USA > Rhode Island > Picturesque Rhode Island : pen and pencil sketches of the scenery and history its cities, towns, and hamlets, and of men who have made them famous > Part 3
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fact that large sums of money were recovered from him in England, by legal process, for the spoliations he systematically practiced upon the Dutch. In 1745 two of his privateers, large and beautiful ves- sels, fresh from the stocks, sailed out of the harbor on the day before Christmas, bound for the Spanish Main. A violent snow-storm came up, and the gale soon changed to a hurricane. Newport had two hundred widows in consequence, for the ships were never heard of afterward.
The hospitality of Malbone was proverbial. Sometimes tempered with shrewdness it was, withal. Thus, the gossips affirm that after a successful voyage he was accustomed always to invite his buccaneer- ing crews to a splendid feast in his princely banquet-hall. At the close of the repast, when the fun was waxing fierce and furious, the shipping-books were produced, and his impulsive guests were easily induced to enroll themselves for new ventures.
The building of the famous country-house of Godfrey Malbone was commenced in 1744. It was without doubt the finest mansion in the colonies when it was completed. It was built of stone brought from a Connecticut quarry (some of this stone was used in the con- struction of the house which now occupies its site), was two stories high, and had in the centre a circular staircase, leading to the cupola upon its roof. This staircase was esteemed an architectural marvel, and is reputed to have cost much more than an ordinary house. In the construction of the edifice $100,000 was expended; an enormous sum for the days when one might live in elegant style for $500 a year. One day, in the year 1766, the owner of the mansion- Colonel Malbone he was then - had bidden a select company of the élite of Aquidneck to a more than usually magnificent feast. More costly than even his lavish hospitality had designed, it proved to be. Just as the slaves were placing the viands upon the table, the house caught fire, and the flames spread so rapidly that all attempts to save it were in vain. It was early summer, and with one of those great oaths that rolled so easily from his lips, the owner swore that though his house was undoubtedly lost, his dinner should not be. By his orders the tables were spread once more upon the lawn, the rare old wines were brought forth from the cellar, and so, by the light of the burning dwelling, the feast was finished. One version of the story ascribes the loss of the house to the fastidious pride of Mrs. Malbone. That elegant lady refused to allow the rude tread of plebeian feet to soil her beautiful drawing-rooms, even for the pur-
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pose of saving the mansion from destruction. The gulf which sep- arated the two classes of society was much broader and deeper in the old colonial days of Newport, than that which the more enlightened judgment of a later age deems necessary for the welfare of mankind.
The most prominent of the contemporaries of Mal- bone was Abraham Red- wood. Radically different were the characters and lives of the two men. Redwood was a Quaker, a native of the island of Antigua. He was born the heir to an im- mense estate, and was edu- cated at Philadelphia in the enjoyment of all the advan- tages that unlimited wealth Redwood Library. could command. Very early in life he became a resident of Newport. For almost seventy years (he died March 8, 1788), his stately presence graced the streets of the town. "He lived in a style of opulence becoming his fortune, mixed with the elegant simplicity of a Quaker. His town house and country house were appointed with every refined luxury, and his munificence not only made his name famous by donations to public institutions, but inspired a hundred private charities which made it blessed." The famous " Literary Club," which numbered among its members such men as Callender, Ellery, Ward, Honeyman, Checkley, Updike and Johnson, flourished with wondrous vigor in those days. That genial society of scholars did much to make Dean Berkeley (of whom more will be said in another chapter) such an ardent lover of the town. The gentle English scholar, charmed with the unusual attainments and pleasant converse of his companions, -all the more delightful to him because entirely unlooked for, -is said to have suggested the formation of a permanent literary society which should perpetuate these happy features of Aquidneck life.
