250 OLD PORTLAND. 



the cliff below Pennsylvania Castle, Penn built a large oval- 

 shaped bath ; his valet had to fetch the sea-water from the 

 Cove below. But the bath had been built in " Parish land," 

 and at the Court Leet he was amerced half-a-crown a year 

 by the islanders as an encroachment rent. Penn objected 

 to pay it and gave up using the bath ; it still exists, but 

 is in a decayed state. As time went on, however, by friend- 

 liness instead of by the force of might, he gained the good- 

 will of the people. 



John Penn was the grandson of the famous Quaker and the 

 great-grandson of Admiral Sir William Penn, who, curiously 

 enough, had fought the Dutch off Portland in 1653, and 

 was sometime Member of Parliament for Weymouth. His 

 mother, to whom he was devotedly attached, was Lady 

 Juliana Fermor, one of the beautiful daughters of the first 

 Earl of Pomfret, who was frequently with Queen Charlotte 

 at Weymouth ; and John Penn's first acquaintance with 

 Portland and his resolve to settle here were probably brought 

 about while on a visit to his mother at Weymouth. But 

 he himself never married ; he had had an unfortunate at- 

 tachment in early youth from which he did not recover, 

 although he organised a Society which had for its object 

 an improvement in the domestic life of married people. 



Many royal and notable personages, including George III., 

 Queen Charlotte, and their children, visited Pennsylvania 

 Castle at the beginning of the 19th century ; and Peiin, who 

 was an intellectual man (some of his poems, plays, and 

 pamphlets were published), was also in a small way a patron 

 of art and literature ; at Cambridge he had obtained the 

 degrees of M.A. and LL.D. In his later years, when his 

 health began to fail and he was less mentally alert and a 

 prey to nervous fears and strange fancies, he still had many 

 visitors at the Castle ; but these consisted mostly of doubtful 

 people who derived or expected to derive from him some 

 pecuniary benefit. He lived about two years after leaving 

 Portland, and died of acute senile decay at the age of 74 

 at his Buckinghamshire home, Stoke Park, in the year 1834. 



