THE MARQUIS OF CHASTELLUX, MAJOR-GENERAL IN THE FRENCH ARMY, AND MEMBER OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY.

1782.

“FROM the moment the French troops were established in the quarters they occupied in Virginia, I formed the project of traveling into the upper parts of that province, where I was assured that I should find objects worthy of exciting the curiosity of a stranger; and faithful to the principles, which from my youth I had laid down, never to neglect seeing every country in my power, I burned with impatience to set out. The season, however, was unfavorable, and rendered traveling difficult and laborious; besides, experience taught me that traveling in winter never offered the greatest satisfaction we can enjoy—that of seeing Nature as she ought to be, and of forming a just idea of the general face of a country; for it is easier for the imagination to deprive the landscape of the charms of spring than to clothe with them the hideous skeleton of winter; as it is easier to imagine what a beauty at eighteen may be at eighty, than to conceive what eighty was at eighteen.”

In these words, the Marquis of Chastellux, writing from Williamsburg about the 1st of May, 1782, begins the chronicle of his tour to the Valley of Virginia. He was in America with the army perhaps two years, during which time he sustained his reputation as a capable officer, an agreeable man, and a philosopher of tolerant insight. M. de Chastellux was a good traveler. In the country, if the bacon and eggs were stale and the vintage was spring water of the morning, he found something to admire in the landscape. At Philadelphia he dined with members of the Congress, of all parties, listened to political theories, drank tea with the ladies, was easily amused and formed opinions which may be discovered on a careful reading. Where is there a more sensible man than the old campaigner? The Marquis of Chastellux entered the army at fifteen, and was given command of a regiment at twenty-one. He served with distinction in the Seven Years’ War. His studies were never neglected, and being a man of rank he was early adopted among the scholars.

On the 8th of April, 1782, M. de Chastellux set out from Williamsburg for Rockbridge County. “On the 8th I set out with Mr. Lynch, then my aid-de-camp and adjutant, Mr. Frank Dillon, my second aid-de-camp, and M. le Chevalier d’OyrÉ, of the Engineers. Six servants and a led horse composed our train, so that our little caravan consisted of four masters, six servants and eleven horses. I regulated my journey by the spring, and gave it time sufficient to precede us. The eighteen miles through which we passed before we baited our horses at Bird’s Tavern were sufficiently known to me, for it was the same road I traveled the year before in coming from Williamsburg. The remaining sixteen, which completed our day’s work and brought us to New Kent Courthouse, offered nothing curious. All I learned by a conversation with Mr. Bird was that he had been pillaged by the English when they passed his house in their march to Westover in pursuit of M. de la Fayette, and in returning to Williamsburg after endeavoring in vain to come up with him. Mr. Bird repeated with indignation that the refugee camp followers had taken from him the very boots from off his legs. As the next day’s journey was to be longer than that of the preceding one, we left New Kent Courthouse before 8 o’clock, and rode twenty miles to Newcastle, where I resolved to give our horses two hours repose. When the heat was a little abated and our horses were somewhat reposed we continued our journey that we might arrive before dark at Hanover Courthouse, from which we were yet sixteen miles. The country through which we passed is one of the finest of lower Virginia. There are many well cultivated estates and handsome houses. We arrived at Hanover Courthouse before sunset, and alighted at a tolerable handsome inn—a very large saloon and a covered portico to receive the company who assemble every three months at the courthouse, either on private or public affairs. This asylum is the more necessary, as there are no other houses in the neighborhood.”From Hanover Courthouse, which, as well as New Kent, had reason to remember the passage of the English, the party proceeded at 9 the next morning towards Offley, the residence for the time of General Nelson, recently Governor of the State. “I had got acquainted with him during the expedition to York, at which critical moment he was Governor, and conducted himself with the courage of a brave soldier and the zeal of a good citizen. I am sorry to add that the only recompense of his labors was the hatred of a great part of his fellow citizens, arising from the necessity under which he had often labored of pressing their horses, carriages and forage.”

M. de Chastellux and his aids arrived at Offley at 1 o’clock on the 10th of April, and spent two rainy days there. General Nelson was absent, but Secretary Nelson was there, an old man very gouty, who related with a serene countenance what the effect had been of the French batteries in front of Yorktown. “The tranquility which has succeeded these unhappy times by giving him leisure to reflect upon his losses, has not embittered the recollection; he lives happily on one of his plantations, where in less than six hours he can assemble seventy of his relations, children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces. The rapid increase of his own family justifies what he told me of the population of Virginia in general, of which, from the offices he has held all his life, he must have it in his power to form a very accurate judgment. In 1742 the people subject to taxes in Virginia amounted only to the number of 63,000; by his account they now exceed 160,000.“After passing two days very agreeably with this interesting family, we left there the 12th at 10 in the morning, accompanied by the secretary and five or six of his young relations, who conducted us to Little River Bridge, a small creek on the road about five miles from Offley.”

Eleven miles through woods brought them to Willis’s Ordinary, a solitary place, but at the moment crowded. “As soon as I alighted I inquired what might be the reason of this numerous assembly, and was informed it was a cock fight. This diversion is much in vogue in Virginia, where the English customs are more prevalent than in the rest of America. Whilst our horses were feeding we had an opportunity of seeing a battle. The stakes were very considerable; the money of the parties was deposited in the hands of one of the principal persons, and I felt a secret pleasure in observing that it was chiefly French. Whilst the interested parties animated the cocks to battle, a child of fifteen, who was near me, kept leaping for joy and crying, ‘Oh, it is a charming diversion.’ We had yet seven or eight and twenty miles to ride to the only inn where it was possible to stop before we reached Mr. Jefferson’s.”

Keeping on towards Monticello, the party passed an ordinary, some sixteen miles from Willis’s, kept by an extremely fat man. They found him contented in an arm chair, which served him also for a bed. A stool supported his enormous legs. “A large ham and a bowl of grog served him for company, like a man resolved to die surrounded by his friends.”

They spent the night twelve miles farther on at a house where there were fourteen children, not one of them ten years old; and set out at 8 o’clock the next morning through the foothills of the Southwest Mountain. That day, the 13th of April (an important day with Mr. Jefferson) they came to Monticello. “The visit which I made Mr. Jefferson was not unexpected, for he had long since invited me to come and pass a few days with him; notwithstanding which I found his first appearance serious, nay even cold; but before I had been two hours with him we were as intimate as if we had passed our whole lives together. Walking, books, but above all a conversation always varied and interesting, made four days pass away like so many minutes. I recollect with pleasure that as we were conversing one evening over a bowl of punch, after Mrs. Jefferson had retired, our conversation turned on the poems of Ossian. In our enthusiasm the book was sent for and placed near the bowl, where by their mutual aid the night far advanced imperceptibly upon us. Sometimes natural philosophy, at others politics or the arts, were the topics of our conversation, for no object had escaped Mr. Jefferson; and it seemed as if from his youth he had placed his mind, as he had his house, on an elevated situation, from which he might contemplate the universe.”

Mr. Jefferson and M. de Chastellux rode over to Charlottesville, “a rising town,” to see Colonel Armand,[G] whose legion was in quarters there. Colonel Armand had a pet wolf which had been caught wild in the neighborhood. M. de Chastellux left Monticello on the 17th, and on the 19th arrived at the Natural Bridge, by way of Rockfish Gap and Steel’s Tavern. Returning by way of New London (Bedford), “already a pretty considerable town, at least seventy or eighty houses,” the party of tourists reached Cumberland Courthouse on the 23d. “This is the chief manor house of a very considerable country; it is situated in a plain of about a mile diameter, sixteen miles from Hodnett’s, which we had passed. Besides the courthouse and a large tavern, its necessary appendage, there are seven or eight houses inhabited by gentlemen of fortune. I found the tavern full of people, and understood that the judges were assembled to hold a court of claims—that is to say, to hear and register the claims of sundry persons, who had furnished provisions for the army. We know that in general, but particularly in unexpected invasions, the American troops had no established magazine, and as it was necessary to have subsistence for them, provisions and forage were indiscriminately laid hold of on giving the owners a receipt, which they call a certificate. During the campaign, whilst the enemy was at hand, little attention was given to this sort of loans, which accumulated incessantly, without the sum total being known, or any means taken to ascertain the proofs. Virginia being at length loaded with these certificates, it became necessary, sooner or later, to liquidate these accounts.

