The Revolution produced no ill effects in Virginia. Francis Nicholson, who in the reign of James had been expelled from New York by the insurgents, was the first governor of Virginia under William III.; and Andros, “fresh from imprisonment in Massachusetts,” was the second. To Nicholson Virginia was indebted for the establishment of the College of William and Mary, which was endowed by a gift of quit-rents from the king and a royal domain, and by a tax of a penny on every pound weight of tobacco exported to the other colonies. To Andros it owes the preservation of what few annals of the province had escaped the destruction of neglect, time and civil war.
Though the powers granted to the governor were exorbitant—“the armed force, the revenue, the interpretation of the law, the administration of justice, the church, all being under his control and guardianship”—the spirit of independence was vigorous in Virginia; and when, in 1691, the revenue being exhausted by the governor and his favourites, additional supplies were demanded, the assembly claimed the right, and maintained it too for some time, of nominating a treasurer of their own, and when finally this right was refused, declined to contribute their quota for the defence of the colonies against France. Nay indeed, being aware of the revenue derived by the mother-country from the duties on tobacco, “they made,” says old Quarry, “a nice inquiry into the circumstances of government, and concluded that the assembly itself was entitled to all the rights and privileges of an English parliament.” As regarded the established church, also, these independent colonists carried things very much in their own way. The Bishop of London might license, and the governor might recommend, a minister, but if the congregation did not like him they would not have him; and by refusing, spite of all protests, to accept a minister as an incumbent for life, but merely as a servant of the congregation from year to year, they kept the power in their own hands. Virginia was the opposite of Massachusetts; and though some of the parishes were so large that in many cases the inhabitants lived fifty miles from the church, the assembly would not be at the expense of altering the bounds, though it was threatened with “paganism, atheism, or sectaries.” Finally, this obstinacy with regard to the clergy led to a collision with the crown. In the meantime great was the liberty and great the enjoyment of Virginia. She had no large towns, no marts of commerce; “as to outward appearance,” it was said, “Virginia looked like a wild desert,” and in England it was reported to be “one of the poorest, miserablest and worst countries in all America.” Tobacco was still the general currency, and the colony having no vessels of its own, the merchants’ ships lay for months waiting for the cargoes which their boats picked up at the various plantations.
The principles of liberty for which Bacon had perished were not by any means dead. “Pernicious opinions, fatal to royal prerogative,” says an old writer, “were improving daily;” and though the Virginians resented any charge of republicanism, yet the colonial mind was, in effect, strongly biased that way. From the insurrection of Bacon, for about three-quarters of a century, Virginia enjoyed uninterrupted peace.
In 1710, Governor Spotswood penetrated the Blue Ridge, a portion of the Allegany chain, an enterprise which had not been attempted since the days of Sir William Berkeley; and though settlers were slow to advance into these new regions, yet the Indian trader, gradually crossing the Alleganies, brought back knowledge of the country on the Ohio and the western lakes.
The English Revolution, which destroyed the doctrine of legitimacy, was fatal to the claims of Lord Baltimore. He had left Maryland, to assert his rights in England, just before the deposition of James, entrusting the administration of the colony to nine deputies; and these having hesitated for some time to proclaim the new sovereign, a rumour gained ground of a plot between the Catholics and Indians for the murder of the Protestants, and an armed association was formed for asserting the rights of King William and for the defence of the protestant faith.
This rumour was utterly baseless, but the Catholics were compelled to surrender all power of government, and the king proceeded, against every claim of justice, to deprive Lord Baltimore of his charter, though no charge existed against him but that of being a Catholic. In 1692, Sir Lionel Copley arrived in Maryland as the royal commissioner, and the whole system of government was arbitrarily changed. “The first act of the new assembly recognised William and Mary; the second established the Church of England as the religion of the state, to be supported by general taxation.” Toleration was, however, secured to Protestant Dissenters; the Quakers travelled about on their “religious visits” as well as “a sort of wandering pretenders from New England, who deluded even churchmen, we are told, by their extempore prayers and preachments.” All were tolerated excepting the Catholics, they who had been the founders of the province, and the first to acknowledge and legislate for liberty of conscience for all; they were subjected to a system of legalised persecution; mass was forbidden to be celebrated publicly; catholic priests were forbidden to preach or teach, and children were basely tempted to change their profession of religion by the offered bribe of a portion of their parents’ property. And, pitiable to say, Benedict, the son of Lord Baltimore, the worthy catholic proprietary, only recovered the province by renouncing the catholic church for that of England, in the year 1715.
Maryland, like Virginia, had no large towns, and remained undisturbed by either Indians or French. “Its staple was tobacco, yet hemp and flax were raised, and all were employed as currency. In Somerset and Dorchester the manufacture of linen and even woollen cloth was attempted. In Maryland, white labourers being found more advantageous than negroes, the market was always well supplied with them, the price varying from £12 to £30. Maryland was the most southern colony which, in 1695, consented to pay its quota towards the defence of New York, thus forming from Chesapeake to Maine an imperfect confederacy. The union was increased by a public post. Eight times in the year letters might be forwarded from the Potomac to Philadelphia. Public education was talked of, and promised by the assembly, but not carried out. The population increased, though not rapidly. In 1710 bond and free amounted to about 30,000; a bounty still continued to be offered for every wolf’s head; the roads to the capital were marked by notches on trees; and water-mills still solicited legislative encouragement.[[13]]
William Penn, more fortunate than his neighbour Lord Baltimore, recovered his province without any compromise of principle. Within two years after the Revolution, he had been three several times arrested and tried, and openly acquitted; and now, in 1690, he determined once more to visit his province, where, spite of all his efforts at good and happy government, discontent existed. Numbers of emigrants were again prepared to accompany him, “a convoy was granted, and the fleet ready to sail, when, on his return from the funeral of George Fox, messengers were sent to apprehend him.” “Three times having been tried, and three times acquitted,” says Bancroft, “he now went into retirement. Locke would have interceded for him, but he refused clemency, waiting rather for justice. The delay completed the wreck of his fortunes; sorrow lowered over his family; the wife of his youth died; his eldest son had no vigorous hold on life; and many, even among his friends, cavilled at his conduct.” It was a deep baptism of sorrow; but he had still powerful advocates who interceded successfully for him. “He is my old acquaintance,” said William of Orange, finally; “he may follow his business as freely as ever; I have nothing to say against him.” His innocence was fully established, and in August, 1694, he was restored to his proprietary rights.
But for the pressure of poverty, Penn would have immediately embarked for his province; but this he was not able to do until the last year of the century; and in the meantime Pennsylvania was governing itself by the members of the assembly, who acting upon Penn’s liberal permission that “the government should be settled in a condition to please the generality,” altered, and disputed, and altered again, paying little regard to the men whom Penn had left in authority, until at length all seemed settled to the public satisfaction and nothing was wanting but concert with the proprietary.
William Penn was once more in his beloved province—no longer in the prime of manhood, full of hope and joy, but gentle and conciliatory as ever. “Keep to what is good in the charter and frame of government,” said he, addressing the assembly the following spring, “and lay aside what is burdensome, and add what may best suit the common good.” The old charter was surrendered, which was a much easier thing than the forming of a constitution, which should prove, as a member of the council expressed himself, “firm and lasting to themselves and their children.” This was a difficult undertaking, besides which, the lower counties on the Delaware, dreading to lose the independence which they had lately enjoyed, refused a re-union with Pennsylvania, and hot and bitter disputes were the consequence.