The Fabulous History Of The Dismal Swamp Company Part 2

Virginia was growing. At the start of the war with France, the colony held 230,000 people. When war ended, there were 340,000. Counties split to form new counties. More land came into cultivation, and more slave s.h.i.+ps arrived from Africa and the West Indies. Though many people delayed payment, Virginians were good customers. A British officer said that, while a Pennsylvania farmer would buy a durable kersey coat, a Virginia planter would buy something gaudy. Storekeepers spread throughout the colony, purchasing tobacco, selling merchandise, and, to win customers, extending easy credit. Always seeking a good investment, Dr. Thomas Walker put up one-third of the capital for a new store in Charlottesville in 1761. Three years later he had "a Great Deal of money Due to him."

Many of the new young men came from Scotland and worked for companies opening strings of retail stores. Known as factors, they strove to get the trade of "the common People...who make up the Bulk of the Planters." They did so well that Virginians came to speak routinely of "Scotch stores." Scots specialized in inferior grades of tobacco, which made up most of the crop and was re-exported from Britain to France. It had one buyer: the French state monopoly, the Farmers-General. Since that market was certain and growing, Scottish companies confidently extended credit to Virginians, knowing that money spent on land and slaves would yield more tobacco. Money spent on merchandise marked up 100 percent, 150 percent, or 200 percent came back to the factor's company as profit. Long credit excused a higher markup.

To rise in the esteem of his employers and to return to Britain with a modest fortune, a factor needed ambition. As the number of merchants in Virginia grew, compet.i.tion increased. Even so, in the 1750s and 1760s the Scots' share of Britain's tobacco trade steadily rose until they controlled more than half. The great Glasgow firms had found the enterprising men they needed. One of the quickest ways to get a planter's tobacco-some said the only way-was to lend money or extend credit. In 1760 a planter could "command double the Cash his Tobo was worth besides credit for what goods he had occasion for." This method of business was called "engaging of Customers."

Virginians often said that they disliked Scottish merchants as a group. Scots for their part seldom hid their opinion of colonial planters, whom they called "common buckskins." The mayor, aldermen, and Common Council of Norfolk demanded a public apology from some young Scottish merchants and others two days after the mayor took office in 1755. On election day the young men had chosen their own mayor: Richard Scott's slave, Will. They "seated him and drank to him as Mr. Mayor by way of Derision." As debts swelled in the following years, many Virginians concluded that these people who had lent them money had made fools of them, that they were "held in Derision by the Merchts...of the Metropolis & Factors of Glascow." They discerned a pattern: Scots took care of one another; Scots had "secrets in the Tobo Trade"; Scots were "Engrossers." With "the artful Craftiness and Cunning natural to that Nation," Scots had conspired to grow rich at the expense of Virginia. By this line of thought, victims saw themselves as "unfortunate Debtors," reduced to "Vasalage & Dependance."

Virginians remained optimistic, seeking more land and more slaves. Though they were promising to pay 5 percent interest on their debts, might their property not rise in value at an even greater rate? They needed only "prudent Management," frugality, and higher prices for tobacco. Rather than resort to slow courts, merchants often found it simpler to take a debtor's bond and hope for the best. The "maxims so generally embraced" embraced" in Virginia, Robert Beverley wrote in 1761, were: "being in Debt & making great Promises for the future." in Virginia, Robert Beverley wrote in 1761, were: "being in Debt & making great Promises for the future."

Virginia had few if any debtors more stubborn than John Syme of Hanover County. He ran up a large account in the 1750s with Lidderdale, Harmer & Farell, merchants in Bristol, who s.h.i.+pped goods to him on credit and lent him money by accepting his bills of exchange. He consigned his tobacco to them, but its value fell far short of the advances he received.

Turning twenty-one in 1750, Syme came into possession of his late father's estate. He knew his father's face; he had the same "remarkably homely" features. The elder William Byrd noticed this when Syme was only four years old. Byrd said that, although Syme's lively, cheerful widowed mother "seem'd not to pine too much for the Death of her Husband," no one could doubt that her little son was legitimate. To celebrate his new independence Syme built a house overlooking the South Anna River, sparing no expense on a granite foundation, rose-colored brick, sandstone quoins, pedimented doorways, and rich interior woodwork. By the spring of 1753 he was "beginning housekeeping." His wife was Mildred Meriwether, daughter of Dr. Thomas Walker's wife by her first marriage. The Symes' first son was born in 1752. On the recommendation of Peter Randolph, Syme s.h.i.+pped 50 hogsheads to Lidderdale, Harmer & Farell, then began to "Draw largely" on them, promising to s.h.i.+p 100 hogsheads from his new crop. The following year he was "Oblig'd to draw largely" to buy slaves. He won a seat in the House of Burgesses in 1756 and allied with John Chiswell, father of Speaker Robinson's new sweetheart. Syme and Robinson jointly owned tobacco warehouses in Hanover County. The speaker put him on one of the most important committees. "My situation in a Publick Place," he explained to his Bristol merchants, "Obliges me to live in a Way, somewhat Expensive." In a visit to Syme's home and to other plantations, an English clergyman found Virginians hospitable but guilty of "extravagance, ostentation, and a disregard of economy."

Syme a.s.sured Lidderdale, Harmer & Farell that his influence would obtain consignments and customers for them. He did get a s.h.i.+pment of tobacco and an order for goods from his mother-in-law. Despite the short crop of 1755, Syme drew more large bills of exchange in 1756. This time, however, the Bristol firm returned his bills protested. He renewed them, promising not to draw more than 300 in bills each year, but he drew for much larger sums. Joseph Farell, forming a new firm, protested to Syme, saying that he and his partners had to live. Syme replied: "I am heartily for your living, & that you would let me live also." He asked for a loan of 1,000 to buy slaves. He and a partner opened a store, for which Syme ordered a stock of goods. After Farell refused to advance more, Syme got store goods from Glasgow on fifteen months' credit.

In 1763, Syme promised to "Clear off the old score," nearing 6,000 sterling, but thereafter he s.h.i.+pped too little tobacco to meet his current account, much less reduce his debt. To the new firm, Farell & Jones, he described a series of schemes for raising money to pay them: import a stud for his thirty or forty mares and breed horses; start a commercial gristmill; collect thousands of pounds owed to him in Virginia. Syme sought help from Farell & Jones to win the lucrative post of surveyor general of Customs in the southern district, now that its former occupant, Peter Randolph, had died. He wrote: "I always knew Colo. Randolph's Were of a Short Liv'd Family Short Liv'd Family & I was Contented to Wait for a Vacancy." Instead of aiding him, Farell & Jones returned his bills of exchange protested, then returned them a second and a third time after he renewed them. Syme complained: "my Old Freinds, for whom I have Done so much, are Determin'd to Ruin my Credit." & I was Contented to Wait for a Vacancy." Instead of aiding him, Farell & Jones returned his bills of exchange protested, then returned them a second and a third time after he renewed them. Syme complained: "my Old Freinds, for whom I have Done so much, are Determin'd to Ruin my Credit."

