History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia Part 32

1704-1710.

Edward Nott, Lieutenant-Governor--Earl of Orkney, t.i.tular Governor-in-chief--Nott's Administration--Robert Hunter appointed Lieutenant-Governor--Captured by the French--The Rev. Samuel Sandford endows a Free School--Lord Baltimore.

ON the 13th day of August, 1704, the Duke of Marlborough gained a celebrated victory over the French and Bavarians at Blenheim.[375:A]

During the same month Edward Nott came over to Virginia, lieutenant-governor under George Hamilton, Earl of Orkney, who had been appointed governor-in-chief, and from this time the office became a pensionary sinecure, enjoyed by one residing in England, and who, out of a salary of two thousand pounds a year, received twelve hundred. The Earl of Orkney, who enjoyed this sinecure for forty years, having entered the army in his youth, was made a colonel in 1689-90, and in 1695-6 was created Earl of Orkney, in consideration of his merit and gallantry. He was present at the battles of the Boyne, Athlone, Limerick, Aghrim, Steinkirk, Lauden, Namur, and Blenheim, and was a great favorite of William the Third. In the first year of Queen Anne's reign he was made a major-general, and shortly after a Knight of the Thistle, and served with distinction in all the wars of her reign. As one of the sixteen peers of Scotland he was a member of the house of lords for many years. He married, in 1695, Elizabeth, daughter to Sir Edward Villiers, Knight, (Maid of Honor to Queen Mary,) sister to Edward, Earl of Jersey, by whom he had three daughters, Lady Anne, who married the Earl of Inchequin, Lady Frances, who married Sir Thomas Sanderson, Knight of the Bath, Knight of the Shire of Lincoln, and brother to the Earl of Scarborough, and Lady Harriet, married to the Earl of Orrery.

Nott, a mild, benevolent man, did not survive long enough to realize what the people hoped from his administration. In the fall after his arrival he called an a.s.sembly, which concluded a general revisal of the laws that had been long in hand. Some salutary acts went into operation, but those relating to the church and clergy proving unacceptable to the commissary, as encroaching on the confines of prerogative, were suspended by the governor, and thus fell through. Governor Nott procured the pa.s.sage of an act providing for the building of a palace for the governor, and appropriating three thousand pounds to that object, and he dissented to an act infringing on the governor's right of appointing justices of the peace, by making the concurrence of five of the council necessary. An act establishing the general court was afterwards disallowed by the board of trade, because it did not recognize the appellate rights of the crown. This a.s.sembly pa.s.sed a new act for the establishment of ports and towns, "grounding it only upon encouragements according to her majesty's letter;" but the Virginia merchants complaining against it, this measure also failed.

During the first year of Nott's administration the College of William and Mary was destroyed by fire.[376:A] The a.s.sembly had held their sessions in it for several years. Governor Nott died in August, 1706, aged forty-nine years. The a.s.sembly erected a monument to his memory in the graveyard of the church at Williamsburg. In the inscription he is styled, "His Excellency, Edward Nott, the late Governor of this Colony."

It appears that he and his successors were allowed to retain the chief t.i.tle, as giving them more authority with the people, the Earl of Orkney being quite content with a part of the salary.

England having now adopted the French policy of appointing military men for the colonial governments, in 1708 Robert Hunter, a brigadier-general, a scholar, and a wit--a friend of Addison and Swift--was appointed lieutenant-governor of Virginia; but he was captured on the voyage by the French. Dean Swift, in January, 1708-9, writes to him, then a prisoner in Paris, that unless he makes haste to return to England and get him appointed Bishop of Virginia, he will be persuaded by Addison, newly appointed secretary of state for Ireland, to accompany him.[377:A]

Two months later he writes to him: "All my hopes now terminate in being made Bishop of Virginia." In the year 1710 Hunter became Governor of New York and the Jerseys, and his administration was happily conducted.

Samuel Sandford, who had been some time resident in Accomac County: by his will, dated at London in this year, he leaves a large tract of land, the rents and profits to be appropriated to the education of the children of the poor. It appears probable that he had served as a minister in Accomac, and at the time of the making of his will was a minister in the County of Gloucester, England.

About the year 1709, Benedict Calvert, Lord Baltimore, abandoned the Church of Rome and embraced Protestantism. To Charles Calvert, his son, likewise a Protestant, the full privileges of the Maryland charter were subsequently restored by George the First.[377:B]

FOOTNOTES:

[375:A] In the following year appeared the first American newspaper, "The Boston News-Letter."

[376:A] The same disaster has recently befallen this venerable inst.i.tution, on the 8th of February, 1859. The library, comprising many rare and valuable works, shared the fate of the building. The walls are rising again on the same spot.

[377:A] Anderson's Hist. Col. Church, iii. 127.

[377:B] Ibid., iii. 183.

CHAPTER XLIX.

1710-1714.

Spotswood, Lieutenant-Governor--His Lineage and Early Career-- Dissolves the a.s.sembly--a.s.sists North Carolina--Sends Cary and others Prisoners to England--Death of Queen Anne--Accession of George the First--German Settlement--Virginia's Economy--Church Establishment--Statistics.

IN the year 1710 Colonel Alexander Spotswood was sent over as lieutenant-governor, under the Earl of Orkney. He was descended from the ancient Scottish family of Spottiswoode. The surname is local, and was a.s.sumed by the proprietors of the lands and Barony of Spottiswoode, in the Parish of Gordon, and County of Berwick, as soon as surnames became hereditary in Scotland. The immediate ancestor of the family was Robert de Spotswood, born during the reign of King Alexander the Third, who succeeded to the crown of Scotland in 1249. Colonel Alexander Spotswood was born in 1676, the year of Bacon's Rebellion, at Tangier, then an English colony, in Africa, his father, Robert Spotswood, being physician to the governor, the Earl of Middleton, and the garrison there. The grandfather of Alexander was Sir Robert Spotswood, Lord President of the College of Justice, and Secretary of Scotland in the time of Charles the First, and author of "The Practicks of the Laws of Scotland." He was the second son of John Spotswood, or Spottiswoode, Archbishop of St.

Andrews, and author of "The History of the Church of Scotland." The mother of Colonel Alexander Spotswood was a widow, Catharine Elliott; his father died at Tangier in 1688, leaving this his only child.[378:A]

Colonel Alexander Spotswood was bred in the army from his childhood, and uniting genius with energy, served with distinction under the Duke of Marlborough.

He was dangerously wounded in the breast by the first fire which the French made on the Confederates at the battle of Blenheim. He served during the heat of that sanguinary war as deputy quartermaster-general.

In after-life, while governor of Virginia, he sometimes showed to his guests a four-pound ball that struck his coat. Blenheim Castle is represented in the background of a portrait of him, preserved at Chelsea, in the County of King William.

The arrival of Governor Spotswood in Virginia was hailed with joy, because he brought with him the right of Habeas Corpus--a right guaranteed to every Englishman by Magna Charta, but hitherto denied to Virginians. He entered upon the duties of his office in June, 1710. The two houses of the a.s.sembly severally returned thanks for an act affording them "relief from long imprisonments," and appropriated upwards of two thousand pounds for completing the governor's palace. In the following year Spotswood wrote back to England: "This government is in perfect peace and tranquillity, under a due obedience to the royal authority and a gentlemanly conformity to the Church of England." The a.s.sembly was continued by several prorogations to November, 1711. During the summer of this year, upon an alarm of an intended French invasion of Virginia, the governor exerted himself to put the colony in the best posture of defence. Upon the convening of the a.s.sembly their jealousy of prerogative power revived, and they refused to pay the expense of collecting the militia, or to discharge the colonial debt, because, as Spotswood informed the ministry, "they hoped by their frugality to recommend themselves to the populace." The a.s.sembly would only consent to levy twenty thousand pounds, by duties laid chiefly on British manufactures; and notwithstanding the governor's message, they insisted on giving discriminating privileges to Virginia owners of vessels in preference to British subjects proper, saying that the same exemption had always existed. The governor declined the proffered levy, and finding that nothing further could be obtained, dissolved the a.s.sembly, and in antic.i.p.ation of an Indian war was obliged to solicit supplies from England.

About this time, the feuds that raged in the adjoining province of North Carolina, threatening to subvert all regular government there, Hyde, the governor, called upon Spotswood for aid. He at first sent Clayton, a man of singular prudence, to endeavor to reconcile the hostile factions. But Cary, the ringleader of the insurgents, having refused to make terms, Spotswood ordered a detachment of militia toward the frontier of North Carolina, while he sent a body of marines, from the coast-guard ships, to destroy Cary's naval force. In a dispatch, Spotswood complained to Lord Dartmouth of the reluctance that he found in the inhabitants of the counties bordering on North Carolina, to march to the relief of Governor Hyde. No blood was shed upon the occasion, and Cary, Porter, and other leaders in those disturbances retiring to Virginia, were apprehended by Spotswood in July, 1711, and sent prisoners to England, charged with treason. In the ensuing year Lord Dartmouth addressed letters to the colonies, directing the governors to send over no more prisoners for crimes or misdemeanors, without proof of their guilt.

In the Tuscarora war, commenced by a ma.s.sacre on the frontier of North Carolina in September of this year, Spotswood again made an effort to relieve that colony, and prevented the tributary Indians from joining the enemy. He felt that little honor was to be derived from a contest with those who fought like wild beasts, and he rather endeavored to work upon their hopes and fears by treaty. To allay the clamors of the public creditors the governor convened the a.s.sembly in 1712, and demonstrated to them that during the last twenty-two years the permanent revenue had been so deficient as to require seven thousand pounds from the monarch's private purse to supply it. In the month of January, 1714, he at length concluded a peace with these ferocious tribes, who had been drawn into the contest, and, blending humanity with vigor, he taught them that while he could chastise their insolence he commiserated their fate.

On the seventeenth day of November the governor, in his address to the a.s.sembly, announced the death of Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart monarchs, and the succession of George the First, the first of the Guelfs, but maternally a grandson of James the First.

The frontier of the colony of Virginia was now undisturbed by Indian incursions, so that the expenditure was reduced to one-third of what had been previously required. A settlement of German Protestants had recently been effected under the governor's auspices, in a region hitherto unpeopled, on the Rapidan.[381:A] The place settled by these Germans was called Germanna, afterwards the residence of Spotswood.

These immigrants, being countrymen of the new sovereign, could claim an additional t.i.tle to the royal favor on that account. Spotswood was at the time endeavoring to extend the blessings of a Christian education to the children of the Indians, and although the beneficial result of this scheme might to some appear too remote, he declared that for him it was a sufficient encouragement to think that posterity might reap the benefit of it. The Indian troubles, by which the frontier of Virginia had of late years suffered so much, the governor attributed mainly to the clandestine trade carried on with them by unprincipled men. The same evil has continued down to the present day. In the before-mentioned address to the a.s.sembly, Spotswood informed them that since their preceding session he had received a supply of ammunition, arms, and other necessaries of war, sent out by the late Queen Anne.

During eleven years, from 1707 to 1718, while other colonies were burdened with taxation for extrinsic purposes, Virginia steadily adhered to a system of rigid economy, and during that interval eighty-three pounds of tobacco per poll was the sum-total levied by all acts of a.s.sembly.[381:B] The Virginians now began to scrutinize, with a jealous eye, the circ.u.mstances of the government, and the a.s.sembly "held itself ent.i.tled to all the rights and privileges of an English parliament."

