[Illustration:
WESTWARD GROWTH
OF
OLD VIRGINIA
THE M.-N. CO., BUFFALO, N. Y.]
OLD VIRGINIA
AND HER NEIGHBOURS
BY
JOHN FISKE
Οὐ λίθοι, οὐδὲ ξύλα, οὐδὲ
Τέχνη τεκτόνων αἱ πόλεις εἶσιν
Ἀλλ’ ὅπού ποτ’ ἂν ὦσιν ἌΝΔΡΕΣ
Αὑτοὺς σώζειν εἰδότες,
Ἐνταῦθα τείχη καὶ πόλεις.
_Alcæus_
[Illustration: The Riverside Press]
IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME II
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
<f>The Riverside Press Cambridge</f> */
COPYRIGHT 1897 BY JOHN FISKE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CONTENTS.
VOLUME II.
CHAPTER X.
THE COMING OF THE CAVALIERS.
PAGE
Virginia depicted by an admirer 1
Her domestic animals, game, and song-birds 2
Her agriculture 2, 3
Her nearness to the Northwest Passage 3
Her commercial rivals 3, 4
Not so barren a country as New England 4
Life of body and soul were preserved in Virginia; Mr. Benjamin
Symes and his school 5
Worthy Captain Mathews and his household 5
Rapid growth in population 6
Historical lessons in names of Virginia counties 7
Scarcity of royalist names on the map of New England 8, 9
As to the Cavaliers in Virginia; some popular misconceptions 9, 10
Some democratic protests 10, 11
Sweeping statements are inadmissible 11
Difference between Cavaliers and Roundheads was political,
not social 12
Popular misconceptions regarding the English nobility; England
has never had a _noblesse_, or upper caste 13
Contrast with France in this respect 13, 14
Importance of the middle class 14
Respect for industry in England 15
The Cavalier exodus 16
Political complexion of Virginia before 1649 16, 17
The great exchange of 1649 17, 18
Political moderation shown in Virginia during the Commonwealth
period 18
Richard Lee and his family 19
How Berkeley was elected governor by the assembly 20
Lee’s visit to Brussels 20
How Charles II. was proclaimed king in Virginia, but not
before he had been proclaimed in England 21
The seal of Virginia 22, 23
Significant increase in the size of land grants 23, 24
Arrival of well-known Cavalier families 25
Ancestry of George Washington 25
If the pedigrees of horses, dogs, and fancy pigeons are important,
still more so are the pedigrees of men 26
Value of genealogical study to the historian 26
The Washington family tree 27
How Sir William Jones paraphrased the epigram of Alcæus 28
Historical importance of the Cavalier element in Virginia 28
Differences between New England and Virginia were due
not to differences in social quality of the settlers, but
partly to ecclesiastical and still more to economical
circumstances 29, 30
Settlement of New England by the migration of organized
congregations 30
Land grants in Massachusetts 31
Township and village 31, 32
Social position of settlers in New England 32
Some merits of the town meeting 33
Its educational value 34
Primogeniture and entail in Virginia 35
Virginia parishes 35
The vestry a close corporation; its extensive powers 36
The county was the unit of representation 37
The county court was virtually a close corporation 38
Powers of the county court 39
The sheriff and his extensive powers 40
The county lieutenant 41
Jefferson’s opinion of government by town meeting 42
Court day 42, 43
Summary 43
Virginia prolific in great leaders 44
CHAPTER XI.
BACON’S REBELLION.
How the crude mediæval methods of robbery began to give
place to more ingenious modern methods 45
The Navigation Act of 1651 45, 46
Second Navigation Act 46
John Bland’s remonstrance 47
Some direct consequences of the Navigation Act 47
Some indirect consequences of the Navigation Act 48
Bland’s exposure of the protectionist humbug 49, 50
His own proposition 50, 51
Effect of the Navigation Act upon Virginia and Maryland;
disasters caused by low price of tobacco 51, 52
The Surry protest of 1673 52
The Arlington-Culpeper grant 53
Some of its effects 54
Character of Sir William Berkeley 55
Corruption and extortion under his government 56
The Long Assembly, 1661-1676 57
Berkeley’s violent temper 57
Beginning of the Indian war 58
Colonel John Washington 59
Affair of the five Susquehannock envoys 60
The killing of the envoys 61
Berkeley’s perverseness in not calling out a military force 62
Indian atrocities 62, 63
Nathaniel Bacon and his family 64
His friends William Drummond and Richard Lawrence 65
Bacon’s plantation is attacked by the Indians, May, 1676 65
Bacon marches against the Indians and defeats them 66
Election of a new House of Burgesses 66
Arrest of Bacon 67
He is released and goes to lodge at the house of “thoughtful
Mr. Lawrence” 67
Bacon is persuaded to make his submission and apologizes to
the governor 68, 69
In spite of the governor’s unwillingness, the new assembly
reforms many abuses 70, 71
How the “Queen of Pamunkey” appeared before the House
of Burgesses 72-74
The chairman’s rudeness 74
Bacon’s flight 74
His speedy return 75
How the governor was intimidated 76
Bacon crushes the Susquehannocks while Berkeley flies to
Accomac and proclaims him a rebel 76
Bacon’s march to Middle Plantation 77
His manifesto 78
His arraignment of Berkeley; he specifies nineteen persons
as “wicked counsellors” 80
Oath at Middle Plantation 81
Bacon defeats the Appomattox Indians 82
Startling conversation between Bacon and Goode 82-86
Perilous situation of Bacon 86
The “White Aprons” at Jamestown 87
Bacon’s speech at Green Spring 88
Burning of Jamestown 89
Persons who suffered at Bacon’s hands 89, 90
Bacon and his cousin 90
Death of Bacon, Oct. 1, 1676 91
Collapse of the rebellion 92
Arrival of royal commissioners, January, 1677 92
Berkeley’s outrageous conduct 93
Execution of Drummond 94
Death of Berkeley 95
Significance of the rebellion 96
How far Bacon represented popular sentiment in Virginia 97
Political changes since 1660; close vestries 98, 99
Restriction of the suffrage 100, 101
How the aristocrats regarded Bacon’s followers 102, 103
The real state of the case 104
Effect of hard times 104, 105
Populist aspect of the rebellion 106
Its sound aspects 106
Bacon must ever remain a bright and attractive figure 107
CHAPTER XII.
WILLIAM AND MARY.
A century of political education 108
Robert Beverley, clerk of the House of Burgesses 109
His refusal to give up the journals 110
Arrival of Lord Culpeper as governor 110, 111
The plant-cutters’ riot of 1682 111, 112
Contracting the currency with a vengeance 112
Culpeper is removed and Lord Howard of Effingham comes
to govern in his stead 113
More trouble for Beverley 114
For stupid audacity James II., after all, was outdone by
George III. 114, 115
Francis Nicholson comes to govern Virginia and exhibits
eccentric manners 115
How James Blair founded William and Mary College 116, 117
How Sir Edmund Andros came as Nicholson’s successor and
quarrelled with Dr. Blair 118
How young Daniel Parke one Sunday pulled Mrs. Blair out
of her pew in church 119
Removal of Andros 119
The Earl of Orkney draws a salary for governing Virginia
for the next forty years without crossing the ocean,
while the work is done by lieutenant-governors 120
The first of these was Nicholson once more 120
Who removed the capital from Jamestown to Middle Plantation,
and called it Williamsburg 121
How the blustering Nicholson, disappointed in love, behaved
so badly that he was removed from office 122, 123
Fortunes of the college 123
Indian students 124
Instructions to the housekeeper 125
Horse-racing prohibited 126
Other prohibitions 126
The courtship of Parson Camm; a Virginia Priscilla 127, 128
Some interesting facts about the college 128, 129
Nicholson’s schemes for a union of the colonies 129, 130
CHAPTER XIII.
MARYLAND’S VICISSITUDES.
Maryland after the death of Oliver Cromwell 131
Fuller and Fendall 132
The duty on tobacco 133
Fendall’s plot 134
Temporary overthrow of Baltimore’s authority 135
Superficial resemblance to the action of Virginia 136
Profound difference in the situations 137
Collapse of Fendall’s rebellion 138
Arrival of the Quakers 138, 139
The Swedes and Dutch on the Delaware River 139
Augustine Herman 140
He makes a map of Maryland and is rewarded by the grant
of Bohemia Manor 141
How the Labadists took refuge in Bohemia Manor 142, 143
How the Duke of York took possession of all the Delaware
settlements 143
And granted New Jersey to Lord Berkeley and Sir George
Carteret 144
Which resulted in the bringing of William Penn upon the
scene 144
Charter of Pennsylvania 145
Boundaries between Penn and Baltimore 145, 146
Old manors in Maryland 146
Life on the manors 147
The court leet and court baron 148
Changes wrought by slavery 148, 149
A fierce spirit of liberty combined with ingrained respect for
law 149
Cecilius Calvert and his son Charles 150
Sources of discontent in Maryland 150
A pleasant little family party 151
Conflict between the Council and the Burgesses 151, 152
Burgesses claim to be a House of Commons, but the Council
will not admit it 152
How Rev. Charles Nichollet was fined for preaching politics 153
The Cessation Act of 1666 153
Acts concerning the relief of Quakers and the appointment
of sheriffs 153, 154
Restriction of suffrage in 1670 154, 155
Death of Cecilius, Lord Baltimore 155
Rebellion of Davis and Pate, 1676; their execution 156
How George Talbot, lord of Susquehanna Manor, slew a
revenue collector and was carried to Virginia for trial 157
How his wife took him from jail, and how he was kept hidden
until a pardon was secured 158
“A Complaint from Heaven with a Hue and Cry” 159
The anti-Catholic panic of 1689 159
Causes of the panic 160
How John Coode overthrew the palatinate government 161
But did not thereby bring the millennium 162
How Nicholson removed the capital from St. Mary’s to
Annapolis 162, 163
Unpopularity of the establishment of the Church of England 163
Episcopal parsons 164
Exemption of Protestant dissenters from civil disabilities 165
Seymour reprimands the Catholic priests 166
Cruel laws against Catholics 167
Crown requisitions 168
Benedict Calvert, fourth Lord Baltimore, becomes a Protestant
and the palatinate is revived 168, 169
Change in the political situation 170
Charles Carroll entertains a plan for a migration to the
Mississippi Valley 171
How the seeds of revolution were planted in Maryland 171
End of the palatinate 172, 173
CHAPTER XIV.
