knew it; Jack was sure of it. So did John Proudlocks. As had Augustus Skelly and Redmagne. The words were missing, but would be found.
The light of the lantern at his side, a friendly, animate companion to his thoughts, glowed steadily on the calm lines of Jack’s face as he looked with joyous solemnity and consecration upon his past, present, and future.
Chapter 7: The Burgesses
I t was with a concentration of willpower, allied with a tenacious dedication to decorum, that Hugh Kenrick, burgess for Queen Anne County, was able to stifle his yawns throughout the days of the new session of the General Assembly in Williamsburg, a session that lasted from the 30th of October through the 21st of December, 1764. This was one of the more protracted sessions of the Assembly, which rarely sat for longer than a month. The last session, in January of the same year, lasted barely a week. A great deal of business had accumulated since that session, including cases that could only be heard in the General Court, which sat only when a General Assembly had convened.
Williamsburg was the seat of the Virginia empire, and the Capitol was its throne. Here laws were passed, bills debated, men and women tried for serious crimes, and balls held. The Capitol was modeled on the old Capitol building, which had burned down in 1747, in a figure
H
; the chambers and Hall of Burgesses were on the east side of the figure, connected by gallery and arcade with the west side of it, which housed the Governor’s Council chambers and the General Court. Some arcane symbolism may have been intended in that arrangement, but not even Richard Bland, burgess for Prince George County since 1742, could say for certain what.
The west side of the
H
faced Duke of Gloucester Street; a mile down that boulevard sat the College of William & Mary. It was at the College that the Virginia Assembly sat while the present building was being completed. The new Capitol was more elaborately flounced than was the old Capitol. It featured a gabled neoclassical portico and balcony on the west side, made of white-painted oak, and wide, majestic steps. In front of these steps, leading from Duke of Gloucester Street, was a circular drive that encompassed a neatly cut lawn. It was a grand, imposing, and impressive façade, almost as grand and impressive as the Governor’s Palace half a mile down the boulevard.
The Hall of the House of Burgesses was about half the size of theHouse of Commons in London, so it was comparatively more spacious for its one hundred sixteen members than was the Commons for its nearly six hundred. The broad, rectangular windows, which had replaced the ovals of the old Capitol, could not be opened, so while they helped to keep out the cold, they also retained the heat of several score bodies and the smoke from the dozens of candles that were needed to light the chamber. This, and the enforced immobility of sitting on straight-backed benches, squeezed in between other burgesses, induced among the members either restrained irritability or a desire to nap. The constant drone of speech-making on mundane subjects also contributed to the mood of the burgesses. Many of them succumbed to the desire to nap, no matter how committed their attention to the matter before the House.
Hugh’s boredom stemmed largely from lack of interest in the range of matters so far discussed and debated this session: private disputes between freeholders over the legitimacy or accuracy of land surveys; proposed bounties on crows and wolves in some of the Piedmont counties; the dissolution of some lapsed vestries, and the sale of glebe lands; the testimony of witnesses in the case of a fraudulent land transaction initiated by another member of the House; the need for more tobacco warehouses above the Falls and the selection of their locations; a request from Governor Fauquier for money to be voted as a reward for the apprehension of the men who murdered some Cherokees passing through the
The light of the lantern at his side, a friendly, animate companion to his thoughts, glowed steadily on the calm lines of Jack’s face as he looked with joyous solemnity and consecration upon his past, present, and future.
Chapter 7: The Burgesses
I t was with a concentration of willpower, allied with a tenacious dedication to decorum, that Hugh Kenrick, burgess for Queen Anne County, was able to stifle his yawns throughout the days of the new session of the General Assembly in Williamsburg, a session that lasted from the 30th of October through the 21st of December, 1764. This was one of the more protracted sessions of the Assembly, which rarely sat for longer than a month. The last session, in January of the same year, lasted barely a week. A great deal of business had accumulated since that session, including cases that could only be heard in the General Court, which sat only when a General Assembly had convened.
Williamsburg was the seat of the Virginia empire, and the Capitol was its throne. Here laws were passed, bills debated, men and women tried for serious crimes, and balls held. The Capitol was modeled on the old Capitol building, which had burned down in 1747, in a figure
H
; the chambers and Hall of Burgesses were on the east side of the figure, connected by gallery and arcade with the west side of it, which housed the Governor’s Council chambers and the General Court. Some arcane symbolism may have been intended in that arrangement, but not even Richard Bland, burgess for Prince George County since 1742, could say for certain what.
The west side of the
H
faced Duke of Gloucester Street; a mile down that boulevard sat the College of William & Mary. It was at the College that the Virginia Assembly sat while the present building was being completed. The new Capitol was more elaborately flounced than was the old Capitol. It featured a gabled neoclassical portico and balcony on the west side, made of white-painted oak, and wide, majestic steps. In front of these steps, leading from Duke of Gloucester Street, was a circular drive that encompassed a neatly cut lawn. It was a grand, imposing, and impressive façade, almost as grand and impressive as the Governor’s Palace half a mile down the boulevard.
The Hall of the House of Burgesses was about half the size of theHouse of Commons in London, so it was comparatively more spacious for its one hundred sixteen members than was the Commons for its nearly six hundred. The broad, rectangular windows, which had replaced the ovals of the old Capitol, could not be opened, so while they helped to keep out the cold, they also retained the heat of several score bodies and the smoke from the dozens of candles that were needed to light the chamber. This, and the enforced immobility of sitting on straight-backed benches, squeezed in between other burgesses, induced among the members either restrained irritability or a desire to nap. The constant drone of speech-making on mundane subjects also contributed to the mood of the burgesses. Many of them succumbed to the desire to nap, no matter how committed their attention to the matter before the House.
Hugh’s boredom stemmed largely from lack of interest in the range of matters so far discussed and debated this session: private disputes between freeholders over the legitimacy or accuracy of land surveys; proposed bounties on crows and wolves in some of the Piedmont counties; the dissolution of some lapsed vestries, and the sale of glebe lands; the testimony of witnesses in the case of a fraudulent land transaction initiated by another member of the House; the need for more tobacco warehouses above the Falls and the selection of their locations; a request from Governor Fauquier for money to be voted as a reward for the apprehension of the men who murdered some Cherokees passing through the
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