The Governor had one warm defender in Colonel Robert Quary. In a letter to the Board of Trade he testified that, when Nicholson was appointed, the Councillors expected to "govern and direct all matters," to monopolize all places of profit and honor, and have him "suppress all that were not of their faction." But when they found that he would not be governed by them, they turned upon him with the greatest malice. "They aspersed and blackened him both in the country and by letters to England, as if he had been the greatest monster in nature." He had been guilty of no maladministration in his government "further than some escapes of his passion, which their injustice often forced him to."[39]
During the first week of March, 1705, Nicholson was busy preparing his defence so that it could get off on the first vessel sailing for England. He penned long letters to the Lords of Trade on the first, the third, and the sixth, and enclosed them with a memorial against Blair, and an address from the Virginia clergy. These papers were received on May 2, and read May 31. Whether they would have influenced the Lords in Nicholson's favor we do not know, for on April 2, just a month before their arrival, the Board received a communication from Secretary Hedges, advising them that the Queen wished them to prepare a commission and instructions for Colonel Edward Nott to be Governor General of Virginia.[40]
It was on August 15, 1705, that the Council met in their beautiful room in the new Capitol, for Nott's inauguration. When all had been seated Nicholson entered and read a letter from the Queen directing him to deliver up the government and "repair to her royal presence." He must have looked around at the men who had been his bitter enemies with an air of triumph as he read a letter from Secretary Hedges, stating that he was being recalled, not because of the charges made against him, but merely for her Majesty's service. Then he handed over the seal of the colony and the charter of 1676. One wonders whether, as he bowed himself out, he took one last look at the room for which he had been so largely responsible--the portrait of Queen Anne, the large oval table, the stiff-backed chairs, the Queen's arms, the panelling.