heir 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. The young couple
are supplied with stock, and supported till they have a sufficient
quantity of land cleared to provide for themselves.

If unsuccessful through want of industry, &c., they often sell off, and
emigrate to Kentucky, or some other new country seven or eight hundred
miles to the S.W., and begin the world again as back settlers.

The daughters are brought up in habits of virtue and industry; the strict
notions of female delicacy, instilled into their minds from their earliest
infancy, never entirely forsake them. Even when one of these girls is
decoyed from the peaceful dwelling of her parents, and left by her
infamous seducer a prey to poverty and prostitution in a _brothel_ at
Philadelphia, her whole appearance is neat, and breathes an air of
modesty: you see nothing in her dress, language, or behaviour, that could
give you any reason to guess at her unfortunate situation; (how unlike her
unhappy sisters so circumstanced in England!) she by no means gives over
the idea of a husband, she is seldom disappointed: and, I am informed,
often makes an excellent wife.

The chief amusement of th