laugh, and they danced to good music.
They had by nature an excellent understanding. Yet, thinks at least
the Reverend Hugh Jones, they "are generally diverted by Business
or Inclination from profound Study, and prying into the Depth of
Things....They are more inclinable to read Men by Business and
Conversation, than to dive into Books... they are apt to learn, yet they
are fond of and will follow their own Ways, Humours and Notions, being
not easily brought to new Projects and Schemes."

It was as Governor of these people that, in succession to Nicholson,
Edward Nott came to Virginia, the deputy of my Lord Orkney. Nott
died soon afterward, and in 1710 Orkney sent to Virginia in his stead
Alexander Spotswood. This man stands in Virginia history a manly,
honorable, popular figure. Of Scotch parentage, born in Morocco, soldier
under Marlborough, wounded at Blenheim, he was yet in his thirties when
he sailed across the Atlantic to the river James. Virginia liked him,
and he liked Virginia. A man of energy and vision, he first made himself
at home with all, and then after his own impulses and upon his own lines
went about to develop and to better the colony. He had his projects and
his hobbies, mostly useful, and many sounding with a strong modern tone.
Now and again he quarreled with the Assembly, and he made it many a
cutting speech. But it, too, and all Virginia and the world were growing
modern. Issues were disengaging themselves and were becoming distinct.
In these early years of the eighteenth century, Whig and Tory in England
drew sharply over against each other. In Virginia, too, as in Maryland,
the Carolinas, and all the rest of England-in-America, parties were
emerging. The Virginian flair for political life was thus early in
evidence. To the careless eye the colony might seem overwhelmingly for
King and Church. "If New England be called a Receptacle of Dissenters,
and an Amsterdam of Religion, Pennsylvania the Nursery of Quakers;
Maryland the Retirement of Roman Catholicks, North Carolina the Refuge
of Runaways and South Carolina the Delight of Buccaneers and Pyrates,
Virginia may be justly esteemed the happy Retreat of true Britons and
true Churchmen for the most Part." This "for the most part" paints the
situation, for there existed an opposition, a minority, which might grow
to balance, and overbalance. In the meantime the House of Burgesses at
Williamsburg provided a School for Discussion.

At the time when