of his lieutenant. At this date, the Rev. James Blair, who had some years before been a missionary in Virginia, returned to the colony with a commission as Commissary of the Bishop of .London, whose jurisdiction extended over the entire American colonies. Mr. Blair was a Scotchman by birth, an earnest, able, devoted man, and for the next half century he exercised a large measure of influence in Virginia.[1] It was mainly in consequence of Blair's zealous activity that the king granted a charter for "The College of William and Mary in Virginia." The preamble states, " that the Church of Virginia may be furnished with a Seminary of ministers of the Gospel, and that the youth may be piously educated in good letters and manners, and that the Christian faith may be propagated among the western Indians, to the glory of Almighty God"—their trusty and well beloved subjects, constituting the General Assembly of their colony of Virginia, have had it in their minds, and have proposed to themselves, to found and establish a certain place of universal study, or perpetual college of divinity, philosophy, languages, and other good arts and sciences, consisting of one president, six masters or professors, and a hundred scholars, more or less, according to the ability of said college, and its statutes, to be made by certain trustees nominated and elected by the General Assembly of the colony. Nicholson and seventeen others nominated and appointed by the Assembly, "were confirmed as trustees, and were empowered to hold and enjoy lands, possessions, and incomes, to the yearly value of £2,000, and all donations, bestowed for their use. The Rev. James Blair, nominated and elected by the Assembly, was made first president, and the Bishop of London, was appointed and confirmed by their majesties to be the first chancellor of the college. To defray the charges of building the college, and supporting the president and masters, the king and queen gave nearly £2,000, and endowed the college with twenty thousand acres of the best land, together with the perpetual revenue arising from the duty of one penny per pound on all tobacco transported from Virginia and Maryland to the other English plantations. By the charter, liberty was given to the president and masters or professors to elect one member of the House of Burgesses of the General Assembly. In grateful acknowledgment of the royal patronage and benefaction, the college was called William and Mary."[2] This was the second college founded in North America.
Sir Edmund Andros, of whose troubles in New England we have already spoken, was appointed Governor of Virginia in 1692. Contrary to what might have been expected of him from his previous course, Andros rendered himself very popular in
- ↑ "Of the activity and practical usefulness of this excellent man, sufficient evidence will be furnished in the statement, that when, at the advanced age of eighty-eight, he died, he had been sixty-four years a minister of the Gospel; fifty-three years Commissary for Virginia; president of a College for forty-nine years; and a member of the king's council for fifty."—Hawks's "Prof. Epis. Ch. in Virginia," p. 75.
- ↑ Holmes's "American Annals," vol. i., p. 443.
