At the time of the Restoration, sixty years after the first settlement, Virginia comprehended an extent of country about half the size of England, with a population of about 40,000, including negro slaves and indented servants. It was divided into fifty parishes; the plantations lay dispersed among the banks of rivers and creeks, those on the James River extending about 100 miles into the interior. Each parish extended many miles in length along the river’s side, but in breadth ran back only a mile. This was the average breadth. Many parishes were destitute of churches, or any means of religious instruction; in fact, not more than ten parishes were supplied with ministers, and of these some were by no means of exemplary character. Religious worship was held but once a day, and such families—and these were by far the greater number—as lived at a distance from the church, did not trouble themselves to attend at all. Religion, as evidenced by outward forms of worship, was by no means a vital object with the Virginian planters of those days. The general want of schools, likewise owing to the scattered state of the population, “was most of all bewailed by parents in Virginia. The want of schools was more deplored than the want of churches. The children of Virginia, naturally of beautiful and comely persons, and of more ingenuous spirits than those of England,” grew up almost devoid of instruction. “The theocratic form of government in New England,” says Hildreth, “tended to diminish the influence of wealth by introducing a different basis of distinction, and still more so that activity of mind, the consequence of strong religious excitement. Hence, in New England, a constant tendency towards social equality. In Virginia and Maryland, on the other hand, the management of provincial and local affairs fell more and more under the control of a few wealthy men, possessed of large tracts of land, which they cultivated by the labour partly of slaves, but principally of indented white servants.