urse it was more evident, and
possibly more fervent, in those districts where the war actually set its
foot. In feeling at least, women, when once aroused, are more intensely
militant than men, as they are more patient and constant under
suffering; and it was to the women quite as much as to the men that our
country owed its escape from the British yoke. The display of the
feeling varied in its manifestations; but that feeling was ever present
in the hearts of the American women of the revolutionary times. The
ladies of Boston who abandoned, in the days of oppression, their cup of
tea that the abhorrent taxes might not be enforced showed the same true
patriotism, only needing opportunity to call it to higher pitch, as did
their sisters who bore the insults and outrages of a brutal soldiery
when Tarleton rode across stricken South Carolina and planted a hatred
that bore fruit in the ambush and the night attack. The women of New
England bound upon the backs of husbands and sons and even fathers the
old knapsack and placed in their hands the old musket and sent them
forth, ready to go, yet full of fears for those left behind, to
Lexington and Bunker Hill.

It must not, however, be supposed that all the enthusiasm, all the depth
of feeling, all the patriotism even, was in the camp, feminine or
masculine, of the Continentals. Among the Tories, or Loyalists, as they
liked best to call themselves, there were many hearts which beat with
true devotion to their country, yet which believed that country's best
duty, because its highest, was to be found in loyalty to the king.
Especially was this the case in New York and Philadelphia, which were
the strongholds of British possession. It is true that there were many,
women as well as men, even more of the former, whose loyalty was but
lip-service, who cherished in their hearts a devotion to the cause of
freedom to which they dared not give utterance for fear of oppression;
but there were also many who loved the flag of England as the banner of
all that was truest and best, and who looked upon the resisters of
British authority as rebels of the baser sort. They were as honest as
were their opponents, and they were as fanatical; and they are entitled
to the same respect for their devotion to a losing cause as are their
rivals for their loyalty to one that was victorious.

In 1778 there was held in the staid city of Philadelphia a certain
entertainment given by the officers of Sir Will