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and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

HUGH WYNNE

FREE QUAKER

Sometime Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel on the Staff
of his Excellency General Washington.

By S. WEIR MITCHELL, M.D., LL.D.

WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS

By HOWARD PYLE

[Frontispiece Illustration: "IS IT YES OR NO, DARTHEA?"]

[Transcriber's Note: The drawing depicts a man and woman riding on
horseback side-by-side.]

PREFACE TO NINETEENTH EDITION

Since Hugh Wynne was published in book form in 1896, it has been many times
reprinted, and now that again there is need for a new edition, I use a
desired opportunity to rectify some mistakes in names, dates, and
localities. These errors were of such a character as to pass unnoticed by
the ordinary reader and disturb no one except the local archaeologist or
those who propose to the novelist that he shall combine the accuracy of the
historical scholar with the creative imagination of the writer of what,
after all, is fiction.

Nevertheless, the desire of the scientific mind even in the novel is for
all reasonable accuracy, and to attain it I used for six years such winter
leisures as the exacting duties of a busy professional life permitted, to
collect notes of the dress, hours, sports, habits and talk of the various
types of men and women I meant to delineate. I burned a hundred pages of
these carefully gathered materials soon after I had found time, in a summer
holiday, to write the book for which these notes were so industriously
gathered.

It is probable that no historical novel was ever paid the compliment of the
close criticism of details which greeted Hugh Wynne. I was most largely in
debt for the pointing out of errors in names and localities to a review of
my book in a journal devoted to the interest of one of the two divisions of
the Society of Friends.

I deeply regretted at the time that my useful critic should have considered
my novel as a deliberately planned attack on the views entertained by
Friends. It was once again an example of the assumption that the characters
of a novel in their opinions and talk represent the author's personal
beliefs. I was told by my critic that John Wynne is presented as "the type
of the typical character of the Friends." As well might Bishop Proudie be
considered as representative of the members and views of the Church of
England or Mr. Tulkinghorn of the English lawyer.

A man's course in life does not always represent simple obedience to the
counsels of perfection implied in an accepted creed of conduct, but is
modified by his own nature. He may therefore quite fail to secure from his
beliefs that which they produce in more assimilative natures. Age softens
some hard characters, but in John Wynne the early development of senile
dementia deprived him of this chance. I drew a peculiar and happily a rare
type of man who might have illustrated failure to get the best out of any
creed.

The course of this great revolutionary struggle made or marred many men,
and the way in which such a time affects character affords to the novel of
history its most interesting material.

Erroneous statements in regard to the time and place of Friends' Meetings
have been pointed out. As concerns these and the like, I may here state
that the manuscript of my novel was read with care by a gentleman who was a
birthright member of the Society and both by age and knowledge competent to
speak. He remarked upon some of my technical errors in regard to the
meetings and discipline of Friends, but advised against change and said
that it was traditionally well known that at the time of the Revolution
there was much confusion in their assemblies and great bitterness of
feeling when so many like Wetherill chose to revolt against the doctrine of
absolute obedience to what, whether rightfully or not, they regarded as
oppression. Needless to say that I meant no more than to delineate a great
spiritual conflict in a very interesting body of men who, professing
neutrality, were, if we may trust Washington, anything but neutral.

The amount of accuracy to be allowed in historic fiction aroused fresh
interest when Hugh Wynne first appeared. In romances like Quentin Durward
and Ivanhoe the question need not be considered. What may annoy the
historian in the more serious novel of history does not trouble the
ordinary reader nor does it detract from the interest of the story. How
little the grossest errors in biography and history affect the opinions of
the public concerning a novel long popular may be illustrated by the fact
that one of my critics referred me to Henry Esmond for an example of
desirable accuracy. It was an unfortunate choice, for in Esmond there is
hardly a correct historical statement. The Duke of Hamilton described as
about to marry Beatrix was the husband of a second living wife and the
father of seven children--an example of contemplated literary bigamy which
does not distress the happily ignorant, nor are they at all troubled by the
many other and even more singular errors in statement, some of them plainly
the result of carelessness. A novel, it seems, may sin sadly as concerns
historic facts and yet survive.

