ground with characteristic thoroughness, explaining the chronology of the invasion and the measures he had taken. "Were your father now living," he writes, “and proposing, as you are, to publish a second edition of his Memoirs, I am satisfied he would give a very different aspect to the pages of that work which respect Arnold's invasion and surprise of Richmond, in the winter of 1780-1. He was then I believe in South Carolina, too distant from the scene of those transactions to relate them on his own knowledge, or even to sift them from the chaff of the rumours then afloat, rumours which vanished soon before the real truth, as vapours before the sun, obliterated by their notoriety from every candid mind, and by the voice of the many, who, as actors or spectators, knew what had truly passed." As for his administration during the war, he added: "Without military education myself, instead of jeopardizing the public safety by pretending to take its command, of which I knew nothing, I had committed it to persons of the art, men who knew how to make the best use of it, to Steuben, for instance, to Nelson and others possessing that military skill and experience of which I had none.'

The really noble and splendid thing about Jefferson's defence of his conduct as governor - a defence completely successful before a jury of his own countrymen, in the place where the damage was done, and at a time when the wounds were still fresh - a defence which will always be completely successful before any impartial tribunal — is that he never sought to throw blame upon any one else, either on Washington, who had denuded Virginia of its forces and left it defenceless in order to feed the war to the north and to the south, or on Greene, who after sucking Virginia dry turned his back on the State in order to

re-conquer the Carolinas, or on Steuben, Washington's deputy in Virginia, or on General Nelson to whom its militia had been entrusted. But in this last letter on the subject, penned less than two months before his death, Jefferson permits himself to ask a question which deserves repetition :

"And is the surprise of an open and unarmed place, although called a city and even a capital, so unprecedented as to be a matter of indelible reproach? Which of our own capitals during the same war was not in possession of the same enemy, not merely by surprise and for a day only, but permanently? That of Georgia? Of South Carolina? North Carolina? Pennsylvania? New York? Connecticut? Rhode Island? Massachusetts? And if others were not, it was because the enemy saw no object in taking possession of them. Add to the list in the late war Washington, the metropolis of the Union, covered by a fort, with troops. and a dense population. And what capital on the continent of Europe (St. Petersburg and its regions of ice excepted) did not Bonaparte take and hold at his pleasure? Is it then just that Richmond and its authorities alone should be placed under the reproach of history, because in a moment of peculiar denudation of resources, by the coup de main of an enemy led on by the hand of fortune directing the winds and weather to their wishes, it was surprized and held for twenty-four hours? Or strange that that enemy, with such advantages, should be enabled then to get off without risking the honours he had achieved by burnings and destructions of property peculiar to his principles of warfare? We at least may leave these glories to their own trumpet."

In case Lee desired more minute details Jefferson asks him to turn to Girardin's History of Virginia. "That work was written at Milton, within two or three miles of Monticello; and at the request of the author I communicated to him every paper I possessed on the subject, of which he has made the use he thought proper for his work. I can assure you of the truth of every fact he has drawn from these papers, and of the genuineness of such as he has taken the trouble of copying." Jefferson goes on to de

scribe the papers then at Monticello relating to the period, "stitched together in large masses and so tattered and tender as not to admit removal further than from their shelves to a reading table." He cordially invites Lee to visit Monticello and to stay long enough to examine the papers at his ease, along with many letters from Generals Gates, Greene, Stevens, and others engaged in the Southern and Northern Wars. "All should be laid open to you without reserve; for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world."

So much for Jefferson's defence. The fourth volume of Burk's History of Virginia, which contains the continuation by Skelton Jones and Louis Hue Girardin, is before me as I write, thanks to the generosity of a Virginian friend, Mr. Stewart Bryan of Richmond, who has most kindly lent me this treasure from his valuable Library. It is not possessed by the British Museum. Most of the copies were lost in a storm at sea. The pages particularly referred to by Jefferson are 453, 460, and Appendices XI-XV. Chap. XVIII, which covers the war in Virginia from Arnold's raid to Cornwallis's invasion, extends over thirty-seven closely printed pages, while the Appendices (including extracts from Jefferson's diary, and from the journals of the House of Representatives) are also far too voluminous to be analysed in this biography. But since Sir George Trevelyan, in his brilliant history of the American Revolution, has thought fit to censure Jefferson and to praise Nelson, relying, I suppose, upon Harry Lee's Memoirs, the following brief extract from Girardin, page 453, may be added:

"On the 30th of December (1780) twenty-seven sail of vessels were seen entering the capes of Virginia. Of this circumstance the governor was informed on the 31st. . . . General Nelson was immediately dis

patched to the lower country- the militia, the public arms, and stores, were placed at his disposal — in short full powers were given him to adopt and execute such measures as exigencies might demand. In the preceding summer the patriotic and zealous Nelson had been requested by the Executive to call together the County Lieutenants of the lower parts of the State, and to concert with them the general measures to be taken for instant opposition on any invasion, until further resistance could be organized by the government. He had done so; and the most unbounded confidence was placed in his exertions."

Sir George Trevelyan describes Jefferson as one who "could speak and write like few," but "made a poor show in the character of a War Governor," and on the very next page praises General Thomas Nelson as "the very man whom the crisis needed." If the crisis needed Nelson, it had him, thanks to Jefferson; for Jefferson had selected Nelson to make the military preparations for defence long before Arnold's Invasion; and as Jefferson had given Nelson full powers to resist Arnold as soon as his arrival was notified, it is hard to see why Jefferson should be blamed and Nelson lauded because Benedict Arnold went "unpunished and almost unresisted," and afterwards "Lord Cornwallis marched inland with his main army and pushed his advanced parties into the heart of Virginia.”

It is unlucky that this injustice to Jefferson should disfigure even a page of the finest chapters in American history ever penned by a great English author. But Sir George Trevelyan's admiration for Washington, Nelson, and Greene is in truth a sufficient exculpation of Jefferson, who most loyally executed Washington's plans, appointed Nelson to command the militia, and saved Greene from Cornwallis.1

1 See Sir George Trevelyan's "George III and Charles Fox," Vol. II, Chap. XXIII, being the last volume of his American Revolution.

HE two years following his governorship were the most unhappy in Jefferson's life; for he saw his wife becoming more and more of an invalid, until in September, 1782, as his Memoir tells, "I lost the cherished companion of my life in whose affections, unabated on both sides, I had lived the last ten years of my life in unchequered happiness." How tenderly he watched over and nursed her, we know from the family records and from a touching note left by Martha, the companion and witness of her father's grief.

Soon after his release from office, at the end of June, 1781, Jefferson had a bad fall from his horse, and was laid up for some weeks. His account book shows that he paid the doctor for two visits the sum of six hundred pounds from which it may be presumed that the pape pound had sunk to a penny or less. In the same week three quarts of brandy are entered at seventy-one pounds two shillings. While thus kept indoors, Jefferson began to write his first and last book a work which was to give him no little fame in Europe, and still claims pride of place in the library of every Virginian patriot.