During the next four years, he was mostly "in retirement" in private lodgings, in London, to avoid the warrants issued against him at the instance of an infamous informer, named Fuller. This man was afterwards denounced by Parliament as a notorious cheat and impostor. Yet, it is evident that he was really dangerous, for one of his victims was actually executed. So Penn deemed it wisest to live in privacy till the storm blew over. But he was far from idle. Besides the work already mentioned, he wrote his famous "Maxims" and other books. Other calamities befel him one after another, until his condition was indeed forlorn. The King deprived him of the government of Pennsylvania. Roguish agents robbed and defrauded him, until neither his colony nor his Irish estates yielded him anything. He was reduced to such straits, that when once he thought of going to Pennsylvania he had not the means. Friends looked coldly on him, in spite of his pathetic appeal to them not to forsake him in his hour of need. To fill up the bitter cup, in 1693 he lost his wife, the joy and consolation of his days of trial, the constant, indefatigable, and undaunted sharer of his labours. He had the melancholy knowledge that her end was hastened by her taking to heart her husband's crushing cares and unmerited ill-usage.
The coolness of the Quakers needs explanation. There was then, as now, a strong feeling amongst some religious people against Christian men taking an active part in public affairs. Penn was too strong a man to yield to it, but it caused him much trouble and suffering. And now that William reigned, and that Penn's position, instead of being a help and a protection to Friends, caused them to be suspected of disloyalty, this feeling was intensified. George Fox's son-in-law, Thomas Lower, even sketched a form of apology, which Penn was to sign to satisfy the weaker brethren. Penn once joined some Friends in Pennsylvania when they had given him up, supposing that opposing winds and tide made his coming impossible. When they expressed their astonishment at seeing him under the circumstances, he answered with that ready pleasantry which ever characterised him, "I have been sailing against wind and tide all my life."