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.
One of Nicholson’s achievements in Maryland had been the change of 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 Culpepper, 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.
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. 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when it was superseded by Richmond.
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 Lincoln, 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.” The
eccentric governor did not profit by this advice....
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.
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. In 1729, there were six
professors. Fifty years later the departments of law and medicine were
added, and the name “College” was replaced by “University.”
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 chief’s sons, “all handsomely cloathed after the
Indian fashion”; but as to any effects wrought upon the barbarian mind
by this Christian institution of learning, there is nothing to which we
can point.
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. 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 Boy’s Suppers be not as usual made up of
different Scraps, but that there be at each Table the same Sort: and
when there is cold fresh Meat enough, that it be often hashed for
them; and that when they are sick, you yourself see their Victuals
before it be carried 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.”[6]
At another meeting it is ordered that “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 anywhere in the
neighbourhood--y^t they be not any way 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, etc., belonging to any of
y^e scholars, be immediately dispatched and sent off and never again
brought back, and all of this under Pain of y^e severest Animadversion
and Punishment.”
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 and legible copy of y^m be posted up in every
School of y^e College.”[7]
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.
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 define 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.
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.”[8]
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.
The college founded by James Blair was a most valuable centre for
culture in 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. It was a noble work for America that was
done by the Scotch parson, James Blair.
THE MISSION DOLORES, SAN FRANCISCO
LADY HARDY
We enter the Golden Gate Park, where, a few years ago, the Pacific
waves were rolling; but these hundreds of acres have been reclaimed
from the sea, and are planted with rare shrubs, young trees, evergreens
and blooming flowers. It is tastefully laid out, a landscape garden and
park in one; there are picturesque winding paths and shady nooks and
corners where you can hide from the sun’s searching rays, and, while
you listen to the singing birds overhead, hear the boom of the breakers
on the shore below. We pass through this paradise of green and reach a
silent sea of yellow sandhills, smooth and soft as velvet, billowing
round in graceful, undulating waves as far as the eye can reach; there
is a sudden curve, and the wide Pacific Sea, in all its glory, lies
before us clothed in the sunshine, its white foam lips kissing the
golden shore; its long level line stretched against the distant skies.
We drove down to it; nay, drove into it, and watched its tiny waves
dimpling into a thousand welcomes beneath our wheels. The sun and sea
conspired together to fill the air with balmy breezes. We felt the
soft spray blowing in our faces, stirring our blood, and setting our
cheeks aglow, and as we breathed the crisp, soft air, laden with three
thousand miles of iodine, we seemed to be taking a draught of the
elixir of life.
On our way home we passed the old Mission; at least, all that is left
of it, which is not much--the mere remnants of some redwood houses and
the ancient church, a quaint-looking low-roofed home of desolation,
with its adobe walls of sun-baked clay about four feet thick, which
promise to withstand the encroaches of time a century longer. A chime
of three bells still hangs in three square portholes; their long
tongues red with rust, droop dumb and motionless from their silent
mouths. Only a hundred years ago they were brought from Castile,
blessed by the holy fathers, and brought here to the edge of the wild
Western world to ring out and summon the heathen and the wanderer to
worship the one true God.
You enter the ruined church through a low, arched doorway. The broken
font is still there, but the last drop of holy water was spilled from
it long ago. The mullioned windows are of a quaint fan-like shape and
the genial sun tries to pierce through the grime and dust and send its
beams dancing over the crumbled ruin within. The painted wooden shrines
of St. Joseph and St. Francis (who gave the settlement of Yerba Buena
the name of San Francisco) are still there. Near by are the Madonna
and Child, but the paint has worn off and they are all discoloured
and stained with the damp wind and the rain which drips, in the rainy
season, from the dilapidated roof. The crumbling decorations, though
they are of a rough, rude workmanship, still bear the stamp of artistic
design, though crudely executed by unaccustomed hands, who laboured
for the love of God. It is about a hundred feet from the threshold
to the altar. Give reins to your imagination, set it galloping back a
hundred years, and see the priests, the white nuns, and hooded friars
clustered round the empty altar busy in the service of the Lord; the
aisles filled with kneeling Indians, who know little of the faith they
have adopted except that there is an unknown God somewhere who makes
their corn grow, watches over their lives here, with a promise of a
life hereafter; men from Mexico, Peru, and Spain, and wanderers from
all along the wild Pacific coast are standing reverently round; censers
are swinging, lights are burning, and a choir of voices chant the Ave
Marias. A Christian host gathered in that wilderness by the sea. Where
are they all now? Vanished like the children of a dream.
[Illustration: THE MISSION DOLORES, SAN FRANCISCO]
A mouldy, funereal odour clings about the ruined walls, and we are
glad to step out into the little graveyard outside, where the English
hawthorn and white winter roses are blooming and the grass growing rich
and luxuriant above the moss-grown graves. Whole tribes of Indians lie
buried in the dust below our feet. There is no more desolate spot in
the world than a disused graveyard. We read strange unfamiliar names
upon the broken, half-buried stones, and crumbling urns, dilapidated
angels and crippled cherubs are tottering round us. Here and there we
decipher an English name, and, beneath, the information: “Died by the
hands of the V. C.”; “In mercy we slay the enemies of the Lord.” The
V. C. means the Vigilance Committee, who, in the early lawless days,
executed justice swift and sure upon proven criminals. The strict
justice of their decisions was never called in question. A certain
number of men of known integrity were invested with supreme power of
life or death, and the guilt of a man being once fully assured, he
had a brief trial and swift execution. There was no legal quibbling,
which often lets loose some atrocious criminal to prey upon the world
again until, at the end, he is launched out of it. Near the low arched
gateway stands the dilapidated figure of a woman, her sightless eyes
and lifted hands pointing upwards--mute significance of one hope for
all the miscellaneous dead.
A fresh breeze was blowing outside, but here it seemed to hang heavy
and still, laden with the damp odour of mouldering graves, which
mingled with and destroyed the sweet scent of the flowers that are
flourishing so luxuriantly above the dead. This was the first we had
seen of the many remnants of the old mission days, when the Spanish
Fathers first came to the wilderness to sow the good seed and reap the
harvest in their Lord’s name.
About the year 1820 the mission began to decay, the soldiers were
recalled from the Presidio, where they had been stationed for the
protection of the friars and their property, and from that time the
missions dwindled, till the Fathers were recalled to Spain. They
carried with them all their cattle and movable goods, and left their
buildings to decay. These are scattered throughout the State of
California, wherever the Fathers held temporary sway. Still, though
they and their labours have passed away, and are well-nigh forgotten,
they have left their traces behind them: throughout the country we
find the old Spanish names still clinging to the soil, such as Santa
Clara, Santa Rosa, Santa Barbara, San Rafael, San José, Los Angeles,
Monterey, Carmelo, etc. Mr. John S. Hittell has given in his history of
California a most interesting and graphic account of these missions,
their people, their work, and the effect upon the country from their
first establishment to their decline.
The city has grown out of the wilderness, and crowded so close to the
crumbling walls of the ruined mission that as we leave the gloomy
precincts we step out into the populous streets, which are full of
hurry, bustle and vigorous young life. It is like stepping from the old
century into the new. Gaily painted cars and omnibuses are dashing up
and down the wide Mission Street, each following the other so quickly
that before you can step into one, another is on its heels.
KING’S CHAPEL, BOSTON
F. W. P. GREENWOOD
The _Rose_ frigate must have seemed to the greater part of the
Bostonians, or Bostoneers, as Randolph called them, freighted heavily
with woe, bearing as it did the Rev. Robert Ratcliffe, of the Church
of England, with his surplice and his book of Common Prayer; to say
nothing of the commission which appointed a president over them by the
King’s sole authority. It was as new to them and as disagreeable to
have in their midst a settled clergyman of that church as it was to
see at their head a ruler not of their own choosing. “There had been
very few instances of even occasional assemblies for religious worship
according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England for more
than fifty years. When the commissioners from King Charles were at
Boston in 1665, they had a chaplain with them, but there was no house
for public worship. Most of the inhabitants who were upon the stage in
1686, had never seen a Church of England assembly” (Hutchinson). The
time was now come for the strange sight to be exhibited, and for the
members of the Episcopal communion to rally under the countenance and
influence of the Royal government. It should be stated, too, that the
general court had declared in 1677, that no persons should be hindered
from performing divine service according to the Church of England.
The way therefore appeared to lay smooth and open for the Episcopalians
to introduce their forms of worship and government.
[Illustration: KING’S CHAPEL, BOSTON]
As Randolph had the chief hand in overturning the old charter of
the Colony, so was he most active and efficient in establishing an
Episcopalian Church here, and procuring the services of a clergyman
from England.
Randolph carried his two great ends, the destruction of the original
Massachusetts Charter, and the importation and introduction of an
Episcopal clergyman.
On the 15th of May, 1686, as I have before stated, arrived the _Rose_
frigate, commanded by Captain George. On the 25th Dudley entered on the
duties of his temporary presidency. On the 26th, Mr. Ratcliffe waited
on the council and Mr. Mason and Randolph proposed that he should have
one of the three Congregational meeting-houses to preach in. This was
denied, but he was granted the use of the library room in the east end
of the town house, which then stood where the Old State House, or, as
its present name is, the City Hall, now stands.
This was truly an humble beginning for those who made such high
pretensions as did these zealous Royalists and churchmen. As they
assembled in the east end of the town house, and looked round on their
twelve forms and their movable pulpit, they must have felt the contrast
between such a tabernacle and the solemn old cathedrals at home; and
have felt, too, that they were among a people who, though of the same
blood as themselves, were strangers to their mode of faith and worship,
despising what they esteemed most sacred, and setting at nought the
power which they deemed unquestionable.
On the 23d of March, 1687, the Governor (Sir Edmund Andros) sent Mr.
Randolph for the keys of the South meeting house, now called the Old
South, that the Episcopalians might have prayers there. A committee of
six, of whom Judge Sewall was one, thereupon waited on his Excellency
to show that the house was their own property, and to repeat that they
could not consent to part with it to such use. This was on Wednesday.
The following Friday, which was Good Friday, Sir Edmund Andros sent
to command the sexton of the South church to open the door and ring
the bell for those of the Church of England. The sexton, though he had
resolved not to do so, was persuaded or intimidated into compliance,
and the Governor and his party took possession of the house, and the
church service was performed there.
We now approach the close of Andros’s tyrannical government, which
was brought about through the influence of one of the most auspicious
changes in the government of the mother country, the Glorious
Revolution, as it is called, of 1688. The spring succeeding the landing
of William of Orange at Torbay, news was brought to Boston of the
event, by way of Virginia, by a Mr. Winslow. Sunday, the 26th of May,
the joyful news arrived of the proclaiming of William and Mary and on
the 29th, the proclamation was published in Boston with great ceremony.
Late in the year, an order from the King was received, requiring that
Sir Edmund Andros, Edward Randolph, John Trefry, and others that had
been seized by the people of Boston, should be sent to England in the
first ship bound thither, and in February, 1690, they embarked, and
Boston was rid of them and their tyranny.
Mr. Ratcliffe and his assistant, Mr. Clark, must have also gone back
to England about this time, as I find no notice of either of them,
after the disposition of Andros. But in the meantime, the Episcopal
Church had been built. How the land was procured, or of whom, when the
building was dedicated, or by whom, there is no record, or if there be
one, I have not met with it.
This first church was built of wood. It stood on the spot covered by
the present church, but did not occupy nearly so much ground. In an old
engraving which I have examined, representing the town of Boston as it
was in 1720, this church, among others, is introduced. It stands in
the same position with the present one, has a square tower at the west
end, from the roof of which rises a staff supporting the vane, and just
under the vane is a large and quite observable crown. It was the fifth
house of public worship erected in Boston. The Congregational houses
were then three in number, and the Baptists had succeeded in building
themselves a church several years before the Episcopalians commenced
theirs.