Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/42

 10 Virginia after the Revolution. [i 682-1758 monstrous grant which has been described above. But, fortunately for the colony, neither he nor Howard was a man of concentrated or far-reaching purpose. By jobbery, and by devising new imposts for the benefit of himself and his creatures, Howard inflicted financial injury on individuals. The liberty of the colony as a whole did not suffer at his hands. There was indeed one exception. Howard claimed and secured for the governor and council what had hitherto been vested in the whole Assembly, the right of appointing the secretary to that body. This however was fully compensated by an advantage which the popular representatives had lately secured. At first the burgesses and the councillors sat as one chamber an arrangement undoubtedly to the advantage of the council, the more permanent and united body. But about 1680 the burgesses acquired the right of sitting as a separate chamber. The Revolution of 1688 was received with a tranquillity which shows how the political life of the colony had drawn apart from that of the mother-country. Nevertheless the triumph of Whig principles made itself felt in Virginia. The right of self-taxation was recognised in the instructions given to the governor. He was to "recommend" certain taxes to the Assembly. The representatives were to be "persuaded" to pass an Act giving the governor and council certain provisional powers of raising a duty in case of emergency. With Howard began a system vicious in theory yet not without its practical advantages, whereby the nominal governor was an absentee, and his duties were discharged by a lieutenant-governor. That the office of governor should be bestowed on a wealthy and aristocratic non-resident was beyond doubt an abuse. A tribute was exacted from the colonists for a payment which, if made at all, ought to have been made from the English civil-list. But one must at least admit that honest and competent men were entrusted with what was virtually the supreme office in the colony. Such were Francis Nicholson, lieutenant-governor (save for a short interval) from 1690 to 1704, Alexander Spotswood (1710 to 1722), and Robert Dinwiddie (1751 to 1758). Nicholson and Dinwiddie were both at times violent and unconciliatory, and the former was far from decorous in his private life. None of them sympathised with the aspirations of the settlers after political freedom, or showed much enlightenment in their views as to the future of the colony. But they were all hard-working and public-spirited men, and clean- handed in money matters, according to the standard of their time. THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. In the meantime Englishmen were forming other communities along the Atlantic sea-board. Of these by far the most important, both in their original aspect and their ultimate results, were the group known as