The purpose of the novel is, after all, to be acceptably interesting. If it
be historical, the historic people should not be the constantly present
heroes of the book. The novelist's proper use of them is to influence the
fates of lesser people and to give the reader such sense of their reality
as in the delineation of characters, is rarely possible for the historian.

With these long intended comments, I leave this book to the many readers
whose wants a new edition is meant to supply. I may say in conclusion that
I should have been less eager to alter, correct, and explain if it were not
that in schools and colleges Hugh Wynne has been and is still used in a
variety of ways so that the example of accuracy and a definition of its
desirable extent in historic fiction becomes in some sense a literary duty.

S. WEIR MITCHELL.

August, 1908.

INTRODUCTORY

It is now many years since I began these memoirs. I wrote fully a third of
them, and then put them aside, having found increasing difficulties as I
went on with my task. These arose out of the constant need to use the first
person in a narrative of adventure and incidents which chiefly concern the
writer, even though it involve also the fortunes of many in all ranks of
life. Having no gift in the way of composition, I knew not how to supply or
set forth what was outside of my own knowledge, nor how to pretend to that
marvellous insight, as to motives and thoughts, which they affect who write
books of fiction. This has always seemed to me absurd, and so artificial
that, with my fashion of mind, I have never been able to enjoy such works
nor agreeably to accept their claim to such privilege of insight. In a
memoir meant for my descendants, it was fitting and desirable that I should
at times speak of my own appearance, and, if possible, of how I seemed as
child or man to others. This, I found, I did not incline to do, even when I
myself knew what had been thought of me by friend or foe. And so, as I
said, I set the task aside, with no desire to take it up again.

Some years later my friend, John Warder, died, leaving to my son, his
namesake, an ample estate, and to me all his books, papers, plate, and
wines. Locked in a desk, I found a diary, begun when a lad, and kept, with
more or less care, during several years of the great war. It contained also
recollections of our youthful days, and was very full here and there of
thoughts, comments, and descriptions concerning events of the time, and of
people whom we both had known. It told of me much that I could not
otherwise have willingly set down, even if the matter had appeared to me as
it did to him, which was not always the case; also my friend chanced to
have been present at scenes which deeply concerned me, but which, without
his careful setting forth, would never have come to my knowledge.

A kindly notice, writ nine years before, bade me use his journal as seemed
best to me. When I read this, and came to see how full and clear were his
statements of much that I knew, and of some things which I did not, I felt
ripely inclined to take up again the story I had left unfinished; and now I
have done so, and have used my friend as the third person, whom I could
permit to say what he thought of me from time to time, and to tell of
incidents I did not see, or record impressions and emotions of his own.
This latter privilege pleases me because I shall, besides my own story, be
able to let those dear to me gather from the confessions of his journal,
and from my own statements, what manner of person was the true gentleman
and gallant soldier to whom I owed so much.

I trust this tale of an arduous struggle by a new land against a great
empire will make those of my own blood the more desirous to serve their
country with honour and earnestness, and with an abiding belief in the
great Ruler of events.

In my title of this volume I have called myself a "Free Quaker." The term
has no meaning for most of the younger generation, and yet it should tell a
story of many sad spiritual struggles, of much heart-searching distress, of
brave decisions, and of battle and of camp.

At Fifth and Arch streets, on an old gable, is this record:

BY GENERAL SUBSCRIPTION,
FOR THE FREE QUAKERS.
ERECTED A.D. 1783,
OF THE EMPIRE, 8.

In the burying-ground across the street, and in and about the sacred walls
of Christ Church, not far away, lie Benjamin Franklin, Francis Hopkinson,
Peyton Randolph, Benjamin Rush, and many a gallant soldier and sailor of
the war for freedom. Among them, at peace forever, rest the gentle-folks
who stood for the king--the gay men and women who were neutral, or who
cared little under which George they danced or gambled or drank their old
Madeira. It is a neighbourhood which should be forever full of interest to
those who love the country of our birth.

I

A child's early life is such as those who rule over him make it; but they
can only modify what he is. Yet, as all know, after their influence has
ceased, the man himself has to deal with the effects of blood and breed,
and, too, with the consequences of the mistakes of his elders in the way of
education. For these reasons I am pleased to say something of myself in the
season of my green youth.

