University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER V

THE REVENUE ACT—CRISIS OF THE CIRCULARS

The joy of the colonies over the repeal of the Stamp Act
was not to continue very long. King George regarded the repeal
as "a fatal compliance," and with a fatuity difficult now
to understand, Parliament in little more than a year had managed
to embroil things as badly as ever. With the Declaratory
Act went orders requiring New York, under the Quartering
Act, to supply provisions to the troops stationed there.
When New York declined full compliance, an act of Parliament
was passed and approved by the King on the 2d of July,
1767, suspending its powers as a legislative body till it submitted.
The Assembly, however, had fully complied with the
requisites on May 26, so that the act of Parliament appeared
in a peculiarly tyrannical aspect.

Hand in hand with this measure went an act to lay new
taxes on the colonies, and to this course they were led by the
eager desire of the landed interest in England to escape some
of the heavy burden of taxation incident to the war, and by
the eloquence of the brilliant Charles Townshend, who in a
speech in Parliament in January, 1767, declared that England
was undone if all taxation of America was abandoned. He,
aided by Grenville, enforced the necessity of the colonies sharing
the expense of maintaining troops for their defense, which
amounted annually to £400,000 sterling.

A bill laying duties upon glass, paper, lead, painters' colors
and tea was introduced and passed into law, but though
Townshend claimed that he had found a measure, which as
an external tax the colonies could not object to, it was identical
in principle with the Sugar Bill,—an external tax which

the colonists had not long before condemned. Like the Sugar
Bill it differentiated itself from all the acts on trade by making
revenue its primary object, as stated in the preamble of the
bill itself. Townshend and many like him affected not to see
the distinction, but William Pitt made the difference clear. In
his speech on the Stamp Act he said: "If the gentleman does
not understand the difference between internal and external
taxes I cannot help it; but there is a plain distinction between
taxes levied for the purpose of raising a revenue and duties
imposed for the regulation of trade; although, in the consequences,
some revenue might incidentally arise from the latter."

And here it may be asked why in the eventful days succeeding,
was Massachusetts selected by the British government
as the object of punishment and vengeance instead of
Virginia; who had exceeded her in asserting the principles of
self-determination. This question was even asked of the ministry
in Parliament and by the Continental Congress in 1774 in
its famous address to the people of the British Colonies.

Undoubtedly the matters which first directed the mind of
the British government to Massachusetts were the outrages
perpetrated, after Henry's resolutions, by the mob in Boston
on the property of several eminent individuals in that part of
the country—such as Thomas Hutchinson, the lieutenant governor;
Andrew Oliver, the Stamp Act Collector; and the registrar
of the admiralty and the controller of the customs.
Nothing equal to these atrocities occurred in any other of the
provinces. In Virginia George Mercer was burned in effigy; Archibald
Ritchie, father of Thomas Ritchie, the famous editor
of the Richmond Enquirer was tarred and feathered, and Capt.
William Smith brutally treated at Norfolk, but the rioters did
not steal and plunder. The actors in Boston looted and stole,
and at a town meeting the inhabitants of Boston not only
expressed abhorrence of them, but vainly organized a civil
guard to prevent the repetition of their outrages.[52]

Besides mob rule, which prevailed in the towns of Massachusetts,
there was the marked difference in the character of
the governors of Massachusetts and Virginia. Bernard and
Hutchinson were constantly exaggerating difficulties in Massachusetts
to the ministry and secretly urging them to unwise and
extreme measures. In Virginia, on the other hand, Fauquier
and Botetourt sympathized with the colonists and exerted
themselves to induce the British government to believe in the
honest and patriotic purposes of the people.

