with one hundred
thousand down to ten thousand. He lived to see the population increased
from seven thousand to seventeen thousand; and, to say the least, fully
as well clad, as well fed, as their fathers ever were, and living in
better houses than their fathers ever lived in. He lived to see our
banking capital, whether invested in public banks, in savings
institutions, and in the hands of private bankers, swell above the
fragmentary portion which the old Bank of the United States could afford
to allot to us, to somewhat over two millions of dollars, almost wholly
owned by our own people; and to read our monthly bills of mortality,
which attest, beyond the reach of cavil, a condition of general health
without a parallel in the annals of cities laved by the tides. He lived
to see the farmers, who supplied the population of 1802 with vegetables
and fish enough to serve, but none to spare, ship off nearly half a
million's worth to the north every season; and to see land in the
neighborhood, which in 1802 was worth hardly anything more than what the
doctor reaped from its crop of agues, become salubrious, and sell for
fifty dollars an acre. He lived to see our city connected with the West,
the South, and the North, by steamships whose tonnage would in those
days have been pronounced fabulous, by railways, and by the magnetic
telegraph. He lived to see a larger tonnage arriving and departing
annually from our port than ever was seen in our most prosperous days.
The old figure of trade has, indeed, passed away; and some wharf owners,
some warehouse men, and some others do not reap the profits of old
times, though, by the way, we now have more and better wharves, more and
better warehouses, than they had at that day; and the cause and the
necessity of the change are obvious. The trade of our fathers in 1802
was an unnatural trade. It was a fungus that sprung from the diseased
condition of foreign powers. It was not the result of developed
productive wealth, but the accident of the war between the two greatest
commercial nations of the globe, which gave us the carrying trade. It
was born of other people's troubles, and destined to die when those
troubles were appeased. It may be safely affirmed, that the business of
Norfolk, the natural result of enterprise, progress, and development,
and not the offspring of foreign action, at Mr. Tazewell's death,
exceeded, in a large degree, the business of Norfolk in 1802, puffed up,
as it