Syme had many a.s.sets, amounting, Farell & Jones heard, to 15,000 or 20,000. The partners realized that Syme was "trifling" with them. Having promised that Dr. Walker would give a bond as security for the debt, Syme instead produced a letter from "his toadeater," John Hawkins, a "worthless sharping sort of a fellow," who offered to be Syme's security. The firm wanted not Hawkins's bonds but Syme's tobacco, remittances, and payment of damages for protested bills. Syme told Farell & Jones: "nothing has ever given me so much Pain Pain as this affair, & your Usage to me lately." He never would have run up so large a debt, he said, but "for advantages Promis'd me, wch you now refuse." The firm ordered a suit brought against him. He began to avoid the sheriff. as this affair, & your Usage to me lately." He never would have run up so large a debt, he said, but "for advantages Promis'd me, wch you now refuse." The firm ordered a suit brought against him. He began to avoid the sheriff.

Robert Dinwiddie concluded that he had made a bad bargain with the Earl of Albemarle for dividing the income of the governors.h.i.+p of Virginia. In the spring of 1755, Dinwiddie regretted having taken the office. Though another fifteen years of life lay before him, he felt ill. In the fall of 1756 he asked the Board of Trade to relieve him of the governors.h.i.+p, and late in 1757 he returned to England. The Board of Trade and the Privy Council chose as his successor Francis Fauquier, a trim, handsome man in his mid-fifties, as affable as Dinwiddie was dour.

Fauquier had an elegant demeanor and refined taste for good living. He knew William Hogarth and other artists; he also knew George Frederick Handel. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society; he had published an essay on the political economy of financing war with France. He sought the lieutenant governors.h.i.+p, rumor said, because he needed money. Virginians were told that Fauquier, an avid gambler, had lost so much money to Admiral George Anson, first lord of the Admiralty, that Anson felt obliged to use his influence to get the resident governors.h.i.+p for him. In London, Fauquier's behavior showed that "no Governor ever went abroad better disposed to make a people happy."

Robert Dinwiddie thought that some Virginians, especially Speaker Robinson and his friends, were already too happy. Dinwiddie appeared before the Board of Trade to urge that Robinson not remain both speaker and treasurer. Dinwiddie called Fauquier "a very good-natured Gentleman"; he thought the new governor needed "some directions...upon this point." Two days later Fauquier met with the Board of Trade, who told him what Dinwiddie had said and pressed him to end the "highly improper" practice of giving both offices to the same man. The vessel bearing Fauquier to Virginia also held letters from Dinwiddie, exulting that he had gained a victory over the speaker.

Fauquier took the oath of office in Williamsburg on June 5, 1758. Within three weeks the "princ.i.p.al People" had convinced him that John Robinson would be speaker and treasurer for life. Robinson had learned of Dinwiddie's appearance before the Board of Trade, and he was vexed. He dismissed it as Dinwiddie's attempt at revenge for loss of the pistole fee. The Nelson brothers, Peyton Randolph, and others scared Fauquier by saying that a mere attempt to deny Robinson one of his offices "might throw the Country into a Flame." The governor told the Board of Trade that only by winning the good opinion of the speaker's friends could he get appropriations for the colony's defense. On September 14 the burgesses unanimously re-elected Robinson speaker. He remained treasurer. A few weeks later a visitor to Williamsburg wrote: "The Govr is in general well Spoken off."

In the fall session Fauquier a.s.sented to an emission of paper money, though merchants in Britain objected vehemently. He a.s.sented to the Twopenny Act, though merchants protested and clergymen of the established Church felt cheated. They said their rightful annual salary was 16,000 pounds of tobacco no matter how short the crop or high the price. Governor Fauquier was violating his instructions. Only in this way, he wrote the Board of Trade, could he gain influence among the councillors and burgesses. He knew that he had won the esteem of the speaker and his friends. Peyton Randolph published a pamphlet in Williamsburg, defending the colony's currency. In it he addressed Fauquier: "it is the Patriot GOVERNOR alone that can represent the Patriot KING. Nor deem thou this as a Drop bubbling from the nauseous Fountain of Flattery."

The governor's house, grandly called a palace, was pleasant to visit in Fauquier's time. He played music well, joining other amateurs in weekly concerts. Champagne, white Rhine wine, Tokay, and malmsey flowed. Speaker Robinson called every so often. Fauquier thought him "the Darling of the Country, as he well deserves to be." Before long, it became clear that the quickest way to get something from the governor was to approach the speaker; "for by a proper exertion of his Interest, which is very prevailing at the Palace, any reasonable point might be carried." The Earl of Halifax, his colleagues on the Board of Trade, and others in London thought that Fauquier was too good-natured and eager to please. The governor ought not to be so accommodating to "designing People." Learning of aspersions cast on Fauquier, the speaker and the councillors came to his defense. The colony's committee of correspondence sent a letter, prepared by Peyton Randolph and others, to their agent in London, urging him to prevent any "ill impressions" arising from Fauquier's conduct. The governor, they said, had given "universal satisfaction." The House of Burgesses voted Fauquier an unusually generous present of money.

On the day Fauquier took the oath of office, Dr. Thomas Walker was working in Philadelphia, buying tents, kettles, and provisions for troops at Winchester and Fort c.u.mberland. Fauquier retained him as commissary for the rest of Virginia's campaigns, lasting three more years. Dr. Walker suffered censure in the autumn of 1758. Thomas Johnson, a burgess, learned that the commissary had furnished supplies for troops in Augusta County by contracting with their commander, his friend, Major Andrew Lewis, a resident of the county who wielded "great Influence amongst the Inhabitants of that Country." Walker had kept Lewis's role secret, since it obviously permitted abuses: The man furnis.h.i.+ng rations to soldiers was also the commander attesting that the right quant.i.ty and quality had been supplied. Food bought with public funds could be falsely declared spoiled, then used elsewhere. Soldiers could be stinted in their rations while the commissary and the contractor collected the full sixpence per man per day allowed in the colony's contract. Thomas Johnson told his guests that Walker had cheated the colony out of 1,100. They asked how burgesses could be so blatantly deceived. Why did burgesses still court Walker, begging him to continue as commissary? Johnson replied: "You know little of the Plots, Schemes, and Contrivances that are carried on there; in short, one holds the Lamb while the other skins; many of the Members are in Places of Trust and Profit, and others want to get in, and they are willing to a.s.sist one another in pa.s.sing their Accounts."

The House of Burgesses convened in February 1759. Johnson's remarks had been widely repeated. Dr. Walker asked for an inquiry into his conduct. Peyton Randolph and other members of the committee of privileges and elections judged the agreement with Lewis improper, but reported that soldiers had suffered no abuse and that Walker had perpetrated no fraud. Three weeks later Randolph's committee recommended that Thomas Johnson be reprimanded for his "false, scandalous, and malicious" words, as well as his criticism of the manner in which Randolph and other friends of Speaker Robinson's secured a high salary for the clerk of the House of Burgesses. Opinion was divided. After a debate, during which Johnson remained outside the chamber, the committee's resolution pa.s.sed by a vote of 37 to 32. Johnson then took his place, and Speaker Robinson, from the chair above the mace, reprimanded him for his words, which "reflect highly on the Honor of the House."

