Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/191

 perhaps it may not be necessary that all should know chance had effected that which the laivs ought to have done/^

In the mean time lord Dunmore^, with a motley band of tories, negroes, and recruits from St. Augustine^s, was " cutting such fantastic capers'^ in the country round about Norfolk, as made it necessary to crush him or drive him from the state. With this view, the committee of safety (who, by their constitution, were authorised to direct all military movements) detached colonel Woodford at the head of about eight hundred men, to cross James river at Sandy Point, and go in pursuit of his lordship. Colonel Henry himself had been anxious for this service, and is said to have solicit- ed it in vain. But the committee of safety* seem to have distrusted too much his want of mihtaiy experi- ence, to confide to him so important an enterprise. The disgust which Mr. Henry had conceived at this palpable reflection on his military capacity, was in- creased by colonel Woodford's refusal to acknowledge his superiority in command. This gentleman, after his departure from Williamsburg on the expedition against

��* The committee of safety was composed of the following gentlemen: Edmund Pendleton, George Mason, hon. John Page, Richard Bland, Thomas Ludwell Lee, Paul Carrington, Dudley Digges, William Cabell, Carter Brax- ton, James Mercer, and John Tabb, esquires.

The clause of the ordinance of convention which authorised this commit- tee to direct all military movements, is the following:

" And whereas it may be necessary for the public security, that the forces to be raised by virtue of this ordinance, should, as occasion may require, be marched to different parts of the colony, and that the officers shoidd be sub- ject to a proper controul, Be it ordained by the mithority aforesaid^ that the officers and soldiers under such command, shall in all things not otherwise particularly provided for by this ordinance, and the articles established for their regulation, be under the controul, and subject to the order of the gene- ral committee of safety."

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