Fauquier, Francis

Fauquier, Francis (fôkēr`), c.1704–1768, acting royal governor of Virginia (1758–68). He came to the colony as lieutenant governor in 1758, and in the absence of the governors—the earl of Loudon (1756–63) and Jeffery Amherst (1763–68)—he was the chief administrative officer. Instructions sent with him demanded that the office of treasurer of the colony be taken from the speaker of the house of burgesses, but he disobeyed these instructions and gained and maintained the friendship of the house. In 1760 he informed the government of the trend toward opposition to British policies in the colony and proposed that British tax policy be changed. In 1765, however, he dissolved the house of burgesses when it passed a resolution against the Stamp Act.