“None at all, Mr.; I was myself, and the first language I learnt to speak was Welsh. Did your people come from Bala, Mr.?”
“Why no! Did yourn?”
“Why yaas—at least from the neighbourhood. What State do you come from? Virginny?”
“Why no!”
“Perhaps Pensilvany country?”
“Pensilvany is a fine state,” said I.
“So it is, Mr. O, that is your state, is it? I come from Varmont.”
“You do, do you? Well, Varmont is not a bad state, but not equal to Pensilvany, and I’ll tell you two reasons why; first, it has not been so long settled, and second, there is not so much Welsh blood in it as there is in Pensilvany.”
“Is there much Welsh blood in Pensilvany, then?”
“Plenty, Mr., plenty. Welsh flocked over to Pensilvany even as far back as the time of William Penn, who, as you know, Mr., was the first founder of the Pensilvany State. And that puts me in mind that there is a curious account extant of the adventures of one of the old Welsh settlers in Pensilvania. It is to be found in a letter in an old Welsh book. The letter is dated 1705, and is from one Huw Jones, born of Welsh parents in Pensilvany country to a cousin of his of the same name, residing in the neighbourhood of this very town of Bala in Merionethshire where you and I, Mr., now are. It is in answer to certain inquiries made by the cousin, and is written in pure old Welsh language. It gives an account of how the writer’s father left this neighbourhood to go to Pensilvania; how he embarked on board the ship William Pen; how he was thirty weeks on the voyage from the Thames to the Delaware. Only think, Mr., of a ship now-a-days being thirty weeks on the passage from the Thames to the Delaware river; how he learnt the English language on the voyage; how he and his companions nearly perished with hunger in the wild wood after they landed; how Pensilvania city was built; how he became a farmer and married a Welsh woman, the widow of a Welshman from shire Denbigh, by whom he had the writer and several other children; how the father used to talk to his children about his native region, and the places round about Bala, and fill their breasts with longing for the land of their fathers; and finally how the old man died, leaving his children and their mother in prosperous circumstances. It is a wonderful letter, Mr., all written in the pure old Welsh language.”