The Redwood Library is the result of that suggestion, although the " Library Company " was not formed until several years after Berkeley had gone back to England. In 1747 the society was incor- porated. Toward the purchase of the books that were most needed, Abraham Redwood contributed £500. Stimulated by this ready gene-
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rosity, his fellow-townsmen experienced but little difficulty in raising £5,000 for the erection of the building to which they gratefully gave his name. A more beautiful and more enduring monument than the chaste, Doric structure, it would be difficult to find. Henry Collins, " the Lorenzo de Medici of Rhode Island," presented to the society the lot of land upon which the edifice was erected. Peter Harrison was the architect employed. In this age of cheap books and free libraries, it is almost impossible for us to realize how much the Red- wood Library has done for Newport. When it was founded books were a rare luxury in America. The acquisition of learning was re- garded as the happy privilege of the few, and not the inherent birth- right of the many. There were then only four colleges in the colonies. All of these were poorly endowed, and the eager aspirants for knowl- edge were for the most part obliged to seek it in the lands beyond the sea. To this little temple, with its precious store of books, flocked not only thoughtful students of limited means, but polished, scholarly gentlemen also, from all parts of the country. Thus the town quickly acquired the enviable distinction which it enjoyed in the days that pre- ceded the Revolution - of being the most congenial abode for learned opulence which could be found in America. The ruthless hands of the British invaders despoiled the Library of the greater portion of its treasures, and in those dreary, hopeless years that followed the war, it seemed hardly possible that its lost fortunes could ever be repaired. Of those years, one of Newport's most eminent sons, who was then in his quiet, studious boyhood, William Ellery Channing, afterward wrote : "The edifice was then so deserted that I spent day after day, and sometimes week after week, amidst its dusty volumes, without interruption from a single visitor." Gradually the wounds the war had inflicted were healed, but it was not until late in the present cen- tury that a healthy life was infused again into the languid veins of the historic society. Then such generous contributions of money, books, and works of art were poured in from all quarters, that the old building was no longer able to accommodate its ever-increasing treasures, and in 1875 its enlargement became an imperative necessity. The most prominent benefactor of the Library in these later days was Charles Bird King. At his death he bequeathed to it real estate amounting in value to $9,000, his valuable library, his carefully selected engravings, and more than two hundred of the paintings which now adorn its walls. The jealous restrictions which once kept the general public away from its carefully-guarded precincts have
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been gradually removed, and the Library has become a popular and much frequented reading-room.
Peter Harrison was the assistant architect of Blenheim House - that magnificent residence which grateful England erected at a cost of £500,000, as a slight token of its esteem for the Duke of Marlborough. He was for many years a resi- dent of Newport, and the Redwood Library is not the only evidence of his skill which the , city possesses. The ancient State House, from the balcony of which the election of the governor of the " State of Rhode Isl- and and Providence Planta- tions" is annually proclaimed with a pomp that savors of the dusty flavor of colonial days, was designed by him. From the steps of this old building the Declaration of Independence was read on the twentieth day of July, 1776. During the war which followed, it was used as a hospital, both by the En- glish and French troops. Trinity Church. Stuart's famous life-size portrait of Washington - a present from the artist to the city in which he once dwelt - graces its senate-chamber. In the early part of the eighteenth century it is recorded that the street leading to this building was paved from the funds derived from the importation of slaves.
