e customs in the lower
district of James River, he volunteered to go on board the Shoram, and
after behaving with undaunted courage, standing on the quarter-deck near
the governor, was killed by a small shot.

During this year died the Honorable Colonel Edward Hill, of Shirley, on
the James River, in the sixty-third year of his age; he was of the
council, colonel and commander-in-chief of the Counties of Charles City
and Surry, judge of his majesty's high court of admiralty, and some time
treasurer of Virginia. He lies buried at Shirley, and a portrait of him
and his wife is preserved there.

In the year preceding this, Protestant dissenters, qualified according
to the toleration act of the first year of William and Mary, were
exempted from penalties for not repairing to the parish church, if they
attended some legal place of worship once in two months.[361:A] The
press was not yet free in Virginia, and the writ of _habeas corpus_ was
still withheld.

There was a commencement at William and Mary College in the year 1700,
at which there was a great concourse of people; several planters came
thither in coaches, and others in sloops from New York, Pennsylvania,
and Maryland, it being a new thing in that part of America to hear
graduates perform their exercises. The Indians themselves had the
curiosity, some of them, to visit Williamsburg upon that occasion; and
the whole country rejoiced as if they had some relish of learning.
Fifty-eight years before this there had been celebrated a commencement
at Harvard College, in Massachusetts.[362:A]

In the year 1701 Colonel Quarry, surveyor-general of the customs, wrote
to the board of trade: "This malignant humor is not confined to
Virginia, formerly the most remarkable for loyalty, but is universally
diffused."

During the month of March of this year died William the Third. His
manner was taciturn, reserved, haughty; his genius military; his
decision inflexible. In his fondness of prerogative he showed himself a
grandson of the first Charles; as the defender of the Protestant
religion, and Prince of Orange, he displayed toleration toward all
except Papists. The government of Virginia under him was not materially
improved. He was succeeded by Anne, daughter of James the Second. Louis
the Fourteenth having recognized the Pretender as lawful heir to the
British crown, Anne, shortly after she succeeded to the throne, in 1702,
declared war against France, and its ally Spain; bu