9 2 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



him, "of sensitive, strangely refined if also in elements as 

 strangely coarsened temperament," must have been hardly 

 borne. His Journal as a Pedlar, several poems bearing on his 

 experiences of the road, and his earlier letters give a realizing 

 sense of the lights and shadows of this kind of life. In addi- 

 tion to his trading, he solicited subscriptions for a volume of 

 poems, which he published in 1790. 



In a short time he dropped the pack and returned to his 

 hated trade of weaving. Being in ill health and sorely op- 

 pressed by poverty, he was at this period much given to de- 

 spondency. Yet he had a humour which enabled him at times 

 to joke about his necessities. He had a gift of satire, also, 

 which got him into some trouble, but which was the cause of 

 his taking the first step in the path that led to fame. Industrial 

 affairs in Great Britain at that time were greatly unsettled. 

 Many of the Paisley weavers were unemployed, and capital 

 and labour were arrayed against each other. Some of the 

 turbulent spirits among his fellow-weavers induced the enthu- 

 siastic young Wilson to use his talent for verse-making to 

 abuse the capitalists. Several poems of his, portraying in no 

 flattering light certain local petty tyrants, were adjudged libel- 

 lous, and Wilson, who manfully acknowledged their authorship, 

 was fined heavily and condemned to burn the poems in public. 

 Being unable to pay the fine, he was sent to jail. 



In this hour of gloom, Wilson's eyes were turned to the 

 New World. Attracted by the chances for winning his way 

 open to a free man in a new country, he determined to emi- 

 grate. Accordingly, he and his nephew, William Duncan, 

 sailed from Belfast Loch, Friday, May 23, 1794, and after a 

 voyage of over seven weeks landed at Newcastle, Delaware. 

 Wilson was then twenty-eight years old. He and young Dun- 

 can went first to Wilmington, and from there to Philadelphia, 

 looking for employment at weaving. At the latter place, he 

 writes in his first letter home to his father and step-mother, 

 " we made a more vigorous search than ever for weavers, and 

 found, to our astonishment, that, though the city contains 

 between forty and fifty thousand people, there is not twenty 

 weavers among the whole, and these had no conveniences for 

 journeymen, nor seemed to wish for any, so, after we had spent 

 every farthing we had, and saw no hopes of anything being 

 done that way, we took the first offer of employment we could 



