as well as of Swift; was a wit and scholar, and, in addition to the letter mentioned, wrote a farce called "Androboros."

ALEXANDER SPOTSWOOD.

Colonel Alexander Spotswood, who arrived, June 23, 1710, in Virginia, as the deputy or lieutenant of George Hamilton, Earl of Orkney, the Governor and Commander-in chief of the Colony, was descended from the ancient Scottish family of Spottiswoode, a local surname assumed by the proprietors of the lands and barony of Spottiswoode in the parish of Gordon and county of Berwick, at the earliest period when surnames became hereditary in Scotland; but his lineage is yet more nobly avouched in the virtue, learning, ability and courage of its representatives through centuries of succession. The traditional account of the family is, that the male line of the ancient barons of Spottiswoode, failing in the reign of Alexander II., a younger son of the illustrious house of Gordon, which was then seated in the same county, married the heiress and was obliged to take upon himself the name of Spottiswoode ; but he retained the boar's head of the Gordons, which his successors, the barons of Spottiswoode, carry to this day. The immediate progenitor of this family was Robert de Spotswoods, born during the reign of Alexander III., who succeeded to the crown of Scotland in 1249. Seventh in descent from Robert was John Spotiswood; born, 1510; died 1585; superintendent of Lothian, a zealous Protestant divine and one of the compilers of "The First Book of Discipline and of the Confession of Faith." His son, John Spotswood, of Spotiswoode, born in 1595, became archbishop of Glasgow and one of the privy counsel of Scotland in 1635. He suffered from the popular indignation at the attempt, discouraged by him, to impose a liturgy on the Scottish Church, and was deposed and excommunicated by the Assembly which met at Glasgow in November, 1638. He retired to London, where he died November 26th, 1639. He was the author, among other works, of "The History of the Church and State of Scotland." His second son, Sir Robert Spottiswoode, president of the Court of Sessions, author of "The Practicks of the Laws of Scotland," a man of distinguished learning and merit, was born in 1596, and met his death at the hands of Parliament, January 17th, 1646, as an adherant of the royal cause. The son of the last Robert Spotswood, who died in 1688, married a widow, Catharine Elliott, who had by her first marriage a son, General Elliott, whose portrait is in the State Library at Richmond, Virginia. The only child of Robert and Catherine (Elliott) Spotswood, Alexander, the subject of this notice, was born in 1676, at Tangier, then an English colony, in Africa, his father being then resident surgeon to the governor of the island, the Earl of Middleton, and to the garrison there. Alexander Spotswood was literally bred in the army from his

childhood and, uniting genius with courage, served with distinction under the Duke of Marlborough. He was dangerously wounded in the breast by the first fire of the French on the Confederates at the battle of Blenheim, during the heat of which sanguinary encounter he served as deputy quartermaster-general, with the rank of colonel. Though Virginia enjoyed tranquillity and the voice of faction was hushed at the time of the arrival of Spotswood, yet the condition of the colony was not prosperous. Her defenseless coasts were invaded by privateers and pirates, and through the decline of her staple commerce, because of the quantities of tobacco procured from Germany by the Dutch, the surreptitious shipment of it from the colony, and the greed of the English factors, there was a just complaint of the scantiness of essential supplies of English manufactures. Spotswood was hailed with acclamation by the colonists, because he brought with him the invaluable benefit of the habeas corpus act, which had been denied by the late ministers when their representatives endeavored to extend it by their own authority. But while the assembly regarded the recent favors granted, they could not, October, 1710, be persuaded to see the defenseless condition of the colony, since the certain expense of protection appeared more immediate than distant danger; nor did the fear of a threatened French invasion the following summer, appeal any more effectually. They refused to pay the expense of collecting the militia or to discharge the debt due, because, as Spotswood informed the Ministry," they hoped by their frugality to recommend themselves to the populace."

They would only consent to levy £20,000 by duties laid chiefly on British manufactures, and insisted on discriminating privileges to Virginia owners of vessels, in preference to British subjects, upon the plea that the exemption had always existed. The governor declined the proffered levy, dissolved the assembly, and in anticipation of an Indian war, was obliged to secure arms and supplies from England. By prompt and energetic measures he quelled in the neighboring province of North Carolina, an insurrection which threatened to subvert all regular government there; and later, in the war with the Tuscarora Indians (commenced by a massacre on the frontier of North Carolina, in September, 1711), by a conciliatory course, prevented the tributary Indians from joining the enemy, with whom, in January, 1714, he concluded a peace, and blending humanity with vigor, he taught them that while he could use violence, he commiserated their fate. When a new Assembly was called by Spotswood, in 1712, they did more than he expected, and discharged most of the debts of the Colony, when he demonstrated that the standing revenue had been so defective during the previous twenty-two years as to have required £7,000 from the monarch's private estate to make up the deficiencies in governmental expenses. The frontier of the Colony being no longer subjected to Indian

