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My Story: Being the Memoirs of Benedict Arnold: Late Major-General in the Continental Army and Brigadier-General in That of His Britannic Majesty
My Story Being the Memoirs of Benedict Arnold Late MajorGeneral in the Continental Army and BrigadierGeneral in That of His Britannic Majesty Author:Frederic Jesup Stimson, Charles Scribner's Sons Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II MY FIRST LOVE AFFAIR Women may well be called the fair sex in a double sense, for their opinion of men is ever fairer than that of a man's envious... more » compeers, and I have had no cause to complain in this regard. Exploits in love and diplomacy should never be alluded to; nay, one should rather go to a sacrifice than confess them; but in posthumous memoirs some excuse may be made for one, whose life has been thought to need the excuse, in adverting to the honest judgment of those who are as far above us, as we may hope to be above the meanest of mankind. A man loved through ill and good report by his mother, by his sister, by his wife, even perhaps by others, and who in turn has passed on that love to the destitute daughters of his friends or enemies,—and this the records shall prove when the printed words of my malignant detractors have crumpled into the dust from which the paper was made—can be no villain; but I can not more than allude to all this, fair reader, for fair indeed I hope you are. Now in 1761 my father died—I a boy then twenty; he was known as the "Captain," as his father and grandfather before him had been known as "Governor"; of my grandmother Damaris, I have a miniature as fair as is the name, but after her death, when we had moved to Norwich, he found in that humble town too little company, and had recourse to spirits. It was said that he lived in a haunted house. Now this has some connection with what is coming, though I have littlecause to deem it haunted by spirits other than his own. It is true the house seemed to bring bad luck. When he died, it was sold to one Deacon, William Philips by name, who occupied it until the British left Boston. He was father of Lieutenant Governor Philips and by him—or rather by me—it was sold to the Malbone family ...« less