But when he heard the news of the bloodshed on Lexington Green, he joined the Revolution and sent a letter of explanation to George William Fairfax. “Unhappy it is though to reflect,” he wrote, “that a Brother’s Sword has been sheathed in a Brother’s Breast, and that the once happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched with blood, or Inhabited by Slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?”30
