he end of the war meant either the necessity for
making permanent their residence in the British dominion, or of bearing
both outspoken and silent scorn in the new Republic.

For the Americans the peace of Yorktown brought joy, but new beginnings
had also to be made. Farms had been laid waste, or had suffered from
lack of men to cultivate them; industries were almost at a standstill
from want of material and laborers. Still the people had the splendid
compensation of freedom with victory, and men went sturdily back to
their homes to take up as far as possible their various occupations.

An example of the way in which business undertaken before the war was
rapidly resumed, or increased, is afforded by the revival of prosperity
for the booksellers in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Renewals of
orders to London agents were speedily made, for the Americans still looked
to England for their intellectual needs. In Philadelphia--a town of forty
thousand inhabitants in seventeen hundred and eighty-three--among the
principal booksellers and printers were Thomas Bradford, Mr. Woodhouse,
Mr. Oswald, Mr. Pritchard,--who had established a circulating
library,--Robert Aitkin, Mr. Liddon, Mr. Dunlap, Mr. Rice, William and
David Hall, Benjamin Bache, J. Crukshank, and Robert Bell. Bell had
undoubtedly the largest bookstore, but seems not to have been altogether
popular, if an allusion in "The Philadelphiad" is to be credited. This
"New Picture of the City" was anonymously published in seventeen hundred
and eighty-four, and described, among other well-known places, Robert
Bell's book-shop:

BELL'S BOOK STORE

Just by St. Paul's where dry divines rehearse,
Bell keeps his store for vending prose and verse,
And books that's neither ... for no age nor clime,
Lame languid prose begot on hobb'ling rhyme.
Here authors meet who ne'er a spring have got,
The poet, player, doctor, wit and sot,
Smart politicians wrangling here are seen,
Condemning Jeffries or indulging spleen.

In 1776 Bell's facilities for printing had enabled him to produce an
edition of "Little Goody Two-Shoes," which seems likely to have been the
only story-book printed during the troubled years of the Revolution.
Besides this, Bell printed in 1777 "Aesop's Fables," as did also Robert
Aitkin; and J. Crukshank had issued during the war an A B C book,
written by the old schoolmaster, A. Benezet, who had drilled many a
Philadelphian i