The Enquirer

The Enquirer.

RICHMOND, DECEMBER 30, 1809.

VIRGINIA.

We are happy to see the Literature of Virginia in so thriving a condition, that there are now two pens engaged in writing the History of this State—The Prospectus of one of these works was in a late paper—from the pen of a gentleman, whose name is not before the public, but who has seen and observed much, has been conversant with many of the scenes which he records, and who may truly say "Quorum magna pars fui" The other is Skelton Jones, Esq. who is to continue Burk's History—a gentleman, whose genius is splendid, and powers of composition are at once brilliant and chaste—and who has had access to many rare documents and valuable materials.—The following is an Extract, from the 1st Part of his Continuation—we present it as a specimen of the promised work.

Extract from the Manuscript of the fourth volume of the History of Virginia.

" **** Patrick Henry was now the idol of popular adoration. He was this year a delegate from the colony of Virginia, to the continental Congress, which was to meet in Philadelphia. On the 15th of May, he commenced his journey from Hanover.—Upon this occasion, he was escorted by a number of young gentlemen, from Hanover, King William and Caroline. They attended him as far as Hooe's ferry on the Potomac. Here they saluted him with a discharge of musketry, by platoons; & rent the air with shouts of congratulation. A guard attended him across the river, and saw him safely landed, on the Maryland shore—thus committing him, by their wishes and prayers, as it were, with martial and pious formality, to the Almighty disposer of all human events. This must have been a day of proud triumph to the heart of Henry: He saw the estimation in which his countrymen held him, and it could not but have inspired grateful feelings, even into the bosom of virtuous ambition. To the actors in this scene of exultation, it must have been a moment of delicious sensibility, and exquisite enjoyment—enjoyment without alloy. They felt themselves animated by one consentaneous impulse of patriotism, conducting the ambassador of Virginia patriotism, and the very genius of eloquence itself, to a scene more glorious than Greece or Italy ever witnessed. It was the chosen minister of freedom, approaching, with hallowed steps, the sacred vestibule of liberty, and laying his credentials on the altar of eternal truth.

Dunmore had now issued a proclamation convening the General Assembly.—This was as unexpected as unhoped for. The publications of the day averred that the governor had previously been deaf to the entreaties of the council to assemble the legislature, and that "the summons came from Lord North" It was recommended from the same source, that every member of the House of Burgesses should repair to Williamsburg "prepared as an American. "—This intimation has been construed to mean that they should assemble in arms and clad in uniform. Whether this admonition was obeyed, I am not prepared to assert but it will appear in the sequel that they did indeed convene with a truly American spirit. I have heard verbally, but from authority which does not warrant my hazarding the statement here, that some were armed with rifles and in hunting shirts, and that others were so. This precaution, if it was really taken, is said to have been intended to guard against the seizure, and transportation, of some of the conspicuous members of that illustrious body. But there is no evidence before me that the governor meditated such a project. Be this as it may, the General Assembly convened on Thursday the first day of June, and the governor addressed them in a speech.

With this speech commenced a political correspondence, between the governor and the House of Burgesses, which notwithstanding its extreme length, I shall give entire. Independent of its great importance from other considerations, it has been permitted by all preceding historians "Taking this correspondence in an abstract point of view, it contains no weak or inelegant exposition of the political privileges of mankind in general: and taken in a practical point of view, by far the most close and animated examination, and over the most clear and forcible defence, of the rights of what was then termed British America, that I have ever had an opportunity of perusing. The studied arguments are here clothed in a language the most chaste and simple.

There has not reached us, from antiquity, amongst the various struggles for liberty in the republics of Greece and Italy, any documents with which these can be fairly compared; but the resolutions and addresses, drawn up, and published, by the English parliament, and the French convention during the periods of their respective revolutions, would suffer by a comparison with the resolutions and addresses of the House of Burgesses of Virginia. They have a merit peculiar to themselves. Composed in tumult of popular assembly, highly irritated at the insulting deportment of the hateful deputy, and the despotic designs of his tyrant master—they possess the perspicuity and precision of the most labored productions of the closet politician.

