vided the Genl. assembly shall be free at any time hereafter to make it again liable". this is certainly giving with one hand, and taking back with the other, and does not amount merely to nothing; but excites an expectation, perhaps even amounts to an injunction, that in the mean time the institution shall open and proceed as if this were a real gift. but, the endowment being thus proclaimed uncertain, is a compleat bar to ortaining Professors from abroad, deprives us of the only means we had of giving to our University a pre-eminence which would have drawn to it the Students of the whole Southern and Western countries and not a few from the North, and would have raised us at once to that state of science to which the European Seminaries are arrived in advance before us, if the bill really means that we shall open on this hopeless footing, we may get, as Professors, young scions and sciolists from the schools of the North who being used to take job-work, will not refuse it for uncertainty of tenure. and as these retracting amendments have past the H. of Del. by such vast majorities, the passing the bill without them, would I presume be desperate. if that cannot be done therefore, the best service the Senate can render the institution is to reject the bill altogether. we shall not then be obliged to open on the footing of a common local academy merely adding another Hampden-Sıdney, Lexington or Rumford school to the present stock of these small institutions, for the particular accommodation of the county of Albemarle and it's circumjacent neighbors. it will be better to await the chance of a more advised House, and in the mean time go on paying our debt, secure that in 25 years at farthest the consummation of that payment will give us an institution such as it should be. this I submit to our brethren now assembled together as members of the legislature, who will understand better than I do, the drift of these amendments, and judge whether they do not put us in a worse situation than we are at present. Always with affection and respect theirs & yours Th. Jefferson THE WILLIAMSBURG COMPANIES. It is well known that Williamsburg had two companies during the Revolution-the Williamsburg Volunteers, of which James Innis was captain, and the College Company of which the President of William and Mary College was Captain. No roster of the Volunteers has been preserved, but a roster of the latter, more or less complete, has been inscribed on a tablet dedicated to their memory at William and Mary College. There was, in addition, a company composed of the boys of Williamsburg, of which Henry Nicholson aged 14 in 1775 was captain. His parentage is not definitely known, but he was probably the son of John and Elizabeth Flood Nicholson of Surry County, mentioned in William and Mary Quarterly April, 1908, Vol. xvi, No 4, p 226 He was a matriculate in William and Mary College in 1777, cornet in 1778 in Nelson's Regiment of Virginia State Horse, and later Quartermaster in the same regiment till 1782. From 1781 to 1783 he was a member of the Williamsburg Lodge of Masons. He married Sarah, daughter of Anthony Hay, keeper of the Raleigh Tavern. The incident which brings this Boy's Company into notice is their eruption into the Powder Magazine on the night of June 3 1775, when a spring gun went off and wounded one of the boys Beverley Dickson quite seriously. This incident is referred to by Robert Greenhow of Williamsburg in a deposition filed with papers in an application for a bounty warrant by Nicholson's heirs, a copy of which deposition communicated by Mrs. James D. Evans, of Philadelphia, reads as follows: "Virginia, City of Richmond, to wit: This day Robert Greenhow,* an inhabitant of said city & in the seventy third year of his age-being by me duly sworn, deposedThat at the beginning of the Revolutionary War the youth of Williamsburg, among whom he was one formed themselves into a mili *Robert Greenhow was son of John Greenhow of Williamsburg, and father of Robert Greenhow of Washington, who wrote the "His tory of Oregon" tary corps and chose Henry Nicholson for their captain. That on Dunsmores flight from Williamsburg-they repaired to the magazine, and armed themselves with the blue painted stock guns, kept for the purpose of distributions among the Indians and equipd as the minute men and volunteers were in military garb. that is to say-with hunting shirts-Trousers-buckstails-cockadades and Liberty or Death appended to their breasts as their motto-That they could and did perform all the evolutions of the manuel exercise, far better than the soldiers who were daily arriving from the adjacent counties. That their Captain (Henry Nicholson)-he supposes was then about Fourteen years old-That he, doth not know at what period he entered Into the State Service-but he knows that two of three years before the close of the War, he knew him as a Cornet in Troops of Horsecommanded, he