Class 
 
 Book 
 
 COPYRIGHT DiLPQSlT 
 
THE 
 OLD DOMINION 
 
THE 
 OLD DOMINION 
 
 HER MAKING AND HER MANNERS 
 
 BY 
 THOMAS NELSON PAGE 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 NEW YORK:::::::::::::::::: 1908 
 

 u 
 
 ^.rf^i 
 
 FEB 29 1908 
 
 TTI 
 
 Hi 
 
 
 2C0 ZC' 
 
 Copyright, 1908, by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published February, 1908 
 
DcticateH to 
 ROSEWELL PAGE, ESQUIRE^ 
 
 A VIRGINIA COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, WHO BY 
 HIS CHARACTER, HIS UNSELFISHNESS, HIS DE- 
 VOTION TO DUTY AND HIS LIFELONG HABIT 
 OF SPENDING HIMSELF FOR OTHERS, HAS 
 PRESERVED IN THE PRESENT THE BEST 
 TRADITIONS OF THE OLD DOMINION'S PAST 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IT has from a long time back been an author's 
 privilege to say a word more or less confi- 
 dential to his Reader before committing himself 
 in cold type to the Pubhc. The author of these 
 Essays now avails himself of this privilege to 
 express the hope that whatever their faults may 
 be, they may lead some of his readers to turn 
 for themselves to the almost unknown page of 
 their Country's History: the Record of the 
 early life of "The Antient Dominion." Few 
 know it now, yet no page of the History of the 
 Race will better repay patient study; for none 
 shines with more heroic deeds, or more sublime 
 fortitude and endeavor. Her History belongs 
 not to the present Virginia alone. It is the heri- 
 tage of every State carved from the mighty em- 
 pire once embraced within her borders. Of 
 the first six thousand settlers who came over 
 and seized and held this great country for 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 England and her People; nine out of ten "left 
 here their bodies in testimonieof their mindes." 
 But they left the Old Dominion founded, to be 
 the foundation of a new Nation. She brought 
 forth in time a new Civilization where Charac- 
 ter and Courtesy went hand in hand; where the 
 goal ever set before the eye was Honor, and 
 where the distinguishing marks of the life were 
 Simplicity and Sincerity. 
 
 It was by no mere accident that Washington, 
 Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, Henry, Mason 
 and their like came from Tidewater and Pied- 
 mont Virginia. They were the proper product 
 of her distinctive Civilization, and were not un- 
 common types of the Character she has given 
 to her Children. 
 
 The writer is under obligations to all the 
 faithful Historians who have in the past labored 
 to preserve and set forth the true History of 
 Virginia as they were able to find it. And he 
 especially wishes to record his debt to the pious 
 labors of the late Alexander Brown of Virginia, 
 who devoted his life to the collection and publi- 
 cation of the early records of the History of the 
 Old Dominion. To his monumental work, " The 
 Genesis of the United States," every American 
 Historian must ever be indebted. 
 
 The fact that these Essays came in part from 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IX 
 
 addresses delivered before various Societies at 
 different times, will account for certain repeti- 
 tions in them. The author, however, hopes 
 that this repetition may not be frequent enough 
 to prove tedious, and, moreover, he feels that 
 some facts cannot be too often repeated. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Beginning of America .... 3 
 
 II. Jamestown, the Birthplace of the 
 
 American People 58 
 
 III. Colonial Life 134 
 
 IV. The Revolutionary Movement . . 153 
 
 V. Thomas Jefferson and the University 
 
 OF Virginia 198 
 
 VI. The Southern People During Recon- 
 struction 235 
 
 VII. The Old Dominion Since the War . 281 
 
 VIII. An Old Neighborhood in Virginia . 332 
 
 IX. An Old Virginia Sunday 362 
 
THE OLD DOMINION 
 HER MAKING AND HER MANNERS 
 
THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 
 
 " Some tracks of Feeting they found upon a Sandy Bank." — 
 Strachey: First Travails into Virginia. 
 
 ^T^O comprehend truly the achievement of 
 the settlement of Jamestown and what it 
 has signified to the world, and still signifies to- 
 day, if we but knew it, it is necessary to go back 
 among the forces that were at work in Western 
 Europe during the time when the Dark Ages 
 were giving way to the light of the New Learn- 
 ing. Many forces combined to produce the re- 
 sults, working with that patience which char- 
 acterizes the laws of Nature. The energies of 
 men had been engrossed by the exactions of 
 war, and of a civilization based on war. The 
 mind of man had been for ages monopolized 
 by war militant or spiritual. Person and intel- 
 lect aUke lay under rule. Then gradually, after 
 long lethargy, men began to think. Historians 
 
4 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 wrote; poets sang; statesmen planned; scientists 
 experimented. The mariner's compass, whether 
 brought by Marco Polo from the East, or in- 
 vented by the Neapolitan, Flavio Gioja, or by 
 some one else, came into use in Europe: other 
 nautical instruments were invented or improved. 
 Gunpowder was invented and gradually changed 
 the methods of war. The* New Learning began 
 to sweep over Europe. The Art of printing 
 from movable types was invented. The ice was 
 broken up and the stream, long dammed, began 
 to flow. The Reformation came and men burst 
 the chains which had bound them. 
 
 The breaking up of the old conditions and re- 
 lations made necessary a great readjustment. 
 Two quite distinct peoples and civilizations were 
 found facing each other. The Latin race and 
 the civilization founded on the Civil Law and 
 the Roman Church were on one side; the Saxon 
 race and its civilization founded on the Com- 
 mon Law and a greatly modified Ecclesiastical 
 System were on the other. 
 
 Spain, fighting under the banner of the Cross, 
 was just freeing herself from the Mahometan, 
 and in the very year in which Columbus gave 
 her a new world, Castile achieved her final 
 victory over the Moor. On the other hand, 
 the Moslem was strengthening himself on the 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 5 
 
 eastern frontier of Europe. The city of Con- 
 stantine, after a long struggle, fell before him 
 in 1453, and the Eastern Empire which had 
 been the asylum and nursery of civilization be- 
 came the prey of the Ottoman Turk. Her 
 trade, which had made Venice and Florence and 
 Genoa, was hemmed in on the eastward, and 
 the land which Marco Polo had visited was with 
 its fabulous wealth suddenly cut off. 
 
 Prince Henry, the Navigator, had set up his 
 observatory in Portugal, and drawn around him 
 the best cosmographers and navigators of the 
 world. Under his patronage bold Portuguese 
 and other mariners had coasted down the Afri- 
 can continent, and in i486 Bartholomew Diaz 
 was blown so far south that when he turned to 
 strike the coast again he passed the southern 
 point without seeing it and turning north found 
 the land to the westward and himself on the 
 eastern coast. 
 
 Thus, the spirit of the age was alert, and in 
 the very moment of time came the Genoese 
 navigator, who on his first appearance in his- 
 tory, is described as "Christopher Columbus, 
 Stranger." He had conceived and worked out the 
 noble idea that he could reach the East by sail- 
 ing boldly west, and he devoted his great powers 
 and his life to establish it in the minds of men. 
 
6 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 The sphericity of the earth had been suggested 
 speculatively as far back as the time of Pytha- 
 goras; Plato, who seems to have contemplated 
 everything in the heavens above, and the earth 
 beneath and the w^aters under the earth, dis- 
 cussed it; Aristotle half taught it; and Ptolemy, 
 the geographer, laid it down as a probability. 
 Columbus probably did not even first among 
 Europeans touch this hemisphere; five hundred 
 years before his day, Eric the Red planted a 
 colony on the northeastern peninsula, and Lief, 
 his son, led explorers down to Vinland the Good, 
 somewhere on or near the northeastern coast 
 of the United States. Eric's colonies throve for 
 four centuries and then perished, whilst the 
 story of Vinland was lost so utterly that no 
 memory of it remained except in the Sagas. 
 Other later bold adventurers touched on those 
 shores — possibly among them the Zenos of 
 Venice, whose map shows all the knowledge of 
 the earth known in their time. 
 
 Much has been made of late by certain 
 scholars of the new and so-called critical school, 
 out of these earlier voyagings of Scandinavian 
 seamen, and the great Admiral has been even 
 a second time decried as an impostor; but the 
 difference between them and Columbus was 
 that they were bold seamen and captains, and 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 7 
 
 merely that, voyaging In distant seas in quest 
 of booty as others of their race had done often 
 before, whilst the great Admiral, with a high 
 prevision and a noble enthusiasm, after a life 
 devoted to the work, struck boldly out across 
 the globe on lines of navigation which he had 
 mapped for himself to find in unknown seas 
 the shores of a continent which was to enrich 
 and save Christendom. He had no dream of a 
 new continent; any more than had others who 
 for many years followed in his wake; but he 
 braved the Sea of Darkness with all its terrors to 
 find by untried routes through unknown oceans 
 Cipango and Cathay. To set the egg up on end 
 was easy enough when once it had been done. 
 He was the man for the time; and the time 
 suited the man. Had he not discovered Amer- 
 ica barring his way he would have found the 
 Indies. And had not America been here it is 
 likely that European enterprise and force would 
 have made Asia their field, and so the history 
 of the world would still have been different. 
 
 He found a land, not that, indeed, he sought; 
 but one richer than ever he dreamed Cathay to 
 be, and though, when he died, the records of his 
 town contain no mention of the fact, the half a 
 world he gave to Spain glorifies his memory four 
 hundred years afterwards as the greatest human 
 
8 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 benefactor the human race has known. He 
 alone of all men of his time had a right concep- 
 tion of the greatness of the work he was to ac- 
 complish. There is nothing finer than the story 
 of the interview between him and Isabella: when 
 on her refusal to grant him all he demanded, and 
 it was a high demand, made as a king to a king, 
 he, on the eve of attaining all he had worked for, 
 striven for, pined for through long years of wait- 
 ing and struggling, turned his back on the Court 
 and set out to try once more a new king in a 
 new land. We know how he was recalled when 
 already on his way to leave Spain, and we know 
 how it is said Isabella pledged her jewels as se- 
 curity for the loan she raised to help him; we 
 know how he set his prows steadily to the West 
 and held them there aUke against threats and 
 entreaties, and how he found not the Indies, in- 
 deed, but a land greater and richer and nobler 
 far; which, though he died in ignorance of the 
 greatness of his discovery, was the vastest fruit 
 that one man's genius ever produced. 
 
 The Wars of the Roses had ended on Bosworth 
 field (August 22, 1485). The rival houses of 
 York and Lancaster which had torn England 
 for generations had been united, and for the 
 first time in many years England had peace 
 within her borders, and soon had time to apply 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 9 
 
 her energies to the Arts of Peace at home and 
 to preparation for war abroad. 
 
 The news of the discovery of new shores by 
 a Spanish navigator and their possession by 
 Spain stirred England and her awaking people, 
 as it did the nearer nations. Spain freed from 
 Moorish domination and claiming a new world 
 of fabulous wealth suddenly loomed up as the 
 greatest nation of the earth, and with Portugal 
 proceeded under arbitrament of the Holy See 
 to parcel out between them the unknown world. 
 
 Portugal already had a right under papal de- 
 crees to all heathen lands discovered or to be 
 discovered east of a Hne of longitude one hundred 
 leagues west of the Azore Islands, and Spain had 
 obtained from the same authority the right of 
 discovery to the westward. Portugal procured 
 the shifting of this line to a point three hundred 
 leagues west of the islands, a circumstance to 
 which was due at a later date her claim to Brazil. 
 
 The English had the blood of bold sailors in 
 her veins. Norseman and Dane had intermin- 
 gled with Celt and Saxon, and there was left, 
 if partly dormant, the undying spirit which had 
 flouted the fierce Baltic and in old days had 
 gone as far as Greenland to the north and Con- 
 stantinople to the south. 
 
 Spain's good fortune was viewed with envy. 
 
10 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 her proud claims with jealousy. Bold navi- 
 gators were not wanting. Columbus, despair- 
 ing at one time of success in Spain, had sent 
 his brother, Bartholomew, to England to try his 
 fortune there, and he was there when Columbus 
 sailed from Palos. In the summer of 1480, ac- 
 cording to William of Worcester, two vessels 
 sailed to find the Island of Brazil, but put back 
 again by reason of foul weather. On the 21st 
 of January, 1496, Puebla, the Spanish Am- 
 bassador, informed his sovereigns that "a person 
 had come, like Columbus, to propose to the King 
 of England an enterprise like that of the Indies." 
 On the 28th of March the sovereigns instructed 
 him to warn Henry VII. that such an enterprise 
 would be an infringement on the rights of Spain 
 and Portugal. 
 
 The Indies were the goal of all men's hopes, 
 and the idea of a northwest passage thither took 
 firm hold in the minds of men, especially of 
 Englishmen. 
 
 On the 5th of March, 1496, a charter for dis- 
 covery and colonization was granted to John Ca- 
 bot and his three sons; as similar charters were 
 granted to Richard Warde and others; but in 
 order to be "without prejudice to Spain and Por- 
 tugal'' these charters extended only east, north 
 and west of forty-four degrees north latitude. 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA ii 
 
 John Cabot sailed with a fleet of five vessels 
 in the spring of 1497, one of which was com- 
 manded by his son, Sebastian, destined to be- 
 come even more famous than his illustrious 
 father, and explored the coast of New Found- 
 land, which they reached, according to Sebastian 
 Cabot's map, on June 24th, thus becoming the 
 first white men who ever touched the shores of 
 North America. They were back in England 
 again in August. 
 
 Sebastian Cabot, still seeking for the north- 
 west passage to India, the goal of all hopes, 
 sailed again the next year and penetrated that 
 Bay in which Henry Hudson, more than a cen- 
 tury later (16 10), still looking for the unfound 
 passage to India, the El Dorado of the Arctic 
 Seas, was to be set adrift with his dying son, 
 and to which he was to give his name, a memorial 
 of his romantic and pathetic fate. Having failed 
 to find the northwest passage, Cabot took 
 service with Spain, whose growing possessions 
 and power were making service under her the 
 ambition of all navigators. 
 
 The Island of Hispaniola was settled and 
 planted, and from this as a centre of the work 
 of new discovery, conquest and colonization 
 went rapidly on. Diego Columbus took pos- 
 session as Admiral and Governor of the Indies 
 
12 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 in 1509, and he gave all his energies to the work. 
 In 1509 Ojeda and Nicuesa took possession of 
 Darien, which La Cosa and Amerigo Vespucci 
 had explored under Ojeda in 1505-7. In 151 1 
 Diego Columbus sentValasquez to conquer Cuba. 
 In 15 13 Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of 
 Darien and waded into the new ocean which he 
 discovered on the other side. The stories of the 
 Incas and their wealth reached him, and a few 
 years later (15 17) he had fitted out three ships 
 and was about to start southward, when he was 
 arrested on a charge of treason and put to death 
 by the bloody Pedrarias, Governor of Darien. 
 
 In the spring of 15 13 Juan Ponce de Leon, a 
 brave soldier who had been with Columbus in 
 his second voyage, and had now got permission 
 to lead an expedition in search of the fabled 
 Isle of Bimini and Fountain of Youth, told of 
 by Sir John Mandeville, set out to the west- 
 ward, and reaching a harbor on Easter day, 
 the Feast of Flowers, named the land Florida, 
 in honor of the day. He explored the land on 
 the east and the west, and found in some sort, 
 indeed, the fountain he sought, for though an 
 Indian arrow cut short his career, he still lives 
 in the perpetual youth of romance, the most at- 
 tractive character of all that time. 
 
 About this time, 15 18, Grijaloa heard from a 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 13 
 
 tax-gatherer in Yucatan the story of his master 
 Montezuma. This was the first time the new- 
 comers had found anything Hke the civiHzation 
 and wealth they had been dreaming of. As they 
 were still in Asia, this, of course, was the Great 
 Khan. Grijaloa bore the news to Cuba, and was 
 superseded for his reward, and the command of 
 the expedition that was sent out was given to 
 a young soldier of fortune who had been with 
 Valasquez in the Conquest of Cuba: Hernando 
 Cortez. By the end of 1521 Cortez had con- 
 quered Mexico and found the way to the con- 
 quest of all of what is now Central America, 
 justifying his proud rebuke to Philip II., that he 
 had given him more provinces than his father 
 had had cities. 
 
 In 15 19 Alvarez de Pineda followed the west- 
 ern coast of Florida as far around as Tampico 
 in Mexico, where he met Cortez exploring that 
 land. Turning back he entered and spent six 
 weeks in exploring the lower Mississippi, and 
 seems to have been the first European to sail on 
 its waters. 
 
 In September, 1519, Ferdinand Magellan set 
 out to circumnavigate the globe, and in the face 
 of starvation, desertion and mutiny, circumnavi- 
 gated it, the greatest feat ever accomplished by 
 a navigator, that of Columbus hardly excepted, 
 
14 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 and verified his high boast to his mutinous Heu- 
 tenants that he would sail to India if he had to 
 gnaw the leather from his ships' yards. The great 
 navigator lost his life in the Philippine Islands 
 after he had traversed the unknown seas and 
 reached lands that were known; but his work 
 was accomplished and he had circled the earth. 
 
 In 153 1 the Pizarros began the conquest of 
 Peru, and added to Spain the richest province 
 she had yet found: the province, indeed, which 
 was to be her chief source of wealth. 
 
 From this time it may well be believed that all 
 maritime nations were looking to the region 
 where the East met the West. It was just be- 
 ginning to dawn on men that the new Land was 
 not Asia and the Indies at all, but a New 
 Continent which stretched across the track to 
 Asia; and enterprise began to be turned to the 
 work of finding a way through this land to far 
 Cathay. Bays and even rivers were explored 
 with the hope of discovering some passage. 
 
 Among the navigators who turned their at- 
 tention to this, the first was Lucas Vasquez 
 d'Ayllon; and he was the first that is certainly 
 known to have made any exploration of the 
 Coast of Virginia. In 1524 he sailed from His- 
 paniola, and it is claimed that he sailed into the 
 Chesapeake, and up the broad river which 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 15 
 
 poured its waters down almost opposite the 
 capes. Liking the country, he obtained a grant 
 from Charles v., and, returning in 1526, he is said 
 to have brought with him colonists and some 
 five hundred negro slaves, and to have begun 
 to found a town, which he called San Miguel, 
 on the banks of the river, near where the first 
 Anglo-Saxon settlement that was to live was to 
 be founded, almost a hundred years later. This 
 is the first reputed settlement of Virginia, and 
 the first importation of slaves within the bor- 
 ders of the present United States. He lost his 
 life and his colony failed. The evidence, how- 
 ever, is far from conclusive that this settlement 
 was not much further south than the Chesa- 
 peake. 
 
 In 1525 Estevan Gomez, who had been one 
 of Magellan's pilots and had deserted him, is 
 said to have coasted from Labrador to Florida, 
 taking notes of capes and rivers. But by this 
 time the growing wealth and power of Spain 
 were beginning to excite the jealousy of other 
 countries, and they were looking with envious 
 eyes to the new and not very well defined pos- 
 sessions which she claimed. 
 
 More than one French navigator seems to 
 have preceded Gomez. Norman and Breton 
 fishermen were visiting the banks of New Found- 
 
i6 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 land regularly; and Spain's pretensions were be- 
 ginning to be the subject of more than question. 
 Bernal Diaz says that Francis I. sent word to 
 his great rival Charles V. to ask by what right 
 he and the King of Portugal undertook to claim 
 the earth. Had Adam made them his sole heirs ? 
 If so, why, produce the will, and meanwhile he 
 should feel at liberty to seize all he could get. 
 
 In 1523 Giovanni da Verraza, a Florentine by 
 birth, but in the service of France, captured the 
 treasure sent by Cortez to Charles V. and next 
 year coasted from about Cape Fear to 50 degrees 
 north. Charles, however, so crippled Francis 
 in the Italian Campaign (1525) that it was not 
 until ten years later that Jacques Cartier ex- 
 plored the lower St. Lawrence and founded 
 Montreal. It was now beHeved that the land 
 stretching from Labrador to Darien was a nar- 
 row strip like the Isthmus itself and Spain bent 
 her energies to cross it. The first of her gallant 
 explorers to attempt it was Panfilo de Narvaez, 
 but the best known in history was Ferdinand 
 de Soto, who, in 1539, penetrated as far as the 
 Mississippi, on whose banks he died and in 
 whose waters his body was buried. 
 
 The penurious Henry VII. had meantime 
 died (April 21, 1509) and been succeeded by 
 Henry VIII., married to the Spanish princess, 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 17 
 
 Catherine of Aragon, and one of the most not- 
 able monarchs in all history. A beast in his 
 personal tastes and private life, violating brutally 
 every law, human and divine, he was one of the 
 most able and powerful rulers of modern times. 
 To gratify his personal appetites he divorced his 
 Spanish wife, exploited the nascent Protestant- 
 ism of the English people, repudiated the Roman 
 Church, and slew all who opposed him; but he 
 laid the foundation of the English navy, and 
 once more established England as a great power. 
 
 The publication of "Utopia," by the first sub- 
 ject in England, showed how the English mind 
 was working. The great intellect of Sir Thomas 
 More was already forecasting the establishment 
 of a mighty nation beyond the seas "where peace 
 and happiness, truth and justice, religion and 
 piety should be established for all generations." 
 In 15 12 the Trinity House was founded by 
 Captain Thomas Spert as an "Association for 
 Piloting Ships," and it was incorporated in 15 14. 
 In April, 1536, Master Robert Hore, of Lon- 
 don, sailed in John Cabot's track to New Found- 
 land, in two ships, with some twenty-five gentle- 
 men and ninety others, sailors, etc. 
 
 On the 28th of January, 1547, Henry VIII. 
 died, and his young son, Edward VI., succeeded 
 him. Strongly Protestant and under direction of 
 
i8 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 stout Protestant haters of Spain, he or his ad- 
 visers began to estabHsh Protestantism in Eng- 
 land. They recalled Sebastian Cabot from Spain, 
 and proceeded to encourage the discovery of 
 new lands without reference to limits and claims 
 based upon papal decrees. The great associa- 
 tion was formed, known as "The Mysterie and 
 Company of Discoverie of Regions, Dominions, 
 Islands, and Places Unknown." It was to a 
 certain extent a re-issuance of the Charter of 
 1496 to John Cabot, but it no longer recognized 
 even by implication the bounds fixed by the Pope, 
 as that did when it confined discoveries to lands 
 north, east and west of England. 
 
 Queen Mary succeeded Edward VI. (July, 
 1553), after the sad little ten days' reign of that 
 sweetest and most pathetic of sovereigns, the 
 little Queen Jane. She married Philip II. of 
 Spain (July 25, 1554) and with an earnest 
 woman's zeal gave her life to restoring England 
 to the Papacy. The dazzling richness of the 
 Spanish retinue of the bridegroom, and espe- 
 cially the wagon-loads of Spanish ingots hauled 
 through the streets of London on this occasion, 
 awakened the English people to a sudden realiza- 
 tion of the value of the prize Spain had seized. 
 It was an object-lesson which they never forgot. 
 On the 6th of July, 1555, Mary granted a sec- 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 19 
 
 ond charter to the Merchant Adventurers, con- 
 fining them, however, henceforth to the north, 
 northeast, and northvs^estv^ard of England, thus 
 reasserting recognition of the Papal decrees and 
 of the claims of Spain. 
 
 The spirit of discovery and adventure v^as, 
 however, now wide awake, and many merchant 
 adventurers visited the new world, and turning 
 southward inspected enviously the possessions 
 of the Spanish Crown. Their minds could not 
 have been insensible to the contrast between the 
 rich possessions of Spain, with its fabulous El 
 Dorado, and the bleak and barren latitudes to 
 which they themselves were restricted. "Ad- 
 venture" then meant simply coming to, and 
 commerce was its great motive. The great 
 coiner of a golden language a generation later 
 showed the spirit of the age by putting in his 
 lover's mouth the words, 
 
 " But wert thou far as is that farthest sea, 
 I would adventure for such merchandise." 
 
 In 1555 Richard Eden published his "Decades 
 of the Newe Worlde or West India," the first 
 published collection of voyages in EngHsh. He 
 dedicated it to "Phihp, King of England and 
 Spain." 
 
 Queen Mary, happily for the world, died (on 
 
20 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 the 17th of November, 1558), and was succeeded 
 by the great EHzabeth. She was Protestant and 
 England was Protestant. With much of her 
 father's imperious nature, she meant that Eng- 
 land should be supreme and that she should be 
 supreme in England. She at once threw down 
 the gage. In her first Parliament (1559) a bill 
 was passed vesting in the Crown of England the 
 Supremacy claimed by the Pope; abolishing the 
 Mass and declaring England Protestant. EHza- 
 beth proceeded to enforce her claim. The ques- 
 tion passed from being one of religion only; it 
 became one of patriotism. She gathered about 
 her the ablest men of her realm, used them with 
 consummate art, governed them with extraordi- 
 nary ability and laid the foundation of Eng- 
 land's real greatness. The fight between Roman 
 Catholicism and Protestantism was becoming 
 fiercer and fiercer. In France the Huguenots were 
 making fast progress; in the Low Countries the 
 fight was yet more bitter. Spain was the head of 
 the Catholic powers. Elizabeth made England 
 the head of the Protestant powers. Spain became 
 her rival and enemy; and the whole trend of 
 English opinion and endeavor was to surpass 
 and overcome this mighty enemy. Elizabeth em- 
 ployed all her arts to win. She encouraged the 
 Huguenots here, the Orange States there; she, 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 21 
 
 with the same plan, even entertained proposals of 
 marriage, playing her royal game with royal 
 deception, and always with an eye to England's 
 and her own aggrandizement. 
 
 The struggle between Protestantism and 
 Roman Catholicism was now to add a new in- 
 terest to the new land. The great Coligny was 
 the first to attempt to found a Protestant State 
 on this continent. In 1555 he sent out a small 
 colony of Huguenots under Nicholas de Ville- 
 gagnon who, striking south, started a settlement 
 on the present site of Rio de Janeiro. Theo- 
 logical disputes, however, soon divided his peo- 
 ple; Villegagnon returned to France to maintain 
 his side, and the Portuguese massacred the rem- 
 nant. Coligny's next attempt was on the coast of 
 Florida under one Jean Ribault. Ribault took 
 out a small advance party, who on May i, 1555, 
 reached land in what is now South Carolina, and 
 started a colony at the present Port Royal. 
 Leaving thirty men there under a commander, 
 Ribault returned to France to bring out the rest 
 of the settlers, but was driven by the breaking 
 out of the war between the Huguenots and the 
 Guises to England, where he published in 1563 
 his account of Terra Florida. 
 
 In 1564, peace having been patched up, an 
 expedition came out under Rene de Laudonniere, 
 
22 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 a noble kinsman of Coligny. Meantime, the 
 colony left at Port Royal had broken up. They 
 had pillaged and maltreated the Indians, after 
 the old custom, until the latter had turned on 
 them; then mutiny had broken out: they had 
 killed their commander and set to sea in a small 
 ship which they had. Their provisions had 
 given out and they had already resorted to 
 cannibalism when an English ship rescued the 
 survivors and brought them to England. 
 
 Laudonniere's expedition turned further south 
 and landed on the St. John's River in Florida, 
 at the mouth of which stream they built a fort 
 and laid out a town, called Fort Caroline, 
 after Charles IX. 
 
 This settlement is of special interest to us, be- 
 cause on its fate in some sort hinged the 
 subsequent history of this country. It was a 
 large and well-equipped expedition; but con- 
 sisted mainly of soldiers and gentlemen advent- 
 urers who had come in search of gold and were 
 unaccustomed to work. They explored and 
 searched for gold, and, finding none, presently 
 some of them fell to mutinying and, becoming 
 "a gang of malcontents," stole a couple of 
 pinnaces and went off to Cuba, where they capt- 
 ured a Spanish boat, but were presently obliged 
 to put ashore for provisions. Here they were 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 23 
 
 seized, and in hopes of saving their necks 
 they gave full information as to the unknown 
 colony on the St. John's. The news created 
 much excitement. Word that the Huguenots 
 were attempting to seize Florida, was sent to 
 Spain and caused a furore there. It so happened 
 that about this time PhiHp II. had found the man 
 just fitted to his hand in Pedro Menendez d'Ar- 
 villes, a man who was (to quote Fiske) "an ad- 
 mirable soldier and a matchless liar; brave as a 
 mastiff, savage as a wolf.'* Menendez had just 
 persuaded Philip to let him go to Florida to con- 
 vert the Indians. The news of Laudonniere's 
 colony enraged him. Both as Frenchmen and 
 heretics they were the enemies of Spain and of the 
 Lord. He would root them out. Rumor had add- 
 ed to the report that Ribault was about to take 
 out reinforcements and supplies; so no time was 
 to be lost. Menendez increased his force and 
 set sail from Cadiz on the 29th of June, 1565. 
 Meantime, the colony on the St. John's had gone 
 through the common hardships of all such 
 colonies; the strong hand of Laudonniere had 
 quelled mutiny, but starvation was staring them 
 in the face, when, on the 3rd of August, Sir John 
 Hawkins, cruising in the Spanish Main, found 
 them and offered to take them home. This 
 Laudonniere refused, and, leaving them such pro- 
 
24 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 vision as he could of bread and wine, and one of 
 his ships to use at their need, the EngUshman 
 cruised on. The rumor heard in Spain was 
 true, and, on the 28th of August, Ribault arrived 
 with three hundred men and abundant suppHes. 
 When, therefore, on the 3rd of September, after 
 losing a number of ships, Menendez sailed down 
 upon them, he found them too strong to attack, 
 and too vigilant to surprise, and so sailed away. 
 He did not go far, however, but turning down 
 the coast, put in where stands to-day the oldest 
 town on the Continent — St. Augustine. Here he 
 proceeded at once to build a fort. His move- 
 ments had been watched by one of the French 
 ships, and information of his landing and work 
 was brought back to Laudonniere. There was 
 no time to be lost. It was decided that Ribault 
 should take the ships and most of the men and, 
 saiHng down, fall upon him at once before he 
 could complete his fortification, whilst Laudon- 
 niere should remain with such men as should be 
 left to defend the fort. The plan promised w^ell, 
 and on the loth of September Ribault sailed out 
 of the St. John's. Unhappily, however, next 
 day, just as he was bearing down upon the 
 Spaniard, one of those fierce equinoctial gales 
 common to that region and season sprang 
 up and soon changed to a storm, which blew 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 25 
 
 the French ships out to sea. Menendez was 
 not a man to lose an opportunity or to waste 
 time. The continuance of the storm blowing 
 off shore made it certain that the ships could not 
 have got back to harbor, and rendered it equally 
 probable that precautions would be relaxed on 
 land. Accordingly, on the 17th of September, 
 whilst the storm still raged, he set out with five 
 hundred men and two Indian guides to surprise 
 Fort Caroline. It was a tremendous undertak- 
 ing, a three days' forced march through a Florida 
 wilderness, but it was completely successful. 
 Pushing on night and day through swamp and 
 forest, and across swollen streams, the bloody 
 Menendez, torn with briars and haggard with 
 fatigue, but his wolfish appetite only sharpened 
 thereby, just before dawn of the third night fell 
 upon the sleeping settlement and butchered men, 
 women and children to the number of one 
 hundred and forty-two souls. Laudonniere and 
 a few others escaped to the forest, and after un- 
 told sufferings were picked up on the shore by 
 a friendly vessel. Meantime, Ribault's vessels 
 were wrecked one after another on the long sandy 
 beach to the southward, and the men who got 
 ashore divided into two bodies and set out to 
 march home. On the 28th of September the 
 first body, some two hundred in number, reached 
 
26 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 the southern bank of Matanzas inlet, twelve 
 miles below St. Augustine, and found Menendez 
 awaiting them on the other bank with some 
 seventy men. As they had no boat a parley 
 ensued, and a few officers got into a boat that 
 Menendez sent over and came across to negoti- 
 ate terms. 
 
 Just what followed is not known except from 
 Menendez. He says that they were informed 
 of the destruction of their town and surrendered 
 on what they understood to be a promise of 
 safety, but that he used equivocal words. Any- 
 how, this is what happened. It was surrender 
 or starvation. They agreed to surrender. The 
 arms were first sent over, and then he brought 
 the men over in a boat ten at a time, and taking 
 them off behind a line of sand-hills, bound their 
 hands behind their backs. By sunset they were 
 all over and securely bound, and then he coolly 
 butchered every soul. A day or two later the 
 other body, about three hundred and fifty in all, 
 came up as the first had done, and again their 
 officers were courteously entertained, and sur- 
 render was proposed. About two hundred re- 
 fused to surrender and marched away. The rest 
 surrendered as the others had done before, 
 Menendez swearing on the cross to spare them. 
 Again the same scenes were witnessed : a few at 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 2.7 
 
 a time they were brought over and led around 
 the hill and bound, but to be butchered when all 
 were in the clutches of this wolf. Only five 
 were left alive, and one who was not quite dead 
 crawled off after the butchers had left. The 
 other party were caught later, but Menendez's 
 own men revolted at further butchery, and their 
 lives were saved. Menendez wrote his master 
 of his work as coolly as if he were speaking of 
 slaughtered pigs, and received from him the calm 
 reply, that as to those he had killed it was well, 
 and as to those he had left he would put them in 
 the galleys. Such was PhiHp II. The memory 
 of those dreadful scenes survives to-day in the 
 name of the pretty inlet just below St. Augus- 
 tine which so many visitors sail on each winter. 
 The name, Matanzas, is musical enough, but it 
 means "The Slaughtering." 
 
 This brief but bloody affair possibly settled 
 the destiny of the southern coast of the continent. 
 
 This was in a time of peace with France; but 
 Catherine de Medicis, who murdered Coligny 
 and planned the massacre of St. Bartholomew 
 a few years later (August 24, 1572), was not 
 likely to go to war with the master of the Duke 
 of Alva about the butchery of a few hundred of 
 Coligny's Huguenots. This, perhaps, Menendez 
 understood, for he put up over the heads of those 
 
28 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 he hanged this legend: "Not as Frenchmen, but 
 as Heretics." If, however, the Queen Mother 
 did not care about the butchery of her subjects, 
 there was one Frenchman who did care. Dom- 
 inique de Gourges, a noble Gascon, had himself 
 suffered at the hands of the Spaniards, having 
 been captured by them and put in the galleys, 
 and the story of this new outrage fired his heart, 
 as later the news of the slaughter of John Haw- 
 kins' men fired Walter Raleigh's heart. He de- 
 termined to avenge it. He sold his family estates 
 and fitting out three vessels sailed for the coast of 
 Guinea with a commission to capture slaves. 
 Then, presently, he turned his course towards 
 Florida, and landed quietly on the coast some- 
 where above the Spanish Fort. The Indians, 
 who had learned by this time what Menendez 
 was, joined the newcomers with joy, and, with 
 some five hundred of them as allies, Gourges 
 marched down upon the Spanish Fort. The sur- 
 prise was as complete as that of the French Fort 
 before, and the work as ferocious and thorough 
 as that of Menendez. Menendez, unfortunately 
 for poetic justice, was in Spain, and the Span- 
 iards not dreaming that a Frenchman was nearer 
 than France, and taking advantage of the 
 Governor's absence, had relaxed their watch, 
 and were just concluding their midday meal 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 29 
 
 when Gourges swept down upon them. Every 
 man of the four hundred constituting the garri- 
 son was put to the sword except some fifteen or 
 twenty whom he hanged, and over whose heads, 
 in grim repartee for Menendez's declaration, 
 "Not as Frenchmen, but as Heretics," he posted 
 a sign, "Not as Spaniards, but as Hars and 
 murderers." Then he sailed back to France. 
 
 A couple of years later Menendez returned and 
 refounded his settlement. But by this time new 
 elements had come into being. The extension 
 of Spanish power in North America was doomed, 
 and the fate of Spanish ascendency in the world 
 was sealed. Spain, cohesive within her own 
 borders at home, abroad dominant on Land, 
 Mistress of the Seas, possessing a vast empire at 
 home and an even vaster one abroad, yet con- 
 tained a radical and fatal vice which was to de- 
 stroy her. She was the embodiment of the old 
 as opposed to the new; of the past as against 
 the future; of the out-worn as against the 
 fresh and vigorous; of the narrow as opposed 
 to the broad. She held to the established with 
 unspeakable pride and blindness, and permitted 
 no growth, no advance. She excluded the light 
 which was breaking on all sides and remained 
 in darkness, and whilst others advanced and 
 grew, she stood still and dwindled. Nor was 
 
30 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 it unnatural. Progress moves on natural lines; 
 nations rise and fall by natural laws. It was 
 in the year 711 that the Moor first landed 
 in Spain, and, setting up the Crescent against 
 the Cross, he had in a short time established 
 himself and almost conquered the Land that 
 had withstood Rome at the zenith of her 
 power; but the Visigoth was a sturdy stock and 
 in the mountain sections he withstood the new 
 invader and maintained himself. In time the 
 Moor, under the influence of peace, applied him- 
 self to the arts of Peace, and a civilization sprang 
 up based on Peace, whilst the Spaniard, always 
 maintaining himself hardly, remained a soldier 
 ready for the field. Religion being the battle- 
 cry, the cause was ever the more sacred, and the 
 question of faith became a vital one, by which 
 men were judged as friend or foe, loyal or traitor. 
 
 By degrees the Spaniards began to reconquer 
 their land; always using the same battle-cry — 
 the Cross against the Crescent, and in time, as we 
 have seen, they achieved complete success, and 
 won their final victory over the Moor in the same 
 year that Columbus discovered America. 
 
 This long struggle had a decisive influence 
 on the Spanish character. Trained to war, the 
 Spaniard was accustomed to blood. His re- 
 ligion bred in the bone, he was a zealot, a bigot, 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 31 
 
 a persecutor. No new Ideas were allowed to 
 grow, no differences of opinion were tolerated. 
 Thus when, in the general awakening of Europe, 
 the new ideas had their birth and spread in other 
 countries, they could not exist in Spain. Men in 
 other countries began to think; in Spain it was 
 not allowed. The Reformation came elsewhere; 
 in Spain it never obtained a foothold; the Holy 
 Office not only repressed it when it appeared, 
 but made inquisition and stamped it out. Its 
 very name was significant. It was called the 
 Holy Office. Two hundred thousand execu- 
 tions in a generation are computed to be the 
 number who fell victims to its furious zeal. 
 Thus, Spain cut off her thinkers, and blinded 
 and crippled her people. She not only crushed 
 Progress at home, but deemed it a sacred duty 
 to root it up abroad. The Duke of Alva was 
 sent to destroy it in the Low Countries, even if 
 he had to put the whole population to the sword; 
 and he did his work to his royal master's ap- 
 proval. Spain built up against herself the ha- 
 tred of all the Protestant world everywhere. 
 Weakened as she was at home, she drew upon 
 herself the deadly hatred of the enterprising 
 and industrious Dutch, of the bold and ear- 
 nest Huguenots, and of the great Protestant 
 body of England; and now she made her last 
 
32 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 error. Inspired by zeal, stimulated by ambi- 
 tion, she undertook to crush Protestantism in 
 England. 
 
 This was the opportunity of Protestantism. 
 Able as Philip was, he was easily outranked by 
 the extraordinary woman who sat on the English 
 throne. She knew her people, and she knew 
 how to govern them. She knew that Peace built 
 up a people; that whilst War might bring glory. 
 Peace brought power, and so she held to Peace. 
 "No war, my lords," she said, "no war." Thus, 
 when the time came she was strong enough to 
 fight. 
 
 She made laws that advanced her people; she 
 played one party against the other at home, and 
 both against other countries. She helped the 
 Prince of Orange on the one hand, and pretended 
 to consider a Catholic marriage on the other. 
 She kept Mary Stuart a prisoner to play as need 
 might demand; she persecuted Papist priests 
 and sternly curbed Protestant complainers. And 
 all the time she built up England. The hold 
 she had on her people is admirably illustrated by 
 the incident which Green relates of the Catholic 
 priest, whose hand had been chopped off for his 
 offense, waving the stump and crying, "God 
 save Queen Elizabeth!" Yet Catholicism was 
 the foe of England, and England was its foe, and 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 33 
 
 this the EngHsh people, including many Catho- 
 lics, knew; and they were always on the watch. 
 They noted with keen anxiety as well as envy 
 the growing possessions of Spain in the New 
 World, and were eager to interpose. For it 
 was well understood now that Spain aimed at 
 rivalling ancient Rome as Mistress of the World. 
 In fact, Spain excelled Rome in the extent of the 
 territory she governed, and was becoming more 
 despotic in her sway. She undertook to rule the 
 minds of men no less than their actions. And 
 this hastened her downfall. She was the cham- 
 pion of the Old, and England set herself to 
 become the champion of the New. It has 
 been well said that it became a contest between 
 Spain and the Inquisition and England and 
 the Bible. 
 
 English merchants had before this often visited 
 these shores and made exploration not only of 
 the coast, but had on more than one occasion 
 attempted some exploration of the interior. 
 England, on the ground of these visitations and 
 on the strength of John Cabot's first discovery, 
 now laid claim to such portion of the new land 
 as lay north of the actual possessions of Spain, 
 and south of that which France undertook to 
 claim by virtue of the expedition of Jacques 
 Cartier and others towards the St. Lawrence, 
 
34 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 As early as 1530 two voyages had been made 
 by William Hawkins, of Plymouth, to the coast 
 of Guinea, and thence to Brazil, taking with 
 him cargoes of slaves — the first beginning of the 
 slave-trade by Englishmen. 
 
 Among the first, Thomas Stukeley, a gentle- 
 man of Devonshire, the home of bold sea- 
 captains, bred on the traditions of Saxon and 
 Dane, laid broad plans to plant an English 
 colony in the forbidden land, where he was 
 to rule almost as an independent sovereign. 
 Though he never carried out his designs, his 
 plans remained a part of the history of the 
 movement. 
 
 In October, 1562, Captain John Hawkins, son 
 of William of Plymouth, sailed from England 
 on his first voyage to Guinea and thence to the 
 West Indies with slaves, and in September, 1563, 
 returned to England with much profit and with 
 accounts of his voyage. He sent two ships to 
 Spain, which were promptly seized there. In 
 October, 1564, he sailed again on his second 
 voyage, sent forth by such able patrons as the 
 Earl of Pembroke, Lord Robert Dudley, the 
 Lord Admiral Clinton, Sir William Cecil and 
 others, and cruised the Spanish Main and on 
 August 3, 1565, relieved for the time the un- 
 happy Huguenot colony at Fort Caroline. 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 35 
 
 Thence he sailed "along the whole extent of 
 our coast,'' as says the chronicle (observe the 
 pronoun), via New Foundland, and reached 
 England in September, 1565. Thus, we see 
 Englishmen were now asserting their claim. 
 They gave a lively description of Florida, and 
 brought back with them gold, silver, pearls, 
 tobacco, and other products, from which the ad- 
 venturers derived great gain. The next month 
 Laudonniere, Le Moine, Challeux, and such 
 Huguenots as had escaped Menendez's fury, 
 reached England and published accounts of the 
 country. November 17, 1566, a bill passed 
 Parliament enlarging the privileges of the 
 Merchant Adventurers of 1555, and changing 
 the company's name to "The Fellowship of 
 English Merchants for Discovery of New 
 Trades." 
 
 Some time before November, 1566, Humphrey 
 Gilbert, from that sea-indented southwestern 
 coast of England, whose men have ever followed 
 the sea, petitioned EHzabeth for privileges for 
 himself and his two brothers to discover the 
 northwest passage to Cathay. Soon after this 
 date he petitioned the Queen for privileges for 
 himself and "the heirs of Otes Gylberte" for dis- 
 coveries to the Northwest. 
 
 October 2, 1567, Captain John Hawkins sailed 
 
36 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 from Plymouth with six vessels on his third 
 voyage. They cruised first to Africa and took 
 four or five hundred negroes on to Dominica, but 
 found that the Spaniards had been forbidden to 
 trade with them, and they had substantially to 
 storm Rio de la Hacha. At Carthagena they 
 were repulsed and had to sail to San Juan 
 d'Ulua in Mexico for repairs and supplies. 
 Here they claimed the privilege of allies of the 
 Spanish and were well enough received. Twelve 
 Spanish ships were in the harbor with two hun- 
 dred thousand pounds on board, which Hawkins 
 looked on with envious eyes, but restrained him- 
 self from attempting to seize. Next day a fleet 
 of twelve more Spanish ships arrived. Hawkins, 
 afraid to force hostilities with a friendly power, 
 let them enter the harbor, having first made 
 a compact for peace with the Government. 
 Four days later a concerted attack was suddenly 
 made on the Englishmen, and in the little 
 harbor was fought a fight which, although the 
 immediate issue was In favor of Spain, was the 
 beginning of the end of her supremacy, and of 
 England's succession to It. Only two of Haw- 
 kins' ships escaped, the Minion and the Judith, 
 and the Minion was so overcrowded that Haw- 
 kins had to put one hundred and seventeen of 
 his men ashore at Tampico; whence seventy of 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 37 
 
 them, marching inland, were captured by the 
 Spaniards. It was an unhappy day for Spain 
 when she put in practice in that far-off harbor 
 the doctrine of the Inquisition that no faith 
 was to be kept with heretics. Among other 
 results, she drew down upon her the implacable 
 hatred of two men who, more than any others, 
 contributed to humble her power and wrest 
 from her her vast possessions. The com- 
 mander of the little Judith, at Vera Cruz, was 
 "Master Francis Drake," and from that day 
 he devoted his life and genius to fighting the 
 Spaniard. He ravaged the Spanish Main until 
 he acquired the title in Spanish annals of "The 
 Dragon." 
 
 Another Englishman no less great than Drake, 
 and more directly connected with Virginia, found 
 his chief inspiration to hatred of Spain in the 
 treachery shown to John Hawkins at Vera Cruz. 
 The arrival of Hawkins in England with his 
 story of treachery and defeat fired England from 
 end to end. Just then at Oriel College was a 
 young Devonshire gentleman of good family, of 
 strong Protestant blood, of vast ambition and of 
 extraordinary ability: Walter Raleigh, son of 
 Walter Raleigh of Fardel, in Devonshire, and 
 half-brother, by his mother, of John, Humphrey 
 and Adrian Gilbert, whom we have seen peti- 
 
38 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 tioning the Queen for privileges to discover lands 
 to the northwest, and cousin to Sir Richard 
 Grenville of the Revenge. With him they w^ere 
 to do more tow^ards making this Land English 
 than any other family in England. 
 
 Raleigh v^as by descent of a stout Protestant 
 strain and a hater of Spain; for his father had 
 been a staunch opponent of the Spanish mar- 
 riage, and his mother is mentioned by Fox as 
 having comforted Agnes Prest in prison in 1557, 
 before she v^as brought to the stake. He v^as 
 also not unfamiliar with the sea, for his father 
 owned a barque which bore his cousin Peter 
 Carew safely out of England after the unsuccess- 
 ful Devonshire uprising of 1553. Raleigh was a 
 student at Oxford when the story of the Span- 
 iards' attack on Captain John Hawkins in the 
 harbor of San Juan d'Ulua reached England. 
 Some of his biographers say that this outrage 
 sent him abroad at once to fight the Span- 
 iard. It may well have been so; for as has 
 been well said, "All the materials for an explo- 
 sion had long been accumulating, and nothing 
 but a spark was necessary to fire the train."* 
 All England was fired by the story of Spanish 
 treachery. Elizabeth set to work in earnest to 
 be ready for the work in hand. She repaired 
 
 *Burgon's "Life of Sir T. Gresham," I., p. 277. 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 39 
 
 her seaports, strengthened her navy and took 
 stronger measures against the papists. The 
 fight was on. 
 
 In the autumn of 1659 there was a rising of 
 the Roman CathoHcs in the North of England. 
 She crushed it. 
 
 On the morning of May 15, 1570, the Bull 
 declaring EHzabeth deposed and her subjects 
 absolved from their allegiance was found nailed 
 to the Bishop of London's door. It was met 
 with defiance and scorn. It only heated Eng- 
 land's rage the more against Rome and all that 
 supported her. It did much to make England 
 Protestant. 
 
 In 1572 the plot to assassinate Coligny having 
 failed, a deeper scheme was laid, and on the 
 25th of August the massacre of St. Bartholomew 
 took place, the miserable Charles firing from a 
 window with his own hand on his subjects. The 
 figures of the number of Huguenots murdered 
 throughout France in the three days of butch- 
 ery differ widely, some putting them at fifteen 
 hundred, some at three hundred thousand. 
 They were large enough to appall Protestant- 
 ism throughout Christendom. 
 
 The house of Walsingham, the English Min- 
 ister, became the sanctuary of the hunted fugi- 
 tives in Paris, and England became the refuge 
 
40 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 of tens of thousands of homeless refugees from 
 all over France. England was struck with more 
 than horror at the crime. It was charged that 
 Rome instigated the plot, a charge as hotly re- 
 pudiated as laid. If, however, Rome did not 
 instigate the scheme, it chanted Te Deums over 
 its execution. It made the fight between the 
 old Church and the new a fight to the death 
 the world over, and that between the countries 
 which sustained them equally crucial. 
 
 America thus became not only a new field for 
 the discovery and production of wealth, but one 
 which might become a great strategic point in 
 the struggle for the existence and supremacy of 
 the nations. 
 
 Most of the Englishmen set ashore by Hawkins 
 in October, 1568, were in 1574 sentenced by 
 the Holy OflRce, and sixty were sentenced to the 
 galleys, whilst three were burnt at the stake. 
 It was in this year (March 22, 1574) that Sir 
 Humphrey Gilbert, Sir George Peckham, Mr. 
 Christopher Carlile, Sir Richard Grenville, and 
 others petitioned the Queen for a privilege to dis- 
 cover certain lands, as they say, *' fatally reserved 
 for England and for the Honor of your Majesty,'' 
 and shortly afterwards Elizabeth, through Fro- 
 bisher, sent first a letter requesting, and then one 
 requiring the Muscovy Company "either to at- 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 41 
 
 tempt the matter themselves or to grant hcense 
 to another to do it by the northwestward."* 
 This Hcense was thereupon granted by the com- 
 pany, and Frobisher made his three voyages to 
 the Northwest in June-October, 1576, May- 
 September, 1577, and May-October, 1578, re- 
 spectively. These voyages were undertaken by 
 a stock company, some of the members of which, 
 together with the heirs of many of their asso- 
 ciates, were interested in the expeditions which 
 came some thirty years later, and established a 
 permanent colony on James River. 
 
 Spain naturally regarded all this as an infringe- 
 ment of her rights. Still there was not open war. 
 England was eager, her Ministers were ready, 
 but Elizabeth wisely still held back from war 
 and built up her strength. Her feeling, however, 
 was well known; and it is illustrated by the un- 
 signed "Discourse" presented to her November 
 6, 1577, setting forth, "How her Majesty may 
 annoy the Kinge of Spaine by fitting out a fleete 
 of Shippes, under pretence of Letters Patent to 
 discover and inhabit strange places, with special 
 proviso for their safeties whom policy requires 
 to have most annoyed — by which means, the 
 doing the contrary shall be imputed to the execu- 
 tors' fault, your Highness's Letters Patent being 
 
 * Alexander Brown's "Genesis of the United States," I., 8. 
 
42 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 a manifest show that it was not your Majesty's 
 pleasure so to have it," etc. The writer to this 
 sly suggestion adds shrewdly, "If you will 
 let us first do this we will next take the West 
 Indies from Spain. You will have gold and 
 silver mines and the profit of the soil. You will 
 be Monarch of the Seas and out of danger from 
 everyone. I will do it if you will allow me; only 
 you must resolve and not delay or dally — the 
 wings of man's life are plumed with the feathers 
 of death."* This shows how men's minds 
 were working. 
 
 In January, 1578, Elizabeth and the United 
 Netherlands made a treaty for mutual support 
 against Spain. 
 
 During these years the young soldier, Walter 
 Raleigh, who was to play so important a part 
 in the making of Virginia, was piling up a store 
 of hatred of Spain in France and the Nether- 
 lands; first under Coligny and then under the 
 Prince of Orange. In 1577 his brother, Hum- 
 phrey Gilbert, already a man of approved ability 
 and distinction, planned his expedition to capture 
 Spanish ships, sell them in Dutch ports, equip 
 vessels, and sailing, as under the Prince of 
 Orange, conquer all the Spanish possessions in 
 America. In 1578* Elizabeth granted Sir Hum- 
 
 * Alexander Brown's "Genesis of the United States," I., 8. 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 43 
 
 phrey Gilbert letters patent for the inhabiting 
 and planting an English colony in America with 
 a special proviso that there should be no robbing 
 "by sea or land.'* In the fall of that year he set 
 sail with seven ships and three hundred and 
 fifty men. One of these ships, the Falcon, was 
 commanded by Walter Raleigh himself, and, 
 though the entire expedition was forced back by 
 the terrible storms, it is notable that the young 
 captain's vessel was the last to return, and did 
 not do so until he had fought with the Spaniard 
 and had run short of provisions. 
 
 Early in 1579 Gilbert was preparing again to 
 sail for America with "a puissant fleet able to 
 encounter a King's power by sea," but was 
 stayed by order of the Council, who were not 
 yet ready for war with Spain. Raleigh was not 
 one to waste time. Disappointed in his immedi- 
 ate project, he at once took service in Ireland, 
 where he soon distinguished himself, both by 
 his dashing bravery and his bold and shrewd 
 criticism of his superiors. His hardy courage, 
 his strong understanding and his genius — equal 
 to every situation in which he was placed — soon 
 brought him into note, and he was quickly pro- 
 moted to an administrative position. 
 
 Francis Drake, who since the fight in San Juan 
 
 ♦June II. 
 
44 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 d'Ulua had been cruising against the Spaniards 
 and had caught a ghmpse of the Pacific, now 
 performed the greatest feat yet achieved by an 
 EngHshman. Having sv^ept through the Span- 
 ish seas and though deserted by his four other 
 ships, having kept on in the Pelican, he sailed 
 up the western coast of America, captured the 
 great plate carrack of the Mar del Sud, and, 
 preferring to follow Magellan around the earth 
 rather than risk so rich a prize in the Atlantic, 
 safely circumnavigated the globe, and in Sep- 
 tember, 1580, brought his vast spoil, estimated 
 at something like three million dollars, into port. 
 The Spanish King demanded that the treasure 
 should be returned, and Drake surrendered as 
 a pirate. But the deed Drake had accomplished 
 was too great to be repudiated. It filled Eng- 
 land with enthusiasm. Elizabeth responded by 
 knighting Drake and dining with him on his 
 ship, and the Council responded by repudiating 
 Spain's right to all America, and boldly assert- 
 ing, on the contrary, the right to navigate freely 
 the Spanish Seas and transport colonies "to all 
 those parts where the Spaniards do not inhabit." 
 The Spanish Ambassador threatened that "mat- 
 ters would come to the cannon." Elizabeth re- 
 plied, "quietly, in her most natural tone, as if 
 she were telling a common story," wrote Mendoza 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 45 
 
 to the King, "that if I used threats of that kind, 
 she would fling me into a dungeon." 
 
 Spain knew that this was a gage of battle; 
 and Philip set himself to meet it. But he was 
 not in position at this time to go to war with 
 England: the provinces of Flanders were still in 
 revolt, and France was negotiating for Eliza- 
 beth's aid to make them hers. Elizabeth fos- 
 tered this hope. The assassination of the 
 Prince of Orange threw Flanders into disorder 
 and the death of the Duke of Alen^on left Henry 
 of Navarre, the head of the Huguenot party, 
 the heir to the French throne, and the Catholics 
 in England, finding their hopes vain, attempted 
 the same tactics there. Plots were set on foot 
 to assassinate EHzabeth; but were foiled, and 
 Mary Stuart, who had approved from her prison 
 at Fotheringay Castle the plot of Babington, fell 
 a victim instead, dying like a Queen, even if she 
 had not lived so. Philip was, excepting Mary's 
 weak son, the next heir to the English throne. 
 He knew that Spain's supremacy and what was 
 as dear to him, the Roman Church, trembled 
 in the balance, and he prepared to strike; for 
 the signs were unmistakable. 
 
 Meantime, the young Devonshire soldier 
 left in Ireland had prospered. He had shown 
 too bold a tongue and too strong a head for 
 
46 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 his superiors there and he had come to Eng- 
 land to try his way at Court. He is described 
 as having "a good presence in a handsome and 
 well-compacted person; strong natural wit and 
 a better judgment, with a bold and plausible 
 tongue." No mean figure, indeed. Tradition 
 cherishes the story of the way in which this 
 dashing young cavalier won Elizabeth's favor. 
 Modern critics of the so-called scientific school 
 pretend to scout at it; but they scout at most 
 things human and divine which they do not dis- 
 cover themselves. It is said that Raleigh had 
 not been long an attendant at Court when the 
 Queen going to Greenwich was stopped by a 
 muddy place in the park. The young courtier, 
 waiting for no one, flung his velvet cloak in the 
 mud for her Majesty to walk on. The story may 
 well have been true; for it exactly accords with 
 his nature. He was as bold as he was chivalrous. 
 At any rate, whether this was before or after he 
 secured Elizabeth's favor, he secured it, and his 
 fortune was made. He was no sooner in posi- 
 tion to act than he turned his energies to the at- 
 tainment of that which he so passionately de- 
 sired, the wresting of America from Spain, and 
 its settlement as a Protestant Land by England. 
 The time was propitious. 
 
 In 1582 we find Englishmen studying with 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 47 
 
 more and more interest the Information which 
 they possessed about America. Sir Humphrey 
 Gilbert was an authority on the subject. On 
 November 2, 1582, after conferences with Wal- 
 singham, the Secretary, and others on the sub- 
 ject, articles of agreement were indented be- 
 tween Sir Humphrey and such as adventured 
 with him touching new lands to be discovered 
 and conquered by him. There was much work 
 to be done; and we find Raleigh now no longer 
 a subordinate and dependant, but a coun- 
 selor and patron, conferring with and assisting 
 him. March 17, 1583, Raleigh wrote him 
 telling him: "I have sent you a token from her 
 Majesty; an ancor guided by a lady," and con- 
 veying him her Majesty's good wishes for his 
 voyage. March and April were spent in lay- 
 ing plans and completing preparations. Mer- 
 chants of London and Bristol as well as others 
 contributed to the expedition, and privileges 
 were obtained for the settlers who should go. 
 June II, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, having sold his 
 landed estates to fit out his expedition, set out, 
 sailing from "Caushen Bay neere Plymouth" 
 with five vessels. One of these Raleigh had 
 furnished. He himself was prevented from go- 
 ing in person by the peremptory order of the 
 Queen. Gilbert landed in New Foundland, 
 
48 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 August 4, and the next day took formal posses- 
 sion in the name of the Crown of England. 
 August 31, after cruising southwest of Cape 
 Breton and compelling the fleet of thirty-six sail 
 of various nations in the harbor of St. John to 
 acknowledge the authority of England, whose 
 laws and religion he declared binding in the 
 new found land, he sailed for home. The work 
 of the brave Gilbert, however, was done. On 
 September 9, the little Squirrel, on which he had 
 chosen to take passage, went down in a storm 
 with all on board. Her gallant commander's 
 last words, which were reported as heard on her 
 consort, being the brave words that it was "as 
 near to heaven by sea as by land." 
 
 Another American venture was meantime fit- 
 ting out. It was ever believed that a northwest 
 passage could be found which would lead to the 
 East and be free from the dangers of the Span- 
 ish Main. On February 6, 1584, the Queen 
 granted letters patent to Adrian Gilbert, Walter 
 Raleigh, Dr. John Dee, John Davis and others 
 for the search and discovery of the northwest 
 passage to China. And under this Captain 
 John Davis made three voyages. 
 
 On March 25, 1584, when Sir Humphrey 
 Gilbert's death was assured, the letters pat- 
 ent issued to him were regranted, without 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 49 
 
 limit or reservation, to Walter Raleigh; and 
 from this point the history of Virginia, Eng- 
 land's first colony, stretches in an unbroken 
 line. 
 
 Raleigh laid his plans for a permanent settle- 
 ment. His colonies were not only to possess 
 forever the soil in the lands he should discover, 
 but v^ere to "have all the privileges of free 
 denisons, and persons native of England in such 
 ample manner as if they were born and person- 
 ally resident in our said realm of England." 
 They were, moreover, to be governed " accord- 
 ing to such statutes as shall be by him or them 
 established; so that the said statutes or laws con- 
 form as near as conveniently may be with those 
 of England, and do not oppose the Christian 
 faith, or any way withdraw the people of those 
 lands from our allegiance," etc. These guaran- 
 tees, renewed in the charters of 1606, 1609 and 
 16 1 2, were the foundation of the liberties of the 
 American people on which our fathers based 
 their rights when they stood out for them in 
 1776. 
 
