University of Virginia Library

TO EDMUND PENDLETON.[1]

Dear Sir,—I return you my fervent congratulations
on the glorious success of the combined arms

at York and Gloucester. We have had from the
Commander-in-Chief an official report of the fact,
with a copy of the capitulation, and a general intimation
that the number of prisoners, excluding seamen,
&c., would exceed five thousand; but no detail of
our gains. If these severe doses of ill fortune do not
cool the phrenzy and relax the pride of Britain, it
would seem as if Heaven had in reality abandoned
her to her folly and her fate. This campaign was
grounded on the most intense exertion of her pecuniary
resources. Upwards of twenty millions were
voted by the Parliament. The King acknowledged
that it was all he asked, and all that was necessary.
A fair trial has been made of her strength; and what
is the result? They have lost another army, another
colony, another island, and another fleet of her trade;
their possessions in the East Indies, which were so
rich a source of their commerce and credit, have been
severed from them, perhaps for ever; their naval armaments,
the bulwarks of their safety, and the idols of
their vanity, have in every contest felt the rising su
periority of their enemies. In no points have they
succeeded, except in the predatory conquest of Eustatia,
of which they have lost the greatest part of
every thing except the infamy, and in the relief of
Gibraltar, which was merely a negative advantage.
With what hope or with what view can they try the
fortune of another campaign? Unless they can draw
succour from the compassion or jealousy of other
powers, of which it does not yet appear that they
have any well-founded expectation, it seems scarcely
possible for them much longer to shut their ears
against the voice of peace.

I am sorry to find that the practice of impressing
is still kept up with you. It is partial and oppressive
with respect to individuals, and I wish it may not
eventually prove so with respect to the State. The
zeal and liberality of those States which make undue
advances, may not find an equal disposition to re-imburse
them, in others which have had more caution,
or less occasion for such exertions.

You are not mistaken in your apprehensions for
our Western interests. An agrarian law is as much
coveted by the little members of the Union, as ever
it was by the indigent citizens of Rome. The conditions
annexed by Virginia to her territorial cession
have furnished a committee of Congress a handle for
taking up questions of right, both with respect to the
ceding States, and the great Land Companies, which
they have not before ventured to touch. We have
made every opposition and remonstrance to the conduct
of the committee which the forms of proceedings
will admit. When a report is made, we shall renew
our efforts upon more eligible ground, but with little
hope of arresting any aggression upon Virginia which
depends solely on the inclination of Congress. Since
the close of the Confederation, however, it has been
understood, that seven votes are necessary to carry
every question. This rule, in proportion to the thinness
of Congress, opposes a difficulty to those who
attack. It will therefore, I believe, be impossible for
the enemies of Virginia to obtain any positive injury

to her rights. My greatest anxiety at present is, lest
the attempts for that purpose may exasperate the
Assembly into measures which will furnish new
hopes to the British Court to persevere in the war,
and new baits for the credulity of the British nation.
The good sense of the Assembly will, however, I
flatter myself, temper every expression of their displeasure
with due respect to this consideration. It
would be particularly unhappy, if any symptoms of
disunion among ourselves should blast the golden
prospects which the events of the campaign have
opened to us.