he character generally given them."

In his "State of Religion among the Dissenters," Davies remarks: "There
are and have been in this colony a great number of Scotch merchants, who
were educated Presbyterians, but (I speak what their conduct more loudly
proclaims) they generally, upon their arrival here, prove scandals to
their religion and country by their loose principles and immoral
practices, and either fall into indifferency about religion in general,
or affect to be polite by turning deists, or fashionable by conforming
to the church." Of the dissenters in Virginia he says, that at the first
they were not properly dissenters from the original constitution of the
Church of England, but rather dissented from those who had forsaken it.

Sir William Gooch, who had now been governor of Virginia for twenty-two
years, left the colony, with his family, in August, 1749, amid the
regrets of the people. Notwithstanding some flexibility of principle, he
appears to have been estimable in public and private character. His
capacity and intelligence were of a high order, and were adorned by
uniform courtesy and dignity, and singular amenity of manners. If he
exhibited something of intolerance toward the close of his
administration, he seems, nevertheless, to have commanded the esteem and
respect of the dissenters. After his departure from Virginia he
continued to be the steady friend of the colony. A county was named
after him.[449:A] During Sir William Gooch's administration, from 1728
to 1749, the population of Virginia had nearly doubled, and there had
been added one-third to the extent of her settlements.[449:B] The taxes
were light, industry revived, foreign commerce increased, and Virginia
enjoyed a prosperity hitherto unknown. The frugal and industrious
Germans were filling up one portion of the valley and the Piedmont
country; the hardy, well-disciplined, and energetic Scotch-Irish were
peopling the other portion of the valley, and planting colonies eastward
of the Blue Ridge. Like the strawberry, the population continually sent
out "runners" to possess the land. The contact and commingling of the
English, the French, the German, the Scotch, the Irish, while it brought
about some collision, yet produced an excitement which was salutary and
beneficial to all. So the meeting of the opposite currents of
electricity, although accompanied by a shock, results in the renovation
of the atmosphere. The people of Eastern Virginia