s no town in England, or country in
Europe, of which he could not give a very particular account. He had
some letters, and was ingenious, but much of an unbeliever, and wickedly
undertook, some years after, to travesty the Bible in doggerel verse, as
Cotton had done Virgil. By this means he set many of the facts in a very
ridiculous light, and might have hurt weak minds if his work had been
published; but it never was.

At his house I lay that night, and the next morning reached Burlington,
but had the mortification to find that the regular boats were gone a
little before my coming, and no other expected to go before Tuesday,
this being Saturday; wherefore I returned to an old woman in the town,
of whom I had bought gingerbread to eat on the water, and asked her
advice. She invited me to lodge at her house till a passage by water
should offer; and being tired with my foot traveling, I accepted the
invitation. She understanding I was a printer, would have had me stay at
that town and follow my business, being ignorant of the stock necessary
to begin with. She was very hospitable, gave me a dinner of ox-cheek
with great good will, accepting only of a pot of ale in return; and I
thought myself fixed till Tuesday should come. However, walking in the
evening by the side of the river, a boat came by, which I found was
going towards Philadelphia, with several people in her. They took me in,
and, as there was no wind, we rowed all the way; and about midnight, not
having yet seen the city, some of the company were confident we must
have passed it, and would row no farther; the others knew not where we
were; so we put toward the shore, got into a creek, landed near an old
fence, with the rails of which we made a fire, the night being cold, in
October, and there we remained till daylight. Then one of the company
knew the place to be Cooper's Creek, a little above Philadelphia, which
we saw as soon as we got out of the creek, and arrived there about eight
or nine o'clock on the Sunday morning, and landed at the Market Street
wharf.

I have been the more particular in this description of my journey, and
shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you may in your mind
compare such unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since made
there. I was in my working dress, my best clothes being to come round by
sea. I was dirty from my journey; my pockets were stuffed out with
shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul nor where to l