 Two ships sailed on the 27th of April, 1584, 
 and on the 4th of July reached the American 
 coast, and sailing northward found the entrance 
 of the harbor (probably of New Inlet) and, after 
 returning thanks to God, put ashore and took 
 
50 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 possession in the name "of the Queen*s most 
 excellent Majestie, as rightful Queen and Prin- 
 cess of the same," and afterwards delivered the 
 same over to Sir Walter Raleigh. Natives com- 
 ing aboard, they v^ere asked the name of the 
 land, and their reply, Win-gan-da-coa, was mis- 
 taken as the name. 
 
 The newcomers made some exploration, in- 
 cluding an island called Roanoke, and found the 
 natives friendly. They then returned to Eng- 
 land, taking with them two natives, and gave an 
 enthusiastic account of the new land which they 
 described as "the most plentiful, sweet, fruitful 
 and wholesome of all the world," and the people 
 as "most gentle, loving and faithful, void of all 
 guile and treason, and such as live after the 
 manner of the Golden Age." 
 
 Elizabeth graciously accorded the privileges 
 proposed by Raleigh, giving to this new land a 
 name in honor of her maiden state, and it was 
 called Virginia. Raleigh was knighted for his 
 service and given the title of "Lord and Governor 
 of Virginia." 
 
 The fitting out of the colony went swiftly for- 
 ward, and on the 9th of April, 1585, Sir Richard 
 Grenville sailed with seven ships carrying 
 "one hundred householders, and many things 
 necessary to begin a new State." The head of 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 51 
 
 the colony was to be Ralph Lane, who was 
 called from Ireland to undertake "the Voyage 
 to Virginia for Sir Walter Raleigh at her Majes- 
 ty's command." A jealousy sprang up between 
 Lane and Grenville, but on the 26th of June 
 (1585) they came to anchor in Ocracoke Inlet. 
 On the nth of July Grenville crossed Pimlico 
 Sound and discovered three Indian towns; 
 where, shortly afterwards, a silver cup having 
 been stolen by the Indians, an act of reprisal 
 followed in the burning of the Indians' corn and 
 villages, and the long contest between the Eng- 
 lish and the Indians, so fatal to the latter, was 
 begun. Grenville landed the colony at Roanoke 
 Island and sailed for England August 25, 
 promising to return by the following Easter. 
 Lane built a fort and then began to explore the 
 country. He w^ent southward some eighty miles, 
 and northward about one hundred and thirty 
 miles, and as far as Elizabeth River. He also 
 ascended the Roanoke River, perhaps as far as 
 Halifax. Here he found that the tribes who 
 had been friendly on his first visit had become 
 hostile. He was told that the river came out of 
 a rock on the shores of the Western Ocean and 
 ran through a land rich in minerals, so, though 
 provisions gave out and the men were reduced 
 to eating dogs, they pushed on. In time, how- 
 
52 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 ever, even this provision failed and they returned. 
 Lane novs^ found it necessary to divide his men 
 into three parties to maintain them, one of 
 v^hich he sent to Croatan Island, and another 
 to Hatorask. In a short time a plot by King 
 Penisapau to murder the v^hites v^as divulged 
 by a hostage named Skyco, and Lane prompt- 
 ly met it by striking the first blow and slay- 
 ing Penisapau and seven or eight of his 
 leading men. 
 
 Meantime, affairs in England had progressed: 
 Philip had for three years been collecting such 
 a fleet as had never sailed since the days of 
 Xerxes, and its object v^as v^ell understood. 
 Sir Francis Drake had been called to the sea 
 again, a service for w^hich he v^as ever more than 
 ready, and taking the offensive, though v^ar w^as 
 not yet declared, had sailed to the West Indies 
 and sacked Santiago, St. Augustine and Cartage- 
 na, and was now sailing home to "singe the 
 Spanish King*s beard" by burning his vessels 
 in the very harbor of Corunna. He reached 
 Roanoke Island on the loth of June and relieved 
 the colonists, and finding that Lane decHned 
 to return to England, handsomely offered him 
 one of his ships. The only one, however, which 
 he could spare that could enter the harbor (the 
 Francis), being blown out to sea, Lane and 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 53 
 
 his men accepted Drake's offer and returned 
 to England. Meantime Raleigh had been busy. 
 Soon after their departure Raleigh's first supply- 
 ship sent for their relief arrived, but finding 
 the colony gone, returned to England. Fifteen 
 days later Sir Richard Grenville arrived with 
 three ships fully provisioned, but finding no one, 
 he, too, returned to England, leaving behind him 
 to hold possession fifteen men v^ith two years' 
 provisions. 
 
 Lane brought with him to England a descrip- 
 tion of the country, and also an account of 
 another and far better harbor of which he had 
 learned, a few days' journey to the northward. 
 Raleigh with undiminished enthusiasm imme- 
 diately set himself to work to found a colony on 
 this harbor. He granted a charter to thirty-two 
 persons, of whom nineteen were merchants of 
 London who put in their money, and thirteen, 
 who were to come personally, were styled "The 
 Governor and Assistants of the City of Raleigh 
 in Virginia." Of these nineteen merchants, ten 
 were afterwards subscribers to the company 
 which settled Jamestown. John White was 
 selected for Governor of the Colony, and the ex- 
 pedition of three ships was under charge of 
 Simon Ferdinando. It was claimed that Ferdi- 
 nando, being a Spaniard, was guilty of treachery. 
 
54 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 At least, he was guilty of disobedience. His 
 orders were first to take the men off of Roanoke 
 and then to sail to the Chesapeake. Instead, on 
 reaching Hatorask (July 22, 1587), where White 
 took a pinnace and forty men to go and relieve 
 the little colony left at Roanoke Island, he gave 
 the sailors orders that none of the men were to 
 be brought back, claiming that it was too late in 
 the season to seek a new location for the colony. 
 They were forced, therefore, to spend the winter 
 at the island. White found on his arrival that 
 the men left there had been murdered, a not un- 
 common fate of colonists. The arrival of a 
 small vessel of the expedition, however, brought 
 the number of souls on the island up to one 
 hundred and twenty. 
 
 Among the new colonists were seventeen 
 women, the first English women who had come 
 to America. They had not been there long when 
 Eleanor Dare, a daughter of the Governor, 
 White, gave birth to a daughter, who, as the first 
 English child born on the continent was christ- 
 ened Virginia. When the time came for the re- 
 turn of the ships to England, White was unani- 
 mously requested to return with them to set forth 
 the needs of the colony. Although averse to 
 leaving, he consented and left the colony, reach- 
 ing England November 5. He found England in 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 55 
 
 great excitement over the threatened Spanish 
 invasion for which PhiHp w^as massing his ships. 
 Raleigh, Grenville and Lane v^ere all members 
 of the Council of War, and Raleigh w^as urging 
 the policy of England's defending herself at sea 
 rather than v^aiting for her antagonist to assail 
 her on land. He was at work drilling troops, but 
 he found time to fit out a small fleet for his 
 colonizing work. Every ship, however, was im- 
 pressed, and it was not until April 22, 1588, that 
 White got off with two small vessels. They had 
 not proceeded far when they had a fight with 
 Spanish ships and were forced to put back to 
 England. 
 
 On the nineteenth day of July, 1688, the sails 
 of the vast fleet which Spain was sending to 
 subjugate England and overthrow Protestantism 
 were descried from the Lizard. It was the land 
 of " Jack, the Giant-Killer." And for some time 
 Jack had been preparing to meet the Giant, 
 whose shadow had so long rested over England. 
 Beacons flamed from headland to headland, 
 and from shire to shire; England made herself 
 ready for the final struggle on which was to rest 
 her civilization, as more than a hundred years 
 later she made ready to meet Napoleon in his 
 victorious career of conquering the world. 
 From port to port and from hamlet to hamlet 
 
56 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 the news flew on the wings of flame, and when 
 the vast Spanish fleet entered the Channel every 
 man who could board a craft was girded for the 
 fray. The war-cry was England against Spain, 
 and Catholic and Protestant, no longer divided, 
 stood shoulder to shoulder to withstand the in- 
 vader. The Admiral of the English fleet was 
 Lord Howard of Effingham, the head of the 
 Cathohc Peers of England. Behind him sailed 
 Drake and Raleigh and Grenville, and a long 
 line of Protestant fighters. 
 
 The history of that long and epochal battle 
 is too well known to need repetition here. 
 
 Spaniards have never lacked courage or gal- 
 lantry; but on the side of the English ships, 
 though they were smaller and weaker in arma- 
 ment, was love of home — the spirit of freedom, 
 and the desperate courage which they ever give 
 to a freedom-loving people. For days the furious 
 battle raged through the English Channel, the 
 sea-dogs of England dashing in to cut out the 
 Spanish ships one by one; and then after Drake 
 had burnt a number of their vessels with fire- 
 ships in the harbor, where they sought refuge, 
 the Spanish fleet, broken and dismayed, made 
 its way as best it could into the North Sea in 
 a desperate attempt to sail around Britain, 
 only to fall a prey to its fierce storms, and to 
 
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA 57 
 
 scatter its wrecks all the way from the Hebrides 
 to the south coast of Ireland. It was the end of 
 Spanish supremacy. Overweighted with wealth 
 and wealth's evil offspring, arrogance, from this 
 time her star declined, and In the morning skies 
 rose the resplendent star of a freer and a broader 
 Civilization. 
 
II 
 
 JAMESTOWN, THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE 
 AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 " In Kingdoms the first Foundation or Plantation is of more 
 Dignitie and Merit than all that followeth." — Sir Francis Bacon 
 
 /^^LOSE to the northern bank of the winding 
 ^-^ and placid James, some three score miles 
 above where it pours its waters through Hamp- 
 ton Roads into that inland sea, the Chesapeake, 
 into which flow well-nigh a score of rivers, 
 some of them among the noblest on the globe, 
 lies a narrow island. Steeped in the sunshine, 
 or soaked by the rains, it has until but yester- 
 day, as it were, lain asleep for the last two cen- 
 turies and more, just as it had lain, with the 
 exception of about seventy years, since the 
 Powhatan at flood cut it from its neighboring 
 shore. At the upper end, on the river side, 
 in a clump of trees, and what was until lately 
 a tangle of shrubbery, on the edge of which are 
 
 piled the remains of an old redout, a relic of the 
 
 58 
 
JAMESTOWN 59 
 
 Civil War, stands a brick church-tower — a single 
 surviving fragment of the first Protestant church 
 built in America. About it lie the traces of a once 
 extensive graveyard, w^here of late the pious 
 zeal of loyal v^omen of the Land has uncovered 
 and preserved a fev^ broken tombs graved v^ith 
 armorial escutcheons and bearing the names of 
 a very few among those whose ashes have lain 
 for nearly three hundred years embosomed in 
 Virginia's soil. 
 
 The foundation of a later State-House has 
 been exhumed near by; and the eye of the born 
 antiquary may detect out on the plateau in the 
 sun the faint traces of ancient streets and houses, 
 but to the ordinary passer-by, there has been 
 until just now nothing to distinguish it from the 
 ordinary Virginia river-plantation dozing in the 
 sunshine. 
 
 Yet, here on this very spot, at the head of this 
 little island was Jamestown, the Birthplace of 
 the American People: the first rude cradle in 
 which was swaddled the tiny infant that in time 
 has sprung up to be among the leaders of the 
 nations; the torch-bearer of civilization, and 
 the standard-bearer of popular government 
 throughout the world. Here was planted three 
 hundred years ago the first surviving colony 
 of the English-speaking Race which has since 
 
6o THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 occupied this continent and spread over the 
 globe. Here was estabhshed the first outpost 
 and earliest settlement of the American nation, 
 since then dedicated to the principle that "Gov- 
 ernment of the People, by the People, and for 
 the People shall not perish from the earth." 
 
 And this in brief is the story of it, and the 
 manner in v^hich it came about. 
 
 On the morning of the 13th day of May, 
 1607, James I. being then King of England, 
 Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and Philip III. 
 being King of Spain, the American Continent 
 when the sun rose belonged absolutely to Spain. 
 When the sun set, could the eyes of men have 
 read the future, they would have seen that it 
 belonged to England. This was accomplished 
 by a little band of six score men who " after long 
 toil and pain" landed that day about the hour 
 of four from three small ships : the Discovery, 
 the Good Speed, and the Sarah"^ Constant, and 
 planted the flag of the Anglo-Saxon on the point 
 which they promptly proceeded to fortify and 
 call "James Fort" or "James Town," after their 
 king. 
 
 The day that a besieged city capitulates is not 
 so truly the day of its capture as the day on 
 
 * The names S'arah and Susan are both used in the earlier 
 records, but Sarah is the name found in reports of the Company. 
 
JAMESTOWN 6 1 
 
 which the besiegers plant their standard upon 
 the walls never again to be taken down. So, 
 much more here. The approach had been long 
 and arduous. Effort after effort, attempt after 
 attempt, had been made to make a breach in 
 Spain's extensive defenses. As has been de- 
 scribed in the previous paper, a break had 
 actually been made under Sir Walter Raleigh's 
 inspiring direction twenty-odd years before by a 
 gallant and devoted band on Roanoke Island, 
 some score of leagues to the southward. But 
 the assault had finally failed; the little band on 
 Roanoke Island had disappeared into the mys- 
 terious limbo of Croatan, that vague land of 
 Romance. It was this new band of settlers who 
 on this May day, 1607, finally seized and perma- 
 nently held the outpost, which was the key to 
 the continent, and led to the supremacy of the 
 Saxon Race, with its laws, its religion and its 
 civilization in North America. 
 
 As a matter of mere history, it ought to be 
 known that North America was firmly settled 
 by the English people, and the Anglo-Saxon 
 civilization was established in this country be- 
 fore the May-flowery under the encouragement 
 and charter of the Virginia Company, brought 
 her body of devoted Pilgrims to the shores of 
 North Virginia. 
 
62 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 This happened at Jamestown. And unless 
 this had happened at Jamestown, it is far from 
 improbable, that the French colonies planted 
 under the charter of Louis XIIL, on what is 
 now the coast of Maine, which were rooted out 
 in 1612-13, by the expeditions under Samuel 
 Argall, sent for that purpose by Sir Thomas 
 Dale, Governor of Virginia, might by 1620 have 
 extended so far to the southward as to seize 
 the coast and prevent any settlement of the 
 English between them and the Dutch colony 
 on Manhattan Island. Moreover, but for the 
 development of the Virginia colony, in which the 
 People and Church of England were so deeply 
 interested, the destinies of the nations might 
 have been changed, and under the pusillanimous 
 James, who even as late as 1618 sacrificed Sir 
 Walter Raleigh to the enmity of the Spaniard, 
 Spain, with her civilization, might have so firmly 
 established herself on the shores of Virginia that 
 no English settlement could have taken root. 
 
 By this time the colony of Virginia, first 
 rooted at Jamestown, and fertilized with the 
 ashes of over three thousand English settlers, 
 had spread until it had become a Common- 
 wealth, with settlements extending almost un- 
 brokenly over a hundred miles into the interior; 
 with several towns, one of them with houses 
 
JAMESTOWN 63 
 
 partly of brick; with forts guarding the mouths 
 of the rivers; with a charter which secured for- 
 ever to all colonists in Virginia, and their 
 posterity from sea to sea, the rights, privileges 
 and immunities of native-born citizens of Great 
 Britain; with a Vice-Regal Court, a Legislative 
 Assembly composed of twenty-two burgesses 
 elected by the people, with an Established 
 Church, Monthly Courts, a University projected 
 and endowed with ten thousand acres of land, 
 and a College already begun for the education of 
 the Indian population, under a competent mas- 
 ter, endowed with a thousand acres of land, for 
 which over fifteen hundred pounds (equal to ten 
 times the amount now) had been subscribed; 
 with a hospital "containing fourscore lodgings 
 and beds sent to furnish it." In fine, with a 
 civilization which, though at the time it lacked 
 the comforts and the expansion which it later 
 attained, contained the substantial principles of 
 the later civilization which throughout her entire 
 Colonial period, and for over a half century 
 afterwards, made Virginia the first colony in 
 America in influence, as she was in time, and 
 more than any other contributed to the making 
 of this nation. 
 
 That this happened at Jamestown, and that 
 Cavalier and Roundhead, Churchman and Puri- 
 
64 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 tan alike, owe the same debt to the Jamestown 
 colony, the historian can now show; not from 
 partisan histories, but from the facts taken from 
 the original records, many of which have only 
 of late become generally known. 
 
 In consequence of Columbus's discovery of 
 the New World and of the discoveries and ex- 
 plorations of the southern parts of the new-found 
 hemisphere by Spanish navigators, Spain had 
 grown until, by the middle of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, she was not only the richest kingdom of 
 the world, but the most arrogant, and the most 
 powerful. She promised to become greater than 
 Rome had been under the Caesars. Her empire 
 covered twice as great an extent of land as that 
 over which Rome's eagles ever flew, and her sway 
 extended over many times as broad a main. She 
 made it death to fly any other flag than her own 
 in those seas which have retained almost to our 
 own days the name of the Spanish Main. Indeed, 
 she had it in her power to have been Mistress of 
 the World in a far larger sense than Rome ever 
 was. But she lacked the wisdom of Rome. 
 Not content with commanding the actions of her 
 teeming myriads of subjects stretching from the 
 Baltic to the Pacific, she undertook to assert 
 her imperial sovereignty over their minds as 
 well, and this sovereignty was already becoming 
 
JAMESTOWN 65 
 
 effete. Its insignia were the outworn robes of a 
 prelatical ecclesiasticism, bent on perpetuating 
 its power and prepared to put to the sword every- 
 one who did not bow abjectly before its dog- 
 matism and arrogance. 
 
 Happily for the world, just at this time the 
 Crown of England fell on the brow of the able 
 and hard-headed daughter of Henry VIII. and 
 Anne Boleyn, the great Elizabeth, and yet more 
 happily, she found herself at the head of an 
 awakened and eager people alive in every fibre 
 of their being and most of all alive to the peril 
 of allowing Spain to go on unchecked in her 
 career of conquest over body and mind. 
 
 The rest of Europe was growing anxious under 
 Spain's advancing power, and Francis I. had 
 sent his powerful rival, Charles V., a message 
 asking by what right he claimed the earth. 
 
 There was some sort of claim to discovery 
 under the patronage of England by John Cabot 
 and his sons. This was the ostensible peg on 
 which was now hung the right of further ex- 
 ploration and settlement. But it is probable 
 that even had the Cabots never sailed beyond 
 the Downs, the Sea Dogs of Devon and Corn- 
 wall, of Bucks and Kent and Surrey with their 
 Norse blood, would have set their prows into 
 the west where El Dorado, the Fountain of 
 
66 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 Gold, was flowing hard by the scarcely less 
 mythical Fountain of Youth. Within a few 
 years Fame was filling her trump with the names 
 of a score of these captains — of whom many 
 survive to-day: John Hawkins, Sir Francis 
 Drake, Sir Martin Frobisher, Captain Christo- 
 pher Newport, Sir Richard Grenville and the 
 brave Gilberts, Sir Adrian, Sir Humphrey and 
 Sir John, half-brothers of Walter Raleigh, and 
 Sir Walter himself, bold adventurer; fine gentle- 
 man; patron of explorers; favorite of Queen 
 Elizabeth; godfather and first president or gov- 
 ernor of Virginia. 
 
 Almost the whole of the sixteenth century 
 was spent in one long contest between the two 
 civilizations: the Latin and the Saxon. Into 
 the contest entered every principle that two 
 widely diverse civilizations represent, and every 
 feeling that can animate nations. Patriotic zeal; 
 religious fervor; bigotry; personal adherence, 
 or hostility; lust of power and lust of gold — 
 all united to make the contest one of contin- 
 uous war between the two peoples, if not the 
 governments of the two countries. The wealth, 
 the power and the arrogance of Spain, with her 
 bigotry, aroused the people of England to a 
 pitch which had possibly not been known since 
 the Norman Conquest. 
 
JAMESTOWN 67 
 
 Although England claimed the middle zone of 
 North America by virtue of the discovery made 
 in 1497 by John Cabot and his sons, under 
 patent of Henry VII., of v^hich event the only 
 official record is the item noted in the '" Privy 
 Purse" of Henry VII., "Ten pounds to hym 
 w^ho found the Nev^ Land," the continent 
 was won a hundred years later in the war with 
 Spain, which lasted substantially through the 
 latter half of the sixteenth century. 
 
 For a generation the great sea captains of 
 England had been training in Western waters 
 and garnering up implacable hate against Spain. 
 Sir Philip Sidney had written vigorously of 
 England's opportunity and duty; Hawkins, 
 Drake, the Gilberts, Grenville, and others had 
 flouted Spain and fought her from Cadiz to 
 Peru. And now Sir Walter Raleigh and his half- 
 brothers, the Gilberts, gentlemen of Devon, bred 
 on traditions of sea-fighters, and hereditary haters 
 of Spain, had definitely set before themselves the 
 colonization of the region claimed by England. 
 
 It was a perilous business. Spain had de- 
 clared it piracy to sail the western seas under 
 any other flag than her own. Menendez, the 
 Spanish Governor, had ruthlessly butchered 
 Coligny's Huguenot colony started at St. Augus- 
 tine on the St. John's River. 
 
68 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 The struggle was on between Spain and Eng- 
 land — and not only between the countries and 
 the governments, but between the two races and 
 the two schools of thought; the two forms of 
 religion. The Latin and the Saxon had locked 
 in a wrestle which was to end only with the 
 absolute supremacy of the one and the subjec- 
 tion of the other. And Spain was now seeking 
 to destroy England's power forever. 
 
 Menendez's ferocity was destined to make 
 such a lodgment in the minds of Englishmen 
 as to be mentioned as a warning in the instruc- 
 tions given to the first colonists of the race who 
 effected a permanent settlement. 
 
 The treachery of the Spaniards at St. Juan 
 d'Ulua arrayed against her two of the most 
 potent enemies she ever had to face: Among 
 John Hawkins's men was one, who from his fury 
 against Spain came to be known later as the 
 "Dragon of the Seas," young Francis Drake. 
 To the other, who later came to be known as 
 "The Shepherd of the Seas," more, possibly, than 
 to any other one man in England, Spain owed 
 the wresting of North America from her grasp. 
 For SirWalter Raleigh inspired and equipped and 
 dispatched the fleets which opened the way to the 
 settlement of Virginia and of America. He gave 
 Virginia her name and was her first governor. 
 
JAMESTOWN 69 
 
 Previous to the final and successful effort there 
 had been several attempts to plant here colonies 
 fitted out by Sir Walter Raleigh, which failed. 
 That on Roanoke Island might have succeeded 
 had not the Spanish war and the peril of the 
 Spanish Armada kept supplies from being sent 
 over seas to their relief. 
 
 The destruction of the Spanish Armada left 
 the seas open for England's schemes for coloniza- 
 tion to go into effect. 
 
 The victory of England was complete; but it 
 had been at the cost of her utmost resources. 
 March 7, 1589, Raleigh signed an indenture 
 as Chief Governor of Virginia with Thomas 
 Smith and others, merchants of London, and 
 John White and others, gentlemen, transferring 
 the Colony in Virginia and the planting thereof 
 in his domain to this Company, and contribut- 
 ing 100 pounds towards the planting of the 
 Christian religion there, and reserving one-fifth 
 part of the gold and silver for his share. 
 
 When, on August 27, 1587, White, the gov- 
 ernor of Raleigh's new colony on Roanoke 
 Island, sailed for England for supplies he left 
 behind him eighty-nine men, seventeen women, 
 and eleven children, among them his daughter, 
 Eleanor, and her infant daughter, Virginia Dare, 
 the first English child born on this hemisphere. 
 
70 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 When White reached England, November 2, 
 war had, as we have seen, become flagrant with 
 Spain, and he was unable to return until after 
 the destruction of the Spanish Armada left the 
 sea once more comparatively open and England 
 once more free to give her attention to the 
 work of expansion. Before leaving Roanoke 
 White had provided that in case the colonists 
 should have any reason to change their seat, 
 the place to which they should move should be 
 so posted that he might be able to follow them. 
 White was not able to get away finally to his 
 colony until 1590, when three ships, furnished 
 at the charge of Mr. John Watts, being ready 
 to sail for the Indies, "to make spoil of the 
 Spaniards," being detained under the orders 
 prohibiting ships from saiUng, Raleigh obtained 
 permission for them to sail on condition that 
 they should take White back to Virginia. They 
 would, however, take no one but White himself, 
 and so he* returned alone to Virginia. They 
 cast anchor off Hatorask on the 15th of August, 
 but there was no one there; the settlement had 
 been abandoned. The settlers had not been 
 murdered; for they had buried boxes containing 
 books, etc., which some one had found and dug 
 up afterwards. "Some tracks of feeting they 
 found upon a sandy bank," says old Strachey 
 
JAMESTOWN 71 
 
 ("First Travails into Va.," Brita., p. 152) "and 
 on a tree curiously carved these Roman letters, 
 C. R. O., which gave them hope that they might 
 be removed to Croatan.'* This White interpreted 
 to mean that the colony had moved to the 
 Island of Croatan,from which they had previous- 
 ly taken the friendly Indian, Manteo. White 
 begged the Captain to take him to Croatan, 
 which he agreed to do, but a violent storm pre- 
 vented him and he determined to sail straight 
 for England, where they arrived October 24, 
 1590. This was White's fifth and last voyage 
 (as he stated to Hackluyt in a letter in 1593)- 
 He fell into a despondency after his disappoint- 
 ment. There appears to have been a tribe of 
 Croatans in the interior, at some distance from 
 the coast, but diligent search failed to find trace 
 of the lost settlers at that time. And since that 
 day the researches of investigators have scarcely 
 been more successful. The little Virginia colony 
 with the babe, Virginia Dare, simply faded 
 away into the mystic Land of Romance. Some 
 effort has been made to prove that there exists 
 in the interior of North Carolina a body of 
 people who are rather assumed than shown to 
 have the mixed blood of the Indian and the 
 White, and have vague traditions of being thus 
 descended. Twenty years later when a perma- 
 
72 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 nent settlement was effected on the banks of the 
 James, one hundred miles to the northward, 
 one boy was found with yellow hair and a lighter 
 skin than the Indians have, and it has been con- 
 jectured that he might have been the offspring 
 of some one of the colonists, but his age did not 
 admit of this explanation, and no man knows 
 to this day what became of them. 
 
 The blotting out of this colony was a heavy 
 blow to English enterprise, and as one of the old 
 writers declared, "all hopes of Virginia thus aban- 
 doned, it lay dead and obscured from 1590 to this 
 year, 1602.'* By this time, the end of the long war 
 with Spain was in sight, and the English public, 
 the English Church, and the English Govern- 
 ment once more turned their eyes to that far off, 
 but "sweet, wholesome and fruitful country." 
 
 Though the efforts made had all failed, the 
 spirit still remained. Even the death of the 
 great Queen in 1603 was not able to quench it. 
 National pride; religious zeal; the spirit of ad- 
 venture and of cupidity, all combined to make 
 the effort time after time to establish a foothold 
 where all previous efforts had failed. 
 
 Just as in our fathers' time, adventure and 
 the love of gold drew the Argonauts and their 
 followers around the Horn and across the arid 
 plains of the West to California, and in our own 
 
JAMESTOWN 73 
 
 time the same motives have sent thousands to 
 Alaska and South Africa; so then the trophies 
 of Spain's fortune-hunters v^ould not let the 
 adventurers of Great Britain rest. Hatred of 
 Spain and envy of the plate-ships of Peru drew 
 them from the Devon coast. The tales of 
 Spain's El Dorado untied the purse-strings of 
 the London companies. But there was another 
 and loftier motive. The zeal of the children of 
 those who had suffered at Smithfield and Tower 
 Hill under the Queen of Philip H. could not 
 with languor see the church of Torquemada and 
 Alva bringing vast tribes within their fold. 
 
 The cities of England were full of soldiers re- 
 turned from the wars in the Low Countries; the 
 spirit of adventure was abroad, and much more 
 the hatred of Spain. The State reflected it; 
 the poet sang of it; the writers wrote of it. 
 
 About 1590 Elizabeth granted a commission 
 to Richmond Greynville of Stow and others, 
 for discovering lands in the Arctic Ocean to the 
 domains of Great Cam of Cathaia. August 26, 
 1591, Captain Thomas Cavendish sailed from 
 England on his last fatal voyage. In 1592 
 (January 25), Captain Christopher Newport 
 sailed from England with three ships and a pin- 
 nace for the West Indies, where he took and 
 "spoiled" several Spanish towns. In this same 
 
74 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 year an expedition was organized for an attack 
 on the Spanish settlements at Panama, the near- 
 est way to the South Sea, and the key to the pos- 
 sessions of Spain and America. The advent- 
 urers provided thirteen vessels and the Queen two 
 ships of war. Sir Walter Raleigh was to have had 
 command of the expedition as Admiral; but he was 
 again balked in his enterprise by the peremptory 
 order of the Queen to resign and return forthwith 
 to Court. He, however, laid off the plan of the 
 expedition, and Sir John Burrough, his vice-ad- 
 miral, and Captain Christopher Newport, with 
 other vessels, captured the great carrack, the 
 Madre de Dios, which Edwards in his "Life of 
 Raleigh" says "was in one sense the most bril- 
 liant feat of privateering ever accomplished, even 
 in the days of Queen Elizabeth, and a piece of 
 mercantile enterprise pregnant with results." 
 
 All through '93 and '94 the adventures to the 
 American shores went on under the influence of 
 Raleigh's enterprising genius. In '94 he sent a 
 small expedition to Guiana, in South America, 
 and in '95 (February 6) he sailed himself on 
 his famous voyage to that coast. The interest 
 in America increased throughout '96, '97, '98 
 and '99, and many new adventurers were en- 
 Hsted, some to invest their property, and others 
 to adventure their persons in the work of making 
 
JAMESTOWN 75 
 
 America English. Raleigh himself never re- 
 linquished his interest in the work, and vessel 
 after vessel sailed to Guiana, or to some other 
 point on the coast in his interest. In 1602 
 he sent Samuel Mace of Weymouth on a ves- 
 sel to Virginia, and in that same year Cap- 
 tain Bartholomew Gosnold and others voyaged 
 to our New England coast. On the 24th of 
 March, 1603, Queen Elizabeth died at Rich- 
 mond, and on the same day James VI. of Scot- 
 land was proclaimed King of England as James 
 I. That day Raleigh fell. He made the mis- 
 take of opposing James and espousing the cause 
 of Arabella Stuart, and James never forgave 
 him. "I have heard of you but rawly. Sir Wal- 
 ter," he said to him acridly when later on Raleigh 
 went to him to offer him his submission. In time 
 he pretended to receive his submission, but it 
 was Raleigh's first offense, coupled with James's 
 cowardly fear of Spain, which afterwards sacri- 
 ficed the greatest colonizer whom England has 
 ever known, to the hatred of Spain. Raleigh, 
 however, had set on foot too great a work for even 
 James to undo, and on the loth of May Captain 
 Bartholomew Gilbert set sail for the Chesepian 
 Bay in the country of Virginia. Gilbert, his sur- 
 geon, and several officers and men went on shore 
 on their arrival, and were all killed by the Indians. 
 
76 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 In 1605 Captain George Weymouth and 
 others, some of whom had been with Raleigh in 
 Guiana, visited again the North Virginia, later 
 the New England coast, and that same year 
 Champlain entered the present harbor of Ply- 
 mouth on that coast. 
 
 Peace was signed by Philip III. and Lord 
 Howard at Valadolid in 1605 (June 25). 
 
 This Treaty of Peace opened the way to 
 the immediate colonization of America by the 
 English. 
 
 Indeed, peace had already become assured 
 for England, and, under the conviction that 
 Spain must make peace, steps were already 
 being taken to recover the lost land. 
 
 A month later Captain George Weymouth, 
 who had been cruising along the coast of North 
 Virginia, returned to England taking with him 
 five Indians; "which accident," says Sir Ferdi- 
 nando Gorges, later President of the Plymouth 
 Company, " must be acknowledged as the means, 
 under God, of putting on foot, and giving life to 
 our Plantations." Weymouth was arrested after- 
 wards under suspicion of setting forth to betray 
 the Virginia Colony to Spain, but at this time he 
 was engaged in trying to enlist others in Ameri- 
 can colonization. So great was the interest in 
 Virginia that two companies were formed and two 
 
JAMESTOWN 77 
 
 settlements were planned: one on the southerly 
 shores of Virginia, the other on the northerly. 
 
 Thus, in 1606, despite the failure of all earlier 
 attempts, an expedition was ready to set forth to 
 try to seize once more the American continent 
 for England, her King and People. 
 
 A great obstacle had been the difficulty of 
 securing the active co-operation of the Govern- 
 ment in the work. Experiment had abundantly 
 proved that such aid was necessary for final 
 success. This was now partly secured. 
 
 On April \%, 1606, the warrant for the pro- 
 posed Virginia charter was prepared by the 
 Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke, and was 
 passed under the great seal of the Lord Chan- 
 cellor, Sir Thomas Egerton. It was stated to 
 be "for the furtherance of so noble a work as 
 the planting of Christianity among the Hea- 
 thens,'' and claimed for the Crown of England 
 the whole of North America between 34 and 
 45 degrees north latitude, "commonly called 
 Virginia." 
 
 All England was now astir, and on the loth 
 day of April, 1606, letters patent were granted 
 Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, Richard 
 Hakluit, Edward Maria Wingfield, Raleigh 
 Gilbert and others, for two separate colonies 
 and plantations to be made in Virginia, and 
 
78 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 other parts and territories of America. Both 
 companies were incorporated by this one charter. 
 The first colony was authorized to seat their 
 plantation in some convenient place between 31 
 (about Brunswick, Ga.) and 41 degrees North 
 latitude (about New York City), and when 
 so located they were to have fifty miles north 
 and fifty miles south of said location, as well as 
 one hundred miles to sea, and one hundred 
 miles within the land. The second colony 
 was authorized to seat their plantation be- 
 tween 38 (about the southern point of Mary- 
 land) and 45 degrees north latitude (about 
 Halifax, N. S.), and were granted the same ex- 
 tent of territory with the first, provided, how- 
 ever, that they should not plant within one 
 hundred miles of each other. This charter set 
 forth, among other things, the privileges and 
 franchises which Raleigh had obtained before 
 for his first colony, and on which our liberties 
 are based to-day. 
 
 Preparations which were, no doubt, already 
 on foot were pressed forward rapidly to send out 
 the colony immediately to take possession and 
 occupy the goodly land which Raleigh had so 
 long been trying to reach, and to secure the land 
 of the Thespians or Chesepians. It was a 
 dangerous adventure, for the Spaniards were 
 
JAMESTOWN 79 
 
 ever present in their minds, and the mysterious 
 fate of the last colony at Roanoke must have 
 been still a matter of constant discussion and 
 conjecture, v^hich kept very fresh in the minds 
 of men the perils of adventure in those distant 
 shores. Cupidity, ambition, the chance of 
 sudden v^ealth and power, and fame, like those 
 v^hich had come to Frobisher and Drake, to 
 Hawkins and the Gilberts; religious zeal, patriot- 
 ism, all combined to turn men's minds to the 
 new, and, as yet, unknown land. 
 
 The Stage is ever apt to reflect the current 
 feeling of the time, and Virginia became the 
 theme of the Stage. The play, "Eastward 
 Hoe," written by George Chapman, Ben Jonson, 
 and John Marston, was entered for publication 
 at "Stationers Hall," on the 4th of September, 
 1605, and gives, though in the form of comedy 
 and of exaggeration, what was no doubt in the 
 minds of many men at that time. "Quick- 
 silver," "Sea -Gull," "Spendall," "Scape- 
 Thrift," were among the characters. "Sir Pet- 
 ronel Flash " was the first of a long and illustri- 
 ous line of Virginian colonels, and their talk was 
 so racy that the authors presently got them- 
 selves into prison, not indeed for lampooning 
 Virginia or Virginia colonels, but for their gibes 
 at the Scots, which was a matter which lay much 
 
8o THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 nearer the hearts of Sir James Murray and the 
 King. I venture to quote from the second scene 
 of the third act. 
 
 Enter Sea Gull, Spendall and Scape-Thrift in the 
 Blewe Anchor Tavern with a Drawer: 
 
 Sea Gull. Come, Drawer, pierce your neatest 
 Hogshead and let's have cheer not fit for your Billings- 
 gate Tavern, but for our Virginian Colonel who will 
 be here instantly. 
 
 Drawer. You shall have all things fit, sir; please 
 you have any more wine ? 
 
 Spendall. More wine, slave, whether you drink 
 it or spill it; drawe more. 
 
 Sea Gull. Come, boys, Virginia longs 'till we 
 share the rest of her maidenhead. 
 
 Spendall. Why, is she inhabited already with any 
 English ? 
 
 Sea Gull. A whole country of English is there, 
 man, bread of those that were left there in '79, they 
 have married with the Indians, and make 'em to bring 
 forth as beautiful faces as any we have in England, 
 and, therefore, the Indians are so in love with them 
 that all the treasure they have they lay at their feet. 
 
 Scape-Thrift. But is there such treasure there 
 as I have heard ? 
 
 Sea Gull. I tell thee that gold is more plentiful 
 there than copper is with us, and for as much red 
 copper as I can bring, I will have thrice the weight 
 in gold. Why, man, all their dripping pans are pure 
 
JAMESTOWN 8i 
 
 gold, and all the chains with which they chain up 
 their streets are massie gold; all the prisoners they 
 take are fettered in gold, and for rubies and diamonds 
 they go forth on holy days and gather them up by the 
 sea-shore to hang on their children's coats, and stick 
 in their children's caps, as commonly as our children 
 wear saffron gilt groates with holes in them. 
 
 Scape-Thrift. And is it a pleasant country with all ? 
 
 Sea Gull. As ever the sun shined on. Full of all 
 kinds of excellent viands, wild boar is as common 
 there as our tamest bacon is here; venison as mutton, 
 and then you shall live freely there without sergeants 
 or courtiers or lawyers, and intelligenceers; (only a 
 few industrious Scots, perhaps, who are, indeed, dis- 
 persed over the face of the whole earth, but as for them, 
 there are no greater friends to Englishmen and England 
 when they are out on 't in the world, and, for my part, 
 I would a hundred thousand of them were there; for 
 we are all one-countrymen now you know, and we 
 should find ten times more comfort of them there than 
 here. Then for your means to advancement; there 
 it is simple and not preposterously mixed. You may 
 be an alderman there, and never be a scavenger; you 
 may be any other officer there and never be a slave; 
 you may come to preferment and never be a pandar; 
 to riches and fortune, and have never the more villany 
 nor the less wit. Besides, there we shall have no more 
 law than conscience, and not too much of either; serve 
 God enough; eat enough; drink enough, and "enough 
 is as good as a feast." 
 
82 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 It was this last speech of Captain Sea Gull 
 which got Ben Jonson and his friends in jail. 
 
 The close of the wars had left London full 
 of soldiers out of employment, who had returned 
 and were ready for anything which promised 
 them the bettering of their fortunes. To these 
 men Virginia must have commended herself, 
 and one of them was to become in the first colony 
 the most able and noted soldier and adminis- 
 trator. He had returned from a youth of ad- 
 venture in the south-eastern part of Europe, 
 and had influence enough to have himself ap- 
 pointed one of the first Council of the colony 
 about to set forth. 
 
 It was with reference to this expedition, per- 
 haps, that Michael Drayton's "Ode to the Vir- 
 ginia Voyage" was written. It begins: 
 
 " You brave heroic minds 
 Worthy your country's name; that honor still pursue, 
 
 Go and subdue, 
 Whilst loytering hinds 
 Lurk here at home with shame. 
 
 And cheerfully at sea, 
 Successe you still intice 
 
 To get the pearle and gold, 
 
 And ours to hold, 
 Virginia 
 Earth's only paradise. 
 
JAMESTOWN 83 
 
 The Northern Virginia Company had trouble 
 from the first, according to Sir Ferdinand© 
 Gorges; because so many merchants were of the 
 Council that the gentlemen and great adventur- 
 ers withdrew from it. The Southern Virginia 
 Company was more fortunate. It escaped, at 
 least, this difficulty; for the great majority of 
 its members were men of the upper class and 
 almost without exception members of Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 The expedition designed to settle North Vir- 
 ginia got off first. 
 
 August 22, 1606, a ship, the Richard (fifty- 
 five tons), was dispatched by Chief Justice 
 Popham, under Mr. Henry Challons, with 
 twenty-nine Englishmen and two of Weymouth's 
 Indians, to settle a colony in North Virginia, 
 and two months later another ship was dis- 
 patched by him under Captain Thomas Han- 
 ham, and Martin Prinne, "for the seconding of 
 Captain Challans and his people." Captain 
 Challans, however, and his people had been 
 captured by the Spaniards in the West Indies, 
 and were taken over to Bordeaux, where some 
 escaped and others became the subject of diplo- 
 matic correspondence, and by Lord Bacon's 
 Report, were left in prison because, for England 
 to request their release might be considered a 
 
84 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 recognition of Spain's rights. But for this unto- 
 ward accident, It Is possible that the first colony 
 in America might have settled In North Virginia. 
 As it was, the first colony that made good their 
 footing, settled in Southern Virginia and estab- 
 lished, on the banks of the noble James, the 
 "Mother Christian town," of the English-speak- 
 ing race in America: Jamestown. 
 
 On the 20th day of December, 1606, after 
 many prayers, and sermons in various churches, 
 three small vessels, the Sarah Constant (of one 
 hundred tons). Captain Christopher Newport, 
 Admiral; the Goods peed (forty tons). Captain 
 Bartholomew Gosnold, Vice-Admiral; and a 
 pinnace, the Discovery (twenty tons). Captain 
 RatclIfFe, all under command of Captain Chris- 
 topher Newport as Admiral, dropped down 
 the river from London, with six score souls 
 on board besides some fifty-odd mariners, on 
 their way to Southern Virginia. They carried 
 with them the destinies of nations. 
 
 Three weeks later, on January 16, 1607, 
 the ships anchored In the Downs, where "the 
 winds continued contrary so long that they 
 were forced to stay some time, where they suf- 
 fered great storms.'' The record of the voyage 
 shows that there was a strong inclination to turn 
 back then, but they were held to their duty 
 
JAMESTOWN 85 
 
 largely by the heroic devotion of "Worthy 
 Master Hunt"; the simple parson, the first 
 apostle of the Anglo-Saxon race to the Americas, 
 whose name never appears in the sombre, and 
 often squalid, records of that time that it does 
 not illuminate it with the light of a heroic spirit, 
 wholly devoted to the service alike of his fellow- 
 man and the Most High God. For many weeks 
 the little ships tossed at anchor within twenty 
 miles of the coast where lay his home; and many 
 a heart failed; but not his, this faithful soldier 
 of Christ whose heart was stayed on Him. 
 Whether it was in encouraging his fellow- 
 voyagers in the midst of great storms in which 
 his own bodily sickness was so severe as to be 
 deemed worthy of mention, or whether it was in 
 the even darker hour at Jamestown, when fac- 
 tions and contentions threatened the destruction 
 of the coldny, he is always mentioned with that 
 appellation: "Worthy Master Hunt," who en- 
 deavored to calm the troubled spirits of his co- 
 sufferers amid the turbulence alike of the 
 Atlantic and of the new plantation. 
 
 The storms having abated, the ships lost the 
 coast of England about the i8th of February, 
 and after a sorry passage reached by the end of 
 February the southwest part of the great 
 Canaries. There they stayed several days, tak- 
 
86 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 ing on wood and water, when they again sailed 
 for Virginia, taking the old route by the West 
 Indies. They reached Dominica by the 24th 
 of March, where they did some little explora- 
 tion, and where one of the leading adventurers 
 appears to have fallen under some suspicion of 
 stirring up a mutiny, for he was arrested, and 
 because of it, to quote his own account, was " un- 
 justly restrained as a prisoner" until June 20, 
 when he suddenly emerges from his obscurity 
 into the fame which has for three hundred 
 years surrounded the name of "Captain John 
 Smith: President of Virginia, and Admiral of 
 New England." 
 
 II 
 
 Once again they set forth, and after three 
 weeks more, on the 26th of April, about four 
 o^clock in the. morning, they reached the mouth 
 of the Chesapeake and anchored inside of the 
 Capes of Virginia, the nearest one of which 
 was immediately named Cape Henry, after the 
 promising son of James I., whose chief distinc- 
 tion is, that he was Sir Walter Raleigh's friend, 
 and received the dedication of his "History of 
 the World." They anchored Europe to Amer- 
 ica; the old they made fast to the new. 
 
JAMESTOWN 87 
 
 Having landed here, they planted a cross, 
 taking possession in the name of England; and, 
 it being Sunday, having, no doubt, under the 
 direction of "Worthy Master Hunt," first offered 
 up devout thanksgiving for their escape from the 
 perils of the sea, which even to-day in our Church 
 service thankful voyagers occasionally render, 
 they undertook a little exploration. 
 
 It is a curious fact, and speaks for their joy 
 at reaching land, that, although they found the 
 aborigines extremely hostile and two of the 
 ship's company were grievously wounded by 
 them, so great was their delight on reaching 
 these shores, clad in fresh vernal garb that, in 
 their reports, the attack on their men is only inci- 
 dentally mentioned, while their records are full 
 of the memories of the charm of this Virginia 
 shore, with its clear streams running through 
 the woods, in that spring season. 
 
 Here, that night, the box containing their 
 sealed orders was opened, and they discovered 
 who were to be thenceforth their rulers. 
 
 The first president was to be elected by the 
 Council, which was composed of gentlemen the 
 most noted of whom in after time was this same 
 young captain who just then was a prisoner. 
 
 The first president elected was Edward Maria 
 Wingfield, a brave and high-minded gentleman. 
 
88 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 though unhappily not a man absolutely qualified 
 to deal with the situation that confronted them. 
 
 The first Council was composed of the presi- 
 dent, Edward Maria Wingfield, Captain John 
 Ratcliffe, Captain George Archer, Captain John 
 Martin, Captain John Smith, George Kendall 
 and George Percy, all old soldiers, and men of 
 force. 
 
 The colonists learned, moreover, even if they 
 did not know it before, that they were to have 
 the privileges of British subjects, which, after 
 all, was the fundamental basis on which the 
 possibility of a permanent settlement of this 
 country rested. Many matters were detailed in 
 their instructions which were in the main sound 
 and sensible. Among other things the settlers 
 were ordered, with wise forethought on the part 
 of the London Council, to establish themselves at 
 some spot up one of the rivers sufficiently high — 
 at least one hundred miles — to prevent the Span- 
 iard, who is ever on the horizon, from coming 
 on them as Melindus had done on the Hugue- 
 nots, and pulling them out of their seats. And, 
 with this view, they were directed to select a 
 place where the river would be narrow enough 
 to enable them to prevent with their ordnance 
 the Spaniard from reaching them. The broad 
 James then, as now, but under another kingly 
 
JAMESTOWN 89 
 
 name, poured its flood into the inland sea, and 
 the newcomers, seeking a secure abiding place, 
 quickly discovered this noble river. Their first 
 investigations, however, disheartened them, ow- 
 ing to the discovery that the water was too shoal 
 for their ships, and when, exploring further, they 
 discovered that close to the northern bank there 
 was a channel deep enough for their ships, their 
 comfort was so great that they named that shore 
 "Point Comfort," the name it bears to-day. 
 
 For many days they worked their way up 
 the broad stream which was to become so histor- 
 ical in after time; until, on the 13th day of 
 May, three hundred years ago, on this small 
 island in this Virginia river, that little band of 
 sea-worn adventurers disembarked and planted 
 the flag of the Anglo-Saxon Race, which, though 
 often threatened, and sometimes endangered, 
 has never since been lowered. 
 
 The manner of their going is told interest- 
 ingly enough in the quaint and virile Eliza- 
 bethan English. Having, on May 9, set up a 
 cross "at Chesupioc Bay," claiming the land for 
 the Crown of England, and named the place 
 "Cape Henry" for their young Prince, who 
 was ever a patron of Virginia colonization, on 
 May 10 they brought their ships into the river 
 at "Cape Comfort" channel there. "Leaving 
 
90 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 ten men as sentinel at the river's mouth/' with 
 Newport in his shallop going before them, they 
 went to Kecoughton, now Hampton, and on 
 from day to day up the stream which they called 
 "King James his River," looking for "a suit- 
 able seating place." On the ^ of May, after 
 having "explored up the river" as far as the 
 mouth of the Appomattox, they moored their 
 ships to the* trees " in six fathom water," and 
 thus made fast to Jamestown Island and the 
 American continent. 
 
 The account of the landing given at the time 
 tells how, "After much and weary search (with 
 their barge coasting still before, as Virgil writeth 
 ^neas did, arriving in the region of Italy called 
 Latium, upon the banks of the River Tyber) in 
 the country of a Warrawance called Wowin- 
 chapuncha (a ditionary to Powhatan) within this 
 faire River of Paspiheigh, which we have called 
 the King's River, they selected an extended 
 plaine and spot of earth which thrust out into 
 the depth and middest of the channel making a 
 kinde of Chersonesus or Peninsula. The Trum- 
 pets sounding, the Admirall strooke saile and 
 before the same the rest of the fleet came to 
 an ancor, and here to loose no further time the 
 colony disimbarked, and every man brought his 
 particular store and furniture together with the 
 
JAMESTOWN 91 
 
 general provision ashore." And thereupon, "a 
 certain canton and quantity of that Httle half 
 island of ground was measured which they 
 began to fortifie, and thereon in the name of God 
 to raise a Fortresse with the ablest and speediest 
 meanes they could." 
 
 The landing on this spot that day of that Httle 
 band of some six score sea-worn men (not count- 
 ing fifty or sixty seamen) and the planting of the 
 English flag was the date of the establishment 
 of the Anglo-Saxon Race in this hemisphere, and 
 the true date of the capture of this continent for 
 the EngHsh-speaking people. To employ their 
 own phrase, they "brake the ice and beat the 
 paths," and all who came after them found it 
 easier. For, as Lord Bacon says, "In King- 
 doms, the First Foundation or Plantation is of 
 more noble dignitie and merit than all that 
 folio weth." 
 
 There were bickerings and contentions and 
 quarrelling, disheartening enough; there were 
 heart-burnings and backshdings; movements to 
 give up and return to the flesh-pots of Egypt, 
 rebellious and weak enough. There were occa- 
 sions, and even periods when it appeared as 
 though almost all spirit had deserted them, and 
 their great enterprise must fail. But in the 
 providence of God they survived them all. 
 
92 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 Time fails to go into the vicissitudes and strug- 
 gles of this little colony, which, like the Spartan 
 band, held the gateway by the sea against the 
 seemingly overwhelming forces which ever 
 pressed on and on. 
 
 In this age, when well-nigh the whole earth 
 lies just outside of our neighborhood; when 
 every morning's dispatches bring us news of 
 almost every portion of the globe; when the 
 heart of Africa and the frozen regions of the 
 Arctic zone have been explored and charted; 
 when there is scarcely a region in which a travel- 
 ler may not venture with security, it is difficult to 
 realize just what the conditions were amid which 
 this colony was founded. Our imagination has 
 been almost destroyed by the destruction of the 
 standards by which we form our conceptions. 
 The wonders of the world are scarcely any longer 
 wonderful, and the labors of Hercules are ex- 
 celled by the work of thousands of enterprising 
 companies every day of our life. We may now 
 coast for pleasure where three hundred years ago 
 it was more dangerous to venture than to beard 
 the Nemean lion roused. The vast terra incog- 
 nita that stretched illimitably before the eager 
 eyes of those settlers is as familiar to us as a 
 city park to the inhabitants about it; and the 
 trackless wild, which seemed to swallow them 
 
JAMESTOWN 93 
 
 up, is a part of the habitual round of the pleasure- 
 travelHng pubhc. But on that May day three 
 hundred years ago, when the company of those 
 little ships debarked and made their final land- 
 ing on American soil, they faced every peril and 
 danger that the human mind can imagine. 
 
 Every tree and bush and patch of weeds might 
 conceal a crafty Indian with his deadly arrow. 
 
 The Spaniard with sword and stake was ever 
 on the horizon. The shadow of "MeKndus" 
 was yet black. 
 
 No one who has the least conception of what 
 those men endured will question their courage. 
 It is possible, however, that had they known 
 what they had to face in their new home the 
 stoutest hearted of them might have quailed. 
 To face death was nothing to such men, it was 
 an incident of the life of every man as it is to-day 
 of the life of the soldier in the field. Indeed, 
 this Httle band was the forlorn hope of volun- 
 teers sent to seize a continent. They made the 
 breach and held it against all odds, and it is to 
 the lasting renown of the English Race that as 
 fast as their numbers failed they were replaced. 
 On their maintaining their position hung the 
 fate of North America, and possibly of the world. 
 They had reached a charmed but an unknown 
 land with a changeable and an untried cHmate. 
 
94 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 Their provisions, intended only to last until they 
 could seed and harvest a new crop, had been 
 v^asted during their long voyage and would not 
 last them out. Their form of government, under 
 which the president could always be removed 
 by a majority of the Council, was one well 
 framed to breed faction. The community of 
 interest which was imagined to be necessary in a 
 new land placed the industrious at the mercy 
 of the idle, and the zealous supported the shirker. 
 But it is well for the Anglo-Saxon Race to pause 
 and take note of the one great fact, that, however 
 their perils may have alarmed them, however their 
 vast isolation may have awed them, there always 
 survived spirit enough to preserve them, and they 
 remained in this far and perilous outpost of the 
 Anglo-Saxon civilization, and with the devotion 
 of the vestal virgin of old, kept the fire, however 
 dim its spark, ever alight on the sacred shrine. 
 Before the first summer was out sixty men of 
 the one hundred and four whom Newport left 
 when he returned to England were dead, and, 
 though others came in their place, before two 
 years had passed another large section of them 
 had been laid away on the shores of the James, 
 whose current has borne away their ashes as the 
 current of time has borne away their memory. 
 In fact, of all that brave company scarcely one 
 
JAMESTOWN 95 
 
 found that which he sought. Hardly one found 
 that for which he set forth, save, haply, "Worthy 
 Master Hunt," who counted nought so that he 
 might win souls to Christ, and Captain John 
 Smith, who owes his fame even more to his pen 
 than to his sword. 
 
 Christopher Newport, who was the guardian 
 angel of the colony, and preserved it from ex- 
 tirpation in more than one crisis, has no 
 monument in all this State of Virginia. It is 
 questionable if even the name with which he 
 is supposed to be associated, actually was de- 
 rived from him. He explored the seas of both 
 the East and West; and, having had sole com- 
 mand of the first five voyages which brought the 
 earher colonists here and subsequently relieved 
 their necessities when they were about to perish, 
 his shotted hammock was swung at the last 
 in the long surges of the Indian Seas. 
 
 Bartholomew Gosnold, that "worthy and 
 religious gentleman," bold discoverer and ex- 
 plorer of both coasts of Virginia, was laid in an 
 unmarked grave somewhere there at Jamestown 
 where the waters have cut into the shore, and 
 his heroic dust has long since been swept away 
 by the waters of the James, like that of so many 
 another brave and devoted soldier and mariner. 
 Years afterwards Captain John Smith declared 
 
96 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 that he had not one foot of ground in Virginia, 
 "not the very house he had builded; not the 
 land he had digged with his own hands." 
 
 But though these men and their followers are 
 not known save to a few historical students, their 
 work is written large upon the history of the 
 world. They laid the foundation for what we 
 call North America. Truly, "they brake the 
 ice and beat the paths," and the rest was com- 
 paratively easy. One of them, Captain John 
 Smith, has, indeed, through the skill of his pen, 
 found imperishable fame, but of all the rest there 
 is scarcely one whose name is known at present 
 except to the small class of historical scholars 
 whose pleasure is to delve among musty records, 
 and whose reward is the joy of finding the jewel. 
 Truth. A high-minded and " valiant gentleman " 
 like Edward Maria Wingfield, successor to Sir 
 Walter Raleigh as first governor of Virginia; a 
 scholarly man like George Percy, brother to 
 the Duke of Northumberland, who wrote in 
 his hut at Jamestown the heartrending accounts 
 of the "starving time"; bold seamen and ex- 
 plorers like Newport, Gosnold and Argall, 
 who explored the coast and repelled intruders, 
 and made the crossing of the sea in their frail 
 boats so common that in a few years all might 
 adventure there; devoted and faithful servants 
 
JAMESTOWN 97 
 
 of God like "Worthy Master Hunt," Mr. 
 Bucke and "Excellent Mr. Whittaker," the 
 "First Apostle to the Americans".: bold soldiers 
 of Christ, whose names never appear in the 
 dim records of that time that they do not 
 illuminate them with the reflected glory of their 
 Master's service; and all the long following who 
 through the first fifteen years of the colony's 
 history faced death in every form, and faced it 
 bravely, because it was "for the Kingdom of 
 God and the Kingdom of England" — who, ex- 
 cept the small class of seekers for historic truth, 
 knows anything of their fortitude, sacrifices and 
 heroic deeds ? The histories which have circu- 
 lated for nearly a century have dealt mainly with 
 what they deemed blemishes on the colony. A 
 few picturesque episodes like the rescue of John 
 Smith by Pocahontas, or the shipment of the 
 "chaste maids" as wives for some of the 
 settlers, or the appearance of Newport at the 
 crucial time, or the wreck of the Sea Venture 
 on the "still vext Bermoothes," have been per- 
 petuated. The occasional shipment of wild 
 characters and criminals convicted under the 
 hard laws of the period have been seized on and 
 made the subject of exegesis as protracted as it 
 is often inaccurate. But the great and epoch- 
 making work that this first colony of Jamestown 
 
98 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 and their successors performed, and the hard- 
 ships which they endured are scarcely known 
 at all to the world at large. 
 
 Yet the Virginia Colony not only planted 
 and developed Virginia; they seized and held 
 the continent, explored and charted and pro- 
 tected its shores from Florida to Nova Scotia; 
 established thereon the Saxon civilization and 
 the Protestant religion, and finally gave America 
 its distinctive form of government. 
 
 The first month was spent in fortifying against 
 the savages, of whom they had already experience 
 on their first landing and were to have yet bitter- 
 er experience, until they themselves became well- 
 nigh as crafty and revengeful as the savages; and 
 afterwards in "exploringthe King's River" as they 
 had been urged to do by the Council in London. 
 
 The first night after their landing, "about 
 midnight some savages came prying at them." 
 Two weeks later, on May 28, the Werrowance 
 of Paspaha came himself with one hundred 
 armed savages and made signs to the English to 
 lay their arms away, but they would not trust 
 him so far. Two days later he sent forty of 
 his men with a deer, as a present, and "they 
 faine would have laine in the Fort all night." 
 But the English knew their business better than 
 to trust them. 
 
JAMESTOWN 99 
 
 The last day of that month Newport took with 
 him George Percy, John Smith, who was still 
 under arrest, and four other "Gentlemen," 
 Francis Nelson, and three other mariners, and 
 Jonas Poole and thirteen other sailors and set 
 forth in his shallop "to discover up the river." 
 Captain John Smith later claimed this as one of 
 his exploring expeditions, but in fact, Smith was 
 still restrained as a prisoner and so remained 
 until the 26th of June, twenty days after their 
 return to Jamestown, when he was discharged. 
 
 They named the north side of the river 
 "Popham Side," doubtless in allusion to the 
 North Virginia Colony which had sailed the 
 summer before under Sir John Popham's 
 patronage; the south side they called "Salisbury 
 Side," and though the name is lost in Virginia, 
 men still speak, and are spoken of as coming 
 from "The South Side." As the explorers pro- 
 ceeded up the river, "so much they were ravisht 
 with the admirable sweetnesse of the streame, 
 and with the pleasant land trending along on 
 either side, that their joy exceeded, and with 
 great admiration they praised God." 
 
 Whenever they encamped the Indians met 
 them and danced for them and "took tobacco" 
 with them, but when they reached Jamestown on 
 their return they discovered that the Indians to 
 
 UOfC 
 
loo THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 the number of above two hundred, with their 
 king, had attacked the fort and killed a boy and 
 wounded eleven men in a fight, "which endured 
 hot about an hour," and in which the Council 
 were in front "in mayntayning the Forte," and 
 four of the five present were wounded (Gosnold, 
 Ratcliffe, Martin and Kendall), and "our Presi- 
 dent, Mr. Wingfield (who showed himself a val- 
 iant gentleman) had an arrow shot clean through 
 his bearde, yet escaped hurte." 
 
 On their trip the explorers learned from an 
 Indian at Turkey Island, who laid out with a 
 pen given him the whole river, that at a great 
 distance were the mountains, and beyond them 
 that which they "expected," the South Sea. 
 
 On Whit Sunday, June 3, they reached "the 
 Falles," where they "feasted the King Paw- 
 hatah, giving him beer, aqua vite and sack 
 to drink, and made him very sick with their 
 hot drinks." After dinner Captain Newport, 
 "upon one of the little ilets at the mouth of the 
 Falls," where Richmond now stands, "set up a 
 crosse with this inscription: "JACOBUS REX, 
 1607, and his owne name belowe." 
 
 When on Monday, June 2, Newport, in the 
 Sarah Constant^ departed from James Fort 
 for England, accompanied by the Goodspeed^ 
 he took with him "the First Report of His 
 
JAMESTOWN loi 
 
 Majestie's Counsel for the first Colony to 
 Virginia to His Majestie's Counsel for Vir- 
 ginia in England''; the "First Relatyon" of the 
 discovery up James River, with a "dearnall of 
 our voyage," a "draughte of our river"; and 
 also a number of letters, among which was one 
 to the Earl of Salisbury. In this letter the 
 writer, William Brewster, says: 
 
 "This is all I will saye to you, that suche a 
 Baye, a Rivar, and a land, dide nevar the eye 
 of man behould; and at the head of the Rivar, 
 which is i6o myles longe ar Rokes and moun- 
 taynes, that prommyseth Infynyt Treasure, but 
 our Forces be yet too weake, to make further 
 discovery: Nowe is the King's Majesty offered, 
 the most statlye, Riche Kingdom in the woorld, 
 nevar posseste by anye Christian prynce; be you 
 one meanes amonge manye to further our 
 secondinge, to conquer this land, as well as you 
 were a meanes, to further the discovery of it: 
 and you, yet maye lyve to see Ingland, moore 
 Riche & Renowned, than anye Kingdom, in all 
 Europa * * * ." 
 
 Virginia in the Spring is a prospect to gladden 
 the heart. 
 
 The quarrels and contentions were enough to 
 have swamped a much stronger colony than 
 that which had found a resting place on this 
 
102 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 little peninsula, but happily, in the providence 
 of God there was always found enough wisdom 
 and courage when the final issue came to decide 
 in favor of maintaining the position which had 
 been secured. 
 
 Time fails to go into a detailed history of the 
 long struggle. The wrangle that began then 
 has continued even down to the present time, 
 and polemists are engaged to-day in discussing 
 with something of the rancor of the original con- 
 testants whether Captain John Smith was the 
 greatest man of the early period of the English 
 settlement of the continent, or whether he was 
 simply a braggart and a blusterer, who had the 
 good fortune to survive most of his opponents, 
 and lived to write a history which damned them 
 all as a parcel of incompetents and fools. Those 
 who have the time will find it mighty interesting 
 reading if they will take the trouble to follow the 
 original accounts of this earliest plantation of the 
 English-speaking race on the continent. Possi- 
 bly they will not agree with the advocates on 
 either side. My own study of the case has led 
 me to the conclusion that, as in most discussions 
 of the kind, feeling has been allowed to usurp the 
 place of calm, judicial investigation. I do not 
 find that Edward Maria Wingfield was what 
 his opponents in that first King's Council of 
 
JAMESTOWN 103 
 
 Virginia tried to prove him: a selfish, greedy, 
 weak, incompetent man, and what later genera- 
 tions of historians have accepted him as being 
 on their statement. And neither do I find proof 
 that Captain John Smith was the one man who 
 accomplished everything of worth that was done 
 in those first years to establish this colony, any 
 more than I find it that he was simply a brag- 
 gart and a robber of the reputation of others. 
 
 Wingfield's report, on the truth of which he 
 offered to stake his life, as well as his reputation, 
 sets him before the world as an honorable and 
 high-minded gentleman, a faithful and unselfish 
 administrator, and it bears on its face the stamp 
 of truth which cannot be countefeited. 
 
 Captain John Smith had many grievances and 
 many real wrongs to right, and, no doubt, when 
 he came to act as his own advocate, he set others 
 who were opposed to him in a more unenviable 
 hght than the simple facts would have justified. 
 But for all that, after the long lapse of years, he 
 stands forth on all the evidence which we have 
 as being undoubtedly, though not the only 
 notable man, yet the most notable of all that 
 ship's company who remained behind when 
 Newport sailed away. But for him, it is possi- 
 ble, if not probable, that at more than one crucial 
 moment the enterprise might have failed; actu- 
 
104 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 ally extinguished by starvation. But the final 
 accomplishment of that colony, though the 
 actors were at times unable to see it, contained 
 glory enough for all who participated in it. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Scarcely had Newport left when the worst 
 enemy that the new settlers had to encounter, 
 more lurking and more deadly than the "sal- 
 vages," came upon them. About the 5th of July, 
 appears the record, "Many of our men fell 
 sick,'* and before that season was out, sixty 
 men of the one hundred and four left by New- 
 port were in their graves. They had pitched 
 upon a landing place simply because of the 
 security which it offered against their enemies, 
 without knowing aught of the climate and its 
 perils, and it proved to be a spot so malarial 
 that before the first summer was out, sixty men 
 were dead of wounds and disease, as later many 
 more perished. The sounds of their sufferings 
 so impressed itself on that scholarly historian, 
 George Percy, fourth president of the colony, that 
 he pictured it in one of his reports whose virility 
 is to-day the wonder of all English writers. 
 
 "Burning fevers destroyed them," says the 
 historian, "some departed suddenly, but, for 
 
JAMESTOWN 105 
 
 the most part, they died of mere famine. There 
 were never Englishmen left in a foreign country 
 in such misery as we were in this new discovered 
 Virginia." "There was groaning in every cor- 
 ner of the fort most pitiful to hear." "If there 
 was any conscience in men, it would make 
 their hearts to bleed to hear the pitiful mur- 
 murings and outcries . . . some departing out 
 of the world, sometimes three and four in a 
 night; in the morning their bodies trailed out 
 of the cabins hke dogs to be buried." Among 
 the first losses was the brave Bartholomew Gos- 
 nold — mariner, explorer, soldier and adminis- 
 trator, who had in 1602 crossed the sea direct 
 from the Azores to what is now the Newfound- 
 land coast, and then sailed home again with ac- 
 counts of those shores, which led subsequently 
 to their settlement. His ashes lie with those 
 of "Worthy Master Hunt" and many another 
 brave gentleman, mingled with Virginia's soil 
 in some unmarked spot at Jamestown, or borne 
 like WicklifFe's "far as the waters be," but his 
 work remains. He may have been an element 
 of peace in the settlement, for soon after his 
 death, according to the record, dissensions be- 
 gan, which ceased not until every one of his 
 fellow-members of the Council had disappeared 
 from the scene. 
 
io6 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 By the last of September Wingfield had been 
 deposed from the presidency by RatcHffe, Smith 
 and Martin, and was succeeded by RatcHffe; 
 and a few days later Kendall was shot for con- 
 spiracy to seize and run off with a pinnace to 
 the Newfoundland fisheries. 
 
 Captain John Smith himself, who, released 
 from the unjust restraints of his liberty, had de- 
 veloped extraordinary^ energy as an explorer, and 
 from the 6th of December, 1607, to the 12th of 
 January, 1608, had been absent exploring the 
 Chickahominy, or in captivity to Powhatan, and 
 whose life had been saved by the young Poca- 
 hontas, was, on his return, immediately indicted 
 for the loss of his companions and condemned to 
 be executed. But to quote his own words: "It 
 pleased God to send Captain Newport unto us 
 that same evening." 
 
 Newport, who had reached London on Au- 
 gust 18, returned (on the John and Francis, 
 with the Phoenix; Captain Nelson and forty 
 men in consort) and reached Jamestown, Sat- 
 urday evening, January 12, having separated 
 from his consort, which had gone to the West 
 Indies, and did not arrive until the end of 
 April. 
 
 Of the one hundred and four men left by 
 him at the end of June, Newport found only 
 
JAMESTOWN 107 
 
 thirty-eight or forty aHve, but he brought some- 
 thing Hke seventy in his ship. 
 
 An interesting entry, notwithstanding its 
 brevity, relates to his arrival. " By his comyng 
 was prevented a Parliament, which ye new 
 Counsailor, Mr. Recorder, intended thear to 
 summon." " Mr. Recorder " was Captain Archer, 
 who had been the first man wounded on Amer- 
 ican soil, and whose name is thus associated with 
 the first mention in any record of an elective 
 assembly in America. He with Martin and 
 others were among the first protestants against 
 the evils of the form of government established by 
 the King's Charter, and their protests led later 
 to the amended charters of 1609 and 16 12, which 
 last was the Magna Charta of American liber- 
 ties. The protests set forth by them became the 
 battle-cry between the "Patriot Party" and the 
 "Court Party" in the long contest which then 
 began, and which bore its part in leading to the 
 great struggle in England. 
 
 Thus, these men, who have had scant justice 
 done them in history, were the first of the long 
 and illustrious list of American patriots who 
 stood for the increase of personal liberty against 
 the domination of the Crown. Smith himself 
 took extreme ground against them. 
 
 The order in which the governors were selected 
 
io8 THE OLD DOMENIOX 
 
 by the Council were as follows : Wingfield, Rat- 
 diffe. Smith and Percy. And undoubtedly the 
 others were more highly esteemed at first than 
 the young Captain. 
 
 A man may be an excellent gentleman and a 
 brave soldier, and yet may lack administrative 
 ability and the precise qualities needed for the 
 management and government of such a company 
 as that which came to settle in Virginia. Un- 
 doubtedly it appears that among the brave and 
 honorable gentlemen who came as leaders of 
 this colony, while others may have been of nobler 
 character and of more unselfish ambition, the 
 most enterprising and resourceful among them 
 was this voung Willoughby adventurer, who, 
 having served with some distinction in Southern 
 Europe, had now come to seek new adventures 
 under the Western Star. He appears to have 
 been gey ill to deal with as a subordinate, but 
 to have been prompt, bold and efficient as a 
 governor. By his own account, he is entitled to 
 the credit of most of what was accomplished 
 during the brief period of his stay, extending 
 over only a httle more than two years. He de- 
 clares it was he who preserved the lives of the 
 colonists again and again from the conspiracies of 
 their Indian enemies; that it was he who forced 
 them to work, and thus saved the httle colony 
 
J.^-MESTOW-N" 109 
 
 from stan'adon; that it was he who presened 
 them by going among the Indians intimidating 
 those who were hostile and securing the friend- 
 ship of those who were simph* indifferent. 
 
 He unquestionably did not "discover up me 
 King's River in May/' as he claimed to have 
 done. For although he accompanied Newport 
 on this expedition, he was, by his own account, 
 still "restrained of his hbert}*," because of the 
 plot at Xevis on the way over, and was not dis- 
 charged until June 26. 
 
 One incident which he relates has of late vears 
 been made the point of attack bv a hostile faction 
 among the historians, who, for one reason or 
 another, can see no good in him. He relates in 
 his account written in 16 16, and repeats it in 
 that oi 1624, that ha\-ing been captiured in 
 December, 1607. during the exploration ot the 
 head-waters of the Chickahominy, he was taken 
 to Werowocomoco, the residence of King Pow- 
 hatan, and was about to be executed by having 
 his brains dashed out, when, at the moment ot 
 his execution the King's dearest daughter, Poca- 
 hontas, shielded him and preserved his lite at 
 the hazard of the beating out of her own brains. 
 
 The point is urged, that had this episode 
 really occurred, Smitti would never have waited 
 so lonc^ to record it, but would have mentioned 
 
no THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 it in the " True Relation " of 1608, which Captain 
 Francis Nelson fetched back to England in the 
 Phcenix in June, 1608. 
 
 It is no part of my intention to enter fully into 
 this discussion, though the weight of argument 
 appears to be so overwhelmingly on the side of 
 the truth of Smith's report, that the arguments 
 against him seem to me to have but little weight. 
 Two facts may be mentioned to establish this \'iew. 
 The first is, that "I. H.," who edited the "True 
 Relation " when it was printed, states that " some- 
 what more was written, which being as I thought 
 fit to be private, I would not adventure to make 
 it public." The second is, that at the time 
 when Smith wrote the report of 16 16, there were 
 a number of his fellows-colonists yet living, some 
 of them in England, who loved him none too 
 well, and would have been ready enough to 
 attack him had he written such a story without 
 foundation. 
 
 It has been conjectured by Smith's advocates 
 that the omission in the "True Relation" re- 
 ferred to by the editor, related to his arrest and 
 imprisonment on the charge of being implicated 
 in the conspiracy of Nevis. 
 
 I hazard a conjecture which does not appear 
 to have been esteemed as weighty as I deem it. 
 Pocahontas was the daughter of a king who 
 
J-\MESTOWN III 
 
 ruled over a great domain almost as large in 
 extent, with its dependencies, as England itself. 
 It was a period when it behooved men to go deli- 
 catelv where thev were concerned \%~ith matters 
 relating to other kings and the daughters of other 
 kings than those of England. 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh, first president and earli- 
 est patron of Virginia, lav pining in the Tower 
 of London because of alleged dealings ^^*ith a 
 Roval Princess, the Ladv Arabella Stuart. 
 Manv a man had gone to the block or to the 
 sallows for showing too much interest in the 
 cause of some scion of the roval house. Time 
 and again in the history of the colonv crops up 
 the suggestion of Pocahontas's royal pedigree 
 being an element of danger. Had he been less 
 discreet it would have been boldlv charged that 
 Smith, who was believed to have a vaulting 
 ambition, had aspirations, which, exhibited \\ith 
 a little more plainness, might have led him 
 promptly to the block or to the gallows. 
 
 Two of his fellow-colonists who were on the 
 spot. Pots and Phitti place, in their account of 
 the arrival of the third supply in 1609, show the 
 fact. 
 
 "Some prophetical spirit," they ^^TOte, "cal- 
 culated hee had the Salvages in such subjection, 
 hee would haue made himselfe a king, by mar- 
 
112 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 rying Pocahontas, Powhatan s daughter. (It is 
 true she was the very Nomparell of his king- 
 dome, and at most not past 13 or 14 yeares of 
 age. Very oft shee came to our fort, with what 
 shee could get for Captaine Smith; that ever 
 loued and vsed all the Countrie well, but her 
 especially he euer much respected, and she so 
 well requited it, that when her father intended 
 to haue surprized him, shee by stealth in the 
 darke night came through the wild woods and 
 told him of it. But her marriage could in no 
 way haue intitled him by any right to the king- 
 dome, nor was it ever suspected hee ever had 
 such a thought; or more regarded her, or any 
 of them, than in honest reason and discretion he 
 might. If he would, he might haue married 
 her, or haue done what him listed; for there was 
 none that could haue hindered his determina- 
 tion. 
 
 Here then we have a hint of a good reason for 
 his not dwelling on this adventure, and of I. H.'s 
 omission of it if Smith himself related it. 
 
 When a Httle later John Rolph won the young 
 woman's affection, although Dale readily ac- 
 quiesced in the plan, Rolph felt it necessary as 
 she was a princess to write and ask for per- 
 mission to marry her. 
 
 Although the young councillor had enemies 
 
JAMESTOWN 113 
 
 enough, and appears to have done enough In the 
 way of making the lazy work or go hungry, to 
 bring a swarm about his ears, the balance is 
 immensely in his favor. He was hated by his 
 opponents, and adored by his old soldiers. Re- 
 turning from his expedition to the Falls, where 
 now stands the capital of Virginia, while he was 
 asleep in his boat a bag of powder in his pocket 
 was accidentally exploded, which tore his flesh 
 from his body and thighs in a "most pitiful 
 manner." He sprang overboard to prevent him- 
 self from burning to death and came near being 
 drowned. While he lay suffering from this acci- 
 dent a plot was formed to murder him in his bed, 
 but the assassin's heart failed him. His old 
 soldiers rallied about him and importuned him 
 to permit them to put his enemies to death, but 
 this he refused, and took order with the masters 
 of the ships for his return to England, and later 
 on in life he was able to make the proud boast 
 that, whatever provocations he had had, he had 
 never put any man to death. 
 
 Among his followers, one writing of his de- 
 parture said: "What shall I say? but thus we 
 lost him that, in all his proceedings, made 
 Justice his first guid[e], and experience his 
 second; ever hating baseness, sloth, pride, and 
 indignitie more than any dangers; that never 
 
114 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 allowed more for himselfe then his soldiers with 
 him; that vpon no danger, would he send them 
 where he would not lead them himselfe; that 
 [he] would never see us want what he either 
 had, or could by any means get vs; that would 
 rather want than borrow, or starue then not pay; 
 that loved actions more then wordes, and hated 
 falshood and cous[e]nage worse then death; 
 whose adventures were our hues, and whose 
 losse our deathes." 
 
 No higher tribute could be paid, and it has 
 the smack of having been paid to worth. 
 
 On the 17th of January, 1608, a new mis- 
 fortune befell the settlement: Jamestown was 
 burned to the ground with the store-house full 
 of supplies, the church, and the library of "Wor- 
 thy Master Hunt," and the store of ammuni- 
 tion. 
 
 Newport employed his mariners to rebuild the 
 church, but the winter was severe in America 
 and in Europe also, and many deaths occurred 
 from cold. 
 
 Newport, having with Smith, Tyndall, the 
 surveyor, and others explored and made "a 
 draught" of York River, and got corn, wheat 
 and beans for the colonists, whom the fire had 
 reduced to great straits, sailed for England 
 again on April 20, taking with him Wingfield, 
 
JAMESTOWN 115 
 
 Archer and others, who went home to lay their 
 claims before the Council, and what is more, to 
 make them good. For the personal reports of 
 Wingfield, Martin, Archer, Nelson, RatclifFe and 
 others, and of Newport himself, showed those in 
 England who were interested in the colony the 
 gross defects in the system when put into prac- 
 tical operation. And in January, 1609, soon 
 after Newport's arrival from Virginia, after his 
 third voyage, a new charter was drawn up by 
 Sir Edwin Sandys, a name ever memorable in 
 the annals of America and of all lands where 
 liberty has her home. 
 
 This charter, In which the rights of the 
 colonists were declared inalienable, and which 
 guaranteed them to be theirs forever, extended 
 the borders of Virginia to the furthest sea. 
 Moreover, the government thenceforth was to 
 be vested in the Virginia Council in London, in- 
 stead of in the Crown. And this was the first 
 victory of the Americans over the Crown. 
 
 Meantime Virginia had seen evil days. About 
 three hundred and thirty settlers had come over 
 by this time, and only a hundred or so were left, 
 while these were reduced to the greatest straits. 
 It was a dark hour for the colony and for the 
 British people; but light was soon to come. 
 Newport, who was the good angel of the colony, 
 
ii6 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 had been to Virginia twice more, saving more 
 lives than that of Captain John Smith, and on 
 his third voyage he took over a number of 
 women, the most valuable part of his valuable 
 cargo. 
 
 The new charter gave great joy to the colony. 
 
 Lord Delaware was chosen Governor and 
 Captain-General; Sir Thomas Gates, a bold 
 captain, whose name stands first in the Charter, 
 Lieutenant-General; Sir George Somers, Ad- 
 miral of Virginia; and Captain Christopher 
 Newport, Vice-Admiral of Virginia; all notable 
 men whose history is that of the making of 
 America. 
 
 The company was strengthened by the acces- 
 sion of a large number of the members of the 
 North Virginia Company, who accepted the 
 invitation to co-operate in establishing the 
 Southern colony, thus doing away, at least 
 temporarily, with the first sectional lines which 
 were drawn touching America. In fact, "of 
 the forty-three members of His Majesty's First 
 Council for New England formed some years 
 afterward, at least thirty had assisted in founding 
 the First Colony on James River.'* 
 
 The prospects of the colony were now bright- 
 ening, at least in England. A large fleet of nine 
 ships was now got ready to send under Sir 
 
JAMESTOWN 117 
 
 Thomas Gates. Some ten days before, how- 
 ever, a single ship had been dispatched under 
 Captain Samuel Argall, "a pleasant, ingenius, 
 and forward young gentleman,'* to find a more 
 direct route to Virginia; avoiding the land of 
 the pirates [the West Indies]; and to "make 
 an experience of the winds and currents which 
 have affrighted all undertakers by the North." 
 
 Argall did his work thoroughly, and arriving 
 in the Chesapeake after only a nine weeks* 
 voyage, in which he was becalmed fourteen days, 
 established the fact that there were no currents 
 nor constant winds to prevent a direct crossing, 
 thus shortening the distance and escaping not 
 only the "Pyrates," but the calenture, which 
 was the most deadly foe that the new colonists 
 encountered. 
 
 Of the fleet of nine vessels, six arrived duly, 
 two with their masts cut away; but the Sea 
 Venture, with Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George 
 Somers, was driven ashore on the coast of an 
 Island, which had theretofore been deemed so 
 stormy that It had been called the "Isle of 
 Devils." It was, however, a fortunate wreck, 
 not only for the little colony in Virginia, but for 
 the whole English-speaking race; for the follow- 
 ing summer, when the settlers were reduced to 
 the last straits, not only did Sir Thomas Gates 
 
ii8 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 and Sir George Somers arrive in two little 
 vessels v^hich they had built to take them to 
 Virginia and relieve their immediate necessities, 
 but the romantic story of the Sea Venture gave 
 a London playwright an idea on which to base 
 one of his immortal dramas. 
 
 So reduced were the settlers at the time of the 
 arrival of Sir Thomas Gates, that having only 
 fourteen days' provision in all, they started to 
 set sail for New Foundland, where they knew 
 the fishing fleet could be met, and had actually 
 buried their cannon and started down the river, 
 when they were met by Lord Delaware, who 
 had come over with new succors, and, having 
 learned at Cape Comfort of their distress, had 
 sent ahead of him his long boat, the little pin- 
 nace Virginia, the first boat of even that size 
 which had been built on the American shores. 
 
 Lord Delaware landed at Jamestown on the 
 loth day of June, 1610, and Sir Thomas Gates 
 was drawn up with his soldiers to receive him at 
 the South Gate. His first act on landing was to 
 kneel and off^er up prayer and thanksgiving. 
 
 He immediately took steps to place the colony 
 on a sounder foundation than had yet existed, 
 and though he set up a style of living which 
 was deemed at the time rather out of place in a 
 wilderness, he knew the effect of order, and even 
 
JAMESTOWN 119 
 
 of show when wisely employed. One of his first 
 acts was to build a good and suitable church, 
 sixty by twenty-four feet, with chancel and pews 
 of cedar and two bells in the west end. Here 
 he attended services escorted by all his high 
 officials, and fifty halberdiers in red cloaks; 
 sitting in the choir in a velvet chair, and kneel- 
 ing on a velvet cushion. 
 
 In the beginning it was claimed by some that, 
 "a good soldier who knew how to use a pick 
 was worth many knights who could only break 
 a lance," but the lances that Sir Thomas West 
 broke were pointed against the enemies of good 
 government, and when having been seized with 
 a violent ague which undermined his health, he 
 was forced to leave Virginia, he left behind him 
 such a character and such fruits of his rule, that 
 long afterwards he was cited as a model by those 
 who asked that some nobleman of rank, or of 
 scarcely less high order, might be appointed 
 governor of the new commonwealth. 
 
 Lord Delaware's successor was Sir George 
 Yardley, who has been spoken of as "the mild 
 Yardley." His mildness, however, was that of 
 a broad-minded and high-minded gentleman, 
 and, possibly, more than any other one who held 
 rule in Virginia, he contributed to Hberalize her 
 government. For a while he was superseded by 
 
120 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 one who was far from mild, but who possibly 
 was better suited at the time for the control of 
 a young colony filled with "wild gallants" and 
 holding at bay wilder Indians: Sir Thomas 
 Dale, "a man skilled in divinity and of a good 
 conscience in all things" but withal an old 
 soldier. He was at the time in service in the Low 
 Countries, but was lent to the Virginia Company 
 by his Dutch employers as a man well fitted for 
 the work in hand. He quickly proved the stuff 
 of which he was made, and under the iron rule 
 which he set up, the new plantation took a long 
 leap forward. He found men playing at bowls 
 in the streets, but he soon put a stop to this. 
 His government became unpopular enough for a 
 conspiracy to be hatched, but discovering it he 
 arrested the leaders and inflicted the death pen- 
 alty, in what was charged to be "a cruel, unusual 
 and barbarous one, at one time customary in 
 France." In 1624 a number of Burgesses signed 
 an account of what they had witnessed. "One 
 man had a bodkin thrust through his tongue and 
 was chained to a tree until he perished, others 
 were put to death by hanging, shooting, breaking 
 on the wheel and the like." But, cruel as this 
 punishment was, it was deemed that Dale pre- 
 vented the utter subversion of the colony. 
 During all this period Spain was far from 
 
JAMESTONN 121 
 
 quiescent. Her power was still great enough to 
 cause constant anxiety, her diplomacy was stead- 
 ily at work, and only the deep feeling of the 
 English people prevented the timid James from 
 yielding to her threats. Zuniga, wiliest and 
 most active of ambassadors, was ever seeking his 
 ear, with mingled promises and threats, and 
 again and again he left the royal closet and even 
 the royal table to send dispatches to his master, 
 urging him to lose no time to uproot the new 
 plantation in Virginia, and cut the planters' 
 throats. The correspondence in cipher between 
 the Spanish Ambassador in London, Zuniga, 
 and his master at home, has only recently 
 been published.* 
 
 Zuniga was, in strict obedience to orders from 
 home, using his utmost diligence to prevent the 
 success of the English colonization schemes, and 
 we find him now seeking interviews with James 
 and now reporting progress to his master. We 
 find James putting him off on one pretext or 
 another, doubtless under the advice of ardent 
 haters of Spain, and men with interests in the 
 Virginia adventures, and when run down and 
 cornered, using all sorts of evasive replies; much 
 as one in high government position might do 
 
 ♦The monumental work of Alexander Brown, "The Genesis 
 of the United States," throws a flood of light upon this time. 
 
122 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 to-dav; first expressing friendship for his bro- 
 ther monarch and ignorance of what was going 
 on, then claiming a right to colonize, and again 
 shiftily disavowing the acts of the colonists, 
 and, altogether, giving a very good picture of 
 his mean and miserable self. We find Zuni^a 
 declaring to him that "this invention of going to 
 Virginia for colonizing purposes was seen in the 
 wretched zeal in which it was done, since the 
 soil is verv sterile, and that hence there can be 
 no other purpose connected with that place than 
 that it appears to them good for pirates," and 
 the King telling him in reply that "they are 
 terrible people, and that he desired to correct the 
 matter." Zuniga in this same letter assures his 
 master that he would be "very careful to find 
 out about what was going on," and adds a 
 significant hint, "but I should consider it 
 very desirable that an end should now be made 
 of the few who are there, for that would be 
 digging up the root, so that it could come up 
 no more." 
 
 On the 1 6th of October, 1607, he wrote to 
 his master, urging dispatch on his part, and 
 quoting the King as reported to him by a Count 
 Salisbur}', to the effect that it seemed to him, 
 after full consideration, that the English might 
 not go to Virginia, and that thus if evil should 
 
JAME5T0\\'X 123 
 
 befall them there, it would not be on his account, 
 since to him this would not appear to be contrar}' 
 to friendship and peaceful disposition. (^Cer- 
 tainly, if he was correctly quoted, a most damn- 
 ing statement. 1 And then Zuniga adds for 
 himself, "it will be serying God and 'Y. M.' 
 to driye these yillains out from there, hanging 
 them in time, which is short enough for the pur- 
 pose," This hint was taken promptly, as ap- 
 pears from a copy of the report of the Spanish 
 Consul of State, dated Xoyember 10, 1607, de- 
 claring Virginia a part oi the Indies, and pro- 
 yiding that "the fleet stationed to the ^^indward 
 should be instantly made ready, and forthwith 
 proceed to driye out all who are now in Virginia, 
 since their small number \si\\ make this an easy 
 task, and this will suffice to preyent them from 
 again coming to that place." On this report 
 the King of Spain endorses his "Royal decree," 
 "Let such measures be taken as may now and 
 hereafter appear proper." Happily for the 
 Saxon ciyilization, Spain had enough to do just 
 then in Europe, and howeyer factions may haye 
 diyided the plantation and led to the cutting of 
 throats, the throats were not so easily cut by 
 a foreign power. 
 
 King James had at his side as sturdy a people 
 and body of councillors, and as far-sic^hted a body 
 
124 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 of statesmen as even those on whom EHzabeth 
 had leaned. When Challons's party, which had 
 sailed to settle North Virginia, were captured 
 and held by Spain, their petitions for deliver- 
 ance were long ignored, because any request for 
 their release on the part of England might, it 
 was deemed, be held an acquiescence in the 
 rights which Spain asserted. 
 
 Dale's method of dealing with some con- 
 spirators, who had attempted to run away with 
 a boat caused opposition. Yet, he was an able 
 administrator, and not only enforced order, but 
 enlarged the plantation and built the new town 
 of Henrico, in the loop of the James, which soon 
 became a flourishing settlement, and was the seat 
 of the first college and the first hospital ever 
 founded on American soil. Moreover, he quelled 
 the Indians and made alliances with them, not 
 only public alliances, but personal alliances. It 
 was under his governorship that a marriage was 
 brought about between John Rolfe and Pow- 
 hatan's favorite daughter, Pocahontas; which 
 had a decided effect in reducing the hostility of 
 the Indians so long as Powhatan lived, and se- 
 cured a truce which lasted with some exceptions 
 till the great massacre of April, 1622, in which 
 it is said even John Rolfe fell a victim. 
 
 Dale offered himself to espouse the Indian 
 
JAMESTOWN 125 
 
 King's other favorite child, an honor which 
 Powhatan decHned on account of her youth. 
 
 It was Dale who abolished communism and 
 the general store, and allotted to every man in 
 the colony land: "three acres of clear corn 
 ground," on a rent of two and one-half barrels 
 of corn, exempting them from all service or 
 labor for the colony, "more than one month in 
 the year." But Dale did more than merely 
 extend the colony of Virginia into the interior. 
 He defended the entire territory of Virginia 
 against encroachments by other powers. 
 
 It having been learned that the French had set- 
 tled a colony at Mount Desert, in North Virginia, 
 he sent that same "forward young gentleman," 
 Captain George Argall, with an expedition to 
 "root up the colony," which was effectively 
 done. And, but for this, it is possible that 
 France might have seized and held what a little 
 later was called "New England." It is certain 
 that the destruction of the French colony made 
 the New England coast safe, not only for the 
 English fishermen who now came in numbers to 
 the northwestern waters, but for the English 
 settlers who seven or eight years later followed 
 in their wake. 
 
 At the Michaelmas quarter court, of 1619, Sir 
 Edwin Sandys recalled "how by the admirable 
 
126 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 care and diligence of two worthy knights, Sir 
 Thomas Gates and Sir Thomas Dale, the colony 
 was set forward in a way to great perfection; 
 whereof the former, Sir Thomas Gates, had the 
 honour to all posterity to be the first named in 
 His Majesty's patent of a grant to Virginia, and 
 was the first who, by his wisdom, valour and 
 industry, accompanied with exceeding pains and 
 patience in the midst of so many difficulties, laid 
 a foundation of that prosperous estate of the 
 Colony, which afterward in the virtue of those 
 beginnings did proceed. 
 
 "The latter. Sir Thomas Dale, building upon 
 those foundations with great and constant sever- 
 ity, had reclaimed almost miraculously those 
 idle and disordered people and reduced them to 
 labour and an honest fashion of life; and pro- 
 ceeding with great zeal to the good of this 
 Company.'* 
 
 Dale was succeeded in 1617 by Captain 
 Samuel Argall, now "Admiral of Virginia, and 
 Vice-Governor"; a man of parts, as we have 
 seen. He was, Hke Dale, a man of prompt 
 action; and, Hke Dale, he passed stern laws 
 and enforced them. 
 
 He forbade "the teaching of Indians to shoot 
 guns on pain of death to learner and teacher"; 
 forbade all trading with them and set up 
 
JAMESTOWN 127 
 
 "slavery to ye Colony as a punishment." Every 
 man was to set two acres with corn or forfeit his 
 corn and tobacco, and " be a slave to ye Colony." 
 Every person must go to church on Sundays and 
 Holidays or "lay neck and heels on the corps de 
 garde ye night following and be a slave ye week 
 following." For a second offense, he was to 
 be a slave for a month; and for the third, for a 
 year and a day. 
 
 The Governor was so pleased with the effect 
 of his laws touching slavery to the colony that he 
 introduced a few slaves on his own account, and 
 the ship which in 16 19 first introduced negro 
 slaves into the colony, and has generally been 
 called a "Dutch Man-of-War," was really Ar- 
 gall's ship, the Treasurer^ which engaged in 
 something very like piracy, and thereby came 
 near bringing on a war with Spain. The term 
 employed for a privateer was, "Dutch Man-of- 
 War," because they commonly hoisted the 
 Dutch colors. 
 
 It was, however, possibly the severity of the 
 laws of Dale and Argall which brought about 
 the greatest blessing that had hitherto happened 
 to Virginia: the liberalizing of her government. 
 
 Two parties now existed in the Virginia Com- 
 pany in England, "the Court Party" and "the 
 Patriot Party," and the latter had begun to pre- 
 
128 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 vail. The great Virginia Courts held in London 
 became the talk of England and were spoken of 
 as the "Virginia Parliaments." 
 
 The broad-minded and liberal Yardley was 
 reinstated as Governor by the patriot party in 
 the Company, and on his return he brought over 
 the announcement that the people of Virginia 
 were to have an elective assembly, and thence- 
 forth were to rule themselves. It was the great- 
 est step yet taken for the new country. 
 
 In pursuance of this far-reaching measure, 
 Yardley, on his arrival at Jamestown, ordered a 
 general election of burgesses by the freemen of 
 the colony, and issued writs to the eleven bor- 
 oughs now existing in the colony for the elec- 
 tion. In pursuance thereof, on Friday, the 30th 
 day of July (old style), the 9th day of August, 
 1 6 19 (new style), convened at Jamestown, the 
 first elective assembly that ever sat on the 
 American continent. From the first they claimed 
 the privileges of members of the British House 
 of Commons, and, though the session was held in 
 the church, they asserted their right to sit with 
 their hats on. And among their first acts was 
 the appointment of a committee to consider the 
 new charter, and determine whether it was 
 adapted to their needs. In fact, thenceforth 
 Virginia was herself a Commonwealth, and 
 
JAMESTOWN 129 
 
 though it has been through many vicissitudes, a 
 Commonwealth she has remained to the present 
 time: the first Commonwealth that sprang from 
 England's loins, and mother of many Common- 
 wealths herself. 
 
 This freedom thus growing up in Virginia 
 was understood; and, largely in consequence 
 thereof, the Puritan congregation at Leyden, 
 after long negotiation with the Virginia Com- 
 pany, set sail in the summer of 1620 to settle in 
 Virginia, possibly about the mouth of the 
 Delaware; quite certainly south of the mouth 
 of the Hudson. They were, however, blown or 
 drifted farther northward than they intended to 
 go, and finally, after trying to work southward, 
 finding shoals, turned northward again and 
 landed on Massachusetts Bay in December. 
 
 James, who had long been warned by the 
 Spanish Ambassador that his Virginia "Courts" 
 were a "seminary for a seditious parliament," 
 awoke to the danger of so much Hberty in his 
 "fourth kingdom," but it was too late. The 
 Virginians had tasted the sweets of popular 
 government and stood on their liberties. 
 
 Under Sir Francis Wyat, who came over in 
 1 62 1, everything appeared prosperous in Vir- 
 ginia, when, without warning, on the morning of 
 April I, 1622, the Indians throughout the colony 
 
130 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 fell on the unsuspecting colonists and massacred 
 over four hundred of them. Jamestown, the 
 seat of government, wsls saved through a warn- 
 ing given the night before by an Indian named 
 Chanco; but from the Falls of the James to the 
 Chesapeake the plantations were devastated. 
 The flourishing town of Henrico was destroyed, 
 and with it went the hospital, with its fourscore 
 beds, and the projected university, with its en- 
 dowment of ten thousand acres and two thou- 
 sand pounds. Six members of the Council fell 
 victims, including Mr. Thorpe, the deputy for 
 the college, and probably John Rolph, the for- 
 mer husband of Pocahontas. 
 
 Had Virginia not already been established 
 on a firm foundation, this blow must have de- 
 stroyed her. As it was, it only served to excite 
 both the company and the colony to renewed 
 efforts. The massacre was the death-blow of 
 the Powhatans and their allied tribes. The 
 settlers from this time applied themselves to the 
 work of clearing all that region of a people who 
 had proved so "subtile,'' and the leader of the 
 movement was the "Mild Yeardley." From 
 now on we find the settlers going on "marches" 
 three times a year to harry and do the Indians 
 all the damage in their power. 
 
 In the confusion and disturbance consequent 
 
JAMESTOWN • 131 
 
 on the massacre, James was enabled for a brief 
 space by the exercise of tyrannical power to 
 suppress the Virginia charter, but it was not 
 for long. He arrested Sir Edwin Sandys, the 
 chief spirit of the Patriot party, and a number 
 of others, and when the Commons protested 
 against this violation of their privilege, he went 
 to Westminister, and, in the presence of his 
 Privy Council, tore with his own hands from the 
 records of the House the leaves on which they 
 had spread their protest. He sent commission- 
 ers to Virginia to investigate, and they demanded 
 the surrender of the records there, but the House 
 of Burgesses refused to obey the order, and when 
 their clerk, Edward Sharpless, in disobedience 
 to their orders, gave up copies, they stood him in 
 the pillory and cut off his ear. 
 
 From this time the people were aroused. 
 They soon extorted their charter again from 
 Charles, and not many years later, when one of 
 their governors. Sir John Harvey, failed to 
 espouse as warmly as they thought proper the 
 cause of WiUiam Claibourne, "the Rebel,'' in 
 his war with the Lord Proprietor of the new 
 colony of Maryland, they rose in arms and 
 "thrust him out of the Government." He ap- 
 pealed to Charles I., who reinstated him as 
 Governor; but the Virginians, though they re- 
 
132 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 ceived him loyally as they later did his successor. 
 Sir William Berkeley, were now well aware of 
 the strength of their position. They withstood 
 Cromwell to the point of exacting what was 
 really a treaty with his commissioners; but they 
 readily assimilated the defeated Royalists who 
 came over after Edge Hill and Naseby and 
 Worcester, and the exiled Republicans who 
 sought homes among the planters after the Res- 
 toration. They were loyal subjects of the Stu- 
 arts, as they were a hundred years later loyal 
 subjects of George III., but they were more 
 loyal yet to their ideal of popular government. 
 Their petitions were filled with expressions of 
 devotion; but with equally plain declarations 
 of their chartered rights. They viewed the 
 death of Charles I. with horror, and offered a 
 realm to his son when in exile. But with it all 
 went enthusiastic devotion to the cause of self- 
 government, and whenever this was assailed 
 they flamed into revolution. 
 
 The "rebellion," led by Nathaniel Bacon in 
 1676, was at bottom for the same cause as that 
 which a hundred years later was led by George 
 Washington. The immediate occasion was 
 different, but the basic cause was the same in 
 both: the inalienable right of British subjects 
 to have self-government. Both of them were 
 
JAMESTOWN 133 
 
 based on the original charters under which 
 Virginia was planted. Both of them were 
 founded in the liberty-loving character of Eng- 
 lishmen expanded under the broad skies of the 
 Old Dominion. 
 
Ill 
 
 COLONIAL LIFE 
 
 npHE life of the Old Dominion was in a man- 
 ner distinctive, and that it was not more so 
 was due to the impress that it extended to the 
 life beyond its borders. It preserved far more 
 than that of the other colonies the traits of the 
 English country life, including the distinction of 
 different orders of society and their traditionary 
 habits of life and forms of government. 
 
 From the first the Virginia colonization was 
 under charge of the best element in the king- 
 dom. It had its inception in the great strategic 
 motive of wresting this continent from Spain 
 and making it English. The charter itself was 
 granted to men of rank and standing, like the 
 Gilberts and Raleigh, with whom were asso- 
 ciated men of the highest class, who gave it a 
 character which it never lost. Elizabeth's in- 
 terest in the movement gave it the catchet of the 
 court and the nobles and other gentry in Parlia- 
 
 134 
 
COLONIAL LIFE 135 
 
 ment eagerly lent their names and Interest to a 
 work so fraught with promise for England. 
 Raleigh boasted that he could number a hun- 
 dred gentlemen among his kindred, and the 
 great landowners took part in the movement 
 as "adventurers/' adventuring for such mer- 
 chandise, as Romeo vowed he would for Juliet, 
 as far as was the farthest sea. 
 
 The first Virginia Councils were composed 
 almost entirely of men of title. The spirit of 
 adventure, which had brought Hawkins, Drake, 
 the Gilberts and others such honors and such 
 renown, drew the young gallants fresh from 
 their father's estates or from the wars in the Low 
 Countries. And the term "Gentleman," as 
 showing one of the arms-bearing class is con- 
 stantly found in the list of immigrants. 
 
 Captain John Smith, who had the good fort- 
 une to become the best-known writer and his- 
 torian of the first colony, began by decrying the 
 class of gentlemen who had accompanied them, 
 and who being, certainly at first, not accus- 
 tomed to the laborious manual toil which fell to 
 their lot, without doubt gave much trouble to 
 their taskmasters. Yet, later on, he recorded 
 the significant fact that these gentlemen cut 
 down more trees than those who had been 
 brought up to labor. The Governor and the 
 
136 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 Council in Virginia were all men of the upper 
 class, and while the settlers were composed of 
 men of every class, the names of the gentry 
 predominate throughout the early years and 
 compose a large percentage throughout the 
 whole history of the colony. From the time 
 that Sir Walter Raleigh impressed his spirit on 
 the first explorers down to the time of Lord 
 Dunmore, her last Colonial Governor, it was 
 esteemed almost as essential that the Governor 
 of Virginia should be a man of rank as it is that 
 the Lord Lieutenants of Ireland or of Canada 
 or the Viceroy of India should be such to-day. 
 None but gentlemen were selected for the 
 Governorship or the Council, and to have been 
 a Councillor was in itself a proof of gentility. 
 But there was ever a tendency to transplant the 
 life of England as closely as might be to the 
 new country. 
 
 Much has been made in some quarters of the 
 shipment to Virginia at certain times of bodies 
 of convicts, and of a shipment of "chaste 
 maids" as wives for a class of the settlers who 
 paid for their passage. A number of such 
 shipments were made: "wild gallants" and 
 "dissolute persons" who followed the Court, or 
 unfortunate adherents to the cause of a Mon- 
 mouth, though the number who came over thus 
 
COLONIAL LIFE 137 
 
 was very limited, that of the maids being, 
 thought some of the settlers, far too limited, 
 while the shipment of convicts was quickly 
 stopped on the protest of the Virginians. But 
 the introduction of these, like that of the in- 
 dented servants, who worked out their passage, 
 only served to widen the gap between them and 
 the gentry, and to emphasize the distinctive 
 aristocratic feature of Virginia society. The 
 exactions of the new life steadily wrought their 
 influence. Every man was a soldier on out- 
 post duty. Every woman was on frontier serv- 
 ice. Courage, force, endurance, constancy 
 were demanded day by day, and day by day 
 strengthened their fibre until a new people 
 began to come into being. 
 
 The breadth and freedom of the vast spaces 
 about them entered into their spirit, and from 
 the first, while they professed unbounded de- 
 votion to their King and the Home Govern- 
 ment, they were instant in their jealous watch- 
 fulness of their rights and privileges. Happily 
 for them, in their earliest charters, they had been 
 granted by Elizabeth, and later by James, the 
 rights, privileges and immunities of native-born 
 citizens of Great Britain to them and their 
 posterity, forever, and from the first protests of 
 Archer and Martin, and other members of the 
 
138 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 first Colonial Council in 1607, down to the final 
 Declaration of Independence, they, and their 
 posterity, appealed to and rehed on these char- 
 ters of their Hberties for the justice of their 
 action. 
 
 As the country developed, the grant of lands 
 in large tracts to gentlemen, on condition that 
 they should settle bodies of tenants on them, 
 served to foster class-distinctions, and the set- 
 tlement of separate plantations along the rivers 
 wholly isolated, and surrounded by deadly 
 enemies, created conditions somewhat feudal 
 in their form, the planter-employer engaging to 
 take care of his people and the latter binding 
 themselves to work for him and march with him 
 in any exigency demanding their service. Thus, 
 when grants were made like that to William 
 Byrd, of lands at the Falls of the James, the 
 condition would be that the grantee should settle 
 so many families on them and in time of danger 
 furnish so many fighting men. This was the 
 very form of feudalism. Whatever its short- 
 comings were, its foundation was a duty owed 
 by every one to some one else. The introduc- 
 tion of slaves and of the indented servants served 
 to establish the class-distinctions which already 
 existed, and while the exactions of life in a new 
 country offered opportunities to men of push 
 
COLONIAL LIFE 139 
 
 and enterprise to rise, and by their courage and 
 abilities enter the upper class, the history of the 
 colony shows that, having risen, they promptly 
 took to themselves titles, coats of arms and all 
 the insignia of such a class. But this class had 
 not only its privileges but its responsibilities. 
 
 The cultivation of tobacco early proved a 
 mine of v^ealth for the colony which no other 
 colony possessed, and the exemption of the 
 negroes from malaria made them among the 
 most valuable settlers. 
 
 The easiest and most secure means of inter- 
 communication were along the rivers, where the 
 fertile bottom-lands had in a generation or two, 
 after the cultivation of tobacco began, enriched 
 the landowners, and thus social life followed 
 these waterways, and the old colonial houses 
 along the James, the York, the Potomac, the 
 Rappahannock and their tributaries, which are 
 to-day among the most interesting relics of our 
 past history, marked the rise of families of 
 gentry, who for something like two hundred 
 years made marriage alliances among them- 
 selves, and built up a landed gentry whose 
 history is one of the notable elements in the 
 civilization of the country and the race. Aris- 
 tocratic in its form, it contained the essential 
 principle of Republicanism. Every freeholder 
 
140 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 had a vote. There was much wealth; but little 
 luxury in the modern acceptation of the term. 
 The great landlord must be as hardy as his 
 hunter; the mistress of the plantation must be 
 as brave as her ancestress who defended her 
 castle or her grange. 
 
 Outside of the small class of students of the 
 history of that time little is known of the work 
 accomplished by this colony of Virginia and the 
 people who founded it. Historians themselves 
 have taken little account of the influence that 
 this plantation and the work of its founders 
 exerted in moulding anew the thought of the 
 English people in the direction of liberty. Yet 
 it was the necessity for a new form of govern- 
 ment, adapted to the needs of a wholly new sys- 
 tem of colonial existence, which brought the 
 changes in the charters granted by the Crown to 
 the people who undertook this settlement. The 
 Virginia courts became the talk of the English 
 People, and every session was thronged with 
 interested onlookers studying the new system 
 of government, until they came to be known as 
 the Virginia Parliaments," and the Spanish 
 Ambassador warned King James I. that his 
 Virginia courts "were but a Seminary for a 
 seditious Parliament"; and James, who was 
 desirous to secure an alliance by marriage with 
 
COLONIAL LIFE 141 
 
 Spain, set to work to suppress the liberties 
 granted under the Virginia charter. 
 
 Happily for Virginia and happily for the 
 world, by the time that King James felt himself 
 strong enough to attempt to suppress our 
 liberties they had become too firmly estab- 
 lished for his plan to be carried out. Sir Walter 
 Raleigh fell a victim; but the great country 
 which he had done so much to found, and of 
 which he had been the first and "Chief Gover- 
 nor," survived, and survived also the spirit 
 which he had done so much to create. 
 
 Virginia was Royalist, but she was Royalist 
 as Raleigh and Southampton and Sandys were 
 Royalists. And no Republican or Roundhead 
 was ever more jealous for his rights than were 
 her Royalist people. 
 
 By 1 619 when the first General Assembly met, 
 "this people had got their reins of servitude 
 into their own swindge," and thenceforth di- 
 rected their own course. In 1624 the Virginia 
 Assembly passed a law providing that no taxes 
 should be levied or applied in Virginia but by 
 and with the consent of the Virginia Assembly. 
 And this was the very ground on which one 
 hundred and fifty years later the American 
 Revolution was based. From this time, during 
 this one hundred and fifty years, the continual 
 
142 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 assertion of this right was the steadfast habit of 
 the Virginia colony and the product of its civili- 
 zation, for whether it was asserted in Virginia or 
 in New England, it was based on the principle 
 thus first enunciated and asserted by the Vir- 
 ginia colony. 
 
 In 1642 they boldly declared "freedom of 
 trade to be the blood and life of a community."* 
 
 From this time the people were aroused, and 
 not many years later when one of their gov- 
 ernors, Sir John Harvey, failed to espouse as 
 warmly as they thought proper the cause of 
 William Claiborne, "the Rebel," in his war 
 with the Lord Proprietor of the new colony of 
 Maryland, they rose and "thrust him out of the 
 Government." This was the first Revolution 
 that actually took place on American soil. 
 When Charles 11. was a fugitive before Crom- 
 well, the Virginians offered him a crown, and 
 when Cromwell, victorious in England, under- 
 took to trample on their rights, he found them 
 so stubborn in their opposition that the ships 
 he had sent to subdue them were fain to make 
 peace with them, almost as an independent 
 power. They withstood him to the point of 
 exacting, in 1652, what was in effect a treaty 
 with his commissioners: expressly stipulating 
 
 * Hening's Stats, at Large, I., 223. 
 
COLONIAL LIFE 143 
 
 that it was not on compulsion, but was volun- 
 tarily done, and reserving the right to levy all 
 taxes and make local laws; but they readily 
 assimilated the defeated Royalists who came 
 after Edge Hill and Worcester, and the exiled 
 Republicans who sought homes among the 
 planters after the Restoration. 
 
 When, later, Charles became King of England, 
 and, unmindful of the loyalty of his Virginia 
 subjects, undertook to grant the Northern Neck 
 to three of his Court favorites, the Virginians 
 flamed up so threateningly that the King was 
 forced to withdraw the grant. 
 
 Fifteen years later, when the Royal Governor 
 refused the planters on the frontier permission 
 to raise an army to defend themselves against 
 the Indians, they rallied behind young Nathaniel 
 Bacon, seized Jamestown, and forced from the 
 Governor and his adherents on the Council the 
 laws they demanded, and when, later. Sir William 
 Berkeley withdrew his consent and declared 
 them Rebels, they stormed and burnt the capital, 
 and Berkeley was forced to take refuge on the 
 Eastern Shore. Later, factions among the 
 Revolutionists and the illness of the leader, 
 Bacon, enabled Berkeley to recoup his loss; the 
 revolutionists were defeated and scattered, and 
 Berkeley hanged so many of them that King 
 
144 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 Charles removed him, saying that he had hanged 
 more men in that naked country for his rebellion 
 than the King had hanged for the murder of his 
 father. But though the participants were defeated 
 and punished, the cause was not lost. The rights 
 still survived, as survived also the resolution to 
 claim them and make the claim good. 
 
 By this time up and down the broad rivers the 
 landed proprietors had their own wharfs and 
 their own ships to carry their produce to Eng- 
 land, and they throve and grew rich on it, not- 
 withstanding the trade-laws which hampered 
 their traffic. The records are full of their pro- 
 tests against these regulations; protests against 
 import taxes; protests against the further im- 
 portation of slaves; protests against unequal 
 trade regulations. 
 
 In 1 718 the penny-a-letter postage on letters 
 from England was resisted on the ground that 
 Parliament could not levy a tax without the 
 consent of the General Assembly.* 
 
 For Education the planters imported college- 
 bred teachers from home, as England was 
 called, or sent their children to England to be 
 educated there in the public schools and the 
 universities of Oxford and Cambridge. 
 
 * "The Colonial Virginian," an Address by R. A. Brock, p. 15. 
 ** Spotswood's Letters," II., p. 280. 
 
COLONIAL LIFE 145 
 
 Old Sir William Berkeley is said to- have 
 thanked God that in his day there were neither 
 free schools — that is, classical schools — nor 
 printing presses in the colony, and he trusted 
 there might not be for three hundred years. 
 But the declaration, if ever made by him, v^as 
 untrue in fact, for a free school had been estab- 
 lished in Elizabeth City County in 1634 by be- 
 quest of Benjamin Symes: "the first legacy 
 made for that purpose by a resident of the 
 American plantations," and other free schools 
 followed in the benefactions of Virginia plant- 
 ers: one in Gloucester County in 1675, founded 
 by Henry Plasiby, another in Yorktown in 1601, 
 founded by Gov. Nicholson; one in Westmore- 
 land County in 1700, by William Horton; one 
 in Accomack in 17 10, by Samuel Sanford, and 
 one in EHzabeth City, by Thomas Eaton.* 
 Indeed, within twenty years from the removal 
 of Berkeley, the projected College of Henricus, 
 which had disappeared in the massacre of 1622, 
 had a successor which was to produce, possibly, 
 the most notable list of graduates that any in- 
 stitution of learning has had in this country. 
 William and Mary College, founded in 1698, at 
 the new seat of government only a half dozen 
 
 * "The Colonial Virginian," an Address by R. A. Brock, p. 16. 
 
 Beverley, p. 240. 
 
146 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 miles from Jamestown, and being second in 
 point of time only to Harvard, became a verita- 
 ble factory of patriots. There the Grymeses, the 
 Byrds, the Blands,.the Pages,, the Harrisons, the 
 Lees, the Randolphs, and many others of the old 
 families of the colony secured the liberal educa- 
 tion which they put to such admirable use in the 
 days when the Rights of the colonies engrossed 
 all the energies of America, and overshadowed 
 all other discussion. There Thomas Jefferson 
 obtained the- learning and developed the skill 
 which made him, as John Adams said, "the 
 most graceful pen in America,'* and thus led to 
 the young Virginian's drafting the Declaration 
 of Independence. 
 
 As the years progressed and the settlements 
 extended farther to the westward, other ele- 
 ments came in: stout Scotch and Scotch-Irish 
 settlers poured into the western districts from 
 Scotland and North Ireland, particularly after 
 the various revolutions. A strong infusion of 
 Huguenot blood followed, and gave the Old 
 Dominion some of her most noted sons. 
 
 Thus, the population of the Old Dominion 
 was composed of sundry strains, all virile, and 
 as the race pushed westward they carried with 
 them the distinctive civilization which still 
 shows to-day along the lines they travelled, 
 
COLONIAL LIFE 147 
 
 leaving its impress in Kentucky, Tennessee, 
 southern Ohio, Missouri, and sections of many 
 other States, and materially affecting all of 
 them. For the civilization of the Old Dominion, 
 while naturally more clearly preserved within 
 her own borders, is not limited to her own long 
 shrunken confines. As the oldest, wealthiest, and 
 strongest colony, she, during the Colonial period, 
 most strongly influenced the life of all the colonies, 
 leading them finally in their action of breaking 
 the ties which bound them to the old country. 
 
 The Character of the Virginians was remarked 
 on by their fellow-members in the Colonial 
 Congress, which adopted the Declaration. "The 
 Virginia, and indeed, all the Southern delegates," 
 wrote Silas Deane, "appear like men of import- 
 ance. . . . They are sociable, sensible and spir- 
 ited men." Not a milksop among them, was 
 the judgment of one who appeared to think that 
 some of the other delegations were not so free 
 from this charge. 
 
 Whatever the faults of the Virginians were 
 they were the faults of a virile and independent 
 race. Their virtues and their vices were those 
 of the corresponding English classes from which 
 they came, modified by the conditions which 
 surrounded them in the new country. Every 
 planter was to some extent a captain — a ruler 
 
148 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 over things few or many; but yet a ruler. And 
 the quaUties developed v^ere those of a ruling 
 class. But there w^as a class w^hich existed 
 far belov^ this ruler-class also v^ith virile traits 
 and clean-cut character. It v^as not depen- 
 dency; for they v^ere in their poverty as inde- 
 pendent as their v^ealthier neighbors. Slavery 
 had not, as has so often been insisted, destroyed 
 the dignity of labor, so much as it had furnished 
 the laborers to perform most of the v^ork. Thus, 
 there W2is not the call for labor that existed 
 in countries v^here the laborers v^ere all free. 
 Those who in other countries or sections com- 
 posed the laboring class in the South were known 
 as "poor whites," but however poor they were 
 they retained their personal independence. 
 They despised all menial employment and lived 
 much as their ancestors had lived. Poor but 
 independent, they exhibited the traits of front- 
 iersmen, lovers of the woods; fond of fishing 
 and hunting, and often skilled woodsmen; 
 hospitable and kindly, pleasant in manner, firm 
 in friendship and fierce in enmity; ready to 
 follow the lead of the upper class; but stout 
 in their opinions when formed, and tenacious 
 of their rights. 
 
 Benjamin Harrison, the Signer, related how 
 the men of this class came to him and his col- 
 
COLONIAL LIFE 149 
 
 leagues, as they were setting forth to Philadelphia 
 at the outbreak of the Revolution, and told them 
 that they confided their interests to them and 
 would stand by them in whatever conclusion 
 they might reach. And the same thing occurred 
 at the outbreak of the Civil War. 
 
 They lived the life of Englishmen according 
 to their several orders, making due allowance 
 for the widely changed conditions amid which 
 they found themselves placed. Their amuse- 
 ments were those which they had brought from 
 England to which they naturally added those of 
 a frontier life. 
 
 A picture of the life is contained in the old 
 Virginia Gazette, published at WilHamsburg 
 about the year 1737, which represents the life 
 at that time in my native county of Hanover. 
 
 "We have*' says the G<3%^//^, "advices from 
 Hanover County that on St. Andrews Day there 
 are to be Horse-Races and several other Diver- 
 sions for the Entertainment of the Gentlemen and 
 Ladies at the Old Field near Capt. John Bicker- 
 ton's in that county (if permitted by the Honor- 
 able William Byrd, Esquire, Proprietor of said 
 Land) the substance of which is as follows, viz. : 
 
 **It is proposed that 20 Horses and Mares 
 will run around a three mile Course for a purse 
 of Five Pounds. 
 
150 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 "That a Hat of the value of 20 s. be cudgelled 
 for and that after the first challenge made the 
 Drums are to beat every Quarter of an hour for 
 three Challenges round the ring and none to 
 play v^ith their left hand. 
 
 "That a Violin be played for by 20 fiddlers; 
 no person to have the hberty of playing unless he 
 bring a fiddle v^ith him. After the prize is won 
 they are all to play together and each a different 
 tune and to be treated by the company. 
 
 "That 12 boys 12 years of age do run 112 
 yards for a Hat of the cost of 12 shillings. 
 
 "That a Flag be flying on said Day 30 feet 
 high. 
 
 "That a handsome Entertainment be pro- 
 vided for the subscribers and their wives; and 
 such of them as are not so happy as to have 
 wives may treat any other lady. 
 
 "That Drums, Trumpets, Hautboys, etc., be 
 provided to play at said Entertainment. 
 
 "That after Dinner the Royal Health, his 
 Honor the Governor's, etc., are to be drunk. 
 
 "That a Quire of Ballads be sung for by a 
 number of Songsters, all of them to have Liquor 
 sufficient to clear their windpipes. 
 
 "That a pair of Silver Buckles be wrestled for 
 by a number of brisk young men. 
 
 " That a pair of handsome Shoes be danced for. 
 
COLONIAL LIFE 151 
 
 "That a handsome pair of Silk Stockings of 
 one pistole value be given to the handsomest 
 young Country Maid that appears in the field. 
 
 "With many other Whimsical and Comical 
 Diversions too numerous to mention. ..." 
 
 When, towards the end of the third quarter 
 of the eighteenth century, the age-long conflict 
 which had gone on between the Government of 
 England and her colonies culminated in the 
 great Revolution which produced the American 
 nation, it might have appeared to the casual 
 observer, as it actually appeared to George the 
 Third, that the only hope of the people of those 
 colonies, stretched in a thin line along the 
 Atlantic seaboard, was in absolute and un- 
 qualified submission. Their material interests 
 were in many ways conflicting; their historical 
 traditions were to some extent divergent; their 
 religion was somewhat different at least, as man- 
 ifested in their forms of worship. Indeed, in 
 the same colony the material interests and the 
 traditions of different classes of the inhabitants 
 differed. But they were unified by one principle 
 which was common to all the colonies and to 
 all the classes therein. Love of liberty and in- 
 dependence of view, fostered by the experiences 
 of an almost wholly new method of life and 
 wholly new conditions had had its extraordinary 
 
152 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 growth during the whole period of the American 
 settlement. 
 
 Moreover, they were unified by their char- 
 acter. From one end of the country to the other 
 the people arrayed themselves in defence of their 
 rights as freemen, throwing all other considera- 
 tions to the winds, so they might estabhsh Lib- 
 erty in their country. But the Virginians led. 
 The Government and the Constitution under 
 which that government is exercised sprang from 
 the Character of our fathers. The tree of Lib- 
 erty, which has grown until it has come to shelter 
 almost the whole earth, had its roots in that 
 Character. But for their character the great 
 questions on which the Revolution was fought 
 out would never have arisen; but for their char- 
 acter the Revolution would never have succeed- 
 ed; but for their character the surrender of 
 selfish advantages would never have taken place, 
 and the Union, under a Constitutional govern- 
 ment, based on such surrender for the good of 
 all, would never have been established. 
 
IV 
 THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 
 
 ^ I ^HE year 1776 is not, as centuries are reck- 
 oned, very far away, still less, as the steps 
 of Liberty are reckoned, was it distant from the 
 date when Liberty was a poor and puny thing; 
 walking with painful steps along the paths 
 which often led to the dungeon or the scaffold, 
 liable to be cut off forever by the mailed hand 
 of a King's Pretorian guard. 
 
 The year 1776, however, may be almost taken 
 as the birth year of Liberty as we know it; of true 
 Liberty which can never be slain except by her 
 own hand. Events have followed each other so 
 rapidly in the last century — the current has 
 swept us so swiftly from the old moorings that 
 the time appears longer than it is. 
 
 A number of persons still survive who re- 
 member some of the participants in the drama 
 of 1776. 
 
 In the year 1776 the American colonies, in- 
 153 
 
154 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 stead of being one of the great Powers of the 
 world, possibly the strongest, and certainly the 
 wealthiest and the best able to sustain itself in- 
 dependently of the rest of the world, were a very 
 insignificant and poor collection of dependent 
 colonies hugging the sea-coast from Mount 
 Desert Island to the northern Hne of Florida. 
 It was a long line, covering some two thou- 
 sand miles, with many a break of wilderness 
 stretching between the settlements, with their 
 back to the vast wilderness, peopled with 
 savages, ready to crouch and spring at the first 
 opportunity; and with their eyes turned in 
 continual appeal to the mother country, which 
 many still called "home." The population 
 numbered something like three millions, about 
 as many as are now embraced in the City of 
 New York, and half as many again as are now 
 within the borders of Virginia. They were 
 mainly of English descent; though a small 
 proportion were French Huguenots, a sturdy 
 stock, and about fifteen per cent, were Negroes 
 and slaves. The frontier, which until about 
 fifty years before had been the Allegheny 
 Mountains, had within a generation been pushed 
 by hardy and adventurous settlers to the western 
 lakes and to the banks of the Ohio. Beyond, 
 to the north and to the west, lay the boundless 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 155 
 
 forests of France, and to the south lay Spain, 
 while savage Indians ever lurked along the 
 border ready to invade and slay almost with 
 impunity. 
 
 As few in number as they appeared to be, 
 they were rendered \)y their distant separation 
 even more feeble, more insignificant than their 
 numbers would seem to indicate. They were 
 not united by the ordinary bonds of a common 
 religion and a common interest. The major 
 portion of them, it is true, were Protestants, 
 but even they were divided. New England was 
 almost entirely of the dissenting faith, a people 
 filled with the spirit of Puritanism, who saw 
 but one side, reckoned a Churchman little better 
 than a papist, and classed both with the Devil; 
 her history was the history of opposition. While, 
 on the other hand, Virginia and the other South- 
 ern colonies were mainly of the Established 
 Church, and the laws of intolerance yet stood on 
 the statute books or had been but lately expunged. 
 
 Considered by classes we find them equally 
 divided. Class distinctions had |been largely 
 destroyed in the major part of New England, 
 but in Virginia and in some other colonies they 
 yet existed, and a class of large landowners gave 
 themselves the airs and filled, with reasonable 
 success, the position of an aristocracy. 
 
156 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 Even the common interest of commerce was 
 lacking. All were dependent on England, and 
 in trade, such as existed, the colonies were 
 rivals rather than sisters. 
 
 If we look at the settlements we find them 
 strangely small and insignificant. Philadelphia, 
 Boston, Newport, New York, Portsmouth, 
 York, Baltimore, Hampton, St. Mary's, Alex- 
 andria, Norfolk, Charleston, were, perhaps, 
 the only considerable towns in the country. 
 
 On the other hand, England was almost at 
 the zenith of her power, if not her glory, at home 
 and abroad. Less than a hundred years be- 
 fore she had fought out her Revolution and 
 established her charter of liberty, her bill of 
 rights. Since that time she had conquered and 
 laid the ghost of the Stuart invasion; she had 
 defeated her hereditary enemy, France, both by 
 sea and land; had forced her from the Low 
 Countries; had wrested from her grasp India 
 and the East; had reduced her fleets from the 
 first to the second place, and now within ten 
 years, with the aid of her colonists, had torn 
 from her her northernmost American colony 
 and had driven her from the Atlantic sea- 
 board. 
 
 It was the same at home. With Peace, 
 her internal aflPairs appeared to have advanced 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 157 
 
 with a bound. Her commerce suddenly 
 swelled to an unprecedented volume. Wealth 
 beyond the dream of avarice poured into her 
 coffers. 
 
 In Letters — even in Art — she was on the top- 
 most wave of her glory. Hume, Gibbon and 
 Robertson were her historians. Goldsmith and 
 Gray were among her poets, and Reynolds, 
 Gainsborough and Romney were among her 
 painters. Her greatest chancellor had but 
 lately retired from the woolsack, while Lord 
 Mansfield was yet her chief justice. Her states- 
 men — Chatham, Burke, North, Fox and others 
 — were not esteemed second to any whom she 
 had ever had on her long roll of great men 
 who had guided and maintained her destinies 
 throughout her period of glory. 
 
 It must, indeed, have appeared to an onlooker, 
 as it appeared to the Home Government, as 
 though the colonies were mad to defy her to the 
 point of war. Nor were the Americans ignorant 
 of her power. They kept in close touch with 
 her. They dealt with her constantly; sending 
 her the product of their forests and plantations, 
 and bringing from her warehouses almost every 
 comfort and convenience of life. 
 
 They knew that in the time of their grand- 
 fathers her navies had swept the seas, and her 
 
158 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 soldiery had humbled the vast power of the 
 Grand Monarch. They knew that but a few 
 years before, at the end of the Seven Years' War, 
 she had wrested from France her most cherished 
 Western possession. They had felt the thrill 
 of all this as Englishmen in blood, and as 
 Englishmen they had contributed their part 
 towards its accomplishment. Among them 
 were the descendants of that gallant officer 
 who was knighted for bearing to England the 
 dispatches announcing the victory of Blen- 
 heim, and among them was the young officer 
 who had saved the remnant of Braddock's ill- 
 starred force. 
 
 They fed on her Literature, sent their sons to 
 her schools, and kept time with her progress. 
 
 To what, then, was the Revolution due ^ To 
 one sole cause: to the invasion of the rights of 
 English citizens — in other wo\v1^ \o the spirit 
 of Liberty that anima^-V tlie souls of those who 
 had struck their rooi^ ^ mto Ine American 
 soil: to the spirit of Free institutions which 
 flamed in every colony and in every class. From 
 northern Maine to southern Georgia, gentle and 
 simple; churchman and dissenter ahke cher- 
 ished it. 
 
 To get at the reason for it we must go a long 
 way back. Traditions count for .much, espe- 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 159 
 
 dally among a rural people. And the people 
 who settled America had been bred on tradi- 
 tions of Liberty. From the time of Alfred down 
 throughout the long struggle, at first of Baron 
 against King, and then of Commoner against 
 King and Baron, their history had been the his- 
 tory of wresting Liberty from Tyranny. At 
 Runnymede the Barons had been strong because 
 their retainers were at their back. In West- 
 minster the Commons had been brave because 
 the shires were behind them. At Edgehill and 
 Naseby, at Worcester and Boyne-water Crom- 
 well and William had won because the people 
 were fighting for their English liberties. In 
 Virginia, especially, tradition had the weight of 
 unwritten law. When they came across the 
 water they had brought their Liberties with them 
 as the Children of Israel bore the Ark of the 
 Covenant in their midst. And whenever the 
 occasion arose the Ark,AY''s. borne before them. 
 
 Often it appeared h ,a danger of abandon- 
 ment, but at need the cry was always heard : " To 
 your tents, O Israel," and heard, it was obeyed. 
 
 All through their history on this side they had 
 stood for their Liberties as English citizens. 
 
 Within five years after the assembling of their 
 first House of Burgesses in 1619, and ten years 
 before any other colony had an assembly, the 
 
i6o THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 Virginia Assembly declared that "The Gov- 
 ernor shall not lay any tax or impositions upon 
 the Colony, their lands or commodities, other- 
 way than by the authority of the General As- 
 sembly, to be levied and employed as the said 
 Assembly shall appoynt."* 
 
 Subservient as they may have appeared at 
 times to the Crown as represented by the royal 
 governors, addressing petitions with a humility 
 of phrase which sounds strangely fulsome to 
 modern republican ears, there were certain 
 Rights which neither King nor Parliament could 
 touch without arousing a resentment which both 
 had been wont to heed. They called them the 
 Inalienable Rights of Citizens. And they knew, 
 as we know to-day, that they had been won by 
 hard fighting. 
 
 A hundred years before 1776 Revolution had 
 flamed through Virginia, kindled by the invasion 
 of the right of self-protection, and her capital 
 had been laid in ashes. It had been stamped 
 out in blood; but the blood of Patriots is the 
 seed of Liberty. And Liberty is the inalienable 
 heritage of the Anglo-Saxon. Its flame is the 
 divine fire which, ever burning in his breast, dis- 
 tinguishes him from all other men. 
 
 From this time on they had ever stood for 
 
 * Henning's "Statutes at Large," I., 124. 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT i6i 
 
 their rights as free citizens, and the hundred 
 years which had passed had been spent in the 
 assertion and, whenever necessary, the main- 
 tenance of those rights. As universally happens 
 under government by alien governors, the results 
 reflected largely the personal character of the in- 
 dividuals who held the office of governor. Under 
 a Spotswood or a Botetourt, the people had 
 clemency and consideration, if not justice, and 
 felt that they were understood and befriended 
 by their governors. Under a Harvey, a Berke- 
 ley or a Dunmore, they felt that they were mis- 
 understood and were treated with hostility. It 
 is the essential and inherent vice of governing by 
 absentee rulers, and the inherent weakness of 
 it is that the ruling power, however strong, does 
 not know the depth and the strength of the 
 feeling within, which may be pent up until it 
 bursts forth in Revolution. 
 
 Too often the only contact with the Home 
 Government had resulted in ignominious treat- 
 ment and sometimes in galling insult. The 
 conduct of that Government was the oft-re- 
 peated story of self-centred phariseeism, think- 
 ing that it knows the problems of another region 
 better than those know them to whom they are 
 as vital as the breath they breathe. And as in 
 such cases always, the result was a fiasco. 
 
i62 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 "Damn your souls! raise tobacco!'* flared out 
 Seymour to Parson Blair, the esteemed commis- 
 sary of the old College of William and Mary. 
 As if the people were not raising tobacco. 
 
 These things had sunk deep into their hearts. 
 
 But deeper yet were the real grievances. 
 
 As in most instances, we find that the violation 
 of rights also affected their interests. 
 
 The Acts in the Restraintof Trade had touched 
 the pocket of every man in the Colonies. That 
 England should regulate their commerce and 
 not only fix the prices for their products, but 
 refuse to permit them to trade elsewhere except 
 through her ports, was a real grievance. In the 
 same way, that she should not permit them to 
 exclude the further introduction of slaves within 
 their borders was a grievance — how real some 
 of us can form an opinion on to-day after nearly 
 two hundred years. 
 
 When to these was added the assertion by 
 England of the right to bind by law without giv- 
 ing Representation, and to withdraw the protec- 
 tion of the great Writs of privilege, the injury 
 was very real indeed. To yield would have 
 been to surrender themselves as slaves. 
 
 Remonstrance after remonstrance had been 
 addressed to the Crown, each one couched in 
 terms respectful enough, but each firmer than 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 163 
 
 its predecessor in tone and assertion. This 
 humility of expression had begun to gall the 
 withers that had been so long wrung. 
 
 It appears as though Providence, watching 
 over the growth of Liberty, had so set her im- 
 mutable laws that at this juncture all things 
 conspired to establish her in her home, with 
 foundations laid deep in this broad Western 
 world. Had but reasonable consideration been 
 shown on the other side, this Nation might never 
 have come into being. 
 
 But, "the Monarch was mad and the Minister 
 blind." 
 
 And though every effort was made on the 
 part of the colonists to settle the differences on 
 grounds consistent with their Liberties, they were 
 unavailing. Submission but brought forth only 
 truculence. "They must either triumph or sub- 
 mit," said George III. "I am unalterably de- 
 termined," he wrote to Lord North on August 
 18, 1775, "at every hazard and at the risk of 
 every consequence to compel the Colonies to 
 absolute submission." 
 
 "I remember," said Jefferson, speaking of 
 Franklin's minutes of the negotiations between 
 him and Lord North to prevent the contest of 
 arms which followed, — " I remember that Lord 
 North's answers were dry, unyielding, in the 
 
i64 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 spirit of unconditional submission and betrayed 
 an absolute indifference to the occurrence of a 
 rupture, and he said to the mediators distinctly 
 at last that a rebellion was not to be deprecated 
 on the part of Great Britain, and that the con- 
 fiscations would provide for many of their 
 friends." * 
 
 "George, be King,'* used to say his silly 
 mother to him. And George was trying to be 
 king and was making a mess of it. 
 
 "A better farmer ne'er brushed dew from lawn, 
 A worse king ne'er left a realm undone." 
 
 The only answer to subservience was a kick. 
 
 "The Governor dissolved us as usual,*' says 
 Jefferson, speaking of the dissolution that fol- 
 lowed the appointment by the Virginia House of 
 Burgesses of a day of fasting and prayer, for the 
 purpose of showing their deep feeling over the 
 shutting up of the port of Boston. 
 
 A dissolution at that time was a serious mat- 
 ter. Every member had come on horseback 
 from his home through forests and often through 
 almost trackless wilderness. Some had come 
 from far beyond the mountains in remote Au- 
 gusta and Transylvania, the present State of 
 Kentucky. 
 
 * Randolph's " Life of Jefferson," I., p. 89. 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 165 
 
 The day of subservience had, however, passed 
 away; the answer to the dissolution of an As- 
 sembly was now a Convention. 
 
 In fact, the colonists knew that however their 
 grants might run in terms, however dependent 
 on the Crown they appeared by their phraseol- 
 ogy, they had themselves wrested their holdings 
 from the Savage and the Wild; had themselves 
 builded and maintained their homes in what had 
 once been the untenable wilderness and had 
 themselves established their governments. There 
 was not an acre that had not been cleared and 
 fought for; there was not a house that had not 
 been built by arduous toil; there was not a right 
 that had not been won at the end of a struggle 
 and at the expense of fortitude. 
 
 Happily for the colonists, they had friends on 
 the other side. And happily for England, the 
 assumption of arbitrary power had sent a thrill 
 of fear through her as well as through the colo- 
 nies. The issue of General Warrants had been 
 fought out in the Wilkes case in 1765, at the 
 very time when America was in the throes of 
 her Stamp Act revolution, and as a sequel, that 
 foundation-stone of Liberty, that mightiest en- 
 gine for her preservation, the Freedom of the 
 Press, had been established. 
 
 Pitt, that "trumpet of sedition,** as George 
 
i66 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 called him, with those who were wise enough to 
 see it, recognized that America was fighting their 
 battle no less than her own. " He gloried in the 
 resistance which was denounced in Parliament 
 as rebellion. *In my opinion,* he said, *this 
 kingdom has no right to lay a tax on the colonies. 
 . . . America is obstinate; America is almost in 
 open rebellion. Sir, I rejoice that America has 
 resisted. Three millions of people so dead to 
 all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit 
 to be slaves would have been fit instruments to 
 make slaves of the rest.'" 
 
 The difficulty was to secure the united action 
 of the colonies, and without union the chance of 
 success was hopeless. Happily, George gave 
 the occasion for union by proving its necessity. 
 " George was, in fact,'' says Green, the historian, 
 "sole Minister during the fifteen years which fol- 
 lowed, and the shame of the darkest hour of 
 English history lies wholly at his door." * 
 
 The value of union among the colonists was 
 well understood, and had been the subject of 
 discussion and the subject of solicitude among 
 the leaders. 
 
 The idea of union for defence was almost as 
 old as the earliest wars in which the colonists 
 engaged. It had nearly taken shape in June, 
 
 * "Short History of the English People," p. 737. 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 167 
 
 1754, when commissioners from seven of the 
 colonies met in convention at Albany for the 
 purpose of strengthening their treaties with the 
 Indians, and for devising a plan of union. In- 
 deed, they recommended a plan of union drawn 
 up by Franklin, which contained the germinal 
 ideas of the American union. But it fell 
 through. 
 
 Now the necessity of union was more pressing 
 than ever. 
 
 "We must all hang together," said one, as 
 they stood about the desk signing the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. 
 
 "Yes,'' answered Franklin, "or we shall all 
 hang separately." 
 
 The utmost care was used by the leaders to 
 so direct public events that they should meet with 
 the approval and secure the co-operation of all 
 the colonists. The Committees of Public Safety, 
 and the Committees of Correspondence were com- 
 posed of the best men in the colonies, and they 
 gave their utmost energies to raising and welding 
 together the sympathies of all the colonies. 
 
 The importance of the Stamp Act in the 
 history of the movement is that it affected the 
 interests of every one and thus made a common 
 cause for which every one would stand. 
 
 When the Stamp Act was passed and the at- 
 
i68 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 tempt was made to enforce it in 1765, the col- 
 onies made common cause. When the Stamp 
 Act was repealed and only enough of the law 
 was left by the tax on tea to maintain the right 
 of Great Britain to tax her colonies by her laws 
 without giving them representation they still 
 stood together. When the right was asserted in 
 Rhode Island, that "httle acre of freedom/' by 
 Great Britain to send Americans to England to 
 be tried for offences committed in America, it 
 awakened the colonies to the imperative neces- 
 sity of united opposition. 
 
 "We were all sensible,'' said Jefferson after- 
 wards,* speaking of the action of the Virginia 
 Assembly in 1773, "that the most urgent of all 
 measures was that of coming to an understand- 
 ing with all the other colonies to consider the 
 British claims as a common cause to all and to 
 produce a unity of action." 
 
 It was to forward this that Committees of Cor- 
 respondence between the colonies were formed. 
 
 In this measure, as in many others, though the 
 honor has been claimed by our younger sister, 
 Massachusetts, the great weight of authority 
 goes to show that, while Massachusetts first 
 started Committees of Correspondence in the 
 several cities of that colony, the Colony of Vir- 
 
 * Randolph's "Life of Jefferson," p. 4. 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 169 
 
 ginia started the idea of correspondence between 
 the several colonies, looking to a confederation 
 of the colonies, and finally leading to a union. 
 
 Says Jefferson, "Mr. Marshall in his history 
 of General Washington, Chapter 3, speaking of 
 this proposition for Committees of Correspond- 
 ence and for a General Congress, says, 'this 
 measure had already been proposed in town 
 meeting in Boston,' and some pages before he 
 had said that, *At a session of the General Court 
 of Massachusetts in September, 1770, that 
 Court in pursuance of a favorite idea of uniting 
 all the Colonies in one system of measures, 
 elected a Committee of Correspondence to com- 
 municate with such Committees as might be ap- 
 pointed by the other Colonies.' This is an 
 error. The Committees of Correspondence 
 elected by Massachusetts were expressly for a 
 correspondence among the several towns of that 
 province only. Besides the text of their pro- 
 ceedings, his own note X., proves this. The 
 first proposition for a general correspondence be- 
 tween the several States and for a General Con- 
 gress was made by our meeting of May, 1774- 
 Botta, copying Marshall, has repeated his error; 
 so it will be handed on from copyist to copyist, 
 ad infinitum^ 
 
 The correction of this error is due to Virginia. 
 
I70 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 But, unequal as the struggle between England 
 and her colonies might appear on the surface, 
 there were conditions which tended to make it 
 more even. 
 
 Their Hfe had fitted the Americans for such a 
 struggle. It is possible that throughout the 
 colonies there was not a person who was not in- 
 ured to hardship and ready to bear his part in 
 whatever came. Men and women aUke faced 
 the conditions with undaunted hearts. Hall 
 and farm-house and mountain cabin all held 
 intrepid souls. The very boys were ready to 
 enlist and fight as men. 
 
 Nature, moving with resistless step, had 
 throughout the long years been training the 
 people for just this crisis. For generations they 
 had been inured to fighting Indians. They had 
 fought the French on the north and northwest 
 and the Spaniards on the south. Andrev/ 
 Lewis, with his brave frontiersmen, had crushed 
 the Indian power at the Great Kenawha. And 
 now, just at the crucial moment, they had had 
 an opportunity to witness and judge from per- 
 sonal observation the fighting quahties of the 
 far-famed English regulars. Washington, a 
 young and untried officer, had fought the French 
 and Indians at Great Meadows and, though 
 forced to capitulate, had marched out with the 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 171 
 
 honors of war, and the next year Braddock, with 
 picked regiments of regulars, had been defeated 
 and routed disastrously. His troops had been 
 saved from annihilation only by the courage and 
 the wisdom of the young American volunteer. 
 By this test the prestige of the redoubted regulars 
 had been lowered, and America had found out, 
 after all, that on her own soil, man for man, she 
 was better than they. Better than they, not be- 
 cause braver than they, for, indeed, they were 
 brave enough and to spare. But better because, 
 while the British, animated by physical courage, 
 fought for duty or for fame, the Americans, in- 
 spired by the spirit of free institutions, and thus 
 thrice armed, fought for Home and Liberty. 
 
 So, Fate, with sure and steady hand, was 
 leading them along the path to the heights 
 where Liberty with her torch lighted the way to 
 Freedom. 
 
 In fact, war, though not declared, was really 
 on them. 
 
 In April, 1775, the embattled farmers and 
 minute men of Massahusetts had "fired the 
 shot heard 'round the world.'' The Virginia 
 uprising had proved less bloody; for when 
 Virginia flamed and Patrick Henry led his 
 "gentlemen independents of Hanover" and his 
 Caroline men to Williamsburg to demand resti- 
 
172 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 tutlon of the powder taken by night from Vir- 
 ginia's magazine, Dunmore, at Peyton Ran- 
 dolph's instance, had placated them by paying 
 for it. England was now massing her troops 
 about Boston; and her war-vessels were cruising 
 in every bay along the coast. Dunmore had 
 abandoned the capital of Virginia, and, after 
 taking refuge on a warship, was ravaging Vir- 
 ginia's seaboard, arming her slaves, and threaten- 
 ing her Convention, even in their assembly-hall. 
 
 The colonies were arming with all haste. 
 Virginia had sent her Washington, her best 
 tried soldier, to command the Continental 
 forces in the distant colony of Massachusetts. 
 
 "It was easy to distinguish him from all the 
 rest," says Thatcher of him, on his first appear- 
 ance as he rode into Cambridge. 
 
 It is still easy, after a hundred and thirty 
 years, to distinguish him from all the rest. 
 Sprung from Virginia's soil, compact of the ele- 
 ments that have given distinction to the char- 
 acter that bears her stamp; country-bred; level- 
 headed rather than clever; direct and straight- 
 forward rather than astute or keen; inspired 
 by her traditions; tempered on the anvil of 
 adversity to be the truest instrument that 
 Providence had ever fashioned to its hand; fol- 
 lowing with divine patience and divine humility 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 173 
 
 the call of Duty, that lordly Virginian rides 
 down the years, still easily distinguished from 
 all the rest. And the only one of all the com- 
 pany who bears a close resemblance to him 
 was, like him, a Virginian also. 
 
 II 
 
 With a view to understanding just the situa- 
 tion when the convention sat, let us for a mo- 
 ment turn aside out of the clangor of revolution 
 and picture to ourselves the external appear- 
 ance of Virginia's capital, and then we shall 
 come to those who made it what it is to-day — a 
 shrine of Liberty. Fortunately, we have the 
 picture of the town, drawn by a facile and 
 friendly pen — that of the Rev. Hugh Jones — 
 about three-quarters of a century before the sit- 
 ting of the convention that declared for Inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 "Public buildings hereof note," he says, "are 
 the College, the Capitol, the Governor's House, 
 and the Church." Observe that he puts the Col- 
 lege first; and he describes it with much warmth. 
 Next comes a description of the capitol: 
 
 "Fronting the College at near its whole 
 breadth is extended a noble street mathemati- 
 cally straight (for the first design of the town 
 
174 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 form is changed to a much better) just three- 
 quarters of a mile in length: At the other end 
 of which stands the Capitol, a noble, beautiful 
 and commodious pile as any of its kind, built 
 at the cost of the late Queen, and by the direc- 
 tion of the Governor. 
 
 "In this is the Secretary's Office, with all the 
 Courts of Justice and Law, held in the same 
 form, and near the same manner as in England, 
 except the Ecclesiastical Courts. 
 
 "Here the Governor and twelve Counsellors 
 sit as Judges at the General Courts in April 
 and October, whither trials and causes are re- 
 moved from Courts held at the Court Houses 
 monthly in every County by a Bench of Justices 
 and a County Clerk. 
 
 "Here are also held the Oyer and the Ter- 
 miner Courts, one in Summer and the other in 
 Winter, added by the charity of the late Queen 
 for the prevention of prisoners lying in goal 
 above a quarter of a year before their trial. 
 
 " Here are also held Courts Martial by Judges 
 appointed on purpose for the trial of pirates; 
 likewise. Courts of Admiralty for the trial of 
 ships for illegal trade. 
 
 "The building is in the form of an *H' 
 nearly; the Secretary's Office, and the General 
 Court taking up one side below stairs; the 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 175 
 
 middle being a handsome portico leading to the 
 Clerk of the Assembly's Office, and the House 
 of Burgesses on the other side; which last is 
 not unlike the House of Commons. 
 
 "In each wing is a good staircase, one leading 
 to the Council Chamber, where the Governor 
 and Council sit in very great state, in imitation 
 of the King and Council, or the Lord Chan- 
 cellor and House of Lords. 
 
 " Over the portico is a large room where Con- 
 ferences are held and prayers are read by the 
 Chaplain to the General Assembly; which 
 office I have had the honor for some years to 
 perform. At one end of this is a lobby, and 
 near it is the Clerk of the Council's Office; and 
 at the other end are several Chambers for the 
 Committees of Claims, Privileges and Elections; 
 and all over these are several good offices for 
 the Receiver General, for the Auditor, Treas- 
 urer, Etc., and upon the middle is raised a 
 lofty cupola with a large clock. 
 
 "The whole is surrounded with a neat area 
 encompassed with a good wall, and near it is a 
 strong, sweet prison for criminals; and on the 
 other side of an open court another for debtors, 
 when they are removed either from other 
 prisons in each county; but such prisons are 
 very rare, the creditors being there generally 
 
176 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 very merciful, and the Laws so favorable for 
 debtors that some esteem them too indulgent. 
 
 "The cause of my being so particular in 
 describing the Capitol is because it is the best 
 and most commodious pile of its kind that I 
 have seen or heard of. 
 
 "Because the State House, Jamestov^n, and 
 the College have been burnt down, therefore is 
 prohibited in the Capitol the use of fire, candles, 
 and tobacco. 
 
 "At the Capitol at public times may be seen 
 a great number of handsome, well-dressed, com- 
 plete gentlemen. And at the Governor's House 
 upon Birth-Nights, and at Balls and Assem- 
 blies, I have seen as fine an appearance, as good 
 diversion, and as splendid entertainments in 
 Governor Spotswood's time, as I have seen any- 
 where else. 
 
 "These buildings here described are justly 
 reputed the best in all the English America, and 
 are exceeded by few of their kind in England.'* 
 
 I fancy that his Reverence's pen ran some- 
 what away with him in his enthusiasm to picture 
 Virginia's capital for his friends in Westminster. 
 I seem to see in his flowery description some- 
 thing of the generous warmth which always 
 surges about the heart of Virginians when her 
 memory comes to them in a far country. But, 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 177 
 
 at least, we know that he spoke the simple truth 
 about the "complete gentlemen." 
 
 I have given the picture at length, partly be- 
 cause it shows the life of the Virginians who 
 brought on the Revolution and their relation to 
 the government, and partly because, making 
 due allowance for his Reverence's warmth of 
 feeling, the old town which he so affectionately 
 described could not have changed greatly be- 
 tween his day and the day when the convention 
 of 1776 sat. In fact, it has not changed in- 
 credibly since that day. 
 
 If I may say so without offence, Time appears 
 to me to have dealt gently with this ancient 
 capital of Virginia. Two wars have left her 
 much as she was, as, indeed, they have left 
 the Virginians much as they were when the 
 Reverend Hugh Jones drew their pleasant pict- 
 ure; pleasure-loving; chasing their horses five 
 miles through pastures to ride them two miles 
 on the road; easy-going till necessity arouses 
 them, but, once aroused, hke the Nemean lion. 
 
 Into this capital came on May 6, 1776, one 
 hundred and thirty of these "complete gentle- 
 men," all with one mind and one motive: the 
 preservation of American liberty. However 
 they might have differed and wrangled and con- 
 tended, here they were all at one. Nor had 
 
178 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 they assembled with any Indefinite object. Not 
 a man came but knew that it was a crisis in 
 his Hfe and fortunes. Three conventions had 
 sat in the preceding year, the first on the 20th 
 of March in old St. John's Church, Richmond, 
 where Patrick Henry fired all hearts by his 
 eloquent appeal for liberty or death. Though it 
 had lasted but a week, it did its work well. The 
 second, which met on the 24th of July, had put 
 the colony in a posture of defence. 
 
 On this day. May 6, the House of Burgesses 
 held its last session and declared that the ancient 
 Constitution of Virginia had been subverted by 
 the King and Parliament of Great Britain. 
 They thereupon disbanded and gave way to the 
 great Convention, thus terminating Virginia's 
 subjection to Great Britain. For the last year 
 the Royal Governor had been a fugitive from 
 the capital, and was now on board the warship 
 William, fulminating proclamations against the 
 people of Virginia as rebels, declaring martial 
 law, and arming their runaway slaves, to whom 
 he held out the reward of freedom. On Octo- 
 ber 26, 1775, George Nicholas had "fired the 
 first shot of the Revolution at one of Dunmore's 
 tenders sent to destroy the town of Hamp- 
 ton." Four months before, the battle of Great 
 Bridge had been fought and Woodford had 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 179 
 
 won a victory, and, on New Year's day, Dun- 
 more had burnt Norfolk, Virginia's seaport, to 
 the ground. 
 
 War was already begun, though not yet gen- 
 erally flagrant. Separation was imminent and 
 Independence was in the air. 
 
 Some persons appear to think that Jeff^erson 
 sat down in Philadelphia after the 7th of June 
 and wrote off the Declaration of Independence 
 as one might dash off a letter. They little know 
 the measure of CHo's march. The principles of 
 that immortal paper had been debated possibly 
 by every gentleman in Virginia, and by many 
 outside of her borders. It had been the subject 
 of discussion at every fireside and in every as- 
 semblage for months, if not for years. And its 
 substance had been proclaimed as early as June 
 12 in that immortal paper, the Virginia Bill of 
 Rights which has since been incorporated in the 
 Constitution of every State of the Union. 
 
 However this may have been, Richard Henry 
 Lee, on the 20th of April, wrote from Phila- 
 delphia, where he was representing Virginia in 
 the General Congress, to Patrick Henry, urging 
 him to propose to the convention about to 
 assemble a separation from Great Britain. 
 
 "Ages yet unborn," he says, "and miUions 
 existing at present may rue or bless that Assem- 
 
i8o THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 bly on which their happiness or misery will so 
 eminently depend." (Grigsby, p. 8.) 
 
 Those will remember who know the story of 
 the Declaration, that Richard Henry Lee was 
 the member of Congress who, in obedience to 
 Virginia's Instructions, on the yth day of June 
 moved Congress to declare the Colonies Free 
 and Independent States. And but that he was 
 recalled to Virginia by the illness of his wife, it 
 would probably have been his pen rather than 
 Jefferson's which drafted the Declaration. 
 
 Who were the members of the conventions 
 who performed so notable a part in the drama 
 that was just opening ? Simply the old Vir- 
 ginians — planters and lawyers, plain country 
 gentlemen — whose names were to be immortal- 
 ized by their acts. 
 
 Ill 
 
 When the Virginia Convention of 1776 met 
 there was but one subject for consideration — 
 the preservation of liberty. Without any pre- 
 liminary waste of time it at once settled down 
 to business. 
 
 Of other Conventions since that date we have 
 the debates — the methods and processes by 
 which the members arrived at their conclusions. 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT i8i 
 
 But not so as to this one. In the volume of its 
 proceedings all we find are the results told in 
 briefest minutes. And all related to the pubUc 
 weal. 
 
 On the fifth day of their session the conven- 
 tion directed that 1,300 men, consisting of 
 minute men and militia, be immediately raised 
 in the middle counties of Virginia, and formed 
 into two distinct battalions, to be sent to the 
 assistance of North Carolina. And on this 
 same day a "representation from the committee 
 of the County of Augusta," which embraced all 
 Western Virginia and Kentucky, was presented 
 to the convention, "setting forth the present 
 unhappy situation of the country, and from the 
 ministerial measures of vengeance now pursuing, 
 representing the necessity of making the con- 
 federacy of the United Colonies the most per- 
 fect, independent and lasting, and of framing 
 an equal, free and liberal government that may 
 bear the test of all future ages.'* 
 
 So we come to the great day of May 15, 1776. 
 
 The session was the most momentous which 
 had yet been held, for the real business of the 
 day was a Declaration of Independence. 
 
 Of what occurred during the debate we know 
 little. We only know, indeed, that Edmund 
 Pendleton, the President, drafted a resolution 
 
i82 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 instructing the Virginia delegates in Congress to 
 move that body to declare the colonies Free and 
 Independent States; that Patrick Henry drafted 
 another resolution to the same purpose, and that 
 Meriwether Smith drafted a third; that Thomas 
 Nelson, Jr., offered the resolution, said to have 
 been that drafted by Pendleton, thus becoming 
 the sponsor for it; that Patrick Henry seconded 
 and advocated it, and that while there was some 
 opposition to it from conservatives like Robert 
 Carter Nicholas, it was on the final vote of the 
 convention unanimously adopted. 
 
 "They are,'' says Grigsby, "in every view the 
 most important ever presented for the con- 
 sideration of a public body . . . they constitute 
 the first Declaration of Independence." 
 
 It bespeaks the greatness of the members of 
 that convention that even when its far-reaching 
 effect was recognized, no claim was set up by 
 the mover of that resolution to any special 
 honor. And not one historian has set forth the 
 authorship as it was. The resolution passed 
 into history — into Virginia's histories, for these 
 were the only histories that deigned even to 
 notice them, as Pendleton's resolution. But the 
 real author of a resolution is not the man who 
 writes it, but the man who offers it and carries 
 it through. He it is who must stand or fall by it. 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 183 
 
 Here is the minute, from the Journal: "When 
 Mr. President resumed the Chair, Mr. Gary 
 reported that the Committee had under their 
 consideration the state of the Colony and had 
 come to the following Resolutions thereupon; 
 which he read in his place, and afterwards de- 
 Hvered in at the Clerk's table where the same 
 were again twice read and unanimously agreed 
 to; 112 members being present: 
 
 "Forasmuch as all the endeavors of the 
 United Colonies, by the most decent representa- 
 tions and petitions to the King and Parliament 
 of Great Britain, to restore peace and security 
 to America under the British Government, and 
 a reunion with that people upon just and liberal 
 terms, instead of a redress of grievances, have 
 produced from an imperious and vindictive ad- 
 ministration increased insult, oppression and a 
 vigorous attempt to effect our total destruction. 
 By a late act all these colonies are declared to 
 be in rebellion, and out of the protection of the 
 British Crown, our properties subjected to 
 confiscation, our people, when captured, com- 
 pelled to join in the murder and plunder of 
 their relations and countrymen, and all former 
 rapine and oppression of Americans declared 
 legal and just. Fleets and armies are raised, 
 and the aid of foreign troops engaged to assist 
 
i84 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 these destructive purposes. The King's repre- 
 sentative in this Colony hath not only v^ithheld 
 all the powers of government from operating 
 for our safety, but, having retired on board an 
 armed ship, is carrying on a piratical and sav- 
 age war against us, tempting our slaves by 
 every artifice to resort to him and training and 
 employing them against their masters. In this 
 state of extreme danger, we have no alternative 
 left but an abject submission to the will of these 
 overbearing tyrants, or a total separation from 
 the Crown and Government of Great Britain, 
 uniting and exerting the strength of all America 
 for defence, and forming alliances with foreign 
 powers for commerce and aid in War: Where- 
 fore, appealing to the Searcher of Hearts for 
 the sincerity of former declarations, expressing 
 our desire to preserve the connexion with that 
 Nation, and that we are driven from that in- 
 clination by their wicked councils, and the 
 eternal laws of self-preservation; 
 
 ^^ Resolved unanimously, that the Delegates 
 appointed to represent this Colony in General 
 Congress be instructed to propose to that re- 
 spectable body to declare the United Colonies 
 free and independent States, absolved from all 
 allegiance to, or dependence upon, the Crown 
 or Parliament of Great Britain; and that they 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 185 
 
 give the assent of this Colony to such declara- 
 tion, and to whatever measures may be thought 
 proper and necessary by the Congress for form- 
 ing foreign alliances, and a confederation of the 
 Colonies, at such time and in the manner, as 
 to them shall seem best: Provided, that the 
 power of forming government for, and the regu- 
 lation of the internal concerns of each Colony 
 be left to the respective Colonial legislatures. 
 
 ''Resolved unanimously, Tha.t a Committee 
 be appointed to prepare a Declaration of 
 Rights, and such a plan of government as will 
 be most likely to maintain peace and order in 
 this Colony, and secure substantial and equal 
 liberty to the people." 
 
 Thus, the act of instruction became the act 
 of the whole convention. And, becoming such, 
 it was the first Declaration of Independence by 
 a State on this continent. The hour had 
 struck; a new star had risen in the firmament 
 of Nations. 
 
 The account Contained In the Virginia Gazette 
 of May 17, shows the enthusiasm with which the 
 passage of the resolution was hailed by the peo- 
 ple of the old town of Williamsburg. The Brit- 
 ish flag was immediately struck on the capitol of 
 the colony where it had flown continuously since 
 April, 1607, and " the Union flag of the American 
 
i86 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 States" was run up on the capitol of Virginia, 
 thus making Virginia the first State to fly the 
 Union flag. The soldiery "were paraded in 
 Waller's Grove before Brigadier-General Lewis, 
 attended by the gentlemen of the Committee of 
 Safety, the members of the General Conven- 
 tion, the inhabitants of this City, etc. The 
 resolutions being read aloud to the army, the 
 following toasts were given, each of them 
 accompanied by a discharge of the artillery 
 and small arms, and the acclamation of all 
 present: 
 
 "i. The American Independent States. 
 
 "2. The Grand Congress of the United 
 States, and their respective legislatures. 
 
 "3. General Washington, and victory to the 
 American arms. 
 
 "The evening," says the Virginia Gazette, 
 "concluded with illuminations and other demon- 
 strations of joy, every one seeming pleased that 
 the domination of Great Britain was now at an 
 end, so wickedly and tyrannically exercised for 
 these twelve or thirteen years past, notwith- 
 standing our repeated prayers and remon- 
 strances for redress." 
 
 The mover of the resolution for Independence, 
 Thomas Nelson, Jr., was a delegate in Con- 
 gress, and, having carried it through the con- 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 187 
 
 vention, he set out immediately for Philadelphia 
 with the resolution in his pocket. There all 
 eyes were turned on Virginia, which was taking 
 the lead now in the Revolution. 
 
 On the 7th of June her delegate, Richard 
 Henry Lee, in obedience to the resolution, 
 offered in Congress a resolution in almost the 
 words of his instruction. 
 
 The story is known how it was debated 
 through the following three or four weeks; 
 how Lee returned to Virginia partly because of 
 his wife's illness, but partly because of the 
 urging of George Mason and others who wished 
 him to help frame the Virginia constitution; how 
 Jefferson was appointed on the committee to 
 draft the Declaration of Independence, and how 
 by the committee the drafting was assigned to 
 him. It is known also how Benjamin Har- 
 rison, as chairman of the Committee of the 
 Whole, received and transmitted the Decla- 
 ration to the Congress, whose president was 
 John Hancock, now that Peyton Randolph was 
 no more. 
 
 To show the importance of this action of the 
 Virginia convention at this time it is only neces- 
 sary to recall that on the 15th of May, the very 
 day when the convention adopted the resolution 
 declaring for Independence, and ordered a new 
 
i88 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 plan of government to be drafted, a resolution 
 entered into by Congress for suppressing the ex- 
 ercise of all powers derived from the Crown, 
 had shown, as Mr. Jefferson states in his memoir, 
 by the ferment into which it had thrown the mid- 
 dle colonies (Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylva- 
 nia, the Jerseys and New York) that the people 
 of those colonies had not yet accommodated their 
 minds to a separation from the mother coun- 
 try. That some of them had expressly for- 
 bidden their delegates to consent to such a 
 declaration, and others had given no instruc- 
 tions and consequently no powers to give such 
 consent. 
 
 This argument was employed by Wilson, 
 Robert R. Livingston, Rutledge, Dickinson and 
 others against the Virginia resolution which 
 Richard Henry Lee moved in Congress on June 
 yth. And even as late as the first of July, when 
 in Committee of the Whole House, the con- 
 sideration of the original motion made by the 
 delegates of Virginia after being debated through 
 the day was carried in the affirmative by the 
 votes of New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massa- 
 chusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, 
 Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, South 
 Carolina and Pennsylvania voted against it, the 
 two members from Delaware who were present 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 189 
 
 were divided, and the delegates from New York, 
 though they declared themselves for it, were 
 acting under instructions given them a twelve- 
 month before, and asked leave to withdraw 
 from the question. 
 
 The determination of the question was then, 
 on the request of Mr. Edward Rutledge of South 
 Carolina, put off to the next day, as he stated 
 his belief that his colleagues, though they dis- 
 approved of the resolution, would join in it for 
 the sake of unanimity. And on the second of 
 July, the question whether the House would 
 agree to the Virginia resolution was carried. 
 South Carolina concurring in the vote, as did 
 Pennsylvania and Delaware. On the same days 
 the actual declaration, its matter and form, as 
 Mr. Jefferson states, was taken up, but it was 
 on the Fourth of July that it was decided, and 
 was signed by every member present except Mr. 
 Dickinson, though the delegates from New 
 York did not sign until the fifteenth of July, 
 authority not having been given them by their 
 convention until the ninth, five days after the 
 general signature. The convention of Pennsyl- 
 vania, learning that it had been signed only by 
 a majority of their delegates, named a new dele- 
 gation on the 20th, leaving out Mr. Dickinson, 
 and the entire delegation then signed. 
 
iQO THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 IV 
 
 I cannot do better in closing the discussion 
 of this subject than to quote from a scholarly 
 address delivered some little time back by a 
 cultured Virginian.* 
 
 " It may be of interest to relate the views of 
 one w^ell qualified to judge of events, and to 
 v^hom both the choice of Washington to com- 
 mand the armies of the country, and of Jefferson 
 to drav^ the great Declaration v^ere due. In a 
 letter to Timothy Pickering, w^ritten August 6, 
 1822, John Adams v^rites: *You inquire v^hy so 
 young a man as Jefferson was placed at the head 
 of the Committee for preparing a Declaration of 
 Independence? answer, *It was the Frankfort 
 advice to place Virginia at the head of every- 
 thing/ Mr. Richard Henry Lee might be gone 
 to Virginia to visit his sick family for aught I 
 know, but that was not the reason of Mr. 
 Jefferson's appointment. There were three 
 committees appointed at the same time. One 
 for the Declaration of Independence, another 
 for preparing Articles of Confederation, and 
 another for preparing a treaty to be proposed 
 to France. Mr. Lee was chosen for the Com- 
 
 * Mr. Rosewell Page. 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 191 
 
 mittee of Confederation, and it was thought 
 convenient that the same person should be on 
 both. Mr. Jefferson came into Congress in 
 June, 1775, and brought with him a reputation 
 for Hterature, science, and a happy talent for 
 composition. Writings of his were handed 
 about, remarkable for the felicity of expression. 
 Though a silent member in Congress, he was 
 so prompt, frank, explicit, and decisive upon 
 committee and in conversation (not even Sam. 
 Adams was more so) that he soon seized upon 
 my heart; and upon this occasion I gave him 
 my vote and did all in my power to procure 
 votes of others. I think he had one more vote 
 than any other and that placed him at the head 
 of the committee. I had the next highest num- 
 ber and that placed me second. The com- 
 mittee met, discussed the subject, and then ap- 
 pointed Mr. Jefferson and me to make a draft 
 (I suppose because we were the first on the 
 list). The sub-committee met, Jefferson pro- 
 posed to me to make the draft. I said: 
 
 "^I will not.' 
 
 "*You should do it.' 
 
 "*Oh no.' 
 
 "*Why will you not ? You ought to do it.' 
 
 "'I will not.' 
 
 "'Why?' 
 
192 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 "* Reasons enough.' 
 
 "*What can be your reasons ?' 
 
 "* Reason first. You are a Virginian, and a 
 Virginian ought to appear at the head of this 
 business. Reason Second. I am obnoxious, 
 suspected and unpopular. You are very much 
 otherwise. Reason third; you can write ten 
 times better than I can.' 
 
 "*Well,' said Jefferson, * if you are decided, 
 I will do as well as I can.' 
 
 "After saying that he did not make or suggest 
 a single alteration, and adding that he did not 
 remember that Franklin or Sherman criticised 
 anything, the distinguished New Englander 
 says: *As you justly observed, there is not an 
 idea in it but what had been hackneyed in Con- 
 gress for two years before. The substance of 
 it is contained in the Declaration of Rights and 
 the violation of these rights in the Journals of 
 Congress in 1774. Indeed, the essence of it 
 is contained in a pamphlet voted and printed 
 by the town of Boston before the first Congress 
 met, composed by James Otis, I suppose in one 
 of his lucid moments, and pruned and polished 
 by Sam. Adams.' 
 
 "The latter part of this letter recalls the say- 
 ing attributed to the writer of it, relative to the 
 elevation of his son to the Presidency for which 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 193 
 
 he was naturally very desirous. As Jefferson, 
 Madison, and Monroe were respectively elected 
 over John Quincy, the elder Adams is alleged to 
 have said, ' My son will stand no chance until the 
 last Virginian is dead.' 
 
 "Let us briefly sum up the results of the Vir- 
 ginian movement, and what it accomplished. It 
 gave Patrick Henry to arouse and stimulate the 
 whole people of America. It gave George 
 Washington, Lewis, Henry Lee, Daniel Morgan, 
 George Rogers Clarke, and Thomas Nelson, 
 Jr., to the army. It gave Thomas Nelson, Jr., 
 to draw the instructions for Independence and 
 to offer them to the Virginia Convention. It 
 gave Peyton Randolph to preside over the first 
 Congress. It gave Thomas Jefferson to write 
 the Declaration of Independence after the mo- 
 tion therefor had been made by Richard Henry 
 Lee, who was also to be chairman of the com- 
 mittee for preparing Articles of Confederation. 
 It won and gave the Northwest Territory to the 
 country. It gave the Virginia plan to the con- 
 vention that formed the Constitution of the 
 United States with George Washington, James 
 Madison and Edmund Randolph to support it; 
 for though Randolph refused to sign the Constitu- 
 tion, he did as much as anybody to bring it to its 
 state of perfection. It gave John Marshall to 
 
194 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 establish that Constitution upon a basis so im- 
 pregnable that civil war could not disturb it. It 
 gave four out of the first five presidents of the 
 United States; not to speak of the gallant sons 
 of Virginia v^ho offered themselves for the pub- 
 lic good, nor of the treasure v^hich Virginia 
 poured into the general fund v^hich the limits 
 of this paper v^ill not permit me to detail. 
 
 "The result of the Virginian movement may 
 be summed up In the foUow^Ing language that 
 has been well styled * monumental/ written by 
 one of the greatest of the Virginians and one 
 well qualified to speak: Thomas Jefferson. 
 These are his words, and my idea of what that 
 movement made possible: 
 
 "Equal and exact justice to all men, of what- 
 ever state or persuasion, religious and political; 
 peace, commerce, and honest friendship with 
 all nations, entangling alliances with none; 
 the support of the State Government In all 
 their rights, as the most competent adminis- 
 trations for our domestic concerns and the 
 surest bulwark against Anti-republican tenden- 
 cies, the preservation of the general govern- 
 ment in Its whole constitutional vigor as the 
 sheet-anchor of our peace at home and our 
 safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of 
 election by the people; a mild and safe correc- 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 195 
 
 tion of abuses, which are lopped by the sword 
 of revolution where peaceable remedies are un- 
 provided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions 
 of the majority; the vital principle of Republics, 
 from which there is no appeal but to force, the 
 vital principle and immediate parent of despot- 
 ism; a well disciplined militia, our best reliance 
 in peace and for the first movements in war, 
 till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy 
 of the civil over the military authority; economy 
 in the public expense that labor may be light 
 burdened; the honest payment of our debts 
 and the sacred preservation of the Public faith; 
 encouragement of agriculture and of commerce 
 as its hand-maid; the diffusion of information 
 and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of 
 public reason; freedom of religion, freedom of 
 the press, and freedom of person under the 
 protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by 
 jurors impartially selected; these principles 
 form the light constellation which has gone 
 before us and guided our steps through an age 
 of revolution and reformation!" 
 
 Such in brief, was the part which the Old 
 Dominion had in the creation of the Revolu- 
 tionary movement. She inspired the movement, 
 encouraged her sister colonies, supplied the 
 statesmen who led the councils and the chief who 
 
196 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 led the Revolutionary armies to final victory. It 
 v^as by no mere accident that George Washing- 
 ton, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George 
 Mason, Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, the 
 Lees, the Harrisons, the Nelsons, the Randolphs, 
 the Blands and other leaders of the Revolution- 
 ary movement came from the shores of the rivers 
 which poured into the Chesapeake. They v^ere 
 the product of the life established on those shores. 
 Then, v^hen Independence was achieved, she led 
 the movement to establish a more permanent 
 union by the adoption of the Constitution of the 
 United States, to consummate which she sur- 
 rendered her vast Northwest Territory which 
 her sons had conquered. And, having effected 
 this, it was under one of her sons that the great 
 Louisiana Territory was secured, and under an- 
 other that the loose bands of the Constitution 
 were welded to make the whole homogeneous 
 and effective. 
 
 These and many more national benefits were 
 the fruits of the civilization which had a footing 
 first at Jamestown. But the chief and choicest 
 fruit of all was the distinctive civilization which 
 sprang up within her borders and took its char- 
 acter from her secluded and uncommercial life. 
 
 This life shed an inestimable influence on the 
 whole country. The Virginia gentleman be- 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 197 
 
 came a synonym for lofty courtesy; the Virginia 
 hospitality became noted the world over. 
 
 The quality and temper of the life were shown 
 to the world in men like Washington and 
 Marshall and Madison, and later in men like 
 Lee and Jackson. They were all men of genius; 
 but more marked than even this genius was their 
 character. 
 
 This was the ripest fruit of the Virginia civil- 
 ization, and the Virginians know that though 
 these might have been equalled by few in genius, 
 in character they were not exceptions, but only 
 types of the Virginian. 
 
THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE UNIVER- 
 SITY OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 " Our university: the last of my mortal cares and the last service 
 I can render my country." — Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 'VTO stranger story of self-sacrifice and devo- 
 -*- ^ tion to a high ideal in the face of trials 
 which to a lesser genius might have appeared in- 
 surmountable, and of disappointments which 
 to less courage must have proved fatal, has ever 
 been written than that which recounts the de- 
 votion of the last twenty years of the life of 
 Thomas Jefferson to the establishment of a 
 great University. 
 
 Any proper account of the University of Vir- 
 ginia must take into consideration the story of 
 its establishment and the history of its work, 
 since it realized the ideal of its great founder, 
 Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 After a life devoted largely to public service, 
 
 in which had been crowded almost as many 
 
 198 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 199 
 
 services of world-benefit as ever fell to one man's 
 lot, and in which he reaped as much of the re- 
 ward of high office and public appreciation as 
 almost any man has ever had, when Thomas 
 Jefferson had reached the highest point in the 
 continuous climb from which all the kingdoms 
 of the world and the needs of them fell within 
 his ken, he saw one great need of the American 
 People — Enlightenment — and addressed himself 
 to it. 
 
 His far-reaching mind recognized that what 
 was needed to carry through the plan which the 
 fathers had formed for the good of the Nation 
 was a comprehensive system of Education. He 
 had a vast and varied experience which ex- 
 tended over this country and Europe, and he 
 was as familiar with the great classical institu- 
 tions of the Old World as he was with his alma 
 mater, William and Mary College. 
 
 His principle was: "True knowledge and 
 Freedom are indissolubly linked together." 
 
 It appeared to him quite clearly that what 
 the people stood most in need of was a system 
 of education that should cover the whole field of 
 human knowledge and embrace within the range 
 of its benefactions every class. 
 
 With a breadth of scope which ranged far be- 
 yond that of most of his contemporaries, he 
 
200 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 aimed to build ever for the spacious future which 
 he foresaw destined for his country. It was 
 this comprehensive sweep of intellect that made 
 him seize the opportunity to secure the vast terri- 
 tory of Louisiana, which Napoleon, with a view 
 to raising a rival power to England in the West- 
 ern Hemisphere, offered him. Stickler for 
 strict adherence to the Constitution as he was, 
 when this supreme chance came, with all its 
 possibilities for the future, he did not hesitate to 
 seize it. That the Constitution contained no ex- 
 plicit provision for such an emergency did not 
 stagger him. But he met the situation by ask- 
 ing for an amendment approving and ratifying 
 his action. Thus it is, that we celebrated re- 
 cently the addition to our national domain of a 
 territory which not only contains a dozen States, 
 but gave this country control of the great West 
 and enabled this nation to realize Napoleon's 
 design and dominate this continent. 
 
 With this same spaciousness of design Jeffer- 
 son proceeded to build his Institution of The 
 Higher Learning. He would make it a Univer- 
 sity in fact as well as in title. With a vision far 
 in advance of most of his friends, he contem- 
 plated a " system of general instruction, which 
 would reach every description of our citizens 
 from the richest to the poorest," on which this 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 201 
 
 University should be founded. Such a system, 
 he declared in 1818, "as it was the earliest, so it 
 will be the latest of all the public concerns in 
 which I shall permit myself to take an interest/* 
 His aim was to make his system broad enough 
 for all. Only two years before his university was 
 established he wrote his lieutenant, Joseph C. 
 Cabell, who ably seconded him in his efforts, 
 that were it necessary to give up either the pri- 
 maries or the universities he would abandon the 
 latter, "because it was better to have the whole 
 people respectably enlightened than to have a 
 few in a high state of science and the many in 
 ignorance." 
 
 As early as 1779 he introduced into the Gen- 
 eral Assembly of the State of Virginia a bill for 
 the more gradual diffusion of knowledge; he 
 would bring the school-house within the reach 
 of every man's door. His bill provided not only 
 for the popular foundation of common schools, 
 but for the free training of all free children, male 
 and female, for three years in reading, writing, 
 and arithmetic. This proposed admission of 
 girls preceded by ten years, as Professor Herbert 
 A. Adams has pointed out, the admission of girls 
 to the common schools of Boston, thus placing 
 Jefferson as the pioneer in this field of female 
 education. 
 
202 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 Next above the common school, according to 
 Jefferson's proposed plan, were to be the gram- 
 mar or classical schools — "free schools" in the 
 sense to which old Sir William Berkeley referred 
 when he hoped there would be "no free schools 
 in Virginia these three hundred years." Here 
 Latin, Greek, English, Geography, and higher 
 Mathematics were to be taught. Over all, ac- 
 cording to his first plan, the College of William 
 and Mary, his alma mater, was to have a gen- 
 eral control. Thus, the classical academies, 
 middle schools, or colleges, as Jefferson after- 
 ward called them, would centre in the higher 
 education, as did the common schools.* 
 
 One of the motives which actuated him was, 
 undoubtedly, that he felt that the Virginian 
 theory of government was sounder than that 
 promulgated at the North. A reason which 
 influenced him was his objection to being what 
 he called "a beggar for the crumbs which fell 
 from the tables of the North." He offered as an 
 argument the fact that many young men from the 
 
 ♦Jefferson's great scheme for introducing common departments 
 into Virginia in connection with the higher education failed be- 
 cause of insufl&cient legislation, which left the matter to the vote 
 of the people of each district. It was not until 1796 that a law 
 was passed which made it at all possible. And it was not until 
 twenty years later that a general provision was made by the State 
 for elementary education. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 203 
 
 South went to Princeton, It having been reported 
 to him that one-half of the students of that Insti- 
 tution were Virginians. Education at that time, 
 even the higher education, was under the spell of 
 formalism. The principal colleges were subject 
 to some Church whose teachings influenced the 
 curriculum. It was Thomas Jefferson's Idea to 
 do away with this subordination — to destroy this 
 cramping formalism and to emancipate the mind 
 from every form of Church domination. At that 
 time Princeton was a sectarian Institution, as 
 William and Mary, while no longer one, was at 
 least under the Influence of the Episcopal 
 Church. Jefferson, however, as he boldly de- 
 clared, had "sworn on the altar of the Most High 
 God hostility to every form of tyranny over the 
 human mind,'* and held that a great University 
 should belong to no Church and be dominated 
 by no sectarian Creed. 
 
 Undoubtedly, one of the basic principles on 
 which Jefferson proposed to establish his uni- 
 versity was the principle of enlightened freedom 
 — freedom of thought and freedom of action, as 
 far as might be consonant with the welfare of 
 the greatest number. And his love of freedom 
 extended to that higher form — the freedom of 
 the mind. It was his profound belief that If 
 this principle could be established as the founda- 
 
204 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 tion-stone of his institution, that institution would 
 be a boon and a blessing to the entire country 
 and to all generations. With this steadily in 
 view, he undertook to found a university which 
 should avail itself of the experience of the Past, 
 and withal should not only subserve the ever- 
 widening influence of the Present, but should 
 lead in the development of the Future. 
 
 The first step would appear to have been the 
 founding of an academy in Virginia, modelled 
 on the French Academy, through the efi^orts of 
 a zealous young Frenchman, Quesney de Beaure- 
 paire, to whom the idea had been suggested by 
 John Page, of Rosewell, one of the scholarly Vir- 
 ginians. It was this far-reaching scheme which 
 gave, at least, its character to the university, when 
 it had attained its full conception and completion 
 in Jefferson's mind; for the plan of the academy, 
 in part, was that of the later institution.* 
 
 But preceding this came the influence on the 
 youthful mind of Jefferson, while at William and 
 Mary, of his old Professor of Mathematics, 
 
 * How the conception grew in the founder's mind until it reached 
 its full ripeness would in itself repay the academic student. The 
 late Prof. Herbert B. Adams has given the account in his remark- 
 able sketch of Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia. 
 
 "If circumstances," says Professor Adams, "had favored 
 this project [of an academy] it is probable that the University of 
 Virginia would never have been founded." There would have 
 been no need of it. The Academy of the United States, founded 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 205 
 
 "the great Dr. Small." Mr. Adams, quoting 
 Emerson, that "an institution is the lengthened 
 shadow of one man," traces, step by step, the 
 painful way in which Jefferson toiled up the 
 laborious steep. 
 
 First came his own conception, and then came 
 its fertilizing through the French influence which 
 at one time brought him so much criticism, but 
 which proved so broadening in the end. 
 
 The plan, however, of linking his new uni- 
 versity to his old alma mater passed away as 
 Jefferson's idea expanded. William and Mary 
 College was by tradition closely associated with 
 an Established Church, and an Established 
 Church had become very unpopular in Virginia. 
 Indeed, the old Church had been disestablished 
 by churchmen, one of the leaders in the move- 
 ment being Jefferson himself. By the charter 
 of the old college a certain association with the 
 Episcopal Church still existed. And Jefferson did 
 not propose to have any sufh influence in his plan. 
 
 As early as 1794, Jefferson, working in the 
 
 at Richmond, would have become the centre of higher education, 
 not only for Virginia, but for the whole South and possibly for a 
 large part of the North. 
 
 Jeflferson's proposition for the modification of the current cur- 
 riculum of William and Mary College in 1776 represents, says 
 Dr. Adams, "the first current of modern ideas" which began in 
 1779, at length, "to flow into American academic life." 
 
2o6 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 direction of a great university, tried to get the 
 Virginia Legislature to make provision for the 
 transfer to Virginia of the faculty of the College 
 of Geneva, who had expressed their willingness 
 to come. It was, however, too large a scheme 
 for Virginia; and then he undertook to connect 
 Washington with the project of bringing over 
 the faculty of the Swiss College, a daring project 
 which Washington overthrew with a few sen- 
 tences packed with that common sense which 
 was his characteristic. He showed the disad- 
 vantage of transplanting an entire faculty rather 
 than the best men from a number of institutions, 
 and the importance of creating an American 
 spirit for the American institution, rather than 
 of taking over a foreign spirit. 
 
