The English, on the contrary, were having very comfortable times. Lord Howe had possession of Philadelphia, and his officers were passing a very jolly winter, getting up balls and parties without number, flirting with the fair daughters of their Tory friends, and too often outraging all decency in their frolics and the company they kept. Howe had gained full command of the Delaware not without some trouble and loss. His forces had been repulsed at Fort Mercer, and he had lost a gallant officer, Count Donop, commander of the Hessian forces. The poor young man was saved from lingering misery by one of the French officers to die in the midst of kindly care, as he said, "the victim of his own ambition and the avarice of his sovereign." Still, Howe had succeeded at last, and the river was his, so that the British ships came and went at pleasure. In May, Sir William Howe resigned his place, and was succeeded by Sir Henry Clinton. It was on this occasion, and by way of doing honour to the departing general, that certain officers got up the notable scheme of the "Mischianza," a kind of tournament, followed by a grand ball and supper. There were seven knights of the "Blended Rose,"—whatever that might be—and seven of the "Burning Mountain," and ladies dressed in Turkish costume, and black servants with velvet tunics and silver armlets, and a triumphal arch with a figure of Fame blowing from her trumpet the words, "Thy laurels are immortal," and a great deal of other parade and display. The unlucky Major André was one of the chief promoters of this grand performance, and wrote a glowing description of the same to a friend in England, which was published in the "Annual Register," where it may still be read by the curious, and which provoked some satirical comments. It was thought that a general who, with nineteen thousand disciplined men and abundant material resources, had allowed himself to be cooped up in Philadelphia and kept in a state of siege by a handful, as it were, of ragged, barefooted, half-starved, and half-disciplined troops, * need not have so readily accepted such a dish of adulation or swallowed it with such a grave face. The same feeling was shared by some of his own men. * Howe seems greatly to have overrated the strength of Washington's army. See "Annual Register." It was the afternoon before the grand pageant was to take place. Some iron-work was needed which required a more skilful hand than that of an ordinary workman. Caspar Reinhart, blacksmith to one of the Hessian regiments, was known to be a most accomplished smith, and to possess a good deal of skill in ornamental work, and Major André applied to his colonel to borrow him for the occasion. "Oh yes, you can have him, of course, and he vill do your vork vell—dere is no doubt of dat," said the good-natured German. "Reinhart is as goot a smit as is in de army." "And you, colonel—will you grace our festival to-morrow? It will be a fine sight, I can tell you."