FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]CO5-1309, Doc. 9.[2]CO5-1339, Doc. 33 V.[3]T. J. Wertenbaker,Planters of colonial Virginia, 183, 247.[4]T. J. Wertenbaker, Attempt to reform the church of colonial Virginia,Sewanee Review25: 273-275.[5]CO5-1409, p. 135A.[6]CO5-1314, Doc. 35, IIb.[7]CO5-1360, p. 117.[8]CO5-1314, Doc. D10.[9]Ibid., Doc. 15G.[10]CO5-1314, Doc. 36.[11]Ibid., Doc. 15G.[12]Ibid., Doc. 15.[13]CO5-1314, Doc. 17.[14]Ibid., Doc. 35 II 6.[15]Ibid., Doc. 10.[16]Ibid., Doc. 23.[17]Ibid., Doc. 24.[18]Ibid., Doc. 10.[19]Ibid.[20]CO5-1314, Doc. 40.[21]Ibid., Doc. 14c.[22]Ibid., Doc. 9.[23]Ibid., Doc. 15.[24]Ibid., Doc. 12.[25]Ibid., Doc. 7.[26]Ibid., p. 23.[27]Ibid., Doc. 7.[28]Ibid.[29]CO5-1314, Doc. 15f.[30]Ibid.[31]Ibid., Doc. 17.[32]CO5-1360, p. 424.[33]CO5-1660, pp. 463-465.[34]Ibid., Docs. 23, 24.[35]CO5-1360, p. 480.[36]CO5-1314, Doc. 36.[37]Ibid., Docs. 43, 44.[38]CO5-1314, Doc. 36.[39]Ibid., Doc. 67.[40]Ibid., Doc. 46.

[1]CO5-1309, Doc. 9.

[2]CO5-1339, Doc. 33 V.

[3]T. J. Wertenbaker,Planters of colonial Virginia, 183, 247.

[4]T. J. Wertenbaker, Attempt to reform the church of colonial Virginia,Sewanee Review25: 273-275.

[5]CO5-1409, p. 135A.

[6]CO5-1314, Doc. 35, IIb.

[7]CO5-1360, p. 117.

[8]CO5-1314, Doc. D10.

[9]Ibid., Doc. 15G.

[10]CO5-1314, Doc. 36.

[11]Ibid., Doc. 15G.

[12]Ibid., Doc. 15.

[13]CO5-1314, Doc. 17.

[14]Ibid., Doc. 35 II 6.

[15]Ibid., Doc. 10.

[16]Ibid., Doc. 23.

[17]Ibid., Doc. 24.

[18]Ibid., Doc. 10.

[19]Ibid.

[20]CO5-1314, Doc. 40.

[21]Ibid., Doc. 14c.

[22]Ibid., Doc. 9.

[23]Ibid., Doc. 15.

[24]Ibid., Doc. 12.

[25]Ibid., Doc. 7.

[26]Ibid., p. 23.

[27]Ibid., Doc. 7.

[28]Ibid.

[29]CO5-1314, Doc. 15f.

[30]Ibid.

[31]Ibid., Doc. 17.

[32]CO5-1360, p. 424.

[33]CO5-1660, pp. 463-465.

[34]Ibid., Docs. 23, 24.

[35]CO5-1360, p. 480.

[36]CO5-1314, Doc. 36.

[37]Ibid., Docs. 43, 44.

[38]CO5-1314, Doc. 36.

[39]Ibid., Doc. 67.

[40]Ibid., Doc. 46.

Though the members of the Council must have been surprised when Nicholson read Secretary Hedges' letter, they did not let it disturb them. They were rid of him, and that was what really mattered. No more could he bully them in the Council meetings, no more could he thwart them in the General Court by packing juries, no more could he ignore them in appointing officers, no more could he insult and revile them. As they sat around the table with the mild-mannered Nott, they realized with satisfaction that his personality was in strong contrast with that of his predecessor. Perhaps it would be easy to control him and keep the power in their own hands.

To a large extent this is just what they did. Though Nott was no weakling, he was anxious to live in peace with both Council and Assembly. It was said of him that his "whole study was to do everybody justice."[1]Like other Governors when they first arrived and were unacquainted with men and conditions in the colony, he was dependent upon the Councillors for advice and guidance. Before he could learn the ropes, he died. Since four years elapsed before a new Governor arrived to take his place, the Council remained for half a decade the controlling power in the colony. From August, 1705, to July, 1710, the government was neither despotic nor democratic, but aristocratic.

Nathaniel Bacon, Nicholson, Spotswood, and others derided the "mighty dons" of the Council, pointing out that they came from humble families in England. These critics did not stop to consider that it was more to their credit to have won by their own efforts positions of wealth and power than to have inherited them. Virginia itself offered them the opportunity, but it was they who seized it.

The group of well-to-do planters whom the Council represented, in the early years of the eighteenth century were far from numerous. "In every river there are from ten to thirtymen who by trade and industry have gotten very competent estates," wrote Colonel Quary. "Out of this number are chosen her Majesty's Council, the Assembly, the justices, and officers of the government."[2]

It must have been a humiliation to such proud men as William Byrd II, "King" Carter, and Benjamin Harrison that they were not admitted to the English peerage. But though there were no dukes, nor lords, nor knights among the Councillors, they had the right to certain titles which carried great distinction. The term "esquire" was given to members of the Council, and was invariably used by them in signing legal documents. If a man were not a Councillor, yet was prominent and wealthy, he had the right to sign himself "gentleman." The holders of high office in the militia—colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors, and captains—prized their titles highly and used them in conjunction with "esquire," or "gentleman."[3]

Nor did the English nobility command greater respect than did the members of the Council in Virginia. When a certain Humphrey Chamberlaine, of Henrico County, became angry with William Byrd I, and, stripping off his coat, drew his sword as if to attack him, he was arrested and clapped into jail. At his trial he excused himself by saying he was a stranger in the country and ignorant of its laws and customs. But the court, ruling that no one "could be insensible of the respect and reverence due so honorable a person as Colonel Byrd," fined him five pounds sterling.[4]

Although the basis of the wealth of the aristocracy was land, the holding of large tracts did not in itself bring riches unless the owner could find the labor necessary to work them. During most of the seventeenth century indentured workers were used extensively. But their cost and the fact that they served but four or five years limited the return they brought their masters. With the importing of slaves in large numbers in the last two decades of the seventeenth century and the first third of the eighteenth century, the cost of raising tobacco was greatly lowered. This not only doubled or tripled existing fortunes, but created many new ones. It is this which explains why the Virginia aristocracy, which so late as the last decade of theseventeenth century was little more than a group, by the mid-eighteenth century had become a numerous class.[5]

In their mode of life the aristocracy consciously imitated the English country squires. The large libraries which they accumulated served practical as well as cultural ends. The wealthy man who wished to build a residence pored over James Gibbs'A Book of Architecture, or Abraham Swan'sThe British Architect. In laying out his garden he consulted Kip'sEnglish Houses and Gardens, or John James'The Theory and Practice of Gardening. On his shelves were English books on law, medicine, religion, agriculture.

Fortunately some of the mansions of colonial Virginia have survived the ravages of time, fires, and wars, to bear witness to the charm and dignity of the plantation life of two centuries ago. Carter's Grove, Mount Airy, Gunston Hall, Westover, Brandon, and others constitute history in brick and wood. The lovely gardens, some of which have been restored in recent years, are in the formal style of Le Notre and Rose. The mansions were furnished with tables, chairs, bookcases by the English masters; on the tables were pitchers, goblets, and candlesticks by English silversmiths. The aristocrat dressed himself and his family in the latest English fashions, owned an English-made coach, imported English race horses, perhaps sent his son to Oxford, when he visited England had his portrait painted by Lely or Kneller.

It was inevitable that in so small a group as the early Virginia aristocracy there should be frequent intermarriages. In 1717 half of the members of the Council were related to each other by blood or marriage. James Blair and Philip Ludwell were brothers-in-law of Nathaniel Harrison; William Byrd's wife was the niece of Ludwell; William Bassett and Edmund Berkeley had married half-nieces of Ludwell; Ludwell's wife was Harrison's sister. Governor Spotswood habitually referred to them as "the family."

It was wrong, Spotswood pointed out, that a group of relatives should wield such power. Since they all sat on the General Court, it was to be expected that they would vote as a unit if the interests of any one of them were involved. "Whoever has lived here and frequented the General Courts held of late in Virginia, has abundant reason to know that there is a stronglink of relatives on the bench, who by their majority have the determination of all causes," he wrote in 1718. "When one of their kindred is charged with enormous crimes, clerks may safely keep back the examination, and sheriffs keep back the witnesses.... When the King has been plaintiff in a civil action against one of that family, the cause could not be tried for want of judges to make up a bench exclusive of those who were akin to the defendant."[6]

One wonders how long Governor Nott would have put up with this kind of thing had not death overtaken him. Despite his desire to work in harmony with the Council, there is evidence that he had no intention of letting them ride over him roughshod. This became evident when they tried to take the patronage out of his hands. "I do believe the Council have a mind to dispute with me the making of the collectors of the two shillings per hogshead," he wrote the Lords of Trade. "Their pretence is that it is said in my instructions I shall not make them but by advice of Council. Now they have a mind to turn several out and put in their own relatives. And that is not my turn of temper."[7]

When he asked the advice of the Council before reappointing naval officers, they objected to Major Arthur Allen, Colonel Miles Gary, and Colonel William Wilson. But when nothing of consequence was brought against them, the Governor insisted on continuing them. At the same time he shook off responsibility by refusing to renew their commissions until he had instructions to do so from the Lord Treasurer.[8]

Whatever resentment the Councillors bore him for this was forgotten when he championed their plea that they should not be forbidden to become naval officers. "I think this instruction very strange," he wrote the Lords of Trade. "To be deprived of those few places of profit ... brings the consequence that the good men are very indifferent to being one of the Council. I hope you are of opinion that this restriction may be taken off."[9]

The Governor thought it his duty to defer to the Council in most of his appointments to lesser offices. "I have directed new commissioners of peace," he wrote the Lords of Trade, "and not knowing persons yet, I left the nomination of justicessolely to the Council. I have continued the former escheators since there was no objection to them."[10]

When Nott first took over the government, he found the colony divided against itself. The people as a whole were overjoyed to get rid of Nicholson, but a group made up no doubt of men who had received favors at his hands, resented his removal. When an election was held for a new Assembly, opposing candidates were put up by the pro-Nicholson and anti-Nicholson factions. Although the latter won an overwhelming victory, enough Nicholson men were returned to continue the old feuds and hatreds. Governor Nott made his opening address an appeal for peace. It was his earnest hope, he said, that all animosities be laid aside, and that the only contention be as to who should be most obedient to the Queen and most serviceable to the country.[11]

Despite this plea the pro-Nicholson faction presented under the guise of a grievance a resolution which was in reality a reproof of the six members of the Council who had presented the charges against the Governor. No one should take upon himself to represent to the Queen the grievances of the colony without the consent of the House of Burgesses, it said. No thanks, but rather a check should be given to those that had done so against the late Governor. But they met with a severe rebuff. So far from approving, the House ordered the so-called grievance to "be burnt under the gallows by the sheriff of York County as a mutinous, seditious, and scandalous paper."[12]

Though there is no evidence that Nott tried to render the Burgesses submissive to his will by bribing them with offices, the Assembly thought this a golden opportunity to weaken the Governor's appointive power. Some could recall Berkeley's Long Assembly, and all had been witnesses of the shameless way in which Nicholson had handed out jobs. So they passed a bill requiring each county court to nominate three men, all of them justices, from whom the Governor was to select one as sheriff, who was to serve not more than two years. Had not Nott been so anxious to avoid any conflict with the Assembly, he would certainly have vetoed this bill, for not only did it restrict his power of appointment, but it infringed upon the royal prerogative.

But he balked when the House sent up a bill to require the Governor, in appointing the justices of the peace, to secure the assent of the Council, or at least five of them. He thought they were going too far in this attempt to deprive the Governor of the patronage, leave him at the mercy of the Council and Assembly, and make him a mere figurehead. When the Lords of Trade heard that he had vetoed this bill, they wrote congratulating him. "The restraining Governors from making justices ... is entrenching on prerogative, and you may be assured it will not be approved here. In all other plantations the power of appointing and removing justices of the peace is solely in the Governor.... But it would be prudence in the Governor to advise for his better information."[13]

When the Assembly met again, in April, 1706, they made a daring attempt to weaken the Governor's power by passing a substitute law for the famous Act of 1680 which gave a perpetual revenue to the Crown. The new bill bore the disarming title of "An Act for raising a public revenue for the better support of the government ... and for ascertaining the salary of the Council." Nott apparently saw nothing alarming in it, but Colonel Quary at once suspected that it was intended to weaken the Act of 1680, and perhaps set a precedent which would eventually give the House control of the revenue from the export duty on tobacco.

"These topping men" were merely waiting an opportunity to have the old law damned, he wrote the Lords of Trade. "Had the Assembly only designed to have augmented and added to the Queen's revenue, why could they not make an act of it without damning and destroying the former act? And that your Lordships may see the snake in the grass, please observe that the Assembly are pleased to appropriate the Queen's revenue as they think fit, a thing never pretended to before, and to limit and confine her Majesty from disposing of her own money.... Whereas in a former act the Queen was graciously pleased to appropriate £370 to be divided among the Council for attendance, in this act they have ordered otherwise ... by which they have tied up the Queen's hands from giving any part of her bounty but according to their pleasure."[14]

When this bill came before the Board of Trade they referredit to Attorney General Harcourt and Solicitor General Montague. Although these astute men, as we have seen, gave it as their opinion that the old act had been passed in a way "contrary to the present method," and should be superseded by a new one, the Board decided to let sleeping dogs lie. So they advised the Queen to veto the Act of 1716. "'Tis hoped it will never be revived by any Governor who has at heart the interests of the Crown, and wishes that people should distinguish between what they owe to the indulgence of the Sovereign and what they may claim as their right by the laws of Virginia," wrote Governor Spotswood several years later.[15]

The climate of Virginia, which was fatal to so many newcomers from England, took a heavy toll of Governors. Lord De la Warr fell a victim to the Virginia sickness; Herbert Jeffreys died after having been in the colony only a few months. Now, on August 23, 1706, death ended the brief administration of Governor Nott. He was mourned by the people, and was buried in Bruton Parish churchyard with all the solemnity the colony was capable of. "Had it pleased God to have spared him but a little time longer amongst us, he would have healed all those unhappy differences that have of late made us uneasy, and united us again to be one people," wrote William Bassett.[16]

When the Council met after Nott's death they opened his commission and listened intently as it was read. And there was great satisfaction when they found that in the event of a Governor's death the Council was to take on themselves the administration of the government. But they were far from happy that Colonel Edmund Jenings, as the senior Councillor, was to preside at their meetings with such powers as were necessary in "carrying on the public service." They insisted that the Attorney General of the colony, in drawing up the first proclamation under the new government, should issue it, not under the name of the President alone, but of the President and Council.[17]

Jenings wrote to the Lords of Trade to ask just what his status should be. Their answer was decisive. The instruction that the Council should take over the government upon the death of a Governor had caused many controversies between the President and the Councillors and had greatly hindered public business. So they altered it to read: "The eldestCouncillor do take upon him the administration of the government ... in the same manner ... as other our Governor should do."[18]

Francis Nicholson had written the Lords of Trade some years previously expressing doubts as to the wisdom of making any member of the Council the chief executive. "There may happen great disputes about the person of the President and his powers. And may be when the President and the Council are all natives or else entirely settled here, nature and self-interest may sway them to do some things and pass some acts that may be (as they will imagine) for the good of their country and make and secure an interest with the people. This may be prejudicial to their Majesties' service."[19]No doubt the Lords of Trade saw the force of this reasoning, but they were not prepared to keep a Lieutenant Governor in Virginia whose only function it would be to wait around ready to step in when the Governor died or was recalled.

Although the other members of the Council seem to have regarded Jenings with something like scorn, and one of them had spoken of him as "the right noble little Colonel Jenings," the man had had a distinguished career. He had been clerk of the York County court, collector of the York River district, commissioner for the College of William and Mary, member of the Council, Attorney General, and Secretary. And now, as President of the Council, he seems to have laid aside former animosities, and considered himself merely first among equals.

It was taken for granted that Jenings' administration would be brief, and that a new Governor would come over as soon as one could be appointed. Word had come that a commission had been drawn up for Colonel Robert Hunter, and that he had sailed from Portsmouth in June, 1707. But month after month passed and he failed to appear. As late as March, 1708, the Council was wondering what had become of him. At last they heard that the vessel in which he had shipped had been taken by the French, and that he was held captive in France. So they had to wait two more years before a Governor arrived.[20]

This suited President Jenings and the Council, for it left them in undisputed control of the government. They even refused to hold an Assembly for fear it might question theirproceedings. It is true that six times they set the date for a meeting of the Assembly, but six times they postponed it. At last, when people began to question whether these frequent postponements did not put an end to the Assembly, the Council settled all doubts by dissolving them by proclamation.

This was a dangerous thing to do, for it was in the midst of the War of the Spanish Succession, and an Assembly was needed to provide funds for the defense of the colony. But the Council gambled that no French fleet would appear in the Chesapeake Bay. The normal expenses of the government—their own salaries and those of the President, Auditor, Attorney General, and other officials—they paid out of the export duty on tobacco and the quit rent fund. In September, 1708, Jenings wrote that privateers had come in between the capes and had chased a merchant vessel up the York River, that the Indians were threatening the frontier, that the Governor's house was unfinished, and that the quit rent fund was "much drained," but that despite all, the Council would not call an Assembly.[21]

In December, 1709, Lord George Hamilton, Earl of Orkney, was appointed Governor General of Virginia. Orkney had been trained as a soldier, and had distinguished himself at Namur, Blenheim, Malplaquet, and elsewhere. It is probable that it was intended from the first that the office should be a sinecure, and though Orkney held it for years he never set foot on Virginia soil. But Virginia had to pay his salary, for his £1,000 a year was taken out of the export duty on tobacco. To carry on the administration in the colony Colonel Alexander Spotswood was made Lieutenant Governor.

It would seem that in the years from the recall of Nicholson to the arrival of Spotswood, the danger to liberty in Virginia came less from the Throne than from the Council. A free people could not be quiet under the rule of a body of twelve men, not chosen by the voters but appointed by the sovereign.

The average planter, not only the owner of only a few acres, but the man of means had reason to be alarmed. Was it consistent with the principles of English liberty, they must have asked, for a clique of wealthy men, many of them united in one family, to have such power over their lives and their property? If the people were to rule, final authority must be vested in the House of Burgesses, not the Council.

FOOTNOTES:[1]CO5-1315, Bassett to Perry & Co., Aug. 30, 1706.[2]CO5-1314, Doc. 63iv.[3]Hugh Jones,The present state of Virginia, ed. R. L. Morton, 93.[4]P. A. Bruce,Social life of Virginia, 133[5]T. J. Wertenbaker,The planters of colonial Virginia, 155-160.[6]CO5-1318, Spotswood to Lords of Trade, March 20, 1718.[7]CO5-1340, Doc. 15.[8]Ibid.[9]Ibid., Doc. 19.[10]CO5-1316, p. 450.[11]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1702-1712: 131.[12]Ibid., 147.[13]CO5-1362, March 26, 1707.[14]CO5-1315, Quary to Lordships, Sept. 1, 1706.[15]CO5-1317.[16]CO5-1315, Aug. 30, 1706.[17]Executive journals of the Council3: 119, 120.[18]CO5-1362, p. 121.[19]CO5-1314, Doc. 15.[20]CO5-1362, pp. 336-340.[21]CO5-1362, pp. 318, 325.

[1]CO5-1315, Bassett to Perry & Co., Aug. 30, 1706.

[2]CO5-1314, Doc. 63iv.

[3]Hugh Jones,The present state of Virginia, ed. R. L. Morton, 93.

[4]P. A. Bruce,Social life of Virginia, 133

[5]T. J. Wertenbaker,The planters of colonial Virginia, 155-160.

[6]CO5-1318, Spotswood to Lords of Trade, March 20, 1718.

[7]CO5-1340, Doc. 15.

[8]Ibid.

[9]Ibid., Doc. 19.

[10]CO5-1316, p. 450.

[11]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1702-1712: 131.

[12]Ibid., 147.

[13]CO5-1362, March 26, 1707.

[14]CO5-1315, Quary to Lordships, Sept. 1, 1706.

[15]CO5-1317.

[16]CO5-1315, Aug. 30, 1706.

[17]Executive journals of the Council3: 119, 120.

[18]CO5-1362, p. 121.

[19]CO5-1314, Doc. 15.

[20]CO5-1362, pp. 336-340.

[21]CO5-1362, pp. 318, 325.

Alexander Spotswood arrived in Virginia June 20, 1710, aboard the warshipDeptford, and spent the night at Green Spring, with his future enemy, Philip Ludwell. Two days later he met with the Council around the oval table in the beautiful Council Chamber in the new Capitol, and laid his commission before them.

The new Lieutenant Governor was descended from a family of Scottish Anglicans. His great-grandfather had seconded Archbishop Laud's attempt to introduce the Prayer Book in Scotland; his grandfather had been put to death by the Presbyterians. Perhaps it was this tragedy which induced his father to desert his native land and take service in the English army. It was while he was with his regiment in Tangier that Alexander Spotswood was born.

The son chose to follow in the father's footsteps, and in 1693 we find him serving in the Earl of Bath's regiment in Flanders. He fought gallantly, was wounded at Blenheim, and was captured at Oudenarde. It is possible that he served under the Earl of Orkney, also, and that was the reason he named him as his deputy in Virginia. "I must ever own gratefully that to your Lordship's good will I owe my station here," he wrote Orkney in 1718.

Spotswood was one of the ablest Governors sent to America to represent the British Crown. He did much to open the West to Virginia, encouraged settlement in the Piedmont, and erected forts in the passes of the Blue Ridge. He wiped out a nest of pirates under the notorious Blackbeard and strung several of them up at Williamsburg. A man of artistic interests, he was responsible for the beautiful Palace gardens, with their wealth of boxwood, walks, walls, lake, ornate gates, flower beds; and designed charming Bruton Parish Church.

In 1716 he led a party of gentlemen, accompanied by rangers, servants, and Indians, on an exploring expedition to the West. As they rode through the wilderness of the Piedmont, they shot deer and bears, camped in the open, roasted venison on woodenforks. On reaching the Blue Ridge they toiled to the summit, and there, looking out over the Valley of Virginia, drank the health of King George I and the royal family. After descending into the Valley and crossing the Shenandoah River, they turned their horses' heads homeward. Back in Williamsburg, the Governor presented each of his companions with a golden horseshoe, inscribed withsic juvat transcendere montes.

Although Spotswood was accused of being haughty and implacable, he lacked the fiery temper of Nicholson or the revengeful fury of Sir William Berkeley. In his conflicts with the Council his astute mind and his knowledge of English and Virginia constitutional law made it easy for him to refute their arguments. Though he defended the powers of the Crown, he was honestly concerned for the welfare of the colony. But he hated democracy, and he had no patience with what he termed the follies of the ignorant multitude. Despite his assaults on the Virginia aristocracy, his ambition was to become one of them, and he used his office to build up one of the greatest estates in the colony.

The instructions given Spotswood by the Lords of Trade were on the whole wise and liberal. The people of Virginia were to have the full benefit of thehabeas corpus; fees and salaries must be moderate; no one must be deprived of life, member, or property without due process of law; martial law was forbidden; the people were to be supplied with arms. Yet several clauses were loaded with trouble for the Lieutenant Governor—one for appointing courts to try criminals; another for preventing frauds in the accounts of governmental receipts and payments; another for collecting arrears of quit rents; one to prevent the holding of large tracts of unoccupied land.

When this last instruction was read to the Council, they must have shifted uneasily in their seats, for most of them held land which they did not cultivate. Fourteen years earlier Edward Randolph had reported this to the Lords of Trade. The reason the colony was so thinly settled, he thought, was that poor men would not go there "because members of the Council and others who made an interest in the government, have from time to time procured grants of very large tracts of land." Thus newcomers and indentured workers on becoming free were forced to be tenants or go to the utmost bounds of the colony. The remedy, he suggested, was to force paymentof arrears of quit rents and prohibit for the future grants of more than 500 acres.[1]

Both Nott and Hunter had been instructed to cancel patents for land of any who neglected to cultivate even a small part of their holdings. So now Spotswood, in the face of bitter opposition, restricted all grants to 400 acres unless the patentee showed that he was able to meet this requirement. In 1710 he tried to satisfy the Lords of Trade by pushing through a law stating what should be considered satisfactory seating, and in 1713 another making the regulations still more specific.[2]

The chief effect of these acts was to arouse the resentment of the Council. They assented to them in their capacity as the Upper House of the Assembly because they dared not flaunt openly the commands of the British government. But they found means to make them inoperative. The rumor was spread throughout the colony that the attorney general in England had ruled that no lands patented prior to the passage of these acts was liable to forfeiture. To ease men's fears, several large landholders purposely refused to pay quit rents. Even John Grymes, the deputy auditor into whose hands the quit rents were paid, himself remained in arrears "to show no danger in that law."[3]Spotswood admitted that the law was a failure when he wrote in 1718: "No man in Virginia has yet had land granted away for non-payment of quit rents."

When Spotswood came to Virginia there were many complaints of hard times. The war in Europe had proved disastrous to the tobacco trade, the flow of hogsheads to the continent of Europe had been reduced to a trickle, tobacco piled up in the British warehouses, the merchants left a part of each crop on the planters' hands, and the price dropped lower and lower. Many of the poorer farmers were in rags, and some began to raise sheep and to spin and weave. The salaried class, especially the clergy, were in dire straits also, since they were paid in tobacco, often of the lowest grade.

The fertile brain of Spotswood now thought out a scheme intended to raise the price of tobacco, give the colony a convenient and stable currency, make the collecting of quit rents easier, and prevent frauds in shipping out tobacco. So he got one of his friends in the Assembly to introduce a bill to requireinspection of all tobacco at government warehouses, and the issuing of tobacco notes which were to be legal tender. This plan had much to recommend it, and a similar one was put into successful operation later during the administration of Governor Gooch.

Despite violent opposition in certain quarters, the tobacco bill passed both Houses of Assembly and was signed by the Governor. So now there were sounds of hammering and sawing as warehouses arose on the great rivers. Soon the tobacco vessels were tying up at the adjacent wharves, and the planters were rolling their hogsheads for the inspection. After the agent had examined the leaf, he either rejected it as "trash" and unfit for exportation, or stamped on the hogshead the weight and variety of the tobacco, and gave the owner his certificate.

At first everything seemed to be going smoothly. The quit rents were collected in tobacco notes, the price of the leaf rose in the English market. The clergy wrote Spotswood thanking him for the increased value of their salaries. "Their livings, which by the badness of the pay were sunk to little or nothing, begin now to be much more valuable by your wise and just contrivance to keep up the credit of the public payments."[4]

None the less, the law was unpopular. The debtor objected to paying in appreciated currency. It was a heavy expense for the planter to roll his hogsheads over the bad roads to the warehouses and then pay for inspection and storage. He was resentful if his tobacco was judged to be unfit for export. At the courthouses local politicians began to denounce the act to willing listeners. "He is the patriot who will not yield to whatever the government proposes," complained Spotswood. "Him they call a poor man's friend who always carries still-yards to weigh to the needy planter's advantage, and who never judges his tobacco to be trash."[5]

Spotswood said that the tobacco act was looked upon to be the most extraordinary one that ever passed a Virginia Assembly. When he first outlined his plans for it his friends assured him it would be impossible to persuade the Assembly to pass it. Yet it was adopted unanimously by the Council, and passed in the House "with some address and great struggle."

What the Governor meant by "address" is revealed by an examination of the list of fat jobs that he handed out to individual Burgesses. Of the fifty-one members, seventeen were justices of the peace. Fearing perhaps that this did not assure the passage of his bill, he was lavish in promising tobacco agents' places, and no less than twenty-five Burgesses cast their votes with this job in sight. Only nineteen members failed to get one or the other of these posts, and some got both.[6]"I have, in a great measure, I think, cleared the way for a Governor towards carrying any reasonable point in the House of Burgesses," Spotswood boasted, "for he will have in his disposal about forty agencies, which one with another are likely to yield nigh 250 pounds per annum each."[7]

But Spotswood would not have been so pleased with himself if he had realized the resentment which this open bribery of the people's representatives caused throughout the colony. The Assembly "gave him all things asked, and he them agent's places to pick our pockets," said one disgruntled planter. But what the officeholder had to expect if he opposed the measures urged by the Governor is shown by his treatment of Nicholas Meriwether. When Meriwether not only spoke against the tobacco bill in the Assembly, but by "many seditious speeches" denounced it to the people of New Kent County, Spotswood promptly removed him from his place as justice of the peace. This, he thought, would discourage others from following his example.

Having corrupted the Burgesses and made most of them his henchmen, Spotswood would have no doubt continued them indefinitely by successive adjournments, had they not been automatically dissolved by the death of Queen Anne. "By a good providence we were delivered from them, else they would have continued as long as he," wrote Joshua Gee.[8]Just how passively the people would have submitted to another long Assembly must remain a matter of speculation, but their resentment against both Spotswood and his puppets is shown by their selections for the House of Burgesses in 1715. Of the twenty-five members who had accepted agents' jobs, only one, William Armistead, of Elizabeth City, was returned. And the voters of New Kent showed their anger at Spotswood's treatment of Meriwether by returning him to the House. Altogether only sixteen Burgesses of the old House had seats in the new, and of these eleven had been neither agents nor justices.

Spotswood was deeply resentful. The new Burgesses, he thought, were a set of ignorant demagogues, determined to oppose anything he suggested. It was all the fault of the law which permitted any man to vote who owned any real estate, even half an acre. Just before an election reports were spread that the country was on the verge of ruin, and no one was qualified to save it but "some of their own mobbish politicians." It was no wonder that some of the Burgesses could not write grammatical English, since the ignorant people insisted on electing men of their own stamp.[9]

The new Assembly was as hostile to the Governor as their predecessors had been subservient. Everything he proposed they objected to, in some cases for no other reason than to thwart him. They were egged on by Gawin Corbin, who had been ousted from his job as naval officer; George Marable, whom Spotswood had removed from the James City County court; and Edwin Conway, of Lancaster County. But the whole atmosphere of the House was one of hostility.

No sooner had the House been organized than grievances from various counties poured in, most of them complaining against the tobacco law. The people of Surry prayed that the law be repealed, the people of Henrico wanted it repealed, the people of Essex wanted it repealed, the people of Warwick complained of the hardships of the law. It seemed that no more than two counties in all Virginia were satisfied.[10]Spotswood claimed that these grievances did not represent the views of a majority of the people. Many of them were drawn up by members of the House, some were signed at election fields, horse races, and drunken meetings. "Nor shall a seditious paper, signed by five obscure fellows who must have a scribe to write all their names, ever pass with me for a county grievance."[11]

When Richard Littlepage and Thomas Butts, two of the justices of New Kent, refused to certify the grievances of that county, they were arrested under the Speaker's warrant. Though the House voted them guilty of high misdemeanor and contempt, they refused to appear, claiming that the Burgesses had no legal authority over them. Thereupon the House appealed to the Governor to arrest them. "The freedom and privilegesof this House are in danger of being utterly subverted," they said, "when justices ... assume a jurisdiction and by their judgment debar the people and their rightful representatives of the rightful ways ... for redressing their grievances ... we believe that such matters do concern the Burgesses in Assembly."[12]But Spotswood rebuffed them. They were exceeding their authority, he told them, when they persecuted justices and tried to punish them for their proceedings on the bench.

In his anger at not being able to control the Burgesses, Spotswood tried to make the House less democratic by restricting the right to vote. But not daring to reveal his intention, he approached the question in a roundabout way. In September, 1715, he sent out a printed letter to all of the county courts, questioning whether the justices should levy a tax to pay the Burgesses' salaries when no law existed empowering them to do so.[13]To the Lords of Trade he explained that if the justices declined to pay the levy, "the Burgesses must have become suitors for an act wherein might properly have been described the qualifications of the electors and elected."[14]In other words, he was prepared to veto any bill to legalize the collecting of salaries that did not disfranchise the small landholder and restrict the right to sit in the House to the well-to-do. So he kept mum on the fact that the salaries could be assessed by the sheriffs on a writ, as was the practice in England.

But in this matter he was balked by the members of the Council. Carter, Blair, Ludwell, and the others no doubt guessed what Spotswood was aiming at, and they were unwilling to have him undermine the very foundations of liberty in Virginia. So in the General Court they passed "an unpreceded sentence" to levy the Burgesses' salary on the private estates of the justices if they refused "to levy it on their counties."[15]

The House asserted in no uncertain terms its right to judge of the election and qualifications of its members. When they heard that William Cole and Cole Digges, of Warwick County, had promised the voters that if elected they would serve without salary, they refused to seat them. A new election was held in which, presumably, no such promise was made, and Cole and Digges were again elected, and this time permitted to taketheir seats.[16]Spotswood taunted the House for not grasping at this opportunity to reduce the heavy burden of the poll tax, and the Council thought there was neither law nor practice to justify their action.[17]Yet the Burgesses were right, not only in regarding Cole and Digges' offer as bribery, but in claiming that it was contrary to a law passed in October, 1705.[18]

The House now made a major assault upon the powers of the Governor. The time had come, they thought, to put an end to the bribing of its members with lucrative jobs, which had been done with such pernicious consequences by Berkeley, Nicholson, and others. They passed an act making it unlawful for any Burgess to be also a naval officer, tobacco agent, clerk of a county court, or hold any other office of profit in the government. They next tried to put an end to long Assemblies by prohibiting their continuance for more than three years. A third measure "for ascertaining secretaries', sheriffs', clerks' and constables' fees" was designed to make the bait of office less attractive. These bills aroused Spotswood's ire, for he saw immediately that they were designed to strike the vital power of patronage from his hands and the hands of his successors. So he vetoed all three.

The Governor's main purpose in calling the Assembly of 1715 was to have them vote assistance to South Carolina in that colony's bloody struggle with a powerful confederation of Indians. "We must appear to have neither policy nor bowels of compassion, if this government can remain unconcerned while savage pagans are overwhelming one of our adjacent provinces, and inhumanly butchering and torturing our brethren," he told the Burgesses in his opening address.[19]To them South Carolina seemed a long way off. They had troubles enough at home without sending men and money there, but, since the Governor was so set on it, they would yield if he would consent to something they wanted.

They passed a bill to raise £450 for the purchase of supplies for South Carolina, but tacked on a rider for the repeal of the hated tobacco act. This, of course, Spotswood vetoed. To let it pass, he thought, would be an act of high injustice, since upon the faith of the tobacco law at least £7,000 had beenspent in erecting warehouses and wharves, and in the purchase of scales.[20]Neither he nor the Burgesses realized that the law was under attack in England. The merchants were dissatisfied with it, and Solicitor General William Thompson held that it was an act in restraint of trade. In July, 1717, the act was vetoed by King George I.[21]

Spotswood closed the session with an ill-natured and bitter denunciation of the Burgesses. "The true interest of your country is not what you have troubled your heads about," he said. "All your proceedings have been calculated to answer the notions of the ignorant populace, and if you can excuse yourselves to them, you matter not how you stand before God, your Prince, and all judicious men or before any others to whom you think you owe not your elections.... In fine, I cannot but attribute those miscarriages to the people's mistaken choice of a set of representatives whom Heaven has not generally endowed with the ordinary qualifications requisite to legislators, for I observe that the grand ruling party in your House has not furnished chairmen for two of your standing committees who can spell English or write common sense. And to keep such an Assembly on foot would be discrediting a country that has many able and worthy gentlemen in it. And therefore I dissolve you."[22]

Having insulted the Burgesses and the people who had elected them, Spotswood next incurred the enmity of a majority of the Council. The trouble started when he laid before them the instruction requiring him to see that fair books of accounts be kept of the Crown revenues.[23]Since only the gross sums had been reported and itemized accounts kept only on "loose papers," he demanded that the Auditor and the Receiver General adopt more businesslike methods. To this Receiver General William Byrd and Auditor Ludwell replied that they kept their accounts as their predecessors had kept them and in accordance with instructions from the Auditor General for all the colonies.

Soon after this Byrd left for England, taking with him, if we may believe Spotswood, "all the books of the revenue." The Governor then demanded of Ludwell whether or not he intended to comply with the instruction to keep account books. Ludwell replied that he could not change the old method without orders from the Auditor General. Since this was nothing less than setting up the authority of this officer against that of the King, the Governor thought the excuse a very poor one. So, in January, 1716, he ousted both Ludwell and Byrd from office.[24]

No doubt there had been confusion in the accounts, and no doubt Spotswood's insistence on having account books would have done much to bring them into order. It is possible, also, that there had been much remissness in paying taxes and some fraud. The Governor wrote the Lords of Trade: "Notwithstanding all the contrivances of the family to justify the late officers of the revenue, here is now demonstration, not only of darkness and confusion in the manner of collecting the quit rents, but likewise of frauds and errors in accounting for the King's revenue."[25]

Realizing that he had brought down on himself the hostility of the Councillors, Spotswood now tried to undermine their power by setting up courts of oyer and terminer to which he appointed persons other than themselves. The General Court, on which all members of the Council and none else sat, had long been the court of last appeal in the colony. The Councillors prized their seats in this court not less than their seats in the Upper House of Assembly or around the Council table. Spotswood claimed that their power over the lives and property of the people made all regard them with awe, and "kept the country in subjection to their party."[26]"They know that they have now lodged wholly in their hands that power that Absalom wanted for effectually securing the people in his interest, when he longed to be the judge of every man's cause."[27]

It was to be expected, then, that they should insist that none but themselves should sit on the new court of oyer and terminer. In May, 1717, eight of them met in secret and drew up a letter to the Lords of Trade defending their position. The charter of 1676 expressly stated that the Governor and Council had authority to try "all treasons, murders, felonies." The laws of Virginia made the Governor and Council the supreme court.They could not believe that a Governor could "break through laws and charters and alter all the ancient usage and tradition of the government."[28]

Spotswood also appealed to the Lords of Trade. And he was overjoyed when this body wrote him that they could not see what reason the Council had to insist upon being the sole judges of the new court since his commission empowered him to "appoint judges."[29]They were backed by Attorney General Edward Northy in his opinion of December 24, 1717. Northy advised, however, that Governors be instructed not to hold courts of oyer and terminer except in cases of"extraordinaryemergency."[30]

The test came in December, 1718, when the court of oyer and terminer was about to begin its session. Several Councillors had taken their seats when Spotswood announced that he was joining with them Mr. Cole Digges and Mr. Peter Beverley. Since neither was a member of the Council, Ludwell and four others got up and left. The five then drew up a remonstrance, which Ludwell presented to Spotswood in court, with a "long harangue." Noticing that people were gathering, he turned around, and raising his voice, addressed them. "The Governor's power of naming other judges than the Councillors in life and death cases is of dangerous consequence to the lives and liberties of free subjects," he said. "For that reason I refuse to sit in the court of oyer and terminer with those gentlemen."[31]

In London, Byrd pleaded the cause of the Council before the Lords of Trade. It would be fatal, he argued, to permit a Governor to try any person by what judges he thought proper. "Whoever has had the fortune to live in the plantations knows that Governors are not in the least exempt from human frailties, such as passionate love of money, resentment against such as presume to oppose their designs, particularly to their creatures and favorites."[32]To this Spotswood retorted: "What else could tempt the ruling party in the Council so strenuously to insist on a right, never claimed before, of being judges of oyer and terminer, but the desire of gaining to one family anentire power over the lives, as they now have over the estates, of the people ofVirginia?"[33]

To the Earl of Orkney, Spotswood wrote bitterly. If he lost his battle with the Council, future Governors would think it folly to oppose them. "I take the power, interest, and reputation of the King's Governor in this dominion to be now reduced to a desperate gasp, and if the present efforts of the country cannot add new vigor to the same, then the haughtiness of a Carter, the hypocrisy of a Blair, the inveteracy of a Ludwell, the brutishness of a Smith, the malice of a Byrd, the conceitedness of a Grymes, and the scurrility of a Corbin, with about a score of base disloyalists and ungrateful Creolians for their adherents, must for the future rule the province."[34]

Since the Virginia treasury was now overflowing as a result of peace in Europe and the shipping out of vast quantities of tobacco, Spotswood managed to get along without an Assembly for three years. He would probably have continued to do so indefinitely, had he not wanted an act to reimburse the Indian Company which had been dissolved by order of the King. The trade with the Indians had recently become a mere trickle, because South Carolina had confiscated the goods of some Virginia traders, and lawless savages had robbed others. So an act was passed in 1714 under which a monopoly of the trade with the southern tribes was lodged in the Virginia Indian Company.

In return the company was required to contribute £100 towards building a public magazine at Williamsburg, to garrison and keep in repair a fort at Christanna on the frontier, and erect a schoolhouse there for Indian children. Some of the leading men in the colony became stockholders, among them William Cocke, Mann Page, William Cole, Nathaniel Harrison, and Cole Digges. They had spent large sums "in purchasing servants, taking up land and making settlements on the frontier, clearing roads, and building warehouses," when word came that the act under which they operated had been vetoed by the King.[35]Since they were now left holding the bag, they asked that the Assembly reimburse them.

The election which followed was one of the bitterest in Virginia history. Spotswood made full use of the patronage. "Commissions flew about to every fellow that could make two or three votes," wrote Joshua Gee. "He gave the power to his friends to make a discreet use of [them]. And indeed never fouler play was by men, than at most of our elections."[36]Political pamphlets were distributed at every courthouse. One of them began: "Having seen a rascally paper which contained advice to freeholders in favor of a court party and tools of arbitrary power to enslave and ruin a free born people ... to prevent which I thought it my duty to open your eyes.... You are to know, brother electors, that this Assembly is called for no other reason but to pay to the Indian Company their charges on Fort Christanna, if they can get a set of men fit for that purpose to gull into that unjust payment."[37]

The outcome of the election was another defeat for the Governor. No less than thirty-four members of the hostile House of Burgesses of 1715 were returned. Of the new members Gawin Corbin, John Grymes, Archibald Blair, and others were bitter enemies of Spotswood. During the session the Governor kept his temper, since he had been ordered to do so by the Lords of Trade, but the Burgesses, remembering his former insults, did everything they could to annoy him. Though his opening address was conciliatory, it was greeted with "violent censures." One wrathful member "shot his bolt" and cried out: "It is all stuff and calculated only for the latitude of Whitehall." When Spotswood laid before the House several letters from New York in regard to renewing a treaty with the Indians, "they made it their jest, and setting up a great laugh ... cried out in their vulgar language, 'A bite!'"[38]

Needless to say, Spotswood got practically nothing out of this Assembly. They refused to repay the Indian Company for what they had laid out for the defense of the colony. They refused to pay for a proposed trip to New York by Spotswood to renew the treaty with the Iroquois. To his request for payment of his expenses in making fatiguing journeys in the service of the country, they replied, "we hope they will give you the satisfaction of reflecting that you have deserved the salary allowed by his Majesty."[39]

But the Burgesses were not yet done with him. Late in the session, when it seemed that nothing more of importance was to come before them, and some had gone home and others were at the race track, the "party managers" brought in an address to the King with a long string of accusations against him. Spotswood intimates that Blair and Ludwell were responsible for this maneuver in order to have the House second the complaints of the Council. Blair made his influence felt through his brother, Archibald Blair, and Ludwell through his son-in-law, John Grymes. "As during the last two sessions the one has scarce let a day pass without dropping in the Assembly some scurrilous reflection upon me," Spotswood wrote, "so the other can't keep his temper when he perceives any matter agreeable to me is likely to be carried."[40]

The accusations, which were embodied in instructions to William Byrd II as agent for the House, were carried by a vote of twenty-two to fourteen. But when they were considered one by one most of them were struck out. In their final form the accusations boiled down to little more than that the Governor had misconstrued the laws, that he had tried to keep the justices from levying the salaries of the Burgesses, and that he had by provoking speeches and messages abused the House.[41]Spotswood, in two long papers, had no difficulty in answering the charges, but they remained as convincing evidence that there existed widespread dissatisfaction with his administration.

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