government of the mother country as was Can- that their rights had been trampled on, that their ada or Cuba.

We were not, and we never have been a people of cities; the spirit of our nation was not curbed in the business, or frittered to nothing in the fashionable pursuits of large cities; it was free as the air we breathed and as untrammelled as nature itself.

liberty had been assailed, and that they would no longer submit to such injuries. The most peculiar change among us as a people is shown in the fact that our cities have increased in number and size and influence to so great a degree, that they now stand, especially in the north, as representatives of our States. It is probable that had we been as much a nation of cities then as now, we would not have entered upon the war of the Revolution, as we should have been more accessible to attack, and more dependent on foreign nations; by destroying our chief towns our courage and strength would have been broken, and we should have been afraid to begin, or unable to carry on the struggle.

For a feeble country to possess large cities is

with other parts of the country through trade, manufactures and commerce, and from position also, a large city in a feeble country will so concentrate the force of the country it represents, that if the city be captured the country is taken. Havanna is so entirely Cuba, that if Havanna be in the hands of the invader, Cuba is subdued.

people to resistance, and from these mistakes began his downfall.

Brought up with a large share of individual liberty, the very name of oppression galled and irritated us, and thus we as a people were more likely than the men of any other nation to throw off the power and declare ourselves what we really were, independent of Great Britain. It is a common mistake to suppose, and to say in 4th of July orations, that we cast off the yoke of Great Britain, freed ourselves from imaginary chains, and from a state of thraldom almost a great error: from the various connexions made amounting to slavery became free and independent. This error may be accounted for by remembering that most of such speeches are made by seekers of political notoriety who naturally deal in exaggeration and hyperbole; or by youths just released from the dominion and the rod of the schoolmaster, and who naturally imagine their new found freedom to be like that of their ances- While in feeble countries where cities are few, tors; who assimilate the rod to a sceptre, the fiat of the effect produced by a foe's invasion of the the teacher to the commands of a king, and con- capital city is rather to excite than to intimidate. sider the resisting colonies like so many rebelling Bonaparte made two great mistakes in supposchoolboys. No greater error can exist; for no sing Madrid and Moscow the capitals, that is, generation of men born in, and freed from, sla- the concentrated power of their respective counvery, is fit to be free. History affords no exam-tries; his invasion only roused the spirit of the ple of a people freed from slavery that were able to form a government that was free, or to exist in any manner as a free State; they naturally glide into anarchy or despotism. Hispaniola is an instance of this. Even the nation of Israel, that was freed by God's hand from Egyptian taskwork, was rather a subject nation than an enslaved race; and they were purified by a forty years' residence in the freedom-inspiring deserts of Arabia, where the old custom-bound generation that had served in brick and mortar died out, Not only is a young and feeble country better and a new race trained in the most perfect lib- able to defend its liberties, if it have no great and erty were brought into being. We were ever a powerful city, but it will also fall more naturally free people; from the first we had stood alone into the form of government that is a represenand free in this wild country of ours, to which our tative republic. Each part will be as powerful fathers fled to escape the tyranny and oppres- as the other; jealousies will not therefore arise, sion of the world. They brought with them the nor will one place receive the chief advantages principles of liberty; and these principles grew derived from the labour of all; and an equal with our growth, and strengthened with our government with no fear of concentration, whose strength. powers being derived from all alike, will act simFrom an oppressed ancestry we came forth a ilarly on all, will result. Woe! to the country free people; and in making our Declaration of that is feeble in strength, and whose energies are Independence made a Declaration of Rights weighed down by the incubus of a great city; it and of the attempted infringement of those rights. can scarcely hope to obtain freedom, or if it does, It was not a statement of grievances made by it will be impaired by the source through which an oppressed and enslaved people petitioning for it is derived. The body politic, like the human redress; but the voice of a free people declaring body, must have its energies properly dissemina

The British were continually disappointed by finding no good effect follow their occupation of our capital cities in the Revolutionary war; and the insulting invasion of Washington during the last war, served only to exasperate and unite us against them; so that we presented a more firm and menacing front in consequence of that disaster than we had ever done before.

