pulpit; and they walked with such a stir, striking their canes so hard upon the pavement as to make the little town ring again. I defy all modern coxcombry to produce anything equal to it—there was such a relish of peace about it, and particularly when one of these weather-beaten gallants accosted a lady in the street with a bow that required a whole side pavement to make it in, with the scrape of his foot, and his cane thrust with a flourish under his left arm till it projected behind along with his cue, like the palisades of a chevaux-de-frise; and nothing could be more piquant than the lady as she reciprocated the salutation with a curtsey that seemed to carry her into the earth, with her chin bridled to her breast, and such a volume of dignity."
The "rus-in-urbe" life of Baltimore was
nearly ended; with the close of the Revolutionary
War began a new period in its history.
Soon streets were paved and lighted, better
bridges built, and a watch was established.
Commerce sprang up with renewed vigor. The
tobacco trade found other markets than the
mother country; the West Indies bought
flour, Spain and Portugal, wheat. By 1790,
Baltimore skippers had rounded the Cape of
Good Hope and cast anchor in the harbors
of the Isle de France. The year 1793 brought
another foreign addition to the already polyglot
population of Baltimore. The revolution
in San Domingo drove fifteen hundred of the