 As a part of this general plan Jefferson, in 1783, 
 organized the Albemarle Academy in his own 
 county, and here at once his breadth manifested 
 itself in his efforts to secure the services of some 
 learned Scotchman as principal. 
 
 By the beginning of the new century Jeffer- 
 son had got well along with his outline for a 
 university and in his correspondence with Dr. 
 Joseph Priestly he disclosed it and begged the 
 assistance of that eminent and exiled scholar.* 
 
 * He further induced M. Dupont de Nemours, who visited him, 
 to write a treatise on national education in the United States, par- 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 207 
 
 The project for an academy In Albemarle 
 County, though the academy was chartered by 
 the Legislature In 1803, "remained on paper 
 only/' as Mr. Adams shows, until after Mr. 
 Jefferson's election to the Board of Trustees, 
 March 23, 1814. Says Mr. Adams, "From 
 that election dates the beginning of the develop- 
 ment process of the Albemarle Academy Into 
 the University of Virginia." It Is related that 
 the trustees of this academy were In session dis- 
 cussing the possibility of making It a reality 
 when Mr. Jefferson happened to ride by. He 
 was called In and consulted. On which he de- 
 clared that though they had not been able to 
 make an academy succeed they might establish 
 a college. And before he left the room he had 
 subscribed ^1,000 to the plan, and under his 
 Inspiring example ;?8,ooo had been subscribed. 
 Thus, this academy was merged Into Central 
 
 ticularly on a university of the higher learning in Virginia; a treatise 
 which, relating to a broad system, beginning with the primary 
 schools and embracing the intermediate schools, concluded with 
 a grand university of four schools which should make that 
 city the educational as well as the political centre of the United 
 States. 
 
 "This treatise," says Professor Adams, "probably gave both 
 sanction and emphasis to Jefferson's idea of a great State uni- 
 versity," and to it he, with Professor Minor, attributed a consider- 
 able share of Jefferson's idea of separate schools, to which, as the 
 first establishment of a true university system in the country, much 
 of the prestige of the University of Virginia is due. 
 
2o8 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 College, "in the very name of which," as Mr. 
 Adams suggests, "lurked the idea of the central- 
 ization of the higher education." With this 
 small step Thomas Jefferson began the first 
 university in the country. It v^as this great de- 
 velopment, founded upon only an idea which, 
 according to Mr. Adams, proves the extraor- 
 dinary ability of Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 In 1806, Mr. Joseph C. Cabell, a cultured 
 young Virginian, returned from abroad, and 
 he and Jefferson met. In 1807 Jefferson wrote 
 him not to waste his energies in trying to patch 
 up a failing and decaying institution, but to 
 employ them in founding a new university 
 worthy of the first State in the Union. At his 
 instance the scholarly young Virginian entered 
 the Virginia Assembly, and from this time, as 
 Jefferson's able lieutenant, devoted his life to 
 building up the University of Virginia. 
 
 On the 14th of February, 18 16, the efforts 
 of Jefferson and his lieutenant were crowned 
 with success to the extent of getting from the 
 Legislature an act to merge the Albemarle 
 Academy into Central College. Under this act 
 the Governor of the Commonwealth was to be 
 the patron, or president, with power to appoint 
 a board of six visitors to govern the institution, 
 and this is substantially the form of government 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 209 
 
 under which the university has existed to the 
 present time. The story runs that the spot 
 first selected by Jefferson for his institution was 
 owned by a man who was so hostile to him po- 
 litically that he refused to sell to him at any 
 price, and the present site of the university was 
 then selected. 
 
 The first Board of Visitors to the new college 
 were Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James 
 Monroe, Joseph C. Cabell, David Watson, and 
 J. H. Cocke. The plan for the new college 
 was drawn by Jefferson and the corner-stone 
 was laid October 6, 18 17, in the presence of 
 James Monroe, then President of the United 
 States, and of Thomas Jefferson and James 
 Madison, ex-Presidents. Thus, three Presidents 
 of the United States presided at its birth. The 
 only endowment for the institution was the 
 money which had been received from the sale 
 of the two glebes of the two parishes of St. Ann 
 and Fredericksville, in Albemarle County, the 
 small subscription already mentioned, and the 
 devotion of Thomas Jefferson and his friends 
 to the idea of higher education. But devotion 
 to a high ideal is a priceless endowment. 
 
 Ten days after the charter of Central College 
 was created Mercer's bill was passed within 
 two hours of being introduced, calling for a 
 
2IO THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 digest of a system of general education which 
 should embrace in it a university to be called 
 the University of Virginia, and such additional 
 colleges and schools as should diffuse education 
 throughout the commonwealth. The feeling in 
 favor of the higher education was beginning to 
 crystallize. 
 
 The first meeting of the Board of Visitors of 
 the new Central College took place on May 5, 
 18 1 7. On this board, as stated, were Mr. Jeffer- 
 son, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Monroe. 
 
 As the plan, however, unfolded itself by which 
 the Central College was to be elevated into a 
 real university, a new difficulty arose in the 
 claims of the western district of the State to 
 have the university established beyond the Blue 
 Ridge in the Valley of Virginia, Staunton and 
 Lexington each claiming the honor of becom- 
 ing its seat. 
 
 By this time the spirit in which Jefferson 
 labored had spread widely. Governor Nicholas 
 as president of Central College, inspired with 
 Jefferson's broad idea, had addressed to a num- 
 ber of men throughout the country a letter ask- 
 ing their views upon the subject of a great uni- 
 versity. Among those whom he consulted were 
 Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, at that time 
 Secretary of State, Dr. Thomas Cooper, of 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 211 
 
 Philadelphia, Dr. Augustin Smith, President 
 of William and Mary College, and Dr. Timothy 
 Dwight, President of Yale. 
 
 It was in Mr. Jefferson's reply, which set 
 forth his views with that breadth which char- 
 acterized all his views whenever they related to 
 the subject of education, that he expressed his 
 opinion as to the proper construction of a college 
 building, outlining the "village form" rather 
 than one immense building. This broad plan he 
 afterward carried out when he built the univer- 
 sity, and to it we owe what is possibly the most 
 beautiful range of academic structures in the 
 country, the first that was laid out from the 
 beginning in one harmonious whole. 
 
 For years the struggle went on. Opposi- 
 tion, beaten in one session, again and again 
 revived and ranged itself around the desire to 
 have the institution, if established at all, placed 
 beyond the mountains; but finally, Jefferson's 
 persistence and Cabell's diplomacy prevailed. 
 
 On the 2 1 St of February, 18 19, the bill was 
 finally passed by the Legislature, in which were 
 provisions relating to a system of primary 
 schools. Provision was made for the estab- 
 lishment of the University of Virginia with an 
 annual appropriation of ;?i5,ooo. And this small 
 sum was the annual appropriation made for the 
 
212 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 university for over sixty years. It v^as in pur- 
 suance of this bill that the commission of emi- 
 nent men, appointed thereunder to decide where 
 the university should be placed, met on August 
 I, 1818, at Mountain Top, in Rockfish Gap, 
 through which the main road to the West winds 
 over the Blue Ridge. Staunton, Lexington, and 
 Central College, at Charlottesville, were rivals 
 for the honor. Mr. Jefferson, who was unani- 
 mously chosen president of the Board, testified 
 at once his superiority of intellect by being able 
 to show the superior claims of the position of 
 Central College, at Charlottesville. This he 
 did by producing a long list of octogenarians 
 living in that region and by presenting map?, 
 which he had prepared in advance, proving that, 
 of all the claimants. Central College was nearest 
 the centre of the State. 
 
 The same arguments which are now urged 
 in favor of urban institutions as against rural 
 institutions were advanced on this occasion, but 
 Mr. Jefferson, being warmly seconded by Mr. 
 Madison, the vote was carried overwhelmingly 
 in favor of the place which was finally selected. 
 
 Thus, the University of Virginia is seated on 
 the sunny slopes of Albemarle, facing the little 
 mountain on which Thomas Jefferson had 
 perched his home, from which, later on, he used 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 213 
 
 to watch with a telescope his beautiful buildings 
 rising day by day. 
 
 The fight, however, was only getting under 
 way, and the contest was more bitter at the next 
 session of the Legislature than ever before. 
 Some idea of the tension of feeling may be 
 gleaned from the fact that when the bill came 
 up, Cabell, as he wrote Jefferson afterward, left 
 the House of Delegates "to avoid the shock of 
 feeling" which he "would have been compelled 
 to sustain." "The scene," when Staunton 
 withdrew her claims, he declares, "was truly 
 affecting. A great part of the house was in 
 tears." However this was, on the 25th of Janu- 
 ary, 18 19, the bill was passed, chartering, on 
 Mr. Jefferson's lines, the University of Virginia, 
 to be established on the site of that Central Col- 
 lege which he had labored so long to establish, 
 and, although it was over six years before the 
 University of Virginia was opened, and these 
 six years were to be filled with more strenuous 
 labor than the six years that had already passed, 
 it was true, as Cabell wrote, that they had 
 "gotten possession of the ground" and it would 
 "never be taken from them." 
 
 As soon as this victory had been gained, 
 Jefferson began to plan at once how to build 
 his university and how to render it worthy of 
 
214 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 the name. The motto which he chose by which 
 to guide his action in the selection of his pro- 
 fessors was, "Detur digniori," and he set to 
 work not only to secure the best professors 
 possible in this country, but planned to send 
 Mr. Cabell to Europe to secure a corps of pro- 
 fessors there — a mission which was actually 
 performed later by Mr. F. W. Gilmer.* 
 
 Jefferson's first estimate of what would be 
 needed for the buildings, exclusive of the library, 
 was ^162,364, and every dollar counted, for 
 every dollar had to be fought for. But his broad 
 plans soon outstripped his estimate and stag- 
 gered even faithful coadjutors, like Cabell, who 
 wrote to him and implored him to keep within 
 bounds and avoid extravagance. Jefferson, 
 however, was building for Posterity. The great 
 object of his aim from the beginning was, he 
 declared, to make the establishment the most 
 eminent in the United States in order to draw 
 to it the youth of every State. "If we cannot 
 
 *The first Board of Visitors was composed of Thomas Jeffer- 
 son, Gen. James Breckenridge, Gen. Robert B. Taylor, John H. 
 Cocke, and Joseph C. Cabell, and their first session was held on 
 March 29, 18 19, from which meeting dates the real beginning of 
 the University of Virginia. It was decided that all the funds 
 which they had secured — less than $60,000 — should be devoted 
 first to buildings, and Dr. Thomas Cooper of Philadelphia, was 
 elected Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, Natural Philosophy 
 and Professor of Law. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 215 
 
 get the money now we will at another or another 
 trial." And when he had completed his work 
 he had largely overstepped his estimates.* 
 
 Happy it was for Virginia and the South, if 
 not for the whole country, that Jefferson's plans 
 were so spacious. Not only his beloved cre- 
 ation, but every great college throughout the 
 land has profited by the noble example he set 
 them, not merely in the forms of architecture, 
 but in the higher forms of his academic organi- 
 zation and the spirit of scholarship which he 
 infused into its life. 
 
 Indeed, as paradoxical as it may appear, it 
 seems an unquestionable fact that the upbuild- 
 ing of every new educational institution tends 
 to strengthen rather than to weaken all other 
 similar institutions within the range of its in- 
 fluence. The spirit of enlightenment is the at- 
 mosphere in which educational institutions have 
 their being. 
 
 Thevery plan on which Jefferson had projected 
 
 * Yet, even so, the cost of that beautiful pile is curiously small 
 compared with the results that have flowed from it. The proctor's 
 report for 1877 shows that up to 1832 the expenditure had been 
 only $320,728.29, while up to 1875 this with the additions, aggre- 
 gated but $548,172.65. Yet so strong was the opposition even to 
 this moderate outlay that Jefferson was charged by some writer 
 in the press with having deliberately deluded the people as to the 
 cost of the buildings — a charge which he warmly resented and re- 
 pudiated. 
 
2i6 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 his structures exhibits the breadth of his idea. 
 Eschewing all recent forms of architecture, he 
 had from the first, as if to link his conception 
 to the historic forms of the Old World, chosen 
 for his academic buildings the pure classical 
 models of ancient Greece and Rome. At the 
 top of a fine quadrangle, open to the south, he 
 placed a beautiful structure, modelled after that 
 noblest of the relics of ancient Rome, the Pan- 
 theon. On either hand, stretching to the south- 
 ward, lie long lines of buildings connected by 
 long colonnades, broken at intervals by the fa- 
 cades of the professors' houses and modelled 
 on such examples of ancient architecture as the 
 baths of Diocletian and Caracalla, the Temple 
 of Fortuna Virilis, and the Theatre of Mar- 
 cellus; while on the slopes below and parallel 
 to the colonnades on the lawn extend similar 
 ranges of pavilions and colonnades. These 
 colonnades are the cloistered rooms of the 
 students, while the houses are the residences of 
 the professors. They are taken, as their designer 
 states, from Palladio's great work on Architec- 
 ture. The whole system forms possibly the most 
 beautiful architectural achievement yet pro- 
 duced in this country. Back of these houses, 
 enclosed by curious serpentine walls of the thick- 
 ness of a single brick, lie gardens some of which 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 217 
 
 the writer recalls as among the most charming 
 tangles he has ever seen. If the Higher Philos- 
 ophy has a soul which demands a fitting abode 
 this abode would be here. If any pile of build- 
 ings in the world is fitted by its beauty to be the 
 abode of the Higher Philosophy, it is this. 
 
 The final battle was fought when, with a view 
 to defeating Jefferson's plans, the effort was 
 made to move William and Mary College to 
 Richmond; but the battle was won. Before its 
 decision, however, Jefferson had to yield to some 
 extent to the religious sentiment, which, crystal- 
 lizing on the fact that Dr. Cooper, a Unitarian, 
 had been selected as the first professor, made 
 the success of his plan doubtful. He wrote sug- 
 gesting that religious denominations might es- 
 tablish their own theological seminaries just 
 outside the Hmits of the university, and thus 
 receive the benefits of association with the in- 
 stitution. This, said Cabell, contributed to win 
 him votes and carry the day. However this may 
 be, though for long the Church looked with cold 
 eyes on the institution which stood for Free- 
 dom of thought in every field, the religious life 
 is as marked at the institution which Jefferson 
 founded as at any secular institution in the land. 
 
 Jefferson, himself, provided rooms for re- 
 ligious exercises and arranged for the services 
 
2i8 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 of a chaplain. And ever since that time a chap- 
 lain of first one denomination, and then an- 
 other, has been in attendance, his term being 
 limited to two years. Among these have been 
 such eminent men as the late Rt. Rev. Thomas 
 U. Dudley, Rev. Dr. John S. Lindsay, and the 
 Rev. Dr. John A. Broaddus. The attendance 
 of the students, while not compulsory either at 
 chapel or at church, is, perhaps, quite equal to 
 that in any institution where such attendance is 
 compulsory. 
 
 II 
 
 Such, in brief, is the history of the building 
 of the first true University in this country. But 
 those who see the charming architectural pile 
 which, through Thomas Jefferson's genius, final- 
 ly rose in all its harmonious beauty, and who 
 know the wonderful intellectual success which 
 the university has attained, can get little idea 
 of the immense expenditure of labor and sac- 
 rifice it cost, unless they know its full history. 
 That achievement was the result of a labor 
 little less than Herculean. For at least fifty 
 years Jeff^erson had the project in his brain; and 
 as we have seen, for at least twenty years he gave 
 to its fulfilment every energy which he possessed. 
 Every resource that he could summon was called 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 219 
 
 forth. Often he appeared on the point of defeat, 
 but he never despaired. His able and devoted 
 Heutenant, Joseph C. Cabell, happily had caught 
 the spirit v^hich inspired him, and in season 
 and out of season, seconded his efforts. Yet 
 often he would have given up, but for Jefferson's 
 divine enthusiasm. In 1821, when Cabell, 
 broken and worn with his efforts to help Jeffer- 
 son carry through his project of a great univer- 
 sity, announced his decision to retire from the 
 Virginia Legislature and give up the struggle, 
 Jefferson wrote him a pathetic letter urging him 
 to hold on and declaring his resolution to "die in 
 the last ditch." "Health, time, labor," he de- 
 manded, "on what in the single life which 
 Nature has given us can these be better be- 
 stowed than on this immortal boon to our 
 country ? The exertions and mortifications are 
 temporary; the benefits eternal. ... If any 
 member of our College of Visitors could justi- 
 fiably withdraw from this sacred duty, it would 
 be myself, who ^ quadra gentis stipendiis jamdu- 
 dum peractts,' have neither vigor of body nor 
 mind left to keep the field, but I will die in the 
 last ditch." It is gratifying to know that Cabell 
 did continue with him in these "holy labors," 
 and the institution he had done so much to es- 
 tablish was, in succession to Jefferson, Madison, 
 
220 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 and Monroe, served by him as Rector until 
 1856. 
 
 So great was the opposition to Jefferson's far- 
 reaching plan that, as we have seen, it required 
 all his enthusiasm and persistence to carry it 
 through. But Jefferson, like most reformers, 
 looked to posterity for his reward. "I have been 
 sensible," he wrote his chief lieutenant Cabell, 
 "that while I was endeavoring to render our 
 country the greatest of all services, I was dis- 
 charging the odious duty of a physician pouring 
 medicine down the throat of a patient insensible 
 of needing it. I am so sure of the approbation 
 of posterity and the inestimable effects we shall 
 have produced in the elevation of our country 
 by what we have done, that I cannot repent of 
 the part I have borne in co-operation with my 
 colleagues." 
 
 It was this long struggle, ending finally in 
 supreme success in the establishment of a great 
 University, combined with academic taste in 
 such perfection that it is almost as though a 
 dream of ancient Greece had crystallized and 
 taken form upon that Virginia hill-top, which 
 justified Thomas Jefferson in his order to carve 
 on his tomb that he was the "Father of the 
 University of Virginia." 
 
 But it was not only "the shell" that the old 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 221 
 
 philosopher was undertaking to lay the founda- 
 tion of in a broad and lasting manner. His 
 conception was to breathe into this body a soul 
 worthy of this beautiful tenement. His design 
 was no less lofty than to make the institution 
 "the most eminent in the country" for scholar- 
 ship and intellectual work, and with this in view 
 he had long been preparing the way to secure 
 the most eminent professors to be found. For 
 that purpose he used his great prestige and sent 
 to Europe and there engaged Professors George 
 Long, Blatterman, Thomas Hewitt Key, Charles 
 Bonnycastle, Robley Dunglison, and John P. 
 Emmet. By this time it is probable that he 
 had been in correspondence with every body of 
 distinguished educators in Europe.* 
 
 On March 7, 1825, the university opened 
 
 *This importation of professors from old England appears to 
 have given some offence in New England, and the Connecticut 
 Journal and the Boston Courier declared that no American could 
 read the account "v^^ithout indignation," when "Mr. Gilmer could 
 have discharged his duties with half the trouble and expense by a 
 short trip to New England." On which the Philadelphia Gazette 
 observed, "or we may be permitted to add, by a still shorter trip 
 to Philadelphia. . . . This sending a commissioner to Europe 
 to engage professors for a new university is, we think, one of the 
 greatest insults the American people have received." On the other 
 hand, the New York American applauded Jefferson's breadth of 
 view. For all this clamor Jefferson, sustained by the loftiness of 
 his ideal, calmly pursued his course, preparing for posterity and 
 looking to posterity for his reward. 
 
222 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 with five professors and sixty-eight students, of 
 the average age of nineteen years. By the end 
 of the year there v^ere seven professors and one 
 hundred and tv^enty-three students and the 
 university was under way. 
 
 The institution thus started on such broad 
 and lofty hnes soon began to justify the hopes 
 of its parent and those who had labored so 
 faithfully with him. His high conception to 
 bring it a faculty and establish a standard which 
 should at once give it a place among the univer- 
 sities was realized. And although it went 
 through the troublous period incident to the early 
 years of most institutions of learning, its fame 
 spread abroad. 
 
 From the first it took high rank. It was 
 promptly recognized as a real University. For 
 it was laid on broad foundations as a University, 
 not as a mere college. And as a University — not 
 large, and certainly not wealthy, for it is modest 
 in size and poor in means — it has since that time 
 held its course by virtue simply of its high ideals 
 and sound standards, making its impress on the 
 scholastic life of the nation, second to none in 
 its scope and work and equalled only by the 
 greatest. How it has fulfilled its mission is 
 known by all scholars, and, in some sort, by the 
 outside world; but is truly known only by its 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 223 
 
 sons who have been the beneficiaries of its nour- 
 ishing care and have caught, often unknown to 
 themselves, something of its illuminating spirit. 
 
 Students were drawn there from all over the 
 country, though mainly, as Jefferson had fore- 
 told, from the South and West, and there is not 
 a State in that section which has not felt in 
 every profession the vivifying effects of its teach- 
 ings. Bench and Bar, Pulpit and Medical 
 Faculty have all been uplifted by the high stand- 
 ard set in the University of Virginia. Here 
 Poe drew his inspiration for those immortal 
 works which have made him the first poet and 
 first story-writer of America. And here many 
 less noted, but not less worthy sons have found 
 the equipment with which they have served their 
 age and country. 
 
 From the first it began to fulfil its founder's 
 high ideal: "To form the statesmen, legislators, 
 and judges, on whom public prosperity and indi- 
 vidual happiness are so much to depend; to ex- 
 pound the principles and structures of govern- 
 ment, the laws which regulate the intercourse of 
 nations, those formed municipally for our own 
 government, and a sound spirit of legislation, 
 which, banishing all unnecessary restraint on 
 individual action, shall leave us free to do what- 
 ever does not violate the individual rights of 
 
224 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 another; to harmonize and promote the inter- 
 ests of agriculture, manufactures, and com- 
 merce, and by well-informed views of public 
 economy to give a free scope to the public in- 
 dustry; to develop the reasoning faculties of our 
 youth, enlarge their minds, cultivate their 
 morals, and instil into them the principles of 
 virtue and order; to enlighten them with math- 
 ematical and physical sciences which advance 
 the arts and administer to the health, the sub- 
 sistence, and the comforts of human life; and 
 generally to form them to habits of reflection 
 and correct action, rendering them examples of 
 virtue to others and of happiness within them- 
 selves.'' Truly this was no mean ideal. 
 
 Now that the university was a reality, one of 
 the chief questions which occupied its founder 
 was the practical concern of governing such a 
 body of young men as would be thrown together. 
 The principle was dear to his heart, "That gov- 
 ernment is best which governs least." Rejecting 
 the time-honored plan of rigid laws enforced by 
 proctors and masters, with a high faith in the 
 virtue of youth, Mr. Jefferson proposed to gov- 
 ern the students by appealing to "their reason, 
 their hopes, and their generous feelings." And 
 therein lay one of the secrets of his success, and, 
 no less, of the success of the Institution. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 225 
 
 The distinctive features of the University of 
 Virginia are the independence of its schools; 
 its elective system, by which every student may 
 attend the school of his choice; the conferring of 
 degrees in the individual schools; its allowing can- 
 didates to stand examination for degrees without 
 reference to time of residence; the bestowal of de- 
 grees only after the attainment of a high degree 
 of excellence shown in written examinations of 
 great strictness; the method of instruction by lec- 
 tures and oral examinations as well as by text- 
 books; the requirement brought over by Long 
 and Key from Cambridge University, of written 
 examinations for all honors. But even more 
 distinctive, if possible, than these is the absence 
 of all sectarian influence and control; and finally, 
 that system of discipline which more than any 
 other one thing has distinguished the university, 
 known as the " Honor system." In the develop- 
 ment of the institution this principle has taken 
 a commanding place as the fruit and product 
 of the high conception in which the institution 
 was founded, and it has always been one of its 
 most admirable and distinctive teachings. It 
 is an appeal to the sense of honor, truth, and 
 manhood in youth. Founded upon the prin- 
 ciple of the recognition of honor among gentle- 
 men, it throws them frankly upon their honor. 
 
226 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 and thus fosters and establishes it in them. It 
 is impossible to give too much importance to 
 this feature. It so permeates the life of the in- 
 stitution that no student can enter its classic pre- 
 cincts and not feel it sensibly. It stamps itself 
 on his mind with a force which can never be 
 forgotten, follows him through life and remains 
 one of the master forces of his whole career. 
 Its effects are discernible throughout the whole 
 South, and other institutions are following an 
 example so fruitful of good. This good also 
 the institution owes to Mr. Jefferson. 
 
 It should not be imagined that this system 
 reached its full maturity In a season. It Is an 
 error to suppose that the Honor system can be 
 "adopted," or even founded. In a session. The 
 system had its roots deep in the essential virtues 
 of the gentle youth to whom Mr. Jefferson ap- 
 pealed; yet its growth was slow. At first, free- 
 dom was debauched and became license, and It 
 was not until a great tragedy flared its fierce light 
 into their eyes that the student body sobered to 
 a high conception of the nobleness of the trust 
 confided to them. The novelty of the situation 
 was such, when the Honor system was first in- 
 troduced, that the young men, habituated to a 
 system of espionage, began to take advantage 
 of the freedom allowed them and were soon at 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 227 
 
 such odds with the professors that the whole 
 faculty, brought together with so much pains 
 by Mr. Jefferson, resigned in a body. In this 
 exigency Mr. Jefferson was called in and the 
 faculty and students were requested to meet the 
 Board of Visitors. An account of the meeting was 
 written long afterward by one of the students 
 present on the occasion. The meeting took place 
 in one of the old lecture halls, and Mr. Jefferson 
 arose and addressed the students. He was, 
 however, so affected by the apparent failure of 
 one of his most cherished ideas that he burst 
 into tears. Instantly the whole body of students, 
 who had been guilty of the acts which occasioned 
 the trouble, arose and, rushing forward, made a 
 full confession of the part they had taken. The 
 ringleaders were expelled, among them being a 
 near relative of Mr. Jefferson, on whom he 
 poured the vials of his wrath and visited the ex- 
 treme penalty. The others were forgiven. Even 
 then, however, the trouble was not wholly eradi- 
 cated. The students were at first unable to 
 realize the high ideal set for them. And a num- 
 ber of petty rules caused, until remedied, much 
 friction. A military company formed by the 
 students began to interfere so much with scho- 
 lastic duties that the arms were taken from them. 
 This gave rise to so much discontent that annu- 
 
228 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 ally the disbandment was commemorated by a 
 celebration which was accompanied by much 
 boisterousness. Finally, in 1842, when the con- 
 duct of certain of the students reached the point 
 of carousal, one of the professors seized two of 
 the students, who wore masks, and one of them 
 shot him. This tragic act put an end forever to 
 the unseemly license which had sprung from Mr. 
 Jefferson's lofty conception, and since that time 
 the institution he founded has approached more 
 and more, as its traditions have become estab- 
 lished, his noble ideal. 
 
 Its original eight schools have increased un- 
 til now it has twenty-three, of which its law 
 school has three classes and its medical school 
 six. 
 
 Its one hundred and twenty-three students 
 have increased steadily until it has eight hun- 
 dred on its rolls, representing thirty-six States 
 and several foreign countries. But it is not by 
 the number of its students that its usefulness is 
 to be measured. Its true gauge is the work it is 
 doing, the high standard of its scholarship, and, 
 above all, its high aim to make men. 
 
 "Every great college," said Hamilton W. 
 Mabie, in a thoughtful and charming paper on 
 the University of Virginia, "has a background 
 which must be taken into account in any en- 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 229 
 
 deavor to understand its history or to enter 
 into its spirit. A college is a visible embodi- 
 ment of certain invisible influences, v^hich are 
 as much a part of its educational equipment as 
 its libraries, laboratories, teachers, and course 
 of study. These constitute its larger and deeper, 
 if less obvious life; the life w^hich searches, in- 
 spires, and often recreates the spirit of the sensi- 
 tive student." And he observes, as the v^riter 
 thinks truly, that "of no institution of the higher 
 learning is this truer than of the University of 
 Virginia — an institution of original organization 
 and methods, w^Ith traditions and convictions 
 v^hich give it a place by itself In the educational 
 history of the country." 
 
 On the outbreak of the Civil War, of the sons 
 of the university, about tw^enty-three hundred 
 entered the army; and not less than three hun- 
 dred and fifty fell In battle. Of the students 
 who were then at the university almost the en- 
 tire body enlisted. It was estimated that even 
 twenty years ago over one thousand alumni had 
 engaged in educational work, and in 1896 over 
 two hundred of her sons were professors in uni- 
 versities and colleges — a noble tribute, not only 
 to her scholarship, but to that earnestness which 
 Is so distinguishing a characteristic of the uni- 
 versity life. 
 
230 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 Thus, It happens that the University of Vir- 
 ginia, with its limited number of students, has in 
 the past possibly excelled in scholastic results any 
 other similar institution in the country. She has 
 had a larger representation in Congress than any 
 other; she has a larger representation on the bench ; 
 and she has had a larger representation in the medi- 
 cal departments of both the army and navy. All 
 this result has been accomplished on an income 
 less than that of many second-rate colleges.* 
 
 Through the years, notwithstanding her want 
 of means, this university, which sprang in her 
 beauty from Jefferson's teeming brain, has con- 
 tinued to perform the work which he laid out 
 for her and to follow the course which he marked 
 down for her to follow, with her eye single to 
 two great principles — the highest standard of 
 scholarship and the highest standard of honor. 
 Through all discouragements and in the face 
 of all difficulties, she has been true to :his ideal, 
 which has been happily expressed in the motto 
 chosen for her by a later rector, Mr. Armistead 
 C. Gordon, "Ye shall know the truth and the 
 truth shall make you free.'* 
 
 *Her total revenue for the year 1899-1900, including tuition 
 fees from the students, based on an estimate of five hundred and 
 fifty students, was only $128,892, from which had to come the 
 interest on the bonded debt, while the incomes of Yale, Harvard 
 and Princeton are many times this amount. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 231 
 
 Lying on the sunny slopes of the Albemarle 
 hills, with her classical arcades stretching away 
 southward, bathed in the Virginia sunshine, she 
 has from the first taught her sons the nobility of 
 truth and hereby has pointed them to freedom. 
 Neither professor nor student can long breathe 
 that atmosphere and remain untrue. 
 
 Always cramped in her resources, often 
 strained to the utmost to carry on her work; she 
 has yet carried it on through the self-denial of 
 her professors. And there has been this com- 
 pensation, that, as has been well said by Hamil- 
 ton W. Mabie: "Simplicity is still the note of 
 student-life in Virginia, and simplicity is always 
 a note of the highest culture." 
 
 It is the most Republican institution the writer 
 has ever known. Here, in this age of money- 
 loving, money-getting, and money-spending, 
 money counts for nothing. Here Jew and Gen- 
 tile, gentle and simple, rich and poor, stand on 
 the same platform: that "all men are created 
 equal." The only aristocracy is one of intel- 
 lect, manliness, and loftiness of purpose. And 
 the wealth of Croesus could not save a man a 
 moment if he fell below the high standard set 
 for gentlemen. This is why there is that in 
 the life of the University of Virginia which 
 stamps its impress on the life of her sons in a 
 
aji THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 way which can never be wholly erased. It is 
 not Scholarship; it is not even always the ability 
 to appreciate Scholarship; but it is that which 
 comes from having in youth had a glimpse of 
 the Truth and having had her breathe the breath 
 of freedom into the nostrils that is never again 
 wholly lost. More than the knowledge ac- 
 quired, far more than the material advantage 
 derived, one alumnus wishes to record that the 
 greatest benefit he secured from his Hfe at the 
 University of Virginia was some appreciation of 
 her ideals. 
 
 Times and conditions even in scholastic life 
 have changed since Thomas Jefferson, on the 
 tentative election of William Wirt to the presi- 
 dency of the university, wrote with his own hand 
 on the page of her records a protest against in- 
 stituting such an office. Owing to these changes, 
 after much thought, those charged with the re- 
 sponsibility have deemed it for the best interests 
 of the institution to establish this office. 
 
 The great need at present is the means to 
 carry on the work of the institution. A dis- 
 astrous fire a few years ago destroyed its valuable 
 library, and to rebuild it was necessary to mort- 
 gage heavily its property. "To widen its sphere 
 of usefulness and to meet properly the educa- 
 tional demands of the age, a considerable sum 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 233 
 
 is required." It has long outgrown the narrow 
 limits within which it is confined by its meagre 
 income.* 
 
 The same local prejudices which so long 
 operated to prevent its establishment have pre- 
 vailed, and what it has accomplished has been 
 with hopelessly meagre resources. Its best 
 work has been done by men who have made 
 great sacrifices to do it. 
 
 Meanwhile, however cramped her resources, 
 she is perfiDrming a great work — upholding the 
 standard of high scholarship and right living. 
 
 Looking back with pride to her noble past 
 
 * Its revenue from all sources, after payment of its interest on 
 its bonded debt, amounting to less than $100,000, is hopelessly 
 insufl&cient for its needs. Though nominally a State institution 
 and under the direction of visitors appointed by the Governor of 
 Virginia, as we have seen, it has always fulfilled Jefferson's high 
 conception and drawn to it students from the whole country. In 
 fact, it comes as near being a National university as any institution 
 in the land. 
 
 In view of these facts it has always appeared strange to those 
 who know the university that in the dispensation of wealth for 
 educational purposes by those whose generosity or high sense of 
 duty has led to their endowment of such institutions, so little has 
 been given to this one. Now and then some broad-minded man, 
 like Fayerweather, with a spirit elevated far above his kind and 
 a soul which takes in the whole country, includes it among the ob- 
 jects of his beneficence, or some man like Arthur W. Austin, of 
 Massachusetts, recognizes it as a great instrument for good and a 
 fountain fertilizing a region which other streams do not reach. But 
 for the most part, it has lain outside of the field in which public 
 generosity has been exercised. 
 
234 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 and looking forward with confidence to her 
 future, her friends may well adopt as their own 
 the brave words of Jefferson, uttered during 
 one of the most trying periods in the struggle 
 to establish her, "It is from posterity we are to 
 expect remuneration for the sacrifices we are 
 making for their service, and I fear not the ap- 
 peal." 
 
VI 
 
 THE SOUTHERN PEOPLE DURING 
 RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 ^T^HE Southern people, prior to the war, were 
 ^ almost exclusively of English, Scotch, and 
 Irish blood; the last being partly that Puritan 
 strain that came originally from Scotland by 
 way of Ireland, and is known among us as the 
 "Scotch-Irish," a term wholly American. The 
 only infusion, except in Louisiana, that need be 
 taken into account was that of French Hugue- 
 nots who had left France after the failure of 
 their cause and the Revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes — a virile and sturdy stock. The popu- 
 lation was almost entirely native-born. Even 
 now, according to the last census, when the 
 foreign-born population in some of the old States 
 of the North runs up from one-fourth to one- 
 third of the whole, the foreign-born population 
 of the South is so small as scarcely to be worth 
 considering; being in some States less than one 
 per cent. 
 
 These people inherited the traits and tenden- 
 235 
 
236 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 cies of those from whom they had sprung; were 
 bred on the traditions of the past, and loved the 
 land on which they had been reared with a de- 
 votion little short of idolatry. Taine, in his 
 "History of English Literature/' remarks that 
 the Saxon, on his first settlement in England, 
 as soon as a footing was made good, selected a 
 hill or a grove beside a spring, built there a habi- 
 tation, and was prepared to defend it to the 
 death. The same instinct had survived among 
 his descendants who settled in the South. The 
 life there had fostered the inherent tendencies. 
 While at the North the people lived in com- 
 munities, at the South they took up lands in 
 separate parcels and lived on them, apart from 
 their neighbors. This tended to develop indi- 
 viduality, and thus each man became in some 
 sort a master and ruler of a domain, however 
 small and mean it was. They were habituated 
 to rule, to ride, to shoot, and to maintain their 
 rights. The duel existed among those of the 
 upper class; those of the more common sort were 
 equally prepared to assert their rights in another 
 form of contest. Lands and negroes were the 
 principal kinds of property. 
 
 The majority of the whites of the South were 
 not slave-holders. Indeed, only a relatively 
 small proportion of them were such. The cen- 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 237 
 
 sus of 1850 showed that, of the entire white popu- 
 lation of the South, those who owned slaves or 
 hired slaves — if only one — were less than a half 
 million, or one-sixth of the adult population. 
 Many of these would have been glad to see 
 slavery abolished, if it could have been done in 
 any way by which whites and blacks could be 
 equitably provided for; and there was a more 
 or less constant agitation to enlarge the work 
 of the Colonization societies that had long ex- 
 isted. The interference of the Abolitionists and 
 the invention of the cotton-gin together nullified 
 the work of the colonizers. A far larger propor- 
 tion than that of Slave-holders were landowners. 
 It is probable that ninety-nine per cent, of these 
 had been bred on the maxim that every man's 
 house is his castle, and were ready to stand on 
 that maxim to the death. 
 
 The existence of slavery among them had, it 
 is claimed, tended to discredit manual labor, but 
 it had given the superior race the habits and the 
 character of domination. Burke, in studying 
 this same people nearly a hundred years before, 
 had pointed out that the tendency of Slavery 
 was to create an aristocracy of the governing 
 people, and to give to the dominant race a feel- 
 ing of superiority and the habit of control. 
 
 Against this benefit, the institution of Slavery 
 
238 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 must be charged with having secluded the 
 Southern people from the movement of the outer 
 world as with a wall. 
 
 They knew little more of the modern outside 
 foreign world than they knew of Assyria and 
 Babylon; that is, they knew it almost exclusively 
 from books. They knew no more of New Eng- 
 land and the rest of the North than New England 
 knew of them, and that is a large measure. 
 The time was to come when both were to know 
 each other somewhat intimately, and their mis- 
 conception of each other was to be rudely dis- 
 posed of. 
 
 The contest between the North and the South 
 that had gone on for years had been of a kind 
 to touch the Southerners nearly; it related to 
 their property rights, and through these to their 
 other rights under the Constitution. The Con- 
 stitution itself was a matter of compromise, and 
 with all its wisdom and adaptableness was, un- 
 happily, in some particulars, liable to two diverse 
 constructions. This early became a practical 
 matter, chiefly owing to diverse interests grow- 
 ing out of the existence of slave-labor in half 
 the States, and two different schools of interpre- 
 tation almost from the first sprang up in the 
 country; the one teaching primary allegiance 
 to the State, the other to the National Govern- 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 239 
 
 ment. Owing to natural causes, the latter had 
 come to have its chief adherents in the North; 
 while the belief in States' rights found its strong- 
 hold in the South. Yet singularly enough the 
 great Chief Justice whose decisions welded the 
 loose bands of the Constitution was a Virginian 
 of the Virginians. 
 
 Gradually, as the economic conditions be- 
 came more pressing and the questions became 
 more practical, the struggle was carried on with 
 a heat and acrimony that tended always to in- 
 flame passions already burning; and the breach 
 that had existed from the first steadily widened, 
 until at last the split was absolute and irremedi- 
 able. In this contest, as the preponderance 
 grew on the side of the North, the power of the 
 National Government was beginning to be more 
 and more thrown, or was liable to be more and 
 more thrown, against the South, while the influ- 
 ence of the several States was exerted on behalf 
 of the latter's contention. Thus, the State 
 eclipsed for the Southern people the National 
 Government, and became more and more the 
 representative of their principles and the object 
 of their devotion. 
 
 Even when the final convulsion came, a large 
 percentage of the people of the South were de- 
 voted to the Union and opposed to Secession. 
 
240 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 For example, in Virginia, for the first time, per- 
 haps, in her history, the Convention that was 
 elected to consider the great questions at issue 
 had a majority of Whigs. Virginia, in the 
 shadow of the portentous cloud that was threat- 
 ening her, had chosen her most conservative 
 advisers, and refused to secede until all her 
 efforts at pacification had failed, and she was 
 called on to furnish her quota of troops to coerce 
 the already seceded States back into the Union. 
 War was made on her. Then, having to fight 
 on one side or the other, she elected to side with 
 the South. She could not tolerate Invasion. 
 
 In Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, and 
 Missouri the Union element was very large. 
 Even in the other States it was not as insignifi- 
 cant as has been considered. Though bells 
 had been rung and salutes of joy fired when the 
 Ordinances of Secession were adopted, there was 
 a large and conservative element to whom the 
 sound bore only sorrow. 
 
 The storm of war swept everything along in 
 its track. The whole of the South rose in arms. 
 Men who had been the most earnest advocates 
 of the Union went into the Southern army 
 to resist Invasion. Even men like Governor 
 Perry of South Carolina and General Wickham 
 of Virginia, who had fought Secession to the last 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 24 1 
 
 moment, at length went with the people of their 
 States; "ready," as the former said, "to go to 
 the devil with his own people." 
 
 The war closed in the spring of 1865, after 
 having lasted about four years. It cost the 
 South even more than it cost the North, and 
 its cost had no counterbalance. The actual 
 expenditures of the Confederate Government 
 from February 18, 1861, to October i, 1864 
 (the date of the last report accessible), were 
 ^2,099,768,707. To this must be added the loss 
 to the people of the South of their personal prop- 
 erty, of which the four millions of slaves consti- 
 tuted only a part,and the destruction of all taxable 
 values except the naked land. This was a total 
 loss; for at the close of the war the repudiation of 
 the bonded debt of the Confederate Government 
 was enforced. Its currency was extirpated, as 
 an incident. The railways, canals, and other 
 public works were worn out and dilapidated. 
 To the whole must be added the complete dis- 
 organization of the labor system, and, later, 
 the imposition of its proportionate part of the 
 immense pension tax, which absorbed its money 
 like a vast sponge, to pour it out in other parts 
 of the country. When the whole is reckoned, 
 the amount is almost too great to be compre- 
 hended. 
 
242 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 The Reconstruction period lasted about eight 
 years — reckoning to 1876, when the whites, on 
 the removal of the United States troops, resumed 
 control of all the Southern States. Its cost to 
 the South has never been accurately calculated 
 — perhaps, because it is incalculable. It is, 
 however, not impossible — indeed, in the opinion 
 of many it is probable — that, reckoning the 
 indirect loss, it cost the South, even in those 
 values which may be measured by figures, more 
 than the war itself had done. 
 
 When the war closed, the armies of the Con- 
 federacy, composed of well-nigh the entire man- 
 hood of the South, had been destroyed, but the 
 remnants had gone home, prepared to apply all 
 their energies to building up the South afresh; 
 the personal property of the South had been 
 largely swept away, but the lands, the chief basis 
 of its former wealth, remained. 
 
 The slaves had been emancipated, and labor 
 had been disorganized; but the laborers yet 
 survived, full of health, skilled in many kinds of 
 manual work, trained to habits of industry, and 
 disciplined to good order. Besides its equip- 
 ment of able-bodied field-laborers, almost every 
 plantation possessed its smiths, wheelwrights, 
 and carpenters; its spinners and weavers and 
 cobblers. Moreover, outside of the question of 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 243 
 
 emancipation, the blacks were generally in full 
 sympathy with the whites, and the ties of person- 
 al association and affection were recognized on 
 both sides. It was not unknown for officers 
 returning from the war to give their body ser- 
 vants the horses they rode. The tool-chests 
 were opened to the mechanics. Jewels and 
 plate, which had been held through all the hard- 
 ships of war-time, were sold to feed the popu- 
 lation of the plantations. 
 
 When Reconstruction was completed ten years 
 later, what personal property had remained at the 
 close of the war had, speaking generally, almost 
 wholly disappeared; the laboring population 
 of the South had been diverted from its former 
 field, and changed from a blessing to a curse; 
 the former relation of dependency and sympathy 
 had been changed to one of distrust and hos- 
 tility; their habits of industry had fallen to 
 those of idleness and worthlessness; the lands 
 had been taken from the former owners by tax- 
 ation, or rendered valueless in their hands; and 
 the white people of the South found themselves 
 alienated from the Government — or, more prop- 
 erly, from those who then conducted the Govern- 
 ment — impoverished beyond hope, their former 
 slaves turned from friends to enemies, and them- 
 selves fighting with their backs to the wall 
 
244 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 for the very existence of civilization in their 
 section. 
 
 Happily for all classes and sections, they vs^on 
 at last; but it w^as at a terrible cost. Among 
 the items of loss was the old civilization of the 
 South, with its ideals and its charm. 
 
 The rest of the country has never had a very 
 accurate idea of what this civilization was; the 
 present generation certainly has none, and it is 
 not to be wondered at. Remnants of it yet re- 
 main; but they are to be sought for and found 
 only in secluded places, as relics of antique art 
 are discovered amid ruins or tangles in out-of- 
 the-way parts, or are exhumed from beneath 
 the desolation and the heaps of decayed cities, 
 or under new cities built on the ancient sites. 
 
 Possibly the most general conception of the 
 old life at the South held by the rest of the 
 country is that drawn from "Uncle Tom's Cab- 
 in," a work which, whatever its truth in detail 
 — and there was doubtless much truth in it — 
 yet, by reason of its omissions and its grouping, 
 contained even more untruth as a picture of 
 a civiHzation. As an argument against the evils 
 inherent in slavery, it was unanswerable; as 
 a presentation of the life it undertook to mir- 
 ror, it was rather a piece of emotional fiction, 
 infused with the spirit of an able and sincere 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 245 
 
 but only partially informed partisan, than a cor- 
 rect reflection. It served a purpose far beyond 
 the dream, and possibly even the intention, of 
 its author; it did much to hasten the overthrow 
 of slavery; it did no less to stain the reputation 
 of the South, and obscure what was worthy and 
 fine in its life, and it blinded the North to the vast 
 gulf of racial difference. From that time the 
 people of the South were regarded, outside its 
 own borders, much as — shall we say, China is re- 
 garded to-day ? — as one of the effete peoples, as 
 an obstacle in the path of advance, and possibly, 
 among many, as an object of righteous spoil. 
 Is it too much to say that the general idea of 
 the people of the South held by the people of the 
 North was that they were lazy, self-indulgent, 
 and frequently cruel; that they passed their 
 time in the indulgence of their appetites, sup- 
 ported by the painful labors of slaves to whose 
 woes they were worse than indifferent ? 
 
 What the South really was she gave no small 
 proof of during the war; she gave even stronger 
 proof of after the war. Without ships; without- 
 money; without machinery that could produce 
 a knife, a blanket, or a tin cup; without an ally; 
 without even the sympathy of a single nation; 
 without knowledge of the outside world, or in- 
 deed of her able and determined opponent, she 
 
246 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 withstood to the final gasp the vast forces 
 thrown against her — enduring all things, hop- 
 ing all things, until she was not only overthrown, 
 but was actually destroyed. When Sherman 
 marched across the South to the sea, he found 
 it to be an empty shell. At that same time the 
 campaign from the Rapidan to Appomattox cost 
 Grant 124,000 men, — about two men for every 
 man that Lee had in his army. 
 
 But as notable as were the intrepidity of her 
 soldiery in the field and the endurance of her 
 people at home, they were not equal to the reso- 
 lution and courage that her people displayed in 
 the great and unrecorded struggle afterwards. 
 The one was a fight of disciplined armies, with 
 an open sky and a fair field, the endurance of a 
 people animated by hope; the other was a long 
 and desperate struggle, with shackled hands, 
 against a foe that, in the darkness, unknown 
 to the rest of the world, or with a sort of blind 
 approval on its part, fastened on its vitals and 
 slowly sapped its life-blood. 
 
 The several classes of which the population 
 of the Southern States at the close of the war 
 were composed were rapidly merged into two — ■ 
 the whites and the blacks. The whites had, 
 with few exceptions, been in the war, and, trained 
 in its stern school, were inured to hardship and 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 247 
 
 self-reliance. Class-distinctions had been di- 
 minished; for the poor as well as the rich had 
 borne their part bravely in the struggle, and every 
 man, irrespective of social condition, had the 
 consciousness of having imperilled his life and 
 given his all to serve his State. 
 
 It was a veteran soldiery that repeopled the 
 plantations and the homesteads of the South, 
 and withstood the forces thrown against them 
 during the period of Reconstruction. In ad- 
 dition to such racial traits as personal pride, 
 self-reliance, and physical courage, they pos- 
 sessed also race pride, which is inestimable in 
 a great popular struggle. This race pride the 
 war had only increased. However beaten and 
 broken they were, the people of the South came 
 out of the war with their spirit unquenched, and 
 a belief that they were unconquerable. 
 
 A story used to be told of an old Confederate 
 soldier who was trudging home, after the war, 
 broken and ragged and worn. He was asked 
 what he would do if the Yankees got after him 
 when he reached home. 
 
 "Oh, they ain't goin' to trouble me," he said. 
 "If they do, I'll just whip 'em agin." 
 
 The South, after the war, was ready for peace. 
 Its leaders accepted the terms of capitulation 
 without a single mental reservation. 
 
248 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 The terms had been equally honorable to 
 both the victors and the vanquished; and the 
 troops returned home fully prepared to abide by 
 those terms in every particular. They were sus- 
 tained by the consciousness of having been ani- 
 mated by the highest of motives — love of coun- 
 try and of home — of having made an unsur- 
 passed struggle, and of being able to meet and 
 endure every fortune that could befall. Their 
 idolized general refused all proffers of aid and 
 tenders of attention, and retired to the little col- 
 lege-town of Lexington, Virginia, to devote the 
 rest of his life to educating the young men of 
 the South. George Washington had given the 
 first endowment to the college there, and the 
 next greatest Virginian now endowed it with 
 his presence and his spirit. Here the sons of his 
 old soldiers flocked to be under the command 
 of the man who had led their fathers in battle, 
 and to learn from his life the high lesson of de- 
 votion to duty. 
 
 The writer can speak from personal knowl- 
 edge when he records that his teaching was the 
 purest patriotism. As was said by a distin- 
 guished divine who came to deliver the bac- 
 calaureate sermon the year after General 
 Lee's death: "The oath sworn at that shrine 
 was more solemn than that of Hannibal. It 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 249 
 
 was not to destroy Rome, but to rebuild 
 Carthage." 
 
 The example of General Lee was inestimable. 
 It possibly did as much as the garrisons that 
 filled the South to prevent the lawlessness that 
 almost always follows the close of war and the 
 disbandment of armies. 
 
 The worst that the people of the South an- 
 ticipated was being brought back into the Union 
 with their property gone and their wounds yet 
 smarting. The sense of defeat, together with 
 the loss of property by force of arms, which left 
 them almost universally impoverished, and the 
 disruption of their social system, was no little 
 burden for them to bear; but it was assumed 
 bravely enough, and they went to work with 
 energy and courage, and even with a certain 
 high-heartedness. They started in on the plan- 
 tations, where by reason of the disorganization 
 of all labor they were needed, as wagoners or 
 ploughmen or blacksmiths. They went — the 
 best-born of them — to the cities, and became 
 brakemen or street-car drivers, or watchmen or 
 porters. Or they sought employment on pub- 
 lic works in any capacity; men who had been 
 generals even taking places as axemen or team- 
 sters till they could rise to be superintendents 
 and presidents. But they had Peace and Hope. 
 
250 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 On the 1 8th of December, 1865, General 
 Grant, who had been sent through the South 
 by the President to inspect and make a report 
 on its condition, in his report said: — 
 
 "I am satisfied the mass of thinking men in 
 the South accept the present situation of affairs 
 in good faith. The questions which have hith- 
 erto divided the sentiment of the people of the 
 two sections — slavery and State rights, or the 
 right of the State to secede from the Union — 
 they regard as having been settled forever by 
 the highest tribunal, that of arms, that man can 
 resort to." 
 
 He also made the wise suggestion that Negro 
 troops should not be employed in garrisoning 
 the Southern States, as they tended to excite 
 the people and intensify their animosity. 
 
 It is possible that but for the Race questions 
 that existed, the South would have been pacified 
 within a few years; the process of Reconstruction 
 if it was tried at all, would have been carried out 
 in a wiser and less disastrous way; the South 
 would have resumed its normal place in the 
 Union with the net results of the war — an in- 
 dissoluble Union and a homogeneous people, 
 freed from the canker of Slavery and bound to- 
 gether by even closer ties than before. 
 
 The whites numbered, roughly, about 8,000,- 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 251 
 
 000, and the other class, the Negroes, about 
 4,000,000. A relation too singular to be under- 
 stood by the outside world existed between 
 the races. It bore on the side of the mas- 
 ters a sort of feudal coloring — the right to de- 
 mand duty, and the duty to give protection; 
 on the part of the slaves it had a tinge that has 
 been well said to resemble a sort of tribal in- 
 stinct. The outside world, including the North, 
 saw only a relation of brute power and of en- 
 forced subservience. The examples which came 
 to their attention were, in the main, only the 
 worst cases. The proportion of Negroes who, 
 during the war, availed themselves of the op- 
 portunity to escape from slavery and seek 
 asylum within the Union lines was by no means 
 a large one. Doubtless they comprised many 
 who were ambitious and enterprising; but, speak- 
 ing generally, they were the idle and the vicious. 
 Others went because of the scarcity on the plan- 
 tations, caused by the war, or of the new hard- 
 ship, due to the absenteeism of their masters, 
 and the rumors of the gilded rewards awaiting 
 them — rewards beyond freedom — which reached 
 them in their homes. Many Confederate offi- 
 cers had their colored servants with them in the 
 field. It was almost unheard of for one to de- 
 sert. It was not unknown for them to avail 
 
252 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 themselves of their color to forage within the 
 enemy's lines for their master's mess. 
 
 The Negroes had, as slaves, indeed, have often 
 done during wslts, borne themselves admirably 
 all during the w^ar — a fact which speaks with 
 equal force for their loyalty and for their knowl- 
 edge of the resolution of their masters. Even 
 those who, under the temptation of freedom 
 and bounties, had gone into the Union army 
 had never been charged with exceptional vio- 
 lence. Emancipation had brought no outbreak. 
 They had generally gone off from their old 
 homes — perhaps, as a practical proof of freedom, 
 — most of them slipping away in the night; but 
 the first taste of freedom over, and the first pinch 
 of poverty experienced, they had come straggling 
 back with a certain shamefacedness, and had 
 been received with cordiality. 
 
 The writer can recall now the return of some 
 of these prodigals, and the welcome they re- 
 ceived. 
 
 In many cases they had their old cabins as- 
 signed them; in others, at their option, they were 
 given a lodgement on a piece of land on some 
 part of the plantation more or less removed 
 from the mansion, where they could build and 
 live independent whilst they worked as labor- 
 ers for hire. Almost universally, the relation 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 253 
 
 re-established after the first break was one of 
 friendship and good-will. Their return was 
 marked by a revival of the old plantation life, 
 and in a short time, the old regime appeared 
 to have begun again, with every prospect of 
 continuing. Land, the only property which 
 had survived the war, rose in value, until it 
 was as high as it had ever been. Loans were 
 negotiated on it to repair the ravages of war and 
 restock the plantations; cotton, wheat, and to- 
 bacco commanded prices that promised well for 
 the agricultural interest; and the people of the 
 South began to experience the awakening of hope. 
 The machinery, however, had hardly got 
 started when new factors injected into the new 
 conditions began to make themselves felt. The 
 treatment in prison of the ex-President, who 
 was put in irons and subjected to the constant 
 presence of a sentinel, aroused bitter resent- 
 ment at the South. A very considerable faction 
 there had always been opposed to Mr. Davis. 
 But he had done no more during the Secession 
 period than half the people of the South had 
 done, and no more during the war than all of 
 them had done, and his treatment now was 
 taken as an intention to humiliate them. It 
 had, moreover, as an object lesson, a disastrous 
 effect on the Negro population, who drew from 
 
254 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 it the not unnatural inference that the North 
 was able and willing to go to any lengths. 
 
 The severity visited on Mr. Davis at once de- 
 stroyed every vestige of resentment in those 
 who had opposed him, and from that time to his 
 death he stood to the South as a vicarious vic- 
 tim, sacrificed for her act. 
 
 Unhappily, the work of a madman cut down, 
 in the very hour of success, the leader who had 
 brought the country safely through the war, 
 and who might, with his calm foresight and his 
 gift for conciliation, have guided it through the 
 troubled times that were to follow. The assas- 
 sination of President Lincoln, with the murder- 
 ous attack on his advisers, filled the North with 
 consternation and rage, and gave the chief haters 
 of the South an opportunity to vent their wrath 
 on her which they were not slow to use. 
 
 Under a plan devised by Mr. Lincoln, the 
 recently seceded States had set to work to re- 
 organize themselves, and their civil govern- 
 ments were in full operation a few months after 
 the close of the war. The next step was the 
 election of Representatives in Congress. In the 
 main, men known nationally to be of conserv- 
 ative views, many of them old Union men, were 
 selected. It was, however, to be long before 
 Southern Representatives were to be admitted. 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 255 
 
 Now, in its struggle, the South had no such 
 potent friend as Lincoln might have been. 
 The first official act of Secretary Stanton after 
 Mr. Lincoln's death had been to reverse one 
 of his decisions, and issue an order for the arrest 
 of a member of the late Confederate Cabinet 
 who was on his way to Canada. On Lincoln's 
 death, Andrew Johnson, who had come into note 
 as the war-governor of the newly reconstructed 
 State of Tennessee, had begun by breathing 
 threatenings and slaughter against the South. 
 His first measures had been so severe that Mr. 
 Seward had felt it necessary to restrain him. 
 His proposed action had been so violative of the 
 terms accorded by Grant at Appomattox to Lee 
 and his army that Grant, always magnanimous 
 and courageous, had felt himself compelled to 
 threaten him with the surrender of his com- 
 mand. In a short time, however, a contention 
 had arisen between Johnson and the Congress, 
 growing, on his side, partly out of his attempt 
 to exercise the power claimed for the Executive 
 by Mr. Lincoln, partly out of his ambition to be 
 re-elected, and the necessity he was under to 
 secure the votes of the Southern States as a part 
 of his electoral machinery; on the other side, out 
 of the wish of the Congress to control the reor- 
 ganization of the South, and the determination 
 
256 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 of its ablest leaders to secure at all cost perpetual 
 control of the Government. Johnson, who had 
 been among the most virulent enemies of the 
 South, and assuredly not the least hated, v^as 
 throv^n by this contest into the anomalous posi- 
 tion of its advocate, and the Congress was hur- 
 ried along, with its passions inflamed by its most 
 radical leaders, until reason was lost, modera- 
 tion was thrown to the winds, and it found itself 
 paramount, indeed — with the South prostrate, 
 the Constitution a thing to be tinkered with or 
 overridden as partisan expediency suggested, 
 and "the party of the Union" burdened in the 
 South with the most ignorant, venal, and de- 
 bauched representatives that ever cursed a land. 
 The white race of the South, a constituent 
 part of the great race that had made the coun- 
 try and was to help hold it in the coming years 
 against the world, was outraged almost be- 
 yond cure. With every divergence of opinion 
 forgot, every possibility of wholesome division 
 on economic or other public questions buried, 
 the white people were consolidated in the pas- 
 sionate desire to hold their homes and save 
 their race and their civilization. 
 
 The blacks had not been less injured by the 
 political debauchery into which they had been 
 wiled. Withdrawn from the field of activity 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 257 
 
 in which they had been trained, and in which 
 they might have attained continued success, 
 the close of the Reconstruction period found them 
 estranged from the whites, their habits of in- 
 dustry impaired, their vision obscured, their 
 aims turned in directions in which they have 
 shown neither the genius nor the training to 
 compete successfully. They were legislated into 
 a position where they did only harm to them- 
 selves and others, and in which they could be 
 maintained only by outside power. 
 
 It was the South's misfortune that the new 
 problems could not be worked out on their 
 own merits. The Negro question, "the direful 
 spring of woes unnumbered," almost at once 
 became the paramount issue, and from that time 
 to the present it has tinged nearly every meas- 
 ure in which the South has been concerned. 
 Emancipation had been accepted readily enough; 
 but emancipation brought new problems. The 
 proper solution of the new questions, which 
 would have been a delicate and difficult task 
 under any circumstances, was rendered im- 
 possible by the ignorance of the elements to be 
 handled, and the passion infused into every act 
 touching them. 
 
 The institution known as the Freedmen*s 
 Bureau, and its work in the South, played a not 
 
258 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 inconsiderable part in the trouble that arose. 
 The motive for its origin was, no doubt, a good 
 one, and, no doubt, a part of its work was bene- 
 ficial to one of the races. It had the "super- 
 vision and management of all abandoned lands, 
 and the control of all subjects relating to refu- 
 gees and freedmen." It issued rations to freed- 
 men; regulated all matters of labor and contract 
 in which the freedmen were interested; admin- 
 istered justice wherever they were concerned; 
 and had power to take charge of all "abandoned 
 lands" and parcel them out to Negroes as homes, 
 and generally to administrate the Negro and his 
 affairs. Incident to these duties was the power 
 to arrest and imprison. The Bureau began its 
 work with an idea which was fatal to its success: 
 that the Negro was a poor oppressed creature 
 who was to be treated as the Nation's ward, and 
 that the White was a hardened tyrant who had 
 to be restrained. 
 
