boy of sixteen. Young Custis wished to travel abroad with his tutor, but
Washington wrote to Mr. Boucher: "I can not help giving it as my opinion
that his education is by no means ripe enough for a travelling tour. Not
that I think his becoming a mere scholar is a desirable education for a
gentleman, but I conceive a knowledge of books is the basis upon which all
other knowledge is to be built, and in travelling he is to become
acquainted with men and things rather than books." Later in the letter he
adds: "It is to be expected that every man who travels with a view of
observing the laws and customs of other countries should be able to give
some description of the situation and government of his own."
Boucher took just the opposite ground from his patron. He argued that the
best education consisted in mingling with men and seeing the culture of
other lands. He lamented the provinciality of Virginia and its lack of
intercourse with the great world. "Saving here and there a needy emigrant
from Great Britain, an illiterate captain of a ship, or a subaltern
merchant, to whom," he asks, "can a Virginia youth apply for a specimen of
the manners, etc., of any other people?"
The majority of the landed gentry were in sympathy with the views of
Boucher rather than with those of Washington. Travel and education abroad,
especially in England, were universally desired, and the influence on the
colonies was marked, as the lad brought back with him from Oxford the
views of the Cavaliers and their descendants, as the ship which bore him
brought back the carved furniture, the massive plate, the leather-bound
books, the coat of arms, and the panels for the hall fireplace.
The record of matriculations at Oxford contains many colonial names. Here
is "Henry Fitzhugh, s. William, of Virginia, Gent." (Christ Church)
matriculated at the age of fifteen. Christopher and Peter Robinson, and
Robert Yates, set down as from "_Insula Virginiæ_," register at Oriel, and
Lewis Burwell at Balliol. The average age of matriculation among these
colonial youth is eighteen; but boys were often sent to England, or
"home," as the colonists delighted to call it, long before they were old
enough for University life.
Governor Spotswood's grandsons were sent over seas to Eton by their
guardian, Colonel Moore, their father being dead. They boarded with a Mrs.
Young, who showed a wonderfully good and tender heart, for when their
guardian ceased to send remittances and the poor boys were left without
resources, this kind landlady not only remitted the price of their board,
which with charges for candles, fire and mending amounted to over
twenty-eight pounds sterling, but actually supplied them with pocket-money
to the extent of three pounds, and paid the expenses of "salt money, cost
of montem poles, and montem dinner." When they left, Alexander wrote from
London to their benefactress a manly if somewhat prim little letter,
commencing: "Hon{d} Madam, I write by this opportunity to thank you for
all your past favors to me and my brother. I hope it will be in my power
one day or another to make you amends for all you have done for us," and
signing himself, "Your humble servant, Alexander Spotswood." It is
gratifying to know that these protestations did not come to naught, but
that the good lady was repaid, not only in money, but in the life-long
gratitude of the boys, who became distinguished American citizens.
The inheritance of a high and quick spirit came fairly to the boys of
their race. Some quarter of a century before this letter was written, the
Virginia _Gazette_ printed a communication from the father of these lads,
then himself a boy. It is headed "An Hint for a Hint," and runs:
"Mr. Parks,
"I have learnt my Book, so far as to be able to read plain English,
when printed in your Papers, and finding in one of them my Papa's name
often mentioned by a scolding man called Edwin Conway, I asked my Papa
whether he did not design to answer him. But he replyd: 'No child,
this is a better Contest for you that are a school Boy, for it will
not become me to answer every Fool in his Folly, as the Lesson you
learned the other day of the Lion and the Ass may teach you.' This
Hint being given me, I copied out the said Lesson and now send you
the same for my Answer to Mr. Conway's Hint from
"Sir, your Humble Servant
"JOHN SPOTSWOOD.
"Fab. 10. A Lion and an Ass.
"An Ass was so hardy once as to fall a Mopping and Braying at a Lion.
The Lion began at first to shew his Teeth and to stomach the Affront,
But upon second Thoughts, Well, says he, Jeer on and be an Ass still,
take notice only by the way, that it is the Baseness of your Character
that has saved your Carcass."
