WILLIAM AND MARY.
[Sidenote: Political education.]
Between the breaking out of Bacon’s rebellion in the summer of 1676
and the Declaration of Independence, the interval was exactly a
hundred years. It was for Virginia a century of political education.
It prepared her for the great work to come, and it brought her
into sympathy more or less effective with other colonies that
were struggling with similar political questions, especially with
Massachusetts. It was in that same year, 1676, that Charles II. sent
Edward Randolph to Boston, to enforce the Navigation Act and to report
upon New England affairs in general. This mission of Randolph led
to quarrels which resulted in the overthrow of the charter and the
sending of royal governors to Massachusetts. From that time forth
the legislatures of Massachusetts and Virginia had to contend with
similar questions concerning the powers and prerogatives of the
royal governors, so that the two colonies kept a close watch upon
each other’s proceedings, while both received a thorough training
in constitutional politics. Amid such circumstances came into
existence the necessary conditions for the establishment of political
independence and the formation of our Federal Union.
[Sidenote: Robert Beverley.]
[Sidenote: His refusal to give up the journals.]
The suppression of Bacon’s rebellion was far from equivalent to a
surrender to Charles II. or his representatives. Questions of privilege
soon arose, and it was not long before Berkeley’s most efficient
officer came himself to be regarded almost in the light of a rebel.
Major Robert Beverley, of Beverley in Yorkshire, an ardent royalist,
had come to Virginia in 1663. He was elected clerk of the House of
Burgesses in 1670, and held that office for many years. No one was
more active in stamping out rebellion in the autumn of 1677, but after
the arrival of the royal commissioners he was soon at feud with them.
As the disturbances had been quieted without the aid of their troops,
there was a disposition to resent their coming as an interference,
especially as they seemed to lend too ready an ear to the complaints
of the malcontents. In the list of grievances of Gloucester County we
find “a complaint against Major Robert Beverley that when the country
had (according to Order) raised 60 armed men to be an Out-guard for the
Governor--who not finding the Governor nor their appointed Comander
they were by Beverly comanded to goe to work, fall trees and maule
and toate railes, which many of them refusing to doe, he presently
disbanded them & sent them home at a tyme when the countrey were
infested by the Indians, who had a little before cut off six persons
in one family, and attempted others.” Upon this the commissioners
remarked, “Wee conceive this dealing of Beverly’s to be a notorious
abuse and Grievance, to take away the peoples armes while ther famlies
were cutt off by the Indians, and they deserve just reparation here.”
But Berkeley declared that what Beverley had done was by his orders,
and the newly elected House of Burgesses stood by its clerk. After
Berkeley had sailed for England, in April, 1677, the commissioners
called upon the House of Burgesses to give up its journals for their
inspection, and Beverley refused to comply with the demand. No king
in England, said the burgesses, would venture to make such a demand
of the House of Commons. Then the commissioners seized the journals,
and the burgesses indignantly voted that such an act was a violation
of privilege. This enraged the king, and in February, 1679, the privy
council ordered that Beverley should be removed from office.
[Sidenote: Lord Culpeper.]
A change of governors, however, altered the situation. After Jeffries
and Chichely, who served but a year each, came Lord Culpeper, whom
Charles II. had undertaken to make co-proprietor of Virginia, along
with the Earl of Arlington. Culpeper was an average specimen of
the public officials of the time, fairly agreeable and easy-going,
but rapacious and utterly unprincipled. In one respect he might be
contrasted unfavourably with all the governors since Harvey. Such men
as Bennett and Mathews and Berkeley looked upon Virginia as home. After
his own fashion the tyrannical Berkeley had the interest of Virginia
at heart. But Culpeper regarded the Virginians simply as people to be
fleeced. Through four years of chronic brawl he kept coming and going,
coming to manage the assembly and returning to consult with the king.
Charles wished to have the power of initiating legislation taken away
from the burgesses. All laws were to be drafted by the governor and
council, and then sent to England for the royal approval, before being
submitted to the burgesses. With such an arduous task before him, it
was wise for Culpeper to avoid giving needless offence; and seeing the
high regard in which Beverley was held, he caused the order for his
removal to be revoked.
