1718-1739.
Complaints against Spotswood--The Governor and the Council--
Dissension between Spotswood and the Assembly--Convocation of
the Clergy--Controversy between Blair and Spotswood--Clergy
address the Bishop of London--The Clergy side with Spotswood--
Miscellaneous Matters--Governor Spotswood displaced--Succeeded
by Drysdale--Spotswood's Administration reviewed--Germanna--
Spotswood Deputy Postmaster General--Engaged in Iron
Manufacture--His Account of it--Advertisement--Knighted--
Appointed Commander-in-chief of the Carthagena Expedition--His
Death--Indian Boys at William and Mary College--Change in
Spotswood's Political Views--His Marriage--His Children--His
Widow--Spottiswoode, the Family Seat in Scotland--Portraits of
Sir Alexander Spotswood and his Lady.
AT length eight members of the council, headed by Commissary Blair,
complained to the government in London, that Governor Spotswood had
infringed the charter of the colony by associating inferior men with
them in criminal trials. It was unfortunate that the Commissary's
position involved him in these political squabbles: he would have been,
doubtless, more usefully employed in those spiritual functions which
were his proper sphere, and which he adorned. The governor lamented to
the board of trade "how much anonymous obloquy had been cast upon his
character, in order to accomplish the designs of a party, which, by
their success in removing other governors, are so far encouraged, that
they are resolved no one shall sit easy who doth not resign his duty,
his reason, and his honor to the government of their maxims and
interests." The domineering ambition of the council was long the
fruitful source of mischiefs to Virginia; and it is on this account that
many of the complaints and accusations against the governors are to be
received with many grains of allowance. The twelve members of the
council had a negative upon the governor's acts; they were members of
the assembly, judges of the highest court, and held command of the
militia as county lieutenants. Stith, in his "History of Virginia,"
complains of their overweening power, and expresses his apprehensions
of its evil consequences.
As early as the year 1692, William the Third had appointed Neal
postmaster for the Northern Colonies, with authority to establish posts.
The rates being afterwards fixed by act of parliament, the system was
introduced into Virginia in the year 1718, and Spotswood wrote to the
board of trade, that "the people were made to believe that the
parliament could not lay any tax (for so they call the rates of postage)
on them without the consent of the general assembly. This gave a handle
for framing some grievance against the new office; and thereupon a bill
was passed by both council and burgesses, which, though it acknowledged
the act of parliament to be in force in Virginia, doth effectually
prevent its ever being put in execution; whence your lordships may judge
how well affected the major part of the assemblymen are toward the
collection of this branch of the revenue." The act, nevertheless, was
enforced.
The assembly refused to pass measures recommended by the governor;
invaded his powers by investing the county courts with the appointment
of their own clerks; endeavored, as has been seen, to render inoperative
the new post-office system, and transmitted an address to the king,
praying that the instruction which required that no acts should be
passed affecting the British commerce or navigation without a clause of
suspension, might be recalled, and that the governor's power of
appointing judges of oyer and terminer should be limited; and they
complained that the governor's attempts went to the subversion of the
constitution, since he made daily encroachments on their ancient rights.
The governor, perceiving that it was the design of his opponents to
provoke him, and then make a handle of the ebullitions of his
resentment, displayed moderation as well as ability in these disputes,
and when the assembly had completed their charges, prorogued them. This
effervescence of ill humor excited a reaction in favor of Spotswood, and
in a short time addresses poured in from the clergy, the college, and
most of the counties, reprobating the factious conduct of the
legislature, and expressing the public happiness under an administration
which had raised the colony from penury to prosperity. Meantime Colonel
Byrd, who had been sent out to London as colonial agent, having rather
failed in his efforts against Spotswood, begged the board of trade "to
recommend forgiveness and moderation to both parties." The
recommendation, enforced by the advice of Lord Orkney, the
governor-in-chief, the Duke of Argyle, and other great men who
patronized Spotswood, quieted these discords; and the governor, the
council, and the burgesses now united harmoniously in promoting the
public welfare.
The chief apple of discord between the governor and the Virginians was
the old question relating to the powers of the vestry. About this time
Governor Spotswood was engaged in a warm dispute with the vestry of St.
Anne's Parish, Essex, in which he took very high ground. The Rev. Hugh
Jones subsequently, while on a visit in England, reported to the Bishop
of London some things against the rubrical exactness of Commissary
Blair. Evil reports had also reached the mother country as to the moral
character of some of the clergy. A convention of the Virginia clergy
was, therefore, held in compliance with the direction of the Bishop of
London, at the College of William and Mary, in April, 1719. The
governor, in a letter addressed to this body, assails the commissary as
denying "that the king's government has the right to collate ministers
to ecclesiastical benefices within this colony," "deserting the cause of
the church," and countenancing disorders in divine worship "destructive
to the establishment of the church." To all this, Commissary Blair made
a reply, vindicating himself triumphantly.[400:A] He appears to have
sympathized on these matters with the vestries and the people. Governor
Spotswood, on the contrary, was an extreme high churchman and supporter
of royal prerogative, as might have been expected from the descendant of
a long line of ancestors always found arrayed on the side of the crown,
and the church as established, and never with the people. The journal of
this convocation throws much light on the condition of the church and
the clergy of Virginia at that time. The powers exercised by the
vestries, indeed, often made the position of the clergy precarious; but
it would, perhaps, have engendered far greater evils if the governor
had been allowed to be the patron of all the livings. Governor
Spotswood's letter to the vestry of St. Anne's presents an elaborate
argument against the right of the vestry to appoint or remove the
minister; but, notwithstanding the opposition of the governor, bishop,
clergy, and crown, the vestries and the people still steadfastly
maintained this right. This question was the embryo of the revolution;
political freedom is the offspring of religious freedom; it takes its
rise in the church.
In answer to an inquiry made by the Bishop of London, the convention
voted "that no member had any personal knowledge of the irregularity of
any clergyman's life in this colony," a manifest equivocation.[401:A] In
their address to the Bishop of London, the convention state that all the
ministers in Virginia are episcopally ordained, except Mr. Commissary,
of whose ordination a major part doubt;[401:B] that the circumstances of
the country will not permit them to conform to the established liturgy
as they would desire; that owing to the extent of the parishes they have
service but once on Sunday, and but one sermon; that for the same reason
the dead are not buried in churchyards, and the burial-service is
usually performed by a layman; that the people observe no holidays
except Christmas-day and Good Friday, being unwilling to leave their
daily labor; and that of necessity the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is
administered to persons who are not confirmed; that the ministers are
obliged to baptize, and church women, marry, and bury at private houses,
administer the Lord's Supper to a single sick person, perform in church
the office of both sacraments without the habits, ornaments, and vessels
required by the liturgy. The convention press upon his lordship's
attention the precarious tenure of their livings, to which many of these
deviations from the liturgy were attributable; they declare that the
people are adverse to the induction of the clergy, which exposes them to
the great oppression of the vestries. The clergy refer to Governor
Spotswood as, under God, their chief support, whose efforts in their
behalf were, as alleged by the governor, opposed by some of the council
and Commissary Blair, who was himself accused of some irregularities.
The convention also stated that the commissary found great difficulty
in making visitations, owing to the refusal of church wardens to take
the official oath, or to make presentments, and from "the general
aversion of the people to everything that looks like a spiritual court."
The commissary refused to subscribe to it. The contending parties in
these disputes were the governor and the clergy on the one side, and the
commissary with the people on the other. According to the opinion of the
attorney-general, Sir Edward Northey, given in 1703, "the right of
presentation by the laws of Virginia was in the parishioners, and the
right of lapse in the governor;" that is, if the vestry failed to choose
a minister within six months, the governor had the right of appointing
him; but it was a right which the governors, although reinforced by
royal authority, could not enforce. Of the twenty-five members of this
clerical convention only eight appear to have sided with the commissary.
He held that the difference between him and the governor as to the right
of collation was this: the governor claimed the right in the first
instance, like that of the king of England, to bestow livings of which
he himself is patron; the commissary was of opinion that the governor's
power corresponded to that of the bishop, not being original, but only
consequent upon a lapse; that is, a failure of the vestry to present
within the time limited by law. Commissary Blair, throughout these angry
controversies, in the course of which he was very badly treated by the
governor and the clergy, bore himself with singular ability and
excellent temper, and proved himself more than a match for his
opponents.[402:A]
Predatory parties of the Five Nations were repelled by force, and
conciliated by presents. The frontier of Virginia was extended to the
foot of the Blue Ridge, and two new Piedmont counties, Spotsylvania and
Brunswick, were established in 1720--the seventh year of George the
First.[402:B] Spotsylvania included the northern pass through the
mountains. At the special solicitation of the governor, the two counties
were exempted from taxation for ten years. An act was passed imposing
penalties on "whosoever shall weed, top, hill, succor, house, cure,
strip or pack any seconds, suckers, or slips of tobacco." Two hundred
pounds of tobacco were offered in reward for every wolf killed.
Warehouses for storing tobacco and other merchandize, when first
established in 1712, were denominated rolling-houses, from the mode of
rolling the tobacco to market, before wagons came into general use or
the navigation of the rivers improved. This mode of transporting tobacco
prevailed generally in 1820, and later.[403:A] Tobacco warehouses in
Virginia are now devoted exclusively to that commodity. In 1720, King
George County was carved off from Richmond County, and Hanover from New
Kent. A house for the governor was completed about this time. An act was
passed to encourage the making of tar and hemp, and another to oblige
ships coming from places infected with the plague to perform quarantine.
The Indians of the Five Nations, warring with the Southern Indians for
many years, had been in the habit of marching along the frontier of
Virginia and committing depredations. To prevent this, a treaty was
effected with them, whereby they bound themselves not to cross Potomac
River, nor to pass to the eastward of the great ridge of mountains,
without a passport from the Governor of New York; and, on the other
hand, the Indians tributary to this government engaged not to pass over
the Potomac, or go westward of the mountains, without a passport from
the Governor of Virginia. This treaty was ratified at Albany, September,
1722. An act concerning servants and slaves was repealed by
proclamation.
Spotswood urged upon the British government the policy of establishing a
chain of posts beyond the Alleghanies, from the lakes to the
Mississippi, to restrain the encroachments of the French. The ministry
did not enter into his views on this subject, and it was not till after
the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle that his wise, prophetic admonitions were
heeded, and his plans adopted. He also failed in an effort to obtain
from the government compensation for his companions in the Tramontane
exploration. At length, owing, as his friends allege, to the intrigues
and envious whispers of men far inferior to him in capacity and honesty,
but according to others, on account of his high-handed encroachments on
the rights of the colony, Spotswood was displaced in 1722, and succeeded
by Hugh Drysdale. Chalmers,[404:A] also a native of Scotland, and as
extreme a supporter of prerogative, thus eulogizes Spotswood: "Having
reviewed the uninteresting conduct of the frivolous men who had ruled
before him, the historian will dwell with pleasure on the merits of
Spotswood. There was an utility in his designs, a vigor in his conduct,
and an attachment to the true interest of the kingdom and the colony,
which merit the greatest praise. Had he attended more to the courtly
maxim of Charles the Second, 'to quarrel with no man, however great
might be the provocation, since he knew not how soon he should be
obliged to act with him,' that able officer might be recommended as the
model of a provincial governor. The fabled heroes who had discovered the
uses of the anvil and the axe, who introduced the labors of the plough,
with the arts of the fisher, have been immortalized as the greatest
benefactors of mankind; had Spotswood even invaded the privileges, while
he only mortified the pride of the Virginians, they ought to have
erected a statue to the memory of a ruler who gave them the manufacture
of iron, and showed them by his active example that it is diligence and
attention which can alone make a people great."
Governor Spotswood was the author of an act for improving the staple of
tobacco, and making tobacco-notes the medium of ordinary circulation.
Being a master of the military art, he kept the militia of Virginia
under admirable discipline. In Spotsylvania, Spotswood, previous to the
year 1724, had founded, on a horseshoe peninsula of four hundred acres,
on the Rapidan, the little town of Germanna, so called after the Germans
sent over by Queen Anne, and settled in that quarter, and at this place
he resided. A church was built there mainly at his expense. In the year
1730 he was made deputy postmaster-general for the colonies, and held
that office till 1739; and it was he who promoted Benjamin Franklin to
the office of postmaster for the Province of Pennsylvania. Owning an
extensive tract of forty-five thousand acres of land, and finding it to
abound in iron ore, he engaged largely in partnership with Mr. Robert
Cary, of England, and others in Virginia, in the manufacture of it. He
is styled by Colonel Byrd the "Tubal Cain of Virginia;" he was, indeed,
the first person that ever established a regular furnace in North
America, leading the way and setting the example to New England and
Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, at this period, was unable to export iron,
owing to the scarcity of ships, and made it only for domestic use.
Spotswood expressed the hope that "he had done the country very great
service by setting so good an example;" and stated "that the four
furnaces now at work in Virginia circulated a great sum of money for
provisions and all other necessaries in the adjacent counties; that they
took off a great number of hands from planting tobacco, and employed
them in works that produced a large sum of money in England to the
persons concerned, whereby the country is so much the richer; that they
are besides a considerable advantage to Great Britain, because it
lessens the quantity of bar iron imported from Spain, Holland, Sweden,
Denmark, and Muscovy, which used to be no less than twenty thousand tons
yearly, though, at the same time, no sow iron is imported thither from
any country, but only from the plantations. For most of this bar iron
they do not only pay silver, but our friends in the Baltic are so nice
they even expect to be paid all in crown pieces. On the contrary, all
the iron they receive from the plantations, they pay for it in their own
manufactures and send for it in their own shipping."[405:A]
There was as yet no forge set up in Virginia for the manufacture of bar
iron. The duty in England upon it was twenty-four shillings a ton, and
it sold there for from ten to sixteen pounds per ton, which paid the
cost of forging it abundantly; but Spotswood "doubted; the parliament of
England would soon forbid us that improvement, lest after that we should
go farther, and manufacture our bars into all sorts of ironware, as they
already do in New England and Pennsylvania. Nay, he questioned whether
we should be suffered to cast any iron which they can do themselves at
their furnaces."
The whole expense was computed at two pounds per ton of sow, (or pig
iron,) and it sold for five or six pounds in England, leaving a nett
profit of three pounds or more on a ton. It was estimated that a furnace
would cost seven hundred pounds. One hundred negroes were requisite, but
on good land these, besides the furnace-work, would raise corn and
provisions sufficient for themselves and the cattle. The people to be
hired were a founder, a mine-raiser, a collier, a stock-taker, a clerk,
a smith, a carpenter, a wheelwright, and some carters, these altogether
involving an annual charge of five hundred pounds.
At Massaponux, a plantation on the Rappahannock, belonging to Governor
Spotswood, he had in operation an air-furnace for casting chimney-backs,
andirons, fenders, plates for hearths, pots, mortars, rollers for
gardeners, skillets, boxes for cart-wheels. These were sold at twenty
shillings a ton and delivered at the purchaser's home, and being cast
from the sow iron were much better than the English, which were made,
for the most part, immediately from the ore.
In 1732, besides Colonel Willis, the principal person of the place,
there were at Fredericksburg only one merchant, a tailor, a blacksmith,
and an ordinary keeper.
