In return the company was required to contribute L100 towards building a public magazine at Williamsburg, to garrison and keep in repair a fort at Christanna on the frontier, and erect a schoolhouse there for Indian children. Some of the leading men in the colony became stockholders, among them William Cocke, Mann Page, William Cole, Nathaniel Harrison, and Cole Digges. They had spent large sums "in purchasing servants, taking up land and making settlements on the frontier, clearing roads, and building warehouses," when word came that the act under which they operated had been vetoed by the King.[35] Since they were now left holding the bag, they asked that the Assembly reimburse them. The election which followed was one of the bitterest in Virginia history. Spotswood made full use of the patronage. "Commissions flew about to every fellow that could make two or three votes," wrote Joshua Gee. "He gave the power to his friends to make a discreet use of [them]. And indeed never fouler play was by men, than at most of our elections."[36] Political pamphlets were distributed at every courthouse. One of them began: "Having seen a rascally paper which contained advice to freeholders in favor of a court party and tools of arbitrary power to enslave and ruin a free born people ... to prevent which I thought it my duty to open your eyes.... You are to know, brother electors, that this Assembly is called for no other reason but to pay to the Indian Company their charges on Fort Christanna, if they can get a set of men fit for that purpose to gull into that unjust payment."[37] The outcome of the election was another defeat for the Governor. No less than thirty-four members of the hostile House of Burgesses of 1715 were returned. Of the new members Gawin Corbin, John Grymes, Archibald Blair, and others were bitter enemies of Spotswood. During the session the Governor kept his temper, since he had been ordered to do so by the Lords of Trade, but the Burgesses, remembering his former insults, did everything they could to annoy him. Though his opening address was conciliatory, it was greeted with "violent censures." One wrathful member "shot his bolt" and cried out: "It is all stuff and calculated only for the latitude of Whitehall." When Spotswood laid before the House several letters from New York in regard to renewing a treaty with the Indians, "they made it their jest, and setting up a great laugh ... cried out in their vulgar language, 'A bite!'"[38]