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 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 RICHMOND, SEPT. 1. 
 
 Y< 
 
 OU complain my dear S******* f 
 that although I have been resident in Rich- 
 mond upwards of six months, you have heard 
 nothing of me since my arrival. The truth is, 
 that I have suspended writing until a more 
 intimate acquaintance with the people and 
 their country, should furnish me with mate- 
 rials for a correspondence. Having now col- 
 lected those materials, the apology ceases, 
 and the correspondence begins. But first a 
 word of myself. 
 
 I still continue to wear the mask, and most 
 willingly exchange the attentions which 
 would be paid to my rank, for the superior 
 and exquisite pleasure of inspecting this 
 country and this people, without attracting 
 to myself a single eye of curiosity, or awak- 
 ening a shade of suspicion. Under my as- 
 Isumed name, I gain an admittance, close e- 
 nough to trace at leisure, every line of the 
 (American character ; while the plainness or 
 
 B 
 
6 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 rather humility of my appearance, my maru 
 ners and conversation, puts no one on his 
 guard, but enables me to take a portrait of 
 nature, as it were, asleep and naked. Be- 
 sides, there is something of innocent roguery 
 in the masquerade which I am playing, that 
 suits very well with the sportiveness of my 
 temper. To sit and decoy the human heart 
 from behind all its disguises — to watch the 
 capricious evolutions of unrestrained nature, 
 frisking, curvetting and gambolling at her 
 ease, with the curtain of ceremony drawn up 
 to the very sky — O ! it is delightful ! 
 
 You are perhaps surprised at my speaking 
 of the attentions which would be paid, in 
 this country, to my rank. You will suppose 
 then I have forgotten where I am ; no such 
 thing. I remember well enough that I am in 
 Virginia : that state which, of all the rest, 
 plumes herself most highly on the democrat- 
 ick spirit of her principles. — Her political 
 principles are, indeed, democratick enough in 
 d\\ conscience. Rights and privileges, as reg- 
 ulated by the constitution of the state, belong 
 in an equal degree to all the citizens ; and 
 Peter Pindar's remark is perfectly true of the 
 people of this country, that " every black- 
 guard scoundrel is a king." Nevertheless, 
 there exists in Virginia a species of local 
 rank, from which no country can, I presume, 
 be entirely free. I mean that kind of rank 
 which arises from the different degrees of 
 
BRITISH SPY. T 
 
 wealth and of intellectual refinement. — These 
 must introduce a style of living and conver- 
 sation, the former of which a poor man can- 
 not attain, while an ignorant one would be 
 incapable of enjoying the latter. It seems to 
 me, that from these causes, wherever they 
 may exist, circles of society, strongly dis- 
 criminated, must inevitably result. And one 
 of these causes exists in full force in Virgin- 
 ia , for, however, they may vaunt of equal 
 liberty in church and state, they have but 
 little to boast on the subject of equal proper- 
 ty. Indeed there is no country, I believe, 
 where property is more unequally distribut- 
 ed than in Virginia. — This inequality struck 
 me with peculiar force, in riding through the 
 lower countries on the Potowmack. Here 
 and there a stately aristocratick palace, with 
 all its appurtenances, strikes the view . 
 While all around for many miles, no other 
 buildings are to be seen, but the little smoky 
 huts and log cabins of poor, laborious, ignor- 
 ant tenants. And what is very ridiculous, 
 these tenants, while they approach the great 
 house, cap in hand, with all the fearful trem- 
 bling submission of the low r est, feudal vas- 
 sals, boast, in their court house yards, with 
 obstreperous exultation, they live in a land 
 of freemen, aland of equal liberty and equal 
 rights. Whether this debasing sense of in- 
 feriority which I have mentioned, is but a 
 remnant of the colonial character, or u-heth- 
 
8 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 er it be that it is natural for poverty and im- 
 potence to look up with veneration to wealth 
 and property and rank, I cannot decide. For 
 my own part, however, I have ascribed it to 
 the latter cause ; and I have been in a great 
 degree confirmed in the opinion, by observ- 
 ing the attentions which were paid, by the 
 
 most genteel people here, to the 
 
 son of Lord . You know the circum- 
 stances in which his lordship left Virginia ; 
 that so far from being popular, he carried 
 with him the deepest execrations of these 
 people. Even now his name is seldom men- 
 tioned here, but in connexion with terms 
 of abhorrence or contempt. Aware of this, 
 
 and believing it impossible that was 
 
 indebted to his father for all the parade of 
 respect which was shewn to him, I sought in 
 his own personal accomplishments a solution 
 of the phenomenon. But I sought in vain. 
 Without one solitary ray of native genius, 
 without one adventitious beam of science, 
 without any of those traits of soft benevolence 
 which are so universally captivating, I found 
 his mind dark and benighted, his manners 
 bold, forward and assuming, and his whole 
 character evidently inflated with the consider- 
 ation that he was the son of a lord. His de- 
 portment was so evidently dictated by this 
 consideration, and he regarded the Virginians 
 so palpably in the humiliating light of infe- 
 rior plebeians,that I have often wondered how 
 
BRITISH SPY. 9 
 
 such a man, and the son too of so unpopular a 
 father, escaped from this country without 
 personal injury, or at least personal insult. 
 I am now persuaded that this impunity and 
 the great respect which was paid to him re- 
 sulted solely from his noble descent, and was 
 nothing more than the tribute which man 
 pays either to imaginary or real superiority. 
 On this occasion, I stated my surprise to a 
 young Virginian, who happened to be one 
 of the democratick party. He, however, did 
 not choose to admit the statement ; but as- 
 serted that whatever respect had been shewn 
 to proceeded solely from the feder- 
 alists : and that it was an unguarded ebullition 
 of their private attachment to monarchy and 
 its appendages. I then stated the subject to 
 a very sensible gentleman, whom I knew to 
 belong to the federal phalanx. Not willing 
 to degrade his party, by admitting that they 
 would prostrate themselves before the empty 
 shadoAV of nobility, he alledged that nothing 
 
 had been manifested towards young 
 
 beyond the hospitality which was due to a 
 genteel stranger ; and that if there had been 
 any thing of parade on his account, it was at- 
 tributable only to the ladies, who had mere- 
 ly exercised their wonted privilege of coquet- 
 ing it with a fine young fellow. But not- 
 withstanding all this, it was easy to discern, 
 in the look, the voice and whole manner with 
 jvhich gentlemen as well as ladies of both 
 
10 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 parties saluted and accosted young-- , 
 
 a sacred spirit of respectful diffidence, a spe- 
 cies of silent reverential abasement which 
 could not have been excited by his personal 
 qualities, and mnst have been homage to his 
 rank. Judge then whether I have not just 
 reason to apprehend, that on the annuncia- 
 tion of my real name, the curtain of ceremo- 
 ny would fall, and nature would cease to 
 play her pranks before me. 
 
 Richmond is built, as you will remember 
 on the north side of James River, and at the 
 head of the tide water. There is a manu- 
 script in this state, which relates a curious 
 anecdote concerning the origin of this town. 
 The land hereabouts was owned by Col. Wil- 
 liam Bird, This gentleman, with the former 
 proprietor of the town at the head of tide 
 water on Appomatiox river, was appointed, 
 it seems, to run the line between Virginia and 
 North Carolina. The operation was a most 
 tremendous one ; for, in the execution of it, 
 they had to penetrate and pass quite through 
 the great dismal swamp.. It would be almost 
 impossible to give you a just conception of 
 the horrors of this enterprise. Imagine to your- 
 self an immense morass, thirty or forty miles 
 in diameter : its soil a black deep mire, cov- 
 ered with a stupendous forest of Juniper and 
 Cypress trees, whose luxuriant branches, in- 
 terwoven throughout, intercept the beams of 
 the sun and teach day to counterfeit the 
 
BRITISH SPY. 12 
 
 night. The forest, which, until that time, 
 perhaps the human foot had never violated, 
 had become the secure retreat of ten thous- 
 and beasts of prey. The adventurers, there- 
 fore, beside the almost endless labour of fall- 
 ing trees, in a proper direction to form a 
 footway throughout, moved, amid perpetual 
 terrors, and each night had to sleep en mil- 
 itaire upon their arms, surrounded with the 
 deafening, soul chilling yell of those hun- 
 ger smitten lords of the desert. It w r as one 
 night as they lay \in the midst of scenes 
 like those, that Hope, that never failing 
 friend of man, paid them a consoling visit, 
 and sketched in brilliant prospect the plans of 
 Richmond and Petersburg. 
 
 Richmond occupies a very picturesque and 
 most beautiful situation. I have never met 
 with such an assemblage of striking and in- 
 teresting objects. The town, dispersed over 
 hills of various shades — the river, descending 
 from w r est to east, and obstructed by a mul- 
 titude of small islands, clumps of trees and 
 myriads of rocks, among which it rumbles, 
 foams and roars, consisting of what are call- 
 ed the falls — the same river at the lower end 
 of the town, bending at right angles to the 
 south, and winding reluctantly off for many 
 miles in that direction,its polished surface 
 caught here and thereby the eye, but more ge- 
 nerally covered from the view by trees,among 
 which the white sails of approaching and de- 
 
11 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 parting vessels exhibit a curious and interest- 
 ing appearance : — then again on the opposite 
 side, the little town of Manchester, built on 
 a hill which, sloping gently to the river, o- 
 pens the whole town to the view, interspers- 
 ed as it is with vigorous and flourishing pop- 
 lars, and surrounded to a great distance by 
 green plains and stately woods — all these ob- 
 jects falling at once under the eye, constitute 
 by far the most finely varied and most ani- 
 mated landscape that I have ever seen. A 
 mountain, like the blue ridge, in the western 
 horizon, and the rich tint with which the 
 hand of a Pennsylvania farmer would paint 
 the adjacent fields, would make the most en- 
 chanting spot that ever Damascus is describ- 
 ed to be. I will endeavour to procure for 
 you a perspective view of Richmond with 
 the embellishment of fancy which I have just 
 mentioned, and you will do me the honour 
 to give it a place in your pavilion. 
 
 Adieu for the present, my dear S******* 
 — May the perpetual smiles of Heaven be 
 yours. 
 
 
 LETTER II, 
 
BRITISH SPY. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 RICHMOND, SEPTEMBER, 7. 
 
 ALMOST every clay, my clear &*******, ■ 
 some new evidence presents itself in support 
 of the Abbe Raynal's opinion, that this con- 
 tinent was once covered by the ocean, from 
 which it has gradually emerged. But that 
 this emersion is, eveu comparatively speak- 
 ing, of recent date, cannot be admitted ; un- 
 less the comparison be made with the crea- 
 tion of the earth ; and even then, in order to 
 justify the remark, the a?ra of the creation 
 must, I fear, be fixed much farther back, 
 than the period which has been inferred from 
 the Mosaic account. 
 
 The following facts are authenticated be- 
 yond any kind of doubt. During the last 
 spring, a gentleman in the neighbourhood of 
 Williamsburg, about sixty miles below this 
 place, in digging a ditch on his farm, discov- 
 ered, about four or five feet below the sur- 
 face of the earth, a considerable portion of 
 the skeleton of a Whale. Several fragments 
 of the ribs and other parts of the system were 
 e 
 
U BRITISH SPY. 
 
 found ; and all the vertebrae regularly arrang- 
 ed and very little impaired as to their figure. 
 The spot on which this skeleton was found 
 lies about two miles from the nearest shore 
 of James River, and fifty or sixty from the 
 Atlantick Ocean. The whole phenomenon 
 bore the clearest evidence that the animal 
 had perished in its native element ; and as 
 the ocean is the only resort for the Whale, 
 it follows that the ocean must once have cov- 
 ered the country at least as high up at Wil- 
 liamsburg. 
 
 Again, in digging several wells lately in 
 this town, the teeth of Sharks were found 
 from sixty to ninety or an hundred feet be- 
 low the surface of the earth. The probabil- 
 ity is that these teeth were deposited by the 
 Shark itself; and as this fish is never kndwn 
 to infest very shallow waters, the conclusion 
 is clear ,that this whole country has been bur- 
 ied under several fathoms of water. At all 
 events, these teeth must be considered as as- 
 certaining what was once the surface of the 
 earth here ; which surface is very little high- 
 er than that of James River. Now if it be 
 considered that there has been no percepti- 
 ble difference wrought in the figure or eleva- 
 tion of the coast, nor consequently, in the 
 precipitation of the interior streams since the 
 earliest record discovery of Virginia, which 
 was two hundred years ago, it will follow that 
 James River must for manv hundreds, perhaps 
 
BRITISH SPY. ti 
 
 thousands of years, have been running, at least 
 here, with a very rapid, headlong current ; 
 the friction whereof must certainly have ren- 
 dered the channel much deeper than it was at 
 the time of the deposition of these teeth. The 
 result is clear that the surface of the stream 
 which, even now, after this friction and con- 
 sequent depression, is so nearly on a level 
 with the site of the Shark's teeth, must, o- 
 riginally, have been much higher. I take this 
 to be an irrefragable proof that the land here, 
 was then, inundated ; and as there is no 
 ground between this and the Atlantick, higher 
 than that on which Richmond is built, it 
 seems to me indisputably certain, that the 
 whole of this beautiful country was once cov- 
 ered with a dreary waste of water. 
 
 To what curious and interesting reflections 
 does this subject lead us ! Over this hill on 
 which I am now sitting and writing at my 
 ease, and from which I look, with delight on 
 the landscape that smiles around me — over 
 this hill and over this landscape, the billows 
 of the ocean have 'rolled in wild and dread- 
 ful fury, while the leviathan, the whale, and 
 all the monsters of the deep, have disported 
 themselves amid the fearful tempest. 
 
 Where was then the shore of the ocean ? — 
 From this place, for eighty miles to the west- 
 ward, the ascent of the countrv is very grad- 
 ual ; and even up the Blue Ridge, 'marine 
 shells and other phenomena are found, which 
 
16 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 demonstrate that that country too, has been 
 visited by the ocean. — How then has it e- 
 merged ? Has it been by a sudden convulsion ? 
 Certainly not. — No observing man, who has 
 ever travelled from the Blue Ridge to the At- 
 lantick can doubt this emersion has been ef- 
 fected by very slow gradations. For as you 
 advance to the east, the proofs of the form- 
 er submersion of the country thicken upon 
 you. On the shores of York river, the bones 
 of the Whale abound ; and I have been not 
 a little amused in walking on the sand beach 
 of that river, during the recess of the tide, 
 and looking up at the high cliff or bank above 
 me, to observe strata of sea shells not yet cal- 
 cined, like those which lay on the beach un- 
 der my feet ; interspersed with strata of earth 
 (the joint result no doubt of sand and putrid 
 vegetable) exhibiting at once a sample of the 
 manner in which the adjacent soil had been 
 formed, and proof of the comparatively re- 
 cent desertion of the waters. 
 
 Upon the whole, every thing here tends to 
 confirm the ingenious theory of Mr. Buffon ; 
 that the eastern coasts of continents are en- 
 larged by the perpetual revolution of the 
 earth from West to East, which has the ob- 
 vious tendency to conglomerate the loose 
 sands of the sea on the eastern coast; while 
 the tides of the ocean, drawn from east to 
 west, against the revolving earth, contribute 
 to aid the process, and hasten the alluvion. 
 
BRITISH SPY. 17 
 
 But admitting the Abbe RaynaPs idea that 
 America is a far younger country than either 
 of the other continents, or in other words, 
 that America has emerged long since their 
 formation, how did it happen that the mate- 
 rials which compose this continent were not 
 accumulated on the eastern coast of Asia ? — 
 Was it that the present mountains of Ameri- 
 ca, then protuberances on the bed of the o- 
 cean, intercepted a part of the passing sands 
 which would otherwise have been washed on 
 the Asiatic shore, and thus became the rudi- 
 ments of this vast continent ? If so, America 
 is under much greater obligations to her bar- 
 ren mountains, than she has hitherto suppos- 
 ed. 
 
 But while Mr. Buffon's theory accounts 
 very handsomely for the enlargement of the 
 eastern coast, it offers no kind of reason for 
 any extension of the western ; on the contra- 
 ry the very causes assigned to supply the ad- 
 dition to the eastern, seem at first view, to 
 threaten a diminution of the western coast. 
 Accordingly, Mr. Buffon, Ave see, has adopt- 
 ed also the latter idea ; and in the constant 
 alluvion from the western coast of one con- 
 tinent, has found a perennial source of ma- 
 terials for the eastern coast of that which lies 
 behind it. This last idea, however, by no 
 means quadrates with the hypothesis that the 
 mountains of America formed the original 
 stamina of the continent ; for on the latter 
 
15 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 supposition, the mountains themselves would 
 constitute the western coast ; since Mr. Buf- 
 fon's theory precludes the idea of any acces- 
 sion in that quarter. But the mountains do 
 not constitute the western coast. On the 
 contrary there is a wider extent of country 
 between the great mountains in North Amer- 
 ica, and the Pacific or northern oceans, than 
 there is between the same mountains and the 
 Atlantick ocean. Mr. Buffon's theory there- 
 fore, however rational as to the eastern, be- 
 comes defective, as he presses it, in relation 
 to the western coast ; unless to accommodate 
 the theory, we suppose the total abrasion ofi 
 some great mountain which originally con- 
 stituted the western limit, and which was it- 
 self, the embryon of this continent. But for 
 many reasons and particularly the present 
 contiguity to Asia, at one part, where such a 
 mountain according to the hypothesis, must 
 have run, the idea of any such limit will be 
 thought rather too extravagant for adoption. 
 The fact is, that Mr. Buffon has considered 
 his theory rather in its operation on a con- 
 tinent already established, than on the birth 
 or primitive emersion of a continent from the 
 ocean. 
 
 As to the western part of this continent, I 
 mean that which lies beyond the Allegany 
 mountains, if it was not originally gained 
 from the ocean, it has received an accumula- 
 tion of earth by no means less wonderful. 
 
BRITISH SPY, 19 
 
 Far beyond the Ohio, in piercing the earth 
 for water, the stumps of trees, bearing the 
 most evident impressions of the axe, and on 
 one of them the rust of consumed iron, batse 
 been discovered between ninety and an hund- 
 red feet below the present surface of the 
 earth. This is a proof, by the bye, not only 
 that this immense depth of soil has been ac- 
 cumulated in that quarter ; but that, thai- 
 new country j as the inhabitants of the Atlan- 
 tick States call it, is, indeed a very ancient 
 one, and that North America has undergone 
 more revolutions in point of civilization than 
 have heretofore been thought of, either by 
 the European or American Philosophers. 
 That part of this continent, which borders 
 on the western ocean being almost entirely 
 unknown, it is impossible to say whether it 
 exhibits the same evidence of emersion which 
 is found here. M'Kenzie, however, the on- 
 ly traveller who has penetrated through this 
 wild forest, records a curious tradition a- 
 mong some of the western tribes of Indians : 
 to wit, that the world was once covered with 
 water. The tradition is embellished as usu- 
 al, with a number of very highly poetical fic- 
 tions. The fact, which I suppose to be couch- 
 ed under it, is, the ancient submersion of 
 that part of the continent ; which certainly 
 looks much more like a world, than the petty 
 territory that was inundated by Deucalion's 
 flood. If I remember aright* for I cannot 
 
20 BRITISH &PY. 
 
 immediately refer to the book, Stith in his 
 history of Virginia, has recorded similar tra- 
 ditions among the Atlantick tribes of Indians. 
 I have no doubt that if McKenzie had been 
 as well qualified for scientifick research, as he 
 was undoubtedly honest, firm and persever- 
 ing, it would have been in his power to have 
 thrown great lights on this subject, as it re- 
 lates to the western country. 
 
 For my own part, While I believe the pres- 
 ent mountains of America to have constituted 
 the original stamina of the continent, I be- 
 lieve, at the same time, the western as well as 
 the eastern country to be the effect of alluv- 
 ion ; produced too by the same causes ; the 
 rotation of the earth, and the planetary at- 
 traction of the ocean. The conception of 
 this will be easy and simple, if, instead of 
 confounding the mind, by a wide view of the 
 whole continent as it now stands, we carry 
 back our imagination to the time of its birth, 
 and suppose some one of the highest pinna- 
 cles of the Blue Ridge to have just emerged 
 above the surface of the sea. Now whether 
 the rolling of the earth to the east give to 
 the ocean, which floats looselv upon its bo- 
 som, an actual counter current, to the west, 
 w^hich is, occasionally, further accelerated by 
 the motion of the tides in that direction, or 
 whether this be not the case, still to our new- 
 ly emerged pinnacle, which is whirled by the 
 earth's motion, through the waters of the 
 
BRITISH SPY. 21 
 
 deep, the consequences will be the same as 
 if there were this actual and strong current. 
 For while the waters will be continually ac- 
 cumulated on the eastern coast of this pin- 
 nacle, it is obvious that on the western coast 
 (protected as it would be, from the current, 
 by the newly riven earth) the waters will al- 
 ways be comparatively low and calm. The 
 result is clear. The sands, borne along by 
 the ocean's current over the northern and 
 southern extremities of this pinnacle, will al- 
 ways have a tendency to settle in the calm 
 behind it ; and thus, "by perpetual accumu- 
 lations, from a western coast, more rapidly 
 perhaps than an eastern one ; as we may see 
 in miniature by the capes and shallows, col- 
 lected by the still water, on each side, at the 
 mouths of creeks, or below rocks, in the rap- 
 ids of a river. 
 
 After this new born point of earth had 
 gained some degree of elevation, it is proba- 
 ble that successive coats of vegetation, ac- 
 cording to Dr. Darwin's idea, springing up, 
 then falling and dying on the earth, paid an 
 annual tribute to the infant continent, while 
 such rain as fell upon it, bore down a 
 part of its substance and assisted perpetually 
 in the enlargement of its area. 
 
 It is curious that the arrangement of the 
 mountains both in North and South America, 
 as well as the shape of the two continents, 
 combines to strengthen the present theory. 
 
■32 3RITISH SPY. 
 
 For the mountains, as you will perceive on 
 inspecting your maps, run, in chains from 
 north to south ; thus opposing the widest pos- 
 sible barrier to the sands, as they roll from 
 east to west. The shape of the continents is 
 just that which would naturally be expected 
 from such an origin ; that is, they lie along, 
 collaterally, with the mountains. As far 
 north as the country is well known, these 
 ranges of mountains are observed ; and it is 
 remarkable that as soon as the Cordilleras 
 terminate in the south, the continent of South 
 America ends ; where they terminate in the 
 north, the continent dwindles to a narrow 
 isthmus. 
 
 Assuming this theory as correct, it is amus- 
 ing to observe the conclusions to which it 
 will lead us. 
 
 As the country is supposed to have been 
 formed by gradual accumulations, and as 
 these accumulations were most probably e- 
 qual or nearly so in every part, it follows 
 that, broken as this country is, in hills and 
 dales, it has assumed no new appearance by 
 its emersion ; but that the figure of the 
 earth's surface is the same throughout, as 
 well where it is now covered by the waters 
 of the ocean, as where it has been already 
 denudated. So that Mr. Boyle's mountains 
 in the sea, cease to have any thing wonder- 
 fid in them. 
 
BRITISH SPY. 23 
 
 Connected with this, it is not an improba- 
 ble conclusion, that new continents, and isl- 
 ands are now forming on the bed of the o- 
 cean. Perhaps at some future day, land, 
 may emerge in the neighbourhood of the An- 
 tarctick circle, which by progressive accumu- 
 lations and a consequent increase of weight 
 may keep a juster balance between the poles, 
 and produce a material difference in our as- 
 tronomical relations. The navigators of that 
 day will be as successful in their discoveries 
 in the south seas, as Columbus was hereto- 
 fore in the northern. For there can be lit- 
 tle doubt that there has been a time when 
 Columbus, if lie had lived, would have found 
 his reasonings, on the balance of the earth, 
 fallacious ; and would have sought these seas 
 for a continent, as much in vain, as Drake, 
 Anson, Cooke and others, encouraged per- 
 haps by similar reasoning, have since sought 
 the ocean in the south. 
 
 If Mr. BufFon's notion be correct, that the 
 eastern coast of one continent is perpetually 
 feeding on the western coast of that which 
 lies before it, the conclusion is inevitable, 
 that the present materials of Europe and Af- 
 rica and Asia in succession, will, at some fut- 
 ure day, compose the continents of North 
 and South America, while the latter thrown 
 on the Asiatic shore, will again make a part, 
 and in time, the whole of that continent to 
 which, by some philosophers, they are sup- 
 
24 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 posed to have been originally attached. It 
 is equally clear that, by this means, the con- 
 tinents will not only exchange their materials, 
 but their position ; so that in process of time, 
 they must respectively make a tour around 
 the globe, maintaining, still, the same cere- 
 monious distance from each other, which 
 they now hold. 
 
 According to my theory, which supposes 
 an alluvion on the western as well as the east- 
 ern coasts, the continents and islands of the 
 earth, will be caused, reciprocally to approx- 
 imate, and (if materials enough can be found 
 in the bed of the ocean or generated by any 
 operation of nature) ultimately to unite. 
 Our island of Great Britain, therefore, at 
 some future day, and in proper person, will 
 probably invade the territory of France. In 
 the course of this process of alluvion as it re- 
 lates to this country, the refluent waters of 
 the Atlantick will be forced to recede from 
 Hampton Roads and the Chesapeake, the 
 beds whereof will become fertile vallies, or, 
 as they are called here, river bottoms ; while 
 the lands in the lower district of the state, 
 which are now only a very few feet above 
 the surface of the sea, will rise into majestic 
 eminences, and the present sickly site of 
 Norfolk be converted into a high and salu- 
 brious mountain. I apprehend, however, 
 that the present inhabitants of Norfolk would 
 be extremely unwilling to have such an ef- 
 
BRITISH SPY. 2* 
 
 feet wrought in their day ; since there can be 
 little doubt that they prefer their present 
 commercial situation, incumbered as it is by 
 the annual visits of the yellow fever, to the 
 elevation and health of the Blue Ridge. 
 
 In the course of the process, too, of which 
 I have been speaking, if the theory be cor- 
 rect, the gulf of Mexico will be eventually fil- 
 led up, and the West India Islands consolidat- 
 ed Math the American continent. 
 
 These consequences, visionary as they may 
 now appear, are not only probable, but if 
 the alluvion which is demonstrated to have 
 taken place already, should continue, they 
 are inevitable. There is very little proba- 
 bility that the isthmus of Darien, which con- 
 nects the continents, is coeval with the Blue 
 Ridge or the Cordilleras ; and it requires only 
 a continuation of the causes which produced 
 the isthmus, to effect the reception of the 
 gulph and the consolidation of the islands 
 with the continent. 
 
 But when ? I am possessed of no data 
 whereby the calculations can be made. — 
 The depth at which Herculaneum and Pom- 
 peia were found to be buried in the course 
 of 1 600 years affords us no light on this in- 
 quiry ; because their burial was effected not 
 by the slow alluvion and accumulation of 
 time, but by the sudden eruptions of Vesu- 
 vius. As little are we aided by the repletion 
 of the earth around the Tarpeian rock in 
 
2$ BRITISH SPY. 
 
 Rome ; since that repletion was most prob- 
 ably effected in a very great degree by the 
 materials of fallen buildings. And besides, 
 the original height of the rock is not ascer- 
 tained with any kind of precision, historians 
 having, I believe, merely informed us that it 
 was sufficiently elevated to kill the criminals 
 who were thrown from its summit. 
 
 But a truce with philosophy. Who could 
 have believed that the skeleton of an nnwield- 
 y Whale, and a few mouldering teeth of a 
 Shark would have led me such a dance ! — 
 Adieu, my dear S*******i for the present. 
 May the light of Heaven continue to shine 
 around vou ! 
 
 *#**-*-*****«#* 
 
 LETTER IIL 
 
BRITISH SPY. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 BICHMOND, SEPTEMBER, 15. 
 
 YOU inquire into the state of your fa- 
 vourite art in Virginia. Eloquence my dear 
 8*******^ has few successful votaries here. 
 I mean eloquence of the highest order ; such 
 as that, to which not only the bosom of your 
 friend, but the feelings of the whole British 
 nation, bore evidence, in listening to the 
 charge of the Begums in the prosecution of 
 Warren Hastings. 
 
 In the national and state legislatures, as 
 well as at the various bars in the United 
 States, I have heard great volubility, much 
 good sense, and some random touches of the 
 pathetick ; but in the same bodies I have 
 heard a far greater proportion of puerile rant, 
 of tedious and disgusting inanity. Three 
 remaks are true as to almost all their ora- 
 tors. 
 
 First ; they have not a sufficient fund of 
 geueral knowledge. 
 
3a BRITISH SPY. 
 
 Secondly ; they have not the habit of close 
 and solid thinking. 
 
 Thirdly ; they do not aspire at original 
 ornaments. 
 
 From these three defects it most generally 
 results, that, although they pour out, easily 
 enough, a torrent of words, yet these are 
 destitute of the light of erudition, the prac- 
 tical utility of just and copious thought, of 
 those novel and beautiful allusions and em- 
 bellishments .with which the very scenery 
 of the country is so highly calculated to in- 
 spire them. 
 
 The truth is, my dear S**^****, that 
 this scarcity of genuine and sublime elo- 
 quence is not confined to the United States ; 
 instances of it in any civilized country have 
 always been rare indeed. Mr. Blair is cer- 
 tainly correct in the opinion, that a state of 
 nature is most favourable to the higher ef- 
 forts of the imagination, and the more unre- 
 strained and noble raptures of the heart. 
 Civilization, wherever it has gained ground, 
 has interwoven with society, a habit of ar- 
 tificial and elaborate decorum, which mix- 
 es in every operation of life, deters the fancy 
 from every bold enterprise, and buries na- 
 ture under a load of hypocritical ceremonies. 
 A man therefore, in order to be eloquent, 
 has to forget the habits in which he has been 
 educated ; and never will he touch his audi- 
 ence so exquisitely, as when he goes back to 
 
BRITISH SPY. 29 
 
 the primitive simplicity of the patriarchal 
 age. 
 
 I have said that instances of genuine and 
 sublime eloquence have always been rare in 
 every country. It is true that Tully, and 
 Pliny the younger, have, in their epistles, 
 represented Rome, in their respective days, 
 as swarming with orators of the first class : 
 yet from the specimens which they them- 
 selves have left us, I am led to entertain a 
 very humble opinion of ancient eloquence. 
 Demosthenes, we know, has pronounced, not 
 " the chief, but the sole merit of an orator to 
 consist in delivery, or, as lord Verulam trans- 
 lates it, in action; and, although I know that 
 the world would proscribe it as a literary 
 heresy, I cannot help believing Tully's mer- 
 it to have been principally of tnat kind. For 
 my own part, I confess very frankly, that I 
 have never met with any thing of his, which 
 has, according to my taste, deserved the 
 name of superior eloquence. His style, in- 
 deed, is pure, polished, sparkling, full and 
 sonorous, and, perhaps, deserves all the en- 
 comiums which have been bestowed on it. 
 But an oration certainly no more deserves 
 the title of superiour eloquence because its 
 style is ornamented, than the figure of an 
 Apollo would deserve the epithet of elegant 
 merely from the superiour texture and flow of 
 the drapery. In reading an oration it is the 
 mind to which I look. It is the expanse and 
 E 
 
30 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 richness or the conception itself which T re- 
 gard, and not the glittering tinsel wherein it 
 may be attired. Tully's orations, examined 
 in this spirit, have with me, sunk far below 
 the grade at which w r e have been taught to 
 tix them. It is true, that at school I learnt, 
 like the rest of the world, to lisp, " Cicero 
 the orator" : but when I grew up and began 
 to judge for myself, I opened his volume a- 
 gain, and looked in vain for that sublimity of 
 conception which fills and astonishes the mind, 
 that simple pathos which finds such a sweet 
 welcome to every breast, or that restless en- 
 thusiasm of unaffected passion which takes 
 the heart by storm. On the contrary let me 
 confess to you that, whatever may be the 
 cause, to me, he seemed cold and vapid and 
 uninteresting and tiresome : not only desti- 
 tute of that compulsive energy of thought, 
 which we look for in a great man, but ever 
 void of the strong, rich and varied colouring 
 of a superiour fancy. — His master-piece of 
 composition, his w r ork, De Oratore, is, in my 
 judgment, extremely light and unsubstantial ; 
 and, in truth, is little more than a tissue of 
 rhapsodies, assailing the ear, indeed, with 
 pleasant sounds, but leaving few clear and 
 useful traces on the mind. — Plutarch speaks 
 of his person as all grace, his voice as perfect 
 inusick, his look and gesture as ail alive, strik- 
 ing, dignified and peculiarly impressive; and 
 I incline to the opinion that to these theatri- 
 
BRITISH SPY. ' 31 
 
 cal advantages, connected with the just re- 
 liance which the Romans had in his patriot- 
 ism and good judgment, their strong interest 
 in the subjects dicussed by him, and their 
 more intimate acquaintance with the idiom of 
 his language, his fame, while living, arose ; 
 and that it has been since propagated by the 
 schools on account of the classick purity and 
 elegance of his style. Many of these remarks 
 are, in my opinion, equally applicable to De- 
 mosthenes. He deserves, indeed, the distinc- 
 tion of having more fire and less smoke than 
 Tully. But in the majestick march of the 
 mind — in force of thought and splendour of 
 imagery, I think both the orators of Greece 
 and Rome eclipsed by more than one person 
 within his majesty's dominions. 
 
