LIFE OF WILSON. Ixxxv 
among some of the booksellers in Albany, and return home by 
New York.” 
Wilson after tarrying at home a few days, departed to the 
southward, visiting every city and town of importance as far 
as Savannah in the state of Georgia. This journey being per- 
formed in the winter, and alone, was of course not attended 
with many travelling comforts; and to avoid the inconve- 
niences of a return by land, he embarked in a vessel, and ar- 
rived at New-York in the month of March, 1809. This was 
rather an unproductive tour; but few subscriptions being ob- 
tained. 
TO MR. D. H. MILLER. 
Washington City, December 24, 1808. 
“Dear Sir, 
“I sit down, before leaving this place, to give you a few 
particulars of my expedition. I spent nearly a week in Balti- 
more, with tolerable success, having procured sixteen subscri- 
bers there. In Annapolis I passed my book through both 
houses of the legislature: the wise men of Maryland stared and 
gaped, from bench to bench; but having never heard of such a 
thing as one hundred and twenty dollars for a book, the ayes 
for subscribing were none; and so it was unanimously deter- 
mined in the negative. Nowise discouraged by this sage de- 
cision, I pursued my route through the tobacco fields, sloughs 
and swamps, of this illiterate corner of the state, to Washing- 
ton, distant thirty-eight miles; and in my way opened fifty- 
five gates. I was forewarned that I should meet with many 
of these embarrassments, and I opened twenty-two of them 
with all the patience and philosophy I could muster; but when 
I still found then coming thicker and faster, my patience and 
philosophy both abandoned me, and I saluted every new gate 
(which obliged me to plunge into the mud to open it) with 
perhaps less Christian resignation than I ought to have done. 
The negroes there are very numerous, and most wretchedly 
clad: their whole covering, in many instances, assumes the ap- 
