248 JOHN BAETRAM TO [1763. 



all Louisiana is yielded to us by an honourable peace. I hope 

 my dear John will recover his spirits and be no longer in melan- 

 choly mood. He sees a good peace can be made without his 

 worthy Pitt, who deserted the helm to become a pensioner, with 

 3000 per annum, and his wife made a lady. So he is now known 

 by the name of the Grand Pensioner, a blast on his reputation 

 that will last for ever. 



Now, my dear John, does not the ardour of curiosity burn in thy 

 mind to explore the wonders of Louisiana ? 



I joyfully received thine of December 3d, by the hands of 

 Friend Fisher, but I have not yet got the turtle, &c, and the 

 seeds. I hope there is some of the Pyramids of Eden. * * 



Last warm summer ripened our pears. I never 

 had such good seed before. They are of the most delicious sorts ; 

 so either thee or thine may hope for choice fruits. They come 

 late, but soak them a night in water, that Avill plump them, and 

 they'll soon vegetate. 



Pray my love to B. Franklin. I received his kind letter, but 

 cannot write more than that I am thine, 



P. Collinson. 



JOHN BARTRAM TO P. COLLINSON. 



May the 1st, 1763. 



A few days past, with great joy, I received thy agreeable letter 

 of December 10th, 1762, and soon after, another dated February 

 23d, 1763. I was really afraid my dear friend was dead ; but 

 thought surely his son would have let me known it, before now. 



My Loblolly Bay, though grown prodigiously in the summer, is 

 entirely killed last winter, though in a warm place. It is in vain 

 for us to expect to have the broad-leaved evergreens of Carolina to 

 flourish with us in the winter, unless in a green-house. * * * 



I have but one root of the Tipitiivitehet. It bears our winter 

 is strong this spring. I sent thee twice of its leaves. Last fall, 

 by Fisher, I sent both flower and leaf, with a noble collection of 

 Carolina specimens. * * * That they call an 



alligator [at the Ohio], I take to be as much a water lizard ; but I 

 believe a new genus, very odd mouth, like a cat-fish, and tail like 

 a musk-rat, with a fin round it, nails like a man, with a membrane 



