and Queen Mary. This plan, however, appears to have been
abandoned, or only partially carried out.[359:A] According to the
contemporary historian Beverley, Nicholson declared openly to the lower
order of people "that the gentlemen imposed upon them; that the servants
had all been kidnapped, and had a lawful action against their masters."
In the year 1700 Mr. Fowler, the king's attorney-general for the colony,
declaring some piece of service against law, the governor seized him by
the collar, and swore "that he knew no laws they had, and that his
commands should be obeyed without hesitation or reserve." He committed
gentlemen who offended him to prison without any complaint, and refused
to allow bail; and some of them having intimated to him that such
proceedings were illegal, he replied, "that they had no right at all to
the liberties of English subjects, and that he would hang up those that
should presume to oppose him, with magna charta about their necks." He
often extolled the governments of Fez and Morocco, and at a meeting of
the governors of the college, told them "that he knew how to govern the
Moors, and would beat them into better manners." At another time he
avowed that he knew how to govern the country without assemblies, and if
they should deny him anything after he had obtained a standing army, "he
would bring them to reason with halters about their necks." His outrages
made him jealous, and to prevent complaints being sent to England
against him, he is said to have intercepted letters, employed spies, and
even played the eavesdropper himself. He sometimes held inquisitorial
courts to find grounds of accusation against such as incurred his
displeasure.[359:B]

Robert Beverley, author of a "History of Virginia," published the first
edition of it in 1705. He was a son of Robert Beverley, the persecuted
clerk, who died in 1687. This may account somewhat for his extreme
acrimony against Culpepper and Effingham, who had persecuted his father,
and against Nicholson, who was Effingham's deputy. In his second
edition, when time had, perhaps, mitigated his animosities, Beverley
omitted many of his accusations against these governors. In favor of
Nicholson, it is also to be observed, that his administration in
Maryland and in South Carolina was more satisfactory. But it is certain
that he was an erratic, Quixotic, irascible man, who could not bear
opposition, and an extreme high churchman.

In the eleventh year of