Book W 7^^? 
 
TIEIIE 
 
 (/ iTcttcr^" ) 
 
 
 1g^ 
 
 «.VI>TLMORE . 
 
THE 
 
 LETTERS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 nuiimSi^ ^j^¥. 
 
 EIGHTH EDITION, 
 
 n-TTH THE I,SSX COnifcTIO.\S OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 ^Nvu\^vv^ \sw\- 
 
 BALTIMORE: ■ ' 
 
 PUBLISHED BY FIELDING LUCAS, JUN. 
 Printed by J. Robinson, 
 

 DISTRICT OF MAHriAND, ss. 
 
 Be IT REMEMBERED, That on tins twenty-fouvili day of May 
 in the thirty-fifth year of the Independence of the 
 «**M*k**i» United States of America, Fielding Lucas, Jiin. of the 
 ♦ "^KAL. t said District, hath deposited in this office, the Title of a 
 «(^!M°i<!f'i'^**K Book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the 
 words and figures following, to wit 
 
 " The letters of the British Spy. Fourth edition, With the last 
 coiTections of the Author." 
 
 In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, 
 iEntitled, " An act for the encouragttment of Learning, by securing 
 thecopiesof Maps, Charts, and Books to the authors and proprietors 
 of such copies, during the times therein mentioned," and also 
 to the Act entitled, "An Act supplementai-y to tlie Act, 
 entitled, An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing, 
 the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprie- 
 tors of such copies diu'ing the times therein mentioned, and extend- 
 ing the benefits thereof to the arts of Designing, Engraving, and 
 Etching historical and otlier prints." 
 
 PHILIP MOORE, 
 
 Ckrk of the Distria ofMarytand. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 TO THE 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 
 The publisher having become possessed of 
 a copy of ^* The British Spy," which has 
 passed through the hands of the author, 
 eagerly embraces an opportunity of submit- 
 ting a correct edition of that work to the pa- 
 tronage of the publick. These letters were 
 originally inserted in a daily journal ; and 
 they appeared with all the imperfections to 
 which such a mode of publication is unavoida- 
 bly liable. In the present edition, a variety 
 of errours have been corrected ; and nothing 
 has been spared which it was supposed could 
 add to its value. 
 
 Of the literary merit of a work which has 
 passed the ordeal of criticism with honour, 
 not only to the author but to his country, it 
 
4 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 would be impertinent to speak. Common 
 fame has decided it to be the fruit of an 
 American pen; and classical taste has pro- 
 nounced it to be the ofTspring of genius. 
 To those who would inculcate the degrading 
 doctrine, that this is the country 
 
 "Where Genius sickens, and where Fancy dies,"* 
 
 we would offer the letters of the British Spy- 
 as au unquestionable evidence that America 
 is entitled to a high rank in the republick of 
 letters ; and that the empyreal flame may be 
 respired under any region. 
 
 * Clifton. 
 
*rp THE EDITOR OF THE VIRGINIA ARGUS. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 The manuscript, from which the following 
 letters are extracted, was found in the bed- 
 chamber of a hoarding; house in a seaport town 
 of Virginia. The gentleman, who had pre- 
 viously occupied that chamber, is represented 
 by the mistress of the house to have been a 
 meek and harmless young man, who med- 
 dled very little with the affairs of others, and 
 concerning whom no one appeared suffici- 
 ently interested to make any inquiry. As it 
 seems from the manuscript that the name by 
 which he passed was not his real name, 
 and as, moreovej, she knew nothing of his 
 residence, so That she was totally ignorant to 
 whom and whither to direct it, she consi- 
 dered the manuscript as lawful prize and 
 
 1* 
 
made a present of it to me. It seems to be a 
 copy of letters written by a young English- 
 man of rank, during a tour through the 
 United States, in 1803, to a member of the 
 British parliament. They are dated from al- 
 most every part of the United States, con- 
 tain a great deal of geographical descrip- 
 tion, a delineation of every character of note 
 among us, some literary disquisitions, with 
 a great mixture of moral and political ob- 
 servation. The letters are prettily written. 
 Persons of every description will find in them 
 a light and agreeable entertainment ; and to 
 the younger part of your readers they may 
 not be uninstructive. For the present I se- 
 lect a few which were written from this place, 
 and by way of distinction, will give them to 
 you under the title of the British Sfiy» 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Richmond^ Sefitember 1. 
 
 You complain, my dear S , that al- 
 though I have been resident in Richmond 
 upwards of six months, you have heard no- 
 thing from me since my arrival. The truth 
 is, that I had suspended writing until a more 
 intimate acquaintance with the people and 
 their country should furnish me with the ma- 
 terials for a correspondence. Having now 
 collected 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 
 
8 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 be paid to my rank, for the superiour and 
 exquisite pleasure of inspecting this country 
 and this people, without attracting to my- 
 self a single eye of curiosity, or awak-- 
 ening a shade of suspicion. Under my 
 assumed name, I gain an admission close 
 enough to trace, at leisure, every line 
 of the American character ; while the plain- 
 ness, or rather humility of my appearance, 
 my manners and conversation, put no one on 
 his guard, but enable me to take the portrait 
 of nature, as it were, asleep and naked. 
 Besides, there is something of innocent 
 roguery in this masquerade, which I am 
 playing, that sorts very well with the spor- 
 tiveness of my temper. To sit and decoy the 
 human heart from behind all its disguises: to 
 watch the capricious evolutions of unrestrain- 
 ed nature, frisking, curveting and gambolling 
 ^t her ease, with the curtain of ceremony 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 9 
 
 drawn up to the very sky — ^O ! it is delight- 
 ful! 
 
 You are perhaps surprised at my speaking 
 of the attentions which would be paid in this 
 country to my rank. You will suppose that I 
 have forgotten where I am : no such thing. 
 I remember well enough that I am in Virgi- 
 nia, that state, which, of all the rest, plumes 
 herself most highly on the democratick spi- 
 rit of her principles. Her political principles 
 are indeed democratick enough m all con- 
 science. Rights and privileges, as regulated 
 by the constitution of the state, belong in 
 equal degree to all the citizens; and Peter 
 Pindar's remark is perfectly true of the peo- 
 ple of this country, that " every blackguard 
 scoundrel is a king "* Nevertheless/there 
 exists in Virginia a species of social rank, 
 from which no country can, I presume, 
 
 * The reader needs scarcely to be reminded that the. 
 writer is a Briton and U*ue to his character. 
 
10 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 be entirely free. I mean that kind of rank 
 which arises from the different degrees of 
 wealth and of intellectual refinement. These 
 must introduce a style of living and of con- 
 versation, the former of which a poor man 
 cannot 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 discri- 
 minated, must inevitably result. And one of 
 these causes exists in full force in Virginia ; 
 for, however they may vaunt of " equal li- 
 berty iti church and state," they have but 
 litde to boast on the subject of equal proper- 
 ty. Indeed there is no country, I believe, 
 where property is more unequally distributed 
 than in Virginia. This inequality struck me 
 with peculiar force in riding through the low- 
 er counties on the Potomack. Here and 
 there a stalely aristocratick palace, with all 
 its appurtenances, strikes the view: while 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 1 I 
 
 all around, for many miles, no other build- 
 ings are to be seen but the little smoky huts 
 and log cabins of poor, laborious, ignorant 
 tenants. And, what is very ridiculous, these 
 tenants, while they approach the great house, 
 cap in hand, with all the fearful trembling 
 submission of the lowest feudal vassals, 
 boast in their court-yards, with obstreperous 
 exultation, that they live in a land of freemen, 
 a land of equal liberty and equal rights. 
 Whether this debasing sense of inferiority, 
 which I have mentioned, be a remnant of 
 their colonial character, or whether it be that 
 it is natural for poverty and impotence to look 
 up with veneration to wealth and power and 
 rank, I cannot decide. For my own part, 
 however, I have ascribed it to the latter 
 cause jj and I have been in a great degree 
 confirmed in the opinion, by observing the 
 attentions which were paid by the most gen- 
 
12 THE BRITISH SPY, 
 
 teel people here to the son 
 
 of lord 
 
 You know the circumstances in which his 
 lordship left Virginia : that so far from being 
 popular, he carried with him the deepest exe- 
 crations of these people. Even now, his 
 name is seldom mentioned here but in con- 
 nexion 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 shown to him, I sought, in his own per- 
 sonal accomplishments, a solution of the phe- 
 nomenon. 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 consideration that he was the 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 13 
 
 son of a lord. His deportment was so evi- 
 dently dictated by this consideration, and he 
 regarded the Virginians, so palpably, in th ; 
 humiliating light of inferiour plebeians, that 
 I have often wondered how such a man, and 
 the son too of so very 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 sole- 
 ly 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 belong to the de- 
 mocratick party. He, however, did not 
 choose to admit the statement; but assert- 
 ed, that whatever respect had been shown to 
 
 , proceeded solely from the 
 
 federalists ; and that it was an unguarded 
 
 evolution of their private attachment to mo- 
 2 
 
14 THE BRITISH SPYj 
 
 narchy and its appendages. I then stated the 
 subject to a very sensible gentleman, whom 
 I knew to belong to the federal phalanx. Not 
 v/illing to degrade his party by admitting that 
 they would prostrate themselves before the 
 empty shadow of nobility, he alleged that no- 
 thing 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 
 coquetting it with a fine young fellow. But 
 notwithstanding all this, it was easy to dis- 
 cern in the look, the voice, and whole man- 
 ner, with which gentlemen as well as ladies 
 of both parties saluted and accosted young 
 5 a secret spirit of respect- 
 ful diffidence, a species of silent, reverential 
 abasement, v/hich, as it could not have been 
 excited by his personal qualities, must have 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 15 
 
 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 na- 
 ture 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 tide water. There is a manuscript in 
 this state which relates a curious anecdote 
 concerning the origin of this town. The land 
 hereabout was owned by Col. William Byrd. 
 This gentleman, with the former proprietor 
 of the land at the head of tide water on Appo- 
 matox liver, v/as appointed, it t.£crxis, to run 
 the line between Virginia and North-Caro- 
 lina. 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 impos- 
 sible to give you a just conception of the 
 horrours of this enterprise. Imagine to 
 
16 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 yourself an immense morass, more than 
 forty miles in length and twenty in breadth, 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 night. This 
 forest, which until that time, perhaps, the 
 human foot had never violated, had become 
 the secure retreat of ten thousaiid beasts of 
 prey. The adventurers, therefore, beside the 
 almost endless labour of felling trees in a pro- 
 per direction to form a footway throughout, 
 moved amid perpetual terrours, and each 
 night had to sleep en militaire, upon their 
 arms, surrounded with the deafening, soul 
 chilling yell of those hunger-smitten lords of 
 the desert. It was, one night, ss they lay in 
 the midst of scenes like these, that Hope, that 
 never-failing friend of man, paid them a con- 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 17 
 
 soling 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 shapes 4 the river descending 
 from west to east and obstructed by a mul- 
 titude of small islands, clumps of trees, and 
 myriads of rocks ; among which it tumbles, 
 foams and roars ; constituting 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 there by the eye, but more 
 generally covered from the view by trees ; 
 
 * So at least, speaks the manuscript account which Col. 
 Byrd has left of this expedition, and which is now in the 
 hands of some of his descendants ; perhaps of the family 
 at Westover. 
 
18 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 among which the white sails of approaching 
 and departing 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, in- 
 terspersed, as it is, with vigorous and flour- 
 ishing 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. A mountain, like the Blue Ridge, in 
 the western horizon, and the rich tint with 
 which the hand of a Pennsylvanian farmer 
 would paint the adjacent fields, would make 
 this a more enchanting spot than even Da- 
 mascus is described to be. 
 
 I will endeavour to procure for you a per- 
 spective view of Richmond, with the embel- 
 lishments of fancy which I have just mention- 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 19 
 
 ed ; 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. 
 
 Richmondy 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 com- 
 parison be made with the creation of the 
 earth; and even then, in order to justify 
 the remark, the era of the creation must, I 
 fear, be fixed much farther back than the 
 period which has been inferred from the Mo- 
 saic account* 
 
 * Some errour has certainly happened hi computing the 
 er* of the earth's creation from the five b«pks of Moses. 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 21 
 
 The following facts are authenticated beyond 
 any kind of doubt. During the last spring, a 
 gentleman in the neighbourhood of Williams- 
 burg, about sixty miles below this place, in 
 
 Voltaire informs us, that certain French Philosophers, who 
 visited China inspected the official register or history of the 
 eclipses of the san and moon, which, it seems, has been 
 C(MitinualIy kept in that country ; that on calculating them 
 back, they were all found correct, and conducted those 
 philosophers to a period (I will not undertake to speak 
 with certainty of the time, but I think) twenty -tiiree centu- 
 I'ies before the Mosaic era. It is notorious, howerer, that 
 the Chinese plume themselves on the antiquity of their 
 country ; and in order to prop this, it would have been just 
 as easy for the Chinese astronomers to have fabricated and 
 d'*essed up the register in question, by posterior calcula- 
 tions, as for the French astronomers to have made their 
 retrospective examination of the accuracy of those eclipses. 
 The same science precisely was requisite for both purpo- 
 ses; and although the improvement of the ai'ts and scien- 
 ses in China, was found, by the first Euix)peans who v/ent 
 amongst them, to bear no pi'oportion to the antiquity of 
 the country, yet there is no reason to doubt that the Chi- 
 
22 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 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 
 
 nese mandarins were at least as competent to the calcula- 
 tion of an eclipse as the shepheixls of Eg)pt. Indeed we 
 are, 1 believe, expressly told, that the Chinese, long before 
 they were visited by the people of Europe, had been in the 
 habit of using a species of astronomical apparatus ; and of 
 stamping almanacs from plates or blocks, many hundred 
 years, even before printing was discovered in Europe. I 
 see no great reason, therefore, to rely with very implicit 
 confidence on the register of China. Indeed I am very lit- 
 tle dicposed to build my faith, as to any historical fact, on 
 evidence perfectly within the reach of human art and im- 
 posture ; comprehending all writings, insciiptions, litei-ary 
 or hieroglyphic, medals, &c. which tend, either to flatter 
 our passion for the marvellous or aggrandize the particii^ 
 lar nation in whose bosom they are found. And, therefore, 
 together with the Chinese register, I throw out of the con» 
 sideration of this question another record, which goes tp 
 the same i)urpose : I mean the Chaldaic manuscript fount^ 
 by Alexander in the city of Babylon. 
 
THE BRITISH SI*Y. 25 
 
 Other parts of the system were found ; and all 
 the vertebrae regularly arranged and very 
 little impaired as to their figure. The spot, 
 on which this skeleton was found, lies about 
 
 The inferences reported by Mr. Brydone, as having been 
 drawn, by Recupero, from the lavas of mount Etna (those 
 stupendous records which no human art or imposture could 
 possibly have fabricated) deserve, I think, much more se* 
 rious attention. They are subject, indeed, to one of the 
 preceding objections : to wit, that the data, from which all 
 the subsequent calculations ai'e drawn, are inscriptions : ap- 
 pealing not only to our passion for the marvellous, but 
 flattering the vanity of the Sicilians, by establishing the 
 great age of their mountain, at once their curse and their 
 blessing. These inscriptions, however, do not rest merely 
 on their own authority : they allege a fact which is very 
 strongly countenanced by recent and unerring observation. 
 As Brydone may not be in the hands of every person who 
 may chance to possess and read this bagatelle, and as this 
 subject is really curious and interesting, I beg leave to sub" 
 join those parts of that traveller's highly entertaining let- 
 t'ters, whicTi relate to it. - 
 
24 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 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 pe- 
 
 " The last lava we crossed, before our arrival there \Jaci 
 Reale] is of vas't extent. I thought we never should have 
 had done with it: it certainly is not less than six or seven 
 miles broad, and appears in many places to be of an enor- 
 mous depth. 
 
 «* When we came near the sea, I was desirous to see what 
 form it had assumed in meeting with the water. 1 went to 
 examine it, and found it had driven back the waves for up- 
 wards of a mile, and had formed a large, black, high pro- 
 montory, where, before, it was deep water. This lava, I 
 imagined, from its barrenness, for it is, as yet, covered with 
 a veiy scanty soil, had run from the mountain only a few 
 ages ago; but was surprised to be informed by Signior 
 Recupero, the historiographer of Etna, that this very lava 
 is mentioned by Diodorus Siculus to have burst from Etna, 
 in the time of the second Punic war, when Sj-racuse was 
 besieged by the Romans. A detachment was sent from 
 Taurominum to the relief of the besieged. They wer<? 
 stopped on their march by this stream of lava which ha- 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 25 
 
 lished in its native element ; and as the ocean 
 is the nearest resort of the whale, it follows 
 that the ocean must once have covered the 
 country, at least as high up as Williams- 
 burg. 
 
 ving reached the sea before theh' arrival at the foot of the 
 mountain, had cut off their passage, and obliged them 
 to return by the back of Etna, upwards of a hundred miles 
 about. His authority for -this, he tells me, was takea 
 from inscriptions on Roman monuments found on this 
 lava, and that it was likewise well ascertained by many of 
 the old Sicilian authors. Now as this is about two thou- • 
 sand years ago, one would imagine, if lavas have a 
 regular progress in becoming fertile fields, that this must 
 long ago have become at least arable ; this, however, 
 is not the case ; and it is, as yet, only covered with a 
 very scanty vegetation and incapable of producing either 
 corn or vines. There are indeed pretty large trees grow- 
 ing in the crevices which are full of a rich earth ; but 
 in all probability, it will be some hundred years yet, before 
 thei-e is enough of it to render this land of any use to tlie 
 proprietors. 
 
26 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 Again, in digging several wells lately in 
 this town, the teeth of sharks were found 
 from sixty to ninety or a hundred feet below 
 the surface of the earth. The probability is 
 that these teeth were deposited by the shark 
 itself; and as this fish is never known to in- 
 
 *'It is curious to consider, that the surface of this black 
 and barren matter, in process of time, becomes one of the 
 most fertile soils upon earth : But what must be the time 
 to bring it to its utmost perfection, when after two thou- 
 sand years, it is still, in most places, but a barren rock ?" 
 Vol. I. Letter 6. 
 
 ** Signior Recupero, who obligingly engages to be our 
 cicerone, has shown us some curious remains of anti- 
 quity ; but they have been all sn shaken and shattered by 
 the mountain, that hardly any thing is to be found intire. 
 
 " Near to a vault, which is now thirty feet below ground 
 and has, probably, been a burial place, there is a draw- 
 well, where there are several strata of lavas, ivith earth 
 to a co7isiderable thickness over the surface of each stra- 
 tiim. llecupero has made use of this as an argument to 
 prove the great antiquity of the mountain. For if it re- 
 quire two thousand years or upwards, to form but a 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 27 
 
 vest very shallow streams, the conclusion 
 is clear that this whole country has once 
 been buried under several fathoms of water. 
 At all events, these teeth must be considered 
 as ascertaining what was once the surface of 
 the earth here ; which surface is very little 
 higher than that of James river. Now if it 
 be considered that there has been no percepti- 
 
 scanty soil on the surface of a lava, there must have 
 been more than that space of time betwixt each of the 
 eruptions which have formed these strata. But what 
 shall we say of a pit they sunk near to Jaci of a great 
 depth. They pierced through seven distinct lavas, one 
 under the other, the surfaces of which were par- 
 allel, and most of them covered -with a thick bed of rich 
 earth. Xow, says he, the eruption which formed the 
 lowest of these lavas, if we may be allowed to reason 
 from analog}', must have flowed from the mountain at 
 least fourteen thousand years ago." Vol. T. Letter 7» 
 Whereas the comjjutation inferred, but without doubt 
 inaccurately, from the Pentateuch, makes the earth it" 
 self only between five and six tliousand years old. 
 
28 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 ble difference wrought in the figure or eleva- 
 tion of the coast, nor, consequently, in the 
 precipitation of the interiour streams since 
 the earliest recorded discovery of Virp^inia, 
 which was two hundred years ago, it will 
 follow, that James river must, for many hun- 
 dreds, perhaps thousands of years, have been 
 running, at least here, with a very rapid, 
 headlong current ; the friction whereof must 
 certainly have rendered the channel much 
 deeper than it was at the time of the depo- 
 sition of these teeth. The result is clear, 
 that the surface of the stream, which even 
 now, after all this friction and consequent de- 
 pression, is so nearly on a level with the site 
 of the shark's teeth, must, originally, have 
 been much higher. I take this to be an irre- 
 fragable 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 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 29 
 
 indisputably certain, that the whole of this 
 beautiful country was once covered 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 
 
 * An elegant and well informed writer on the theorv of 
 the earth, under the signature of " An inquirer," whose 
 remarks were suggested by the perusal of this letter of the 
 British Spy, observes that sea shells and other marine sub- 
 stances are found in every explored part of the world, ** on 
 the loftiest mountains of Europe and the still loftier 
 Andes of South America." As the British Spy was not 
 writing a regular and elaborate treatise on the origin of 
 the earth, he did not deem it material to congregate all 
 the facts which have been seen, and supposed, in relation 
 to this subject. 
 
 Whether the British Spy is to be considered as an Eng- 
 lishman of rank on a tour through America, and writing 
 the above letter in Richmond to liis friend in Londoji 5 or 
 
 3* 
 
30 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 hill and over this landscape, the billows of the 
 ocean have rolled in wild and dreadful fury, 
 while the leviathan, the whale and all the 
 monsters of the deep, have disported them- 
 selves 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 country is very gra- 
 dual; to and even up the Blue Ridge, marine 
 shells and other phenomena are found, which 
 demonstrate that that country too, has been 
 visited by the ocean. How then has it emer- 
 
 Avhether he is to be considered as one of our own citizens 
 disposed to entertain the people of Kichmond and its vici- 
 nity with a light and amusing speculation on the origin of 
 their country, in either instance it was both more natural, 
 and more interesting that the speculation should appear to 
 have grown out of recent facts discovered in their own 
 town or neighbourhood, and with which they are all sup- 
 posed to be convei'sant, than on distant and controvertible 
 facts, which it was not important to the inquiry, whether 
 they kaew or believed, or. not. 
 
