Channing, writing of conditions in 1800, the close of this period, says:  “The great Virginia plantations were practically self-sustaining, so far as the actual necessaries of life were concerned; the slaves had to be clothed and fed whether tobacco and wheat could be sold or not, but they produced, with the exception of the raw material for making their garments, practically all that was essential to their well being.  The money which the Virginia planters received for their staple products was used to purchase articles of luxury—­wine for the men, articles of apparel for the women, furnishings for the house, and things of that kind, and to pay the interest on the load of indebtedness which the Virginia aristocracy owed at home and broad."[154]

Again, the same historian says:  “The plenty of everything made hospitality universal, and the wealth of the country was greatly promoted by the opening of the forests.  Indeed, so contented were the people with their new homes (1652) that ... ’seldom (if ever) any that hath continued in Virginia any time will or do desire to live in England, but post back with what expedition they can, although many are landed men in England, and have good estates there, and divers ways of preferments propounded to them, to entice and perswade their continuants.’"[155]

Now, this comparative isolation of the plantation life made visiting and neighborliness doubly grateful and, hospitality and the spirit of kindness became almost proverbial in Virginia.  As far back as 1656 John Hammond of Virginia and Maryland noted this fact with no little pride in his Leah and Rachel; for, said he, “If any fall sick and cannot compasse to follow his crope, which if not followed, will soon be lost, the adjoyning neighbors will either voluntarily or upon a request joyn together, and work in it by spels, untill the honour recovers, and that gratis, so that no man by sicknesse lose any part of his years worke....  Let any travell, it is without charge, and at every house is entertainment as in a hostelry, and with it hearty welcome are strangers entertained....  In a word, Virginia wants not good victuals, wants not good dispositions, and as God hath freely bestowed it, they as freely impart with it, yet are there as well bad natures as good.”

This spirit of brotherhood and hospitality, was, of course, very necessary in the first days of colonization, and the sudden increase of wealth prevented its becoming irksome in later days.  Naturally, too, the poorer classes copied after the aristocracy, and thus the custom became universal along the Southern coast.  As mentioned above, there was a Cavalier strain throughout the section.  As Robert Beverly observed in his History of Virginia, written in 1705:  “In the time of the rebellion in England several good cavalier families went thither with their effects, to escape the tyranny of the usurper, or acknowledgement of his title.”  Such people had long been accustomed to rather lavish expenditures and entertainment, and, as Beverly testifies, they did not greatly change their mode of life after reaching America: