"I am a good deal surpriz'd at a paragraph in a letter I recei'd this day from London which informs me that my brother was return'd to his house near Philadelphia & had submitted & taken the oaths requir'd by the Congress..." "I observ'd lately by the news papers that Mr. Hamilton Mr. Chew & all the Shippen family have done the same. I conclude they look upon the independance [sic] of America as a certainty." Lady Juliana Penn was the grandmother of Richard, the author of this letter, and of his brother John, the formerly exiled Governor of Pennsylvania who was allowed to return to Philadelphia if he took the oath of loyalty to Pennsylvania. The penalty for not swearing loyalty to the commonwalth was confiscation of both real and personal property. John's reasons may have been those which his brother referred to as his "good reasons for what he has done." Red seal intact on address leaf, p. [4].