Excerpts
The Day They Buried Great Britain: Francis Fauqueir, Lord Botetourt, and The Fate
of Nations
Excerpts from the Preface
by Roger Hudson
History has been obliging in juxtaposing Francis Fauquier and Norborne Berkeley,
Lord Botetourt, and George Morrow makes the most of the opportunity when comparing
these successive governors of Virginia . . . Fauquier was a failure, a classic example
of what happens when an ambassador or colonial civil servant takes on local coloring
where he has been posted, and “goes native.” Botetourt on the other hand was suave,
patrician competence personified, a very safe pair of hands, though ones with an
iron grip when necessary. If Botetourt suffered any suggestion of self-doubt . .
. it must have been dispelled by the reception he received in Williamsburg. He was
soon drowning its inhabitants in a sea of his much admired “condescension,” that
peculiarly 18th-century quality: as George Morrow so neatly puts it, “He did not
stand on his dignity, he sat on it.”
Excerpts from Part I: "The Governor Who Loved Virginians" on Governor Fauquier by
George Morrow
Thomas Jefferson called Fauquier “the ablest man” ever to fill the job of Governor.
Jefferson meant it as a compliment, as of course it was, but perhaps not in the
way that he intended. Fauquier was an able man but a weak governor. He did his duty
(though not always with conviction), claimed to be candid (and often was) but seemed
to vacillate between excessive irritability and excessive humility.
Born in March of 1703 into a wealthy French Huguenot immigrant family from which
he inherited £25,000, Fauquier was a director of the South Sea Company, a Fellow
of the Royal Society, a member of the Society of Arts and a former manager and governor
of the Foundling Hospital of London. He was a friend of George Frederick Handel,
is said to have known William Hogarth well and is described in his proposal for
membership in the Royal Society as “A Gentlemen of great merit, well versed in Philosophical
& Mathematical inquiries, and a great promoter of useful Learning.” During his Williamsburg
years he presided over a parti carré of amateur scientists consisting of himself,
his good friend and neighbor George Wythe, William and Mary Professor of Natural
Philosophy William Small, and Small’s star student, the 21-year-old Thomas Jefferson.
He was a great observer of scientific phenomenon – in a gentlemanly sort of way
– and in 1758 sent an account of a hail storm observed in Williamsburg to be read
at a meeting of the Royal Society in London. He was also a fine musician, something
of a religious skeptic and a gambler who was rumored to have lost his entire patrimony
at the table (untrue) and “made gambling fashionable in Virginia” (only partly true)...
Excerpts from Part II: "A Dawning Happiness: The Self-Executing Government of Norborne
Berkeley, Lord Botetourt" by George Morrow
Norborne Berkeley, Baron Botetourt, the second-to-last royal governor of Virginia,
was that rarest of all things in colonial America: a British governor who was loved
as much by the people he governed as he was by the administration in London.
Why Botetourt should be a favorite of the British Ministry is not hard to guess.
He was a good Tory, a friend of King George III and the first choice of Viscount
Hillsborough, the newlyappointed secretary of the government’s reorganized Department
of American Affairs. Among Virginians, Botetourt was to enjoy a reputation which
ran the gamut from good to great. Planter Landon Carter described his brief term
in office (1768–1770) as “a dawning happiness.” The legend on the statue of the
Governor commissioned by the House of Burgesses after his death expressed its warmest
gratitude for the “zeal and anxiety” Botetourt had shown in seeking to heal the
“wounds and restore tranquility and happiness to th[e] whole extensive continent”
of America. Clearly, Norborne Berkeley would have been a hard act for any ministerial
appointee to follow; for the reputed gamester, whoremaster and drunkard who succeeded
him, Lord Dunmore, he was all but impossible...
$11.99