• FICTION FOUND OUT.'

• To my Efteemed Friends, called Quakers, on occafion of two copies of verses printed, and subscribed

‹ W. P.'

'DEAR FRIENDS,

'I

Have writ this for and your fatisfaction; yet not • for yours, as you well fay, but to inform those many that may importune you on my account, asking, if I was the author of the condoling and congratulating verfes on the late and prefent king printed (fay they) in my name: concluding, if 1 were the author, I must needs have turned papist, ' flatterer, and what they please.

Others, I perceive, without this help, as well as ' without truth or modefty, stick not to report me a declared papist, and that I openly go to mass.

Now, though it looks idle in any to wonder I 'fhould be a papift at this time of day, that have 'been thought, and upon juft as good ground, a Jefuit fo many years; yet because they have no better ' evidence, a man would wonder why they should be 'fo believing, but that we lamentably fee men are apter to be injurious than just. In the mean while • I have a fine time of it, to be reported a papist on one hand, and prefented and profecuted as a difaf'fected perfon on the other hand: but I know myself and the world too well, to be troubled at this, and ' worse, if that can be: it is enough for me it is " FALSE.

For the verses, if it be confidered, the two letters 'W. P. begin five hundred names befides mine; and I, that pretend not to POETRY at any time, 'fhould hardly have done it then, when I must needs 'look to have fuch fad company as the dull flattery of all the fuburbs of the town.

• But

But that I did not write them, the stuff itself fhews; and they must be bereaved of sense, as well as charity, that can think it: for to own myfelf a Quaker, and jeer the profeffion; to use their phrafes, and profane them; to promife, as Quakers, to live peaceably, and yet engage to be no more fuch; to make ourselves loyal in one ftanza, and afk pardon for NOT being fo in another; be now a mistaken and wilful ROUT, and prefently the loving and loyal FRIENDS of Charles and James; make up fuch a jar and a nonsense that I have not been used to be guilty of in profe; and whenever I turn fuch a PENNY-POET, let fuch confufion be my judgment: however, it would look rude to be angry at them; for certainly they put a mighty compliment upon my name, that thought two letters of it would make their drug fell: and because I am fo known a friend to PROPERTY, to the unknown hawker-wit that writ them I leave them, with the credit of all the fine and foolish fancy they are laboured with: contenting myself, against all defamations, that I have this • defence for my religion and conduct in my conclu• fions:

First, that the grace of God WITHIN me, and the fcriptures WITHOUT me, are the foundation and declaration of my faith and religion; and let any man get better if he can.

Secondly, that the profeffion I make of this religion, is in the fame way and manner that I have ufed for almost these eighteen years laft paft.

Thirdly, that my civil conduct, I humbly bless my God, has been with peace on earth, and good< will to all men, from the king on the throne, to the beggar on the dunghill.

C I have ever loved ENGLAND, and moderation to all parties in it; and long seen, and foreseen, the confequences of the want of it: I would yet heartily wifh it might take place, and PERSUASION that of PERSECUTION, that we might not grow BARBAROUS

• for

for CHRISTIANITY, nor abuse and undo one another for GOD'S SAKE.

'These have been, these are, and with God's ftrength, 'fhall be, through all the crooked and uneven paths of time, the principles and practice of

Your ancient and conftant friend,

1 Worminghurst-place, the laft of the

WILLIAM PENN.'

• second month, called April, 1683.'

POSTSCRIP T,

If this will not ferve and fatisfy the mistaken, (for the malicious, I fear, are paft cure) let them but prove the report upon any body, and I will yet, as late as it looks in the day for fuch work, effectually convince them with the judgment of the law, that ought to be every honeft man's fhield.'

W. P.'

But yet the mistaken notions entertained by the common people of his being a papift, or at leaft holding a correfpondence with Jefuits at Rome, began to enter the minds of fome of better judgment; and among others his acquaintance Dr. Tillotfon (afterward archbishop of Canterbury) having let in a fufpicion of him, dropt fome expreffions, which were improved to his difadvantage: William Penn being informed of this, wrote a letter to the doctor on that fubject, which was followed by feveral others that paffed between them, until at laft the doctor declared himself fully fatisfied that his fufpicion was groundlefs: and that our reader may not mifs of as full fatisfaction in this cafe, a copy of those letters here follows, viz.

< W. PENN

W. PENN to Dr. TILLOTSON.'

< WORTHY FRIEND,

BE

EING often told that Dr. Tillotfon should fufpect me, and fo report me, a papist, (I think a Jefuit) and being clofely preffed, I take the liberty to ask thee, if any fuch reflection fell from thee? If it did, I am forry one I efteemed ever the first of his robe, should fo undeservedly stain me, for fo I call it; and if the story be false, I am forry they fhould abufe Dr. Tillotfon, as well as myself, ⚫ without a caufe. I add no more, but that I abhor two principles in religion, and pity them that own them. The firft is, obedience upon authority with⚫ out conviction; and the other, destroying them that differ from me for God's fake. Such a religion is without judgment, though not without teeth: union is beft, if right; elfe charity: and, as Hooker faid, "The time will come, when a few words fpoken with «meekness, and humility and love, fhall be more "acceptable than volumes of controverfies;" which commonly destroy charity, the very best part of the true religion: I mean not a charity that can CHANGE with all, but BEAR all, as I can Dr. Tillotfon in what he diffents from me, and in this reflection too, if faid, which is not yet believed by

TH

Jan. 26, 1685.*

HE demand of your letter is very just and reasonable, and the manner of it very kind; * therefore in answer to it, be pleased to take the fol

lowing

• O. S.

lowing account. The last time you did me the favour to fee me at my houfe, I did, according to the freedom I always ufe, where I profefs any friendship, acquaint you with fomething I had heard of a correfpondence you held with fome at Rome, and particularly with fome of the Jesuits there; at which you seemed a little furprized; and after some general difcourfe about it, you faid you would call on me 'fome other time, and speak farther of it: fince that time I never faw you, but by accident and in pasfage, where, I thought, you always declined me, particularly at Sir William Jones's chamber, which was the last time, I think, I faw you; upon which < occafion I took notice to him of your ftrangeness to 'me, and told him what I thought might be the reafon of it, and that I was forry for it, because I had ' a particular esteem of your parts and temper. The 'fame, I believe, I have faid to fome others, but to 'whom I do not fo particularly remember. Since your going to Pennfylvania, I never thought more of it; till lately being in fome company, one of them preffed me to declare, whether I had not heard 'fomething of you, which had fatisfied me that you were a papift? I anfwered, No, by no means. I told him what I had heard, and what I faid to you, ' and of the strangeness that enfued upon it; but that 'this never went farther with me, than to make 'me fufpect there was more in that report which I ' had heard, than I was at first willing to believe; and that if any made more of it, I fhould look upon them as very injurious both to Mr. Penn and myself.

с

This is the truth of that matter; and whenever you will please to fatisfy me that my fufpicion of the truth of that report I had heard was groundlefs, I 'will heartily beg your pardon for it. I do fully concur with you in the abhorrence of the two principles you mention, and in your approbation of that ex'cellent faying of Mr. Hooker's, for which I fhall ever highly esteem him. I have endeavoured to 'make it one of the governing principles of my life,