en
built as a bower for a king's daughter. Longfellow, in the swinging
verse of his "Skeleton in Armor," breathing of the sea and the Norseman's
fatal love, has thrown such a glamour of poetry around the tower, that
one would fain believe all he relates. The hardy Norsemen, if they ever
came here, succumbed in their struggle with the native tribes, or,
discouraged by death and hardships, sailed away, leaving the clouds of
oblivion to close again darkly around this continent, and the fog of
discussion to circle around the "Old Mill."

The little settlement of another race, speaking another tongue, that
centuries later sprang up in the shadow of the tower, quickly grew into a
busy and prosperous city, which, like New York, its rival, was captured
and held by the English. To walk now through some of its quaint, narrow
streets is to step back into Revolutionary days. Hardly a house has
changed since the time when the red coats of the British officers
brightened the prim perspectives, and turned loyal young heads as they
passed.

At the corner of Spring and Pelham Streets, still stands the residence of
General Prescott, who was carried away prisoner by his opponents, they
having rowed down in whale-boats from Providence for the attack.
Rochambeau, our French ally, lodged lower down in Mary Street. In the
tower of Trinity, one can read the epitaph of the unfortunate Chevalier
de Ternay, commander of the sea forces, whose body lies near by. Many
years later his relative, the Duc de Noailles, when Minister to this
country, had this simple tablet repaired and made a visit to the spot.

A long period of prosperity followed the Revolution, during which Newport
grew and flourished. Our pious and God-fearing "forbears," having
secured personal and religious liberty, proceeded to inaugurate a most
successful and remunerative trade in rum and slaves. It was a triangular
transaction and yielded a three-fold profit. The simple population of
that day, numbering less than ten thousand souls, possessed twenty
distilleries; finding it a physical impossibility to drink _all_ the rum,
they conceived the happy thought of sending the surplus across to the
coast of Africa, where it appears to have been much appreciated by the
native chiefs, who eagerly exchanged the pick of their loyal subjects for
that liquid. These poor brutes were taken to the West Indies and
exchanged for sugar, laden with which, the vessels returned to Newport.