Byrd had been particularly severe on the character of the North Carolinians, as he saw it in his intercourse with them,[651] and not the worst of his characterizations touched their “felicity of having nothing to do.” Byrd at the time of his commission was a man of four and fifty, and he lived for some years longer, not dying till 1744. He was a good specimen of the typical Virginian aristocrat, not blind to the faults of his neighbors, and the best sample of such learning and wit as they had,[652] while he was not forgetful of some of the duties to the community which a large estate imposed upon him. Among other efforts to relieve the Virginians from their thraldom to a single staple were his attempts to encourage the raising and manufacture of hemp.[653] One of Byrd’s companions in the boundary expedition of 1728-29 was the Rev. Peter Fontaine, who acted as chaplain to the party, and a draft of the line as then marked is made in connection with some of his letters in Ann Maury’s _Memoirs of a Huguenot Family_ (New York, 1852, 1872, p. 356).[654] In 1749 the line was continued westerly beyond Peter’s Creek, by Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson, the father of Thomas Jefferson; and was still further continued to the Tennessee River in 1778.[655] Another question of bounds in Virginia, which it took some time to settle, was the western limits of the northern neck, as the wedge-like tract of territory was called which lay between the Rappahannock and the Potomac. It had been granted by Charles II. to Lord Hopton and others, but when bought by Lord Thomas Culpepper a new royal grant of it was made to him in 1688.[656] It passed as a dower with Culpepper’s daughter Catharine to Thomas, Lord Fairfax, and from him it passed to the sixth lord, Thomas, who petitioned (1733) the king to have commissioners appointed to run the line between the rivers. Of this commission was William Byrd, and an account of their proceedings is given in the second volume of the _Byrd Manuscripts_ (p. 83) as edited by Wynne. A map of the tract was made at this time, which was called _The Courses of the Rivers Rappahannock and Potowmack in Virginia, as surveyed according to order in the years 1736-1737_. The bounds established by this commission were not confirmed by the king till 1745, and other commissioners were appointed the next year to run the line in question. The original journal of the expedition for this purpose, kept by Maj. Thomas Lewis, is now in the possession of John F. Lewis, lieutenant-governor of Virginia.[657] The plate of the map already referred to was corrected to conform, and this additional title to it was added: _A Survey of the Northern Neck of Virginia, being the lands belonging to the Rt. Honourable Thomas Lord Fairfax, Baron Cameron, bounded by and within the Bay of Chesapoyocke, and between the Rivers Rappahannock and Potowmack_. Along the line which is dotted to connect the head-spring of the southern branch of the Rappahannock