The act of 1642, reserving the right of presentation to the parish, the license of the Bishop of London, and the recommendation of the governor, availed but little against the popular will, and there were not more than four inducted ministers in the colony. Republicanism was thus finding its way even into the church, and vestries were growing independent. The parish sometimes neglected to receive the minister; sometimes received but did not present him, the custom being to employ a minister by the year. In 1703 it was decided that the minister was an inc.u.mbent for life, and could not be displaced by the parish, but the vestries, by preventing his induction, excluded him from acquiring a freehold in his living, and he might be removed at pleasure. The ministers were not always men who could win the esteem of the people or command their respect. The Virginia parishes were so extensive that parishioners sometimes lived at the distance of fifty miles from the parish church, and the a.s.sembly would not augment the taxes by narrowing the bounds of the parishes, even to avoid the dangers of "paganism, atheism, or sectaries." Schism was threatening "to creep into the church, and to generate faction in the civil government."[382:A] "In Virginia," says the Rev. Hugh Jones,[382:B] "there is no ecclesiastical court, so that vice, profaneness, and immorality are not suppressed. The people hate the very name of bishop's court." "All which things," he adds, "make it absolutely necessary for a bishop to be settled there, to pave the way for mitres in English America."

There is preserved the record of the trial of Grace Sherwood, in the County of Princess Anne, for witchcraft. Being put in the water, with her hands bound, she was found to swim. A jury of old women having examined her, reported that "she was not like them." She was ordered by the court to be secured "by irons, or otherwise," in jail for farther trial. The picturesque inlet where she was put in the water is still known as "Witch Duck." The custom of nailing horse-shoes to the doors to keep out witches is not yet entirely obsolete.

The Virginians at this time were deterred from sending their children across the Atlantic to be educated, through fear of the smallpox.[382:C]

From the statistics of the year 1715, it appears that Virginia was, in population second only to Ma.s.sachusetts,[383:A] which exceeded her in total number by one thousand, and in the number of whites by twenty-two thousand. All the colonies were at this time slave-holding; the seven Northern ones comprising an aggregate of 12,150 slaves, and the four Southern ones 46,700. The proportion of whites to negroes in Virginia was upwards of four to one. Their condition was one of rather rigorous servitude. The number of Africans imported into Virginia during the reign of George the First was upwards of ten thousand. In addition to the slaves, the Virginians had three kinds of white servants,--some hired in the ordinary way; others, called kids, bound by indenture for four or five years; the third cla.s.s consisted of convicts. The two colonies, Virginia and Maryland, supplied the mother country, in exchange for her manufactures, with upwards of twenty-five millions of pounds of tobacco, of which there were afterwards exported more than seventeen millions, leaving for internal consumption more than eight millions. Besides the revenue which Great Britain derived from this source, in a commercial point of view, Virginia and Maryland were at this period of more consequence to the fatherland than all the other nine colonies combined. Virginia exchanged her corn, lumber, and salted provisions, for the sugar, rum, and wine of the West Indies and the Azores.

FOOTNOTES:

[378:A] Douglas's Peerage of Scotland; Burke's Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, ii., Art. SPOTTISWOODE; Chalmers' Introduction, i.

394; Keith's Hist. of Va., 173.

[381:A] There are several rivers in Virginia called after Queen Anne: the North Anna, South Anna, Rivanna, and Rapidan; and the word Fluvanna appears to be derived from the same source.

[381:B] Va. Hist. Reg., iv. 11.

[382:A] Bancroft, iii. 27, 28, citing Spotswood MS., an account of Virginia during his administration, composed by the governor; Hawks, p.

88.

[382:B] The Present State of Virginia.

[382:C] Bishop Meade's "Old Churches."

[383:A] The comparative population of the eleven Anglo-American colonies in 1715 was as follows:--

White Men. Negroes. Total.

New Hampshire 9,500 150 9,650 Ma.s.sachusetts 94,000 2,000 96,000 Rhode Island 8,500 500 9,000 Connecticut 46,000 1,500 47,500 New York 27,000 4,000 31,000 New Jersey 21,000 1,500 22,500 Pennsylvania 43,300 2,500 45,800 Maryland 40,700 9,500 50,200 Virginia 72,000 23,000 95,000 North Carolina 7,500 3,700 11,200 South Carolina 6,250 10,500 16,750 ------- ------ ------- 375,750 58,850 434,600

(_Chalmers' Amer. Colonies_, ii. 7.)

CHAPTER L.