The story of the childhood of the great is often of value, no matter from
whom they are "ascended," as my friend Warder used to say; but even in the
lives of such lesser men as I, who have played the part of simple pawns in
a mighty game, the change from childhood to manhood is not without
interest.

I have often wished we could have the recorded truth of a child's life as
it seemed to him day by day, but this can never be. The man it is who
writes the life of the boy, and his recollection of it is perplexed by the
sittings of memory, which let so much of thought and feeling escape,
keeping little more than barren facts, or the remembrance of periods of
trouble or of emotion, sometimes quite valueless, while more important
moral events are altogether lost.

As these pages will show, I have found it agreeable, and at times useful,
to try to understand, as far as in me lay, not only the men who were my
captains or mates in war or in peace, but also myself. I have often been
puzzled by that well-worn phrase as to the wisdom of knowing thyself, for
with what manner of knowledge you know yourself is a grave question, and it
is sometimes more valuable to know what is truly thought of you by your
nearest friends than to be forever teasing yourself to determine whether
what you have done in the course of your life was just what it should have
been.

I may be wrong in the belief that my friend Warder saw others more clearly
than he saw himself. He was of that opinion, and he says in one place that
he is like a mirror, seeing all things sharply except that he saw not
himself. Whether he judged me justly or not, I must leave to others to
decide. I should be glad to think that, in the great account, I shall be as
kindly dealt with as in the worn and faded pages which tell brokenly of the
days of our youth. I am not ashamed to say that my eyes have filled many
times as I have lingered over these records of my friend, surely as sweet
and true a gentleman as I have ever known. Perhaps sometimes they have even
overflowed at what they read. Why are we reluctant to confess a not ignoble
weakness, such as is, after all, only the heart's confession of what is
best in life? What becomes of the tears of age?

This is but a wearisome introduction, and yet necessary, for I desire to
use freely my friend's journal, and this without perpetual mention of his
name, save as one of the actors who played, as I did, a modest part in the
tumult of the war, in which my own fortunes and his were so deeply
concerned. To tell of my own life without speaking freely of the course of
a mighty story would be quite impossible. I look back, indeed, with honest
comfort on a struggle which changed the history of three nations, but I am
sure that the war did more for me than I for it. This I saw in others. Some
who went into it unformed lads came out strong men. In others its
temptations seemed to find and foster weaknesses of character, and to
cultivate the hidden germs of evil. Of all the examples of this influence,
none has seemed to me so tragical as that of General Arnold, because, being
of reputable stock and sufficient means, generous, in every-day life
kindly, and a free-handed friend, he was also, as men are now loath to
believe, a most gallant and daring soldier, a tender father, and an
attached husband. The thought of the fall of this man fetches back to me,
as I write, the remembrance of my own lesser temptations, and with a
thankful heart I turn aside to the uneventful story of my boyhood and its
surroundings.

I was born in the great city Governor William Penn founded, in
Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Delaware, and my earliest memories are of
the broad river, the ships, the creek before our door, and of grave
gentlemen in straight-collared coats and broad-brimmed beaver hats.

I began life in a day of stern rule, and among a people who did not concern
themselves greatly as to a child's having that inheritance of happiness
with which we like to credit childhood. Who my people were had much to do
with my own character, and what those people were and had been it is
needful to say before I let my story run its natural and, I hope, not
uninteresting course.

In my father's bedroom, over the fireplace, hung a pretty picture done in
oils, by whom I know not. It is now in my library. It represents a pleasant
park, and on a rise of land a gray Jacobean house, with, at either side,
low wings curved forward, so as to embrace a courtyard shut in by railings
and gilded gates. There is also a terrace with urns and flowers. I used to
think it was the king's palace, until, one morning, when I was still a
child, Friend Pemberton came to visit my father with William Logan and a
very gay gentleman, Mr. John Penn, he who was sometime lieutenant-governor
of the province, and of whom and of his brother Richard great hopes were
conceived among Friends. I was encouraged by Mr. Penn to speak more than
was thought fitting for children in those days, and because of his rank I
escaped the reproof I should else have met with.

