"rudely and
arbitrarily" required every man's appearance before the mayor. Among
others, they "violently haled" Penn. From jail he wrote to the Earl of
Orrery, Lord President of Munster, making a stout protest. It was his
first public utterance. "Diversities of faith and conduct," he argued,
"contribute not to the disturbance of any place, where moral conformity
is barely requisite to preserve the peace." He reminded his lordship
that he himself had not long since "concluded no way so effectual to
improve or advantage this country as to dispense with freedom [i. e. to
act freely] in all things pertaining to conscience."

Penn wrote so much during his long life that his selected works make
five large volumes. Many of these pages are devoted to the statement of
Quaker theology; some are occupied with descriptions of his colonial
possessions; some are given to counsels and conclusions drawn from
experience and dealing with human life in general; but there is one idea
which continually recurs,--sometimes made the subject of a thesis,
sometimes entering by the way,--and that is the popular right of liberty
of conscience. It was for this that he worked, and chiefly lived, most
of his life. Here it is set forth with all clearness in the first public
word which he wrote.

William's letter opened the jail doors. It is likely, however, that the
signature was more influential than the epistle; for his Quaker
associates seem not to have come out with him. The fact which probably
weighed most with the Lord President was that Penn was the son of his
father the admiral, and the protege of Ormond. His father called him
home. It was on the 3d of September that William was arrested; on the
29th of December, being the Lord's day, Mrs. Turner calls upon Mr. and
Mrs. Pepys for an evening of cheerful conversation, "and there, among
other talk, she tells me that Mr. William Pen, who has lately come over
from Ireland, is a Quaker again, or some very melancholy thing; that he
cares for no company, nor comes into any."

Admiral Penn was sorely disappointed. Neither France nor Ireland had
availed to wean his son from his religious eccentricities. Into the
pleasant society where his father had hoped to see him shine, he
declined to enter. He said "thee" and "thou," and wore his hat.
Especially upon these points of manners, the young man and his father
held long discussions. The admiral insisted that William should refrain
from making himself so