The Virginia Gazette

To Mess. DIXON
&HUNTER,

By inserting the following in your gazette, you will oblige a friend to the
Commonwealth.

To the LADIES whose husbands are in the continental army.

LADIES,

I now address myself to you who are under the same trouble of mind
that I myself am. I am now absent from the tenderest of husbands;
but why is he absent from me? Because he is a soldier in the continental
army, nobly supporting the glorious cause of liberty.

I must confess,
that when I hear of the dreadful wars and bloodshed, it makes me shudder;
yet, when I reflect on the wickedness of a cruel and abandoned
Ministry, who are forging chains, to bind not only us in the present
age, but to bring our posterity into a lasting state of slavery; conspiring
with our slaves to cut our throats, instigating the savage Indians to fall on
our frontiers; I say, when I reflect on whole families inhumanly butchered
by those savages, without regard to age or sex; the infant torn from its mother's arms; the milk in its innocent mouth; its brains dashed out against the next post; and when I consider all these cruel scenes, owing to the contrivance of a cruel and abandoned tyrant and his agents (acts too shocking in the heathen nations, but more so when perpetrated by order of those who profess christianity) I am not only willing to bear the absence of my dear husband for a short time, But am almost ready to start up with sword in hand to fight by his side in so glorious a cause. But let us support ourselves under the absence of our husbands as well as we can, and as we are not well able to help them to fight, let us pay our attention to another branch of American politics, which comes more immediately under our province, namely, in frugality and industry, at home particularly in manufacturing our own wearing; and let the tyrants of Great Britain see that the American Ladies have both ingenuity and industry, and that we can dress with gentility without any of the British manufactories. Let us, in some measure, lay aside our visiting and fashions, and earnestly attend to carding, spinning, and weaving, and brown our fair arms in our bleach-yards, and instead of the fine gewgaws of Great Britain wear linen of our own manufacturing; and although it may not be so very fine, yet we may say we paid nothing for it to Great Britain, and that we are free women, and while our dear husbands are nobly struggling in the army for that freedom, let us be fervent in prayer to ALMIGHTY GOD for their protection and safe return, and that it may please him to support us under our present troubles, and our dear husbands under their present trials, for CHRIST's sake.

I hope Ladies you will excuse the liberty I have taken in this short hint, as we are all greatly interested in this important affair.

I am, Ladies, yours, &c. &c. &c.

(I)

ANNE TERREL.

BEDFORD county, September 1, 1776.