THE BRITISH SPY, 31 
 
 ged ? Has it been by a sudden convulsion ? 
 Certainly not. No observing man, who has 
 ever travelled from the Blue Ridge to the 
 Atlantick, can doubt that this immersion has 
 been effected by very slow gradations. For 
 as you advance to the east, the proofs of the 
 former submersion of the country thicken 
 upon you. On the shores of York river, the 
 bones of whales 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 calcined, like those which lay on the 
 beach under my feet, interspersed with strata 
 of earth (the joint result no doubt of sand 
 and putrid vegetables) exhibiting at once a 
 sample of the manner in which the adjacent 
 soil had been formed, and proof of the com- 
 paratively recent desertion of the waters. 
 Upon the whole, every thing here tends to 
 
32 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 confirm the ingenious theory of Mr. Buffon: 
 that the eastern coasts of continents are en- 
 larged by the perpetual revolution of the 
 earih from west to east, which has the obvi- 
 ous 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. But admit- 
 ting the Abbe Raynai's 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 materials, which com- 
 pose this continent, were not accumulated 
 on the eastern coast of Asia ? Was it, that 
 the present mountains of America, then pro- 
 tuberances on the bed of the ocean, inter- 
 cepted a part of the passing sands which 
 WOuW otherwise have been washed on the 
 Asiatic shore, and thus became the rudiments 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 33 
 
 of this vast continent? If so, America is un- 
 der much greater obHgations to her barren 
 mountains, than she has hitherto supposed. 
 
 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 con- 
 trary, the very causes assigned, to supply the 
 addition to the eastern, seem at first view to 
 threaten a diminution of the western coast. 
 Accordingly, Mr. Buffon, we see has adopt- 
 ed also the latter idea; and, in the constant 
 abluvion from the western coast of one con- 
 tinent, has found a perennial source of mate- 
 rials for the eastern coast of that which lies 
 behind it. This last idea, hov/ever, by no 
 means quadrates with the hypothesis, that 
 the mountains of America formed the origi- 
 nal stamina of the continent ; for, on the latter 
 supposition, the mountains themselves would 
 constitute the western coast j since Mr. Buf- 
 
34 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 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 Ame- 
 rica, and the pacific or the northern oceans, 
 than there is between the same mountains 
 and the Atlantick ocean. Mr. Buffon's theory, 
 therefore, however rational as to the eastern, 
 becomes defective, as he presses it, in relation 
 to the western, coast ; unless, to accommodate 
 the theory, we suppose the total abrasion of 
 some great mountain which originally con- 
 stituted the western limit, and which was, 
 itself, the embryon of this continent. Bat 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 
 
THE BllITISH SPY. 35 
 
 his theory rather in its operation on a conti- 
 nent already estabUshed, 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 Ues beyond the Alleghany 
 mountains, if it were not originally gained 
 from the ocean, it has received an accumula- 
 tion of earth by no means less wonderful. 
 Far beyond the Ohio, in piercing the earth 
 for water, the stumps of trees, bearing the 
 most evident knpressions of the axe, and on 
 one of them the rust of consumed iron, have 
 been discovered between ninety and a hun- 
 dred feet below the present surface of the 
 earth. This is a proof, by the by, not only 
 that this immense depth of soil has been accu- 
 mulated in that quarter ; but that that new 
 country^ as the inhabitants of the Atlantick 
 states call it, is, indeed a very ancient one ;- 
 and that North America has undergone more 
 
36 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 revolutions in point of civilization, than have 
 heretofore been thought of, either by the Eu- 
 ropean or American philosophers. That part 
 of this continent, which borders on the wes- 
 tern ocean, being almost entirely unknown, 
 it is impossible to say whether it exhibit the 
 same evidence of immersion which is found 
 here. M'Kenzie, however, the only traveller 
 who has ever penetrated through this vast 
 forest, records a curious tradition among some 
 of the western tribes of Indians : to wit, that 
 the world was once covered with water. The 
 tradition is embellished, as usual, with a num- 
 ber of very highly poetical fictions. The fact, 
 which I suppose to be couched under it, is the 
 ancient submersion of that part of the conti- 
 nent; which, certainly looks much more like 
 a world than the petty territory that was in- 
 undated by Eucalion's flood. If I remember 
 aright, for I cannot immediately refer to the 
 book, Stith, in his history of Virginia, has 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 3? 
 
 VTecorded a similar tradition among the Atlan- 
 tic ktribes of Indians. I have no doubt that if 
 M^Kenzie had been as well qualified for scien- 
 tifick research, as he was undoubtedly honest, 
 firm and persevering, it would have been in his 
 power to have thrown great lights on this 
 subject as it relates to the western country. 
 
 For my own part, while I believe the pre- 
 sent mountains of America to have constituted 
 the original stamina of the continent, I believe 
 at the same time, the western as well as the 
 eastern country to be the effect of alluvion ; 
 produced too by the same causes: the rota- 
 tion of the earth, and the planetary attrac- 
 tion of the ocean. 
 
 The perception 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 imaginations 
 to the time of its birth, and suppose some 
 
 one of the highest pinnacles of the Blue 
 
 4 
 
38 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 Ridge to have just emerged above the sur- 
 face of the sea. Now whether the rolhng 
 of the earth to the east give to the ocean, 
 which floats loosely upon its bosom, an ac- 
 tual counter-current, to the west,* which is 
 
 « This idea, which is merely stated hypotheUcally^ is 
 considered, by the Inquirer, as having been a position abso- 
 lutely taken by the British Spy : and as the reverse prin- 
 ciple, (to wit, that the motion of the waters is taken from 
 and corresponds with that of the soliil earth,) is so well 
 estabUshedy he concludes that it must have been contested 
 by the British Spy through mere inadvertence. But, 
 for my part, I do not perceive how this hypothetical idea 
 of the British Spy is, at all, in collision with the doctrine 
 of the diurnal or annual revolution of the terraqueous 
 globe. 
 
 The British Spy could not have been guilty of so great 
 an absurdity as to intend that the waters of the ocean de- 
 serted their bed and broke over the eastern coasts and 
 lofty mountains of opposing continents, in order to main- 
 tain their actual counter-current to the west. It must 
 have been clear to him, that the ocean, keeping its bed, 
 must attend the motion of the earth, " not only on its 
 axis, but in its orbit." But the question here is not as to 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. o5? 
 
 occasionally, further accelerated by the mo- 
 tion of the tides in that direction, or wheth- 
 er this be not the case; still to our newly 
 emerged pinnacle, which is whirled, by the 
 
 the position of the whole ocean as it relates to the whole 
 earth : the question is merely as to the locomotion of the 
 particles of the ocean, among themselves. For although 
 the ocean, as well as the solid earth, must pei'fovm a com- 
 plete revolution around their common axis once in 
 twenty-four hours, it does not follow, as I take it, that the 
 globu'fs of the fluid ocean must, all this time, remain as 
 fixed as the atoms of the solid earth : they certainly may 
 and certainly have, from some cause or other, a subordi- 
 nate motion among themselves, frequently adverse to the 
 general motion of the globe ; to wit, a current to the 
 west. The atmosphere belongs as much to this globe as 
 the waters of the ocean do : that is to say, it cannot any 
 more than the ocean fly off and attach itself to any other 
 planet. It feels, like the ocean, the gravitating power of 
 the earth and the attraction of the neighboiing j)lanets. 
 It is afi'ected, no doubt vei-y sensibly (at least the lower 
 region of it) by the earths diurnal rotation, and like the 
 ocean, is compelled to attend her in her annual journey 
 ground the sun. But what of this ? Does the atmos- 
 
4@ the; BRITISH SPY. 
 
 earth's motion, through the waters of the 
 deep, the consequences will be the same 
 as if there were this actual and strong cur- 
 rent. For while the waters will be continu- 
 
 phere remain fixed in such a manner, as that the part of 
 it, which our antipodes are respiring at this moment, is to 
 furnish our diet our pabulum vita twelve hours hence ? 
 Certainly not ; the atoms which compose the atmosphere 
 are, we know, in spite of the earth's diurnal and an- 
 nual motion, agitated and impelled in every direction; 
 and so also, we equally well know, are the waters of the 
 ocean. 
 
 If the Inquirer, when he says that "the motion of the 
 earth is cor;;municated to every part of it, whether solid 
 or fluid," intend that the motion of the loose and fluid 
 particles of the ocean take, from the earth, a flux among 
 themselves to the east, the result would be an actual cur- 
 rent to the east ; which is not pretended. If he mean, 
 that the globules of the ocean, unafi^ected by any other 
 cause tiiun the motion of the earth, would always majn- 
 tain the same position in relation to each other, he majj 
 indeed, allege a principle which is well established ; but 
 as it does not meet the approbation of ray reason, and as 
 
THE BRITISH SPY, 41 
 
 ally accumulated on the eastern coast of 
 this pinnacle, it is obvious that on the west- 
 ern coast, (protected, as it would be, from 
 the current, by the newly risen earth,) the 
 
 I am not in the habit of reading merely th-at I may under- 
 stand and believe. I must beg permission to enter my dis- 
 sent to the principle. It avouUI be difficult, if not impossi- 
 ble, so close as we are in the neighbourhood of the earth's 
 attraction, to invent any apparatus by which a decisive ex- 
 periment could be made on this subject. But, by the way 
 of iliustralion, let us suppose the earth at rest; let us 
 suppose the atmosphere, by the hand of the great chemist 
 who raised it into its present aeritorm state, once more 
 reduced to a fluid ; let us sup[)ose it, like a great ocean, 
 to surround tlie earth within the torrid zone, (partitioned 
 at right angles, by two or three mountains running from 
 north to south) and all its parts reposing in a lialcyou 
 calm : let us then suppose the eartli whirled on its axis to 
 the east; what would be the probable effect ? it is clear 
 that tlie lower region of this superincumbent ocean would 
 be most strongly bound by the eaith's attraction; it Is 
 equally clear that the stratunj of globules, immediately in 
 contact with the earth, would adhere raox-e strongly there- 
 A* 
 
42 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 waters will always 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 
 
 to, than to the fluid stratum which rested upon it; while 
 this adhesion to the surface of the earth would be assisted 
 by the many rugged protuberances on that surface. 
 Hence the first motioaof the earth, the lowest part of 
 this circumambient ocean, being most powerfully attract- 
 ed and attached to the earth, would slide under the fluid 
 mass above it, and thereb)"^ produce an inequality in the up- 
 per surface of the water itself; an elevation in the eastern, 
 a concavity in the western side of each partition ; wbile the 
 waters, from their tendency to seek their level, would 
 strive to restore the balance, by falling constantly from 
 east to west. 
 
 Whether this effect would continue for ever, or how 
 long it w ould continue in our oceans as they are at present 
 arranged, it is not easy to solve. But that a current from 
 t];e east to the west would be at first produced, is as evi- 
 dent as the light ctf heaven : if it be denied, I demand the 
 solution of the following phenomenon : if a plate be filled 
 wiijh oil or other fluid, and the plate be then drawn in any 
 
THE BRfTISH SPY. 43 
 
 pinnacle, will always have a tendency to set- 
 tle in the calm behind it ; and thus, by per- 
 petual accumulations* form a western coast, 
 more rapidly perhaps than an eastern one ; 
 
 direction, how does it happen that tlie fluid will manifest a 
 tendency to flow in the opposite direction ; insomuch that 
 if the draught of the plate be sudden, the fluid, running 
 rapidly over the adverse edge of the plate, shall discharge 
 itself completely ; leaving little behind but the inferiour 
 stratum ? 1 take it, that the man who solves this pheno- 
 menon, satisfactorily, will be compelled to resort to prin- 
 ciples, which, when applied to our oceans resting loosely 
 as they do on the earth which rolls under them, would in- 
 evitably produce a western current; and this current 
 once produced it will be difficult to say why and when it 
 should cease. A current thus produced would be unequal, 
 from the nature of its cause, at various depths : it would 
 be subject to temporary affections and alterations near its 
 surface, by the winds, the tides and the diversified shapes 
 of the coasts on which the ocean rolls. The general ten- 
 dency, however, of the great mass of ths waters would be 
 to the west. 
 
 I see no souiid reason in renouncing Mr. Uuffbn's the- 
 oiy either on account of the eloquent and beautiful man- 
 
44 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 as we may see in miniature, by the capes and 
 shallows collected by the still water, on each 
 side, at the mouths of creeks, or below rocks, 
 in the rapids of a river. 
 
 ner in which it is explained ; nor because it has long had its 
 just portion of admirers ; nor because thei'e are other more 
 modern theories. A^'hile we are children, it may be well 
 enough to lie passively on our liacks and permit others 
 to prepare and feed us with the pap of science ; but when 
 our own judgments and understandings have gained their 
 maturity, it behoves us, instead of being " a feather for 
 every wind that blows," instead of floating impotcntly he- 
 fore the capricious current o? fashion and opinion, to lieave 
 out all our anchors ; to take a position from which nothing 
 shall move us but reason and truth, not novelty and fash- 
 ion. In the progress of science, many principles, in my 
 opinion, have been dropped to make way for others, Avhich 
 are newer but less true. And among them Mr. Huffon's 
 theory of the earth. The effect of alluvion is so slow, that 
 any one generation is almost unable to pei'Ceive the change 
 wrought by it ; hence, many people, unable to sit down 
 and reflect on the wonders which time can do, fly off" with 
 a kind of puerile impatience, and resort to any thing, even 
 
THE BRITISH SPY, 45 
 
 After this newborn 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 
 
 a bouleversemente of a whole continent, rather than to de- 
 pend on so slow and imperceptible an operation as that of 
 alluvion. Thisis not philosoithical. N either on tlie other 
 hand would it be philosophical. to reject a theory because it 
 might be new and unsupported by a name. On the contra- 
 ry, the man who on any branch of philosophy starts a new- 
 hypothesis, which has even the guise of reason, confers a 
 benefit on the world; for he enlargesthegi-ound of thought, 
 and although not immediately in the temple of truth him- 
 self, may have dropped a hint, an accidental clev/, which 
 may serve to lead others to the door of the tt mple. In this 
 spirit, I not only excuse, but am grateful even for, the 
 wildest of Dr. Dai'win's philosophical chimeras. In the 
 same spirit, I offer, without the expectation of its fin£tl 
 adoption, the idea suggested by this note as to the cause 
 of a western current. 
 
46 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 each rain, which fell upon it, bore down a 
 part of its substance and assisted perpetu- 
 ally in the enlargement of its area. 
 
 It is curious that the arrans^ement of the 
 mountains both in North and South A ri eri- 
 ca, as well as the shape of the two continents, 
 combine to strengthen the preceding theory. 
 For the mountains, as you will perceive on in- 
 specting your maps, run in chains from north 
 to south; thus opposing the widest possible 
 barrier to the sands, as they roll from east 
 to west. The shape of the continent is just 
 that which would naturally be expected from 
 such an origin : that is, they lie along, colla- 
 terally, with the mountains. As far north as 
 the country is weli known, these ranges of 
 mountains are observed ; and it is remarka- 
 ble, that as soon as the Cordilleras terminate 
 in the south, the continent of South America 
 ends : where they terminate in the norths the 
 continent dwindles to a narrow Isthmus. 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 47. 
 
 Assuming this theory as correct, it is amu- 
 sing 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 
 equal 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 wonderful in them. 
 
 Connected with this, it is not an improbable 
 conclusion, that new continents and islands are 
 now forming on the bed of the ocean. Per- 
 haps, at some future day, lands may emerge 
 in the neit^hbourhood of the Antarctic circle, 
 which by progressive accumulations and a 
 
48 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 consequent increase of weight, may keep a 
 juster balance between the poles, and pro-^ 
 (luce a material difference in our astronomi- 
 cal relations. The navigators of that day 
 will be as successful in their discoveries in 
 the southern seas, as Columbus was hereto- 
 fore in the northern. For there can be little 
 doubt that there has been a time when Co- 
 lumbus, if he 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, Cook and others, encouraged perhaps 
 by similar reasoning, have since sought the 
 ocean of the south. 
 
 If Mr. Buffon's notion be correct, that the 
 eastern coast of one continent is perpetu- 
 ally feeding on the western coast of that which 
 lies before it, the conclusion is inevitable, that 
 the present materials of Europe and Africa, 
 and Asia in succession, will at some future day 
 
<rHE BRITISH SPY. 49 
 
 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 supposed to 
 have been originally attached. It is equally 
 clear that, by this means, the continents 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 ceremoni- 
 ous distance from each other, which they 
 now hold. 
 
 According to my theory, which supposes 
 an alluvion on the western as well as the eas- 
 tern coast, the continents and islands of the 
 earth, will be caused, reciprocally, to approxi- 
 mate, and (if materials enough can be found 
 in the bed of the ocean, or generated by any 
 process of nature) ultimately to unite. Our 
 island of Great Britain, therefore, at some 
 5 
 
50 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 future day, and in proper person, will proba- 
 bly invade the territory of France. In the 
 course of this work of alluvion, as it relates 
 to this country, the reflugent waters of the 
 Atlantick will be forced to recede from Hamp- 
 ton Roads and the Chesapeake ; the beds 
 whereof will become fertile valleys, 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 majestick 
 eminences, and the present sickly site of Nor- 
 folk be converted into a high and salubrious 
 mountain. I apprehend, however, that the 
 present inhabitants of Norfolk would be ex- 
 tremely unwilling to have such an effect 
 wrought in their day ; since there can be little 
 doubt that they prefer their present commer- 
 cial situation, incumbered as it is by the annu- 
 al visits of the yellow fever, to the elevation 
 and health of the Blue Ridge. 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 51 
 
 In the course of this process, too, of which 
 I have been speaking, if the theory be cor- 
 rect, the gulf of Mexico will be eventually 
 filled up, and the west India Islands conso- 
 lidated with 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 probabi- 
 lity that the isthmus of Darien, which con- 
 nects the two continents, is coeval with the 
 Blue Pvidge or the Cordilleras; and it re- 
 quires only a continuation of the cause 
 which produced the isthmus, to effect the 
 repletion of the gulph and the consoiiUation 
 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 Pompeia 
 were found to be buried in the course of 
 
52 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 sixteen hundred years, affords us no light on 
 this inquiry; because their burial was effect- 
 ed not by the slow alluvion and accumulation 
 of time, but by the sudden and repeated erup- 
 tions of Vesuvius. As little are we aided by 
 the repletion of the earth around the Tar- 
 fieian rock in Rome; since that repletion 
 was most probably effected in a very great 
 degree, by the materials of fallen buildings. 
 And besides, the original height of the rock 
 is not ascertained with any kind of precision ; 
 historians having, I believe, merely inform- 
 ed 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 sun- 
 wieldly whale, and a few mouldering teetH 
 of a shark, would have led me such a dance ! 
 
 Adieu, my dear S , for the present j 
 
 May the light of Heaven continue to shine 
 around you ! 
 
LETTER III. 
 
 Richmond^ Sefitember 15. 
 
 You inquire into the state of your favourite 
 
 art in Virginia. F.loquence, my dear S , 
 
 has few successful votaries here : I niean 
 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 
 o-ood sense, and some random touches of the 
 pathetic ; but in the same bodies, I have heard 
 a far greater proportion of puerile rant, or 
 5* 
 
54 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 tedious and disgusting inanity. Three re- 
 marks are true as to almost all their orators. 
 
 First : they have not a sufficient fund of 
 general knowledge. 
 
 Secondly : they have not the habit of close 
 and solid thinking. 
 
 Thirdly : they do not aspire at original ovr 
 naments. 
 
 From these three defects, it most generally 
 results, that although they pour out, easily 
 enough, a torrent of words, yet these are des- 
 titute of the light of erudition, the practical 
 utility of just and copious thought, or those 
 novel and beautiful allusions and embellish- 
 ments, with which the very scenery of the 
 country is so highly calculated to inspire them. 
 
 The truth is, my dear S , that this 
 
 scarcity of genuine and sublime eloquence, 
 is not confined to the United States : in- 
 stances of it in any civilized country have 
 always been rare indeed. Mr. Blair is cer- 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 55 
 
 tainly correct in the opinion, that a state of na- 
 ture is most favourable to the higher efforts 
 of the imagination, and the more unrestrained 
 and noble raptures of the heart. Civilization, 
 wherever it has gained ground, has interwo- 
 ven with society a habit of artificial and ela- 
 borate decorum, which mixes in every opera- 
 tion of life, deters the fancy from every bold 
 enterprise, and buries nature under a load of 
 hypocritical ceremonies. A man, therefore, 
 in order to be eloquent, has to forget the ha- 
 bits in which he has been educated ; and ne- 
 ver will he touch his audience so exquisitely 
 as when he goes back to the primitive sim- 
 plicity of the patriarchal age. 
 
 I have said that instances of genuine and 
 sublime eloquence have always been rare in 
 every civilized country. It is true that Tul- 
 ly and Pliny the younger have, in their epis- 
 tles, represented Rome, in their respective 
 -days, as swarming with orators of the first 
 
56 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 class: yet from the specimens which they 
 themselves 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 
 translates it, in action ; and, although I know 
 that the world would proscribe it as a lite- 
 rary heresy, I cannot help believing Tully*s 
 merit to have been principally of that 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, indeed, is 
 pure, polished, sparkling, full and sonorous ; 
 and perhaps deserves all the encomiums 
 which have been bestowed on it. But an ora- 
 tion, certahily, no more deserves the title of 
 superior eloquence, because its style is orna- 
 mented, than the figure of an Apollo would 
 deserve the epithet of elegant, merely from 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 5( 
 
 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 richness of the 
 conception itself, which I regard, 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 
 we have been taught to fix them. 
 
 It is true, that at school, I learned, 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 volumes again and look- 
 ed in vain for that sublimity of conception, 
 which fills and astonishes the mind ; that sim- 
 ple pathos which finds such a sweet welcome 
 in every breast; or that resistless enthusiasm 
 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 destitute of that com- 
 
58 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 pulsive energy of thought which we look for 
 in a great man, but even void of the strong, 
 rich and varied colouring of a superior fancy. 
 His masterpiece of composition, his work, 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 musick, his look and gesture as 
 all alive, striking, dignified and peculiarly im- 
 pressive ; and I incline to the opinion, that to 
 these theatrical advantages, connected with 
 the just reliance which the Romans had in his 
 patriotism and good judgment, their strong 
 interest in the subjects discussed 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 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 59 
 
 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 Demosthenes. He de- 
 serves, indeed, the distinction of having more 
 fire and less smoke than Tully. But in the 
 majestick march of the mind, in the 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 should I be anathematized 
 and excommunicated by every pedagogue 
 in Great Britain, if these remarks were made 
 public ! Spirits of Car and of Ascham ! have 
 mercy upon me ! Wo betide the hand that 
 plucks the wizard beard of hoary errour ! 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 
 
60 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 Opinions with the same freedom, and for the 
 same purpose, 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 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 Tim- 
 otheus ? Is not the whoie mystery compre- 
 hended 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 another; 
 but that still more delicate and subtile quality 
 by which we passively catch the very colours, 
 momentum and strength of the mind, to 
 whose operations we are attending; which 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 61 
 
 converts every speaker, to whom we listen, 
 into a Vrocrustes, and enables him, for the mo- 
 ment, to stretch or lop our faculties to fit the 
 standard of his own mind. 
 
 This is a very curious subject. I am 
 sometimes half inclined to adopt the notion 
 stated by our great Bacon in his original and 
 masterly treatise on the advancement of lear- 
 ning. " Fascination," says he, " is the power 
 " and act of imagination intensive upon other 
 " bodies than the body of the imaginant ; 
 " wherein the school of Paracelsus and the 
 *' disciples of pretended natural magick have 
 " been so intemperate, as that they have ex- 
 " alted the power of the imagination to be 
 ^* much one with the power of miracle-work- 
 " ing faith : others that draw nearer to pro- 
 " bability, calling to their view the secret 
 *' passages of things and especially of the 
 " contagion that passeth from body to body, 
 " do conceive it should Hkewise be agreeable 
 6 
 
62 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 " to nature, that there should be some irans' 
 " missions and operations Jrom spirit to 
 ** shirit^ ivithout the mediation of the senses '; 
 " whence the conceits have grown, now al- 
 " most made civil, of the mastering spirit, 
 " and the force of confidence, and the like.'* 
 This notion is farther explained in his Sylva 
 Sylvarum, wherein he tells a story of an Egyp- 
 tian 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, however, that this sooth- 
 sayer was suborned by Cleopatra, who wish- 
 ed Anthony's company in Egypt. 
 
 Yet, if there be not something of this secret 
 intercourse from spirit to spirit, how does 
 it happen that one speaker shall gradually 
 invade and benumb all the faculties of my soul 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 63 
 
 as if I were handling a torpedo ; while another 
 shall awaken and arouse me, like the clangour 
 of the martial trumpet ? How does it happen 
 that the first shall infuse his poor spirit into 
 my system, lethargize my native 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, exalt me into a new and 
 nobler 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 after the agency of the speak- 
 er has ceased? Insomuch, that if I sit down 
 to any intellectual exercise, after listening to 
 the first speaker, my performance shall be 
 unworthy even of me, and the num-fish vi- 
 sible and tangible in every sentence ; whereas, 
 if I enter on the same amusement, after ha- 
 
64 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 viiig attended to the last mentioned orator, 
 I shall be astonished at the elevation and 
 vigour of my own thoughts ; and if I meet, 
 accidentally, with the same production, a 
 month or two afterwards, when my mind has 
 lost the inspiration, shall scarcely recognise 
 it for my own work. 
 
 Whence is all this ? To me it would seem 
 that it must proceed either from the subtile 
 commerce between the spirits of men, which 
 lord Verulam notices, and which enables tlie 
 speaker, thereby, to identify his hearer with 
 himself ; or else that the mind of man posses- 
 ses, independently of any volition on the part of 
 its proprietor, a species of papillary faculty of 
 dilating and contracting itself, 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 al)ruptly altered* 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 65 
 
 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 produ- 
 ced, though perhaps in a less degree, by peru- 
 sing 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, with 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 
 of his work, his powers begin to languish, he 
 finds it easy to revive and charge them afresh 
 from the same never failing source. 
 
 If these things be not visionary, it becomes 
 important to a man, for a new reason, what 
 books he reads, and what company he keeps, 
 since, according to lord Verulam's notion, • 
 6* 
 
66 THE BRITISH SPY. ' 
 
 an influx of the spirits of others may change * 
 the native character of his heart and under- 
 standing, before he is aware of it; or, accord- 
 ing to the other suggestion, he may so habi- 
 tually contract the pupil of his mind, as to be 
 disqualified for the comprehension of a great 
 subject, and fit only for microscopick obser- ' 
 vations. Whereas by keeping the company 
 and reading the works of men of magnanimity 
 and genius only, he may receive their quali- 
 ties by subtile transmission, and eventually, 
 
 get the eye, the ardour and the enterprise of 
 an eagle. 
 
 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 eflPect he has 
 wrought on his audience, he should coolly and 
 conscienciously propound to himself this 
 question : Have I, myself, throughout my 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 6? 
 
 oration, felt those clear and cogent convic- 
 tions of judgment, and that pure and ex- 
 alted fire of the soul, with which I wished 
 to inspire others ? For, he may rely on it, 
 that he can no more impart (or to use Ba- 
 con's word, transmit) convictions and sen- 
 sations which he himself has not, at the 
 time, sincerely felt, than 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 country. 
 Following up too closely the cold conceit of 
 the Roman division of an oration, the speak- 
 ers set aside a particular part of their dis- 
 course, usually the peroration, in which, 
 they take it into their heads that they will be 
 pathetick. Accordingly when they reach 
 this part, whether it be prompted by the 
 feelings or not, a mighty bustle commences. 
 The speaker pricks up his eai-s, erects his 
 
63 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 chest, tosses his arms wtth hysterical 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 ap- 
 proach to the appearance of the reality, the 
 heart nevertheless possesses a keen unerring 
 sense, which never fails to detect the impos- 
 ture. It would seem as if the heart of man 
 stamps a secret mark on all its effusions, 
 which alone can give them currency, and 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 69 
 
 which no ingenuity, however adroit, can suc- 
 cessfully counterfeit. 
 
 I have been not a little diverted, here, in 
 listening to some fine orators, who deal almost 
 intirely in this pathos of the head. They 
 practise the start, the pause — make an im- 
 mense parade of attitudes and gestures, and 
 seem to imagine themselves piercing the 
 heart with a thousand wounds. The heart 
 all the time, developing every trek that is 
 played to cajole her, and sitting serene and 
 composed, looks on and smiles at the ridicu- 
 lous pageant as It passes. 
 
 Nothing can, in my o'pinion, be more ill 
 judged in an orator, than to indulge himself 
 in this idle, artificial parade. It is particularly 
 unfortunate in an exordium. It is as much 
 as to say caveat auditor ; and for my own 
 pan, the moment 1 see an orator rise with 
 this menacing majesty ; assume a look of 
 solemn wisdom ; stretch, forth his right arm. 
 
70 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 like the ruber? s dexter of Jove; and hear 
 him open his throat in deep and tragick tone ; 
 I feel myself involuntarily braced and in an 
 attitude of defence, as if I were going to take 
 a bout with Mendoza. 
 
 /The Virginians boast of an orator^f 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 
 celebrated Patrick Henry, whom I regret 
 that I came to this country too late to see. 
 I cannot, mdeed, easily forgive him, even in 
 the grave, his personal instrumentality in 
 separating 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 on the exordium 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 71 
 
 of an oration; disqualifying himself, with 
 Hooks and expressions of humility so lowly 
 and unassuming, as threw every heart off its 
 guard and induced his audience to listen to 
 him, with the same easy openness with which 
 they would converse with an honest neigh- 
 bour : but, by and by, when it was little ex- 
 pected, he would take a flight so high, and 
 blaze with a splendour so heavenly as filled 
 them with a kind of religious awe, and gave 
 him the force and authority of a prophet. » 
 You remember this was the manncfPof 
 Ulysses ; commencing with the look de- 
 pressed and hesitating voice. Yet I dare 
 say Mr. Henry was directed to it, not by the 
 example of Ulysses, of which it is very pro- 
 bable, that, at the commencement of his ca- 
 reer, at least, he was entirely ignorant : but 
 either that it was the genuine, trembling 
 diffidence, without which, if TuIIy may be 
 believed, a great orator never rises ; or else 
 
1% THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 that he was prompted to it by his own sound 
 judgment and his intimate knowledge of the 
 human heart. 
 I I have seen the skeletons of some of his 
 orations. The periods and their members 
 are short, quick, eager, palpitating, and are 
 manifestly the extemporaneous effusions of 
 a mind deeply convinced, and a heart inflam- 
 ed with zeal for the propagation of those 
 convictions, They afford, however, a very 
 inadequate sample of his talents : the steno- 
 grapher having never attempted to follow 
 him, when he arose in the strength and awful 
 majesty of his genius. 
 
 I am not a little surprised to find eloquence 
 of this high order so negligently cultivated in 
 the United States. Considering what a very 
 powerful engine it is in a republick, and how 
 peculiarly favourable to its culture, the cli- 
 mate of republicks has been always found, 
 I expected to have seen in America more 
 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 73 
 
 votaries to Mercury than even to Plutus. 
 Indeed it would be so sure a road both to 
 vveahh and honours, that if I coveted either, 
 and were an American, I would bend all my 
 powers to its acquirement, and try whether I 
 could not succeed as well as Demosthenes 
 in vanquishing natural imperfections. Ah ! 
 
 my dear S , were you a citizen of 
 
 this country ! You, under the influence of 
 whose voice a parliament of great Britain 
 has trembled and shuddered, while her re- 
 fined 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 Briton. 
 
 On the subject of Virginian eloquence, 
 you shall hear farther from me. In the mean 
 
 time, adieu, my S , my friend, my 
 
 father. 
 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE VIRGINIA ARGUS. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 As the theory of the earth derives importance 
 from its dignity, if not from its utiUty, and 
 has of late years given birth to many in- 
 genious speculations, I shall offer no apology 
 for troubling you with the following remarks, 
 which were suggested by an essay, in last 
 Wednesday's Argus, entitled " The British 
 Spy." 
 
 Sea shells and other marine productions, 
 differing in no respect from those which now 
 exist in their native element, have been found 
 in every explored part of the globe. They 
 are found, too, in the highest as well as in 
 the lowest situations : on the loftiest moun- 
 tains of Europe, and the still loftier Andes 
 of South America. To go no farther from 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 75 
 
 home, our own Allegany abounds with them. 
 How were these substances separated from 
 their parent ocean ? Do they still remain 
 ' in their primitive beds? and has the water 
 deserted them ? or have they deserted the 
 water .^ These questions, differently answer- 
 ed, give rise to different theories. 
 
 Among these theories, that of the Count 
 de Buffon stands conspicuous. Adorned with 
 all the graces of style, and borrowing a lustre 
 from his other splendid productions, it has 
 long had its full share of admirers. After 
 exhibiting new proofs of a former submersion, 
 in which he discovers great ingenuity, and is 
 certainly entitled to great praise, he pro- 
 ceeds to account for the earth in its present 
 form, by a natural operation of the ocean 
 which covered it. This hypothesis, which 
 the British Spy has partially adopted, is liable 
 to many objectionsj which, to me at least, 
 
76 THB BRITISH SPV. 
 
 are insuperable. I will briefly notice some 
 of the most obvious. 
 
 Although alluvion may account for small 
 accessions of soil nearly on a level with the 
 ocean, it cannot explain the formation of 
 mountains. It is contrary to all the known 
 laws of nature to suppose that a fluid could 
 lift, so far above its own level, bodies many 
 times heavier than itself. 
 
 Again, if the ocean, as Buffbn maintains, 
 have a tendency to wear away all points and 
 emhiences over which it passes, it would 
 exert this tendency on the mountains itself 
 had formed ; or rather, it would prevent 
 their formation. It is surely inconsistent to 
 suppose the ocean would produce mountains, 
 and at the same time wear away those that 
 already existed. Indeed, the author himself 
 seemed to be aware of the in"incible objec- 
 tions to this part of his theory, and endeavours 
 to evade their force by sinking a purt of the 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. Tf 
 
 earth, in the cavity occasioned by which, the 
 superfluous waters find a sufficient recepta- 
 cle ; thus abandoning the agency of alluvion, 
 and adopting a new and totally different hy- 
 pothesis. 
 
 But while marine substances are found far 
 above their proper element, vegetable bo- 
 dies are often found far below the seat of their 
 production. In Europe they often meet with 
 wood, at great depths of the earth, in a state 
 of perfect preservation, and in sinking wells, 
 in this country, trunks of trees frequently ob- 
 struct the progress of the work. A Mr. 
 Peters, of Harrison county, not long since, 
 met with pieces of pine, twenty feet below 
 the surface, on a hill of considerable eleva- 
 tion, and at a distance from any water-course. 
 In this town, leaves, believed to be those of 
 the hazle, were found mingled with marine 
 productions. These vegetable matters must 
 have been once exposed to air, heat and 
 
 7* 
 
78 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 light, to have attained the state in which they 
 were found; and the same exposure would 
 have afterwards caused their decay, unless 
 their interment had been sudden and com- 
 plete. Bones, shells and other extraneous 
 substances, are often found bedded in marble 
 and other hard bodies; and I myself have 
 seen a specimen of those human bones, 
 which in the fortifications of Gibraltar are of- 
 ten found incorporated with the solid rock. 
 What less than some great throe of nature, 
 or some mighty agent, now dormant and un- 
 known, could have produced the general 
 bouleversement which these appearances in- 
 dicate ? 
 
 But the hypothetical reasoning of Monsieur 
 de Buffon is founded on a fact no less hypo- 
 thetical. The arguments, in favour of a ge- 
 neral current to the west, are I confess, very 
 cogent, and would be convincing but for the 
 following difficulties. 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 79 
 
 1. If the operation of the sun and moon, 
 in producing alternate elevations and depres- 
 sions of the ocean, produce also a current, 
 the force of this current will be in pro- 
 portion to the mass of water thus raised and 
 depressed. Now, contrary to the assertion 
 of Baffon, the tides are highest in high la- 
 titudes, and gradually diminish towards the 
 equator; where I believe they hardly ex- 
 ceed a foot. By the observations of Cap- 
 tain Cook, the same difference exists in the 
 Pacifick ocean as was long known in the 
 Atlantick. If then there be a general current 
 to the west, it should be strongest in high 
 latitudes and weakest under the line. But the 
 contrary is the fact. No general current to 
 the west is found without the tropicks ; and 
 that which prevails irregularly between them 
 is usually and rationally ascribed to the trade 
 winds. 
 
80 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 2. If this supposed current existed, its 
 effect would be readily perceived by our na- 
 vigators in the difference of their passages to 
 and from Europe; but, the one before re- 
 ferred to excepted, they meet with nothing of 
 the kind. A current, at the rate of one 
 mile an hour, would make a difference of 
 near two thousand miles between an ordinary 
 voyage to. and from Europe. 
 
 3. By actual observations, detailed in the 
 second volume of the Philosophical Trans- 
 actions, the prevailing currents about some 
 islands in the Atlantick Ocean are to the east. 
 At Owhyhee, which lies within the tropicks, 
 and nearly in the middle of the Pacifick 
 Ocean, Captain Cook observed the current 
 to set, without any regularity, sometimes to 
 the west and sometimes to the east. 
 
 4. But one argument may be deemed 
 conclusive. The air is a fluid at least as sen- 
 sible to the gravitating power of the planet 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 81 
 
 as the Ocean, and like that, must also have 
 its tides. If, on the one hand, the tides of 
 the air are more liable, to be disturbed by its 
 compressibility, by partial rarefaction or con- 
 densation, its obstacles, on the other hand, to 
 a free motion round the earth, are compa- 
 ratively inconsiderable. Its course is some- 
 what impeded, but never arrested. If then 
 such a general law existed, as is contended 
 for, there would be, either a steady east wind, 
 or greater flow of air from that quarter than 
 from the west, in every climate of the globe. 
 But this is the case only between the tropicks; 
 and the prevalence of the east wind, in that 
 region, has been almost universally ascribed 
 to rarefaction by heat, since no other solu- 
 tion can account for the sea and land breezes, 
 monsoons, and other phenomena of those 
 climates. 
 
 From these considerations I am disposed 
 to think, that there is no uniform current to 
 
82 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 the west ; or that it is too inconsiderable to 
 have any effect on the figure of the earth. 
 Admitting the existence of a general current, 
 it may be merely superficial. Currents, 
 whose force gradually diminishes from the ,. 
 surface downwards, are known to exist; and ; 
 the practice of seamen, when they wish " to 
 try the current," is evidently founded on the 
 belief that they do not extend to great depths. 
 The accession of water by the tides is too 
 small to require a general movement of the 
 ocean to its bottom. 
 
 In weighing the probability of a general 
 current to the west, I have confined myself 
 to the operation of the tides; as the mere mo- 
 tion of the earth, either in its orbit,, or on its 
 axis, can have no possible effect this way. 
 This motion is communicated to every part 
 of the earth, whether solid or fluid ; and while 
 it continues equable, they are both affected 
 alike, and their relative situations remain the 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. So 
 
 same. So well established a principle must 
 have been contested by the British Spy 
 through mere inadvertence. 
 
 If, after all that has been said, ar^^uments, 
 in favour of a current from the surface to 
 the bottom, be deemed conclusive, it is worth 
 while to inquire into its probable effects. 
 
 The British Spy supposes that this ge- 
 neral current enlarges both the eastern and 
 western coast of continents ; in which hypo- 
 thesis, he differs less from Buffon than that 
 elegant but fanciful theorist differs from him- 
 self. For, in his theory on the formation of 
 the planets, he advances that the ocean is 
 continually wearing away the eastern coasts, 
 and by a process, which he does not even 
 hint at, enlarging the western ; and that Asia 
 is an older country than Europe. But in a 
 subsequent work, his Epochs, he maintains 
 the direct reverse, and mentions the abrupt- 
 ness of the western, and the greater number 
 
84 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 of islands of the eastern coasts, as evidences 
 that the former have been abraded by the 
 ocean. 
 
 But I find neither reasoning nor fact to 
 warrant either of these conclusions. It has 
 been observed that a shore forms a convex 
 outline where it gains on the ocean, and a 
 concave where it loses. On inspecting the 
 map of the world, we perceive nothing, which 
 by this standard indicates a greater increase 
 on one continent than on the other, or even 
 any increase at all. We see no vast promi- 
 nence of coast under the line ; but on taking 
 both shores of the ocean, in both hemisfiheresy 
 into comparison, we find that the convexities 
 on the western side are balanced by equal con- 
 vexities on the eastern. Besides it is clear 
 that in proportion as the contents of the 
 ocean are cast on the land, in the same de- 
 gree it becomes deeper, and its shores more 
 steep and abrupt. This is as true of the ocean 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 85 
 
 as it is of a ditch. By this increasing declivi- 
 ty of growing shores, the additional gravity 
 to be overcome will, in time, check the allu- 
 vion of any current, however strong. An 
 opposite equalizing tendency occurs, where 
 the coast is worn away by the ocean. Suc- 
 cessive fragments of rocks and precipices, by 
 sloping the shore, gradually abate the impe- 
 tus of the waters, until the coast attains that 
 due inclination by which the gravity to be 
 overcome exactly counterbalances the pro- 
 jectile force of the ocean. Without doubt, 
 small variations continually take place in the 
 outline of all coasts ; but the equilibrium for 
 which I contend, is founded on correct prin- 
 ciples ; and every coast, whether eastern or 
 western, approaches to that form, if it have 
 not already attained it, when what it loses by 
 the ocean will be precisely equal to what it 
 gains. 
 
 8 
 
86 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 It should be remarked that Buffon, in his 
 last addition to his Theorie, conscious of the 
 insufficiency of alluvion in the formation of 
 continents, supposes that the cavities, with 
 which the earth abounds, are continually fal- 
 ling in, and, from the consequent retreat of 
 the ocean, that continents are continually ap- 
 proximating. This conjecture certainly ren- 
 ders his theory more consistent ; but it sub- 
 stitutes a cause for the immersion of the earth 
 totally different from his first hypothesis of 
 alluvion ; and it has been that alone which I 
 have considered. This last supposition vs 
 merely gratuitous ; as neither observation nor 
 history afford us any proofs of the existence 
 of these immense caverns, or of any general 
 retreat of the ocean. 
 
 For the reasons which I have given, and 
 for many more, the theory of this celebrated 
 naturalist has long been deemed both impro- 
 bable and inadequate, and is now confined to 
 
THE BKITISH SPY. 87 
 
 the merit, (no small merit by the by) of ha- 
 ving collected valuable materials, and detec- 
 ted the fallacies of Burnet, Woodward and 
 other dreamers on the subject. It has ac- 
 cordingly giv en place to new theories, more 
 consistent at least, if not more satisfactory. 
 Volcanoes, an intense heat in the centre 
 of the earth, the recrements of animals and 
 vegetables, have been employed, as separate 
 or joint agents, by the speculators on this cu- 
 rious subject. Dr. Hutton, by far the most 
 celebrated of these, supposes the exuvi« of 
 sV '' iish to have constituted the basis of the 
 earth ; and that it has assumed its present 
 form and appearance by the fusion produced 
 by the earth's internal heat. He supports 
 this opinion by a train of elaborate reasoning, 
 and a chemical examination of the bodies 
 which compose the outer crust of the earth. 
 I regret that I am acquainted with the work 
 only at second hand. But I believe that 
 
THE nillTISH SPY. 
 
 even this theory, ingenious and scientiftck as 
 it is, gives little more general satisfaction than 
 those which preceded it. It is, in common with 
 the other late hypothesis, opposed by the fine 
 reasoning of Buffon, in favour of the imme- 
 diate action of water in producing the cor- 
 respondent angles of mountains, their waving 
 outline, parallel strata, &c, as well as by 
 many of the facts I have glanced at; audit 
 is, moreover, said to be contradicted by some 
 chemical experiments, at once pertinent and 
 clear. 
 
 On the whole, then, I fear we have not yet 
 arrived at that certainty which will satisfy the 
 inquirer who is neither enamoured with the 
 fancies of his own brain, nor seduced by the 
 eloquence of others ; and therefore, to use 
 the words of an elegant writer of our own 
 country, who discovers the same acuteness, 
 the same philosophick caution on this as on 
 other occasions, " we must be contented to 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 89 
 
 " acknowledge that this great phenomenon is, 
 " yet, unsolved. Ignorance is preferable to 
 " errour ; and he is less remote from the truth 
 " who believes nothing, than he who believes 
 " what is wrong.'* 
 
 Before we can obtain a sober conviction on 
 the subject, or even properly compare the 
 probability of the respective theories, many 
 questions now contested must be settled ; new 
 facts must be discovered ; new powers of na- 
 ture developed. 
 
 How far does the power of aqueous solution 
 and of crystallization extend ? Does the earth 
 borrow all its heat from the sun ? or has it a 
 perennial source in its own bowels ? are there 
 general currents in the ocean ? If so, what are 
 their courses, periods and strength ? It is clear 
 that every rain that falls, every wind that 
 blows, transports some portion of the earth 
 we inhabit to the ocean. Is there any se- 
 cret and magical process in nature, as some 
 8* 
 
90 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 have supposed, by which this perpetual waste 
 is perpetually repaired ? and do mouniains re- 
 ceive accessions by rain, by attraction, or any 
 other mode equal to what they evidently lose ? 
 Again, water is converted into vegetables, ve- 
 getables into animals, and both of these again 
 into earth. Is this same earth reconverted 
 into water, and by one unvaried round of 
 mutation, each preserved in its present pro- 
 portion to all eternity ^ 
 
 Science, with an ardour of inquiry never 
 before known, and a daily increase of materi- 
 als, advances with hasty steps to answer these 
 preliminary questions; but till they are sol- 
 ved, I incline to think that every theory is 
 premature, and shall, therefore, remain satis- 
 fied with the safe, but humble character of 
 
 AN INQUIRER. 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 Richmond^ September 22. 
 
 I HAVE just returned, my dear S , from 
 
 an interestiug morning's ride. My object 
 was to visit the site of the Indian town, Pow- 
 hatan; which you will remember was the 
 metropolis of the dominions of Pocahuntas' 
 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 Rich- 
 mond : 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 construced their habi- 
 
92 THE BRITISH SPY, 
 
 tations, I Was not at all disappointed in finding 
 no vestige of the old town. But as I travers- 
 ed the ground over which Pocahuntas had so 
 often bounded and frolicked in the sprightly 
 morning of her youth, I could not help re- 
 calling the principal features of her history, 
 and heaving a sigh of mingled pity and vene- 
 ration to her memory. 
 
 Good Heaven ! What an eventful life was 
 hers! To speak of nothing else, the arrival 
 of the English in her father's dominions must 
 have appeared (as indeed it turned out to be) 
 a most portentous phenomenon. It is not 
 easy for us to conceive the amazement and 
 consternation which must have filled her 
 mind and that of her nation at the first ap- 
 pearance of our countrymen. Their great 
 ship, with all her sails spread, advancing in 
 solemn majesty to the shore; their com- 
 plexion ; their dress ; their language ; their 
 domestick animals ; their cargo of new and 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 93 
 
 glittering wealth ; and then the thunder and 
 irresistible force of their artillery ; the distant 
 country announced by them, far beyond the 
 great water, of vyhich the oldest Indian had 
 never heard; or thought, or dreamed — all 
 this was so new; so wonderful, so tremen- 
 dous, that I do seriously suppose, the per- 
 sonal descent of an army of Milton's celestial 
 angels, robed in light, sporting in the bright 
 beams of the sun and redoubling their splen- 
 dour, making divine harmony with their 
 golden harps, or playing with the bolt and 
 chasing the rapid Hghtning of heaven, would 
 excite not more astonishment in Great Bri- 
 tain than did the debarkation of the English 
 among the aborigines of Virginia, 
 
 Poor Indians ! Where are they now ? In- 
 deed, my dear S ., this is a truly afflict- 
 ing consideration. The people here may 
 say what they please ; but, on the principles 
 of eternal truth and justice, they have no 
 
94 THE BRITSH SPY. 
 
 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 grace, what they knew that they 
 had not the power to retain. Such a bargain 
 might appease the conscience of a gentleman 
 of the green bag, " worn and hackneyed" in 
 the arts and frauds of his profession; but 
 
 in heaven's chancery, my S , there can 
 
 be little doubt that it has been long since set 
 aside on the ground of duress. 
 
 Poor wretches ! No wonder that they are 
 so implacably vindictive against the white 
 people ; no wonder that the rage of resent- 
 ment 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 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 95 
 
 frenzy 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 vic- 
 tim shrieks and faints amid the flames, when 
 they imagine all the crimes of their oppres- 
 sors collected on his head, and fancy the spirits 
 of their injured forefathers hovering over the 
 scene, smiling with ferocious delight at the 
 grateful spectacle, and feasting on the pre- 
 cious 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 civi- 
 lization ; or, in other words, that they so ob- 
 stinately refuse to adopt the manners of the 
 white men. 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 
 
96 THE BRITISH SPT. 
 
 their beloved forefathers, once, in careless 
 gaiety, pursued their sports and hunted their 
 gathe ; 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 in 
 the midst of all this innocence, simplicity and 
 bliss — the white man came ; and lo ! — the * 
 animated chase, the feast, the dance, the song 1 
 of fearless, thoughtless joy were over ; 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 suc- 
 cession: until, driven from river to river, 
 from forest to forest, and through a period of 
 two hundred years, rolled back, nation upon 
 nation, they find themselves fugitives, va- 
 grants and strangers in their own country, 
 and look forward to the certain period VTbeii 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 97 
 
 Iheir descendants will be totally extinguished 
 by wars, driven at the point of the bayonet 
 into the western ocean, or reduced to a fate 
 i still more deplorable and horrid, the condition 
 I of slaves. Go, administer the cup of ob- 
 ! livion to recollections and anticipations like 
 these, and then you will cease to complain 
 I that the Indian refuses to be civilized. But 
 until then, surely it is nothing wonderful 
 that a nation even yet bleeding afresh, from 
 I the memory of ancient wrongs, perpetually 
 j agonized by new outrages, and goaded into 
 I desperation and madness at the prospect of 
 the certain ruin which awaits their descend- 
 ants, should hate the authors of their mise- 
 ries, of their desolation, 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 
 9 
 
98 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 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 Jesus ! 
 OI it was impious; it was unmanly; poor 
 and pitiful! Gracious Heaven! what had 
 these poor people done.^ The simple inhabi- 
 tants of these peaceful plains, what wrong, 
 what injury had they offered to the English r 
 My soul melts with pity and shame. 
 
 As for the present inhabitants, it must be 
 granted that they are comparatively innocent : 
 unless indeed they also have encroached un- 
 der the guise of treaties, which they them- 
 selves have previously contrived to render 
 expedient or necessary to the Indians. 
 
 Whether this have been the case or not, I 
 am too much a stranger to the interior trans- 
 actions of this country to decide. But it 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 99 
 
 seems to me that were I a president of the 
 United States, I would glory in going to 
 the Indians, throwing myself on my knees be- 
 fore them, and saying to them, " Indians, 
 " friends, brothers, O ! forgive my country- 
 " men ! 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 for-' 
 " give 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 fa- 
 " mily.'* I believe that a magnanimity of senti- 
 ment like this, followed up by a correspondent 
 greatness of conduct on the part of the peo- 
 
100 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 pie of the United States, would go far- 
 ther to burv the tomahawk and produce 
 a fraternization with the Indians, than 
 all the presents, treaties and missiona- 
 ries that can be employed ; dashed and de- 
 feated as these latter means always are, by 
 a claim of rights on the part of the white 
 people which the Indians know to be false 
 and baseless. Let me not be told that the 
 Indians 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 
 Alknomok, a Logan, and a Pocahuntas. 
 
 The repetition of the name of this amia- 
 ble princess brings me back to the point 
 from which I digressed. I wonder that 
 the Virginians, fond as they are of anniversa- 
 ries, have instituted no festival or order ia 
 honour of her memory. For my own part, 
 I have little doubt, from the histories which 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 10 1 
 
 we have of the first attempts at colonising 
 their country, that Pocahuntas deserves to be 
 considered as the patron deity of the enter- 
 prise. When it is remembered how long 
 the colony struggled to get a footing; how 
 often sickness or famine, neglect at home, 
 mismanagement here, and the hostilities of 
 the natives, brought it to the brink of ruin ; 
 through what a tedious lapse of time, it alter- 
 nately languished and revived, sunk and rose, 
 sometimes hanging like Addison's lamp, 
 " quivering at a point," then suddenly shoot- 
 ing up into a sickly and shortlived flame ; in 
 one word, when we recollect how near and 
 how often it verged towards total extinction, 
 maugre the patronage of Pocahuntas ; there 
 is the 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. 
 9» 
 
102 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 Is it not probable, that this sensible and 
 amiable woman, perceivini^ the superiority 
 of the Europeans, foreseeing the probability 
 of the subjugation of her countrymen, and 
 anxious as well to soften their destiny, 
 as to save the needless effusion of human 
 blood, desired, by her marriage with Mr. 
 Rolfe, to hasten the abolition of all distinction 
 between Indians and white men; to bind 
 their interests and affections by the nearest 
 and most endearing ties, and to make them 
 regard themselves, as one people, the chil- 
 dren of the same great family? If such were 
 her wise and benevolent views, and I have no 
 doubt but they were, how poorly were they 
 backed by the British court? No wonder at the 
 resentment and indignation with which she 
 saw them neglected ; no wonder at the bitter- 
 ness of the disappointment and vexation 
 which she expressed to captain Smith, in 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 103 
 
 London, arising; as we!l from th" cold rtcep- 
 tion which she herself had met, aS from the 
 contemptuous anu insulting j oini of view in 
 which she found that her nation was re- 
 garded. 
 
 Unfortunate princess ! She deserved a 
 happier fate ! But I am consoled by these 
 reflections: first, tliat she sees her descen- 
 dants among the most respectable fa- 
 milies in Virginia; and that they ^re not 
 only superiour to the false shame of disavow- 
 ing her as their ancestor; but that they pride 
 themselves, and with reason too, on the ho- 
 nour of their descent ; secondly, that she 
 herself has gone to a country, where she 
 finds her noble wishes realized ; where the 
 distinction of colour is no more ; but where 
 indeed, it is perfectly immaterial " what com- 
 " plexion an Indian or an African sun may 
 " have burned'* on the pilgrim. 
 
104 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 Adieu, .my dear S This train of 
 
 thought has destroyed the tone of my spirits; 
 when I recover them you shall hear farther 
 from me. Once more, adieu. 
 
LETTER V * 
 
 Richmond^ September 23. 
 
 This town, my dear S , is the resi- 
 dence of several conspicuous characters; some 
 of whose names we have heard on the other 
 side of the atlantick. You shall be better ac- 
 quainted with them before we finish this cor- 
 respondence. For the present, permit me 
 
 to introduce to your acquaintance, the 
 
 of the commonwealth of Virgmia, and the 
 of the United States. 
 
 • The donee of the manuscript begs that he may not be 
 considered as responsible for the accuiacy with which cer- 
 tain characters are delineated in this letter. He selects 
 it purely for the advantage which, he supposes, youthful 
 readers may derive from the writer's reflections oh the 
 eharaeters attempted to be drawn by hipa. 
 
106 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 These gentlemen are eminent political op- 
 ponents; the first belonging to the republi- 
 can, the latter leading the van of the fede- 
 ral, party Such is the interest which they 
 both have in the confidence and affections of 
 their respective parties, that it would 
 be difficult, if not impossible, for any Virgi- 
 nian to delineate either of their characters 
 jusdy. Friendship or hostility would be al- 
 most sure to overcharge the picture. But 
 for me, I have so little connexion with t^is 
 country, or her concerns, either at present ar 
 in prospect, that I believe I can look on her 
 most exalted characters without envy, or pre- 
 judice of any kind ; and draw them with the 
 same cool and philosophick impartiality, as if 
 I were a sojourner from another planet. If 
 I fail in the delineation, the fault must be in 
 the hand or in the head, in the pencil or the 
 judgment : and not in any prepossession near 
 my heart. 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 107 
 
 I choose to bring those two characters, 
 before you, together; because they exhibit, 
 with great vivacity, an intellectual Phenoine- 
 noriy which 1 have noticed more than once 
 before; and in the solution of which I should 
 be pleased to see your pen employed : I mean 
 the very different celerity in the movement of 
 two sound minds, which on all subjects, 
 wherein there is no mixture of party zeal, 
 will ultimately come to the same just conclu- 
 sion. What a pity it is, that Mr. Locke, 
 while he was dissecting the human under- 
 standing, with such skill and felicity, did not 
 advert to this characteristick variance in 
 the minds of men. It would have been in 
 his power, by developing its causes either to 
 point to the remedy, if it exist at all, or to 
 relieve the man of slow mind, from the labour 
 of fruitless experiments, by showing the to- 
 tal impracticability of his cure. But, to our 
 gentlemen ; and in order that you may know 
 
108 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 them the more intimately, I will endeavour to 
 prefix to each character a portrait of the per- 
 son. 
 
 The of this commonwealth is the 
 
 same who was, not many years 
 
 ago, the at Paris. His present office 
 
 is sufficient evidence of the estimation in 
 which he is held by his native state. In his 
 stature, he is about the middle height of men, 
 rather firmly set, with nothing farther remark- 
 able in his person, except his muscular com- 
 pactness and apparent ability to endure labour. 
 His countenance, when grave, has rather the 
 expression of sternness and irascibility: a 
 smile however (and a smile is not unusual 
 with him in a social circle) lights it up to very 
 high advantage, and gives it a most impres- 
 sive and engaging air of suavity and benevo- 
 lence. Judging merely from his counten- 
 ance, he is between the ages of forty -five and 
 fifty years. His dress and personal appear- 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 109 
 
 ance are those of a plain and modest gentle- 
 man. He is a man of soft, polite and even 
 assiduous attentions ; but these, although they 
 are always well timed, judicious, and evident- 
 ly the offspring of an obliging and philanthro- 
 pic k temper, are never performed with the 
 striking and captivating graces of a Marlbo- 
 rough or a Bolingbroke. To be plain, there 
 is often in his manner an inartificial and even 
 an awkward simplicity, which, while it pro- 
 vokes the smile of a more polished person, 
 
 forces him to the opinion that Mr is a 
 
 man of a most sincere and artless soul. 
 
 Nature has given him a mind neither ra- 
 pid nor rich ; and therefore, he cannot shine 
 on a subject which is entirely new to him. 
 But to compensate him for this, he is endued 
 with a spirit of generous and restless emula- 
 tion, a judgment solid, strong and clear, and 
 a habit of application, which no difficulties can 
 
 shake j no labours can tire. 
 10 
 
1 10 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 With these aids, simply, he has qualified 
 himself for the first lionours of this country; 
 and presents a most happy illustration of the 
 truth of the maxim, Quisque^ su<e fortuTKC, 
 faber. For his emulation has urged him to 
 perpetual and unremitting inquiry; his pa- 
 tient and \mwearied industry has concentrated 
 before him all the lights which others have 
 thrown on the subjects of his consideration, 
 together with all those which his own mind, 
 by repeated efforts, is enabled to strike ; 
 while his sober, steady and faithful judgment 
 has saved him from the common errour of 
 more quick and brilliant geniuses; the too 
 hasty adoption of specious, but false conclu- 
 sions. 
 
 These qualities render him a safe and an 
 able counsellor. And by their constant exer- 
 tion, he has amassed a store of knowledge, 
 which, having passed,seven times, through the 
 crucible, is almost as highly corrected, as hu- 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. I 11 
 
 man knowledge can be; and which certainly, 
 may be much more safely relied on than the 
 spontaneous and luxuriant growth of a more 
 fertile, but less chastened mind — " a wild, 
 where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot." 
 Having engaged very early, first in the life 
 of a soldier, then of a statesman, then of a la- 
 borious practitioner of the law, and finally, 
 again of a politician, his intellectual operations 
 have been almost entirely confined to juridi- 
 cal and political topicks. Indeed, it is easy 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 advan- 
 tageous tour of the sciences in the rare inter- 
 val of importunate duties. It is possible that 
 the early habit of contemplating subjects as 
 expanded as the earth itself, with all the rela- 
 tive interests of the great nations thereof, may 
 have inspired him with an indifference, per- 
 
112 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 haps an inaptitude, for mere points of litera- 
 ture. Algernon Sidney has said that he deems 
 all studies unworthy the serious regard of a 
 man, except the study of the principles of 
 
 just government ; and Mr , perhaps, 
 
 concurs with our countrymen in this as well 
 as in his other principles. Whatever may 
 have been the occasion, his acquaintance with 
 the fine arts is certainly very limited and su- 
 perficial : but, making allowances for his bias 
 towards republicanism, he is a profound and 
 even an eloquent statesman. 
 
 Knowing him to be attached to that politi- 
 cal party, who, by their opponents, are 
 called sometimes democrats, sometimes jaco- 
 bins ; and aware also, that he was d man of 
 warm and even ardent temper, I dreaded 
 much, when I first entered his company, that 
 I should have been shocked and disgusted 
 with the narrow, virulent and rancourous in- 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 113 
 
 vectives of party animosity,* How agreea- 
 bly, how delightfully, was I disappointed! 
 Not one sentiment of intolerance polluted his 
 lips. On the contrary, whether they be the 
 offspring of rational induction, of the habit 
 of sur'eying men and things on a great scale, 
 of native magnanimity, or of a combination 
 of all those causes, his principles, as far as 
 they were exhibited to me, were forbearing, 
 liberal, widely extended and great. 
 
 As the elevated ground, which he already 
 holds, has been gained merely by the dint of 
 application; as every new step which he 
 mounts becomes a mean of increasing his 
 powers still farther, by opening a wider hori- 
 zon to his view, and thus stimulating his en- 
 terprise afresh, reinvigorating his habits, 
 multiplying the materials and extending the 
 
 • The cloven foot of the Briton is visible ; or, else, why 
 from the premises could he have expected such a conse- 
 quence i 
 
 10* 
 
114 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 range of his knowledge ; it would be matter of 
 no surprise to me, if, before his death, the 
 world should see him at the head of the Ame- 
 rican administration. So much for the 
 
 of the commonwealth of Virginia ; a livintj;, 
 an honourable, an illustrious monument of 
 self created eminence, worth and greatness ! 
 
 Let us now change the scene and lead for- 
 ward a very different character indeed : a tru- 
 ant, but a highly favoured pupil of nature. 
 It would seem as if this capricious goddess 
 had finished the two characters, purely with 
 the view of exhibiting a vivid contrast. Nor 
 is this contrast confined to their minds. 
 
 The of the United States 
 
 is in his person, tall, meagre, emaciated ; his 
 muscles relaxed, and his joints so loosely con- 
 nected, as not only to disqualify him, appa- 
 rondy, for any vigorous exertion of body, but 
 to destroy every thing like elegance and har- 
 mony in his air and movements. Indeed, in 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 1 1 5 
 
 his whole appearance, and demeanour; dress, 
 attitudes, gesture : sitting, standing or walk- 
 ing ; he is as far removed from the idolized 
 graces of lord Chesterfield, as any other gen- 
 tlem.an on earth. To continue the portrait: 
 his head and face are small in proportion to 
 his height ; his complexion swarthy ; the mus- 
 cles of his face, being relaxed, give him the 
 appearance of a man of fifty years of age, 
 nor can he be much younger ; his counte- 
 nance has a faithful expression of great good 
 humour and hilarity ; while his black eyes— 
 that unerring index — possess an irradiating 
 spirit, which proclaims the imperial powers 
 of the mind that sits enthroned within. 
 
 This extraordinary man, without the aid of 
 fancy, without the advantages of person, 
 voice, attitude, gesture, or any of the orna- 
 ments of an orator, deserves to be considered 
 as one of the most eloquent men in the world; 
 if eloquence may be said to consist in the 
 
1 16 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 power of seizing the attention with irresisti- 
 ble force, and never permitting it to elude the 
 grasp, until the hearer has received the con- 
 viction which the speaker intends. 
 
 As to his person, it has already been de- 
 scribed. His voice is dry, and hard ; his atti- 
 tude, in his most effective orations, was often 
 extremely awkward ; as it was not unusual 
 for him to stand with his left foot in advance 
 while all his gesture proceeded from his right 
 arm, and consisted merely in a vehement, 
 perpendicular swing of it, from about the ele- 
 vation of his head, to the bar, behind which 
 he was accustomed to stand. 
 
 As to fancy, if she hold a seat in his mind 
 at all, which I very much doubt, his gigan- 
 tick genius tramples with disdain, on all her 
 flower-decked plats and blooming parterres. 
 How then, you will ask, with a look of incre- 
 dulous curiosity, how is it possible, that such 
 a man can hold the attention of an audience 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. il7 
 
 inchained, through a speech of even ordinary 
 length ? I will tell you. 
 
 He possesses one original, and, almost, 
 supernatural faculty: the faculty of develo- 
 ping a subject by a single glance of his mind, 
 and detecting at once, the very point on which 
 every controversy depends. No matter, 
 what the question : though ten times more 
 knotty than "the gnarled oak," the lightning 
 of heaven is not more rapid nor more resist- 
 less, than his astonishing penetration. Nor 
 does the exercise of it seem to cost him an 
 efibrt. On the contrary, it is as easy as visi- 
 on. I am persuaded that his eyes do not fly 
 over a landscape and take in its various ob- 
 jects with more promptitude and facility, 
 than his mind embraces and analyses the 
 inost complex subject. 
 
