use
to ship and cars. However, the ride impressed Searles with the immensity
of the trade of the metropolis. West Street leads to Battery Park, the
Produce, and Stock Exchanges, which Colonel Harris desired Mr. Searles
and his daughter Gertrude to see in the busy part of the day.

Colonel Harris explained that here in Battery Park terminated the
Metropolitan Elevated Railway. A railway in the air with steam-engines
and coaches crowded with people interested Mr. Searles greatly.

"In London," he said, "we are hurried about under ground, in foul air,
and darkness often."

"Here at Battery Park, Mr. Searles, November 25, 1783, Sir Guy Carleton's
British army embarked. Our New Yorkers still celebrate the date as
Evacuation Day. Near by at an earlier date Hendrick Christianson, agent
of a Dutch fur trading company, built four small houses and a redoubt,
the foundation of America's metropolis. In 1626 Peter Minuit, first
governor of the New Netherlands, bought for twenty-six dollars all
Manhattan Island."

Mr. Searles visited the tall Washington Building which occupies the
ground where formerly stood the headquarters of Lords Cornwallis and
Howe. He told Gertrude that he had read that, in July, 1776, the people
came in vast crowds to Battery Park to celebrate the Declaration of
Independence, and that they knocked over the equestrian statue of George
III., which was melted into bullets to be used against the British.

"Yes," replied Colonel Harris, "in early days, Americans doubtless lacked
appreciation of art, but we always gave our cousins across-sea a warm
reception."

"Colonel Harris," said Mr. Searles, "it has always puzzled me to
understand why you should have built near Boston the Bunker Hill
Monument."

"Mr. Searles, because we Americans whipped the British."

"Oh no, Colonel, that fight was a British victory."

"Father," said Gertrude, "Mr. Searles is right; the British troops, under
General Gage, drove the American forces off both Breed's Hill and Bunker
Hill. The obelisk of Quincy granite was erected at Charlestown, I think,
to commemorate the stout resistance which the raw provincial militia made
against regular British soldiers, confirming the Americans in the belief
that their liberty could be won."

Mr. Searles thanked Miss Harris for her timely aid and added that a
patriot is a rebel who succeeds, and a rebel is a patriot who fails. He
observed also the witty sign over the entrance of a dealer in Am