ill of Edgar Patterson, two miles above Georgetown. Not feeling sure
of their safety there, he had them reloaded on wagons and conveyed to
Leesburg, where they were placed in an unoccupied building,[24] the key
of which was given to a recently ordained clergyman, named Littlejohn.
There they remained until the last hostile Briton had reached
Baltimore, when they were carefully hauled back to Washington.[25] Thus
we saved the precious documents of the revolutionary war, as well as
our state archives, and thus does Leesburg boast, with abstract
truthfulness, that for a little more than two weeks it was the Capital
of the United States.

[Footnote 23: Anonymous.]

[Footnote 24: Perhaps the most precious of these documents was the
Declaration of Independence, which it has been asserted, was deposited
here.]

[Footnote 25: Mrs. A.H. Throckmorton, in an interesting narrative to
which allusion is made elsewhere in this volume, differs with the
authority here quoted as to the disposition of these important papers.
She says: "For one night they remained in the court-house here
(Leesburg) and were then carried several miles out in the country to
the estate of "Rockeby," now owned by Mr. H.B. Nalle,... and securely
locked within the old vault and remained out of reach of the enemy for
two weeks."]

THE MASON-McCARTY DUEL.

The duel, February 6, 1819, between Armistead T. Mason and John M.
McCarty, both residents of Loudoun County, was the second "affair of
honor" to be settled on the now famous field of Bladensburg. They were
cousins, who became enemies during Mason's brief term in the United
States Senate. Mason, known as "The Chief of Selma," was a graduate of
William and Mary College and the commander of a cavalry regiment[26] in
the war of 1812. He later became brigadier general of the Virginia
militia. He married and took up his residence at Selma plantation,
four miles north of Leesburg. Wishing to make it possible for the
Quakers of Loudoun to contribute their share toward the support of the
army, Mason introduced in the Senate a bill to permit, in case of
draft, the furnishing of substitutes on payment of $500 each. For this
McCarty branded him a coward, and thence sprung a succession of bitter
quarrels, the real basis of which was a difference of political
opinions. The details of both sides of the feud were published weekly
in the Leesburg "Genius of Liberty," and later were issued in pamphlet
form as campaign m