University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XXXIX

ADMINISTRATIONS OF DRYSDALE AND GOOCH

Spotswood was superseded by Hugh Drysdale in 1722. He
had been forced out of the office that he had held so ably and
so conscientiously by the dogged repetition of aspersions,
which, it was supposed, he had successfully combatted. These
aspersions came from persons whose questionable or unscrupulous
schemes of various sorts he had not hesitated to cross
and block.

Drysdale was shrewd enough to learn a lesson from his
predecessor's failure, after persistent efforts, to acquire the
power to induct all clergymen—he refrained from making an
appointment to a pulpit even when it had been vacant for
six months, although the vestries themselves admitted that, in
such a case, he had the right to fill it. The curious spectacle
was presented, on more than one occasion, of Commissary
Blair, the staunch supporter of the vestries' right to choose
every incumbent, rebuking him for his shortcoming in this
respect. Drysdale was, perhaps, not a zealous churchman
like Spotswood, and for that reason, and also for sake of his
own ease and equanimity, he preferred to err on the side of
laxness rather than on the side of stringency in matters
ecclesiastic.

It was during his administration that the General Assembly
endeavored to bar the further importation of convicts; but,
on the recommendation of the Board of Trade, the Act which
they passed for that purpose was declared invalid—one of
the swarming proofs that it was the English merchants' interests

which received the primary consideration with this body.
And that body also refused to approve an Act which afforded
the people relief from the burden of the poll tax by imposing
a special duty on all imported liquors and slaves. It would
be thought that the poll tax was the most equitable tax that
could be levied, but the Board of Trade apparently did not
condemn the new measure from this point of view, but rather
from the point of view of the interests of the Royal African
Company, which employed many ships and seamen in the
transportation of raw negroes to America.

Colonel Drysdale died on July, 1726. During a short
interval, Robert Carter filled the office of lieutenant-governor.
Carter was the president of the Council, and so wealthy a
landowner and slaveholder that he was universally called
"King Carter." From him was descended the socially distinguished
family of the same name, which owned some of the
most beautiful homes in Tidewater Virginia, and which intermarried
with all the principal colonial strains.

William Gooch followed Carter in 1727. Gooch was a
native of Scotland and a former officer in the British military
establishment; a man of unblemished private character and
of a high order of intelligence; sedate and reserved in his
personal bearing, but kindly and courteous in his intercourse,
and a robust Presbyterian in his religious convictions. He
continued in office for the space of twenty-two years. The
events of the times during which he served were so full of
peril and tumult that only a firm and sagacious executive could
have passed through them as successfully as he did. On the
one hand, there was always danger of Indian irruptions, and
on the other, of negro insurrections.

In 1729, a large gang of slaves belonging to a plantation
that had recently been seated in the upper valley of the James
River, and which, for the most part, was still in its primæval
state, were influenced by the remoteness of their situation to
desert their cabins in the night, and steal off to the wild
hollows of the Blue Ridge, which, at that point, shut out the

Robert (King) Carter

western horizon. Their flight had been so carefully arranged,
and their future needs so minutely anticipated, that, when
they departed, they were able to carry off with them, not
only the guns and ammunition that they had secretly acquired
from time to time, but also the agricultural implements which
their master had turned over to them for the tillage of the
soil. It was their plain intention to found an independent
settlement. These negroes had, perhaps, only recently been
imported from Africa, where they had been accustomed to
live together in villages; and it was such an aboriginal community
as this that they were resolved to set up. They made
their way to a quiet and fertile cove in the main chain of the
Blue Ridge, and there they began at once to cut down the
trees in order to clear the ground for crops and also to supply
the timber for houses. It was not long before their place of
hiding was discovered. A strong force of white men and rifles
was organized by their owner, and accompanied by them he
started for the spot. The pursuing company was received by
the slaves with a flurry of shots; but, in the end, they were
overpowered, and, sullen and silent, marched back to the
plantation which they had deserted, in their longing for personal
liberty.