He said to my father, "The boy favours thy people." Then he added, patting
my head, "When thou art a man, my lad, thou shouldst go and see where thy
people came from in Wales. I have been at Wyncote. It is a great house,
with wings in the Italian manner, and a fine fountain in the court, and
gates which were gilded when Charles II came to see the squire, and which
are not to be set open again until another king comes thither."

Then I knew this was the picture upstairs, and much pleased I said eagerly:

"My father has it in his bedroom, and our arms below it, all painted most
beautiful."

"Thou art a clever lad," said the young lieutenant-governor, "and I must
have described it well. Let as have a look at it, Friend Wynne."

But my mother, seeing that William Logan and Friend Pemberton were silent
and grave, and that my father looked ill pleased, made haste to make
excuse, because it was springtime and the annual house-cleaning was going
on.

Mr. Penn cried out merrily, "I see that the elders are shocked at thee,
Friend Wynne, because of these vanities of arms and pictures; but there is
good heraldry on the tankard out of which I drank James Pemberton's beer
yesterday. Fie, fie, Friend James!" Then he bowed to my mother very
courteously, and said to my father, "I hope I have not got thy boy into
difficulties because I reminded him that he is come of gentles."

"No, no," said my mother.

"I know the arms, madam, and well too: quarterly, three eagles displayed in
fesse, and--"

"Thou wilt pardon me, Friend Penn," said my father, curtly. "These are the
follies of a world which concerns not those of our society. The lad's aunt
has put enough of such nonsense into his head already."

"Let it pass, then," returned the young lieutenant-governor, with good
humour; "but I hope, as I said, that I have made no trouble for this stout
boy of thine."

My father replied deliberately, "There is no harm done." He was too proud
to defend himself, but I heard long after that he was taken to task by
Thomas Scattergood and another for these vanities of arms and pictures. He
told them that he put the picture where none saw it but ourselves, and,
when they persisted, reminded them sharply, as Mr. Penn had done, of the
crests on their own silver, by which these Friends of Welsh descent set
much store.

I remember that, when the gay young lieutenant-governor had taken his
leave, my father said to my mother, "Was it thou who didst tell the boy
this foolishness of these being our arms and the like, or was it my sister
Gainor?"

Upon this my mother drew up her brows, and spread her palms out,--a French
way she had,--and cried, "Are they not thy arms? Wherefore should we be
ashamed to confess it?"

I suppose this puzzled him, for he merely added, "Too much may be made of
such vanities."

All of this I but dimly recall. It is one of the earliest recollections of
my childhood, and, being out of the common, was, I suppose, for that reason
better remembered.

I do not know how old I was when, at this time, Mr. Penn, in a neat wig
with side rolls, and dressed very gaudy, aroused my curiosity as to these
folks in Wales, It was long after, and only by degrees, that I learned the
following facts, which were in time to have a great influence on my own
life and its varied fortunes.

In or about the year 1671, and of course before Mr. Penn, the proprietary,
came over, my grandfather had crossed the sea, and settled near Chester on
lands belonging to the Swedes. The reason of his coming was this: about
1669 the Welsh of the English church and the magistrates were greatly
stirred to wrath against the people called Quakers, because of their
refusal to pay tithes. Among these offenders was no small number of the
lesser gentry, especially they of Merionethshire.

My grandfather, Hugh Wynne, was the son and successor of Godfrey Wynne, of
Wyncote. How he chanced to be born among these hot-blooded Wynnes I do not
comprehend. He is said to have been gay in his early days, but in young
manhood to have become averse to the wild ways of his breed, and to have
taken a serious and contemplative turn. Falling in with preachers of the
people called Quakers, he left the church of the establishment, gave up
hunting, ate his game-cocks, and took to straight collars, plain clothes,
and plain talk. When he refused to pay the tithes he was fined, and at last
cast into prison in Shrewsbury Gate House, where he lay for a year, with no
more mind to be taxed for a hireling ministry at the end of that time than
at the beginning.

