THE GENEROUS GIVER[ToC]
The Story of a Jewish Money Lender of the Revolution.
Jonas Schmidt, one of the jailors of the Provost, the grim old prison in New York, where the British had confined their numerous French and American prisoners after capturing the city from Washington in 1776, stood before Sir Henry Clinton, the English commander, shifting uneasily as he fumbled his cap with his great, hairy hands. Sir Henry looked him over coldly with his quiet, keen eyes that cowed man and horse alike; then he turned to his companion, General Heister, Commander of the Hessian mercenaries, purchased by the British king and sent overseas to fight his battles.
"We can get nothing out of this man," he said in a tone of cold contempt. "He is either too stupid—or clever enough to appear so!—to answer our questions." He nodded to the embarrassed jailor. "You may go now. But remember: if escapes become too numerous, I may find it necessary to use the gallows in the courtyard yonder and find another jailor for my prison."
Jonas bowed respectfully and lost no time in putting the door between him and Sir Henry. Tory though he was, the old man hated the English commander with all the strength of his simple soul. He had been eager enough to secure the situation of jailor at the Provost, never dreaming of the horrors he might see there. Now, sickened with the prison stenches, with the half-starved prisoners wasting away with fever and dying before his eyes, he thought longingly of his little farm up in the hills where his placid wife and two stout daughters lived as peacefully as though the colonists had never rebelled against the mother country and hardly knew that the British held New York. "Too stupid to answer," muttered the old man, swinging his heavy keys, as he passed down the prison corridor. "But I am wise enough to hold my tongue when it profits me nothing to endanger the necks of better men than Sir Henry Clinton. Let him use his own eyes, if he will; mine will be shut when good Mr. Salomon chooses to walk abroad," and he chuckled softly as he passed down the dark, damp corridors.
Sir Henry's teeth clicked angrily as the door closed behind the jailor. "Well?" he demanded of the Hessian Commander. "Well, since this man seems to bear out the reputation for honesty you gave him, it seems that we are on the wrong trail. Yet I mistrust this Haym Salomon, though our friendly jailor declares that he knows naught against him. It might be well to keep a stricter watch on this Jew broker in the future."
General Heister nodded emphatically. He was far too good a diplomat to quarrel with Sir Henry or to waste breath defending a man whom the Englishman mistrusted. "I only know that he is a man of rare parts," he said, "a man who has traveled much before coming to America and has become versed in many tongues. That is why, when I found him among the captured Americans two years ago, I deemed it better to use him and his talents rather than confine him with the others to rot and die of the prison fevers. So I have allowed him greater freedom than the other prisoners and found a place for him in the commissariat department where his knowledge of tongues and his Hebrew shrewdness have proved of great value to me."