Has not heaven a portion of reason bestow'd,
To pass them o'er lightly or brush them away?
I'll gather life's roses wherever I find them,
And smile at their folly who dread to come near;
Who cast all its joys and its pleasures behind them,
Nor pluck the sweet buds, lest the thorns should appear."
The years flew by until after the battle of Bunker Hill, when most of the inhabitants of Nantasket left their farms and fled to Boston. It is recorded that the grain was left standing in the fields and that the Haswell family were eventually left the sole occupants of the place. Ex-Lieutenant Haswell was loyal to his king, and his house was a constant resort for the British naval and military commanders. Small skirmishes sometimes took place near the village, and one day, during an action in the vicinity, a wounded redcoat, a member of Major Tupper's brigade, was brought to the door on a stretcher by some of his comrades, with the request that he be given shelter. Into the southeast room the family had him carried and laid on the great four-poster. There Susanna tended him through the morning hours, bandaging his wounds with soft homespun and ministering to his wants. It was a never-to-be-forgotten day, often referred to in after-years, and it made a deep impression on the heart of the sensitive girl. Bending over him, she received his last confidences. He was Daniel Carnagon, twenty-six years old, the only son of a clergyman in the north of England. When his breath grew feebler her stepmother brought out the family Bible and read in a low voice words of comfort. Death came to him as he dreamed of his native heath and a happy boyhood. When the dusk began to fall Susanna helped her father dig a grave in the garden. There they laid him to rest with the last sunbeams staining his poor clay like a heavenly benediction. Some rose-bushes and an apple-tree covered his resting-place. The latter is still standing alone, a faithful watcher over dust neglected and forgotten. Little has been written of Susanna's grenadier, but we know that she who made the whole of her generation weep with "a tale of truth" wept over him in the twilight of a long-dead day.
When the Revolution was nearing its close the Haswell family removed from Massachusetts to Halifax, a favorite gathering-place for loyalists. Susanna was then nearing womanhood, and, owing to the low state of her father's pecuniary resources, she was forced to separate from dearly loved brothers and sail for England. There she obtained a situation as governess in a noble family, which she retained until her health failed. In 1786 she married Mr. William Rowson in London. This gentleman was then engaged in the hardware business and also acted as trumpeter in the Royal Horse-Guards. He was the son of an armorer to George III., and was noted for his personal beauty and accomplishments. It has been recorded that no one who heard could ever forget "the sublime and spirit-stirring tones" of his trumpet when he played for the Boston Handel and Haydn Society. When he trumpeted "The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised" he thrilled his hearers into imagining the last hour was close at hand.
Shortly after entering the bonds of wedlock Mrs. Rowson published her first work, "Victoria," under the patronage of the Duchess of Devonshire, the famous Carlton House beauty known to history as the friend of Charles Fox. Among the subscribers are such names as Sarah Siddons, General John Burgoyne, Sir Charles Middleton, and our own Samuel Adams. The duchess seems to have conceived a warm attachment for her, and arranged that she should be presented to no less a personage than "Prince Florizel." Soon she found a place in the brilliant galaxy of ladies headed by "The Blue-Stocking Club," and in 1790, when "Charlotte Temple" was published, she became one of the leading literary lights of the day.
"Charlotte Temple" was the heart-toucher of her generation, and countless thousands sorrowed over her fate. Her story, as Mrs. Rowson gave it to the world, was the greatest success of the day, and it is said that more editions were printed of it than of any other novel written in the eighteenth century. About the life of the real heroine the years have woven a web some parts of which can never be unravelled. Tradition says that she was Charlotte Stanley, a young lady of great personal beauty and the daughter of a clergyman related to the Earl of Derby. Mrs. Rowson wrote of her that