James Parker"s son, Patrick, visited London at the height of the panic in June. He was trying to re-establish the family firm in Virginia and to recover some of his father"s holdings in and near Norfolk. James reluctantly extended credit to his son for the purchase of trade goods. Patrick worried about repaying his father as he stopped in the subscribers" room at Lloyd"s, where he met Samuel Gist. Gist offered to help; he promised to accept a bill of exchange for more than 140 sterling, drawn by a merchant in Northampton County, Virginia, who owed money to Patrick. The merchant had shown a letter from Gist which had convinced Patrick to take the bill in payment. With Gist"s a.s.surances Patrick Parker returned to Norfolk in August. In the following months, the bill of exchange came back protested three times. Parker delayed repaying his father, hired an attorney to sue the Northampton merchant, and admitted that he had been misled by "that Sneaking Lying Creature Sam Gists promise."
In the summer of the panic, Gist moved to his new home in Gower Street. Builders worked to extend the row of adjoining, almost identical dwellings northward from Bedford Square. Such austere, strict, symmetrically rectangular structures moved Thomas Jefferson to write: "Their architecture is in the most wretched stile I ever saw." New neighbors of Sarah Siddons"s and Samuel Gist"s were retired ship captains, physicians, a few members of Parliament, a builder, Joseph Kirkman, an important corn merchant, Claude Scott, and the Reverend William Morice, longtime secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. When the celebrated fortune teller Mrs. Williams came to London from Bristol and Bath, she offered her clairvoyance at a half-crown per session in her house in Gower Street. John Scott, the Crown"s solicitor general, moved into Number 42 not long after Gist took Number 37. The official residence of the lord chancellor stood just down the street in Bedford Square. Other former residents of the City besides Gist escaped smoke and grime by settling among the gardens of Gower Street. Gist"s colleague at Lloyd"s, Marmaduke Peac.o.c.k, took Number 25. A newly married couple, Osgood Hanbury and Susannah Willet Barclay Hanbury, who united two banking families, became their neighbors. Charles Blagden, secretary of the Royal Society, lived nearby. Mrs. Siddons was not the only artist. The venerable organist and composer, John Worgan, lived at Number 65. In former times his playing had been mentioned in the same breath with that of Handel.
Behind his residence Gist kept a coach and horses in a coach house and stables. He employed a coachman and a full staff of servants. A visitor quickly saw that Gist lived "much in style," among pictures and books, his meals served on silver. His ink stood in a silver inkwell; big candles on pillar candlesticks were put out with a silver snuffer. To check the time he reached to a gold chain with pendant seals and pulled out a gold watch made by Mudge & Dutton.
On Tower Hill, in America Square, the three partners of William Anderson & Company struggled to turn a profit. For months at the end of 1788 and early in 1789 unusually harsh cold interrupted commerce in London. "The streets are a stratum of ice. The river is so hard frozen, that fairs are held upon it." Men who ordinarily worked on the river and along the quays were reduced to begging in the street. The Planter Planter did not sail for the York River until March 12. did not sail for the York River until March 12.
In June a wedding party came to America Square. John Shoolbred"s daughter was married to the Andersons" neighbor, Jerome Bernard Weuves, a rising man in the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa. Shoolbred and his partner, Gilbert Ross, held two of the three London seats on the company"s committee. Weuves had gone to the Gold Coast the year before the Hope Hope sailed and served there fourteen years, the last six as governor, in turn, of Annamaboe Fort and Cape Coast Castle. He moved back to London in 1784. In the months before his wedding he helped the Company of Merchants by testifying to a committee of the Privy Council in defense of the slave trade. sailed and served there fourteen years, the last six as governor, in turn, of Annamaboe Fort and Cape Coast Castle. He moved back to London in 1784. In the months before his wedding he helped the Company of Merchants by testifying to a committee of the Privy Council in defense of the slave trade.
In June 1788, William Anderson held too much unsold tobacco. A year later his agents in Virginia offered advances of seven to ten guineas per hogshead, while a rival firm, Donald & Burton, told its agents not to go above 6. A short crop came to market in 1789. The price in London rose above 9 per hogshead, with some speculators willing to pay more than 14. Anderson sold a hogshead of Dr. Thomas Walker"s tobacco for 13 10s. As his fortunes in business turned better, William Anderson had to find new agents in Virginia because "unhappy family differences" led him to stop relying on some of his kinsmen.
Samuel Gist at last received 100 sterling from the Dismal Swamp Company in payment for tools and supplies sent long ago and lost in the British invasion. The company paid the remaining 54 5s. a few years later. Gist was eloquent on the subject of Virginia debtors. He told William Jones in the summer of 1789 "that he not only has not received anything from his old debts, but that he had shipped a good deal at the peace to men he considered as good as any on the continent, from whom he has received little or nothing since." Jones understood all too well. His firm, Farell & Jones, had been especially unlucky in its dealings with men linked to the Dismal Swamp Company. Among Jones"s many large debtors were Dr. Walker, David Meade, John Syme, and the estate of William Byrd. Gist claimed to be owed 34,000. Jones claimed to be owed 80,000.
At home in Gower Street, Gist spent part of the summer of 1789 drawing up a memorial to the Royal Commission for Enquiring into the Losses, Services and Claims of the American Loyalists. Parliament had just extended the commission"s inquiry for another year after receiving "strong applications from various persons" who said they had been prevented from applying for compensation earlier. A list of them in the act of 1789 contained the name of Samuel Gist. In his memorial he said he had lost all his property in Virginia. He asked for 23,051 19s. 5d. He told the commissioners that his daughter, Mary, had eloped while under age, married William Anderson "against your memorialists Approbation," and moved to Virginia. During the war, the state had vested all Gist"s property in Mary Anderson, "whereby your memorialist is deprived of the greatest part of the Labour of the early part of his Life."
More than one-tenth of the sum Gist sought-2,857 sterling-he set as the value of his three quarter-shares in the Dismal Swamp Company. He explained that since 1762 the company had been "expending Vast Sums of Money in Building draining & improveing." The swamp, he wrote, "is full of Timber, & is among the Richest Land in the World." He calculated the compensation due him by computing his portion of the company"s 40,000 acres at 2,857 acres and by setting on them a value of 1 sterling per acre.
In case the commissioners might think it odd that Gist, having lost such a large sum, waited until six years after the war to file a claim, he accounted for his delay. The "true cause" of it was "the extreme delicacy of his Situation & his Unwillingness to burthen his Country with any expence until his Friends in Virginia a.s.sured him he had no Chance of relief in that Country." By the words "extreme delicacy," Gist apparently alluded to his relations with the Andersons. The commissioners must know that Mary and William Anderson lived in his former residence in America Square and that William Anderson had joined Gist"s other son-in-law and Gist"s former clerk in taking over his business as a tobacco and dry goods merchant. The Andersons remained American citizens. Gist"s property in Virginia was theirs by law. But was it so in practice, the commissioners might ask. With his memorial he submitted doc.u.ments designed to show that William Anderson "will not part with the Estate" unless Gist settled upon Mary Anderson a fortune equal to its value. This was out of the question. Thus, he explained, his Virginia property was lost to him, "as much as tho" he was Actually Dead & had no other Child." Of course, he did not tell the commissioners that the profits of the labor of his slaves on his Virginia plantations, nominally owned by the Andersons, came each year in a remittance from Benjamin Toler. The commissioners were not gullible men. Consideration of Gist"s claim took many years.
