zontal extent. Surrounding it, also in octagon form, is a massive brick wall, which was constructed when the building was erected. This wall is somewhat dilapidated, as seen in the engraving. The building was occupied as a Baptist meeting-house when I visited Williamsburg, and I trust it may never fall before the hand of improvement, for it has an historical value in the minds of all Americans. The events which hallow it will be noticed presently. THE OLD MAGAZINE. On the square fronting the magazine is the court-house. It stands upon the site of the old capitol, in which occurred many interesting events connected with the history of our War for Independence. The present structure was erected over the ashes of the old one, which was burned in 1832 Around it are a few of the old bricks, half buried in the green sward, and these compose the only remains of the Old Capitol. While leaning against the ancient wall of the old magazine, and, in the shadow of its roof, contemplating the events which cluster that locality with glorious associations, I almost lost cognizance of the present, and beheld in reverie the whole pageantry of the past march in review. Here let us consult the oracle of history, and note its teachings. THE OLD CAPITOL.3 At the close of the last chapter we considered the destruction of Jamestown, the termination of "Bacon's rebellion," and the departure and death of Governor Berkeley. To make the events connected with the opening scenes of the Revolution in Virginia intelligible, we will briefly note the most prominent links in the chain of circumstances subsequent to the desolation of the ancient capital. We have noticed the unrighteous gift of Charles the Second, of the fairest portions of This view is from the square, looking southeast. South of it is a neat frame building, which was occupied by President Tyler before his election to the office of Vice-president of the United States. Jones describes the capitol which preceded the one in question, and which was destroyed by fire in 1746. He says, "Fronting the college [William and Mary], at near its whole breadth, is extended a street, mathematically straight-for the first design of the town's form is changed to a much better*-just three quarters of a mile in length, at the other end of which stands the capitol, a noble, beautiful, and commodious pile as any of its kind, built at the cost of the late queen [Anne], and by direction of the governor" [Spottswood]. "The building is in the form of an H, nearly; the secretary's office and the general court taking up one side below stairs, the middle being a handsome portico, leading to the clerk of the Assembly's office and the House of Burgesses on the other side; which last is not unlike the House of Commons. In each wing is a good stair-case, one leading to the council-chamber, where the governor and council sit in very great state, in imitation of the king and council, or the lord chancellor and House of Lords..... The whole is surrounded with a neat area, encompassed with a good wall, and near it is a strong and sweet prison for criminals; and, on the other side of the open court, another for debtors." On account of other public buildings having been burned, the use of fire, candles, and tobacco in the capitol was forbidden; nevertheless, it was destroyed by fire. 3 This is from an engraving in Howe's Historical Collections of Virginia, page 329. Mr. Howe obtained the drawing from a lady of Williamsburg, to whose patriotic taste our countrymen are indebted for a representation of the edifice which was the focus of rebellion in Virginia. * The original plan of Williamsburg was in the form of a cipher, made of the letters W and M, the initials of William and Mary. Its site was known as the Middle Plantation while Jamestown was the capital. Situated upon a ridge nearly equidistant from the York and James Rivers, it was an eligible place for a town, and there Governor Nicholson established the capital in 1698. It was the residence of the royal governors, and the capital of the colony, until the War of the Revolution, and was, from that circumstance, the center of Virginia refinement. Yet, in its palmiest days, the population of Williamsburg did not exceed twenty-five hundred. Many of its present inhabitants are descendants of the old stock of Virginia aristocracy; and an eminent seat of learning being located there, no place South is more distinguished for taste and refinement than Williamsburg, in proportion to its population. Culpepper. Lord Howard and Nicholson. Federal Union proposed. Orkney and his Deputies. Spottswood. a 1675. Virginia to his two favorites, Arlington and Culpepper. a Two years after this grant, Culpepper, who possessed the whole domain between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers, was appointed governor for life. He was proclaimed soon after the departure of Berkeley. Virginia was thus changed into a proprietary government, like Mary-. land and Pennsylvania. Culpepper came to Virginia in 1680, and was more intent upon enriching himself than advancing the prosperity of the colonists. He was speedily impoverishing Virginia, when the grant was recalled.b He was deprived of his office, and b 1684. the province again became a royal demesne. Arlington had already assigned his rights to Culpepper. The name of the latter is ignoble in the annals of that colony, yet it is perpetuated by the name of a county given in his honor, a distinction awarded generally to men whose actions were praiseworthy. c 1688. Lord Howard, of Effingham, who succeeded Culpepper as governor, was not more popular; for he, too, was governed by avaricious motives, and practiced meaner acts to accomplish his purposes of gain than his predecessor. Desiring to please his royal master, he put all penal laws in full force, particularly those against printing and the restrictions of the Navigation Act. The bigot, James the Second, the successor of Charles, continued Effingham in office; but when that monarch was driven from the throne, the governor returned to England. William the Third reappointed him, but with the stipulation that he should remain in England, and a deputy should exercise his functions in Virginia. His deputy was Francis Nicholson, a man of genius and taste, who came to Virginia in 1690. Two years afterward, Sir Edmund Andross, the infamous tool of James the Second, was made governor, and succeeded Nicholson. He administered the government badly until 1698, when he was recalled, and Nicholson was reinstated. On the return of that officer to Virginia, he moved the seat of government to the Middle Plantations, and Williamsburg was thenceforth the capital of the province for eighty years. d 1704. Governor Nicholson, who was a bold and ambitious man, conceived a scheme for uniting all the Anglo-American colonies. His plan was similar in its intended results to that of Andross, attempted twelve years before, when James issued a decree for uniting the New England colonies. Nicholson's ostensible object was the mutual defense of all the colonies against the encroachments of the French on the north, and the Indians made hostile by them along the frontiers. He submitted his plan to the king, who heartily approved of it, and recommended the measure to the colonial assemblies. Virginia refused to listen to any such scheme, and Nicholson's ambitious dream was dissolved in a moment. Greatly chagrined, he villified the Virginians; impressed William and Mary with an idea that they were disloyal; and represented to the ministers of Queen Anned that they were "imbued with republican notions and principles, such as ought to be corrected and lowered in time." He memorialized the queen to reduce all the American colonies under a viceroy, and establish a standing army among them, to be maintained at their own expense, declaring "that those wrong, pernicious notions were improving daily, not only in Virginia, but in all her majesty's other governments." Anne and her ministers did not approve of his scheme, and the Virginians becoming restive under his administration, he was recalled.e The Earl of Orkney succeeded Nicholson as governor, but exercised the functions of the office through deputies. He enjoyed the sinecure for thirty-six years. His first deputies were Mott and Jennings; the first remaining in office one year, and the other four years. In 1710, Jennings was succeeded by Sir Alexander Spottswood,' one of the most acceptable e 1704. 1 In 1757, a son of Colonel Spottswood, who was with a company scouting for Indians on the frontier, wandered from his companions, and was lost. His remains were found near Fort Duquesne. An elegaic poem, founded on the circumstances, was published in Martin's Miscellany, in London. The writer assumes that he was killed by the Indians, and says, "Courageous youth! were now thine honor'd sire "May Forbes yet live the cruel debt to pay, And wash the blood of Braddock's field away; * See page 478. Character of Spottswood. Conflicting Claims of the French and English. Injustice toward the Indians. The Ohio Company. governors Virginia ever had. He was liberal-minded and generous, and at once reversed the usual practice of royal governors, by making his private interest, if necessary, subservient to the public good.' He promoted internal improvements, set an example of elegant hospitality, encouraged learning, revered religion, and if he had been the royal representative when the eloquence of Henry aroused every generous heart in the Old Dominion, he would doubtless have been among the boldest rebels of the day. From the close of his administration in 1722, until the commencement of difficulties with the French and Indians, more than twenty years afterward, Virginia continued to increase in wealth, and general happiness and prosperity prevailed within its borders." We have already considered the most important events connected with the French empire in America which occurred along our northern frontier, and alluded to the fact that, in the ambitious scheme for gaining the mastery of this continent, the French made strenuous efforts to form a continuous chain of military works from the northern lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Upon widely different grounds did the French and English base their claims to the possession of the territory west of the Alleghany Mountains. The former claimed a right to the soil because of prior actual occupation; the latter claimed the domain as their own on account of the discovery of the Atlantic coast by the Cabots, before the French had made any settlements. The Pacific coast was considered as the western boundary. Upon the principle of settling claims by drawing a line interiorly at right angles from the coast discovered, the French, from their undisputed province of Acadia, might have claimed almost the whole of New England, and one half of New York, with all the lakes. It was a difficult question, while the argument rested upon a foundation of unrighteousness." The French had long occupied Detroit. They had explored the Mississippi Valley, formed settlements at Kaskaskias and Vincennes (the former now in the southern portion of Illinois, and the latter in the south part of Indiana), and along the northern border of the Gulf of Mexico, when the dispute arose. To vindicate their claims to the country they had explored, they commenced building forts. These the English viewed with jealousy, and determined to contravene the evident attempts to supersede them in the empire of the New World. In 1749, a royal grant of six hundred thousand acres of land on the Ohio River was made to a number of English merchants and Virginia planters, who, under the name of The Ohio Company, had associated for the ostensible purpose of trade. The British ministry, anticipating early hostility with France, had also sent out orders to the governor of Virginia to build two forts near the Ohio River, for the purpose of securing possession. But the order came too late; already the French were planting fortifications in that direction. The establishment of this trading company was the first positive intimation which the French had received of the intention of the English to vindicate their claims. They regarded the movement as the incipient steps toward a destruction of their western trade with the In I have in my possession a document, signed by Spottswood, to which is attached the great seal of Virginia, a huge disk of beeswax, four and a half inches in diameter, on one side of which is impressed the English arms, and on the other a figure of Britannia, holding a scepter in one hand and a globe in the other, and receiving the obeisance of an Indian queen, who, bowed upon one knee, is presenting a bunch of the tobacco plant to her. In the early part of his administration, Governor Spottswood led, in person, an expedition over the Blue Ridge, beyond which no white man's foot had yet trodden in that direction, and obtained glimpses of those glorious valleys which stretch away along the tributaries of the mighty Mississippi. In commemoration of this event, King George the First conferred upon him the honor of knighthood, and in allusion to the fact that he commanded a troop of mounted men on the occasion, he was presented with a silver miniature horseshoe, on which was inscribed the motto, Sic juret transcendere montes, "Thus he swears to cross the mountains." 3 In these discussions the natives, the original proprietors of the soil, were not considered. The intruding Europeans assumed sovereignty and possession without ever pretending to have purchased a rood of the soil from the aboriginal owners. It is related that when Mr. Gist went into the Ohio Valley on a tour of ob servation for the Ohio Company, a messenger was sent by two Indian sachems to inquire, "Where is the Indian's land? The English claim it all on one side of the river, the French on the other; where does the Indian's land lay." The true answer to that question would have been, "Every where," and the intruders should have withdrawn from the soil and closed their lips in shame. Jealousy of the French. Erection of Forts. Dinwiddie's Measures. George Washington sent to the French Commandant. dians, and to break their communication between New France or Canada, and Louisiana. With such impressions they resolved on defensive measures-aggressive ones too, if necessary. A pretense was not long wanting. While some English traders were engaged in their vocation near the present site of Pittsburgh, they were seized by some French and Indians, and conveyed to Presque Isle, now the town of Erie, on the lake of that name. The object was to learn from them the designs of the English in Virginia. In retaliation for this outrage, the Twightwees,' a body of Indians friendly to the English, seized some French traders, and sent them to Pennsylvania. Bitter animosity was now engendered, and it was intensified by those national and religious feuds which had so long made the English and French inimical to each other. Finally, the French began the erection of forts on the south side of Lake Erie, sending troops across the lakes with munitions of war, and forwarding bodies of armed men from New Orleans. One fort was built at Presque Isle (now Erie); another at Le Bœuf (now Waterford), on the head waters of the Venango (now French Creek'), and a third at Venango (now Franklin, the capital of Venango county, Pennsyl vania, at the junction of French Creek with the Alleghany). The Ohio Company complained, and Robert Dinwiddie,' the lieutenant governor of Virginia, within whose jurisdiction the offensive movement occurred, felt called upon to send a formal remonstrance to the French commandant, M. De St. Pierre, and demand a withdrawal of his troops. The mission was an exceedingly delicate one, and demanded the exercise of great courage, discretion, and judgment. George Washington, then a young man of twenty-one, was chosen, from among the hundreds of the Virginia aristocracy, to execute this commission of trust. At the age of nineteen he had received the appointment of adjutant general of one of the four military districts of Virginia, with the rank of major. The appointment was as creditable to the sagacity of Dinwiddie as it was flattering to the young officer. 1753. On the 31st of October, 1753, Major Washington, bearing a letter from Dinwiddie to the French commandant of the Western posts, left Williamsburg. At Fredericksburg he engaged Jacob Vanbraam, a Dutchman, to accompany him as French interpreter, and John Davidson as Indian interpreter, and then turned his face toward the wilderness. Before him was a journey of more than five hundred miles. At the junction of Will's Creek with the Potomac (now Cumberland, in Maryland), fourteen days journey from Williamsburg, he was joined by Mr. Gist (mentioned in a note on page 472) and four other a Nov. 14, men, two of them Indian traders.a This point, at the mouth of Will's Creek on the Potomac, was on the verge of civilization, and near the lofty Alleghanies, then covered with snow. Over these the little party pushed their way, enduring every hardship incident to a dreary wilderness and the rigors of winter. The streams in the valleys were swollen, and upon frail rafts the travelers crossed them; or, when occasion demanded, they entered the chilling flood, and, by wading or swimming, accomplished a passage. At length they reached the forks of the Ohio,b at the present site of Pittsburgh, and, after resting part of a day, they hastened onward twenty miles down the river, to Logstown (now in Beaver county), accompanied by Shingias, a chief sachem of the Delawares. There Washington called the surrounding Indian chiefs together in council, made с b Nov. 23 c Nov. 26. 1 According to Mr. Gist, who visited them in 1751, the Twightwees, or Tuigtuis, as the French wrote it, were a very numerous people, composed of many tribes. At that time they were in amity with the Six Nations, and were considered the most powerful body of Indians westward of the English settlements. While they resided on the Wabash, they were in the interests of the French, but left them, came eastward, and joined the fortunes of the English. Some assert that the Twightwees and the Ottawâs were the same, originally. This is called Beef River on Bouquet's map. 3 The first successor of Spottswood in the chair of administration was Hugh Drysdale, in 1722, who was succeeded by William Gooch in 1727. In 1749, Thomas Lee, president of the council, was acting governor, and, in 1750, Lewis Burwell held the same responsible office. Robert Dinwiddie was appointed lieutenant governor in 1752. He administered the office for six years, and was succeeded by Francis Fauquier. Ten years later (1768), Lord Botetourt was appointed, and from the period of his death until the arrival of Lord Dunmore, the last of the royal governors, William Nelson, father of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was acting governor. Washington's Journey. Friendly Offices of the Indians. St. Pierre. His Letter to Dinwiddie. a Dec. 5, 1753. a Preparations for War. known to them the objects of his visit, and solicited a guide to conduct him to the French encampment, one hundred and twenty miles distant. The request was complied with, and Tanacharison' (Half King), with two other chiefs, and a bold hunter, accompanied Washington and his little band. After suffering terrible hardships, they reached the French camp. At Venango, a French outpost, attempts were made to detain the Indians, though Joncaire, the commandant, received Washington with civility. The head-quarters of the French were higher up the stream, at Fort Le Bœuf, and there the Virginia commissioner was received with great politeness by M. De St. Pierre.b After a perilous journey of forty-one days, Washington had reached his destination. St. Pierre was an elderly man, a knight of the order of St. Louis. He entertained Washington and his party for four days with cordial hospitality, and then delivered to him a sealed reply to Governor Dinwiddie's letter. In the mean while, Washington and his attendants made full observations respecting the fort and garrison, construction of the works, numbers of cannon, &c.; information of much value. After a journey marked by more perils and hardships than the first, a large portion of which Major Washington and Mr. Gist pere Jan. 16, formed alone and on foot, the former reached Williamsburg, having been absent 1754. eleven weeks." Dec. 12. Dinwiddie was greatly incensed when he opened the letter of St. Pierre. That officer, writing like a soldier, said it did not belong to him as a subaltern to discuss treaties; that such a message as Washington bore should have been sent to the Marquis Duquesne, governor of Canada, by whose instructions he acted, and whose orders he should obey; and that the summons to retire could not be complied with. There could be no longer a doubt of the hostile designs of the French. Governor Dinwiddie called his council together, and, without waiting for the Burgesses to convene, took measures for the expulsion of their troublesome neighbors from Virginia soil. The council advised the enlistment of two companies, of one hundred men each, for the service; and the Ohio Company sent out a party of thirty men to erect a fort at the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers (Pittsburgh), a spot which Washington strongly recommended as most eligible, and to enlist men among 1 This chief was a bold and patriotic man. He warned both the English and the French to leave the country. He had felt the encroachments of the French, by their taking actual possession of large tracts of land; but as yet he mistook the character of the English, and believed that they came simply to trade with his race. He and his brethren soon learned, by fearful experience, that the French and English were equally governed by whatever policy was necessary for the accomplishment of those acts of rapacity and injustice which are sanctioned by the law of nations! "Fathers," said Tanacharison to the French, "The Great Being above allowed this land to be a place of residence for us, so I desire you to withdraw, as I have done our brothers the English; for I will keep you at arm's length. I lay this down as a trial for both, to see which will have the greatest regard to it, and that side we will stand by, and make equal shares with us." The French treated him with contempt, and hence he was the friend of the English. 2 Jeskakake and White Thunder. 3 Dinwiddie, in his letter, asserted that the lands on the Ohio belonged to the Crown of Great Britain; expressed surprise at the encroachments of the French; demanded by whose authority an armed force had crossed the lakes, and urged their speedy departure. ↑ On one occasion, an Indian, supposed to have been induced by Joncaire, at Venango, attempted to shoot them. On another occasion, after working a whole day in constructing a frail raft, they attempted to cross the swift current of the Alleghany, then filled with drifting ice. Their raft was destroyed among the ice, and the travelers, drenched in the river, were cast upon a desert island, where they laid upon the snow all night. In the morning the ice over the other channel was sufficiently strong to bear them. They crossed over, and toward evening reached the house of Frazier (who was a lieutenant under captain Trent the following May), near the spot where a year and a half afterward was fought the battle of the Monongahela. The island on which they were cast now bears the name of Washington's Island. It is directly opposite the United States Arsenal, at Lawrenceville, two or three miles above Pittsburgh. 5 See Washington's Journal. This journal was published in the newspapers here, and also in England and France, where it excited great attention. 6 Washington says in his Journal, in reference to the imprudence of Joncaire and his party, on account of too free indulgence in wine: "They told me that it was their absolute design to take possession of the Ohio, and by God they would do it; for that, although they were sensible the English could raise two men to their one, yet they knew their motions were too slow and dilatory to prevent any undertaking of theirs." |