Page:Republican Court by Rufus Griswold.djvu/147

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THE TRIUMPHAL PROGRESS.
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tained by contrary winds, but assures us that tbe voyage from Newport is not unfrequently performed in twenty hours, and that the price of passage is but six dollars.

Miss Montgomery states that the journey from Wilmington to New York was so great an undertaking that few persons attempted it, and they were regarded as "travellers." Her grandfather's business often required his attention there, and on his return crowds of villagers would come to hear the news and accounts of all the wonders he had seen in that astonishing city.

III.

A sufficient number of members having appeared, the House of Representatives at length on the thirtieth of March proceeded to organize itself, and on the following week the Senate was also ready for business. This first Congress under the Constitution embraced a large portion of the talents, experience and respectability of the country. John Langdon, Oliver Ellsworth, Charles Carroll, Richard Henry Lee, and Ralph Izard, were in the Senate, and among the members of the House were Elbridge Gerry, Roger Sherman, Jeremiah Wadsworth, Elias Boudinot, Frederick A. Muhlenberg, James Madison, and young Fisher Ames, soon to be acknowledged the greatest of American orators.

The Continental Congress had sat in the old City Hall, at the corner of Wall and Nassau streets, where now stands the Custom House. This building had been erected nearly a century, and in it had been held the sessions of the Provincial Assembly, the Supreme Court, the Admiralty Court, and the Mayor's Court. Here too had been the city prison, and in Broad street, nearly opposite, had stood the whipping post and the pillory. The City Hall, in-

    same convenience. You may be assured there is nothing like them in the old countries." — New Travels in America, c. iv.