We have pointed out the metropolis of Delaware as being a distinctly Northern city, planted in the distinct South. Among other things, this complication has led to some singularities in its settlement. As a community regulated by the most liberal traditions of Penn, but placed under the legal conditions of a slave State, it has held a position perfectly anomalous. No other spot could be indicated where the contrasts of North and South came to so sharp an edge; and there are few where a skilled pen could set down so many curiosities of folk-lore and confusions of race. The Dutch, the Swedes and the English Quakers formed the substratum, upon which were poured the _emigres_ of the French Revolution and the fugitives from Santo Domingo. The latter sometimes brought slaves who had continued faithful, and who retained their serfdom under the laws of Delaware. The French _bonnes_ stood on washing-benches in the Brandywine, and taught the amazed Quaker wives that laundry-work could be done in cold water. The names of grand old French families, prefaced by the proprietarial forms of _le_ and _du_, became mixed by marriage with such Swedish names as Svensson and such Dutch names as Staelkappe. (The first Staelkappe was a ship's cook, nicknamed from his oily and glossy bonnet.) As for the refugees from Santo Domingo, they absolutely invaded Wilmington, so that the price of butter and eggs was just doubled in 1791, and house-rents rose in proportion. They found themselves with rapture where the hills were rosy with peach-blossoms, and where every summer was simply an extract from Paradise.