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THE LIFE

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MAJOR JOHN ANDRE.

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THE LIFE

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MAJOR JOHN ANDRE,

ADJUTANT-GENERAL OF THE BRITISH ARMY IN AMERICA.

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WmTHROP SARGENT.

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Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of more serious historj', must be tu<? ' sole recommendation of this personal history. — Gibbori's Autobiography,

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D.	APPLETON AND COMPANY, 549 & 551 BROADWAY. 1871.	, J > '

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TO THE

HONORABLE JARED SPARKS,

AS A MEMORIAL OF PUBLIC ADMIRATION AND PERSONAL FRIENDSHIP,

THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.

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• • • •

• Entered ;iccoriling to Act of C<,'nj;ress, iu the )'ear 18G0, by ' WiNTHRO? Sargent,

' ID the Cleik'.s Oflice of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts

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TO THE

HONORABLE JARED SPARKS,

AS A MEMORIAL OF PUBLIC ADMIRATION AND TERSONAL FRIENDSHIP,

THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.

The present edition of Wintlirop Sargent's " Me- moirs of Major Andre " is piiblislied, as tlie most fit- ting memorial which those who loved him best can make of a life now ended. For, although this work, which is bnt one of many historical essays that were the fruit of his studious youth, would alone suffice to guard their author's name " against tlie tooth of time and razure of oblivion," none the less do it and all his other writings seem, to those who knew him well, but the vernal promise of an autumn which never came. Yet, in what he accomplished, is so much knowledge, so correct a judgment of men and things, such graceful power of thought and style, that this promise may stand beside the riper work of others ; but

" Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime."

PREFACE.

The romantic nature of the circumstances wliich connect the name of Major Andrd with the liistory of our Revohition induced me some time ago to inquire more closely into the details of a character that seems to have inspired so warm an interest in the minds of all who have had occasion to observe it. In this un- dertaking, I am free to confess that my success in obtainino; information has been commensurate neither with my labors nor desires. No pains indeed were spared to procure intelligence concerning Andr^ him- self. Every repositoiy that could be heard of was examined ; and the old-world tales of those who " mumble their wisdom o'er the gossip's bowl " have been carefully gathered and sifted. Thus, much curi- ous matter more or less relevant to his story has been brought together from one quarter or another ; and by joining what has hitherto scarcely been known at all with wliat every one knows, something like a con- nected sketch of his career has been compiled. Sev- eral of the manuscript authorities that I have made use of (such as the Notes of Sir Henry Clinton on a copy of Stedman's American "VVar, and the origi-

VlU PREFACE.

nal Journals and papers of members of either party in our Revolution) appeared to me to possess no light value, and I thought it well to take advantage of an opportunity to set their contents before the w^orld ere the documents themselves should perish ; for, as honest old Aubrey says — " 'tis pitie that they should fall into the merciless hands of women, and be put under pies." This consideration may j)erhaps apologize for the insertion of more than one paragraph whose direct connection with the subject of this volume might not otherwise be very manifest. With these acquisitions, however, in hand, and with such sketches of the political and social condition of affairs during the period as naturally followed the thread of the stoiy, the preparation of the following pages gave me a very pleasant employment for some leisure country weeks. Whether they will prove as easy in the reading as they were in the writing is another question. If I have not entirely pursued the plan commemorated by Miguel Cervantes, and eked out my task with profuse histories of every giant or river which crosses its path, I have at least avoided pestering the reader with a myriad of references and authorities. There are in- deed vouchers for the facts put forward : but to drag them all in on every occasion great or small, would too much cumber my text.- As it is, I fear that the critical reader will find the book amenable to the censure of the nobleman in Guzman D'Alfarache, who, having ordered a picture of his horse, com-^

PREFACE. ix

plained that though indeed his steed was faithfully enough drawn, the canvas was so loaded with other objects — temples, trees, and the setting sun — that poor Bavieca was the least prominent part of the production. This is a fault of which no one is more conscious than myself; yet there is room for a hope that it may still find pardon, since many of the pas- sages which are not immediately personal to Andre himself are nevertheless more or less involved with the mighty events in which he was concerned, and often are compiled from sources hitherto unexplored. For access to many of these I am especially indebted to the kindness of Mr. Sparks, Mr. Bancroft, and Mr. John Carter Brown, whose American library is the most admirable collection of the kind that I have ever seen in private hands. To Mr. Tefft of Sa- vannah, Mr. Cope, Mr. Townsend Ward, and Mr. Penington of Philadelphia, and to several others, I am under obligations for valuable aid and friendly suggestions.

The map that accompanies this volume is engraved from a number of original military drawings by Ville- franche and other engineers, and preserved by Major Sargent of the American Army, wdio was stationed at West Point as aide to General Howe until that of- ficer was relieved by Arnold.

WiNTHROP Sargent.

CONTEOTS.

CHAPTER I.

Andrt^'s Parentage, Birth, and Early Life. — Nicholas St. Andrd. — Miss Seward. — His Courtship. — Letters to Miss Seward, . . 1

CHAPTER IL

Failure of Andre's Courtship. — Richard Lovell Edgeworth. — Thomas Day. — Marriage and Death of Miss Sneyd, 29

CHAPTER IH.

Andrd Joins the Army. —Visits Germany. — Condition of the Service. — He comes to America. —State of American Affairs, . . .39

CHAPTER IV.

Political Condition of Massachusetts in 1774. — State of Affairs at Bos- ton, 57

CHAPTER V.

Condition of Canada in 1775. — Operations on Lake Champlain and the Sorel. — Fall of Fort St. John, and Capture of Andre, . . 71

CHAPTER VI.

Andre's Captivity. — Detained in Pennsylvania. — Treatment of Pris- oners.— Andre's Relations with the Americans. — His Letters to Mr. Cope. — Exchange and Promotion. — Sir Charles Grey. — Sir Ilenrj' Clinton and the Operations on the Hudson, . . . .83

xii CONTENTS.

Page CHAPTER VII.

The British embark for Philadelphia. — Brandywine, the Paoli, and Gemiantown. — Andre's Humanity. — Occupation and Fortification of Philadelphia. — Character of the City in 1777, . . . .100

CHAPTER VIII.

Affairs at Philadelphia. — Disorders and Discontents. — Fall of Red Bank. — Andr6 follows Grey with Howe to Whitemarsh. — Charac- ter of Sir William Howe, 123

CHAPTER IX.

The British Army in Philadelphia. — Features of the Occupation. — Sir William Erskine. — Abercrombie. — Simcoe. — Lord Cathcart. — Tarleton. — Andre's Social Relations in the City. — Verses composed by him. — Amateur Theatricals. — Misconduct of the Royal Arms.

— The Mischianza. — Andrti's Account of it. — Howe removed from the Command, 143

CHARTER X.

Evacuation of Philadelphia. — Battle of Monmouth. — D'Estaing's Ar- rival. — Andr^ accompanies Grey against New Bedford. — His Sa- tirical Verses on the Investment of Newport. — Aide to Clinton. — Character of this General. — Andre's Verses upon an American Duel, 182

CHAPTER XL

New York in 1778. — Andre's Political Essay. — His Favor with Clin- ton.— Receives the Surrender of Fort La Fayette. — Letter to Mrs. Arnold. — Commencement of Arnold's Intrigue. — Appointed Deputy Adjutant-General. — Siege of Charleston. — Letter to Savannah. — Accused of entering Charleston as a Spy, 206

CHAPTER XIL

Clinton returns to New York. — Proposed Attack on Rochambeau. — Plans for a Lo^-al Uprising. — Anecdotes of Andre. — The Cow-Chase, 230

CHAPTER XIII.

Progress of Arnold's Treason. — Condition of American AflTairs in 1780.

— Plans for Surrendering West Point. — Letters between Andr(5 and Arnold. — An Interview Concerted. — Andre's Last Hours in New York 250

CONTENTS. xiii

f-- Tage

CHAPTER XIV.

Robinson sent to Communicate with Arnold. — Correspondence. — An- dr(5 goes to the Vulture. — Correspondence with Clinton and Arnold. — Joshua Ilett Smith selected as Arnold's Messenger, . . . 26ft

CHAPTER XV. .

Andr<5 leaves the Vulture. — Interview with Arnold and its Results — 286 Plans for Return. — Sets out with Smith by Land, .

CHAPTER XVI.

Andre's Journey. — Westchester County. — Skinners and Cow-boys. — Andre's Capture. — Various Accounts of its Circumstances, 302

CHAPTER XVII.

Andr6 a Prisoner in our Lines. — Intercourse with American Officers. — Letters to Washington. — Arnold's Escape, ... . 321

CHAPTER XVIII.

Andrti brought to West Point. — Sent to Tappaan. — His Case sub- mitted to a Court of Enquiry. — Its Decision approved by Washing- ton, 336

CHAPTER XIX.

Andre's Deportment after the Death-W arrant. — Letters to Clinton, and between Washington and the British Generals. — Plans for sub- stituting Arnold for Andr^. — The Execution delayed, . . . 357

CHAPTER XX.

Expedients of the British to procure Andre's Liberation. — Their Fail- ure. — Correspondence in the Case, 373

CHAPTER XXI.

Andr^ applies to be Shot. — His Request denied. — He is hanged. — Various Accounts of the Execution. — Honors bestowed on his Mem- ory. — His Remains removed to Westminster Abbey, . . . -390

xiv CONTENTS.

Page CHAPTER XXII.

Considerations upon the Justice of Andre's Sentence. — Conflicting Opinions. — Character of our Generals. — Reflections on Andrii's Fate, 413

APPENDIX.

No. I. Benedict Arnold, . 447

No. II. The Captors, 461

No. III. Verses connected with Andre's Execution, .... 464

No. IV. Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge to General Heath, . . 469

Index. ... .... 473

MAJOR JOHN ANDRE

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LIFE OF MAJOR ANDEE.

CHAPTER I.

Andre's Parentage, Birth, and Early Life. — Nicholas St. Andre. — Miss Seward. — His Courtship. — Letters to Miss Seward.

According to Debrett, Burke, and other genealogical authorities, John Andre was descended from a French refugee family, settled in England, at Southampton, in the county of Hants ; but whether this descent was by the pater- nal or the maternal line, does not appear. His mother, whose family name was Girardot, though of French parentage, was born at London. His father was a native of Geneva in Switzerland ; but it would seem that a very considerable portion of his life must have been passed in London, where he carried on an extensive business in the Levant trade, and where also, in 1780, several of his brothers had their abode. Of these, Dr. Andree, of Hatton Gardens, was apparently the only one who preserved what is said to have been an earlier method of spelling the family name.

Notwithstanding the establishment of a part of the Andre family in England, its connections upon the continent would appear to have been the most numerous and the most per- manent. Indeed, the name is not an uncommon one, and the biographical dictionaries supply a numerous list of persons bearing it, and distinguished in various lines. Of course it is impossible to trace any relationship between the majority of these and the subject of this memoir. During

2 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDK6.

her sojourn at Naples, not long after Major Andre's death, Mrs. Piozzi relates that she became acquainted with "the Swedish minister, Monsieur Andre, uncle to the lamented officer who perished in our sovereign's service in America : " but the only result of recent inquiries, set on foot in Sweden and carried as far as the isle of Gottland, in the Baltic, is to discredit her assertion. There exist, indeed, in that kingdom, the families of Andre and Andree, which have given to the state men of high official rank ; yet there is no reason to suppose that Major Andre was of the same blood. Turning to Germany, however, we are more successful. Branches of the stock from which he sprung have long been seated at Frankfort-on-the-Maine and at Offenbach ; some of the members of which are very well known to the world as publishers and editors of numerous musical works, and es- pecially of Mozart's. The most celebrated of these was Johann Andre, author of the opera of The Potter, who was born at Offenbach in 1741, and who died in 1799.

Though as yet opportunity is wanting to verify the suppo- sition, there is strong reason to believe that a near connec- tion existed between the immediate family of Major Andre and the once celebrated Nicholas St. Andre of Southampton ; — a character whose career is scarcely to be paralleled even in the pages of Gil Bias. This person came over to England, from his native Switzerland, at a very early age, and, prol)- ably, towards the close of the seventeenth century. By his own account, his origin was perfectly respectable, and even distinguished ; and in his later days he would assert that by right he was possessed of a title. Yet he arrived in Eng- land in the train of a Jewish f;\mily, and, it is said, in a menial position. He was related to a famous dancing-mas- ter of the same name who is mentioned in Dryden's Mac Flecknoe, published in 1G82:

"St. Anclrd's feet nc'or kept more equal time; "

and was himself originally destined for a fencing or a danc-

XICHOLAS ST. AXDRfi. 3

ing master. His knowledge of the French tongue extended to all the provincial dialects, and it is conjectured that he was, for a time, a teacher of that language ; his sister cer- tainly followed this occupation at a Chelsea boarding-school. But being early placed with a surgeon, he rapidly acquired such a considerable, though perhaps superficial, knowledge in that science, that he soon rose to a conspicuous position, and was among the first to deliver public lectures upon surgery. To an invincible assurance he united such a variety of ac- complishments that we need not wonder at his receiving the appointment of Anatomist to the Royal Household, and being presented by George I. with the King's own sword. He was singularly expert not only in manly exercises, such as fenc- ing, running, jumping, or riding the great horse, but also in pursuits that involve the employment of mental ingenuity. At chess he was an adept ; and his pretensions in botany, architecture, and music, were very respectable. Indeed, his skill with the viol de gambo was something remarkable. In 1723, he printed an account of a mysterious adventure that had nearly cost him his life. His story made a great sensa- tion at the time, and the Privy Council offered a reward for the detection of his assailants ; but it has not always encoun- tered implicit confidence. A little later, however, he became involved in another afH^ir by which his professional reputa- tion was hopelessly damaged. It seems that when the im- postor Mary Tofts, the rabbit-breeder of Godalming, came forth with her wonderful tale, St. Andre was among the readiest of her believers. He professed to liave examined carefully into the matter, and that the story she told was en- tirely faithful. It is difficult at this day to rightly estimate the credulity of the English people on that occasion. High and low were infected with the absurd conviction that the race of rabbits were of the children of men. " The public horror was so great that the rent of rabbit-warrens sank to nothing ; and nobody, till the delusion was over, presumed to eat a rabbit." The learned Whiston not only devoutly

4 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDRl^.

believed in the fable, but wrote a pamphlet to prove, in its occurrence, the fulfilment of a prophecy in Esdras. In short, as Lord Onslow wrote to the great naturalist, Sir Hans Sloane, (Dec. 4, 1726,) all England was disturbed by this story. But Queen Caroline having charged Dr. Ches- elden to investigate the matter, the imposture was speedily exposed, and they whose countenance had given it all its weight were now visited with a full measure of public oppro- brium. Swift, and perhaps Arbuthnot, had already taken up the pen against St. Andre, and now Hogarth seized on him. In the print of Mary Tofts, he is introduced ; and in another entitled The Wise Men of Godliman, the figure marked A is designed for the court anatomist. Again, in the print of The Doctors in Labor, he figures as a merry-andrew ; and by a host of coarse caricatures and doggerel ballads his weak- ness was stigmatized and made yet more ridiculous. In De- cember, 1726, the affair was burlesqued upon the stage, — a new rabbit-scene being added to the play of The Necroman- cer ; and in 1727, the ballad of St. Andre's Miscarriage was sun"; through the streets :

" He dissected, compared, and distinguish'd likewise. The make of these rabbits, their growth and their size ; He preserv'd them in spirits and — a little too late, Preserv'd ( Vertue sciiljjsil) a neat copperplate."

The consequence was, that on his return to Court he was so coldly treated that he would never reappear; nor, though continuing to hold his appointment till his death, would he touch the official salary. A more amusing circumstance was his testiness for the future upon the subject of rabbits ; abso- lutely forbidding any allusion, even to their name, being ever a^ain made in his presence.

On the 27th of May, 1730, St. Andre married Lady Betty Molyneux, the childless widow of Samuel Molyneux, M. P., who brought him, it was said, £30,000. The lady's conduct was so imprudent that she was forthwith dismissed by the Queen from her service. Mr. Molyneux was but re-

■ NICHOLAS ST. ANDRfi. 5

cently dead, and whispers named her as his murderer : nor did hep second husband escape a share of the imputation. The Rev. Dr. Madden, of Dublin, however, having made use of this scandal in a pamphlet, St. Andre at once prose- cuted him successfully for defamation. But the accusation has been immortalized by Pope, in the second dialogue of the Epilogue to his Satires, where " the poisoning dame " is brought into discussion. St. Andre had once the good for- tune to attend the poet when he was upset in Lord Boling- broke's coach as it returned from Dawley. His fingers were incurably wounded, and this being the nearest surgeon, was called in.* About 1755, he took up his permanent abode at Southampton. The greater part of the property that came with Lady Betty passed on her death to Sir Capel Moly- neux ; and St. Andre's expensive tastes dissipated much of what remained. Architecture was one of his hobbies ; and large sums were squandered on a house at Chepstow. About a mile's distance from Southampton, he erected a thoroughly inconvenient dwelling, which he called Belle-Vue, and boasted it as constructed " on the true principles of anatomy." He had, however, another dwelling within the town, with a large and valuable library; and here he died in March, 1776, being then upwards of ninety-six years of age.

St. Andre is represented as having been loose in religion and in morals ; of a vivacious and agreeable manner in con- versation ; his speech abounding in foreign idioms ; his coun- tenance fierce and muscular. In earlier life his manners must have been polite and graceful, from the social positions to which he rose ; but Nichols, who wrote of him after death, and who characterizes him as " a profligate man of an amo-

* St. Andr(5 is also, truly or folsely, reported as having had a share in a strange rencontre between the Earl of Peterborough and his guest, the famous Voltaire, on occasion of the detection of the latter in a piece of pecuniary dishonesty. The earl would have slain him but for the presence of St. Andre, who held him tightly while Voltaire fled — not only from the Qouse, but from the kingdom. — Gent. Mag., 1797.

6 LIFE OF liLlJOR ANDRIi:.

rous constitution," declares that " no man will be hardy enough to assert that the figure, manners, and language of St. Andre were those of a gentleman."

Such was the character with whom, as has already been observed, John Andre was probably nearly allied by blood as well as by name ; though why the latter was altered to Andre or Andree, we do not know. It is not likely that any of the lineage now reside in England. About 1820 or 1825, when a young French gentleman, M. Ernest Andre, came over from Paris on a visit to the surviving sisters of Major Andre, he was declared by those ladies to be their nearest living relative.

Where John Andre was born, cannot with certainty be stated. It may have occurred at London, where his father, after the fashion of those days, had long had his dwelling and his place of business under one roof, in Warnford Court, Throgmorton Street. Or it may have been at Southampton, since in 1780 we find his mother, then a widow and chiefly residing with her brother, Mr. Girardot, in Old Broad Street, London, yet still possessing a house there. We are able to fix the date of his birth with more accuracy ; although, even on this head, the contemporaneous accounts are conflicting : one pointing to the year 1749, and another to 1752 ; Avhile Rose puts it at London, in 1750. But the monumental inscrip- tion in Westminster Abbey that says " he fell a sacrifice to his zeal for his king and country, on the 2d of October, 1780, ao'cd twenty-nine," and which is followed by Lord Mahon, is borne out by a letter of Andre's own, written in October, 1769, in which he speaks of himself as "a poor novice of eighteen." Hence we may fairly ascribe the period of his birth to the year 1751.

The very little that is known respecting Andre's earlier years, renders it proper to be particular in presenting to the reader such details, naked though they be, as can now be laid hold of; and even these do not always agree, as they come to us from his contemporaries. One story gives West-

EARLY LIFE. 7

minster as the scene of his education, and with a particular- ity that brings to mind the circumstantial evidence of Sheri- dan's double-letter scene, even fixes the date " near the latter end of Dr. Markham's time, now Archbishop of York." In this case, he might have had for school-mates Thomas and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, so renowned afterwards in the service of their country in the war tliat cost Andre his life ; while for a master he would have had a man whom Gibbon distinguished, among the whole bench of English bishops, for eminent scholarship and skill in the instruction of youth. This was the prelate, too, whose feelings towards insurgent America are thus alluded to by Lord John Towns- hend :

" To Cramner's stake be Adams ty'd ; Mild Markham preaching by his side

The traitor's heart will gain : For if he sees the blaze expire, Locke's works he '11 fling to wake the fire,

And put him out of pain."

Another account, however, says that he was first placed at Hackney, under a Mr. Newcombe ; whence he was after a time withdrawn, and sent for several years to Geneva to com- plete his education. It may be that both of these stories are correct ; that from Hackney he went to St. Paul's, and thence to Geneva ; but wherever he was taught, his acquirements were such as to reflect honor alike on the teacher and the pupil. He was master of many things that in those days very rarely constituted a part of a gentleman's education, and which, indeed, even in these are to be found rather in exceptions than the rule. The modern European languages — French, German, Italian, &c. — are said to have been possessed by him in singular perfection ; while in music, painting, drawing, and dancing, he particularly excelled. When we consider that with these accomplishments was joined a nature always ambitious of distinction, a mind stored with the belles lettres of the day, and endowed not only with a taste for poetry, but with considerable readiness in

8 LIFE OF JLIJOR AXDliE.

its composition ; and a person which, though slender, was re- markably active and graceful, we need not wonder that his attractions were such as to win the favor of all with whom he came in contact. At the university of Geneva, he was remarked for a diligent student, and for an active and in- quiring mind ; and in especial was distinguished by his proficiency in the schools of mathematics and of military drawings. To his skill in this last branch, his subsequent rapid advancement in the army was in great pai't attrib- utable.

Andre's father was a respectable merchant, whose success had been suflSciently great to convince him that his own pro- fession was the very best his son could embrace ; yet not suf- ficient to enable him to give that son a fortune which would permit him to follow the bent of his own inclinations. In this relation, it would seem as though the old gentleman had pursued very much the same course as that adopted by the elder Osbaldistone, in Rob Roy ; and to a certain extent the consequences were alike. Summoned home from the conti- nent, young Andre found a place assigned him in his father's counting-house, where for some time he appears to have undergone that training which it was hoped and expected would enable him to carry on successfully the business that had already afforded a competency to its founder. For, in the process of time, his father had found himself in condition to withdraw from at least the more laborious cares of his af- fairs, and, abandoning the residence in Throgmorton Street, had removed his household to a country-seat at Clapton, called The Manor House. This building, now used for a school, is still standing opposite to Brook House, Clapton Gate ; and the graves of several of its former occupants are to be seen in Hackney churchyard, hard by the old tower.

Although at this stage in his career there is no evidence that John Andre's conduct was that of

"A clerk condemned his father's soul to cross, Who penned a stanza when he should engross;"

EAELY LlFt. 9

yet we may fairly infer, from his own language, that the com- mercial line of life chalked out for him was less to his taste than the profession of arms ; that, like young Frank Osbald- istone, in preference to any other active pursuit, he would choose the army ; and that the desk and stool " by a small coal- fire in a gloomy compting-house in Warnford Court," would have been joyfully exchanged for the sash and gorget, and any barrack-yard in the United Kingdom. The bent of his studies at Geneva must have satisfied his judgment as to the sphere in which he was best calculated to attain success. But his years were too few to enable him to oppose his father's wishes ; and in 1767 or 1768, Avhen about sixteen or seventeen years of age, he entered the counting-house. Nor did the death of his father, which occurred at the house in Clapton, in April, 1769, make at the time any material dif- ference in the nature of his avocations.

What family was left by the elder Andre can only be gathered from the fact that in 1780, besides his widow, there still remained a second son, William Lewis, who was eight years behind his brother ; and three daughters, Louisa Cath- erine, Mary Hannah, and Anne. The last is said to have been distinguished for a poetical talent. In her Monody, Miss Seward thus makes her hero address this little domestic band on his departure for America :

" Dim clouds of "Woe ! ye veil each sprightly grace That us'd to sparkle iu Mama's face. My tuneful Anna to her lute complains, But Grief's fond throbs arrest the parting strains. Fair as the silver blossom on the thorn, Soft as the spirit of the vernal morn, Louisa, chase those trembling fears, that prove Th' ungovern'd terror's of a sister's love; They bend thy sweet head, like yon lucid flow'r That shrinks and fades beneath the summer's show'r. Oh ! smile, my sisters, on this destin'd da}', And -with the radiant omen gild my way ! "

Of these sisters, Louisa Catherine was born about 1754, and Mary Hannah about 1752, according to the inscriptions in 2

10 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDRIi.

the churchyard at Bath-Hampton, where they are buried ; — the last of these two dates going far to fix that of Major Andre's birth as of 1751.

In 1780 also there were yet hving at London two brothers of the elder Andre : Mr. David Andre of New Broad Street, and Mr. John Lewis Andre, of Warnford Court, Throgmorton Street ; who were known to the community as respectable Turkey merchants, and who doubtless still carried on at the old place the business in which their brother had prospered Avell, but which their nephews had declined. For it was not John alone who renounced the ledger for the spontoon. Not very long after he entered the army he was followed by his only brother, whose years forbid the supposition that he could ever have had any prolonged experience in the mysteries of trade.

Duringr some months after his father's death, John Andre was probably sufficiently occupied with new and urgent cares, to prevent his taking any active step towards freeing himself from the chains of business. From circumstances we may conclude that the summer of 1769 — the year in which he became the head of his mother's house — was passed by the family at Buxton, Matlock, and other places in the interior of England, whither it was customary for invalids, and per- sons whose health was impaired by affliction, to resort for re- lief and change of scene : and if it was not now that he first became acquainted with Miss Seward, it is at least almost certain that he formed with another lady a friendship that left its coloring on the whole of his future life.

Anna Seward, the eulogist of Major Andre, was bom at Eyam, in Derbyshire, in 1747. The bishop's palace at Lichfield, in which her father — who was a canon of the cathedral there — resided, was the head-quarters of the lit- erary world of that region, and of the better classes of society generally ; and we are told, by one well fitted to judge, that at this period Miss Seward, by grace and beauty of person, and by conversational skill, was amply qualified to maintain

MISS SEW.iKD. 11

the attractions of the house. She was besides of an enthusi- astic, not to vSay romantic disposition, and not a little addicted to the perpetration of a sort of poetry, " most of which," says her friend and biographer, Sir Walter Scott, " is absolutely execrable." With many virtues she appears to have pos- sessed a certain spice of that self-conceit which results from an exaggerated opinion of one's own capacity, and in the writings of her contemporaries occurs more than one sarcas- tic allusion, that savors rather of personal than of literary animadversion. But between Andre and herself no other feeluig than of delicate and tender friendship seems ever to have subsisted ; and the hues in which she bewailed his un- happy fate, were evidently the genuine expression of her sor- row and regret.

The character of the society at Lichfield has already been referred to. The little circle that was accustomed to pay its homage to Miss Seward and to receive her smiles and praises in return, if not a constellation of the first magnitude, com- prised at least many names which in those days occupied a respectable rank in the republic of letters. Foremost among them was Dr. Danvin, the author of The Botanic Garden, but, unless we except the lines —

" Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car,"

better known to this generation by Canning's sarcastic par- ody. The Loves of the Triangles, than by anything of his own. Then follow Hayley, the author of the Triumphs of Temper ; Sir Brooke Boothby ; Richard Lovell Edgeworth ; the eccentric Thomas Day, whose story of Sandford and Merton for a time rivalled even Robinson Crusoe in pop- ularity ; and others, either residents of Lichfield or sojourners who had been attracted thither by " its good report." Thus established the magnates of a provincial town sufiiciently remote from London to be beyond many of the terrors of its superior authority, the cathedral critics of Lichfield lived, and

12 LIFE OF MAJOR AJJDRli.

wrote, and praised each other for great authors, and were we may suppose as happy as this belief could make them.

A traveller in England, shortly after Major Andre's death, relates that being in 1782 at Hagley, the seat of Earl Fer- rers and the scene of many of the younger Lyttleton's ex- traordinaiy exploits, he was assured by his lordship's brother- in-law, Mr. Green, of Portugal House, Birmingham, that at the very mansion they were then in he had introduced the unfortunate Major Andre to Miss Seward, afterwards so well known for her genius, her connection, with Andre, and her sorrows. We may presume that this introduction occurred in the summer of 1769.

At this time the family of Mr. Thomas Seward comprised not only his wife and his daughter Anna, but also a young lady, Miss Honora Sneyd, a daughter of Edward, the young- est son of Ralph Sneyd, Esq., of Bishton, in Staffordshire. Mrs. Sneyd dying at an early period, the daughters were kindly taken in charge by her friends and kindred, and the care of Honora fell to the faithful hands of Mrs. Seward. As nearer her own age, a gi*eater intimacy than with Anna naturally grew up between the orphan and Miss Sally Sew- ard, a younger sister ; but she dying when Honora was thir- teen, the latter was left to the immediate companionship of the elder daughter, from whom she derived much of her hterary taste. In all respects, we are told. Miss Sneyd was treated as one of Mrs. Seward's family, and it was impossible to perceive that any discrimination was made by the mother between her own and her adopted child.

" It was at Buxton or at Matlock," says Mr. Edgeworth^ " that Andre first met Honora Sneyd." Matlock Bath, about two miles from the straggling little village of Matlock in Derbyshire, was a favorite watering-place, where a pleasant freedom of social intercourse is said to have then prevailed. People coming together for the first time, and passing weeks in the same house, were content to regard each other as acquaintances and to have their enjoyments in common.

COURTSHIP. 13

The spot itself is singularly picturesque, lying on the side of the Massori Hill, to whose summit a path was con- trived through groves of fir-trees. On every hand, the eye rests upon the lofty Tors, or hills of the region ; and the Lovers' Walk, by the river Derwent, was doubtless then as it is now chosen for many a happy stroll. Buxton too was celebrated for its medicinal wells, and was also in the Peak of Derbyshire. Mr. Seward had a living in the Peak, whither in his summer visits he was accompanied by his daughter, and probably by others of his household, — at all events, it was at Buxton that the two families, from Lichfield and from Clapton, were together in the summer of 1769, and it was there that the young merchant of Warnford Court be- came so irretrievably enamored of a lady whose charms seem by all accounts to have been sufficient to subdue less suscep- tible hearts than his own. A mezzotinto engraving after Romney, which was esteemed by her friends as the perfect, though unintentional resemblance of Honora Sneyd at a period " when she was surrounded by all her virgin glories, — beauty and grace, sensibility and goodness, superior in- telligence and unswerving truth," — conveys an idea of charms that would justify the description of her at this period by the man who should best be entitled to pronounce a verdict. " Her memory," said her future husband, " was not copiously stored with poetry ; and, though in no way de- ficient, her knowledge had not been much enlarged by books ; but her sentiments Avere on all subjects so just, and were de- livered with such blushing modesty, — though not without an air of conscious worth, — as to command attention from every one capable of appreciating female excellence. Her person was graceful, her features beautiful, and their expres- sion such as to heighten the eloquence of everything she said." Blue eyes and golden hair were the inheritance of the family ; but in her face there would seem to have even now been visible some hectic trait — some negative symbol of that latent disorder, which at fifteen years had

14 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR]-:.

threatened her life, and by which it was finally to be con- cluded.

Such being Honora's graces, it is no wonder that Andre was as heartily and as quickly impressed by them as many others were doomed to be ; nor is it strange that he should speedily have awakened a corresponding sentiment in the fair one's breast. It is one of the most attractive features of his char- acter, that — unlike many who are the life and idol of every circle but their own, and are charming everywhere but at home — Andre was even more prized by his nearest fam- iliars than by the world without. The better he was known, the better he was loved ; and the endearing appellation of cher Jean, which was constantly bestowed upon him by his family, soon found a place on the lips of his friends. A glance at his portrait will go far to explain this secret of inspiring attachment. His features, as delicate in their lines and expression as those of a woman, at once reveal a tender- ness and a vivacity that could scarcely belong to a disposi- tion not originally possessed of a very considerable degree of natural refinement. To what extent these characteristics were developed and increased by cultivation will in time appear.

It does not seem that the lovers at Buxton were long in coming to an understanding. Miss Seward, both then and afterwards, took a deep interest in the affair and looked with the fullest favor on the suitor. An opportunity was soon afforded for him to make his earliest essay at painting the likeness of a human face, and two miniatures of Miss Sneyd were the first fruits of his pencil. One of these — appar- ently the least perfect — he gave at the time to Miss Seward, who retained it through her life : the other was, of course, reserved by the artist for his own consolation, although the favorable reception which his addresses had received on all hands must have given him abundant reason to hope for the ultimate possession of the beautiful original. It was not un- til they had reflected on the youth of both parties in respect

COURTSHIP. 15

to wedlock, and the absence of present means to enable them to be provided with such a maintenance as they had each been brought up to anticipate, that the seniors looked coldly on the affair. And even then, the most that was agreed upon by Mrs. Andre and Mr. Sneyd, was that since an im- mediate marriage was out of the question, and a long en- gagement between two very young people, separated by a distance of a hundred miles and more, was not desirable, it was wiser that they should be kept apart as much as possible;, trusting that time would either wean them from their attach- ment, or bring the means of gratifying it. On these terms the parting took place ; but it will be seen that, as might have been expected under such circumstances, one if not both of the lovers regarded it as anything but final. It even seems, from the first of the letters presently to be given, that Andre accompanied Miss Seward and Miss Sneyd on their I'eturn to Lichfield ; and by letters and by personal inter- views, an intercourse was kept up between them for some months longer.

It was during the i:>rogress of his courtship at Buxton, that Andre made known to his Lichfield friends his aversion to commerce, and probably his desire for the army. The rep- resentations of Miss Seward that it was so much for his interest in every way to adhere steadily to his present em- ployment, and above all that it was the only means by which he could procure the wealth necessary to secure his union with Miss Sneyd, prevailed upon him for a season to stick to the desk. " When an impertinent consciousness," he says, " whispers in my ear, that I am not of the right stuff for a merchant, I draw my Honora's picture from my bosom, and the sight of that dear talisman so inspirits my industry, that no toil appears oppressive." The reader may compare with some interest this confession with the sentiments, uttered at the same period, of another young occupant of a stool in a counting-house, whose career was destined to cross Andre's in the most interesting period of his life. "I contemn,"

16 LIFE OF HIAJOR ANDR^.

wrote Alexander Hamilton, in 17G9, " the grovelling condi- tion of a desk, to which my fortune condemns me, and would willingly risk ray life, though not my character, to exalt my station ; I mean to prepare the way for futurity."

Before Andre parted from " the dear Lichfieldians," to return to Clapton and his daily avocations in Throgmorton Street, a correspondence appears to have been arranged be- tween Miss Seward and himself, the burden of which, as may well be guessed, was to be Honora. His epistles, which sometimes covered letters to Miss Sneyd, were evidently de- signed to pass from the hands of his fair correspondent to those of her adopted sister ; while in return he should re- ceive every intelligence of the young lady's movements and welfare, and occasionally a postscript from her own pen. There was nothing clandestine in this arrangement, little indeed as it may have accorded with the plans of the parents of the lovers. Miss Sneyd's conduct throughout, seems to have been ingenuous and discreet ; while Andre availed him- self of a fair and friendly means of obtaining that informa- tion which was naturally so desirable to one in his position. His letters were often adorned with hasty pen or pencil sketches of such objects of interest as were germain to the text, and the specimens which follow give ample proof, as Miss Seward justly observes, of his wit and vivacity. " His epistolary writings," says Mr. Sparks, " so far as specimens of them have been preserved, show a delicacy of sentiment, a playfulness of imagination, and an ease of style, which could proceed only from native refinement and a high degree of culture." " The best means, next to biography written by the person himself, of obtaining an insight into his character, is afforded," remarks Maria Edgeworth, " by his private let- ters." There is sufficient excuse in their own contents for here presenting those of Andre to Miss Seward; but the reason suggested by Miss Edgeworth affords an additional motive. It will be observed that he addresses the lady as his Julia ; for no other cause that can be guessed at but that

LETTERS TO mSS SEWAED. 17

her real name was Anna. But such tricks of the pen were then counted among the dehcacies of a sentimental corre- spondence ; as is pleasantly described in BAmie Inconnue.

The journey to Shrewsbury, alluded to below, was made to visit Ehzabeth, Mr. Sneyd's fifth daughter, who had been brought up by and resided with her relatives, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Powys of the Abbey. The letters themselves were first printed in connection with Miss Seward's Monody upon their writer.

MR. ANDRE TO MISS SEWARD.

Claptox, Oct. 3, 17G9.

From their agreeable excursion to Shrewsbury, my dear- est friends are by this time returned to their beloved Lich- field. Once again have they beheld those fortunate spires, the constant witnesses of all their pains and pleasures. I can well conceive the emotions of joy which their first ap- pearance, from the neighboring hills, excites after absence ; they seem to welcome you home, and invite you to reiterate those hours of happiness, of which they are a species of monument. I shall have an eternal love and reverence for them. Never shall I forget the joy that danced in Honora's eyes, when she first shewed them to me from Needwood For- est, on our return with you from Buxton to Lichfield. I re- member she called them the ladies of the valley, — their light- ness and elegance deserve the title. Oh ! how I loved them from that instant ! My enthusiasm concerning them is carried farther even than your's and Honora's, for every object that has a pyramidical form, recalls them to my recollection, with a sensation that brings the tear of pleasure into my eyes.

How happy you must have been at Shrewsbury! only that you tell me, alas ! that dear Honora was not so well as you wished during your stay there. — I always hope the best. My impatient spirit rejects every obtruding idea, which I have not fortitude to support. — Dr. Darwin's skill, and your

18 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDRfi.

tender care, will remove that sad pain in her side, which makes writing troublesome and injurious to her ; which robs her poor Cher Jean of those precious pages, with which, he flatters himself, she would otherwise have indulged him.

So your happiness at Shrewsbury scorned to be indebted to public amusements ? Five Virgins — united in the soft bonds of friendship ! How I should have liked to have made the sixth ! — But you surprise me by such an absolute exclu- sion of the Beaux : — I certainly thought that when five wise virgins were watching at midnight it must have been in expectation of the bridegroom's coming.

We are at this instant five virgins, writing round the same table — my three sisters, Mr. E\Yer, and myself. I beg no reflections injurious to the honor of poor Cher Jean. My mother is gone to pay a visit, and has left us in possession of the old coach ; but as for nags, we can boast of only two long-tails, and my sisters say they are sorry cattle, being no other than my friend Ewer and myself, who, to say truth, have enormous pig-tails.

My dear Boissier is come to town ; he has brought a little of the soldier with him, but he is the same honest, warm, in- telligent friend I always found him. He sacrifices the town diversions, since I will not partake of thom.

We are jealous of your correspondents, who are so nu- merous.— Yet, write to the Andres often, my dear Julia, for who are they that will value your letters quite so much as we value them ? — The least scrap of a letter will be received with the greatest joy ; write, therefore, tho' it were only to give us the comfort of having a piece of paper which has recently passed thro' your hands ; — Honora will put in a little postscript, were it only to tell me that she is my very sincere friend^ who will neither give me love nor comfort — very short indeed, Honora, was thy last post- script ! — But I am too presumptuous ; — I wiU not scratch out, but I M7^say — from the little there was I received more joy than I deserve. — This Cher Jean is an imper-

LETTERS TO MISS SEWARD. 19

tinent fellow, but he will grow discreet in time; — you must consider him as a poor novice of eighteen, who for all the sins he may commit is sufficiently punished in the single evil of being one hundred and twenty miles from Lichfield.

My mother and sisters will go to Putney in a few days to stay some time ; — we none of us like Clapton : — 1 need not care, for I am all day long in town ; but it is avoiding Scylla to fall into Charybdis. You paint to me the pleasant vale of Stow in the richest autumnal coloring. In return, I must tell you that my zephyrs are wafted through cracks in the wainscot ; for murmuring streams, I have dirty kennels ; for bleating flocks, grunting pigs ; and squalling cats for birds that incessantly warble. I have said something of this sort in my letter to Miss Spearman, and am twinged with the idea of these letters being confronted, and that I shall recall to your memory the fat Knight's love-letters to Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page.

Julia, perhaps thou fanciest I am merry. Alas ! But I do not wish to make you as doleful as myself; and besides, when I would express the tender feelings of my soul, I have no language which does them any justice ; if I had, I should regret that you could not have it fresher, and that whatever one communicates by letter must go such a roundabout way, before it reaches one's correspondent : from the writer's heart through his head, arm, hand, pen, ink, paper, over many a weary hill and dale, to the eye, head, and heart of the reader. I have often regretted our not possessing a sort of faculty which should enable our sensations, remarks, &c., to arise from their source in a sort of exhalation, and fall upon our paper in words and phrases properly adapted to express them, without passing through an imagination whose opera- tions so often fail to second those of the heart. Then what a metamorphose we should see in people's style ! How elo- quent those who are truly attached ! how stupid they who falsely profess affection ! Perhaps the former had never been able to express half their regard ; while the latter, by their

20 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR£.

flowers of rhetoric, had made us believe a thousand times more than they ever felt — but this is ■whimsical moralizing.

