 | History of Virginia |  |
I. PART I
PRELIMINARIES TO THE AMERICAN
REVOLUTION
HISTORY OF VIRGINIA
VOLUME II
CHAPTER I
WESTERN EXTENSION
The history of England, during the 16th Century, is the
story of the development of a small kingdom into a successful
rival with the gigantic power of Spain. Its history during the
17th Century and until the close of the French and Indian
War in 1763 was the story of a struggle of similar import with
France. Again, she was successful, and as a result of the war,
under the guidance of the great Minister of State, William
Pitt, she became the first power of the world. In 1758, Louisburg
was taken and the mouth of the St. Lawrence protected
against France. In 1759 Quebec was captured by the gallant
General Wolfe, who was killed in the assault. In the same
year, the British established their supremacy at sea by the
naval actions at Lagos and Quiberon Bay. In India Clive
won Bengal for England by the victory at Plassy (1757) and
French authority was finally overturned by Coote's victory
at Wandewash in 1760. In 1763, when peace was concluded
with the French, the British Empire covered a greater territory
than was ever before held by any country, ancient or
modern.
Its nucleus was found in the United Kingdom of England
and Scotland, and its outlying dependencies embraced Ireland,
![illustration](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:252922/full/!1600,1600/0/default.jpg")
General George Washington
the Bahama Islands, and many other bits of land in the sea;
all of Bengal, and other provinces in India; all of North America
east of the Mississippi, including Canada and New Foundland,
East and West Florida, and the thirteen English Colonies
lying between. Moderate affairs were even the Roman
Empire and the Empire of the Saracens compared with the
far flung dominions of England.
In effecting this result the Colonies played an important
part. They were zealous in prosecuting the war and contributed
liberally of men and money. As loyal subjects of the
King of England they gloried in the overthrow of the French.
Especially was this true of Virginia, which began the war. It
was a Virginia governor, Robert Dinwiddie, who lodged the
first protest against the plan of the French to hem in the English
Colonies by a line of forts reaching from Lake Erie down
the Ohio and down the Mississippi to its mouth. It was a
young Virginia officer, Washington, who acted as Dinwiddie's
agent in voicing the protest, and when the protest was disregarded
fired the first shot in the war which followed, and Virginia
blood was the first American blood to flow in this war.
The forces set in action at this time did not really end till the
overthrow of Napoleon in 1814. That shot of Washington
stirred up not only the French and Indian War in America
and the Seven Years War in Europe, but the American Revolution
and the War of 1812 and the Napoleonic Wars. Of the
true significance of the French and Indian War William
Makepeace Thackeray expressed the idea better than any
other writer. In his "The Virginians—A Tale of the Last
Century," he says: "It was strange that in a savage forest
of Pennsylvania a young Virginia officer should fire a shot and
waken up a war which was to last for sixty years, which was
to cover his own country and pass into Europe, to cost France
her American Colonies, to sever ours from us and create the
great Western Republic; to rage over the Old World when extinguished
in the New, and of all the myriads engaged in the
who struck the first blow."
During the war, the Virginians, while contributing a fair
proportion of men and money, for which they were thanked by
the King, afforded in two cases services which were eminently
spectacular and praiseworthy. These were the timely protection
given in 1755 to the routed British Army under Braddock
by the Virginia militia under Washington, and a similar
service rendered the British troops under Major Grant by
Captain Thomas Bullett and his company in 1759. In money
Virginia provided the sum of half a million pounds sterling.
But the tide which bore Great Britain to a pitch of unprecedented
glory began to recede in a very little time after
peace was declared in 1763. Up to this time the Mother
Country, beyond attempting to regulate commerce, had interfered
very little in the current of affairs on this side of the
Atlantic. Some drastic action had been taken against New
England in 1682, but the interference had been due to the
tyranny of the ruling orders there, who had kept the people
at large in a state of political slavery. The new rule under
Andros endured only for a short time, and though tyrannical,
led to better conditions, for out of it came a new charter to
Massachusetts (1691), which broadened the franchise and
lessened the tyranny of the ecclesiastics. Nevertheless, the
proposition remained true that the American Colonies down
to 1763 were semi-independent communities, who disregarded
even the few laws by which England sought to assert her
authority. This was principally due to the increasing power
of France in Canada, which occupied all England's attention,
and rendered the policy of Colonial conciliation advisable.
In certain respects Virginia had stronger resemblances
to the Mother Country than any of the other Colonies. The
Colony had been settled, not like New England, by the representatives
of a single section of the English people having a
certain religious belief, but by representatives of the English
people at large. Then the great bulk of the early inhabitants
whose authority in Virginia was still dominant in 1763, despite
the great influx to the back of the Blue Ridge of hardy Scotch-Irish
settlers. In their religion, sports and pastimes the Virginians
and the English were very similar.
There were great differences, however, for while society
was organized at first on the principles which prevailed in
England of gentry, yeomanry and servants, these distinctions
eventually all passed away, and except for a limited number of
indentured white servants and convicts fresh from England,
the servant class in the 18th century was almost exclusively
negroes. The eighteenth century saw the rise in Virginia
of many men of great wealth and estates, who were proud of
their loyalty and imitated the English aristocracy in the
splendor of their establishments, but it must always be remembered
that their authority was not bottomed as in England
on white people, but on negro slaves. In Virginia during
the latter part of the 18th century every free white man
was master of his own actions, and in a certain sense the
poorer the man the more independent he was. This distinction
was noticed by Marquis de Chastellux, who wrote in his
Travels towards the end of the century that "a Virginian
never resembles a European peasant, he is always a freeman
and participates in the government."
This tendency to destroy the old public distinctions was
greatly promoted by the ease with which land might be obtained.
Rural life promoted the spirit of independence, and
color, not rank or wealth, became the fundamental distinction
in society. There was also the great liberality of the suffrage.
Down to 1736 free white manhood suffrage prevailed
in Virginia, for though in 1670 a freehold qualification was prescribed,
there was no limitation attached to the freehold, and
Spotswood tells us in 1713 that any one, though just out of the
condition of a servant, and owning half an acre of land, had as
much voice in the selection of the members of Assembly as
1736, when the freehold qualification was finally established,
many more people voted in Virginia than in Massachusetts,
where a native white servant class continued.[2]
This democratic tendency came bravely to the surface during
the seventeenth century under Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., and
found a great leader in Patrick Henry, Jr., at the dawn of the
American Revolution. The final result was seen in 1792, when
Virginia became the headquarters of the Democratic Republican
party led by Thomas Jefferson.
France being out of the way, the authorities in England
pursued an unfortunate plan of putting the colonies under
greater restrictions, a policy which eventually undermined the
affections of a people who loved to call themselves "His
Majesty's most ancient and loyal colony of Virginia." These
interferences, exasperating enough to be sure, proceeded
along many lines, but the most important were: First, Restricting
the Western Boundary; second, Regulating the currency,
and third, Imposing taxes by a vote of Parliament.
We shall first consider the question of the western boundary,
and observe how it affected the question of independence.
A proclamation of the King in 1763 forbade any trading
with the Indians or the issuance of any further grants for lands
beyond the ridge of the Alleghanies. This was a sore matter,
for Virginia from the earliest times had been accustomed to
look upon her boundary as extending indefinitely backward.