 Heavens ! How I should be anathematized 
 and excommunicated by every pedagogue in 
 Great Britain, if these remarks were made 
 publick ! Spirits of Car and of Ascham ! have 
 mercy upon me ! Woe betide the hand that 
 plucks the wizard beard of hoary error. From 
 lisping infancy to stooping age, the reproach- 
 es, the curses of the world shall be upon it ! — - 
 But to you, my dearest S*******,my friend, 
 my preceptor, to you I disclose my opinions 
 with the same freedom and for the same pur- 
 pose, that I would expose my wounds to a 
 surgeon. To you it is peculiarly proper that 
 I should make my appeal on this subject : for 
 
32 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 when eloquence is the theme, your name is 
 not far off ! 
 
 Tell me, then, you, who are capable of do- 
 ing it, what is this divine eloquence ? What, 
 the charm by which the orator binds the sen- 
 ses of his audience — by which he attunes and 
 touches and sweeps the human lyre, with the 
 resistless sway and master hand of a Timothe- 
 us ? Is not the whole mystery comprehended 
 in one word— SYMPATHY ? I mean not 
 merely that tender passion which quavers the 
 lip and fills the eye of the babe when he looks 
 on the sorrows and tears of a mother ; but that 
 still more delicate and subtle quality, by 
 which we passively catch the very colours, 
 momentum and strength of the mind, to whose 
 operations we are attending ; which converts 
 every speaker to whom we listen, into a Pro- 
 crustes ; and enables him for the moment to 
 stretch or lop our faculties to fit the standi 
 ard in his own mind ? 
 
 This is a very curious subject, I am some- 
 times half inclined to adopt the notion stated 
 by our Great Bacon, in his original and mas- 
 terly treatise on the Advancement of Learn- 
 ing. *' Fascination says he, is the power and 
 << act of imagination intensive upon oth- 
 iC er bodies than the body of the imag- 
 "inant; wherein the school of Paracelsus 
 " and the disciples of pretended natural mag- 
 " ick have been so intemperate, as that they 
 *' have exalted the power of the imagination 
 
BRITISH SPY. 33 
 
 " to be much one of the power of miracle- 
 " working faith :— others that draw nearer to 
 " probability, calling to their view the secret 
 " passages of things and especially of the con- 
 <f tagion that passeth from body to body, do 
 " conceive it should likewise be agreeable to 
 " nature, that there should be some transmis- 
 " sions and operations from spirit to spirit, 
 
 " without the mediation of the senses : 
 
 " whence the conceits have grown, now al- 
 " most made civil, of the mastering spirit, 
 " and the force, confidence, and the like." 
 This notion is farther explained in his Sylva 
 Syl varum, wherein he tells a story of an E- 
 gyptian soothsayer who made Mark Anthony 
 believe that his genius, which was otherwise 
 brave and confident, was in the presence of 
 Octavianus Caesar, poor and cowardly : and 
 therefore he advised him to absent himself 
 as much as he could, and remove far from 
 him. It turned out,liowever, that this sooth- 
 sayer was suborned by Cleopatra, who wished 
 Anthony's company in Egypt. 
 
 Yet, if there be not something of this se- 
 cret intercourse from spirit to spirit, how 
 does it happen that one speaker shall gradu- 
 ally invade and benumb all the faculties of 
 my soul, as if I were handling a torpedo ; 
 wnile another, like the gymnotus of Surinam, 
 shall arouse me with an electrick shock ? How 
 does it happen that the first shall infuse his 
 poor spirit into my system, lethargise my na- 
 
34 BRITISH SPY.. 
 
 tive. intellects*, and bring down my powers 
 exactly to the level of his own ; or that the 
 last shall descend upon me like an angel of 
 light, breathe new energies into my frame, 
 dilate my soul with his own intelligence, ex- 
 alt me into a new and noble region of thought, 
 snatch me from the earth at pleasure, and 
 rap me to the seventh heaven ? And, what is 
 still more wonderful, how does it happen 
 that these different effects endure so long af- 
 ter the agency of the speaker has ceased ? 
 In so much that if I sit down to any intellect- 
 ual exercise, after listening to the first speak- 
 er, my performance shall be unworthy even 
 of me, and the numb-fish visible and tangible 
 in every sentence ; whereas, if I enter on 
 the same amusement, after having attended 
 to the last mentioned orator, I shall be as- 
 tonished at the elevation and vigour of my 
 own thoughts ; and if I meet accidentally 
 with the same production a month or two af- 
 terwards, when my mind has lost the inspira- 
 tion, shall scarcely recognize it for my ,vn 
 work. Whence all this ? To me it ^ uld 
 seem, that it must proceed either frofL the 
 subtile commerce between the spirits of men, 
 which Lord Verulam notices, and which en- 
 ables the speaker thereby to identify his 
 hearer with himself : or else that the mind of 
 man possesses, independently of any volition 
 on the part of its proprietor, a species of pu- 
 pillary faculty of dilating and contracting it- 
 
BRITISH SPY. 33 
 
 self in proportion to the pencil of the rays 
 of light which the speaker throws upon it ; 
 which dilatation or contraction, as in the case 
 of the eye cannot be immediately and ab- 
 ruptly altered. 
 
 Whatever may be the solution, the fact, I 
 think, is certainly as I have stated it. And 
 it is remarkable that the same effect is pro- 
 duced, though perhaps in a less degree, by 
 perusing books into which different degrees 
 of spirit and genius have been infused. I am 
 acquainted with a gentleman who never sits 
 down to a composition wherein he wishes to 
 shine, without previously reading, w f ith in- 
 tense application, half a dozen pages of his 
 favourite Bolingbroke. Having taken the 
 character and impulse of that writer's mind 
 he declares that he feels his pen to flow with 
 a spirit not his own; and that, if, in the course 
 o£ his work, his powers begin to languish, he 
 fi f u ds it easy to revive and charge them afresh 
 frc ■ \ the same never failing source. If these 
 thin be not visionary, it becomes important 
 to a i.n, for anew reason, what book he reads 
 and what company he keeps; since, according 
 to Lord Verulam's notion, an influx of this 
 spirits of others may change the native char- 
 acter of his heart and understanding, before 
 he is aware of it; or, according to the other 
 suggestion, he may so habitually contract the 
 pupil of his mind, as to be disqualified for 
 the comprehension of a great subject, and 
 
36 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 fit only formicroscopick observations. Where- 
 as by keeping the company and reading the 
 works of men of magnanimity and genius 
 only, he may receive their qualities by subtle 
 transmission, and eventually get the eye, the 
 ardour and the enterprise of an eagle. 
 
 ************** 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
BRITISH SPY. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 RICHMOND, SEPTEMBER, 15. 
 
 BUT whither am I wandering ? Permit 
 me to return. Admitting the correctness of 
 the principles formerly mentioned, it would 
 seem to be a fair conclusion, that whenever 
 an orator wishes to know what effect he has 
 wrought on his audience, he should cooly 
 and conscientiously propound to himself this 
 question — have I, myself, throughout my o- 
 ration, felt those clear and cogent convic- 
 tions of judgment, and that pure and exalted 
 fire of the soul, with which I wished to inspire 
 others ? For, he may rely on it, that he can- 
 not more impart (or, to use Bacon's word, 
 transmit) convictions and sensations which he 
 himself has not, at the time, sincerely felt, 
 *han he can convey a clear title to property, 
 in which he himself has no title. 
 
 This leads me to remark a defect, which 
 I have noticed more than once in this coun- 
 try. Following up too closely the cold con- 
 ceit of the Roman division of an oration, the 
 speakers set aside a particular part of their 
 discourse, usually the 'peroration, in w r hich 
 E 
 
38 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 they take it into their heads that they will be 
 pathetick. Accordingly, when they reach 
 this part, whether it be prompted by the feel- 
 ings or not, a mighty bustle commences. 
 The speaker pricks up his ears, erects his 
 chest, tosses his arms with hysterick vehe- 
 mence, and says every thing which he sup- 
 poses ought to affect his hearers ; but it is all 
 in vain : for it is obvious that every thing he 
 says is prompted by the head, and however 
 it may display his ingenuity and fertility — 
 however it may appeal to the admiration of 
 his hearers, it will never strike deeper. The 
 hearts of the audience will refuse all com- 
 merce except with the heart of the speaker ; 
 nor in this commerce is it possible by any 
 disguise, however artful, to impose false 
 ware on them. However the speaker may 
 labour to seem to feel, however near he may 
 approach to the appearance of the reality, 
 the heart nevertheless possesses a keen, un- 
 erring sense, which never fails to detect the 
 imposture. It would seem as if the heart of 
 man stamps a secret mark on all its effusions, 
 which alone can give them currency, and 
 which no ingenuity, however adroit, can suc- 
 cessfully imitate. I have been not a little 
 diverted here, in listening to some fine ora- 
 tors who deal almost entirely in this pathos 
 of the head. They practise the start, the 
 pause — make an immense parade of attitudes 
 and gestures, and seem to imagine them- 
 selves piercing the heart with a thousand 
 
BRITISH SPY. G9 
 
 wounds. The heart all the time, develop- 
 ing every trick that is played to cajole her, 
 and sitting serene and composed, looks on 
 and smiles at the ridiculous pageant as it 
 passes. Nothing can, in my opinion, be 
 more illy judged in an orator, than to in- 
 dulge himself in this idle, artificial parade. 
 It is particularly unfortunate in an exordium. 
 Ic is as much as to say, caveat auditor ; and 
 for my own part, the moment I see an ora- 
 tor rise with this menacing majesty — assume 
 a look of solemn wisdom — stretch forth his 
 right arm, like the rubens dexter of Jove — - 
 and hear him open his throat in deep and 
 tragick tone, I feel myself involuntarily brac- 
 ed and in an attitude of defence, as if I were 
 going to take a bout with Mendoza. The 
 Virginians boast of an orator of nature, 
 whose manner was the reverse of all this ; 
 and he is the only orator of whom they do 
 boast, with much emphasis. I mean the cel- 
 ebrated Patrick Henry, whom I regret that I 
 came to this country too late to see. I can- 
 not, indeed, easily forgive him, even in the 
 grave, his personal instrumentality in separ- 
 ating these fair colonies from Great Britain. 
 Yet I dare not withhold from the memory of 
 his talents, the tribute of respect to which 
 they are so justly entitled. I am told that 
 his general appearance and manners were 
 those of a plain farmer or planter of the back 
 country ; that, in this character, he always 
 entered oa the exordium of an oration — di*- 
 
40 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 qualifying himself, with looks and expres- 
 sions of humility, so lowly and unassuming, 
 as threw every heart off its guard, and in- 
 duced his audience to listen to him, with the 
 same easy openness with which they would 
 converse with an honest neighbour : — but, 
 by and by, when it was little expected, he 
 would take a flight so high, and blaze with a 
 splendour so heavenly, as filled tliem with a 
 kind of religious awe, and gave him the force 
 and authority of a prophet. You remember 
 this was the manner of Ulysses ; commencing 
 with a depressed look, and hesitating voice. 
 Yet I dare say Mr. Henry was directed to it, 
 not by the example of Ulysses, of which it is 
 \-ery probable, that at the commencement 
 of his career, at least, he was entirely igno- 
 rant ; — but either that it was the genuine 
 trembling diffidence, without which, if Tul- 
 ly may be believed, a great orator never rises ; 
 or else that he was prompted to it by his own 
 sound judgment and his intimate knowledge 
 of the human heart. I have seen the skel- 
 etons of some of his orations. The periods, 
 and their members, are short, quick, eager, 
 palpitating, and are manifestly the extempo- 
 raneous ettusions of aminddeeply convicted, 
 and a heart inflamed with zeal for the propa- 
 gation of those convictions. They afford, 
 however, a very inadequate sample of his 
 talents ; the stenographer having never the 
 tempted to follow him, when he arose in at- 
 strength and awful majesty of his genius. 
 
BRITISH SPY. 41 
 
 I am not a little surprised to find elo- 
 quence of this high order so negligently cul- 
 tivated in the United States. Considering 
 what a very powerful engine it is in a re- 
 publick, and how peculiarly favourable to its 
 culture, the climate of republicks has been al- 
 ways found, I expected to have seen in A- 
 merica, more votaries to Mercury than even 
 to Plutus, Indeed it would be so sure a 
 road both to wealth and honours, that if I 
 coveted either, and were an American, I 
 would bend all my powers to its acquire- 
 ment, and try whether I could not succeed 
 as well as Demosthenes, in vanquishing nat- 
 ural imperfections. Ah ! my dear S*******, 
 were you a citizen of this country ! you, un- 
 der the influence of whose voice a parliament 
 of Great Britain has trembled and shuddered, 
 while her refined and enlightened galleries 
 have wept and fainted in the excess of feeling ! 
 what might you not accomplish ! But, for 
 the honour of my country, I am much better 
 pleased that you are a Britain. On the sub- 
 ject of Virginian eloquence, you shall hear 
 father from me. In the mean time, adieu, 
 m y s******* 5 m y f r iend, my father. 
 
 ************** 
 
 LETTER V, 
 
RRITISH SPY. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 RICHMOND, SEPTEMBER 23. 
 
 I HA VE just returned, my dearS*******, 
 from an interesting morning's ride. My ob- 
 ject was to visit the site ot the Indian town, 
 Powhatan, which vou will remember was the 
 metropolis of the dominions of Pocabuntas' 
 father, and, very probably, the birthplace of 
 that celebrated princess. The town was built 
 on the river about two miles below the ground 
 now occupied by Richmond ; that is, about 
 two miles below the head of tide water. The 
 land whereon it stood is, at present, part of a 
 beautiful and valuable farm belonging to a 
 gentleman by the name of William Mayo. 
 
 Aware of the slight manner in which the 
 Indians have always constructed their habita- 
 tions, I was not at all disappointed in find- 
 ing no vestige of the old town. But as I 
 traversed the ground over which Pocahuntas 
 had so often bounded and frolicked in the 
 sprightly morning of her youth, I could not 
 help recalling the principal features of her 
 history, and heaving a sigh of mingled pity 
 stud veneration to her memory. GoodHeav- 
 
BRITISH SPY. 43 
 
 en ! What an eventful life was hers ! To 
 speak of nothing else, the arrival of the Eng- 
 lish in her father's dominions, must have ap- 
 peared, (as, indeed, it turned out to be) a 
 most portentous phenomenon. It is not easy 
 for us to conceive the amazement and con- 
 sternation which must have filled her mind, 
 and that of her nation, at the first appear- 
 ance of our countrymen. Their great ship, 
 with all her sails spread, advancing in solemn 
 majesty to the shore ; their complexion ; 
 their dress; their language ; their domestick 
 animals ; their cargo of new and glittering 
 wealth ; and then, the thunder and irresisti- 
 ble force of their artillery ; the distant coun- 
 try announced by them, far beyond the great 
 water, of which the oldest Indian never heard, 
 or thought, or dreamed — all this was so new, 
 so wonderful, so tremendous, that I do se- 
 riously suppose, the personal descent of an 
 army of Milton's celestial angels, robed in 
 light, sporting the bright beams of the sun, 
 and redoubling their splendour, making di- 
 vine harmony with their golden harps, or 
 playing with the bolt, and chasing the rapid 
 lightning of heaven, would excite no more 
 astonishment in Great-Britain, than did the 
 debarkation of the English among the abori- 
 gines of Virginia. 
 
 Poor Indians ! — Where are they now ! — 
 Indeed my dear S*******, this is a truly af- 
 flicting consideration. The people here may 
 say what they please ; but on the principles 
 
44 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 of eternal truth and justice, they bare no 
 right to this country. They say that they 
 have bought it ; Bought it ! Yes ; of whom? 
 Of the poor trembling natives, who knew 
 that refusal would be vain, and who strove 
 to make a merit of necessity, by seeming 
 to yield with a grace, what they knew they 
 bad not the power to retain. Such a bar- 
 gain might appease the conscience of a 
 gentleman of the green bag, " worn and 
 hacknied" in the arts and frauds of his pro- 
 fession ; but in heaven's chancery, my 
 S*******, there can be little doubt that it 
 has been long since set aside on the ground 
 of duresse* Poor wretches ! No wonder that 
 they are so implacably vindictive against the 
 "white people ; no wonder that the rage of 
 resentment is handed down from generation 
 to generation ; no wonder that they refuse 
 to associate and mix permanently with their 
 unjust and cruel invaders and exterminators ; 
 no wonder that, in the unabating spite and 
 frenzv of conscious impotence, they wage 
 an eternal war as well as they are able ; — 
 that they triumph in the rare opportunity of 
 revenge; that they dance, sing and rejoice, 
 as the victim shrieks and faints amid the 
 flames, when they imagine all the crimes of 
 their oppressors collected on his head, and 
 fancy the spirits of their injured forefathers 
 hovering over the scene, smiling, with fero- 
 cious delight at the grateful spectacle, and 
 
BRITISH SPY. 40 
 
 feasting on the precious odour as it arises 
 from the burning blood of the white man. 
 
 Yet the people, here, affect to wonder 
 that the Indians are so very unsusceptible of 
 civilization ; or, in other words, that they 
 so obstinately refuse to adopt the manners 
 of the white man. Go, Virginian ; erase 
 from the Indian nation the tradition of their 
 wrongs ; make them forget, if you can, that 
 once this charming country was theirs ; 
 that over these fields, and through these 
 forests, their beloved forefathers, once, in 
 careless gaiety, pursued their sports, and 
 hunted their game ; that every returning day 
 found them the sole, the peaceful, the happy 
 proprietors of this extensive and beautiful 
 domain ; Make them forget, too, if you can, 
 that i a the midst of all this innocence, sim- 
 plicity and bliss, the white man came, and 
 lo ! the animated chase, the feast,the dance, 
 the song of fearless, thoughtless joy, were o- 
 ver ; that, ever since, they have been made 
 to drink of the bitter cup of humiliation ; 
 treated like dogs ; their lives, their liberties, 
 the sport of the white men ; their country, 
 and the graves of their fathers, torn from 
 them in cruel succession ; until, driven from 
 river to river, from forest to forest, and, 
 through a period of two hundred years, rol- 
 led back, nation upon nation, they find 
 themselves fugitives, vagrants and stranger* 
 in their own country, and look forward to 
 the certain period when their descendants 
 
 F 
 
46 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 will be totally extinguished by wars ; driven 
 at the point of the bayonet, into the western 
 ocean ; or reduced, still more deplorable and 
 horrid, to the condition of slaves : — Go, ad- 
 minister the cup of oblivion to recollections 
 and anticipations like these, and then you 
 will cease to complain that the Indian re- 
 fuses to be civilized. But, until then, surely 
 it is nothing wonderful that a nation yet 
 bleeding afresh from the memory of ancient 
 wrongs, perpetually agonizing by new out- 
 rages, and goaded into desperation and mad- 
 ness at the prospect of the certain ruin which 
 awaits their descendants, should hate the au- 
 thors of their miseries, of their desolations, 
 their destruction ; should hate their manners, 
 hate their colour, their language, their name, 
 and every thing that belongs to them. No, 
 never, until time shall wear out the history of 
 their sorrows and their sufferings, will the 
 Indian be brought to love the white man, and 
 to imitate his manners. 
 
 Great God ! To reflect, my S*******, 
 that the authors of all these wrongs were our 
 own countrymen, our forefathers, professors* 
 of the meek and benevolent religion of Je- 
 sus ! O ! it was impious — it was unmanly — 
 poor and pitiful ! Gracious Heaven ! what 
 had these poor people done ? The simple in- 
 habitants of these peaceful plains, what 
 wrong, what injury, had they offered to the 
 English ? my soul melts with pity and shame* 
 
BRITISH SPY. 47 
 
 As for the present inhabitants, it must be 
 granted that they are comparatively inno- 
 cent ; unless, indeed, they, also, have en- 
 croached under the guise of treaties, which 
 they themselves have previously contrived to 
 render expedient or necessary to the Indians. 
 Whether this has been the case or not, I am 
 too much a stranger to the interiour transac- 
 tions of this country to decide. But it seems 
 to me that were la President of the United 
 States, I would glory in going to the Indians, 
 throwing myself on my knees before them 
 and saying to them, " Indians, friends, 
 " brothers, O ! forgive my countrymen ! 
 " Deeply have our forefathers wronged you ; 
 " and they have forced us to continue the 
 wrong. Reflect, brothers, it was not our 
 fault that we were born in your country ; 
 but now, we have no other home ; we 
 have no where else to rest our feet. Will 
 you not, then, permit us to remain ? Can 
 you not forgive even us, innocent as we 
 are ? If you can, O ! come to our bosoms ; 
 be, indeed, our brothers, and since there 
 is room enough for us all, give us a home 
 in your land and let us be children of the 
 same affectionate family." I believe that 
 a magnanimity of sentiment like this, follow- 
 ed up by a correspondent greatness of con- 
 duct in the people of the Uuited States, 
 would go farther to bury the tomahawk and 
 produce a fraternization with the Indians, 
 >han all the presents, treaties and missionaries 
 
45 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 that can be employed ; dashed and defeated 
 as these latter means always are, by a 
 claim of rights on the part of the white peo- 
 ple which the Indians know to be false and 
 baseless. Let me not be told that the In- 
 dians are too dark and fierce to be affected 
 by generous and noble sentiments. I will 
 not believe it. Magnanimity can never be 
 lost on a nation which has produced an Alk- 
 nomack, a Logan and Pocahuntas. 
 
 The repetition of the name of this amiable 
 princess brings me back to the point from 
 which I have digressed. I wonder that the 
 Virginians, fond as they are of anniversaries, 
 have instituted no festival or order in honour 
 to her memory. For my own part I have lit- 
 tle doubt, from the histories which we have 
 of the first attempts at colonizing their coun- 
 try, that Pocahuntas deserves to be consider- 
 ed as the patron deity of the enterprize. 
 When it is remembered how long the colony 
 struggled to get a footing ; how often sick- 
 ness or famine, neglect at home, mismanage- 
 ment here, and the hostilities of the natives 
 brought it to the brink of ruin ; through what 
 a tedious lapse of time, alternately languish- 
 ing and revived, it sunk and rose, sometimes 
 hanging like Addison's lamp. " quivering at 
 a point," then suddenly shooting up into a 
 sickly and short lived flame ; in one word,, 
 when w r e recollect how near and how often 
 it verged towards total extinction, maugre 
 the patronage of Pocahuntas > there is the 
 
BRITISH SPY. 49 
 
 strongest reason to believe that, but for 
 her patronage, the anniversary cannon of the 
 fourth of July would never have resounded 
 throughout the United States. 
 
 Is it not probable that this sensible ai^d a- 
 miable woman, perceiving the superiority of 
 the Europeans, foreseeing the probability of 
 the subjugation of her countrymen, and anx- 
 ious, as well to soften their destiny as to 
 save the needless effusion of blood, desired, 
 by her marriage with Mr. Rolfe, to hasten 
 the abolition of all distinction between In- 
 dians and white men ; to bind their interests 
 and affections by the nearest and most en- 
 dearing ties, and to make them regard them- 
 selves, as one people, the children of the 
 same great family ? If such were her wise 
 and benevolent views, and I have no doubt 
 that they were, how poorly were they back- 
 ed by the British Court ? No wonder at the 
 resentment and indignation with which 
 she saw them neglected ; no wonder at the 
 bitterness of the disappointment and vexa- 
 tion which she expressed to Capt. Smith, in 
 London, arising as well from the cold recep- 
 tion which she herself had met,, as from the 
 contemptuous and insulting point of view in 
 which she found that her nation was regard- 
 ed. Unfortunate Princess ! She deserved a 
 happier fate ! But I am consoled by these re- 
 reflections ; first, that she sees her descen- 
 dants among the most respectable families in 
 Virginia ; and that they are not only superi- 
 
50 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 our to the false shame of disavowing her as 
 their ancestor, but that they pride them- 
 selves, and with reason too, on the honour of 
 their descent : Secondly — that she herself 
 has gone to a country, where she finds hex 
 noble wishes realized ; where the distinction 
 of colour is no more, but where indeed, it is 
 perfectly immaterial, " what complexion an 
 Indian or an African sun may have burnt" 
 on the pilgrim. 
 
 Adieu, my dear S*******. This train of 
 thought has destroyed the tone of my spirits ; 
 when I recover them, you shall hear further 
 from me. Once more, adieu. 
 
 #*##**##*##*#***##** 
 
 LETTER VI, 
 
BRITISH SPY. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 RICHMOND, SEPTEMBER 23. 
 
 I HAVE been, my dear S*******, on an 
 excursion through the countries which lie a- 
 longthe eastern side of the Blue Ridge. A gen- 
 eral description of that country and its inhab- 
 itants may form the subject of a future letter. 
 For the present, I must entertain you with 
 an account of a most singular and interest- 
 ing adventure which I met with in the 
 course of the tour. 
 
 It was on Sunday as I travelled through 
 the county of Orange, that my eye was 
 caught by a cluster of horses tied near a ru- 
 inous old wooden house in the forest not far 
 from the road side. Having frequently seen 
 such objects before, in travelling through 
 these States, I had no difficulty in understand- 
 ing that this was a place of religious worship. 
 Devotion alone should have stopped me to 
 join in the duties of the congregation ; but I 
 must confess that curiosity to hear the preach- 
 er of such a wilderness, was not the least of 
 my motives. On entering, I was struck with 
 his preternatural appearance. He was a tall 
 and very spare old man — his head, which 
 
52 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 was covered with a white linen cap, his shriv- 
 elled hands, and his voice, all shaking under 
 the influence of a palsy, in a few moments as- 
 certained to me that he was perfectly blind. 
 The first emotions which touched my breast 
 were those of mingled pity and veneration. 
 But ah ! Sacred God ! How soon were all 
 my feelings changed ! The lips of Plato were 
 never more worthy a prognostick swarm of 
 bees, than were the lips of this holy man ! It 
 was a day of the administration of the sacra- 
 ment, and his subject, of course, was the pas- 
 sion of our Saviour. I had heard the subject 
 handled a thousand times : I had thought it 
 exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose 
 that in the wild woods of America I was to 
 meet with a man whose eloquence would give 
 to this topicka new and subiimer pathos than 
 I had ever before witnessed. As he descend- 
 ed from the pulpit to distribute the mystick 
 symbol there was a peculiar, a more than usu- 
 al solemnity in his air and manner, which 
 made my blood run cold and my whole frame 
 to shiver. He then drew a picture of our 
 Saviour — his trialbefore Pilate — his ascent up 
 Calvary — his crucifixion, and his death. I 
 knew the whole history ; but never until then 
 had I heard the circumstances so selected, so 
 arranged, so coloured ! It was all new ; and 
 I seemed to have heard it for the first time in 
 my life. His enunciation was so deliberate, 
 that his voice trembled on every syllable : and 
 «v.ery heart trembled in unison. His pecu- 
 
BRITISH SPY. 53 
 
 liar phrases had that force of description, that 
 the original scene appeared to be at that mo- 
 ment acting before our eyes. We saw the 
 very faces of the Jews — the staring, frightful 
 distortions of malice and rage. We saw the 
 buffet — my soul kindled with a flame of indig- 
 nation, and my hands were involuntarily and 
 convulsively clenched. — But when he came 
 to touch the patience, the forgiving meek- 
 ness of our Saviour — when he drew, to the 
 life, his blessed eyes streaming in tears to 
 heaven, his voice breathing to God a soft and 
 gentle prayer of pardon on his enemies 
 " Father forgive them, for they know not 
 what they do" — the voice of the preacher, 
 which had, all along, grown fainter and faint- 
 er, until his utterance being entirely obstruct- 
 ed by the force of his feelings, he raised his 
 handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud 
 and irrepressible Hood of grief. The effect 
 is inconceivable. The whole house resound- 
 ed with the mingled groans and sobs and 
 shrieks of the congregation. It was some 
 time before the tumult had subsided so far as 
 to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging 
 by the usual but fallacious standard of my 
 own weakness, I began to be very uneasy 
 for the situation of the preacher. For I could 
 not conceive how he would be able to let his 
 audience down from the height to which he 
 had wound them, without impairing the so- 
 lemnity and dignity of the subject, or per- 
 haps shocking them bv the abruptness of the 
 o 
 
54 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 fall. But — no : the descent was as beautiful 
 and sublime, as the elevation had been rapid 
 and enthusiastick. The first sentence with 
 which he broke the awful silence was a quot- 
 ation from Rousseau : " Socrates died like a 
 philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God !" 
 I despair of giving you any idea of the effect 
 produced by this short sentence, unless you 
 could perfectly conceive the whole manner 
 of the man, as well as the peculiar crisis in 
 the discourse. Never before did I completely 
 understand what Demosthenes means by lay- 
 ing such stress on delivery. 
 
 You are to bring before you the venerable 
 figure of the preacher — his blindness, con- 
 stantly recalling to your recollection old 
 Homer, Ossian and Milton and associating 
 with his performance, the melancholy gran- 
 deur of their geniuses, you are to imagine that 
 you hear his slow, solemn, w r ell accented e- 
 nunciation, and his voice of affecting, tremb- 
 ling melody — you are to remember the pitch 
 of passion and enthusiasm to which the con- 
 gregation were raised — and then the few min- 
 utes of portentous, deathlike silence which 
 reigned throughout the house — the preacher 
 removing his white handkerchief from his aged 
 face (even yet wet from the recent torrent 
 of his tears) & slowly stretching forth the pal- 
 sied hand which holds it, begins the sentence 
 — " Socrates died like a philosopher" — and 
 then pausing, raised his other, pressing them 
 both, clasped together, with warmth and en- 
 
BRITISH SPY, 55 
 
 ergy to his breast, lifting his "sightless balls" 
 to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into 
 his tremulous voice — u but Jesus Christ — - 
 like a God !" — If he had been indeed and in 
 truth an angel of light, the effect could 
 scarcely have been more divine. Whatever 
 I had been able to conceive the sublimity of 
 Massillon,or the force ofBourdaloue, had fal- 
 len far short of the power which I feel from 
 the delivery of this simple sentence. Theblood 
 which, just before, had rushed in a torrent 
 upon my brain, and in the violence and ag- 
 ony of my feeling had held my whole system 
 in suspence,nowran back into my heart with 
 a sensation which I cannot describe ; a kind 
 of shuddering, delicious horrour ! The parox- 
 ysm of blended pity andindignation,to which 
 I had been transported, subsided in the deep- 
 est fell abasement, humility and adoration I 
 I had just been lacerated and dissolved by 
 sympathy for our Saviour as a fellow crea- 
 ture ; but now, with fear and trembling, I 
 adored him as — a " God !" 
 
