three years the town was in possession of the British, the troops, when the weather was inclement, being quartered upon the inhabitants, to the discomfort and destruction of domestic peace.

Within sight of where we stand, were some of the British forts that enclosed the town on the north. Miantonomi Hill, the picturesque eminence to the northwest, was fortified and formed a link in the chain of its defences. Along these General Sullivan, early in June, 1778, laid siege with the purpose of expelling the British from the island. But the French fleet failing to coöperate, he retired to the northern part of the island, where a severe battle was fought, July 29th, 1778, General Greene being present to aid, on account of his love for his native State. The British were repulsed with heavy loss, but the American commander learning that a large reinforcement for the enemy was at hand, crossed over to the mainland, and finally withdrew altogether, compelled to leave the inhabitants of this devoted town a while longer to the tender mercies of the enemy. | For three long years-from 1776 to 1779-which must have seemed an age, the people of Newport were virtually prisoners in their own town, in the hands of a ruthless and insolent foe. They were insulted, their property destroyed, their homes invaded, and in short, every indignity and wrong that a spirit of almost fiendish cruelty could invent, was practiced upon them.

The chief instrument of their punishment was the infamous General Prescott, who was a disgrace to the British uniform and name. Narrow-minded, of violent temper, a bigoted royalist, and a tyrant by nature, cruel and unrelenting as fate, he would brook no slight, opposition, or even difference of opinion, and woe to such as incurred his displeasure! The people of Newport knew what this meant, for upon them a mysterious Providence permitted him to pour the vials of his wrath. The vandalisin of the British soldiery, the tyranny and studied cruelty of Prescott, nearly destroyed the place. Their shade-trees were cut down, the churches turned into stables and riding-schools, and hundreds of their dwellings were destroyed. He even went so far as to tear up their side-walks and door-steps, to make a broad pavement and promenade for himself and fellow-officers. It must have been a strange and ludicrous sight to have seen the inhabitants, when the British evacuated the place, coming from all directions to claim and

restore their stolen paving-stones. The scene in Irving, where the different authors come to claim their productions that had been pirated, is tame compared with it. As a parting blessing, these vandals who had so disgraced their calling and their country, burned numberless private dwellings, filled up the wells, attempted to blow up the Round Tower on the hill and badly damaged the wharves and landings, etc.

This Prescott is the same that shook his cane in the face of Ethan Allen, to whom the bluff old hero of Ticonderoga offered back his own huge fist as "the beetle of mortality," if he should dare to execute his threat.

He is the same worthy, too, whom Colonel Wil liam Barton captured, one dark night, at what is now called the "Overton House," about five miles up the island. Barton came from Warwick Point, on the west shore, with four well-manned whale-boats, and his exploit, which was completely successful, was one of the most brilliant and daring achievements of the war.

Time heals or obliterates all things, even the dreadful scars of war. A hundred years will accomplish wonders, of which Newport is a most striking proof. As we look at the fine mansions, compact rows of houses, and public edifices, and especially as we view the magnificent shade-trees, in their abundance, magnitude, and beauty, we can hardly conceive that they are mostly the growth of a hundred years, and that a town now so fair and prosperous was a century ago stripped and peeled and swept as with the besom of destruction,

Many events, some of them of thrilling interest, occurred on the island and places adjacent upon the mainland, during the Indian wars and in the second war with Great Britain, but all these we remit over to the historian and annalist, reserving our space for other things.

As one looks at this place and considers its fine location, its fame as a watering-place, and its solid wealth and prosperity, he desires to know something respecting the origin and growth of the town.

Newport was founded in 1639, by Governor William Coddington and seventeen associates. The date is often given as being 1638, the mistake occurring, we presume, from the fact that the same parties commenced a settlement that year, farther up the island, at a place now called Portsmouth.

The following year, as they explored the island,

and reached the south end, the beauty of the spot and its great natural advantages suggested the propriety of founding a town, and these enterprising men proceeded at once to carry out the idea. The place was laid out, and a good beginning made the first year. It grew rapidly, and soon Newport was known far and wide as a central point of the fishing interests, for its domestic and foreign commerce, and the trades and manufactures that naturally grew out of these. Her traffic was not only extensive, but very lucrative, and her commercial men and traders were the merchant princes of their time. Her exports and imports were second to no city on the continent, except Boston. Even New York was not her equal in this respect for years previous to the Revolutionary War.