The season of 178889 at Drury Lane Theatre brought another series of triumphs for Sarah Siddons: Lady Macbeth, Queen Katharine in Henry VIII Henry VIII, the t.i.tle role in Jane Sh.o.r.e Jane Sh.o.r.e, her first London appearance in Romeo and Juliet Romeo and Juliet, and her usual, ever popular roles in The Gamester, The Fair Penitent, Venice Preserv"d The Gamester, The Fair Penitent, Venice Preserv"d, and Isabella; or, the Fatal Marriage Isabella; or, the Fatal Marriage. A member of her audience for a later performance of Macbeth Macbeth wrote: "In the sleepwalking scene the mere sight of her makes every drop of blood run cold." wrote: "In the sleepwalking scene the mere sight of her makes every drop of blood run cold."
At the end of the season, she temporarily retired from the stage to regain her health. She said she was "convinced if I could keep clear of these dreadful Theatrical exertions which enflame my blood and exhaust my Strength that I should be perfectly well in a fortnight." Though she liked her "nice house" in Gower Street, she and her husband decided to leave the neighborhood. They bought a house, Number 49, in Great Marlborough Street and moved in 1790. She soon returned to the stage; her admirers left Gower Street to follow her to her new address. Among them was a young Irish law student who said that "Mrs. Siddons had conceived a pa.s.sion for Him a pa.s.sion for Him. He fancied that she sent persons after Him to drug drug his victuals in order to inspire Him with love for Her." He repeatedly visited Great Marlborough Street and wrote "innumerable Letters" to Mrs. Siddons until he was taken into custody and sent back to Ireland. After 1790 the street in front of Samuel Gist"s house was quieter than it had been during his first two years there. his victuals in order to inspire Him with love for Her." He repeatedly visited Great Marlborough Street and wrote "innumerable Letters" to Mrs. Siddons until he was taken into custody and sent back to Ireland. After 1790 the street in front of Samuel Gist"s house was quieter than it had been during his first two years there.
A young British officer visiting Mount Vernon in 1788 admired the improvements George Washington had made: "He seems to be laying out his grownds with great tast in the English fashion." Washington"s enthusiasm for details of agriculture showed plainly in his barns, livestock, and equipment; "he appears to be the compleatest Gentleman farmer I have ever met in America and perhaps I may Add England." Since the end of the war, Washington had enjoyed five years back at Mount Vernon. Then the first electors unanimously chose him as president of the United States. He moved to Manhattan.
At Mount Vernon one of Washington"s most frequent guests was Henry Lee. A short, talkative man in his early thirties, Lee had won Washington"s favor as a daring officer in the Continental Army. During the last years of the war he commanded a legion-a small force combining infantry and cavalry-in the Carolinas. He left the army in 1782. He was married to Matilda Lee, granddaughter of one of his uncles and daughter of Philip Ludwell Lee. She had inherited her father"s plantation with its elegant brick mansion, Stratford Hall, overlooking the Potomac about 80 miles downriver from Mount Vernon. Henry Lee did not aspire to a retired life as a gentleman farmer. He sought public office, serving in the House of Delegates and the Continental Congress. He vehemently supported the Const.i.tution as a delegate to the ratifying convention. He traveled often, and he took a growing interest in land speculation.
Lee admired an Arabian stallion Washington had bought from the estate of his late stepson, John Parke Custis. Sixteen hands high, with "a very beautiful shape," Magnolio was "in high health, spirits, and flesh"-"as fine a horse as any born in this country." Lee, a skilled horseman, coveted the stallion. Late in 1788 he offered Washington 5,000 acres of land in western Kentucky in exchange. After dinner on Tuesday, December 9, the two men closed the bargain.
Lee shared Washington"s faith in the Potomac Company and its future ca.n.a.l at Great Falls as sure means to wider commerce and great wealth. In 1788 he bought 500 acres on the south bank of the Potomac, where the ca.n.a.l was to run. He envisioned a town there: Matildaville. In his mind"s eye he already saw wharves, merchants" offices, warehouses, residences. After acquiring Magnolio, Lee told Washington that he wished to buy land in the Dismal Swamp. On the same principle by which a Potomac ca.n.a.l raised the value of Great Falls property, a Dismal Swamp ca.n.a.l would make property near Suffolk and Lake Drummond worth even more than it already was. Lee mentioned the tracts purchased jointly by Washington, Fielding Lewis, and Dr. Thomas Walker in 1764 and 1766, which he would be glad to get.
As Washington was inaugurated in New York, the April 1789 issue of The Columbian Magazine The Columbian Magazine in Philadelphia published part of the elder William Byrd"s proposal for draining the Dismal Swamp. This version included Byrd"s description of the swamp and his argument for the benefits of draining it. The contributor, who could have obtained the text only by visiting Westover and copying it or by getting someone else to do so, omitted the last section of the ma.n.u.script. In that part, Byrd described how easily the project might expand in ten years from twenty slaves to three hundred, while financing itself, generating profits, and increasing the price of shares tenfold. in Philadelphia published part of the elder William Byrd"s proposal for draining the Dismal Swamp. This version included Byrd"s description of the swamp and his argument for the benefits of draining it. The contributor, who could have obtained the text only by visiting Westover and copying it or by getting someone else to do so, omitted the last section of the ma.n.u.script. In that part, Byrd described how easily the project might expand in ten years from twenty slaves to three hundred, while financing itself, generating profits, and increasing the price of shares tenfold.
In remarks upon this text the "correspondent" cared less about Byrd"s plan to drain the swamp than about Byrd"s foresight in suggesting a ca.n.a.l to connect the Pasquotank River of North Carolina with the Elizabeth River of Virginia. The contributor used Byrd to endorse the projected new Dismal Swamp ca.n.a.l. "The advantages...must be obviously great to the community in general." One of America"s leading periodicals in the nation"s largest city in effect advertised that the Dismal Swamp and land along the Elizabeth River were about to become sites of a boom in commerce and real estate.
Busied with establishing a new government and disillusioned by the failure of his attempts since 1784 to revive the Dismal Swamp Company, George Washington no longer devoted time to promoting the Nansemond County prosperity he had predicted for the previous twenty-five years. The active partners were David Jameson, David Meade, Joseph Hornsby, and William Nelson, Jr. Jameson"s nephew, John, called on Washington in New York during his first year as president, and they conversed about the Dismal Swamp Company. Washington said that he "did not expect ever to meet the Company again." He asked David Jameson to represent him. Late in the year, Washington appointed William Nelson, Jr., as United States attorney for the Virginia District. By giving the office to a man who had opposed ratification of the Const.i.tution, Washington rea.s.sured Antifederalists that they would not be proscribed. Soon after moving back to Richmond, however, Nelson learned that the unsalaried office yielded little income in fees. He did not hold it long.
