If we may believe Robert Beverley, the Governor made a habit of packing the grand jury, in order to get flattering addresses from them. He would pick out men whom he knew he could influence, send for them to come to Williamsburg, and order the sheriff to put them on the jury in place of others of whom he was doubtful. Beverley was talking with a man whom the sheriff had summoned and then had discharged, when the sheriff happened to pass. So the man stopped him to ask why he had done it. He replied that the Governor had ordered him to do it. When the jury he had selected for the purpose gave him the address he wanted, he showered them with favors. To the foreman he gave a naval officer's place, others he "favored by barefaced methods" in cases at law in which they were concerned, still others had sheriff's places.[18]
Nicholson's greatest blunder was to antagonize the Council. Its members, representing the Virginia aristocracy, and having influential friends at Court, were not the men to sit quietly and see their hard-earned privileges taken from them. Is the Council so mean spirited as to let a Governor do all the ill things he pleases in their names, and all the while using them like slaves, not suffering them to have any opinion of their own? Philip Ludwell asked. "Arbitrary power is grown to a high pitch among us. Hectoring is the only court language. Our laws and liberties openly trampled upon."[19]
Nicholson should have known that he was in for a fight to the finish when he bearded the Councillors. Prominent among them was the pugnacious Commissary James Blair. Robert Carter, of Corotoman, had been a Burgess at twenty-eight, and had twice been Speaker. A man of great energy, shrewd, and dominating he was dubbed "King Carter." Benjamin Harrison had represented Surry in the House of Burgesses, was a Visitor of the College of William and Mary, was commander of the Surry militia. Philip Ludwell, Jr., Page, Custis, Bassett, Duke, and the others were all men of wealth and influence.
The first open breach between these men and Nicholson came when he began to make appointments to office without consulting them. They were outraged when he removed their friends from lucrative jobs to make room for his own favorites. They protested the issuing of warrants on the revenue and the giving of patents to land without their consent. It was almost an insult for him to prorogue the Assembly on his own authority and without their knowledge.
