were just departing for Richmond, whither I was making my way. They, too, intended to lodge at Bowling Green, and offered to pilot me. Their fresh horses tried Charley's speed and bottom to the utmost. We crossed the Mattapony River, a tributary of the Pamunkey, at twilight, over two high bridges. Night came on with sudden and intense darkness; so dark that I could not see my pilots. At a fork I lost my reckoning;" they taking one branch and I the other. Charley neighed, and tried to follow them. "I was wise in my own conceit," and reined him into the other fork. I rode on for nearly an hour without passing a habitation, and entirely unconscious of the nature or direction of the road I was traveling. A heavy mist shrouded the country. At length the rays of a candle came feebly from a window at the road-side. I hailed, and asked for and obtained lodgings for the night. It was the hospitable mansion of Mr. Burke, a planter, some seven miles from Bowling Green. I had wandered four miles from the direct road to that village, but was not far from the nearest highway to Hanover Court House, my next point of destination.

I resumed my journey at daybreak, leaving Bowling Green on the left; breakfasted at a small tavern, after a ride of six miles, and soon overtook my pilots, who, in attempting to reach a point beyond Bowling Green the night before, had broken an axle while crossing a swamp. We journeyed on together to Hanover Court House, within nineteen miles of Richmond. The appearance of the country changed materially after crossing the Mattapony. It became more hilly, sandy, and sterile, producing dwarf pines in abundance. We crossed the Pamunkey a little below the confluence of its branches (the North and South Anna), and, at a mile distant, reached Hanover Court House in time for a late dinner. The village nowa consists of the ancient court-house and tavern, one brick a 1851. house, several negro huts, and a jail. The latter was in process of reconstruction when I was there, having been burned a few months previously. Here was a flourishing town before Richmond, now containing thirty thousand inhabitants, was an incorporated village. The Pamunkey was then navigable for sloops and schooners; now the channel is filled with sand. Hanover was a place of considerable business. Sixteen hundred hogsheads of tobacco were annually exported from it, and it was regarded as an eligible site for the state capital. When the House of Burgesses were deliberating upon the subject of removing the Capitol from Williamsburg, they came within a few votes of deciding upon Hanover instead of Richmond. Where the populous village once stood I saw traces of a recent corn crop, but not a vestige of former habitation.

The old tavern where I lodged, and the court-house, are objects of much interest, from the circumstance that in the former Patrick Henry was a temporary bar-tender,' and in the latter he made those first ef forts at oratory which burst forth like meteors from the gloom of his obscurity. He had passed his youth

The Marquis de Chastellux, who visited Hanover in 1781, mentions this tavern as "a tolerably handsome inn, with a very large saloon, and a covered portico, and destined to receive the company who assemble every three months at the court-house, either on private or public affairs."

I slept in the "large saloon ;" and under shelter of the "covered portico" mentioned by the marquis, ] sketched the court-house. The general external appearance of the house, I was informed, has been changed. The marquis relates the following anecdote respecting the passage of the English through that county: "Mr. Tilghman, our landlord, though he lamented his misfortune in having lodged and boarded Cornwallis and his retinue, without his lordship having made the least recompense, could not help laughing at the fright which the unexpected arrival Tarleton spread among a considerable number of gentlemen who came to hear the news, and were assembled in the court-house. A negro, on horseback, came full gallop to let them know that Tarleton was not above three miles off. The resolution of retreating was soon taken; but the alarm was so sudden, and the confusion so great, that every one mounted the first horse he could find, so that few of those curious gentlemen returned upon their own horses."-Travels, ii., 13, 14.

This view is from the front, looking east-northeast. The building is of imported brick, with an arcade in front. It was erected in 1740. An addition has been made to the rear, wherein is the judge's bench.

Early Years of Patrick Henry.

The "Parsons's Cause."