 The officials of the Bureau were of various 
 kinds: honest men, more or less fair-minded and 
 wise; honest men, hopelessly prejudiced and big- 
 oted; and men without honesty, ^wisdom, or any 
 other qualification whatsoever for the work in 
 hand. All were absolutely ignorant of the true 
 relation between the old masters and slaves; all 
 had a bigoted people behind them, and a bigoted 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 259 
 
 people before them. Unhappily, the largest, or, at 
 least, the most active element among the officials 
 were the last class : sutlers, skulkers, and other ref- 
 use of a great army, who had no sooner found the 
 dangers of war over than they had begun to look 
 about them to see what spoil they could appro- 
 priate, and, recognizing in the newly freed Negroes 
 the most promising instrument at hand for their 
 purposes, had ingratiated themselves with the 
 Freedmen's Bureau. One of the first evidences 
 of their malign influence was the idea dissem- 
 inated among the Negroes, which grew out of the 
 provision relating to abandoned lands, that every 
 freedman was to be given by the Government, 
 out of the lands of his old master, forty acres 
 and a mule — a teaching which was productive 
 of much danger to the whites, and of much evil 
 to the blacks. Among other things, it prevented 
 the former from settling the Negroes on the old 
 plantations, as they would otherwise have done 
 very generally. 
 
 The Freedmen's Bureau and its work soon 
 had the whole South in a ferment. The dis- 
 tribution of rations relieved the slaves, but mis- 
 led them into thinking that the Government 
 would support them, whether they worked or 
 not. The officials began inquisitorial investi- 
 gations. They summoned the best and the 
 
26o THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 most stately of the old gentry before them, as if 
 they had been schoolboys. If the officials were 
 of the last class mentioned above, they hectored 
 them before crowds of gaping Negroes, which 
 taught another lesson. They interfered with 
 the administration of courts that had begun to 
 work again, even taking convicted prisoners out 
 of the hands of the officers of the law. As an 
 illustration: In Virginia, an old magistrate, who 
 had tried and sentenced a Negro for some crime, 
 was peremptorily ordered by the military au- 
 thority to release the prisoner, and appear him- 
 self before the provost to explain his action. 
 He replied that the prisoner had been tried fairly, 
 convicted justly, and sentenced legally; and 
 though he might be released by the military 
 power, it would only be after he had summoned 
 the whole power of the county to resist it. 
 
 Naturally, such action tended to excite the 
 Negroes and embitter the whites. 
 
 The Negroes in some places began to hold 
 night-meetings, and parcel out the lands of their 
 former masters. 
 
 On one of the finest plantations in Virginia 
 this nocturnal partition went along amicably 
 enough until the mill was reached. Here 
 trouble arose at once. The idea of being able 
 to sit and watch the meal spurt down from under 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 261 
 
 the hopper, with nothing to do but to take the 
 tithe, was so attractive that there were too many 
 claimants to agree to its disposal to any one of 
 them, and the meeting broke up in a row. 
 Knowledge of what was going on thus reached 
 the master, who sent at once to the court-house 
 for the Federal officer stationed there, who then 
 represented law and order in the county; and 
 the officer soon settled the matter, and disposed 
 of all apprehension of further trouble on that 
 plantation. 
 
 No one would say that army officers make 
 generally ideal rulers; for, after all, military rule 
 subjects government to the will of one man. 
 In the pacification of a people, the questions are 
 so difficult and delicate that only wisdom, firm- 
 ness, singleness of purpose, and an inherent sense 
 of equity avail. These did not always exist. 
 But a dispassionate reading of the records shows 
 that the army officers in the South endeavored, 
 in the main, to perform their duties with wis- 
 dom, equity, and moderation. Conditions, how- 
 ever, were to grow worse. The army officers 
 were soon to be supplanted by worse rulers. 
 
 The carcass was recognized, and the "eagles** 
 gathered together. The sutlers, skulkers, and 
 refuse, who had been given a chance, under the 
 working of the Bureau, to ingratiate themselves 
 
262 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 with the Negroes, soon were chosen as the politi- 
 cal leaders. The ignorance and the credulity 
 of the Negro became the capital of these crea- 
 tures, and with it they traded to their own en- 
 richment and the impoverishment of every one 
 else. The misapprehension on the part of the 
 Southern People of the changed conditions 
 played into their hands. 
 
 The laboring population had been withdrawn 
 from the fields, but were still present in the com- 
 munity, while the fields were untilled and the 
 plantations were going to waste. History had 
 shown that such an element might change from 
 a useless to a dangerous one. The legislatures 
 of the various States, assuming that, after a suc- 
 cessful war to preserve the Union, the Union still 
 existed, and unable to recognize the complete- 
 ness of their overthrow, began to pass labor-laws 
 directed at the Negro, some of which certainly 
 were calculated to impair his freedom of action. 
 Similar laws existed in some of the Northern 
 States, such as Maine, Rhode Island, and Con- 
 necticut. But these new statutes were frankly 
 aimed to control the newly emancipated slaves. 
 An impression of profound distrust was created 
 throughout the North, the people of which, with 
 their sympathies quickened for an entire race 
 turned adrift, without homes or property, had 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 263 
 
 almost begun to consider that the war had been 
 fought for the emancipation of the blacks. Un- 
 happily, at the same time State Representatives 
 were chosen whose votes might have a decisive in- 
 fluence on the fortunes of those radical leaders 
 who now esteemed themselves the saviours of the 
 country. It was determined by these leaders 
 to perpetuate their power at every hazard even 
 if it were found necessary to overthrow the 
 white race altogether, and put the black race over 
 them. The South was intractable and uncom- 
 promising. The North was blinded by passion, 
 and led by partisan leaders bent on domina- 
 tion and without scruple in their exercise of 
 power. A large element of the people of the 
 North believed that they were doing God and 
 Man service in supporting them, and putting 
 down a rancorous people who were, they thought, 
 still ready to destroy the Union, and were try- 
 ing to effect by shift what they had failed to do 
 by force. But so far as the leaders were con- 
 cerned it would appear that along with other 
 motives was an implacable resentment against 
 the white people of the South, and a deliberate 
 determination to humiliate, them and render 
 them forever powerless. The result was one of 
 the mistakes that constitute what in the Hfe of a 
 nation is worse than a national crime — a national 
 
264 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 blunder. Those who had been the masters, 
 and had given proof by their works that they 
 were behind no people on the earth in the 
 highest fruits of civilization — who had just 
 shown by their constancy, if by no other virtue, 
 that they were worthy of being treated with 
 consideration — were disfranchised and shut out 
 from participation in the Government, while 
 their former slaves were put to rule over them. 
 For instance, in the county that had produced 
 Patrick Henry and Henry Clay, one of the most 
 noted of the old gentlemen stood as a conserv- 
 ative candidate for the first General Assembly 
 held in Virginia after the war. He was a man 
 of remarkable intelligence and culture. He had 
 travelled abroad — a rare thing in those days — 
 and had translated the poems of Ariosto. He 
 was one of the largest property owners in the 
 State; had been a Union man and one of the 
 stoutest opponents of Secession. He was the 
 head of one of the few old families in Virginia 
 who, immediately after the war, announced 
 their determination to accept the new conditions 
 and act with the Republican party. This gen- 
 tleman was beaten for the General Assembly by 
 the brother of his Negro carriage-driver. This 
 was early in the period following the war. Later 
 on, when "ironclad oaths" had been devised, 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 265 
 
 and the full work of disfranchisement had been 
 effected, no whites but those who had had their 
 disabilities specially removed could hold office 
 or vote. For a time, only the Negroes, the carpet- 
 baggers, and those who disregarded perjury 
 voted. 
 
 The white race was disfranchised, and were 
 not allowed the franchise again until they had 
 assented to giving the black race absolute equal- 
 ity in all matters of civil right. This the leaders 
 of the other side vainly imagined would perpet- 
 uate their power, and for a time it almost prom- 
 ised to do so. 
 
 The result of the new regime thus established 
 in the South was such a riot of rapine and ras- 
 cality as had never been known in the history 
 of this country, and hardly ever in the history 
 of the world. It would seem incredible to any 
 but those who have investigated it for themselves. 
 The States were given over to pillage at the 
 hands of former slaves, led largely by advent- 
 urers whose only aim was to gratify their ven- 
 geance or their cupidity. The measure of their 
 peculation and damage, as gauged by figures 
 alone, staggers behef.* 
 
 *The cost to the State of Louisiana of four years and five months 
 of carpet-bag rule amounted to $106,020,337. Taxation went up 
 in proportion. The wealth of New Orleans during the eight years 
 of carpet-bag rule, instead of increasing, fell from $146,718,790 
 
266 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 But as extraordinary as the mere figures would 
 appear, and as strong as they are to show the 
 extent of the robbery to which the people of the 
 South were subjected, they give little idea of the 
 bitterness of the degradation that they under- 
 went. The true measure of injury to the people 
 of the South was the humiliation to which they 
 were subjected during the progress of this sys- 
 tem of rapine. Some States were subjected 
 to greater damage and, if possible, deeper hu- 
 miliation than others. The people of South 
 Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, 
 perhaps, suffered the most: but all underwent 
 the humiliation of seeing their States given over 
 
 to $88,613,930. The governor himself, who, when he stood for 
 the governorship, had a mite chest placed beside the ballot box 
 to receive contributions from the Negroes to pay his expenses to 
 Washington, had been in office only a year when it was estimated 
 that he was worth $225,000. When he retired, he was said to 
 have one of the largest fortunes in Louisiana. 
 
 In Mississippi, the State levy for 187 1 was four times what it 
 was in 1869. For 1873 it was eight and one-half times as great. 
 For 1874 it was fourteen times as great, and 640,000 acres of land, 
 comprising twenty per cent, of all the land in the State, had been 
 forfeited for non-payment of these extraordinary taxes. 
 
 In South Carolina, the taxable values in i860 amounted to about 
 $490,000,000, and the tax to a little less than $400,000. In 187 1 
 the taxable values had been reduced to $184,000,000, and the tax 
 had been increased to $2,000,000. A large percentage of the lands 
 of the State were sold for unpaid taxes, and a land commission 
 was established to take them and distribute them among the 
 freedmen and their friends on terms that substantially placed them 
 at the disposal of the commission. " Noted Men of the Solid South." 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 267 
 
 to pillage by miscreants and malefactors; of 
 having their slaves put over them and kept over 
 them by armed power, whilst they themselves 
 were forced to stand bound, helpless witnesses 
 of their destruction. 
 
 Virginia escaped in a measure some of the 
 most extreme consequences. For instance, there 
 were no continued incitements to riot and no 
 wholesale arrests of an entire community, as 
 took place in South Carolina; there was no 
 general subjection to an armed and insolent 
 militia of former slaves who terrorized the coun- 
 try, as happened in the more southerly States. 
 Virginia never had a governor, as Arkansas 
 had, who issued to his adjutant general pro- 
 scription lists of leading citizens, accompanied 
 by a notification that he had marked with aster- 
 isks the names of the most obnoxious persons, 
 and that if they could be tried by court-martial 
 and disposed of while the writ of habeas corpus 
 was suspended, the finding would be approved 
 by the governor. The Ku Klux Klan, with its 
 swath of outrage and terrorism, never obtained 
 the footing in Virginia that it had in States 
 farther south, where hfe had been made more 
 unendurable. But the people of Virginia, like 
 those of the other Southern States, drank from 
 the same cup of bitterness in seeing their civil- 
 
268 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 izatlon overthrown — intelligence, culture, and 
 refinement put under the heel of ignorance and 
 venality, and a third of the people, who had 
 comprised most of the laboring population and 
 all the domestic servants, and had lived in the 
 past in amity and affection with their masters, 
 turned for a time into violent enemies. 
 
 Unhappily, the credulity and ignorance of the 
 Negroes threw them into the hands of the worst 
 element among the adventurers who were vieing 
 to become their leaders. The man who was 
 bold enough to bid the highest outstripped the 
 others. Under the teaching and with the aid of 
 these leaders, the Negroes showed signs of render- 
 ing considerable portions of the Southern States 
 uninhabitable by the whites. Had the latter given 
 the slightest sign of being cowed or of yielding, 
 they probably would have been lost forever; but, 
 fortunately for the South, they never yielded. 
 
 Unable to resist openly the power of the 
 National Government that stood behind the 
 Carpet-bag Governments of the States, the 
 people of the South resorted to other means 
 which proved for a time more or less effective. 
 Secret societies were formed, which, under such 
 titles as the "Ku Klux Klan," the "Knights of 
 the White Camellia," the "White Brother- 
 hood," etc., played a potent and, at first, it 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 269 
 
 would seem, a beneficial part in restraining the 
 excesses of the newly exalted leaders and their 
 excited levies. 
 
 Wherever masked and ghostly riders appeared, 
 the frightened Negroes kept under cover. The 
 idea spread with great rapidity over nearly all 
 the South, and the secret organizations, known 
 among themselves as the "Invisible Empire," 
 were found to be so dangerous to the continued 
 power of the Carpet-bag Governments, and in 
 places so menacing to their representatives per- 
 sonally, that the aid of the National Govern- 
 ment was called in to suppress them. 
 
 In a short time every power of the Government 
 was in motion, or ready to be set in motion, 
 against them. "Ku Klux Acts" were passed; 
 Presidential proclamations were issued; the en- 
 tire machinery of the United States courts was 
 put in operation; the writ of habeas corpus was 
 suspended in those sections where the Ku Klux 
 were most in evidence, and Federal troops were 
 employed. 
 
 The testimony taken before what was known 
 as the " Ku Klux Committee," with the reports 
 made by that committee, is contamed in thirteen 
 volumes, and makes interestrng reading for the 
 student of History. The investigation covered 
 every State in the South. 
 
270 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 One who studies those reports is Hkely to 
 find his confidence in human nature somewhat 
 shaken. It will appear to him that gross and 
 palpable perjury was almost common before 
 that committee, and that the story contained 
 in those reports is so dreadful that if published 
 now it would not be believed. It serves to 
 illustrate, at least, the violence of party feeling 
 at that time, that, under the stress of passion 
 which then prevailed, the Republican members 
 of the Committee of Investigation all signed one 
 report laying the entire blame on the Southern 
 People, and the Democratic members all signed 
 a minority report charging the blame wholly on 
 the other side. 
 
 With Congress passing penal acts against all 
 connected with the secret societies, the army of 
 the United States at hand to put them down, 
 and the United States courts ready to push 
 through the convictions of all participants in 
 their work, the constituency and purposes of the 
 secret societies soon changed. The more law- 
 abiding and self-respecting element dropped out, 
 and such organizations as remained were com- 
 posed only of the most disorderly and reckless 
 element. Under conduct of such a class, the 
 societies, whatever their original design, soon 
 degenerated into mere bands of masked ruffians, 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 27 1 
 
 who used their organization and their disguises 
 for the private purposes of robbery and revenge. 
 As might have been foreseen, they became a 
 general pest in the regions which they infested, 
 and the better element of native Southerners 
 were as concerned to put a stop to their action 
 as was the Government. This class, later on, 
 found it necessary to keep themselves banded 
 together; but it was no longer in a secret associ- 
 ation. During the later phases of the struggle 
 the meetings of the whites were open. Fort- 
 unately for them, by this time the debauchery 
 of those who had formerly been sustained by 
 the Government had become so openly infamous 
 that it began to be known at the North for what 
 it really was, and the people of the North began 
 to revolt against its continuance. The indorse- 
 ment of the Government leaders at Washington 
 became more and more half-hearted; and as 
 this was recognized, the white people of the 
 South began to be reanimated with hope. 
 
 The action of the other side at the South 
 generally played into their hands. The lead- 
 ers lacked the first element of wisdom; their 
 moderation was only the limit to their power. 
 
 The women and children of the Southern 
 States, during the utmost excitement of war, 
 had slept as secure with their slaves about them 
 
272 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 as if they had been guarded by their husbands 
 and fathers; but under the new teaching the 
 torch became a weapon. A distinguished lead- 
 er of the colored race, a native white man in 
 South CaroHna, said, in a pubHc speech to his 
 constituents, that the barns had been built by 
 them, and their contents belonged to them; and 
 if they were refused the distribution of those 
 contents, "matches were only five cents a box." 
 Is it to be wondered at that, with such sugges- 
 tion, the burning of houses became more or 
 less frequent in the belts subject to the domina- 
 tion of the excited race ? This man, who had 
 many crimes to answer for, after passing through 
 numberless dangers, became the victim of a foul 
 assassination. A story is told that some years 
 later two men were sitting together in a well- 
 known restaurant in Washington. One of 
 them, who was from a Northern State, said to 
 the other who was from South Carolina, "Tell 
 me, now that it is so long past, who murdered 
 So-and-So," mentioning the name of the leader 
 who has been spoken of. "Well," said the 
 other quietly, " I was tried for it." 
 
 Amiable and orderly as the colored race were 
 when the whites were in control, as soon as an 
 election approached they showed every sign of 
 excitement. When they were in power, life 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 273 
 
 became intolerable, and a clash was imminent 
 at every meeting; many families, unable to en- 
 dure the strain, abandoned their homes, and 
 moved to other communities or other States. 
 The distinguished pastor of a large church in 
 the North, one of the godliest of men, who had 
 a church during this period in one of the South- 
 ern States, has said that when he went to his 
 night services he as regularly put a pistol in his 
 pocket as he took his Bible. Even funerals 
 were liable to be interrupted by the half-mad- 
 dened creatures, and instances occurred when 
 the hearse had to be driven at full speed to 
 outstrip a mob bent on the last extremity of 
 insult. 
 
 It was notable that even during the periods 
 of greatest excitement, when the Negroes were 
 stirred almost to frenzy, the old family servants 
 ever stood ready to prevent personal harm to 
 their former masters and mistresses; and that 
 when the excitement had passed, the entire race 
 were ready to resume, and even to seek, friendly 
 relations with the whites. 
 
 When, at last, with their homes rendered un- 
 safe and their life intolerable, the people of the 
 South finally threw off the yoke under which 
 they had been bowed, it is hardly strange that 
 they should thenceforth have remained solidi- 
 
274 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 fied to withstand the possibiHty of such a con- 
 dition ever being repeated. 
 
 It is not probable that any wholly sane man 
 of any section or race, who knows the facts, 
 would ever wish its repetition. The last governor 
 of South CaroHna under the carpet-bag regime 
 stated during his incumbency, that when, in 
 May, 1875, he entered on his duties as governor, 
 two hundred trial-justices were holding office by 
 executive appointment (of his predecessor) who 
 could neither read nor write. No wonder that 
 he should have declared, as he did, in writing 
 to the New England Society, that the civiliza- 
 tion of the Puritan and Cavalier, of the Round- 
 head and Huguenot, was in peril. 
 
 In the last stages of their existence, these gov- 
 ernments were sustained solely by the bayonet. 
 As soon as the United States troops were re- 
 moved they melted away. As an illustration: 
 In South Carolina, in 1876, after the extraor- 
 dinary Wade Hampton campaign, in which the 
 whites had won a signal victory, two distinct 
 State Governments performed their functions 
 in the State House; a small guard of United 
 States soldiers marched their beats back and 
 forth, representing the power that alone sus- 
 tained one of those governments. An order 
 was issued by the President of the United States 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 275 
 
 removing the troops, and in twenty-four hours, 
 without a drop of blood shed, without a single 
 clash, the government of the carpet-bagger and 
 the Negro had disappeared, and the government 
 of the native South Carolinian and of the white 
 man had quietly, after a lapse of years, resumed 
 control. But during those years the people of 
 the South had seen their most cherished tra- 
 ditions traversed, their civilization overthrown. 
 
 The late Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, 
 passed, years ago, a judgment upon the South- 
 ern People which was not lacking in vigorous 
 criticism; but his criticism was tempered by a 
 piece of characterization which it seems not 
 impertinent to quote here. 
 
 "They have,'' he said, "an aptness for com- 
 mand, which makes the Southern gentleman, 
 wherever he goes, not a peer only, but a prince. 
 They have a love for home; they have, the best 
 of them, and the most of them, inherited from 
 the great race from which they come the sense 
 of duty and the instinct of honor as no other 
 people on the face of the earth. They are 
 lovers of home. They have not the mean traits 
 which grow up somewhere in places where 
 money-making is the chief end of life. They 
 have, above all, and giving value to all, that su- 
 preme and superb constancy which, without re- 
 
276 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 gard to personal ambition and without yielding 
 to the temptation of wealth, without getting 
 tired and without getting diverted, can pursue 
 a great public object, in and out, year after 
 year, and generation after generation/' 
 
 Looking at the other race in the South — 
 who must be reckoned, if they will allow them- 
 selves to be so, as a part of the Southern People 
 — whilst there is much to cause regret and even 
 disappointment to those who are their truest 
 friends, yet there is no little from which to draw 
 hope. No other people ever had more disad- 
 vantages to contend with on their issue into 
 freedom. They were seduced, deceived, mis- 
 led. Their habits of industry were destroyed, 
 and they were fooled into believing that they 
 could be legislated into immediate equahty 
 with a race that, without mentioning superiority 
 of ability and education, had a thousand years' 
 start of them. They were made to believe that 
 their only salvation lay in aligning themselves 
 against the other race, and following blindly 
 the adventurers who came to lead them to a new 
 Promised Land. It is no wonder that they com- 
 mitted great blunders and great excesses. For 
 nearly a generation they have been pushed along 
 the wrong road. But now, in place of political 
 leaders who were simply firebrands, is arising 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 277 
 
 a new class of leaders, who, with a wider horizon, 
 a deeper sagacity, and a truer patriotism, are 
 endeavoring to establish a foundation of moral- 
 ity, industry, and knowledge, and upon these to 
 build a race that shall be capable of availing 
 itself of every opportunity that the future may 
 present, and worthy of whatever fortune it may 
 bring. 
 
 Many of the baleful fruits of reconstruction 
 remain among us. Inability to divide freely on 
 great public questions is a pubHc misfortune. 
 
 Obedience to Law is one of the highest qual- 
 ities of a people, and one of the first elements 
 of national greatness. However strong the ne- 
 cessity may appear. Law cannot be overridden 
 without creating a spirit that will override Law 
 — a spirit which is liable to end by substituting 
 for Law its will, and by confounding with right 
 its interest. 
 
 Among the baleful fruits is whatever fraud 
 or evasion has appeared in the electoral system 
 in any part of the South. In old times this 
 evil was not known among the people of the 
 South. Fighting the devil with fire may be the 
 only effective mode of such warfare; but fire 
 is a dangerous weapon to use under any circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Much has been said recently on the subject 
 
278 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 of lynching in the South. It is not too much 
 to say that nearly every black victim of lynching 
 and nearly every victim of that person may be 
 set down to the not yet closed account of Re- 
 construction. This, too, v^as a crime which in 
 old times was scarcely known in the South. 
 
 Among the better signs is the increasing feel- 
 ing that it is best, on the whole, to leave every 
 section to work out its own problems. Many 
 years ago Mr. Seward said of the Negro race 
 "They will find their place; they must take 
 their level. The laws of political economy will 
 determine their position and the relation of 
 the two races. Congress cannot contravene 
 those.'' 
 
 Congress attempted to contravene them; but 
 though for a brief period it appeared to have 
 succeeded, the lapse of time has shown its fail- 
 ure. It might as well have attempted to con- 
 travene the law of gravitation. 
 
 That intelligence, virtue, and force of char- 
 acter will eventually rule is as certain in the 
 States of the South as it is elsewhere; and every- 
 where it is as certain as the operation of the law 
 of gravitation. Whatever people wish to rule 
 in those States must possess these qualities. 
 Whatever people wish to rule there must 
 profit by the rigorous lessons of the Recon- 
 
RECONSTRUCTION 279 
 
 struction Period, when the South proved that 
 she could survive even that. 
 
 All this is now matter of history. The fierce 
 passions of that time have almost, or quite, 
 burned out. Even the memory of the enforced 
 humiliation through which the people of the 
 South passed is blunted by the passage of time, 
 by the ever-increasing friendliness between the 
 sections, which grows steadily under the in- 
 fluences of a greater community of interest, a 
 better understanding of each other, and a wider 
 patriotism. The old life of the South, of the 
 kind which made it distinguished, has more or 
 less passed away; a new life, and possibly one 
 that embraces a larger section of the people in 
 its advantages, is taking its place. A more 
 practical spirit is growing up, prepared to util- 
 ize present conditions, and avail itself of all the 
 material advantages that may be offered. The 
 waste and the anguish of that time have long 
 since been passed to the account of profit and 
 loss, which only the historian or the student vent- 
 ures to open. Many of the old houses which 
 were the chief charm of the South went down 
 under the ploughshare of Reconstruction. The 
 people who made them and gave them their 
 sweetness have passed or are passing away. 
 
 One riding through the stretches of country 
 
28o THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 where the fields have reverted to forest, or are 
 worked by the small-cropper, can form little 
 idea of the time when they were a part of a wide 
 and well-tilled domain which supported the 
 whole population of a teeming plantation. He 
 might imagine as well that the quiet, grizzled 
 farmer whom he sees in the field or meets on 
 the road, in friendly intercourse with some 
 dusky neighbor, once fought in battles that 
 marked the high tide of Anglo-Saxon courage, 
 or rode with a band of night-riders, resolute to 
 withstand for his race those who threatened it, 
 even though they were backed by the dread 
 power of the United States. 
 
 The present generation is, as is, of course, 
 every generation, the product of heredity and 
 environment. Its members are said to exhibit 
 qualities which were once wanting, or which, if 
 they existed, were despised; but, in reckoning 
 their virtues, a deeper student is likely to con- 
 clude that the best that is in them is the inher- 
 itance from their fathers: devotion to duty, the 
 sense of honor, and a passion for free govern- 
 ment. 
 
VII 
 
 THE OLD DOMINION SINCE THE WAR. 
 
 <( ( 
 
 The Virginian ? What is he good for ? I always thought 
 he was good for nothing but to cultivate tobacco and my grand- 
 mother,' says my Idrd, laughing. 
 
 "She struck her hand upon the table with an energy that made 
 the glasses dance. ' I say he was the best of you all.' " — Thackeray. 
 
 ^T^HE traveller to-day who takes a run 
 -*- through Virginia on one of the roads 
 which cut across her from Washington to the 
 south or southwest gets a very inadequate idea 
 of that which is in fact the Old Dominion, for in 
 localities throughout this section, poor as it ap- 
 pears, lie some of the best farming-lands in the 
 State — the lands, in fact, which once made her 
 wealthy; and much besides her lands enters into 
 that which is the Old Dominion. 
 
 Virginia is, in the speech of her people, 
 divided geographically into sections. 
 
 Of these sections the richest, and by far the 
 
 most beautiful, are "the Valley" and "the 
 
 Southwest," whilst the oldest and the best known 
 
 281 
 
282 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 are "the Tidewater" (including "the South 
 Side") and "the Piedmont." 
 
 The mountains, once inaccessible to the outer 
 world, are rich enough in iron and coal to attract 
 the attention of Northern investors and to draw 
 capital almost unlimited, and sundry railway lines 
 recognizing their future, have penetrated them, 
 placing alike their ore-filled ranges and their fer- 
 tile valleys in direct communication with the outer 
 world, and opening the way for enterprise and 
 capital to make this long-closed portion of the 
 Old Dominion one of the great manufacturing 
 centres of the country. A trip down the Valley 
 of Virginia or across the rolling Piedmont will, 
 especially in the summer, well repay the trouble, 
 though one should never leave his car; for there 
 are few more beautiful sections of this country 
 than that from the Potomac to the Cumberland 
 Mountains. 
 
 The idea, however, which one gets from his 
 car-window in passing through eastern Virginia 
 will be very incorrect. 
 
 From Washington to Petersburg the railway 
 passes along the former armiy-track; from Peters- 
 burg to the southern border it is in what was 
 known years ago as the "Black Belt," and 
 neither section has yet fully recovered. 
 
 This region, now so largely grown up in forest 
 
SINCE THE WAR 283 
 
 or left as "old fields," was, before the war, filled 
 with comfortable homesteads and well-culti- 
 vated farms. It was here that much of the early 
 history of "Old Virginia" was enacted. From 
 this region sprang that wonderful body of great 
 men who during the Revolutionary period and 
 for long afterwards gave the Old Dominion the 
 title of Mother of States and Statesmen. A 
 single county produced George Washington and 
 all the Lees. In one room of the Lee mansion, 
 Stratford, were born two Signers of the Decla- 
 ration of Independence and Robert E. Lee. 
 Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Marshall 
 were from the Piedmont, a little nearer the Blue 
 Ridge; Patrick Henry and Henry Clay came 
 from the same county, lower down. Even now 
 the region through which the road passes conveys, 
 with its leagues of forest, but an inadequate idea 
 of the life within it. To know this one must leave 
 the train and strike out into the country. There 
 he shall find Virginia. It is true he will fre- 
 quently find the lands poorly cultivated, if not 
 poor; he will find old homesteads dishevelled 
 and worn, and he will find the old houses, the 
 home of charming hospitality and refinement, 
 sadly dilapidated and unfurnished. He will be 
 struck by the apparent want of things to which he 
 is accustomed elsewhere, and for the possession 
 
284 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 of which ready money is needed; but in a little 
 time he will forget this; he will be in an atmos- 
 phere which will soothe his senses and lull him 
 into a state of rare content, and he will become 
 aware that there is something even amid this sim- 
 plicity which he had not before discovered, a cer- 
 tain restful feeling with which the external is in 
 harmony, and in which it is well with the spirit. 
 Assuming that he was not in a Pullman — for 
 all Pullmans and all their passengers are alike — or 
 is not simply passing over like a bird of passage, 
 he has discovered that he is in a new region, or, 
 more accurately, a new environment, from the 
 time he crossed the Potomac. The low, soft, 
 slow speech, with its languid, long vowels and 
 neglected final endings, has caught his ear, and 
 he listens to it as music without trying to follow 
 the words. There is a difference not only in the 
 manner, but in the matter. There is a difference, 
 too, not very marked at first, but still perceptible, 
 in the dress. The people all seem to know each 
 other, and they talk with easy familiarity of per- 
 sonal concerns as members of one family. The 
 conversation is more personal for that reason, 
 the tones less repressed. The women will ap- 
 pear less expensively dressed. A man will 
 probably not notice this; for they will be gen- 
 erally prettier than those he left the other side 
 
SINCE THE WAR 285 
 
 of the bridge, and they will have something 
 about them — an air, a manner, a something — 
 which will be more attractive. Among the 
 older persons, men and women, he will note a 
 gentler air than he has seen on the other side. 
 They will in a way be more individual, too; there 
 will be individualities of dress. He will see more 
 men offer seats to ladies, and more as a matter 
 of course. He will be surprised to see how many 
 get off at Alexandria. Should he, however, 
 stop there, and be so fortunate as to know some 
 of his fellow-travellers who have got off, he will 
 discover that the view of the town which he has 
 had from the car-window gives but an indifferent 
 idea of the place itself. He will find it old, it is 
 true, and bearing unmistakable marks of the ab- 
 sence of the wealth which has made the glitter- 
 ing Capital on the other side of the Potomac; 
 but the want of money is not poverty, and the old 
 age is not decrepitude. The streets until just 
 now were paved in the old-fashioned way with 
 cobble-stones, which looked strange to one who 
 had been rolling through the asphalt avenues of 
 Washington; the houses are often antiquated, 
 and sometimes out of repair, but there is some- 
 thing impressive in it all. There are no marble 
 palaces on the street corners, but the old square 
 houses with their classic porticos, on the streets, 
 
286 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 or set back in the yards amid the old trees, are 
 homes, not mere monuments of wealth and 
 pride; the stain on them is that of time and of 
 the elements, not a chemist's concoction; and 
 they have sheltered through generations a pure, 
 kindly, and home-loving people. The splendid 
 marble shaft that towers to the memory of Wash- 
 ington is on the other side of the river in the city 
 which bears his venerated name, and which is even 
 a more splendid monument than this to the great 
 Virginian; but the old church where he met his 
 neighbors and worshipped God and the civiliza- 
 tion from which he sprang are in Alexandria. 
 It was on this side of the river that he learned 
 the sublime lessons which have made him the 
 foremost American and the greatest citizen that 
 the world has known. Down the broad river only 
 a short distance is the home where he lived as a 
 Virginia gentleman, and the simplicity of which 
 he adorned with the elegance of a noble Hfe. 
 
 As soon as we reach the old town we are on 
 historical ground. The house where Braddock 
 rested when the young Virginian who was to be 
 known as the Father of his Country was his 
 volunteer aide is still shown, and the road that 
 leads away towards the west is still called 
 "Braddock's Road," after the brave but ill- 
 fated British general. Here, too, British troops 
 
SINCE THE WAR 287 
 
 landed to ravage when the city across the river 
 was but a village; and here in the civil war came 
 the first army which invaded Virginia to march 
 on Richmond and end the war during a summer 
 holiday. Away to the westward, only a little 
 distance, is Bull Run, where the summer-en- 
 campment idea was so terribly destroyed, and 
 here the shattered army returned to prepare 
 for war in earnest. From here to Culpeper and 
 to Petersburg lies the way that the armies took in 
 campaign after campaign, and this explains in 
 part the appearance that the country still pre- 
 sents. This region was, to use the old phrase, 
 "swept by the besom of war," and the besom of 
 war sweeps clean. Time not only repairs the rav- 
 ages of war and heals its physical wounds, but it 
 heals the wounds of the spirit as well. It takes 
 time to do so, however, and the length of time re- 
 quired is proportioned to the severity of the inju- 
 ries. Thus, the country here has not yet recovered. 
 In the lapse of years men forget the conditions 
 that once existed. When the war had been going 
 on three years there was not a fence and scarcely 
 a tree left standing from Alexandria to Freder- 
 icksburg. When the war closed, from Alex- 
 andria to Danville, almost on the North Caro- 
 lina border, was little more than a waste. In 
 portions of the counties of Culpeper, Fauquier 
 
288 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 and Prince William there was hardly a house 
 left standing within five miles of the railway on 
 either side, and a bill was introduced in the 
 Legislature empowering the railway company to 
 buy the lands within five miles on either side. 
 
 As the road turns south it shortly reaches 
 again the noble Potomac, and for many miles 
 follows its winding marge, with the bluffs of 
 Maryland rising bold and blue on the other side 
 of the broad stream. When it touches the river, 
 however, it has left in the angle it has made. 
 Mount Vernon, the home of George Washing- 
 ton, and Gunston Hall, the home of George 
 Mason, who drew the Virginia Constitution and 
 the Virginia Bill of Rights, among the noblest 
 papers ever drawn by man. Then, after a run 
 across the same poor-looking country, the train 
 suddenly crosses a high bridge over a small river, 
 with a hamlet on the near side and a town on 
 the other, in a plain between the river-bank and 
 a line of semi-circular hills. The little village 
 is Falmouth, where George Washington went to 
 school. The town on the other side is Freder- 
 icksburg, and the heights which bend around 
 it are the far-famed Marye's Heights (pro- 
 nounced Maree, from the old Virginia family 
 whose residence crowned them). It was up 
 these heights that Meagher's brigade charged 
 
SINCE THE WAR 289 
 
 time after time, to be swept back by Lee's line 
 with a loss of seventeen hundred in fifteen min- 
 utes, and on the plain below men were mowed 
 down like grass. The country all around here 
 has been a battle-ground, for this is Spottsyl- 
 vania, where much of the war was fought. To 
 the westward a dozen miles lies Chancellorsville, 
 where Stonewall Jackson, after one of the most 
 brilliant military movements ever conceived, 
 which only genius could have planned and only 
 genius could have executed, fell at the age of 
 thirty-nine with his fame established. Not a hun- 
 dred yards from the railway a half score miles 
 below Fredericksburg, in a garden, stands the 
 little quaint house in which he died one Sunday 
 morning, alternately giving orders to forward his 
 infantry to the front, and whispering of passing 
 over the river to rest under the shade of the 
 trees. 
 
 A singular circumstance has recently come 
 to light. On a part of the battlefield of Chan- 
 cellorsville have been discovered the site and 
 remains of Governor Spotswoods* furnace, the 
 first iron furnace ever established in America. 
 The old r^ce has been traced, the foundation of 
 the old stack uncovered, and the beginning of 
 that industry which is now said to control gen- 
 eral commerce has been laid open to the sight. 
 
290 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 Only a short distance to the south lies the 
 country not inaptly called the Wilderness, but 
 back a little along the rivers are many fine farms 
 and pleasant sections. 
 
 The valley of the Rappahannock was in the 
 old times a famous grain-region, and some of 
 the finest plantations in Virginia still lie there 
 around the old colonial mansions v^hich shel- 
 tered in the past the great Virginians. 
 
 Fredericksburg itself was formerly well-nigh 
 unique among the towns of Virginia. The 
 gentry generally lived in the country on their 
 plantations, but in Fredericksburg there were 
 many of that class who kept town - houses. 
 Washington's mother spent her declining years 
 here, and the little old house where she lived still 
 stands, with its quaint roof and its garden 
 stretching around it as when she received, 
 flower-pot in hand, the nation's benefactor, 
 Lafayette, "without the parade of changing her 
 dress." Fredericksburg gave to the country 
 three of the most noted men who have honored 
 our navy; for here lived, from the age of thirteen 
 Paul Jones, that "foreigner of the South" w^ho, 
 with the Bonhomme Richard on fire and sinking, 
 replied to a demand to surrender that he was 
 just beginning to fight, lashed the Serapis to 
 her, and forced her to strike her colors; and 
 
SINCE THE WAR 291 
 
 here were born Lewis Herndon and Matthew 
 F. Maury. Some of the old mansions still 
 stand embowered in trees, impressive as in 
 the old days when they were the homes of 
 wealth and ease as well as of elegance and 
 refinement. 
 
 A picture of the town recalled by memory rises 
 before the writer when it was very different from 
 its present placid condition. It is as it looked 
 forty-eight hours after the great battle when for 
 days and nights it had been in the focus of the 
 fire of two armies. It was whilst the heroic dead 
 were being buried under a flag of truce, and, once 
 seen, its appearance could never be forgotten 
 — the battered and riddled houses; the dug-up 
 and littered streets with raw earthworks thrown 
 across them, on which groups of children had 
 planted little Confederate flags, whilst they 
 played at levelling them with fire-shovels; the 
 torn gardens^ the shattered fences, behind which 
 men had poured out their blood like water; the 
 long, red trench on the common where the Path 
 of Glory ended; the roadways filled with broken 
 vehicles and fleeing refugees. All combined to 
 leave on the memory the ineffaceable picture of 
 a bombarded town. 
 
 Some fifty miles further on, across an unend- 
 ing battle-field, is Richmond, the capital of the 
 
292 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 Old Dominion, and during the war the capital 
 of the Confederate States, about which the war 
 surged for four years. 
 
 As the train runs out on the high bridge 
 which crosses the James, and one sees the his- 
 torical river boiling beneath it over its granite 
 ledges, with the beautiful city spread out for 
 miles along its curving bank, and with Belle 
 Isle in the middle, and Manchester on its further 
 side, he must agree that it was a wise man who 
 selected the spot for a city, and that he had an 
 eye for the picturesque as well as for the ma- 
 terial advantages of a location. He was Colonel 
 William Byrd, one of the old Virginia grandees 
 — a wit, a humorist, a colonial Councillor, a man 
 of affairs, and the Virginia author of greatest 
 note during her colonial history. He wrote the 
 "Trip to the Mines,'' which contains in side- 
 lights the best picture of life in the Old Domin- 
 ion that illumines her colonial period. His de- 
 scendants in Virginia are numerous, and many 
 of the Virginia families trace back to the founder 
 of her capital. 
 
 He laid it off at the falls of the James, the 
 river on which his own beautiful home. West- 
 over, one of the handsomest types of colonial 
 architecture remaining, was situated, a score or 
 two of miles lower down; and, sorrowful to re- 
 
SINCE THE WAR 293 
 
 late in this advanced age of the world, he estab- 
 lished a lottery to dispose of his lots. The place 
 had already been long known. Christopher New- 
 port, Admiral of Virginia, and her good angel, 
 planted a cross on an island here as long ago as 
 Whitsunday, 1607, when he explored the James to 
 its falls. Here Nat Bacon, the Rebel, had a place, 
 and Bacon^s Quarter Branch perpetuates the 
 memory of the spot where the young planter had 
 his plantation, little knowing of the fame that 
 should come to him when he struck the first 
 armed blow on American soil for constitutional 
 rights. 
 
 The Falls of the James stretch in a reverse 
 curve for about seven miles, boiling over gran- 
 ite ledges and slipping between islands cov- 
 ered with birch, sycamore, and willow, which, 
 although several railway lines occupy the banks, 
 are as wild and beautiful to-day as they were 
 when Indians hunted upon the wooded bluffs 
 which hem them in. All old travellers unite in 
 their praise. They might have extended their 
 eulogies to the whole river; for, from its source 
 among the blue Alleghanies to where it widens 
 into Hampton Roads, it is not only the most 
 historical river in this country, but is one of the 
 most beautiful. 
 
 It may be that nativity in Virginia and many 
 
294 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 years residence in Richmond have inclined 
 the mind of the writer to idealize the city's love- 
 Hness, yet he knows no city in the United States 
 more beautiful. It is not that the houses gen- 
 erally are handsome, but there are sections of 
 the city where the yards, filled with trees, look 
 like bowers, and the public squares are among 
 the most beautiful in the country. "The Capi- 
 tol Square," with its leafy slopes, its fine old 
 Capitol lifting itself on its eminence with the 
 simple grandeur of an old temple, and with its 
 broad walk, with the splendid Washington 
 Monument at one end, and the impressive old 
 "Governor's Mansion" at the other, is per- 
 haps the prettiest park of its size in the country. 
 It is certainly this to a Virginian; for many proud 
 or tender associations cling about the place. 
 For a hundred years and more the city has been 
 associated with all that Virginians are proud of. 
 In old St. John's Church assembled the great 
 Virginia convention which prepared for the pub- 
 lic defence and led the way to the Independence 
 of the Colonies. Here in Richmond sat the 
 great Convention for the ratification of the Con- 
 stitution, when Kentucky was a district of Vir- 
 ginia; here have assembled her law-makers, her 
 jurists, and all that have contributed to make 
 the Old Dominion renowned and great. Here 
 
SINCE THE WAR 295 
 
 met, year after year, the Old Virginians, with 
 their wives and daughters, to enjoy the gay Hfe 
 of the capital of the Old Dominion, which they 
 adorned by their presence and made memor- 
 able by their genius. Here sat and deliber- 
 ated the Secession Convention during the pe- 
 riod when Virginia stood as the peace-maker 
 between the two sections. Here, upon the 
 President's call for troops, she finally declared 
 her decision to secede from the Union. Here 
 Lee received the command of the Virginia 
 forces, and here he was appointed later to the 
 command of the armies of the Confederacy. Here 
 the Confederate Government passed its brief but 
 strenuous Hfe, and from here the Southern side 
 of the war was fought. To seize Richmond the 
 armies and energies of the North were directed, 
 and for it they strove. Whilst it stood the Con- 
 federacy stood, and it fell only when the South 
 was exhausted. 
 
 The country to the south of Richmond is like 
 that to the northward; for it went through the 
 same experience — if anything, worse. For not 
 only has war been here, but after the war it under- 
 went an evil from which the other section of the 
 State was exempt. This was the Black Belt, and 
 on it rested the heaviest burden any portion 
 of Virginia had to bear. Before the war this 
 
296 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 section of Virginia, the South Side, was, perhaps, 
 the most "comfortably off" of any in the State; 
 there were more negroes here than elsewhere, 
 and though the lands were not so fertile as those 
 in the Valley, or generally even as those in the 
 Piedmont, they were readily susceptible of im- 
 provement, and were in a state of good cultiva- 
 tion. Negro emancipation meant necessarily a 
 change in this; but Negro domination meant its 
 destruction. 
 
 It was of this section in old times that George 
 W. Bagby used to write his charming sketches, 
 such as " My Uncle Flatback's Plantation,"* with 
 touches of delicious local color, and with a deli- 
 cate sentiment that made the reader homesick 
 to get out under the trees and roll on the grass. 
 Yet, some years back, I have oftener than once 
 gone from Richmond almost entirely across this 
 section, and outside of the towns never seen 
 a single farm-animal — this in a region once 
 filled with well-stocked and well-cultivated farms. 
 Even then there were good sections back from 
 the railways, and some of the most beautiful 
 plantations in the State lay along the rivers; but 
 these were at that time the exception. My Uncle 
 Flatback's sons were dead — one of camp-fever, 
 
 * Writings of Dr. Bagby: Whitlet and Shepperson, Richmond, 
 Va., 1884. 
 
SINCE THE WAR 297 
 
 one at Gettysburg, and one in an unnamed skir- 
 mish; he himself slept in the old garden, where 
 the roses and hollyhocks used to bloom, and his 
 sweet daughters used to walk with their lovers 
 in the old times; his plantation was let or de- 
 serted, and the home with its cheer and charm 
 was gone. War and its followers had eaten 
 up the land. 
 
 As stated, the lands along the railways in 
 this part of Virginia give but an indifferently 
 true idea even of the soil and its culture; and 
 what is viewed from a car-window gives none 
 of the life which is the real Virginia. Poor as 
 the soil appears on the ridges, it is kindly. It 
 is easily susceptible of improvement, and pro- 
 duces grain and tobacco of a peculiar quahty. It 
 was in this eastern part of Virginia (in Hanover) 
 that the most famous race-horses of the country 
 were bred in old times, such as "Boston,'' "Nina," 
 "Planet," "Fanny Washington," and many 
 others of the great plate-winners. Of late years 
 "Fanny Washington's" great son "Eolus" and 
 his wonderful progeny have justified the boast 
 of the old Virginians that this is the home of 
 the thoroughbred. Virginia colts have won 
 the great "Futurity," and in one year four 
 out of twelve Virginia entries stood the train- 
 ing and ran in the race, a fine test of bone. 
 
298 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 muscle, and bottom. Virginia hunters are so 
 highly esteemed that they are eagerly sought 
 after. 
 
 Perhaps, nowhere in the country has the 
 external and material been less indicative of 
 the internal or spiritual than in the Old Do- 
 minion. The life has been so sequestered, so 
 self-contained, and the people have been so in- 
 different to public opinion — at least, of all public 
 opinion outside of Virginia itself — and have cared 
 so little for shov^, that from the outw^ard appear- 
 ance a wrong conception has often been drawn 
 of that which was within. Back from these 
 ridges along which the railways run, on the 
 rivers and little streams which empty into the 
 rivers, are peaceful valleys filled with sweet 
 homesteads, where the life flows on as calmly 
 and undisturbed as the limpid streams which 
 slip so silently between their mirrored willows. 
 This, after all, is Virginia — the Virginia which 
 is not seen any more than the air or the perfume 
 of the fields is visible to the eye, but which is 
 felt and known through its silent influence. In 
 those secluded homes, under their great oaks, 
 far from the bustle and din and strife of the world 
 grew and ripened the Virginians who made the 
 Old Dominion what she was: mother of States 
 and of Statesmen. 
 
SINCE THE WAR 299 
 
 II 
 
 To understand Virginia and the Virginians 
 it is necessary to know something of her history. 
 That furnishes the key to much of their char- 
 acter. It entered into the Virginian's Hfe, in- 
 fluenced his tendencies, and tempered his spirit. 
 He was proud of being a Virginian, and he 
 never forgot the fact. To him the Old Domin- 
 ion was what she had appeared to the earhest 
 chroniclers: "Most plentiful, sweet, wholesome 
 and fruitful of all other." It was, indeed, a 
 picturesque history that lay back of him; be- 
 ginning to come into being like a glimmering 
 dawn, with the mighty figures of great Elizabeth 
 accepting the name bestowed as an honor to her 
 Majesty, and Sir Walter Raleigh, courtier, soldier, 
 discoverer, statesman, historian, poet, Admiral 
 and Shepherd of the Ocean, proud to style him- 
 self, "Lord and Chief Governor of Virginia." 
 
 She had not been won easily. Many had 
 "come to leave their bodies in testimonie of 
 their mindes"; but in the Virginian's mind the 
 prize had been worth the striving for. He 
 loved Virginia with a passionate love. Abana 
 and Pharpar were better than all the waters of 
 Israel. The James was greater to him than 
 Jordan, Tiber, Nile, or Thames. It was on 
 
300 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 the James, in Virginia, that Anglo-Saxon civil- 
 ization on this continent first found a lodgement. 
 It was here that it reached its highest develop- 
 ment. The Virginian knew, as no one else did, 
 all the attendant history of sorrows and joys, 
 hardships and triumphs. He treasured the pict- 
 uresque history of the bold chevalier Captain 
 Smith, a story which, notwithstanding all his de- 
 tractors, survives to-day with the romance of the 
 old paladins. He knew him and he believed 
 in him. To him he was what he was to his con- 
 temporaries: "deare noble captain and loyal 
 hearte." He always thought of him as a Vir- 
 ginian, and was proud to claim him. He be- 
 lieved that Pocahontas saved his life, and he 
 held her in high esteem. Any reflection upon her 
 offended him as if she had been a member of his 
 family, however remote. In any event she was 
 a benefactress of Virginia, and that called forth 
 his gratitude. 
 
 The life in the Old Dominion was not unlike 
 that in England, and the Virginian treasured 
 the idea of resemblance. Shakespeare had been 
 inspired by an event in her romantic story to write 
 the "Tempest," and, before her limits were cur- 
 tailed, Ariel inhabited the airs that blew upon 
 her shores. During all the colonial period this 
 resemblance to the mother country had been 
 
SINCE THE WAR 301 
 
 warmly cherished. The conditions were such 
 that the rich planters with their indented ser- 
 vants and slaves had advantages which brought 
 them great wealth, and they knew how to enjoy 
 it. They patterned their life on that in Eng- 
 land; built large country-houses on English 
 models, and established "their fine seats upon 
 the rivers"; kept their coaches and four; enter- 
 tained with a lavishness and cordiality which 
 established the custom of hospitality with the 
 authority of a law; bred horses which rivalled 
 the cracks of the turf in the old country; mon- 
 opolized the offices of honor; passed laws recog- 
 nizing "quality"; and endeavored, as far as 
 they might, to perpetuate old England in the 
 Old Dominion. 
 
 But so far from their love of England imped- 
 ing their development along their own lines, it 
 fostered it. They cherished their resemblance 
 to England so warmly that they never admitted a 
 difference, and always insisted on equal rights. 
 Sir Walter Raleigh's charter had guaranteed 
 them "all the privileges of free denizens and 
 natives of England," and they never ceased to 
 be jealous of them. Within twelve years from 
 their first coming they had a General Assembly, 
 with every freeman having a vote for the repre- 
 sentatives. "The Virginia courts are but a sum- 
 
302 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 mary way to a seditious parliament," the Span- 
 ish ambassador had told James, and it proved 
 to be measurably true. One of the things this 
 first elective Assembly of Burgesses did v^as to 
 claim of the company at home a right "to al- 
 lov7 or disallow their orders of court, as his 
 Majesty had given them power to allow or dis- 
 allow our laws." This was but the beginning 
 of a long and continuous line of claims of right, 
 insistence on which has become a fixed char- 
 acteristic of the Virginian, and on which he has 
 been ready always to stand to the end. If the 
 royal governors held their prerogatives in high 
 esteem, the people held their privileges in no 
 less esteem. They or their rulers named their 
 rivers after kings and queens, and their boroughs 
 and counties after royal princes and princesses, 
 so that the chronology of the settlement of Vir- 
 ginia may be told by the geographical names; 
 they declared their loyalty with piled-up assev- 
 eration, but they never forgot their chartered 
 rights. The General Assembly addressed James 
 in terms of worship extraordinary to a republi- 
 can ear of this year of grace, but when the King 
 sent over commissioners to inspect their records 
 they refused to exhibit them, and when their clerk 
 furnished the commissioners a copy the Virginians 
 put him in the pillory and cutoff one of his ears. 
 
SINCE THE WAR 303 
 
 ** Whole for monarchy,'' one wrote of Vir- 
 ginia when the struggle came between the Crown 
 and the people — whatever she is "for" she is 
 always "whole for" — but she was even more 
 whole for her rights; and though, as old Beverly 
 says, she was the last to give up for the King 
 and the first to assert his restoration, and though 
 in his defeat she offered an asylum to his dis- 
 comfited followers, she stood up boldly against 
 Charles I., and refused her sanction to his 
 claims to the tobacco monopoly. When Charles 
 II., to whom she had offered a crown when he 
 was a fugitive, attempted to invade her priv- 
 ileges and violate her grants, she grew ready 
 for resistance. When his Governor refused her 
 rights she actually burst into revolution, and, 
 under command of "Nat Bacon the Rebel," 
 stormed and took the colonial capital; the young 
 commander capturing, it is said, the wives of 
 the chief supporters of the Crown, and stand- 
 ing them in white aprons before his men whilst 
 he threw up his breastworks preparatory to his 
 attack on Jamestown. Later on new elements 
 came into the Dominion. Stout Scotch-Irish 
 settlers filled up the Valley, and made it a differ- 
 ent type social and religious, whilst similar po- 
 litically. They were Presbyterians, and they 
 made a new force in the colony. They made 
 
304 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 the valley a garden, guarded and extended the 
 frontier, worshipped God agreeably to the dic- 
 tates of their own consciences, and became, with 
 another infusion of religious refugees who came 
 later — the Huguenots — a new element of force 
 in the Old Dominion. 
 
 From all these different elements came the 
 Virginian character, a character with some 
 singular contradictions in detail, and yet with 
 certain general basic principles which govern 
 it and give it its form and force. From it 
 came in one generation that extraordinary body 
 of men who did so much in the Revolution 
 and afterwards, to create and establish this 
 nation. 
 
 The master of characterization, the pro- 
 found student of life, the ablest analyst of our 
 time, knowing the Old Virginia life, deemed 
 the Old Dominion a worthy refuge and home, 
 in his later years, for Henry Esmond. If there 
 is one character described in the literature of 
 our race by which one would have the race 
 judged, it, perhaps, is the scholar, the soldier, the 
 courtier, the man, the gentleman, Henry Es- 
 mond. Recognizing the virtue of the old Vir- 
 ginia life, the great novelist deemed Virginia the 
 most fitting place in which to have Colonel Es- 
 mond end his days and leave his blood, and the 
 
SINCE THE WAR 305 
 
 sequel to the greatest romance of our time he 
 entitled, "The Virginians." 
 
 The elements of character which the Vir- 
 ginian of the Revolutionary time inherited from 
 his father he transmitted to his children. 
 
 At the close of the Revolution new condi- 
 tions had supervened, new energies were de- 
 manded, and those men were most successful 
 who could adapt themselves best to the new con> 
 ditions. Out of this came men like John Mar- 
 shall, James Madison, James Monroe, and 
 John Randolph of Roanoke, who were still the 
 leaders in the country, as the older generation 
 had been before them. 
 
 Virginia entered upon her new career with a 
 full recognition of her commanding position. 
 The people had become more homogeneous. 
 The participation by all in the war and in the 
 subsequent creation of the new Government 
 had done away with privilege, and opened the 
 way to all. Still, the great leaders were in the 
 prime of their intellectual vigor, and they neces- 
 sarily still led. The social order was too firmly 
 established to be radically changed at once even 
 by the sterling republicanism which had super- 
 vened, and the most republican leaders along- 
 side of their strong republicanism maintained 
 a social order with many aristocratic features. 
 
3o6 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 They disestablished the Church and did away 
 with primogeniture, but still built their seats 
 on the loftiest hills, and maintained their es- 
 tablishments as nearly like those of the English 
 gentry as they might, Jefferson himself levelling 
 the top of a mountain for his mansion. It was 
 one of this class (John Page, of Rosewell) who 
 in Congress prevented the stamping of the Pres- 
 ident's head on the national coin, and had sub- 
 stituted therefor the figure of Liberty with her 
 cap on her pike. 
 
 The Negro question about this time began to 
 assume new importance, and thenceforward it 
 was to be an even more potent factor in all that 
 related to the life of Virginia. Virginia was the 
 first State to declare the slave-trade piracy, and 
 in 1832 she came within one vote of abolishing 
 slavery. The opening up of the West had 
 brought in new elements, political and social. 
 Many of the hardiest of Virginia's sons had 
 gone with their wives and children across the 
 mountains to settle in Kentucky and Tennessee, 
 and had taken with them the political tenets of 
 their mother State. Perhaps, in no other States 
 did politics ever stand so closely related to the 
 social life as in Virginia and Kentucky. It as- 
 sumed a personal character, and families were 
 divided by their political faiths. In Virginia 
 
SINCE THE WAR 307 
 
 It even entered into the considerations govern- 
 ing matrimonial alliances. Fathers interposed 
 objections to their sons paying addresses to girls 
 in families of a different political faith. 
 
 Virginia was not even before the war one of 
 the rich States like the cotton and sugar States 
 of the South, but she was at least fairly well off. 
 In those States were many splendid fortunes; 
 in Virginia there were but few of these; but there 
 were many persons who were *' comfortably off." 
 They were still almost entirely an agricultural 
 people, and naturally the large fortunes lay in 
 the rich grain-producing belts along the low 
 grounds of the James, the Rappahanock, the 
 Roanoke, etc., or in the fertile valleys. Here 
 the bare-armed wheat-cutters en echelon cradled 
 the wheat that fed the country when the great 
 Western grain sections and the reaper which 
 mows them, and which, .was invented by a Vir- 
 ginian, were alike unknown. 
 
 The history of the commonwealth had left 
 its strong impress on the Virginians, and they, 
 perhaps, still were more like the English than 
 were the people of any other State. They con- 
 tinued to pattern their life on that of the old 
 country, even after they had lost the conscious 
 knowledge of the source from which it came. 
 Their social customs were continued. They 
 
3o8 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 could no longer send their sons to English uni- 
 versities, but as substitutes they maintained 
 William and Mary College in the Tidewater, 
 and founded the University of Virginia in the 
 beautiful Piedmont, Jefferson devoting the end 
 of his life to the establishment of the latter, 
 and drawing with his own hand the plans for 
 its charming and classical structures. They 
 preserved the language they brought over, and 
 English travellers remarked on the purity of 
 their English. It is said that Thackeray stated 
 that he heard the purest Saxon English in Vir- 
 ginia that he had ever heard. Freeman and Mat- 
 thew Arnold are quoted to the same effect at a 
 later time. Be that as it may, the Virginians pre- 
 served through all their republicanism a strong 
 feeling, almost like kinship, towards the Eng- 
 lish. Many of the old famihes kept up a sort of 
 association with the old country; filled their 
 shelves with English books; took English re- 
 views, and kept abreast of English politics. 
 When the war broke out, it was to England 
 that they looked for recognition and support, 
 and the failure to realize that expectation was 
 scarcely enough to shake their confidence or 
 change their sentiment. 
 
 The resemblance in the life was not merely 
 fancied — in the tone at least. It has been called 
 
SINCE THE WAR 309 
 
 feudal and aristocratic. This is, perhaps, not 
 the most accurate nomenclature. The old 
 feudal features had in the main passed away 
 with the stanch republicanism that succeeded 
 the Revolution. The aristocratic features were 
 so modified by the introduction of the same 
 factor that what remained was rather a feeling 
 than a condition. There were classes, it is 
 true, and there was, perhaps, a stronger class- 
 feeling than existed anywhere else on this side 
 of the water, unless it was in South Carolina; 
 but the class distinction was not based upon 
 those elements which marked it elsewhere. 
 Birth counted for something, it is true — that 
 is, that a man's forefathers had been gentle- 
 men before him — but it was not sufficient to 
 keep him in the pale if his personal character 
 and address were not up to the standard, and 
 it was not requisite to admit him if they were. 
 What was demanded was a certain personal 
 standard of education, address, and character. 
 The pedigrees, at best, in the great majority of 
 cases, ran back only to some one who had been 
 distinguished in Virginia's history, and if more 
 were asked it was comfortable to believe that 
 it might easily be extended back further with- 
 out making the attempt to verify it. Wealth 
 meant absolutely nothing. 
 
310 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 The standard was personal. Ties of blood 
 were recognized to an extent which has excited 
 the astonishment of the outer world, and cousin- 
 ship was claimed as long as the common strain 
 could be traced. It was felt that the relation- 
 ship gave a claim, and the claim was ever 
 honored. 
 
