een impoverished by the long-continued and
harassing civil war. Straitened in circumstances, desirous of winning
back wealth and position, they cast longing eyes towards the beautiful
and fertile country beyond the mountains, deeming it a place that
afforded unusual opportunities to the man with capital, no less than to
him whose sole trust was in his own adventurous energy.

Most of the gentle folks in Virginia and the Carolinas, the men who
lived in great roomy houses on their well-stocked and slave-tilled
plantations, had been forced to struggle hard to keep their heads above
water during the Revolution. They loyally supported the government, with
blood and money; and at the same time they endeavored to save some of
their property from the general wreck, and to fittingly educate their
girls, and those of their boys who were too young to be in the army. The
men of this stamp who now prepared to cast in their lot with the new
communities formed an exceptionally valuable class of immigrants; they
contributed the very qualities of which the raw settlements stood most
in need. They had suffered for no fault of their own; fate had gone hard
with them. The fathers had been in the Federal or Provincial congresses;
the older sons had served in the Continental line or in the militia. The
plantations were occasionally overrun by the enemy; and the general
disorder had completed their ruin. Nevertheless, the heads of the
families had striven to send the younger sons to school or college. For
their daughters they did even more; and throughout the contest, even in
its darkest hours, they sent them down to receive the final touches of a
lady-like education at some one of the State capitals not at the moment
in the hands of the enemy--such as Charleston or Philadelphia. There the
young ladies were taught dancing and music, for which, as well as for
their frocks and "pink calamanco shoes," their fathers paid enormous
sums in depreciated Continental currency. [Footnote: Clay MSS. Account
of Robert Morris with Miss Elizabeth Hart, during her residence in
Philadelphia in 1780-81. The account is so curious that I give it in
full in the Appendix.]

Even the close of active hostilities, when the British were driven from
the Southern States, brought at first but a slight betterment of
condition to the straggling people. There was no cash in the land, the
paper currency was nearly worthless, every one was heavily in debt, and
no one was abl