THE LIFE E8THER DE BERDT, AFTERWARDS ESTHER REED, PENNSYLVANIA. PKIVATELY PKINTED PHILADELPHIA: C. SHEHMAN, PRINTER. 1853. E 30^ As T-\ '» • > A. '^^ . TO MY BROTHER, PROFESSOR HENRY REED, OF OUR COMMON ANCESTOR IS DEDICATED, AS A MARK OF AFFECTION THE MOST EARNEST AND SINCERE. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. 1747-1764. A Private Memoir — Ancestry — Protestant Refugees — Birth and Education — Religious Sentiment — Acquaintance with Joseph Reed — Americans in London, . . . .13 CHAPTER XL 1764-1767. Correspondence with Mr. Reed in England — His return to America in 1765 — Five Years' Love-letters — American Disturbances — Stephen Sayre and Arthur Lee — Charles Townshend's Revenue Bill, 28 CHAPTER III. 1765. Correspondence continued — Plans for Mr. Reed's Return to England — Commercial Difficulties — Mr. Reed's Illness, . 47 CHAPTER IV. 1765-1766. Correspondence continued — Repeal of the Stamp Act — 1^ VI CONTENTS. Rockingham Ministry — Mr. Reed's Letters from America — Debates in Parliament — Petition of the Stamp Act Congress — Mr. Pitt's Speech, 65 CHAPTER y. • 1766. Plans of Agency in England — Lord Dartmouth — Stephen Sayre's Letters — Charles Townshend and William Kelly — Letter to Lord Dartmouth — Visit to the House of Com- mons — Pitt, Townshend, Grenville and. Wedderburne — Correspondence — Richard Stockton — American Sine- cures, 80 CHAPTER YL 1766-1767. Correspondence continued — A Provincial Lawyer's Life — Doctor FrankUn — Boston Agency — Lord Shelburne — Mr. Reed, Deputy Secretary for New Jersey — Maurice Morgan — Duke of Grafton's " Mosaic" Administration, . 102 CHAPTER VII. 1768-1769. Mr. De Berdt Agent for Massachusetts — Mr. Reed's Let- ters — Lord Chesterfield — Sayre's Pamphlet — Mr. Reed's Visit to Boston — Death of his Father, . . . .119 CHAPTER VIII. 1769-1770. Mr. Reed sails for England — Commercial Difficulties and Death of Dennis De Berdt — Marriage and Return to America, 143 CONTENTS. VU CHAPTER IX. 1770-1771. Philadelphia Eighty Years Ago — Removal from New Jersey — Mrs. Reed's Letters to her Friends in England — Her Description of Colonial Life — Correspondence from America— Birth of her First Child, . . . .154 CHAPTER X. 1772. Correspondence continued — A Colonial Lawyer's Life — Galloway — Dickinson — Chew and Wain — Lord Dart- mouth's Reappointment as Secretary of State — Plans for returning to England, 169 CHAPTER XL 1774. Arrival of the Tea Ships — American Disturbances — Mrs. Reed's Letters on Public Affairs — The Boston Port and Quebec Bills — Letter from Hugh Baillie — Politics, . . 192 CHAPTER XII. 1775. Battle of Lexington — Burning of Charlestown — Richard Cary — Mr. Reed at Camp — Secretary to Washington — Mrs. Reed's Letters on Public Affairs — Letter from John Cox — American Independence, . . . . .211 CHAPTER XIII. 1776. Letter from London in 1775 — Mr. Reed's Reply — Inde- Vlll CONTENTS. pendence — Troops Raised — Governor Franklin — Mrs. Reed's Letters continued — Progress of Resistance, . 237 CHAPTER Xiy. 1776-1777. Campaign of 177G and Invasion of New Jersey — Letter from Camp — British Atrocities — George IIL and Lord North — Mrs. Reed's Letters to England and to Camp — Washington's Letter from Middlebrook, . . . 249 CHAPTER XV. 1777-1778-1779. Campaign of 1777-8 — Conduct of the Enemy — A Loyahst's Diary — Mrs, Reed at Norriton and Fleniington — Her Letters — Mr. Reed's Letter to Mr. De Berdt — The British Commissioners — Evacuation of Philadelphia — State of Politics — Mr. Reed elected President of Pennsylvania — Letter to Mr. De Berdt— Arnold— Fort Wilson Riot, . 276 CHAPTER XVI. 1780. Reed's Letter to Greene in February — Birth of Mrs. Reed's Youngest Son — March of the Philadelphia Troops to Trenton — Mrs. Reed's Letters — Philadelphia Contribu- tions — Lafayette — Correspondence with Washington — Mrs. Reed's Last Letters — Correspondence with Greene — Mrs. Reed's Illness and Death — Conclusion, . . . 301 INTRODUCTION. My motives in writing this volume are honestly stated in its first pages. It has been prepared (and this the critical reader will easily detect) at different times, and in the brief intervals of leisure which professional work allows. Its composition has been a source of enjoyment in contrast with the uni- formity of my daily labour ; and I can truly say that when the last page was written, I was very sorry that my literary recreation was at an end. It is not as easy to define my reasons for printing what was thus wTitten, especially as I have not adapted it in some respects to publication, having left it in the shape of a private memoir. But when my little enterprise was completed, it seemed as if I had worked in vain, were I to leave it in the fugi- X INTRODUCTION, tive and precarious form of manuscript. The pride of ancestry, in its practical and American sense, no one need disclaim — I certainly do not ; and as my mind dwells on these memorials of patriotism, and self- sacrifice, and heroic endurance, I feel, not that I or mine are better for having such ancestors, but that the consciousness of having had them, ought to make me and mine far better then we are. In studying, as I have faithfully, these records of the past, I am humbled in my own estimation, at the prevalent inferiority in real, practical, American spirit, of the times we live in, to those so recently gone by. This sort of pride of ancestry, I repeat, I do not dis- claim. It is at least an inoffensive and humanizing sentiment. A late anonymous writer has analysed the feeling in words better than any I can find. "Anything," says an unknown contributor to the Westminister Review, " in the way of beauty should be welcome in matters of opinion. To have lineage — to love and record the names and actions of those without whom ive could never have been, who moulded us, and made us what we are, and whom every one must know to have propagated influences into his being, which subtly but certainly act upon his whole conduct in the world — all this is implied in ancestry, and the love of it, and is natural and INTRODUCTION. XI good." This motive has tempted me to make per- manent this little memorial of those who are gone before me. I had other reasons. It is a contribution, or may hereafter so be regarded, to the historical literature of my native city and State. It records the acts of those who belonged to Philadelphia, and to Penn- sylvania, the communities where my whole life has been past, that have honoured and trusted me, and which, with a full appreciation of their faults, I love and honour. If Pennsylvania and Philadelphia had always been true to themselves, to the great and good men who live in their history, recent and re- mote, and had not too often wasted praise, and adu- lation, and honour, on those who had but little claim to either, far higher would have been the fame of the community where our lot is cast. My little effort is now made to take from what I must yet call, " the dark unfathomed caves" of her history, some gems of which we may be proud hereafter. Within fifty miles of the spot where these lines are written, there are more Revolutionary battle-fields than in half the Union beside, and the domestic narratives — one of which I now venture to print — of Pennsylvania homes, from the forks of the Ohio to the banks of Xll INTRODUCTION. the Delaware, contain illustrations of heroism and public virtue, which no State can surpass and few can equal. This local sentiment, as inoffensive as the other I have referred to, has also tempted me to this publication. My work, I wish it again to be understood, is meant for private circulation. William B. Reed. Philadelphia, August 15th, 1853, THE LIFE ESTHER DE BEEDT. CHAPTER I. 1747-1764. A Private Memoir — Ancestry — Protestant Refugees — Birth and Education — Religious Sentiment — Ac- quaintance with Joseph Reed — Americans in London. This Sketch of the Life of one, the tradition of whose gentle virtues is affectionately cherished by her descendants, is prepared for those only who have a personal interest in the subject. It is meant to be strictly a Private Memoir, This ought to be distinctly borne in mind, should it hereafter, with or without my agency, be published. I make this explanation of my original design the more clearly, from no undue modesty as to what I have under- taken, which may have a wider interest than I 2 14 ESTHER DEBERDT. imagine, but because the motives and object of every literary enterprise, great or small, ought to be ingenuously and unaffectedly stated : it is fair to all parties, — the writer as well as the reader. The privacy of a personal memoir has many privileges. It admits of hearty and unreserved praise. It authorizes reference to personal and familiar de- tails, suited only to the domestic circle, and revela- tions of private correspondence of no interest beyond the fireside for which they are made. Such, then, is my object in an unpretending essay ; to entertain and interest my immediate family, and to give to my own, my brother's and sister's children, a memorial of an ancestor, of whose pure domestic character, — the best of fame, — they have reason to be proud.* I shall endeavor * As I write (February, 1847), my eye lights on a passage in the December number of the Quarterly Review, which, for fear it may escape me, I here copy. " The high and holy duties assigned to women, by the decrees of Providence, are essentially of a secret and retiring nature. It is in the privacy of the closet, that the soft, yet sterling wisdom of the Christian Mother, stamps those impressions on the youthful heart, which, though often defaced, are seldom wholly obliterated. Whatever tends to withdraw her from these sacred offices, or even abate their full force and efficacy, is high treason against the hopes of a nation." ESTHER DEBERDT. 15 to write it simply and un ambitiously : for such a narrative ought to be, in the best sense of the word, "homely." It describes the career of an English girl, maturing into an American patriot woman, — a heroic and affectionate wife, proud of her hus- band's honest ambition, and in the end the victim of early death, accelerated by privations and sor- rows, such as civil war so fruitfully produces. This, it will be seen, was the life and death of Es- ther De Berdt. There is no difficulty in tracing the origin of the De Berdt family. They were French Flemings, who in the middle of the 16th century found refuge in Great Britain. They came from Ypres, and settled first at Colchester. De Berdt is very Gal- ilean, and the Christian name, which in later gene- rations has been Hibernicised into "Dennis," was originally written in the family " Denys." Happy was it for the lands whither they came, that these fugitives left their native country. I am of course unable accurately to trace the transfusion in Eng- land, though I have no doubt its effect there is clearly discernible ; but in America, no stream of immigration has been purer and more beneficent than that which had its source in France, and espe- cially in Protestant France. Even at this day, it 16 ESTHER DEBERDT. is most curious and agreeable to observe the effect of translation on the individual Frenchman ; for while the masses, even under the fostering care of an indulgent monarchy, as in Canada, remain un- improved and unimproving, the French emigrant who comes to this country becomes at once a con- tented, exemplary, and prosperous American citi- zen. There is no better stock than that of the French and Flemish Protestants, whom the bigotry of Philip the Second in one century, and of Louis XIV. in the next, drove from their homes and places of reformed worship.* It is that of the Hugers, the Petigrus, the Desaussures, the Gour- dins, of our country ; of the Romillys, the Barr^s, * In 1845, I saw, amidst all the splendors of Versailles, the little confessional where, it is said, Letellier persuaded Louis XIV. to revoke the Edict of Nantes, and drive his best subjects into exile. Now as I write (April, 1848), Versailles is national property, and the last of the Bourbons has followed in the steps of the Huguenots, though with small claim to sympathy. In a note to Lady Hervey's Letters, edited I believe by Mr. Croker, I find the following fact stated: "In 1744, about 400 of the principal merchants in London presented a spirited Address to the King on this occasion — a threatened French invasion, in behalf of the Pretender; — but in looking over the names, it seems very remark- able, that full one-half were foreign : no doubt principally those of Protestant refugees." (Hervey's Letters, 1821, p. 48.) ^ ESTHERDEBERDT. 17 the De Berdts, of England. From this stock of Continental Protestantism, came Denys or Dennis De Berdt, of the city of London, who at the time of his daughter's birth was a merchant largely en- gaged in what was then known as the American trade, and evidently, from the trusts reposed in him, and the tenor of such correspondence as has been preserved, a man of high character and social position. He was, during the American troubles, on terms of friendly and confidential intercourse with several members of the Government, especially with Lord Shelburne and Lord Dartmouth ; and for a long series of years, in fact till his infirmities disabled him, represented the Colonies of Massa- chusetts and Delaware, the last then known as " The Three Lower Counties." These agencies, some details of which may hereafter be noticed, were posts of high responsibility. Mr. Burke and Doctor Franklin, as is well known, at difi*erent times were colonial agents. No one discharged his duties more faithfully and satisfactorily than Mr. De Berdt. His picture, in commemoration of the gratitude of Massachusetts, now hangs in the State House at Boston ; and a piece of silver plate, in the posses- sion of his descendants in England, attests the feel- 2* 18 ESTHER DEBERDT. ins: of another of his constituencies. It bears the following inscription : To DENNIS DE BERDT, ESQUIRE, In grateful memory of his faithful services exerted successfully in obtaining the repeal of the American Stamp Act, This Plate is presented, by the Honble. House of Assembly, of the Lower Counties on Delaware, A. D. 1766.* These matters are here alluded to rather in anti- cipation of the regular narrative of his daughter's life. Esther De Berdt was born in or near London, on the 11th of October, 1747 (0. S.) Of her charac- ter as a child and her early education, nothing is known. It is fair to infer, from her handwriting, which is ladylike and graceful, — her orthography, which, unlike that of many greater people of her times, was very correct, — and above all, from the * This piece of plate is in the possession of Mr. D. De Berdt Hovell, Lower Clapton, Middlesex. The Delaware records were destroyed during the Revolutionary War, and I have been unable to learn more of this testimonial than is indicated in the inscrip- tion, and in a letter from Miss De Berdt of 12th September, 1766. ESTHER DEBERDT. 19 general style of her correspondence, that her edu- cation, according to the standard — not very high, I admit, — of the times, was complete. It was that which the daughter of an English merchant of inde- pendent means had a right to, — one who kept his coach, and, besides his town house in Artillery Court, had his country residence at Enfield, a vil- lage not far distant from London, and which is not yet absorbed by the vast Metropolis. In all Miss De Berdt's letters, and they are numerous enough to authorize an inference, with none of the bril- liancy which marks the feminine style of our day, there was a precision and clearness of language, — sometimes formal, and always inartificial, — which showed that the writer had read and been impressed by good models of English writing. The Spectators and Tatlers and Guardians were still current lite- rature, not more remote than are Scott's Novels to the young ladies of 1848 ; and the Idler and Ram- bler, Thomson's Seasons, Hervey's Meditations, and Young's Night Thoughts, were the new books of the day. These letters of Miss De Berdt's will here- after speak for themselves. . One element of her youthful character must be noticed. I mean her active, almost puritanical (this word, also, I use in its best and highest sense), reli- 20 ESTHER DEBERDT. gious feeling. Miss De Berdt's family, especially her father and mother, were earnestly pious. They were Dissenters, but of what precise shade of dis- sent, I have no means of ascertaining. Her girl- hood was passed at a peculiar period of religious history, when the formalism of the Church of Eng- land had reached its extremest point — the days of hard-swearing, grace-saying. Church and State Squires, and fox-hunting Parsons — when enthu- siastic religion, no longer persecuted but despised, lighted and watched its fires in humble dissenting chapels — the day when Wesley and Whitfield, with one of whom the De Berdts seem to have had some acquaintance, broke away from an establishment they had in vain sought to animate, or rather when the Church, by an error her wisest men have de- plored ever since, allowed men of so wonderful energy and ability, to raise another alien banner, and rally round it the humble and the poor. It is, it seems to me, the worst and most unjust of follies, for us who live in days of comparative religious moderation and tranquillity, to judge harshly of the dissenting exorbitance of a century ago. Its enthu- siasm was a living element, when animation was sorely needed. It was the necessary stimulant, at a moment of imminent collapse. The dissenting ESTHER DEBEKDT. 