dark, his whole appearance massive,
unique, and remarkable. An excellent portrait of him was made by
Harding. John Randolph, of Roanoke, brought the attention of congress to
Peter Francisco's military services in an interesting memoir, and
applied for a pension for him. He was in old age made sergeant-at-arms
to the house of delegates.[734:A]

The condition of affairs in Virginia in the summer of 1781 was gloomy,
humiliating, apparently almost desperate. After a war of five years the
State was still unfortified, unarmed, unprepared. But it was asked, did
not every Virginian possess a gun of some kind, and was it not with such
arms that the battles of Bunker Hill and of the Cowpens were fought?
Virginia had entered upon the war when she was already loaded with debt,
and exhausted by her Indian war, and by her non-importation policy,
before the war began. Intersected by rivers, she was everywhere exposed
to the inroads of the enemy; and a dense slave population obstructed the
prompt movement of the militia. The darkness of the future was relieved
by a single ray of hope derived from the uncertain rumors of the sailing
of a French fleet for America; but frequent disappointment rendered hope
of help from that quarter precarious. The bulk of the people were
staunch whigs and well affected to the French alliance; but they were
growing despondent, and some were even beginning to fear that France was
prolonging the war so as to weaken America as well as Great Britain, and
to render the new confederation dependent upon its allies. With the aid
of a superior French fleet there could be no doubt of the successful
issue of the war; without that aid, there was too much reason to fear
that the people could not be kept much longer firm, in so unequal a
contest.

La Fayette, joined by Wayne's brigade, eight or nine hundred strong,
marched toward Albemarle old court-house, where some magazines remained
uninjured by the British, and he succeeded in saving them from
Tarleton's grasp. La Fayette at this place was joined by Colonel
Campbell, the hero of King's Mountain, with his riflemen. Cornwallis, in
accordance with advices from Clinton, retired to the lower country, and
was followed by La Fayette, who had, in the mean time, above Richmond
been re-enforced by Steuben with his new levies and some militia.
Cornwallis halted for a few days at Richmond; Simcoe being posted at
Westham; Tarleton at the Meadow Bridge. La Fayette's army amount