Later Nicholson put the blame on the Councillors themselves for his failure to get along with them. They hated him, he said, because he would not be guided and governed by them, and turn secretaries, auditors, collectors, naval officers, and others out of their places and put them and their friends in, and would not let them do what they pleased.[20]
The Council meetings became stormy, with the Councillors protesting to the Governor and the Governor flying into a rage. When the sessions were held in the Wren Building at the college prior to the completing of the new Capitol, passersby could hear Nicholson storming "as loud as he could extend his voice." If any member dared to oppose him in any measure he was sure to bring down on himself a volley of insults.
The Councillors were liable to abuse even when the Council was not in session. One day when John Lightfoot was in Williamsburg, he called on the Governor. He had not been in his presence fifteen minutes before Nicholson began to storm at him, calling him a rogue, a rascal, and a villain. "You have sided with that damned Scotch parson, Blair, and by God, sir, you have shipped yourself in a leaky vessel.... You shall be turned out of the Council." Then he flew out against the rest of the Council, saying there was not one of them who was not a rogue and a coward, who did not dare look a man in the face.[21]
The testimony regarding Nicholson's violent temper is so overwhelming as to indicate that the man was unbalanced. On one occasion while talking with Captain James Moodie in an "upper apartment" of the college, he flew into a violent passion against the Commissioners of the Navy, "calling them all the basest names the tongue of man could express." These imprecations were thundered out "with such a noise that the people down in the lower rooms came running up stairs ... believing that the college had been on fire." Several sea captains, who were lodging in a room some distance away, "came running out of their beds in their shirts," one of them "without his wooden leg, holding himself by the wall."[22]
If Nicholson had contented himself with hurling imprecations at those who offended him, his victims might have been able to endure it. "I must confess I have no reason to be satisfied with the insolent, tyrannical behavior of our Governor, but as long as he is vested with the Queen's authority, I will quietly endure his barbarous usage," wrote Philip Ludwell.[23] But when Nicholson carried his malice so far as to prosecute those to whom he took a disliking, deprive them of their jobs, and imprison them, their safety lay in fleeing the colony.