21 Evangelism of 1750, like the Puritanism of a cen- tury before, did its work, and most important work, in its own good time. It is not a thing of or for our times, and no one now wishes to revive it, any more than we do to restore Puritan garments, or Puritan nomenclature. But let us write kindly the epitaph of sincere extravagance.* The active religion of the day, it seems to me, was with the Dissenters, or with the secluded and subordinate ecclesiastics of the English Church, — the curates and vicars, who mourned over the * I have authority for these opinions. Lord Mahon says (His- tory, vol. ii. p. 391), " An hundred years ago the churchman was slack in his duties, and slumbered at his post. It was the voice of an enthusiast that roused the sleeper." And Archdeacon Hare (Sermons, p. 337) still more earnestly. Speaking of Baxter and the Puritan clergy of 1640, he says, "These pious men were driven from their pulpits ; many of them had. to endure cruel persecution. In a later age, when a spirit of literary and worldly lukewarmness had almost benumbed our theology, and when John Wesley lifted up his voice to admonish us that the temple of the Lord is an empty shell unless the Spirit of the Lord be dwelling in it, how easily might that large body of men who afterwards sepeded from our Church, and in whom, if there was no little ex- travagance, there was also much fervor of faith, have been kept within our walls by judicious kindness ; instead of which they were treated with overbearing scorn, and pains were taken to irri- tate them against us." 22 ESTHER DEBERDT. lapses and indliference of those in high places. In this atmosphere of ardent and unaffected piety, Esther De Berdt began her life. She no doubt breathed it with the ready susceptibility of a woman's heart, with the very chords of which, young or old, religion in some form naturally entwines itself. She saw in her aged parents, for she was the child of their old age, the efficacy of religion in guiding con- duct. She loved them, and not the less dearly be- cause they were sincerely, unostentatiously religious. Yet, withal, there seems to have been no tinge of exclusiveness, or harsh intolerance, but a gentle, diffident, devotional spirit, that is inexpressibly at- tractive. This estimate of her religious feelings, a careful and minute examination of the correspond- ence in my hands enables me to make. Among other original papers, is a small manuscript volume, without date, signed by her unmarried name, *' Es- ther De Berdt," containing her private, maiden prayers or meditations, traced in her peculiar and delicate penmanship, and animated with the senti- ment of active and gentle piety to which I have al- luded, and which from first to last, as a girl and woman, in the trials of separation from the lover of her youth, at the grave of her little children, in the horrors of a civil war, when driven from home to ESTHER DEBERDT. 28 distant and uncertain refuge, and agonized at her husband's danger, and on her own bed of lingering disease and death, was the predominant sentiment of her heart. This memorial, slight as it is, refers to a later period of her life, and is only incidentally alluded to now as giving some glimpses of her habits of early thought and conduct. It appears from this, as well as by allusions scattered through the corre- spondence, that Miss De Berdt's health was preca- rious : "God," she says, "has been pleased to afflict me with a feeble, disordered body," — and the only picture taken from life that we have, a family group, represents her as slight in frame, with light hair, and fair complexion, and an air of sprightly intelligence and refinement. Her reading seems to have been of a serious cast, — Hervey, Watts, Shenstone, and Young, at the height of their pecu- liar and transitory fame, are the authors she cites by name. Her amusements and occupations were of a kindred and sober description. The theatre, — then far more attractive than ever since, Gar- rick being in the flush of his wonderful celebrity, and the dramatic talent of the day at work to give scope to his varied genius, — seems to have been prohibited by the discipline of Artillery Court, and 24 ESTHER DEBERDT. the recreations to "which we find allusions in the correspondence, are bright and cheerful rural ex- cursions to Cliveden and Hampton Court, and Wind- sor Park, which are described or alluded to as the moderate pleasures with which she was content. Thus passed her joyous and gentle girlhood. I now come to that, which in her's as in every woman's life, was its great and controlling incident ; that which determines destiny and influences for weal or woe what remains when parental guidance and protection end, — love for the husband of her willing choice, and father of her children. At the end of 1763, or beginning of 1764, Miss De Berdt made the acquaintance, probably through her father's business relations with America, of Joseph Reed, then a student of law in the Temple, — not, let me say, of that description of boyish stu- dents that we know of in American law offices, but one who, having finished his course and been ad- mitted to practice at home, had gone abroad, as was then the fashion, to gain professional accomplish- ments in the mother country. Mr. Reed and his American companions seem to have been domesti- cated at Enfield, and in Artillery Court. Doctor John Morgan, the founder of the American Medical Schools, Mr. Samuel Powell, Stephen Sayre, Richard ESTHER DEBERDT. 25 Stockton, a signer of the Declaration of Indepen- dence, and Arthur Lee, formed the circle of Ameri- can companionship, of which it is very manifest the heroine of my narrative was the attractive centre. Here Mr. Reed sought and won her, not from her home and parents, but under their roof, and with their passive acquiescence ; won her to a new rela- tion, which, as will be seen, when distress and ruin came, was to be the means of making her the mis- tress of a new and happy home, and of solacing the desolate old age of a widowed mother. Mr. De Berdt peremptorily refused his consent to a connexion which would necessarily, on one side or the other, lead to painful separations. There are few English parents, even now, who would cheerfully resign an only daughter to an American lover, and one may easily conceive the extravagance of the pretension in days of colonial dependence and sub- jection.* Even youthful passion, in its fresh disap- * Mr. Reed's letter of proposal is dated in Sei)tember, 1764, and I find in the Gentleman's Magazine for April of that year, under the head of " American News," the following startling item : " The accounts we have received of the massacre of the Indians in Pennsylvania, appear by a private letter from thence, to be not enough explained. If entire credit may be given to -this letter, 3 26 ESTHER DEBERDT. pointment, could find nothing to blame in Mr. De Berdt's final decision, for such it was evidently sup- posed to be, and for a time it was submitted to, silently and hopelessly. But the young American had gained not only the daughter's afi*ections, but the esteem and regard of the parents, who, in their anxiety to alleviate his sorrows, seemed unable or unwilling to exclude him from familiar companion- ship. The natural result occurred. It seems the appeal to a mother's sympathies had not been inef- fectual, and the correspondence shows, that with a truly lover-like infidelity to all past protestations to the contrary, a secret engagement existed for seve- ral months, with all the romance, and some of the humiliating realities of such an intercourse. It was, however, too unsuitable to the honorable instincts of the spirit of resentment that was manifested on that occasion was not appeased by the death of the poor Indians, but threatens even the whole body of Quakers, their protectors, who not manifesting a zealous inclination to carry on the war against the savages, are become equally obnoxious to the frontier inhabitants as the Indians themselves, by whom they are daily massacred. The danger to which these people are exposed, from continual incursions of the savages, renders them desperate, and unless some means is con- trived for their security, it is feared they will attack the Metropo- lis, and shake the very foundations of the Philadelphia govern- ment, so firmly established in peace." ESTHER DE BE RDT. 27 all parties to be long persevered in, and, in a short time, a new appeal was made by a sorrowing daughter to a kind father's heart, and his consent reluctantly given to an engagement, on the express condition that Mr. Reed should, if his presence were tempo- rarily needed in America, return and live in Great Britain. How dimly and darkly was the future seen. CHAPTER 11. 1764-1767. Correspondence loitJi Mr. Reed in England — His return to America m 1765 — Fiveyears^ Love-letters — Ameri- can Disturhances — Stephen Sai/re and Arthur Lee — Charles Townshend's Revenue Bill. I SELECT the following portions of secret cor- respondence on tlie part of this young girl, as illus- trative of the struggle in a virtuous and unguarded mind, between the new affection that was taking root in her heart, and fidelity to other and sterner duties. They are, let it be recollected, the letters of a girl of eighteen, — simply, inartificially, natu- rally written. MISS DE BERDT TO MR. REED. Nov. 1, 1764. "This is the fourth time I have sat down to write to you ; three times I went no further than to write ESTHER DEBEKDT. 29 my letters half through. Once it was quite finished, folded up and directed, and now I think I am doing what is contrary to my father's will, and was he to know it, he would never forgive me. This has been one reason for my not giving you the former letters. Another reason is, I see it will lead you into difficulty ; that if at any time you mention you still have an expectation of having me, he will immediately say that you would not entertain such expectations, or even distant hopes, without some en- couragement from me. It must never be known that I ever gave you such encouragement, by writ- ing a single line ; so that I believe not only my pa- rents, but every prudent person would say I'm now acting a wrong part. Besides, in spite of all my wishes, I see so many almost insurmountable diffi- culties, that my conduct seems more and more to blame, for as to my going to America, it cannot he. It would bring down the gray hairs of my dear and affectionate parents with sorrow to the grave. In- deed, it would be more than I could bear to leave them. You by several hints seem to mean that you could not live in England ; you told my father that the trade in the law never was so dull as it is now : these things all tend to sink my hopes. Therefore, my dear sir, don't wonder at my not writing ; but 80 ESTHER DEBERDT. you did misinterpret my meaning when I asked you on Friday what brought you to our house. I asked you because I wanted to know what excuse you had for coming to my father, and I am excessively sorry that it gave you uneasiness, for I am sure, did you know the motive, it would have given you pleasure. After all, I desire to follow the path of duty, and leave events to God ; and the only thing you can do is, to wait the designs of an all-wise Providence, which, I doubt not, one day will make you happy ; but I do not desire, and believe you do not, to have my chief happiness fixed on any creatures. To hear of your happiness will always give me pleasure, but more, if I ever have it in my power to share it. Your sincere friend, E. D. B. Saturday night, or rather, Sunday morning. As if distrustful of the chilling effect on her lover of the devotional sentiment at the close of this letter, she adds a postscript of a much more earth- ly tone. P. S. Mamma being gone out, gives me a quarter of an hour that I can call my own. I devote it to you, to tell you that not having an opportunity yester- ESTHER DEBERDT. 31 day to give you this letter, I add a little to it ; for now I've once begun to write, I may as well write a long letter as not, and so tell you the reason of my refusing your letter. Indeed, it was mamma being so nigh, and she turns round so quick some- times, that there's no doing anything for her. I was vexed afterwards, as I saw it gave you uneasi- ness, but as I had a fine flow of spirits in the eve- ning, and did not endeavor to curb them, I think you must guess at the reason, for I would not wil- lingly do anything that should give pain to a gene- rous breast. I don't know whether I should have wrote so soon if I had anybody I could speak to, but I neither can speak nor can I hear anything that is quite to my mind, for Captain Macpherson is never (here) but when my father or mother is in the way. You see there is self still which appears in every action of our lives ; but I am fully per- suaded, did the Captain know what would tend to my happiness, or give me the least pleasure, he would do it. I should be the worst of persons did I not retain a most grateful sense of the favors he has done. I am called away. Monday morning. It seems from the next letter, as if a lover's im- 32 ESTHER DEBERDT. portunities had somewhat softened the resolution "never to go to America." She at least doubts. MISS DE BERDT TO MR. REED. Dec. 8th, 1764. Your surmise of my looking dull last 'Monday night was founded on truth, for really your letter on Sunday has given me the most sensible pain I have felt since you first wrote to my father, and though I endeavored to hide it, yet I found mamma took notice of it. The Captain asked me what was the matter, and my mind is anxious still, for my spirits flag insensibly when I think about going to America. My flattering hopes had raised me so high as to think you could find some way to make yourself happy in England. Indeed, you must try to find some other plan ; for though my father's life is particularly uncertain, yet, I don't think it im- probable that he should live long enough to see my brother apply to and be capable of carrying on a business which he has been all his life getting toge- ther for that end ; now do you think it unlikely ? Indeed I always thought that you intended staying here. Sure I did not raise my hopes without any foundation, for if at any time I perceived a hint ESTHEKDEBERDT. 33 that looked otherwise, I imagined it was only what you should like, not what you intended ; but may- be, had it not been for my wishing it so ardently in some measure blinded me, I should have taken more notice of those distant hints you sometimes dropped. I am afraid you will blame me in this respect, and still I hope you w^ill impute it to the true cause, and then you'll rather pity me. But, my dear sir, is it impossible that you should stay here ? To speak the truth, I dread an answer. Sure, Providence will point out some way to hinder the painful task of breaking the tie of friendship, so firm, so sincere as ours ; — but why do I say friendship, for I believe that will ever last, though time should force us to swear off our love. 'Tis yours to know every sen- timent of my mind. I've no other friend to whom I can do it with more pleasure and satisfaction, and my heart is so full of anxiety, that it must vent itself somewhere, and to whom can I do it better than into a bosom that entertains so honorable a love? But you will think I say too much. I cannot help sometimes thinking that the Cap- tain is right in his apprehensions of my father's secret thoughts in your favor ; but then again a word is said which sinks my spirits. Still, I don't think they are entirely groundless, and though I can't form 34 ESTHER DEBERDT. the least idea what they are, yet I'm sure what they are not. I am sure it is not for me to go to Ame- rica. I don't think you expect it is ; but I have heard him say of you more than I ever heard (him) say of any other gentleman. "I love the man," was his expression, and I can assure you that's a great deal for him. I should be very glad of half an hour's conversa- tion with you, but am entirely at a loss to contrive it. I should be glad to know what way you think of, and I own, giving you pleasure will have a great in- fluence over me, yet I won't promise that self shall have nothing to do with it. I was vastly dull last Wednesday before I came to Mr. Martin's, but whoever it was (you must guess) that was there, I found my spirits rise insensibly before I came away. I am sure Denny meant nothing when he said you used him ill. It was entirely a joke ; indeed he gives me a vast deal of uneasiness, and I'm sure you'll do much better not to go with him to plays, and he will like you the better when he comes to con- sider, for he ought to obey his papa in such trifles as that. I wish he was not so fond of the diver- sions at that end of the town. But you know the worst of him, for if I can be a judge of him, he (does not) appear best when you first see him, but ESTHER DEBERDT. 35 when you know him as thoroughly as I do, he will improve on you, I hope. Mr. Powell drank tea here on Tuesday, and he gave me some very broad hints about you. I can't think how he got a no- tion about it. I am almost afraid my countenance betrayed what at present I would wish to have hid. If Providence has designed us for one another, may it kindly follow you, and constantly pour the great- est blessings it has to bestow on you : this will ever be the warmest wish of your most sincere and affec- tionate friend.* E. D. B. Tuesday morning. One other extract — a lady's postscript, however, * The young brother whose playhouse vagaries in the West End gave Miss De Berdt so much uneasiness, was Dennis De Berdt (the younger), afterwards a merchant in London, who died at an advanced age in or about the year 1820. Mr. Powell was Samuel Powell, of Philadelphia, an eminent merchant and mayor of the city, who died in 1793. On the day but one after the date of Miss De Berdt's letter, is the following in the Historical Chro- nicle of the Gentleman's Magazine for December, 1764; "Dr. Ben- jamin Franklin, known throughout Europe for his ingenious ex- periments in electricity, arrived in town from Philadelphia, in consequence of an appointment from the General Assembly of that province, to assist in transacting their important business for the ensuing year." 36 ESTHER DE BERDT. from a later letter, is all of this part of the corre- spondence that I shall venture on. It obviously relates to Mr. Reed's return to America, then near at hand. " I had no opportunity to give you this on Sun- day, but I am uneasy. What made you so dull ? There seemed as if there was something that laid with particular weight on your spirits (Monday morning). Since I received your last letter, I ima- gine what made you so dull, but I dare say this will remove it. I am sometimes almost angry with my eyes, that they say so much; but why should I, since they only speak the language of my heart ? In the former part of this letter, where I mention your settling in England, I don't mean immediately, for I am convinced of the necessity of your going to America. I do believe you are in love, for in your last letter you wrote Tuesday instead of Mon- day evening. I am quite ashamed of this letter, it is wrote so shockingly ; but if I wait till I have an opportunity to sit down and write slowly and cor- rectly, you would have reason to think I had quite forgot you." Happy was it, no doubt the lover thought, and ESTHER DEBERDT. 37 the reader even at this day will think so too, that the charming simplicity of natural letters like these was not spoiled by elaboration. A studied love- letter from man or woman is a very poor affair in- deed. On or about the 7th of February, 1765, the lover's farewell was said, and Mr. Reed sailed for America. In one respect only were the sorrows of separation alleviated, — Miss De Berdt's parents had consented to the engagement, and sanctioned their correspon- dence. In every other, the prospect was terribly unpropitious. Mr. Reed was returning to a scene of labor and anxious responsibility, — to meet and perform duties which required great and undivided energy. Misfortune was clouding the evening of his aged father's day, and infirmity had made sad inroad on a mind, which in its prime had been of great activity, and whose best resources and truest capacity had been devoted to the education of the son who was now to sustain and protect him in his decline. A large and helpless family was thus thrown for support on the young man ; and nobly did he meet the responsibility — without mur- mur and complaint, and this too when his hopes and affections were, as we have seen, diverted elsewhere. It was his reward, at this period of gloomy and 38 ESTHER DEBERDT. dispiriting labor and anxiety, to be steadily cheered and sustained by the unfaltering fidelity of the young English girl, who at a distance watched his destiny. He had left England with every hope that his ab- sence would not be long, and that, extricating him- self from the ties which bound him to America, he should soon be enabled to return and live in the mother country. It was five years before his hope was realized, and then only to take his bride to her new and distant home in these wild Colonies. The correspondence of this long interval is now before me, — five years' love-letters ; and the doubt has not been trivial, how far, even at this remote period, when the grave has closed over the writers and the generation that succeeded them, it is right to violate the perfect and almost holy confidence in which they were written. There is an instinct that rather murmurs against it, and yet, when I read them — as I have again and again, singularly pre- served as they are, for more than eighty years, and see the illustration especially of feminine character they afford, how in the simple garb of natural rhe- toric, the pure sentiments of a woman's heart ap- pear, — how true, how gentle, how intelligent she was — how ardently and trustfully she loved, — filial pride in such an ancestor is irrepressible, and I yield ESTHER DE BERDT. 39 to the temptation for the sake of those who share this pure inheritance (and for none others do I write) of letting them be seen and read.* The selections will be confined almost exclu- sively to one side of the correspondence, I mean to Miss De Berdt's letters, and this for obvious rea- sons. Mr. Reed's life and character have been else- where illustrated, though less in his private and familiar relations than I wished. But besides, I have no hesitation in saying that his letters are far less interesting — less worthy of preservation than Miss De Berdt's. The passionate letters of a re- pining lover are fit for but one eye ; whilst the restraint which natural shyness and delicacy impose on a female's pen renders what she writes always graceful and attractive. It is very apparent in this correspondence. There are, however, not a few of Mr. Reed's letters marked by the precision and * The preservation of these letters, not one in the series being lost or mutilated, in this careless and manuscript-destroying age, has always seemed to me rather curious. It has strangely re- called more than once Cobbett's striking remark, quoted in Arch- deacon Hare's Guesses at Truth, p. 268 : " As your pen moves, bear constantly in mind that it is making strokes that are to remain for ever." The number of letters which are preserved is one hundred and eighty- three. 40 ESTHER DEBERDT. grace of style which distinguished what he wrote at a later period of life, the letters during the Revolu- tionary war to his wife and to his military and other friends, and which have been published in his Me- moirs. Even when as a lover he wrote to Miss De Berdt on practical matters of mutual concern, his letters are good specimens of direct and manly epistolary style. One other word of preliminary explanation is not inappropriate here. There will be found in this correspondence, incidental allusions to matters of public interest, which the reader who is familiar with this epoch of colonial history, will readily under- stand. It was just the period when the mistaken judgment of an honest but most misguided states- man, working in accidental unison with the perverse temper of an intractable political bigot, for such in every lineament was George III., young and old,* began that career of folly which drove America to separation. It was the interval in which occurred the enactment of the Stamp Act — the fall of Mr. * A friend to whom I happened to express this opinion of George III., has protested against it as peculiarly harsh and unjust. I have given it full consideration, and cannot retract it. All his- tory, and especially our history, sustains it. Paine was not far wrong when he called him the " Pharaoh of his times." ESTHER DE BE RDT. 41 Grenville's Ministry, after it had done all its work of mischief, on the pebble-stone impediment of the Regency* — the short triumph of Lord Rockingham's party, and the final catastrophe of Charles Towns- hend's Revenue Bill of 1767. Mr. De Berdt's com- mercial relations to America have been already alluded to. In 1765, his ofiicial connexion began, he being successively appointed agent for Delaware and Massachusetts. His post under the latter was an arduous one ; his constituency having most ground of complaint, and being least disposed to suppress it ; and the correspondence w^hich has survived it is in every way creditable to his good sense, integrity, and active sympathy with his transatlantic clients. Thus it was that from a father's precept and ex- * In LordJohn Russell's Introduction to vol. iii.of the Correspon- dence of the Duke of Bedford, he says, speaking of the Regency squabble which broke up George Grenville's administration: " Such vi^ere the causes w^hich shook to its foundation a Ministry which had, unopposed and almost unperceived, carried resolutions for imposing stamp duties on America. The impolicy of a measure which made the first breach between Great Britain and her North American Provinces, sowed the seeds of civil war, and dismem- bered the empire, failed to attract attention, and in no way weak- ened the administration ; but their want of regard to the Princess Dowager, and of liberality to the King, in a matter affecting his private comfort, destroyed their power. Such were the fruits of the Bute system." 4* 42 ESTHER DEBERDT. ample, and in her very household, Miss De Berdt learned lessons which fitted her unconsciously for the duties and cares of an American wife. All the Americans at that ,time in London, excepting per- haps Dr. Franklin, whose name rarely occurs in the correspondence, were in the hahit of visiting fa- miliarly at Mr. De Berdt's house. Two of these who have been already mentioned, were individuals of peculiar and widely difi*erent careers and charac- ters — Stephen Sayre and Arthur Lee. Sayre had come to England with Mr. Reed, having been his classmate at Princeton College, and having evi- dently, as a young man, conciliated his affectionate regard. He was, however, a volatile, untrustworthy adventurer, of extremely plausible address and at- tractive manners. Having become in 1765 or 1766 a partner in Mr. De Berdt's house, and thus gained some sort of position in London, he plunged into the vortex of politics and pleasure, — was on terms of intimacy with Wilkes and Charles Townshend, — wrote familiarly though deferentially to Lord Chat- ham, — dexterously praised his speeches to Lady Hester, — was elected sheriff of London, — contri- buted by his rash levity to the downfall of Mr. De Berdt's commercial credit — was committed to the Tower, and became a martyr of the minute on an ESTHEKDEBERDT. 43 absurd charge of high treason preferred by a felloAv- countrjraan, — and at last wore out the residue of a long and fruitless life in schemes of impotent and discreditable intrigues in England, on the Conti- nent, and at home in America.* Arthur Lee was a person of a very different stamp. He was an ardent and an able man, though with grave defects of character, of which not the least was a morbid habit of jealous suspicion and disparagement, that continually clouded his public conduct. Although born in America, he was from childhood reared in Great Britain, having first been an Eton boy, and then an Edinburgh medical stu- dent. In 1766 he began the study of the law in London. Then it* was that he became intimate in Mr. De Berdt's family, and then too his activity in British American politics began, with the details of which every American student is, or ought to be, familiar. The opposition Peers patronised, and Junius grimly smiled on the young Virginian pam- * For a more minute account of Sayre's strange career, the reader is referred to Reed's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 27. His arrest on a charge of high treason, in a plan to seize the King at noonday on his way to Parliament, is a grotesque incident in the history of dwarfish times. His accuser was a certain Ensign Richardson, a Philadelphian, whose story is told in Graydon's Memoirs, 44 ESTHER DEBERDT. phleteer. His brother William was Sayre's col- league in 1774 in the London Shrievalty, the strange spectacle being exhibited, on the edge of the Revo- lution, of two Americans, Lee, a Virginian, and Sayre, a New Yorker, holding this high municipal office in the metropolis. Of Mr. De Berdt, Arthur Lee has recorded a very high and kind opinion : "He is an upright, spirited, and independent old man, and therefore most obnoxious to Lord Hills- borough, who has made some mean attempts to in- jure him."* With Miss De Berdt Lee corresponded * Letter to Richard Henry Lee, 9th November, 1769. Life of Lee, vol. i. p. 194. In Dr. Franklin's pamphlet of 1774, on the Proceedings in Massachusetts, he says : " Mr. De Berdt was ap- pointed by the House only 7th November, 1765; he was admitted without the least question as agent by the Board of Trade, under different administrations, and Governor Bernard gave his assent to a bill for paying his salary so late as the year 1768. It hap- pened to be the duty of the agent, soon after, to convey the com- plaints of his constituents to the throne, both against the Minister and the Governor. In this business, a faithful, honest agent was found exceedingly troublesome. Such representations were there- fore made by the Governor, and such instructions sent by the Minister, as incapacitated the House from paying their agent, unless they would have one approved of by the very persons against whom it might be his duty to act. This measure needs no com- ment. It is not in human depravity to devise an act of more gross injustice than that'f)f debarring men of the means of defend- ESTHER DE BERDT. 45 on terms of great friendliness ; and there is now be- fore me a letter to her, very characteristic of the florid sentimentalism of the times, which thus con- cludes : " Mrs. De Berdt, I suppose, gives you a profusion of politics ; but I must say something. Well then, tell Miss Edmonds that Sir George Saville is a prince of men ; he has called the House of Commons a set of scoundrels, for which he deserves to have his statue in gold. The Marquis will probably soon come in power, for the present ministry are tottering, and the leaders of the minority have united cordially together. So that Rockingham, Grenville, and Shclburne, must soon be in the Court Calendar. — Farewell ; commend me cordially to the best graces of the ladies of Belmont Row ; and lay me in the next chamber of your heart to that which Mr. Reed inhabits ; for I am most sincerely. Miss De Berdt's Humble servant, Arthur Lee. Tuesday. ing themselves wlicn accused, or of complaining when injured."' (4 Sparks, 504.) In a letter to his brother-in-law, in July, 1770, Mr. Reed says, " Lord Hillslx»rough has even descended to abu- sive language to Mr. De Berdt, and hates his very name." 46 ESTHER DEBERDT. With these rapid preliminary explanations, I now return to the course of my narrative, and to Miss De Berdt's intercourse with her distant lover. Mr. Reed, as I have said, sailed from England in the early part of February, 1765, writing letters of affectionate farewell, successively from the Downs, Falmouth, and the Isle of Wight ; while Miss De Berdt, whose health had become seriously affected, in company with her mother, went to Bath, then, and I presume yet, a place of fashionable resort. I shall copy but one watering-place letter — the first she wrote after her lover's departure. CHAPTER III. 1765. Corresipondence continued — Plans for Mr. Reed's return to England — Commercial Difficulties — Mr. Heed's Illness. MISS DE BERDT TO MR. REED. Bath, March 16, 1765. Your setting out for America was attended with so many hindrances, that I question whether this letter will not just come at the same time with you. I hope it will welcome your safe arrival, and happy meeting with your friends, and that you will find everything better than we had reason to fear. If not, may you bear it with resignation to the will of Providence, and always remember that there is one who partakes, and by that means wishes to divide every misfortune that may happen to you. I am much obliged to you for your letters; that from Cowes was quite unexpected, for I had given up the 48 ESTHER DEBERDT. tliouglits of hearing from you before July; and though I could not help being sorry you were de- tained so long, I felt a pleasing satisfaction at hear- ing you were still at so small a distance : but now, that thought I cannot entertain any longer, and I wish you may soon set your feet again on your na- tive shore. Here is nothing but diversion and gaiety, but a great many things are wanting to make me entirely happy — the two great things are, the company of three more of my much-loved friends, and the es- tablishment of my health. You desire me to be particular about it, or else I should have passed it over, till I could have given you a more favor- able account of it. We have been here a week, and I have not drunk the waters before to-day, for I have had a bad cough and cold, which has kept me at home, that I have not been at one of the public places, but I have everything to hope. I go to- night into the bath for the first time, and (my) next letter will, I hope, tell you that I am getting quite well. Mr. Powell is here ; he behaves with much complaisance, but nothing more When I compare my situation at present, and what it was some months ago, when I had almost taken a reso- lution to desire you would not come to our house ESTHER DE BEllDT. 49 any more, I think myself happy. What would have been the consequence of such a resolution, I know not. But now all such thoughts as seemed to de- prive us of the hopes of happiness, are dislodged, and this, I hope, is only the rough part of the road which leads to pleasure. Mr. Wykoff is here, and they talk of his going to be married, but I don't think there is much in it. Mr. Powell goes for my humble servant at Bath ; maybe, you Avill hear this in A^merica ; things do get about strangely. I imagine my father will write by this ship. Pray give my compliments to Captain Macpherson, and mamma's. I intend to show you that I think of you sometimes, for I am going to work you a pair of ruffles ; there- fore don't expect them till you see them, for I be- lieve they will be a good while about. We hear every week from my father. His letters would be looked on as love-letters rather than from husband to wife. That's the happiness I think the greatest, that after twenty years living together, to find the same complaisance, the same warmth of affection as at first. This happens so seldom that it really would make me enter such a state with fear and trembling. Do you want to hear that I still love ? It's a truth which I am not ashamed to own, and at one time or another, to make it appear to all 5 50 ESTHER DEBEEDT. the world. Never doubt this till I send you word. Your sincere and affectionate friend, Esther De Berdt. Mr. Reed's first letter from America, where he arrived towards the end of April, brought the news of ruin and distress.* She thus receives it. MISS de berdt to MR. REED. Enfield, June 28th, 1765. Just as I was beginning to think the time long before I heard of you, I received your letter by the Packet. The pleasure I felt at hearing you was well and safe among your friends, balanced the pain I could not help feeling at the disagreeable news it brought. I own I was not surprised at it, as I was prepared. Indeed nobody was ; they all seemed to expect it ; and my good father, when he observed my uneasiness, in great measure removed it, by assuring me his regard was still the same for you, as I dare say you will find in his letters to you. All the con- cern I feel is for your family, and especially your good father. To think that he should be stripped * MS. letter to Miss De Berdt. Philadelphia, 25th April, 1765. ESTHER DEBERDT. 51 of his fortune when he most stands in need of it, of every convenience which affluence can procure, is terrible indeed ; but I cannot help being glad you are with him. I think it must be the greatest pleasure he now can receive. The pleasure I should have in your company would be abated at the thought that you was so much wanted at home. So you see I endeavor to lessen my misfortunes by con- sidering what good arises from them I hope you have dismissed from your bosom the thoughts of my forgetting you, and that those of a very diffe- rent kind take their place. I should be almost angry with you for entertaining such troublesome guests, if I did not see by the date of your last letter, that you had been a month landed and not received any from me, which I wonder at, as I expected the first would have been there as soon as you. But I hope that long before now, you have had the pleasure of seeing by my letters that absence has not had it in its power to sever hearts so sincerely united. I can't form the least notion what scheme it is that has been proposed to you, as I have not re- ceived your letter by Captain Davis. He arrived before the Packet or Budden, but only brought the news of the ship's being arrived. I am uneasy till I see them. What seems most likely is, that they 52 ESTHER DE BERDT. came too late for him, and if so they may come by the next York vessel. I puzzle myself to think some- times what it can be, though I'm sure it answers no end. I can only wish, that whatever it is, it may turn out to your advantage, and that the sovereign hand of unerring Providence may overrule it to our mutual happiness. Several of my father's letters from different people mention your vast success in business. It gives me the greatest pleasure to think, that amidst it all, the friends you have left behind have so much of your attention and regard. I am sure they participate your pleasures — at least I answer for myself. Everything has yet exceeded our expectations, and yours can't be raised too high concerning every part of our family's steadfastness in their esteem for you, but you will (maybe) won- der when I tell you that your expectations are too high of me. I am sure you will not find me that charming creature you expect. Love must have blinded you, or you would have seen faults that would make you love me less. May you be always blind ; but the least good quality I see myself pos- sessed of gives me double satisfaction, as I think one day it may add to your happiness. Miss Ed- monds and I correspond as frequently as usual. There is seldom a letter passes but you have a share ESTHER DEBERDT. 53 in it. Some circumstances made it necessary to tell them our connexion. Indeed it is no secret here, for most of my acquaintance tell me there is some- thing of the sort going on ; and several families have every part of the story so exact, that it is not in my power to contradict it : the only thing I can do is to turn it off as a joke. Not one of the Ameri- cans has the least notion of it. Mr. Wykoff is to return home soon. He has seriously inquired of Mr. Powell if he had ever spoken to me or my father ; he told him he had, to both, so that I imagine he thinks he can assert the truth of that report. How little do they know my heart. No ; once dedicated, it is not easily changed. I know you love long letters, and I think you won't find fault with me, for I never wrote such long ones be- fore ; but my pen don't seem willing to leave off when I once begin to write to you, and though my letters don't look so long, yet, remember the writing is small and close. I wish I could make this fly to you, as it would relieve you from a state of sus- pense, and satisfy you that we all entertain the same esteem of you as ever ; but I can't say how much I am, dear sir, Your sincere and affectionate friend, E. D. B. 54 ESTHER DE BERDT. How proud must the distant lover have been of such affection. The young girl who could write thus, was in every word giving assurance that she would be a cheerful and a cheering wife. She speaks slightly, we may imagine sadly, of Mr. Reed's professional success, for proud as she may have been of it, she could not but think of it as a new impedi- ment to reunion in England. The scheme alluded to was one of those plans of restlessness which, if consummated, are sure to be followed by disappointment and regret. It was, that Mr. Reed, abandoning his country and profes- sion, should at once come to England and enter into mercantile partnership with his future father-in-law. He seized the suggestion with avidity, and wrote more than one letter to Miss De Berdt, setting forth in the most plausible colors the arguments in its favor. She too thought brightly of it, and wrote at once the following letter on the subject, — to my eye, one of the most characteristic of the series, — in which, as it seems to me, it is not hard to detect, aside from the ready hopefulness with which she at first adopts the idea, something like a reluctance that her lover, of wdiom she was so proud, should, even for her sake, relinquish a career for which his talents qualified him, and in which she was sure he ESTHER DEBERDT. 55 would reach high eminence. The sure instincts of a right-hearted woman — more trustworthy far on such questions than man's most deliberate wisdom — were at work unconsciously. Ardently as she wished to see her lover, serious as were the obstacles to her ever going to the country where alone he could attain professional success, she evidently recoiled from the idea of his being mere trading ambition. She feared he would regret his noble and intellectual profession — nay, that he might even repine at de- serting his distant and relatively humble home. Young as she was, — and who can say how soon am- bition so innocent springs up in a woman's heart, — she had cherished the ambition of being the wife of a distinguished man, in an eminent and learned pro- fession, and shrunk from the haggard vision of mer- cantile perplexities, the bitter daily bread of a merchant's life — its poor honors and precarious re- wards. All this, faintly shadowed forth, may be traced in what on the 8th of August Miss De Berdt wrote to America. MISS DE BERDT TO MR. REED. Enfield, August 8th, 1765. I had the pleasure of receiving yours of May 2d, only a few days ago. You see by my last it was 56 ESTHER DEBEUDT. quite unexpected. I can't imagine where it has been all this time, as my father's of the same date came three weeks ago. It is a little unlucky the letter of most importance should be so long coming. I assure you I was agreeably surprised at its con- tents, for among all the schemes I thought of, that of your coming into trade never once entered my mind, which I wonder at, as so many circumstances seem to make it agreeable. I immediately told mamma, who is much pleased with it ; you know it is what she always said would be the thing, and she now approves of it exceedingly. I have considered it thoroughly, and can see nothing that should make it disagreeable to any part of our family, — indeed the thoughts of it give me a great deal of satisfac- tion, and as to myself, I have not the least objec- tion if you can reconcile your mind to it. What I fear is, you would still be hankering after your own profession, and that would make you unhappy. If you don't think that would be the case, it seems to me to be the most promising prospect of happiness, which would be doubled by the thought, that by our means the whole family would be made easy ; as it would be likely to fix my dear brother for life, and relieve mamma from a great deal of anxiety, which you are sensible both she and I often have on ESTHERDEBERDT. 57 that account, and the thoughts of your return so soon and settling in England, separate from every other circumstance, I confess, would make me most earnestly wish it. Nor do I think being a merchant eclipses every shining talent. There certainly are many opportunities of displaying them, though I own there are but few who make any considerable figure. It would make me miserable if I thought the tender friendship and love which you entertain for me, and on which I set so high a value, should extinguish the nobler flame of ambition. The es- teem which is kindled in my bosom is too refined to want you to live in obscurity, and I think this scheme which you propose will not lead to it, as it will make you known, and then (I speak from experience) the more valued in the world I shall write by Budden, if I have an opportunity, though I'm afraid I shall not, without I receive a letter from you. Remember, I have written eight, and have received but three from you. I do not grudge them you, for the greatest pleasure I can have in your absence is hearing from and writing to you. I have received a very obliging letter from Dr. Morgan. Indeed, I think myself much indebted to him ; for, knowing it would give me the greatest satisfaction, he mentions your vast success in business, and the esteem you 58 ESTHER DE B E R D T. get among all who know you, and seems liappy that he has it in his power to give me pleasure. Those only, dear sir, who feel the sentiments of affection can form an idea how happy it makes one to hear those we love praised. It is commending one's own judgment, at the same time it gives us pleasure. This I have often experienced, and must thank your conduct for, which makes me still, with the greatest sincerity, Your affectionate friend, E. De Berdt. On the 10th, she adds a postscript, anticipating the adverse effect of the commercial difficulties which then were beginning to disturb the relations of the Colonies and the mother country. I intended, — she adds, — this should have gone by the Packet, but missing that opportunity and waiting for Budden, gives me the pleasure. I have received your kind letter of the 17th of June. The sincerity and tenderness which runs through the whole of it, convinces me how rightly I have judged of your friendship. I always was persuaded it would prove as lasting as it was fervent, and I now indulge more than ever the pleasing expectation that ESTHER BE BERDT. 59 it will last for life, and mine is far from being abated by absence, for I daily see how worthy the object is on which it is placed. I have written you my unreserved sentiments of the affair you mentioned in your letter of the 2d May. As trade is so perplexed, and in so hazard- ous a situation, I imagine you have given over all thoughts of it at present. You in America, as you feel the worst effects of the difficulties, are certainly most chagrined at them. We are in great hopes something will be done to relieve you, as Lord Dartmouth seems bent on taking some steps to undo w^hat the late Ministry have done. I wish our expectations are not sanguine ; but if they should succeed, and trade return again to its right channel, you may, perhaps, think again of your scheme ; and I think that in that case there are many substantial reasons for it. But I would not desire you to act beyond your freest inclinations, and hope they will not carry you contrary to your judgment. May whatever you undertake prosper. Your happiness is so closely connected with mine, that I am influenced by whatever befalls you, and my heart exults with secret joy and laudable pride, too, at the thought how much it is in my power to soften your anxieties and add to your pleasures. 