SOCIETY IN THE OLD DOMINION.
How the history of tobacco has been connected with the history
of liberty 174
Rapid growth of tobacco culture in Virginia 175
Legislative attempts to check it 176
Need for cheap labour 176
Indentured white servants 177
How the notion grew up in England that Virginians were
descended from convicts; Defoe’s novels, a comedy by
Mrs. Behn, Postlethwayt’s Dictionary, and Gentleman’s
Magazine 178-180
Who were the indentured white servants 181
Redemptioners 182
Distribution of convicts 183
Prisoners of war 184
Summary 185
Careers of white freedmen 186
Representative Virginia families were not descended from
white freedmen 187
Some of the freedmen became small proprietors 187
Some became “mean whites” 188, 189
Development of negro slavery; effect of the treaty of
Utrecht 190
Anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia 191
Theory that negroes were non-human 192
Baptizing a slave did not work his emancipation 193
Negroes as real estate 194
Tax on slaves 194
Treatment of slaves 195, 196
Fears of insurrection 196
Cruel laws 197, 198
Free blacks a source of danger 199
Taking slaves to England; did it work their emancipation? 200
Lord Mansfield’s famous decision 201
Jefferson’s opinion of slavery 201
Immoralities incident to the system 202, 203
Classes in Virginia society 204
Huguenots in Virginia 204, 205
Influence of the rivers upon society 206
Some exports and imports 207
Some domestic industries 208
Beverley complains of his countrymen as lazy, but perhaps
his reproachful tone is a little overdone 210
Absence of town life 210, 211
Futile attempts to make towns by legislation 212
The country store and its treasures 213, 214
Rivers and roads 215
Tobacco as currency 216
Effect upon crafts and trades 217
Effect upon planters’ accounts 218
Universal hospitality 219
Visit to a plantation; the negro quarter 220
Other appurtenances 221
The Great House or Home House 222
Brick and wooden houses 222, 223
House architecture 223, 224
The rooms 224
Bedrooms and their furniture 225
The dinner table; napkins and forks 226
Silver plate; wainscots and tapestry 227
The kitchen 228
The abundance of wholesome and delicious food 228, 229
The beverages, native and imported 229, 230
Smyth’s picture of the daily life on a plantation 230, 231
Very different picture given by John Mason; the mode of
life at Gunston Hall 232-234
A glimpse of Mount Vernon 235
Dress of planters and their wives 236
Weddings and funerals 237
Horses and horse-racing 237-239
Fox-hunting 239
Gambling 239, 240
A rural entertainment of the olden time 240, 241
Music and musical instruments 242
The theatre and other recreations 243
Some interesting libraries 243-245
Schools and printing 245, 246
Private free schools 246
Academies and tutors 247
Convicts as tutors 248
Virginians at Oxford 249
James Madison and his tutors 250
Contrast with New England in respect of educational advantages 251
Causes of the difference 252, 253
Illustrations from the history of American intellect 254
Virginia’s historians; Robert Beverley 255
William Stith 255, 256
William Byrd 256-258
Jefferson’s notes on Virginia; McClurg’s Belles of Williamsburg;
Clayton the botanist 259
Physicians, their prescriptions and charges 260
Washington’s last illness 260
Some Virginia parsons, their tricks and manners 261, 263
Free thinking; superstition and crime 264
Cruel punishments 265
Lawyers 266
A government of laws 267
Some characteristics of Maryland 267-269
CHAPTER XV.
THE CAROLINA FRONTIER.
How South Carolina was a frontier against the Spaniards 270
How North Carolina was a wilderness frontier 271
The grant of Carolina to eight lords proprietors 272
John Locke and Lord Shaftesbury 272, 273
“Fundamental Constitutions” of Carolina 274
The Carolina palatinate different from that of Maryland 275
Titles of nobility 276
Albemarle colony 276
New Englanders at Cape Fear 277
Sir John Yeamans and Clarendon colony 277
The Ashley River colony and the founding of Charleston 278
First legislation in Albemarle 279
Troubles caused by the Navigation Act 280
The trade between Massachusetts and North Carolina 281
Eastchurch and Miller 282
Culpeper’s usurpation 283
How Culpeper fared in London 284
How Charleston was moved from Albemarle Point to Oyster
Point 285
Seth Sothel’s tyranny in Albemarle and his banishment 286, 287
Troubles in Ashley River colony 287
The Scotch at Port Royal 288
A state without laws 289
Reappearance of Sothel, this time as the people’s friend 289
His downfall and death 290
Clarendon colony abandoned 290
Philip Ludwell’s administration 290, 291
Joseph Archdale and his beneficent rule 291
Sir Nathaniel Johnson and the dissenters 292
Unsuccessful attempt of a French and Spanish fleet upon
Charleston 293
Thomas Carey 294
Porter’s mission to England 295
Edward Hyde comes to govern North Carolina 296
Carey’s rebellion 296, 297
Expansion of the northern colony; arrival of Baron Graffenried
with Germans and Swiss; founding of New
Berne 297
Accusations against Carey and Porter of inciting the Indians
against the colony 297
These accusations are highly improbable and not well supported 298
Survey of Carolina Indians 298-300
Algonquin tribes 298
Sioux tribes; Iroquois tribes 299
Muscogi tribes 300
Algonquin-Iroquois conspiracy against the North Carolina
settlements 300
Capture of Lawson and Graffenried by the Tuscaroras; Lawson’s
horrible death 301
The massacre of September, 1711 302
Aid from Virginia and South Carolina 302, 303
Barnwell defeats the Tuscaroras 303
Crushing defeat of the Tuscaroras by James Moore; their
migration to New York 304
Administration of Charles Eden 304, 305
Spanish intrigues with the Yamassees 305
Alliance of Indian tribes against the South Carolinians and
nine months’ warfare 306
Administration of Robert Johnson 306
The revolution of 1719 in South Carolina; end of the proprietary
government in both colonies 308
Contrast between the two colonies 308, 309
Interior of North Carolina contrasted with the coast 310, 311
Unkempt life 311
A genre picture by Colonel Byrd 312, 313
Industries of North Carolina 313
Absence of towns 314, 315
A frontier democracy 315
Segregation and dispersal of Virginia poor whites 316
Spotswood’s account of the matter 317
New peopling of North Carolina after 1720; the German
immigration 318
Scotch Highlanders and Scotch-Irish 318, 319
Further dispersal of poor whites 319, 320
Barbarizing effects of isolation 321
The settlers of South Carolina, churchmen and dissenters 323
The open vestries 323
South Carolina parish, purely English in its origin, not
French like the parishes of Louisiana 324
Free schools 325
Rice and indigo 326
Some characteristics of South Carolina slavery 327, 329
Negro insurrection of 1740 329
Cruelties connected with slavery 330
Social life in Charleston 331
Contrast between the two Carolinas 332, 333
The Spanish frontier and the founding of Georgia 333
James Oglethorpe and his philanthropic schemes 334
Beginnings of Georgia 335, 336
Summary; Cavaliers and Puritans once more 337
CHAPTER XVI.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF PIRATES.
