"[they promise] promiscuous embraces without any fidelity to the man with whom they lodge, and leave him as their fickleness prompts, or their conveniency serves. They encourage rioting and drunkenness...theft and other villianies...and an unclean disease."
-Dr. Robert Hamilton, 1787 (Frey, 62)
Whoring
As you are unmarried, like most of your colleagues, a good deal of your free-time is spent in pursuit of sex. Predictably, you've always preferred "women of abandoned characters and behavior," (Frey, 59) and prostitutes and other, let's say "easy" women have always seemed to like you. Although the British army officially advocates monogamy or celibacy in soldiers, there is a tacit acceptance of "whoring" in the lower ranks, and "the keeping of mistresses" in the officer corps. (Frey, 59-60)
Detail from the Duke of York
Gillray, cartoon c. 1793
(Barnett Plate 9)
Especially in America, there is no shortage of willing sexual partners for homesick soldiers. Lower-class women, called "camp followers," often hang around military camps, performing various jobs including cooking, cleaning and sewing by day in exchange for daily rationse; and other, less varied jobs by night. As a result, venereal diseases are rampant in the ranks, especially overseas, causing tremendous discomfort, and sometimes death to some of your virile and lonely associates. (Frey, 62-63)
And a Bit of Shakespeare
"..he is our Garrick!"
-Officer, speaking of General John Burgoyne
A number of the "kept mistresses" of your commanding officers seem to pop up on stage in officer-sponsored and produced theatrical performances, one of which you have been recruited for. Starving for the refined and urbane entertainments of the aristocracy, a number of commissioned officers have gone to great pains to produce regular concerts and plays both at home, and overseas. (Frey, 67)
Forming virtual reperatory companies in Philadelphia, New York, and other towns across the colonies, the profits from ticket sales are donated to the relief of orphans and widows of English soldiers killed in action. Although nearly all principal parts in this ramshackle Boston production of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew are performed by officers, a few enlisted men act in the company, and you work backstage with several others.
Although one of the mistresses makes a beautiful Bianca, and a young drummers turns in an excellent cross-dressing performance of Katherine, you find this production particularly boring--not nearly as interesting as last month's Macbeth, or the hilarious military farce The Blockade of Boston written by your very own General John Burgoyne, and ironically interrupted by an American bombardment of the city. (Frey, 67)