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At the beginning of the war, attempts were made to compel them to bear arms and
serve in the militia; but it was soon found unavailing. They would not perform any
military duty required of them: not even the scourge would compel them to submit to
discipline. The practice of coercion was therefore abandoned, and the legislature enacted
a law to levy a tax upon their property, to hire substitutes to perform militia duty
in their stead. This, with other taxes, bore peculiarly heavy upon them. Their personal
property was sold under the hammer to raise these public demands; and before
the war was over, many of them were reduced to great distress in their pecuniary circumstances.

This selling of Quakers' property afforded great opportunity for designing individual
to make profitable speculations. They continued to refuse to pay taxes for several
years after the war, holding it unlawful to contribute their money towards discharging
the war debt. This being at length adjusted, no part of our citizens pay their public
demands with more punctuality, (except their muster-fines, which they still refuse to
pay.) Owing to their industrious and sober habits, they soon recovered from their pecuniary
distress produced by the war, and are, generally speaking, the most independent
part of our community. Vast numbers of them have migrated to the western country,
and several of their meetings are entirely broken up. They continued their ancient
practice of depending upon their household manufactures for their clothing; and it was
a long time before they gave in to the practice of purchasing European goods. A few
of them entered into the mercantile business; several others erected fine merchant mills;
others engaged in mechanical pursuits; but the great body of them are farmers, and
are generally most excellent cultivators of the soil.

He would not permit either master or man to think of their horses, but insisting that
we should enter the house, where fire and changes of apparel awaited us, he himself led
the jaded animals to a shed, rubbed them down, and provided them with forage. It
would have been affectation of the worst kind to dispute his pleasure in this instance, so
I readily sought the shelter of his roof, to which a comely dame bade me welcome, and
busied herself in preventing my wishes. My drenched uniform was exchanged for a suit
of my host's apparel; my servant was accommodated in the same manner, and we soon
afterwards found ourselves seated beside a blazing fire of wood, by the light of which
our hostess assiduously laid out a well-stocked supper table. I need not say that all this
was in the highest degree comfortable. Yet I was not destined to sit down to supper without
discovering still greater cause for wonder. In due time our host returned, and the first
glance which I cast towards him satisfied me that he was no stranger. The second set
every thing like doubt at rest. Sergeant Champe stood before me; the same in complexion,
in feature, though somewhat less thoughtful in the expression of his eye, as
when he first joined my company in New York.

I cannot say that my sensations on recognising my ci-devant sergeant were altogether
agreeable. The mysterious manner in which he both came and went, the success with
which he had thrown a veil over his own movements, and the recollection that I was
the guest of a man who probably entertained no sense of honor, either public or private,
excited in me a vague and undefined alarm, which I found it impossible on the instant
to conceal. I started, and the movement was not lost upon Champe. He examined
my face closely; and a light appearing to burst in all at once upon his memory, he ran
forward towards the spot where I sat.

"Welcome, welcome, Captain Cameron," said he, "a thousand times welcome to my
roof; you behaved well to me while I was under your command, and deserve more of
hospitality than I possess the power to offer; but what I do possess is very much at your
service, and heartily glad am I that accident should have thus brought us together again.
You have doubtless looked upon me as a twofold traitor, and I cannot blame you if you
have. Yet I should wish to stand well in your estimation, too; and therefore I will, if
you please, give a faithful narrative of the causes which led both to my arrival in New
York, and to my abandonment of the British army on the shores of the Chesapeake.
But I will not enter upon the subject now. You are tired with your day's travel; you
stand in need of food and rest. Eat and drink, I pray you, and sleep soundly; and to-morrow,
if you are so disposed, I will try to put my own character straight in the estimation
of the only British officer of whose good opinion I am covetous."

There was so much frankness and apparent sincerity in this, that I could not resist it,
so I sat down to supper with a mind perfectly at ease; and having eaten heartily, I
soon afterwards retired to rest, on a clean pallet which was spread for me on the floor.
Sleep was not slow in visiting my eyelids: nor did I awake until long after the sun had
risen on the morrow, and the hardy and active settlers, to whose kindness I was indebted,
had gone through a considerable portion of their day's labor.