John Driver"s reports to David Jameson, written from Suffolk, complained about the partners" neglect of the Dismal Swamp Company. Driver had difficulty finding a competent overseer for Dismal Plantation. In the spring of 1789 he dismissed one who would not "do right." For months no white man lived there. Driver gave the t.i.tle "foreman" to "one of the old fellows" who had not left with the British. Driver visited the plantation two or three times a week. The small group of black people followed their annual routine of producing rice and corn, cleaning and mending ditches to increase the size of their crops. Driver wrote to Jameson: "If you think the owners of the Swamp do not intend to put any more hands there I wou"d wish to have nothing more to do with it. The place is so much out of order & such a heavy Tax to pay & nothing made I am tired of the business." Nansemond County encroachers entered the company"s land, cut down trees, and hauled them away. Before the end of the summer, Driver chose Demsey Smith, a man he barely knew, as an interim overseer and warned Jameson to find another manager: "I have a very great notion of going next Summer to the Western Country." Four years of trips from Suffolk into the Dismal Swamp made Kentucky look inviting.
In the first days of 1790, Major John Simon Farley arrived in Norfolk from Antigua. He was forty-three. He had not heeded the urgent advice of his late uncle to resign from the British Army in order to protect his interest in the Land of Eden and in land along the northeastern margin of the Dismal Swamp. Nevertheless, he and his sister, Elizabeth Morson, remembered their father"s claim and a.s.serted it. Francis Farley"s daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Farley Dunbar, and her four daughters ought not to keep for themselves all the riches of Norfolk County plantations and the Land of Eden. Major Farley believed that Francis Farley had refrained from giving his nephew and niece t.i.tle to their share because he feared that all property of British subjects in America would be confiscated. The holdings stayed safely intact by remaining in the hands of American citizens, Farley"s four granddaughters. The war was over; confiscations had ceased. If Elizabeth Dunbar and her daughters refused to divide the land, Major Farley stood ready to go to court in Virginia and North Carolina. He obtained a letter of introduction to a good attorney, St. George Tucker, and left Norfolk for Williamsburg.
In New York, on Thursday, March 4, 1790, George and Martha Washington gave a dinner for Vice President John Adams and the members of the Senate. The senators had deep disagreements over Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton"s proposals for funding the public debts of the national and state governments. But Thursday afternoon"s occasion was "a dinner of dignity." Senator Samuel Johnston of North Carolina had tried, twenty-five years earlier, to incommode the Dismal Swamp Company and force its partners to include the Campania Company in their huge antic.i.p.ated profits. In the Washingtons" New York residence he drank excellent champagne and took after-dinner coffee with Martha Washington, "a most amiable Woman." At dinner the president looked grave. Between courses he played with his silverware, drumming on the table with a knife or fork. "The President seemed to bear in his Countenance a settled Aspect of Melancholy." The next day George Washington wrote to a kinsman in Virginia, describing his terms for selling some land in Gloucester County. He said that he wanted to sell, not lease to renters, "having found, from experience, that estates at a distance plague more than they profit the Proprietors of them."
The unaccountable failure of land in and near the Dismal Swamp to rise rapidly in value disappointed men who tried to emulate the foresight of the Dismal Swamp Company and to profit by the coming ca.n.a.l. Among these were Thomas Ruston and William Short. After coming into his fortune in 1785, Dr. Ruston returned to America to grow richer through land speculation. William Short, a friend and cla.s.smate of William Nelson, Jr."s, went to France in October 1784 as secretary to the American legation. After Thomas Jefferson left Paris to become secretary of state, Short remained as charge d"affaires. He, too, wished to grow rich. Ruston failed, while Short succeeded, but neither profited from Nansemond and Norfolk counties.
Before Ruston gave his power of attorney to Samuel Gist and sailed from London, he received Hugh Williamson"s reports on the Dismal Swamp and on two stretches of land along the Nansemond River. Williamson said that buying into the Dismal Swamp Company was "impracticable. Several Gentlemen have told me that they had attempted in vain." But Ruston"s tracts of 600 acres and 300 acres were said to be worth 1,500 sterling, and 1,000 acres of the Dismal Swamp adjoining these tracts went for 75 per acre. Neither Williamson nor Ruston suggested that this disparity in price looked odd. Ruston reached Philadelphia in 1785 and visited Virginia late in 1787.
Preparing to sail for France at the age of twenty-five, William Short needed money. He had inherited property in North Carolina, which he sold to John Harvie, head of the Virginia Land Office. Harvie paid half the price in interest-bearing Virginia land certificates and half in land-a two-thirds interest in 15,000 acres in Kentucky and a deed to 1,000 acres of the Green Sea in the Dismal Swamp. Short later wrote of the deal: "I think I must have been in a kind of delirium." In his mind"s eye he saw "the best 15000 acres of all the western country." The Green Sea tract in Norfolk County, 1,000 acres of reeds adjoining Patrick Henry"s holdings, Short pictured as "worth their cover in gold." He imagined the new ca.n.a.l cutting through his property. Harvie knew but did not say until years later that Green Sea lands were "Immense ponds of Water which probably will not be Drained in a Century." They had "little Worth." Almost thirty years after Short acquired the tract, its annual tax bill was $2.
Coming into money changed Dr. Thomas Ruston. He "lost all the habits of innocence, friendship, and benevolence of his early life." Instead of enjoying his freedom, he became greedy. He speculated wildly. By 1790 he had run through his fortune and was "a Bankrupt out of jail." His land adjoining the Dismal Swamp was occupied by tenants, who paid annual rents ranging from 1 10s. to 6 Virginia currency. The total payments for 1790 were less than 19. John Driver collected these, not charging Ruston a commission because the sums were "trifling." Even so, Ruston badgered both his attorney, William Nivison, and Driver with accusations and demands. He wished to sell the land, but he had difficulty understanding why tracts with an a.s.sessed value of slightly less than 1 per acre did not find buyers at a price of 6 per acre. In desperate straits, Ruston sought rescue through matrimony, courting two of Philadelphia"s richest widows. They treated him with "every possible indignity.... He was the object of the contempt and pity of the whole city."
Cyrus Griffin was the new federal judge for the Virginia District. For sittings of the United States Circuit Court he was joined by one or two justices of the Supreme Court. They first sat alternately in Williamsburg and Charlottesville, but in 1791 they settled in Richmond. Griffin opened his court in the capitol in Richmond on Tuesday, December 15, 1789. This new venue offered an opportunity for John Wickham, a twenty-seven-year-old attorney, to move from Williamsburg to Richmond. When people spoke of him, the word "clever" came to mind. His uncle was Edmund Fanning, loyalist politician and soldier, who in 1771 had gone to New York with Governor William Tryon and endured the drunken wrath of Lord Dunmore. Wickham had held a commission in a loyalist regiment at the end of the war, and had been taken prisoner near Roanoke, Virginia, while carrying British dispatches from New York to Charleston. His "extreme youth" and "the interest of influential citizens" helped him escape punishment. In 1783 he feared that "the Disposition for Persecution" would prevent him from living in America, but in December 1785 he arrived in Williamsburg to study law with St. George Tucker and George Wythe. He remained there through 1789, practicing law, living next door to Tucker, building a library of law books.
