Give Me Liberty: The Struggle for Self-Government in Virginia

by Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

William Gooch, who was appointed to succeed Drysdale, took the oath of office on September 11, 1727. It must have been with apprehension that the members of the Council greeted him. It would be too much to expect that the colony would have in succession two Governors of the stamp of Drysdale. Might not the new arrival be another Spotswood, or even another Nicholson?

They were not long kept in doubt. Gooch proved to be one of the most popular Governors in the history of the colony. Sincerely interested in the welfare of the people, conciliatory in his dealings with both the Council and the Burgesses, he brought internal peace and contentment. The story was told of him that one day when in the company of several gentlemen, he happened to pass a Negro slave. When the Negro lifted his hat, Gooch lifted his in return.

"What, Governor Gooch, do you lift your hat to a slave?" one of his companions asked.

"I would be deeply humiliated to be surpassed in courtesy by a slave," was the reply.

Throughout Gooch's administration there was practically no friction between the Governor and the Assembly. The public affairs were carried on in perfect harmony and good understanding, he reported in 1734. The address of the Speaker of the House of Burgesses, Sir John Randolph, to Gooch is one of the most remarkable in Virginia history. "You have shew'd how easy it is to give universal satisfaction to the people under your government.... You have not been intoxicated with the power committed to you by his Majesty, but have used it like a faithful trustee for the public good.... You never propose matters without supposing your opinion subject to the examination of others, nor strive to make other men's reason blindly and implicitly obedient to yours.... You have extirpated all factions among us ... and plainly proved that none can arise, or be lasting, but from the countenance and encouragement of a Governor."[11]

Both the Council and the Burgesses expressed their gratitude to Gooch by gifts of money, the former voting him £300 to cover the expense of his voyage to Virginia, and the latter giving him £500. Although his instructions forbade his acceptance, he pocketed the money. "I thought it would not become me to refuse this extraordinary instance of their regard," he wrote the Lords of Trade. There was a precedent for his acceptance, for Nicholson had had £300 when that sum was worth £600 in the present currency. And though the Board censured him, they did not make him refund the money.[12]

It was typical of Gooch that he was willing to yield in matters of which he did not fully approve in order to carry points which he had very much at heart. He had not been long in the colony when he came to the conclusion that it would greatly benefit the planters if the tobacco inspection act of 1713 could be revived. But he was well aware that the people had not forgotten the use Spotswood had made of it to gain control of the House of Burgesses, or his veto of the bill to prohibit Burgesses from holding places of profit in the government. So, in return for the passage of a new tobacco law, he assented to an act to keep officeholders out of the House. "The Burgesses were for this bill," he wrote the Lords of Trade, "and my desire to keep them in good humor while matters of greater moment were under their deliberation, prevailed with me to assent to it."[13]

But he thought that the act had nothing in its favor, except that it was an imitation of the laws of England made for securing the freedom of Parliament. "In my humble opinion this country is yet too young for so refined a regulation. Places of profit are indeed but few, but men of capacity for the discharge of them do not much more abound; therefore either the government must be ill served, or the House of Burgesses meanly fitted if men of capacity and integrity must be shut out either of the one or the other."[14]

Gooch either did not understand the importance of this bill, or deliberately concealed it from the British Government. Had he known of the use of the power of appointment by former Governors to gain control of the House of Burgesses, he could not have dismissed the measure so lightly. Nor could he have realized what a major victory it was for liberty. Henceforth no Berkeley could bribe the Burgesses into submission and so rule the colony like a despot; no Nicholson could hand out commissions as sheriffs, or collectors, or officers in the militia in exchange for votes in the House; no Spotswood could create tobacco agents' jobs to tempt the people's representatives.

Though Gooch was solicitous for the welfare of the poor planter, he was not in favor of manhood suffrage. So he affixed his signature to a bill limiting the right to vote to freeholders owning 100 acres of unoccupied land or twenty-five acres with a house.[15] Had he had his way the limitation would have been greater. "Yet as the former laws had allowed any kind of a freehold to give that right, and all attempts made heretofore to exclude the mob of the populace ... had proved vain, it is much better to have that point fixed on some certain basis, than to leave all persons indefinitely at liberty to have a vote. ... After such a beginning it may be hoped a further regulation will follow to remove from the House such members as have little recommended them to the people's choice besides the art of stirring up discontents."[16]