52 ai,e;xander wilson : poet-naturaust 



By the banks of the White Cart, where the gulls 

 were tossing lightly in the wind above them, he bade 

 his few loyal friends farewell, and set out with his 

 nephew, William Duncan, the son of his former em- 

 ployer, to take the ship Swift which sailed on the 

 23rd of May, 1794, for America. It was a beauti- 

 ful summer afternoon when he looked for the last 

 time with sad and tearful eyes on the receding shores 

 of the old world, but before him danced bright and 

 pleasant visions of "prosperous days on the banks 

 of the Delaware" amid a new people and on alien 

 soil. 



