ts sprang from
their boats on the island the ships sailed hurriedly away.

The island itself was a sickening spectacle. The cannonade had made
terrible havoc, and men lay dead or wounded all around, while many of
the dead had been buried so hastily as to be barely covered. While they
were looking at the frightful scene, a strong light appeared in the
direction of the governor's flight. Its meaning was evident at a
glance. Some of the vessels had grounded in the sands, and, as they
could not be got off, he had set them afire to save them from the enemy.

That was almost the last exploit of Lord Dunmore. He kept up his
plundering raids a little longer, and once sailed up the Potomac to
Mount Vernon, with the fancy that he might find and capture Washington.
But soon after that he sailed away with his plunder and about one
thousand slaves whom he had taken from the plantations, and Virginia was
well rid of her last royal governor. A patriot governor soon followed,
Patrick Henry being chosen, and occupying the very mansion at
Williamsburg from which Dunmore had proclaimed him a traitor.

_THE FATAL EXPEDITION OF COLONEL ROGERS._

One of the great needs of the Americans in the war of the Revolution was
ammunition. Gunpowder and cannon-balls were hard to get and easy to get
rid of, being fired away with the utmost generosity whenever the armies
came together, and sought for with the utmost solicitude when the armies
were apart. The patriots made what they could and bought what they
could, and on one occasion sent as far as New Orleans, on the lower
Mississippi, to buy some ammunition which the Spaniards were willing to
sell.

But it was one thing to buy this much needed material and another thing
to get it where it was needed. In those days it was a long journey to
New Orleans and back. Yet the only way to obtain the ammunition was to
send for it, and a valiant man, named Colonel David Rogers, a native of
Virginia or Maryland, was chosen to go and bring it. His expedition was
so full of adventure, and ended in such a tragic way, that it seems well
worth telling about.

It was from the Old Red Stone Fort on the Monongahela River, one of the
two streams that make up the Ohio, that the expedition was to start, and
here Colonel Rogers found the boats and men waiting for him at the end
of his ride across the hill country. There were forty men in the party,
and embarking with these, Rogers soon floated down past Fort P