CHAPTER XII.

WILLIAM AND MARY.

[Sidenote: Political education.]

Between the breaking out of Bacon’s rebellion in the summer of 1676 and the Declaration of Independence, the interval was exactly a hundred years. It was for Virginia a century of political education. It prepared her for the great work to come, and it brought her into sympathy more or less effective with other colonies that were struggling with similar political questions, especially with Massachusetts. It was in that same year, 1676, that Charles II. sent Edward Randolph to Boston, to enforce the Navigation Act and to report upon New England affairs in general. This mission of Randolph led to quarrels which resulted in the overthrow of the charter and the sending of royal governors to Massachusetts. From that time forth the legislatures of Massachusetts and Virginia had to contend with similar questions concerning the powers and prerogatives of the royal governors, so that the two colonies kept a close watch upon each other’s proceedings, while both received a thorough training in constitutional politics. Amid such circumstances came into existence the necessary conditions for the establishment of political independence and the formation of our Federal Union.

[Sidenote: Robert Beverley.]

[Sidenote: His refusal to give up the journals.]

The suppression of Bacon’s rebellion was far from equivalent to a surrender to Charles II. or his representatives. Questions of privilege soon arose, and it was not long before Berkeley’s most efficient officer came himself to be regarded almost in the light of a rebel. Major Robert Beverley, of Beverley in Yorkshire, an ardent royalist, had come to Virginia in 1663. He was elected clerk of the House of Burgesses in 1670, and held that office for many years. No one was more active in stamping out rebellion in the autumn of 1677, but after the arrival of the royal commissioners he was soon at feud with them. As the disturbances had been quieted without the aid of their troops, there was a disposition to resent their coming as an interference, especially as they seemed to lend too ready an ear to the complaints of the malcontents. In the list of grievances of Gloucester County we find “a complaint against Major Robert Beverley that when the country had (according to Order) raised 60 armed men to be an Out-guard for the Governor--who not finding the Governor nor their appointed Comander they were by Beverly comanded to goe to work, fall trees and maule and toate railes, which many of them refusing to doe, he presently disbanded them & sent them home at a tyme when the countrey were infested by the Indians, who had a little before cut off six persons in one family, and attempted others.” Upon this the commissioners remarked, “Wee conceive this dealing of Beverly’s to be a notorious abuse and Grievance, to take away the peoples armes while ther famlies were cutt off by the Indians, and they deserve just reparation here.” But Berkeley declared that what Beverley had done was by his orders, and the newly elected House of Burgesses stood by its clerk. After Berkeley had sailed for England, in April, 1677, the commissioners called upon the House of Burgesses to give up its journals for their inspection, and Beverley refused to comply with the demand. No king in England, said the burgesses, would venture to make such a demand of the House of Commons. Then the commissioners seized the journals, and the burgesses indignantly voted that such an act was a violation of privilege. This enraged the king, and in February, 1679, the privy council ordered that Beverley should be removed from office.

[Sidenote: Lord Culpeper.]

A change of governors, however, altered the situation. After Jeffries and Chichely, who served but a year each, came Lord Culpeper, whom Charles II. had undertaken to make co-proprietor of Virginia, along with the Earl of Arlington. Culpeper was an average specimen of the public officials of the time, fairly agreeable and easy-going, but rapacious and utterly unprincipled. In one respect he might be contrasted unfavourably with all the governors since Harvey. Such men as Bennett and Mathews and Berkeley looked upon Virginia as home. After his own fashion the tyrannical Berkeley had the interest of Virginia at heart. But Culpeper regarded the Virginians simply as people to be fleeced. Through four years of chronic brawl he kept coming and going, coming to manage the assembly and returning to consult with the king. Charles wished to have the power of initiating legislation taken away from the burgesses. All laws were to be drafted by the governor and council, and then sent to England for the royal approval, before being submitted to the burgesses. With such an arduous task before him, it was wise for Culpeper to avoid giving needless offence; and seeing the high regard in which Beverley was held, he caused the order for his removal to be revoked.

