About this time we find him engaged, with other men of enterprise, in a project to drain the great Dismal Swamp, and render it capable of cultivation. This vast morass was about thirty miles long, and ten miles wide, and its interior but little known. With his usual zeal and hardihood he explored it on horseback and on foot. In many parts it was covered with dark and gloomy woods of cedar, cypress, and hemlock, or deciduous trees, the branches of which were hung with long drooping moss. Other parts were almost inaccessible, from the density of brakes and thickets, entangled with vines, briers, and creeping plants, and intersected by creeks and standing pools. Occasionally the soil, composed of dead vegetable fibre, was over his horse's fetlocks, and sometimes he had to dismount and make his way on foot over a quaking bog that shook beneath his tread. In the centre of the morass he came to a great piece of water, six miles long, and three broad, called Drummond's Pond, but more poetically celebrated as the Lake of the Dismal Swamp. It was more elevated than any other part of the swamp, and capable of feeding canals, by which the whole might be traversed. Having made the circuit of it, and noted all its characteristics, he encamped for the night upon the firm land which bordered it, and finished his explorations on the following day. In the ensuing session of the Virginia Legislature, the association in behalf of which he had acted, was chartered under the name of the Dismal Swamp Company; and to his observations and forecast may be traced the subsequent improvement and prosperity of that once desolate region. CHAPTER XXVII. TREATY OF PEACE--PONTIAC'S WAR--COURSE OF PUBLIC EVENTS--BOARD OF TRADE AGAINST PAPER CURRENCY--RESTRICTIVE POLICY OF ENGLAND--NAVIGATION LAWS-- DISCONTENTS IN NEW ENGLAND--OF THE OTHER COLONIES--PROJECTS TO RAISE REVENUE BY TAXATION--BLOW AT THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE JUDICIARY--NAVAL COMMANDERS EMPLOYED AS CUSTOM-HOUSE OFFICERS--RETALIATION OF THE COLONISTS--TAXATION RESISTED IN BOSTON--PASSING OF THE STAMP ACT--BURST OF OPPOSITION IN VIRGINIA--SPEECH OF PATRICK HENRY. Tidings of peace gladdened the colonies in the spring of 1763. The definitive treaty between England and France had been signed at Fontainbleau. Now, it was trusted, there would be an end to those horrid ravages that had desolated the interior of the country. "The desert and the silent place would rejoice, and the wilderness would blossom like the rose."