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“Bless me! I hope you are not Hessians.”

“Do we look like Hessians?” asked one of them rudely.

“Indeed, I don’t know.”

“Did you ever see a Hessian?”

“No, never in my life; but they are men, and you are men, and may be Hessians, for anything I know. But I will go with you into Colonel Cox’s house, though indeed it was my son at the mill; he is but a boy, and meant no harm; he wanted to see the troops.”

So she took the key of the empty house referred to, and went in ahead of the men, who searched the place thoroughly, and, after finding no place where anybody could be, they searched one or two of the houses adjoining; but for some reason they did not think it worth while to go through Mrs. Morris’s own house. Had they done so, it is not probable that the good lady could have retained her composure, especially if they had entered the room in which was the linen closet; for, even had they been completely deceived by the piles of sheets and pillowcases, there is no knowing but that the unfortunate man in the “auger hole” might have been inclined to sneeze.

But although she was a brave woman, and very humanely inclined, Mrs. Morris felt she could not any longer take the risk of a refugee in her house. And so that night, after dark, she went up to the parson in the “auger hole,” and made him come out; and she took him into the town, where he was concealed by some of the Tory citizens, who were better adapted to take care of the refugee than this lone Quaker woman with her two inquisitive boys. It is believed that soon after this he took refuge in New York, which was then in the hands of the British.

Further on in the journal, Mrs. Morris indulges in some moral reflections in regard to the war in which her countrymen were engaged, and no one of right feeling will object to her sentiments.

“Jan. 14. I hear Gen. Howe sent a request to Washington desiring three days cessation of arms to take care of the wounded and bury the dead, which was refused: what a woeful tendency war has to harden the human heart against the tender feelings of humanity. Well may it be called a horrid art thus to change the nature of man. I thought that even barbarous nations had a sort of religious regard for their dead.”

After this the journal contains many references to warlike scenes on the river and warlike sounds from the country around. Numbers of gondolas filled with soldiers went up and down the river, at times cannon from distant points firing alarums. At other times the roaring of great guns from a distance, showing that a battle was going on, kept the people of Burlington in a continual excitement; and Mrs. Morris, who was entirely cut off from her relatives and friends, several of whom were living in Philadelphia, was naturally very anxious and disturbed in regard to events, of which she heard but little, and perhaps understood less.

One day she saw a number of gunboats, with flags flying and drums beating, that were going, she was told, to attend a court-martial at which a number of refugees, men of her party, were to be tried by General Putnam; and it was believed that if they were found guilty they would be executed.

After a time, Mrs. Morris found an opportunity of showing, that, although in principle she might be a Tory, she was at heart a good, kind Quaker lady, ready to give help to suffering people, no matter whether they belonged to the side she favored or to that which she opposed.

Some of the people who came up the river in the gunboats–and in many cases the soldiers brought their wives with them, probably as cooks–were taken sick during that summer; and some of these invalids stopped at Burlington, being unable to proceed farther.