The Mother of Washington and Her Times

by Sara Agnes Rice Pryor

"He received the information with great coolness and composure, ordered that the fire should be extinguished, and requested his guests not to disturb themselves, that 'the servants would attend to it.'

"For a time the wine continued to circulate, and it appears that the fire did also, for with less ceremony than their host it soon drove the party out of doors. In the confusion books and papers were thrust into boxes and barrels, or into anything that presented itself, and carried off into a neighboring barn.

"The person who owned the place at the time of the fire has been dead many years, and the accidental discovery, very recently, of the papers was made in the following manner. A gentleman who had lived on an adjoining farm was called upon one morning by a poor negro who requested him to purchase a basket of eggs. The basket was lined with manuscripts which proved upon closer inspection to be original letters of importance from General Washington, the Marquis La Fayette and others, addressed to Colonel Theodoric Bland, and written during the Revolution."

There was one letter, alas! written to the wife of a Virginia officer whom we should be loth to judge by her friends. It throws a sinister light upon one phase of the social life in the time of Mary Washington, and shows us women who could trifle, dress, dance, and flirt with the enemies of their country in the darkest hour of their country's peril, fiddling when Rome was burning.

Sir William Howe.

Sir William Howe entered Philadelphia in the autumn of 1777, and found "many to welcome him."[15] Philadelphia was a charming old town with substantial colonial mansions surrounded by grounds of great beauty. September roses were blooming in those old-fashioned yards and gardens, and the gracious young beauties were quite willing to gather them for the British officers. The officers, when winter set in, were glad to give them all back in ball and concert, play and assembly. It was a light-hearted, happy time! Why should they not enjoy it? Why, indeed! Nobody would bleed the more freely or starve or freeze to death the sooner!

One of the letters in the egg-basket was written by a lady who elected to live in Philadelphia during the occupation of that city by Sir William Howe. It was addressed to the wife of an officer at the front. We cannot profane our fair, patriotic pages, but the original is accentuated by oaths quite worthy of Queen Bess. The ladies mentioned in the letter were wives and daughters of officers in the field. The writer tells some very, very questionable gossip to her "dear Patsy," and then proceeds: ... "You see I am obeying your commands and writing a folio—My God! If this should fall into your husband's hands I should die! for heaven's sake, my dear Patsy, don't expose me to him. Your own saucy epistle leads me into this scrape. Mrs. Beekman is still in the City. They were very ungenteelly treated, being turned out of their house to accommodate Lord Howe; they were then moved into the street where my mother lives. Mr. & Mrs. G. are at their house in Chestnut Street. Notwithstanding the gratification of their wishes was completed in the arrival of the British Army, they received the usual disappointment. Miss Roche did not marry 'S'—by all accounts he is a vile fellow—so tell M. he may have hopes. Miss —— is not shackled, tho' she has many bleeding hearts at her feet." (The owners of the bleeding hearts were British officers.) "Her vivacity makes her admired, though saucy! One of her saucy bon mots I cannot omit. Sir William Howe, in a large company one evening, snatched a piece of narrow riband from her the moment she entered the ball room." (Here, alas, a covetous rat made a bonne bouche of the bon mot—perhaps it is as well!) "Little Poll Redmond still continues as violent a patriot as ever, and sings 'War and Washington' and 'Burgoyne's Defeat' for the British officers, and with a particular emphasis and saucy countenance warbles forth 'Cooped up in a Town.' You have no idea of the gay winter here; and likewise the censure thrown on the poor girls for not scorning these pleasures. You, my friend, have liberality of sentiment and can make proper allowance for young people deprived of the gaieties and amusements of life; with Plays, concerts, Balls, Assemblies in rotation courting their presence. Politics is never introduced. The Whig ladies are treated with the same politeness as the Tory ladies. I myself have been prevailed on to partake of the amusements, and I am, in raillery, styled 'rebel,' and all the Whig news is kept from me. I had the 'draught of the bill' and Lord North's letter. I have met a great Hessian Yager Colonel," etc., through endless gossip of which the above is the only admissible sample!

It is unpleasant to observe that this letter was written in the winter of 1777-1778—the winter that young Bartholomew Yates, a lieutenant in a Virginia regiment, fell into the hands of the enemy, and died in captivity from wounds inflicted, after his surrender, by the Hessians—possibly at the order of my lady's "great Hessian Yager Colonel," who was, according to her narrative, admitted to her society and confiding to her the secrets of the enemy. At that moment many American prisoners,—among them young John Spotswood,—desperately wounded, were in Philadelphia inhumanly treated, dying from wanton neglect; and General Washington indignantly threatening retaliation in his letters to Sir William Howe. "The English officers were received in the best society with more than toleration, and they soon became extremely popular. The winter was long remembered in Philadelphia for its gayety and its charm. There were no signs of that genuine dislike which had been abundantly displayed in Boston." It appears the ladies of Philadelphia ignored the well-known character of Sir William Howe. Also that the courtly Sir William, when he found a house that suited him, knew how to make the terms for it.[16] He took the mansion of a rich old loyalist Quaker, John Pemberton (in the absence of the latter), and used also the elegant carriage of the Quaker for his parties of pleasure. When the latter returned home he found his property much injured, and claimed indemnity. Sir William curtly refused. "Thee had better take care!" said John Pemberton. "Thee has done great damage to my house, and thee has suffered thy wicked women to ride in my carriage, and my wife will not use it since. Thee must pay me for the injury or I will go to thy master" (the King) "and lay my complaint before him."