INDEPENDENCE
It was in October, 1768, when news reached Virginia that Norborne
Berkeley, Lord Botetourt, had kissed the King's hand as Governor
General. The unrest in the colony had convinced the Privy Council that
the government "should no longer be administered by a substitute." So
when Sir Jeffrey Amherst declined "going over to America," it was
decided to appoint one who would go. For the first time since the death
of Nott, Virginia had a resident Governor General. The people of the
colony regarded this as a singular honor. When Botetourt arrived in
Williamsburg, he found the members of the Council, the Speaker of the
House, the Attorney General, and other prominent men waiting to receive
him at the gate of the Capitol yard. After they had gone in to the
Council Chamber, where the new Governor administered the oath, they
stepped over to the Raleigh Tavern for supper. Then Botetourt was
escorted to the Palace through the illuminated Duke of Gloucester Street
and the Palace Green.[1]
If the British Government had hoped to please the people of Virginia in
sending them a Governor General, they were not disappointed. "All ranks
vied with each other in testifying their gratitude and joy that a
nobleman of such distinguished merit and abilities is appointed to
preside over and live among them."[2] But it was not so much his rank as
his personality which won all hearts. He was easily accessible, affable
to the humblest visitor, sympathetic with the people's grievances.
The new Governor was at once confronted with grave issues. In May, 1767,
Charles Townshend had secured an act of Parliament placing duties on
glass, lead, painters' colors, and tea imported into the colonies. It
was expressly stated that the revenue was to be used to pay the salaries
of British officials in America. Another act was passed to enforce the
trade laws, and still another to suspend the New York Assembly for its
defiance of the Billeting Act.
Again all America seethed. It is obvious, men told each other, that the
British Government will not be content until they have made slaves of
us. At first they claimed that they were seeking nothing more of us than
a revenue. Now they openly avow that these new duties are to be used to
make British officials in America independent of the Assemblies. That
would be the final triumph of royal authority.
So when Botetourt dissolved the old Assembly and called for a new
election, the people selected their ablest and most patriotic men. Among
them were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Richard
Henry Lee, Henry Lee, and Edmund Pendleton. When they met, in May, 1769,
Governor Botetourt entered an elegant coach which had been presented to
him by King George III, on it the insignia of royalty, drawn by six
milk-white horses, and drove from the Palace to the Capitol. After the
usual address to the Assembly and the replies of the Council and the
Burgesses, Botetourt entertained many of the members at dinner.
In the previous February the Governor had written the Lords of Trade
warning them of the temper of the people. "I must not venture to flatter
your Lordships that they will ever willingly submit to being taxed by
the mother country. The reverse is their creed. They universally avow a
most ardent desire to assist upon every occasion, but pray to be allowed
to do it in consequence of requisition."[3]
It seems strange, then, that he should have been surprised to hear that
the Burgesses had passed several resolutions asserting the rights of the
people. They declared that the sole right of imposing taxes "is now, and
ever hath been" constitutionally vested in the House of Burgesses; that
the people have the right to petition the sovereign for redress of
grievances; and that trials for crimes committed in the colony should be
tried in the Virginia courts.[4]
The next day the Governor summoned the Council and Burgesses to the
Council Chamber, where he said he had heard of the resolutions, that he
predicted they would have an ill effect, and that according to his duty,
he dissolved them.
But the Burgesses would not be silenced. Filing out of the Capitol, they
went to the nearby Raleigh Tavern for an unofficial session. After they
had elected Peyton Randolph moderator, they discussed the serious
problems facing the colony. They then appointed a committee to draw up a
plan for an association, and adjourned until the next day.
The report of the committee, which was signed by eighty-eight men is a
document of the greatest importance in the history of the clash between
the American colonies and Great Britain. It spoke of the "grievances and
distresses" with which the people were oppressed, of the evils which
threatened their ruin and the ruin of their posterity by reducing them
"from a free and happy people to a wretched and miserable state of
slavery." They denounced "the restrictions, prohibitions, and
ill-advised regulations in several late acts of Parliament," and
declared that the "unconstitutional act imposing duties on tea, paper,
glass, etc. for the sole purpose of raising a revenue in America is
injurious to property, and destructive to liberty."[5] Those who signed
the association promised to discourage luxury and extravagance, agreed
not to import goods taxed by Parliament or any of a long list of
commodities, until the hated duties were removed.
After all had affixed their signatures, they gathered around the punch
bowl to drink a series of toasts--to the King, the Queen and the Royal
Family, Lord Botetourt, A Speedy and lasting Union between Great Britain
and her Colonies, The Constitutional British Liberty in America and all
true Patriots, the Supporters thereof, the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of
Shelburne, Colonel Barre, the late Speaker, etc. At last, either because
the liquor or the toasts gave out, the meeting came to an end.[6]
It was while the Assembly was in session that Secretary Hillsborough
wrote Botetourt assuring him that the King's ministers would soon
propose the repeal of the obnoxious duties. Whereupon the Governor
called an Assembly and laid the joyous news before them. But the
Burgesses must have seen the joker in the announcement when they noted
that the repeal would be based, not on any illegality in the duties, but
on the fact that they had been laid "contrary to the true principles of
commerce."[7]
Yet Botetourt was all optimism. "I will be content to be declared
infamous if I do not to the last hour of my life ... exert every power
with which I am or ever shall be legally invested ... to obtain and
maintain for the continent of America that satisfaction which I have
been authorized to promise by the confidential servant of our gracious
sovereign." Some months later, when the Virginians learned just how the
Ministry had carried out this promise, Botetourt had reason to think
that he had been led into deceiving them. It is true that all the duties
had been taken off save that on tea. But so far from considering this a
favor, the colonists resented it as a bait to make them acknowledge the
right of Parliament to tax them. The resentment of the people was all
the greater because of their disappointment. Hillsborough's promise had
made them lax in enforcing the association, so in June, 1770, they
organized a new one. A long list of imported goods were to be boycotted,
industry was to be encouraged, prices were not to be advanced. To see
that the agreement was carried out committees were to be organized in
every county to examine invoices and expose violators.
It was unfortunate for Virginia that Botetourt's administration was
short. He died October 15, 1770. "Truly and justly to express the many
great virtues and amiable qualities which adorned this noble lord, as
well in his public as private character, would demand the skill of the
ablest penman," stated the death notice in the _Gazette_. "Virginia, in
his fall, sorely laments the loss of the best of Governors and the best
of men."[8]
A few days later a sorrowful procession moved from the Palace to Bruton
Parish Church, amid the tolling of the bells in the church, the college,
and the Capitol. In front of and beside the hearse were eight mourners
carrying staffs draped in black, around them were the pallbearers--six
Councillors and the Speaker of the House. Then followed the Governor's
servants, the clergy, the professors of the college, the Williamsburg
officials preceded by the city mace, and many others, all having white
hatbands and gloves. After the service in the church the procession
moved to the Wren Building where the lead casket, covered with a crimson
velvet cloth, was placed in a vault below the floor of the chapel.[9]
As a token of affection the Assembly employed Richard Hayward, of
London, to make a marble statue of Botetourt, which arrived in 1773 and
was set up in the piazza of the Capitol. Later it was mutilated by a
crowd of vandals as an expression of their hostility to all things
British. In 1801 the College of William and Mary acquired it and removed
it to the campus in front of the Wren Building, where it stands today an
object of veneration for faculty, students, and alumni.
The grief of the people at the loss of Botetourt would have been all the
greater had they known who was to be his successor. At the time John
Murray, Earl of Dunmore, was Governor of New York, where he was regarded
with contempt. At a feast of the Sons of St. Andrew he got drunk, acted
like "a damned fool," and "sank himself" so low with vile language that
the entire company was abashed. When word reached him that he was to be
transferred to Virginia, he expressed resentment. "Damn Virginia!" he
cried. "Why is it forced on me? I asked for New York. New York I love
and they have robbed me of it." At a farewell dinner given in his honor,
"he took too cheerful a glass," and got into a fight.[10]
The people of Virginia were probably not aware of Dunmore's character,
for they greeted him cordially upon his arrival in Williamsburg, late in
September, 1771. In the evening the city was illuminated, with a candle
in every window, as a testimony of joy at his Excellency's safe
arrival.[11]
The time was auspicious, for there was a lull in the controversy with
the mother country. Though the duty on tea had not been removed, there
was general hope that all differences could be adjusted. It is true that
Dunmore aroused suspicion by trying to create new fees with which to pay
his secretary, but his promptness in relinquishing them soon dissipated
it. "A ball and elegant entertainment" at the Capitol given by the
Burgesses in his honor testified to a spirit of cordiality.
It was just this lull which alarmed some of the younger leaders in
Virginia. As long as the tax on tea remained they realized that the
danger to liberty persisted. So when the Assembly met in the spring of
1773, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, and others
held private consultations in the Raleigh Tavern on how to awaken the
people, not only of Virginia, but of all the colonies, to the need of a
common defense.[12]
A momentous series of meetings they proved to be, for out of them came
the intercolonial system of committees of correspondence and the
Continental Congress. "We were all sensible that the most urgent of all
measures was that of coming to an understanding with all the other
colonies to consider the British claims as a common cause to all, and to
produce a unity of action," Jefferson stated afterward. "And for this
purpose that a committee of correspondence in each colony would be the
best instrument for intercommunication. And that their first measure
would probably be to propose a meeting of deputies from every colony, at
some central place, who should be charged with the direction of the
measures to be taken by all."[13]
On March 13, the resolution to appoint the committee of correspondence
for Virginia was introduced in the House of Burgesses by Dabney Carr,
and adopted unanimously. To the committee were appointed some of the
first men in the colony--Peyton Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, Richard
Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Edmund Pendleton, etc.
William Lee, writing from London, said that this action "struck a
greater panic into the Ministers" than anything since the passage of the
Stamp Act. And well it might, for soon the entire country was covered
with committees, who kept in close touch with each other, formulated
public opinion, and prepared the way for revolutionary action.
The need for these bodies became glaringly evident when the British
Government adopted a policy of repression which aroused the spirit of
resistance to the highest pitch. At the time the East India Company was
on the verge of bankruptcy. In order to save it the government agreed to
remit the long-standing duty of twelve pence a pound on tea entering
Great Britain. When the tea was re-exported to America the price, even
after the three pence duty there had been paid, would be nine pence less
than formerly. George III approved of the plan heartily, and confidently
expected the colonists to swallow the pill of Parliamentary taxation,
now that it was coated with the sugar of reduced prices.
Never was a man more mistaken. The Americans, after struggling for a
century and a half to win liberty, were not going to sell it for a cup
of tea. When the East India Company ships arrived, angry mobs forced
some to turn back with their cargoes, some were boarded and the tea
destroyed. When the brigantine _Mary and Jane_ arrived in Norfolk with
nine chests of tea, a crowded meeting at the courthouse demanded that
they be sent back. When the importers complied they received a vote of
thanks.[14] The York County committee, headed by Thomas Nelson, debated
whether a ship which came in with two chests of tea should not be burnt,
but contented themselves with forcing her to leave without the expected
cargo of tobacco.
Tea was banned in every patriotic household. One evening at Nomini Hall,
Mrs. Robert Carter made "a dish of tea" for her husband. "He smelt,
sipt, looked." "What is this?" he asked. Then "splash" he emptied the
cup in the fire.[15] But what chiefly aroused the ire of the British
Ministry was the so-called Boston Tea Party, when fifty or sixty men,
disguised as Indians, boarded the tea ships and threw box after box in
the harbor, while a large crowd looked on and applauded.
This provoked the British Government into making their most serious
blunder--the passage of what the Americans called the "Intolerable
Acts." The port of Boston was closed; the Massachusetts government was
altered to increase the power of the Governor; in certain cases accused
persons might be sent to England for trial; the Governors were
authorized to requisition buildings for the use of royal troops; the
boundaries of the province of Quebec were extended to the Mississippi on
the west and the Ohio on the south.
The American patriots now realized that they must act with vigor and
firmness or lose all that they held most dear. The King and Parliament
were determined to force the issue. When the Virginia Assembly met in
May, 1774, Henry, Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, and several others met
in the Council Chamber in the Capitol to agree on some measure to arouse
the people to a sense of the danger. After some discussion it was
decided to propose to the Burgesses that they make June 1, the date set
for the closing of the port of Boston, a day of general fasting and
prayer. The resolution was introduced by Robert Carter Nicholas, and
passed without opposition.[16]
[Illustration: Lord Dunmore. From the copy in the possession of the
Virginia Historical Society of the original portrait by Sir Joshua
Reynolds.]
[Illustration: The Governor's Palace, Williamsburg. Courtesy of
Colonial Williamsburg, Inc.]
The resolution stated that it was necessary to have a day of "fasting,
humiliation, and prayer, devoutly to implore the divine interposition
for averting the heavy calamity which threatens destruction to our civil
rights, and the evils of civil war; to give us one heart and mind firmly
to oppose, by all just and proper means, every injury to American
rights; and that the minds of his Majesty and his Parliament may be
inspired from above with wisdom, moderation, and justice to remove from
the loyal people of America all cause of danger from a continued pursuit
of measures pregnant with ruin." Dunmore thought the resolution
reflected on the King and Parliament, and so made it necessary for him
to dissolve the Assembly.[17]
But on June 1, in all parts of Virginia, the people dropped their daily
tasks to assemble in the churches. Every face reflected the universal
alarm, as the eastern aristocrat, the frontiersman in his buckskin
clothes, the great landholder, and the small planter knelt in prayer. In
Williamsburg the citizens and as many of the Burgesses as had remained
in town, assembled at the courthouse and moved in solemn procession to
the church to listen to a sermon by the chaplain of the House.[18] There
had been no such solemn occasion since the French and Indian War, and it
came as an electric shock to the people.[19]
In the meanwhile, events of great importance were taking place in
Williamsburg. When Dunmore dissolved the Assembly, the Burgesses,
instead of dispersing, met as they had done five years before in the
Raleigh Tavern. Here, as they sat in the beautiful Apollo Room, they
renewed the association to boycott English goods; proposed to the
committees of correspondence in every colony that they appoint deputies
to a continental Congress; and suggested that each county in Virginia
should elect representatives to a convention to meet at Williamsburg on
August 1.[20]
Despite their revolutionary activities, the members of the Assembly
maintained cordial relations with the Governor. When Lady Dunmore joined
her husband earlier in the spring, she was greeted with cheers by the
people of Williamsburg. On May 26, the Burgesses gave a ball and
entertainment in the Capitol in her honor. My lady seems to have been a
most graceful dancer. When she and the Governor visited Norfolk where a
ball was given them, the city authorities sent to Princess Anne County
for Colonel Moseley to come "with his famous wig and shining buckles" to
dance the minuet with her. So when the fiddles struck up away she went
"sailing about the room in her great, fine hoop-petticoat, and Colonel
Moseley after her wig and all."[21]
Most of the Burgesses of the Assembly of 1774 had hardly rested from
their journey home when they had to repack their saddlebags, mount their
horses, and set out again for Williamsburg to attend the provincial
convention. When they had assembled they once more renewed the
association, and then proceeded to the election of delegates to the
Continental Congress. Randolph was chosen because it was thought he
would preside, Washington because he might be called on to command the
army, Henry and Richard Henry Lee because of their eloquence, Bland,
Harrison, and Pendleton because of their ability as political leaders.
As these men turned their faces toward Philadelphia, their minds must
have reverted to the series of violations of the rights of the people
which had brought on the crisis. The questions George Washington asked
himself no doubt were in the minds of all. "Does it not appear as clear
as the sun in its meridian brightness that there is a regular,
systematic plan formed to fix the right and practice of taxation upon
us?... Does not the uniform conduct of Parliament for some years past
confirm this?... Is not the attack upon the liberty and property of the
people of Boston ... a plain and self-evident proof of what they are
aiming at? Do not subsequent bills ... convince us that the
administration is determined to stick at nothing to carry its
point?"[22]
Congress met in the "plain and spacious rooms" on the lower floor of
Carpenter's Hall which had been completed four years before. After some
debate they adopted a Declaration of Rights and Grievances, stating the
American case against taxation without representation and demanding the
repeal of the "unpolitic, unjust, cruel, and unconstitutional"
Intolerable Acts. They then framed a "Continental Association" to be
enforced by local committees.
The Association proved remarkably successful. To this Dunmore himself
bore testimony. To the Earl of Hillsborough he wrote in December, 1774:
"The Associations ... recommended by the people of this colony, and
adopted by what is called the Continental Congress, are now enforcing
throughout this country with the greatest rigor. A committee has been
chosen in every county whose business it is to carry the Association of
the Congress into execution, which committee assumes an authority to
inspect the books, invoices, and all the secrets of the trade and
correspondence of the merchants, to watch the conduct of every
inhabitant without distinction, and send for all such as come under
their suspicion into their presence, to interrogate them ...and to
stigmatize, as they term it, such as they find transgressing what they
are hardy enough to call the laws of Congress."[23]
The American patriots were greatly encouraged by the support they
received from many of the ablest men in Great Britain. These men were
shocked at the disregard by Parliament of the principle that no man
should be taxed without his own consent. Pitt declared that if America
fell the British Constitution would fall with her. When troops were sent
to Boston, the Duke of Richmond blurted out: "I hope from the bottom of
my heart that the Americans may resist and get the better of the forces
sent against them."
Today one wonders how the King and Parliament could have turned a deaf
ear to the ringing words of Edmund Burke in his famous address on
"Conciliation with the Colonies." "As long as you have the wisdom to
keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of
liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the
chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their
faces toward you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will
have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be
their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere--it is a seed that grows
in every soil.... But, until you become lost to all feeling of your true
interest and your national dignity, freedom they can have from none but
you.... Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole
bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the
Empire.... It is the spirit of the English Constitution which, infused
through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies
every part of the Empire, even down to the minutest members."[24]
In the revolutionary changes in Virginia it was the House of Burgesses,
not the Council, who took the lead. Washington, Henry, Jefferson,
Pendleton, Richard Henry Lee, George Mason were all Burgesses. In fact
the members of the Council were placed in a most embarrassing position.
Appointed by the King to aid and advise the royal Governor, they owed a
double allegiance--to Crown and country. To them the breach was a
tragedy, the choice of allegiance a difficult one. So for the most part
they played a negative role. In the Council meetings they usually voted
with the Governor. But as the crisis grew more acute they drifted away
from him to join their countrymen in resisting the assaults on their
liberty.
John Page, Junior, in Council supported Dunmore in dissolving the
Assembly in May, 1774; yet he remained in town and joined the Burgesses
in the procession to the church on the fast day.[25] On the other hand,
Robert Carter, though he had refused to drink a cup of tea, would not
permit any of his family to observe the day. "By this I conclude he is a
courtier," wrote Fithian in his _Diary_. But he did not long remain a
"courtier." "The enemies of government are so numerous and so vigilant
over the conduct of every man that the loyalists have been so
intimidated that they have entirely shrunk away," wrote Dunmore in July,
1775. "Even the Council ... approves everything done by the Burgesses."
The only members he could rely upon were Ralph Wormeley, Gawin Corbin,
and the Reverend John Camm.[26] The rest, while not subscribing to the
Association, adhered strictly to it.
But John Randolph, the Attorney General, remained faithful to the King
to the end. His opposition to the resolutions denouncing the Stamp Act,
the boycott, and the calling of the provincial and Continental
Congresses brought down on him the wrath of the patriots. Dunmore stated
that he was insulted, his life threatened, and his home destroyed.[27]
In 1775 he sailed for England with his family, never to return.
In the fall of 1774 Dunmore brought on himself the hatred of the
Virginia frontiersmen by his conduct in a war with the western Indians.
Placing himself in command of one force, and General Andrew Lewis of
another, he gave the order to advance. Lewis defeated the famous chief
Comstock in the bloody battle of Point Pleasant, but Dunmore, ignoring
the chance to deliver a crushing blow, made a treaty of peace with the
Indians.
The frontiersmen, as they turned their faces homeward, cursed the
Governor as a traitor, who spared the Indians because he planned to use
them against the Virginians should they go to war with Great Britain.
Nor were their suspicions groundless, for a few months later Dunmore
wrote the Earl of Dartmouth that if the King would send him "a small
body of troops" and arms and ammunition, he could raise "such a force
among Indians, Negroes, and other persons" as would soon reduce Virginia
to obedience.[28]
But at this moment obedience was far from the minds of the people. On
March 20, 1775, the second Provincial Congress met in St. John's Church,
Richmond. The place was but a straggling village, but it was more
centrally located than Williamsburg, and further away from the British
warships in the York River. The delegates were unanimous in approving
the proceedings of the Continental Congress, and in thanking the
Virginia representatives for their services. But it soon became evident
that they were divided on the vital question of preparing for war. When
Henry introduced resolutions for putting the colony in a state of
defense by arming and disciplining a force of militia, some of the
leading members drew back. War was unthinkable, they said. The country
was too weak, too defenseless, too open to invasion. The only hope was
for reconciliation, for the mediation of America's friends in
Parliament.
This brought Henry to his feet. "What has there been in the conduct of
the British Ministry for the last ten years to justify hope? Are fleets
and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? These are the
instruments of subjugation sent over to rivet upon us the chains which
the British Ministry have been so long forging. What have we to oppose
them? Shall we try argument? We have been trying that for the last ten
years.... Shall we resort to entreaty and supplication? We have
petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated; and we have been
spurned from the foot of the throne.... If we wish to be free we must
fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!... Is life so dear or peace so
sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it,
Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me,
give me liberty or give me death."[29] Henry's eloquence carried the
day, yet so fraught with danger was the issue, that his motion was
carried by a majority of five only.
A few days later Dunmore wrote to Dartmouth denouncing the proceedings
of the Convention. "The most dangerous, as well as the most daring
attempt is the resolution which is adopted for raising a body of armed
men, horse and foot as well. The plan for imbodying, arming, and
disciplining of which is by these resolutions published as the final
order for putting the same into execution."
Almost overnight Virginia was converted into an armed camp. Everywhere
there was the sound of drums, the sharp commands of drillmasters,
marching and countermarching. Even in Williamsburg the streets were full
of men with arms in their hands. In the Valley of Virginia, Fithian
jotted down in his _Diary_ on June 6: "Here every presence is warlike,
every sound is martial! Drums beating, fifes and bagpipes playing....
Every man had a hunting-shirt, which is the uniform of each company.
Almost all have a cockade and bucktail in their hats to represent that
they are hardy, resolute, and invincible natives of the woods of
America."[30]
These warlike preparations drove Dunmore to take a step, which aroused
the fury of the patriots. In Williamsburg there still stands a little
octagonal building which was used as a magazine in colonial days. Here
were stored twenty barrels of powder and several guns. To keep the
independent companies from seizing the powder the Governor ordered a
party of sailors to take it on board an armed schooner nearby in the
James River. Before daybreak, on April 20, they made off with most of
it, and it was later put on board the _Fowey_ man-of-war.[31]
Despite the gloom of early dawn the removal of the powder was observed,
and the beating of drums gave the alarm. The independent companies got
under arms, the people assembled, and the Governor was threatened with
violence unless he returned the powder. The mayor and other city
officers, leaving the troops nearby, went to the Palace with an address
which Dunmore thought amounted to a peremptory demand for the powder.
Should he refuse they could not answer for the dreadful consequences.
The Governor not only refused, but prepared to resist any attack with
the aid of several British officers and a few men from the warships. Had
not Peyton Randolph and Robert Carter Nicholas persuaded the angry
troops to disperse, the war in Virginia would have begun with an assault
on the Palace. As it was, parties of armed men continued to pour into
Williamsburg, and word came that several hundred cavalry were at
Fredericksburg, ready to march, and that Patrick Henry was leading a
force up from the south. In alarm the Governor sent Lady Dunmore and his
children to one of the warships, and threatened to arm the slaves and
reduce Williamsburg to ashes.[32]
The more conservative leaders among the Virginians, who were still
hoping for a compromise with Great Britain, were able, though with great
difficulty, to restrain the troops. At Fredericksburg the men pledged
themselves to be in readiness at a moment's notice to defend the laws,
the liberties, and the rights of Virginia and any sister colony, and
then dispersed.[33] Henry's force got within fifteen miles of
Williamsburg, and halted only when Richard Corbin, the Receiver General,
paid for the powder from the royal funds by handing him a bill of
exchange for L330.
Fate decreed that hostilities should begin, not in Virginia, but in
Massachusetts. The Virginia delegates were just preparing to leave for
the second Continental Congress when the news of the skirmish at
Lexington and Concord arrived. New England was already at war. The
question in everyone's mind was, would the rest of the country follow?
Washington's answer was to wear his military uniform. Along the road he
and the other Virginia delegates were cheered on by crowds of
enthusiastic people, amid the blaring of bands and the firing of guns.
It was with difficulty that some of the conservative members of Congress
prevented a declaration of independence. And though a petition to the
King was agreed on, the taking over of the New England army around
Boston and appointing Washington commander in chief, was in effect a
declaration of war. Yet, as Washington was leaving for the east to draw
the sword, Pendleton returned to Virginia to resume his post as Speaker
in a last attempt to re-establish the old government.
He was welcomed to Williamsburg like a conquering hero. A detachment of
cavalry met him at the Pamunkey River and escorted him the rest of the
way. Two miles from the city they were joined by a company of infantry.
At sunset, as they entered Williamsburg, they were received by the
ringing of bells and the cheers of the crowds in the streets. At dark
every house was illuminated.
Dunmore thought "this pompous military exhibition" had been planned "to
raise the importance of the members of this new created power, the
Congress, before the people." And the "appearance of numbers of the
Burgesses in the clothes of the American troops, wearing a shirt of
coarse linen or canvas over their clothes and a tomahawk by their
sides," added fuel to the fire.[34]
The Assembly had been in session but three days when several overzealous
young men broke into the magazine to take out some of the arms. They
stumbled against a cord which had been attached to a gun pointed at the
entrance, which went off wounding two of them. This aroused the people
to action, and the next day at noon an angry crowd, among them several
Burgesses, entered the magazine and carried off about 400 stand of arms.
A committee of the House of Burgesses persuaded the people to return the
arms, and then set a military guard around the magazine. "So the custody
of the magazine and public stores is thus wrested out of the hands of
the Governor," complained Dunmore.[35]
At the opening of the Assembly the Governor began by urging the
acceptance of the resolutions which Lord North had pushed through
Parliament in February, as the basis for reconciliation. These
resolutions promised that if any colony would raise of its own authority
the cost of its own government, Parliament would not tax that colony. In
other words, if the Americans guaranteed to pay into the hands of the
King's Governors funds sufficient to make them independent of the
Assemblies, Parliament would not take their money from them to do so.
The Burgesses must have been indignant when Dunmore told them that he
had strong hopes a consideration of this offer would bring to an end the
disputes with the mother country.[36]
The reply of the Burgesses, which was almost certainly written by
Jefferson, is notable because of the clearness with which it exposed the
unconstitutionally of the British position. They had viewed the proposal
with pain and disappointment, for it merely changed the form of
oppression without lightening its burden. "The British government has no
right to intermeddle with the support of civil government in the
colonies. For us, not for them, has government been instituted here....
We cannot conceive that any other legislature has a right to prescribe
either the number or pecuniary appointment of our officers." The claim
of Parliament of the right to tax the people of the colony had no
precedent. Even the act of 1680 giving the King a perpetual revenue was
passed, not by Parliament, but by his Majesty "with the consent of the
General Assembly."[37]
The Burgesses were not willing to purchase exemption from an unjust
taxation by saddling the people with a perpetual tax to be disposed of
by the King or Parliament. "We have a right to give our money as the
Parliament does theirs, without coercion.... It is not merely the mode
of raising, but the freedom of granting our money for which we have
contended, without which we possess no check on the royal prerogative."
Upon receiving assurance that no harm was intended his family, Dunmore
had brought them back to the Palace. But on June 8, before daybreak, he,
Lady Dunmore, the children, his secretary, and some of the servants
stole out and went on board the _Fowey_. "My house was kept in continued
alarm and threatened every night with an assault," Dunmore explained.
"Surrounded as I was by armed men ... and situated so far from any place
where men-of-war can approach, ... I could not think it safe to continue
in that city."[38]
The Assembly urged the Governor to return, but he refused. So on the
night of June 24, a large body of men forced their way into the Palace
by bursting open a window, and carried off several hundred stand of arms
which had been kept in the hall. Some days later another group entered
the building, went from room to room breaking into cabinets, and
carried off arms of various sorts.[39]
And now Williamsburg became an armed camp. Bands of horse and foot, in
uniforms and each company displaying their distinctive badge flocked in.
Some of them lodged in the Capitol, the cavalry encamped on the Palace
Green.[40] One wonders whether these men knew that a century earlier
Nathaniel Bacon had assembled his men on or near this spot, or whether
any of them realized that they had fought for the same cause as they,
the cause of liberty?
With Dunmore on the _Fowey_ and the Assembly in Williamsburg, the
remainder of the session was rather futile. There was renewed bickering
over the removal of the powder, the Burgesses drew up a long address to
the Governor criticizing his administration, and accusing him of
misrepresenting conditions in Virginia in one of his letters to the Earl
of Dartmouth. The Assembly adjourned on June 24, until October 12, and
on that date, when only thirty-seven members showed up, adjourned again
until March 7, 1776. This time less than a fourth of the Burgesses
attended, and immediately adjourned to May 6, when several members met,
"but did neither proceed to business nor adjourn, as a House of
Burgesses." And so died the Virginia Assembly after more than a century
and a half of existence, in which it had fought and won the good battle
for liberty. It now remained for other bodies to defend and preserve
that liberty for future generations.[41]
Even while the Assembly was in session the government, in reality, had
passed into the hands of the conventions and the committees of safety.
As early as December, 1774, Dunmore wrote that the royal government had
been "entirely overthrown." "There is not a justice of peace in Virginia
that acts except as a committeeman. The abolishing of the courts of
justice was the first step taken, in which the men of fortune and
pre-eminence joined equally with the lowest and meanest. The General
Court ... is in much the same predicament."[42] All that was needed to
take the government completely out of the hands of the Governor and the
Assembly was an executive head. And this was supplied by the third
convention which met in Richmond in July, 1775, by the appointment of a
"general committee of safety."
To this body were appointed some of the ablest men in the
colony--Pendleton, George Mason, John Page, Richard Bland, Thomas
Ludwell Lee, and others. It was given almost dictatorial powers, for it
had the supervision of military affairs, appointing officers, collecting
supplies, and naming paymasters; it corresponded with the county
committees, arrested Loyalists, held inquiries.[43]
The convention, having created a body to take over the functions
formerly exercised by the Governor and Council, itself practically
replaced the dying Assembly. It prepared for the defense of the colony
by raising two regular regiments and several thousand minutemen,
reorganizing the militia, and setting up works for the manufacture of
arms and powder. It authorized the Treasurer to issue L350,000 of paper
money. It levied taxes on tithables, coaches, land, licenses, legal
papers, etc.[44]
A state of war now existed. If they could have laid hands on Dunmore,
the patriots no doubt would have kept him in confinement. And on one
occasion he barely escaped. It was in July that he went in a barge to a
farm which he owned on a creek about seven miles from Williamsburg. He
and Captain Montague, of the _Fowey_, had just finished dinner when the
servants rushed in to warn them that the Americans were coming. They had
barely time to run to their boat and push off. Two of their men were
captured, and another, jumping into a canoe, paddled desperately with
bullets whizzing past his head.[45]
As early as May, 1775, Dunmore wrote Dartmouth that he could not
maintain even an appearance of authority without "a force to support
it." Dartmouth replied that he was sending him 3,000 stand of arms, 200
rounds of powder and ball for each musket, and four light brass cannon.
"I see that Gage has ordered sent you a detachment of the Fourteenth
Regiment. I hope with the Negroes, Indians, etc., you can reduce
Virginia.... It is the King's firm resolution that the most vigorous
efforts should be made, by sea and land, to reduce his rebellious
subjects to obedience."[46]
Dunmore was soon in control of Virginia waters. The sloop of war _Otter_
arrived late in June, the _Mercury_, carrying twenty guns, on July 10,
to be followed by the _Liverpool_, a frigate of twenty-eight guns; the
_Kingfisher_, and the _Dunmore_. But the Governor was never able to
raise a land force capable of contending with the Virginians. With the
arrival of seventy men from St. Augustine and one company from Rhode
Island to add to the marines, he could muster about 200 men. This small
force he hoped would be a nucleus for an army of Tories and Negroes, and
on November 7 he issued a proclamation declaring martial law, summoning
all "loyal" citizens to join him, and offering freedom to any slaves who
would take up arms for the King.[47]
In the meanwhile, he had moved with his little fleet into the Elizabeth
River. It was necessary for him to find provisions, and he counted upon
the Scottish merchants of Norfolk and other Tories in the lower counties
to supply him. When the local committee of safety denounced all who sent
food out to the ships as enemies of liberty, he threatened to bombard
the city.
The Norfolk printer, John Holt, ignoring the guns of the warships which
pointed out over the town, continued to issue his gazette and to urge
the people not to give up their liberty. On September 30 a party of
British rowed ashore, marched to the printing office, and carried off
the press, the type, the ink, the paper, and two of the printers. As
they embarked they gave three huzzas, in which a crowd of Negroes
joined. "I am now going to have a press for the King," Dunmore said.[48]
On November 16, Dunmore took possession of Norfolk, where he raised the
royal standard. To his great satisfaction the Scottish merchants and
their clerks, some Negroes, and others took the oath. He then began to
fortify the city with earthworks.[49] He would have done better to build
forts at different points on the long, circuitous road by which alone
Norfolk could be approached, between the Dismal Swamp and the heads of
several branches of the Elizabeth River. Not until it was too late did
he fortify Great Bridge where the Southern Branch flowed between two
marshes, each crossed by a long causeway.
In the meanwhile, the Virginia troops had been concentrating at
Williamsburg, under the command of Colonel Woodford. They now crossed
the James, marched through Suffolk, and headed for the Great Bridge.
Many of the men were from the western counties, and were armed, not with
muskets, but with rifles. They were deadly shots, as the British soon
found to their sorrow. When the Virginians reached Great Bridge, the
British, instead of waiting for them to attack their almost impregnable
position, themselves took the initiative. The regulars led the way over
the causeways and the bridge, followed by the Tories and Negroes.[50]
"Reserve your fire until they are within fifty yards," the Virginia
officers ordered. Then the shirtmen, aiming as coolly as though they
were shooting deer, let fly. The regulars were cut to pieces, the Tories
and Negroes refused to fight, so with the coming of darkness the British
left their posts and streamed back to Norfolk.[51]
When Dunmore heard of this defeat he raved like a madman, and even
threatened to hang the boy who brought the news. With the shirtmen
advancing on the city, flight was all that was left him. Soon the
streets were jammed with panicky soldiers, men, women, and children,
hastening to the wharves to take refuge on the warships or the fleet of
merchantmen. They were none too soon, for on December 11, the
Virginians, reinforced by a body of North Carolinians under Colonel
Howe, entered the city.
But having gained Norfolk, the two commanders now debated what they
should do with it. If a large force of British attacked it by land and
sea it could not be defended, and the garrison would be captured.[52] On
the other hand, for the enemy it would be invaluable as a base for
attacks on any point in eastern Maryland, Virginia, or North Carolina.
Howe wrote the Virginia convention, hinting for permission to burn the
city.
Dunmore's folly gave him an excuse for doing so without waiting for a
reply. Food and water were becoming scarce on the crowded ships in the
river, many of the refugees became ill, several died. So Dunmore
threatened to bombard the city if the patriots cut off supplies, and
moved the warships to a position close by. But now the riflemen, firing
from warehouses near the wharves, began picking off his men whenever
they appeared on deck. On the afternoon of January 1, 1776, the warships
opened fire, and several boatloads of soldiers rowed up to the wharves
and set fire to the adjacent buildings.[53]
It was a striking evidence of the sacrifices which the colonial
Virginians were willing to make in the cause of liberty that twice they
applied the torch to one of their towns to prevent the enemy from using
it as a base. The burning of Jamestown by Bacon and his men foreshadowed
the burning of Norfolk by the revolutionary troops a century later.
Seizing upon the fires set by the British as an excuse, the soldiers
went from house to house to spread the flames. In all nearly nine
hundred houses were destroyed. A month later, by command of the
convention, the Americans burned down what was left of the city, 416
houses in all.[54]
The burning of Norfolk was a drastic step indeed. All who witnessed the
plight of the people as they trudged along the roads leading out of the
city to seek refuge in nearby farms must have condemned it as an act of
useless cruelty. But in the end it probably saved more suffering than it
entailed. Had the city been spared, the British would almost certainly
have occupied it and held it throughout the remainder of the war, just
as they held New York. It would have been a haven for Tories from all
the adjacent states, the British would have made it a great naval and
military base, from it expeditions would have been launched up the great
Virginia rivers as Berkeley had launched expeditions from the Eastern
Shore.
Since the Virginians had no fleet of warships capable of driving Dunmore
out of their waters, they decided to starve him out. They even
threatened to move the entire population of parts of Norfolk and
Princess Anne Counties to prevent provisions from reaching him. In May
he gave orders for the fleet to leave the Elizabeth River and proceed to
Gwynn's Island, in the Chesapeake Bay, near the mouth of the
Rappahannock River. Here he established a camp. But when General Andrew
Lewis set up batteries on the mainland and opened fire, the place became
untenable. One shot struck the _Dunmore_ and wounded the Governor. "Good
God! that ever I should come to this!" he shouted. A few days later his
fleet sailed down the bay and out through the capes. With it went the
last vestige of British authority in Virginia.[55]
Now the question of independence was in the minds of all. The small
planter as he set out his tobacco crop debated it with himself; the
blacksmith talked it over with his client as he shod his horse; it was
the topic of conversation in the church yard before the sermon began;
the members of the convention debated it as they rode along the muddy
roads. In May, 1775, Dunmore wrote: "It is no longer to be doubted that
independence is the object in view."[56] But in this he was wrong. The
colonists did not want independence. They were Englishmen, most of them,
speaking the English language, living under English law, attached to
English institutions. They had hardly ceased to speak of England as
"home." They looked to the British navy for protection, they were keenly
alive to their economic dependence upon the mother country, they were
weak and disunited. The colonies went into the war hugging the hope that
there might yet be reconciliation, with Washington referring to the
British soldiers as the Ministerial troops, and the American chaplains,
in public services, praying for the King.
The colonies, in taking up arms, sought only to maintain existing
conditions. The King and the Ministry were the real revolutionists, not
the Americans. It was Washington who wrote in 1769, that "at a time when
our lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less
than the deprivation of American freedom, something should be done to
avert the stroke and maintain the liberty which we have derived from our
ancestors." Washington by no means considered himself a rebel. He was
championing the British constitution and American rights under it
against the illegal aggressions of a reactionary Ministry.
But the war had not been long in progress before the people saw that
they must preserve their freedom at the bayonet's point, or make abject
submission. When, in the summer of 1775, Richard Penn and Arthur Lee
went to England with the last effort of Congress for reconciliation, the
so-called Olive Branch, they were rebuffed. The King and his Ministers
refused to see them. While they were in London a proclamation was read
at Palace Yard and Temple Bar by heralds, prohibiting all intercourse
with the colonies.
Moreover, the ties of reverence and affection gave way rapidly before
the anger and bitterness of war. The news that the King was purchasing
troops from certain German rulers for use against them aroused the
Americans to fury. Angry men gathered everywhere, in the coffee houses,
on the village greens, or around the courthouses to discuss the burning
of Portland in the midst of a Maine winter, or the arming of the slaves
by Dunmore.
It was at this moment that Tom Paine's _Common Sense_ made its
appearance. Although this pamphlet was bombastic, radical, and filled
with absurdities, it fell in with the trend of the day, and so tended to
crystallize thought in favor of independence. More than 100,000 copies
were sold, and it was estimated that every third person in the colonies
read it. "Where, some say, is the King of America? I'll tell you friend.
He reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the royal brute
of England. A government of our own is our natural right. Ye who oppose
independence now, ye know not what ye do: ye are opening a door to
eternal tyranny."
Reluctantly the leaders of thought in Virginia came to the conclusion
that the British government was forcing them into independence.
Jefferson wrote John Randolph in November, 1775, that he loved the union
with Great Britain, "but by the God that made me I will cease to exist
before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament
propose, and in this I think I speak the sentiments of America."
Yet the Virginia convention, in August, 1775, had declared: "We again
and for all, publickly and solemnly declare, before God and the world,
that we do bear faith and true allegiance to his Majesty George the
Third, our only lawful and rightful King."[57]
But before the meeting of the convention of May 6, 1776, sentiment had
changed. Jefferson said that nine out of every ten persons were now for
independence.[58] In February, Benjamin Harrison had hinted strongly
that the time was ripe for separation. In January Washington had written
Joseph Reed that "a few more such flaming arguments" as Falmouth and
Norfolk would not leave many to oppose a separation. On April 12 John
Page predicted that independence would be voted in the approaching
convention; two days later Carter Braxton expressed the opinion that
independence was not only desirable but inevitable; Pendleton, though
greatly disturbed at the prospect of separation, thought that no other
course was possible.
There was great excitement in Williamsburg when the delegates arrived to
take their seats in the Hall of Burgesses for the opening of the
convention. The crowds which filled the gallery must have pointed out
each distinguished member as he entered--the aged Richard Bland; George
Mason, his black hair now showing a touch of gray; Patrick Henry, in the
plain garb he always wore; Richard Henry Lee, who had been called from
Congress by the illness of his wife; James Madison, a small delicate
young man, widely known as a scholar and political thinker; Edmund
Pendleton, six feet in height, lithe, and handsome; Robert Carter
Nicholas, Henry Lee, Edmund Randolph.[59]
On the question of independence there were three opinions. Nicholas was
opposed to separation, for he thought there was still hope for
conciliation. Henry wished Congress to establish independence through a
declaration. Pendleton argued for a statement by the convention and by
Congress that independence already existed by the action of King and
Parliament.
In the end Pendleton was directed to prepare a resolution on
independence. So, on May 15, Thomas Nelson, Junior, rose and read two
resolutions which Pendleton had drawn up:
Forasmuch as all the endeavors of the United Colonies, by the most
decent representations and petitions to the King and Parliament of
Great Britain to restore peace and security to America under the
British government, and a reunion with that people upon just and
liberal terms, instead of a redress of grievances, have produced,
from an imperious and vindictive administration, increased insult,
oppression, and a vigorous attempt to effect our total destruction.
By a late act, all these colonies are declared to be in rebellion,
and out of the protection of the British Crown; our properties
subjected to confiscation; our people, when captivated, compelled
to join in the murder and plunder of their relations and
countrymen; and all former rapine and oppression of Americans
declared legal and just. Fleets and armies are raised, and the aid
of foreign troops engaged to assist in these destructive purposes.
The King's representative in this colony hath not only withheld all
the powers of government from operating for our safety, but, having
retired on board an armed ship, is carrying on a piratical and
savage war against us, tempting our slaves by every artifice to
resort to him, and training and employing them against their
masters. In this state of extreme danger, we have no alternative
left but an abject submission to the will of those overbearing
tyrants, or a total separation from the Crown and government of
Great Britain, uniting and exerting the strength of all America for
defence, and forming alliances with foreign powers for commerce and
aid in war: Wherefore, appealing to the SEARCHER OF HEARTS for the
sincerity of former declarations, expressing our desire to preserve
the connection with that nation, and that we are driven from that
inclination by their wicked councils, and the eternal laws of
self-preservation:
Resolved, unanimously, That the delegates appointed to represent this
colony in the General Congress, be instructed to propose to that
respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent
states, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon the Crown or
Parliament of Great Britain; and that they give the assent of this
colony to such declaration, and to whatever measures may be thought
proper and necessary by the Congress for forming foreign alliances, and
a confederation of the colonies, at such time, and in the manner as to
them shall seem best; Provided, the power of forming government for, and
the regulations of the internal concerns of each colony, be left to the
respective colonial legislatures.
Resolved unanimously, That a committee be appointed to prepare a
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS, and such a plan of government as will be most
likely to maintain peace and order in this colony, and secure
substantial and equal liberty to the people.
The people of Virginia everywhere applauded this final breach with Great
Britain. In Williamsburg the "Union flag of the American states" was
raised over the Capitol. The troops, under General Lewis, wheeled and
marched in a nearby grove in the presence of the members of the
Committee of Safety and of the convention and a crowd of citizens. After
the resolutions of the convention had been read to the troops, a toast
was proposed to "The American Independent States," which was drunk to
the shouts of the crowd and the firing of the artillery. Then followed
toasts to "The Grand Congress of the United States and their Respective
Legislatures," and to "General Washington and Victory for the American
Arms." With coming of night the people illuminated the town amid
demonstrations of joy "that the domination of Great Britain was now at
an end."[60]
The resolutions of the convention were tantamount to a Virginia
declaration of independence. Though it was thought wise to act in
concert with the other colonies, the convention did not wait for
Congress, but proceeded to draw up a constitution for an independent
state, with Governor, Senate, House of Delegates, and judiciary. One
hundred and sixty-nine years, almost to a day, after Captain Christopher
Newport planted the English flag on the Jamestown peninsula, English
authority in Virginia was overthrown.
As the delegates rode home after the convention had concluded its work,
the minds of some must have gone over the developments of those
seventeen decades, the heritage of self-government which their ancestors
had brought with them from England, the struggle to defend their liberty
against the assaults of despotic Kings and despotic Governors, the
spirit of self-reliance fostered by life in the New World, and now the
attempts of a reactionary government in Great Britain to turn back the
hands of the clock and deprive them of the rights they had won. It had
been James I and Charles I, and even George III who, in their dealings
with the colonies, had insisted upon "obedience," but the colonists
insisted upon another word, the word "liberty." Now that they had won
liberty, it remained to be seen whether they could preserve it against
the attacks of the British armies and navy. And none could foresee that
at Yorktown, but a few miles away, British armed might in America was
destined to be broken, as its political power had already been broken at
Williamsburg.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Virginia Gazette_, P. and D., Oct. 27, 1768.
[2] _Ibid._
[3] CO5-1332, Feb. 18, 1769.
[4] _Virginia Gazette_, P. and D., May 18, 1769.
[5] _Ibid._
[6] CO5-1332, Botetourt to Hillsborough, May 19, 1769.
[7] _Journals of the House of Burgesses_, 1766-1769: 227.
[8] _Virginia Gazette_, P. and D. Oct. 18, 1770.
[9] _Ibid._, Supplement.
[10] William Smith, _Diary_, Dec. 1, 1770; July 9, 1771.
[11] _Virginia Gazette_, P. and D., Sept. 17, 1771.
[12] _The writings of Thomas Jefferson_, ed. A. A. Lipscomb, 1: 7.
[13] _Ibid._
[14] T. J. Wertenbaker, _Norfolk: historic southern port_, 55.
[15] _Journal of Philip Vickers Fithian_, ed. H. D. Farish, 257.
[16] _The writings of Thomas Jefferson_, ed. A. A. Lipscomb, 1: 9.
[17] _Journals of the House of Burgesses_, 1773-1776: 124.
[18] _Virginia Gazette_, P. and D., June 2, 1774.
[19] _The writings of Thomas Jefferson_, ed. A. A. Lipscomb, 1: 11.
[20] _Ibid._, 10.
[21] _Lower Norfolk County Antiquary_ 5: 32-35.
[22] _Writings of George Washington_, ed. Jared Sparks, 2: 389.
[23] Dunmore papers, No. 22.
[24] _Burke's speech_, ed. S. C. Newsom, 105, 106.
[25] Dunmore papers, Dunmore to Dartmouth, March 14, 1775.
[26] _Ibid._, No. 28.
[27] _Ibid._, No. 30.
[28] _Ibid._, No. 26.
[29] William Wirt, _Life of Patrick Henry_, 139-141.
[30] _Philip Vickers Fithian, journal_, eds. Albion and Dodson, 24.
[31] Dunmore papers, no. 26.
[32] _Ibid._
[33] _The Virginia Gazette_, Pinckney, May 11, 1775.
[34] Dunmore papers, No. 28.
[35] _Ibid._
[36] _Journals of the House of Burgesses_, 1773-1776: 174, 175.
[37] _Ibid._, pp. 219-221.
[38] Dunmore papers, No. 28.
[39] _Ibid._
[40] _Ibid._, No. 29.
[41] _Journals of the House of Burgesses_, 1773-1776.
[42] Dunmore papers, No. 22.
[43] _Proceedings of the Convention_, etc.; C. R. Lingley, _Transition
in Virginia_.
[44] _Ibid._
[45] _Dunmore papers_, No. 29.
[46] _Ibid._, No. 22.
[47] T. J. Wertenbaker, _Norfolk: historic southern port_, 57, 67.
[48] Dunmore papers, No. 32.
[49] _American Archives_, Fourth Ser. 4: 343.
[50] _Richmond College historical papers_ 1: 101.
[51] _Ibid._, 115-121.
[52] _Ibid._, 138, 139, 148.
[53] _Lower Norfolk County Antiquary_ 2: 80.
[54] _American Archives_, Fourth Ser. 4: 540; _Virginia Magazine_ 23:
414.
[55] _Ibid._, Fifth Ser. 1: 150, 151, 431, 432.
[56] Dunmore papers, No. 27.
[57] _American Archives_ 4: 391.
[58] _The writings of Thomas Jefferson_, ed. A. A. Lipscomb, 4: 255.
[59] H. B. Grigsby, _The Virginia convention of 1776_.
[60] _Virginia Gazette_, Purdie, May 17, 1776.
ESSAY ON SOURCES
Any political history of Virginia in the colonial period must be based
chiefly on the documents in the British Public Record Office. During
many months of work in this office the author made more than eight
hundred pages of notes and transcripts which he has used freely in the
writing of this volume. The notations CO1-3, CO5-1318, etc., in the
footnotes all refer to the Public Record Office.
It is especially fortunate that these documents have been preserved,
since of the copies left in Virginia, when there were copies, most have
been destroyed. Among the scores of manuscript volumes on Virginia in
the Record Office, thirty-two are devoted to the correspondence of the
Board of Trade, seventeen to the correspondence of the Secretary of
State, twenty-two to Entry Books, letters, commissions, warrants, etc.,
for the period from 1680 to the American Revolution alone.
In this vast collection are found the instructions to governors;
memorials concerning the clergy, the revenue, the College of William and
Mary; addresses of the Assembly to the Throne; reports of special agents
of the Crown; accusations against governors; nominations to office; the
journals of the Council and of the House of Burgesses.
During the second half of the nineteenth century William Noel Sainsbury,
Assistant Keeper of the Records, made no less than twenty volumes of
abstracts of these documents, which have been deposited in the Virginia
State Library. They cover the long period from the founding of the
colony to 1730. The McDonald Papers, also transcribed from the documents
in the Public Record Office, and also deposited in the Virginia State
Library, parallel the Sainsbury abstracts, but they are fuller and give
some papers overlooked by Sainsbury. The author spent the summer of 1908
in Richmond to study these papers, but they merely whetted his desire to
see the original collection. So June, 1910, found him in the chilly old
building off Chancery Lane, London, immersed in the musty but
fascinating mass of documents.
Virginia historians today no longer have to make the journey across the
Atlantic, for the United States Government has had transcriptions made
of the papers relating to our colonial history for the Library of
Congress. Moreover, the journals of the House of Burgesses and the
journals of the Council have been published. Many other documents in the
Public Record Office have been published in part or in full in the
_Calendar of State Papers_, _Colonial Series, America and West Indies_,
and in historical magazines.
The Coventry papers relating to Virginia, Barbados, and other colonies,
at Longleat, the magnificent residence of the Marquess of Bath, which
have been microfilmed by the American Council of Learned Societies,
throw a flood of light on Virginia history, especially upon Bacon's
Rebellion. They contain letters from Bacon to Berkeley, from Berkeley to
Bacon, and from Philip Ludwell to Lady Berkeley, reports from the
Virginia agents who were seeking a charter for the colony, Berkeley's
account of the evacuation of Jamestown, and many other valuable
documents. They give new and overwhelming evidence that Bacon and his
followers rose in arms, not only to protect the people from the Indians,
but to right their wrongs under Berkeley's government.
The American Council of Learned Societies was also responsible for the
microfilming of the Sackville manuscripts belonging to the Earl of
Dorset. They contain letters to the British Government from the Virginia
House of Burgesses and from the Council in 1631, and throw a gleam of
light on an obscure period.
The correspondence of Lord Dunmore and Lord Dartmouth, in the British
Public Record Office, is vital to any account of the early years of the
Revolution in Virginia. In his letters Dunmore reports on the committees
of correspondence, the boycott, the plight of the Tories, his conflict
with the Assembly, the arming of the patriots, his flight from
Williamsburg, his seizure of Norfolk, etc. This correspondence is
available to scholars in microfilm in the Library of Congress.
W. W. Hening (ed.), _The Statutes at Large_ (1809-1823), in thirteen
volumes, are indispensable to the historian. In addition to the Virginia
laws it publishes a few extremely important documents.
The county records throw light on local government and the use of the
patronage by the governors to control the Assembly. It is unfortunate
that many documents in the county courthouses were destroyed in the
Revolution and the War between the States. Yet the records of Surry,
York, Essex, Rappahannock, Accomac, Elizabeth City, and other counties
have been preserved.
Peter Force (ed.), _Tracts and Other Papers_ (1836), has many valuable
documents relating to early Virginia history. The accounts of Bacon's
Rebellion are of especial interest. Edward Arber (ed.), _The Works of
Captain John Smith_ (1910), is a main source for the founding and early
history of Jamestown. But Smith's tendency to glorify himself and the
probability that he colored his account to further the designs of King
James I and the court party have caused many historians to distrust much
that he has written.
Alexander Brown, _Genesis of the United States_ (1890), gives many
documents on early Virginia history which had long been inaccessible to
scholars. Other publications of documents or early histories are Susan
M. Kingsbury (ed.), _The Records of the Virginia Company of London_
(1906-1935); J. C. Hotten (ed.), _Original Lists of Emigrants to
America, 1606-1700_ (1874); _Lower Norfolk County_ Antiquary; Lyon G.
Tyler (ed.), _Narratives of Early Virginia_ (1907); Charles M. Andrews
(ed.), _Narratives of Insurrections_ (1915); Clayton C. Hall (ed.),
_Narratives of Early Maryland_ (1910); and Edmund Goldsmid (ed.),
_Hakluyt's_, _The Principal Navigations_ (1885-1890).
R. A. Brock (ed.), _The Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie_
(1883-1884); while of great value, is incomplete, since many letters in
the British Public Record Office have been omitted. R. A. Brock (ed.),
_The Original Letters of Alexander Spotswood_ (1882-1885), from the
manuscript collection in possession of the Virginia Historical Society,
is also far from complete.
Among the historical magazines which have published documents relating
to Virginia the most important are _The Virginia Magazine of History and
Biography_, _William and Mary College Quarterly_, _Tyler's Quarterly
Historical and Genealogical Magazine_, and the _Massachusetts Historical
Society, Proceedings_.
Three narratives, Henry Hartwell, James Blair, and Edward Chilton, _The
Present State of Virginia and the College_; Robert Beverley, _The
History and Present State of Virginia_; and Hugh Jones, _The Present
State of Virginia_, have all the value of primary sources. The Hartwell,
Blair, and Chilton history was written in 1697 and first published by
John Wyat at the Rose, in St. Paul's churchyard, London, in 1727. It was
republished in 1940, with an able introduction by Hunter D. Farish.
Beverley's volume appeared in 1705, and a new edition was published in
1947. Hugh Jones' history came out in 1724, was reprinted in 1865 in a
limited edition, and republished in 1956. The last edition, edited by
Richard L. Morton, has a valuable introduction, and more than a hundred
pages of illuminating notes.
There are a number of histories of Virginia. William Stith, _The History
of the First Discovery and Settlement of Virginia_ (1747), is little
more than a rehash of Captain John Smith's story. John Burk, _The
History of Virginia_ (1822), though more critical, is out of date since
the author did not have access to a mass of documents now available to
the historian. The same criticism applies to Charles Campbell, _History
of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia_ (1860). Henry Howe,
_Historical Collections of Virginia_ (1845), brings together many facts,
traditions, and biographical sketches. It also gives brief descriptions
of contemporaneous life in the various counties. John Fiske's _Old
Virginia and her Neighbors_ (1900), is interesting, but untrustworthy.
Edward D. Neill, _Early Settlement of Virginia and Virginiola_ (1878),
_The English Colonization of America during the Seventeenth Century_
(1871), _History of the Virginia Company of London_ (1869), _Virginia
Vetusta_ (1885), and _Virginia Carolorum_ (1886), are based on primary
sources and are still valuable. John Esten Cooke, _Virginia: A History
of the People_ (1884), is interesting but full of mistakes.
Other works on early Virginia history are Alexander Brown, _The First
Republic in America_ (1898), T. J. Wertenbaker, _Virginia under the
Stuarts_ (1914); Mary Newton Stanard, _The Story of Virginia's First
Century_ (1928); Matthew Page Andrews, _The Soul of a Nation_ (1943),
and _Virginia, the Old Dominion_ (1937); William Foote, _Sketches of
Virginia_ (1850); Robert R. Howison, _A History of Virginia_ (1848);
Conway W. Sams, _The Conquest of Virginia_ (1924); and Wesley Frank
Craven, _Dissolution of the Virginia Company_ (1932).
In 1957 the Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation published
a series of booklets on seventeenth-century Virginia history under the
able editorship of Dr. Earl G. Swem. Among them are E. G. Swem and John
M. Jennings, _A Selected Bibliography of Virginia_, 1607-1699; William
W. Abbot, _A Virginia Chronology_, 1585-1783; Samuel M. Bemiss (ed.),
_The Three Charters of the Virginia Company of London_; Wesley Frank
Craven, _The Virginia Company of London_; Charles E. Hatch, Jr., _The
First Seventeen Years at Jamestown_, 1607-1634; Thomas J. Wertenbaker,
_Bacon's Rebellion_ and _The Government of Virginia in the Seventeenth
Century_; Richard L. Morton, _Struggle against Tyranny and the Beginning
of a New Era_; Martha W. Hiden, _How Justice Grew_. Dr. Wilcomb E.
Washburn, _Virginia under Charles I and Cromwell_, takes issue with most
Virginia historians by coming to the defense of Governor John Harvey who
was kicked out of Virginia because of his despotic rule, abuse of the
courts, and disregard of law.
Among the special studies relating to the political history of Virginia
are Philip A. Bruce, _The Institutional History of Virginia_ (1910);
Julian A. C. Chandler, _The History of Suffrage in Virginia_ (1901);
Oliver P. Chitwood, _Justice in Colonial Virginia_ (1905); Percy S.
Flippin, _Financial Administration of the Colony of Virginia_ (1915);
Armistead C. Gordon, _The Laws of Bacon's Assembly_ (1914); Albert O.
Porter, _County Government in Virginia_ (1947); Mary N. Stanard, _The
Story of Bacon's Rebellion_ (1907); R. T. Barton, _Colonial Decisions_
(1909); Edward Ingle, _Virginia Local Institutions_ (1885); Elmer I.
Miller, _The Legislature of the Province of Virginia_ (1907); Lyon G.
Tyler, _The Cradle of the Republic_ (1906); Moncure D. Conway, _Omitted
Chapters_ (1888); H. J. Eckenrode, _The Revolution in Virginia_ (1916);
Hugh Blair Grigsby, _The Virginia Convention of 1776_ (1855); Charles R.
Lingley, _The Transition in Virginia from Colony to Commonwealth_
(1910); Charles S. Sydnor, _Gentlemen Freeholders, Political Practices
in Washington's Virginia_ (1952); Curtis P. Nettels, _George Washington
and American Independence_ (1951).
Biographies of prominent Virginians seem to come in pairs. There are two
biographies of William Claiborne, Norton C. Hale, _Virginia Venturer_
(1951), and John H. Claiborne, _William Claiborne of Virginia_ (1917);
two biographies devoted to the Lee family, Burton J. Hendrick, _The Lees
of Virginia_ (1935), and Cazenove G. Lee, Jr., _Lee Chronicle_ (1956);
two short studies of James Blair, Daniel E. Motley, _Life of Commissary
James Blair_ (1901), and Edgar L. Pennington, _Commissary Blair_ (1936);
two biographies of Edmund Pendleton, Robert L. Hilldrup, _The Life and
Times of Edmund Pendleton_ (1939), and David J. Mays, _Edmund Pendleton_
(1952); there are several biographies of Captain John Smith.
Philip A. Bruce, _The Virginia Plutarch_ (1929), gives brief biographies
of Sir William Berkeley, Nathaniel Bacon, Alexander Spotswood, William
Byrd II, Patrick Henry, and others. Among other biographies are Richmond
C. Beatty, _William Byrd of Westover_ (1932); Thomas J. Wertenbaker,
_Torchbearer of the Revolution, The Story of Bacon's Rebellion and Its
Leader_ (1940); Leonidas Dodson, _Alexander Spotswood_ (1932); Louis K.
Koontz, _Robert Dinwiddie_ (1941); Louis Morton, _Robert Carter of
Nomini Hall_ (1941); Kate Mason Rowland, _Life and Correspondence of
George Mason_ (1892); William Wirt Henry, _Patrick Henry_ (1891); A. T.
S. Goodrick, _Edward Randolph_ (1898-1909); Thomas Jefferson,
_Autobiography_.
There are numerous Virginia local histories, among them W. Asbury
Christian, _Richmond, Her Past and Present_ (1912); (1931); Ralph T.
Whitelaw, _Virginia's Eastern Shore_ (1951); John B. Bodie, _Seventeenth
Century Isle of Wight County, Virginia_ (1938); Marshall Wingfield, _A
History of Caroline County, Virginia_ (1924); and Herbert C. Bradshaw,
_History of Prince Edward County, Virginia_ (1955).
_The Virginia Gazette_ is a major source for the history of Virginia in
the eighteenth century. The scattered numbers still in existence have
been photostated and copies deposited in some of the larger libraries.
Their usefulness has been greatly enhanced by the preparation of an
Index by Lester J. Cappon and Stella F. Duff.
Virginia historians will always be grateful to Dr. Earl G. Swem for his
_Virginia Historical Index_, covering _The Virginia Magazine of History
and Biography_, volumes 1-38; _William and Mary College Quarterly_,
first series, volumes 1-27; second series, volumes 1-10; Hening's
_Statutes at Large_, and other publications.
Index
Acadians: ejected, 204
Allerton, Isaac:
bribed with seat in Council, 20, 119;
refuses oath of allegiance, 126
Amherst, General Jeffrey: replaces Loudoun, 210
Andros, Sir Edmund:
Governor, 127;
despotic in New England, 127;
mild in Virginia, 129;
quarrels with Blair, 131;
suspends Blair from Council, 131;
resigns, 132
Appomatox Indians: hostile, 86
Argall, Samuel:
Governor, 6;
cruelty of, 7
Aristocracy:
effect of slavery on, 152, 153;
libraries, 153;
mansions, 153;
intermarriages, 153;
dominate General Court, 153, 154
Armistead, Col. John:
Councillor, 119;
refuses oath of allegiance, 126
Association:
to boycott British goods, 239;
successful, 240, 241
Attainder: bill of in 1677, 29
Auditor:
duties of, 33;
William Byrd, 34;
Philip Ludwell, 34
Bacon, Nathaniel:
early life of, 84;
quarrels with Berkeley, 84;
knew Lawrence and Drummond, 84;
his overseer murdered, 86;
frontiersmen make leader, 87;
denounces Berkeley, 87;
defeats Occaneechees, 87;
elected Burgess, 88;
captured, 88;
submits, 88, 89;
reappointed Councillor, 89;
blames Assembly, 90;
escapes, 90;
takes Jamestown, 90;
made general, 90;
pleads with Burgesses, 91;
master of Virginia, 92;
conversation with Goode, 92, 93;
at Middle Plantation, 92;
plans of, 93;
captures Jamestown, 93, 94;
burns Jamestown, 94;
secret burial of, 94;
people mourn, 94
Bacon, Nathaniel, Sr.: ousted from Council, 71
Bacon's Laws:
aimed at Berkeley, 91;
credit due Bacon, 91;
a victory for democracy, 91, 92
Ballard, Thomas: expelled from Council, 20
Baltimore, Lord:
visits Virginia, 38;
refuses oath, 38;
Harvey aids, 43;
settles Maryland, 43;
recognizes Commonwealth, 69
Barre, Col. Isaac: denounces Stamp Act, 225, 226
Bennett, Richard:
favors Parliament, 58;
sent to get Puritan ministers, 60;
commissioner for Parliament, 64;
Governor, 67;
Cromwell continues, 70
Berkeley, Lady Frances:
marriage, 76;
insults Jeffreys, 100, 101;
heads faction, 101, 102
Berkeley, Lord John: brother of Sir William, 80
Berkeley, Sir William:
limits franchise, 27;
appointed Governor, 54;
early life, 54;
arrives, 55;
popular, 55, 56;
favors jury trial, 56;
gift of houses to, 57;
salary, 57;
fights for King, 57;
defeats Indians, 58;
expels Puritan preachers, 61;
prosecutes Puritans, 62;
proclaims Charles II, 62;
defies Parliament, 63;
to resist Parliamentary forces, 65, 66;
surrenders, 66;
under Commonwealth, 68;
elected Governor, 73;
reappointed by Charles II, 75;
dictatorial, 76;
greed, 76;
marriage, 75;
distrusts self-government, 76;
use of patronage, 77;
corrupts Assembly, 77;
the Long Assembly, 77, 78;
accused by Charles City, 77, 78;
grants of land, 78, 79;
people hate, 78;
favorites of, 79;
asks free trade, 80;
denounces Navigation Acts, 80, 81;
makes Bacon Councillor, 84;
despotism of, 84;
sends force against Indians, 86;
Indian policy, 86;
people in arms, 87;
calls an election, 88;
captures Bacon, 88;
forces Bacon's submission, 88, 89;
overawes Burgesses, 89;
submits to Bacon, 90, 91;
starts civil war, 92;
flees to Eastern Shore, 92;
executes patriots, 95, 96, 99;
illegal seizures, 98;
quarrels with Jeffreys, 98, 99;
ordered to England, 99;
picks Burgesses, 99, 100;
sails, 101;
death, 101
Berry, Sir John: committee on Bacon's Rebellion, 92
Beverley, Peter: court of oyer and terminer, 170
Beverley, Robert:
Green Spring faction, 101, 102;
Assembly minutes seized from, 103;
testifies against Nicholson, 148
Bill of Ports:
Burgesses reject, 128;
Spotswood secures, 162-165;
patronage from, 163, 164;
Gooch secures, 191, 192
Blair, Archibald: hates Spotswood, 172, 173
Blair, Rev. James:
defends Harrison, 22;
founds college, 31;
Commissary, 130;
church reform plans, 130, 131;
Quarrel with Andros, 131;
Andros ousts from Council, 131;
restored, 131;
ousts Andros, 132;
for Nicholson, 133;
Nicholson angers, 136;
accuses Nicholson, 147, 148;
called King maker, 149;
called hypocrite, 171;
visits England, 175;
to be "Prime Minister," 175, 176
Blair, John:
meets Dinwiddie, 194;
calls Assembly, 209;
prepares expedition, 209, 210
Bland, Gyles: executed, 99
Bland, Col. Richard:
defends Two-penny Act, 214;
for self-government, 216;
to submit to Stamp Act, 226;
General Committee of Safety, 249;
convention of 1776, 255
Botetourt, Lord:
Governor General, 232;
welcomed, 232;
popular, 232;
warns British government, 233;
promises repeal of Townshend Acts, 234, 235;
death, 235
Braddock, General: defeat of, 203
Braxton, Carter: predicts independence, 255
Buck, Rev.: Minister at Jamestown, 5
Buckner, John: sets up press, 117
Burgesses, House of:
bribed by Governors, 19, 20;
represent people, 25;
privileges, 26;
franchise, 26;
wages, 27, 28;
county pays, 28;
Speaker, 28;
committees, 29;
guards elections, 29;
as a court, 29;
control of taxation, 29-31;
act of 1680, 30;
rule under Commonwealth, 67, 68;
elect Governor, 70;
Berkeley corrupts, 77;
end of Long Assembly, 87, 88;
Bacon's victory in, 88;
Bacon's Laws, 91, 92;
pro-Berkeley in 1677, 99;
protest appeals to England, 114;
James II scorns petition, 114;
protest fees, 115;
sole right to tax, 115;
dispute King's authority, 115, 116;
reject royal bills, 127;
rile Edward Randolph, 128;
refuse aid to New York, 128;
L500 for New York, 128, 129;
name Treasurer, 128, 129;
Nicholson wheedles, 138;
Spotswood bribes, 163, 164;
new election, 164;
oppose Spotswood, 165;
Spotswood rebuffs, 165, 166;
judges elections, 166;
strike at Governors' power, 167;
Spotswood denounces, 168;
deride Spotswood, 171;
charges against Spotswood, 173;
praise Drysdale, 177, 178;
contempt of punished, 179;
praise Gooch, 180;
growth of, 182;
salaries, 183;
power of grows, 184;
aristocrats in, 184;
praise Gooch, 193;
protest pistole fee, 197;
fee called arbitrary taxation, 197;
appeal to King, 198;
audacity of, 204;
eject Acadian exiles, 204;
vote L60,000, 205;
emit treasury notes, 205;
reply to Fauquier, 219;
declaration of rights, 220;
protest Stamp Act, 224, 225;
Henry's resolutions, 226;
Botetourt opens, 1768, 233;
reassert sole right to tax, 233;
meet unofficially, 233, 234;
Botetourt promises repeal, 235;
call convention, 239;
take lead in Revolution, 242;
many in uniform, 246;
last session, 248
Burke, Edmund: on "Conciliation," 241
Burwell, Lewis:
land holdings, 135;
Nicholson threatens, 143
Burwell, Lucy:
Nicholson in love with, 142-145;
returns gifts, 144, 145
Butler, Nathaniel: his "Unmasking of Virginia," 11
Butts, Thomas:
refuses to certify grievances, 165;
House asks arrest, 165, 166
Byrd, William I:
auditor, 34;
makes rent roll, 135;
respect due to, 152
Byrd, William II: Receiver General, 168;
Spotswood ousts, 169;
opposes new court, 170;
Spotswood denounces, 171;
agent for Burgesses, 173
Byrd, William III: 221
Camm, Rev. John:
takes clergy protest to King, 213;
sues for salary, 214;
Fauquier denounces, 214;
case thrown out, 216;
supports Dunmore, 242
Capitol:
plan, 146;
burns, 182;
rebuilt, 183;
soldiers lodge in, 248;
convention of 1776, 255
Carter, Landon: defends Two-penny Act, 214
Carter, Robert:
Speaker of House, 28;
Treasurer, 130;
influence of, 140;
charges against Nicholson, 147, 148;
haughty, 171;
President, 1726, 179;
slaves of, 184
Carter, Robert, of Nomini Hall:
refuses tea, 238;
not a "courtier," 242
Charles City County:
grievances of, 32;
accuse Berkeley, 77;
grievances neglected, 78;
illegal voting in, 100
Charles I:
will not restore Company, 13;
calls Assembly, 15;
offers to buy tobacco crop, 15;
needs money, 16;
illegal taxes, 36;
tobacco contract, 44;
executed, 62
Charles II:
Berkeley proclaims, 63;
restoration, 73;
proclaimed in 1660, 74;
reappoints Berkeley, 75;
Arlington-Culpeper grant, 82;
on causes of Bacon's Rebellion, 97;
sends troops, 97;
angered at Assembly, 103;
gold from Louis XIV, 107;
despotism in Virginia, 108-113;
prohibits printing, 117
Charter:
granted Virginia Company, 4, 5;
sought by Virginians, 17, 18;
Assembly asks, 83;
again asked, 1689, 123;
to confirm Assembly, 123, 124
Cheeseman, Major: Berkeley's brutality to, 95
Chicheley, Sir Henry:
leads force against Indians, 86;
Deputy Governor, 106;
rules impartially, 106
Civil War in England:
influence on colonies, 3;
affects Virginia, 36
Claiborne, William:
agent against Baltimore, 38;
settlement on Kent Island, 43;
battle with Marylanders, 43;
commissioner for Parliament, 64;
negotiates for peace, 65, 66;
Secretary, 67
Clergy:
thank Spotswood, 163;
Two-penny Act, 211;
protest, 211, 212;
address to King, 212
Cocke, William: in Indian Company, 171
Cole, William: election of thrown out, 166, 167
Committees of Correspondence: 236, 237, 239
Committees of Safety: take over courts, 248
Commons, House of:
opposes James I, 3;
in Civil War, 36
Commonwealth:
Virginia surrenders to, 66;
Virginia constitution under, 66, 67;
rule of, 70;
anarchy, 73;
influence of on Virginia, 75
Constitution of State of Virginia: drawn up, 257
Continental Congress:
proposed, 236, 237, 239;
delegates to, 240;
Declaration of Rights, 240;
makes Washington commander, 245
Convention, Provincial:
in 1774, 240;
at Richmond, 1775, 243;
Henry's address, 243, 244;
prepare for war, 244;
take over government, 248, 249;
in 1776, 255;
instruct for independence, 255, 256
Conway, Edwin: baits Spotswood, 165
Corbin, Gawin: baits Spotswood, 165, 172
Corbin, Richard:
protests paper money, 219;
complains to Board of Trade, 219;
pays for powder, 245
Council of Virginia:
powers of, 4;
quarrels of, 4, 5;
under constitution of 1621, 21;
patronage of, 21;
powers of, 23-25;
as cabinet, 23;
as Upper House, 23, 24;
as supreme court, 24;
prestige of, 24, 25;
Virginia House of Lords, 25;
conflict with Harvey, 41-47;
arrest Harvey, 46;
Burgesses oust, 71;
power of from England, 72;
dissolve Assembly, 1659, 72;
lose fat jobs, 134;
Nicholson abuses, 140, 141;
six accuse Nicholson, 147-150;
represent aristocracy, 151, 152;
titles of, 152;
respect for, 152;
Nott defers to, 154, 155;
appeal for peace, 155;
Burgesses back, 155;
a threat to Liberty, 159;
land holdings of, 162;
preserve judicial power, 169-171;
for large land grants, 178;
negative role in Revolution, 242
County courts:
undemocratic, 21;
Governor's power over, 22;
duties of, 31;
Governor appoints, 78;
taxation by, 78;
Bacon's Laws, 92
Coventry, Attorney General: issues _quo warranto_ against Company, 12
Cromwell, Oliver:
neglects Virginia, 70;
death, 72
Cromwell, Richard:
Lord Protector, 72;
resigns, 72
Culpeper, Lord Thomas:
despotism under, 18;
limits franchise, 27;
grant to, 82;
Governor, 102;
Cavalier, 109;
delays sailing, 109;
brings peace, 110;
forces act for "perpetual revenue," 110-112;
returns to England, 112;
robs soldiers, 113;
hangs rioters, 113;
Effingham succeeds, 113
Curtis, Edmund:
commissioner to Virginia, 64;
negotiates surrender, 65
Dale, Sir Thomas:
Governor, 6;
brings harsh laws, 6;
cruelty of, 7
Dawson, Commissary William:
meets Dinwiddie, 194;
denounces Two-penny Act, 212
Day of Prayer: June 1, 1774, 238, 239
Debts:
due merchants, 189;
appeals to Privy Council, 189, 190
De la Warr, Lord:
Governor, 5, 6;
ill, 6;
leaves Virginia, 6;
humane, 7;
sails with Magna Carta, 8;
death, 8
Democracy:
New World favorable for, 3;
yeomen build up, 3;
Quary warns of, 35;
gains under Commonwealth, 75;
Glorious Revolution, 122;
small slave holders for, 185
Dennis, Captain Robert:
heads commission to Virginia, 64;
lost on the _John_, 64
Digges, Cole:
election thrown out, 166, 167;
named to new court, 170;
Indian Company, 171
Digges, Edward: Governor, 71
Dinwiddie, Robert:
Lieutenant Governor, 194;
career, 195;
backs Assembly, 195;
pistole fee, 196-200;
calls Virginians republicans, 198, 199;
cautioned by King, 199, 200;
horrors of Indian war, 201;
warns British, 201;
sends Washington to the Ohio, 201;
asks funds, 201;
vetoes bill with rider, 202;
wants Parliament to tax, 202, 204;
expends funds, 206;
resigns, 206;
sounds alarm bell, 207;
suggests union of colonies, 208
Drummond, Sarah: property confiscated, 104
Drummond, William:
hates Berkeley, 80;
influences Bacon, 84;
Bacon consults, 88;
burns own house, 94;
Berkeley's brutality to, 95
Drysdale, Hugh:
popular, 18;
Lieutenant Governor, 175, 176;
arrives, 1722, 177;
character, 177;
opposes huge land grants, 178;
upholds House, 178, 179;
death, 179
Dunbar, Colonel: retreat of, 203
Dunmore, Earl of:
Governor, 236;
conduct in New York, 236;
treaty with Indians, 243;
seizes powder, 244;
threatened, 245;
suggests "compromise," 246, 247;
on the _Fowey_, 248;
escapes capture, 249;
asks troops, 249;
controls water, 250;
in Elizabeth River, 250;
seizes press, 250;
seizes Norfolk, 250, 251;
evacuates Norfolk, 251;
threatens bombardment, 251, 252;
at Gwynn's Island, 252;
leaves Virginia, 253;
says Virginia wants independence, 253
Dunmore, Lady:
ball in honor of, 239;
flees Williamsburg, 245, 247
Duquesne, Fort:
Forbes to attack, 209;
French evacuate, 210
Durand, William: persecuted for dissent, 62
Dutch:
trade to Virginia, 68, 69;
trade protected, 69;
wars with, 81
Effingham, Lord Howard:
despotism of, 18, 118;
Governor, 113;
character, 113;
ends appeals to Assembly, 114;
uses patronage for political ends, 118;
favors Roman Catholics, 119;
leaves Virginia, 120
Elections:
Nicholson interferes in, 138;
foul play at, 172
Embargo:
opposed in England, 59;
enforced in 1650, 63
English, William:
denounces Harvey, 44, 45;
arrested, 45;
released, 47
Fauquier, Francis:
Lieutenant Governor, 209;
erudite, 209;
tact, 210;
reprimanded, 211, 213;
upholds Two-penny Act, 212;
London criticises, 213;
denounces Camm, 214;
thinks Henry extreme, 227;
protects Mercer, 228;
death, 231
Fees:
Bacon's Laws fix, 92;
bill to limit vetoed, 167;
pistole controversy, 196-200
First Stuart Despotism: influence on colonies, 3
Fithian, Philip: sees drilling in Valley, 244
Forbes, General:
to attack Fort Duquesne, 209;
takes fort, 210
Fouace, Rev. Stephen:
Nicholson jealous of, 143;
flees Virginia, 144;
testifies against Nicholson, 148
_Fowey_: powder taken to, 244
Franchise:
changes in, 26;
under Commonwealth, 70;
all freemen have in June, 1676, 88;
Bacon's Laws widen, 91;
Spotswood tries to restrict, 166;
act to limit, 181
French and Indian War:
horrors of, 201;
Washington warns French, 201;
Braddock's defeat, 203;
raids in Valley, 205;
influence on Revolution, 207, 208
Gates, Sir Thomas:
Governor, 6;
brings cruel laws, 6
General Assembly:
Magna Carta authorizes, 8;
under Constitution of 1621, 9;
meets, 1619, 9, 10;
acts of in 1619, 10;
right to tax, 10;
Charles I ignores, 13;
meets unofficially, 14;
Charles I summons, 15;
oppose reviving Company, 17;
powers of grow, 34, 35;
accuses Harvey, 47;
reapportions taxes, 56;
gift to Berkeley, 57;
permits free trade, 59;
recognizes Charles II, 62;
surrenders to Parliament, 66;
ousts Governor and Council, 71;
elects Berkeley Governor, 73;
powers of, 74;
proclaim Charles II, 1660, 74;
Berkeley corrupts, 77;
Long Assembly, 77, 78;
protest grant, 82;
ask charter, 85;
Bacon demands election, 87, 88;
in 1677 picked by Berkeley, 99, 100;
bill of attainder, 100;
protest seizure of records, 103;
Charles II assails, 108, 109;
King to initiate bills, 108;
no appeals to, 109, 113, 114;
"perpetual revenue" to King, 110-112;
attempt to repeal revenue act of 1680, 156;
Quary on, 156, 157;
Queen Anne vetoes revenue act, 157;
Jenings dissolves, 159;
bill of ports, 162-165;
Queen's death dissolves, 164;
Spotswood angers, 164;
bills to limit Governor's power, 167;
use of rider by, 167, 168;
thwart Spotswood, 172;
protest debt ruling, 189;
gift to Dinwiddie, 195, 196;
war an opportunity for, 201;
vote L10,000, 201;
expenditure of funds, 201, 202;
vote L20,000 with rider, 202;
support war, 203;
ask paper money issue, 203, 204;
aid to Royal American Regiment, 205;
Governor spends funds, 206;
right of to govern, 216;
last sessions, 248
General Committee of Safety: ablest men on, 249
General Court:
court of appeals, 113, 114;
Nicholson's violence in, 139;
Nicholson packs juries, 139, 140;
on Burgesses' salary, 166
Glorious Revolution: 3, 119-121;
effect on liberty, 122;
effect on Virginia, 122, 123, 132
_Godspeed_: sails for Virginia, 1
Gooch, William:
says frontiersmen disobedient, 3;
character, 177;
Lieutenant Governor, 179;
popular, 179;
courtesy of, 179, 180;
praised by Burgesses, 180;
voted gifts, 180;
new bill of ports, 180, 181, 191, 192;
for limiting franchise, 181, 182;
for westward expansion, 182;
resists merchants, 186;
for duty on liquors, 187;
denounces merchants, 190;
_A Dialogue_, 191;
leads expedition, 192;
wounded, 192;
resigns, 192;
dies, 1749, 193;
peace and plenty, 193
Gosnold, Bartholomew:
member of Council, 4;
dies, 4, 5
Governor:
office established, 5;
King appoints, 18;
vary greatly, 18;
qualities of, 18;
powers of, 19;
bribe Burgesses, 19;
nominate Councillors, 20;
use of patronage, 19-21;
calls Assembly, 21;
veto, 22;
hold over courts, 22;
heads Church, 22, 23;
Council restricts, 25, 171;
Burgesses elect under Commonwealth, 70;
many military officers, 194
Great Bridge:
Dunmore fortifies, 250;
battle of, 251
Green Spring:
plundered, 98;
faction meets at, 101, 102
Green Spring faction:
Lady Berkeley heads, 101;
to recover losses, 102;
suppress King's pardon, 102;
pillaging by, 104, 105
Grenville, George: wants consolidated empire, 224
Grievances:
against Harvey, 47;
against Berkeley, 77;
against law of ports, 165
Grymes, John:
Deputy Auditor, 162;
conceited, 171;
hates Spotswood, 172, 173
Gwynn's Island: Dunmore at, 252
Habeas Corpus:
settlers claim, 2;
denied by Effingham, 118
Hamilton, Lord George:
Earl of Orkney, 159;
Governor General, 159;
career of, 159;
patron of Spotswood, 160
Hansford, Thomas: executed patriot, 95
Harrison, Benjamin:
Nicholson abuses, 22;
Blair defends, 22;
criticizes Secretary's office, 33;
Councillor, 133, 140;
land holdings, 135;
charges against Nicholson, 147, 148
Harrison, Nathaniel: proposes reconciliation, 175
Harrison, Rev. Thomas:
Puritan minister, 60;
banished, 61
Hartwell, Henry: on Governor's patronage, 20, 21
Harvey, Sir John:
egocentric, 18;
expelled, 35;
Governor, 37;
arrives, 38;
despotic, 39;
misuse of courts, 39, 40;
persecutes Pott, 39, 40;
conflict with Council, 41-47;
appeals to King, 41, 42;
strikes Stevens, 42;
aids Baltimore, 43;
urges tobacco contract, 44;
detains petition, 44;
people's grievances against, 44;
arrests Pott, English, and Martian, 45;
appeals to Council, 45;
Council arrest, 46;
leaves for England, 47;
reappointed, 48;
returns to Virginia, 48, 49;
revenge of, 49, 50;
restores Mathews' property, 50;
prosecutes Panton, 51, 52;
recalled, 51;
prosecuted, 51, 52;
escapes from Virginia, 52;
significance of expulsion, 52, 53
Harwood, Thomas:
agent of Assembly, 47;
hastens to London, 48
Henry, Patrick:
Two-penny Act, 215;
denounces clergy, 215, 216;
says people must govern, 216;
resolutions of, 226, 227;
accused of treason, 227;
alarm bell of Revolution, 229;
committee of correspondence, 237;
marches on Williamsburg, 245;
convention of 1776, 255
Hill, Col. Edward:
Green Spring faction, 101;
defies King, 104;
Treasurer, 129
Holt, John: his press seized, 250
Hopkins, William:
contempt of House, 179;
forced to apologize, 179
Howe, Col.:
at Norfolk, 251;
hints at burning, 251
Hunter, Col. Robert:
Governor, 158;
French capture, 158
Independence:
not wanted, 253;
forced by British, 253, 254;
_Common Sense_, 254;
sentiment for grows, 254, 255;
Virginia instructs for, 255, 256;
people celebrate, 256
Indiana Company:
fort at Christanna, 171;
King dissolves, 171;
ask compensation, 171
Indians:
attack Jamestown, 4;
massacre by, 57, 58;
war with Susquehannocks, 85;
frontier forts, 86;
threaten Charles City, 86;
attack feared in 1689, 120, 121;
raids in Valley, 204, 205;
Dunmore's War, 242, 243;
Point Pleasant, 243
Intolerable Acts: 238
James I:
on kingly power, 2, 3;
conflict with Parliament, 3;
charter to Virginia Company, 4;
assails London Company, 11;
offers compromise, 12
James II:
scorns Burgesses' petition, 114;
repeals act of Assembly, 115, 116;
revives a law, 116;
favors Catholics, 119;
deposed, 120
Jamestown:
founded, 2;
first Assembly at, 9;
capitol at, 25, 26;
Lord Baltimore at, 38;
Charles II proclaimed at, 74;
Bacon's Assembly, 88;
Berkeley occupies, 93;
Bacon captures, 93;
burnt, 94;
William and Mary proclaimed, 121;
statehouse burns, 1698, 146
James, Thomas:
missionary to Virginia, 60;
driven out, 61
Jefferson, Thomas:
friend of Fauquier, 209;
committee of correspondence, 237;
answers British "compromise," 247;
prefers independence to slavery, 254;
on independence, 254
Jeffreys, Col. Herbert:
ousts Councillor, 20;
Lieutenant Governor, 97;
insulted, 100, 101;
promises reforms, 101;
ill, 102;
ousts Beverley, 104;
indicts Philip Ludwell, 104, 105;
dies, 105;
wife imprisoned, 105
Jeffries, Jeffrey: agent for charter, 123, 124
Jenings, Edmund:
Councillor, 126;
acting Governor, 157, 158;
career of, 158;
dissolves Assembly, 159;
suspended from Council, 179
The _John_:
sails to Virginia, 64;
sinks, 65
Johnson, Edward: on God's revenge on Virginia, 61
Johnson, Samuel: denounces Americans, 223
Kemp, Matthew: insulted in House, 179
Kemp, Richard:
advises Harvey to leave, 46;
carries off Mathews' property, 50;
prosecutes Panton, 50, 51;
Secretary, 51;
escapes to England, 52;
acting Governor, 57
Kendall, George:
member of Council, 4;
expelled, 4;
executed, 5
Knowles, Rev. John:
missionary to Virginia, 60;
driven out, 61
_Laissez faire_: 177;
passing of, 224
Land:
Berkeley's grants, 78, 79;
rent roll, 135;
must cultivate to hold, 162;
law defied, 162;
Drysdale opposes large grants, 178;
much unpatented, 198
Lawrence, Thomas:
cheated by Berkeley, 79, 80;
influence on Bacon, 84;
Bacon consults, 88;
burns own house, 94;
fate unknown, 95
Laws, Military:
severe, 6, 7;
cruelly enforced, 7
Lee, Arthur: repulsed in England, 254
Lee, Henry: convention of 1776, 255
Lee, Philip Ludwell: protests paper money, 219
Lee, Richard Henry: 219;
protests Stamp Act, 224;
committee of correspondence, 237;
Continental Congress, 240;
convention of 1776, 255
Lewis, Gen. Andrew:
at Point Pleasant, 243;
bombards Gwynn's Island, 252
Liberty:
taxation and, 2;
threatened in England, 2;
Glorious Revolution aids, 122;
new charter to guarantee, 124;
Nicholson assails, 146, 147;
Council threatens, 159;
victory for, 181;
Virginians called republican, 198;
Bland argues for, 216;
Burke on, 240;
won, 257
Lightfoot, John:
Nicholson upbraids, 141;
charges against Nicholson, 147, 148
Littlepage, Richard:
refuses to certify grievances, 165;
House asks arrest of, 165
London, Bishop of: calls Two-penny act treason, 213
Loudoun, Earl of:
praises Burgesses, 205;
embargo defied, 205, 206;
Governor, 207
Ludwell, Philip:
auditor, 34;
marries Lady Berkeley, 76;
insults Jeffreys, 100;
Green Spring faction, 101;
indicted, 104, 105
Ludwell, Philip, Jr.:
accuses Nicholson, 138;
Nicholson challenges, 145;
auditor, 168;
Spotswood ousts, 169;
leaves new court, 170;
Spotswood denounces, 171
Ludwell, Thomas:
seeks charter for Virginia, 1;
fears rebellion, 80;
reports disasters, 81;
agent for Virginia, 82;
presides over Council, 104
Madison, James: convention of 1776, 255
Magna Carta of Virginia:
drawn up, 8;
De la Warr sails with, 8;
Yeardley takes to Virginia, 8;
Assembly authorized, 8, 9
Mandeville, Lord Henry:
heads commission on Virginia, 13;
reappoints Yeardley, 13
Martin, John: member of Council, 4
Martin, Nicholas:
denounces Harvey, 44, 45;
arrested, 45
Maryland:
Baltimore founds, 43;
surrenders to Parliament, 67;
Virginia seeks to annex, 69
Mason, George:
general committee of safety, 249;
convention of 1776, 255
Mathew, Thomas: says Berkeley cheated Lawrence, 79
Mathews, Samuel:
resists Harvey, 42, 43;
opposes founding of Maryland, 43;
opposes tobacco contract, 44;
compares Harvey with Richard III, 45;
arrests Harvey, 46;
King orders arrest of, 48;
sent to England, 49;
his property seized, 50;
favors Parliament, 56;
Governor, 71;
recalled, 71;
re-elected, 72;
dies, 73
Maury, Rev. James:
sues for salary, 214;
Patrick Henry attorney against, 215
Menefie, George:
Harvey questions, 45;
accused of treason, 46;
withholds Harvey's commission, 47
Mercer, Col. George:
stamp distributor, 227, 228;
crowd threatens, 228;
will not distribute, 228
Merchants, British:
oppose free trade, 68, 69;
conflict with planters, 185;
Royal African Company, 186;
oppose duty on slaves, 186;
taxed, 186;
Virginians angered at, 188;
Virginians in debt to, 188, 189;
petition Parliament, 189, 190;
protest paper money, 217;
renew complaints, 219;
for legal tender, 220
Meriwether, Nicholas: Spotswood removes, 164
Milner, Col. Thomas: Nicholson praises, 126
Molasses Act: resented in Virginia, 188
Moryson, Francis:
seeks charter for Virginia, 1;
agent for Virginia, 81;
committee on Bacon's Rebellion, 97
Navigation Acts:
Berkeley protests against, 80;
impoverish Virginia, 81
Nelson, Thomas: protests paper money, 219
Nelson, William: protests paper money, 219
New Granada:
expedition against, 192;
failure, 192
New Kent: Bacon invades, 87
Newport, Capt. Christopher: member of Council, 4
Nicholas, Robert Carter:
defends Two-penny Act, 216;
Treasurer, 222;
burns notes, 222;
to submit to Stamp Act, 226;
day of prayer, 238;
prevents storming of Palace, 245;
constitution of 1776, 255
Nicholson, Sir Francis:
on ideal Governor, 18;
use of patronage, 20, 21;
power over courts, 22;
calls Virginians republicans, 35;
Lieutenant Governor, 124;
character, 124, 125;
abuses clergymen, 124, 125;
in New York, 125;
cautious, 125;
defends prerogative, 126, 127;
aids college, 127;
Governor General, 133;
program of, 133, 134;
violent temper, 134;
offends Councillors, 134;
rent roll, 135;
offends vestries, 136;
tries to control Church, 136;
threatens Burgesses, 137;
gives aid to New York, 137;
wheedles Burgesses, 138;
browbeats voters, 138;
abuses Burgesses, 138;
threatens Speaker, 139;
violent in General Court, 139;
packs juries, 139;
heckles Council, 140;
abuses Wallace, 142, 143;
loves Lucy Burwell, 142-145;
threatens Fouace, 143, 144;
derided in England, 144;
challenges Philip Ludwell, Jr., 145;
founds Williamsburg, 146;
despotism resented, 146, 147;
charges against, 147-150;
denies charges, 148, 149;
Quary defends, 149;
"addresses" praise, 149;
removed, 150
Norfolk:
protests Stamp Act, 229;
Dunmore seizes, 250;
evacuated, 251;
Americans enter, 251;
Dunmore threatens, 251, 252;
Americans burn, 252
Northern Neck: granted to favorites, 83
Norwood, Col. Henry: criticizes courts, 79
Nott, Col. Edward:
Governor, 150;
mild, 151;
defers to Council, 154;
Assembly weakens patronage, 155;
veto, 156;
death, 157
Nuthead, William: his printing press closed, 117
Ohio Region: French in, 196
Opechancanough: captured, 58
Ordinance and Constitution: Virginia government under, 9
Oyer and Terminer, Court of:
Spotswood sets up, 169;
non-Councillors in, 170
Page, John, Jr.: keeps day of prayer, 242
Page, Matthew:
Councillor, 133;
charges against Nicholson, 147, 148
Palace:
mob threatens, 245, 247;
raided, 247, 248
Pamunkeys:
hostile, 86;
flee from Bacon, 87
Panton, Rev. Anthony:
accuses Harvey, 49;
fined and banished, 50, 51;
vindicated, 52
Parke, Daniel: announces Berkeley's death, 102
Parliament:
expedition against Virginia, 64;
Virginia surrenders, 66;
less representative, 222;
rotten boroughs, 222, 223;
out of step with age, 223;
ignorant of colonies, 223
Paper money:
Assembly issues, 205;
new issues, 206;
to finance war, 217;
rate of exchange, 218;
continues issues, 218;
to finance war, 217;
rate of exchange, 218;
continues issues, 218;
illegal loans, 221
Patronage:
props Governor's power, 19, 20, 21;
Bacon's Laws restrict, 92;
Effingham uses, 118;
Nicholson uses, 137, 138;
bill to limit vetoed, 167;
no Burgess to hold office, 181;
victory for liberty, 181
Pendleton, Edmund: 219;
protests Stamp Act, 224;
to submit, 226;
committee of correspondence, 237;
Continental Congress, 240;
lionized, 246;
General Committee of Safety, 249;
for independence, 255;
convention of 1776, 255
Pierce, William:
King orders arrest, 48;
sent to England, 49
Pistole Fee:
for use of seal, 196-200;
counties complain of, 196;
Stith opposes, 196;
Attorney General upholds, 197;
Burgesses appeal to King, 198;
Dinwiddie says not a tax, 199;
King restricts use of, 199, 200;
results of, 200;
Fauquier cautious of, 200
Pitt, William: supports Americans, 241
Poll tax:
hated, 31;
people protest, 83;
Bacon's men protest, 90;
crushes poor in 1677, 103;
liquor duty eases, 187
Pott, Francis:
circulates petition, 44;
arrested, 45;
released, 47;
leaves for England, 47;
arrested in England, 48
Pott, Dr. John:
acting Governor, 37;
poisons Indians, 37, 38;
Harvey persecutes, 39, 40;
pardoned, 40;
aids in arresting Harvey, 46
Powder Horn, Williamsburg:
powder seized, 244;
trap wounds two, 246
Prerogative of King:
whittled away, 34, 35;
James II stretches, 116;
weakened, 123;
Two-penny Act, ignores, 212
Press: free prohibited, 116, 117
Purifie, Thomas: warns Harvey, 46
Puritans:
in Virginia, 58;
Berkeley persecutes, 59;
strong on Hampton Roads, 60;
send for ministers, 60;
ministers driven out, 61;
ordered to conform, 61
Quartering of troops: ended in Virginia, 117
Quary, Col. Robert:
describes powers of Council, 24, 25;
on decline of prerogative, 35;
warns English government, 123;
defends Nicholson, 149
Quit rents:
paid to King, 31;
tax on land, 115;
proposed to quadruple, 115;
Nicholson's rent roll, 135;
Dinwiddie reports loss, 198
Randolph, Edmund: convention of 1776, 255
Randolph, Sir John: Tory, leaves Virginia, 242
Randolph, Peyton:
takes Burgesses' protest, 198;
ousted as Attorney General, 199;
reinstated, 200;
protests Stamp Act, 224;
to submit, 226;
moderator, 234;
committee of correspondence, 237;
Continental Congress, 240;
prevents storming of Palace, 245
Ratcliffe, John: member of Council, 4
Rebellion:
Secretary Ludwell fears, 80;
Virginia "ripe for," 82;
Berkeley fears, 83;
outbreaks in 1674, 83, 84;
Virginia ready for, 85;
led by Bacon, 87-96;
influence of Bacon's rebellion, 95, 96;
causes of, 96;
threatened in 1677, 100;
in 1689, 120, 121
Richmond, Duke of: supports colonists, 241
Rights, Declaration of: committee to prepare, 256
Robinson, John:
Speaker and Treasurer, 28;
Fauquier wins support, 210;
death, 221;
illegal loans of, 221
Rolfe, John: cures tobacco, 15
Sandys, Sir Edwin:
Puritan, 8;
Treasurer of London Company, 8;
gets new charters, 8;
Virginia Magna Carta, 8;
sent to Tower, 11;
fights to save charter, 12;
advises restoring Company, 13;
champions English liberty, 15
Sandys, George: asks revival of Company, 17
Second Stuart Despotism: influence on colonies, 3, 106-121
Secretary of State: duties of, 33
Sheriffs:
political use of by Berkeley, 78;
Bacon's Laws, 91;
Effingham uses, 118;
Nicholson uses, 137, 138
Slavery:
effect on aristocracy, 152;
cheapens tobacco, 184;
small planters buy, 184, 185;
slave plots, 186;
duty on slaves vetoed, 186, 187;
Virginia resents vetoes, 187;
Dunmore recruits slaves, 250
Smith, Capt. John:
imprisoned, 4;
hanging threatened, 5;
sole Councillor, 5
Smith, Col. Joseph:
accused by court, 178;
Burgesses reprimand, 178;
Drysdale removes, 179
Smith, Col. Lawrence: sued for quit rents, 135
Sons of Liberty: 229
Speaker:
prestige, 28;
Nicholson threatens, 139;
made Treasurer, 210;
Fauquier ordered to separate, 210
Spencer, Nicholas: fears mutiny in 1677, 100
Spotswood, Col. Alexander:
able, 18;
on Burgesses salary, 27, 28;
Lieutenant Governor, 159;
career, 160;
Orkney his patron, 160;
explores west, 161;
instructions, 161;
act for ports, 162-165;
jobs handed out, 163, 164;
House angers, 165;
to limit franchise, 166;
Council balks, 166;
vetoes bills, 167;
denounces Burgesses, 168;
court of oyer and terminer, 169-171;
defends new court, 170, 171;
foul play at elections, 172;
defeated, 172;
charges against, 173;
seeks flattering addresses, 173;
answers charges, 174;
Board of Trade upholds, 174;
to live in Virginia, 174;
Tubal Cain, 175;
reconciled to Council, 175;
administration of, 176
Stamp Act:
dismay at, 224;
Barre denounces, 225;
ready to resist, 227;
Mercer distributor, 227, 228;
stamps not landed, 228;
Norfolk protests, 229;
criticized in England, 230;
English merchants protest, 230;
repealed, 230
Statehouse:
at Jamestown, 24;
burned, 1698, 129
Stegg, Thomas:
aids Kemp escape, 52;
favors Parliament, 58;
commissioner for Parliament, 64;
lost on the _John_, 65
Stith, Rev. William: incites against pistole fee, 196
_Susan Constant_: sails for Virginia, 1
Susquehannocks:
fort besieged, 85;
torture victims, 85
Taxation:
by first Assembly, 10;
Burgesses control, 29-31, 115;
perpetual revenue to King, 30, 110-112;
call fees taxes, 115;
protest pistole fee, 197;
in colonial history, 225;
role in self-government, 225;
Jefferson on, 247
Tea:
tax on, 236;
resistance to tax, 237, 238;
banned, 238;
Carter refuses, 238
Thompson, Rev. William:
missionary to Virginia, 60;
driven out, 61
Thrale, John: defends Nicholson, 148
Tobacco:
staple of Virginia, 15;
Dutch buy, 59;
cutting riots, 113;
Spotswood's bill of ports, 162-165;
prices rise, 163;
George I vetoes bill of ports, 168;
Gooch's bill of ports, 180-181, 191, 192;
slaves cheapen, 184;
Gooch argues for bill of ports, 191;
_A Dialogue_, 191;
poor standard of value, 211
Tobacco cutting riots: 113.
Tories: few in Virginia, 242
Townshend Acts:
anger America, 232;
unconstitutional, 234
Treasurer:
Burgesses name, 128, 129;
usually also Speaker, 210;
separation ordered, 210;
illegal loans by, 221
Utie, John:
opposes tobacco contract, 44;
arrests Harvey, 46;
King orders arrest, 48;
sent to England, 49
Vestries:
govern parishes, 32;
Bacon's Laws, 92;
Nicholson attacks power of, 136
Virginia Company of London:
charter of 1606, 1, 4;
set up despotism, 5;
members consider going to Virginia, 7;
James I attacks, 11;
_A True Answer_, 11;
blamed by commission, 11;
rejects King's offer, 12;
appeals to Parliament, 12;
charter revoked, 12;
reasons for, 13;
restoring of opposed, 17
Wallace, Rev. James:
sermon enrages Nicholson, 141, 142;
testifies against Nicholson, 148
Washington, George:
warns French on Ohio, 201;
expedition to Ohio, 202;
commands in Valley, 205;
Continental Congress, 240;
wears uniform to Congress, 245;
commander-in-chief, 245;
predicts independence, 254, 255
West:
expansion into, 182;
aids democracy, 184
West, Capt. Francis: Governor, 37
West, John:
acting Governor, 47;
sent to England, 49
William III: joint monarch, 121, 122
Williamsburg:
capitol at, 146;
Nicholson founds, 146;
celebrates Stamp Act repeal, 230;
day of prayer, 239;
powder seized, 244;
an armed camp, 248;
celebrates independence, 256, 257
Wingfield, Edward:
member of Council, 4;
ousted, 5;
accuses other Councillors, 5
Wormeley, Ralph: supports Dunmore, 242
Wyatt, Sir Francis:
receives constitution, 9;
Governor, 51
Wythe, George: 219;
protests Stamp Act, 224
Yeardley, Capt. George:
Governor, 6;
brings Magna Carta, 9;
calls first Assembly, 10;
reappointed, 13;
pleads for Assembly, 14;
death, 36
* * * * *
Transcriber's Corrections
Following is a list of significant typographical errors that have been
corrected.
- Page 7, missing close quote added according to original source text by
Brown (of the Court.").
- Page 23, missing close quote added based on transcriber assumption
because original source text was not found for confirmation (King in
Council.").
- Page 47, "Harvery" changed to "Harvey" (forced Harvey to deliver).
- Page 90, "hubub" changed to "hubbub" (hearing the hubbub).
- Page 123, "aproved" changed to "approved" (he approved of it).
- Page 126, missing open quote added based on transcriber assumption
because original source text was not found for confirmation ("but he
hath not estate).
- Page 128, close quote removed based on transcriber assumption because
open quote is missing and original source text was not found for
confirmation (he dissolved them.).
- Page 128, missing close quote added based on transcriber assumption
because original source text was not found for confirmation (the King's
"goodness").
- Page 143, missing close quote added based on transcriber assumption
because original source text was not found for confirmation (to live
here.").
- Page 148, "perscution" changed to "persecution" (persecution and
injustice).
- Page 170, missing open quote added based on transcriber assumption
because original source text was not found for confirmation
("extraordinary emergency").
- Page 171, missing close quote added based on transcriber assumption
because original source text was not found for confirmation (the people
of Virginia?").
- Page 187, missing close quote added according to original source text
by Lipscomb (of a whole country.").
- Page 189, missing close quote added based on transcriber assumption
because original source text was not found for confirmation (reports of
merchants").
- Page 192, "againt" changed to "against" (expedition against New
Granada).
- Page 235, "disappointmnt" changed to "disappointment" (because of
their disappointment).
- Page 237, "spirt" changed to "spirit" (the spirit of resistance).
- Page 246, "mazagine" changed to "magazine" (entered the magazine).
- Page 255, "distingiushed" changed to "distinguished" (each
distinguished member).
- Page 284, "beseiged" changed to "besieged" (fort besieged, 85;).
- Page 286, "democacy" changed to "democracy" (aids democracy, 184).
End of Project Gutenberg's Give Me Liberty, by Thomas J. Wertenbaker