“Agriculture can hardly be said to exist in Norfolk County or in that of Princess Ann. The landed property is much divided, and the inhabitants devote themselves rather to the selling of timber than to the cultivation of the soil. In all these parts land is sold at from $6 to $7 per acre; and often the value of the timber, which it offers for the axe, amounts to four or five times the price of the original purchase. From eighty to ninety vessels of different dimensions are annually built at Norfolk. The price of building is, for the hull on coming from the hands of the carpenter, $24 per ton for those above 120 tons. Ready for sea, they cost from $47 to $50 per ton. It was intended that Norfolk should build one of the six frigates of which the United States had determined to compose their marine. That which was to have been built at Norfolk was among the number countermanded: it was begun at Gosport, where there are dock yards for the construction of the largest vessels. The communication between Norfolk and Portsmouth is continual: it is carried on by six rowboats belonging to a company, and by three scows, in which horses and carriages are conveniently ferried over. The fare for each passenger is one-sixteenth of a dollar; but on paying $6 a person may become free of the passage for twelve months. To the port of Norfolk, above any other in the United States, came the greatest number of colonists escaped from Saint Domingo. Private subscriptions raised in all the towns of Virginia, together with further sums voted by the State Legislature and by Congress, afforded the unfortunate French incontestable proofs of the benevolence and generosity of the Americans. Major William Lindsey, commissioner of the Custom House, is, of all the inhabitants of Norfolk, the individual with whom I have the most particular reason to be satisfied. He is a man recommended by simplicity of manners and goodness of heart, and is held in universal esteem. I am profoundly indebted to him for information on a variety of subjects.