[Sidenote: The Plant-cutter’s Riot, 1682.]
The evil effects of the Navigation Act still continued. In 1679 the
tobacco crop was so large that a considerable surplus was left over
till the next year unsold. In 1680 the surplus was still greater, so
that there was evidently more than enough to supply the English market
for two years. The assembly therefore proposed to order a cessation
of planting for the year 1681, but on account of the customs revenue
it was necessary to obtain the king’s assent to such an order. By the
same token the assent was refused, and great was the indignation in
Virginia. The price of tobacco had fallen so low that, according to
Nicholas Spencer, a whole year’s crop would not so much as buy the
clothes which people needed.[80] The distress was like that which was
caused in the War of Independence by the Continental currency and the
rag money issued by the several states. It was the kind of sickness
that has always come and always will come with “cheap money.” Culpeper
insisted that the only chance of relief was in exporting beef, pork,
and grain to the West Indies. A more effective measure would have
been the repeal of the Navigation Act. In the spring of 1682, on the
petition of several counties, the assembly was convened for the purpose
of ordering a cessation of planting. Amid great popular excitement the
assembly adjourned without taking any decisive action. Then a fury
for destroying the young plants seized upon the people. “The growing
tobacco of one plantation was no sooner destroyed than the owner,
having been deprived either with or without his consent of his crop,
was seized with the same frenzy and ran with the crowd as it marched to
destroy the crop of his neighbour.”[81] The contagion spread until ten
thousand hogsheads of tobacco had been destroyed. In Gloucester, where
the most damage was done, two hundred plantations were laid waste. The
riot was suppressed by the militia, three ringleaders were hung, and
the rest pardoned. One, we are told, received pardon on condition that
he should build a bridge.[82]
[Sidenote: Culpeper’s removal.]
This was contracting the currency with a vengeance, but it produced
the desired effect. In 1683 the purchasing power of tobacco was
greatly increased, and a feeling of contentment returned. But the
destruction of the plants served to heighten the king’s indignation
at Culpeper’s ill success in curtailing the power of the burgesses.
Culpeper tried to play a double part and appear complaisant to the
assembly without offending the king. Consequently he pleased nobody,
and early in 1684 he was removed. Shortly afterward the king confirmed
him in the possession of the territory known as the Northern Neck, and
he relinquished all proprietary claims upon the rest of Virginia, in
exchange for a pension of £600 yearly for twenty years.
[Sidenote: Lord Howard of Effingham.]
Culpeper’s successor was Lord Howard of Effingham, an unworthy
descendant of Elizabeth’s gallant admiral. He was as greedy and
dishonest as Culpeper, without his conciliatory temper. The difference
between the two has been aptly compared to the difference between
Charles II. and his brother. Howard was indeed as domineering and
wrong-headed as James II., and rapacious besides. He treated public
opinion with contempt. His administration was noted for corruption and
tyranny. No accounts were rendered of the use of public funds, and
men were arbitrarily sent to jail. Howard went so far as to claim the
right to repeal the acts of the assembly, and over this point there was
hot contention. The subject of “plant-cutting,” or the destruction of
growing tobacco, came up again, and the crown was enabled in one and
the same act to wreak its vengeance upon an eminent victim and to aim
a blow at the independence of the House of Burgesses.
[Sidenote: More trouble for Beverley.]
Robert Beverley, as we have seen, had incurred the royal displeasure
by refusing to hand over to the commissioners the journals of the
House of Burgesses. In 1682 he was strongly in favour of a cessation
of planting, and accordingly it suited the purposes of his enemies
to point to him as the prime instigator of the plant-cutting riots.
