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at once he discovered a sealed letter in one of her shoes. He placed it on the table.
    Lord Hyde broke the seal and shook the letter loose, holding it from him with his gloved fingertips as though it disgusted him. Then he began to read. When the search was over and nothing further discovered, he slipped the letter into his pocket and went out of the room without a word.
    It was left to the captain to tell my mother to dress herself.

    When Lord Hyde returned he brought with him a small glass of cut crystal, a decanter of port wine and also his secretary, a pinched, bitter little Englishman carrying pen, ink and some kind of ledger. The two sat down at the table with the captain and his lordship informed my mama that this hearing was now a court martial and that she was accused of treason. I remember that he examined his fingernails as he spoke these words, and gave the impression that he would rather be hunting foxes than rebels. He poured a glass of wine and tossed it down his throat, then at once poured another one. I was very frightened indeed. Much of what went on I do not remember beyond that my mother treated the court martial with contempt throughout and told them at one point that yes, she was guilty, “if guilt it is to fight you butchers on my own soil.”
    The secretary scribbled in his ledger. He did not lift his eyes from the table. At another point I remember my mama declaring that she did not recognize the authority of the court for she was a citizen of the United States of America.
    —The United States of America do not exist, said the secretary with some distaste. The territoriesto which you refer, madam, are colonies in a state of rebellion, and it is his lordship’s duty to put down that rebellion.
    —We ceased to be colonies when we declared our independence.
    —What you may or may not have declared is of no matter to us, nor indeed to your rightful sovereign, and that is the king.
    My mama fixed her eyes on a point somewhere above his lordship’s head. She planted her feet square on the floorboards and presented a figure of defiance. Lord Hyde by now had lost his air of weary lassitude and become visibly irritated by this woman standing before his court martial arguing the legality of the Crown’s claims to its colonies. We were then taken out of the room and through the door came the low murmur of the secretary’s voice, occasionally interrupted by Lord Hyde or the captain. When we were called back in Lord Hyde wasted no time, and it was with a dull sense of disbelief that I heard him telling my mama that because she had been found guilty of treason he intended to hang her.
    —No! screamed Lizzie.
    —Be silent! cried the secretary.
    I looked up at my mama’s face but shebetrayed no sign of emotion whatsoever. She uttered one word only.
    —When?
    —Tomorrow morning, he said, and then, with a soft laugh—and may God have mercy on your American soul.
    I cast my imagination back to that most terrible of days and to the night which followed and I see the last light glimmering red on the hills of Jersey as a figure passes along the ashy road which my mama and Lizzie and I had lately traveled with the soldiers. With the failing light comes the creeping bitter cold of the winter night and in Canvas Town campfires flare and blaze. Dark shapes sit humped close to the flames or move about in shrouded silhouette. There are sudden screams of laughter or pain. To the west the river blinks in the cold light of the rising moon. When he pauses and turns to see what he has left behind him, the lone traveler can make out church spires and the masts of warships moored in the bay and at this hour, with darkness beginning to obscure the devastation done to New York, he can recall the town as it was before the British came.
    Some hours later he draws close to the house Lord Hyde has taken for his headquarters. The trees are bare and the land lies hard and fallow, and on a misty morning in January, perhaps, it