bers of the season by beat of drum and ringing of bells, with the
dire alarm that a thousand of the troops of George the Third had gone
forth to murder the peaceful inhabitants of the surrounding villages. A
few hours, with the dawning day, convinced us the bloody purpose was
executing; the platoon firing assured us that the rising sun must
witness the bloody carnage. Not knowing what the event would be at
Cambridge, at the return of these bloody ruffians, and seeing another
brigade dispatched to the assistance of the former, looking with the
ferocity of barbarians, it seemed necessary to retire to some place of
safety, till the calamity was passed."

The lady is evidently overfond of a certain epithet of sanguinary
denotation, nor can she be complimented upon her high-flown style; but
it is evident that behind the affectation of phrase there is an intense
earnestness of hatred that stands as typical of its sexual source. To
the patriot women of America the British were "ruffians" and
"barbarians" and the most bloody-minded of human beings just as to the
Loyalists the Continentals were "rebels" and "traitors," for whom
hanging would have been a punishment so mild as to suggest weakness in
the administrator. To the patriot woman poor old George III. was the
very incarnation of all evil and malice, just as to the Tory lady
another George was the vilest of ingrates to lead the armies of the
rebels against the authority of so gracious a king as he of England.
Both were honest in their extremes of fanaticism and so may well be
pardoned, and even admired, for those extremes, with their resultant
enthusiasm in the cause of freedom or loyalty.

Meanwhile there existed, though hardly flourished, the gentler arts
among the women of America; and Mercy Warren, wife of James Warren and
daughter of James Otis, she to whom Mrs. Winthrop's letter was
addressed, wielded a more refined and therefore more effective pen than
that of her friend, being the one female writer of her day who may be
called notable. She was hardly less enthusiastic than Mrs. Winthrop in
the cause of liberty, and she was possessed of a very respectable gift
of satire which made her writings a power in their way. When there was
discussed among the colonists the plan of suspending all commerce with
Great Britain because of the vexed matter of the taxes, Mrs. Warren
wrote a long poetic effusion which exemplifies her gift of satire, of
which the best lines are these: