208 DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON

family coaches, while sedan chairs were borne by
negro slaves along the narrow brick pathways in
the center of the town. The dress of the people
told the same story of prosperity. The streets
of the fashionable quarter around Trinity Church
were fairly ablaze with gay costumes. Men of
fashion wore powdered wigs and cocked hats, cloth
or velvet coats reaching to the knee, breeches, and
low shoes with buckles. They carried swords,
sometimes studded with jewels, and in their gloved
hands they held snuff-boxes of costly material and
elaborate design. The ladies who accompanied
them were no less gaily dressed. One is described
as wearing a gown of purple and gold, opening over
a black velvet petticoat and short enough to show
green silk stockings and morocco shoes embroidered
in red. Another wore a flowered green and gold
gown, over a scarlet and gold petticoat edged with
silver. Everywhere were seen strange fabrics of
oriental design coming from the holds of mysteri-
ous ships which unloaded surreptitiously along the
water front.

The members of one class alone looked on all this
prosperous life with sullen discontent — the negro
slaves whose toil made possible the leisure of their
owners. These strange, uncouth Africans seemed