10 WILLIAM BARTRAM 



Within a year William returned to Kingsessing, where he went 

 to work on a farm in the vicinity of his father's home. 



In 1772 Dr. John Fothergill, a London physician and Quaker, 

 agreed to finance a journey of botanical exploration into East 

 and West Florida for William to undertake. Dr. Fothergill was 

 keenly interested in natural science and, through Peter CoUin- 

 son, had followed the work of both Bartrams. He had received 

 many American specimens and had admired William's draw- 

 ings. He now agreed to pay fifty pounds a year for two years 

 and ail other minor expenses of packing and shipping botanical 

 specimens ; in return William Bartram was to send him curious 

 plants and seeds and " to draw birds, reptiles, insects and plants 

 on the spot at a further payment." ^^ Accordingly, in April, 

 1773, Bartram embarked on his Southern travels, which lasted 

 five and not two years, and which resulted not only in "the 

 discovery of rare and useful productions of nature, chiefly in the 

 vegetable kingdom,"^* but also in a book which was the first 

 genuine and artistic interpretation of the American landscape 

 and which was to fascinate Romantic poets and nature-lovers in 

 many parts of the world. That he enjoyed his labors and at last 

 found himself in his native element in the woods, on the rivers 

 and lakes, and in the camps and Indian villages of the unknown 

 regions he explored, his book amply discloses. It is even more 

 than " the artless account of an unhurried wanderer through 

 field and forest, who made friends with every flower and tree, 

 every bird and insect, and whose heart was one with nature 

 herself." ^^ It has a tone of exultation, perhaps due to his feel- 

 ing of acquired independence: for while formerly he had merely 

 accompanied his father on exploration trips, now he was alone, 

 a full-fledged naturalist and explorer. To a large extent, also, 

 the tone reveals " the enthusiasm of a man still young, with an 

 eye that nothing escapes, not without poetical imagination or 

 philosophical vision." ^^ 



Upon his return home, in January, 1778, William found that 



^='Fox, op. cit., 186. 



"^Travels, 1. 



^^ Fox, op. cit., 187. 



^° Lane Cooper, Cambridge History of Am. Lit., I, 196. 



