After this my days went by more peacefully. The help and example of Jack
assisted me greatly in my lessons, which I did little relish. I was
more fond of reading, and devoured many books as I sat under our orchard
trees in the spring, or nestled up to the fire on the long winter
evenings, coiled on the settle, that its high back might keep off
drafts. My aunt lent me an abundance of books after that famous
“Travels” of Mr. Gulliver. Now and then my father looked at what she
gave me, but he soon tired of this, and fell asleep in the great oak
chair which Governor Penn gave my grandfather.
Many volumes, and some queer ones, I fell upon in my aunt’s house,
but, save once, against the naughtiness of Mrs. Aphra Behn, she never
interfered. We liked greatly a book called “Peter Wilkins,” by one
Paltock, full of a queer folk, who had winged “graundees,” a sort of
crimson robe made of folds of their own skin. None read it now. My dear
Jack fancied it much more than I.
I was nigh to fifteen before we read “Robinson Crusoe,” but even earlier
I devoured at my aunt’s “Captain Jack” and “The History of the Devil.”
The former book filled us with delight. Jack and I used to row over to
Windmill Island, on the great Delaware, and there at the south end we
built a hut, and slew bullfrogs, and found steps on the sand, I being
thereafter Friday, and Jack my master. We made, too, a sail and mast
for my boat, and, thus aided, sailed of Saturdays up and down the noble
river, which I have always loved.
A still greater joy was to go in our chaise with my mother to the
governor’s woods, which extended from Broad street to the Schuylkill,
and from Callowhill to South street. There we tied the horse, and under
the great trees we found in spring arbutus, even beneath the snow,
and later fetched thence turkey-foot ferns, and wild honeysuckle, and
quaker-ladies, with jack-in-the-pulpits and fearful gray corpse-lights
hid away in the darker woods. In the forest my mother seemed even
younger than at home, and played with us, and told us quaint tales of
her French people, or fairy stories of Giant Jack and others, which were
by no means such as Friends approved.
In our house one same stern, unbending rule prevailed. I have been
told by my aunt, Gainor Wynne, that when he was young my father was not
always so steadfast in conduct as to satisfy Friends. When I was old
enough to observe and think, he had surely become strict enough; but
this severity of opinion and action increased with years, and showed in
ways which made life difficult for those near to him. In fact, before
I attained manhood the tinted arms and the picture of Wyncote were
put away in the attic room. My mother’s innocent love of ornament also
became to him a serious annoyance, and these peculiarities seemed at
last to deepen whenever the political horizon darkened. At such times
he became silent, and yet more keen than usual to detect and denounce
anything in our home life which was not to his liking.
The affairs of a young fellow between the ages of childhood and younger
manhood can have but meagre interest. Our school life went on, and while
we worked or played, our elders saw the ever-increasing differences
between king and colonies becoming year by year more difficult of
adjustment. Except when some noisy crisis arose, they had for us lads
but little interest.
Most people used the city landings, or lightered their goods from ships
in the stream. We, however, had a great dock built out near to the mouth
of Dock Creek, and a warehouse. Hither came sloops from my father’s
plantation of tobacco, near Annapolis, and others from the “permitted
islands,” the Cape de Verde and the Madeiras. Staves for barrels,
tobacco, and salt fish were the exports, and in return came Eastern
goods brought to these islands, and huge tuns of Madeira wine. Rum,
too, arrived from New England, and salted mackerel. What else my father
imported, of French goods or tea, reached us from England, for we were
not allowed to trade with the continent of Europe nor directly with
India.
Once my father took me with him to Lewes, near Cape Hinlopen, on one of
his ships, and to my joy we were met there by Tom, our black slave, with
horses, and rode back during two days by Newcastle and Chester. As I
rode ill, of course, and was sore for a week, my father thought it well
that I should learn to ride, and this exercise I took to easily. Just
before I was sixteen my aunt gave me a horse, and after we had separated
abruptly a few times, and no harm to any, I became the master, and soon
an expert rider, as was needful in a land where most long journeys were
made on horseback.
It seems to me now, as I look back, that the events of life were
preparing me and my friend Jack for what was to follow. Our boating made
every part of the two rivers familiar. Now that I had a horse, Jack’s
father, who would always do for him readily what my Aunt Gainor did
for me, yielded to his desire to ride; and so it was that we began, as
leisure served, to extend our rides to Germantown, or even to Chestnut
Hill. Thus all the outlying country became well known to both of us, and
there was not a road, a brook, or a hill which we did not know.
Until this happy time I had been well pleased to follow my aunt on
a pillion behind her servant, Caesar, but now I often went with her,
perched on my big horse, and got from my aunt, an excellent horsewoman,
some sharp lessons as to leaping, and certain refinements in riding that
she had seen or known of in London.
A Captain Montresor--he who afterward, when a colonel, was Howe’s
engineer--used to ride with her in the spring of ‘69. He was a tall,
stout man of middle age, and much spoken of as likely to marry my Aunt
Gainor, although she was older than he, for, as fat Oliver de Lancey
said years after, “There is no age to a woman’s money, and guineas are
always young.” My aunt, Gainor Wynne, was still a fine gentlewoman, and
did not look her years. As concerned this question of age, she was like
a man, and so in fact she was in some other ways. She would tell any one
how old she was. She once informed Mr. de Lancey that she was so much
more of a man than any British officer she knew that she did not see how
she could decently marry any of them.
