One evening late in the year 1667, in a coffee house off Fleet Street in the City of London, Sir William Pen, an admiral and politician of the House of Commons, discusses with his peers the shame he feels so acutely over his son, William Penn, who he has disinherited for his beliefs in religious freedom and the Quakers. An outcast in his homeland, William sets out to the free air of a new land, America, where he is instrumental in the founding of Pennsylvania, the province which was named after him.