[Sidenote: The Plant-cutter’s Riot, 1682.]

The evil effects of the Navigation Act still continued. In 1679 the tobacco crop was so large that a considerable surplus was left over till the next year unsold. In 1680 the surplus was still greater, so that there was evidently more than enough to supply the English market for two years. The assembly therefore proposed to order a cessation of planting for the year 1681, but on account of the customs revenue it was necessary to obtain the king’s assent to such an order. By the same token the assent was refused, and great was the indignation in Virginia. The price of tobacco had fallen so low that, according to Nicholas Spencer, a whole year’s crop would not so much as buy the clothes which people needed.[80] The distress was like that which was caused in the War of Independence by the Continental currency and the rag money issued by the several states. It was the kind of sickness that has always come and always will come with “cheap money.” Culpeper insisted that the only chance of relief was in exporting beef, pork, and grain to the West Indies. A more effective measure would have been the repeal of the Navigation Act. In the spring of 1682, on the petition of several counties, the assembly was convened for the purpose of ordering a cessation of planting. Amid great popular excitement the assembly adjourned without taking any decisive action. Then a fury for destroying the young plants seized upon the people. “The growing tobacco of one plantation was no sooner destroyed than the owner, having been deprived either with or without his consent of his crop, was seized with the same frenzy and ran with the crowd as it marched to destroy the crop of his neighbour.”[81] The contagion spread until ten thousand hogsheads of tobacco had been destroyed. In Gloucester, where the most damage was done, two hundred plantations were laid waste. The riot was suppressed by the militia, three ringleaders were hung, and the rest pardoned. One, we are told, received pardon on condition that he should build a bridge.[82]

[Sidenote: Culpeper’s removal.]

This was contracting the currency with a vengeance, but it produced the desired effect. In 1683 the purchasing power of tobacco was greatly increased, and a feeling of contentment returned. But the destruction of the plants served to heighten the king’s indignation at Culpeper’s ill success in curtailing the power of the burgesses. Culpeper tried to play a double part and appear complaisant to the assembly without offending the king. Consequently he pleased nobody, and early in 1684 he was removed. Shortly afterward the king confirmed him in the possession of the territory known as the Northern Neck, and he relinquished all proprietary claims upon the rest of Virginia, in exchange for a pension of £600 yearly for twenty years.

[Sidenote: Lord Howard of Effingham.]

Culpeper’s successor was Lord Howard of Effingham, an unworthy descendant of Elizabeth’s gallant admiral. He was as greedy and dishonest as Culpeper, without his conciliatory temper. The difference between the two has been aptly compared to the difference between Charles II. and his brother. Howard was indeed as domineering and wrong-headed as James II., and rapacious besides. He treated public opinion with contempt. His administration was noted for corruption and tyranny. No accounts were rendered of the use of public funds, and men were arbitrarily sent to jail. Howard went so far as to claim the right to repeal the acts of the assembly, and over this point there was hot contention. The subject of “plant-cutting,” or the destruction of growing tobacco, came up again, and the crown was enabled in one and the same act to wreak its vengeance upon an eminent victim and to aim a blow at the independence of the House of Burgesses.

[Sidenote: More trouble for Beverley.]

Robert Beverley, as we have seen, had incurred the royal displeasure by refusing to hand over to the commissioners the journals of the House of Burgesses. In 1682 he was strongly in favour of a cessation of planting, and accordingly it suited the purposes of his enemies to point to him as the prime instigator of the plant-cutting riots. On this accusation he was turned out of office and several times imprisoned. At last, just after Lord Howard’s arrival, he was set free after asking pardon on his bended knees and giving security for future good behaviour. A statute passed about this time made plant-cutting high treason, punishable with death and confiscation.[83]

As soon as Beverley was set free the House of Burgesses again chose him for its clerk. But presently Lord Howard tried to get the burgesses to allow him to levy a tax, and in the course of the quarrel sundry trumped-up charges were brought against Beverley, so that in 1686 James II. instructed Howard to declare him incapable of holding any office of public trust. The same letter ordered that henceforth the clerk of the House of Burgesses should be appointed by the governor.[84]

[Sidenote: For stupid audacity James II. was outdone by George III.]

