CHAPTER XLVI.
1703-1705.
Quit-rents—Northy's Opinion against the Custom of the Vestry's employing a Minister by the Year—The Free Church Disruption in Scotland—Controversy between Blair and Nicholson—Convocation—Nicholson recalled—Notice of his Career—Huguenots.
By the account of Colonel William Byrd, receiver-general, the nett proceeds of her majesty's revenue of quit-rents for the year 1703 amounted to five thousand seven hundred and forty-five pounds.
In the Church of England the people have no part in the choice of their minister; a patron appoints him, and a living supports him. In Virginia, on the contrary, the salary being levied directly from the people by the vestries, they fell upon the expedient, as has been repeatedly mentioned, of employing a minister for a year. Governor Nicholson, an extreme high-churchman, procured from the attorney-general, Northy, an opinion against this custom, and it was sent to all the vestries, with directions to put it on record. The vestries, nevertheless, pertinaciously resisted this construction of the law. In two important points the church establishment in Virginia differed from that in England—in the appointment of the minister by the vestry, according to the act of 1642, and in the absence of a bishop.
In recent times the disruption of the Scottish general assembly resulted in the Free Church of Scotland, which thus, by sacrificing the temporalities, vindicated its independence of the government in things spiritual. In Virginia the vestries virtually maintained a like independence. In Scotland the contest arrayed against each other schismatic parties in the established kirk, known as the Evangelical and the Moderates, whereas in Virginia it was a mere contest for power between the vestries and the government. The Free Church of Scotland, at the time of the disruption, was still in theory in favor of an establishment in which the clergy should be chosen by the people and paid by the government.[368:A] Even in England, under the constitution of the established church, the ministers of certain exceptional chapels were formerly elected by the freeholders of the parish, subject to the approval of the vicar, and the violation of their rights in this particular was sometimes resented in the ruder districts of Yorkshire, by outrageous insults offered to the new incumbent during the time of service, and by brutal personal assaults upon the minister.[368:B]
Before the beginning of the eighteenth century the proprietary government, granted by Charles the First to Lord Baltimore, had at length been abolished, and the Church of England established there. There was less tolerance under this establishment than before. In Maryland as in Virginia, the discipline of the church was loose, the clergy by no means exemplary, and their condition precarious and dependent.
The differences between Dr. Blair and Governor Nicholson led to a tedious controversy, in which charges of malfeasance in official duty and private misconduct, especially in the affair of his attachment for Miss Burwell, and his maltreatment of the Rev. Mr. Fouace, were transmitted to the government in England, covering forty-four pages folio of manuscript. The controversy produced no little excitement and disturbance in the colony; a number of the clergy adhered to the governor, being those with whom Commissary Blair was unpopular, and whom the governor had ingratiated by siding with them against the vestries, and by representing the commissary as less favorable to their cause. Governor Nicholson ordered a convocation to be assembled, and during its session held private interviews with his adherents among the clergy, who signed a paper denying the charges made by the commissary and the council. A public entertainment given to them was satirized in a ballad, setting forth their unclerical hilarity, and depicting some of them in unfavorable colors. This ballad soon appeared in London. In this convocation seventeen of the clergy were opposed to the commissary, and only six in his favor. Nevertheless his integrity and indomitable perseverance and energy triumphed; and at length, upon the complaint made by him, together with six members of the council and some of the clergy, particularly the Rev. Mr. Fouace, Colonel Nicholson was recalled.[369:A] He ceased to be governor in August, 1705. Before entering on the government of Virginia he had been lieutenant-governor of New York under Andros, and afterwards at the head of administration from 1687 to 1689, when he was expelled by a popular tumult. From 1690 to 1692 he was lieutenant-governor of Virginia. From 1694 to 1699 he held the government of Maryland, where, with the zealous assistance of Commissary Bray, he busied himself in establishing Episcopacy. Returning to the government of Virginia, Governor Nicholson remained until 1705. In the year 1710 he was appointed general and commander-in-chief of the forces sent against Fort Royal, in Acadia, which was surrendered to him. During the following year he headed the land force of another expedition directed against the French in Canada. The naval force on this occasion was commanded by the imbecile Brigadier Hill. The enterprise was corrupt in purpose, feeble in execution, and abortive in result. This failure was attributable to the mismanagement and inefficiency of the fleet. In 1713 Colonel Nicholson was governor of Nova Scotia. Having received the honor of knighthood in 1720, Sir Francis Nicholson was appointed governor of South Carolina, where during four years, it is said, he conducted himself with a judicious and spirited attention to the public welfare, and this threw a lustre over the closing scene of his long and active career in America. Returning to England, June, 1725, he died at London in March, 1728. He is described as an adept in colonial governments, trained by long experience in New York, Virginia, and Maryland; brave, and not penurious, but narrow and irascible; of loose morality, yet a fervent supporter of the church.[369:B]
Upon the revocation of the edict of Nantes, by Louis the Fourteenth, in 1685, more than half a million of French Protestants, called Huguenots, fled from the jaws of persecution to foreign countries. About forty thousand took refuge in England. In 1690 William the Third sent over a number of them to Virginia, and lands were allotted to them on James River. During the year 1699 another body came over, conducted by their clergyman, Claude Philippe de Richebourg. He and others were naturalized some years afterwards. Others followed in succeeding years; the larger part of them settled at Manakintown, on the south bank of the James River, about twenty miles above the falls, on rich lands formerly occupied by the Monacan Indians. The rest dispersed themselves over the country, some on the James, some on the Rappahannock. The settlement at Manakintown was erected into the parish of King William, in the County of Henrico, and exempted from taxation for many years. The refugees received from the king and the assembly large donations of money and provisions; and they found in Colonel William Byrd, of Westover, a generous benefactor. Each settler was allowed a strip of land running back from the river to the foot of the hill. Here they raised cattle, undertook to domesticate the buffalo, manufactured cloth, and made claret wine from wild grapes. Their settlement extended about four miles along the river. In the centre they built a church; they conducted their public worship after the German manner, and repeated family worship three times a day. Manakintown was then on the frontier of Virginia, and there was no other settlement nearer than the falls of the James River, yet the Indians do not appear to have ever molested these pious refugees. There was no mill nearer than the mouth of Falling Creek, twenty miles distant, and the Huguenots, having no horses, were obliged to carry their corn on their backs to the mill.
Many worthy families of Virginia are descended from the Huguenots, among them the Maurys, Fontaines, Lacys, Munfords, Flournoys, Dupuys, Duvalls, Bondurants, Trents, Moncures, Ligons, and Le Grands. In the year 1714 the aggregate population of the Manakintown settlement was three hundred. The parish register of a subsequent date, in French, is preserved.
FOOTNOTES:
[368:A] Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers, iv. 287, 316.
[368:B] Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronté.
[369:A] Old Churches, etc., i. 158; ii. 291.
[369:B] Bancroft, ii. 82.