But the war swept her ships from the sea, and with the destruction of her commerce her prestige went also. Other places arose to dispute the palm of the ocean, and Newport could never recover her trade and her position among our commercial cities. But the magnificent Narraganset Bay, stringing her little islets around the fair "Isle of Peace" like a necklace of pearls; the fine harbor, and the almost unlimited seashore, which had prompted her commercial enterprise, still remained, and no doubt suggested, as their commercial importance declined, the idea of making it, what Dr. Waterhouse predicted it would become, the great bathing establishment and seaside watering-place of the country. To what was then the great misfortune of Newport, the people of this country owe the possession of a summer resort in many respects the finest in the country, if not in the world. This town was incorporated as a city in 1784, and is one of the oldest in the country.

Even before the Revolution, Newport was noted for the number of persons of learning, leisure, and wealth, that congregated here from other parts of the land, and to some extent from Europe. For that day it was considered quite a famous seaside resort. But it was not till about 1830, long after the loss of her commerce and trade, and the almost total failure of every attempt to recover them, and the decline also of her large share in the fisheries, that she came into special note, and assumed her position as the leading seaside resort of the country. From that time onward her supremacy has been maintained, and she stands forth to-day as a bride robed in beautiful garments, first upon the Atlantic coast, if not the Queen of American wateringplaces.

Some of her numerous attractions-a few of the many solid advantages she has over most other watering-places-we shall attempt very briefly to

give.

From the abundance, yea, almost superabundance of shade seen here, both on the avenues and around the private dwellings, one would almost imagine that either nature or the good people of the place had determined to be avenged on the vandals who once destroyed the pride and glory of the town.

Shrubbery and flowers are also a marked feature of Newport. Landscape gardening has here done some of its best work, and clothed the rural portions of the town in garments of beauty.

It lacks, however, a grand Central Park, and we regard it as an oversight that one was not laid out at an early date. And yet, the whole place is gradually becoming one immense park, a rural garden of shaded avenues, embowered walks, and flowercrowned terraces. The largest of the public grounds that are shaded, is Touro Park. This is a small but attractive bit of lawn and shade, near the head of Bellevue Avenue, the chief promenade of the town, and the location of many of the best cottages. This park is important, for what it contains, rather than on its own account. Two objects immediately attract your attention as you pass through it. These are, the Round Tower, and the monument of Commodore Matthew C. Perry. The latter is a bronze statue, a little above life size, standing upon a granite pedestal. It represents him in his military cloak, leaning lightly and gracefully upon his sword, in an attitude of peace rather than war. This is appropriate; for the great act of his life, and the one for which alone he will be remembered by his countrymen and the world, was in opening the doors of Japan, that had been barred for long centuries to the commercial intercourse and progressive ideas of the nations of the West.

The results of this act, which will form a great landmark in the progress of the nations, were strikingly illustrated in the very interesting and creditable exhibit which the Japanese made at the grand Centennial and International Fair. That inquisitive and rising people now doubtless bless the day that Commodore Perry, in his flag-ship, the Susquehanna, followed by her consorts, with all the guns shotted, steamed majestically and gracefully into the harbor of Yeddo, and persuaded them, that is compelled them, at the can

non's mouth, to open their doors to America and the world, never to close them again.

"Peace hath her victories as well as war." The same tiny park (Touro), more than a thousand of which could be placed down in Fairmount, contains, as we have intimated, an interesting relic of the past, whether of colonial or more remote origin. Briefly described, it is a strong stone tower, twenty-five feet high by twenty-three in extreme diameter, with walls over three feet thick, and standing upon eight arches, that spring from and are supported by eight circular columns, which are three feet and a half in diameter and solid. The tower is built of stone gathered in the vicinity, and laid up with great skill, is covered entirely by an ancient woodbine, and once had a roof and floor, and was thirty feet high, until the top was blown off by the British.

A great deal of speculation, and not a little learned discussion, has been expended respecting the origin and uses of this unique and rather weird-looking structure. Lossing, the historian, is among the number who have entered largely into the controversy. He takes the ground that it is of great antiquity, and probably built by the Northmen, in some of their voyages of discovery to America. That they made such voyages, and touched upon our coast, in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, there is but little doubt. That they built this tower, or that it had any very remote origin, we think more than doubtful. We believe it highly probable, if not a positive certainty, that it was erected in colonial times.

(1.) Governor Benedict Arnold speaks of it in his will, made in 1678, as "My stone built windmill;" thus declaring, explicitly, what it was built and used for, in the serious and truthful language of a will. At such times, if ever, men use words in their true and exact meaning. It is also just the language he would use, whether built by himself, or some one from whom he may have purchased it.