 The Virginian still kept open -house, as his 
 fathers had done before him, and hospitality 
 was the invariable law of every class. It had 
 been noted since long before the Revolution. 
 English travellers recorded how gentlemen sent 
 their servants to invite strangers to make their 
 houses their homes, and how the poorer people 
 gave up their beds to make them comfortable. 
 This custom continued. Relatives and friends 
 "came by'^ with their carriages and servants, sum- 
 mer after summer, on their annual passage to 
 the White Sulphur Springs, or to stay as long as 
 they liked, assured that with their hospitable 
 hosts it was always, "the longer the better." It 
 was, indeed, a purely pastoral life that they led. 
 The large planter on his great plantation with 
 scores of slaves, and the poorer one on his smaller 
 farm with but a few servants, differed only in 
 degree. The life was substantially the same on 
 both estates. The character of the masters was 
 the same: proud, self-contained, brave, generous. 
 
SINCE THE WAR 311 
 
 tender when undisturbed, fierce when aroused, 
 loving Virginia idolatrously, and knowing little 
 of and caring less for what was outside of her; 
 his chief glory was that he was a Virginian. 
 Money made no difference to them or in them. 
 There were handsome estates along the rivers 
 — old colonial mansions with their wings and "of- 
 fices/' terraced gardens and imposing gates, along 
 the Potomac, the lower James, the Rappahan- 
 nock, the York, etc.; fine houses of a Greek, 
 Gothic, or Italian style on the upper James, the 
 Staunton, the Dan, and in certain portions of 
 the Piedmont and the Valley, etc.; but in the 
 main the houses were plain, unpretentious 
 wooden structures, with additions put on from 
 time to time as the family increased or the de- 
 mands of hospitality required. Often they had 
 been built for overseers' houses, with the inten- 
 tion of building better mansions as means in- 
 creased, but the families increased more rapidly 
 than the means. In these unpretentious houses 
 the old Virginian made his home. Here he 
 governed his plantation, raised the wheat, corn, 
 and tobacco which made the Old Dominion 
 wealthy; entertained like a gentleman whoever 
 came within his gates; shot partridges (styled 
 simply "birds") in the fall, fox-hunted in the 
 winter, and at Christmas gathered his children, 
 
312 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 his relatives, and his friends about his hearth, 
 and with bowls of apple-toddy and eggnog, amid 
 holly and mistletoe, with peace on earth and 
 good-will towards men, dispensed an abound- 
 ing hospitality, worshipping God and loving 
 his fellow-men to the best of his ability, having 
 wealth, without riches and content without dis- 
 play. 
 
 This was the life in Virginia when the John 
 Brown raid shocked her from the Potomac to 
 the North Carolina line. It was "a fire-bell 
 in the night." Every man sprang to atten- 
 tion, and "every mother clutched her babe 
 closer to her bosom." 
 
 When the law was vindicated, Virginia settled 
 down again, but there was no longer any possi- 
 bility of the old repose. When the convention 
 called to consider the question of secession 
 assembled, the great majority were Whigs, un- 
 doubted Union men. They resisted secession, 
 with the hope that they might effect a reconcili- 
 ation, and almost as late as the eve of attack 
 on Sumter rejected it by a vote of more than 
 two to one; they appointed peace commissioners, 
 and used every effort to preserve peace. 
 
 Then came the President's call for troops, 
 and, finding that she was to be invaded and 
 must fight on one side or the other, Virginia 
 
SINCE THE WAR 313 
 
 stood by the Constitution and retired from the 
 Union. 
 
 The outer world has never appreciated the 
 spirit in which the South went to war. It was 
 Hke a conflagration. After it started, the people 
 outstripped the leaders. Gray-headed men who 
 had been the stanchest maintainers of the Union 
 enlisted and marched to the Peninsular under 
 Magruder or to Manassas under Beauregard. 
 Boys ran away from home to join the army; 
 women cut up their gowns to make flags, and 
 their under-clothes for lint and bandages. 
 
 The slavery question, which had been prom- 
 inent in the previous agitation, now, fused in 
 the furnace, passed completely out of sight, and 
 the battle-cry was the Invasion of the South. 
 With this the entire population of old Virginia 
 rallied to the standard as one man. H^$' tiwf4^^ f^fx^fg^^^ 
 
 It was in this period^ and that more terrible ^^ f 
 one which followed it, that the people of Vir- 
 ginia showed their character. They accepted 
 victory and defeat with equal constancy. No 
 success elated them unduly. No disaster cast 
 them down Their zeal never flagged, their en- 
 thusiasm never wavered. The exactions of war 
 sapped their strength and engulfed their prop- 
 erty. There were not men enough left at home 
 to bury the dead, and women not infrequently 
 
314 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 were called on to perform the last sad sacred offices. 
 Rich women sent their sons to fight, gave up their 
 jewels to help the cause, or sold their lands to 
 reinvest in Confederate bonds or gunboat-stock. 
 Poor women wrote to their husbands that they 
 were starving, but that they must stand to their 
 duty. This was the spirit all the way through. 
 They never doubted, never flagged. Subsequent 
 events showed that wisdom would have pointed 
 to a different decision; but he would have been 
 rash who would have dared to hint of making 
 peace on any terms less honorable than com- 
 plete independence. The failure of the Hamp- 
 ton Roads Conference was based on the uni- 
 versal sentiment of the people. 
 
 The condition of the city of Richmond at 
 that time will give an idea of the condition of 
 the country as well. At first only the excite- 
 ment of war was felt, only its pomp was seen; 
 but in a little time its graver side was under- 
 stood, and when McClellan's army was within 
 sight of the city's steeples the terrors of war be- 
 gan to be recognized. "The Seven Days' Bat- 
 tles around Richmond" were fought within 
 sound of the church-bells of the capital, and 
 the roar of the artillery floated in at her win- 
 dows, and drew throngs out into the streets and 
 gardens. There was no panic as some have 
 
•SINCE THE WAR 315 
 
 stated, only a just realization of the gravity of 
 the situation. Women nerved themselves for 
 the struggle. Soldiers, already wounded, crawled 
 from their beds and made their way to the battle- 
 fields to die. 
 
 It was a terrible time indeed. None knew 
 what the next day might bring forth. A 
 general and his staff breakfasted at a country- 
 house just outside of the city. Within three days 
 an ambulance passed through the place on its 
 way from a battle-field with three of the gay 
 breakfast party in it in their coffins. When 
 McClellan fell back the city reacted from the 
 tension, and social Ufe once more began. A 
 memoir of General Pendleton, Lee's Chief of 
 Artillery, written by a lady who was present, 
 gives a picture of the time. " Hearts grew light," 
 it says, " at the knowledge that Richmond was 
 safe and free, and could pet and praise her de- 
 fenders to her fill; eyes smiled through their tears 
 upon dear ones still left to them; and strangers 
 and friends coming daily to look for others re- 
 ported 'wounded' or * missing' were received 
 with cordial and limitless hospitality. The city 
 kept *open house' for every one who had fought 
 or prayed for her safety." 
 
 After this thousands flocked to the city, 
 "refugeeing" before the invading armies, until 
 
3i6 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 its population trebled and quadrupled. Under 
 such circumstances amusement is necessary, and 
 life in the capital grew gay. The entertain- 
 ments were termed "starvation parties," be- 
 cause there was nothing to eat. Provisions were 
 too high to be wasted at a mere social enter- 
 tainment, and even if money had not been 
 wanting, the necessaries of life were too precious 
 to be squandered in revelling. A breakfast 
 came to cost more than a year's pay of a private 
 and a month's pay of a captain; a pair of boots 
 cost a thousand dollars; coffee, tea, sugar, and 
 such articles came to be things unknown. Yet 
 the life was not without its compensations, even 
 its joys. There was a pleasure in self-sacrifice 
 where all were vying with each other. Love- 
 making went on all the more prosperously that 
 young Mars who courted in a captain's bars 
 might lay a colonel's stars or even a brigadier's 
 wreath at his lady's feet before the campaign 
 was over. When Petersburg was in a state of 
 siege the favorite ride was across a bridge which 
 was under Federal fire, and horseback rides in 
 the autumn afternoons were all the more ex- 
 citing in that a dash across the open space might 
 be followed by a shell crashing across behind 
 the horses. 
 
 It was not only provisions, but everything, 
 
SINCE THE WAR 317 
 
 that was wanting. The dearth of materials ex- 
 ercised the ingenuity of people, and called forth 
 all their cleverness. Old garrets were explored, 
 old trunks were ransacked, and everything avail- 
 able was utilized. Hats were plaited of wheat- or 
 oat-straw by the girls; old silk-stockings were 
 made over into gloves; ball-dresses were fash- 
 ioned from old lace-curtains and ladies' slippers 
 were made from bits of old satin which might 
 have been remnants of ball-dresses worn by the 
 fair wearers' great-grandmothers at Lady Wash- 
 ington's levees. 
 
 When Lee surrendered at Appomattox the 
 war ended. 
 
 The home-coming of the disbanded remnants 
 of the Southern armies was the saddest hour 
 her people had ever known. Up to that time 
 Virginia and the South at large had not dreamed 
 of final failure. 
 
 At first, the news of Lee's surrender came 
 borne, so»to speak, by the winds, so vague was 
 the whispered rumor, then taking palpable 
 shape, as it were, as weary stragglers passed 
 along the country* roads, stopping in at the naked 
 farms to get a meal, if there were enough left to 
 feed a hungry man. Then little parties passed 
 by with details of the surrender that no longer 
 left any room for even the faintest doubt. And 
 
3i8 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 after weary days — it might be fewer or more — 
 days in which it was not known whether loved 
 ones might not have been captured or killed in 
 the last engagement, they came home foot-sore 
 and broken, dragging themselves along the 
 cannon-worn roads they had marched down so 
 bravely four years before, and, flinging them- 
 selves into the arms of weeping mothers or 
 wives or sisters gathered to receive them, sur- 
 rendered for the first time to despair. 
 
 Even then they had no thought of what the 
 immediate future had in store for them. The 
 conditions which existed and the period which 
 ensued were utterly without precedent. The 
 Negroes took prompt advantage of their new 
 freedom, and almost without exception went 
 off, some openly, some by night — those that 
 went openly declaring that "the word had come 
 from Richmond for them." Generally speak- 
 ing, they returned home after a brief and 
 sad experience of travel and sojourn among 
 strangers. 
 
 For a time there appeared danger of some 
 friction under the evil influence of that species 
 of visiting adventurer wittily termed, from the 
 smallness of his personal belongings, "the 
 carpet-bagger," but good sense and the good 
 feeling engendered by long association between 
 
SINCE THE WAR 319 
 
 the races prevailed after a while, and the peril 
 passed away. 
 
 The soldiers returning from the army found 
 Virginia almost as war-worn as themselves. 
 In many sections the country was swept 
 clean, and the disorganization of labor and the 
 depletion of teams had prevented the proper 
 preparation of a crop. The horses which the 
 soldiers had brought home from Appomattox 
 were not infrequently the chief dependence for 
 a new crop, and before the huzzas over the re- 
 turning armies of the Union had died away in 
 the North, the soldiers of the other army which 
 had held them at bay so long were working in 
 the fields, trying to build up again the waste 
 places of their States. There is scarcely a pro- 
 fessional man over the age of fifty to-day who 
 did not work at the plough during those first 
 years after the war. 
 
 The complete prostration of Virginia — in- 
 deed, of the whole South — at the close of the 
 war has never been fully apprehended by the 
 outside world. It was not only that property 
 values had been swept away, but that everything 
 expect the bare land from which property values 
 can be created had been extirpated. The entire 
 personal property of the State had been destroyed; 
 the laboring class of a country dependent upon its 
 
320 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 agriculture had been suddenly changed from 
 laborers into vagrants, with no property to make 
 them conservative and no authority to hold them 
 in check. Their dependence was suddenly shifted 
 from their former masters to strangers, whose in- 
 direct, if not their direct teaching was hostility 
 to the former owners. The country was left 
 overwhelmed with debt, with nothing remain- 
 ing from which the debts could be paid. It is 
 difficult to conceive of this even as applied to 
 a small section, but when it embraces a great 
 territory covering a dozen great States, with 
 their entire population of many millions, the 
 mind refuses to take it in. Yet such was the 
 case at the South. 
 
 It was amid such conditions as these that 
 Virginia and the other Southern States ad- 
 dressed themselves to the new life. 
 
 For a time there was a condition which was 
 peculiar. The old life survived for a period 
 in a sort of after-glow; the people thought they 
 could reconstruct the shattered fragments and 
 live it over. They undertook to reorganize their 
 Governments and their life. The one was as 
 vain as the other; but, at least, the dignity and 
 courage with which they set about it call forth 
 unqualified admiration. Certain laws were 
 passed looking to the control of labor. The 
 
SINCE THE WAR 321 
 
 whites believed them necessary, as well as wise. 
 The military rulers viewed all such action with 
 possibly not unnatural suspicion, and assumed 
 a fuller control than ever. Whatever disputes 
 arose between whites and blacks were reviewed 
 by the military authorities. 
 
 The fact that the land had survived gave it 
 a peculiar if not a fictitious value. It was esti- 
 mated and appraised highly. Money was bor- 
 rowed on it to restock and plant it, and the old 
 life went on for a while almost as before, as a 
 wheel continues to turn with its own pro- 
 pulsion even after the motive power Is removed. 
 
 For a time, under the reaction resulting from 
 the wear and tear of war, the spirit rebounded. 
 After the fatigue of war the meanest home was 
 comfort, and the life was almost gay, even amid 
 the ruins. The South hatl been overwhelmed, not 
 whipped, and the Indomitable spirit of her people 
 survived. So the young soldiers patched up the 
 broken farm-Implements, hitched up their thin 
 army-horses, and worked at their crops. They 
 worked like laborers, but they were not mere lab- 
 orers. They kept ever in view the fact that they 
 were more than ploughmen. Classical schools 
 sprang up again almost as soon as the war closed, 
 and colleges opened with fees fixed at the lowest 
 conceivable sum, and board provided at the low- 
 
322 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 est possible figure. Young men poured in when 
 they were too poor to pay even that and had to 
 mess as they had done in the army. They went 
 to town and took positions as watchmen, brake- 
 men, street-car drivers, foremen in factories, 
 anything that would enable them to support 
 themselves and those dependent on them, and 
 would aid them in educating themselves. There 
 was no feeling of indignity, no repining. A man 
 who had hitched the horses to a gun under fire 
 and brought it off under a storm of shot and 
 shell could drive a street-car without chagrin. 
 He had expected to be a brigadier-general then; 
 now he expected to be some day president of 
 the line. 
 
 It was a strange spectacle, the people com- 
 monly supposed to be the proudest in the land 
 engaging in the work of laborers and losing 
 no caste by it. When night came they dressed 
 up in their best, whatever that was, and went to 
 see the girls, the fair sweet, brave young gentle- 
 women of the South, or, with their eyes fixed on 
 some profession, they devoted themselves to study, 
 and in the evenings one might find visiting in 
 the parlors, with that old-time courtesy of man- 
 ner which had made notable the Virginia 
 gentleman, the same men to be seen in the day 
 at the plough or on their engines. 
 
SINCE THE WAR 323 
 
 The girls were not less brave than the men. 
 They accepted and married them without a 
 dollar, and, with a sublime faith in their lovers 
 which was a happy augury of the future, went 
 with them to live in the old broken farm-houses 
 or in upper stories in town, planted flowers, hung 
 baskets in their windows^ and made their homes 
 fragrant with sweetness and content. 
 
 Then came the Reconstruction period. The 
 Negroes were enrolled by the carpet-bag leaders 
 in what was known as the Union League, and 
 were drilled in political antagonism to the whites. 
 And pandemonium came. 
 
 The six or eight years of carpet-bag rule were 
 the worst that the South has ever known. It is 
 the writer*s belief based on serious study of 
 the facts that the Southern States were poorer 
 when these years ended than when the war 
 closed. However theorists may regard it, it was 
 an object-lesson which the Southern States can 
 never forget. The conditions then existing para- 
 lyzed every energy but one, and withdrew the 
 South from the common movement of progress. 
 The States which went through it could think only 
 of existence; they had to struggle for mere life. 
 Even after these States obtained control of their 
 governments, the conditions were for a while 
 such that there could be no advance. It was 
 
324 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 at this time that South-Side Virginia suffered 
 most. She was in the "Black Belt," and the 
 incubus upon her was a burden which kept her 
 down. 
 
 The Negro question was a theory or a senti- 
 ment with the outside world; with the South it 
 was and still is a vital fact. Only time can solve 
 it. It has already solved some of its problems. 
 Before it did so, however, much injury had been 
 done Virginia and the other Southern States, 
 from which they are but now recovering. The 
 Virginia Negroes, however, either because of 
 their close relations with their masters or be- 
 cause of other conditions, appear to be of a higher 
 grade generally than those of States further 
 South, and the relations between the races is 
 in the main amicable and pleasant. 
 
 Virginia has always been a great colonizer, 
 and her sons have gone forth from her to build 
 up with their energy the great States which lie 
 to the south and west, and to strengthen them 
 with their brain and character. They are to 
 be found in every Western and Northwestern 
 State, where they began as cowboys on ranches, 
 as mechanics in factories, as brakemen on rail- 
 ways, clerks in law-offices, anything that was 
 honorable, and have worked themselves up to 
 the highest positions of trust and responsibility. 
 
SINCE THE WAR 325 
 
 They have filled every position, from that of 
 chief executive of their States down, and al- 
 v^ays v^ith honor. But this has been at a terrible 
 loss to the old mother State, and the pride in 
 her sons' success has had something of pain 
 that they no longer live within her borders and 
 strengthen her with their strength. 
 
 The disorganization of the laboring class in 
 Virginia and the condition of her transportation 
 facilities, coupled with universal lack of means 
 at that time, almost destroyed her agriculture. 
 The Negro as a slave was an excellent laborer; 
 as a freeman, at least under conditions which 
 have existed in the country, he is not. Under 
 compulsion he works laboriously, but other- 
 wise not steadily, and generally only when he is 
 obliged to work. Cincinnatus is the only re- 
 corded instance of a statesman who was also a 
 good ploughman. At the ordinary cost of corn 
 and bacon in Virginia, a man can for $25 ob- 
 tain meat and bread enough to give him three 
 meals a day for the whole year. 
 
 The old planter-system proved generally 
 wholly unsuited to the new conditions, and 
 under the continued depression of agriculture, 
 and such agricultural products as it had been 
 the custom to raise in Virginia, it almost en- 
 tirely disappeared. When labor only gave a 
 
326 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 half-year's work for a full year's hire, only that 
 man could afford to farm who was independent 
 of labor. Thus, the old planter-class gradually 
 passed away, the young representatives of it 
 going to cities and seeking other fields of enter- 
 prise for the application of their faculties, and 
 their place has been taken by the small-farmer, 
 who works at the plough himself, or who hires 
 a few "hands" to work under his own eye. 
 
 Few outside of the South dream of the priva- 
 tions which the old planter-class have gone 
 through in these years. That they have en- 
 dured in silence is their best testimonial. A 
 few years ago it was not unusual to find in old 
 neighborhoods in certain sections the best 
 houses shut up and the farms abandoned or let 
 to tenants at a rental which was merely nominal 
 — homes which had once been the centres of a 
 life as elegant and charming as ever graced any 
 people. Some places were held on to, but went 
 steadily down year by year, there being abso- 
 lutely no money to keep them up. Yet, through 
 all the poverty there remained just that some- 
 thing which preserved in them without money 
 that which distinguished the Virginia homes 
 when they were the seats of ease and elegance, 
 and about which the light of romance yet lingers. 
 
 There life still is based on the old foundations 
 
SINCE THE WAR 327 
 
 of purity and peace. Preserved from the ma- 
 terialism of the present, it still keeps the sim- 
 plicity of the past. Hospitality and the do- 
 mestic virtues yet survive, and notwithstanding 
 some changes, the old standards of gentility and 
 righteousness of life still stand. One may yet 
 drive through the country, from one end of Vir- 
 ginia to the other, and never pay a cent; and if 
 he v^ere to stall or break down in the road, there 
 is not a Virginia farmer who would not cheerfully 
 turn out of his bed to help pull him out. 
 
 The conditions have of late been changing. 
 Virginia, instead of being, as the cant phrase 
 went, "a good country to come from," has be- 
 come once more a good country to come to. Her 
 advantages of location and climate have ever 
 been recognized, and of late other advantages 
 also have been discovered. Her transportation 
 facilities have been steadily improving, her min- 
 eral resources have attracted the attention of 
 capital, and, being examined, have been found 
 to be wonderful both in quantity and quality. 
 Her coal produces the highest speed in the ocean 
 racers, and her iron brings the best prices at the 
 Northern forges. 
 
 The improvement in her transportation fa- 
 ciHties was the beginning of her new era; her 
 timber regions have been penetrated, and have 
 
328 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 proved a great field for new enterprise. Un- 
 happily ignorance of the value of her forests 
 has led to their devastation and is steadily 
 tending to their destruction. The judge of one 
 of her southwestern counties, being shown in 
 Chicago a few years ago suites of walnut furni- 
 ture as something remarkable, said, "Young 
 man, in my country we make fence-rails of wal- 
 nut." The development of her mineral resources 
 has given an impetus to manufactures, and fac- 
 tories have been and are being established; 
 villages are springing up on all sides and are 
 becoming towns, whilst the towns are growing 
 into cities. 
 
 Richmond has long been a manufacturing 
 city. Over one-fourth of her entire popula- 
 tion is engaged in manufactures, and some of 
 the largest manufactories in the country are 
 there. 
 
 The diversity of life in the Old Dominion 
 may be illustrated by the fact that one of the 
 greatest ship-yards in this country, and one 
 of the greatest winter health-resorts — those 
 at Newport News and Old Point Comfort 
 respectively — have been established only six 
 miles apart, at the mouth of the great river 
 on which our race first found a lodgement in 
 this country, and the names of both places 
 
SINCE THE WAR 329 
 
 are memorials of the hardships which the first 
 settlers endured. 
 
 If at one time the interest in Virginia's min- 
 eral resources grew to excitement and the prog- 
 ress ran into a "boom," it was but the natural 
 and common result of the conditions which 
 were suddenly disclosed, and though inexperi- 
 ence and folly ran away with the movement, 
 and wound up, as every one in his sober senses 
 knew it must end, yet the general result was 
 growth; the advance never wholly receded. What 
 were believed to be incipient cities are, at least, 
 growing villages, the conditions which first caused 
 the excitement still exist, and the progress is 
 going on steadily, on an ever firmer and firmer 
 basis. The beauty of that section of Virginia 
 cannot be overstated, and it seems to the writer 
 destined to become one of the most prosperous 
 and wealthy regions in the entire country. 
 
 It is, however, not only the southwest that is 
 now improving; other sections as well are in the 
 movement, and after the long night the day seems 
 at last to have broken. Even the poorest section 
 is beginning to advance. One large portion of 
 it, lying within the influence of the Chesapeake, 
 has been found admirably adapted to truck farm- 
 ing, and now furnishes fruits and vegetables for 
 the markets of Baltimore, Philadelphia, New 
 
330 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 York, and Boston weeks before they can ripen a 
 hundred miles further inland; other portions 
 produce bright tobacco which brings many times 
 the price of the common leaf; in yet others, other 
 resources are being developed. The farmer has 
 learned in the school of experience where to let 
 out and where to take in. He no longer con- 
 fines himself to cereals and tobacco. Stock is 
 being raised more generally than before and 
 agriculture is placed on a more scientific basis. 
 A gauge of Virginia's advance may be found 
 in the fact that whilst other classical schools and 
 colleges continue to maintain their number of 
 students, the University of Virginia, the pride of 
 the State, has doubled her number within the last 
 few years. The country is once more filling 
 up. The cheapness of the lands, the salubriety 
 of the climate and the charm of the life 
 have arrested attention, and the beautiful old 
 country-houses are being bought up by North- 
 erners of capital, or as Virginians have made 
 money in cities the old instinct has awakened, 
 and they are returning to the country, buying 
 and fitting up country-places in which to bring 
 up their children and spend their declining years 
 amid scenes associated with their happy youth. 
 The climate is attracting those who can no longer 
 stand the rigors of a Northern winter, and many 
 
SINCE THE WAR 331 
 
 new settlers are seeking homes In the Old Do- 
 minion, where wealth is not needed, and con- 
 tentment yet has its home. The old country 
 places are thus being opened again, and the old 
 life pure, sweet, and gracious which made her 
 distinguished in the past is beginning under new 
 conditions to be lived once more in the Old 
 Dominion. 
 
VIII 
 
 AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD IN VIRGINIA 
 
 ^ I ^HE old neighborhood In Virginia in which 
 the writer was born and reared Hes "in 
 the forks of Pamunkey," in Hanover County 
 — that county of fierce battles — just where the 
 foothills of the Piedmont melt into the Tidewater 
 region, about thirfy miles to the northwest of 
 Richmond. The road which used to connect it 
 with the outer world followed "the ridge" be- 
 tween two small streams, known as Newfound 
 River and Little River, which flow into the 
 Northanna, and with the Southanna make the 
 historical Pamunkey, and no streams cross it for 
 a distance of at least twenty-five miles. A few 
 miles away, on either side, the roads that run 
 from Richmond to the mountains wind along 
 other ridges between the rivers, and down these 
 roads in my boyhood used to go the great covered 
 wagons, with their jingling bells. 
 
 It was one of the many similar neighborhoods 
 that existed throughout Virginia, each of which 
 
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD 333 
 
 constituted a sort of little separate world all to 
 itself. On either side of the main road for ten 
 miles to the old, gray-brick, colonial church — the 
 "Fork Church" — with their mansions set back 
 on hills amid groves of oak, hickory and locust, 
 and separated so far that no man could "hear 
 his neighbor's dog bark," lay the plantations of 
 gentle-people, all of whom were more or less 
 allied with the gentle-folk of Eastern Virginia, 
 and more remotely with a portion of the gentry 
 of England. Farther back on other roads lay 
 generally a somewhat different class, though there 
 were gentle-people there, too, while interspersed 
 among them were the little homesteads of those 
 who were known as the "poor whites." Some 
 of these were tidy and Well-kept, while others 
 were mere cabins of the most squalid kind, a sad 
 testimonial to the evil effects of a slave system 
 which cut off the free laborer from the oppor- 
 tunity to work and develop. To some of these 
 places, among them the writer's home, the title 
 was that of grants from the English Crown, while 
 to others it was simply that of an immemorial 
 possession, dating back to the time when the 
 region was the frontier. 
 
 Among the population may still be found the 
 traits of frontiersmen with an instinct for wood- 
 craft and an absence of the commercial instinct; 
 
334 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 which, possibly, comes from the generation that 
 drove the Indian back to the mountains, which 
 on clear days may be faintly seen upon the blue 
 rim of the western horizon. 
 
 The region, secluded as it appears, with its 
 deep forests and its lonely roads, is not lacking 
 in historical interest. Not far below lie the 
 birthplaces of Patrick Henry — "the Trumpet of 
 the Revolution" — and of Henry Clay, "the Mill- 
 boy of the slashes." A mile from the writer's 
 home, on a part of the old Nelson domain which 
 is still in the family, died General Thomas Nel- 
 son, Jr., a signer of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence and commander of Virginia's forces at the 
 siege of Yorktown, his home, where, learning that 
 General Washington had ordered his mansion to 
 be spared if possible, he offered a prize to the 
 first gunner who should hit it, and, according to 
 an old tradition, paid it to a young French ensign 
 named Bernadotte, who later became King of 
 Sweden. A few miles below is "Scotchtown," 
 a quaint, gambrel-roofed house where Dolly 
 Madison was reared, and where Patrick Henry 
 for a time made his home, while farther off 
 towards the lower end of the county lie Me- 
 chanicsville, Cold Harbor, Gaines's Mill, and 
 many others of the bloody battle-fields of the 
 campaigns of 1862 and 1864. 
 
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD 335 
 
 When the writer can first remember, few 
 regions in the world would have appeared less 
 likely than this to be the scene of historical events. 
 Set back among the forests, far from the currents 
 of modern life, and divided from the outside world 
 by the little streams which for long distances 
 flowed only a few miles apart; accessible only by 
 roads which during a considerable partof theyear 
 were well-nigh impassable, the life was as quiet as 
 though it had been caught in an eddy, and old 
 habits of thought and old customs of speech and 
 of life survived for generations, almost without 
 change. Only one gentleman in the county had 
 ever crossed the ocean, and not a great many 
 had ever crossed the Potomac River. The soli- 
 tary mail-rider passed up the road twice a week, 
 and it was a part of the duty of the children to 
 meet him at the "big gate" and get the mail. 
 If more or fresher news were wanted, the rail- 
 way was only seven miles away and one train 
 passed noisily each way once every day. 
 
 From books, however, the people were famil- 
 iar with England, and to a considerable extent 
 with France and Italy, and, possibly, they were 
 more interested in the former country than in 
 any parts of the United States beyond the con- 
 fines of Virginia. There was an absence of 
 wealth in the sense in which the term is under- 
 
336 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 stood now, but there was much wealth in that 
 better sense of the term in which it is used in 
 the old Hturgy, and a part of the family-prayers 
 used every morning was, to be granted, "minds 
 always contented with our present condition." 
 
 The plantations, which contained anywhere 
 from three hundred to a thousand acres, were in 
 the main well tilled, and wheat, corn and tobacco 
 were raised in such quantities that there was 
 abundance not only for whites and blacks, but for 
 the constant stream of visitors who enjoyed the 
 hospitalities of that most hospitable region. If 
 the time had passed when gentlemen, as in a 
 former generation, sent their servants out to the 
 main road to watch for the casual traveller and 
 invite him in, the latch-string still hung always 
 outside — literally so at the writer's home — and 
 the houses were filled to overflowing with those 
 who, with or without claim, came to partake of 
 that bounteous entertainment. 
 
 Half the life of the boys was spent on pallets 
 made up on the floor, and at seasons of reunion, 
 such as Christmas and other festive occasions, 
 there was scarcely an available spot from garret 
 to basement which was not utilized. In one fam- 
 ily of which I knew, the master and mistress al- 
 ways retired at Christmas to the attic, so full was 
 the house. It was a season so given up to jollity 
 
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD ^^j 
 
 and cheer that the hiring-contracts of servants 
 ran from New Year only to the "Christmas hoH- 
 days." Its joys and its sanctities have survived 
 all the manifold chances and changes of our time, 
 and every one still knows that "Christmas comes 
 but once a year." 
 
 That this hospitality was not always appre- 
 ciated by the guest is illustrated by a story which 
 the writer used to hear in his youth of one who 
 after a visit asked the loan of a good horse to 
 carry him on to his next stopping place, a town 
 which lay at a considerable distance. The host 
 accordingly lent him his horse and sent along a 
 Negro boy to bring the horse back. As, how- 
 ever, after some days the boy did not return, 
 some one was sent to hunt him up. The mes- 
 senger finding him demanded to know why he 
 had not returned with the horse. 
 
 "'Cause dat gent'man done sell de horse,'* 
 was the reply. 
 
 "Well, why didn't you return and say so?" 
 demanded the messenger. 
 
 "Hi! He done sell me, too," said the boy. 
 
 But this story, if not apocryphal, certainly 
 represented the rare exception, for the claims 
 of hospitality were quite universally recognized, 
 and any wayfarer, whatever his condition, was 
 at liberty to put in at the first "big gate" which 
 
338 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 struck his fancy, and was sure of a welcome and 
 gracious entertainment so long as he chose to 
 remain. The only call upon his purse was that 
 of paying on his departure a quarter to the ser- 
 vant who brought his horse, or who handed him 
 his julep, and unless some of the old letters ex- 
 aggerate conditions, these "vales" were not 
 always easy to meet. Every gentleman was sure 
 to do this, and the servants were quite likely to 
 gauge a gentleman by his readiness to follow this 
 amiable custom. "Mr. Spectator," was as much 
 a familiar in these households as in those for 
 which Sir Roger was originally painted. And 
 there were guests who, like Will Honeyman, 
 spent their lives in visiting from place to place, 
 and who, like him, made full return by their 
 handiness in contributing to the enjoyment of 
 their friends and entertainers and their readi- 
 ness to do them favors in all ways within 
 their power. There were others who, having 
 spent the night under some hospitable roof, 
 found the entertainment so much to their taste 
 that they spent there the remainder of their 
 lives. Of one such casual visitor I remember to 
 have heard that regularly once a year he ordered 
 his horse and then sadly announced to his host 
 that he "feared he ought to be leaving." This, 
 of course, the host naturally "regretted," and 
 
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD 339 
 
 suggested that he need be in no hurry and hoped 
 that he would remain longer; on which he regu- 
 larly returned his thanks and accepted with 
 graciousness for another year the renewed in- 
 vitation. This was the very forge on which 
 individuality was wrought. 
 
 Here in their homely, rambling country houses, 
 given to hospitality, lived a race sprung from old 
 English, Scotch and Huguenot stock, clearly 
 patterning their lives on Plutarch's characters, 
 with a tempering of Christianity; simple, sincere, 
 kindly and content with the blessing of Agar: 
 neither poverty nor riches. 
 
 It seems to have been imagined by the outside 
 world that in this region the people were less 
 reHgious than in some other sections of the 
 country; but the idea is either erroneous or else 
 Piety must have reached elsewhere a degree of 
 which the writer has never seen any sign. They 
 were, indeed, the most religious people that he 
 has ever known. In very old times, as we know, 
 attendance on Religious Service was required 
 by law there as elsewhere and was enforced by 
 rigorous penalties; but in our time no such re- 
 quirement was needed; everyone went to church 
 by choice or habit. No Puritan Sabbath was 
 ever spent under more rigorous and rigid regula- 
 tions than the Virginia Sunday in old times. All 
 
340 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 secular pursuits and amusements were as abso- 
 lutely interdicted as under the blue-laws of a 
 previous generation. And this rigorous observ- 
 ance of the Sabbath still remains a character- 
 istic of the life, after it has been relaxed else- 
 where. As a Northerner not long since observed, 
 "It seems now to be no longer * Puritan New 
 England,' but rather * Puritan Virginia/" 
 
 It may illustrate this sentiment to say that even 
 now in the writer's old home family-prayers are 
 held three times a day. Indeed, much of the 
 social life still, as formerly, centres about the 
 Church. And religion enters into the life of the 
 people as hardly anywhere else that the writer 
 has been. He has seen hay-harvest go on in 
 New England on Sunday as well as on other 
 days; but has seen in Virginia fields of ripe 
 tobacco caught and destroyed by a sudden frost 
 because the owners were not willing to cut on 
 Sunday. 
 
 It may be as was once observed by the writer's 
 father, that "the Fourth Commandment in our 
 region was violated not so much by the breaking 
 of the Sabbath as by breaking the other six days 
 in the week." 
 
 There was but one man in the neighborhood 
 who was openly an unbeliever, and I remember 
 that he was looked on by us youngsters with 
 
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD 341 
 
 somewhat the same awe with which a man con- 
 demned to death is regarded. By the elders 
 he was, if reprobated for his tenets, esteemed for 
 his kindness, and possibly was considered a 
 proper subject for proselytizing. He not infre- 
 quently came over to spend the day at my old 
 home, and, as on such occasions, he was sure to 
 stay over at least one service of family-prayers, 
 he used to take a paper and retire to the ver- 
 anda till what he termed "the superstitious 
 
 rites" were over. 
 
 Years later the writer fell In with him once 
 on the cars when he was In extreme old age. 
 With his long, white hair and beard, he looked 
 like a hoary old prophet. He at once began to 
 inquire cordially after the various members of 
 the family. "The best people in the world;" 
 he declared them, "but eaten up with supersti- 
 tion." Finally he asked after one who was a 
 young clergyman. "I hope he Is prospering .?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Well, present my regards to him. Tell him 
 I say he has selected the best profession." 
 
 This began to look as though my grand- 
 mother's prayers were meeting with some an- 
 swer. But he continued: 
 
 "Yes, he has secured to himself all the neces- 
 saries of life and a great many of the luxuries. 
 
342 THE. OLD DOMINION 
 
 In fact, my son, I am d — d sorry now that I did 
 not turn my own attention to the ministry/' 
 
 And with this final shot he got off the train. :^' 
 In the matter of education the gentry were 
 not behind those of the same class in any other 
 part of America. Nearly all were college-bred 
 men. As their fathers had been trained at 
 WilHam and Mary, so they in turn had for the 
 most part either attended some Northern institu- 
 tion or else had been educated at Jefferson's 
 great foundation — the University of Virginia. 
 Added to this they possessed good libraries; 
 composed, it is true, of works somewhat anti- 
 quated, but none the less valuable. The gentle- 
 men nearly all had a fair acquaintance with 
 Latin, and the ladies with French. And the 
 one gentleman mentioned as having travelled 
 abroad had written a translation of the poems of 
 Ariosto. An admirable classical school, known 
 simply as, " The Academy, "whose fame extended 
 far beyond the confines of Virginia and drew 
 students from many other States, existed under 
 the direction of a noted teacher — Colonel Lewis 
 Coleman, who subsequently became professor 
 of Latin at the University of Virginia. Later, 
 on the outbreak of war, with nearly the entire 
 faculty and student-body, he went into the army, 
 and fell at Fredericksburg. 
 
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD 343 
 
 With regard to facilities for the education of 
 other classes not so much can be said in praise. 
 There were a number of "old-field*' schools in 
 the county, but they were mainly of that type 
 which Colonel Richard Malcolm Johnson has so 
 quaintly and delightfully portrayed in "Dukes- 
 borough Tales," and Httle education was gotten 
 from them. 
 
 In our old neighborhood, however, was estab- 
 lished a little free school, the only one in the 
 writer's childhood in that immediate region. 
 This small seminary, which belonged to the 
 class known as "old-field" schools, was, as is 
 still recorded on the painted sign above the door, 
 established by a bequest made in 1844 by one 
 Aaron Hall, a small farmer, who left his entire 
 estate "to educate the children of his poor white 
 neighbors." In pursuance of his bequest a 
 number of gentlemen were appointed trustees. 
 A couple of hewn-log houses were built by "old 
 Uncle Ralph," and "Carpenter WiUiam," the 
 Negro carpenters from the writer's home, one 
 for the school-house and the other for the 
 teacher's dwelling; and there for sixty-odd years 
 Aaron Hall's beneficence has borne fruit. 
 
 The total income was only about $250 per 
 annum, but so well was the fund invested that 
 when the writer's father, who was the treasurer, 
 
344 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 came home from Appomattox, though he had 
 not a cent In the world, or a dollar's worth of 
 property, except the two horses ridden by him- 
 self and his servant, the little endowment of 
 Hairs Free School was not only intact, but had 
 increased in value. The learning imparted 
 there was neither very broad nor very deep, but 
 it served. Small as was its endowment and 
 indifferent as was its teaching, the school was 
 a little oasis in that section. The neighborhood 
 about it showed as clearly the effects of its work 
 as the sands of Arabia show the marks of a 
 perennial fountain. The people about it, be- 
 longing largely to the class whom Mr. Lincoln 
 used to call "the plain people,*' have the stuff 
 in them which, when called forth, has made the 
 Anglo-Saxon race and given it its history. They 
 have the good old English names — Stanley, 
 Halloway, Askew, Lowry, West, etc. — and are 
 pure Anglo-Saxon, with old English traits; speak- 
 ing quaint old English. And fine features, and 
 straight, clean-cut figures are not uncommon, 
 for they are of good old stock. On the outbreak 
 of war, they flocked into the army and made ex- 
 cellent soldiers, and many a small household 
 to-day counts its sons who died on the battle- 
 field, or in the hospital. 
 
 One of the causes which contributed to keep 
 
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD 345 
 
 the old neighborhood so quaint and old-fash- 
 ioned has doubtless been its remoteness, or, at 
 least, the difficulty of access to it from the out- 
 side world. 
 
 I once asked an old soldier who had been in 
 Virginia all during the war, what had struck him 
 most while in the South, and his instant reply 
 was, " Mud ! Mud ! Mud ! " It was, indeed, mud. 
 Mud was at times worth to the South a hundred 
 thousand men, for it held whole armies back. 
 It is one of the memories of my childhood; 
 for we went to church every Sunday irrespec- 
 tive of weather or of roads, and as "Trinity,'* 
 the nearer of the churches, was four miles off, 
 and the other, Old Saint Martin's, known as 
 "the Fork Church," was ten miles away, we 
 had abundant opportunity to know what mud 
 means. When the roads became too bottomless 
 for the ordinary teams, a pair of mules were 
 hitched on in front of the carriage horses, and we 
 went "just the same." How people who lived 
 "on the road" stood such terrible highways is a 
 wonder of modern life. There were mud-holes 
 that had lasted for generations. 
 
 I once asked an old aunt what was the most 
 vivid recollection of her childhood, and she 
 answered promptly, "Being dressed in the car- 
 riage on my way to see my grandmother." 
 
346 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 It is said that my grandmother three times 
 a week took her children in the carriage to see 
 her old blind mother who lived ten miles off. 
 Some one explained the illegible handwriting of 
 another member of the family by the fact that he 
 had been taught to write in the carriage on these 
 pious pilgrimages. However this may be, half 
 of the life of a man was spent "on the road," 
 and the roads were so incredibly bad that it 
 would appear almost impossible that they should 
 have been tolerated. Yet the standing order 
 was under all conditions, *^ Plumb the track." 
 
 At that time the road from our old home 
 to the railway, like many of the Virginia roads, 
 instead of taking even an approximately direct 
 course, began by running in quite the opposite 
 direction, and after a detour of seven miles 
 reached the railway at a point which was really 
 less than five miles distant from the starting- 
 point. 
 
 And when, as sometimes happened, the bridge 
 across Little River, on this road, was washed 
 away, it was necessary in times of high water, 
 unless one were willing to swim his horse (which 
 we sometimes did), to make a yet further detour 
 by Honeyman's Bridge, which made the distance 
 quite ten miles. Yet, all this time plantation- 
 roads led through most of the plantations by the 
 
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD 347 
 
 "Horse-shoe Ford" directly to the station less 
 than five miles away. 
 
 Now and then efforts were made to get a high- 
 road "put through" from the back country to the 
 station; but as often as there appeared a chance 
 of success, the gentleman who owned the planta- 
 tion lying on the railway would get in his car- 
 riage and drive eight or ten miles around by 
 Trinity Church to visit the worthy farmers whose 
 places lay on the other side of the river, directly 
 in the line of the proposed road, and explain to 
 them how much more important it was for them 
 to have privacy than to have a public road to the 
 station which would cut off nearly two-thirds of 
 the distance. 
 
 It was in part, doubtless, this difficulty of 
 access from the railway and in part the absence 
 of water on the ridge-road that during the war 
 forced the armies to march down other roads than 
 this, and thus gave the neighborhood immunity 
 from the visitation of the enemy except on an oc- 
 casional raid. For, curiously enough, although 
 the direct track of the armies. Union and Confed- 
 erate, during two campaigns, passed across the 
 county within less than a score of miles of the old 
 neighborhood, and although the sound of the 
 guns in almost every battle of McClellan's, 
 Burnside's and Grant's campaigns was distinctly 
 
348 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 heard; although, indeed, the line of several raids 
 lay within three miles of Oakland, and small 
 bodies of troops belonging to raiding parties, 
 were from time to time seen on the opposite hills, 
 as it happened, no Union soldier during the 
 war put his foot on our plantation. I remem- 
 ber that this used to be attributed directly to my 
 grandmother's prayers, but a wag once said that 
 it was because the raiders were afraid my grand- 
 mother would have prayers for them. 
 
 Few persons passing by the quiet, little ham- 
 let of Beaver Dam on the Chesapeake and Ohio 
 Railway nowadays dream of the fact that the 
 long, low, massive brick building which serves as 
 a station and freight-house is more than a com- 
 monplace railway station. Yet, at this point the 
 old Virginia Central Railroad, the chief highway 
 of transportation during the war from the rich 
 regions of southwest Virginia and the Valley of 
 Virginia to Richmond, ran nearest to Spottsyl- 
 vania County, but a few miles away, and thus 
 offered a continual temptation to the bold 
 raiders of Hooker and Grant to strike for it by a 
 dash around Lee's left wing and destroy, if pos- 
 sible, his chief line of communication. And the 
 temptation was not always resisted. 
 
 Thus it was, that when the writer was a small 
 boy, at times the glow on the near horizon to the 
 
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD 349 
 
 northwestward told in vivid characters written 
 on the evening sky of the raids around Lee's 
 army, lying between the Northanna and the 
 Rappahannock, and of swift dashes for the Con- 
 federate Capital. Three times, as he recalls, this 
 glow came nearer than the long sickle-like sweep 
 of the northern sky-line: on the occasions when 
 Stoneman and Kilpatrick and Sheridan, riding 
 hard for Richmond, struck the Virginia Central 
 Railway and burned Beaver Dam Depot. On 
 such occasions there was always the excitement, 
 delightful enough to children, of running the 
 stock and the horses off to the woods for fear they 
 should be taken, and of chiding the silver. The 
 custodian of these valuables was almost in- 
 variably some one of the trusted old servants, 
 and the writer personally never knew of the viola- 
 tion of such a trust. 
 
 Strangely enough, there was always some inti- 
 mation beforehand that the raiders were coming, 
 some vague rumor by the "under-ground rail- 
 way." Such occasions were always of intense 
 interest to the boys, for it was likely to liberate 
 us from school, and we were given the privilege 
 of going over to see the soldiers pass. Thus, 
 vivid memories remain of the raiders and of the 
 Confederate cavalry which followed them up — it 
 seemed to us rather slowly — their roads marked 
 
350 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 generally by columns of dust rising high above 
 the forests — with an occasional skirmish between 
 rear and advanced guards, till at the proper point 
 and time there would be a dash, and then the 
 Gray line would stretch across the road and block 
 the way. 
 
 On one occasion, at least, the raiders de- 
 stroyed at Beaver Dam several days' rations for 
 Lee's army which had been brought from Rich- 
 mond and stored there as a point convenient to 
 his location in Spottsylvania County, ten miles 
 away, and secure from just the sort of attack 
 that destroyed them. It was when Sheridan 
 made his dash for the Confederate capital in 
 1864, when Jeb Stuart gave his life to head him 
 off at the Yellow Tavern, almost in sight of the 
 spires of Richmond. 
 
 The writer well remembers going with the 
 other boys, white and black, to the station the 
 following day and the scene that presented itself 
 — the yawning, fire-scorched walls of the massive 
 brick structure that had been put up as a store- 
 house for the supplies, and the long line of yet 
 smouldering embers where the sheds had been, 
 under which the coffee and sugar, flour, meat 
 and sorghum barrels had been stored. What a 
 waste it appeared! For flour and meat were 
 scarce in private homes in that region about 1864 
 
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD 
 
 35^ 
 
 and coffee and sugar were Inaccessible, and here 
 the roads were filled with melted sugar and 
 grease. The railroad for a quarter of a mile 
 was a blackened curve, where red rails coiled and 
 writhed in all sorts of contortions from the fires 
 built on them. Our object was to collect cart- 
 ridges from which to get powder and make shot 
 for our fowling pieces, which consisted in part of 
 old abandoned muskets. We were a little shy 
 of mingling with the Yankees. So, though they 
 never disturbed us, or did anything worse than 
 question us and call us "little Johnnies," we 
 usually kept aloof and looked at them from a 
 respectful distance. 
 
 There had been a little skirmish at Beaver 
 Dam, and there were stacks of muskets which 
 had been piled up and burned, covering a con- 
 siderable area, while near the fork in the road, 
 a mile below, were two fresh-made graves; one, 
 it was rumored, of a young officer of high rank — 
 it was even whispered of a brigadier — while under 
 a booth of boughs in a fence-corner lay yet a third 
 poor fellow, too badly wounded to be moved 
 even to the nearest house. 
 
 Several years later, just after the war, when 
 the troops were stationed throughout the coun- 
 try, and the Government was collecting the 
 remains of its dead soldiers to be interred in the 
 
352 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 national cemeteries, the writer, as a little boy, 
 piloted an officer of the company posted at 
 Beaver Dam, with his resurrection squad, to the 
 grave of one of these men who was killed on this 
 raid. I recall that he offered me a greenback, 
 which was declined with the design of showing 
 him that I was a gentleman's son. 
 
 The tramp home at night, after following a 
 raid, was over roads thick and soft with the flour- 
 like dust made by the march of regiments, 
 marked by the trail of snakes and other wild 
 things; through tangles of abatis thrown across 
 the road to delay the pursuing force and through 
 woods which were blazing with the fires that 
 had been started and were sweeping through 
 the timber. Looking back at it now it was 
 weird enough, but at the time it seemed only 
 natural. 
 
 At the river, as the bridge was down, we all 
 "cooned it," that is, crept across a great fallen 
 tree which stretched from one bank to the other. 
 I wonder now that we were not afraid, for, loaded 
 down as we were with cartridges, had any one 
 of us slipped off in the dark he would have gone 
 to the bottom like a stone. Fortunately, we 
 had the courage and unconsciousness of igno- 
 rance. Now and then we would meet some 
 servant who had been sent out to "look for the 
 
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD 353 
 
 boys." No one appears ever to have dreamed 
 that he might go off with the Yankees. 
 
 How the women managed to maintain the 
 plantations during the war is even yet a mystery. 
 There were some twenty whites and fifty blacks 
 on our place, and so clean was the country swept 
 for the subsistence of the troops that often one 
 of us boys has ridden behind our mother all day 
 trying to get bread for next day. I recall one 
 visit to the old infidel who has been mentioned. 
 "Madam," he said, in answer to my mother's 
 application, "I have but two pieces of meat left, 
 but you shall have one of them." And he called 
 "Lucy Ann," his cook, ^nd made her get half 
 his remaining store. Possibly the denial of 
 Henly Doswell was better than some professions. 
 
 It was at this same little station, Beaver Dam, 
 that Stonewall Jackson disembarked his "foot- 
 cavalry" from the trains when, having slipped 
 away from the front of the enemy, he marched to 
 face McClellan and astound Fitz John Porter, 
 when he was thought to be held fast in the valley 
 by Banks and Milroy. And by that station 
 again, in furtherance of Lee's grand strategy, 
 he passed as swiftly and as silently but a 
 few weeks later, with that army, now "long 
 familiar with the morning star," to slip through 
 Thoroughfare Gap and strike Pope on the doubly 
 
354 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 bloody plain of Manassas when the latter thought 
 he was safe below Richmond. 
 
 The fame which Stonewall Jackson had al- 
 ready achieved and the manner in which he was 
 held by the Southern people at this time is 
 illustrated by an incident which happened during 
 this forced march from the victorious fields about 
 Richmond to the yet more victorious field of 
 Manassas. 
 
 As Jackson with his staff was on this march 
 riding through the old neighborhood some dis- 
 tance ahead of his troops, he stopped at a 
 small homestead on the road near the Fork 
 Church and asked for water. The good wo- 
 man of the house hastily brought a pitcher and 
 drew a fresh bucket from the well. As the 
 dusty and travel- stained leader was drinking, a 
 member of his staff told her who he was. She 
 said not a word, but when he had finished she 
 took the pitcher and poured out on the ground 
 all the water that was left. Then she said to the 
 others: "Gentlemen, I will fetch you another 
 vessel, for so long as I live no one else shall 
 ever drink from this pitcher, which has been con- 
 secrated by the lips of Stonewall Jackson." 
 
 The close of the war found the old neighbor- 
 hood swept clean of everything. 
 
 After the war there was a period of much 
 
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD 
 
 355 
 
 privation. Everything was gone except the 
 land, and that for a time appeared valueless. 
 One old gentleman expressed something of the 
 general view when he said to a Federal officer: 
 "If you had taken our land and left us our 
 Negroes, we should have been much better off 
 than we are, for we might have worked or sold 
 the Negroes, whereas we can neither work the 
 land, nor sell it." 
 
 In fact, it looked for a time as though starva- 
 tion were not far off. The servants at first 
 nearly all left and went to seek their fortunes 
 either about the camps, or in the cities. They 
 appeared to feel that it was necessary to go off 
 to have proof that they were really free. Some 
 departed boldly with their effects packed in carts, 
 others slipped away in the night, unable to face 
 the ordeal of leave-taking. This condition, how- 
 ever, did not last very long, as for the most part 
 they soon came back, satisfied by a sharp if brief 
 experience that they could do better with their 
 own old masters than with strangers, and either 
 settled on or near the old plantations. 
 
 A tribute to the whole population of the old 
 neighborhood was paid once in the writer's pres- 
 ence by that fine old Virginian, ex-Governor 
 Smith. At the close of the war, a reward of 
 ten thousand dollars was offered for his appre- 
 
356 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 hension, and although there was probably not 
 half that sum in the whole county, he spent 
 several months among the people, most of whom 
 knew him, and many of whom were on the verge 
 of starvation, with no more fear of being be- 
 trayed than if he had been across the border. 
 
 In the time of our dearth at Oakland the first 
 aid came to us from Mrs. Dupont, of Delaware, 
 the wife of that gallant Admiral who strove in 
 vain to seize the Southern coast. The great box 
 which she sent down contained not only neces- 
 saries which were sadly wanted, but dainties 
 which were the first that had been seen in that 
 household within four years. After nearly forty 
 years my heart always warms at that honored 
 name. 
 
 With the aid of "stay-laws" and under the 
 spur of necessity an attempt was made for a while 
 to resurrect the old life, or, at least, to reconstruct 
 from its fragments something that might a little 
 resemble it. It cannot, however, be said that the 
 effort was wholly successful. Just as the "stay- 
 laws" expired and litigation began for the collec- 
 tion of old debts, the Reconstruction measures 
 began to undermine the relation of mutual kind- 
 liness which had ever existed between the old 
 masters and servants and well-nigh destroyed the 
 new labor system which had begun to grow up. 
 
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD 357 
 
 One of the writer's memories of Lee's store- 
 house at Beaver Dam is of the first election under 
 the Reconstruction system, where the Negroes 
 were marshalled by the United States officials 
 and led up to vote for the first time, while the 
 whites, disfranchised and angry, stood glowering 
 and jeering by. 
 
 Following upon this there was a period of real 
 poverty, and, notwithstanding the efforts which 
 were made, the old plantations which had been 
 cultivated began to grow up once more in forest. 
 The writer's father, who had been a major in the 
 Confederate Army, was a lawyer, and was en- 
 abled by stinting to give his sons the benefit of an 
 education, while his uncle, who had been a 
 colonel of artillery, ran the plantation. But on 
 many of the other plantations the families were 
 not so fortunate, and until those who had been 
 children during the war grew up, there was a 
 period of real hardship. Happily, common mis- 
 fortune had increased the feeling of neighborli- 
 ness. The old home, like most others, always 
 open to those who chose to come, had been during 
 the war an asylum for all the family and friends 
 who were " refugeeing," and it always continued 
 an asylum and refuge for the whole connection. 
 
 For many years after the war it appeared as 
 if the old neighborhood were doomed to a con- 
 
358 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 stant decline. "Labor" became more and more 
 " trifling." The young people of the better class 
 nearly all left and went off^ elsewhere to seek 
 their fortune, while it was some time before the 
 body of the people awoke fully to the oppor- 
 tunities presented to the small farmer. The 
 land went down until it got to a point where it 
 could get no lower, and it still can be bought for 
 the worth of the timber on it, and in good seasons 
 may be paid for from a single crop. 
 
 The houses were built in a former age with 
 no reference to railroads and modern condi- 
 tions; the lands were poor, markets inaccessible; 
 and with the new conditions the ability of the 
 owners to maintain themselves perished and, 
 after long struggling, they submitted perforce, 
 and new owners came in and took possession. 
 These were of the class which, if they made 
 little, spent nothing — the small-farmer class 
 which work with their own hands. 
 
 One of the handsomest houses in the county 
 in which I was reared, and which once was the 
 home of culture, elegance, and princely hos- 
 pitality, is now in the possession of a tenant. 
 Not long since a gentleman passed through the 
 place and stopped there. A dinner-pot boiled 
 in the old drawing-room, hung on a spike driven 
 into a crack in a fine old marble mantel. 
 
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD 359 
 
 Another such house, in a neighboring county, 
 where I used to visit as a youngster, comes to 
 my mind. It had been owned for many genera- 
 tions by the old Virginia family which at that 
 time still made it one of the most charming 
 houses in the State. A bevy of lovely girls, 
 transmitting the traditional beauty of their 
 mother (which, indeed, though faded with years 
 and sorrow, still spoke for itself), made it one 
 of the most popular places in Virginia. The 
 old flower-garden, filled with old-fashioned 
 roses, lilacs, hollyhocks, and other flowers in 
 profusion, stretched wide around it, with walks 
 and bowers which many lovers blessed, as they 
 had blessed them, and the horse racks and 
 stables were never empty of visitors' horses; 
 whilst within and all about were a sweetness 
 and charm which have never been surpassed. 
 A friend whom I first met there told me he was 
 there not long ago. He found the mansion 
 divided up and occupied by two or three fami- 
 lies of foreigners, whose women went barefooted, 
 and whose children sprawled in rags and dirt 
 about the once polished floors. 
 
 There are some who never hear the word 
 gentleman without thinking it is an insult to 
 themselves, and who will perhaps say that the 
 place serves a better use now than in the days 
 
360 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 when plenteous hospitality and elegance had 
 their homes there. This might be so could the 
 several families not obtain food and shelter else- 
 where; but had the family come by natural 
 evolution into the first mansion, they would not 
 have cracked the mantel. When they shall de- 
 velop, if they ever develop, they will want mar- 
 ble mantels uncracked; but it will be long 
 before they reach that point. Meantime the 
 families which once occupied these old houses 
 and used marble mantels have passed away or 
 gone far off. These are no exceptional cases. 
 It is easy to find similar instances throughout 
 the entire South; indeed, it is hard not to find 
 them. 
 
 Of late, however, the people have awakened 
 and the forests are giving place to well-tilled 
 fields. The generation that went oflF after the 
 war have returned or are returning, some bring- 
 ing their sheaves with them, and are building 
 up once more the waste places. Some of the 
 old plantations are being restored, while others, 
 which were once large estates cultivated by slave 
 labor, are now divided into small farms, culti- 
 vated by their owners. On the former culture 
 and refinement dwell as of yore, and the steadily 
 improving schools are awaking the small farmer 
 to the opportunities at his door. 
 
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD 361 
 
 Thus, '*the old neighborhood," as its friends 
 love to call it, finds itself falling a little into the 
 movements of modern life, and v^ith a pleasant 
 and healthful climate, a responsive soil, kindly 
 manners and old-fashioned ideas, it offers a 
 haven of rest to whomsoever, after having been 
 tossed and buffeted by the winds and waves of 
 varying fortune, may come home to see how 
 sweet and peaceful life with content may be. 
 
IX 
 
 AN OLD VIRGINIA SUNDAY 
 
 T TNTIL just now there has been apparent an 
 impression which somehow became quite 
 general out of the South, that nearly everything 
 that has counted for much in the history of this 
 country, either sprang from or took its color 
 from New England. Much of the history which 
 has been written of late years teaches this — in- 
 ferentially, perhaps, but quite distinctly. 
 
 For example, the New England Puritans have 
 been rather assumed to have been the only very 
 religious population of the colonies. They have 
 certainly been declared by those who have un- 
 dertaken to set up as teachers, to have been the 
 only section of the population inspired by a high 
 ethical principle. While, on the other hand, 
 the population of the South, particularly of Vir- 
 ginia, have been assumed to have been a royster- 
 ing, hell-raking lot of adventurers who, ready 
 enough maybe to fight in any cause, good or bad, 
 
 yet wanted the essential principle of serious 
 
 362 
 
AN OLD VIRGINIA SUNDAY 363 
 
 character, from which alone any great achieve- 
 ment could spring. 
 
 Even so thoughtful, and later, so well in- 
 formed an historian as the late John Fiske 
 stated in his "Beginnings of New England" 
 that the principle of "No taxation without 
 representation" on which the Revolutionary 
 War was fought, had its first beginning in 
 America in a town-meeting in Massachusetts 
 in 1630. 
 
 Much of the recent teaching of history has 
 been to the effect that Virginia was settled 
 mainly with a view to discovering gold and ob- 
 taining worldly wealth, while into the name of 
 the Virginia adventurers, whose far-seeing wis- 
 dom, patriotic zeal and religious fervor devoted 
 their fortunes and in many instances their lives 
 to building up an Anglo-Saxon Empire in the 
 West, has been read a debased meaning which 
 grew out of later and quite other conditions. 
 
 The planting of Virginia had its origin in the 
 patriotic zeal of the people of England to wrest 
 this continent from Spain, and build up for 
 England a great Anglo-Saxon Protestant State 
 in the West which should enable her to with- 
 stand Spain's vaulting ambition which menaced 
 the world. 
 
 It has been charged by those ignorant of the 
 
364 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 facts or incapable of comprehending them, that 
 Virginia was planted only for gain. The fact is 
 far otherwise. 
 
