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.In between thelast two posts, he commanded the assault on Port Royal in 1710.As the three colonels careers in the colonies remind us, the full title of the gov-ernor was governor-general, and many had military backgrounds.In fact, a gover-norship in the colonies was a kind of pension plan for trustworthy officers no longerneeded in the European theater of combat.One of the best of this type of militarygovernor was Robert Hunter.He was a young Scottish officer in the army that oustedJames II and welcomed William of Orange to England.For having guessed right inthe royal game of chance, Hunter received a commission in one of the regiments ofdragoons (mounted infantry) that scouted for more heavily armed forces.In Ireland,Hunter s troops ruthlessly suppressed civilian dissent.Evenhanded, they were justas brutal against disloyal Scottish Highlanders.When war again erupted in Europe in 1702, Hunter returned to the Low Countriesto fight the French, this time serving alongside George Hamilton, later ennobled as 282 FROM PROVI NCES OF EMPI RE TO A NEW NATI ONthe Earl of Orkney, and the Duke of Marlborough.Though he served well and bravely,Hunter inadvertently alienated the duke, the most important man in England afterthe royal family.But the earl had not forgotten Hunter, and when Orkney was madegovernor of Virginia in 1705, he selected Hunter as his lieutenant governor.Although he was unable to take the Virginia post, Hunter accepted the positionvacated by the sudden death of New York s governor, Lord Lovelace, in 1710.Hesailed with a small fleet and a number of German Palatines (refugees from war andoppression in their homeland who had migrated to England).They were to settle inthe frontier area west of the Hudson River and protect it for the crown.Hunter as-sumed that as governor of New York and New Jersey, his primary job would be thedefense of the colony, not realizing that the French and their Indian allies posed theleast of his problems.His real difficulty would be keeping his London masters happywhile convincing New York s citizens to obey the law.The factionalism of the Leisler years had not disappeared with the hanging of Ja-cob Leisler, and Hunter relied on his long experience as a junior officer and hisbriefer stint as an office-seeker in London to make friends with influential people.He reached out to Lewis Morris and Robert Livingston, two veteran New York politi-cians.Livingston was a true manorial baron living on vast Hudson River estates.Morris was a clever and able speculator.Unfortunately for Hunter, friendship with Livingston and Morris meant the en-mity of their opponents, the powerful DeLancey and Van Cortlandt clans.Worse, nei-ther Hunter s power as governor nor his friends in high places could convince thecity merchants to pay their taxes and the large landholders to remit their quitrents.No one could tell the Palatines what to do, and Hunter ended up using military forceagainst the very refugees who had seen him as their savior.The war with France inAmerica went badly, and antiproprietor elements in New Jersey kept the pot boilingthere.Hunter was soon exhausted by the political infighting.His wife, Elizabeth, diedin 1716, thirty years old, during a smallpox epidemic.Now fifty, suffering from arthri-tis, Hunter had five small children to raise on his own.He longed to return to En-gland, and in 1719 he did.But in the end, like Lovelace, Hunter died far from homeserving as governor of Jamaica.Few executives matched the high standards of probity and hard work that Hunterset.But there were other ways to govern.One could, like Virginia s lieutenant gov-ernor Alexander Spotswood, gain the trust of an entrenched and united planter aris-tocracy by becoming one of them.Spotswood remained in office from 1710 until 1722largely because he adopted the ways and manners of that aristocracy.He quarreledwith important men on his council over the collection of quitrents and the appor-tionment of lands, but these were more like quarrels within the aristocracy thanquarrels between it and the crown.When he was replaced, Spotswood retired to the THE EMPI RES REI NVENTED, 1660 1763 283vast lands around Fredericksburg that he had accumulated as governor, living in afashion that impressed even native-born magnates like William Byrd of Westover.Another way for royal governors to navigate the minefield of local politics was toact the part of the local politician.Such a man was Massachusetts governor WilliamShirley.He was born to a Sussex, England, gentry family, married well, became alawyer and merchant in London, speculated heavily, lost much, and then tried hisluck in the provinces.In Massachusetts, Shirley paid court to Governor JonathanBelcher.Belcher got Shirley a job prosecuting a case before the vice-admiralty courtin the colony.In it, Palatines petitioned the court for redress against a captain whostarved them on their way to Plymouth.Shirley s prosecution of the ship captaingained the lawyer a popular following.In short order, Shirley became a judge of thevice-admiralty court (an appointment within the power of Governor Belcher), andthen its advocate general (chief prosecutor).He traveled to vice-admiralty courts allover New England to prosecute cases, making friends and political connections atevery stop [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]