Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1865-01-26
character had not become important to il
lustrate the origin of our troubles.

| III Is Il COUllllOH DOdSb Vi our SldNc-IldS-
ters that they constitute a modern "chiv.
airy" derived from the cavaliers of En-
gland, and reinforced by the ennobling III
fuence of African Slavery This boast has
been so often repea led, that it has obtained
a certain acceptance among those most IA
miliar with our early history and even
well informed persons have allowed them
| selves to say that the conflict in which we
are now engaged is a continuance Of the
old war between the Cavaliers and Round
heads So far as it is intended to say that
the war is a part of the ever-recurring con-
hict between slavery and liberty, there can
be no objection to this illustration. But if
it be intended to say that the rebels are
I Cavaliers" or the descendants of cavaliers,
there is just ground for objection | know
not if the armies of the Union, now fight
ing the worlds greatest battle for human
rights, may not be called roundheads but
| am sure that the rebels. now fighting for
slavery, cannot be called cavaliers" in any
sense. They are not so in character, as
barbarism attests. And they are as little
| so historically.
The whole pretension is preposterous
absurdity by which the country has been
already too much deceived 1t is not cred
liable to the general intelligence that such
a folly should be allowed to play such a
part. Unquestionably there were settlers
in Virginia, as there were also in New Eng,
land, connected with aristocratic families
But they were so few in each colony as not
| to modify essentially the prevailing popu,
lation, which took its character from the
mass rather than from any individual. The
origin of Virginia is so well authenticated
as to leave little doubt with regard to the
character of its population, unless you re-
ject all the concurrent testimony of cOtem-
poraries and all the concurrent admission
of historians Perhaps there is nothing in
our early history with regard to which the
authorities are so various and so clear
From their very abundance, it is difficult to
choose
TRUE CHARACTER OF SETTLERS OF VIRGINIA.
begin with the early patron of Virginia,
Lord Delaware, who after visiting the colo
ny described the people there in letter
dated at jamestown, July I, 1910 as linen
of distempered bodies and infected minds,
whom no examples daily before their eyes,
either Of goodness or punishment, can de-
ter from their habitual impieties or terrify
from shameful DEATH" (Strachey's His
tory preface, p 32.) Language cannot be
stronger.
But the colony, which began with bad
men, was increased by worse. In 1919
King James wrote to the Virginia company
commanding them " to send hundred dis
solute persons to Virginia, whom the Knight
Marshal shall deliver" (Strachey's His
tory of Virginia vol l, p. 1857 Thus by
md 10
Botany Bay.
The company, not content with the 'hun-
dred dissolute persons" supplied by the
Kings order, entreated for more, until
Captain John Smith, the hero of Virginia
was moved to express his disgust. He tes-
tifes to the evil when he wrote in 1922 :
" Since / came from thence, the honorable
company have been humble suitors to his
Majesty to get vagabond and condemned
men to go thither nay, SO much scorned
was the name of Virginia, some did choose
to be hanged ere they would go thither, and
were" (Smith's New England Trials, 1929
This was bad enough.
But the Virginia company seem to have
been insensible to the shame of such a set
tlement It's agents and orators vindicated
the utility Of the colony on this account
In work entitled Nova Brittania, offer
ing most excellent fruits by planting in
Virginia" published in London in 1909, and
dedicated to " one of his majesty's council
for Virginia" it was openly argued, that
unless "swarms of idle persons in lewd
and naughty practices" were sent abroad
eve must provide shortly more prisons and
corrections for their bad conditions :" and
that it was most profitable for our state
to rid our multitudes of such as lie at home
Fostering the land with pestilence and pc
nury, and injecting one another with vice
and villany, worse than the plague itself"
DR.. Donne dean of st. Paul's, poet also, in
a sermon preached to the honorable COM
pany of the Virginia plantation, 18th No
vember, 1922" thus sets forth the merits
of the colony "The plantation shall re-
deem many a wretch from the laws of death;
from the hands of the eXecutioner. 1t shall
sweep your streets and wash your doors
from idle persons, and the children of idle
persons and employ them" Such were
the puffs by which recruits were gained for
Virginia.
History records the unquestionable re-
suit, and here the authorities multiply. Sir
Jonathan Child, in his " Discourse of the
Trade of the Plantations, "published in 1893,
says: Virginia and Barbados were first
peoped by sort of loose vagrant people.
Had it not have been for our plantations,
they must have come to be hanged or starved
or sold for soldiers" Dr. Douglass, in his
Colonial History, printed in l649, gives the
following testimony "Our plantations in
America New England excepted, have been
generally settled /. By malcontents from
the administrations from time to time 2
By fraudulent debtors as a refuge from
creditors ; and 3, by convicts OF criminals
who chose transportation rather than death"
Douglass History, Vol. 2, p 428) Gra-
ham, the Scotch historian, who has written
so conscientiously of our country speaking
of the first settlers, says of Virginia GA
great proportion of these new emigrants
consisted of profigates and licentious
youths, sent from England by their friends,
with the hope of changing their destinies,
or for the purpose of screening them from
the justice or contempt of their country x
with others like these, more
likely to corrupt or prey upon an infant
commonwealth than to foster it." (Grahams
United States, Vol. l, p. 54 The historian
of Virginia, William Stith, whose work was
published at Williamsburg in the last cen
tury, is not less explicit /" cannot but re-