The people of Alexandria have in their manners the simplicity and straight-forwardness of a people in a rural village.—They have the hospitality of their ancesters of Charles II. time, when the Scotch, under Lord Fairfax settled the northern neck of Virginia. The pure morals and pure principles of those primitive times have been handed down unsoiled and uncorrupted to the people who now dwell here. Should the seat of the national government be removed farther west, Alexandria would not suffer much by that change. The Potomac, broad, deep and navigable, would still roll its tide from Georgetown to the sea. The industry, enterprise, economy, morals, religion and patriotism of the people would remain, and render prosperous, useful, good and happy, a thriving people. An increasing city will forever remain here an ornament of the nation. This is a nucleus, around which men of good principles may rally, and from this point spread far and wide, sound morals and sound principles of all sorts. Near this town Washington was born and died, and his spirit hovers over this people. His example, his precepts and his principles govern Alexandria still. We see it in every thing all around us.
The stage house, where I am, is kept by Mr. George Wise, and it is the best in the city. As such I take pleasure in recommending it to travellers.
I cannot conclude my remarks on Alexandria better, than by introducing to the reader Mr. A. C. Cazenove, a native of Geneva, Switzerland, but now and for many years past an enterprising merchant and importer of foreign goods. Mr. Cazenove is as stirring a man, as there is in Alexandria. At my request he drew up a short memoir of his life, which, in his own words, I present to the reader. Gen. Archibald Henderson married Mr. Cazenove’s eldest daughter and Colonel Fowle his youngest one.
Memoir of Mr. Cazenove.
The cradle of the Cazenove family was Nismes in France, though it is probable, from their name and coat of arms, that they were originally from Italy or Spain, where you find some Casanovas and Casanuovas.
Being protestants, they had to fly at the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and took refuge in Geneva, in Switzerland, from whence some of them afterwards branched off to Lausanne, in Switzerland, to Holland, England, France, and lastly to the United States. This last event took place during the summer of 1794, when the leaders of the dreadful French revolution fomented one of a similar character, only on a smaller scale, in the little republic of Geneva, then not one of the cantons of Switzerland, but in close alliance with that ancient and admirable confederation. The object of the French being the geographical situation of Geneva, being fortified and by nature one of the gate-ways into France, Switzerland and Italy, besides its great wealth for an inland city, and the high state of information possessed by the generality of its inhabitants, being acknowledged to be one of the luminaries of the world.
Although France had succeeded in overturning their old form of government, and substituting in a population, then amounting to about 25,000 souls in the city and about 15,000 in the surrounding villages and country, a national assembly as democratic as it could well be. They were attached to their independence and desirous so to remain. It therefore became necessary for Roberspierre and the leading jacobins of France, to find some pretext for taking possession of Geneva, for which purpose they surrounded it (being then in possession of Savoy and having military posts close by) with the worst of their jacobins, and such Genevans as had been banished from it for any cause, and in one night, with the help of their sattelites in Geneva and their own people which they had introduced into the city, took possession of the three gates of the city, arsenal and powder magazines. They armed the most desperate amongst them, to intimidate others, and early next day went and dragged the heads of our best families and distinguished citizens, into two large warehouses, used before that for public granneries, to the number of about 400 persons, and established a national tribune, before which they brought several of the best, most virtuous and patriotic citizens of Geneva, but ranked by them as aristocrats, which they pretended to have conspired against the independence of the republic; the very thing they had themselves in view, and were aiming at. Nor could they have had the reign one single day, but for the knowledge that France was ready to pounce upon Geneva, if any thing like a scuffle had taken place, to avoid which the people of Geneva thought it best to submit for a while to the tyranny of their own jacobins. As it was impossible to substantiate any charge against such men, however depraved their revolutionary tribunal was, they were necessarily acquitted and sent to the common jail for safe keeping. This however so enraged their blood-thirsty Marseillois, (the worst of jacobins) that they forced the jail during the night, and by torch light shot sixteen of the best men Geneva ever possessed, and so overawed the revolutionary tribunal itself, as to compel it to take on itself the responsibility of so atrocious a deed.
In order, however, to appease in some respects public indignation, the revolutionary tribunal brought before them forty of the prisoners, amongst whom were Mr. Paul Cazenove, myself, and his two and only sons, John Anthony and Anthony Charles, when, after having charged them also of conspiracy against the republic, and threatening them in an awful manner if they persisted, they were allowed to return to their respective families, where I found seven jacobins guarding my mother at her country seat, not allowing her to leave her own room, and I was not even allowed to go in and see her, nor have I seen her since; for my brother and myself, under cover of the night, with the help of a Swiss boat, escaped the second night, through the lake to Copet, the nearest town in Switzerland, on the lake of Geneva, where we were joined by our cousin Fazy, one of the defenders of Lyons when beseiged by order of the French national convention. Having long felt that we could not live in peace in Geneva, under the sway of the jacobins, we and several other Genevans had determined to leave it, for a while at least, and under the impression that the jacobinical principles of revolutionary France were destined to go through Europe, we determined to come to America, where the revolution had happily terminated, and where we had already friends and relatives. In order, therefore, to avoid the French armies, which were then making their second incursion into Flanders and Germany, we proceeded through the interior of Germany to Hamburg, where we were met by other Genevans, who had formed the plan of emigrating to America. There we heard of the death of Roberspierre, and were all on the point of abandoning our project, but we determined to persevere in it, because every leader of the French convention having been heretofore succeeded by one still more sanguinary than the last, we did not expect any change for the better. We all, to the number of eight, therefore, embarked together with our four Swiss servants, for Philadelphia, where we landed in November 1794, and were soon after joined by three other Genevans, two of whom, with their wives, had left Geneva after us for the United States. There I found my cousin, Mr. Theophilus Cazenove, the same after whom Cazenovia, in the State of New York, is called, who had made in that State and in Pennsylvania, as agent of wealthy capitalists of Holland, the extensive purchase of the Holland company. Also my cousin Odier of the house of Odier & Bousquet Brothers, and soon after Mr. Albert Gallatin, then a distinguished member of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, joined us.
A number of Genevans having, while yet in Geneva, much approved our intention of removing to the United States, and desired that we should remember them and also prepare a retreat for them. We formed the plan of a large landed company, in which a number of influential individuals became interested. But having ascertained during the spring of 1795 that, justly adverse to emigrate, the French revolution and that of Geneva having assumed a somewhat milder course, after the fall of Roberspierre, we were not likely to be joined by other Genevans as we expected, we relinquished the plan of our landed company, and I formed a co-partnership with Mr. Albert Gallatin, his brother-in-law, Mr. J. W. Nicholson, and two other gentlemen, under the firm of Albert Gallatin & Co., and purchased a tract of land at the mouth of George’s Creek, in Fayette county, Pennsylvania, where we located the town of New Geneva, on the Monongehela river, and established stores, built mills, glass-works, &c. I remained there until having married in Alexandria, where I then settled myself for life. Some years after that, the Swiss government, having thought it desirable, for the first time, to establish consuls in the United States, unexpectedly to me, knowing nothing of their intentions, I received from the federal government of that country, their appointment of Swiss consul for the middle and southern States, with a very kind and obliging request from them to accept it; which was the more flattering, as it had been unsought by me, and though it was impossible for me to forget the country of my birth, or my attachment for Switzerland ever to be weakened, still it was very pleasing for me to see that I had not been forgotten by her, and had such agreeable opportunities afforded me of keeping up an intercourse with that excellent government and equally excellent people, which it is the delight of all travellers to exalt above all other nations.