Sir John and the other judges sneered at him, told him that he was bringing an honorable name to disgrace, and treated his principles with haughty contempt. Finally Sir John said, "But you do nothing but stir up the people to sedition; and one of your friends told me that you preached sedition and meddled with the government." Penn looked these accusers squarely in the face. "We have the unhappiness to be misrepresented," he answered, "and I am not the least concerned therein. Bring me the man that will dare to justify this accusation to my face, and if I am not able to make it appear that it is both my practice and all my friends' to instill principles of peace and moderation (and only war against spiritual wickedness, that all men may be brought to fear God and work righteousness), I shall contentedly undergo the severest punishment all your laws can expose me to. "As for the king, I make this offer, that if any living can make it appear, directly or indirectly, from the time I have been called a Quaker (since from thence you date me seditious), I have contrived or acted anything injurious to his person, or the English government, I shall submit my person to your utmost cruelties, and esteem them all but a due recompense. It is hard that I, being innocent, should be reputed guilty; but the will of God be done. I accept of bad reports as well as good." But he could not make Sir John and the other judges believe in his innocence. "You will be the heading of parties and drawing people after you," said Sir John, doggedly, and ordered Penn taken to Newgate, the worst prison in London, where Quakers were herded with criminals of the lowest types. People with money could hire rooms for themselves at Newgate and so avoid some of the discomforts of that vile place, and Penn spoke to his jailers about having a private room, but they answered him so abusively and insultingly and charged him so much for a private room that he said he preferred to share the lot of the poorest criminals. And there this man of wealth and education bravely stayed for six months, writing a number of essays and a spirited religious pamphlet. When the authorities thought the incorrigible young man must surely have learned his lesson in the wretched prison, they set him free again. He had spent half of the last three years in jails. When he was at length liberated, he went abroad for a time, traveling in Holland and Germany, perhaps because his stay in Newgate had injured his health, perhaps to give the suspicions concerning him a chance to disappear. Yet, even on these journeys, whenever Penn found people showing any interest in the Quaker faith, he stopped and explained it fully to them. But in most places the new sect was looked upon as something very strange, and its members were suspected of designs against the government, so very few were anxious to learn about it.