Francis Fauquier

Fauquier was director of the South Sea Company and a writer on fiscal issues when he became Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia. Since the governorship was a powerless position, Fauquier was effectively the head of the province's royal government. Fauquier was an able administrator, sometimes ignoring orders from London in order to more effectively address the issues in Virginia. When, in the 1760's, British statesman William Pitt informed him of the possibility of parliamentary taxation of the colonies for defense, Fauquier warned that Pitt that the move would be a dangerous one. Nevertheless, the passage of the Virginia Resolutions against the Stamp Act angered him such that he dissolved the assembly, which was not summoned again until November 1766. Fauquier's official stand against unauthorized migration across the Proclamation Line into Native American lands made him unpopular with colonists.