60 ESTHER DE EERDT. Sure, I need not be ashamed to own, it is much in your power to add to my comfort and happiness. I thank you for your kind solicitude for my health, and have the pleasure to tell you I enjoy it much better than when you left me, but cannot say I am quite well. My old complaint of the headache sometimes troubles me. You don't say a word about your own health. I will adopt your maxim, and suspect if you are silent. Mamma desires her kind love to you, and give our affectionate regard to Captain Macpherson and his family. Denny, also, desires his compliments to you. His esteem increases every day for you. He often wishes you were a merchant, though he says he would not spoil a good Lord Chancellor. E. D. B. The apprehensions hinted at in this letter, as to Mr. Reed's health, were realized, for the next news from America was, that he had been dangerously ill with a nervous fever, the fruit of fatigue and men- tal distress. Observe with what tenderness, check- ed only by a sense of religious duty, she now writes. ESTHER DE BERDT. 61 MISS DE BERDT TO MR. REED. Enfield, Sept. 19th, 1765. A young man from the Jerseys told us lie left you well the beginning of July, so that I could not imagine the reason of your not writing ; but now every fear of that sort is vanished, and my whole concern is for your health. A heaviness hangs on my mind, which will not be removed till I hear you are quite recovered. I can't help thinking but I see your hand trembled when you wrote last. Everything alarms my fears on your account. I remember you had a fever just this time twelve- month, when you went your tour ; and I well re- member how altered you looked on your return. Indeed, God in his providence has seen fit to over- shadow the morning of your life in a most remark- able manner. How much must I fall short of your expectations, for how incapable am I to help you to bear with resignation these strokes of adversity. Philosophy, too, will prove vain, unless it be of a religious kind, which influences the heart. May mine be thus influenced, and be able to say, God does all things well; this is what I would most earnestly wish for both you and myself, for certainly He has some wise and valuable end to answer by 6 62 ESTHER DEBERDT. all these things. I hope to have another letter from you soon, or else I shall be very uneasy. I am afraid you will be too forward again, and the violent heat of your summer, and so much business as you have on your hands, I fear will sink you down again ; but I hope you will be careful of your- self, for my sake. My father and brother were both exceedingly kind and tender to me, for, with- out knowing each other's intentions, they told me beforehand not to be surprised at reading your let- ter, for you had been ill, but was better again, as they knew I had not heard of your sickness. You mention that you wrote by way of New York, and since that have relapsed, but I have not received any such letter. The news was quite sudden. — Do you give your heart into my hands with transport ? I receive it, and shall always be proud to own it is my constant happiness to keep it in my possession, with every care it is perplexed with. I shall find a pleasure in endeavoring to lessen them. Since I part with my own heart (though it does not deserve so good a one in return), it would be hard to be a loser by the gift. I have been persuaded a long time I am not nor ever shall be. It is this that makes me write with so much pleasure and confidence, and is one of my greatest comforts. ESTHER DEBERDTc 63 Opportunities of writing have not offered so fre- quently lately as they did the beginning of the summer. I hope for the pleasure of writing again before the next Philadelphia ship. This has been the longest seven months I ever spent in my life. It is just about so long since you went away. You need have no fears of my father's losses in America affecting his esteem for you. He shows it in many instances, and especially by his care of your reli- gious and moral character, which he often expresses with the greatest affection, and is frequently saying he hopes you will not suffer in that respect. It gives me the greatest pleasure to hear it, as it ap- pears like the tender concern of a father. He will certainly, I am afraid, lose a good deal of money this year in America. You will see he is much dis- pleased with Mr. Rogers's conduct, and I can't help thinking but he has great reason. I should be glad to know who nursed you in your sickness. If you was at a friend's house, I should like to know to whom I owe my thanks for their care, which I shall do in my own mind, though I can't do it openly ; — or whether you are in a house of your own, though I hardly think you know what to do in one, only yourself. I heard you had taken your brother Bowes into your office to study law. I 64 ESTHER DEBERDT. hope it will answer, as I have concern for the pros- perity of every one connected with you.* . . . It would be ungenerous in me to complain, as every- thing is done to make me easy, and I shall be so when I hear you are recovered again. I hope there are still some great blessings in store for you, and after so many difficulties and perplexities you will taste the more sweetness in them ; and it may, perhaps, be my lot to be one of your comforts, and share in the rest. God only knows if our wishes will be crowned with success. Your illness dejects my spirits, as it undermines the foundations of my hopes : but by this time you may be quite well and about business again. I own it is foolish to fore- bode misfortunes ; that I endeavor much against, and still hope the best, — nor would I repine at the hand of God, or murmur against Heaven ; but yet, a thousand anxious fears will arise, and it is impos- sible to help it when so dear a friend is concerned. Mamma desires her affectionate regards to you, and says she does not know which she loves best, you or her own children. Your most affectionate friend, E. De Berdt. * Mr. Bowes Reed was Mr. Reed's own brother. He was the grandfather of the present Bishop Mllvame, of Ohio. CHAPTER IV. 1765-1766. Correspondence continued — Repeal of the Stamp Act — Rockingham Ministry — Mr. Reed's Letters from Ame- rica — Debates in Parliament — Petition of the Stamp Act Congress — Mr. Pittas Speech. Her next letter, a few months later, shows that the ill-conceived plan of Mr. Reed's entering into trade was abandoned. The letter has some allu- sions to public and local affairs, of which she writes intelligently and unaffectedly ; and its date is coin- cident with the brief period between the passage of the Stamp Act and the formation of Lord Rock- ingham's first Ministry. MISS DE BERDT TO MR. REED. London, November 9th, 1765. Under the influence of a thousand gloomy and anxious fears, I was just going to write to you, and I received your kind letter by way of Ireland. 6* Q6 ESTHER DEBERDT. None but those who feel the same sincere friend- ship, can tell the pleasure it gave me to hear your health was likely to be re-established ; and another letter to-day has made me quite easy on that ac- count. I think I never prized any letter more that I have yet received from you, for it is two months since I heard from you of your bad state of health. Indeed, I had one since, but it was of a much earlier date than the one I answered a few weeks ago, and it only gave me the most discouraging ac- counts both of your health and difficulties, which sunk my heart in the tenderest concern and solici- tude, and it would often appear in spite of all my efforts to conceal it. But now I am happy in the thought of your recovery, and in finding too that your usual flow of spirits is returned again. May you always and constantly receive every blessing a kind and indulgent Providence can be- stow, is my most earnest prayer ; and if we should be so favored as to spend our lives together, I hope it will be for our mutual happiness, and to bring honor to God. We are now returned to London for the winter. I came with much regret. It brings to my remembrance scenes of pleasure which I cannot taste. There is constantly something happening that brings you fresh to mind. Every ESTHER DE BERDT. 67 Sunday I still seem to expect you to dinner, and I have not yet been able to keep up my spirits as well as usual on that day. But I will not say any more of this ; I shall make you dull, as it some- times makes me pensive : but this is as true, that my esteem is not at all abated, and will still live and flourish, though all the chilling frosts of adver- sity should conspire to destroy it. You tell me I must forgive your impatience, and you must in re- turn forgive me if I sometimes express fears which rise in my breast and cloud my hopes and expecta- tions. ... I don't wonder at your dropping the thoughts at present of coming into trade, for it really is in so bad a situation, that those who are in would gladly resign if it were in their power. I do not think it can grow worse. . . . We are sur- rounded with Boston men, who are so hot about these new regulations, that we have heard of little else for a long time. Indeed we have a great many calamities. The Duke of Cumberland's death, it is thought, will make some alterations for the worse in state affairs, but we know there is an overruling Providence, which orders all things for the best. Yesterday, there was a most dreadful fire in the city at the bottom of Cornhill, where the four streets meet. All the four corner houses were on fire at 68 ESTHER DE BERDT. once. It is said that about one hundred houses are burned down, and a great many lives lost of many families, all but one poor little child are yet miss- ing. Mr. Burnit has a cousin burnt out. The wind blew very fresh, and one house fell upon the main spring of water, so that it was a long time before the engines could get supplied. What a mercy it is to be kept in safety while others are plunged in ruin and distress.* I am pleased that Mr. Pettit is with you, as it must be a relief in many things which otherways would have laid much heavier. I wish Mr. Pettit may succeed in everything he undertakes. f I feel much for them, and shall always be glad to hear of the welfare of any of your family. You will see by my father's letter what likelihoods there are of any alteration in American affairs. He does not know of my writing to you now, but I am persuaded I give and know I take so much pleasure, that he must pardon me if I transgress the limits he has prescribed. ... I wish I could tell you my health was perfectly restored, but it is indifferent, though * The Duke of Cumberland, the King's uncle, the " Butcher" of Culloden, died suddenly on the 13th October. A minute ac- count of the fire mentioned by Miss De Berdt will be found in the Annual Register for 1765. t Mrs. Pettit was Mr. Reed's half sister. ESTHER DEBERDT. 69 I am still much better than when you were in Eng- land. I am rather grown fat. This day last year saw me much happier. Don't you remember see- ing Lord Mayor's show by water, but I (illegible) you to say no more of what has been of this sort. Next (illegible) we may see it together again. This is a most pleasing thought. Mamma desires her best regards to you, and believe me to be, with un- altered esteem, my dear sir, Yours sincerely, E. De Berdt. Let me here depart from the rule of exclusion, which I had prescribed for myself, by inserting one letter from Mr. Reed, in reply to Miss De Berdt's of November, in which he describes his domestic situation, and the heavy responsibilities under which he was cheerfully laboring. The commercial scheme still, though feebly, lingers in his heart. MR. REED TO MISS DE BERDT. Trenton, January 13th, 1766. My Dear Hetty : I catch at this opportunity, of which I am just apprised, to thank you for your dear favors by Sparks and Robinson. The tenderness they breathe 70 ESTHER DEBERDT. would have made me well if I had not been so before ; but I have been long since perfectly reco- vered, and I can now (think) of your tender concern for my health with no other emotion than the plea- sure of being the object of your pity and regard. My illness lasted a good while, though I never thought it a dangerous one, and since it has left me I think I have enjoyed a higher degree of health than ever. But were it not for the concern it gives you, I could almost consent to be sick again, since it has induced you to unbosom yourself with more freedom, and placed a confidence in me which is the pride and pleasure of my life. I find several letters which I have written by the way of Ireland have not reached you. In one of them I described my situation as to family in such a manner as would have saved you the trouble of asking who nursed me. I have been, much against my inclination, obliged to keep house ever since my return, and you will perhaps be surprised when I tell you that my family consists of nine persons besides servants, — but, so it is, and I have been under the unavoidable necessity of supporting all these, besides my father, who chose to retire into the country, where he still continues. My sister Pettit is very dear to me, notwithstanding she is but my ESTHER DEBERDT. 71 half sister, and has been the cause, though an invo- luntary one, of all my misfortunes, and as the re- collection would do no good, I have endeavored to behave to her with the same tenderness as though they had not happened.* As there were no oppor- tunities for Mr. Pettit to put himself in business in Philadelphia, and he had a prospect of doing some- thing in Nova Scotia, he went there last summer, and my sister with three children came up to live with me. He returned a few weeks ago, and they and my two brothers and sister make no inconside- rable family. How long this will continue I cannot say, but I hope not longer than next spring ; but if Mr. Pettit should go to Nova Scotia with his family, or otherwise provide for them, there will still be four of us, and I think it most likely I shall continue to keep house, as my sister is past fourteen, and prudent beyond her years ; but I am yet far from being determined on this head.f I have taken my brother Bowes into my office, as I had no other way of providing for him, but I have no expectation of his making a great figure, * Mr. Pettit had been unfortunate in commercial business, t This was a younger and only own sister, Mary^ who died unmarried in 1785, having outlived both Mr. Reed and Miss De Berdt. 72 ESTHER DE BERDT. and it was only because I could do no better. My uncle has it much in his power to assist me, but he has left me hitherto to struggle with my difficulties as well as I can. However, my income I believe would have been equal to them all if the Stamp Act had not interfered. This has hurt me prodigi- ously, and exhausted all the little store my first success had given me. I hope for better times, and with this keep up my spirits as well as I can. As to my former scheme, while I am absent from you I shall always be fond of it, for it is impossible that anything can ever be more desirable to me than an opportunity of once more seeing my dear charmer, and anything that flatters these wishes will lie very near my heart ; but you know even my warmest desires to bring this about could not effect it without the consent of many who may have insu- perable objections, and, indeed, I fear it would be entering into a dependency that might be uneasy even to yourself, but the joy and happiness of call- ing you mine, and being united with you for ever, so far outweighs every other consideration, that I dare not pretend to judge what is most proper or convenient. From this time forward, and more especially ESTHER DE BERDT. 73 during the year 1766, when Mr. De Berdt, as Agent for the Stamp Act Congress, and for several Colonies, was brought in direct relation to public affairs, and to men in office, the correspondence is filled with allusions to political matters, and to the varying phases of the pending dispute between the Colonies and the mother country. The following extracts from letters of Miss De Berdt and her father, during this year, are historically curious. It must be remembered throughout that it is a young woman, and not a politician, who is writing, — one who hears and repeats the echoes of her father's house. MISS DE BERDT TO MR. REED. London, 7th of February, 1766. You will see by my last letters the plan that was then only thought of about our good friend Sayre. It is now so far concluded as the situation of affairs will admit. I dare say it will give you pleasure. It depends on the removing the difficulties you labor under in America, for nobody can think of entering into trade when there is no prospect of anything to do, and my father has deferred men- tioning it, till affairs are a little settled, which can- not be long now. The House of Lords are most 7 74 ESTHER DEBERDT. your enemies. There were but five who voted for your right of taxing yourselves. One of them was Lord Chief Justice Pratt, though most of the gen- tlemen of the law in the Commons were on the other side of the question.