a rich banker of Chichester. And in Chichester she died in one year's time. It is greatly to be regretted that no portrait of her is obtainable, for she must have been very lovely, -and she certainly stands without a rival as a heroine of Boston romance.

XV

THE DAWN OF ACTIVE RESISTANCE

No institution in the life of early Boston played a more important part in promoting the break with the mother-country than the tavern. The attitude of a man towards England soon came to be known by the public house where he spent his evenings, and from the time of the establishment of the Royal Exchange (1711), which stood on the southwest corner of Exchange and State street, a line of cleavage between kingsmen and others was faintly to be discerned. When Luke Vardy became landlord here the place took on the colour which has made it famous. It was then the resort of all the young bloods of the town, who, brave in velvet and ruffles, in powdered hair and periwigs, swore by the king and drank deep draughts of life and liquor. This tavern was distinctly the resort of the British officers and many an international romance is connected

For further data on this subject see "Old New England Inns."

with the house, notably that of Susanna Sheafe (eldest daughter of the Deputy), and the dashing Captain Ponsonby Molesworth, whom the maiden saw marching by with his soldiers as she stood in the balcony of the inn. Molesworth was immediately captivated by her beauty and pointing her out to a brother officer exclaimed, "Jove! that girl seals my fate!" She did, very soon after, a clergyman assisting.

The Bunch of Grapes, too, though later.associated with many a Revolutionary feast, was, in the early part of the eighteenth century, a favourite resort of the royal representatives. It stood on what is now the west corner of Kilby street, on State street, and hither Governor William Burnet was enthusiastically escorted by a large body of citizens upon his arrival in 1728. Governor Pownall, too, frequented the house, and there is a pleasant story of a kiss which he once delivered, standing on a chair there. Pownall was a short, corpulent person but a great ladies' man, and it was his habit to salute every woman to whom he was introduced with a sounding smack upon the cheek. One day a tall dame was presented and he requested her to stoop to meet his proffered courtesy. "Nay, I'll stoop to no man,