please to communicate to the Synod as an answer to theirs. Your most humble servant, William Gooch."
The loyalty of the Scotch-Irish settlers of the Valley to the house of Hanover is not over-stated by the Synod in their address to the Governor. Indeed, that spirit was characteristic of their race. Froude remarks, in substance, that of all the people of Ireland, the Presbyterians of Ulster had most cause to complain of the severities of the British government, for while uniformly loyal they received no favors in return.
The Governor, in his reply, alludes to the "toleration" of Dissenters provided by law. This was on certain conditions. Their places of worship, or meeting-houses, were required to be licensed and registered in the county courts. In eastern Virginia the number of such places in a county was limited, but in the Valley there appears to have been no restriction of the kind. All ministers of the gospel were obliged to take divers and sundry oaths, and especially to abjure the "Pretender" to the throne of Great Britain, the Pope of Rome, and the doctrine of transubstantiation. The people were not liable to fine for not attending the parish churches, but they were compelled to contribute to the support of the established religion, and their ministers were not allowed to celebrate the rite of marriage. Until the year 1781 any couple desiring to be legally married had to send for or go to some minister of the Established Church, however far off he might live.
Governor Gooch is regarded as being averse to persecuting measures, yet he is supposed to have encouraged the settlement of the Valley chiefly from a desire to remove the frontier of civilization further from Williamsburg, and to place a hardy and enterprising race of people between the capital and the savage Indians.
Up to the time to which we have now arrived, the whole region west of the Blue Ridge constituted a part of the county of Orange. In the year 1738, however, on November I, the General Assembly of the colony of Virginia passed an act establishing the counties of Frederick and Augusta. The new counties were so named in honor of Frederick, Prince of Wales, son of King George II, and father of George III, and his wife, the Princess Augusta. The act separated all the territory west
