CORRESPONDENCE. SIR, Philadelphia, February 22, 1842. We have much pleasure in conveying to you the enclosed resolutions of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, requesting the publication of your Discourse delivered last evening, and of adding the expression of our great gratification in listening to it. With much regard, Your obedient servants, THO. SERGEANT, Committee. To Job R. Tyson, Esq. At a special meeting of the members of THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA, held in the Lecture Room of the Philadelphia Museum, on Monday evening, February 21, 1842, after the delivery of the Discourse by Joв R. TYSON, ESQ. On motion of Mr. Barclay, seconded by Judge Pettit, it was Resolved, That the thanks of the Society be presented to Mr. Tyson for his impressive and eloquent Discoure, and that a copy be requested for publication. Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to communicate this resolution to Mr. Tyson. The meeting appointed Vice-Presidents Sergeant and Pettit, and Mr. Barclay the committee. On motion the meeting adjourned. Attest, WILLIAM DUANE, JR. PETER S. DU PONCEAU, President. Secretary pro tem. 4 GENTLEMEN, Philadelphia, February 24, 1842. Your note of the 22d instant, with the resolutions of the Historical Society, requesting a copy of my Discourse for publication, has been received. I cannot but feel very sensibly the approbation of my colleagues of the Society, and especially the kindness with which you, gentlemen, regard my feeble attempt to vindicate what I conceive to be, the truth of history. It is this only about which I have any solicitude. If I have committed an error in any one premise or deduction, or in any one material fact, and the mistake have an unjust bearing upon any part of the confederacy, I shall exceedingly regret it. All that it would become me to say, is, that I am unconscious of any, after a diligent examination and collation of all the authorities within my reach. The difficulties of the subject are intrinsic, and arise as much from the multiplicity of its topics and details, as the extensive range which it embraces. It would have been an easier task to swell the matter into a volume, than compress it within the limits of a discourse. Many points are rather touched or suggested, as necessary branches of the subject, than treated with that fulness which their importance deserves. In a word, my object has been more to awaken attention and stimulate research than to satisfy curiosity. With these remarks, I place the MS. at the disposal of the Society. I am, with great regard, Your obedient servant, J. R. TYSON. To the Hon. Thomas Sergeant, and James J. Barclay, Esq., Committee. DISCOURSE ON THE COLONIAL HISTORY OF THE EASTERN AND SOME OF THE SOUTHERN STATES. MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. IN an Address which I had the honour to deliver before this Society, a few years ago, I ventured to suggest the want of a history of Pennsylvania, during and since the eventful era of the Revolution. Those lines of the picture were feebly and imperfectly traced, which it would be the duty of the historian to fill up and to animate. Permit me, on the present occasion, to cast a glance behind that period, and instead of surveying the great events of which it was the epoch, to investigate some of its remoter causes. The exploration of this field, leads us not merely beyond the confines of Pennsylvania, not merely to the stamp and impost acts, which were the immediate precursors of the struggle, but to eras and boundaries more remote and distant. I shall humbly submit to the Society, upon an inquiry into the historical doctrines which have been disseminated respecting |