George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 2, 17th edition.

[368] of his family. His wife, who was the love of his youth

Chap. XVI.} 1682.

he reminded of his impoverishment in consequence of his public spirit, and recommended economy; ‘Live low and sparingly till my debts be paid.’ Yet for his children he adds, ‘Let their learning be liberal; spare no cost, for by such parsimony all is lost that is saved’ Agriculture he proposed as their employment. ‘Let my children be husbandmen and housewives.’— Friends in England watched his departure with anxious hope; on him rested the expectations of their society, and their farewell at parting was given with ‘the innocence and tenderness of the child that has no guile.’

After a long passage, rendered gloomy by frequent death among the passengers, many of whom had in England been his immediate neighbors, on the twenty-seventh day¹ of October, 1682, William Penn

Oct. 27.

landed at Newcastle.

The son and grandson of naval officers, his thoughts had from boyhood been directed to the ocean; the conquest of Jamaica by his father early familiarized his imagination with the New World, and in Oxford, at the age of seventeen, he indulged in visions of happiness, of which America was the scene.² Bred in the school of Independency, he had, while hardly twelve years old, learned to listen to the voice of God in his soul; and at Oxford, where his excellent genius received the benefits of learning, the words of a Quaker preacher so touched his heart, that he was fined and afterwards

1661

expelled for nonconformity.³ His father, bent on subduing