The business of piracy has never thriven so greatly as in the
seventeenth century 338
Pompey and the pirates 338
Chinese and Malay pirates on the Indian Ocean and Mussulman
pirates on the Mediterranean Sea 339
The Scandinavian Vikings cannot properly be termed pirates 339, 340
Sir William Blackstone’s remarks about piracy 340
Character of piracy 341
To call the Elizabethan sea-kings pirates is silly and
outrageous 341, 342
Features of maritime warfare out of which piracy could
grow 342, 343
Privateering 343
Fighting without declaring war 344
Lack of protection for neutral ships 344
Origin of buccaneering; “Brethren of the Coast” 345
Illicit traffic in the West Indies 346
Buccaneers and filibusters 347
The kind of people who became buccaneers 348
The honest man who took to buccaneering to satisfy his
creditors 349
The deeds of Olonnois and other wretches 349, 350
Henry Morgan and his evil deeds 350, 351
Alexander Exquemeling and his entertaining book 352
How Morgan captured Maracaibo and Gibraltar in Venezuela 353
The treaty of America of 1670 for the suppression of buccaneering
and piracy 353
Sack of Panama by Morgan and his buccaneers 354
How Morgan absconded with most of the booty 355
How English and Spanish governors industriously scotched
the snake 355
How the chief of pirates became Sir Henry Morgan, deputy-governor
of Jamaica, and hanged his old comrades or
sold them to the Spaniards 356
How the treaty of America caused his downfall 357
Decline of buccaneering 357
Pirates of the South Sea 358, 359
Plunder of Peruvian towns 360
Effects of the alliance between France and Spain in 1701 360
Pirates in the Bahama Islands and on the Carolina coast 361
Effect of the navigation laws in stimulating piracy 362, 363
Effect of rice culture upon the relations between South
Carolina settlers and the pirates 363
Wholesale hanging of pirates at Charleston 364
How pirates swarmed on the North Carolina coast 365
Until Captain Woodes Rogers captured the Island of New
Providence in 1718 365
The North Carolina waters furnished the last lair for the
pirates 365
How Blackbeard, the last of the pirates, levied blackmail
upon Charleston 366, 367
Epidemic character of piracy; cases of Kidd and Bonnet 368
Fate of Bonnet and Blackbeard, and final suppression of
piracy 369
CHAPTER XVII.
FROM TIDEWATER TO THE MOUNTAINS.
Family and early career of Alexander Spotswood 370
He brings the privilege of _habeas corpus_ to Virginia, but
wrangles much with his burgesses 371
His energy and public spirit 372
How the Post-Office Act was resisted by the people 373, 375
Disputes as to power of appointing parsons 376
Beginnings of continental politics in America 376
Beginning of the seventy years’ struggle with France 377
How the continental situation in America was affected by
the war of the Spanish succession 378, 379
Different views of Spotswood and the assembly with regard
to sending aid to Carolina 379, 380
How the royal governors became convinced that the thing
most needed in English America was a continental government
that could impose taxes 381
Franklin’s plan for a federal union 381, 383
It was the failure of the colonies to adopt Franklin’s plan
that led soon afterwards to the Stamp Act 382, 383
How Spotswood regarded the unknown West 383
Attempts to cross the Blue Ridge 384
How the Blue Ridge was crossed by Spotswood 385
Knights of the Golden Horseshoe 386
Spotswood’s plan for communicating between Virginia and
Lake Erie 387, 388
Condition of the postal service in the English colonies under
Spotswood’s administration 389
Brief mention of Governors Gooch and Dinwiddie 390
Importance of the Scotch-Irish migration to America 390, 391
In 1611 James I. began colonizing Ulster with settlers from
Scotland and England 391
In Ulster they established flourishing manufactures of woollens
and linens 392
Which excited the jealousy of rival manufacturers in England 393
Legislation against the Ulster manufacturers 393
Civil disabilities inflicted upon Presbyterians in Ulster 393
These circumstances caused such a migration to America
that by 1770 it amounted to more than half a million
souls 394
Many Scotch-Irish settled in the Shenandoah Valley, and
were closely followed by Germans 395
This Shenandoah population exerted a most powerful democratizing
influence upon the colony 396
Jefferson found in them his most powerful supporters 396
Lord Fairfax’s home at Greenway Court; Fairfax’s affection
for Washington 397
How the surveying of Fairfax’s frontier estates led Washington
on to his public career 398
The advance of Virginians from tidewater to the mountains
brought on the final struggle with France 398, 399
Advance of the French from Lake Erie 399
Washington goes to warn them from encroaching upon
English territory 399
MAPS.
Westward Growth of Old Virginia, _from a sketch by the
author_ _Frontispiece_
North Carolina Precincts in 1729, _after a map in Hawks’s
History of North Carolina_ 276
A Map of y^e most Improved Part of Carolina, _from Winsor’s
America_, vol. v. p. 351 306
OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
CHAPTER X.
THE COMING OF THE CAVALIERS.
[Sidenote: Virginia depicted.]
“These things that follow in this ensuing relation are certified by
divers letters from Virginia, by men of worth and credit there, written
to a friend in England, that for his own and others’ satisfaction was
desirous to know these particulars and the present estate of that
country. And let no man doubt of the truth of it. There be many in
England, land and seamen, that can bear witness of it. And if this
plantation be not worth encouragement, let every true Englishman judge.”
[Sidenote: Animals.]
Such is the beginning of an enthusiastic little pamphlet, of unknown
authorship, published in London in 1649,[1] the year in which Charles
I. perished on the scaffold. It is entitled “A Perfect Description
of Virginia,” and one of its effects, if not its purpose, must have
been to attract immigrants to that colony from the mother country.
In Virginia “there is nothing wanting” to make people happy; there
are “plenty, health, and wealth.” Of English about 15,000 are settled
there, with 300 negro servants. Of kine, oxen, bulls, and calves, there
are 20,000, and there is plenty of good butter and cheese. There are
200 horses, 50 asses, 3,000 sheep with good wool, 5,000 goats, and
swine and poultry innumerable. Besides these European animals, there
are many deer, with “rackoons, as good meat as lamb,” and “passonnes”
[opossums], otters and beavers, foxes and dogs that “bark not.” In the
waters are “above thirty sorts” of fish “very excellent good in their
kinds.” The wild turkey sometimes weighs sixty pounds, and besides
partridges, ducks, geese, and pigeons, the woods abound in sweet
songsters and “most rare coloured parraketoes, and [we have] one bird
we call the mock-bird; for he will imitate all other birds’ notes and
cries, both day and night birds, yea, the owls and nightingales.”
[Sidenote: Agriculture.]
The farmers have under cultivation many hundred acres of excellent
wheat; their maize, or “Virginia corn,” yields an increase of 500 for
1, and makes “good bread and furmity” [porridge]; they have barley in
plenty, and six brew-houses which brew strong and well-flavoured beer.
There are fifteen kinds of fruit that for delicacy rival the fruits
of Italy; in the gardens grow potatoes, turnips, carrots, parsnips,
onions, artichokes, asparagus, beans, and better peas than those of
England, with all manner of herbs and “physick flowers.” The tobacco
is everywhere “much vented and esteemed,” but such immense crops are
raised that the price is but three pence a pound. There is also a hope
that indigo, hemp and flax, vines and silk-worms, can be cultivated
with profit, since it is chiefly hands that are wanted. It surely
would be better to grow silk here, where mulberry trees are so plenty,
than to fetch it as we do from Persia and China “with great charge and
expense and hazard,” thereby enriching “heathen and Mahumetans.”
[Sidenote: Northwest passage.]
At the same time they are hoping soon to discover a way to China,
“for Sir Francis Drake was on the back side of Virginia in his voyage
about the world in 37 degrees ... and now all the question is only
how broad the land may be to that place [_i. e._ California] from the
head of James River above the falls.” By prosecuting discovery in
this direction “the planters in Virginia shall gain the rich trade of
the East India, and so cause it to be driven through the continent of
Virginia, part by land and part by water, and in a most gainful way and
safe, and far less expenseful and dangerous, than now it is.”
[Sidenote: Commercial rivals.]
It behooves the English, says our pamphlet, to be more vigilant, and
to pay more heed to their colonies; for behold, “the Swedes have come
and crept into a river called Delawar, that is within the limits of
Virginia,” and they are driving “a great and secret trade of furs.”
Moreover, “the Hollanders have stolen into a river called Hudson’s
River, in the limits also of Virginia, ... they have built a strong
fort ... and drive a trade of fur there with the natives for above
£10,000 a year. These two plantations are ... on our side of Cape Cod
which parts us and New England. Thus are the English nosed in all
places, and out-traded by the Dutch. They would not suffer the English
to use them so; but they have vigilant statesmen, and advance all they
can for a common good, and will not spare any encouragements to their
people to discover.”
[Sidenote: New England.]
[Sidenote: Health of body and soul.]
“Concerning New England,” which is but four days’ sail from Virginia,
a trade goes to and fro; but except for the fishing, “there is not
much in that land,” which in respect of frost and snow is as Scotland
compared with England, and so barren withal that, “except a herring
be put into the hole that you set the corn or maize in, it will not
come up.” What a pity that the New England people, “being now about
20,000, did not seat themselves at first to the south of Virginia, in a
warm and rich country, where their industry would have produced sugar,
indigo, ginger, cotton, and the like commodities!” But here in Virginia
the land “produceth, with very great increase, whatsoever is committed
into the bowels of it; ... a fat rich soil everywhere watered with many
fine springs, small rivulets, and wholesome waters.” As to healthiness,
fewer people die in a year proportionately than in England; “since that
men are provided with all necessaries, have plenty of victual, bread,
and good beer, ... all which the Englishman loves full dearly.” Nor is
their spiritual welfare neglected, for there are twenty churches, with
“doctrine and orders after the church of England;” and “the ministers’
livings are esteemed worth at least £100 per annum; they are paid by
each planter so much tobacco per poll, and so many bushels of corn;
they live all in peace and love.”
[Sidenote: Schools.]
[Sidenote: Captain Mathews and his household.]
“I may not forget to tell you we have a free school, with 200 acres of
land, a fine house upon it, 40 milch kine, and other accommodations;
the benefactor deserves perpetual memory; his name, Mr. Benjamin Symes,
worthy to be chronicled; other petty schools also we have.” Various
details of orchards and vineyards, of Mr. Kinsman’s pure perry and Mr.