The report of this incident passed from one end of Virginia
to the other, and everywhere the apprehensions of the
white people were vividly excited by it. All recognized that,
had this band of fugitives been left unmolested, their settlement
would have drawn irresistibly to itself the runaway
negroes of the Colony; and it was quite possible that the
community of outlaws would have grown strong enough to
send companies of invaders against the outlying plantations.
Gooch himself took this episode so much to heart that he began
at once to overhaul the militia with the view of training it
thoroughly for any emergency that might arise in the future.
Whilst he was determined to put down all rebellious negroes,
he was, at the same time, always ready to show special consideration
for the members of that race who should prove

themselves to be worthy of reward. Thus he obtained, during
the same year, letters of freedom for a slave who had succeeded
in concocting a remedy for venereal diseases.

In our description of the western movement of the white
population, we referred to the dispute which arose with Robert
Carter as to the correct line of the Northern Neck grant on
its southern and western borders. The definition incorporated
in the original patent was extremely obscure in its meaning,
for it simply gave as the limit of the area to be embraced "the
general heads and springs of the Potomac and Rappahannock
Rivers." Which were these heads and which these springs?
Gooch was of the opinion that Lord Fairfax's domain ended
on the south at the head of navigation in the Rappahannock,
which was found at the mouth of the first important fork in
the stream. From this point, he thought that the western
line ran to a marker on the Potomac, which had been formally
accepted by the English Government. It had become an object
of the first importance to fix upon the true line so as to remove
all possible cloud upon any title that the land office at Jamestown
might convey to ground situated in that region.

A dispute that involved the Colony sprang up between
England and Spain during this administration, only to culminate
in the famous assault on Carthagena. In this assault,
four hundred Virginians took part—all picked troops that had
been equipped at a heavy expense. Spotswood, at that time
living in retirement, was first put in command of them, but
before they could embark for the scene of war, he died, and
Gooch, having, as we have seen, been once an officer in active
service, assumed his place, and sailed away with the regiment
for the Island of Jamaica, which had been selected as the
rendezvous for the English army. One of Gooch's most
faithful and trusted captains was Lawrence Washington, a
brother of George, who was led by his intimacy in Jamaica
with Admiral Vernon to give his friend's name to his home
on the banks of the Potomac. Owing to practical deficiencies
in the preparation for the attack on Carthagena—such as the

William Moseley, Sr.

shortness of the scaling ladders, and the ignorance of the
shallowness of the water near the fortifications, which halted
the advance of the ships—the onset, though pressed with
extraordinary courage by the troops, was unsuccessful.

Virginian forces took part in the defense of the coasts of
Georgia when a Spanish fleet threatened to wrest them from
the possession of Oglethorpe. Less satisfactory was the
military experience of the Virginian quota furnished to assist
the main army in the invasion of Canada in 1746.

The recollection of Stuart tyrannies in the previous century
was probably one reason for the loyalty of all classes
to the House of Hanover. In 1745, when Charles Edward
raised his standard in Scotland, every influential body of
men in Virginia—the General Assembly, the Clergy, the
College, the Planters—all announced that they were ready to
stake their lives and fortunes in support of the throne; and the
sincerity of this declaration was demonstrated by the bonfires,
processions, and banquets with which they celebrated the
victory of Culloden.

In 1626, Rev. W. Long complained to the Bishop of London
that the clergymen of the Colony were slack in instructing the
children in religion; and that they also neglected their duty
to the adults of their congregations, in consequence of which, he
said, there was much debauchery among the people at large.
If this condition prevailed to the extent represented, it was
in spite of the measures adopted from time to time by the
General Assembly to suppress the vices of gaming and drinking,
which were the ones supposed to be most rampant; and
it was also in spite of the extraordinary energy of the dissenters,
who were now increasing in number and zeal.

One of the most influential spokesmen and exhorters of
the dissenters was the Rev. William Robinson, whose field of
evangelical work lay in the tier of southside counties which
were already a stronghold of the Presbyterian faith. Rev.
John Roan, of Newcastle in Delaware, was not content with
blowing up to a white heat the religious enthusiasm of his

fellow-Presbyterians in Hanover and the surrounding counties,
but inveighed against the supineness of the Episcopal
clergymen with so much keenness and candor that they, in
their resentment, brought him into a court of law. Gooch,
though a firm Presbyterian himself, seems to have had little
sympathy with untrained evangelists like Robinson and Roan.
He charged them with preaching without a regular license, and
with being unable to show any testimonial that would prove
that they had received the proper education for their sacred
calling. The "new light," upon which they relied for justification
of their ministry appeared to him to be a poor preparation
for such grave responsibilities. How violent in their
language these men could be when under the influence either
of outraged piety or of resentment against the harshness of
the law, is revealed in the words of Rev. Thomas Walker, of
Hanover, who exclaimed on one occasion, in the presence of
a number of Episcopal clergymen, "Your churches and chapels
are no better than the synagogues of Satan."

