This is a book of Travels in Virginia during a period that may be called revolutionary, from the year 1769 to the year 1802, when the United States lay still to the east of France and Spain, and the limit of Virginia to the west was the river Ohio: it was a proud commonwealth, and with reason, territorially, in the character of its ruling people, and in that inexplicable inheritance which has made Virginia significant. It is interesting to observe, among these travellers, how carefully the best informed of them estimate the strength of Virginia, whether justly or not regarded at home and here and there abroad as the most influential of the new states. Those were extraordinary years in the making of America, the fund of the capital of the country, as it were, accumulating to the point of application in surprising ways. It is well to look back, through foreign eyes, and see a little of what the situation was at that time in the State of the first dynasty.

Of these travellers, one was in the country before the war and his memoranda introduce the Revolution—very peaceful, then disturbances, and then musquetry, the author shooting for King George; another came with the good King’s troops and saw Virginia on parole; one was a chaplain in the army of the allies, one a general officer of that army, and there was a surgeon to the enemies from Hesse, whose book is excellent in a series of remarkable books. The others came after the war, men of science, youngsters seeing the world, a missionary, a sad emigrant from France, and a sailor who had quitted the sea and embarked in the novelist’s business. A notable group of observers, and if, even where they are most explicit, we could see but a small part of what they intend us to see, what a picture. From year’s end to year’s end, decade to decade, the century is out, and everything is different; and to come at the truth of the matter as it was before we should have to retrace every step of the way, and that is impossible. As a makeshift we read novels and documented histories.

The method in the chapters following has been to let the traveller tell his own story, interrupting him where he seems least interesting, adding very little, making him responsible for his version of the facts. It is not so much the itemized account that is wanted as the proceeds of the whole, the general balance as one impression. As many travellers, so many roads and they may follow but one. The young man will be apt to lose his temper and record disagreeable things. The great man, treated with consideration, will, if his digestion is good, be careful to be polite. The season will be a factor, for earth roads are not the same winter and summer. However, we should not be greatly deceived by the verdicts of eleven intelligent men who traverse the greater part of a given region during a space of thirty years.