: Give Me Liberty: The Struggle for Self-Government in Virginia by Wertenbaker Thomas Jefferson - Virginia Politics and government To 1775

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ot be tried for want of judges to make up a bench exclusive of those who were akin to the defendant."

One wonders how long Governor Nott would have put up with this kind of thing had not death overtaken him. Despite his desire to work in harmony with the Council, there is evidence that he had no intention of letting them ride over him roughshod. This became evident when they tried to take the patronage out of his hands. "I do believe the Council have a mind to dispute with me the making of the collectors of the two shillings per hogshead," he wrote the Lords of Trade. "Their pretence is that it is said in my instructions I shall not make them but by advice of Council. Now they have a mind to turn several out and put in their own relatives. And that is not my turn of temper."

When he asked the advice of the Council before reappointing naval officers, they objected to Major Arthur Allen, Colonel Miles Gary, and Colonel William Wilson. But when nothing of consequence was brought against them, the Governor insisted on continuing them. At the same time he shook off responsibility by refusing to renew their commissions until he had instructions to do so from the Lord Treasurer.

Whatever resentment the Councillors bore him for this was forgotten when he championed their plea that they should not be forbidden to become naval officers. "I think this instruction very strange," he wrote the Lords of Trade. "To be deprived of those few places of profit ... brings the consequence that the good men are very indifferent to being one of the Council. I hope you are of opinion that this restriction may be taken off."

The Governor thought it his duty to defer to the Council in most of his appointments to lesser offices. "I have directed new commissioners of peace," he wrote the Lords of Trade, "and not knowing persons yet, I left the nomination of justices solely to the Council. I have continued the former escheators since there was no objection to them."

When Nott first took over the government, he found the colony divided against itself. The people as a whole were overjoyed to get rid of Nicholson, but a group made up no doubt of men who had received favors at his hands, resented his removal. When an election was held for a new Assembly, opposing candidates were put up by the pro-Nicholson and anti-Nicholson factions. Although the latter won an overwhelming victory, enough Nicholson men were returned to continue the old feuds and hatreds. Governor Nott made his opening address an appeal for peace. It was his earnest hope, he said, that all animosities be laid aside, and that the only contention be as to who should be most obedient to the Queen and most serviceable to the country.

Despite this plea the pro-Nicholson faction presented under the guise of a grievance a resolution which was in reality a reproof of the six members of the Council who had presented the charges against the Governor. No one should take upon himself to represent to the Queen the grievances of the colony without the consent of the House of Burgesses, it said. No thanks, but rather a check should be given to those that had done so against the late Governor. But they met with a severe rebuff. So far from approving, the House ordered the so-called grievance to "be burnt under the gallows by the sheriff of York County as a mutinous, seditious, and scandalous paper."

Though there is no evidence that Nott tried to render the Burgesses submissive to his will by bribing them with offices, the Assembly thought this a golden opportunity to weaken the Governor's appointive power. Some could recall Berkeley's Long Assembly, and all had been witnesses of the shameless way in which Nicholson had handed out jobs. So they passed a bill requiring each county court to nominate three men, all of them justices, from whom the Governor was to select one as sheriff, who was to serve not more than two years. Had not Nott been so anxious to avoid any conflict with the Assembly, he would certainly have vetoed this bill, for not only did it restrict his power of appointment, but it infringed upon the royal prerogative.

But he balked when the House sent up a bill to require the Governor, in appointing the justices of the peace, to secure the assent of the Council, or at least five of them. He thought they were going too far in this attempt to deprive the Governor of the patronage, leave him at the mercy of the Council and Assembly, and make him a mere figurehead. When the Lords of Trade heard that he had vetoed this bill, they wrote congratulating him. "The restraining Governors from making justices ... is entrenching on prerogative, and you may be assured it will not be approved here. In all other plantations the power of appointing and removing justices of the peace is solely in the Governor.... But it would be prudence in the Governor to advise for his better information."

When the Assembly met again, in April, 1706, they made a daring attempt to weaken the Governor's power by passing a substitute law for the famous Act of 1680 which gave a perpetual revenue to the Crown. The new bill bore the disarming title of "An Act for raising a public revenue for the better support of the government ... and for ascertaining the salary of the Council." Nott apparently saw nothing alarming in it, but Colonel Quary at once suspected that it was intended to weaken the Act of 1680, and perhaps set a precedent which would eventually give the House control of the revenue from the export duty on tobacco.

"These topping men" were merely waiting an opportunity to have the old law damned, he wrote the Lords of Trade. "Had the Assembly only designed to have augmented and added to the Queen's revenue, why could they not make an act of it without damning and destroying the former act? And that your Lordships may see the snake in the grass, please observe that the Assembly are pleased to appropriate the Queen's revenue as they think fit, a thing never pretended to before, and to limit and confine her Majesty from disposing of her own money.... Whereas in a former act the Queen was graciously pleased to appropriate ?370 to be divided among the Council for attendance, in this act they have ordered otherwise ... by which they have tied up the Queen's hands from giving any part of her bounty but according to their pleasure."

When this bill came before the Board of Trade they referred it to Attorney General Harcourt and Solicitor General Montague. Although these astute men, as we have seen, gave it as their opinion that the old act had been passed in a way "contrary to the present method," and should be superseded by a new one, the Board decided to let sleeping dogs lie. So they advised the Queen to veto the Act of 1716. "'Tis hoped it will never be revived by any Governor who has at heart the interests of the Crown, and wishes that people should distinguish between what they owe to the indulgence of the Sovereign and what they may claim as their right by the laws of Virginia," wrote Governor Spotswood several years later.

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