"The Virginians of 1720," according to Henry Randall, "lived in baronial splendor; their spacious grounds were bravely ornamented; their tables were loaded with plate and with the luxuries of the old and new world; they travelled in state, their coaches dragged by six horses driven by three postilions. When the Virginia gentleman went forth with his household his cavalcade consisted of the mounted white males of the family, the coach and six lumbering through the sands, and a retinue of mounted servants and led horses bringing up the rear. In their general tone of character the aristocracy of Virginia resembled the landed gentry of the mother country. Numbers of them were highly educated and accomplished by foreign study and travel. As a class they were intelligent, polished in manners, high toned, and hospitable, sturdy in their loyalty and in their adherence to the national church."
Another historian, writing from Virginia in 1720, says: "Several gentlemen have built themselves large brick houses of many rooms on a floor, but they don't covet to make them lofty, having extent enough of ground to build upon, and now and then they are visited by winds which incommode a towering fabric. Of late they have sasht their windows with crystal glass; adorning their apartments with rich furniture. They have their graziers, seedsmen, brewers, gardeners, bakers, butchers and cooks within themselves, and have a great plenty and variety of provisions for their table; and as for spicery and things the country don't produce, they have constant supplies of 'em from England. The gentry pretend to have their victuals served up as nicely as the best tables in England."
A quaint old Englishman, Peter Collinson, writes in 1737 to his friend Bartram when he was about taking Virginia in his field of botanical explorations: "One thing I must desire of thee, and do insist that thee oblige me therein: that thou make up that drugget clothes to go to Virginia in, and not appear to disgrace thyself and me; for these Virginians are a very gentle, well-dressed people, and look, perhaps, more at a man's outside than his inside. For these and other reasons pray go very clean, neat and handsomely dressed to Virginia. Never mind thy clothes: I will send more another year."