 If this description gives you the impression 
 that this incomparable minister had any 
 thing of shallow, theatrical trick in his man- 
 ner, it does him great injustice. I have nev- 
 er seen in any other orator, such an union of 
 simplicity and majesty. He has not a ges- 
 ture, an attitude, an accent, to which he does 
 not seem forced by the sentiment which he 
 is expressing. His mind is too serious, too 
 earnest, too solicitous, and, at the same time^ 
 
56 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 too dignified, to stoop to artifice. Although as 
 far removed from ostentation as a man can 
 be, yetit is clear from the train, the style and 
 substance of his thoughts, that he is not on- 
 ly a very polite scholar, but a man of exten- 
 sive and profound erudition. I was forcibly 
 struck with a short, yet beautiful character 
 which he drew of our learned and amiable 
 countryman, Sir Robert Boyle : he spoke of 
 him, as if " his noble mind had, even before 
 death, divested herself of all influence, froip 
 his frail tabernacle of flesh ;" and called him, 
 in his peculiar emphatick and impressive man- 
 ner, " a pure intelligence — the link between 
 men and angels !" 
 
 This man has been before my imagination 
 almost ever since. A thousand times, as I 
 rode along, I dropped the reins of my bridle, 
 stretched forth my hand, and tried to imitate 
 his quotation from Rousseau ; a thousand 
 times I abandoned the attempt in despair, and 
 felt persuaded that his peculiar manner and 
 power arose from an energy of soul which Na- 
 ture could give, but which no human Being 
 could justly copy. In short, he seems to be 
 altogether a being of a former age, or of a 
 totally different nature from the rest of men. 
 
 As I recall at this moment several of his 
 awfully striking attitudes, the chilling tide 
 -vyith which my blood begins to pour along 
 my arteries, reminds me of the emotions 
 produced by the first sight of Gray's intro- 
 ductory picture of his bard : 
 
BRITISH SPY. 
 
 = 57 
 
 On a rock, whose haughty brow 
 
 frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood, 
 rob'd in the sable garb of woe, 
 
 with haggard eyes the poet stood, 
 (loose his beard and hoary hair 
 stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air !) 
 and with a Poet's hand and Prophet's fire, 
 struck the deep sorrow on his lyre. 
 
 Guess my surprise when, on my arrival at 
 Richmond, and mentioning the name of this 
 man, I found not one person who had ever 
 before heard of JAMES WADDELL. Is it 
 not strange that such a genius as this, so ac- 
 complished a scholar, so divine an orator, 
 should be permitted to languish and die in 
 obscurity, within eight miles of the metropo- 
 lis of Virginia ? 
 
 **#*****#*#*#******* 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
BRITISH SPY, 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 RICHMOND, OCTOBER 15. 
 
 MEN of talents in this country, my clear 
 S*******, have been generally bred to the 
 profession of the law ; and indeed, through- 
 out the United States, I have met with few- 
 persons of exalted intellect, whose powers 
 have been directed to any other pursuit. 
 The bar, in America, is the road to honour ; 
 and hence, although the profession is graced 
 by the most shining geniuses on the continent, 
 it is encumbered also by a melancholy group 
 of young men who hang on the rear of the 
 bar, like Goethe's sable clouds in the w r estern 
 horizon. I have been told that the bar of 
 Virginia w T as a few years ago pronounced, by 
 the Supreme Court of the United States, to 
 be the most enlightened and able on the Con- 
 tment. lam very incompetent to decide on 
 the merit of their legal acquirements ; but, 
 putting aside the partiality of a Briton, I do 
 not think either of the gentlemen by any 
 means so eloquent or so erudite as our coun- 
 tryman, Erskine. With your permission, 
 however, I will make you better acquainted 
 
BRITISH SPY. 59 
 
 with the few characters who lead the van of 
 the profession. 
 
 jyf r ******** h^ g r eat personal advanta- 
 ges, a figure large and portly ; his features 
 uncommonly fine ; his whole countenance 
 lighted up with an expression of the most 
 conciliating sensibility ; his attitudes dignified 
 and commanding ; his gestures easy and 
 graceful ; his voice perfect harmony ; and 
 his whole manner that of an accomplished and 
 engaging gentleman. I have reason to be- 
 lieve that the expression of his countenance 
 does no more than justice to his heart. If I 
 am correctly informed, his feelings are ex- 
 quisite ; and the proofs of his benevolence 
 are various and clear beyond the possibility 
 of doubt. He has filled the highest offices in 
 this commonwealth, and has very long main- 
 tained a most respectable rank in his profes- 
 sion. His character, with the people, is that 
 of a great lawyer and an eloquent speaker ; 
 — and, indeed so many men of discernment 
 and taste entertain this opinion, and my 
 prepossessions in his favour are so strong on 
 account of the amiable qualities of his char- 
 acter, that I am very well disposed to doubt 
 the accuracy of my own judgment as it re- 
 lates to him. 
 
 To me, however, it seems that his mind, as 
 is often, but not invariably the case, corres- 
 ponds with his personal appearance ; that it 
 is turned rather for ornament than for severe 
 use. His speeches, I think, deserve the cen- 
 
60 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 sure which Lord Verulam pronounces on the 
 writers, posterior to the reformation of the 
 church. " Luther," says he, " standing a- 
 lone against the church of Rome, found it 
 necessary to awake all antiquity in his behalf; 
 this introduced the study of the dead lan- 
 guages, a taste for the fulness of the Cicero- 
 nian manner, and hence the still prevalent 
 error of hunting more after the choiceness of 
 the phrase and the round and clean compo- 
 sition of the sentence, and the sweet fallings 
 of the clauses, and the varying and illustra- 
 tion of their works with tropes and figures, 
 than after the weight of matter, worth of sub- 
 ject, soundness of argument, life of invention, 
 or depth of judgment." Mr. 's tem- 
 per and habits lead him to the swelling, stately 
 manner of Bolingbroke ; but either from 
 want of promptitude and richness of concep- 
 tion, or his sedulous concern ami " hunting 
 after words," he does not maintain that man- 
 ner smo jthly and happily. — On the contrary, 
 the spirits of his hearers, after having been 
 awakened and put into sweet and pleasant 
 motion, have their tide not unfrequently 
 checked, ru^ed and painfully obstructed, by 
 the hesitation and perplexity of the speaker. 
 It certainly must demand, my g*******^ a 
 mind of very high powers to support the 
 swell of Bolingbroke, with felicity. The 
 tones of voice which naturally belong to it, 
 keep the expectation continually " on tip- 
 toe ;" and this must be gratified not only by 
 
BRITISH SPY. 61 
 
 the most oily fluency, but by a force of ar- 
 gument, clear as light, and an alternate play 
 of imagination as grand and magnificent as 
 Herschell's dance of the sidereal system. — 
 
 The work requires to be perpetually urg- 
 ed forward. One interruption in the cur- 
 rent of the language — one poor thought or 
 abortion of fancy — one vacant aversion of the 
 eye or relaxation in the expression of face, 
 entirely breaks and dissolves the whole charm. 
 The speaker, indeed, may go on and evolve, 
 here and there, a pretty thought ; but the 
 wondrous magick of the whole, is gone for- 
 ever. 
 
 Whether it be from any defect in the or- 
 ganization of Mr. -'s mind, or that his 
 
 passion for the fine dress of his thoughts, 
 is the master passion, which like " Aaron's 
 serpent, swallows up the rest," I will not un- 
 dertake to decide ; but perhaps it results 
 from one of those two causes, that all the ar- 
 guments which I have ever heard from him, 
 are defective in that important and most ma- 
 terial character, the lucidiis ordo. I have 
 been sometimes inclined to believe that a 
 man's division of his argumer should be 
 generally found to contain a secret history 
 of the difficulties which he himself has en- 
 countered in the investigation of his subject. 
 I am firmly persuaded, that the extreme 
 prolixity of many discourses to which we are 
 doomed to listen, is chargeable not to the fer- 
 tility, but to the darkness and impotence 
 H 
 
BRITISH SPY. 
 
 of the brain which produces them, A mai 
 who sees his object in a strong light, march 
 e,s directly up to it in a right line, with tin 
 iirm step of a soldier ; while another, resid 
 frig in a less illumined zone, wanders anc 
 reels in the twilight of the brain, and ere he 
 attains his object, treads a maze as intricate 
 arid perplexing as that of the celebrated laby- 
 rinth of Crete. It w T as remarkable of the 
 ** ******* of the United States, whom] 
 mentioned to you in a former fetter as looking 
 through a subject at a glance, that he almost 
 invariably seized one strong point only, the 
 pivot of the controversy ; this point he would 
 enforce with all his power, never permitting 
 his own mind to waver, nor obscuring those 
 of the hearers, by a cloud of inferior, unim- 
 portant considerations. But this is not the 
 manner of Mr. ******** ? I suspect, that in 
 the preparatory investigation of a subject, he 
 gains his ground by slow and laborious gra- 
 dations, and that his difficulties are numer- 
 ous and embarrassing. 
 
 Hence it is, perhaps, that his points are 
 generally too multifarious ; and although a- 
 mong the rest he exhibits the strong point, 
 its appearance is -too often like that of Issa- 
 char, " bowed down between two burdens."! 
 I take this to be a very ill judged method. It 
 may serve indeed to make the multitude stare, 
 butit frustrates thegreatpurpose of the speak- 
 er. Instead of giving a simple, lucid and an- 
 imated view of a subject, it overloads, con- 
 
BRITISH SPY. $3 
 
 rounds and fatigues the listener. Instead of 
 paving him the vivacity of clear and full con- 
 'iction, it leaves him wildered, darkling, a- 
 leep ; and when he awakes, he 
 
 " — Wakes emerging from a sea of dreams, 
 
 <l tumultuous ; where his wreek'd desponding thought^ 
 
 u from wave to wave of wild uncertainty 
 
 " at random drove, her helm of reason lost." 
 
 I incline to believe that if there be a blem- 
 sh in the mind of this amiable gentleman, it 
 s the want of a strong and masculine iudg- 
 nent. If such an agent had wielded the seep- 
 re of his understanding, it is presumable th at' 
 ire this, it would have chastised his exuberant 
 bndness for literary finery, and unfortunate: 
 mrade of points in his argument, on which 
 
 have commented. If I may confide in the 
 eplies which I have heard given to him at 
 he bar, this want of judgment is sometimes 
 nanifested in his selection and application of 
 he law cases. But of this I can judge, only from 
 he triumphant air with which his adversaries 
 »eizehis cases ; and appear to turn them against 
 iim, He is certainly a man of close and e- 
 aborate research. It would seem to me, how 
 iver, my dear S*******j that in order to 
 constitute a scientifick lawyer, something 
 more is necessary than the patient and the 
 
 rsevering revolution of the leaves of an au- 
 thor. Does it not require a discernment suf- 
 ficiently clear and strong to eviscerate the 
 principles of each case; a judgment potent 
 
64 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 enough to digest, connect and systematize i 
 them, and to distinguish at once, in any fu- 
 ture combination of circumstances, the feat- 
 ure which gives or refuses to a principle a 
 just application.— Without such intellectual 
 properties, I should conjecture (for on this 
 Subject I can only conjecture) that a man 
 could not have the fair advantage and per- 
 fect command of his reading. For in the 
 lirst place, I should apprehend that he would 
 never discover the application of a case, 
 without the reoccurrence of all the same cir- 
 cumstances ; in the next place that his cases 
 would form a perfect chaos, a rudis indigesta- 
 que moles, in his brains ; and lastly that he 
 would often, and sometimes perhaps fatally, 
 mistake the ^identifying feature, and furnish 
 his antagonist with a formidable weapon a* 
 gainst himself. 
 
 But let me fly from this entangled wilder- 
 ness of which I have so little knowledge, and 
 conclude with Mr ******** Although when 
 brought to the standard, of perfect oratory, 
 he may be subject to the censures I have pas- 
 sed on him ; yet it is to be acknowledge^, 
 and I make the acknowledgment with pleas- 
 ure, that he is a man of extensive reading, a 
 well informed lawyer, a fine belles lettres 
 scholar, and sometimes a beautiful speaker. 
 
 LETTER Vllh 
 
BRITISH SPY. 
 
 Letter viii. 
 
 JAMESTOWN, SEPTEMBER 27. 
 
 I HAVE taken a pleasant ride of sixty miles 
 own the river, in order, my dear S****** 4 *, 
 n see the remains of the first English settle- 
 ment in Virginia. The site is a very hand- 
 ome one. — The river is three miles broad ; 
 ,nd, on the opposite shore, the country pre- 
 ents a fine range of bold and beautiful hills. 
 But I find no vestiges of the ancient town, ex- 
 cept the ruins of a church steeple^ and a dis- 
 >rdered group of old tomb stones. On one 
 )f these, shaded by the boughs of a tree 
 diose trunk has embraced and grown over 
 he edge of the stone, and seated on the head- 
 tone of another grave, I now address you. 
 iVh-dt a moment for a lugubrious meditation 
 unong the tombs ; but fear not ; I have nei- 
 ;her the temper nor the genius of a Harvey : 
 md, as much as I revere his pious memory, 
 [ cannot envy him the possession of such a 
 genius and such a temper. For my own 
 part, I would not have suffered the mournful 
 Measure of writing this book and Dr. Young's 
 Night Thoughts, for all the just fame whic.U 
 
66 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 they both have gained by those celebrate 
 productions — much rather would I ha 1 ! 
 danced and sung and played the fiddle wit 
 Yorick through thewhindsical pages of Tri: 
 tram Shandy ; that book which every od 
 justly censures and admires alternately, ^n 
 which will continue to be read, abused an 
 devoured, with ever fresh delight, as long a 
 the world shall relish a joyous laugh, or 
 tear of the most delicious feeling. By th 
 bye, here, on one side, is an inscription on i 
 grave stone, which would constitute no bac 
 theme for an occasional meditation from Yor- 
 ick himself. The stone, it seems, cover; 
 the grave of a man who was born in th( 
 neighbourhood of London ; and his epitapl I 
 concludes the short and rudely executed ac- 
 count of his |)irth and death, by declaring 
 him to have been " a great sinner, in hopes 
 of a joyful resurrection ;" as if he had sinned, 
 with nb other intention, than to give himself 
 a fair title to these exulting hopes. But 
 awkwardly and ludicrously as the sentiment 
 is expressed, it is, in its meaning, most just 
 and beautiful ; as it acknowledges the bound- 
 less mercy of Heaven, and glances at that 
 divinely consoling proclamation, " come un- 
 " to me, all ye who are weary and heavy la- 
 " den, p,nd I will give you rest." 
 
 The ruin of the steeple is about thirty feet 
 high and mantled to its ver} r summit with 
 ivy. It is difficult to look at this venerable 
 ^object, surrounded as it is with these awful 
 
BRITISH SPY. 67 
 
 roofs of the mortality of man, without ex- 
 laiming in the pathetick solemnity of our 
 hakespeare, 
 
 r .3 cloud-capt towers — the gorgeous palaces — 
 ... ae solemn temples — the great globe itself — 
 . yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve : 
 
 and, like this unsubstantial pageant faded, 
 
 leave not a wreck behind. 
 
 Whence, my dear S*******, arises the ir- 
 spressiWe reverence and tender affection 
 ith which I look at this broken steeple ? It 
 % that my soul, by a secret, subtle process, in- 
 ests the mouldering ruin with her own pow- 
 rs ; imagines it a fellow being ; a venerable 
 Id man ; a Nestor, or an Ossian, who has 
 witnessed and survived the ravages ofsucces- 
 ive generations, the companions of his youth 
 nd of his maturity, and now mourns his own 
 oiitary and desolate condition, and hails 
 heir spirits in every passing cloud ? Whaf- 
 ver may be the cause, as I look at it, I feel 
 Sy soul drawn forward, as bv the cords of 
 ;entlest sympathy, and involuntarily open 
 ay lips to offer consolation to the drooping 
 rile. 
 
 Where, my S******^ is the busy bust- 
 ing croud which landed here two hundred 
 ears ago ! — Where is Smith, that pink of 
 gallantry, that flower of chivalry ? I fancy 
 hat I can see their first slow and cautious ap- 
 proach to the shore ; their keen and vigilant 
 yes piercing the forest in every direction, to 
 
BRITISH SVY, 
 
 to 
 
 detect the lurking Indian, with his ton 
 hawkj bow and arrow. — Good Hearen 
 What an enterprize ! — How full of the m< | 
 fearful perils ; and yet how entirely profith 
 to the daring men who personally underto 
 and atchieved it !! Through what a series 
 the most spirit chilling hardships had they 
 toil ? How often did they cast their eyes 
 England in vain ; and with what delusi ' 
 hopes, day after day, did the little famishu 
 crew strain their sight to caXch the white Sc 
 ©f comfort and relief ! But day after da; 
 the sun sat and darkness covered the earth 
 but no sail of comfort or relief came. Ho 
 often in the pangs of hunger, sickness, sol 
 tude and disconsolation, did they think ( 
 London ; her shops, her markets groaning ur 
 der the weight of plenty, her streets swarn: 
 ing with gilded coaches, bustling hacks an 
 with crouds of lords, dukes and common 
 with healthy, busy contented faces, of ever 
 description, and among them none mon 
 healthy or more contented than those o 
 their ungrateful and improvident directors 
 But now — where are they, all — the litth 
 famished colony which landed here, and the 
 many coloured croud of London — where ar* 
 they, my dear S******* ? Gone, where 
 there is no distinction ; consigned to the 
 common earth. Another generation suc- 
 ceeded them ; which, just as busy and as 
 bustling as that which fell before it, hassunk 
 down into the same nothingness. — -Another 
 
BRITISH SPY. C9 
 
 ^tnd yet another billow has rolled on, each 
 rnulating its predecessor in height ; tower- 
 ng, for its moment, and curling its foaming 
 lonours to the clouds, men roaring, break- 
 ng and perishing on the same shores. 
 
 Is it not strange that, familiarly and uni- 
 
 ersally as these things are known, each 
 
 generation is as eager in the pursuit of 
 
 ts earthly object*, projects its plan on a scale 
 
 e ts extensive, and labours in their execution 
 
 with a spirit as ardent and unrelaxing as if 
 
 his life and this world were to last for ever ? 
 
 It is indeed a most benevolent interposi- 
 ion of Providence, that these palpable and 
 ust views of the vanity of human life, are 
 C)ot permitted entirely to crush the spirits and 
 Unnerve the arm of industry. But at tha 
 tyame time, methinks it would be wise in man 
 o permit them to have> at least, so much 
 -veight with him as to prevent his total ab- 
 ;orption by the things of this earth, and to 
 ooint some of his thoughts and his exertions 
 o a system of being, far more permanent, 
 exalted and happy. Think not this reflec- 
 tion too solemn. It is irresistibly inspired by 
 :he objects around me, and, as rarely as it 
 jccurs (much too rarely) it is most certainly 
 md solemnly true, my S^******. 
 
 It is curious to reflect what a nation in the 
 ourse of two hundred years, has sprung up 
 ind flourished from the feeble, sickly germ 
 trhich was planted here ! Little did our short- 
 sighted court suspect the conflict which sire 
 I 
 
•ZO BRITISH SPY. 
 
 -was preparing for herself ; the convulsii 
 throe by which her infant colony would, i 
 a few years, burst from her, and start into i 
 political importance that would astonish ti 
 earth !— But Virginia, my dear S******^ 
 as rapidly as her population and her wealt 
 must continue to advance, wants one mo 
 important sourse of solid grandeur ; and tha 
 too, the animating soul of a republick. 
 mean, public spirit, that sacred armor patria 
 Tvhich filled Greece and Rome with patriots 
 heroes and scholars. There seems to me t 
 be but one object throughout the state ; I 
 grow rich ; a passion which is visible not on 
 \y in the walks of private life, but which ha 
 crept into and poisoned every public bod; 
 in the state. Indeed from the very geniu 
 of the government, by which all the public! 
 characters are at short, periodical elections 
 evolved from the body of the people, it can 
 not but happen that the councils of the stat< 
 must take the impulse of the private propen j 
 sities of the country. — Hence Virginia exhib 
 its no great publick improvements ; hence, ir 
 spite of her wealth, every part of the conn 
 try manifests her sufferings either from tht 
 penury of her guardians, or their want o; 
 that attention, and noljle pride wherewith i 
 is their duty to consult her appearance. Hei 
 roads and highways are frequently impassa- 
 ble, sometimes frightful — the very few pub- 
 lick works which have been set on foot, in- 
 stead of being carried on with spirit, are pej- 
 
BRITISH SPY. 71 
 
 fitted to languish and pine and creep feebly 
 long, in such a manner that the first part of 
 n edifice grows grey with age and almost 
 humbles in ruins, before the last part is lifted 
 *rom the dust — highest offices are sustained 
 idth so avaricious, so nigardly a hand, that 
 : ? they are not driven to subsist on roots, and 
 brink ditch water with old Fabricus, it is not 
 or the want of republican economy in the 
 jrojectors of the salaries — and, above all, the 
 ;eneral culture of the human mind, that best 
 ure for the aristocratick distinctions which 
 hey profess to love ; this culture, instead of 
 »ecoming a national care, is entrusted mere- 
 v to such individuals as hazard, indigence, 
 nisfortunes or crimes, have f orcedfrom their 
 lative Europe to seek an asylum and bread in 
 he wilds of America. They have only one 
 )ublick seminary of learning ; a college at 
 rVilliamsburg, about seven miles from this 
 >lace, which was erected in the reign of our 
 William and Mary, and bears their name. 
 This college, in the fastidious folly and af- 
 ectation of republicanism, they have en- 
 lowed with a few despicable fragments of 
 •urveyor's fees, &c. converting a body of 
 Dolite, scientifick and highly respectable pro- 
 cessors, into a shop board of contemptible 
 •abbaging taylors. 
 
 And, then, instead of aiding and energiz- 
 ng the police of the college, by a few civil 
 regulations, permitting their youth to run and 
 iot in all the wildness of dissipation ; while 
 
72 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 the venerable professors are forced to look 01 
 in the deep mortification of conscious impo 
 tence, and see their care and zeal requited 
 by the ruin of their pupils and the destruc 
 tion of their seminary. These are point 
 •which, at present, I can barely touch ; whei 
 I have an easier seat and writing desk, than ; 
 grave and a tomb stone, it will give me pleas 
 lire to dilate on them ; for it will afford at 
 opportunity of exulting in the superiority oi 
 our own energetick monarchy over this re 
 publican body without a soul. 
 
 For the present, my dear S*******, I bk 
 you adieu. 
 
 -:::-*#**###**#*#* 
 
 LETTER 4^- 
 
 
BRITISH SPY. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 RICHMOND, OCTOBER 30. 
 
 TALENTS, my dear &—•**, ttfietw) 
 
 ii they have had a suitable theatre, have nev- 
 \t failed to emerge from obscurity and as- 
 ume their proper rank in the estimation oi 
 he world. The celebrated Camden is said 
 o have been the tenant of a garret. Yet 
 Yarn the darkness, poverty and ignominy oi 
 his residence, he advanced to distinction and 
 .vealth, and graced the first offices and title? 
 ~>f our island. — It is impossible to turn ovei 
 be British Biography without being struck 
 ind charmed by the multitude of correspond -t 
 »nt examples ; a venerable groupe of ncvi 
 homines as the Romans called them ; men, 
 who, from the lowest depths of obscurity 
 and want, and without even the influence oi; 
 a patron, have risen to the first honours oi 
 their country, and founded their own fami-t 
 lies anew. In every nacion and in everv 
 age, great talents, thrown fairly into tlu, 
 point of publick observation, will, invariably 
 produce the same ultimate effect. Thv 
 fealous pride of power may attempt to re- 
 
1 
 
 IS 
 
 in 
 
 in 
 
 t 
 
 oi 
 
 i 
 
 74 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 press and crush them ; the base and malig| |j 
 nant rancour of impotent spleen and env;| 
 may strive to embarrass and retard thei 
 flight : but these efforts, so far from atchiev 
 ing their ignoble purpose, so far from pro 
 ducing a discernible obliquity in the ascen 
 of genuine and vigorous talents, will servt 
 only to increase their momentum and marl 
 their transit with an additional stream of glo 
 ry. When the great earl of Chatham firs 
 made his appearance in our house of Com 
 mons, and began to astonish and transpon 
 the British Parliament and the British nation, 
 by the boldness, the force, and range of his, 
 thoughts, and the celestial fire and pathos oi| 
 his eloquence, it is well known that the min- 
 ister, Walpole, and his brother Horace (from 
 motives very easily understood) exerted all 
 their wit, ail their oratory, all their acquire 
 ments of every description, sustained and en- 
 forced by the unfeeling " insolence of office," 
 to heave a mountain on his gigantick geniusi 
 and hide it from the world. Poor and pow-i 
 erless attempt ! — The tables were turned.) 
 He rose upon them in the might and irresist-i 
 ible energy of his genius, and in spite of all 
 their convolutions, frantick agonies and 
 spasms, he strangled them and their whole fac- 
 tion with as much ease ,as Hercules did the ser- 
 pent Python. Who can turnover the de- 
 bates of the day, and read the account of 
 this conflict between youthful ardour and 
 hoary hsadad cunning and power, without' 
 
BRITISH SPY. 75 
 
 ? indling in the cause of the tyro and shout- 
 %g at his victory ? That they should have 
 Attempted to pass off the grand, yet solid 
 v ud judicious operation of a mind like his, 
 Is being mere theatrical start and emotion ; 
 lie giddy, hair-brained eccentricities of a ro- 
 T( iantickboy ! That they should have the 
 r * resumption to suppose themselves capable 
 °"f chaining down to the floor of the parlia- 
 ment, a genius so etherial, towering, and 
 tt tiblime! Why did they not, in the next 
 rt reath, by way of crowning the climax of 
 ] i anity , bid the magnificent fire-ball to de- 
 fend from its exalted and appropriate re- 
 ion, and perform its splendid tour along the 
 nrface of the earth ?* When the son of this 
 reat man, too, our present minister, and his 
 ompeer and rival, our friend, first commenc- 
 
 * See a beautiful note in Darwin's Botanick Garden, in 
 f hich the writer suggests the probability of three concen- 
 ic strata of our atmosphere, in which, or between them, 
 re produced four kind of meteors ; in the lowest the com- 
 lon lightning ; in the next, shooting stars ; and the high- 
 st region, which he supposes to consist of inflammable 
 as, tenfold lighter than the common atmospherick air, he 
 aakes the theatre of the northern light, and fire ball or 
 
 ace volans. He recites the history of one of the latter, 
 een in the year 1768, which was estimated to have been 
 mile and a half in circumference ; to have been 100 miles 
 Ligh, and to have moved 30 miles in a second. It had a 
 eal tail many miles long, which threw off sparks in its 
 iourse, and the whole exploded like that of distant thun- 
 ler. Bot. Garden. Part 1. add. note I. 
 
76 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 ed their political career, the publick pape 
 teemed wish strictures on their respective ta 
 ents ; the first was censured as being merei 
 a dry and even a slimsy reasoner ; the la 
 was stigmatized as an empty declaimer. Bi 
 errour and misrepresentation soon expii 
 and are forgotten : while truth rises upc 
 their ruins and " flourishes in eternal youth. 
 Thus the false, the light, fugacious newsp< 
 per criticisms which attempted to dissect an 
 censure the arrangement of those gentlemen 
 talents, have been long since swept away b 
 the besom of oblivion. They wanted Truth 
 that soul, which alone, can secure immortal 
 ity from any literary work. And Mr. Pit 
 and Mr. Fox have, for many years, been, re I 
 ciprocally and alternately recognized, just a 
 their subject demands it, either as close ant 
 cogent reasoners or <is beautiful and superl 
 rhetoricians. Talents, therefore, which an 
 before the publick, have nothing to dreac 
 either from the jealous pride of power, o; 
 from the transient misrepresentations of par- 
 tv, spleen, or envy. In spite of oppression 
 from any cause, their buoyant spirit will lift 
 them to their proper grade— it will be unjust 
 that it should lift them higher. 
 
 It is true there always are and always wijj 
 be in every society, individuals, who will fan? 
 cy themselves examples of genius overlook- 
 ed, under-rated or invidiously oppressed. 
 But the misfortune of such persons is imput- 
 able to their own vanity, and not to the pub* 
 
BRITISH SPY. fi 
 
 lick opinion which has weighed and gradu- 
 ated them. We remember many of our 
 school mates whose geniuses bloomed and 
 died within the walls of alma mater ; but 
 ivhose bodies still live, the jnoving monu- 
 ments of departed splendour, the animated 
 ind affecting remembrances of the extreme 
 Vagility of the human intellect. We re- 
 member others who have entered on publick 
 ire with the most exulting promise ; have 
 town from the earth, like rockets ; and after 
 i short and brilliant flight ; have bursted with 
 mc or two explosions.... to blaze no more. 
 
 Others by a few premature scintillations of 
 ;hought have led themselves and their partial 
 riends to hope that they were fast advancing 
 o a dawn of soft and beauteous light and a 
 neridian of bngbt and gorgeous effulgence. 
 3ut their day has never yet broken, and nev- 
 r will it it break. They are doomed forev- 
 r to that dim, crepuscular light which sur- 
 ounds the frozen poles, when the sun has re- 
 reated to the opposite circle of the heavens. 
 Their's is the eternal glimmering of the 
 >rain ; and their most luminous displays are 
 he faint twinklings of the glow-worm. We 
 ^ave seen others, who, at their start, gain a 
 asual projectility which raises them above, 
 leir proper grade ; but, by the just opera- 
 Ion of their specifick gravity, they are made 
 p subside again and settle ultimately in the 
 Iphere to which they properly belong. All 
 lese characters, and many others who have 
 
IS BRITISH SPY. 
 
 had even slighter bases for their once san- 
 guine, but now blasted hopes, form a queru- 
 lous and melancholy band of moon-struck 
 declaimers against the injustice of the world, 
 the agency of envy, the force of destiny, &c. 
 charging their misfortune on every thing but 
 the true cause : their own want of intrinsick, 
 sterling merit ; their want of that copious, 
 perennial spring of great and, useful thought, 
 without which a man may hope in vain, for 
 growing reputation. — Nor are they always 
 satisfied with 'wailing their own destiny, 
 pouring out the bitterest imprecations of their 
 souls on the cruel stars which presided at 
 their birth, and aspersing the justice of the 
 publick opinion which has scaled them : too- 
 often in the contortions and pangs of disap- 
 pointed ambition, they cast a scowling eye 
 over the world of man — start back, and 
 blanche at the lustre of superiour merit — and 
 exert all the diabolical incantations of their 
 black art to conjure up an impervious va- 
 pour, in order to shroud its glories from the 
 vrorld. But it is all in vain. In spite of evi 
 ery thing, the publick opinion will finally d& 
 justice to us all. The man who comes fair- 
 ly before the world, and who possesses thm 
 gfe&i and vigorous stamina which entitle him 
 to a niche in the temple of glory, has no- 
 reason to dread the ultimate result ; howev- 
 er slow his progress may be, he will, in the: 
 •end, most indubitably receive that distinc- 
 tion. While the rest, " the swallows of sci-» 
 
 ] 
 
BRITISH SP?. 7» 
 
 ence," the butterflies of genius may flutter 
 for their spring ; but they will soon pass away 
 and be remembered no more. No enter- 
 prizing man, therefore, (and, least of all, the 
 ruly great man) has reason to droop, or re- 
 pine at any efforts which he may suppose to 
 3e made with the view to depress him ; since 
 le may rely on the universal and unchanging 
 ruth, that talents, which are before the 
 oriel, will most inevitably find their proper 
 evel ; and this is certainly all that a just 
 nan should desire. Let then, the temp- 
 est of envy or malice howl around him. I lis 
 jenius will consecrate him ; <md any attempt 
 o extinguish that, will be as unavailing as 
 rould a human effort " to quench the stars." 
 I have been led farther into these reflec- 
 ions than I had anticipated. The train was 
 tarted by casting my eyes over Virginia ; ob- 
 erving the very few who have advanced on 
 he theatre of publick observation, and the 
 ery many who will remain forever behind 
 he scenes. What frequent instances of high, 
 iative genius, have I seen springing in the 
 i r ildnernesses of this country ; genius, whose 
 'ossoms the light of science have never 
 lourled into expansion ; genius which is 
 loomed to fall and die, far from the notice 
 nd the haunts of men ! How often, as I have 
 eld my way through the western forests of 
 lis state, and reflected on the vigorous shoots 
 f superiour intellect which were freezing 
 nd perishing there for want of culture — how 
 
80 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 often have I recalled the moment when o 
 pathetick Gray, reclining under the mou 
 dering elm of his country church yard, whi 
 the sigh of genial sympathy broke from h 
 heart, aud the tear of noble pity started in h 
 eye, exclaimed, 
 
 " Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 
 
 some heart once pregnant with celestial fire, 
 
 hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd, 
 or wak'd to ecstacy the living lyre. 
 
 But knowledge to their eyes, her ample page, 
 rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unrol ; 
 
 chill penury repress'd their noble rage, 
 and froze the genial current of their soul. 
 
 Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 
 
 the dark, unfathom'd waves of ocean bear ; 
 
 full many a flow'r is born to blush, unseen, 
 and waste its sweetness on the desert air. 
 
 Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, 
 the little tyrant of his fields withstood ; 
 
 some mute, inglorious Milton, here may rest; 
 some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. 
 
 Th' applause of iist'ning senates to command, 
 the threats of pain and ruin to despise, 
 
 to scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, 
 and read their history in a nation's eye 
 
 their lot forbade :" 
 
 The heart of a philanthropist, no matter to 
 what country or what form of government he 
 may belong, immediately inquires — " and is 
 there no mode to prevent this melancholy 
 
 
BRITISH SPY. 81 
 
 aste of talents ? Is there no mode by which 
 ie rays of science might be so diffused over 
 be state, as to call forth each latent bud into 
 fe and luxuriance ?" There is such a mode ; 
 nd what renders the legislature of this state 
 [till more inexcusable, the plan by which 
 [hese important purposes might be effected 
 las been drawn out and has lain by them for 
 iiearly thirty years. The declaration of the 
 Independence of this commonwealth was 
 nade in the month of May, 1,776. In the 
 all of that year, a statute, or as it is called 
 jere, " an act of Assembly" was made, pro- 
 dding that a committee of five persons should 
 >e appointed to prepare a code of laws, a- 
 lapted to the change of the state govern- 
 neflt. This code was to be submitted to the 
 egislature of the country and to be ratified 
 3r rejected by their suffrage.. In the ensuing 
 November, by a resolution of the same legis- 
 ature, Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Pendie- 
 on, George Wythe, George Mason, and 
 Thomas Ludwell Lee, Esquires, were ap- 
 pointed a committee to execute the work in 
 question. It was prepared by the three first 
 named gentlemen ; the first of them, now the 
 President of the United States ; the second, 
 the President of the Supreme Court of Ap- 
 peals to Virginia ; and the third the Judge 
 of the High Court of Chancery, at this place. 
 I have perused this system of state police, 
 
 ith admiration. It is evidently the work of 
 minds of most astonishing greatness; capable 
 
S2 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 at once of a grand, profound and comprehe 
 sive survey of the present and future inten 
 and glory of the whole state; and of pursuii 
 that interest and glory through all the remo 
 and minute ramifications of the most exte 
 sive and elaborate detail. Among other wi 
 and highly patriotick bills which are propo 
 ed, there is one, For the more general diifu 
 ion of knowledge. After a preamble, in whic 
 the importance of the subject to the republic 
 is most ably and eloquently announced, tl 
 bill proposes a simple and beautiful scheme 
 whereby science (like justice under the inst 
 tutions of our Alfred) <c would have been cai 
 -ried to every man's door." Genius instea 
 of having to break its way through the thic 
 opposing clouds of native obscurity, indigene 
 and ignorance, was to be sought for throng, 
 every family in the commonwealth ; th 
 sacred spark, wherever it was detected, wa 
 to be tenderly cherished, and fanned into ; 
 Jlame ; its innate properties and tendencie 
 were to be developed and examined, anc 
 then cautiously and judiciously invested wit! 
 all the auxiliary energy and radiance 01 
 which their character was susceptible. What 
 a plan was here to give stability and solid glo- 
 ry to the republick ! If you ask me why it 
 has never been adopted, I answer that, as a 
 foreigner, I can perceive no possible reason 
 for it, except that the comprehensive views 
 and generous patriotism which produced the 
 bill, have not prevailed throughout the coun- 
 
 
BRITISH SPY. S3 
 
 i , nor presided in the body on whose vote 
 r adoption of that bill depended. I have 
 til v reason to remark it, almost every day, 
 M ,t there is throughout Virginia a most de- 
 rable destitution of publick spirit of the no- 
 pride and love of country. Unless the 
 iv of the people can be awakened from 
 s fatal apathy ; unless their thoughts, and 
 ir feelings can be urged beyond the nar- 
 v confidence of their own private affairs; 
 less they can be strongly inspired with the 
 blick zeal, the amor patriae of thp ancient 
 )ublick, the national embellishment and 
 3 national grandeur of this opulent state, 
 ist be reserved for very distant ages. 
 (Adieu my S******* ; perhaps you will 
 jar from jne again, before I leave Rich- 
 •dL 
 
 ************** 
 
 LETTER *& 
 
BRITISH SPY. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 5ICKMCXD, DECEMBER 10. 
 
 IN one of my late rides into the surroun 
 ing country, I stopped at a little inn, to r 
 fresh myself and horse ; and as the landloi 
 was neither a Boniface nor " mine host of tf 
 garter,". I called for a book, by way of ki 
 ling time, while the preparations for myri 
 past were going forward. He brought rr 
 a shattered fragment of the second volutin 
 of the Spectator, which he told me was th 
 only book in the house, for " he never troul 
 led his head about reading ;" and by th 
 way of couciusive proof, he farther informe 
 rne, that this fragment, the only book in th 
 house, had been sleeping, unmolested, in th 
 dust of his mantle-piece for ten or fiftee 
 years. I could not meet my venerable coun 
 tryrnan in a foreign land, and in this humili 
 ating plight, nor hear of the inhuman an< 
 gothick contempt with which he had beei 
 treated, without the liveliest emotion. So 1 
 read my host a lecture on the subject ; t( 
 which he appeared to pay as little attentior 
 as he had before done to the Spectator anc 
 
 
BRITISH SPY. 8.S 
 
 rith the sangfroid of a Dutchman, answer- 
 ed mc, in the cant of the country, that he 
 ' had other fish to fry," and left me. 
 
 It had been so long*, since I had an oppor- 
 unity of opening that agreeable collection, 
 hat the few numbers now left before me, 
 ippeared entirely new ; and I cannot des- 
 cribe to you the avidity and delight with 
 which I devoured those beautiful and inter- 
 esting speculations. Is it not strange, my 
 dear S*******, that such a work should 
 have ever lost an inch of ground ? A style 
 so sweet and simple ; and yet so ornament- 
 ed ! A temper so benevolent, so cheerful, so 
 exhilirating ! A body of knowledge, and of 
 original thought, so immense and various ! 
 So strikingly just, so universally useful ! 
 What person, of any sex, temper, calling, 
 or pursuit, can possibly converse with the 
 Spectator, without being conscious of imme- 
 diate improvement ? To the spleen, he is a 
 perpetual and never failing antidote, as he is 
 to ignorance and immorality. — No matter for 
 the disposition of mind in which you take 
 him up ; you smile at the wit, ]aug r h at the 
 drollery, feel your mind enlightened, your 
 heart opened, softened and refined, and when 
 you lay him down you are sure to be in bet- 
 ter humour both withyourself and every body 
 ^jsc. I have never mentioned the subject 
 to a reader of the Spectator, who did not ad- 
 mit this to be the invariable process : and in 
 such a world of misfortunes, of cares, and. 
 
 L 
 
*u BRITISH SPY. 
 
 sorrows, and guilt as this is, what a prizi 
 would this collection be, if it were righth 
 estimated ! Were I the sovereign of anatioil 
 which spoke the English languageand wishecl 
 my subjects cheerful, virtuous and enlighten* l'!' t 
 <ed, I would furnish every poor family in m\ 
 dominions (and see that the rich furnisl 
 themselves) with a copy of the Spectator; anc 
 ordain that the parents or children shonlc 
 read four or five numbers, aloud, every night 
 in the year. For one of the peculiar perfec- 
 tions of the work is, that while it contains 
 
 such a mass of ancient and modern learning. 
 
 t 
 
 .ho much of profound wisdom and of beauti- 
 ful composition, yet there is scarcely a mini 
 ber throughout the eight volumes which is 
 not level to the meanest capacity. Another 
 perfection is, that the Spectator will never 
 become tiresome td any one whose taste and 
 whose her,rt remain uncorrupted. 
 
 I do not mean that this author should be 
 jread to the exclusion of others ; — much less 
 that he should stand in the way of the gener- 
 ous pursuit of science, or interrupt the dis- 
 charge of social or private duties. All the 
 councils of the work itself have a direct- 
 Jv reverse tendency. It furnishes a store of 
 the clearest argument and of the most amia 
 Lie and captivating exhortations, " to raise 
 the genius and to mend the heart." I regret, 
 wlv, that such a book should be thrown by, 
 and almost entirely forgotten, while the 
 gilded blasphemies of infidels and Ci noon-tide* 
 
BRITISH SPY. 87 
 
 Res*' of pernicious theorists are hailed with 
 
 pturc and echoed around the world. For 
 ich, I should be pleased to see the Spectator 
 
 iversall'y substituted ; and, throwing out 
 Fthe question its morality, its literary infor- 
 lation, its sweetly contagious serenity, and 
 *e pure and chaste beauties of its style ; and 
 fftisicfering it merely as a curiosity, as con- 
 entering the brilliant sports of the finest 
 uster of geniuses that ever graced the earth, 
 
 surely deserves perpetual attention, respect 
 id consecration. 
 
 There is, methinks, my S*******,a great 
 ultin the world as it respects this subject ; 
 
 giddy instability, - a light and fluttering 
 mity, a prurient longing after novelty, an 
 npatience, a disgust, a fastidious ( ' ntempt 
 f every thing that is old. You will not lin- 
 erstand me as censuring the progress of 
 mad science. I am not so infatuated an 
 itiquarian, nor so poor a philanthropist as 
 1 seek to retard the expansion of the human 
 ind. But I lament the eternal oblivion in- 
 
 which our old authors, those giants of lit— 
 rature, are permitted to sink, while the 
 orld stands open-eyed and open-mouthed, 
 > catch every modern, tinseled abortion, as 
 fells from the press. In the small circles 
 f America for instance, perhaps there is no 
 'ant of taste and even zeal for letters. I 
 ave seen several gentlemen who appear to 
 ave an accurate, a minute acquaintance with 
 ie whole range of literature in its present 
 
SS BRITISH SPY. 
 
 state of improvement ; yet you will be sm 
 prised to hear that I have not met with mor 
 than one or two person;* in this country wh 
 Jiave ever read the works of Bacon or c 
 Boyle. They delight to saunter in the uj 
 per story, sustained and adorned as it i: 
 with the delicate proportions, the foliage an 
 flourishes of the Corinthian order ; but the 
 disdain to make any acquaintance or hoi 
 communication at all, with the Tuscan an 
 Dorick plainness and strength, which base ant 
 support the whole edifice. As to lord Veru 
 lam, when he is considered as the father o 
 experimental philosophy ; as the champioi 
 whose vigour battered down the idolizec 
 chimeras of Aristotle, together with all th< 
 appendant and immeasurable webs of tl 
 brain woven, and hung upon them by the i 
 genious dreamers of the schools ; as the he: 
 who not only rescued and redeemed tl 
 world from all this darkness, jargon, perple 
 ity and ei rour ; but, from the stores of h 
 own great mind, poured a flood of light u 
 on the earth, straitened the devious paths 
 science, and planned the whole paradise, 
 which we now find so full of fragrance, 
 beauty, and grandeur — when he is consider- 
 ed, I say, in these points of view, I am aston 
 ished that literary gentJemen do not court 
 his acquaintance, if not through reverence, 
 at least through curiosity. The person, who 
 does, so will find every period filled with 
 pjave, solid, golden bullion 3 that bullioa 
 
 
 
 
BRITISH SPY. 89 
 
 hich several much admired, posterior wri- 
 ters have merely moulded to various forms, 
 b: beaten into leaf and taught to spread its 
 pating splendours to the sun. 
 
 This insatiable palate for novelty, which I 
 |ave mentioned, has had a very striking ef- 
 fect on the style of modern productions. The 
 jlain language of easy conversation will no 
 Niger do. The writer who contends for 
 ime or even truth, is obliged to consult the 
 signing taste of the day. Hence, too often, 
 1 opposition to his own judgment, he is led 
 ) incumber his ideas with his gorgeous load 
 f ornaments ; and when he would present 
 ) the publick a body of pure, substantial and 
 seful thought, he finds himself constrained 
 p encrust and bury its utility within a daz- 
 ling case, to convert a feast of reason to a 
 oncert of sounds : a rich intellectual ' boon 
 lto a mere bouquet of variegated pinks and 
 ^lushing roses. In his turn he contributes to 
 stablish and spread wide the perversion of 
 he publick taste : and thus, on a principle 
 esembling that of action and re-action, the 
 lutJior and the publick reciprocate the injury ; 
 ust as, in the licentious reign of Charles II, 
 be dramatist and his audience were to poi- 
 .011 each others morals. 
 
 A history of style would, indeed, be a cu- 
 ious and interesting one : I mean a philosoph- 
 ical, as well as a chronological history : 
 •ne which, besides marking the gradations, 
 Ganges and fluctuations exhibited m th$ 
 
96 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 style of different ages and different countric I 
 should open the regular or contingent caus 
 and fluctuations. I should be particular 
 pleased to see a learned and penetrating mil 
 employed on the questions whether the grai 
 ual adornment which we observe in a n; 
 tion's style, results from the progress of sc 
 ence ? Or whether there be an infancy, 
 youth, and a manhood in the tone of a n; 
 tion's feelings ; which rising in a distant ag( 
 like a new-born billow, rolls on through sue 
 cessive generations, with accumulating heigl 
 and force, and bears along with it the con 
 current expression of those feelings, unt 
 they both swell and tower in the sublime- 
 and sometimes break into the bathos ? Th 
 historical facts as well as the metaphysica 
 consideration of the subject, perplex thesi 
 questions extremely ; and, as Sir Roger d< 
 Coverly says, u much may be said on botl 
 sides." For the present, I shall say nothing 
 on either ; except that from some of Mr 
 Blair's remarks it would seem that neither 01 
 those hypotheses will solve the phenomenon 
 before us. If I remember his opinion cor 
 rectly, the most sublime style is to be sought 
 in a state of nature ; when anteriour to the 
 existence of science, the scantiness of a lan- 
 guage, forces a people to notice the points of 
 resemblance between the great natural ob- 
 jects with which they are surrounded, to ap- 
 ply to one, the terms which belong to ano- 
 ther, and thus, by compulsion, to fall, at 
 
 ;/ 
 
 i 
 
BRITISH SPY. 91 
 
 e, into simile and metaphor, and launch 
 > all the boldness of trope and figure. If 
 be true, it would seem that the progress 
 civilized nation towards sublimity of 
 e is perfectly a retrograde manoeuvre ; 
 t is, that they will be sublime according 
 he nearness of their approach to the pri- 
 vai state of nature. This is curious and 
 ne ; a bewitching subject. But it leads 
 volume of thought which is not to 
 condensed into a letter. I will remark 
 [ one extraordinary fact as it relates to 
 e. The Augustan age is pronounced by 
 e criticks to have furnished the finest mod- 
 of stvle embellished to the highest endur- 
 point ; and of this, Cicero, is always ad- 
 :ed as the most illustrious example. Yet it 
 2markable,that seventy or eighty years af- 
 Htards, when the Roman style had become 
 ch more luxuriant and was denounced by 
 criticks of the day* as having transcend- 
 the limits of genuine ornament, Pliny the 
 mger, in a letter to a friend, thought it 
 essary to enter into a formal vindication 
 hree or four metaphors which he had used 
 m oration, and which had been censured 
 Rome for their extravagance ; but which, 
 the side of the meanest of Cnrran's figures, 
 uld be poor insipid and fiat. Yet who 
 I sav that Curran's style has gone bevond 
 point of endurance r Who is not pleased 
 h its purity ? Who is not ravished by its 
 limit v ! 
 
te BRITISH SPY. 
 
