tice continues to this day in England.

[421:A] Hening, ii. 453.

[421:B] Va. Hist. Register, i. 61.

[421:C] Westover MSS., 107.

CHAPTER LVI.

1733-1749.

Scotch-Irish Settlers--Death of Sir John Randolph--Settlement
of the Valley of Shenandoah--Physical Geography of Virginia--
John Lewis, a Pioneer in Augusta--Burden's Grant--First
Settlers of Rockbridge--Character of the Scotch-Irish--German
Settlers of Valley of Shenandoah.

DURING the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the disaffected and turbulent
Province of Ulster, in Ireland, suffered pre-eminently the ravages of
civil war. Quieted for a time by the sword, insurrection again burst
forth in the second year of James the First, and repeated rebellions
crushed in 1605, left a large tract of country desolate, and fast
declining into barbarism. Almost the whole of six counties of Ulster
thus, by forfeiture, fell into the hands of the king. A London company,
under his auspices, colonized this unhappy district with settlers,
partly English, principally Scotch--one of the few wise and salutary
measures of his feeble reign. The descendants of these colonists of the
plantation of Ulster, as it was now called, came to be distinguished by
the name of Scotch-Irish. Archbishop Usher, who was disposed to
reconcile the differences between the Presbyterians and Episcopalians,
consented to a compromise of them, in consequence of which there was no
formal separation from the established church. But it was not long
before the persecutions of the house of Stuart, inflicted by the hands
of Strafford and Laud, augmented the numbers of the non-conformists,
riveted them more closely to their own political and religious
principles, and compelled them to turn their eyes to America as a place
of refuge for the oppressed. The civil war of England ensuing, they were
for a time relieved from this necessity. Their unbending opposition to
the proceedings of Cromwell drew down upon them (1649) the sarcastic
denunciation of Milton.[423:A]

The persecutions that followed the restoration (1679) and afterwards,
at length compelled the Scotch-Irish to seek refuge in the New World,
and many of them came over from the north of Ireland, and settled in
several of the colonies, especially in Pennsylvania. From thence a
portion of them gradually migrated to the western parts of Virginia and
North Carolina, inhabiting the frontier of civilization, and forming a
barrier be