What little devotion there may happen to be is much more private than their vices. The people seem easy without a minister, as long as they are exempted from paying him. Sometimes the society for propagating the Gospel has had the charity to send over missionaries to this country; but unfortunately the priest has been too lewd [_worthless_] for the people, or, which oftener happens, they too lewd for the priest. For these reasons these reverend gentlemen have always left their flocks as arrant heathen as they found them. Thus much, however, may be said for the inhabitants of Edenton, that not a soul has the least taint of hypocrisy or superstition, acting very frankly and aboveboard in all their excesses. Provisions here are extremely cheap and extremely good, so that people may live plentifully at a trifling expense. Nothing is dear but law, physic, and strong drink, which are all bad in their kind, and the last they get with so much difficulty, that they are never guilty of the sin of suffering it to sour upon their hands. Their vanity generally lies not so much in having a handsome dining room as a handsome house of office [_kitchen_]. In this kind of structure they are really extravagant. They are rarely guilty of flattering or making any court to their governors, but treat them with all the excesses of freedom and familiarity. They are of opinion their rulers would be apt to grow insolent, if they grew rich, and for that reason take care to keep them poorer, and more dependent, if possible, than the saints in New England used to do their governors. A Virginia planter had many responsibilities and many interests. Besides growing tobacco and raising livestock, Byrd and his associates made their plantations as self-sufficient as possible. Late in his life Byrd visited some mining property he owned in western Virginia, and on the trip stopped off to see Colonel Spotswood, a former governor of Virginia. The following account, from _A Progress to the Mines_, gives us a glimpse of another Virginian’s house. Note, too, how Byrd concerns himself with collecting medicinal herbs. A VISIT TO COLONEL SPOTSWOOD September 27, 1732: I came into the main county road that leads from Fredericksburg to Germanna, which last place I reached in ten miles more. This famous town consists of Col. Spotswood’s enchanted castle on one side of the street and a baker’s dozen of ruinous tenements on the other.... Here I arrived about three o’clock and found only Mrs. Spotswood at home, who received her old acquaintance with many a gracious smile. I was carried into a room elegantly set off with pier glasses [_full-length mirrors set between windows_] the largest of which came soon after to an odd misfortune.