During those two weeks President Madison was a guest of Ludwell Lee at Belmont, whence he directed National affairs; and ever since that time it has been a primary and essential asseveration in the credo of every true Leesburger that the town was, during that stirring fortnight, the de facto Capital of the United States.
Proud as that memory may be today, the event itself is said to have caused great anxiety to the more substantial citizens of the town and nearby country for fear lest their sudden prominence in the affairs of the nation would invite a swift and disastrous foray upon them by the temporarily triumphant Britons; a denouement which, happily, did not ensue.
When Patrick McIntyre published the one hundred and tenth number of _The True American_ in Leesburg on Tuesday the 30th December, 1800, he, following the tradition of his craft, probably left his office with a lively sense of anticipation of the town's forthcoming celebration of the advent of a new century; that he could have foreseen that a single copy of that issue would be the sole available survivor of his journal in 1937 is not to be presumed. Yet in the Library of Congress that single copy begins its collection of Leesburg's newspapers and no copy of the paper is known to survive today in Loudoun. Its four pages devote themselves to the proceedings of Congress, to European affairs, to the activities of the Virginia House of Delegates and to the new treaty with France. The local news must be gleaned from the advertisements. The Rev. Mr. Allen advertises religious services to be held in the courthouse;[134] one W. C. Celden, a slavedealer, informs the public that he "has some likely young NEGROES which he will dispose of reasonably for cash;" and on the 4th page is found an item, obviously inserted by a private individual protecting himself with a cloak of anonymity, "For Sale. A likely NEGRO GIRL who has to serve for the term of nineteen or twenty years. She is now about twelve years of age, and very well grown, and will have to serve one year for every child which she may have during the term of her servitude. The terms of sale may be known by application to the Printer." The widow of Colonel Burgess Ball asks that those having claims against his estate will send them to her as the Administrators were anxious to make provision for their immediate payment.