Gov. Fauquier---Friend of Jefferson

His Influence on Sage of Monticello Said to Have
Molded Latter's Religious Views, Created Desire for Travel
and Broadened Outlook on Nationalistic Philosophy

By Robert Douthat Meade

Of Francis Fauquier, royal Governor of Virginia from 1758 to 1768, Thomas Jefferson wrote that he was the "ablest man who had ever filled that office." Historians may disagree with Jefferson's superlative praise, colored by the memory of a youthful friendship. Yet none should deny Fauquier's ability and vivid personality. Certainly he was a "compleat gentleman" and deserved the respect and admiration accorded him by his contemporaries.

Among the time-worn records in the York County Courthouse at Yorktown are copies of the will and the inventories of Francis Fauquier. Other valuable data regarding him has been collected by the Williamsburg Restoration Incorporated, of the old town where Fauquier lived while royal Governor. Used in connection with facts already available, this information enables us to form a clearer picture of the Colonial dignitary. We are able to appreciate why Jefferson accorded him such high praise. We can understand why he retained the friendshipof the Virginians even during the critical period of the Stamp Act and can estimate more carefully his influence upon Jefferson at the formative period of his life.

The Fauquier records in Yorktown include a copy of his will written in 1767 and the inventories of his personal property made after his death the next year. These documents have survived the siege of Yorktown in the Revolutionary War, the fire during the period of the War of 1812, and the siege during the War Between the States. Before the Union occupation of Yorktown in May, 1862, the Fauquier records, with others at the courthouse, were carried by the clerk in a sloop up the York River. He planned to remove them to Richmond, but, learning that Union troops were at West Point, is reported to have hid them in an icehouse in King William County, Va. After the war, they were returned to Yorktown. They are now being indexed by research workers for the United States Government. The earliest are dated in 1633, more than a century before Fauquier succeeded Robert Dinwiddie as Governor of Virginia.

The Fauquier will is torn in several places and was recently restored. It was signed by the Governor on March 26, 1767, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. The honorable William Nelson and Robert Carter, two of His Majesty's council; the Honorable Peyton Randolph, speaker of the House of Burgesses; and George Wythe, Esquire, were appointed executors for the estate and effects in Virginia. The document is somewhat lengthy; the most important sections from the standpoint of a modern historical student are those relating to Fauquier's negro slaves and the disposal of his body after his death.

Views on Slavery Far in Advance of Day

The statements of the Governor in regard to slavery are far in advance of his age; recalling his friendship with Jefferson, it is interesting to speculate whether the Governor discussed the subject with him, and, if so, what was the extent of his influence. Fauquier wrote:

"It is now expedient that I should dispose of my slaves, a part of my estate in its nature disagreeable to me, but which my situation made necessary for me; the disposal of which has constantly given me uneasiness whenever the thought has occurred to me. I hope I shall be found to have been a merciful master to them and that no one of them will rise up in judgment against me in that great day when all my actions will be exposed to public view. For, with what face can I expect mercy from an offended God, if I have not myself shown mercy to those dependent on me. But it is not sufficient that I have been this master in my life, I must provide for them at my death by using my utmost endeavors that they experience as little misery during their lives as their very unhappy and pitiable condition will allow. Therefore, I will that they shall have liberty to choose their own masters and that the women and their children shall not be parted; that they shall have six months allowed them to make such choice, during which time they shall be maintained out of my estate; that my executor shall take for them of such masters as they shall choose 25 per cent under the then market price. If at the end of six months that any of them shall not have made such choice, and if either of my executors choose to take any of them, I will that they shall have them at the same price as if they . . . their own masters, relying on known humanity.

If my executors should not choose to take . . . then I request it as my last dying wish that . . . who shall retain a favourable opinion of me . . . of such slaves as they shall choose . . . belonged to me and had been . . . which for my sake I hope . . . And in this case I also will that they should take the same price of such persons or any other on whom they can depend to answer my intention and earnest desire of entailing kindness upon them as far as it is in my power: of all which my executors are to be whole and sole judges, not accountable to any one for having sold them at what may be supposed to be an under rate. In case of extremity and not otherwise they must be sold for the best price that can be got for them."

Again, in the first section of the will Fauguier provided that the physicians could, if they desired, open his body after his death.