* * On 4th of February (misdated 15th of January), Mr. Pitt wrote to Lady Chatham one of the charming familiar letters that brighten his more stately and formal correspondence. " Bond Street, 12 o'clock, January 15th, 1766. " I am just out of bed, my dearest life, and considering the great fatigue — not getting to bed till past 4, — I am tolerably well, my hand not worse, my country not better. We (number three) debated strenuously the rights of America, The resolution passed for England's right to do what the Treasury pleases with three millions of freemen. Lord Camden in the Lords divine, * * but one voice about him. They divided : we did not. Five lords — the division, Camden, Shelburne, Paulet, Cornwallis, Torrington. I am not able to attend again to-day, when more resolutions are to be moved. It is probable the main question of Repeal will not come on till Friday or Monday. Send the coach, my love, to-morrow morning, and I shall then have it in my power to do as events allow. At present, adieu! Kiss our dear babes for me. " Your ever loving husband, " William Pitt." The favorite countersigns of the "rebel" army at Cambridge, were the names of opposition Peers. I have before me an origi- ESTHER DEBERDT. 75 We have many doubts about the repeal of the Stamp Act, as Lord Bute is determined to try all his weight against it, because Mr. Pitt is for it, and I assure you we are in as much anxiety here as you are in America, for the manufacturers are ripe for tumult, and that is really the most favorable cir- cumstance that could happen.* I mention these circumstances as I think you will like to hear on what point things turn, and perhaps Papa may not na] page of the Orderly Book, with Washington's autograph countersigns for several days in August, 1775, — " Yarmouth, Ar- lington, Bedford, and Torrington." * About this time Lord Chesterfield — always a good friend to America — thus pleasantly wrote to his son. " You will probably wonder that I tell you nothing of public matters ; upon which I shall be as secret as Hotspur's gentle Kate, who would not tell what she did not know ; but, what is singular, nobody seems to know any more of them than I do. People gape, stare, conjecture, and define. Changes of the Ministry or in the Ministry are daily reported or foretold ; but of what kind, God only knows. It is also very doubtful whether Mr. Pitt will come into the Administration or not. The two present Secretaries are extremely desirous that he should ; but the others think of the horse that called the master to its assistance. I will say nothing about American afiairs, because I have not pens, ink, or paper- enough to give you an intelligent account of them. The repeal of the Stamp Act is at last carried through. I am glad of it, and gave my proxy for it." — Vol. iv. p. 420. this prospect and often realize it in my own mind, and enjoy in hope what I trust I shall one day experience. I wrote you, my dear brother, a few months ago, and by the time I thought you had received it, it was brought back to me ; but another opportunity offered and it was again sent, though it is to me very doubtful whether it will ever reach you. I hope you will be able to let us hear from you, and when ESTHER REED. 299 you write, tell us every particular that relates to your happiness. It will be important to us ; for, however long the separation and great the distance, my heart feels all the warmth and tenderness of affection as in our youngest days, and I must ever be truly and sincerely yours, E. R. On the 4th of October, 1779, the party feeling in Philadelphia, to which I have referred, broke out in acts of violence and bloodshed. A number of gen- tlemen of distinguished position, but who had rendered themselves obnoxious to some portions of the popular party, were literally beseiged by an armed mob in the house of one of their number, and only escaped with their lives, in consequence of the interposition of the President, who accompanied by a few volunteer cavalry rescued them. This was what is well known in Philadelphia history as the affair of Fort Wilson, the scene of the tumult being the house occupied by Judge Wilson, then at the southwest corner of Third and Walnut Streets. The following hurried note, written from a country-seat near the city, shows the alarm which prevailed everywhere in this worst scene of social strife. It is a note from Mrs. Reed to a friend in .town. 300 ESTHER REED. Germantown, Wednesday morning, October 5tli, 1779. I would not, mj dear sir, take a moment of your time to tell you the distress and anxiety I feel, but only to beg you to let me know in what state things are, and what is likely to be the consequence. I write not to Mr. Reed, because I know he is not in a situation to attend to me at present. Mr. Pettit will lend a servant and a horse to come up here. I conjure you by the friendship you have for Mr. Reed don't leave him. E. R. The narrative of these scenes of confusion and perplexity has been elsewhere given, and my pri- vate memoir would lose whatever merit its personal character affords, if I were more minutely to illus- trate public events. The history of President Reed's administration, with its endurances, its sacri- fices, and its results, by-and-bye, when our local story becomes classic, will be full of interest. With the exception of a letter or two from him to his friend, General Greene, never yet published, and which are very interesting, there will be found little further reference to public affairs. 301 CHAPTER XVI. 1780. Heed's Letter to Greene in February — Birth of Mrs. Reed's youngest son — March of the Philadelphia Troops to Trenton — Mrs. Reed' s Letters — Philadelphia Contributions — Lafayette — Correspondence with Wash- ington — 3Irs. Reed's last Letters — Correspondence with Greene — Mrs. Reed's Illness and Death — Conclusion. My story is hastening to its end, the next year, 1780, being the last of Mrs. Reed's brief and, (let me be excused if the phrase seems an exaggera- tion,) heroic life. It was a year of deep gloom in public affairs. The following letter gives some glimpse of these perplexities. REED TO GENERAL GREENE. Philadelphia, February 14th, 1780.* Dear Sir: Your favour of the 9th inst. is now before me. * This, aiid an equally interesting letter of a later date, were Rccidentaily omitted in Mr. Reed's Memoir. 26 302 ESTHER REED. I had neither forgot nor neglected my promise when I had the pleasure of seeing you, but was prevented by two reasons : — first, that I really could not find out what was doing at the civil Head-Quarters with suificient certainty ; and secondly, that I expected you daily in town. I am almost afraid to commit to paper my full and undisguised sentiments on the present state of afiairs, with which you are so spe- cially connected. So many accidents have, in the course of this war, happened from epistolary free- doms, that I have grown very fearful of trusting anything in so hazardous a channel. However, I will venture to tell you that I think you have nothing to expect from public gratitude or personal attention, and that you will do well to prepare yourself at all points for events. General Mifflin's appointment to his present ofiice, without including the heads of the Department, is a sufficient comment on my text, and by your letter, I find you understand it as I do. I have had some experience of that body with whom your principal concern lay, and am clearly of opi- nion that more is to be done by resolution and firm- ness than temporizing. All public bodies seem to me to act in manner, which, if they were individuals, they would be kicked out of company for, and the higher they are, the greater liberties they take. In ESTHER REED. 303 my opinion you ought not to delay an explanation on your affairs ; if a tub is wanted to the whale you are likely to be it as any. A torrent of abuse was poured on Wadsworth, but that has all died away ; as all ill-grounded and unjust calumny ever will. I think he was a valuable officer, and wish they may not feel his loss. Your particular situation will enable you to leave the Department not only without discredit, but your station in the line will preserve a certain respect which in other circumstances might be wanting. Whoever is quartermaster this year must work, if not miracles, at least something very near it, for I verily believe there will not be shil- lings where pounds are wanted. In all my acquain- tance with public affairs, I never saw so complete a mystery — a vigorous campaign to be undertaken, an army of 35,000 men to be raised, fed, &c., and not one single step taken, that I can learn, which will raise our drooping credit, gratify the people, or even conciliate a common confidence. A new arrangement of the army and reduction of officers is now talked of, with as much composure as if it was a common business — little do they know the delicacy and difficulty of such a work. Nothing can rouse us from this lethargy but some signal stroke from the enemy, and I shall not be sorry to 804 Et^ Til Ell KEED. find them set about it ; as I am persuaded we are sliding into ruin much faster than we ever rose from its borders. Whatever jou do or resolve must be done soon, or jou will be plunged into another cam- paign without any possibility of retreat, and though the circumstance I have above alluded to is a favourable one, it is impossible to envy your situa- tion ; for whether you move or stand still, it may be improved to your disadvantage. If you quit they will say, that having made a great fortune you leave the Department in distress, when you could be of most service to your country. If you stand fast you become, responsible for measures and events morally impracticable. If an honourable retreat can be affected, it is beyond doubt your wisest and safest course ; but I am not certain that this can be done even now, and every hour adds to the difficulty. Your Department, as I have ever told Mr. Pettit, must bear some just censure for the appointments in this state, and they are now used, as I expected they some day would be, to its prejudice. When such men as Hooper, Ross, Mitchell,^ etc., make such display of fortune, it is impossible to help look- ing back, and equally impossible for a people, soured by taxes and the continuance of the war, to help fretting ; and the genei:al ill-temper gives ESTHER REED. 305 great latitude to thought and speech. When things go wrong, no matter where the wrong bias is given every one concerned finds a pleasure in shifting the blame on his neighbours or at least in dividing it. It would never surprise me, therefore, to see a Quartermaster or Commissary-General made the political scapegoat, and carry off the sins, if not of the people, of those who represent them. Upon the whole, I still retain my opinion of the propriety of your being here as soon as possible, and in the meantime can only inform you of two things with certainty: — 1st, that the plan of the Department will be altered as to commissions ; 2d, that nothing but necessity will induce them to continue the present Department, for though it may have a great deal of the utile, it has little of the dulce in the palate of Congress. But you will be drilled on till the campaign opens, and, if they can do no better they may keep you. In this as well as everything else much will be left to the chapter of accidents. The Confederacy with her cargo of ministers, etc., has met with a severe gale of wind and been obliged to put into Martinique in distress. Our good and great ally has met with a little touch in the West Indies, fourteen merchantmen, part of a fleet bound to Jamaica, and on6 frigate taken, the rest dispersed 26* 306 ESTHER REED. by six of the enemy's ships. No appearance of peace ; on the other hand, great preparations for a vigorous campaign both by sea and land. The min- ister here hints that Great Britain has formed some favourable alliances, but whether this is done to stimulate or from real intelligence I do not know. Mrs. Reed joins me in kind wishes and compli- ments to Mrs. Greene, whose important business we learn is happily settled in presenting you with a fine son, of which we give you joy. Mr. Pettit and Mr. Cox, I find, do not agree in opinion as to the plan of your congressional operations, which is another powerful motive for your coming. But it is time to relieve you from this tedious ' letter, in which my pen has run away with me, as I intended to have been very prudent and reserved, but I find I have, as we poor mortals are apt to do, made good resolutions and broke them every one. I am, with very sincere regard and esteem, my dear General, Your most obedient and Very humble servant, J. Reed. In May, 1780, Mrs. Reed's youngest child was ESTHER REED. 307 born, and named George Washington ;* and in the summer of that year she, with her little family, re- sided at a country-house, on the River Schuylkill, a few miles from Philadelphia, f The first division of the French army having arrived in Rhode Island, and a combined movement of the allied troops on New York being contemplated, it was deemed ex- pedient to raise and march to the proposed scene of action a large body of Pennsylvania volunteers. This was done with great spirit, and, resigning his executive authority to the Vice-President, Presi- dent Reed took the field in person, assembling his raw levies at Trenton, there to await the orders of the Commander-in-Chief. They remained till Au- gust, when the French co-operation failing, they were dismissed. To her husband at Camp, the fol- lowing characteristic letters, almost the last she ever wrote, were sent : MRS. REED TO MR. REED. Banks of Schuylkill, August 20th, 1780. I this moment received yours, my dear friend, * For a sketch of his gallant career, see Reed's Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 230. fThis place is that now (1853) owned by Miss Burd, just above the Peters's Island Railroad Bridge. 308 EST II Ell REED. from Bloomsbury. I am very glad to hear our friends there are well. I dare say you were wel- come as to yourselves, but perhaps not so with re- spect to such a number of militia. Mr. Cox's orchards and cornfields may suffer a little, and that I imagine, he cannot put up with very patiently, but perhaps you will be able to keep better disci- pline than I am aware of. I have not heard of any letters from the General or any other quarter since you left home. I left directions that all those wrote on public service should be sent to the Council, — the others sent up here, but have not yet received any. Shall I acknowledge, my dear friend, that I am not so anxious as I ought to be, perhaps, for the second division of the fleet ? I judge in that case something of consequence would be attempted, fatal perhaps, in the event, and too much of my happi- ness is at stake not to make me dread it. If you cannot praise my patriotism, I am sure you can excuse me, at least, and place to the account of my love what is wanting to the cause of my country. I congratulate you on this agreeable change of weather ; it will make your own fatigues, as well as those of your soldiers, much less. This, as well as other circumstances, make one think of Philadelphia ESTHER R E E D. 309 — though it is pleasant here, yet my family is not arranged for two houses. Rogers is our only man- servant. Our tenant is very obliging, or we could not possibly stay ; he does everything I ask of him. Mr. Pettit [illegible] one of his horses that we are now confined here; but these difficulties will be principally removed in town. I shall therefore re- turn there as soon as possible. I shall be very anxious to hear from you what your views and expectations are, and how far you move. I have heard it hinted that you will your- self go on to Head-Quarters, if the troops should not be wanted there. Do write me as often as you can ; nothing can so much reconcile me to your absence as frequently hearing from you. I must in very great haste tell you that we are all well, and that I am, with unalterable affection. Ever yours, E. Reed. MRS. REED TO MR. REED. Banks of Schuylkill, August 22d, 1780. I thank you, my dear friend, for your attention to me in writing so frequently. Nothing can give 310 ESTHER KEED. greater pleasure, or tend so much to make absence tolerable. Yours, by Mr. Hunter, of the 19th, I received this morning. I am very glad to hear you have a little leisure; it will be a relief to your mind, and add also to your health, and I hope, while you have time, I shall still hear from you as often as you have opportunity. Though I have no rea- son to say a word to urge you to this, yet I cannot help expressing my wishes and hopes, and the plea- sure I have in hearing from you. I think your situation, encamped on the banks of the Delaware, must be very agreeable. If I did not see and know the impropriety of it, I should almost wish to pay you a visit, as you know I have ever had a strong curiosity to see an army in the field ; and though yours is small, yet it would gratify my curiosity as much, perhaps, as a large one. But I believe I shall not see it now ; I must wait, at least, until the next time. The gentlemen of your family who have never been out before, I suppose think this a very agreeable specimen of the campaign. Dr. Hutch- inson, I imagine, has joined you by this time, — to him, as well as to all the gentlemen with whom I am acquainted in your family, I beg my compli- ments, and my wish that they may find their whole tour of duty as pleasant as this part of it. ESTHER REED. 311 I received this morning a letter from the Gene- ral, and he still continues his opinion that the money in my hands should he laid out in linen ; he says no supplies he has at present, or has a prospect of, are any way adequate to the wants of the army; his letter is, I think, a little formal, as if he was hurt by our asking his opinion a second time, and our not following his directions, after desiring to give them. The letter is very complaisant, and I shall now endeavour to get the shirts made as soon as possible. This is another circumstance to urge my return to town, as I can do little towards it here. The masons are about altering the chimney, under the directions of Mr. Matlack ; I hope they will be done this week. When we move, I believe we must put Mr. Pettit's horse and our old one together; they will not be a very good match, but they must do. I am very anxious to know if you have heard from the General since the Committee left Camp. I can't help thinking you will find an alteration when they leave him to his opinion. I confess I felt very sensibly his doubting your zeal or ex- ertions in the cause of your country; neither of these, nor your friendship for him, I think, can at this day be called in question ; but his ears have 812 ESTIIEFv REED. been open to insinuations, perhaps of designing men, or at least ignorant ones, who have themselves heark- ened to those who represent this state able to do more than it really can, and thus answers two pur- poses, — it takes from the merit of government, and magnifies the exertions of private subscriptions. But I hope you will suspend any decided judgment on the General's conduct until you see him ; he may probably explain it to your satisfaction ; and re- member, my friend, no one is entirely proof against the arts of misrepresentation, or can always act right when those in whom they place confidence make it a point to deceive us, or are themselves deceived. I intend answering the General's letter to-mor- row, which I shall enclose to you. You will have a better opportunity of forwarding it than I shall. Our dear little children are pretty well. Dennis has been most terribly bit with mosquitoes, which he scratched till they are very sore and trouble- some, and it makes him fretful. The chief reason to make me regret leaving this place is on the chil- dren's account, who seem to enjoy more pleasure here than in town. However, the weather is now so moderate I think it cannot endansrer their health. ESTHER KEED. 313 Mamma sends her love and best wishes for your safety. Adieu, my dear friend ; think of me often, and remember with what sincere and tender aflfection I am unalterably and truly yours, E. Reed. On the the 26th, Mr. Reed thus replied, " The affair of the donation will require your attention, or slander will be busy on that score ; the General is so decided, that you have no choice left, so that the sooner you finish the business the better. You will recollect my dear creature, that it will be ne- cessary for you to render a public account of your stewardship in this business, and though you will receive no thanks if you do it well, you will, much blame, should it be otherwise. If it should happen that you do not come up, I have something to men- tion in writing on this point, but I had rather do it personally, so that I shall defer till I see what you conclude upon. I have received the shirts, &c., and a large bundle of English newspapers, but you do not telhme to whom I am obliged for this com- munication, or whether I am to return them. I should not be disappointed if the repeated and con- tinued attacks of my enemies should sometimes 27 314 ESTHER REED. meet with partial success. Human nature is not equal to the task of watching and repelling such incessant and implacable malice, but I am grown very callous on these points. I shall do my duty to the best of my ability, and if, after all, preju- dices arising from envy, and real, though causeless malignity, prevail, I trust it can only be for a sea- son ; the mist will, sooner or later, clear away, but if it should not, I shall always have the satisfaction arising from an approving conscience, of having performed my duty to my country, unbiassed by interest or ambition. It is not unlikely the Gene- ral has caught the infection in part, for mischief is is ever industrious, but he has a good heart, and I believe slow in listening to evil reports. He may have more professing and adulating friends, but he has not a more sincere one in America. He is not in all respects lucky as to those about him, but, being honest himself, he will not readily suspect the virtue of others. I have forwarded your letter to him. I wish you had mentioned the progress you had made in the business, and think you had best occasionally inform him how you go on. Kiss the children for me, and remember me aflfectionately to your mamma, as well as kindly to all friends. If you have not set up my bed-curtains, I wish you ESTHER REED. 315 would take the first opportunity to do it. I have too mucTi pleasure in hearing from you not to desire you to write as frequently as you can, and am, my dear Hetty, " With unabated and inviolable affection, *' Ever yours, "J. R." Mrs. Reed had, it seems, with the sure instinct of a woman's sagacity, detected something like for- mality in Washington's correspondence, and sus- p ected an alienation of feeling on her part, from the Pennsylvania authorities. That his conjecture was not altogether groundless, is not improbable. There were busy mischief-makers at work, poisoning the mind of Washington, and striving to excite suspi- cions against his best and truest friends. The cloud, however, was very transient.* " The affair of the donation " referred to in Mr.. Reed's letters, was this, (I copy from what has been already written.) In the spring of 1780, at the period of the greatest distress of the American * As a specimen, see letter from General Sullivan to Wash- ington, 1st December, 1780, in Spark's Letters to Washington, Vol. ii. pp. 265 and 280— also Freeman's Journal, 27th March, 1782. 316 ESTHER REED. army — when tattered coats, and ragged regimen- tals, -had reached the extremest point of wretched- ness, the ladies of Philadelphia united for the purpose of collecting, by voluntary subscription, additional supplies in money and clothes, for the poor soldiers. As early as the 20th of January, Mr. Reed had written to Washington, " The ladies have caught the happy contagion, and in a few days, Mrs. Reed "v^ill have the honour of writing to you on the subject. It is expected that she will have a sum equal to .£100,000 (currency), to be laid out according to your Excellency's direction, in such a way as may be thought most honourable and grati- fying to the brave old soldiers who have borne so great a share of the burden of this war. I thought it best to mention it in this way to your Excellency for your consideration, as it may tend to forward the benevolent scheme of the donors with despatch. I must observe that the ladies have excepted such articles of necessity as clothing which the States are bound to provide. We have just heard that Mrs. Washington is on the road to this city, so that we shall have the benefit of her advice and assistance here, and if necessary refer afterwards to your Ex- cellency." Washington, in a letter which is published in Mr. ESTHER REED. 317 Sparks' collection, acknov/ledged the great value of the proposed contribution, and directed the atten- tion of the ladies of such articles of linen clothing as the soldiery stood ki most need of. The efforts of the Philadelphia women were eminently success- ful. No pains were spared. The city and districts were apportioned among committees, and the result was that in Philadelphia City and County alone, the collections amounted to upwards of $300,000 paper currency, or according to tjie existing depreciation, in specie about $7500. ManyoiP the contributions were made in gold, and all parties seem to have- given liberally. It is a curious thing that the fund about this time subscribed by the merchants and others for the creation of a bank, amounted to X315,000, or but about four hundi:ed specie dollars more than was contributed for mere charity by the ladies of this city. Nor were their efforts confined to this neighbourhood ; circulars were addressed to ad- joining Counties and States. New Jersey and Mary- land contributed generously. The following letters taken from my papers are inserted without further comment than to direct attention to the business- like intelligence, and practical good sense which distinguish Mrs. Reed's correspondence on a subject of which as a secluded female she could have had 27* 318 ESTHEK REED. no previous knowledge. Washington too writes as judiciously on the topic of " soldiers' shirts," as on the plan of a campaign or the subsistence of an army. ESTHER REED TO WASHINGTON. Philadelphia, July 4th, 1780. Sir, The subscription set on foot by the ladies of this city for the use of the soldiery, is so far completed as to induce me to transmit to your Excellency an account of the money I have received, and which, although it has answered our expectations, it does not equal our wishes, but I am persuaded wilLbe re- ceived as a proof of our zeal for the great cause of America and our esteem and gratitute for those who so bravely defend it. The amount of the subscription is 200,580 dol- lars, and ^625 6s. Sd. in specie, which makes in the whole in paper money 300,634 dollars. The ladies are anxious for the soldiers to receive the benefit of it, and wait your directions how it can best be disposed of. We expect some considerable additions from the country and have also wrote to the other States in hopes the ladies there will adopt ESTHER EEED. 319 similar plans, to render it more general and bene- ficial. With the utmost pleasure I offer any farther at- tention and care in my power to complete the exe- cution of the design, and shall be happy to accom- plish it agreeably to the intention of the donors and your wishes on the subject. The ladies of my family join me in their respect- ful compliments and sincerest prayer for your health, safety, and success. I have the honour to be, with the highest respect. Your obedient humble servant, E. Reed. The original memoranda and accounts of these contributions, with the names of each committee and contributor, are in my possession. The number of contributors was 1645, thus apportioned : the City 1099 ; Southwark 152 ; Northern Liberties 171 ; Germantown 152 ; and Bristol 13. All ranks of society seem to have united, from Phillis, the coloured woman, with her humble 7s. 6d., to the Marchioness de Lafayette, who contributed one hundred guineas in specie, and the Countess de Lu- zerne $6000 in Continental paper, $150 in specie. 820 ESTHER REED. Lafayette's gentlemanly letter to Mrs. Reed is worth preserving. THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE TO MRS. REED. Head-Quarters, June 25th, 1780. Madam, In admiring the new resolution, in which the fair ones of Philadelphia have taken the lead, I am in- duced to feel for those American ladies who, being out of the Continent, cannot participate in this pa- triotic measure. I know of one who, heartily wish- ing for a personal acquaintance with the ladies of America, would feel particularly happy to be ad- mitted among them on the present occasion. With- out presuming to break in upon the rules of your respected Association, may I most humbly present myself as her Ambassador to the confederate ladies, and solicit in her name that Mrs. President be pleased to accept of her offering. With the highest respect, I have the honour to be. Madam, Your most obedient servant, Lafayette.* • Let me here record my American admiration, — as a matter of well-reasoned judgment on full and thorough study, of Lafayette, in ESTHER REED. 321 WASHINGTON TO MRS. REED. Head-Quarters, July 20th, 1780. An idea has occurred to me, mj dear Madam, which if perfectly consistent with the views of the female patriots may perhaps extend the utility of their subscriptions. It is to deposit the amount in the Bank, and receive Bank notes in lieu of it to purchase the articles intended. This, while serviceable to the Bank and advancing its operations, seems to have no inconvenience to the intentions of the ladies. By uniting the efforts of patriotism, they will reciprocally promote each other, and I should imagine the ladies will have no objection to a union with the gentlemen. all his relations to my country. There is not a line he ever wrote, or a word he ever uttered, or an act of his whole life, that does not tend to prove him to have been the disinterested friend of America, and her institutions. And yet on the tomb which is erected over him, in the burial ground of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart in Paris, which I saw in 1845, not a word is written of his American honours. If I remember rightly, some doubtful French titles are there inscribed, and close by, over a small gateway, as if in ghastly mockery, is written, " Sepulture de 1306 personnes qui ont peri a la barriere du Trone, depuis le 26 Prairial, an 2, jusqu'au 9 Thermidor snivant." 