My sisters' Penserosos were dispersed on their arrival in town, by the joy of seeing Louisa and their dear little Brother Billy again, our kind and excellent Uncle Girardot, and Uncle Lewis Andre. I was glad to see them, but they complained, not without reason, of the gloom upon my coun- tenance. Billy wept for joy that we were returned, while poor Cher Jean was ready to weep for sorrow. Louisa is grown still handsomer since we left her. Our sisters Mary and Anne, knowing your partiality to beauty, are afraid that when they shall introduce her to you, she will put their noses out of joint. Billy is not old enough for me to be afraid of in the rival-way, else I should keep him aloof, for his heart is formed of those affectionate materials, so dear to the ingen- uous taste of Julia and her Honora.

I sympathize in your resentment against the canonical Dons, who stumjDify the heads of those good green people, beneath whose friendly shade so many of your happiest hours have glided away, — but they defy them ; let them stumpify as much as they please, time will repair the mis- chief, — their verdant arms will again extend, and invite you to their shelter.

The evenings grow long. I hope your conversation round the fire will sometimes fall on the Andres ; it will be a great comfort to them that they are remembered. We chink our glasses to your healths at every meal. " Here's to our Lichfieldian friends," says Nanny ; — " Oh-h," says Mary ;

— " With all my soul," say I ; — " Allons," cries my mother ;

— and the draught seems nectar. The libation made, we begin our uncloying themes, and so beguile the gloomy evening.

Mr. and Mrs. Seward will accept my most affectionate respects. My male friend at Lichfield will join in your conversation on the Andres. Among the numerous good qualities he is possessed of, he certainly has gratitude, and

LETTERS TO MISS SEWARD. 21

then he cannot forget those who so sincerely love and esteem him. I, in particular, shall always recall with pleasure the happy hours I have passed in his company. My friendship for him, and for your family, has diffused itself, like the pre- cious ointment from Aaron's beard, on every thing which sur- rounds you, therefore I beg that you would give my amities to the whole town. Persuade Honora to forgive the length and ardor of the enclosed, and believe me truly your affec- tionate and faithful friend, J. Andre.

Mr. Peter Boissier, of the 11th Dragoons, and Mr. Wal- ter Ewer, Jr., of Dyer's Court, Aldermanbury, (a son, it is said, of William Ewer, Esq., in 1778 a director of the Bank of England,) who are mentioned in the preceding letter, were valued friends of Andre's, and are affectionately re- membered in his will.

MR. ANDRE TO MISS SEWARD.

LoNDOX, Oct. 19, 1769.

From the midst of books, papers, bills, and other imple- ments of gain, let me lift up my drowsy head awhile to converse with dear Julia. And first, as I know she has a fervent wish to see me a quill-driver, I must tell her, that I begin, as people are wont to do, to look upon my future profession with great partiality. I no longer see it in so disadvantageous a light. Instead of fi";uring a merchant as a middle-aged man, with a bob-wig, a rough beard, in snuff- colored clothes, grasping a guinea in his red hand, I con- ceive a condely young man, with a tolerable pig-tail, wielding a pen with all the noble fierceness of the Duke of Marlbor- ough brandishing a truncheon upon a sign-post, surrounded with types and emblems, and canopied with cornucopias that disembogue their stores upon his head ; Mercuries reclined upon bales of goods ; Genii playing Avith pens, ink, and pa- per ; while, in perspective, his gorgeous vessels, " launched on

22 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR£.

the bosom of the silver Thames," are wafting to distant lands the produce of this commercial nation. Thus all the mercan- tile glories croud on my fancy, emblazoned in the most reful- gent colouring of an ardent imagination. Borne on her soar- ing pinions I wing my flight to the time Avhen Heaven shall have crowned my labors with success and opulence. I see sumptuous palaces rising to receive me ; I see orphans and widows, and painters, and fiddlers, and poets, and builders, protected and encouraged ; and when the fabric is pretty nearly finished by my shattered pericranium, I cast my eyes around, and find John Andre, by a small coal-fire, in a gloomy compting-house in Warnford Court, nothing so little as what he has been making himself, and, in all probability, never to be much more than he is at present. But oh ! my dear Honora ! — it is for thy sake only I wish for wealth. — You say she was somewhat better at the time you wrote last. I must flatter myself that she will soon be without any re mains of this threatening disease.

It is seven o'clock : you and Honora, with two or three more select friends, are now probably encircling your dress- ing-room fireplace. What would I not give to enlarge that circle ! The idea of a clean hearth, and a snug circle round it, formed by a few select friends, transports me. You seem combined together against the inclemency of the weather, the hurry, bustle, ceremony, censoriousness, and envy of the world. The purity, the warmth, the kindly influence of fire — to all for whom it is kindled — is a good emblem of the friendship of such amiable minds as Julia's and her Honora's. Since I cannot be there in reality, pray imagine me with you ; admit me to your conversationcs, — think how I wish for the blessing of joining them ! and be persuaded that I take part in all your pleasures, in the dear hope, that ere very long, your blazing hearth will burn again for me. Pray keep me a place ; — let the poker, tongs, or shovel, repre- sent rae. But you have Dutch tiles, Avhich are infinitely better; so let Moses, or Aaron, or Balaam's ass be my representative.

LETTERS TO MISS SEWARD. 23

But time calls me to Clapton. I quit you abruptly till to-morrow, when, if I do not tear the nonsense I have been writing, I may perhaps increase its quantity. Signora Cyn- thia is in clouded majesty. Silvered with her beams, I am about to jog to Clapton upon my own stumps ; musing as I homeward plod my way — ah ! need I name the subject of my contemplations ?

Thursdaif.

I had a sweet walk home last night, and found the Clap- tonians, with their fair guest, a Miss Mourgue, very well. My sisters send their amities, and will write in, a few days.

This morning I returned to town. It has been the finest day imaginable ; a solemn mildness was diffused throughout the blue horizon ; its light was clear and distinct, rather than dazzling ; — the serene beams of the autumnal sun, gilded hills, variegated woods, glittering spires, ruminating herds, bounding flocks, — all combined to enchant the eyes, expand the heart, and " chase all sorrow but despair." In the midst of such a scene, no lesser sorrow can prevent our sympathy with nature. A calmness, a benevolent disposition seizes us with sweet insinuating power ; the very brute creation seem sensible of these beauties ; there is a species of mild chear- fulness in the face of a lamb, which I have but indifferently expressed in a corner of my paper, and a demure, contented look in an ox, which, in the fear of expressing still worse, I leave unattempted.

Business calls me away. I must dispatch my letter. Yet what does it contain ? — No matter. You like anything bet- ter than news ; — indeed, you never told me so, but I have an intuitive knowledge upon the subject, from the sympathy which I have constantly perceived in the taste of Julia and cher Jean. What is it to you or me —

If here in the city we have nothing but riot, If the Spital-field Weavers can't be kept quiet ; If the weather is fine, or the streets should be dirty, Or if Mr. Dick Wilson died aired of thirtv ?

24 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDRfi.

— But if I was to hearken to the versifying grumbling I feel within me, I should fill my paper, and not have room left to entreat that you would plead my cause to Honora more eloquently than the enclosed letter has the power of doing. Apropos of verses, you desire me to recollect my random de- scription of the engaging appearance of the charming Mrs. . Here it is at your service : —

Then rustling and bustling the lady comes down, "With a flaming red face, and a broad yellow gown, And a hobbling out-of-breath gait, and a frown.

This little French cousin of ours, Delarise, was my sister Mary's playfellow at Paris. His sprightliness engages my sisters extremely. Doubtless they tell much of him to you in their letters.

How sorry I am to bid you adieu ! Oh, let me not be for- got by the friends most dear to you at Lichfield ! — Lich- Jield! Ah, of what magic letters is that little word composed ! How graceful it looks when it is written ! Let nobody talk to me of its original meaning, " the field of blood ! " Oh, no such thing ! — It is the field of joy ! " The beautiful city that lifts her fair head in the valley, and says, I am, and there is none beside me ! " Who says she is vain ? Julia will not say so, nor yet Honora, and least of all their de- voted John Andre.

In reference to the allusion in the last paragraph of this letter, Miss Seward very learnedly explained, that Lichfield does not signify " the field of blood," but " the field of dead bodies." The error is of little importance. Between the dates of this and the next epistle, he had visited Lichfield, and once again beheld the face of his lady-love.

MR. ANDRE TO MISS SEWARD.

Clapton, November 1, 1769. My ears still ring with the sounds of " Oh, Jack ! Oh,

LETTERS TO MISS SEWARD. 25

Jack ! How do the dear Lichfieldians ? What do they say ? What are they about? What did you do while you were with them ? " " Have patience," said I, " good people ! " — and began my story, which they devoured with as much joy- ful avidity as Adam did Gabriel's tidings of Heaven. My mother and sisters are all very well, and delighted with their little Frenchman, who is a very agreeable lad.

Surely you applaud the fortitude with which I left you ! Did I not come ojff with flying colors ? It was a great effort ; for, alas ! this recreant heart did not second the smiling cour- age of the countenance ; nor is it yet as it ought to be, from the hopes it may reasonably entertain of seeing you all again ere the winter's dreary hours are past. Julia, my dear Julia, gild them with tidings of my beloved Honora ! Oh that you may be enabled to tell me that she regains her health, and her charming vivacity ! Your sympathizing heart partakes all the joys and pains of your friends. Never can I forget its kind offices, which were of such moment to my peace. Mine is formed for friendship, and I am blessed in being able to place so well the purest passion of an ingenuous mind. How am I honoured in Mr. and Mrs. Seward's attachment to me ! Charming were the anticipations which beguiled the long tracts of hill, and dale, and plain, that divide London from Lichfield ! With what delight my eager eyes drank their first view of the spires ! What rapture did I not feel on entering your gates! — in flying up the hall-steps! — in rushing into the dining-room ! — in meeting the gladdened eyes of dear Julia and her enchanting friend ! That instant convinced me of the truth of Rousseau's observation, " that there are moments worth ages." Shall not these moments return ? Ah, Julia I the cold hand of absence is heavy upon the heart of your poor Cher Jean ! — he is forced to hammer into it perpetually every consoling argument that the magic wand of Hope can conjure up ; viz., that every moment of industrious absence advances his journey, you know whither. I may sometimes make excursions to Lichfield, and bask in

26 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR6.

the light of my Honora's eyes. Sustain me, Hope ! nothing on my part shall be Avanting which shall induce thee io fulfill thy blossoming promises.

The happy, social circle — Julia, Honora, Miss S n,

Miss B n, her brother. Miss S e, Mr. R n, &c.

— are now, perhaps, enlivening your dressing-room, the dear blue region, as Honora calls it, with the sensible observation, the tasteful criticism, or the elegant song ; dreading the iron tongue of the nine o'clock bell, which disperses the beings whom friendship and kindred virtues had drawn together. My imagination attaches itself to all, even the inanimate objects which surround Honora and her Julia, that have be- held their graces and virtues expand and ripen ; — my dear Honora's, from their infant bud.

The sleepy Claptonian train are gone to bed, somewhat wearied with their excursion to Enfield, whither they have this day carried their favourite little Frenchman, — so great a favourite, the parting was quite tragical. I walked hither from town, as usual, to-night. No hour of the twenty-four is so precious to me as that devoted to this solitary walk. Oh, my friend, I am far from possessing the patient frame of mind I so continually invoke. Why is Lichfield an hundred and twenty miles from me ? There is no moderation in the dis- tance. Fifty or sixty miles had been a great deal too much ; but then, there would have been less opposition from author- ity to my frequent visits. I conjure you, supply the want of these blessings by frequent letters. I must not, will not, ask them of Honora, since the use of the pen is forbid to her declining health ; I will content myself, as usual, with a post- script from her in your epistles. My sisters are charmed with the packet which arrived yesterday, and which they will answer soon.

As yet I have said nothing of our journey. We met an entertaining Irish gentleman at Dunchurch, and, being fel- low-sufferers in cold and hunger, joined interests, ordered four horses, and stuffed three in a chaise. It is not to you I

LETTERS TO MISS SEWARD. 27

need apologize for talking in raptures of an higler, whom we met on the road. His cart had passed us, and was at a con- siderable distance, when, looking back, he perceived that our chaise had stopped, and that the driver seemed mending some- thing. He ran up to him, and, with a face full of honest anxiety, pity, good-nature, and every sweet affection under heaven, asked him if we wanted anything; that he had plenty of nails, ropes, &c. in his cart. That wretch of a postilion made no other reply than, " We want nothing, mas- ter." From the same impulse, the good Irishman, Mr. Till, and myself thrust our heads instantly out of the chaise, and tried to recompense the honest creature for this surly reply by every kind and grateful acknowledgment, and by forcing upon him a little pecuniary tribute. My benevolence will be the warmer while I live, for the treasured remembrance of this higler's countenance.

I know you will interest yourself in my destiny. I have now completely subdued my aversion to the profession of a merchant, and hope in time to acquire an inclination for it. Yet God forbid I should ever love what I am to make the object of my attention ! — that vile trash, which I care not for, but only as it may be the future means of procuring the blessing of ray soul. Thus all my mercantile calcula- tions go to the tune of dear Honora. When an impertinent consciousness whispers in my ear, that I am not of the right stuff for a merchant, I draw my Honora's picture from my bosom, and the sight of that dear talisman so inspirits my industry, that no toil appears oppressive.

The poetic task you set me is in a sad method : my head and heart are too full of other matters to be engrossed by a draggle-tail'd wench of the Heliconian puddle.

I am going to try my interest in parliament. — How you stare! — it is 'to procure a frank. Be so good as to give the enclosed to Honora, — it will speak to her ; — and do you say everything that is kind for me to every other distinguished friend of the dressing-room circle ; encourage them in their

28 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR£.

obliging desire of scribbling in your letters, but do not let them take Honora's corner of the sheet.

Adieu ! May you all possess that cheerfulness denied to yonr Cher Jean. I fear it hurts my mother to see my musing moods ; but I can neither help nor overcome them. The near hopes of another excursion to Lichfield could alone dis- perse every gloomy vapor of my imagination.

Again, and yet again, Adieu ! J. Andre.

CHAPTER II.

Fiiilure of Andre's Courtship. — Richard Lovell Edgeworth. — Tliomaa Day. — JIarriage and Death of Miss Sneyd.

Notwithstanding his ardor, and the presence of so powerful a friend at court as he must have had in Miss Seward, Andre's suit did not prosper. There is a saying, that in all love afRiirs there are two parties — the one who loves, and the one who is loved ; and it does not seem to have been very long before Miss Sneyd came into the latter category. Separation, and consideration of the delay that must necessarily attend that acquirement of fortune upon which permission for Andre to renew his addresses de- pended, must doubtless have done much to cool her feel- ings, even had they originally been as warm as his own. This is at least the view taken by her friend, who at the same time commemorates the fidelity of the opposite party :

" Now Prudence, in her cold and thrifty care, FrowTi'd on the maid, and bade the youth despair; For power parental sternly saw, and strove To tear the lily bands of plighted love ; Xor strove in vain ; — but, while the fair one's sighs Disperse like April-storms in sunny skies, The firmer lover, with unswerving truth. To his first passion consecrates his youth."

The lady's feelings, in short, cooled down so sufficiently, that tliere soon came to be no reason why she should not le- ceive the addresses of other suitors. In 1770, Mr. Ricliard Lovell Edgeworth was paying a Christmas visit to Lichfield, and thus mentions the impression he received of the state of affairs between Andre and Miss Sneyd : it being then about eighteen months since their first meeting at Buxton, and but

30 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR6.

little over a year from the date of the letters that closed the last chapter : —

" Whilst I was upon this visit, Mr. Andre, afterwards Major Andre, who lost his life so unfortunately in Amer- ica, came to Lichfield The first time I saw Major

Andre at the palace, I did not perceive from his manner, or from that of the young lady, that any attachment sub- sisted between them. On the contrary, from the great atten- tion which Miss Seward paid to him, and from the constant admiration which Mr. Andre bestowed upon her, I thought that, though there was a considerable disproportion in their ages, there might exist some courtship between them. Miss Seward, however, undeceived me. I never met Mr. Andre again ; and from all that I then saw, or have since known, I believe that Miss Honora Sneyd was never much disap- pointed by the conclusion of this attachment. Mr. Andre appeared to me to be pleased and dazzled by the lady. She admired and estimated highly his talents ; but he did not possess the reasoning mind which she required."

Mr. Edgeworth had undoubtedly what many will reckon a good opportunity of ascertaining the lady's sentiments on this subject ; for Honora Sneyd eventually became his wife. Whether, however, a woman always lays bare the secrets of her youthful breast to the man whom she marries, even though he possesses " a reasoning mind," is another question. To be sure, having himself entered four times into the state of wed- lock, Mr. Edgeworth had unusual means of coming to a con- clusion upon this point ; but it may well be doubted whether a more than common impression might not have been made on Miss Sneyd's heart by the attractions of such a person as her disappointed lover. Even while acknowledging the ex- pediency of the course prescribed by the heads of both fam- ilies, and yielding to their authority, she must have been sensible of the value of the qualities she was compelled to forego. From Mr. Edgeworth's own words it may be in- ferred, that at this period she had formed a high, not to say a

KICHxVRD LOVELL EDGEWORTII. 31

romantic estimate of what was to be looked for in the man whom she should wed. When he left her in 1771, with a view of going abroad, he says : " In various incidental conversations, I endeavored to convince her, that young women who had not large fortunes should not disdain to marry, even though the romantic notions of finding heroes, or prodigies of men, might not be entirely gratified. Honora listened, and as- sented." These remarks of Mr. Edgeworth concerning Major Andre are entitled to considerable weight ; not alone because of the well-known character for probity and discern- ment of the writer and of his more distinguished daughter, by whom the Memoirs were completed and edited, but also from the fact that they were given to the world while yet a sister of Andre was living and in England : from whom, or rather from whose circle of friends, any misstatement on this head might have met a ready correction.*

Richard Lovell Edgeworth, who ultimately became Miss Sneyd's successful wooer, is happily hit off, as he appeared in 1813, by Lord Byron. "I thought Edgeworth a fine old fellow, of a clarety, elderly, red complexion, but active, brisk, and endless. He was seventy, but did not look fifty — no, nor forty -eight even." When he first met Honora, however, he was but of twenty-five or twenty-six years, though already a man of some note. He had married on slender means, while his father yet lived ; and had married unhappily. " My wife, prudent, domestic, and affectionate ; but she was not of a cheerful temper. She lamented about trifles ; and the lamenting of a female with whom we live does not ren- der home delightful." He was, too, what may be called no- tional; and, charmed with the theories of Rousseau, must needs bring up his son after the manner of Emile, with bare feet and arms, and to a sturdy independence. While this connection subsisted, his visits to his friend Mr. Day brought

* The clear handwriting of Maria Edgeworth across the title-page of a presentation cop}^ of the Memoirs, gives additional value and authenticity to the volume from which I quote.

32 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR6.

him into constant intercourse with Miss Sneyd ; " when," says he, — " for the first time in my life I saw a woman that equalled the picture of perfection which existed in my imag- ination. I had long suffered from the want of that cheerful- ness in a w^ife, without which marriage could not be agreeable to a man of such a temper as mine. I had borne this evil, I believe, with patience ; but my not being happy at home ex- posed me to the danger of being too happy elsewhere. The charms and superior character of Miss Honora Sneyd made an impression on my mind, such as I had never felt before." Other gentlemen, whom he names, intimate at the palace, were unanimous in their approbation of this lady ; all but Mr. Day.

Thomas Day, the eccentric, benevolent, unpractical author of Sandford and Merton, (once the delight of all the school- boy-world,) was now residing close to Lichfield. Notwith- standing his peculiar views respecting the sex, he could not refrain from frequently tempting his fate ; and what was more extraordinary, expected that with a person neither formed by nature nor cultivated by art to please, he should win some w^oman, wiser than the rest of her sex, though not less fair, who should feel for him the most romantic and everlasting attachment, — a paragon, who for him would for- get the follies and vanities of her kind ; who

Should go like our maidens clad in grey, And live in a cottage on love.

