Because John André wrote such a detailed account of the Meschianza for Peggy Chew, I urge readers to read the piece in its entirety. It is the source for André’s self portrait attired for the joust and is well worth the time. As has been noted, Philadelphia’s Quakers frowned upon the excess of the spectacle. ELIZABETH DRINKER wrote in her journal: “How insensible these people appear, while our land is so greatly desolated, and death and sore destruction has overtaken and impends over so many.”
HANNAH GRIFFITTS was even more scathing:
A shameful scene of dissipation,
The death of sense and reputation
A deep degeneracy of nature
A Frolick, for the lash of Satire;
A feast of grandeur, fit for Kings,
Formed of the following empty things:
Ribbons and gewgaws, tints and tinsel,
To glow beneath the Historic Pencil
When the British evacuated Philadelphia on June 18, 1778, after a nine-month occupation, John André joined General Henry Clinton in New York City. He became chief of secret intelligence and was executed by the Americans in 1780 for conspiring with the traitor Benedict Arnold to deliver West Point to the British. André drew the self portrait on the night before he died.
Elizabeth Drinker, “Extracts from the Journal of Mrs. Henry Drinker, of Philadelphia, From September 25, 1777 to July 4, 1778” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XIII: 1889, 306.
For Hannah Griffitts Poem see David S. Shields and Fredrika J. Teute. “The Meschianza: Sum of All Fêtes.”Journal of the Early Republic 35, no. 2 (2015): 185-214. https://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed December 2, 2018).
The self-portrait on the right is at the Yale Art Gallery.