204 STATESMEN AND SAGES The affairs of Pennsylvania fell into some confusion during Penn's long ab- sence. 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 repre- sentative 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 har- mony ; and these troubles gave a pretext for depriving him of his powers as gov- ernor, 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 disor- ders complained of were produced entirely by his absence. Anxious as he was to return, he did not find an opportunity till 1 699 ; 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 philan- thropist on his return to America is honorably marked by an endeavor to ameli- orate 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 following up this honorable declaration, Penn had no difficulty in obtaining for the negroes free admission into the regular meetings for religious worship, and in procuring that other meetings should be holden for their particular' benefit. The Quakers, therefore, merit our respect as the earliest, as well as some of the most zealous, emancipators. The governor returned to England in 1701, to oppose a scheme agitated in Parliament for abolishing the proprietary governments and placing the colonies immediately under royal control ; the bill, however, was dropped before he ar- rived. He enjoyed Anne's favor, as he had that of her father and uncle, and re- sided much in the neighborhood of the court, at Kensington and Knightsbridge. In his religious labors he continued constant, as heretofore. He was much har- assed by a lawsuit, the result of too much confidence in a dishonest steward ; which being decided against him, he was obliged for a time to reside within the Rules of the Fleet Prison. This, and the expenses in which he had been in- volved by Pennsylvania, reduced him to distress, and in 1 709 he mortgaged the province for ^6,600. In 1712 he agreed to sell his rights to the government for
- i 2,000, but was rendered unable to complete the transaction by three apoplectic
fits, which followed each other in quick succession. He survived, however, in a tranquil and happy state, though with his bodily and mental vigor much broken, until July 30, 1718, on which day he died at his seat at Rushcomb, in Berkshire, where he had resided for some years. His first wife died in 1693. He married a second time in 1696 ; and left a family of children by both wives, to whom he bequeathed his landed property in Europe and America. His rights of government he left in trust to the Earls of Oxford and Powlett, to be disposed of ; but no sale being ever made, the govern- ment, with the title of Proprietaries, devolved on the surviving sons of the sec- ond family.
