If such was the state of New England, the laxity of New York and
Virginia needs little evidence. Contemporary travelers found the
New Yorkers singularly attached to the things of this present
world. Philadelphia was prosperous and therewith content.
Virginia was a paradise with no forbidden fruit. Hugh Jones,
writing of it in 1724, considers North Carolina "the refuge of
runaways," and South Carolina "the delight of buccaneers and
pirates," but Virginia "the happy retreat of true Britons and
true Churchmen." Unluckily these Virginians, well nourished "by
the plenty of the country," have "contemptible notions of
England!" We shall hear from them again. In the meantime the
witty William Byrd of Westover describes for us his amusing
survey of the Dismal Swamp, and his excursions into North
Carolina and to Governor Spotswood's iron mines, where he reads
aloud to the Widow Fleming, on a rainy autumn day, three acts of
the "Beggars' Opera," just over from London. So runs the world
away, south of the Potomac. Thackeray paints it once for all, no
doubt, in the opening chapters of "The Virginians.
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