I think it was about this time that I saw a little scene which much
impressed me, and which often recurs to my memory. We--that is, Mr.
Montresor, and my Aunt Gainor and I--of a Saturday afternoon rode
over by the lower ferry and up Gray’s Lane, and so to Mr. Hamilton’s
country-seat. “The Woodlands,” as it was called, stood on a hill amid
many beautiful trees and foreign shrubs and flowers. Below it ran the
quiet Schuylkill, and beyond, above the governor’s woods, could be
seen far away Dr. Kearsley’s fine spire of Christ Church. No better did
Master Wren himself ever contrive, or more proportioned to the edifice
beneath it.
On the porch were Mr. Hamilton and Mrs. Penn, with saucy gray eyes, and
Mrs. Ferguson. A slim young girl, Rebecca Franks, was teasing a cat. She
teased some one all her days, and did it merrily, and not unkindly. She
was little and very pretty, with a dark skin. Did she dream she should
marry a British soldier--a baronet and general--and end her days in
London well on in the century yet to come?
Andrew Allen, whose father, the chief justice, took his wife, Margaret,
from this house, sat on the steps near Miss Franks, and beside her
little Peggy Shippen, who already gave promise of the beauty which
won for her so pitiful a life. Nothing in this garden of gay women and
flowers foretold the tragedy of West Point. I think of it now with sad
wonder.
In one or another way these people became known in our annals. Most of
them were of the more exclusive party known as the governor’s set, and
belonged to the Church of England. With the Galloways, Cadwaladers,
Willings, Shippens, Rawles, and others, they formed a more or less
distinct society, affecting London ways, dining at the extreme hour
of four, loving cards, the dance, fox-hunting, and to see a main of
game-cocks. Among them--not of them--came and went certain of what were
called “genteel” Quakers--Morrises, Pembertons, Whartons, and Logans.
They had races too,--that is, the governor’s set,--and one of my
delights was, on the way to the academy, to stop in Third street, above
Chestnut, and see the race-horses in the Widow Nichols’s stables at the
sign of the Indian Queen.
But I have left the laughter of the last century echoing among the
columns of Andrew Hamilton’s home. The guests were made welcome, and had
a dish of tea or a glass of punch; and those desiring no more bohea set
a spoon across the cup, and fell into groups. My aunt opened the velvet
bag which hung at her waist, to pay Mrs. Ferguson a small gambling debt
of the night before.
“Ah, here!” she cried gaily, “Mr. Montresor, this is for you. One of
Mr. Grenville’s stamps; I kept two. I was lucky enough to get them from
Master Hughes, the stamp officer--a great curiosity. You shall have
one.”
Mr. Montresor bowed. “I will keep it,” he said, “until it comes into use
again.”
“That will be never,” said Andrew Allen, turning.
“Never!” repeated Miss Wynne. “Let us hope, sir, it may be a lesson to
all future ministers.”
“A man was wanted in New York in place of Mr. Gage,” cried Mrs.
Ferguson. “As to those New England Puritans, they were in rebellion
before they came over, and have been ever since.”
“And what of New York, and this town, and Virginia?” said my Aunt
Gainor, with her great nose well up.
“I would have put an end to their disloyal ways, one and all,” cried
Mrs. Ferguson.
“It is curious,” said Mr. Galloway, “that the crown should be so
thwarted. What people have more reason to be contented?”
“Contented!” said Miss Wynne. “Already they talk of taxes in which we
are to have no voice. Contented! and not a ship dare trade with France.
It amazes me that there is a man in the plantations to sit quiet under
it.”
“I am of your opinion, madam,” said Mr. Macpherson, “and I might go
still further.”
“They consider us as mere colonials, and we may not so much as have a
bishop of our own. I would I had my way, sir.”
“And what would you do, Mistress Wynne?” asked Mr. Chew.
“I would say, ‘Mr. Attorney-General, give us the same liberty all the
English have, to go and come on the free seas!’”
“And if not?” said Montresor, smiling.
“And if not,” she returned, “then--” and she touched the sword at his
side. I wondered to see how resolute she looked.
The captain smiled. “I hope you will not command a regiment, madam.”
“Would to God I could!”
“I should run,” he cried, laughing. And thus pleasantly ended a talk
which was becoming bitter to many of this gay company.
Destiny was already sharpening the sword we were soon to draw, and of
those who met and laughed that day there were sons who were to be set
against fathers, and brothers whom war was to find in hostile ranks. A
young fellow of my age, the son of Mr. Macpherson, sat below us on the
steps with the girls. He was to leave his young life on the bastion at
Quebec, and, for myself, how little did I dream of what I should get out
of the devil-pot of war which was beginning to simmer!
