LV.

Nov.

ment actuate his conduct to a degree equal to the CHAP. total destruction of Virginia. His strength will increase as a snowball by rolling, and faster, if some 1775. expedient cannot be hit upon to convince the slaves and servants of the impotency of his designs." The Virginians could plead and did plead that "their assemblies had repeatedly attempted to prevent the horrid traffic in slaves, and had been frustrated by the cruelty and covetousness of English merchants, who prevailed on the king to repeal their merciful acts; that the English encouraged and upheld slavery, while the present masters of negroes in Virginia pitied their condition, wished in general to make it easy and comfortable, and would willingly not only prevent any more negroes from losing their freedom, but restore it to such as had already unhappily lost it;" and they foresaw that whatever they themselves might suffer from a rising, the weight of sorrow would fall on the insurgent slaves themselves.

But, in truth, the cry of Dunmore did not rouse among the Africans a passion for freedom. To them bondage in Virginia was not a lower condition of being than their former one; they had no regrets for ancient privileges lost; their memories prompted no demand for political changes; no struggling aspirations of their own had invited Dunmore's interposition; no memorial of their grievances had preceded his offers. What might have been accomplished, had he been master of the country, and had used an undisputed possession to embody and train the negroes, cannot be told; but as it was, though he boasted that they flocked to his standard, none combined to join him from a longing for an improved condition or even from ill will to their masters.

CHAP.

Nov.

The innumerable affinities which had united the

LV. people with the British government, still retained 1775. great force; a vague dread of taking up arms against their sovereign pervaded the mind of the common people; none had as yet renounced allegiance; after the success at Kemp's Landing, nearly a hundred of the men who were in the field the day before, came in and took the oath of allegiance which Dunmore had framed; and in the following three weeks it was accepted by nearly three thousand: but of these less than three or four hundred could bear arms, of which not half so many knew the use. Norfolk was almost entirely deserted by native Virginians, and was become the refuge of the Scotch, who, as the fac tors of Glasgow merchants, had long regulated the commercial exchanges of the colony. Loyal to the crown, they were now embodied as the militia of Norfolk. The patriots resolved to take the place.

On the twenty eighth of November the Virginian forces under Woodford, consisting of his own regiment and five companies of the Culpepper minutemen, with whom John Marshall, afterwards chief justice of the United States, served as a lieutenant, marched to the Great Bridge, and threw up a breastwork on the side opposite to the British fort. They had no arms but the musket and the rifle; the fort was strong enough to withstand musket-shot; they therefore made many attempts to cross the branch on a raft, that they might attack their enemy in the rear; but they were always repulsed. Should the fort be given up, the road to Norfolk was open to the victors; in the dilemma between his weakness and his danger, Dunmore resolved to risk an attempt to fall on the

LV.

Dec.

Virginians by surprise. On Friday, the eighth of De- CHAP. cember, after dark, he sent about two hundred men, composed of all that had arrived of the fourteenth 1775. regiment, and of officers, sailors, and gunners from the ships, mixed with townsmen of Norfolk. They arrived at the Great Bridge in the night, and halted for rest and refreshment. The Virginians could be approached only over a causeway of about one hundred and sixty yards in length, at the end of which was their breastwork. After the break of day, and before sunrise, Leslie planted two fieldpieces between the bridge and the causeway, and gave orders for the attack; but the Virginians had just beat the reveille; and at the first discharge of the cannon, the bravest of them, unmindful of order, rushed to the trenches. The regulars, about one hundred and twenty in number, led by Fordyce, a captain in the fourteenth, were met on the causeway by a well-directed fire; while Stevens, with a party of the Culpepper minute men, posted on an eminence about a hundred yards to the left, took them in flank: they wavered; Fordyce, with a courage which was the admiration of all beholders, rallied and led them on, when, struck with many rifle-balls, some say fourteen, he staggered and fell dead, within a few steps of the breastwork, or according to one account, having had his hand upon it. The two companies of negroes kept out of the way; so did the loyalists of Norfolk; the regulars displayed the conduct of the bravest veterans; but discouraged by the fall of their leader, and disabled by the incessant fire of the American sharpshooters, they retreated, after a struggle of about fourteen minutes, losing at least sixty-one in killed and wounded.

CHAP.

LV.

Dec.

After the firing was over, the Virginians, who lost not one man, and had but one slightly wounded, ran 1775. to bring in those of their enemies who needed the surgeon's aid. "For God's sake, don't murder us," cried one of the sufferers who had been taught to fear the scalpingknife. "Put your arm round my neck," replied the Virginian, lifting him up, and walking with him slowly and carefully to the breastwork. When Leslie saw two of the "shirtmen" tenderly removing a wounded soldier from the bridge, he stepped upon the platform of the fort, and bowing with great respect thanked them for their compassion. Fordyce was buried by the Virginians with all the honors due from a generous enemy to his unsurpassed gallantry. A rash adviser urged Woodford to attack the fort with muskets alone; but Pendleton had charged him "to risk the success of his arms as little as possible;' and he wisely put aside the proposal.

In the following night, Leslie, dejected by the loss of his nephew in the fight, abandoned the fort and retreated to Norfolk. Nothing could exceed the consternation of its Scotch inhabitants: rich factors with their wives and children, leaving their large property behind, betook themselves on board ship, in midwinter, with scarcely the necessaries of life. Crowds of poor people and the runaway negroes were huddled together in the ships of war and other vessels, destitute of every comfort and even of pure air.

On the eleventh, Robert Howe, of North Carolina arrived at the Great Bridge, and on the fourteenth he, as the higher officer, took possession of Norfolk. On the twenty first the Liverpool ship of war and the brig Maria were piloted into the harbor.

LV.

Dec.

They brought three thousand stand of arms, with CHAP. which Dunmore had promised to embody negroes → and Indians enough to reduce all Virginia to submis- 1775 sion. Martin of North Carolina despatched a tender to claim his part of the arms, and a thousand were made over to him.

The governor sent a flag of truce on shore to inquire if he and the fleet might be supplied with fresh provisions; and was answered in the negative. Showing his instructions to Belew, the captain of the Liverpool, who now commanded the king's ships in the Chesapeake, the two concurred in opinion, that Norfolk was "a town in actual rebellion, accessible to the king's ships;" and they prepared to carry out the king's instructions for such "a case."