It is worthy of note that the most despicable and lawless of modern English kings did not venture to deny the right of Virginians to tax themselves by their own representatives. Howard’s instructions merely authorized him to “recommend” certain measures to the assembly. His attempt to get permission to levy a tax independently of the burgesses was such a recommendation. However arrogant and illegal in spirit, it still conceded to the colonists the constitutional principle over which the fatuous George III. and his rotten-borough parliaments were to try to ride rough-shod.

[Sidenote: Francis Nicholson.]

By 1688 Howard concluded that it would be pleasant and comfortable for him to live on his governor’s salary in England and send out a deputy-governor to deal with refractory burgesses. When he arrived in England he found William and Mary on the throne, but they showed no disposition to interfere with his plans. Just the right sort of man for deputy-governor appeared at the right moment. Francis Nicholson had held that position in New York under the viceroy of united New York and New England, Sir Edmund Andros. When that unpopular viceroy was deposed and cast into jail in Boston, Nicholson was deposed in New York by Jacob Leisler, and went to England with the tale of his woes, which King William sought to assuage by sending him to Virginia as deputy-governor.

[Sidenote: His manners.]

Nicholson was a man of integrity and fair ability, though highly eccentric and cantankerous. “Laws of Virginia,” he cried one day, seizing the attorney-general by the lapel of his silk robe, “I know no laws of Virginia! I know my commands are going to be obeyed here!” At another time he told the council that they were “mere brutes who understood not manners, ... that he would beat them into better manners and make them feel that he was governor of Virginia.”[85]

[Sidenote: James Blair, founder of William and Mary College.]

In spite of his queer peppery ways, the rule of Nicholson was a decided relief after such worthless creatures as Culpeper and Howard. It is chiefly memorable for the founding of the second American college, a work which encountered such obstacles on both sides of the ocean as only an iron will could vanquish. Such was found in the person of James Blair, a Scotch clergyman, who in 1689 was appointed commissioner of the Church in Virginia. The need for a bishop was felt, and a little later there was some talk of sending out the famous Jonathan Swift in that capacity, but no Episcopal bishopric was created in America until after the War of Independence. Dr. Blair had a seat in the colonial council, presided at ecclesiastical trials, and exercised many of the powers of a bishop. Since the old scheme of Nicholas Ferrar and his friends for a college in Virginia had been extinguished amid lurid scenes of Indian massacre, nearly seventy years had elapsed[86] when Blair in 1691 revived it. He began by collecting some £2,500 by subscription, and then went to England to get more money and obtain a charter. He was aided by two famous divines, Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, but from the treasury commissioner, Sir Edward Seymour, he received a coarse rebuff, which shows the frankly materialistic view at that time entertained by the British official mind regarding England’s colonies. When Blair urged that a college was needed for training up clergymen, Seymour thought it was no time to be sending money to America for such purposes; every penny was wanted in Europe for carrying on the necessary and righteous war against Louis XIV. Blair could not deny that it was an eminently righteous war, but he was not thus to be turned from his purpose. “You must not forget,” said he, “that people in Virginia have souls to save, as well as people in England.” “Souls!” cried Seymour, “damn your souls! Grow tobacco!” In spite of this discouraging view of the case, the good doctor persevered until he obtained from William and Mary the charter that founded the college ever since known by their names.

[Sidenote: Nicholson succeeded by Sir Edmund Andros.]

