4 PBOCEEDIXGS OP THE 



don't agree with him. I have designed several years to put 

 him to a doctor to learn physic and surgery, but that will take 

 him from his drawing, which he takes particular delight in. 

 Pray, my dear friend Peter, let me have thy opinion about it." 



About this time Benjamin FrankUn offered to teach William 

 the trade of printing. His father, however, did not think the 

 outlook for printing in Pennsylvania a good one. Franklin aLsa 

 suggested engraving. Finally at the age of eighteen William 

 was placed with a Philadelphia merchant named Child, and re- 

 mained with him for about four years. Having thus serv-ed his 

 apprenticeship, and arrived at his twenty-second year, he left 

 the paternal roof for Cape Fear, North Carolina, where he set up 

 as a trader, his uncle William having established himself there 

 as a young man many years before. In the meantime the 

 elder Bartram, notwithstanding his advancing years, was mak- 

 ing frequent expeditions throughout the Eastern and Southern 

 States in the interests of science. 



The Indians were at this period in a belligerent mood. The 

 old gentleman seems to have had no high regard for them. In 

 one of his letters he says that the only way to make peace with 

 the Indians "is to bang them stoutly." William appears to 

 have been of a gentler nature, and to have felt a deep sympathy 

 for the red man in the cruel and unjust treatment often meted 

 out to him by the whites. It is possible that the somewhat 

 combative nature of John Bartram may have been one of the 

 reasons for his final exclusion from the Societj' of Friends. 



At length through the influence of Peter CoUinson, King 

 George the Third appointed John Bartram his " Botanist for the 

 Floridas," with a salary of fifty pounds a year. Accordingly, 

 in the autumn of 1765 he started for the southern peninsula, 

 and feeling the need of a companion, he took William with 

 him, his business venture at Cape Fear having been far from 

 successful. WilUam states that they had been ordered to search 

 for the sources of the river San Juan (St. John's), and that they 

 ascended the river for almost its entire length, about 400 miles, 

 bv one bank, and descended by the opposite shore. They made 

 careful surs-ey of the stream, its branches, and the lakes con- 

 necting therewith. They also made notes of the lay of the land, 



