[342:A] Account of Virginia, in Mass. Hist. Coll., first series.
[342:B] Chalmers' Annals, 347.
CHAPTER XLII.
1688-1696.
Accession of William and Mary—Proclaimed in Virginia—The House of Stuart—President Bacon—Colonel Francis Nicholson, Lieutenant-Governor—The Rev. James Blair, Commissary—College of William and Mary chartered—Its Endowment, Objects, Professorships—Death of John Page—Nicholson succeeded by Andros—Post-office—Death of Queen Mary—William the Third—Board of Trade.
William, Prince of Orange, landed at Torbay in November, 1688, and he and Mary were proclaimed king and queen on the 13th day of February, 1689. The coronation took place on the eleventh day of April. They had been for several months seated on the throne before they were proclaimed in Virginia. The delay was owing to the reiterated pledges of fealty made by the council to James, and from an apprehension that he might be restored to the kingdom. Some of the Virginians insisted that, as there was no king in England, so there was also an interregnum in the government of the colony. At length, in compliance with the repeated commands of the privy council, William and Mary were proclaimed, at James City, in April, 1689, Lord and Lady of Virginia. This glorious event, with the circumstances connected with it, was duly announced to the lords commissioners of plantations, in a letter, dated on the twenty-ninth of that month, by Nicholas Spencer, secretary of state.
The accession of the Prince of Orange dispelled the clouds of discontent and alarm, and inspired the people of the colony with sincere joy. For about seventy years Virginia had been subject to the house of Stuart, and there was little in the retrospect to awaken regret at their downfall. They had cramped trade by monopolies and restrictions, lavished vast bodies of land on their profligate minions, and often entrusted the reigns of power to incompetent, corrupt, and tyrannical governors. The dynasty of the Stuarts fell buried in the ruins of misused power.
When the last of the Stuart governors, Lord Howard of Effingham, returned to England, he had left the administration in the hands of Colonel Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., president of the council. Upon the accession of William and Mary, England being on the eve of a war with France, the president and council of Virginia were directed by the Duke of Shrewsbury to put the colony in a posture of defence.
