days, when I would be loath to change even a pair of buckles! The
British coffee-house, where oft we sat, brimful of wine and loyalty, with
the gallant gentlemen of Amherst's army, when we wore a redcoat too,--the
British coffee-house, forsooth, must now be styled the American, with a
golden eagle instead of the royal arms above the door. Even the street
it stands in is no longer King Street! Nothing is the king's, except
this heavy heart in my old bosom. Wherever I glance my eyes, they meet
something that pricks them like a needle. This soap-maker, for instance,
this Hobert Hewes, has conspired against my peace, by notifying that his
shop is situated near Liberty Stump. But when will their misnamed
liberty have its true emblem in that Stump, hewn down by British steel?

Where shall we buy our next year's almanac? Not this of Weatherwise's,
certainly; for it contains a likeness of George Washington, the upright
rebel, whom we most hate, though reverentially, as a fallen angel, with
his heavenly brightness undiminished, evincing pure fame in an unhallowed
cause. And here is a new book for my evening's recreation,--a History of
the War till the close of the year 1779, with the heads of thirteen
distinguished officers, engraved on copperplate. A plague upon their
heads! We desire not to see them till they grin at us from the balcony
before the town-house, fixed on spikes, as the heads of traitors. How
bloody-minded the villains make a peaceable old man! What next? An
Oration, on the Horrid Massacre of 1770. When that blood was shed,--the
first that the British soldier ever drew from the bosoms of our
countrymen,--we turned sick at heart, and do so still, as often as they
make it reek anew from among the stones in King Street. The pool that we
saw that night has swelled into a lake,--English blood and American,--no!
all British, all blood of my brethren. And here come down tears. Shame
on me, since half of them are shed for rebels! Who are not rebels now!
Even the women are thrusting their white hands into the war, and come out