the time. After breakfast they went down to Charlottesville, where the assembly met and hastily adjourned, while Jefferson sent his wife and children to the home of Colonel Coles, some fifteen miles away, and busied himself securing his most important papers. He ordered his groom to have his horse ready at a point on the road to Carter's Mountain, but seeing no signs of the British in the streets of Charlottesville when he went out to reconnoitre with his telescope, he started back to the house to put a few last papers in order. By a lucky chance he discovered that he had lost his light "walking sword" from its sheath when he kneeled down to level his telescope; for on his return to the spot to pick it up he looked again in the direction of Charlottesville and saw the streets filled with Tarleton's dragoons. Jefferson then sprang on his horse and rode away to safety. Had he gone back to the house, as he intended, he would have fallen directly into the hands of Captain McLeod, whom Tarleton had sent ahead "to seize Mr. Jefferson and occupy Monticello as a look-out." McLeod was actually in possession of the house when Jefferson turned back, and he remained there for eighteen hours, departing, be it said to his credit, without injury to property or persons.

Far different, however, was Tarleton's behavior at Jefferson's plantation of Elk Hill, which he passed on his way down the James to rejoin Cornwallis.

Jefferson gives a heartrending description of Tarleton's wanton cruelty in a letter written to Doctor Gordon seven years later: "He remained ten days. He destroyed all my growing crops of corn and tobacco; he burned all my barns . . . having first taken what corn he wanted. He used, as was to be expected, all my stock of cattle, sheep, and hogs for the sustenance of his army, and carried off all the horses capable of service; of those too young for service he cut the throats. He burned all the fences on the plantation so as to leave it an utter wreck. He carried off, also, about thirty slaves. Had this been to give them freedom he would have done right; but it was to consign them to inevitable death from smallpox and putrid fever then raging in his camp. He treated the rest of the neighborhood in somewhat the same style, but not with the spirit of total extermination with which he seemed to rage over my possessions. History will never relate the horrors committed by the British army in the Southern States of America. They raged in Virginia six months only. . . and I give you a faithful specimen of their transactions for ten days of that time, and on one spot only. Ex pede Herculem. I suppose their whole devastations during those six months amounted to about £3,000,000 sterling.'

Jefferson's narrow and fortunate escape from seizure by McLeod's troops at Monticello has been

called by unfavorable biographers "running away from the British," and the impression has been created in thousands of minds that it was cowardice and not prudence that dictated his behavior. Yet the mere statement of the facts shows how inevitable was the course which Jefferson took. Every one of his critics would have done the same thing in the same predicament. If anything, he was rashly courageous in staying too long in an exposed and defenseless position. In the panic which seized the State on Cornwallis's invasion, there was the usual nervous campaign of incrimination, the usual hunt for a political victim. Men began to blame the governor for his generosity. If he had kept the arms and soldiers in the State instead of sending them to reinforce Washington in the North and Greene in the South, Virginia would not now be lying prostrate under Tarleton's iron heel. If he had only spent the money to fortify the coast, raids like Arnold's could not have occurred. They forgot that Virginia never had enough and never could get enough money to protect her coast without a navy; and that even if her coast were impregnable it would not prevent Cornwallis from coming up from the Carolinas. They forgot that Virginia was best defended, in the opinion of her own greatest son, by checking the progress of the enemy in the States to the south. Now that this policy had failed and the enemy was upon them, somebody must have

been guilty of a dereliction of duty. George Nicholas, of Albemarle, rose in the House and accused Jefferson of not having acted with wisdom and decision at the time of Arnold's raid, and demanded an investigation of the facts by the legislature. How the legislature itself had acted, in panicky dissolutions when Jefferson wanted its advice, he did not dwell on. Jefferson's supporters readily agreed to the investigation, and the hearing was set for December 19, 1781.

Before the legislature met in the autumn Mr. Nicholas's colleague from Albemarle resigned his seat in Jefferson's favor, to put the ex-governor "on an equal ground for meeting the inquiry," and Jefferson was unanimously elected. On the day appointed for the hearing he rose and declared himself ready to meet any charges and answer any inquiries that any member of the assembly chose to make. There was silence. A résumé of the intended charges, answered point by point, had been prepared by Jefferson during the summer and sent to the members. It had convinced them all of his blamelessness in his high office. The session that was set for an investigation of the executive's conduct was turned into a meeting of testimony to his virtues. Both House and Senate passed by a unanimous vote the resolution, "That the sincere thanks of the General Assembly be given to our former governor Thomas Jefferson, for his impartial, upright, and at

tentive administration whilst in office. The Assembly wish, in the strongest manner to declare the high opinion which they entertain of Mr. Jefferson's ability, rectitude, and integrity as chief magistrate of this Commonwealth, and mean by thus publicly avowing their opinion to obviate and remove all unmerited censure."

The commendation bestowed by Washington on Jefferson's administration of the State of Virginia was no less hearty. In a letter written to Jefferson on June 8, 1781, the commander-in-chief says: "Allow me, before I take leave of your Excellency in your public capacity, to express the obligations I am under for the readiness and zeal with which you have always forwarded and supported every measure which I have had occasion to recommend through you, and to assure you that I shall esteem myself honored by a continuation of your friendship and correspondence, should your country permit you to remain in the private walk of life." This unqualified and generous praise Mr. Morse calls 'some courteous words" at the close of a letter which Washington had found occasion to write to Jefferson, giving the latter "a sort of certificate of good character." "With such comfort as he could find in these testimonials," continues Morse, "Jefferson withdrew to private life. . . . Altogether he had had decidedly hard fortune."

Jefferson had indeed had "hard fortune." But