Stories of Authors, British and AmericanChubb, Edwin Watts
General
Stories of Authors, British and American
Chubb, Edwin Watts
Authors, American -- Biography; Authors, English -- Biography
It rained very hard all the day. I was thoroughly soaked, and by noon
a good deal tired, so I stopped at a poor inn, where I stayed all
night, beginning now to wish that I had never left home. I cut so
miserable a figure, too, that I found, by the questions asked me, I
was suspected to be some runaway servant and in danger of being taken
up on that suspicion. However, I proceeded the next day, and got in
the evening to an inn, within eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept
by one Dr. Brown. He entered into conversation with me while I took
some refreshment, and finding I had read a little, became very
sociable and friendly. Our acquaintance continued as long as he lived.
He had been, I imagine, an itinerant doctor, for there was no town in
England, or country in Europe, of which he could not give a very
particular account. He had some letters, and was ingenious, but much
of an unbeliever, and wickedly undertook, some years after, to
travesty the Bible in doggerel verse, as Cotton had done Virgil. By
this means he set many of the facts in a very ridiculous light, and
might have hurt weak minds if his work had been published; but it
never was.
At his house I lay that night, and the next morning reached
Burlington, but had the mortification to find that the regular boats
were gone a little before my coming, and no other expected to go
before Tuesday, this being Saturday; wherefore I returned to an old
woman in the town of whom I had bought gingerbread to eat on the
water, and asked her advice. She invited me to lodge at her house till
a passage by water should offer; and, being tired with my foot
traveling, I accepted the invitation. She, understanding I was a
printer, would have had me stay at that town and follow my business,
being ignorant of the stock necessary to begin with. She was very
hospitable, gave me a dinner of ox cheek with great good will,
accepting only of a pot of ale in return; and I thought myself fixed
till Tuesday should come. However, walking in the evening by the side
of the river, a boat came by, which I found was going toward
Philadelphia, with several people in her. They took me in, and, as
there was no wind, we rowed all the way, and about midnight, not
having yet seen the city, some of the company were confident we must
have passed it, and would row no farther. The others knew not where we
were, so we put toward the shore, got into a creek, and landed near an
old fence, with the rails of which we made a fire, the night being
cold, in October, and there we remained till daylight. Then one of the
company knew the place to be Cooper's Creek, a little above
Philadelphia, which we saw as soon as we got out of the creek, and
arrived there about eight or nine o'clock on the Sunday morning, and
landed at the Market Street wharf.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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