Volume I Part 16 (2/2)
James II. had shown no favor to Maryland. If its proprietary, as a Catholic, pleased him, its civil and religious liberty offended him more. He was hence not popular here, and the Marylanders would readily have proclaimed the new monarchs but for the accidental failure of the proprietary's commands to this effect to reach them. This gave occasion for one Coode, with a few abettors, to form, in April, 1689, an ”a.s.sociation in Arms for the Defence of the Protestant Religion, and for a.s.serting the Right of King William and Queen Mary to the Province of Maryland.” The exaggerated representations of these conspirators prevailed in England. The proprietary, retaining his quit rents and export duty, was deprived of his political prerogatives. Maryland became a Crown province, Sir Lionel Copley being the first royal governor, and the Church of England received establishment therein.
The new ecclesiastical rule did not oppress Protestant dissenters, though very severe on Catholics, whom it was supposed necessary, here as all over America, to keep under, lest they should rise in favor of James II., or his son the Pretender.
[1660]
The third Lord Baltimore died in 1714-15. The proprietaries after this being Protestants, were intrusted again with their old political heads.h.i.+p. By this time a spirit of independence and self-a.s.sertion had grown up among the citizens, enforcing very liberal laws, and the vices of the sixth Lord, succeeding in 1751, made his subjects more than willing that he should, as he did, close the proprietary line.
Virginia, pa.s.sionately loyal, at first gloried in the Restoration. This proved premature. It was found that the purely selfish Charles II. cared no more for Virginia than for Ma.s.sachusetts. The Commonwealth's men were displaced from power. Sir William Berkeley again became governor, this time, however, by the authority of the a.s.sembly. A larger feeling of independence from England had sprung up in the colony in consequence of recent history at home and in the mother-land. It was developed still further by the events now to be detailed.
[1676]
The Old Dominion contained at this time 40,000 people, 6,000 being white servants and 2,000 negro slaves, located mainly upon the lower waters of the Rappahannock, York, and James Rivers. Between 1650 and 1670, through large immigration from the old country, the population had increased from 15,000 to 40,000, some of the first families of the State in subsequent times arriving at this juncture. About eighty s.h.i.+ps of commerce came each year from Great Britain, besides many from New England. Virginia herself built no s.h.i.+ps and owned few; but she could muster eight thousand horse, had driven the Indians far into the interior, possessed the capacity for boundless wealth, and had begun to experience a decided sense of her own rights and importance. The last fact showed itself in Bacon's Rebellion, which broke out in 1676, just one hundred years before the Declaration of Independence. The causes of the insurrection were not far to seek.
[1673]
The navigation acts were a sore grievance to Virginia as to the other colonies. Under Cromwell they had not been much enforced, and the Virginians had traded freely with all who came. Charles enforced them with all possible rigor, confining Virginia's trade to England and English s.h.i.+ps manned by Englishmen. This gave England a grinding monopoly of tobacco, Virginia's sole export, making the planters commercially the slaves of the home government and of English traders.
Duties on the weed were high, and mercilessly collected without regard to lowness of price. All supplies from abroad also had to be purchased in England, at prices set by English sellers. Even if from other parts of Europe, they must come through England, thus securing her a profit at Virginia's expense.
This was not the worst. The colonial government had always been abused for the ends of worthless office-holders from England. Now it was farmed out more offensively than ever. In 1673 Charles II. donated Virginia to two of his favorites, Lords Arlington and Culpeper, to be its proprietaries like Penn in Pennsylvania and Baltimore in Maryland. They were to have all the quit rents and other revenues, the nomination of ministers for parishes, the right of appointing public officers, the right to own and sell all public or escheated lands; in a word, they now owned Virginia. This shabby treatment awoke the most intense rage in so proud a people. The king relented, revoked his donation, made out and was about to send a new charter. But it was too late; rebellion had already broken out.
The Indians having made some attacks on the upper plantations, one Nathaniel Bacon, a spirited young gentleman of twenty-eight, recently from England, applied to Sir William Berkeley for a commission against them. The governor declined to give it, fearing, in the present excited condition of the colony, to have a body of armed men abroad. Bacon, enraged, extorts the commission by force. The result is civil war in the colony. The rebels are for a time completely victorious. Berkeley is driven to Accomac, on the eastern sh.o.r.e of the Chesapeake, but, succeeding in capturing a fleet sent to oppose him, he returns with this and captures Jamestown. Beaten by Bacon in a pitched battle, he again retires to Accomac, and the colony comes fully under the power of his antagonist, the colonists agreeing even to fight England should it interpose on the governor's side, when a decisive change in affairs is brought about by the rebel leader's death.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Reverend Dr. Blair, First President of William and Mary College.]
[1690]
The rebellion was now easily subdued, but it had soured and hardened old Governor Berkeley's spirit. Twenty-three in all were executed for partic.i.p.ation in the movement. Charles II. remarked: ”That old fool has hanged more men in that naked country than I for the murder of my father.”
After Bacon's Rebellion the colonial annals show but a dull succession of royal governors, with few events specially interesting. Under the governors.h.i.+p of Lord Howard of Effingham, which began in 1684, great excitement prevailed in Virginia lest King James II. should subvert the English Church there and make Catholicism dominant, which indeed might possibly have occurred but for James's abdication in 1688.
Under Governor Nicholson, from 1690, the capital was removed from Jamestown to Williamsburg, and the College of William and Mary founded, its charter dating from 1693. The Attorney-General, Seymour, opposed this project on the ground that the money was needed for ”better purposes” than educating clergymen. Rev. Dr. Blair, agent and advocate of the endowment, pleading: ”The people have souls to be saved,” Seymour retorted: ”d.a.m.n your souls, make tobacco.” But Blair persisted and succeeded, himself becoming first president of the college. The initial commencement exercises took place in 1700.
[Ill.u.s.tration: George Monk, Duke of Albemarle.]
[1710]
Governor Spotswood, who came in 1710, did much for Virginia. He built the first iron furnaces in America, introduced wine-culture, for which he imported skilled Germans, and greatly interested himself in the civilization of the Indians. He was the earliest to explore the Shenandoah Valley. It was also by his energy that the famous pirate ”Black beard” was captured and executed. Lieutenant Maynard, sent with two s.h.i.+ps to hunt him, attacked and boarded the pirate vessel in Pamlico Sound, 1718. A tough fight at close quarters ensued. Blackbeard was shot dead, his crew crying for quarter. Thirteen of the men were hung at Williamsburg. Blackbeard's skull, made into a drinking-cup, is preserved to this day. The great corsair's fate, Benjamin Franklin, then a printer's devil in Boston, celebrated in verse.
Carolina was settled partly from England, France, and the Barbadoes, and partly from New England; but mainly from Virginia, which colony furthermore furnished most of its political ideas.
[1663]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Lord Shaftesbury.]
In March, 1663, Carolina was const.i.tuted a territory, extending from 36 degrees north lat.i.tude southward to the river San Matheo, and a.s.signed to a company of seven distinguished proprietaries, including General Monk, who had been created Duke of Albemarle, and John Locke's patron, the famous Lord Ashley Cooper, subsequently Earl of Shaftesbury.
Governor Sir William Berkeley, of Virginia, was also one of the proprietaries.
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