Trinity Church is another of his buildings. This edifice, "ac- knowledged by the people of that day to be the most beautiful timber structure in America," was completed in 1726. Harrison also de- signed King's Chapel, Boston. He was the recognized head of his profession in New England, and, as a late writer has well said, " he did what he could to drag architecture out of the mire of Puritan
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ugliness and neglect." Notwithstanding the frequent changes that have been made in Trinity Church since the day when the first ser- vices were held within its walls, it still retains many of the features with which those who built it were familiar. Upon its spire is fixed the crown which typified the sovereignty of Great Britain. Below the crown, the clock Jahleel Brenton presented even now holds an honored place. William Claggett, a Welshman who lived for a quarter of a century in the town, was the maker of this clock. A " cunning workman," was this old horologer ; he is said to have con- structed the first electrical machine ever known in America. Within the church, the organ Berkeley presented, and the pulpit from which the famous dean was wont to preach, still greet the eye. The or- ganist tells us that his quaint instrument, after a hundred and fifty years of service, still possesses some pipes of unrivaled excellence. A crown surmounts it, supported by a mitre on either side. A huge, old-fashioned sounding-board over the pulpit, and square, high- backed pews, with their seats facing in four directions, quickly awaken the mind of the visitor to recollections of the earlier days of the town. Sitting in one of these pews, when the mellow notes of the old organ are floating through the air, it is easy to fancy the church filled once more with the congregation of a hundred years ago, - with the forms of those now sleeping peacefully in the quiet graves around it. All the other places of worship were converted into riding-schools or hospitals when the English troops held pos- session of the town. The old church, which their own " Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts" had fostered for many years, they did not desecrate. Its congregation continued to worship within its walls during all the Sundays of the British occupation. The greater proportion of the Church of England people were, very naturally, Royalists. They followed the troops to New York, and adversity seized upon Old Trinity. The hot-blooded young patriots of the town hastened to despoil the edifice that had been cherished by their hated foes. The emblems of royalty upon the spire and the organ they were unable to reach. Thus those relics happily remain, to delight the eye of the antiquarian. The altar-piece, a most con- spicuous feature of the church, was the principal object upon which their wrath was expended. It had been placed against the great east window, and consisted of the king's arms, the lion and the unicorn. These the iconoclasts quickly tore from their place, and vengefully trampled under foot. Afterward, they carried them away
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from the church and used them for a target until so riddled with musket-balls as to be no longer serviceable, even for that purpose. The church itself was closed, and no services were held in it for several years.
On Sunday, the eighth day of De- cember, 1776, the British fleet and army, under command of General Clinton, took possession of the island of Rhode Island. The land forces consisted of five British regiments and four regiments of Hessians. They were quartered in farm-houses scat- tered over the whole island, as well as in the larger dwellings of Newport. For three years they maintained their position upon Aquidneck, and almost as terrible as one of the plagues of Egypt their stay proved to be. Not only on this one island was their destructive presence felt. All along the shores of the Bay, desolation and devastation marked the path of their Perry Monument. foraging parties. Most dreaded of all foragers were the German mercenaries. Frightful excesses not seldom attended their steps. The unfamiliar language the Hessians spoke naturally intensified the feeling of abhorrence with which they were regarded, but their conduct upon the island only served to deepen the cordial hatred their first coming had excited.
How could it be otherwise ! For the humblest and most ignorant soldier among the British troops there was a possibility of future ad- vancement. Chance might some day open for him the way to honor- able distinction, if only his courage and his manhood did not fail when the hour of trial came. For the Hessian there was no such possibility. Never could he hope to attain to exalted station. To procure for himself the means with which to indulge in more. ex- tended debaucheries, the petty tyrant in whose dominions he had been born had sold him and his companions to a foreign king. From these unfortunate creatures every incentive to honorable con- duct had been taken away, and they had been made to feel that they were hardly better than brute beasts. Whether they lived or died was a matter of but little concern to their careless owner. Fresh victims to fill their places he could easily draw from his too-crowded dominions when they fell.
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There are few tales in the story of the Revolution more pathetic than that of the fate which befehl so many of these poor wretches during the terrible winter of 1778. Never, since the settlement of the English colonists upon the shores of the Narragansett, had such a season of cold been known. For six weeks the bay was frozen from shore to shore, and as far as the eye could reach the ice extended out to sea. On the twelfth day of December, when immense drifts of snow already covered the earth, another blinding storm came sweep- ing over the island, and raged for hours with irresistible fury. The intensity of cold also was unpar- alleled, yet the Hessian sentinels were stationed at their posts, as on Forty Steps. the balmy days of summer. Though the snow was whirling in stifling sheets around them, and the piercing wind was congealing their very life-blood, they were compelled to perform their accus- tomed duty. After the storm had ceased, the frozen bodies of some of them were found standing bolt upright, amid the deadly drifts, with the useless weapons tightly grasped in their icy fingers. So many perished from cold and exposure on that awful night, that the gale has ever since been known in Newport as the " Hessian storm."
