Literature dealing with the story of Philadelphia in that age presents us with the picture of a city of perennial pageant. The British Army was in occupation in the winter and spring of 1778 and revelry ran long and high in every phase of the social life of Quaker City. Our André was here in his very element and among the acquaintances he formed was that of Margaret Shippen, who afterwards became the wife of Benedict Arnold. "No one," wrote Mr Winthropp Sergeant in 1861, "seems to have created such a pleasing impression or to have been so long admiringly remembered as André. His name in our own days lingers on the lips of every aged woman whose youth had seen her a belle in the royal lines.... He is described as of five feet nine inches in height and of singularly handsome person—well made, slender, graceful and very active, a dark complexion with a serious and somewhat tender expression; his manners easy and insinuating.... If the serious business of life was a part of his lot, there was yet ample scope for the exercise of those elegant arts in which he excelled. His infirmities, if any there were, sprang like Charles Townshend's from a noble cause—that lust of fame which is the instinct of all great souls; and his comely person, his winning speech, his graceful manners procured him universal acceptance, while his freedom from the grosser passions of his fellows was especially observed." The universal gaiety which prevailed throughout Philadelphia was not without its effect on the Army as a whole and the inevitable demoralisation of all classes of society followed. It remains a lasting tribute to the attractions of the fair maids of Philadelphia that the number of irregular marriages which took place among the lower ranks of the Army alone was so large as to necessitate the organisation of special pickets with the object of preventing the wholesale depletion of regiments through long absence or desertion. As Benjamin Franklin declared at the time: "Howe has not taken Philadelphia, Philadelphia has taken Howe," and it is written that on the evacuation of the city by the British forces, 18,000 strong, at least 1000 privates deserted, returning to their sweethearts and lately married wives in Quaker Town. General Howe himself proved far from a shining example to his subordinates or soldiery, indolence and sensuality being his chief characteristics, while there were not wanting those who accused him of malversation of military funds. "He returned to England richer in money than laurels," while Americans are wont to thank him for having given them America, as they put it. His relations with André hardly seem consistent with what we know of that officer's usual discernment. In his honour, André, now a major, had composed and stage-managed a kind of allegorical tourney entitled the _Mischianza_, which was enacted to honour a general who was already under sentence of recall to England. Howe was in due course succeeded by Sir Henry Clinton, to whom André, on the departure of General Grey in 1778, became chief aide and secretary, a position in which he so clearly proved his ability that in 1779 he was appointed deputy adjutant-general to the British forces in America with headquarters in New York.