On this accusation he was turned out of office and several times
imprisoned. At last, just after Lord Howard’s arrival, he was set free
after asking pardon on his bended knees and giving security for future
good behaviour. A statute passed about this time made plant-cutting
high treason, punishable with death and confiscation.[83]
As soon as Beverley was set free the House of Burgesses again chose him
for its clerk. But presently Lord Howard tried to get the burgesses
to allow him to levy a tax, and in the course of the quarrel sundry
trumped-up charges were brought against Beverley, so that in 1686 James
II. instructed Howard to declare him incapable of holding any office of
public trust. The same letter ordered that henceforth the clerk of the
House of Burgesses should be appointed by the governor.[84]
[Sidenote: For stupid audacity James II. was outdone by George III.]
It is worthy of note that the most despicable and lawless of modern
English kings did not venture to deny the right of Virginians to tax
themselves by their own representatives. Howard’s instructions merely
authorized him to “recommend” certain measures to the assembly. His
attempt to get permission to levy a tax independently of the burgesses
was such a recommendation. However arrogant and illegal in spirit, it
still conceded to the colonists the constitutional principle over which
the fatuous George III. and his rotten-borough parliaments were to try
to ride rough-shod.
[Sidenote: Francis Nicholson.]
By 1688 Howard concluded that it would be pleasant and comfortable
for him to live on his governor’s salary in England and send out a
deputy-governor to deal with refractory burgesses. When he arrived in
England he found William and Mary on the throne, but they showed no
disposition to interfere with his plans. Just the right sort of man
for deputy-governor appeared at the right moment. Francis Nicholson
had held that position in New York under the viceroy of united New
York and New England, Sir Edmund Andros. When that unpopular viceroy
was deposed and cast into jail in Boston, Nicholson was deposed in New
York by Jacob Leisler, and went to England with the tale of his woes,
which King William sought to assuage by sending him to Virginia as
deputy-governor.
[Sidenote: His manners.]
Nicholson was a man of integrity and fair ability, though highly
eccentric and cantankerous. “Laws of Virginia,” he cried one day,
seizing the attorney-general by the lapel of his silk robe, “I know
no laws of Virginia! I know my commands are going to be obeyed here!”
At another time he told the council that they were “mere brutes who
understood not manners, ... that he would beat them into better
manners and make them feel that he was governor of Virginia.”[85]
[Sidenote: James Blair, founder of William and Mary College.]
In spite of his queer peppery ways, the rule of Nicholson was a decided
relief after such worthless creatures as Culpeper and Howard. It is
chiefly memorable for the founding of the second American college, a
work which encountered such obstacles on both sides of the ocean as
only an iron will could vanquish. Such was found in the person of James
Blair, a Scotch clergyman, who in 1689 was appointed commissioner of
the Church in Virginia. The need for a bishop was felt, and a little
later there was some talk of sending out the famous Jonathan Swift in
that capacity, but no Episcopal bishopric was created in America until
after the War of Independence. Dr. Blair had a seat in the colonial
council, presided at ecclesiastical trials, and exercised many of
the powers of a bishop. Since the old scheme of Nicholas Ferrar and
his friends for a college in Virginia had been extinguished amid
lurid scenes of Indian massacre, nearly seventy years had elapsed[86]
when Blair in 1691 revived it. He began by collecting some £2,500 by
subscription, and then went to England to get more money and obtain
a charter. He was aided by two famous divines, Tillotson, Archbishop
of Canterbury, and Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, but from the
treasury commissioner, Sir Edward Seymour, he received a coarse
rebuff, which shows the frankly materialistic view at that time
entertained by the British official mind regarding England’s colonies.
When Blair urged that a college was needed for training up clergymen,
Seymour thought it was no time to be sending money to America for
such purposes; every penny was wanted in Europe for carrying on the
necessary and righteous war against Louis XIV. Blair could not deny
that it was an eminently righteous war, but he was not thus to be
turned from his purpose. “You must not forget,” said he, “that people
in Virginia have souls to save, as well as people in England.” “Souls!”
cried Seymour, “damn your souls! Grow tobacco!” In spite of this
discouraging view of the case, the good doctor persevered until he
obtained from William and Mary the charter that founded the college
ever since known by their names.
[Sidenote: Nicholson succeeded by Sir Edmund Andros.]
