1688-1696.
Accession of William and Mary--Proclaimed in Virginia--The
House of Stuart--President Bacon--Colonel Francis Nicholson,
Lieutenant-Governor--The Rev. James Blair, Commissary--College
of William and Mary chartered--Its Endowment, Objects,
Professorships--Death of John Page--Nicholson succeeded by
Andros--Post-office--Death of Queen Mary--William the Third--
Board of Trade.
WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE, landed at Torbay in November, 1688, and he
and Mary were proclaimed king and queen on the 13th day of February,
1689. The coronation took place on the eleventh day of April. They had
been for several months seated on the throne before they were proclaimed
in Virginia. The delay was owing to the reiterated pledges of fealty
made by the council to James, and from an apprehension that he might be
restored to the kingdom. Some of the Virginians insisted that, as there
was no king in England, so there was also an interregnum in the
government of the colony. At length, in compliance with the repeated
commands of the privy council, William and Mary were proclaimed, at
James City, in April, 1689, Lord and Lady of Virginia. This glorious
event, with the circumstances connected with it, was duly announced to
the lords commissioners of plantations, in a letter, dated on the
twenty-ninth of that month, by Nicholas Spencer, secretary of state.
The accession of the Prince of Orange dispelled the clouds of discontent
and alarm, and inspired the people of the colony with sincere joy. For
about seventy years Virginia had been subject to the house of Stuart,
and there was little in the retrospect to awaken regret at their
downfall. They had cramped trade by monopolies and restrictions,
lavished vast bodies of land on their profligate minions, and often
entrusted the reigns of power to incompetent, corrupt, and tyrannical
governors. The dynasty of the Stuarts fell buried in the ruins of
misused power.
When the last of the Stuart governors, Lord Howard of Effingham,
returned to England, he had left the administration in the hands of
Colonel Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., president of the council. Upon the
accession of William and Mary, England being on the eve of a war with
France, the president and council of Virginia were directed by the Duke
of Shrewsbury to put the colony in a posture of defence.
Colonel Philip Ludwell, who had been sent out as an agent of the colony
to prefer complaints against Lord Howard of Effingham before the privy
council, now at length obtained a decision in some points rather
favorable to the colony, but the question of prerogative was determined
in favor of the crown, and it was declared that an act of 1680 _was_
revived by the king's disallowing the act of repeal.
Bacon's administration was short; he had now obtained an advanced age.
In his time the project of a college was renewed, but not carried into
effect. President Bacon resided in York County. He married Elizabeth,
daughter of Richard Kingsmill, Esq., of James City County. Leaving no
issue, by his will he bequeathed his estates to his niece, Abigail
Burwell, and his "riding horse, Watt, to Lady Berkley," at that time
wife of Colonel Philip Ludwell. President Bacon died on the 16th of
March, 1692, in the seventy-third year of his age, and lies buries on
King's Creek,[344:A] as does also Elizabeth, his wife, who died in the
year 1691, aged sixty-seven.[344:B] The name of the wife of Nathaniel
Bacon, Jr., was likewise Elizabeth.
In the year 1690 Lord Effingham, reluctant to revisit a province where
he was so unacceptable, being still absent from Virginia on the plea of
ill health, Francis Nicholson, who had been driven from New York by a
popular outbreak, came over as lieutenant-governor. He found the colony
ready for revolt. The people were indignant at seeing Effingham still
retained in the office of governor-in-chief, believing that Nicholson
would become his tool. The revolution in England seemed as yet
productive of no amendment in the colonial administration. Nicholson,
however, now courted popularity; he instituted athletic games, and
offered prizes to those who should excel in riding, running, shooting,
wrestling, and fencing. The last alone could need any encouragement in
such a country as Virginia. He proposed the establishment of a
post-office, and recommended the erection of a college, but refused to
call an assembly to further the scheme, being under obligations to
Effingham to stave off assemblies as long as possible, for fear of
complaints being renewed against his arbitrary administration.[345:A]
Nevertheless, Nicholson and the council headed a private subscription,
and twenty-five hundred pounds were raised, part of this sum being
contributed by some London merchants. The new governor made a progress
through the colony, mingling freely with the people, and he carried his
indulgence to the common people so far as frequently to suffer them to
enter the room where he was entertaining company at dinner, and diverted
himself with their scrambling among one another and carrying off the
viands from the table--like Sancho Panza's on the Island of Barataria.
There is but one step from the courtier to the demagogue.
Virginia felt the embarrassments which war had brought upon England, and
acts were passed for encouraging domestic manufactures, for which
Nicholson found an apology in the scanty supplies imported. The assembly
congratulated the Prince of Orange on his accession, and thanking him
for his present of warlike stores, begged for further favors of the
royal bounty.
When Colonel Nicholson entered on the duties of governor, the Rev. James
Blair, a native of Scotland, newly appointed commissary of Virginia,
assumed the supervision of the churches of the colony. He came over to
this country in 1685, and settled in the County of Henrico, where he
remained till 1694, when he removed to Jamestown. The functions of
commissary, who was a deputy of the Bishop of London, had been
previously discharged by the Rev. Mr. Temple, but he was not regularly
commissioned.