The college was established in 1693, with Blair for its president.[87] Governor Nicholson, with seventeen other persons appointed by the assembly, formed the board of trustees. From the outset Nicholson was warmly in sympathy with the enterprise, but now this friend was called away for a time. In the anti-Catholic fervour which attended the accession of King William and Queen Mary, the palatinate government in Maryland had been overturned, and the new royal governor, Sir Lionel Copley, died in 1693. Nicholson was then promoted from deputy-governor of Virginia to be governor of Maryland. About the same time Lord Howard of Effingham resigned or was removed, and Sir Edmund Andros was sent out to Virginia as governor. It may seem a strange appointment in view of the obloquy which Andros had incurred at the north. But in all these appointments William III. seems to have acted upon a consistent policy of not disturbing, except in cases of necessity, the state of things which he found. As a rule he retained in his service the old officials against whom no grave charges were brought; and while the personality of Andros was not prepossessing, there can be no doubt as to his integrity.

[Sidenote: Andros quarrels with Blair.]

Nicholson’s career as royal governor of Maryland lasted until 1698, while Andros was having a hard time in Virginia trying to enforce with rigour the Navigation Act and to make life miserable for Dr. Blair. His conduct was far more moderate than it had been in New England, but he had his full share of trouble in Virginia. The moving cause of his hostility to the college of William and Mary is not distinctly assigned, but he is not unlikely to have believed, like many a dullard of his stripe, that education is apt to encourage a seditious and froward spirit. He did everything he could think of to thwart and annoy President Blair. At the election of burgesses he predicted that the establishment of a college would be sure to result in a terrible increase of taxes. He tried to persuade subscribers to withhold the payment of their subscriptions. He sought to arouse an absurd prejudice against Scotchmen, for which it was rather late in the day. Finally he connived at gross insults to the president and friends of the college. Among the young men to whom Andros showed especial favour was Daniel Parke, whose grandson, Daniel Parke Custis, is now remembered as the first husband of Martha Washington. This young Daniel did some things to which posterity could hardly point with pride. He is described as a “sparkish gentleman,” or as some would say a slashing blade. He was an expert with the rapier and anxious to thrust it between the ribs of people who supported the college. His challenges were numerous, but clergymen could not be reached in such a way. So “he set up a claim to the pew in church in which Mrs. Blair sat, and one Sunday,” as we are told, “with fury and violence he pulled her out of it in the presence of the minister and congregation, who were greatly scandalized at this ruffian and profane action.”[88]

[Sidenote: Removal of Andros.]

This was going too far. The stout Scotchman had powerful friends in London; the outrage was discussed in Lambeth Palace; and Sir Edmund Andros, for winking at such behaviour, was removed. He was evidently a slow-witted official. His experiences in Boston, with Parson Willard of the Old South, ought to have cured him of his propensity to quarrel with aggressive and resolute clergymen. For two or three years after going home, Sir Edmund governed the little channel island of Jersey, and the rest of his days were spent in retirement, until his death in 1714.

[Sidenote: Earl of Orkney.]

The system of absentee governors, occasionally exemplified in such cases as those of Lord Delaware and Lord Howard, was now to be permanently adopted. A great favourite with William III. was George Hamilton Douglas, whose distinguished gallantry at the battle of the Boyne and other occasions had been rewarded with the earldom of Orkney. In 1697 he was appointed governor-in-chief of Virginia, and for the next forty years he drew his annual salary of £1,200 without ever crossing the ocean. Henceforth the official who represented him in Virginia was entitled lieutenant-governor, and the first was Francis Nicholson, who was brought back from Maryland in 1698.

[Sidenote: Return of Nicholson.]

[Sidenote: Founding of Williamsburg.]

