ALEXANDER WILSON* 
XXIX 
on foot for Port- Patrick. Thence he sailed to Belfast 
in Ireland, and there embarked as a deck-passenger, on 
board an American ship bound to Newcastle, in the State 
of Delaware. 
He arrived in America on the 14th of July, 1794, with 
no specific object in view, without a single letter of intro- 
duction, and with only a few shillings in his pocket. 
But every care was forgotten in his transport at finding 
himself in what he fondly deemed the land of freedom. 
Impatient to set his foot on the soil of the New World, 
he landed at Newcastle, and, with his fowling-piece in his 
hand, directed his course towards Philadelphia, distant 
about thirty-three miles, highly delighted with the aspect 
of the country, and the plumage of the birds, to which 
his attention was strongly directed by what may be termed 
the instinct of his genius. It is not unworthy of remark, 
that his first act in America was shooting a bird of the 
red-headed woodpecker species, as if thus already begin- 
ning his career as the American Ornithologist. 
On arriving at Philadelphia, he made himself known 
to an expatriated countryman, a copperplate printer, and 
wrought for a few weeks at this new species of occupa- 
tion. This, however, he soon relinquished, and resumed 
the trade of weaving, first at Pennypack, then in Virginia, 
and again in Pennypack. In the autumn of 1795, he 
resorted for a short time to his former occupation of 
pedlar, and traversed a considerable part of the State of 
New Jersey, meeting with greater success than in Scot- 
land. During this excursion, he kept a diary, as he had 
formerly done in Scotland, written with great care, and 
abounding with acute observations on the manners of the 
people, notices of the principal natural productions, and 
sketches of the indigenous quadrupeds and birds. 
Many and severe as must have been the difficulties 
with which Wilson had to struggle upon his arrival, his 
letters to his friends are full of encomiums upon every 
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