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" Who would have thought it! Who would have thought it! But we shall know better how to deal with them another time ! "
He was not to have any more dealings with them. As he drew near Great Meadows, the scene of Wash.
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ington's capitulation in the year before, his strengtlı failed him. He could go no further, and the end soon came. Four days after the battle to which he had ad- vanced with the joy of a soldier, Braddock expired (July 13, 1755), and was buried in the wilderness. His grave was dug near old Fort Necessity, and Washington read the burial service, for there was no chaplain. Then the spot was carefully concealed to prevent its discovery by the Indians ; and without even firing a salute over the soldier's grave, the English officers and the Virgin- ians continued their way toward Cumberland.
The remnant of the fine army had preceded them - a crowd of disordered fugitives. The campaign which was to capture Duquesne and Niagara and Frontenac before the autumn, had ended in a single month with Braddock cold in his grave, and the flower of his troops butchered. What was left of his fine army marching proudly to the tap of the drum, was a remnant of shud- dering fugitives, crouching down behind the defenses at Fort Cumberland, and listening for the tramp of the French and the yells of the savages.
XXVII.
THE END OF THE STRUGGLE.
THE bloody ending of Braddock's enterprise exposed the whole western frontier of Virginia to the enemy. She had to look to herself now, for the King's troops and commanders had been tried and found wanting. Washington, the one man who was able to protect the border, had been set aside as a " Provincial," and had returned to Mount Vernon ; but now in the time of pub
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THE END OF THE STRUGGLE.
lic distress he was again called upon. In the autumn of 1755, when the shadow of the Duquesne disaster dark- ened the whole frontier, he was sent to Winchester by the Virginia authorities to defend the valley.
The times demanded the faculties of the organizer and the nerve of the soldier. The region toward the Ohio swarmed with Indians who were inflamed by the disaster to the English arms and were committing mer- ciless outrages on the inhabitants. Of these outrages we find terrible accounts in the border chronicles, of which one or two examples are here given : " An In- dian seized Mrs. Scott and ordered her not to move; others stabbed and cut the throats of the three smaller children in their beds, and afterwards lifting them up, daslied them upon the floor near their mother. The eldest, a beautiful girl of eight years old, awoke, es- caped out of bed, ran to her parent and cried, "O mamma, mamma ! Save me!" The mother with a flood of tears entreated the savages to spare the child, but they tomahawked and stabbed her in her mother's arms." Such events were of frequent occurrence, and even greater enormities were committed. In the Shenan- doah Valley a settler's house was attacked by savages, burned to the ground, and four children, torn from their mother, hung to trees and shot to death. One boy of twelve or thirteen was taken away prisoner with his father and brother, and his fate is given in the words of the border historian : " They first ordered him to col- lect a quantity of dry wood. The poor little fellow shuddered, burst into tears, and told his father they intended to burn him. His father replied, 'I hope not,' and advised him to obey. When he had collected a sufficient quantity of wood, they cleared and smoothed
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a ring around a sapling, to which they tied him by one hand, then formed a trail of wood around the tree, and set it on fire. The poor boy was then compelled to run round in this ring of fire until his rope wound him up to the sapling, and then back till he came in contact with the flame, whilst his infernal tormentors were drinking, singing, and dancing around him. This was continued for several hours, until the poor and helpless boy fell and expired with the most excruciating torments."
These horrors will account for the old border senti- ment toward the Indians. Intense hatred burned in every breast, and the war of the races was a war to the death. Under the pressure of the incessant peril the characters of the frontiersmen developed the rugged strength which is so noticeable a feature of the times ; and the millions of Americans who are descended from them have in their blood still the manhood resulting from these bitter trials.
When Washington repaired to Winchester he found the place full of refugees, and he wrote to Governor Dinwiddie : "The supplicating tears of the women and moving petitions of the men melt me into such deadly sorrow that I solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to the people's ease." It was hard to reduce the chaos to order, but the work was performed; and soon the frontier was in a state of defense. A fort was built in the suburbs of the town, named Fort Loudoun from the English com- mander ; and this was mounted with twenty-four cannon, and had barracks for four hundred and fifty men. In his quarters above the gateway, Washington overlooked the tumultuous crowd of borderers, and his orders at
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length moulded them into a military force. The work was accomplished in spite of the incapacity of the Gov- ernor, who complained that the young " Provincial " treated him with scant ceremony. The simple fact was that Washington was a soldier, and the Governor an ex- clerk filling a position for which he was wholly unfitted. Knowing the necessities of the time and place, the young commandant wrote his mind freely, and spite of every official hindrance accomplished his object. The border was protected, and no enemy came to assail it, - the first hard and successful military work of the future General of the American armies.
With the year 1758 the long struggle virtually ended. An attack was made on Fort Duquesne by Major Grant with eight hundred men, and his force was cut to pieces with the exception of a small remnant. These were saved by Captain Bullit, an officer of the Virginia forces, who charged the enemy and covered the retreat of the few survivors. In November of the same year, however (1758), General Forbes advanced in force, and the French blew up Fort Duquesne and retreated. Washington, now Lieutenant-Colonel, was the first to enter with his Virginians, and planted the flag of Eng- land on the smoking ruins.
The last act of the drama was the fierce wrestle on the Plains of Abraham, where a monument inscribed " Here died Wolfe, victorious," still commemorates the final scene. It is the historic landmark of the conclu- sion of the bitter struggle, and the long rivalry of France and England in America. Canada was lost and the great region south of the Lakes along with it. The Eng- iish line in the west was to be the Mississippi, and in the redistribution of territory the Floridas were surren-
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`dered by Spain. Thus England had become mistress of a greater domain than was claimed in the old Virginia charters. " Nova Francia " in the north and Florida in the south had been absorbed by the conquering Anglo- Saxons.
Here the period of the Colony ends and the period of the Commonwealth virtually begins. Out of the war with France grew the struggle which separated the Eng- lish provinces from the Crown. Peace was formally concluded in the year 1763. In the same year Patrick Henry declared at Hanover Court House that the Vir- ginians alone had the right to legislate for Virginia. Two years afterwards in the House of Burgesses he re- peated the same defiance, in the discussion of the Stamp Act, and the action of Virginia " gave the signal to the Continent."
XXVIII.
SOME WRITINGS OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
A FEW works written by Virginians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries demand special notice. They are remarkable writings for the place and time, and are entitled to a high rank in American literature.
Among these works are the pamphlets giving a de- tailed account of the Great Rebellion. Their titles are : -
I. " The Beginning, Progress, and Conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia in the years 1675 and 1676," by a writer signing himself "T. M."
II. " An Account of Our Late Troubles in Virginia, written in 1676 by Mrs. An. Cotton of Q. Creek."
III. " A Narrative of the Indian and Civil Wars in
WRITINGS OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 359
Virginia in the years 1675 and 1676," of which the authorship is not indicated in any manner.
These are the contemporary narratives written by eye-witnesses of the events and are invaluable authori- ties for the history of the Great Rebellion. They were discovered by a fortunate accident. "T. M.'s Account" was found in England in MS. in the library of Lord Oxford, and was sent to Jefferson, who thought it so im- portant that he " most carefully copied it with his own hand." The other narratives were discovered also in MS., soon after the Revolution, in the home of " an old and respectable family of the Northern Neck of Vir- ginia," and only printed in the present century. Of the writers almost nothing is known. "T. M.," whose work is, perhaps, the most picturesque and valuable, seems to have drawn up his account for the pleasure of Lord Oxford, and only says of himself that he resided in Northumberland County and was a Burgess from Staf- ford. He is supposed to have been Thomas Matthews, a son of the Governor, but the fact is not established. As to " Mrs. An. Cotton of Q. Creek," she is a shadow ; and the writer of the third narrative is absolutely un- known.