On the twenty-ninth day of July, 1778, the first ray of light broke through the dark war-cloud that had for so long a time shrouded Aquidneck. On that day twelve ships of the line and four frigates, under command of Count D'Estaing, arrived off Newport. Most of the English ships in the harbor were at once scuttled or burnt, to pre- vent them from falling into the hands of the enemy. But the gleam of hope which the coming of the French fleet had lighted, quickly faded away. Lord Howe, with an English fleet of thirty-six sail, came in sight of the island on the ninth of the following month, and a few days later D'Estaing sailed forth to meet him. A most violent hurricane prevented the conflict, although some of the ships at- tempted to fight in the midst of the gale. Three of the French ves- sels were dismasted; all were more or less disabled, and the ad- miral deemed it necessary to proceed to Boston to refit. Not until
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Oct. 25, 1779, was Newport relieved from the presence of the enemy. At sunset of that day the English garrison sailed away, and the town's people realized that they were once more free.
To the dismal period of the British occupation, the brilliant epi- sode of the French sojourn succeeded. Never was there contrast
Land's End.
more marked. Life and property had never been safe while the mercenaries of King George held possession of the town. The country people who came to view the French camp (" the different deputations of savages," our polished allies called them, in the epis- tles they sent back to La Belle France,) " could not recover from their astonishment at seeing apple-trees loaded with fruit above the tents which the soldiers had been occupying for three months." Ordinarily, in time of war the property of the citizens of a garrisoned town is almost equally preyed upon by friend and foe. The French soldiers, with the most scrupulous care, paid for the slightest article of value they converted to their own uses. Their coming had been dreaded, but their departure was lamented by all.
Some of the most accomplished soldiers and gentlemen of France were numbered among these troops. It must be confessed, however, that their military career in America did not add lustre to the reputa- tion these distinguished soldiers had gained by their bravery and skill upon the famous battle-fields of Europe. The unfamiliar con- ditions of their life in this country, and their disgust at being obliged to serve under American generals, who were not soldiers but "only lawyers, shoemakers, ånd blacksmiths," may have had something to do with this. They could not realize that patriotism might inspire
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in these same blacksmiths, shoemakers, and lawyers, a courage that could not be subdued, an invincible determination that not even a regular military education in the most famous military schools of Europe could supply. When their own fair land was deluged with blood, not many years afterward, the ideas of many of these gay courtiers were strangely broadened, and not a few of them paid the penalty for their lack of knowledge upon the crimson platform of the guillotine.
Purgatory.
The Chevalier de Tiernay com- manded the fleet, the Count de Rochambeau the French army. Admiral de Tiernay died not long after his arrival in Newport, and was buried in Trinity Church- yard. He could not endure the reproaches heaped upon him for his seeming lack of energy and courage. The brave old Rocham- beau was made of sterner stuff, but even this gallant general was scarcely able to bear the taunts of
his impetuous allies. It is quite possible that, hampered by his instructions, he was unable to act as his own judgment dictated. This is the note he wrote to one of his young officers who had urged him at once to join battle :
" I owe it to the most scrupulous examination of my conscience, that of about fifteen thousand men killed or wounded under my orders in different grades and in the bloodiest actions, I have not to reproach myself with having caused the death of a single one to gratify my own ambition.
" Le vieux père ROCHAMBEAU."
How many names, famous in French history, greet the eye as we peruse the records those brilliant officers have left us of their stay in Newport. That of the Duc de Lauzun, the most noted gallant of his times, a man whose amours were almost as endless as they were entirely unscrupulous, heads the list. The Viscount de Noailles is
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almost as prominent ; in his regiment Napoleon afterwards served as a subaltern; to his happy lot, when ambassador to England, it fell to convey to Lord Weymouth the tidings of the acknowledgment of the independence of the American Colonies. The Marquis de Chastellux was the "host beyond compare." Tender recollections of his petits soupers continued for long years to tantalize the thoughts of those who had sat around his festal board. Vioménil, Bozon de Talleyrand, Dumas, Désoteux, afterward a Chouan leader in the French Revolution, Broglie, Jourdan, the future commander of the army of the Sambre ct Meuse, Berthier, friend of Napoleon, all these we find, - many others beside might be mentioned.
