The founder of Quakerism had determined upon a voyage across the Atlantic for the purpose of organising the numerous Friends who had been gathered in the far West by the earlier Quaker preachers. In these days such a voyage is accounted as little more than a mere pleasure trip to those who like, or do not absolutely dislike the sea, but in the days of the Stuart Kings it was a serious undertaking; nothing, however, could daunt the spirit of Fox or obstruct his progress when once an enterprise was determined upon. On the 12th of June, 1671, the little yacht, the "Industry," with its living freight of fifty passengers, including Fox and the twelve preachers, who had agreed to accompany him on his mission, sailed down the Thames, Margaret Fox and several Friends going with them as far as Gravesend. On the voyage they were chased by Barbary pirates, and after their landing they underwent many perils and hardships, for travelling in the then primitive condition of the American colonies was arduous work, involving constant camping out at night, fording deep rivers, wading through swamps and quagmires, and penetrating vast forests and wildernesses. Fox was generally welcomed, and received more kindness and courtesy from all classes than in his own country. The journey occupied two years, and in one of his letters he thus summarises it: "We have had great travail by land and sea, and rivers and bays and creeks, in New England, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Carolina; where we have had great service among Friends and governours and others, and with the Indians and their King and Emperor." On the 21st March, 1673, he set sail for England, and after a tempestuous voyage reached Bristol harbour on the 28th of the following month. His wife went up from Swarthmoor to meet him, accompanied by her son-in-law, Thomas Lower, and two of her daughters. It was the time of Bristol fair; great meetings were held, and the occasion was a memorable one, for it was amid the rant and turmoil of the fair that George Fox first made the acquaintance of William Penn. The great reformer had just landed from America, and there can be little doubt that this meeting led Penn to investigate human nature in the New World. A close intimacy sprang up between the two; they travelled much together, and in Fox's journal the name of the fearless and honest lawgiver--the future founder of Pennsylvania--is frequently mentioned. They visited at each other's houses. Fox was a guest at Worminghurst while Penn and his family resided there; and there is a well-founded tradition that he visited Fox at his abode at Swarthmoor, in Lancashire.