worse, and were quite enough, Mr. Franklin said, to put us out of all patience with such defenders.
I bade good-by to the aides of the general, and would have had Orme and Morris go home with me to be cared for by Dr. Craik, but they preferred to go on to Philadelphia. They were much dispirited, but had only warm praise for my Virginia rangers. I was in no better humour, and felt, as I rode away, that we were on the edge of an awful crisis for the border counties. The favourable sentiments Sir John St. Clair and Colonel Burton were pleased to express respecting me could not but be pleasing; but the situation of our affairs was, to my mind, so serious as to put me into one of my melancholic moods and to make me feel, as I often did in the greater war, that, what with want of patriotism and lack of spirit, only that Providence in which I have always trusted could carry us through a great peril. As usual, a brisk ride jolted me into a more hopeful state of mind.
I lay for a day at Winchester in a poor tavern, cared for by the general's man, Bishop. There, to my comfort, came Lord Fairfax, who had the kindness to bring with
