enne,

"Her Majesty's Maids of Honour having acquainted me that they
design to employ you and Mr. Walden in making a composition with
the Relations of the Maids of Taunton for the high Misdemeanour
they have been guilty of, I do at their request hereby let you
know that His Majesty has been pleased to give their Fines to the
said Maids of Honour, and therefore recommend it to Mr. Walden
and you to make the most advantageous composition you can in
their behalf."

I am, Sir,

"Your humble servant,

"SUNDERLAND."

That the person to whom this letter was addressed was William Penn the
Quaker was not doubted by Sir James Mackintosh who first brought it to
light, or, as far as I am aware, by any other person, till after
the publication of the first part of this History. It has since been
confidently asserted that the letter was addressed to a certain George
Penne, who appears from an old accountbook lately discovered to have
been concerned in a negotiation for the ransom of one of Monmouth's
followers, named Azariah Pinney.---- If I thought that I had committed
an error, I should, I hope, have the honesty to acknowledge it. But,
after full consideration, I am satisfied that Sunderland's letter was
addressed to William Penn.---- Much has been said about the way in which
the name is spelt. The Quaker, we are told, was not Mr. Penne, but
Mr. Penn. I feel assured that no person conversant with the books and
manuscripts of the seventeenth century will attach any importance to
this argument. It is notorious that a proper name was then thought to
be well spelt if the sound were preserved. To go no further than the
persons, who, in Penn's time, held the Great Seal, one of them is
sometimes Hyde and sometimes Hide: another is Jefferies, Jeffries,
Jeffereys, and Jeffreys: a third is Somers, Sommers, and Summers: a
fourth is Wright and Wrighte; and a fifth is Cowper and Cooper. The
Quaker's name was spelt in three ways. He, and his father the Admiral
before him, invariably, as far as I have observed, spelt it Penn; but
most people spelt it Pen; and there were some who adhered to the ancient
form, Penne. For example. William the father is Penne in a letter from
Disbrowe to Thurloe, dated on the 7th of December, 1654; and William the
son is Penne in a newsletter of the 22nd of September, 1688, printed in
the Ellis Correspondence. In Richard Ward's Life and Letters of Henry
More, printed i