Cii LIFE OF WILSON. 



" If this determination should meet your approbation, and 

 if you are willing to encounter the hardships of such a pedes- 

 trian journey, let me know as soon as is convenient. I think 

 one dollar a day, each, will be fully sufficient for our expenses, 

 by a strict regard, at all times, to economy." 



The second volume of the Ornithology was published in Ja- 

 nuary, 1810; and Wilson set out for Pittsburg, the latter part 

 of the same month, in his route to New Orleans. I trust that 

 no apology is necessary for introducing the following letters, 

 addressed to Mr. Lawson, into these memoirs, notwithstand- 

 ing three of them are well known to the public, having origi- 

 nally appeared in the Port Folio.* 



TO MR. ALEXANDER LAWSON. 



4 Pittsburg, February 22d } 1810. 

 Dear Sir, 



" From this first stage of my Ornithological pilgrimage, I 

 sit down, with pleasure, to give you some account of my ad- 

 ventures since we parted. On arriving at Lancaster, I waited 

 on the governor, secretary of state, and such other great folks 

 as were likely to be useful to me. The governor received me 

 with civility, passed some good natured compliments on the 

 volumes, and readily added his name to my list. He seems 

 an active man, of plain good sense, and little ceremony. By 

 Mr. L. I was introduced to many members of both houses, 

 but I found them, in general, such a pitiful, squabbling, politi- 

 cal mob; so split up, and justling about the mere formalities of 

 legislation, without knowing any thing of its realities, that I 

 abandoned them in disgust. I must, however, except from 

 this censure a few intelligent individuals, friends to science, 

 and possessed of taste, who treated me with great kindness. 

 On Friday evening I set out for Columbia, where I spent one 

 day in vain. I crossed the Susquehannah on Sunday forenoon, 

 with some difficulty, having to cut our way through the ice for 

 several hundred yards; and passing on to York, paid my re- 



* New Series, vols. Ill, 499, IV, 310, VII, 34. 





