VIRGINIA 79 



tourt. Exactly opposite this Capitol, at the west end 

 of the high-street, stands the College, in honor of the 

 royal founders called William & Mary-College. A 

 building of two storeys, but not so tasteful as the for- 

 mer. This college owes its origin to the zeal of a Mr. 

 James Blair, who opened a subscription to that end. 

 William and Maria endowed it with 2000 Pd. sterling 

 and 20,000 acres of land, together with the right of 

 purchasing and possessing lands to the value of 2000 

 Pd. annual rent, and appropriated for its use besides 

 the revenue of a tax of 1 penny in the pound on all 

 tobacco which should be exported from Virginia to 

 other colonies. Mr. Blair, who had himself given very 

 considerably to the College, was the first president and 

 held the office 50 years. He left legacies the design of 

 which was especially the setting up of an establishment 

 for the education of young Indians, + and the work was 

 for some time carried on, but was at length given over 

 as not answering the purpose had in view. Experience 

 has indeed demonstrated that the Indian youth, on 

 whose instruction and moral up-bringing time and 

 pains have been spent, and apparently not without 

 good promise of shaping them into civilized subjects, 

 grasp nevertheless every opportunity of escaping from 

 restraint and oversight, and joyfully return again to 

 their inborn way of life, wild, rude, and careless, find- 

 ing in it vastly more attractions than in all the pleas- 

 ures and conveniences which cities can offer. I myself 

 knew a certain Montresor, a half-Indian, who had been 

 brought up in this College, but after he left it preferred 

 to rove about among the Indians doing nothing, rather 

 than follow a quiet life; many of this sort could be 

 named, for the European more easily adapts himself to 



