set him above the necessity of submitting to the humors and vices of others, the most happy state this life affords. And as we here in Virginia may be said to be all of one trade, namely, planters, about one thousand acres of land will keep troublesome neighbors at a distance, and a few slaves to make corn and tobacco, and a few other necessaries, are sufficient. This, God hath enabled me to leave to each of my younger children, who you may perceive by what is before, are five in number.
I would by no means add affliction to the afflicted, or give advice when it is too late, but had you taken me into your counsel when you were deliberating about marrying my deceased niece to so near a relation, I should have opposed it, and advised you rather to a stranger for her, as I did in the case of my own daughter being married to James Maury, all friends here being very intent upon the match.
Marriage was the first divine institution, the only one with regard to our neighbor in the state of innocence, and consequently the best; joining again by the strictest ties of love and duty those who are separated in many degrees by descent from our first ancestors; thus, though by generation we are continually falling off one from another, yet the circle meets again, and we become one flesh. You may perceive that, confining these alliances within our own family is straitening this circle greatly, making a circle within a circle, a state within a state, as the clans of Scotland and the west of Ireland, which is not only of pernicious consequence to the government, but contrary to the true spirit of Christianity, which is the most diffusive of any, and would have every man look upon himself, not as of this or of that nation, but as a citizen
