Читать книгу Tales of an Old Sea Port онлайн

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Until October 25, 1779, when the British forces left Newport, the fortunes of those who dwelt upon the Mount Hope Lands were hazardous in the extreme. Lafayette had established his headquarters in the north part of the town but was soon forced to remove them to “a safer place behind Warren.” The peninsula was so easily accessible that raids upon its shores were frequent. One result of the marauding expeditions was the cutting down of the forests that had lined the shores of Narragansett Bay. This was especially notable in the case of the island of Prudence, just at the mouth of Bristol harbor. Today the island is almost treeless, no attempt at reforestation having been made. The people of Bristol were wise in their generation and now from the harbor the town seems to nestle in a forest.

The winter of 1779-80 was one of the most severe ever known in the Colonies. For six weeks the bay was frozen from shore and the ice extended far out to sea. Wood in most of the towns sold for $20 a cord. The prices of all kinds of provisions soared in like manner. Corn sold for four silver dollars a bushel and potatoes for two dollars. What their prices were in the depreciated Rhode Island paper currency we can only imagine. While the bay was still frozen some of the barracks on Poppasquash, that had been used by the French allies, were moved across the harbor on the ice. One of them is still used as a dwelling house. It stands on the west side of High Street just north of Bradford. From 1774 to 1782 the population of the town decreased 14.6 per cent. More noteworthy still, in that same period the percentage of decrease in the case of the blacks was more than thirty per cent.