individuals to make profitable speculations.  They continued to refuse to pay taxes for several years after the war, holding it unlawful to contribute their money towards discharging the war debt.  This being at length adjusted, no part of our citizens pay their public demands with more punctuality (except their muster fines, which they still refuse to pay).”

Loudoun’s Revolutionary Hero.

John Champe, the tall and saturnine sergeant-major of Lee’s celebrated partisan legion, was a resident of Loudoun County.  Readers of Lee’s “Memoirs of the War” will recall the account of Champe’s pretended desertion from the Continental armies.  This perilous adventure was undertaken for the threefold purpose of capturing the traitor Arnold, saving the life of the unfortunate Andre, and establishing the innocence of General Gates, who had been charged with complicity in Arnold’s nefarious intrigue.  His investigations secured the complete vindication of Gates; but, failing in his other attempts, he drifted with the Red Coats to North Carolina, where he deserted their ranks and rejoined the American forces under General Greene.

That officer provided him with a good horse and money for his journey, and sent him to General Washington.  The commander-in-chief “munificently anticipated every desire of the sergeant, and presented him with a discharge from further service, lest he might, in the vicissitudes of war, fall into the enemy’s hands; when, if recognized, he was sure to die on a gibbet.”  His connection with the army thus abruptly, though honorably, severed, with no little regret we are to suppose, he straightway repaired to his home near Leesburg.

In after years, when General Washington was called by President Adams to the command of the army organized to defend the country from French hostility, he inquired for Champe, with the avowed purpose of placing him at the head of a company of infantry.  Lieutenant-Colonel Lee, through whom the inquiry had been made, dispatched a courier to Loudoun County in search of Champe.  There he learned that the intrepid soldier and daring adventurer had removed to Kentucky, where he soon afterward died.

Some interesting anecdotes concerning Champe are related in a portion of Captain Cameron’s private journal, published in the British United Service Journal.  Champe was assigned to his company, a part of Arnold’s British legion, upon his arrival in New York.

Army Recommendations.

The following list of militia officers were “recommended by the gentlemen justices of the county Court for Loudoun County, Virginia, to the Governor for appointments from March, 1778, to December, 1782:”