_yet_!"
Feeling the delicacy of his situation, and the unfortunate error he
had committed, he gently took her hand, and emphatically remarked,
"Well, madam, then I venture to assert _that it is not the fault of my
sex_."
On Burr's being appointed, in 1777, a lieutenant-colonel in the army,
he joined his regiment, then stationed at Ramapoa, in New-Jersey. At
Paramus, not far distant, resided Mrs. Prevost, the wife of Colonel
Prevost, of the British army. She was an accomplished and intelligent
lady. Her husband was with his regiment in the West Indies, where he
died early in the revolutionary war. She had a sister residing with
her. It was her son, the Hon. John B. Prevost, who in 1802 was
recorder of the city of New-York, and subsequently district judge of
the United States Court for the district of Louisiana. The house of
Mrs. Prevost was the resort of the most accomplished officers in the
American army when they were in the vicinity of it. She was highly
respected by her neighbours, and visited by the most genteel people of
the surrounding country. Her situation was one of great delicacy and
constant apprehension.
The wife of a British officer, and connected with the adherents of the
crown, naturally became an object of political suspicion,
notwithstanding great circumspection on her part. Under such
circumstances, a strong sympathy was excited in her behalf. Yet there
were those among the Whigs who were inclined to enforce the laws of
the state against her, whereby she would be compelled to withdraw
within the lines of the enemy.
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