Excerpt from The History of the Society of Friends in America, Vol. 1 It is true, that no inconsiderable portions of the valuable histories both of Sewel and Gough, have reference to the proceedings of Friends in America. The details, however, which these furnish are confined principally to the sufferings of some of their early members or ministers in New England, and to transactions of the Society within the limits of Penn sylvania and the Jerseys. The present work embraces a much wider field, and aims to exhibit a distinct history of each individual Yearly Meeting of Friends in America from its rise down to a period comparatively recent. The new and unpublished materials relating to the Society of Friends in the western world, which, under many favour able circumstances the writer has been enabled to collect from various sources on both sides of the Atlantic, together with an easy access to numerous printed works of ancient date and of great scarcity, have placed within his reach the means of effecting the object to a much larger extent than he could have anticipated. And here he desires to acknow ledge the kind 'and valuable assistance which he has derived both from meetings and individuals, in the readiness with which they have allowed him access to mss., including some thousands of letters of early Friends; with other important historical documents of more recent date. In studying the history of the Society of Friends, it has appeared to the author important, rightly to understand the religious character and condition of the population amongst which our early Friends arose. With this View the chapter on the discovery and colonization of North America has been introduced, and though somewhat extended, it is hoped that its details will not be considered inappropriate. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.