There was eventually obtained from Sir Dudley Rider, the king's attorney-general in England, a decision confirming the view which Davies had taken of the toleration act. He expressed himself in regard to the governor and council as follows: "The Honorable Sir William Gooch, our late governor, discovered a ready disposition to allow us all claimable privileges, and the greatest aversion to persecuting measures; but considering the shocking reports spread abroad concerning us by officious malignants, it was no great wonder the council discovered a considerable reluctance to tolerate us. Had it not been for this, I persuade myself they would have shown themselves the guardians of our legal privileges, as well as generous patriots to their country, which is the character generally given them."
In his "State of Religion among the Dissenters," Davies remarks: "There are and have been in this colony a great number of Scotch merchants, who were educated Presbyterians, but (I speak what their conduct more loudly proclaims) they generally, upon their arrival here, prove scandals to their religion and country by their loose principles and immoral practices, and either fall into indifferency about religion in general, or affect to be polite by turning deists, or fashionable by conforming to the church." Of the dissenters in Virginia he says, that at the first they were not properly dissenters from the original constitution of the Church of England, but rather dissented from those who had forsaken it.
Sir William Gooch, who had now been governor of Virginia for twenty-two years, left the colony, with his family, in August, 1749, amid the regrets of the people. Notwithstanding some flexibility of principle, he appears to have been estimable in public and private character. His capacity and intelligence were of a high order, and were adorned by uniform courtesy and dignity, and singular amenity of manners. If he exhibited something of intolerance toward the close of his administration, he seems, nevertheless, to have commanded the esteem and respect of the dissenters. After his departure from Virginia he continued to be the steady friend of the colony. A county was named after him.[449:A] During Sir William Gooch's administration, from 1728 to 1749, the population of Virginia had nearly doubled, and there had been added one-third to the extent of her settlements.[449:B] The taxes were light, industry revived, foreign commerce increased, and Virginia enjoyed a prosperity hitherto unknown. The frugal and industrious Germans were filling up one portion of the valley and the Piedmont country; the hardy, well-disciplined, and energetic Scotch-Irish were peopling the other portion of the valley, and planting colonies eastward of the Blue Ridge. Like the strawberry, the population continually sent out "runners" to possess the land. The contact and commingling of the English, the French, the German, the Scotch, the Irish, while it brought about some collision, yet produced an excitement which was salutary and beneficial to all. So the meeting of the opposite currents of electricity, although accompanied by a shock, results in the renovation of the atmosphere. The people of Eastern Virginia and the inhabitants of the valley have each been benefited by the other; each section has its virtues and its faults, its advantages and its disadvantages, and Virginia does not derive its character from either one, but the elements of both are mixed up in her. This is not the result of chance, or the mere work of man, but the order of a superintending Providence that presides in human affairs.
The government of Virginia now devolved upon John Robinson, Sr., president of the council, but he dying in a few days, Thomas Lee succeeded as president. Had Lee lived longer, it was believed his influence and connexions in England would have secured for him the appointment of deputy governor. He was father of Philip Ludwell, Richard Henry, Thomas L., Arthur, Francis Lightfoot, and William. As Westmoreland, their native county, is distinguished above all others in Virginia as the birth-place of great men, so perhaps no other Virginian was the father of so many distinguished sons as President Lee.
The Earl of Albemarle, after whom the county of that name was called, was still titular governor-in-chief. Of this nobleman, when ambassador at Paris, Horace Walpole says: "It was convenient to him to be anywhere but in England. His debts were excessive, though ambassador, groom of the stole, governor of Virginia, and colonel of a regiment of guards. His figure was genteel, his manner noble and agreeable. The rest of his merit was the interest Lady Albemarle had with the king through Lady Yarmouth. He had all his life imitated the French manners till he came to Paris, where he never conversed with a Frenchman. If good breeding is not different from good sense, Lord Albemarle, at least, knew how to distinguish it from good nature. He would bow to his postillion while he was ruining his tailor."
Lee was succeeded by Lewis Burwell, of Gloucester County, also president of the council. During his brief administration, some Cherokee chiefs, with a party of warriors, visited Williamsburg for the purpose, as they professed, of opening a direct trade with Virginia. A party of the Nottoways, animated by inveterate hostility, approached to attack them; and the Cherokees raised the war song; but President Burwell effected a reconciliation, and they sat down and smoked together the pipe of peace. A New York company of players were permitted to erect a theatre in Williamsburg. President Burwell, who was educated in England, was distinguished for his scholarship; he is said to have embraced almost every branch of human knowledge within the circle of his studies. The Burwells are descended from an ancient family of that name of the Counties of Bedford and Northampton, England. The first of the family, Major Lewis Burwell, came over to Virginia at an early date, and settled in Gloucester. He died in 1658, two hundred years ago. He appears to have married Lucy, daughter of Captain Robert Higginson, one of the first commanders that "subdued the country of Virginia from the power of the heathen." She survived till the year 1675.
Matthew Burwell married Abigail Smith, descended from the celebrated family of Bacon, and heiress of the Honorable Nathaniel Bacon, President of Virginia. Nathaniel Burwell, who died in 1721, married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Robert Carter, Esq. Carter's Creek, the old seat of the Burwells, is situated in Gloucester, on a creek of that name, and not far back from the York River. The stacks of antique diamond-shaped chimneys, and the old-fashioned panelling of the interior, remind the visitor that Virginia is truly the "Ancient Dominion." There is the family graveyard shaded with locusts, and overrun with parasites and grape-vines. The family arms are carved on some of the tomb-stones; and hogs show that the Bacon arms are quartered upon those of the Burwells.[451:A]
FOOTNOTES:
[444:A] The value of coins in Virginia was:—