His appearance was not in his favor : he seldom combed his hair, and generally set aside, as beneath the dignity of man, the graces of fashionable life. He was tall, round-shouldered, and pitted with the small-pox; — but he had £1,200 a year. Large white arms, long petticoats, and a robust frame, were, in his reckoning, indispensable qualifications to the woman he could love. And yet, as might have been expected, we very soon find him addressing Miss Sneyd, whom he had at first undervalued for her accomplishments, and who possessed

THOMAS DAY. 33

in the suitable degree not one of his requirements. He had previously endeavored to supply himself with a mate pre- cisely to his liking, by taking two orphans, (from a Found- ling Hospital, I believe,) and rearing them in his own way, that he might choose one for his wife when they arrived at womanhood ; but the experiment was a failure. One of his wards, he soon ascertained, would not suit him ; and the other, by a somewhat slower process, came to the conclusion that he would not suit her. Anticipating the ingenious device by which, in Canning's Double Arrangement, an English bar- on's love of liberty and of beef is equally expressed in the title of one of the characters, he had endowed this girl with a name designed to compliment at once the river Sev- ern and the memory of Algernon Sidney. Sabrina Sidney in time learned that the efforts of her patron to give her self- command, by unexpectedly discharging pistols close to her ear, or by dropping melted sealing-wax upon her bare shoul- ders, were practices little calculated to ensure her domestic happiness ; and she sought repose in the arms of a less philo- sophical bridegroom. But early in 1771, and pending this discovery by the fair Sabrina, Mr. Day resolved to woo and win Miss Sneyd. Her friends afforded him every facility in his suit, and he was continually at her side. But, notwith- standing the friendship that grew up between them, the lady soon arrived at a conclusion adverse to his desires ; and when, towards the end of the summer, he sent her by the hands of his friendly ambassador a voluminous proposal of marriage, that was probably overspread with terms and conditions, she returned him a hearty denial. She said that she would not " admit the unqualified control of a husband over all her actions ; she did not feel that seclusion from society was in- dispensably necessary to preserve female virtue, or to secure domestic happiness. Upon terms of reasonable equality, she supposed that mutual confidence might best subsist ; she said that, as Mr. Day had decidedly declared his determination to live in perfect seclusion from what is" usually called the 8

34 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDE£.

world, it was fit she should as decidedly declare she would not change her present mode of life, with which she had no reason to be dissatisfied, for any dark and untried system that could be proposed to her." This refusal sent poor Mr. Day to bed, to be bled for a fever ; from which, in a space, he came forth with philosophic equanimity, to seek the hand of Miss Elizabeth Sneyd as ineffectually as he had sought her sister's.

To return to Honora ; it must not be supposed that Mr. Day was blind to Mr. Edgeworth's admiration of this lady, though no one else perceived it ; and as his friend was al- ready a married man, he urged his removal from a neighbor- hood so dangerous to his peace of mind. In fact, when Mr. Day's fate was decided, the partially repressed passion of his envoy returned with redoubled violence, and he found it necessary to retire to the continent. But the death of his wife and his father left him, in the spring of 1773, free to pursue his inclinations ; and he again came to Lichfield. Here he found Miss Sneyd, happily rid of a disorder that bad threatened the destruction of her sight, and more beau- tiful than ever ; " and though surrounded by lovers, still her own mistress." The wooing was speedy and successful, but apparently not without interruption. It is true that in 1771, he says Miss Seward declared her friend was free from any engagement or attachment incompatible with her receiving a suitor's addresses ; but the little slaps, which he now and then bestows upon that lady, seem to point her out as not altogether favoring the current of his love. She had been the first, he asserts, to perceive the impression Honora had made on him, several years before ; and he gives her credit for a magnanimous preference of her friend's praises to her own. But after rather ungallantly referring to her rivalry with Mrs. 13ar\vin for the doctor's hand, he lets us perceive that at their first acquaintance Miss Seward, ignorant of his being already provided for, was not herself unwilling to make an impression upon his heart. And when he comes to the

Mli. EDGEWORTH AND MISS SEWARD. 35

courtship of liis second wife, he once or twice has occasion to notice her again. For whether because of the rapidity with which the funeral baked meats were succeeded by the mar- riage banquet, or because she still cherished a hope that An- dre might yet be the happy man, she does not appear to have greatly encouraged the affair. Mr. Edgeworth, indeed, besides his intrinsic worth and a respectable position among the landed gentry, possessed advantages of fortune which Andre could not lay claim to ; but Miss Seward was enthu- siastic in her disposition, and perhaps looked upon her friend in Warnford Court as capable of founding in his mercantile pursuits a house as illustrious and as dignified as that of De la Pole, of the third Edward's reign, or of Greville, " the flower of woolstaplers," in the days of James I. ; each of which sprung to nobility from successful commerce, and each of which has allied its own with the great names of literary history ; with Chaucer, and with Sidney. Nor would his entrance into the army operate against this idea. In the American Avar, the leader who united the highest social and military rank — Lord Cornwallis — traced the first start to dignity of his house to a city merchant, and its advent to greatness to its services against domestic insurrection. And surely Andre — brave, wise, insinuating, indefatigable — must have been expected to achieve a very great success in whatever career his ambition and his inclinations united upon. Let only opportunity be present to such a character, and it will little matter whether he be born of cloth of gold or cloth of frieze. As Spenser has it, —

" In brave pursuitt of honourable deed, There is I know not what great difference Between the vulgar and the noble seed ; Which unto things of valorous pretence Seemes to be borne by native influence."

But if any efforts were made to preserve the lady's hand for Andre, they were in vain. Even on their first acquaintance, her new suitor believed himself to perceive that she was

36 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR6.

more at ease with himself than with most people ; that she felt as though her character had never thitherto been fully appreciated ; and he was not likely now to spare any pains to confirm this impression. His addresses were entirely suc- cessful; and on the 17th day of July, 1773, by special li- cense, Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Honora Sneyd were married in the ladies' choir of Lichfield Cathedral, Mr. Seward performing the ceremony. " Miss Seward, notwith- standing some imaginary cause of dissatisfaction which she felt about a bridesmaid," says Edgeworth, " was, I believe, really glad to see Honora united to a man whom she had often said she thought peculiarly suited to her friend in taste and disposition." He also adds that the marriage " was with the consent of her father." Miss Seward had previously told the world that this consent was bestowed with reluctance, and published her regrets that Andre had not been the groom.*

Ilonora's subsequent life seems to have been happy. It was partly passed in Ireland, partly in England. Of an in- quisitive disposition, she was pleased in bearing a share in her husband's pursuit of knowledge, and by the clearness of her judgment was of service to him in his intellectual avoca- tions ; " as her understanding had arrived at maturity before she had acquired any strong prejudices on historical subjects, she derived uncommon benefit from books." The charge of her own children and of those of her predecessor occupied much of her thoughts, and in 1778, while teaching her first- born to read, she wrote, in conjunction with her husband, the First Part of Harry and Lucy, of which they had a few cop-

* Miss Seward says that after Mr. Edgeworth had removed Honora from " the Darwinian sphere," and Mr. Day had ottered "his philosophic hand " to her sister, she sent him to France to learn a few airs and graces. He returned, however, so stilted and stiff that she was fain to confess that ob- jectionable to her fancy as had been Thomas Day, blackguard, he was preferable to Thomas Day, gentleman.

From the similarity of name, we may suppose this gentleman was related to the parties in the great Huntingdonshire case of Day v. Day, (1797,) a case in which R. Snovd, Esq., of Keel, in Staffordshire, appears as a magistrate, receiving alHdavits fur the plaintiff.

DEATH OF MISS SNEYD. 37

ies privately printed in large type for the use of their chil- dren. This was probably the earliest essay towards instilling, under the guise of amusement, a taste for science into the youthful mind. Their idea was then to have completed the work, and it was for them that Day commenced his Sandford and Merton ; but Mrs. Edgeworth's sickness put a close to her literary labors. Day expanded his proposed slight tale into a delightful book, and many long years after, Maria Edgeworth included Harry and Lucy in her Early Lessons. In the meanwhile, a prey to the insidious attacks of a deep- seated consumption, Mrs. Edgeworth was sinking into the grave. Her husband, whose passion burned unabated, nar- rates the closing scenes with much pathos : — " The most be- loved as a wife, a sister, and a friend, of any person I have ever known. Each of her own family, unanimously, almost

naturally, preferred her All her friends adored her,

if treating her with uniform deference and veneration may be called adoring." It is pleasant to think that the dying pillow of such a woman was made as tranquil as man's love could compass. This appears from a letter of farewell writ- ten in her last hours to a near kinswoman : — "I have every blessing, and I am happy. The conversation of my beloved husband, when my breath will let me have it, is my greatest delight ; he procures me every comfort, and, as he always said he thought he should, contrives for me every thing that can ease and assist my weakness.

' Like a kind angel whispers peace, And smooths the bed of death.' "

It was her dying request that her husband should marry her sister Ehzabeth, who, like herself, had been sought in mar- riage by his friend Day. This desire Mr. Edgeworth ful- filled ; and she also dying, he took in fourth nuptials the sister of the late Admiral Beaufort ; and here we will leave him. It was in honor of his second wife, we are told, that he gave her name to the town of Sneydborough, in North

38 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDEfi.

Carolina ; a province in "vvhicli he possessed some landed in- terests. In 1780, the same year that witnessed Andre's death, died a second Honora Edgeworth, the only surviving daughter of Honora Sneyd. The little tale of Rivuletta, published in Early Lessons, and some drawings that are yet preserved, attest this child's resemblance in talents to her mother ; — she resembled her as well in constitution, and in the source of her death.

CHAPTER III.

Ancird joins the ^Vi'my. — Visits Germany. — Condition of the Sen-ice.— He comes to America. — State of American Affairs.

Every historical writer^ Avho has treated of the subject, has been under the impression that it was despair at the marriao;e to another of the woman whom he loved which led Andre to renounce his previous occupation and to enter the army. Mr. Sparks says, ^' From that moment Andre be- came disgusted with his pursuits, and resolved to seek relief from his bitter associations, and dissipate the memory of his sorrows in the turmoil and dangers of war." Lord Mahon, after mentioning the marriage, remarks, "Andre, on the other hand, to seek relief from his sorrows, joined the Brit- ish army in Canada, with a Lieutenant's commission, at the outbreak of the war." The error was one into which these distinguished writers were reasonably led, but which may very properly be corrected by the " snapper-up of unconsid- ered trifles." It was probably through the statements of Miss Seward that the mistake originated ; who asserts that Andre's constancy remained unshaken until he heard of Honora's wedding.

" Though four long years a night of absence prove, Yet Hope's fond star shone trembling on his love ; Till hovering Rumour chas'd the pleasing dream, And veil'd -with raven-wing the silver beam."

The " hovering Rumour " she explains to have been " the tidings of Honora's marriage. Upon that event Mr. Andre quitted his profession as a merchant, and joined our army in America." Thus it would appear that the four years which elapsed between the Buxton connection of 1769 and Edge-

40 LIFE OF MAJOK ANDR£.

worth's marriage in 1773, were to Andre, in the main, " a night of absence ; " and that even a correspondence did not long subsist may be inferred from the declaration that it w^as to a hovering rumor that he owed the intelligence of Honora being the bride of another. Therefore the half-suppressed indignation of Mr. Edgeworth at this version of the affair, may be well understood. He complains that the author of the Monody insinuates that Major Andre was, in plain Eng- lish, jilted by the lady ; and that, " in consequence of this disappointment, he went into the army, and quitted this coun- try." Nor must it be forgotten that during these four years Miss Sneyd had been considered by her family as entirely disengaged, and free to receive the addresses of any eligible suitor ; nor that, as in Mr. Day's case, she actually had re- ceived such addresses. The fairest conclusion which we can arrive at is, that Andre, abashed at the discouragement his suit had encountered, and discouraged by the difficulties to be overcome ere he could be permitted to return to the siege, had given way to the original bent of his inclinations, with- out at all relinquishing the attachment which he no longer could have reason to expect would be presently gratified. That he should abandon the hope of ultimate success need not at all be considered.

" None, without hope, e'er loved the brightest fair, Yet love will hope, where reason must despair."

His aversion to trade and wishes for a military career have already been manifested, in his letters of 1769 ; and it may readily be conceived that the advantages of an employment for which by njiture and by education he was especially well adapted, were not without their weight in his mind. Few men, as the result proved^ were more capable than he of winning a soldier's rewards ; and no man of the day could have worn them with more grace ;

" INIedals, rank, ribands, lace, embroidery, scarlet, Are things immortal tu immortal man;"

HE VISITS GERMANY. 41

and his age must have given them pecuhar charms to Andre. The love of fame — " that last infirmity of noble minds " — was joined in him, as is shown by the whole tenor of his life, with that thirst for military glory which so long as hu- man nature exists in its present constitution, will ever, ac- cording to Gibbon, be " the vice of the most exalted charac- ters." So soon, therefore, as he approached his twenty-first year, we find him entering the army. The son of an Amer- ican officer, who was much with him in his last days, and in whose letters Andre's fate always found the language of sym- pathy and friendship, asserts that he tore himself from the reluctant arms of the circle of devoted relatives in which he had been educated, to wear the King's livery. This informa- tion may have been obtained by Colonel Hamilton from Andre's own lips ; but it is only confirmatory of the deduc- tion to be drawn from his letters, that there was a strong prejudice among his friends in favor of his remaining in the compting-house. Their wishes were, however, unavailing. In January, 1772, by an account said to have been furnished by his most intimate friends, he entered the array. " His first commission," says Mr. Edgeworth, with greater particularity, " was dated March 4th, 1771." This was more than two years and four months antecedent to Miss Sneyd's marriage ; but it was in the very time of those attentions of IMr. Day which all the Lichfield world, Mr. Edgeworth himself included, did not question were certain to succeed. Perhaps, there- fore, Miss Seward may have confounded the two events in her memory, and attributed an efiect to a wrong cause.

In the early part of 1772, Andre went over to Germany, and did not return to England until the close of 1773. Dur- ing this period he visited most of the courts in that part of Europe. His kinsman, Mr. John Andre, was established in business as a musical composer and publisher at Ofienbach ; and the young officer's presence at her father's house was long borne in mind by a daughter, whose impression in later days was that her cousin's business in Germany was to con-

42 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDK£.

duct a corps of Hessians to America. This, in 1772, would have been rather premature ; but it is very possible that his affairs there, away from his regiment for nearly two years, may have been in some manner connected with German sub- sidiaries, and under the direction of his own government.

The regiment which Andre had joined was the Seventh Foot, or Royal English Fusiliers : one of the oldest corps in the line, and dating its formation in the year 1685. The rank of ensign does not exist in a fusilier regiment, the grade being supplied by a second lieutenant ; it was in this latter capacity that he seems to have first served. In April, 1773, the regiment had been embarked for Canada, where it performed garrison duty at Quebec for several months until it was sent to Montreal, and variously posted in Lower Can- ada. Before leaving England to join it, however, it is as- serted that Andre paid a final visit of farewell to Miss Sew- ard and to the scenes of his former happiness ; which was attended by circumstances of a character so strange as to be worthy of repetition, if not of belief. During his stay, we are told, Miss Seward had made arrangements to take him to see and be introduced to her friends Cunningham and New- ton, — both gentlemen of a poetical turn. On the night pre- ceding the day appointed for her appearance, Mr. Cunning- ham dreamed that he was alone in a great forest. Presently he perceived a horseman approaching at great speed ; but as he drew near to the spot where the dreamer imagined him- self to stand, three men suddenly sprung from their conceal- ment among the bushes, seized on the rider, and bore him away. The captive's countenance w^as visible ; its interesting appearance, and the singularity of the incident, left an un- pleasant feeling on Mr. Cunningham's mind, as he awoke. But soon falling to sleep again, he was visited by a second vision even more troubling than the first. He found himself one of a vast multitude met near a great city : and while all were gazing, a man, whom he recognized as the same person that had just been captured in the forest, w^as brought forth

CONDITION OF THE SERVICE. 43

and hanged upon a gibbet. These dreams were repeated the following morning to Mr. Newton ; and when, a little after, Miss Seward made her appearance with Andre, Mr. Cun- ningham at once knew him to be the unhappy stranger whom he had seen stopped and hanged.

Whether this story may not belong to the class of predic- tions which are not heard of until the event has occurred, will not be inquired into here. A more important subject of contemplation is the condition and nature of the new life into Avhicli Andre had now embarked ; and as the constitution of the British army was at that time so anomalous, and as much of its ill-success in the American war was directly attributable to the peculiarities of its organization, it may be as well to set a state of the case before the reader. Not long prior to hostilities, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Erskine had vigorously exposed the glaring inefficiencies of the existing system. Fifty years later Scott, ex cathedra, even more thoroughly recapitulated its abuses.

The purchasing of commissions was then at its height ; and to mend matters, great men in power could always ob- tain a pair of colors at the War-Office for a favorite or de- pendant. Children in the cradle thus were enrolled in the army-lists ; a school-boy might be a field-officer ; and amia- ble young ladies are known to have drawn the pay and held the title of captains of dragoons. Of course they did no duty ; but they were as fit for it as many who did. There was no military school in the kingdom ; and no military knowledge was exacted of the officer who, ashamed of being suspected of possessing the first rudiments of his profession, huddled through the exercise by repeating the words of command from a sergeant, and hastened back to more congenial scenes of idleness or dissipation. These were the days when to be " a pretty fellow " Avas a manner of qualification for the service, — when the Amlets, and Plumes, and Brazens of the stage were fair types of a class that " swore hard, drank deep, bilked tradesmen, and plucked pigeons." The few

4:4 LIFE OF RLUOR A^'DR6.

men of social rank that had any degree of professional skill were regarded as paragons ; while any talent that might exist in a subaltern was, as it is too often now, rather a curse than a blessing to its owner, unless he had money or patron- age to get on with. There seems to have been no uniform system of tactics ; every commandant manoeuvred his regi- ment after his own preference, and thus, without previous concert, a brigade could not half the time execute any com- bined movement decently. The garb of the private was ludicrously unsuitable and absurd. More time was given to daubing the hair with tallow and flour than to the manual or drill ; and the severity with which a neglected queue was punished sometimes goaded the very best corps into mutiny. In fact, the more crach a regiment became, the less it seems to me to have been fit for service ; and there is verisimili- tude, if not truth, in the story of the Hessian colonel who blew his brains out because, in reply to his boast that his dragoons dressed in a line were so equally matched that but one pigtail could be seen along the backs of all, the Duke of York pointed out the irregularity of their noses !

Such being the condition of the army, it is perhaps not too much to suppose that Andre, having purchased his com- mission, was determined to put himself on a footing so far superior to his fellows as would certainly facilitate his ad- vancement ; and that, therefore, he may have been on the continent occupied in perfecting himself in various profes- sional branches, for which England could have afforded no facilities ; since it is well known that, at a still later period in the century, Wellington was sent abroad to acquire the rudiments of an officer's education. Be this as it may, he embarked in 1774 to join his regiment, then stationed in Can- ada, and arrived on his journey at Philadelphia in September of that year.

It may well be asked why Andre should have taken this route to Canada. The travel from the Delaware to the St. Lawrence was to the full as tedious as that from England

HE COMES TO A3IERICA. 45

to America; and the voyage between the two countries could have as readily been performed to one river as the other. On Sunday, the 17th of the very month in which he reached Philadelphia, the ship Canadian arrived at Que- bec, in sixty days from Cowes, bringing over Carleton and his family ; of which Viscount Pitt, the elder son of the great Earl of Chatham, was then a member. From our knowledge of Andre's character, it seems unlikely that without some cause he should have missed the opportunity which taking passage in this vessel would have afforded, of coming in direct contact, through several weeks, with his commander. Or he might have sailed in other vessels to Quebec, or even to Boston, and have thus saved a long and fatiguing part of the course. Is it not probable that the selection of Philadelphia was governed by the circumstance that the meeting of the first Continental Congress was called at that place, and that there was a good deal for an intelli- gent eye-witness to possess himself of between Pennsylvania and Canada ? His own inclination may have suggested this idea ; but if it really had an existence, it was in all likelihood carried into effect by direction of Carleton him- self;— a leader whom Heath, one of the chiefs of our revolu- tionary army, characterizes as the greatest general the British had in this country during the war, and whose retention in Canada he pronounced an especial piece of good fortune to America. This is the only manner in which Andre's pres- ence in the South can be accounted for at a time when he should serve his sovereign in the North. He was a prodig- iously keen observer ; he doubtless noted all that he saw : and the state of things in the colonies was, beyond question, of a nature to excite the anxious attention of every considering man in authority. Domestic troubles were more than appre- hended by the ministry, and the intervention of the military arm was provided for. The temper of the people and the signs of the times in America would therefore be points to which so far-sighted a person as Carleton could not be in- different.

