Give Me Liberty

at Green Spring, with his future enemy, Philip Ludwell. Two days later he met with the Council around

oduce the Prayer Book in Scotland; his grandfather had been put to death by the Presbyterians. Perhaps it was this tragedy which induced his father

, was wounded at Blenheim, and was captured at Oudenarde. It is possible that he served under the Earl of Orkney, also, and that was the reason he

ected forts in the passes of the Blue Ridge. He wiped out a nest of pirates under the notorious Blackbeard and strung several of them up at Williamsburg. A man of artistic inter

roasted venison on wooden forks. On reaching the Blue Ridge they toiled to the summit, and there, looking out over the Valley of Virginia, drank the health of King George I and the royal family. After descending into the

sh and Virginia constitutional law made it easy for him to refute their arguments. Though he defended the powers of the Crown, he was honestly concerned for the welfare of the colony. But he hated democracy, and he had no patien

rived of life, member, or property without due process of law; martial law was forbidden; the people were to be supplied with arms. Yet several clauses were loaded with trouble for the Lieutenant Governor-one for appoint

n the colony was so thinly settled, he thought, was that poor men would not go there "because members of the Council and others who made an interest in the government, have from time to time procured grants of very large tracts of land." Thus new

face of bitter opposition, restricted all grants to 400 acres unless the patentee showed that he was able to meet this requirement. In 1710 he tried to satisfy th

The rumor was spread throughout the colony that the attorney general in England had ruled that no lands patented prior to the passage of these acts was liable to forfeiture. To ease men's fears, several large landholders purposely refused to pay quit rents. Even John Grymes,

educed to a trickle, tobacco piled up in the British warehouses, the merchants left a part of each crop on the planters' hands, and the price dropped lower and lower. Many of the poorer farmers w

and prevent frauds in shipping out tobacco. So he got one of his friends in the Assembly to introduce a bill to require inspection of all tobacco at government warehouses, and the issuin

rehouses arose on the great rivers. Soon the tobacco vessels were tying up at the adjacent wharves, and the planters were rolling their hogsheads for the inspection. After the agent

ket. The clergy wrote Spotswood thanking him for the increased value of their salaries. "Their livings, which by the badness of the pay were s

ction and storage. He was resentful if his tobacco was judged to be unfit for export. At the courthouses local politicians began to denounce the act to willing listeners. "He is the patriot who will not yield to w

ly. When he first outlined his plans for it his friends assured him it would be impossible to persuade the Assembly to

bill, he was lavish in promising tobacco agents' places, and no less than twenty-five Burgesses cast their votes with this job in sight. Only nineteen members failed to get one or the other of these posts, and some got both.[6] "I have, in a great measure,

es to pick our pockets," said one disgruntled planter. But what the officeholder had to expect if he opposed the measures urged by the Governor is shown by his treatment of Nicholas Meriwether. When Meriwether not only spoke against the tobacc

he," wrote Joshua Gee.[8] Just how passively the people would have submitted to another long Assembly must remain a matter of speculation, but their resentment against both Spotswood and his puppets is shown by their selections for the House of Burgesses in 1715. Of the twenty-five members who had accepted agents

ny man to vote who owned any real estate, even half an acre. Just before an election reports were spread that the country was on the verge of ruin, and no one was qualified to save it but "so

r no other reason than to thwart him. They were egged on by Gawin Corbin, who had been ousted from his job as naval officer; George Marable, whom Spo

repealed, the people of Warwick complained of the hardships of the law. It seemed that no more than two counties in all Virginia were satisfied.[10] Spotswood claimed that these grievances did not represent the views of a majority of the people. Many of them were

legal authority over them. Thereupon the House appealed to the Governor to arrest them. "The freedom and privileges of this House are in danger of being utterly subverted," they said, "when justices ... assume a jurisdiction and by their judgment debar the people and their rightful representatives of

he justices should levy a tax to pay the Burgesses' salaries when no law existed empowering them to do so.[13] To the Lords of Trade he explained that if the justices declined to pay the levy, "the Burgesses must have become suitors for an act wherein might properly have been described the qualifications of the electors and el

iming at, and they were unwilling to have him undermine the very foundations of liberty in Virginia. So in the General Court they passed "an

to seat them. A new election was held in which, presumably, no such promise was made, and Cole and Digges were again elected, and this time permitted to take their seats.[16] Spotswood taunted the House for not grasping at this opportunity to reduce the heavy burde

for any Burgess to be also a naval officer, tobacco agent, clerk of a county court, or hold any other office of profit in the government. They next tried to put an end to long Assemblies by prohibiting their continuance for more than three years. A third measure "for ascertaining secretaries

bowels of compassion, if this government can remain unconcerned while savage pagans are overwhelming one of our adjacent provinces, and inhumanly butchering and torturing our brethren," he told the Burgesses in his opening addr

e an act of high injustice, since upon the faith of the tobacco law at least ￡7,000 had been spent in erecting warehouses and wharves, and in the purchase of scales.[20] Neither he nor the Burgesses realized that th

not how you stand before God, your Prince, and all judicious men or before any others to whom you think you owe not your elections.... In fine, I cannot but attribute those miscarriages to the people's mistaken choice of a set of representatives whom Heaven has not generally endowed with the ordinary qualifications requisite t

books of accounts be kept of the Crown revenues.[23] Since only the gross sums had been reported and itemized accounts kept only on "loose papers," he demanded that the Auditor and the Receiver General adopt more businesslik

comply with the instruction to keep account books. Ludwell replied that he could not change the old method without orders from the Auditor General. Since this was nothing less than se

re had been much remissness in paying taxes and some fraud. The Governor wrote the Lords of Trade: "Notwithstanding all the contrivances of the family to justify the late officers of the r

e else sat, had long been the court of last appeal in the colony. The Councillors prized their seats in this court not less than their seats in the Upper House of Assembly or around the Council table. Spotswood claimed that their power over the lives and property of the people made

the Lords of Trade defending their position. The charter of 1676 expressly stated that the Governor and Council had authority to try "all treasons, murders, felonies." The laws of Virginia mad

ng the sole judges of the new court since his commission empowered him to "appoint judges."[29] They were backed by Attorney General Edward Northy in his opinion o

r of the Council, Ludwell and four others got up and left. The five then drew up a remonstrance, which Ludwell presented to Spotswood in court, with a "long harangue." Noticing that people were gathering, he turned around, and raising his voice, addressed them. "

are not in the least exempt from human frailties, such as passionate love of money, resentment against such as presume to oppose their designs, particularly to their creatures and favorites."[32] To this Spotswood retorted: "What else could tempt the rulin

on to be now reduced to a desperate gasp, and if the present efforts of the country cannot add new vigor to the same, then the haughtiness of a Carter, the hypocrisy of a Blair, the inveteracy of a Ludwell, the brutishness o

continued to do so indefinitely, had he not wanted an act to reimburse the Indian Company which had been dissolved by order of the King. The trade with the Indians had recently become a mere trickle, because South Carolina

of the leading men in the colony became stockholders, among them William Cocke, Mann Page, William Cole, Nathaniel Harrison, and Cole Digges. They had spent large sums "in purchasing servants, taking up land and making settlements

ler play was by men, than at most of our elections."[36] Political pamphlets were distributed at every courthouse. One of them began: "Having seen a rascally paper which contained advice to freeholders in favor of a court party and tools of arbitrary power to enslave and ruin a free born people ...

pt his temper, since he had been ordered to do so by the Lords of Trade, but the Burgesses, remembering his former insults, did everything they could to annoy him. Though his opening address was conciliatory, it was greeted with "violent censures." One wrathful member "shot his bolt" and cried ou

They refused to pay for a proposed trip to New York by Spotswood to renew the treaty with the Iroquois. To his request for payment of his expenses in making fatiguing jou

accusations against him. Spotswood intimates that Blair and Ludwell were responsible for this maneuver in order to have the House second the complaints of the Council. Blair made his influence felt through his brother, Archibald Blair, and Ludwell through his son-in-law, Jo

r final form the accusations boiled down to little more than that the Governor had misconstrued the laws, that he had tried to keep the justices from levying the salaries of the Burgesses, and that he had by provoking speech

bly," Joshua Gee tells us. "The same tools made addresses from the courts and even engaged every barefooted fellow to sign addresses from the counties."[42] The address from Middlesex spoke of Spotswood's wise and moderate government; that of the "ju

which he answered the charges against him. He had brought down on his head the hostility of the Councillors and Burgesses through his efforts to carry out the

and praised him for putting the government of Virginia upon a much improved footing.[44] The Board of Trade wrote Spotswood, in June, 1719: "You may depend upon all the countenance and support

To consider the stake I have among you and the free choice I've made to fix it under this government, you have not surely any grounds to suspect me of injurious designs against the welfare of this colony."[46] Then he indulged in a metaphor to show that

nants. Three years later he granted 3,065 acres, the so-called Wilderness Tract, to a certain Richard Hickman, who transferred it to him. He next acquired the Fork Tract, the Barrows Tract, the Mine Tract of 15,000 acres, the Lower Massaponax Tract, and

were greeted by stiffness and reserve. Yet the Councillors at his invitation, went from the Capitol to the Palace, and there gathered around a bowl of arrack, drinking until midnight. On the other hand, the hostile eight shunned Spotswood's ce

wall. At a meeting in the Council Chamber of the Capitol, in April 1720, with Spotswood at the head of the table, it was agreed that all past controversies be

his not offering to do me any disservice."[50] These fears were well-grounded, for there is reason to think that the Commissary was instrumental in having him removed from office, just how is not known. It is significant that when it was rumored that a new Governor was coming over, "it w

d in Spotsylvania County to certain persons who immediately conveyed them to him.[52] He later adopted a system of tenantry, leasing land in small parcels for two generations, a system which was copied in the huge

if everybody does not think as he does."[53] This weakness accounts in part for his inability to get along with either the Council or the Burgesses. Many of the policies which he advocated we

t more important was the demonstration that the people would no longer permit their representatives in the Assembly to be made submissive to the Governor by the use of the patronage. The punish

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