I have a thousand spirits in one breast, To answer twenty thousand such as you. Shakspeare. While General Leslie was staying with the British troops at Halifax, North Carolina, Colonel Tarleton and other officers held their quarters at the house of Colonel Ashe, whose wife was a firm friend of liberty. Her beau ideal of the hero was Colonel William Washington; and, knowing this fact, the sarcastic Tarleton took great delight in speaking diminutively of this officer in her presence. In his jesting way, he remarked to her one time, that he should like to have an opportunity of seeing her friend, Colonel Washington, whom he had understood to be a very small man. Mrs. Ashe promptly replied, "If you had looked behind you, Colonel Tarleton, at the battle of the Cowpens, you would have had that pleasure." |