Pelton’s strong metheglin, entertain us; and a pleasant tribute is
paid to “worthy Captain Mathews,” the same who fourteen years before
had assisted at the thrusting out of Sir John Harvey. “He hath a fine
house, and all things answerable to it; he sows yearly store of hemp
and flax, and causes it to be spun; he keeps weavers, and hath a tan
house, causes leather to be dressed, hath eight shoemakers employed in
their trade, hath forty negro servants, brings them up to trades in
his house; he yearly sows abundance of wheat, barley, &c., the wheat
he selleth at four shillings the bushel, kills store of beeves, and
sells them to victual the ships when they come thither; hath abundance
of kine, a brave dairy, swine great store, and poultry; he married the
daughter of Sir Thomas Hinton, and, in a word, keeps a good house,
lives bravely, and a true lover of Virginia; he is worthy of much
honour.”
[Sidenote: Rapid growth of population.]
It will be observed that Captain Mathews possessed, in his forty black
servants, nearly one seventh part of the negro population. Of the
conditions under which wholesale negro slavery grew up, I shall treat
hereafter. In the third quarter of the seventeenth century it was still
in its beginnings. Between 1650 and 1670, along with an extraordinary
growth in the total population, we observe a marked increase in the
number of black slaves. In the latter year Berkeley estimated the
population at 32,000 free whites, 6,000 indentured white servants, and
2,000 negroes. Large estates, cultivated by wholesale slave labour,
were coming into existence, and a peculiar type of aristocratic or in
some respects patriarchal society was growing up in Virginia. It was
still for the most part confined to the peninsula between the James
and York rivers and the territory to the south of the former, from
Nansemond as far as the Appomattox, although in Gloucester likewise
there was a considerable population, and there were settlements
in Middlesex and Lancaster counties, on opposite banks of the
Rappahannock, and even as far as Northumberland and Westmoreland on the
Potomac. In the course of the disputes over Kent Island, settlements
began upon those shores and increased apace.
[Sidenote: Names of Virginia counties.]
Some significant history is fossilized in the names of Virginia
counties. When they are not the old shire names imported from England,
like those just mentioned, they are apt to be personal names indicating
the times when the counties were first settled, or when they acquired
a distinct existence as counties. For a long time such personal names
were chiefly taken from the royal household. Thus, while Charles
City County bears the name of Charles I., bestowed upon the region
before that king ascended the throne, the portion of it south of
James River, set off in 1702 as Prince George County, was named for
George of Denmark, consort of Queen Anne. So King William County on
the south bank of the Mattapony, and King and Queen County on its
north bank, carry us straight to the times of William and Mary, and
indicate the position of the frontier in the days of Charles II.;
while to the west of them the names of Hanover and the two Hanoverian
princesses, Caroline and Louisa, carry us on to the days of the first
two Georges.[2] At the time with which our narrative is now concerned,
all that region to the south of Spottsylvania was unbroken wilderness.
In 1670 a careful estimate was made of the number of Indians comprised
within the immediate neighbourhood of the colony, and there were
counted up 725 warriors, of whom more than 400 were on the Appomattox
and Pamunkey frontiers, and nearly 200 between the Potomac and
Rappahannock.
[Sidenote: Scarcity of royalist names on the map of New England.]
The map of Virginia, in the light in which I have here considered it,
shows one remarkable point of contrast with the map of New England. On
the coast of the latter one finds a very few names commemorative of
royalty, such as Charles River, named by Captain John Smith, Cape Anne,
named by Charles I. when Prince of Wales, and the Elizabeth Islands,
named by Captain Gosnold still earlier and in the lifetime of the great
Queen. But when it comes to names given by the settlers themselves, one
cannot find in all New England a county name taken from any English
sovereign or prince, except Dukes for the island of Martha’s Vineyard,
and that simply recalls the fact that the island once formed a part of
the proprietary domain of James, Duke of York, and sent a delegate to
the first legislature that assembled at Manhattan. Except for this one
instance, we should never know from the county names of New England
that such a thing as kingship had ever existed. As for names of towns,
there is in Massachusetts a Lunenburg, which is said to have received
its name at the suggestion of a party of travellers from England in the
year 1726;[3] it was afterward copied in Vermont; and by diligently
searching the map of New England we may find half a dozen Hanovers and
Brunswicks, counting originals and copies. Between this showing and
that of Virginia, where the sequence of royal names is full enough to
preserve a rude record of the country’s expansion, the contrast is
surely striking. The difference between the Puritan temper and that of
the Cavaliers seems to be written ineffaceably upon the map.
[Sidenote: The Cavaliers in Virginia: some popular misconceptions.]
[Sidenote: Some democratic protests.]
We are thus brought to the question as to how far the Cavalier element
predominated in the composition of Old Virginia. It is a subject
concerning which current general statements are apt to be loose and
misleading. It has given rise to much discussion, and, like a good
deal of what passes for historical discussion, it has too often been
conducted under the influence of personal or sectional prejudices.
Half a century ago, in the days when the people of the slave states
and those of the free states found it difficult to think justly or
to speak kindly of one another, one used often to hear sweeping
generalizations. On the one hand, it was said that Southerners were
the descendants of Cavaliers, and therefore presumably of gentle
blood, while Northerners were descendants of Roundheads, and therefore
presumably of ignoble origin. Some such notion may have prompted the
famous remark of Robert Toombs, in 1860: “We [_i. e._ the Southerners]
are the gentlemen of this country.” On the other hand, it was retorted
that the people of the South were in great part descended from
indentured white servants sent from the jails and slums of England.[4]
This point will receive due attention in a future chapter. At present
we may note that descent from Cavaliers has not always been a matter
of pride with Southern speakers and writers. There was a time when the
fierce spirit of democracy was inclined to regard such a connection
as a stigma. The father of President Tyler “used to say that he cared
naught for any other ancestor than Wat Tyler the blacksmith, who had
asserted the rights of oppressed humanity, and that he would have no
other device on his shield than a sledge hammer raised in the act
of striking.”[5] On the subject of Cavaliers a well known Virginian
writer, Hugh Blair Grigsby, once grew very warm. “The Cavalier,” said
he, “was essentially a slave, a compound slave, a slave to the King
and a slave to the Church. I look with contempt on the miserable
figment which seeks to trace the distinguishing points of the Virginia
character to the influence of those butterflies of the British
aristocracy.”[6] Historical questions are often treated in this way.
We grow up with a vague conception of something in the past which
we feel in duty bound to condemn, and then if we are told that our
own forefathers were part and parcel of the hated thing we lose our
tempers. Mr. Grigsby’s remarks are an expression of American feeling
in what may be called its Elijah Pogram period, when the knowledge of
history was too slender and the historic sense too dull to be shocked
at the incongruity of classing such men as Strafford and Falkland with
“butterflies.” The study of history in such a mood is not likely to be
fruitful of much beside rhetoric.
[Sidenote: Sweeping statements are inadmissible.]
Before we proceed, a few further words are desirable concerning the
fallacies and misconceptions which abound in the opinions cited in
the foregoing paragraph. It is impossible to make any generalization
concerning the origin of the white people of the South as a whole, or
of the North as a whole, further than to say that their ancestors came
from Europe, and a large majority of them from the British islands. The
facts are too complicated to be embraced in any generalization more
definitely limited than this. When sweeping statements are made about
“the North” and “the South,” it is often apparent that the speaker
has in mind only Massachusetts and tidewater Virginia, making these
parts do duty for the whole. The present book will make it clear that
it is only in connection with tidewater Virginia that the migration of
Cavaliers from England to America has any historical significance.
[Sidenote: Difference between Cavaliers and Roundheads was political,
not social.]
It is a mistake to suppose that the contrast between Cavaliers
and Roundheads was in any wise parallel with the contrast between
high-born people and low-born. A majority of the landed gentry, titled
and untitled, supported Charles I., while the chief strength of the
Parliament lay in the smaller landholders and in the merchants of the
cities. But the Roundheads also included a large and powerful minority
of the landed aristocracy, headed by the Earls of Bedford, Warwick,
Manchester, Northumberland, Stamford, and Essex, the Lords Fairfax and
Brooke, and many others. The leaders of the party, Pym and Hampden,
Vane and Cromwell, were of gentle blood; and among the officers of the
New Model were such as Montagues, Pickerings, Fortescues, Sheffields,
and Sidneys. In short, the distinction between Cavalier and Roundhead
was no more a difference in respect of lineage or social rank than the
analogous distinction between Tory and Whig. The mere fact of a man’s
having belonged to the one party or the other raises no presumption as
to his “gentility.”
[Sidenote: England has never had a _noblesse_, or upper caste.]
[Sidenote: Contrast with France.]
[Sidenote: Importance of the middle class.]
It is worth while here to correct another error which is quite commonly
entertained in the United States. It is the error of supposing that
in Great Britain there are distinct orders of society, or that there
exists anything like a sharp and well defined line between the nobility
and the commonalty. The American reader is apt to imagine a “peerage,”
the members of which have from time immemorial constituted a kind of
caste clearly marked off from the great body of the people, and into
which it has always been very difficult for plain people to rise.
