CONCERNING THE COLLEGE.
Sec. 40. The college, as has been hinted, was founded by their late
majesties, King William and Queen Mary, of happy memory, in the year
1692. Towards the founding of which, they gave one thousand nine hundred
and eighty-five pounds, fourteen shillings and ten pence. They gave
moreover, towards the endowment of it, twenty thousand acres of land;
the revenue of one pence per pound on tobacco exported to the
plantations from Virginia and Maryland; and the surveyor general's
place, then avoid; and appointed them a burgess to represent them in the
assemblies. The land hitherto has yielded little or no profit; the duty
of one pence per pound, brings in about two hundred pounds a year; and
the surveyor general's place, about fifty pounds a year. To which the
assembly had added a duty on skins and furs exported, worth about an
hundred pounds a year.
Sec. 41. By the same charter, likewise, their majesties granted a power to
certain gentlemen, and the survivors of them, as trustees, to build and
establish the college, by the name of William and Mary college; to
consist of a president and six masters, or professors, and an hundred
scholars, more or less, graduates or non-graduates; enabling the said
trustees, as a body corporate, to enjoy annuities, spiritual and
temporal, of the value of two thousand pounds sterling per annum, with
proviso to convert it to the building and adorning the college; and then
to make over the remainder to the president and masters, and their
successors, who are likewise to become a corporation, and be enabled to
purchase and hold to the value of two thousand pounds a year, but no
more.
Sec. 42. The persons named in the charter for trustees, are made governors
and visitors of the college, and to have a perpetual succession, by the
name of governors and visitors, with power to fill up their own
vacancies, happening by the death or removal of any of them. Their
complete number may be eighteen, but not to exceed twenty, of which one
is to be rector, and annually chosen by themselves, on the first Monday
after the 25th of March.
These have the nomination of the president and masters of the college,
and all other officers belonging to it; and the power of making statutes
and ordinances, for the better rule and government thereof.
Sec. 43. The building is to consist of a quadrangle, two sides of which are
not yet carried up. In this part are contained all conveniencies of
cooking, brewing, baking, &c., and convenient rooms for the reception of
the president and masters, with many more scholars than are as yet come
to it. In this part are also the hall and school room.
Sec. 44. The college was intended to be an intire square when finished. Two
sides of this were finished in the latter end of Governor Nicholson's
time, and the masters and scholars, with the necessary housekeepers and
servants, were settled in it, and so continued till the first year of
Governor Nott's time, in which it happened to be burnt (no body knows
how) down to the ground, and very little saved that was in it, the fire
breaking out about ten o'clock at night in a public time.
The governor, and all the gentlemen that were in town, came up to the
lamentable spectacle, many getting out of their beds. But the fire had
got such power before it was discovered, and was so fierce, that there
was no hope of putting a stop to it, and therefore no attempts made to
that end.
In this condition it lay till the arrival of Colonel Spotswood, their
present governor, in whose time it was raised again the same bigness as
before, and settled.
There had been a donation of large sums of money, by the Hon. Robert
Boyle, esq., to this college, for the education of Indian children
therein. In order to make use of this, they had formerly bought half a
dozen captive Indian children slaves, and put them to the college. This
method did not satisfy this governor, as not answering the intent of the
donor. So to work he goes, among the tributary and other neighboring
Indians, and in a short time brought them to send their children to be
educated, and brought new nations, some of which lived four hundred
miles off, taking their children for hostages and education equally, at
the same time setting up a school in the frontiers convenient to the
Indians, that they might often see their children under the first
managements, where they learned to read, paying fifty pounds per annum
out of his own pocket to the schoolmaster there; after which many were
brought to the college, where they were taught till they grew big enough
for their hunting and other exercises, at which time they were returned
home, and smaller taken in their stead.