When our little fleet had sailed up James River, celebrated for the excellent tobacco which grows upon its shores, we disembarked at James-Town, the place where the English first established themselves in Virginia. The troops have already joined the grenadiers, chasseurs, and the three thousand men brought hither by Count de Grasse, consisting of the regiments of Agenois, Gatinois and Touraine, under the command of Mons. de St. Simon, Maréchal de Camp. This General had a little before effected a junction with fifteen hundred or two thousand Americans, commanded by M. le Marquis de la Fayette, who, as you have heard, could never be reduced, notwithstanding the forces of Cornwallis were three or four times his number. I should have mentioned, that M. de la Fayette, in quality of Major-General of an American army, at the age of twenty-four years, found himself at this time superior in command to a French general officer, and continued so until the other detachments of the army were collected into one body under General Washington. Williamsburg does not contain above a hundred and fifty houses, and is the only town we have yet seen in Virginia worth mentioning not situated on the banks of any river. What makes the situation of this place valuable, is the neighbourhood of James and York rivers, between which grows the best tobacco in the whole State, and for this reason it seems to have been built where it is: I do not think, nevertheless, that it will ever be a place of any great importance; the towns of York, James, Norfolk, and Edenton, being more favourably situated for trade, will undoubtedly eclipse it. With the most lively satisfaction I contemplated these monuments of the real glory of men, the college and the library; and while I contemplated them, they recalled to my mind places and persons most intimately connected with my heart. The tumult of arms has driven from hence those who had the care of these philosophical instruments, for the Muses, you know, take no pleasure but in the abodes of peace: We could only meet with one solitary professor, of Italian extraction; and I can not but say, his conversation and abilities appeared to be such, that after what he had told us in commendation of his brethren, we could not help regretting their absence.