[9] An Englishman visiting Virginia at the close of the eighteenth century stated, with reference to persons he met who had been educated abroad before the Revolution, that he "found men leading secluded lives in the woods of Virginia perfectly _au fait_ as to the literary, dramatic, and personal gossip of London and Paris." Bernard, John, _Retrospections of America, 1797-1811_, p. 149. [10] Stanard, _Colonial Virginia_, p. 290. The high value placed upon schooling in England is well illustrated in the attitude of Robert Beverley of "Blandfield" when he prepared to send his young son, William, abroad in 1773. Confiding the lad for a season to a tutor in the home of his father-in-law, Landon Carter of "Sabine Hall," he carefully explained his purpose. "I would recommend to Mr. Menzies the Latin Lillies Grammar," he wrote Carter, "because, as no other rudiments are used in any Schools of Eminence, when he goes to England, he may in part have gotten over the Drudgery of Education. All I wish to learn him in Virginia is, to read, write, & cypher, & do as much with his Grammar, as the Time will admit of...."[11] Planters frequently provided in their wills that their young sons and daughters be educated abroad. It is likely that an even larger number of small children would have been sent "home," as the planters fondly called the mother country, had their parents not feared the dangers of an ocean voyage and the mortal effects of the smallpox which was raging in England during the eighteenth century. [11] Letter of Robert Beverley to Landon Carter, Blandfield, May 19, 1772, in possession of Mrs. William Harrison Wellford of Sabine Hall. Cf. "Extracts from Diary of Landon Carter in Richmond County, Virginia"; _William and Mary College Quarterly_, Vol. XIII, series 1, pp. 160-163.