According to the "Cambridge History of American Literature," "there seem to have been theatrical performances in this country since 1703." Paul Leicester Ford in his "Washington and the Theater" says, "that there was play-acting in New York, and in Charleston, South Carolina, before 1702, are unquestioned facts." In 1718 Governor Spottswood of Virginia gave an entertainment on the king's birthday, the feature of which was a play, probably acted by the students of William and Mary College, as there are references to later events of this sort. The Virginia governor's patronage bore different fruit from the early indorsement of playing in staid Massachusetts, for Samuel Sewall recorded in his diary of March 2, 1714, a protest at the acting of a play in the council chamber. "Let not Christian Boston," he admonished, "goe beyond Heathen Rome in the practice of Shamefull Vanities." On the other hand, Williamsburg, Virginia, had its own theater before 1720, New York enjoyed professional acting and a playhouse by 1732, and in Charleston, South Carolina, the use of the courtroom was frequent in the two seasons before the opening of a theater in the winter of 1736. These slight beginnings, with further undertakings in Philadelphia, doubtless gave Lewis Hallam, the London actor, courage to venture over with his company in 1752. With his twelve players he brought a repertory of twenty plays and eight farces, the majority of which had never been presented in America; and since the year of their arrival the American theater has had a consecutive and broadening place in the life of the people.