Though the British had taken the forks of the Ohio and, in September 1759, France's chief American city and fortress, Quebec, Virginians were still at war in 1760 and 1761 with a new enemy, their former allies the Cherokees. South Carolinians and British regulars did most of the fighting; William Byrd and his regiment went no nearer than the upper reaches of the Holston River, 200 miles from any Cherokee town. Walker said he could not supply them farther south.

Walker resumed his journeys in the spring of 1761. From Williamsburg, he went in May to Philadelphia to contract for provisions. In the last two weeks of June he traveled from Philadelphia to Fort Chiswell in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains near the North Carolina line. He and John Chiswell served as Virginia's commissioners to the Cherokees, paying ransom in return for release of prisoners. Most Cherokees sought peace that summer, but the British did not end the war until Sir Jeffery Amherst sent a force of regulars on a punitive campaign of destruction among Cherokee towns.

William Byrd resigned his command in August. He went to Philadelphia, where his pregnant wife had remained with her parents. Mary Willing Byrd was twenty-one years old, child of a marital alliance between two prosperous merchant families, the Willings and the s.h.i.+ppens. She gave birth to a daughter in November. The following summer, Dr. Walker came north; and he and Byrd called on Sir Jeffery in New York to present their accounts. Amherst was both British commander in North America and successor to the Earl of Albemarle as sinecurist governor of Virginia.

Members of the Loyal Company and the Ohio Company, looking toward the return of peace, wished to make their t.i.tles secure. They sought friends. One land company made Governor Fauquier's son a partner. The Ohio Company invited Colonel Henry Bouquet, British commander in the west, to join and receive a full member's share, 25,000 acres. Fauquier and Bouquet, however, were discovering that the government in London no longer encouraged settlement west of the mountains, at least not the land grants and migration of the years before the war. The ministry preferred peace with the Indians, and the Ohio Company had disrupted peace. The new policy favored what Fauquier called "well settling and peopling a Colony." This meant controlled, orderly movement and, for a while, no movement. Bouquet told the Ohio Company: "no settlement will be permitted upon the Ohio till the Consent of the Indians can be procured." On October 13, 1761, he made this an order, prohibiting whites from living west of the Alleghenies. Later he suggested that all grants in the west be annulled and that the region have a "new government under Military Tenure."

Two years later Bouquet's policy became a royal proclamation forbidding westward migration and a.s.signing governance of the west to the commander in chief in America. Yet many colonists thought as George Was.h.i.+ngton did: the proclamation was only "a temporary expedient to quiet the Minds of the Indians & must fall of course in a few years." Families with no grants or legal claims crossed the mountains, built homes, and began farms in "stragling Settlements" along the Ohio River and its tributaries. Men who disapproved called them "Vagabonds" and "borderers." Was.h.i.+ngton found them "very troublesome." Still, packhorses climbed through pa.s.ses. Despite orders to the settlers from the governors of Virginia and Pennsylvania to return east, more and more went west. Everyone knew that soil in the Ohio Valley was "extremely fine," and, General Thomas Gage reported, "it is the pa.s.sion of every man to be a landholder, and the people have a natural disposition to rove in search of good lands, however distant." Of course, the Crown could not expect payment of two s.h.i.+llings quitrent each year for every 100 acres occupied this way. Even holders of lawful grants living in the west refused to pay after the proclamation.

The proclamation especially displeased George Was.h.i.+ngton, Adam Stephen, the Lee brothers-four sons of Thomas Lee-and some of their friends. Just two weeks earlier, they had written to Thomas c.u.mming, a merchant in London, describing a new "Scheme" they had formed in June: the Mississippi Company. Their memorial to the king asked for a grant of 2,500,000 acres stretching eastward from the Mississippi River, embracing part of the watersheds of the Wabash, Ohio, and Tennessee rivers. They hoped to get this tract without paying the Crown anything for twelve years or longer. They offered to settle two hundred families on it. The company's fifty "Adventurers" would each own 50,000 acres separately, not jointly, "any thing in the said Grant to the Contrary notwithstanding," a provision they did not mention in their memorial or their letter.

Mary Willing Byrd, Matthew Pratt. Courtesy of the Library of Virginia. Second wife of the younger William Byrd, daughter and sister of Philadelphia merchants, and mistress of Westover for almost fifty years.

The founders presented the Mississippi Company as a public-spirited undertaking. The "poorer sort" could obtain land more cheaply from the company than from the Crown because they need not hire surveyors or pay cash for patents. The region would produce commodities Britain needed: "above all things Hemp it appears peculiarly adapted to." Such a westward movement violated the government's promise to Indians to allow no settlement beyond the mountains; but, the company's founders said, Indians' attacks already had broken that agreement. To ensure the prosperity and "public utility" of the company, its memorial said, several partners had formed "a determined resolution...to be themselves among the first settlers."

The founders' letter to c.u.mming explained that they sought a patent from the Privy Council in London, rather than an order directing the governor and Council of Virginia to make a grant. In Williamsburg, measures that Speaker Robinson and his friends disliked often did not prosper: "so many persons of the first influence here, are concerned in Land Schemes; that a thousand nameless, artfull obstructions would be thrown into their way to prevent the success of their enterprize." The Crown's answer to the Mississippi Company's memorial, coming even before the memorial could reach London, was the royal proclamation forbidding migration to the west.

Dr. Walker did not let the proclamation stop his Loyal Company. On May 25, 1763, complying with instructions from London, the Council refused to confirm or renew the company's grant. The clerk recorded in the minutes that the Council had "postpond" the pet.i.tion for renewal. Walker did not take this as a rejection or a ban. He believed that councillors approved of the Loyal Company's claims, a reasonable belief, since Councillors Thomas Nelson, William Nelson, and Richard Corbin were members of the company. Walker acted as if his pet.i.tion had been approved. He summoned settlers who had fled their homes during the war to return; he sent surveyors to extend the company's lines; he signed contracts with hundreds of new settlers. They accepted the original terms, to take effect as soon as the company's grant was confirmed: 3 for each 100 acres, with surveyor's fees, patent fees, and composition money, on all of which 5 percent annual interest accrued until the buyer paid in full.

Within an expanse of 5,000,000 acres of mountainous watershed of the Ohio, Tennessee, and c.u.mberland rivers, surveyors marked more than 150,000 acres of the best land for the Loyal Company. Later, a North Carolinian, objecting to Virginians' claims, said that "secret Surveys were made in these parts by an old Land monger." But anyone interested knew what Dr. Walker was doing. People came from other colonies and settled on plots already purchased from the Loyal Company by Virginians. These squatters said that the king's proclamation annulled all western grants, throwing open the land "to the occupation of the first Adventurer," as if the proclamation had not also forbidden them to move there. Settlers taking Walker's contracts knew that recent surveys were "illegal." They, too, defied the Crown and the governor by refusing to leave. Some later pet.i.tioned to quash the Loyal Company's grant, under which they had bought their farms. They said they saw with "disappointment and regret" that Dr. Walker persisted in pressing them to comply with his terms for holding what they called "our possessions." The company, they contended, should derive no t.i.tle from its "forcable or clandestine Surveys." Those who thought that "The Doctrs grant is broke" had yet to learn that they underestimated Thomas Walker.