The

incursions, the expenditure of government was reduced to one-third of what had been previously required, and under the able administration of Spotswood, Virginia advanced in commerce, population and wealth more rapidly than any of her sister colonies. A settlement of German Protestants was also effected under the auspices of the Governor, on the Rapid Anne river, which was called after the name of his residence, Germanna. A profitable trade was established with the West Indies, in the exchange of corn, lumber and salted provisions, for sugar, rum and wine. In 1715 the population of Virginia was 72,500 whites and 23,000 negroes, it being of the American colonies second in number only to Massachusetts, which was only one thousand greater. slave population of Virginia was, during the reign of George I., increased by 10,000. The colony now comprised twenty-five counties, represented by fifty-two burgesses. The government was administered by a governor (appointed by the king), who nominated inferior magistrates and officers; and also by twelve councilors, also created by the royal mandate. The energy and discipline of Spotswood soon ran counter to the economical spirit of the Assembly, whom he further of fended by his haughtiness. Anonymous letters were constantly transmitted against him to the board of trade, who gave him an opportunity of vindicating, in the vigor of his replies, the wisdom and beneficence of his administration. As zealous a churchman as he is proven to have been, he yet, in the exercise of the right of induction of ministers, incurred the animosity of the Bishop of London's commissary, James Blair, who laid formal complaint against him before the king. Colonel William Byrd was also sent over by the colony in 1719, to represent its grievances, but being unsuccessful in his embassy, he begged the board of trade "to recommend forgiveness and moderation to both parties." A more harmonious season ensued, and the Governor, Council and the Assembly concurred in measures for the public welfare and prosperity.

The pirates who infested the coast were subdued, and the frontiers were extended to the foot of the Blue Ridge mountains, a passage across which had been discovered by an expedition made under the leadership of Spotswood in 1716, and composed of some of the first gentlemen in the Colony. Upon its return, the governor presented each of his companions with a golden horseshoe (some of which are said to have been covered with valuable stones, resembling heads of nails), bearing the inscription: "Sic juvat transcendere montes." In the year

1720, two new counties, Spotsylvania and Brunswick, were established. Spotswood urged upon the British Government the policy of establishing a chain of posts beyond the Alleghanies, from the lakes to the Mississippi, to restrain the encroachments of the French. His wise recommendation was at first unheeded, and it was not until after the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle that it was adopted. He was the author of an act for

improving the staple of tobacco, and making tobacco notes the medium of circulation. Being a master of the military art, he kept the militia under admirable discipline. He was a proficient in mathematics; built the octagon magazine at Williamsburg (still standing), rebuilt William and Mary College (which had been burnt) and made improvements in the governor's house (then called palace) and gardens. He was an excellent judge on the bench. At his instance a grant of £1,000 was made by the governors and visitors of the college, in 1718, and a fund established for instructing Indian children in Christianity, and he erected a school for that purpose on the southern frontier, at Fort Christiana, established on the south side of the Meherrin river, in what is now Southampton county. The Rev. Charles Griffin had charge of the school in 1715, at which time there were seventy-seven Indian children under instruction. Spotswood was styled the "Tubal Cain of Virginia," and he was, indeed, the first to establish a regular iron furnace in North America. But, despite his momentous services to the Colony, intrigue, as his friends urge, at length effected his removal as governor, in September, 1722. His character and administration are thus warmly eulogized by Chalmers: "There was a utility in his designs, a vigour in his conduct, and an attachment to the true interest of the kingdom and the colony, which merit the greatest praise. Had he attended more to the courtly maxim of Charles the Second, 'to quarrel with no man, however great might be the provocation, since he knew not how soon he should be obliged to act with him,' that able officer might be recommended as the model of a provincial governor. The fabled heroes who had discovered the uses of the anvil and the axe, who introduced the labors of the plow, with the arts of the fisher, have been immortalized as the greatest benefactors of mankind. Had Spotswood even invaded the privileges, while he only mortified the pride of the Virginians, they ought to have erected a statue to the memory of the ruler who gave them the manufacture of iron and showed them by his active example that it is diligence and attention which can alone make a people great." In the county of Spotsylvania, Spotswood had, about the year 1716, founded on a horse-shoe peninsula of four hundred acres, on the Rapid Anne, the little town of Germanna, so called after the Germans sent over by Queen Anne, and settled in that quarter, and at this place he resided after his retirement. A church was built there, mainly at his expense. Possessing an extensive tract of forty-five thousand acres of land, which abounded in iron ore, he engaged largely, in connection with Robert Cary of England, and others in Virginia, in the iron manufacture. In the year 1730, he was made deputy postmaster-general for the American Colonies, and held the office until 1739; and it was he who promoted Benjamin Franklin to the office of postmaster for the province of Pennsylvania. He mar