The charters of 1609 and 1612 had given her the territory from
sea to sea, and, though in 1624 the charter had been abrogated,
this had been understood to affect the government only and
not the political existence of the colony within the original
bounds, which remained intact, subject in its vacant lands
to the eminent domain of the King. These bounds were supposed
originally to have a front of two hundred miles on the
Atlantic and to embrace all the land between a line drawn due
from its northern frontal end, and, out of this Virginia
territory, though very much against the wishes of the people,
Maryland and North Carolina had been carved.
Under this view the discovery of the West had been promoted
by the Virginia governors from the earliest days. Sir
William Berkeley had sent out various expeditions, and Spotswood
in surmounting the Blue Ridge looked, as he wrote to the
Board of Trade in 1710, to pushing occupation to the Ohio
River and thus cutting in two the line of communication proposed
by the French between Canada and their settlements on
the Mississippi. Later, in 1749, when the Ohio Company
obtained from the King a grant to 500,000 acres of land to be
surveyed on both sides of the Ohio, the authorities in England
in explicit terms recognized the jurisdiction of Virginia by
authorizing Sir William Gooch to issue his patent to said
company for 200,000 acres "within the dominion of Virginia."
This started a great boom for western land and the same year,
(1749) leave was given by the governor and council at Williamsburg
to Dr. Thomas Walker, John Lewis and others,
otherwise the Loyal Company, to survey 800,000 acres beyond
the Alleghanies in Southwest Virginia. In 1751, one hundred
thousand acres of land on the Greenbrier River, northwest and
west of the Cowpasture, were granted to the Greenbrier Company.
On the lands of these two grants, which stretched from
the Greenbrier to the Holston, hundreds of families had seated
themselves before the proclamation of 1763. The next evidence
of the territorial aspirations of Virginia is afforded by
the proclamation of Dinwiddie, issued February 27, 1754,
promising 200,000 acres of land "on the east side of the river
Ohio, within this Dominion," as an encouragement to such
soldiers as would enlist to build and support a fort on the
Ohio to resist the encroachment of the French. The legislature
took a hand and made their wishes known by an act passed
in 1752, for the encouragement of settlers on the waters of the
of Augusta County."
The stoppage of this westward movement naturally created
much uneasiness and discontent with not only those persons
who had already settled beyond the Alleghanies, but those who
had the rights of Virginia in mind and were stimulated by a
vision of her future greatness. But Washington took the view,
which was doubtless the view of most thinking men in Virginia,
at the time, that the King's injunction was only a temporary
one, intended to prevent clashes with the Indians until
a permanent treaty ceding the lands could be had without
blood shed. In view of her history, Virginia could not very
well dispute the technical right of the King to bestow vacant
lands back of the mountains, and even to confer an independent
jurisdiction, but this is far from saying that her citizens
ever professed any willingness to be thus delimited. As a
matter of fact, the Virginians looked upon the territory back
of the mountains as a natural right, whatever the technical
construction might be. At any rate, the right of the eminent
domain in that country registered in the king had in their
opinion passed away with the settlement of so many persons
under encouragement from both the English and Virginia
authorities.
Indeed, for some years after 1763, no serious attempt was
made by anybody to set up a government across the mountains
independent of the sovereignty of Virginia, and in the
settlement of the Indian claims the consent of Virginia was
always recognized as necessary by the government in England.
In 1768 Dr. Thomas Walker, appointed by Lord Botetourt,
was present as the representative of Virginia at Fort
Stanwix, when the Iroquois Indians were induced to surrender
to the crown of England all the lands west of the Alleghanies
as far south as the mouth of the Tennessee River.
When John Stuart, appointed by the English government as
superintendent of Indian affairs for the Southern District
of America, in a treaty the same year at Hard Labor, South
![illustration](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:252930/full/!1600,1600/0/default.jpg")
Baron Botetourt
the absence of any representative of the Virginia government,
Governor Botetourt promptly protested and Dr. Walker and
Andrew Lewis were sent by him to confer with Stuart in regard
to a new line with the Cherokees. The Treaty of Hard
Labor declared that the Western boundary of Virginia should
begin at the end of the boundary line between North Carolina
and Virginia, run thence to Col. Cheswell's mine on the Eastern
bank of the great Kanawha River, and thence in a straight
line to the confluence of said river and the River Ohio.
Stuart made no objections to the propositions of Virginia,
provided the change was not too extensive, and in his
answer to Botetourt, assured the governor that he would
"resume negotiations for a new line when his Majesty shall
be pleased to signify his pleasure." Botetourt evidently expected
this reply, for on the same day that he gave Walker
and Lewis their instructions, he wrote to Lord Hillsborough
of the necessity of this change. Since Stuart agreed in this
necessity, the Board of Trade in their report on the boundary,
dated April 20, 1769, made favorable comment on the subject,
but recommended that the expense of any new purchase should
be borne by the Colony of Virginia.
The House of Burgesses in December, 1769, addressed a
memorial to Governor Botetourt, urging that "a line beginning
at the Western termination of the North Carolina line,
and running thence in a due west direction to the Ohio river"
(meaning the Mississippi), was the proper and desirable
boundary. The Burgesses dwelt upon the great difficulty of
marking and protecting a line through a mountainous region
and complained bitterly of the fact that a great part of that
"most valuable country" lying below the mouth of the Kanawha
lately ceded by the Iroquois at Fort Stanwix, and within
which area lands had already been legally patented, would be
separated and divided from the British Territory.[3]
To this memorial Stuart made an elaborate answer in
the westward would arouse the hostility of every tribe and
cause another Indian war. His opinion in the end prevailed,
for the most part, and the House determined on June 15, 1770,
to enter upon a treaty with the Cherokees "for the lands
lying within a line to be run from a place where the North
Carolina line terminates in a due west direction until it intersects
Holston River and from thence to the mouth of the
Great Kanawha." For this concession Virginia agreed to
pay two thousand five hundred pounds, and the money was
raised by an issue of currency notes. The House of Burgesses,
as their reason for renouncing the western boundary proposed
in their memorial, and for accepting this, named the
danger to the frontier people of delaying any longer to settle
a line of some sort.
It may be, however, that the news from London of the
activity of certain individuals, known as the Walpole Company,
to establish an independent colony on the back of the
Alleghanies was of deciding influence upon their minds.
Hillsborough, the Colonial Secretary, approved, and at
Lochaber, Stuart made a treaty with the Cherokees in October,
1770, in which it was finally agreed that the line should follow
the course accepted by the Virginia Assembly. But when, in
the latter part of 1771, Col. John Donelson, representing Virginia,
proceeded to run the line, he broke it off, with the consent
of the Indian chiefs, who accompanied him, at the head
of the Louisa River, a branch of the West Fork of the Big
Sandy River.
Curious to say, however, when the line came to be marked
out by Col. Donelson and was represented on a map prepared
by Stuart himself, the Louisa River was identified with the
Kentucky River, thus greatly enlarging the territory conceded
to Virginia.
This act of Stuart, whether due to a mistake or to the influence
of financial interests, met a favorable reception in
London. Lord Dartmouth, who succeeded Lord Hillsborough
which was interested in the region of western Virginia. He
had, therefore, no objections to the proposed line, and of
course Virginians, who regarded it at best as a temporary
expedient, had none.[4]
The history of the Walpole Company is interesting. It
comprised such men as Thomas Walpole, Horace Walpole,
Samuel Wharton and Benjamin Franklin. They petitioned
the Lords of the Treasury for a grant of 20,000,000 acres within
the confines of Virginia, and proposed to set up an independent
government within the same. Montague, the agent of the
Colony, informed the Virginia Committee of Correspondence
regarding the petition, in a letter dated January 18, 1770,
and warned them of "the very great and opulent persons"
concerned in this affair. He entered a caveat at the Board of
Trade, "to whom," he said, "it will, of course, be referred for
consideration."
