USA > Virginia > History of the colony and ancient dominion of Virginia > Part 33
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The burgesses declared their sympathy with the suffering Carolinians, but insisted upon the extreme poverty of the people of Virginia, and so excused themselves for clogging the appro- priation bill with the repeal of parts of the tobacco act, their object being by one act to relieve Virginia and succor Carolina. Governor Spotswood, in his reply, remarked: "When you speak of poverty and engagements, you argue as if you knew the state of your own country no better than you do that of others, for as I, that have had the honor to preside for some years past over this government, do positively deny that any public engagements have drawn any more wealth out of this colony than what many a single person in it has on his own account expended in the time, so I do assert that there is scarce a country of its figure in the Christian world less burdened with public taxes. If your- selves sincerely believe that it is reduced to the last degree of poverty, I wonder the more that you should reject propositions for lessening the charges of assemblies; that you should expel gentlemen out of your house for only offering to serve their counties upon their own expense, and that while each day of your sitting is so costly to your country, you should spend time so fruitlessly, for now, after a session of twenty-five days, three bills only have come from your house, and even some of these framed as if you did not expect they should pass into acts."
On the seventh day of September the council sent to the bur- gesses a review of some of their resolutions reflecting upon them, and the governor, and the preceding assembly. This review is able and severe. On this day the governor dissolved the assem- bly, after a speech no less able, and still more severe. After animadverting upon the proceedings of the house at length, and paying a high tribute to the merit of the council, the governor concludes thus :-*
"But to be plain with you, the true interest of your country is
* Extracts from Journal of the Council of Virginia, sitting as the upper house of assembly, preserved in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, in S. Lit. Messr., xvii. 585.
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not what you have troubled your heads about. All your pro- ceedings have been calculated to answer the notions of the igno- rant populace, and if you can excuse yourselves to them, you matter not how you stand before God, your prince, and all judi- cious men, or before any others to whom you think you owe not your elections. The new short method you have fallen upon to clear your conduct by your own resolves, will prove the censure to be just, for I appeal to all rational men who shall read the assembly journals, as well of the last session as of this, whether some of your resolves of your house of the second instant are not as wide from truth and fair reasoning as others are from good manners. In fine, I cannot but attribute these 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 stand- ing committees* who can spell English or write common sense, as the grievances under their own handwriting will manifest. And to keep such an assembly on foot would be the discrediting a country that has many able and worthy gentlemen in it. And therefore I now dissolve you."
These proceedings throw light on the practical working of the colonial government, of the vigorous and haughty spirit of Spots- wood, who was not surpassed in ability or in character by any of the colonial governors, and of the liberty-loving but factious house of burgesses. They also exhibit the critical condition of South Carolina, and the imminent danger of Virginia at that period. On this last point Chalmers fell into an error, in stating that the Indians then had ceased to be objects of dread in Virginia.
The assembly, as has been seen, expelled two burgesses for serving without compensation, which they stigmatized as tanta- mount to bribery-thus seeming indirectly to charge bribery upon the members of the British house of commons, who receive no per diem compensation. After five weeks spent in fruitless alter- cations, Spotswood, conceiving the assembly to be actuated by factious motives, dissolved them with harsh and contemptuous
* Privileges and Claims.
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expressions, offending the spirit of the burgesses. He had pre- viously wounded the pride of the council, long the oligarchy of the Old Dominion, when "colonel, and member of his majesty's council of Virginia," was a sort of provincial title of nobility. Frequent anonymous letters were now transmitted to England, inveighing against Spotswood. While the board of trade com- mended his general conduct, they reproved him for the offensive language which he had used in his speech to the burgesses, "who, though mean, ignorant people, and did not comply with his de- sires, ought not to have been irritated by sharp expressions, which may not only incense them, but even their electors." In other points, Spotswood vindicated himself with vigor and success, and he insisted "that some men are always dissatisfied, like the tories, if they are not allowed to govern; men who look upon every one not born in the country as a foreigner."
When, in 1717, the ancient laws of the colony were revised, the acts of 1663, for preventing the recovery of foreign debts, and prohibiting the assemblage of Quakers, and that of 1676, (one of Bacon's laws,) excluding from office all persons who had not re- sided for three years in Virginia, were repealed by the king.
John Teach, a pirate, commonly called Blackbeard, in the year 1718 established his rendezvous at the mouth of Pamlico River, in North Carolina. He surrendered himself to Governor Eden, (who was suspected of being in collusion with him,) and took the oath of allegiance, in order to avail himself of a procla- mation of pardon offered by the king. Wasting the fruits of sea- robbery in gambling and debauchery, Blackbeard again embarked in piracy; and having captured and brought in a valuable cargo, the Carolinians gave notice of it to the government of Virginia. Spotswood and the assembly immediately proclaimed a large re- ward for his apprehension, and Lieutenant Maynard, attached to a ship-of-war stationed in the Chesapeake Bay, was sent with two small vessels and a chosen crew in quest of him. An action ensued in Pamlico Bay on the 21st of November, 1718. Black- beard, it is said, had posted one of his men with a lighted match over the powder-magazine, to prevent a capture by blowing up his vessel, but if so, this order failed to be executed. Black- beard, surrounded by the slain, and bleeding from his wounds,
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in the act of cocking a pistol, fell on the bloody deck and expired. His surviving comrades surrendered, and Maynard returned with his prisoners to James River, with Blackbeard's head hanging from the bowsprit. The captured pirates were tried in the ad- miralty court at Williamsburg, March, 1718, and thirteen of them were hung. Benjamin Franklin, then an apprentice in a printing- office, composed a ballad on the death of Teach, which was sung through the streets of Boston .*
* Grahame's Col. Hist. U. S., ii. 56, citing Williamson's Hist. of N. C. See, also, A General History of the Pyrates, published at London, (1726,) and " Lives and Exploits of Banditti and Robbers," by C. Macfarlane.
CHAPTER LIII.
1718-1739.
Complaints against Spotswood-The Governor and the Council-Dissension be- tween Spotswood and the Assembly-Convocation of the Clergy-Controversy between Blair and Spotswood-Clergy address the Bishop of London-The Clergy side with Spotswood-Miscellaneous Matters-Governor Spotswood displaced-Succeeded by Drysdale-Spotswood's Administration reviewed- Germanna-Spotswood Deputy Postmaster General-Engaged in Iron Manu- facture -His Account of it-Advertisement-Knighted - Appointed Com- mander-in-chief of the Carthagena Expedition-His Death-Indian Boys at William and Mary College-Change in Spotswood's Political Views-His Mar- riage-His Children-His Widow-Spottiswoode, the Family Seat in Scotland -Portraits of Sir Alexander Spotswood and his Lady.
AT length eight members of the council, headed by Commis- sary Blair, complained to the government in London, that Go- vernor Spotswood had infringed the charter of the colony by associating inferior men with them in criminal trials. It was unfortunate that the Commissary's position involved him in these political squabbles : he would have been, doubtless, more usefully employed in those spiritual functions which were his proper sphere, and which he adorned. The governor lamented to the board of trade "how much anonymous obloquy had been cast upon his character, in order to accomplish the designs of a party, which, by their success in removing other governors, are so far encouraged, that they are resolved no one shall sit easy who doth not resign his duty, his reason, and his honor to the government of their maxims and interests." The domineering ambition of the council was long the fruitful source of mischiefs to Virginia; and it is on this account that many of the complaints and accusa- tions against the governors are to be received with many grains of allowance. The twelve members of the council had a negative upon the governor's acts; they were members of the assembly, judges of the highest court, and held command of the militia as county lieutenants. Stith, in his "History of Virginia," com-
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plains of their overweening power, and expresses his apprehen- sions of its evil consequences.
: As early as the year 1692, William the Third had appointed Neal postmaster for the Northern Colonies, with authority to establish posts. The rates being afterwards fixed by act of par- liament, the system was introduced into Virginia in the year 1718, and Spotswood wrote to the board of trade, that "the people were made to believe that the parliament could not lay any tax (for so they call the rates of postage) on them without the consent of the general assembly. This gave a handle for framing some grievance against the new office; and thereupon a bill was passed by both council and burgesses, which, though it acknowledged the act of parliament to be in force in Virginia, doth effectually prevent its ever being put in execution; whence your lordships may judge how well affected the major part of the assemblymen are toward the collection of this branch of the re- venue." The act, nevertheless, was enforced.
The assembly refused to pass measures recommended by the governor; invaded his powers by investing the county courts with the appointment of their own clerks; endeavored, as has been seen, to render inoperative the new post-office system, and trans- mitted an address to the king, praying that the instruction which required that no acts should be passed affecting the British com- merce or navigation without a clause of suspension, might be re- called, and that the governor's power of appointing judges of oyer and terminer should be limited; and they complained that the governor's attempts went to the subversion of the constitu- tion, since he made daily encroachments on their ancient rights. The governor, perceiving that it was the design of his opponents to provoke him, and then make a handle of the ebullitions of his resentment, displayed moderation as well as ability in these dis- putes, and when the assembly had completed their charges, pro- rogued them. This effervescence of ill humor excited a reaction in favor of Spotswood, and in a short time addresses poured in from the clergy, the college, and most of the counties, reprobat- ing the factious conduct of the legislature, and expressing the public happiness under an administration which had raised the colony from penury to prosperity. Meantime Colonel Byrd,
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who had been sent out to London as colonial agent, having rather failed in his efforts against Spotswood, begged the board of trade "to recommend forgiveness and moderation to both parties." The recommendation, enforced by the advice of Lord Orkney, the governor-in-chief, the Duke of Argyle, and other great men who patronized Spotswood, quieted these discords; and the governor, the council, and the burgesses now united harmoniously in pro- moting the public welfare.
The chief apple of discord between the governor and the Vir- ginians was the old question relating to the powers of the vestry. About this time Governor Spotswood was engaged in a warm dis- pute with the vestry of St. Anne's Parish, Essex, in which he took very high ground. The Rev. Hugh Jones subsequently, while on a visit in England, reported to the Bishop of London some things against the rubrical exactness of Commissary Blair. Evil reports had also reached the mother country as to the moral character of some of the clergy. A convention of the Virginia clergy was, therefore, held in compliance with the direction of the Bishop of London, at the College of William and Mary, in April, 1719. The governor, in a letter addressed to this body, assails the commissary as denying "that the king's government has the right to collate ministers to ecclesiastical benefices within this colony," "deserting the cause of the church," and counte- nancing disorders in divine worship "destructive to the establish- ment of the church." To all this, Commissary Blair made a reply, vindicating himself triumphantly .* He appears to have sympathized on these matters with the vestries and the people. Governor Spotswood, on the contrary, was an extreme high churchman and supporter of royal prerogative, as might have been expected from the descendant of a long line of ancestors always found arrayed on the side of the crown, and the church as established, and never with the people. The journal of this con- vocation throws much light on the condition of the church and the clergy of Virginia at that time. The powers exercised by the vestries, indeed, often made the position of the clergy preca- rious; but it would, perhaps, have engendered far greater evils
* Bishop Meade's Old Churches, etc., i. 160, ii. Appendix, 393.
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if the governor had been allowed to be the patron of all the livings. Governor Spotswood's letter to the vestry of St. Anne's presents an elaborate argument against the right of the vestry to appoint or remove the minister; but, notwithstanding the op- position of the governor, bishop, clergy, and crown, the vestries and the people still steadfastly maintained this right. This ques- tion was the embryo of the revolution; political freedom is the offspring of religious freedom; it takes its rise in the church.
In answer to an inquiry made by the Bishop of London, the convention voted "that no member had any personal knowledge of the irregularity of any clergyman's life in this colony," a manifest equivocation .* In their address to the Bishop of Lon- don, the convention state that all the ministers in Virginia are episcopally ordained, except Mr. Commissary, of whose ordina- tion a major part doubt ; ; that the circumstances of the country will not permit them to conform to the established liturgy as they would desire; that owing to the extent of the parishes they have service but once on Sunday, and but one sermon; that for the same reason the dead are not buried in churchyards, and the burial-service is usually performed by a layman; that the people observe no holidays except Christmas-day and Good Friday, being unwilling to leave their daily labor; and that of necessity the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is administered to persons who are not confirmed; that the ministers are obliged to baptize, and church women, marry, and bury at private houses, adminis- ter the Lord's Supper to a single sick person, perform in church the office of both sacraments without the habits, ornaments, and vessels required by the liturgy. The convention press upon his lordship's attention the precarious tenure of their livings, to which many of these deviations from the liturgy were attributa- ble; they declare that the people are adverse to the induction of the clergy, which exposes them to the great oppression of the vestries. The clergy refer to Governor Spotswood as, under God, their chief support, whose efforts in their behalf were, as alleged by the governor, opposed by some of the council and Commissary Blair, who was himself accused of some irregulari-
* Bishop Meade's Old Churches, etc., i. 162.
+ A majority of one only.
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ties. The convention also stated that the commissary found great difficulty in making visitations, owing to the refusal of church wardens to take the official oath, or to make presentments, and from "the general aversion of the people to everything that looks like a spiritual court." The commissary refused to sub- scribe to it. The contending parties in these disputes were the governor and the clergy on the one side, and the commissary with the people on the other. According to the opinion of the attorney-general, Sir Edward Northey, given in 1703, "the right of presentation by the laws of Virginia was in the parishioners, and the right of lapse in the governor;" that is, if the vestry failed to choose a minister within six months, the governor had the right of appointing him; but it was a right which the gover- nors, although reinforced by royal authority, could not enforce. Of the twenty-five members of this clerical convention only eight appear to have sided with the commissary. He held that the dif- ference between him and the governor as to the right of collation was this: the governor claimed the right in the first instance, like that of the king of England, to bestow livings of which he himself is patron; the commissary was of opinion that the go- vernor's power corresponded to that of the bishop, not being ori- ginal, but only consequent upon a lapse; that is, a failure of the vestry to present within the time limited by law. Commissary Blair, throughout these angry controversies, in the course of which he was very badly treated by the governor and the clergy, bore himself with singular ability and excellent temper, and proved himself more than a match for his opponents .*
Predatory parties of the Five Nations were repelled by force, and conciliated by presents. The frontier of Virginia was ex- tended to the foot of the Blue Ridge, and two new Piedmont counties, Spotsylvania and Brunswick, were established in 1720 -the seventh year of George the First.t Spotsylvania included the northern pass through the mountains. At the special solici- tation of the governor, the two counties were exempted from
* Bishop Meade's Old Churches, etc., i. 160, ii. Appendix, 1.
ยก Spotsylvania, named from the first syllable of the governor's name, com- pounded with a Latinized termination answering to the other syllable-a sort of conceit.
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taxation for ten years. An act was passed imposing penalties on "whosoever shall weed, top, hill, succor, house, cure, strip or pack any seconds, suckers, or slips of tobacco." Two hundred pounds of tobacco were offered in reward for every wolf killed. Warehouses for storing tobacco and other merchandize, when first established in 1712, were denominated rolling-houses, from the mode of rolling the tobacco to market, before wagons came into general use or the navigation of the rivers improved. This mode of transporting tobacco prevailed generally in 1820, and later .* Tobacco warehouses in Virginia are now devoted exclu- sively to that commodity. In 1720, King George County was carved off from Richmond County, and Hanover from New Kent. A house for the governor was completed about this time. An act was passed to encourage the making of tar and hemp, and another to oblige ships coming from places infected with the plague to perform quarantine. The Indians of the Five Nations, warring with the Southern Indians for many years, had been in the habit of marching along the frontier of Virginia and com- mitting depredations. To prevent this, a treaty was effected with them, whereby they bound themselves not to cross Potomac River, nor to pass to the eastward of the great ridge of moun- tains, without a passport from the Governor of New York; and, on the other hand, the Indians tributary to this government en- gaged not to pass over the Potomac, or go westward of the moun- tains, without a passport from the Governor of Virginia. This treaty was ratified at Albany, September, 1722. An act con- cerning servants and slaves was repealed by proclamation.
Spotswood urged upon the British government the policy of establishing a chain of posts beyond the Alleghanies, from the lakes to the Mississippi, to restrain the encroachments of the French. The ministry did not enter into his views on this sub- ject, and it was not till after the treaty of Aix-la-chapelle that his wise, prophetic admonitions were heeded, and his plans adopted. He also failed in an effort to obtain from the govern- ment compensation for his companions in the Tramontane ex- ploration. At length, owing, as his friends allege, to the in-
* Hening, iv. 32, 91.
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trigues and envious whispers of men far inferior to him in capacity and honesty, but according to others, on account of his high-handed encroachments on the rights of the colony, Spots- wood was displaced in 1722, and succeeded by Hugh Drysdale. Chalmers,* also a native of Scotland, and as extreme a sup- porter of prerogative, thus eulogizes Spotswood: "Having re- viewed the uninteresting conduct of the frivolous men who had ruled before him, the historian will dwell with pleasure on the merits of Spotswood. There was an utility in his designs, a vigor in his conduct, and an attachment to the true interest of the kingdom and the colony, which merit the greatest praise. Had he attended more to the courtly maxim of Charles the Second, 'to quarrel with no man, however great might be the provoca- tion, since he knew not how soon he should be obliged to act with him,' that able officer might be recommended as the model of a provincial governor. The fabled heroes who had discovered the uses of the anvil and the axe, who introduced the labors of the plough, with the arts of the fisher, have been immortalized as the greatest benefactors of mankind; had Spotswood even invaded the privileges, while he only mortified the pride of the Virginians, they ought to have erected a statue to the memory of a ruler who gave them the manufacture of iron, and showed them by his active example that it is diligence and attention which can alone make a people great."
Governor Spotswood was the author of an act for improving the staple of tobacco, and making tobacco-notes the medium of ordinary circulation. Being a master of the military art, he kept the militia of Virginia under admirable discipline. In Spotsylvania, Spotswood, previous to the year 1724, had founded, on a horseshoe peninsula of four hundred acres, on the Rapidan, the little town of Germanna, so called after the Germans sent over by Queen Anne, and settled in that quarter, and at this place he resided. A church was built there mainly at his ex- pense. In the year 1730 he was made deputy postmaster-general for the colonies, and held that office till 1739; and it was he who promoted Benjamin Franklin to the office of postmaster for the
* Introduction, ii. 78.
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Province of Pennsylvania. Owning an extensive tract of forty- five thousand acres of land, and finding it to abound in iron ore, he engaged largely in partnership with Mr. Robert Cary, of Eng- land, and others in Virginia, in the manufacture of it. He is styled by Colonel Byrd the "Tubal Cain of Virginia;" he was, indeed, the first person that ever established a regular furnace in North America, leading the way and setting the example to New England and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, at this period, was unable to export iron, owing to the scarcity of ships, and made it only for domestic use. Spotswood expressed the hope that "he had done the country very great service by setting so good an example;" and stated "that the four furnaces now at work in Virginia circulated a great sum of money for provisions and all other necessaries in the adjacent counties; that they took off a great number of hands from planting tobacco, and employed them in works that produced a large sum of money in England to the persons concerned, whereby the country is so much the richer; that they are besides a considerable advantage to Great Britain, because it lessens the quantity of bar iron imported from Spain, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, and Muscovy, which used to be no less than twenty thousand tons yearly, though, at the same time, no sow iron is imported thither from any country, but only from the plantations. For most of this bar iron they do not only pay silver, but our friends in the Baltic are so nice they even ex- pect to be paid all in crown pieces. On the contrary, all the iron they receive from the plantations, they pay for it in their own manufactures and send for it in their own shipping."*
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