46 LIFE OF IMAJOK ANDR^.

At tliis very moment, however, it is probable that our Revolution could have been turned aside by a change of British policy. The bulk of the patriotic party here were in opposition as Englishmen less than Americans. They applauded the words of Chatham and Rockingham, and re- garded North as their political enemy, and the misleader of the king. They did not know that it w^as the king who guided his ministers, and who really is chiefly responsible for the production of measures of questionable constitution- ality, and as impolitic as impracticable.*

The general tone of whig feeling in Philadelphia had from the first been cautious but firm. The public sympathy was, it is true, warmly enlisted for the Bostonians ; but the public mind was not as yet filed to that hostility to England which prevailed in Massachusetts. The first Continental Congress, however, was now met ; and as it was in session at Phila- delphia from 5th September to 26th October, 1774, we may reasonably conclude that its doings were not disregarded by Andre. The secrecy in which the conduct of this body was wrapt, prevents us to-day from knowing much more than what appears on its published record ; but by contempo- raries, many things must have at least been surmised, which are lost to us forever. It sufficiently appears that the boasted unanimity of the assembly had no foundation in fact. At an early stage it seems to have been agreed, by

* It is curious to note how entirely North's dispositions were misunder- stood. It is now known that attachment to the king rather than desire of power kept him at the head of aflairs, and committed him to the most ob- noxious measures. Inheriting more of the capacity than the ambition of the Lord-Keeper, he woukl have preferred pleasure to fame ; and when he was figured in America as devising new schemes of oppression, was, per- haps, frolicking with Thurlow and Rigby, or making bonis rimes at the dinner-table. Of his skill in this line, an anecdote is preserved. Lord Sandwich so placed a lame j\Ir. Melligau that his name came to North's turn in tagging verses. The result was thus sung by the Prime Minister: —

" Oh, pity poor Mr. Melligan! Who, walking along Pallmall, Hurt his foot when down he fell, And fears he won't get well again! "

STATE OF AMERICAN AFFAIRS. 47

way of lending weight to every conclusion, timt the decision of a majority should be acquiesced in by all ; and that no one should reveal anything that transpired without express permission of congress. After this arrangement had been settled upon, we are told, by a well-informed tory pamphlet- eer of the day, that when some strong measures were intro- duced and carried, the effect on the minority was like " the springing of a mine, or the bursting of a bomb" in Carpen- ters' Hall. So far as can be now gathered, we may infer that to this congress came several delegates who had re- solved in their secret hearts upon secession from Britain, and whose aim was to produce war rather than reconciha- tion.* Whether or not they represented the wishes of their own constituents, they certainly did not in this fulfil the desires of the colonies generally ; and it was necessary, by evasion or denial, to deceive the country at large with loyal professions, until nearly two years later, when a majority of congress was ready to unite in the resolve of indepen- dence. At the close of the war, a Boston statesman thus referred to his own services in producing the result : —

" Here, in my retreat, like another Catiline, the collar around my neck, in danger of the severest punishment, I laid down the plan of the revolt ; I endeavored to persuade my timid accomplices that a most glorious revolution might

* " I had not, Sir, been in Congress a foi'tnight before I discovered that pailies were forming, and that some members had come to that assembly with views altogether different from what America professed to have, and what, bating a designing junto, she really had. Of these men, her inde- pendency upon Great Britain, at all events, was the most favourite pro- ject. By these the pulse of the rest was felt on every favoui'able occa- sion, and often upon no occasion at all ; and by these men measures were , concerted to jiroduce what we all professed to deprecate ; nay, at the very time that we universally invoked the Majesty of Heaven to witness the purity of our hearts. I had reason to believe that the hearts of many of us gave our invocation the lie I cannot entertain the most favourable opin- ion of a man's veracity, who intended to do it, when he sAVore he did not, and when he represented a people who were actually pursuing measures to prevent the necessity of doing it." — Lkinqston to Laurens, Sedg. Liv. 173.

48 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR£.

be the result of our efforts, but I scarcely dared to hope it ; and what I have seen realized appears to me like a dream. You know by what obscure intrigues, by what unfaithful- ness to the mother-country, a powerful party was formed ; how the minds of the people were irritated, before we could provoke the insurrection."

Had it been avowed in the Congress of 1774, that the end of some of its leaders was a democratic and independent gov- ernment, it is probable that a vast majority of the American people would have repulsed them with indignation. By dis- simulation, however, they maintained the control until affairs were sufficiently ripe. For indeed the issue was very clear. America was at this moment disciplining her troops with the view of resisting the enforcement of certain acts of Parlia- ment. It was folly to suppose that this course w^ould not end in open hostilities, unless the acts were repealed ; and hostilities once begun, subjugation or independence was the inevitable result. More far-sighted than their colleagues, they perceived that it was only necessary to keep both coun- tries moving in their present course to render a collision cer- tain. Indeed, despite the loyal protestations that America put forth during the ensuing twelvemonth, there can be little question but that Thurlow was correct in asserting that at the end of 1774 open rebellion existed in the colonies.

Nor could anything have more entirely aided this party in congress than the course pursued in England by the leaders of the two great factions. On the one hand they were told by the most eminent men in the state, that their cause was just and their resistance laudable ; — Chatham and Burke, Richmond and Granby applauded their course ; Savile upheld it as " a justifiable rebellion." On the other, as though with full intent to stimulate into rage against England, every American who had not as yet drawn the sword, the halls of Parliament echoed with the denials to our countrymen of tlie most ordinary attributes of manhood. In

STATE OF A3IEPJCAN AFFAIES. 49

the Lords, Sandwich pronounced his American fellow-sub- jects to be cowards, and only regretted that there was no probability of the king's troops encountering at once " two hundred thousand of such a rabble, armed with old rusty firelocks, pistols, staves, clubs, and broomsticks ; " and thus exterminating rebellion at one blow. The speaker's brother might have given him a different idea of American prowess, since he had been sufficiently beaten, in the streets of Bos- ton, by a smaller man from Roxbury, for some wild frolic. But he preferred the testimony of Sir Peter Warren as to the misconduct of the New England troops at Louisbourg in 1745 ; testimony which, if true, convicts them of cow- ardice not unlike that for which Lord George Germain, the incoming Secretary of State, had been cashiered by a court-martial. In the Commons, too, Colonel Grant, wh6 ' knew the Americans well, was certain they would not fight. , They possessed not a single military trait, and would never , stand to meet an English bayonet. He had been in Amer-^ ica, and disliked their language and their way of life, an^, ', thought them altogether entirely " out of humanity's reach/*' ' He forgot to add, however, that his own services among the Alleghanies had not been of a very triumphant charae- ' ter ; and it is pleasant to believe that Cruger, an Americailr • born, reminded him of this fact in his reply, since we find - him called to order as being personal. But these boastful and injurious words had at least one good effect : they pro- ' voked the Americans. Even "Washington was disturbed \5y' ' such wholesale slanders, and long after, when some British, troops had been badly treated at Lexington, found occasion to remind his friends in London of Lord Sandwich's lar- guage.

If such then was the sentiment in the senate, Ave nefed' ' hardly ask how American valor was esteemed in the royal, ■ camp ; but, in truth, there appears to have been such an in- finite disdain of its opponents in this quarter, that, considering all things, it is almost wonderful that the king's cause was

50 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR6.

not ruined outright at the very commencement of the Avar As the Roman soldiery scornfully held every civilian to be a peasant, and as the Christians, improving on this, extended the Avord pagan to every one not of their faith, — so the English officer of that day seems to have deemed the colonist as the basest of all base mohairs. One gallant general thought a single regiment would be sufficient to march from Massachusetts to Georgia, and to make singing-boys of all the people. Another (the natural brother of the king) more moderately writes from Florida, that " three or four regi- ments would completely settle those scoundrels " in Carolina. Robertson thought it very dastardly in the Yankees to get behind a wall ; and all considered it mere idiocy to look for anything like a contested field. But there were plenty of men who recollected how the very same language had been beld by the king's officers before Falkirk and Preston, and .what a running commentary ensued thereon. ' But the most unfortunate encouragement that America iecei\'ed from England, was the assurance that the latter 'country, whether by reason of the general aversion to the war, whether because of its own comparative feebleness, "vyould not hold out beyond a single campaign. A greater tlander was never made ; and its effiict was to persuade congress and the people, that an easy victory was in store for us, and to thus prevent proper preparation for a long a'ld severe conflict. This delusion governed in great meas- ure the action of the first and the second congress ; and it is noteworthy that its chief supporters were the delegates who ni'terwards led the cabal against Washington. By giving forth a false estimate of the enemy's power, they very ma- terially weakened our own ; and by neglecting the means to ■make victory secure, they at least rendered it very doubtful. In fact, England Avas at that moment in admirable condition lor war. The lower classes were poor, while the middle and upper Avere unusually rich. Commercial prosperity and the successes of the last part of the preceding Avar had brought into

STATE OF AMERICAN AFFAIRS. 51

the realm an unwonted excess of the circulating coin of the world. It was estimated, that her people held more solid wealth than those of any two other states in Europe. Thus, with plenty of poor to fill up the ranks, and plenty of treas- ure, the country was in a good position. And as for public sentiment, there can be no doubt that the war was highly popular with the British nation until Europe joined against them, and success became hopeless. In America, at the out- break, the circulating cash was about $3,750,000 in specie, and $26,250,000 in paper; showing a proper revenue of about $7,500,000. The population may be estimated at 2,448,000 souls, and the military capacity at from 20,000 to 30,000 men. Of course, on these estimates, a large war could not be Ions carried on without foreign aid ; and it is therefore again a happy thing, that during the earlier years of the struggle, and before such assistance was procured, our people were persuaded that every campaign Avould be the last. Another fortunate circumstance was, that without pressing the people by taxes for its redemption, and in fact, without redeeming it at all, congress should have been in a position to issue millions and hundreds of millions of paper- money, wherewith to carry on the war.

Although secrecy was ordered, yet it is not likely that it was strictly preserved in regard to all the proceedings of the first congress ; and in his chamber at the Indian Queen, or at the mess of the Royal Irish, or wherever he resorted, Ave may suppose that Andre picked up all the floating gossip of the day. Hardly had it met, when the whole country from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania was thrown into the utmost agitation by false tidings of the commencement of hostilities. Israel Putnam wrote to New York, that the troops and ships had began the slaughter of the people on the evening of the 2nd of September, and called for aid from every direction. This letter, sent by express, reached New York on the 5th, and was instantly transmitted to Philadelphia, where the bells were rung mufHed through the day ; and the people, Quakers

52 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDRfi.

and all, gave vent to feelings of rage and indignation. For three days the story was uncontradicted, and fifty thousand men, it was said, had prepared to march from various quar- ters to Boston. But there was not a jot or a tittle of truth in the tale ; and Putnam had been imposed upon. The story appears to have been devised in New England by some over-anxious whig, for the purpose of taking congress by surprise at its first coming together, and plunging it into such steps of opposition as might not easily be retraced. According to the rumor of the time, proposals for a declara- tion of independence were even now suggested in Carpenters' Hall ; but there were so many delegates who threatened to secede at once from the assembly, if such a measure was pressed, that it was withdrawn, and the association agreed on in its stead ; the object of which was to distress English trade as much as possible, and thus compel a repeal of the obnoxious laws. Its effect, however, was rather to draw asunder the two countries, and to prepare a more general acceptance by America of the Declaration of Independence of 1776, than it could possibly have encountered in 1774. Thus again it was happy for this country that the secret plans of the independence party did not now prevail.

The aversion of some of the middle and southern colonies to certain measures led to the formation, in the congress of 1774, of a party that endured through all the war; and which, by unity of action and concert of purpose, generally exercised a controlling influence in the state. In January, 1775, we find a zealous tory declaring the acts of the congress to have been unwelcome to both New York and Pennsyl- vania ; " but Adams with his crew, and the haughty Sultans of the South, juggled the whole conclave of the delegates." Before all was over, however, there was an almost open diffi- culty in the hall. Several leading men withdrew for several days ; and it was only by compromising matters that the names of all the delegates were finally affixed to the associa- tion. These things were kept from the public as carefully

STATE OF AilERICAN AFFAIRS. 53

as possible, and a general assertion of unanimity in all its doings put forth by congress. But something must have leaked out at the time.

On the IGth of September, the local gentry invited the fifty or sixty delegates to an entertainment at the State House, " where they were received by a very large com- pany, composed of the clergy, such genteel strangers as happened to be in town, and a number of respectable citi- zens," making in the whole about five hundred persons. If Andre were then in the city, there is every reason to suppose that he would be of the " genteel strangers " bidden to such a scene ; and the proceedings of the occasion, so far as they may be pronounced upon from the toast-master's roll, must have possessed for him an interest beyond that of a common political dinner. The King, the Queen, the Royal Family, were duly pledged ; and then came the names of the party- leaders on either side of the water : Chatham, Richmond, Conway, and Burke ; Hancock, Franklin, and Sawbridge. Of course, there was much said of the cause that had brought them together, and of their determination to preserve the union of the colonies and their constitutional freedom. Two toasts had interest for any military guest: "No unconsti- tutional standing armies," and " May British swords never be drawn in defence of tyranny " ; but the general tone of the whole affair indicated clearly the public intent to adhere to demands which England would not grant, and to resist the application of laws which England was apparently resolved to enforce. The inference was easy. If neither party • re- ceded, hostilities were imminent. And on the ensuing day a practical commentary was offered in the breaking open, by a mob, of the warehouse in which the collector of the cus- toms had just stored a cargo of smuggled sugars which be had seized, and their restoration to the importer. All this was effected in comparative openness, nor was any punish- ment inflicted on the off'enders. It is true that, on both sides of the Atlantic, smuggling was then regarded as a dangerous

54 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR^.

rather than an immoral practice ; and that in England, even ten years later, it was so hardily pursued that near Falmouth a battery was erected to cover the landing-place, the guns of which were opened on a king's ship standing in ; but at the same time a much larger proportion of the magistrates and people was there ready to obey and to enforce the laws than in this country, where nearly all the merchants were en- gaged in illicit trade, and where the popular sentiment re- garded with abhorrence any attempt from the mother-coun- try at its restraint.

Of all these things we may be sure that Andre took good heed ; for that he was now on a tour of observation through what was almost an enemy's country cannot be doubted, if we consider that, in addition to selecting a port so remote as Philadelphia from his ultimate destination, he left that city to visit Gage's camp at Boston, instead of repairing at once to his regiment in Canada. This expedition led him through an important section of the country, and gave him ample opportunity of ascertaining the complexion of popular feeling. There were then two public conveyances between Philadelphia and New York : a line of stages had been es- tablished in 1773, and the Flying Machine had been in ope- ration several years longer. This last should rather have been called the Diving Machine, since it had managed to drown, among others, one of the earliest and best actresses that appeared in America, by oversetting in the ferry be- tween New York and Staten Island ; but by neither carriage was the journey between the two cities performed in less than two days. Passing through Jersey, then, he might have perceived symptoms of the prevailing strong whig feeling and turbulent spirit; and arriving at New York, may have procured some discouraging information from his orother officers stationed there. The King's Birthday in 1774 had been duly celebrated indeed by the 23rd regiment, and what other military were at New York ; but by the peo- ple generally was passed over almost unnoticed. The active

STATE OF AaiERICAN AFFAIRS. 55

whigs, under the name of '" Sons of Liberty," led an organ- ized mob ; and their conflicts with the soldiery were frequent and bitter. Under their auspices liberty-poles were erected, obnoxious characters hung in efRgy, and instant revenge taken for the impressment of sailors by a ship-of-war. Re- ligion and Freedom were the watchwords of the hour, and the power and license of the Liberty Boys threatened to carry everything before them. The gentry in opposition, writes Gouverneur Morris, had started the mob, for their own purposes, in Grenville's time, and now — " the heads

of the mobility grow dangerous to the gentry The

mob begin to think and reason. Poor reptiles ! it is with them a vernal morning : they are struggling to cast off their winter's slough ; they bask in the sunshine, and ere noon they ^^^ll bite, depend upon it. The gentry begin to fear this." It must, nevertheless, be confessed that, however un- lawful it may have been, the action of the whigs of New York at this time, in preventing any workmen or stores being transmitted to Gage at Boston, was of real service to the American cause ; and there is nothing to wonder at in the turbulence of the people, considering the encouragement they had received in such scenes ever since the period of the Stamp Act.

From New York to Boston the traveller in those days usually passed upon horseback ; either going through Con- necticut, or by way of Long Island to New London, and so on- wards. It matters little which route Andre followed, so far as the temper of the people was concerned. From the moment he entered New England, he probably encountered none but ardent whigs ; and as greater unanimity and more demo- cratic habits prevailed, so was the public mind more inflamed than in New York and Pennsylvania. Through the summer and fall of 1774, the Connecticut farmers had not been spar- ing in their demonstrations. At Farmington the Boston Port Bill was burned by the hangman. At "Windham and ^ Norwich, a merchant from Boston named Green, suspected of

56 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDRfi.

loyalty and known to be in pursuit of his debts, was mobbed and driven from the town. At Bolton, the clergyman was rudely dealt w^ith, who had proclaimed that the true reason for opposition to the introduction of the East India Com- pany's tea was, that since the tea was sold at Amsterdam for Is. and at London and Boston for 25. Qd., it followed that Colonel Hancock gained Is. lOd. by every pound of tea he smuggled in from Holland, while Colonel Erving gained but M. by every pound he sold from the Company. And as this private interest, he argued, had caused the destruction of the tea in Boston harbor, he proposed that the traders with Holland there should pay the damages out of the profits from the five thousand boxes of Dutch teas they had sold within two years. In short, although there were a good many tories in Connecticut, the rule was to tar and feather all who made themselves prominent, save only in the few towns where this party happened to be the strongest. But if any luckless tory wight was caught beyond the reach of his friendly neighbors, he was forthwith seized and led from town to town, " as by law is provided in the case of strolling ideots, lunatics," &c. And so in Rhode Island : — at Prov- idence, a public meeting requested the authorities to ex- pel the friends of the ministry ; in other places, the whigs took the law into their own hands. Through all New Eng- land, the indisposition to English sway in any form or under any circumstances, was daily more plainly to be recognized ; and by the time Andre reached Boston, he must have per- ceived that an insurrection was almost inevitable.

CHAPTER IV.

Political Condition of Massachusetts in 1774. — State of Affairs at BosL m.

The province of Massachusetts Baj, and more especially the town of Boston, contained at this moment perhaps the most excited and the least loyal portion of the king's Amer- ican subjects. The peculiar characteristics of this people had long led observers to believe, that the colony was im- patient of any yoke ; and certainly neither their traditions nor their democratical forms of government and of social life could have inspired them with any very fervent attachment to the home authority. The fall of Canada had removed the strong bond of fear, that once formed a part of the ties that united them with England ; and the whig leaders already, to a greater extent than in any other part of America, looked forward to independence. Untrammelled in almost every practical sense, their commerce had long been carried on with scanty regard to the interests of Britain ; and now that it was sought to enforce the old, or to bring new restrictive laws to bear on their trade, the people were thoroughly in- flamed. Bold, acquisitive, hardy, and astute, they revolted at the prospect of diminished gains ; fond of power, they would not endure the loss of a tittle of authority they had once possessed. This disposition was well understood by its chief men, who foresaw the inevitable result, and, like Moses on the mountain-side, looked forth to the promised land which, denied to their own feet, was yet to be trodden by their kindred. " Our fathers were a good people," wrote Otis to England ; " we have been a free people ; and if you will not let us remain so any longer, we will be a great people." Thus already prepared to resent the measures of

58 LIFE OF aiAJOR ANDIlfi.

government, they derived new zeal from the counsels of their spiritual guides. Great as is still the influence in secular matters of the clergy of New England, it was then enormous ; and in political controversies was exercised even more power- fully than t©-day, and more openly. In every ordinary ac- tion of life, it was usual to join the world's business witli religious duty ; and where the force of conscience failed, the effect of long continued habit controlled tlie conduct of men.* And the clergy of New England, naturally disturbed at the increase, under quasi-royal protection, of prelatic forms of worship, and professionally vexed at the division of their power with a growing rival, were of one voice in their argu- ments. Thus, while we find the churchman of New England almost universally to have been a tory, the Congregational- ists, and whosoever adhered to the Calvinistic forms of wor-

* A conversation between James Otis and a member of the Assembly from Boston, (apparently Thomas Gushing,) "in which the satire," says Mr. Tudor, " if it bears a little hard on the character of those times, is not wholly inapplicable to most others," will better exemplif}^ this position. Otis observed, " They talk of sending me to the next General Court."

— " You will never succeed in the General Court." — " Not succeed ! and Avhy not, pray? " — " Why, Mr. Otis, you have ten times the learning, and much greater abilities than I have, but you know nothing of human na- ture." — " Indeed ! I Avish you would give me some lessons." — " Be patient, and I will do so Avith pleasure. In the first place, what meeting do 3'ou go to ? " — " Dr. Sewall's." — '' Very well, you must stand up in sennon time, you must look devout and deeply attentive. Do you have family prayers? "

— " No." — " It were well if you did ; what does your f:;mily consist of ? "

— "Why, only four or five commonly; but at this time I have one of Dr. Sewall's saints, who is a nurse of my wife." — " Ah ! that is the very thing; you must talk religion Avith her in a serious manner; you must have family prayers at least once Avhile she is in your house: that woman can do you more harm or good than any other person: she will spi-cad your fame throughout the congregation. I can also tell you, ,by way of example, some of tlie steps I take: two or three Aveeks before an election comes on, I send to the cooper and get all my casks put in order; I say nothing about the number of hoops. I send to the mason and have some job done to the hearths or the chimneys; I have the carpenter to make some repairs in tlie roof or the Avood-house; I often go doAvn to the ship-yards about eleven o'clock, Avhen they break off to take their drink, and enter into couA'crsa- tion Avitli them. They all vote for me." — ( Tiulor's Otis, p. 91.)