ted throughout the system before physical or po- | in Charlottesville during one period of the Revlitical health can be enjoyed. Feeble nations, olution, and even in refuge at Staunton in anothwith large cities, are like feeble frames where er; and now for some time past in Richmond. the apparent size and strength is the result of Only within a few years has this been a town of congestion or dropsy. Had the South Ameri- any size or importance, and although it has made can colonies been settled as were those that be- great increase in population and is the city of came our States, they would have resulted ear- the State, it numbers only some 35,000 inhabilier in free commonwealths, and would now have tants. All our cities are of foreign origin; their enjoyed, what they are yet ignorant of, an equal first and chief inhabitants being Scotch or Engrepresentative government. It is unnecessary lish merchants, and their households. here to dwell upon the influence of great cities Around the seat of government clustered the upon the community in point of morals, or as public buildings, schools, hotels, mercantile esplaces of trade and business, nor is it necessary tablishments, and the residences of the officials, to speak of the important benefits that spring and of the wealthy planters who passed their from them. These and other kindred subjects winters in the amusements found at the seat of will be discussed in speaking of the history and government. These, with the shops of a few progress of Richmond. mechanics, constituted the city of Williamsburg

This conclusion may be drawn from the suc-in olden time. cess or failure of the efforts of the American The meeting of the House of Burgesses brought colonies to establish free governments: That no together in the capital the talent, beauty and colony can obtain, or keep in purity, republican wealth of the colony; it was as much the cusfreedom if it has strengthened and enlarged its tom for the geutry of Virginia to assemble for cities at the expense of the rest of the country. the winter in Williamsburg, as for the nobility Virginia has been peculiarly exempt from the and gentry of England to spend the same seapossession of large cities. Settled mainly by the son during the session of Parliament in London. sons of county gentlemen, who brought the love of A miniature court was thus kept up; and the country life with them across the Atlantic and Governor's levees, attended by all the dignity infused it into the mass of the population, her and wealth and loveliness of the Old Dominion, citizens have ever preferred that life; and the compared favorably in every respect, in pride of title of county gentleman, implying the possession of landed estate, has been always esteemed more honourable than any other.

The ready intercourse afforded by our rivers, and the immediate sale of the tobacco raised on their banks, prevented the necessity of taking it to a city market; whatever was made being sold in the raw state, and no manufactures, or place of manufacturing, existing in the colony; the trade too being in the hands of foreigners, all tended to encourage the existence of an agricultural community alone, and thus to forbid the building up of great cities.

Accordingly we find that the colony of Virginia scarcely possessed a single city that deserved the name. On the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, Norfolk, the largest, had a population of only 6,000.

birth, in dignity of carriage, in intellectual wealth, and in the entailed possession of landed estate among the men; and certainly surpassed in grace of manner, loveliness of person, and warmth of heart, the ladies of the Court of St. James.

These were the palmy days of the Old Dominion, when she gathered into one brilliant point the scattered rays of intellectual and physical beauty she so abundantly possessed. No colonial capital could equal her in this respect, for noue possessed such abundant and varied resources, and she stood then pre-eminent, as she has ever since done, for the beauty and grace of her daughters, and the dignity and intellect of her sons. This floating population, however, did not make a city, for not only was the ga▾ crowd that enlivened Williamsburg during the winter mouths scattered in the summer, but the Governor also was generally absent, travelling through the colony or residing on his plantation.

The capital of the colony was by no means a large city; it had only an intermittent existence and was periodically great and small.

During all our history we have not really had any great capital city; all the many efforts made by individuals and companies, and all the Acts of Assembly creating cities, brought forth ouly villages and ports of shipment. The disposition of our citizens was too strongly in favor of country life to be overcome by the wishes of the mother country or the enactments of the House of hands of foreign merchants, these men through Burgesses.

The towns of Virginia were built up by the tobacco trade; and as this was altogether in the

their agents, really founded the towns and cities Our very capital has never been firmly fixed, of the Old Dominion. Wherever a market was but has been of a m gratory character; first in likely to be found, there they established a traJamestown, then in Williamsburg, in Richmond, ding post, built up warehouses, furnished stores

with all the articles needed by the wealthy and declined also, until some of them that were ports luxurious planters. of entry and departure, and possessed fleets of vessels in their harbors are scarcely known, or have ceased to exist. Being merely depots for the shipment of the unmanufactured article, and aiding not at all the country which they so much injured, they were no more likely to exist as towns, and to increase as such, than are the trading posts established for the fur trade likely to become cities when the animals are all destroyed.

Around these stores and warehouses, the dwellings of the merchants and their factors, with the buildings put up for the mechanics and servants employed, first arose and made the beginning of the town; other dwellings and inhabitants gradually collected, until in the course of time a charter for a corporate town was asked and granted from the House of Burgesses.

In this manner were built up all the towns in lower Virginia.

Yorktown was one of these places; it was the chief port for the entire Virginia trade, and once presented a busy scene of commerce and wealth; its glory has now departed.

Hanovertown on the Pamunky was another; settled before Richmond, it was at the era of the Revolution a place of more importance; and wanted only one or two votes of being then chosen as the Capital of the State. It is now a ploughed field.

While tobacco was the chief, it was not the only article sold in these trading posts; our wealthy planters had many of them their own merchants in London, to whom they shipped the produce of their plantations and from them exported directly the things they needed. Shiploads of emigrants were brought over; either criminals condemned to slavery for life, or indentured servants, sold for a limited time to pay the expense Leedstown, in Westmoreland, on the Rappaof transportation. Slaves from Africa were hannock, is a striking instance of the decay of brought in English bottoms, or in the ships of these tobacco-built towns; founded in the same New England, and sold in our rivers or in our year with Philadelphia, it was intended as a rival market towns. No Virginian engaged in trade city, and in its beginning was far more prospeor commerce; certainly no Virginia ship or citi-rous.

zen ever took part in the African trade; that With a richer country around, it possessed a traffic so much denounced by those who origina- more extensive and more valuable trade; its ted it, and who only discovered the holding of warehouses were better filled, and its intercourse slaves to be a sin, when their own pockets could with England more regular and more lucrative no longer be filled by their transportation. than that of its sister city.

The instructions given to the factors of foreign merchants, and carried out by them, exerted a very injurious effect on the prosperity of the colony.

They were these; to seek to ingratiate themselves with the tobacco planters and to obtain their custom; to charge high prices and to give long credits to all who were able to pay; at the end of the year to close up the account by bond and to open another; at the end of the second year to put together the account of that year and the bond with interest of the preceding one, including all under another bond. This process was repeated every year, compound interest bang thus obtained, until the amount of the bond approached nearly the value of the planter's property, when the credit was withdrawn and a settlement of the account required.

The planter, in the meantime, generally put ting his tobacco in the merchant's hands, with power to sell, often not stipulating for any particular price, but simply requesting him to sell to the best advantage and credit his account with the value.

It has now ceased to exist; as the tobacco fields became poor, its trade ceased and it dwindled away; one small county store, badly supplied, is all that now remains of the rival of Philadelphia.

It is not wonderful, then, that our ancestors opposed the building of cities, and preferred country life; or that the opinion of Thomas Jefferson was endorsed when he said that "great cities are sores on the body politic." Thus it happened that when our revolutionary war began, we had few cities, and those of small population; and in those cities the men of trade were mostly foreigners from England or Scotland. It was because of this prejudice against trade; owing partly to the cavalier descent also, and to the fact that the commerce of the colony was in the hands of men bound by strong ties to the mother country, that a law was proposed to the effect, that "no merchant or tradesman should sit in the House of Delegates, or hold office under the commonwealth.

The war caused a cessation of trade, and our towns took a new character; they became places for holding public meetings and conventions, depots for arms, and manufactories of the munitions of war.

This plan ruined the planter, enriched the merchant, drained the country, and failed to build up the towns of Virginia. As the tobacco trade de- Each became a centre of influence, where enclined, the towns it had brought into existence listments went on, and where the news of the

VOL. XVII-77

war was heard and discussed; and near some, of empire; and here Smith, the energetic and and in others, battles were fought. After the talented leader of the colony, and Powhatan, war, it was found that all our towns of impor- the embodyment of all that was wise and powtance had been in the enemies hands and were erful in the Indian character, first met one anomore or less severely injured; some never re- ther. They were types of their respective races; covered the injuries received and the gradual and as the astute intellect and firm character of declension of trade; others stood still, until within Powhatan succumbed to the superior genius and a few years past more activity has been manifes- stronger mind of Smith, so has the one race ted in our cities and more improvements have yielded and been overcome and destroyed by the taken place. Richmond, from her position and other. (May, 1606.) Beautifully must the landfrom her being the State Capital, has taken the scape have appeared in the evening sunlight, as lead; from her abundant resources as a manu- Smith and his bold companions made their way facturing power; from the numerous lines of up to the foot of the falls. The mighty river travel centring in her, and from the spirit of en-rolling and tumbling down its rocky bed, dashing terprise manifested by her citizens, promises to retain it.

My intention is, in the following pages, to show the rise and progress of this city, to speak of it as it has been, as it is now, and to imagine its future.

To write the history of the city of Richmond alone, would be to write on a very meager subject; to write the history of the Capital of Virginia, is to follow out some of the most interesting events that the records of our State can furnish. And I think that the history of a city consists rather in narrating the important transactions that have taken place in that city, with their historical influence; and in mention and description of the men who brought them to pass, than in speaking alone of the beauty of situation or of buildings; yet these should also be described, as they are the framing to the picture.

I will speak then of the great men who have acted, and the great events that have arisen in Richmond; of the conventions held in it; of its public or peculiar buildings; of its position as a place of trade and manufactures; the beauty of its situation; its healthfulness as a city, and the habits and manners of its inhabitants. Whatever else of incident or anecdote that can be gathered from records or from memory, shall be made use of to illustrate, and, perhaps, to euliven the dryness of the narrative.

CHAPTER SECOND.

Richmond under the Indian Rule.

The Indian Race had made the neighbourhood of Richmond a place of settlement long before the white man had set foot in this country. It was a kingly residence when they began to explore the rivers, and to ascertain the size and value of the land of Powhatan.

Even then the wild race who hunted in the woods and fished in the waters of Virginia, had marked the falls of the chief river as their seat

and roaring among the rocks that impeded its course, spreading placidly out into a broad bay below; the various islands that dotted its surface; the low grounds now cultivated and the site of Manchester covered with dense forests in the full leaf of summer; the high hills around, made still more high by their crown of tall trees, glancing and waving in the sunlight, and casting a sombre shadow on the turbid waters below; the Indian village in the distance, with its smoke columns ascending for the evening meal; and a troop of painted savages on the shore, watching the boat's crew and forbidding their landing, made up a scene of wild and picturesque beauty. So accurately does Smith describe the residence of Powhatan, by the beauty of situation, the quantity of arable land around, the three islands opposite and the distance from the falls, that it will be at once recognized as the place called by his name, and now owned by Col. Mayo. The Indian chief had chosen his residence well; cultivated fields lay around; his town was well palisadoed and thoroughly protected; the falls of the river lay a short distance above, affording every opportunity for the use of the spear or the trap in catching fish, and hunting grounds densely wooded, stood on each bank.

It was truly an Indian Paradise; affording all that savage life requires, security, abundant food, and the pleasure of hunting.

How much it would astonish us if the scene could be now restored in all its wildness and with its former inhabitants! As much would Smith and his companions, or Powhatan and his wild followers be startled at the present aspect of the place. Not only is the land bare of its forest covering and hidden with paved streets and houses, the river spanned with bridges and its banks formed into docks and quays; but the high and steep hills have been cut down, the valleys filled up and the very surface of the land so changed, that even if deprived of buildings, Powhatan would not know his old hunting grounds, and Smith would look in vain for former landmarks. The English were kindly received and treated

by Powhatan in his village; Smith seems to have | He arrested the ringleaders and imprisoned them, been much struck with the appearance and the purchased the fortified village from Powhatan power of the old chief, and to have made quite and placed them in it, and pacified the Indians. a favourable impression himself; the sagacious The place from its beauty and its many advansavage must have perceived the decision of char- tages, was called Nonsuch. Yet no sooner had acter possessed by his guest, and seems at once these mutinous scoundrels obtained their vessel, to have respected and feared him. Here, too, it and recovered from their alarms, than they reis likely that Pocahontas must have seen Smith, leased the prisoners, and unchecked by their imand have become interested in the gallant and becile leader, West, vacated Nonsuch and repowerful stranger, whom her wise father seemed turned to the inconvenient fort built below the even to regard with reverence. Nor is it too falls. much to assert that the visit of Smith to the falls of the James river, the acquaintance made and the interest excited, prompted the sudden impulse which so happily saved his life at a later period. Here, on the site of Richmond, the Indian and the white man first met; and here began that intercourse which terminated in the preeminence of one race, and the entire destruction of the other.

Smith, finding it impossible to do any thing with so disorderly a body, sailed down the river, and left them to their fate. The accident that so severely injured him, and compelled his return to England, happened on this voyage; and the colony lost the only man capable of protecting them against each other or against the Indians. His character is so well known, and his praises have been so often spoken, that it is unnecessary for me to discuss his merits or to praise his deeds. Had that man been left out in the first ship load

This visit of Smith was merely of an exploratory character; it was not until Sept. 1609, that on the arrival of some 500 unruly emigrants of emigrants, had he been the victim instead of from England, Smith in sending out colonies to the conqueror in his battle with the Turk, the occupy different parts of Virginia, dispatched fate of the whole colony would have been dif120 men under Captain West, to make a settle- ferent. They would have perished as the forment at the falls of the James. These men, like mer colonists of Raleigh did on the coast of the rest of the emigrants, were utterly unfit for North Carolina, and the settlement of this counestablishing wisely a colony; they stupidly pla- try would have been averted for a century or ced themselves on some low grounds, subject to perhaps directed to another part of the coast. inundation, consequently unhealthy and liable to In that single man's life lay the destiny of Virmany other inconveniences. From the descrip-ginia and of this country. His education had tion given, the first settlement of white men near fitted him for toil of every kind, taught him selfRichmond, must have been about where Rock-reliance and qualified him to command and guide etts now stands. When Smith visited them and wherever courage, sagacity and hardihood were saw how disastrously they were placed, he purchased from Powhatan his village; stipulating for the price, and promising to defend the frontier against the Manacan tribe; and then endeavored to remove his men there. They refused to obey his commands or to acknowledge his authority; determining to hold the country for themselves, and to keep in their own possession the gold mines in which their diseased fancy be lieved it to abound.

required. Although the pedantic James of England might take the merit of writing constitutions and organizing governments for the new world; although the gallant Raleigh and his associates might spend means and effort and life too, in the attempted settlement of Virginia; or London merchants contribute their funds and their ships towards the new colony, to none of these belongs the honour of planting civilization in this land. We owe our birth as a nation, and our present privileges and position, not to king or potentate, to powerful noble or to wealthy merchant; but to the son of an obscure Lincolnshire gentleman, who had been prepared by a life of wandering throughout Europe, by fighting with the savage Turks, and by captivity in a barbarous land, for the toils and perils of a new colony, and for the The colonists had, by their arbitrary conduct, wiles and assaults of a savage foe. The little made themselves enemies of the Indians, and boat that bore him to the falls of the James, held these, finding that they were not protected by in it the present existence of the colony, and the Smith, attacked the post, slew several, and so future greatness and power of the State of Virfrightened the remainder that they sent in all ginia. No where do we see better shown the haste for Smith, humbled themselves before him influence of a single man upon the destinies of and submitted without stipulation to his mercy. a nation and of the world; as the acorn holds

He went boldly in among them, with five men only, and seized the ringleaders; and although the whole band rose up against him and forced him to retire, he took possession of their vessel, won the mariners to his side, and after trying to expostulate with them, and finding it useless, sailed off for Jamestown.