It would be too tedious to give all the details about the
matter. The project was not only opposed by the Virginia
Assembly but by Hillsborough, the Secretary of State for the
Colony, and the Board of Trade itself. October 5, 1770, Washington
wrote to Lord Botetourt that "the bounds of the proposed
colony would comprehend at least four-fifths of the land,
for which Virginia had paid two thousand five hundred pounds
sterling" and "would prove a fatal blow to the interests of
this country." To a personal and more interested purpose
he pressed the claims of himself and the other soldiers, to
whom had been promised 200,000 acres of land by Governor
Dinwiddie for participation in the French and Indian War.
Lord Botetourt died not long after this and William Nelson,
the President of the Council, in a letter dated October 18,
1770, put forth practically the same arguments against the
grant as Washington had done; though he did not dispute
the technical right of the Crown to form a new colony, or the
idea that "when that part of the country (meaning the back
wise and prudent measure."[5] There can be no doubt, however,
that the people of Virginia as a whole were vastly opposed
to the scheme.
William Nelson's administration lasted till the fall of
1771, when Lord Dunmore arrived in Virginia as governor,
and he already had formed a decided opinion against the Walpole
Company. He had been in the Colony but a few months
when he joined with Doctor Walker and Colonel Lewis in an
attempt to acquire the land added by the surveying party to
that which was first understood to have been purchased from
the Cherokees at the treaty of Lochaber. In spite of every
opposition the Walpole Company, on August 14, 1772, obtained
an order from the Privy Council favoring the proposed
grant, and the whole subject was thereupon referred again
to the Lords of Trade in order that the form of constitution
and other matters preliminary to the establishment of the new
colony might be considered and reported upon. This was not
done till April, 1773, when the draft of a representation to His
Majesty, containing propositions respecting the establishment
of the said government and the grant of land proposed to be
made, was reported and finally signed May 6th.
In this draft certain important concessions were made to
placate Virginia as to the loss of her territory. All land grants
which had been legally made within the ceded area of the Walpole
Company were confirmed by the Company. George
Mercer, agent for the old Ohio Company, whose ancient grant
was swallowed up in this wholesale proposition, was conciliated
by a promise of the governorship of the new colony
and by an allowance of two shares to his company. But this
was only the action of an agent without authority, and
at the first meeting of the Ohio Company afterwards, the
agreement made by Mercer was repudiated. George Mason,
who was a member of the Ohio Company, wrote an able paper
Virginia.[6]
That the scheme failed at any time to secure any great support
in Virginia is shown by a petition of the settlers living
on the frontiers in Augusta, Botetourt and Fincastle Counties,
protesting against their annexation to the Colony of Vandalia,
as this proposed province was called.
Lord Dunmore, whatever his motive, continued loyal on this
question to the interests of the colony of which he was governor.
In sending the petition of the frontiersmen to England,
April 2, 1774, he urged the rights of Virginia, and pointed
out the great need of some form of government to the back
country. Later in a letter to Dartmouth, dated December 24,
1774, he argued strongly that the confirmation of the treaty
of Lochaber had authorized the extension of the Virginia
boundary.
But Dunmore went still further in his effort to neutralize
the proposed charter, which still lacked the final touches to
make it operative. The prohibition against making any grants
of lands west of the Alleghanies by the proclamation of 1763
remained unrepealed, but Dunmore ignored it. The Walpole
Company had agreed to protect all legal promises of land
made before 1770, and had specially provided for the promise
to the officers and soldiers made in 1754 by Dinwiddie. Their
intention was to take out for them 200,000 acres in some unbroken
tract, but Dunmore, under the sagacious tutoring of
Washington, permitted the total to be divided into twenty
different localities, and surveyors were sent in every direction
to select the "best sites" without regard to neighborhood.
This garbling of land was quite contrary to the plans of the
promoters of Vandalia, as the proposed new province was
called, and they raised much complaint.[7]
Dunmore also extended the rewards made to the British
troops under the proclamation of 1763 to the provincial troops
15, 1774, these troops were authorized to locate their lands
whenever they should desire; and every officer was allowed a
distinct survey for every thousand acres.
The result was that the year 1773 was an active one for
both speculators and settlers in the back country. Their
operations extended far down into the Ohio Valley. It was in
1773 that Harrodsburg was founded and that the town of
Louisville was laid out by Dr. John Connolly, the western
agent of Lord Dunmore.
Lord Dartmouth severely rebuked Lord Dunmore, and forbade
him to continue his course, but Lord Dunmore answered
the complaints and censure with the assertion that he did not
suppose the proclamation of 1763 was any longer in force and
that, never having received any official notice of the lands of
the proposed colony of Vandalia, he supposed the treaty of
Lochaber had opened for settlement the western territory as
far as the Ohio.
In the meantime, on October 28, 1773, the attorney general
of England and the solicitor general were requested by the
Privy Council to prepare the grant of land to the Walpole
Company, but the excitement over the tea in Boston harbor
occasioned a new delay. Samuel Wharton, the leading and
most active member, prepared another memorial on the subject,
and a committee of the Privy Council recommended on
August 12, 1774, that the King comply with the petition. But
with the first Continental Congress, which met on September
5th, all real authority over Virginia passed away from England.
In the spring of 1775, the draft of the royal grant to
the Walpole Company was actually prepared, but the president
of the Privy Council requested Walpole and his associates
to wait until hostilities which had then begun between
Great Britain and her colonies, should cease. By the Revolution
the eminent domain possessed by the King in vacant
lands devolved upon the Commonwealth, and the Sovereignty
of Virginia under the charter of 1609 extended to all the western
away by previous charters.
Not content with antagonizing the policy of the English
with regard to the Walpole Company, Dunmore prepared himself
to contend for territory north and west of Vandalia. The
Pennsylvania western line was currently supposed by Virginians
to run much more easterly than the subsequent survey
proved to be the case. It was believed by Dunmore that when
the line should be run, the forks of the Ohio would fall several
miles to the west. Accordingly, upon the petition of the inhabitants,
Dunmore sent his agent, Connolly, to take possession
of the territory where Fort Duquesne once stood.
Connolly occupied the Fort, then called Fort Pitt, which had
been abandoned by the British troops, and rechristened it Fort
Dunmore. The consequence of this action was that Pennsylvania
officials showed their resentment and arrested Connolly
and threw him in jail, which brought a protest from the Virginia
Legislature and a recommendation to the Governor to
make overtures to Pennsylvania for the fixing of a temporary
line, until the true boundary should be ascertained. Connolly
was soon released.
Following this there broke out an Indian War, which still
further complicated the situation. The Shawnees, the best
fighting Indians on the continent, had formerly inhabited the
valley of the Cumberland River and looked upon the present
territory of Kentucky as their own, though they had been
living for many years north of the Ohio in subordination to
the Six Nations. They were, therefore, not satisfied with the
treaty of Fort Stanwix, and began intrigues with the western
Indians. But they did not succeed to any great extent in
forming a confederacy, the Mingos being their chief reliance.
