that account to be settled by those who were directly con-
cerned. Many of them, too, formerly the advocates of a free
commercial system, were now inclined, by political affinities,
to take part with the manufacturers, whose schemes in their
own behalf were seriously menaced by the logic and ridicule
of the " Evening Post." But, now that it assailed the bank,
it was making a thrust at their own vitals. They believed, as
sincerely as they believed their Bibles or their ledgers, that
without that regulator, a safe, sound, uniform paper currency
was impossible. No domestic exchanges, save at enormous
trouble and cost, could be effected without it; no easy collec-
tion and transfer of the public revenues made. In a word,
nothing but confusion, disturbance, panic, and loss in the
whole vast field of commerce and industry if it should be de-
stroyed. Thinking thus, they could not maintain, by their ad-
vertisements and subscriptions, a journal that was blowing its
trumpet at the very head of the hostile forces. Accordingly,
they withdrew in large numbers, which, however, had the
effect only of inflaming its zeal and fixing its determination. ^*

Out of this fiery furnace Mr. Bryant was glad to escape, in
the summer of 1833, by making a visit with his wife to Can-
ada. Just before his departure he was invited by a committee
of prominent citizens— Dr. Hosack, James G. King, Vice‐
Chancellor McCoun, and others—to prepare an address on
the occasion of a benefit to be given to William Dunlap, the
historian of the stage, when Charles Kemble and his accom-
plished daughter Fanny, and a young actor named Edwin
Forrest, had volunteered to appear; but he either distrusted

-292-