Volume 25, Number 13 · August 17, 1978
Typhoon on the Bay
By Garry Wills
Chesapeake
by James A. Michener
Random House, 865 pp., $12.95
In 1780, the French emissary François Marbois circulated a set of twenty-three questions about the American continent. One set of answers to those questions became Jefferson's only published book, the Notes on the State of Virginia. Most answers were lengthy, but that to question three was a single sentence: asked about seaports, Jefferson replied that Virginia had none 'but our rivers and creeks.' Self-contained plantations lined the four great rivers of Virginia, and ocean-going vessels could ride right up to their landings and load tobacco.
Review, 1901 words
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