eat part of the early deportations thither were the sweepings of the
London streets and the leavings of the London stews. It was this my Lord
Bacon had in mind when he wrote: 'It is a shameful and unblessed thing
to take the scum of people and wicked condemned men to be the people
with whom you plant.' That certain names are found there is nothing to
the purpose, for, even had an _alias_ been beyond the invention of the
knaves of that generation, it is known that servants were often called
by their masters' names, as slaves are now. On what the heralds call the
spindle side, some, at least, of the oldest Virginian families are
descended from matrons who were exported and sold for so many hogsheads
of tobacco the head. So notorious was this, that it became one of the
jokes of contemporary playwrights, not only that men bankrupt in purse
and character were 'food for the Plantations' (and this before the
settlement of New England), but also that any drab would suffice to wive
such pitiful adventurers. 'Never choose a wife as if you were going to
Virginia,' says Middleton in one of his comedies. The mule is apt to
forget all but the equine side of his pedigree. How early the
counterfeit nobility of the Old Dominion became a topick of ridicule in
the Mother Country may be learned from a play of Mrs. Behn's, founded on
the Rebellion of Bacon: for even these kennels of literature may yield a
fact or two to pay the raking. Mrs. Flirt, the keeper of a Virginia
ordinary, calls herself the daughter of a baronet, 'undone in the late
rebellion,'--her father having in truth been a tailor,--and three of the
Council, assuming to themselves an equal splendor of origin, are shown
to have been, one 'a broken exciseman who came over a poor servant,'
another a tinker transported for theft, and the third 'a common
pickpocket often flogged at the cart's tail.' The ancestry of South
Carolina will as little pass muster at the Herald's Visitation, though I
hold them to have been more reputable, inasmuch as many of them were
honest tradesmen and artisans, in some measure exiles for conscience'
sake, who would have smiled at the high-flying nonsense of their
descendants. Some of the more respectable were Jews. The absurdity of
supposing a population of eight millions all sprung from gentle loins in
the course of a century and a half is too manifest for confutation. But
of what use to discuss the matter? An expert genealogist will provide
any solvent