Part 11
The common people in the lower parts of Virginia have very sallow complexions, owing to the burning rays of the sun in summer, and the bilious complaints to which they are subject in the fall of the year. The women are far from being comely, and the dresses, which they wear out of doors to guard them from the sun, make them appear still more ugly than nature has formed them. There is a kind of bonnet very commonly worn, which, in particular, disfigures them amazingly; it is made with a caul, fitting close on the back part of the head, and a front stiffened with small pieces of cane, which projects nearly two feet from the head in a horizontal direction. To look at a person at one side, it is necessary for a woman wearing a bonnet of this kind to turn her whole body round.
In the upper parts of the country, towards the mountains, the women are totally different, having a healthy comely appearance.
+LETTER + XII.
_Town of Tappahannock.—Rappahannock River.—Sharks found in it.—Country bordering upon Urbanna.—Fires common in the Woods.—Manner of stopping their dreadful Progress.—Mode of getting Turpentine from Trees.—Gloucester.—York Town.—Remains of the Fortifications erected here during the American War.—Houses shattered by Balls still remaining.—Cave in the Bank of the River.—Williamsburgh.—State House in Ruins.—Statue of Lord Bottetourt.—College of William and Mary.—Condition of the Students._
Williamsburgh, April.
[Sidenote: SNIPES.]
SINCE I last wrote, the greater part of my time has been spent at the houses of different gentlemen in the Northern Neck. Four days ago I crossed the Rappahannock River, which bounds the Northern Neck on one side, to a small town called Tappahannock, or Hobb’s Hole, containing about one hundred houses. Before the war this town was in a much more flourishing state than at present; that unfortunate contest ruined the trade of this little place, as it did that of most of the sea-port towns in Virginia. The Rappahannock is about three quarters of a mile wide opposite the town, which is seventy miles above its mouth. Sharks are very often seen in this river. What is very remarkable, the fish are all found on the side of the river next to the town.
From Tappahannock to Urbanna, another small town on the Rappahannock River, situated about twenty-five miles lower down, the country wears but a poor aspect.
The road, which is level and very sandy, runs through woods for miles together. The habitations that are seen from it are but few, and they are of the poorest description. The woods chiefly consist of black oak, pine, and cedar trees, which grow on land of the worst quality only.
On this road there are many creeks to be crossed, which empty themselves into the Rappahannock River, in the neighbourhood of which there are extensive marshes, that render the adjacent country, as may be supposed, very unhealthy. Such a quantity of snipes are seen in these marshes continually, that it would be hardly possible to fire a gun in a horizontal direction, and not kill many at one shot.
[Sidenote: FIRES.]
As I passed through this part of the country, I observed many traces of fires in the woods, which are frequent, it seems, in the spring of the year. They usually proceed from the negligence of people who are burning brushwood to clear the lands, and considering how often they happen, it is wonderful that they are not attended with more serious consequences than commonly follow. I was a witness myself to one of these fires, that happened in the Northern Neck. The day had been remarkably serene, and appearing favourable for the purpose, large quantities of brushwood had been fired in different places; in the afternoon, however, it became sultry, and streams of hot air were perceptible now and then, the usual tokens of a gust. About five o’clock, the horizon towards the north became dark, and a terrible whirlwind arose. I was standing with some gentlemen on an eminence at the time, and perceived it gradually advancing. It carried with it a cloud of dust, dried leaves, and pieces of rotten wood, and in many places, as it came along, it levelled the fence rails and unroofed the sheds for the cattle. We made every endeavour, but in vain, to get to a place of shelter; in the course of two minutes the whirlwind overtook us; the shock was violent; it was hardly possible to stand, and difficult to breathe; the whirlwind passed over in about three minutes, but a storm, accompanied by heavy thunder and lightning, succeeded, which lasted for more than half an hour. On looking round immediately after the whirlwind had passed, a prodigious column of fire now appeared in a part of the wood where some brushwood had been burning; in many places the flames rose considerably above the summit of the trees, which were of a large growth. It was a tremendous, and at the same time sublime sight. The negroes on the surrounding plantations were all assembled with their hoes, and watches were stationed at every corner to give the alarm if the fire appeared elsewhere, lest the conflagration should become general. To one plantation a spark was carried by the wind more than half a mile; happily, however, a torrent of rain in a short time afterwards came pouring down, and enabled the people to extinguish the flames in every quarter.
When these fires do not receive a timely check, they sometimes increase to a most alarming height; and if the grass and dead leaves happen to be very dry, and the wind brisk, proceed with so great velocity that the swiftest runners are often overtaken in endeavouring to escape from the flames. Indeed I have met with people, on whose veracity the greatest dependance might be placed, that have assured me they have found it a difficult task, at times, to get out of the reach of them, though mounted on good horses.
There is but one mode of stopping a fire of this kind, which makes such a rapid progress along the ground. A number of other fires are kindled at some distance a head of that which they wish to extinguish, so as to form a line across the course, which, from the direction of the wind, it is likely to take. These are carefully watched by a sufficient number of men furnished with hoes and rakes, and they are prevented from spreading, except on that side which is towards the large fire, a matter easily accomplished when attended to in the beginning. Thus the fires in a few minutes meet, and of consequence they must cease, as there is nothing left to feed them, the grass and leaves being burnt on all sides. In general there is but very little brushwood in the woods of America, so that these fires chiefly run along the ground; the trees, however, are often scorched, but it is very rare for any of them to be entirely consumed.
[Sidenote: GLOUCESTER AND YORK.]
The country between Urbanna and Gloucester, a town situated upon York River, is neither so sandy nor so flat as that bordering upon the Rappahannock. The trees, chiefly pines, are of a very large size, and afford abundance of turpentine, which is extracted from them in great quantities by the inhabitants, principally, however, for home consumption. The turpentine is got by cutting a large gash in the tree, and setting a trough underneath to receive the resinous matter distilled from the wound. The trees thus drained last but a short time after they are cut down. In this neighbourhood there are numbers of ponds or small lakes, surrounded by woods, along some of which the views are very pleasing. From most of them are falls of water into some creek or river, which afford excellent seats for mills.
Gloucester contains only ten or twelve houses; it is situated on a neck of land nearly opposite to the town of York, which is at the other side of the river. There are remains here of one or two redoubts thrown up during the war. The river between the two places is about one mile and a half wide, and affords four fathom and a half of water.
The town of York consists of about seventy houses, an episcopalian church, and a gaol. It is not now more than one third of the size it was before the war, and it does not appear likely soon to recover its former flourishing state. Great quantities of tobacco were formerly inspected here; very little, however, is now raised in the neighbourhood, the people having got into a habit of cultivating wheat in preference. The little that is sent for inspection is reckoned to be of the very best quality, and is all engaged for the London market.
York is remarkable for having been the place where Lord Cornwallis surrendered his army to the combined forces of the Americans and French. A few of the redoubts, which were erected by each army, are still remaining, but the principal fortifications are almost quite obliterated; the plough has passed over some of them, and groves of pine trees sprung up about others, though, during the siege, every tree near the town was destroyed. The first and second parallels can just be traced, when pointed out by a person acquainted with them in a more perfect state.
[Sidenote: YORK TOWN.]
In the town the houses bear evident marks of the siege, and the inhabitants will not, on any account, suffer the holes perforated by the cannon balls to be repaired on the outside. There is one house in particular, which stands in the skirt of the town, that is in a most shattered condition. It was the habitation of a Mr. Neilson, a secretary under the regal government, and was made the head quarters of Lord Cornwallis when he first came to the town; but it stood so much exposed, and afforded so good a mark to the enemy, that he was soon forced to quit it. Neilson, however, it seems, was determined to stay there till the last, and absolutely remained till his negro servant, the only person that would live with him in such a house, had his brains dashed out by a cannon shot while he stood by his side; he then thought it time to retire, but the house was still continually fired at, as if it had been head quarters. The walls and roof are pierced in innumerable places, and at one corner a large piece of the wall is torn away; in this state, however, it is still inhabited in one room by some person or other equally fanciful as the old secretary. There are trenches thrown up round it, and on every side are deep hollows made by the bombs that fell near it. Till within a year or two the broken shells themselves remained; but the New England men that traded to York finding they would sell well as old iron, dug them up, and carried them away in their ships.
The banks of the river, where the town stands, are high and inaccessible, excepting in a few places; the principal part of the town is built on the top of them; a few fishing huts and storehouses merely stand at the bottom. A cave is shewn here in the banks, described by the people as having been the place of head quarters during the siege, after the cannonade of the enemy became warm; but in reality it was formed and hung with green baize for a lady, either the wife or acquaintance of an officer, who was terrified with the idea of remaining in the town, and died of fright after her removal down to the cave.
Twelve miles from York, to the westward, stands Williamsburgh, formerly the seat of government in Virginia. Richmond was fixed upon during the war as a more secure place, being farther removed from the sea coast, and not so much exposed to depredations if an enemy were to land unexpectedly. Richmond also had the advantage of being situated at the head of a navigable river, and was therefore likely to increase to a size which the other never could attain. It is wonderful, indeed, what could have induced people to fix upon the spot where Williamsburgh stands for a town, in the middle of a plain, and one mile and a half removed from any navigable stream, when there were so many noble rivers in the neighbourhood.