Murders occurred from time to time. Near the end of 1773
Daniel Boone went with a party of five families to make a settlement
in Kentucky. At Powell's Valley, on or near the tenth
of October, as they approached the Cumberland Gap, the
young men who had charge of the pack horses and cattle in
son, and all of the rest but one, were killed on the spot. The
survivors of the party were forced to turn back to the settlement
on the Clinch River. When the Cherokees were summoned
from Virginia to give up the offenders, they shifted the
accusation from one tribe to another, and the application for
redress had no effect. Later a white man killed an Indian at
a horse-race on the frontier, notwithstanding the company in
which he was tried to restrain him. This was the first Indian
blood shed by a white man since Bouquet's treaty in 1764.
Other conflicts ensued, but yet no Indian war. It became
known to Connolly that messages were passing between the
tribes of the Ohio, the western Indians and the Cherokees, and
on the 21st of April, 1774, John Connolly sent an open letter
to his agents on the Ohio to be on the alert.
Some frontiersmen understood this as a declaration of
war, though Connolly may not have so intended it. At any
rate it was followed by the murder of several Indian parties
in cold blood, among them being some relatives of Logan, a
Cayuga chief, by one Greathouse and his drunken companions.
The Shawnees and their allies, the Mingos, Cayugas and
Iowas flew to arms. The settlers threw themselves in their
stockade forts or fled to the east for safety. The war was seen
as an "Opportunity" by both Dunmore and the Virginians.
Dunmore ordered the county lieutenants of the western counties
to call out the militia and two armies were to be led in the
region of the old northwest to contend there for the rights of
the Old Dominion, despite the proclamation of 1763 and an act
of Parliament called the Quebec Act, which added the country
west of Pennsylvania to Quebec.
General Andrew Lewis was to command one of the armies
and Dunmore the other, both together, according to Dunmore,
consisting of 3,000 men.
Early in September the troops under command of General
Lewis rendezvoused at Lewisburg, in the County of Greenbrier.
They consisted of two regiments under Colonel William
Augusta. At Camp Union, as Lewisburg was then called, they
were joined by a company under Colonel John Field, of Culpeper;
one from Bedford, under Colonel Thomas Buford, and
two from the Holston settlement (Washington County), under
Captains Shelby and Haubert. On the 11th of September,
General Lewis, with eleven hundred men, commenced his
march through the wildernesses, piloted by Captain Matthew
Arbuckle. On the 30th of September, after a march of 160
miles, they reached Point Pleasant, at the juncture of the
Kanawha and Ohio, appointed for the meeting place with
Lord Dunmore and his northern army enlisted from Frederick,
Dunmore and adjoining counties.
Not finding him there, Lewis dispatched some men to Fort
Pitt in quest of his Lordship but before their return the affair
had come to blows. The Indians, headed by Cornstalk, their
chief, crossed the Ohio on the evening of the ninth of October,
and began the battle on the next morning. Had it not been for
two hunters, who set out very early in the morning from
Lewis' camp and discovered the Indians, they might have
surprised and destroyed Lewis and his army, who had no suspicion
that the enemy were so near. The fight was obstinately
contested, and lasted the whole day. Finally the savages gave
way and at night retreated across the river. Colonel Charles
Lewis, and Colonel Field, who had served with Braddock, and
Captains Buford, Morrow, Murray, Ward, Cundiff, Nelson
and McClenachan, and lieutenants Allen, Goldsby and Dillon
were killed and Colonel Fleming was severely wounded.
The total loss of the Virginians in this action has been
variously estimated at from forty to seventy-five men killed
and one hundred and forty wounded. Some censure was attached
to General Lewis for remaining with the reserves to
defend the camp, and not leading the attack. It is claimed
that this conduct prevented his promotion by Congress during
the Revolutionary War. The loss of the savages was never
fully ascertained but the bodies of thirty-three slain were
into the Ohio during the engagement. Cornstalk displayed
great skill and courage at Point Pleasant, and during the day,
amid the din of arms, his sonorous voice could be heard
exclaiming in his native tongue: "Be strong, be strong."
In the meantime, Lord Dunmore with the Northern Army
of a thousand men, instead of proceeding to the mouth of the
Kanawha to effect a junction with Lewis, crossed the Ohio and
marched upon the Indian settlements. Near Chillicothe, a
Shawnee town on the banks of the Scioto, he made a fort and
called it Camp Charlotte after the Queen of England. On the
march hither he sent a runner to Lewis to join him at Chillicothe.
Soon after the Indians sued him for peace, and thereupon
he sent another runner with orders for Lewis to stop his
march.
Lewis, after the defeat of the Indians, erected a small fort
at Point Pleasant and, leaving a small garrison to hold it,
crossed the Ohio, and, disregarding the Governor's second
order, which met him on the way, advanced within three miles
of Dunmore's camp, eager to deal another blow to the savages.
Dunmore, accompanied by an Indian chief, came to Lewis'
camp and reproved him for disobedience to orders, and
ordered him and his troops back home. And having appointed
a day in the next spring for a meeting of all the Ohio Indians,
Dunmore himself returned to Williamsburg. All sorts of
charges were afterwards brought against Dunmore in connection
with this affair, but he can scarcely be blamed for preferring
a peaceful solution to the war, to one achieved in
blood, as Lewis desired.
The significance of the battle of Kanawha was great. It
can hardly be considered the opening battle of the American
Revolution, as it is sometimes, for Dunmore's land policy
and Indian war were both against the express policy and
orders of the English government. In the next year, his confidential
agent, Connolly, was arrested on his way to the
Ohio, and beneath his saddle were discovered papers which
Virginians, but conditions had at that time changed, and the
colony was in open rebellion against the English authority.
Lord Dunmore had an interest, it is true, in the Wabash Company,
formed in 1774 to settle the region north of the Ohio, but
certainly a sufficient explanation of the war lies in the long
friction existing between the Indians and Americans on the
Border. It is difficult to believe that Lord Dunmore, however
regarded, would have plunged the country into war in the
interests of land speculations, as is sometimes alleged.
Logan, the Cayuga chief, who had gratified his spirit of
revenge in a series of horrible butcheries and outrages, assented
to the peace, but he refused to attend with other chiefs
at Camp Charlotte, and sent his speech in a wampum belt by
an interpreter, which Mr. Jefferson immortalized by publishing
in his "Notes on Virginia."
But the effects of the war were epochal. By the victory
of the Great Kanawha, the settlers who poured into Kentucky
and Tennessee were effectually relieved from all immediate
peril from the Indians of the Northwest. It almost amounted
to the winning of the West, for had it not been possible to
occupy this region during the early years of the Revolutionary
War, it is not improbable that the treaty of 1783 might have
fixed the western boundary of the United States at the Alleghanies
instead of the Mississippi.
Ever since 1750, when Dr. Thomas Walker visited Kentucky
in the interest of the Loyal Company, the valleys of
Tennessee and Kentucky had been visited by traders and
hunters. In 1769 Captain William Bean, from Pittsylvania
County, built the first cabin on the Watauga, a source of the
Tennessee River. He was soon followed by many other early
adventurers, and in 1770 James Robertson, born in Brunswick
County, Virginia, spent sometime in the Watauga region.