But the authorship of the pamphlets is of little impor- tance. They were at least written by Virginians in Vir- ginia, and are among the most curious productions in American literature. The style indicates a complete transition from the earnestness and rude strength of the writings of the Plantation time, to the quibbling and conceits of the time of Charles II. The authors are nothing if not humorous. They overload their pages with quaint phrases and grotesque expressions. How- ever serious the events may be, they look at them from
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the ludicrous point of view, and the passionate tragedy of the Rebellion becomes a species of comedy. At the attack on the Maryland fort the Indians " slipt through the leaguer leaving the English to prosecute the siege as Schogin's wife brooded the eggs that the fox had sucked." The ladies placed upon the Jamestown earth- works are the " white aprons " and " a white guard to the Devil ; " and Ingram is an " ape " who steps on the stage when the lion has made his exit, - a " milksop general " who stands " hat in hand looking as demurely as the Great Turk's Mufty." Thus all turns to conceit under the hands of the jocose T. M. and his associates, who nevertheless present a clear, detailed, and admirably picturesque account of the great events which they have seen pass before them. Bacon himself is often carica- tured, but the general admiration of the individual is plain from the narratives ; and that by an unknown writer contains some verses referring to him which are remarkable. They are styled "Bacon's epitaph made by his man," but were probably written by some gentle- man of the time who feared to sign them. A short ex- tract will indicate their force.
"Only this difference does from truth proceed, They in the guilt, he in the name must bleed, While none shall dare his obsequies to sing In deserv'd measures, until time shall bring Truth crown'd with Freedom, and from danger free, To sound his praises to posterity."
An excellent work, written soon after the Rebellion (in 1687), was " A Deed of Gift for my dear son, Cap- tain Matt. Page," by John Page of Rosewell. The Deed of Gift is a devout production full of the earnest- ness and piety which characterized so many members of this excellent family. It contains serious exhortations,
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WRITINGS OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 361
and maxims for right living, and is written with quaint force, as where the author says: "Think it a long art to die well, and that you have but a short time to learn it ; you cannot be robbed by death of the time or years already spent because they are already dead to you ; and that time which is yet to come is not yet yours."
Two valuable histories of Virginia were produced in the first half of the eighteenth century : that by Rob- ert Beverley, published in 1705, and that by William Stith in 1747. Beverley was a son of the Major Rob- ert Beverley who had sided with Berkeley, and he wrote his liistory to correct the errors of a British account of Virginia. The narrative portion of the work, however, is only a summary and is frequently inaccurate ; tlie real value of the book consists in the full account of the structure of government and the condition of society in Virginia. The author was an ardent Virginian, but does not spare the foibles of his brother planters, who are de- lineated with a caustic pen. Stith's history extends only to the end of what is in this book styled the Plantation period, and is the work of an enthusiastic student. The author was an exemplary clergyman who had been pro- fessor in William and Mary College. He was after- wards minister at Varina, Dale's old settlement, where he wrote his history as "a noble and elegant entertain- ment," he says, "for my vacant hours." The work is famous for its extreme accuracy, and procured for the writer the honorable title of " the accurate Stith." It is based throughout on Smith's " General History," and he speaks of the soldier as " a very honest man and a strenuous lover of the truth ; " in which he differs to a surprising extent from the modern critics whose long perspective seems to have magnified their powers of vis-
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ion. Stith had planned a full history down to his own time, but never completed it. A third work was the brief history of the colony by Sir William Keith, but it is of little value as an authority.
One author of the period remains to be spoken of : a man of brilliant wit, of high culture, and the richest humor, a Virginian of Virginians, and the perfect flower of his time. Early in the century steps on the stage and begins to write, the Honorable William Byrd of " Westover," the elegant gentleman and traveler-author, whose visit to Spotswood on the Rapidan has been no- ticed. He was one of the brightest stars in the social skies of Colonial Virginia. All desirable traits seemed to combine in him : personal beauty, elegant manners, literary culture, and the greatest gayety of disposition. Never was there a livelier companion, and his wit and humor seemed to flow in an unfailing stream. It is a species of jovial grand seigneur and easy master of all the graces that we see in the person of this old author- planter of the banks of James River. He wrote with- out thinking of or caring at all for the critics ; as men do when the spirit moves them, and for their personal .pleasure. Two or three pamphlets contain all his writ- ings, of which the longest is the " History of the Divid- ing Line," a record of his journey to establish the bound- ary between Virginia and North Carolina. This sparkles all over with wit and the broadest humor, much too broad and comic indeed for a drawing-room table in the nineteenth century. But it is a virile and healthy book, full of high spirits and the zest of open-air life. The gay Colonel afterwards wrote his "Journey to the Land of Eden," and " Progress to the Mines ; " and the large manuscript volume, containing the three works, may
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WRITINGS OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
still be seen under his portrait at "Brandon," on James River. They brim with humor and incessant jests, particularly at the expense of the ladies, whom the writer seems to have liked so much that he could never forbear from teasing them. We may fancy the worthy planter in ruffles and powder, leaning back in his arm- chair at Westover, and dictating, with a smile on his lips, the gay pages to his secretary. The smile may be seen to-day on the face of his portrait; a face of re- markable personal beauty framed in the curls of a flow- ing peruke of the time of Queen Anne.