Very soon I was sent with Rebecca Franks and Miss Chew to gather
flowers. Miss Franks evidently despised my youth, and between the two
little maids I, being unused to girls, had not a pleasant time, and was
glad to get back to the porch, where we stood silent until bidden to be
seated, upon which the girls curtseyed and I bowed, and then sat down to
eat cakes and drink syllabub.
At last my aunt put on her safeguard petticoat, the horses came, and
we rode away. For a while she was silent, answering the captain in
monosyllables; but just beyond the ferry his horse cast a shoe, and went
so lame that the officer must needs return to Woodlands leading him,
there to ask a new mount.
For yet a while my aunt rode on without a word, but presently began to
rally me as to Miss Chew. I had to confess I cared not for her or the
other, or, indeed, for maids at all.
“It will come,” said she. “Oh, it will come soon enough. Peggy Chew has
the better manners. And, by the way, sir, when you bow, keep your back
straight. Mr. Montresor has a pretty way of it. Observe him, Hugh. But
he is a fool, and so are the rest; and as for Bessy Ferguson, I should
like to lay a whip over her back like that,” and she hit my horse
sharply, poor thing, so that I lost a stirrup and came near to falling.
When the beast got quiet I asked why these nice people, who had such
pleasant ways, were all fools.
“I will tell you,” she said. “There are many and constant causes of
trouble between us and the king. When one ends, like this Stamp Act,
another is hatched. It was the best of us who left England, and we are
trained to rely on ourselves, and have no need of England. You will live
to see dark days, Hugh--just what, God alone can tell; but you will live
to see them, and your life will have to answer some questions. This may
seem strange to you, my lad, but it will come.”
What would come I knew not. She said no more, but rode homeward at
speed, as she liked best to do.
Thus time went by, until I was full sixteen, having been at the college
a year later than was usual. I had few battles to fight, and contrived
to keep these to myself, or to get patched up at my Aunt Wynne’s, who
delighted to hear of these conflicts, and always gave me a shilling
to heal my wounds. My dear, fair-haired Jack, Aunt Gainer thought a
girl-boy, and fit only to sell goods, or, at best, to become a preacher.
His father she used and disliked.
Meanwhile we had been through Horace and Cicero,--and Ovid for our moral
improvement, I suppose,--with Virgil and Sallust, and at last Caesar,
whom alone of them all I liked. Indeed, Jack and I built over a brook in
my Aunt Gainor’s garden at Chestnut Hill a fair model of Caesar’s great
bridge over the Rhine. This admired product of our ingenuity was much
praised by Captain Montresor, who was well aware of my aunt’s weakness
for a certain young person.
My father’s decisions came always without warning. In the fall of 1769
I was just gone back to the academy, and put to work at mathematics and
some Greek under James Wilson, at that period one of the tutors, and
some time later an associate judge of the Supreme Court. This great
statesman and lawyer of after-days was a most delightful teacher. He
took a fancy to my Jack, and, as we were inseparable, put up with my
flippancy and deficient scholarship. Jack’s diary says otherwise, and
that he saw in me that which, well used, might make of me a man of
distinction. At all events, he liked well to walk with us on a Saturday,
or to go in my boat, which was for us a great honour. My father approved
of James Wilson, and liked him on the holiday to share our two-o’clock
dinner. Then, and then only, did I understand the rigour and obstinacy
of my father’s opinions, for they ofttimes fell into debate as to the
right of the crown to tax us without representation. Mr. Wilson said
many towns in England had no voice in Parliament, and that, if once
the crown yielded the principle we stood on, it would change the whole
political condition in the mother-land; and this the king would never
agree to see. Mr. Wilson thought we had been foolish to say, as many
did, that, while we would have no internal taxes, we would submit to
a tax on imports. This he considered even worse. My father was for
obedience and non-resistance, and could not see that we were fighting
a battle for the liberty of all Englishmen. He simply repeated his
opinions, and was but a child in the hands of this clear-headed thinker.
My father might well have feared for the effect of Mr. Wilson’s views
on a lad of my age, in whose mind he opened vistas of thought far in
advance of those which, without him, I should ever have seen.
John Wynne was, however, too habitually accustomed to implicit obedience
to dream of danger, and thus were early sown in my mind the seeds of
future action, with some doubt as to my father’s ability to cope with
a man like our tutor, who considerately weighed my father’s sentiments
(they were hardly opinions), and so easily and courteously disposed of
them that these logical defeats were clear even to us boys.
Our school relations with this gentleman were abruptly broken. One
day, in late October of 1769, we went on a long walk through the
proprietary’s woods, gathering for my mother boughs of the many-tinted
leaves of autumn. These branches she liked to set in jars of water in
the room where we sat, so that it might be gay with the lovely colours
she so much enjoyed. As we entered the forest about Eighth street Mr.
Wilson joined us, and went along, chatting agreeably with my mother.
Presently he said to me: “I have just left your father with Mr.
Pemberton, talking about some depredations in Mr. Penn’s woods. He
tells me you boys are to leave school, but for what I do not know. I am
sorry.”
Jack and I had of late expected this, and I, for one, was not grieved,
but my friend was less well pleased.
We strolled across to the Schuylkill, and there, sitting down, amused
ourselves with making a little crown of twisted twigs and leaves of the
red and yellow maples. This we set merrily on my mother’s gray beaver,
while Mr. Wilson declared it most becoming. Just then Friend Pemberton
and my father came upon us, and, as usual when the latter appeared, our
laughter ceased.
“I shall want thee this afternoon, Hugh,” he said. “And what foolishness
is this on thy head, wife? Art thou going home in this guise?”
“It seems an innocent prettiness,” said Pemberton, while my mother, in
no wise dismayed, looked up with her big blue eyes.
“Thou wilt always be a child,” said my father.
“_Je l’espere_,” said the mother; “must I be put in a corner? The _bon
Dieu_ hath just changed the forest fashions. I wonder is He a Quaker,
Friend Pemberton?”
“Thou hast ever a neat answer,” said the gentle old man. “Come, John, we
are not yet done.”
My father said no more, and we boys were still as mice. We went homeward
with our mirth quite at an end, Jack and Wilson leaving us at Fourth
street.
In the afternoon about six--for an hour had been named--I saw my aunt’s
chaise at the door. I knew at once that something unusual was in store,
for Mistress Wynne rarely came hither except to see my mother, and then
always in the forenoon. Moreover, I noticed my father at the window,
and never had I known him to return so early. When I went in he said at
once:
“I have been telling thy aunt of my intention in regard to thee.”
“And I utterly disapprove of it,” said my aunt.
“Wait,” he said. “I desire that thou shalt enter as one of my clerks;
but first it is my will that, as the great and good proprietary decreed,
thou shouldst acquire some mechanic trade; I care not what.”
I was silent; I did not like it. Even far later, certain of the stricter
Friends adhered to a rule which was once useful, but was now no longer
held to be of imperative force.
“I would suggest shoemaking,” said my Aunt Gainor, scornfully, “or
tailoring.”
“I beg of thee, Gainor,” said my mother, “not to discontent the lad.”
“In this matter,” returned my father, “I will not be thwarted. I asked
thee to come hither, not to ridicule a sensible decision, but to consult
upon it.”
“You have had all my wisdom,” said the lady. “I had thought to ask my
friend, Charles Townshend, for a pair of colours; but now that troops
are sent to Boston to override all reason, I doubt it. Do as you will
with the boy. I wash my hands of him.”
This was by no means my father’s intention. I saw his face set in an
expression I well knew; but my mother laid a hand on his arm, and, with
what must have been a great effort, he controlled his anger, and said
coldly: “I have talked this over with thy friend, Joseph Warder, and
he desired that his son should share in my decision as to Hugh. Talk to
him, Gainor.”
“I do not take counsel with my agent, John. He does as I bid him. I
could shift his opinions at a word. He is a Tory to-day, and a Whig
to-morrow, and anything to anybody. Why do you talk such nonsense to me?
Let me tell you that he has already been to ask me what I think of
it. He feels some doubt, poor man. Indeed, he is disposed to consider.
Bother! what does it matter what he considers?”
“If he has changed his mind I have not. Joseph hath ever a coat of many
colours.”
“I shall tell him,” she cried, laughing. The Quaker rule of repression
and non-resistance by no means forbade the use of the brutal bludgeon
of sarcasm, as many a debate in Meeting could testify. She rose as she
spoke, and my mother said gently:
“Thou wilt not tell him, Gainor.”
Meanwhile I stood amazed at a talk which so deeply concerned me.
“Shall it be a smithy?” said my father.
“Oh, what you like. The Wynnes are well down in the world--trade,
horseshoeing. Good evening.”
“Gainor! Gainor!” cried my mother; but she was gone in wrath, and out of
the house.
“Thou wilt leave the academy. I have already arranged with Lowry, in
South street, to take thee. Three months should answer.”
To this I said, “Yes, yes,” and went away but little pleased, my mother
saying, “It is only for a time, my son.”
V
Says my friend Jack in his journal:
“The boys were in these times keen politicians whenever any unusual
event occurred, and the great pot was like soon to boil furiously, and
scald the cooks. Charles Townshend’s ministry was long over. The Stamp
Act had come and gone. The Non-importation Agreement had been signed
even by men like Andrew Allen and Mr. Penn. Lord North, a gentle and
obstinate person, was minister. The Lord Hillsborough, a man after the
king’s heart, had the colonial office. The troops had landed in Boston,
and the letters of Dickinson and Vindex had fanned the embers of
discontent into flame.
“Through it all we boys contrived to know everything that was happening.
I had a sense of fear about it, but to Hugh I think it was delightful.
A fire, a mob, confusion, and disorder appeal to most boys’ minds as
desirable. My father was terrified at the disturbance of commerce, and
the angry words which began to be heard. Mr. John Wynne very coolly
adjusted his affairs, as I have heard, and settled down with the
Friends, such as Wain and Shoemaker and Pemberton and the rest, to
accept whatever the king might decree.”