Others came and settled in that country, and at first it was
supposed that Watauga was in Virginia. The settlers in that
region formed an association, known as the "Watauga Association,"
which was virtually an independent colony, but in
North Carolina. While it lasted, the most daring spirit in this
little state was John Sevier, born in Augusta County, Virginia.
The era of settlement in Kentucky began in 1769, when
Daniel Boone, with five other backwoodsmen, left his family
on the Yadkin river in North Carolina to make explorations
for a settlement in Kentucky. Boone returned to the Yadkin
in 1771, and in 1773 he visited again this region. An attack
was made upon him and his party by the Shawnees, from
which attack, as already stated, he lost his son. He returned
with his family to the Clinch River, where he remained for
sometime. After having served in conveying a party of surveyors
to the Falls of the Ohio, he settled himself in 1775
at Boonesborough, near the Kentucky River. Other parties
visited Kentucky, the McAfees from Botetourt County, Virginia,
and George Rogers Clark, from Albemarle. Most
significant, was the coming in 1774 of James Harrod, with a
large party from the Monongahela, who laid out the town of
Harrodsburg, and soon after Boonesborough, St. Asaphs and
Boiling Spring were begun and fortified by forts. Next
came the Transylvania Company, whose leading spirit was
Judge Richard Henderson, born in Hanover County, Virginia,
at that time a leading citizen of North Carolina, who claimed
all of Kentucky by purchase from the Cherokees, and called it
Transylvania.[8]
The Henderson Company advertised the sale of lands
and organized government over the settlement, but this was
denounced by Lord Dunmore in his proclamation dated March
31, 1774, as an invasion of the rights of Virginia. Thereupon
George Rogers Clark determined to contest Henderson's
claims and planned a meeting of the people, which he called at
Harrodsburg June 6, 1776, to have agents appointed, who
should treat with the Virginia Assembly for concessions and
advocate the establishment of an independent state in case
they should fail to secure it. When Clark reached Harrodsburg
on the day appointed, he found that a meeting had already
to attend at Williamsburg and present a petition asking for
recognition as a separate county.
He set out for Williamsburg and learned before he got
there that the Legislature had adjourned. He pushed on and
after an interview with Governor Patrick Henry, presented
his petition to the Council, at the same time asking for 500
pounds of powder, then sorely needed for the defense of
Kentucky.
The Council offered to make a loan of the ammunition provided
Clark would himself become responsible, but this offer
he promptly rejected, saying, "if the country is not worth
protecting, it is not worth claiming." Fearful lest Clark
should seek protection from their neighbors, the French, the
Council finally acquiesced, and at the December session the
new county of Kentucky was established.
The adoption of a constitution by Virginia as an independent
state on June 29, 1776, transferred to the Commonwealth
the rights of the Crown, and a clause in this paper expressly
declared "that no purchase of lands should be made
of the Indian natives but in behalf of the public by authority of
the General Assembly." This was only a reaffirmation of a
policy repeatedly declared by Virginia respecting lands derived
from the Indians, as expressed in legislative action
reaching far back into Colonial times.
The pretensions of Henderson and his company were accordingly
suppressed, as were also those of the Indiana Company,
formed of traders who had obtained from the same
Indians, after the peace of 1763, as a compensation for injuries
inflicted on them, a cession of a tract of land on the Ohio south
of the Province of Pennsylvania. This difference was made
in the two cases. The Henderson Company having really performed
an important part in populating the country and establishing
a barrier against the Indians, were compensated by the
Legislature at its session, in October, 1778, by an assignment
of 200,000 acres on the Ohio and Green rivers.
When, however, Congress showed some disposition to
the Virginia Legislature, at its fall session in 1779, in a firm
but temperately worded paper protested that the "United
States hold no teritory but in right of some one individual
state in the Union," and the contrary assumption "would be
a violation of public faith, introduce a most dangerous precedent
which might hereafter be urged to deprive of territory
or subvert the sovereignty and government of any one or more
of the United States, and establish in congress a power which
in process of time must degenerate into an intolerable despotism."[9]
Thus Virginia, at the very threshold of our history, denied
this pretension of sovereignty in Congress, and firmly planted
herself on the doctrine of pure state sovereignty. Indeed none
of the other states took any other ground than this, and the
idea of the Union as a nation from the beginning was a growth
of subsequent development, which reached its acme of absurdity
in the messages of Lincoln eighty-two years later, when he
pretended to appeal to history to prove that a state had no
more dignity than a county.
In the clash of interests between the Colony of Virginia
and the Mother Country, manifested in the Western Expansion,
the contradictions in the aspirations of both were plainly
visible, and no doubt contributed to the final separation.
Alvord, to whose researches I am greatly indebted in writing
this chapter, states[10]
that while born in Massachusetts, where
the Boston Massacre and the famous Tea Party were the all
important events, he is constrained to say that "whenever the
British ministers soberly and seriously discussed the American
problem, the vital phase to them was not the disturbances
of the maddening crowd of Boston and New York, but the
development of that vast transmontane region that was acquired
in 1763 by the treaty of Paris. In this development
the Virginians, as was usually the case, took the lead,[11]
but not
always in the way desired by the authorities in England.
CHAPTER II
THE CURRENCY QUESTION AND PARLIAMENTARY
TAXATION
The second of the important grievances resulting from the
new policy of interference by the British ministry involved
the currency question. Until the French and Indian War, Virginia
had shunned the use of paper money, which was so generally
resorted to in the other colonies. But with the war came
bounties for troops and vast demands for supplies which could
not be met except by anticipating the receipts in the treasury.
The Assembly borrowed £10,000 and tried to borrow more,
and offered as much as six per cent interest, but found no
lenders, and it was not till this resource had failed that they
went into the policy of issuing paper money, so long eschewed.
In order to establish their credit, the notes were made a legal
tender, and ample funds were provided to redeem them at the
moment of their maturity. In the case of sterling debts to
British merchants it was provided, in the absence of British
coin, which had been drawn by the armies to the north, that
payment might be made in either foreign coin or treasury
notes at such rates of exchange as could be agreed upon, which
during the war was usually 25 per cent. In case of disagreement
between the parties, the courts here were to settle the
rates of exchange.[12]
It happened in 1763 that the rates of exchange between the
two countries rose much above 25 per cent, and the merchants
of London imputed this to the paper currency. There was this
much color for it, that not so much paper had been annually
the taxes received by them. Though this meant only a delay,
as the colony was amply protected on the sheriffs' bonds, the
merchants who wanted their sterling debts paid in British coin
put the whole blame upon the paper money before the Board
of Trade in England, going so far as to impute dishonest
motives to the Assembly in issuing these notes. The Board
was sympathetic and adopted resolutions censuring the Virginia
legislature and demanding that further securities be
taken in support of the notes. Upon Governor Fauquier communicating
this to the Assembly, deep resentment was felt,
and they declined to make any alteration in the laws except
to repeal the insolvent law of the year before which they
thought might lead to abuses not realized at the time of its
enactment. To Governor Fauquier, the House replied in a
long document on May 28, 1763, in which all the complaints of
the merchants, supported by a paper from some members of
the Council, were taken up and answered. They expressed it
as their opinion that the fund to redeem the notes was fully
adequate and declared that to exempt the merchants from the
operation of the statute would be to treat very unfairly the
note owners who depended upon it.
