Hugh Drysdale arrived in Virginia as the new Lt. Governor on 25 September in 1722. He read his commission to the Council on 27 September and dissolved the Assembly with a call for new elections the following spring. There were several questions needing an answer, which he enumerated in his letter to the Board of Trade. It was dated 20 December 1722, so he had waited three months to tell the Board of his arrival and early work. At the Board, his letter was endorsed as, “received 15 February 1722/23, read 13 June 1723.” The pace on both sides of the Atlantic ocean seems to have been leisurely.
Among the things that Drysdale mentioned was that a clarification was desired on the terms of issuing land in the new Counties of Spotsylvania and Brunswick. This question was to haunt Drysdale (and everyone) for a few years. An Act passed in 1720 had revised the methods of paying quit rents, and no affirmation had been received yet from London on this law. (Virginia’s laws were not final until approved in London.) An insurrection plot was discovered among the negro slaves in Virginia, but otherwise the colony was at peace.
The next specific letter from Drysdale to the Board seems to be dated 16 May 1723, five months after his last letter to them. He could report that the General Assembly was sitting. Drysdale enclosed a copy of his address to the Assembly and the reply of the Council to his address. He noted there was a harmony existing at the session of Assembly. Drysdale made special note that Col. Spotswood’s iron works were now able to produce kitchen utensils for sale. Topics covered in his address included the tax on imports, rebellious slaves, reorganization of the militia, and the serious condition in the tobacco trade due to frauds and abuses. This was marked at the Board as, “received 28 July, read 12 November 1723.”
Drysdale’s next letter to the Board was on 29 June 1723. He summarized all of the acts passed by the legislature including raising the import duty on liquor and slaves, the reorganization of the militia, punishment of rebellious slaves, measures for the security of the country in time of danger, improvement in the quality of tobacco, etc. This was received at the Board on 4 September and read 12 November (in the same year that Drysdale wrote the letter).
On 6 August 1723, considering the opinions of the Trade Commissioners and the Treasury Commissioners, it was ordered by the Lords Justice in Council at Whitehall that the Quit Rents and the Purchase Rights (to land in Spotsylvania and Brunswick Counties) be waiver for seven years from 1 May 1721 under certain conditions.
[This was a factor in the Second Colony members deciding to take their land in Spotsylvania County it was free.]
(16 Oct 02)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.