The low, unhealthy site of this city proved, after a prolonged struggle, the cause, I believe, of its total desertion. Elizabeth Town, its near neighbour and once rival, is, I have been informed, fast verging to a similar condition.
Scattered along the banks on both sides of the river, are several mansions raised in the old times by the wealthy planters of the "Old Dominion," the remembrance of whose liberal expenditure and open hospitality still does honour to their state. These houses have a strong resemblance to the English squirearchical dwellings of the last century, being generally large square brick buildings, commonly flanked by low disproportioned wings; they have all hospitable-looking entrances, and flights of steps made with reference to the number and free access of the visitors rather than in keeping with the size of the house; their steep, many-chimneyed roofs are usually surrounded by a showy balustrade, and their appearance imposing and respectable, bespeaking affluence and good housekeeping.
One or two of these mansions stood upon fine open lawns of some extent, which swept down until their grass mingled with the waters of the gently-flowing river, offering a slope of great natural beauty, studded with clumps of goodly trees; the whole, however, having that most melancholy air of neglect that seemed to say their best days were "the days that are gone."
Under the existing law of the States those days may not be expected ever to return; and such places as are here alluded to cannot be kept up in families whose possessions, however ample originally, must be parcelled out at the demise of each inheritor, until, like poor Sir Lucius, the "mansion-house and the dirty acres" having slipped through the not over-tenacious fingers of the Virginian proprietor, the family honour and the family pictures will alone be left.
In reverting again to the subject of this law, which I confess I have only viewed under its most melancholy aspect, I must add that it is by no means unpopular here, being, in fact, perfectly accordant with both reason and justice, and probably, as far as the commonwealth is concerned, for the best; yet cannot I look without regret on this oblivion of the once gentle of the land, and the scattering of the children of those brave men whose blood and labour redeemed the wilderness, or won it from the savage and his prey.