parental propensities are transmitted to offspring in the human race, but in half the degree that they are among quadrupeds, the value we may be disposed to set on virtuous progenitors, is very far from chimerical. Several years residence on a farm, has afforded me opportunity for some observations upon the nature of domestic animals; and I have found, what I should have been disposed to laugh at, had I not proved it, that, among the ox kind especially, the vices, which seemed mere habits of the female parent, have invariably descended to her offspring. I venture this remark, though not quite in unison with the tone of the subject; and though liable to be strained into an assumption of worth on my part, to which I may in fact be wholly destitute of pretension.

My father was an Irishman, and, as it appears from some imperfect documents in my possession, came to this country in the year 1730. He was born, I think, in Longford, and was brought up under the care of his maternal grandfather in Dublin, or its neighborhood. Being designed for the pulpit. he had received a suitable education, to which, having added many of the accomplishments at that time in fashion, he was distinguished in Philade!phia both as a scholar and a gentleman. It was not long since, that the late chief justice Shippen informed me, he was the person always appealed to, in the coffee house controversies of the young men of the day, on points of science and literature. During his presidency of the county courts of Bucks, he had made himself, as I have understood, a very tolerable lawyer, insomuch that at the time of his death, he was, as I have been informed, in nomination for the office of a judge of the supreme court of Pennsylvania. From the copies of letters to his friends in Ireland, soon after his arrival in Philadelphia, he appears not to have taken up very favorable sentiments of its inhabitants. "Most of our trading people

"here," says he, " are complaisant sharpers; and "that maxim in trade, to think every man a knavė,

untir the contrary evidently appears, would do well "to be observed here if any where.-In this province "we have a toleration for all religions, which some "have enlarged so far, as to make a neglect and in"difference of all religion, their only religion." These being the opinions of a young man but of about two and twenty years of age, it is not improbable, that they were too hastily formed; but if, unfortunately for the honor of our infant metropolis, they were correct, it is some relief to hear, that mercantile integrity, joined to genuine and unaffected hospitality, was also to be found there, as appears from the following extract of a letter, dated the 18th of March, 1731. Soon after we arrived here, it "happened, and I hope providentially for us, (him-"self and his father-in-law, Mr. Emerson, who made 66 one family) that we rented a house from one Mr. "Peter Baynton, adjacent to his own, who is a consi"derable merchant in this city. As he is a man of "singular sobriety, and not well affected to the "reigning humor in this town, he has admitted us "into his chief confidence, and distinguished us as "his principal friends and associates, in so much. "that he will enter upon no project or design in "trade, without admitting us to a share in it: and "from the success of some we have already under❝ taken, we have not the least room to doubt of his 26 sincerity and kindness." Such is my father's sketch of Philadelphia manners eighty years ago. From the same letter it appears, that at the instance of this Mr. Baynton, he had contemplated with him a partnership in trade, to be carried on in the town. of Burlington, which, he observes, "though it be now somewhat obscure, it has yet many advanta✩ 86 ges capable of improvement."

This contemplated removal, however, did not take place. He continued in business in Philadelphia,

The

and in the war, probably, with Spain, which broke out in the year 1741, was concerned with several of the principal merchants in that city in building and fitting out the Tartar privateer. This vessel, supposed to be the finest, as she was the largest, that had at that time, been built on the Delaware, had a singular fate. On her passage to the sea, at a fine season of the year, she was lost in the bay. To make the most of a gentle breeze that was blowing, she was under full sail, when either from a deficiency of ballast, a disproportion in her rigging, or some other fault in her construction, she was almost instantaneously overturned by a flaw from the shore. greater part of the owners, who had formed a party to see her out of the capes, were on board, and among them, my father. So mild was the day, and so lit tle cause was there for apprehension, that he was. amusing himself on deck with one of Moliere's plays, when the disaster occurred. Finding himself precipitated among the waves, he immediately seized on a chest that had floated from the vessel, and placing himself on the middle of it, its extremities served to support a sailor on each side of him. In this situation, they were driven at the mercy of the waves for a considerable time, without any prospect of relief. They were sometimes about to quit their hold, and at once resign themselves to a fate, which appeared inevitable. This was peculiarly the case with one of the sailors, whom my father exerted himself to the utmost to encourage, since if he had abandoned the chest, it would have lost its equilibrium, and in the weak, exhausted state in which they were, they must all have perished. At length, a vessel hove in sight and appeared to be making towards them: It proved to be so, and they were taken up while yet enough of vital power remained, to render the means used for their restoration effica cious. The captain, if I am not mistaken. and the greater part of the Tartar's crew, were drowned, as were most of the owners that were on board.

