frequent mention of pirates, in almost every weekly paper, subsides. The peaceful and honest mariners no longer fear to traverse the ocean. There was still delays of justice to some, when, as late as October, 1731, Captain Macferson and four others were tried for piracy and hanged.

THE GERMANS.

THIS hardy, frugal, and industrious portion of our population in Pennsylvania, so numerous and exclusive in places as to preserve their manners and language unaltered, are so often the subject of remark in the early MSS. which I have seen in the Logan collection, &c. as to deserve a separate notice, to wit:

When the Germans first came into the country, save those who were Friends and settled in Germantown in 1682-3, it is manifest there was a fear they would not be acceptable inhabitants; for James Logan, in 1717, remarks, "We have of late great numbers of Palatines poured in upon us without any recommendation or notice, which gives the country some uneasiness, for foreigners do not so well among us as our own people," the English.

In 1719, Jonathan Dickinson remarks, "We are daily expecting ships from London which bring over Palatines, in number about six or seven hundred. We had a parcel who came about five years ago, who purchased land about sixty miles west of Philadelphia, and prove

quiet and industrious. Some few came from Ireland lately, and more are expected thence. This is besides our common supply from Wales and England. Our friends do increase mightily, and a great people there is in this wilderness country, which is fast becoming a fruitful field."

Kalm, the Swedish traveller, here in 1748, says the Germans all preferred to settle in Pennsylvania, because they had been ill-treated by the authorities in New York, whither they first inclined to settle. Many had gone to that colony about the year 1709, [say 1711,] and made settlements on their own lands, which were invaded under various pretexts. They took great umbrage, and beat some of the persons who were disposed to dispossess them. Some of their leading men were seized by the government. The remainder in disgust left the country, and proceeded to settle in Pennsylvania. After that, even those who arrived at New York would not be persuaded to tarry, but all pushed on to Pennsylvania, where a better protection was granted to their rights and privileges. This mortified the New Yorkers, but they could not remove the first unfavourable impressions. As many as twelve thousand came to Philadelphia in 1749.

This emigration from New York to Pennsylvania is further incidentally explained by James Logan in his MS. letters to the proprietaries. In writing to them in the year 1724, he manifests considerable disquietude at the great numbers coming among them, so numerous that he apprehends the Germans may even feel disposed to usurp the country to themselves. He speaks of the lands to the northward, (meaning Tulpehocken,)

as overrun by the unruly Germans,—the same who, in the year 1711, arrived at New York at the queen's expense, and were invited hither in 1722 (as a state policy) by Sir William Keith when he was at Albany, for purposes of strengthening his political influence by favouring them.

In another letter of 1725, he calls them crowds of bold and indigent strangers from Germany, many of whom had been soldiers. All these go into the best vacant tracts, and seize upon them as places of common spoil. He says they rarely approach him on their arrival to propose to purchase; and when they are sought out and challenged for their rights of occupancy, they allege it was published in Europe that we wanted and solicited for colonists, and had a superabundance of land, and therefore they had come without the means to pay. The Germans in aftertime embroiled with the Indians at Tulpehocken, threatening a serious affair.* In general, those who sat down without titles acquired enough in a few years to buy them, and so generally they were left unmolested. Logan speaks of 100,000 acres of land so possessed, and including the Irish squatters also.

"Bold master-spirits, where they touch'd they gain'd

Ascendence-where they fix'd their foot, they reign'd!"

The character of the Germans then known to him, he states, are many of them a surly people-divers of them Papists, the men well armed, and, as a body, a warlike,

* It was at Tulpehocken, Conrad Weiser, a German, so often employed as Indian interpreter, was settled and died—say at present Womelsdorf, where he had his farm.

morose race. In 1727, he states that 6000 Germans more are expected, and also many from Ireland; and these emigrations he hopes may be prevented in future by act of parliament, else he fears these colonies will, in time, be lost to the crown!-a future fact.

In 1729, he speaks of being glad to observe the influx of strangers, as likely to attract the interference of parliament; for truly, says he, they have danger to apprehend for a country where not even a militia exists for government support. To arrest in some degree their arrival, the assembly assessed a tax of twenty shillings a head on new arrived servants.

In another letter he says, the numbers from Germany at this rate will soon produce a German colony here, and perhaps such a one as Britain once received from Saxony in the fifth century. He even states as among the apprehended schemes of Sir William Keith, the former governor, that he, Harland, and Gould, have had sinister projects of forming an independent province in the West, to the westward of the Germans, towards the Ohio-probably west of the mountains-and to be supplied by his friends among the Palatines and Irish, among whom was his chief popularity at that time.

THE IRISH.

THE Irish emigrants did not begin to come into Pennsylvania until about the year 1719. Those which did come were generally from the North of Ireland. Such

as came out first generally settled at and near the disputed Maryland line. James Logan, writing of them to the proprietaries, in 1724, says they have generally taken up the southern lands, [meaning in Lancaster county, towards the Maryland line ;] and as they rarely approached him to propose to purchase, he calls them bold and indigent strangers, saying as their excuse, when challenged for titles, that we had solicited for colonists and they had come accordingly. They were, however, understood to be a tolerated class, exempt from rents by an ordinance of 1720, in consideration of their being a frontier people, forming a kind of cordon of defence, if needful. They were soon called bad neighbours to the Indians, treating them disdainfully, and finally were the same race who committed the outrage called the Paxtang massacre. These general ideas of them are found in the Logan MS. collection. Some of the data is as follows:

In 1725, James Logan states, that there are as many as 100,000 acres of land possessed by persons (including Germans) who resolutely set down and improve it without any right to it; and he is much at a loss to determine how to dispossess them.

In 1729, he expresses himself glad to find the parliament is about to take measures to prevent the too free emigration to this country. In the mean time, the assembly had laid a restraining tax of twenty shillings a head for every servant arriving; but even this was evaded in the case of the arrival of a ship from Dublin with one hundred Papists and convicts, by landing them at Burlington. It looks, says he, as if Ireland is to send all its inhabitants hither, for last week not less