looking to the sun in his splendor, proper.
Motto: "Patior ut potiar." Chief seat: at the old Castle of Spotswood,
in Berwickshire.--(_Burke's Landed Gentry._)

CHAPTER LIV.

1722-1726.

Drysdale, Governor--Intemperance among the Clergy--The Rev.
Mr. Lang's Testimony--Acts of Assembly--Death of Governor
Drysdale--Colonel Robert Carter, President--Called King
Carter--Notice of his Family.

IN the month of September, 1722, Hugh Drysdale assumed the
administration of Virginia, amid the prosperity bequeathed him by his
predecessor, and being a man of mediocre calibre, yielded to the current
of the day, solicitous only to retain his place. Commissary Blair wished
the governor, when a vacancy of more than six months occurred, to send
and induct a minister as by law directed; but what Spotswood had not
been bold enough to do, Drysdale feared to undertake without the
authority of a royal order. Opinion is queen of the world.

There were frequent complaints of the scandalous lives of some of the
clergy; but it was difficult to obtain positive proof, there being many
who would cry out against such, and yet would not appear as witnesses to
convict them. Intemperance appears to have been the predominant evil
among the clergy, as it was also among the laity.

The Rev. Mr. Lang, who was highly recommended by the governor and
commissary, wrote, in 1726, to the Bishop of London: "I observe the
people here are very zealous for our holy church, as it is established
in England, so that (except some few inconsiderable Quakers) there are
scarce any dissenters from our communion; and yet, at the same time, the
people are supinely ignorant in the very principles of religion, and
very debauched in morals. This, I apprehend, is owing to the general
neglect of the clergy in not taking pains to instruct youth in the
fundamentals of religion, or to examine people come to years of
discretion, before they are permitted to come to church privileges."
Referring to the prevailing evils he says: "The great cause of all which
I humbly conceive to be in the clergy, the sober part being slothful
and negligent, and others so debauched that they are the foremost and
most bent on all manner of vices. Drunkenness is the common vice."
Mr. Lang was minister of the parish of St. Peters, in New Kent
County.[412:A] The religious instruction of the negroes was for the most
part neglected. There were no schools for the education of