which
they have once more been pleased to call me.[292]

FOOTNOTES:

[284] Of the official letters of Governor Henry, doubtless many have
perished; a few have been printed in Sparks, Force, Wirt, and
elsewhere; a considerable number, also, are preserved in manuscript in
the archives of the Department of State at Washington. Copies of the
latter are before me as I write. As justifying the statement made in
the text, I would refer to his letters of August 30, 1777; of October
29, 1777; of October 30, 1777; of December 6, 1777; of December 9,
1777; of January 20, 1778; of January 28, 1778; and of June 18, 1778.

[285] _Writings of Washington_, v. 495-497; 512-515.

[286] _Jour. Va. House Del._ 131.

[287] Given in Grigsby, _Va. Conv. of_ 1776, 142 note.

[288] _Jour. Va. House Del._ 27, 33.

[289] Lee, _Life of Richard Henry Lee_, i. 195 196.

[290] _Jour. Va. House Del._ 72, 81, 85, 125, 126.

[291] _Ibid._ 15, 16, 17.

[292] _Ibid._ 26, 30.

CHAPTER XV

THIRD YEAR IN THE GOVERNORSHIP

Governor Henry's third official year was marked, in the great struggle
then in progress, by the arrival of the French fleet, and by its
futile attempts to be of any use to those hard-pressed rebels whom the
king of France had undertaken to encourage in their insubordination;
by awful scenes of carnage and desolation in the outlying settlements
at Wyoming, Cherry Valley, and Schoharie; by British predatory
expeditions along the Connecticut coast; by the final failure and
departure of Lord North's peace commissioners; and by the transfer of
the chief seat of war to the South, beginning with the capture of
Savannah by the British on the 29th of December, 1778, followed by
their initial movement on Charleston, in May, 1779. In the month just
mentioned, likewise, the enemy, under command of General Matthews and
of Sir George Collier, suddenly swooped down on Virginia, first
seizing Portsmouth and Norfolk, and then, after a glorious military
debauch of robbery, ruin, rape, and murder, and after spreading terror
and anguish among the undefended populations of Suffolk, Kemp's
Landing, Tanner's Creek, and Gosport, as suddenly gathered up their
booty, and went back in great glee to New York.

In the autumn of 1778, the governor had the happiness to hear of the
really brilliant success of the expedition which, with statesmanlike
sagacity, he had sent out under George Rogers Clark, into the Illinois
country, in the ea