Colonial governor; born in
Gloucestershire, England, about 1717.
But little is known of his career in his earlier life.
He was colonel of the Gloucestershire militia, and was summoned to Parliament as
Baron Botetourt (the title having been in abeyance since 1406) in April, 1764.
He succeeded
Sir Jeffrey Amherst has governor-in-chief of
Virginia, and arrived there in November, 1768.
Having been instructed to assume great dignity, he appeared in the street, of
Williamsburg in a coach, with guards and other in-signia of vice-regal pomp: and entered upon his duties with a determination to enforce submission to parliamentary authority.
With a generous mind he perceived the righteousness of colonial indignation because of the taxation schemes of the ministry, and he forwarded to
England remonstrances of the representatives of the people, with his own opinion against the wisdom and justice of parliamentary measures.
In interfering with the wishes of the people, he obeyed instructions rather than the promptings of his own will.
A malarial fever which attacked him was so aggravated by chagrin because of the aspect of political affairs that he died at his post Oct. 15, 1770.
The colony erected his statue in front of the
capitol in 1774, for he was generally beloved by the people.
In 1797 it was removed to the front of William and Mary College, of which he was a benefactor; and thence it was talked to the enclosure of the Asylum for the Insane in
Williamsburg during the
Civil War.