I found my host next morning the same open, candid, and hospitable man that he had
shown himself on first recognising me. He made no allusion, indeed, during breakfast,
to what had fallen from him over night; but when he heard me talk of getting my
horses ready, he begged to have a few minutes' conversation with me. His wife, for

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James Monroe, the fifth President of the United States, was born in Westmoreland
county, April 28th, 1758. He graduated at William and Mary, and having entered as a
cadet in the American army in 1776, he was soon after appointed lieutenant. He was
in the battle of Harlaem Heights, White Plains, and Trenton. At the latter, perceiving
that the enemy were endeavoring to form a six-gun battery at the head of King-street,
Lieut. Monroe, with Capt. Wm. Washington, rushed forward with the advance-guard,
drove the artillerists from their guns, and took two pieces which they were in the act of
firing. These officers were both wounded in this successful enterprise, and for his gallant
conduct, Lieut. Monroe was promoted to a captaincy. He was aid to Lord Stirling
in the campaigns of 1777 and 1778, and was at Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth,
in which actions he distinguished himself. By the recommendation of Washington,
he was appointed to raise a regiment, of which he was to be given the command;
but in the exhausted state of Virginia, he failed to raise his regiment, and therefore resumed
the study of the law under Jefferson, then governor of the state. He was active
as a volunteer in the militia, and in the subsequent invasions of Virginia, and in 1780

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In 1782, he was a member of the Virginia legislature, and of the executive council,
and in 1783, at the age of 24, a member of Congress, in which he served three years.
He was always at his post, and engaged in the most arduous duties. He introduced a
resolution to vest in Congress the power to regulate the trade with all the states, and
other important resolutions. He was appointed a commissioner to settle the boundary
between New York and Massachusetts. In 1787 he was again a member of the Virginia
legislature, and in 1788, of the Virginia convention. From 1790 to 1794 he was
a member of the United States senate. From 1794 to 1796 he was minister plenipotentiary
to France, and he was recalled by Washington, under an implied censure. In
1799, under the nomination of Mr. Madison, he was appointed governor of Virginia.
In 1803 he was minister extraordinary to France, to act in conjunction with Mr. Livingston,
the resident minister.

This mission was of the utmost consequence, as it terminated in the acquisition of
Louisiana. In the same year, he was appointed minister to London, and in 1804, to
Spain. In 1806, in conjunction with the late William Pinckney, he was appointed minister
to London, where he pursued the negotiations with the Fox ministry. Mr. Monroe
having been prominently brought forward as a candidate for the presidency, as the successor
of Mr. Jefferson, returned from London; but soon after withdrew from the canvass.
In 1810 he was again elected to the legislature, and again appointed governor.
He was appointed secretary of state, Nov. 26, 1811. The war department being in a
very embarrassed state, on the departure of its head, Gen. Armstrong, Mr. Monroe undertook
it, and made extraordinary and very useful exertions to help the war on the
lakes, and the defence of New Orleans. After he had reduced to order the war department,
he resumed the duties of the department of state; which he continued to exercise
until, in 1817, he was chosen successor to James Madison in the presidency. In 1821,
he was re-elected by a vote unanimous, with a single exception, one vote in New Hampshire
having been given to J. Q. Adams.

Mr. Monroe was wise and fortunate in the selection of his ministers. He went further
than either of his two immediate predecessors, in maintaining the necessity of an
efficient general government, and in strengthening every arm of the national defence.
He encouraged the army, increased the navy, and caused those foreign naval expeditions
to be sent out to the West Indies, the Mediterranean, the coast of Africa, and the shores
of South America, which have given instruction to our officers, augmented our seamen,
protected the national commerce, and caused the country to be universally respected by
distant nations. He ordered the principal headlands, and exposed points along our borders
and sea-coasts, to be accurately surveyed, plans of fortifications drawn, and the reports
made up, with a view to the ultimate complete defence of the frontiers of the United
States, both on the land and sea-side. He directed inquiries, surveys, and plans, as
to the most suitable sites for the northern and southern naval depots for the repair and
accommodation of our fleets, in time of war and peace. The cession of Florida, by
Spain, to the United States, was effected during his administration. It was during his
administration, that the emancipated Spanish and Portuguese colonies were formally recognised
by the United States. He assumed high constitutional ground in favor of internal
improvement and the United States Bank. He was mainly instrumental in promoting
the pension law for the relief of indigent revolutionary soldiers. During his
administration the illustrious Lafayette visited these shores as the guest of the nation.
He took the most energetic measures in favor of the abolition of the slave-trade, and
continued to encourage the establishment of the principles of commerce with all nations,
upon the basis of free and equal reciprocity.

It is a high compliment to the firmness, judgment, and sagacity of Mr. Monroe, that
he proclaimed to the world the determination of the United States not to suffer any European
government to interfere with the internal concerns of the independent South
American governments. The well-timed expression of this sentiment put an end to all
rumors of any armed intervention in the affairs of Spanish America. Col. Monroe retired
from the office of president at the end of his second term.

In the late stages of his life, he was associated with the ex-presidents Jefferson and
Madison, in founding the University of Virginia. Subsequently, he was chosen a member
of the convention of 1829-30, for revising the state constitution, and presided over
its deliberations. He did not disdain to act as justice of the peace in Loudon.

Mr. Monroe died at New York, July 4th, 1831, the anniversary of American Independence,
like the ex-presidents Jefferson and Adams. Col. Monroe's biography is intimately

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