of the United States of North America, is bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the north by Pennsylvania and the river Ohio, on the west by the Mississippi, on the south by North Carolina.

The boundaries include an area somewhat triangular of 121,525 miles, whereof 79,650 lie westward of the Alleghany mountains, and 57,034 westward of the meridian of the mouth of the Great Kanawha. This state is therefore one third larger than the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, which are reckoned at 88,357 square miles.

The principal rivers in Virginia are, Roanoke, James river, which receives the Rappahannock, Appomattox, Chickahominy, Nansemond, and Elizabeth rivers; York river, which is formed by the junction of Pamunkey and Mattaponi rivers; Rappahannock, and Patomak.

The mountains are not solitary and scattered confusedly over the face of the country; they commence at about 150 miles from the sea-coast, and are disposed in ridges one behind another, running nearly parallel with the coast, though rather approaching it as they advance north-eastwardly. To Virginia, the fourth-west, as the tract of country between the sea coast and the Mississippi becomes narrower, the mountains converge into a single ridge, which, as it approaches the Gulph of Mexico, subsides into plain country, and gives rise to some of the waters of that Gulph.

From the great extent of Virginia, it may be expected that the climate is not the same in all its parts. It is remarkable that, proceeding on the same parallel of latitude westwardly, the climate becomes colder in like manner as when you proceed northwardly. This continues to be the case till you attain the summit of the Alleghany, which is the highest land between the ocean and the Mississippi. Virginia. From thence, descending in the same latitude to the Mississippi, the change reverses; and, if we may believe travellers, it becomes warmer there than it is in the same latitude on the sea-side. Their testimony is strengthened by the vegetables and animals which subsist and multiply there naturally, and do not on the sea-coast. Thus catalpas grow spontaneously on the Mississippi as far as the latitude of 37°, and recede as far as 38° degrees. Perroquets even winter on the Sioto in the 39th degree of latitude. In the summer of 1779, when the thermometer was at 90 degrees at Monticello, and 96 degrees at Williamsburg, it was 110 degrees at Kalkalka. Perhaps the mountain, which overhangs this village on the north side, may by its reflection have contributed somewhat to produce this heat.

The number of free inhabitants in this state in 1782 was 296,854; slaves 270,762. The number of free inhabitants were to the number of slaves nearly as 11 to 10.

The college of William and Mary is the only public seminary of learning in Virginia. It was founded in the time of king William and queen Mary, who granted to it 20,000 acres of land, and a penny a pound duty on certain tobaccos exported from Virginia and Maryland. The assembly also gave it by temporary law a duty on liquors imported, and skins and furs exported. From these resources it received upwards of 3000l. communibus annis. The buildings are of brick, sufficient for an indifferent accommodation of perhaps 100 students. By its charter it was to be under the government of 20 visitors, who were to be its legislators; and to have a president and six professorships, which at present stand thus:—A professorship for Law and Police; Anatomy and Medicine; Natural Philosophy and Mathematics; Moral Philosophy, the Law of Nature and Nations, the Fine Arts; Modern Languages. For the Brafferton. The college edifice is a huge, misshapen pile, which, but that it has a roof, would be taken for a brick-kiln. In 1787, there were about 30 young gentlemen members of this college, a large proportion of which were law students. There are a number of flourishing academies in Virginia; one in Prince Edward county, one at Alexandria, one at Norfolk, one at Hanover, and others in other places.

The present denominations of Christians in Virginia are Presbyterians, who are the most numerous, and inhabit the western parts of the state; Episcopalians, who are the most ancient settlers, and occupy the eastern and first settled parts of the state. Intermingled with these are great numbers of Baptists and Methodists. The bulk of these last mentioned religious sects are of the poorer sort of people, and many of them are very ignorant (as is indeed the case with the other denominations), but they are generally a virtuous well-meaning set of people.

Virginia has produced some of the most distinguished men that have been active in effecting the two late important revolutions in America, whose political and military character will rank among the first in the page of history. The great body of the people do not concern themselves with politics; so that their government, though nominally republican, is in fact oligarchical or aristocratical. The Virginians who are rich, are in general sensible, polite, and hospitable and of an independent spirit. The poor are ignorant and abject; all are of an inquisitive turn, and in many other respects very much resemble the people in the eastern states. There is a much greater disparity between the rich and the poor in Virginia than in any of the northern states. A spirit for literary inquiries, if not altogether confined to a few, is, among the body of the people, evidently subordinate to a spirit of gaming and barbarous sports. At almost every tavern or ordinary on the public road there is a billiard table, a backgammon table, cards, and other implements for various games. To these public houses the gambling gentry in the neighborhood resort to kill time which hangs heavily upon them; and at this business they are extremely expert, having been accustomed to it from their earliest youth. The passion for cock-fighting, a diversion not only inhumanly barbarous, but infinitely beneath the dignity of a man of sense, is so predominant, that they even advertise their matches in the public newspapers.

The executive powers are lodged in the hands of a governor chosen annually, and incapable of acting more than three years in seven. He is assisted by a council of eight members. The judiciary powers are divided among several courts. Legislation is exercised by two houses of assembly, the one called the House of Delegates, composed of two members from each county, chosen annually by the citizens possessing an estate for life in 100 acres of uninhabited land, or 25 acres with a house on it, or in a house or lot in some town. The other called the Senate, consisting of 24 members, chosen quadrennially by the same electors, who for this purpose are distributed into 24 districts. The concurrence of both houses is necessary to the passage of a law. They have the appointment of the governor and council, the judges of the superior courts, auditors, attorney-general, treasurer, register of the land office, and delegates to Congress.

Before the present war, there was exported from this state, communibus annis, nearly as follows:

| Articles | Quantity | |---------------------------|----------| | Tobacco | 55,000 lbs. of 1000 lb. | | Wheat | 800,000 bushels | | Indian Corn | 600,000 bushels | | Skiping | | | Mats, planks, shingles | | | Tar, pitch, turpentine | 30,000 barrels | | Poultry, viz. ducks | 180 hogs. of 600 lb. | | Mink-rats, foxes | | | Pork | 4,000 barrels | | Flax seed, hemp, cotton | | | Pit coal, pig iron | | | Pease | 5,000 bushels | | Beef | | | Sturgeon, white fish | | | Herring | | | Brandy from peaches and apples, whisky | | | Horses | |

The amount of the above articles is 850,000l. Virginia money, or 657,142 guineas.

The whole country before it was planted was one continued forest interspersed with marshes, which in the West Indies they call swamps. No country now produces greater quantities of excellent tobacco; and the soil is generally so sandy and shallow, that after they have cleared a fresh piece of ground out of the woods, it will not bear tobacco after two or three years unless cow-penned and well dunned. The forests yield oaks, poplars, pines, cedars, cyprusses, sweet myrtles, chestnuts, hickory, live oak, walnut, dogwood, alder, hazel, chinkapins, locust-trees, sassafras, elm, ash, beech, with a great variety of sweet gums and incense, which distill from several trees; pitch, tar, rosin, turpentine, plank-timber, masts, and yards. Virginia yields also rice, hemp, Indian corn, plenty of pasture, with coal, quarries of stone, and lead and iron ore.