POLITICAL CONDITION OF SIASSACIIUSETTS IN 1774. 59

ship as practised in that countrj, were as universally whigs. The former was self-confident and elate with the pride of a superior rank ; the latter jealously indignant, and fearful of the establishment of an American episcopacy. This was a favorite bugbear. Among the lower classes the most dread- ful apprehensions of bishops prevailed ; they were esteemed as little differing from demons ; and the children wept as they listened to the tale that, among other perquisites of episcopacy, every tenth-born child should be ravished from its mother's side ; and w-ere fain to pray, that death might fall upon them so soon as a bishop's foot pressed New Eng- land soil. Intelligent and educated striplings thought it their bounden duty to God to be ready to slay the first prelate that should arrive. With these sentiments, it is no wonder that the Episcopalians were closely watched, and such of their chief men as were not openly whigs, put under restraint at an early stage in the troubles ; nor that hatred of the state of England was soon mingled with that of its church. No stronger evidence of the coincidence of political and religious feeling in this crisis can be found, than is presented by the address of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, wherein the people of New England are described as a church against which earth and hell had combined. They were moved by one religion, one cause ; and the number of those who disagreed with them was too slight to militate against their proposition. And in truth, it seems but reasonable that the New England clergy should have resisted the intro- duction of episcopal supremacy, if such a design existed any- where but in the hopes or the fears of the colonists. The land belonged to them and to their flocks ; and it would have been utterly unjust to have subjected it to the spiritual dom- ination of a church abhorred by the people at large. No wonder, then, that their pulpits volleyed forth the most bitter imprecations against England, and that their prayers invoked the Almighty to shatter her ships against the rocks, and to drown her armies in the depths of the ocean. '• Oh Lord,"

60 LIFE OF MAJOR AXDKI^:.

prayed a fervent divine, " if our enemies will fight us, let them have fighting enough ! If more soldiers are on their way hither, send them, oh Lord ! to the bottom of the sea." Impelled thus by their original inclinations, stimulated by their clergy, and dexterously guided by astute leaders, the people presented a front that no royal governor could repel or confuse. It was then that what is now called a caucus system was first brought into practical use, through the skill of Samuel Adams and some other whig leaders. Before any public meeting of importance came off, the measures and men to be supported were carefully but secretly decided upon by a council of three or four chiefs. The combination of their personal adherents at the meeting was generally suf- ficient to decide the question, and to give the tone to its pro- ceedings ; while any opposition was effectually quashed by a lack of union or preparation among their adversaries.

The appointment of General Gage to the government of Massachusetts would, under ordinary circumstances, have been an advantage to both crown and people. His poli- tics, so far as we know, were not harsh ; — on the repeal of the Stamp Act, in 17G9, his mansion at New York was bril- liantly illuminated; — and he had chosen a wife in this coun- try. In a military sense, he must have been familiar with the land ; for so long before as 1755 he had led the 44th regiment under Braddock, and been wounded by the side of Washing- ton. But the leaders of the whigs now saw in his appoint- ment a diabolical design, amounting to more than a studied insult to the province. The Port Bill had been received at Boston on the 10th of May, 1774. Gage arrived on the 13th ; and on the same day a town-meeting displayed a firm and unconciliatory temper. On the 17th, Gage was formally proclaimed ; but even at the banquet in Faneuil Hall, which formed part of the ceremonies of the day, the disposition of the people was displayed by tiie hisses with which they greeted his toast to his predecessor, Mr. Hutchinson. Yet, though he was thus early warned of the popular tendency.

rOLITICAL CONDITION OF ]\L\SSACHUSETTS IN 177-4. 61

and though he never concealed the condition ot" thino-g from himself or his superiors, his letters to Lord Dartmouth through the summer and fall of 1774 were calm, and often hopeful. Things were always worse than when he wrote last ; but ere he wrote again, they would probably be on the mend. Thus it came that little reliance was placed on his reports ; and the opposition openly declared that he had de- ceived ministers. " No event has turned out as he foretold, or gave reason to hope ; the next letter constantly contradicts the expectation raised by the former." But he soon saw that the civil government of the province was nearly at an end. The courts of justice were little more than a puppet-show ; the judges were driven from the bench, and the juries re- ■fused to be sworn. Almost within cannon-shot of Boston, thousands of people surrounded the house of Oliver, the lieu- tenant-governor, and by force compelled 4iim to sign such political papers as they chose. Danforth, Lee, and other members of the council, were similarly handled. The leg- islature too had, in May, almost ignored the existence of a royal governor, and, despite his proclamation of dissolution, had provided for a provincial congress. The ancient form of civil government was indeed dead, for the General Court never met more, and the power of the colony was to be di- vided between a royal governor and a rebel legislature till Massachusetts became an independent state. In October, 1774, twelve out of fourteen counties sent representatives to this provincial congress, at Salem.; and it forthwith proceeded to act in every respect as the lawful government of the land ; making provision for raising, arming, and controlling an army ; and regulating the police of the province, and its in- tercourse with others. One of the first questions broached was that of negro slavery ; and a letter directed to the chap- lain was read, asking whether, when the masters w^ere strug- gling for freedom, their slaves should not share their lot. But after debate, it was moved that " the matter now subside ; ' ' and it subsided accordingly. Their aim seems to have been to

62 LIFE OF ]\L\JOR AXDR6.

look exclusively to the main point, and to ignore all others. Thus, in December, 1774, "when the Baptist churches sought to avail themselves of the opportunity of procuring religious liberty, they were gracefully put aside by the congress. And though rumor alleged that at the same time it refused to direct the immediate taking up of arms against the king's troops until the other colonies could be involved, yet it went on accumulating guns and ammunition, and electing generals. In all that it did it had the support of the people. They who opposed its action were far more respectable in social rank than in numbers. Putnam and Willard, Saltonstall, Vassall, and Borland, Fitch, Stark, Ruggles, and Babcock, in vain sought by their character and authority to stay the tide. These were, it is true, of the first position in the colony ; but- the day was gone when they were to command respect and obedience. When they formed associations for mutual pro- tection in " the free exercise of their right of liberty in eat- ing, drinking, buying, selling, communing, and acting wdiat, with whom, and as they pleased, consistent with God's law and the King's," they were soon broken up and driven into Boston, where Gage's troops protected them from violence. " The tories," wrote one from Boston in the summer of 1774, "lead a devil of a life; in the country the people will not grind their corn, and in town they refuse to purchase from and sell to them." An obnoxious character might look for any injury, from having his cattle taken or barns burned, up to personal indignities. Willard going to recover a debt, was mobbed and sent to the Simsbury mines ; Davis was tarred and feathered ; Ruggles was mobbed and driven from the county ; Paine and Chandler met with little better usage ; and that " ancient gentleman," as Gage calls him, " Thomas Foster, Esquire, was obliged to run into the Avoods and had like to have been lost." In short, the province was almost exclusively possessed by an organized party, who revenged themselves on the British Parliament in ill-treating every one that did not embrace whig principles. "There is something

STATE OF AFFAIRS AT BOSTON. 63

extremely absurd," said an American at this date, who avows his intention of eschewing politics as though they were edged tools, " in some men's eternally declaiming on freedom of thought, and the unalienable rights of Englishmen, when they will not permit an opponent to open his mouth on the subjects in dispute, without danger of being presented with a coat of tar and feathers." " The very cause for which the whigs contended," says another who himself gallantly fought for American independence, " was essentially that of freedom, and yet all the freedom it granted was, at the peril of tar and feathers, to think and act like themselves." With equal animosity the whigs of the province regarded Gage. They burned the forage coming to Boston for his troops, and sunk the boats which brought bricks for his use. Beyond the sound of his drum-beat, armed resistance was openly plan- ned : magazines were established, exercises in arms set on foot, and weapons and ammunition of every sort, good or bad, eagerly sought after by the people. Gage's conclusion was that the object of the whig leaders was to provoke a collis- ion and precipitate a war ; and he therefore did not fail to strengthen his hands for an occasion which, it is fair to be- lieve, he would most gladly have averted. By the time An- dre arrived at Boston there must have been three thousand troops gathered there, besides a regiment in garrison at Cas- tle William ; and from several men-of-war in the harbor four hundred marines were drawn early in December, led by Pitcairne, a descendant of the classical panegyrist of Dundee, and equally loyal as his ancestor, though to another line. His name is celebrated in America by his connection with the first blood shed in the Revolution, which his death at Bunker Hill perhaps expiated. If we are to credit M. de Chastellux, he was in the habit of traversing the country in disguise and bringing in intelligence to Gage.

The condition of the troops was not pleasant. They were constantly insulted or tampered with by the Americans, to whom their presence was an insufferable nuisance. Deser-

64 LIFE OF ]\rAJOR AXDR6.

tions were privately encouraged ; and before the war began, scarce an organized American military company was without its drill-master in the person of an English fugitive. "Wash- ington's men at Alexandria, and Greene's in Rhode Island, were thus taught their manual. This seduction of troops, and the allurements held out to the men to sell their equipments, added fresh fuel to the growing hatred between both parties ; and frequent affrays occurred between the soldiers and the citizens. It was probably for some flagrant annoyance of this kind that Dyre, a man known as active in previous disturbances, was seized and sent in irons to England in 1774. He averred that Maddison, who seems to have ques- tioned him pretty roughly as to the orders he might have re- ceived for the destruction of the tea from "King Hancock and the d — d Sons of Liberty," promised him, that once arrived in England, " he should be hung like a dog " ; but the more temperate of the whigs seem to have thought him an untruthful fellow ; and all the trouble he was put to there Avas to be examined by North, Dartmouth, and Sandwich, and so discharged. But sometimes the soldiers settled the mat- ter themselves ; and having fairly caught in the act a Avhig tempting them to sell their arms, tarred and feathered him thoroughly, and paraded him, to the air of Yankee Doodle, as " a specimen of Democracy." The example of the officers, too, was frequently anything but praiseworthy. Entertain- ments and dances were given on Saturday night and carried on into Sunday morning. Such things had never occurred in Boston before, and gave great offence. Nor was it un- usual for a bevy of drunken officers to commit the grossest indecencies and outrages in the public streets ; and violent affrays, in which they generally came off second-best, were the natural consequence. Of course, all these occurrences were perfectly adapted to inflame the people's anger, and to stimulate fresh invectives against Gage. It is true that he gave a ready ear to every complaint against his subordinates, and seldom hesitated to punish ; but he was upbraided, nev-

STATE OF AFFAIRS AT BOSTON. 65

ertheless, as the modern Duke of Alva, as the tyrant of the town ; and in the worst possible taste was told, that " the savages who chased him on the Ohio were gentle as lambs, compared with men bereaved of their liberties." The dan- gerous aspect of affairs soon led him to strengthen the old, and erect new works to protect the only part of his province that remained in good earnest subject to his control ; and the sole communication between Boston and the main was guard- ed by substantial redoubts. This was a great grievance both to the Massachusetts and the Continental Congress, who saw in the fortifications a design to awe the country and enslave the town ; but Gage very prudently refused to comply with a request for their reduction. " Unless themselves an- noyed," he said, " the works which you call a Fortress will annoy nobody." In private, however, the Americans ridi- culed these preparations. " The country lads," said Lovell, " were minded to fill the trenches with bundles of hay, and thus enter securely " ; and Appleton protested that the old Louisbourg soldiers laughed at the entrenchments, and would regard them no more than a beaver-dam. Nevertheless the British occupied Boston sixteen months longer, and no at- tempt was ever made to put these threats into execution.

About the period of Andre's visit, towards the close of 1774, the army at Boston was well handled. It was brig- aded under Percy, Pigot, and Jones, and a field-officer with a hundred and fifty men guarded the lines on the Neck. Their duties confined the ofiicers to circumscribed bounds ; but the beautiful appearance of the surrounding country was not lost on them. " The entrance to the harbour," wrote Captain (afterwards Lord) Harris, " and the view of the town of Boston from it, is the most charming thing I ever

saw My tent-door, about twenty yards from a

piece of water nearly a mile broad, with the country beyond most beautifully tumbled about in hills and valleys, rocks and woods, interspersed with straggling villages, with here and there a spire peeping over the trees, and the country of

66 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR£.

the most charming green that delighted eye ever gazed on. Pity these infatuated people cannot be content to enjoy such a country in peace ! " But of these scenes beyond the lines the troops could have no nearer acquaintance. From the au- tumn of 1774, it was not safe for any ministerialist, military or civil, to be found out of Boston, where Gage remained almost in a state of siege, yet with few of its discomforts. The Americans might cut off the supplies of beef and mut- ton, and occasionally reduce the officers to salted diet ; but the temptation of gain led them to smuggle in fresh pro- visions. All sorts, the officers wrote, were plenty there, and cheaper than in London, though prices had risen with the demand. " The saints " were beginning to relish the money spent in Boston ; and the only regret to the spenders was the enriching of a set of people who, in their eyes, " with the most austere show of devotion, were void of all real religion and honesty, and were reckoned the most arrant cheats and hypocrites on the continent." — "In some respects," writes an officer, " our camp might as well have been pitched on Black- heath as on Boston Common ; the women are very handsome, but like old mother Eve, very frail " ; and in social refine- ments, the country was a hundred years behind England. In short, it is clear that the dislike of the provincials was amply returned by the British, chafing at the scoffs which they received, and the indignity of remaining cooped up in the presence of an antagonist whom they despised. For by many it was thought that the proceedings of congress were designed merely to intimidate the merchants in England, and that America would never be so mad as to take up arms. " "Whenever it comes to blows, he that can run fost- est will think himself best off," said the offi,cers at Boston. " Any two regiments here ought to be decimated if they did not beat, in the field, the whole force of the Massachusetts Province ; for though they are numerous, they are but a mere mob, without order or discipline, and very awkward at handling their arms." That it would have to come to blows

STATE OF AFFAIRS AT BOSTON. 67

was now perceived. " I see some pretty resolves from Con- cord." wrote Admiral Montagu, " and the proceedings from Philadelphia all seem to go on well for a Civil War." And again — "I doubt not but that I shall hear Mr. Samuel Adams is hanged or shot before many months are at an end. I hope so at least." * Nor was the language in which they were spoken of by the friends of America in England very conciliatory. "A mere army of observation," said Burke; " its only use was to shelter the magistrates of ministerial cre- ation " ; while Chatham characterized them as " an impotent general and a dishonoured army, trusting solely to the pickaxe and the spade for security against the just indignation of an injured and an insulted people." — " They are an army of impotence," he repeated, in reference to Gage's inactivity. " I do not mean to censure his inactivity ; it is prudent and necessary inaction. But it is a miserable condition, where disgrace is prudence ; and where it is necessary to be con- temptible." Even the political rhymesters, with Lord John Townshend at their head, found occasion to celebrate the sources of ministerial embarrassment. Thus the latter ad- dresses the pious Dartmouth : —

" The saints, alas ! have waxen strong ; In vain your fasts and godly song

To quell the rebel rout ! Within his lines skulks valiant Gage, Like Yorick's starling in the cage

He cries, ' I can't get out I ' '•

* The British seem to have believed that Samuel Adams was their most powerful and unscrupulous foe in the province. In March, 1775, one of them wrote that when Dr. Warren had pronounced, in the Old South meeting- house, an oration in commemoration of what was absurdly called a Massacre, Mr. Adams demanded that the meeting name an orator for the nextannirer- 6ar\^ of " the bloody and horrid massacre perpetrated by Preston's soldiers." Several royal officers were present to discountenance the proceedings ; and one, " a very genteel, sensible officer, dressed in gold-lace regimentals, with blue lapels, moved with indignation at the insult offered the Army, since Captain Preston had been fairly tried and most honourably acquitted by a Boston Jury, advanced to Hancock and Adams, and spoke his sentiments to them in plain English ; the latter told the officer he knew him, and would

68 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR6.

Cramped up thus within the town-limits, and deprived by the countrymen of every means of erecting needful buildings for their lodging or accommodation, the British were forced to use many liberties with the public edifices of the place ; and we may be sure they w^ere little loath to convert the South Church into a riding-school. As it had been employed by the whigs for political lectures, it perhaps possessed the less sanctity in the eyes of Gage's followers ; but this association of religion and horses will remind the reader of Constantine's adorning the hippodrome of his new capital with the famous and sacred serpentine pillar of brass, which had for ages commemorated, at Delphi, the glory of Marathon. Respect for the creeds of others rarely clogs the action of a power either in peace or in w^ar.

The Americans had ample intelligence of all Gage did. Their Provincial Congress even sent in a committee to ex- amine the surgeon's stores with the commissary in Boston, that they might, it w^ould seem, learn what to lay in for their own army. But there was one sort of military supply that, on either side, has since the war been less 'loudly acknowl- edged than it w^as then eagerly sought. Before the first gun was fired at Concord or Lexington, the Massachusetts Con- gress had induced the Stockbridge Indians to take up the hatchet, and had regularly enrolled them in its army. The chief sachem, who went by the euphonious title of Jelioiakin Mothskin, exchanged sentiments with Mr. Hancock, and informed the Congress that if they sent for him to fight, they must expect him to fight in his own Indian way, and not in the English fashion ; all the orders he wished was to know where the enemy lay. At the same period, the Amer- icans were less successful in treating with the Six Nations, the Penobscots, Caughnawagas, &c., with whom the English had no doubt a superior influence. Their address to the

Bettle the matter with the General; the man of honour replied, 'You and I must settle it lirst.' At this the demagogue turned pale nnd waived the dis- course." — It. Am. Arch, ith ser. 106.

STATE OF AFFAIRS AT BOSTOX. 69

Mohawks is very curious. One of the motives urged to induce the savage " to whet his hatchet " is the probable increase of popery in Canada ! It is probable that most of these applications were occasioned by the wish to keep the frontiers safe, and to weaken England ; but there were cases which such considerations could scarce have reached, and where the barbarian was employed simply as a warrior. " We need not be tender of calling on the savages," wrote Gage to Dartmouth, in June, 1775, "as the rebels have shown us the example by bringing as many Indians down against us here as they could collect." At a later day Washington was authorized to employ the In- dians in the continental service at his discretion, and to pay thera $100 for every officer, and $30 for every pri- vate that they captured ; but the Massachusetts Congress was probably the first party in the war to bring them on the field. Their employment afterwards by the British was made a famous theme of reproach, by Americans as well as Englishmen, against Suffolk who had vindicated the step : —

"We've flayed the virgins, babes and wives. With tomahawks and scalping-knives, Wliich God and Xature gave us."

Without the means of connecting Andre directly with any incident in the occupation of Boston, a sketch of the military features of the place and time has now been given, with intent to present those points which would most proba- bly have had a chief interest to him. Were there any rea- son to think that he remained with Gage so late as Feb- ruary, 1775, he might be suspected of a part in some such expedition as that of Brown and De Berniere, — two officers sent out in disguise by the general to make a reconnoissance of the country, through Suffi^lk and Worcester counties, where the whigs had their chief magazines ; perhaps with an eye to a descent. The spies were selected apparently as having recently arrived from Canada, and therefore as

70 LIFE OF lilAJOR ANDR6.

less apt to be known as royal officers. They returned from a perilous and toilsome journey, well supplied with plans and sketches ; and a very entertaining report of their expe- dition is preserved. We may imagine how Andre's pencil and pen would have been busied, not only with the more legitimate duty of the occasion, but with such episodes as the militia review at Buckminster's tavern, which was fol- lowed by an address from the commander, "recommending patience, coolness, and bravery, (which indeed they much needed,) particularly told them they would always con- quer if they did not break, and recommended them to charge us coolly, and wait for our fire, and everything would succeed with them, — quotes Caesar and Pompey, Brigadiers Putnam and Ward, and all such great men ; put them in mind of Cape Breton, and all the battles they had gained for his majesty in the last war, and ob- served that the regulars must have been ruined but for them. After so learned and spirited an harangue, he dis- missed the parade, and the whole company came into the house and drank till nine o'clock, and then returned to their respective homes full of pot-valor."

CHAPTER V.

Condition of Canada in 1775. — Operations on Lake Champlain and tho Sorel. — Fall of Fort St. John, and Capture of Andre.

From Boston Andre might have passed either bj land or by sea to Canada. The former route would have been the most dangerous for a known adherent of the crown ; but since his arrival in America, there had probably been no necessity of his connection with the army being made public, and we may therefore conjecture, that he encountered little difficulty in getting out of the town, or on his road through the northern parts of New England. There w^as indeed no inconsiderable share of loyalty among the people along his path ; but the whig element decidedly predominated ; and perhaps the first overt act of rebellion on the continent was the capture of the fort at Portsmouth, on December 13th, 1774, by a band of three or four hundred men, acting under instructions from the Boston whigs. They rushed in by beat of drum, disregarding the four-pounders that were hur- riedly and harmlessly discharged against them ; and over- awing the garrison of six invalids, and binding the command- er, they hauled down the royal colors, and bore off (as was their chief design) all the arms and ammunition of the post. Such an event as this ought to occupy an important place in the annals of our early violations of existing laws ; and taken in connection with all that had elsewhere transpired within the range of his observation since his arrival at Philadelphia, must have furnished Andre with matter for a very sufficient report upon the temper and designs of the Americans, if in- deed such task had been assigned him. All this, however, is

72 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR6.

conjectural. We only know that he at last rejoined his regi- ment, the seventh, in Canada.

Sir Guy Carleton, the military and civil commander of the province of Quebec (which comprehended both Canadas) had arrived there in September, 1774. He was a man of clear and extensive judgment, great administrative faculties, large experience, and winning manners ; and though turned of fifty, an active and skilful soldier. With the character of t!je Canadians he was Avell acquainted, and the extraordinary official powers that he was vested with appear to have been used so sagaciously as to procure most important advantages for England, without alienating the hearts of the people. Among our own leaders there was an opinion that it was lucky for America that the ministry should have so far gone out of their way, — as by a private arrangement with him, — to have given to Howe and Burgoyne the command of the royal arms ; for the appointment, by the customs of the ser- vice, pertained to Sir Guy, and it is very certain that he would have made a better chief than either of his substitutes. He seems, too, to have been a supporter of the cabinet ; yet his praises were sounded by their staunchest opponents, and the Duke of Richmond passed a most glowing eulogium upon him at this period in the Plouse of Lords. In his present position he had the advantage of some familiarity with the patriots who were shortly to be brought against him. Mont- gomery and St. Clair had fought by his side when Mont- calm fell, and as quartermaster of Wolfe's army he must have had some knowledge of Charles Lee and Putnam, of Starke, Schuyler, and Wooster. Such was the General under whose command Andre had first experience of actual war.

The people of Canada at this date, if not so warmly at- tached to the British government as a few years sooner they had been to that of France, were at least not generally dis- contented. The provisions of the Quebec act gave them little uneasiness. Unused to democratical forms of govern-

CONDITION OF CANADA IN 1775. 73

ment, they did not share in the anger of the whigs in Eng- land and the more southern colonies, at a law which gave them no part in the administration of public affairs, while the free toleration of the Catholic religion was necessarily grateful to a population that was Catholic almost to a man. But our leaders in Massachusetts and elsewhere did not relish the idea of going into a war with England without striving to make allies rather than enemies of a country that lay in such dangerous contiguity to their own ; and secret emissaries were already among the Canadians. In further- ance of this end, congress sent forth to them an able address, which, translated into French and distributed in manuscript, produced a good effect among that people ; but it unfortu- nately inspired some of their principal men to examine the address to the people of England, made at the same time. This document, while it did not Hatter the civil capabilities of the Canadians, inveighed with great warmth against the countenance parliament had given to their creed ; which was declared to be the disseminator of impiety, persecution, and murder over all the world. These passages provoked the violent resentment of the readers, who openly cursed " the perfidious, double-faced congress," and hesitated no longer in renewing their allegiance to King George. Tins conse- quence should have been foreseen. " I beg leave," wrote over an English friend to America, in January, 1775, " to caution you against any strictures on the Roman Catholic religion, as it will be much more advantageous for you to conciliate to you the Canadians, than to exasperate or rouse the people here ; let us alone to do that." The few active sympathizers that congress possessed in Canada were chiefly new-comers, whose zeal was more abundant than their dis- cretion. On the day fixed for the Quebec act to go into force, (May 1, 1775,) the king's bust on the parade at Mont- real was found to have been blackened during the night, and adorned with a rosary of potatoes and a wooden cross, to which this label was added : Le Pape du Canada, ou le sot

74 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDE£.

Anglois. This insult greatly exasperated the government as well as the people.

Meanwhile, matters with Gage were coming to a crisis, and Carleton left no stone unturned to put his own govern- ment in condition to render every service in its power to the crown. He seems indeed to have for a time meditated a march upon Boston, and two officers were sent out with pri- vate instructions to explore a military route. But the enter- prise of the Americans, and the fortunes of war, soon gave him abundant occupation at home.

The course which an army would, it was thought, be obliged to follow in passing between Canada and the other colonies, was Avell known. Lake Champlain, commencing near the upper waters of the Hudson, and stretching one hundred and twenty miles to the north, pours its waters through the Sorel into the vSt. Lawrence, between Montreal and Quebec. This lake was commanded by the fortresses of Ticonderoga, erected near its communication with Lake George, and of Crown Point, situated farther to the north. At the head of navigation on the Sorel, Fort Chambly w^as erected, and twelve miles to the southward was the post of St. Johns. To garrison these places would, in time of war, demand large forces ; but in peace they were of course held by slender guards. In fact, the only troops that Carleton now had in Lower Canada were the 7th and 26th regiments, numbering 717 men, all told. The 8tli regiment was in Upper Canada ; and all were broken up into various and scattered detachments.

As Ticonderoga was known to contain large military stores, of which we were very destitute, it was concerted to seize this post so soon as hostilities should commence. A secret emis- sary of the Boston Committee appears to have so managed the affair that when, on the 10th of May, three weeks after the Lexington fight, he accompanied the Americans in a night- surprise of the fortress, he Avas surprised to find the gates closed. A wicket, however, stood conveniently open, and,

OPERATIONS ON LAKE CIIAMPLAEN AND THE SOREL. 75

giving the Indian war-whoop, the assailants poured in " with uncommon rancour," as Ethan Allen, their chief, expressed it. The forty-four men of the 26th, who gar- risoned the place, were compelled to surrender with hardly a pretence at resistance, beyond the snapping of his firelock by the sentry ; and it would seem that the only injury received by any of the victors was in consequence of a dispute be- tween two of the leaders as to their conduct in the business, in the course of which Colonel Easton was " heartily kicked " by Colonel Arnold.

The Americans on this occasion were not numerous, but they were active. Crown Point, Skenesborough, and St. Johns were visited without delay, the public stores seized or destroyed, and a few more soldiers taken prisoners. But the secret of the expedition had leaked out before the blow was struck, and large reinforcements were actually on their way to Ticonderoga when it was captured. There is even reason to suppose that Andre was of the party. It consisted of one hundred and twenty men, with six pieces of cannon ; and was but twenty miles from St. Johns when that place fell. To these appear to have been joined forty more from Chambly. On the 19 th May they fell upon Allen, who was then at St. Johns. He retreated with trifling loss, and the British resumed possession of the post.

So long as he retained the command of the Sorel, Carleton knew that a serious invasion of Canada was unlikely. He therefore at once set about strengthening his hands in this quarter. Over five hundred regulars were soon gathered for the defence of Chambly and St. Johns, drawn chiefly from the 7th and 26th regiments, with a few from the naval and artillery services ; and a number of Canadian levies, and all the ship-carpenters from Quebec, were joined with them. The summer was passed in building vessels wherewith to regain the control of Lake Champlain, and in fortifying St. Johns. This post was situated on a level space near the riverside, and, so long as it could hold out, was thought to

76 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR6.

be a perfect safeguard against any attempt on Chambly. The latter fort was therefore but weakly garrisoned, and ap- pears to have been regarded by the English as a place of deposit for the bulk of their stores, and one to which they might safely resort should the other work become untenable. The provisions for St. Johns were even kept there, to be issued forth from time to time as wanted. By the end of August, two vessels were nearly ready to receive their masts, and two strong square forts erected. These were about a hundred yards apart, connected towards the water by a small breastwork. A ditch, fed from the river, and strong pickets, or chevaux-de-frise, encompassed them about ; and they were well supplied with artillery. The hesitancy of congi'ess to set on foot an invasion of a neighboring province, gave the English unusual facilities for carrying on their toil uninterruptedly. That body had indeed approved of the pri- vate enterprise which wrested Ticonderoga from the king's hands ; but it was not until June that it took steps to provide for a continental army and to appoint its generals. On the 27th, a few days later, Major-General Schuyler'was directed to repair to Ticonderoga and, if expedient, to invade Canada ; but it was not before the 30th that Articles of War for the government of its soldiery were actually adopted. A num- ber of Americans were already assembled at Ticonderoga when Schuyler arrived there on the 18th July, and many more came in during the summer ; so tliat towards its close upwards of 2000 men were expected to move to the Sorel. But, as may be easily believed, this force was stronger in numbers than effectiveness. Drawn from different colonies, unaccustomed to serve together, impatient of discipline, their ranks were fdled wnth jealousies and disputes.* The most

* " About ten o'clock last nicfht I arrived at the landing-place, the north end of Lake George, a post occupied by a captain and one hundred men. A sentinel, on being informed I was in the boat, quitted his post to go and awake the guard, consisting of three men, in which he had no success. I walked up, and came to another, a sergeant's guard. Here the sentinel challenged, but suffered me to come up to him, the whole guard, like the

OPERATIONS OX LAKE CHAMPLAIN AND THE SOREL. 77

undaunted courage cannot long supply the lack of subordina- tion in a soldier ; and this defect seems to have been one great cause of Schuyler's trouble. lie alleges that even from a par- tisan so valiant and important as Ethan Allen, he was obliged to exact a solemn promise of proper demeanor before he re- luctantly gave him permission to attend the army. Nor was desertion unknown : " We held a court-martial at every other stage," wrote a New York ofiicer, " and gave several of the unruly ones Moses's Law, i. e. thirty-nine."

Apprehensive that the enemy's vessels would be ready for service before the full force with which he designed en- tering Canada could be brought up, Schuyler appeared be- fore St. Johns, with upwards of 1000 men, on the 6th of September. A landing was made within two miles of the place, and after some brisk skirmishing the troops halted for the night. But no Canadians repaired to their aid, as had been hoped for, Avhich, with other prudential considerations, induced the American leaders to return on the 7th to the Isle-aux-Noix, not far distant. On the night of the 10th a detachment of 800 men, under Montgomery, again landed near the fort ; but the noise which a part made in marching through the tangled woods occasioned a panic among the rest, from which there was no recovering them ; and it was neces- sary, on the next day, to lead them back, after a very trifling skirmish. On the 17th, however, they were once more era- barked, and, Schuyler's illness preventing his accompanying them, the subsequent conduct of the siege devolved upon Montgomery. It is ditRcult to estimate the strength of his forces, by reason of the numbers who were constantly sent back to Crown Point on the sick-list ; but it was probably

first, in the soundest sleep. AVith a penknife only I could have cut otf both guards, and then have set fire to the block-house, destroyed the stores, and starved the people here. . . . But I hope to get the better of this inattention. The ofiicers and men are all good-looking people, and decent in their de- portment, and I really believe will make good soldiers as soon as I can get the better of this nonchalance of theirs. Braver}', I believe, they are far from wanting." — Schuyler to Washington, July 18, 1775.

78 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR6.

not far from 2000 men. A party was stationed between Chambly and St. Johns to interrupt the communication ; and though it was routed by an expedition from the fort, subse- quent reinforcements arrived to the Americans, and on the 18th the British were in turn compelled to fly. The invest- ment continued, but bad weather and the feebleness of the beleaguering army retarded its progress not a little. The fort was held by Major Preston, of the 26th, with upwards of 500 men ; among whom was a large part of the 7th, with Andre as their quartermaster. Major Stopford of the 7th, with nearly 100 of that regiment, commanded at Chambly. In Montgomery's opinion it was necessary to erect certain works to insure the reduction of St. Johns ; but he had to do, as he soon acknowledged, with " troops who carried the spirit of freedom into the field, and thought for themselves." His ideas were not approved of by his inferiors, and he was compelled to lay the plan aside. This is but an instance of the crude organization of our army at this early day. "Woos- ter, the third in rank in that region, held command of his Connecticut men as a colonial and not a continental regi- ment, explaining that they were allies of the other Ameri- cans, but soldiers of Connecticut ; and Schuyler says that it was with no little difficulty that any useful service was at lenfTth obtained from them. With others of his olfi- cers, Montgomery's relations were extremely embarrassing. Many of them reported directly to their respective colonial authorities, and of course commented freely on all that oc- curred. The ill effects of such a system are evident ; but there was then no help for it. A New Hampshire officer informs the government that he alone has the execution of any successful measure ; the failures are due to Allen and others. Another officer, a captain, kept up a correspondence with Governor Trumbull of Connecticut, in which, professing his own piety, he feels called upon to complain of the pro- fanity of head-quarters ; Montgomery, besides, is no general, though he may indeed possess courage. On the other hand,

SIEGE OF FORT ST. JOHN. 79

courage was the very quality which Montgomery seems to have found lacking in some of his followers. He reports to Schuyler the cowardly conduct of an officer of the same name as this critical writer, and adds : " Were I furnished with power for that purpose, he should not Hve an hour after his trial, if the court condemn him." This spirit of insubor- dination, which induced Montgomery's army to prefer mutiny to the sacrifice to his positive commands of their own opinion as to the best way of besieging St. Johns, must be duly con- sidered by every one who follows our military history at this period. It prevailed widely ; and the purest patriotism, and the irksome use of flattery and persuasion, were too often needed to enable a general to retain his commission or to eflFect any- thing with his troops. Montgomery was wearied of his place, and anxious to get rid of it ; for matters soon came to such a pass that he was obliged to inform his chief subordinates (or, rather, insubordinates), that unless they would obey his orders he should at once abandon the leadership and leave them to their own devices. At the same period Schuyler, disgusted with the disorders that he could not subdue, was resolved no longer " to coax, to wheedle, and even to lie, to carry on the service," and made up his mind to retire ; while Washington, for similar causes, declared that no earthly consideration should have wooed him to accept the chief command, had he foreseen what was before him. Yet there were many good soldiers in our ranks, and discipline only was required to ren- der them all such. Meanwhile the siege went on slowly. Both parties suffered from want of sufficient necessaries of war. The garrison fought often knee-deep in mire, and their opponents, in addition to the injudicious nature of their works, labored under a deficiency of ammunition. At this juncture, an enterprise, suggested by some Canadians whom Major James Livingston had prevailed on to espouse the American cause, was crowned with success, and gave an unexpected turn to affairs. With 300 of them, and in cooperation with a detachment from Montgomery's army, he attacked Fort

80 LIFE OF MAJOR AXDRfi.

Charably. On the 18tli of October, Major Stopford of the 7th, with nearly 100 of his men, surrendered this post, in which, as in a place of security, were lodged not only the stores for St. Johns, but the women and children of the troops that defended it, and to which the beleaguered garri- son already meditated a retreat. It may be noted that Liv- ingston, whose conduct on this occasion so greatly promoted the event that reduced Andre to captivity, was the same offi- cer who, a few years later, was indirectly the cause of his final and fatal arrest. " The capture of Chamblee occa- sioned many others," wrote Sir Henry Clinton, long after. Lamb also, the artillery officer at West Point on this last oc- casion, now pointed the guns against the walls within which Andre fought. The colors of the 7th were among the spoils taken at Chambly. They were sent to Philadelphia ; and their keeping, after presentation to congress, being probably confided to the President, they were, wrote John Adams to his wife, " hung up in Mrs. Hancock's chamber with great splendor and elegance."* These were the first standards captured in this war.

The garrison of St. Johns was now put on half allowance, and the s^iege was more vigorously conducted. Montgomery's men seem at length to have permitted his views to be carried out; and on the 29th October, a battery was erected, under the fire of the fort, on an eminence to the north which entire- ly commanded it. On the next day ten guns and mortars were

* The 7th lost its colors again before the war was ended. One of these, taken at Yorktown, is preserved, as the gift of AVashington, at Alexandria, Va. It is of heavy twilled silk, seventy-two inches long by sixty-four wide, and presents the red and white crosses on a blue field. In the centre, in silk embroidery, is the crown above a rose surrounded by a garter with the legend, lloni soil qui mal y pense. The royal warrant' of July 1, 1751, pre- scribes for the 7th: — "In the centre of their colours the Rose within the Garter, and the Crown over it : the "White Horse in the corners of the sec- ond Colour." This colour now also bears by royal warrant the words: — Martinique, Talavera, Albuhera, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, PjTenees, Orthcs, Peninsula, Toulouse ; — memorials of victories that may well obliter- ate the scenes of America.

CAPTURE OF ANDR6. 81

mounted, and preparations made for a general cannonade and assault. Tidings of affairs had however been conveyed to Carleton, who marched with a strong force of irregulars to relieve the place. His design was to attack the American intrenchments, while Preston at the same time should make a sally from within. But on the 30th October, Sir Guy's party was intercepted and defeated, and he was compelled to retreat to Montreal. On the evening of November 1st, the new battery and the old four-gun work having kept up an incessant fire through the day, which was briskly returned from the forty-eight pieces of the fort, Montgomery sent a flag to Preston with one of the prisoners taken at Carleton's defeat, and a request that, since relief was now hopeless, the post should be surrendered. To this Preston replied, prom- ising to offer proposals if relief should not appear within four days. These terms were peremptorily declined. Another prisoner of superior rank was sent to Preston, with a decla- ration from Montgomery, that the only means to insure the honors of war for the garrison and the safety of the officers' baggage, was to surrender at once. The Englishman yielded, and on the 2nd, articles of capitulation were signed. The troops were allowed all the honors of war. " This was due,'* said Montgomery, " to their fortitude and perseverance." The officers were to retain their side-arms ; their firearms were to be kept in pledge ; the effects of the garrison were not to be withheld unless a prisoner should escape, in which case his property was to be given as plunder to the Ameri- cans ; and the prisoners were to pass into Connecticut, or such place of detention as congress might provide. A quarter- master from each corps was also to go on parole to Montreal to settle its business and bring up its baggage. For the 7th, this duty fell upon Andre ; seven of its officers had been taken at Chambly, and thirteen more were now captives with most of its privates. About sixty men only remained at liberty. These had been retained by Carleton, and shared in the defence of Quebec. At 9 a. m., on the 3rd November, 5

82 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDRfi.

1775, the Americans entered St. Johns ; and the English, to the number of six hundred, marching out and grounding their arms on a plain to the westsvard, became prisoners of war. They were immediately embarked for Ticonderoga.

The principal losses to either side during this siege seem to have been by desertions. Of our people, but nine were killed, and four or five wounded. " You know we take good care of ourselves," wrote Montgomery. Nor could the Brit- ish casualties have been very numerous, since the defence was conducted with hardly an attempt at a sortie ; though such measures might have been very advantageous to the besieged. But for the capture of Chambly, and the final adoption of our general's plan of investment, the fort would not have fallen at all, either by assault or starvation ; for assault was only practicable from that quarter whence our men had at first shrunk, with an impression that they were to be betrayed and trepanned under the guns of the place. Besides, at the time of surrender, very many of our troops were importunate to go home. Their enlistments were near- ly out, and they were utterly unaccustomed to the severities of military life, or to prolonged absence from their families. Few indeed of the hundreds of sick that were sent to Ticon- deroga ever returned to camp. " The greater part of them are so averse to going back, that they pretend sickness and skulk about; and some, even officers, go away without leave; nor can I get the better of them," wrote Schuyler to con- gress. Had the siege endured much longer, probably half of our army would have retired. As it was, Howe, at Bos- ton, had little idea that all was not going on well on the Sorel, till the Americans furnished him with a newspaper account of our victories. On the lith November, "Washington pub- lished the grateful intelligence to the army beleaguering Howe: and the countersign for the day was " Montgomery"; the parole, " St. Johns." A thousand copies of the account of the capture were printed by congress for distribution in Ensrland.

CHAPTER VI.

Andre's Captivity. — Detained in Pennsylvania. — Treatment of Prisoners. — Andre's Relations with the Americans. — His Letters to Mr. Cope. — Exchange and Promotion. — Sir Charles Grey. — Sir Henry Clinton and the Operations on the Hudson.

