PEACE AND PROSPERITY
As the first quarter of the eighteenth century was a period of bitter
contention between the Governors of Virginia and the Council and
Burgesses, so the second quarter was marked by peace and harmony. In
England the government, under the leadership of Sir Robert Walpole,
adopted a conciliatory policy toward the colonies, the famous policy of
letting sleeping dogs lie. Great Britain was reaping huge profits from
the trade with America, and the chief concern of the Board of Trade was
to see that no laws were passed by the Assemblies to lessen them. On the
other hand, the colonies were permitted to govern themselves to a degree
that would not have been tolerated under the Stuarts.
Possibly it was by chance that the two Lieutenant Governors whose
administrations covered this period--Hugh Drysdale and William
Gooch--were admirably suited to carry out this policy. Or they may have
been selected because of their winning personalities, their ability to
see both sides of a question, their desire to do justice to all men,
their lack of greed and ambition to dictate. We know that Drysdale was
recommended to the Earl of Orkney by Walpole himself.[1] At all events,
after contending for years with the implacable Nicholson and the
dictatorial Spotswood, Drysdale and Gooch must have seemed gifts from
Heaven to the Virginians.
Drysdale arrived in Virginia on September 25, 1722, and two days later
was sworn in in the Council Chamber. He was heartily welcomed. A few
months later he could report that there was "universal contentment on
the change made in the government," and that his administration had the
approbation of all ranks of people.[2] In marked contrast to their wordy
war with Spotswood, the Burgesses showed him only respect and affection.
"We must acknowledge the present calm and tranquility to be the
consequences of your prudence and moderation," they told him.[3] When
he was planning to leave for England because of ill health, they
addressed the King to say that his speedy return would be a great
happiness to the people of the colony.[4]
Drysdale's popularity was based more on what he did not do than what he
did do. He made no attempt to undermine the judicial power of the
Council, he seems not to have used the patronage to control the House of
Burgesses, he did not try to make the colony less democratic by
restricting the right to vote, he did not deny to the Burgesses their
ancient privileges, he did not use his office for personal gain.
He was at first critical of the policy, favored by the Council, of
issuing patents for huge tracts of land. His predecessor had granted
some for 10,000 acres, some for 20,000 acres, some for 40,000 acres
despite the order that I,000 acres should be the limit. "Thus the
intention of the government to make Spotsylvania a well inhabited
frontier is frustrated," he said.[5]
But the Councillors and other men of wealth persuaded him that large
holdings which could be cut up into small farms and leased to tenants
hastened rather than retarded settlement. "The Council are of opinion
that the limiting the quantity of land to be taken up in the new
counties is prejudicial and a discouragement to their speedy
settlement," he wrote in July, 1724.[6] He did not stop to consider that
the growth of tenantry would be a blow, not only to economic democracy,
but political democracy as well, since tenants, unless they were also
freeholders, had no right to vote.
Drysdale called for an election for a new Assembly who met in the
Capitol on May 9, 1723. The Burgesses had hardly settled themselves in
their seats when they took up two cases which concerned the rights of
the people and their privileges. In Essex County grievances had been
presented to the court for certification to the Assembly, charging
Colonel Joseph Smith, commander of the county militia, with harsh and
illegal conduct while a member of a court-martial. Colonel Smith,
himself a member of the court, refused to sign this paper, so that it
failed to reach the House. Thereupon the Burgesses declared him "guilty
of a breach of his duty," and ordered the Speaker to reprimand him.[7]
In striking contrast to Spotswood's upholding of Littlefield and Butts
in a similar case, Drysdale backed the House by removing Smith from the
county court.[8]
In the other case a certain William Hopkins was accused of "rude,
contemptuous, and indecent" language in the House about one of the
members--Mr. Matthew Kemp. When he was adjudged guilty and ordered on
his knees to ask the pardon of the Burgesses and Mr. Kemp, he flatly
refused. It was then ordered that he be led through the Duke of
Gloucester Street, from the Capitol to the college gate and back, with a
placard pinned to his breast bearing the following inscription: "For
insolent behavior at the bar of the House of Burgesses, when he was
there as an offender and with obstinacy and contempt disobeying their
order." This prospect was too much for Hopkins, so, no doubt with inward
curses, he made the apology.[9]
There was universal grief in Virginia when Drysdale died, on July 22,
1726. He was buried with elaborate ceremonies, to the booming of cannon.
The Council wrote Mrs. Drysdale expressing "the just sense" of "the
public loss," and giving her permission to remain for the time being in
the Palace.[10] Pending the appointment of a new Lieutenant Governor,
they voted to make Robert Carter President. The selection normally would
have gone to Edmund Jenings, as the senior member of the Council, but he
had just been suspended because of his age and because he was much
"decayed in his understanding."
