Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker | Page 3

appeared to me as it did to him, which was not always the
case; also my friend chanced to have been present at scenes which
deeply concerned me, but which, without his careful setting forth,
would never have come to my knowledge.
A kindly notice, writ nine years before, bade me use his journal as
seemed best to me. When I read this, and came to see how full and
clear were his statements of much that I knew, and of some things
which I did not, I felt ripely inclined to take up again the story I had left
unfinished; and now I have done so, and have used my friend as the
third person, whom I could permit to say what he thought of me from

time to time, and to tell of incidents I did not see, or record impressions
and emotions of his own. This latter privilege pleases me because I
shall, besides my own story, be able to let those dear to me gather from
the confessions of his journal, and from my own statements, what
manner of person was the true gentleman and gallant soldier to whom I
owed so much.
I trust this tale of an arduous struggle by a new land against a great
empire will make those of my own blood the more desirous to serve
their country with honour and earnestness, and with an abiding belief in
the great Ruler of events.
In my title of this volume I have called myself a "Free Quaker." The
term has no meaning for most of the younger generation, and yet it
should tell a story of many sad spiritual struggles, of much
heart-searching distress, of brave decisions, and of battle and of camp.
At Fifth and Arch streets, on an old gable, is this record:
BY GENERAL SUBSCRIPTION, FOR THE FREE QUAKERS.
ERECTED A.D. 1783, OF THE EMPIRE, 8.
In the burying-ground across the street, and in and about the sacred
walls of Christ Church, not far away, lie Benjamin Franklin, Francis
Hopkinson, Peyton Randolph, Benjamin Rush, and many a gallant
soldier and sailor of the war for freedom. Among them, at peace
forever, rest the gentle-folks who stood for the king--the gay men and
women who were neutral, or who cared little under which George they
danced or gambled or drank their old Madeira. It is a neighbourhood
which should be forever full of interest to those who love the country
of our birth.

I
A child's early life is such as those who rule over him make it; but they
can only modify what he is. Yet, as all know, after their influence has
ceased, the man himself has to deal with the effects of blood and breed,
and, too, with the consequences of the mistakes of his elders in the way
of education. For these reasons I am pleased to say something of
myself in the season of my green youth.
The story of the childhood of the great is often of value, no matter from
whom they are "ascended," as my friend Warder used to say; but even
in the lives of such lesser men as I, who have played the part of simple

pawns in a mighty game, the change from childhood to manhood is not
without interest.
I have often wished we could have the recorded truth of a child's life as
it seemed to him day by day, but this can never be. The man it is who
writes the life of the boy, and his recollection of it is perplexed by the
sittings of memory, which let so much of thought and feeling escape,
keeping little more than barren facts, or the remembrance of periods of
trouble or of emotion, sometimes quite valueless, while more important
moral events are altogether lost.
As these pages will show, I have found it agreeable, and at times useful,
to try to understand, as far as in me lay, not only the men who were my
captains or mates in war or in peace, but also myself. I have often been
puzzled by that well-worn phrase as to the wisdom of knowing thyself,
for with what manner of knowledge you know yourself is a grave
question, and it is sometimes more valuable to know what is truly
thought of you by your nearest friends than to be forever teasing
yourself to determine whether what you have done in the course of
your life was just what it should have been.
I may be wrong in the belief that my friend Warder saw others more
clearly than he saw himself. He was of that opinion, and he says in one
place that he is like a mirror, seeing all things sharply except that he
saw not himself. Whether he judged