A

LETTER

FROM

WILLIAM PENN,

PROPRIETOR and GOVERNOR

O F

PENNSILVANIA in AMERICA,

то

The COMMITTEE of the Free Society of TRADERS of that Province, refiding in LONDON;

CONTAINING

A GENERAL DESCRIPTION of the faid Province, its Soil, Air, Water, Seasons, and Produce, both Natural and Artificial, and the Good Increase thereof. With an Account of the NATIVES, or ABORIGINES.

Published in the Year 1683.

My kind friends:

TH

HE kindness of yours by the fhip Thomas and Anne, doth much oblige me; for by it I perceive the intereft you take in my health and reputation, and the profperous beginning of this province, which you are fo kind as to think may much depend upon them. In return of which, I have fent you a long

letter,

letter, and yet containing as brief an account of myfelf, and the affairs of this province, as I have been able to make.

In the first place, I take notice of the news you fent me, whereby I find fome perfons have had fo little wit, and fo much malice, as to report my death; and, to mend the matter, dead a Jefuit too. One might have reasonably hoped, that this distance, like death, would have been a protection against fpite and envy; and indeed, abfence being a kind of death, ought alike to fecure the name of the abfent as the dead; because they are equally unable, as fuch, to defend themselves: but they that intend mischief, do not use to follow good rules to effect it. However, to the great forrow and fhame of the inventors, I am still alive, and no fefuit, and, I thank God, very well. And without injuftice to the authors of this, I may venture to infer, that they that wilfully and falfly report, would have been glad it had been fo. But I perceive many frivolous and idle ftories have been invented fince my departure from England, which, perhaps, at this time, are no more alive than I am dead.

But if I have been unkindly ufed by fome I left behind me, I found love and refpect enough where I came; an univerfal kind welcome, every fort in their way. For here are fome of feveral nations, as well as divers judgments: nor were the natives wanting in this, for their kings, queens, and great men, both visited and presented me; to whom I made fuitable returns, &c.

For the province, the general condition of it take as followeth.

I. The country itself, in its foil, air, water, seasons, and produce, both natural and artificial, is not to be defpifed. The land containeth divers forts of earth, as fand yellow and black, poor and rich: alfo gravel both loamy and dufty; and in fome places a fast fat earth, like to our beft vales in England, especially by

inland brooks and rivers; God in his wifdom having ordered it fo, that the advantages of the country are divided, the back-lands being in general three to one richer, than thofe that lie by navigable waters. We have much of another foil, and that is a black hafelmould, upon a ftony or rocky bottom.

II. The air is fweet and clear, the heavens ferene, like the fouth parts of France, rarely overcast; and as the woods come, by numbers of people, to be more cleared, that itself will refine.

III. The waters are generally good; for the rivers and brooks have moftly gravel and ftony bottoms, and in number hardly credible. We have alfo mineral waters, that operate in the fame manner with Barnet and North-Hall, not two miles from Philadelphia.

IV. For the seasons of the year, having by God's goodness now lived over the coldeft and hottest that the oldest liver in the province can remember, I can fay fomething to an English understanding.

Firft, Of the fall, for then I came in: I found it from the 24th of October, to the beginning of December, as we have it ufually in England in September, or rather like an English mild fpring. From December, to the beginning of the month called March, we had sharp frosty weather; not foul, thick, black weather, as our north-eaft winds bring with them in England; but a fky as clear as in fummer, and the air dry, cold, piercing and hungry; yet I remember not that I wore more clothes than in England. The reason of this cold is given, from the great lakes that are fed by the fountains of Canada. The winter before was as mild, fcarce any ice at all; while this, for a few days, froze up our great river. Delaware. From that month, to the month called June, we enjoyed a sweet spring, no gufts, but gentle fhowers, and a fine fky. Yet this I obferve, that the winds here, as there, are more inconftant fpring and fall, upon that turn of nature, than in fummer or winter. From thence, to this present month, which

endeth

endeth the fummer, (commonly speaking) we have had extraordinary heats, yet mitigated fometimes by cool breezes. The wind that ruleth the fummer-feafon, is the fouth-weft; but fpring, fall, and winter, it is rare to want the wholesome north-western seven days together and whatever mists, fogs, or vapours, foul the heavens by easterly or foutherly winds, in two hours time are blown away; the one is followed by the other: a remedy that feems to have a peculiar providence in it to the inhabitants; the multitude of trees, yet ftanding, being liable to retain mifts and vapours, and yet not one quarter fo thick as I expected.

V. The natural produce of the country, of vegetables, is trees, fruits, plants, flowers. The trees of most note, are the black walnut, cedar, cypress, chefnut, poplar, gumwood, hickery, faffafrafs, afh, beech, and oak of divers forts, as red, white, and black; Spanish chefnut and fwamp, the moft durable of all: of all which, there is plenty for the use of man.

The fruits that I find in the woods, are the white and black mulberry, chefnut, walnut, plumbs, ftrawberries, cranberries, hurtleberries, and grapes of divers forts. The great red grape (now ripe) called by ignorance,The fox-grape,' (because of the relish it hath with unfkilful palates) is in itself an extraordinary grape, and by art, doubtlefs, may be cultivated to an excellent wine, if not fo fweet, yet little inferior to the Frontiniac, as it is not much unlike in tafte, ruddiness fet afide; which in fuch things, as well as mankind, differs the cafe much: there is a white kind of muskadel, and a little black grape, like the cluster-grape of England, not yet fo ripe as the other; but they tell me, when ripe, fweeter, and that they only want skilful vinerons to make good use of them: I intend to venture on it with my Frenchman this season, who fhews fome knowledge in those things. Here are also peaches very good, and in great quantities, not an Indian plantation without them; but whether naturally here at firft I know not: how