Jack and I talked it all over in wild boy fashion, and went every day
at six in the morning to Lowry’s on South street. At first we both
hated the work, but this did not last; and, once we were used to it, the
business had for fellows like ourselves a certain charm. The horses we
learned to know and understand. Their owners were of a class with which
in those days it was not thought seemly for persons of our degree to be
familiar; here it was unavoidable, and I soon learned how deep in the
hearts of the people was the determination to resist the authority of
the crown.
The lads we knew of the gay set used to come and laugh at us, as we
plied the hammer or blew the bellows; and one day Miss Franks and Miss
Peggy Chew, and I think Miss Shippen, stood awhile without the forge,
making very merry. Jack got red in the face, but I was angry, worked
on doggedly, and said nothing. At last I thrashed soundly one Master
Galloway, who called me a horse-cobbler, and after that no more trouble.
I became strong and muscular as the work went on, and got to like our
master, who was all for liberty, and sang as he struck, and taught me
much that was useful as to the management of horses, so that I was not
long unhappy. My father, pleased at my diligence, once said to me that
I seemed to be attentive to the business in hand; and, as far as I
remember, this was the only time in my life that he ever gave me a word
of even the mildest commendation.
It was what Jack most needed. His slight, graceful figure filled out
and became very straight, losing a stoop it had, so that he grew to be
a well-built, active young fellow, rosy, and quite too pretty, with his
blond locks. After our third month began, Lowry married a widow, and
moved away to her farm up the country and beyond the Blue Bell tavern,
where he carried on his business, and where he was to appear again to me
at a time when I sorely needed him. It was to be another instance of how
a greater Master overrules our lives for good.
Just after we had heard the news of the widow, my father came into the
forge one day with Joseph Warder. He stood and watched me shoe a horse,
and asked Lowry if I had learned the business. When he replied that we
both might become more expert, but that we could make nails, and shoe
fairly well, my father said:
“Take off these aprons, and go home. There will be other work for both
of you.”
We were glad enough to obey, and, dropping our leathern aprons, thus
ended our apprenticeship. Next week Tom Lowry, our master, appeared with
a fine beaver for me, saying, as I knew, that it was the custom to give
an apprentice a beaver when his time was up, and that he had never been
better served by any.
My Aunt Gainor kept away all this time, and made it clear that she did
not wish my black hands at her table. My father, no doubt, felt sure
that, so far as I was concerned, she would soon or late relent. This, in
fact, came about in midwinter, upon her asking my mother to send me to
see her. My father observed that he had no will to make quarrels, or to
keep them alive. My mother smiled demurely, knowing him as none other
did, and bade me go with her.
In her own room she had laid out on the bed a brown coat of velveteen,
with breeches to match, and stockings with brown clocks, and also a
brown beaver, the back looped up, all of which she had, with sweet
craftiness, provided, that I might appear well before my Aunt Gainor.
“Thou wilt fight no one on the way, Hugh. And now, what shall be done
with his hands, so rough and so hard? Scrub them well. Tell Gainor I
have two new lilies for her, just come from Jamaica. Bulbs they are; I
will care for them in the cellar. I was near to forget the marmalade
of bitter orange. She must send; I cannot trust Tom. Thy father had him
whipped at the jail yesterday, and he is sulky. Put on thy clothes, and
I will come again to see how they fit thee.”
In a little while she was back again, declaring I looked a lord, and
that if she were a girl she should fall in love with me, and then--“But
I shall never let any woman but me kiss thee. I shall be jealous. And
now, sir, a bow. That was better. Now, as I curtsey, it is bad manners
to have it over before I am fully risen. Then it is permitted that _les
beaux yeux se rencontrent. Comme ca. Ca va bien_. That is better done.”
“What vanities are these?” said my father at the door she had left open.
She was nowise alarmed. “Come in, John,” she cried. “He does not yet bow
as well as thou. It would crack some Quaker backs, I think. I can hear
Friend Wain’s joints creak when he gets up.”
“Nonsense, wife! Thou art a child to this day.”
“Then kiss me, mon pere.” And she ran to him and stood on tiptoe, so
engaging and so pretty that he could not help but lift up her slight
figure, and, kissing her, set her down. It was a moment of rare
tenderness. Would I had known or seen more like it!
“Thou wilt ruin him, wife.”
As I ran down the garden she called after me, “Do not thou forget to
kiss her hand. To-morrow will come the warehouse; but take the sweets of
life as they offer. Adieu.” She stood to watch me, all her dear heart
in her eyes, something pure, and, as it were, virginal in her look. God
rest her soul!
It was late when I got to my aunt’s, somewhere about eight, and the
hum of voices warned me of her having company. As I entered she rose,
expecting an older guest, and, as I had been bid, I bowed low and
touched her hand with my lips, as I said:
“Dear Aunt Gainor, it has been so long!” I could have said nothing
better. She laughed.
“Here is my nephew, Mr. Etherington”--this to an English major; “and,
Captain Wallace of the king’s navy, my nephew.”
The captain was a rough, boisterous sailor, and the other a man with too
much manner, and, as I heard later, risen from the ranks.
He saluted me with a lively thump on the shoulder, which I did not
relish. “Zounds! sir, but you are a stout young Quaker!”
