USA > Virginia > Virginia, a history of the people > Part 22
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Berkeley now sailed from Accomac and established his quarters in York. Ingram still made a show of resistance, but speedily accepted terms and surrendered. Only two prominent leaders remained uncaptured, - Lawrence and Drummond. Finally, the latter was taken prisoner, while hiding in the Chickahominy swamp; and the Governor, when he was brought before him, ex- claimed with bitter irony : -
"Mr. Drummond, you are very welcome! I am more glad to see you than any man in Virginia. Mr. Drummond, you shall be hanged in half an hour !"
" What your Honor pleases," was the cool reply of Drummond.
He was tried and sentenced at one in the day, his wife's ring torn from his finger, and at four in the after- noon he was hung.
"I know not whether it be lawful to wish such a person alive," said the English Lord Chancellor after- wards, " otherwise I could wish Sir William Berkeley so, to see what could be answered to such barbarity ; but he has answered it before this."
Thoughtful Mr. Lawrence had taken care of himself. He knew what to expect, and made his escape. All we know of him thereafter is conveyed in one sentence of the chronicle : "The last account of Mr. Lawrence was from an uppermost plantation, whence he and four other desperadoes with horses, pistols, etc., marched away in a snow ankle-deep, who were thought to have cast themselves into a branch of some river, rather than to be treated like Drummond; " but probably passed through the Great Woods to another land where they were safe.
It was now the year 1677, and Berkeley's bloody
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vengeance was not even yet sated. The white-haired Cavalier proved himself a tiger, as he had proved him- self a ruffian in insulting Mrs. Cheeseman. The taste of blood had turned his head. He tried and executed nearly every one he could lay his hands upon. Vir- ginia became a vast jail or Tyburn Hill. Four men were hung on the York ; "several executed on the other side James River," and one "hanged in chains at West Point." In January (1677) a fleet with an English regiment had arrived, and a formal commission to try rebels was organized which included Berkeley. This commission ended Bland, who had been captured in Accomac by Ludwell. The friends of the prisoner in England had procured and sent over his pardon ; but the commissioners were privately informed that the Duke of York (James II.) had said with an oath : " Bacon and Bland shall die!" and having thus the intimation of what would be agrceable to his Royal Highness, Bland was " tried " and duly executed. It was a revel of blood. In almost every county gibbets rosc, and made the wayfarer shudder and turn away at sight of their ghastly burdens. Twenty-three persons were executed, and Charles II. said, when he heard of all this : -
"That old fool has hanged more men in that naked country than I have done for the murder of my father."
At last the Assembly liad to beg Berkeley to desist. The old tiger did so with reluctance. A contemporary said that "he believed the Governor would have hanged half the country if they had let him alone." He was finally induced to consent that the rebels should be par- doned, except about fifty leaders - Bacon at the liead of them. But the chief leaders were attainted of trea
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son and their estates confiscated; among the first, the small property of the unfortunate Drummond. It had been better for Berkeley not to have touched that, for it aroused Sarah Drummond, and the King restored it. Her cry was heard across the Atlantic, and came to the foot of the throne. Berkeley drove out her and her children, to wander homeless in the woods, but her voice reached far and sounds yet.
" Bacon's laws " were repealed by proclamation, and the King's side triumphed ; but the King's Governor was ill at ease. The Virginians hated him for his mer- ciless vengeance on his disarmed adversaries, and soon the rumor came that he was no better liked in England. The very King, whom he had so faithfully served, was reported to have turned against him ; and worn down by sickness and a troubled spirit, he sailed for Eng- land. All Virginia rejoiced at the news of his de- parture. Salutes were fired, and bonfires blazed. His career there was ended. He was never again to come back to his Greenspring manor-house and dame Frances Berkeley, that dearly beloved wife. He had been re- called by Charles II., but on his arrival the King either delayed granting, or refused him an audience. This is said to have " broken his heart," and after lingering a short time, he expired (July 13, 1677). It was less than one year after the death of his enemy, Bacon.
