Issues were disengaging themselves and were becoming distinct.
In these early years of the eighteenth century, Whig and Tory in England drew sharply over against each other.

In Virginia, too, as in Maryland, the Carolinas, and all the rest of England-in-America, parties were emerging.

The Virginian flair for political life was thus early in evidence.

To the careless eye the colony might seem overwhelmingly for King and Church.

"If New England be called a Receptacle of Dissenters, and an Amsterdam of Religion, Pennsylvania the Nursery of Quakers; Maryland the Retirement of Roman Catholicks, North Carolina the Refuge of Runaways and South Carolina the Delight of Buccaneers and Pyrates, Virginia may be justly esteemed the happy Retreat of true Britons and true Churchmen for the most Part." This "for the most part" paints the situation, for there existed an opposition, a minority, which might grow to balance, and overbalance.