But there was among these dissenting ministers a man who
was one of the holiest apostles as well as one of the greatest
intellects of his time. This was Samuel Davies, a native of
Delaware, whose first charges lay in the counties of Hanover
and Henrico. Even Commissary Dawson, in spite of the
sourness of his clergy's opposition, applauded his zeal and
success. The council, however, denied his right to preach;
but Davies took his stand upon the broad platform of the
Act of Toleration, which had been approved by the General
Assembly, and set his face like flint against every attempt to
interfere with him and his congregations. He was, on several
occasions, called before the bar of the council, and he utilized
the hour to present the cause of the dissenters with a vigor,
eloquence, and practical sense, that had never been surpassed
in that chamber, whatever the subject of the speech. The
council's attitude, nevertheless, remained adverse. Davis
charitably attributed their hostility entirely to the malicious
reports touching the dissenters' acts and words that were

brought to their ears by designing persons. "But for these
reports," he said, "the councillors would have shown themselves
the guardians of our legal privileges as well as generous
patriots to their country, which is the character generally
given to them."

There was one person sitting in the council who clearly
perceived Davies' mental and moral greatness, and who was
moved by his sympathy with his spirit and conduct to show
consideration for the hampered and persecuted dissenters.
This was Governor Gooch himself.

We have mentioned Spotswood's wise and original suggestion
that certificates should be issued on tobacco so soon as
deposited in the public warehouses, and that these certificates
should be receivable for taxes. The General Assembly seems
ultimately to have adopted this happy solution of the problem
of forcing the payment of the quitrents and other public dues
in a really merchantable commodity. During the administration
of Gooch, it was required by law that each of these certificates—which
had the currency of modern bank notes—
should not only specify the quantity of the tobacco for which
the certificate had been given but also its quality; that is to
say, whether it belonged to the sweet scented or to the
Orinoko variety.

Norfolk was incorporated in 1736, and Richmond founded
in 1737. The site on which the latter town,—if town it could
be called at that time,—was built, was the property of Colonel
William Byrd, of Westover. His father, the first of his name
to emigrate to Virginia, a man of solid character and unfailing
sagacity, had actually resided there in sight of the great Falls;
and it was there too that, by the exchange of English merchandise
for Indian furs, he had steadily increased his fortune,
acquired by inheritance and his own shrewdness, until he had
become one of the wealthiest citizens of the Colony. In the
seventeenth century, the little settlement which grew into the
modern Richmond, was always spoken of as the World's End,
for it was here that the English plantations ended on the

William Byrd II

border of a wilderness that had rarely been penetrated to any
distance except by the feet of savages and wild beasts. Petersburg,
twenty miles away, on the Appomattox River, was
founded in 1748. During the previous year, the capitol at
Williamsburg had been destroyed by fire; and it was proposed
by many influential persons that the seat of government should
be removed to some point of greater salubrity higher up the
country; but a strong opposition to this suggestion was successful
in consigning it to limbo.

In 1643, the two most prominent figures in the general life
of the Colony died. These were Commissary Blair and the
younger William Byrd. Blair performed a clergyman's duties
in Virginia during fifty-eight years; he served as the representative
of the Bishop of London for a period of fifty-four;
and was President of the College of William and Mary for a
period of fifty,—a record so useful and so honorable as not to
be tarnished by a character, in some respects, of serious weakness
for a person of his calling. To the College, he bequeathed
his large and carefully selected library; and also left it five
hundred pounds in money.

