132 NEW YORK. 



out many quarrels and broken heads, or pro- 

 bably more serious occurrences. 



It had been announced that in the evening, 

 according to custom, grand displays of fire- 

 works were to be exhibited at different places 

 of amusement, and about ten o'clock, the people, 

 still not sensibly diminished in numbers, were 

 moving anxiously towards the expected exhi- 

 bitions, when a terrible thunderstorm burst 

 over the city, and suddenly terminated the 

 day's proceedings. 



It was full moon, and the street lamps had 

 not been lit. In a moment the city was en- 

 veloped in a cloud of such intense darkness, 

 that, walking home from where I had been 

 dining, I should hardly have found my way 

 but for those incessant flashes of the most vivid 

 lightning that ushered in continuous peals of 

 deafening thunder. The rain then descended 

 in torrents, the streets were instantaneously 

 deserted, and thus, by a terrific convulsion of 

 nature, was closed, in New York, the sixty- 

 third anniversary of American Independence. 



I remained here until the 14th, during 



