ose who settled the country. The great estates have
passed from the family name,--squandered by the dissolute and indolent
sons. They are poor, but very proud, and call themselves noble-born.
They look with contempt upon a man who works for a living. I saw a great
estate, which was once owned by one of these proud families, near the
Antietam battle-field, but spendthrift sons have squandered it, and
there is but little left. The land is worn out, but the owner of the
remaining acres,--poor, but priding himself upon his high birth, looking
with haughty contempt upon men who work,--in the summer of 1860, day
after day, was seen sitting upon his horse, with an umbrella over his
head to keep off the sun, _overseeing his two negro women, who were
hoeing corn_!

All of these springs which started in Virginia tinged, entered into, and
gave color to society throughout the South. There were great estates,
privileged classes, a few rich and many poor men. There were planters,
poor white men, and slaves.

In those old times pirates sailed the seas, plundering and destroying
ships. They swarmed around the West India Islands, and sold their spoils
to the people of Charleston, South Carolina. There, for several years,
the freebooters refitted their ships, and had a hearty welcome. But the
King's ships of war broke up the business, and commerce again had
peaceful possession of the ocean.

These things gave direction to the stream, influencing the development
and growth of the colonies, which became States in the Union, and which
seceded in 1861.

* * * * *

While the Dutch captain was bargaining off his negroes to the planters
in 1620 at Jamestown, another vessel was sailing from Plymouth harbor,
in England, for a voyage across the Atlantic. Years before, in the
little town of Scrooby, a man with a long white beard, by the name of
Clifton, had preached what he called a pure religious doctrine. Those
who went to hear him, and who believed what he preached, soon came to be
called Puritans. Most of them were poor, hard-working English farmers
and villagers. There was much discussion, controversy, bigotry, and
bitterness in religion at that time, and these poor men were driven from
county to county, till finally they were obliged to flee to Holland to
escape persecution and save their lives. King James himself was one of
their most bitter persecutors. He declared that he would "harry every
one of them