John Marshall was eight years older than Wickham; he had practiced law in Richmond for six years when Wickham was admitted to the Virginia bar. To a person who needed an attorney in Williamsburg in 1789 he recommended Wickham as "a young man of great cleaverness." Marshall"s lank, lounging, relaxed appearance did not look formidable at first sight. Yet he was a leader of the Richmond bar by the time the federal court opened and Wickham moved to Richmond.
Richmond, William Byrd"s city at the falls of the James, was growing. In 1790 it held more than 3,700 residents-about 2,000 whites and 1,700 blacks. It looked raw. Dirt streets ran uphill from the north bank of the river. Wind raised clouds of dust and rain made thick mud. Wharves and buildings near the river were wooden structures, newly rebuilt after a recent fire. People in trade lived near the river; attorneys, state officials, and richer people lived up the hill. There a new capitol building was slowly rising, which would, Thomas Jefferson hoped, teach Americans cla.s.sical taste in architecture. A British merchant visiting Richmond said of the structure: "I wish instead of laying out their money so ridiculously that they would first pay the British debts." The old capitol, near the river, looked like a barn. Delegates and senators attended their noisy sessions dressed in the same clothes they wore in their fields. To a resident of London, Richmond was "one of the dirtiest holes of a place I ever was in."
To the extent that a young attorney could afford to specialize, John Wickham devoted his practice to debts. He represented British creditors suing Virginians in federal court. His colleagues at the bar-John Marshall, Bushrod Washington, William Nelson, Jr., and others-also took such cases. Marshall represented debtors; Wickham found his best clients among creditors. After Wickham consented to pursue debts owed to the House of Norton, Charles Grymes, a collection agent, congratulated John Hatley Norton on his new attorney, saying: "he appears to be exceedingly cleaver." Unlike Marshall, Wickham stayed out of politics. Nevertheless, his early life as a loyalist earned him a reputation as a Tory, which served him well in attracting British clients. He had neither Marshall"s ease and cogency nor Patrick Henry"s dramatic voice and gestures, but he was witty, urbane, genteel, with beautiful elocution, able to "gild and decorate the darkest subjects." He thought fast on his feet, adjusting smoothly to surprises in court. William Nelson, Jr., called him "the most acute and quick man at the bar." Though Wickham looked younger than his years and seemed lighthearted, he knew how to make his meaning clear through the mask of his politesse. He wrote to a client"s debtor: "I shall feel much pleasure if I find it unnecessary to have recourse to coercive measures."
Wickham successfully sued the estate of Robert Munford for more than 2,000 sterling. He represented many British firms, among them William Jones of Farell & Jones. While William Anderson & Company retained John Marshall, Samuel Gist chose Wickham. For receiving payment from debtors and transferring the money to creditors, he charged a commission of 5 percent. For collecting through litigation, he charged 10 percent. His practice in 1791 was "much more profitable...than it had ever been before." People spoke of him as "the famous lawyer." On Christmas Eve he and his cousin, Mary Smith Fanning, were married. In the following years his practice continued "to grow more and more profitable." He and John Marshall built large brick houses on the hill.
In June 1790, William Jones, acting through his Virginia attorney Jerman Baker, later joined by John Wickham and others, brought suit against Dr. Thomas Walker in the United States Circuit Court for the Virginia District. This was one of thirty cases Jones began in the court"s first three terms. The suit alleged that Dr. Walker owed Farell & Jones 2,903 15s. 8d. sterling. In December, Francis Walker and John Walker appeared in court for their father. Arguments did not take place until the last week of November 1791. The federal courts" decision on Dr. Walker would govern pending and future suits for debts to British merchants contracted before the war. On the bench were Judge Cyrus Griffin and two justices of the Supreme Court, Thomas Johnson and John Blair. Each side was represented by four attorneys. For the plaintiff: John Wickham, Jerman Baker, Andrew Ronald, and Burwell Starke. For the defendant: Patrick Henry, John Marshall, Alexander Campbell, and James Innes. Arguments lasted more than a week. Dr. Walker"s attorneys resorted to the usual pleas: that the dissolution of the colonial government ended the obligation; that British property was forfeit to the state; that Virginia law prohibited recovery; that, in accordance with wartime state law, he had paid his debt to the Virginia Loan Office rather than to his creditor; that the British still owed Virginians compensation for slaves who had left with the British Army; that the British violated the treaty of peace by keeping troops south of the Great Lakes. Patrick Henry, after uncharacteristically vigorous research, went further, giving a long, erudite, impa.s.sioned argument designed to raise the matter of Dr. Walker"s debt to a question of the nature of man and of nations. Although the Court gave no decision, the attorneys impressed even the skeptical. William Nelson, Jr., wrote: "I did not think so much could have been said against their payment." While others praised Henry"s eloquence and scholarship, Nelson noticed the attorneys of the future: "Campbell & Wickham are young men of great talents." Most listeners, even those who owed nothing to Britons, "thought there could not be a recovery."
The court delayed its ruling. Patrick Henry returned to Richmond with his little brown wig in May 1792, ready "to harangue "em on the impropriety of paying." Justice James Wilson of the Supreme Court and Judge Griffin sat for only a week, ignoring more than one hundred debt cases. A creditor"s attorney heard Wilson say to Henry in a hall of the capitol: "Mr. Henry it will not be necessary for you to attend longer, as we decline going into the general question."
In the spring of 1793, Judge Griffin, Chief Justice John Jay, and Justice James Iredell heard arguments in another suit for a debt owed to Farell & Jones. William Jones had died, waiting for his money. John Tyndale Warre, or Ware, pursued the firm"s debtors. In the case of Ware Ware v. v. Hylton Hylton, the court struck down all but one of the debtors" arguments. Griffin and Iredell outvoted Jay in accepting the plea of wartime payment into the state Loan Office. Since few debtors had made such payments, creditors could win many cases. In 1793 verdicts were given in sixty-eight cases of British debts; plaintiffs won fifty-two. Three years later the Supreme Court reversed Griffin and Iredell on the Loan Office question, disallowing Virginians" last defense. By then Dr. Walker had died.
Many debts went uncollected for lack of proof. Nor did winning verdicts necessarily mean receiving money. But John Wickham did well for Samuel Gist, as did Gist"s agent for collections, Thomas Sh.o.r.e. Wickham and Sh.o.r.e recovered and remitted "large sums." These did not appear in the ledgers Gist submitted in pursuit of compensation from the Crown for his losses in America as a loyal subject of the king.
The race for the hand of the first of Francis Farley"s four Virginia granddaughters, the young widow Elizabeth Farley Banister, ended in victory for Thomas Lee Shippen. Though a Pennsylvanian, he was also a Lee. His mother, Alice Lee Shippen, was a sister of the well-known Lee brothers-William, Arthur, Richard Henry, and Francis Lightfoot-and the aunt of Henry Lee"s wife, Matilda. Thomas Shippen toured Virginia after the war, visiting Williamsburg, Rosewell, Westover, and Richmond.