(2.) That its origin and uses were what we have here assumed them to be, and that Governor Arnold himself built the structure, is rendered highly probable, from the fact that "stone-built windmills" almost precisely like it, are found in the same section of England from which he came; which would naturally suggest the building of this one.

The Northmen would not have much use for a windmill, for grinding grain, while on a voyage of discovery.

(4.) Nor would voyagers of any kind be likely to stop to build a work so solid and permanent, and requiring so much time, for any purpose, much less for a baptistry, as Lossing supposes. For which use, by the way, it has not the least adaptation; nor can we see why they should need such an institution at all under the circumstances.

(5.) And then, the site selected, the highest point on this part of the island, open and suited to catch the breezes in all directions, speaks volumes as to what it was intended for.

(6.) The entire absence of water-power on the island, steam not being then known, made windmills an absolute necessity. Lossing recognizes this. But he lays great stress on the fact that one Easton, some fifteen years before Governor Arnold made his will, which, as we have seen, was in 1678, built a wood wind-mill and received a bounty for it; and that fact is mentioned in the annals of the day. Well, Easton was a private citizen, and, it may be, comparatively poor, while Arnold was Governor, and doubtless a rich man, and would take pride in building a better mill than Easton's without bounty. The fact that the Legislature voted a sum of money to Easton, would give notoriety to his work and cause the annalist to notice it. Besides, fifteen years in a new settlement may make a vast difference in the value and importance of a thing. As to the mill mentioned, and others in the colonies, being built of wood, the very language of Arnold implies that this was an exception, when he terms it "my stone-built windmill.”

(7.) Respecting the arches, and the open space below, which have been objected to as not usual in stone windmills; these, and the great height to the first floor, may have been intended as a protection against Indians. The wide arches and open room would also be very convenient for driv

(8.) The mortar with which the stones are laid is not only very smooth and hard, almost as hard as the stones themselves, but in a state of excellent preservation, still looking comparatively fresh and clean. This can be accounted for on the supposition that it was originally of very excellent quality, and has been on only two hundred years, in a dry, open place. But allow for its existence nine or ten centuries, surrounded by a damp forest and the vapor of the sea, it is not at all probable, if possible, that it would be in that fresh and excellent state of preservation in which we find it. It would rather be covered with mildew and moss, and dimmed and blurred by dampness and the gnawing tooth of time, showing the effect and unmistakable signs of great age.

(9.) Finally, the entire absence in

the annals of the

population of Newport, but when her commerce and trade were swept away by the blast of war, they disappeared as pigeons leave a wheat field when the golden grain is all removed and garnered elsewhere.

On our way to the synagogue and cemetery, we pass an edifice and institution of much importance to Newport, and of no slight attraction to those who visit the place. We refer to the Redwood Library, so-called from the gentleman who gave money to erect the first building. This institution which is justly a great favorite with citizens of the

place and the public at large, is centrally and most delightfully located near the head of Bellevue avenue, with spacious grounds, abundance of shade and a structure having an ancient but attractive appearance and a cheerful and convenient suite of rooms. It contains about twenty-five

isting, and found here by the first settlers, it seems to us is conclusive against the position that it originated with the Indians, the Northmen, or with anybody but the settlers themselves; or than, as shown by the will of Governor Arnold, and the corroborating proof here given. Coddington and his associates, and many of the early settlers of Newport, were persons of great intelligence, and some of them highly learned men. It surpasses all belief that such men should find so wonderful a structure here, and remain utterly silent respecting it, and that silence remain unbroken till there would be no occasion to note it at all, except in the inquiries of the antiquarian!

As we leave Touro Park, with its monument and the old mysterious Tower, and pass up the head of Bellevue avenue to Touro street, we come to a Jewish cemetery, and a little further along, bearing to the left, to a synagogue, neither of which

is now in use.

In the palmy days of her business prosperity,

quite rare, and a large number of paintings, mostly the gift of Mr. Charles B. King, an artist and native of Newport. We know of no better place in this town of interesting objects to which to go. often and spend a few hours than this, where one can drop in quietly and be sure that the courteous librarian, Mr. Rhodes, will do all in his power to make time pass pleasantly and profitably. This library was founded in 1730, incorporated in 1747, and the first building erected in 1748. It is therefore claimed to be the oldest town or city library in the country. The most ancient and central part of the edifice is regarded as a fine specimen of the Grecian-Doric style of architecture, which is very well shown in the superb engraving, at the commencement of this article.

The Free Library, another institution showing the intelligence and sound taste of the people of the "Island City," is favorably located on Thames street, in the upper part of the Union Bank building. It has convenient and pleasant rooms, a