Note 177 — Chapter XIV · SOCIETY IN THE OLD DOMINION.

Chesapeake Bay, says Rev. Francis Makemie, is “a bay in most respects scarce to be outdone by the universe, having so many large and spacious rivers, branching and running on both sides; ... and each of these rivers richly supplied, and divided into sundry smaller rivers, spreading themselves ... to innumerable creeks and coves, admirably carved out and contrived by the omnipotent hand of our wise Creator, for the advantage and conveniency of its inhabitants; ... so that I have oft, with no small admiration, compared the many rivers, creeks, and rivulets of water ... to veins in human bodies.” A Plain and Friendly Perswasive, London, 1705, p. 5. “One receives the impression in reading of colonial Virginia that all the world lived in country-houses, on the banks of rivers. And the Virginia world did live very much in this way.” Miss Rowland’s Life of George Mason, i. 90.