In leaving New York immediately after their marriage, Lord and Lady Medway escaped the misery of seeing the last agony of the royalist inhabitants of that city. For six months Sir Guy Carleton had been sending them to Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Canada, to the Bahamas and the West India Islands, and yet the condition of the city in these last days is indescribable. To remove a large household is no easy matter, but the whole city had practically to be moved, and at the same time at least two thousand families driven from their homes at the occupation of New York, had returned and were gradually taking possession of their deserted dwellings. The confusion was intensified at the last by the distraction of those who had hesitated until delay was no longer possible, by the sick and the helpless, and the remnant who had been striving to procure money, or were waiting for relatives and friends. Such a scene as New York presented on the morning of the final evacuation on the twenty-fifth of November, 1783, has no parallel in modern history. It was followed by a scene not only as intensely dramatic, but also as exhilarating and joyful as the former was distracting and despairing--the entry of the triumphant Army of Freedom. As the rearguard of the British army left the Battery, it came marching down the Bowery--picked heroes of a score of battlefields--led by General Knox. It passed by Chatham Street and Pearl Street to Wall Street and so to Broadway, where it waited for the procession headed by General Washington and Governor Clinton, the officers of the army, citizens on horseback, and citizens on foot. A salute of thirteen guns greeted the columns as they met, arms were presented and the drums beat. As a military procession, it was without impressiveness, as a moral procession, it was without equal in the annals of the world. No bells chimed congratulations, no bands of music stirred popular enthusiasm; it notably lacked all the usual pomp of military display, but no grander army of self-wrought freemen ever greeted their chief, their homes, and their native city. Madame Jacobus, weeping tears of joy, viewed it from her window. Early in the morning she had sent a closed carriage for her friend Madame Semple; but it had returned empty. "Janet Semple kept herself alive for this day," she said. "I wonder why she did not come. She prayed that her eyes might see this salvation, and then she has not come to see it. What is the matter, I wonder?" A very simple and yet a very great thing was the matter. When Madame had put on her best gown, some little necessity took her back to the parlor. The Elder was crouching over the fire and down his white face tears were unconsciously streaming. She could not bear it; she could not leave him.