place for the King's-men. The pleasant fields were no longer pleasant. The old home was no longer home. At any moment the tramp of a Roundhead detachment, coming to arrest them, might intrude on the silence of the manor-houses. There was no safety for them in the home-land, and it was natural to go and look for it in Virginia. Good Cavaliers like themselves abounded there. The land was cheap and the climate delightful; the Church in which they worshiped was still open; on the banks of the great rivers they might acquire landed estates, if they could pay the small price for them, and hunt the fox, and toast the King, and talk with old comrades who had preceded them of Marston Moor, and the fearful Naseby, and how the good cause had gone down in blood. In Virginia there were no enemies to lurk, and eavesdrop, and betray them. The Commonwealth's men were in power, but they interfered with nobody. They might look sidewise at Sir William Berkeley, who had no right to remain longer in the Colony, but they did not order him out of it. They might hate the Book of Common Prayer, which was to be used for only a year after the surrender; but it was still used in the churches, and the Commonwealth's-men turned their eyes in another direction, refusing to notice the fact.

Thus, Virginia, "the last country belonging to England that submitted to obedience to the Commonwealth," was the place for the Cavalier people. It was a haven of refuge in the pitiless storm; and all through the feverish years of the Commonwealth, when the homeland was so dreary, the "distressed" fugitives were stealing out of the country, and sailing with sad or glad hearts Virginiaward. Some were penniless, but had

friends or relations there. Others had saved something from the wreck. Many of them were persons of rank, since that class of people ran special danger in England, and Virginia narrowly escaped becoming a place of refuge for a person of the highest rank of all, — Queen Henrietta Maria herself. She is said to have resolved to sail for Virginia in a fleet commanded by Sir William Davenant, in 1651, not long after the King's execution. She did not do so; but the poet set out, and was captured by the ships of the Parliament. The intercession of his brother poet, Milton, is said to have alone saved his life. Thus, Virginia came near seeing on her soil the "Little Queen" of Charles I., and the author of "Gondibert," "rare Sir William Davenant," who boasted that he was the son of Shakespeare.

Of the extent of the Cavalier immigration between 1650 and 1670 there can be no doubt whatever. It was so large and respectable in character that the King's-men speedily took the direction of social and political affairs. Few Commonwealth's-men came to a country where the air was full of Church and King influences; and the Cavaliers were completely in the ascendency. The fact would seem to be unmistakable on the face of the record, but it has been called in question ; it has even been said that the old society was largely made up of servants and felons. The statement is wholly unfounded. It is true that in 1670 there were two thousand slaves and six thousand white servants in Virginia, but there were thirty-two thousand free people; and the servants were merely servants, a class disfranchised by law. As to the number of “felons,” Jefferson placed the whole number sent over, from the time of the settlement to the year 1787, at less than

two thousand; and the whole number of such persons and their descendants in that year at four thousand, which, he said, was "little more than one thousandth part of the whole inhabitants." Nothing in fact is plainer than that the servant or felon element in Virginia society counted socially and politically for nothing.

The character of the King's ing the Commonwealth period na of discussion. They have been

who came over duralso been a subject 'l, even by Vir

ginia writers, as we have seen, "bu flies of aristoc racy," who had no influence in affairs or in giving its coloring to Virginia society. The facts entirely contradict the view. They and their descendants were the leaders in public affairs, and exercised a controlling influence upon the community. Washington was the great-grandson of a royalist who took refuge in Virginia during the Commonwealth. George Mason was the descendant of a colonel who fought for Charles II. Edmund Pendleton was of royalist origin, and lived and died the most uncompromising of Churchmen. Richard Henry Lee, who moved the Declaration, was of the family of Richard Lee, who had gone to invite Charles II. to Virginia. Peyton, and Edmund Randolph, President of the First Congress, and Attorney-General, were of an old royalist family. Archibald Cary, who threatened to stab Patrick Henry if he was made dictator, was a relative of Lord Falkland, and heir apparent at his death to the barony of Hunsdon. Madison and Monroe were descended from royalist families, — the first from a refugee of 1653, the last from a captain in the army of Charles I. And Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, afterwards the great leaders of demo

cratic opinion, were of Church and King blood, since the father of Henry was a loyal officer who "drank the King's health at the head of his regiment;" and the mothers of both were Church of England women, descended from royalist families.

The point may seem unduly elaborated. But it is well to establish the puted questions of history, and this one has been dis ated. One of the highest authorities in American his ry has described the Cavalier element in Virginia as only "perceptible." It was really so strong as to contro all things, the forms of society, of religion, and the direction of public affairs. The fact was so plain that he who ran might read it.

XII.

THE HIDDEN FIRES.

THE "Great Rebellion in Virginia" burst forth in 1676, just one hundred years before another great rebellion of which it was the prophecy. Nothing succeeds like success, and history is polite to victors; to those who fail it is merciless. The English and American rebellions of 1640, 1688, and 1776, are the English and American" revolutions." The rising of the Virginians in 1676, which was precisely similar, is the great "rebellion," since it met with disaster.

What led to this political revolution ending in an open defiance of the Crown, may seem insufficient to account for it. The two main grievances were the English navigation acts, and the grant of authority to two English noblemen to sell land-titles and manage other matters in Virginia. But under these apparently mild causes of

complaint was a vast mass of real oppression and a whole world of misery and suppressed rage.

The trade laws were the prime grievance. When Charles II. returned to his own again, the old law of the Commonwealth (1651) was reenacted that the English colonies, including Virginia, should only trade with England in English ships manned by Englishmen. There was this vital difference however: the law of the Commonwealth seems not to have been enforced, and the law of the Restoration was enforced without mercy. Cromwell had apparently respected the terms of the Virginia surrender of 1652, or, for reasons of his own, chose to shut his eyes to the fact that Virginia was trading with all the world. Charles II. and his advisers kept their eyes wide open, and would neither permit this foreign trade, nor even any trade with the other colonies without a heavy excise. The whole commerce of Virginia was thus held in the inexorable clutch of England. It was a huge and grinding monopoly. The great staple, tobacco- the very currency of the colony, and all other produce, came to the one market, England, to humbly ask the one purchaser what he would be good enough to pay for them.

This was not only a political wrong, it was an enormous blunder. The system crippled the colony, and by discouraging production decreased the English revenue. The first principles of political economy seemed to be unknown to the statesmen of the time. To profit from Virginia they ground down Virginia. Instead of friends they were enemies who caught her by the throat and cried "pay that thou owest." Exports were loaded with a heavy duty both in Virginia and England. Before the outward-bound ship could sail past Point Com