History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia Part 29

CHAPTER XLII.

1688-1696.

Accession of William and Mary--Proclaimed in Virginia--The House of Stuart--President Bacon--Colonel Francis Nicholson, Lieutenant-Governor--The Rev. James Blair, Commissary--College of William and Mary chartered--Its Endowment, Objects, Professors.h.i.+ps--Death of John Page--Nicholson succeeded by Andros--Post-office--Death of Queen Mary--William the Third-- Board of Trade.

WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE, landed at Torbay in November, 1688, and he and Mary were proclaimed king and queen on the 13th day of February, 1689. The coronation took place on the eleventh day of April. They had been for several months seated on the throne before they were proclaimed in Virginia. The delay was owing to the reiterated pledges of fealty made by the council to James, and from an apprehension that he might be restored to the kingdom. Some of the Virginians insisted that, as there was no king in England, so there was also an interregnum in the government of the colony. At length, in compliance with the repeated commands of the privy council, William and Mary were proclaimed, at James City, in April, 1689, Lord and Lady of Virginia. This glorious event, with the circ.u.mstances connected with it, was duly announced to the lords commissioners of plantations, in a letter, dated on the twenty-ninth of that month, by Nicholas Spencer, secretary of state.

The accession of the Prince of Orange dispelled the clouds of discontent and alarm, and inspired the people of the colony with sincere joy. For about seventy years Virginia had been subject to the house of Stuart, and there was little in the retrospect to awaken regret at their downfall. They had cramped trade by monopolies and restrictions, lavished vast bodies of land on their profligate minions, and often entrusted the reigns of power to incompetent, corrupt, and tyrannical governors. The dynasty of the Stuarts fell buried in the ruins of misused power.

When the last of the Stuart governors, Lord Howard of Effingham, returned to England, he had left the administration in the hands of Colonel Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., president of the council. Upon the accession of William and Mary, England being on the eve of a war with France, the president and council of Virginia were directed by the Duke of Shrewsbury to put the colony in a posture of defence.

Colonel Philip Ludwell, who had been sent out as an agent of the colony to prefer complaints against Lord Howard of Effingham before the privy council, now at length obtained a decision in some points rather favorable to the colony, but the question of prerogative was determined in favor of the crown, and it was declared that an act of 1680 _was_ revived by the king's disallowing the act of repeal.

Bacon's administration was short; he had now obtained an advanced age.

In his time the project of a college was renewed, but not carried into effect. President Bacon resided in York County. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Kingsmill, Esq., of James City County. Leaving no issue, by his will he bequeathed his estates to his niece, Abigail Burwell, and his "riding horse, Watt, to Lady Berkley," at that time wife of Colonel Philip Ludwell. President Bacon died on the 16th of March, 1692, in the seventy-third year of his age, and lies buries on King's Creek,[344:A] as does also Elizabeth, his wife, who died in the year 1691, aged sixty-seven.[344:B] The name of the wife of Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., was likewise Elizabeth.

In the year 1690 Lord Effingham, reluctant to revisit a province where he was so unacceptable, being still absent from Virginia on the plea of ill health, Francis Nicholson, who had been driven from New York by a popular outbreak, came over as lieutenant-governor. He found the colony ready for revolt. The people were indignant at seeing Effingham still retained in the office of governor-in-chief, believing that Nicholson would become his tool. The revolution in England seemed as yet productive of no amendment in the colonial administration. Nicholson, however, now courted popularity; he inst.i.tuted athletic games, and offered prizes to those who should excel in riding, running, shooting, wrestling, and fencing. The last alone could need any encouragement in such a country as Virginia. He proposed the establishment of a post-office, and recommended the erection of a college, but refused to call an a.s.sembly to further the scheme, being under obligations to Effingham to stave off a.s.semblies as long as possible, for fear of complaints being renewed against his arbitrary administration.[345:A]

Nevertheless, Nicholson and the council headed a private subscription, and twenty-five hundred pounds were raised, part of this sum being contributed by some London merchants. The new governor made a progress through the colony, mingling freely with the people, and he carried his indulgence to the common people so far as frequently to suffer them to enter the room where he was entertaining company at dinner, and diverted himself with their scrambling among one another and carrying off the viands from the table--like Sancho Panza's on the Island of Barataria.

