Staunton spectator, and general advertiser. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 183?-1849, 1841-03-25


their armies together; if there be a longinu
TO know the future from the past, some witch
of Endor rouses this "Old Mortality" up.
His family is large; all highly educated ;
his daughters married in the richest, and a.
mong the most respectable families i'm Vir.
GINA. He lives in style, it is said, man OF
the ton. He is Editor, President and Secre.
tiry of Conventions, Corresponding Commit
tee, Orator, Writer, aman of all work and on
pcii,ics all tongues. The last summer he
!; .eS d work all day, and at .sthe Swea,
iiouse," as is called the Tammany Hall of
his party, harangue and read to his friends
half the night.
The probability is, he never sleeps. Did
any body ever see him eat? should like to
know. Once he discovered there was North,
that People breathed and walked on the
Eastern side of the Potomac river, and bo
went on voyage of discovery there. He
visited Quincy, the residence of John Q.
Adams, and held his horse out OF doors, while
his family gratihed their curiosity within.
Van Buren, found him out at Albany, and
wooed and won the spirit, with all the coquet-
ry that he would court maiden in her teens.
But did he everhear ofthe West! The Ohio,
dare say, he knows,-loves the shores of
Western Virginia, but does he know that
People live and breathe OH the Wabash, the
tuiduis anu TIC lilInOiS lie real ldCt tnO
is, he knows no world but what stretches
from the base of the Blue Ridge to the Lower
James River. The Ocean is all Poetry to
him. His eye, his mind, his spirit are loft
on this earth, only on condition that it for
gets all other creation but the Lowlands of
virginia. His geography is not four hun
dred miles inclusive. The world, if he were
10 write book, would be bounded on the
East by the Potomac, on the South by the
Dismal Swamp, on the Westby the Roanoke
and on the North, by tho Blue Ridge. He
was an Usher once; he began life thus in
Richmond. In his day, it is probable, geog-
raphy was only learnt by travelling over it,
and the early impression, that Richmond was
the Capitol of Europe, Asia, and Africa, as
well as Of America, he never has probably
got over.
Ispeak of Mr.. Richie thus in no dsrepecl
of Richmond, or the lowlands of Virginia.
but because believe him to be a bigot and
fanatic of the most mischicvous class,--pal-
sying, by his pen and tongue the energies
and resources of that great Commonwealth,
whose history, (of SO years standing) whose
great men, whose fame (all past though) ]
love, cherish as the best and brightest of
this, or any other country. l believe this
man, Richie, to have been the DR.. Francia,
who has made sort of Paraguay Of old
Virginia. Controlling a powerful press,
with great talent too, among an agricultural
People, in sparse population, he has been
able for thirty years, as it seems to me, to
exercise as much power over Virginia
as ever Washington, or Jefferson, or Madi-
son had. the master spirits of Virginia,
alas, it has been power all for i'll. He is a
| blgot for he learns nothing, and is no wiser
now than he was half century ago. He is
| a fanatic, for he has no liberality, no charity,
no enlarged and national comprehension of
the movements and doings of the world.
| Never was there an instance Of the more tri-
| umphant dominion of the Press than in this
case. For thirty gears he has .ktpt Virginia
| Standing still. Of late, the most powerful
minds of Virginia, from Leigh to Rives, and
so on, have traversed hill and dale, mountain
and valley, to break him down, Illuminating
| by their eloquence the tenants of the Log
Cabins of the Alleghanies, as we'll as the
stately Mansions of Eastern Virginia;-
Rltchie's Enquirer was after them, week af-
ter week, smoothing over what they said,
! parrying their blows, eXtinguishing their To-
gic, and making at last the minds of all his
hearers darker than ever. In the cavern ofthe
mountains, on the Island of the swamp, on
the peaks of the hills. in the recesses of the
valleys, where Orator never trod, or Elo-
quence never entered,-yet there--even there
|
seems never TO die. In spite of truth, in
spite ofjustce, in spite Of local pride. and
even self respect, Virginia threw away her
| own son, born Of her and hers, too, and took
up, and adopted the cast off offspring Of New
Iork,-and Richie did it all, in spite, was
going to say, of almost every body Richie
has got Virginia in chains, the People there
will not own it, but it is fact. They fret
and worry in them, it is true, but they can't
break out, as long as there is any thing left
of him on earth. Now he tightens up, and
now he loosens out,-anon the road is rough
and terrible, as it has been for the few years
past,-but he keeps his seat ,-Virginia in his
bits-pTobably to the end. IL is, therefore
my sincere and deliberate conviction that his
death will be of more benefit to Virginia than
was the invention of the cotton gin by Whit
ney, or the application of steam power, by
Fulton, to Navigation, Ito the world.
VIRGINIA AND HER RESOURCES.
And why do Judge thus harshly of ont
man?-Hear me, and will tell.
Virginia is the great central State Of this
Union: Its geographical! pivot, backbon,
on the map, II may reiterate phrases. tt
climate, as whole, is the most agreeable ant
healthy In the &c States. 1t is to us wha
upper Italy is TO Europe. 1t is not all Fat
nor all mountain, but about the rich
intermlngling of each. The Maker Of Hea
ven and Earth has written out for it an angus
destiny on its very Geography and tn
greatest man, George Washington, mean
oil course, was given TO it.--God himsefseem
70 have favored it with succession of mer
the mos, ilustrious in history, in purity toe
; In simplicity Of purpose and heart. The
were no bigots--no fanatics, no Virpinians-
no Americans peculiarly, but the heads an
a llghtS oil the whole human lace ,rheu snncrl