Indentured servants, as well as blacks from Africa, had labored on that path in front of him; and up it had once stalked a deputation of the great Powhatan’s red tribes. Up that path had come the last of the early colonial dames, in huge ruffs, high-heeled shoes, and short skirts, with her husband, who was the “head of a hundred,” with gold on his clothes, and at once military commander, civil magistrate, judge, and executive of the community; had come officers in gold lace, who had been rowed up in barges from Jamestown; members of the worshipful House of Burgesses; bluff planters in silk coats, the governor and members of the council; distinguished visitors from England, colonial gentlemen and ladies. At the manor they had got beef, bacon, brown loaves, Indian corn-cakes, strong ales, and strong waters (but no tea or coffee), and “drunk” pipes of tobacco from lily-pots—jars of white earth—lighted with splinters of juniper, or coals of fire plucked from the fireplace with a pair of silver tongs. And all was English still—books, clothes, plates, knives, and forks; the church, the Church of England; the Governor, the representative of the King; his Council, the English House of Lords; the Burgesses, the English Parliament—socially aristocratic, politically republican. For ancient usage held that all “freemen” should have a voice in the elections, have equal right to say who the lawmakers and what the law. The way was open as now. Any man could get two thousand acres by service to the colony, could build, plough, reap, save, buy servants, and roll in his own coach to sit as burgess. There was but one seat of learning—at Williamsburg. What culture they had they brought from England or got from parents or minister. And always they had seemed to prefer sword and stump to the pen. They hated towns. At every wharf a long shaky trestle ran from a warehouse out into the river to load ships with tobacco for England and to get in return all conveniences and luxuries, and that was enough. In towns men jostled and individual freedom was lost, so, Ho! for the great sweeps of land and the sway of a territorial lord! Englishmen they were of Shakespeare’s time but living in Virginia, and that is all they were—save that the flower of liberty was growing faster in the new-world soil. The plantation went back to a patent from the king in 1617, and by the grant the first stout captain was to “enjoy his landes in as large and ample manner to all intentes and purposes as any Lord of any manours in England doth hold his grounde.” This gentleman was the only man after the “Starving Time” to protest against the abandonment of Jamestown in 1610. When, two years later, he sent two henchmen as burgesses to the first general assembly, that august body would not allow them to sit unless the captain would relinquish certain high privileges in his grant.