Banks exploded, and paper money flooded the country.
The fiscal crisis was indeed very striking.

The very elements seemed leagued against the interests of agriculture in the Atlantic States, where a series of early and late frosts, in 1816 and 1817, had created quite a panic, which helped to settle the West.
I mingled in this crowd, and, while listening to the anticipations indulged in, it seemed to me that the war had not, in reality, been fought for "free trade and sailors' rights" where it commenced, but to gain a knowledge of the world beyond the Alleghanies.
Many came with their household stuff, which was to be embarked in arks and flat boats.

The children of Israel could scarcely have presented a more motley array of men and women, with their "kneading troughs" on their backs, and their "little ones," than were there assembled, on their way to the new land of promise.
To judge by the tone of general conversation, they meant, in their generation, to plough the Mississippi Valley from its head to its foot.
There was not an idea short of it.

What a world of golden dreams was there! I took passage in the first ark that attempted the descent for the season.

This ark was built of stout planks, with the lower seams caulked, forming a perfectly flat basis on the water.