In this crude conception the social differences between England and
America are greatly exaggerated. In point of fact the British islands
are the one part of Europe where the existence of a peerage has not
resulted in creating a distinct upper class of society. The difference
will be most clearly explained by contrasting England with France.
In the latter country, before the Revolution of 1789, there was a
peerage consisting of great landholders, local rulers and magistrates,
and dignitaries of the church, just as in England. But in France
all the sons and brothers of a peer were nobles distinguished by a
title and reckoned among the peerage, and all were exempt from sundry
important political duties, including the payment of taxes. Thus they
constituted a real _noblesse_, or caste apart from the people, until
the Revolution at a single blow destroyed all their privileges. At
the present day French titles of nobility are merely courtesy titles,
and through excessive multiplication have become cheap. On the other
hand, in England, the families of peers have never been exempt from
their share of the public burdens. The “peerage,” or hereditary right
to sit in the House of Lords, belongs only to the head of the family;
all the other members of the family are commoners, though some may be
addressed by courtesy titles. During the formative period of modern
political society, from the fourteenth century onward, the sons of
peers habitually competed for seats in the House of Commons, side by
side with merchants and yeomen. This has prevented anything like a
severance between the interests of the higher and of the lower classes
in England, and has had much to do with the peaceful and healthy
political development which has so eminently characterized our mother
country. England has never had a _noblesse_. As the upper class has
never been sharply distinguished politically, so it has not held
itself separate socially. Families with titles have intermarried with
families that have none, the younger branches of a peer’s family become
untitled gentry, ancient peerages lapse while new ones are created, so
that there is a “circulation of gentle blood” that has thus far proved
eminently wholesome. More than two thirds of the present House of
Lords are the grandsons or great-grandsons of commoners. Of the 450 or
more hereditary peerages now existing, three date from the thirteenth
century and four from the fourteenth; of those existing in the days
of Thomas Becket not one now remains in the same family. It has
always been easy in England for ability and character to raise their
possessor in the social scale; and hence the middle class has long
been recognized as the abiding element in England’s strength. Voltaire
once compared the English people to their ale,--froth at the top and
dregs at the bottom, but sound and bright and strong in the middle. As
to the last he was surely right.
[Sidenote: Respect paid to industry in England.]
One further point calls for mention. In mediæval and early modern
England, great respect was paid to incorporated crafts and trades.
The influence and authority wielded by county magnates over the rural
population was paralleled by the power exercised in the cities by the
livery companies or guilds. Since the twelfth century, the municipal
franchise in the principal towns and cities of Great Britain has been
for the most part controlled by the various trade and craft guilds. In
the seventeenth century, when the migrations to America were beginning,
it was customary for members of noble families to enter these guilds as
apprentices in the crafts of the draper, the tailor, the vintner, or
the mason, etc. Many important consequences have flowed from this. Let
it suffice here to note that this fact of the rural aristocracy keeping
in touch with the tradesmen and artisans has been one of the safeguards
of English liberty; it has been one source of the power of the Commons,
one check upon the undue aspirations of the Crown. It indicates a kind
of public sentiment very different from that which afterward grew
up in our southern states under the malignant influence of slavery,
which proclaimed an antagonism between industry and gentility that is
contrary to the whole spirit of English civilization.
[Sidenote: The Cavalier exodus.]
With these points clear in our minds, we may understand the true
significance of the arrival of the Cavaliers in Virginia. The date
to be remembered in connection with that event is 1649, and it is
instructive to compare it with the exodus of Puritans to New England.
The little settlement of the Mayflower Pilgrims was merely a herald of
the great Puritan exodus, which really began in 1629, when Charles I.
entered upon his period of eleven years of rule without a parliament,
and continued until about 1642, when the Civil War broke out. During
those thirteen years more than 20,000 Puritans came to New England.
The great Cavalier exodus began with the king’s execution in 1649, and
probably slackened after 1660. It must have been a chief cause of the
remarkable increase of the white population of Virginia from 15,000 in
1649 to 38,000 in 1670.
[Sidenote: Political complexion of Virginia before 1649.]
[Sidenote: The great exchange of 1649.]
The period of the Commonwealth in England thus marks an important
epoch in Virginia, and we must be on our guard against confusing what
came after with what preceded it. As to the political complexion of
Virginia in the earliest time, it would be difficult to make a general
statement, except that there was a widespread feeling in favour of
the Company as managed by Sandys and Southampton. This meant that the
settlers knew when they were well governed. They did not approve of
a party that sent an Argall to fleece them, even though it were the
court party. So, too, in the thrusting out of Sir John Harvey in 1635
we see the temper of the councillors and burgesses flatly opposed to
the king’s unpopular representative. But such instances do not tell us
much concerning the attitude of the colonists upon questions of English
politics. The fortunes of the Puritan settlers in Virginia afford a
surer indication. At first, as we have seen, when the Puritans as a
body had not yet separated from the Church, there were a good many in
Virginia; and by 1640 they probably formed about seven per cent. of
the population. The legislation against them beginning in 1631 seems
to indicate that public sentiment in Virginia favoured the policy of
Laud; while the slackness with which such legislation was enforced
raises a suspicion that such sentiment was at first not very strong.
It seems probable that as the country party in England came more and
more completely under the control of Puritanism, and as Puritanism
grew more and more radical in temper, the reaction toward the royalist
side grew more and more pronounced in Virginia. If there ever was a
typical Cavalier of the more narrow-minded sort, it was Sir William
Berkeley, who at the same time was by no means the sort of person that
one might properly call a “butterfly.” If the eloquent Mr. Grigsby had
once got into those iron clutches, he would have sought some other term
of comparison. When Berkeley arrived in Virginia, and for a long time
afterward, he was extremely popular. We have seen him acting with so
much energy against the Puritans that in the course of the year 1649
not less than 1,000 of them left the colony. Upon the news of the
king’s death, Berkeley sent a message to England inviting royalists to
come to Virginia, and within a twelvemonth perhaps as many as 1,000
had arrived, picked men and women of excellent sort. Thus it curiously
happened that the same moment which saw Virginia lose most of her
Puritan population, also saw it replaced by an equal number of devoted
Cavaliers.
[Sidenote: Moderation shown in Virginia.]
From this moment we may date the beginnings of Cavalier ascendency
in Virginia. But for the next ten years that growing ascendency was
qualified by the necessity of submitting to the Puritan government in
England. In 1652 Berkeley was obliged to retire from the governorship,
and the king’s men in Virginia found it prudent to put some restraint
upon the expression of their feelings. But in this change, as we
have seen, there was no violence. It is probable that there was a
considerable body of colonists “comparatively indifferent to the
struggle of parties in England, anxious only to save Virginia from
spoliation and bloodshed, and for that end willing to throw in their
lot with the side whose success held out the speediest hopes of peace.
There is another consideration which helps to explain the moderation
of the combatants. In England each party was exasperated by grievous
wrongs, and hence its hour of triumph was also its hour of revenge. The
struggle in Virginia was embittered by no such recollections.”[7]
[Sidenote: Colonel Richard Lee.]
[Sidenote: Election of Berkeley by the assembly.]
A name inseparably associated with Berkeley is that of Colonel Richard
Lee, who is described as “a man of good stature, comely visage, an
enterprising genius, a sound head, vigorous spirit, and generous
nature,”[8] qualities that may be recognized in many of his famous
descendants. This Richard Lee belonged to an ancient family, the Lees
of Coton Hall, in Shropshire, whom we find from the beginning of
the thirteenth century in positions of honour and trust. He came to
Virginia about 1642, and obtained that year an estate which he called
Paradise, near the head of Poropotank Creek, on the York River. He
was from the first a man of much importance in the colony, serving
as justice, burgess, councillor, and secretary of state. In 1654 we
find him described as “faithful and useful to the interests of the
Commonwealth,” but, as Dr. Edmund Lee says, “it is only fair to observe
that this claim was made for him by a friend in his absence;”[9] or
perhaps it only means that he was not one of the tribe of fanatics who
love to kick against the pricks.[10] Certain it is that Colonel Lee was
no Puritan, though doubtless he submitted loyally to the arrangement
of 1652, as so many others did. There was nothing for the king’s men
to do but possess their souls in quiet until 1659, when news came of
the resignation of Richard Cromwell. “Worthy Captain Mathews,” whom the
assembly had chosen governor, died about the same time. Accordingly,
in March, 1660, the assembly resolved that, since there was then in
England no resident sovereign generally recognized, the supreme power
in Virginia must be regarded as lodged in the assembly, and that all
writs should issue in the name of the Grand Assembly of Virginia until
such a command should come from England as the assembly should judge
to be lawful. Having passed this resolution, the assembly showed its
political complexion by electing Sir William Berkeley for governor:
and in the same breath it revealed its independent spirit by providing
that he must call an assembly at least once in two years, and oftener
if need be; and that he must not dissolve it without the consent of a
majority of the members. On these terms Berkeley accepted office at the
hands of the assembly.
[Sidenote: Lee’s visit to Brussels.]
[Sidenote: Charles II. proclaimed king.]
Before this transaction, perhaps in 1658, Colonel Lee seems to have
visited Charles II. at Brussels, where he handed over to the still
exiled prince the old commission of Berkeley, and may have obtained
from him a new one for future use, reinstating him as governor.[11]
There is a vague tradition that on this occasion he asked how soon
Charles would be likely to be able to protect the colony in case it
should declare its allegiance to him; and from this source may have
arisen the wild statement, recorded by Beverley and promulgated by the
eminent historian Robertson, that Virginia proclaimed Charles II. as
sovereign a year or two before he was proclaimed in England.[12] The
absurdity of this story was long ago pointed out;[13] but since error
has as many lives as a cat, one may still hear it repeated. Charles II.
was proclaimed king in England on the 8th of May, 1660, and in Virginia
on the 20th of September following.[14] In October the royal commission
for Berkeley arrived, and the governor may thus have felt that the
conditions on which he accepted his office from the assembly were no
longer binding. Our next chapter will show how lightly he held them.
If one may judge from the public accounts of York County in 1660,
expressed in the arithmetic of a tobacco currency, the 20th of
September must have been a joyful occasion:--
Att the proclaiming of his sacred Maisty:
To y^e Ho^{ble} Govn^r p a barrell powd^r, 112 lb. .00996
To Cap^t ffox six cases of drams .00900
To Cap^t ffox for his great gunnes .00500
To M^r Philip Malory .00500
To y^e trumpeters .00800
To M^r Hansford 176 Gallons Syd^r at 15
& 35 gall at 20, caske 264 .03604
There can be no doubt that it was an occasion prolific in legend. The
historian Robert Beverley, who was born about fifteen years afterward,
tells us that Governor Berkeley’s proclamation named Charles II.
as “King of England, Scotland, France, Ireland, and Virginia.” The
document itself, however, calls him “our most gratious soveraigne,
Charles the Second, King of England, Scotland, ffrance, & Ireland,” and
makes no mention of Virginia.
[Sidenote: The seal of Virginia.]
William Lee tells us that it was “in consequence of this step” that
the motto _En dat Virginia quintam_ was placed upon the seal of the
colony.[15] Since “this step” was never taken, the statement needs some
qualification. The idea of of designating Virginia as an additional
kingdom to those over which the English sovereign ruled in Europe was
already entertained in 1590 by Edmund Spenser, who dedicated his “Faëry
Queene” to Elizabeth as queen of “England, France,[16] and Ireland,
and of Virginia.”[17] As early as 1619 the London Company adopted a
coat-of-arms, upon which was the motto _En dat Virginia quintum_, in
which the unexpressed noun is _regnum_; “Behold, Virginia gives the
fifth [kingdom].” After the restoration of Charles II. a new seal for
Virginia, adopted about 1663, has the same motto, the effect of which
was to rank Virginia by the side of his Majesty’s other four dominions,
England, Scotland, “France,” and Ireland. We are told by the younger
Richard Henry Lee that in these circumstances originated the famous
epithet “Old Dominion.” In 1702, among several alterations in the
seal, the word _quintum_ was changed to _quintam_, to agree with the
unexpressed noun _coronam_; “Behold, Virginia gives the fifth [crown].”
After the legislative union of England with Scotland in 1707, another
seal, adopted in 1714, substituted _quartam_ for _quintam_.[18]
[Sidenote: Increase in the size of land grants.]
Just how many members of the royalist party came to Virginia while
their young king was off upon his travels, it would be difficult to
say. But there were unquestionably a great many. We have already
remarked upon the very rapid increase of white population, from about
15,000 in 1649 to 38,000 in 1670. Along with this there was a marked
increase in the size of the land grants, both the average size and the
maximum; and in this coupling of facts there is great significance, for
they show that the increase of population was predominantly an increase
in the numbers of the upper class, of the people who could afford to
have large estates. In these respects the year 1650 marks an abrupt
change,[19] which may best be shown by a tabular view of the figures:--
Largest number of acres Average number of
Years. in a single grant. acres in a grant.
1632 350
1634 5,350 719
1635 2,000 380
1636 2,000 351
1637 5,350 445
1638 3,000 423
1640 1,300 405
1641 872 343
1642 3,000 559
1643 4,000 595
1644 670 370
1645 1,090 333
1646 1,200 360
1647 650 361
1648 1,800 412
1649 3,500 522
1650 5,350 677
1651-55 10,000 591
1656-66 10,000 671
1667-79 20,000 890
1680-89 20,000 607
Another way of showing the facts is still more striking:--
Number of grants exceeding
Years. 5,000 acres.
1632-50 3
1651-55 3
1656-66 20
1667-79 37
1680-89 19
[Sidenote: Cavalier families.]
[Sidenote: Ancestry of George Washington.]
[Sidenote: Value of genealogy.]
The increase in the number of slaves after 1650 is a fact of similar
import with the greater size of the estates. All the circumstances
agree in showing that there was a large influx of eminently well-to-do
people. It is well known, moreover, who these people were. It is in the
reign of Charles II. that the student of Virginian history begins to
meet frequently with the familiar names, such as Randolph, Pendleton,
Madison, Mason, Monroe, Cary, Ludwell, Parke, Robinson, Marshall,
Washington, and so many others that have become eminent. All these
were Cavalier families that came to Virginia after the downfall of
Charles I. Whether President Tyler was right in claiming descent from
the Kentish rebel of 1381 is not clear, but there is no doubt that
his first American ancestor, who came to Virginia after the battle of
Worcester, was a gentleman and a royalist.[20] Until recently there
was some uncertainty as to the pedigree of George Washington, but
the researches of Mr. Fitz Gilbert Waters of Salem have conclusively
proved that he was descended from the Washingtons of Sulgrave, in
Northamptonshire, a family that had for generations worthily occupied
positions of honour and trust. In the Civil War the Washingtons were
distinguished royalists. The commander who surrendered Worcester in
1646 to the famous Edward Whalley was Colonel Henry Washington;[21] and
his cousin John, who came to Virginia in 1657, was great-grandfather
of George Washington. After the fashion that prevailed a hundred years
ago, the most illustrious of Americans felt little interest in his
ancestry; but with the keener historic sense and broader scientific
outlook of the present day, the importance of such matters is better
appreciated. The pedigrees of horses, dogs, and fancy pigeons have
a value that is quotable in terms of hard cash. Far more important,
for the student of human affairs, are the pedigrees of men. By no
possible ingenuity of constitution-making or of legislation can a
society made up of ruffians and boors be raised to the intellectual and
moral level of a society made up of well-bred merchants and yeomen,
parsons and lawyers. One might as well expect to see a dray horse
win the Derby. It is, moreover, only when we habitually bear in mind
the threads of individual relationship that connect one country with
another, that we get a really firm and concrete grasp of history.
Without genealogy the study of history is comparatively lifeless. No
excuse is needed, therefore, for giving in this connection a tabulated
abridgment of the discoveries of Mr. Waters concerning the forefathers
of George Washington.[22] Beside the personal interest attaching to
everything associated with that immortal name, this pedigree has
interest and value as being in large measure typical. It is a fair
sample of good English middle-class pedigrees, and it is typical as
regards the ancestry of leading Cavalier families in Virginia; an
inspection of many genealogies of those who came between 1649 and 1670
yields about the same general impression. Moreover, this pedigree is
equally typical as regards the ancestry of leading Puritan families
in New England. The genealogies, for example, of Winthrop, Dudley,
Saltonstall, Chauncey, or Baldwin give the same general impression as
those of Randolph, or Cary, or Cabell, or Lee. The settlers of Virginia
and of New England were opposed to each other in politics, but they
belonged to one and the same stratum of society, and in their personal
characteristics they were of the same excellent quality. To quote
the lines of Sir William Jones, written as a paraphrase of the Greek
epigram of Alcæus inscribed upon my title-page:--
ARMS.--_Argent, two bars and in chief three mullets Gules._
John Washington,
of Whitfield, Lancashire, time of Henry VI.
|
|
Robert Washington,
of Warton, Lancashire, 2d son.
|
|
John Washington,
of Warton, m. Margaret Kitson, sister of Sir Thomas Kitson,
alderman of London.
|
|
Lawrence Washington,
of Gray’s Inn, mayor of Northampton, obtained grant of
Sulgrave Manor, 1539, d. 1584; m. Anne Pargiter, of Gretworth.
|
+--------------------+---------------------------------+
| |
Robert Washington, Lawrence Washington,
of Sulgrave, b. 1544; of Gray’s Inn,
m. Elizabeth Light. register of High
| Court of Chancery,
| d. 1619.
| |
| |
Lawrence Washington, Sir Lawrence Washington,
of Sulgrave and Brington, register of High Court of
d. 1616; m. Margaret Butler. Chancery, d. 1643.
| |
+--------+-----+--------------+ |
| | | |
Sir William Sir John Rev. Lawrence Lawrence Washington,
Washington, Washington, Washington, d. 1662; m. Eleanor Gyse.
d. 1643; m. Anne d. 1678. M. A., Fellow |
Villiers, of Brasenose |
half-sister of College, Oxford, |
George Villiers, Rector of Purleigh, |
Duke of d. before 1655. |
Buckingham. | |
| | |
| +-----------------+ |
| | | |
Henry Washington, John Lawrence Washington, Elizabeth Washington,
colonel in the Washington, b.1635, came to heiress, d. 1693;
royalist army, b. 1631, Virginia, 1657. m. Earl Ferrers.
governor of d. 1677;
Worcester, came to
d. 1664. Virginia,
1657; m.
