seamen, belonging to the vessels in the haven, together with some half
dozen notorious tavern-hunters were, however, the sole fruits of all their
nods of recognition, inquiries into the welfare of wives and children,
and, in some instances, of open invitations to alight and drink.

Worldly care, with a constant, though sometimes an oblique, look at the
future state, formed the great characteristic of all that people who then
dwelt in what were called the provinces of New-England. The business of
the day, however, was not forgotten though it was deemed unnecessary to
digest its proceedings in idleness, or over the bottle. The travellers
along the different roads that led into the interior of the island formed
themselves into little knots, in which the policy of the great national
events they had just been commemorating, and the manner they had been
treated by the different individuals selected to take the lead in the
offices of the day, were freely handled, though still with great deference
to the established reputations of the distinguished parties most
concerned. It was every where conceded that the prayers, which had been in
truth a little conversational and historical, were faultless and searching
exercises; and, on the whole, (though to this opinion there were some
clients of an advocate adverse to the orator, who were moderate
dissenters) it was established, that a more eloquent oration had never
issued from the mouth of man, than had that day been delivered in their
presence. Precisely in the same temper was the subject discussed by the
workmen on a ship, which was then building in the harbour, and which, in
the same spirit of provincial admiration that has since immortalized so
many edifices, bridges, and even individuals, within their several
precincts, was confidently affirmed to be the rarest specimen then extant
of the nice proportions of naval architecture!

Of the orator himself it may be necessary to say a word, in order that so