Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/116

88 these apartments for a master's lodge, library, chapel, hall, &c. but as soon as the whole shall be completed, there will be proper apartments for each of these offices. The name of it is King's College.

There are two churches in New York, the old, or Trinity Church, and the new one, or St. George's Chapel ; both of them large buildings, the former in the Gothic taste, with a spire, the other upon the model of some of the new churches in London. Besides these, there are several other places of religious worship ; namely, two Low Dutch Calvinist churches, one High Dutch ditto, one French ditto, one German Lutheran church, one presbyterian meeting-house, one quakers ditto, one anabaptists do, one Moravian ditto, and a Jews synagogue. There is also a very handsome charity-school for sixty poor boys and girls, a good work-house, barracks for a regiment of soldiers, and one of the finest prisons I have ever seen. The court or stadt-house makes no great figure, but it is to be repaired and beautified. There is a quadrangular fort, capable of mounting sixty cannon, though at present there are, I believe, only thirty-two. Within this is the governor s palace, and underneath it a battery capable of mounting ninety-four guns, and barracks for a company or two of soldiers. Upon one of the islands in the bay is an hospital for sick and wounded seamen ; and, upon another, a pest-house. These are the most noted public buildings in and about the city. . ..

Arts and sciences have made no greater progress here than in the other colonies ; but as a subscription library has been lately opened, and every one seems zealous to promote learning, it may be hoped that they will hereafter advance faster than they have done hitherto. The college is established upon the same plan as that in the Jerseys, except that this at New York professes the principles of the church of England. At present the state of it is far from being flourishing, or so good as might be wished. Its fund does not exceed 10,000l. currency, and there is a great scarcity of professors. A commencement was held, nevertheless, this summer, and seven gentlemen took degrees. There are in it at this time about twenty-five students. The president, Dr. Johnson, is a very worthy and learned man, but rather too far advanced in life to have the direction of so young an institution. The late Dr. Bristow left to this college a fine library, of which they are in daily expectation.

The inhabitants of New York, in their character, very much resemble the Pensylvanians : more than half of them are Dutch, and almost all traders : they are, therefore, habitually frugal, industrious ; and parsimonious. Being however of different nations, different languages, and different