Nicholson was a supporter of public education, promoting laws to support it, and funded the construction of "King William's School" (predecessor/ancestor to today's St. John's College, a noted academic humanities, liberal arts school, emphasing a "classical education" and "The Great Books"). He became embroiled in a dispute with William Penn from the Middle Atlantic colony to the north, over how to deal with the issue of piracy. In Maryland, Nicholson vigorously cracked down on the practices of some colonists to tolerate pirates, who brought goods and hard currency into the provinces. Aware that Penn's governor William Markham was similarly tolerant (he was said to be taking bribes to allow pirates such as Thomas Day to trade in Pennsylvania), Nicholson ordered that ships destined for Pennsylvania be stopped and searched in Maryland waters, and collected duties if they were carrying European finished goods. Penn protested to the Board of Trade, and the dispute subsided when Nicholson moderated his tactics. During Nicholson's rule in Maryland, he specifically denied that the colonists had the Rights of Englishmen, writing that "if I had not hampered them interests in Maryland, and kept them under, I should never have been able to govern them." His feud with pirates took a personal turn when in 1700 he accompanied the captain of HMS "Shoreham" in a fierce all-day battle against French pirate Louis Guittar. The defeated pirates asked Nicholson for quarter and pardon; he granted them quarter but referred them to King William III of England for mercy, in whose courts Guittar and his crew were all sentenced to hang.