The character of Sir William Berkeley, like Bacon's, is read in the events of his career. He was utterly devoted to monarchy and the church, and fought per- sistently for both. In defense of the one he perse- cuted dissent, and to support the other he waded in blood. He was not a cruel man by nature, but rebel- lion made him pitiless. His allegiance was a craze
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which warped his whole nature. To that superstition this loving husband, warm friend, and courtly gentle- man sacrificed everything - his old friends, his peace of mind, his name in Virginia and in history. For a quarter of a century he ruled the colony to the fullest satisfaction of the people. He was an elegant host and a cordial companion, who made everybody welcome. He displayed not the least desire to invade the rights of the Virginians ; on the contrary he defended them on every occasion. It may be said with truth that in all these years he was the sincere friend of Virginia and the Virginians. All his interests and affections were centred there - in his wife and his home. It was " the most flourishing country the sun ever shone over," he said. But one day rebellion raised its head in this beautiful land. His idol, the divine right, was flouted by these old friends. That moment he became a changed man. The Virginians he had loved so were monsters. He made war on them; that was natural and com- mendable, since they made war on him. But what was not commendable, was, that he was merciless to them when they were at his mercy ; and that having shed the blood of the husbands, he insulted the wives for their very devotion.
It is a study. Scarcely does all history show us a stranger picture of this poor human nature; a more lamentable portrait tlian that of the courtly gentleman with the friendly smile for everybody, growing to be the pitiless old despot with the fires of hate burning under the white hairs, and the insatiable thirst for blood in the once kindly heart
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XXI.
THE LAST YEARS OF THE CENTURY.
THE great protest of a brave people against bad gov- ernment had thus come to nought. Virginia had levied war on the crown and put all to the hazard; the cause had gone down in blood ; the Royalists were up again ; and after the hot turmoil came the reaction and a sort of despair.
Revolution, when it fails, is a very bad business. One of the most disagreeable of all the results is to listen to the victors, and to read what is written by them. Bacon was dead and his well-armed housekeepers had gone home ; so, according to Colonel Ludwell, King's- man, the unnatural and monstrous rebellion had " not proceeded from any fault in the government, but rather from the lewd dispositions of desperate fortunes " in certain conspirators, whose aim was to achieve the vile end of " taking the country wholly out of his Majesty's hands." Virginia was "in a worse condition than be- fore," and had much better have not risen, since she had lost everything and gained nothing. As to that, Col- onel Ludwell differed from Bacon and his men, who believed that a people ought to resist wrong, without counting the cost.
These old rebels of Bacon had given up the struggle because they were forced to do so ; but they were not broken in spirit, and even Berkeley's followers joined with them in resisting the foreign people. The Eng- lish Commissioners demanded the surrender of the jour- nals of the Burgesses, and the Burgesses refused to
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surrender them. "Such a power had never been exer- cised by the King of England," they declared. Fore- most among the new rebels was the old anti-rebel, Ma- jor Robert Beverley. He was Clerk of the House, and refused to obey, and was fined and imprisoned. When the Journals were wrested from him the Burgesses rose in their wrath. They voted that the seizure was "a violation of their privileges, and desired satisfac- tion to be given them that no such violation should be offered them for the future; " an inspiring flash in the black darkness of overthrow.
But the die was cast. Virginia was in the hands of the Royalists. Dead bodies in chains no longer rotted on gibbets, but reform had been crushed, and the old friends of Bacon preserved a sombre silence. To the end of the century there is little stir in general politics. The King's governors come and go, ruling, and gener- ally fleecing, the Virginians. Some are rather good, but the good is negative while the bad is positive. After Berkeley comes Sir Herbert Jeffries (1677), who is followed (1678) by Sir Henry Chicheley, who is suc- ceeded (1679) by Thomas Lord Culpeper, him of the famous Patent, the associate of Arlington. He is re- membered by a financial scheme which he invented, - otherwise a trick. He fixed values by proclamation. By official edict the value of crowns, rix dollars, and pieces-of-eight was raised from five shillings to six : at which rate they were to be a legal tender (first Ameri- can legislation). His own salary, however, was to be excepted from the effect of the proclamation ; and when the perverse Virginians insisted that he, too, should be paid at the legal rate, he issued a second proclamation reversing the first.
