Extract of a Letter from Alexandria (Virginia)

v3:1193

The post from the southward brings advice that Lord Dunmore had sent a party of armed men into the Town of Norfolk, who had spiked seventeen pieces of cannon and taken two off. This was done in the face of day, and without any opposition; indeed, none could be expected, as the principal people of that Town are Tories. His Lordship has also seized, dragged on board a man-of-war, and confined in irons, a certain Mr˙ Goodrich, who lived in the neighbourhood of Norfolk. This gentleman' s crime is, that he suffered one of his vessels, a few days ago, to bring one hundred and fifty barrels of gunpowder, and land the same safely, without asking his Lordship' s consent. We have also certain intelligence that Dunmore, a few days ago, with one hundred and forty men, landed about ten miles below Norfolk, at a place called Kemp' s Landing, where he broke open a blacksmith' s shop and destroyed about fifty muskets, which the smith had to repair, then pillaged a number of houses in the neighbourhood, and look two officers and four privates, in the Minute service, prisoners. The object of this expedition was to intercept the powder abovementioned, but it had luckily been carried off some time before. His Lordship has lately received from Augustine a re-enforcement of two hundred men; so that his whole corps is now supposed to consist of five hundred men.