*"Norwich, April 12,1754. "Dear Child,—I received yours of the 1st instant, and was glad to hear that you was well. Pray, my dear, let your first concern he to make your peace with God, as it is of all concerns of the greatest importance. Keep a steady watch over your thoughts, words, and actions. Be dutiful to superiors, obliging to equals, and affable to inferiors, if any such there be. Always choose that your companions he your betters, that by their good examples you may learn. "From your affectionate mother, Hannah Arnold. "P.S.—I have sent you 50s. Use it prudently, as you are accountable to God and your father. Your father and aunt join with me in love and service to Mr. Cogswell and lady, and yourself. Your sister is from home."
** Chelsea is the old port of Norwich. The houses cluster chiefly at the mouth of the Shetucket.
*** Oliver Arnold, a cousin of Benedict, and also a resident of Norwich, was the reputed author of the following scorching acrostic, written after the treason of his kinsman. It is bad poetry and worse sentiment.
"Born for a curse to virtue and mankind,
Earth's broadest realm ne'er knew so black a mind.
Night's sable veil your crimes can never hide,
Each one so great, 'twould glut historic tide.
Defunct, your cursed memory will live,
In all the glare that infamy can give.
Curses of ages will attend your name,
Traitors alone will glory in your shame.
"Almighty vengeance sternly waits to roll
Rivers of sulphur on your treacherous soul;
Nature looks shuddering back with conscious dread
On such a tarnish'd blot as she has made.
Let hell receive you riveted in chains,
Doom'd to the hottest focus of its flames!"
*** The author of the above had a peculiar talent for making extempore verses. Joel Barlow once met him in a book-store in New Haven, and asked him for a specimen of his talent. Arnold immediately repeated the following:
"You've proved yourself a sinful cre'tur.;
You've murder'd Watts and spoil'd the meter,
You've tried the Word of God to alter,
And for your pains deserve a halter."
*** To understand the witty sarcasm of these lines, it must be remembered that Barlow, at that time, was en joying much notoriety by a publication of a revised and altered edition of Watts's Psalms and Hymns.
Residence of Governor Huntington.—Unpublished Letter written by Washington
pages in his glorious career as a bold patriot; we shall meet him again presently amid the scenes of his degradation.