"These topping men" were merely waiting an opportunity to have the old law damned, he wrote the Lords of Trade. "Had the Assembly only designed to have augmented and added to the Queen's revenue, why could they not make an act of it without damning and destroying the former act? And that your Lordships may see the snake in the grass, please observe that the Assembly are pleased to appropriate the Queen's revenue as they think fit, a thing never pretended to before, and to limit and confine her Majesty from disposing of her own money.... Whereas in a former act the Queen was graciously pleased to appropriate £370 to be divided among the Council for attendance, in this act they have ordered otherwise ... by which they have tied up the Queen's hands from giving any part of her bounty but according to their pleasure."[14]
When this bill came before the Board of Trade they referred it to Attorney General Harcourt and Solicitor General Montague. Although these astute men, as we have seen, gave it as their opinion that the old act had been passed in a way "contrary to the present method," and should be superseded by a new one, the Board decided to let sleeping dogs lie. So they advised the Queen to veto the Act of 1716. "'Tis hoped it will never be revived by any Governor who has at heart the interests of the Crown, and wishes that people should distinguish between what they owe to the indulgence of the Sovereign and what they may claim as their right by the laws of Virginia," wrote Governor Spotswood several years later.[15]
The climate of Virginia, which was fatal to so many newcomers from England, took a heavy toll of Governors. Lord De la Warr fell a victim to the Virginia sickness; Herbert Jeffreys died after having been in the colony only a few months. Now, on August 23, 1706, death ended the brief administration of Governor Nott. He was mourned by the people, and was buried in Bruton Parish churchyard with all the solemnity the colony was capable of. "Had it pleased God to have spared him but a little time longer amongst us, he would have healed all those unhappy differences that have of late made us uneasy, and united us again to be one people," wrote William Bassett.[16]