Page:Memorials of a Southern Planter.djvu/53

 Rh F. Dabney: They are about to leave us, with our friend Colonel Dabney,—may Heaven crown their efforts with success.'

"By John Tyler, Esq.: 'The good old County of Gloucester: Her name is identified in history with the names of Nathaniel Bacon and John Page, of Rosewell. The one resisted the arbitrary acts of a king's governor, the other of a king. Let us cherish their names and emulate their virtues.'

"By John T. Seawell, Esq.: 'Mrs. Thomas Dabney: "Take her for all in all, these eyes shall never look upon her like again."'

"Numerous other sentiments were given, which unfortunately did not reach the chair, and the day concluding, terminated a feast as full of reason and the flow of soul as ever it has been our good fortune to witness."

Mr. Dabney gave a farewell dinner to his friends at Elmington. As the concluding toast was drunk,—it had been proposed by the host to their meeting again,—he struck off the stem of the delicate wine-glass that he held in his hand, that no future toast should be drunk in it, he said. He requested that each guest present should break his wine-glass and keep it as a memento. One or more of these broken glasses are still preserved in Gloucester.

Thomas went through a large part of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi looking at the country before deciding on a body of land in Hinds County, Mississippi. He succeeded in purchasing four thousand acres from half a dozen small farmers.

The ancestors of both Thomas and Sophia Dabney had been slave-owners. The family servants, inherited for generations, had come to be regarded with great affection, and this feeling was warmly returned by the negroes. The bond between master and servant was, in many cases, felt to be as sacred and close as the the of blood.

During the course of years many of the Elmington