 Possessing while at the bar this intellectual 
 elevation, 'which enabled him to look down 
 and comprehend the whole ground at once^ 
 
I 18 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 he deteri-nined immediately and without dif- 
 ficulty, on which side the question might be 
 most advantageously approached and as- 
 sailed. In a bad cause his art consisted in 
 laying his premises so remotely from the 
 point directly in debate, or else in terms so 
 general and so specious, that the hearer, see- 
 ing no consequence which could be drawn 
 from them, was just as willing to admit them 
 as not ; but his premises once admitted, the 
 demonstration, however distani, followed as 
 certainly, as cogently, as inevitably, as any 
 demonstration in Euclid. 
 
 All his eloquence consists in the apparently 
 deep self conviction, and emphatick earnest- 
 ness of his manner ; the correspondent sim- 
 plicity and energy of his style ; the close 
 and logical connexion of his thoughts; and 
 the easy gradations by whicii he opens his 
 lights on the attentive minds of his hearers. 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 1 19 
 
 The audience are never permitted to pause 
 for a moment. There is no stopping to weave 
 garlands of flowers, to hang in festoons, 
 around a favourite argument. On the contra- 
 ry, every sentence is progressive ; every idea 
 sheds new light on the subject ; the listener 
 is kept perpetually in that sweetly pleasura- 
 ble vibration, with which the mind of man al- 
 ways receives new truths; the dawn advances 
 in easy but unremitting pace; the subject 
 opens gradually on the view ; until, rising, in 
 high relief, in all its native colours and pro- 
 portions, the argument is consummated, 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 beauti- 
 ful flights of the happiest fancy, interspersed 
 through an argument, may give an audience 
 
120 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 the momentary delightful swell of admira- 
 tion, the transient thrill of divinest rapture ; 
 yet, that they produce no lasting effect in for- 
 warding the purpose of the speaker ; on the 
 contrary, that they break the unity and dis- 
 perse the force of an argument, which, other- 
 wise, advancing in close array, like the 
 phalanx of Sparta, would carry every thing 
 before it. They give an instance in the cele- 
 brated Curran ; and pretend that his fine fan- 
 cy, although it fires, dissolves and even 
 transports his audience to a momentary frenzy, 
 is a real and a fatal misfortune to his clients ; 
 as it calls off the attention of the jurors from 
 the intrinsick and essential merits of the de- 
 fence ; echpses the justice of the client's 
 cause, in the blaze of the advocate's talents; 
 induces a suspicion of the guilt which requires 
 such a glorious display of refulgence to di- 
 vert the inquiry; and substitutes a fruitless 
 shortlived ecstasy, in the place of permanent 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 121 
 
 and substantial conviction. Hence, they say, 
 that the client of Mr Curran is, invariably, 
 the victim of the prosecution, which that able 
 and eloquent advocate is employed to re- 
 sist 
 
 The doctrine, in the abstract, may be true, 
 or, as doctor Doubty says, it may not be true; 
 for the present, I will not trouble you with 
 the expression of my opinion. I fear, 
 
 however, my dear S , that Mr Cur- 
 
 ran's failures may be traced to a cause very 
 different from any fault either in the style or 
 execution of his enchanting defences: a 
 
 <:ause but I am forgetting that this 
 
 letter has yet to cross the Atlantick.* 
 
 To return to the of the Uni- 
 ted States. His political adversaries allege 
 that he is a mere lawyer ; that his mind has 
 ©een so long trammelled by judicial precedent, 
 
 , The sentiment, which is suppressed, seems to wear 
 
 ;he lirer\- of Bedford, Moira, and the Prince of WaleSj 
 11 
 
122 THE BRITISH SPV. 
 
 SO long habituated to the quart and tierce of 
 forensick digladiation, (as doctor Johnson 
 would probably have called ic,) as to be un- 
 equal to the discussion of a great question of 
 state. Mr. Curran, in his defence of Rowan, 
 seems to have sanctioned the probability of 
 such an effect from such a cause, when he 
 complains of his own mind as having been 
 narrowed and circumscribed, by a strict and 
 technical adherence to established forms ; but 
 in the next breath, an astonishing burst of the 
 grandest thought, and a power of compre- 
 hension to which there seems to be no earth- 
 ly limit, proves that his complaint, as it relates 
 to himself, is intirely without foundation. 
 
 Indeed, if the objection to 
 
 mean any thing more than that he has not 
 had the same illumination and exercise in 
 matters of state as if he had devoted his life 
 to them, I am unwilling to admit it. The 
 force of a cannon is the same, whether point- 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 123 
 
 ed 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 oyer one class of subjects 
 than another ; but the inherent energy of his 
 mind remains the same, whithersoever it may 
 be directed. From this impression I have ne- 
 ver seen any cause to wonder at what is called 
 a universal genius : it proves only that the 
 man has applied a powerful mind to the con- 
 sideration of a great variety cT subjects, and 
 pays a compliment rather to his superiour in- 
 dustry, than his superiour intellect. I am ve- 
 ry certain that the gentleman, of whom we 
 are speaking, possesses the acu7nen which 
 might constitute him a universal genius, ac- 
 cording to the usual acceptation of the phrase. 
 But if he be the truant, which his warmest 
 friends represent him to be, there is very lit* 
 
124 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 tie probability that he will ever reach this 
 distinction. 
 
 Think ycu, my dear S » that the 
 
 two gentlemen, whom I have attempted to 
 portray to you, were, according to the notion 
 of Helvetius, born with equal minds ; and 
 that accident or education has produced the 
 striking difference which we perceive to ex- 
 ist between them? I wish it were the case; 
 and that the would be pleas- 
 ed to reveal to us, by what accident, or what 
 system of education, he has acquired his 
 peculiar sagacity and promptitude. Until 
 this shall be done, I fear I must consider the 
 hypothesis of Helvetius as a splendid and flat- 
 tering dream. 
 
 But I tire you: — adieu, for the present, 
 friend and guardian of my youth. 
 
LETTER VI. 
 
 Jamestonvny Sefitember 17, 
 
 I HAVE taken a pleasant ride of sixty miles 
 
 down the river, in order, my dear S , 
 
 to see the remains of the first English set- 
 tlement in Virginia. 
 
 The site is a very handsome one. The ri- 
 ver is three miles broad ; and, on the oppo- 
 site shore, the country presents a fine range 
 of bold and beautiful hills. But I find no 
 vestiges of the ancient town, except the 
 ruins of a church steeple, and a disor- 
 dered group of old tombstones. On one of 
 these, shaded by the boughs of a tree, whose 
 trunk has embraced and grown over the edge 
 of the stone, and seated on the head-stone of 
 another grave, I now address you, 
 11* 
 
126 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 What a moment for a lugubrious medita- 
 tion among the tombs ! but fear not ; I have 
 neither the temper nor the genius of a Her- 
 vey: and, as much as I revere his pious me- 
 mory, I cannot envy him the possession of 
 such a genius and such a temper. For my 
 own part, I would not have suffered the 
 mournful pleasure of writing his book, and 
 doctor Young's Night Thoughts, for all the 
 just fame which they have both gained by 
 those celebrated productions. Much rather 
 would I have danced, and sung, and played 
 the fiddle with Yorick, through the whimsical 
 pages of Tristram Shandy : that book which 
 every body justly censures and admires alter- 
 nately ; and which will continue to be read, 
 abused and devoured, with ever fresh delight, 
 as l6ng as the world shall relish a joyous 
 laugh, or a tear of the most delicious feel- 
 ing. 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 127 
 
 By the by, here on one side is an inscrip- 
 tion on a gravestone, which would constitute 
 no bad theme for an occasional meditation 
 from Yorick himself. The stone, it seems, 
 covers the grave of a man who was born 
 in the neighbourhood of London; and his 
 epitaph concludes the short and rudely exe- 
 cuted account of his birth and death, by de- 
 claring him to have been " a great sinner, 
 " in hopes of a joyful resurrection;" as if he 
 had sinned, with no 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 boundless mercy of Heaven, and glances 
 at that divinely consoling proclamation, 
 " come unto me, all ye, who are weary and 
 " heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." 
 
 The ruin of the steeple is about thirty feet 
 high, and mantled, to its very summit, with 
 
128 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 ivy. It is difficult to look at this venerable 
 object, surrounded as it is with these awful 
 proofs of the mortality of man, without ex- 
 claiming in the pathetick solemnity of our 
 
 Shakspeare, 
 
 " The cloudcapt towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 " The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
 " Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve ; 
 '* And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, 
 *' Leave not a wreck bedind." 
 
 Whence, my dear S , arises the 
 
 irrepressible reverence and tender affection 
 with which I look at this broken steeple ? Is 
 it, that my soul, by a secret, subtile process, 
 invests the mouldering ruin with her own 
 powers ; imagines it a fellow being ; a ve- 
 nerable old man, a Nestor, or an Ossian, who 
 has witnessed and survived the ravages of 
 successive generations,the companions of his 
 youth, and of his maturity, and now mourns 
 his own solitary and desolate condition, and 
 hails their spirits in every passing cloud ? 
 
THE BRITISH SPY, 129 
 
 Whatever may be the cause, as I look at it, 
 I feel my soul drawn forward, as by the 
 cords of gentlest sympathy, and mvoluntari- 
 ly open my lips to offer consolation to the 
 drooping pile. 
 
 Where my S , is the busy, bust- 
 ling crowd which landed here two hundred 
 years ago? Where is Smith, that pink of 
 gallantry, that flower of chivalry? I fancy 
 that I can see their first, slow and cautious ap- 
 proach to the shore; their keen and vigilant 
 eyes piercing the forest in every direction, 
 to detect the lurking Indian, with his toma- 
 hawk, bow and arrow. Good Heavens ! 
 what an enterprise ! how full of the most 
 fearful perils ! and yet how intirely profitless 
 to the daring men who personally undertook 
 and achieved it ! Through what a series of 
 the most spirit-chilling hardships, had they to 
 toil ! How often did they cast their eyes to 
 England in vain ! and with what delusive 
 
130 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 hopes, day after day, did the little, famished 
 crew strain their sia^ht to catch the white sail 
 of comfort and relief! But day after day, 
 the Sim set, and darkness covered the earth; 
 but no sail of comfort or relief came. How 
 often in the pangs of huns^er, sickness, soli- 
 tude and disconsolation, did they think of 
 London ; her shops, her markets groaning 
 under the weight of plenty; her streets 
 swarming with gilded coaches, bustling 
 hacks, with crowds of lords, dukes and com- 
 mons, with healthy, busy contented faces of 
 every description; and among them none 
 more healthy or more contented, than 
 those of their ungrateful and improvident di- 
 rectors ! But now — where are they, all ? the lit- 
 tle, famished colony which landed here, and 
 the many-coloured crowd of London, — where 
 
 are they, my dear S ? Gone, where 
 
 there is no distinction ; consigned to the com- 
 mon earth. Another generation succeeded 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 131 
 
 them: which, just as busy and as busthng as 
 that which fell before it, has sunk down into the 
 same nothing;ness. Another, and yet another 
 Dillow has rolled on, each emulating its pre- 
 decessor in height ; towering, for its moment, 
 and curling its foaming honours to the clouds ; 
 then roaring, breaking, and perishing on the 
 same shore. 
 
 Is it not strange, that, familiarly and uni- 
 versally as these things are known, yet each 
 generation is as eager in the pursuit of its 
 earthly objects, projects its plans on a scale 
 as extensive, and labours in their execution 
 with a spirit as ardent and unrel axing, as 
 if this life and this world were to last for- 
 ever ? It is indeed, a most benevolent in- 
 terposition of Providence, that these palpa- 
 ble and just views of the vanity of hu- 
 man life are not permitted intirely to crush 
 the spirits, and unnerve the arm of industry. 
 But at the same time, methinks, it would 
 
132 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 be wise in man to permit them to have, at 
 least, so much weight with him, as to pre- 
 vent his total absorption by the things of 
 this earth, and to point some of his thoughts 
 and his exertions, to a system of being, 
 far more permanent, exalted and happy. 
 Think not this reflection too solemn. It is 
 irresistibly inspired by the objects around 
 me ; and, as rarely as it occurs, (much too 
 rarely) it is most certainly and solemnly 
 
 true, my S 
 
 It is curious to reflect, what a nation, 
 in the course of two hundred years, has 
 sprung up and flourished from the feeble, 
 sickly germ which was planted here! Lit- 
 tle did our short sighted court suspect the 
 conflict which she was preparing for her- 
 self; the convulsive throe by which her in- 
 fant colony would in a few years burst 
 from her, and start into a political impor- 
 tance that would astonish the earth. 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 133 
 
 But Virginia, my dear S ...... ., as ra- 
 pidly as her population and her wealth must 
 continue to advance, wants one most im- 
 portant source of solid grandeur; and that 
 too, the animating soul of a republick. I 
 mean, publick spirit; that sacred amor pa- 
 (rice which filled Greece and Rome with 
 patriots, heroes and scholars. 
 
 There seems to me to be but one ob- 
 ject throughout the state ; to gronv rich : a 
 passion which is visible, not only in the 
 walks of private life, but which has crept 
 into and poisoned every publick body in 
 the state. Indeed, from the very genius of 
 the government, by which all the publick 
 characters are, at short periodical elections, 
 evolved from the body of the people, it can- 
 not but happen, that the councils of the 
 state must take the impulse of the private 
 propensities of the country. Hence, Virginia 
 
 exhibits no great publick improvements ; 
 12 
 
134 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 hence, in spite of her wealth, every part of 
 the country manifests her sufferings, either 
 from the penury of her guardians, or their 
 want of that attention, and noble pride 
 wherewith it is their duty to consult her 
 appearance. Her roads and highways are 
 frequently impassable, sometimes frightful; 
 the very few piiblick works which have 
 been set on fo.ot, instead of being carried 
 on with spirit, are permitted to languish 
 and pine, and creep feebly along, in such 
 a manner, that the first part of an edifice 
 grows gray with age, and almost tumbles 
 in ruins, before the last part is lifted from 
 the dust; highest officers are sustained 
 with so avaricious, so niggardly a hand, 
 that if t!>ey are not driven to subsist on 
 roots, and drink ditch-water, with old Fa- 
 bricius, it is not for the want of republican 
 economy in the projectors of the salaries ; 
 and, above all, the general culture of the 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 135 
 
 human mind, that best cure for the aristo- 
 cratick distmctions which they profess to 
 hate, that best basis of the social and poHiical 
 equahty, which they profess to love: this cul- 
 ture, instead of becoming a national care, is in- 
 trusted merely to such individuals, as haz- 
 ard, indigence, misfortunes or crimes, have 
 forced from their native Europe to seek an 
 asylum and bread in the wilds of America. 
 
 They have only one publick seminary of 
 learning : a college in Williamsburg, about 
 seven miles from this place ; which was erect- 
 ed in the reign of our William and Mary ; 
 derives its principal support from their muni- 
 ficence ; and therefore very properly bears 
 their names. This college, in the fastidious 
 folly and affectation of republicanism, or 
 what is worse, in the niggardly spirit of 
 parsimony which they dignify with the name 
 of economy, these democrats have endowed 
 with a few despicable fragments of surveyor's 
 
136 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 fees, &c. thus converting their national acade- 
 my into a mere lazaretto^ and feedini^ its 
 polite scientifick and highly respectable pro- 
 fessors, like a band of beggars, on the scraps 
 and crumbs that fall from the financial ta- 
 ble. And; then, instead of aiding and ener- 
 gizing the police of the college, by a few ci- 
 vil regulations, they permit their youth to 
 run riot, in all the wildness of dissipation ; 
 while the venerable professors are forced to 
 look on, in the deep mortification of con- 
 scious impotence, and see their care and 
 zeal requited, by the ruin of their pupils an d 
 the destruction of their seminary. 
 
 These are points, which, at present, I can 
 barely touch; when I have an easier seat and 
 writing desk, than a grave and a tombstone, 
 it will give me pleasure to dilate on them; 
 for, it will afford an opportunity of exult- 
 ing in the superiority of our own energetick 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. \o7 
 
 monarchy, over this republican body without 
 a soul.* 
 
 For the present, my dear S , I 
 
 bid you adieu. 
 
 • British Insolence ! Yet it cannot be denied, however 
 painful the admission, that there is some foundation 
 for his censures. 
 
 12* 
 
LETTER VII. 
 
 Richmond^ October 10. 
 
 I HAVE been, my dear S , on an ex- 
 cursion through the counties which lie along 
 the eastern side of the Blue Ridge. A gene-^ 
 ral description of that country and its inhabi- 
 tants may form the subject of a future letter. 
 For the present, I must entertain you with an 
 account of a most singular and interesting ad- 
 venture, which I met with, in the course of 
 the tour. 
 
 It was one 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- 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 139 
 
 ing that this was a place of religious wor- 
 ship. 
 
 Devotion alone should have stopped me, 
 to join in the duties of the congregation; but 
 I must confess, that curiosity, to hear the 
 preacher 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 was covered with a white linen cap, 
 his shrivelled hands, and his voice, were all 
 shaking under the influence of a palsy; and 
 a few moments ascertained to me that he was 
 perfectly blind. 
 
 The first emotions which touched my 
 breast, were those of mingled pity and venera- 
 tion. But ah ! sacred God ! how soon were all 
 my feelings changed ! The lips of Plato were 
 never more worthy of a prognostick swarm 
 of bees, than were the lips of this holy man I 
 It was a day of the administration of the sa- 
 
140 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 crament; and his subject, of course, was the 
 passion 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 topick a new and more 
 sublime pathos, than I had ever before wit- 
 nessed. 
 
 As he descended from the pulpit, to dis- 
 tribute the mystick symbols, there was a pe- 
 culiar, a more than human solemnity in his 
 air and manner, which made my blood run 
 cold, and my whole frame shiver. 
 
 He then drew a picture of the sufferings of 
 our Saviour; his trial before Pilate; his as- 
 cent up Calvary ; his crucifixion ; and his 
 death. I knew the whole history ; but ne- 
 Tcr, until then, hud I heard the circumstan- 
 ces so selected, so arranged, so coloured! 
 It was all new : and I seemed to have heard 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 141 
 
 it for the first time in my life. His enuncia- 
 tion was so deliberate, that his voice trembled 
 on every syllable ; and every heart in the as- 
 sembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phra- 
 ses had that force o^ descriptioB, that the ori- 
 ginal scene appeared to be> at that moment, 
 acting before our eyes. We saw the very fa- 
 ces of the Jews: the staring, frightful dstor- 
 tions of malice and rage. We saw the buf- 
 fet : my soul kindled with a flame of indigna- 
 tion ; and my hands were involuntarily and 
 convulsively clinched. 
 
 But when he came to touch on the patience, 
 the forgiving meekness 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 
 faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until his 
 
142 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 Utterance being intirely obstructed by the 
 force of his feelings, he raised his hand- 
 kerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud 
 and irrepressible flood of grief. The effect 
 is inconceivable. The whole house resounded 
 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 preach- 
 er. 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 solemnity and dignity of his 
 subject, or perhaps shocking them by the 
 abruptness of the fall. But— no: the de- 
 scent was as beautiful and sublime, as the ele- 
 vation had been rapid and enihusiastick. 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. • 143 
 
 The first sentence, with which he broke 
 the awful silence, was a quotation from 
 Rousseau : " Socrates died like a philoso- 
 "pher, but Jesus Christ, like a God!'* 
 
 I despair of giving you any idea of the ef- 
 fect produced by this short sentence, unless 
 you could perfectly conceive the whole man- 
 ner of the man, as well as the peculiar crisis 
 in the discourse. Never before, did I com- 
 pletely understand what Demosthenes meant 
 by laying such stress on delivery. You are 
 to bring before you the venerable figure of the 
 preacher; his blindness, constantly recalling to 
 your recollection old Homer, Ossian and Mil- 
 ton, and associatmg with his performance, the 
 melancholy grandeur of their geniuses; you 
 are to imaerine that you hear his slow, solemn, 
 well-accented enunciation, and his voice of 
 aflecting, trembling melody; you are tore- 
 member the pitch of passion and enthusiasm 
 to which the congregation were raised; and 
 
144 ' THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 then, the few minutes of portentous, death- 
 like 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) and slow- 
 ly stretching forth the palsied hand which 
 holds it, begins the sentence : " Socra- 
 << tes died like a philosopher'* — then pau- 
 sing, raising his other hand, pressing them 
 both clasped together, with warmth and en- 
 ergy to his breast, lifting his " sightless balls" 
 to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his 
 tremulous voice—" but Jesus Christ — like a 
 " God I" If he had been indeed and in truth 
 an angel of light, the effect could scarcely 
 have been more divine. 
 
