The Virginia Gazette

WILLIAMSBURG, April 21.
Some time ago the Gentlemen of Westmoreland, by subscription, ordered a portrait of the Right Hon. the Earl of Chatham from home, to be put up in their court-house. It is now arrived; and esteemed a masterly performance, and was drawn by Mr. Charles Peale, a native of Maryland, who was formerly apprentice to a saddler, at Annapolis; but his natural talent for, and great inclination to the pencil being made known, he was sent home by a number of Gentlemen, at their own expense, to perfect himself in the art he discovered so great a genius for. This piece is as large as the life; his Lordship is represented in the habit and attitude of a Roman orator, in the forum: his right arm extended, and naked to the elbow; his left hangs down, and holds Magna Charta. His countenance is animated with a glow of fire and expression, and he seems to wait for a reply to what he had just said. The likeness is said to be very striking, but quite unlike the prints we have hitherto had of his Lordship: Near him stands an altar, which is supported by the busts of Sidney and Hampden, the latter with a garland over his head, and on the altar the flame of liberty brightly burning: The palace of Westminster, and the window through which King Charles I. was led to the block, appear on the back ground; and a little nigher, Britannia, with the cap of liberty, treading on the American addresses, the congress at New-York, &c. &c.