The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1904-09-04


coast there's an inadvertent error which per-
haps should not be overlooked Forgetting
that the younger daughter OF James Ii. died
In TIA, the author says (page $500 that in
the sos, Queen Anne sent over Germans
from the harried Palatinate to make wine
and iron, and they were placed at Germanna
on the Rapidan." We have observed also
q slip. doubtless due to compoeitor, on
page 2s2, where the services rendered by
George Mason to the cause Of religious
liberty In Virginia. are attributed to John
Mason. Accurate and adequate, on the
other hand, is his estimate Of the remark
able administration OF Virginia by Alex
ander Spotswood. who became Deputy
Governor OF the province in ITO and con-
tinued to hold the Office for many years.
There is no doubt that in many respects
Spotswood was as the author says, the best
Executive that Virginia had before the
Revolution. Up to his time the right to a
writ OF habeas corpus had not been reoog-
nized In the province; it was by him that
this most important OF all civil remedies was
brought to Virginia He had an eye single
to the public good, and, although he lectured
and hectored every one, from the burgesses
down, who stood in the way Of his plans,
all respected him because they knew that
he had no private object. He struggled
with the vestries over the appointment Of
Minister'S" but as, before his tenure OF
Office expired there had come to be so par
ishes and 100 pastors, he ultimately was
constrained to abandon the unequal contest.
Long after he ceased to be Governor, Spots
woods name was remembered in connec-
ton with the great improvement OF postal
facilities which he had brought about. Up
to the end OF the seventeenth century, let
tiers had been conveyed exclusively by pri-
vate hands; but when Spotswood became
Postmaster-General OF the Colonies, he
arranged that post-riders should be at the
Susquehanna River on Saturday night to
receive the Philadelphia m all. These riders
were instructed to get ba tx to Annapolis by
the following Monday to be by Wednesday
near Fredericksburg, and by Saturday
night at Williamsburg, whence mails were
dispatched once a month to Edenton. 1t is
worth recalling that one OF Spotswood's
Apprentices for Pennsylvania was Benjamin
Franklin
1t is an interesting fact that not until
ITO did some adventures behold the valley
OF the Shenandoah from the top Of the Blue
Ridge. Six years later Gov. Spotswood
visited the valley and bivouack ed along
its river, which to him and his knights
of the Golden Horseshoe" was known as
the Euphrates. As Mr.. Hamilton reminds
lis, this expedition was famous at the time
for the variety and number Of wines which
~~rs drunk In honor of the royal family
and Others, ana famous to posterity for
opening the way to the West" The first
settlers Of the valley, however were Ger
mans and Scotch-Irish, who came thither
from the North. The hardness OF coloni-
aation in this fertile region is partly ac-
counted for by the circumstance that the
Valley Of the Shenandoah was claimed by
Lord Fairfax under his grant OF the North
ern Neck and he filed a caveat against
settlements begun by Hite and others under
8 warrant Of 1889 The -ehsuih q lsasak