His Début as an Orator, described by Wirt

ful days in apparent idleness, and, lacking business tact and energy, he failed to succeed in mercantile pursuits, in which he was engaged. He became bankrupt, and no one was willing to aid him. He had married at eighteen, and yet, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, he had done little toward supporting a wife. They lived most of the time with his father-in-law (Mr. Shelton), who kept the tavern at Hanover, and when the proprietor was absent, young Henry took his place behind the bar. As last resort, he studied law. He applied himself diligently for six weeks, when he obtained a license, but for nearly three years he was " briefless;" indeed, he hardly knew how to draw a brief correctly. At the age of twenty-seven, he was employed in the celebrated Parsons's Cause; and in Hanover court-house, on that occasion, his genius was first developed. The case was a controversy between the clergy and the Legislature of the state, relating to the stipend claimed by the former. A decision of the court in favor of the clergy had left nothing undetermined but the amount of damages in the cause which was pending. Young Henry took part against the clergy, and in his plea his wonderful oratory beamed out, for the first time, in great splendor. Wirt has vividly described the scene in his life of the "American Demosthenes."'1

"The array before Mr. Henry's eyes was now most fearful. On the bench sat more than twenty clergymen, the most learned men in the colony, and the most capable, as well as the severest critics before whom it was possible for him to have made his début. The court-house was crowded with an overwhelming multitude, and surrounded with an immense and anxious throng, who, not finding room to enter, were endeavoring to listen without in the deepest attention. But there was something still more awfully disconcerting than all this; for in the chair of the presiding magistrate sat no other person than his own father. Mr. Lyons opened the cause very briefly; in the way of argument he did nothing more than explain to the jury that the decision on the demurrer had put the act of 1758 entirely out of the way, and left the law of 1748 as the only standard of their damages. He then concluded with a highly-wrought eulogium on the benevolence of the clergy. And now came on the first trial of Patrick Henry's strength. No one had ever heard him speak, and curiosity was on tiptoe. He rose very awkwardly, and faltered much in his exordium. The people hung their heads at so unpromising a commencement; the clergy were observed to exchange sly looks with each other; and his father is described as having almost sunk with confusion from his seat. But these feelings were of short duration, and soon gave place to others of a very different character; for now were those wonderful faculties which he possessed for the first time developed, and now was first witnessed that mysterious and almost supernatural transformation of appearance, which the fire of his own eloquence never failed to work in him; for, as his mind rolled along, and began to glow from its own action, all the exuvia of the clown seemed to shed themselves spontaneously. His attitude, by degrees, became erect and lofty. The spirit of his genius awakened all his features. His countenance shone with a nobleness and grandeur which it had never before exhibited. There was a lightning in his eye which seemed to rivet the spectator. His action became graceful, bold, and commanding; and in the tones of his voice, but more especially in his emphasis, there was a peculiar charm, a magic, of which any one who ever heard him will speak as soon as ever he is named, but of which no one can give any adequate description. They can only say that it struck upon the ear and upon the heart in a manner which language can not tell. Add to all these his wonder-working fancy, and the peculiar phraseology in which he clothed its images, for he painted to the heart with a force that almost petrified it. In the language of those who heard him on this occasion, he made their blood run cold, and their hair to rise on end.'

"It will not be difficult for any one who ever heard this most extraordinary man to believe the whole account of this transaction, which is given by his surviving hearers; and from their account, the court-house of Hanover county must have exhibited, on this occasion, a scene as picturesque as has been ever witnessed in real life. They say that the people, whose countenances had fallen as he arose, had heard but a very few sentences before they began to look up, then to look at each other with surprise, as if doubting the evidence of their own senses; then, attracted by some strong gesture, struck by some majestic attitude, fascinated by the spell of his eye, the charm of his emphasis, and the varied and commanding expression of his countenance, they could look away no more. In less than twenty minutes they might be seen, in every part of the house, on every bench, in every window, stooping forward from their stands, in death-like silence, their features fixed in amazement and awe, all their senses listening and riveted upon the speaker, as if to catch the last strain of some heavenly visitant. The mockery of the clergy was soon turned into alarm, their triumph into confusion and despair; and at one burst of his rapid and overwhelming invective, they fled from the bench in precipitation and terror. As for the father, such was his surprise, such his amazement, such his rapture, that, forgetting where he was, and the character which he was filling, tears of ecstasy streamed down his cheeks, without the power or inclination to repress them.

"The jury seem to have been so completely bewildered that they lost sight not only of the act of 1748, but that of 1758 also; for, thoughtless even of the admitted right of the plaintiff, they had scarcely left the bar when they returned with a verdict of one penny damages. A motion was made for a new trial; but the court, too, had now lost the equipoise of their judgment, and overruled the motion by a unanimous

New Castle.

Road from Hanover to Richmond.

Birth place of Henry Clay.

Virginia Market wagons.

We shall meet Patrick Henry again presently in more important scenes.

Upon the Pamunkey, a few miles below Hanover Court House, is New Castle, once a flourishing village, but now a desolation, only one house remaining upon its site. That is the place where Patrick Henry assembled the volunteers and marched to Williamsburg, for the purpose of demanding a restoration of the powder which Lord Dunmore had removed from the public magazine, or its equivalent in money. Of this. I shall hereafter write. I lodged at Hanover, and, after an early breakfast, departed for Richmond, the rain yet falling. Between three and four miles from Hanover Court House,

HENRY CLAY'S BIRTH-PLACE

I passed the birth-place of Henry Clay. It stands upon the right of the turnpike to Richmond, in the midst of the flat piny region called the slashes of Hanover.' It is a frame building, one story high, with dormer windows, and two large chimneys on the outside of each gable. Here the great statesman was born in 1777. The roads through this desolate region are wretched, abounding in those causeways of logs known as corduroy roads. Within ten miles of Richmond the scenery becomes diversified, and the vicinage of a large town is denoted by the numerous vehicles upon the broad road, consisting chiefly of uncouth market-wagons, drawn by mules, frequently six or eight in a team, as pictured in the sketch below. The negro driver is usually seated upon one of the wheel mules, and. without guiding lines, conducts them by the vocal direction of haw and gee. To the eyes of a Northern man looking upon these caravans for the first time, they appear quite picturesque. I reached Richmond at meridian, a where I tarried with esteemed friends for a Dec. 14, 1848. several days.

vote. The verdict, and judgment overruling the motion, were followed by redoubled acclamation from within and without the house. The people, who had with difficulty kept their hands off their champion from the moment of closing his harangue, no sooner saw the fate of the cause finally sealed, than they seized him at the bar, and, in spite of his own exertions and the continued cry of 'order' from the sheriffs and the court, they bore him out of the court-house, and, raising him on their shoulders, carried him about the yard in a kind of electioneering triumph."

The word slashes is applied to tracts of flat clay soil, covered with pine woods, and always wet. The clay is almost impervious to water, and as evaporation goes on slowly in the shadow of the pines, the ground is seldom dry. "The mill-boy of the slashes" was an electioneering phrase applied to Henry Clay some years ago, when he was a candidate for the presidency of the United States. Mr. Clay died at Washington City on the 29th of June, 1852, at the age of about seventy-five years. He was United States Senator at the time of his death, and represented his adopted state, Kentucky. He was the last survivor of the Commissioners who negotiated the treaty at Ghent, in 1815, with the representatives of the British government. His associates were John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Jonathan Russell, and Albert Gallatin.

Early Settlement at Rockett's and Powhatan.

Captain Smith.

Abandonment of "Nonesuch."

Fort Charlas.

CHAPTER IX.

"Virginia, hail! Thou venerable state

In arms and council still acknowledged great!
When lost Britannia, in an evil hour,
First tried the steps of arbitrary power,
Thy foresight then the Continent alarm'd,
Thy gallant temper ev'ry bosom warm'd.
And now, when Britain's mercenary bands
Bombard our cities, desolate our lands

(Our prayers unanswer'd, and our tears in vain),

While foreign cut-throats crowd the ensanguined plain,
Thy glowing virtue caught the glorious flame,
And first renounced the cruel tyrant's name!
With just disdain, and most becoming pride,
Further dependence on the crown denied!

While Freedom's voice can in these wilds be heard,
Virginia's patriots shall be still revered."

HOLT'S NEW YORK JOURNAL, June, 1776.

ICHMOND, the metropolis of Virginia, is situated at the Falls of the James River, a locality known and mentioned as early as 1609, two years after the commencement of a settlement at Jamestown, and the same year that Henry Hudson first entered and explored New York Bay and the North River. In that year, Captain West was sent, with one hundred and twenty men, to make a settlement at the Falls. They pitched their tents at the head of navigation, at a place now known as Rockett's, just below Richmond. It was near one of the imperial residences of Powhatan when the foundations of Jamestown were first laid. Captain John Smith, then president of the colony, visited West's settlement toward the close of 1609. He disliked the situation, on account of the overflowing of the river, and, purchasing from Powhatan a tract now known by that name, two miles below Richmond, where the Indians had a palisade fort, he directed the settlers to remove thither. They refused compliance, while Smith strenuously insisted upon obedience. An open rupture ensued. Smith committed some of the ringleaders to confinement; but this so exasperated the remainder, that, with menaces of death, they drove him to his vessel in the river. The Indians espoused the cause of Smith, and the settlers and the natives became bitter enemies. Smith, greatly chagrined, sailed down the river for Jamestown. As soon as he was gone, the Indians fell upon West's people, and slew several of them. The remainder were glad to recall Smith, who had not proceeded far down the river, and receive his aid. imprisoned some of the leaders, and established the settlement at Powhatan. had a strong fort with dry wigwams, and about two hundred acres of land ready to be planted. On account of the beauty and fertility of the place, they called it "Nonesuch." As Smith was about to depart, West, who had been at Jamestown, returned, and, by his influence, stirred up a mutiny, which ended in the settlers abandoning "Nonesuch" and returning to the Falls.

