The handsome conduct of the British at Monticello afforded a striking contrast to that of their forces under the command of Cornwallis, who visited Elk Hill--Jefferson's James River estate. The commanding general, Cornwallis, had his head-quarters for ten days at the house on the estate. This house, though not often occupied by Jefferson and his family, was furnished, and contained a library. The following is the owner's account of the manner in which the estate was laid waste: I had time to remove most of the effects out of the house, He destroyed all my growing crops of corn and tobacco; he burned all my barns containing the same articles of the last year, having first taken what corn he wanted; he used, as was to be expected, all my stock of cattle, sheep, and hogs, for the sustenance of his army, and carried off all the horses capable of service; of those too young for service he cut the throats; and he burned all the fences on the plantation, so as to render it an absolute waste. He carried off, also, about thirty slaves. Had this been to give them freedom he would have done right, but it was to consign them to inevitable death from the small-pox and putrid fever then raging in his camp. This I knew afterwards to be the fate of twenty-seven of them. I never had news of the remaining three, but suppose they shared the same fate. When I say that Lord Cornwallis did all this, I do not mean that he carried about the torch in his own hands, but that it was all done under his eye--the situation of the house in which he was commanding a view of every part of the plantation, so that he must have seen every fire.[14] [14] Jefferson to Dr. Gordon. Again he writes: History will never relate the horrors committed by the British army in the Southern States of America. They raged in Virginia six months only, from the middle of April to the middle of October, 1781, when they were all taken prisoners; and I give you a faithful specimen of their transactions for ten days of that time, and on one spot only.[15] [15] Ibid. At the end of the second year of his term Jefferson resigned his commission as Governor. The state of Mrs. Jefferson's health was at this time a source of great anxiety to him, and he promised her, when he left public life on this occasion, that he would never again leave her to accept any office or take part in political life. Saddened by the deaths of her children, and with a constitution weakened by disease, her condition was truly alarming, and wrung the heart of her devoted husband as he watched her failing day by day. He himself met with an accident about this time--a fall from his horse--which, though not attended with serious consequences, kept him, for two or three weeks, more closely confined in the house than it was his habit to be.