On the morning of the 29th of November, I left Philadelphia for Germantown, about six miles distant, accompanied by Mr. Agnew, who journeyed with me to Whitemarsh, Barren Hill, Valley Forge, and Paoli. It was a delightful morning, the air a little frosty. The road from the city to its ancient suburban village passes through a pleasant, undulating country, and was swarming with vehicles of every kind a greater portion of the way. The village of Germantown extends along a fine Macadamized road for nearly three miles, having no lateral streets, and, though so near a great commercial city, few places in the United States present more striking appearances of antiquity. Twenty or thirty of the low, steep-roofed, substantial stone houses, with quaint pent-eaves and ponderous cornices, built by the early inhabitants, yet remain, and produce a picturesque feature in the midst of the more elegant modern mansions of a later generation. ** It was first laid out and a settlement commenced under a grant to Francis Daniel Pastorius in 1684. He purchased six thousand acres from William Penn, and the whole was settled by Germans. James Logan, the confidential secretary of Penn, had a favorite country house upon a hill at the southern end of the village, which is still called Logan's Hill. *** * De Chastellux, speaking of Robert Morris, says, "It is scarcely to be credited that, amid the disasters of America, Mr. Morris, the inhabitant of a town just emancipated from the hands of the English, should possess a fortune of eight millions. It is, however, in the most critical times that great fortunes are acquired. The fortunate return of several ships, the still more successful cruises of his privateers, have increased his riches beyond his expectations, if not beyond his wishes." Morris lost as many as one hundred and fifty vessels, most of them without insurance, during the war; but, as many escaped, and made immense profits, his losses were made up to him. In a letter to a friend in England, Mr. Morris remarked that, notwithstanding he lost immense sums, he came out of the difficulties, at the peace, "about even." Among the numerous clerks employed by Mr. Morris was James Rees, who entered his serviee in 1776. then a lad in his thirteenth year. Mr. Rees died at his residence in Geneva, New York, on the 24th ol March, 1851, at the age of eighty-seven years. ** Mr. Watson says (p. 19, vol. ii.), "Many of the old houses in Germantown are plastered on the inside with clay and straw mixed, and over it is laid a thin lime plaster. In a house ninety years of age, taken down, the grass in the clay appeared as green as when first cut. Oldmixon describes Germantown in 1700 as composed of one street, a mile in length, lined on each side, in front of the houses, with 'blooming peach-trees.'"