THE WIFE OF RICHARD SHUBRICK.
Be fire with fire; Threaten the threatener, and out face the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behavior from the great,
Grow great by your example.
Shakspeare.
The following anecdotes of Mrs. Richard Shubrick may be found in the First Series of Major Garden's Revolutionary Anecdotes. "There was," he writes, "an appearance of personal debility about her that rendered her peculiarly interesting: it seemed to solicit the interest of every heart, and the man would have felt himself degraded who would not have put his life at hazard to serve her. Yet, when firmness of character was requisite, when fortitude was called for to repel the encroachments of aggression, there was not a more intrepid being in existence.
"An American soldier, flying from a party of the enemy, sought her protection, and was promised it. The British, pressing close upon him, insisted that he should be delivered up, threatening immediate and universal destruction in case of refusal. The ladies, her friends and companions, who were in the house with her, shrunk from the contest, and were silent; but, undaunted by their threats, this intrepid lady placed herself before the chamber into which the unfortunate fugitive had been conducted, and resolutely said, 'To men of honor the chamber of a lady should be as sacred as the sanctuary! I will defend the passage to it though I perish. You may succeed, and enter it, but it shall be over my corpse.' 'By God,' said the officer, 'if muskets were only placed in the hands of a few such women, our only safety would be found in retreat. Your intrepidity, madam, gives you security; from me you shall meet no further annoyance.'
"At Brabant, the seat of the respectable and patriotic Bishop Smith, a sergeant of Tarleton's dragoons, eager for the acquisition of plunder, followed the overseer, a man advanced in years, into the apartment where the ladies of the family were assembled, and on his refusing to discover the spot in which the plate was concealed, struck him with violence, inflicting a severe sabre wound across the shoulders. Aroused by the infamy of the act, Mrs. Shubrick, starting from her seat, and placing herself betwixt the ruffian and his victim, resolutely said, 'Place yourself behind me, Murdoch; the interposition of my body shall give you protection, or I will die:' then, addressing herself to the sergeant, exclaimed, 'O what a degradation of manhood—what departure from that gallantry which was once the characteristic of British soldiers. Human nature is degraded by your barbarity;—but should you persist, then strike at me, for till I die, no further injury shall be done to him.' The sergeant, unable to resist such commanding eloquence, retired."[69]
KEEN RETORT OF MRS. ASHE.
I have a thousand spirits in one breast,
To answer twenty thousand such as you.
Shakspeare.
While General Leslie was staying with the British troops at Halifax, North Carolina, Colonel Tarleton and other officers held their quarters at the house of Colonel Ashe, whose wife was a firm friend of liberty. Her beau ideal of the hero was Colonel William Washington; and, knowing this fact, the sarcastic Tarleton took great delight in speaking diminutively of this officer in her presence. In his jesting way, he remarked to her one time, that he should like to have an opportunity of seeing her friend, Colonel Washington, whom he had understood to be a very small man. Mrs. Ashe promptly replied, "If you had looked behind you, Colonel Tarleton, at the battle of the Cowpens, you would have had that pleasure."[70]