were out against him. He instantly took flight, and remained many
months concealed from the public eye.38

A short time after his disappearance, Sidney received from him a
strange communication. Penn begged for an interview, but insisted
on a promise that he should be suffered to return unmolested to
his hiding place. Sidney obtained the royal permission to make an
appointment on these terms. Penn came to the rendezvous, and
spoke at length in his own defence. He declared that he was a
faithful subject of King William and Queen Mary, and that, if he
knew of any design against them, he would discover it. Departing
from his Yea and Nay, he protested, as in the presence of God,
that he knew of no plot, and that he did not believe that there
was any plot, unless the ambitious projects of the French
government might be called plots. Sidney, amazed probably by
hearing a person, who had such an abhorrence of lies that he
would not use the common forms of civility, and such an
abhorrence of oaths that he would not kiss the book in a court of
justice, tell something very like a lie, and confirm it by
something very like an oath, asked how, if there were really no
plot, the letters and minutes which had been found on Ashton were
to be explained. This question Penn evaded. "If," he said, "I
could only see the King, I would confess every thing to him
freely. I would tell him much that it would be important for him
to know. It is only in that way that I can be of service to him.
A witness for the Crown I cannot be for my conscience will not
suffer me to be sworn." He assured Sidney that the most
formidable enemies of the government were the discontented Whigs.
"The Jacobites are not dangerous. There is not a man among them
who has common understanding. Some persons who came over from