Beschreibung:

PENN, WILLIAM, Founder of Pennsylvania . Autograph letter signed ("Wm Penn") to Joseph Pike in Cork, Ireland, London, 5 July 1699. 2 1/2 pages, small folio, address panel and recipient's docket on verso of second leaf, remains of wax seal, small seal hole not affecting text, fold separations, minor staining . Two months before setting sail for Pennsylvania after an absence of 15 years, Penn confides in his old friend the Quaker merchant Joseph Pike, who had served as his secretary during his recent trip to Ireland. "My long silence has pleased me as little as it has pleased thee...[B]e assured my love is to thee & thyn, in the everlasting & unchangable truth, w[hi]ch comprehends sea & land, time & mutability, wherin I often have remembered thee & ye Lords flock in those parts, with an endeared concern for your spirituall encrease...[M]y business of all sorts...hath crowded so thick & hard upon me, that had not the Lords ancient & wonted goodness attended me, it had been sufficient to sinck the mind & body of a man. My time of departure begins to draw neigh, & I am resigned to ye voyage, in ye faith & assurance of God's love & presence; and pray yt it may be for good; tho as to things here, it seems an ill time for my absence. I shall say no more. The Lord is God; there is none like unto him, & his sufficiency will be known to his people in all conditions. As to matters in ye Church, they are pretty well, & as to outward things, they Jog on, but the people grumble at one thing or another, both Court & Country seem to want mony; Its likely to be a fine harvest, w[hi]ch is a great mercy, for a Dearth began to look us in ye face in this Island. In Scotland a great one. "...This ye time of my greatest pinch, many things pressing at my Goeing away, especially for family requisets. It had been a great favour & kindness in fr[ien]ds to have thought of land & me at this Juncture. I think to hasten back, if service require it, so soon as all is settled. I take ship, ye Lord wiling ye 15th next month... Let me hear from thee, for I greatly love thee; how glad should I be, couldst thou have made a step with me. It might have been of mighty service every way... [Postscript:] Great and good reports of ye Improvement of Pennsilvania...". Penn's troubles at home were financial in nature. His steward, the Quaker lawyer Philip Ford, who had betrayed Penn's unquestioning trust by building up an enormous account (eventually totalling #14,000), was threatening to prevent his departure for America. Ford's blackmail worked and Penn ceded to his terms in August, just 10 days before he was due to set sail; nonetheless the problem darkened his later years, culminating in 1707 when he spendt nine months in Fleet prison and was compelled to mortgage his American property rights. During Penn's two-year stay in Pennsylvania -- his last -- he concluded an important treaty with the Five Nations Indians in the Susquehanna valley, in which they promised not to help any enemy of England and to sell their furs or skins only to inhabitants of the province; he passed various resolutions protecting slaves; and he drew up a new Charter of Privileges , which established a markedly democratic form of government for the Colony that continued practically unchanged until the Revolution. Provenance : Unidentified owner (sale, Sotheby's London, 28 March 1983, lot 69).