But if we concede to every Virginian, not only his inherent gentility, but his unswerving purpose never to emigrate out of slave territory, and an intuitive presentiment which pointed out which were to be the slave portions of adjacent Territories, by these same percentages of increase the 442,215 Virginian cavaliers of 1790 could be the progenitors of only 2,785,927 patricians to rally around the model cavalier of 1860--Jefferson Davis. Lastly, in an estimate published in 1848 by Mr. Jesse Pickering, devoted entirely to the consideration of immigration as a national question, it is argued, with every appearance of truth, that in 1840 the foreign population of the Slave States was 1,177,965. But these must have displaced an equal number of the native born, and we should have only 3,426,908 of that class in 1840, 4,287,061 in 1850, and 5,311,668 in 1860, or in that case only five eighths of the population could be of native descent, provided that not one emigrated. When we consider that the great immigration of all was between 1840 and 1860, we are forced to conclude that certainly not more than one half of the inhabitants of the present confederate States can present the faintest claim to a descent from the citizens of 1790. When we seriously endeavor to investigate the claims of Virginians to a descent from the English gentry, we are stopped by their practical denial of the first principles of genealogy. The public records of their State, as shown by the highest authority, the bishop of the diocese, are most imperfect. The records of the parishes have been lost, the churchyards destroyed, and few authorities, save tradition, can be given for these ambitious claims. Bishop Meade's work, especially devoted to the history of the 'Old Churches and Old Families of Virginia,' gives less than thirty families, clearly traced, to the English gentry. These are those of Ambler, Barradall, Baylor, Bushrod, Burwell, Carter, Digges, Fairfax, Fitzhugh, Fowke, Harrison, Jacqueline, Lee, Lewis, Ludwell, Mason, Robinson, Spottswood, Sandys, and Washington. I believe I have omitted none, and have rather strained a point in admitting some. I do not, of course, mean to deny that others may exist, but until the proofs are submitted to examination, there is no justice in presuming them to exist. Let us see how far the historians of Virginia support the 'cavalier' theory. Robert Beverley (I quote from the edition published at Richmond in 1855) says: