The Assembly of Virginia, quickened to new energy, retired to Charlottesville May 24th. But they authorized the “issue of fifteen millions of bills,” and also the declaration of martial law within twenty miles of any army headquarters. That brought Richmond within the military control of Lafayette. The Burgoyne prisoners were also removed from Charlottesville, over the mountains, to Winchester. The details of the pursuit of Lafayette by Cornwallis, day by day, are full of thrilling interest, but beyond the province of this narrative. [Illustration: Lafayette in Virginia.] On the twenty-eighth of May, Lafayette wrote as follows to Washington: “The enemy have been so kind as to retire before us. Twice, I gave them a chance of fighting, taking good care not to engage them farther than I pleased, but they continued their retrograde motions. Our numbers are, I think, exaggerated to them, and our seeming boldness confirms the opinion. I thought, at first, Lord Cornwallis wanted to get me as low down as possible, and use his cavalry to advantage. His lordship had, exclusive of the reënforcements from Portsmouth, (said to be six hundred) four thousand men; eight hundred of whom were dragoons, or mounted infantry. Our force is about his; but only one thousand five hundred regulars, and fifty dragoons. One little action more particularly marks the retreat of the enemy. From the place where he first began to retire to Williamsburg, is upwards of one hundred miles. The old arms at the Point of the Fork have been taken out of the water. The cannon was thrown into the river undamaged, when they marched back to Richmond; so that his lordship did us no harm of consequence, but lost an immense part of his former conquests, and did not make any in the State. General Greene only demanded of me to hold my ground, in Virginia. I don’t know but what we shall, in our turn, become the pursuing enemy.” On the very next day, after this letter was despatched to the American Commander-in-Chief, May twenty-ninth, Cornwallis did, in fact, abandon pursuit. Tarleton, who never lost opportunity to express his appreciation of the tact, skill, and “invariable wisdom of Lafayette’s movements,” states, that “an American patrol was captured; and among letters of Lafayette to Greene, Steuben, and others, was one to Governor Jefferson, urging him to rally militia during his absence, and using this prophetic expression: ‘The British success in Virginia resembles the French invasion of Hanover, and is likely to have similar consequences, if the governor and the country would exert themselves, at the present juncture.’”