The stipulation that their eJBTects should not be -wdthhelJ from the garrison of St. Johns does not seem to have been observed. It but was too customary on both sides, at this time, to disregard the rights of the vanquished and defence- less. The British, being better disciplined, did their spiriting rather more gently than our troops. The American bag- gage, protected by the capitulation of Fort Washington in November, 1776, was only partially plundered; while about the same period Washington, by flogging and cashiering, was striving to make the Nyms and Bardolphs of our ranks re- frain from stealing large mirrors, women's raiment, and the like, from private houses, to prevent their falling into the enemy's hands. It was with difficulty that Andre got away with the baggage of the 7th from Montreal, whither our army had marched. On the 13th November, 1775, Mont- gomery writes to Schuyler : —

"I wish some method could be fallen upon of engaging gentlemen to serve ; a point of honour and more knowledge of the world, to be found in that class of men, would greatly reform discipline, and render the troops much more tracta- ble. The officers of the 1st regiment of Yorkers, and Ar- tillery Company, were very near a mutiny the other day, because I would not stop the clothing of the garrison of St. Johns. I would not have sullied my own reputation, nor disgraced the Continental arms, by such a breach of capitu- lation, for the universe ; there was no driving it into their

84 LIFE OF JLUOR ANDR£.

noddles, that the clothing was really the property of the sol- dier, that he had paid for it, and that every regiment, in this country especially, saved a year's clothing, to have decent clothes to wear on particular occasions."

But there were, first or last, other and less scrupulous hands to be met ; which, as they did not hesitate to spoil the goods of congress, were probably not idle among those of a captive enemy, protected only by a guard of honor. "I have been taken prisoner by the Americans," wrote Andre to a friend at home, " and stript of every thing, except the picture of Honora, which I concealed in my mouth. Pre- serving that, I yet think myself fortunate." * At Ticonde- roga the officers of the 7th and 26th applied to the Americans for blankets and shoes for their men, who were almost bare- footed ; but there were none to spare. Schuyler, however, who had received the hospitalities of the 26th when travel- ling in Ireland, advanced means to the officers of both regi- ments to supply these necessities. They were then sent, under a guard of a hundred men, for Connecticut ; where the Committee of Safety had provided for their distribution, and for the assignment of the privates as laborers. This was a practice with our government through the contest, as it was afterwards of Napoleon's ; but it was warmly resented by the English. Gage, especially, complained that the pris-

* Extract from Miss Sewanrs ]Vt!l: — " The mezzotinto engraving from a picture of Runinov, which is thus inscribed on a tablet at top, Such toas JJonora Sneycl^ I bequeath to her brother Edward Sneyd, Esq., if he sur- vives me; if not, I bequeatli it to his amiable daughter, Miss Emma Sneyd, entreating her to value and preserve it as the perfect though accidental resemblance of her aunt, and my ever dear friend, ichen she laas surrounded by all her virgin (/lories — beauty and grace, sensibility and goodness, supenor intelligence, and unswerving tiuith. To my before-mentioned friend, Mi's. ]\Iarv Powys, in consideration of the true and uncxtinguishable love which she bore to the original, I bequeath the miniature picture of the said Hon- ora Sneyd, drawn at Buxton in the year 1776, by her gallant, faithful and unfortunate lover, ^lajur Andre, in his 18th year. That was his lirst at- tempt to delineate the human face, consequently it is an unfavorable and most imperfect resemblance of a most distinguished beauty."

ANDRE'S CxVPTIVITY. 85

oners of war should be made to work " like negro slaves to gain their daily subsistence, or reduced to the wretched alter- native, to perish by famine or take up arms against their king and country." Up to Montgomery's arrival at the Sorel, indeed, there were no prisoners of war to speak of subject to the control of Congress ; and no systematic prep- arations for their disposition had been made. It was now, however, ordered that the officers taken at St. Johns should continue their course to Connecticut, while the privates should be brought to Pennsylvania, where there were greater con- veniences for subsisting so many men. But it was to guard against such a separation that the officers had obtained Schuyler's promise that they .should not be parted from their soldiers. On the one hand, it was important that they should see that their followers were not abused ; on the other, that attempts to seduce them into the American service should be thwarted. Accordingly, when the instruc- tions of Congress reached the officer who was leading; the prisoners to Connecticut by way of the Hudson River, he could only obey them so far as to bring on with him to Pennsyl- vania all of the 7th that were taken at St. Johns, officers as well as privates. As he came down the Hudson, however, Andre was encountered by Knox, — afterwards one of the Board that pronounced on his fate, and now on his road to the north to select cannon for the siege of Boston, from the spoils on Champlain. Chance compelled the two young men to pass the night in the same cottage, and even in the same bed. There were many points of resemblance between them. Their ages were alike ; they had each renounced the pursuits of trade for the profession of arms ; each had made a study of his new occupation ; and neither was devoid of literary tastes and habits. Much of the night w^as consumed in pleasing conversation on topics that were rarely, perhaps, broached in such circumstances ; and the intelligence and refinement displayed by Andre in the discussion of subjects that were equally interesting to Knox, left an impression

86 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR6.

on the mind of the latter that was never obliterated. The respective condition of the bedfellows was not mutually com- municated till the ensuing morning as they were about to part ; and when Knox a few years later was called on to join in the condemnation to death of the companion whose society was so pleasant to him on this occasion, the memory of their intercourse gave additional bitterness to his painful duty. Joshua Smith also asserts that he dined at this time with Andre, at the house of Colonel Hay of Haverstraw ; though the features of the young officer were faded from his remembrance when he was called to guide him from our lines in 1780.

Congress having ordered that its prisoners of war should be kept in the interior of Pennsylvania, Andre and his com- panions were now carried to Lancaster. The officers were paroled to keep within six miles of their appointed residence, to approach no seaport, and to hold no correspondence on American affi^irs. The sale of bills on England, otherwise unlawful, was legalized to them ; and the men were ordered to be fed as the continental privates, but to be paid and clad by their own government. The new and unsettled state of affiiirs made the condition of prisoners doubly painful. They had no money, and could not get any. They were com- pelled to lodge at taverns, for no private house would receive them ; and their expenses could not be met by a proffi^red loan of two paper dollars a week from Congress. It was decided to separate them from their men, and they in vain protested against this measure. Their complaint to Con- gress was that, while the officer was thus parted from his sol- diers, they were enlisted by the Americans ; and again, that the privates at Lancaster had received neither their clothes nor their pay, and that it was unjust in the extreme to thus deprive their leaders of the means of satisfying them. The local Committee of Safety, at the head of which was Edward Shippen (a lady of whose family was at a later day the friend of Andre and the wife of Arnold), could not maintain

TREATMENT OF PRISONERS. 87

order among the men but by a military guard. In January, 1776, they represent this to Congress. They also strongly paint the distress of their prisoners. The women and chil- dren are in a state of starvation. The men are half frozen by want of sufficient covering " against the rigor and inclem- ency of the season." This committee seems to have given what assistance it could to the captives, and, at the same time, to have declined separating officers and men. Accordingly, Congress handed over the disposition of the business to the State Committee, with instructions to imprison such officers as would not give a parole ; and in March, 1776, orders for their removal from their men at Lancaster and Reading: were issued. Their money had not yet arrived, and they were compelled to leave their lodging-bills unsettled. The Lan- caster Committee reported this to Congress, saying that the tavern-keepers, with whom the continental authorities had lodged the officers, had finally refused to accommodate them longer, and that some of the inhabitants, out of courtesy, had therefore been induced to affiDrd them rooms, with candles, fuel, and breakfasts ; their own servants were in attendance, and a mess-dinner for them all was established. Amonor the bills thus rendered, we find Michael Bartgis's claim for £7 6s., for a chamber, fire, and lights, supplied to Lieutenants Despard and Andre of the 7th.

There is no great cause to suppose that these prisoners were either well treated or patient. An American officer of reputation, himself just released from long confinement at New York, remarks upon the ungenerous slights put upon the captives at Reading, by that class of whigs whose valor was chiefly displayed in insulting those whom better men had made defenceless ; and if their affronts were resented, the officer stood a good chance of being soundly cudgelled, and clapped into gaol. More than one who had surrendered to Montgomery attempted to abscond.*

* After alleging instances of our ill-treatment of prisoners, an English account continues: " When the garrison at St. Johns capitulated, because

88 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDRi:.

The prisoners alleged, and with truth perhaps, that the fear of persecution deterred many of the inhabitants from showing them kindness. In Andre's case this apprehension certainly did not prevail. From some of the people of Lan- caster he received kind words and kind deeds ; and relations of friendship were established that still exist in the memory of their descendants. The local authorities were less pleased with the behavior of the 26th than with that of the 7th ; and there could have been no one in either regiment better quali- fied than himself to win the favor of his new neighbors. His disposition may be described, if it cannot be accurately de- lineated. In him were most judiciously combined the love of action and the love of pleasure : the moving powers of every spirit that rises from the common level, and which, when properly directed and controlled, are well represented as the parents respectively of the useful and the agreeable in man. " The character that unites and harmonizes both," says Gibbon, " would seem to constitute the most perfect idea of human nature." When business was concerned, Andre was zealous, active, and sagacious : and his leisure hours were given to elegant and refining relaxations. A taste for painting, poetry, music, and dramatic representations, com- prehends as well a knowledge of the outward face of nature as of the thoughts and passions that stir mankind ; and cor- rectness of eye, ear, and hand ; of judgment, fancy, and obser- vation ; is fostered and strengthened by the arts upon which

they had no provisions and no place to retire to, the rebels were so much afraid of them, even when unarmed, that Schuyler addressed the officers, telling them he was in their power, and depended on their honour. It would have been no wonder if such people had been well treated ; yet so scandalously ill were they afterwards used, that some of the young officers resolved rather to run the hazard of perishing in the woods in attempting to escape to Canada, than continue to submit to it." — Royal Ptnn. Gaz. May 15, 1778. This story has probably thus much truth in it. Schuyler may have so addressed GOO men whom he sent oil" under a guard of 100. That they were ill-treated afterwards was no fault of his, though he promised to liang an absconding prisoner if he could catch him. And after capturing them while yet fully armed, the Americans would hardly have feared unarmed men.

ANDRE'S RELATIONS WITH THE AMERIC.VXS. 89

it feeds. In his present strait, not Goldsmith's Hute was more useful to its master beside " the murmuring Loire " than the brush and pencil to Andre's familiar hand. Whether as a mere amusement, or as a means of ingratiating himself with the people of Lancaster, he set about teaching some of their children to draw. The late Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton, of scientific reputation, was thus initiated into the art of sketch- ing, and became no mean draughtsman. His family still preserves specimens of Andre's skill, some of which are of singular merit. His style was easy and free, and his favorite designs studies of the human figure, or from the antique. In certain circles he thus became a welcome guest, and was wont to share in their parties of pleasure. Among the inhabitants who were distinguished by their courtesy to the captives was Mr. Caleb Cope, a Quaker gentleman of loyal proclivities. His son had a strong natural taste for painting, and soon be- came a favorite pupil of Andre's : so much so, that he con- stantly pressed the father to place the lad in his charge and suflTer him to be brought up to that art. On one occasion he urged that he was anxious to go back to England, but could not do so without a reasonable excuse for quitting the army; that he had now an offer to purchase his commission ; and that with this boy to look after, a fair pretext for returning home would be afforded. But the father was inflexible, and in March, 1776, the master and pupil were separated, and the former sent to Carlisle. A correspondence was however kept up between Mr. Cope and himself.

ANDEE TO CALEB COrE.

Sir : — You wou'd have heard from me ere this Time had I not wish'd to be able to give you some encouragement to send my young Friend John to Carlisle. My desire was to find a Lodging where I cou'd have him with me, and some quiet honest family of Friends or others where he might have boarded, as it wou'd not have been so proper for him to live

90 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDR6.

with a Mess of officers. I have been able to find neither and am myself still in a Tavern. The people here are no more willing to harbour us, than those of Lancaster were at our first coming there. If, however, you can resolve to let him come here, I believe Mr. Despard and I can make him up a bed in a Lodging we have in view, where there will be room enough. He will be the greatest part of the day with us, employ 'd in the few things I am able to instruct him in. In the mean- while I may get better acquainted with the Town, and pro- vide for his board. With regard to Expence this is to be attended with none to you. A little assiduity and friendship is all I ask in my young friend in return for my good will to be of service to him in a way of improving the Talents Nature hath given him. I shall give all my attention to his morals, and, as I believe him well dispos'd, I trust he will acquire no bad habits here. Mr. Despard joins with me in compli- ments to yourself, Mrs. Cope, and Family. I am, Sir, your most humble servant, John Andre.

Carlisle, April the 3d, 1776.

Andre and Despard obtained lodgings with a Mrs. Ramsey, in the stone house that now stands at the corner of Locust Al- ley and South Hanover Street, in Carlisle ; and for them and eight other officers a mess was established. Each had his servant from the regiment, dressed in the hunting-shirts and trousers that then were so commonly worn, particularly by our troops. The ardent whigs of the place feared lest their discourse sliould corrui)t the weak-minded within their allotted bounds and were anxious to imprison them, but could find no pretext. At last Andre and his comrade were detected in conversation with two tories. The latter were sent to gaol ; and letters in the French language being found on their per- sons, Andre and Despard were forbidden for the future to leave the town. As no one could be found competent to translate the letters, their contents were never known. The two officers had provided themselves with very handsome

KUMORED ATTACK ON ANDRl^. 91

fowling-pieces and a brace of beautiful pointer dogs. The guns they forthwith broke to pieces, says tradition, affirming

" that no rebel should ever burn powder in them," — an

exclamation that savors of Despard's style.* On another occasion a person named Thompson, who had once been an apprentice to Mr. Ramsey, and was now a militia captain, marched his company from the northern part of the county to Carlisle, and drawing it up by night before the house, swore loudly that Andre and Despard should forthwith be put to death. The entreaties of Mrs. Ramsey at length prevailed on this hero to depart, shouting to her lodgers as he went that they were to thank his old mistress for their lives. On the 5th of August, the rumor spread through Lancaster that Captain Clark's company, of Cumberland County, on its way through Carlisle to that town, had wantonly attacked the royal officers there, and, firing through the windows, had wounded Andre. As Clark's arrival was looked for that night, the Lancaster Committee appear to have feared a massacre would ensue of the privates in their gaol, similar to that perpetrated in the same place, and by people from the same region, a number of years previously, upon the Chris- tian Indians who had fled from the wrath of the Paxton Boys. They ordered the gaol to be well supplied with water before sunset, and provided for calling out the local militia, if needs were ; and the prisoners were assured that they should be protected, if possible. These, however, were not inclined to imitate their predecessors and die singing hymns and pray- ing. They armed themselves with stout cord-sticks, and

* This was an Irish officer, who, in 1781, very bravely supported Nelson in Nicaragua, and was executed for treason in 1803. He was one of the very few English officers that brought back from America democratical ideas. A democratical soldier was indeed an anomaly in the service of that day. "Three distinguished heroes of this class," Avi'ote Scott to his son, " have arisen in my time : Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Colonel Despard, and Captain Thistle wood ; and, with the contempt and abhorrence of all men, they died the death of infamy and guilt." Even in America, Mr. Cope had warned Despard that his recklessness and disregard would certainly bring him to some bad end.

92 LIFE OF MAJOR AXDRfi.

resolved to die hard. On Clark's approach, the alarm van- ished : he denied the story altogether, and put its propagator in the guard-house. The man then had only to say that, at Carlisle, he had seen two persons firing their pieces down the street, and that he had heard, from the house where the officers' servants dwelt, that Andre was wounded. There was probably no truth in this last assertiorv; but there was much ill-will against the officers from the following cause : — Early in 1776, Foster, with some English and a number of savages, had encountered a body of Americans at the Cedars, on Lake Cham plain, who surrendered to the number of 500. Foster alleged that his Indians, infuriated at the loss of their sachem, were for murdering the prisoners, and were only content to spare them on condition of marking each man's ear with a knife, and threatening to slay outright all who should ever return with this distinction. He then paroled them, to go home and be exchanged for a like number of the English taken at St. Johns. The American government would not fulfil this convention ; and the clipped men, arriv- ing at their own abode, were often full of hatred to those for whom they were to have been exchanged. This event occa- sioned great embarrassments in efiecting exchanges during the war ; for the enemy always insisted on the men of the Cedars being accounted for. But while some of the offi- cers surrendered their paroles and were sent to prison, — " a dreadful place, that will be prejudicial to their health," says the whig committee, — and others, disregarding it, fled through the wilderness to their friends, Andre is described as quietly confining himself to his chamber and passing his days in reading, with his feet resting on the wainscot of the window and his dogs lying by his side. This was the wisest course ; for any infringement of the strict letter of their pa- role was now visited on the officers with imprisonment ; and new restrictions were imposed. They were sent to gaol if they went out except in uniform ; they Avere not permitted to leave their chambers after nightfall ; some were deprived,

HIS LETTERS TO MR. COPE. 93

as they complained to congress, of their servants ; others subjected to threats and insults. These matters are set down in the records of the times. Disagreeable as they are to re- peat, there can be no reason for their omission here, save one : if there were any cause to question their truth, they would gladly be stricken out.

— Pudet hsec opprobria nobis Et clici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli.

ANDRE TO CALEB COPE.

Dear Sir : — I am much oblig'd to you for your kind Let- ter and to your son for his drawings. He is greatly improv'd since I left Lancaster, and I do not doubt but if he continues his application he will make a very great progress. I cannot regret that you did not send your son hither : AVe have been submitted to alarms and jealousys which wou'd have render'd his stay here very disagreeable to him and I wou'd not wil- lingly see any person suffer on our account ; with regard to your apprehensions in consequence of the escape of the Leb- anon gentlemen, they were groundless, as we have been on parole ever since our arrival at this place which I can assure you they were not. I shou'd more than once have written to you had opportunitys presented themselves, but the post and we seem to have fallen out, for we can never by that channel either receive or forward a line on the most indiffer- ent subjects. Mr. Despard is very well and desires to be remembered to yourself and family. I beg you wou'd give my most friendly compliments to your Family and particu- larly to your son my disciple, to whom I hope the future pos- ture of affairs will give me an opportunity of pointing out the way to proficiency in his favourite study, which may tend so much to his pleasure and advantage. Let him go on copying whatever good models he can meet with and never suffer himself to neglect the proportion and never to think of finishing his work, or imitating the fine flowing lines of his

94 LIFE OF MAJOR ANDRfi.

copy, till every limb, feature, house, tree, or whatever he is drawing, is in its proper place. With a little practise, this will be so natural to him, that his Eye will at first sight guide his pencil in every part of the work. I wish I may soon see you in our way to join our own friends with which I hope by Exchange we may be at length reunited. I am, Dear Sir, &c.

Carlisle the Srd Septr. 1776.

THE SAME TO THE SAME.

Your Letter by Mr. Barrington is just come to hand. I am sorry you shou'd imagine my being absent from Lancas- ter, or our troubles could make me forget my friends. Of the several Letters you mention having written to me only one of late has reach'd Carlisle, viz. that by Mr. Slough. To one I received from you a week or two after leaving Lancas- ter I return'd an Answer. I own the difficulties of our Cor- respondence has disgusted me from attempting to write. I once more commend myself to your good family and am sin- cerely Yrs. &c. J. A.

I hope your son's indisposition will be of no consequence.*

THE SAME TO THE SAME.

Dear Sir : — I have just time to acquaint you that I re- ceiv'd your Letter by Mrs. Calender with my young Friend's drawings, which persuade me he is much improv'd, and that he has not been idle. He must take particular care in form- ing the features in faces, and in copying hands exactly. He should now and then copy things from the life and then com- pare the proportions with what prints he may have, or what rules he may have remember'd. With respect to his shading

* This letter was probably written early in September. On the 24th August the Council at Philadelphia ordered that Mr. Barrington should ba sent on parole from Lancaster gaol to Cumberland County.

HIS LETTERS TO MR. COPE. 95

with Indian Ink, the anatomical figure is tolerably well done, but he wou'd find his work smoother and softer, were he to lay the shades on more gradually, not blackening the darkest at once, but by washing them over repeatedly, and never un- til the paper is quite dry. The figure is very well drawn.

Captn. Campbell who is the bearer of this letter will prob- ably when at Lancaster be able to judge what likely hood there is of an Exchange of Prisoners which we are told is to take place immediately. If this shou'd be without founda- tion, I shou'd be very glad to see your son here. Of this you may speak with Captn. Campbell, and if you shou'd deter- mine upon it, let me know it a few days before hand when I shall take care to settle matters for his reception. I am, &c.

Carlisle the 11th Oct. 1776.

My best compliments to your family and particularly to John. Mr. Despard begs to be remember'd to you.

THE S.UIE TO THE SAME.

Dear Sir : — I cannot miss the opportunity I have of writing to you by Mr. Slough to take leave of yourself and Family and transmit to you my sincere wishes for your wel- fare. TVe are on our road (as we believe, to be exchang'd) and however happy this prospect may make me, It doth not render me less warm in the fate of those persons in this Country for whom I had conceiv'd a regard. I trust on your side you will do me the Justice to remember me with some good will, and that you will be persuaded I shall be happy if an Occasion shall offer of ray giving your son some farther hints in the Art for which he