All our friends here are in health and give you their best respects and Service, and pray accept of mine with my wife's to yourselfe and Lady, and give my respects to all where they are due.

I am Sir

Your friend and servant,

W. B.

What goods you send mee, let mee have them before X mas if it may bee, I being much prejudiced this year by Wynnes coming so late.

Virginia, May the 20th, 1684.

TO FATHER HORSMONDEN per Wynne.

Worthy Sir,-Yours by Colonel Ludwell I received which gave us great Satisfaction to understand of yours and our little ones wellfare, which pray God continue. My wife, two girls, and all our friends are in health except my Lady Berkeley, who continues very much indisposed.

Our Assembly is yett sitting, and my Lord Baltimore is now at James Towne to pay a visit to our Governor who hitherto hath given a generall satisfaction. About a week since, here was a rumor about the Indians, by which means I was sent Home and therefore can give you no particular account of the proceedings at Towne.

Here is likelyhood of forward Crops, haveing been allmost continuall rains these three weeks; which makes us in some fear of a fresh, which God avert.

Pray Sir give our best respects and service to all where they are due, and our blessings to our Children, and accept of our duty to yourselfe and mother from

Worthy Sir.

Your Obedient Son and Serv't

(To be Continued.)

W. B.

THE MAIL IN 1738.

[From the Virginia Gazette, of April, 1738.]

Alexander Spotswood, Esq., sole deputy postmaster general of America, having lately formed a new regulation for carrying on the several Post Stages with greater expedition and certainty than hitherto ; this is to advertise the publick thereof; and that by this regulation, the several stages will be performed, as follows, viz. the Post is to set out from the general Post office at New Port, on Wednesday, the 26th Inst., to cross over Potowmac that night, and arrive at Annapolis on Friday; there he is to make some stop, and then proceed to Susquehanna, where he is to arrive on Saturday night; and exchange mails with the Philadelphia rider, who is there to meet him: the Monday following, he is to return to Annapolis, and arrive at Potowmack on Tuesday night, from whence, the mail is to be brought to New Port, on the Wednesday, and the next morning set out for Williamsburg where it is to arrive on Saturday. Riders are engaged so conveniently, that no Posthorse is to cross Potowmack, or Susquehanna, by which means, the mail will pass much more certain than usual, it having been often retarded before, by bad weather, when it was impossible for a horse to pass these wide ferries, so that the Post will, for the future, regularly arrive at Williamsburg every Saturday. And in order to extend the Postoffice stil further Southward, Col. Spotswood has been pleased to grant a commission to William Parks, the printer of this paper, to carry on a stage from Williamsburg to Edenton, in North Carolina, which is to be performed once a month, winter and summer. The stage is already begun, and the Post is to set out again from Williamsburg on Monday the 8th May, to go over Hog Island ferry; from thence to Nansemond Court-House, thence to Norfolk Town, and from thence to Edenton, where he is to stay one night, and then return the same way back again, and so continue the Stage, regularly, once a month. All persons who have letters to send Southward of Williamsburg are desired to deliver them to William Parks.

April 21st, 1738.

NOTE.-New Port, is on Massaponax creek, a few miles below Fredericksburg.

R. R.

THE PORTRAIT OF LORD CHATHAM.

Shortly after the opening of the late session of the General Assembly, we heard it announced in conversation, that the great Portrait of Lord Chatham, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, had at last arrived from Westmoreland, and had been duly installed in the State Library; and we felt, of course, a strong desire to see it. A Portrait of Lord Chatham, thought we, and by Sir Joshua Reynolds !—of such a man-and by such an artist !-it must be worth looking at and we must see it at once. Accordingly, we hastened over to the Capitol, and mounting the steps and stairs with rather more than our usual alacrity, we entered the Library; and there it was before us-the effigies, or rather, we should say, the apparition of Lord Chatham-" but oh how changed from him" (if it ever was like him,) and indeed from itself-for the picture had manifestly suffered a great deal from time and rough usage together, and whatever it had been, was now but a poor relic, and rather " a sorry sight." It is true the figure was not bad, and the attitude was somewhat imposing; for the orator is represented as standing in the House of Lords, and uttering perhaps his famous speech in behalf of America, with his right hand properly extended, and his left hand, holding "Magna Charta,” hanging down by his side, well enough; but the head-poor and common-place, with a low forehead ornamented with gray curls, (meant no doubt to be Roman and classical,) instead of a good old-fashioned British wig; and the face, not glowing with fire and spirit, as it ought to have been, but pale and ghastly as it might have looked after the fainting-fit in the House, (though that was on a subsequent occasion,) and altogether tame and insipid. We really could not bear to look at it. That, said we to ourselves, the great Lord Chatham-the patriot Statesman-the matchless Secretary-the more than Demosthenes of the British Senate, whose eloquence "resembled sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres!" Impossible. We cannot believe it. It is so different from all the prints of him

