Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/161

 THOMAS JEFFERSON 127 that he had long desired of the College of William and Mary. Soon, however, his attention was wholly absorbed by the events of the war. On August 16, 1780, occurred the disastrous defeat of Gates at Camden, which destroyed in a day all that Jeffer son had toiled to accumulate in warlike material during eight agonizing weeks. On the last day of 1780, Arnold s fleet of twenty-seven sail anchored in Chesapeake bay, and Arnold, with nine hundred men, penetrated as far as Richmond; but Jeffer son had acted with so much promptitude, and was so ably seconded by the county militia, that the traitor held Richmond but twenty-three hours, and escaped total destruction only through a timely change in the wind, which bore him down the river with extraordinary swiftness. In five days from the first summons twenty-five hundred militia were in pursuit of Arnold, and hundreds more were com ing in every hour. For eighty- four hours Gov. Jefferson was almost continuously in the saddle; and for many months after Arnold s first repulse, not only the governor, but all that Virginia had left of manhood, resources, and credit were ab sorbed in the contest. Four times in the spring of 1781 the legislature of Virginia was obliged to adjourn and fly before the approach or the threat of an enemy. Monti- cello was captured by a troop of horse, and Jeffer son himself narrowly escaped. Cornwallis lived for