ages of increase
the 442,215 Virginian cavaliers of 1790 could be the progenitors of only
2,785,927 patricians to rally around the model cavalier of
1860--Jefferson Davis.

Lastly, in an estimate published in 1848 by Mr. Jesse Pickering, devoted
entirely to the consideration of immigration as a national question, it
is argued, with every appearance of truth, that in 1840 the foreign
population of the Slave States was 1,177,965. But these must have
displaced an equal number of the native born, and we should have only
3,426,908 of that class in 1840, 4,287,061 in 1850, and 5,311,668 in
1860, or in that case only five eighths of the population could be of
native descent, provided that not one emigrated. When we consider that
the great immigration of all was between 1840 and 1860, we are forced to
conclude that certainly not more than one half of the inhabitants of the
present confederate States can present the faintest claim to a descent
from the citizens of 1790.

When we seriously endeavor to investigate the claims of Virginians to a
descent from the English gentry, we are stopped by their practical
denial of the first principles of genealogy.

The public records of their State, as shown by the highest authority,
the bishop of the diocese, are most imperfect. The records of the
parishes have been lost, the churchyards destroyed, and few authorities,
save tradition, can be given for these ambitious claims. Bishop Meade's
work, especially devoted to the history of the 'Old Churches and Old
Families of Virginia,' gives less than thirty families, clearly traced,
to the English gentry. These are those of Ambler, Barradall, Baylor,
Bushrod, Burwell, Carter, Digges, Fairfax, Fitzhugh, Fowke, Harrison,
Jacqueline, Lee, Lewis, Ludwell, Mason, Robinson, Spottswood, Sandys,
and Washington. I believe I have omitted none, and have rather strained
a point in admitting some.

I do not, of course, mean to deny that others may exist, but until the
proofs are submitted to examination, there is no justice in presuming
them to exist. Let us see how far the historians of Virginia support the
'cavalier' theory. Robert Beverley (I quote from the edition published
at Richmond in 1855) says:

'Those that went over to that country first, were chiefly single
men who had not the incumbrance of wives and children in England;
and if they had, they did not expose them to the fatigue and hazard
of so long a voyage, until they