1703-1705.
Quit-rents--Northy's Opinion against the Custom of the
Vestry's employing a Minister by the Year--The Free Church
Disruption in Scotland--Controversy between Blair and
Nicholson--Convocation--Nicholson recalled--Notice of his
Career--Huguenots.
BY the account of Colonel William Byrd, receiver-general, the nett
proceeds of her majesty's revenue of quit-rents for the year 1703
amounted to five thousand seven hundred and forty-five pounds.
In the Church of England the people have no part in the choice of their
minister; a patron appoints him, and a living supports him. In Virginia,
on the contrary, the salary being levied directly from the people by the
vestries, they fell upon the expedient, as has been repeatedly
mentioned, of employing a minister for a year. Governor Nicholson, an
extreme high-churchman, procured from the attorney-general, Northy, an
opinion against this custom, and it was sent to all the vestries,
with directions to put it on record. The vestries, nevertheless,
pertinaciously resisted this construction of the law. In two important
points the church establishment in Virginia differed from that in
England--in the appointment of the minister by the vestry, according to
the act of 1642, and in the absence of a bishop.
In recent times the disruption of the Scottish general assembly resulted
in the Free Church of Scotland, which thus, by sacrificing the
temporalities, vindicated its independence of the government in things
spiritual. In Virginia the vestries virtually maintained a like
independence. In Scotland the contest arrayed against each other
schismatic parties in the established kirk, known as the Evangelical and
the Moderates, whereas in Virginia it was a mere contest for power
between the vestries and the government. The Free Church of Scotland, at
the time of the disruption, was still in theory in favor of an
establishment in which the clergy should be chosen by the people and
paid by the government.[368:A] Even in England, under the constitution
of the established church, the ministers of certain exceptional chapels
were formerly elected by the freeholders of the parish, subject to the
approval of the vicar, and the violation of their rights in this
particular was sometimes resented in the ruder districts of Yorkshire,
by outrageous insults offered to the new incumbent during the time of
service, and by brutal personal assaults upon the minister.[368:B]
Before the beginning of the eighteenth century the proprietary
government, granted by Charles the First to Lord Baltimore, had at
length been abolished, and the Church of England established there.
There was less tolerance under this establishment than before. In
Maryland as in Virginia, the discipline of the church was loose, the
clergy by no means exemplary, and their condition precarious and
dependent.
The differences between Dr. Blair and Governor Nicholson led to a
tedious controversy, in which charges of malfeasance in official duty
and private misconduct, especially in the affair of his attachment for
Miss Burwell, and his maltreatment of the Rev. Mr. Fouace, were
transmitted to the government in England, covering forty-four pages
folio of manuscript. The controversy produced no little excitement and
disturbance in the colony; a number of the clergy adhered to the
governor, being those with whom Commissary Blair was unpopular, and whom
the governor had ingratiated by siding with them against the vestries,
and by representing the commissary as less favorable to their cause.
Governor Nicholson ordered a convocation to be assembled, and during its
session held private interviews with his adherents among the clergy, who
signed a paper denying the charges made by the commissary and the
council. A public entertainment given to them was satirized in a ballad,
setting forth their unclerical hilarity, and depicting some of them in
unfavorable colors. This ballad soon appeared in London. In this
convocation seventeen of the clergy were opposed to the commissary, and
only six in his favor. Nevertheless his integrity and indomitable
perseverance and energy triumphed; and at length, upon the complaint
made by him, together with six members of the council and some of the
clergy, particularly the Rev. Mr. Fouace, Colonel Nicholson was
recalled.[369:A] He ceased to be governor in August, 1705. Before
entering on the government of Virginia he had been lieutenant-governor
of New York under Andros, and afterwards at the head of administration
from 1687 to 1689, when he was expelled by a popular tumult. From 1690
to 1692 he was lieutenant-governor of Virginia. From 1694 to 1699 he
held the government of Maryland, where, with the zealous assistance of
Commissary Bray, he busied himself in establishing Episcopacy. Returning
to the government of Virginia, Governor Nicholson remained until 1705.
In the year 1710 he was appointed general and commander-in-chief of the
forces sent against Fort Royal, in Acadia, which was surrendered to him.
During the following year he headed the land force of another expedition
directed against the French in Canada. The naval force on this occasion
was commanded by the imbecile Brigadier Hill. The enterprise was corrupt
in purpose, feeble in execution, and abortive in result. This failure
was attributable to the mismanagement and inefficiency of the fleet. In
1713 Colonel Nicholson was governor of Nova Scotia. Having received the
honor of knighthood in 1720, Sir Francis Nicholson was appointed
governor of South Carolina, where during four years, it is said, he
conducted himself with a judicious and spirited attention to the public
welfare, and this threw a lustre over the closing scene of his long and
active career in America. Returning to England, June, 1725, he died
at London in March, 1728. He is described as an adept in colonial
governments, trained by long experience in New York, Virginia, and
Maryland; brave, and not penurious, but narrow and irascible; of loose
morality, yet a fervent supporter of the church.[369:B]
Upon the revocation of the edict of Nantes, by Louis the Fourteenth, in
1685, more than half a million of French Protestants, called Huguenots,
fled from the jaws of persecution to foreign countries. About forty
thousand took refuge in England. In 1690 William the Third sent over a
number of them to Virginia, and lands were allotted to them on James
River. During the year 1699 another body came over, conducted by their
clergyman, Claude Philippe de Richebourg. He and others were naturalized
some years afterwards. Others followed in succeeding years; the larger
part of them settled at Manakintown, on the south bank of the James
River, about twenty miles above the falls, on rich lands formerly
occupied by the Monacan Indians. The rest dispersed themselves over the
country, some on the James, some on the Rappahannock. The settlement at
Manakintown was erected into the parish of King William, in the County
of Henrico, and exempted from taxation for many years. The refugees
received from the king and the assembly large donations of money and
provisions; and they found in Colonel William Byrd, of Westover, a
generous benefactor. Each settler was allowed a strip of land running
back from the river to the foot of the hill. Here they raised cattle,
undertook to domesticate the buffalo, manufactured cloth, and made
claret wine from wild grapes. Their settlement extended about four miles
along the river. In the centre they built a church; they conducted their
public worship after the German manner, and repeated family worship
three times a day. Manakintown was then on the frontier of Virginia, and
there was no other settlement nearer than the falls of the James River,
yet the Indians do not appear to have ever molested these pious
refugees. There was no mill nearer than the mouth of Falling Creek,
twenty miles distant, and the Huguenots, having no horses, were obliged
to carry their corn on their backs to the mill.
Many worthy families of Virginia are descended from the Huguenots, among
them the Maurys, Fontaines, Lacys, Munfords, Flournoys, Dupuys, Duvalls,
Bondurants, Trents, Moncures, Ligons, and Le Grands. In the year 1714
the aggregate population of the Manakintown settlement was three
hundred. The parish register of a subsequent date, in French, is
preserved.
FOOTNOTES:
[368:A] Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers, iv. 287, 316.
[368:B] Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte.
[369:A] Old Churches, etc., i. 158; ii. 291.
[369:B] Bancroft, ii. 82.