leaned to this opinion on another occasion; but, apart from the absence
of all evidence to sustain this opinion, it is now certain, from the
autobiography of the Rev. William Tazewell, translated from the original
Latin by his grandson, the Rev. Henry Tazewell, Vicar of Marden,
Herefordshire, and published by the Camden Society in 1852, that the
family of Tazewell flourished in England at least a century before
religious disputes drew to a head in the reign of Louis the Fourteenth.
I have been particular in stating these facts, as they illustrate the
history of races, especially of those races which composed the people of
Virginia at the date of the Revolution; and it is something to know,
that a descendant of one of those men, who, under William the Conqueror,
wrested the empire of England from the successor of Alfred, and trod
down beneath their iron hoofs the Anglo-Saxon people, aided in rescuing
the colony of Virginia from the tyranny of George the Third, the
inheritor of the blood as well as of the crown of the Norman robber.

Soon after the arrival of William Tazewell in Virginia, he married
Sophia, daughter of Henry Harmanson and Gertrude Littleton, who was a
daughter of Col. Southey Littleton, and the son of that marriage was
called Littleton, after the surname of his grandfather. This Littleton
was brought up in the secretary's office, under Secretary Nelson, and
married Mary Gray, daughter of Col. Joseph Gray, of Southampton. With a
view of being near the relations of his wife, he sold his estate in
Accomack, which has long been the property of his grandson, Littleton
Waller, and purchased land in Brunswick, of which county he became clerk
of the court, dying at the early age of thirty-three. The son of this
marriage was Henry, the father of our departed townsman, who also
studied law, became a judge of the general court, a judge of the court
of appeals, a senator of the United States, and twice president of the
senate.