He again There they

A fortification, called Fort Charles, was erected at the Falls in 1645. Thirty-four years afterward, Captain William Byrd, having been granted certain privileges contingent upon his making a settlement at the Falls of fifty able-bodied men, well armed, as a protection against the Indians, built a trading-house and mill upon the present site of Richmond, about three fourths of a mile above Rockett's. The place was called Byrd's Warehouse. The building from which the name was derived stood near the present Exchange Hotel.

Founding of Richmond.

Scenery on the James River at Richmond.

Expedition of Arnold to Virginia.

A town was established there with the name of Richmond (so called because of its similarity in situation to Richmond on the Thames, near London), in May, 1742, on land belong. ing to Colonel William Byrd, of Westover. It is situated upon the north side of the James River, upon the high hills of Shockoe and Richmond, and the margin of Shockoe Creek, which flows between them to the river.

The scenery from almost every point of view around Richmond is exceedingly picturesque. The river is almost half a mile wide, dotted with beautiful wooded islands, and broken into numerous cascades, which extend to Westham, six miles up the stream. The Capitol stands in the center of a large square, upon the brow of Shockoe Hill, in the western division of the city. From its southern colonnade there is an extensive view of the best portion of the town, of the river, with its islands and cascades, and the flourishing manufacturing village of Manchester, on the opposite shore, with a back-ground of fertile slopes. From this point the eye takes in almost the whole area of Richmond, made memorable by Revolutionary events. Let us consider them.

When noticing the adventures of

Sergeant Champe, while endeavoring

الأمعاء

Arnold left

a Dec. 16, 1780.

b Dec. 21.

to abduct Arnold from New York (page 774, vol. i.), I mentioned the fact that the traitor sailed, in command of an expedition, to Virginia, taking Champe with him. New Yorka with nearly fifty small vessels, and six hundred troops, principally Loyalists, for the purpose of carrying on a predatory warfare in Virginia. Contrary winds detained them at Sandy Hook, and they did not leave their anchorage there until five days had elapsed.b Arnold entered Hampton Roads on the 30th of December. His fleet had become dispersed, and several ships were missing. Anxious to distinguish himself in the service of his royal purchaser, and favored by the capture of some small American vessels by his advance frigate, he pushed up the James River to seize or destroy the public stores at Richmond and Petersburg. Williamsburg, situated about half-way between the James and York Rivers, was the Capitol of the state when the Revolution broke out. It was peculiarly exposed to the depredations of the enemy, and was an unsafe place for the public records and stores. Richmond, though quite an insig nificant town of about eighteen hundred inhabitants, one half of whom were slaves, offered a more secure place for public stores, and the quiet deliberations of the Virginia Legislature; and thither, in the summer of 1779, the troops, arms, and ammunition, together with the public records, were sent, by order of the Assembly. Finally, the Burgesses, by an act passed in May, 1779, made Richmond the permanent seat of government, and there all

This view is from a long shaded island extending up the river from Mayo's Bridge, one of the three structures which span the stream at Richmond. Down the river from our point of view is seen Mayo's Bridge, and, in the extreme distance, the lower portion of Richmond, upon Richmond or Church Hill. Several fishtraps are seen among the rapids in the river. On the left are observed two or three smaller islands. Since the above sketch was made, a bridge, for the accommodation of the Danville rail-way, has been constructed from the Richmond end of Mayo's Bridge, diagonally, to the southern end of the Petersburg rail-way bridge, crossing very nearly our point of view. Not content with thus marring the beauty of one of the finest series of islands and cascades in the country, the company have covered the bridge, so as to shut out from the eyes of passengers the surrounding attractions. Wherefore?