Contrary to all the traditions of his family, he had positively taken the part of the King, and at the very commencement of the national quarrel had shown the red ribbon of loyalty to England. His wife dying at this time, he sent his daughter to a famous boarding-school in Boston, and his son to the great dissenting academy in Gloucester, England; then he closed his house and lived solitarily in very humble fashion above his workroom and shop. In this way, he believed himself to have provided for the absolute safety of his two children; the boy was out of the war circle; the thundering drum and screaming fife could not reach him in the cloistered rooms of the Doddridge School; and as for Agnes, Mrs. Charlton's house was as secure as a convent; he had no fear that either English or American soldiers would molest a dwelling full of schoolgirls. And John Bradley could keep the door of his mouth; and he believed that a man who could do that might pursue a trade so necessary as his, with an almost certain degree of safety.

In appearance he was a short, powerful-looking man with tranquil, meditating eyes and a great talent for silence; an armed soul dwelling in a strong body. Some minds reflect, shift, argue, and are like the surface of a lake; but John Bradley's mind was like stubborn clay; when once impressed it was sure to harden and preserve the imprint through his life, and perhaps the other one. His Methodism was of this character, and he never shirked conversation on this subject; he was as ready to tell his experience to General Howe or General Clinton as to the members of his own class meeting; for his heart was saturated with the energy of his faith; he had the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

On politics he would not talk; he said, "public affairs were in wiser hands than his, and that to serve God and be diligent in business, was the length and breadth of his commission." His shop was a place where many men and many minds met, and angry words were frequently thrown backward and forward there; yet his needle never paused an instant for them. Only once had he been known to interfere; it was on a day when one of De Lancey's troop drew his sword against a boyish English ensign almost at his side. He stopped them with his thread half drawn out, and said sternly:
"If you two fools are in a hurry for death, and the judgment after death, there are more likely places to kill each other than my shop," and the words were cold as ice and sharp as steel, and the men went out rebuked and checked, and washed away their hot temper in wine instead of blood. For the vision of 

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