The increase in the number of slaves after 1650 is a fact of similar import with the greater size of the estates. All the circumstances agree in showing that there was a large influx of eminently well-to-do people. It is well known, moreover, who these people were. It is in the reign of Charles II. that the student of Virginian history begins to meet frequently with the familiar names, such as Randolph, Pendleton, Madison, Mason, Monroe, Cary, Ludwell, Parke, Robinson, Marshall, Washington, and so many others that have become eminent. All these were Cavalier families that came to Virginia after the downfall of Charles I. Whether President Tyler was right in claiming descent from the Kentish rebel of 1381 is not clear, but there is no doubt that his first American ancestor, who came to Virginia after the battle of Worcester, was a gentleman and a royalist.[20] Until recently there was some uncertainty as to the pedigree of George Washington, but the researches of Mr. Fitz Gilbert Waters of Salem have conclusively proved that he was descended from the Washingtons of Sulgrave, in Northamptonshire, a family that had for generations worthily occupied positions of honour and trust. In the Civil War the Washingtons were distinguished royalists. The commander who surrendered Worcester in 1646 to the famous Edward Whalley was Colonel Henry Washington;[21] and his cousin John, who came to Virginia in 1657, was great-grandfather of George Washington. After the fashion that prevailed a hundred years ago, the most illustrious of Americans felt little interest in his ancestry; but with the keener historic sense and broader scientific outlook of the present day, the importance of such matters is better appreciated. The pedigrees of horses, dogs, and fancy pigeons have a value that is quotable in terms of hard cash. Far more important, for the student of human affairs, are the pedigrees of men. By no possible ingenuity of constitution-making or of legislation can a society made up of ruffians and boors be raised to the intellectual and moral level of a society made up of well-bred merchants and yeomen, parsons and lawyers. One might as well expect to see a dray horse win the Derby. It is, moreover, only when we habitually bear in mind the threads of individual relationship that connect one country with another, that we get a really firm and concrete grasp of history. Without genealogy the study of history is comparatively lifeless. No excuse is needed, therefore, for giving in this connection a tabulated abridgment of the discoveries of Mr. Waters concerning the forefathers of George Washington.[22] Beside the personal interest attaching to everything associated with that immortal name, this pedigree has interest and value as being in large measure typical. It is a fair sample of good English middle-class pedigrees, and it is typical as regards the ancestry of leading Cavalier families in Virginia; an inspection of many genealogies of those who came between 1649 and 1670 yields about the same general impression. Moreover, this pedigree is equally typical as regards the F ancestry of leading Puritan families in New England. The genealogies, for example, of Winthrop, Dudley, Saltonstall, Chauncey, or Baldwin give the same general impression as those of Randolph, or Cary, or Cabell, or Lee. The settlers of Virginia and of New England were opposed to each other in politics, but they belonged to one and the same stratum of society, and in their personal characteristics they were of the same excellent quality. To quote the lines of Sir William Jones, written as a paraphrase of the Greek epigram of Alcæus inscribed upon my title-page:—
WASHINGTON OF NORTHAMPTON AND VIRGINIA.
Arms.—Argent, two bars and in chief three mullets Gules. John Washington, of Whitfield, Lancashire, time of Henry VI. | | Robert Washington, of Warton, Lancashire, 2d son. | | John Washington, of Warton, m. Margaret Kitson, sister of Sir Thomas Kitson, alderman of London. | | Lawrence Washington, of Gray’s Inn, mayor of Northampton, obtained grant of Sulgrave Manor, 1539, d. 1584; m. Anne Pargiter, of Gretworth. | +--------------------+--------------------------------+ | | Robert Washington, Lawrence Washington, of Sulgrave, b. 1544; of Gray’s Inn, m. Elizabeth Light. register of High | Court of Chancery, | d. 1619. | | | | Lawrence Washington, Sir Lawrence Washington, of Sulgrave and Brington, register of High Court of d. 1616; m. Margaret Butler. Chancery, d. 1643. | | +--------+-----+--------------+ | | | | | Sir William Sir John Rev. Lawrence Lawrence Washington, Washington, Washington, Washington, d. 1662; m. Eleanor Gyse. d. 1643; m. Anne d. 1678. M. A., Fellow | Villiers, of Brasenose | half-sister of College, Oxford, | George Villiers, Rector of Purleigh, | Duke of d. before 1655. | Buckingham. | | | | | | +-----------------+ | | | | | Henry Washington, John Lawrence Washington, Elizabeth Washington, colonel in the Washington, b.1635, came to heiress, d. 1693; royalist army, b. 1631, Virginia, 1657. m. Earl Ferrers. governor of d. 1677; Worcester, came to d. 1664. Virginia, 1657; m. Anne Pope. | Lawrence Washington, d. 1697; m. Mildred, dau. of Augustine Warner. | | Augustine Washington, b. 1694, d. 1749; m. Mary Ball. | | George Washington, b. 1732, d. 1799. First President of the United States.
“What constitutes a State?
Not high-raised battlement or laboured mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starred and spangled courts
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.
No:—MEN, high-minded MEN,
“Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain,
Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain:
These constitute a State.”[23]
Such men were the Cavaliers of Virginia and the Puritans of New England.
Importance of the Cavalier element in Virginia.
There can be little doubt that these Cavaliers were the men who made the greatness of Virginia. To them it is due that her history represents ideas and enshrines events which mankind will always find interesting. It is apt to be the case that men who leave their country for reasons connected with conscience and principle, men who have once consecrated themselves to a cause, are picked men for ability and character. Such men are likely to exert upon any community which they may enter an influence immeasurably greater than an equal number of men taken at random. It matters little what side they may have espoused. Very few of the causes for which brave men have fought one another have been wholly right or wholly wrong. Our politics may be those of Samuel Adams, but we must admit that the Thomas Hutchinson type of mind and character is one which society could ill afford to lose. Of the gallant Cavaliers who drew the sword for King Charles, there were many who no more approved of his crooked methods and despotic aims than Hutchinson approved of the Stamp Act. No better illustration could be found than Lord Falkland, some of whose kinsmen emigrated to Virginia and played a conspicuous part there. A proper combination of circumstances was all that was required to bring the children of these royalists into active political alliance with the children of the Cromwellians.
Differences between New England and Virginia.
Both in Virginia and in New England, then, the principal element of the migration consisted of picked men and women of the same station in life, and differing only in their views of civil and ecclesiastical polity. The differences that grew up between the relatively aristocratic type of society in Virginia and the relatively democratic type in New England were due not at all to differences in the social quality of the settlers, but in some degree to their differences in church politics, and in a far greater degree to the different economic circumstances of Virginia and New England. It is worth our while to point out some of these contrasts and to indicate their effect upon the local government, the nature of which, perhaps more than anything else, determines the character of the community as aristocratic or democratic.