produce of the
country, and left laden with commodities suited to the needs of the
rural population, or with the British gold in their purses; for all the
staples of food, as flour, beef, pork and butter, were in great demand,
to victual the many fleets preparing to sail, freighted with troops, or
with loyalists. The country people in the vicinity also flocked to the
public markets, bringing all kinds of provisions, which they readily
sold at moderate rates for hard cash; and thus the adjacent country was
supplied and enriched with specie. The fall in prices, which during the
war had risen eight hundred per cent, brought a most grateful relief to
the consumers. Simultaneously with these tokens of better days, the
order for the release of all the prisoners of war from the New York
prisons and prisonships, with their actual liberation from their gloomy
cells, came as a touching reminder that the horrors of war were at an
end.

Many of the old citizens who had fled, on or prior to the invasion of
the City by the British, and had purchased homes in the country, now
prepared to return, by selling or disposing of these places, expecting
upon reaching New York to re-occupy their old dwellings, without let or
hindrance, but on arriving here were utterly astonished at being
debarred their own houses; the commandant, General Birch, holding the
keys of all dwellings vacated by persons leaving, and only suffering the
owners to enter their premises as tenants, and upon their paying him
down a quarter's rent in advance! Such apparent injustice determined
many not to come before the time set for the evacuation of the City,
while many others were kept back through fear of the loyalists, whose
rage and vindictiveness were justly to be dreaded. Hence, though our
people were allowed free ingress and egress to and from the City, upon
their obtaining a British pass for that purpose, yet but few,
comparatively, ventured to bring their families or remain permanently
till they could make their entry with, or under the protection of, the
American forces.

Never perhaps in the history of our City had there been a corresponding
period of such incessant activity and feverish excitement. Stimulated by
their fears, the loyalist families began arrangements in early spring
for their departure from the land of their birth (indeed a company of
six hundred, including women and children, had already gone the
preceding fall) destined mainly for Port Ros