Travels In The United States Of America; Commencing In The Year 1793, And Ending In 1797. With The Author's Journals Of His Two Voyages Across The Atlantic By William Priest
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My Present Intention Is To Give You Some Conception Of The Family Of A
Planter, Whose Ancestors Had In Some Degree Gone Through All The
Difficulties I Described In My Last.
We will suppose them descended from the original english emigrants, who
came over with Penn; like them, to possess a high sense of religion; and
that this family are now in the quiet possession of about three hundred
acres of land, their own _property_[Footnote:
There are very few _farms_
properly so called in the United States.], situate in Pennsylvania, about
seventy or eighty miles from Philadelphia. Whatever difficulties they, or
their ancestors, struggled formerly with, are now over; their lands are
cleared, and in the bosom of a fine country, with a sure market for every
article of produce they can possibly raise, and entirely out of the reach
of the most desperate predatory excursions of the savages.
They enjoy a happy state of mediocrity[Footnote: The quakers in
particular. I have seen at a meeting in West Jersey, in a very small town,
upwards of two hundred carriages, one horse chairs, and light waggons,
which are machines peculiar to this country, and well adapted to the sandy
soil of the state of New Jersey; they are covered like a caravan, and will
hold eight persons; the benches are removable at pleasure, and they are
also used to convey the produce of the country to market.], between riches
and poverty, perhaps the most enviable of all situations. When the boys of
this family are numerous, those the father cannot provide for at home, and
who prefer a planter's life to a trade, or profession, are, when married,
presented with two or three hundred acres of uncultivated land, which
their parents purchase for them as near home as possible.
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