This would amply account for the removal of Richard Lee to Virginia, and for the ambition he seems to have been inspired with, to build and improve, without attributing to him any apprehension of probable punishment for his political course.

Very many families had the first-named motives, and commenced to build great manor-houses, which were never finished, or were too costly for any one of their descendants to possess.

The abolition of primogeniture, despite the opposition of Pendleton and others, overthrew all this; and the Lees, like other families, now possess few of the broad acres which their ancestors acquired.
To return, however, to Richard Lee.

He had already visited Virginia in some official capacity under the royal governor, Sir William Berkeley, and had been so much pleased with the soil and climate of the country, that he, as we have said, emigrated finally, and cast his lot in the new land.

He brought a number of followers and servants, and, coming over to Westmoreland County, in the Northern Neck of Virginia, "took up" extensive tracts of land there, and set about building manor-houses upon them.
Among these, it is stated, was the original "Stratford" House, afterward destroyed by fire.