All classes became interested, and the result was glorious. "All ranks of society seemed to have joined in the liberal effort, from Phillis, the colored woman, with her humble seven shillings and sixpence, to the Marchioness De La Fayette, who contributed one hundred guineas in specie, ** and the Countess De Luzerne, who gave six thousand dollars in Continental paper. *** Those who had no money to contribute gave the service of their hands in plying the needle, and in almost every house the good work went on. It was charity in its genuine form, and from its purest source--the voluntary outpourings from the heart. It was not stimulated by the excitements of our day--neither fancy fairs or bazars; but the American women met, and, seeing the necessity that asked interposition, relieved it. They solicited money and other contributions directly and for a precise and avowed object. They labored with their needles, and sacrificed their trinkets and jewelry." **** The Marquis De Chastellux, who was in Philadelphia while these efforts were in progress, was delighted with the event. In describing a visit to several of the American ladies, he says, "We began by Mrs. Bache. She merits all the anxiety we had to see her, for she is the daughter of Mr. Franklin. Simple in her manners, like her respectable father, she possesses his benevolence. She conducted us into a room filled with work, lately finished by the ladies of Philadelphia. This work consisted neither of embroidered tambour waistcoats, nor net-work edgings, nor of gold and silver brocade--it was a quantity of shirts for the soldiers of Pennsylvania. The ladies bought the linen from their own private purses, and took a pleasure in cutting them out and sewing them themselves. On each shirt was the name of the married or unmarried lady who made it, and they amounted to twenty-two hundred." (v) The results of this effort * Mrs. Reed was a daughter of Dennis de Berdt, a London merchant, and for some time agent for the colonies. De Berdt's house was the resort of many Americans in England, among whom was Joseph Reed, who afterward became his daughter's husband. They were married in London in 1780. Her father became a bankrupt, and died soon afterward. Esther accompanied her husband to America immediately after her marriage. The Revolution soon broke out, and, as Mr. Reed was an active participator in its earliest hostile scenes, the young wife and mother was kept, almost from her first residence in America, in a state of excitement and alarm. Fragile in body, and of nervous temperament, her health suffered; and, a few months after she became an active member of the association of ladies for the relief of the American army, she went down into the grave. She died on the 18th of September, 1780, aged thirty-four years.