nor moved not, but sat all or most of us, very calm, and still, and some of us in a good frame of Spirit, being freely given up to the will of God. . . . Whilst we were thus sitting as a People almost unconcerned these bloody minded creatures placed themselves each behind one, and they all had their Arms extended, with their Knives in their Hands, ready to execute their bloody Design, some taking hold of us by the Heads, with their Knees set against our Shoulders, and in this Posture they seemed to wait for the Cassekey to begin; They were high in Words, which we understood not; but on a sudden, it pleased the Lord to work wonderfully for our Preservation, and instantly all these Savagemen were struck Dumb, and like Men amazed, . . . their countenances fell and they looked like another People." "

This suggests A Voyage to Virginia, by Col. Henry Norwood (in Force's Tracts, 4 volumes, Washington, 18361846), who in 1649 started from London in a sailing vessel. When shipwrecked near the James river the party was cared for by the Indians until their friends from Virginia rescued them. Of more adventurous nature is A Narrative of the Captivity, Sufferings and Removes of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, London and Boston, 1682. She was taken prisoner and received barbarous treatment for many weeks. This story is sensationally but appealingly told, and has been reprinted by the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society.

We turn from Dickenson's book to a work of real charm, written by an emigrant who lived in Pennsylvania from 1681 to 1696. Gabriel Thomas had come over in the first shipload, in time to see “the first cellar when it was digging for the use of our Governors." His volume is entitled An Historical and Geographical Account of the Province and Country of

85 Dickenson's Narrative ... page 10.

Pennsylvania, and of West New Jersey in America (London, 1698).36 It was printed in London because there was no press in Philadelphia from 1693 to 1698; and, intending to return home, Thomas preferred to carry it with him in manuscript to sending it to another colony. While the descriptions appear extravagant, he took care to give only such details as he said he had seen. In the Dedication, we realize his enthusiasm for his subject: "I desire Thee to excuse me for addressing Thee, such a Plain and Peasant like Piece; yet however homely or coarse it may appear, Thou wilt find here a true and genuine Description of the (once) obscure, tho' (now) glorious Place.” The book possesses many literary qualities, ease, simplicity, and an occasional poetic touch that is felicitous. The title page announced that the author would describe "the richness of the Soil, the Sweetness of the Situation, the Wholesomeness of the Air, the prodigious Encrease of Corn," etc.

Some passages must have excited wonder-e. g., "For tho' this Country has made little Noise in Story, or taken up but small room in Maps, yet thus much with great Justice may be said of it, that notwithstanding the Difficulties and Inconvenience the First English Colonies met with before

36 Thomas's tract belongs to a class of writings much cultivated by the colonists. Well-known examples are:

A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, by Thomas Hariot, London, 1588.

Newes from Virginia. . . Captain John Smith, London, 1608.

The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England and the summer Isles, Captain John Smith, 1624.

A character of the province of Maryland, in four parts; also a treatise on Indians . . by George Alsop, 1666.

A Brief Description of New York . . Daniel Denton, London, 1670.

A Description of the Province and City of New York, 1695, by Rev. John Miller, found and published in London, 1843.

Good News from New England, Edward Winslow, London, 1622.

Mourt's Relation, London, 1622.

Newes from New England. Thomas Lechford, London, 1642.

...

66

they were well settled there, yet the mighty Improvements, Additions and Advantages that have been made lately there, are well worth communicating to the Publick." And again, besides telling of the many occupations, he says that “Men and women of all kinds can here get three times the Wages for their Labour they can in England or Wales." The liberal professions were not so encouraged by him. "Of lawyers and physicians, I shall say nothing, because the country is very peaceable and healthy; long may it continue so, and never have occasion for the tongue of the one or the pen of the other, both equally destructive to men's estates and lives; besides, forsooth, they, hangman like, have a license to murder and make mischief." His idealization of the advantages is shown in his conception of the children, who, he says, “are well-favored and Beautiful to behold; being in the general, observed to be better Natured, Milder and more tender-Hearted than those in England." He refers in no way to any literary efforts, and since he uses one sentence each for the schools and the cookshops, they were presumably equally enjoyed by him. "In the said City are several good Schools of Learning for Youth, in order to the attainments of Arts and Sciences, as also Reading, Writing, etc. Here is to be had in any Day in the Week, Tarts, Pies, Cakes, also Cookshops, both Roasting and Boyling. Happy Blessings, for which we owe the highest Gratitude to our Plentiful Provider, the great Creator of Heaven and Earth."

