n undertook the "holy experiment" without expectation or desire
of profit appears not only in his conviction that he was thereby losing
sixteen thousand pounds, but in his refusal to make his new estates a
means of gain. "He is offered great things," says James Claypole in a
letter dated September, 1681, "L6000 for a monopoly in trade, which he
refused.... He designs to do things equally between all parties, and I
believe truly does aim more at justice and righteousness and spreading
of truth than at his own particular gain." "I would not abuse His love,"
said Penn, "nor act unworthy of His providence, and so defile what came
to me clean. No, let the Lord guide me by His wisdom, and preserve me to
honour His name, and serve His truth and people, that an example and
standard may be set up to the nations."
So far removed was he from all self-seeking, that he was even unwilling
to have the colony bear his name. "I chose New Wales," he says,
recounting the action of the king's council, "being, as this, a pretty
hilly country,--but Penn being Welsh for head, as Pennanmoire in Wales,
and Penrith in Cumberland, and Penn in Buckinghamshire, the highest land
in England--[the king] called this Pennsylvania, which is the high or
head woodlands; for I proposed, when the secretary, a Welshman, refused
to have it called New Wales, Sylvania, and they added Penn to it; and
though I much opposed it, and went to the king to have it struck out and
altered, he said it was past, and he would take it upon him; nor could
twenty guineas move the under-secretary to vary the name, for I feared
lest it should be looked on as a vanity in me, and not as a respect in
the king, as it truly was, to my father, whom he often mentions with
praise."
The charter gave the land to Penn as the king's tenant. He had power to
make laws; though this power was to be exercised, except in emergencies,
"with the advice, assent, and approbation of the freemen of the
territory," and subject to the confirmation of the Privy Council. He was
to appoint judges and other officers. He had the right to assess custom
on goods laden and unladen, for his own benefit; though he was to take
care to do it "reasonably," and with the advice of the assembly of
freemen. He was, at the same time, to be free from any tax or custom of
the king, except by his own consent, or by the consent of his governor
or assembly, or by act of Parliament. He was not to maintain
correspondence with
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