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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 resulted solely from his noble descent, and was nothing more than the tribute which man pays either to imaginary or real superiority.

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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 asserted that whatever respect had been shewn -proceeded solely from the federalists: 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 shadow 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 attributable only to the ladies, who had merely exercised their wonted privilege of coqueting it with a fine young fellow. But notwithstanding all this, it was easy to discern, in the look, the voice, and whole manner with which gentlemen as well as ladies of both

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parties saluted and accosted younga sacred spirit of respectful diffidence, a species of silent reverential abasement which could not have been excited by his personal qualities, and must have been homage to his rank. Judge then whether I have not just reason to apprehend, that on the annunciation of my real name, the curtain of ceremony 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 manuscript in this state, which relates a curious anecdote concerning the origin of this town. The land hereabouts was owned by Col. William 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 yourself an immense morass, thirty or forty miles in diameter: its soil a black deep mire, covered with a stupendous forest of Juniper and Cypress trees, whose luxuriant branches, interwoven throughout, intercept the beams of the sun and teach day to counterfeit the

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parting vessels exhibit a curious and interesting appearance :-then again on the opposite side, the little town of Manchester, built on a hill which, sloping gently to the river, opens the whole town to the view, interspersed as it is with vigorous and flourishing poplars, and surrounded to a great distance by green plains and stately woods-all these objects falling at once under the eye, constitute by far the most finely varied and most animated landscape that I have ever seen.

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 enchanting spot that ever Damascus is described 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..

night. The forest, which, until that time, perhaps the human foot had never violated, had become the secure retreat of ten thousand beasts of prey. The adventurers, therefore, beside the almost endless labour of falling 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 hunger smitten lords of the desert. It was 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 interesting objects. The town, dispersed over hills of various shades-the river, descending from west to east, and obstructed by a multitude of small islands, clumps of trees and myriads of rocks, among which it rumbles, foams and roars, consisting of what are called 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 there by the eye, but more generally covered from the view by trees, among which the white sails of approaching and de

BRITISH SPY.

LETTER II.

RICHMOND, SEPTEMBER, 7.

ALMOST every day, my dear S******* some new evidence presents itself in support of the Abbe Raynal's opinion, that this continent was once covered by the ocean, from which it has gradually emerged. But that this emersion is, even comparatively speaking, of recent date, cannot be admitted; unless the comparison be made with the creation of the earth; and even then, in order to justify the remark, the æra 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 beyond 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, discovered, about four or five feet below the surface of the earth, a considerable portion of the skeleton of a Whale. Several fragments of the ribs and other parts of the system were