Monody on Major Andrè … to which is added Letters addressed to her by Major Andrè in the Year 1769.
New York: T. Allen, 1792.
Price: $450.00
About the item
Second New York edition. 48 pp. 1 vols. Small 4to. Marbled wrappers. Loose in wrappers, title page torn with loss to five letters, soiled. Ownership signature of Mary Rosina Waterbury at front and back and in the text dated 182. Adams, 81-65b; Sabin 79478; Evans 24782.
Item #215428
In the Fall of 1780 the young and dashing British officer, John Andrè, was arrested in civilian clothes, with a false passport, bearing reports from Benedict Arnold to General Henry Clinton on the vulnerabilities of the fort at West Point. His execution as a spy prompted great sympathy on both sides of the Atlantic. In the household of Anna Seward, the 'swan of Lichfield", where there was a close personal attachment to Andrè, a keenly felt outrage was directed at the bloodthirsty George Washington in this poem which has been reprinted innumerable times. Honora Sneyd (the mother of Maria Edgeworth) was a close friend of Anna Seward and Honora was romantically involved with Major André:
"Remorseless Washington! the day shall come
"Of deep repentance for this barb'rous doom!"
