he crew escaped. The sloop was burnt by the inhabitants.
Squires in retaliation threatening Hampton, Major Innes, with a hundred
men, was sent down from Williamsburg to defend it. Squires in the latter
part of October appeared near Hampton with several vessels, and
threatened to land and burn the town. It was defended by a company of
regulars under Captain George Nicholas, a company of minute-men, and
some militia. Upon Squires attempting to land a skirmish ensued, and the
enemy was driven off with some loss. Squires' party returning on the
next day, burnt down a house belonging to a Mr. Cooper. Intelligence of
this affair having reached Williamsburg, a company of riflemen was sent
to Hampton, and Colonel Woodford was despatched to take command there.
Upon their arrival on the next morning, Squires began to fire upon the
town, but was again compelled to retire. These petty hostilities were
the subject of humorous remark in the _Virginia Gazette_.[632:A]

Dunmore, on the 7th of November, 1775, proclaimed martial-law, summoned
all persons capable of bearing arms to his standard, on penalty of being
proclaimed traitors, and offered freedom to all servants and slaves who
should join him. He had now the ascendency in the country around
Norfolk, which abounded in tories. The committee of safety despatched
Woodford with his regiment and two hundred minute-men, amounting in all
to eight hundred men, with orders to cross the James River at Sandy
Point and go in pursuit of Dunmore. Colonel Henry had been desirous to
be employed in this service, and, it was said, solicited it, but the
committee of safety refused, and amid such exciting events he found
himself, eager as he was for action, and ardent and impetuous as was his
nature, still compelled to sit down inactive in Williamsburg, where he
had been quartered since September. At length after the lapse of nearly
another month of tedious inaction, during which he received no regular
communications from Colonel Woodford, Colonel Henry wrote to him thus:
"Not hearing of any despatch from you for a long time, I can no longer
forbear sending to know your situation and what has occurred?" Woodford
on the next day replied from the Great Bridge, near Norfolk, and said:
"When joined I shall always esteem myself immediately under your
command, and will obey accordingly, but when sent to command a separate
and distinct corps, under the immediate instructions of the committee of
safety, whene