Shippen"s father sent him to London in the summer of 1786 to study law at the Inner Temple, but he showed more interest in women. On Tuesday, October 3, he went to Drury Lane Theatre for a performance of Venice Preserv"d Venice Preserv"d. Lord North, his wife, and their two daughters sat in one of the boxes. Seeing Sarah Siddons in a gray satin gown, a woman in the audience thought: "Belvidera takes the stage in the part of wife and daughter, and acts with a truth which charms and ravishes." After Belvidera went mad, Shippen could hardly contain himself. He wrote of Mrs. Siddons: "I have indeed beheld, I have heard, I have felt, through my whole system felt her.... In the mad scene she was particularly great, and in the cry of murder, piercing to the most phlegmatic breast." Returning to Philadelphia, Shippen nominally practiced law, but he welcomed an opportunity to visit Virginia in the autumn of 1790.
Shippen"s uncles entertained him on the Northern Neck, between the Potomac and the Rappahannock. With them he visited Stratford Hall, where they and Shippen"s mother had lived as children. Matilda Lee had died the previous month, and Henry Lee was not at home. At the center of the mansion Shippen sat in the elegant room that connected its two wings. He looked at portraits of his late uncle, Philip Ludwell Lee, of his grandfather and grandmother, Thomas and Hannah Ludwell Lee, of his great-grandfather and great-grandmother, Richard and Laet.i.tia Corbin Lee, and of the first Richard, one of Virginia"s largest landholders at his death in 1664, and of his wife. Shippen wrote to his father: "I dwelt with rapture on the pictures of Stratford and felt so strong an inclination to kneel to that of my grandfather." In his travels along the James River, among Carters and Byrds, he met Elizabeth Banister, the Antigua and Dismal Swamp Company heiress. She had held out against her suitors for more than a year. She accepted Thomas Lee Shippen. He need no longer pretend to practice law. He wrote to his father: "We shall be comfortably independent I think at least."
Shippen returned to Virginia early in 1791 for the wedding, which took place at Nesting on the evening of Thursday, March 10. Bishop James Madison, president of the College of William and Mary, came from Williamsburg to perform the ceremony. The bridegroom called himself "the happiest of men," married to "the loveliest and best of women." Within six weeks Elizabeth Shippen was pregnant. Mary Willing Byrd felt sorry to see the young couple leave for Philadelphia, but she knew that Thomas would be happier there "than he possibly can be in this unpolished Country."
Thomas Lee Shippen took an interest in the Dismal Swamp, the Land of Eden, Major John Simon Farley"s lawsuits, and the Mercers Creek plantation in Antigua. During the 1790s the labor of the Mercers Creek slaves on cane fields, sugar boilers, and rum distilleries yielded an average annual payment of more than 430 sterling to each of Francis Farley"s four granddaughters. Elizabeth and Thomas Shippen bought a country estate about 17 miles northeast of Philadelphia on a hill overlooking the road to Trenton and the toll bridge across Neshaminy Creek. She named the place "Farley." Their first child, a boy named for Thomas Shippen"s father, was born in January 1792. Planning for his son"s future, Thomas Shippen paid $750 for three shares in the Dismal Swamp Ca.n.a.l Company.
The legislatures of Virginia and North Carolina pa.s.sed laws in 1790 authorizing the Dismal Swamp ca.n.a.l and creating a company to dig it. Shares cost $250 each. Shareholders" prospect for future profits lay in the company"s right to charge tolls on vessels, people, livestock, and commodities transported through the ca.n.a.l.
Some North Carolinians protested in vain, warning that a ca.n.a.l would make Norfolk "the Emporium of commerce, of the Southern States" at the expense of North Carolina. "The contract carries with it the face of a Jobb" in "the evident advantage, which the Ca.n.a.l will bring into the hands of a few Land Speculators, who hold property contiguous to it." Patrick Henry hoped this was so obvious that he could get rid of his Green Sea tract and his acres near the Dismal Swamp Company"s property. As soon as North Carolina"s law pa.s.sed, he advertised his willingness to exchange his holdings for acreage in the piedmont. He said: "The proposed ca.n.a.l which is to connect the navigation of the Chesapeake with that of Albemarle Sound, it is supposed must necessarily pa.s.s through these lands." He had been governor when the ca.n.a.l"s course was chosen; he had reason to know that it lay east of the Dismal Swamp Company"s land and west of the Green Sea.
George Washington and John Lewis sold the roadside tract south of the North Carolina line. Washington thought that in May 1791 "the moment was not favorable" for getting the best price; yet he consented, he told Lewis, "as the Affairs of your fathers Estate pressed, and my own want of money was great." He was drawing his salary as president in advance. He and his brother-in-law had paid about 1 per acre in Virginia"s colonial currency for the land. John Lewis sold it for 1 per acre in Virginia state currency to John Cowper, a manager of the Dismal Swamp Ca.n.a.l Company.
Subscription books for the new ca.n.a.l company"s stock were open in the spring and summer of 1791. By the first week of September, men in Norfolk and Portsmouth had bought about 140 shares. Two weeks later the managers compiled a list of subscribers. It contained 142 names, representing an investment of $47,000 in 188 shares. More soon joined, and the General a.s.sembly invested $12,500 of public money in fifty shares. Francis Walker, Henry Lee, and delegates from Nansemond County voted for the purchase. Thomas Newton, Jr., bought four shares; Dr. Thomas Ruston"s attorney, William Nivison, bought two; St. George Tucker bought one. William Aitchison and Patrick Parker, sons of the unlucky loyalists, bought shares. Few North Carolinians invested.
The list had a 143rd name on it, that of David Jameson, acting for the Dismal Swamp Company. The company ought to take an interest in the ca.n.a.l, but getting the partners to do anything was difficult. William Nelson, Jr., about to become a judge of the General Court, asked for a meeting in August. David Jameson lay ill in York Town. Joseph Hornsby and his daughters were visiting Dr. Walker at Castle Hill. Hornsby"s wife, Mildred, had died in childbirth in Williamsburg on Friday, June 11, 1790, "very much lamented by myself," he wrote in the family Bible, "& all our dear children." The summer trip to Castle Hill was his second that year. Dr. Walker was in good spirits but fading. Hornsby gave him several opportunities to see his grandchildren. Nor did Thomas Newton, Jr., come from Norfolk to represent Robert Tucker"s share. He said he was "prevented by business here that I cannot leave." Robert Andrews, after waiting so long for the company to pay him for supervising its survey, had foreseen that Nelson would not manage to convene a meeting: "I knew he was not p.r.o.ne to activity in business."
Dismal Plantation produced little for sale in 1791. The overseer said that no shingles could be made until late in the year. Slaves had not opened ditches or built new fences. The plantation yielded a little more than 51 in 1790. The total for 1791 was 16 2s. currency. In the northeastern sector of the company"s holdings, "strangers from the North[war]d" worked the swamp, and other people made "many unwarantable incroachments." Without a meeting, the managing partners-Jameson, Hornsby, and David Meade-subscribed on the company"s behalf for twenty shares in the Dismal Swamp Ca.n.a.l Company, at a cost of $5,000. Jameson"s letter to Francis Walker about the a.s.sessment on Dr. Walker"s two quarter-shares sounded peremptory: "I...shall be much obliged to you to have something done speedily." Three years later, the partners had paid about half of their subscription to the ca.n.a.l company"s stock.