I have omitted the courtly forms and ceremonies with which these resolutions and addresses were draughted and presented: but I trust, that I have retained their substance and spirit. Most frequently, indeed, the very language itself is preserved.

From what causes the representatives of the people of Virginia became possessed of a spirit so lofty, and a genius so clear and commanding, it may not, perhaps, be worth while briefly, to enquire: And these causes will be found, I believe, in the character of the Virginia people."
No remarks have been the subject of so much speculation as on the causes which produce a difference in the characters of nations, often separated with respect to geographical boundaries, by a mere imaginary line. Perhaps Hume's Essay upon National Characters is superior to any thing that has been written on this subject. He seems inclined to attribute much more to moral than physical causes, in the formation of national characters. 'The character of savage man is, in a great degree, the effect of physical causes, while that of civilized nations depends chiefly upon moral causes. An examination of this question, however, upon general principles, is foreign to my purpose.--The author just mentioned, remarks, that in the formation of the characters of nations, those leading and important circumstances which influenced their original organization into societies, or their emigration and settlement in new countries are indelible, and never totally obliterated, but by the extermination of the inhabitants. This observation may be illustrated by many instances, ancient and modern. The Greek character is still visible at Marseilles; the Milesian in Ireland; the Ancient Briton in Wales; and the enterprise and spirit of adventure of the London Company is not extinguished in the "ancient dominion." In sketching so much of the national character of the Virginians, as belongs to my subject, we shall have occasion to apply the remark of Hume, and reason, I believe, to be satisfied of its justice.

The causes which led to the establishment of the colony of Virginia, and the manner of its settlement, were peculiar to themselves.

The national character of the present inhabitants of those states, which were settled by dissenters from the established church of England, has received its entire bias and aspect from this circumstance. The hardy sons of those venerable sires, sustain their pilgrimage on earth with admirable sobriety, prudence, thriftiness and content: Unambitious, but of the comforts of life, they follow, most frequently, the occupation of their forefathers. The pulpit, the bar, the druggist shop, (not indeed filled with "a beggarly account of empty boxes,"), the counting-house, or the mechanic's stall, are often hereditary in the families of these laborious people; and the destiny of a farmer's son is decided for him, and his lot is cast for life, before he has arrived at an age to acquire the first rudiments of knowledge. Where they turn their attention to science, the national character is still preserved: A lucrative professorship, or the profitable sale of some laborious composition, are the rewards of many long years of probationary study. From these circumstances, perhaps, it may arise, that our Northern brethren far excel us in their progressive improvement in manufactures, and the several branches of natural philosophy. For reasons, however, which will now be offered, it is certain that Virginia has produced more public characters of eminence in the political world, more orators and statesmen, than all the remainder of the United States combined together. So large a portion of enterprising Virginians have emigrated to the other states, and have been selected by those who possessed the elective franchise, to represent them in the grand council of the nation, that a majority of the members composing that body, have been said (by those, indeed, hostile to the influence of Virginia,) to be natives of the Ancient Dominion.

Virginia was settled under the auspices of the London Company, which was an association--composed, in part, of noblemen and gentlemen of conspicuous characters & enlightened minds, for the purpose of peopling a new country. Their views were elevated, their operations upon a large scale, and their success commensurate with the exertions made to obtain it.

Virginia was settled by Englishmen, from the metropolis of their country; by men of adventurous spirits and enterprising characters: Among these, were ruined gentlemen, broken baronets, and beggared lords; men, who had received good educations, whatever use they might have made of them: They formed a class by themselves, and aped the haughty airs and mocked the gorgeous splendor of European aristocracy; yet, they preserved some of the literature, much of the politeness, and all the pride of the fashionable circles of civilized Europe. This state of society had the effect of giving a tone and character to the manners and morals of the whole population of the colony, without affecting its political institutions. The pride of these self-created lordlings, by the force of example and habit, gradually reached the very lowest of the people, and became, as it were, a national feeling: This inspired them with a vain idea of their own importance; but, at the same time, it also excited in them very elevated sentiments of their rights and privileges.

