COMMISSARY JAMES BLAIR.
James Blair, D.D., was born in Scotland about the year 1655. Having
graduated from the University of Edinburgh, he was admitted to
orders in the Established Church of England, and commenced his ministry
in Scotland, but finding his usefulness obstructed by popular prejudice,
he went to London, and was sent by its bishop in 1685 as a missionary
to Virginia. He served here first as rector of Henrico parish for nine
years. His ability and great zeal displayed in furtherance of the cause
of religion, procured him, in 1689, the appointment of Commissary of the
Bishop of London. He removed his residence to Jamestown to prosecute
plans for the founding of an institution of learning in the Colony.
Meeting with much encouragement, he proceeded to England, where,
having secured a subscription of £2,500, he obtained from the King in
February, 1692, a charter for William and Mary College, with a grant
of twenty thousand acres of land for its support. The King himself
subscribed £2,000 towards its building out of the quit-rents. Seymour,
the Attorney General of Great Britain, having received the royal commands
to prepare the charter of the college, remonstrated against the
liberality of the King, urging that the nation was engaged in an expensive
war; that the money was needed for better purposes, and that he
did not see the slightest occasion for a college in Virginia. Commissary
Blair, in reply, represented to him that its intention was to educate and
qualify young men to be ministers of the Gospel; and begged that the
Attorney-General would consider that the people of Virginia had souls
to be saved as well as the people of England. "Souls!" exclaimed
the imperious Seymour, "damn your souls!—make tobacco!" The
college was erected according to a design by Sir Christopher Wren, at
Williamsburg, in 1694, with five professorships of Greek and Latin, the
mathematics, moral philosophy, and two of divinity, with Dr. Blair as
President, which position he held during life. In 1710, Commissary
Blair became rector of Bruton Parish at Williamsburg. He was long a
member of the Council, and, as the President of this body, was the Acting
Governor of Virginia during the absence of Governor Gooch in command
of the Carthagena expedition from June 1740 to July 25, 1741,
and perhaps later. Commissary Blair in 1727 assisted John Hartwell
and Edward Chilton in compiling "The State of His Majesty's Colony
in Virginia," and one hundred and seventeen of his "Sermons and Discourses"
expository of the Sermon on the Mount, were published in four
volumes 8vo at London in 1742. He died August 3, 1743, aged 88,
and was buried at Jamestown, where his tomb with a long epitaph in
Latin was still standing, though in a damaged condition, just prior to our
late war. By his will Commissary Blair bequeathed his library and
£500 to William and Mary College.