His next brother, William, a churchman as men go, seems to have loved him,
although he was himself a rollicking fox-hunter; and, seeing that Hugh
would die if left in this duress, engaged him to go to America. Upon his
agreeing to make over his estate to William, those in authority readily
consented to his liberation, since William had no scruples as to the matter
of tithes, and with him there would be no further trouble. Thus it came
about that my grandfather Hugh left Wales. He had with him, I presume,
enough of means to enable him to make a start in Pennsylvania. It could not
have been much. He carried also, what no doubt he valued, a certificate of
removal from the Quarterly Meeting held at Tyddyn y Garreg. I have this
singular document. In it is said of him and of his wife, Ellin ("for whom
it may concern"), that "they are faithfull and beloved Friends, well known
to be serviceable unto Friends and brethren, since they have become
convinced; of a blameless and savory conversation. Also are P'sons Dearly
beloved of all Souls. His testimony sweet and tender, reaching to the
quicking seed of life; we cannot alsoe but bemoan the want of his company,
for that in difficult occasion he was sted-fast--nor was one to be turned
aside. He is now seasonable in intention for the Plantations, in order into
finding his way clear, and freedom in the truth according to the measure
manifested unto him," etc. And so the strong-minded man is commended to
Friends across the seas. In the records of the meetings for sufferings in
England are certain of his letters from the jail. How his character
descended to my sterner parent, and, through another generation, to me, and
how the coming in of my mother's gentler blood helped in after-days, and
amid stir of war, to modify in me, this present writer, the ruder qualities
of my race, I may hope to set forth.

William died suddenly in 1679 without children, and was succeeded by the
third brother, Owen. This gentleman lived the life of his time, and, dying
in 1700 of much beer and many strong waters, left one son, Owen, a minor.
What with executors and other evils, the estate now went from ill to worse.
Owen Wynne 2d was in no haste, and thus married as late as somewhere about
1740, and had issue, William, and later, in 1744, a second son, Arthur, and
perhaps others; but of all this I heard naught until many years after, as I
have already said.

It may seem a weak and careless thing for a man thus to cast away his
father's lands as my ancestor did; but what he gave up was a poor estate,
embarrassed with mortgages and lessened by fines, until the income was, I
suspect, but small. Certain it is that the freedom to worship God as he
pleased was more to him than wealth, and assuredly not to be set against a
so meagre estate, where he must have lived among enmities, or must have
diced, drunk, and hunted with the rest of his kinsmen and neighbours.

I have a faint memory of my aunt, Gainor Wynne, as being fond of discussing
the matter, and of how angry this used to make my father. She had a notion
that my father knew more than he was willing to say, and that there had
been something further agreed between the brothers, although what this was
she knew not, nor ever did for many a day. She was given, however, to
filling my young fancy with tales about the greatness of these Wynnes, and
of how the old homestead, rebuilded in James I.'s reign, had been the nest
of Wynnes past the memory of man. Be all this as it may, we had lost
Wyncote for the love of a freer air, although all this did not much concern
me in the days of which I now write.

Under the mild and just rule of the proprietary, my grandfather Hugh
prospered, and in turn his son John, my father, to a far greater extent.
Their old home in Wales became to them, as time went on, less and less
important. Their acres here in Merion and Bucks were more numerous and more
fertile. I may add that the possession of many slaves in Maryland, and a
few in Pennsylvania, gave them the feeling of authority and position, which
the colonial was apt to lose in the presence of his English rulers, who,
being in those days principally gentlemen of the army, were given to
assuming airs of superiority.

In a word, my grandfather, a man of excellent wits and of much importance,
was of the council of William Penn, and, as one of his chosen advisers,
much engaged in his difficulties with the Lord Baltimore as to the
boundaries of the lands held of the crown. Finally, when, as Penn says, "I
could not prevail with my wife to stay, and still less with Tishe," which
was short for Laetitia, his daughter, an obstinate wench, it was to men
like Logan and my grandfather that he gave his full confidence and
delegated his authority; so that Hugh Wynne had become, long before his
death, a person of so much greater condition than the small squires to whom
he had given up his estate, that he was like Joseph in this new land. What
with the indifference come of large means, and disgust for a country where
he had been ill treated, he probably ceased to think of his forefathers'
life in Wales as of a thing either desirable or in any way suited to his
own creed.

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