No doubt young John and Alexander treasured this piece of youthful
audacity as a precious tradition to be told and retold to admiring
schoolmates at Montem dinner, under the shadow of Eton Towers.
In the Bland letters, there is an itemized account of the charges for a
colonial boy at boarding school. Master Bland's expenses, when under the
tuition of Mr. Clark, amounted to twenty-four pounds, ten shillings and
two pence, and include the bills sent in by the apothecary, hosier,
linen-draper, music-master and "taylor," and also the charges for "weekly
allowance and lent, shugar and black-shoe."
The charge for _shugar_ is twelve shillings and ninepence, which seems
exorbitant in our day of cheap sweets. Master Bland's second half-year's
account charges for "milliner, board, coal and candles, pocket-money and
stockener."
There is no record of the profit Master Bland received from his schooling
abroad, but it is to be feared that he shared the character of his young
fellow-countrymen, of whom Jones reports that "they are noted to be more
apt to spoil their school-fellows than improve themselves." The wildness
of the young colonial students this reverend apologist accounts for very
ingeniously, by explaining that the trouble lies in their being "put to
learn to persons that know little of their temper, who keep them drudging
in pedantick methods, too tedious for their volatile genius."
The young Colonial Cavaliers exercised their _volatile genius_ at home as
well as abroad, as any one may know who turns the yellow pages of the
manuscript college records at William and Mary. Under Stith's presidency
we find "Y{e} following orders unanimously agreed to":
"1. Ordered y{t} no scholar belonging to any school in the college, of
what age, rank or quality so ever, do keep any race horse at y{e} college
in y{e} town, or anywhere in the neighborhood, 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} neighborhood of y{e} college and
belonging to any of y{e} scholars, be immediately dispatched and sent off
and never again brought back, and all this under pain of y{e} severest
animadversion and punishment."
A second ordinance forbids any scholar belonging to the college, "to
appear playing or betting at y{e} billiard or other gaming tables, or to
be any way concerned in keeping or fighting cocks, under pain of y{e} like
severe animadversions or punishments."
They were an unruly and turbulent set of school-boys, these collegians,
and the college records are full of their misdoings. Thomas Byrd, being
brought before the Faculty on a charge of breaking windows "in a rude and
riotous mannor," was sentenced to submit to a whipping in the
Grammar-School, or be expelled the college. The blood of the Byrds
rebelled against such ignominy, and the boy refused to submit. His father
then appeared before the Faculty and offered to compel him to obey, but
this vicarious submission was considered inadequate, and he was dropped
from the college. Again, it appears, that "whereas John Hyde Saunders has
lately behaved himself in a very impudent and unheard-of mannor to the
master of the Grammar-School," he is directed to quit the college. The
ushers are ordered to visit the rooms of the young gentlemen at least
three times a week, after nine o'clock at night, and report to the
president any irregularities.
"No boy to presume to go into the kitchen." "No victuals sent to private
rooms." "No boy to lounge upon the college steps." So run the rules. They
further provide "y{t} a person be appointed to hear such boys as shall be
recommended by their parents or guardians, a chapter in the Bible every
school-day at 12 o'clock, and y{t} he have y{e} yearly salary of one
pistole for each boy so recommended." All these regulations,
"animadversions," and punishments make us realize that in spite of its
high-sounding charter, William and Mary was, after all, only a big
boarding-school.
When its charter was granted, a curious condition was attached, providing
that the president and professors should yearly offer two copies of Latin
verses to the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia. The bargain
seems to have been strictly kept, for _The Gazette_ records:
"On this day sen-night, the president, masters and scholars of William and
Mary College went, according to their annual custom, in a body to the
Governor's, to present His Honor with two copies of Latin verses in
obedience to their charter, as a grateful acknowledgement for two valuable
tracts of land given the said college by their late Majesties, King
William and Queen Mary. Mr President delivered the verses to His Honor and
two of the young gentlemen spoke them."