Anne Pope.
|
Lawrence Washington,
d. 1697; m. Mildred, dau. of Augustine Warner.
|
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Augustine Washington,
b. 1694, d. 1749; m. Mary Ball.
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GEORGE WASHINGTON,
b. 1732, d. 1799.
_First President of the United States._
“What constitutes a State?
Not high-raised battlement or laboured mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starred and spangled courts
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.
No:--MEN, high-minded MEN,
* * * * *
“Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain,
Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain:
These constitute a State.”[23]
Such men were the Cavaliers of Virginia and the Puritans of New England.
[Sidenote: Importance of the Cavalier element in Virginia.]
There can be little doubt that these Cavaliers were the men who
made the greatness of Virginia. To them it is due that her history
represents ideas and enshrines events which mankind will always find
interesting. It is apt to be the case that men who leave their country
for reasons connected with conscience and principle, men who have once
consecrated themselves to a cause, are picked men for ability and
character. Such men are likely to exert upon any community which they
may enter an influence immeasurably greater than an equal number of men
taken at random. It matters little what side they may have espoused.
Very few of the causes for which brave men have fought one another have
been wholly right or wholly wrong. Our politics may be those of Samuel
Adams, but we must admit that the Thomas Hutchinson type of mind and
character is one which society could ill afford to lose. Of the gallant
Cavaliers who drew the sword for King Charles, there were many who no
more approved of his crooked methods and despotic aims than Hutchinson
approved of the Stamp Act. No better illustration could be found than
Lord Falkland, some of whose kinsmen emigrated to Virginia and played a
conspicuous part there. A proper combination of circumstances was all
that was required to bring the children of these royalists into active
political alliance with the children of the Cromwellians.
[Sidenote: Differences between New England and Virginia.]
Both in Virginia and in New England, then, the principal element of
the migration consisted of picked men and women of the same station in
life, and differing only in their views of civil and ecclesiastical
polity. The differences that grew up between the relatively
aristocratic type of society in Virginia and the relatively democratic
type in New England were due not at all to differences in the social
quality of the settlers, but in some degree to their differences in
church politics, and in a far greater degree to the different economic
circumstances of Virginia and New England. It is worth our while to
point out some of these contrasts and to indicate their effect upon the
local government, the nature of which, perhaps more than anything else,
determines the character of the community as aristocratic or democratic.
[Sidenote: Settlement of New England by congregations.]
That extreme Puritan theory of ecclesiastical polity, according to
which each congregation was to be a little self-governing republic,
had much to do with the way in which New England was colonized. The
settlers came in congregations, led by their favourite ministers,--such
men, for example, as Higginson and Cotton, Hooker and Davenport. When
such men, famous in England for their bold preaching and imperilled
thereby, decided to move to America, a considerable number of their
parishioners would decide to accompany them, and similarly minded
members of neighbouring churches would leave their own pastor and join
in the migration. Such a group of people, arriving on the coast of
Massachusetts, would naturally select some convenient locality, where
they might build their houses near together and all go to the same
church.
[Sidenote: Land grants in Massachusetts.]
This migration, therefore, was a movement, not of individuals or of
separate families, but of church-congregations, and it continued to
be so as the settlers made their way inland and westward. The first
river towns of Connecticut were thus founded by congregations coming
from Dorchester, Cambridge, and Watertown. This kind of settlement
was favoured by the government of Massachusetts, which made grants of
land, not to individuals but to companies of people who wished to live
together and attend the same church.
[Sidenote: Small farms.]
It was also favoured by economic circumstances. The soil of New England
was not favourable to the cultivation of great quantities of staple
articles, such as rice or tobacco, so that there was nothing to tempt
people to undertake extensive plantations. Most of the people lived
on small farms, each family raising but little more than enough food
for its own support; and the small size of the farms made it possible
to have a good many in a compact neighbourhood. It appeared also that
towns could be more easily defended against the Indians than scattered
plantations; and this doubtless helped to keep people together,
although if there had been any strong inducement for solitary pioneers
to plunge into the great woods, as in later years so often happened at
the West, it is not likely that any dread of the savages would have
hindered them.
[Sidenote: Township and village.]
Thus the early settlers of New England came to live in townships. A
township would consist of about as many farms as could be disposed
within convenient distance from the meeting-house, where all the
inhabitants, young and old, gathered every Sunday, coming on horseback
or afoot. The meeting-house was thus centrally situated, and near
it was the town pasture or “common,” with the school-house and the
blockhouse, or rude fortress for defence against the Indians. For the
latter building some commanding position was apt to be selected, and
hence we so often find the old village streets of New England running
along elevated ridges or climbing over beetling hilltops. Around the
meeting-house and common the dwellings gradually clustered into a
village, and after a while the tavern, store, and town-house made their
appearance.
[Sidenote: Social position of settlers in New England.]
Among the people who thus tilled the farms and built up the villages of
New England, the differences in what we should call social position,
though noticeable, were not extreme. While in England some had been
esquires or country magistrates, or “lords of the manor,”--a phrase
which does not mean a member of the peerage, but a landed proprietor
with dependent tenants,--some had been yeomen, or persons holding farms
by some free kind of tenure; some had been artisans or tradesmen in
cities. All had for many generations been more or less accustomed to
self-government and to public meetings for discussing local affairs.
That self-government, especially as far as church matters were
concerned, they were stoutly bent upon maintaining and extending.
Indeed, that was what they had crossed the ocean for. Under these
circumstances they developed a kind of government which has remained
practically unchanged down to the present day. In the town meeting the
government is the entire adult male population. Its merits, from a
genuine democratic point of view, have long been recognized, but in
these days of rampant political quackery they are worth recalling to
mind, even at the cost of a brief digression.
[Sidenote: Some merits of the town meeting.]
[Sidenote: The “magic fund” delusion.]
Within its proper sphere, government by town meeting is the form
of government most effectively under watch and control. Everything
is done in the full daylight of publicity. The specific objects
for which public money is to be appropriated are discussed in the
presence of everybody, and any one who disapproves of any of these
objects, or of the way in which it is proposed to obtain it, has an
opportunity to declare his opinions. Under this form of government
people are not so liable to bewildering delusions as under other
forms. I refer especially to the delusion that “the Government” is a
sort of mysterious power, possessed of a magic inexhaustible fund of
wealth, and able to do all manner of things for the benefit of “the
People.” Some such notion as this, more often implied than expressed,
is very common, and it is inexpressibly dear to demagogues. It is
the prolific root from which springs that luxuriant crop of humbug
upon which political tricksters thrive as pigs fatten upon corn. In
point of fact no such government, armed with a magic fund of its own,
has ever existed upon the earth. No government has ever yet used any
money for public purposes which it did not first take from its own
people,--unless when it may have plundered it from some other people in
victorious warfare.
The inhabitant of a New England town is perpetually reminded that
“the Government” is “the People.” Although he may think loosely about
the government of his state or the still more remote government at
Washington, he is kept pretty close to the facts where local affairs
are concerned, and in this there is a political training of no small
value.
[Sidenote: Educational value of the town meeting.]
In the kind of discussion which it provokes, in the necessity of facing
argument with argument and of keeping one’s temper under control, the
town meeting is the best political training school in existence. Its
educational value is far higher than that of the newspaper, which, in
spite of its many merits as a diffuser of information, is very apt
to do its best to bemuddle and sophisticate plain facts. The period
when town meetings were most important from the wide scope of their
transactions was the period of earnest and sometimes stormy discussion
that ushered in our Revolutionary War. In those days great principles
of government were discussed with a wealth of knowledge and stated with
masterly skill in town meeting.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Primogeniture and entail in Virginia.]
In Virginia the economic circumstances were very different from those
of New England, and the effects were seen in a different kind of local
institutions. In New England the system of small holdings facilitated
the change from primogeniture to the Kentish custom of gavelkind,
with which many of the settlers were already familiar, in which the
property of an intestate is equally divided among the children.[24] In
Virginia, on the other hand, the large estates, cultivated by servile
labour, were kept together by the combined customs of primogeniture and
entail, which lasted until they were overthrown by Thomas Jefferson in
1776. In this circumstance, more than in anything else, originated the
more aristocratic features in the local institutions of Virginia. To
this should be added the facts that before the eighteenth century there
was a large servile class of whites, to which there was nothing even
remotely analogous in New England; and that the introduction of negro
slavery, which was beginning to assume noticeable dimensions about
1670, served to affix a stigma upon manual labour.
[Sidenote: Virginia parishes.]
[Sidenote: The vestry a close corporation.]
In view of this group of circumstances we need not wonder that in Old
Virginia there were no town meetings. The distances between plantations
coöperated with the distinction between classes to prevent the growth
of such an institution. The English parish, with its churchwardens and
vestry and clerk, was reproduced in Virginia under the same name, but
with some noteworthy peculiarities. If the whole body of ratepayers had
assembled in vestry meeting, to enact by-laws and assess taxes, the
course of development would have been like that of the New England town
meeting. But instead of this the vestry, which exercised the chief
authority in the parish, was composed of twelve chosen men. This was
not government by a primary assembly, it was representative government.
