nd thus the moderation of the latter tended to restrain
the former from the display of any actually violent demonstration. At the
same period, there was formed, among the older administration men of the
day, a veteran military organization, of those beyond the ordinary age of
military service, well-known locally under the significant appellation of
the "Silver Greys." The corps was composed of elderly merchants and
traders and retired sea-captains, and their drills manifested at least
the ambition of military prowess. Their opponents alleged that their
company was formed for merely political purposes, and to overawe the
town; but their own doubtless more just solution of the matter was, that
their object was to aid in repelling invasion, in the unlikely case that
the British troops should land upon their own borders. They gave more
promise, certainly, of efficient service, should danger arise, than
could be expected of the superannuated Trojans chief of Priam's court, as
their catalogue is translated by Pope from the living record of Homer:--

"Here sat the seniors of the Trojan race,
Old Priam's chiefs and most in Priam's grace;
The king the first, Thymoetes at his side,
Lampus and Clitias, long in council tried,
Panthus and Hicetaon, once the strong,
And next, the wisest of the reverend throng,
Antenor grave and sage Ucalegon,
Leaned on the walls and basked before the sun;
Chiefs who no more in bloody fights engage,
But wise through time and narrative with age,
In summer days like grasshoppers rejoice,
A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice," etc.

The town had suffered everything from the war and the interdiction of
commerce in which it had been most actively engaged, preceding the event.
Multitudes were absolutely ruined, and the gaunt wolf stood grinning at
almost every other threshold. Among the memorials of that great struggle,
it may be as well to mention the rusted cannon planted for posts at the
corners of certain of the streets, the breech sunk in the ground and a
bomb-shell fastened in the muzzle. At such a time, it is not strange that
force occasionally took the place of law.

I could recall not a few instances in which, under the impulse of
political resentment, passion got the better of judgment. One day, the
marshal of the United States, in his cocked hat and with othe