Of all this first group, the most erudite scholar was the leader of the Germans, better known today because of Whittier's37 tribute to him than through his own work. His life, his studies, his liberality of mind, and his literary efforts are in contrast with the restricted views of the typical learned

37 Paul E. More discusses in glowing terms the value of Whittier's poem, The Pennsylvania Pilgrim, in the third volume of his Shelburne Essays, N. Y., 1905.

Puritan and with the excessive ease of the Cavalier. Francis Daniel Pastorius was born in Sommerhausen, September 21, 1651. At eleven years of age he was sent to Windsheim to study with Tobias Schumberg, a Hungarian, who knew no German and addressed his pupils in Latin. At seventeen he entered the University of Altorf, which he left to study law at Strasburg, Basle, Jena and Ratisbon, where he added a practical knowledge of international polity. Having passed the examinations, he read his inaugural thesis and received the degree of Doctor of Law at Nuremberg in 1676.38

Following his graduation, he became a law lecturer at Frankfort and interested himself in the teachings of Dr. Spener, 39 an enthusiastic Pietist, who secured for him a position as tutor to Johann Bonaventura von Rodeck. Together they traveled through France, Holland, Switzerland and England, where Pastorius met Penn and was converted to his doctrines. On returning home, many reports concerning Pennsylvania made him desirous of verifying them, and after obtaining his father's consent, he conducted thither his family and a small group of friends, in June, 1683. Thomas Lloyd, afterwards Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania, happened to be on the same vessel, and these two, by means of their Latin conversations, became intimate friends. The Frankfurt Land Company, of which Pastorius was the head, procured from Penn twenty-five thousand acres of land, between the Schuylkill and the Delaware rivers. His friendship with

38 The original and only known copy of this Latin thesis, Disputatio inauguratio de rasura documentorum, is in the library of Governor S. W. Pennypacker, of Pennsylvania.

39 Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705), educated at the University of Strasburg, was a distinguished theologian in Frankfurt and Berlin and founder of the University of Halle, 1691.. Although the Father of the Pietists, he had few of the errors and none of the extravagances of the sect. He did not advocate the quietistic and semi-separatist practices; his only points of departure from the orthodox Lutheran faith were the requirement of regeneration and the expectation of the conversion of the Jews and the fall of the Papacy as preceding the final triumph of the church.

Penn is attested by the statement that Pastorius had an engagement to dine with the Proprietor twice every week. For twenty years he taught in the city, in which connection he compiled a school primer10 for use in his and the Friends' schools. He kept the records of the court, was bailiff of the borough, county judge and member of the Assembly; wrote leases, mortgages, deeds, marriage certificates, wills, letters and translations. For a letter Pastorius charged four pence, for a will two or three shillings, for a deed on parchment seven to nine shillings.

At the laying out of Germantown, this scribe opened the record of the conveyances of lands, the "Germantown Grund- und Lager-Buch," with a Latin prologue, which has been translated by Whittier in the ode beginning, “ Hail to Posterity." The Geographical Description of Pennsylvania, a scholarly pamphlet containing letters to his father, Penn's charter, laws and plan of colonization, remarks on the productions, inhabitants, and German society to be met with, was published in German at Frankfurt-on-the-Main in 1700.41 His familiarity with Greek, Latin, German, Dutch, French, English, Italian and Spanish is shown in his monumental work of one thousand large pages, "Hive Beestock," or "Rusca Apium." 42

Professor Learned calls this the "Magna Charta" of German culture in colonial America. Pastorius saw the danger of the decrease of learning, and hoping to avoid

40 The Minutes of the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, 1701, show the purchase of a large number of these primers, the first original school book printed in Pennsylvania.

41 It was translated from the original German by Lewis H. Weiss and published in Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Vol. 4, pp. 2 ff., 1850.

42 The loyalty of the German family tradition has been evinced in the care taken of this manuscript. Pastorius desired that it should be kept by the nearest male descendant within ten miles of Germantown. It has never been out of the family or the limits prescribed. The present owner is Mr. Daniel Pastorius Bruner, Germantown, Pa. It was published by Professor M. P. Learned in Americana Germanica, 1899, Vols. 1 and 2.