had been begun in England for the abolition of the proprietary system of governing the American colonies. Deeply interested in this intelligence, he thought it due to his interests to embark for England, where, accordingly, he arrived in December 1701.
The bill which had brought him from America was not proceeded with; and the accession of Queen Anne to the throne in 1702 was a favorable event for his interests. Penn, however, never returned to America, but spent the remaining sixteen years of his life in England. It is melancholy to add that these last years of the existence of so good a man were clouded with misfortune. His outlay on Pennsylvania had far exceeded the immediate returns which the property could yield; and the consequence was, that he was involved in pecuniary embarrassments. To meet these, he was obliged, in 1709, to mortgage the province for £6600. The loss of a law suit added to his difficulties; and for some time he was a prisoner within the rules of Fleet. In 1712, he agreed to sell his rights to government for £12,000. The bargain, however, was never concluded, owing to his being incapacitated by three apopletic fits, which, following each other rapidly, deprived him to a great extent of memory and consciousness. He lingered on, however, till the 30th of July 1718, when he died at Ruscombe, in Berkshire, in the seventy-fourth year of his age.
Penn's appearance and personal habits are thus described by Mr. Clarkson:—'He was tall in stature, and of an athletic make. In maturer years he was inclined to corpulency; but used a great deal of exercise. His appearance at this time was that of a fine portly man. He was very neat, though plain in his dress. He walked generally with a cane. He had a great aversion to the use of tobacco. However, when he was in America, though he was often annoyed by it, he bore it with good-humor. Several of his particular friends were one day assembled at Burlington; while they were smoking their pipes, it was announced to them that the governor's barge was in sight, and coming up the river. The company supposed that he was on his way to Pennsburg, about seven miles higher up. They continued smoking; but being afterwards unexpectedly informed that he had landed at a wharf near them, and was just entering the house, they suddenly concealed their pipes. Perceiving, from the smoke, when he entered the room what they had been doing, and discovering that the pipes had been hid, he said pleasantly, 'Well, friends, I am glad to see that you are at least ashamed of your old practice.' 'Not entirely so,' replied Samuel Jennings, one of the company; 'but we preferred laying down our pipes to the danger of offending a weak brother.' They then expressed their surprise at this abrupt visit, as, in his passage from Philadelphia, not only the tide, but the wind had been furiously against him. He replied, with a smile on his countenance, 'that he had been sailing against wind and tide all his life.'
The colony made rapid progress after Penn's death, settlers being attracted to it from all parts of the old world by the freedom of its constitution and its natural advantages. The proprietorship was vested in the heirs of Penn by his second marriage, his children by his first marriage having inherited his British estates, which, at the time of Penn's death were of greater value than his American property. In the year 1752, while Pennsylvania was still a British colony, the French made encroachments on it from the north-west, and built Fort Duquesne—now Pittsburg. Philadel-
