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At once the energy which had lain dormant during the Revolutionary War revived. Commerce again became active. Evidence of this was manifested by the building of new distilleries. One, erected by the leading firm of ship owners, was opened in 1792. They were preparing for a renewal of the trade with Africa. For thirty-five years thereafter two hundred gallons of rum were here each day distilled. At one time five distilleries were in active operation. The last of them closed its doors in 1830, the business having ceased to be profitable.

In the first quarter of the last century two great religious revivals transformed the town. They began in Saint Michael’s Church in the rectorship of Bishop Griswold. The town then numbered about two thousand inhabitants, almost all of whom were more or less connected with the sea. The first among the laymen to take part in the movement was a sea captain who had just returned from a voyage to the Island of Trinidad. Before he left Bristol, the unwonted fervor of Bishop Griswold’s sermons and discourses had turned his thoughts toward the attainment of the holier and higher life, whose glories the bishop was ever placing before his people. The awful solemnity of the ocean had completed the lesson. On Saturday night he returned from his voyage. The next day, when the bishop had finished his sermon, the emotions that stirred the soul of the sailor entirely overcame the modesty that usually kept him back from the public notice. Rising from his seat, he went forward to the old wine-glass pulpit in which the preacher was yet standing, and conversed with him earnestly for a few moments, while the congregation looked on with amazement at the unusual interruption. With that benignant smile which marked his gentle nature, Bishop Griswold assented to the request that was preferred; and placing his hand upon the shoulder of the eager enthusiast, he turned to the congregation and said: “My friends, Captain —— wishes to tell you what the Lord has done for his soul.” Then the quiet sailor told the congregation the story of the change that had been wrought in him; told it without a thought of the unusual part he was assuming; told it in the simplest words, with no attempt at eloquence or effect, but with the wondrous power of God’s love so plainly before his eyes that the minds of all his hearers went with him upon the sea, and felt the struggle which had brought his soul out of darkness into light. Never, even, had the inspired words of their pastor stirred the people of St. Michael’s Church more strongly. When he ceased there was hardly a dry eye in the congregation. Only a few well chosen words did the bishop add to intensify the lesson, and then dismissed his people with the usual benediction.