Sir William did take care! He paid the money.
That most unfortunate of men, Major André, devised in honor of Sir William Howe the splendid festival of the Mischianza during the occupation of Philadelphia. Our gay correspondent received an invitation with "the Howe arms and motto vive vale. The device was a setting sun with 'He shines as he sets, to rise again.' We went to Pool's bridge in carriages—thence boats, barges and galleys bore us to ships of the fleet—all gay with the colors of all nations and every country, and amid them, waving with grace and elegance, our own Stars and Stripes!" "The entertainment comprised a regatta, a ball, and a great display of fireworks, with innumerable emblems and exhibitions of loyalty to England. It brought together one of the most brilliant assemblages of the youth, beauty and fashion of Philadelphia, and it was long remembered that Major André was most prominent in organizing the entertainment, and that the most prominent of the Philadelphia beauties who adorned it was Miss Shippen, soon after to become the wife of Benedict Arnold."
Major André.
The tournament was between the "Knights of the Ladies of the Blended Rose and the Ladies of the Burning Mountain," the latter presumably the daughters of the country about to be consumed!
The gayety was at its height when the army was encamped just across the Schuylkill at Valley Forge—when the winter was one of extraordinary rigor. During that winter the army was often without bread, often entirely without meat. "Few men" had "more than one shirt, many only the moiety of one, and some none at all." Men were confined in hospitals or farmers' houses for want of shoes. In camp there were on a single day 2,898 men unfit for duty because they were "barefoot and otherwise naked." In December the men built fires and sat up all night because there were no blankets to cover them. When a march was necessary their way could be traced by their bleeding feet. In three weeks of this time the army at Valley Forge lost, in its overflowing hospitals, hundreds, some say thousands, of men. Just across the river American women were bandying idle compliments with the British and Hessian officers, living on delicacies of their providing, dancing at midnight routs and noonday festivals. Here, at Valley Forge, Martha Washington was passing among the sick with deeds and words of cheer, and the aged mother praying in solitude on the banks of the Rappahannock!
Of the lady, to whom the Philadelphia letter was addressed, we must, perforce, form doubtful conclusions. That she possessed a personality which found immediate favor in the eyes of men, there is not the least doubt. No man could send her an ordinary message of courtesy unadorned by expressions of gallantry. Alexander Hamilton writes of Mrs. Bland to her husband so warmly that he is constrained to explain, "I write in the style d'amitie, not d'amour, as might have been imagined." Says Arthur Lee, "Lay me at the feet of Mrs. Bland," prudently adding, "and in the bosom of your friendship."
Stephen Higginson of Boston eclipses them all, and dilates upon "the rapturous delight of one fond kiss from sun to sun," which it appears she had promised him; doubting, however, his "capacity for enjoyments so excessive and for so long a time." Her own colonel shows himself to be very tender and gentle to his wife. He preserved all her letters. The poor lady had the smallpox, that dreadful scourge of the time, but she had not the greatness of soul to keep from the soldier in the field the knowledge of her disaster. She drives him wild with her indefinite complainings, her vague hints. He begs her to spare him this torture. "You say you have been too ill until to-day to see yourself in the glass. You cannot know what doubts I have had, what altercations in my own mind whether you went to the glass or the glass came to you!" She pines for the stir and excitement of the camp. He entreats her to feel benevolence and interest in the stay-at-home people. But my lady is subtle; all her trouble is forsooth for his sake—and he believes her. He entreats her to spare him her repining at his absence, and says, "Remember 'tis for you, for my country, for my honor, that I endure this separation, the dangers and the hardships of war; remember that America cannot be free, and therefore cannot be happy, without the virtue of her sons and the heroism of her daughters."