enteelest
fashions now wore in England." It was a valuable asset for a tailor if
he had just arrived from London.

The Virginians also imitated the English in their outdoor sports. The
fox chase, so dear to the Englishman's heart, was a favorite
amusement. When the crowds gathered around the county courthouse on
court days, they were often diverted from more serious business by
horseraces. And like their English cousins they were fond of
cockfighting, boat racing, and hunting.

The life of the wealthy planter was profoundly influenced by his
reading of English books. He took his religion more from the _Sermons_
of Archbishop Tillotson than from the preaching of the local
clergyman; as a county magistrate he had to know Blackstone and Coke;
he turned to Kip's _English Houses and Gardens_, or John James'
_Theory and Practice of Gardening_, to guide him in laying out his
flower beds and hedges and walks; if he or his wife or a servant
became ill he consulted Lynch's _Guide to Health_; he willingly obeyed
the dictates of Chippendale in furniture.

But despite all the bonds with the mother country he was slowly, but
inevitably, becoming more an American, less an Englishman. It was the
plantation which shaped the daily life of the Virginian and made him
different from the English squire. As he looked out over his wide
acres, his tobacco fields, his pastures, his woodlands, his little
village of servant and slave quarters, tobacco houses, barn, and
stable, he had a sense of responsibility, dignity, pride, and
self-reliance. He must look after the welfare of the men and women and
children under his care, seeing that they were housed, clothed, and
fed, protecting their health, playing the role of benevolent despot.
He had to be agriculturalist, business man, lawyer, builder, even
doctor.

Visitors to the colony were quick to notice the difference between the
Virginian and the Englishman. Hugh Jones, in his _The Present State of
Virginia_ devotes several pages to a description of the colonists.
Andrew Burnaby, who visited Virginia in 1760, thought that the
authority had by the planters over their slaves made them "vain and
imperious.... They are haughty and jealous of their liberties,
impatient of restraint...." Lord Adam Gordon, writing in 1764, gives a
more favorable opinion: "I had an opportunity to see a good deal of
the country and many of the first people in the province and I must
say they far excel in good sense, af