In the six months after the ca.n.a.l company drew up its first list of subscribers, twenty-five men bought another 112 shares. Thomas Lee Shippen subscribed for three; his wife"s stepfather, John Dunbar, for two. The estate of Secretary Thomas Nelson bought a share. So did Patrick Henry. Alexander Macaulay, merchant of York Town, had his eye on the Dismal Swamp Company, and he subscribed $2,500 for ten shares in the ca.n.a.l company. Except for the state"s fifty shares, the Dismal Swamp Company was the largest shareholder in the Dismal Swamp Ca.n.a.l Company.
The ca.n.a.l company organized for work in 1792 and 1793, led by Robert Andrews. It had a capital of about $80,000, soon increased to $100,000. Writing in 1793, the Reverend John Jones Spooner, rector of a parish near David Meade"s plantation, told readers of the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society"s Collections Collections that the new ca.n.a.l was "in considerable forwardness." Yet digging had just begun. One end of the ditch began in North Carolina, seven miles south of the dividing line, at South Mills, where Joyce"s Creek flowed into the Pasquotank River. The other end began near the head of navigation on Deep Creek, a tributary of the Elizabeth River, about 7 miles south of Portsmouth and more than 11 miles by water from Norfolk. Moving up the Elizabeth River and into Deep Creek, a vessel pa.s.sed between thick growths of timber, broken in some spots by a patch of two or three acres of cleared land on which stood a house, "small and mean in appearance." that the new ca.n.a.l was "in considerable forwardness." Yet digging had just begun. One end of the ditch began in North Carolina, seven miles south of the dividing line, at South Mills, where Joyce"s Creek flowed into the Pasquotank River. The other end began near the head of navigation on Deep Creek, a tributary of the Elizabeth River, about 7 miles south of Portsmouth and more than 11 miles by water from Norfolk. Moving up the Elizabeth River and into Deep Creek, a vessel pa.s.sed between thick growths of timber, broken in some spots by a patch of two or three acres of cleared land on which stood a house, "small and mean in appearance."
Laboring on the ca.n.a.l trench, hired slaves used saws, axes, and picks more often than shovels. Pine, cedar, and hardwood trees had to be felled; canes, briers, and other undergrowth cut away. For at least ten feet below the peat surface, men sliced through peat, roots, fibers, and white sand. As they deepened the trench, they always stood in water. About a yard below the surface in many places, streams of brandy-colored water flowed ceaselessly down the walls of the ca.n.a.l from the surrounding swamp. The finished ca.n.a.l was supposed to accommodate vessels with a 15-foot beam and a 3-foot draft; it must be at least 8 feet deep.
John Sparling and William Bolden, merchants of Liverpool, were surprised to learn that John Lawrence, their man in Suffolk, Virginia, had subscribed for only one share in the Dismal Swamp Ca.n.a.l Company. They ordered him to buy at least twenty more "if it can be done at Par, or without much advance from the original subscription." They did not see why the ca.n.a.l company expected to take three or four years to cut a short ca.n.a.l through "a level soft Country," but they predicted that the project would cost more than twice the allotted $100,000. Even so, they said, once it was completed, North Carolina"s trade would make the ca.n.a.l "a beneficial thing to the Proprietors."
David Jameson, David Meade, and Joseph Hornsby summoned their partners to meet at Suffolk on May 13, 1793, so that members of the Dismal Swamp Company could visit Dismal Plantation and the swamp to "form a just idea of its value, as well as the mode of draining and improving it." That planned meeting apparently did not occur, but a quorum of members gathered in York Town on Wednesday, May 22. After a recent attack of violent spasms, David Jameson lay motionless, near death. His quarter-share and Samuel Gist"s three quarter-shares were represented by his nephew, David Jameson, Jr. In all, seventy-two quarter-shares were voted by their owners or by proxy. During the session, the executors of Fielding Lewis"s estate conveyed his share to Alexander Macaulay and John Brown, clerk of the General Court in Richmond, for 1,000. In return for this show of confidence in the company"s future, their partners made them managers, with William Nelson, Jr., Joseph Hornsby, and David Meade. The meeting"s only resolution, except to meet again, was to a.s.sess each full share 24 to pay an installment on the price of the twenty shares in the ca.n.a.l company. The younger Jameson soon learned that collecting would not be easy. On Thursday he wrote to Thomas Newton, Jr., to get 24 from Robert Tucker"s estate. The next day Newton replied: "I cannot pay it without the risque of loosing it altogether. This share must be sold. There are so many concerned in it that no division can take place."
The ca.n.a.l advanced slowly. A day of hard work moved the ditch forward less than ten yards. Those digging from the north and those digging from the south each had to cover 11 miles. No one knew or tried to determine how many locks the ca.n.a.l would need. No one knew whether the Joyce"s Creek end lay higher or lower than the Deep Creek end. The company"s managers had no way to estimate future costs. By the end of 1793 the company had made four a.s.sessments on its shareholders. On November 16 it called on the Dismal Swamp Company for another $500. Sparling and Bolden had no cause for worry that the price of shares would rise above par. Instead, it fell. After six years of digging in the swamp by the company"s hired slaves, a share originally purchased for $250 sold for $100.
John Page and his daughter, Alice, who was eighteen, visited York Town on Monday and Tuesday, October 8 and 9, 1792. Rather than return to Rosewell for the night, they stayed in town. John Page had much on his mind. He had been happily remarried for more than two years. While serving in the House of Representatives during the first session of Congress he met Margaret Lowther in New York. Fifteen years younger than he, she was a poet with a "happy Temper." Within a month of their wedding she was pregnant.
Page"s re-election to Congress in 1790 had not come easily. Francis Corbin opposed him, treating the voters to "strong grogg & roasted piggs" while telling them that in March, after Quakers pet.i.tioned Congress in opposition to slavery and the slave trade, Page had viewed the pet.i.tion favorably. Corbin accused Page of being "principled against Slavery." Page denied the charge. He privately said that, if defeated, he would "enjoy the Luxury of Retirement, made sweet by the sweetest Partner of domestic Happiness." Many people thought he would lose the election, but he won. He won again in 1792.
Page found service in Congress wearing. He had no time for rest or exercise. He worried about the new government. Calling himself "a Democratical Member," he saw the Washington administration "moving headlong into Monarchy." George Washington had been "taken in by the Aristocrats"; Page wished that he had not accepted the presidency. Perhaps only the French Revolution could keep liberty and republicanism alive.
