“By the Governor’s encouragement there has been a very handsome Assembly once a fortnight at Andrew Hamilton’s house and stores, which are tenanted by Mr. Inglis [and] make a set of rooms for such a purpose, & Consists of eighty ladies and as many gentlemen, one-half appearing every Assembly Night. Mr. Inglis had the conduct of the whole, and managed exceeding well. There happened a little mistake at the beginning, which at some other times might [have] produced disturbances. The Governor would have opened the Assembly with Mrs. Taylor, but she refused him, I suppose because he had not been to visit her. After Mrs. Taylor’s refusal, two or three other ladies, out of Modesty and from no manner of ill design, excused themselves, so that the Governor was put a little to his shifts when Mrs. Willing, now Mrs. Mayoreas,[35] in a most Genteel Manner put herself into his way, and on the Governor seeing this instance, he” here there occurs something illegible, but it appears from what follows that the Governor danced the first minuet with this amiable lady, who showed her fine breeding by stepping in to prevent his being placed in an awkward position. Mr. Peters adds, in judicial form, that “Mrs. Taylor was neither blamed nor excused nor commended, and so it went off, and every person during the continuance of the Assembly, which ended last week, was extremely cheerful and good natured.” This Mrs. Abraham Taylor was the same Philadelphia Taylor who wrote a little earlier of the exceeding dulness of Provincial life, and the lack of all congenial amusement, sighing the while for an “English Arcadia,” which she thus quaintly described: “The hight of my ambition is to have us all live together in some pretty country place in a clean and genteel manner.” It is pleasing to know that social life was beginning to come up to this lady’s standard, even if her own manners did not rise with it. Her rude treatment of Governor Hamilton was due to the fact of her husband having some difficulty with the Provincial authorities, which she undertook to revenge upon the person who seems to have been the least to blame in the matter. The managers of the first Assembly were John Swift, a successful merchant, and Collector of the Port of Philadelphia; John Wallace, son of a Scotch clergyman; John Inglis, whose name is not now represented in Philadelphia, but from whom are descended Fishers, Cadwaladers, Coxes, and Kanes; and Lynford Lardner, an Englishman, who came here in 1740 to hold a number of honorable positions in the Province, and, being addicted to learning as well as to gayety, was a director of the Library Company and an early member of the American Philosophical Society.[36]