e more to
our beds; but what good can the sleep of nature do us, when interrupted
with _such_ scenes?"

* * * * *

But we will suppose our planter to have escaped the scalping knife and
tomahawk; and in the course of years situate in a thick, settled
neighbourhood of planters like himself, who have struggled through all the
foregoing difficulties: he is now a man of some consequence, builds a
house by the side of his former hut, which now serves him for a kitchen;
and as he is comfortably situate, we will leave him to the enjoyment of
the fruits of his industry.

Such a being has often ideas of liberty, and a contempt of vassalage and
slavery, which do honour to human nature.

The planter I have endeavoured to describe, I have supposed to be sober
and industrious: but when a man of an opposite description makes such an
attempt, he often degenerates into a demisavage; he cultivates no more
land than will barely supply the family with bread, or rather makes his
wife, and children perform that office. His whole employment is to procure
skins, and furs, to exchange for rum, brandy, and ammunition; for this
purpose he is often for several days together in the woods, without seeing
a human being. He is by no means at a loss; his rifle supplies him with
food, and at night he cuts down some boughs with his tomahawk, and
constructs a _wigwam_[Footnote: The Indian name for their huts so
constructed.], in which he spends the night, stretched on the skins of
those animals he has killed in the course of his excursion. This manner of
living he learned from his savage neighbours, the Indians, and like them
calls every other state of life _slavery_. It sometimes happens, that
an unsuccessful back settler joins the Indians at war with the states.
When this is the case, it is observed he is, if possible, more cruel than
his new allies; he eagerly imbibes all the vices of the savages, without a
single spark of their virtues. Farewell,

Yours &c.

_Philadelphia, March 18th, 1794_.

Dear Friend,

My present intention is to give you some conception of the family of a
planter, whose ancestors had in some degree gone through all the
difficulties I described in my last.

We will suppose them descended from the original english emigrants, who
came over with Penn; like them, to possess a high sense of religion; and
that this family are now in the quiet possession of about three hundred
acres of land, t