These men were fresh from the intrigues of the most licentious capital of Europe. From earliest youth they had been accustomed to breathe its tainted air, and they had engaged in this expedition mainly because it seemed to promise distraction and fresh excite- ments to their wearied senses. The stern patriots who remained with their families in the city, looked forward with the gloomiest apprehension to their coming. Very different from the picture pater- nal fears had painted, its realization proved to be. He who reads the French memoirs of that period will note with astonishment the tone of respectful admiration their authors use in speaking of Ameri- can women. From the easy smiles of the noble ladies whose pres- ence graced the Court of France at the very culmination of the old règime, these jaded voluptuaries fled with delight when the prospect of new conquests in untried fields was held out. The most hardened debauchee among them was forced to kneel in reverence before the beauty, the dignity, and the purity of the daughters of Newport. In the reputation of these fair maidens, the busy tongue of scandal could find no vulnerable point through which to thrust its envenomed darts.
The daughter of Abraham Redwood was one of the leading belles. It is said that when she walked the streets of the town, even the rough sailors involuntarily raised their hats in homage, and turned to look back with sincerest admiration upon her retreating form. " The beautiful Miss Champlin " attained even a higher fame. Her, Washington selected for his partner, at the ball the citizens gave in honor of his visit to his allies, and asked to select the dance. She chose " A Successful Campaign," and the gallant French officers, taking the instruments from the hands of the musicians, themselves furnished the music for the distinguished couple, as they stepped
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through the stately minuet. The two Misses Hunter, "of noble aspect, an air of high breeding, and spiritual face and grace of movement," also attracted universal admiration. Both these ladies afterwards found homes in Europe. The elder became the bride of the Count de Cardignan : the younger was married to M. Falconnet, an opulent Swiss banker, who was engaged in business at Naples.
But by unanimous consent, the most charming of all that galaxy of beauties was the Quaker vestal, Polly Lawton. (With the in- gennous disregard for the plain and simple English orthography, which always characterizes the French nation, her infatuated ad- mirers either spelled her name Leighton or Leyton ; never Lawton.) This is the account of his visit to the maiden, which the Prince de Broglie has sent down to an appreciative posterity. In company with his friend, M. de Vauban, he entered the house of her father. " A silent, serious old man, who very seldom bared his thoughts, and never his head," received them with a gravity somewhat amus- ing from its singularity, and yet hardly satisfactory to their fevered imaginations. "Suddenly we beheld the Goddess of grace and of beauty, Minerva in person having exchanged her sterner attributes for pastoral charms. It was the daughter of the Quaker, Polly Law- ton. In accordance with the customs of her sect, she addressed us familiarly (nous parla en nous tutoyant), but with a simplicity and grace which I can only compare to that of her toilet. It was a kind of English dress, fitting the figure closely, and was white as milk, a muslin apron of the same color, and a large handkerchief gathered close around the neck. Her coiffure, composed of a simple little cap of baptiste, with round plaits, and permitting only a half-inch of hair to be perceived, completed the virgin attire of Polly Lawton. I confess that this seductive Lawton appeared to be the chef d'œuvre of Nature; and whenever I recall her image, I am tempted to write a great book against the finery, the factitious graces, and the co- quetry of many ladies whom the world admires." The Count de Segur is equally enthusiastic : "So much beauty, so much simplicity, so much elegance, and so much modesty," says he, enchanted, " were perhaps never combined in the same person." We can readily be- lieve these fascinated swains when they confess that the beautiful Quakeress drew their minds away from the frivolities which, up to that time, they had deemed so necessary to their happiness.
Even after the war had ceased the gallant Frenchmen came back from time to time, across the ocean, to bask once more in the
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light of the smiles that had so charmed them. But while they still dilate with unfailing rapture upon the never-fading beauty of its maidens, they all lament the decay that seemed the inevitable lot of the town. Most melancholy is this description, from the pen of Brissot de Warville, the exiled Girondist :
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