The Loyalist / A Story of the American Revolution

by James Francis Barrett

"'Twould make a fine castle!" he commented as he half turned and crossed one knee over the other. He felt that this would be his last visit if he continued to take any less interest, yet even that apparently caused him no great concern.

And yet, a great house it was, the quondam residence of Edward Shippen, the progenitor of the present family, a former Mayor of the city, who had fled thither from Boston where he had suffered persecution at the hands of the Puritans who could not allow him to be a Quaker. It stood on an eminence outside the city. It was well surrounded, with its great orchard, its summer house, its garden smiling with roses, and lilies; bordered by rows of yellow pines shading the rear, with a spacious green lawn away to the front affording an unobstructed view of the city and the Delaware shore. It was a residence of pretentious design and at the time of its construction was easily the most sumptuous home in the city.

The Shippens had been the leaders of the fashionable set, not alone in days gone by, the days of colonial manners when diversions and enjoyments were indulged in as far as the austerities of the staid old Quaker code would allow; but also during the days of the present visitation of the British, when emulation in the entertainment of the visitors ran riot among the townsfolk. Small wonder that the present lord of the manor felt constrained to write to his father that he should be under the necessity of removing from this luxurious abode to Lancaster, "for the style of living my fashionable daughters have introduced into my family and their dress will I fear before long oblige me to change the scene." Yet if the truth were told, the style of living inaugurated by the ambitious daughters was no less a heritage than a part of the discipline in which they had been reared.

If the sudden and forced departure of the dashing as well as the eligible British Officers from the city had totally upset the cherished social aspirations of the mother of the Shippen girls, the advent of the gallant and unmarried Military Governor had lifted them to a newer and much higher plane of endeavor. The termination of a matrimonial alliance with the second in command of the patriotic forces not less than the foremost in rank of the city gentry, would more than compensate for the loss of a possible British peerage. Theirs was a proud lineage to boast of and a mode of unfeigned comfort and display. And it took but the briefest possible time for the artful mother to discern that her clever and subtle devices were beginning to meet with some degree of success.

The present function was wholly her affair, and while it was announced as a purely informal gathering, the manner and the scheme of the decorations, the elegance and the care with which the women dressed, the order, the appointments, the refreshments, not to mention the distinguished French visitors, would permit no one to surmise that, even for a moment. Care had been taken to issue invitations to the representative members of the city's upper class, more especially to the newly arrived French Officers and their wives, as well as the commissioned members of the Continental Army. There were the Shippen girls, their persistent friend, Miss Chew, as well as Miss Franks, whose brother was now attached to the staff of General Arnold, and a dozen other young ladies, all attractive, and dressed in the prevailing elegance of fashion; the hair in an enormous coiffure, in imitation of the fashions of the French, with turbans of gauze and spangles and ropes of pearls, the low bodices with the bow in front, the wide sashes below. It was an altogether brilliant assembly, with the Military Governor the most brilliant of all.

"Tell me, Major," asked Mrs. Shippen in measured and subdued language as she leaned forward in an apparently confidential manner, "does General Arnold visit often?"

"Oh, yes!" replied the Major at once, "he is very generous with his company."

Her face fell somewhat.

"Now, isn't that strange? I was told that he made a practice of calling at no home outside of ours."