The college was established in 1693, with Blair for its president.[87]
Governor Nicholson, with seventeen other persons appointed by the
assembly, formed the board of trustees. From the outset Nicholson
was warmly in sympathy with the enterprise, but now this friend was
called away for a time. In the anti-Catholic fervour which attended the
accession of King William and Queen Mary, the palatinate government in
Maryland had been overturned, and the new royal governor, Sir Lionel
Copley, died in 1693. Nicholson was then promoted from deputy-governor
of Virginia to be governor of Maryland. About the same time Lord
Howard of Effingham resigned or was removed, and Sir Edmund Andros was
sent out to Virginia as governor. It may seem a strange appointment in
view of the obloquy which Andros had incurred at the north. But in all
these appointments William III. seems to have acted upon a consistent
policy of not disturbing, except in cases of necessity, the state of
things which he found. As a rule he retained in his service the old
officials against whom no grave charges were brought; and while the
personality of Andros was not prepossessing, there can be no doubt as
to his integrity.
[Sidenote: Andros quarrels with Blair.]
Nicholson’s career as royal governor of Maryland lasted until 1698,
while Andros was having a hard time in Virginia trying to enforce with
rigour the Navigation Act and to make life miserable for Dr. Blair.
His conduct was far more moderate than it had been in New England,
but he had his full share of trouble in Virginia. The moving cause of
his hostility to the college of William and Mary is not distinctly
assigned, but he is not unlikely to have believed, like many a dullard
of his stripe, that education is apt to encourage a seditious and
froward spirit. He did everything he could think of to thwart and
annoy President Blair. At the election of burgesses he predicted that
the establishment of a college would be sure to result in a terrible
increase of taxes. He tried to persuade subscribers to withhold the
payment of their subscriptions. He sought to arouse an absurd prejudice
against Scotchmen, for which it was rather late in the day. Finally he
connived at gross insults to the president and friends of the college.
Among the young men to whom Andros showed especial favour was Daniel
Parke, whose grandson, Daniel Parke Custis, is now remembered as the
first husband of Martha Washington. This young Daniel did some things
to which posterity could hardly point with pride. He is described as
a “sparkish gentleman,” or as some would say a slashing blade. He was
an expert with the rapier and anxious to thrust it between the ribs of
people who supported the college. His challenges were numerous, but
clergymen could not be reached in such a way. So “he set up a claim to
the pew in church in which Mrs. Blair sat, and one Sunday,” as we are
told, “with fury and violence he pulled her out of it in the presence
of the minister and congregation, who were greatly scandalized at this
ruffian and profane action.”[88]
[Sidenote: Removal of Andros.]
This was going too far. The stout Scotchman had powerful friends in
London; the outrage was discussed in Lambeth Palace; and Sir Edmund
Andros, for winking at such behaviour, was removed. He was evidently a
slow-witted official. His experiences in Boston, with Parson Willard
of the Old South, ought to have cured him of his propensity to quarrel
with aggressive and resolute clergymen. For two or three years after
going home, Sir Edmund governed the little channel island of Jersey,
and the rest of his days were spent in retirement, until his death in
1714.
[Sidenote: Earl of Orkney.]
The system of absentee governors, occasionally exemplified in such
cases as those of Lord Delaware and Lord Howard, was now to be
permanently adopted. A great favourite with William III. was George
Hamilton Douglas, whose distinguished gallantry at the battle of the
Boyne and other occasions had been rewarded with the earldom of Orkney.
In 1697 he was appointed governor-in-chief of Virginia, and for the
next forty years he drew his annual salary of £1,200 without ever
crossing the ocean. Henceforth the official who represented him in
Virginia was entitled lieutenant-governor, and the first was Francis
Nicholson, who was brought back from Maryland in 1698.
[Sidenote: Return of Nicholson.]
[Sidenote: Founding of Williamsburg.]
One of Nicholson’s achievements in Maryland, as we shall see in the
next chapter, had been the change of the seat of government from St.
