Footnotes:
1. James Clinton, afterwards general, brother of Governor George Clinton.
CHAPTER VII.
From the year 1780 until the year 1795, Mrs. Margaret Coghlan made no inconsiderable noise in the court and fashionable circles of Great Britain and France. She was the theme of conversation among the lords, and the dukes, and the M. P.'s. Having become the victim, in early life, of licentious, dissolute, and extravagant conduct, alternately she was revelling in wealth, and then sunken in poverty. At length, in 1793, she published her own memoirs. Mrs. Coghlan was the daughter of Major Moncrieffe, of the British army. He was Lord Cornwallis's brigade major. Her father had three wives. She was a daughter of the first wife. His second wife was Miss L*********, of New-York, and his third wife Miss J**, of New-York. Mrs. Coghlan is introduced here, because her early history is intimately connected with the subject of these memoirs.
In July, 1776, she resided in Elizabethtown, New-Jersey. Her father was with Lord Percy on Staten Island. In her memoirs, speaking of herself, she says:—"Thus destitute of friends, I wrote to General Putnam, who instantly answered my letter by a very kind invitation to his house, assuring me that he respected my father, and was only his enemy in the field of battle; but that, in private life, he himself, or any part of his family, might always command his services. On the next day he sent Colonel Webb, one of his aid-de-camps, to conduct me to New-York. When I arrived in the Broadway (a street so called), where General Putnam resided, I was received with great tenderness, both by Mrs. Putnam and her daughters, and on the following day I was introduced by them to General and Mrs. Washington, who likewise made it their study to show me every mark of regard; but I seldom was allowed to be alone, although sometimes, indeed, I found an opportunity to escape to the gallery on the top of the house, where my chief delight was to view, with a telescope, our fleet and army at Staten Island. My amusements were few; the good Mrs. Putnam employed me and her daughters constantly to spin flax for shirts for the American soldiers; indolence, in America, being totally discouraged; and I likewise worked some for General Putnam, who, though not an accomplished muscadin, like our dilletantis of St. James's-street, was certainly one of the best characters in the world; His heart being composed of those noble materials which equally command respect and admiration. * * * * * *
"Not long after this circumstance, a flag of truce arrived from Staten Island, with letters from Major Moncrieffe, demanding me; for he now considered me as a prisoner. General Washington would not acquiesce in this demand, saying that I should remain a hostage for my father's good behaviour. I must here observe, that when General Washington refused to deliver me up, the noble-minded Putnam, as if it were by instinct, laid his hand on his sword, and with a violent oath swore that my father's request should be granted. The commander-in-chief, whose influence governed Congress, soon prevailed on them to consider me as a person whose situation required their strict attention; and that I might not escape they ordered me to Kingsbridge, where, in justice I must say, that I was treated with the utmost tenderness. General Mifflin there commanded. His lady was a most accomplished, beautiful woman; a Quaker," &c.
Mrs. Coghlan then bursts forth in expressions of rapture for a young American officer, with whom she had become enamoured. She does not name him; but that officer was Major Burr. "May these pages" (she says) "one day meet the eye of him who subdued my virgin heart. * * * * * To him I plighted my virgin vow. * * * * * * With this conqueror of my soul, how happy should I now have been! What storms and tempests should I have avoided" (at least I am pleased to think so) "if I had been allowed to follow the bent of my inclinations. Ten thousand times happier should I have been with him in the wildest desert of our native country, the woods affording us our only shelter, and their fruits our only repast, than under the canopy of costly state, with all the refinements of courts, with the royal warrior" (the Duke of York) "who would fain have proved himself the conqueror of France. My conqueror was engaged in another cause; he was ambitious to obtain other laurels. He fought to liberate, not to enslave nations. He was a colonel in the American army, and high in the estimation of his country. His victories were never accompanied with one gloomy, relenting thought. They shone as bright as the cause which achieved them."
The letter from General Putnam of which Mrs. Coghlan speaks is found among the papers of Colonel Burr, and is in the following words:—
New-York, July 26th, 1776.
I should have answered your letter sooner, but had it not in my power to write you any thing satisfactory.