orsel of eloquence, that it became the theme of every
conversation, in Williamsburg particularly, and generally, indeed,
wheresoever any of the officers resided or resorted. I learned it in
Williamsburgh; I believe at Lord Dunmore's; and I find in my
pocket-book of that year (1774) an entry of the narrative, as taken
from the mouth of some person, whose name, however, is not noted, nor
recollected, precisely in the words stated in the "Notes on Virginia."
The speech was published in the _Virginia Gazette_ of that time (I
have it myself in the volume of gazettes of that year), and tho in a
style by no means elegant, yet it was so admired that it flew through
all the public papers of the continent, and through the magazines and
other periodical publications of Great Britain; and those who were
boys at that day will now attest that the speech of Logan used to be
given them as a school exercise for repetition. It was not till about
thirteen or fourteen years after the newspaper publications that the
"Notes on Virginia" were published in America. Combating in these the
contumelious theory of certain European writers, whose celebrity have
currency and weight to their opinions, that our country, from the
combined effects of soil and climate, degenerated animal nature, in
the general, and particularly the moral faculties of man, I considered
the speech of Logan as an apt proof of the contrary, and used it as
such; and I copied, verbatim, the narrative I had taken down in 1774
and the speech as it had been given us in a better translation by Lord
Dunmore.[38]

[Footnote 38: The above final paragraph is from the appendix to the
second edition of the "Notes on Virginia," and was called forth by
public criticism of the statements made in the text.]

GOUVERNEUR MORRIS

Born in 1752, died in 1816; member of the First and Second
Continental Congresses; chairman of the committee which
conferred with the British peace commissioners in 1778;
drafted a scheme for a system of coinage which is the basis
of our present system; member of the Convention which
drafted the Constitution, taking a leading part in all the
debates; went to France in 1789 on private business, and
witnessed the outbreak of the Revolution; kept a diary and
wrote important letters; minister to France in 1792; United
States Senator from New York in 1800; active in promoting
the Erie Canal project until his