Some of these men, who affected a superiority over the other settlers of the colony, were transitory visitors, and from dissatisfaction, or some other cause, returned again to England; but the effects produced by the polish of their manners remained; the names of others, who became permanent inhabitants, are extinct, and where they are to be found, they are amongst the vocarest in the state. According to the uniform vicissitude in human affairs, while these were going to decay, others were rising in opulence and pride. They too affected a distinction from the poorer classes of people, and imitating the manners of those to whom they had been accustomed to look upon as superiors, continued that state of society, which had been patronized by original settlers or visitors from England.

In the latter days of the Roman Republic, there sprang up a sort of mongrel nobility. Any Plebeian who could boast an ancestor that had borne a curule office--that is an office by which he was entitled to sit in an ivory chair, was recognized as belonging to the order of nobility. They were at first called new men, (novi homines,) or what we understand by the term upstart, but the distinction was soon lost.

Somewhat of this description was the Virginian Aristocracy before the revolution.

But if tradition be correct, there are many names which will shine bright upon the page of history, that derive their origin from sources far less respectable than the opulent plebeian; from ancestors whose emigration to Virginia was not voluntary--but from such as were transported from England to this dominion, in consequence of their dexterity in making irregular transfers of property from their neighbor's pocket to their own.

Like the Patricians of Rome, their origin is lost in fable, or is traced to a runaway menial, or a fugitive from justice.

It has not unfrequently happened that an adventurous spirit, who might be dissatisfied with his condition in Britain or Ireland, would indent himself as a servant; work his passage to Virginia; serve till the term of his indentures expired; become his own man; grow rich; of course, grow proud; leave his pampered offspring princely fortunes; & die in his own opinion a very great man: But the topmost round, in the ladder of family ambition, was not even then reached; the son of this prudent sire must be a councillor--a king's councillor--he is dubbed such; and he and his family have reached the acme of colonial distinction.

The decayed gentry of England, and the upstart aristocrats of Virginia, thus formed a sort of heterogeneous class: into which were admitted, from time to time, the opulent and well bred sons of fortunate tradesmen and mechanics.

But this aristocracy, so obscure in its origin, and so imperious in its effects, would have had no subjects upon which to exercise their tyranny, and gratify their lust of power, had it not been for the introduction of slaves from Africa.

These occupied the place of a race of men unknown in Virginia, but well known in all the civilized countries of the old world. In France, they are called Canaille, in England, "The swinish multitude." These are the men who in other countries, are so dangerous in riots, mobs, and insurrections, and this perhaps is a second benefit arising from the possession of slaves: Virginia has never disgraced herself by these tumults, even during the worst times of the revolution, nor since, within the author's recollection, when party spirit rose almost to phrenzy, in '98 and '99.

The first class, already mentioned, consisted of the upstart aristocracy of the colony, the decayed gentry, and sometimes the younger sons of the nobility of Britain and Ireland: They imitated the manners of the higher orders of Europe. They had received good educations themselves and they gave them to their sons at Oxford or Cambridge, or at William and Mary College. They affected a superiority to the honest, blunt, plain, Virginian: in many particulars an imaginary, in many, a real superiority existed: the latter was the case in learning, and a taste for the fine arts; courtesy and polish of manners: but above all, in that which is an unerring test of civilization and liberal attainments--a ceremonious, habitual and studious regard, to the feelings, the wants, the wishes, the whims, of the other sex.

But the population of the colony did not consist alone of upstart aristocrats and their miserably controlled slaves. There was another, and the only remaining class, which I have just distinguished as the honest, blunt, plain Virginian. The human character is made up of virtues and vices--of wisdom and folly: For these aspired to surpass their superiors in nothing but a love of liberty, and a jealousy of their freedom; to equal them in nothing but pride and independence of spirit; to rival them in nothing but cruelty to their slaves. But their vices were the vices of the times, and their virtues were all their own: and their character and condition, upon the whole, was a most respectable and eligible one. Possessed of a plain English education; by which we understand his having been taught to read and write his mother tongue, and the first practical elements of arithmetic; his literary enjoyments were generally bounded by the sacred writings, and the almanac. All he ate and drank, with the exception of tea, coffee, and sugar, were the produce of his own farm; his wheat bread, and his corn bread, his beef and his bacon; his apple brandy and his peach brandy, were all raised for him, and served up to him, by the sweat of the poor blackamoor's brow.

