that he never had the opportunity of proving in battle
whether or not he had military talents, and that, after some months of
nominal command, he was driven by a series of official slights into an
abandonment of his military career, may have been occasioned solely by
a proper distrust of his military capacity on the part of the Virginia
Committee of Safety, or it may have been due in some measure to the
unslumbering jealousy of him which was at the time attributed to the
leading members of that committee. The purpose of this chapter, and of
the next, will be to present a rapid grouping of these incidents in
his life,--incidents which now have the appearance of a mere episode,
but which once seemed the possible beginnings of a deliberate and
conspicuous military career.

Within the city of Williamsburg, at the period now spoken of, had long
been kept the public storehouse for gunpowder and arms. In the dead of
the night[169] preceding the 21st of April, 1775,--a little less than
a month, therefore, after the convention of Virginia had proclaimed
the inevitable approach of a war with Great Britain,--a detachment of
marines from the armed schooner Magdalen, then lying in the James
River, stealthily visited this storehouse, and, taking thence fifteen
half-barrels of gunpowder,[170] carried them off in Lord Dunmore's
wagon to Burwell's Ferry, and put them on board their vessel. Of
course, the news of this exploit flew fast through the colony, and
everywhere awoke alarm and exasperation. Soon some thousands of armed
men made ready to march to the capital to demand the restoration of
the gunpowder. On Tuesday, the 25th of April, the independent company
of Fredericksburg notified their colonel, George Washington, that,
with his approbation, they would be prepared to start for Williamsburg
on the following Saturday, "properly accoutred as light-horsemen," and
in conjunction with "any other bodies of armed men who" might be
"willing to appear in support of the honor of Virginia."[171]

Similar messages were promptly sent to Washington from the independent
companies of Prince William[172] and Albemarle counties.[173] On
Wednesday, the 26th of April, the men in arms who had already arrived
at Fredericksburg sent to the capital a swift messenger "to inquire
whether the gunpowder had been replaced in the public magazine."[174]
On Saturday, the 29th,--being the day already fixed for the march upon
Williamsburg,--one hundred and two