filled with the subject as we
proceeded on our way, and I expected to see a field covered with skulls,
and guns, and broken swords.

In my fifteenth year I accompanied my father, in his chaise, up the
Valley of the Mohawk to Utica. This gave me some idea of the western
country, and the rapid improvements going on there. I returned with some
more knowledge of the world, and with my mind filled with enthusiastic
notions of new settlements and fortunes made in the woods. I was highly
pleased with the frank and hospitable manners of the west. The next
spring I was sent by a manufacturing company to Philadelphia, as an
agent to procure and select on the banks of the Delaware, between
Bristol and Bordentown, a cargo of crucible clay. This journey and its
incidents opened a new field to me, and greatly increased my knowledge
of the world; of the vastness of commerce; and of the multifarious
occupations of men. I acquitted myself well of my agency, having made a
good selection of my cargo. I was a judge of the mineralogical
properties of the article, but a novice in almost everything else. I
supposed the world honest, and every man disposed to act properly and to
do right. I now first witnessed a theatre. It was at New York. When the
tragedy was over, seeing many go out, I also took a check and went home,
to be laughed at by the captain of the sloop, with whom I was a
passenger. At Philadelphia I fell into the hands of a professed
sharper; He was a gentleman in dress, manners, and conversation. He
showed me the city, and was very useful in directing my inquiries. But
he borrowed of me thirty dollars one day, to pay an unexpected demand,
as he said, and that was the last I ever saw of my money. The lesson was
not, however, lost upon me. I have never since lent a stranger or casual
acquaintance money.

_3d_. I was compelled to break off my notes yesterday suddenly. A storm
came on which drove us forward with great swiftness, and put us in some
peril. We made the land about three o'clock, after much exertion and
very considerable wetting. After the storm had passed over, a calm
succeeded, when we again put out, and kept the lake till eight o'clock.
We had a very bad encampment--loose rough stones to lie on, and scarcely
wood enough to make a fire. To finish our misery, it soon began to rain,
but ceased before ten. At four o'clock this morning we arose, the
weather being quite cold. At an early hour, after getting afloat, we
reac