himself, replied, that Tarleton's soldiers had
already taken two of the breakfasts which had been prepared for him that
morning, and suggested a guard for the security of the third.

While the third breakfast was being cooked, the legislators escaped.
Jefferson was among them. Tarleton took seven, however, who told him
that the country was tired of the war,--and that, if no treaty for a
loan were made with France that summer, Congress would negotiate with
England before winter. They were eighty-one years in advance of their
time! Tarleton returned down the Rivanna River to its junction with the
James, where he assisted Simcoe in driving out Baron Steuben, who with a
few militia was trying to protect some arms there. Poor Steuben had but
few to protect, nothing to protect them with, and lost them all. At this
point the cavalry rejoined the main army under Cornwallis.

In all these movements of both parties, the character of the "laboring
people," of which, as I have said, President Tyler spoke to me, was
illustrated. These people swarmed to Cornwallis with information, with
horses and supplies. They did not swell the ranks of the Virginia
militia. "He took away thirty thousand of our slaves," says Mr.
Jefferson. "Many of your negroes joined the enemy," says Lafayette
to Washington; "the news did not trouble me much, for that sort of
interests touch me very little." This is in the letter where he tells
the General how his agent, Lund Washington, had been disgracefully
treating with the invaders. This disposition of the "laboring people,"
away from the high-roads, indeed, as Mr. Tyler said, explains the
difference between Southern and Northern Revolutionary campaigns. The
English forces never marched a day's march inland in the Northern
States, excepting the three marches of two days or three, when they
came to Bennington, to Saratoga, and to Trenton,--three memorable
stopping-places. But in a country where the "laboring people" did not
bear arms, they went to and fro, for months, as they chose. The Southern
militia was small in numbers, and not trustworthy. The troops whom
Lafayette relied upon, "the best troops in the world, far superior, in
equal numbers, to the English," were his two thousand Northern men of
the Continental line. Lord Cornwallis reunited all his forces at Elk
Island, about forty miles above Richmond on James River. His own
head-quarters were at "Jefferson's Plantation." He proposed another
blow, on t