ryland, stretching two hundred and fifty
miles in length, two hundred in breadth, and having no communication
with the sea, except by the mouth of the river Delaware. This province
was originally settled by Quakers, under the auspices of the celebrated
William Penn, whose descendants are still proprietaries of the country.
Philadelphia, the capital, stands on a tongue of land at the confluence
of the two navigable rivers, the Delaware and Sculkel, disposed in the
form of a regular oblong, and designed by the original plan to extend
from the one to the other. The streets, which are broad, spacious, and
uniform, cross each other at right angles, leaving proper spaces for
churches, markets, and other public edifices. The houses are neatly
built of brick, the quays spacious and magnificent, the warehouses
large and numerous, and the docks commodious and well contrived for ship
building. Pennsylvania is understood to extend as far northerly as
the banks of the lake Erie, where the French erected a fort. They also
raised another at some distance to the southward of the Riviere-au-Beuf,
and made other encroachments on this colony.

Adjoining to part of Pennsylvania, on the sea-coast, lies the province
of Maryland, a tract of land situated along the bay of Chesapeak,
in length about one hundred and forty miles, and nearly of the same
breadth, bounded on the north by Pennsylvania, on the east by the
Atlantic Ocean, and by the river Potowmack on the south. This country
was first planted with Roman catholics by lord Baltimore, to whom
Charles II. granted it by patent. In the sequel, however, people of all
religions were admitted into this settlement, and indulged with liberty
of conscience, and at present the reigning religion is that of the
English church. The climate is very sultry in summer, and not very
salubrious. The soil is fruitful, and produces a great quantity of
tobacca, which the people cultivate as their staple commodity. The seat
of government is established at Annapolis, a small town beautifully
situated on the river Patuxent.

Tracing the sea-coast still southerly, the next settlement is Virginia,
watered on the north by the river Potowmack, which is the boundary
between this and the colony last described, having the bay of Chesapeak
to the east, bounded on the south by Carolina, and extending westward
without any prescribed limits, though the plantations have reached no
farther than the great Allegany mountains;