25 points if answered in 10 minutes"By the agency of his staff officer Joseph Reed, who arranged the poem's
publication in the Virginia Gazette, Washington probably wanted to show his fellow
Virginians a former slave who was not only literate, but loyal to the American cause
-an astute tactic at a time when Virginia was wracked with fear of slave
insurrections, incited by Governor Dunmore's call in November 1775 for slaves to
come fight on the British side."