refused to deliver me up, the noble-minded Putnam, as if it were by
instinct, laid his hand on his sword, and with a violent oath swore
that my father's request should be granted. The commander-in-chief,
whose influence governed Congress, soon prevailed on them to consider
me as a person whose situation required their strict attention; and
that I might not escape they ordered me to Kingsbridge, where, in
justice I must say, that I was treated with the utmost tenderness.
General Mifflin there commanded. His lady was a most accomplished,
beautiful woman; a Quaker," &c.

Mrs. Coghlan then bursts forth in expressions of rapture for a young
American officer, with whom she had become enamoured. She does not
name him; but that officer was Major Burr. "May these pages" (she
says) "one day meet the eye of him who subdued my virgin heart. * * *
* * To him I plighted my virgin vow. * * * * * * With this conqueror
of my soul, how happy should I now have been! What storms and tempests
should I have avoided" (at least I am pleased to think so) "if I had
been allowed to follow the bent of my inclinations. Ten thousand times
happier should I have been with him in the wildest desert of our
native country, the woods affording us our only shelter, and their
fruits our only repast, than under the canopy of costly state, with
all the refinements of courts, with the royal warrior" (the Duke of
York) "who would fain have proved himself the conqueror of France. _My
conqueror_ was engaged in another cause; he was ambitious to obtain
other laurels. He fought to liberate, not to enslave nations. He was a
colonel in the American army, and high in the estimation of his
country. _His_ victories were never accompanied with one gloomy,
relenting thought. They shone as bright as the cause which achieved
them."