CHAPTER LVIII.
1747-1752.
Statistics of Virginia—Whitefield—Davies—Conduct of the Government toward Dissenters—Resignation of Governor Gooch—His Character—The People of the Valley and of Eastern Virginia—John Robinson, Sr., President—Richard Lee, President—Earl of Albemarle, Governor-in-Chief—Lewis Burwell, President—Population of the Colonies.
From Bowen's Geography, published at London in 1747, the following particulars are gathered: in 1710 the total population of Virginia was estimated to be 70,000, and in 1747 at between 100,000 and 140,000. The number of burgesses was 52. Of the fifty-four parishes, thirty or forty were supplied. The twelve vestrymen having the presentation of ministers were styled "the patrons of the church." The governor's salary, together with perquisites, amounted to three thousand pounds per annum. The president of the council acting as governor received a salary of five hundred pounds, and also a small amount paid him as a councillor. The professors of William and Mary College, when they began with experiments on plants and minerals, were assisted by the French refugees at Manakintown. Dr. Bray procured contributions of books for the library.[444:A]
Sweet-scented tobacco, the most valuable in the world, was found in the strip of country between the York and the James. The number of hogsheads of tobacco shipped from Virginia and Maryland together annually was 70,000, of which half was consumed in England, and half exported to other countries.
This trade employed two hundred ships, and yielded his majesty's treasury a revenue of upwards of £300,000, in time of peace. Jamestown at this time contained several brick houses, with sundry taverns and eating-houses,—sixty or seventy houses in all. Williamsburg or Williamstadt contained twenty or thirty houses. There was a fort or battery erected there mounting ten or twelve guns. Governor Nicholson caused several streets to be laid out in the form of a W, in honor of King William the Third, but a V or one angle of it was not as yet completed, and the plan appears to have been given up. The main street was three-quarters of a mile long, and very wide; at one end of it was the college, and at the other the capitol. The college was thought to be something like Chelsea Hospital. The capitol, in the shape of an H, is described as "a noble pile." The church was "adorned and convenient as the best churches in London." Besides these there were an octagon magazine for arms and ammunition, a bowling-green, and a play-house. There were several private houses of brick, with many rooms on a floor, but not high. It was observed that wherever the water was brackish, it was sickly; but Williamsburg was on a healthy site.[445:A] Gloucester was at this time the most populous county; Essex or Rappahannock "overrun with briars, thorns, and wild beasts." The Atlantic Ocean is denominated the "Virginian Sea."[445:B]
Whitefield, while at Charleston, in South Carolina, during the spring of 1747, being presented with a sum of money, expended it in the purchase of a plantation and negroes for the support of the orphan-house.[445:C] Having come on to Virginia, in a letter written from Williamsburg in April of that year, he says to a friend in Philadelphia: "Men in power here seem to be alarmed; but truth is great and will prevail. I am to preach this morning." By a remarkable coincidence, Samuel Davies, so pre-eminently instrumental in organizing and extending Presbyterianism in Middle Virginia, happened to come to Virginia about the same time. He was born in the County of New Castle, Pennsylvania, now Delaware, November 3d, 1723, of Welsh extraction, on both paternal and maternal side. He was educated principally in Pennsylvania, under the care of the Rev. Samuel Blair, at Fagg's Manor, where he was thoroughly instructed in the classics, sciences, and theology. By close study his slender frame was enfeebled. He married Sarah Kirkpatrick in October, 1746. Deputed to perform a mission in so perplexing a field, without experience, and in delicate health, he started with hesitation and reluctance. Passing down the Eastern Shore associated with the labors of Makemie, Davies came to Williamsburg. Here he applied to the general court for license to preach at three meeting-houses in Hanover, and one in Henrico. The council hesitated to comply; but, by the governor's influence, the license was obtained on the fourteenth of April. The members of the court present on this occasion were William Gooch, Governor; John Robinson, John Grymes, John Custis, Philip Lightfoot, Thomas Lee, Lewis Burwell, William Fairfax, John Blair, William Nelson, Esqs.; William Dawson, Clerk. This was only two days after Whitefield had preached in Williamsburg, and he and Davies were probably there at the same time. Davies, proceeding at once to Hanover, was received with joy, since, on the preceding Sunday, a proclamation had been attached to the door of Morris's Reading-house, requiring magistrates to suppress itinerant preachers, and warning the people against gathering to hear them. After a brief sojourn, returning home, he languished under ill health, aggravated by the sudden death of his wife, and threatening to cut him off prematurely. He, however, recovered sufficient strength to return to Hanover in May, 1748, and settled at a place about twelve miles from the falls of the James River. In this second visit he was accompanied by the Rev. John Rodgers, who, finding it impossible to obtain permission to settle in Virginia, returned to the North. Governor Gooch favored the application, but a majority of the council stood out against it, saying: "We have Mr. Rodgers out, and we are determined to keep him out." Some of the clergy of the established church were vehement in their opposition to Davies and Rodgers. A majority of the council lent their countenance to this opposition, but Gooch took occasion to rebuke it in severe terms. John Blair, nephew of the commissary, Commissary Dawson, and another member of the council, whose name is forgotten, united with the governor on this occasion in treating the strangers kindly, and endeavored to procure a reconsideration of the case, but in vain. According to Burk,[447:A] most of the intelligent men of that day, including Edmund Pendleton, appear in the character of persecutors. It must be remembered, however, that the council and its friends had no right to proclaim religious freedom, and that the controversy depended on the true interpretation of the act of parliament and the Virginia statutes. These made the law, and the council was but the executive of the law, without authority to repeal or amend it.
Davies was now left to labor alone in Virginia. In April the court decided the long-pending suits against Isaac Winston, Sr., and Samuel Morris, by fining them each twenty shillings and the costs of prosecution. Severe laws had been passed in Virginia in accordance with the English act of uniformity, and enforcing attendance at the parish church. The toleration act was little understood in Virginia; Davies examined it carefully, and satisfied himself that it was in force in the colony, not, indeed, by virtue of its original enactment in England, but because it had been expressly recognized and adopted by an act of the Virginia assembly.
In October, 1748, licenses were with difficulty obtained upon the petitions of the dissenters for three other meeting-houses lying in Caroline, Louisa, and Goochland. Davies was only about twenty-three years of age; yet his fervid eloquence attracted large congregations, including many churchmen. On several occasions he found it necessary to defend the cause of the dissenters at the bar of the general court. When on one occasion, by permission, he rose to reply to the argument of Peyton Randolph, the king's attorney-general, a titter at first ran through the court; but it ceased at the utterance of the very first sentence, and his masterly argument extorted admiration; and during his stay in Williamsburg he received many civilities, especially from the Honorable John Blair, of the council, and Sir William Gooch. Samuel Davies happening to be in London at the same time with Peyton Randolph, some years afterwards, mentions him in his Diary as "my old adversary," and adds, "he will, no doubt, oppose whatever is done in favor of the dissenters in Hanover." Davies, who was a man of exquisite sensibility, repeatedly alludes to the torture to which his feelings had been subjected by the mortifications that he suffered when appearing before the general court.
