William penn as a business man: The business background in England, 1680–1682
✍ Scribed by Charles Lyon Chandler
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1933
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 643 KB
- Volume
- 215
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0016-0032
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
In his valuable book, "The True William Penn," Sydney George Fisher says, "There must have been some special reason why Penn determined to act upon Fox's 1660 scheme and carry it out in 1680, but of this reason we are not informed and can only conjecture."
May not the answer be found in Penn's taking advantage of the state of the market in 168o-1681? and may not another reason be that religious persecution was then at its height, not merely in England, but also in the whole of Continental Europe, except Brandenburg-Prussia?
There is a very direct connection between the desire to emigrate and the intensity of religious persecution.
Let us first consider the general business conditions prevailing when Penn established his great enterprise with about the equivalent of $250,000 in our money today.
It should be remembered that after Penn's father's death on Sept. 16, 1670, he was publicly acknowledged as a very rich young man ; he had the equivalent of $30,000 a year.' Some of the other American Colonies had been founded not merely in periods of business depression in England, but when prospects there had been none too good for initiating new Ventures. Their slow development-or failure-may be partially attributed to these reasons.
Business in London had been very good from 1678 to 1682, particularly about the time when Penn's Charter was granted in 1681, when there appears to have been a consider-* A paper read before The Franklin Institute on Thursday, October 27, 1932, in connection with the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Penn's landing in Philadelphia.