Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/574

 It had, however, a representative in the Assembly. In the last decade of the century, what remained of the town was destroyed by fire, and it never recovered from the effect of the conflagration. In the period of its highest prosperity, which had always been small, it had hardly amounted to more than a geographical name, a name celebrated in history as designating a locality associated with thrilling and romantic events rather than the languishing hamlet that it was. It never rose to the dignity of a town in the modern sense of the word, and yet there are few deserted sites on the face of the globe which call up to the mind of the visitor, scenes more interesting in themselves or more far-reaching in their historical significance. It was here that the English-speaking people made their first permanent settlement on the North American Continent; this fact alone has given the spot an undying fame, a fame that will increase as the power of the Anglo-Saxon race in the Western Hemisphere expands. A quarter of a century after the conflagration, Jamestown consisted of three or four substantial inhabited houses and a great mass of brick rubbish. To-day, hardly a trace of the rubbish remains.

When the town was laid in ashes towards the close of the seventeenth century, it was decided to remove the capital o&pound; the Colony to the Middle Plantation, as it was known, a place offering the advantages of a healthy and