But the status and surroundings of this famous old Virginia author were very different from those of Steele and Addison. If there were garrets at Westover it is not probable that the serene nabob ever intruded on their dust. He was " the Honorable William Byrd, Esq., who, being born to one of the amplest fortunes in this country, was sent early to England, where he made a happy proficiency in polite and various learn- ing ; contracted a most intimate and bosom friendship with the learned and illustrious Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery; was called to the bar of the Middle Tem- ple ; was chosen Fellow of the Royal Society ; and be- ing thirty-seven years a member, at last became presi- dent of the Council of this colony." This colonial seigneur, who wrote the famous " Westover MSS." for his amusement, was also " the well-bred gentleman and polite companion, the constant enemy of all exorbitant power, and hearty friend of the liberties of his coun- try." His path through life was a path of flowers. He had wealth, culture, "the best private library in Amer- ica," social consideration, and hosts of friends ; and when he went to sleep under his monument in the
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garden at Westover, he left behind him not only the reputation of a good citizen, but that of the great Vir- ginia wit and author of the century.
XXIX.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF VIRGINIA.
THE eighteenth century may be styled the Golden Age of Virginia. It was the period when the colony reached the most peculiar and striking stage of its de- velopment. The future will no doubt prove an era of larger material growth ; it is impossible that it can pre- sent the same remarkable characteristics and contrasts. A prosperous and brilliant society flourished on the banks of the lowland rivers, and a hardy race had set- tled in the Valley, beyond which a scattered population of hunters and pioneers was pushing toward the Ohio. The period, the men, the modes of life, were all pictur- esque and full of warm blood as in the youth of a nation. Society had not lost the impetus of the first years, but it was firm in the grooves. By the end of the seven- teenth century it had taken the mould which it pre- served until the great political and social convulsion of the Revolution gave it a new shape.
Let us glance at this ancient regime which is now the deadest of dead things, and endeavor to avoid ex- treme views about it. It is easy to denounce or to eulogize it, to represent it as a bad social organization which met with the fate which it deserved, or as the model in all things of a well-ordered community. Neither view is just, and the truth lies, as usual, between the two extremes. That old society had its virtues and its vices
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THE GOLDEN AGE OF VIRGINIA.
like other societies ; with all its courage and kindliness it was extremely iutolerant; but it succeeded in work- ing out the problem of living happily to au extent which we find few examples of to-day. It presented, above all, the curious phenomenon of a community composed of varied classes who never came into collision with each other - a democratic aristocracy which obstinately resisted the royal authority, and first and last fought for the doctrine that the personal right of the citizen was paramount to all. An immense change had taken place in society since the Plantation time. What was rude had become luxurious. The log-houses of the early settlers had given place to fine manor-houses. Where forests once clothed the rich low grounds there were now cultivated fields. The pioneer who had scarcely dared to stir abroad without fire-arms was now a ruffled dignitary who rode in his coach-and-four - a justice, a vestryman, and worshipful member of the House of Burgesses. His land, purchased for a trifle, had be- come a great and valuable estate. No creditor could touch it, for it was entailed on his eldest son. The wilderness of Virginia had been turned into a new Eng- land, where the lord of the manor ruled, and his son would rule after him.
