CHAPTER XII.
TRUE TO HER COLORS.
The American forces had not gone on triumphantly. The two battles, fierce as they had been, had not decided anything. After the battle at Germantown Howe broke up his encampment there and proceeded to Philadelphia, resolved to make that his winter quarters. To be secure against starvation it was necessary to reduce Fort Mercer and Fort Mifflin, since supplies were to be brought into the city that way.
Washington prepared to go into winter quarters at Whitemarsh, but later moved to Valley Forge, that he might the better afford protection to the stores at Reading, and the Congress that had fled to York. The defeats had cast a gloom over the Continentals, but they were not utterly disheartened. In spite of his wound the Marquis de Lafayette carried himself hopefully, and helped inspire the waning courage of the men.
The news of the glorious victory at Saratoga was sedulously kept from them for some time. There were quarters to construct, wounded to tend, and winter at hand.
Philadelphia was crowded. Hospitals were full, prisons overflowing. The English settled themselves for the winter, many in the belief that the spring would see the crushing out of the rebellion.
In this serene hope they began to cast about for amusements. They found not a few of the Tory young women charming and affable. They resolved upon weekly balls at the city tavern. There were club dinners and gay suppers at the Indian Queen, and Ferry tavern, that often degenerated into orgies. For the ruder sort there were cockpits, where the betting ran high, and no end of dice and card-playing. There was among many of the lower classes an insolent revolt against an established order of things that had not brought them prosperity, and tradesmen had felt the pinch of hard times severely. The influx of British gold was hailed with delight, and some timorous souls that had longed for the larger liberty, yet feared the Colonies could never win independence, went over to the other side with sudden fervor.
Those of royalist proclivities opened their houses to the gayeties that swept over the town like sudden intoxication. There were private balls and dinners and tea-drinking, with no end of scarlet-coated young officers, and card-playing was rampant. The shabby little theater on South Street was no longer relegated to opprobrium, but put in some repair and made a place of fashionable entertainment; the versatile Englishmen turning their hands and their wits to almost anything in that line, from scene-painting to acting in comedy, farce, or tragedy.
It was soon noised about that Madam Wetherill's grand niece and protégé had a brother among the English officers. Many people could recall the fine old Quaker Philemon Henry, and his pretty second wife Bessy Wardour.
"Surely you are in luck, Madam Wetherill," said bright, inconsequent Sally Stuart. "Will you not be generous enough to give us a peep at this handsome captain? My mother remembers his father well. And what does the child say to this fine surprise?"