Byrd was the most accomplished gentleman among all those
who graced and adorned the colonial history of Virginia. Such
were his social gifts that he drew attention and excited admiration
in the most polished drawing-rooms of London; and this
favorable judgment he further riveted by his wealth of solid as
well as of polite learning. He had been grounded in the classics
and belle-lettres in England; had studied law in the Middle
Temple; and had completed his course in that province in the
Low Countries. So keen was his interest in science that he had
been elected a member of the Royal Society; and he was on
the most intimate footing with men of the stamp of Robert
Boyle and Lord Peterborough. His library at Westover was,
perhaps, the largest and choicest in Virginia; his collection of
portraits and silver was of extraordinary value; and he lived
in a mansion that would not have been scorned by the most
affluent gentlemen in England. He was a man of an energetic

Westover

and inquiring spirit, which found vent in explorations of the
wilder regions of the Colony; and his descriptions of these
wanderings are altogether the most entertaining and polished
writings that have survived from the eighteenth century.

During the administration of Gooch, there were only two
furnaces in Virginia in operation. The cost of producing a
ton of pig iron was estimated to be two pounds sterling, and
when sold in England returned the sum of five or six pounds
sterling. The expense of setting up one furnace fell but little
short of seven hundred pounds sterling, and as many as one
hundred slaves had to be provided for the task of procuring
the raw ore for it and working the smelter itself. No attempt
was made to utilize the lead ores which were now known to
exist in large deposits in the southwest.

The size of the population was still calculated on the basis
of the number of tithables. Each tithable was supposed to
represent at least three persons. A report to the Board of
Trade during Gooch's administration, by the application of
this test, put the number of inhabitants down at one hundred
and thirty-five thousand, of whom forty thousand were
negroes. Marriages among the colonists occurred, as a rule,
early in life, and the women proved themselves to be of
extraordinary fecundity.

There were for the year when the report was submitted one
hundred and seventy-six companies of infantry and one hundred
troops of cavalry organized in Virginia. This indicated
a force of eight thousand eight hundred footmen, and four
thousand horsemen,—a total which embraced every freeman
above twenty-one years of age and under sixty who was capable
of bearing arms. These citizen soldiers were drilled in the
private musters by a subaltern, and in the public, by an adjutant,
who had been appointed by the governor. There was but
one fortification situated in the Colony at this time that stood
unimpaired. This was the fort at Point Comfort, which was
equipped with twenty-two guns. It had been rebuilt in 1736-38
very substantially of brick and shell lime, and placed under

the command of Captain Samuel Barron. The only other formidable
defense in existence previous to this year were several
open batteries on the banks of the principal rivers, under
whose guns the merchantmen could find protection, should
they, at any time, be pursued by pirates. They were not strong
enough to offer any resistance when the assault was directed
on the landside.

By this date, war, disease, and intemperance, had reduced
the Indian tribes to very thin ranks. The Pamunkeys on York
River could only show a roll of ten families. This was the
remnant of Powhatan's powerful kingdom. The roster of
the Nansemonds and Nottoways on the South side of the
James had dwindled to fifty warriors. In 1734, these Indians
had been constrained to petition the Assembly for the right
to sell a part of their lands in the modern Isle of Wight
County, and in 1748, to sell still more. On the Eastern Shore,
all separate organizations had gone to pieces, and the survivors
of the aborigines in that region were scattered about among
the English plantations.

The revenues collected for the government's support at
this time were derived from the following sources: (1) the
duty on exported tobacco, amounting to two shillings the
hogshead; (2) the fee of fifteen pence the ton imposed upon
every ship arriving at Point Comfort, and of six upon every
passenger aboard; (3) numerous fines and forfeitures; and
(4) the charge of one shilling for every acre embraced in a
patent when issued. The total income of the colonial treasury
varied little one way or another from the annual sum of five
thousand pounds sterling. This amount was sufficient to pay,
not only the regular salaries, but also the expenses entailed
by extraordinary calls of various sorts.

Two events of a general character that occurred during
this administration was the importation of the progenitors
of the most famous race-horses in Virginian history; and the
first publication of the Virginia Gazette. The initial number
of this journal, edited by William Parks, came from the press

at Williamsburg, in August, 1736. It was printed once a week,
and the subscription rate was fifteen shillings for twelve
months. A few years later, a theatre was erected in the same
town by a company of players who had been drawn thither
from New York City.