By October 1792, John Page"s money troubles had worsened. A suit was pending against the estate of his late brother-in-law, Lewis Burwell, for which he was executor. The British merchant Wakelin Welch threatened to foreclose a mortgage Burwell had given in 1768. Men to whom Page owed money, John Hatley Norton and John Jameson of Culpeper County, were pressing him. He called them "unreasonable impatient creditors." He again tried to sell land, without success. Early in 1792 he almost persuaded Thomas Lee Shippen and William Bingham that his two quarter-shares in the Dismal Swamp Company and his 500 acres of Green Sea land were cheap at a price "about 300 more than would pay every Debt I owe." But the sale did not go through. In May he asked to borrow money in Philadelphia at 20 percent interest to pay Jameson. Page knew in October that, upon his return to Philadelphia to attend Congress, he must again ask his oldest friend, Thomas Jefferson, to sign as his security for a short-term loan. He felt "unhappy and ashamed."
The summer of 1792 brought heat and drought. Crops fell short. The firm of Donald & Burton refused to accept Page"s bill of exchange, and he commented: "justly enough I confess." Robert Andrews pressed Page to confer with David Jameson about the condition of Dismal Plantation and the company"s affairs, but Page had too many worries to devote much attention to the company he was trying to leave.
In York Town, on the morning of Tuesday, October 9, as Page was dressing, a letter was handed to him. It came from young Dr. Augustine Smith, a frequent guest at Rosewell. Smith lived in York Town, but he wrote a letter, fearing that if he spoke in person he would be "confused." Page read: "I have long been tenderly attached to your amiable Daughter, & flatter myself that your sanction wou"d induce her to approve of my attentions." The letter acknowledged that Smith had too little income as a new physician to support a family. He promised: "Industry, care & attention may considerably remedy this inconvenience-and every thing shall be willingly sacraficed to the happiness of your accomplished Daughter."
This request seemed odd, since John Page, four weeks earlier, had ordered wedding apparel for Alice and her bridesmaids. Of course Alice was going to be married to Augustine. He had been courting her for more than two years. Yet only after wedding arrangements had begun did he work up the courage to seek her father"s consent.
Augustine Smith loved literature and wrote verse. He had all the marks of one who took The Sorrows of Young Werther The Sorrows of Young Werther to heart. From an early age he depended upon Thomas Nelson, Jr., who sent him to Edinburgh to study medicine. Smith returned to York Town in time to care for Nelson during his final illness in December 1788. Smith fell in love with Alice Page at first sight when she was almost sixteen. In the summer of 1790 he invoked the G.o.d of love in secret verse: to heart. From an early age he depended upon Thomas Nelson, Jr., who sent him to Edinburgh to study medicine. Smith returned to York Town in time to care for Nelson during his final illness in December 1788. Smith fell in love with Alice Page at first sight when she was almost sixteen. In the summer of 1790 he invoked the G.o.d of love in secret verse: When first Alicia"s form was seen, Her genteel air and graceful mien, Her lovely winning Face; I saw th"almighty G.o.d of love Around the Maid with rapture move * * *O make Alicia mine!
Two tender Doves, a milk-white pair, With silken downe, I"ll then prepare An off"ring at thy shrine.
He wrote to a friend: "I have lately felt all the perturbations of a lover whom prudence wou"d persuade to be silent on the theme that engrosses his whole soul."
After that first meeting, Smith visited Rosewell off and on for a year, seemingly just one among many guests. Yet he knew that his behavior gave him away. He took heart and declared his love. In July 1791 he wrote to Alice: "Connections commencing in fraud and dissimulation I concieve, must end in hatred and contempt.-I love you Miss Page!-I have loved you from my first acquaintance with you.-And had n.i.g.g.ard Fortune enabled me to offer you a competency of wealth, my faithful Heart had long ago been opened to you.... I blush at my presumption in offering you a hand almost shrivelled by the hard gripe of indigence."
Augustine made more visits to Rosewell. Alice, remaining poised and modest, made him welcome. On Monday, August 29, she invited her suitor to stay until evening, but she agitated him by speaking not of love but of her "Grat.i.tude, Esteem, and Friendship." He rushed away, crossed the York River to his home, and sat up until midnight writing a letter to her: "I thought I had reduced my mind to some thing like like reason-but feel every emotion of my soul verging toward insanity.... I feel that my amiable Alice is alone capable of making me happy, & interest, mere self interest so blinds me as to make me believe, in spite of reason & truth, that I cou"d make reason-but feel every emotion of my soul verging toward insanity.... I feel that my amiable Alice is alone capable of making me happy, & interest, mere self interest so blinds me as to make me believe, in spite of reason & truth, that I cou"d make her her happy-I feel myself, at this instant, degraded even below your happy-I feel myself, at this instant, degraded even below your compa.s.sion; compa.s.sion; yet nothing short of your yet nothing short of your love love, your unreserved, warm ingenuous affection can possibly content me-Great G.o.d! I am mad."
She carefully saved his letters. Augustine was back at Rosewell for her birthday, writing impromptu verse after the sun broke through the clouds, shining on the huge mansion, its gardens, and the river.
Go Nymphs! and sound the tuneful sh.e.l.l, Let all be jocund, pleas"d & gay- Go, to each mortal loudly tell That this is Alice" natal day.
Looking at Augustine Smith"s letter in York Town, John Page knew all this. In his day he had written similar verse. The only mystery was Smith"s delay in asking him for his daughter"s hand. The young man worried that he might have "committed an impropriety in not having spoke to him."
After returning to Rosewell, John Page replied to Smith. He explained that he could not give money to the young couple: "my own Circ.u.mstances are in such an unhappy State at present, & my future Prospect so gloomy, that I cannot even hope to see the Day when I may be able to give my Daughter any thing which could in even a moderate Degree contribute to her Support." With a hint of a joke about Smith"s suggestion that Page might at this late date induce his daughter to accept a proposal, Page added: "She is capable of judging for herself, & if your Attachments are mutual & fixed, neither of you will be more unhappy than I shall be should prudential Motives induce you to make a painfull Sacrifice."
The wedding took place a few months later. John Page took pride in Rosewell, calling it "the most beautiful Seat in Virga. with the most elegant House in America thereon." Fifty-five years past, William Nelson had crossed the river from York Town to be married to Elizabeth Burwell. Now John Page was fifty years old, giving his daughter in marriage. Though he was seeking money desperately, he stinted her in nothing for the wedding. The bridal party made a display of white silk, pink silk, embroidered muslin, white and pink ribbons, white kid gloves, satin slippers, and white ostrich plumes. John Page was at the head of Gloucester County gentry, and in entertaining they vied with one another in offering lavish hospitality-turtle feasts, fish feasts, a party of forty dining under an arbor erected a few yards from the beach, bushels of ice from an icehouse in summer to chill cider and punch and wine, a fiddler with dancing on the green. Augustine Smith and Alice Page Smith settled in York Town. His practice improved. They were attended by household slaves; they acquired mahogany and walnut furniture and many volumes of Latin and English literature. In twelve years they had six children.
