On the evening of December 2 there was a grand display of fire-works at the Bowling Green, in commemoration of the peace, such as the city had never witness The civic procession was next in order. | set in motion without any friction. After the military were in secure possession, General Knox rode back with many citizens to the Bull's Head Tavern, where the Bowery Theatre stands, to meet Governor Clinton and Washington and party, and escort them into the city. The procession followed the same route that the troops had taken-through Chatham, down Queen, up Wall, and into Broadway. It was led by a body of Westchester Light Horse, under Captain Delavan. Then came the Governor and General, with their suites, on horseback; then the Lieutenant-Governor and members of the Council for the temporary government of the city and southern district of the State, four abreast; then Knox and officers of the army, including Steuben, James Clinton, MacDougall, and others; eight abreast; next, citizens on horseback, eight abreast; and last, the Speaker of the Assembly and citizens, on foot, eight abreast. There was another scene of welcome along the line, and as the procession halted at Cape's Tavern the military presented arms to the Governor, the drums beat, and the artillery fired a salute. Congratulatory addresses followed from the citizens to the Governor and General, and later in the day the Governor gave a public dinner at Fraunces' Tavern, where a distinguished company assembled. Among the thirteen toasts of the occasion the last was in the way of a moral-ed before. Thursday, the 11th, having "May the remembrance of this day be a lesson to princes!" the eleventh has been amply fulfilled-" May America be an asylum to the persecuted of the earth!" and the twelfth holds good for all time"May a close union of the States guard the temple they have erected to Liberty!" Governor Clinton established himself at the De Peyster mansion Queen Street, near Cedar, and the machinery of the new civil government was on talion will mount a Piquett at their Barracks, consisting of one entire Company. They will lay on their arms and be in constant readiness during the Twenty-four hours, to parade on the first alarm and wait the orders of the Officer of the Day. On an alarm of fire all the officers and men on duty will immediately repair to their Barracks and parade without Arms, and wait the Orders of the Commanding Officers. The officer commanding pattroles will march them in the most regular and silent order, both day and night, and will take up and confine in the main guard any violent and disorderly soldiers they may meet with. The Grand Parade will be near the bridewell: the guards and pattroles will march off the Grand Parade under the direction of the field-officer of the day." been appointed as a day of public thanksgiving throughout the United States, services were held in three places of worship. At St. George's Chapel on Beekman Street, where the troops attended in a body, the sermon was preached by the Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, who had been a chaplain. in the army, and who afterward settled over a Presbyterian congregation in the city. It was a sound discourse, but without that full reference to the times which characterizes modern efforts of a similar nature. Briefly alluding to the scenes of the 25th, he said: "The order, decorum, and dignity with which the change of government was introduced on that happy day, and which have ever since reigned in our city, do the highest honor to our cause, our citizens, and our army. They have attracted the notice, excited the admiration, and forced the acknowledgments of our enemies themselves in favor of our virtue and regard to order and good government, while they will greatly enhance the pleasure and esteem of every friend of the Revolution throughout the Union." Two months later the Governor's Council appointed James Duane our first Mayor, and New York passed under her new American control. no more in this world, seemed to me ut- We as he was seated, the barge put off into the river, and when out in the stream, our great and beloved General waved his hat, and bade us a silent adieu." To this there is nothing to be added. An account of the evacuation would be incomplete without recalling the last and tender scene following the festivitiesWashington's farewell to his officers, and departure from New York, on December 4. About to repair to Congress and re-pendence of these United States. As soon sign his commission, that he might once more enjoy the peace of his "beloved Mount Vernon," he met his comrades in arms at Fraunces' Tavern, still standing at the corner of Pearl and Broad streets, and there took an affectionate leave of them. "We had been assembled but a few moments," says Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge in his memoirs, "when his Excellency entered the room. His emotion, too strong to be concealed, seemed to be reciprocated by every officer present. After partaking of a slight refreshment in almost breathless silence, the General filled his glass with wine, and turning to the officers, said: "With a heart full of love and gratitude I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.' 