We crossed the western branch of the Delaware, having laboured hard over the mountains called the Blue Ridge, and pitched our tent near the banks of the river.  Near our tent, on the sides of large trees peeled for that purpose, were various representations of men going to, and returning from the wars, and of some killed in battle, this being a path used by warriors.  As I walked about viewing those Indian histories, painted in red and in black; and thinking on the innumerable afflictions which the proud, fierce spirit produceth in the world; thinking on the toils and fatigues of warriors, travelling over mountains and deserts; and of their restless, unquiet state of mind, who live in this spirit, and of the hatred which mutually grows up in the minds of the children of those nations engaged in war; during these meditations, the desire to cherish the spirit of love and peace among these people arose very fresh in me.

As I rode, day after day, over the barren hills, my thoughts were on the alterations of the circumstances of the natives since the coming of the English.  The lands near the sea are conveniently situated for fishing; the lands near the rivers are in many places fertile and not mountainous.  Those natives have, in some places, for trifling considerations, sold their inheritance so favourably situated; and in other places, have been driven back by superior force.  By the extending of English settlements, and partly by English hunters, the wild beasts they chiefly depend upon for a subsistence are not so plentiful as they were; and people too often open a door for them to waste their furs, in purchasing a liquor which tends to the ruin of them and their families.

III.—­Across the Atlantic

Having been for some time under a religious concern to cross the seas, in order to visit friends in England, after weighty consideration I thought it expedient to inform friends, at our monthly meeting at Burlington, of it; who, having unity with me therein, gave me a certificate; and I afterwards communicated the same to our general meeting, and they likewise signified their unity by a certificate, dated the 24th day of the third month, 1772, directed to friends in Great Britain.

I was informed that my beloved friend Samuel Emlen, intended to go to London, and had taken a passage in the cabin of the ship called Mary and Elizabeth; and I, feeling a draft in my mind towards the steerage of the same ship, went and opened to Samuel the feeling I had concerning it.  My beloved friend wept when I spake to him; and he offering to go with me, we went on board, first into the cabin, a commodious room, and then into the steerage, where we sat down on a chest and the owner of the ship came and sat down with us.  I made no agreement as to a passage in the ship; but on the next morning I went with Samuel to the house of the owner, to whom I opened my exercise in relation to a scruple I felt with regard to a passage in the cabin.