Especially interesting in view of subsequent events was
the manner in which they opened their defence. After declaring
that these complaints and the resolutions of the Board of
Trade had placed them under the necessity of vindicating
"the integrity and uprightness" of their proceedings, they
spoke as follows:[13]
"Our Dependence upon Great Britain we acknowledge and
glory in as our greatest Happiness and only Security; but
this is not the Dependence of a People subjugated by the Arms
of a Conqueror, but of Sons sent out to explore and settle a
new World, for the mutual Benefit of themselves and their
common Parent: It is the Dependence of a Part upon one
great Whole, which, by its admirable Constitution, diffuses a
from the Mother Kingdom, zealous to promote its Majesty
and the public Good.
By such a Spirit and by such Principles, Sir, hath our
Conduct ever been influenced; and we hope we may, without
Arrogance, take this Character to ourselves, since our late
and present Sovereigns have been pleased frequently to bestow
it upon us for the Part we took in the late War, when we
did, as far as we were able, contribute to the Success of the
British Arms."
Fauquier expressed his disappointment to the Assembly,
but said that the statement of the Treasury, which was submitted
with the address, did amply prove that the notes were
secure.
The complaint of the Merchants were again urged upon
the Legislature at the October session, 1764,[14]
and met with a
like reception from the obstinate Virginia Burgesses. Failing
in their remedy in Virginia, the merchants appealed to Parliament,
who compromised by passing an act forbidding the Virginia
Legislature in the interest of trade to make any future
issues of paper money a legal tender. Doubtless there was
wisdom in the law, and the Virginians submitted to it as a
trade regulation, but the interference was not liked.
Although foreign intervention ended with the Act of Parliament,
it may not be out of place here to follow the events
connected with the treasury down to the Revolution. A scandal
which had a great place in its day developed in connection with
Robinson's management of the Treasury. Reference to the
statutes of Virginia shows that John Robinson was appointed
Treasurer of the Colony in November, 1738. He held that
office in conjunction with that of Speaker of the House of
Burgesses till his death May 11, 1766. A representative of a
family distinguished in England and Virginia, he was during
his lifetime the most influential man in the Colony, and as
presiding officer of the House of Burgesses he was compared
speaker of the House of Commons.[15] After the French and
Indian War many of the gentry were hard pressed for money,
and to accommodate individuals Mr. Robinson, as treasurer,
loaned them a large part of the notes which had been returned
for redemption and should have been burned by him. In doing
this, he was careful to take the bonds of the gentlemen so
favored with proper security. The conduct of Robinson was a
breach of trust, but it was not an act for which the law provided
a punishment. His action could not be wholly concealed,
and there were some whispers that all was not right, and on
motion of Richard Henry Lee, an investigation was ordered
by the House of Burgesses. This was a bold step, for obviously
there was no one in the Colony at all desirous to defy the
authority of so influential a man as Robinson. Then Robinson,
as speaker, composed the committee of the chief supporters of
the motion, and on May 29, 1765, Archibald Cary reported
that they had examined the Treasurer's accounts and found
them truly stated, and that there remained in the hands of the
treasurer a balance of £10,068.3.9.[16]
But the probe had not gone far enough. The investigating
committee had supposed that the treasury notes returned to
the treasury had been all destroyed, which was not the case,
and it was not until after the death of Robinson that the real
state of the treasury was disclosed.
Among those who continued to hold unfavorable opinions
of the treasury's condition despite the report of May 29, 1765,
was Robert Carter Nicholas, a prominent lawyer, and member
of the House of Burgesses. We are told that after Robinson's
death, hearing that Governor Fauquier proposed to
make the clerk of Robinson, James Cocke, temporary treasurer
until the end of the next session, and believing that Cocke
had been too closely associated with Robinson, Nicholas waited
upon Fauquier, and offered his own services. Fauquier
act as Treasurer till the House could elect a permanent one.
Shortly after his temporary appointment, Nicholas discovered
in the treasury the bonds taken by Robinson as security
for the notes given his friends. He promptly exposed
the matter in the Virginia Gazette and declared himself in
favor of a separation of the offices of speaker and treasurer.
There were some retorts in the newspapers from friends of
Mr. Robinson, who resented what they chose to call an attack
upon his character. But when the House met in November,
1766, it sustained Nicholas by passing two bills, one electing
Nicholas to succeed himself at the end of the session, and the
other separating, as he advocated, the offices of speaker and
treasurer. At the next session, on April 9, 1767, Mr. Bland,
as chairman of a committee, announced[17]
the defalcation of
Speaker Robinson as amounting to £102,019.5.7.
There is reason to believe that Robinson's use of the public
money for private purposes was general throughout his administration,
but the evidence is also conclusive that he confided
in his own large means and the securities he took to
protect the public. In the present case it is believed the
Colony eventually suffered no harm. The charge that in 1765
the project of a loan office was devised by Robinson and his
friends in the Legislature to cover up his irregularities, appears
to have been an after thought of Mr. Jefferson, and is
not mentioned in the Virginia Gazette or in any other contemporary
literature.
The proposition of a loan office appears to have been rather
a counterstroke to the merchants of London, who were given
the opportunity of lending[18]
the colony £240,000, of which
£100,000 was to be used to retire all the outstanding paper
money which they condemned so much, and £140,000 to be
deposited as a stock to support an issue of bank notes to be
time.
In regard to this project Patrick Henry doubtless opposed
it, as Mr. Jefferson says, but instead of being defeated in the
House, as he also states, the Journal of the House shows that
it passed that body and failed through the negative of the
Council.
After the death of Robinson, when his defalcation was well
known, the scheme of a loan office, or public bank, was suggested
by Richard Bland to Richard Henry Lee, who had
moved the enquiry in 1765, and in 1767 a measure involving
the features of the plan proposed in the House before Robinson's
death, was again moved and met exactly the same fate.
The House approved it and the Council rejected it.[19]
The high
character of Bland negatives the assumption that there were
any improper motives, and the measure itself had nothing
necessarily criminal about it. As well might fraud be connected
with the present Farmers' Loan Bank Act, which has
proved very beneficial to a large section of the people in the
United States.
From this time to the breaking out of hostilities with the
Mother Country, Virginia made three new issues of paper
money, all amply protected by proper taxes. One issue was in
1769 for £10,000, to cover £2,500 needed for running a new
boundary line with the Cherokees, and the balance to provide
for the issuance of copper pennies, and other contingent demands.
Another was in 1771 for £30,000 to reimburse the
merchants and others by reason of their losses on the different
Virginia rivers by a great freshet which swelled them to an
unusual extent. And a third was in 1773 for £36,834 to take
the place of all the notes then outstanding in view of a dangerous
counterfeit which had been discovered. Their issuance
conformed to the act of Parliament and the notes were not
made legal tender.
While discredit attached in so many of the colonies before
money, which defrauded creditors of their just dues, nothing
but praise can be given to those Virginia legislators who took
so much precaution to keep our notes at par. They grew in
credit, and under the management of the high-minded Robert
Carter Nicholas, the notes on account of their easier handling,
became shortly preferred to gold and silver. The merchants
changed ground and became the leaders in urging new issues,
and many of them brought gold and silver to the public treasury
to be exchanged for these notes. This change is caustically
commented upon by Colonel Richard Bland in a letter[20] to
Thomas Adams, dated August 1, 1772.