"The immortal part of me must return into the hands of most merciful and benevolent God, who I hope will extend His mercies to an unprofitable servant. As for the uninformed mass of clay which will remain after life in whatever that life consists, is departed from it, my express will and desire is, that, if it should please the Almighty God to take me off from this stage by any latent disease, with the cause of which the physician or surgeons who may attend me in my last illness, may not be well acquainted, my body should be opened if they desire it, that the immediate cause of my disorder may be known and that by these means I may become more useful to my fellow creatures by my death than I have been in life. I insist this and make it part of this my last will, to take away any the least imputation of want of decency or respect in my dear wife or children or other friends I may leave behind me for permitting this enquiry to be made on my unfeeling carcase for the good of mankind. After this examination of my body, if necessary; I will, that it be deposited in the earth or sea as I shall happen to fall, without any vain funeral pomp and as little expence as decency can possibly permit. Funeral obsequies as it has long appeared to me being contrary to the spirit of the religion of our Blessed Saviour, when on a proper occasion said "Let the dead bury their dead. Follow thou Me."

Inventory of Possessions Lists Him as "Gentleman"

The Fauquier inventories at Yorktown have been studied and utilized by the research staff of the Williamsburg Restoration Incorporated. Listed among the inventories are these items which indicated the breadth of his intellectual interest: two microscopes, one spy glass, one telescope, 32 bell glasses, 330 earthen pots (for plants, flowers, etc., in greenhouse), 325 earthen pots, one camera obscura, one small collection of books and ditto of music and instruments.

Other items listed substantiate further the assertion that the Governor was indeed a "compleat gentleman," as the term was understood in England and Virginia of that age. They include 30 packs of cards, 17 slaves, 3 jars brown sugar, 24 gallon bottles with white glass ground stoppers, 13 ox tongues, eight horses, 76 gallons rum, 12 neck-cloths, one "pyramid in the French taste," one sedan, 3 dozen ten bottles old wine, 210 pint bottles of Malmsey wine, and 36 dozen bottles of old "syder."

Furthermore, "their humble servant" Christopher Ayscough, gardener at the Governor's palace, advertised in the Virginia Gazette for November 30, 1759, the following large assortment of garden seed as having just been imported in the good-intent, Captain Riddick, and to be sold to gentlemen cheaply for ready money:

Six-week peas, Charlton Hotspur peas, Marrowfat peas, Nonpariel peas, Spanish Morrotto peas, Sugar Dwarf peas, Windsor beans, Long-poded beans, White Blossom beans, Green beans, Nonpariel beans, large English turnip, early Dutch turnip, early Dutch cabbage, sugar-Loaf cabbage, Battersea cabbage, large Winter cabbage, Red cabbage, Yellow Savory cabbage, early colliflower, late colliflower, colliflower Brocoli, Purple Brocoli, curled Colewart, Scarlet raddish, short-topped raddish, White Turnip raddish, Black Turnip raddish, White Gass lettuce, Black Gass lettuce, Brown Dutch lettuce, Nonpareil lettuce, Silesia lettuce, White Curled Endive, White Spanish onion, English onion, Leek, Chardoon, Italian cellery, White mustard, Garden cresses, Winter cresses, Charvel, Clary, etc.

Francis Fauquier was the son of Dr. John Francis Fauquier of Floirac, near Bordeaux, France, and Elizabeth Chamberlayne. The elder Fauquier worked under Sir Isaac Newton in the mint and became director of the Bank of England. His son, Francis, married Catherine, daughter of Sir Charles Dalston. He was a director of the South Sea Company in 1751 and one February 15, 1753, was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. Shortly after coming to Virginia, he sent a paper to the society on a hail storm which he observed in the colony. An economist of some distinction, he published early in the Seven Years War an essay on "Ways and Means of Raising Money for the Support of the Present War without Increasing the Debts," of which there were three editions. In a postscript to the second edition (1756), he emphasized the desirability of paying all public charges within the year and suggested a kind of capitation or income tax. With less wisdom, he also urged that no tax whatever should be imposed upon the poor. "The poor do not, never have, nor possibly can, pay any tax whatever."

Influenced Jefferson, Long His Friend

Fauguier was appointed lieutenant-governor of Virginia in January, 1758. The Virginia historian Burk, in explaining the circumstances of his appointment wrote: "It is stated on evidence sufficiently authentic, that on the return of Anson, from his circumnavigation of the earth, he accidentally fell in with Fauquier, from whom, in a single night's play, he won at cards the whole of his patrimony; that afterwards, being captivated by the striking graces of this gentleman's person and conversation, he procured for him the government of Virginia."

Though his appointment was only as lieutenant-governor, Fauquier really served as Governor, for his superiors, the Earl of Loudoun and Sir Jeffrey Amherst, took no share in the administration. He succeeded Governor Dinwiddie at a critical time in the history of the colony. Braddock had been defeated and the Virginia frontiers were overrun by the French and Indians. Fauquier co-operated harmoniously with Washington and the Burgesses in bringing this war to a successful close. Taking a broad view of the quarrels between the colony and the mother country, he warned Pitt as early as 1760 of the dangers of taxation of the colony. He endeared himself to the people by his tactfulness and moderation, his lavish entertainment, and charm of manner. "In everything beside" his love of gaming with which he had a very bad influence, "he was, the ornament and delight of Virginia," and did not lose the friendship of the people even during the period of the Stamp Act. Although Fauquier asserted his prerogative when he felt the occasion required it and dissolved the Burgesses for passing the resolution on the Stamp Act proposed by Patrick Henry, he seemed to have incurred remarkably little personal animosity. On October 30, 1765, he escorted Colonel George Mercer, the chief stamp distributor of Virginia, through a menacing crowd in Williamsburg to the Governor's palace. He later wrote to the board of trade that there were "some little murmurs," but the crowd did not molest him. His death on March 3, 1768, was greeted with genuine sorrow. He was buried in the north aisle of Bruton Parish Church, Williamsburg.

The influence of Governor Fauquier upon the life of Jefferson was chiefly during the period while the latter was a student of William and Mary College. the Governor was very fond of company and seems also to have left an impression upon Jefferson's friend, John Page, and perhaps other William and Mary Students. John Page was later a signer of the Declaration of Independence and Governor of Virginia. In Jefferson's autobiography written at the age of 77, he recalled his own debt to Dr. Small of the William and Mary faculty who "returned to Europe in 1762, having previously filled up the measure of his goodness to me, by procuring for me, from his most intermate friend, G. Wythe, a reception as a student of law, under his direction, and introduced me to the acquaintance and familiar table of Governor Fauquier, the ablest man who ever filled that office. With him, and at his table, Dr. Small and Mr. Wythe, his Amic: onnium horarum and myself, formed a partie quarree, and to the habitual conversations of these occasions I owed much instruction. When Jefferson became a fourth at this partie quarree he was a young law student, not yet 21 years old. One of his biographers, Randall, writes that Jefferson understates his intimacy at the Governor's palace."Not only was he invited to all its parties, little and large, but he belonged to a small band of musical amateurs, of which the Governor was one, who assembled weekly, to perform on their several instruments and indulge in the most familiar private intercourse. He was, therefore, the Governor's 'friend of all hours'---serious and gay---even more literally than Dr. Small and Mr. Wythe." Another Jefferson biographer, C____rd, speaks of the kind of topics which Fauquier must have discussed at those meetings: Old England, the London theatres, monuments, and works of art; his colleagues of Royal Society; a problem of taxation or a recent meteorological phenomenon; ships and strange lands.

The Fauquier influence is very probably shown in the ardent desire to travel and see foreign countries, including England, which Jefferson displays in some letters he wrote in the early sixties. Association with the Fauquier entourage also helped to polish his manner and to increase generally his social gifts. But from the standpoint of the historian the Governor's influence was probably most important in broadening Jefferson's mind and giving him a more enlightened viewpoint upon intellectual problems. Again, John Randoph of Roanoke afterwards claimed that Fauquier, a disciple of Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke, helped to undermine Jefferson's religion. Randolph was then none to friendly to Jefferson and was already soured by repeated misfortunes. His opinion is contradicted by James Madison, a more informed and discriminating witness. The truth is that Fauquier probably influenced Jefferson to think of religious problem more in terms of the new rationalistic philosophy. The Governor's influence on him seems, on the whole, to have been very stimulating.