There is but one step from the courtier to the demagogue.

Virginia felt the embarra.s.sments which war had brought upon England, and acts were pa.s.sed for encouraging domestic manufactures, for which Nicholson found an apology in the scanty supplies imported. The a.s.sembly congratulated the Prince of Orange on his accession, and thanking him for his present of warlike stores, begged for further favors of the royal bounty.

When Colonel Nicholson entered on the duties of governor, the Rev. James Blair, a native of Scotland, newly appointed commissary of Virginia, a.s.sumed the supervision of the churches of the colony. He came over to this country in 1685, and settled in the County of Henrico, where he remained till 1694, when he removed to Jamestown. The functions of commissary, who was a deputy of the Bishop of London, had been previously discharged by the Rev. Mr. Temple, but he was not regularly commissioned.

At the instance of the Rev. Mr. Blair, in 1691 the a.s.sembly entered heartily into the scheme of a college, and in the same year he was dispatched with an address to their majesties, King William and Queen Mary, soliciting a charter.

The first a.s.sembly under the new dynasty met at James City, in April, 1691, being the third year of their reign. Acts were pa.s.sed for putting the colony in a better state of defence, for reducing the poll tax, and laying a duty on liquors, and for appointing a treasurer. Colonel Edward Hill was appointed to that office. The same a.s.sembly met again by prorogation, in April of the ensuing year.

Commissary Blair was graciously received at court, and in February, 1692, their majesties granted the charter.[346:A] The college was named in honor of their majesties. The king gave about two thousand pounds toward the building, out of the quit-rents. Seymour, the English attorney-general, having received the royal commands to prepare the charter of the college, which was to be accompanied with a grant of money, remonstrated against this liberality, urging that the nation was engaged in an expensive war; that the money was wanted for better purposes, and that he did not see the slightest occasion for a college in Virginia. The Rev. Mr. Blair, in reply, represented to him that its intention was to educate and qualify young men to be ministers of the gospel; and begged Mr. Attorney would consider that the people of Virginia had souls to be saved as well as the people of England.

"Souls!" exclaimed the imperious Seymour; "d.a.m.n your souls!--make tobacco."[346:B]

The site selected for the college was in the Middle Plantation Old Fields, near the church. The college was endowed by the crown with twenty thousand acres of land in Pamunkey Neck, and on the south side of Blackwater Swamp; the patronage of the office of surveyor-general; together with the revenue arising from a duty of one penny a pound on all tobacco exported from Virginia and Maryland to the other plantations, the nett proceeds being two hundred pounds. The college was also allowed to return a burgess to the a.s.sembly. The a.s.sembly afterwards added to the revenue a duty on skins and furs.[347:A] Dr.

Blair was the first president of the college, being appointed under the charter to hold the office for life. The plan of the building was the composition of Sir Christopher Wren. The objects proposed by the establishment of the college were declared to be the furnis.h.i.+ng of a seminary for the ministers of the gospel, and that the youth may be piously educated in good letters and manners, and that the Christian faith should be propagated among the Western Indians.[347:B] In addition to the five professors.h.i.+ps of Greek and Latin, the mathematics, moral philosophy, and two of divinity provided for by the charter, a sixth, called the Brafferton, from an estate in England which secured the endowment, had been annexed by the celebrated Robert Boyle, for the instruction and conversion of the Indians.

The trustees met with many difficulties in their undertaking during the administration of Governor Andros, and were involved in a troublesome controversy concerning the lands appropriated to the inst.i.tution, with Secretary Wormley, the most influential man in the colony, next to the governor.

In January, 1692, died John Page, of Rosewell, of the king's council in the colony, aged sixty--a learned and pious man; first of the name in Virginia, and father of the Honorable Colonel Matthew Page, who was also of the council. A religious work, ent.i.tled "A Deed of Gift for my Son,"

by this John Page, has been published.