 Whatever 1 hud been able to conceive of 
 the sublimity of Massillon, or the force of 
 Bourdaloue, had fallen far short of the pow- 
 er which I felt from the delivery of this sim- 
 ple sentence. The blood, which just before 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 145 
 
 had rushed in a hurricane upon my brain, 
 and, in the violence and agony of my feelings, 
 had held my whole system in suspense, now 
 ran back into my heart, with a sensation which 
 I cannot describe : a kind of shuddering de- 
 licious horrour ! The paroxysm of blended 
 pity and indignation, to which I had been 
 transported, subsided into the deepest self- 
 abasement, humility and adoration. I had 
 just been lacerated and dissolved by sympa- 
 thy, for our Saviour as a fellow creature ; but 
 now, with fear and trembling, I adored him 
 as — " a God ! " 
 
 If this description give you the impression, 
 that this incomparable minister had any thing 
 of shallow, theatrical trick in his maimer, it 
 does him great injustice. I have never seen, 
 in any other orator, such an union of simpli- 
 city and majesty. He has not a gesture, an 
 attitude, or an accent, to which he does not 
 
 . seem forced, by the sentiment which he is ex- 
 13 
 
146 THE BIIITISH SPY. 
 
 pressing. His mind is too serious, too earnest, 
 too solicitous, and, at the same time, too 
 dignified, to stoop to artifice. Although as 
 far removed from ostentation as a man can be, 
 yet it is clear from the train, the style and 
 substance of his thoughts, that he is, not only 
 a very polite scholar, but a man of extensive 
 and profound erudition, I was forcibly struck 
 with a short, yet beautiful character which he 
 drew- of our learned and amiable country- 
 man, sir Robert Boyle : he spoke of him, as 
 if " his noble mind had, even before death, 
 '* divested herself of all influence from his 
 " frail tabernacle of flesh ;" and called him, 
 is his peculiarly emphatick and impressive 
 manner, " a pure intelligence : the link be- 
 " tween 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 bri- 
 dle, stretched forth my hand, and tried t© 
 
TpE BRITISH spy; 147 
 
 imitate his quotation from Rousseau ; a thou- 
 sand times I abandoned the attempt m des- 
 pair, and felt persuaded thjit his peculiar 
 manner and power arose from an energy of 
 soul, which nature 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 awf'illy striking attitudes, the chilling tide, 
 with which my blood begins to pour along my 
 arteries, reminds me of the emotions produ- 
 ced by the first sight of Gray's introductory 
 picture of his bard, 
 
 *' On a rock, whose haughty hrow, 
 
 *' Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming floods 
 "Robed ih the sable garb of wo,^ 
 
 ** With haggard eyes the poet stood j 
 ** ( Loose his beard and hoary hair 
 
 «< Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air :) 
 ** And wMth a poet's hand and prophet's fire, 
 
 ** Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre." 
 
148 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 Guess my surprise, when, on my arri- 
 val at Richmond, and mentioning the name 
 of this man, I fgund not oae person who had 
 ever before heard of James Waddell ! Is it 
 not strange, that such a genius as this, so 
 accomplished a scholar, so divine an orator, 
 should be permitted to languish and die in ob- 
 scurity, within eighty miles of the metro- 
 polis of Virginia? To me it is a conclusive 
 argument, either that the Virginians have no 
 taste for the highest strains of the most sub- 
 lime oratory, or that they are destitute of a 
 much more important quality, the love of gen- 
 uine and exalted religion. 
 
 Indeed, it is too clear, my friend, that this 
 soil abounds more in weeds of foreign birth, 
 than in good and salubrious fruits. Among 
 others, the noxious weed of infidel* ty has 
 struck a deep, a fatal root, and spread its pes- 
 tilential branches far around. I fear that 
 our eccentrick and fanciful countryman. 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 149 
 
 Godwin, has contributed not a little to water 
 and cherish this pernicious exotick. There is 
 a novelty, a splendour, a boldness in his 
 scheme of morals, peculiarly fitted to capti- 
 vate a youthful and an ardent mind. A young 
 man feels his delicacy flattered, in the idea 
 of being emancipated from the old, obsolete 
 and vulgar motives of moral conduct; and 
 acting correctly from motives quite new, 
 refined and sublimated in the crucible of 
 pure, abstracted reason. Unfortunately, how- 
 ever in this attempt to change the motives 
 of his conduct, he loses the old ones, while 
 the new, either from being too ethereal and 
 sublime, or from some other want of con- 
 geniality, refuse to mix and lay hold of the 
 gross materials of his nature. Thus he be- 
 comes emancipated indeed; discharged not 
 only from ancient and vulgar shackles ; but 
 also, from the modern, finespun, tinselled 
 
 restraints of his divine Godwin. Having im- 
 13» 
 
15# THE BRITISH SPt. 
 
 bibed the hi8:h spirit of literary adventure, he 
 disdains the limits of the moral world ; and ad- 
 vancing boldly to the throne of God he 
 questions him on his dispensations, tnd 
 demands the reasons of his laws. But the 
 counsels of heaven are above the ken,no^ con- 
 trary to the voice of human reason ; and 
 the unfortunate youth, unable to reach and 
 measure thrm, recoils from the attempt, 
 with melancholy ras-hness, into infidelity and 
 deism. Godwin's glittering theories are on 
 his lips. Utopia or Mezorania boast not 
 of a purer moralist, in ivords, than the 
 young Godwinian; but the unbridled licen- 
 tiousness of hk conduct makes it manifest, 
 that if Godwin's principles be true in the 
 abstract, they are not fit for this system of 
 things ; whatever they might be in the re- 
 publick of Plato. 
 
 From a life of inglorious indolence, by far 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 151 
 
 too prevalent among the young men of 
 this country, the transition is easy and na- 
 tural to immorality and dissipation. It is 
 at this giddy period of life, when a series 
 of dissolute courses have debauched the puri- 
 ty and innocence of the heart, shaken the pil- 
 lars of the understanding, and converted her 
 sound and wholesome operations into little 
 more than a set of feverish starts and inco- 
 herent and delirious dreams; it is in such a 
 situation that a newfangled theory is welcomed 
 as an amusing guest, and deism is embraced 
 as a balmy comforter against the pangs of 
 an offended conscience. This coalition, once 
 formed and habitually consolidated, *' fare- 
 well, a long farewell" to honour, genius 
 and glory! From such a gulph of compli- 
 cated ruin, few have the energy even to 
 attempt an escape. The moment of cool 
 reflection, which should save them, is too 
 big with horrour to be endured. Every 
 
152 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 plunge is deeper, until the tragedy is final- 
 ly wound up by a pistol or a halter. Do 
 not believe that I am drawing from fan- 
 cy : the picture is unfortunately true. Few 
 dramas, indeed, have yet reached their ca- 
 tastrophe ; but, too many are in a rapid pro- 
 gress, towards it. 
 
 These thoughts are affecting and oppressive. 
 I am glad to retreat from them, by bid- 
 ding you adieu; and offering my prayers 
 to heaven, that you may never lose the 
 pure, the genial consolations of unshaken 
 faith, and an approving conscience. Once 
 more, my dear S ,, adieu. 
 
LETTER VIII. 
 
 Richmond^ October 15. 
 
 Men of talents in this country, my dear 
 
 S ., have been generally bred to the 
 
 profession of the law : and indeed, throughout 
 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 incumbered also by a melancholy group of 
 young men, who hang on the. rear of the bar, 
 like Goethe's sable clouds in the western hori- 
 zon. I have been told that the bar of Virgi- 
 nia was, a few years ago, pronounced by the 
 supreme court of the United States, to be the 
 most enlightened and able on the continent. 
 
154 THE BRITISH SPY- 
 
 I am very incompetent to decide on the me- 
 rit of their legal acquirements ; but, putting 
 aside the partiality of a Briton, I do not think 
 either of the gentlemen by any means so elo- 
 quent or so erudite as our countryman £rs- 
 kine. With your permission, however, I 
 will make you better acquainted with the few 
 characters who lead the van of the profes- 
 sion. 
 
 Mr has great personal advanta- 
 ges. A figure large and portly ; his features 
 uncommonly fine; his dark eyes and his 
 whole countenance lighted up with an expres- 
 sion of the Hiost conciliating sensibility ; his 
 attitudes dignified and commanding ; his ges- 
 ture easy and graceful; his voice perfect har- 
 mony ; and his whole manner that of an ac- 
 complished and engaging gentleman. I have 
 reason to believe that the expression of his 
 countenance does no more than justice to his 
 heart. If 1 be correctly informed, his feelings 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 155 
 
 are exquisite ; and the proofs of his benevo^ 
 lence are various and clear beyond the possi- 
 bility of doubt. He has filled the highest offi- 
 ces in this commonwealth, and has very long 
 maintained a most respectable rank in his 
 profession. His character, with the people, 
 is that of a great lawyer and an eloquent speak- 
 er; and, indeed, so many men of discern- 
 ment and taste entertain this opinion, and my 
 prepossessions in his favour are so strong, on 
 account of the amiable qualities of his charac- 
 ter, that I am very well disposed to doubt the 
 accuracy of my own judgment as it relates to 
 him. 
 
 To me, however, it seems, that his mind, 
 as is often but not invariably the case, cor- 
 responds with his personal appearance : that 
 is, that it is turned rather for ornament than 
 for severe use: p.omp.a^ quam p.ugn(e afitior, 
 as Tully expresses it His speeches, I think, 
 deserve the censure which lord Verulam 
 
156 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 pronounces on the writers posterior to the re« 
 formation of the church. *' Luther, '* says he, 
 "standing alone, against the church of Rome, 
 " found it necessary to awaken all antiquity in 
 "his behalf: this introduced the study of the 
 " dead languages, a taste for the fulness of 
 " the Ciceronean manner; and hence the still 
 '* prevalent errour of hunting more after 
 "words than matter; and more after the 
 " choiceness of the phrase and tlie round and 
 <• clean composition of the sentence, and the 
 " sweet fallings of the clauses, and the vary- 
 "ing and illustration of their works with 
 " tropes and figures, than after the weight of 
 " matter, worth of subject, soundness of argu- 
 "ment, life of invention, or depth of judg- 
 " ment. " 
 
 Mr 's temper and habits lead 
 
 him to the swelling, stately manner of Boling- 
 broke ; but either from the want of prompti- 
 tude and richness of conception, or his too 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 157 
 
 sedulous concern and " hunting after words," 
 he does not maintain that manner, smoothly 
 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, ruffled and 
 painfully obstructed by the hesitation and 
 perplexity of the speaker. It certainly must 
 demand, my dear S , a mind of ve- 
 ry high powers to support the swell of Bol- 
 ingbroke, with felicity. The tones of voice, 
 which naturally belong to it, keep the expec- 
 tation continually " on tiptoe,** and this must 
 be gratified not only by the most oily fluency, 
 but by a course of argument clear as light, 
 and an alternate play of imagination as grand 
 iand magnificent as Herschell's dance of the 
 sidereal system. The work requires to be 
 perpetually urged forward. One interruption 
 in the current of the language, one poor 
 
 thought or abortion of fancy, one vacant aver- 
 !4 
 
158 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 sion of the eye or relaxation in the expression: 
 of the face, intirely 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 
 undertake to decide ; but perhaps it results 
 from one of those tv/o causes, that all the ar- 
 guments, which I have ever heard from him, 
 are defective in that important and most ma- 
 terial character, the lucidus ordo. 
 
 I have been sometimes inclined to believe, 
 that a man's division of his argument would 
 be generally found to contain a secret history 
 of the difficulties which he himself has en- 
 countered in the investigation of his subject. 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 159 
 
 I am finnly persuaded thai the extreme pro- 
 lixity of many discourses, to which we are 
 doomed to listen, is chargeable, not to the 
 fertility, but to the darkness and impotence 
 of the brain which produces them. A man, 
 who sees his object m a strong light, march- 
 es directly up to it, in a right line, with the 
 firm step of a soldier ; while another, residing 
 in a less illumined zone, wanders and reels 
 in the twilight of the brain, and ere he at- 
 tain his object, treads a maze as intricate and 
 perplexing as that of the celebrated labyrinth 
 of Crete. 
 
 It was remarkable of the of 
 
 the United States, whom I mentioned to you 
 in a former letter as looking through a sub- 
 ject at a single glance, that he almost invaria- 
 bly seized one strong point only, the pivot 
 of the controversy : this point he would in- 
 force with all his powers, never permitting 
 his own mind to waver, nor obscuring those 
 
160 THE BRtTISH SPY. 
 
 of his 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 
 gradations ; and that his difficulties are nu- 
 merous and embarrassing. Hence it is per- 
 haps, that his points are generally too mul- 
 tifarious; and although, among the rest, he 
 exhibits the strong point, its appearance is 
 too often like that of Issachar, *' dowM down 
 ** between two burthens." I take this to be 
 a \t ry ill-judgec*' method. It may serve in- 
 deed, to make the multitude stare ; but it 
 frustrates the great purpose of the speaker. 
 Instead of giving a simple, lucid and anima- 
 ted view of a subject, it overloads, confounds 
 and fatigues the listener. Instead of leaving 
 him under the vivacity of clear and fu)l con- 
 viction, it leaves him bewildered, darkling, 
 asleep; and when he awakes, he 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 161 
 
 ******* *' wakes, emerging from a sea of dream 
 *' Tumultuous; where his wreck 'd desponding thought, 
 **From wave to wave of wild uncertainty 
 " At random drove, her hel m of reason lost.'* 
 
 I incline to believe that if there be a blem- 
 ish in the mind of this amiable gentleman, 
 it is the want of a strong and masculine 
 judgment. If such an* agent had wield- 
 ed the sceptre of his understanding, it is pre- 
 sumable, that ere this, it would have chas- 
 tised his exuberant fondness for literary finery, 
 and the too ostentatious and unfortunate pa- 
 rade of points in his argument, on which I 
 have just commented. If I may confide in 
 the replies which I have heard given to him 
 at the bar, this want of judgment is some- 
 times manifested in his selection and applica- 
 tion of law cases. But of this I can judge 
 only from the triumphant air with which his 
 14* 
 
162 . THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 adversaries seize his cases and appear to turn 
 them at^ainst him. 
 
 He is certainly a man of close and elabo- 
 rate research. It would seem to me, howe- 
 ver, my dear S , that in order to 
 
 constitute a scientifick lawyer, something 
 more is necessary than the patient and perse- 
 vering revolution of the leaves of an author. 
 Does it not require a discernment sufficiently 
 clear and strong to eviscerate the principles of 
 each case; a judgment potent enough to di- 
 gest, connect and systematize them, and to 
 distinguish, at once, in any future combination 
 of circumstances, the very feature which 
 gives or refuses to a principle, a just applica- 
 tion? 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 perfect command 
 of his reading. For, in the first place, I 
 should apprehend, that he would never dis- 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 163 
 
 cover the application of a case, without the 
 recurrence of all the same circumstances; 
 in the next place, that his cases would form 
 a perfect chaos, a rudis indigestaque molesy 
 in his brain; and lastly, that he would often 
 and sometimes perhaps fatally mistake the 
 identifying feature, and furnish his antagonist 
 with a formidable weapon against himself. 
 
 But let me fly from this intangled wilder- 
 ness, of which I have so little knowledge, and 
 
 return to Mr Although when 
 
 brought to the standard of perfect oratory, he 
 may be subject to the censures which I have 
 passed on him ; yet it is to be acknowledged, 
 and I make the acknowledgment with plea- 
 sure, that he is a man of extensive reading, a 
 well informed lawyer, a fine del/es lettres 
 scholar, and sometimes a beautiful speaker. 
 
 The gentleman who has been pointed out 
 to me as holding the next if not an equal 
 grade in the profession is Mr. ....... . 
 
164 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 He is, I am told, upwards of forty years of 
 age; but his look, I think, is more juve- 
 nile. As to stature, he is about the ordinary 
 height of men ; his form genteel, his person 
 agile. He is distinguished by a quickness of 
 look, a sprightly step, and that peculiarly 
 jaunty air, which I have heretofore mentioned, 
 as characterizing the people of New York. 
 It is an air, however, which, (perhaps, because 
 I am a plain son of John Bull) is not entire- 
 ly to my taste. Striking, indeed, it is ; highly 
 genteel, and calculated for eclat ; but then, I 
 fear, that it may be censured as being too ar- 
 tificial : as having, therefore, too little ap- 
 pearance of connexion with the heart ; too lit- 
 tle of that amiable simplicity, that winning 
 softness, that vital warmth, which I have felt 
 in the manner of a certain friend of mine. 
 This objection, however, is not meant to touch 
 his heart. I do not mean to censure his sen« 
 sibility or his virtues. The remark appplies 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 165 
 
 only to the mere exterioar of his manners \ 
 and even the censure, which I have pronoun- 
 ced on thaty is purely the result of a different 
 taste, which is, at least, as probably wron g as 
 
 that of Mr 
 
 Indeed, my dear S , I have seen 
 
 few eminent men in this or any other coun- 
 try, who have been able so far to repress 
 the exulting pride of conscious talents, as 
 to put on the behaviour which is calcula- 
 ted to win the hearts of the people. I mean 
 that behaviour, v/hich steers between a low- 
 spirited, cringing sycophancy and ostenta- 
 tious condescension on the one hand, and a 
 haughty self importance and supercilious 
 contempt of one's fellow creatures on the 
 other; that behaviour, in which, while a 
 man displays a just respect for his own 
 feelings and character, he seems neverthe- 
 less, to concentre himself with the dis- 
 position and inclination of the person to 
 
166 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 whom he speaks : in a word, that happy 
 behaviour, in which versatility and candour, 
 modesty and dignity, are sweetly and har- . 
 moniously tempered and blended. Any 
 
 Englishman, but yourself, rr.y S , 
 
 would easily recognize the original from 
 which this latter picture is drawn. 
 
 This leads me off from the character 
 
 of Mr , to remark a moral defect, 
 
 which I have several times observed in 
 this country. Many well meaning men, hav- 
 ing heard much of the hollow, ceremonious 
 professions and hypocritical grimace of 
 com'ts; disgusted with every thing which 
 savours of aristocratick or monarchick pa- 
 rade ; and smitten with the love of repub- 
 lican simplicity and honesty; have fallen into a 
 ruggedness of deportment, a thousand times 
 more proud, more intolerable and disgusting, 
 than Shakspeare's foppish lord, with his chin 
 new reapt and pouncet box. They scorn to 
 conceal their thoughts; and in the expression 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 167 
 
 of them confound bluntness with honesty. 
 Their opinions are all dogmas. It is perfectly 
 immaterial to them what any one else may 
 think. Nay, many of them seem to have 
 forgotten, that others can think, or feel at 
 all. In pursuit of the hag;gard phantom, of 
 republicanism,* they dash on, like sir Joseph 
 Banks, giving chase to the emperour of Mo- 
 rocco, regardless of the sweet and tender 
 blossoms of sensibility, which fall and bleed, 
 and die behind them. What an errour is 
 
 this, my dear S ! I am frequently 
 
 disposed to ask such men, " think you, that 
 the stern and implacable Achilles was an 
 honester man than the gentle, humane and 
 cosiderate Hector? Was the arrogant and 
 imperious Alexander an honester man than 
 the meek compassionate and amiable Cy- 
 rus ? Was the proud, the rough, the surly 
 
 • This phrase is scai-cely excusable, even in a liritoa 
 asd a lorfl. 
 
168 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 Cato, more honest than the soft, polite and 
 delicate Scipio Africanus ? In short, are not 
 honesty and humanity compatible ? And 
 what is the most genuine and captivating 
 politeness, but humanity refined I" 
 
 But to return from this digression. The 
 
 qualities, by which Mr strikes 
 
 the multitude, are his ingenuity and his 
 wit. But those, who look more closely in- 
 to the anatomy of his mind, discover many 
 properties of much higher dignity and impor- 
 tance. This gentleman, in my opinion, 
 unites in himself a greater diversity of ta- 
 lents and acquirements, than any other at 
 the bar of Virginia. He has the reputa- 
 tion, and I doubt not a just one, of possess- 
 ing much legal science He has an exqui- 
 site and a highly cultivated taste for polite 
 literature; a genius quick and fertile; a 
 style pure and classick ; a stream of perspi- 
 cuous and beautiful elocution; an ingenuity 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 169 
 
 "which no difficulties can entangle or em- 
 barrass ; and a wit, whose vivid and bril- 
 liant coruscation, can gild and decorate the 
 darkest subject. He chooses his ground, 
 in the first instance with great judgment; 
 and when, in the progress of a cause, an un- 
 expected evolution of testimony, or inter- 
 mediate decisions from the bench, have bea- 
 ten that ground from under him, he possesses 
 a happy, an astonishing versatility, by which 
 he is enabled at once, to take a new posi- 
 tion, without appearing to have lost an atom, 
 either in the measure or stability of his basis. 
 This is a faculty which I have observed be- 
 fore in an inferiour degree ; but Mr 
 
 is so adroit, so superiour in the execution of 
 it, that in him it appears a new and pecu- 
 liar talent; his statements, his narrations, 
 his arguments, are all as transparent as 
 the light of day. He reasons logically, and 
 
 declaims very handsomely. It is true, he 
 15 
 
170 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 never brandishes the Olympick thunder of 
 Homer, but then he seldom, if ever, sinks 
 beneath the chaste and attractive majesty 
 of Virt^il. 
 
 His fault is, that he has not veiled his inge- 
 nuity with sufficient address. Hence, I 
 am told, that he is considered as a Pro- 
 teus ; and the courts are disposed to doubt 
 their senses, even vi^hen he appears in his 
 proper shape. But in spite of this adverse 
 
 and unpropilious distrust, Mr *s 
 
 popularity is still in its flood ; and he is 
 justly considered as an honour and an orna- 
 ment to his profession. 
 
 Adieu my friend, for the present. Ere 
 long we may take another tour through 
 this gallery of portraits, if more interesting 
 
 objects do not call us off. Again my S , 
 
 good night. 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 Richmond^ October 30. 
 
 Talents, my dear S , wherever 
 
 they have had a suitable theatre, have never 
 failed lo emerge from obscurity and assume 
 their proper rank in the estimation of the 
 world. The celebrated Camden is said to have 
 been the tenant of a garret. Yet from the 
 darkness, poverty and Ignominy, of this resi- 
 dence, he advanced to distinction and weaUh, 
 and graced the first offices and tides of our 
 island. It is impossible to turn over the Bri- 
 tish biography, without being struck and 
 charmed by the multitude of correspondent 
 examples: a venerable group of novi homi' 
 nes. as the Romans called them : men, who, 
 from the lowest depths of obscurity and want, 
 and without even the influence of a patron, 
 
172 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 have risen to the first honours of then' coun- 
 try, and founded their own families anew. In 
 every nation, and in every ag-e, great talents, 
 thrown fairly into the point of publick observa- 
 tion, will invariably produce the same ultimate 
 effect. The jealous pride of power may at- 
 tempt to repress and crush them j the base 
 and malignant rancour of impotent spleen and 
 envy may strive to embarrass and retard their 
 flight ; but these efforts, so far from achieving 
 their ignoble purpose, so far from producing 
 a discernible obliquity in the ascent of genuine 
 and vigorous talents, will serve only to increase 
 their momentum and mark their transit with 
 an additional stream of glory. 
 