“The last Assembly of the State of Virginia had accordingly thought proper to pass a bill, authorizing the justices of each county to take cognizance of these certificates, to authenticate their validity, and to register them, specifying the value of the provisions in money, according to the established tariff. I had the curiosity to go to the courthouse to see how this affair was transacted, and saw it was performed with great order and simplicity. The justices wore their common clothes, but were seated on an elevated tribunal, as at London in the court of King’s bench or common pleas. We had rode forty-four miles, and night was closing fast upon us when we arrived at Powhatan Courthouse, a more recent settlement than that of Cumberland. We had a good supper and good beds, but our horses were obliged to do without forage.”

Early in the morning of the 24th they left Powhatan, and rode forty-four miles to Petersburg, passing Chesterfield Courthouse, where were still to be seen the ruins of the barracks occupied by the Baron Steuben and burned by the English. At Petersburg M. de Chastellux called at ‘Battersea’ and was entertained at ‘Bollingbrook.’ The town is described as already flourishing, and destined to become more so every day—the depot for a vast region to the south. “Five miles from Petersburg we passed the small river of Randolph over a stone bridge, and traveling through a rich and well peopled country, arrived at a fork of roads, where we were unlucky enough precisely to make choice of that which did not lead to Richmond, the place of our destination. But we had no reason to regret our error, as it was only two miles about and we skirted James River to a charming place called Warwick, where a group of handsome houses form a sort of village, and there are several superb ones in the neighborhood. As we had lost our way and traveled but slowly, it was near 3 o’clock when we reached Manchester, a sort of suburb to Richmond, on the right bank of the river, where you pass the ferry. The passage was short, there being two boats for the accommodation of travelers. Richmond is divided into three parts. I was conducted to that on the west, where I found a good inn. Mr. Formicola, my landlord, is a Neapolitan, who came to Virginia with Lord Dunmore, but had gone rather roundabout, having been before in Russia. His only error was the exalted idea he had formed of the manner in which French general officers must be treated. After dinner I went to pay a visit to Mr. Harrison, then Governor of the State. He talked much of the first Congress in America, in which he sat for two years. This subject led us naturally to that which is the most favorite topic among the Americans—the origin and commencement of the present revolution.”

This conversation with Governor Harrison, other conversations, and M. de Chastellux’s own careful observations led him to form opinions about Virginia, then the most influential of the States, which were correct enough. His analysis was a forecast. There can be found no better summary of conditions in Virginia at that time, the statement of a man of great good sense and a wide experience of men and affairs. He remarks: “One must be in the country itself, one must be acquainted with the language, and take a pleasure in conversing and in listening, to be qualified to form, and that slowly, a proper opinion and a decisive judgment. After this reflection the reader will not be surprised at the pleasure I took in conversing with Mr. Harrison. He urged me to dine with him next day, and to pass another day at Richmond. We set out, however, on the 27th, at 8 in the morning for Westover. We traveled six and twenty miles without halting, in very hot weather, but by a very agreeable road, with magnificent houses in view at every instant; for the banks of James River form the garden of Virginia.

“It is not by accident,” observes the Marquis of Chastellux, writing at Williamsburg, May 1, 1782, “that I have postponed the consideration of everything respecting the progress of the arts and sciences in this country until the conclusion of my reflections on Virginia; I have done it expressly because the mind, after bestowing its attention on the variety of human institutions, reposes itself with pleasure on those which tend to the perfection of the understanding, and the progress of information. The College of William and Mary, whose founders are announced by the very name, is a noble establishment which embellishes Williamsburg and does honor to Virginia. I must add that the zeal of the professors has been crowned with the most distinguished success, and that they have already formed many distinguished characters, ready to serve their country in the various departments of government. After doing justice to the exertions of the University of Williamsburgh, for such is the College of William and Mary, if it be necessary for its farther glory to cite miracles, I shall only observe that they created me a doctor of laws.”

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