The reader perhaps scarcely requires to be reminded, that an acknowledgment of the independence of America, and preliminaries of peace between that country and Britain, were signed at Paris, November 30th, 1782; though it was not until the following February that a vessel from the United States first arrived in the river Thames. Early in that month the friend who communicated this narrative chanced to visit an old London physician, who had long since retired from practice, and who had, oddly enough, selected as the seat of his repose one of those ancient houses, built half of brick and half of wood, which stood within the last seven years, on the western side of the Southwark end of old London Bridge, partly hanging over the roaring water, and partly standing in the street called Bridge-Foot. Another visitor, who was then present, was a zealous old Dissenting clergyman, probably originally of the family of Dunwoodie, or Dinwithie, but who at this time was called Doctor Downwithit; a name which he singularly well deserved, from his practice of beating the cushion in his fervency, in the pulpit, and of vehemently striking the table in conversation, to enforce his arguments and observations. In supporting these, he was generally rather loud and tenacious; and one of his most favourite notions was, that almost all genuine religion had travelled westward to America, which had thus become the ark wherein it was preserved, and the very Salem of the modern world. He believed, however, on the authority of the early historians of the country, and especially on that of the strange narratives of the Mather family, that certain parts were grievously vexed by witches and evil spirits; for, like many of his brethren, he held that compacts with the infernal powers were still possible. But if _New_ England were thus troubled, he also considered that _Old_ England was in a still worse condition; for he maintained the well-known saying to be no allegory, but a literal fact, that Satan was bodily resident in London!