Page:Memorials of a Southern Planter.djvu/15

 Rh one attempt has been made during eighty years to take the consulship out of the hands of the descendants of Robert d'Aubigné. They have borne themselves so well in their office as to win the confidence of Whig and Democrat and Republican. Under General Grant's administration it was thought advisable, for political reasons, to bestow this consulship on Mr. Cover. Accordingly, in 1869, it was taken from Charles William Dabney and given to Mr. Cover. Charles William Dabney, who had succeeded his father in the consulate, who had held it since 1806, received the new consul in his own house, as he could not be suitably accommodated elsewhere. But Mr. Cover lived only two years, and on his death the consulate passed again into the hands of the Dabney family. Charles W. Dabney had held it for forty-three years. He did not desire it again, feeling too old to serve. His son, Samuel W. Dabney, was appointed consul in 1872, and still holds the office. Honorable mention was made by President Cleveland, in reappointing him to the consulate, of the services of Samuel W. Dabney. A younger brother of Charles W. Dabney, William H. Dabney, held for twenty years the consulship of the Canary Islands, having resigned in 1882. In the court record at Hanover Court-House, unfortunately destroyed in the Richmond conflagration of 1865, occurred this entry in the first minute-book of that county, at the beginning of the entries, which were begun when the county was cut off from New Kent County, in 1726:

"Ordered, that it be recorded that on—day of April, 1721, Cornelius Dabney, late of England,* intermarried with Sarah Jennings." All accounts agree that his first wife died soon after coming to Virginia, leaving an only son, George. From this English George came the William Dabney who gave two sons to the Revolutionary army,—Charles, who commanded the Dabney Legion, and George, who was a captain in that legion. The brothers were present at the siege of

.* He seems to have gone to England before coming to America.