One of Nicholson’s achievements in Maryland, as we shall see in the next chapter, had been the change of the seat of government from St. Mary’s to Annapolis. He now proceeded to make a similar change in Virginia. After perishing in Bacon’s rebellion, Jamestown was rebuilt by Lord Culpeper, but in the last decade of the century it was again destroyed by an accidental fire, and has never since risen from its ashes. Of that sacred spot, the first abiding-place of Englishmen in America, nothing now is left but the ivy-mantled ruins of the church tower and a few cracked and crumbling tombstones. The site of the hamlet is more than half submerged, and unless some kind of sea-wall is built to protect it, the unresting tides will soon wash everything away.[89] Jamestown had always a bad reputation for malaria, and after its second burning people were not eager to restore it. Plans for moving the government elsewhere had been considered on more than one occasion. In 1699 the choice fell upon the site of Middle Plantation, half way between James and York rivers, with its salubrious air and wholesome water. It had already, in 1693, been selected as the site of the new college.[90] Nicholson called the place Williamsburg, and began building a town there with streets so laid out as to make W and M, the initials of the king and queen, a plan soon abandoned as inconvenient. The town thus founded by Nicholson remained the capital of Virginia until 1780, when it was superseded by Richmond.

[Sidenote: Nicholson and Blair.]

Nicholson was in full sympathy with President Blair as regarded the college, but occasions for disagreement between them were at hand. On the lieutenant-governor’s arrival the wise parson read him a lesson upon the need for moderation in the display of his powers. The career of his predecessor Andros, in more than one colony, furnished abundant examples of the need for such moderation. Blair offered him some good advice tendered by the Bishop of London, whereupon Nicholson exclaimed, with a big round oath, “I know how to govern Virginia and Maryland better than all the bishops in England. If I had not hampered them in Maryland and kept them under, I should never have been able to govern them.” The doctor replied: “Sir, I do not pretend to [speak for] Maryland, but if I know anything of Virginia, they are a good-natured [and] tractable people as any in the world, and you may do anything with them by way of civility, but you will never be able to manage them in that way you speak of, by hampering and keeping them under.”[91] The eccentric governor did not profit by this advice. Of actual tyranny there was not much in his administration, but his blustering tongue would give utterance to extravagant speeches whereat company would sit “amazed and silent.”

[Sidenote: scolding swain.]

[Sidenote: Removal of Nicholson.]

At last in a laughable way this blustering habit proved his ruin. Not far from Williamsburg lived Major Lewis Burwell, who had married a cousin of the rebel Bacon and had a whole houseful of blooming daughters. With one of these young ladies the worshipful governor fell madly in love, but to his unspeakable chagrin she promptly and decisively refused him. Poor Nicholson could not keep the matter to himself, but raved about it in public. He suspected that Dr. Blair’s brother was a favoured rival and threatened the whole family with dire vengeance. He swore that if Miss Burwell should undertake to marry anybody but himself, he would “cut the throats of three men: the bridegroom, the minister, and the justice who issued the license.” This truculent speech got reported in London, and one of Nicholson’s friends wrote him a letter counselling him not to be so unreasonable, but to remember that English women were the freest in the world, and that Virginia was not like those heathen Turkish countries where tender ladies were dragged into the arms of some pasha still reeking with the blood of their nearest relatives. But nothing could quiet the fury of a “governor scorned;” and one day when he suspected the minister of Hampton parish of being his rival, he went up to him and knocked his hat off. This sort of thing came to be too much for Dr. Blair; a memorial was sent to Queen Anne, and Nicholson was recalled to England in 1705. Afterwards we find him commanding the expedition which in 1710 captured the Acadian Port Royal from the French. He then served as governor of the newly conquered Nova Scotia and afterwards of South Carolina, was knighted, rose to the rank of lieutenant-general, and died in 1728.

[Sidenote: The college.]

Meanwhile the college of William and Mary, in which Nicholson felt so much interest, was flourishing. Unfortunately its first hall, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, was destroyed by fire in 1705, but it was before long replaced by another. Until 1712 the faculty consisted of the president, a grammar master, writing master, and an usher; in that year a professor of mathematics was added. By 1729 there were six professors. Fifty years later the departments of law and medicine were added, and the name “College” was replaced by “University.”[92]

[Sidenote: Indian students.]