This development of the first adventurers into nabobs and lords of society may be said to have fairly begun with the Cavalier invasion after the execution of Charles I. Many of these immigrants were men of rank and brought with them to Virginia the views and habits of the English gentry. They set the fashion of living; and continued to influence Virginia usages to the time of the Revolution. Then the old was confronted by the new. The time was evidently at hand when so-
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ciety was to be reorganized and established on another basis. The Commonwealth slowly undermined and was to end by effacing the Colony. Royalist and aristocratic sentiments had lost their force, and were regarded as antiquated. It was seen that kings and a privileged class were no longer necessary to the existence of na- tions ; and the result was the theory of republicanism, the mainspring of the modern world.
The period from the middle of the seventeenth cen- tury to the Revolution was thus the high-water mark between the flow and ebb of the social tide in Virginia. What preceded it was formation, what followed it was transition. During this era only, society is stationary. It presented all the features of a social fabric which has settled down firmly and which nothing can shake from its foundations. A prevalent fancy is that this foundation was African slavery, but no impression could be more unfounded. African slavery, and the system of indented servitude, which was the same thing in a milder form, were only incidents. This subjection of a part of the community to the rest was congenial to the love of ease and rule in the Virginia character, but there the effect of the system ended. The Virginia landholder would have been the same individual in the absence of slaves or indented servants. The sentiment of aristocracy attributed to him was quite independent of the system, as it is independent of any such institu- tion in the English of to-day. The planter regarded his servants - the term "slave " was rarely used - simply as laborers and domestic attendants, who pro- duced his crops and waited upon him. In return, he was to supply them with the necessaries of life; and there was a well-grounded conviction that they were a
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costly luxury. It was not seen, as we may see to-day, that slavery was the gangrene of the body politic, but its vice was even then clearly pointed out. Mr. Boucher, a minister, preaching to the planters of Hanover in 1763, said : "Except the immediate interest he has in the property of his slaves, it would be for every man's in- terest that there were no slaves, because the free labor of a free man who is regularly hired and paid for the work he does, and only for what he does, is in the end cheaper than the eye service of the slave."
As a simple historic fact, African slavery, like the system of indented servitude, was in the eighteenth cen- tury a great feature of American society, not of the South only. There was little prejudice against it, north or south, in those early years ; and the predominance of the race in the South was the result of climatic con- ditions only. The number of African slaves in North America in 1756, the generation preceding the Revolu- tion, was about 292,000. Of these Virginia had 120,000, her white population amounting at the same time to 173,- 000. The African increase in Virginia had been steady. In 1619 came the first twenty, and in 1649 there were 300. In 1670 there were 2000. In 1714 there were 23,000. In 1756 there were 120,000. The 172,000 who, in addition to these, made up the African popula- tion of America, were scattered through the provinces from New England to Georgia. The class were almost uniformly well treated. Nothing indeed could be more unjust than the impression that the slaveholder of Vir- ginia or New England was a brutal tyrant. The Afri- can was regarded in the light of an humble friend and retainer ; and the clergyman above mentioned said to bis listeners in Virginia : "I do you no more than jus-
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tice in bearing witness that in no part of the world were slaves ever better treated than, in general, they are in these colonies."
Virginia society in the eighteenth century was com- posed of heterogeneous materials. Beginning with Ac- comac and the lower Tidewater, we have the 'longshore- men, living by their nets, a merry and careless race, fond of their "horse-penning" festivities on the islands of the Atlantic coast, when the wild horses were driven up in autumn to be caught; the merchants or " factors " in the infrequent towns; the small landholders, an- swering to the English yeomen ; the planters of the James and York ; the Church of England and " New Light" ministers ; the Scotch-Irish and others settled in the Valley ; and the border families of the moun- tains, pushing civilization steadily beyond the Allegha- nies. One of the most interesting of these types was the small landholder. The impression that this class were men of inferior character, having a great jealousy of the planters, has nothing whatever to support it. It is largely due to Mr. Wirt and other writers who al- lowed their imaginations to control their judgments. The proof is everywhere seen in the old records that the planters and small landholders lived in entire har- mony, and had a mutual respect and regard for each other. They opposed Berkeley together, and fought side by side under Bacon ; stood shoulder to shoulder in the Revolution ; and as neighbors and fellow-citizens were associated and worked together for aims as dear to one class as to the other. The question of suffrage never divided them - that applied only to freedmen who had served their time, but were yet landless. Freehold tenure of his estate made the small landholder the po
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