are not always able to depart immediately, and frequently they get a small amount of money, advanced by the traders, on their account. The expensive freight from Holland to America is added, also the head-money. Before they leave Holland, they must sign a contract in the English language. The Newlanders persuade and reassure the people [who, not understanding the English, knew not what they were signing] that they, as impartial friends, would see to it that, in the contract, no wrong was done their countrymen. The more freight in persons a merchant and captain can bring in a ship, the more profitable it is, provided that they do not die _en route_, for then it may be disadvantageous. For this reason the ships are kept clean, and every means is employed to deliver healthy ware to the market. For a year or so they may not have been as careful, suffering to die what could not live. When parents die on the ships and leave children, the captains and the most intelligent of the Newlanders, acting as guardians and orphan-fathers, take the chests and inheritance in their safe-keeping, and the orphans, arriving on the land, are sold for their own freight and the freight of their deceased parents; the real little ones are given away, and the inheritance of their parents just about pays for the manifold troubles caused to the guardians. This crying deceit moved some well-disposed German inhabitants of Pennsylvania, especially in and about Philadelphia, to organize a society, which, as much as possible, would see to it that, at the arrival of the poor emigrants, they were dealt with according to justice and equity." When a ship of emigrants has arrived in the harbor of Philadelphia, Muhlenberg proceeds, "the newcomers are led in procession to the court-house, in order to take the oath of allegiance to the King of Great Britain; then they are led back to the ship. Hereupon the papers announce that so and so many German people are to be sold for their freight. Whoever is able to pay his own freight receives his freedom. Those having wealthy friends endeavor to obtain a loan from them to pay the freight; but these are few. The ship is the market. The buyers pick out some and bargain with them as to the years and days of service, whereupon they make them bind themselves before the magistrate by a written instrument for a certain period as their property. The young, unmarried people of both sexes sell first, their lot being a good or a bad one, for better or worse, according to the character of the buyer and God's providence or permission. We have frequently noted that children who were disobedient to their parents, and left them stubbornly and against their will, here found masters from whom they received their reward. Old and married people, widows and the frail, nobody wants to buy, because there is here already an abundance of poor and useless people who become a burden to the state. But if they have healthy