PREFACE

THE materials for a biography of William Penn, as a distinguished member of the Society of Friends, and as the Founder of Pennsylvania, are abundant. For the most part, they have been faithfully used. Joseph Besse, who made the first collection of his numerous writings, prefixed to them a sketch of his life, with an appendix, made up of many of his principal religious letters. The French work, by Marsillac, ("Vie de Guillaume Penn," 1792, 8vo., two volumes in one,) is a compilation judiciously made, and contains some Pennsylvania documents. The magazines, encyclopædias, and biographical dictionaries, add some valuable materials, as do also several of the journals and letters of leading Quakers, contemporary with Penn. Clarkson had access to the family papers in possession of Penn's grandson in England, and his volumes, written with all the wisdom and candor of the author, contain but a very few inaccuracies. Ebeling's "History of Pennsylvania affords, in its early chapters, translated by Peter S. Duponceau, and printed in Hazard's "Register of Pennsylvania," in the main, a just view of the Proprietor.

On this side of the water, William Penn has found, among our own historians and antiquarians,

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faithful guardians of his memory, and devoted approvers of his whole course through life. Proud's History of Pennsylvania," the least recommendation of which is its style, is careful and accurate. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has been most assiduous in collecting every document and fact relating to William Penn, and its labors have been eminently successful. The letters and papers with which its seven half volumes, already published, are enriched, are of the highest value. While all its members have engaged zealously in this work, two of them, J. Francis Fisher and John F. Watson, deserve especial mention, for their careful researches and rich contributions. A well written and accurate sketch of Penn's life, chiefly confined, however, to his religious labors, with large extracts from his writings, by Enoch Lewis, is given in " The Friends' Library," Vol. V. (Philadelphia, 1841.) Other sources of information are referred to in the notes.