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Lord Howard of Effingham comes next (1684), and a year afterwards the news of the accession of his Maj- esty James II. is received with " extraordinary joy." It is the regulation sentiment, but does not last. The King's governor claims the right to veto the laws of the Burgesses, when they resist and are dissolved. His Majesty hears of their perversity, and is irritated ; why are those Virginia people so " disaffected and un- quiett ?" They are ever creating trouble ; see their resistance in the matter of the Journals. Their man Beverley shall be " disfranchised and prosecuted ; " and as they are so rebellious they shall have more rebel blood on their soil. "Our rebellious subjects taken in arms" with Monmouth are to be sent to " our dominions in America and kept there, and continue to serve their masters for ten years at least."
Worse than all, in the eyes of the Virginians, it is soon plain that King James II. has made up his mind to the great crime of subverting their religion. His Majesty and the Church are at daggers draw in England, and now the Virginia planters tell each other in a whisper that the Papists in their own midst are concocting a terrible plot which will far exceed the Gunpowder busi- ness. These vile incendiaries are in consultation with the savages ; they mean to steep Virginia in gore and make her a dependency of Rome. Thereat the good Church of England Virginians shudder. Their last remnant of extraordinary joy at the accession of his Majesty disappears, and they buckle on their swords to fight. The province is in a blaze. John Waugh, an ar- dent clergyman, is inflaming the men of Stafford, and urging them to take up arms in defense of the Protes- tant cause. The Rappahannock men are already in arms,
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and his lordship, the Governor, has to send three Hon- orables of the Council to reason with them. Colonel Scarborough, on the Eastern shore, is prosecuted for blurting out hotly : " His Majesty, King James, would wear out the Church of England!" Others for treason - able expressions to the same effect, are put in irons ; the horse-racing and fox-hunting Virginians are actually going to fight for their religion !
Nothing came of all the excitement, and Lord Effing- ham went back to England, having signalized his gov- ernment by no other event than a treaty with the Mo- hawk warriors in New York. He sailed for England in 1688, but before he arrived, his master, James II., had sailed for France not to return ; and (April, 1689) Wil- liam and Mary, King and Queen of England, are pro- claimed at James City : " Lord and Lady of Virginia." 1
The " extraordinary joy " no doubt flamed out again, - in official reports or proclamations ; but after all it seemed doubtful whether the Dutch Prince was going to do much for Virginia. He was rather dull and phleg- matic, it appeared, and did not remove Lord Howard of Effingham. That nobleman preferred living in England and drawing his salary there ; and after a short interreg- num, during which old Colonel Nathaniel Bacon, Presi- dent of the Council, was at the head of the colony, the country liad inflicted upon it, as Effingham's Lieutenant, his Excellency, Governor Francis Nicholson. This was a bad beginning; the new reign, as far as Virginia was concerned, did not promise to differ greatly from the old.
1 During the reign of James II. a seal was ordained for Virginia, but not used until about the end of the century. This consisted of tlie English shield with the inscription " En dat Virginia quintum, " - England, Scotland, Ireland, France, and Virginia.
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Governor Nicholson had been Governor of New York, but his petty tyrannies there had so inflamed the people that they rose and threatened liis life, and he was com- pelled to abscond. Now (1690) he was transferred as Lieutenant Governor to Virginia, and entered on his office. The unhappy Virginians soon found that they had not made much by the exchange of rulers. The new one had plenty of ability and was a man of broad views in certain directions, but he was irascible and arbi- trary beyond expression. Such was the outcry against him that two years afterwards he was transferred to Maryland, a certain Sir Edmund Andros replacing him ; but in 1698 Governor Nicholson comes back again and inflicts himself once more on Virginia.
He was a truculent personage, this high-tempered and exasperating Governor Francis Nicholson. He made for himself an eccentric record. He was a very great leveler, and told the masses that " the gentlemen imposed upon them," and the servants that "they had all been kidnapped and had a lawful action against their masters." He had little respect for powdered wigs, and one day caught the Honorable King's Attorney-General, Fow- ler, by the collar of liis silk coat, and swore that he, Governor Nicholson, "knew no laws " the Virginians " had," and "his commands should be obeyed without hesitation or reserve." At a meeting of high digni- taries he informed them that he would " beat them into better manners ; " and when people naturally did not like this, he announced his intention to raise a standing army and " bring them to reason with halters about their necks."
One man, and he a clergyman, checkmated Governor Francis Nicholson ; and this introduces the crowning
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incident of his Excellency's Virginia career. He fell passionately in love with a young lady of Williamsburg, Miss Burwell, and this passion " completely upset what little reason there was in Governor Nicholson of famous memory," says Bishop Meade. He paid his court and was promptly rejected ; and then the storm began. Miss Burwell preferred another person, and his Excellency grew furious. He went about raving and making a public exhibition of himself. He uttered shocking ex- pressions in reference to his rival, and Miss Burwell's union with him. He meant, he declared, to " cut the throats of three men : the bridegroom, the minister, and the justice who issued the license," and was so angry with Mr. Fouace, the minister, that he assaulted him and knocked liis liat off. But the bride-to-be had a stal- wart friend in the Reverend James Blair, a Scottish clergyman, who was the Commissary of the Colonial Church. He laughed at Governor Nicholson and his transports, most of all at his threats. Through his agency chiefly the Council took prompt steps in this scandalous affair. They preferred charges against Governor Nich- olson, and he was brought to trial in London. On his trial he struck back at the clergy, who did not emerge from the contest without some dust on their robes. They had assembled, he said, at the Raleigh Tavern, in Wil- liamsburg, and had indulged too much in "hilarity"; and a satirical ballad about them was circulated in Wil- liamsburg and London. Thereupon the Bishop of Lon- don wrote his Virginia clergy a severe letter begging them not to " play the fool any more ; " but the result was unfortunate for his Excellency. He did not marry the young lady he so raved about, and his adversaries overthrew him.
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Governor Nicholson is remembered for this singular contest, and for two or three other things. He removed the seat of government from Jamestown to Middle-Plan- tation, where Bacon had administered his oath, and laid out a city there with streets in the form of a W and an M, in honor of William and Mary, - a plan never fully carried out, however, from its inconvenience. He also exhibited his courage by attacking and capturing a pi- ratical vessel in the Chesapeake ; and his daring ambi- tion by conceiving the plan of uniting all the Ameri- can colonies in one, with himself at the head of them as " Governor-General." At the time war was raging be- tween France and England, and Count Frontenac, Gov- ernor of Canada, was menacing New York. Nicholson urged the Virginia Assembly to build forts there to pro- tect her people, but the penurious Burgesses did not see the necessity of defending their New York frontier ; and Governor Nicholson's ambitious project of becom- ing the head of a great American confederacy was ig- nominiously strangled.
What most concerns the reader taking interest in Vir- ginia specially, is the one great event which marks the administration of Nicholson. This was the founding of the second university in America, at Williamsburg ; Harvard was the first. The cause of education had languished in Virginia. Good George Thorpe and po- etical George Sandys had planned the Indian college at the City of Henricus ; but suddenly, on the one full of philanthropic dreams, and the other busy with Ovid, had burst the Indian war-whoop of 1622. Then there was an end of that project, since poor George Thorpe, the head and front of it, was lying dead across his thresh- old ; and in all the years up to 1691 little was said on
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the subject, - one privately endowed public school, and a few old field schools, were all that were in the Colony. Now (1691), Nicholson's foe, Mr. Commissary Blair, moved in the matter. Such men infuse fire into cold hearts, and Blair so infused his into the Burgesses that they sent him to England to solicit a charter and help for a Virginia college.
Queen Mary received him with open arms, and King and Queen granted the good clergyman, their " well be- loved in Christ," his charter. The proposed college was to have fertile tracts of land on the Blackwater and Pamunkey, a penny a pound on exported tobacco, the office of Virginia Surveyor-General with all fees and profits, -one of the first was Zachary Taylor, ancestor of the President, - £2,000 arrears of quit-rents, and a Burgess to represent it in the Assembly. Such was the generous endowment of this great institution, which was to fight ignorance and superstition in the American wilds, and to be " a seminary of ministers of the Gospel where youths may be piously educated in good letters and manners ; a certain place of universal study, or per- petual college of divinity, philosophy, languages, and other good arts and sciences." This charter was ob- tained by worthy Mr. Blair from the King and Queen, only after long struggles with Attorney-General Sey- mour, who was ordered to see to it. That official pro- tested. England was engaged in war, and this money was wanted for other and better purposes than preparing students of divinity, he said. Mr. Blair retorted, -
" The people of Virginia have souls to be saved as well as the people of England ! "
" Souls !" exclaimed Seymour, " damn your souls ! Make tobacco ! "
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But Blair was not to be browbeaten. He would have his charter ; and (February, 1693) he carried it off. He was " created and established first president during his natural life; " and "our well-beloved and trusty the revered Father in God, Henry, by Divine permission, Bishop of London," was first Chancellor. Only one condition was attached to this charter of the university of " William and Mary." The authorities were to pay yearly to the King and his successors "two copies of Latin verses, on every fifth of November at the house of our Governor or Lieutenant-Governor." And in the " Virginia Gazette," nearly half a century afterwards, we read : "On this day se'n-night, the president, mas- ters, and scholars, of William and Mary College, went according to their annual custom, in a body to the Gov- ernor's, to present his honor with two copies of Latin verses in obedience to their charter. .. . Mr. President delivered the verses to his honor, and two of the young gentlemen spoke them."
A word more as to this good William and Mary, a famous relic of the Virginia past. There are some odd details connected with it. Other good people helped it, and Sir Christopher Wren drew the plan of the building which was erected at Williamsburg. The first commencement exercises were held in 1700; and the Virginians and Indians attended : even Marylanders, Pennsylvanians, and New Yorkers " came in sloops " on the happy occasion. But an end was soon put to all this rejoicing. In 1705 a fire broke out in the building and it was completely consumed, " the Gover- nor and all the gentlemen that were in town coming to the lamentable spectacle, many of them getting out of their beds." But it rose again from its ashes and went
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on a new career, entering piously, in its first record, for first line, "In nomine Dei, Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen." Youths soon came to be educated; and they were evidently a refractory set. They would " keep race-horses at ye college and bet at ye billiard or other gaming tables ;" and it seems that even the faculty were sinners, and subjected to discipline like the youths. Certain professors would insist on marry- ing. Complaint is made that Mr. Camm, Professor of Divinity, and Mr. Johnson, Master of the Grammar School, have "lately married and taken up their resi- dence" out of bounds, whereby they are unable to at- tend to their duties. Therefore it is fulminated by the worshipful governors of the College that " all professors and masters hereafter to be appointed be constantly resi- dent of ye college, and upon the marriage of such Pro- fessor or Master, that his professorship be immediately vacated."
It was a venerable and dear alma mater, this old col- lege of " William and Mary," to many great men. It lias often been burned down - the last time in 1862 - but has ever risen from its ashes. It has sent out for their work in the world twenty-seven soldiers of the Revolution, two attorney-generals, nearly twenty mem- bers of Congress, fifteen senators, seventeen governors, thirty-seven judges, a lieutenant-general and other offi- cers, two commodores, twelve professors, four signers of the Declaration, seven cabinet officers, a chief justice, and three presidents of the Republic. For nearly two centuries it has been the great seminary, the true seed- bed of Virginia, and much that she has accomplished through her great intellects may be traced to their train‹ ing at William and Mary.
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So much notice at least is due to this famous old in- stitution. Looking back to the era of its foundation, we may see that the mainspring of all was the excel- lent and combative clergyman, James Blair, whose face in its framework of curls - the long periwig of the time - still looks from the faded canvas in the col- lege library. He was a sincere Christian and a deter- mined man ; he founded the college and was rector of old Bruton parish ; and if there were doubt of his ability, that would be set at rest by one incident. He prosecuted Governor Andros, and when he sent four friends to defend him, "never were four men more com- pletely foiled by one." His victory over the amorous Governor Nicholson has been related ; he quite over- threw him in the great tilt at Lambeth Palace, and his Excellency was removed from office. He went away to fight the French at Fort Royal in Acadia, was after- wards Governor of South Carolina, and died Sir Fran- cis Nicholson. He was a man of energy, but not of self-control, since it is eccentric to knock off clergy- men's hats and insist on marrying young ladies who wish to marry other people. This Governor Nicholson did ; and a freak of history has preserved that portrait of him, - the portrait of the disappointed lover.
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