322 ESTHER REED. But I beg, Madam, the suggestion I have taken the liberty to make, may not have the least atten- tion paid to it, if the sentiments of all the fair asso- ciates do not perfectly coincide. I have the honour to be, with perfect respect and esteem, Madam, Your most obedient servant, George Washington. esther reed to washington. Banks of Schuylkill, July 31st, 1780. Sir, Ever since I received your Excellency's favour of the 20th of this month, I have been endeavouring to procure the linen for the use of the soldiers, and it was not till Saturday last I have been able to meet with any fit for the purpose, it being unavoid- ably delayed so long. I have been informed of some circumstances, which I beg leave to mention, and from which perhaps the necessity for shirts may have ceased ; one is the supply of 2000 sent from this State to their line, and the other, that a consi- derable number is arrived in the French fleet, for the use of the army in general. Together with these, an idea prevails among the ladies, that the soldiers ESTHER REED. 323 will not be so much gratified, by bestowing an article to which they are entitled from the public, as in some other method which will convey more fully the idea of a reward for past services, and an incite- ment to future duty. Those who are of this opinion propose the whole of the money to be changed into hard dollars, and giving each soldier two, to be en- tirely at his own disposal. This method I hint only, but would not, by any means wish to adopt it or any other, without your full approbation. If it should meet with your concurrence, the State of Pennsyl- vania will take the linen I have purchased, and, as far as respects their own line, will make up any de- ficiency of shirts to them, which they suppose will not be many after the fresh supplies are received. If, after all, the necessity for shirts, which, though it may cease, as to the Pennsylvania Troops, may still continue to other parts of the army, the ladies will immediately make up the linen we have, which I think can soon be efi'ected, and forward them to camp, and procure more as soon as possible, having kept in hand the hard money I have received, until I receive your reply. The circumstances I have mentioned will, I hope, appear a sufficient motive for the ladies postponing the plan your Excellency proposes ; I will not, there- 324 ESTHER REED. fore, take up jour time in apologising for the delay. I have to acknowledge the receipt of a letter from your Excellency of the 20th, to which I would re- ply, that if the scheme to give the soldiers hard money should be thought proper, of course, the putting the money I have into the bank, couldn't be done, and I find on inquiry that considerable advantage may be had, by laying out hard money, either in linen or any other article. I have the honour to be, dear Sir, With the highest esteem. Your obedient servant E. Reed. Washington, in a letter of the 20th, reiterated his wish that no hard money, but specific supplies of clothing, should be furnished by the fair contribu- tors,, and with a note from Mrs. Reed expressing her acquiescence, the correspondence closed. Her last act of life was thus one of public beneficence. On the 22d August, 1780, are dated probably the last words she ever wrote. They are addressed to the lover of her youth and husband of her genuine and unfaltering afiection. ESTHER REED. 325 MRS. REED TO MR. REED. Banks of Schuylkill, August 2Gth, 1780. My Dear Friend: To-daj the news has reached me of the arrival of the second division of the French fleet. It doubtless gives universal satisfaction. What my feelings are on the occasion you will be at no loss to judge, and I will not pain you with describing them. I wish only that you may excuse my weakness with a tenderness that I can expect from no one else. I wonder I have not heard from you since I wrote. It is now near a week and I have not a line. My time passes on heavily when I hear no tidings of you. Are you so much engaged with your great family that you have not had leisure for us ; — but very likely there may be a letter in town for me, as I have seen nobody to-day who could bring it to me. Our dear little family are pretty well. Washington has been unwell these two or three days but is better. Denny is very happy and there is seldom a day passes but he talks of you. Do you not sometimes wish to see the circle you have left behind ? When you have a little cessation from the great concerns you are engaged in and your thoughts take 28 326 ESTHER REED. their natural bias, I knoAV you tliink of us, and when you have been embarrassed with difficulties, do you not wish to lose your cares on a bosom that is ever ready to share and relieve all your troubles. I have not yet moved to town, but intend to be there this week. I delayed a little while in hopes your tour of duty would be short, and you might be able to be with me here some time longer ; but that seems now quite out of the question and I shall hasten to town. I hope I shall hear from you in a day or two and learn what interesting intelligence you have. You can expect nothing from me but family circum- stances, and of these I shall continue to inform you because I know how much our welfare contributes to your happiness. Adieu, my dear friend, with the tenderest affection Your ever faithful E. Reed. It was on his way homeward, after the dismissal of the troops that President Reed wrote the follow- ing "letter to his friend Greene. I insert it here at the risk of deranging my merely personal nar- rative, on account of its peculiar interest and its having been accidentally omitted in the biographical ESTHER REED. 327 work to which it properly belongs. It is an earnest and truthful expression of the writer's opinion at a perilous crisis of our public affairs. REED TO GREENE. Bloomsbury, September 2d, 1780. Dear Sir: Your obliging favour of the 29th ult., is before me. I had flattered myself with the idea of spend- ing some time with you in Camp, and if my wishes had taken effect, to have served immediately under you. But it is otherwise, and I am now upon my return, having dismissed the militia, collected the stores, and closed my tour. The state of our pub- lic affairs now appears so problematical, that I con- fess myself bewildered and can hardly find a resting place for hope that some convulsion will not give the machine a new bias. Those who trace causes and effects, see nothing in our situation which might not naturally be ascribed to the politics and mea- sures of the summer of 1779, when the prospect of a winter peace evidently pervaded all our public measures, and the landed men thought no risk of national honour or interest too great to turn pff 328 ESTHER HEED. the weight of taxes. To these men, supposing no lurking treachery or wish to fall back to Great Britain, and to their measures we owe our present distress. Hence has arose the absurd system of specific sup- plies, which in other words is a scheme to carry on the war without money — hence the clamours against public officers, because otherwise these clamours would have fallen elsewhere. Perhaps it may be the crisis of our disorder and we may find our politi- cal diseases less fatal than they appear in prospect. Far from wishing your continuance in the office, I think a suitable exit was much to be desired. You may remember this was my opinion last spring, foreseeing that if the campaign began, retirement would be difficult and disgusting if not impractica- ble. As events are, perhaps my fears may not be well founded, though the clamour has been conside- rable. Col. Pickering's success will much govern the event as there will not be wanting some who will impute to you any failure which may happen this summer. But it being now done we must all endea- vour to serve the public with as little recollection of past grievances as possible. The changes of senti- ment which have taken place in the army with re- spect to civil government, have for the first time given me apprehensions. I am told that some offi- ESTHER REED. ' 329 cers of considerable rank have pressed the General to assume dictatorial authority. Is it so ? Neces- sity may perhaps plead for such a measure, but certainly such power should be received from other hands. He it is said, treated the proposition in a suitable msumer,— that necessity has ever been the tyrant's plea, and I prize his judgment and virtue too highly to believe he "vvill contaminate a glorious and honourable life by this fatal mistake ; for how- ever Congress may be depreciated as well as their money, they are yet the supreme power of the coun- try and may be much easier appreciated than the public safety and honour after such an event. Mr. Matthews's conduct both in Philadelphia and at Camp has been very mysterious : as I never gave him any cause of offence his enmity is unpardona- ble. The conduct and claims made by the Com- mittee have given universal dissatisfaction; they seemed to be intoxicated with their appointment and dealt out their dictates and reprehensions with extraordinary severity and, I think, partiality. It was in the first instance a child of cabal, and their treatment of Pennsylvania was unwarrantably ca- pricious. Gen. Schuyler was in town and conversed fully with me on the subjects of which in a few days they complained they could get no information. 330 ESTHER REED. Mr. Mathews spent a week in town and never sought it. I assure you there never was any intention to withhold a correspondence with them, but it required time and information to give them the assurances they required. We could not, after receiving an uncivil letter, humble ourselves to them ; and have, as soon as in our power, laid before Congress a full state of our affairs. Nor could they, I am sure, have ventured to treat us as they did, but that they expected the Bank would do everything — that bub- ble is now sinking to nothing and will prove the weakness and folly of building the supply of an army on the donations of a few generous individuals and the efforts of faction. They have impaired the public cause inexpressibly, and the wisest and best a^dvice that could be given them, and which they ought to have from the highest authority, would be to join their strength and credit to that of the State, and give our money issued for the purposes of supply a free and full credit. I will then as I have told the General, pledge my life and character that the army will not want bread. This will be delivered you by a worthy friend of mine. Dr. Shrill, with whom you may speak freely and confidentially and any civilities shown him will do me a particular favour. ESTHER REED. 331 With every kind wish and the most sincere re- gard, I remain, dear Sir, Your very sincere friend and Obedient humble servant, Jos. Reed. The scene must now close. Mr. Reed on reach- ing home found his wife on a bed of fatal ill- ness. Her constitution, enfeebled by her recent confinement, sank under an attack of acute disease, and she breathed her last, her husband, her aged mother, and children, the eldest being eight years of age, watching around her, at Philadelphia, on the 18th of September, 1780. All classes of society testified respect for her memory. Washing- ton knew her well, and has left on record his expres- sion of respectful sorrow. The Council and Assembly adjourned and at- tended her funeral in a body. A large number of citizens followed. The howl of faction and party animosity, then more fierce than ever and disturb- ing the higher circles of social life, was silenced at the sight of the husband bowed down in sor- row over his young wife's grave. To him, it was a blow from which he never recovered, and the rest of his life was darkened by this predominant sorrow 332 ESTHER REED. that never had consolation. To watch over his little children was his chief care, amidst the turmoil of public duty and anxieties as to public concerns which had no relief. There is a letter now before me to Mr. De Berdt, written more than a year after Mrs. Reed's death, that tells the tale of corroding domes- tic sorrow in words of genuine pathos which it is hard even now to read without tears. ' *^ I never knew," he says, "how much I loved her till I lost her for ever. I have sought resignation of philoso- phy and religion. I have endeavoured to reason myself into a proper submission to the Divine Will, but with little success. I must have the aid of time to feel as I ought to feel."* Mr. Reed went to England in the winter of 1788-4. The scene there was wholly changed. "Neither the country nor my feelings towards it," he wrote to a friend, " are the same, and I wish to return with all conve- nient expedition to America." He returned to die, having survived his wife little more than four years. Such was life — so varied, so anxious and so brief, in those days of trial. Mrs. Reed was buried in the Arch Street Pres- byterian ground — a spot honoured by the repose pf * MSS. Letter from Mr. Reed to Mr. De Berdt, Nov. 28, 1781. ESTHER BEED. 333 many of the great and good of our Philadelpliia an- cestors, and hence I trust sacred; and over her tomb, situated close to the gate, are written, no doubt by her husband, these words : In memory of Esther, the beloved wife-of Joseph Reed, President of this State, who departed this life On the 18th of September, A. d. 178.0, aged 34 years. Reader ! If the possession of those virtues of the heart Which make life valuable, or those personal endowments which Command esteem and love, may claim respectful and affectionate Remembrance, venerate the ashes here entombed. If to have the cup of temporal blessings dashed In the period and station of life in which blessings May be best enjoyed, demands our sorrow, drop a tear, and Think how slender is that thread on which the joys And hopes of life depend. My little memoir is now concluded. I have tried, as I wrote, to fulfil the pledge of my first pages, and to make it a simple and unambitious narrative. It has been to me a source of pure pleasure, and I do not at all disguise — it would be the worst of afiectation to do so — that some of this pleasure has been connected with the proud consciousness that the blood of her of whom I was writing flowed in my veins. Pride in ancestry, honoured in those days of genuine patriotism, is, at least, innocent — 334 ESTHER REED. possibly influential in guiding conduct to noble ends and aims. The more the American Revolution is studied, the more minute the revelations of the con- duct of its public men, the more rational will be the reverence which we, the men of times far, very far, deteriorated, ought to have for them. I have en- deavoured, in this little essay, to shed some light upon Revolutionary domestic life, aside from mere politics, and to show what were the trials and the heroism of the women of those days. APPENDIX. AMERICAN LAW STUDENTS IN ENGLAND. Through the kindness of Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, when Min- ister to this country, and of some professional friends in London, I have been enabled to procure partial lists of the Americans, who, before, and during the Revolutionary War, completed their pro- fessional studies in Great Britain. I regret very much that, owing to the enormous office charges at the Middle Temple, whither the largest number of Americans resorted, among them, my own an- cestor, I have been prevented from obtaining its list. These;charges, the Benchers have not felt at liberty to relinquish. Amongst those who studied at the Middle Temple, and who subsequently attained eminence at the Bar of Philadelphia, were Joseph Reed, Nicholas Wain, Edward Tilghman, Jared Ingersoil, and William Rawle. STUDENTS AT THE INNER TEMPLE, 1760 TO 1785. 1. Philip Alexander, of Virginia, . . . 20th December, 1760. 2. William Paca, of Maryland, .... 14th January, 1762. (Mr. Paca was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.) 3. Alexander White, of Virginia, . . . 15th January, 1762. 4. Edmund Key, of Maryland, .... 24th June, 1762. 5. Lewis Barwell, of Virginia, .... 22d March, 1765, 6. William Cooke, of Maryland, . . . 20th July, 1768. 7. James Lloyd Rodgers, of Maryland, . 20th July, 1768. 8. John Peronneau, of Carolina, ... 2d April, 1772. 9. Kean Osborne, of America (sic), . . 27th November. 1772. 336 APPENDIX. 10. John W. Irwin, of America, 11. Gibbes W. Jordan, of America, 12. St. George Tucker, of America, . 13. James McKealy, of America, . 14. William Houston, of Georgia, . 15. Francis Corbin, of Virginia, . . 16. Daniel Leonard, of America, . 1 7. William Robert Hay, of America, 18. George Tyson, of America, . . 19. John Kelsall, of America, . . 20. Francis Rush Clark, of America, 21. Carter Braxton, of America, . . 22. James Robertson, of America, . 23. Richard Foster Clark, of America 24. John Wentworth, of America, , 2d December, 1772. 27th August, 1773. 19th November, 1773. 19 th November, 1775. 1st July, 1776. 23d January, 1777. 5th June, 1777. 2d May, 1781. 6th June, 1781. 27th June, 1783. 5th November, 1783. 3d December, 1783. 18th December, 1783. 4th November, 1785. 11th February, 1785. LINCOLNS INN. 1. Philip Livingston, Jr., of New York, . 30th September, 1761. (A signer of the Declaration of Independence.) 2. Arthur Lee, M.D., F.R.S., of Virginia. 1st March, 1770. 3. Wilham Vassall. of Boston, . . , 24th November, 1773. 4. Francis Kinlock, of South Carohna, . 14th March, 1774. 5. William Walton, of South Carolina, . 25th January, 1775. 6. John Stuart, of South Carolina, . . 17th May, 1775. 7. Peter Markoe, of Philadelphia, . . 29th May, 1775. 8. Benjamin Lovell, of Boston, ... 3d May, 1776. 9. Robert WiUiams, of South Carohna, 1st April, 1777. 10. Gabriel Manigault, of South Carolina, 12th August, 1777. 11. Clement Cooke Clarke, of New York, 25th August, 1778. 12. Alexander Garden, of South Carolina, lltli January, 1779. 13. Richard Henderson, of Maryland, . 18th January, 1781. 14. Neil Jamieson, of New York, . . . 21st September, 1782. 15. Thomas Bee, of South Carolina, . . 18th December, 1782. 4? J