the female part of it as fully crinolined, as the great body of the
respectable white people of 1802, and worshipping every Sabbath in
churches of their own, better and more costly than the best church of
that day; while the white people have added, and are adding every day,
church to church and chapel to chapel, some of which are even elegant in
their architecture, and all comfortable in their arrangements beyond the
conceptions of that day. He lived to see, instead of three men worth one
hundred thousand each, three men, one of whom he was, whose united
wealth would reach a million, besides many others with one hundred
thousand down to ten thousand. He lived to see the population increased
from seven thousand to seventeen thousand; and, to say the least, fully
as well clad, as well fed, as their fathers ever were, and living in
better houses than their fathers ever lived in. He lived to see our
banking capital, whether invested in public banks, in savings
institutions, and in the hands of private bankers, swell above the
fragmentary portion which the old Bank of the United States could afford
to allot to us, to somewhat over two millions of dollars, almost wholly
owned by our own people; and to read our monthly bills of mortality,
which attest, beyond the reach of cavil, a condition of general health
without a parallel in the annals of cities laved by the tides. He lived
to see the farmers, who supplied the population of 1802 with vegetables
and fish enough to serve, but none to spare, ship off nearly half a
million's worth to the north every season; and to see land in the
neighborhood, which in 1802 was worth hardly anything more than what the
doctor reaped from its crop of agues, become salubrious, and sell for
fifty dollars an acre. He lived to see our city connected with the West,
the South, and the North, by steamships whose tonnage would in those
days have been pronounced fabulous, by railways, and by the magnetic
telegraph. He lived to see a larger tonnage arriving and departing
annually from our port than ever was seen in our most prosperous days.