In 1700, the college authorities ushered in the century with a grand
celebration, including prize declamations and various exercises. The novel
and exciting entertainment roused such an interest that visitors came from
Annapolis and the Maryland shore, and even from the far-away colony of New
York, while Indians thronged the streets to watch the gayety. The town
then was at the height of its prosperity.
Not content with a palace, a capitol, and a college, Williamsburg actually
aspired to own a bookstore, which was after all not altogether
unreasonable, since there was no considerable one south of Boston.
Accordingly the college authorities met to consider the matter, and
finally resolved that--
"M{r} W{m} Parks intending to open a book-seller's shop in this Town, and
having proposed to furnish the students of this College with such books at
a reasonable price as the Masters shall direct him to send for, and
likewise to take all the schoolbooks now in the College and pay 35 p. cent
on the sterling cost to make it currency, his proposals are unanimously
agreed to."
The first building of William and Mary College was planned, so they say,
by Sir Christopher Wren, but it was burned down, one night only five years
after the grand celebration, "the governor and all the gentlemen in town
coming to the lamentable spectacle; many of them getting out of their
beds." Again and again the building has suffered from the flames. Yet as
it stands there to-day--with its stiff, straight walls stained and
weather-beaten, its bricks laid up in the good old English fashion of
stretchers and headers, its steps worn with the tread of generations--it
is full of a pensive charm. Its record is one for Virginians to be proud
of, since as one of them boasts:
"It has sent out for their work in the world twenty-seven soldiers of the
Revolution, two attorney-generals, nearly twenty members of Congress,
fifteen senators, seventeen governors, thirty-seven judges, a
lieutenant-general, two commodores, twelve professors, four signers of the
Declaration, seven cabinet officers, a chief justice, and three presidents
of the United States."
If I was tempted at first, as I stood before the brick, barn-like
building, to exclaim at its ugliness, my frivolous criticism was abashed,
as this phantom procession filed through its doorway, for I too, who am
not of their blood, claim a share in their greatness, and salute their
names with reverent humility.
Laws, Punishments, and Politics
[Illustration: LAWS, PUNISHMENTS, _and_ POLITICS.
Y{e} Stocks.]
It is a far cry from Patrick Henry, pouring out defiance against the king,
while his listeners as one man echoed his final words, "Liberty or death!"
back to the night of the arrival of the English ships in Chesapeake Bay,
when the box given under the royal seal was opened, and the names of the
council who were to govern Virginia were found within. It would have
seemed to the group of men standing about the sacred casket on that April
night incredible that, within their province of Virginia in the next
century, the authority of the king and the power of all England should be
openly and successfully set at defiance. Yet so it came to pass,
naturally, gradually and inevitably.
The first settlers in Virginia lived in a political condition which may be
described as a communism, subject to a despotism. Their goods were held in
a common stock, and they drew their rations from "a common kettel," but
all the time they felt the strong arm of royal authority stretched across
the Atlantic, to rule their affairs without consent of the governed. Both
communism and despotism worked badly for the settlers. The first promoted
idleness, the second encouraged dissensions, discontent and tale-bearing,
each party to a Colonial quarrel being eager to be the first to run home
and lay his side of the story before the King. Sir Thomas Dale changed all
this communistic living. "When our people were fed out of the common
store," writes one of the earliest settlers, "glad was he who could slip
from his labor, or slumber over his taske he cared not how; nay, the most
honest among them would hardly take so much true paines in a weeke, as now
for themselves they will doe in a day, neither cared they for the
increase, presuming that howsoever the harvest prospered, the generall
store must maintain them, so that wee reaped not so much corne from the
labours of thirtie, as now three or foure doe provide for themselves."
Dale allotted to every man three acres of ground, and compelled each to
work both for himself and for the public store. His rule was, on the
whole, beneficent though arbitrary; but the settlers constantly suffered
from the lack of power to make laws, or arrange their simplest affairs
without seeking permission from king and council.
