Perhaps it had not occurred to Gooch that expansion would divide the colony into two parts--the democratic up-country, and the aristocratic tidewater. Spotsylvania, Brunswick, Goochland, Amelia, Caroline, and other counties in the Piedmont were filling up with small farmers from the east, Frederick with poor Germans and Swiss. It is true that some well-to-do planters established "quarters" managed by overseers above the Fall Line, and later invaded parts of the Valley, but even as late as the French and Indian War frontier conditions persisted in the regions on either side of the Blue Ridge. The influence of the west grew steadily as each new county sent its two representatives to the House of Burgesses. Whereas in 1727 when there were 65 members of the House, only 10 were from the west, in 1752, when the members numbered 104, 46 were from the western or southwestern counties. The time was not distant when the up-country members would count a majority. A bewigged Carter, or Harrison, or Wormeley, in his broadcloth suit with silver buttons, may have been resentful when a roughly clad delegate from Albemarle or Frederick took a seat beside him, but he dared not show it.
But in the first test of strength the newcomers lost because the east still dominated the Council. In 1749, after the burning of the Capitol in Williamsburg, the western Burgesses proposed that the seat of government be moved to a site on the Pamunkey, in Hanover County, which would save them many miles of travel in attending meetings of the Assembly. The feeling on each side ran high. Mr. John Blair, a member of the Council, in conversation with one of the Burgesses, pointed to the Speaker, saying: "There goes the man who is at the bottom of this hellish scheme." The House was deeply offended, and was appeased only when Blair apologized. After much hesitation the bill for the removal was passed by a vote of forty to thirty-eight, but it was promptly rejected by the Council.[17] So the Capitol was rebuilt on the old foundations, but with the proviso that this would not fix the seat of government permanently in Williamsburg. It did, however, fix it there until the Revolution, when, in response to the wishes of an overwhelming majority of the people, it was moved to Richmond.