unfortunately, family circumstances forced joseph reed to return to america in 1765 just as britain and the colonies were beginning their own pitched battle over the stamp act. esther and joseph corresponded for five years. and like another more famous couple, john and abigail adams, their letters were filled with writings about political events going on at the time. both of them were obsessed with politics. both of them couldn't wait to learn more about what would happen. and, of course, they had both a personal and a political interest in what was going on since the fate of their relationship to some extent depended on the fate of the colonies. finally, in 1770, joseph reed, having become a successful lawyer in philadelphia, returned to england, married his love, and took her back along with her widowed mother to settle in what was still part of the american colonies. the couple subsequently had four children. now, the political situation into which reed entered as a young wife was one in which the controversy with britain was already in full swing. and in this controversy, male polit

his name was joseph reed, who had been an aide-de-camp to washington at the beginning of the war and so on. but he was a quaker and he was a radical whig and he was head of the government of pennsylvania, and he made arnold's life miserable. arnold by this time was very short of cash, and he really needed it in order to woo and marry peggy. he was already engaged in a number of private money-making schemes which were ethically if not legally suspect, shall we say. reed glommed onto a couple of these things and started nosing around and doing investigations and publishing broadsides in the paper about what a rotten guy benedict arnold was. so here is arnold, madly in love, wanting money, desperate for money, not making much. all these wonderful schemes he had could have made him a lot of money, but they never made him a penny. at the same time he is sending money to boston to support and educate the children of dr. joseph warren, the man who had sent him to ticonderoga in the first place. arnold hardly knew warren, and why in the world was he sending money, which he really didn't thin