John Page at last sold one of his quarter-shares in the Dismal Swamp Company to his son-in-law, William Nelson of York Town, son of Augustine Smith"s benefactor, Thomas Nelson, Jr., and nephew of William Nelson, Jr. The price he received in May 1793, 250 in Virginia currency, was much less than he had expected to get from Thomas Lee Shippen and William Bingham. A year later he sold the other quarter-share for the same price to Philip Tabb, a neighbor in Gloucester County. In the time between these transactions he advertised other land. His old enemy, vertigo, returned. In the autumn of 1793 he suffered an "extreme low state of health." To raise money he turned to a planter"s last recourse: putting slaves on the auction block. Sixty-eight slaves over the age of twelve worked at Rosewell in 1791. By 1795, thirty-six remained to grow and cure tobacco, to tend horses, hogs, one hundred cattle, and twenty-nine sheep, and to work in and around the brick outbuildings and the ornate mansion standing at the end of a long double avenue of cedar trees-the house John Page"s grandfather had built for King Carter"s daughter.
Writing to his father, who received his mail at Lloyd"s, Patrick Parker sent a warning to underwriters. They ought to have an agent at Norfolk, as they did on the Rappahannock River. Norfolk"s trade was reviving rapidly. Sometimes a captain of a vessel in distress played "Slippery Tricks" to enable owners to recover insurance on a total loss when a loss need not have been or had not been total. An agent investigated and made sure of the best salvage, with a fair sale of damaged goods. Without such protection, "some of the underwriters at Loyds will Probably be Sweated."
William Anderson & Company took pride in their new 205-ton ship Powhatan Powhatan, which, they said, "stands A1 at Lloyd"s." At Norfolk in March 1792, Captain Mills Ridd.i.c.k welcomed consignments of tobacco to Anderson or shipments of hogsheads to any house upon payment of freight charges. Anch.o.r.ed in the roadstead or moored at the log wharves were many sloops, schooners, and ships. The traffic increased so rapidly that Naval Office clerks issuing entries and clearances hardly had time to eat. Impatient captains often insulted them for their delays. The searcher of the Port of Norfolk, responsible for preventing smuggling, knew that some vessels entered the bay and dropped anchor off Sewell"s Point to discharge their cargoes, rather than come up the Elizabeth River to Norfolk. He had no way to stop them. Because the port sent foodstuffs to the West Indies, Norfolk attracted wheat and flour speculators. Shipyards and a ropewalk revived and expanded. A new vessel of the Powhatan"s Powhatan"s burden sold off the blocking for about $8,000 in 1792, and the price was rising. burden sold off the blocking for about $8,000 in 1792, and the price was rising.
In the borough of Norfolk new houses built with pine boards and roofed with cedar shingles spread among the ruins of free-standing chimneys and crumbling brick walls left by the fire of 1776. Flimsy new buildings lined crooked, narrow, dirt streets. Owners of land near the river leased it at high rent but would not sell; renters did not bother to erect substantial buildings. Carpenters and bricklayers found steady work at high wages. New clapboard warehouses among the wharves-some stood three stories high-were bigger than most residences and stores but just as ugly. Construction followed no design, creating a maze of lanes and alleys. Raw sewage ran in open ditches bridged by narrow planks. Near the river a stench hung over the city, especially at low tide. Norfolk had more than 3,000 people in 1792, whites outnumbering blacks by a few hundred. A newly established merchant wrote: "There is Certainly a great field for Speculation at this Market." Thomas Newton, Jr., told George Washington: "this place is growing fast & of consequence in trade & whenever the ca.n.a.l is finished it will have great advantages."
Beginning late in the summer of 1791, Virginians received reports of violence in the French colony of Saint-Domingue. There 40,000 whites and 28,000 free people of color, mostly mulattoes, lived among 500,000 slaves. Divisions among whites and the free people of color arising out of political and const.i.tutional changes made by the French Revolution expanded into revolt by slaves. In the North Province whites fortified themselves in the city of Cap Francais on the coast. Beyond the city"s entrenchments bands of insurgents controlled the countryside.
In the spring of 1792, as Jacobins in Paris proclaimed equality for free persons of color in Saint-Domingue, Virginians reported rumors of plans for slave insurrections in their own state. The new governor, Henry Lee, received accounts of a conspiracy for a general uprising in Northampton County on the Eastern Sh.o.r.e. Supposedly, nine hundred slaves acting in concert with slaves in Norfolk and Portsmouth intended to attack Norfolk, blow up the gunpowder magazine, set fire to the city, and "ma.s.sacre the inhabitants." Lee a.s.sumed that they were following "the example of the West Indies." Upon closer scrutiny, the rumored conspiracy vanished. Three slaves were expelled from the county; several others were flogged. In Norfolk, Thomas Newton, Jr., ordered Methodist and Baptist preachers to stop holding "nocturnal meetings." In July three slaves-Jack, Daniel, and Matthew-were tried and hanged for attacking a slave patrol in Northampton County.
In London, both houses of Parliament held debates in April on abolishing the British slave trade. To supplement evidence given in hearings, opponents of slavery gathered and published testimony about the cruelties of the African trade given by men formerly employed in it. Francis Jerdone, in Louisa County, received a letter late that summer from his brother-in-law in England: "Liberty Notions are spreading all over Europe & I hear amongst the Negroes of North America.... Many ignorant People here have left off the Use of Sugar on the foolish Supposition that every Pound that is consumed costs the Negro that makes it an ounce of Blood." The men governing Virginia took steps to prevent liberty notions from becoming actions like those in Saint-Domingue. The General a.s.sembly pa.s.sed new laws regulating free black people, restricting the movements of slaves, and making conspiracy to rebel punishable by death.
In the first week of July 1793 more than one hundred French vessels-men-of-war and merchant craft-sailed into Chesapeake Bay bearing thousands of refugees from Cap Francais. These people told of their fight, aided by French soldiers and seamen, against French Jacobin officials with allies among the free people of color. The Jacobins offered freedom and the rights of French citizenship to insurgent slaves who would help them. More than 3,000 attacked the city. Most of Cap Francais went up in flames; many whites were killed. The refugees fled to the sh.o.r.eline, escaping in vessels which sailed for the Chesapeake on June 23. As the French disembarked in Norfolk, seeking shelter and searching for relatives separated from them in flight, Thomas Newton, Jr., reported to Governor Lee that they had brought "too many negroes."
France had been at war with Britain and the Continental powers since February. In April, President Washington had proclaimed the neutrality of the United States, but the French Revolution had many sympathizers in Norfolk. Most refugees were royalists, hoping for restoration of the monarchy in France. Nevertheless, Virginians and people in other states collected funds for their benefit. The convoy from Cap Francais did not stay long in Hampton Roads. Many exiles remained in Norfolk; others moved to cities farther north. Those who had brought slaves were allowed to keep them, despite Virginia"s law prohibiting such importation.
During the summer Governor Lee received reports of plots and "insolence" among slaves. These stories routinely connected the conduct of blacks with the revolt in Saint-Domingue. John Randolph said that he had heard one black man say to another: "you see how the blacks has killed the whites in the French Island and took it a little while ago." Lee was told that in Portsmouth slaves from Saint-Domingue were attacking one another at night, household slaves against those who supported the insurgents. Rumors of plots for an uprising came from Petersburg, Hampton, Richmond, and Norfolk. If Lee believed all the letters reaching him, he would have concluded that hundreds of black conspirators were armed, while the