that we have seen, and so abhorrent from the model of him in our own mind, which we are sure must be right, that we cannot credit it for a moment-and we will not. In short, we could not look upon such a "counterfeit presentment," with any patience, and barely glancing at the conceits with which the artist had undertaken to embellish his piece-the altar supported by the busts of Hampden and Sidney, with the fire of liberty burning upon it, and Britannia advancing with a helmet, or something like it, to extinguish the flame, and all the rest;—we left the poor figment to itself, and came away.

After this, we naturally felt some little curiosity to ascertain the true history of this painting; and applying to our friend R— who happened to be in town, and who is our oracle in such matters, he readily gave us all the information we wanted. "Why," said he, "the picture was painted many years ago, by a young tyro, of Annapolis, by the name of Peele, (the father, I believe, of all the school of painters of that name,) who was sent over to London by some gentlemen, to learn the art; and I will send you some extracts from the old Virginia Gazette of the time, which will tell you all about it." We received the extracts, accordingly, a few days afterwards; and we now lay them before our readers, as follows:

From the Virginia Gazette of April 20th, 1769.

Williamsburg, April 20.

A fine painting of the Right Hon. the Earl of CHATHAM, Subscribed for by the Gentlemen of Westmoreland, is just arrived, to be put up in the courthouse of that county. It is the performance of one Mr. Peele, a young Marylander (to whom his Lordship sat for his picture) who some years ago was bound apprentice to a saddler in Annapolis; but discovering a very great genius for painting, he was sent to England, by the contribution of some Gentlemen, to be instructed in that art. The piece is original, though little resembling the prints we have seen of that Nobleman. His countenance appears full of fire and expression, and he looks as if he was waiting for an answer to some

forcible argument he had just used, being represented in the habit of a Roman orator speaking in the Forum. His right hand is extended naked to the elbow, his left hanging down, and holding Magna Charta. Close by him stands an altar, supported by the busts of Sidney and Hampden, with the flame sacred to Liberty burning bright on it; and on one side a garland, wreathed over the head of Hampden. On the back ground the palace of Whitehall, and the window where Charles I. was brought out to be beheaded, are discovered; and somewhat near the statue of Britannia, with the cap of Liberty, treading upon the Congress at New York, the American addresses, &c.

From the Virginia Gazette of Thursday, Oct. 19th, 1769.

Westmoreland, Sept. 28, 1769.

MR. RIND, I never yet have seen, nor till lately ever knew of your publication, concerning the picture of Lord CHATHAM presented to the Gentlemen of this county by EDMUND JENNINGS, Esq., of London. I understand you mention this picture as obtained by subscription, when the truth is, that the generous attachment of Mr. JENNINGS to liberty, his native country, and their great defender, influenced him, at his private expense, to present this picture of Lord CHATHAM to the Gentlemen of Westmoreland. Your misinformation has arisen, I conjecture, from a subscribed sum of money having been sent to London for Lord CAMDEN's portrait, which gratitude, and a just sense of the great support the American cause received from that noble Lord, made the Gentlemen here wish to obtain.

RICHARD HENRY LEE.

Here, then, we have all about it," and a little more; for, in looking after one picture, we have accidentally stumbled upon another; and we find that, besides the portrait of Lord Chatham, there is, or was, or was to have been, a portrait of Lord Camden also; and what is the history of that? We should like to know..

We had written thus far, and thought we had closed our article, when happening to meet with the Librarian of our State: