o
care; racing and hard-drinking planters; clergymen of the Establishment,
not much more ascetic than their boon companions of the laity; ladies,
with manners a little rusted by long seclusion; black coachmen and
footmen, proud of their masters and their liveries; young cavaliers,
booted and spurred, sitting their thoroughbreds with the careless grace
of men whose home was the saddle. It was a proud little provincial
society, which might seem absurd in its lofty self-appreciation, had it
not soon approved itself so prolific in ability and worth.[163]

[Footnote 163: The English traveller Smyth, in his _Tour_, gives a
curious and vivid picture of Virginian life. For the social condition of
this and other colonies before the Revolution, one cannot do better than
to consult Lodge's _Short History of the English Colonies_.]

The burgesses met, and Dinwiddie made them an opening speech, inveighing
against the aggressions of the French, their "contempt of treaties," and
"ambitious views for universal monarchy;" and he concluded: "I could
expatiate very largely on these affairs, but my heart burns with
resentment at their insolence. I think there is no room for many
arguments to induce you to raise a considerable supply to enable me to
defeat the designs of these troublesome people and enemies of mankind."
The burgesses in their turn expressed the "highest and most becoming
resentment," and promptly voted twenty thousand pounds; but on the third
reading of the bill they added to it a rider which touched the old
question of the pistole fee, and which, in the view of the Governor, was
both unconstitutional and offensive. He remonstrated in vain; the
stubborn republicans would not yield, nor would he; and again he
prorogued them. This unexpected defeat depressed him greatly. "A
governor," he wrote, "is really to be pitied in the discharge of his
duty to his king and country, in having to do with such obstinate,
self-conceited people.... I cannot satisfy the burgesses unless I
prostitute the rules of government. I have gone through monstrous
fatigues. Such wrong-headed people, I thank God, I never had to do with
before."[164] A few weeks later he was comforted; for, having again
called the burgesses, they gave him the money, without trying this time
to humiliate him.[165]

[Footnote 164: _Dinwiddie to Hamilton, 6 Sept., 1754. Ibid. to J.
Abercrombie, 1 Sept., 1754._]

[Footnote 165: Hening, VI. 435.]

In straining at a gnat