Thus was the middle class, throughout the entire colonial period, forming and developing. From out the host of humble settlers, the overflow of England, there emerged that body of small planters in Virginia, that formed the real strength of the colony. The poor laborer, the hunted debtor, the captive rebel, the criminal had now thrown aside their old characters and become well-to-do and respected citizens. They had been made over—had been created anew by the economic conditions in which they found themselves, as filthy rags are purified and changed into white paper in the hands of the manufacturer. The relentless law of the survival of the fittest worked upon them with telling force and thousands that could not stand the severe test imposed upon them by conditions in the New World succumbed to the fever of the tobacco fields, or quitted the colony, leaving to stronger and better hands the upbuilding of the middle class. On the other hand, the fertility of the soil, the cheapness of land, the ready sale of tobacco combined to make possible for all that survived, a degree of prosperity unknown to them in England. And if for one short period, the selfishness of the English government, the ambition of the governor of the colony and the greed of the controlling class checked the progress of the commons, the people soon asserted their rights in open rebellion, and insured for themselves a share in the government and a chance to work out their own destiny, untrammelled by injustice and oppression. At the outbreak of the Revolution, the middle class was a numerous, intelligent and prosperous body, far superior to the mass of lowly immigrants from which it sprang.
FOOTNOTES:
[139] Abstracts of Proceedings of Va. Company of London, Vol. II, p. 164.
[140] Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 17 and 18; Bruce, Econ. Hist. of Va., Vol. I, p. 597.
[141] Abstracts of Proceedings of Va. Company of London, Vol. I, pp. 26 and 34; Bruce, Econ. Hist. of Va., Vol. I, pp. 599-600.
[142] Abstracts of Proceedings of Va. Company of London, Vol. I, pp. 162-164.
[143] Bruce, Econ. Hist. of Va. Vol. I, p. 51.
[144] Abstracts of Proceedings of Va. Company of London, Vol. I, pp. 130 and 138.
[145] Force, Vol. III.