When we were over, we were troubled to procure guides; who were hard to get and very chargeable. Then had we that wilderness country to pass through, since called WEST JERSEY, not then inhabited by English; so that we have travelled a whole day together, without seeing man or woman, house or dwelling-place. Sometimes we lay in the woods by a fire, and sometimes in the Indians’ wigwams or houses. We came one night to an Indian town, and lay at the king’s house, who was a very worthy man. Both he and his wife received us very lovingly, and his attendants (such as they were) were very respectful to us. They laid us mats to lie on; but provision was very short with them, having caught but little that day.[27] At another Indian town where we stayed, the king came to us, and he could speak some English. I spoke to him much, and also to his people, and they were very loving to us. At length we came to MIDDLETOWN, an English plantation in EAST JERSEY, where there were some Friends, but we could not stay to have a meeting there at that time, being earnestly pressed in our spirits, to get to the half-year’s meeting of Friends at Oyster-Bay in Long Island, which was very near at hand. We went with a Friend, Richard Hartshorn, (brother to Hugh Hartshorn, the upholsterer, in London,) who received us gladly at his house, where we refreshed ourselves, and then he carried us and our horses in his own boat over a great water, which occupied most part of the day getting over, and set us upon LONG ISLAND. We got that evening to Friends at GRAVESEND, with whom we tarried that night, and next day got to FLUSHING, and the day following reached OYSTER-BAY; several Friends of Gravesend and Flushing accompanying us. The half-year’s meeting began next day, which was the first day of the week, and lasted four days. The first and second days we had public meetings for worship, to which people of all sorts came; on the third day were the men’s and women’s meetings, wherein the affairs of the church were taken care of. Here we met with some bad spirits, who had run out from truth into prejudice, contention, and opposition to the order of truth, and to Friends therein. These had been very troublesome to Friends in their meetings there and thereabouts formerly, and likely would have been so now; but I would not suffer the service of our men’s and women’s meetings to be interrupted and hindered by their cavils. I let them know, that “if they had anything to object against the order of the truth which we were in, we would give them a meeting another day on purpose.” And indeed I laboured the more, and travelled the harder to get to this meeting, where it was expected many of these contentious people would be; because I understood they had reflected much upon me, when I was far from them.