Under the excellent management of Nicholas, when the
Revolution began, Virginia was out of debt, except for the expenses
incurred in Dunmore's Indian War. He resigned in
1777, affording the example of a public officer of strictest integrity,
whose accounts, though subjected to searching examinations,
were never found lacking in a singular particular.
Closely connected with the question of Parliamentary interference
with the currency, was Parliamentary taxation.
Promptly after the peace of 1763, George Grenville, Chancellor
of the Exchequer, took up his scheme for raising a revenue in
America. On March 9, 1764, he read in the House of Commons
twenty-two resolutions setting forth certain duties to be laid
on molasses, sugar, silks, Madeira wines, and other things, to
go into effect at once, and a stamp tax on writings to be effective
a year later. The resolves to this effect were agreed to
in committee on March 9, and the next day, March 10, formally
accepted by the House. April 5, a bill called the Sugar Bill,
although it contained many other details besides sugar, received
the royal approval and became a law. The agents in
London of the Colonies promptly advised their respective governments
in America and trouble soon began.
One noticeable thing about this agitation was that opposition
in the North was directed against the Sugar Bill. This was
which had been evaded in that region ever since its passage.
It was part of a Colonial system, which had for its object
making the colonies fruitful to the Mother Country. This
system had its beginning with the Navigation Act, passed in
1651, in Cromwell's time, and which was reinforced by other
acts passed in 1660, 1663, 1670, and other years, whose object
was to confine the trade of the colonies to British shippers and
British ports. Other acts intended to discourage the inter-colonial
trade and the exportation of American manufactures
were made a part of the same system.
New England, which one would have expected this policy
to have affected most, came off very easy as a matter of fact.
Salt, which Virginia had to get direct from England, New
England, because of the fisheries, was permitted to get in any
part of the world. Her shipping, which was extensive, shared
with the English in the carrying trade, and she received extensive
bounties upon her fisheries, masts, oil, ashes, furs and
other produce. New England drew a profitable trade with the
French and Spanish West Indies, from which she exported
sugar and molasses to make vast quantities of rum employed
in the fisheries and the slave trade.
The act of 1733 generally known as the Molasses Act, was
designed to operate in the interest of the British West Indies,
but its provisions were evaded and the enforcement of the act
was very lax. Indeed, the French and Indian War did not put
a stop to this illicit commerce. It went on as badly as ever,—
a conduct on the part of the merchants of New England not
entirely patriotic, however we view it.
The real burden of the commercial system fell upon Virginia.
She had no great amount of shipping of her own to
share in the carrying trade, and such as she had paid respect
to the laws, and smuggling was not popular. Virginia was,
therefore, of prime importance to England, which derived a
great revenue from her.
Even in the beginning of the system this burden was felt
of the first Navigation Act, had done most of the carrying
trade, and many Dutchmen had made Virginia their home.
Virginians thought, therefore, the banishment of these Dutch
shippers by the navigation law a great hardship. They made
vigorous protests but the complaints fell on deaf ears. On the
contrary, the system was persisted in, and made even more
drastic. The impositions grew all the heavier. Thus, in 1768,
in a shipment by William & Mary College of thirteen hogsheads
of tobacco, which sold in England for £490 9s 5d, the net
amount remitted to the College was £81 17s, an average of
about £6 per hogshead, which was something better than the
usual average, which was £5. All the rest of the money went
to paying freight, taxes and other charges incident to the shipment
and sale.[21]
In spite of these handicaps, the planters of Virginia,
through the importation of vast numbers of negro slaves and
the demand for tobacco, got along very well, heaped up large
fortunes and grew measurably reconciled to the "colonial
system."
John Henry, in his "Concise Account"[22]
of the Colony
estimated the shipment of tobacco from Virginia in 1770 at
50,000 to 60,000 hogsheads, making the receipts of the planters
£250,000 to £300,000 from tobacco alone. But in addition to
this a considerable profit came to the Colony from other exports,—furs,
pitch, tar, turpentine, plank, corn, clapboards,
hogsheads and barrel staves, shingles, beef, pork, tallow, wax,
butter and live stock, such as hogs, geese and turkeys, much
of which was sent to the British West Indies in small sloops of
Virginia make or ownership.[23]
While Virginia was chiefly an agricultural Colony the
planters were appreciative of manufactures. In 1758 a society
was established to promote manufactures and about this time
a half dozen factories for making pig iron in other parts of the
Colony, and a factory at Providence Forge, New Kent, where
hoes and other useful implements were made. Great quantities
of cotton cloth were manufactured on the plantations, and
John Henry, in his "Concise Account," says it was computed
that 250,000 pounds, for one or more years, had been manufactured
annually. He adds that most of the men, as well as
women of the lower classes, wore this cotton cloth both winter
and summer. "In regard to the stocks of horses, cattle and
hogs, they are very considerable, especially the first, there being
a great number of the best English breeds now among us.
And as to plate and household furniture, this Colony exceeds
all the others upon the continent, so that upon the whole it is
much the richest as well as of the greatest importance to Great
Britain, and therefore well deserves its encouragement and
protection."
Virginia, indeed, was the jewel of the British Crown, for
from her alone was derived a revenue annually in tobacco of
£2,000,000—a sum greater than the entire revenue of the Federal
Government during the last year of the administration of
John Adams. And yet her loyalty was proverbial. She was
proud of having the same church as the Mother Country, proud
of being a crown colony, and proud of having her youth educated
at the English universities. She ever considered the
Colonial system of trade an unjust one, but it was one which
had divided public opinion as to its utility and had the endorsement
of the statesmen of other nations as well as Great
Britain. She was therefore disposed to put up with all its
inconveniences and the average Virginian had the habit of
considering himself a favored individual because of his British
loyalty, and looked down with contempt upon the unsociable
New Englanders, who differed from him in religion, tastes,
and thoughts. But this very character in the colonist rendered
him all the more tenacious of everything fundamental to English
rights. On this point, the very fact of his loyalty made
would he abrogate an Englishman's birthright and
accept the undisguised position of inequality with Englishmen
at home. The truth is that the planters on their estates, as
masters of slaves, regarded their own particular selves as the
freest people in the world, and this was the estimate placed
upon them by Edmund Burke.
With these well-known differences in trade of the colonies
the program of taxing America had an application in Virginia
different from that in New England. Opposition in the latter
section developed strongly against the Sugar Bill, and very
little notice was taken of the menacing Stamp Act. The new
Sugar Bill provided stringent means for its enforcement, and
by the stoppage of the illicit trade with the foreign West
Indies the New Englanders saw themselves threatened with
heavy financial loss. In their formal complaint they talked
indeed of taxation without representation, but this was merely
incidental to the business question, which received by far the
larger part of their attention.
The resolutions proposed by Samuel Adams at the Boston
Town Meeting, May 24, 1764, were a protest against the Sugar
Bill, not against the Stamp Act, as often stated. This is the
character of the memorial and instructions drafted by James
Otis and adopted by the Massachusetts House of Representatives
on June 13, and it is the character of the circular letter
sent out on June 25 in pursuance of them. There is only a
distant reference to the Stamp Act in any of these papers, and
the same character attaches to Otis' pamphlet published in
July, 1764, entitled "Rights of the British Colonists, Asserted
and Proved," and Oxenbridge Thacher's pamphlet entitled
"The Sentiments of a British American," published in
September, two months later. Nothing is said about the Stamp
Act in either of these pamphlets. It is likewise the character
of the formal address of the Massachusetts Assembly in
October, 1764, in which both the House and Council joined.
