textfiles/etext/AUTHORS/JEFFERSON/jefferson-notes-258.txt

        NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA
        by Thomas Jefferson

        _ADVERTISEMENT_

        The following Notes were written in Virginia in the year 1781,
and somewhat corrected and enlarged in the winter of 1782, in answer
to Queries proposed to the Author, by a Foreigner of Distinction,
then residing among us.  The subjects are all treated imperfectly;
some scarcely touched on.  To apologize for this by developing the
circumstances of the time and place of their composition, would be to
open wounds which have already bled enough.  To these circumstances
some of their imperfections may with truth be ascribed; the great
mass to the want of information and want of talents in the writer.
He had a few copies printed, which he gave among his friends: and a
translation of them has been lately published in France, but with
such alterations as the laws of the press in that country rendered
necessary.  They are now offered to the public in their original form
and language.
         Feb. 27, 1787.

        QUERY I

         _An exact description of the limits and boundaries of the state of
Virginia?_

        Limits
        Virginia is bounded on the East by the Atlantic: on the North by a
line of latitude, crossing the Eastern Shore through Watkins's Point, being
about 37 degrees.57' North latitude; from thence by a streight line to
Cinquac, near the mouth of Patowmac; thence by the Patowmac, which is common
to Virginia and Maryland, to the first fountain of its northern branch;
thence by a meridian line, passing through that fountain till it intersects a
line running East and West, in latitude 39 degrees.43'.42.4" which divides
Maryland from Pennsylvania, and which was marked by Messrs. Mason and Dixon;
thence by that line, and a continuation of it westwardly to the completion of
five degrees of longitude from the eastern boundary of Pennsylvania, in the
same latitude, and thence by a meridian line to the Ohio: On the West by the
Ohio and Missisipi, to latitude 36 degrees.30'. North: and on the South by
the line of latitude last-mentioned.  By admeasurements through nearly the
whole of this last line, and supplying the unmeasured parts from good data,
the Atlantic and Missisipi, are found in this latitude to be 758 miles
distant, equal to 13 degrees.38'. of longitude, reckoning 55 miles and 3144
feet to the degree.  This being our comprehension of longitude, that of our
latitude, taken between this and Mason and Dixon's line, is 3
degrees.13'.42.4" equal to 223.3 miles, supposing a degree of a great circle
to be 69 m. 864 f. as computed by Cassini.  These boundaries include an area
somewhat triangular, of 121525 square miles, whereof 79650 lie westward of
the Allegany mountains, and 57034 westward of the meridian of the mouth of
the Great Kanhaway.  This state is therefore one third larger than the
islands of Great Britain and Ireland, which are reckoned at 88357 square
miles.

        These limits result from, 1. The antient charters from the
crown of England.  2. The grant of Maryland to the Lord Baltimore,
and the subsequent determinations of the British court as to the
extent of that grant.  3. The grant of Pennsylvania to William Penn,
and a compact between the general assemblies of the commonwealths of
Virginia and Pennsylvania as to the extent of that grant.  4. The
grant of Carolina, and actual location of its northern boundary, by
consent of both parties.  5. The treaty of Paris of 1763.  6. The
confirmation of the charters of the neighbouring states by the
convention of Virginia at the time of constituting their
commonwealth.  7. The cession made by Virginia to Congress of all the
lands to which they had title on the North side of the Ohio.

        QUERY II
 
        _A notice of its rivers, rivulets, and how far they are
navigable?_

        Rivers and Navigation
        An inspection of a map of Virginia, will give a better idea of
the geography of its rivers, than any description in writing.  Their
navigation may be imperfectly noted.

        _Roanoke_, so far as it lies within this state, is no where
navigable, but for canoes, or light batteaux; and, even for these, in
such detached parcels as to have prevented the inhabitants from
availing themselves of it at all.

        _James River_, and its waters, afford navigation as follows.

        The whole of _Elizabeth River_, the lowest of those which run
into James River, is a harbour, and would contain upwards of 300
ships.  The channel is from 150 to 200 fathom wide, and at common
flood tide, affords 18 feet water to Norfolk.  The Strafford, a 60
gun ship, went there, lightening herself to cross the bar at Sowell's
point.  The Fier Rodrigue, pierced for 64 guns, and carrying 50, went
there without lightening.  Craney island, at the mouth of this river,
commands its channel tolerably well.

        _Nansemond River_ is navigable to Sleepy hole, for vessels of
250 tons; to Suffolk, for those of 100 tons; and to Milner's, for
those of 25.

        _Pagan Creek_ affords 8 or 10 feet water to Smithfeild, which
admits vessels of 20 ton.

        _Chickahominy_ has at its mouth a bar, on which is only 12 feet
water at common flood tide.  Vessels passing that, may go 8 miles up
the river; those of 10 feet draught may go four miles further, and
those of six tons burthen, 20 miles further.

        _Appamattox_ may be navigated as far as Broadways, by any
vessel which has crossed Harrison's bar in James river; it keeps 8 or
9 feet water a mile or two higher up to Fisher's bar, and 4 feet on
that and upwards to Petersburgh, where all navigation ceases.

        _James River_ itself affords harbour for vessels of any size in
Hampton Road, but not in safety through the whole winter; and there
is navigable water for them as far as Mulberry island.  A 40 gun ship
goes to James town, and, lightening herself, may pass to Harrison's
bar, on which there is only 15 feet water.  Vessels of 250 tons may
go to Warwick; those of 125 go to Rocket's, a mile below Richmond;
from thence is about 7 feet water to Richmond; and about the center
of the town, four feet and a half, where the navigation is
interrupted by falls, which in a course of six miles, descend about
80 feet perpendicular: above these it is resumed in canoes and
batteaux, and is prosecuted safely and advantageously to within 10
miles of the Blue ridge; and even through the Blue ridge a ton weight
has been brought; and the expence would not be great, when compared
with its object, to open a tolerable navigation up Jackson's river
and Carpenter's creek, to within 25 miles of Howard's creek of Green
briar, both of which have then water enough to float vessels into the
Great Kanhaway.  In some future state of population, I think it
possible, that its navigation may also be made to interlock with that
of the Patowmac, and through that to communicate by a short portage
with the Ohio.  It is to be noted, that this river is called in the
maps _James River_, only to its confluence with the Rivanna; thence
to the Blue ridge it is called the Fluvanna; and thence to its
source, Jackson's river.  But in common speech, it is called James
river to its source.

        The _Rivanna_, a branch of James river, is navigable for canoes
and batteaux to its intersection with the South West mountains, which
is about 22 miles; and may easily be opened to navigation through
those mountains to its fork above Charlottesville.

        _York River_, at York town, affords the best harbour in the
state for vessels of the largest size.  The river there narrows to
the width of a mile, and is contained within very high banks, close
under which the vessels may ride.  It holds 4 fathom water at high
tide for 25 miles above York to the mouth of Poropotank, where the
river is a mile and a half wide, and the channel only 75 fathom, and
passing under a high bank.  At the confluence of _Pamunkey_ and
_Mattapony_, it is reduced to 3 fathom depth, which continues up
Pamunkey to Cumberland, where the width is 100 yards, and up
Mattapony to within two miles of Frazer's ferry, where it becomes 2
1/2 fathom deep, and holds that about five miles.  Pamunkey is then
capable of navigation for loaded flats to Brockman's bridge, 50 miles
above Hanover town, and Mattapony to Downer's bridge, 70 miles above
its mouth.

        _Piankatank_, the little rivers making out of _Mobjack bay_ and
those of the _Eastern shore_, receive only very small vessels, and
these can but enter them.

        _Rappahanock_ affords 4 fathom water to Hobb's hole, and 2
fathom from thence to Fredericksburg.

        _Patowmac_ is 7 1/2 miles wide at the mouth; 4 1/2 at Nomony
bay; 3 at Aquia; 1 1/2 at Hallooing point; 1 1/4 at Alexandria.  Its
soundings are, 7 fathom at the mouth; 5 at St. George's island; 4 1/2
at Lower Matchodic; 3 at Swan's point, and thence up to Alexandria;
thence 10 feet water to the falls, which are 13 miles above
Alexandria.  These falls are 15 miles in length, and of very great
descent, and the navigation above them for batteaux and canoes, is so
much interrupted as to be little used.  It is, however, used in a
small degree up the Cohongoronta branch as far as Fort Cumberland,
which was at the mouth of Wills's creek: and is capable, at no great
expence, of being rendered very practicable.  The Shenandoah branch
interlocks with James river about the Blue ridge, and may perhaps in
future be opened.

        The _Missisipi_ will be one of the principal channels of future
commerce for the country westward of the Alleghaney.  From the mouth
of this river to where it receives the Ohio, is 1000 miles by water,
but only 500 by land, passing through the Chickasaw country.  From
the mouth of the Ohio to that of the Missouri, is 230 miles by water,
and 140 by land.  From thence to the mouth of the Illinois river, is
about 25 miles.  The Missisipi, below the mouth of the Missouri, is
always muddy, and abounding with sand bars, which frequently change
their places.  However, it carries 15 feet water to the mouth of the
Ohio, to which place it is from one and a half to two miles wide, and
thence to Kaskaskia from one mile to a mile and a quarter wide.  Its
current is so rapid, that it never can be stemmed by the force of the
wind alone, acting on sails.  Any vessel, however, navigated with
oars, may come up at any time, and receive much aid from the wind.  A
batteau passes from the mouth of Ohio to the mouth of Missisipi in
three weeks, and is from two to three months getting up again.
During its floods, which are periodical as those of the Nile, the
largest vessels may pass down it, if their steerage can be ensured.
These floods begin in April, and the river returns into its banks
early in August.  The inundation extends further on the western than
eastern side, covering the lands in some places for 50 miles from its
banks.  Above the mouth of the Missouri, it becomes much such a river
as the Ohio, like it clear, and gentle in its current, not quite so
wide, the period of its floods nearly the same, but not rising to so
great a height.  The streets of the village at Cohoes are not more
than 10 feet above the ordinary level of the water, and yet were
never overflowed.  Its bed deepens every year.  Cohoes, in the memory
of many people now living, was insulated by every flood of the river.
What was the Eastern channel has now become a lake, 9 miles in length
and one in width, into which the river at this day never flows.  This
river yields turtle of a peculiar kind, perch, trout, gar, pike,
mullets, herrings, carp, spatula fish of 50 lb.  weight, cat fish of
an hundred pounds weight, buffalo fish, and sturgeon.  Alligators or
crocodiles have been seen as high up as the Acansas.  It also abounds
in herons, cranes, ducks, brant, geese, and swans.  Its passage is
commanded by a fort established by this state, five miles below the
mouth of Ohio, and ten miles above the Carolina boundary.

        The Missouri, since the treaty of Paris, the Illinois and
Northern branches of the Ohio since the cession to Congress, are no
longer within our limits.  Yet having been so heretofore, and still
opening to us channels of extensive communication with the western
and north-western country, they shall be noted in their order.

        The _Missouri_ is, in fact, the principal river, contributing
more to the common stream than does the Missisipi, even after its
junction with the Illinois.  It is remarkably cold, muddy and rapid.
Its overflowings are considerable.  They happen during the months of
June and July.  Their commencement being so much later than those of
the Missisipi, would induce a belief that the sources of the Missouri
are northward of those of the Missisipi, unless we suppose that the
cold increases again with the ascent of the land from the Missisipi
westwardly.  That this ascent is great, is proved by the rapidity of
the river.  Six miles above the mouth it is brought within the
compass of a quarter of a mile's width: yet the Spanish Merchants at
Pancore, or St. Louis, say they go two thousand miles up it.  It
heads far westward of the Rio Norte, or North River.  There is, in
the villages of Kaskaskia, Cohoes and St. Vincennes, no
inconsiderable quantity of plate, said to have been plundered during
the last war by the Indians from the churches and private houses of
Santa Fe, on the North River, and brought to these villages for sale.
From the mouth of Ohio to Santa Fe are forty days journey, or about
1000 miles.  What is the shortest distance between the navigable
waters of the Missouri, and those of the North River, or how far this
is navigable above Santa Fe, I could never learn.  From Santa Fe to
its mouth in the Gulph of Mexico is about 1200 miles.  The road from
New Orleans to Mexico crosses this river at the post of Rio Norte,
800 miles below Santa Fe: and from this post to New Orleans is about
1200 miles; thus making 2000 miles between Santa Fe and New Orleans,
passing down the North river, Red river and Missisipi; whereas it is
2230 through the Missouri and Missisipi.  From the same post of Rio
Norte, passing near the mines of La Sierra and Laiguana, which are
between the North river and the river Salina to Sartilla, is 375
miles; and from thence, passing the mines of Charcas, Zaccatecas and
Potosi, to the city of Mexico is 375 miles; in all, 1550 miles from
Santa Fe to the city of Mexico.  From New Orleans to the city of
Mexico is about 1950 miles: the roads, after setting out from the Red
river, near Natchitoches, keeping generally parallel with the coast,
and about two hundred miles from it, till it enters the city of
Mexico.

        The _Illinois_ is a fine river, clear, gentle, and without
rapids; insomuch that it is navigable for batteaux to its source.
From thence is a portage of two miles only to the Chickago, which
affords a batteau navigation of 16 miles to its entrance into lake
Michigan.  The Illinois, about 10 miles above its mouth, is 300 yards
wide.

        The _Kaskaskia_ is 100 yards wide at its entrance into the
Missisipi, and preserves that breadth to the Buffalo plains, 70 miles
above.  So far also it is navigable for loaded batteaux, and perhaps
much further.  It is not rapid.

        The _Ohio_ is the most beautiful river on earth.  Its current
gentle, waters clear, and bosom smooth and unbroken by rocks and
rapids, a single instance only excepted.

        It is 1/4 of a mile wide at Fort Pitt:
        500 yards at the mouth of the Great Kanhaway:
        1 mile and 25 poles at Louisville:
        1/4 of a mile on the rapids, three or four miles below
Louisville:
        1/2 a mile where the low country begins, which is 20 miles
above Green river:
        1 1/4 at the receipt of the Tanissee:
        And a mile wide at the mouth.

        Its length, as measured according to its meanders by Capt.
Hutchings, is as follows:
        From Fort Pitt
 
                              Miles.                            Miles.
      To Log's town           18 1/2      Little Miami          126 1/4
      Big Beaver creek        10 3/4      Licking creek           8
      Little Beaver cr.       13 1/2      Great Miami            26 3/4
      Yellow creek            11 3/4      Big Bones              32 1/2
      Two creeks              21 3/4      Kentuckey              44 1/4
      Long reach              53 3/4      Rapids                 77 1/4
      End Long reach          16 1/2      Low country           155 3/4
      Muskingum               25 1/2      Buffalo river          64 1/2
      Little Kanhaway         12 1/4      Wabash                 97 1/4
      Hockhocking             16          Big cave               42 3/4
      Great Kanhaway          82 1/2      Shawanee river         52 1/2
      Guiandot                43 3/4      Cherokee river         13
      Sandy creek             14 1/2      Massac                 11
      Sioto                   48 3/4      Missisipi              46
                                                                ____
                                                                1188

        In common winter and spring tides it affords 15 feet water to
Louisville, 10 feet to La Tarte's rapids, 40 miles above the mouth of
the great Kanhaway, and a sufficiency at all times for light batteaux
and canoes to Fort Pitt.  The rapids are in latitude 38 degrees.8'.  The
inundations of this river begin about the last of March, and subside
in July.  During these a first rate man of war may be carried from
Louisville to New Orleans, if the sudden turns of the river and the
strength of its current will admit a safe steerage.  The rapids at
Louisville descend about 30 feet in a length of a mile and a half.
The bed of the river there is a solid rock, and is divided by an
island into two branches, the southern of which is about 200 yards
wide, and is dry four months in the year.  The bed of the northern
branch is worn into channels by the constant course of the water, and
attrition of the pebble stones carried on with that, so as to be
passable for batteaux through the greater part of the year.  Yet it
is thought that the southern arm may be the most easily opened for
constant navigation.  The rise of the waters in these rapids does not
exceed 10 or 12 feet.  A part of this island is so high as to have
been never overflowed, and to command the settlement at Louisville,
which is opposite to it.  The fort, however, is situated at the head
of the falls.  The ground on the South side rises very gradually.

        The _Tanissee_, Cherokee or Hogohege river is 600 yards wide at
its mouth, 1/4 of a mile at the mouth of Holston, and 200 yards at
Chotee, which is 20 miles above Holston, and 300 miles above the
mouth of the Tanissee.  This river crosses the southern boundary of
Virginia, 58 miles from the Missisipi.  Its current is moderate.  It
is navigable for loaded boats of any burthen to the Muscleshoals,
where the river passes through the Cumberland mountain.  These shoals
are 6 or 8 miles long, passable downwards for loaded canoes, but not
upwards, unless there be a swell in the river.  Above these the
navigation for loaded canoes and batteaux continues to the Long
island.  This river has its inundations also.  Above the Chickamogga
towns is a whirlpool called the Sucking-pot, which takes in trunks of
trees or boats, and throws them out again half a mile below.  It is
avoided by keeping very close to the bank, on the South side.  There
are but a few miles portage between a branch of this river and the
navigable waters of the river Mobile, which runs into the gulph of
Mexico.

        _Cumberland_, or Shawanee river, intersects the boundary
between Virginia and North Carolina 67 miles from the Missisipi, and
again 198 miles from the same river, a little above the entrance of
Obey's river into the Cumberland.  Its clear fork crosses the same
boundary about 300 miles from the Missisipi.  Cumberland is a very
gentle stream, navigable for loaded batteaux 800 miles, without
interruption; then intervene some rapids of 15 miles in length, after
which it is again navigable 70 miles upwards, which brings you within
10 miles of the Cumberland mountains.  It is about 120 yards wide
through its whole course, from the head of its navigation to its
mouth.

        The _Wabash_ is a very beautiful river, 400 yards wide at the
mouth, and 300 at St. Vincennes, which is a post 100 miles above the
mouth, in a direct line.  Within this space there are two small
rapids, which give very little obstruction to the navigation.  It is
400 yards wide at the mouth, and navigable 30 leagues upwards for
canoes and small boats.  From the mouth of Maple river to that of Eel
river is about 80 miles in a direct line, the river continuing
navigable, and from one to two hundred yards in width.  The Eel river
is 150 yards wide, and affords at all times navigation for periaguas,
to within 18 miles of the Miami of the lake.  The Wabash, from the
mouth of Eel river to Little river, a distance of 50 miles direct, is
interrupted with frequent rapids and shoals, which obstruct the
navigation, except in a swell.  Little river affords navigation
during a swell to within 3 miles of the Miami, which thence affords a
similar navigation into lake Erie, 100 miles distant in a direct
line.  The Wabash overflows periodically in correspondence with the
Ohio, and in some places two leagues from its banks.

        _Green River_ is navigable for loaded batteaux at all times 50
miles upwards; but it is then interrupted by impassable rapids, above
which the navigation again commences, and continues good 30 or 40
miles to the mouth of Barren river.

        _Kentucky_ river is 90 yards wide at the mouth, and also at
Boonsborough, 80 miles above.  It affords a navigation for loaded
batteaux 180 miles in a direct line, in the winter tides.

        The _Great Miami_ of the Ohio, is 200 yards wide at the mouth.
At the Piccawee towns, 75 miles above, it is reduced to 30 yards; it
is, nevertheless, navigable for loaded canoes 50 miles above these
towns.  The portage from its western branch into the Miami of Lake
Erie, is 5 miles; that from its eastern branch into Sandusky river,
is of 9 miles.

        _Salt_ river is at all times navigable for loaded batteaux 70
or 80 miles.  It is 80 yards wide at its mouth, and keeps that width
to its fork, 25 miles above.

        The _Little Miami_ of the Ohio, is 60 or 70 yards wide at its
mouth, 60 miles to its source, and affords no navigation.

        The _Sioto_ is 250 yards wide at its mouth, which is in
latitude 38 degrees, 22'. and at the Saltlick towns, 200 miles above
the mouth, it is yet 100 yards wide.  To these towns it is navigable
for loaded batteaux, and its eastern branch affords navigation almost
to its source.

        _Great Sandy_ river is about sixty yards wide, and navigable
sixty miles for loaded batteaux.

        _Guiandot_ is about the width of the river last mentioned, but
is more rapid.  It may be navigated by canoes sixty miles.

        The _Great Kanhaway_ is a river of considerable note for the
fertility of its lands, and still more, as leading towards the
headwaters of James river.  Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether its
great and numerous rapids will admit a navigation, but at an expence
to which it will require ages to render its inhabitants equal.  The
great obstacles begin at what are called the great falls, 90 miles
above the mouth, below which are only five or six rapids, and these
passable, with some difficulty, even at low water.  From the falls to
the mouth of Greenbriar is 100 miles, and thence to the lead mines
120.  It is 280 yards wide at its mouth.

        _Hock-hocking_ is 80 yards wide at its mouth, and yields
navigation for loaded batteaux to the Press-place, 60 miles above its
mouth.

        The _Little Kanhaway_ is 150 yards wide at the mouth.  It
yields a navigation of 10 miles only.  Perhaps its northern branch,
called Junius's creek, which interlocks with the western of
Monongahela, may one day admit a shorter passage from the latter into
the Ohio.

        The _Muskingum_ is 280 yards wide at its mouth, and 200 yards
at the lower Indian towns, 150 miles upwards.  It is navigable for
small batteaux to within one mile of a navigable part of Cayahoga
river, which runs into lake Erie.

        At Fort Pitt the river Ohio loses its name, branching into the
Monongahela and Alleghaney.

        The _Monongahela_ is 400 yards wide at its mouth.  From thence
is 12 or 15 miles to the mouth of Yohoganey, where it is 300 yards
wide.  Thence to Redstone by water is 50 miles, by land 30.  Then to
the mouth of Cheat river by water 40 miles, by land 28, the width
continuing at 300 yards, and the navigation good for boats.  Thence
the width is about 200 yards to the western fork, 50 miles higher,
and the navigation frequently interrupted by rapids; which however
with a swell of two or three feet become very passable for boats.  It
then admits light boats, except in dry seasons, 65 miles further to
the head of Tygarts valley, presenting only some small rapids and
falls of one or two feet perpendicular, and lessening in its width to
20 yards.  The _Western fork_ is navigable in the winter 10 or 15
miles towards the northern of the Little Kanhaway, and will admit a
good waggon road to it.  The _Yohoganey_ is the principal branch of
this river.  It passes through the Laurel mountain, about 30 miles
from its mouth; is so far from 300 to 150 yards wide, and the
navigation much obstructed in dry weather by rapids and shoals.  In
its passage through the mountain it makes very great falls, admitting
no navigation for ten miles to the Turkey foot.  Thence to the great
crossing, about 20 miles, it is again navigable, except in dry
seasons, and at this place is 200 yards wide.  The sources of this
river are divided from those of the Patowmac by the Alleghaney
mountain.  From the falls, where it intersects the Laurel mountain,
to Fort Cumberland, the head of the navigation on the Patowmac, is 40
miles of very mountainous road.  Wills's creek, at the mouth of which
was Fort Cumberland, is 30 or 40 yards wide, but affords no
navigation as yet.  _Cheat_ river, another considerable branch of the
Monongahela, is 200 yards wide at its mouth, and 100 yards at the
Dunkard's settlement, 50 miles higher.  It is navigable for boats,
except in dry seasons.  The boundary between Virginia and
Pennsylvania crosses it about three or four miles above its mouth.

        The _Alleghaney_ river, with a slight swell, affords navigation
for light batteaux to Venango, at the mouth of French creek, where it
is 200 yards wide; and it is practised even to Le B;oeuf, from whence
there is a portage of 15 miles to Presque Isle on Lake Erie.

        The country watered by the Missisipi and its eastern branches,
constitutes five-eighths of the United States, two of which
five-eighths are occupied by the Ohio and its waters: the residuary
streams which run into the Gulph of Mexico, the Atlantic, and the St.
Laurence water, the remaining three-eighths.

        Before we quit the subject of the western waters, we will take
a view of their principal connections with the Atlantic.  These are
three; the Hudson's river, the Patowmac, and the Missisipi itself.
Down the last will pass all heavy commodities.  But the navigation
through the Gulph of Mexico is so dangerous, and that up the
Missisipi so difficult and tedious, that it is thought probable that
European merchandize will not return through that channel.  It is
most likely that flour, timber, and other heavy articles will be
floated on rafts, which will themselves be an article for sale as
well as their loading, the navigators returning by land or in light
batteaux.  There will therefore be a competition between the Hudson
and Patowmac rivers for the residue of the commerce of all the
country westward of Lake Erie, on the waters of the lakes, of the
Ohio, and upper parts of the Missisipi.  To go to New-York, that part
of the trade which comes from the lakes or their waters must first be
brought into Lake Erie.  Between Lake Superior and its waters and
Huron are the rapids of St. Mary, which will permit boats to pass,
but not larger vessels.  Lakes Huron and Michigan afford
communication with Lake Erie by vessels of 8 feet draught.  That part
of the trade which comes from the waters of the Missisipi must pass
from them through some portage into the waters of the lakes.  The
portage from the Illinois river into a water of Michigan is of one
mile only.  From the Wabash, Miami, Muskingum, or Alleghaney, are
portages into the waters of Lake Erie, of from one to fifteen miles.
When the commodities are brought into, and have passed through Lake
Erie, there is between that and Ontario an interruption by the falls
of Niagara, where the portage is of 8 miles; and between Ontario and
the Hudson's river are portages at the falls of Onondago, a little
above Oswego, of a quarter of a mile; from Wood creek to the Mohawks
river two miles; at the little falls of the Mohawks river half a
mile, and from Schenectady to Albany 16 miles.  Besides the increase
of expence occasioned by frequent change of carriage, there is an
increased risk of pillage produced by committing merchandize to a
greater number of hands successively.  The Patowmac offers itself
under the following circumstances.  For the trade of the lakes and
their waters westward of Lake Erie, when it shall have entered that
lake, it must coast along its southern shore, on account of the
number and excellence of its harbours, the northern, though shortest,
having few harbours, and these unsafe.  Having reached Cayahoga, to
proceed on to New-York it will have 825 miles and five portages:
whereas it is but 425 miles to Alexandria, its emporium on the
Patowmac, if it turns into the Cayahoga, and passes through that,
Bigbeaver, Ohio, Yohoganey, (or Monongalia and Cheat) and Patowmac,
and there are but two portages; the first of which between Cayahoga
and Beaver may be removed by uniting the sources of these waters,
which are lakes in the neighbourhood of each other, and in a
champaign country; the other from the waters of Ohio to Patowmac will
be from 15 to 40 miles, according to the trouble which shall be taken
to approach the two navigations.  For the trade of the Ohio, or that
which shall come into it from its own waters or the Missisipi, it is
nearer through the Patowmac to Alexandria than to New-York by 580
miles, and it is interrupted by one portage only.  There is another
circumstance of difference too.  The lakes themselves never freeze,
but the communications between them freeze, and the Hudson's river is
itself shut up by the ice three months in the year; whereas the
channel to the Chesapeak leads directly into a warmer climate.  The
southern parts of it very rarely freeze at all, and whenever the
northern do, it is so near the sources of the rivers, that the
frequent floods to which they are there liable break up the ice
immediately, so that vessels may pass through the whole winter,
subject only to accidental and short delays.  Add to all this, that
in case of a war with our neighbours the Anglo-Americans or the
Indians, the route to New-York becomes a frontier through almost its
whole length, and all commerce through it ceases from that moment. --
But the channel to New-York is already known to practice; whereas the
upper waters of the Ohio and the Patowmac, and the great falls of the
latter, are yet to be cleared of their fixed obstructions.

        QUERY III
 
        _A notice of the best sea-ports of the state, and how big are
the vessels they can receive?_

        Having no ports but our rivers and creeks, this Query has been
answered under the preceding one.

        QUERY IV
 
        _A notice of its_ Mountains?

        Mountains
        For the particular geography of our mountains I must refer to
Fry and Jefferson's map of Virginia; and to Evans's analysis of his
map of America for a more philosophical view of them than is to be
found in any other work.  It is worthy notice, that our mountains are
not solitary and scattered confusedly over the face of the country;
but that they commence at about 150 miles from the sea-coast, are
disposed in ridges one behind another, running nearly parallel with
the sea-coast, though rather approaching it as they advance
north-eastwardly.  To the south-west, as the tract of country between
the sea-coast and the Mississipi becomes narrower, the mountains
converge into a single ridge, which, as it approaches the Gulph of
Mexico, subsides into plain country, and gives rise to some of the
waters of that Gulph, and particularly to a river called the
Apalachicola, probably from the Apalachies, an Indian nation formerly
residing on it.  Hence the mountains giving rise to that river, and
seen from its various parts, were called the Apalachian mountains,
being in fact the end or termination only of the great ridges passing
through the continent.  European geographers however extended the
name northwardly as far as the mountains extended; some giving it,
after their separation into different ridges, to the Blue ridge,
others to the North mountain, others to the Alleghaney, others to the
Laurel ridge, as may be seen in their different maps.  But the fact I
believe is, that none of these ridges were ever known by that name to
the inhabitants, either native or emigrant, but as they saw them so
called in European maps.  In the same direction generally are the
veins of lime-stone, coal and other minerals hitherto discovered: and
so range the falls of our great rivers.  But the courses of the great
rivers are at right angles with these.  James and Patowmac penetrate
through all the ridges of mountains eastward of the Alleghaney; that
is broken by no watercourse.  It is in fact the spine of the country
between the Atlantic on one side, and the Missisipi and St. Laurence
on the other.  The passage of the Patowmac through the Blue ridge is
perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature.  You stand on a
very high point of land.  On your right comes up the Shenandoah,
having ranged along the foot of the mountain an hundred miles to seek
a vent.  On your left approaches the Patowmac, in quest of a passage
also.  In the moment of their junction they rush together against the
mountain, rend it asunder, and pass off to the sea.  The first glance
of this scene hurries our senses into the opinion, that this earth
has been created in time, that the mountains were formed first, that
the rivers began to flow afterwards, that in this place particularly
they have been dammed up by the Blue ridge of mountains, and have
formed an ocean which filled the whole valley; that continuing to
rise they have at length broken over at this spot, and have torn the
mountain down from its summit to its base.  The piles of rock on each
hand, but particularly on the Shenandoah, the evident marks of their
disrupture and avulsion from their beds by the most powerful agents
of nature, corroborate the impression.  But the distant finishing
which nature has given to the picture is of a very different
character.  It is a true contrast to the fore-ground.  It is as
placid and delightful, as that is wild and tremendous.  For the
mountain being cloven asunder, she presents to your eye, through the
cleft, a small catch of smooth blue horizon, at an infinite distance
in the plain country, inviting you, as it were, from the riot and
tumult roaring around, to pass through the breach and participate of
the calm below.  Here the eye ultimately composes itself; and that
way too the road happens actually to lead.  You cross the Patowmac
above the junction, pass along its side through the base of the
mountain for three miles, its terrible precipices hanging in
fragments over you, and within about 20 miles reach Frederic town and
the fine country round that.  This scene is worth a voyage across the
Atlantic.  Yet here, as in the neighbourhood of the natural bridge,
are people who have passed their lives within half a dozen miles, and
have never been to survey these monuments of a war between rivers and
mountains, which must have shaken the earth itself to its center. --
The height of our mountains has not yet been estimated with any
degree of exactness.  The Alleghaney being the great ridge which
divides the waters of the Atlantic from those of the Missisipi, its
summit is doubtless more elevated above the ocean than that of any
other mountain.  But its relative height, compared with the base on
which it stands, is not so great as that of some others, the country
rising behind the successive ridges like the steps of stairs.  The
mountains of the Blue ridge, and of these the Peaks of Otter, are
thought to be of a greater height, measured from their base, than any
others in our country, and perhaps in North America.  From data,
which may found a tolerable conjecture, we suppose the highest peak
to be about 4000 feet perpendicular, which is not a fifth part of the
height of the mountains of South America, nor one third of the height
which would be necessary in our latitude to preserve ice in the open
air unmelted through the year.  The ridge of mountains next beyond
the Blue ridge, called by us the North mountain, is of the greatest
extent; for which reason they were named by the Indians the Endless
mountains.

        A substance supposed to be Pumice, found floating on the
Missisipi, has induced a conjecture, that there is a volcano on some
of its waters: and as these are mostly known to their sources, except
the Missouri, our expectations of verifying the conjecture would of
course be led to the mountains which divide the waters of the Mexican
Gulph from those of the South Sea; but no volcano having ever yet
been known at such a distance from the sea, we must rather suppose
that this floating substance has been erroneously deemed Pumice.

        QUERY V
 
        _Its Cascades and Caverns?_

        Falling Spring
        The only remarkable Cascade in this country, is that of the
Falling Spring in Augusta.  It is a water of James river, where it is
called Jackson's river, rising in the warm spring mountains about
twenty miles South West of the warm spring, and flowing into that
valley.  About three quarters of a mile from its source, it falls
over a rock 200 feet into the valley below.  The sheet of water is
broken in its breadth by the rock in two or three places, but not at
all in its height.  Between the sheet and rock, at the bottom, you
may walk across dry.  This Cataract will bear no comparison with that
of Niagara, as to the quantity of water composing it; the sheet being
only 12 or 15 feet wide above, and somewhat more spread below; but it
is half as high again, the latter being only 156 feet, according to
the mensuration made by order of M. Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada,
and 130 according to a more recent account.

        Madison's cave
        In the lime-stone country, there are many caverns of very
considerable extent.  The most noted is called Madison's Cave, and is
on the North side of the Blue ridge, near the intersection of the
Rockingham and Augusta line with the South fork of the southern river
of Shenandoah.  It is in a hill of about 200 feet perpendicular
height, the ascent of which, on one side, is so steep, that you may
pitch a biscuit from its summit into the river which washes its base.
The entrance of the cave is, in this side, about two thirds of the
way up.  It extends into the earth about 300 feet, branching into
subordinate caverns, sometimes ascending a little, but more generally
descending, and at length terminates, in two different places, at
basons of water of unknown extent, and which I should judge to be
nearly on a level with the water of the river; however, I do not
think they are formed by refluent water from that, because they are
never turbid; because they do not rise and fall in correspondence
with that in times of flood, or of drought; and because the water is
always cool.  It is probably one of the many reservoirs with which
the interior parts of the earth are supposed to abound, An
Eye-draught of Madison's cave, on a scale of 50 feet to the inch.
The arrows shew where it descends or ascends. And which yield
supplies to the fountains of water, distinguished from others only by
its being accessible.  The vault of this cave is of solid lime-stone,
from 20 to 40 or 50 feet high, through which water is continually
percolating.  This, trickling down the sides of the cave, has
incrusted them over in the form of elegant drapery; and dripping from
the top of the vault generates on that, and on the base below,
stalactites of a conical form, some of which have met and formed
massive columns.

        Another of these caves is near the North mountain, in the
county of Frederick, on the lands of Mr. Zane.  The entrance into
this is on the top of an extensive ridge.  You descend 30 or 40 feet,
as into a well, from whence the cave then extends, nearly
horizontally, 400 feet into the earth, preserving a breadth of from
20 to 50 feet, and a height of from 5 to 12 feet.  After entering
this cave a few feet, the mercury, which in the open air was at 50 degrees.
rose to 57 degrees. of Farenheit's thermometer, answering to11 degrees. of
Reaumur's, and it continued at that to the remotest parts of the
cave.  The uniform temperature of the cellars of the observatory of
Paris, which are 90 feet deep, and of all subterranean cavities of
any depth, where no chymical agents may be supposed to produce a
factitious heat, has been found to be 10 degrees. of Reamur, equal to 54
1/2 degrees. of Farenheit.  The temperature of the cave above-mentioned so
nearly corresponds with this, that the difference may be ascribed to
a difference of instruments.

        Blowing cave
        At the Panther gap, in the ridge which divides the waters of
the Cow and the Calf pasture, is what is called the _Blowing cave._
It is in the side of a hill, is of about 100 feet diameter, and emits
constantly a current of air of such force, as to keep the weeds
prostrate to the distance of twenty yards before it.  This current is
strongest in dry frosty weather, and in long spells of rain weakest.
Regular inspirations and expirations of air, by caverns and fissures,
have been probably enough accounted for, by supposing them combined
with intermitting fountains; as they must of course inhale air while
their reservoirs are emptying themselves, and again emit it while
they are filling.  But a constant issue of air, only varying in its
force as the weather is drier or damper, will require a new
hypothesis.  There is another blowing cave in the Cumberland
mountain, about a mile from where it crosses the Carolina line.  All
we know of this is, that it is not constant, and that a fountain of
water issues from it.

        Natural bridge
        The _Natural bridge_, the most sublime of Nature's works,
though not comprehended under the present head, must not be
pretermitted.  It is on the ascent of a hill, which seems to have
been cloven through its length by some great convulsion.  The
fissure, just at the bridge, is, by some admeasurements, 270 feet
deep, by others only 205.  It is about 45 feet wide at the bottom,
and 90 feet at the top; this of course determines the length of the
bridge, and its height from the water.  Its breadth in the middle, is
about 60 feet, but more at the ends, and the thickness of the mass at
the summit of the arch, about 40 feet.  A part of this thickness is
constituted by a coat of earth, which gives growth to many large
trees.  The residue, with the hill on both sides, is one solid rock
of lime-stone.  The arch approaches the Semi-elliptical form; but the
larger axis of the ellipsis, which would be the cord of the arch, is
many times longer than the transverse.  Though the sides of this
bridge are provided in some parts with a parapet of fixed rocks, yet
few men have resolution to walk to them and look over into the abyss.
You involuntarily fall on your hands and feet, creep to the parapet
and peep over it.  Looking down from this height about a minute, gave
me a violent head ach.  If the view from the top be painful and
intolerable, that from below is delightful in an equal extreme.  It
is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime, to be felt
beyond what they are here: so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so
light, and springing as it were up to heaven, the rapture of the
spectator is really indescribable!  The fissure continuing narrow,
deep, and streight for a considerable distance above and below the
bridge, opens a short but very pleasing view of the North mountain on
one side, and Blue ridge on the other, at the distance each of them
of about five miles.  This bridge is in the county of Rock bridge, to
which it has given name, and affords a public and commodious passage
over a valley, which cannot be crossed elsewhere for a considerable
distance.  The stream passing under it is called Cedar creek.  It is
a water of James river, and sufficient in the driest seasons to turn
a grist-mill, though its fountain is not more than two miles above (*
1).

        (* 1) Don Ulloa mentions a break, similar to this, in the
province of Angaraez, in South America.  It is from 16 to 22 feet
wide, 111 feet deep, and of 1.3 miles continuance, English measures.
Its breadth at top is not sensibly greater than at bottom.  But the
following fact is remarkable, and will furnish some light for
conjecturing the probable origin of our natural bridge.  `Esta caxa,
6 cauce esta cortada en pena viva con tanta precision, que las
desigualdades del un lado entrantes, corresponden a las del otro lado
salientes, como si aquella altura se hubiese abierto expresamente,
con sus bueltas y tortuosidades, para darle transito a los aguas por
entre los dos murallones que la forman; siendo tal su igualdad, que
si llegasen a juntarse se endentarian uno con otro sin dexar hueco.'
Not. Amer. II.  10.  Don Ulloa inclines to the opinion, that this
channel has been affected by the wearing of the water which runs
through it, rather than that the mountain should have been broken
open by any convulsion of nature.  But if it had been worn by the
running of water, would not the rocks which form the sides, have been
worn plane? or if, meeting in some parts with veins of harder stone,
the water had left prominences on the one side, would not the same
cause have sometimes, or perhaps generally, occasioned prominences on
the other side also?  Yet Don Ulloa tells us, that on the other side
there are always corresponding cavities, and that these tally with
the prominences so perfectly, that, were the two sides to come
together, they would fit in all their indentures, without leaving any
void.  I think that this does not resemble the effect of running
water, but looks rather as if the two sides had parted asunder.  The
sides of the break, over which is the Natural bridge of Virginia,
consisting of a veiny rock which yields to time, the correspondence
between the salient and re-entering inequalities, if it existed at
all, has now disappeared.  This break has the advantage of the one
described by Don Ulloa in its finest circumstance; no portion in that
instance having held together, during the separation of the other
parts, so as to form a bridge over the Abyss.

        QUERY VI
 
        _A notice of the mines and other subterraneous riches; its
trees, plants, fruits, &c._

        1. Minerals
        Gold
        I knew a single instance of gold found in this state.  It was
interspersed in small specks through a lump of ore, of about four
pounds weight, which yielded seventeen pennyweight of gold, of
extraordinary ductility.  This ore was found on the North side of
Rappahanoc, about four miles below the falls.  I never heard of any
other indication of gold in its neighbourhood.

        Lead
        On the Great Kanhaway, opposite to the mouth of Cripple creek,
and about twenty-five miles from our southern boundary, in the county
of Montgomery, are mines of lead.  The metal is mixed, sometimes with
earth, and sometimes with rock, which requires the force of gunpowder
to open it; and is accompanied with a portion of silver, too small to
be worth separation under any process hitherto attempted there.  The
proportion yielded is from 50 to 80 lb. of pure metal from 100 lb. of
washed ore.  The most common is that of 60 to the 100 lb.  The veins
are at sometimes most flattering; at others they disappear suddenly
and totally.  They enter the side of the hill, and proceed
horizontally.  Two of them are wrought at present by the public, the
best of which is 100 yards under the hill.  These would employ about
50 labourers to advantage.  We have not, however, more than 30
generally, and these cultivate their own corn.  They have produced 60
tons of lead in the year; but the general quantity is from 20 to 25
tons.  The present furnace is a mile from the ore-bank, and on the
opposite side of the river.  The ore is first waggoned to the river,
a quarter of a mile, then laden on board of canoes and carried across
the river, which is there about 200 yards wide, and then again taken
into waggons and carried to the furnace.  This mode was originally
adopted, that they might avail themselves of a good situation on a
creek, for a pounding mill: but it would be easy to have the furnace
and pounding mill on the same side of the river, which would yield
water, without any dam, by a canal of about half a mile in length.
From the furnace the lead is transported 130 miles along a good road,
leading through the peaks of Otter to Lynch's ferry, or Winston's, on
James river, from whence it is carried by water about the same
distance to Westham.  This land carriage may be greatly shortened, by
delivering the lead on James river, above the blue ridge, from whence
a ton weight has been brought on two canoes.  The Great Kanhaway has
considerable falls in the neighbourhood of the mines.  About seven
miles below are three falls, of three or four feet perpendicular
each; and three miles above is a rapid of three miles continuance,
which has been compared in its descent to the great fall of James
river.  Yet it is the opinion, that they may be laid open for useful
navigation, so as to reduce very much the portage between the
Kanhaway and James river.

        A valuable lead mine is said to have been lately discovered in
Cumberland, below the mouth of Red river.  The greatest, however,
known in the western country, are on the Missisipi, extending from
the mouth of Rock river 150 miles upwards.  These are not wrought,
the lead used in that country being from the banks on the Spanish
side of the Missisipi, opposite to Kaskaskia.

        Copper
        A mine of copper was once opened in the county of Amherst, on
the North side of James river, and another in the opposite country,
on the South side.  However, either from bad management or the
poverty of the veins, they were discontinued.  We are told of a rich
mine of native copper on the Ouabache, below the upper Wiaw.

        Iron
        The mines of iron worked at present are Callaway's, Ross's, and
Ballendine's, on the South side of James river; Old's on the North
side, in Albemarle; Miller's in Augusta, and Zane's in Frederic.
These two last are in the valley between the Blue ridge and North
mountain.  Callaway's, Ross's, Millar's, and Zane's, make about 150
tons of bar iron each, in the year.  Ross's makes also about 1600
tons of pig iron annually; Ballendine's 1000; Callaway's, Millar's,
and Zane's, about 600 each.  Besides these, a forge of Mr.  Hunter's,
at Fredericksburgh, makes about 300 tons a year of bar iron, from
pigs imported from Maryland; and Taylor's forge on Neapsco of
Patowmac, works in the same way, but to what extent I am not
informed.  The indications of iron in other places are numerous, and
dispersed through all the middle country.  The toughness of the cast
iron of Ross's and Zane's furnaces is very remarkable.  Pots and
other utensils, cast thinner than usual, of this iron, may be safely
thrown into, or out of the waggons in which they are transported.
Salt-pans made of the same, and no longer wanted for that purpose,
cannot be broken up, in order to be melted again, unless previously
drilled in many parts.

        In the western country, we are told of iron mines between the
Muskingum and Ohio; of others on Kentucky, between the Cumberland and
Barren rivers, between Cumberland and Tannissee, on Reedy creek, near
the Long island, and on Chesnut creek, a branch of the Great
Kanhaway, near where it crosses the Carolina line.  What are called
the iron banks, on the Missisipi, are believed, by a good judge, to
have no iron in them.  In general, from what is hitherto known of
that country, it seems to want iron.

        Black lead
        Considerable quantities of black lead are taken occasionally
for use from Winterham, in the county of Amelia.  I am not able,
however, to give a particular state of the mine.  There is no work
established at it, those who want, going and procuring it for
themselves.

        Pit coal
        The country on James river, from 15 to 20 miles above Richmond,
and for several miles northward and southward, is replete with
mineral coal of a very excellent quality.  Being in the hands of many
proprietors, pits have been opened, and before the interruption of
our commerce were worked to an extent equal to the demand.

        In the western country coal is known to be in so many places,
as to have induced an opinion, that the whole tract between the
Laurel mountain, Missisipi, and Ohio, yields coal.  It is also known
in many places on the North side of the Ohio.  The coal at Pittsburg
is of very superior quality.  A bed of it at that place has been
a-fire since the year 1765.  Another coal-hill on the Pike-run of
Monongahela has been a-fire ten years; yet it has burnt away about
twenty yards only.

        Precious stones
        I have known one instance of an Emerald found in this country.
Amethysts have been frequent, and chrystals common; yet not in such
numbers any of them as to be worth seeking.

        There is very good marble, and in very great abundance, on
James river, at the mouth of Rockfish.  The samples

        Marble
        I have seen, were some of them of a white as pure as one might
expect to find on the surface of the earth: but most of them were
variegated with red, blue, and purple.  None of it has been ever
worked.  It forms a very large precipice, which hangs over a
navigable part of the river.  It is said there is marble at Kentucky.

        Limestone
        But one vein of lime-stone is known below the Blue ridge.  Its first
appearance, in our country, is in Prince William, two miles below the Pignut
ridge of mountains; thence it passes on nearly parallel with that, and
crosses the Rivanna about five miles below it, where it is called the
South-west ridge.  It then crosses Hardware, above the mouth of Hudson's
creek, James river at the mouth of Rockfish, at the marble quarry before
spoken of, probably runs up that river to where it appears again at Ross's
iron-works, and so passes off south-westwardly by Flat creek of Otter river.
It is never more than one hundred yards wide.  From the Blue ridge westwardly
the whole country seems to be founded on a rock of lime-stone, besides
infinite quantities on the surface, both loose and fixed.  This is cut into
beds, which range, as the mountains and sea-coast do, from south-west to
north-east, the lamina of each bed declining from the horizon towards a
parallelism with the axis of the earth.  Being struck with this observation,
I made, with a quadrant, a great number of trials on the angles of their
declination, and found them to vary from 22 degrees to 60 degrees but
averaging all my trials, the result was within one-third of a degree of the
elevation of the pole or latitude of the place, and much the greatest part of
them taken separately were little different from that: by which it appears,
that these lamina are, in the main, parallel with the axis of the earth.  In
some instances, indeed, I found them perpendicular, and even reclining the
other way: but these were extremely rare, and always attended with signs of
convulsion, or other circumstances of singularity, which admitted a
possibility of removal from their original position.  These trials were made
between Madison's cave and the Patowmac.  We hear of lime-stone on the
Missisipi and Ohio, and in all the mountainous country between the eastern
and western waters, not on the mountains themselves, but occupying the
vallies between them.

 
        Near the eastern foot of the North mountain are immense bodies
of _Schist_, containing impressions of shells in a variety of forms.
I have received petrified shells of very different kinds from the
first sources of the Kentucky, which bear no resemblance to any I
have ever seen on the tide-waters.  It is said that shells are found
in the Andes, in South-America, fifteen thousand feet above the level
of the ocean.  This is considered by many, both of the learned and
unlearned, as a proof of an universal deluge.  To the many
considerations opposing this opinion, the following may be added.
The atmosphere, and all its contents, whether of water, air, or other
matters, gravitate to the earth; that is to say, they have weight.
Experience tells us, that the weight of all these together never
exceeds that of a column of mercury of 31 inches height, which is
equal to one of rain-water of 35 feet high.  If the whole contents of
the atmosphere then were water, instead of what they are, it would
cover the globe but 35 feet deep; but as these waters, as they fell,
would run into the seas, the superficial measure of which is to that
of the dry parts of the globe as two to one, the seas would be raised
only 52 1/2 feet above their present level, and of course would
overflow the lands to that height only.  In Virginia this would be a
very small proportion even of the champaign country, the banks of our
tide-waters being frequently, if not generally, of a greater height.
Deluges beyond this extent then, as for instance, to the North
mountain or to Kentucky, seem out of the laws of nature.  But within
it they may have taken place to a greater or less degree, in
proportion to the combination of natural causes which may be supposed
to have produced them.  History renders probable some instances of a
partial deluge in the country lying round the Mediterranean sea.  It
has been often (* 1) supposed, and is not unlikely, that that sea was
once a lake.  While such, let us admit an extraordinary collection of
the waters of the atmosphere from the other parts of the globe to
have been discharged over that and the countries whose waters run
into it.  Or without supposing it a lake, admit such an extraordinary
collection of the waters of the atmosphere, and an influx of waters
from the Atlantic ocean, forced by long continued Western winds.
That lake, or that sea, may thus have been so raised as to overflow
the low lands adjacent to it, as those of Egypt and Armenia, which,
according to a tradition of the Egyptians and Hebrews, were
overflowed about 2300 years before the Christian aera; those of
Attica, said to have been overflowed in the time of Ogyges, about 500
years later; and those of Thessaly, in the time of Deucalion, still
300 years posterior.  But such deluges as these will not account for
the shells found in the higher lands.  A second opinion has been
entertained, which is, that, in times anterior to the records either
of history or tradition, the bed of the ocean, the principal
residence of the shelled tribe, has, by some great convulsion of
nature, been heaved to the heights at which we now find shells and
other remains of marine animals.  The favourers of this opinion do
well to suppose the great events on which it rests to have taken
place beyond all the aeras of history; for within these, certainly
none such are to be found: and we may venture to say further, that no
fact has taken place, either in our own days, or in the thousands of
years recorded in history, which proves the existence of any natural
agents, within or without the bowels of the earth, of force
sufficient to heave, to the height of 15,000 feet, such masses as the
Andes.  The difference between the power necessary to produce such an
effect, and that which shuffled together the different parts of
Calabria in our days, is so immense, that, from the existence of the
latter we are not authorised to infer that of the former.

        M. de Voltaire has suggested a third solution of this
difficulty (Quest. encycl. Coquilles).  He cites an instance in
Touraine, where, in the space of 80 years, a particular spot of earth
had been twice metamorphosed into soft stone, which had become hard
when employed in building.  In this stone shells of various kinds
were produced, discoverable at first only with the microscope, but
afterwards growing with the stone.  From this fact, I suppose, he
would have us infer, that, besides the usual process for generating
shells by the elaboration of earth and water in animal vessels,
nature may have provided an equivalent operation, by passing the same
materials through the pores of calcareous earths and stones: as we
see calcareous dropstones generating every day by the percolation of
water through lime-stone, and new marble forming in the quarries from
which the old has been taken out; and it might be asked, whether it
is more difficult for nature to shoot the calcareous juice into the
form of a shell, than other juices into the forms of chrystals,
plants, animals, according to the construction of the vessels through
which they pass?  There is a wonder somewhere.  Is it greatest on
this branch of the dilemma; on that which supposes the existence of a
power, of which we have no evidence in any other case; or on the
first, which requires us to believe the creation of a body of water,
and its subsequent annihilation?  The establishment of the instance,
cited by M. de Voltaire, of the growth of shells unattached to animal
bodies, would have been that of his theory.  But he has not
established it.  He has not even left it on ground so respectable as
to have rendered it an object of enquiry to the literati of his own
country.  Abandoning this fact, therefore, the three hypotheses are
equally unsatisfactory; and we must be contented to acknowledge, that
this great phaenomenon is as yet unsolved.  Ignorance is preferable
to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing,
then he who believes what is wrong.

        Stone
        There is great abundance (more especially when you approach the
mountains) of stone, white, blue, brown, &c. fit for the chissel,
good mill-stone, such also as stands the fire, and slate-stone.  We
are told of flint, fit for gun-flints, on the Meherrin in Brunswic,
on the Missisipi between the mouth of Ohio and Kaskaskia, and on
others of the western waters.  Isinglass or mica is in several
places; load-stone also, and an Asbestos of a ligneous texture, is
sometimes to be met with.

        Earths
        Marle abounds generally.  A clay, of which, like the Sturbridge
in England, bricks are made, which will resist long the violent
action of fire, has been found on Tuckahoe creek of James river, and
no doubt will be found in other places.  Chalk is said to be in
Botetourt and Bedford.  In the latter county is some earth, believed
to be Gypseous.  Ochres are found in various parts.

 
        Nitre
        In the lime-stone country are many caves, the earthy floors of
which are impregnated with nitre.  On Rich creek, a branch of the
Great Kanhaway, about 60 miles below the lead mines, is a very large
one, about 20 yards wide, and entering a hill a quarter or half a
mile.  The vault is of rock, from 9 to 15 or 20 feet above the floor.
A Mr. Lynch, who gives me this account, undertook to extract the
nitre.  Besides a coat of the salt which had formed on the vault and
floor, he found the earth highly impregnated to the depth of seven
feet in some places, and generally of three, every bushel yielding on
an average three pounds of nitre.  Mr. Lynch having made about 1000
lb. of the salt from it, consigned it to some others, who have since
made 10,000 lb.  They have done this by pursuing the cave into the
hill, never trying a second time the earth they have once exhausted,
to see how far or soon it receives another impregnation.  At least
fifty of these caves are worked on the Greenbriar.  There are many of
them known on Cumberland river.

        Salt
        The country westward of the Alleghaney abounds with springs of
common salt.  The most remarkable we have heard of are at Bullet's
lick, the Big bones, the Blue licks, and on the North fork of
Holston.  The area of Bullet's lick is of many acres.  Digging the
earth to the depth of three feet, the water begins to boil up, and
the deeper you go, and the drier the weather, the stronger is the
brine.  A thousand gallons of water yield from a bushel to a bushel
and a half of salt, which is about 80 lb. of water to one lb. of
salt; but of sea-water 25 lb. yield one lb. of salt.  So that
sea-water is more than three times as strong as that of these
springs.  A salt spring has been lately discovered at the Turkey foot
on Yohogany, by which river it is overflowed, except at very low
water.  Its merit is not yet known.  Duning's lick is also as yet
untried, but it is supposed to be the best on this side the Ohio.
The salt springs on the margin of the Onondago lake are said to give
a saline taste to the waters of the lake.

        Medicinal springs
        There are several Medicinal springs, some of which are
indubitably efficacious, while others seem to owe their reputation as
much to fancy, and change of air and regimen, as to their real
virtues.  None of them having undergone a chemical analysis in
skilful hands, nor been so far the subject of observations as to have
produced a reduction into classes of the disorders which they
relieve, it is in my power to give little more than an enumeration of
them.

        The most efficacious of these are two springs in Augusta, near
the first sources of James river, where it is called Jackson's river.
They rise near the foot of the ridge of mountains, generally called
the Warm spring mountain, but in the maps Jackson's mountains.  The
one is distinguished by the name of the Warm spring, and the other of
the Hot spring.  The Warm spring issues with a very bold stream,
sufficient to work a grist-mill, and to keep the waters of its bason,
which is 30 feet in diameter, at the vital warmth, viz. 96 degrees of
Farenheit's thermometer.  The matter with which these waters is
allied is very volatile; its smell indicates it to be sulphureous, as
also does the circumstance of its turning silver black.  They relieve
rheumatisms.  Other complaints also of very different natures have
been removed or lessened by them.  It rains here four or five days in
every week.

        The _Hot spring_ is about six miles from the Warm, is much
smaller, and has been so hot as to have boiled an egg.  Some believe
its degree of heat to be lessened.  It raises the mercury in
Farenheit's thermometer to 112 degrees, which is fever heat.  It
sometimes relieves where the Warm spring fails.  A fountain of common
water, issuing within a few inches of its margin, gives it a singular
appearance.  Comparing the temperature of these with that of the Hot
springs of Kamschatka, of which Krachininnikow gives an account, the
difference is very great, the latter raising the mercury to 200 degrees
which is within 12 degrees of boiling water.  These springs are very much
resorted to in spite of a total want of accommodation for the sick.
Their waters are strongest in the hottest months, which occasions
their being visited in July and August principally.

        The Sweet springs are in the county of Botetourt, at the
eastern foot of the Alleghaney, about 42 miles from the Warm springs.
They are still less known.  Having been found to relieve cases in
which the others had been ineffectually tried, it is probable their
composition is different.  They are different also in their
temperature, being as cold as common water: which is not mentioned,
however, as a proof of a distinct impregnation.  This is among the
first sources of James river.

 
        On Patowmac river, in Berkeley county, above the North
mountain, are Medicinal springs, much more frequented than those of
Augusta.  Their powers, however, are less, the waters weakly
mineralized, and scarcely warm.  They are more visited, because
situated in a fertile, plentiful, and populous country, better
provided with accommodations, always safe from the Indians, and
nearest to the more populous states.

        In Louisa county, on the head waters of the South Anna branch
of York river, are springs of some medicinal virtue.  They are not
much used however.  There is a weak chalybeate at Richmond; and many
others in various parts of the country, which are of too little
worth, or too little note, to be enumerated after those
before-mentioned.

        We are told of a Sulphur spring on Howard's creek of
Greenbriar, and another at Boonsborough on Kentuckey.

        Burning spring
        In the low grounds of the Great Kanhaway, 7 miles above the
mouth of Elk river, and 67 above that of the Kanhaway itself, is a
hole in the earth of the capacity of 30 or 40 gallons, from which
issues constantly a bituminous vapour in so strong a current, as to
give to the sand about its orifice the motion which it has in a
boiling spring.  On presenting a lighted candle or torch within 18
inches of the hole, it flames up in a column of 18 inches diameter,
and four or five feet height, which sometimes burns out within 20
minutes, and at other times has been known to continue three days,
and then has been left still burning.  The flame is unsteady, of the
density of that of burning spirits, and smells like burning pit coal.
Water sometimes collects in the bason, which is remarkably cold, and
is kept in ebullition by the vapour issuing through it.  If the
vapour be fired in that state, the water soon becomes so warm that
the hand cannot bear it, and evaporates wholly in a short time.
This, with the circumjacent lands, is the property of his Excellency
General Washington and of General Lewis.

        There is a similar one on Sandy river, the flame of which is a
column of about 12 inches diameter, and 3 feet high.  General Clarke,
who informs me of it, kindled the vapour, staid about an hour, and
left it burning.

        Syphon fountains
        The mention of uncommon springs leads me to that of Syphon
fountains.  There is one of these near the intersection of the Lord
Fairfax's boundary with the North mountain, not far from Brock's gap,
on the stream of which is a grist-mill, which grinds two bushel of
grain at every flood of the spring.  Another, near the Cow-pasture
river, a mile and a half below its confluence with the Bull-pasture
river, and 16 or 17 miles from the Hot springs, which intermits once
in every twelve hours.  One also near the mouth of the North Holston.

        After these may be mentioned the _Natural Well_, on the lands
of a Mr. Lewis in Frederick county.  It is somewhat larger than a
common well: the water rises in it as near the surface of the earth
as in the neighbouring artificial wells, and is of a depth as yet
unknown.  It is said there is a current in it tending sensibly
downwards.  If this be true, it probably feeds some fountain, of
which it is the natural reservoir, distinguished from others, like
that of Madison's cave, by being accessible.  It is used with a
bucket and windlass as an ordinary well.

        Vegetables
        A complete catalogue of the trees, plants, fruits, &c. is
probably not desired.  I will sketch out those which would
principally attract notice, as being 1. Medicinal, 2. Esculent, 3.
Ornamental, or 4. Useful for fabrication; adding the Linnaean to the
popular names, as the latter might not convey precise information to
a foreigner.  I shall confine myself too to native plants.

        1. Senna.  Cassia ligustrina.
        Arsmart.  Polygonum Sagittatum.
        Clivers, or goose-grass.  Galium spurium.
        Lobelia of several species.
        Palma Christi.  Ricinus.
        James-town weed.  Datura Stramonium.
        Mallow.  Malva rotundifolia.
        Syrian mallow.  Hibiscus moschentos.
                            Hibiscus virginicus.
        Indian mallow.  Sida rhombifolia.
                      Sida abutilon.
        Virginia Marshmallow.  Napaea hermaphrodita.
                             Napaea dioica.
        Indian physic.  Spiraea trifoliata.
        Euphorbia Ipecacuanhae.
        Pleurisy root.  Asclepias decumbens.
        Virginia snake-root.  Aristolochia serpentaria.
        Black snake-root.  Actaea racemosa.
        Seneca rattlesnake-root.  Polygala Senega.
        Valerian.  Valeriana locusta radiata.
        Gentiana, Saponaria, Villosa & Centaurium.
        Ginseng.  Panax quinquefolium.
        Angelica.  Angelica sylvestris.
        Cassava.  Jatropha urens.

        2. Tuckahoe.  Lycoperdon tuber.
        Jerusalem artichoke.  Helianthus tuberosus.
        Long potatoes.  Convolvulas batatas.
        Granadillas. Maycocks. Maracocks. Passiflora incarnata.
        Panic.  Panicum of many species.
        Indian millet.  Holcus laxus.
                      Holcus striosus.
        Wild oat.  Zizania aquatica.
        Wild pea.  Dolichos of Clayton.
        Lupine.  Lupinus perennis.
        Wild hop.  Humulus lupulus.
        Wild cherry.  Prunus Virginiana.
        Cherokee plumb.  Prunus sylvestris fructu majori. }
        Wild plumb.  Prunus sylvestris fructu minori.  } Clayton.
        Wild crab-apple.  Pyrus coronaria.
        Red mulberry.  Morus rubra.
        Persimmon.  Diospyros Virginiana.
        Sugar maple.  Acer saccharinum.
        Scaly bark hiccory.  Juglans alba cortice squamoso.
        Clayton.
        Common hiccory.  Juglans alba, fructu minore rancido.
        Clayton.
        Paccan, or Illinois nut. Not described by Linnaeus, Millar, or
Clayton.  Were I to venture to describe this, speaking of the fruit
from memory, and of the leaf from plants of two years growth, I
should specify it as the Juglans alba,foliolis lanceolatis,
acuminatis, serratis, tomentosis, fructu minore, ovato, compresso,
vix insculpto, dulci, putamine, tenerrimo.  It grows on the Illinois,
Wabash, Ohio, and Missisipi.  It is spoken of by Don Ulloa under the
name of Pacanos, in his Noticias Americanas. Entret. 6.
        Black walnut.  Juglans nigra.
        White walnut.  Juglans alba.
        Chesnut.  Fagus castanea.
        Chinquapin.  Fagus pumila.
        Hazlenut.  Corylus avellana.
        Grapes.  Vitis. Various kinds, though only three described by
Clayton.
        Scarlet Strawberries.  Fragaria Virginiana of Millar.
        Whortleberries.  Vaccinium uliginosum?
        Wild gooseberries.  Ribes grossularia.
        Cranberries.  Vaccinium oxycoccos.
        Black raspberries.  Rubus occidentalis.
        Blackberries.  Rubus fruticosus.
        Dewberries.  Rubus caesius.
        Cloud-berries.  Rubus chamaemorus.

        3. Plane-tree.  Platanus occidentalis.
        Poplar.  Liriodendron tulipifera.
                   Populus heterophylla.
        Black poplar.  Populus nigra.
        Aspen.  Populus tremula.
        Linden, or lime.  Tilia Americana.
        Red flowering maple.  Acer rubrum.
        Horse-chesnut, or Buck's-eye.  Aesculus pavia.
        Catalpa.  Bignonia catalpa.
        Umbrella.  Magnolia tripetala.
        Swamp laurel.  Magnolia glauca.
        Cucumber-tree.  Magnolia acuminata.
        Portugal bay.  Laurus indica.
        Red bay.  Laurus borbonia.
        Dwarf-rose bay.  Rhododendron maximum.
        Laurel of the western country.  Qu. species?
        Wild pimento.  Laurus benzoin.
        Sassafras.  Laurus sassafras.
        Locust.  Robinia pseudo-acacia.
        Honey-locust.  Gleditsia. 1. Beta.
        Dogwood.  Cornus florida.
        Fringe or snow-drop tree. Chionanthus Virginica.
        Barberry.  Berberis vulgaris.
        Redbud, or Judas-tree.  Cercis Canadensis.
        Holly.  Ilex aquifolium.
        Cockspur hawthorn.  Crataegus coccinea.
        Spindle-tree.  Euonymus Europaeus.
        Evergreen spindle-tree.  Euonymus Americanus.
        Itea Virginica.
        Elder.  Sambucus nigra.
        Papaw.  Annona triloba.
        Candleberry myrtle.  Myrica cerifera.
        Dwarf-laurel.  Kalmia angustifolia.} called ivy
                           Kalmia latifolia } with us.
        Ivy.  Hedera quinquefolia.
        Trumpet honeysuckle.  Lonicera sempervirens.
        Upright honeysuckle.  Azalea nudiflora.
        Yellow jasmine.  Bignonia sempervirens.
        Calycanthus floridus.
        American aloe.  Agave Virginica.
        Sumach.  Rhus.  Qu. species?
        Poke.  Phytolacca decandra.
        Long moss.  Tillandsia Usneoides.

        4. Reed.  Arundo phragmitis.
        Virginia hemp.  Acnida cannabina.
        Flax.  Linum Virginianum.
        Black, or pitch-pine.  Pinus taeda.
        White pine.  Pinus strobus.
        Yellow pine.  Pinus Virginica.
        Spruce pine.  Pinus foliis singularibus.  Clayton.
        Hemlock spruce fir.  Pinus Canadensis.
        Abor vitae.  Thuya occidentalis.
        Juniper.  Juniperus virginica (called cedar with us).
        Cypress.  Cupressus disticha.
        White cedar.  Cupressus Thyoides.
        Black oak.  Quercus nigra.
        White oak.  Quercus alba.
        Red oak.  Quercus rubra.
        Willow oak.  Quercus phellos.
        Chesnut oak.  Quercus prinus.
        Black jack oak.  Quercus aquatica.  Clayton.  Query?
        Ground oak.  Quercus pumila.  Clayton.
        Live oak.  Quercus Virginiana.  Millar.
        Black Birch.  Betula nigra.
        White birch.  Betula alba.
        Beach.  Fagus sylvatica.
        Ash.  Fraxinus Americana.
              Fraxinus Novae Angliae.  Millar.
        Elm.  Ulmus Americana.
        Willow.  Salix.  Query species?
        Sweet Gum.  Liquidambar styraciflua.

        The following were found in Virginia when first visited by the
English; but it is not said whether of spontaneous growth, or by
cultivation only.  Most probably they were natives of more southern
climates, and handed along the continent from one nation to another
of the savages.

        Tobacco.  Nicotiana.
        Maize.  Zea mays.
        Round potatoes.  Solanum tuberosum.
        Pumpkins.  Cucurbita pepo.
        Cymlings.  Cucurbita verrucosa.
        Squashes.  Cucurbita melopepo.

        There is an infinitude of other plants and flowers, for an
enumeration and scientific description of which I must refer to the
Flora Virginica of our great botanist Dr. Clayton, published by
Gronovius at Leyden, in 1762.  This accurate observer was a native
and resident of this state, passed a long life in exploring and
describing its plants, and is supposed to have enlarged the botanical
catalogue as much as almost any man who has lived.

        Besides these plants, which are native, our _Farms_ produce
wheat, rye, barley, oats, buck wheat, broom corn, and Indian corn.
The climate suits rice well enough wherever the lands do.  Tobacco,
hemp, flax, and cotton, are staple commodities.  Indico yields two
cuttings.  The silk-worm is a native, and the mulberry, proper for
its food, grows kindly.

        We cultivate also potatoes, both the long and the round,
turnips, carrots, parsneps, pumpkins, and ground nuts (Arachis.) Our
grasses are Lucerne, St. Foin, Burnet, Timothy, ray and orchard
grass; red, white, and yellow clover; greenswerd, blue grass, and
crab grass.

        The _gardens_ yield musk melons, water melons, tomatas, okra,
pomegranates, figs, and the esculent plants of Europe.

        The _orchards_ produce apples, pears, cherries, quinces,
peaches, nectarines, apricots, almonds, and plumbs.

        Animals
        Our quadrupeds have been mostly described by Linnaeus and Mons.
de Buffon.  Of these the Mammoth, or big buffalo, as called by the
Indians, must certainly have been the largest.  Their tradition is,
that he was carnivorous, and still exists in the northern parts of
America.  A delegation of warriors from the Delaware tribe having
visited the governor of Virginia, during the present revolution, on
matters of business, after these had been discussed and settled in
council, the governor asked them some questions relative to their
country, and, among others, what they knew or had heard of the animal
whose bones were found at the Saltlicks, on the Ohio.  Their chief
speaker immediately put himself into an attitude of oratory, and with
a pomp suited to what he conceived the elevation of his subject,
informed him that it was a tradition handed down from their fathers,
`That in antient times a herd of these tremendous animals came to the
Big-bone licks, and began an universal destruction of the bear, deer,
elks, buffaloes, and other animals, which had been created for the
use of the Indians: that the Great Man above, looking down and seeing
this, was so enraged that he seized his lightning, descended on the
earth, seated himself on a neighbouring mountain, on a rock, of which
his seat and the print of his feet are still to be seen, and hurled
his bolts among them till the whole were slaughtered, except the big
bull, who presenting his forehead to the shafts, shook them off as
they fell; but missing one at length, it wounded him in the side;
whereon, springing round, he bounded over the Ohio, over the Wabash,
the Illinois, and finally over the great lakes, where he is living at
this day.' It is well known that on the Ohio, and in many parts of
America further north, tusks, grinders, and skeletons of unparalleled
magnitude, are found in great numbers, some lying on the surface of
the earth, and some a little below it.  A Mr. Stanley, taken prisoner
by the Indians near the mouth of the Tanissee, relates, that, after
being transferred through several tribes, from one to another, he was
at length carried over the mountains west of the Missouri to a river
which runs westwardly; that these bones abounded there; and that the
natives described to him the animal to which they belonged as still
existing in the northern parts of their country; from which
description he judged it to be an elephant.  Bones of the same kind
have been lately found, some feet below the surface of the earth, in
salines opened on the North Holston, a branch of the Tanissee, about
the latitude of 36 1/2 degrees North.  From the accounts published in
Europe, I suppose it to be decided, that these are of the same kind
with those found in Siberia.  Instances are mentioned of like animal
remains found in the more southern climates of both hemispheres; but
they are either so loosely mentioned as to leave a doubt of the fact,
so inaccurately described as not to authorize the classing them with
the great northern bones, or so rare as to found a suspicion that
they have been carried thither as curiosities from more northern
regions.  So that on the whole there seem to be no certain vestiges
of the existence of this animal further south than the salines last
mentioned.  It is remarkable that the tusks and skeletons have been
ascribed by the naturalists of Europe to the elephant, while the
grinders have been given to the hippopotamus, or river-horse.  Yet it
is acknowledged, that the tusks and skeletons are much larger than
those of the elephant, and the grinders many times greater than those
of the hippopotamus, and essentially different in form.  Wherever
these grinders are found, there also we find the tusks and skeleton;
but no skeleton of the hippopotamus nor grinders of the elephant.  It
will not be said that the hippopotamus and elephant came always to
the same spot, the former to deposit his grinders, and the latter his
tusks and skeleton.  For what became of the parts not deposited
there?  We must agree then that these remains belong to each other,
that they are of one and the same animal, that this was not a
hippopotamus, because the hippopotamus had no tusks nor such a frame,
and because the grinders differ in their size as well as in the
number and form of their points.  That it was not an elephant, I
think ascertained by proofs equally decisive.  I will not avail
myself of the authority of the celebrated (* 2) anatomist, who, from
an examination of the form and structure of the tusks, has declared
they were essentially different from those of the elephant; because
another (* 3) anatomist, equally celebrated, has declared, on a like
examination, that they are precisely the same.  Between two such
authorities I will suppose this circumstance equivocal.  But, 1. The
skeleton of the mammoth (for so the incognitum has been called)
bespeaks an animal of five or six times the cubic volume of the
elephant, as Mons. de Buffon has admitted.  2. The grinders are five
times as large, are square, and the grinding surface studded with
four or five rows of blunt points: whereas those of the elephant are
broad and thin, and their grinding surface flat.  3. I have never
heard an instance, and suppose there has been none, of the grinder of
an elephant being found in America.  4. From the known temperature
and constitution of the elephant he could never have existed in those
regions where the remains of the mammoth have been found.  The
elephant is a native only of the torrid zone and its vicinities: if,
with the assistance of warm apartments and warm clothing, he has been
preserved in life in the temperate climates of Europe, it has only
been for a small portion of what would have been his natural period,
and no instance of his multiplication in them has ever been known.
But no bones of the mammoth, as I have before observed, have been
ever found further south than the salines of the Holston, and they
have been found as far north as the Arctic circle.  Those, therefore,
who are of opinion that the elephant and mammoth are the same, must
believe, 1. That the elephant known to us can exist and multiply in
the frozen zone; or, 2. That an internal fire may once have warmed
those regions, and since abandoned them, of which, however, the globe
exhibits no unequivocal indications; or, 3.  That the obliquity of
the ecliptic, when these elephants lived, was so great as to include
within the tropics all those regions in which the bones are found;
the tropics being, as is before observed, the natural limits of
habitation for the elephant.  But if it be admitted that this
obliquity has really decreased, and we adopt the highest rate of
decrease yet pretended, that is, of one minute in a century, to
transfer the northern tropic to the Arctic circle, would carry the
existence of these supposed elephants 250,000 years back; a period
far beyond our conception of the duration of animal bones left
exposed to the open air, as these are in many instances.  Besides,
though these regions would then be supposed within the tropics, yet
their winters would have been too severe for the sensibility of the
elephant.  They would have had too but one day and one night in the
year, a circumstance to which we have no reason to suppose the nature
of the elephant fitted.  However, it has been demonstrated, that, if
a variation of obliquity in the ecliptic takes place at all, it is
vibratory, and never exceeds the limits of 9 degrees, which is not
sufficient to bring these bones within the tropics.  One of these
hypotheses, or some other equally voluntary and inadmissible to
cautious philosophy, must be adopted to support the opinion that
these are the bones of the elephant.  For my own part, I find it
easier to believe that an animal may have existed, resembling the
elephant in his tusks, and general anatomy, while his nature was in
other respects extremely different.  From the 30th degree of South
latitude to the 30th of North, are nearly the limits which nature has
fixed for the existence and multiplication of the elephant known to
us.  Proceeding thence northwardly to 36 1/2 degrees, we enter those
assigned to the mammoth.  The further we advance North, the more
their vestiges multiply as far as the earth has been explored in that
direction; and it is as probable as otherwise, that this progression
continues to the pole itself, if land extends so far.  The center of
the Frozen zone then may be the Achme of their vigour, as that of the
Torrid is of the elephant.  Thus nature seems to have drawn a belt of
separation between these two tremendous animals, whose breadth indeed
is not precisely known, though at present we may suppose it about 6
1/2 degrees of latitude; to have assigned to the elephant the regions
South of these confines, and those North to the mammoth, founding the
constitution of the one in her extreme of heat, and that of the other
in the extreme of cold.  When the Creator has therefore separated
their nature as far as the extent of the scale of animal life allowed
to this planet would permit, it seems perverse to declare it the
same, from a partial resemblance of their tusks and bones.  But to
whatever animal we ascribe these remains, it is certain such a one
has existed in America, and that it has been the largest of all
terrestrial beings.  It should have sufficed to have rescued the
earth it inhabited, and the atmosphere it breathed, from the
imputation of impotence in the conception and nourishment of animal
life on a large scale: to have stifled, in its birth, the opinion of
a writer, the most learned too of all others in the science of animal
history, that in the new world,
        Buffon. xviii. 122. ed. Paris. 1764.
        `La nature vivante est beaucoup moins agissante, beaucoup moins
forte:' that nature is less active, less energetic on one side of the
globe than she is on the other.  As if both sides were not warmed by
the same genial sun; as if a soil of the same chemical composition,
was less capable of elaboration into animal nutriment; as if the
fruits and grains from that soil and sun, yielded a less rich chyle,
gave less extension to the solids and fluids of the body, or produced
sooner in the cartilages, membranes, and fibres, that rigidity which
restrains all further extension, and terminates animal growth.  The
truth is, that a Pigmy and a Patagonian, a Mouse and a Mammoth,
derive their dimensions from the same nutritive juices.  The
difference of increment depends on circumstances unsearchable to
beings with our capacities.  Every race of animals seems to have
received from their Maker certain laws of extension at the time of
their formation.  Their elaborative organs were formed to produce
this, while proper obstacles were opposed to its further progress.
Below these limits they cannot fall, nor rise above them.  What
intermediate station they shall take may depend on soil, on climate,
on food, on a careful choice of breeders.  But all the manna of
heaven would never raise the Mouse to the bulk of the Mammoth.
 
        xviii. 100-156.
        The opinion advanced by the Count de Buffon, is 1. That the
animals common both to the old and new world, are smaller in the
latter.  2. That those peculiar to the new, are on a smaller scale.
3. That those which have been domesticated in both, have degenerated
in America: and 4. That on the whole it exhibits fewer species.  And
the reason he thinks is, that the heats of America are less; that
more waters are spread over its surface by nature, and fewer of these
drained off by the hand of man.  In other words, that _heat_ is
friendly, and _moisture_ adverse to the production and developement
of large quadrupeds.  I will not meet this hypothesis on its first
doubtful ground, whether the climate of America be comparatively more
humid?  Because we are not furnished with observations sufficient to
decide this question.  And though, till it be decided, we are as free
to deny, as others are to affirm the fact, yet for a moment let it be
supposed.  The hypothesis, after this supposition, proceeds to
another; that _moisture_ is unfriendly to animal growth.  The truth
of this is inscrutable to us by reasonings a priori.  Nature has
hidden from us her modus agendi.  Our only appeal on such questions
is to experience; and I think that experience is against the
supposition.  It is by the assistance of _heat_ and _moisture_ that
vegetables are elaborated from the elements of earth, air, water, and
fire.  We accordingly see the more humid climates produce the greater
quantity of vegetables.  Vegetables are mediately or immediately the
food of every animal: and in proportion to the quantity of food, we
see animals not only multiplied in their numbers, but improved in
their bulk, as far as the laws of their nature will admit.  Of this
opinion is the Count de Buffon himself in another part of his work:
         viii. 134.
         `en general il paroit que les pays un peu _froids_
conviennent mieux a nos boeufs que les pays chauds, et qu'ils sont
d'autant plus gros et plus grands que le climat est plus _humide_ et
plus abondans en paturages.  Les boeufs de Danemarck, de la Podolie,
de l'Ukraine et de la Tartarie qu'habitent les Calmouques sont les
plus grands de tous.' Here then a race of animals, and one of the
largest too, has been increased in its dimensions by _cold_ and
_moisture_, in direct opposition to the hypothesis, which supposes
that these two circumstances diminish animal bulk, and that it is
their contraries _heat_ and _dryness_ which enlarge it.  But when we
appeal to experience, we are not to rest satisfied with a single
fact.  Let us therefore try our question on more general ground.  Let
us take two portions of the earth, Europe and America for instance,
sufficiently extensive to give operation to general causes; let us
consider the circumstances peculiar to each, and observe their effect
on animal nature.  America, running through the torrid as well as
temperate zone, has more _heat_, collectively taken, than Europe.
But Europe, according to our hypothesis, is the _dryest_.  They are
equally adapted then to animal productions; each being endowed with
one of those causes which befriend animal growth, and with one which
opposes it.  If it be thought unequal to compare Europe with America,
which is so much larger, I answer, not more so than to compare
America with the whole world.  Besides, the purpose of the comparison
is to try an hypothesis, which makes the size of animals depend on
the _heat_ and _moisture_ of climate.  If therefore we take a region,
so extensive as to comprehend a sensible distinction of climate, and
so extensive too as that local accidents, or the intercourse of
animals on its borders, may not materially affect the size of those
in its interior parts, we shall comply with those conditions which
the hypothesis may reasonably demand.  The objection would be the
weaker in the present case, because any intercourse of animals which
may take place on the confines of Europe and Asia, is to the
advantage of the former, Asia producing certainly larger animals than
Europe.  Let us then take a comparative view of the Quadrupeds of
Europe and America, presenting them to the eye in three different
tables, in one of which shall be enumerated those found in both
countries; in a second those found in one only; in a third those
which have been domesticated in both.  To facilitate the comparison,
let those of each table be arranged in gradation according to their
sizes, from the greatest to the smallest, so far as their sizes can
be conjectured.  The weights of the large animals shall be expressed
in the English avoirdupoise pound and its decimals: those of the
smaller in the ounce and its decimals.  Those which are marked thus
*, are actual weights of particular subjects, deemed among the
largest of their species.  Those marked thus +, are furnished by
judicious persons, well acquainted with the species, and saying, from
conjecture only, what the largest individual they had seen would
probably have weighed.  The other weights are taken from Messrs.
Buffon and D'Aubenton, and are of such subjects as came casually to
their hands for dissection.  This circumstance must be remembered
where their weights and mine stand opposed: the latter being stated,
not to produce a conclusion in favour of the American species, but to
justify a suspension of opinion until we are better informed, and a
suspicion in the mean time that there is no uniform difference in
favour of either; which is all I pretend.

