Page:The Wreck of a World - Grove - 1890.djvu/67

Rh things as he and his family would require, and provisions if possible for three months. Few, of course, could comply with the latter injunction, but the very largeness of the demand made each man feel that it was no trifling expedition that was meditated, and exert himself to the utmost. Day after day the quays presented the most lively scene, not surpassed in the most palmy days of our city's prosperity. Men women and children, bearing goods and provisions of all sorts, thronged to and fro in busy confusion all day long. And in the background, across the river, the dismal hosts of machines kept watch and ward (or seemed to do so) on all our movements.

By the Second of July all was ready; on the Third I paraded all the citizens and took a careful census; and on the Fourth we started. The total number of souls on board our seven vessels was 3231, including the St. Louis foundling. Before starting I addressed. those who were near enough to hear as follows:—

"Citizens," said I, "this is the anniversary of the day on which our forefathers threw off the yoke of a foreign rule. You all know, even you young children, how they and their descendants in less than two cen-