66 Returning to the British and their final movements-we find them lingering in our bay for some days after the evacuation. They reserved the use of the shipyard, near the foot of the present Catharine Street, on the East River, also Governor's Island,* Paulus Hook, now Jersey City, Staten Island, and Denyse's Ferry across the Narrows, for about a week longer, and then sailed away. There was but little more ceremony to ob *This was requested by Digby, as per Carleton's "Admiral Digby's MSS., in the following note: compts to Sir Guy Carleton begs to know if he is finally determined to evacuate the town and embark himself on Saturday; if so wd beg his Excellency to reserve Governor's Island some time longer as it will be a great convenience. "Wednesday ye 15th of Nov 1783." After the officers had taken a glass of wine, the General added: 'I can not come to each of you, but shall feel obliged if each of you will come and take me by the A search among the London MSS. fails to bring hand.' General Knox, being nearest to to light the order of the evacuation on the part of him, turned to the Commander-in-Chief, the British. We only know that the last detachwho, suffused in tears, was incapable of ments put off in boats just as the Continentals came utterance, but grasped his hand, when in. The following extracts from two letters written by Dr. J. M. North, Superintendent-General of his they embraced each other in silence. In Majesty's Hospitals in America, have their interest the same affectionate manner every officer in this connection. On October 4, 1783, he writes: in the room marched up to, kissed, and "As we are all desired by general orders, both regiparted with his General-in-Chief. Such mental and Departments, to hold ourselves in readiness to embark at the shortest notice, you may sup a scene of sorrow and weeping I had nevpose that the final evacuation of New York is near, er before witnessed, and hope I may nevbut of this I am not as yet myself convinced, as I er be called upon to witness again. Not can not think the Ministry will be guilty of so ima word was uttered to break the solemn si-politic a step. Whatever my sentiments are, I shall lence that prevailed, or to interrupt the tenderness of the interesting scene. The simple thought that we were about to part from the man who had conducted us through a long and bloody war, and under whose conduct the glory and independence of our country had been achieved, and that we should see his face be prepared for what may happen, and am busy in winding up the affairs both of the Hessian and British Hospitals." On November 25 he says: "As New York is by general orders to be evacuated this day at eleven o'clock you will readily suppose that I have my hands full of business, especially as my clerks have all left me to provide for themselves in this general wreck of British interests at this part of the world."-MSS. of Nathaniel Paine, Esq., Worcester, Mass. serve. Carleton sent a line to Washington, December 1, that he hoped to be off on the 4th. Washington replied with wishing him and all the troops under his orders a safe and pleasant passage. It is in this connection that we reach the last of that series of weighty communications by which the King and his ministry were kept informed of events in America, and upon the strength of which, until within a year, they had staked their hopes of success. Fitly enough it was addressed to Lord North, who more than any other man had been responsible for all the troubles and bloodshed since 1775. It was a brief official note, as follows, but if he still retained any susceptibility to remorse or humiliation, the closing words must have quickened it to the depths. "ON BOARD THE CERES, OFF STATEN ISLAND, 28th Novem., 1783. "MY LORD,-His Majesty's Troops, and such of the Loyalists as chose to emigrate, were, on the 25th Inst., withdrawn from the City of New York in good order, and embarked without the smallest circumstance of irregularity or misbehaviour of any kind: and as we have now ships sufficient for the remainder of the Troops, I hope we shall be able very shortly to take our final departure...... "I am, etc., GUY CARLETON. "To Right Honorable Lord NORTH."* In that "final departure" North once more read his own failure and political obituary. It was the last word he was to have from the America which he would * MSS. in Royal Institution, London. not reconcile, which he could not subdue, and whose loss was now to react upon and crush himself. The enemy finally put off to sea on the 4th and 5th of December, when they disappear from public notice almost altogether. One must look sharply through the London papers of the January following to trace their arrival on the other side. The troop-ships drop in one by one into this or that harbor, the soldiers reach home, and that is the end. Sometimes the thinness of their ranks provokes a comment upon the American campaigns; as where the Seventy-first, or Fraser's Highlanders, which left England in 1776 two thousand strong, returns