Al

though I have heard my father relate the circum stances of this misfortuue, and have since heard it: spoken of in the family, my recollection of the par-ticulars is very imperfect.

My mother, the second wife of my father, was the eldest of four daughters; she was born in the island of Barbadoes, and when about seven years of age, was brought to Philadelphia by her parents, who then came to reside in that city. Her father was a German, born, if I mistake not, in Frankfort on the Maine. He had been engaged in trade while in Barbadoes, and brought with him into Pennsylva-nia, a pretty good property. Her mother was from Scotland, having first drawn breath in the city of Glasgow; but by what means a pair of so little national affinity as these my grand parents on the mo-ther's side were brought together, Lnever learned. From their conversation, however, I remember they had resided sometime in London, previously to their settling in Barbadoes. Notwithstanding the appa-rent want of associating principles in some respects,. they yet agreed very well: While the tongue of my grandfather faithfully retained the character of its original dialect, that of his spouse, though in a less degree, bore testimony also, to the country of her extraction; and while he, a determined episcopalian, had his pew in Christ's church, she, a strict. presbyterian, was a constant attendant at Button wood meeting house. No feuds, however, were engen dered by this want of religious conformity; and if my grandfather sometimes consented to hear a ser--. mon at the meeting house, it might be considered as a concession on his part, for a sermon of archbishop Tillotson, which was regularly read aloud, by one of the family on Sunday evening. Though a loud talker, and somewhat rough and boisterous in his manner, the old gentleman was at bottom, highly liber ral, benevolent, and good natured. The good lady,, on the other hand, was rather austere; and the ma

nagement of her family, strongly tinctured with the primitive discipline of her church. Her countenance, on Sunday, always assumed an unusual degree of severity, and while under her tutorage, I might truly say, in the meaning of the poet, it shone no Sabbath day to me. Then, instead of rest, my labors were augmented; then chapters were to be read, and long catechisms to be conned or repeated. The best things may be overdone; and the imposition of hard and unreasonable tasks is more apt to create disgust, than conciliation to instruction. So, at least, it was with me: I deemed my tutoress unfeeling and tyrannical, while, by her, I was considered, as reprobate and incorrigible.

Although my progenitors, on neither side, appear to have possessed the talent of amassing wealth, there is a circumstance common to both, which seems unequivocally to indicate liberality and sincerity of heart. And yet it is a circumstance, which, probably, would have escaped me, had it not been noticed by my uncle, by marriage, the late judge Biddle. Your family, said he one day to me, has had an honor which has happened to few, that of inducing two persons wholly unconnected with you, to attach themselves to you; to make your interests their own, and without contract or pecuniary tie, to remain with you till their deaths. One of these was a Scotchman, of the name of Thomas Gordon, who came into my grandfather's service in Philadelphia, in the capacity of a clerk, continued with him after he had declined business, and remained among us long after his death, until the time of his own decease, which happened at Reading, in the year 1777. He was born in Aberdeen, and had been bred to business in a counting-house at Rotterdam. He never was married. In his latter days, he be-came a perfect clock in regularity; was a truly honest man, and what will be thought still better by many, he was a genuine whig of seventy-six, though