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aprons, walking at a respectful distance behind | over the rocks and cliffs at the entrance of the their master to meeting, was not an unpleasant harbor. sight!" Joseph Jacobs was the only possessor of a thermometer upon the island, and so precise was his punctuality, that the neighbors were wont to set their clocks and watches as he passed by to meeting, without speaking to him.

Godfrey and John Malbone were among the chief Newport merchants of this period. The elder, Godfrey, settled in the town about the year 1700; he engaged in successful enterprises, and fitted out privateers in 1740, during the French and Spanish war. A rough, bold, sea-faring man, ready to trade in slaves or rum, and to send privateers to the Spanish main, he is undoubtedly a good type of the Newport merchant of that period. There were two hundred vessels in the foreign trade, three or four hundred coasting vessels, and a regular line of London packets. Between two and three thousand seamen thronged the docks, which extended a mile along the harbor. There was no storage sufficient for the accumulating riches. The harvests and produce of the East and West Indies piled the wharves. Crates of bananas, of oranges, of all the southern fruits lay in the yards of the houses, with turtle from the Bahamas, waiting to be cooked. Colonel Gibbs, one of the chief merchants, had a negro cook, Cudjo, who prepared his master's dinners, and was loaned to the lesser neighbors upon their state occasions. He educated a family of cooks in Colonel Gibbs' kitchen, and the epicures from every quarter were the debtors of Cudjo.

Here met a society not unworthy so fair a palace of pleasure, if tradition may be believed. The wealthy and cultivated society of Newport seems in those days to have been acknowledged as an aristocracy. The social lines were sharply drawn. As in provincial towns the rigor of etiquette is more exacting than in the metropolis, so in the colony it is always more observable than in the mother country. The courtly rector of Trinity alluded from the pulpit to "those who moved in the higher spheres."

No bold innovator as yet discussed a possible revolution. Not even the gentle and humane Berkeley, planning proselyting colleges on Summer Islands, had dreamed of a Democracy. Upon the other side of the sea, the great apostle of the modern movement, Jean Jacques Rousseau, himself was at this time just emancipated from the thraldom of Madame de Warens, and the French Secretary of Embassy at Venice was not yet ready to prefer a savage life and country to the splendid shores of the Adriatic.

Vaucluse, the residence of Samuel Elam, now of Thomas R. Hazard, was another of the fine places of that day. It is situated upon the eastern side of the island, about five miles from the town, and is the only estate remaining which has still some savor of its past prosperity. The entertainments at both these places, no less than those of the Overings, Bannisters, and the gentlemen of the Narragansett shore opposite, are remembered as magnificent. It was the broad English At a period a little later than this, and proba- style of hospitality, abundant, loud, and, doubtless, bly of Cudjo himself, Dr. Channing says, "When a little coarse and rude. Prodigious oaths echoed I was young, the luxury of eating was carried to probably along the stately halls of the Malbones, the greatest excess in Newport. My first notion, and choice wines flowed at the dinners of Vauindeed, of glory was attached to an old black cluse. The story of the destruction of the Malcook, whom I saw to be the most important per- bone house, illustrates the spirit of the time. It sonage in town. He belonged to the household had cost a hundred thousand dollars, which was of my uncle, and was in great demand wherever not a small sum of money in a time and place there was to be a dinner." Seventeen manufac- where a man lived well upon five hundred dollars tories of sperm-oil and candles worked with such a year. But in the year 1766, as the slaves were success, that Crevecœur says "they make sperm-cooking a dinner-to which Colonel Malbone had acetti candles better than wax."

Noble mansions, spacious and elaborate gardens arose and adorned the island and the town. The country-house of Colonel Godfrey Malbone, which was commenced in 1744, was famous as the finest residence in the colonies. It was built of stone, two stories high, with a circular staircase leading to the cupola, the cost of which was reputed to be equal to that of an ordinary dwelling-house. The house was within a mile of Newport, and the farm of six hundred acres sloped gently toward the bay. The garden yet gives a name to the estate upon which now stands the mansion of J. Prescott Hall. According to tradition this garden was elaborately laid out; ranges of banks and terraces alternated with plots of flowers, and hedges of shrubbery, and groups of rare trees; silver and gold fish swam in artificial ponds; while over this mingled beauty the eye swept across the bay to the blue line of the opposite shore, or saw the sea flashing

bidden the best company of the island-the wood work around the kitchen chimney took fire, and, although the house was of Connecticut stone, the flames soon had possession. Romance now takes up the fact, and proceeding in a strain accordant with the style of the man and his life, relates that Colonel Malbone, seeing the inevitable destruction, declared that if he must lose his house, he would not lose his dinner; and, as it was early summer, ordered the feast to be spread upon the lawn, where he and his guests ate their dinner by the light of the burning house.