But there is one remarkable trait in the character of the Virginians of this description, different, it is believed, from any to be found in the character of the same class in any other country. Among this class in society, as before observed, particular trades and occupations are, generally speaking, hereditary in different families, and the destiny of a farmer's or mechanic's son, is decided for him, and his lot is cast, by the time he can lisp the first elements of his mother tongue.

I say generally speaking, for in almost every country there are a thousand accidents which may raise the child of the meanest parentage to the most exalted station; were it otherwise, the effect would be the same that it is in the East Indies, where it has been the custom, from time immemorial, for the children to follow the occupations of their fathers.

There is less of this in Virginia than anywhere else: In conformity with that aspiring temper, that adventurous disposition, that spirit of enterprise, approaching almost to romantic and chivalrous extravagance, which marked the original settlement of the colony, and of which the celebrated Captain Smith may be considered the very personification; there is almost always among them a laudable pride which prompts them to give their children, where there is any promise of genius, and in a thousand instances where there is none, such an education as will qualify him, by engaging in some of the learned professions, to rise to opulence, and thus secure his only passport, into the higher circles of society: for though, as has been said, these men affected to despise the pomp and splendor in which the opulent, well bred circles moved, yet they never lost an opportunity, where one offered, of entering into its circumference. The possession of slaves, even by the very lowest orders of white men in Virginia, among the cultivating plebeians or yeomen to which it has given birth, has been productive of this beneficial temper of mind; it exempts him from making his children bond laborers, and affords him an opportunity, according to his property, and the vicinity of his residence to a seminary of learning, where there is any early indication of genius, or when a partial parent thinks he discerns it, of cultivating it to the best advantage.

We have thus reviewed the causes of the national character of the Virginians. We have seen Virginia settled by adventurers under the auspices of the enlightened London Company; and we have seen her forests peopled by the bloody savages, and as quickly as the world, disappear, and her "wilderness blossom like the rose." We have seen the fertile plains of the ancient dominion, peopled by men who sought to occupy large tracts of country, and like the feudal barons of the middle ages, live in rude profusion, in the midst of their numerous vassals.

profession, in the midst of their numerous vassals. The great Virginia land-holder, like the English baron, might lay his hand upon his sword, when questioned as to his title to his estate. Like the feudal baron too, the rich Virginian planter, had a high idea of his own importance. He saw himself the Lord over hundreds of his fellowmen. He proudly looked about them & he saw that he had no superior. The deformity of slavery was obtruding itself upon his view every moment in the day, and the contrast between its hideousness, and the beauty of unlicenced freedom, had a powerful effect in increasing to a romantic extravagance, the high sense of liberty and daring spirit of independence of the Virginian Freeholder--a spirit which manifested itself so long ago as the usurpation of Cromwell. The love of liberty among the Lacedaemonians of old, and the Virginians of modern times, seems to have increased, though it may appear paradoxical, to say so, with the severity of the discipline which they exercised over their slaves. When to these causes, which gave a peculiar high-mindedness to the Virginian, became superadded, the wild lights of a cheering philosophy, arising in the East, immediately after the revolution in England, in 1688, irradiating, and benutyfying the wide expanse of the Western World--The Virginian Planter stood erect and alone; self collected, his bosom dilated, "his soul walked abroad in its own majesty," and he no longer brooked command, even though it howled in the Eastern blast of royal authority.

Pendleton now addressed the House of Burgesses, composed of the Representatives of such a people as the foregoing sketch describes, in a set speech. He commenced by observing, &c. &c. &c.

"Statutes at Large"--a book which ought to be in the hands of every Virginian.