th Spotswood--
Miscellaneous Matters--Governor Spotswood displaced--Succeeded
by Drysdale--Spotswood's Administration reviewed--Germanna--
Spotswood Deputy Postmaster General--Engaged in Iron
Manufacture--His Account of it--Advertisement--Knighted--
Appointed Commander-in-chief of the Carthagena Expedition--His
Death--Indian Boys at William and Mary College--Change in
Spotswood's Political Views--His Marriage--His Children--His
Widow--Spottiswoode, the Family Seat in Scotland--Portraits of
Sir Alexander Spotswood and his Lady.

AT length eight members of the council, headed by Commissary Blair,
complained to the government in London, that Governor Spotswood had
infringed the charter of the colony by associating inferior men with
them in criminal trials. It was unfortunate that the Commissary's
position involved him in these political squabbles: he would have been,
doubtless, more usefully employed in those spiritual functions which
were his proper sphere, and which he adorned. The governor lamented to
the board of trade "how much anonymous obloquy had been cast upon his
character, in order to accomplish the designs of a party, which, by
their success in removing other governors, are so far encouraged, that
they are resolved no one shall sit easy who doth not resign his duty,
his reason, and his honor to the government of their maxims and
interests." The domineering ambition of the council was long the
fruitful source of mischiefs to Virginia; and it is on this account that
many of the complaints and accusations against the governors are to be
received with many grains of allowance. The twelve members of the
council had a negative upon the governor's acts; they were members of
the assembly, judges of the highest court, and held command of the
militia as county lieutenants. Stith, in his "History of Virginia,"
complains of their overweening power, and expresses his apprehensions
of its evil consequences.

As early as the year 1692, William the Third had appointed Neal
postmaster for the Northern Colonies, with authority to establish posts.
The rates being afterwards fixed by act of parliament, the system was
introduced into Virginia in the year 1718, and Spotswood wrote to the
board of trade, that "the people were made to believe that the
parliament could not lay any tax (for so they call the rates of postage)
on them without the consent of the general assembly. This gave a