These letters impress us the more with the cares of General Gage, when we reflect they were written at the time of the troublesome tea business at rebellious Boston; and when the flowing tide of the revolution, as may be discerned from almost every page of the calendar, was daily rising, and threatening to sweep away the supports of British authority in the colonies. In a former page mention is made of a Philadelphia lady, whose name occurs in the Pensacola correspondence of an earlier day. It is but fair, therefore, that we should not leave unnoticed a New York lady who is mentioned in letters of Governor Chester’s time; the more so, because she seems to have been one of those thrifty housewives, who do not entirely depend upon the tin can, and green glass jar of the shop to supply their families with preserved fruits and vegetables; besides, there can be brought in with her extracts from letters, exemplary of the courtly style, with which in Governor Chester’s day, a gentleman returned, and a lady received his thanks for a small courtesy.[22] General Haldimand, at Pensacola, writes Captain S. Sowers, the husband of the lady, who is in New York: “I most respectfully ask Mrs. Sowers, to permit me, through you, to tender to her my most grateful thanks for the three jars of pickels.” The Captain replies: “Mrs. Sowers, with pleasure, accepts your thanks for the pickels, and when ye season comes for curing of them, she will send you another collection which she hopes will be acceptable.” In this stirring, short-hand, type-writing age, the form of a like exchange of courtesies would probably be: “Pickels received. Thanks.” Though there was no lack of lawyers and doctors, who it is said, lived in fine style, there was a sad want of clergymen or preachers in the province. There was but one of whom we have any account up to 1779, and he was stationed at Mobile. Stuernagel, the Waldeck Field Preacher, on his arrival in Pensacola, in that year, christened a boy whose parents had been waiting eight years to make him the subject of the holy office. He also baptized men who had been watching from their boyhood for an opportunity to make their baptismal vows. Nor can there be found a reference to church or chapel during the English dominion.[23]