as time to arm in earnest, and
prepare ourselves against the shock that certainly was at hand. He and
his whole Court of Officials were not a little agitated and excited;
needlessly savage, I thought, in their abuse of the wicked Whigs, and
loud in their shouts of Old England for ever; but they were all eager
for the day when the contending parties could meet hand to hand, and
they could have an opportunity of riding those wicked Whigs down. And I
left my lord, having received the thanks of his Excellency in Council,
and engaged to do my best endeavours to raise a body of men in defence
of the Crown. Hence the corps, called afterwards the Westmoreland
Defenders, had its rise, of which I had the honour to be appointed
Colonel, and which I was to command when it appeared in the field. And
that fortunate event must straightway take place, so soon as the county
knew that a gentleman of my station and name would take the command of
the force. The announcement was duly made in the Government Gazette, and
we filled in our officers readily enough; but the recruits, it must
be owned, were slow to come in, and quick to disappear. Nevertheless,
friend Hagan eagerly came forward to offer himself as chaplain. Madam
Esmond gave us our colours, and progressed about the country engaging
volunteers; but the most eager recruiter of all was my good old tutor,
little Mr. Dempster, who had been out as a boy on the Jacobite side in
Scotland, and who went specially into the Carolinas, among the children
of his banished old comrades, who had worn the white cockade of Prince
Charles, and who most of all showed themselves in this contest still
loyal to the Crown.

Hal's expedition in search of horses led him not only so far as the Blue
Mountains in our colony, but thence on a long journey to Annapolis
and Baltimore; and from Baltimore to Philadelphia, to be sure; where
a second General Congress was now sitting, attended by our Virginian
gentlemen of the last year. Meanwhile, all the almanacs tell what had
happened. Lexington had happened, and the first shots were fired in the
war which was to end in the independence of our native country. We still
protested of our loyalty to his Majesty; but we stated our determination
to die or be free; and some twenty thousand of our loyal petitioners
assembled round about Boston with arms in their hands and cannon, to
which they had helped themselves out of the Government stores. Mr.
Arnold had begun that car