1. Besides this date line, placed by Jones at the end of the letter, JM also dated it—“1781, Jan. 17.”

2. Although it is not known when Jones left his home near Fredericksburg to go to Philadelphia, he resumed his seat in Congress on 29 January. Allowing at least a week for the trip, he could not have delayed his departure long after writing this letter. Benedict Arnold and his troops evacuated Richmond on 6 January and, “without a whiff of gunpowder,” returned to Portsmouth where they entrenched and encamped for the winter (Boyd, Papers of Jefferson description begins Julian P. Boyd et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (16 vols. to date; Princeton, N.J., 1950——). description ends , IV, 259; Christopher Ward, War of the Revolution, II, 869).

3. Berkeley, the estate of Benjamin Harrison, speaker of the House of Delegates, was on the James River below Richmond. As late as 1783, he was still trying to recover his slaves, or at least their value (Fitzpatrick, Writings of Washington description begins John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington, from the Original Sources, 1745–1799 (39 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1931–44). description ends , XXVI, 364, 370, 401).

4. Following “parts,” Jones wrote and deleted “of the Country.”

5. Jones, of course, was overly sanguine. The British continued to harry Virginia until the surrender of Cornwallis in October 1781.

6. Virginia Delegates to Livingston, 21 December 1780, n. 3.

7. Jones had written “Congress,” but then changed it to “United States.”

8. See Virginia Delegates to Jefferson, 5 November 1780, n. 1. Jones was mistaken. Hening’s Statutes does not include this law, and there is no mention of its passage in the Journal of the House of Delegates description begins Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia; Begun and Held At the Capitol, in the City of Williamsburg.Beginning in 1780, the portion after the semicolon reads, Begun and Held in the Town of Richmond. In the County of Henrico. The journal for each session has its own title page and is individually paginated. The edition used, unless otherwise noted, is the one in which the journals for 1777–1781 are brought together in one volume, with each journal published in Richmond in 1827 or 1828, and often called the “Thomas W. White reprint.” description ends . Furthermore, in his financial statement to the Virginia auditors on 27 March 1781, JM continued to show his per diem expense allowance at the old rate of $20.00 (MS, Virginia State Library). Also see Burnett, Letters description begins Edmund C. Burnett, ed., Letters of Members of the Continental Congress (8 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1921–36). description ends , VI, 192.

9. The first lottery “for defraying the expences of the next campaign” was provided for by Congress in November 1776 (Journals of the Continental Congress, VI, 917, 959–64). In May 1780, as an economy measure, Congress authorized the managers of the fourth lottery to accept renewals from persons who wanted to retain the same tickets which they had held as participants in the third lottery. Although the drawing of the fourth lottery’s winning tickets began on 2 April 1781, it was not completed for over a year; and the lucky holders were not paid until long after (ibid., XVII, 459–60; XIX, 123, 304; XXI, 1200; XXII, 151; XXIII, 543–44, 824). “Mrs. H. Battaile” may have been Hannah Battaile (1718–ca. 1793), the widow of Nicholas Battaile of Caroline County and a sister of JM’s paternal grandmother (T. E. Campbell, Colonial Caroline, pp. 380, 479).