 When the great earl of Chatham first 
 made his appearance in our house of com- 
 mons, and began to astonish and transport 
 the British parliament, and the British nation, 
 by the boldness, the force and range of his 
 thoughts, and the celestial fire and pathos 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. l7S 
 
 of his eloquence, it is well known, that the 
 minister VValpole, and his brother Horace, 
 (from motives very easily understood) ex- 
 erted all their wit, all their oratory, all their 
 acquirements of every description, sustained 
 and enforced by the unfeeling " insolence of 
 " office," to heave a mountain on his gigantick 
 genius, and hide it from the world. Poor 
 and powerless attempt ! The tables were 
 turned. He rose upon them in the might 
 and irresistible energy of his genius; and in 
 spite of all their convolutions, frantick ago- 
 nies and spasms, he strangled them and 
 their whole faction with as much ease as 
 Hercules did the serpent ministers of jealou- 
 sy, that were sent to assail his infant cradle. 
 Who can turn over the debates of the day, 
 and read the account of this conflict between 
 youthful ardour and hoary headed cunning 
 and power, without kindling in the cause of 
 
 the tyro, and shouting at his victory ? That 
 15* 
 
174 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 lliey should have attempted to pass off the 
 grand, yet solid and judicious operations of 
 a mind like his, as beinj^ mere theatrical 
 start and emotion ; the giddy, hairbrained 
 eccentricities of a romantick hoy ! That they 
 should have had the presun)ption to suppose 
 themselves capable of chaining down to the 
 floor of the parliament, a genius so ethereal, 
 towering, and sublime ! Why did they not, 
 in the next breath, by way of crowning the 
 climax of vanity, bid the magnificent fireball 
 to descend from its exalted and appropriate 
 region, to perform its splendid tour along 
 the surface of the earth I* 
 
 * See a beautiful note in Darwin's Bontanick Garden, in 
 whicli the writer suggests the probability of three concen- 
 trick strata of our atmosphere, in which, or between them, 
 are produced four kinds of meteors ; in the lowest, the 
 common lightning ; in the next, shooting stars ; and the 
 highest region, wliicli he supposes toconsi tof inflamui:ible 
 gas tenfold lighter than the common atmospherick air, he 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 175 
 
 When the son of this great man too, our 
 present minister, and his compeer and rival, 
 our friend, first commenced their political 
 career, the publick papers teemed with stric- 
 tures on their respective talents : the first 
 was censured as being merely a dry and even 
 a flimsy reasoner; the last was stigmatized 
 as an empty declaimer. But errour and 
 misrepresentation soon expire, and are tor- 
 gotten; while truth rises upon their ruins, 
 and " flourishes in eternal youth." Thus, 
 the false, the light, fugacious newspaper cri- 
 ticisms, which attempted to dissect and cen- 
 
 makes the theatre of the northern light, and fireball or 
 draco volaus. lie recites the history of one of the latter, 
 seen in the year 17o8, which was estimated to have been a 
 mile and a half in circumference ; to have been one hun- 
 dred miles high ; and to have moved towards the north, 
 thirty miles in a second. It had a real tail, many miles 
 long, which threw oft' sparks in its course ; and the whole 
 explotled with a sound like that of distant thunder. JJot. 
 Garden, part I, note 1. 
 
176 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 sure the arrangement of those gentlemen's 
 talents, have been long since swept away by 
 the besom of oblivion. They wanted truth, 
 that soul, which alone can secure immorta- 
 lity to any literary work. And Mr Pitt and 
 Mr. Fox have for many years been recipro- 
 cally and alternately recognized, just as their 
 subject demands it, either as close and co- 
 gent reasoners, or as beautiful and superb 
 rhetoricians. 
 
 Talents, therefore, which are before the 
 publick, have nothing to dread, either from 
 the jealous pride of power, or from the tran- 
 sient misrepresentations of party, spleen, or 
 envy. In spite of opposition from any cause, 
 their buoyant spirit will lift them to their pro- 
 per grade: it would be unjust that it should 
 lift them higher. 
 
 It is true, there always are, and . always 
 will be, in every society, individuals, who 
 will fancy themselves examples of genius 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 177 
 
 overlooked, underrated, or invidiously op- 
 pressed. But the misfortune of such per- 
 sons is imputable to their own vanity, 
 and not to the publick opinion, which has 
 weighed and graduated them. 
 
 We remember many of our schoolmates, 
 whose geniuses bloomed and died within the 
 walL of Alma Mater ; but whose bodies still 
 live, the moving monuments of departed 
 splendour, the animated and affecting re- 
 membrances of ihe extreme fragility of the 
 human intellect. We remember others, who 
 have entered on publick life, with the most 
 exulting promise ; have flown from the 
 earth, like rockets ; and, after a short and 
 brilliant flight, have bursted with one or two 
 explosions — to blaze no more. Others, by a 
 few premature scintillations of thought, have 
 led themselves and their partial friends, to 
 hope that they were fast advancing to a dawn 
 of soft and beauteous light, and a meridian of 
 
175 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 bright and gorgeous efiulgence; but their 
 day has never yet broken, and never will it 
 break. They are doomed for ever to that 
 dim, crepuscular light, wh ch surrounds the 
 frozen poles, when the sun has retreateo to 
 the opposite circle of the heavens. Theirs 
 is the eternal glimmering of the brain; and 
 their most luminous displays are the faint 
 twinklings of the glow worm. We have 
 seen others, who, at their start, gain a casu- 
 al projectility, which rises them above their 
 proper grade; but by the just operation of 
 their specifick ;>ravity, they are made to sub- 
 side again, and settle ultimately in the sphere 
 to which they properly belong. 
 
 All these characters, and many others who 
 have had even slighter bases for their once 
 sanguine, but now blasted hopes, form a 
 querulous and melancholy band of nioon- 
 struck declaimers against the injus;i( e o' the 
 world, the agency of envy, the force of des- 
 
THE BRITISH SPY, 170 
 
 tiny, &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 ahvays satisfied with wailing 
 their own destiny, pouring out the bitterest 
 imprecations of their sc 'is 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 disappointed ambition, they cast 
 a scowling eye over the world of man ; start 
 back and blanch at the lustre of superiour 
 merit ; and exert all the diabolical incanta- 
 tions of their black art. to conjure up an im- 
 pervious vapour, in order to shroud its glo- 
 ries from the world. But it is all in vain. In 
 spite of every thing, the publick opinion will 
 finally do justice to us all. The man who 
 Comes fairly before the world and who pos*> 
 
180 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 sesses the great and vigorous stami7ia which 
 entitle iiim to a nich in the temple of glory, 
 h s no reason to dread the ultimate result; 
 however slow his progress may be, he will 
 in the end most indubitably receive that dis- 
 tinction. While the rest, *' the swallows of 
 science," the butterflies of genius, mav flut- 
 ter, for their spring ; but they will soon pass 
 away and be remembered no more. No en- 
 terprising man, therefore (and least of aii, 
 the truly great man' has reason to droop or 
 repine at any eflbrts which he may suppose 
 to be made with the view to depress him ; 
 since he may rely on the universal and un- 
 cbaneing truth : that talents* which are be- 
 fore the world, will most inevitably find their 
 proper level; svnd this is, certainly, all that 
 a just man should desire. Let, then, the 
 tempest of envy or of malice howl around 
 him. His genius will consecrate him; and 
 any attempt to extinguish that, will be as 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 181 
 
 unavailin?^, as would a human effort *' to 
 quench the stars." 
 
 I have been led farther into these reflec- 
 tions than I had anticipated. The train was 
 started by casting my eyes over V^irginia; 
 observing the very few who have advanced 
 on the theatre of publick observation, and the 
 very many who will remain for ever behind 
 the scenes. 
 
 What frequent instances of high, native 
 genius have I seen springing in the wilder- 
 nesses of this country ; genius, whose blos- 
 soms, the light of science has never court- 
 ed into expansion ; genius, which is doomed 
 to fall and die, far from the notice and the 
 haunts of men! How often, as I have held 
 my way through the western forests of this 
 state, and reflected on the vigorous shoots of 
 superiour intellect, which were freezing and 
 perishing there for the want of culture ; how 
 
 often have I recalled the moment, when onr 
 
 16 
 
182 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 pathetick Gray, reclining under the moulder^ 
 ing elm of his country church yard, while 
 the sigh of genial sympathy broke from his 
 heart, and the tear of noble pity started in 
 bis eye, exclaimed 
 
 « Perhaps in this neglected spot his laid 
 **Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire, 
 
 " Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd, 
 **0r wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre. 
 
 " But knowledge to their eyes, her ample page, 
 *' Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll ; 
 
 '* 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 caves of ocean bear 5 
 
 " Full many a flower 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 ; 
 "Seme Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood, 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 183 
 
 ** Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, 
 "The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 
 
 * To scatter plenty o'er a sinifing land, 
 ** »And read their history in a nation^ s eyeSf 
 
 "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 melancho- 
 " ly waste of talents ? Is there no mode by 
 " which the rays of science might be so dif- 
 " fused over the state, as to call forth each 
 " latent bud into life and luxuriance ?'* There 
 is such a mode : and what renders the legis- 
 lature of this state still more inexcusable, 
 the plan by which these important purposes 
 might be effected, has been drawn out and 
 has lain by them for nearly thirty years. The 
 declaration of the independence of this com- 
 monwealth was made in the month of May? 
 
184 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 1776.* In the fall of that year, a statute, op 
 as it is called here, " an act of assembly" 
 was iTiade, providing that a committee of five 
 persons should be appointed to prepare a code 
 of laws, adapted to the change of the state 
 government This code was to be submitted 
 to the legislature of the country, and to be ra- 
 tified or rejected by their suffrage. 
 
 In the ensuing November, by a resolution 
 of the same legislature* Thomas Jefi'erson, 
 Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, George 
 Mason, and Thomas Ludwell Lee, esquires, 
 were appointed a committee to execute the 
 work in question. It was prepared by the 
 three first named gentlemen; the first of 
 
 * This is a fact which the puhlick journals of the state 
 establish beyond controversy ; although tlie legal process 
 and other publick acts of Virginia modestly waive ihis pre- 
 cedence, and date the foundation of the commonweylth, 
 on the 4th of July, 1776, the day on which the (ieclaration 
 of the independence of the United States was promuiged. 
 
THE BaiTISH SPY. 185 
 
 them, now the president of the United States ; 
 the second, the president of the supreme 
 court of appeals of Virginia, and the third, the 
 judge of the high court of chancery, at this 
 place. 
 
 I have perused this system of state po- 
 lice, with admiration. It is evidently the work 
 of minds of most astonishing greatness ; ca- 
 pable, at once, of a grand, profound and com- 
 prehensive survey of the present and fu- 
 ture interest and glory of the whole state ; 
 and of pursuing that interest and glory 
 through all the remote and minute ramifica- 
 tions of the extensive and elaborate detail. 
 
 Among other wise and highly patriotick 
 bills which are proposed, there is one, for the 
 more general diffusion of knowledge.. After 
 a preamble, in which the importance of the 
 subject to the republick is most ably and elo- 
 quently announced, the bill proposes a simple 
 
 and beautiful scheme, whereby science (like 
 
 16* 
 
186 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 justice under the institutions of our Alfred) 
 would have been " carried to every man's 
 "door." Genius, instead of having to break 
 its way through the thick opposing clouds 
 of native obscurity, indigence and ignorance, 
 was to be sought for through every family in 
 the commonwealth ; the sacred spark, where- 
 ver it was detected, was to be tenderly cher- 
 ished, fed, and fanned into a flame ; its innate 
 properties and tendencies were to be develo- 
 ped and examined, and then cautiously and 
 judiciously invested with all the auxiliary en- 
 ergy and radiance of which its character was 
 susceptible. 
 
 What a plan was here to give stability and 
 solid glory to the republick ! If you ask me 
 why it has never been adopted, I answer, that 
 as a foreigner, I can perceive no possible rea- 
 son for it, except that the comprehensive 
 views and generous patriotism, which produ- 
 ced the bill, have not prevailed throughout 
 
THE BRITISH SPY, 187 
 
 the country, nor presided in the body on 
 whose vote the adoption of the bill depended. 
 I have new reason to remark it, almost every 
 day, that there is throughout Virginia, a most 
 deplorable destitution of publick spirit, of the 
 noble pride and love of country. Unless the 
 body of the people can be awakened from 
 this fatal apathy; unless their thoughts and 
 their feelings can be urged beyond the narrow 
 confines of their own private affairs ; unless 
 they can be strongly inspired with the pub- 
 lick zeal, the amor fiairiie of the ancient re- 
 publicks, the national embellishment, and 
 the national grandeur of this opulent state, 
 must be reserved for very distant ages. 
 
 Adieu, my S ; perhaps you will 
 
 hear from me again before I leave Richmond. 
 
FROM THE VIRGINIA GAZETTE. 
 
 AN APOLOGY 
 
 IN RF-PLY TO A HINT. 
 
 The Letters of the British Spy were furnish- 
 ed to amuse the citizens of the town and coun- 
 try ; and not to give pain to any one human be- 
 ing. Accordingly, nothing has been said in 
 censure of the integrity, the philanthropy, the 
 benevolence, charity, or any other moral or re- 
 ligious virtue or grace of any one Virginian, 
 who has been introduced into those letters. 
 Nothing indeed could be justly said on those 
 heads, in censure of either of the gentlemen. 
 It is true, that some letters have been publish- 
 ed, which have attempted to annalyze the 
 minds of three or four well known citizens of 
 this state, and in order to designate them 
 
THE BRITISH SPY, 189 
 
 more particularly, a description of the person 
 and manner of each gentleman was given. 
 This has been called "throwing stones at 
 " other people's glass houses,'* and ihe per- 
 son who has communicated those letters 
 (gratuitously styled their " author") is polite- 
 ly reminded that he himself resides " in a 
 " glass house." 
 
 If this be correctly understood, it implies 
 a threat of retaliation ; but all that the laws 
 oi retaliation could justify, would be to amuse 
 the town and country with a description of 
 the person^ mayiner and mind of the author 
 (as he is called) of the Briiish Spy. He 
 fears, however, that it would puzzle the hint- 
 er, whatever his genius may be, to render so 
 barren a subject interesting and amusing to 
 the publick : and he would be much obliged 
 to the hinter if he could make it appear that 
 he (the furnisher of the letters) deserves to be 
 drawn into comparison, either as to person. 
 
190 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 manner, or mind, with any one of the gen- 
 tlemen delineated by the British Spy. As to 
 his person, indeed, he is less solicitous ; the 
 defects of that were imposed on him by na* 
 ture ; and there is no principle better establish- 
 ed than this general principle of eternal truth 
 and justice, that no man ought to be censured 
 for contingencies over which he had no con- 
 trol. As to his manner, he has as little ob- 
 jection to a publick description of that as 
 his person. 
 
 To save the trouble of others, however, 
 he relinquishes all pretensions either to the 
 striking elegance which is calculated to ex- 
 cite admiration and respect, or to the concilia- 
 ting: grace and vital warmth which are quali- 
 fied to gain enthusiastick friends. His man- 
 ner is probably such as would be produced, 
 nine times out of ten, by the rustick education 
 Co which he was exposed. 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 191 
 
 As to his mind, it is almost such as nature 
 made it. He cannot boast with Gray, that 
 " science frowned not on his humble birth." 
 But what of this ? A man may very accu- 
 rately anatomize the powers of a mind far su- 
 periour to his own. It is not improbable 
 that Zoilus's criticisms of Homer were just ; 
 since every nod of Homer's was a fair sub- 
 ject of criticism. Yet who will suppose 
 that Zoilus yould have produced such a work 
 as the Iliad ? It is impossible to read Den- 
 nis's criticisms of Addison's Cato without be- 
 ing forcibly struck with their justice, and 
 wondering that they have never before occur- 
 red to ourselves Yet there is no man, who 
 will therefore pronounce the genius of Den- 
 nis equal to that of Addison. 'These facts are 
 so palpable and so well understood, that the 
 person who furnished the letters of the Bri- 
 tish Spy (even if he had been their author) 
 could scarcely have had the presumption to 
 
192 THE BRITISH SPY, 
 
 suppose, nor, I trust, the injustice to desirCj 
 that the publick would pronounce his mind 
 free from the defects, much less indued with 
 the energies and beauties of those which he 
 criticises. 
 
 But where is the harm which has been 
 done? Who are the gentlemen introduced 
 into the British Spy? Are they young men 
 just emerging into notice, and concerning 
 whom the publick have yet to form an opi- 
 nion? Far from it. They are gentlemen, 
 who have long been, and who still are dis- 
 playing themselves in the very centre of the 
 circle of general observation. They have 
 not hid their light under a bushel. Their 
 city is built on a high hill. There is not a 
 feature of their'persons, nor a quality of their 
 mind or manner, which has not been long 
 and well known, and remarked, commented 
 on, criticised, repeated and reiterated a thou- 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 193 
 
 sand and ten thousand times in every circle 
 and every corner of the country 
 
 Was it in the power, then, of any remarks 
 in an anonymous and fugitive newspaper 
 pubhcation, either to injure or serve gentle- 
 men so well and so eminently known ? On 
 the contrary, if those remarks were untrue, 
 they would be instantaneously and infallibly 
 corrected by the publick opinion and know- 
 ledge of the subject; if the remarks were 
 true, they would add no new fact to the pub- 
 lick opinion and the publick knowledge. 
 Thinking thus, nothing was more distant, ei- 
 ther from the expectation or wish of the per- 
 son who has furnished the press with the let- 
 ters of the British Spy, than that he was about 
 to do an injury to the character, or to inflict 
 a wound on the feelings of any citizen of the 
 country. Why could he have expected or 
 wished any such effect? He could not have 
 
 been actuated by resentment ; for neither of 
 17 
 
194 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 those gentlemen have ever done him an inju- 
 ry. He could not have been moved by per- 
 sonal mterestj since his conscious inferiority, 
 as well as the nature of his pursuits, remove 
 him far from the possibility of being ever 
 brought into collision with either of those gen- 
 tlemen. He could not have been impelled by 
 diaboUcal envy, or the malicious agony of 
 blasted ambition ; since his country has alrea- 
 dy distinguished him far, very far, beyond his 
 desert. And of the malevolence of heart 
 which could intentionally do a wicked, a wan- 
 ton and unprovoked injury, he is persuaded 
 that either of the gentlemen, if they knew 
 him, would mo^t freely and cheerfully ac- 
 quit him. 
 
 It he be asked why he published the 
 letters describing those characters ? He an- 
 swers, 
 
 First, for the same reason that he would, 
 if he could, present to the town, a set of 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 195 
 
 landscape paintings, representing all the love- 
 ly prospects which belong to their beautiful 
 city; to furnish them with the amusement and 
 pleasure, v/hich arise from surveying an ac- 
 curate picture of a well known original ; and 
 this implies, that he could not have believed 
 himself adding new information, as to the 
 originals themselves. 
 
 Secondly, he hoped that the abstracted and 
 miscellaneons remarks, which were blended 
 with the description of those characters, 
 might not be without their use, to the many 
 literary young men who are growing up in 
 Virginia. 
 
 If the letters of the British Spy have gone 
 beyond these purposes; if they have given 
 pain to the gentlemen described ; ( for as to 
 doing them an injury, it is, certainly, out of 
 the question ) there is no man in the com- 
 munity disposed to regret it, more sensibly, 
 
196 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 than the man who furnished those letters for 
 publicaiion. 
 
 But while honour and justice compel the 
 writer of this article to give these explana- 
 tions, and make these acknowledgiiients to 
 the gentlemen immediately interested, he 
 begs he may not be considered as descending 
 to the meanness of begging mercy on his 
 own "glass house." On the contrary, the 
 person, who has published the polite hint 
 in question, is welcome to commence his 
 assault as soon as he pleases. He can 
 scarcely point out one defect in the person, 
 manner, or mind of this writer, of which 
 he is not already conscious. And if he meant 
 by his menace any thing more ; if he meant 
 to insinuate a suspicion to the publick, that 
 the honesty, integrity, or moral purity, of 
 the man who furnished the letters of the 
 British Spy for publication, are assailable on 
 any ground of truth ; if such was his inten- 
 tion, be has intended an injury, at which this 
 
THE BBITISH SPY. 197 
 
 writer laughs in proud security : an injury, for 
 which his own heart, if it be a good one, will 
 not forgive him so soon, as will the heart of 
 the man whom he has attempted to injure. 
 . The v/riter of this article tenders in return 
 this hint to the hinter : that before he com- 
 mences his hostile operations, he will be 
 sure of his man. As to the person who real- 
 ly did furnish the British Spy— the finger of 
 conjecture has been erroneously pointed at 
 several who reside in this state. It would be 
 unjust and barbarous to punish the innocent 
 for the guilty, if guilt can be justly charged 
 on the British Spy. 
 
 17* 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 Richmond^ December 10. 
 
 In one of my late rides into the surrounding 
 country, I stopped at a little inn to refresh 
 myself and my horse; and, as the landlord 
 was neither a Boniface, nor " mine host of 
 the garter," I called for a book, by way of 
 killing time, while the preparations for my re- 
 past were going forward. He brought me a 
 shattered fragment of the second volume of 
 the Spectator, which he told me was the only 
 book in the house, for '^ he never troubled 
 his head about reading ;" and by way of con- 
 clusive proof, he further informed me, that 
 this fragment, the only book in the house, 
 had been sleeping unmolested in the dust of 
 his mantlepiece, for ten or fifteen years. I 
 could not meet my venerable countrymauj in 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 199 
 
 a foreign land, and in this humiliating plight, 
 nor hear of the inhuman and gothick con- 
 tempt with which he had been treated, with- 
 out the liveliest emotion. So I read my host 
 a lecture on the subject, to which he appeared 
 to pay as little attention, as he had before 
 done to the Spectator, and, with the sang 
 froid of a Dutchman, answered me in the 
 cant of the country, that he " had other fish 
 to fry," and left me. 
 
 It had been so long since I had had an op- 
 portunity of opening that agreeable collection, 
 that the few numbers, which were now be- 
 fore me, appeared almost intirely new; 
 and I cannot describe to you, the avidity and 
 delight, with which I devoured those beautiful 
 and interesting 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 ornamented ! a temper so benevolent^ 
 
200 THE BIllTISH SPY. 
 
 SO cheerful, so exhilarating! a body of know- 
 ledge, and of original thought, so immense 
 and various ! so strikingly just, so universally 
 useful ! What person, of any age, sex, tem- 
 per, calling, or pursuit, can possibly con- 
 verse with the Spectator, without being con- 
 scious of immediate improvement? 
 
 To the spleen, he is as perpetual, and ne- 
 verfailing an antidote, as he is to igno- 
 rance and immorality. No matter for the 
 disposition of mind in which you take him 
 up; you catch, as you go along, the happy 
 tone of spirits which prevails throughout the 
 work; you smile at the wit, laugh 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 a 
 better humour, both with yourself and every 
 body else. I have never mentioned the sub- 
 ject to a reader of the Spectator, who did 
 not admit this to be the invariable process; 
 
"HHE BRITISH SPY. 201 
 
 and in such a world of misforiunes, of cares 
 and sorrows and guilt as this is, what a prize 
 would this collection be, if it were rightly es- 
 timated ! 
 
 Were I the sovereign of a nation, which 
 spoke the English language, and wished my 
 subjects cheerful, virtuous and enlightened, I 
 would furnish every poor family in my do- 
 minions (and see that the rich furnished them- 
 selves) with a copy of the Spectator ; and 
 ordain that the parents or children should 
 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 learn- 
 ing, so much of profound wisdom, and of 
 beautiful composition, )et there is scarcely a 
 number throughout the eight volumes, which 
 is not level to the meanest capacity. Another 
 perfection is, that the Spectator will never 
 
202 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 become tiresome to any one whose taste 
 and whose heart remain uncorrupted. 
 
 I do not mean that this author, should be 
 read to the exclusion of others; much less 
 that he should stand in the way of the ge- 
 nerous pursuit of science, or interrupt the 
 discharge of social or private duties. All the 
 counsels of the work itself have a directly 
 reverse tendency. It furnishes a store of the 
 clearest argument and of the most amiable 
 and captivating exhortations, ** to raise the ge- 
 nius, and to mend the heart " I regret, only, 
 that such a book should be thrown by, and 
 almost intirely forgotten, while the gilded blas- 
 phemies of infidels, and "the noontide tran- 
 ces" of pernicious theorists, are hailed with 
 rapture, and echoed around the world. For 
 such, I should be pleased to see the Specta- 
 tor universally substituted : and, throwing out 
 of the question its morality, its literary infor- 
 mation, its sweetly ^contagious serenity, ancl 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 203 
 
 the pure and chaste beauties of its style; 
 and considering it merely as a curiosity, as 
 concentring the brilliant sports of the finest 
 cluster of geniuses, that ever graced the 
 earth, it surely deserves perpetual attention, 
 respect and consecration. 
 
 There is, me thinks, my S , a 
 
 great fault in the world, as it respects this 
 subject: a giddy instability, a light and flutter- 
 ing vanity, a prurient longing after no- 
 velty, an impatience, a disgust, a fastidious 
 contempt of every thing that is old. You will 
 not understand me as censuring the progress 
 of sound science. I am not so infatuated an 
 antiquarian, nor so poor a philanthropist, 
 as to seek to retard the expansion of the 
 human mind. But I lament the eternal 
 oblivion, into which our old authors, those 
 giants of literature, are permitted to sink, 
 while the world stands open-eyed and open- 
 moijthe4 to catch every modern, tinselled 
 
204 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 abortion, as it falls from the press. In 
 the polite circles of America, for instance, 
 perhaps there is no want of taste and even 
 zeal for letters. I have seen several gentle- 
 men, who appear to have an accurate, a 
 minute acquaintance with the whole range 
 of literature, in its present state of improve- 
 ment : yet, you will be surprised to hear, that 
 I have not met with more than one or two 
 persons in this country, who have ever 
 read the works of Bacon or of Boyle. They 
 delight to saunter in the upper story, sus- 
 tained and adorned, as it is, with the deli- 
 cate proportions, the foliage and flourishes 
 of the Corinthian order; but they disdain 
 to make any acquaintance, or hold com- 
 munion at all, with the Tuscan and Doric 
 plainness and strength, which base and sup- 
 port the whole edifice. 
 
 As to lord Verulam, when he is con- 
 sidered as the father of experimental phito- 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 203 
 
 sophy; as the champion, whose vigour bat- 
 tered down the idolised chimeras of Aristotle, 
 together with all the appendant and im- 
 measurable webs of the brain, woven and 
 hung upon them, by the ingenious dreamers 
 of the schools ; as the hero who not only 
 rescued and redeemed the world from all this 
 darkness, jargon, perplexity and errour; but, 
 from the stores of his own great mind, 
 poured a flood of light upon the earth, 
 straighteneri the devious paths of science, 
 and planned the whole paradise, which we 
 now find so full of fragrance, beauty and 
 grandeur; when he is considered, I say, in 
 these points of view, 1 am astonished that lit- 
 erary gentlemen do not court his acquaintance, 
 if not through reverence, at least through cu- 
 riosity. The person who does so will find 
 every period filled with pure and solid 
 golden bullion: that bullion, whicJi several 
 
 much admired posterior writers have merely 
 
 18 
 
206 THE BRITISH SPY, 
 
 moulded into various forms, or beaten inte 
 leaf, and taught to spread its floating splen- 
 dours to the sun. 
 
 This insatiate palate for novelty, which I 
 have mentioned, has had a very striking effect 
 on the style of modern productions. The 
 plain language of easy conversation will no 
 longer do. The wrter who contends for 
 fame, or even for truth, is obliged to con- 
 sult the reigning taste of the day Hence too 
 often, in opposition to his own judgment, 
 he is led to incumber his ideas with a gor- 
 geous load of ornaments ; and when he would 
 present to the publick a body of pure, sub- 
 stantial and useful thought, he finds him- 
 self constrained to incrust and bury its uti- 
 lity within a dazzling case; to convert a 
 feast of reason into a concert of sounds : a 
 rich intellectual boon into a mere bouquet 
 of variegated pinks and blushing roses. 
 In his turn he contributes to establish 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 207 
 
 and spread wider the perversion of the 
 publick taste ; and thus, en a principle 
 resembling that of action and reaction, 
 the author and the publick reciprocate the 
 injury ; just as, in the licentious reign 
 of our Charles the lid, the dramatist and 
 his audience were wont to poison each other's 
 morals. 
 
 A history of style would indeed be a cu- 
 pious and highly interesting one : I mean a 
 philosophical, as well as chronological his- 
 tory ; one which, besides marking the grada- 
 tions, changes and fluctuations exhibited in 
 the style of different ages and different coun- 
 tries, should open the regular or contingent 
 causes of all those gradations, changes and 
 fluctuations. I should be particularly pleased 
 to see a learned and penetrating mind employ- 
 ed on the question. Whether the gradual 
 adornment, which we observe in a nation's 
 style, result from the progress of science ; or 
 
203 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 whether there be an infancy, a youth, and a 
 manhood, in a nation's sensibility, which ri- 
 sing in a distant age, like a newborn billow, 
 rolls on through succeeding i^c-erations, with 
 accumulating height and force, and bears along 
 with it the concurrent expression of that sensi- 
 bility, until they both swell and tower into the 
 sublime— and sometimes break into the bathos. 
 The historical facts, as well as the meta- 
 physical consideration of the subject, perplex 
 these questions extremely ; and, as sir Roger 
 De Coverly says, " much may be said on 
 both sides'* For the present I shall say 
 nothing on either: except that from some of 
 Mr. Blair's remarks, it would seem that nei- 
 ther of those hypotheses will solve the phe- 
 nomenon before us. If I remember his opi- 
 nion correctly, the most sublime style is to be 
 sought in a state of nature ; when, anteriour 
 to the existence of science, the scantiness of a 
 language forces a people to notice the points 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 20^ 
 
 of resemblance between the great natural 
 objects with which they are surrounded . to 
 apply to one the terms which belong to ano- 
 ther ; and thus, by compulsion, to rise at 
 once into simile and metaphor, and launch 
 into all the boldness of trope and figure. If 
 this be true, it would seem that the progress 
 of a civilized nation towards sublimity of 
 style is perfectly a retrograde manoeuvre: 
 that is, that they will be sublime according 
 to the nearness of their approach to the pri- 
 meval state of nature. 
 
 This is a curious, and to me, a be- 
 witching subject. But it leads to a volume 
 of thought, which is not to be condensed 
 in a letter I will remark only one extra- 
 ordinary fact as it relates to style. The 
 Augustan age is pronounced by some cri- 
 ticks to have furnished the finest models of 
 style, embellished to the highest endurable 
 
 point: and of this, Cicero is always ad- 
 18* 
 
210 THE BRITISH SPY, 
 
 duced as the most illustrious example. • Yet 
 it is remarkable, that seventy or eighty years 
 afterwards, when the Roman style had be- 
 come much more luxuriant, and was de- 
 nounced by the critics of the day* as hav- 
 ing transcended the limits of genuine orna- 
 ment, Pliny the younger, in a letter to a 
 friend, thought it necessary to enter into 
 a foimal vindication of three or four meta- 
 phors, which he had used in an oration, 
 and which had been censured in Rome for 
 their extravagance; but which, by the side 
 of the meanest of Curran*s figures, would 
 be poor, insipid and flat. Yet who will say 
 that Curran's style has gone beyond the 
 point of endurance? Who is not pleased 
 with its purity ? Who is not ravished by its 
 sublimity ? 
 
 In England, how wide is the chasm be- 
 tween the style of lord Verulam and that 
 * See Quinctillian's Institutes. 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 2 1 1 
 
 of Edmund Burke, or M'Intosh's introduc- 
 tion to his Findiccs Galliccs / That of the 
 first is the plain dress of a Quaker; that 
 of the two last the magnificent parapher- 
 nalia of Louis XIV of France. In lord 
 Verulam's day, his style was distinguished 
 for its superiour ornament ; and in this res- 
 pect, it was thought impossible to surpass 
 it. Yet Mr. Burke, Mr. M*Intosh, and 
 the other Jine writers of the present age, 
 have, by contrast, reduced lord Verulam's 
 flower garden to the appearance of a sim- 
 ple culinary square. 
 
 Perhaps it is for this reason, and because, 
 as you know, I am an epicure, that I r .n ve- 
 ry much interested by lord Verulam's manner. 
 It is indeed a most agreeable relief to my 
 mind to turn from the stately and dazzling 
 rhapsodies of the day, and converse witli this 
 plain and sensible old gentleman To me 
 his style is gratifying on many accounts j and 
 
212 THE BRITISH SPST. 
 
 there is this advantage in him, that instead of 
 having three or four ideas rolled over and over 
 again, like the fantastick evolutions and ever- 
 changing shapes of the same sun-embroider- 
 ed cloud, you gain new materials, new infor- 
 mation at every breath. 
 
 Sir Robert Boyle is, in my opinion another 
 author of the same description, and therefore 
 an equal, if not a higher favourite with me. 
 In point of ornament he is the first grade in 
 the mighty space (through the whole of which 
 the gradations may be distinctly traced) be- 
 tween Bacon and Burke. Yet he has no re- 
 dundant verbiage ; has about him a per- 
 fectly patriarchal simplicity ; and every peri- 
 od is pregnant with matter. He has this ad- 
 vantage too over lord Verulam : that he not 
 only investigates all the subjects which are 
 calculated to try the clearness, the force and 
 the con-prehension of the human intellect : 
 he introduces others also, in handling of 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 213 
 
 which he shows the masterly power with 
 which he could touch the keys of the heart, 
 and awaken all the tones of sensibility which 
 belong to man. Surely, if ever a human be- 
 ing deserved to be canonized for great, un- 
 clouded intelligence, and sersphick purity 
 and ecstasy of soul, that being was sir Ro- 
 bert Boyle. 
 
 When I reflect that this " pure intelligence, 
 "this link between men and angels," was a 
 christian, and look around upon the petty 
 infidels and deists with which the world 
 swarms, I am lost in amazement! Have 
 they seen arguments against religion, which 
 were not presented to sir Robert Boyle i* His 
 religious works show that they have not. Are 
 their judgments belter able to weigh those 
 arguments than his was ? They have not the 
 vanity even to believe it. Is the beam of their 
 judgments more steady, and less liable to be 
 disturbed by passion than his? no; for in 
 
214 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 this he seems to have excelled all mankind. 
 Are their minds more elevated and more ca- 
 pable of comprehending the whole of this 
 great subject, with all its connexions and dC' 
 pendencies, than was the mind of sir Robert 
 Boyle ? Look at the men : and the question 
 is answered. How then does it happen that 
 they have been conducted to a conclusion, so 
 perfectly the reverse of his ? It is for this 
 very reason : because their judgments are less 
 extricated from the influence and raised above 
 the mis* of passion: it is because their minds 
 are less ethereal and comprehensive ; less 
 capable than his was "to look through na- 
 ture up to nature's God." And let them hug 
 iheir precious, barren, hopeless infidelity : 
 they are welcome to the horrible embrace ! 
 ■^ay we, my friend, never lose the rich and 
 inexhaustible comforts of religion. 
 Adieu, my S . . . . , 
 
The author of "an inquirer," on the theo- 
 ry of the earth, begs leave to offer the follow- 
 ing observations to the publisher of " the Bri- 
 tish Spy/* in answer to some of his additional 
 notes. 
 
 When the Inquirer read, in the second let- 
 ter of the British Spy, that '' the perpetual 
 '' revolution of the earth, from west to east, 
 " has the obvious tendency to conglomerate 
 " the loose sands of the sea, on the eastern 
 " coast,'* — " that whether the rolling of the 
 " earth to the east give to the ocean an actual 
 " counter-current to the west or not, the 
 *' newly emerged pinnacles are whirled, by 
 "the earth's motion, through the waters of 
 " the deep ;" and from the continued opera- 
 tion of the causes which produced them, that 
 " all continents and islands will be caused, re- 
 « ciprocally to approximate ;** when he read 
 
^16 THE BRITISH SPY, 
 
 these and other similar passages, he saw n© 
 reason to doubt, that the British Spy consider- 
 ed the occean wow, as well as formerly, af- 
 fected by the rotation of the earth ; or, to ex- 
 press the same thing more correcdy, that the 
 rotatory motion of the earth is but par- 
 tially communicated to the ocean. This 
 opinion, which a thousand facts may be 
 brought to disprove, and which the fa- 
 vourite cosmogonist of the British Spy says* 
 no man cai> entertain who has the least know- 
 ledge of physicks, it was decorous to sup- 
 pose, had been advanced from inadvertence. 
 If the meaning of the writer were taken by the 
 Inquirer, in a greater latitude than was meant, 
 lie is not the less sorry for his mistake, 
 
 »The passage in Smellie's translation of BufFon stands 
 thus : but every raan who has the least knowledge of phy- 
 sicks, must allow, that no fluid which surrounds the earth, 
 can be afifected by its rotation ; Vol. I. On Regular 
 ■winds. • 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 2l7 
 
 because it was not a natural one, and was 
 not confined to himself. 
 
 But the annotator of the Spy, without 
 saying whether the supposed current now 
 exist or not, thinks the former existence 
 of such a current not improbable, and puts 
 a case by way of illustrating his hypotheses. 
 My reasoning on the subject, somewhat 
 different from his, is briefly this. 
 
 If the whole surface of the earth, when 
 
 it first received its rotatory impulse, were 
 
 covered with water, and this imfiulse were 
 
 communicated to its solid fiart aloncy then, 
 
 indeed, a current to the west would be 
 
 produced ; and would continue, until the 
 
 resistance, occasioned by the friction of the 
 
 waters, gradually communicated the whole 
 
 motion of the earth to the ocean. It is 
 
 not easy to say, when this current would 
 
 cease ; but it seems to me it would be more 
 
 likely to wear the bed of the ocean smooth, 
 19 
 
218 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 than to raise protuberances ; and even, though 
 it were to cause sand banks, it could never 
 elevate them above its own level. 
 
 I should observe that, to avoid circum- 
 locution, I admit a current of the west ; 
 because the effect is the same, as to allu- 
 vion, whether the earth revolve under the 
 waters, or the waters roll over the earth; 
 though the fact is, that the ocean, like the 
 oil in the plate, in the experiment proposed, 
 would have a tendency to remain at rest, 
 and whatever motion it acquired, must be 
 tt) the east, like that of the earth, from 
 which it was derived. 
 
 If we suppose a few solitary mountains 
 to lift their heads above the circumfluous 
 ocean, we may in'er, by the rules of strict 
 analogy, that they would be worn away by 
 the friction of the passing waters, rather 
 than that they would receive any accessions 
 of soil. 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 219 
 
 But let US suppose some ridges of moun- 
 tains running from north to south, and of 
 sufficient extent and elevation to obstruct 
 the course of the waters. In this case, 
 the sudden whirling of the earth to the 
 east would force the ocean on its wes- 
 tern shores, where it would accumulate, 
 until the gravity of the mass, thus elevated, 
 overcame the force which raised it. Then 
 one vast undulation of the stupendous mass 
 would take place, from shore to shore, and 
 would continue until it gradually yielded 
 to the united effect of friction and gravity. 
 A comparison between vessels of different 
 sizes, partly filled with water, might ena- 
 ble us to form a rational conjecture of the 
 term of this oscillation; but be it in one 
 year, or many years, I think the effect 
 would more probably be, an abrasion of the 
 mountain, than the formation of a continent. 
 
 But the fiostulaturrtj that the first im- 
 
§2® THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 pulse to the earth was communicated to 
 its solid part alone> on which all these sup- 
 positions rest, is but a possibility : Whether 
 we suppose that the cause, which first 
 whirled the earth on its axis, is an as- 
 cending link in nature's chain of causes, 
 or the immediate act of the first Great 
 Cause of all, it is not unHkely that it pene- 
 trated and influenced every particle of 
 matter, whether it were solid, liquid or aeri- 
 form. 
 
 On this subject, our suppositions are to 
 be limited only by our invention. One 
 man may resort to electricity, according to 
 an alleged property of that fluid; another, 
 to magnetism ; a third to the action of the 
 sun's rays ; and a fourth, to a quality inhe- 
 rent in matter; according to either of which 
 hypotheses, no current could have existed. 
 
 Monsieur de Buffbn, indeed, ascribes the 
 earth's rotation to a mechanical and partial 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 221 
 
 impulse, the oblique stroke of a comet; 
 but as, according to him, the earth was 
 then one entire globe of melted glass, its 
 rotatory motion must have been uniform, 
 lonc^ before the ocean existed. 
 
 Whoever would dispel the clouds in which 
 this question is enveloped, and make it as 
 clear " as the light of heaven," should in- 
 deed be mihi magnus Afiollo : but hypothe- 
 ses, of which nothing can be said, but that 
 they are not impossible, though they may be- 
 guile the lounger of a heavy hour, are little 
 likely to further our knowledge of nature. 
 In so boundless a field of conjecture, with 
 scarce one twinkling star to guide us, we can 
 hardly hope to find, among the number- 
 less tracts of errour, that which singly leads 
 lo truth. 
 
 When the Inquirer spoke of the general 
 bouleversement which many subterranean ap- 
 pearances indicated, he did not mean even* 
 
222 THE BRITISH Sl'Y. 
 
 to hint at their cause= but simply to express, 
 as the word imports, the topsyturvy disorder, 
 in which vegetable and marine substances 
 are found : the one far above^ and the other far 
 below, the seat of its original production. At 
 the moment he was attempting to show, that 
 every explanation of these phenomena was 
 imperfect and premature, he hardly would 
 have ventured to give one himself; for though 
 " we should not suffer ourselves to be pas- 
 sively fed on the pap of science," iu/ie7i we 
 have attained our 7naturity, yet until we 
 have attained it, he thinks it is better to be in 
 leadingstrings, than to stumble at every step. 
 In the progress of science, I doubt whether 
 sound principles are abandoned for those 
 that are less true. Novelty in moral specula- 
 tion, aided as it may be, by our passions, may 
 dazzle and mislead, but in physicks, though 
 one errour may give place to another, when 
 truth once gets possession, she holds it firm, 
 
THE BRITISH SPY. 223 
 
 ever after. Thus the theories of cosmogo- 
 nists follow one another, like wave obtruding 
 upon wave; each demonstrating the fallacy of 
 those which went before, and proved absurd 
 in turn ; while the philosophy of Newton, in 
 spite of the continued opposition of French 
 academicians, and the later reveries of St. 
 Pierre, gradually gains universal credit and 
 respect. The member of the Royal Society, 
 who accounted for the trade winds by the 
 transpiration of tropical sea-weed, may have 
 had his admirers ; but he has not been able 
 to shake the theory of Dr. Halley. If Har- 
 vey's system of generation had been as well 
 supported by facts, as his discovery of the 
 circulation of the blood, all hostility to the 
 one, as well as the other, would have end- 
 ed with his life. 
 
 It certainly is not philosophical "to dis- 
 " card a theory," because it may be unsup- 
 ported by a name, nor yet, because there are 
 
<^^^- 
 
 224 THE BRITISH SPY. 
 
 Other more recent theories. In these and 
 many other general remarks, I inlirely con- 
 cur with the writer, though I do not clearly 
 discern their application. 
 
 I cannot conclude, without regretting, that 
 I should be compelled to differ with a writer 
 whose talents I so much admire, and whose 
 sentiments I so often approve: but to bor- 
 row a celebrated sentiment, my esteem for 
 truth exceeds even my esteem for the Bri- 
 tish Spy. Though neither of us may chance 
 to convince the other, yet, if our discussion 
 should lead those who have not the same pa- 
 rental tenderness, for particular hypotheses or 
 doubts, to a better understanding of the sub- 
 ject, the light, that is thus elicited, will console 
 me for the collision which produced it. 
 October 12, 1803. 
 
 THE END. 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 CONGRESS