thinks, by Jno. Nelson-That he (Henry Nicholson) did serve to the end of the war, he is convinced from the circumstance that after Cornwallis left Williamsburg-and quartered himself in York-the Officers who were then in the environs, were in the habit of occasionaly visiting their female acquaintances that Henry Nicholson, he firmly believes-was one of those officers-that they would frequently stay until the sound of Tarlton's bugle-a little before day, told them it was necessary to be off-That Henry Nicholson was fond of Military life and had no other employment, and that from these circumstances he firmly believes Henry Nicholson did not leave the service until there was no farther use or employment for him in the service "Sworn to. and subscribed by Robert Greenhow-before me, Joseph Tate, Mayor of said City this ninth day of October Eighteen hundred and thirty three-and I do farther certify, that said Rob. Greenhow is one of our most respectable inhabitants-and titled to full credit. en Joseph Tate, Mayor, Robert Greenhow Senr." THE BATTLE OF SHALLOW FORD By CAPT. S. A. ASHE, Raleigh, N. C. In May1780 General Lincoln who had allowed himself to be bottled up in Charleston, surrendered to Cornwallis his army, including North Carolina Continentals and 1000 North Carolina Militia. In August Gates met with a terrible defeat and his army was overwhelmed-disorganized-broken up! From the mountains to the sea the country was open to Cornwallis. The soldiers were few and scattered, and there were neither arms nor supplies to meet the emergency. General Edward Stevens of Virginia, mentioned by Light Horse Harry Lee as a brave and skillful officer, who had about 130 Virginia Militia, was ordered to take post at New Garden, Guilford County, where there was a Quaker settlement. There he was directed to gather up what provisions he could and send them to Hillsboro-the Head Quarters for the organizing of a new army. But on Sept. 13, he left his camp in charge of Colonel Falkner and Major Cloyd* and went to see Governor Jefferson at Richmond to urge that more men and supplies be sent to the front. Jefferson and his Council heartily co-operated in measures to that end. Cornwallis had sent Ferguson through upper South Carolina and then to pass into western North Carolina-raising the Tories. And the people, both patriots and disaffected, were greatly agitated. Ten days after Stevens left camp, Commissioner Brown, who had in charge collecting supplies in the north western section of the state, informed Col. Falkner that "there is the greatest plenty of grain and cattle in Hogan's Creek, but as the people in that settlement are disaffected, he durst not venture among them without an armed force to protect and assist him-and that no provisions had ever been brought from that quarter." Then Falkner wrote to General Gates: "I am on my way towards Hoghan's Joseph Cloyd, of Montgomery Co., Va., major of Col. William Preston's regiment of Virginia militia. Creek to protect Commissioner Brown or any other person authorized in the purchase of grain or cattle for the use of the army." Every day brought new excitement, new fears, new hopes. Cornwallis was coming to Charlotte and with him the Royal Governor, Martin, who issued proclamations for the Tories to rise and join the King's Standard. The patriot leaders were calling the militiamen to the field. Many families were forsaking their homes. The whole people were stirred. The entry in the Diary of the Moravians, now being translated by the distinguished Miss Fries, for Oct. 2nd, is "Many people continue to pass, bringing with them their small stores of goods and chattels. They come from this side of and beyond Salisbury and go to Virginia. Whither it is said some thousands have take refuge." While that was going on on the Yadkin-the following letter was written to General Gates: "Oct. 4th, at Gilbert town, Rutherfordton County. "Sir: We have now collected at this place about 1500 good men, drawn from the counties of Surry, Wilkes, Burke (Washington and Sullivan Counties in this state) (these two last about the mountains), and Washington County in Virginia-and expect to be joined in a few days by Col. Clark of Georgia and Col. Williams of South Carolina with about 1000 men. As we have at this time called out our militia without any orders from the Execu tives of our different States and with the view of expelling the enemy from this part of the country, we think such a body of men worthy of your attention and would request that you send a general officer immediately to take command of such troops as may embody in this quarter, etc. Benj. Cleveland Isaac Shelby And. Hampton John Winston." On the 7th of Oct. these Colonels gloriously defeated Ferguson at King's Mt. Before that Cornwallis had reached Charlotte. On that very day of the battle Major Armstrong wrote from Surry County to General Sumner: "Last night I arrived home |