Monticello, and gave to it many months of his time in
the prime of his life.

The public life of the aristocrat also tended to develop in him the
power of command. If he were appointed to the Council he found himself
in possession of enormous power, and in a position to resist the
ablest of governors, or even the commands of the king. In all that he
did, in private and public affairs, he was leader. His constant task
was to command and in nothing did he occupy a subservient position. No
wonder that, in the course of time, he developed into a leader of men,
equal to the stupendous undertaking of shaking off the yoke of England
and laying the foundations of a new nation.

The magnificence with which the members of the aristocracy in the 18th
century surrounded themselves, and the culture and polish of their
social life are not so distinctly the result of local conditions. The
customs, the tastes, the prejudices that were brought over from
England were never entirely effaced. The earliest immigrants
established on the banks of the James a civilization as similar in
every respect to that of the mother country as their situation would
permit. Had it not been for economic and climatic conditions there
would have grown up amid the wilderness of America an exact
reproduction of England in miniature. As it was, the colonists infused
into their new life the habits, moral standards, ideas and customs of
the old so firmly that their influence is apparent even at the present
day.

And this imitation of English life was continued even after the period
of immigration was passed. The constant and intimate intercourse with
the mother country made necessary by commercial affairs had a most
important influence upon social life. Hugh Jones, writing of society
in Governor Spotswood's time, says: "The habits, life, customs,
computations &c of the Virginians are much the same as about London,
which they esteem their home; the planters generally talk good English
without idiom and tone and can discourse handsomely upon most common
subjects; and conversing with persons belonging to trade and
navigation in London, for the most part they are much civilized."
Again he says, "They live in the same neat manner, dress after the
same modes, and behave themselves exactly as the gentry in London."

Nor had this spirit of imitation become less apparent at the period of
the Revolution, or even after. Their furniture, their silver ware,
their musical