of the formal assignment of the
Virginia property from Francis Lord Castlewood to my grandfather Henry
Esmond, Esquire. "Oh," says Fanny, "of course this is the work of Jack
the Painter!" And Mr. Van den Bosch was for prosecuting her for libel,
but that Fanny took to her bed at this juncture, and died.

Van den Bosch made contracts with the new Government, and sold them
bargains, as the phrase is. He supplied horses, meat, forage, all of bad
quality; but when Arnold came into Virginia (in the King's service) and
burned right and left, Van den Bosch's stores and tobacco-houses somehow
were spared. Some secret Whigs now took their revenge on the old rascal.
A couple of his ships in James River, his stores, and a quantity of his
cattle in their stalls were roasted amidst a hideous bellowing; and
he got a note, as he was in Arnold's company, saying that friends
had served him as he served others; and containing "Tom the Glazier's
compliments to brother Jack the Painter." Nobody pitied the old man,
though he went well-nigh mad at his loss. In Arnold's suite came
the Honourable Captain William Esmond, of the New York Loyalists, as
aide-de-camp to the General. When Howe occupied Philadelphia, Will was
said to have made some money keeping a gambling-house with an officer
of the dragoons of Anspach. I know not how he lost it. He could not have
had much when he consented to become an aide-de-camp of Arnold.

Now, the King's officers having reappeared in the province, Madam Esmond
thought fit to open her house at Castlewood and invite them thither--and
actually received Mr. Arnold and his suite. "It is not for me," she
said, "to refuse my welcome to a man whom my Sovereign has admitted to
grace." And she threw her house open to him, and treated him with great
though frigid respect whilst he remained in the district. The General
gone, and, his precious aide-de-camp with him, some of the rascals who
followed in their suite remained behind in the house where they had
received so much hospitality, insulted the old lady in her hall,
insulted her people, and finally set fire to the old mansion in a frolic
of drunken fury. Our house at Richmond was not burned, luckily, though
Mr. Arnold had fired the town; and thither the undaunted old lady
proceeded, surrounded by her people, and never swerving in her loyalty,
in spite of her ill-usage. "The Esmonds," she said, "were accustomed to
Royal ingratitude."

And now Mr. Van den Bosch, in the