exchanged. In February, the Phoenix man-of-war came to Yorktown with a
flag, and sent ashore a party of prisoners, among whom was Colonel
Lawson, who had been long in captivity, and who was exchanged for
Colonel Alexander Gordon, of Norfolk, a Scotch tory, who had been
arrested in 1775 and released on parole. Captain Lilly, in the brig
Liberty, captured off the coast of Virginia the British ship Jane with a
valuable cargo. Captain Pasture, in the Molly, a small craft, returned
from the southward with a supply of gunpowder. The schooner Henry was
captured by the British man-of-war Seaford.

When the assembly again met in May, 1777, George Wythe was made speaker
of the house of delegates; the oath of allegiance was prescribed; a
loan-office was established, and acts passed to support the credit of
the Continental and State paper currency. Benjamin Harrison, George
Mason, Joseph Jones, Francis Lightfoot Lee, and John Harrison were
elected delegates to congress, Richard Henry Lee having been left out.
There were no little dissension and animosity in congress between the
delegates of the movement party and the moderates; and, added to this,
it was believed that an old grudge, harbored in Virginia against Mr. Lee
for the prominent part he had taken many years before in disuniting the
offices of speaker and treasurer, followed him to Philadelphia. The
charges alleged against him by his enemies in Virginia were, first, that
he had altered the mode in which his tenants should pay their rent from
money to produce, with the design of depreciating the currency of the
country; and secondly, that he had favored New England to the injury of
Virginia; thirdly, that as a member of the secret committee in congress,
he had opposed laying their proceedings before congress--it being
thereby intended to insinuate that in so doing he had wished to conceal
the embezzlement of the public money.

A letter from Richard Henry Lee to Mr. Jefferson, dated at Philadelphia,
November 3d, 1776, contains the following paragraph: "I have been
informed that very malignant and very scandalous hints and inuendoes
concerning me have been uttered in the house. From the justice of the
house I should expect they would not suffer the character of an absent
person to be reviled by any slanderous tongue whatever. When I am
present I shall be perfectly satisfied with the justice I am able to do
myself. From your candor, sir, and knowledge of my political movements,