THE CONSERVATIVE REFORMER 149 



for King Charles there were many who no more ap- 

 proved of his crooked methods and despotic aims than 

 Hutchinson approved of the Stamp Act. A proper 

 combination of circumstances was all that was required 

 to bring their children into active alliance with the 

 children of the Puritans. Most of the great leaders 

 that Virginia gave to the American Revolution were 

 descended from men who had drawn sword against 

 Oliver Cromwell; and a powerful set of men they were. 

 Virginia has always known how to produce great 

 leaders. The short-lived Southern Confederacy would 

 have been much shorter lived but for Lee, Johnston, 

 and Jackson ; and the cause of the Union would have 

 fared much harder but for the invincible Thomas. 



Colonial life in Virginia departed less than in New 

 England from the contemporary type of rural life in 

 the mother country. Agriculture in New England 

 throve best with small farms cultivated by their owners, 

 and this developed the type of yeomanry, while the 

 ecclesiastical organization tended to concentrate the 

 population into self-governing village communities. 

 Agriculture in Virginia seemed to thrive best with 

 great estates cultivated by gangs of labourers, and this 

 prevented the growth of villages. The Virginia 

 planter occupied a position somewhat like that of the 

 English country squire. He had extensive estates to 

 superintend and county interests to look after. He 

 was surrounded by dependents, mostly slaves indeed, 

 and in this aspect the divergence from English custom 

 was great and injurious; still Virginia slavery was of 

 a mild type. In his House of Burgesses the planter 

 had a parliament, and in the royal governor, represent- 

 ing a distant sovereign, there was a source of antago- 