Another reason lay in the great number of educated Tories
who resided in Boston and neighboring towns. Virginia had
fewer Tories than any of the colonies. They consisted principally
of Scotch merchants and the shipping people in the counties
of Norfolk, Princess Anne, Accomac and Northampton.
Very few of the influential citizens were Tories, and not even
half a dozen alumni of William and Mary College. Unlike
the Episcopal clergy in other parts of the country, the majority
of the Virginia ministers[53] espoused the American cause. On
the other hand, in Massachusetts the Tory element was displayed
in many ways. Few of the actions of the provincial
legislation in behalf of colonial rights were carried unanimously
as was practically always the case in Virginia. At the
time of the evacuation of Boston, 1100 loyalists retired in
one body and one writer says that the list of Tories of New
England "read almost like the bead roll of the oldest and
noblest families, concerned in the founding and upbuilding
of New England civilization." Sabine says that all the government
officials were adherents of the Crown, and mentions leading
citizens of Massachusetts of whom 140 were graduates of
Harvard. John Adams says[54] that the last contest in the town
of Boston in 1775 between Whig and Tory was decided by five
against two.

Next Boston, as one of the towns of largest size and centre
of the shipping interests, was naturally selected as the immediate

seat of the officers charged with the enforcement of the
Revenue Act. These people were anxious for military support,
and beset the government in England with appeals for ships
of war and regiments of troops.

So it follows that the influences that made for collision
were due to the existence of a pro-British sentiment in Boston,
that, as a matter of fact, existed nowhere else in the same
degree. It was these pro-British elements that brought Boston
to the front, and the Americans who acted in more than
one of these moments of excitement, had no real authority, and,
as in the case of the turbulent proceedings under the Stamp
Act, assumed the character of a lawless mob, disowned by the
very men whom we are accustomed to regard as the leaders in
Massachusetts, James Otis and Samuel Adams.

And yet, if the Massachusetts contention for primacy is
correct, the true heroes of the Revolution in Massachusetts
were not James Otis and Samuel Adams, but the mob leaders,
who in the case of the Boston Tea Party did not venture to disclose
their faces to view and remain nameless to this day.

As a matter of fact, these turbulent incidents in history
were not movements themselves, but only occasions for movements.
And in all the crises that arose (and four great crises
may be distinguished) it was Virginia that furnished the solution
of the difficulties and led the advance. Dr. Edward Channing,
professor of History at Harvard University, with a candor
that does him honor, says in his History of the United
States (III, p. 54), speaking of the opposition to the Stamp
Act: "In this Virginia led—as she constantly did in the
constitutional opposition of the next few years."

CRISIS OF THE CIRCULARS

The Stamp Act was repealed on March 18, 1766, and the new
act, called the Revenue Act, received the royal approval June
29, 1767. Knowledge of its passage arrived in Virginia about
August, 1767.

In the interval there was a meeting of the Virginia Assembly
which lasted from November 26, 1766, to April 11, 1767.
Nothing but harmony existed between Fauquier and the Assembly,
and in their address to him, the Assembly felicitated
itself upon absence of destruction of property during the unhappy
period of the Stamp Act. It was the opinion of Thompson
Mason, one of the members, that the Declaratory Act
should be met by the different Assemblies with an equally
strong declaration of their rights, "so that one declaration of
rights will stand against another, and that matters will remain
as they are till some future weak minister shall, by aiming
at popularity, think proper to revive the extinguished
flame." In the same spirit the Assembly at this time expressed
the hope "that no tacit consent to that affecting circumstance
(the Stamp Act) which produced the distractions
of those times will ever be concluded from that prudence
which only governed them in the preservation of their rights
and liberties."

This interval, however, was not so calm in Massachusetts.
There the clashing influences, to which allusion has been made,
kept matters in a ferment. The Provincial Assembly provided
payment for sufferers from the mob, but justly offended
the governor and English government by pardoning the ruffians
who perpetrated the outrages. On the other hand Governor
Bernard did all sorts of foolish things which the sensible
Fauquier would have never dreamed of doing, and thereby
brought upon himself and the government he represented new
dislikes.

When the news arrived that Boston was to be made the
headquarters of a new tyranny, it increased the suspicions
and jealousies already entertained. And yet the fervor occasioned
by the Stamp Act having died out, it seemed difficult
to get up anything like the old excitement. A town meeting
held in Boston, October 28, 1767, voted to forbear the importation
and use of a great number of articles of British produce,
but Otis who was still the leader urged caution and advised

that no opposition be made to the new duties. On the
20th of November, 1767, when the taxes went into effect, the
people of Boston were remarkably quiet, and non importation
appeared to be making little headway.

The Massachusetts Legislature came together in its second
session December 30, 1767, and on January 20 it adopted a
letter to the government in England drawn by Samuel Adams,
who was now coming to the front as the real leader, displacing
the fickle Otis. It was an able letter, and reproduced with
great ability the old arguments respecting taxation. There
was, however, in it no bold words against the right to tax, no
threats or denunciations which could be called treason like
the resolutions and speech of Patrick Henry two years before.
They repeat the old unfortunate admission of the Stamp Act
Congress that Parliament had a superintending authority over
the colonies.

Loyal and submissive as the paper was, Adams' cautious
fellow legislators would not accept it as it originally stood.
They subjected it to a severe examination. Eight times was
the paper revised, every word was weighed, every sentence
considered, and each seemingly harsh expression tempered
and refined. When the question of sending a circular to the
other colonies was broached, caution amounting to timidity was
manifested. By a large majority they voted down the proposition
of writing to the other colonies. It appeared after all
that if no other influences came into play except those that existed
in Massachusetts the excitement would die away and the
new act like the Sugar Act would go into operation there.

But fortunately there were influences coming from a more
southerly latitude which were destined to create a different
result. These were the Farmer's Letters written by John Dickinson
of Pennsylvania and the Monitor Letters, written by Dr.
Arthur Lee of Virginia, which began to appear serially in the
papers during December, 1767, and ran through the months of
January and February. Both Dickinson and Lee were strong
writers, and their communications were copied and spread

through many newspapers. Dickinson appealed more to the
conservative elements of society and Lee to the radical.

Arthur Lee was born in Virginia in 1740, son of Thomas
Lee, President of the Virginia Council. He was one of eight
brothers, five of whom rose to distinction in their day—the
most distinguished being Richard Henry Lee. Arthur Lee was
one of the most active men of the Revolutionary period, and
no faithful account of him has yet been written. Unlike Dickinson
he kept pace with the Revolution and to few men is
America more indebted for his work as a letter writer both in
America and England, and services in the diplomatic corps.
He was in London when the repeal of the Stamp Act was
agitated. He heard Mr. Pitt and Lord Camden, and though the
obnoxious act was repealed, he was persuaded that the spirit
which dictated it was still resting near the throne. With this
impression he returned to Virginia in August, 1766, and it
was not long before his apprehensions were realized by the
passage of the Revenue Act. When Dickinson began his serial
letters under the signature of a Pennsylvania Farmer,
which were universally read and greatly admired, Lee undertook
a similar work but in a more impassioned style in the
Virginia Gazette.[55]

It was these papers that produced the salutary change in
the Massachusetts Assembly. Two weeks after the vote against
Adams' circular prevailed, the Assembly, by the same majority
with which they had defeated the proposition, reversed their
action and erased their former vote from the Journal. The circular
was dispatched and went the rounds of the colonies, but
it acknowledged the supremacy of Parliament.[56]

In the meantime Virginia was moving with that unity and
decision which distinguished her. Governor Fauquier would
not call the Assembly together and prorogued it from time to
time, for in spite of his sympathy with the Virginians he felt
he had to be loyal to the Crown. But discontent was general
and found expression in resolutions adopted in different counties.
Fauquier died March 3, 1768, and John Blair, of Williamsburg,
President of the Council, promptly announced a
meeting of the Assembly on March 31, 1768. This exercise by
Fauquier of his prerogation powers in putting off the sessions
of the Assembly from time to time, and similar actions of royal
governors in other colonies, found a place later among the
grievances noted in the Declaration of Independence.

When the Assembly came together, both that body and
President Blair paid a tribute to the distinguished merit of
the late governor and eulogized "his constant exertion of every
public and private virtue as well in the duties of his station as
in the endearing reciprocations of friendship among us." The
circular from Massachusetts had been received by the Speaker
some little time before, and Blair now laid it before the Assembly
on the first day of the session, and on the next day petitions
were submitted from the Counties of Chesterfield, Henrico,
Dinwiddie and Amelia, condemning the Parliamentary
Act suspending the legislative powers of New York, and one
came from Westmoreland County, followed by one from Prince
William next day, condemning the Revenue Act. In the shortest
possible time, resolutions and memorials to the King,
Lords and Commons were prepared, having the old time spirit
of resistance: and these protests were not the work of one
house only, and that a divided house, as in Massachusetts, but
represented the unanimous voice of both the Council and the
Burgesses.

