Irritated by this, Lord Dunmore determined to destroy the houses immediately on the shore; and, on the night of the first of January, under cover of a heavy cannonade, landed a body of troops, and set fire to a number of houses near the river.

The provincials, who entertained strong prejudices against this station, saw the flames spread from house to house without making any attempt to extinguish them.

After the fire had continued several weeks, in which time it had consumed about four-fifths of the town, Colonel Howe, who had waited on the convention to urge the necessity of destroying the place, returned with orders to burn the remaining houses; which were carried into immediate execution.
{February.} Thus was destroyed the most populous and flourishing town in Virginia.
Its destruction was one of those ill-judged measures, of which the consequences are felt long after the motives are forgotten.
After Norfolk was laid in ashes, Lord Dunmore continued a predatory war on the rivers--burning houses, and robbing plantations--which served only to distress a few individuals, and to increase the detestation in which he was held through the country.

At length, his wretched followers, wearied with their miserable condition, were sent to Florida.[31] [Footnote 31: Virginia Gazette.] As the war became more serious, the convention deemed it necessary to increase the number of regular regiments from two to nine, which were afterwards taken into the continental service.
[Sidenote: Transactions in North Carolina.] In North Carolina, Governor Martin, though obliged to take refuge on board a ship of war, in Cape Fear river, indulged the hope of being able to reduce that colony.
A body of ignorant and disorderly men on the western frontier, styling themselves regulators, had attempted by arms, some time before the existing war, to control and stop the administration of justice.

After failing in this attempt, they became as hostile to the colonial, as they had been to the royal government.
The province also contained many families who had lately emigrated from the highlands of Scotland; and who, retaining their attachment to the place of their nativity, transferred it to the government under which they had been bred.