Although it was near to nine at night when we rode into Williamsburg and put up at the Raleigh Tavern, I went at once to the house called the governor's palace, but much inferiour in size and convenience to the fine houses of Westover and Brandon. The governor being gone to supper elsewhere, I gave the sealed package containing the capitulation, all in French, with the signatures of De Villiers and myself, to the governor's aide.
In the morning I called upon the governor and was cordially received. He said that we could not go into the details of the capitulation until the articles of it were fairly Englished. This would require a day. He made rather too light, I thought, of the surrender and of what seemed to me serious; for to my mind the French were come to stay.
While the governor was assuring me that we should easily drive out the invaders, my kinsman, Colonel Willis of the council, joined us. He considered the situation on the frontier as very grave, and succeeded in alarming the governor, a man of confident and very sanguine disposition. At last Colonel Willis turned to me and said:
