The “rus-in-urbe” life of Baltimore was nearly ended; with the close of the Revolutionary War began a new period in its history. Soon streets were paved and lighted, better bridges built, and a watch was established. Commerce sprang up with renewed vigor. The tobacco trade found other markets than the mother country; the West Indies bought flour, Spain and Portugal, wheat. By 1790, Baltimore skippers had rounded the Cape of Good Hope and cast anchor in the harbors of the Isle de France. The year 1793 brought another foreign addition to the already polyglot population of Baltimore. The revolution in San Domingo drove fifteen hundred of the inhabitants to Maryland, to develop a great trucking and garden trade, with Baltimore as its centre. The Baltimore clippers, too, with their jauntily raked masts, showed their heels to the craft of the rest of the world, and the reign of Baltimore’s merchant princes began. Previous to this time, all large payments of money were made in bags of heavy coin: in 1790 a bank was organized. Several papers were now published, and a circulating library was established by Mr. Murphy. A series of medical lectures was preparing the way for the University of Maryland, and education in general was receiving more attention. Population increased continually, and in 1796, the change from town to full municipal life was made legal by the incorporation of Baltimore city. Now, also, began again the improvement of internal communication. For many years the white-topped Conestoga wagons had rumbled down to Baltimore from west and north; and from time to time efforts had been made to improve the main roads. In 1805, the main routes converging in Baltimore were turnpiked. Western Maryland was now becoming thickly settled, many thriving towns had sprung up, and in a few years the “National Road” joined Cumberland, on the Potomac, with the Ohio River. The connection between Cumberland and Baltimore was completed by means of a curious tax on the banks of Maryland. Thus the line of communication between Baltimore and Wheeling was continuous, over one of the best roads in the world. This and six other turnpikes were as seven great rivers, bearing their precious freight of grain, tobacco, dairy products and whiskey to Baltimore for foreign shipment; and in spite of overtrading and the resulting period of depression, such was Baltimore’s progress that in 1825 Jared Sparks could say, “Among all the cities of America, or of the Old World, in modern or ancient times, there is no record of any one which has sprung up so quickly to so high a degree of importance as Baltimore.” At this time the population of Baltimore was five times as great as it had been thirty years before, and commerce had increased proportionately. The causes of this remarkable progress were enumerated by Sparks as the advantages of Baltimore’s local situation, the swift sailing-vessels, the San Domingan trade, the two great staples, tobacco and flour, “for which