TEARS OF THE FOOT GUARDS

ADAIGO - STAVE XXIX

S T A V E

XXIX

18th May, 1778

The citizenry turned out, the favoured ones invited and the rest a hooting crowd. Traffic streamed into the Northern Liberties. Lines of soldiers held back the crowds. Elaborately clad celebrants parading to Knight's Wharf: officers, wealthy gentlemen and their wives, young and vivacious belles.

"How insensible," said a wife to her Tory husband, watching from the throng. "Is this Rome and here, Caesar? What's he actually done?"

"Not lost an army like Burgoyne," her husband answered. "America has a way of gobbling them up. He hands the army to Clinton intact and the rebels have not won."

"So we rejoice in non-defeat."

"True."

"He would've been shot by German George," she said. "The country's suffering and look at this? How does it justify?"

"They love him, my dear. How many generals can claim that victory? Popularity assuages a multitude of sins; his vanity is their vanity."

"Nonsense," she sputtered. "And the cost?"

₤3220, a baronet's per annum, contributed by 23 officers, and to Philadelphia's merchants who benefited from the purchases, capital well spent with an additional ₤12000 when all said and done.

At the wharf, revellers showed their tickets to a Captain of Grenadiers and then walked down the long jetty wide-eyed as they laughed and gossiped. Music sounded as a regatta drew near, a Handel allegro from a Band of Musick in a barge festooned with banners and bunting and sprays of garlands. If one closed their eyes, they'd be on the Thames awaiting the King's barge. But no king here. Just Billy, grand fellow he is.

He arrived last in the grand barge, Hussar, the Star of Bath upon his breast with beautiful Betsy in polonaise of greens and pinks – Jupiter and Juno – she with her hair up high in the British fashion, ornamented with semi-precious gems and toy military gadgets, and Billy in his best red frock, his hair washed and fluffed, powdered and queued with a black silk bow. And on his face a droll little smile from the Madeira he had drunk in the carriage, and Betsy beaming before Society and the generals, for this too her last hurrah. Champagne was imbibed liberally.

Among the entourage, Henry Clinton, Lord Richard Howe, Wilhelm Von Knyphausen with Betsy at the center of compliments and quips, which she returned with her American directness from brain to lips, which they thought, in context, enchanting – innocently American and capable of nothing else. Thank God she was there otherwise they might tip their true opinions about the war and the festival. Yes, pretty little ape with her manners, but American girls do charm. Like Beaujolais, they're best had young. It takes a certain type to marry, but on campaign they're just the type to bed, simple and willing. Chat them up and the petticoats fall. A gentleman must labour for English girls. And yet the time comes when a gentleman needs an exit as Billy does now.

None knew this more than Lord Howe; Betsy Loring was of little advantage.

          Sir William, he, snug as a flea,
          Lay all this time a snoring,
          NOT dreamed of harm, as he lay warm,
          In bed with Mrs. Loring

Billy needs Lady Howe, Lord Richard thought – dear Frances with her 5000 a year. And for all her own liaisons, she will, no doubt, venture a great deal more than 'opinion' when not on her back. If she'd not been childless, might they'd been more domestic? They're devoted in all things but sex, which they do enjoy together, but also with everyone else. What union does not have its shams? It is the ideal marriage that fails the test. Love burns out – the bigger the blaze, the shorter the conflagration. This fete is the log's last raw side turned to the fire, soon to be gone and forgotten. Billy will be a name on the list: "from '75 to '78, Sir William Howe was Commander, he neither won nor lost". A poor epitaph. Yet, what old soldier will not tout to his grandson that he served in America with Billy Howe?