WILLIAMSBURGH COLLEGE.
The town consists of one principal street, and two others which run parallel to it. At one end of the main street stands the college, and at the other end the old capitol or state house, a capacious building of brick, now crumbling to pieces from negligence. The houses around it are mostly uninhabited, and present a melancholy picture. In the hall of the capitol stands a maimed statue of lord Botetourt, one of the regal governors of Virginia, erected at the public expence, in memory of his lordship’s equitable and popular administration. During the war, when party rage was at its highest pitch, and every thing pertaining to royalty obnoxious, the head and one arm of the statue were knocked off; it now remains quite exposed, and is more and more defaced every day. Whether the motto, “Resurgo rege favente,” inscribed under the coat of arms, did or did not help to bring upon it its present fate, I cannot pretend to say; as it is, it certainly remains a monument of the extinction of monarchical power in America.
The college of William and Mary, as it is still called, stands at the opposite end of the main street; it is a heavy pile, which bears, as Mr. Jefferson, I think, says, “a very close resemblance to a large brick kiln, excepting that it has a roof.” The students were about thirty in number when I was there: from their appearance one would imagine that the seminary ought rather to be termed a grammar school than a college; yet I understand the visitors, since the present revolution, finding it full of young boys just learning the rudiments of Greek and Latin, a circumstance which consequently deterred others more advanced from going there, dropped the professorships for these two languages, and established others in their place. The professorships, as they now stand, are for law, medicine, natural and moral philosophy, mathematics, and modern languages. The bishop of Virginia is president of the college, and has apartments in the buildings. Half a dozen or more of the students, the eldest about twelve years old, dined at his table one day that I was there; some were without shoes or stockings, others without coats. During dinner they constantly rose to help themselves at the side board. A couple of dishes of salted meat, and some oyster soup, formed the whole of the dinner. I only mention this, as it may convey some little idea of American colleges and American dignitaries.
The episcopalian church, the only one in the place, stands in the middle of the main street; it is much out of repair. On either side of it is an extensive green, surrounded with neat looking houses, which bring to mind an English village.
The town contains about twelve hundred inhabitants, and the society in it is thought to be more extensive and more genteel at the same time than what is to be met with in any other place of its size in America. No manufactures are carried on here, and scarcely any trade.
There is an hospital here for lunatics, but it does not appear to be well regulated.
LETTER XIII.
Hampton.—Ferry to Norfolk.—Danger in crossing the numerous Ferries in Virginia.—Norfolk.—Laws of Virginia injurious to the Trading Interest.—Streets narrow and dirty in Norfolk.—Yellow Fever there.—Observations on this Disorder.—Violent Party Spirit amongst the Inhabitants.—Few Churches in Virginia.—Several in Ruins.—Private Grave Yards.
Norfolk, April.