he broad level plain between the mountains and the sea,
intersected by numerous rivers, in which, far back from the ocean, the
tide ebbs and flows. In this tide-water region were situated the tobacco
plantations which constituted the wealth and were inhabited by the
aristocracy of the colony. Almost every planter lived near a river and had
his own wharf, whence a schooner carried his tobacco to London, and
brought back wines, silks, velvets, guns, saddles, and shoes.

The small proprietors of land were comparatively few in number, and the
whole constitution of the colony, political and social, was aristocratic.
Both real estate and slaves descended by force of law to the eldest son,
so that the great properties were kept intact. There were no townships and
no town meetings. The political unit was the parish; for the Episcopal
church was the established church,--a state institution; and the parishes
were of great extent, there being, as a rule, but one or two parishes in a
county.

The clergy, though belonging to an establishment, were poorly paid, and
not revered as a class. They held the same position of inferiority in
respect to the rich planters which the clergy of England held in respect
to the country gentry at the same period. Being appointed by the crown,
they were selected without much regard to fitness, and they were
demoralized by want of supervision, for there were no resident bishops,
and, further, by the uncertain character of their incomes, which, being
paid in tobacco, were subject to great fluctuations. A few were men of
learning and virtue who performed their duties faithfully, and eked out
their incomes by taking pupils. "It was these few," remarks Mr. Parton,
"who saved civilization in the colony." A few others became cultivators of
tobacco, and acquired wealth. But the greater part of the clergy were
companions and hangers-on of the rich planters,--examples of that type
which Thackeray so well describes in the character of Parson Sampson in
"The Virginians." Strange tales were told of these old Virginia parsons.
One is spoken of as pocketing annually a hundred dollars, the revenue of a
legacy for preaching four sermons a year against atheism, gambling,
racing, and swearing,--for all of which vices, except the first, he was
notorious.

This period, the middle half of the eighteenth century, was, as the reader
need not be reminded, that in which the English church sank to its lowest
point. It was the