 The planting of Virginia had its origin in the 
 religious zeal of the people of England; the 
 prime objects of the movement were ever ex- 
 pressed to be the "welfare of the Kingdom of 
 God and the Kingdom of England," and the 
 final instructions to the first colony that settled 
 at Jamestown closed with an exhortation "to 
 serve and fear God, the Giver of all Goodness, 
 for every plantation which our Heavenly Father 
 hath not planted shall be rooted out." This 
 exhortation the new settlers ever observed, and 
 though the forms of worship differed on their 
 part, and on the part of the Puritans, no Puri- 
 tans were ever more zealous than these Church of 
 England colonists of Virginia. Religious fervor 
 was the characteristic of the time. The annals 
 and records show that religion was a prominent 
 part of their life, and from that day to this the 
 people of Virginia have been among the most 
 religious people in the world. 
 
 On that first Sunday when the Indians took 
 the fort, as soon as the attack had been repulsed, 
 "Worthy Master Hunt" asked the president if 
 it were his pleasure to have a sermon, and Wing- 
 field replied that the "men were weary and 
 
AN OLD VIRGINIA SUNDAY 365 
 
 hungry, and if it pleased him he would wait until 
 some other time/' And even this failure was 
 made the subject of a charge against him by his 
 enemies. 
 
 The records are full of the piety of the time, 
 and the ministrations of those faithful Soldiers 
 of Christ, who came in the true missionary 
 spirit, prepared to lay down their lives even 
 with joy in their Master's service. 
 
 It is believed that the first edifice erected after 
 the construction of the fortifications was, how- 
 ever rude, a church, and on its site four sacred 
 edifices arose before Jamestown ceased to be 
 the Capital of Virginia. 
 
 The first act of Lord Delaware on his arrival, 
 when he had met and turned back the famishing 
 remnant of the colony, was to fall on his knees 
 before he entered the South Gate of the fort 
 where Sir Thomas Gates was drawn up with his 
 fifty soldiers to receive him. 
 
 The first laws posted in Virginia contained 
 the laws promulgated by Argall and his Council, 
 enjoining attendance on divine worship under 
 penalty of lying neck and heels on the corps de 
 garde and slavery to the colony for a week for 
 the first omission; for the second, slavery for a 
 month, and for the third, slavery to the colony 
 for a year. 
 
366 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 Indeed, whatever the short-comings of the 
 Virginians were, the lack of piety was not among 
 them. I venture to make the assertion that 
 their attendance upon divine worship from the 
 time of ArgalFs laws, down to the last ringing of 
 the church-bells has not been exceeded by the 
 people of any other colony or State in this coun- 
 try. It gave the complexion to their life, and 
 with chivalry and love of the rights of free- 
 men, gave its fibre. 
 
 It is true that the seeking of wealth bore its 
 part in the enterprise, as it has ever borne its 
 part as one of the objects of human endeavor. 
 Sir Walter Raleigh sought El Dorado; but who 
 will be so stupid as to charge that this was his 
 chief aim ? So none can read the true story of 
 the founding of Virginia without discovering on 
 how much broader a foundation it was laid. 
 The aspiration was for the establishment of a 
 great Protestant State; a bulwark for England 
 across the seas. The foundation was cemented 
 by the dust of thousands of bold soldiers of 
 Christ, who left comfort and ease behind them 
 to face Death in its most terrible form. 
 
 Those who will take the trouble to burrow out 
 from the musty records of the time their history, 
 will find it the story of as high and noble forti- 
 tude as ever illumined the pages of human en- 
 
AN OLD VIRGINIA SUNDAY 367 
 
 deavor. No embellishment is required. Truly 
 it may be said, as was said at the time, ''That 
 nothing can purge that famous action from the 
 infamous scandal some ignorantly have con- 
 ceted, as the plain, simple and naked Truth." 
 
 It was a church-going time. Religion engrossed 
 the energies of the people. Participation in 
 worship was the law, and whoever failed in it 
 was a law-breaker and was dealt with accord- 
 ingly. One of the early laws provided that on 
 every plantation an apartment should be set 
 aside for religious services and should be used 
 for no secular purpose. Such a law was not 
 needed. Religion was the basis of the life as it 
 still is today, and the idea that it was not is but 
 an echo of the time when every form of Puri- 
 tanism thought every other form of religion worse 
 than idolatry. Later on, for a brief period, prior 
 to the Revolution, came a certain laxness — the 
 reflex of the taut-strung bow — when the fox-hunt- 
 ing, cock-fighting parsons were inducted into the 
 livings; but as the causes were temporary, the 
 main cause being the political appointment by 
 an absentee metropolitan, so the effect was not 
 permanent. 
 
 It was out of these conditions that the Hanover 
 Presbytery sprang, under the influence of Patrick 
 Henry's model, the eloquent "Parson Davies," 
 
368 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 later the president of Princeton College. It 
 was out of these conditions that the Methodist 
 Church and the Baptist Church came into being. 
 Indeed, while some of the English parsons, who 
 have made the time notorious, were dicing and 
 drinking and fighting, the laity were standing 
 staunchly for the old customs, and were mak- 
 ing the saddling upon them of such miscreants 
 one of the charges in their indictment against 
 the Government "at home." They withstood 
 innovation. They kept the faith. They built 
 churches which still stand to-day as memorials of 
 their piety and churchmanship. Among the 
 finest architectural relics of the colonial period 
 are the massive brick churches throughout Tide- 
 water Virginia, some of them now towering In 
 a wilderness, like that on Carter's Creek, near 
 the Rappahannock. It Is possible that pride, 
 too, entered into the motive at times, for It is re- 
 lated that old Mrs. Carter, of Corotomon, whose 
 family built the church on Carter's Creek, di- 
 rected when she came to die, that she should be 
 buried under the aisle on the side where the poor 
 sat, that they might walk over her in her death, 
 who had carried herself so loftily in her life. 
 
 "President" Nelson, of the King's Council, 
 who owned the land in Hanover County on which 
 the mansion described in this paper was built two 
 
AN OLD VIRGINIA SUNDAY 369 
 
 generations later, always spread a table on Sun- 
 day, at his home in York, to entertain the congre- 
 gation that attended the church there. 
 
 Lists of the vestries have been published, and 
 every student of the history of that time must be 
 struck by the number of those who became noted 
 in the great Revolutionary struggle. The rolls of 
 the great conventions were almost made up from 
 the vestry-lists. 
 
 Having achieved independence, these same 
 churchmen disestablished the Church. Mr. 
 Madison said that the clergy, having so largely 
 taken the English side, had made the Church so 
 unpopular that the churchmen felt it necessary 
 to disestablish it to save it. Their feeling is illus- 
 trated by the story told by Bishop Meade of the 
 old gentleman in his cocked hat and ruffles who, 
 during the contest over the disestablishment 
 measure, was approached by a constituent with 
 an inquiry as to how he would vote. 
 
 He said he should vote for the bill; for he was 
 of opinion that every man should have the right 
 to choose his own road to heaven;, but he was 
 very sure that a gentleman would always take the 
 Episcopal way. 
 
 Even the drastic measure of disestablishment 
 hardly saved the Church; the gentry had largely 
 been ruined by the war, and the plain people 
 
370 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 were finding other churches more congenial to 
 them. Thus, the first bishops, Madison and 
 Moore, had a hard struggle to build up the 
 waste places. 
 
 Then came the iron bishop, Meade, who saw 
 the task before him clearly, and went about it 
 with an irresistible resolution. A man of re- 
 markable intellect, of unquestioned piety, and of 
 iron will, he took the Church in Virginia in his 
 strong grasp and moulded it to suit himself. He 
 was the supreme dictator among the Episco- 
 palians of the State, and stamped his impress 
 indelibly on their thought and life. He was a 
 Spartan in habit and a Calvinist in creed. He 
 asked no one to do what he would not do himself; 
 but few could endure without suffering what 
 was merely a spur to his energy and an inspira- 
 tion to his zeal. 
 
 The writer remembers him in his early child- 
 hood, when the Bishop came on his Episcopal 
 visitation to stay with his relatives in Hanover. 
 His place beside his wife's grave was railed in 
 and reserved in their lot at St. Martin's, the Old 
 Fork Church, which used to give us youngsters a 
 grewsome feeling before we knew how close to 
 Life is Death. I have since seen the archbishops 
 of both the Roman and Anglican communions, 
 and have seen the House of American Bishops in 
 
AN OLD VIRGINIA SUNDAY 371 
 
 procession; but I have never seen any prelate 
 received with the homage that this stern head of 
 the Virginia Church had from his people.* And 
 this he effected by the sheer force of his intellect 
 and character. In the old parlor at Oakland an 
 engraving of him in his episcopal robes hung 
 beside an engraving of St. Peter preaching, one 
 of Queen Victoria in her coronation robes, and 
 one of the Washington family. 
 
 The boys of the household of the preceding 
 generation had gone to school to him, and re- 
 cited their Latin v^ith their jackets off, and the 
 entire connection still took the law and the gospel 
 from him, on all mooted points. 
 
 He was married in Hanover, and arriving the 
 day before that set for the wedding, and finding 
 the clergyman in attendance, he declined to wait, 
 and, the bride assenting, they stood up and were 
 married that evening. No one gainsaid him. 
 He preached a stern gospel and lived it. 
 
 Horce-racing, cards, the theatre, and dancing 
 were all banned as equally wicked. The ob- 
 servance of Sunday was enforced as a cardinal 
 doctrine. 
 
 It was in a family established in the doctrines 
 of the Church as expounded by this virile divine 
 
 * At General Cocke's they kept a carriage which was known as 
 " the bishop's coach," and was only used when the bishop came. 
 
372 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 that the writer was reared. As to the keeping of 
 the Sabbath this rearing was after the straitest 
 sect of our reHgion. Rehgion entered into the 
 Hfe as he has never known it do anywhere else. 
 Instead of being stowed away in a corner or laid 
 up for use on Sunday, it was always at hand, and 
 became a part, and a very obvious part, of the 
 daily life. Nor was it a religion softened and 
 emasculated to suit the delicate fancies of modern 
 dilettanteism. It was the religion of the grim 
 evangelical divines of the last century. This 
 world was only "a vale of misery," through 
 which we had to walk with fear and trembling so 
 as to reach in safety the other world where true 
 Life begins. The Bible was the literal word of 
 God, and the only admissible question on any 
 point was what the Bible said. No man took 
 from it, even if somewhat was added to it by 
 Calvinistic exegesis. It is related that the wife 
 of the old churchman of York who used to 
 spread his table to entertain the whole congrega- 
 tion, on coming from church one Sunday called 
 her maid to come and help her off with her dress, 
 as she "had heard so much about hell and 
 damnation that she did not feel as if she would 
 cool off before Christmas.'* The style had not 
 changed in a hundred years. The lurid glare of 
 fire was pictured from the pulpit, denounced 
 
• AN OLD VIRGINIA SUNDAY 373 
 
 against all mankind; but it was tempered by the 
 soft musings of the psalmist in hours of hope, 
 and the gentle sayings of the Saviour as he 
 yearned over a fallen world. These, though 
 hardly understood beside the terrific interpreta- 
 tion of the old divines, were somehow clung to 
 and believed in. Fast-days were kept as regu- 
 larly as Sundays. 
 
 The family life was so religious in the week 
 that it was necessary to have Sunday quite com- 
 pletely given up to devotion to distinguish it. 
 Family prayers — with a hymn sung by the whole 
 family — were always had twice a day, and after 
 the beginning of the war, when the President 
 of the Confederacy asked in a proclamation for 
 special prayers every day for the soldiers, they 
 were held also at one o'clock, a custom which has 
 been kept up in the household ever since, though 
 someone characterized it as a Mohammedan cus- 
 tom. Whenever a clergyman came to the house 
 he was always asked to have prayers before he 
 left. Thus, occasionally "prayers" were had 
 four times a day. 
 
 My uncle. Colonel Nelson, was the master 
 of the plantation and always read prayers if he 
 was at home. In his absence they were read 
 by the next in seniority. The first sound in 
 the morning was his vigorous call to prayers. 
 
374 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 and then his sonorous voice as he read out 
 the hymn. In slavery days he always had 
 prayers for his servants before they w^ent to the 
 field in the morning, and later on he always 
 drew up his men and read prayers to his bat- 
 talion. This Virginian churchman was a stout 
 Cromwellian who prayed with his sword in his 
 hand and fought with a prayer on his lips. He 
 was known during the war as "Old Ironsides." 
 
 The rule for the youngsters was "no butter" 
 unless we got to prayers, a persuasive ordinance; 
 for "dry bread" is dry indeed to a youthful 
 tongue. The singing of the hymn, however, 
 served a double purpose: it gave us notice and 
 granted us some minutes of grace. It had 
 another and more permanent effect — it taught 
 us insensibly the hymns of the prayer book. 
 
 A wayfarer from a distant State passing through 
 the country on some business, was directed to 
 Oakland to spend the night. He was detained 
 for a day or two by bad weather, and after he 
 went away he told someone that he had been to 
 a curious place, an old bachelor's home where 
 twenty people sat down at table and where when 
 they were not eating they were praying. 
 
 We were brought up on the Bible, our regular 
 duty being the reading of the lessons for the day, 
 a grounding which we little appreciated at the 
 
AN OLD VIRGINIA SUNDAY 375 
 
 time. Sunday was absolutely given up by the 
 elders to the worship of God. In preparation 
 for it our playthings, never very numerous, were 
 put away, and the reading of secular books was 
 discontinued Saturday night. After thirty years 
 I can recall the lorn emptiness of my Sunday 
 pockets. We were not allowed to "play" or 
 " do " anything on Sunday; our sole " recreation " 
 — a word which has always had an unpleasant 
 sound for me since — being a walk. It should be 
 said that the resourcefulness of the juvenile mind 
 was not infrequently equal to the emergency 
 and, avoiding the forbidden line of games, we 
 occasionally substituted not less interesting enter- 
 tainments. Those Sunday afternoons some- 
 times witnessed boxing and wrestling matches, 
 "clod battles," and other athletic exercises which 
 were not reported at the house. 
 
 Our reading was carefully looked after and 
 guarded, all our "week-day books" being pro- 
 hibited and our reading being confined to "Sun- 
 day books." Prominent among these were Mrs. 
 Sherwood's works, beginning with "Henry Mil- 
 ner," "Little Henry and His Bearer," and "The 
 Fairchild Family," the latter a grim and terrify- 
 ing collection of moral teachings. One of these 
 I well remember was an account of an excursion 
 on which the father took litde Harry and Lucy, 
 
376 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 after a quarrel, to see hanging on a gibbet the 
 body of a man who had killed his brother. 
 
 The writer was nearly thirty years old before 
 he ever saw a lady read a novel on Sunday, and 
 such is the effect of early training that he never 
 sees one so engaged now without its raising 
 doubts, at least, as to her social standing. 
 
 The churches, Trinity and "The Old Fork," 
 were four and ten miles oflF, respectively, and 
 service was held in them on alternate Sundays. 
 
 The Old Fork, amid its immemorial oaks, is 
 one of the old colonial churches, built of brick 
 with the glazed "headers'' which, mellowed by 
 the years, give that soft gray color so pleasing in 
 old structures, and with fine, simple lines that 
 render a building dignified and impressive. 
 
 The road to the Fork Church was at that time 
 bordered by the plantations of gentle-folk, well 
 cultivated prior to the close of the war, and sup- 
 porting a large population. It followed the ridge 
 for miles. Now there are scarcely three places 
 left in the hands of their original owners, and the 
 country is almost entirely grown up. But the 
 writer has had occasion to know that their influ- 
 ence has not perished from the earth. Their 
 sons have gone out into many lands, stout 
 soldiers of the cross, and fighters for the princi- 
 ples of their fathers. 
 
AN OLD VIRGINIA SUNDAY 377 
 
 We always went to church irrespective of the 
 weather, or — what was more remarkable — of the 
 roads, unless, indeed, the weather was so sur- 
 passingly bad that there was no possibility of the 
 preacher himself attending. When we stayed at 
 home, we had the service and a sermon, for our 
 elders believed in calling upon us to hear sermons. 
 This, however, was on rare occasions. If the 
 Fork Church road was exceptionally bad, a 
 standard that can only be appreciated by those 
 who have travelled in winter that bottomless 
 stretch of clay hills and Serbonian mud, an ex- 
 tra pair of horses or mules were hitched on in 
 the lead and we went with four-in-hand, or with 
 a postiHon. This, so far from teing a hardship 
 to us, was in fact generally a pleasure; for the 
 gathering at church had a social side to it. 
 We saw our friends, and sometimes even stran- 
 gers were there. No one who has not lived in a 
 back-country neighborhood can appreciate the 
 interest that a stranger excites. I can remember 
 casual strangers whom I saw at church during my 
 boyhood better than I can now recall notables 
 that I have seen in later years. The church 
 in the country fills a larger place in the life of the 
 people than it does in town. It was and still is 
 the centre of the life in St. Martin's Parish, in 
 Hanover. 
 
378 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 On arriving at church each gentleman had his 
 own place, generally " a swinging limb," at which 
 to tie his horse, quite as much as he had his seat 
 in church, and it would have been quite as great 
 a breach of decorum to take the one as to usurp 
 the other. This was a matter of strict and neces- 
 sary etiquette; for there were certain families who 
 never were on time, just as there were others 
 who were always on time. Indeed, occasionally 
 this variance was the case in the same family, for 
 I remember a discussion in which one gentleman 
 charged another with always having been late for 
 church, while the latter declared that he had 
 never been "too late for church in his life." 
 
 The ladies always went "into church" im- 
 mediately on arrival; the older gentlemen as 
 soon as the clergymen entered the chancel; the 
 younger gentlemen at the first sound of his voice; 
 and those of the plainer people who were not 
 Episcopalians came in about the time of the 
 second lesson, their object being — inscrutably as 
 we thought — to hear the sermon. 
 
 In church the men sat on one side of the aisle, 
 the ladies on the other. 
 
 Before the minister entered there was usually 
 a buzz of conversation throughout the church, 
 and after service there was quite a levee in the 
 aisle. I remember once Colonel Nelson, the 
 
AN OLD VIRGINIA SUNDAY 379 
 
 senior warden, as the hum of conversation before 
 service grew too loud, rose in his seat and said, 
 quietly, "The Lord is in His holy temple, let all 
 the earth keep silence before Him." The hub- 
 bub ceased. 
 
 The organ was in the gallery over the en- 
 trance, and as the chants were sung a number 
 of the men used to turn their backs on the pulpit 
 and leaning against the back of the pew gaze 
 up at the choir. 
 
 The choir led the singing, but the whole con- 
 gregation sang. When I can first remember, the 
 hymns were "lined out," two lines at a time, and 
 as there were a number of the older ladies who 
 preferred their own deliberate pace to any 
 "time" that the younger portion who composed 
 the choir could set, the result was sometimes 
 amazing. But there were many fresh voices, 
 and the singing was hearty and inspiring. I re- 
 member one old gentleman who always used to 
 sing with his eyes shut fast, even though he was 
 standing up, a peculiarity which possibly ex- 
 plained his keeping them also shut when he was 
 sitting during the sermon. I remember to have 
 essayed the same convenient practice; but my 
 seniors were not to be deceived, I was poked up 
 and made to open my eyes. 
 
 The pulpit was high up on the wall, and an 
 
380 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 interesting event in the exercises was when the 
 clergyman, after the service, left the chancel and 
 went to the vestry-room to exchange his sur- 
 plice for his gown and bands — for no one then 
 preached in a surplice. The gown that I first 
 remember, during and soon after the war, was 
 a venerable garment, and our rector was very 
 tall and spare. I can see him now as he used to 
 come striding up the aisle, his gown flying and 
 fluttering behind him in a way wonderful to be- 
 hold. We knew that he carried half concealed 
 his sermon, and it was an anxious moment, for 
 the pulpit was too high for us to see it after he 
 reached that exalted perch, and on the glimpse 
 we caught as he passed by depended our gauge 
 of the thickness of his manuscript and the length 
 of time it would take him to deliver it. It was 
 usually dishearteningly thick. 
 
 One of the clergy having on an occasion 
 broken through a bridge as he was travelling 
 through the parish, an old gentleman was asking 
 what injury he had suff'ered. 
 
 "None," said his informant, "except that his 
 sermons all got wet." 
 
 "Oh," said the old gentleman, "they will get 
 dry again." 
 
 The preaching was of the old-fashioned kind, 
 largely hortatory, very loud and very long, and 
 
AN OLD VIRGINIA SUNDAY 381 
 
 was divided into almost as many heads as the 
 sermons of the Duke of Argyle's dominie. But, 
 however many heads, there was one point in all; 
 the fiery condemnation of the wicked and the 
 felicity of those who escaped. Learning, elo- 
 quence, and zeal were piled up on this perennial 
 theme. I early made the discovery that dura- 
 tion of time is not at all measured by its passage, 
 but that an hour may be many times as long 
 under some circumstances as under others, and 
 that of all the means to lengthen time a sermon 
 is, perhaps, the most effective. 
 
 It was, however, when taken with the sur- 
 rounding life, effective preaching, and all the 
 young girls and nearly all the young men early 
 became members of the church. 
 
 After church, Hospitality had its claim even 
 on Piety, and every one invited every one else to 
 "stop by" and take dinner, the rule being not to 
 accept an invitation given only at the plantation 
 gate. This was a custom that was highly ap- 
 preciated by us juniors, for it gave us a day out 
 with our friends and furnished us the coveted 
 opportunity to ride strange horses to water. 
 The horses of St. Martin's parish "went to 
 water" often on Sundays. 
 
 The dinner was always cold, but it was so 
 good that after thirty years we of St. Martin's 
 
382 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 have a penchant for a cold dinner on the first day 
 of the week. 
 
 In the afternoon unless we reached home too 
 late, we had to learn the collect and a hymn, and 
 "say" the catechism, an exercise which I appre- 
 ciate more highly now than I did then. 
 
 The days were undoubtedly very long, and 
 would have been very wearisome to us youngsters 
 had we not recognized the inexorable necessity 
 of yielding, as to any other divine decree. We 
 do not complain of the law of gravitation or kick 
 against the pricks of the laws of age and decay. 
 When we are ready to submit, the work of sub- 
 mission is already half accompHshed. 
 
 Reading and reflection have satisfied the writer 
 that this extreme Sabbatarianism is not enjoined 
 by the New Dispensation, and has not been 
 taught by the general Church. The Sabbata- 
 rianism of our people was a result of the tide of 
 Puritanism which swept over the country of our 
 fathers a few centuries before, being based on 
 the Old Testament dispensation, and in protest 
 against whatever the Catholic Church taught or 
 allowed. The extreme type that it took in Vir- 
 ginia was a form of repudiation of the laxness 
 of the ante-Revolutionary period, and of the free 
 thought of the post-Revolutionary time following 
 the French Revolution. 
 
AN OLD VIRGINIA SUNDAY 383 
 
 Men had to take sides, and they took them. 
 
 However hard the old regimen was, and the 
 writer cannot deny that he is glad to have es- 
 caped from its severities, yet he is satisfied that in 
 the main its effect was excellent. For one thing, 
 It taught the habit of obedience and of reverence; 
 for another, that of self-denial. No one can 
 deny himself in obedience to a sense of duty 
 without being a gainer thereby. 
 
 Men from time to time tax the hardness of 
 their early training with their aversion to attend- 
 ing church. But one rarely hears them credit 
 their virtues to their training. The writer's ob- 
 servation is that those who have been trained to 
 go to church, in the main continue to do so in 
 after-life. If there are any who were not brought 
 up to attend church, they did not come from 
 Hanover. The old Virginian in "The Barton 
 Experiment," however low he sank during the 
 week, always "shaped up," put on a clean shirt, 
 and attended church on Sunday, because his 
 mother had brought him up to do it. 
 
 Moreover, there was something that came 
 from that direct recognition of God, and that 
 sturdy determination to do one's duty as it was 
 understood, that gave a "body" to the character 
 not so commonly found nowadays. 
 
 But however rigorous was the life, we who 
 
384 THE OLD DOMINION 
 
 underwent it look back to it now with only affec- 
 tion. It was clean and pure and stimulating. 
 In a measure it still exists, though tempered by 
 the softening influence of freer thought, the cur- 
 rents of which have reached even that retired 
 haven. 
 
 Most of the old homes that once bordered the 
 Fork Church road have passed away; but hap- 
 pily a few of them stiil remain. The old Fork 
 Church, with its generations of worshippers 
 sfeeping in the shade of its oaks and cedars, 
 still stands as a sanctuary for those who were 
 reared in its teachings. 
 
 One cannot leave the dust and turmoil of the 
 city and spend a Sunday there without feeling 
 that he has climbed to a higher level and breathed 
 a rarer air. It is as if he had taken a plunge into 
 a cool and limpid spring. He comes away re- 
 freshed and stimulated. It was in old times 
 one of the centres of the old Virginia Life; after 
 a period of declension, it is becoming so once 
 more, and peace and happiness, truth and jus- 
 tice, religion and piety are established there„ 
 May they be so established to all generations! 
 
INDEX 
 
 Accomack, 145 
 
 Adams, John, 146; his letter 
 
 to Thomas Pickering, 190- 
 
 192 
 Adams, John Quincy, 193 
 Adams, Professor Herbert A., 
 
 201 
 AboHtionists, the, 237 
 Albemarle Academy, the, 206; 
 
 act passed uniting it with 
 
 Central College, 208-209 
 Alenfon, Duke of, 45 
 Alexandria, 156 
 Alva, Duke of, 31 
 Appomattox, 246; Grant and 
 
 Lee at, 255, 317 
 Aragon, Catherine of, 17 
 Archer, Captain George, 88, 
 
 115; wounding of, 107 
 Argall, Captain George, 125 
 Argall, Captain Samuel, 62, 
 
 117; succeeds Dale as 
 
 Governor of Virginia, 126; 
 
 his laws, 365-366 
 Austin, Arthur W., 233 and note 
 
 Babington, plot of, 45 
 
 Bacon, Lord, 83 
 
 Bacon, Nathaniel, 132; Re- 
 bellion of, 143 
 
 Bagby, George W., 294 and 
 note 
 
 Balboa, Nunez de, 12 
 
 Bartholomew, Saint, 27; mas- 
 sacre of, 39 
 
 Beaver Dam, 348; destruction 
 of rations at, 350; skirmish 
 at, 351 
 
 Bernadotte, 334 
 
 Berkeley, Sir William, 132; re- 
 moved from the Colony, 
 143-1455 161 
 
 Bickertons, Captain John, 149 
 
 Bimini, Isle of, 12 
 
 Black Belt, the, 282-284, 324 
 
 Blair, Parson, 162 
 
 Blatterman, Professor, 221 
 
 Boleyn, Anne, 65 
 
 Bonnycastle, Charles, 221 
 
 "Boston," 297 
 
 Braddock, General, 171 
 
 Braddock's Road, 286 
 
 Brazil, Island of, 10 
 
 Brotherhood, the White, 268 
 
 Breckenridge, General James 
 214 and note 
 
 Brewster, William, loi 
 
 Broddus, Rev. Dr. John, 218 
 
 Bucke, Mr., 97 
 
 Burgesses, House of, 178 
 
 Burrough, Sir John, 74 
 
 Bull Run, 287 
 
 Byrd, Colonel William., 138, 
 149, 292 
 
 Cabell, Joseph C, 201, 208, 
 209; Jefferson's letter to, 
 219 
 
 Cabot, John, ^3, charter 
 granted to, 10; sailing of, 
 II 
 
 Cabot, Sebastian, 10; expedi- 
 tion of, 11; takes service 
 with Spain, 11; recall of, 
 
 Cadiz, 23, 67 
 
 38s 
 
386 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Cambridge, 172 
 
 Carew, Peter, 38 
 
 Caroline, Fort, 22; capture of, 
 by Menendez, 25 
 
 "Carpet-bagger," the, 318 
 
 Cartagena, town of, 52 
 
 Carter's Creek, 368 
 
 Cartier, Jacques, S3 
 
 Cary, Mr., reading of the reso- 
 lutions, 183-185 
 
 Cathay, 7 
 
 Cavendish, Captain Thomas, 
 
 73 
 
 Cecil, Sir William, 34 
 
 Challeux, 35 
 
 Challons, Mr. Henry, capture 
 of, 83 
 
 Chancellorsville, 289 
 
 Chanco, 130 
 
 Chapman, George, 79 
 
 Charles I, 132 
 
 Charles II, 142-143 
 
 Charles V, 16 
 
 Charleston, 156 
 
 Church, the Roman, 4, 17 
 
 Chesapeake, Bay of, 14, 58 
 
 Chickahominy, the, 109 
 
 Cipango, 7 
 
 Civil Lawr, 4 
 
 Claibourne, William, 131, 142 
 
 Clay, Henry, 334 
 
 Clinton, Lord Admiral, 34 
 
 Cocke, John H., 214 and note 
 
 Cocke, General, 371 and note 
 
 Cold Harbor, 334 
 
 Coligny, Admiral, his attempt 
 to found a Protestant State, 
 21; failure of plot to as- 
 sassinate him, 39 
 
 Columbus, Christopher, 10; his 
 gift to Spain, 4; his first 
 appearance, 5; not first to 
 discover New World, 6; 
 sails from Palos, 10 
 
 Columbus Diego, Governor of 
 the Indies, 1 1 ; sends Velas- 
 quez to conquer Cuba, 12 
 
 Comfort, Point, 89 
 
 Comfort, Cape, 89 
 
 Committees of Correspondence, 
 the, 167, 168; the defini- 
 tion of, according to Mr. 
 Marshall, 169 
 
 Committee of Public Safety, 
 the, 167 
 
 Common Law, 4 
 
 Confederate Government, ex- 
 penditures of, 241 
 
 Constant, the Sarah, 60, 84, 100 
 
 Cooper, Dr. Thomas Cooper, 
 214 
 
 Corotomon, 368 
 
 Cortez, Hernando, conquests of, 
 and rebuke to Philip II, 
 
 Corunna, harbor of, 52 
 Croatan, Island of, 52, 61 
 
 Dale, Sir Thomas, 62, 120; his 
 method of dealing with 
 conspirators, 124; his ser- 
 vices to the Colony of Vir- 
 ginia, 125, 126 
 
 Daneville, 287 
 
 Dare, Eleanor, 54 
 
 Dare, Virginia, 71, 69 
 
 Darien, capture of, by Ojeda 
 and Nicuesa, 12 
 
 Davis, Jefferson, 253, 254 
 
 Davis, John, 48 
 
 D'Ayllon, Lucas Vasquez, his 
 attempts at colonization, 
 
 14-15 
 De Beaurepaire, Quesney, 204 
 De Gourges, Dominique, 28 
 Dee, Dr. John, 48 
 Delaware, Lord, 116; arrival 
 
 of, at Virginia, 118-119, 
 
 365 
 
 De Medicis, Catherine, 27 
 
 De Soto, Ferdinand, death of, 
 16 
 
 Devils, Isle of, 117 
 
 De Villegagnon, Nicholas, at- 
 tempts to found a settle- 
 ment, 21 
 
 Diaz, Bartholomew, expedition 
 of, 5 
 
INDEX 
 
 387 
 
 Diaz, Bernal, 16 
 
 Discovery, the, 60, 84 
 
 Drake, Sir Francis, at the bat- 
 tle of Vera Cruz, 37; cir- 
 cumnavigates the globe, 
 43-45; knighted by Eliz- 
 abeth, 44; sack of Santi- 
 ago, St. Augustine and 
 Cartagena, 52; battle with 
 the Armada, 56; his ser- 
 vices to the New World, 68 
 
 Dominica, 86 
 
 Downs, the, 84 
 
 Drayton, Michael, 82 
 
 Dudley, Lord Roberts, 34 
 
 Dudley, Rev. Thomas U., 218 
 
 Dunglison, Robley, 221 
 
 Dunmore, Lord, 136, 161, 172 
 
 Dupont, Mrs., 356 
 
 " Dutch- Ma7i-of -War, A'\ 127 
 
 Dwight, Dr. Timothy, 211 
 
 Eastern empire, captured by 
 the Turks, 5 
 
 Eastward Hoe, Play of, 79-82 
 
 Eaton, Thomas, 145 
 
 Ecclesiastical system, 4 
 
 Eden, Richard, publishes 
 "Decades and the New 
 Worlde," 19 
 
 Effingham, Lord Howard of, 56 
 
 Egerton, Sir Thomas, Lord 
 Chancellor, 77 
 
 El Dorado, 19, 73 
 
 Elizabeth, city of, 145 
 
 Elizabeth, river, the, 5 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, succession to 
 English Crown, 20; her 
 fight against Popery, 20- 
 21; deposed by order of the 
 Catholic Church, 39; let- 
 ter to the "Muscovy Com- 
 pany," 40; her policy, 32- 
 Sy, crushes Catholic re- 
 bellion, 38-39; restrains 
 the ministers, 41; grants 
 letters patent to Sir Hum- 
 phrey Gilbert, 42; treaty 
 
 with United Netherlands, 
 42; her reply to the Span- 
 ish Ambassador Mendoza, 
 44-45; plot to assassinate, 
 45; death of, 75 
 
 Emmet, John P., 221 
 
 England, claim of new land, 
 33, 38; her supremacy at 
 end of 1 6th century, 69; 
 her position before the 
 Revolution, 156-157 
 
 English Channel, 56 
 
 Eolus, the, 297 
 
 Eric the Red, settlement of, 6 
 
 Esmond, Henry, 304 
 
 Falcon, the, 43 
 
 Fauquier, 28 
 
 Ferdinando, Simon, 53; his 
 disobedience of orders, 54 
 
 Fiske, John, 363 
 
 Flanders, Province of, 45 
 
 Flash, Sir Pitral, 79 
 
 Flavio, Gioja, compass in- 
 vented by, 4 
 
 Florida, discovery of, 12 
 
 Fountain of Youth, the, 12 
 
 France, claim of, sS'y nego- 
 tiating for England's aid, 
 
 Francis I, his power crippled 
 
 by Charles V, 16 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 167 
 Fredericksburg, town of, 290- 
 
 292 
 Freedmen's Bureau, the, 257; 
 
 influence of, and effect 
 
 on the negroes, 259-260 
 Frobisher, Sir Martin, 66; three 
 
 voyages of, 41 
 
 Gaines' Mill, 334 
 
 Gap, Thoroughfare, 353 
 
 Gates, Sir Thomas, 77, 116, 
 
 117, 126; arrival of, at 
 
 Virginia, 118; 365 
 George HI, 163, 166 
 Gilbert, Adrian, 37, 48 
 
388 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gilbert, Capt. Bartholomew, 75 
 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 35, 40, 
 43; his plans against Span- 
 ish ships, 42; sells estates 
 to raise money for cruise, 
 47; landing in Newfound- 
 land, and death, 47-48 
 Gilbert, John, 37 
 Gilbert, Raleigh, 77 
 Gilmer, Mr. F. W., 214 and 
 
 note 
 Giovanni da Verraza, captures 
 the treasure intended for 
 Charles V, 16 
 Gomez, Estevan, voyage of, 15 
 Good Speed, the, 60, 84, 100 
 Gordon, Armistead C., 230 
 Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 76 
 Gosnold, Captain Bartholomew, 
 75, 84; grave of, 95; death 
 of, 105 
 Gourges, his landing and at- 
 tack on St. Augustine, 28- 
 29; slaughter of the gar- 
 rison at St. Augustine, 29 
 Grant, General, his report to 
 
 the President, 250 
 Great Bridge, the battle of, 178 
 Great Meadows, 170 
 Green, the historian, 166 
 Grenville, Sir Richard, 38-40; 
 at Roanoke, and explora- 
 tions along the coast, 50- 
 52; leaves men at Roan- 
 oke, 53; battle with the 
 Spanish Armada, 56 
 Greynville, Richmond, 73 
 Grijaloa, superseded in com- 
 mand, 12-13 
 Guinea, coast of, 28, 34 
 Gunston Hall, 288 
 
 Hakluit, Richard, 77 
 Hall, Aaron, 343 
 Hampton Roads, 58, 314 
 Hampton Road, conference, 
 
 the, 314 
 Hancock, John, 187 
 Hanham, Captain Thomas, 83 
 
 Harrison, Benjamin, 148, 187 
 Harvey, Sir John, 131, 161; 
 
 driven out by the colonists, 
 
 142 
 Hatorask, 52, 54 
 Hawkins, William, 34 
 Hawkins, Sir John, 23; first 
 
 voyage of, 34; destruction 
 
 of his ships by Spaniards, 
 
 36; third voyage, 35-37 
 Hebrides, 57 
 Henrico, 124; destruction of, 
 
 130 
 Henricus, College of, 145 
 Henry VII, death of, 16 
 Henry VIII, his succession and 
 
 rule, 16-17; death of, 17 
 Henry, Prince, the Navigator, 5 
 Henry, Patrick, 171, 178, 182, 
 
 193, 196, 283, 334 
 Herndon, Lewis, 291 
 Hispaniola, 11, 14 
 Hoar, Senator, 275 
 Holy Office, the, 31 
 Honeyman's Bridge, 346 
 Hore, Robert, 17 
 "Horse-Shoe Ford," 347 
 Horton, William, 145 
 Hudson, Henry, fate of, 11 
 Hunt, "Worthy Master," 85, 
 
 87» 95> 97> 105; loss of his 
 
 library, 114, 364 
 
 Independence, declaration of, 
 146; debate concerning, 
 181-182, 185 
 
 Inquisition, the, results to 
 Spain of, 37 
 
 Invisible Empire, the, 269 
 
 Investigation, committee of, 
 report of, 270 
 
 Isabella, interview with Co- 
 lumbus, 8; pledges her 
 jewels, 8 
 
 Jackson, Stonewall, 289, 353, 
 354; an incident of, 354- 
 355 
 
INDEX 
 
 389 
 
 James I, 65 
 
 James VI, succeeds to the Eng- 
 lish throne, 75; his hatred 
 of Sir Waher Raleigh, 75 
 
 James, the, 58, 84, 88 
 
 J amestown, what settlement 
 of, signifies, 3; the first 
 English settlement, 59; ex- 
 peditions from, against the 
 French, 62; growth of, 62- 
 63, 64; founding of, 84, 85; 
 attack on, by the Indians, 
 99-100; burning of, 114; 
 first elective assembly at, 
 128; attacked by the Ind- 
 ians, 130 
 
 Jamestown, Island of, 90 
 
 Jane, Queen, 18 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 146, 164; 
 appointed on Committee 
 to frame the Virginia Con- 
 stitution, 187; mentioned 
 in Adams' letter to Pick- 
 ering, 190-192, 193, 196; 
 his "monumental," 194- 
 195; founding of the Uni- 
 versity of Virginia, 198- 
 218; the pioneer of co- 
 education, 201; his plans 
 for the college, 202; found- 
 ing of Albemarle Acad- 
 emy, 206; member of first 
 Board of Visitors, Virginia 
 University, 209; consulted 
 by Governor Nicholas, 210; 
 first President of the Board, 
 University of Virginia, 212; 
 his plans for building the 
 university, 214-217 and 
 note; opposition to, 220; 
 his address to the students, 
 227; his prophecy, 234 
 
 John and Francis, the, 106 
 
 Johnson, Andrew, 255; his at- 
 titude toward the South, 
 255-256 
 
 Johnson, Colonel P.ichard Mal- 
 colm, 343 
 
 Jones, Paul, 290 
 
 Jones, Rev. Hugh, 173 
 fonson, Ben, 79 
 Judith, the, 36 
 
 Kenawha, the great, 170 
 Kendall, George, 88; shot for 
 
 conspiracy, 106 
 Key, Thomas Hewitt, 221, 225 
 Kilpatrick, General, 349 
 King's River, 90 
 Knights of the White Camellia, 
 
 the, 268 
 Ku Klux acts, the, 269 
 Ku Klux Committee, the, 269 
 Ku Klux Klan, the, 267 
 
 La Cosa, exploration of Darien 
 by, 12 
 
 Lane, Ralph, 57; kills King 
 Penisapau, 52; his return 
 home, 52-53 
 
 Laudonniere, Rene de, 21; set- 
 tlement at Fort Caroline, 
 22-23; f3.te of, 23; escape 
 of, from Fort Caroline, 25; 
 publishes an account of 
 the country, 35 
 
 Lee, Henry, 193 
 
 Lee, Richard Henry, 179-180; 
 his letter to Patrick Henry, 
 187, 188; mentioned in 
 letter of John Adams, 190- 
 192 
 
 Lee, Robert E., his example, 
 249; surrender of, 317-318 
 
 Lemoine, 35 
 
 Lewis, Andrew, 170 
 
 Lewis, Brigadier-General, 1S6 
 
 Leyden, 129 
 
 Lief, exploration of, 6 
 
 Lincoln, President, assassina- 
 tion of, 254 
 
 Lindsay, Rev. Dr. John A., 218 
 
 Little River, 332, 346 
 
 Livingston, Robert R., 188 
 
 Long, Professor George, 221, 
 225 
 
390 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Louisiana, cost to, during 
 "Carpet-bag rule" 265- 
 266 and note 
 
 Mabie, Hamilton W., 228, 231 
 Mace, Samuel, 75 
 Madison, James, 209, 283, 305 
 Magellan, Ferdinand, attempt 
 
 of, to circumnavigate the 
 
 globe, 13-14 
 Mandeville, Sir John, 12 
 Marco Polo, compass brought 
 
 by, 4; visit of, 5 
 Mar-del-Sud plate, carrack of, 
 
 44 
 Marshall, John, 193, 283, 305 
 Martin, Captain John, 88, 107, 
 
 115 
 
 Mary, Queen, succeeds Ed- 
 ward VI, 18; her mar- 
 riage to Philip II and 
 grant of charter to mer- 
 chant adventurers, 18-19; 
 death of, 19-20 
 
 Marye's Heights, 288 
 
 Mason, George, 187, 196 
 
 Matanzas, Inlet of, 26 
 
 Maury, Matthew F., 291 
 
 Mayflower, the, 61 
 
 Meade, Bishop, 369; his char- 
 acter, 370-371 
 
 Mechanicsville, 334 
 
 Mendoza, his letter to King of 
 Spain, 45 
 
 Menendez, assault on Fort 
 Caroline, 25; expeditions 
 against Laudonniere, 23- 
 27; his account of the de- 
 struction of the French at 
 Matanzas, 26-27; his in- 
 scription over the French- 
 men slain by him, 27-28; 
 refounds settlement of St. 
 Augustine, 29; effect of 
 his treachery on England, 
 68 
 
 Minion, the, 36 
 
 Minor, Professor, 206-207 and 
 note 
 
 Mississippi, the, 13, 16 
 Mississippi, State of, the State 
 
 levy 266 and note 
 Monroe, James, 209, 210, 283, 
 
 305 
 Montreal, city of, 16 
 More, Sir Thomas, 17 
 Mount Desert, Island of, 125, 
 
 154 
 Mount Vernon, 288 
 Mountain Top, 212 
 Murray, Sir James, 80 
 Muscovy Company, the, 40 
 "The Mysterie and Company 
 of Discoverie of Regions, 
 Domains, Islands, and 
 Places Unknown," associ- 
 ation and founding of, 18 
 
 Navarez, Panfilo de, 16 
 Navarre, Henry of, 45 
 Nelson, Captain Francis, 99, 
 
 no, 115 
 Nelson, Colonel, 373-374, 378 
 Nelson, Thomas, Jr., 182, 186, 
 
 193. 334 
 New Found River, 332 
 New Foundland, 17 
 New Foundland, banks of, 15 
 Newport, 156 
 
 Newport, Captain Christo- 
 pher, 66, 116; voyage of, 
 73-74; capture of the 
 Madre de Dios, 74; com- 
 mander of English fleet, 
 discovery of Virginia, 84; 
 his services to the Virginia 
 colony, 95; exploring ex- 
 pedition of, 99-100; takes 
 first report of the colony to 
 the King, 1 00-101 
 Newport News, 326-327 
 New York, 156 
 Nicholas, George, 178 
 Nicholas, Governor, 210 
 Nicholas, Robert Carter, 182 
 Nicholson, Governor, 145 
 Nicuesa, takes possession of 
 Darien, 12 
 
INDEX 
 
 391 
 
 Nina, the, 297 
 
 Norfolk, 156; burning of, by 
 
 Dunmore, 179 
 North, Lord, 163 
 Northanna, the, 331 
 Northwest passage, the, 1 1 
 
 Oakland, 348, 374 
 Ocracoke Inlet, 51 
 Ojeda, 12 
 
 Old Point Comfort, 326-327 
 Orange, Prince of, 32; assas- 
 sination of, 45 
 Oriel College, 37 
 
 Page, John, 205, 306 
 Party, the court, 127 
 Party, the patriot, 127 
 Paspaha, the Werrowance of, 
 
 Paspiheigh, the river of, 90 
 Pamunkey, the, 332 
 Peckham, Sir George, 40 
 Pedrarias, Governor of Da- 
 
 rien, 12 
 Pembroke, Earl of, 34 
 Pendleton, Edmund, 181, 196 
 Pendletons, General, memoir 
 
 of, 315 
 
 Penisapau, King, plot of, 52; 
 death of, 5 2 
 
 Percy, George, 88, 96, 99; his 
 account of the "Starving 
 time, " 104-105; Governor 
 of the colony of Virginia, 
 240 
 
 Peru, conquest of, 14 
 
 Petersburg, 316 
 
 Philadelphia, 156 
 
 Philip II, Menendez' expedi- 
 tion, 23; his message to 
 Menendez, 27 
 
 Phoenix, the, 106, no 
 
 Pickering, Thomas, mentioned 
 in letter, 190 
 
 Piedmont, the, 282 
 
 Pineda, Alvarez de, 13 
 
 Pitt, William, his recognition of 
 America, 165-166 
 
 Pizarro, the conquest of Peru 
 by, 14 
 
 Planet, the, 297 
 
 Plasiby, Henry, 145 
 
 Pocahontas, 97, 106; saves 
 Captain Smith's life, 109; 
 her service to the English, 
 111-112 
 
 Ponce de Leon, Juan, search for 
 the fountain of youth, 12 
 
 Popham, Chief Justice, 83, 99 
 
 Port Royal, colony of, 20; de- 
 struction of colony at, 22 
 
 Porter, Fitz John, 353 
 
 Portsmouth, 156 
 
 Portugal, papal decree con- 
 cerning, 9 
 
 Potts, letter of, 111-112 
 
 Powhatan, King, 106, 109 
 
 Powhatan, the river, 58 
 
 Pimlico, Sound of, 51 
 
 Prest, Agnes, 38 
 
 Priestly, Dr. Joseph, (206 and 
 note) 
 
 Princeton College, 368 
 
 Prinne, Martin, 83 
 
 "Quicksilver,''^ see "Eastward 
 Hoe," 79 
 
 Raleigh, Walter, Sir, 37; his 
 hatred of Spain, 42, 67; 
 commander of the Falcon, 
 43; his service in Ireland, 
 43; character of, and fa- 
 vor with the Queen, 45-46; 
 his letter to Sir Humphrey 
 Gilbert, 47; granted let- 
 ters patent by the queen, 
 48-49; plans for coloniza- 
 tion of New World, 49; ex- 
 plorations along the coast 
 of Virginia and knighting 
 of, by queen, 50; grants 
 charter for founding of 
 colony in Virginia, 53; bat- 
 tle with the Armada, 56; 
 ordered to give up his com- 
 
392 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Raleigh, Walter, Sir — continued 
 mand, by the queen, 74; 
 expeditions to Guiana 
 coast, 75-76; imprison- 
 ment of, III 
 
 Randolph, Peyton, 172, 187, 
 
 193 
 
 Rapidan, the, 246 
 
 Ratcliffe, Captain, 84, 88, 115; 
 succeeds Wingfield as 
 president of the colony of 
 Virginia, 106 
 
 Reconstruction period, the, its 
 length, 242 
 
 Reformation, coming of, 4; tor- 
 ture secures foothold in 
 Spain, 31 
 
 Revenge, the, 38 
 
 Ribault, Jean, 21; arrival with 
 supplies at Fort Caroline, 
 24; expedition against Me- 
 nendez, 24-25; wreck of 
 his fleet, 25 
 
 Richard, the Bo7ihomme, 8^, 
 290 
 
 Richmond, town of, 291-292 
 
 Rights, declaration of, 185 
 
 Rio de Janeiro, 21 
 
 Rio de la Hacha, town of, 36 
 
 Roanoke, Island of, 50, 79; 
 colonization of, 51; disap- 
 pearance of its colonists, 61 
 
 Rolph, John, 112; his marriage 
 with Pocahontas, 124; 
 probable death of, 130 
 
 Rutledge, Edward, 189 
 
 Salisbury, Earl of, loi 
 Sandys, Sir Edwin, 115, 125; 
 
 the arrest of, 131 
 Sanford, Samuel, 145 
 San Juan d'Ulna, harbor of, 38 
 San Miguel, town of, 15 
 Santiago, town of, 52 
 "Scape-thrift," see "Eastward 
 
 Hoe," 79 
 "Sea-Gull," see "Eastward 
 
 Hoe," 79 
 Sea Venture, the, 97, 118 
 
 Serapis, the, 290 
 Seward, Mr., 278 
 Sharpless, Edward, 131 
 Sherwood, Mrs., books by, 375 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 67 
 Spyco, the hostage, 52 
 Small, Dr., 205 
 Smith, Dr. Augustin, 211 
 Smith, Captain John, 88, 96; 
 discharged from prison, 
 99; discussion about, 102; 
 author's opinion of, 103- 
 104; rescue of, by Poca- 
 hontas, 106; his character, 
 107-109; his account of his 
 rescue by Pocahontas, 109; 
 tribute to, by one of his 
 soldiers, 11 3-1 14 
 Smith, ex-Governor, 355 
 Smith, Meriwether, 182 
 Somers, Sir George, 77, 116; 
 
 shipwrecked, 117 
 South Carolina, taxable values 
 
 of, 266, note 
 Southanna, 332 
 Spain, freed from Moslem rule, 
 4; rights of, 9; claims 
 Brazil, 9; attempt to colo- 
 nize Darien, 16; gains 
 Peru, 14; mistakes in co- 
 lonial policy, 29-30; Span- 
 ish character, 30-31; crip- 
 pled by executions, 31; 
 ambition of, to rule the 
 world, ^y, sends the Ar- 
 mada against England, 
 55-57; extent of territory 
 during the middle of i6th 
 century, 64-65 
 "Spendall," see "Eastward 
 
 Hoe," 79 
 Spert, Capt. Thomas, 17 
 Spottswoods, Governor, 289 
 Spottsylvania, 289 
 Squirrel, the, sinking of, 48 
 Stamp Act, the, 167-168 
 Stanton, Secretary, 255 
 St. Augustine, founding of, 24, 
 
 S2 
 
INDEX 
 
 393 
 
 St. John's River, 22 
 
 St. Juan d'Ulna, Spanish 
 
 treachery at, 68 
 St. Lawrence, Gulf of, 16 
 St. Lawrence, the river, ;^^ 
 St. Mary's, 156 
 Stoneman, General, 349 
 Stuart, Arabella, 75, iii 
 Stuart, Mary, 32; execution of, 
 
 45 
 Stuart, J. E. B., death of, 350 
 Stukeley, Thomas, 35 
 Swiss College, the, 206 
 
 Tampico, 13 
 
 Taylor, Gen. Robert B., 214, 
 
 note 
 Tidewater, the, 282 
 Treasurer, the, 127 
 Trinity House, founding of, 17 
 Thorpe, Mr.. 130 
 
 Utopia, publication of, 17 
 
 Valadolid, 76 
 
 Valasquez, 12, 13 
 
 Vespuci, 12 
 
 Vinland, discovered by Lief, 6; 
 story of, lost, 6 
 
 Virginia, first settlement of, 15, 
 98; the first months of, 98- 
 100; character of the early 
 accounts, 146-152; division 
 of, 280-285; character of 
 the people, 299-304; condi- 
 tions after the war, 319- 
 321; emigration from, 
 after the war, 324-325; 
 mineral sources of, 329; 
 climate of, 330-331; capes 
 of, 86 
 
 Virginia, the. Central Railway, 
 348 
 
 Virginia Company, the, 129 
 
 Virginia, Northern Co. of, 83 
 
 Virginia, Southern Co. of, 8;^ 
 
 Virginia Convention, the, the 
 
 meeting of, in 1776, "iSo 
 Virginia Gazette, the, 149, 151, 
 
 185-186 
 Virginia, the, 118 
 Virginia, University of, its 
 
 situation, 212-213, 230; 
 
 influence over graduates, 
 
 231-232 
 
 Waller's Grove, 186 
 
 Walsingham, Secretary, 47 
 
 Warde, Richard, charter grant- 
 ed to, 10 
 
 Washington, Fanny, 297 
 
 Washington, George, 170, 193, 
 196; takes command of the 
 Continental Army, 172, 
 248, 288 
 
 Watts, John, 70 
 
 Werowocomoco, 109 
 
 West, Sir Thomas, 119 
 
 Westmoreland County, 145 
 
 ■'Westover," 291 
 
 Weymouth, Captain George, 
 arrest of, 76 
 
 White, John, Governor Colony 
 of Virginia, 53; landing at 
 Roanoke, 54; his return to 
 England, 54-55; his at- 
 tempt to return to the 
 colony, 55; leaves colonists 
 at Roanoke, 69-70; de- 
 parture from England de- 
 layed, 70; search for lost 
 colony, 71-72 
 
 Whittaker, Mr., 97 
 
 Wickham, General, 240 
 
 The Wilkes' case, 165 
 
 William, the, 178 
 
 William and Mary, College of, 
 145, 162, 202, 205; at- 
 tempt to move college to 
 Richmond, 217 
 
 Williamsburg, i49> I7i> 1^5 
 
 Win-gan-da-coa, 50 
 
 Wingfield, Edward Maria, 77, 
 96, 115; elected President 
 Virginia Colony, 87-88; 
 
394 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Wingfield, Edward Maria — con. 
 author's opinion of, 102- 
 103; deposed from the 
 presidency of the colony, 
 106 
 
 Wirt, William, 232 
 
 Wowinchapuncha, the Warra- 
 wance of, 90 
 
 Wyat, Sir Francis, 129 
 
 Wythe, George, 196 
 
 Yardley, Sir George, 119; re- 
 instated as Governor, his 
 laws, 128-129 
 
 Yellow Tavern, the, 350 
 
 York, 156 
 
 York River, 114, 139 
 
 Zufiiga, his attempts to injure 
 England's colonial policy, 
 121-123 
 
BY THOMAS NELSON PAGE 
 
 THE OLD DOMINION: 
 Her Making and Her Manners 
 
 $1.25 net; postpaid, $1.35 
 
 The account of the early history and later development of Vir- 
 ginia and of the men and manners that grew up there. Mr. Page is 
 full of the knowledge of his subject and writes of it with as much 
 enthusiasm as judgment. 
 
 UNDER THE CRUST 
 
 Illustrated, $1.50 
 
 " Each of them is what a short story ought to be — complete, ex- 
 plicit, terse." — Providence Jotirtial. 
 
 " This book contains work Mr. Page has never surpassed." 
 
 — T/ie Outlook. 
 
 THE NEGRO: The Southerner's Problem 
 
 $1.25 net 
 
 " The advice of Mr. Page is the best aid to the proper ultimate 
 solution of the question that can be advanced." — Baltimore Herald. 
 
 GORDON KEITH 
 
 Illustrated, $1.50 
 
 "A novel full of serious purpose and generous dimensions, crowded 
 with actors and full of incident. It is a strong, sincere, and deeply 
 interesting novel of character and manners as well." 
 
 — Hamilton W. Mabie in The Outlook. 
 
 BRED IN THE BONE 
 
 Illustrated. $1.50 
 
 " He belongs to the old Virginia quality ; he knows the life of the 
 people, he knows the negro and renders his dialect perfectly; he 
 has an eye for the picturesque, the poetic, and the humorous; and 
 his style shows exquisite taste and ^VxW."— Nashville American. 
 
BOOKS BY MR. PAGE 
 
 RED ROCK 
 A Chronicle of Reconstruction 
 
 Illustrated by B. "West Clinedinst 
 
 I2mo, $1.50 
 
 '* One of the most satisfactory works of fiction that the South has 
 ever produced. On all this crowded canvas there is not a figure that 
 is not drawn from the life, and given character by sympathy or insight 
 into motive." — The Dial. 
 
 THE OLD GENTLEMAN OF THE 
 BLACK STOCK 
 
 With 8 colored illustrations by H. C. Christy 
 l2mo, $1.50 
 
 '* This is not only one of the most characteristic and charming of Mr. 
 Page's studies of Virginia character, but it is a story which readily 
 lends itself to illustration, and especially to the kind of decorative illus- 
 tration which Mr. Christy has given it." — The Outlook. 
 
 IN OLE VIRGINIA 
 Marse Chan, and Other Stories 
 
 i2mo, $1.25 
 
 *' Nothing more beautiful than these stories has ever been penned by a 
 Southern writer. The person who has not read them has missed 
 something akin to the loss of the town-bred child who treads among 
 forests of stone houses, and who has never known a forest of nature, 
 the perfume of wild dog-roses, and the unsoiled beauty of God's 
 sunshine." — New Orleans Picayune. 
 
 THE BURIAL OF THE GUNS 
 
 i2mo, $1.25 
 
 "One can hardly read the story that gives the name to this volume 
 without a quickening of. the breath and moisture of the eye." — - 
 Christian Register. 
 
 * ' Three of them are war stories, and all are told in Mr. Page's 
 charming style." — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
BOOKS BY MR. PAGE 
 
 PASTIME STORIES 
 
 With illustrations by A. B. Frost 
 
 lamo, $1.25 
 
 •' Some of these short character sketches equal in artistic 
 
 moderation and fineness of workmanship the best work 
 
 Mr. Page has ever done."— iV^^^ York Times. 
 
 ON NEWFOUND RIVER: A Story 
 
 i2mo, Illustrated, $1.50 
 '• The rich promise of his rarely beautiful short stories has 
 been fulfilled, and the Old Dominion has another novehst 
 of whom she may be ^xond:'— Rich?,, ond Despatch. 
 
 ELSKET AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 i2mo, $1.00 
 " ' Elsket' is a veritable poem in prose— a tragic poem that 
 vou will hardly read, unless you are v^ry hard hearted 
 indeed, without the tribute of a tear. Of the five stories 
 in the book, however, ^the one which moves me most 
 deeply is ' Run to Seed.'" rr u 
 
 --Louise Chandler Moulton, in the Boston Herald. 
 
 THE OLD SOUTH 
 
 Essays Social and Political 
 
 i2mo, $1.25 
 
 - Thev afford delightful glimpses of aspects and con- 
 
 didonLf Southern life which few at the North have ever 
 
 appreciated fully."— 7^/^^ Congregationalist. 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD VIRGINIA 
 BEFORE THE WAR 
 
 With many illustrations 
 
 l2mo, $1.50 
 
 "This beautiful volume, with its charming illustrations 
 
 wm be much admired by the lovers of 'the good 
 
 old times' which the author describes so graphically. 
 
 old times wnic ^Charleston News and Courier. 
 
^ X3JJ^ 
 
 By THOMAS NELSON PAGE 
 STORIES AND SPECIAL EDITIONS 
 
 " Mr. Page is the brigjhest star in our Southern literature. He 
 belongs to the old Virginia quality; he knows the life of the people, 
 he knows the negro and renders his dialect perfectly, he has an eye 
 for the picturesque, the poetic, and the humorous, and his style 
 shows exquisite artistic taste and sk.ilV'— Nashville American. 
 
 A CAPTURED SANTA CLAUS. Illustrated in colors. 
 I2mo, 75 cents. 
 
 SANTA CLAUS'S PARTNER. With illustrations in colors, 
 ramo, j^i.50. 
 
 IN OLE VIRGINIA. With illustrations by Frost, Pyle, 
 
 Smedley, and others. lamo, $2.50. 
 " A umptuous volume." — Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 IN OLE VIRGINIA. [Cameo Edition.] With an etching by 
 W. L. Sheppard. i6mo, ^1.25. 
 
 M ARSE CHAN. A Tale of Old Virginia. Illustrated. Small 
 
 folio, $1.00. 
 
 MEH LADY. A Story of the War. Illustrated. Small folio, 
 j^i.oo. 
 
 POLLY. A Christmas Recollection. Illustrated. Small folio, 
 
 $1.00. 
 
 UNC EDINBURG. A Plantation Echo. Illustrated. Small 
 folio, $1.00. 
 
 "BEFO* THE WAR." Echoes of Negro Dialect. By A. C. 
 Gordon and Thomas Nelson Page. i2mo, j^i.oo. 
 
 AMONG THE CAMPS, or Young People's Stories of the 
 
 War. Illustrated. Square 8vo, $1.50. 
 
 TWO LITTLE CONFEDERATES. Illustrated. Square 
 8vo, $i.so. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 NEW YORK 
 
 /^^