In the resolutions[57] reported on April 7, 1768, by the illustrious
Bland, Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, the
doctrine so boldly announced by him in 1763 that only the
General Assembly could make any laws regarding its internal
policy or taxation of the colony was strongly asserted. Peyton
Randolph, Speaker of the House, wrote a bold circular to
all the colonies and John Blair, the acting governor, transmitted
the memorials to England. Upon their receipt, Lord
Hillsborough, the secretary of Colonial affairs, expressed himself
as greatly amazed, especially at the action of the Council
and its president, who were appointed by the Crown.[58] The
Circular of Virginia admitted the authority of Parliament to
make laws for preserving a necessary dependence of the Colony
on Great Britain, but the use of any words like the supremacy
of Parliament were carefully avoided.[59]

The day after Massachusetts adopted its circular, the
Board of Commissioners of the revenue, stationed at Boston,
secretly sent a petition home for troops, and about the same
time Governor Bernard wrote letters representing the province
in a riotous condition, which was certainly not true at
this time. News of the action of Massachusetts getting to
England ahead of Virginia's action was enough, with these
complaints and the memory of the former excesses, to induce
Lord Hillsborough and his associates to make Massachusetts
an example. The ministry tried to reduce her to terms, but
the Massachusetts House, encouraged by the recent action of
Virginia, and the further endorsement of New Hampshire,
New Jersey and Connecticut, disclaimed any responsibility for
or control over the action of a previous house, and by a vote of
92 to 17 refused to rescind the circular. Bernard thereupon

dissolved the House, giving notice that he would not call another.

Information was now received of the speedy approach
of ships of war with two regiments of troops, and a great deal
of what now must be called bluster appears to have been indulged
in by Samuel Adams and the people of Boston. Threats
were freely thrown out that the troops were not to be
allowed to land, but when it came to formally acting, the
leaders were exceedingly cautious as to how they committed
themselves. Boston called a convention of the towns of
Massachusetts, and in this Assembly Samuel Adams and his
associates adopted a wary and loyal petition denying vigorously
any intention of using forcible means. When the troops
arrived they were allowed to land and quarters were assigned
to them.

This surrender on the part of the Bostonians, after all
their high talk, was most unfortunate. The British officers
had no authority under the act of Parliament to quarter troops
without the town's consent, and resistance was expected even
in England. In anticipation of hostilities stocks fell on the
London market, "as if war had actually been declared against
France or Spain."[60] Emboldened by this means, the House of
Lords petitioned the King in December to cause the principal
actors in Massachusetts to be brought to England and tried for
treason under an old law of Henry VIII, and the Commons
approved the demand.

Shortly after this Lord Hillsborough sent a dispatch to
Governor Bernard, directing an enquiry to be instituted in
pursuance of the resolutions of Parliament, and thus a great
issue was created which affected all the colonies alike, whether
one of the fundamental principles of English liberty, the right
of a trial by a jury of the vicinage, was to be abrogated. Granted
that it was deemed no violation of this right, in the case
where a jury of some town or county was so prejudiced as to
render an impartial verdict impossible, to remove the case to

another town or county. But to drag men for trial with their
witnesses across 2,000 miles of water appeared undoubtedly a
great stretch of this exception in the principle. If it did not
prove that a right was utterly denied, it did show up the impracticability
of controlling the colonies in the way England
proposed.

Again it was Virginia, as in the days of the Stamp Act,
that sprang to the front and met the crisis. Frothingham
says:[61] "There was no adequate step taken to meet the threatened
aggression until the House of Burgesses of Virginia
convened in May."

Since the governorship of Sir Edward Andros, (1692-1698)
the executive sent from England to Virginia had enjoyed only
the title of Lieutenant Governor, while some person in England
who never saw Virginia, drew the larger part of the salary and
called himself governor. The spirit shown by the colony produced
a change. It was determined by the English ministry
to flatter Virginia by sending over, in the future, a man of dignity,
who should have both full honor and full pay of governor.

The man selected at this time to fill the vacancy caused
by the death of Fauquier was Norborne Berkeley, Baron de
Botetourt, son of John Symes Berkeley, of Stoke Gifford,
County Gloucester, England, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter
and coheir of Walter Norborne, of Caline, County Wilts. He
was born in 1718, and in 1761 was colonel of the North Gloucestershire
militia and represented the shire in Parliament. In
1764 he was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron de
Botetourt, and being selected as Governor of Virginia, he
sailed in a 74, taking with him a coach of state, presented to
him by the Duke of Cumberland.

He landed October 22, 1768, at "Little England," on Hampton
River, and the people of Williamsburg, pleased at the attentions
of the British government, received him in Williamsburg
the same day with almost royal honors. The city was

brilliantly illuminated at night, and an ode of praise and
greeting to Botetourt was published in the Virginia Gazette.

Botetourt was an amiable and attractive man, and soon
after his arrival he increased his popularity, which was already
great, by concurring with the Council in the General
Court in refusing to issue writs of assistance when asked for
by the commissioners of the customs in Boston. These writs
had been employed in Massachusetts to enforce the trade
laws, and as early as 1761, their validity had been contested
by James Otis. I am far from desiring to detract from Otis'
merit, but history must not be sacrificed to popularity, and far
too much importance has been given to his speech on that occasion.
No contemporary account of it has been preserved
except some "scattered notes" taken down at the time by
John Adams. These savor nothing of rebellion. The excitement
over the writs appears to have been confined to a few
merchants in that colony, and when the Supreme Court decided
the issue against Otis, the people of Massachusetts became entirely
reconciled to their issuance.

The question in Massachusetts arose in connection with
the enforcement of the Sugar Act of 1733, which was a trade
measure, accepted as constitutional in Massachusetts itself,
and not a revenue measure, like the Sugar bill of 1764. There
is no evidence that the speech of James Otis was known outside
of New England after he delivered it—certainly not in
most of the colonies, for they had no interest in such writs, not
being used in them.

The importance attributed to Otis' speech is due to John
Adams, who many years later, when William Wirt wrote of
his Life of Patrick Henry galvanized it into historic importance
by some striking rhetoric, in which Otis was characterized
as "a flame of fire," but the recollections of the venerable
ex-president, in common with those of other old men, must
be received with considerable caution. He states for instance
that no writs issued after the trial, when according to the record

they were issued most freely.[62] When he declares that
Otis denied the authority of Parliament to legislate in any case
for the Colonies, doubt ensues, because the address to the
governor (probably the work of Otis himself), at the session
of the Assembly the same year (1761) admits the authority
absolutely.[63] And it is not at all likely that he would take such
a stand in 1761 and a few years later denounce resistance on
the Stamp Act and the Revenue Act, as "treason." Nor is
it likely that the Connecticut Committee of Correspondence in
1774 would have applied to Virginia for advice on the subject
of Writs of Assistance, if Otis' speech had had any great effect
in New England.[64]

On the other hand, no general warrants of any kind had any
standing in Virginia. As early as 1627 the Council of Virginia
forbade the issuance of any general warrant for the arrest of
persons not named in the paper,[65] though they did not confine
the warrant to a single person, but permitted several living on
the same plantation to be included by name. In 1643 it was
enacted that no blank warrant shall be made or executed by
any clerk or sheriff within the Colony, and specification of
both name and place appears to have been the requirement of
the law throughout the Colonial period. In view of this fact,
the request of the Commissioners of the Revenue at Boston
for a writ of the general nature of Writs of Assistance could
not have been other than particularly abhorrent to the general
sense of the colony. The action of Botetourt and his Council,
therefore in refusing the request was highly commended.

For this reason and to witness the ceremonies of the installation
of the new governor, who represented royalty in a way
that had not been known in Virginia for three-quarters of a
century, a large crowd was present at the opening of the Assembly
May 8, 1769. The governor attended by a numerous

retinue of guards rode from the palace to the capitol in his
superbly furnished state coach, drawn by six white horses.
He was dressed after the fashion of the day, in a very handsome,
rich costume, and his coat which was of a light red color,
was heavy with gold thread tissue. He made a rather long
speech to the Burgesses in the Council Chamber, enunciating
very slowly and with frequent pauses, and it is said by those
who had heard George III speak from the throne of England,
that his lordship, on the throne of Virginia, conducted himself
very much like the King.[66]

He considered it, he said, "a peculiar felicity" to announce
his Majesty's gracious intention "that for the future his chief
governors of Virginia shall reside within their government"
and he assured the members that he would "try to do his duty
as becomes a faithful servant of the best of sovereigns and a
most sincere friend to the welfare of this colony."

These gracious remarks did not deter the Assembly from
addressing itself at once to the grievances of the country. On
the first day of the session (May 8, 1769), the Speaker, Peyton
Randolph, submitted to it the replies which he had received
from different colonies to the circular sent at the last session.
On motion they were ordered to lie on the table to be perused
by the members of the House, and it was further ordered that
the letters which had passed between the agent of the colony
and the Committee of Correspondence for the last five years
and the papers they referred to be also laid before the House.

On May 15, these papers were referred to the Committee of
the Whole, who considered them and made report the next
day (May 16), through John Blair, Jr., the representative of
the College of William and Mary, who entered the Legislature
the same session (1765) as Patrick Henry. They had the
ring of defiance about them, and again it was Virginia that
sprang to the front. A committee consisting of John Blair,
Jr., Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Robert Carter Nicholas,
Thompson Mason and Benjamin Harrison was appointed

to draft memorials to the King, Lords and Commons, which
were reported and unanimously adopted the next day (May
17). These papers met the resolutions of Parliament by a
direct negative of their own, denounced the flagrant tyranny
of carrying persons beyond the sea for trial, asserted the
right of a concert of the colonies, and once more maintained
the ancient right of taxation. The Assembly consummated
its work by a circular communicating its resolutions and asking
the concurrence of every legislature in America.[67]

The effect was almost as great as Henry's resolutions on
the Stamp Act. As Bancroft says: "Virginia set the example
for the continent." Everywhere there was a rhapsody of
praise, and soon the Virginia resolves were adopted by every
colony on the continent, in many of them, including Massachusetts,
word for word as they passed the Virginia Assembly.
Thus Virginia led the way and perfected united resistance
against British encroachments on the rights of persons
in America as she had already done on the rights of property.

In another measure adopted at this time, the primacy of the
colony was manifested. Boston had attempted a non-importation
agreement, but it had not been a success, either in that
city or in other places in which it had been tried. Rhode Island
hesitated and was bitterly denounced in some of the Northern
newspapers as a plague spot. In Virginia, Lord Botetourt dissolved
the assembly as soon as he heard of their resolves, and
the members immediately repairing to the Raleigh Tavern,
on Duke of Gloucester Street, in Williamsburg, met in the
long room called Apollo and signed an agreement drawn by
George Mason and presented by George Washington not to
import any slaves, wines or British manufactures. After the
signing of the Association a number of toasts were drunk

among which was "the Farmer and the Monitor," referring to
the letters of John Dickinson and Dr. Arthur Lee.

The action of Virginia placed a continental stamp upon the
policy of non-importation, and the puny child became a giant.
Colony after colony, including Rhode Island, followed Virginia's
example, and when it was adopted by North Carolina, it
was said: "This completes the chain of Union throughout
the continent for the measure of non-importation and economy."

John Dickinson, from Pennsylvania, author of the Farmer's
Letters, in a letter to R. H. Lee, before the meeting of the
Assembly, indicated the controlling position held by Virginia
among the colonies: "It is as much in her power to dishearten
them as to encourage them." After the assembly, "The Brave
Virginians" was a popular toast throughout New England,
and Frothingham says:[68] "Well might there have been this
gratitude; for Virginia united all the colonies to make common
cause with Massachusetts, when King and Parliament
laid a heavy hand upon her, and the presence of an army and
a fleet attested that complete submission was decreed as her
lot."

The far-reaching effect was to enlist, in behalf of the colonies,
the complaints of the merchants of England who dreaded
the loss of trade, and the government found it necessary to
give up the idea of transporting the patriots of Massachusetts,
who had voted for the circular, and on April 12, 1770, Parliament
repealed all the taxes except the duty on tea.