“By the total annihilation in value of the produce which was to give me sustenance and independence, I shall be like Tantalus,--up to the shoulders in water, yet dying with thirst. We can make indeed enough to eat, drink, and clothe ourselves, but nothing for our salt, iron, groceries, and taxes which must be paid in money. For what can we raise for the market? Wheat?--we only give it to our horses, as we have been doing ever since harvest. Tobacco?--it is not worth the pipe it is smoked in.” While all Virginia planters were in this situation February 13, they awoke February 14 to find flour worth ten dollars a barrel, and groceries fallen fifty per cent. They were once more rich beyond their wants. So violent and sudden a change in values had never been known in the United States. The New York market saw fortunes disappear and other fortunes created in the utterance of a single word. All imported articles dropped to low prices. Sugar which sold Saturday at twenty-six dollars a hundred-weight, sold Monday at twelve dollars and a half. Tea sank from two dollars and a quarter to one dollar a pound; tin fell from eighty to twenty-five dollars a box; cotton fabrics declined about fifty per cent. On the other hand flour, cotton, and the other chief staples of American produce rose in the same proportion. Nominally flour was worth seven and a half dollars on Saturday, though no large amounts could have been sold; on Monday the price was ten dollars, and all the wheat in the country was soon sold at that rate. Owing to the derangement of currency, these prices expressed no precise specie value. The effect of the peace on the currency was for a moment to restore an apparent equilibrium. In New York the specie premium of twenty-two per cent was imagined for a time to have vanished. In truth, United States six-per-cents rose in New York from seventy-six to eighty-eight in paper; Treasury-notes from ninety-two to ninety-eight. In Philadelphia, on Saturday, six-per-cents sold at seventy-five; on Monday, at ninety-three. The paper depreciation remained about twenty per cent in New York, about twenty-four per cent in Philadelphia, and about thirty per cent in Baltimore. The true value of six-per-cents was about sixty-eight; of Treasury notes about seventy-eight, after the announcement of peace. As rapidly as possible the blockade was raised, and ships were hurried to sea with the harvests of three seasons for cargo; but some weeks still passed before all the operations of war were closed. The news of peace reached the British squadron below Mobile in time to prevent further advance on that place; but on the ocean a long time elapsed before fighting wholly ceased.