Cotillions, and concluded the evening in a very agreeable manner about two o'clock in the morning, and waited on the ladies home. This day has been spent very agreeably according to custom, in waiting on the ladies; I drank Tea this afternoon with the agreeable Miss Nelly Scull, her mother and sister.

"READING, Sept... 1781."

[LETTER 201.]

"On Wednesday evening last an express arrived from Genl. St. Clair to march all the troops from this place to the City of Philadelphia with all expedition. On Thursday morning orders was issued to be ready to march off the parade at Troop-beating on Friday morning. On Monday last we paraded and fired thirteen pieces of Artillery on the arrival of news of twenty-eight sail of the Line in Chesapeake bay, of the French Navy. Lord Cornwallis is now in Yorktown, in Virginia, and his Excellency Gen. Washington is on his way to Virginia with detachments of Infantry from the Northern Army and thousand French troops from the same place, one Regt of which was reviewed on Philadelphia Commons before his Excellency-Every body allows both friend and foes that they never saw troops make so brilliant an appearance, or exercise, or fire with greater regularity or exactness.

"The French troops marched by land to Annapolis, and our troops embarked on board small vessels at the Head of Elk.

"There is a report now prevailing, that a party of the enemy from New York under the command of the infamous Arnold is expected to make an excursion in the Jerseys, and some think will make a push for the City of Philadelphia, in order to make a diversion in favour of Cornwallis, who is blocked up in Virginia.

"The militia of this State are under marching orders and to rendezvous at Newtown in Bucks County.

"Our detachment marched off yesterday morning for

Philadelphia. I have remained behind, having a horse and shall set off this day. The town looks distressed since the departure of the troops, no drums beating in the morning or evening, nor crowd of men parading up and down the Streets, nor gay officers gallanting the gayer ladies to and fro-the ladies look disconsolate and confess their loss. I am just going to take my leave, and to horse, and away to Philadelphia.

"READING PA.,

"Sat. Sept... 1781."

(To be continued.)

SOME RECENT BOOKS ON PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY.

BY CHARLES J. STILLÉ.

The year 1896 was fruitful in the production of books concerning our Provincial history. The wide-spread taste for historical research which has grown among us so rapidly of late, combined as it generally is with a critical spirit among painstaking students, has done much to aid those who have long felt the need of a complete and trustworthy history of the State. It may surprise some who are not familiar with the work done in these investigations to be told that no less than ten volumes-books relating wholly to the history of Pennsylvania in some form or other have been printed during the past year. The list comprises books in almost every department of historical research. They are not merely family genealogies, the details of which so often throw important side-lights upon the history of the time, especially by bringing before us the Old-World characteristics of the different races which have peopled our domain, but elaborate treatises also, upon many disputed questions of great importance to the historian, such, for instance, as the causes of the early emigration of the Germans, and especially the development of the different religious creeds and practices which their followers sought to establish here; the attitude of the Quakers towards measures of defence against the French and the Indians,-a subject much befogged by our popular historians. The total neglect of such writers to explain what were the special forces growing up from the ideas and habits of a population made up of five distinct races which long stood in the way of making our population homogeneous and aggressive renders such inquiries very important.

Among these books there are some in which genealogy and history have been most usefully combined to aid the

researches of those who study our early annals. MR. THOMAS ALLEN GLENN,' in his book concerning "the Welsh Barony in the Province of Pennsylvania," has given us a learned and elaborate treatise upon the history of the Welsh or Cymric Quakers in their native land, who emigrated to the Province in 1682, and settled that portion of Chester County known as the "Great Welsh Tract," or "Barony." These Welshmen were nearly all substantial freeholders, and many of them whose services are commemorated in this volume have left an ineffaceable mark in the history of the Commonwealth. While many of their children have at all times held conspicuous positions in the public service, it is curious to observe, in looking over the map of the country, how strikingly the hereditary affection of the Welshman for his native soil is illustrated, a large number of the land-owners of the present day bearing the same name, and being often, doubtless, the descendants of the original settlers.

Next we have the genealogy of the FISHER family, the descendants of John Fisher, who was a fellow-passenger of Penn's in the "Welcome," and who, it is said, very truly, was "the ancestor of a large family in America." One of his descendants, MISS ANNE WHARTON SMITH, has undertaken the task of collecting the names and commemorating the services of his descendants. Every one in this part of the State, at least, knows something of the multitudinous Fisher family, and will be glad to learn more of its members and their affiliations. It is indeed a name conspicuous in our annals, at all times honorably associated with the conduct of public affairs, its members for many years having been especially influential in the meetings of Friends, at a time when such a position enabled one to exercise a far wider influence for good than is possible now. An authentic account of this family may be said (to use a common phrase)

1 "Merion in the Welsh Tract, with Sketches of the Townships of Haverford and Radnor." By Thomas Allen Glenn.

2" Genealogy of the Fisher Family, 1682-1896." By Anne Wharton Smith.

to meet, owing to its widely spread connections, a public need.

The genealogy of LEWIS WALKER's' family performs the same service for the members of his family in Chester County as that of John Fisher for those of his descendants who live in Philadelphia. In both cases the collateral relatives whose names find a place in these books are so numerous, and those names are so well known, that they would seem to embrace almost all who, in Provincial times at least, were conspicuous in the two counties for social position or public service.

We turn next to the genealogical record of the SPENGLER family, of York County." This is a bulky volume (far more so than is needed, as it seems to us), and is the result of the researches of MR. E. W. SPANGLER. Spengler or Spangler is a well-known family name in the country west of the Susquehanna. Its progenitor settled in what is now York County in 1729. The book has special value as illustrating the ideas and habits of the early Germans who settled in the interior of the State. It has an interest quite outside that of a family record, for we find in it a picture of a German typical family, showing how successfully the German peasant met the trials of life in the wilderness. As the predominant race type in Provincial times in York County was German, we learn how it accommodated itself to English law and English civilization, and what was, there as elsewhere, the curious result of such an amalgamation. It occupies, too, a somewhat unexplored territory in our historical investigations in this State, and is therefore doubly welcome.

But publications like these, valuable as they are for throwing what we have called a side-light on our local history, have a limited interest compared with other recently published books on Pennsylvania history which treat at

1 "Lewis Walker, of Chester Valley, and his Descendants, 1686-1896." Collected, compiled, and published by Priscilla Walker Sheets.

2 "The Annals of the Families of Caspar, Henry, and George Spengler, of York County." By Edward W. Spangler.