CHAPTER XIII
THE WIDENING RIFT
Francis Fauquier, who succeeded Dinwiddie as Lieutenant Governor, is described as "a gentleman of most amiable disposition, generous, just, and mild, and possessed in an eminent degree of all the social virtues." When Thomas Jefferson was a student at the College of William and Mary, he, together with Professor William Small and George Wythe, dined with him frequently. "At these dinners I have heard more good sense, more rational and philosophical conversations than in all my life besides," Jefferson said many years later.[1] Fauquier, who was an accomplished musician, delighted in joining with Jefferson and several others in weekly concerts in the lovely ballroom of the Palace. He was a member of the Royal Society, and, if we may judge from the presence in his library of a set of Palladio, a student of architecture.
When Fauquier arrived, on June 5, 1758, he found the colonists absorbed in preparations to send strong forces to join General Forbes in his expedition against Fort Duquesne. Ever since the French had established themselves there it had been a nest from which swarms of Indians had made raids on the frontier. "I found this colony zealous in his Majesty's service, and very strenuous to support the common cause," Fauquier wrote the Lords of Trade.[2]
Secretary Pitt and General Abercrombie had written urging the Virginians to exert themselves to the utmost. John Blair, President of the Council and Acting Governor pending Fauquier's arrival, had called the Assembly together and asked them to vote funds for a new regiment. The vote was unanimous. They were eager to help in any attack on their "cruel neighbors of Fort Duquesne." So now the colony resounded to the beat of drums as officers brought in the recruits. Some ensigns raised ten, some lieutenants twenty, some captains seventy. To supply the men with arms, Blair stripped the magazine at Williamsburg and even took the muskets from the Governor's Palace. Tents and kettles he ordered from Philadelphia, pledging the credit of the colony to pay for them.[3]
This was the situation when Fauquier landed, and it gave him reason to hope that Fort Duquesne would be in English hands early in the autumn. When long delays made this unlikely, he summoned the Assembly to ask for more funds. But now he was confronted with a perplexing problem. It had long been the practice for the House of Burgesses to make their Speaker the Treasurer of the colony. Dinwiddie, probably because of a grudge against John Robinson, who held these two offices, had recommended their separation. The Board of Trade approved and directed Fauquier to see that this was done.[4] But the Governor held back. He was not long in finding that Robinson was the most popular man in Virginia, the idol of the people whether rich or poor. Had he insisted that someone else be made Treasurer, the Burgesses would not have voted a penny for the expedition. Fearing that the Board's instruction might be whispered around and come to Robinson's ear, he decided to take him into his confidence and place the whole matter before him. The Speaker was much gratified. "I am told by those who know his character that I have attached him to me in the strongest manner by the openness of my behavior," Fauquier wrote the Board.[5] So the supply bill went through with a rush. But the Board must have realized that their authority in the colony had sunk to a new low when the Governor not only ignored their orders, but thought it necessary to apologize for them in order to curry favor with the Speaker of the House.
In the meanwhile, things were going well in the war. Under the able leadership of Pitt, Great Britain had poured men and money into the colonies, and replaced the incompetent Loudoun with the able General Jeffrey Amherst. A blow of great importance for Virginia was struck when a small force captured Fort Frontenac at the outlet of Lake Ontario. This cut the French line of communication with the west and made Fort Duquesne untenable. So this key position fell without firing a shot. As Forbes' army approached, the garrison blew up the fort, and taking to their canoes fell down the Ohio.
Fauquier congratulated himself for his part in this success. He had kept the Burgesses in good humor; he had obtained the funds needed to keep the Virginia troops in the field. If he had been lax in defending the King's prerogative, surely the end justified the means. So he was not a little piqued when he received a reprimand from the Board of Trade.
The trouble stemmed from the fact that tobacco provided a very poor standard of value. When the crop was bountiful its purchasing power fell, if the summer were dry and the leaves withered in the field, it doubled or tripled. In the first case debts and taxes could be paid at a low value, in the other the value might be so great as to threaten widespread injustice and suffering.
In 1748 by an act of Assembly the salary of the clergy had been fixed at 16,000 pounds of tobacco. This law had received the King's assent, and according to the "ancient constitution," could not be repealed without his approval. Yet, seven years later, when there had been a severe drought, the Assembly passed an act permitting payment of all obligations in money at the rate of two pence a pound. The law was to continue in force for ten months only, and there was no clause suspending its operation until the King had given his assent.
The clergy were bitter. They thought it hard that when the price of tobacco was low they were forced to accept it, but when it was high they were to be paid in money at one third the market price of tobacco. In a petition to the House of Burgesses they pointed out that their average income was so inadequate that they found it difficult to support their families. It was this which explained why so few graduates of Oxford and Cambridge entered the ministry in Virginia, and why so few in the colony thought it worth while to study divinity.[6]