University of Virginia Library

ALEXANDER SPOTSWOOD.

Colonel Alexander Spotswood, who arrived, June 23, 1710, in Virginia,
as the deputy or lieutenant of George Hamilton, Earl of Orkney,
the Governor and Commander-in chief of the Colony, was descended
from the ancient Scottish family of Spottiswoode, a local surname assumed
by the proprietors of the lands and barony of Spottiswoode in the
parish of Gordon and county of Berwick, at the earliest period when surnames
became hereditary in Scotland; but his lineage is yet more nobly
avouched in the virtue, learning, ability and courage of its representatives
through centuries of succession. The traditional account of the family
is, that the male line of the ancient barons of Spottiswoode, failing in
the reign of Alexander II., a younger son of the illustrious house of
Gordon, which was then seated in the same county, married the heiress
and was obliged to take upon himself the name of Spottiswoode;
but he retained the boar's head of the Gordons, which his successors,
the barons or Spottiswoode, carry to this day. The immediate progenitor
of this family was Robert de Spotswoods, born during the reign of
Alexander III., who succeeded to the crown of Scotland in 1249.
Seventh in descent from Robert was John Spotiswood; born, 1510;
died 1585; superintendent of Lothian, a zealous Protestant divine and
one of the compilers of "The First Book of Discipline and of the Confession
of Faith." His son, John Spotswood, of Spotiswoode, born in
1595, became archbishop of Glasgow and one of the privy counsel
of Scotland in 1635. He suffered from the popular indignation at the
attempt, discouraged by him, to impose a liturgy on the Scottish
Church, and was deposed and excommunicated by the Assembly which
met at Glasgow in November, 1638. He retired to London, where he
died November 26th, 1639. He was the author, among other works,
of "The History of the Church and State of Scotland." His second
son, Sir Robert Spottiswoode, president of the Court of Sessions, author
of "The Practicks of the Laws of Scotland," a man of distinguished
learning and merit, was born in 1596, and met his death at the hands
of Parliament, January 17th, 1646, as an adherant of the royal cause.
The son of the last Robert Spotswood, who died in 1688, married a
widow, Catharine Elliott, who had by her first marriage a son, General
Elliott, whose portrait is in the State Library at Richmond, Virginia.
The only child of Robert and Catherine (Elliott) Spotswood, Alexander,
the subject of this notice, was born in 1676, at Tangier, then an
English colony, in Africa, his father being then resident surgeon to
the governor of the island, the Earl of Middleton, and to the garrison
there. Alexander Spotswood was literally bred in the army from his

childhood and, uniting genius with courage, served with distinction
under the Duke of Marlborough. He was dangerously wounded in the
breast by the first fire of the French on the Confederates at the battle of
Blenheim, during the heat of which sanguinary encounter he served as
deputy quartermaster-general, with the rank of colonel. Though Virginia
enjoyed tranquillity and the voice of faction was hushed at the
time of the arrival of Spotswood, yet the condition of the colony was
not prosperous. Her defenseless coasts were invaded by privateers and
pirates, and through the decline of her staple commerce, because of the
quantities of tobacco procured from Germany by the Dutch, the surreptitious
shipment of it from the colony, and the greed of the English
factors, there was a just complaint of the scantiness of essential supplies
of English manufactures. Spotswood was hailed with acclamation by
the colonists, because he brought with him the invaluable benefit of the
habeas corpus act, which had been denied by the late ministers when
their representatives endeavored to extend it by their own authority.
But while the assembly regarded the recent favors granted, they could
not, October, 1710, be persuaded to see the defenseless condition of the
colony, since the certain expense of protection appeared more immediate
than distant danger; nor did the fear of a threatened French invasion
the following summer, appeal any more effectually. They refused to
pay the expense of collecting the militia or to discharge the debt due, because,
as Spotswood informed the Ministry, "they hoped by their frugality
to recommend themselves to the populace."

They would only consent to levy £20,000 by duties laid chiefly on
British manufactures, and insisted on discriminating privileges to Virginia
owners of vessels, in preference to British subjects, upon the plea
that the exemption had always existed. The governor declined the
proffered levy, dissolved the assembly, and in anticipation of an Indian
war, was obliged to secure arms and supplies from England. By
prompt and energetic measures he quelled in the neighboring province of
North Carolina, an insurrection which threatened to subvert all regular
government there; and later, in the war with the Tuscarora Indians
(commenced by a massacre on the frontier of North Carolina, in September,
1711), by a conciliatory course, prevented the tributary Indians
from joining the enemy, with whom, in January, 1714, he concluded
a peace, and blending humanity with vigor, he taught them that
while he could use violence, he commiserated their fate. When a new
Assembly was called by Spotswood, in 1712, they did more than
he expected, and discharged most of the debts of the Colony, when he
demonstrated that the standing revenue had been so defective during
the previous twenty-two years as to have required £7,000 from the
monarch's private estate to make up the deficiencies in governmental expenses.
The frontier of the Colony being no longer subjected to Indian

incursions, the expenditure of government was reduced to one-third of
what had been previously required, and under the able administration
of Spotswood, Virginia advanced in commerce, population and wealth
more rapidly than any of her sister colonies. A settlement of German
Protestants was also effected under the auspices of the Governor, on the
Rapid Anne river, which was called after the name of his residence,
Germanna. A profitable trade was established with the West Indies,
in the exchange of corn, lumber and salted provisions, for sugar, rum
and wine. In 1715 the population of Virginia was 72,500 whites and
23,000 negroes, it being of the American colonies second in number
only to Massachusetts, which was only one thousand greater. The
slave population of Virginia was, during the reign of George I., increased
by 10,000. The colony now comprised twenty-five counties,
represented by fifty-two burgesses. The government was administered
by a governor (appointed by the king), who nominated inferior
magistrates and officers; and also by twelve councilors, also created by
the royal mandate. The energy and discipline of Spotswood soon ran
counter to the economical spirit of the Assembly, whom he further offended
by his haughtiness. Anonymous letters were constantly transmitted
against him to the board of trade, who gave him an opportunity
of vindicating, in the vigor of his replies, the wisdom and beneficence
of his administration. As zealous a churchman as he is proven to have
been, he yet, in the exercise of the right of induction of ministers, incurred
the animosity of the Bishop of London's commissary, James
Blair, who laid formal complaint against him before the king. Colonel
William Byrd was also sent over by the colony in 1719, to represent
its grievances, but being unsuccessful in his embassy, he begged the
board of trade "to recommend forgiveness and moderation to both parties."
A more harmonious season ensued, and the Governor, Council
and the Assembly concurred in measures for the public welfare and prosperity.

The pirates who infested the coast were subdued, and the frontiers
were extended to the foot of the Blue Ridge mountains, a passage
across which had been discovered by an expedition made under the
leadership of Spotswood in 1716, and composed of some of the first
gentlemen in the Colony. Upon its return, the governor presented each
of his companions with a golden horseshoe (some of which are said to
have been covered with valuable stones, resembling heads of nails),
bearing the inscription: "Sic juvat transcendere montes." In the year
1720, two new counties, Spotsylvania and Brunswick, were established.
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. His wise recommendation
was at first unheeded, and it was not until after the treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle that it was adopted. He was the author of an act for

THOMAS WEST, Earl De La Warr.

From the original in the possession of the
present Earl Delaware, England.

improving the staple of tobacco, and making tobacco notes the medium
of circulation. Being a master of the military art, he kept the militia
under admirable discipline. He was a proficient in mathematics; built
the octagon magazine at Williamsburg (still standing), rebuilt William
and Mary College (which had been burnt) and made improvements in
the governor's house (then called palace) and gardens. He was an excellent
judge on the bench. At his instance a grant of £1,000 was
made by the governors and visitors of the college, in 1718, and a fund
established for instructing Indian children in Christianity, and he
erected a school for that purpose on the southern frontier, at Fort
Christiana, established on the south side of the Meherrin river, in what
is now Southampton county. The Rev. Charles Griffin had charge of
the school in 1715, at which time there were seventy-seven Indian
children under instruction. Spotswood was styled the "Tubal Cain of
Virginia," and he was, indeed, the first to establish a regular iron furnace
in North America. But, despite his momentous services to the Colony,
intrigue, as his friends urge, at length effected his removal as governor,
in September, 1722. His character and administration are thus warmly
eulogized by Chalmers: "There was a utility in his designs, a vigour 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 plow, 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 the 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." In the county of Spotsylvania, Spotswood had, about
the year 1716, founded on a horse-shoe peninsula of four hundred
acres, on the Rapid Anne, 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 after his retirement. A church
was built there, mainly at his expense. Possessing an extensive tract
of forty-five thousand acres of land, which abounded in iron ore,
he engaged largely, in connection with Robert Cary of England, and
others in Virginia, in the iron manufacture. In the year 1730, he was
made deputy postmaster-general for the American Colonies, and held the
office until 1739; and it was he who promoted Benjamin Franklin to the
office of postmaster for the province of Pennsylvania. He married,
in 1724, Anne Butler, the daughter of Richard Brayne, Esq.,
of Westminster, England. She derived her middle name from James
Butler, Duke of Ormond, her godfather. Her portrait in this work is
from one in oil in the library of the State of Virginia, at Richmond,
and now first engraved. She had issue: John, Robert, Anne Catharine
and Dorothea. John Spotswood married, in 1745, Mary, daughter of
William Dandridge, of the British navy, and their issue was two sons:
General Alexander and Captain John Spotswood, of the Army of the
Revolution, and two daughters, Mary and Anne. Robert, the younger
son of the governor, and an officer, under Washington, in the French
and Indian war, was slain by the Indians. Anne Catharine, the elder
daughter of Governor Spotswood, married Bernard Moore, Esq., of
"Chelsea," in the county of King William, Va. Dorothea, the younger
daughter, married Captain Nathaniel West Dandridge, of the British
navy, son of Captain William Dandridge, of Elson Green.

Promoted Major-General, and on the eve of embarking with troops
destined for Carthagena, Spotswood died at Annapolis, Maryland, on the
7th of June, 1740. There is reason to believe that he lies buried at
"Temple Farm," his country residence near Yorktown, and which was
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 articles of his capitulation. The
widow of Governor Spotswood surviving him, and continuing to reside
at Germanna, married, secondly, November 9, 1742, the Rev. John
Thompson of Culpeper County, a minister of the Episcopal Church, and
of exemplary character. The descendants of Governor Spotswood in
Virginia are now represented, in addition to the family names already
given, in those of Aylett, Braxton, Brooke, Berkeley, Burwell, Bassett,
Chiswell, Carter, Campbell, Callaway, Cullen, Claiborne, Dandridge,
Dangerfield, Dabney, Fairfax, Fontaine, Gaines, Gilliam, Kemp, Kinlock,
Lloyd, Lee, Leigh, Macon, Mason, Manson, Marshall, Meriwether,
McDonald, McCarty, Nelson, Parker, Page, Randolph, Robinson, Smallwood,
Skyring, Talaferro, Temple, Thweatt, Taylor, Walker, Waller,
Wickham, Watkins, and others, scarce less esteemed. The portrait in
this work is from a contemporaneous portrait in oil, in the possession of
the eminent sculptor, Edward V. Valentine, Richmond, Va., whose late
estimable wife was of the lineage of the Governor.