 In England, how wide is the chasm 1 
 tween the style of Lord Veriilam and that 
 Edmund Burke, or M'Intosh's introduction 
 his Vindicire Gallicae ! That of the fir 
 the plain dress of a quaker ; and that of 1 
 two last, the magnificent paraphernalia 
 Louis XIV of France. In Lord Verula 
 day, his style was distinguished for its su[ 
 our ornaments, and in this respect, it 
 thought impossible to surpass it. Yet 
 Burke, Mr. M'lntosh and the other fine 
 ters of the present age, have, by contrast, 
 duced Lord Verulam's flower garden 
 the appearance of a simple culinary squar 
 
 Perhaps it is for this reason, and becau 
 as you know, I am an epicure, that I am vc 
 much interested by Lord Verulam's mann 
 It is indeed a most agreeable relief to 
 mind to turn from the stately and dazzli 
 rhapsodies of the day, and converse v 
 this plain and sensible old gentleman, 
 me, his style is gratifying on many accour 
 and there is this advantage in him, that 
 stead of having three or four ideas rolled o\ 
 and over again, like the fantastick evolutic' 
 and ever changing shapes of the sun-embroi 
 ered cloud, you gain new materials, new i 
 formation at every breath. Sir Robert B03 
 is, in my opinion, another author of the sai 
 description, and therefore an equal if not 
 higher favourite with me. In point of orr 
 Hient he is the first grade in the mighty cha 
 (through the whole of which the gradati 
 
BRITISH SPY. S3 
 
 ,y be distinctly traced) between Bacon and 
 irke. Yet he has no redundant verbiage ; 
 s about him a perfectly patriarchal simpli- 
 y, and every period is pregnant with mat- 
 :. He has this advantage too over Lord 
 srulam ; that he not only investigates all 
 e subjects which are calculated to try the 
 3a,rness, the force and comprehension of 
 e human intellect : he introduces others, 
 so, in handling whereof, he shews the mas- 
 rly powers with which he could touch the 
 jys of the heart, and awaken all the tones 
 sensibility which belong to man. Surely 
 ever a human being deserved to be can- 
 )nized for great, unclouded intelligence, 
 id seraphick purity, and ecstacy of soul, 
 tat being was Sir Robert Boyle. When I 
 iflect that this " pure intelligence, this link 
 stween men and angels," was a christian, 
 id look around upon the petty infidels and 
 eists with which the world swarms, I am 
 >st in amazement ! Have they seen argu- 
 lents against religion which were not pre- 
 3nted to Robert Boyle ? His religious works 
 hew that they have not. Are their judg- 
 ments better able to weigh those arguments 
 pan his was ? They have not the vanity even 
 b believe it. Is the beam of their judgment 
 pore steady, and less liable to be disturbed 
 ^y passion than his ? O ! no ; for in this 
 le seems to have excelled all mankind. Are 
 heir minds more elevated and more capa- 
 M 
 
n BRITISH SPY. 
 
 ble of comprehending the whole of this grea 
 subject with all its connexions and deper 
 dencies, than was the mind of Sir Robert 
 Look at the men — and the question is ar 
 swered. How then does it happen that the i 
 have been conducted to a conclusion, so per 
 fectly the reverse of his ; It is for this ver 
 reason ; because their judgments are less ex' 
 tricated from the influence and raised abov 
 the mists of passion ; it is because their mind 
 are less etherial and comprehensive ; less ca 
 pable than his was, * to look through natur< 
 up to nature's God.' And let them hug.thei 
 precious, barren, hopeless infidelity ; the^ 
 are welcome to the horrible embrace ! — Maj 
 we, my friend, never lose the rich and inex- 
 haustible comforts of religion ! Adieu ! nr 
 
 ***** 
 *** 
 
BRITISH SPY. 97 
 
 mis. These qualities render him a safe and 
 >,i able counsellor. And by their constant 
 ■certion he has amassed a store of know- 
 jdgc which, having passed, seven times, 
 rough the crucible, is almost as highly cor- 
 seted as human knowledge can be ; and 
 hich certainly, may be much more safely 
 >lied on, than the spontaneous and luxuri- 
 nt growth of a more fertile but less chasten- 
 d mind — " a wild where weeds and flowers, 
 romiscuous shoot." 
 
 Having engaged very early, first in the 
 ife of a soldier, then of a statesman, then of 
 . laborious practitioner of the law, and, final- 
 , again, of a politician, his intellectual op- 
 erations have been almost entirely confined 
 o judicial and political topicks. Indeed it 
 s easier to perceive, that the mind of a man 
 engaged in so active a life, must possess more 
 native suppleness, versatility and vigour than 
 that of Mr. ******, to be able to make an 
 jadvantageous tour of the sciences in the rare 
 (interval of importunate duties. It is possi- 
 ble that the early habit of contemplating 
 subjects as expanded as the earth itself, with 
 fall the relative interests of the great nations 
 thereof, may have inspired him with an in- 
 difference, perhaps an inaptitude for m«re 
 points of literature. Algernon Sidney hassaid 
 that I12 deems all studies unworthy the seri- 
 ous regard of a man except the studv of 
 the principles of just government . ; and Mr. 
 ******^ perhaps concurs with our country- 
 
f>3 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 man in this as well as in all his other principl 
 Whatever may have been the occasion, l\ 
 acquaintance with the fine arts is certain 
 very limited and superficial ; but making 2 
 lowances for his bias towards republicanism 
 he is a profound ant! even an eloquent state 
 man. 
 
 Knowing him to be attached to that poll 
 tical party, who, by their opponents, are ca 
 led sometimesdemocrats, sometimes jacobin 
 and aware also that he was a man of wan 
 and even ardent temper, I dreaded mucl 
 when I first entered his company that I shoul 
 have been shocked and disgusted with th 
 narrow, virulent and rancorous invectives c 
 party animosity. How agreeably, how de 
 iightfully was I disappointed ! Not one sen 
 tinient of intolerance polluted his lips. O 
 the contrary, whether they are the offsprinj 
 of rational induction, of the habit of survey 
 ing men and things on a great scale, of na 
 tive magnanimity, or of a combination of ai 
 those causes, his principles as far as the; 
 were expressed j were forbearing, libera) 
 widely extended and great. 
 
 As the elevated ground which he already 
 holds has b.een gained merely by the dint o 
 application ; as every new step which h( 
 mounts, becomes a means of increasing hi; 
 powers still farther, by stimulating his enter- 
 prize afresh, reinvigorating his habits, multi- 
 plying the materials and extending the range 
 of hiskaowledge, it would be a matter oi 
 
 
BRITISH SPY. 99 
 
 1*3 surprize to me, if before his death, the 
 •'■j orld should see him at the head of the Amer- 
 ^ an administration. — So much for the *** 
 y (#*** f t ne commonwealth of Virginia ; 
 ^living, an honourable, and illustrious mon- 
 : ^jment of self-created eminence, worth and 
 reatness ! — Let us now change the scene 
 <'nd lead forward a very different character 
 ;Ci ideed : a truant, but a highly favoured pupil 
 tolf Nature. It would seem as if this caprici- 
 tf jus goddess had finished the two characters 
 w urely with the view of exhibiting a vivid 
 Jiibntrast. Nor is this contrast confined to 
 ijheir minds. 
 
 i\ The ♦**** ******* of the United States,* 
 dej, in his person, tall, meagre, emaciated; 
 lis muscles relaxed and his joints so loosely 
 ftjonnected, as not only to disqualify him for 
 npfiiy vigorous exertion of body, but to detroy 
 :y*|very thing like elegance and harmony in 
 is air and movements. Indeed in his whole 
 ppearance, and demeanour ; dress, atti- 
 udes, gesture ; sitting, standing or walking, 
 e is as far removed from the idolized graces 
 If Lord Chesterfield, as any other gentleman 
 Id earth. To continue the portrait — his 
 pead and face are small in proportion to his 
 [eight ; the muscles of his face, being relax- 
 |d, give him the appearance of a man of fif- 
 ty years of age, nor can he be much young- 
 r ; his countenance has a faithful expression 
 K great good humour and hilarity ; while 
 'lis black eyes, that unerring index — possess 
 
 ! * Chief Justice John Marshall. 
 
100 BRITISH SPY. 
 
 an irradiating spirit, which proclaims the im 
 perial powers of the mind that sits enthrones 
 within. 
 
 This extraordinary man, without the ai< 
 of fancy, without the advantages of person 
 voice, attitude, or any of the ornaments o 
 an orator, deserves to be considered as on< 
 of the most eloquent men in the world ; i 
 •eloquence may be said to consist in the pow 
 er of seizing the attention w r ith irresistibl- 
 force, and never permitting it to elude th 
 grasp until the hearer has received the con 
 viction which the speaker intends. As t( 
 his person, it has been already described 
 His voice is dry and hard ; his attitude, ii 
 his most effective orations, was often ex 
 -tremely awkward, as it was not unusual fo 
 him to stand with his left foot in advance 
 while all his gesture proceeded from his righ 
 arm, and consisted, merely in a vehement 
 perpendicular swing of it, from about tht 
 ^elevation of his head, to the bar, behinc 
 which he was accustomed to stand. As tc 
 fancy, if she holds a seat in his mind at all 
 which I very much doubt, his gigantick ge 
 riius tramples with disdain on all her flower 
 deckt plats and blooming parteres. 
 
 How then, you will ask, with a look of i; 
 credulous curiosity, how is it possible th 
 such a man can hold the attention of an an 
 dience enchained, through a speech of ev 
 ordinary length ? I will tell you. 
 
BRITISH SPY. lOi 
 
 He possesses one original and, almost, su- 
 srnatural faculty : the faculty of develop- 
 g a subject by a single glance of his mind, 
 id detecting at once, the very point on 
 hich every controversy depends. No 
 matter, what the question ; though ten 
 mes more knottv than the "gnarled oak," 
 le lightning of heaven is not more rapid 
 or more resistless, than his astonishing pene- 
 ration. Nor does the exercise of it seem to 
 ost him an effort. On the contrary it is as 
 asy as vision. I am persuaded that his eyes 
 o not fly over a landscape, and take in its 
 arious objects with more promptitude and 
 'acihty, than his mind embraces and ana- 
 yzes the most complex subject. Possessing 
 his intellectual elevation which enables hirn 
 :o look down and comprehend the whole 
 ground at once, he determines immediately 
 and without diffieulity, on which side the 
 question may be most advantageously ap- 
 proached and assailed. In a bad eause, his 
 art consists in laving his premises so remotely 
 from the point directly in debate, or else in 
 terms so general and so specious that the 
 hearer, seeing no consequence which can be 
 drawn from them, is just as willing to admit 
 them, as not ; but, his premises once ad- 
 mitted, the demonstration, however distant, 
 follows as certainly, as cogently, as inevita- 
 bly, as any demonstration in Euclid. All 
 his eloquence consists in the apparently deep 
 lelf-conviction and emphatick earnestness of 
 
102 BRITISH SPY, 
 
 his manner ; the correspondent simplici 
 and energy of his style ; the close and log 
 cal connection of his thoughts ; and the eas 
 gradations by which she opens his sight j 
 the attentive minds of his hearers. The a 
 dience are never permitted to pause for 
 moment. There is no stopping to weav* 
 garlands of flowers, to hang in festoons 
 around a favourite argument. On the con 
 trary, every sentence is progressive — even 
 idea sheds new light on the subject — the li 
 tener is kept perpetually in that sweeth 
 pleasurable vibration, with which the mine 
 of man always receives new truths — the dawr 
 advances in easy but unremitting pace — the 
 subject opens gradually on the view — until, 
 rising, in high relief, in all its native colours 
 and proportions, the argument is consummat- 
 ed by the conviction of the delighted hearer, 
 The success of this gentleman has render- 
 ed it doubtful with several literary characters 
 in this country, whether a high fancy be of 
 real use or advantage to any one but a poet. 
 They contend, that although the most 
 beautiful flights of the happiest fancy, inter- 
 spersed through an argument, may give an 
 audience the momentary, delightful swell of 
 admiration, the transient thrill of the divinesti 
 rapture ; yet that they produce no lasting ef- 
 fect in forwarding the purpose of the speak 
 er : On the contrary that they break the ur " 
 ty and disperse the force of an argument 
 which otherwise advancing in close array. 
 
^e the phalanx of Sparta, would carry every 
 ing before it. They give an instance in 
 ie celebrated Curran ; and pretend that his 
 he fancy, although it fires, dissolves and 
 /en transports his audience to a momentary 
 enzy, is a real and a fatal misfortune to his 
 ients ; as it calls off the attention of the ju- 
 rs from the intrinsick and essential merits 
 the defence ; eclipses the justice of the cli- 
 it's cause ill the blaze of the advocate's tal- 
 its ; induces a suspicion of the guilt, which 
 squires such a glorious display of re- 
 sidence to divert the inquiry ; and substi- 
 nes a fruitless shortlived extacy, in the 
 ilace of permanent and substantial convic- 
 'on. Hence, they say, that the client of 
 Ir. Curran is invariably the victim of the 
 rosecution which that able and eloquent ad- 
 ocate is employed to resist. The doctrine, 
 1 the abstract, may be true, or, as Doctor 
 ^oubty says, it may not be true ; for the 
 resent, I will not trouble you with the ex- 
 pression of my opinion. I fear, however 
 ly dear S*******, that Mr. Currans's fail- 
 res, may be traced to a cause very different 
 'om any fault, either in the style or exec u- 
 on of his enchanting defences : a caused — — 
 ut I am forgetting that this letter has yet 
 p cross the Atlantic!*.* 
 ^ "'• ■■ +-■■■' ■ ■* " . ' y ' " • -!. , ■■ - • ' 
 
 * The sentiment which is suppressed, seems to wear 
 ie livery of Bedford, Moira and tke Prince 'of Wales* 
 
 ° 
 
104? BitlTISH SPY, 
 
 To return to the ***** ******* f t fo, 
 United States. His political adversaries al 
 ledge that he is a mere lawyer ; that hi 
 mind has been so long trammelled by judicia 
 precedent, so long habituated to the quail 
 and tierce of forensick digladiation (as Doct 
 Johnson would probably have called it) as tc 
 be unequal to the discussion of a great ques- 
 tion of state. Mr. Curran in his defence oj 
 Rowan, seems to have sanctioned the proba- 
 bility of such an effect from such a causej 
 when he complains of his own mind as havjl 
 ing been narrowed and circumscribed by a 
 strict and technical adherence to established 
 forms ; but in the next breath, an astonisty 
 ing burst of the grandest thought and 
 power of comprehension to which there 
 seems to be no earthly limit, proves that his 
 complaint, as it relates to himself, is entirely 
 without foundation. Indeed, if the object 
 tion to the ***** ******* mean any thing 
 more, than that he has not had the same illu- 
 mination and exercise in matters of state as 
 if he had devoted his life to them, I am un- 
 willing to admit it. The force of a cannon 
 is the same, whether pointed at a rampart or 
 a man of war, although practice may have 
 made the engineer more expert in the one 
 case than in the other. So it is clear that 
 practice may give a man a greater command 
 over one class of subjects than another ; but 
 the inherent energy of his mind remains the 
 
BRITISH SPY, }ftj 
 
 me, whithersoever it may be directed. From 
 lis impression, I have never seen any cause 
 wonder at what is called an universal 
 nius ; it proves only that the man has ap- 
 ied a powerful mind to the consideration 
 ' a great variety of subjects, and pays a 
 Dinpliment rather to his superiour intellect. 
 am very certain that the gentleman of 
 horn we are speaking possesses acumen 
 hich might constitute him an universal 
 enius, according to the usual acceptation of 
 le phrase. But if he be the truant which 
 is warmest friends represent him to be, 
 lere is very little probability that he will 
 ver reach this distinction. 
 
 Think you my dear S*******, that th& 
 wo gentlemen whom I have attempted ta 
 ourtray to you, were, according to the no- 
 on of Helvetius, born with equal minds. and 
 lat accident or education have produced 
 e striking difference which we perceive to. 
 fcxist between them ? I wish it were the case ; 
 nd that the ***** ******* wpu Id be pleas-, 
 id to reveal to us by what accident or what 
 system of education he has acquired his pe- 
 culiar sagacity and promptitude. Until this 
 hall be done, I fear I must consider the by- 
 )othesis of Helvetius as a splendid and flat- 
 tering dream. But I tire you: — adieu, for 
 the prescnt ; friend and guardian of my youth- 
 
 F I 2S I S, 
 

 
 
 
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