Again (p. 306), in describing one of the domestic quarrels of the colony, he copies a statement:
'And whereas it was affirmed that very few of his majesty's servants were lost in those days, and those persons of the meanest rank, they replied that for one that then died, five had perished in Sir Thomas Smith's time, many being of ancient houses, and born to estates of a thousand pounds a year, some more, some less, who likewise perished by famine.'
These extracts are all that I can urge in support of the claim of Virginians to be descended from the English gentry. There may be many other authorities; it is for the asserters of this theory to produce them, and I certainly would republish them if I could obtain them.
Let us, however, leave Virginia for a time, to consider the origin of the inhabitants of Delaware, Maryland, the Carolinas, Georgia, and those other confederate States which also claim the honor of an English paternity. Here our means of information become more plain and accessible. From about 1730 up to the time of the Revolution, these colonies were the object of the constant attention of England. The wars with France and Spain and the projects of the proprietors of these grants of land combined to make the public of England anxious for information concerning them. I will merely cite from the London Magazine of that date, though a more extended search, I doubt not, would add to the strength of my position. I find in the first place that the new population was not only not cavalier, but not even English. I find that 'the design of this settlement (Georgia) was to provide an asylum or place of refuge for the honest industrious poor, and the unfortunate, with some view to the relief of the persecuted Protestants in Germany. Among these unfortunate persons it could not be guarded against that numbers, unfortunate only by their own vices or follies, intruded themselves among the real 'objects of charity.' In 1737, these Saltzburghers had built a town, Ebenezer, in Georgia. Mr. Oglethorpe also 'planted upon the fourth frontier, at a place called by him Darien, a colony of Scottish Highlanders.' 'The southernmost settlement in South Carolina is now the town of Purrysburg, which was built by Captain Purry, a gentleman of Swisserland, at the head of a number of his own countrymen, who went over with him soon after that country became a royal government.' In 1765 a new fort was built 'on the Savannah river, about fifteen miles above Hillsborough township, which will be of great use to the three new settlements of Irish, French, and German Protestants.' In 1762, 'the Governor of South Carolina has granted forty thousand acres of land to be laid out into two townships for a number of people from Ireland, who are expected here.'
In 1762, 'upward of six hundred German emigrants, men, women, and children, consisting of Wurtzburghers and Palatines, all Protestants, who were brought here by one Colonel Stumpel, with a promise to be immediately settled in America,' were landed in England, and charitably aided to go to South Carolina. In 1766, I read of Florida, 'the principal town is Pensacola, and as many of the French, who inhabited here before the treaty, have chose to become British subjects for the sake of keeping their estates,' that more foreigners were added to the Southern colonies.
Mr. Pickett, whose history of Alabama was published at Charleston, S. C., in 1851, adds, 'a company of forty Jews, acting under the broad principle of the charter, which gave freedom to all religions, save that of the Romish Church, landed at Savannah. Much dissatisfaction, both in England and America, arose in consequence of these Israelites, and Oglethorpe was solicited to send them immediately from the colony. He, however, generously permitted them to remain, which was one of the wisest acts of his life, for they and their descendants were highly instrumental in developing the commercial resources of this wild land.' 'The colony of Georgia had prospered under the wise guidance of Oglethorpe. The colonists, being from different nations, were various in their characters and religious creeds. Vaudois, Swiss, Piedmontese, Germans, Moravians, Jews from Portugal, Highlanders, English, and Italians were thrown together in this fine climate, new world, and new home.'
Even Virginia was not entirely English. Barber's account of the State (p. 451) says of the valley of the Shenandoah:
'The eastern part of the valley being conveniently situated for emigrants from Pennsylvania, as well as from lower Virginia, the population there came to be a mixture of English Virginians and German and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. The German Pennsylvanians, being passionate lovers of fat lands, no sooner heard of the rich valleys of the Shenando and its branches, than they began to join their countrymen from Europe in pouring themselves forth over the country above Winchester. Finding the main Shenando mostly preoccupied, they followed up the north and south branches on both sides of the Massanutten, or Peaked Mountain, until they filled up all the beautiful vales of the country for the space of sixty miles. So completely did they occupy the country, that the few stray English or Irish settlers among them did not sensibly affect the homogeneousness of the population.'
And again:
'The first settlements of this portion of the valley were made by the Scotch Irish, with a few original Scotch among them. They settled in the neighorhoods around Martinsburg, in Berkely county, Winchester, and almost the entire counties of Orange and Guilford. The same race went on into North Carolina, and settled in the counties of Orange and Guilford, especially in the northern and middle parts of the latter county.'