What he speaks of as his “Ventures” were his two marriages. A venture does appear to me to be an appropriate name for the uncertain state of matrimony. The first “venture” was Jane Butler, who lies buried at Wakefield. Of her four children two survived――that is, my half-brothers Lawrence and Augustine, whom we called Austin. I was the first child of my father’s second “venture,” and my mother was Mary Ball. I was born at Wakefield,[1] on February 11 [O. S.], 1732, about ten in the morning. I was baptized in the Pope’s Creek church, and had two godfathers and one godmother, Mildred Gregory. Mr. Beverly Whiting and Mr. Christopher Brooks were my godfathers. I do not recall ever seeing Mr. Whiting, although his son, of the same name, I met in after years. Of Mr. Brooks I know nothing, nor do I know which one of the two gave me the silver cups which it was then the custom for the godfather to give to the godson. I still have them. I was told by a silversmith in Philadelphia that the cups are of Irish make, and of about 1720. There were six of these mugs, in order to be used for punch when the child grew up. [1] This estate was bought by my father from his brother John. The Balls were respectable, and came out first as merchants. My maternal grandmother we know to have been Mary Johnson, of English birth, but of her family nothing more. At a later time the older planter families, both with us and in the West Indies, paid more attention to their ancestry, sometimes, it is to be feared, with pretensions which had no just foundation. Many assumed arms to which they were not entitled, or, like Mr. J――――n, commissioned an agent in London to purchase some heraldic device, having Mr. Sterne’s word for it that “a coat of arms may be purchased as cheap as any other coat.” I have had some reason to believe that our friends did not regard my mother’s family, being in the mercantile line, as on the same social level as our own. But, in fact, we ourselves were not until a later day considered as of the highest class of Virginia gentry. Why this was I do not fully know. It is certain, however, that nowhere were aristocratic pretensions and the distinctions of social rank more marked than in Virginia. For a long time families like the Lees, Byrds, Carys, Masons, etc., regarded themselves as superior to other planter families, of as good or better blood.