Had Washington looked down the century and caught the gleam of the gigantic shaft that attests his glory, and the golden dome of the Congressional Library, the most superb temple ever reared to literature, or in an illumined moment beheld the Goddess of Liberty standing between Heaven and earth and symbolizing freedom for seventy-five millions of people, he could not have written with loftier faith in the destiny of the Republic. [Illustration: WASHINGTON MONUMENT. LOOKING ACROSS THE “FLATS.”] Washington is no longer the city of magnificent intentions; it is Washington the Magnificent. [Illustration] [Illustration] RICHMOND ON THE JAMES BY WILLIAM WIRT HENRY “And in regions far Such heroes bring ye forth As those from whom we come, And plant our name Under that star Not known to our North.” DRAYTON. On the 11th of April, 1606, a patent was issued by James I. of England to Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers and others for the establishment of a colony in Virginia. The charter prescribed that it was to be managed by a council of thirteen persons, under the direction of a council of thirteen in England. On December the 19th of that year, one hundred and nine years after the discovery of North America by Cabot, three small vessels, the _Susan Constant_, the _God Speed_ and the _Discovery_, sailed for the New World, bearing one hundred and twelve passengers and a crew of thirty-nine men. They encountered many perils by sea, having bad weather and losing their reckoning, but the 26th of April, 1607, brought them to the shores of Chesapeake Bay, and they soon entered a noble stream called by the natives the “Powhatan,” but renamed by them the James, in honor of their King. On the 13th of May, they landed on a spot which seemed suitable for a settlement, and called the place Jamestown. The colony previously planted at Roanoke Island by Sir Walter Raleigh having perished, this was the beginning of the permanent Anglo-Saxon occupation of North America. From it has developed English possession of the continent with free institutions based upon English representative government.