flag of his Majesty over the ruins which had cost the lives of so many brave men.
I lingered longer at Greenway Court than was needful to repair my broken health, for what his lordship had to say of men and of passing events I found instructive, and the counsels he gave to agree with my own disposition.
I received here a letter from my mother, entreating me not to engage further in the military line, but giving no good reasons, so that I had to reply that she should more consider my honour and what duty I owed to my country than to grieve over what might not result in misfortune, or if it did, was to be accepted as better for me than to have failed to be worthy of the esteem of just men. When I spoke of this letter to Lord Fairfax, he said I had answered with entire propriety.
I reached Mount Vernon, as my diary shows, on July 26, at 4 P.M., a poorer man for my campaigning, and, I feared, with a good constitution much impaired.
Soon after I returned I received several letters congratulating me on my escape unhurt, and expressing a general satisfaction that amidst so much cowardice and ill man-