The following advertisement is found in the "Virginia Gazette" for 1739:
"Colonel Spotswood, intending next year to leave Virginia with his
family, hereby gives notice that he shall, in April next, dispose of a
quantity of choice household furniture, together with a coach, chariot,
chaise, coach-horses, house-slaves, etc. And that the rich lands in
Orange County, which he has hitherto reserved for his own seating, he
now leases out for lives renewable till Christmas, 1775, admitting every
tenant to the choice of his tenement, according to the priority of
entry. He further gives notice that he is ready to treat with any person
of good credit for farming out, for twenty-one years, Germanna and its
contiguous lands, with the stock thereon, and some slaves. As also for
farming out, for the like term of years, an extraordinary grist-mill and
bolting-mill, lately built by one of the best millwrights in America,
and both going by water taken by a long race out of the Rapidan,
together with six hundred acres of seated land adjoining the said mill.
"N. B.--The chariot (which has been looked upon as one of the best made,
handsomest, and easiest chariots in London,) is to be disposed of at any
time, together with some other goods. No one will be received as a
tenant who has not the character of an industrious man."
Major-General Sir Alexander Spotswood, when on the eve of embarking with
the troops destined for Carthagena, died at Annapolis, on the 7th day of
June, 1740. There is reason to believe that he lies buried at Temple
Farm, his country residence near Yorktown, and so called from a
sepulchral building erected by him in the garden there. It was in the
dwelling-house at Temple Farm (called the Moore House) that Lord
Cornwallis signed the capitulation. This spot, so associated with
historical recollections, is also highly picturesque in its
situation.[407:A]
Governor Spotswood left a historical account of Virginia during the
period of his administration, and Mr. Bancroft had access to this
valuable document, and refers to it in his history.[407:B]
During the sanguinary war with the Indians in which North Carolina had
been engaged, Governor Spotswood demanded of the tribes tributary to
Virginia a number of the sons of their chiefs, to be sent to the College
of William and Mary, where they served as hostages to preserve peace,
and enjoyed the advantage of learning to read and write English, and
were instructed in the Christian religion. But on returning to their own
people they relapsed into idolatry and barbarism.[407:C]
Governor Spotswood's long residence in Virginia, and the identity of his
interests with those of the people of the colony, appear to have greatly
changed his views of governmental prerogative and popular rights, for
during this year he gave it as his opinion that "if the assembly in New
England would stand bluff, he did not see how they could be forced to
raise money against their will, for if they should direct it to be done
by act of parliament, which they have threatened to do, (though it be
against the right of Englishmen to be taxed but by their
representatives,) yet they would find it no easy matter to put such an
act in execution."[408:A]
Governor Spotswood married, in 1724, Miss Butler Bryan, (pronounced
Brain,) daughter of Richard Bryan, Esq., of Westminster, an English
lady, whose Christian name was taken from James Butler, Duke of Ormond,
her godfather. Their children were John and Robert, Anne Catherine and
Dorothea. John Spotswood married, in 1745, Mary Dandridge, daughter of
William Dandridge, of the British navy, Commander of the Ludlow Castle
ship-of-war, and their children were two sons, General Alexander
Spotswood and Captain John Spotswood of the army of the Revolution, and
two daughters, Mary and Anne. Robert, the younger son of the governor,
an officer under Washington in the French and Indian war, being detached
with a scouting party from Fort Cumberland, (1756,) was supposed to have
been killed by the Indians. He died without issue.[408:B] His remains
were found near Fort Du Quesne; and in an elegiac poem published in
"Martin's Miscellany," in London, the writer assumes that young
Spotswood was slain by the savages.
"Courageous youth! were now thine honored sire
To breathe again, and rouse his wonted ire,
Nor French nor Shawnee dare his rage provoke,
From great Potomac's spring to Roanoke.
"May Forbes yet live the cruel debt to pay,
And wash the blood of Braddock's field away;
The fair Ohio's blushing waves may tell
How Britons fought, and how each hero fell."[408:C]
Anne Catherine, the elder daughter of Governor Spotswood, married
Bernard Moore, Esq., of Chelsea, in the County of King William.
Dorothea, the other daughter, married Captain Nathaniel West Dandridge,
of the British navy, son of Captain William Dandridge, of Elson
Green.[409:A]
The governor's lady surviving him, and continuing to live at Germanna,
November the 9th, 1742, married second the Rev. John Thompson, of
Culpepper County, a minister of exemplary character. From this union was
descended the late Commodore Thompson of the United States navy. Lady
Spotswood's children objected to the match on the ground of his inferior
rank, so that after an engagement she requested to be released; but he
appears to have overcome her scruples by a curious letter addressed to
her on the subject.[409:B]
The present representative of the family[409:C] is John Spottiswoode,
Esq., M.P., Laird of Spottiswoode.[409:D] His brothers are George
Spottiswoode, of Gladswood, County Berwick, lieutenant-colonel in the
army, and Andrew Spottiswoode, of Broom Hall, County Surrey. The
representative of the family resides during the greater portion of the
year at Spottiswoode, on his extensive hereditary estate, the modern
mansion being one of the finest in Southern Scotland. The old mansion
still remains. Thirty miles of underground drains have been made on this
estate, reclaiming hundreds of acres of land lying between the
Blackadder and the Leader.[409:E]
Governor Spotswood[409:F] was half-brother to a General Elliott. The
governor had a country-seat near Williamsburg, called Porto-Bello.
Besides the portrait of him preserved at Chelsea, in the County of King
William, there is another at the residence of William Spotswood, Esq.,
in Orange County, where there is also a portrait of Lady Spotswood, and
one of General Elliott, half-brother of the governor, in complete armor.
The descendants of Governor Spotswood in Virginia are numerous, and his
memory is held in great respect.
FOOTNOTES:
[400:A] Bishop Meade's Old Churches, etc., i. 160, ii. Appendix, 393.
[401:A] Bishop Meade's Old Churches, etc., i. 162.
[401:B] A majority of one only.
[402:A] Bishop Meade's Old Churches, etc., i. 160, ii. Appendix, 1.
[402:B] Spotsylvania, named from the first syllable of the governor's
name, compounded with a Latinized termination answering to the other
syllable--a sort of conceit.
[403:A] Hening, iv. 32, 91.
[404:A] Introduction, ii. 78.
[405:A] Westover MSS., 132.
[407:A] Bishop Meade's Old Churches, etc., 227.
[407:B] This MS., after remaining long in the Spotswood family of
Virginia, was at length communicated to an English gentleman then in
this country, and it is supposed to be still in his possession in
Europe. It is much to be regretted that there is no copy of it in
Virginia.
[407:C] Westover MSS., 36.
[408:A] Westover MSS., 135.
[408:B] Washington's Writings, ii. 239, 252.
[408:C] Lossing's Field-Book of the Revolution, ii. 471. This work is a
reservoir of valuable information.
[409:A] Douglas's Peerage of Scotland; Burke's Landed Gentry, ii., art.
SPOTTISWOOD.
[409:B] See Hist. of St. George's Parish, by Rev. Philip Slaughter, 55,
and Bishop Meade's Old Churches, etc., ii. 77.
[409:C] 1852.
[409:D] Letter of Andrew Spottiswoode, Esq., written in 1852, to Rev.
John B. Spotswood, of New Castle, Delaware.
[409:E] Beattie's Scotland Illustrated, i. 31.
[409:F] _Arms of Governor Spotswood._--Argent, a cheveron gules, between
three oak-trees eradicate, vert. Supporters, two satyrs proper. Crest:
an eagle displayed gules, looking to the sun in his splendor, proper.
Motto: "Patior ut potiar." Chief seat: at the old Castle of Spotswood,
in Berwickshire.--(_Burke's Landed Gentry._)