The first battle in the Peninsular campaign of the Army of the Potomac was fought at Williamsburg, one of the oldest towns in Virginia. It was settled in 1632, and was capital of the Colony for many years before the Revolution. William and Mary's College is there, which was endowed by the king and queen of England with twenty thousand acres of land, and a penny on every pound of tobacco sent out of the Colony, and duties on all the furs and skins. The college buildings were designed by Sir Christopher Wren, architect of St. Paul's in London. The colonial governors resided at Williamsburg. The courts were held there. The government buildings were the noblest in America. The Governor's residence was a magnificent edifice, with a great estate of three hundred acres attached, laid out in lawns, parks, groves, flower-gardens, and peach-orchards. It was intersected by a brook. There were winding graveled walks, shaded by oaks and lindens. On public occasions, and on birth-nights, there were grand receptions at the palace, as it was called, where all the public officers and gentlemen assembled to pay their respects to the governor. The judges and counselors, in flowing robes and powdered wigs, the gentlemen of the Colony in broidered waistcoats, ruffled shirts, buff breeches, black stockings, and red, yellow, green, blue, or purple coats, with gold and silver shoe-buckles, and ladies in silks and satins, rode up in their carriages, driven by coachmen, and attended by footmen in livery. During the sessions of the House of Burgesses there were gay times. The town was filled with visitors. The wealth, fashion, and refinement of the Colony gathered there. It was there in the House of Burgesses that Patrick Henry uttered the patriotic sentiment,--"Give me liberty, or give me death." It was from Williamsburg that Sir William Berkeley wrote to the King's commissioners, thanking God that there were no common schools or printing-presses in Virginia. Washington, when but twenty-one years of age, mounted his horse at the palace-gate, for his long journey to the head-waters of the Ohio, chosen by Governor Dinwiddie, out of all the aristocratic families of the Colony, to bear a message to the French commander in that far-off region; and there, at the same gate, he dismounted from his horse on the 22d of January, 1754, having faithfully accomplished what he had undertaken.