William Gooch, who was appointed to succeed Drysdale, took the oath of
office on September 11, 1727. It must have been with apprehension that
the members of the Council greeted him. It would be too much to expect
that the colony would have in succession two Governors of the stamp of
Drysdale. Might not the new arrival be another Spotswood, or even
another Nicholson?
They were not long kept in doubt. Gooch proved to be one of the most
popular Governors in the history of the colony. Sincerely interested in
the welfare of the people, conciliatory in his dealings with both the
Council and the Burgesses, he brought internal peace and contentment.
The story was told of him that one day when in the company of several
gentlemen, he happened to pass a Negro slave. When the Negro lifted his
hat, Gooch lifted his in return.
"What, Governor Gooch, do you lift your hat to a slave?" one of his
companions asked.
"I would be deeply humiliated to be surpassed in courtesy by a slave,"
was the reply.
Throughout Gooch's administration there was practically no friction
between the Governor and the Assembly. The public affairs were carried
on in perfect harmony and good understanding, he reported in 1734. The
address of the Speaker of the House of Burgesses, Sir John Randolph, to
Gooch is one of the most remarkable in Virginia history. "You have
shew'd how easy it is to give universal satisfaction to the people under
your government.... You have not been intoxicated with the power
committed to you by his Majesty, but have used it like a faithful
trustee for the public good.... You never propose matters without
supposing your opinion subject to the examination of others, nor strive
to make other men's reason blindly and implicitly obedient to yours....
You have extirpated all factions among us ... and plainly proved that
none can arise, or be lasting, but from the countenance and
encouragement of a Governor."[11]
Both the Council and the Burgesses expressed their gratitude to Gooch by
gifts of money, the former voting him L300 to cover the expense of his
voyage to Virginia, and the latter giving him L500. Although his
instructions forbade his acceptance, he pocketed the money. "I thought
it would not become me to refuse this extraordinary instance of their
regard," he wrote the Lords of Trade. There was a precedent for his
acceptance, for Nicholson had had L300 when that sum was worth L600 in
the present currency. And though the Board censured him, they did not
make him refund the money.[12]
It was typical of Gooch that he was willing to yield in matters of which
he did not fully approve in order to carry points which he had very much
at heart. He had not been long in the colony when he came to the
conclusion that it would greatly benefit the planters if the tobacco
inspection act of 1713 could be revived. But he was well aware that the
people had not forgotten the use Spotswood had made of it to gain
control of the House of Burgesses, or his veto of the bill to prohibit
Burgesses from holding places of profit in the government. So, in
return for the passage of a new tobacco law, he assented to an act to
keep officeholders out of the House. "The Burgesses were for this bill,"
he wrote the Lords of Trade, "and my desire to keep them in good humor
while matters of greater moment were under their deliberation, prevailed
with me to assent to it."[13]
But he thought that the act had nothing in its favor, except that it was
an imitation of the laws of England made for securing the freedom of
Parliament. "In my humble opinion this country is yet too young for so
refined a regulation. Places of profit are indeed but few, but men of
capacity for the discharge of them do not much more abound; therefore
either the government must be ill served, or the House of Burgesses
meanly fitted if men of capacity and integrity must be shut out either
of the one or the other."[14]
Gooch either did not understand the importance of this bill, or
deliberately concealed it from the British Government. Had he known of
the use of the power of appointment by former Governors to gain control
of the House of Burgesses, he could not have dismissed the measure so
lightly. Nor could he have realized what a major victory it was for
liberty. Henceforth no Berkeley could bribe the Burgesses into
submission and so rule the colony like a despot; no Nicholson could hand
out commissions as sheriffs, or collectors, or officers in the militia
in exchange for votes in the House; no Spotswood could create tobacco
agents' jobs to tempt the people's representatives.
Though Gooch was solicitous for the welfare of the poor planter, he was
not in favor of manhood suffrage. So he affixed his signature to a bill
limiting the right to vote to freeholders owning 100 acres of unoccupied
land or twenty-five acres with a house.[15] Had he had his way the
limitation would have been greater. "Yet as the former laws had allowed
any kind of a freehold to give that right, and all attempts made
heretofore to exclude the mob of the populace ... had proved vain, it is
much better to have that point fixed on some certain basis, than to
leave all persons indefinitely at liberty to have a vote. ... After such
a beginning it may be hoped a further regulation will follow to remove
from the House such members as have little recommended them to the
people's choice besides the art of stirring up discontents."[16]
Though Gooch thus frankly avowed his dislike of democracy, he promoted
its growth by encouraging the westward expansion of settlement, not only
in the Piedmont, but in the Shenandoah Valley. In 1736 he wrote the
Lords of Trade: "Great numbers, as well of his Majesty's natural born
subjects as foreigners, ... have removed into this colony on the west
side of our mountains." This he pointed out would be a protection to the
older parts of the colony by heading off any attempt of the French at
penetration.
Perhaps it had not occurred to Gooch that expansion would divide the
colony into two parts--the democratic up-country, and the aristocratic
tidewater. Spotsylvania, Brunswick, Goochland, Amelia, Caroline, and
other counties in the Piedmont were filling up with small farmers from
the east, Frederick with poor Germans and Swiss. It is true that some
well-to-do planters established "quarters" managed by overseers above
the Fall Line, and later invaded parts of the Valley, but even as late
as the French and Indian War frontier conditions persisted in the
regions on either side of the Blue Ridge. The influence of the west grew
steadily as each new county sent its two representatives to the House of
Burgesses. Whereas in 1727 when there were 65 members of the House, only
10 were from the west, in 1752, when the members numbered 104, 46 were
from the western or southwestern counties. The time was not distant when
the up-country members would count a majority. A bewigged Carter, or
Harrison, or Wormeley, in his broadcloth suit with silver buttons, may
have been resentful when a roughly clad delegate from Albemarle or
Frederick took a seat beside him, but he dared not show it.
But in the first test of strength the newcomers lost because the east
still dominated the Council. In 1749, after the burning of the Capitol
in Williamsburg, the western Burgesses proposed that the seat of
government be moved to a site on the Pamunkey, in Hanover County, which
would save them many miles of travel in attending meetings of the
Assembly. The feeling on each side ran high. Mr. John Blair, a member of
the Council, in conversation with one of the Burgesses, pointed to the
Speaker, saying: "There goes the man who is at the bottom of this
hellish scheme." The House was deeply offended, and was appeased only
when Blair apologized. After much hesitation the bill for the removal
was passed by a vote of forty to thirty-eight, but it was promptly
rejected by the Council.[17] So the Capitol was rebuilt on the old
foundations, but with the proviso that this would not fix the seat of
government permanently in Williamsburg. It did, however, fix it there
until the Revolution, when, in response to the wishes of an overwhelming
majority of the people, it was moved to Richmond.
During most of Gooch's administration the two Houses worked in harmony.
But occasionally there was friction. At the close of the session of 1728
the Burgesses passed a resolution to pay their own salaries out of the
fund raised by the duty on liquors in order to lessen the hated poll
tax. But the Council refused to concur. The Burgesses then voted that
they be paid from funds in the hands of the Treasurer. Again the Council
demurred. They argued that the salaries of the Burgesses was the concern
of the counties. "It would be an unequal distribution of the public
money to allow the same share of it to a county which has a thousand
tithables as one that has three thousand."[18] This reasoning was based
on the assumption that a Burgess represented only the interests of the
county which elected him and not those of the colony as a whole, an
assumption contradicted by the whole history of the House. Yet the
Burgesses, though with some bitterness, were forced to yield for the
time being.
Gooch was much concerned over the dispute, for he was convinced that it
was not ended. He was right. At the very next session a bill was passed
to pay the Burgesses out of the money in the Treasurer's hands, provided
this should not reduce the fund below L1,500.[19] The Council consented,
under Gooch's urging, because the bill allowed the Burgesses only ten
shillings a day instead of thirteen as formerly, and nothing when not
actually in attendance, but "at home about their private affairs or
perhaps in pursuit of their pleasures." Gooch wrote the Lords of Trade
congratulating himself on having reduced salaries, but this does not
obscure the fact that the act was a victory for the House.[20]
In fact, the House of Burgesses, like the House of Commons, was becoming
the dominating body, and the Council, like the House of Lords, was
growing weaker. With the multiplying of the number of wealthy planters
through the use of slave labor, the twelve men who made up the Council
ceased to be the sole representatives of their interests. Many
aristocrats were honored to have a seat in the Lower House. One has only
to glance down the list of Burgesses to find many of the proudest names
in colonial Virginia--Page, Harrison, Fairfax, Randolph, Burwell,
Carter, Ball, Wormeley, Digges, Spotswood, Lee, Byrd, Claiborne, etc. So
the aristocrat as well as the small farmer, the wealthy easterner as
well as the pioneer of Orange or Albemarle, or the German of Frederick
looked to the House to protect their interests.
While the leadership of the House continued to be aristocratic, the rank
and file grew more democratic. The open spaces of America fostered a
spirit of independence. When men had gone into a wilderness, cleared
openings in the forest, built their simple houses, laid out crops,
fought the Indians, they became impatient of control by a group of
eastern aristocrats, or by a government three thousand miles away in
which they had no voice.
Nor was democracy confined to the west, for the small farmer class of
the east persisted despite the importation of thousands of slaves. It is
true that many, finding it difficult to compete with slave labor, sold
their little holdings, packed up their few household goods, and set out
for the West or for one of the northern colonies. But others kept their
heads above water by producing only the highest grades of tobacco, for
which the blacks at first were not suited. "I must beg you to remember
that the common people make the best," Gooch wrote in 1731.
But this reprieve was only temporary, for in time the wealthy planter
taught the Africans to produce even the high priced Orinoco. Then the
poor planter had to join the class of slaveholders by making a few
purchases, or sink into abject poverty. That thousands did buy slaves we
know from an examination of the tax lists. In 1716, in Lancaster County,
of some 200 slave-owners, 165 had from one to four only. The only large
owner was the wealthy Robert Carter who had 126.[21]
The replacing of the Virginia yeomanry, the men who cultivated their
holdings with their own hands, by small slaveholders was in many ways a
development to be deplored, but it saved the small farmer class from
extinction, and democracy from a fatal blow. Without it all the eastern
part of the colony and part of the Piedmont would have become a land of
wealthy proprietors and their slaves, and ignorant, degraded,
poverty-stricken whites.
The small slaveholders were fiercely jealous of their rights, both
social and political. From the proud aristocrat they demanded courtesy
and respect. And these the aristocrat thought it wise to accord them,
for he knew that they constituted an overwhelming majority of the
voters. Nor were there anywhere, in the northern colonies or in the
West, more ardent upholders of self-government. In the long struggle for
liberty it was usually the aristocrats who led the way, but they would
have been powerless had they not had the loyal support of the small
eastern farmer as well as the western frontiersman.
And the climax of this struggle was not distant. Walpole resigned in
1752, and his successors were not inclined to let the colonies become
semi-independent little republics. Had their attention not been diverted
by European wars, they would probably have come to grips with the
colonial governments sooner than they did.
At the moment, however, the chief differences between Virginia and the
mother country seemed to be economic rather than constitutional. The
planters had long protested against the Navigation Acts, but they had in
time adjusted themselves to them. To the merchants of England they were
tied by the bonds of mutual interest, for they were dependent upon them
for transporting and disposing of their tobacco, and for bringing them
manufactured goods in return.
But there developed various points of difference. And it became a bitter
grievance to the planters that when these differences were placed before
the British government, the decision always favored the merchants. In
fact, so great was the influence of certain traders that at times their
recommendations to important posts in the colonies were decisive. Among
the best known of these men was Micajah Perry, whose opinion the Board
of Trade frequently sought on matters affecting commerce. It was rumored
that it was he who persuaded the Auditor General to appoint Philip
Ludwell Auditor of Virginia. And when the British government turned down
the recommendation of a Governor in filling a vacancy in the Council in
favor of one by the merchants, it was deeply resented in the colony.
"Your Lordships cannot but be sensible that little regard is likely to
be paid a Governor who shall be supposed to have no interest at your
Lordships' Board," Gooch wrote in 1747.
The people were even more resentful at the insistence of the merchants
in blocking any measure by the Assembly, no matter how beneficial, if
they thought it would lessen their profits. Many of them had invested in
the Royal African Company, and the slave trade to Virginia was booming.
It was stated that black workers were coming in at the rate of 1,500 or
1,600 a year, and at every landing place scores were sold to the highest
bidders. In 1730, out of a total population of 114,000, no less than
30,000 were Negroes.[22] With profits piling up, the merchants wanted no
interference with this trade, however inhuman it was, and however
harmful to the economic and social structure of the colony.
Many thoughtful men in the colony viewed the situation with alarm, not
only because the importation of so many blacks was drying up the stream
of white immigrants from England, but because it was driving out of the
colony poor men who did not want to compete with slave labor. And the
planters had reason to dread slave insurrections. Some of the Africans
were docile enough, but a few resented their bonds fiercely. In 1710 a
conspiracy was discovered in Surry and James City Counties, in which the
Negroes planned to rise, kill all who opposed them, and escape out of
the colony. Several were tried in the General Court, convicted and
executed.[23]
There was much satisfaction when the Assembly, in the revenue act of
1723, tried to stem the tide by placing a duty on the importation of
slaves. But when the act came before the Lords of Trade, the merchants
opposed it vigorously. John Gary, who had lived in Virginia, and later
went to England to enter the tobacco trade, when summoned before the
Board, argued against it. It would ruin the poor planters, he said,
because it would run up the cost of slaves, and they would not be able
to buy enough to cultivate their plantations.[24] This argument, as we
have seen, was not entirely misleading, but it ignored the predicament
of the thousands who could afford not even one, no matter how cheap, and
so sank into great poverty, became "poor white trash." Yet the Board
sided with Cary and his fellow merchants, and in January, 1724, advised
the King to veto the act.
The Assembly, greatly disappointed, five years later made another
attempt, placing a duty of forty shillings a head on the importation of
slaves. Gooch gave them his full support. The merchants would not be
injured by the law, he argued, since the purchasers had to pay the
tax.[25] But the importers did not see it that way, and at their urging
the King disallowed the act.
How bitterly these vetoes were resented in Virginia is shown by a
statement of Thomas Jefferson in his "A Summary View of the Rights of
British America," written in 1774. "The abolition of slavery is the
great object of desire in those colonies, where it was, unhappily,
introduced in their infant state. But previously to the enfranchisement
of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further
importations from Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect this, by
prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to a
prohibition, having been hitherto defeated by his Majesty's negative:
thus preferring the immediate advantages of a few British corsairs to
the lasting interests of the American States, and the rights of human
nature deeply wounded by this infamous practice. Nay, the single
interposition of an interested individual against a law was scarcely
ever known to fail of success, though, in the opposite scale, were
placed the interests of a whole country."[26]
The merchants opposed, not only the duty on slaves, but any other duty
which they thought might lessen imports. The Assembly repeatedly passed
laws to place duties on rum, brandy, wine, cider, beer, and ale, not
because they thought they would debauch the people, but to raise revenue
to meet the needs of the government without resorting to the hated poll
tax. They finally persuaded the merchants that light duties on liquors
would do them no harm. And perhaps the King was persuaded to give his
assent by the urgings of Gooch. "The revenue arising from the duty on
liquors is the best expedient to raise money for defraying the
contingent charges of the government and the chief support of the
College of William and Mary," he wrote. "By it most of the public debts
are paid and the people eased of an intolerable poll tax, which many of
the poorer sort would be unable to pay."
But in 1730 the Assembly went too far when, in the revenue bill of that
year, they exempted Virginia owners from half the tax in a rather
forlorn attempt to build up local shipping. The merchants were
indignant. It was a very partial procedure, they thought, for the
colonists to tax his Majesty's subjects at large to a higher degree than
themselves. Moreover, it set up the shipping of Virginia in opposition
to and in great prejudice to the navigation of Great Britain. Needless
to say the act was disallowed.[27] It was now the turn of the planters
to be indignant. Gooch wrote the Board: "I cannot conceal from your
Lordships the resentment of the people against the merchants."[28]
The Virginians, like the peoples of the other colonies, were angered at
the passage of the Molasses Act, which placed prohibitive duties on the
trade between the British colonies on the American continent and the
foreign West Indies. Virginia's stake in the trade to the French and
Spanish islands was much less than that of New England, but it was great
enough to draw a protest from Gooch. And the good Governor seems to have
winked at the violations of the act. In 1734 he wrote the Lords of
Trade: "As to trade, upon the strictest inquiry I can make I can find
none ... but with Great Britain, the British islands in the West Indies,
and the island of Madeira."[29] The Board might well have asked why it
was, if this were true, that so many Spanish pieces of eight and so many
pistoles and French guineas and crowns were circulating in the colony.
Even more serious than the conflict between planters and merchants over
the restrictions of trade, was the quarrel over debts. The trade with
Great Britain was carried on chiefly by credit, and in times when the
price of tobacco was high and profits good the planters lived well and
spent freely. Then it was that they made heavy purchases of silverware,
handsome furniture, or even blooded horses. And only too often, when
prices of tobacco fell, they could not bring themselves to curtail
expenditures in proportion. In fact, when they placed their orders they
could not foresee just what their year's crop would yield. Many of them
became involved in debt. When they could not meet their obligations, the
merchants demanded that their lands be forfeited. On the other hand, the
planters, from time to time, tried to lessen the burden by paying their
creditors in depreciated paper money.
When the merchants appealed to the Virginia courts to force payment of
debts they found them usually sympathetic with the debtors. Moreover, in
most cases they could not appeal to the British courts for there was a
law forbidding it in cases involving less than L300. For larger suits
the shoe was on the other foot, for when they were taken before the
Privy Council, the advantage was all with the merchants. Residing in
Great Britain, most of them in London, they could appeal in person to
present their cause. Since the prosperity of the kingdom was so
dependent upon its commerce, they always received a sympathetic hearing.
Typical was the suit of the executors of Micajah and Richard Perry to
recover debts from the estate of Colonel William Randolph, who had had a
long-standing account with them. When the Virginia courts decided in
favor of the defendants, the executors of the Perrys appealed to the
King. The Privy Council referred the matter to a commission of four
merchants, three of whom gave it as their judgment that with compound
interest and insurance charges the defendants owed L2,460. So the
verdict of the Virginia court was reversed.
The Council and Burgesses protested in an address to the King. They were
alarmed that this case had been decided without a legal trial by jury,
they said. It had never been the practice to charge "interest upon
interest" in "open running accounts." They thought it wrong that "the
reports of merchants" who were not under oath and were inclined to favor
one another, should be permitted to overrule the verdict of legal
juries. If the planters were to be loaded with whatever charges their
factors thought fit, it would greatly discourage trade and industry.[30]
But they were unprepared for the extreme lengths to which the merchants
would go. At a meeting of the Council in October, 1731, they could
hardly credit their ears when Gooch read them a letter stating that they
were about to present a petition to Parliament concerning the colonies.
They wanted first a law prohibiting the Assemblies from passing any
acts affecting trade and navigation, second, a law making real estate
liable for debts, and third, a law permitting appeals from the Virginia
General Court to the Privy Council in suits involving L100 or more.[31]
Gooch wrote at once to the Board denouncing this attempt to muzzle the
Assembly. "When I considered, my Lords, how long and happily the British
subjects have traded to America and acquired great riches under the
ancient establishment made in these points by the Crown, set forth in
the royal charters and instructions, without seeking to abridge the
people of the plantations of their birthright as Englishmen, or limiting
the Crown in the methods of government, I must confess I was somewhat
startled."[32]
The Council also protested vigorously. It was impossible for the
Assembly to avoid all legislation affecting trade, they said in a letter
to the Board, since it might prohibit certain vitally necessary laws. If
the merchants objected to any act of Assembly, they could lay the matter
before the King. As for making the land of the planters liable for
debts, it was pointed out that there was no law making the lands of the
merchants liable to the demands of the colonists. Yet the factors were
as often in the planters' debt as the planters in theirs. It would
create uneasiness in the minds of a loyal people to find they had not
equal justice. And to allow appeals to the King in cases involving as
little as L100 would be a heavy burden; for the expense of the planter,
who would have to make a voyage to England to defend his rights, would
be as great as the sum involved.[33]
It was no doubt to anticipate any action to forbid legislation in the
colony affecting trade that a clause was added to certain acts
suspending their operation until the King had given his assent. During
Gooch's administration the first such act appropriated L1,000 for the
erection of a lighthouse of brick and stone on Cape Henry, provided
Maryland appropriate a like amount and the King gave his assent. A duty
of one penny a ton was to be levied on all vessels passing the light.
Gooch urged the Lords of Trade to influence Lord Baltimore to recommend
the matter to the Maryland Assembly. But he was treading on dangerous
ground when he suggested that if the Marylanders balked, the Board
secure an act of Parliament "to bind both governments to do that good to
themselves and the trade of Great Britain."[34] Fortunately the Board
refused to take such a drastic step, and it was only in 1772 that the
lighthouse was erected.[35]
Knowing that the King had vetoed the tobacco act of 1713, Gooch took
pains to prepare the minds of the Board of Trade to consider favorably
the new one he was contemplating. The government was being defrauded by
running tobacco into Great Britain without paying the duty there, he
wrote them. It was the practice for sailors to buy "mean and trash
tobacco," and sell it to agents who knew how to dispose of it. "Thus is
the market for the good tobacco damped by the fraudulent importation of
the bad." The remedy was to bring all the tobacco under strict
inspection by sworn officers, all the bad destroyed, and the weight of
every hogshead reported to the commissioners of the customs.
The tobacco act of 1730 provided for warehouses to which all tobacco
must be brought in hogsheads for inspection, where it would be burnt if
of low grade, or stamped if good, and the owner paid in notes which
circulated as money. At the time the price of tobacco was low, and the
planters, especially the small farmers, were in dire need. Gooch
contended that the law would stimulate trade and bring relief.
His arguments were set forth in a printed pamphlet entitled _A Dialogue
between Thomas Sweet-scented, William Orinoco, Planters, both Men of
Good Understanding, and Justice Love-Country_.
Will opened the discussion: "I am sure I have heard a great many
speeches against it at the race-grounds and at the county courts....
Why, pray is it not a clear case, don't we see our tobacco burnt?...
T'was constantly buzzed about as if by this law the rich intended to
ruin the poor."
Justice: "None but the worst villains could suggest such a reflection."
And so the arguments went, with Justice answering every objection.
Gooch claimed that the law in operation benefited the poor. It was the
rich man with his slave labor who was responsible for most of the
"trash" which the inspectors burnt. The small farmer who planted,
tended, and cured his own tobacco produced the best.[36] In fact, he
added, "the greatest encouragement is given to the common people to make
tobacco that could be thought of, for ... they take as many notes for it
as they please, i. e. notes for fifty or a hundred pounds ... [which]
will be accepted as payment at any store or shop." In other words, it
gave them a far more convenient currency than their bulky tobacco. More
convincing to the small farmer than these arguments was the rise in the
price of tobacco which followed the passage of the act. But it must have
been obvious to thoughtful men that no regulation of the tobacco trade
could better the condition of the poor man so long as he had to compete
with slave labor. It was slavery which created a trash far more harmful
than poor tobacco--poor white trash.
Gooch's success in securing the King's assent to the tobacco law was
matched by his success in persuading the Assembly to assist with men and
money in an expedition against New Granada on the northern coast of
South America. In May, 1740, an act was passed to impress men, and in a
few weeks about four hundred had been raised. A ragged, motley crowd
they must have been, for no one was taken who had any lawful occupation
or who had a right to vote.[37] But the officers were from the best
Virginia families, among them Lawrence Washington, half-brother of
George Washington. Later the Assembly voted L5,000 to cover the cost of
feeding and transporting the troops as far as Jamaica, where they were
to join the forces sent out from England.
Former Governor Spotswood had been appointed to lead the colonials, but
when he died before the ships sailed, Governor Gooch, leaving the
government in the hands of the senior Councillor, Commissary Blair, took
over the command. The attack on Cartagena proved a failure. The British
ships could not get near enough to shell the town. When the troops tried
to storm the walls the ladders proved too short, and they were repulsed
with heavy losses. Gooch himself was wounded.
