My father’s confession, and all he had said following it, made upon me one of those lasting impressions which are rare in youth, but which may have a great influence on the life of a man. Now all the boys were against the Stamp Act, and I had at the moment a sudden fear at being opposed to my father. I had, too, a feeling of personal shame because this strong man, whom I dreaded on account of his severity, should have been so overwhelmed by an insult. There was at this period, and later, much going on in my outer life to lessen the relentless influence of the creed of conduct which prevailed in our home for me, and for all of our house. I had even then begun to suspect at school that non-resistance did not add permanently to the comfort of life. I was sorry that my father had not resorted to stronger measures with Mr. Bradford, a gentleman whom, in after-years, I learned greatly to respect. More than anything else, this exceptional experience as to my father left me with a great desire to know more of these Wynnes, and with a certain share of that pride of race, which, to my surprise, as I think it over now, was at that time in my father’s esteem a possession of value. I am bound to add that I also felt some self-importance at being intrusted with this secret, for such indeed it was. Before my grandfather left Wales he had married a distant cousin, Ellin Owen, and on her death, childless, he took to wife, many years later, her younger sister, Gainor [Footnote: Thus early we shed the English prejudice against marriage with a deceased wife’s sister.] for these Owens, our kinsmen, had also become Friends, and had followed my grandfather’s example in leaving their home in Merionethshire. To this second marriage, which occurred in 1713, were born my aunt, Gainor Wynne, and, two years later, my father, John Wynne. I have no remembrance of either grandparent. Both lie in the ground at Merion Meeting-house, under nameless, unmarked graves, after the manner of Friends. I like it not. My father, being a stern and silent man, must needs be caught by his very opposite, and, according to this law of our nature, fell in love with Marie Beauvais, the orphan of a French gentleman who had become a Quaker, and was of that part of France called the Midi. Of this marriage I was the only surviving offspring, my sister Ellin dying when I was an infant. I was born in the city of Penn, on January 9, 1753, at 9 P.M. II I have but to close my eyes to see the house in which I lived in my youth. It stood in the city of Penn, back from the low bluff of Dock Creek, near to Walnut street. The garden stretched down to the water, and before the door were still left on either side two great hemlock-spruces, which must have been part of the noble woods under which the first settlers found shelter. Behind the house was a separate building, long and low, in which all the cooking was done, and upstairs were the rooms where the slaves dwelt apart.