        A comparative View of the Quadrupeds of Europe and of America.

        I.  _Aboriginals of both_.

                                      Europe.          America.
                                        lb.              lb.
        Mammoth
      Buffalo. Bison                                   *1800
      White bear. Ours bla            Caribou. Renne
      Bear. Ours                      153.7             *410
      Elk. Elan. Orignal, mated
      Red deer. Cerf                  288.8             *273
      Fallow deer. Daim               167.8
      Wolf. Loup                       69.8
      Roe. Chevreuil                   56.7
      Glutton. Glouton. Ca   jou
      Wild cat. Chat sauva                               +30
      Lynx. Loup cervier               25.
      Beaver. Castor                   18.5              *45
      Badger. Blaireau                 13.6
      Red Fox. Renard                  13.5
      Grey Fox. Isatis
      Otter. Loutre                     8.9              +12
      Monax. Marmotte                   6.5
      Vison. Fouine                     2.8
      Hedgehog. Herisson                2.2
      Martin. Marte                     1.9               +6
                                       oz.
      Water rat. Rat d'eau              7.5
      Wesel. Belette                    2.2              oz.
      Flying squirrel. Pol   uche       2.2               +4
      Shrew mouse. Musarai              1.

                   II. _Aboriginals of one only_.

              Europe.                       America.
                              lb.                                lb.
      Sanglier. Wild boar     280.    Tapir                      534.
      Mouflon. Wild sheep      56.    Elk, round horned         +450.
      Bouquetin. Wild goat            Puma
      Lievre. Hare              7.6   Jaguar                     218.
      Lapin. Rabbet             3.4   Cabiai                     109.
      Putois. Polecat           3.3   Tamanoir                   109.
      Genette                   3.1   Tamandua                    65.4
      Desman. Muskrat          oz.    Cougar of N. Amer.          75.
      Ecureuil. Squirrel       12.    Cougar of S. Amer.          59.
      Hermine. Ermin            8.2   Ocelot
      Rat. Rat                  7.5   Pecari                      46.3
      Loirs                     3.1   Jaguaret                    43.6
      Lerot. Dormouse           1.8   Alco
      Taupe. Mole               1.2   Lama
      Hamster                    .9   Paco
      Zisel                           Paca                        32.7
      Leming                          Serval
      Souris. Mouse              .6   Sloth. Unau                 27 1/4

                                      Saricovienne
                                      Kincajou
                                      Tatou Kabassou              21.8
                                      Urson. Urchin
                                      Raccoon. Raton              16.5
                                      Coati
                                      Coendou                     16.3
                                      Sloth. Ai                   13.
                                      Sapajou Ouarini
                                      Sapajou Coaita               9.8
                                      Tatou Encubert
                                      Tatou Apar
                                      Tatou Cachica                7.
                                      Little Coendou               6.5
                                      Opossum. Sarigue
                                      Tapeti
                                      Margay
                                      Crabier
                                      Agouti                       4.2
                                      Sapajou Sai                  3.5
                                      Tatou Cirquinson
                                      Tatou Tatouate               3.3

                      II. TABLE continued.

              Europe.                       America.
                                      Mouffette Squash
                                      Mouffette Chinche
                                      Mouffette Conepate.
                                        Scunk
                                      Mouffette. Zorilla
                                      Whabus. Hare. Rabbet
                                      Aperea
                                      Akouchi
                                      Ondatra. Muskrat
                                      Pilori
                                      Great grey squirrel         +2.7
                                      Fox squirrel of Virginia    +2.625
                                      Surikate                     2.
                                      Mink                        +2.
                                      Sapajou. Sajou               1.8
                                      Indian pig. Cochon
                                        d'Inde                     1.6
                                      Sapajou. Saimiri             1.5
                                      Phalanger
                                      Coquallin
                                      Lesser grey squirrel        +1.5
                                      Black squirrel              +1.5
                                      Red squirrel                10. oz.
                                      Sagoin Saki
                                      Sagoin Pinche
                                      Sagoin Tamarin              oz.
                                      Sagoin Ouistiti              4.4
                                      Sagoin Marikine
                                      Sagoin Mico
                                      Cayopollin
                                      Fourmillier
                                      Marmose
                                      Sarigue of Cayenne
                                      Tucan
                                      Red mole                    oz.
                                      Ground squirrel              4.

                      III. _Domesticated in both_.

                                 Europe.         America.
                                   lb.             lb.
                 Cow              763.           *2500
                 Horse                           *1366
                 Ass
                 Hog                             *1200
                 Sheep                            *125
                 Goat                              *80
                 Dog               67.6
                 Cat                7.

        I have not inserted in the first table the (* 4) Phoca nor
leather-winged bat, because the one living half the year in the
water, and the other being a winged animal, the individuals of each
species may visit both continents.

        Of the animals in the 1st table Mons. de Buffon himself informs
us, [XXVII. 130. XXX. 213.] that the beaver, the otter, and shrew
mouse, though of the same species, are larger in America than Europe.
This should therefore have corrected the generality of his
expressions XVIII. 145. and elsewhere, that the animals common to the
two countries, are considerably less in America than in Europe, `&
cela sans aucune exception.' He tells us too, [Quadrup. VIII. 334.
edit. Paris, 1777] that on examining a bear from America, he remarked
no difference, `dans _la forme_ de cet ours d'Amerique compare a
celui d'Europe.' But adds from Bartram's journal, that an American
bear weighed 400 lb. English, equal to 367 lb. French: whereas we
find the European bear examined by Mons. D'Aubenton, [XVII. 82.]
weighed but 141 lb. French.  That the palmated Elk is larger in
America than Europe we are informed by Kalm, a Naturalist who visited
the

         I. 233. Lond. 1772.

         former by public appointment for the express purpose of
examining the subjects of Natural history.  In this

         Ib. 233.

         fact Pennant concurs with him.  [Barrington's Miscellanies.]
The same Kalm tells us that the Black Moose, or

         I. xxvii.

         Renne of America, is as high as a tall horse; and Catesby,
that it is about the bigness of a middle sized ox.  The

         XXIV. 162.

         same account of their size has been given me by many who
have seen them.  But Mons. D'Aubenton says that the Renne of Europe
is but about the size of a Red-deer.

         XV. 42.

         The wesel is larger in America than in Europe, as may be
seen by comparing its dimensions as reported by Mons. D'Aubenton and
Kalm.  The latter tells us, that the

         I. 359. I. 48. 221. 251. II. 52.

         lynx, badger, red fox, and flying squirrel, are the _same_
in America as in Europe: by which expression I understand, they are
the same in all material circumstances, in size as well as others:
for if they were smaller,

         II. 78.

         they would differ from the European.  Our grey fox is, by
Catesby's account, little different in size and shape from the
European fox.  I presume he means the red fox

         I. 220.

         of Europe, as does Kalm, where he says, that in size `they
do not quite come up to our foxes.' For proceeding next to the red
fox of America, he says `they are entirely the same with the European
sort.' Which shews he had in view one European sort only, which was
the red.  So that the result of their testimony is, that the American
grey fox is somewhat less than the European red; which is equally
true of the

         XXVII. 63. XIV. 119. Harris, II.387. Buffon. Quad. IX. 1.

         grey fox of Europe, as may be seen by comparing the measures
of the Count de Buffon and Mons. D'Aubenton.  The white bear of
America is as large as that of Europe.  The bones of the Mammoth
which have been found in America, are as large as those found in the
old world.  It may be asked, why I insert the Mammoth, as if it still
existed?  I ask in return, why I should omit it, as if it did not
exist?  Such is the oeconomy of nature, that no instance can be
produced of her having permitted any one race of her animals to
become extinct; of her having formed any link in her great work so
weak as to be broken.  To add to this, the traditionary testimony of
the Indians, that this animal still exists in the northern and
western parts of America, would be adding the light of a taper to
that of the meridian sun.  Those parts still remain in their
aboriginal state, unexplored and undisturbed by us, or by others for
us.  He may as well exist there now, as he did formerly where we find
his bones.  If he be a carnivorous animal, as some Anatomists have
conjectured, and the Indians affirm, his early retirement may be
accounted for from the general destruction of the wild game by the
Indians, which commences in the first instant of their connection
with us, for the purpose of purchasing matchcoats, hatchets, and fire
locks, with their skins.  There remain then the buffalo, red deer,
fallow deer, wolf, roe, glutton, wild cat, monax, vison, hedge-hog,
martin, and water rat, of the comparative sizes of which we have not
sufficient testimony.  It does not appear that Messrs. de Buffon and
D'Aubenton have measured, weighed, or seen those of America.  It is
said of some of them, by some travellers, that they are smaller than
the European.  But who were these travellers?  Have they not been men
of a very different description from those who have laid open to us
the other three quarters of the world?  Was natural history the
object of their travels?  Did they measure or weigh the animals they
speak of? or did they not judge of them by sight, or perhaps even
from report only?  Were they acquainted with the animals of their own
country, with which they undertake to compare them?  Have they not
been so ignorant as often to mistake the species?  A true answer to
these questions would probably lighten their authority, so as to
render it insufficient for the foundation of an hypothesis.  How
unripe we yet are, for an accurate comparison of the animals of the
two countries, will appear from the work of Mons. de Buffon.  The
ideas we should have formed of the sizes of some animals, from the
information he had received at his first publications concerning
them, are very different from what his subsequent communications give
us.  And indeed his candour in this can never be too much praised.
One sentence of his book must do him immortal honour.  `J'aime

         Quad. IX. 158

         autant une personne qui me releve d'une erreur, qu'une autre
qui m'apprend une verite, parce qu'en effet une erreur corrigee est
une verite.' He seems to have

         XXXV. 184.

         thought the Cabiai he first examined wanted little of its
full growth.  `Il n'etoit pas encore tout-a-fait adulte.' Yet he
weighed but 46 1/2 lb. and he found

         Quad. IX. 132.

         afterwards, that these animals, when full grown, weigh 100
lb.  He had supposed, from the examination of a

         XIX. 2.

         jaguar, said to be two years old, which weighed but 16 lb.
12 oz. that, when he should have acquired his full growth, he would
not be larger than a middle sized dog.

         Quad. IX. 41.

         But a subsequent account raises his weight to 200 lb.
Further information will, doubtless, produce further corrections.
The wonder is, not that there is yet something in this great work to
correct, but that there is so little.  The result of this view then
is, that of 26 quadrupeds common to both countries, 7 are said to be
larger in America, 7 of equal size, and 12 not sufficiently examined.
So that the first table impeaches the first member of the assertion,
that of the animals common to both countries, the American are
smallest, `et cela sans aucune exception.' It shews it not just, in
all the latitude in which its author has advanced it, and probably
not to such a degree as to found a distinction between the two
countries.

        Proceeding to the second table, which arranges the animals
found in one of the two countries only, Mons. de Buffon observes,
that the tapir, the elephant of America, is but of the size of a
small cow.  To preserve our comparison, I will add that the wild
boar, the elephant of Europe, is little more than half that size.  I
have made an elk with round or cylindrical horns, an animal of
America, and peculiar to it; because I have seen many of them myself,
and more of their horns; and because I can say, from the best
information, that, in Virginia, this kind of elk has abounded much,
and still exists in smaller numbers; and I could never learn that the
palmated kind had been seen here at all.  I suppose this confined to
the more Northern latitudes (* 5).  I have made our hare or rabbet
peculiar, believing it to be different from both the European animals
of those denominations, and calling it therefore by its Algonquin

         Kalm II. 340.I. 82.

         name Whabus, to keep it distinct from these.  Kalm is of the
same opinion.  I have enumerated the squirrels according to our own
knowledge, derived from daily sight of them, because I am not able to
reconcile with that the European appellations and descriptions.  I
have heard of other species, but they have never come within my own
notice.  These, I think, are the only instances in which I have
departed from the authority of Mons. de Buffon in the construction of
this table.  I take him for my ground work, because I think him the
best informed of any Naturalist who has ever written.  The result is,
that there are 18 quadrupeds peculiar to Europe; more than four times
as many, to wit 74, peculiar to America; that the (* 6) first of
these 74 weighs more than the whole column of Europeans; and
consequently this second table disproves the second member of the
assertion, that the animals peculiar to the new world are on a
smaller scale, so far as that assertion relied on European animals
for support: and it is in full opposition to the theory which makes
the animal volume to depend on the circumstances of _heat_ and
_moisture_.

        The IIId. table comprehends those quadrupeds only which are
domestic in both countries.  That some of these, in some parts of
America, have become less than their original stock, is doubtless
true; and the reason is very obvious.  In a thinly peopled country,
the spontaneous productions of the forests and waste fields are
sufficient to support indifferently the domestic animals of the
farmer, with a very little aid from him in the severest and scarcest
season.  He therefore finds it more convenient to receive them from
the hand of nature in that indifferent state, than to keep up their
size by a care and nourishment which would cost him much labour.  If,
on this low fare, these animals dwindle, it is no more than they do
in those parts of Europe where the poverty of the soil, or poverty of
the owner, reduces them to the same scanty subsistance.  It is the
uniform effect of one and the same cause, whether acting on this or
that side of the globe.  It would be erring therefore against that
rule of philosophy, which teaches us to ascribe like effects to like
causes, should we impute this diminution of size in America to any
imbecility or want of uniformity in the operations of nature.  It may
be affirmed with truth that, in those countries, and with those
individuals of America, where necessity or curiosity has produced
equal attention as in Europe to the nourishment of animals, the
horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs of the one continent are as large as
those of the other.  There are particular instances, well attested,
where individuals of this country have imported good breeders from
England, and have improved their size by care in the course of some
years.  To make a fair comparison between the two countries, it will
not answer to bring together animals of what might be deemed the
middle or ordinary size of their species; because an error in judging
of that middle or ordinary size would vary the result of the
comparison.  Thus Monsieur D'Aubenton considers a

         VII. 432.

         horse of 4 feet 5 inches high and 400 lb. weight French,
equal to 4 feet 8.6 inches and 436 lb. English, as a middle sized
horse.  Such a one is deemed a small horse in America.  The extremes
must therefore be resorted to.  The same anatomist dissected a horse
of 5 feet 9 inches height, French measure,

         VII. 474.

         equal to 6 feet 1.7 English.  This is near 6 inches higher
than any horse I have seen: and could it be supposed that I had seen
the largest horses in America, the conclusion would be, that ours
have diminished, or that we have bred from a smaller stock.  In
Connecticut and Rhode-Island, where the climate is favorable to the
production of grass, bullocks have been slaughtered which weighed
2500, 2200, and 2100 lb. nett; and those of 1800 lb. have been
frequent.  I have seen a (* 7) hog weigh 1050 lb. after the blood,
bowels, and hair had been taken from him.  Before he was killed an
attempt was made to weigh him with a pair of steel-yards, graduated
to 1200 lb. but he weighed more.  Yet this hog was probably not
within fifty generations of the European stock.  I am well informed
of another which weighed 1100 lb. gross.  Asses have been still more
neglected than any other domestic animal in America.  They are
neither fed nor housed in the most rigorous season of the year.  Yet
they are larger than those measured

         VIII. 48. 35. 66.

         by Mons. D'Aubenton, of 3 feet 7 1/4 inches, 3 feet 4
inches, and 3 feet 2 1/2 inches, the latter weighing only 215.8 lb.
These sizes, I suppose, have been produced by the same negligence in
Europe, which has produced a like diminution here.  Where care has
been taken of them on that side of the water, they have been raised
to a size bordering on that of the horse; not by the _heat_ and
_dryness_ of the climate, but by good food and shelter.  Goats have
been also much neglected in America.  Yet they are very prolific
here, bearing twice or three times a year, and from one to five kids

         XVIII. 96.

         at a birth.  Mons. de Buffon has been sensible of a
difference in this circumstance in favour of America.  But what are
their greatest weights I cannot say.  A large

         IX. 41.

         sheep here weighs 100 lb.  I observe Mons. D'Aubenton calls
a ram of 62 lb. one of the middle size.  But to say what are the
extremes of growth in these and the other domestic animals of
America, would require information of which no one individual is
possessed.  The weights actually known and stated in the third table
preceding will suffice to shew, that we may conclude, on probable
grounds, that, with equal food and care, the climate of America will
preserve the races of domestic animals as large as the European stock
from which they are derived; and consequently that the third member
of Mons. de Buffon's assertion, that the domestic animals are subject
to degeneration from the climate of America, is as probably wrong as
the first and second were certainly so.

        That the last part of it is erroneous, which affirms that the
species of American quadrupeds are comparatively few, is evident from
the tables taken all together.  By these it appears

         XXX. 219.

         that there are an hundred species aboriginal of America.
Mons. de Buffon supposes about double that number existing on the
whole earth.  Of these Europe, Asia, and Africa, furnish suppose 126;
that is, the 26 common to Europe and America, and about 100 which are
not in America at all.  The American species then are to those of the
rest of the earth, as 100 to 126, or 4 to 5.  But the residue of the
earth being double the extent of America, the exact proportion would
have been but as 4 to 8.

        Hitherto I have considered this hypothesis as applied to brute
animals only, and not in its extension to the man of America, whether
aboriginal or transplanted.  It is the opinion of Mons. de Buffon
that the former furnishes no exception to

         XVIII. 146.

         it.  `Quoique le sauvage du nouveau monde soit a-peu-pres de
meme stature que l'homme de notre monde, cela ne suffit pas pour
qu'il puisse faire une exception au fait general du rapetissement de
la nature vivante dans tout ce continent: le sauvage est foible &
petit par les organes de la generation; il n'a ni poil, ni barbe, &
nulle ardeur pour sa femelle; quoique plus leger que l'Europeen parce
qu'il a plus d'habitude a courir, il est cependant beaucoup moins
fort de corps; il est aussi bien moins sensible, & cependant plus
craintif & plus lache; il n'a nulle vivacite, nulle activite dans
l'ame; celle du corps est moins un exercice, un mouvement volontaire
qu'une necessite d'action causee par le besoin; otez lui la faim & la
soif, vous detruirez en meme temps le principe actif de tous ses
mouvemens; il demeurera stupidement en repos sur ses jambes ou couche
pendant des jours entiers.  Il ne faut pas aller chercher plus loin
la cause de la vie dispersee des sauvages & de leur eloignement pour
la societe: la plus precieuse etincelle du feu de la nature leur a
ete refusee; ils manquent d'ardeur pour leur femelle, & par
consequent d'amour pour leur semblables: ne connoissant pas
l'attachement le plus vif, le plus tendre de tous, leurs autres
sentimens de ce genre sont froids & languissans; ils aiment
foiblement leurs peres & leurs enfans; la societe la plus intime de
toutes, celle de la meme famille, n'a donc chez eux que de foibles
liens; la societe d'une famille a l'autre n'en a point du tout: des
lors nulle reunion, nulle republique, nulle etat social.  La physique
de l'amour fait chez eux le moral des moeurs; leur coeur est glace,
leur societe froide, & leur empire dur.  Ils ne regardent leurs
femmes que comme des servantes de peine ou des betes de somme qu'ils
chargent, sans menagement, du fardeau de leur chasse, & qu'ils
forcent sans pitie, sans reconnoissance, a des ouvrages qui souvent
sont audessus de leurs forces: ils n'ont que peu d'enfans; ils en ont
peu de soin; tout se ressent de leur premier defaut; ils sont
indifferents parce qu'ils sont peu puissans, & cette indifference
pour le sexe est la tache originelle qui fletrit la nature, qui
l'empeche de s'epanouir, & qui detruisant les germes de la vie, coupe
en meme temps la racine de la societe.  L'homme ne fait donc point
d'exception ici.  La nature en lui refusant les puissances de l'amour
l'a plus maltraite & plus rapetisse qu'aucun des animaux.' An
afflicting picture indeed, which, for the honor of human nature, I am
glad to believe has no original.  Of the Indian of South America I
know nothing; for I would not honor with the appellation of
knowledge, what I derive from the fables published of them.  These I
believe to be just as true as the fables of Aesop.  This belief is
founded on what I have seen of man, white, red, and black, and what
has been written of him by authors, enlightened themselves, and
writing amidst an enlightened people.  The Indian of North America
being more within our reach, I can speak of him somewhat from my own
knowledge, but more from the information of others better acquainted
with him, and on whose truth and judgment I can rely.  From these
sources I am able to say, in contradiction to this representation,
that he is neither more defective in ardor, nor more impotent with
his female, than the white reduced to the same diet and exercise:
that he is brave, when an enterprize depends on bravery; education
with him making the point of honor consist in the destruction of an
enemy by stratagem, and in the preservation of his own person free
from injury; or perhaps this is nature; while it is education which
teaches us to (* 8) honor force more than finesse: that he will
defend himself against an host of enemies, always chusing to be
killed, rather than to (* 9) surrender, though it be to the whites,
who he knows will treat him well: that in other situations also he
meets death with more deliberation, and endures tortures with a
firmness unknown almost to religious enthusiasm with us: that he is
affectionate to his children, careful of them, and indulgent in the
extreme: that his affections comprehend his other connections,
weakening, as with us, from circle to circle, as they recede from the
center: that his friendships are strong and faithful to the uttermost
(* 10) extremity: that his sensibility is keen, even the warriors
weeping most bitterly on the loss of their children, though in
general they endeavour to appear superior to human events: that his
vivacity and activity of mind is equal to ours in the same situation;
hence his eagerness for hunting, and for games of chance.  The women
are submitted to unjust drudgery.  This I believe is the case with
every barbarous people.  With such, force is law.  The stronger sex
therefore imposes on the weaker.  It is civilization alone which
replaces women in the enjoyment of their natural equality.  That
first teaches us to subdue the selfish passions, and to respect those
rights in others which we value in ourselves.  Were we in equal
barbarism, our females would be equal drudges.  The man with them is
less strong than with us, but their woman stronger than ours; and
both for the same obvious reason; because our man and their woman is
habituated to labour, and formed by it.  With both races the sex
which is indulged with ease is least athletic.  An Indian man is
small in the hand and wrist for the same reason for which a sailor is
large and strong in the arms and shoulders, and a porter in the legs
and thighs.  -- They raise fewer children than we do.  The causes of
this are to be found, not in a difference of nature, but of
circumstance.  The women very frequently attending the men in their
parties of war and of hunting, child-bearing becomes extremely
inconvenient to them.  It is said, therefore, that they have learnt
the practice of procuring abortion by the use of some vegetable; and
that it even extends to prevent conception for a considerable time
after.  During these parties they are exposed to numerous hazards, to
excessive exertions, to the greatest extremities of hunger.  Even at
their homes the nation depends for food, through a certain part of
every year, on the gleanings of the forest: that is, they experience
a famine once in every year.  With all animals, if the female be
badly fed, or not fed at all, her young perish: and if both male and
female be reduced to like want, generation becomes less active, less
productive.  To the obstacles then of want and hazard, which nature
has opposed to the multiplication of wild animals, for the purpose of
restraining their numbers within certain bounds, those of labour and
of voluntary abortion are added with the Indian.  No wonder then if
they multiply less than we do.  Where food is regularly supplied, a
single farm will shew more of cattle, than a whole country of forests
can of buffaloes.  The same Indian women, when married to white
traders, who feed them and their children plentifully and regularly,
who exempt them from excessive drudgery, who keep them stationary and
unexposed to accident, produce and raise as many children as the
white women.  Instances are known, under these circumstances, of
their rearing a dozen children.  An inhuman practice once prevailed
in this country of making slaves of the Indians.  It is a fact well
known with us, that the Indian women so enslaved produced and raised
as numerous families as either the whites or blacks among whom they
lived.  -- It has been said, that Indians have less hair than the
whites, except on the head.  But this is a fact of which fair proof
can scarcely be had.  With them it is disgraceful to be hairy on the
body.  They say it likens them to hogs.  They therefore pluck the
hair as fast as it appears.  But the traders who marry their women,
and prevail on them to discontinue this practice, say, that nature is
the same with them as with the whites.  Nor, if the fact be true, is
the consequence necessary which has been drawn from it.  Negroes have
notoriously less hair than the whites; yet they are more ardent.  But
if cold and moisture be the agents of nature for diminishing the
races of animals, how comes she all at once to suspend their
operation as to the physical man of the new world, whom the Count
acknowledges to be `a peu pres de meme stature que l'homme de notre
monde,' and to let loose their influence on his moral
         XVIII. 145.
         faculties?  How has this `combination of the elements and
other physical causes, so contrary to the enlargement of animal
nature in this new world, these obstacles to the developement and
formation of great germs,' been arrested and suspended, so as to
permit the human body to acquire its just dimensions, and by what
inconceivable process has their action been directed on his mind
alone?  To judge of the truth of this, to form a just estimate of
their genius and mental powers, more facts are wanting, and great
allowance to be made for those circumstances of their situation which
call for a display of particular talents only.  This done, we shall
probably find that they are formed in mind as well as in body, on the
same module with the (* 11) `Homo sapiens Europaeus.' The principles
of their society forbidding all compulsion, they are to be led to
duty and to enterprize by personal influence and persuasion.  Hence
eloquence in council, bravery and address in war, become the
foundations of all consequence with them.  To these acquirements all
their faculties are directed.  Of their bravery and address in war we
have multiplied proofs, because we have been the subjects on which
they were exercised.  Of their eminence in oratory we have fewer
examples, because it is displayed chiefly in their own councils.
Some, however, we have of very superior lustre.  I may challenge the
whole orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, and of any more eminent
orator, if Europe has furnished more eminent, to produce a single
passage, superior to the speech of Logan, a Mingo chief, to Lord
Dunmore, when governor of this state.  And, as a testimony of their
talents in this line, I beg leave to introduce it, first stating the
incidents necessary for understanding it.  In the spring of the year
1774, a robbery and murder were committed on an inhabitant of the
frontiers of Virginia, by two Indians of the Shawanee tribe.  The
neighbouring whites, according to their custom, undertook to punish
this outrage in a summary way.  Col. Cresap, a man infamous for the
many murders he had committed on those much-injured people, collected
a party, and proceeded down the Kanhaway in quest of vengeance.
Unfortunately a canoe of women and children, with one man only, was
seen coming from the opposite shore, unarmed, and unsuspecting an
hostile attack from the whites.  Cresap and his party concealed
themselves on the bank of the river, and the moment the canoe reached
the shore, singled out their objects, and, at one fire, killed every
person in it.  This happened to be the family of Logan, who had long
been distinguished as a friend of the whites.  This unworthy return
provoked his vengeance.  He accordingly signalized himself in the war
which ensued.  In the autumn of the same year, a decisive battle was
fought at the mouth of the Great Kanhaway, between the collected
forces of the Shawanees, Mingoes, and Delawares, and a detachment of
the Virginia militia.  The Indians were defeated, and sued for peace.
Logan however disdained to be seen among the suppliants.  But, lest
the sincerity of a treaty should be distrusted, from which so
distinguished a chief absented himself, he sent by a messenger the
following speech to be delivered to Lord Dunmore.

        `I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan's
cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and
naked, and he clothed him not.  During the course of the last long
and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for
peace.  Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed
as they passed, and said, `Logan is the friend of white men.'  I had
even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man.
Col. Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered
all the relations of Logan, not sparing even my women and children.
There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living
creature.  This called on me for revenge.  I have sought it: I have
killed many: I have fully glutted my vengeance.  For my country, I
rejoice at the beams of peace.  But do not harbour a thought that
mine is the joy of fear.  Logan never felt fear.  He will not turn on
his heel to save his life.  Who is there to mourn for Logan?  -- Not
one.'

        Before we condemn the Indians of this continent as wanting
genius, we must consider that letters have not yet been introduced
among them.  Were we to compare them in their present state with the
Europeans North of the Alps, when the Roman arms and arts first
crossed those mountains, the comparison would be unequal, because, at
that time, those parts of Europe were swarming with numbers; because
numbers produce emulation, and multiply the chances of improvement,
and one improvement begets another.  Yet I may safely ask, How many
good poets, how many able mathematicians, how many great inventors in
arts or sciences, had Europe North of the Alps then produced?  And it
was sixteen centuries after this before a Newton could be formed.  I
do not mean to deny, that there are varieties in the race of man,
distinguished by their powers both of body and mind.  I believe there
are, as I see to be the case in the races of other animals.  I only
mean to suggest a doubt, whether the bulk and faculties of animals
depend on the side of the Atlantic on which their food happens to
grow, or which furnishes the elements of which they are compounded?
Whether nature has enlisted herself as a Cis or Trans-Atlantic
partisan?  I am induced to suspect, there has been more eloquence
than sound reasoning displayed in support of this theory; that it is
one of those cases where the judgment has been seduced by a glowing
pen: and whilst I render every tribute of honor and esteem to the
celebrated Zoologist, who has added, and is still adding, so many
precious things to the treasures of science, I must doubt whether in
this instance he has not cherished error also, by lending her for a
moment his vivid imagination and bewitching language.

        So far the Count de Buffon has carried this new theory of the
tendency of nature to belittle her productions on this side the
Atlantic.  Its application to the race of whites, transplanted from
Europe, remained for the Abbe Raynal.  `On doit etre etonne (he says)
que l'Amerique n'ait pas encore produit un bon poete, un habile
mathematicien, un homme de genie dans un seul art, ou une seule
science.' 7. Hist. Philos. p. 92. ed. Maestricht. 1774.  `America has
not yet produced one good poet.' When we shall have existed as a
people as long as the Greeks did before they produced a Homer, the
Romans a Virgil, the French a Racine and Voltaire, the English a
Shakespeare and Milton, should this reproach be still true, we will
enquire from what unfriendly causes it has proceeded, that the other
countries of Europe and quarters of the earth shall not have
inscribed any name in the roll of poets (* 12).  But neither has
America produced `one able mathematician, one man of genius in a
single art or a single science.' In war we have produced a
Washington, whose memory will be adored while liberty shall have
votaries, whose name will triumph over time, and will in future ages
assume its just station among the most celebrated worthies of the
world, when that wretched philosophy shall be forgotten which would
have arranged him among the degeneracies of nature.  In physics we
have produced a Franklin, than whom no one of the present age has
made more important discoveries, nor has enriched philosophy with
more, or more ingenious solutions of the phaenomena of nature.  We
have supposed Mr. Rittenhouse second to no astronomer living: that in
genius he must be the first, because he is self-taught.  As an artist
he has exhibited as great a proof of mechanical genius as the world
has ever produced.  He has not indeed made a world; but he has by
imitation approached nearer its Maker than any man who has lived from
the creation to this day (* 13).  As in philosophy and war, so in
government, in oratory, in painting, in the plastic art, we might
shew that America, though but a child of yesterday, has already given
hopeful proofs of genius, as well of the nobler kinds, which arouse
the best feelings of man, which call him into action, which
substantiate his freedom, and conduct him to happiness, as of the
subordinate, which serve to amuse him only.  We therefore suppose,
that this reproach is as unjust as it is unkind; and that, of the
geniuses which adorn the present age, America contributes its full
share.  For comparing it with those countries, where genius is most
cultivated, where are the most excellent models for art, and
scaffoldings for the attainment of science, as France and England for
instance, we calculate thus.  The United States contain three
millions of inhabitants; France twenty millions; and the British
islands ten.  We produce a Washington, a Franklin, a Rittenhouse.
France then should have half a dozen in each of these lines, and
Great-Britain half that number, equally eminent.  It may be true,
that France has: we are but just becoming acquainted with her, and
our acquaintance so far gives us high ideas of the genius of her
inhabitants.  It would be injuring too many of them to name
particularly a Voltaire, a Buffon, the constellation of
Encyclopedists, the Abbe Raynal himself, &c. &c.  We therefore have
reason to believe she can produce her full quota of genius.  The
present war having so long cut off all communication with
Great-Britain, we are not able to make a fair estimate of the state
of science in that country.  The spirit in which she wages war is the
only sample before our eyes, and that does not seem the legitimate
offspring either of science or of civilization.  The sun of her glory
is fast descending to the horizon.  Her philosophy has crossed the
Channel, her freedom the Atlantic, and herself seems passing to that
awful dissolution, whose issue is not given human foresight to scan
(* 14).

 
        Having given a sketch of our minerals, vegetables, and
quadrupeds, and being led by a proud theory to make a comparison of
the latter with those of Europe, and to extend it to the Man of
America, both aboriginal and emigrant, I will proceed to the
remaining articles comprehended under the present query.

        Between ninety and an hundred of our birds have been described
by Catesby.  His drawings are better as to form and attitude, than
colouring, which is generally too high.  They are the following.

        BIRDS OF VIRGINIA.

        Besides these, we have
 
        The Royston crow. Corvus cornix.
        Crane. Ardea Canadensis.
        House swallow. Hirundo rustica.
        Ground swallow. Hirundo riparia.
        Greatest grey eagle.
        Smaller turkey buzzard, with a feathered head.
        Greatest owl, or nighthawk.
        Wethawk, which feeds flying.
        Raven.
        Water pelican of the Missisipi, whose pouch holds a peck.
        Swan.
        Loon.
 
        The Cormorant.
        Duck and Mallard.
        Widgeon.
        Sheldrach, or Canvas back.
        Black head.
        Ballcoot.
        Sprigtail.
        Didapper, or Dopchick.
        Spoon billed duck.
        Water-witch.
        Water-pheasant.
        Mow-bird.
        Blue peter.
        Water wagtail.
        Yellow-legged snipe.
        Squatting snipe.
        Small plover.
        Whistling plover.
        Woodcock.
        Red bird, with black head, wings and tail.
 
        And doubtless many others which have not yet been described and
classed.

        To this catalogue of our indigenous animals, I will add a short
account of an anomaly of nature, taking place sometimes in the race
of negroes brought from Africa, who, though black themselves, have in
rare instances, white children, called Albinos.  I have known four of
these myself, and have faithful accounts of three others.  The
circumstances in which all the individuals agree are these.  They are
of a pallid cadaverous white, untinged with red, without any coloured
spots or seams; their hair of the same kind of white, short, coarse,
and curled as is that of the negro; all of them well formed, strong,
healthy, perfect in their senses, except that of sight, and born of
parents who had no mixture of white blood.  Three of these Albinos
were sisters, having two other full sisters, who were black.  The
youngest of the three was killed by lightning, at twelve years of
age.  The eldest died at about 27 years of age, in child-bed, with
her second child.  The middle one is now alive in health, and has
issue, as the eldest had, by a black man, which issue was black.
They are uncommonly shrewd, quick in their apprehensions and in
reply.  Their eyes are in a perpetual tremulous vibration, very weak,
and much affected by the sun: but they see better in the night than
we do.  They are of the property of Col. Skipwith, of Cumberland.
The fourth is a negro woman, whose parents came from Guinea, and had
three other children, who were of their own colour.  She is freckled,
her eye-sight so weak that she is obliged to wear a bonnet in the
summer; but it is better in the night than day.  She had an Albino
child by a black man.  It died at the age of a few weeks.  These were
the property of Col. Carter, of Albemarle.  A sixth instance is a
woman of the property of a Mr. Butler, near Petersburgh.  She is
stout and robust, has issue a daughter, jet black, by a black man.  I
am not informed as to her eye sight.  The seventh instance is of a
male belonging to a Mr. Lee, of Cumberland.  His eyes are tremulous
and weak.  He is tall of stature, and now advanced in years.  He is
the only male of the Albinos which have come within my information.
Whatever be the cause of the disease in the skin, or in its colouring
matter, which produces this change, it seems more incident to the
female than male sex.  To these I may add the mention of a negro man
within my own knowledge, born black, and of black parents; on whose
chin, when a boy, a white spot appeared.  This continued to increase
till he became a man, by which time it had extended over his chin,
lips, one cheek, the under jaw and neck on that side.  It is of the
Albino white, without any mixture of red, and has for several years
been stationary.  He is robust and healthy, and the change of colour
was not accompanied with any sensible disease, either general or
topical.

        Of our fish and insects there has been nothing like a full
description or collection.  More of them are described in Catesby
than in any other work.  Many also are to be found in Sir Hans
Sloane's Jamaica, as being common to that and this country.  The
honey-bee is not a native of our continent.  Marcgrave indeed
mentions a species of honey-bee in Brasil.  But this has no sting,
and is therefore different from the one we have, which resembles
perfectly that of Europe.  The Indians concur with us in the
tradition that it was brought from Europe; but when, and by whom, we
know not.  The bees have generally extended themselves into the
country, a little in advance of the white settlers.  The Indians
therefore call them the white man's fly, and consider their approach
as indicating the approach of the settlements of the whites.  A
question here occurs, How far northwardly have these insects been
found?  That they are unknown in Lapland, I infer from Scheffer's
information, that the Laplanders eat the pine bark, prepared in a
certain way, instead of those things sweetened with sugar.  `Hoc
comedunt pro rebus saccharo conditis.' Scheff. Lapp. c. 18.
Certainly, if they had honey, it would be a better substitute for
sugar than any preparation of the pine bark.  Kalm tells us the honey
bee
         I. 126.
         cannot live through the winter in Canada.  They furnish then an
additional proof of the remarkable fact first observed by the Count de
Buffon, and which has thrown such a blaze of light on the field of natural
history, that no animals are found in both continents, but those which are
able to bear the cold of those regions where they probably join.

        (* 1) 2. Buffon Epoques, 96.

        (* 3) D'Aubenton.

        (* 4) It is said, that this animal is seldom seen above 30
miles from shore, or beyond the 56th degree of latitude.  The
interjacent islands between Asia and America admit his passing from
one continent to the other without exceeding these bounds.  And, in
fact, travellers tell us that these islands are places of principal
resort for them, and especially in the season of bringing forth their
young.

        (* 5) The descriptions of Theodat, Denys and La Hontan, cited
by Mons. de Buffon under the article Elan, authorize the supposition,
that the flat-horned elk is found in the northern parts of America.
It has not however extended to our latitudes.  On the other hand, I
could never learn that the round-horned elk has been seen further
North than the Hudson's river.  This agrees with the former elk in
its general character, being, like that, when compared with a deer,
very much larger, its ears longer, broader, and thicker in
proportion, its hair much longer, neck and tail shorter, having a
dewlap before the breast (caruncula gutturalis Linnaei) a white spot
often, if not always; of a foot diameter, on the hinder part of the
buttocks round the tail; its gait a trot, and attended with a
rattling of the hoofs: but distinguished from that decisively by its
horns, which are not palmated, but round and pointed.  This is the
animal described by Catesby as the Cervus major Americanus, the Stag
of America, le Cerf de l'Amerique.  But it differs from the Cervus as
totally, as does the palmated elk from the dama.  And in fact it
seems to stand in the same relation to the palmated elk, as the red
deer does to the fallow.  It has abounded in Virginia, has been seen,
within my knowledge, on the Eastern side of the Blue ridge since the
year 1765, is now common beyond those mountains, has been often
brought to us and tamed, and their horns are in the hands of many.  I
should designate it as the `Alces Americanus cornibus teretibus.' It
were to be wished, that Naturalists, who are acquainted with the
renne and elk of Europe, and who may hereafter visit the northern
parts of America, would examine well the animals called there by the
names of grey and black moose, caribou, orignal, and elk.  Mons. de
Buffon has done what could be done from the materials in his hands,
towards clearing up the confusion introduced by the loose application
of these names among the animals they are meant to designate.  He
reduces the whole to the renne and flat-horned elk.  From all the
information I have been able to collect, I strongly suspect they will
be found to cover three, if not four distinct species of animals.  I
have seen skins of a moose, and of the caribou: they differ more from
each other, and from that of the round-horned elk, than I ever saw
two skins differ which belonged to different individuals of any wild
species.  These differences are in the colour, length, and coarseness
of the hair, and in the size, texture, and marks of the skin.
Perhaps it will be found that there is, 1. the moose, black and grey,
the former being said to be the male, and the latter the female.  2.
The caribou or renne.  3. The flat-horned elk, or orignal.  4. The
round-horned elk.  Should this last, though possessing so nearly the
characters of the elk, be found to be the same with the Cerf
d'Ardennes or Brandhirtz of Germany, still there will remain the
three species first enumerated.

        (* 6) The Tapir is the largest of the animals peculiar to
America.  I collect his weight thus.  Mons. de Buffon says, XXIII.
274. that he is of the size of a Zebu, or a small cow.  He gives us
the measures of a Zebu, ib. 94. as taken by himself, viz.  5 feet 7
inches from the muzzle to the root of the tail, and 5 feet 1 inch
circumference behind the fore legs.  A bull, measuring in the same
way 6 feet 9 inches and 5 feet 2 inches, weighed 600 lb. VIII.  153.
The Zebu then, and of course the Tapir, would weigh about 500 lb.
But one individual of every species of European peculiars would
probably weigh less than 400 lb.  These are French measures and
weights.

        (* 7) In Williamsburg, April, 1769.

        (* 8) Sol Rodomonte sprezza di venire
         Se non, dove la via meno e sicura.
         Ariosto. 14. 117.

        (* 9) In so judicious an author as Don Ulloa, and one to whom
we are indebted for the most precise information we have of South
America, I did not expect to find such assertions as the following.
`Los Indios vencidos son los mas cobardes y pusilanimes que se peuden
ver: -- se hacen inocentes, se humillan hasta el desprecio, disculpan
su inconsiderado arrojo, y con las suplicas y los ruegos dan seguras
pruebas de su pusilanimidad.  -- o lo que resieren las historias de
la Conquista, sobre sus grandes acciones, es en un sentido figurado,
o el caracter de estas gentes no es ahora segun era entonces; pero lo
que no tiene duda es, que las Naciones de la parte Septentrional
subsisten en la misma libertad que siempre han tenido, sin haber sido
sojuzgados por algun Principe extrano, y que viven segun su regimen y
costumbres de toda la vida, sin que haya habido motivo para que muden
de caracter; y en estos se ve lo mismo, que sucede en los del Peru, y
de toda la America Meridional, reducidos, y que nunca lo han estado.'
Noticias Americanas.  Entretenimiento XVIII.  1. Don Ulloa here
admits, that the authors who have described the Indians of South
America, before they were enslaved, had represented them as a brave
people, and therefore seems to have suspected that the cowardice
which he had observed in those of the present race might be the
effect of subjugation.  But, supposing the Indians of North America
to be cowards also, he concludes the ancestors of those of South
America to have been so too, and therefore that those authors have
given fictions for truths.  He was probably not acquainted himself
with the Indians of North America, and had formed his opinion of them
from hear-say.  Great numbers of French, of English, and of
Americans, are perfectly acquainted with these people.  Had he had an
opportunity of enquiring of any of these, they would have told him,
that there never was an instance known of an Indian begging his life
when in the power of his enemies: on the contrary, that he courts
death by every possible insult and provocation.  His reasoning then
would have been reversed thus.  `Since the present Indian of North
America is brave, and authors tell us, that the ancestors of those of
South America were brave also; it must follow, that the cowardice of
their descendants is the effect of subjugation and ill treatment.'
For he observes, ib.  (symbol omitted). 27. that `los obrages los
aniquilan por la inhumanidad con que se les trata.'

        (* 10) A remarkable instance of this appeared in the case of
the late Col. Byrd, who was sent to the Cherokee nation to transact
some business with them.  It happened that some of our disorderly
people had just killed one or two of that nation.  It was therefore
proposed in the council of the Cherokees that Col. Byrd should be put
to death, in revenge for the loss of their countrymen.  Among them
was a chief called Silouee, who, on some former occasion, had
contracted an acquaintance and friendship with Col. Byrd.  He came to
him every night in his tent, and told him not to be afraid, they
should not kill him.  After many days deliberation, however, the
determination was, contrary to Silouee's expectation, that Byrd
should be put to death, and some warriors were dispatched as
executioners.  Silouee attended them, and when they entered the tent,
he threw himself between them and Byrd, and said to the warriors,
`this man is my friend: before you get at him, you must kill me.' On
which they returned, and the council respected the principle so much
as to recede from their determination.

        (* 11) Linn. Syst. Definition of a Man.

        (* 12) Has the world as yet produced more than two poets,
acknowledged to be such by all nations?  An Englishman, only, reads
Milton with delight, an Italian Tasso, a Frenchman the Henriade, a
Portuguese Camouens: but Homer and Virgil have been the rapture of
every age and nation: they are read with enthusiasm in their
originals by those who can read the originals, and in translations by
those who cannot.

        (* 13) There are various ways of keeping truth out of sight.
Mr. Rittenhouse's model of the planetary system has the plagiary
appellation of an Orrery; and the quadrant invented by Godfrey, an
American also, and with the aid of which the European nations
traverse the globe, is called Hadley's quadrant.

        (* 14) In a later edition of the Abbe Raynal's work, he has
withdrawn his censure from that part of the new world inhabited by
the Federo-Americans; but has left it still on the other parts.
North America has always been more accessible to strangers than
South.  If he was mistaken then as to the former, he may be so as to
the latter.  The glimmerings which reach us from South America enable
us only to see that its inhabitants are held under the accumulated
pressure of slavery, superstition, and ignorance.  Whenever they
shall be able to rise under this weight, and to shew themselves to
the rest of the world, they will probably shew they are like the rest
of the world.  We have not yet sufficient evidence that there are
more _lakes_ and _fogs_ in South America than in other parts of the
earth.  As little do we know what would be their operation on the
mind of man.  That country has been visited by Spaniards and
Portugueze chiefly, and almost exclusively.  These, going from a
country of the old world remarkably dry in its soil and climate,
fancied there were more lakes and fogs in South America than in
Europe.  An inhabitant of Ireland, Sweden, or Finland, would have
formed the contrary opinion.  Had South America then been discovered
and seated by a people from a fenny country, it would probably have
been represented as much drier than the old world.  A patient pursuit
of facts, and cautious combination and comparison of them, is the
drudgery to which man is subjected by his Maker, if he wishes to
attain sure knowledge.

        QUERY VII

        _A notice of all what can increase the progress of human
knowledge?_

        Climate
        Under the latitude of this query, I will presume it not
improper nor unacceptable to furnish some data for estimating the
climate of Virginia.  Journals of observations on the quantity of
rain, and degree of heat, being lengthy, confused, and too minute to
produce general and distinct ideas, I have taken five years
observations, to wit, from 1772 to 1777, made in Williamsburgh and
its neighbourhood, have reduced them to an average for every month in
the year, and stated those averages in the following table, adding an
analytical view of the winds during the same period.

        The rains of every month, (as of January for instance) through
the whole period of years, were added separately, and an average
drawn from them.  The coolest and warmest point of the same day in
each year of the period were added separately, and an average of the
greatest cold and greatest heat of that day, was formed.  From the
averages of every day in the month, a general average for the whole
month was formed.  The point from which the wind blew was observed
two or three times in every day.  These observations, in the month of
January for instance, through the whole period amounted to 337.  At
73 of these, the wind was from the North; at 47, from the North-east,
&c.  So that it will be easy to see in what proportion each wind
usually prevails in each month: or, taking the whole year, the total
of observations through the whole period having been 3698, it will be
observed that 611 of them were from the North, 558 from the
North-east, &c.

        Though by this table it appears we have on an average 47 inches
of rain annually, which is considerably more than usually falls in
Europe, yet from the information I have collected, I suppose we have
a much greater proportion of sunshine here than there.  Perhaps it
will be found there are twice as many cloudy days in the middle parts
of Europe, as in the United States of America.  I mention the middle
parts of Europe, because my information does not extend to its
northern or southern parts.

 
 
        Fall of Least & greatest
        rain, daily heat by                WINDS.
        &c. in Farenheit's
        inches thermometer.  N. N.E. E. S.E. S. S.W. W. N.W. Total.

 Jan.    3.192  38 1/2  to  44      73  47  32  10  11  78  40  46  337
 Feb.    2.049  41          47 1/2  61  52  24  11   4  63  30  31  276
 Mar.    3.95   48          54 1/2  49  44  38  28  14  83  29  33  318
 April   3.68   56          62 1/2  35  44  54  19   9  58  18  20  257
 May     2.871  63          70 1/2  27  36  62  23   7  74  32  20  281
 June    3.751  71 1/2      78 1/4  22  34  43  24  13  81  25  25  267
 July    4.497  77          82 1/2  41  44  75  15   7  95  32  19  328
 Aug.    9.153  76 1/4      81      43  52  40  30   9 103  27  30  334
 Sept.   4.761  69 1/2      74 1/4  70  60  51  18  10  81  18  37  345
 Oct.    3.633  61 1/4      66 1/2  52  77  64  15   6  56  23  34  327
 Nov.    2.617  47 3/4      53 1/2  74  21  20  14   9  63  35  58  294
 Dec.    2.877  43          48 3/4  64  37  18  16  10  91  42  56  334
 Total. 47.038  8.A.M.      4.P.M. 611 548 521 223 109 926 351 409 3698

 
        In an extensive country, it will of course be expected that the
climate is not the same in all its parts.  It is remarkable that, proceeding
on the same parallel of latitude westwardly, the climate becomes colder in
like manner as when you proceed northwardly.  This continues to be the case
till you attain the summit of the Alleghaney, which is the highest land
between the ocean and the Missisipi.  From thence, descending in the same
latitude to the Missisipi, the change reverses; and, if we may believe
travellers, it becomes warmer there than it is in the same latitude on the
sea side.  Their testimony is strengthened by the vegetables and animals
which subsist and multiply there naturally, and do not on our sea coast.
Thus Catalpas grow spontaneously on the Missisipi, as far as the latitude of
37 degrees. and reeds as far as 38 degrees.  Perroquets even winter on the
Sioto, in the 39th degree of latitude.  In the summer of 1779, when the
thermometer was at 90 degrees. at Monticello, and 96 at Williamsburgh, it was
110 degrees. at Kaskaskia.  Perhaps the mountain, which overhangs this
village on the North side, may, by its reflexion, have contributed somewhat
to produce this heat.  The difference of temperature of the air at the sea
coast, or on Chesapeak bay, and at the Alleghaney, has not been ascertained;
but cotemporary observations, made at Williamsburgh, or in its neighbourhood,
and at Monticello, which is on the most eastern ridge of mountains, called
the South West, where they are intersected by the Rivanna, have furnished a
ratio by which that difference may in some degree be conjectured.  These
observations make the difference between Williamsburgh and the nearest
mountains, at the position before mentioned, to be on an average 6 1/8
degrees of Farenheit's thermometer.  Some allowance however is to be made for
the difference of latitude between these two places, the latter being 38
degrees.8'.17".  which is 52'.22".  North of the former.  By cotemporary
observations of between five and six weeks, the averaged and almost unvaried
difference of the height of mercury in the barometer, at those two places,
was .784 of an inch, the atmosphere at Monticello being so much the lightest,
that is to say, about 1/37 of its whole weight.  It should be observed,
however, that the hill of Monticello is of 500 feet perpendicular height
above the river which washes its base.  This position being nearly central
between our northern and southern boundaries, and between the bay and
Alleghaney, may be considered as furnishing the best average of the
temperature of our climate.  Williamsburgh is much too near the South-eastern
corner to give a fair idea of our general temperature.

        But a more remarkable difference is in the winds which prevail
in the different parts of the country.  The following table exhibits
a comparative view of the winds prevailing at Williamsburgh, and at
Monticello.  It is formed by reducing nine months observations at
Monticello to four principal points, to wit, the North-east,
South-east, South-west, and North-west; these points being
perpendicular to, or parallel with our coast, mountains and rivers:
and by reducing, in like manner, an equal number of observations, to
wit, 421. from the preceding table of winds at Williamsburgh, taking
them proportionably from every point.

                      N.E.    S.E.    S.W.    N.W.    Total.
      Williamsburgh   127     61      132     101     421
      Monticello       32     91      126     172     421

        By this it may be seen that the South-west wind prevails
equally at both places; that the North-east is, next to this, the
principal wind towards the sea coast, and the North-west is the
predominant wind at the mountains.  The difference between these two
winds to sensation, and in fact, is very great.  The North-east is
loaded with vapour, insomuch, that the salt makers have found that
their crystals would not shoot while that blows; it brings a
distressing chill, is heavy and oppressive to the spirits: the
North-west is dry, cooling, elastic and animating.  The Eastern and
South-eastern breezes come on generally in the afternoon.  They have
advanced into the country very sensibly within the memory of people
now living.  They formerly did not penetrate far above Williamsburgh.
They are now frequent at Richmond, and every now and then reach the
mountains.  They deposit most of their moisture however before they
get that far.  As the lands become more cleared, it is probable they
will extend still further westward.

        Going out into the open air, in the temperate, and in the warm
months of the year, we often meet with bodies of warm air, which,
passing by us in two or three seconds, do not afford time to the most
sensible thermometer to seize their temperature.  Judging from my
feelings only, I think they approach the ordinary heat of the human
body.  Some of them perhaps go a little beyond it.  They are of about
20 or 30 feet diameter horizontally.  Of their height we have no
experience; but probably they are globular volumes wafted or rolled
along with the wind.  But whence taken, where found, or how
generated?  They are not to be ascribed to Volcanos, because we have
none.  They do not happen in the winter when the farmers kindle large
fires in clearing up their grounds.  They are not confined to the
spring season, when we have fires which traverse whole counties,
consuming the leaves which have fallen from the trees.  And they are
too frequent and general to be ascribed to accidental fires.  I am
persuaded their cause must be sought for in the atmosphere itself, to
aid us in which I know but of these constant circumstances; a dry
air; a temperature as warm at least as that of the spring or autumn;
and a moderate current of wind.  They are most frequent about
sun-set; rare in the middle parts of the day; and I do not recollect
having ever met with them in the morning.

        The variation in the weight of our atmosphere, as indicated by
the barometer, is not equal to two inches of mercury.  During twelve
months observation at Williamsburgh, the extremes were 29, and 30.86
inches, the difference being 1.86 of an inch: and in nine months,
during which the height of the mercury was noted at Monticello, the
extremes were 28.48 and 29.69 inches, the variation being 1.21 of an
inch.  A gentleman, who has observed his barometer many years,
assures me it has never varied two inches.  Cotemporary observations,
made at Monticello and Williamsburgh, proved the variations in the
weight of air to be simultaneous and corresponding in these two
places.

        Our changes from heat to cold, and cold to heat, are very
sudden and great.  The mercury in Farenheit's thermometer has been
known to descend from 92 degrees. to 47degrees. in thirteen hours.

        It is taken for granted, that the preceding table of averaged
heat will not give a false idea on this subject, as it proposes to
state only the ordinary heat and cold of each month, and not those
which are extraordinary.  At Williamsburgh in August 1766, the
mercury in Farenheit's thermometer was at 98degrees.  corresponding
with 29 1/3 of Reaumur.  At the same place in January 1780, it was at
6degrees.  corresponding with 11 1/2 below 0. of Reaumur.  I believe
(*) these may be considered to be nearly the extremes of heat and
cold in that part of the country.  The latter may most certainly, as,
at that time, York river, at York town, was frozen over, so that
people walked across it; a circumstance which proves it to have been
colder than the winter of 1740, 1741, usually called the cold winter,
when York river did not freeze over at that place.  In the same
season of 1780, Chesapeak bay was solid, from its head to the mouth
of Patowmac.  At Annapolis, where it is 5 1/4 miles over between the
nearest points of land, the ice was from 5 to 7 inches thick quite
across, so that loaded carriages went over on it.  Those, our
extremes of heat and cold, of 6degrees. and 98degrees. were indeed
very distressing to us, and were thought to put the extent of the
human constitution to considerable trial.  Yet a Siberian would have
considered them as scarcely a sensible variation.  At Jenniseitz in
that country, in latitude 58degrees. we are told, that the cold in
1735 sunk the mercury by Farenheit's scale to 126 degrees. below
nothing; and the inhabitants of the same country use stove rooms two
or three times a week, in which they stay two hours at a time, the
atmosphere of which raises the mercury to 135 degrees. above nothing.
Late experiments shew that the human body will exist in rooms heated
to 140 degrees.  of Reaumur, equal to 347 degrees. of Farenheit, and
135 degrees.  above boiling water.  The hottest point of the 24 hours
is about four o'clock, P. M. and the dawn of day the coldest.

        (*) At Paris, in 1753, the mercury in Reaumur's thermometer was
at 30 1/2 above 0, and in 1776, it was at 16 below 0.  The
extremities of heat and cold therefore at Paris, are greater than at
Williamsburgh, which is in the hottest part of Virginia.

        The access of frost in autumn, and its recess in the spring, do
not seem to depend merely on the degree of cold; much less on the
air's being at the freezing point.  White frosts are frequent when
the thermometer is at 47 degrees. have killed young plants of Indian
corn at 48 degrees. and have been known at 54 degrees.  Black frost,
and even ice, have been produced at 38 1/2 degrees.  which is 6 1/2
degrees above the freezing point.  That other circumstances must be
combined with the cold to produce frost, is evident from this also,
that on the higher parts of mountains, where it is absolutely colder
than in the plains on which they stand, frosts do not appear so early
by a considerable space of time in autumn, and go off sooner in the
spring, than in the plains.  I have known frosts so severe as to kill
the hiccory trees round about Monticello, and yet not injure the
tender fruit blossoms then in bloom on the top and higher parts of
the mountain; and in the course of 40 years, during which it has been
settled, there have been but two instances of a general loss of fruit
on it: while, in the circumjacent country, the fruit has escaped but
twice in the last seven years.  The plants of tobacco, which grow
from the roots of those which have been cut off in the summer, are
frequently green here at Christmas.  This privilege against the frost
is undoubtedly combined with the want of dew on the mountains.  That
the dew is very rare on their higher parts, I may say with certainty,
from 12 years observations, having scarcely ever, during that time,
seen an unequivocal proof of its existence on them at all during
summer.  Severe frosts in the depth of winter prove that the region
of dews extends higher in that season than the tops of the mountains:
but certainly, in the summer season, the vapours, by the time they
attain that height, are become so attenuated as not to subside and
form a dew when the sun retires.

        The weavil has not yet ascended the high mountains.

        A more satisfactory estimate of our climate to some, may
perhaps be formed, by noting the plants which grow here, subject
however to be killed by our severest colds.  These are the fig,
pomegranate, artichoke, and European walnut.  In mild winters,
lettuce and endive require no shelter; but generally they need a
slight covering.  I do not know that the want of long moss, reed,
myrtle, swamp laurel, holly and cypress, in the upper country,
proceeds from a greater degree of cold, nor that they were ever
killed with any degree of cold in the lower country.  The aloe lived
in Williamsburgh in the open air through the severe winter of 1779,
1780.

        A change in our climate however is taking place very sensibly.
Both heats and colds are become much more moderate within the memory
even of the middle-aged.  Snows are less frequent and less deep.
They do not often lie, below the mountains, more than one, two, or
three days, and very rarely a week.  They are remembered to have been
formerly frequent, deep, and of long continuance.  The elderly inform
me the earth used to be covered with snow about three months in every
year.  The rivers, which then seldom failed to freeze over in the
course of the winter, scarcely ever do so now.  This change has
produced an unfortunate fluctuation between heat and cold, in the
spring of the year, which is very fatal to fruits.  From the year
1741 to 1769, an interval of twenty-eight years, there was no
instance of fruit killed by the frost in the neighbourhood of
Monticello.  An intense cold, produced by constant snows, kept the
buds locked up till the sun could obtain, in the spring of the year,
so fixed an ascendency as to dissolve those snows, and protect the
buds, during their developement, from every danger of returning cold.
The accumulated snows of the winter remaining to be dissolved all
together in the spring, produced those overflowings of our rivers, so
frequent then, and so rare now.

        Having had occasion to mention the particular situation of
Monticello for other purposes, I will just take notice that its
elevation affords an opportunity of seeing a phaenomenon which is
rare at land, though frequent at sea.  The seamen call it _looming_.
Philosophy is as yet in the rear of the seamen, for so far from
having accounted for it, she has not given it a name.  Its principal
effect is to make distant objects appear larger, in opposition to the
general law of vision, by which they are diminished.  I knew an
instance, at York town, from whence the water prospect eastwardly is
without termination, wherein a canoe with three men, at a great
distance, was taken for a ship with its three masts.  I am little
acquainted with the phaenomenon as it shews itself at sea; but at
Monticello it is familiar.  There is a solitary mountain about 40
miles off, in the South, whose natural shape, as presented to view
there, is a regular cone; but, by the effect of looming, it sometimes
subsides almost totally into the horizon; sometimes it rises more
acute and more elevated; sometimes it is hemispherical; and sometimes
its sides are perpendicular, its top flat, and as broad as its base.
In short it assumes at times the most whimsical shapes, and all these
perhaps successively in the same morning.  The Blue ridge of
mountains comes into view, in the North East, at about 100 miles
distance, and, approaching in a direct line, passes by within 20
miles, and goes off to the South-west.  This phaenomenon begins to
shew itself on these mountains, at about 50 miles distance, and
continues beyond that as far as they are seen.  I remark no
particular state, either in the weight, moisture, or heat of the
atmosphere, necessary to produce this.  The only constant
circumstances are, its appearance in the morning only, and on objects
at least 40 or 50 miles distant.  In this latter circumstance, if not
in both, it differs from the looming on the water.  Refraction will
not account for this metamorphosis.  That only changes the
proportions of length and breadth, base and altitude, preserving the
general outlines.  Thus it may make a circle appear elliptical, raise
or depress a cone, but by none of its laws, as yet developed, will it
make a circle appear a square, or a cone a sphere.

        QUERY VIII
 
        _The number of its inhabitants?_

        Population
        The following table shews the number of persons imported for
the establishment of our colony in its infant state, and the census
of inhabitants at different periods, extracted from our historians
and public records, as particularly as I have had opportunities and
leisure to examine them.  Successive lines in the same year shew
successive periods of time in that year.  I have stated the census in
two different columns, the whole inhabitants having been sometimes
numbered, and sometimes the _tythes_ only.  This term, with us,
includes the free males above 16 years of age, and slaves above that
age of both sexes.  A further examination of our records would render
this history of our population much more satisfactory and perfect, by
furnishing a greater number of intermediate terms.  Those however
which are here stated will enable us to calculate, with a
considerable degree of precision, the rate at which we have
increased.  During the infancy of the colony, while numbers were
small, wars, importations, and other accidental circumstances render
the progression fluctuating and irregular.  By the year 1654,
however, it becomes tolerably uniform, importations having in a great
measure ceased from the dissolution of the company, and the
inhabitants become too numerous to be sensibly affected by Indian
wars.  Beginning at that period, therefore, we find that from thence
to the year 1772, our tythes had increased from 7209 to 153,000.  The
whole term being of 118 years, yields a duplication once in every 27
1/4 years.  The intermediate enumerations taken in 1700, 1748, and
1759, furnish proofs of the uniformity of this progression.  Should
this rate of increase continue, we shall have between six and seven
millions of inhabitants within 95 years.  If we suppose our country
to be bounded, at some future day, by the meridian of the mouth of
the Great Kanhaway, (within which it has been before conjectured, are
64,491 square miles) there will then be 100 inhabitants for every
square mile, which is nearly the state of population in the British
islands.  Here I will beg leave to propose a doubt.  The present
desire of America is to produce rapid population by as great
importations of foreigners as possible.  But is this founded in good
policy?  The advantage proposed is the multiplication of numbers.
Now let us suppose (for example only) that, in this state, we could
double our numbers in one year by the importation of foreigners; and
this is a greater accession than the most sanguine advocate for
emigration has a right to expect.  Then I say, beginning with a
double stock, we shall attain any given degree of population only 27
years and 3 months sooner than if we proceed on our single stock.  If
we propose four millions and a half as a competent population for
this state, we should be 54 1/2 years attaining it, could we at once
double our numbers; and 81 3/4 years, if we rely on natural
propagation, as may be seen by the following table.

 
              Settlers        Census of       Census of
      Years   imported.       Inhabitants.    Tythes.
      1607     100
                                 40
               120
      1608                      130
                70
      1609                      490
                16
                                 60
      1610     150
                                200
      1611    3 ship loads
               300
      1612      80
      1617                      400
      1618     200
                40
                                600
      1619    1216
      1621    1300
      1622                     3800
                               2500
      1628                     3000
      1632                                      2000
      1644                                      4822
      1645                                      5000
      1652                                      7000
      1654                                      7209
      1700                                    22,000
      1748                                    82,100
      1759                                   105,000
      1772                                   153,000
      1782                  567,614

        In the first column are stated periods of 27 1/4 years; in the
second are our numbers, at each period, as they will be if we proceed
on our actual stock; and in the third are what they would be, at the
same periods, were we to set out from the double of our present
stock.

                      Proceeding on           Proceeding on
                      our present stock.      a double stock.
      1781              567,614               1,135,228
      1808 1/4        1,135,228               2,270,456
      1835 1/2        2,270,456               4,540,912
      1862 3/4        4,540,912
 
        I have taken the term of four millions and a half of
inhabitants for example's sake only.  Yet I am persuaded it is a
greater number than the country spoken of, considering how much
inarrable land it contains, can clothe and feed, without a material
change in the quality of their diet.  But are there no inconveniences
to be thrown into the scale against the advantage expected from a
multiplication of numbers by the importation of foreigners?  It is
for the happiness of those united in society to harmonize as much as
possible in matters which they must of necessity transact together.
Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its
administration must be conducted by common consent.  Every species of
government has its specific principles.  Ours perhaps are more
peculiar than those of any other in the universe.  It is a
composition of the freest principles of the English constitution,
with others derived from natural right and natural reason.  To these
nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies.
Yet, from such, we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants.
They will bring with them the principles of the governments they
leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off,
it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as
is usual, from one extreme to another.  It would be a miracle were
they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty.  These
principles, with their language, they will transmit to their
children.  In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us
the legislation.  They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and
bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent,
distracted mass.  I may appeal to experience, during the present
contest, for a verification of these conjectures.  But, if they be
not certain in event, are they not possible, are they not probable?
Is it not safer to wait with patience 27 years and three months
longer, for the attainment of any degree of population desired, or
expected?  May not our government be more homogeneous, more
peaceable, more durable?  Suppose 20 millions of republican Americans
thrown all of a sudden into France, what would be the condition of
that kingdom?  If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less
strong, we may believe that the addition of half a million of
foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect
here.  If they come of themselves, they are entitled to all the
rights of citizenship: but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by
extraordinary encouragements.  I mean not that these doubts should be
extended to the importation of useful artificers.  The policy of that
measure depends on very different considerations.  Spare no expence
in obtaining them.  They will after a while go to the plough and the
hoe; but, in the mean time, they will teach us something we do not
know.  It is not so in agriculture.  The indifferent state of that
among us does not proceed from a want of knowledge merely; it is from
our having such quantities of land to waste as we please.  In Europe
the object is to make the most of their land, labour being abundant:
here it is to make the most of our labour, land being abundant.

        It will be proper to explain how the numbers for the year 1782
have been obtained; as it was not from a perfect census of the
inhabitants.  It will at the same time develope the proportion
between the free inhabitants and slaves.  The following return of
taxable articles for that year was given in.

         53,289 free males above 21 years of age.
        211,698 slaves of all ages and sexes.
         23,766 not distinguished in the returns, but said to be
                        titheable slaves.
        195,439 horses.
        609,734 cattle.
          5,126 wheels of riding-carriages.
            191 taverns.

        There were no returns from the 8 counties of Lincoln,
Jefferson, Fayette, Monongalia, Yohogania, Ohio, Northampton, and
York.  To find the number of slaves which should have been returned
instead of the 23,766 titheables, we must mention that some
observations on a former census had given reason to believe that the
numbers above and below 16 years of age were equal.  The double of
this number, therefore, to wit, 47,532 must be added to 211,698,
which will give us 259,230 slaves of all ages and sexes.  To find the
number of free inhabitants, we must repeat the observation, that
those above and below 16 are nearly equal.  But as the number 53,289
omits the males between 16 and 21, we must supply them from
conjecture.  On a former experiment it had appeared that about
one-third of our militia, that is, of the males between 16 and 50,
were unmarried.  Knowing how early marriage takes place here, we
shall not be far wrong in supposing that the unmarried part of our
militia are those between 16 and 21.  If there be young men who do
not marry till after 21, there are as many who marry before that age.
But as the men above 50 were not included in the militia, we will
suppose the unmarried, or those between 16 and 21, to be one-fourth
of the whole number above 16, then we have the following calculation:

       53,289 free males above 21 years of age.
       17,763 free males between 16 and 21.
       71,052 free males under 16.
      142,104 free females of all ages.
      -------
      284,208 free inhabitants of all ages.
      259,230 slaves of all ages.
      -------
      543,438 inhabitants, exclusive of the 8 counties from which e
no returns.  In these 8 counties in the years 1779 and 1780 were
3,161 militia.  Say then,
        3,161 free males above the age of 16.
        3,161 ditto under 16.
        6,322 free females.
       ------
       12,644 free inhabitants in these 8 counties.  To find the number of
slaves, say, as 284,208 to 259,230, so is 12,644 to 11,532.  Adding the third
of these numbers to the first, and the fourth to the second, we have,
      296,852 free inhabitants.
      270,762 slaves.
      -------
      567,614 inhabitants of every age, sex, and condition.  But
296,852, the number of free inhabitants, are to 270,762, the number
of slaves, nearly as 11 to 10.  Under the mild treatment our slaves
experience, and their wholesome, though coarse, food, this blot in
our country increases as fast, or faster, than the whites.  During
the regal government, we had at one time obtained a law, which
imposed such a duty on the importation of slaves, as amounted nearly
to a prohibition, when one inconsiderate assembly, placed under a
peculiarity of circumstance, repealed the law.  This repeal met a
joyful sanction from the then sovereign, and no devices, no
expedients, which could ever after be attempted by subsequent
assemblies, and they seldom met without attempting them, could
succeed in getting the royal assent to a renewal of the duty.  In the
very first session held under the republican government, the assembly
passed a law for the perpetual prohibition of the importation of
slaves.  This will in some measure stop the increase of this great
political and moral evil, while the minds of our citizens may be
ripening for a complete emancipation of human nature.

        QUERY IX
 
        _The number and condition of the militia and regular troops,
and their pay?_

        Military
        The following is a state of the militia, taken from returns of
1780 and 1781, except in those counties marked with an asterisk, the
returns from which are somewhat older.

      Situation.              Counties.       Militia.
      Westward of the         Lincoln           600
      Allegany. 4458.         Jefferson         300
                              Fayette           156
                              Ohio
                              Monongalia      *1000
                              Washington       *829
                              Montgomery       1071
                              Green-briar       502

      Between the Allegany    Hampshire         930
      and Blue Ridge. 7673.   Berkeley        *1100
                              Frederick        1143
                              Shenando         *925
                              Rockingham        875
                              Augusta          1375
                              Rockbridge       *625
                              Botetourt        *700

      Between the Blue ridge  Loudoun          1746
      and Tide waters.        Fauquier         1078
      18,828                  Culpeper         1513
                              Spotsylvania      480
                              Orange           *600
                              Louisa            603
                              Goochland        *550
                              Fluvanna         *296
                              Albemarle         873
                              Amherst           896
                              Buchingham       *625
                              Bedford          1300
                              Henry            1004
                              Pittsylvania     *725
                              Halifax         *1139
                              Charlotte         612
                              Prince Edward     589
                              Cumberland        408
                              Powhatan          330
                              Amelia          *1125
                              Lunenburg         677
                              Mecklenburg      1100
                              Brunswic          559

      Situation.              Counties.       Militia.
      Between James river     Greenesville      500
      and Carolina. 6959.     Dinwiddie        *750
                              Chesterfield      655
                              Prince George     382
                              Surry             380
                              Sussex           *700
                              Southampton       874
                              Isle of Wight    *600
                              Nansemond        *644
                              Norfolk          *880
                              Princess Anne    *594

      Between James and York  Henrico           619
      rivers. 3009.           Hanover           796
                              New Kent         *418
                              Charles City      286
                              James City        235
                              Williamsburg      129
                              York             *244
                              Warwick           100
                              Elizabeth City    182

      Between York and        Caroline          805
      Rappahanock. 3269.      King William      436
                              King & Queen      500
                              Essex             468
                              Middlesex        *210
                              Gloucester        850

      Between Rappahonock     Fairfax           652
      & Patowmac. 4137.       Prince William    614
                              Stafford         *500
                              King George       483
                              Richmond          412
                              Westmoreland      544
                              Northumberl.      630
                              Lancaster         302

      East. Shore. 1638.      Accomac         *1208
                              Northampton      *430

      Whole Militia of the State             49,971

 
        Every able-bodied freeman, between the ages of 16 and 50, is
enrolled in the militia.  Those of every county are formed into
companies, and these again into one or more battalions, according to
the numbers in the county.  They are commanded by colonels, and other
subordinate officers, as in the regular service.  In every county is
a county-lieutenant, who commands the whole militia of his county,
but ranks only as a colonel in the field.  We have no general
officers always existing.  These are appointed occasionally, when an
invasion or insurrection happens, and their commission determines
with the occasion.  The governor is head of the military, as well as
civil power.  The law requires every militia-man to provide himself
with the arms usual in the regular service.  But this injunction was
always indifferently complied with, and the arms they had have been
so frequently called for to arm the regulars, that in the lower parts
of the country they are entirely disarmed.  In the middle country a
fourth or fifth part of them may have such firelocks as they had
provided to destroy the noxious animals which infest their farms; and
on the western side of the Blue ridge they are generally armed with
rifles.  The pay of our militia, as well as of our regulars, is that
of the Continental regulars.  The condition of our regulars, of whom
we have none but Continentals, and part of a battalion of state
troops, is so constantly on the change, that a state of it at this
day would not be its state a month hence.  It is much the same with
the condition of the other Continental troops, which is well enough
known.

        QUERY X
 
        _The marine?_

        Marine
        Before the present invasion of this state by the British under
the command of General Phillips, we had three vessels of 16 guns, one
of 14, five small gallies, and two or three armed boats.  They were
generally so badly manned as seldom to be in condition for service.
Since the perfect possession of our rivers assumed by the enemy, I
believe we are left with a single armed boat only.

        QUERY XI
 
        _A description of the Indians established in that state?_

        Aborigines
        When the first effectual settlement of our colony was made,
which was in 1607, the country from the sea-coast to the mountains,
and from Patowmac to the most southern waters of James river, was
occupied by upwards of forty different tribes of Indians.  Of these
the _Powhatans_, the _Mannahoacs_, and _Monacans_, were the most
powerful.  Those between the sea-coast and falls of the rivers, were
in amity with one another, and attached to the _Powhatans_ as their
link of union.  Those between the falls of the rivers and the
mountains, were divided into two confederacies; the tribes inhabiting
the head waters of Patowmac and Rappahanoc being attached to the
_Mannahoacs_; and those on the upper parts of James river to the
_Monacans_.  But the _Monacans_ and their friends were in amity with
the _Mannahoacs_ and their friends, and waged joint and perpetual war
against the _Powhatans_.  We are told that the _Powhatans_,
_Mannahoacs_, and _Monacans_, spoke languages so radically different,
that interpreters were necessary when they transacted business.
Hence we may conjecture, that this was not the case between all the
tribes, and probably that each spoke the language of the nation to
which it was attached; which we know to have been the case in many
particular instances.  Very possibly there may have been antiently
three different stocks, each of which multiplying in a long course of
time, had separated into so many little societies.  This practice
results from the circumstance of their having never submitted
themselves to any laws, any coercive power, any shadow of government.
Their only controuls are their manners, and that moral sense of right
and wrong, which, like the sense of tasting and feeling, in every man
makes a part of his nature.  An offence against these is punished by
contempt, by exclusion from society, or, where the case is serious,
as that of murder, by the individuals whom it concerns.  Imperfect as
this species of coercion may seem, crimes are very rare among them:
insomuch that were it made a question, whether no law, as among the
savage Americans, or too much law, as among the civilized Europeans,
submits man to the greatest evil, one who has seen both conditions of
existence would pronounce it to be the last: and that the sheep are
happier of themselves, than under care of the wolves.  It will be
said, that great societies cannot exist without government.  The
Savages therefore break them into small ones.

        The territories of the _Powhatan_ confederacy, south of the
Patowmac, comprehended about 8000 square miles, 30 tribes, and 2400
warriors.  Capt. Smith tells us, that within 60 miles of James town
were 5000 people, of whom 1500 were warriors.  From this we find the
proportion of their warriors to their whole inhabitants, was as 3 to
10.  The _Powhatan_ confederacy then would consist of about 8000
inhabitants, which was one for every square mile; being about the
twentieth part of our present population in the same territory, and
the hundredth of that of the British islands.
 
        Besides these, were the _Nottoways_, living on Nottoway river,
the _Meherrins_ and _Tuteloes_ on Meherrin river, who were connected
with the Indians of Carolina, probably with the Chowanocs.

        The preceding table contains a state of these several tribes,
according to their confederacies and geographical situation, with
their numbers when we first became acquainted with them, where these
numbers are known.  The numbers of some of them are again stated as
they were in the year 1669, when an attempt was made by the assembly
to enumerate them.  Probably the enumeration is imperfect, and in
some measure conjectural, and that a further search into the records
would furnish many more particulars.  What would be the melancholy
sequel of their history, may however be augured from the census of
1669; by which we discover that the tribes therein enumerated were,
in the space of 62 years, reduced to about one-third of their former
numbers.  Spirituous liquors, the small-pox, war, and an abridgment
of territory, to a people who lived principally on the spontaneous
productions of nature, had committed terrible havock among them,
which generation, under the obstacles opposed to it among them, was
not likely to make good.  That the lands of this country were taken
from them by conquest, is not so general a truth as is supposed.  I
find in our historians and records, repeated proofs of purchase,
which cover a considerable part of the lower country; and many more
would doubtless be found on further search.  The upper country we
know has been acquired altogether by purchases made in the most
unexceptionable form.

        Westward of all these tribes, beyond the mountains, and
extending to the great lakes, were the _Massawomecs_, a most powerful
confederacy, who harrassed unremittingly the _Powhatans_ and
_Manahoacs_.  These were probably the ancestors of the tribes known
at present by the name of the _Six Nations_.

        Very little can now be discovered of the subsequent history of
these tribes severally.  The _Chickahominies_ removed, about the year
1661, to Mattapony river.  Their chief, with one from each of the
tribes of the Pamunkies and Mattaponies, attended the treaty of
Albany in 1685.  This seems to have been the last chapter in their
history.  They retained however their separate name so late as 1705,
and were at length blended with the Pamunkies and Mattaponies, and
exist at present only under their names.  There remain of the
_Mattaponies_ three or four men only, and they have more negro than
Indian blood in them.  They have lost their language, have reduced
themselves, by voluntary sales, to about fifty acres of land, which
lie on the river of their own name, and have, from time to time, been
joining the Pamunkies, from whom they are distant but 10 miles.  The
_Pamunkies_ are reduced to about 10 or 12 men, tolerably pure from
mixture with other colours.  The older ones among them preserve their
language in a small degree, which are the last vestiges on earth, as
far as we know, of the Powhatan language.  They have about 300 acres
of very fertile land, on Pamunkey river, so encompassed by water that
a gate shuts in the whole.  Of the _Nottoways_, not a male is left.
A few women constitute the remains of that tribe.  They are seated on
Nottoway river, in Southampton county, on very fertile lands.  At a
very early period, certain lands were marked out and appropriated to
these tribes, and were kept from encroachment by the authority of the
laws.  They have usually had trustees appointed, whose duty was to
watch over their interests, and guard them from insult and injury.

        The _Monacans_ and their friends, better known latterly by the
name of _Tuscaroras_, were probably connected with the Massawomecs,
or Five Nations.  For though we are (* 1) told their languages were
so different that the intervention of interpreters was necessary
between them, yet do we also (* 2) learn that the Erigas, a nation
formerly inhabiting on the Ohio, were of the same original stock with
the Five Nations, and that they partook also of the Tuscarora
language.  Their dialects might, by long separation, have become so
unlike as to be unintelligible to one another.  We know that in 1712,
the Five Nations received the Tuscaroras into their confederacy, and
made them the Sixth Nation.  They received the Meherrins and Tuteloes
also into their protection: and it is most probable, that the remains
of many other of the tribes, of whom we find no particular account,
retired westwardly in like manner, and were incorporated with one or
other of the western tribes.

        (* 1) Smith.

        (* 2) Evans.

        I know of no such thing existing as an Indian monument: for I
would not honour with that name arrow points, stone hatchets, stone
pipes, and half-shapen images.  Of labour on the large scale, I think
there is no remain as respectable as would be a common ditch for the
draining of lands: unless indeed it be the Barrows, of which many are
to be found all over this country.  These are of different sizes,
some of them constructed of earth, and some of loose stones.  That
they were repositories of the dead, has been obvious to all: but on
what particular occasion constructed, was matter of doubt.  Some have
thought they covered the bones of those who have fallen in battles
fought on the spot of interment.  Some ascribed them to the custom,
said to prevail among the Indians, of collecting, at certain periods,
the bones of all their dead, wheresoever deposited at the time of
death.  Others again supposed them the general sepulchres for towns,
conjectured to have been on or near these grounds; and this opinion
was supported by the quality of the lands in which they are found,
(those constructed of earth being generally in the softest and most
fertile meadow-grounds on river sides) and by a tradition, said to be
handed down from the Aboriginal Indians, that, when they settled in a
town, the first person who died was placed erect, and earth put about
him, so as to cover and support him; that, when another died, a
narrow passage was dug to the first, the second reclined against him,
and the cover of earth replaced, and so on.  There being one of these
in my neighbourhood, I wished to satisfy myself whether any, and
which of these opinions were just.  For this purpose I determined to
open and examine it thoroughly.  It was situated on the low grounds
of the Rivanna, about two miles above its principal fork, and
opposite to some hills, on which had been an Indian town.  It was of
a spheroidical form, of about 40 feet diameter at the base, and had
been of about twelve feet altitude, though now reduced by the plough
to seven and a half, having been under cultivation about a dozen
years.  Before this it was covered with trees of twelve inches
diameter, and round the base was an excavation of five feet depth and
width, from whence the earth had been taken of which the hillock was
formed.  I first dug superficially in several parts of it, and came
to collections of human bones, at different depths, from six inches
to three feet below the surface.  These were lying in the utmost
confusion, some vertical, some oblique, some horizontal, and directed
to every point of the compass, entangled, and held together in
clusters by the earth.  Bones of the most distant parts were found
together, as, for instance, the small bones of the foot in the hollow
of a scull, many sculls would sometimes be in contact, lying on the
face, on the side, on the back, top or bottom, so as, on the whole,
to give the idea of bones emptied promiscuously from a bag or basket,
and covered over with earth, without any attention to their order.
The bones of which the greatest numbers remained, were sculls,
jaw-bones, teeth, the bones of the arms, thighs, legs, feet, and
hands.  A few ribs remained, some vertebrae of the neck and spine,
without their processes, and one instance only of the (* 3) bone
which serves as a base to the vertebral column.  The sculls were so
tender, that they generally fell to pieces on being touched.  The
other bones were stronger.  There were some teeth which were judged
to be smaller than those of an adult; a scull, which, on a slight
view, appeared to be that of an infant, but it fell to pieces on
being taken out, so as to prevent satisfactory examination; a rib,
and a fragment of the under-jaw of a person about half grown; another
rib of an infant; and part of the jaw of a child, which had not yet
cut its teeth.  This last furnishing the most decisive proof of the
burial of children here, I was particular in my attention to it.  It
was part of the right-half of the under-jaw.  The processes, by which
it was articulated to the temporal bones, were entire; and the bone
itself firm to where it had been broken off, which, as nearly as I
could judge, was about the place of the eye-tooth.  Its upper edge,
wherein would have been the sockets of the teeth, was perfectly
smooth.  Measuring it with that of an adult, by placing their hinder
processes together, its broken end extended to the penultimate
grinder of the adult.  This bone was white, all the others of a sand
colour.  The bones of infants being soft, they probably decay sooner,
which might be the cause so few were found here.  I proceeded then to
make a perpendicular cut through the body of the barrow, that I might
examine its internal structure.  This passed about three feet from
its center, was opened to the former surface of the earth, and was
wide enough for a man to walk through and examine its sides.  At the
bottom, that is, on the level of the circumjacent plain, I found
bones; above these a few stones, brought from a cliff a quarter of a
mile off, and from the river one-eighth of a mile off; then a large
interval of earth, then a stratum of bones, and so on.  At one end of
the section were four strata of bones plainly distinguishable; at the
other, three; the strata in one part not ranging with those in
another.  The bones nearest the surface were least decayed.  No holes
were discovered in any of them, as if made with bullets, arrows, or
other weapons.  I conjectured that in this barrow might have been a
thousand skeletons.  Every one will readily seize the circumstances
above related, which militate against the opinion, that it covered
the bones only of persons fallen in battle; and against the tradition
also, which would make it the common sepulchre of a town, in which
the bodies were placed upright, and touching each other.  Appearances
certainly indicate that it has derived both origin and growth from
the accustomary collection of bones, and deposition of them together;
that the first collection had been deposited on the common surface of
the earth, a few stones put over it, and then a covering of earth,
that the second had been laid on this, had covered more or less of it
in proportion to the number of bones, and was then also covered with
earth; and so on.  The following are the particular circumstances
which give it this aspect.  1. The number of bones.  2. Their
confused position.  3. Their being in different strata.  4. The
strata in one part having no correspondence with those in another.
5. The different states of decay in these strata, which seem to
indicate a difference in the time of inhumation.  6. The existence of
infant bones among them.

        (* 3) The os sacrum.

        But on whatever occasion they may have been made, they are of
considerable notoriety among the Indians: for a party passing, about
thirty years ago, through the part of the country where this barrow
is, went through the woods directly to it, without any instructions
or enquiry, and having staid about it some time, with expressions
which were construed to be those of sorrow, they returned to the high
road, which they had left about half a dozen miles to pay this visit,
and pursued their journey.  There is another barrow, much resembling
this in the low grounds of the South branch of Shenandoah, where it
is crossed by the road leading from the Rock-fish gap to Staunton.
Both of these have, within these dozen years, been cleared of their
trees and put under cultivation, are much reduced in their height,
and spread in width, by the plough, and will probably disappear in
time.  There is another on a hill in the Blue ridge of mountains, a
few miles North of Wood's gap, which is made up of small stones
thrown together.  This has been opened and found to contain human
bones, as the others do.  There are also many others in other parts
of the country.

        Great question has arisen from whence came those aboriginal
inhabitants of America?  Discoveries, long ago made, were sufficient
to shew that a passage from Europe to America was always practicable,
even to the imperfect navigation of ancient times.  In going from
Norway to Iceland, from Iceland to Groenland, from Groenland to
Labrador, the first traject is the widest: and this having been
practised from the earliest times of which we have any account of
that part of the earth, it is not difficult to suppose that the
subsequent trajects may have been sometimes passed.  Again, the late
discoveries of Captain Cook, coasting from Kamschatka to California,
have proved that, if the two continents of Asia and America be
separated at all, it is only by a narrow streight.  So that from this
side also, inhabitants may have passed into America: and the
resemblance between the Indians of America and the Eastern
inhabitants of Asia, would induce us to conjecture, that the former
are the descendants of the latter, or the latter of the former:
excepting indeed the Eskimaux, who, from the same circumstance of
resemblance, and from identity of language, must be derived from the
Groenlanders, and these probably from some of the northern parts of
the old continent.  A knowledge of their several languages would be
the most certain evidence of their derivation which could be
produced.  In fact, it is the best proof of the affinity of nations
which ever can be referred to.  How many ages have elapsed since the
English, the Dutch, the Germans, the Swiss, the Norwegians, Danes and
Swedes have separated from their common stock?  Yet how many more
must elapse before the proofs of their common origin, which exist in
their several languages, will disappear?  It is to be lamented then,
very much to be lamented, that we have suffered so many of the Indian
tribes already to extinguish, without our having previously collected
and deposited in the records of literature, the general rudiments at
least of the languages they spoke.  Were vocabularies formed of all
the languages spoken in North and South America, preserving their
appellations of the most common objects in nature, of those which
must be present to every nation barbarous or civilised, with the
inflections of their nouns and verbs, their principles of regimen and
concord, and these deposited in all the public libraries, it would
furnish opportunities to those skilled in the languages of the old
world to compare them with these, now, or at any future time, and
hence to construct the best evidence of the derivation of this part
of the human race.

        But imperfect as is our knowledge of the tongues spoken in
America, it suffices to discover the following remarkable fact.
Arranging them under the radical ones to which they may be palpably
traced, and doing the same by those of the red men of Asia, there
will be found probably twenty in America, for one in Asia, of those
radical languages, so called because, if they were ever the same,
they have lost all resemblance to one another.  A separation into
dialects may be the work of a few ages only, but for two dialects to
recede from one another till they have lost all vestiges of their
common origin, must require an immense course of time; perhaps not
less than many people give to the age of the earth.  A greater number
of those radical changes of language having taken place among the red
men of America, proves them of greater antiquity than those of Asia.

        I will now proceed to state the nations and numbers of the
Aborigines which still exist in a respectable and independant form.
And as their undefined boundaries would render it difficult to
specify those only which may be within any certain limits, and it may
not be unacceptable to present a more general view of them, I will
reduce within the form of a Catalogue all those within, and
circumjacent to, the United States, whose names and numbers have come
to my notice.  These are taken from four different lists, the first
of which was given in the year 1759 to General Stanwix by George
Croghan, Deputy agent for Indian affairs under Sir William Johnson;
the second was drawn up by a French trader of considerable note,
resident among the Indians many years, and annexed to Colonel
Bouquet's printed account of his expedition in 1764.  The third was
made out by Captain Hutchins, who visited most of the tribes, by
order, for the purpose of learning their numbers in 1768.  And the
fourth by John Dodge, an Indian trader, in 1779, except the numbers
marked *, which are from other information.

 
        The following tribes are also mentioned:
        xxx

        But, apprehending these might be different appellations for
some of the tribes already enumerated, I have not inserted them in
the table, but state them separately as worthy of further inquiry.
The variations observable in numbering the same tribe may sometimes
be ascribed to imperfect information, and sometimes to a greater or
less comprehension of settlements under the same name.

        QUERY XII
 
        _A notice of the counties, cities, townships, and villages?_

        Counties, Towns
        The counties have been enumerated under Query IX.  They are 74
in number, of very unequal size and population.  Of these 35 are on
the tide waters, or in that parallel; 23 are in the Midlands, between
the tide waters and Blue ridge of mountains; 8 between the Blue ridge
and Alleghaney; and 8 westward of the Alleghaney.

        The state, by another division, is formed into parishes, many
of which are commensurate with the counties: but sometimes a county
comprehends more than one parish, and sometimes a parish more than
one county.  This division had relation to the religion of the state,
a Parson of the Anglican church, with a fixed salary, having been
heretofore established in each parish.  The care of the poor was
another object of the parochial division.

        We have no townships.  Our country being much intersected with
navigable waters, and trade brought generally to our doors, instead
of our being obliged to go in quest of it, has probably been one of
the causes why we have no towns of any consequence.  Williamsburgh,
which, till the year 1780, was the seat of our government, never
contained above 1800 inhabitants; and Norfolk, the most populous town
we ever had, contained but 6000.  Our towns, but more properly our
villages or hamlets, are as follows.

        On _James river_ and its waters, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Hampton,
Suffolk, Smithfield, Williamsburgh, Petersburg, Richmond the seat of
our government, Manchester, Charlottesville, New London.

        On _York river_ and its waters, York, Newcastle, Hanover.

        On _Rappahannoc_, Urbanna, Portroyal, Fredericksburg, Falmouth.

        On _Patowmac_ and its waters, Dumfries, Colchester, Alexandria,
Winchester, Staunton.

        On _Ohio_, Louisville.

        There are other places at which, like some of the foregoing,
the _laws_ have said there shall be towns; but _Nature_ has said
there shall not, and they remain unworthy of enumeration.  _Norfolk_
will probably be the emporium for all the trade of the Chesapeak bay
and its waters; and a canal of 8 or 10 miles will bring to it all
that of Albemarle sound and its waters.  Secondary to this place, are
the towns at the head of the tidewaters, to wit, Petersburgh on
Appamattox, Richmond on James river, Newcastle on York river,
Alexandria on Patowmac, and Baltimore on the Patapsco.  From these
the distribution will be to subordinate situations in the country.
Accidental circumstances however may controul the indications of
nature, and in no instances do they do it more frequently than in the
rise and fall of towns.

        QUERY XIII
 
        _The constitution of the state, and its several charters?_

        Constitution
        Queen Elizabeth by her letters-patent, bearing date March 25,
1584, licensed Sir Walter Raleigh to search for remote heathen lands,
not inhabited by Christian people, and granted to him, in fee simple,
all the soil within 200 leagues of the places where his people
should, within 6 years, make their dwellings or abidings; reserving
only, to herself and her successors, their allegiance and one fifth
part of all the gold and silver ore they should obtain.  Sir Walter
immediately sent out two ships which visited Wococon island in North
Carolina, and the next year dispatched seven with 107 men, who
settled in Roanoke island, about latitude 35 degrees.50'.  Here
Okisko, king of the Weopomeiocs, in a full council of his people, is
said to have acknowledged himself the homager of the Queen of
England, and, after her, of Sir Walter Raleigh.  A supply of 50 men
were sent in 1586, and 150 in 1587.  With these last, Sir Walter sent
a Governor, appointed him twelve assistants, gave them a charter of
incorporation, and instructed them to settle on Chesapeak bay.  They
landed however at Hatorask.  In 1588, when a fleet was ready to sail
with a new supply of colonists and necessaries, they were detained by
the Queen to assist against the Spanish Armada.  Sir Walter having
now expended 40,000 l. in these enterprizes, obstructed occasionally
by the crown, without a shilling of aid from it, was under a
necessity of engaging others to adventure their money.  He therefore,
by deed bearing date the 7th of March 1589, by the name of Sir Walter
Raleigh, Chief Governor of Assamacomoc, (probably Acomac), alias
Wingadacoia, alias Virginia, granted to Thomas Smith and others, in
consideration of their adventuring certain sums of money, liberty of
trade to his new country, free from all customs and taxes for seven
years, excepting the fifth part of the gold and silver ore to be
obtained; and stipulated with them, and the other assistants, then in
Virginia, that he would confirm the deed of incorporation which he
had given in 1587, with all the prerogatives, jurisdictions,
royalties and privileges granted to him by the Queen.  Sir Walter, at
different times, sent five other adventures hither, the last of which
was in 1602: for in 1603 he was attainted, and put into close
imprisonment, which put an end to his cares over his infant colony.
What was the particular fate of the colonists he had before sent and
seated, has never been known: whether they were murdered, or
incorporated with the savages.

        Some gentlemen and merchants, supposing that by the attainder
of Sir Walter Raleigh the grant to him was forfeited, not enquiring
over carefully whether the sentence of an English court could affect
lands not within the jurisdiction of that court, petitioned king
James for a new grant of Virginia to them.  He accordingly executed a
grant to Sir Thomas Gates and others, bearing date the 9th of March
1607, under which, in the same year a settlement was effected at
James-town and ever after maintained.  Of this grant however no
particular notice need be taken, as it was superseded by
letters-patent of the same king, of May 23, 1609, to the Earl of
Salisbury and others, incorporating them by the name of `the
Treasurer and Company of adventurers and planters of the City of
London for the first colony in Virginia,' granting to them and their
successors all the lands in Virginia from Point Comfort along the sea
coast to the northward 200 miles, and from the same point along the
sea coast to the southward 200 miles, and all the space from this
precinct on the sea coast up into the land, West and North-west, from
sea to sea, and the islands within one hundred miles of it, with all
the commodities, jurisdictions, royalties, privileges, franchises and
pre-eminences within the same, and thereto and thereabouts, by sea
and land, appertaining, in as ample manner as had before been granted
to any adventurer: to be held of the king and his successors, in
common soccage, yielding one fifth part of the gold and silver ore to
be therein found, for all manner of services; establishing a council
in England for the direction of the enterprise, the members of which
were to be chosen and displaced by the voice of the majority of the
company and adventurers, and were to have the nomination and
revocation of governors, officers, and ministers, which by them
should be thought needful for the colony, the power of establishing
laws and forms of government and magistracy, obligatory not only
within the colony, but also on the seas in going and coming to and
from it; authorising them to carry thither any persons who should
consent to go, freeing them for ever from all taxes and impositions
on any goods or merchandize on importation into the colony, or
exportation out of it, except the five per cent. due for custom on
all goods imported into the British dominions, according to the
ancient trade of merchants; which five per cent. only being paid,
they might, within 13 months, re-export the same goods into foreign
parts, without any custom, tax, or other duty, to the king or any his
officers or deputies: with powers of waging war against those who
should annoy them: giving to the inhabitants of the colony all the
rights of natural subjects, as if born and abiding in England; and
declaring that these letters should be construed, in all doubtful
parts, in such manner as should be most for the benefit of the
grantees.

        Afterwards, on the 12th of March 1612, by other letters-patent,
the king added to his former grants, all islands in any part of the
ocean between the 30th and 41st degrees of latitude, and within 300
leagues of any of the parts before granted to the Treasurer and
company, not being possessed or inhabited by any other christian
prince or state, nor within the limits of the northern colony.

        In pursuance of the authorities given to the company by these
charters, and more especially of that part in the charter of 1609,
which authorised them to establish a form of government, they on the
24th of July 1621, by charter under their common seal, declared that
from thenceforward there should be two supreme councils in Virginia,
the one to be called the council of state, to be placed and displaced
by the treasurer, council in England, and company, from time to time,
whose office was to be that of assisting and advising the governor;
the other to be called the general assembly, to be convened by the
governor once yearly or oftener, which was to consist of the council
of state, and two burgesses out of every town, hundred, or
plantation, to be respectively chosen by the inhabitants.  In this
all matters were to be decided by the greater part of the votes
present; reserving to the governor a negative voice; and they were to
have power to treat, consult, and conclude all emergent occasions
concerning the public weal, and to make laws for the behoof and
government of the colony, imitating and following the laws and policy
of England as nearly as might be: providing that these laws should
have no force till ratified in a general quarter court of the company
in England, and returned under their common seal, and declaring that,
after the government of the colony should be well framed and settled,
no orders of the council in England should bind the colony unless
ratified in the said general assembly.  The king and company
quarrelled, and, by a mixture of law and force, the latter were
ousted of all their rights, without retribution, after having
expended 100,000 l. in establishing the colony, without the smallest
aid from government.  King James suspended their powers by
proclamation of July 15, 1624, and Charles I. took the government
into his own hands.  Both sides had their partisans in the colony:
but in truth the people of the colony in general thought themselves
little concerned in the dispute.  There being three parties
interested in these several charters, what passed between the first
and second it was thought could not affect the third.  If the king
seized on the powers of the company, they only passed into other
hands, without increase or diminution, while the rights of the people
remained as they were.  But they did not remain so long.  The
northern parts of their country were granted away to the Lords
Baltimore and Fairfax, the first of these obtaining also the rights
of separate jurisdiction and government.  And in 1650 the parliament,
considering itself as standing in the place of their deposed king,
and as having succeeded to all his powers, without as well as within
the realm, began to assume a right over the colonies, passing an act
for inhibiting their trade with foreign nations.  This succession to
the exercise of the kingly authority gave the first colour for
parliamentary interference with the colonies, and produced that fatal
precedent which they continued to follow after they had retired, in
other respects, within their proper functions.  When this colony,
therefore, which still maintained its opposition to Cromwell and the
parliament, was induced in 1651 to lay down their arms, they
previously secured their most essential rights, by a solemn
convention, which having never seen in print, I will here insert
literally from the records.

 
        `ARTICLES agreed on & concluded at James Cittie in Virginia for
the surrendering and settling of that plantation under ye obedience &
goverment of the common wealth of England by the Commissioners of the
Councill of state by authoritie of the parliamt.  of England & by the
Grand assembly of the Governour, Councill & Burgesses of that
countrey.

        `First it is agreed and consted that the plantation of
Virginia, and all the inhabitants thereof shall be and remaine in due
obedience and subjection to the Comon wealth of England, according to
ye lawes there established, and that this submission and subscription
bee acknowledged a voluntary act not forced nor constrained by a
conquest upon the countrey, and that they shall have & enjoy such
freedomes and priviledges as belong to the free borne people of
England, and that the former government by the Comissions and
Instructions be void and null.

        `2ly, Secondly that the Grand assembly as formerly shall
convene & transact the affairs of Virginia wherein nothing is to be
acted or done contrarie to the government of the Comon wealth of
England & the lawes there established.

        `3ly, That there shall be a full & totall remission and
indempnitie of all acts, words, or writeings done or spoken against
the parliament of England in relation to the same.

        `4ly, That Virginia shall have & enjoy ye antient bounds and
Lymitts granted by the charters of the former kings, and that we
shall seek a new charter from the parliament to that purpose against
any that have intrencht upon ye rights thereof.

        `5ly, That all the pattents of land granted under the collony
seale by any of the precedent governours shall be & remaine in their
full force & strength.

        `6ly, That the priviledge of haveing ffiftie acres of land for
every person transported in that collonie shall continue as formerly
granted.

        `7ly, That ye people of Virginia have free trade as ye people
of England do enjoy to all places and with all nations according to
ye lawes of that common wealth, and that Virginia shall enjoy all
priviledges equall with any English plantations in America.

        `8ly, That Virginia shall be free from all taxes, customs &
impositions whatsoever, & none to be imposed on them without consent
of the Grand assembly, And soe that neither ffortes nor castles bee
erected or garrisons maintained without their consent.

        `9ly, That no charge shall be required from this country in
respect of this present fleet.

        `10ly, That for the future settlement of the countrey in their
due obedience, the Engagement shall be tendred to all ye inhabitants
according to act of parliament made to that purpose, that all persons
who shall refuse to subscribe the said engagement, shall have a
yeare's time if they please to remove themselves & their estates out
of Virginia, and in the mean time during the said yeare to have
equall justice as formerly.

        `11ly, That ye use of the booke of common prayer shall be
permitted for one yeare ensueinge with referrence to the consent of
ye major part of the parishes, provided that those things which
relate to kingshipp or that government be not used publiquely, and
the continuance of ministers in their places, they not misdemeaning
themselves, and the payment of their accustomed dues and agreements
made with them respectively shall be left as they now stand dureing
this ensueing yeare.

        `12ly, That no man's cattell shall be questioned as ye
companies unles such as have been entrusted with them or have
disposed of them without order.

        `13ly, That all ammunition, powder & armes, other then for
private use, shall be delivered up, securitie being given to make
satisfaction for it.

        `14ly, That all goods allreadie brought hither by ye Dutch or
others which are now on shoar shall be free from surprizall.

        `15ly, That the quittrents granted unto us by the late kinge
for seaven yeares bee confirmed.

        `16ly, That ye commissioners for the parliament subscribeing
these articles engage themselves & the honour of the parliament for
the full performance thereof: and that the present governour & ye
councill & the burgesses do likewise subscribe & engage the whole
collony on their parts.

 
        RICH. BENNETT. ---- Seale.
        W'm. CLAIBORNE. ---- Seale.
        EDMOND CURTIS. ---- Seale.

        `Theise articles were signed & sealed by the Commissioners of
the Councill of state for the Commonwealth of England the twelveth
day of March 1651.'

        Then follow the articles stipulated by the governor and
council, which relate merely to their own persons and property, and
then the ensuing instrument:

        `An act of indempnitie made att the surrender of the countrey.

        `Whereas by the authoritie of the parliament of England wee the
commissioners appointed by the councill of state authorized thereto
having brought a fleete & force before James cittie in Virginia to
reduce that collonie under the obedience of the commonwealth of
England, & findeing force raised by the Governour & countrey to make
opposition against the said ffleet whereby assured danger appearinge
of the ruine & destruction of ye plantation, for prevention whereof
the Burgesses of all the severall plantations being called to advise
& assist therein, uppon long & serious debate, and in sad
contemplation of the greate miseries & certaine destruction which
were soe neerely hovering over the whole countrey; Wee the said
Comissioners have thought fitt & condescended and granted to signe &
confirme under our hands, seales, & by our oath, Articles bearinge
date with theise presents, and do further declare that by ye
authoritie of the parliament & commonwealth of England derived unto
us theire Comissioners, that according to the articles in generall
wee have granted an act of indempnitie and oblivion to all the
inhabitants of this colloney from all words, actions, or writings
that have been spoken acted or writt against the parliament or
commonwealth of England or any other person from the beginning of the
world to this daye.  And this wee have done that all the inhabitants
of the collonie may live quietly & securely under the comonwealth of
England.  And wee do promise that the parliament and commonwealth of
England shall confirme & make good all those transactions of ours.
Wittnes our hands & seales this 12th of March 1651.  Richard Bennett
-- Seale. W'm. Claiborne -- Seale. Edm. Curtis -- Seale.'

        The colony supposed, that, by this solemn convention, entered
into with arms in their hands, they had secured the (* 1) antient
limits of their country, (* 2) its free trade, its exemption from (*
3) taxation but by their own assembly, and exclusion of (* 4)
military force from among them.  Yet in every of these points was
this convention violated by subsequent kings and parliaments, and
other infractions of their constitution, equally dangerous,
committed.  Their General Assembly, which was composed of the council
of state and burgesses, sitting together and deciding by plurality of
voices, was split into two houses, by which the council obtained a
separate negative on their laws.  Appeals from their supreme court,
which had been fixed by law in their General Assembly, were
arbitrarily revoked to England, to be there heard before the king and
council.  Instead of four hundred miles on the sea coast, they were
reduced, in the space of thirty years, to about one hundred miles.
Their trade with foreigners was totally suppressed, and, when carried
to Great-Britain, was there loaded with imposts.  It is unnecessary,
however, to glean up the several instances of injury, as scattered
through American and British history, and the more especially as, by
passing on to the accession of the present king, we shall find
specimens of them all, aggravated, multiplied and crouded within a
small compass of time, so as to evince a fixed design of considering
our rights natural, conventional and chartered as mere nullities.
The following is an epitome of the first fifteen years of his reign.
The colonies were taxed internally and externally; their essential
interests sacrificed to individuals in Great-Britain; their
legislatures suspended; charters annulled; trials by juries taken
away; their persons subjected to transportation across the Atlantic,
and to trial before foreign judicatories; their supplications for
redress thought beneath answer; themselves published as cowards in
the councils of their mother country and courts of Europe; armed
troops sent among them to enforce submission to these violences; and
actual hostilities commenced against them.  No alternative was
presented but resistance, or unconditional submission.  Between these
could be no hesitation.  They closed in the appeal to arms.  They
declared themselves independent States.  They confederated together
into one great republic; thus securing to every state the benefit of
an union of their whole force.  In each state separately a new form
of government was established.  Of ours particularly the following
are the outlines.  The executive powers are lodged in the hands of a
governor, chosen annually, and incapable of acting more than three
years in seven.  He is assisted by a council of eight members.  The
judiciary powers are divided among several courts, as will be
hereafter explained.  Legislation is exercised by two houses of
assembly, the one called the house of Delegates, composed of two
members from each county, chosen annually by the citizens possessing
an estate for life in 100 acres of uninhabited land, or 25 acres with
a house on it, or in a house or lot in some town: the other called
the Senate, consisting of 24 members, chosen quadrennially by the
same electors, who for this purpose are distributed into 24
districts.  The concurrence of both houses is necessary to the
passage of a law.  They have the appointment of the governor and
council, the judges of the superior courts, auditors,
attorney-general, treasurer, register of the land office, and
delegates to congress.  As the dismemberment of the state had never
had its confirmation, but, on the contrary, had always been the
subject of protestation and complaint, that it might never be in our
own power to raise scruples on that subject, or to disturb the
harmony of our new confederacy, the grants to Maryland, Pennsylvania,
and the two Carolinas, were ratified.

        This constitution was formed when we were new and unexperienced
in the science of government.  It was the first too which was formed
in the whole United States.  No wonder then that time and trial have
discovered very capital defects init.

        1. The majority of the men in the state, who pay and fight for
its support, are unrepresented in the legislature, the roll of
freeholders intitled to vote, not including generally the half of
those on the roll of the militia, or of the tax-gatherers.

        2. Among those who share the representation, the shares are
very unequal.  Thus the county of Warwick, with only one hundred
fighting men, has an equal representation with the county of Loudon,
which has 1746.  So that every man in Warwick has as much influence
in the government as 17 men in Loudon.  But lest it should be thought
that an equal interspersion of small among large counties, through
the whole state, may prevent any danger of injury to particular parts
of it, we will divide it into districts, and shew the proportions of
land, of fighting men, and of representation in each.

        Square Fighting Delegates Senators
                                 miles.  men.
 Between the sea-coast and
 falls of the rivers              11,205 19,012       71             12
                                  (* 5)
 Between the falls of the
 rivers and the Blue ridge
 of mountains                     18,759 18,828       46              8

 Between the Blue ridge and
 the Alleghaney                   11,911  7,673       16              2

 Between the Alleghaney and
 the Ohio                         79,650  4,458       16              2
                                  (* 6)
         Total                   121,525 49,971       14             24

        An inspection of this table will supply the place of
commentaries on it.  It will appear at once that nineteen thousand
men, living below the falls of the rivers, possess half the senate,
and want four members only of possessing a majority of the house of
delegates; a want more than supplied by the vicinity of their
situation to the seat of government, and of course the greater degree
of convenience and punctuality with which their members may and will
attend in the legislature.  These nineteen thousand, therefore,
living in one part of the country, give law to upwards of thirty
thousand, living in another, and appoint all their chief officers
executive and judiciary.  From the difference of their situation and
circumstances, their interests will often be very different.

        3. The senate is, by its constitution, too homogeneous with the
house of delegates.  Being chosen by the same electors, at the same
time, and out of the same subjects, the choice falls of course on men
of the same description.  The purpose of establishing different
houses of legislation is to introduce the influence of different
interests or different principles.  Thus in Great-Britain it is said
their constitution relies on the house of commons for honesty, and
the lords for wisdom; which would be a rational reliance if honesty
were to be bought with money, and if wisdom were hereditary.  In some
of the American states the delegates and senators are so chosen, as
that the first represent the persons, and the second the property of
the state.  But with us, wealth and wisdom have equal chance for
admission into both houses.  We do not therefore derive from the
separation of our legislature into two houses, those benefits which a
proper complication of principles is capable of producing, and those
which alone can compensate the evils which may be produced by their
dissensions.

        4. All the powers of government, legislative, executive, and
judiciary, result to the legislative body.  The concentrating these
in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government.
It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a
plurality of hands, and not by a single one.  173 despots would
surely be as oppressive as one.  Let those who doubt it turn their
eyes on the republic of Venice.  As little will it avail us that they
are chosen by ourselves.  An _elective despotism_ was not the
government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on
free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so
divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no
one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually
checked and restrained by the others.  For this reason that
convention, which passed the ordinance of government, laid its
foundation on this basis, that the legislative, executive and
judiciary departments should be separate and distinct, so that no
person should exercise the powers of more than one of them at the
same time.  But no barrier was provided between these several powers.
The judiciary and executive members were left dependant on the
legislative, for their subsistence in office, and some of them for
their continuance in it.  If therefore the legislature assumes
executive and judiciary powers, no opposition is likely to be made;
nor, if made, can it be effectual; because in that case they may put
their proceedings into the form of an act of assembly, which will
render them obligatory on the other branches.  They have accordingly,
in many instances, decided rights which should have been left to
judiciary controversy: and the direction of the executive, during the
whole time of their session, is becoming habitual and familiar.  And
this is done with no ill intention.  The views of the present members
are perfectly upright.  When they are led out of their regular
province, it is by art in others, and inadvertence in themselves.
And this will probably be the case for some time to come.  But it
will not be a very long time.  Mankind soon learn to make interested
uses of every right and power which they possess, or may assume.  The
public money and public liberty, intended to have been deposited with
three branches of magistracy, but found inadvertently to be in the
hands of one only, will soon be discovered to be sources of wealth
and dominion to those who hold them; distinguished too by this
tempting circumstance, that they are the instrument, as well as the
object of acquisition.  With money we will get men, said Caesar, and
with men we will get money.  Nor should our assembly be deluded by
the integrity of their own purposes, and conclude that these
unlimited powers will never be abused, because themselves are not
disposed to abuse them.  They should look forward to a time, and that
not a distant one, when corruption in this, as in the country from
which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government,
and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will
purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price.
Human nature is the same on every side of the Atlantic, and will be
alike influenced by the same causes.  The time to guard against
corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold on us.
It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to
drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.  To render
these considerations the more cogent, we must observe in addition,

        5. That the ordinary legislature may alter the constitution
itself.  On the discontinuance of assemblies, it became necessary to
substitute in their place some other body, competent to the ordinary
business of government, and to the calling forth the powers of the
state for the maintenance of our opposition to Great-Britain.
Conventions were therefore introduced, consisting of two delegates
from each county, meeting together and forming one house, on the plan
of the former house of Burgesses, to whose places they succeeded.
These were at first chosen anew for every particular session.  But in
March 1775, they recommended to the people to chuse a convention,
which should continue in office a year.  This was done accordingly in
April 1775, and in the July following that convention passed an
ordinance for the election of delegates in the month of April
annually.  It is well known, that in July 1775, a separation from
Great-Britain and establishment of Republican government had never
yet entered into any person's mind.  A convention therefore, chosen
under that ordinance, cannot be said to have been chosen for purposes
which certainly did not exist in the minds of those who passed it.
Under this ordinance, at the annual election in April 1776, a
convention for the year was chosen.  Independance, and the
establishment of a new form of government, were not even yet the
objects of the people at large.  One extract from the pamphlet called
Common Sense had appeared in the Virginia papers in February, and
copies of the pamphlet itself had got into a few hands.  But the idea
had not been opened to the mass of the people in April, much less can
it be said that they had made up their minds in its favor.  So that
the electors of April 1776, no more than the legislators of July
1775, not thinking of independance and a permanent republic, could
not mean to vest in these delegates powers of establishing them, or
any authorities other than those of the ordinary legislature.  So far
as a temporary organization of government was necessary to render our
opposition energetic, so far their organization was valid.  But they
received in their creation no powers but what were given to every
legislature before and since.  They could not therefore pass an act
transcendant to the powers of other legislatures.  If the present
assembly pass any act, and declare it shall be irrevocable by
subsequent assemblies, the declaration is merely void, and the act
repealable, as other acts are.  So far, and no farther authorized,
they organized the government by the ordinance entitled a
Constitution or Form of government.  It pretends to no higher
authority than the other ordinances of the same session; it does not
say, that it shall be perpetual; that it shall be unalterable by
other legislatures; that it shall be transcendant above the powers of
those, who they knew would have equal power with themselves.  Not
only the silence of the instrument is a proof they thought it would
be alterable, but their own practice also: for this very convention,
meeting as a House of Delegates in General Assembly with the new
Senate in the autumn of that year, passed acts of assembly in
contradiction to their ordinance of government; and every assembly
from that time to this has done the same.  I am safe therefore in the
position, that the constitution itself is alterable by the ordinary
legislature.  Though this opinion seems founded on the first elements
of common sense, yet is the contrary maintained by some persons.  1.
Because, say they, the conventions were vested with every power
necessary to make effectual opposition to Great-Britain.  But to
complete this argument, they must go on, and say further, that
effectual opposition could not be made to Great-Britain, without
establishing a form of government perpetual and unalterable by the
legislature; which is not true.  An opposition which at some time or
other was to come to an end, could not need a perpetual institution
to carry it on: and a government, amendable as its defects should be
discovered, was as likely to make effectual resistance, as one which
should be unalterably wrong.  Besides, the assemblies were as much
vested with all powers requisite for resistance as the conventions
were.  If therefore these powers included that of modelling the form
of government in the one case, they did so in the other.  The
assemblies then as well as the conventions may model the government;
that is, they may alter the ordinance of government.  2. They urge,
that if the convention had meant that this instrument should be
alterable, as their other ordinances were, they would have called it
an ordinance: but they have called it a _constitution_, which ex vi
termini means `an act above the power of the ordinary legislature.' I
answer that _constitutio_, _constitutum_, _statutum_, _lex_, are
convertible terms.  `_Constitutio_ dicitur jus quod a principe
conditur.' `_Constitutum_, quod ab imperatoribus rescriptum
statutumve est.' `_Statutum_, idem quod lex.' Calvini Lexicon
juridicum.  _Constitution_ and _statute_ were originally terms of the
(* 7) civil law, and from thence introduced by Ecclesiastics into the
English law.  Thus in the statute 25 Hen. 8. c. 19. (symbol omitted).
1. `_Constitutions_ and _ordinances_' are used as synonimous.  The
term _constitution_ has many other significations in physics and in
politics; but in Jurisprudence, whenever it is applied to any act of
the legislature, it invariably means a statute, law, or ordinance,
which is the present case.  No inference then of a different meaning
can be drawn from the adoption of this title: on the contrary, we
might conclude, that, by their affixing to it a term synonimous with
ordinance, or statute, they meant it to be an ordinance or statute.
But of what consequence is their meaning, where their power is
denied?  If they meant to do more than they had power to do, did this
give them power?  It is not the name, but the authority which renders
an act obligatory.  Lord Coke says, `an article of the statute 11 R.
2. c.  5. that no person should attempt to revoke any ordinance then
made, is repealed, for that such restraint is against the
jurisdiction and power of the parliament.' 4. inst. 42. and again,
`though divers parliaments have attempted to restrain subsequent
parliaments, yet could they never effect it; for the latter
parliament hath ever power to abrogate, suspend, qualify, explain, or
make void the former in the whole or in any part thereof,
notwithstanding any words of restraint, prohibition, or penalty, in
the former: for it is a maxim in the laws of the parliament, quod
leges posteriores priores contrarias abrogant.' 4. inst. 43. -- To
get rid of the magic supposed to be in the word _constitution_, let
us translate it into its definition as given by those who think it
above the power of the law; and let us suppose the convention instead
of saying, `We, the ordinary legislature, establish a
_constitution_,' had said, `We, the ordinary legislature, establish
an act _above the power of the ordinary legislature._' Does not this
expose the absurdity of the attempt?  3. But, say they, the people
have acquiesced, and this has given it an authority superior to the
laws.  It is true, that the people did not rebel against it: and was
that a time for the people to rise in rebellion?  Should a prudent
acquiescence, at a critical time, be construed into a confirmation of
every illegal thing done during that period?  Besides, why should
they rebel?  At an annual election, they had chosen delegates for the
year, to exercise the ordinary powers of legislation, and to manage
the great contest in which they were engaged.  These delegates
thought the contest would be best managed by an organized government.
They therefore, among others, passed an ordinance of government.
They did not presume to call it perpetual and unalterable.  They well
knew they had no power to make it so; that our choice of them had
been for no such purpose, and at a time when we could have no such
purpose in contemplation.  Had an unalterable form of government been
meditated, perhaps we should have chosen a different set of people.
There was no cause then for the people to rise in rebellion.  But to
what dangerous lengths will this argument lead?  Did the acquiescence
of the colonies under the various acts of power exercised by
Great-Britain in our infant state, confirm these acts, and so far
invest them with the authority of the people as to render them
unalterable, and our present resistance wrong?  On every
unauthoritative exercise of power by the legislature, must the people
rise in rebellion, or their silence be construed into a surrender of
that power to them?  If so, how many rebellions should we have had
already?  One certainly for every session of assembly.  The other
states in the Union have been of opinion, that to render a form of
government unalterable by ordinary acts of assembly, the people must
delegate persons with special powers.  They have accordingly chosen
special conventions to form and fix their governments.  The
individuals then who maintain the contrary opinion in this country,
should have the modesty to suppose it possible that they may be wrong
and the rest of America right.  But if there be only a possibility of
their being wrong, if only a plausible doubt remains of the validity
of the ordinance of government, is it not better to remove that
doubt, by placing it on a bottom which none will dispute?  If they be
right, we shall only have the unnecessary trouble of meeting once in
convention.  If they be wrong, they expose us to the hazard of having
no fundamental rights at all.  True it is, this is no time for
deliberating on forms of government.  While an enemy is within our
bowels, the first object is to expel him.  But when this shall be
done, when peace shall be established, and leisure given us for
intrenching within good forms, the rights for which we have bled, let
no man be found indolent enough to decline a little more trouble for
placing them beyond the reach of question.  If any thing more be
requisite to produce a conviction of the expediency of calling a
convention, at a proper season, to fix our form of government, let it
be the reflection,

        6. That the assembly exercises a power of determining the
Quorum of their own body which may legislate for us.  After the
establishment of the new form they adhered to the _Lex majoris
partis_, founded in (* 8) common law as well as common right.  It is
the (* 9) natural law of every assembly of men, whose numbers are not
fixed by any other law.  They continued for some time to require the
presence of a majority of their whole number, to pass an act.  But
the British parliament fixes its own quorum: our former assemblies
fixed their own quorum: and one precedent in favour of power is
stronger than anhundred against it.  The house of delegates therefore
have (* 10) lately voted that, during the present dangerous invasion,
forty members shall be a house to proceed to business.  They have
been moved to this by the fear of not being able to collect a house.
But this danger could not authorize them to call that a house which
was none: and if they may fix it at one number, they may at another,
till it loses its fundamental character of being a representative
body.  As this vote expires with the present invasion, it is probable
the former rule will be permitted to revive: because at present no
ill is meant.  The power however of fixing their own quorum has been
avowed, and a precedent set.  From forty it may be reduced to four,
and from four to one: from a house to a committee, from a committee
to a chairman or speaker, and thus an oligarchy or monarchy be
substituted under forms supposed to be regular.  `Omnia mala exempla
ex bonis orta sunt: sed ubi imperium ad ignaros aut minus bonos
pervenit, novum illud exemplum ab dignis et idoneis ad indignos et
non idoneos fertur.' When therefore it is considered, that there is
no legal obstacle to the assumption by the assembly of all the powers
legislative, executive, and judiciary, and that these may come to the
hands of the smallest rag of delegation, surely the people will say,
and their representatives, while yet they have honest
representatives, will advise them to say, that they will not
acknowledge as laws any acts not considered and assented to by the
major part of their delegates.

        In enumerating the defects of the constitution, it would be
wrong to count among them what is only the error of particular
persons.  In December 1776, our circumstances being much distressed,
it was proposed in the house of delegates to create a _dictator_,
invested with every power legislative, executive and judiciary, civil
and military, of life and of death, over our persons and over our
properties: and in June 1781, again under calamity, the same
proposition was repeated, and wanted a few votes only of being
passed. -- One who entered into this contest from a pure love of
liberty, and a sense of injured rights, who determined to make every
sacrifice, and to meet every danger, for the re-establishment of
those rights on a firm basis, who did not mean to expend his blood
and substance for the wretched purpose of changing this master for
that, but to place the powers of governing him in a plurality of
hands of his own choice, so that the corrupt will of no one man might
in future oppress him, must stand confounded and dismayed when he is
told, that a considerable portion of that plurality had meditated the
surrender of them into a single hand, and, in lieu of a limited
monarch, to deliver him over to a despotic one!  How must we find his
efforts and sacrifices abused and baffled, if he may still by a
single vote be laid prostrate at the feet of one man!  In God's name,
from whence have they derived this power?  Is it from our ancient
laws?  None such can be produced.  Is it from any principle in our
new constitution, expressed or implied?  Every lineament of that
expressed or implied, is in full opposition to it.  Its fundamental
principle is, that the state shall be governed as a commonwealth.  It
provides a republican organization, proscribes under the name of
_prerogative_ the exercise of all powers undefined by the laws;
places on this basis the whole system of our laws; and, by
consolidating them together, chuses that they shall be left to stand
or fall together, never providing for any circumstances, nor
admitting that such could arise, wherein either should be suspended,
no, not for a moment.  Our antient laws expressly declare, that those
who are but delegates themselves shall not delegate to others powers
which require judgment and integrity in their exercise. -- Or was
this proposition moved on a supposed right in the movers of
abandoning their posts in a moment of distress?  The same laws forbid
the abandonment of that post, even on ordinary occasions; and much
more a transfer of their powers into other hands and other forms,
without consulting the people.  They never admit the idea that these,
like sheep or cattle, may be given from hand to hand without an
appeal to their own will. -- Was it from the necessity of the case?
Necessities which dissolve a government, do not convey its authority
to an oligarchy or a monarchy.  They throw back, into the hands of
the people, the powers they had delegated, and leave them as
individuals to shift for themselves.  A leader may offer, but not
impose himself, nor be imposed on them.  Much less can their necks be
submitted to his sword, their breath be held at his will or caprice.
The necessity which should operate these tremendous effects should at
least be palpable and irresistible.  Yet in both instances, where it
was feared, or pretended with us, it was belied by the event.  It was
belied too by the preceding experience of our sister states, several
of whom had grappled through greater difficulties without abandoning
their forms of government.  When the proposition was first made,
Massachusets had found even the government of committees sufficient
to carry them through an invasion.  But we at the time of that
proposition were under no invasion.  When the second was made, there
had been added to this example those of Rhode-Island, New-York,
New-Jersey, and Pennsylvania, in all of which the republican form had
been found equal to the task of carrying them through the severest
trials.  In this state alone did there exist so little virtue, that
fear was to be fixed in the hearts of the people, and to become the
motive of their exertions and the principle of their government?  The
very thought alone was treason against the people; was treason
against mankind in general; as rivetting for ever the chains which
bow down their necks, by giving to their oppressors a proof, which
they would have trumpeted through the universe, of the imbecility of
republican government, in times of pressing danger, to shield them
from harm.  Those who assume the right of giving away the reins of
government in any case, must be sure that the herd, whom they hand on
to the rods and hatchet of the dictator, will lay their necks on the
block when he shall nod to them.  But if our assemblies supposed such
a resignation in the people, I hope they mistook their character.  I
am of opinion, that the government, instead of being braced and
invigorated for greater exertions under their difficulties, would
have been thrown back upon the bungling machinery of county
committees for administration, till a convention could have been
called, and its wheels again set into regular motion.  What a cruel
moment was this for creating such an embarrassment, for putting to
the proof the attachment of our countrymen to republican government!
Those who meant well, of the advocates for this measure, (and most of
them meant well, for I know them personally, had been their
fellow-labourers in the common cause, and had often proved the purity
of their principles), had been seduced in their judgment by the
example of an ancient republic, whose constitution and circumstances
were fundamentally different.  They had sought this precedent in the
history of Rome, where alone it was to be found, and where at length
too it had proved fatal.  They had taken it from a republic, rent by
the most bitter factions and tumults, where the government was of a
heavy-handed unfeeling aristocracy, over a people ferocious, and
rendered desperate by poverty and wretchedness; tumults which could
not be allayed under the most trying circumstances, but by the
omnipotent hand of a single despot.  Their constitution therefore
allowed a temporary tyrant to be erected, under the name of a
Dictator; and that temporary tyrant, after a few examples, became
perpetual.  They misapplied this precedent to a people, mild in their
dispositions, patient under their trial, united for the public
liberty, and affectionate to their leaders.  But if from the
constitution of the Roman government there resulted to their Senate a
power of submitting all their rights to the will of one man, does it
follow, that the assembly of Virginia have the same authority?  What
clause in our constitution has substituted that of Rome, by way of
residuary provision, for all cases not otherwise provided for?  Or if
they may step ad libitum into any other form of government for
precedents to rule us by, for what oppression may not a precedent be
found in this world of the bellum omnium in omnia? -- Searching for
the foundations of this proposition, I can find none which may
pretend a colour of right or reason, but the defect before developed,
that there being no barrier between the legislative, executive, and
judiciary departments, the legislature may seize the whole: that
having seized it, and possessing a right to fix their own quorum,
they may reduce that quorum to one, whom they may call a chairman,
speaker, dictator, or by any other name they please. -- Our situation
is indeed perilous, and I hope my countrymen will be sensible of it,
and will apply, at a proper season, the proper remedy; which is a
convention to fix the constitution, to amend its defects, to bind up
the several branches of government by certain laws, which when they
transgress their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary
an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every
infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence
shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights.

        (* 1) Art. 4.

        (* 2) Art. 7.

        (* 3) Art. 8.

        (* 4) Art. 8.

        (* 5) Of these, 542 are on the Eastern shore.

        (* 6) Of these, 22,616 are Eastward of the meridian of the
mouth of the Great Kanhaway.

        (* 7) To _bid_, to _set_, was the antient legislative word of
the English.  Ll. Hlotharii & Eadrici. Ll. Inae. Ll. Eadwerdi. Ll.
Aathelstani.

        (* 8) Bro. abr. Corporations. 31.34. Hakewell, 93.
 
        (* 9) Puff. Off. hom. l. 2. c. 6. 12.

        (* 10) June 4, 1781.

        QUERY XIV
 
        _The administration of justice and description of the laws?_

        Laws
        The state is divided into counties.  In every county are
appointed magistrates, called justices of the peace, usually from
eight to thirty or forty in number, in proportion to the size of the
county, of the most discreet and honest inhabitants.  They are
nominated by their fellows, but commissioned by the governor, and act
without reward.  These magistrates have jurisdiction both criminal
and civil.  If the question before them be a question of law only,
they decide on it themselves: but if it be of fact, or of fact and
law combined, it must be referred to a jury.  In the latter case, of
a combination of law and fact, it is usual for the jurors to decide
the fact, and to refer the law arising on it to the decision of the
judges.  But this division of the subject lies with their discretion
only.  And if the question relate to any point of public liberty, or
if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias,
the jury undertake to decide both law and fact.  If they be mistaken,
a decision against right, which is casual only, is less dangerous to
the state, and less afflicting to the loser, than one which makes
part of a regular and uniform system.  In truth, it is better to toss
up cross and pile in a cause, than to refer it to a judge whose mind
is warped by any motive whatever, in that particular case.  But the
common sense of twelve honest men gives still a better chance of just
decision, than the hazard of cross and pile.  These judges execute
their process by the sheriff or coroner of the county, or by
constables of their own appointment.  If any free person commit an
offence against the commonwealth, if it be below the degree of
felony, he is bound by a justice to appear before their court, to
answer it on indictment or information.  If it amount to felony, he
is committed to jail, a court of these justices is called; if they on
examination think him guilty, they send him to the jail of the
general court, before which court he is to be tried first by a grand
jury of 24, of whom 13 must concur in opinion: if they find him
guilty, he is then tried by a jury of 12 men of the county where the
offence was committed, and by their verdict, which must be unanimous,
he is acquitted or condemned without appeal.  If the criminal be a
slave the trial by the county court is final.  In every case however,
except that of high treason, there resides in the governor a power of
pardon.  In high treason, the pardon can only flow from the general
assembly.  In civil matters these justices have jurisdiction in all
cases of whatever value, not appertaining to the department of the
admiralty.  This jurisdiction is twofold.  If the matter in dispute
be of less value than 4 1/6 dollars, a single member may try it at
any time and place within his county, and may award execution on the
goods of the party cast.  If it be of that or greater value, it is
determinable before the county court, which consists of four at the
least of those justices, and assembles at the court-house of the
county on a certain day in every month.  From their determination, if
the matter be of the value of ten pounds sterling, or concern the
title or bounds of lands, an appeal lies to one of the superior
courts.

        There are three superior courts, to wit, the high-court of
chancery, the general court, and court of admiralty.  The first and
second of these receive appeals from the county courts, and also have
original jurisdiction where the subject of controversy is of the
value of ten pounds sterling, or where it concerns the title or
bounds of land.  The jurisdiction of the admiralty is original
altogether.  The high-court of chancery is composed of three judges,
the general court of five, and the court of admiralty of three.  The
two first hold their sessions at Richmond at stated times, the
chancery twice in the year, and the general court twice for business
civil and criminal, and twice more for criminal only.  The court of
admiralty sits at Williamsburgh whenever a controversy arises.

        There is one supreme court, called the court of appeals,
composed of the judges of the three superior courts, assembling twice
a year at stated times at Richmond.  This court receives appeals in
all civil cases from each of the superior courts, and determines them
finally.  But it has no original jurisdiction.

        If a controversy arise between two foreigners of a nation in
alliance with the United States, it is decided by the Consul for
their State, or, if both parties chuse it, by the ordinary courts of
justice.  If one of the parties only be such a foreigner, it is
triable before the courts of justice of the country.  But if it shall
have been instituted in a county court, the foreigner may remove it
into the general court, or court of chancery, who are to determine it
at their first sessions, as they must also do if it be originally
commenced before them.  In cases of life and death, such foreigners
have a right to be tried by a jury, the one half foreigners, the
other natives.

        All public accounts are settled with a board of auditors,
consisting of three members, appointed by the general assembly, any
two of whom may act.  But an individual, dissatisfied with the
determination of that board, may carry his case into the proper
superior court.

        A description of the laws.

        The general assembly was constituted, as has been already
shewn, by letters-patent of March the 9th, 1607, in the 4th year of
the reign of James the First.  The laws of England seem to have been
adopted by consent of the settlers, which might easily enough be done
whilst they were few and living all together.  Of such adoption
however we have no other proof than their practice, till the year
1661, when they were expressly adopted by an act of the assembly,
except so far as `a difference of condition' rendered them
inapplicable.  Under this adoption, the rule, in our courts of
judicature was, that the common law of England, and the general
statutes previous to the 4th of James, were in force here; but that
no subsequent statutes were, _unless we were named in them_, said the
judges and other partisans of the crown, but _named or not named_,
said those who reflected freely.  It will be unnecessary to attempt a
description of the laws of England, as that may be found in English
publications.  To those which were established here, by the adoption
of the legislature, have been since added a number of acts of
assembly passed during the monarchy, and ordinances of convention and
acts of assembly enacted since the establishment of the republic.
The following variations from the British model are perhaps worthy of
being specified.

        Debtors unable to pay their debts, and making faithful delivery
of their whole effects, are released from confinement, and their
persons for ever discharged from restraint for such previous debts:
but any property they may afterwards acquire will be subject to their
creditors.

        The poor, unable to support themselves, are maintained by an
assessment on the titheable persons in their parish.  This assessment
is levied and administered by twelve persons in each parish, called
vestrymen, originally chosen by the housekeepers of the parish, but
afterwards filling vacancies in their own body by their own choice.
These are usually the most discreet farmers, so distributed through
their parish, that every part of it may be under the immediate eye of
some one of them.  They are well acquainted with the details and
;oeconomy of private life, and they find sufficient inducements to
execute their charge well, in their philanthropy, in the approbation
of their neighbours, and the distinction which that gives them.  The
poor who have neither property, friends, nor strength to labour, are
boarded in the houses of good farmers, to whom a stipulated sum is
annually paid.  To those who are able to help themselves a little, or
have friends from whom they derive some succours, inadequate however
to their full maintenance, supplementory aids are given, which enable
them to live comfortably in their own houses, or in the houses of
their friends.  Vagabonds, without visible property or vocation, are
placed in workhouses, where they are well cloathed, fed, lodged, and
made to labour.  Nearly the same method of providing for the poor
prevails through all our states; and from Savannah to Portsmouth you
will seldom meet a beggar.  In the larger towns indeed they sometimes
present themselves.  These are usually foreigners, who have never
obtained a settlement in any parish.  I never yet saw a native
American begging in the streets or highways.  A subsistence is easily
gained here: and if, by misfortunes, they are thrown on the charities
of the world, those provided by their own country are so comfortable
and so certain, that they never think of relinquishing them to become
strolling beggars.  Their situation too, when sick, in the family of
a good farmer, where every member is emulous to do them kind offices,
where they are visited by all the neighbours, who bring them the
little rarities which their sickly appetites may crave, and who take
by rotation the nightly watch over them, when their condition
requires it, is without comparison better than in a general hospital,
where the sick, the dying, and the dead are crammed together, in the
same rooms, and often in the same beds.  The disadvantages,
inseparable from general hospitals, are such as can never be
counterpoised by all the regularities of medicine and regimen.
Nature and kind nursing save a much greater proportion in our plain
way, at a smaller expence, and with less abuse.  One branch only of
hospital institution is wanting with us; that is, a general
establishment for those labouring under difficult cases of
chirurgery.  The aids of this art are not equivocal.  But an able
chirurgeon cannot be had in every parish.  Such a receptacle should
therefore be provided for those patients: but no others should be
admitted.

        Marriages must be solemnized either on special licence, granted
by the first magistrate of the county, on proof of the consent of the
parent or guardian of either party under age, or after solemn
publication, on three several Sundays, at some place of religious
worship, in the parishes where the parties reside.  The act of
solemnization may be by the minister of any society of Christians,
who shall have been previously licensed for this purpose by the court
of the county.  Quakers and Menonists however are exempted from all
these conditions, and marriage among them is to be solemnized by the
society itself.

        A foreigner of any nation, not in open war with us, becomes
naturalized by removing to the state to reside, and taking an oath of
fidelity: and thereupon acquires every right of a native citizen: and
citizens may divest themselves of that character, by declaring, by
solemn deed, or in open court, that they mean to expatriate
themselves, and no longer to be citizens of this state.

        Conveyances of land must be registered in the court of the
county wherein they lie, or in the general court, or they are void,
as to creditors, and subsequent purchasers.

        Slaves pass by descent and dower as lands do.  Where the
descent is from a parent, the heir is bound to pay an equal share of
their value in money to each of his brothers and sisters.

        Slaves, as well as lands, were entailable during the monarchy:
but, by an act of the first republican assembly, all donees in tail,
present and future, were vested with the absolute dominion of the
entailed subject.

        Bills of exchange, being protested, carry 10 per cent. interest
from their date.

        No person is allowed, in any other case, to take more than five
per cent. per annum simple interest, for the loan of monies.

        Gaming debts are made void, and monies actually paid to
discharge such debts (if they exceeded 40 shillings) may be recovered
by the payer within three months, or by any other person afterwards.

        Tobacco, flour, beef, pork, tar, pitch, and turpentine, must be
inspected by persons publicly appointed, before they can be exported.

        The erecting iron-works and mills is encouraged by many
privileges; with necessary cautions however to prevent their dams
from obstructing the navigation of the water-courses.  The general
assembly have on several occasions shewn a great desire to encourage
the opening the great falls of James and Patowmac rivers.  As yet,
however, neither of these have been effected.

        The laws have also descended to the preservation and
improvement of the races of useful animals, such as horses, cattle,
deer; to the extirpation of those which are noxious, as wolves,
squirrels, crows, blackbirds; and to the guarding our citizens
against infectious disorders, by obliging suspected vessels coming
into the state, to perform quarantine, and by regulating the conduct
of persons having such disorders within the state.

        The mode of acquiring lands, in the earliest times of our
settlement, was by petition to the general assembly.  If the lands
prayed for were already cleared of the Indian title, and the assembly
thought the prayer reasonable, they passed the property by their vote
to the petitioner.  But if they had not yet been ceded by the
Indians, it was necessary that the petitioner should previously
purchase their right.  This purchase the assembly verified, by
enquiries of the Indian proprietors; and being satisfied of its
reality and fairness, proceeded further to examine the reasonableness
of the petition, and its consistence with policy; and, according to
the result, either granted or rejected the petition.  The company
also sometimes, though very rarely, granted lands, independantly of
the general assembly.  As the colony increased, and individual
applications for land multiplied, it was found to give too much
occupation to the general assembly to enquire into and execute the
grant in every special case.  They therefore thought it better to
establish general rules, according to which all grants should be
made, and to leave to the governor the execution of them, under these
rules.  This they did by what have been usually called the land laws,
amending them from time to time, as their defects were developed.
According to these laws, when an individual wished a portion of
unappropriated land, he was to locate and survey it by a public
officer, appointed for that purpose: its breadth was to bear a
certain proportion to its length: the grant was to be executed by the
governor: and the lands were to be improved in a certain manner,
within a given time.  From these regulations there resulted to the
state a sole and exclusive power of taking conveyances of the Indian
right of soil: since, according to them, an Indian conveyance alone
could give no right to an individual, which the laws would
acknowledge.  The state, or the crown, thereafter, made general
purchases of the Indians from time to time, and the governor
parcelled them out by special grants, conformed to the rules before
described, which it was not in his power, or in that of the crown, to
dispense with.  Grants, unaccompanied by their proper legal
circumstances, were set aside regularly by _scire facias_, or by bill
in Chancery.  Since the establishment of our new government, this
order of things is but little changed.  An individual, wishing to
appropriate to himself lands still unappropriated by any other, pays
to the public treasurer a sum of money proportioned to the quantity
he wants.  He carries the treasurer's receipt to the auditors of
public accompts, who thereupon debit the treasurer with the sum, and
order the register of the land-office to give the party a warrant for
his land.  With this warrant from the register, he goes to the
surveyor of the county where the land lies on which he has cast his
eye.  The surveyor lays it off for him, gives him its exact
description, in the form of a certificate, which certificate he
returns to the land-office, where a grant is made out, and is signed
by the governor.  This vests in him a perfect dominion in his lands,
transmissible to whom he pleases by deed or will, or by descent to
his heirs if he die intestate.

        Many of the laws which were in force during the monarchy being
relative merely to that form of government, or inculcating principles
inconsistent with republicanism, the first assembly which met after
the establishment of the commonwealth appointed a committee to revise
the whole code, to reduce it into proper form and volume, and report
it to the assembly.  This work has been executed by three gentlemen,
and reported; but probably will not be taken up till a restoration of
peace shall leave to the legislature leisure to go through such a
work.

        The plan of the revisal was this.  The common law of England,
by which is meant, that part of the English law which was anterior to
the date of the oldest statutes extant, is made the basis of the
work.  It was thought dangerous to attempt to reduce it to a text: it
was therefore left to be collected from the usual monuments of it.
Necessary alterations in that, and so much of the whole body of the
British statutes, and of acts of assembly, as were thought proper to
be retained, were digested into 126 new acts, in which simplicity of
stile was aimed at, as far as was safe.  The following are the most
remarkable alterations proposed:

        To change the rules of descent, so as that the lands of any
person dying intestate shall be divisible equally among all his
children, or other representatives, in equal degree.

        To make slaves distributable among the next of kin, as other
moveables.

        To have all public expences, whether of the general treasury,
or of a parish or county, (as for the maintenance of the poor,
building bridges, court-houses, &c.) supplied by assessments on the
citizens, in proportion to their property.

        To hire undertakers for keeping the public roads in repair, and
indemnify individuals through whose lands new roads shall be opened.

        To define with precision the rules whereby aliens should become
citizens, and citizens make themselves aliens.

        To establish religious freedom on the broadest bottom.

 
        To emancipate all slaves born after passing the act.  The bill
reported by the revisors does not itself contain this proposition;
but an amendment containing it was prepared, to be offered to the
legislature whenever the bill should be taken up, and further
directing, that they should continue with their parents to a certain
age, then be brought up, at the public expence, to tillage, arts or
sciences, according to their geniusses, till the females should be
eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of age, when they should be
colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should
render most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of
houshold and of the handicraft arts, feeds, pairs of the useful
domestic animals, &c. to declare them a free and independant people,
and extend to them our alliance and protection, till they shall have
acquired strength; and to send vessels at the same time to other
parts of the world for an equal number of white inhabitants; to
induce whom to migrate hither, proper encouragements were to be
proposed.  It will probably be asked, Why not retain and incorporate
the blacks into the state, and thus save the expence of supplying, by
importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave?  Deep
rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand
recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained;
new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and
many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce
convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of
the one or the other race. -- To these objections, which are
political, may be added others, which are physical and moral.  The
first difference which strikes us is that of colour.  Whether the
black of the negro resides in the reticular membrane between the skin
and scarf-skin, or in the scarf-skin itself; whether it proceeds from
the colour of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some
other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as
if its seat and cause were better known to us.  And is this
difference of no importance?  Is it not the foundation of a greater
or less share of beauty in the two races?  Are not the fine mixtures
of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less
suffusions of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony,
which reigns in the countenances, that immoveable veil of black which
covers all the emotions of the other race?  Add to these, flowing
hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour
of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as
is the preference of the Oranootan for the black women over those of
his own species.  The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought
worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other
domestic animals; why not in that of man?  Besides those of colour,
figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions proving a
difference of race.  They have less hair on the face and body.  They
secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin,
which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour.  This greater
degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less
so of cold, than the whites.  Perhaps too a difference of structure
in the pulmonary apparatus, which a late ingenious (* 1)
experimentalist has discovered to be the principal regulator of
animal heat, may have disabled them from extricating, in the act of
inspiration, so much of that fluid from the outer air, or obliged
them in expiration, to part with more of it.  They seem to require
less sleep.  A black, after hard labour through the day, will be
induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or
later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the
morning.  They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome.  But
this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents
their seeing a danger till it be present.  When present, they do not
go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites.  They
are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be
more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and
sensation.  Their griefs are transient.  Those numberless
afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life
to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with
them.  In general, their existence appears to participate more of
sensation than reflection.  To this must be ascribed their
disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and
unemployed in labour.  An animal whose body is at rest, and who does
not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course.  Comparing them by
their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me,
that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior,
as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and
comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination
they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.  It would be unfair to
follow them to Africa for this investigation.  We will consider them
here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not
apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed.  It will be right to
make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education,
of conversation, of the sphere in which they move.  Many millions of
them have been brought to, and born in America.  Most of them indeed
have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own
society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed
themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been
brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have
always been associated with the whites.  Some have been liberally
educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences
are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their
eyes samples of the best works from abroad.  The Indians, with no
advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not
destitute of design and merit.  They will crayon out an animal, a
plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their
minds which only wants cultivation.  They astonish you with strokes
of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment
strong, their imagination glowing and elevated.  But never yet could
I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain
narration; never see even an elementary trait of painting or
sculpture.  In music they are more generally gifted than the whites
with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found
capable of imagining a small catch (* 2).  Whether they will be equal
to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of
complicated harmony, is yet to be proved.  Misery is often the parent
of the most affecting touches in poetry. -- Among the blacks is
misery enough, God knows, but no poetry.  Love is the peculiar
;oestrum of the poet.  Their love is ardent, but it kindles the
senses only, not the imagination.  Religion indeed has produced a
Phyllis Whately; but it could not produce a poet.  The compositions
published under her name are below the dignity of criticism.  The
heroes of the Dunciad are to her, as Hercules to the author of that
poem.  Ignatius Sancho has approached nearer to merit in composition;
yet his letters do more honour to the heart than the head.  They
breathe the purest effusions of friendship and general philanthropy,
and shew how great a degree of the latter may be compounded with
strong religious zeal.  He is often happy in the turn of his
compliments, and his stile is easy and familiar, except when he
affects a Shandean fabrication of words.  But his imagination is wild
and extravagant, escapes incessantly from every restraint of reason
and taste, and, in the course of its vagaries, leaves a tract of
thought as incoherent and eccentric, as is the course of a meteor
through the sky.  His subjects should often have led him to a process
of sober reasoning: yet we find him always substituting sentiment for
demonstration.  Upon the whole, though we admit him to the first
place among those of his own colour who have presented themselves to
the public judgment, yet when we compare him with the writers of the
race among whom he lived, and particularly with the epistolary class,
in which he has taken his own stand, we are compelled to enroll him
at the bottom of the column.  This criticism supposes the letters
published under his name to be genuine, and to have received
amendment from no other hand; points which would not be of easy
investigation.  The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in
the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been
observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the
effect merely of their condition of life.  We know that among the
Romans, about the Augustan age especially, the condition of their
slaves was much more deplorable than that of the blacks on the
continent of America.  The two sexes were confined in separate
apartments, because to raise a child cost the master more than to buy
one.  Cato, for a very restricted indulgence to his slaves in this
particular, (* 3) took from them a certain price.  But in this
country the slaves multiply as fast as the free inhabitants.  Their
situation and manners place the commerce between the two sexes almost
without restraint. -- The same Cato, on a principle of ;oeconomy,
always sold his sick and superannuated slaves.  He gives it as a
standing precept to a master visiting his farm, to sell his old oxen,
old waggons, old tools, old and diseased servants, and every thing
else become useless.  `Vendat boves vetulos, plaustrum vetus,
ferramenta vetera, servum senem, servum morbosum, & si quid aliud
supersit vendat.' Cato de re rustica. c. 2.  The American slaves
cannot enumerate this among the injuries and insults they receive.
It was the common practice to expose in the island
         Suet. Claud. 25.
         of Aesculapius, in the Tyber, diseased slaves, whose cure
was like to become tedious.  The Emperor Claudius, by an edict, gave
freedom to such of them as should recover, and first declared, that
if any person chose to kill rather than to expose them, it should be
deemed homicide.  The exposing them is a crime of which no instance
has existed with us; and were it to be followed by death, it would be
punished capitally.  We are told of a certain Vedius Pollio, who, in
the presence of Augustus, would have given a slave as food to his
fish, for having broken a glass.  With the Romans, the regular method
of taking the evidence of their slaves was under torture.  Here it
has been thought better never to resort to their evidence.  When a
master was murdered, all his slaves, in the same house, or within
hearing, were condemned to death.  Here punishment falls on the
guilty only, and as precise proof is required against him as against
a freeman.  Yet notwithstanding these and other discouraging
circumstances among the Romans, their slaves were often their rarest
artists.  They excelled too in science, insomuch as to be usually
employed as tutors to their master's children.  Epictetus, Terence,
and Phaedrus, were slaves.  But they were of the race of whites.  It
is not their condition then, but nature, which has produced the
distinction. -- Whether further observation will or will not verify
the conjecture, that nature has been less bountiful to them in the
endowments of the head, I believe that in those of the heart she will
be found to have done them justice.  That disposition to theft with
which they have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation,
and not to any depravity of the moral sense.  The man, in whose
favour no laws of property exist, probably feels himself less bound
to respect those made in favour of others.  When arguing for
ourselves, we lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just,
must give a reciprocation of right: that, without this, they are mere
arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience:
and it is a problem which I give to the master to solve, whether the
religious precepts against the violation of property were not framed
for him as well as his slave?  And whether the slave may not as
justifiably take a little from one, who has taken all from him, as he
may slay one who would slay him?  That a change in the relations in
which a man is placed should change his ideas of moral right and
wrong, is neither new, nor peculiar to the colour of the blacks.
Homer tells us it was so 2600 years ago.

        {'Emisy, gaz t' aretes apoainylai eyrythpa Zeys
        Aneros, eyt, an min kata dolion emaz elesin.}
        _Od_. 17. 323.

        Jove fix'd it certain, that whatever day
        Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away.

        But the slaves of which Homer speaks were whites.
Notwithstanding these considerations which must weaken their respect
for the laws of property, we find among them numerous instances of
the most rigid integrity, and as many as among their better
instructed masters, of benevolence, gratitude, and unshaken fidelity.
-- The opinion, that they are inferior in the faculties of reason and
imagination, must be hazarded with great diffidence.  To justify a
general conclusion, requires many observations, even where the
subject may be submitted to the Anatomical knife, to Optical glasses,
to analysis by fire, or by solvents.  How much more then where it is
a faculty, not a substance, we are examining; where it eludes the
research of all the senses; where the conditions of its existence are
various and variously combined; where the effects of those which are
present or absent bid defiance to calculation; let me add too, as a
circumstance of great tenderness, where our conclusion would degrade
a whole race of men from the rank in the scale of beings which their
Creator may perhaps have given them.  To our reproach it must be
said, that though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes
the races of black and of red men, they have never yet been viewed by
us as subjects of natural history.  I advance it therefore as a
suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race,
or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the
whites in the endowments both of body and mind.  It is not against
experience to suppose, that different species of the same genus, or
varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications.
Will not a lover of natural history then, one who views the
gradations in all the races of animals with the eye of philosophy,
excuse an effort to keep those in the department of man as distinct
as nature has formed them?  This unfortunate difference of colour,
and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of
these people.  Many of their advocates, while they wish to vindicate
the liberty of human nature, are anxious also to preserve its dignity
and beauty.  Some of these, embarrassed by the question `What further
is to be done with them?'  join themselves in opposition with those
who are actuated by sordid avarice only.  Among the Romans
emancipation required but one effort.  The slave, when made free,
might mix with, without staining the blood of his master.  But with
us a second is necessary, unknown to history.  When freed, he is to
be removed beyond the reach of mixture.

        The revised code further proposes to proportion crimes and
punishments.  This is attempted on the following scale.

 
 I. Crimes whose punishment extends to _Life._
         1. High treason.  Death by hanging.
                           Forfeiture of lands and goods to the
                           commonwealth.
         2. Petty treason. Death by hanging. Dissection.
                           Forfeiture of half the lands and goods to the
                           representatives of the party slain.
 
 
 3. Murder.
         1. by poison.     Death by poison.
                           Forfeiture of one-half as before.
         2. in Duel.       Death by hanging. Gibbeting, if the challenger.
                           Forfeiture of one-half as before, unless it be
                           the party challenged, then the forfeiture is to
                           the commonwealth.
         3. in any other way.  Death by hanging.
                               Forfeiture of one-half as before.
         4. Manslaughter. The second offence is murder.

 II. Crimes whose punishment goes to _Limb_.
         1. Rape,   } Dismemberment.
         2. Sodomy, }
         3. Maiming,    } Retaliation, and the forfeiture of half the
         4. Disfiguring } lands and goods to the sufferer.
 III. Crimes punishable by _Labour._
         1. Manslaughter, 1st offence.   Labour VII. years
                                         for the public.
                                         Forfeiture of half as in murder.
         2. Counterfeiting money.        Labour VI. years.
                                         Forfeiture of lands and goods to
                                         the commonwealth.
         3. Arson.                       } Labour V. years.
         4. Asportation of vessels.      }
                                         Reparation three-fold.
         5. Robbery.                     } Labour IV. years.
         6. Burglary.                    }
                                         Reparation double.
         7. Housebreaking.               } Labour III. years.
         8. Horse-stealing.              }
                                         Reparation.
         9. Grand Larcency.              Labour II. years.
                                         Reparation. Pillory.
         10. Petty Larcency.             Labour I. year.
                                         Reparation. Pillory.
         11. Pretensions to witch-craft, &c.     Ducking. Stripes.
         12. Excusable homicide.         } to be pitied, not punished.
         13. Suicide.                    }
         14. Apostacy. Heresy.           }

        Pardon and privilege of clergy are proposed to be abolished;
but if the verdict be against the defendant, the court in their
discretion, may allow a new trial.  No attainder to cause a
corruption of blood, or forfeiture of dower.  Slaves guilty of
offences punishable in others by labour, to be transported to Africa,
or elsewhere, as the circumstances of the time admit, there to be
continued in slavery.  A rigorous regimen proposed for those
condemned to labour.

        Another object of the revisal is, to diffuse knowledge more
generally through the mass of the people.  This bill proposes to lay
off every county into small districts of five or six miles square,
called hundreds, and in each of them to establish a school for
teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic.  The tutor to be supported
by the hundred, and every person in it entitled to send their
children three years gratis, and as much longer as they please,
paying for it.  These schools to be under a visitor, who is annually
to chuse the boy, of best genius in the school, of those whose
parents are too poor to give them further education, and to send him
forward to one of the grammar schools, of which twenty are proposed
to be erected in different parts of the country, for teaching Greek,
Latin, geography, and the higher branches of numerical arithmetic.
Of the boys thus sent in any one year, trial is to be made at the
grammar schools one or two years, and the best genius of the whole
selected, and continued six years, and the residue dismissed.  By
this means twenty of the best geniusses will be raked from the
rubbish annually, and be instructed, at the public expence, so far as
the grammer schools go.  At the end of six years instruction, one
half are to be discontinued (from among whom the grammar schools will
probably be supplied with future masters); and the other half, who
are to be chosen for the superiority of their parts and disposition,
are to be sent and continued three years in the study of such
sciences as they shall chuse, at William and Mary college, the plan
of which is proposed to be enlarged, as will be hereafter explained,
and extended to all the useful sciences.  The ultimate result of the
whole scheme of education would be the teaching all the children of
the state reading, writing, and common arithmetic: turning out ten
annually of superior genius, well taught in Greek, Latin, geography,
and the higher branches of arithmetic: turning out ten others
annually, of still superior parts, who, to those branches of
learning, shall have added such of the sciences as their genius shall
have led them to: the furnishing to the wealthier part of the people
convenient schools, at which their children may be educated, at their
own expence. -- The general objects of this law are to provide an
education adapted to the years, to the capacity, and the condition of
every one, and directed to their freedom and happiness.  Specific
details were not proper for the law.  These must be the business of
the visitors entrusted with its execution.  The first stage of this
education being the schools of the hundreds, wherein the great mass
of the people will receive their instruction, the principal
foundations of future order will be laid here.  Instead therefore of
putting the Bible and Testament into the hands of the children, at an
age when their judgments are not sufficiently matured for religious
enquiries, their memories may here be stored with the most useful
facts from Grecian, Roman, European and American history.  such as,
when further developed as their judgments advance in strength, may
teach them how to work out their own greatest happiness, by shewing
them that it does not depend on the condition of life in which chance
has placed them, but is always the result of a good conscience, good
health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits. -- Those whom
either the wealth of their parents or the adoption of the state shall
destine to higher degrees of learning, will go on to the grammar
schools, which constitute the next stage, there to be instructed in
the languages.  The learning Greek and Latin, I am told, is going
into disuse in Europe.  I know not what their manners and occupations
may call for: but it would be very ill-judged in us to follow their
example in this instance.  There is a certain period of life, say
from eight to fifteen or sixteen years of age, when the mind, like
the body, is not yet firm enough for laborious and close operations.
If applied to such, it falls an early victim to premature exertion;
exhibiting indeed at first, in these young and tender subjects, the
flattering appearance of their being men while they are yet children,
but ending in reducing them to be children when they should be men.
The memory is then most susceptible and tenacious of impressions; and
the learning of languages being chiefly a work of memory, it seems
precisely fitted to the powers of this period, which is long enough
too for acquiring the most useful languages antient and modern.  I do
not pretend that language is science.  It is only an instrument for
the attainment of science.  But that time is not lost which is
employed in providing tools for future operation: more especially as
in this case the books put into the hands of the youth for this
purpose may be such as will at the same time impress their minds with
useful facts and good principles.  If this period be suffered to pass
in idleness, the mind becomes lethargic and impotent, as would the
body it inhabits if unexercised during the same time.  The sympathy
between body and mind during their rise, progress and decline, is too
strict and obvious to endanger our being misled while we reason from
the one to the other.  -- As soon as they are of sufficient age, it
is supposed they will be sent on from the grammar schools to the
university, which constitutes our third and last stage, there to
study those sciences which may be adapted to their views. -- By that
part of our plan which prescribes the selection of the youths of
genius from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail the state
of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as
the rich, but which perish without use, if not sought for and
cultivated. -- But of all the views of this law none is more
important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people
the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty.
For this purpose the reading in the first stage, where _they_ will
receive their whole education, is proposed, as has been said, to be
chiefly historical.  History by apprising them of the past will
enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the
experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as
judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know
ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to
defeat its views.  In every government on earth is some trace of
human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning
will discover, and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate, and
improve.  Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of
the people alone.  The people themselves therefore are its only safe
depositories.  And to render even them safe their minds must be
improved to a certain degree.  This indeed is not all that is
necessary, though it be essentially necessary.  An amendment of our
constitution must here come in aid of the public education.  The
influence over government must be shared among all the people.  If
every individual which composes their mass participates of the
ultimate authority, the government will be safe; because the
corrupting the whole mass will exceed any private resources of
wealth: and public ones cannot be provided but by levies on the
people.  In this case every man would have to pay his own price.  The
government of Great-Britain has been corrupted, because but one man
in ten has a right to vote for members of parliament.  The sellers of
the government therefore get nine-tenths of their price clear.  It
has been thought that corruption is restrained by confining the right
of suffrage to a few of the wealthier of the people: but it would be
more effectually restrained by an extension of that right to such
numbers as would bid defiance to the means of corruption.

        Lastly, it is proposed, by a bill in this revisal, to begin a
public library and gallery, by laying out a certain sum annually in
books, paintings, and statues.

        (* 1) Crawford.

        (* 2) The instrument proper to them is the Banjar, which they
brought hither from Africa, and which is the original of the guitar,
its chords being precisely the four lower chords of the guitar.

        (* 3) {Tos dolos etaxen orismeno nomismatos omilein tais
therapainisin.}
        -- Plutarch. Cato.

        QUERY XV
 
        _The colleges and public establishments, the roads, buildings,
&c.?_

        Colleges, Buildings, Roads, &c.
        The college of William and Mary is the only public seminary of
learning in this state.  It was founded in the time of king William
and queen Mary, who granted to it 20,000 acres of land, and a penny a
pound duty on certain tobaccoes exported from Virginia and Maryland,
which had been levied by the statute of 25 Car. 2. The assembly also
gave it, by temporary laws, a duty on liquors imported, and skins and
firs exported.  From these resources it received upwards of 3000 l.
communibus annis.  The buildings are of brick, sufficient for an
indifferent accommodation of perhaps an hundred students.  By its
charter it was to be under the government of twenty visitors, who
were to be its legislators, and to have a president and six
professors, who were incorporated.  It was allowed a representative
in the general assembly.  Under this charter, a professorship of the
Greek and Latin languages, a professorship of mathematics, one of
moral philosophy, and two of divinity, were established.  To these
were annexed, for a sixth professorship, a considerable donation by
Mr. Boyle of England, for the instruction of the Indians, and their
conversion to Christianity.  This was called the professorship of
Brafferton, from an estate of that name in England, purchased with
the monies given.  The admission of the learners of Latin and Greek
filled the college with children.  This rendering it disagreeable and
degrading to young gentlemen already prepared for entering on the
sciences, they were discouraged from resorting to it, and thus the
schools for mathematics and moral philosophy, which might have been
of some service, became of very little.  The revenues too were
exhausted in accommodating those who came only to acquire the
rudiments of science.  After the present revolution, the visitors,
having no power to change those circumstances in the constitution of
the college which were fixed by the charter, and being therefore
confined in the number of professorships, undertook to change the
objects of the professorships.  They excluded the two schools for
divinity, and that for the Greek and Latin languages, and substituted
others; so that at present they stand thus:

        A Professorship for Law and Police:
                Anatomy and Medicine:
                Natural Philosophy and Mathematics:
                Moral Philosophy, the Law of Nature and Nations, the Fine
Arts:
                Modern Languages:
                For the Brafferton.

        And it is proposed, so soon as the legislature shall have
leisure to take up this subject, to desire authority from them to
increase the number of professorships, as well for the purpose of
subdividing those already instituted, as of adding others for other
branches of science.  To the professorships usually established in
the universities of Europe, it would seem proper to add one for the
antient languages and literature of the North, on account of their
connection with our own language, laws, customs, and history.  The
purposes of the Brafferton institution would be better answered by
maintaining a perpetual mission among the Indian tribes, the object
of which, besides instructing them in the principles of Christianity,
as the founder requires, should be to collect their traditions, laws,
customs, languages, and other circumstances which might lead to a
discovery of their relation with one another, or descent from other
nations.  When these objects are accomplished with one tribe, the
missionary might pass on to another.

        The roads are under the government of the county courts,
subject to be controuled by the general court.  They order new roads
to be opened wherever they think them necessary.  The inhabitants of
the county are by them laid off into precincts, to each of which they
allot a convenient portion of the public roads to be kept in repair.
Such bridges as may be built without the assistance of artificers,
they are to build.  If the stream be such as to require a bridge of
regular workmanship, the court employs workmen to build it, at the
expence of the whole county.  If it be too great for the county,
application is made to the general assembly, who authorize
individuals to build it, and to take a fixed toll from all
passengers, or give sanction to such other proposition as to them
appears reasonable.

        Ferries are admitted only at such places as are particularly
pointed out by law, and the rates of ferriage are fixed.

        Taverns are licensed by the courts, who fix their rates from
time to time.

        The private buildings are very rarely constructed of stone or
brick; much the greatest proportion being of scantling and boards,
plaistered with lime.  It is impossible to devise things more ugly,
uncomfortable, and happily more perishable.  There are two or three
plans, on one of which, according to its size, most of the houses in
the state are built.  The poorest people build huts of logs, laid
horizontally in pens, stopping the interstices with mud.  These are
warmer in winter, and cooler in summer, than the more expensive
constructions of scantling and plank.  The wealthy are attentive to
the raising of vegetables, but very little so to fruits.  The poorer
people attend to neither, living principally on milk and animal diet.
This is the more inexcusable, as the climate requires indispensably a
free use of vegetable food, for health as well as comfort, and is
very friendly to the raising of fruits. -- The only public buildings
worthy mention are the Capitol, the Palace, the College, and the
Hospital for Lunatics, all of them in Williamsburg, heretofore the
seat of our government.  The Capitol is a light and airy structure,
with a portico in front of two orders, the lower of which, being
Doric, is tolerably just in its proportions and ornaments, save only
that the intercolonnations are too large.  The upper is Ionic, much
too small for that on which it is mounted, its ornaments not proper
to the order, nor proportioned within themselves.  It is crowned with
a pediment, which is too high for its span.  Yet, on the whole, it is
the most pleasing piece of architecture we have.  The Palace is not
handsome without: but it is spacious and commodious within, is
prettily situated, and, with the grounds annexed to it, is capable of
being made an elegant seat.  The College and Hospital are rude,
mis-shapen piles, which, but that they have roofs, would be taken for
brick-kilns.  There are no other public buildings but churches and
court-houses, in which no attempts are made at elegance.  Indeed it
would not be easy to execute such an attempt, as a workman could
scarcely be found here capable of drawing an order.  The genius of
architecture seems to have shed its maledictions over this land.
Buildings are often erected, by individuals, of considerable expence.
To give these symmetry and taste would not increase their cost.  It
would only change the arrangement of the materials, the form and
combination of the members.  This would often cost less than the
burthen of barbarous ornaments with which these buildings are
sometimes charged.  But the first principles of the art are unknown,
and there exists scarcely a model among us sufficiently chaste to
give an idea of them.  Architecture being one of the fine arts, and
as such within the department of a professor of the college,
according to the new arrangement, perhaps a spark may fall on some
young subjects of natural taste, kindle up their genius, and produce
a reformation in this elegant and useful art.  But all we shall do in
this way will produce no permanent improvement to our country, while
the unhappy prejudice prevails that houses of brick or stone are less
wholesome than those of wood.  A dew is often observed on the walls
of the former in rainy weather, and the most obvious solution is,
that the rain has penetrated through these walls.  The following
facts however are sufficient to prove the error of this solution.  1.
This dew on the walls appears when there is no rain, if the state of
the atmosphere be moist.  2. It appears on the partition as well as
the exterior walls.  3. So also on pavements of brick or stone.  4.
It is more copious in proportion as the walls are thicker; the
reverse of which ought to be the case, if this hypothesis were just.
If cold water be poured into a vessel of stone, or glass, a dew forms
instantly on the outside: but if it be poured into a vessel of wood,
there is no such appearance.  It is not supposed, in the first case,
that the water has exuded through the glass, but that it is
precipitated from the circumambient air; as the humid particles of
vapour, passing from the boiler of an alembic through its
refrigerant, are precipitated from the air, in which they were
suspended, on the internal surface of the refrigerant.  Walls of
brick or stone act as the refrigerant in this instance.  They are
sufficiently cold to condense and precipitate the moisture suspended
in the air of the room, when it is heavily charged therewith.  But
walls of wood are not so.  The question then is, whether air in which
this moisture is left floating, or that which is deprived of it, be
most wholesome?  In both cases the remedy is easy.  A little fire
kindled in the room, whenever the air is damp, prevents the
precipitation on the walls: and this practice, found healthy in the
warmest as well as coldest seasons, is as necessary in a wooden as in
a stone or a brick house.  I do not mean to say, that the rain never
penetrates through walls of brick.  On the contrary I have seen
instances of it.  But with us it is only through the northern and
eastern walls of the house, after a north-easterly storm, these being
the only ones which continue long enough to force through the walls.
This however happens too rarely to give a just character of
unwholesomeness to such houses.  In a house, the walls of which are
of well-burnt brick and good mortar, I have seen the rain penetrate
through but twice in a dozen or fifteen years.  The inhabitants of
Europe, who dwell chiefly in houses of stone or brick, are surely as
healthy as those of Virginia.  These houses have the advantage too of
being warmer in winter and cooler in summer than those of wood, of
being cheaper in their first construction, where lime is convenient,
and infinitely more durable.  The latter consideration renders it of
great importance to eradicate this prejudice from the minds of our
countrymen.  A country whose buildings are of wood, can never
increase in its improvements to any considerable degree.  Their
duration is highly estimated at 50 years.  Every half century then
our country becomes a tabula rasa, whereon we have to set out anew,
as in the first moment of seating it.  Whereas when buildings are of
durable materials, every new edifice is an actual and permanent
acquisition to the state, adding to its value as well as to its
ornament.

        QUERY XVI
 
        _The measures taken with regard of the estates and possessions
of the rebels, commonly called Tories?_

        Tories
        A Tory has been properly defined to be a traitor in thought,
but not in deed.  The only description, by which the laws have
endeavoured to come at them, was that of non-jurors, or persons
refusing to take the oath of fidelity to the state.  Persons of this
description were at one time subjected to double taxation, at another
to treble, and lastly were allowed retribution, and placed on a level
with good citizens.  It may be mentioned as a proof both of the
lenity of our government, and unanimity of its inhabitants, that
though this war has now raged near seven years, not a single
execution for treason has taken place.

        Under this query I will state the measures which have been
adopted as to British property, the owners of which stand on a much
fairer footing than the Tories.  By our laws, the same as the English
in this respect, no alien can hold lands, nor alien enemy maintain an
action for money, or other moveable thing.  Lands acquired or held by
aliens become forfeited to the state; and, on an action by an alien
enemy to recover money, or other moveable property, the defendant may
plead that he is an alien enemy.  This extinguishes his right in the
hands of the debtor or holder of his moveable property.  By our
separation from Great-Britain, British subjects became aliens, and
being at war, they were alien enemies.  Their lands were of course
forfeited, and their debts irrecoverable.  The assembly however
passed laws, at various times, for saving their property.  They first
sequestered their lands, slaves, and other property on their farms,
in the hands of commissioners, who were mostly the confidential
friends or agents of the owners, and directed their clear profits to
be paid into the treasury: and they gave leave to all persons owing
debts to British subjects to pay them also into the treasury.  The
monies so to be brought in were declared to remain the property of
the British subject, and, if used by the state, were to be repaid,
unless an improper conduct in Great-Britain should render a detention
of it reasonable.  Depreciation had at that time, though
unacknowledged and unperceived by the Whigs, begun in some small
degree.  Great sums of money were paid in by debtors.  At a later
period, the assembly, adhering to the political principles which
forbid an alien to hold lands in the state, ordered all British
property to be sold: and, become sensible of the real progress of
depreciation, and of the losses which would thence occur, if not
guarded against, they ordered that the proceeds of the sales should
be converted into their then worth in tobacco, subject to the future
direction of the legislature.  This act has left the question of
retribution more problematical.  In May 1780 another act took away
the permission to pay into the public treasury debts due to British
subjects.

        QUERY XVII
 
        _The different religions received into that state?_

        Religion
        The first settlers in this country were emigrants from England,
of the English church, just at a point of time when it was flushed
with complete victory over the religious of all other persuasions.
Possessed, as they became, of the powers of making, administering,
and executing the laws, they shewed equal intolerance in this country
with their Presbyterian brethren, who had emigrated to the northern
government.  The poor Quakers were flying from persecution in
England.  They cast their eyes on these new countries as asylums of
civil and religious freedom; but they found them free only for the
reigning sect.  Several acts of the Virginia assembly of 1659, 1662,
and 1693, had made it penal in parents to refuse to have their
children baptized; had prohibited the unlawful assembling of Quakers;
had made it penal for any master of a vessel to bring a Quaker into
the state; had ordered those already here, and such as should come
thereafter, to be imprisoned till they should abjure the country;
provided a milder punishment for their first and second return, but
death for their third; had inhibited all persons from suffering their
meetings in or near their houses, entertaining them individually, or
disposing of books which supported their tenets.  If no capital
execution took place here, as did in New-England, it was not owing to
the moderation of the church, or spirit of the legislature, as may be
inferred from the law itself; but to historical circumstances which
have not been handed down to us.  The Anglicans retained full
possession of the country about a century.  Other opinions began then
to creep in, and the great care of the government to support their
own church, having begotten an equal degree of indolence in its
clergy, two-thirds of the people had become dissenters at the
commencement of the present revolution.  The laws indeed were still
oppressive on them, but the spirit of the one party had subsided into
moderation, and of the other had risen to a degree of determination
which commanded respect.

        The present state of our laws on the subject of religion is
this.  The convention of May 1776, in their declaration of rights,
declared it to be a truth, and a natural right, that the exercise of
religion should be free; but when they proceeded to form on that
declaration the ordinance of government, instead of taking up every
principle declared in the bill of rights, and guarding it by
legislative sanction, they passed over that which asserted our
religious rights, leaving them as they found them.  The same
convention, however, when they met as a member of the general
assembly in October 1776, repealed all _acts of parliament_ which had
rendered criminal the maintaining any opinions in matters of
religion, the forbearing to repair to church, and the exercising any
mode of worship; and suspended the laws giving salaries to the
clergy, which suspension was made perpetual in October 1779.
Statutory oppressions in religion being thus wiped away, we remain at
present under those only imposed by the common law, or by our own
acts of assembly.  At the common law, _heresy_ was a capital offence,
punishable by burning.  Its definition was left to the ecclesiastical
judges, before whom the conviction was, till the statute of the 1 El.
c. 1. circumscribed it, by declaring, that nothing should be deemed
heresy, but what had been so determined by authority of the canonical
scriptures, or by one of the four first general councils, or by some
other council having for the grounds of their declaration the express
and plain words of the scriptures.  Heresy, thus circumscribed, being
an offence at the common law, our act of assembly of October 1777, c.
17. gives cognizance of it to the general court, by declaring, that
the jurisdiction of that court shall be general in all matters at the
common law.  The execution is by the writ _De haeretico comburendo_.
By our own act of assembly of 1705, c. 30, if a person brought up in
the Christian religion denies the being of a God, or the Trinity, or
asserts there are more Gods than one, or denies the Christian
religion to be true, or the scriptures to be of divine authority, he
is punishable on the first offence by incapacity to hold any office
or employment ecclesiastical, civil, or military; on the second by
disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy, to be guardian,
executor, or administrator, and by three years imprisonment, without
bail.  A father's right to the custody of his own children being
founded in law on his right of guardianship, this being taken away,
they may of course be severed from him, and put, by the authority of
a court, into more orthodox hands.  This is a summary view of that
religious slavery, under which a people have been willing to remain,
who have lavished their lives and fortunes for the establishment of
their civil freedom. (*) The error seems not sufficiently eradicated,
that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are
subject to the coercion of the laws.  But our rulers can have
authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them.
The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit.  We
are answerable for them to our God.  The legitimate powers of
government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.  But
it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods,
or no god.  It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.  If it be
said, his testimony in a court of justice cannot be relied on, reject
it then, and be the stigma on him.  Constraint may make him worse by
making him a hypocrite, but it will never make him a truer man.  It
may fix him obstinately in his errors, but will not cure them.
Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error.
Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion, by
bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their
investigation.  They are the natural enemies of error, and of error
only.  Had not the Roman government permitted free enquiry,
Christianity could never have been introduced.  Had not free enquiry
been indulged, at the aera of the reformation, the corruptions of
Christianity could not have been purged away.  If it be restrained
now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones
encouraged.  Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and
diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.  Thus
in France the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine, and the
potatoe as an article of food.  Government is just as infallible too
when it fixes systems in physics.  Galileo was sent to the
inquisition for affirming that the earth was a sphere: the government
had declared it to be as flat as a trencher, and Galileo was obliged
to abjure his error.  This error however at length prevailed, the
earth became a globe, and Descartes declared it was whirled round its
axis by a vortex.  The government in which he lived was wise enough
to see that this was no question of civil jurisdiction, or we should
all have been involved by authority in vortices.  In fact, the
vortices have been exploded, and the Newtonian principle of
gravitation is now more firmly established, on the basis of reason,
than it would be were the government to step in, and to make it an
article of necessary faith.  Reason and experiment have been
indulged, and error has fled before them.  It is error alone which
needs the support of government.  Truth can stand by itself.  Subject
opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?  Fallible
men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public
reasons.  And why subject it to coercion?  To produce uniformity.
But is uniformity of opinion desireable?  No more than of face and
stature.  Introduce the bed of Procrustes then, and as there is
danger that the large men may beat the small, make us all of a size,
by lopping the former and stretching the latter.  Difference of
opinion is advantageous in religion.  The several sects perform the
office of a Censor morum over each other.  Is uniformity attainable?
Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction
of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we
have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.  What has been the
effect of coercion?  To make one half the world fools, and the other
half hypocrites.  To support roguery and error all over the earth.
Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions of people.
That these profess probably a thousand different systems of religion.
That ours is but one of that thousand.  That if there be but one
right, and ours that one, we should wish to see the 999 wandering
sects gathered into the fold of truth.  But against such a majority
we cannot effect this by force.  Reason and persuasion are the only
practicable instruments.  To make way for these, free enquiry must be
indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it
ourselves.  But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some
religion.  No two, say I, have established the same.  Is this a proof
of the infallibility of establishments?  Our sister states of
Pennsylvania and New York, however, have long subsisted without any
establishment at all.  The experiment was new and doubtful when they
made it.  It has answered beyond conception.  They flourish
infinitely.  Religion is well supported; of various kinds, indeed,
but all good enough; all sufficient to preserve peace and order: or
if a sect arises, whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense has
fair play, and reasons and laughs it out of doors, without suffering
the state to be troubled with it.  They do not hang more malefactors
than we do.  They are not more disturbed with religious dissensions.
On the contrary, their harmony is unparalleled, and can be ascribed
to nothing but their unbounded tolerance, because there is no other
circumstance in which they differ from every nation on earth.  They
have made the happy discovery, that the way to silence religious
disputes, is to take no notice of them.  Let us too give this
experiment fair play, and get rid, while we may, of those tyrannical
laws.  It is true, we are as yet secured against them by the spirit
of the times.  I doubt whether the people of this country would
suffer an execution for heresy, or a three years imprisonment for not
comprehending the mysteries of the Trinity.  But is the spirit of the
people an infallible, a permanent reliance?  Is it government?  Is
this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we
give up?  Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter.
Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless.  A single zealot
may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims.  It can never
be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right
on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves
united.  From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill.
It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people
for support.  They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights
disregarded.  They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of
making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect
for their rights.  The shackles, therefore, which shall not be
knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long,
will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or
expire in a convulsion.

        (*) Furneaux passim.

        QUERY XVIII
 
        _The particular customs and manners that may happen to be
received in that state?_

        Manners
        It is difficult to determine on the standard by which the
manners of a nation may be tried, whether _catholic_, or
_particular_.  It is more difficult for a native to bring to that
standard the manners of his own nation, familiarized to him by habit.
There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our
people produced by the existence of slavery among us.  The whole
commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most
boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part,
and degrading submissions on the other.  Our children see this, and
learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal.  This quality is
the germ of all education in him.  From his cradle to his grave he is
learning to do what he sees others do.  If a parent could find no
motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining
the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a
sufficient one that his child is present.  But generally it is not
sufficient.  The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the
lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller
slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed,
educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it
with odious peculiarities.  The man must be a prodigy who can retain
his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.  And with
what execration should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one
half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other,
transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the
morals of the one part, and the amor patriae of the other.  For if a
slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in
preference to that in which he is born to live and labour for
another: in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature,
contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavours to the
evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition
on the endless generations proceeding from him.  With the morals of
the people, their industry also is destroyed.  For in a warm climate,
no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him.
This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small
proportion indeed are ever seen to labour.  And can the liberties of
a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm
basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties
are of the gift of God?  That they are not to be violated but with
his wrath?  Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God
is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering
numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of
fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it
may become probable by supernatural interference!  The Almighty has
no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.  -- But
it is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject through
the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history natural
and civil.  We must be contented to hope they will force their way
into every one's mind.  I think a change already perceptible, since
the origin of the present revolution.  The spirit of the master is
abating, that of the slave rising from the dust, his condition
mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven,
for a total emancipation, and that this is disposed, in the order of
events, to be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their
extirpation.

        QUERY XIX
 
        _The present state of manufactures, commerce, interior and
exterior trade?_

        Manufactures
        We never had an interior trade of any importance.  Our exterior
commerce has suffered very much from the beginning of the present
contest.  During this time we have manufactured within our families
the most necessary articles of cloathing.  Those of cotton will bear
some comparison with the same kinds of manufacture in Europe; but
those of wool, flax and hemp are very coarse, unsightly, and
unpleasant: and such is our attachment to agriculture, and such our
preference for foreign manufactures, that be it wise or unwise, our
people will certainly return as soon as they can, to the raising raw
materials, and exchanging them for finer manufactures than they are
able to execute themselves.

        The political oeconomists of Europe have established it as a
principle that every state should endeavour to manufacture for
itself: and this principle, like many others, we transfer to America,
without calculating the difference of circumstance which should often
produce a difference of result.  In Europe the lands are either
cultivated, or locked up against the cultivator.  Manufacture must
therefore be resorted to of necessity not of choice, to support the
surplus of their people.  But we have an immensity of land courting
the industry of the husbandman.  Is it best then that all our
citizens should be employed in its improvement, or that one half
should be called off from that to exercise manufactures and
handicraft arts for the other?  Those who labour in the earth are the
chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts
he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.
It is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire, which
otherwise might escape from the face of the earth.  Corruption of
morals in the mass of cultivators is a phaenomenon of which no age
nor nation has furnished an example.  It is the mark set on those,
who not looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, as does
the husbandman, for their subsistance, depend for it on the
casualties and caprice of customers.  Dependance begets subservience
and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools
for the designs of ambition.  This, the natural progress and
consequence of the arts, has sometimes perhaps been retarded by
accidental circumstances: but, generally speaking, the proportion
which the aggregate of the other classes of citizens bears in any
state to that of its husbandmen, is the proportion of its unsound to
its healthy parts, and is a good-enough barometer whereby to measure
its degree of corruption.  While we have land to labour then, let us
never wish to see our citizens occupied at a work-bench, or twirling
a distaff.  Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry:
but, for the general operations of manufacture, let our work-shops
remain in Europe.  It is better to carry provisions and materials to
workmen there, than bring them to the provisions and materials, and
with them their manners and principles.  The loss by the
transportation of commodities across the Atlantic will be made up in
happiness and permanence of government.  The mobs of great cities add
just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the
strength of the human body.  It is the manners and spirit of a people
which preserve a republic in vigour.  A degeneracy in these is a
canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.

        QUERY XX
 
        _A notice of the commercial productions particular to the
state, and of those objects which the inhabitants are obliged to get
from Europe and from other parts of the world?_

        Commercial productions
        Before the present war we exported, communibus annis, according
to the best information I can get, nearly as follows:

      ARTICLES.       Quantity.          Price          Am.
                                       in dollars.   in dollars.

      Tobacco         55,000 hhds     at 30 d. per      1,650,000
                        of 1000 lb.     hhd.

      Wht           800,000         at 5/6 d. per     666,666 2/3
                        bushels         bush.

      Indian corn     600,000         at 1/3 d. per     200,000
                        bushels         bush.

      Shipping        --- --- ---     --- ---           100,000

      Masts, planks,  --- --- ---     --- ---          66,666 2/3
      skantling,
      shingles,
      staves

      Tar, pitch,     30,000          at 1 1/3 d. per  40,000
      turpentine        barrels         bar.

      Peltry, viz.    180 hhds.       at 5/12 d.       42,000
      skins of deer,    of 600 lb.      per lb.
      beavers, otters,
      muskrats,
      racoons, foxes

      Pork            4,000           at 10 d. per     40,000
                        barrels         bar.

      Flax-seed,      --- --- ---     --- ---           8,000
      hemp, cotton

      Pit-coal,       --- --- ---     --- ---           6,666 2/3
      pig-iron

      Peas            5,000           at 2/3 d. per     3,333 1/3
                        bushels         bush.

      Beef            1,000           at 3 1/3 d.       3,333 1/3
                        barrels         per bar.

      Sturgeon,       --- --- ---     --- ---           3,333 1/3
      white shad,
      herring

      Brandy from     --- --- ---     --- ---           1,666 2/3
      peaches and
      apples, and
      whiskey

      Horses          --- --- ---     --- ---           1,666 2/3

      This sum is equal to 850,000 l. Virginia
              money, 607,142 guineas.               2,833,333 1/3 D.

        In the year 1758 we exported seventy thousand hogsheads of
tobacco, which was the greatest quantity ever produced in this
country in one year.  But its culture was fast declining at the
commencement of this war and that of wheat taking its place: and it
must continue to decline on the return of peace.  I suspect that the
change in the temperature of our climate has become sensible to that
plant, which, to be good, requires an extraordinary degree of heat.
But it requires still more indispensably an uncommon fertility of
soil: and the price which it commands at market will not enable the
planter to produce this by manure.  Was the supply still to depend on
Virginia and Maryland alone, as its culture becomes more difficult,
the price would rise, so as to enable the planter to surmount those
difficulties and to live.  But the western country on the Missisipi,
and the midlands of Georgia, having fresh and fertile lands in
abundance, and a hotter sun, will be able to undersell these two
states, and will oblige them to abandon the raising tobacco
altogether.  And a happy obligation for them it will be.  It is a
culture productive of infinite wretchedness.  Those employed in it
are in a continued state of exertion beyond the powers of nature to
support.  Little food of any kind is raised by them; so that the men
and animals on these farms are badly fed, and the earth is rapidly
impoverished.  The cultivation of wheat is the reverse in every
circumstance.  Besides cloathing the earth with herbage, and
preserving its fertility, it feeds the labourers plentifully,
requires from them only a moderate toil, except in the season of
harvest, raises great numbers of animals for food and service, and
diffuses plenty and happiness among the whole.  We find it easier to
make an hundred bushels of wheat than a thousand weight of tobacco,
and they are worth more when made.  The weavil indeed is a formidable
obstacle to the cultivation of this grain with us.  But principles
are already known which must lead to a remedy.  Thus a certain degree
of heat, to wit, that of the common air in summer, is necessary to
hatch the egg.  If subterranean granaries, or others, therefore, can
be contrived below that temperature, the evil will be cured by cold.
A degree of heat beyond that which hatches the egg, we know will kill
it.  But in aiming at this we easily run into that which produces
putrefaction.  To produce putrefaction, however, three agents are
requisite, heat, moisture, and the external air.  If the absence of
any one of these be secured, the other two may safely be admitted.
Heat is the one we want.  Moisture then, or external air, must be
excluded.  The former has been done by exposing the grain in kilns to
the action of fire, which produces heat, and extracts moisture at the
same time: the latter, by putting the grain into hogsheads, covering
it with a coat of lime, and heading it up.  In this situation its
bulk produces a heat sufficient to kill the egg; the moisture is
suffered to remain indeed, but the external air is excluded.  A nicer
operation yet has been attempted; that is, to produce an intermediate
temperature of heat between that which kills the egg, and that which
produces putrefaction.  The threshing the grain as soon as it is cut,
and laying it in its chaff in large heaps, has been found very nearly
to hit this temperature, though not perfectly, nor always.  The heap
generates heat sufficient to kill most of the eggs, whilst the chaff
commonly restrains it from rising into putrefaction.  But all these
methods abridge too much the quantity which the farmer can manage,
and enable other countries to undersell him which are not infested
with this insect.  There is still a desideratum then to give with us
decisive triumph to this branch of agriculture over that of tobacco.
-- The culture of wheat, by enlarging our pasture, will render the
Arabian horse an article of very considerable profit.  Experience has
shewn that ours is the particular climate of America where he may be
raised without degeneracy.  Southwardly the heat of the sun occasions
a deficiency of pasture, and northwardly the winters are too cold for
the short and fine hair, the particular sensibility and constitution
of that race.  Animals transplanted into unfriendly climates, either
change their nature and acquire new fences against the new
difficulties in which they are placed, or they multiply poorly and
become extinct.  A good foundation is laid for their propagation here
by our possessing already great numbers of horses of that blood, and
by a decided taste and preference for them established among the
people.  Their patience of heat without injury, their superior wind,
fit them better in this and the more southern climates even for the
drudgeries of the plough and waggon.  Northwardly they will become an
object only to persons of taste and fortune, for the saddle and light
carriages.  To these, and for these uses, their fleetness and beauty
will recommend them. -- Besides these there will be other valuable
substitutes when the cultivation of tobacco shall be discontinued,
such as cotton in the eastern parts of the state, and hemp and flax
in the western.

        It is not easy to say what are the articles either of
necessity, comfort, or luxury, which we cannot raise, and which we
therefore shall be under a necessity of importing from abroad, as
every thing hardier than the olive, and as hardy as the fig, may be
raised here in the open air.  Sugar, coffee and tea, indeed, are not
between these limits; and habit having placed them among the
necessaries of life with the wealthy part of our citizens, as long as
these habits remain, we must go for them to those countries which are
able to furnish them.

        QUERY XXI
 
        _The weights, measures, and the currency of the hard money?
Some details relating to the exchange with Europe?_

        Weights, Measures, Money
        Our weights and measures are the same which are fixed by acts
of parliament in England. -- How it has happened that in this as well
as the other American states the nominal value of coin was made to
differ from what it was in the country we had left, and to differ
among ourselves too, I am not able to say with certainty.  I find
that in 1631 our house of burgesses desired of the privy council in
England, a coin debased to twenty-five per cent: that in 1645 they
forbid dealing by barter for tobacco, and established the Spanish
piece of eight at six shillings, as the standard of their currency:
that in 1655 they changed it to five shillings sterling.  In 1680
they sent an address to the king, in consequence of which, by
proclamation in 1683, he fixed the value of French crowns, rixdollars
and pieces of eight at six shillings, and the coin of New-England at
one shilling.  That in 1710, 1714, 1727, and 1762, other regulations
were made, which will be better presented to the eye stated in the
form of a table as follows:

                                        1710.   1714.   1727.    1762.
 Guineas                                -- --   26s

 British gold coin not milled,          -- --   5s the
  coined gold of Spain and France,              dwt.
  chequins, Arabian gold, moidores of
  Portugal

 Coined gold of the empire              -- --   5s the  -- --    4s3 the
                                                 dwt.             dwt.

 English milled silver money, in        -- --   5s10    6s3
  proportion to the crown, at

 Pieces of eight of Mexico, Seville,    3 3/4   -- --   4 d.
  and Pillar, ducatoons of Flanders,    d. the          the
  French ecus, or silver Louis,  dwt.           dwt.
  crusados of Porrtugal

 Peru pieces, cross dollars, and        3 1/2   -- --   3 3/4
  old rixdollars of the empire          d. the          d. the
                                        dwt.            dwt.

 Old British silver coin not milled     -- --   3 3/4
                                                d. the
                                                dwt.

 
        The first symptom of the depreciation of our present
paper-money, was that of silver dollars selling at six shillings,
which had before been worth but five shillings and ninepence.  The
assembly thereupon raised them by law to six shillings.  As the
dollar is now likely to become the money-unit of America, as it
passes at this rate in some of our sister-states, and as it
facilitates their computation in pounds and shillings, & e converso,
this seems to be more convenient than it's former denomination.  But
as this particular coin now stands higher than any other in the
proportion of 133 1/3 to 125, or 16 to 15, it will be necessary to
raise the others in the same proportion.

        QUERY XXII
 
        _The public income and expences?_

        Revenue
        The nominal amount of these varying constantly and rapidly,
with the constant and rapid depreciation of our paper-money, it
becomes impracticable to say what they are.  We find ourselves
cheated in every essay by the depreciation intervening between the
declaration of the tax and its actual receipt.  It will therefore be
more satisfactory to consider what our income may be when we shall
find means of collecting what the people may spare.  I should
estimate the whole taxable property of this state at an hundred
millions of dollars, or thirty millions of pounds our money.  One per
cent on this, compared with any thing we ever yet paid, would be
deemed a very heavy tax.  Yet I think that those who manage well, and
use reasonable ;oeconomy, could pay one and a half per cent, and
maintain their houshould comfortably in the mean time, without
aliening any part of their principal, and that the people would
submit to this willingly for the purpose of supporting their present
contest.  We may say then, that we could raise, and ought to raise,
from one million to one million and a half of dollars annually, that
is from three hundred to four hundred and fifty thousand pounds,
Virginia money.

        Of our expences it is equally difficult to give an exact state,
and for the same reason.  They are mostly stated in paper money,
which varying continually, the legislature endeavours at every
session, by new corrections, to adapt the nominal sums to the value
it is wished they should bear.  I will state them therefore in real
coin, at the point at which they endeavour to keep them.

        _Dollars._
      The annual expences of the general assembly
        are about                                     20,000
      The governor                                     3,333 1/3
      The council of state                            10,666 2/3
              Their clerks                             1,166 2/3
      Eleven judges                                    11000
              The clerk of the chancery                  666 2/3
      The attorney general                             1,000

      Three auditors and a solicitor                   5,333 1/3
              Their clerks                             2,000
      The treasurer                                    2,000
              His clerks                               2,000
      The keeper of the public jail                    1,000
      The public printer                               1,666 2/3
      Clerks of the inferior courts                   43,333 1/3
      Public levy: this is chiefly for the
        expences of criminal justice                  40,000
      County levy, for bridges, court houses,
        prisons, &c.                                  40,000
      Members of congress                               7000
      Quota of the Federal civil list, supposed
        1/6 of about 78,000 dollars                   13,000
      Expences of collection, 6 per cent. on the
        above                                         12,310
      The clergy receive only voluntary
        contributions: suppose them on an
        average 1/8 of a dollar a tythe on
        200,000 tythes                                25,000
      Contingencies, to make round numbers not
        far from truth                                 7,523 1/3
                                                      ----------
                                                     250,000
        Dollars, or 53,571 guineas.  This estimate is exclusive of the
military expence.  That varies with the force actually employed, and
in time of peace will probably be little or nothing.  It is exclusive
also of the public debts, which are growing while I am writing, and
cannot therefore be now fixed.  So it is of the maintenance of the
poor, which being merely a matter of charity, cannot be deemed
expended in the administration of government.  And if we strike out
the 25,000 dollars for the services of the clergy, which neither
makes part of that administration, more than what is paid to
physicians or lawyers, and being voluntary, is either much or nothing
as every one pleases, it leaves 225,000 dollars, equal to 48,208
guineas, the real cost of the apparatus of government with us.  This,
divided among the actual inhabitants of our country, comes to about
two-fifths of a dollar, 21d sterling, or 42 sols, the price which
each pays annually for the protection of the residue of his property,
that of his person, and the other advantages of a free government.
The public revenues of Great Britain divided in like manner on its
inhabitants would be sixteen times greater.  Deducting even the
double of the expences of government, as before estimated, from the
million and a half of dollars which we before supposed might be
annually paid without distress, we may conclude that this state can
contribute one million of dollars annually towards supporting the
federal army, paying the federal debt, building a federal navy, or
opening roads, clearing rivers, forming safe ports, and other useful
works.

        To this estimate of our abilities, let me add a word as to the
application of them, if, when cleared of the present contest, and of
the debts with which that will charge us, we come to measure force
hereafter with any European power.  Such events are devoutly to be
deprecated.  Young as we are, and with such a country before us to
fill with people and with happiness, we should point in that
direction the whole generative force of nature, wasting none of it in
efforts of mutual destruction.  It should be our endeavour to
cultivate the peace and friendship of every nation, even of that
which has injured us most, when we shall have carried our point
against her.  Our interest will be to throw open the doors of
commerce, and to knock off all its shackles, giving perfect freedom
to all persons for the vent of whatever they may chuse to bring into
our ports, and asking the same in theirs.  Never was so much false
arithmetic employed on any subject, as that which has been employed
to persuade nations that it is their interest to go to war.  Were the
money which it has cost to gain, at the close of a long war, a little
town, or a little territory, the right to cut wood here, or to catch
fish there, expended in improving what they already possess, in
making roads, openingrivers, building ports, improving the arts, and
finding employment for their idle poor, it would render them much
stronger, much wealthier and happier.  This I hope will be our
wisdom.  And, perhaps, to remove as much as possible the occasions of
making war, it might be better for us to abandon the ocean
altogether, that being the element whereon we shall be principally
exposed to jostle with other nations: to leave to others to bring
what we shall want, and to carry what we can spare.  This would make
us invulnerable to Europe, by offering none of our property to their
prize, and would turn all our citizens to the cultivation of the
earth; and, I repeat it again, cultivators of the earth are the most
virtuous and independant citizens.  It might be time enough to seek
employment for them at sea, when the land no longer offers it.  But
the actual habits of our countrymen attach them to commerce.  They
will exercise it for themselves.  Wars then must sometimes be our
lot; and all the wise can do, will be to avoid that half of them
which would be produced by our own follies, and our own acts of
injustice; and to make for the other half the best preparations we
can.  Of what nature should these be?  A land army would be useless
for offence, and not the best nor safest instrument of defence.  For
either of these purposes, the sea is the field on which we should
meet an European enemy.  On that element it is necessary we should
possess some power.  To aim at such a navy as the greater nations of
Europe possess, would be a foolish and wicked waste of the energies
of our countrymen.  It would be to pull on our own heads that load of
military expence, which makes the European labourer go supperless to
bed, and moistens his bread with the sweat of his brows.  It will be
enough if we enable ourselves to prevent insults from those nations
of Europe which are weak on the sea, because circumstances exist,
which render even the stronger ones weak as to us.  Providence has
placed their richest and most defenceless possessions at our door;
has obliged their most precious commerce to pass as it were in review
before us.  To protect this, or to assail us, a small part only of
their naval force will ever be risqued across the Atlantic.  The
dangers to which the elements expose them here are too well known,
and the greater dangers to which they would be exposed at home, were
any general calamity to involve their whole fleet.  They can attack
us by detachment only; and it will suffice to make ourselves equal to
what they may detach.  Even a smaller force than they may detach will
be rendered equal or superior by the quickness with which any check
may be repaired with us, while losses with them will be irreparable
till too late.  A small naval force then is sufficient for us, and a
small one is necessary.  What this should be, I will not undertake to
say.  I will only say, it should by no means be so great as we are
able to make it.  Suppose the million of dollars, or 300,000 pounds,
which Virginia could annually spare without distress, to be applied
to the creating a navy.  A single year's contribution would build,
equip, man, and send to sea a force which should carry 300 guns.  The
rest of the confederacy, exerting themselves in the same proportion,
would equip in the same time 1500 guns more.  So that one year's
contributions would set up a navy of 1800 guns.  The British ships of
the line average 76 guns; their frigates 38.  1800 guns then would
form a fleet of 30 ships, 18 of which might be of the line, and 12
frigates.  Allowing 8 men, the British average, for every gun, their
annual expence, including subsistence, cloathing, pay, and ordinary
repairs, would be about 1280 dollars for every gun, or 2,304,000
dollars for the whole.  I state this only as one year's possible
exertion, without deciding whether more or less than a year's
exertion should be thus applied.

        The value of our lands and slaves, taken conjunctly, doubles in
about twenty years.  This arises from the multiplication of our
slaves, from the extension of culture, and increased demand for
lands.  The amount of what may be raised will of course rise in the
same proportion.

        QUERY XXIII
 
        _The histories of the state, the memorials published in its
name in the time of its being a colthe pamphlets relating to its
interior or exterior affairs present or antient?_

        Histories, &c.
        Captain Smith, who next to Sir Walter Raleigh may be considered
as the founder of our colony, has written its history, from the first
adventures to it till the year 1624.  He was a member of the council,
and afterwards president of the colony; and to his efforts
principally may be ascribed its support against the opposition of the
natives.  He was honest, sensible, and well informed; but his style
is barbarous and uncouth.  His history, however, is almost the only
source from which we derive any knowledge of the infancy of our
state.

        The reverend William Stith, a native of Virginia, and president
of its college, has also written the history of the same period, in a
large octavo volume of small print.  He was a man of classical
learning, and very exact, but of no taste in style.  He is inelegant,
therefore, and his details often too minute to be tolerable, even to
a native of the country, whose history he writes.

        Beverley, a native also, has run into the other extreme; he has
comprised our history, from the first propositions of Sir Walter
Raleigh to the year 1700, in the hundredth part of the space which
Stith employs for the fourth part of the period.

        Sir William Keith has taken it up at its earliest period, and
continued it to the year 1725.  He is agreeable enough in style, and
passes over events of little importance.  Of course he is short, and
would be preferred by a foreigner.

        During the regal government, some contest arose on the exaction
of an illegal fee by governor Dinwiddie, and doubtless there were
others on other occasions not at present recollected.  It is
supposed, that these are not sufficiently interesting to a foreigner
to merit a detail.

        The petition of the council and burgesses of Virginia to the
king, their memorial to the lords, and remonstrance to the commons in
the year 1764, began the present contest: and these having proved
ineffectual to prevent the passage of the stamp-act, the resolutions
of the house of burgesses of 1765 were passed, declaring the
independance of the people of Virginia on the parliament of
Great-Britain, in matters of taxation.  From that time till the
declaration of independance by congress in 1776, their journals are
filled with assertions of the public rights.

        The pamphlets published in this state on the controverted
question were,
              1766, An Enquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies,
                    by Richard Bland.
              1769, The Monitor's Letters, by Dr. Arthur Lee.
              1774, (* 1) A summary View of the Rights of British
                          America.
              ----  Considerations, &c. by Robert Carter Nicholas.

        (* 1) By the author of these Notes.

        Since the declaration of independance this state has had no
controversy with any other, except with that of Pennsylvania, on
their common boundary.  Some papers on this subject passed between
the executive and legislative bodies of the two states, the result of
which was a happy accommodation of their rights.

        To this account of our historians, memorials, and pamphlets, it
may not be unuseful to add a chronological catalogue of American
state-papers, as far as I have been able to collect their titles.  It
is far from being either complete or correct.  Where the title alone,
and not the paper itself, has come under my observation, I cannot
answer for the exactness of the date.  Sometimes I have not been able
to find any date at all, and sometimes have not been satisfied that
such a paper exists.  An extensive collection of papers of this
description has been for some time in a course of preparation by a (*
2) gentleman fully equal to the task, and from whom, therefore, we
may hope ere long to receive it.  In the mean time accept this as the
result of my labours, and as closing the tedious detail which you
have so undesignedly drawn upon yourself.

        (* 2) Mr. Hazard.

        Pro Johanne Caboto et filiis suis super terra incognita
investiganda. 12. Ry. 595. 3. Hakl. 4. 2. Mem. Am. 409.
        1496, Mar. 5. II. H. 7.

 
        Billa signata anno 13. Henrici septimi. 3. Hakluyt's voiages 5.
        1498, Feb. 3. 13. H. 7.
 
        De potestatibus ad terras incognitas investigandum. 13.  Rymer.
37.
        1502, Dec. 19. 18. H. 7.
 
        Commission de Fransois I. a Jacques Cartier pour
l'establissement du Canada. L'Escarbot. 397. 2. Mem. Am. 416.
        1540, Oct. 17.
 
        An act against the exaction of money, or any other thing, by
any officer for license to traffique into Iseland and Newfoundland,
made in An. 2. Edwardi sexti. 3. Hakl. 131.
        1548, 2. E. 6.
 
        The letters-patent granted by her Majestie to Sir Humphrey
Gilbert, knight, for the inhabiting and planting of our people in
America. 3. Hakl. 135.
        1578, June 11, 20. El.

        Letters-patents of Queen Elizabeth to Adrian Gilbert and
others, to discover the Northwest passage to China. 3. Hakl. 96.
        1583, Feb. 6.

        The letters-patents granted by the Queen's majestie to M.
Walter Raleigh, now knight, for the discovering and planting of new
lands and countries, to continue the space of 6 years and no more. 3.
Hakl. 243.
        1584, Mar. 25, 26 El.

        An assignment by Sir Walter Raleigh for continuing the action
of inhabiting and planting his people in Virginia. Hakl. 1st. ed.
publ. in 1589, p. 815.
        Mar. 7. 31 El.

        Lettres de Lieutenant General de l'Acadie & pays circonvoisins
pour le Sieur de Monts. L'Escarbot. 417.
        1603, Nov. 8.

        Letters-patent to Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers and
others, for two several colonies to be made in Virginia and other
parts of America. Stith. Append. No. 1.
        1606 Apr, 10, 4 Jac. 1.

        An ordinance and constitution enlarging the council of the two
colonies in Virginia and America, and augmenting their authority, M.
S.
        1607, Mar. 9, 4. Jac. 1.
 
        The second charter to the treasurer and company for Virginia,
erecting them into a body politick. Stith. Ap. 2.
        1609, May 23. 7. Jac. 1.

        Letters-patents to the E. of Northampton, granting part of the
island of Newfoundland. 1. Harris. 861.
        1610, Apr. 10. Jac. 1.
 
        A third charter to the treasurer and company for Virginia.  --
Stith. App. 3.
        1611, Mar. 12. 9. Jac. 1.
 
        A commission to Sir Walter Raleigh. Qu.?
        1617, Jac. 1.
 
        Commissio specialis concernens le garbling herbae Nicotianae.
17. Rym. 190.
        1620, Apr, 7. 18. Jac. 1.
 
        A proclamation for restraint of the disordered trading of
tobacco. 17. Rym. 233.
        1620, June 29. 18. Jac. 1.
 
        A grant of New England to the council of Plymouth.
        1620 Nov. 3. Jac. 1.
 
        An ordinance and constitution of the treasurer, council and
company in England, for a council of state and general assembly in
Virginia. Stith. App. 4.
        1621 July 24. Jac. 1.

        A grant of Nova Scotia to Sir William Alexander. 2. Mem. de
l'Amerique. 193.
        1621, Sep. 10 - 20. Jac. 1.
 
        A proclamation prohibiting interloping and disorderly trading
to New England in America. 17. Rym. 416.
        1622, Nov. 6. 20. Jac. 1.
 
        De Commissione speciali Willielmo Jones militi directa. 17.
Rym. 490.
        1623, May 9. 21. Jac. 1.
 
        A grant to Sir Edmund Ployden, of New Albion. Mentioned in
Smith's examination. 82.
        1623.
 
        De Commissione Henrico vice-comiti Mandevill & aliis. 17.  Rym.
609.
        1624, July 15. 22. Jac. 1.
 
        De Commissione speciali concernenti gubernationem in Virginia.
17. Rym. 618.
        1624, Aug. 26. 22. Jac. 1.
 
        A proclamation concerning tobacco. 17. Rym. 621.
        1624, Sep. 29. 22. Jac. 1.
 
        De concessione demiss. Edwardo Dichfield et aliis. 17. Rym.
633.
        1624, Nov. 9. 22. Jac. 1.
 
        A proclamation for the utter prohibiting the importation and
use of all tobacco which is not of the proper growth of the colony of
Virginia and the Somer islands, or one of them. 17. Rym. 668.
        1625, Mar. 2. 22. Jac. 1.
 
        De commissione directa Georgio Yardeley militi et aliis. 18.
Rym. 311.
        1625, Mar. 4. 1. Car. 1.
 
        Proclamatio de herba Nicotiana. 18. Rym. 19.
        1625, Apr. 9. 1. Car. 1.
 
        A proclamation for settlinge the plantation of Virginia. 18.
Rym. 72.
        1625, May 13. 1. Car. 1.
 
        A grant of the soil, barony, and domains of Nova Scotia to Sir
Wm. Alexander of Minstrie. 2. Mem. Am. 226.
        1625, July 12.
 
        Commissio directa Johanni Wolstenholme militi et aliis. 18.
Ry. 831.
        1626, Jan. 31. 2. Car 1.
 
        A proclamation touching tobacco. Ry. 848.
        1626, Feb. 17. 2. Car. 1.
 
        A grant of Massachuset's bay by the council of Plymouth to Sir
Henry Roswell and others.
        1627, Mar. 19. qu.?
        2. Car. 1.
 
        De concessione commissionis specialis pro concilio in Virginia.
18. Ry. 980.
        1627, Mar. 26. 3. Car. 1.
 
        De proclamatione de signatione de tobacco. 18. Ry. 886.
        1627, Mar. 30. 3. Car. 1.
 
        De proclamatione pro ordinatione de tobacco. 18. Ry. 920.
        1627, Aug. 9. 3. Car. 1.
 
        A confirmation of the grant of Massachuset's bay by the crown.
        1628, Mar. 4. 3. Car. 1.
 
        The capitulation of Quebec. Champlain part. 2. 216. 2. Mem.
Am. 489.
        1629, Aug. 19.
 
        A proclamation concerning tobacco. 19. Ry. 235.
        1630, Jan. 6. 5. Car. 1.
 
        Conveyance of Nova Scotia (Port-royal excepted) by Sir William
Alexander to Sir Claude St. Etienne Lord of la Tour and of Uarre and
to his son Sir Charles de St. Etienne Lord of St.  Denniscourt, on
condition that they continue subjects to the king of Scotland under
the great seal of Scotland.
        1630, April 30.
 
        A proclamation forbidding the disorderly trading with the
salvages in New England in America, especially the furnishing the
natives in those and other parts of America by the English with
weapons and habiliments of warre. 19. Ry. 210. 3. Rushw. 82.
        1630 - 31, Nov. 24.
        6. Car. 1.
 
        A proclamation prohibiting the selling arms, &c. to the savages
in America. Mentioned 3. Rushw. 75.
        1630, Dec. 5. 6. Car. 1.
 
        A grant of Connecticut by the council of Plymouth to the E.  of
Warwick.
        1630, Car. 1.
 
        A confirmation by the crown of the grant of Connecticut [said
to be in the petty bag office in England].
        1630, Car. 1.
 
        A conveiance of Connecticut by the E. of Warwick to Lord Say
and Seal and others. Smith's examination, App. No. 1.
        1631, Mar. 19. 6. Car. 1.
 
        A special commission to Edward Earle of Dorsett and others for
the better plantation of the colony of Virginia. 19. Ry. 301.
        1631, June 27. 7. Car. 1.
 
        Litere continentes promissionem regis ad tradendum castrum et
habitationem de Kebec in Canada ad regem Francorum. 19. Ry. 303.
        1631, June 29. 7. Car. 1.
 
        Traite entre le roy Louis XIII. et Charles roi d'Angleterre
pour la restitution de la nouvelle France, la Cadie et Canada et des
navires et merchandises pris de part et d'autre. Fait a St. Germain.
19. Ry. 361. 2. Mem. Am. 5.
        1632, Mar. 29. 8. Car. 1.
 
        A grant of Maryland to Caecilius Calvert, Baron of Baltimore in
Ireland.
        1632, June 20. 8. Car. 1.
 
        A petition of the planters of Virginia against the grant to
Lord Baltimore.
        1633, July 3. 9. Car. 1.

 
        Order of council upon the dispute between the Virginia planters
and lord Baltimore. Votes of repres. of Pennsylvania. V.
        1633, July 3.
 
        A proclamation to prevent abuses growing by the unordered
retailing of tobacco. Mentioned 3. Rushw. 191.
        1633, Aug. 13. 9. Car. 1.
 
        A special commission to Thomas Young to search, discover and
find out what parts are not yet inhabited in Virginia and America and
other parts thereunto adjoining. 19. Ry. 472.
        1633, Sept. 23. 9. Car. 1.
 
        A proclamation for preventing of the abuses growing by the
unordered retailing of tobacco. 19. Ry. 474.
        1633, Oct. 13. 9. Car. 1.
 
        A proclamation restraining the abusive venting of tobacco.  19.
Rym. 522.
        1634, Mar. 13. Car. 1.
 
        A proclamation concerning the landing of tobacco, and also
forbidding the planting thereof in the king's dominions. 19. Ry. 553.
        1634, May 19. 10. Car. 1.

        A commission to the Archbishop of Canterbury and 11 others, for
governing the American colonies.
        1634, Car. 1.
 
        A commission concerning tobacco. M. S.
        1634, June 19. 10. Car. 1.
 
        A commission from Lord Say and Seal, and others, to John
Winthrop to be governor of Connecticut. Smith's App.
        1635, July 18. 11. Car. 1.
 
        A grant to Duke Hamilton.
        1635, Car. 1.
 
        De commissione speciali Johanni Harvey militi pro meliori
regimine coloniae in Virginia. 20. Ry. 3.
        1636, Apr. 2. 12. Car. 1.
 
        A proclamation concerning tobacco. Title in 3. Rush. 617.
        1637, Mar. 14. Car. 1.
 
        De commissione speciali Georgio domino Goring et aliis concessa
concernente venditionem de tobacco absque licentia regia.  20. Ry.
116.
        1636 - 7, Mar. 16.
        12. Car. 1.
 
        A proclamation against the disorderly transporting his
Majesty's subjects to the plantations within the parts of America.
20. Ry. 143. 3. Rush. 409.
        1637, Apr. 30. 13. Car. 1.
 
        An order of the privy council to stay 8 ships now in the Thames
from going to New-England. 3. Rush. 409.
        1637, May 1. 13. Car. 1.
 
        A warrant of the Lord Admiral to stop unconformable ministers
from going beyond sea. 3. Rush. 410.
        1637, Car. 1.
 
        Order of council upon Claiborne's petition against Lord
Baltimore. Votes of representatives of Pennsylvania. vi.
        1638, Apr. 4. Car. 1.
 
        An order of the king and council that the attorney-general draw
up a proclamation to prohibit transportation of passengers to
New-England without license. 3. Rush. 718.
        1638, Apr. 6. 14. Car. 1.
 
        A proclamation to restrain the transporting of passengers and
provisions to New-England without licence. 20. Ry. 223.
        1638, May 1. 14. Car. 1.
 
        A proclamation concerning tobacco. Title 4. Rush. 1060.
        1639, Mar. 25. Car. 1.
 
        A proclamation declaring his majesty's pleasure to continue his
commission and letters patents for licensing retailers of tobacco.
20. Ry. 348.
        1639, Aug. 19. 15. Car. 1.
 
        De commissione speciali Henrico Ashton armigero et aliis ad
amovendum Henricum Hawley gubernatorem de Barbadoes. 20. Ry. 357.
        1639, Dec. 16. 15. Car. 1.
 
        A proclamation concerning retailers of tobacco. 4. Rush.  966.
        1639, Car. 1.
 
        De constitutione gubernatoris et concilii pro Virginia. 20.
Ry. 484.
        1641, Aug. 9. 17. Car. 1.
 
        Articles of union and confederacy entered into by Massachusets,
Plymouth, Connecticut and New-haven. 1. Neale. 223.
        1643, Car. 1.
 
        Deed from George Fenwick to the old Connecticut jurisdiction.
        1644, Car. 1.

        An ordinance of the lords and commons assembled in parliament,
for exempting from custom and imposition all commodities exported
for, or imported from New-England, which has been very prosperous and
without any public charge to this state, and is likely to prove very
happy for the propagation of the gospel in those parts.  Tit. in
Amer. library 90. 5. No date. But seems by the neighbouring articles
to have been in 1644.

        An act for charging of tobacco brought from New-England with
custom and excise. Title in American library. 99. 8.
        1644, June 20. Car. 2.
 
        An act for the advancing and regulating the trade of this
commonwealth. Tit. Amer. libr. 99. 9.
        1644, Aug. 1. Car. 2.
 
        Grant of the Northern neck of Virginia to Lord Hopton, Lord
Jermyn, Lord Culpeper, Sir John Berkely, Sir William Moreton, Sir
Dudly Wyatt, and Thomas Culpeper.
        1644, Sept. 18. 1. Car. 2.
 
        An act prohibiting trade with the Barbadoes, Virginia, Bermudas
and Antego. Scoble's Acts. 1027.
        1650, Oct. 3. 2. Car. 2.
 
        A declaration of Lord Willoughby, governor of Barbadoes, and of
his council, against an act of parliament of 3d of October 1650.  4.
Polit. register. 2. cited from 4. Neale. hist. of the Puritans.  App.
No. 12. but not there.
        1650, Car. 2.
 
        A final settlement of boundaries between the Dutch New
Netherlands and Connecticut.
        1650, Car. 2.
 
        Instructions for Captain Robert Dennis, Mr. Richard Bennet, Mr.
Thomas Stagge, and Capt. William Clabourne, appointed commissioners
for the reducing of Virginia and the inhabitants thereof to their due
obedience to the commonwealth of England. 1.  Thurloe's state
papers. 197.
        1651, Sept. 26. 3. Car. 2.
 
        An act for increase of shipping and encouragement of the
navigation of this nation. Scobell's acts. 1449.
        1651, Oct. 9. 3. Car. 2.
 
        Articles agreed on and concluded at James cittie in Virginia
for the surrendering and settling of that plantation under the
obedience and government of the commonwealth of England, by the
commissioners of the council of state, by authoritie of the
parliament of England, and by the grand assembly of the governor,
council, and burgesse of that state. M. S. [Ante. pa. 201.]
        1651 - 2, Mar. 12.
        4.Car. 2.
 
        An act of indempnitie made at the surrender of the countrey [of
Virginia.] [Ante. p. 206.]
        1651 - 2, Mar. 12.
        4. Car. 2.
 
        Capitulation de Port-Royal. mem. Am. 507.
        1654, Aug. 16.
 
        A proclamation of the protector relating to Jamaica. 3.  Thurl.
75.
        1655, Car. 2.
 
        The protector to the commissioners of Maryland. A letter. 4.
Thurl. 55.
        1655, Sept. 26. 7. Car. 2.
 
        An instrument made at the council of Jamaica, Oct. 8, 1655, for
the better carrying on of affairs there. 4. Thurl. 71.
        1655, Oct. 8. 7. Car. 2.
 
        Treaty of Westminster between France and England. 6. corps
diplom. part 2. p. 121. 2. Mem. Am. 10.
        1655, Nov. 3.

        The assembly at Barbadoes to the Protector. 4. Thurl. 651.
        1656, Mar. 27. 8. Car. 2.
 
        A grant by Cromwell to Sir Charles de Saint Etienne, a baron of
Scotland, Crowne and Temple. A French translation of it. 2. Mem.  Am.
511.
        1656, Aug. 9.
 
        A paper concerning the advancement of trade. 5. Thurl. 80.
        1656, Car. 2.
 
        A brief narration of the English rights to the Northern parts
of America. 5. Thurl. 81.
        1656, Car. 2.
 
        Mr. R. Bennet and Mr. S. Matthew to Secretary Thurloe. 5.
Thurl. 482.
        1656, Oct. 10. 8. Car. 2.
 
        Objections against the Lord Baltimore's patent, and reasons why
the government of Maryland should not be put into his hands. 5.
Thurl. 482.
        1656, Oct. 10. 8. Car. 2.
 
        A paper relating to Maryland. 5. Thurl. 483.
        1656, Oct. 10. 8. Car. 2.
 
        A breviet of the proceedings of the lord Baltimore and his
officers and compliers in Maryland against the authority of the
parliament of the commonwealth of England and against his highness
the lord protector's authority laws and government. 5. Thurl. 486.
        1656, Oct. 10. 8. Car. 2.
 
        The assembly of Virginia to secretary Thurlow. 5. Thurl.  497.
        1656, Oct. 15. 8. Car. 2.
 
        The governor of Barbadoes to the protector. 6. Thurl. 169.
        1657, Apr. 4. 9. Car. 2.
 
        Petition of the general court at Hartford upon Connecticut for
a charter. Smith's exam. App. 4.
        1661, Car. 2.
 
        Charter of the colony of Connecticut. Smith's examn. App. 6.
        1662, Ap. 23. 14. Car. 2.
 
        The first charter granted by Charles II. to the proprietaries
of Carolina, to wit, to the Earl of Clarendon, Duke of Albemarle,
Lord Craven, Lord Berkeley, Lord Ashley, Sir George Carteret, Sir
William Berkeley, and Sir John Colleton. 4. mem. Am.  554.
        1662 - 3, Mar. 24. Apr. 4.15. Car. 2.
 
        The concessions and agreement of the lords proprietors of the
province of New Caesarea, or New-Jersey, to and with all and every of
the adventurers and all such as shall settle or plant there.  Smith's
New-Jersey. App. 1.
        1664, Feb. 10.
 
        A grant of the colony of New-York to the Duke of York.
        1664, Mar. 12.
        20. Car. 2.
 
        A commission to Colonel Nichols and others to settle disputes
in New-England. Hutch. Hist. Mass. Bay. App. 537.
        1664, Apr. 26.
        16. Car. 2.
 
        The commission to Sir Robert Carre and others to put the Duke
of York in possession of New-York, New-Jersey, and all other lands
thereunto appertaining.
        Sir Robert Carre and others proclamation to the inhabitants of
New-York, New-Jersey, &c. Smith's N. J. 36.
        1664, Apr. 26.
 
        Deeds of lease and release of New-Jersey by the Duke of York to
Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret.
        1664, June 23, 24.
        16. C. 2.
        A conveiance of the Delaware counties to William Penn.
 
        Letters between Stuyvesant and Colonel Nichols on the English
right. Smith's N. J. 37 - 42.
        1664, Aug. 19 - 29,
        20 - 30, 24.
        Aug. 25. Sept. 4.
 
        Treaty between the English and Dutch for the surrender of the
New-Netherlands. Sm. N. Jers. 42.
        1664, Aug. 27.
 
        Nicoll's commission to Sir Robert Carre to reduce the Dutch on
Delaware bay. Sm. N. J. 47.
        Sept. 3.
        Instructions to Sir Robert Carre for reducing of Delaware bay
and settling the people there under his majesty's obedience. Sm. N.
J. 47.

        Articles of capitulation between Sir Robert Carre and the Dutch
and Swedes on Delaware bay and Delaware river. Sm. N. J. 49.
        1664, Oct. 1.

        The determination of the commissioners of the boundary between
the Duke of York and Connecticut. Sm. Ex. Ap. 9.
        1664, Dec. 1. 16. Car. 2.
 
        The New Haven case. Smith's Ex. Ap. 20.
        1664.

 
        The second charter granted by Charles II. to the same
proprietors of Carolina. 4. Mem. Am. 586.
        1665, June 13 - 24.
        17. C. 2.
 
        Declaration de guerre par la France contre l'Angleterre. 3.
Mem. Am. 123.
        1666, Jan. 26.
 
        Declaration of war by the king of England against the king of
France.
        1666, Feb. 9. 17. Car. 2.
 
        The treaty of peace between France and England made at Breda.
7. Corps Dipl. part 1. p. 41. 2. Mem. Am. 32.
        1667, July 31.
 
        The treaty of peace and alliance between England and the United
Provinces made at Breda. 7. Cor. Dip. p. 1. p. 44. 2. Mem. Am.  40.
        1667, July 31.
 
        Acte de la cession de l'Acadie au roi de France. 2. Mem. Am.
292.
        1667 - 8, Feb. 17.
 
        Directions from the governor and council of New York for a
better settlement of the government on Delaware. Sm. N. J. 51.
        1668, April 21.
 
        Lovelace's order for customs at the Hoarkills. Sm. N. J. 55.
        1668.
 
        A confirmation of the grant of the northern neck of Virginia to
the Earl of St. Alban's, Lord Berkeley, Sir William Moreton and John
Tretheway.
        16 -- May 8. 21. Car. 2.
 
        Incorporation of the town of Newcastle or Amstell.
        1672.
 
        A demise of the colony of Virginia to the Earl of Arlington and
Lord Culpeper for 31 years. M. S.
        1673, Feb. 25. 25. Car. 2.
 
        Treaty at London between king Charles II. and the Dutch.
Article VI.
        1673 - 4.
 
        Remonstrances against the two grants of Charles II. of Northern
and Southern Virginia. Ment'd. Beverley. 65.

        Sir George Carteret's instructions to Governor Carteret.
        1674, July 13.
 
        Governor Andros's proclamation on taking possession of
Newcastle for the Duke of York. Sm. N. J. 78.
        1674, Nov. 9.
 
        A proclamation for prohibiting the importation of commodities
of Europe into any of his majesty's plantations in Africa, Asia, or
America, which were not laden in England: and for putting all other
laws relating to the trade of the plantations in effectual execution.
        1675, Oct. 1. 27. Car. 2.
 
        The concessions and agreements of the proprietors, freeholders
and inhabitants of the province of West-New-Jersey in America. Sm. N.
J. App. 2.
        1676, Mar. 3.
 
        A deed quintipartite for the division of New-Jersey.
        1676, July 1.
 
        Letter from the proprietors of New-Jersey to Richard
Hartshorne. Sm. N. J. 80.Proprietors instructions to James Wasse and
Richard Hartshorne. Sm. N. J. 83.
        1676, Aug. 18.
 
        The charter of king Charles II. to his subjects of Virginia.
M. S.
        1676, Oct. 10. 28. Car. 2.
 
        Cautionary epistle from the trustees of Byllinge's part of
New-Jersey. Sm. N. J. 84.
        1676.
 
        Indian deed for the lands between Rankokas creek and Timber
creek, in New-Jersey.
        1677, Sept. 10.
 
        Indian deed for the lands from Oldman's creek to Timber creek,
in New-Jersey.
        1677, Sept. 27.
 
        Indian deed for the lands from Rankokas creek to Assunpink
creek, in New-Jersey.
        1677, Oct. 10.
 
        The will of Sir George Carteret, sole proprietor of
East-Jersey, ordering the same to be sold.
        1678, Dec. 5.
 
        An order of the king in council for the better encouragement of
all his majesty's subjects in their trade to his majesty's
plantations, and for the better information of all his majesty's
loving subjects in these matters. Lond. Gaz No. 1596. Title in Amer.
library. 134. 6.
        1680, Feb. 16.
 
        Arguments against the customs demanded in New-West-Jersey by
the governor of New-York, addressed to the Duke's commissioners. Sm.
N. J. 117.
        1680.
 
        Extracts of proceedings of the committee of trade and
plantations; copies of letters, reports, &c. between the board of
trade, Mr. Penn, Lord Baltimore and Sir John Werden, in the behalf of
the Duke of York and the settlement of the Pennsylvania boundaries by
the L. C. J. North. Votes of Repr. Pennsyl. vii. - xiii.
        1680, June 14. 23. 25.
                Oct. 16.
                Nov. 4. 8. 11. 18. 20. 23.
                Dec. 16.
        1680-1, Jan. 15. 22.
                Feb. 24.
 
        A grant of Pennsylvania to William Penn. Votes of Represen.
Pennsylv. xviii.
        1681, Mar. 4. Car. 2.
 
        The king's declaration to the inhabitants and planters of the
province of Pennsylvania. Vo. Rep. Penn. xxiv.
        1681, Apr. 2.
 
        Certain conditions or concessions agreed upon by William Penn,
proprietary and governor of Pennsylvania, and those who are the
adventurers and purchasers in the same province. Votes of Rep.
Pennsylv. xxiv.
        1681, July 11.
 
        Fundamental laws of the province of West-New-Jersey. Sm. N.  J.
126.
        1681, Nov. 9.
 
        The methods of the commissioners for settling and regulation of
lands in New-Jersey. Sm. N. J. 130.
        1681 - 2, Jan. 14.
 
        Indentures of lease and release by the executors of Sir George
Carteret to William Penn and 11 others, conveying East-Jersey.
 
        1681 - 2, Feb. 1. 2.
 
        The Duke of York's fresh grant of East-New-Jersey to the 24
proprietors.
        1682, Mar. 14.
 
        The Frame of the government of the province of Pennsylvania, in
America. Votes of Repr. Penn. xxvii.
        1682, Apr. 25.
 
        The Duke of York's deed for Pennsylvania. Vo. Repr. Penn.
xxxv.
        1682, Aug. 21.
 
        The Duke of York's deed of feoffment of Newcastle and twelve
miles circle to William Penn. Vo. Repr. Penn.
        1682, Aug. 24.
 
        The Duke of York's deed of feoffment of a tract of land 12
miles south from Newcastle to the Whorekills, to William Penn. Vo.
Repr. Penn. xxxvii.
        1682, Aug. 24.
 
        A commission to Thomas Lord Culpeper to be lieutenant and
governor-general of Virginia. M. S.
        1682, Nov. 27. 34. Car. 2.
 
        An act of union for annexing and uniting of the counties of
Newcastle, Jones's and Whorekill's alias Deal, to the province of
Pennsylvania, and of naturalization of all foreigners in the province
and counties aforesaid.
        1682, 10th month, 6th day.
 
        An act of settlement.
        1682, Dec. 6.
 
        The frame of the government of the province of Pennsylvania and
territories thereunto annexed in America.
        1683, Apr. 2.
 
        Proceedings of the committee of trade and plantations in the
dispute between Lord Baltimore and Mr. Penn. Vo. R. P. xiii - xviii.
      1683, Apr. 17, 27.    1684, Feb. 12.        1685, Mar. 17.
            May 30.               July 2, 16, 23.       Aug. 18. 26.
            June 12.              Sept. 30.             Sept. 2.
                                  Dec. 9.               Oct. 8. 17, 31.
                                                        Nov. 7.

        A commission by the proprietors of East-New-Jersey to Robert
Barclay to be governor. Sm. N. J. 166.
        1683, July 17.
 
        An order of council for issuing a quo warranto against the
charter of the colony of the Massachuset's bay in New-England, with
his majesty's declaration that in case the said corporation of
Masschuset's bay shall before prosecution had upon the same quo
warranto make a full submission and entire resignation to his royal
pleasure, he will then regulate their charter in such a manner as
shall be for his service and the good of that colony. Title in Amer.
library. 139. 6.
        1683, July 26. 35. Car. 2.
 
        A commission to Lord Howard of Effingham to be lieutenant and
governor-general of Virginia. M. S.
        1683, Sept. 28. 35. Car. 2.
 
        The humble address of the chief governor, council and
representatives of the island of Nevis, in the West-Indies, presented
to his majesty by Colonel Netheway and Captain Jefferson, at Windsor,
May 3, 1684. Title in Amer. libr. 142. 3. cites Lond. Gaz. No. 1927.
        1684, May 3.
 
        A treaty with the Indians at Albany.
        1684, Aug. 2.
 
        A treaty of neutrality for America between France and England.
7. Corps. Dipl. part 2. p. 44. 2. Mem. Am. 40.
        1686, Nov. 16.
 
        By the king, a proclamation for the more effectual reducing and
suppressing of pirates and privateers in America, as well on the sea
as on the land in great numbers, committing frequent robberies and
piracies, which hath occasioned a great prejudice and obstruction to
trade and commerce, and given a great scandal and disturbance to our
government in those parts. Title Amer. libr. 147. 2. cites Lond.
Gaz. No. 2315.
        1687, Jan. 20.
 
        Constitution of the council of proprietors of West-Jersey.
Smith's N. Jersey. 199.
        1687, Feb. 12.
 
        A confirmation of the grant of the northern neck of Virginia to
Lord Culpeper.
        1687, qu. Sept. 27.
        4. Jac. 2.
 
        Governor Coxe's declaration to the council of proprietors of
West-Jersey. Sm. N. J. 190.
        1687, Sept. 5.
 
        Provisional treaty of Whitehall concerning America between
France and England. 2. Mem. de l'Am. 89.
        1687, Dec. 16.

        Governor Coxe's narrative relating to the division line,
directed to the council of proprietors of West-Jersey. Sm. App. N. 4.
 
        The representation of the council of proprietors of West-Jersey
to Governor Burnet. Smith. App. No. 5.
 
        The remonstrance and petition of the inhabitants of
East-New-Jersey to the king. Sm. App. No. 8.
 
        The memorial of the proprietors of East-New-Jersey to the Lords
of trade. Sm. App. No. 9.
 
        Agreement of the line of partition between East and
West-New-Jersey. Sm. N. J. 196.
        1688, Sept. 5.
 
        Conveiance of the government of West-Jersey and territories by
Dr. Coxe, to the West-Jersey society.
        1691.
 
        A charter granted by King William and Queen Mary to the
inhabitants of the province of Massachuset's bay in New-England. 2.
Mem. de l'Am. 593.
        1691, Oct. 7.
 
        The frame of government of the province of Pennsylvania and the
territories thereunto belonging, passed by Governor Markham. Nov.  7,
1696.
        1696, Nov. 7.
 
        The treaty of peace between France and England, made at
Ryswick. 7. Corps Dipl. part. 2. p. 399. 2. Mem. Am. 89.
        1697, Sept. 20.
 
        The opinion and answer of the lords of trade to the memorial of
the proprietors of East-New-Jersey. Sm. App. No. 10.
        1699, July 5.
 
        The memorial of the proprietors of East-New-Jersey to the Lords
of trade. Sm. App. No. 11.
        The petition of the proprietors of East and West-New-Jersey to
the Lords justices of England. Sm. App. No. 12.
        1700, Jan. 15.
 
        A confirmation of the boundary between the colonies of New-York
and Connecticut, by the crown.
        1700, W. 3.
 
        The memorial of the proprietors of East and West-Jersey to the
king. Sm. App. No. 14.
        1701, Aug. 12.
 
        Representation of the lords of trade to the lords justices.
Sm. App. No. 13.
        1701, Oct. 2.
 
        A treaty with the Indians.
        1701.
 
        Report of lords of trade to king William of draughts of a
commission and instructions for a governor of New-Jersey. Sm. N. J.
262.
        1701 - 2, Jan. 6.
 
        Surrender from the proprietors of E. and W. N. Jersey of their
pretended right of government to her majesty Q. Anne. Sm. N. J.  211.
        1702, Apr. 15.
 
        The Queen's acceptance of the surrender of government of East
and West-Jersey. Sm. N. J. 219.
        1702, Apr. 17.
 
        Instructions to lord Cornbury. Sm. N. J. 230.
        1702, Nov. 16.
 
        A commission from Queen Anne to Lord Cornbury, to be
captain-general and governor in chief of New-Jersey. Sm. N. J. 220.
        1702, Dec. 5.
 
        Recognition by the council of proprietors of the true boundary
of the deeds of Sept. 10 and Oct. 10, 1677. (New-Jersey).  Sm. N. J.
96.
        1703, June 27.

        Indian deed for the lands above the falls of the Delaware in
West-Jersey.Indian deed for the lands at the head of Rankokus river
in West-Jersey.
        1703.
 
        A proclamation by Queen Anne for settling and ascertaining the
current rates of foreign coins in America. Sm. N. J. 281.
        1704, June 18.
 
        Additional instructions to Lord Cornbury. Sm. N. J. 235.
        1705, May 3.

        Additional instructions to Lord Cornbury. Sm. N. J. 258.
        1707, May 3.
 
        Additional instructions to Lord Cornbury. Sm. N. J. 259.
        1707, Nov. 20.
 
        An answer by the council of proprietors for the western
division of New-Jersey, to questions, proposed to them by Lord
Cornbury. Sm. N. J. 285.
        1707.
 
        Instructions to Colonel Vetch in his negociations with the
governors of America. Sm. N. J. 364.
        1708 - 9, Feb. 28.
 
        Instructions to the governor of New-Jersey and New-York. Sm.
N. J. 361.
        1708 - 9, Feb. 28.
 
        Earl of Dartmouth's letter to governor Hunter.
        1710, Aug.
 
        Premieres propositions de la France. 6. Lamberty, 669. 2.  Mem.
Am. 341.
        1711, Apr. 22.
 
        Reponses de la France aux demandes preliminaires de la
Grande-Bretagne. 6. Lamb. 681. 2. Mem. Amer. 344.
        1711, Oct. 8.
 
        Demandes preliminaires plus particulieres de la
Grande-Bretagne, avec les reponses. 2. Mem. de l'Am. 346.
        1711, Sept. 27.
                --------
                Oct. 8.

        L'acceptation de la part de la Grande-Bretagne. 2. Mem. Am.
356.
        1711, Sept. 27.
                --------
                Oct. 8.

        The queen's instructions to the Bishop of Bristol and Earl of
Strafford, her plenipotentiaries, to treat of a general peace. 6.
Lamberty, 744. 2. Mem. Am. 358.
        1711, Dec. 23.
 
        A memorial of Mr. St. John to the Marquis de Torci, with regard
to North America, to commerce, and to the suspension of arms.  7.
Recueil de Lamberty, 161. 2. Mem. de l'Amer. 376.
        1712, May 24.
        ------
        June 10.
 
        Reponse du roi de France au memoire de Londres. 7. Lamberty, p.
163. 2. Mem. Am. 380.
        1712, June 10.
 
        Traite pour une suspension d'armes entre Louis XIV. roi de
France, & Anne, reigne de la Grande-Bretagne, fait a Paris.  8. Corps
Diplom. part. 1. p. 308. 2. Mem. d'Am. 104.
        1712, Aug. 19.
 
        Offers of France to England, demands of England, and the
answers of France. 7. Rec. de Lamb. 491. 2. Mem. Am. 390.
        1712, Sept. 10.
 
        Traite de paix & d'amitie entre Louis XIV. roi de France, &
Anne, reine de la Grande-Bretagne, fait a Utrecht. 15. Corps
Diplomatique de Dumont, 339. id. Latin. 2. Actes & memoires de la
pais d'Utrecht, 457. id. Lat. Fr. 2. Mem. Am. 113.
        1713, Mar. 31.
        -------
        Apr. 11.
 
        Traite de navigation & de commerce entre Louis XIV. roi de
France, & Anne, reine de la Grande-Bretagne. Fait a Utrecht. 8.
Corps. Dipl. part. 1. p. 345. 2. Mem. de l'Am. 137.
        1713, Mar. 31.
        -------
        Apr. 11.
 
        A treaty with the Indians.
        1726.
 
        The petition of the representatives of the province of
New-Jersey, to have a distinct governor. Sm. N. J. 421.
        1728, Jan.
 
        Deed of release by the government of Connecticut to that of
New-York.
        1732, G. 2.
 
        The charter granted by George II. for Georgia. 4. Mem. de l'Am.
617.
        1732, June 9 - 20. 5. G. 2.
 
        Petition of Lord Fairfax, that a commission might issue for
running and marking the dividing line between his district and the
province of Virginia.
        1733.
 
        Order of the king in council for Commissioners to survey and
settle the said dividing line between the proprietary and royal
territory.
        1733, Nov. 29.
 
        Report of the lords of trade relating to the separating the
government of the province of New-Jersey from New-York. Sm. N. J.
423.
        1736, Aug. 5.
 
        Survey and report of the commissioners appointed on the part of
the crown to settle the line between the crown and Lord Fairfax.
        1737, Aug. 10.
 
        Survey and report of the commissioners appointed on the part of
Lord Fairfax to settle the line between the crown and him.
        1737, Aug. 11.
 
        Order of reference of the surveys between the crown and Lord
Fairfax to the council for plantation affairs.
        1738, Dec. 21.
 
        Treaty with the Indians of the 6 nations at Lancaster.
        1744, June
 
        Report of the council for plantation affairs, fixing the head
springs of Rappahanoc and Patowmac, and a commission to extend the
line.
        1745, Apr. 6.
 
        Order of the king in council confirming the said report of the
council for plantation affairs.
        1745, Apr. 11.
 
        Articles preliminaires pour parvenir a la paix, signes a
Aix-la-Chapelle entre les ministres de France, de la Grande-Bretagne,
& des Provinces-Unies des Pays-Bas. 2. Mem. de l'Am. 159.
        1748, Apr. 30.
 
        Declaration des ministres de France, de la Grande-Bretagne, &
des Provinces-Unies des Pays-Bas, pour rectifier les articles I. &
II. des preliminaires. 2. Mem. Am. 165.
        1748, May 21.
 
        The general and definitive treaty of peace concluded at
Aix-la-Chapelle. Lond. Mag. 1748. 503 French. 2. Mem. Am. 169.
        1748, Oct. 7 - 18.
        22. G. 2.
 
        A treaty with the Indians.
        1754.
 
        A conference between Governor Bernard and Indian nations at
Burlington. Sm. N. J. 449.
        1758, Aug. 7.
 
        A conference between Governor Denny, Governor Bernard and
others, and Indian nations at Easton. Sm. N. J. 455.
        1758, Oct. 8.

        The capitulation of Niagara.
        1759, July 25. 33. G. 2.
 
        The king's proclamation promising lands to souldiers.
        175 --
 
        The definitive treaty concluded at Paris. Lond. Mag. 1763.
149.
        1763, Feb. 10. 3. G. 3.
 
        A proclamation for regulating the cessions made by the last
treaty of peace. Guth. Geogr. Gram. 623.
        1763, Oct. 7. G. 3.
 
        The king's proclamation against settling on any lands on the
waters, westward of the Alleghaney.
        1763.
 
        Deed from the six nations of Indians to William Trent and
others for lands betwixt the Ohio and Monongahela. View of the title
to Indiana. Phil. Styner and Cist. 1776.
        1768, Nov. 3.
 
        Deed from the six nations of Indians to the crown for certain
lands and settling a boundary. M. S.
        1768, Nov. 5.

.