[Sidenote: WILLIAMSBURGH COLLEGE.]
The town consists of one principal street, and two others which run parallel to it. At one end of the main street stands the college, and at the other end the old capitol or state house, a capacious building of brick, now crumbling to pieces from negligence. The houses around it are mostly uninhabited, and present a melancholy picture. In the hall of the capitol stands a maimed statue of lord Botetourt, one of the regal governors of Virginia, erected at the public expence, in memory of his lordship’s equitable and popular administration. During the war, when party rage was at its highest pitch, and every thing pertaining to royalty obnoxious, the head and one arm of the statue were knocked off; it now remains quite exposed, and is more and more defaced every day. Whether the motto, “_Resurgo rege favente_,” inscribed under the coat of arms, did or did not help to bring upon it its present fate, I cannot pretend to say; as it is, it certainly remains a monument of the extinction of monarchical power in America.
The college of William and Mary, as it is still called, stands at the opposite end of the main street; it is a heavy pile, which bears, as Mr. Jefferson, I think, says, “a very close resemblance to a large brick kiln, excepting that it has a roof.” The students were about thirty in number when I was there: from their appearance one would imagine that the seminary ought rather to be termed a grammar school than a college; yet I understand the visitors, since the present revolution, finding it full of young boys just learning the rudiments of Greek and Latin, a circumstance which consequently deterred others more advanced from going there, dropped the professorships for these two languages, and established others in their place. The professorships, as they now stand, are for law, medicine, natural and moral philosophy, mathematics, and modern languages. The bishop of Virginia is president of the college, and has apartments in the buildings. Half a dozen or more of the students, the eldest about twelve years old, dined at his table one day that I was there; some were without shoes or stockings, others without coats. During dinner they constantly rose to help themselves at the side board. A couple of dishes of salted meat, and some oyster soup, formed the whole of the dinner. I only mention this, as it may convey some little idea of American colleges and American dignitaries.
The episcopalian church, the only one in the place, stands in the middle of the main street; it is much out of repair. On either side of it is an extensive green, surrounded with neat looking houses, which bring to mind an English village.
The town contains about twelve hundred inhabitants, and the society in it is thought to be more extensive and more genteel at the same time than what is to be met with in any other place of its size in America. No manufactures are carried on here, and scarcely any trade.
There is an hospital here for lunatics, but it does not appear to be well regulated.
+LETTER + XIII.
_Hampton.—Ferry to Norfolk.—Danger in crossing the numerous Ferries in Virginia.—Norfolk.—Laws of Virginia injurious to the Trading Interest.—Streets narrow and dirty in Norfolk.—Yellow Fever there.—Observations on this Disorder.—Violent Party Spirit amongst the Inhabitants.—Few Churches in Virginia.—Several in Ruins.—Private Grave Yards._
Norfolk, April.
FROM Williamsburgh to Hampton the country is flat and uninteresting. Hampton is a small town, situated at the head of a bay, near the mouth of James River, which contains about thirty houses and an episcopalian church. A few sea boats are annually built here; and corn and lumber are exported annually to the value of about forty-two thousand dollars. It is a dirty disagreeable place, always infested by a shocking stench from a muddy shore when the tide is out.
From this town there is a regular ferry to Norfolk, across Hampton roads, eighteen miles over. I was forced to leave my horses here behind me for several days, as all the flats belonging to the place had been sent up a creek some miles for staves, &c. and they had no other method of getting horses into the ferry boats, which were too large to come close into shore, excepting by carrying them out in these flats, and then making them leap on board. It is a most irksome piece of business to cross the ferries in Virginia; there is not one in six where the boats are good and well manned, and it is necessary to employ great circumspection in order to guard against accidents, which are but too common. As I passed along I heard of numberless recent instances of horses being drowned, killed, and having their legs broken, by getting in and out of the boats.
Norfolk stands nearly at the mouth of the eastern branch of Elizabeth River, the most southern of those which empty themselves into the Chesapeak Bay. It is the largest commercial town in Virginia, and carries on a flourishing trade to the West Indies. The exports consist principally of tobacco, flour, and corn, and various kinds of lumber; of the latter it derives an inexhaustible supply from the Dismal Swamp, immediately in the neighbourhood.
[Sidenote: NORFOLK.]
Norfolk would be a place of much greater trade than it is at present, were it not for the impolicy of some laws which have existed in the state of Virginia. One of these laws, so injurious to commerce, was passed during the war. By this law it was enacted, that all merchants and planters in Virginia, who owed money to British merchants, should be exonerated from their debts if they paid the money due into the public treasury instead of sending it to Great Britain; and all such as stood indebted were invited to come forward, and give their money in this manner, towards the support of the contest in which America was then engaged.
The treasury at first did not become much richer in consequence of this law; for the Virginian debtor, individually, could gain nothing by paying the money that he owed into the treasury, as he had to pay the full sum which was due to the British merchant; on the contrary, he might lose considerably: his credit would be ruined in the eyes of the British merchant by such a measure, and it would be a great impediment to the renewal of a commercial intercourse between them after the conclusion of the war.
However, when the continental paper money became so much depreciated, that one hundred paper dollars were not worth one in silver, many of the people, who stood deeply indebted to the merchants in Great Britain, began to look upon the measure in a different point of view; they now saw a positive advantage in paying their debts into the treasury in these paper dollars, which were a legal tender; accordingly they did so, and in consequence were exonerated of their debts by the laws of their country, though in reality they had not paid more than one hundredth part of them. In vain did the British merchant sue for his money when hostilities were terminated; he could obtain no redress in any court of justice in Virginia. Thus juggled out of his property he naturally became distrustful of the Virginians; he refused to trade with them on the same terms as with the people of the other states, and the Virginians have consequently reaped the fruits of their very dishonourable conduct[21].
Footnote 21:
In February 1796, this nefarious business was at last brought before the supreme court of the United States in Philadelphia, by the agents of the British merchants, and the decision of the judges was such as redounded to their honour; for, they declared that these debts should all be paid over again, bona fide, to the British merchant.
[Sidenote: IMPOLITIC LAWS.]
Another law, baneful in the highest degree to the trading interest, is one which renders all landed property inviolable. This law has induced numbers to run into debt; and as long as it exists foreigners will be cautious of giving credit to a large amount to men who, if they chuse to purchase a tract of land with the goods or money entrusted to their care, may sit down upon it securely, out of the reach of all their creditors, under protection of the laws of the country. Owing to this law they have not yet been enabled to get a bank established in Norfolk, though it would be of the utmost importance to the traders. The directors of the bank of the United States have always peremptorily refused to let a branch of it be fixed in any part of Virginia whilst this law remains. In Boston, New York, Baltimore, Charleston, &c. there are branches of the bank of the United States, besides other banks, established under the sanction of the state legislature.
Repeated attempts have been made in the state assembly to get this last mentioned law repealed, but they have all proved ineffectual. The debates have been very warm on the business, and the names of the majority, who voted for the continuation of it, have been published, to expose them if possible to infamy; but so many have sheltered themselves under its sanction, and so many still find an interest in its continuance, that it is not likely to be speedily repealed.
The houses in Norfolk are about five hundred in number; by far the greater part of them are of wood, and but meanly built. These have all been erected since the year 1776, when the town was totally destroyed by fire, by the order of Lord Dunmore, then regal governor of Virginia. The losses sustained on that occasion were estimated at £.300,000 sterling. Towards the harbour the streets are narrow and irregular; in the other parts of the town they are tolerably wide; none of them are paved, and all are filthy; indeed, in the hot months of summer, the stench that proceeds from some of them is horrid. That people can be thus inattentive to cleanliness, which is so conducive to health, and in a town where a sixth part of the people died in one year of a pestilential disorder, is most wonderful!![22]
Footnote 22:
The yellow fever, which has committed such dreadful ravages of late years in America, is certainly to be considered as a sort of plague. It first appeared at Philadelphia in the year 1793; in 1794 it appeared at Baltimore; in 1795, at New York and Norfolk; and in 1796, though the matter was hushed up as much as possible, in order to prevent an alarm, similar to that which had injured the city so much the preceding year, yet in New York a far greater number of deaths than usual were heard of during the summer and autumn, strongly supposed to have been occasioned by the same malignant disorder.
The accounts given of the calamitous consequences attendant upon it, in these different places, are all much alike, and nearly similar to those given of the plague:—The people dying suddenly, and under the most shocking circumstances—such as were well flying away—the sick abandoned, and perishing for want of common necessaries—the dead buried in heaps together without any ceremony—charity at an end—the ties of friendship and consanguinity disregarded by many—others, on the contrary, nobly coming forward, and at the hazard of their own lives doing all in their power to relieve their fellow citizens, and avert the general woe.——At Philadelphia, in the space of about three months, no less than four thousand inhabitants were swept off by this dreadful malady, a number, at that time, amounting to about one tenth of the whole. Baltimore and New York did not suffer so severely; but at Norfolk, which is computed to contain about three thousand people, no less than five hundred fell victims to it.