Not a vestige remains
of the opulence and splendor of his early days. Not one of the
mansions inhabited or visited by him in his youth furnished a target
for our cannoneers or plunder for our camps. A country better adapted
to all good purposes of man, nor one more pleasing to the eye, hardly
exists on earth; but before it was trodden by armies, it had become
little less than desolate. The James River is as navigable as the
Hudson, and flows through a region far more fertile, longer settled,
more inviting, and of more genial climate; but there are upon the
Hudson's banks more cities than there are rotten landings upon the
James. The shores of this beautiful and classic stream are so
unexpectedly void of even the signs of human habitation, that our
soldiers were often ready to exclaim:
"Can this be the river of Captain John Smith and Pocahontas?
Was it here that Jamestown stood? Is it possible that white
men have lived in this delightful land for two hundred and
fifty-seven years? Or has not the captain of the steamboat
made a mistake, and turned into the wrong river?"
One scene of John Randolph's boyhood reveals to us the entire
political economy of the Old Dominion.
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