Page:The Rise of American Civilization (Volume 1).djvu/140

 their descendants proudly carried on the tradition of Cavalier blood undisputed until a modern historian of scientific temper, T. J. Wertenbaker, made a searching inquiry into the facts of the case and published his findings. By way of preface he pointed out that the title of Cavalier, far from giving a clue to the possessor's rank or lineage, merely indicated membership in a political faction: many a tinker cheered for King Charles.

Then, after a survey of genealogical tables, Wertenbaker came to the conclusion that "a careful collection of the names of the Cavaliers who were prominent enough to find a place in the records shows that their number was insignificant." He could report only three families in all Virginia "derived from English houses of historic note" and three more that sprang from "the minor gentry." So the verdict was rendered that Virginia was settled by merchants, shipping people, yeomen, indentured servants, and slaves. But those who climbed upward into the possession of great plantations quickly assumed the cultural guise of the English aristocracy in that flexible fashion so characteristic of all mankind.

For the social order of the middle colonies a mixture of land and trade gave the economic basis. In Pennsylvania, rich merchants usually carried off the emoluments and the honors, political and cultural. In New York, patroons and mercantile families of Dutch origin retained their high place in society when the English took over their inheritance but in time new houses ruled by the conquerors rose beside Dutch establishments in town and country. Trade and land furnished the military, political, and social leaders of the province. Indeed, the dominant gentry of New York resembled the Whig lords of England who united landed property with fortunes invested in business and they were in some cases connected by ties of marriage with the English nobility. Staats Long Morris, the elder brother of Gouverneur, for example, rose to the post of major in the British army, married the Duchess of Gordon, and