.
Thrice, within two years after the revolution, had William Penn been arrested and brought before court, and thrice he had been openly set free.
He prepared
to embark once more for America; emigrants crowded round him; a convoy was granted; the fleet was almost ready to sail, when, on his return from the funeral of
George Fox, messengers were sent to apprehend him. Having been thrice questioned, and thrice acquitted, he now went into retirement.
Locke would have interceded for his pardon; but
Penn refused clemency, waiting rather for justice.
The delay completed the wreck of his fortunes; sorrow lowered over his family; the wife of his youth yielded to a mortal disease; his eldest son had no vigorous hold on life; even among Friends, some cavilled at his conduct; Jesuit, Papist, rogue, and traitor, were the gentlest calumnies of the world; yet
Penn preserved his serenity, and, true to his principles, in a season of passionate and almost universal war, published a plea for eternal peace among the nations.
But, among the many in England whom Penn had benefited, gratitude was not extinct.
On the restora-
tion of the whigs to power,
Rochester, who, under
