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.II"My ancestors," says Devereaux Jarrett, who was born on a small plantation in New Kent County, Virginia,about 1733, "had the character of honesty and industry, by which they lived in credit among their neighbors,free from real want, and above the frowns of the world.This was also the habit in which my parents were.They always had plenty of plain food and raiment, suitable to their humble station.We made no use of tea or CHAPTER V 64coffee; meat, bread, and milk was the ordinary food of all my acquaintance.I suppose the richer sort mightmake use of those and other luxuries, but to such people we had no access.We were accustomed to look uponwhat were called gentle folks as beings of a superior order.For my part, I was quite shy of them, and kept offat a humble distance.A periwig in those days, was a distinguishing badge of gentle folk.Such ideas of thedifference between gentle and simple, were, I believe, universal among all my rank and age."The distinction between gentle and simple was doubtless less absolute than the disillusioned Jarrett representsit to have been.Even in the South there were many gradations of wealth, and it was no uncommon thing for aman to rise, as Jarrett did himself, from mean birth to a considerable eminence.Yet in none of the colonieswas the distinction altogether unreal.The mass of the voters,--small freehold farmers in the country and"freemen" in some of the towns,--holding themselves superior to the unfranchised, yet not claiming equalitywith the favored few; the tenant farmer or small shopkeeper, deferring to the freeholder and the freeman, butaware that fortune had placed him above the artisan and day laborer; the artisan and the day laborer, proudthat none could call them "servant":--these were the simple folk who in all the colonies made the greatmajority of free citizens.Chiefly occupied with earning daily bread by the labor of their hands, many werecontent to escape the debtor's prison, the best well satisfied with a modest competence.They heard ofcountries beyond sea, but their outlook was bounded by the parish.The provincialism of their minds was notdispelled by communion with the classics of all ages, and no cheap magazine or popular novel came to dullthe edge of native shrewdness or curiosity.They read not at all, or they read the Bible, the Paradise Lost orthe Pilgrim's Progress, or some chance book of sermons or of theology, or book of English ballads.Periwigsand gold braid were not for them, nor was it any part of their ambition to enter the charmed circle of politesociety, to associate on terms of equality with the "best people" in the colony.Yet with whatever semblance the older settlements might take on the character of European civilization,America was bound to be the land of opportunity so long as there was abundance of free land to entice theambitious and the dispossessed.Early in the century, as good land became scarce in the older towns of NewEngland, and proprietors began to deny the commons to the landless, venturesome and discontented men,accepting the challenge of a savage-infested wilderness, moved northward along the rivers into Maine andNew Hampshire, or beyond the original Connecticut settlements into the valley of the Housatonic.Here landwas less often than formerly disposed of to groups of proprietors intent to maintain the traditions of town andchurch; acquired by the older towns or by land agents, it was more often sold to companies or to individualsfor the profit it would bring.The famous New Hampshire grants, one hundred and thirty townships in thepresent State of Vermont, fell mainly to speculators who sold to the highest bidder, covenanted anduncovenanted alike, among the throng of home-seekers who pushed into this western country in the seventhdecade of the century
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