Gooch was knighted in 1746, and made a major general in the British
army. He seems never to have recovered fully from his wound, and from
an illness contracted during the New Granada campaign. Complaining that
he had grown old and infirm, he asked the King for permission to "go
home" to recover his health. To the universal regret of the people of
Virginia, he left for England in the summer of 1749. He died December
17, in London.
Gooch himself gave the key to his administration when he wrote: "The
condition of affairs in this colony may be summed up in two words, peace
and plenty." With many families becoming rich through the settlement of
the West and the growth of the tobacco trade, with many hundreds of
small farmers acquiring a degree of well-being by the purchase of a few
slaves, with no immediate threat from the Indians on the frontier, with
Governor and Council maintaining cordial relations, with the Governor
cooperating with the Assembly and not trying to dominate it, with rapid
strides being made toward the goal of self-government, the years of
Gooch's administration may aptly be termed the golden era of Virginia
colonial history.
Many of the addresses of various bodies to the Virginia Governors lack
the ring of sincerity, because they were obtained by bribery or threats.
But the Council, in 1736, seem to have spoken from their hearts when
they told Gooch: "As for us, Sir, who have the honor to be the near
witnesses of the prudence, moderation, and justice of your
administration, we should be unjust to ourselves, as well as ungrateful
to your character, if we ... did not declare that we esteem the quiet
and tranquillity which this colony has enjoyed under your government as
one of the greatest public blessings."
The Burgesses were even more articulate: "We are very sensible how much
the colony owes to your good conduct in the government, and that all
your actions are directed to a faithful discharge of your duty to his
Majesty and to promote our common good. And should we distrust so just
and upright a magistrate it would be discountenancing a virtuous
administration, and making no difference between that and the greatest
enormities, tyranny, and oppression. Or should we withhold our
confidence from a person who for so many years has never once abused it,
we might justly be reckoned an unworthy representative of a grateful
people."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Leonidas Dodson, _Alexander Spotswood_, 270, 271.
[2] _Sainsbury transcripts_ 9: 74, 75.
[3] _Journals of the House of Burgesses_, 1712-1726: 402.
[4] _Ibid._, 419.
[5] _Sainsbury transcripts_, 9: 121.
[6] _Ibid._, 134.
[7] _Ibid._, xlix, 1.
[8] _Executive journals of the Council_ 4: 40.
[9] _Journals of the House of Burgesses_, 1712-1726: 1.
[10] _Executive journals of the Council_ 4: 114.
[11] _Journals of the House of Burgesses_, 1727-1740: 242.
[12] Gooch to the Lords of Trade, Feb. 12, 1728; Aug. 9, 1728.
[13] W. W. Hening, _Statutes at large_ 4: 292.
[14] July 23, 1730.
[15] W. W. Hening, _Statutes at large_ 4: 475.
[16] Gooch to the Lords of Trade, Oct. 5, 1736.
[17] _Journals of the House of Burgesses_, 1742-1749: xxvii, xxviii.
[18] Gooch to the Lords of Trade, June 8, 1728.
[19] W. W. Hening, _Statutes at large_ 4: 279.
[20] July 23, 1730.
[21] _William and Mary Quarterly_ 2: 106-122.
[22] CO5-1322, Report of Gooch.
[23] _Executive journals of the Council_ 3: 234, 235.
[24] _Sainsbury transcripts_ 9: 112.
[25] June 8, 1728.
[26] _The writings of Thomas Jefferson_, A. A. Lipscomb, ed. 1: 201.
[27] CO5-1322, pp. 287, 317.
[28] Oct. 22, 1731.
[29] May 24, 1734.
[30] _Journals of the House of Burgesses_, 1712-1726: 422-424.
[31] _Executive journals of the Council_ 4: 252.
[32] July 10, 1731.
[33] Council to the Lords of Trade, Jan. 1, 1732.
[34] June 8, 1728.
[35] W. W. Hening, _Statutes at large_ 6: 227.
[36] Gooch to the Lords of Trade, Feb. 27, 1731.
[37] W. W. Hening, _Statutes at large_ 5: 94-96.