At the instance of the Rev. Mr. Blair, in 1691 the assembly entered
heartily into the scheme of a college, and in the same year he was
dispatched with an address to their majesties, King William and Queen
Mary, soliciting a charter.
The first assembly under the new dynasty met at James City, in April,
1691, being the third year of their reign. Acts were passed for putting
the colony in a better state of defence, for reducing the poll tax, and
laying a duty on liquors, and for appointing a treasurer. Colonel Edward
Hill was appointed to that office. The same assembly met again by
prorogation, in April of the ensuing year.
Commissary Blair was graciously received at court, and in February,
1692, their majesties granted the charter.[346:A] The college was named
in honor of their majesties. The king gave about two thousand pounds
toward the building, out of the quit-rents. Seymour, the English
attorney-general, having received the royal commands to prepare the
charter of the college, which was to be accompanied with a grant of
money, remonstrated against this liberality, urging that the nation was
engaged in an expensive war; that the money was wanted for better
purposes, and that he did not see the slightest occasion for a college
in Virginia. The Rev. Mr. Blair, in reply, represented to him that its
intention was to educate and qualify young men to be ministers of the
gospel; and begged Mr. Attorney would consider that the people of
Virginia had souls to be saved as well as the people of England.
"Souls!" exclaimed the imperious Seymour; "damn your souls!--make
tobacco."[346:B]
The site selected for the college was in the Middle Plantation Old
Fields, near the church. The college was endowed by the crown with
twenty thousand acres of land in Pamunkey Neck, and on the south side of
Blackwater Swamp; the patronage of the office of surveyor-general;
together with the revenue arising from a duty of one penny a pound on
all tobacco exported from Virginia and Maryland to the other
plantations, the nett proceeds being two hundred pounds. The college
was also allowed to return a burgess to the assembly. The assembly
afterwards added to the revenue a duty on skins and furs.[347:A] Dr.
Blair was the first president of the college, being appointed under the
charter to hold the office for life. The plan of the building was the
composition of Sir Christopher Wren. The objects proposed by the
establishment of the college were declared to be the furnishing of a
seminary for the ministers of the gospel, and that the youth may be
piously educated in good letters and manners, and that the Christian
faith should be propagated among the Western Indians.[347:B] In addition
to the five professorships of Greek and Latin, the mathematics, moral
philosophy, and two of divinity provided for by the charter, a sixth,
called the Brafferton, from an estate in England which secured the
endowment, had been annexed by the celebrated Robert Boyle, for the
instruction and conversion of the Indians.
The trustees met with many difficulties in their undertaking during the
administration of Governor Andros, and were involved in a troublesome
controversy concerning the lands appropriated to the institution, with
Secretary Wormley, the most influential man in the colony, next to the
governor.
In January, 1692, died John Page, of Rosewell, of the king's council in
the colony, aged sixty--a learned and pious man; first of the name in
Virginia, and father of the Honorable Colonel Matthew Page, who was also
of the council. A religious work, entitled "A Deed of Gift for my Son,"
by this John Page, has been published.
During the same year Governor Nicholson was succeeded by Sir Edmund
Andros, whose high-handed course had rendered him so odious to the
people of New England that they had lately imprisoned him. He was,
nevertheless, kindly received by the Virginians, whose solicitations to
King William for warlike stores he had promoted. He soon gave offence by
ordering ships to cruise against vessels engaged in contraband trade. In
the year 1693 an act was passed for the organizing of a post-office
establishment in Virginia, to consist of a central office, and a
sub-office in each county, fixing the rates of postage to be paid to
Thomas Neale, Esq., who was authorized by an act of parliament to
establish post-offices in the colonies. The postage on a letter
consisting of one sheet, for a distance not exceeding eighty miles, was
three pence. Four companies of rangers protected the frontiers, while
English frigates guarded the coast; and the colony enjoyed a long
repose.
The amiable and excellent Queen Mary died on the 28th day of December,
1694; and the king now assumed the title of William the Third. Since the
dissolution of the Virginia Company, the superintendence of the colonies
had been entrusted to a committee of the privy council; in 1696 the
board of trade was established for that purpose.
FOOTNOTES:
[344:A] James City Records, cited in "Farmer's Register" for 1839, p.
407
[344:B] Dr. Williamson, of Williamsburg, obligingly sent me the
inscription and the coat of arms, as copied by him from her tombstone,
which was ploughed up on the banks of Queen's Creek.
[345:A] Beverley, B. i. 92.
[346:A] The following gentlemen, nominated by the assembly, were
constituted a senate, or board of trustees: Francis Nicholson,
lieutenant-governor of the colony; William Cole, Ralph Wormley, William
Byrd, Esquires, of the council; John Leare, James Blair, John Farnifold,
Stephen Fauce, and Samuel Gray, clerks (clergymen;) Thomas Milner,
Christopher Robinson, Charles Scarburgh, John Smith, Benjamin Harrison,
Miles Cary, Henry Hartwell, William Randolph, and Matthew Page,
gentlemen and burgesses.
[346:B] Franklin's Correspondence.
[347:A] Hening, iii. 123, 241, 356: Catalogue of William and Mary
College.
[347:B] Anderson's Hist. of Church of England in the Colonies, second
ed., iii. 108.