Mary’s to Annapolis. He now proceeded to make a similar change in
Virginia. After perishing in Bacon’s rebellion, Jamestown was rebuilt
by Lord Culpeper, but in the last decade of the century it was again
destroyed by an accidental fire, and has never since risen from its
ashes. Of that sacred spot, the first abiding-place of Englishmen in
America, nothing now is left but the ivy-mantled ruins of the church
tower and a few cracked and crumbling tombstones. The site of the
hamlet is more than half submerged, and unless some kind of sea-wall
is built to protect it, the unresting tides will soon wash everything
away.[89] Jamestown had always a bad reputation for malaria, and after
its second burning people were not eager to restore it. Plans for
moving the government elsewhere had been considered on more than one
occasion. In 1699 the choice fell upon the site of Middle Plantation,
half way between James and York rivers, with its salubrious air and
wholesome water. It had already, in 1693, been selected as the site of
the new college.[90] Nicholson called the place Williamsburg, and began
building a town there with streets so laid out as to make W and M, the
initials of the king and queen, a plan soon abandoned as inconvenient.
The town thus founded by Nicholson remained the capital of Virginia
until 1780, when it was superseded by Richmond.
[Sidenote: Nicholson and Blair.]
Nicholson was in full sympathy with President Blair as regarded the
college, but occasions for disagreement between them were at hand. On
the lieutenant-governor’s arrival the wise parson read him a lesson
upon the need for moderation in the display of his powers. The career
of his predecessor Andros, in more than one colony, furnished abundant
examples of the need for such moderation. Blair offered him some good
advice tendered by the Bishop of London, whereupon Nicholson exclaimed,
with a big round oath, “I know how to govern Virginia and Maryland
better than all the bishops in England. If I had not hampered them in
Maryland and kept them under, I should never have been able to govern
them.” The doctor replied: “Sir, I do not pretend to [speak for]
Maryland, but if I know anything of Virginia, they are a good-natured
[and] tractable people as any in the world, and you may do anything
with them by way of civility, but you will never be able to manage them
in that way you speak of, by hampering and keeping them under.”[91] The
eccentric governor did not profit by this advice. Of actual tyranny
there was not much in his administration, but his blustering tongue
would give utterance to extravagant speeches whereat company would sit
“amazed and silent.”
[Sidenote: scolding swain.]
[Sidenote: Removal of Nicholson.]
At last in a laughable way this blustering habit proved his ruin.
Not far from Williamsburg lived Major Lewis Burwell, who had married
a cousin of the rebel Bacon and had a whole houseful of blooming
daughters. With one of these young ladies the worshipful governor
fell madly in love, but to his unspeakable chagrin she promptly and
decisively refused him. Poor Nicholson could not keep the matter to
himself, but raved about it in public. He suspected that Dr. Blair’s
brother was a favoured rival and threatened the whole family with
dire vengeance. He swore that if Miss Burwell should undertake to
marry anybody but himself, he would “cut the throats of three men: the
bridegroom, the minister, and the justice who issued the license.”
This truculent speech got reported in London, and one of Nicholson’s
friends wrote him a letter counselling him not to be so unreasonable,
but to remember that English women were the freest in the world, and
that Virginia was not like those heathen Turkish countries where tender
ladies were dragged into the arms of some pasha still reeking with the
blood of their nearest relatives. But nothing could quiet the fury
of a “governor scorned;” and one day when he suspected the minister
of Hampton parish of being his rival, he went up to him and knocked
his hat off. This sort of thing came to be too much for Dr. Blair; a
memorial was sent to Queen Anne, and Nicholson was recalled to England
in 1705. Afterwards we find him commanding the expedition which in
1710 captured the Acadian Port Royal from the French. He then served
as governor of the newly conquered Nova Scotia and afterwards of South
Carolina, was knighted, rose to the rank of lieutenant-general, and
died in 1728.
[Sidenote: The college.]
Meanwhile the college of William and Mary, in which Nicholson felt so
much interest, was flourishing. Unfortunately its first hall, designed
by Sir Christopher Wren, was destroyed by fire in 1705, but it was
before long replaced by another. Until 1712 the faculty consisted of
the president, a grammar master, writing master, and an usher; in
that year a professor of mathematics was added. By 1729 there were six
professors. Fifty years later the departments of law and medicine were
added, and the name “College” was replaced by “University.”[92]
[Sidenote: Indian students.]
