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ty, they loaded him with civility and kindness, and spoke to their countrymen in warm terms of the hospitality of Virginia. When about to leave Charlottesville, the principal officers wrote to him, to renew their thanks, and to bid him adieu; the answer of Mr. Jefferson to one of them has been preserved. "The little attentions," he says, "you are pleased to magnify so much, never deserved a mention or a thought. Opposed as we happen to be in our sentiments of duty and honour, and anxious for contrary events, I shall, nevertheless, sincerely rejoice in every circumstance of happiness and safety which may attend you personally."

To another of them he thus wrote:

The very small amusements which it has been in my power to furnish, in order to lighten your heavy hours, by no means merited the acknowledgments you make. Their impression must be ascribed to your extreme sensibility, rather than to their own weight. When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action, where laurels not moistened with the blood of my country, may be gathered, I shall urge my sincere prayers for your obtaining every honour and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier. On the other hand, should your fondness for philosophy resume its merited ascendency, is it impossible to hope that this unexplored country may tempt your residence, by holding out materials wherewith to build a fame, founded on the happiness, and not on the calamities of human nature? Be this as it may, a philosopher or a soldier, I wish you personally many felicities."

CHAPTER III.

ON the first of June, 1779, Mr. Jefferson was appointed Governour of the commonwealth of Virginia, and retired from the legislature. Being elected also one of the Visiters of William and Mary College, a self-electing body, he effected during his residence in Williamsburgh that year, a change in the organization of that institution, by abolishing the grammar school, and the two professorships of Divinity and Oriental Languages, and substituting a professorship of Law and Police; one of Anatomy, Medicine, and Chymistry; and one of Modern Languages; and the charter being confined to six professorships, the Visiters added the Law of Nature and Nations and the Fine Arts to the duties of the Moral professor, and Natural History to those of the professor of Mathematicks and Natural Philosophy.

Being now," says he, "as it were identified with the commonwealth itself, to write my own history, during the two years of my administration, would be to write the publick history of that portion of the revolution within this state." We must, therefore, rely upon cotemporary history, and his own letters, for a relation of those events in which he was more personally concerned, and which occurred during his administration of the government.,

Mr. Jefferson was the second republican Governour of Virginia, he having been chosen to succeed the celebrated Patrick Henry, whose term of service had expired. The time of his accession was one at which its duties were no less trying than arduous and difficult; it was at that period of the war when the British government, exasperated by the long protraction of hostilities, and goaded by their continual defeats, increased the usual horrours of warfare, by the persecution of the wretched prisoners who fell into their hands. The Governour of Virginia, among others, promptly expressed his determination to adopt, as the only resource against a system of warfare so barbarous and unheard of, a retaliation on the British prisoners in his power.

Among the persons most conspicuous in these infamous transactions, was Henry Hamilton, Esq. who acted as Lieutenant Governour of the settlement at and about Detroit, and commandant of the British garrison there, under Sir Guy Carleton as Governour in chief. He had not only induced and instigated the Indians to their butcheries on the frontiers, but had treated all prisoners in his power with unprecedented severity. This gentleman, on the fifth of December, 1778, had possessed himself of post St. Vincenne, with the intention of attacking Kaskaskia in Illinois, and which there was no doubt of his carrying. There he expected to be joined by two hundred Indians from Michilimackinack, and five hundred Cherokees, Chickasaws, and, other nations. With this body he was to penetrate up the Ohio to Fort Pitt, sweeping Kentucky on his way, having light brass cannon for

the purpose, and expecting to be joined on the march by numerous bodies of Indians. With this force, he made no doubt that he could force all West Augusta.

"Colonel Clarke, a brave and able officer of Virginia, was then in Kaskaskia with a small body of men, and made every preparation for resisting the expected attack. However, there was no hope of his holding out, and his destruction seemed inevitable. In the gloom of this despair, a Spanish merchant, who had been at St. Vincenne, arrived, and gave the following intelligence: That Mr. Hamilton had weakened himself by sending his Indians against the frontiers, and to block up the Ohio; that he had not more than eighty men in garrison, three pieces of cannon, and some swivels mounted; and that he intended to attack Kaskaskia as soon as the winter opened, and made no doubt of clearing the western waters by the fall. On this information, Colonel Clarke, with a promptitude that did him honour, and which his situation and circumstances justified, resolved upon becoming the assailant, and to attack him before he could collect his Indians again. The resolution was as desperate as his situation, but there was no other probability of securing the country. He accordingly despatched a small galley which he had fitted up, mounting two four-pounders and four swivels, with a company of men and necessary stores on board, with orders to force her way, if possible, and station herself a few miles below the enemy, suffering nothing to pass her, and wait for further orders. In the mean time, he himself marched across the country with one hundred and thirty men, being all he could raise, and leaving Kaskaskia garrisoned by the

water.

militia. He marched on the 7th of February, and was sixteen days on the route; while the inclemency of the season, high waters, &c. seemed to threaten the loss of the expedition. When within three leagues of the enemy, in a direct line, it took them five days to cross the drowned lands of the Wabash river, having to wade often upwards of two leagues to their breast in Had not the weather been warm, they must have perished. But on the evening of the 23d, they got on dry land, in sight of the enemy; and at seven o'clock made an attack, as totally unforeseen by them as it must have been unexpected. The town immediately surrendered with joy, and assisted in the siege. There was a continual fire on both sides for eighteen hours. The moon setting about one o'clock, the Colonel had an entrenchment thrown up within rifle shot of their strongest battery, and poured such incessant showers of well-directed balls into their ports, that they silenced two pieces of cannon in fifteen minutes, without getting a man hurt.

"Governour Hamilton and Colonel Clarke had, on the following day, several conferences, but did not agree until the evening, when the former agreed to surrender the garrison (seventy-nine in number) prisoners of war, with considerable stores. Clarke had only one man wounded, "for," says the Colonel with no little naivette, "not being able to lose many, I made them secure themselves well."

"On the reception of these prisoners, the Governour of Virginia in Council determined, that Hamilton and two of his coadjutors should be ironed and confined in the dungeon of the publick jail, as, in some measure, a