ROBERT HUNTER.
Robert Hunter was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, April
4, 1707, and his commission from George, Prince of Denmark, consort
of Queen Anne, and Lord Admiral, is preserved in the cabinet of the
Virginia Historical Society. It is a huge vellum document, measuring
two feet by two feet six inches, closely covered with Latin script, and
is probably the only example in Virginia of the commissions of her governors
in colonial times; and yet Hunter, being captured by the French,
then at war with England, on his voyage to Virginia, never acted as
her executive, being conveyed as a prisoner to Paris by his captors.
It appears that, soon after this, a plan having been proposed to reduce
the Spanish West India Islands, Hunter was proposed, by the Duke of
Marlborough, to command it. During Hunter's detention in Paris, he
corresponded with Dean Swift, who, it appears, had been suspected of
being the author of the famous letter concerning enthusiasm, usually
printed in Lord Shaftesbury's Characteristics, but which was really written
by Hunter. Returning to England, Hunter was made Governor
of New York, and was sent thither in 1710, with 2,700 expatriated
Palatines, to settle that colony. He returned to England in 1719. On
the accession of George the Second, he was reinstated in the government
of New York and New Jersey. The climate not agreeing with him,
he obtained the government of Jamaica instead, arriving there in February,
1727. He died March 31, 1734. He was a friend of Addison,
as well as of Swift; was a wit and scholar, and, in addition to the letter
mentioned, wrote a farce called "Androboros."
