The Botetourt), the best-beloved of the royal Governors. It is of Italian marble, and was erected in 1771. "America, behold your friend!" exhorts one panel of the pedestal. Graceless boys and marauding military, alike regardless of the admonition, have mutilated what was really a noble work of art. discolored features express, if anything, mild surprise, piteous in the circumstances, and the head has been rejoined awry to the neck, but there are remains of dignity in figure and attitude that make this solitary ornament of the college grounds congruous with the place. The solid silver coffin-plate, with his name and coronet engraved upon it, was stolen from the crypt under the college library during the civil war, and after its conclusion was returned anonymously to Williamsburg. The old Capitol was the other terminus of Duke of Gloucester Street. A few years ago the ruins were purchased by a corporation that pried out the very foundations, and bore them off to Newport News to be worked into commercial buildings. thoroughfare presented a gay pageant in the The straight, wide days of Botetourt, Fauquier, Dinwiddie, and Spotswoode 66 an animated spectacle of coaches and four, containing the 'nabobs' and their dames; of maidens in silk and lace, with high-heeled shoes and clocked stockings; of youths passing on spirited horses-and all these people are engaged in attending the assemblies at the palace, in dancing at the Apollo" (in the famous Raleigh tavern, part of which is still standing) "in snatching the pleasure of the moment, and enjoying life under a régime which seems made for enjoyment." The wings of the palace remained until blown down by the blasts of the civil war. The site is occupied by a schoolhouse. From the cellar runs a subterranean gallery 150 yards in length, opening into a funnel-shaped pit of On each side of this is a substantial masonry. walled chamber, capable of containing perhaps a dozen people. In the early spring-time narcissuses, jonquils, and crocuses fringe the mouth of the chasm. A clump of thorn-trees shades it. In the age of Indian massacres, and rebellions many against powers that were to-day and might not be to-morrow, the engineering and toil that contrived the exit from the official mansion were not idly bestowed. The octagon powder magazine built in 1716, by the ablest of Colonial Governors, Alexander Spotswoode, recalls him less vividly than it awakens associations of the last and worst of the line of royal lieutenants. In the dim dawn of April 20, 1775, a party of marines stole across the palace green and Gloucester Street to the magazine, and before the Williamsburgers were astir, removed the ammunition to a man-of-war lying in the offing. Two months later, Dunmore having been forced to surrender the keys of the "Old Powder Horn," some men entered and were wounded by a spring-gun tied to the door. Powder barrels were found secreted under the floor, and the tempest of popular indignation at the discovery of the infernal plot, drove the Governor from Virginia and from America. Upon the steps of the Capitol on the day of the adjournment of the House of Burgesses that same year, three men lingered for a few parting words. The war-cloud was big upon the horizon. The vice-regal chariot and six creamcolored horses would never again flash along the long straight avenue; there would be no more palace balls; Thomas Jefferson, sandyhaired and awkward, had danced for the last time, "with Belinda at the Apollo." The glitter and glamour of the court had passed forever from the lowland town. Henry's warcry, Liberty or Death!" had been echoed by the "shot heard 'round the world." Washington, as Commander-in-chief of Colonial forces, was in Boston. Richard Henry Lee, the most majestic of the three figures fancy poses for us upon the Capitol steps, wrote silently upon a pillar of the portico : 66 'When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, and in rain? When the battle 's lost and won." In 1779 the seat of government was removed to the comparatively insignificant village of Richmond, higher up the river. Williamsburg was too accessible to British cruisers, and too remote from Washington's lines. The measure stamped "Ichabod" upon the once haughty little capital. stealthy and fatal, settled upon her pleasant Dry-rot, places. The ghosts are faithful to it. has its history, or yet more interesting traEach house dition. In the drawing-room of Dr. J. D. Moncure (the able Superintendent of the Eastern Lunatic Asylum, situated in Williamsburg) hangs the portrait of Mary Cary, renowned for beauty and belleship in a family where beauty is hereditary and pronounced. Sally became the wife of George William Her sister Fairfax, the near neighbor and intimate friend of George Washington. tale that "Sally" Cary was the first love of The oft-repeated the Father of his Country is so effectually refuted by a document courteously furnished to |