During the same year Governor Nicholson was succeeded by Sir Edmund Andros, whose high-handed course had rendered him so odious to the people of New England that they had lately imprisoned him. He was, nevertheless, kindly received by the Virginians, whose solicitations to King William for warlike stores he had promoted. He soon gave offence by ordering s.h.i.+ps to cruise against vessels engaged in contraband trade. In the year 1693 an act was pa.s.sed for the organizing of a post-office establishment in Virginia, to consist of a central office, and a sub-office in each county, fixing the rates of postage to be paid to Thomas Neale, Esq., who was authorized by an act of parliament to establish post-offices in the colonies. The postage on a letter consisting of one sheet, for a distance not exceeding eighty miles, was three pence. Four companies of rangers protected the frontiers, while English frigates guarded the coast; and the colony enjoyed a long repose.

The amiable and excellent Queen Mary died on the 28th day of December, 1694; and the king now a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of William the Third. Since the dissolution of the Virginia Company, the superintendence of the colonies had been entrusted to a committee of the privy council; in 1696 the board of trade was established for that purpose.

FOOTNOTES:

[344:A] James City Records, cited in "Farmer's Register" for 1839, p.

407

[344:B] Dr. Williamson, of Williamsburg, obligingly sent me the inscription and the coat of arms, as copied by him from her tombstone, which was ploughed up on the banks of Queen's Creek.

[345:A] Beverley, B. i. 92.

[346:A] The following gentlemen, nominated by the a.s.sembly, were const.i.tuted a senate, or board of trustees: Francis Nicholson, lieutenant-governor of the colony; William Cole, Ralph Wormley, William Byrd, Esquires, of the council; John Leare, James Blair, John Farnifold, Stephen Fauce, and Samuel Gray, clerks (clergymen;) Thomas Milner, Christopher Robinson, Charles Scarburgh, John Smith, Benjamin Harrison, Miles Cary, Henry Hartwell, William Randolph, and Matthew Page, gentlemen and burgesses.

[346:B] Franklin's Correspondence.

[347:A] Hening, iii. 123, 241, 356: Catalogue of William and Mary College.

[347:B] Anderson's Hist. of Church of England in the Colonies, second ed., iii. 108.

CHAPTER XLIII.

1696-1698.

State and Condition of Virginia--Exhausting Agriculture-- Depression of Mechanic Art--Merchants--Current Coin--Grants of Land--Powers of Governor--The Council--Court of Claims--County Courts--General Court--Secretary, Sheriffs, Collectors, and Vestries--Revenue--The Church.

THE following statistical account of Virginia appears to have been reported by Lord Culpepper, in 1781, to the Committee of the colonies.

It is to be found in the Historical Collections of Ma.s.sachusetts,[349:A]

the ma.n.u.script having been communicated by Carter B. Harrison, Esq., of Virginia, by the hands of the Rev. John Jones Spooner, corresponding member. The picture is harsh, but drawn by a vigorous hand, without fear, favor, or affection.

In point of natural advantages Virginia was surpa.s.sed by few countries on the globe, but in commerce, manufactures, education, government in church and state, was one of the poorest and most miserable. The staple tobacco swallowed up every thing, so that the markets were often glutted with bad tobacco, which became a mere drug, and would not pay freight and customs. Perhaps not one hundredth part of the land was yet cleared, and none of the marsh or swamp drained. As fast as the soil was worn out by exhausting crops of tobacco and corn, it was left to grow up again in woods. The plough was not much used, in the first clearing the roots and stumps being left, and the ground tilled only with hoes, and by the time the stumps were decayed the ground was worn out. Manure was neglected.

Of grain the planters usually raised only enough for home consumption, there being no market for it, and scarce any money. But their main labor in this crop being in the summer, they fell into habits of indolence for the rest of the year. The circ.u.mstances of the country, dest.i.tute of towns, and consisting of dispersed plantations, were unfavorable for mechanics, then called tradesmen. The depression of this useful and important cla.s.s although lessened, continues in the present day, and appears to be inevitably connected with the system of negro slavery. It is a tax paid by the whites for the elevation of the black race. The merchants were the most prosperous cla.s.s in the colony, but they labored under great disadvantages, being obliged to sell on credit, and to carry on "a pitiful retail trade," and to depend on the receivers who went about among the planters to receive the tobacco due, and this mode of collecting was subject to great delays and losses. The native-born Virginians, who for the most part had never been out of the colony, were averse to town life, and felt dissatisfied, like Daniel Boone in more modern times, whenever "the settlements became too thick." The scarcity of money was aggravated by the governor, who found it to his interest to be paid in tobacco. The current coin of the dominion of Virginia consisted of pieces of eight, the value of which was fixed by law at five s.h.i.+llings; and the value being made greater in Pennsylvania money, they were consequently drained from Virginia, as at the present day gold and silver are ostracised by a depreciated paper currency.