As in the case of Harvard, it was hoped that this college might prove
effective in converting and educating Indians. In 1723 Brafferton Hall
was built for their use, from a fund given by Robert Boyle, the famous
chemist. It is still standing and used as a dormitory. We are told that
the “Queen of Pamunkey” sent her son to college with a boy to wait upon
him, and likewise two chiefs’ sons, “all handsomely cloathed after the
Indian fashion;”[93] but as to any effects wrought upon the barbarian
mind by this Christian institution of learning, there is nothing to
which we can point.
[Sidenote: Instructions to the housekeeper.]
The first Commencement exercises were held in the year 1700, and it is
said that not only were Virginians and Indians present on that gala
day, but so great was the fame of it that people came in sloops from
Maryland and Pennsylvania, and even from New York.[94] The journals of
what we may call the “faculty meetings” throw light upon the manner of
living at the college. There is a matron, or housekeeper, who is thus
carefully instructed: “1. That you never concern yourself with any
of the Boys only when you have a Complaint against any of them, and
then that you make it to his or their proper Master.--2. That there
be always both fresh and salt Meat for Dinner; and twice in the Week,
as well as on Sunday in particular, that there be either Puddings or
Pies besides; that there be always Plenty of Victuals; that Breakfast,
Dinner, and Supper be serv’d up in the cleanest and neatest manner
possible; and for this Reason the Society not only allow but desire
you to get a Cook; that the Boys Suppers be not as usual made up of
different Scraps, but that there be at each Table the same Sor^t: and
when there is cold fresh Meat enough, that it be often hashed for
them; that when they are sick, you yourself see their Victuals before
it be carry’d to them, that it be clean, decent, and fit for them;
that the Person appointed to take Care of them be constantly with
them, and give their Medicine regularly. The general Complaints of the
Visitors, and other Gentlemen throughout the whole Colony, plainly
shew the Necessity of a strict and regular Compliance with the above
Directions.... 4. That a proper Stocking-mender be procured to live in
or near the college, and as both Masters and Boys complain of losing
their Stockings, you are desired to look over their Notes given with
their Linnen to the Wash, both at the Delivery and Return of them....
5. That the Negroes be trusted with no keys; ... that fresh Butter be
look’d out for in Time, that the Boys may not be forced to eat salt in
Summer.--6. As we all know that Negroes will not perform their Duties
without the Mistress’ constant Eye, especially in so large a Family as
the College, and as we all observe You going abroad more frequently
then even the Mistress of a private Family can do without the affairs
of her province greatly suffering, We particularly request it of you,
that your visits for the future in Town and Country may not be so
frequent, by which Means we doubt not but Complaints will be greatly
lessened.”[95]
[Sidenote: Horse-racing prohibited.]
At another meeting it is ordered “y^t no scholar belonging to any
school in the College, of w^t Age, Rank, or Quality, soever, do keep
any race Horse at y^e College, in y^e Town--or any where in the
neighbourhood--y^t they be not anyway concerned in making races, or in
backing, or abetting, those made by others, and y^t all Race Horses,
kept in y^e neighbourhood of y^e College & belonging to any of y^e
scholars, be immediately dispatched & sent off, & never again brought
back, and all of this under Pain of y^e severest Animadversion and
Punishment.”
[Sidenote: Other prohibitions.]
There is a stress in the wording of this order which makes one
suspect that the faculty had encountered difficulty in suppressing
horse-racing. Similar orders forbid students to take part in
cock-fighting, to frequent “y^e Ordinaries,” to bet, to play at
billiards, or to bring cards or dice into the college. Punishment is
most emphatically threatened for any student who may “presume to go
out of y^e Bounds of y^e College, particularly towards the mill pond”
without express leave; but why the mill pond was to be so sedulously
shunned, we are left to conjecture. Finally, “to y^e End y^t no Person
may pretend Ignorance of y^e foregoing ... Regulations, ... it is
Ordered ... y^t a clear & legible copy of y^m be posted up in every
School of y^e College.”[96]
[Sidenote: The story of Parson Camm.]
One of the brightest traditions in the history of the college is that
which tells of the wooing and wedding of Parson Camm, a gentleman
famous once, whose fame deserves to be revived. John Camm was born in
1718 and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a man of good
scholarship and sturdy character, an uncompromising Tory, one of the
leaders in that “Parsons’ Cause” which made Patrick Henry famous.[97]
He lived to be the last president of William and Mary before the
Revolution. After he had attained middle age, but while he was as yet
only a preacher and professor, and like all professors in those days
at William and Mary a bachelor, there came to him the romance which
brightened his life. Among those who listened to his preaching was Miss
Betsy Hansford, of the family of Hansford the rebel and martyr. A young
friend, who had wooed Miss Betsy without success, persuaded the worthy
parson to aid him with his eloquence. But it was in vain that Mr. Camm
besieged the young lady with texts from the Bible enjoining matrimony
as a duty. She proved herself able to beat him at his own game when
she suggested that if the parson would go home and look at 2 Samuel
xii. 7, he might be able to divine the reason of her obduracy. When Mr.
Camm proceeded to search the Scriptures he found these significant
words staring him in the face: “And Nathan said to David, _Thou art
the man!_” The sequel is told in an item of the Virginia Gazette,
announcing the marriage of Rev. John Camm and Miss Betsy Hansford.[98]
So, Virginia, too, had its Priscilla! In the words of the sweet
mediæval poem:--
El fait que dame, et si fait bien,
Car sos ciel n’a si france rien
Com est dame qui violt amer,
Quant Deus la violt à ço torner:
Deus totes dames beneie.[99]
But this marriage was an infringement of the customs of the college,
and was rebuked in an order that _hereafter_ the marriage of a
professor should _ipso facto_ vacate his office.
[Sidenote: Some interesting facts about the college.]
The college founded by James Blair was a most valuable centre for
culture for Virginia, and has been remarkable in many ways. It was
the first college in America to introduce teaching by lectures, and
the elective system of study; it was the first to unite a group
of faculties into a university; it was the second in the English
world to have a chair of Municipal Law, George Wythe coming to such
a professorship a few years after Sir William Blackstone; it was
the first in America to establish a chair of History and Political
Science; and it was one of the first to pursue a thoroughly secular
and unsectarian policy. Though until lately its number of students
at any one time had never reached one hundred and fifty, it has
given to our country fifteen senators and seventy representatives in
congress; seventeen governors of states, and thirty-seven judges; three
presidents of the United States,--Jefferson, Monroe, and Tyler; and the
great Chief Justice Marshall.[100] It was a noble work for America that
was done by the Scotch parson, James Blair.
[Sidenote: Nicholson’s schemes for a union of the colonies.]
As for Governor Nicholson, who was so deeply interested in that work,
he played a memorable part in the history of the United States, which
deserves mention before we leave the subject of his connection with
Virginia. When he was first transferred from the governorship of New
York to that of the Old Dominion, with his head full of experiences
gained in New York, he proposed a grand Union of the English colonies
for mutual defence against the encroachments of the French. King
William approved the scheme and recommended it to the favourable
consideration of the colonial assemblies. But a desire for union was
not strong in any of these bodies, and as for Virginia, she was too
remote from the Canadian border to feel warmly interested in it. The
act of 1695, authorizing the governor to apply £500 from the liquor
excise to the relief of New York, shows a notably generous spirit in
the Virginia burgesses, but the pressure which was to drive people into
a Federal Union was still in the hidden future. The attitude of the
several colonies so exasperated Nicholson as to lead him to recommend
that they should all be placed under a single viceroy and taxed for
the support of a standing army. When this plan was submitted to Queen
Anne and her ministers, it was rejected as unwise, and no British
ministry ever ventured to try any part of such a policy until the reign
of George III. Francis Nicholson should be remembered as one of the
very first to conceive and suggest the policy that afterward drove the
colonies into their Declaration of Independence.