Fortunately, after a few years a radical change was wrought; a change
whose importance cannot be overestimated. In 1619 Sir George Yeardley
came over as Governor of Virginia. He proclaimed that "those cruel laws by
which the Ancient Planters had so long been governed" were now done away
with, and henceforth they were to be ruled by English law, like all other
English subjects. Nor was this all. Shortly after, followed one of those
epoch-making declarations which posterity always wonders not to find
printed in italics: "That the planters might have a hande in the governing
of themselves, yt was grannted that a general assemblie shoulde be helde
yearly once, whereat were to be present, the governor and counsell, with
two burgesses from each plantation, freely to be elected by the
inhabitants thereof, this assemblie to have power to make and ordaine
whatsoever lawes and orders should by them be thought good and profitable
for their subsistence."
Thus the same year and almost the same month witnessed two events of deep
significance to Virginia, the purchase of the first African slaves, and
the establishment of the first free Assembly in America. So strangely are
the threads of destiny blended! And thus, while the strife between king
and people was just beginning to cast its shadow over England, there was
quietly inaugurated here at James City a government essentially "of the
people, by the people, and for the people."
The measures they adopted at this first free Assembly, the laws they made,
the punishments they imposed, are of little importance. The fact of mighty
moment is that they met, and though the scope of their power was limited,
to be extended two years later, and though they were afterward to struggle
on through varying fortunes to the heights of entire freedom, yet this
Assembly of 1619 was forever to be memorable as the germ of representative
government on this continent.
In the _Quire_ of the old brick church, these Burgesses gathered,
twenty-two of them, from James City, Charles City, Henrico, Kiccowtan (now
Hampton), Martin-Brandon, Smythe's Hundred, Martin's Hundred, Argall's
Gift, Lawne's Plantation, Ward's Plantation, and Flowerda Hundred. First,
led by Parson Bucke, they asked God's guidance; and on the principle that
heaven helps those who help themselves, they then set themselves to the
task of framing laws to take the place of the "Iron Code" which Sir Thomas
Dale had brought over from the Netherlands, and which strongly suggested
the methods of the Inquisition.
Dale's code declared absence from Sunday services a capital offense. One
guilty of blasphemy a second time, was sentenced to have a bodkin thrust
through his tongue. A Mr. Barnes, of Bermuda Hundred, having uttered a
detracting speech against a worthy gentleman in Dale's time, was
condemned to have his tongue run through with an awl, to pass through a
guard of forty men, and to be butted by every one of them, and at the head
of the troop, knocked down, and footed out of the fort. A woman found
guilty as a common scold, was sentenced to be ducked three times from a
ship in the James River, and one mild statute declared that any person
speaking disgraceful words of any person in the colony, should be tied,
hand and foot together, upon the ground, every night for the space of one
month. It must be said in excuse for the severities of Dale that he had a
turbulent mob to discipline. He himself describes them as gathered in
riotous or infected places, persons "so profane, of so riotous and
treasonable intendments, that in a parcel of three hundred, not many gave
testimony beside their name, that they were Christians." Another point to
be remembered in defence of this iron soldier, is that all punishments in
those days were such as would seem to us cruel and unwarrantable in
proportion to the offence. The gallows in London was never idle. Almost
every crime was capital. I read in the story of the Virginia adventurers
in the Somer Iles of a desperate fellow who, "being to be arraigned for
stealing a Turky, rather than he would endure his triall, secretly
conveighed himself to sea in a little boat, and never since was heard
of." I feel very confident that this poor "Turky"-stealer would never have
tempted those stormy waters in a skiff, had he not known full well that a
worse fate than drowning awaited him, if he stayed to stand his trial.
The laws introduced by the House of Burgesses were strict enough, and
their punishments sufficiently severe. The statutes enacted against
"idlenesse" were so salutary that they would soon have exterminated such a
social pest as the modern tramp. The law went even further than forbidding
idleness, and undertook to discipline those guilty of any neglect of duty.
