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to the United States government. A state of war was still
more apparent by the disappearance of all fences, and, as
a natural consequence, the untilled fields which spread to
a distance right and left.

It was how on the left bank of the river that the first success-
ful colony was made in Virginia, and where the renowned
Capt John Smith distinguished himself. It is known as the
Peninsula, situated as it is between the James and York
rivers. The town of Williamsburg was the capital, and still
stands in a state of decay between the two rivers. It was there
that all the feasting and dancing and horse racing of the
colonial times occurred, and it was the site of the College of
William and Mary which has been lately revived on a greatly
diminished endowment. Most of the great Virginians of the
Revolutionary period had passed through that celebrated
College which was afterwards eclipsed by the University of
Virginia.

Several of the large plantation dwellings were still standing
and were pointed out as we approached them. The most con-
spicuous were Brandon, owned then by the Harrison family,
a celebrated place, and another, whose name I have forgotten,
owned by a Mr Allen of Richmond, whose name had origin-
ally been Orgain. I knew him and have mentioned him on P 417.
It was singular to reflect while on the James River that it was
on its banks that the first African slaves were landed from a
Dutch vessel, and that their successful employment in the culti-
vation of tobacco was the starting of the prosperity of the colony
early in the 17th century. The war just then coming to a close, and
which, to my mind, was unquestionably caused by the immense
money value to the South of its slaves, which were considered in-
dispensable to the prosecution of its agricultural industries, and
which the anti-slavery feeling of the North was bent upon freeing
without compensation to the owners, was a gigantic affair to
have grown out of such a small beginning as the arrival of
those few negroes from Africa 200 years before.

As we continued up the river we passed the site of Jamestown
which was the first settlement made by the colonists. All that
remained of the old town was the brick tower of what had been
its principal church. The river must have encroached upon it
since its first erection, for its waters actually touched it, and
its fate would doubtless be in a few years to be undermined and
topple over.

There were several military pontoon bridges across the river
which were opened for our steamer, as we approached, and, the
current being constantly one way, it was done with great ease.
At a point about 20 miles from Richmond we passed City Point
where the Federals had erected large warehouses for storing the immense
army supplies that they required. There was quite a fleet of schooners
and terns lying in the stream and unloading at the wharf, and a
freight train with its locomotive was on the wharf receiving supplies
which could be carried to the army scattered in cantonments which