The method of settling the colonial territory was by the king's grant of fifty acres to every actual settler, but this rule was evaded and perverted in various ways, and rights for that quant.i.ty of land could easily be purchased from the clerks in the secretary's office at from one to five s.h.i.+llings each. The powers of the governor were extensive; he was a sort of viceroy, being commander-in-chief and vice-admiral, lord treasurer in issuing warrants for the paying of moneys, lord chancellor or lord keeper as pa.s.sing grants under the colony's seal, president of the council, chief justice of the courts, with some powers of a bishop or ordinary. The governors managed to evade the king's instructions, and by official patronage to silence the opposition of the council, and even to hold the burgesses in check. The governor and councillors were all colonels and honorable, and their adherents monopolized the offices. The governor's salary was for many years one thousand pounds per annum, to which the a.s.sembly added perquisites, amounting to five hundred more, and a further addition of two hundred pounds was made to Sir William Berkley's salary, making the whole salary seventeen hundred pounds. The council, in effect the creatures and clients of the governor, being appointed at his nomination, and receiving office and place from him, had the powers of council of state, (in case of vacancy of the governor the oldest of them _ex officio_ acting as president _ad interim_,) of upper house of a.s.sembly or house of lords, in the general court of supreme judges, and as colonels, answering to the English lord-lieutenants of counties. The councillors were also naval officers in the customs department, collectors of the revenue, farmers of the king's quit-rents; out of the council were chosen the secretary, auditor, and escheators; the councillors were exempt from arrests, and had a compensation of three hundred and fifty pounds divided among them, according to their attendance. They met together after the manner of the king and council. Their clerk received fifty pounds per annum salary, besides perquisites. The office of collector, held by members of the council, was indeed incompatible with their office of judge, and their office of councillor unfitted them for auditing their own accounts as collectors, and in different capacities they both bought and sold the royal quit-rents.[351:A]

Upon the election of burgesses there was commonly held a court, called a court of claims, where all who had any claims against the public might present them to the burgesses, together with any propositions or grievances, "all which the burgesses carry to the a.s.sembly." There was at that early day much confusion in the laws, and it was difficult to know what laws were in force and what were not. All causes were decided in the county court or in the general court. The county court consisted of eight or ten gentlemen, receiving their commission from the governor, who renewed it annually. They met once a month, or once in two months, and had cognizance of all causes exceeding in value twenty s.h.i.+llings, or two hundred pounds of tobacco. These country gentlemen, having no education in law, not unfrequently fell into mistakes in substance and in form. The insufficiency of these courts was now growing more apparent than formerly, since the old stock of gentry, who were educated in England, were better acquainted with law and with the business of the world than their sons and grandsons, who were brought up in Virginia, and commonly knew only reading, writing, and arithmetic, and were not very proficient in them.

The general court, so called because it had jurisdiction of causes from all parts of the colony, was held twice a year, in April and October, by the governor and council as judges, at Jamestown. This court was never commissioned, but grew up by custom or usurpation; from it there was no appeal, except in cases of over three hundred pounds sterling value, to the king, which was for most persons impracticable, on account of the distance and the expensiveness. Virginia appears to have been the only colony where the executive const.i.tuted the supreme court. The general court tried all causes of above sixteen pounds sterling, or sixteen hundred pounds of tobacco in value, and all appeals from the county courts, and it had cognizance of all causes in chancery, in king's bench, the common pleas, the exchequer, the admiralty, and spirituality.