At first the twelve vestrymen were elected by the people of the parish,
and thus resembled the selectmen of New England; but in 1662 “they
obtained the power of filling vacancies in their own number,” so that
they became what is called a “close corporation,” and the people had
nothing to do with choosing them. Strictly speaking, that was not
representative government; it was a step on the road that leads towards
oligarchical or despotic government. It was, as we shall see, one of
the steps ineffectually opposed in Bacon’s rebellion.
[Sidenote: Powers of the vestry.]
It was the vestry, thus constituted, that apportioned the parish taxes,
appointed the churchwardens, presented the minister for induction into
office, and acted as overseers of the poor. The minister presided in
all vestry meetings. His salary was paid in tobacco, and in 1696 it
was fixed by law at 16,000 pounds of tobacco yearly. In many parishes
the churchwardens were the collectors of the parish taxes. The other
officers, such as the sexton and the parish clerk, were appointed
either by the minister or by the vestry.
With the local government thus administered, we see that the larger
part of the people had little directly to do. Nevertheless, in those
small neighbourhoods government could be kept in full sight of the
people, and so long as its proceedings went on in broad daylight and
were sustained by public sentiment, all was well. As Jefferson said,
“The vestrymen are usually the most discreet farmers, so distributed
through the parish that every part of it may be under the immediate
eye of some one of them. They are well acquainted with the details
and economy of private life, and they find sufficient inducements to
execute their charge well, in their philanthropy, in the approbation of
their neighbours, and the distinction which that gives them.”[25]
[Sidenote: The county was the unit of representation.]
The difference, however, between the New England township and the
Virginia parish, in respect of self-government, was striking enough. We
have now to note a further difference. In New England, the township was
the unit of representation in the colonial legislature; but in Virginia
the parish was not the unit of representation. The county was that
unit. In the colonial legislature of Virginia the representatives sat,
not for parishes but for counties. The difference is very significant.
As the political life of New England was in a manner built up out of
the political life of the towns, so the political life of Virginia was
built up out of the political life of the counties. This was partly
because the vast plantations were not grouped about a compact village
nucleus like the small farms at the North, and partly because there was
not in Virginia that Puritan theory of the church according to which
each congregation is a self-governing democracy. The conditions which
made the New England town meeting were absent. The only alternative
was some kind of representative government, and for this the county
was a small enough area. The county in Virginia was much smaller
than in Massachusetts or Connecticut. In a few instances the county
consisted of only a single parish; in some cases it was divided into
two parishes, but oftener into three or more.
[Sidenote: The county court was virtually a close corporation.]
In Virginia, as in England and in New England, the county was an area
for the administration of justice. There were usually in each county
eight justices of the peace, and their court was the counterpart of the
quarter sessions in England. They were appointed by the governor, but
it was customary for them to nominate candidates for the governor to
appoint, so that practically the court filled its own vacancies and was
a close corporation, like the parish vestry. Such an arrangement tended
to keep the general supervision and control of things in the hands of
a few families.
[Sidenote: The county seat or Court House.]
This county court usually met as often as once a month in some
convenient spot answering to the shire town of England or New England.
More often than not, the place originally consisted of the court-house
and very little else, and was named accordingly from the name of
the county, as Hanover Court House or Fairfax Court House; and the
small shire towns that have grown up in such spots often retain these
names to the present day. Such names occur commonly in Virginia, West
Virginia, and South Carolina, and occasionally elsewhere. Their number
has diminished from the tendency to omit the phrase “Court House,”
leaving the name of the county for that of the shire town, as for
example in Culpeper, Va. In New England the process of naming has been
just the reverse; as in Hartford County, Conn., or Worcester County,
Mass., which have taken their names from the shire towns. Here, as in
so many cases, whole chapters of history are wrapped up in geographical
names.[26]
[Sidenote: Powers of the court.]
[Sidenote: The sheriff.]
The county court in Virginia had jurisdiction in criminal actions
not involving peril of life or limb, and in civil suits where the
sum at stake exceeded twenty-five shillings. Smaller suits could be
tried by a single justice. The court also had charge of the probate
and administration of wills. The court appointed its own clerk, who
kept the county records. It superintended the construction and repair
of bridges and highways, and for this purpose divided the county
into “precincts,” and appointed annually for each precinct a highway
surveyor. The court also seems to have appointed constables, one for
each precinct. The justices could themselves act as coroners, but
annually two or more coroners for each parish were appointed by the
governor. As we have seen that the parish taxes--so much for salaries
of minister and clerk, so much for care of church buildings, so much
for the relief of the poor, etc.--were computed and assessed by the
vestry; so the county taxes, for care of court-house and jail, roads
and bridges, coroner’s fees, and allowances to the representatives sent
to the colonial legislature, were computed and assessed by the county
court. The general taxes for the colony were estimated by a committee
of the legislature, as well as the county’s share of the colony tax.
The taxes for the county, and sometimes the taxes for the parish also,
were collected by the sheriff. They were usually paid, not in money,
but in tobacco; and the sheriff was the custodian of this tobacco,
responsible for its proper disposal. The sheriff was thus not only
the officer for executing the judgments of the court, but he was also
county treasurer and collector, and thus exercised powers almost as
great as those of the sheriff in England in the twelfth century. He
also presided over elections for representatives to the legislature. It
is interesting to observe how this very important officer was chosen.
“Each year the court presented the names of three of its members to
the governor, who appointed one, generally the senior justice, to be
the sheriff of the county for the ensuing year.”[27] Here again we see
this close corporation, the county court, keeping the control of things
within its own hands.
[Sidenote: The county lieutenant.]
One other important county officer needs to be mentioned. In early
New England each town had its train-band or company of militia, and
the companies in each county united to form the county regiment. In
Virginia it was just the other way. Each county raised a certain number
of troops, and because it was not convenient for the men to go many
miles from home in assembling for purposes of drill, the county was
subdivided into military districts, each with its company, according
to rules laid down by the governor. The military command in each
county was vested in the county lieutenant, an officer answering in
many respects to the lord lieutenant of the English shire at that
period. Usually he was a member of the governor’s council, and as such
exercised sundry judicial functions. He bore the honorary title of
“colonel,” and was to some extent regarded as the governor’s deputy;
but in later times his duties were confined entirely to military
matters.[28]
If now we sum up the contrasts between local government in Virginia and
that in New England, we observe:--
1. That in New England the management of local affairs was mostly in
the hands of town officers, the county being superadded for certain
purposes, chiefly judicial; while in Virginia the management was
chiefly in the hands of county officers, though certain functions,
chiefly ecclesiastical, were reserved to the parish.
2. That in New England the local magistrates were almost always, with
the exception of justices, chosen by the people; while in Virginia,
though some of them were nominally appointed by the governor, yet in
practice they generally contrived to appoint themselves,--in other
words, the local boards practically filled their own vacancies and were
self-perpetuating.
[Sidenote: Jefferson’s opinion of township government.]
These differences are striking and profound. There can be no doubt
that, as Thomas Jefferson clearly saw, in the long run the interests
of political liberty are much safer under the New England system
than under the Virginia system. Jefferson said: “Those wards, called
townships in New England, are the vital principle of their governments,
and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the
wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government, and for its
preservation.[29] ... As Cato, then, concluded every speech with
the words _Carthago delenda est_, so do I every opinion with the
injunction: ‘Divide the counties into wards!’”[30]
[Sidenote: “Court-day.”]
We must, however, avoid the mistake of making too much of this
contrast. As already hinted, in those rural societies where people
generally knew one another, its effects were not so far-reaching
as they would be in the more complicated society of to-day. Even
though Virginia had not the town meeting, “it had its familiar
court-day,” which “was a holiday for all the countryside, especially
in the fall and spring. From all directions came in the people on
horseback, in wagons, and afoot. On the court-house green assembled,
in indiscriminate confusion, people of all classes,--the hunter from
the backwoods, the owner of a few acres, the grand proprietor, and the
grinning, heedless negro. Old debts were settled, and new ones made;
there were auctions, transfers of property, and, if election times were
near, stump-speaking.”[31]
[Sidenote: Virginia prolific in great leaders.]
For seventy years or more before the Declaration of Independence the
matters of general public concern, about which stump speeches were
made on Virginia court-days, were very similar to those that were
discussed in Massachusetts town meetings when representatives were to
be chosen for the legislature. Such questions generally related to
some real or alleged encroachment upon popular liberties by the royal
governor, who, being appointed and sent from beyond sea, was apt to
have ideas and purposes of his own that conflicted with those of the
people. This perpetual antagonism to the governor, who represented
British imperial interference with American local self-government, was
an excellent schooling in political liberty, alike for Virginia and
for Massachusetts. When the stress of the Revolution came, these two
leading colonies cordially supported each other, and their political
characteristics were reflected in the kind of achievements for which
each was especially distinguished. The Virginia system, concentrating
the administration of local affairs in the hands of a few county
families, was eminently favourable for developing skilful and vigorous
leadership. And while in the history of Massachusetts during the
Revolution we are chiefly impressed with the remarkable degree in
which the mass of the people exhibited the kind of political training
that nothing in the world except the habit of parliamentary discussion
can impart; on the other hand, Virginia at that time gave us--in
Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Mason, Madison, and Marshall, to mention
no others--such a group of leaders as has seldom been equalled.