As in the case of Harvard, it was hoped that this college might prove effective in converting and educating Indians. In 1723 Brafferton Hall was built for their use, from a fund given by Robert Boyle, the famous chemist. It is still standing and used as a dormitory. We are told that the “Queen of Pamunkey” sent her son to college with a boy to wait upon him, and likewise two chiefs’ sons, “all handsomely cloathed after the Indian fashion;”[93] but as to any effects wrought upon the barbarian mind by this Christian institution of learning, there is nothing to which we can point.

[Sidenote: Instructions to the housekeeper.]

The first Commencement exercises were held in the year 1700, and it is said that not only were Virginians and Indians present on that gala day, but so great was the fame of it that people came in sloops from Maryland and Pennsylvania, and even from New York.[94] The journals of what we may call the “faculty meetings” throw light upon the manner of living at the college. There is a matron, or housekeeper, who is thus carefully instructed: “1. That you never concern yourself with any of the Boys only when you have a Complaint against any of them, and then that you make it to his or their proper Master.--2. That there be always both fresh and salt Meat for Dinner; and twice in the Week, as well as on Sunday in particular, that there be either Puddings or Pies besides; that there be always Plenty of Victuals; that Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper be serv’d up in the cleanest and neatest manner possible; and for this Reason the Society not only allow but desire you to get a Cook; that the Boys Suppers be not as usual made up of different Scraps, but that there be at each Table the same Sor^t: and when there is cold fresh Meat enough, that it be often hashed for them; that when they are sick, you yourself see their Victuals before it be carry’d to them, that it be clean, decent, and fit for them; that the Person appointed to take Care of them be constantly with them, and give their Medicine regularly. The general Complaints of the Visitors, and other Gentlemen throughout the whole Colony, plainly shew the Necessity of a strict and regular Compliance with the above Directions.... 4. That a proper Stocking-mender be procured to live in or near the college, and as both Masters and Boys complain of losing their Stockings, you are desired to look over their Notes given with their Linnen to the Wash, both at the Delivery and Return of them.... 5. That the Negroes be trusted with no keys; ... that fresh Butter be look’d out for in Time, that the Boys may not be forced to eat salt in Summer.--6. As we all know that Negroes will not perform their Duties without the Mistress’ constant Eye, especially in so large a Family as the College, and as we all observe You going abroad more frequently then even the Mistress of a private Family can do without the affairs of her province greatly suffering, We particularly request it of you, that your visits for the future in Town and Country may not be so frequent, by which Means we doubt not but Complaints will be greatly lessened.”[95]

[Sidenote: Horse-racing prohibited.]

At another meeting it is ordered “y^t no scholar belonging to any school in the College, of w^t Age, Rank, or Quality, soever, do keep any race Horse at y^e College, in y^e Town--or any where in the neighbourhood--y^t they be not anyway concerned in making races, or in backing, or abetting, those made by others, and y^t all Race Horses, kept in y^e neighbourhood of y^e College & belonging to any of y^e scholars, be immediately dispatched & sent off, & never again brought back, and all of this under Pain of y^e severest Animadversion and Punishment.”

[Sidenote: Other prohibitions.]

There is a stress in the wording of this order which makes one suspect that the faculty had encountered difficulty in suppressing horse-racing. Similar orders forbid students to take part in cock-fighting, to frequent “y^e Ordinaries,” to bet, to play at billiards, or to bring cards or dice into the college. Punishment is most emphatically threatened for any student who may “presume to go out of y^e Bounds of y^e College, particularly towards the mill pond” without express leave; but why the mill pond was to be so sedulously shunned, we are left to conjecture. Finally, “to y^e End y^t no Person may pretend Ignorance of y^e foregoing ... Regulations, ... it is Ordered ... y^t a clear & legible copy of y^m be posted up in every School of y^e College.”[96]

[Sidenote: The story of Parson Camm.]

One of the brightest traditions in the history of the college is that which tells of the wooing and wedding of Parson Camm, a gentleman famous once, whose fame deserves to be revived. John Camm was born in 1718 and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a man of good scholarship and sturdy character, an uncompromising Tory, one of the leaders in that “Parsons’ Cause” which made Patrick Henry famous.[97] He lived to be the last president of William and Mary before the Revolution. After he had attained middle age, but while he was as yet only a preacher and professor, and like all professors in those days at William and Mary a bachelor, there came to him the romance which brightened his life. Among those who listened to his preaching was Miss Betsy Hansford, of the family of Hansford the rebel and martyr. A young friend, who had wooed Miss Betsy without success, persuaded the worthy parson to aid him with his eloquence. But it was in vain that Mr. Camm besieged the young lady with texts from the Bible enjoining matrimony as a duty. She proved herself able to beat him at his own game when she suggested that if the parson would go home and look at 2 Samuel xii. 7, he might be able to divine the reason of her obduracy. When Mr. Camm proceeded to search the Scriptures he found these significant words staring him in the face: “And Nathan said to David, _Thou art the man!_” The sequel is told in an item of the Virginia Gazette, announcing the marriage of Rev. John Camm and Miss Betsy Hansford.[98]

So, Virginia, too, had its Priscilla! In the words of the sweet mediæval poem:--

El fait que dame, et si fait bien, Car sos ciel n’a si france rien Com est dame qui violt amer, Quant Deus la violt à ço torner: Deus totes dames beneie.[99]

But this marriage was an infringement of the customs of the college, and was rebuked in an order that _hereafter_ the marriage of a professor should _ipso facto_ vacate his office.

[Sidenote: Some interesting facts about the college.]

The college founded by James Blair was a most valuable centre for culture for Virginia, and has been remarkable in many ways. It was the first college in America to introduce teaching by lectures, and the elective system of study; it was the first to unite a group of faculties into a university; it was the second in the English world to have a chair of Municipal Law, George Wythe coming to such a professorship a few years after Sir William Blackstone; it was the first in America to establish a chair of History and Political Science; and it was one of the first to pursue a thoroughly secular and unsectarian policy. Though until lately its number of students at any one time had never reached one hundred and fifty, it has given to our country fifteen senators and seventy representatives in congress; seventeen governors of states, and thirty-seven judges; three presidents of the United States,--Jefferson, Monroe, and Tyler; and the great Chief Justice Marshall.[100] It was a noble work for America that was done by the Scotch parson, James Blair.

[Sidenote: Nicholson’s schemes for a union of the colonies.]

As for Governor Nicholson, who was so deeply interested in that work, he played a memorable part in the history of the United States, which deserves mention before we leave the subject of his connection with Virginia. When he was first transferred from the governorship of New York to that of the Old Dominion, with his head full of experiences gained in New York, he proposed a grand Union of the English colonies for mutual defence against the encroachments of the French. King William approved the scheme and recommended it to the favourable consideration of the colonial assemblies. But a desire for union was not strong in any of these bodies, and as for Virginia, she was too remote from the Canadian border to feel warmly interested in it. The act of 1695, authorizing the governor to apply £500 from the liquor excise to the relief of New York, shows a notably generous spirit in the Virginia burgesses, but the pressure which was to drive people into a Federal Union was still in the hidden future. The attitude of the several colonies so exasperated Nicholson as to lead him to recommend that they should all be placed under a single viceroy and taxed for the support of a standing army. When this plan was submitted to Queen Anne and her ministers, it was rejected as unwise, and no British ministry ever ventured to try any part of such a policy until the reign of George III. Francis Nicholson should be remembered as one of the very first to conceive and suggest the policy that afterward drove the colonies into their Declaration of Independence.