LETTER VI.

DEAR FRANK,

IN In my last letter, if I remember right, I totes you (as they say in Virginia) up to Richmond, by what may be called a circumbendibus. Since then I have made an excursion to York and Williamsburgh; the one celebrated as the place where the last blow of our revolutionary war was struck; the other as having been the ancient seat of the state government. Yorktown is on the right bank of York river, directly at its mouth. It now exhibits an appearance of desolation and decay, which, being so seldom seen in our youthful country, is the more apt to excite the notice of a stranger. These ruins are not so much the effect of time, as the consequence of neglect and desertion, and possess, of course, nothing of the interest belonging to antiquities. A few years ago a great fire happened here, which completed the desolation of the place, by singling out, as its victims, with a sort of capricious cruelty, many of the best houses in the town. Immediately opposite to York is the town of Gloucester, consisting, as far as I could see, of a few poplars.

But, whether flourishing or in ruins, Yorktown will ever be an object of peculiar interest, as the scene where the progress of European arms terminated,

there, and I hope for ever in the new world, whose fate it so long was, to be domineered over by petty states, situated at a distance of three thousand miles, and whose sovereigns, though incapable of governing at home, affected to tyrannize here. The time, I hope, is not far distant, when not an inch of this great continent will be tributary to any other quarter of the globe; and when, if we choose to extend our ambition so far, we may have colonies in Europe, as Europe has so long had in America. Every nation, like every dog, has its day, and the splendours of the civilized world, which rose in the ruddy east, may set at last in the glowing west, equally bright and glorious.

In the evening I traced the outlines of the British fortifications, accompanied by an escort of a dozen boys, who pointed out the remains of the house where Lord Cornwallis had his head-quarters, and which he was obliged to abandon before the end of the siege, on account of the shower of bombs which fell on it, and at length destroyed every part but the chimney, which, if I remember right, is yet standing. These lively historians of the "village train" were exceedingly communicative, and answered all my questions with one voice-that is, they all talked at once. There is a tradition current here, the truth of which I cannot vouch for, that after quitting the house I mentioned, Cornwallis occupied a cave, which I was shown, excavated in the side of a bank fronting on the river. It consists of two rooms, cut or scraped, in a soft sandstone, and is thirty or forty feet under

ground, so that it is entirely bomb proof. Whether his lordship ever made this his head-quarters or not, certain it is, that such is the common tradition here, although I confess, an old weather-beaten Scotchman, living on the beach, close by, asked our servant, “if we were such d―d fools, as to believe that an English general, and a lord, would hide himself in a cave?" As to English generals, as far as my observation extends, they do things pretty much like other men; and as for lords, I see no reasonable cause, why they should not be as much afraid of bombs as plain misters. However, I have no disposition to undervalue the prowess of Lord Cornwallis, who, I believe, was a good sort of a man enough, and feel particularly grateful to him for getting cooped up at York, and surrendering as he did to General Washington and our allies.

From York to Williamsburgh, is, I believe, about twelve miles up the river. I am not good at counting milestones, and if I were, there is not material for a milestone in all the region of sea sand. This river abounds in fish, oysters, and crabs, and, as might be expected, there are large masses of oyster-shells along the banks, I suppose left there in days of yore by the Indians, and covered, in process of time, by the decomposition of vegetable matter. They are at present, however, made use of to form a cement to the system of our geological school; which, without this new species of geological lime, would not hold together half a year. If I were to make a settlement in a new country, it should be

where never oyster vegetated, or crab crawled, or fish swam, for each of these is a staunch auxiliary to idleness. Nothing but the bundle of habits a man carries at his back makes him an industrious animal, and consequently the greater his wants, the more he will labour. But these fish and crabs afford such provoking facilities to satisfy the most craving of these, that he is thereby enabled to be idle without starving—and idleness is vice to those who cannot supply the tedium of bodily inertness by the labours of the mind. This is one bad effect of great oysterbanks; another is, that the shells, in process of time, get into the hands of the philosophers, and become, with the assistance of "Babylonian bricks" and "Nimrod straw," the materials for another Tower of Babel, and a consequent confusion of tongues, enough to puzzle a man out of his senses. The town or city of Williamsburgh, once the metropolis of Virginia, and a mighty emporium of tobacco, is built in the form of a W, in compliment to King William; for it is apparent that the first settlers here were right loyal, from the names they gave to different places. There is a fine gothic-looking college here, which I saw at a little distance, but did not visit, having had quite enough of colleges in my day. I never go near one, without getting a vertigo, occasioned by the recollection of some of those confounded mathematics, which sent me headlong to the tail of the class, while honest L demonstrated himself to the head, and got the first honour; though, between ourselves, I was obliged to write his valedictory.

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The mathematical studies are, undoubtedly, at the head of the useful, but they ought not to be made the sole objects of preference in the distribution of college honours, as is too much the case, I think, in our country. In my opinion, too little attention, by far, is paid to classical literature and belleslettres, and to this neglect, in all probability, may be traced, in some considerable degree, the want of that classical and belleslettres taste, which, in all polite nations, is considered the great characteristic of a welleducated gentleman. The most vulgar of men may be a great practical mathematician, but I never yet met with a man, eminent as a classical and belleslettres scholar, who did not possess a considerable degree of refinement of mind and manners. Polite literature ought, therefore, I think, to be encouraged and rewarded in our colleges, equally, at least, with those sciences which are exclusively and practically useful. If not necessary to the wants, it is essential to the beauty and grace of society; is a decisive evidence of politeness, taste, and refinement; and equally contributes to the reputation and happiness of a nation.

There is another portion of the system of education pursued in most of our colleges, which, in reference to its moral effects, deserves, in my mind, to be held up to universal reprobation, as calculated to debase the human mind, at a period when habits are formed, and the foundation laid for every thing useful and noble, or base and contemptible. I mean the detestable statute lately introduced into many