“We had at Bath a troupe of Irish comedians, alternately emperors, shepherds, clowns, and no doubt very badly fed. The young man who played the lover found great difficulty in pronouncing his consonants. A tall, thin man played the tragic role of enamored prince. A blonde soubrette was solemnly coquettish. The others of the troupe are scarcely to be recalled. We had tragedy, comedy, comic opera, and farce. Every week there was a dance. Billiards was an amusement, and there was play at the taverns, particularly after the arrival of a gentleman who kept a Pharaoh bank. He was treated with great courtesy, and I heard nothing said against his probity. Nevertheless, it happens that the planter who arrives at Bath with equipage and attendants goes home with nothing but a horse, and a very mean horse.
“I hired a horse to go to Winchester. For more than half of the way the country is wild. As you draw nearer the town in the Valley, many well-stocked farms appear, the land being very fertile. On the slope there range strong, long-wooled sheep, not afraid of wolves during the summer. Such war is made upon the wolves that even in this heavily timbered country there is little danger from them except when the snow lies deep upon the ground. It is a magnificent country about Winchester. The men are tall, well-made, of strong constitutions, and ruddy. The horses and cattle have the eye and the gait of health. I stopped at a tavern kept by a German, who has made a fortune in the business. I was treated with consideration, for having lived at Strasbourg and for having crossed the Rhine. At this tavern there is a good cook, the meat is excellent, there is game and fresh-water fish; the house is well furnished, wines of every country, good linen, good beds, the rooms well lighted, and the whole at a reasonable price. The day after I arrived there came to the tavern an old gentleman limping from the gout. I mentioned Thomas Payne to him and the ‘Rights of Man.’ He fixed me with his eye, out the air with his stick, and said vehemently that he wished Thomas Payne was hanged. He left me, and at the same time I got up, whistling the air of ‘Ca Ira.’ I learned the cause of his behavior: he had held a lucrative office before the war, and was an incurable Tory.
“A Mr. Smith, who lives a mile from Winchester, asked me to dine. I spent the time very agreeably there. From the liberality of his opinions I was led to discuss the political situation of America with considerable frankness. Mr. Smith and his brother-in-law accompanied me back to Winchester, discoursing by the way of their fortunate lot, of the progress of agriculture, and of the richness of the inexhaustible soil, which yields an abundance to the inhabitants of this beautiful Valley.
“I had a letter of introduction to Colonel P., formerly aid de camp to General Washington. Colonel P. lives some sixteen miles from Winchester, greatly esteemed for his public and private virtues. On the way to his house I passed through a country of abundant harvests, fat pastures and well peopled; where there was forest the trees were of a magnificent growth, and in the intervals a deep green turf invited the traveler to repose. It was hot. I dismounted beneath a poplar tree, the white flower of which offered its corolla to the bee and the humming bird. The coolness of the place, the delicious perfumes exhaled by the acacias, the ivy, and the flowers springing from the sod, all gave to the senses that calm which is the precursor of sleep; but ideas of the happiness prepared for generations to come in this land of peace and plenty, thoughts of the future greatness of the American people, supplied a reverie sweeter than that of dreams.
“Not far from the house of Colonel P., I met a large man on horseback, whose open countenance was an invitation to talk. He was dressed like a farmer during the busy season. I asked him the way. He showed me the road, and continued his path without adding a word to the precise answer he had given me. Arrived at the house, I found the overseer near the barn directing some negroes who were shelling corn. I had not been long in the house, a structure of logs, and very comfortable, when there entered the same man I had met in the road, none other than Colonel P. himself. I presented my letter, which he quickly read, and receiving me in the most friendly manner, offered me refreshments. We talked of the war, and he sketched for me in brief its causes. At dinner I drank old whiskey distilled on the place. The Colonel spoke with pleasure of his farm operations: he makes everything at home. He showed me the plan of his 1,000 acres, at the centre of which he will build a large and commodious house. At the present time his outbuildings are more carefully constructed than his mansion. I quitted Colonel P. at sunset, much pleased with him, and grateful for his kind attentions.[K] Shortly after, the moon appeared over the mountains to the south, and cast a light over the valley. The whippoorwill commenced its plaints, almost extinguished by the various song of the melodious mocking-bird. The blacks were coming in from the fields singing behind the slow horses fatigued with the day’s work.
“The next day at Winchester I went to church, a frame building, and hitched around it horses of price well caparisoned. The negroes sat in the gallery, dressed in their Sunday clothes. Below were their masters and mistresses, whose appearance proclaimed them alive to the sanctity of the place and to the solemnity of the ceremony.
“The minister, a Presbyterian, was the grandson of a Frenchman. Coming back from church I observed that the doors of all the houses were closed. They remained so throughout the day. Mrs. B. and her daughters retired after dinner to read chapters of the Old and the New Testament. Throughout the United States this is the manner of observing Sunday.
“The Valley of the Shenandoah is a most prosperous and healthful region. Tobacco, corn, flax and wheat are the principal crops. Twelve miles from Winchester I could have bought land for 50 shillings the acre, but nearer the town the price of cleared land is from three to four pounds. Several Europeans who have settled hereabouts have not succeeded well, and for the reason that they failed to discard European customs. It should not be overlooked that the price of labor and that of produce is in reverse proportion to what prevails in Europe. Here labor is high and market values, net, are low. An especial error of foreigners is the attempt to improve too fast. A Frenchman who has bought 300 acres of land thinks he has a ‘property,’ and goes to work on the grand scale. What with building and embellishments he is very apt to go bankrupt. There are men in this region who have made fortunes in land speculations. There is not a tavern at Winchester where land merchants may not be found. They are as enthusiastic in their offers as the women who sell toothpicks at the doors of Paris restaurants and cafés. An especially pleasing feature of their preliminaries is that they assure you their only motive is to make your fortune. I met one of these merchants who desired to enrich me, nolens volens, by selling me land at an excessively high price.
“Winchester is destined to be a manufacturing town, and to a degree incalculable as soon as communication with the Atlantic coast shall have been established by means of the rivers or by canal. Already there is a famous carriage works at Winchester; and boots, shoes, and saddles are made there, which, for use and for style of workmanship, equal the product of the older cities.
“I set out from Winchester for Bath at 4 o’clock in the morning, in order to be on the mountain before the sun was too high. A light fog covered the Valley, resembling transparent gauze, through which appeared the tops of trees, houses and cabins, the cabin chimneys already smoking. I observed that the squirrels were early awake. Coming to Bath, I found the great subject of talk was a duel lately fought and announced in the Gazette.”