"Here I sit in my old accustomed chamber, where I used to sit in days gone by. Here I have written many tales--many that have been burned to ashes, many that doubtless deserved the same fate. This claims to be called a haunted chamber, for thousands upon thousands of visions have appeared to me in it; and some few of them have become visible to the world. If ever I should have a biographer, he ought to make great mention of this chamber in my memoirs, because so much of my lonely youth was wasted here, and here my mind and character were formed; and here I have been glad and hopeful, and here I have been despondent. And here I sat a long, long time, waiting patiently for the world to know me, and sometimes wondering why it did not know me sooner, or whether it would ever know me at all--at least, till I were in my grave." [Illustration: ROOM IN WHICH HAWTHORNE WAS BORN.] It is not my purpose to attempt a description of Salem, or of what is to be seen there. Her merchants are princes. No doubt they were in Josselyn's mind when he said some of the New Englanders were "damnable rich." French writers of that day speak of her "_bourgeois entièrement riches_." Those substantial mansions of red brick, tree-shaded and ivy-trellised, represent what Carlyle named the "noblesse of commerce," with money in its pocket. Writing in 1685 upon the English invasions of Acadia, Sieur Bergier thus characterizes Salem and Boston: "The English who inhabit these two straggling boroughs (_bourgades_) are for the greater part fugitives out of England, guilty of the death of the late king (Charles Stuart), and accused of conspiring against the reigning sovereign. The rest are corsairs and sea-robbers, who have united themselves with the former in a sort of independent republic." This is rather earlier than the date usually fixed for the planting of democracy in America, but perhaps none too early. Endicott had then cut the cross from the standard of England with his poniard; and Charles II. had been humbled in the persons of his commissioners. Let us walk on through Essex Street, unheeding the throng, unmindful of the statelier buildings, until we approach an ancient landmark at the corner of North Street. Its claims on our attention are twofold. It is said to have been the dwelling of Roger Williams, for whom Southey, when reminded that Wales had been more famous for mutton than great men, avowed he had a sincere respect, yet it is even more celebrated as the scene of examinations during the Reign of Terror in 1692.[142]