Robert Tucker served another one-year term as mayor of Norfolk in 175960. Joanna Tucker conceived and gave birth to their fifteenth child, a daughter. Norfolk was growing; the county and borough held about 12,000 people at the end of Tucker's term. The borough opened its first school-house. Redrawn boundaries added new streets and residences. Tucker and other merchants acted as trustees and directors for construction of a new wharf and built more warehouses. Norfolk had become the chief port of Chesapeake Bay. While Tucker was mayor, John Sparling and William Bolden of Liverpool established their firm, Sparling & Bolden, in Norfolk. Representing Glasgow merchants, Neil Jamieson arrived in 1760, beginning a successful business. He soon owned a fine brick house with a 60-foot front and, in back, two ranges of warehouses along the east and west sides of his wharf. Thus he outstripped his fellow merchant and fellow Scot, Dr. Archibald Campbell, who had left medicine for trade and had built in c.u.mberland Street a house with a 50-foot front.

As George Was.h.i.+ngton and other Virginians planted more wheat, the colony became the largest exporter of grain in North America. The bulk of Chesapeake grain pa.s.sed through Norfolk, bound for the West Indies in sloops and schooners often recklessly overladen. Norfolk's wharves also held bales of s.h.i.+ngles, stacks of staves, barrels of pork, bars of iron. Proud civic verse said that a poet Saw s.h.i.+ps unnumber'd riding in thy port, And groves of masts in mazy prospect stand; Saw commerce spreading sail for distant climes, And well-earn'd profits brought in full return.

Many of these graceful vessels, with much sail and little superstructure, had been launched from Norfolk. Slave s.h.i.+pwrights "were able to build a s.h.i.+p amongst themselves without any a.s.sistance but of a Master Builder." Merchants exported masts cut in the Dismal Swamp. From a ropewalk's constantly turning wheels emerged strands of cable, rope, and other cordage for the rigging of new vessels and for refitting those careened for cleaning and repairs.

No one knew from day to day how many seamen were in town. There they found brothels and taverns such as John Reinsburg's, run by a former fencing master from Annapolis. Sailors who had jumped s.h.i.+p met crimps ready to advance money and find them a new berth. A seaman's monthly wage was 5. Masters of undermanned vessels bound for Britain, trying to complete their crews, had to pay between 10 and 16 guineas per man for the voyage. Sailors spent most of that money in the borough. Vessels not trading through the port nevertheless called at Norfolk in search of sailors.

Everyone knew that merchants were divided between "the Scotch Party" and "the Buckskin party." Though Scots took much of Norfolk's business, the Virginia buckskins controlled the borough's closed, self-perpetuating corporation. One Scot, William Aitchison, represented Norfolk in the House of Burgesses while Robert Tucker was mayor. He had come to Virginia shortly before the war, at the age of forty, and soon was married to Rebecca Ellegood, daughter of one of the borough's founders. In 1758, Aitchison joined a younger Scottish merchant, James Parker, a little man called Jamie, to establish the firm of Aitchison & Parker. Two years later, Parker was married to Margaret Ellegood, Rebecca's sister. The two sisters' cousin, Fernelia Ellegood, was married to Neil Jamieson. The Aitchisons lived in an "elegant and well furnished" house. His firm's success enabled William Aitchison to own six houses, while Parker acquired five. Their trade grew; yet they pointedly bought barrels of bread not from Robert Tucker's bakery but from Baltimore.

These Scots took an interest in North Carolina-primarily its trade, but also its land. In 1755 a seventeen-year-old boy, Thomas Macknight, arrived in Norfolk from Scotland and for three years lived with the Aitchisons. The new firm of Aitchison & Parker employed Macknight in North Carolina to open a store at Windfield on the Pasquotank River, south of the Dismal Swamp. They financed a North Carolina firm, Thomas Macknight & Company, to get a share of the colony's wheat, pork, pine tar, and lumber, as well as its retail trade. As Parker said, Macknight went to do business with the "Crackers," who "made Shoes played the Fiddle & sung Psalms for a livelyhood." He soon cut a big figure among these " Checque Squires." Macknight patented and purchased property, foreseeing that better roads and easier, growing trade from North Carolina to Norfolk would raise the value of arable land. When Aitchison and Parker turned their attention to the Dismal Swamp, after noticing what the Virginia buckskins were doing, they brought in Macknight to help.

As more of North Carolina's products came into Virginia, the town of Suffolk grew to fifty or sixty houses, with a public wharf on the Nansemond River. Smaller vessels in the West Indies trade sailed up the Nansemond to take on their cargoes. Other vessels, bay craft that did not sail beyond the capes, took commodities to Norfolk. By making the last 28 miles to Norfolk a water carriage, facilities at Suffolk reduced difficulties and expense in the Carolina trade. Visitors found Suffolk "a pretty little Town," though goats and hogs roamed at large. One of its princ.i.p.al merchants, James Gibson, had arrived from Scotland soon after the town became important enough to erect its beautiful brick courthouse. He established connections in North Carolina; his business widened; he built more warehouses. Gibson specialized in exporting pork and importing dry goods, but he also dealt in naval stores, deerskins, and rum. If Aitchison and Parker needed a friend in Suffolk, they called on James Gibson.

Robert Tucker added another port to the destinations of his grain s.h.i.+pments. Already exporting to Lisbon and Madeira, he sent a cargo to Tenerife and imported hundreds of gallons of the Canary Islands' sweet wine. His brother-in-law, Richard Corbin, invested 50 in the venture. Tucker and Corbin shared their troubles. Despite ceaseless work, Tucker fell behind in some transactions and s.h.i.+pments he had promised to complete. Corbin held more than 2,500 in bills of exchange drawn by Speaker Robinson, which had been returned protested. And the two men had the unpleasant task of sorting out the estate of Gawin Corbin, half brother of Richard Corbin and brother of Joanna Tucker; he had died in January 1760, still owing more than 1,200 to "impatient" merchants in Britain. His widow, Hannah, sister of the Lee brothers, and Richard Corbin, with the Lees' help, put up for sale some of the estate's land and slaves, hoping to pay Gawin Corbin's debts. Thus the Corbins and the Tuckers had several reasons to travel along the Mattaponi and York rivers between Norfolk and King and Queen County.

In August 1761, Richard Corbin's eldest son returned from three years in Christ's College, Cambridge, and two years at the Middle Temple. This Gawin Corbin, namesake of his uncle and grandfather and now twenty-one years old, was open, unaffected, lovable. Before the end of 1762 he was married to his cousin, Joanna, daughter of Robert and Joanna Tucker. Sixteen months later they made the Tuckers grandparents.

On Sat.u.r.day, August 20, 1763, the s.h.i.+p Two Sisters Two Sisters, commanded by Captain Jeremiah Banning, sailed up Chesapeake Bay into the estuary of the Choptank River on the Eastern Sh.o.r.e of Maryland and dropped anchor near the warehouses and stores of Oxford. Her pa.s.sage from the coast of Senegal had taken thirty-seven days. She had five slaves on board. Anthony Bacon, the merchant in London who had bought the Two Sisters Two Sisters in a public auction at Lloyd's Coffee House, would have been happy for her to take more slaves to Maryland. Three years earlier his s.h.i.+p in a public auction at Lloyd's Coffee House, would have been happy for her to take more slaves to Maryland. Three years earlier his s.h.i.+p Sarah Sarah had borne eighty from Senegal. But Captain Banning's chief duty was to take liquor and wine to British garrisons on the west coast of Africa, then return to London with tobacco from Maryland. He took slaves for his own profit, and he had difficulties doing so on this voyage. had borne eighty from Senegal. But Captain Banning's chief duty was to take liquor and wine to British garrisons on the west coast of Africa, then return to London with tobacco from Maryland. He took slaves for his own profit, and he had difficulties doing so on this voyage.

Running southward along the Barbary Coast late in May, the Two Sisters Two Sisters was threatened by one of the Algerine cruisers that raided pa.s.sing vessels. Her six artillery pieces caused the raiders to change their minds. Anch.o.r.ed off the sandbar that made the mouth of the Senegal River dangerously shoal, the was threatened by one of the Algerine cruisers that raided pa.s.sing vessels. Her six artillery pieces caused the raiders to change their minds. Anch.o.r.ed off the sandbar that made the mouth of the Senegal River dangerously shoal, the Two Sisters Two Sisters waited while Captain Banning by barter and purchase acquired eleven slaves: six men, one woman, and four children. They were too few to pose a threat to the crew; he left them unchained. Also anch.o.r.ed in Senegal Roads were troop transports filled with British soldiers. A night riot among the soldiers kept Banning's crew and boats busy rowing army officers to each transport. Banning's men were tired when they returned to the waited while Captain Banning by barter and purchase acquired eleven slaves: six men, one woman, and four children. They were too few to pose a threat to the crew; he left them unchained. Also anch.o.r.ed in Senegal Roads were troop transports filled with British soldiers. A night riot among the soldiers kept Banning's crew and boats busy rowing army officers to each transport. Banning's men were tired when they returned to the Two Sisters Two Sisters.

Just before dawn, three of the African men on board saw that the seamen on watch had fallen asleep. They lowered a boat from the s.h.i.+p's stern and drifted seaward. Captain Banning came on deck at dawn. He found the watch asleep and a boat missing. A quick search between decks revealed that three Africans were gone. As Banning and his men looked out to sea, the moon, setting in the west, cast a long stream of light across the water. In its glow they saw their boat and the Africans. The captain ordered out a boat in pursuit. The Africans could not hope to outrun the rowing seamen. Both were followed by sharks. As the sailors' boat closed, two Africans jumped into the sea. Sharks ripped them apart. The third man hesitated; he could not bring himself to jump, and fell into the sailors' hands. Weeks later, he was one of the five slaves Captain Banning took onto the wharf at Oxford, Maryland.

After a stormy winter voyage to London, Captain Banning left Anthony Bacon's service. Bacon, in his mid-forties, was a contractor for the government. He supplied provisions for soldiers in Senegal and for sailors of the Royal Navy in the West Indies. He kept an agent in Antigua, where the navy had its main port facilities and safest anchorage in English Harbor on the island's southern coast. His roving partner on the North American mainland, Gilbert Francklyn, arranged for s.h.i.+pments of 100 barrels of pork at a time from Norfolk to Antigua.

Bacon had other representatives along Chesapeake Bay and its rivers, seeking cargoes for his s.h.i.+ps King of Prussia, Desire, Unity, Peggy King of Prussia, Desire, Unity, Peggy, and Sarah Sarah. One was Fielding Lewis of Fredericksburg, to whom Bacon gave power of attorney in 1759. At the age of thirty-four, Lewis had been a big man in Fredericksburg since his twenties. The same year he allied with Bacon, he and Dr. Walker's colleague, Charles d.i.c.k, added a private gallery for their families in the Church of St. George's Parish. Into the gallery filed Lewis's daughter by his first wife, Catherine Was.h.i.+ngton Lewis, and four sons by his second wife, the late Catherine's cousin, Betty Was.h.i.+ngton Lewis, George Was.h.i.+ngton's sister. Owning thousands of acres in the Shenandoah Valley, Fielding Lewis helped elect Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton to the House of Burgesses from Frederick County. He joined his brother-in-law as a burgess in 1760.

Fielding Lewis began his career as a merchant at the upper end of Fredericksburg's main street with help from his father, John Lewis of Gloucester County. Fielding learned from his father's first representative, John Thornton. When Fielding was thirty-two, Thornton recommended him to the governor and Council to replace the drunken, foul-mouthed John Spotswood as county lieutenant for Spotsylvania County. Thornton's sister, Mildred, was Dr. Walker's wife. Of course, Walker and John Lewis, in founding the Loyal Company, had brought in Fielding Lewis and John Thornton. They all had reason to agree with Anthony Bacon and other London merchants who congratulated William Pitt on the fall of Fort Duquesne and Britain's reconquest of "the extensive and fertile Lands of the Ohio." Fielding and Betty Lewis also owned many acres in and around Fredericksburg. Their steady sale of lots marked the town's growth. They rode past their properties in their new post chariot, drawn by six horses. Despite advantages from allying with Fielding Lewis, Bacon had cause to complain: Lewis's imports from London exceeded in value cargoes he sent to Bacon.

Among Bacon's customers in his consignment trade was George Was.h.i.+ngton, who bought materials for fancy clothes, paying in tobacco. Bacon also s.h.i.+pped to Charles Carroll of Annapolis in return for pig iron and to George Braxton, son of Speaker Robinson's late colleague from King and Queen County. During the war Bacon supplied arms and ammunition to Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. He was versatile.

Anthony Bacon went from Whitehaven to Maryland as a boy. By the end of his stay, at the age of twenty-two, he ran a store at Dover, far enough up the Choptank for fresh water to kill marine clams known as boring worms in the hulls of tobacco vessels. Months after his return to England, he became Captain Anthony Bacon, master of the York York. In 1740 she bore 114 felons to Maryland as indentured servants, returning with a cargo of tobacco for the House of Hanbury.

After a few years, Bacon began to call himself a merchant, at an address in Threadneedle Street, between the Bank of England and the South Sea House. He still went to sea and visited Maryland, where he formed a partners.h.i.+p with James d.i.c.kinson at Dover. His older brother, the Reverend Thomas Bacon, had taken a parish at Dover. Thomas and the other wit-crackers of the Tuesday Club of Annapolis made Anthony their first honorary member, calling him Captain Comely Coppernose. After tobacco merchants in Whitehaven engaged him as their London agent in 1752, Bacon began to prosper. By 1757, he had moved to larger quarters on the west side of Copthall Court just off Throgmorton Street. Surrounded by merchants, bankers, and brokers, he no longer went to sea.

In his days on the Eastern Sh.o.r.e of Maryland, Bacon knew the Waters family of Northampton in the Virginia section of the Eastern Sh.o.r.e. The family owned several plantations and vessels, as well as an estate in Britain. They gave Bacon power of attorney to act for them in England. After the elder William Waters died without leaving a will, Bacon served as administrator of the estate for the benefit of William Waters, the son. Retaining property in Northampton, Halifax, and Nansemond counties, the younger Waters spent most of his time after 1754 in Williamsburg. He was a "most amiable" gentleman, living comfortably with his wife, Sarah, and young daughter, Sarah, in a house holding prints, maps, a few books, and a large stock of wine, madeira, and peach brandy.

Perhaps because William Waters lived conveniently at hand, the House of Burgesses chose him, with two other men, to oversee the printing of Virginia's new paper money in 1757. They numbered treasury notes and made sure the printer did not run off extras. Such currency alarmed and irritated Anthony Bacon and other British merchants. The burgesses made their notes legal tender; merchants feared that debts owed in sterling would be paid in paper "of a local, incertain & fluctuating value," causing creditors to lose by the exchange. Eventually, however, they saw that currency benefited their trade. Bacon studied ways to profit by the rate of exchange between currency and sterling.

Bacon joined other merchants in a pet.i.tion to the Board of Trade, opposing North Carolina's legal tender paper money. Their protest showed that the colony's law treated 133 6s. 8d. in paper as equivalent to 100 sterling; yet that amount of paper bought only 70 sterling. Speaker Samuel Swann and his allies in the a.s.sembly did not take offense. They wished to make Bacon the colony's agent in England in 1760. At the same time, their friend, Thomas Child, North Carolina's attorney general and Earl Granville's agent for the Granville proprietary, persuaded the earl to make Bacon his agent in London. Child and Bacon proposed to remit quitrents and fees from the proprietary to Granville. The system they devised would have profited them at the expense of the rent-payers, the colony, and the earl.

The quitrent was three s.h.i.+llings sterling per year for each 100 acres. Propertyholders paid, however, in North Carolina currency, while, at the London end, Granville wished to receive sterling. Bacon and Child intended to exploit a gap between the market rate of exchange of paper for sterling in North Carolina and the lower official rate set by a law pa.s.sed by their friends in the a.s.sembly. Thus, if part of Granville's proprietary paid the market equivalent of 578 sterling, this sum would come to the collector's hand as 1,000 in paper money at the market rate of 190 paper for 100 sterling. The colony, however, was obliged by law to redeem its currency with its sterling tax revenues at the official rate of 133 paper for 100 sterling. For his 1,000 in paper money quitrent payments, Bacon would receive 752 sterling from the treasury of North Carolina. But Bacon's agreement with Lord Granville called for him to remit to the earl only the original 578 at the market rate. Bacon could hold all the money for a year before paying the earl; he would charge Granville a commission of 5 percent on money he paid; and he would collect a salary of 200 sterling per year as the colony's agent, as well as 200 per year as Granville's agent.

Members of the North Carolina Council and Governor Arthur Dobbs saw through this scheme. They refused to concur in making Bacon the colony's agent, despite Thomas Child's a.s.surances of Bacon's "unbiased integrity." Dobbs also objected to Bacon's testimony to the Board of Trade, in which he accused the governor-falsely, Dobbs said-of misconduct. For part of 1760 and 1761 the a.s.sembly retained Bacon as its agent. He pet.i.tioned the king on behalf of the a.s.sembly, accusing the governor, the secretary of the colony, and the president of the Council of misapplying money appropriated for the war. After Thomas Child failed to get Bacon appointed as North Carolina's agent, Child moved to Suffolk, Virginia. There he continued to issue grants of land in the proprietary until news came that Earl Granville had died in January 1763.

With such examples before him as the growth of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Fredericksburg, Mann Page devised a scheme in 1761: a new town to rise on 100 acres of his property along the right bank of the Pamunkey River not far from Hanover Court House. A road parallel to the river pa.s.sed through the site, as did an intersecting road from the courthouse to the river. Two tobacco warehouses stood on the bank. A town ought to flourish.

His mansion at Rosewell had four more children running among its many rooms. Mann Page had reason to wonder whether he would be able to give each of his sons an estate and his daughter, Judith, a marriage portion. He owed thousands of pounds to the House of Hanbury. He had endorsed a bill of exchange drawn by William Byrd for 1,000. Unlike Byrd, Page did not send his oldest son, John, to England for schooling, though he had promised his first wife that he would. Page was nearing an indebted Virginian's last resort: a mortgage on land and slaves.

Two days after the House of Burgesses convened in November 1761, Page pet.i.tioned to dock the entail on land in Hanover and King William counties so that he could sell it, entailing other land for the benefit of his heir. These sales were to include lots in a new town, Hanover-Town. Speaker Robinson liked Page. To consider the pet.i.tion the speaker chose a committee, putting on it Peyton Randolph, the burgesses for King William County-Bernard Moore, Robinson's former brother-in-law, and Carter Braxton, Robinson's former ward-John Syme, burgess for Hanover County, and Benjamin Grymes, Page's partner in western land grants. The committee and the House of Burgesses acted within a week. Two days later the Council and Governor Fauquier gave their a.s.sent.

The following year, Page laid out Hanover-Town on paper. Surveyors marked and numbered 177 lots. Page announced his first sale for November 15, 1763. He and his friends had high expectations, relying on "the anxiety of numbers to become Purchasers," as one of them told Page's creditors. But bad weather ruined the day. So few of the many expected buyers appeared that Page took his friends' advice to put off a sale for three months.

Governor Fauquier and the Council met as usual on Friday, July 30, 1762. Present were John Blair, who had served on the Council for seventeen of his seventy-five years, the Nelson brothers, Richard Corbin, John Tayloe, Robert Carter of Nomini Hall, and Presley Thornton. To their surprise, they had received from London the king's warrant appointing the Nelsons' brother-in-law, Robert Burwell, to the Council. He stood before them. They must administer the oath and let him take his place.

The governor then presented a letter he proposed to send to the Board of Trade. It said that Burwell ought not to be on the Council because he was not mentally qualified for such a position and because he had "an unwarrantable Impetuosity of Temper." The councillors had "prompted" Fauquier to write and to protest against letting "private Friends.h.i.+ps" in England determine appointments. The Council found the governor's letter "very proper and expedient to be sent immediately." Thomas Nelson proposed a further measure, a request from the Council to the king that Burwell be removed and that "some other more able and discreet person" be put in his place. The men decided to wait until they had fuller attendance before acting on Nelson's suggestion. Burwell's brothers-in-law and other councillors felt embarra.s.sed that the British government would put him on a level with them. After hearing that the king's warrant for Burwell's appointment was coming, they convinced Governor Fauquier that theirs was "the concurrent Voice of the Colony."

Richard Henry Lee expected Burwell to be removed "on account of his extreme incapacity, to discharge the important duties of that station." Lee wished to sit on the Council, as no Lee had done since the death of his father, Thomas Lee. In a letter to Virginia's agent in London he suggested himself as a replacement, saying: "The desire I have to do my country service, is my only motive for this solicitation." The agent knew that appointments more important than the Virginia Council were "dayly done by particular Interests"; he worried that Fauquier would hurt himself in the eyes of the Board of Trade by this protest.

Robert Burwell, after hearing his kinsmen, the governor, and other leading Virginians publicly declare him unfit, wrote to his friends in London to tell them what Fauquier and the Council were doing. His friends were the heads of the House of Hanbury, Capel and Osgood Hanbury, and former Governor Robert Dinwiddie. They had persuaded Earl Granville, president of the Privy Council, to choose Burwell. Dinwiddie knew the Burwells; in the 1750s he had many chances to see what the family and its connections by marriage thought of Robert Burwell. Obviously, Dinwiddie had recommended him to insult the Virginia officials who had made his governors.h.i.+p so trying.

The new councillor's friends in London stood by him. The Board of Trade sent Fauquier a tart letter, telling him that they did not always need the governor's recommendation and that "many very respectable persons" supported Burwell. Fauquier's letter, for which the Board of Trade chided him, had conveyed not only the councillors' opinion of Burwell but also their resentment of Robert Dinwiddie's insatiable desire for revenge. Through Fauquier they asked: "if a private Man can obtain his Wishes to serve his Friend, will he not afterward laugh in his Sleeve and despise Consequences?"

Burwell stayed on the Council. Richard Henry Lee turned his eye to other offices. He began to suggest that John Robinson, as speaker and treasurer, held too much power. Governor Fauquier a.s.sured the Board of Trade that, among the councillors, "all is quiet." The Nelsons were willing to include Robert Burwell in their new Dismal Swamp Company.

The few people who had filed papers with the surveyor of Norfolk County to obtain land in the Dismal Swamp had sought plots of 100 acres, 300 acres, 400 acres. Robert Tucker claimed 1,000 acres in May 1762. He began a causeway through the eastern margin of the swamp. Since the expiration of his and Francis Farley's grant, ways to improve the swamp had occupied his thoughts. He was part of "a scheme" becoming public in March 1763: some men organized to drain the Dismal Swamp "at a small Expence," then profit from the "extremely Valuable" land they would hold as proprietors. A North Carolinian heard that the group consisted of "the two Nelsons Colo. Was.h.i.+ngton Colo. Fielding Lewis one Doctor Walker" and others, perhaps even Governor Fauquier. Rumor said they had "certain a.s.surances" of a grant free of quitrents on the Virginia side of the line, and that they had made overtures to Thomas Child, Earl Granville's sometime agent living in Suffolk, for a grant on the North Carolina side.

Norfolk, Suffolk, and the Dismal Swamp. Courtesy of the William L. Clements Library. Drawn during the Revolutionary War by a British Army cartographer who depicted the region surrounding the northern part of the Dismal Swamp.

The Dismal Swamp Company announced itself on Wednesday, May 25, 1763. William Nelson presented to his colleagues on the Council a pet.i.tion for a grant of the swamp, signed with 151 names. The Crown lately had confined grants to 1,000 acres per person. The partners, with most of the work done by Was.h.i.+ngton, Lewis, and Walker, drew up a list of names equal to the number of thousands of acres they sought. All but a few of these signers had no interest in the project. The company would have only twelve shares and twelve members: William Nelson, Thomas Nelson, Thomas Walker, George Was.h.i.+ngton, Fielding Lewis, Robert Tucker, John Robinson, Robert Burwell, William Waters, John Syme, Anthony Bacon, and Samuel Gist. The Council postponed consideration of Nelson's pet.i.tion, but his partners expressed no fear of failing.

While Nelson dealt with the Council, Was.h.i.+ngton, with his brother-in-law, Fielding Lewis, his cousin's husband, Dr. Walker, and another brother-in-law, Burwell Ba.s.sett, left Williamsburg, taking a ferry to Norfolk. They were going to ride around the Dismal Swamp. After a visit to the Norfolk ropewalk to see hemp fibers made into cordage, they crossed the Elizabeth River to Portsmouth and headed toward Suffolk and the swamp.

For two days the four men, with servants and a guide, rode southward along the road bordering the Dismal Swamp, then eastward in North Carolina, crossing the Pasquotank and Perquimans rivers, then northward back into Virginia, cutting through part of the swamp along the new road. As they began, just south of Suffolk among plantations of the large Ridd.i.c.k family, they rea.s.sured themselves that the swamp was pa.s.sable, riding half a mile into it, their horses wading in water a few inches deep. The company would begin its work there, in the northwestern sector, among white cedars, gums, and cypresses. Most soil along the road into North Carolina was sandy and poor. Yet Was.h.i.+ngton was sure that within the swamp all was black and fertile. He tried to discern subtle contours in the almost level terrain, with an eye to channels for draining. Their shortcut while riding northward on the other side took them through the Green Sea, the vast, open tract of tall, waving reeds which had impressed William Byrd thirty-five years earlier. Though local people thought it "a low sunken Mora.s.s, not fit for any of the purposes of Agriculture," Was.h.i.+ngton felt certain that it was "excessive Rich." Pa.s.sing Robert Tucker's mills and returning to Norfolk, Was.h.i.+ngton, Lewis, Walker, and Ba.s.sett spent the night at Reinsburg's Tavern, then went on board a ferry for Hampton.

In October, Was.h.i.+ngton briefly visited the Dismal Swamp again, and Robert Tucker made entries with the surveyor of Norfolk County for 2,000 more acres. At the Council's meeting on November 1, William Nelson renewed the pet.i.tion "of himself and many others" for a grant of more than 150,000 acres. Since the postponement in May, the first pet.i.tion had been mislaid, but the Council approved Nelson's new one. Governor Fauquier was away from Williamsburg, meeting with Indians in South Carolina and Georgia. Upon his return, the partners he called "Gentlemen of large Fortunes and great Consequence in this Colony" convinced him that their "warm Expectations" were sound.

The Dismal Swamp Company held its first meeting in Williamsburg on Thursday, November 3. In the room were William Nelson, presumably smiling, as he often did; his less voluble brother, Mr. Secretary; the restless, overworked Robert Tucker; Dr. Thomas Walker, glad to cooperate again with some of those men so understanding in the matter of the Loyal Company's surveys; George Was.h.i.+ngton, youngest man in the room and most confident of the new company's success; Fielding Lewis, a heavy, round-faced man; William Waters, living in Williamsburg, doing as little work as possible; and Robert Burwell-as everyone else in the room knew, he would rather have been at the racetrack. Dr. Walker had power to act on behalf of two absent partners, John Syme and Samuel Gist. The group already had decided to invite Speaker Robinson, but he had been too ill to do business since September. The company soon chose to gain a friend in London by making Anthony Bacon a partner.

These men agreed that they were starting a "great undertaking": "draining Improving and Saving the Land." The project needed managers to establish its claims with county surveyors, gather slaves and tools, and buy a plantation near the swamp to make the operation self-supporting, as William Byrd had recommended. To no one's surprise, Dr. Walker, George Was.h.i.+ngton, and Fielding Lewis volunteered. Byrd had written that draining could begin with ten slaves, but the partners voted to a.s.semble fifty "able male labouring Slaves," five from each of the ten signers. The managers must report on the progress of the work. Each shareholder must contribute to defray expenses. They issued no stock. Since the days of the South Sea Bubble, incorporated joint stock companies needed a charter from the Crown. The partners foresaw that one of them or his heir might sell his share, might even sell it to "many Persons." But each share would have one vote, and the founders intended to keep as many of those twelve votes within the original circle as they could. As the meeting closed, the partners appointed the absent Samuel Gist "Clerk of the Company" and ordered him "to register all the proceedings in a Book." Dr. Walker and Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton, working together more smoothly than during the war, soon left Williamsburg to present proof of the Council's grant to the surveyors of Nansemond and Norfolk counties.

Samuel Gist once had been a clerk. He meant never to be a clerk again. He was eager to leave these provincials and return to England. No one again mentioned a book registering the company's proceedings. If Gist stayed away from the meeting because he expected to be insulted and if he read the word "Clerk" as a sneer from William Nelson and others wis.h.i.+ng to freeze him out of the company, he saw truly. But Dr. Walker did not mind doing business with him, and if the Nelsons could bring in their shallow brother-in-law Burwell, Walker could bring Gist.

Samuel Gist was born in Bristol in January 1726. He apparently never spoke of his father, John Gist, or his mother. His uncle, Thomas Gist, was a weaver. Until his fourteenth year, Samuel was one of forty boys in a charity school, Queen Elizabeth's Hospital. He rose every morning at five o'clock to a breakfast of bread and table beer. He wore a blue uniform with a scarlet cloth breastplate bearing the initials "JC" in honor of the school's founder, John Carr. Samuel and the other boys were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and navigation to prepare them to be useful and morally respectable artisans. When a boy was ready to leave, the school paid 8 8s. to bind him out as an apprentice.

Samuel's turn to leave came late in 1739. Among the scores of vessels moored along Bristol's curving quay, lined with houses on both sides, the York York, the New Kent New Kent, and the Virginian Virginian were bound for Virginia. On board one of these, the small boy pa.s.sed from among Bristol's old wood and plaster houses, its new brick houses, its streets crowded with women, children, sailors, burdened animals, loaded drays, and movable goods, to a country store near the right bank of the Pamunkey River in Hanover County, Virginia. were bound for Virginia. On board one of these, the small boy pa.s.sed from among Bristol's old wood and plaster houses, its new brick houses, its streets crowded with women, children, sailors, burdened animals, loaded drays, and movable goods, to a country store near the right bank of the Pamunkey River in Hanover County, Virginia.

Years later, one of Francis Farley's friends in Antigua wrote: "for my amus.e.m.e.nt I am writing to Bristol for an hospital boy, of a good temper and well qualified as Reader & Writer, whom I may breed up to a Planters.h.i.+p." Similarly, a Bristol firm trading to Virginia sent Samuel Gist to its factor in Hanover, John Smith. At Gould Hill the boy learned storekeeping, selling the usual goods: hats, cloth, ribbon, thread, needles, salt, hoes, nails, seeds, traces, and rum. He learned well. He later said: "Store keeping requires the utmost attention." When Gist was twenty, John Smith died at the age of sixty, leaving a widow, Sarah, and two young sons. Gist took over Smith's affairs, paying doctor's bills and funeral expenses, running the store, and administering the estate of one of Sarah Smith's dead kinsmen, of which John Smith had been executor. Two years later, in May 1748, Gist and Sarah Smith were married. She was more than ten years older than he. They later had two daughters.

None of the executors named in John Smith's will oversaw any part of his estate. Gist retained control. He did not keep separate accounts for that portion of the estate bequeathed to Smith's sons, as George Was.h.i.+ngton did for the children of Daniel Parke Custis and Martha Custis. On May 7, 1752, Gist sent an advertis.e.m.e.nt to the Virginia Gazette Virginia Gazette, announcing his intent to move to England, but he did not leave Virginia then. In June he obtained from Hanover County Court an order making him guardian of his stepsons. Their slaves worked their land; crops and income went to Gist. He bought land, much more than John Smith had owned. To the original three houses and 440 acres in Hanover County he added 1,960 acres. From his wife's relatives he bought plantations in Goochland and Amherst counties. He became the sole Virginia representative of the English firm, Brown & Parks. Late in 1752 he imported three apprentices from Bristol. Gist's dealings in tobacco and merchandise grew to be the most extensive in Hanover County. Account books and ledgers from John Smith's store disappeared. No final accounting or settlement ever closed Smith's estate. Smith's sons remained Gist's dependents. Gist had good reason to detect one of William Nelson's satirical cuts in the Dismal Swamp Company partners' order to him to register the company's proceedings in a book.

At the age of thirty-one, Samuel Gist chartered a new s.h.i.+p, the Peggy Peggy, to transport freight to England. His tobacco could not fill her, especially since he had lost three hogsheads in warehouse fires. To turn a profit on such a voyage he needed to load her quickly and fully. He solicited freight from merchants and planters so a.s.siduously that he agreed to s.h.i.+p more than the Peggy Peggy could hold. After she sailed, leaving hogsheads Gist had said she would take, a disappointed merchant wrote: "I had his promise, but I believe he never intended to comply with it." Gist had risen in a hard school. And he did not see these provincial planters and merchants, or even a room in Williamsburg holding the Nelsons, Dr. Walker, young George Was.h.i.+ngton, and various brothers-in-law, as the peak of his ambition. Nevertheless, if the Dismal Swamp Company expected immense profits, he could swallow an insult to get a share. could hold. After she sailed, leaving hogsheads Gist had said she would take, a disappointed merchant wrote: "I had his promise, but I believe he never intended to comply with it." Gist had risen in a hard school. And he did not see these provincial planters and merchants, or even a room in Williamsburg holding the Nelsons, Dr. Walker, young George Was.h.i.+ngton, and various brothers-in-law, as the peak of his ambition. Nevertheless, if the Dismal Swamp Company expected immense profits, he could swallow an insult to get a share.

Four weeks after the company's first meeting, Samuel Gist testified in a trial in Hanover County Court. The Reverend James Maury had sued collectors of t.i.thes in his parish for damages. While the Twopenny Act had been in force in 1759, he had received as his salary not the 16,000 pounds of tobacco prescribed for a minister of the established Church but paper money worth much less. Since the Twopenny Act had been disallowed by the Crown, Maury sought payment in full. This trial was to set the amount due him. Except for his attorney, Peter Lyons, and Lyons's friend, Gist, Maury had few supporters in the county seat. Instead of trying to impanel gentlemen, the sheriff rounded up jurors from "the vulgar herd," including several dissenters opposed to an established church and to taxes for its clergy's salaries. The justices on the bench accepted this jury. Gist was the first witness for the plaintiff. One of Hanover County's largest purchasers of tobacco, he testified that the price in May and June 1759 had been 50 s.h.i.+llings per hundredweight and that he had sold several hundred hogsheads. Testimony by another merchant confirmed the price of 50 s.h.i.+llings. With these witnesses Lyons had proven the loss Maury had sustained by being paid in currency as if tobacco had been worth twopence per pound, that is, 18s. 8d. per hundredweight.

Then a young attorney for the defendants, Patrick Henry-half brother of Gist's Dismal Swamp Company partner, John Syme-rose and spoke to the jury for an hour. Warming to his subject, he argued that the Twopenny Act had been a good law and that the king, by disallowing it, had broken the original compact between king and people, had d