The society of the Narragansett shore opposite was not less distinguished, and was in constant intercourse with that of the island. Capable tutors and accomplished clergymen were the teachers of the boys who afterward graduated at Harvard or Yale, and there were good schools for the girls in Boston. The constant presence in the island of intelligent strangers, at once piqued and gratified natural curiosity, and thus,

without traveling, the inhabitants of Newport enjoyed the benefit of travel. Many of the leading men upon both sides of the bay had large and valuable libraries, and the collection in the Redwood Library was rich in many departments.

himself as the next friend of the late lamented
Cranston; and at length raising his hat, point-
ing to a scar upon his forehead, "he her
gave
a significant look," and asked her if she "ever
saw that mark before." The lady threw her-
self into his arms-"You are my own, own,"
etc., while Mr. Russell and the clergyman were
waiting in another room for the bride and the
ceremony. She entered, presently, " grace-
fully leaning on the arm of Mr. Cranston"-
explanations were made, while "a Mr. Rus-

"Ancient Narragansett was distinguished for its frank and generous hospitality." There were few public houses. Gentlemen and strangers staid with their friends, or brought letters which secured them ample attention. The tavern of "Uncle Tom Townsend"-the "Townsend's" of later days-sell of Boston" insisted, with suspicious alacrity, was a two-story house, where ardent spirits were sold, where the Judges stopped upon the circuit, and chance travelers staid. It is doubtless the house where Brissot de Warville lodged in 1788, and which he describes as full of travelers and sailors, whose conversation became so irksome to him that he was obliged to retreat into a small cabinet, where he could read and write undisturbed; and it is doubtless to the noisy and dull talk of the travelers and sailors at "Uncle Tom's," that we owe much of the dreary account, which we shall presently consider, given by that famous French revolutionary worthy.

In May, "the nobility and gentry" went to Hartford to eat "bloated salmon ;" and the cornhusking was the famous autumn festival upon the island and in Narragansett. Masters and slaves participated in this festivity. "Gentlemen in their scarlet coats and swords, with laced ruffles over their hands, hair turned back from the forehead, and curled and frizzled, clubbed and cued behind, highly powdered and pomatumed, with s nall-clothes, silk stockings, and shoes ornamented with brilliant buckles; and ladies dressed in brocade, cushioned head-dresses, and high-heeled shoes, performed the formal minuet with its thirtysix different positions and changes." Nor were the sports of old England unknown to the colony. "The fox-chase, with hounds and horns," echoed over the island, as Bishop Berkeley intimates in the Minute Philosopher: "A few moments after, we heard a confused noise of the opening of hounds, the winding of horns, and the shouts of the country squires"-a glimpse of life that might have tempted Squire Western himself to try the Western wilds.

A romantic tradition belongs to these days, of the return of Samuel Cranston, Esq., a Newporter of consideration, who, upon a West India voyage, was seized and enslaved by pirates. Making his escape, and returning to his native town, after seven years of absence and bondage, he learned that his wife, long since deeming herself a widow, was to be married to "a Mr. Russell of Boston." According to the strict proprieties of such tales, the hapless husband reached his home on the very day of the nuptials, and knocked at his own door, tattered, weary, and forlorn, at the moment when his "lovely and adored wife" was arraying herself for her second vows. He introduced

that the ceremony binding her irrevocably to her first husband should be immediately repeated, and bestowed upon her the portion he had intended to settle upon her as his wife. "The scene," says the chronicler, more literal than elegant, was worthy of the chisel of the artist, and produced emotions of delight in the minds of the guests."

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It was only a few years later, when this prosperity had not yet begun to decline, that Crevecœur writes: "The harbor of Newport is one of the best in every respect...... The roads are planted with acacias and plane-trees. There are abundant fountains every where; fields rich with harvest; meadows of ample pasturage; and the houses singularly neat and convenient...... The head of the island toward the sea offers a singular mixture of picturesque rocks, little fertile fields, sterility and abundance, sand and rich soil, pleasant bays and rough cliffs. A man can farm with one hand and fish with the other...... Here is the best blood in America, and the beauty of the women, the hospitality of the inhabitants, the sweet society, and the simplicity of their amusements, have always prolonged my stay."

From 1730 to the Revolution, Newport was at the height of its prosperity. New York, New Haven, and New London greatly depended upon it for their foreign supplies. During these years, James Franklin, who had published the New England Courant in Boston, and had offended the government, removed to Newport, bringing with him his types and press. His brother, Benjamin, who had been learning his trade in his

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FRANKLIN'S PRESS.

To these prosperous days in Rhode Island history belongs the career of Ezra Stiles, who lived in Newport from 1755 to 1776. He graduated at Yale in 1746, and was attracted to Newport by the advantages offered to the theological student by the Redwood Library. He became pastor of the Second Congregational Church and Redwood librarian, and remained in the town nearly twenty years. In 1788 he was made President of Yale College, whose library contains thirty manuscript volumes of his diary. This country has not, perhaps, produced a more learned man," says Dr. Channing. "His virtues were proportioned to his intellectual acquisition." Newport loved Dr. Stiles, and his occasional visits after his departure were festivals. In my earliest years I regarded no human being with equal reverence," concludes Dr. Channing, indulging in the natural and tender local reminiscences of his childhood.

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brother's office, went to Philadelphia. In New- | read by Major John Handy, at the time of its port, James commenced the Rhode Island Ga- adoption, who, fifty years afterward, upon the zette, which did not succeed, and he disappeared, 4th of July, 1826, read it again from the same leaving his wife and his press behind him. In place. 1758 his son James established the Newport Mercury, a paper which is still published, and in the office of which, after many removals and vicissitudes, stands the press of James Franklin, the elder, which he imported from England, and at which Benjamin Franklin learned his trade. The present editor of the Mercury a descendant of families famous in Newport annals, has prepared a volume which he has himself copiously and accurately illustrated, and which is by far the best hand-book of Newport history and tradition. In 1756, Dr. William Hunter-who had married a daughter of Godfrey Malbone, and whose own daughters were famous belles, as we shall see, one of the distinguished physicians of an eminent faculty, among whom are to be named Haliburton, Moffat, Brett, Hooper, and Isaac Senter, of whom Dr. Channing says, "His figure rises before me......as a specimen of manly beauty, worthy of the chisel of a Grecian sculptor"-delivered the first course of anatomical and surgical lectures in the colonies, in the Court-house, which had been erected just before. This old building stands at the head of the Parade, and has all the quaint, solid dignity of a Flemish town-hall. During the British and French occupation it was used as a hospital, and in the lower room the French erected an altar to say mass for the sick and dying. It is from the balcony of this building that the High Sheriff annually requests "gentlemen to please to take notice that His Excellency Richard Roe is elected Governor for the year ensuing. God save the State of Rhode Island, and Providence Plantations!" A sly story is told of a sheriff who, being a friend of Richard Roe, was yet compelled to announce that the opposition candidate, His Excellency John Doe, was elected Governor; and concluded the proclamation with, "God save the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations for the year ensuing!" From the balcony of this State House the Declaration of Independence was

STATE AND COURT-HOUSE.

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The other eminent divine associated with Stiles and Callender with Newport of the last century, was Samuel Hopkins, the founder of the Hopkinsian school of orthodoxy. He settled in Newport in 1769, and with Puritan sternness, and natural intellectual independence, sought "to reconcile Calvinism with its essential truths." Other Calvinists were willing that their neighbors should be predestined to everlasting misery for the glory of God. This noble-minded man demanded a more generous and impartial virtue, and maintained that we should consent to our own perdition. . . . if the greatest good of the universe, and the manifestation of the Divine perfections should so require." This doctrine was not altogether agreeable to the Newporters, and a meeting of his Society discussed the Doctor's preaching, and finally resolved to intimate to him their willingness that he should leave. But when, upon the next Sunday, he preached a farewell sermon, the parish were so interested and impressed that they entreated him to remain. "His name is associated with a stern and appalling theology,"

but he preserved the old Puritan traditions, and represented the severe and indomitable spirit of the early New England clergy. A profound student, he was sometimes engaged for eighteen hours of the day with his studies, and died, in Newport, an honored and good man, in December, 1803.

In the church records of Narragansett, or Kingston, a town upon the main, opposite Newport, it appears that," April 11th, 1756, being Palm Sunday, Doctor M Sparran read prayers, preached, and baptized a child named Gilbert Stewart, son of Gilbert Stewart, the snuff-grinder." Mrs. Stewart was daughter of the Anthony who sold the farm to Berkeley, which he called

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setts, says Dunlap, for one thousand dollars. It was declined, and remained in his studio until purchased by the Boston Athenæum of his widow. From this head the many Washingtons of Stuart were painted. In 1826 he made his last visit to his birth-place, and returned through Newport to Boston, where he died in July, 1828. His daughter still resides in Newport, and her copies of her father's portraits of Washington are extolled. But of Stuart's pictures there only remain in Newport the Washington in the Courthouse, and two portraits in the Redwood Library, painted at the age of fifteen. Stuart Newton was a son of Stuart's sister.

Whitehall, and she was born at that place. | fied, and destroyed it. The second one was sucThe snuff scheme in which his father was con- cessful. He offered it to the State of Massachucerned failed, and while Stuart (the name is now thus written) was yet a young child his father removed to Newport. When he was thirteen years old he began to copy pictures, and a mysterious Scotchman, Mr. Cosmo Alexander, arrived in Newport in 1772, and painted portraits. According to Dunlap, "he soon put on canvas the Hunters, the Keiths, the Fergusons, the Grants, and the Hamiltons." Mr. Alexander taught the young Gilbert, and finally took him to Scotland. Within a year he was back again in Rhode Island, and "commenced portrait-painter in form." But he was a capricious youth. It was always either "high-tide or low-tide" with him, and his whims were annoying and inexplicable. To the dismay of Newport he declined to paint a full-length portrait of Abraham Redwood for the Redwood Library. Newport was full of the Quaker spirit and influence, which exasperated a youth ardently devoted to the Muses. You have no more taste for music than a jackass," he cried to Benjamin Waterhouse, not yet a doctor nor a centenarian; "and it is all owing to your stupid Quaker education."

From a society so largely engaged in commerce, which would appeal to their interest, and whose trade was greatly in slaves and liquor, which would not tend to refine their feelings, it would be natural to expect a reluctant sympathy with the early resistance to English aggression. But already in 1768 it appears that many in Newport had resolved to dispense with foreign goods. A New York paper of May in that year says, "In Newport one married lady and her daughter have spun full sixty yards of good, fine linen cloth, nearly a yard wide, since the first of March, be

editor exhorts all his townswomen to emulate this example of practical independence of England. In July, 1769, the armed sloop Liberty was sent to Newport, from Boston, to enforce the revenue laws. The conduct of her officers by no means won the esteem of the Newporters, who resolved to express their indignation upon occasion of the ill-treatment by the Liberty's officers of the captain of a Connecticut brig, which had been seized and brought in, together with a sloop. The citizens, meeting Captain Reid, of the Liberty, upon the wharf, demanded that the chief offender in the fray should be sent on shore for punishment. The captain obeyed, and directed the surrender; but the criminal did not come, although all the men of the Liberty except the mate were sent on shore. A party of Newporters then repaired to the Liberty, cut her cables, and suffered her to drift off and ground, while her boats were burned upon the Parade. A few days afterward the wreck was struck by lightning, took fire, and was consumed. This was among the very first movements, if not the first, of rebellious opposition to England. Three years later the Gaspee was destroyed; and in 1773 the Bostonians threw the tea into the harbor. In May, 1775, and during the year, Admiral Wallace commanded the British fleet in Narragansett Bay, and destroyed every building upon Prudence Island, beside bombarding Bristol.

The war came, and portraits were not wanted, and the young man resolved to sail for Europe. But he spent most of the night before he left New-sides taking care of a large family;" and the port under a lady's window, playing tender farewells upon his flute. He left for England ten days before the battle of Bunker Hill, and his father, who had been brought from Scotland expressly to make snuff, and whose royalist tendencies were indicated by naming his son Gilbert Charles Stuart-although the son always dropped the middle name-fled to Nova Scotia, whither his wife and her remaining children followed him from Newport. In England, Stuart became West's pupil. Fuseli, upon seeing some of his drawings, said to him, "If this is the best you can do, you had better go and make shoes." But before he knew Stuart, Fuseli one day entered an engraver's shop where the young man was standing, and the engraver, telling him privately that he knew him to be "a great physiognomist," asked him if he thought the youth might paint. Umph," said Fuseli, "I don't know but he might-he has a coot leg." After he had painted West's portrait, which was greatly admired, West said to Stuart," You have done well-all you have to do is to go home and do better." Dr. Johnson, with the incomprehensible ignorance about America of some modern Englishmen, had expressed surprise to West that Stuart spoke so good English, and, turning to the young man, wished to know where he had learned it. "Not from your dictionary," replied the intrepid painter. In 1784 he was a fashionable artist in London, and his portraits occupied the best places in the Exhibition." He lived in splendor, and was the gayest of the gay." His daughter says that his great desire to paint a portrait of General Washington was his only inducement to turn his back on his good fortune in Europe." In 1794 he painted his first portrait of Washington, but was dissatis

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It was now clear that serious troubles were impending, and the high society of Newport began to take the alarm. The habit of loyalty and the aristocratic feeling were very strong with many of the chief citizens, and Joseph Wanton, Esq., suspected of too great sympathy with England, was degraded from the office of Governor. In the spring of 1776 Wallace was driven out of the

harbor of Newport, by a vigorous attack, assisted | ment advanced, and declared itself ready to acby the Providence troops. But in December of the same year arrived the British fleet under Sir Peter Parker. It sailed up the West Passage, crossed from the north point of Conanicut, and landed an army of 8000 or 10,000 English and Hessians, commanded by General Clinton and Lord Percy, in Middletown, about five miles from Newport. The army immediately began to plunder, and was quartered upon the inhabitants until May, 1777, when Clinton and Percy, with a large part, left for New York, and General Prescott succeeded to the command. He made himself obnoxious by petty tyranny, but Major Barton revenged the injuries of the island by a feat of memorable ingenuity and valor.

Barton was on duty with the Rhode Island line, and after the capture of General Lee, in November, 1776, he considered how he might retort upon the enemy, and resolved to capture Prescott. When the English landed, Major Barton was stationed at Tiverton, upon the main-land, not far from the shore of Rhode Island. He waited for several months, but found no fit opportunity, until a British deserter was brought in to his quarters. Barton ascertained from him the situation of Prescott's head-quarters, and all the necessary details, and prepared to put his plan immediately into execution. He and his men were new to the service, and failure was permanent disgrace, as he well knew; but without a moment's hesitation he selected his companions from the officers, told them the scope of the undertaking, and engaged their confidence and sympathy. Five whale-boats were procured and fitted. At the last moment Barton addressed his soldiers, and said that he wished the voluntary assistance of about forty men. The whole regi

company him. On the 4th of July, 1777, the party left Tiverton, and crossed to the western shore of the bay. At nine o'clock on the evening of the 9th July they left Warwick-neck in the whale-boats. That of Major Barton went in front, and was distinguished from the others by a handkerchief tied to a pole in the stern. The little fleet dropped silently down the bay, between the islands of Patience and Prudence. In the stillness of night they heard the drowsy call of "All's well" from the sentries on the English ships, and as they touched the shore of Rhode Island a sound as of running horses was heard. It was too late to be alarmed, and the party landed in silence, Major Barton detailing one man to remain in each boat. They landed about a mile from the head-quarters of General Prescott, and crept toward it in five divisions. There were three doors to the house-on the south, the east, and the west. One division was to advance upon each door, the fourth was to guard the road, and the fifth act as a reserve.

As they reached the house they were challenged by the sentinel.

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D-n you, we have no countersign. Have you seen any deserters to-night?" said Barton, advancing upon the sentry, seizing his musket, telling him that he was a prisoner, and threatening him with instant death if he betrayed them by making a noise. The sentry said that the General was in the house. Each division had now reached its station; the doors were forced, and the soldiers rushed up stairs into the chamber of the host. He was speechless with fright, and pointed to the

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