The forms of proceeding in the general court were quite irregular. The duties of the secretary were as multifarious as those of the governor; it was, however, for the most part a sinecure, the business being performed by a clerk, styled the clerk of the general court, who also employed one or two clerks under him. The secretary, who was properly the clerk of the court, yet sate as judge of that court.

The governor signed all patents or deeds of land, and there was a recital in them that he granted the land "by and with the consent of the council," yet the patents were never read by the governor, nor did the council take any notice of them. He likewise countersigned the patents after the words "compared, and agrees with the original," yet the secretary never read or compared them, and indeed the patent which he signed was itself the original. "Men make laws, but we live by custom."

The sheriffs collected all money duties. The auditor audited the accounts of the collectors, and was receiver-general of all public moneys. The parish levy, for the support of the church and of the poor, was a.s.sessed by the vestry, about the month of October, when tobacco was ready; the whole amount a.s.sessed was divided by the number of t.i.thables of the parish, and collected from the heads of families. The county levy for county expenses was a.s.sessed by the justices of the peace, and the sum divided by the number of t.i.thables in the county. The public levy was a.s.sessed by the a.s.sembly for the general expenses of the colony, and the sum was divided by the number of t.i.thables in the colony, amounting in the year 1690 to about twenty thousand. The three levies were all collected by the sheriffs; they averaged about one hundred pounds of tobacco for each t.i.thable, the aggregate amounting to two millions of pounds per annum.

The revenues and customs that came into the auditor's hands were of four kinds: First, the quit-rents, being one s.h.i.+lling per annum on every fifty acres of land, payable in tobacco, at one penny per pound, or twenty-four pounds of tobacco for every hundred acres. In the Northern Neck, lying between the Potomac and Rappahannock, the quit-rents were paid by the heirs of Lord Culpepper. The tobacco due for quit-rents was sold by the auditor to the several members of the council, who paid for it in money, or bills of exchange, according to the quant.i.ty. The quit-rent revenue amounted to about eight hundred pounds sterling per annum. The second source of revenue consisted of two s.h.i.+llings per hogshead, export duty, on tobacco, and fort duties, being fifteen pence per ton on all vessels arriving. These amounted to three thousand pounds sterling per annum. Ten per cent. of this amount was paid to masters of vessels, to induce them to give a true account. The collectors received ten per cent. for collecting, and the auditor seven per cent. The third source of revenue was one penny per pound upon tobacco exported from Virginia to any other English plantation in America. This, as has been mentioned, was, in 1692, granted to the college of William and Mary. The college paid for collecting it no less than twenty per cent., and to the auditor five per cent. The nett proceeds were worth one hundred pounds annually. The fourth source of revenue was any money duty that might be raised by the a.s.sembly.

The governor was lieutenant-general, the councillors lieutenants of counties, with the t.i.tle of colonel, and in counties where no councillor resided, some other person was appointed, with the rank of major. The people in general professed to be of the Church of England. The only dissenters were three or four meetings of Quakers and one of Presbyterians. There were fifty parishes, and in each two, and sometimes three, churches and chapels. The division of the parishes was unequal and inconvenient. The governor had always held the government of the church, as of everything else, in his hands. Ministers were obliged to produce their orders to him, and show that they had been episcopally ordained. The power of presentation was, by a colonial law, in the vestry, but by a custom of hiring preachers by the year, it came to pa.s.s that presentation rarely took place. The consequence was that a good minister either would not come to Virginia, or if he did, was soon driven away by the high-handed proceedings of the vestry. The minister was obliged to be careful how he preached against the vices that any great man of the vestry was guilty of, else he would be in danger of losing his living at the end of the year. They held them by a precarious tenure, like that of chaplains; they were mere tenants at sufferance.

There were not half as many ministers in Virginia as parishes. The governor connived at this state of things. The minister's salary was sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco per annum. King Charles the Second gave the Bishop of London jurisdiction over the church in the plantations, in all matters except three, viz.: marriage licenses, probates of wills, and induction of ministers, which were reserved to the governor. The bishop's commissary made visitation of the churches and inspection of the clergy. He received no salary, but was allowed, by the king, one hundred pounds per annum out of the quit-rents.[355:A]

FOOTNOTES: