adam Esmond desert the
cause of Royalty and Honour? My good mother was never so prodigiously
dignified, and loudly and enthusiastically loyal, as after she heard of
our Governor's lamentable defection. The people round about her, though
most of them of quite a different way of thinking, listened to her
speeches without unkindness. Her oddities were known far and wide
through our province; where, I am afraid, many of the wags amongst our
young men were accustomed to smoke her, as the phrase then was, and draw
out her stories about the Marquis her father, about the splendour of
her family, and so forth. But along with her oddities, her charities and
kindness were remembered, and many a rebel, as she called them, had a
sneaking regard for the pompous little Tory lady.

As for the Colonel of the Westmoreland Defenders, though that
gentleman's command dwindled utterly away after the outrageous conduct
of his chief, yet I escaped from some very serious danger which might
have befallen me and mine in consequence of some disputes which I was
known to have had with my Lord Dunmore. Going on board his ship after
he had burned the stores at Hampton, and issued the proclamation calling
the negroes to his standard, I made so free as to remonstrate with him
in regard to both measures; I implored him to return to Williamsburg,
where hundreds of us, thousands, I hoped, would be ready to defend him
to the last extremity; and in my remonstrance used terms so free, or
rather, as I suspect, indicated my contempt for his conduct so clearly
by my behaviour, that his lordship flew into a rage, said I was a rebel
like all the rest of them, and ordered me under arrest there on board
his own ship. In my quality of militia officer (since the breaking out
of the troubles I commonly used a red coat, to show that I wore the
King's colour) I begged for a court-martial immediately; and turning
round to two officers who had been present during our altercation,
desired them to remember all that had passed between his lordship
and me. These gentlemen were no doubt of my way of thinking as to
the chief's behaviour, and our interview ended in my going ashore
unaccompanied by a guard. The story got wind amongst the Whig gentry,
and was improved in the telling. I had spoken out my mind manfully to
the Governor; no Whig could have uttered sentiments more liberal. When
riots took place in Richmond, and of the Loyalists remaining there, many
were in peril of li