History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia Part 30

[349:A] First Series, v. 124.

[351:A] The council, in the time of Governor Andros, consisted of Ralph Wormley, collector and naval officer of Rappahannock River; Colonel Richard Lee, collector and naval officer of upper district of Potomac River--these two having been appointed while Sir William Berkley was governor; Colonel William Byrd, who was appointed auditor during Lord Culpepper's administration; Colonel Christopher Wormley, collector and naval officer of the lower district of the Potomac River, appointed while Lord Effingham was governor; Colonel Edward Hill, collector and naval officer of upper district of James River; Colonel Edmund Jennings, collector and naval officer of York River--these two being appointed in Lord Effingham's time; Colonel Daniel Parke, collector and naval officer of the lower district of James River, and escheator between York and Rappahannock Rivers; Colonel Charles Scarburgh, collector and naval officer on the Eastern Sh.o.r.e, and Mr. John Lightfoot, who had lately arrived in the country--these last four appointed while Sir Edmund Andros was governor.

[355:A] Account of Va., in Ma.s.s. Hist. Coll., first series.

CHAPTER XLIV.

1698-1702.

Administration of Andros--Controversy with Blair--The Rev.

Hugo Jones' Account of Maryland--Andros succeeded by Nicholson --Alteration in his Conduct--Supposed Cause--Williamsburg made the Seat of Government--His tyrannical Proceedings--Prejudice of Beverley, the Historian--Act against Pirates--Offices of Speaker and Treasurer combined--Capture of a piratical Vessel-- Death of Edward Hill--Commencement at William and Mary--Demise of William the Third--Succeeded by Anne--Nicholson's Description of the People of Virginia.

GOVERNOR ANDROS took singular pains in arranging and preserving the public records; and when, in 1698, the State-house was burned, he caused the papers that survived to be arranged with more exactness than before.

He ordered that all the English statutes should be law in Virginia; this preposterous rule gave great dissatisfaction. He was a patron of manufactures; but the acts for establishing fulling-mills were rejected by the board of trade. He encouraged the culture of cotton, which, however, fell into disuse.

By royal instructions, Andros was invested with the powers of ordinary, or representative of the king and the bishop of London, in the affairs of the church. This brought him into collision with Commissary Blair, and in 1694 the governor arbitrarily suspended him from his place in the council, to which he had been appointed in the preceding year. While in England on the business of the college, in 1695, the doctor preferred charges against Andros as an enemy to religion, to the church, the clergy, and the college. The charges and the proofs covered thirty-two folio pages of ma.n.u.script, and were drawn up with ability. But Blair had to contend with formidable opposition, for Governor Andros sent over to London, in his defence, Colonel Byrd, of Westover, Mr. Harrison, of Surry County, Mr. Povey, who was high in office in the colony, and a Mr.

Marshall, to arraign the Rev. Commissary himself before the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Two days were spent at Lambeth Palace, in the examination, the charges and answers filling fifty-seven folio pages of ma.n.u.script, and Dr. Blair's accusers were signally discomfited. Much of the prejudice against him was owing to his being a Scotchman--a prejudice at that time running very high in England. The result was that Blair returned after successfully accomplishing the object of his mission, and having been reinstated in the council by the king. He was, nevertheless, again removed upon a pretence equally frivolous.[357:A] Andros was sent back to England to answer in person the charges alleged against him, and eventually, they being substantiated, he was removed from his office of deputy governor of Virginia.[357:B]

William the Third, by the treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, obtained an acknowledgment of his right to the crown, and vindicated the principles of const.i.tutional freedom.

The Rev. Hugo Jones, author of a work ent.i.tled "Present State of Virginia," writing from Maryland in this year, says of the people there: "They are, generally speaking, crafty, knavish, litigious, dissemblers, and debauched. A gentleman (I mean one of a generous Cambro-Briton temper) is _rara avis in terris_. A man must be circ.u.mspect and prudent if he will maintain his reputation among them. Of dealing, it is very true what was told me by a man at London, that none is fit to deal with a Virginian but a Virginian; however, I having made it my business both in London and at sea to inquire into the nature of the people, that I might know the better how to behave myself among them, have gained as good a reputation as in modesty I could expect; neither have I been much imposed upon in my bargains. As to the people's disposition in matters of religion, they will follow none out of the path of interest, and they heartily embrace none but such as will fill the barn and the basket.

Most sects are here professed, but in general they are practical atheists."[357:C]

The uncharitable judgments of this narrow-minded writer are not ent.i.tled to much weight. Among a people requiring so much ministerial care, he found ample time to devote to the study of natural history, and was curious in the examination of "fishes' bones" and "petrified mushrooms."

In the year 1698 died Thomas Ludwell, Esq., some time secretary of Virginia. He was born at Bruton, County Somerset, England. Sir Edmund Andros was succeeded in November, 1698, by Colonel Nicholson, transferred from the government of Maryland. He entertained a plan of confederating the colonies together, and aspired to become himself the viceroy of the contemplated union. Finding himself thwarted in these projects, his conduct became self-willed and overbearing. In a memorial sent to England, he stated that tobacco bore so low a price as not to yield even clothes to the planters; yet, in the same paper, advised parliament to prohibit the plantations from making their own clothing; in other words, proposing that they should be left to go naked.[358:A]

Indeed, he appeared to be quite altered from what he had been during his former administration in Virginia; and the change was thought to be not a little owing to a disappointment in love. He had become pa.s.sionately attached to a daughter of Lewis Burwell, Jr., and failing to win her favor or that of her parents, in his suit, he became infuriated, and persisted, Quixotically, for years in his fruitless purpose. The young lady's father, and her brothers, and Commissary Blair, and the Rev. Mr.

Fouace, minister of the parish, were especial objects of his vengeance.

To the young lady he threatened the death of her father and her brothers, if she did not yield to his suit. He committed other outrages no less extraordinary.

For the sake of a healthier situation, Governor Nicholson removed the seat of government from Jamestown, now containing only three or four good inhabited houses, to Middle Plantation, so called from its lying midway between James and York Rivers. Here he projected a large town, laying out the streets in the form of a W and M, in honor of King William and Queen Mary. This plan, however, appears to have been abandoned, or only partially carried out.[359:A] According to the contemporary historian Beverley, Nicholson declared openly to the lower order of people "that the gentlemen imposed upon them; that the servants had all been kidnapped, and had a lawful action against their masters."

In the year 1700 Mr. Fowler, the king's attorney-general for the colony, declaring some piece of service against law, the governor seized him by the collar, and swore "that he knew no laws they had, and that his commands should be obeyed without hesitation or reserve." He committed gentlemen who offended him to prison without any complaint, and refused to allow bail; and some of them having intimated to him that such proceedings were illegal, he replied, "that they had no right at all to the liberties of English subjects, and that he would hang up those that should presume to oppose him, with magna charta about their necks." He often extolled the governments of Fez and Morocco, and at a meeting of the governors of the college, told them "that he knew how to govern the Moors, and would beat them into better manners." At another time he avowed that he knew how to govern the country without a.s.semblies, and if they should deny him anything after he had obtained a standing army, "he would bring them to reason with halters about their necks." His outrages made him jealous, and to prevent complaints being sent to England against him, he is said to have intercepted letters, employed spies, and even played the eavesdropper himself. He sometimes held inquisitorial courts to find grounds of accusation against such as incurred his displeasure.[359:B]

Robert Beverley, author of a "History of Virginia," published the first edition of it in 1705. He was a son of Robert Beverley, the persecuted clerk, who died in 1687. This may account somewhat for his extreme acrimony against Culpepper and Effingham, who had persecuted his father, and against Nicholson, who was Effingham's deputy. In his second edition, when time had, perhaps, mitigated his animosities, Beverley omitted many of his accusations against these governors. In favor of Nicholson, it is also to be observed, that his administration in Maryland and in South Carolina was more satisfactory. But it is certain that he was an erratic, Quixotic, irascible man, who could not bear opposition, and an extreme high churchman.

In the eleventh year of William the Third an act was pa.s.sed for the restraining and punishing of pirates and privateers, the preamble reciting that "nothing can more conduce to the honor of his most sacred majesty than that such articles of peace as are concluded in all treaties should be kept and preserved inviolable by his majesty's subjects in and over all his majesty's territories and dominions, and that great mischief and depredations are daily done upon the high seas by pirates, privateers, and sea-robbers, in not only taking and pillaging several ships and vessels belonging to his majesty's subjects, but also in taking, destroying, and robbing several ships belonging to the subjects of foreign princes, in league and amity with his majesty;"

and they prayed that crimes committed on the high seas should be punished as if committed on land, in Virginia.[360:A] A committee was appointed during the same session "to revise the laws of this his majesty's ancient and great colony and dominion of Virginia."[360:B]

Among the subjects upon which a tax was laid for the building of a capitol, were servants imported, not being natives of England or Wales, fifteen shillings per poll, and twenty shillings on every negro or other slave. Colonel Robert Carter, speaker of the house, was elected to fill the office of treasurer; and it came to be the custom for the two offices of speaker and treasurer to be held by the same person. The establishment of the office of a treasurer appointed by the a.s.sembly, giving that body control of the colonial purse, added much to the independence of its legislative power.

In the second year of Nicholson's administration a piratical vessel was captured within the capes of Virginia. She had taken some merchant-vessels in Lynhaven Bay, and a small vessel happening to witness an engagement between her and a merchantman, conveyed intelligence of it to the Shoram, a fifth-rate man-of-war, commanded by Captain Pa.s.senger, and newly arrived. Nicholson chanced to be at Kiquotan sealing up his letters, and, going on board the Shoram, was present in the engagement that followed. The Shoram, by daybreak, having got in between the capes and the pirate, intercepted her, and an action took place on the 29th of April, 1700, when the pirate surrendered upon condition of being referred to the king's mercy. In this affair fell Peter Heyman, grandson of Sir Peter Heyman, of Summerfield, in the County of Kent, England. Being collector of the customs in the lower district of James River, he volunteered to go on board the Shoram, and after behaving with undaunted courage, standing on the quarter-deck near the governor, was killed by a small shot.

During this year died the Honorable Colonel Edward Hill, of Shirley, on the James River, in the sixty-third year of his age; he was of the council, colonel and commander-in-chief of the Counties of Charles City and Surry, judge of his majesty's high court of admiralty, and some time treasurer of Virginia. He lies buried at Shirley, and a portrait of him and his wife is preserved there.

In the year preceding this, Protestant dissenters, qualified according to the toleration act of the first year of William and Mary, were exempted from penalties for not repairing to the parish church, if they attended some legal place of worship once in two months.[361:A] The press was not yet free in Virginia, and the writ of _habeas corpus_ was still withheld.

There was a commencement at William and Mary College in the year 1700, at which there was a great concourse of people; several planters came thither in coaches, and others in sloops from New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, it being a new thing in that part of America to hear graduates perform their exercises. The Indians themselves had the curiosity, some of them, to visit Williamsburg upon that occasion; and the whole country rejoiced as if they had some relish of learning.

Fifty-eight years before this there had been celebrated a commencement at Harvard College, in Ma.s.sachusetts.[362:A]

In the year 1701 Colonel Quarry, surveyor-general of the customs, wrote to the board of trade: "This malignant humor is not confined to Virginia, formerly the most remarkable for loyalty, but is universally diffused."

During the month of March of this year died William the Third. His manner was taciturn, reserved, haughty; his genius military; his decision inflexible. In his fondness of prerogative he showed himself a grandson of the first Charles; as the defender of the Protestant religion, and Prince of Orange, he displayed toleration toward all except Papists. The government of Virginia under him was not materially improved. He was succeeded by Anne, daughter of James the Second. Louis the Fourteenth having recognized the Pretender as lawful heir to the British crown, Anne, shortly after she succeeded to the throne, in 1702, declared war against France, and its ally Spain; but Virginia was not directly affected by the long conflict that ensued. In compliance with the requests of the a.s.sembly, the queen granted the colony warlike stores, to the value of three thousand and three hundred pounds, which the governor was directed to pay from the revenue of quit-rents. Her majesty, at the same time, renewed the requisition formerly made by the crown for an appropriation in aid of the defences of New York; but the burgesses still steadily refused.

During the reign of William the Third the commerce of Virginia had been seriously interrupted, and her customary supplies withheld; she, therefore, encouraged the domestic manufacture of linen and wool; but an act for the establishment of fulling-mills was rejected by the board of trade, as also was one for "the better securing the liberty of the subject." Governor Nicholson, in a memorial to the council of trade, described the people of Virginia as numerous, rich, and of republican principles, such as ought to be lowered in time; that then or never was the time to maintain the queen's prerogative, and put a stop to those pernicious notions, which were increasing daily, not only in Virginia, but in all her majesty's other governments, and that a frown from her majesty now would do more than an army thereafter; and he insisted on the necessity of a standing army.[363:A]

FOOTNOTES:

[357:A] Account of Va. in Ma.s.s. Hist. Coll., first series, v. 144.

[357:B] Old Churches, Ministers, and Families of Virginia, i. 157.

[357:C] European Magazine, 1796.

[358:A] Beverley, B. i. 98.

[359:A] Hugh Jones' Present State of Virginia; Beverley, B. i. 99; Va.

Hist. Reg., vi. 15.

[359:B] Beverley, B. i. 97.

[360:A] Hening, iii. 177.

[360:B] The members of it were Edward Hill, Matthew Page, and Benjamin Harrison, Esquires, members of the council; and Miles Cary, John Taylor, Robert Beverley, Anthony Armistead, Henry Duke, and William Buckner, gentlemen of the house of burgesses.

[361:A] Hening, iii. 171.

[362:A] In 1701 the population of the colonies was as follows:--

Connecticut 30,000 Maryland 25,000 Ma.s.sachusetts 70,000 New Hampshire 10,000 New Jersey 15,000 New York 30,000 North Carolina 5,000 Pennsylvania 20,000 Rhode Island 10,000 South Carolina 7,000 Virginia 40,000 ------- Total 202,000

(_Compendium of United States Census_.)

[363:A] Beverley, B. i. 104.

CHAPTER XLV.

1703.

a.s.sembly held in the College--Ceremony of opening the Session--The Governor's Speech.