[98] [This letter has no address, but it was probably to General Muhlenburg.]
[99] [Governor of North Carolina.]
[100] [General Greene, after taking command of the Southern army, divided his force, and sent one division of it, under General Morgan, to the western part of South Carolina. Cornwallis, who was now nearly prepared to invade North Carolina, unwilling to leave Morgan in his rear, sent Tarleton in pursuit of him. The two detachments met on the 17th of January, 1781, when the battle of Cowpens was fought, and Tarleton defeated. Cornwallis, after the defeat of Tarleton, abandoned the invasion of North Carolina for the present, and started in pursuit of Morgan. Greene, suspecting his intention, hastened to join Morgan, and, after a fatiguing march, effected a junction at Guilford Court House. During this march he was closely pursued by Cornwallis, who, as stated in the above letter, "burnt his own wagons in order to enable himself to move with greater facility." After this junction at Guilford Court House, Greene crossed the Dan, into Virginia—again narrowly escaping the pursuit of Cornwallis, who now retired to Hillsborough, where, erecting the royal standard, he issued his proclamation, inviting the loyalists to join him, and sent Tarleton with a detachment to support a body of them collected between the Havre and Deep Rivers. Greene, having despatched Generals Pickens and Lee to watch the movements of Tarleton, and having been reinforced in Virginia, now returned into North Carolina, and fought the battle of Guilford Court House on the 8th of March, 1781.—Ed.]
[101] [M. de Marbois was attached to the French Legation in Philadelphia.—Ed.]
[102] [On the 15th of June, 1781, Mr. Jefferson was appointed, with Mr. Adams, Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jay, and Mr. Laurens, Minister Plenipotentiary for negotiating peace, then expected to be effected through the mediation of the Empress of Russia—Ed.]
[103] [In 1781, the depredations of the enemy, and the public and private losses which they occasioned, produced the ordinary effect of complaint against those who had charge of the public defence, and especially against Mr. Jefferson (the Governor of Virginia). A popular clamor was excited against him, and, under the impulses of the moment, Mr. George Nicholas, a member from Albermarle, moved his impeachment.
The charges were, 1. That he had not, as soon as advised by General Washington of the meditated invasion, put the country in a state of preparation and defence; 2. That during the invasion, he did not use the means of resistance which were at his command; 3. That he too much consulted his personal safety, when Arnold first entered Richmond, by which others were dispirited and discouraged; 4. That he ignominiously fled from Monticello to the neighboring mountain on Tarleton's approach to Charlottesville; and 5. That he abandoned the office of Governor as soon as it became one of difficulty and danger.
Mr. Jefferson has been long since acquitted of these charges by the almost unanimous voice of his countrymen.—Ed.]
[104] [The battle of Yorktown.]
[105] [The title of Virginia to the Northwestern territory was controverted, as early as 1779, by some of the other States, upon the ground that all lands, the title of which had originally been in the crown and had never been alienated, were the common property of the Confederation, by right of conquest—the revolution having transferred the title from the British sovereign to the Confederation. This view was resisted by Virginia in an able remonstrance to Congress in October, 1779. The question, however, never came to an issue; for Virginia, moved by a patriotic impulse, and ready to sacrifice her individual interest to the general good, made a voluntary cession of the whole territory to the Confederation.]