from Philadelphia hither is
so great, that I cannot think of taking them back ... and in a
year or two, I doubt not, we shall have a college established
here.

It was about this time that his youngest son, Harry, in whom he
particularly delighted, began clearing 300 acres of cheap land, and in
this work the philosopher was greatly interested; indeed, on occasions
he actually participated in the labor of removing the timber. Despite
this manual labor there were still hours of every day given to the
Church History, and to his correspondence which grew in volume, as he
was advising inquiring English friends, who thought of emigrating, and
very generally to them he recommended the perusal of Dr. Thomas Cooper's

"Advice to those who would remove to America--"

Through this correspondence, now and then, there appeared little
animadversions on the quaint old town on the Delaware, such as

I never saw a town I liked less than Philadelphia.

Could this dislike have been due to the fact that--

Probably in no other place on the Continent was the love of bright
colours and extravagance in dress carried to such an extreme.
Large numbers of the Quakers yielded to it, and even the very
strict ones carried gold-headed canes, gold snuff-boxes, and wore
great silver buttons on their drab coats and handsome buckles on
their shoes.

And

Nowhere were the women so resplendant in silks, satins, velvets,
and brocades, and they piled up their hair mountains high.

Furthermore--

The descriptions of the banquets and feasts ... are appalling.

John Adams, when he first came down to Philadelphia, fresh from
Boston, stood aghast at this life into which he was suddenly
thrown and thought it must be sin. But he rose to the occasion,
and, after describing in his diary some of the "mighty feasts" and
"sinful feasts" ... says he drank Madeira "at a great rate and
found no inconvenience."

It would only be surmise to state what were the Doctor's reasons for his
frequent declaration of dislike for Philadelphia.

The winter of 1794-1795 proved much colder "than ever I knew it in
England," but he cheerfully requested Samuel Parker to send him a
hygrometer, shades or bell-glasses, jars for electrical batteries, and

a set of glass tubes with large bulbs at the end, such as I used
in the experiments I last published on the