from New York with but three hundred, or where the thousand men of the Twentieth Foot are reduced to one hundred and ten. Even Carleton's arrival home made no stir, while the last from the Admiral is only to be found in the manuscripts of the Public Record Office, London, in this report of sailor-like brevity to the Naval Office: "AMPHION, PORTLAND ROAD, 8 Jan., 1784. "I left Staten Island the 5th December, all the troops having sailed the day before, and everything that was ready. The Town of New York was evacuated the 25th of November, and everything remained quite quiet when we came away...... ROBT. DIGBY." With the abandonment of the posts on the Penobscot in January, 1784, our coast became entirely clear of British occupation. NE cool October evening-it was the lusion to that in so peremptory a manner cool for the time of year-I made up my mind to go and spend an hour or two with my friend Keningale. Keningale was an artist (as well as a musical amateur and poet), and had a very delightful studio built on to his house, in which he was wont to sit of an evening. The studio had a cavernous fire-place, designed in imitation of the old-fashioned fire-places of Elizabethan manor-houses, and in it, when the temperature out-doors warranted, he would build up a cheerful fire of dry logs. It would suit me particularly well, I thought, to go and have a quiet pipe and chat in front of that fire with my friend. I had not had such a chat for a very long time-not, in fact, since Keningale (or Ken, as his friends called him) had returned from his visit to Europe the year before. He went abroad, as he affirmed at the time, "for purposes of study," whereat we all smiled, for Ken, so far as we knew him, was more likely to do any thing else than to study. He was a young fellow of buoyant temperament, lively and social in his habits, of a brilliant and versatile mind, and possessing an income of twelve or fifteen thousand dollars a year; he could sing, play, scribble, and paint very cleverly, and some of his heads and figure-pieces were really well done, considering that he never had any regular training in art; but he was not a worker. Personally he was fine-looking, of good height and figure, active, healthy, and with a remarkably fine brow, and clear, full-gazing eye. Nobody was surprised at his going to Europe, nobody expected him to do anything there except amuse himself, and few anticipated that he would be soon again seen in New York. He was one of the sort that find Europe agree with them. Off he went, therefore; and in the course of a few months the rumor reached us that he was engaged to a handsome and wealthy New York girl whom he had met in London. This was nearly all we did hear of him until, not very long afterward, he turned up again on Fifth Avenue, to every one's astonishment; made no satisfactory answer to those who wanted to know how he happened to tire so soon of the Old World; while as to the reported engagement, he cut short all al VOL. LXVII.-No. 402.-58 topic of conversation with him. It was surmised that the lady had jilted him; but, on the other hand, she herself returned home not a great while after, and though she had plenty of opportunities, she has never married to this day. Be the rights of that matter what they may, it was soon remarked that Ken was no longer the careless and merry fellow he used to be; on the contrary, he appeared grave, moody, averse from general society, and habitually taciturn and undemonstrative even in the company of his most intimate friends. Evidently something had happened to him, or he had done something. What? Had he committed a murder? or joined the Nihilists? or was his unsuccessful love affair at the bottom of it? Some declared that the cloud was only temporary, and would soon pass away. Nevertheless, up to the period of which I am writing it had not passed away, but had rather gathered additional gloom, and threatened to become permanent. Meanwhile I had met him twice or thrice at the club, at the opera, or in the street, but had as yet had no opportunity of regularly renewing my acquaintance with him. We had been on a footing of more than common intimacy in the old days, and I was not disposed to think that he would refuse to renew the former relations now. But what I had heard aud myself seen of his changed condition imparted a stimulating tinge of suspense or curiosity to the pleasure with which I looked forward to the prospects of this evening. His house stood at a distance of two or three miles beyond the general range of habitations in New York at this time, and as I walked briskly along in the clear twilight air I had leisure to go over in my mind all that I had known of Ken and had divined of his character. After all, had there not always been something in his nature-deep down, and held in abeyance by the activity of his animal spirits-but something strange and separate, and capable of developing under suitable conditions into-into what? As I asked myself this question I arrived at his door; and it was with a feeling of relief that I felt the next moment the cordial grasp of his hand, and his voice bid |