Thomas Garnett, who was accused by his master of wanton and profligate
conduct, "and extreame neglect of his businesse" was condemned "to stand
fower dayes with his eares nayled to the Pillory, and that he, every of
those fower days, should be publiquely whipped."
The humiliation of the criminal was the special end and aim of the
punishment. Richard Buckland, for writing a slanderous song concerning Ann
Smith, was ordered to stand at the church-door during service with a paper
round his hat, inscribed "_Inimicus Libellus_," and afterward to ask
forgiveness of God, and also in particular of the defamed Ann Smith. Two
convicted sinners were sentenced to stand in church with white sheets
round their shoulders and white wands in their hands.
[Illustration: Y{e} Pillory.]
Throughout the century, the statute-books of Virginia and Maryland show a
vindictiveness toward criminals which is out of accord with the degree of
civilization existing in the colonies. The crime of hog-stealing is
visited with special retributions. It is enacted by the Maryland Assembly
that any person convicted as a hog-stealer "shall for the first offence
stand in the pillory att the Provincial Court four Compleat Hours, & shall
have his eares cropt, & pay treble damages; & for the second time, the
offender shall be stigmatized in the forehead with the letter H, and pay
treble damages; and for the third offence of Hogg stealing, he or they so
offending shall be adjudged as fellons. And the Delinquent shall have noe
Benefite of Clergy." In another note in the Maryland archives I find:
"Putt to the Vote. Whither a Law bee not necessary Prohibiting Negros or
any other servants to keepe piggs, hoggs, or any other sort of Swyne uppon
any pretence whatsoever."
Hog-stealing seems to have ranked next to murder as an offence, and to
have been punished almost as severely--perhaps on Shylock's principle,
that they took life who took the means of livelihood; and the hog in the
early days was the chief wealth and maintenance of the settler.
Superstition, as well as cruelty, played its part in the old criminal
processes. The blood-ordeal long survived, and the belief was general that
a corpse would bleed beneath the murderer's touch. On one occasion, when a
serving-woman in Maryland had died under suspicious circumstances, her
fellow-servants were summoned one by one to lay hands on the corpse; but
as no blood appeared beneath their touch, the jury declared the woman's
death to be the act of God.
On the whole, the inhabitants of the Southern Colonies, excepting always
the negroes, were singularly free from superstition. The witchcraft
delusion, which played such havoc in New England, never obtained a
foothold in the Cavalier Colonies. Grace Sherwood was, it is true, accused
in Princess Anne County of being a witch, and sentenced to the test of
sinking or floating when thrown into the water; but her case stands out
quite alone in the annals of Virginia, whereas the same county records
show several suits against accusers as defamers of character. Here we find
"Jn{o} Byrd and Anne his wife suing Jn{o} Pites" in an action of
Defamation; their petition sets forth "that the Defend{t} had falsely &
Scandalously Defamed them, saying they had rid him along the sea-side &
home to his own house, by which kind of Discourse they were Reported &
rendered as if they were witches, or in league with the Devill, praying
100£ sterl. Damage with cost. The Deft. for answer acknowledgeth that to
his thoughts, apprehension or best knowledge they did serve him soe." The
jury found for the defendant, but brought no action against the witches
who did serve him so.
In lower Norfolk County the defamer did not escape so easily, for "Whereas
Ann Godby, the Wife of Tho. Godby hath contrary to an ord{r} of y{e} Court
bearing date in May 1655, concerning some slanders & scandalls cast upon
women under y{e} notion of witches, hath contemptuously acted in abusing &
Taking y{e} good name & Credit of nic{o} Robinson's wife, terming her a
witche, as by severall deposicons appeares. It is therefore ord{d} that
y{e} s{d} Tho. Goodby shall pay three hundred pounds of Tob{o} & Caske
fine for her contempt of y{e} menconed order (being y{e} first time) &
also pay & defray y{e} cost of sute together w{th} y{e} Witnesses' charges
at twenty pounds tob{o} p day."