“We are most of us Quakers here, captain,” said a quiet gentleman, who
saw, I fancy, by my face that this rude greeting was unpleasant to me.
“How are you, Hugh?” This was the Master of the Rolls, Mr. John Morris.
Then my aunt said, “Go and speak to the ladies--you know them;” and as
I turned aside, “I beg pardon, Sir William; this is my nephew, Hugh
Wynne.” This was addressed to a high-coloured personage in yellow velvet
with gold buttons, and a white flowered waistcoat, and with his queue in
a fine hair-net.
“This is Sir William Draper, Hugh; he who took Manilla, as you must
know.” I did not, nor did I know until later that he was one of the
victims of the sharp pen of Junius, with whom, for the sake of the
Marquis of Granby, he had rashly ventured to tilt. The famous soldier
smiled as I saluted him with my best bow.
“Fine food for powder, Mistress Wynne, and already sixteen! I was in
service three years earlier. Should he wish for an ensign’s commission,
I am at your service.”
“Ah, Sir William, that might have been, a year or so ago, but now he may
have to fight General Gage.”
“The gods forbid! Our poor general!”
“Mistress Wynne is a rank Whig,” put in Mrs. Ferguson. “She reads
Dickinson’s ‘Farmer’s Letters,’ and all the wicked treason of that man
Adams.”
“A low demagogue!” cried Mrs. Galloway. “I hear there have been
disturbances in Boston, and that because one James Otis has been beaten
by our officers, and because our bands play ‘Yankee Doodle’ on Sundays
in front of the churches--I beg pardon, the meetings--Mr. Robinson, the
king’s collector, has had to pay and apologise. Most shameful it is!”
“I should take short measures,” said the sailor.
“And I,” cried Etherington. “I have just come from Virginia, but not
a recruit could I get. It is like a nest of ants in a turmoil, and the
worst of all are the officers who served in the French war. There is,
too, a noisy talker, Patrick Henry, and a Mr. Washington.”
“I think it was he who saved the wreck of the king’s army under Mr.
Braddock,” said my aunt. “I can remember how they all looked. Not a wig
among them. The lodges must have been full of them, but their legs saved
their scalps.”
“Is it for this they call them wigwams?” cries naughty Miss Chew.
“Fie! fie!” says her mamma, while my aunt laughed merrily.
“A mere Potomac planter,” said Etherington, “‘pon my soul--and with such
airs, as if they were gentlemen of the line.”
“Perhaps,” said my aunt, “they had not had your opportunities of knowing
all grades of the service.”
The major flushed. “I have served the king as well as I know how, and I
trust, madam, I shall have the pleasure to aid in the punishment of some
of these insolent rebels.”
“May you be there to see, Hugh,” said my aunt, laughing.
Willing to make a diversion, Mrs. Chew said, “Let us defeat these Tories
at the card-table, Gainor.”
“With all my heart,” said my aunt, glad of this turn in the talk.
“Come and give me luck, Hugh,” said Mrs. Ferguson. “What a big fellow
you are! Your aunt must find you ruffles soon, and a steenkirk.”
With this I sat down beside her, and wondered to see how eager and
interested they all became, and how the guineas and gold half-joes
passed from one to another, while the gay Mrs. Ferguson, who was at the
table with Mrs. Penn, Captain Wallace, and my aunt, gave me my first
lesson in this form of industry.
A little later there was tea, chocolate, and rusks, with punch for the
men; and Dr. Shippen came in, and the great Dr. Rush, with his delicate,
clean-cut face under a full wig. Dr. Shippen was full of talk about some
fine game-cocks, and others were busy with the spring races in Centre
Square.
You may be sure I kept my ears open to hear what all these great men
said. I chanced to hear Dr. Rush deep in talk behind the punch-table
with a handsome young man, Dr. Morgan, newly come from London.
Dr. Rush said, “I have news to-day, in a letter from Mr. Adams, of
things being unendurable. He is bold enough to talk of separation from
England; but that is going far, too far.”
“I think so, indeed,” said Morgan. “I saw Dr. Franklin in London. He
advises conciliation, and not to act with rash haste. These gentlemen
yonder make it difficult.”
“Yes; there is no insolence like that of the soldier.” And this was all
I heard or remember, for my aunt bade me run home and thank my mother,
telling me to come again and soon.
The plot was indeed thickening, and even a lad as young as I could scent
peril in the air. At home I heard nothing of it. No doubt my father read
at his warehouse the “Pennsylvania Journal,” or more likely Galloway’s
gazette, the “Chronicle,” which was rank Tory, and was suppressed in
1773. But outside of the house I learned the news readily. Mr. Warder
took papers on both sides, and also the Boston “Packet,” so that Jack
and I were well informed, and used to take the gazettes when his father
had read them, and devour them safely in our boat, when by rare chance I
had a holiday.
And so passed the years 1770, 1771, and 1772, when Lord North
precipitated the crisis by attempting to control the judges in
Massachusetts, who were in future to be paid by the crown, and
would thus pass under its control. Adams now suggested committees of
correspondence, and thus the first step toward united action was taken.
These years, up to the autumn of 1772, were not without influence on my
own life for both good and evil. I was, of course, kept sedulously at
work at our business, and, though liking it even less than farriery,
learned it well enough. It was not without its pleasures. Certainly it
was an agreeable thing to know the old merchant captains, and to talk
to their men or themselves. The sea had not lost its romance. Men could
remember Kidd and Blackbeard. In the low-lying dens below Dock Creek and
on King street, were many, it is to be feared, who had seen the black
flag flying, and who knew too well the keys and shoals of the West
Indies. The captain who put to sea with such sailors had need to be
resolute and ready. Ships went armed, and I was amazed to see, in the
holds of our own ships, carronades, which out on the ocean were hoisted
up and set in place on deck; also cutlasses and muskets in the cabin,
and good store of pikes. I ventured once to ask my father if this were
consistent with non-resistance. He replied that pirates were like to
wild beasts, and that I had better attend to my business; after which I
said no more, having food for thought.
These captains got thus a noble training, were splendid seamen, and not
unused to arms and danger, as proved fortunate in days to come. Once I
would have gone to the Madeiras with Captain Biddle, but unluckily my
mother prevailed with my father to forbid it. It had been better for me
had it been decided otherwise, because I was fast getting an education
which did me no good.
“Indeed,” says Jack later on in his diary, “I was much troubled in those
seventies” (he means up to ‘74, when we were full twenty-one) “about my
friend Hugh. The town was full of officers of all grades, who came and
went, and brought with them much licence and contempt for colonists
in general, and a silly way of parading their own sentiments on all
occasions. Gambling, hard drinking, and all manner of worse things
became common and more openly indulged in. Neither here nor in Boston
could young women walk about unattended, a new and strange thing in our
quiet town.
“Mistress Gainor’s house was full of these gentlemen, whom she
entertained with a freedom only equalled by that with which she spoke
her good Whig mind. The air was full of excitement. Business fell off,
and Hugh and I had ample leisure to do much as we liked.
“I must honestly declare that I deserve no praise for having escaped the
temptations which beset Hugh. I hated all excess, and suffered in body
if I drank or ate more than was wise. As regards worse things than
wine and cards, I think Miss Wynne was right when she described me as a
girl-boy; for the least rudeness or laxity of talk in women I disliked,
and as to the mere modesties of the person, I have always been like some
well-nurtured maid.
“Thus it was that when Hugh, encouraged by his aunt, fell into the
company of these loose, swaggering captains and cornets, I had either to
give up him, who was unable to resist them, or to share in their vicious
ways myself. It was my personal disgust at drunkenness or loose society
which saved me, not any moral or religious safeguards, although. I trust
I was not altogether without these helps. I have seen now and then that
to be refined in tastes and feelings is a great aid to a virtuous life.
Also I have known some who would have been drunkards but for their heads
and stomachs, which so behaved as to be good substitutes for conscience.
It is sometimes the body which saves the soul. Both of these helps I
had, but my dear Hugh had neither. He was a great, strong, masculine
fellow, and if I may seem to have said that he wanted refined feelings,
that is not so, and to him, who will never read these lines, and to
myself, I must apologise.”
I did come to see these pages, as you know. I think he meant, that
with the wine of youth and at times of other vintages, in my veins, the
strong paternal blood, which in my father only a true, if hard, religion
kept in order, was too much for me. If I state this awkwardly it is
because all excuses are awkward. Looking back, I wonder that I was not
worse, and that I did not go to the uttermost devil. I was vigorous, and
had the stomach of a temperate ox, and a head which made no complaints.
The morning after some mad revel I could rise at five, and go out in my
boat and overboard, and then home in a glow, with a fine appetite for
breakfast; and I was so big and tall that I was thought to be many years
older than I was.
I should have been less able unwatched to go down this easy descent, had
it not been for a train of circumstances which not only left me freer
than I ought to have been, but, in the matter of money, made it only too
possible for me to hold my own amid evil or lavish company. My aunt had
lived in London, and in a society which had all the charm of breeding,
and all the vices of a period more coarse than ours. She detested my
father’s notions, and if she meant to win me to her own she took an
ill way to do it. I was presented to the English officers, and freely
supplied with money, to which I had been quite unused, so long as
my father was the only source of supply. We were out late when I was
presumed to be at my Aunt Gainor’s; and to drink and bet, or to see a
race or cock-fight, or to pull off knockers, or to bother the ancient
watchmen, were now some of my most reputable amusements. I began to be
talked about as a bit of a rake, and my Aunt Gainor was not too greatly
displeased; she would hear of our exploits and say “Fie! fie!” and
then give me more guineas. Worse than all, my father was deep in his
business, lessening his ventures, and thus leaving me more time to sow
the seed of idleness. Everything, as I now see it, combined to make easy
for me the downward path. I went along it without the company of Jack
Warder, and so we drew apart; he would none of it.
When my father began to withdraw his capital my mother was highly
pleased, and more than once in my presence said to him: “Why, John, dost
thou strive for more and more money? Hast thou not enough? Let us
give up all this care and go to our great farm at Merion, and live as
peaceful as our cattle.” She did not reckon upon the force with which
the habits of a life bound my father to his business.
I remember that it was far on in April, 1773, when my Aunt Gainer
appeared one day in my father’s counting-house. Hers was a well-known
figure on King street, and even in the unpleasant region alongshore to
the south of Dock street. She would dismount, leave her horse to the
groom, and, with a heavily mounted, silver-topped whip in hand, and her
riding-petticoat gathered up, would march along, picking her way through
mud and filth. Here she contrived to find the queer china things she
desired, or in some mysterious way she secured cordials and such liquors
as no one else could get.
Once she took my mother with her, and loaded her with gods of the Orient
and fine China pongee silks.
“But, Hugh,” said the dear lady, “_il n’est pas possible de vous la
decrire. Mon Dieu!_ she can say terrible words, and I have seen a man
who ventured some rudeness to me--no, no, mon cher, nothing to anger
you; il avait peur de cette femme. He was afraid of her--her and her
whip. He was so alarmed that he let her have a great china mandarin
for a mere nothing. I think he was glad to see her well out of his low
tavern.”
“But the man,” I urged; “what did he say to thee, mother?”
“N’importe, mon fils. I did want the mandarin. He nodded this way--this
way. He wagged his head as a dog wags his tail, like Thomas Scattergood
in the Meeting. Comme ca.” She became that man in a moment, turning
up the edge of her silk shawl, and nodding solemnly. I screamed with
laughter. Ever since I was a child, despite my father’s dislikes, she
had taught me French, and when alone with me liked me to chatter in her
mother language. In fact, I learned it well.
On the occasion of which I began just now to speak, my Aunt Gainor
entered, with a graver face than common, and I rising to leave her with
my father, she put her whip across my breast as I turned, and said, “No;
I want you to hear what I have to say.”
“What is it, Gainor?”
“This business of the ship ‘Gaspee’ the Rhode Island men burned is
making trouble in the East. The chief justice of Rhode Island, Hopkins,
has refused to honour the order to arrest these Rhode-Islanders.”
“Pirates!” said my father.
“Pirates, if you like. We shall all be pirates before long.”
“Well, Gainor, is that all? It does not concern me.”
“No; I have letters from London which inform me that the Lord North is
but a puppet, and as the king pulls the wires he will dance to whatever
tune the king likes. He was a nice, amiable young fellow when I stayed
at his father’s, my Lord Guilford’s, and not without learning and
judgment. But for the Exchequer--a queer choice, I must say.”
“It is to be presumed that the king knows how to choose his ministers.
Thou knowest what I think, Gainor. We have but to obey those whom the
Lord has set over us. We are told to render unto Caesar the things which
are Caesar’s, and to go our ways in peace.”
“The question is, What are Caesar’s?” said my aunt. “Shall Caesar judge
always? I came to tell you that it is understood in London, although not
public, that it is meant to tax our tea. Now we do not buy; we smuggle
it from Holland; but if the India Company should get a drawback on tea,
we shall be forced to take it for its cheapness, even with the duty on
it of threepence a pound.”
“It were but a silly scheme, Gainor. I cannot credit it.”
“Who could, John? and yet it is to be tried, and all for a matter of a
few hundred pounds a year. It will be tried not now or soon, but next
fall when the tea-ships come from China.”
“And if it is to be as thou art informed, what of it?”
“A storm--a tempest in a teapot,” said she.
My father stood still, deep in thought. He had a profound respect for
the commercial sagacity of this clear-headed woman. Moreover, he was
sure, as usual, to be asked to act in Philadelphia as a consignee of the
India Company.
She seemed to see through her brother, as one sees through glass. “You
got into trouble when the stamps came.”
“What has that got to do with this?”
“And again when you would not sign the Non-importation Agreement in
‘68.”
“Well?”
“They will ask you to receive the tea.”
“And I will do it. How can I refuse? I should lose all their India
trade.”
“There will soon be no trade to lose. You are, as I know, drawing in
your capital. Go abroad. Wind up your affairs in England; do the same in
Holland. Use all your ships this summer. Go to Madeira from London. Buy
freely, and pay at once so as to save interest; it will rise fast. Come
home in the fall of ‘74 late. Hold the goods, and, above all, see that
in your absence no consignments be taken. Am I clear, John?”
I heard her with such amazement as was shared by my father. The boldness
and sagacity of the scheme impressed a man trained to skill in commerce,
and ever given to courageous ventures.
“You must sail in October or before; you will need a year. No less will
do.”
“Yes--yes.”
I saw from his look that he was captured. He walked to and fro, while
my Aunt Gainor switched the dust off her petticoat or looked out of the
window. At last she turned to me. “What think you of it, Hugh?”
“Mr. Wilson says we shall have war, aunt, and Mr. Attorney-General Chew
is of the same opinion. I heard them talking of it last night at thy
house. I think the king’s officers want a war.” I took refuge, shrewdly,
in the notions of my elders. I had no wiser thing to say. “I myself do
not know,” I added.
“How shouldst thou?” said my father, sharply,