meant sermon have I preached to some of them. When I found laziness
and inattention to prevail, who could refrain from wishing well to
these new countrymen, after having undergone so many fatigues. Who
could withhold good advice? What a happy change it must be, to
descend from the high, sterile, bleak lands of Scotland, where
everything is barren and cold, to rest on some fertile farms in
these middle provinces! Such a transition must have afforded the
most pleasing satisfaction.

The following dialogue passed at an out-settlement, where I lately
paid a visit:

Well, friend, how do you do now; I am come fifty odd miles on
purpose to see you; how do you go on with your new cutting and
slashing? Very well, good Sir, we learn the use of the axe bravely,
we shall make it out; we have a belly full of victuals every day,
our cows run about, and come home full of milk, our hogs get fat of
themselves in the woods: Oh, this is a good country! God bless the
king, and William Penn; we shall do very well by and by, if we keep
our healths. Your loghouse looks neat and light, where did you get
these shingles? One of our neighbours is a New-England man, and he
showed us how to split them out of chestnut-trees. Now for a barn,
but all in good time, here are fine trees to build with. Who is to
frame it, sure you don't understand that work yet? A countryman of
ours who has been in America these ten years, offers to wait for his
money until the second crop is lodged in it. What did you give for
your land? Thirty-five shillings per acre, payable in seven years.
How many acres have you got? An hundred and fifty. That is enough to
begin with; is not your land pretty hard to clear? Yes, Sir, hard
enough, but it would be harder still if it were ready cleared, for