The supremacy of Parliament was admitted by both James
Otis wrote: "Let Parliament lay what duties they please, it
is our duty to submit and patiently to bear them till they will
be pleased to relieve us;" and in the petition of the Assembly
the exemption from taxation was put as an indulgence, the
joint address of the House and Council to the governor confessing
it to be their duty to submit to the Sugar Act, while it
continued.[24]
It was not until the early part of November, 1764, that the
first serious consideration of the Stamp Act in New England
appeared in a Rhode Island newspaper. Then it was only the
expression of an unknown individual and not of a spokesman
of the colony. It was succeeded by other writings of the same
kind, of which one by Stephen Hopkins, of Rhode Island, entitled
"The Rights of the Colonies In America," published
December 22, 1764, was the most effective, as it was reprinted
in several of the other colonies. Still the authorities and the
people in New England as a whole were singularly free from
grasping the appalling significance of the Stamp Act. The
center of objection in New England continued for a long
time to be the Sugar Tax, but this was not a measure
sufficiently general in its operation to unite the colonies at this
stage of the Revolution.
The Sugar Tax did not entail any great burden on the
Middle and Southern States, and if one careful New England
historian is to be believed, it was not sufficiently differentiated
from the old Molasses Act of 1733 to have brought even the
New England Colonies to the point of rebellion. Palfrey, the
New England historian, says[25]
that "it is by no means improbable
that after all their remonstrances and complaints,
they (the New Englanders) would have ended by reconciling
themselves to the new restrictions on commerce as they had
Sugar Act continued in existence after the Stamp Act had been
repealed. On the other hand "the Stamp Act," to quote Palfrey's
language "being simply the imposition of an internal
tax presented the question of right in a form cleared from
all subtlety and qualifications."
The Virginians, not being addicted to illicit trading, did not
greatly object to the reduced rates of taxes offered in the
Sugar Bill to the importers of sugar from the West Indies, a
trade in which, in their small sloops that sailed from Hampton,
Norfolk and the Eastern Shore, they shared to a considerable
extent. The thing that roused their opposition most was the
tax on Madeira wine, which was one of the features of the
Sugar Act. But as the majority of the people drank ales of
their own making and not wine, though the Colony's agent in
London, Edward Montague, received instructions on the subject
from the Committee on Correspondence, no one cared to
make an issue with England on this question.
The motives of Virginia were almost entirely political.
All duties, including the Sugar Tax, had a place in their objections,
not so much because they put a burden on their pocketbooks
as because they tended to raising a revenue from America,
which the old Molasses Bill did not profess to do. And so,
though they did not forget the Sugar Bill in their resolutions,
they turned their chief attention to the Stamp Act.
This was a measure wholly unprecedented and came to the
fireside of every man on the continent, since it proposed a
stamp on all wills, deeds, and every species of writing. Thus
by interfering with everyday concerns of the people, it afforded
a basis for a union of the northern and southern colonies,
which covered all differences of trade, institutions and
climate. To the Virginians it was a slap in the face of their
local pride, an insult to all those tender feelings of loyalty
which they cherished for the Mother Country. Worse, it was
denial of all those rights, which as "descendants of Britons"
they held most dear. Now, it is in the early appreciation of
that Virginians took the lead at this great and threatening
moment.
The news of Grenville's resolutions in March, 1764, was
communicated by the agent of the Colony, Edward Montague,
in a letter dated March 10, which doubtless reached Virginia
the latter part of April. That the news was abroad in the
Colony during the month of May is shown by a letter of Richard
Henry Lee, dated, Chantilly, in Westmoreland County,
May 31, 1764. In this letter Lee reported that it was said
that "the House of Commons readily resolved that it had a
right to tax the subjects here without the consent of their representatives,
and that in consequence of this they had proceeded
to lay upon us a considerable sum of money, for the support
of a body of troops, to be kept up in this quarter." Lee expressed
indignation at the idea that "those brave, adventurous
Britons, who originally conquered and settled these countries,
through great danger to themselves and benefit to the
Mother Country, meant thereby to deprive themselves of the
blessings of that free government of which they were members,
and to which they had an unquestionable right." He
thought it not unlikely that "Poverty and oppression," as the
result of this step of the Mother Country, "among those whose
minds are filled with the ideas of British Liberty, may introduce
a virtuous industry with a train of generous and manly
sentiments, which, when in future they become supported by
numbers, may produce a fatal resentment of parental care being
converted into tyrannical usurpation." This was, according
to our modern notions, a rather complex way of expressing
oneself, but Lee clearly hinted at rebellion and revolution if
the Stamp Act became effective.
Montague's letter was directed to the Committee of Correspondence,
which was a standing committee of members of
the Council and House of Burgesses, and had a discretionary
power in dealing with the agent of Virginia in London.
A meeting was held at the capitol June 15, 1764, and the
of the Council), William Nelson (next in dignity in the
Council), Thomas Nelson, (Secretary of State), Robert Carter
(member of the Council), John Robinson, (Speaker of the
House of Burgesses), Peyton Randolph, (Attorney General),
George Wythe, Robert Carter Nicholas, and Lewis Burwell,
members of the House of Burgesses. A committee of greater
dignity and information could not be had in the colony, or
probably in America.
The minutes of this committee on the actions of Parliament
show how widely the alarm had already spread in Virginia.[26]
"Ordered that Mr. Montague be informed that this Colony
is much alarmed at the attempt in Parliament to lay a duty on
the sevl commodities men. (mentioned) in their Votes, a copy
of which he sent to ye com. (committee) particularly on
Madeira wine & the proposal for a stamp duty. That he is
desired to oppose this with all his influence & as far as he may
venture insist on the injustice of laying any duties on us &
particularly taxing the internal trade of the Colonies, without
their consent."
Pursuant to this resolution, George Wythe and Robert
Carter Nicholas were appointed a committee to draw up a letter
to the Virginia agent.
When the committee met again on July 28, Robinson and
Burwell were absent and Dudley Digges, previously absent,
was present. Messrs. Wythe and Nicholas laid before the committee
their letter[27]
to the agent, which was read and approved.
This letter went over the matters of interest to the colony, cautioned
the agent as to the appeal taken by certain ministers to
the Privy Council, in a controversy over their salaries, and
lamented the failure of Parliament to pay attention to the petition
presented by the Committee sometime before on the Salt
Tax. Regarding the Sugar Act and particularly the tax in it
but as the bill had passed into law they thought it inexpedient
to say anything further on that head.
By far the weight of the letter lay in its comments on
the Stamp Act. And as these comments contain the first earnest
discussion of the Stamp Act in America, their importance
justify their publication here in full:
"We have been very uneasy ("much alarmed" erased) at
an Attempt made in Parliament to lay a Duty on the several
Commodities mentioned in their Votes, of which you were
pleased to favour us with a Copy; the tax upon Madeira Wine
will be very inconvenient to us, & we had it in our Intention
to furnish you with such Reasons ag't it as we thought might
have some Weight, but finding from the public Prints that an
Act, imposing this Duty, has already pass'd, it is become unnecessary
for us to say any thing farther upon that Head. The
Proposal to lay a stamp Duty upon Paper & Leather is truly
alarming; should it take Place, the immediate Effects of an
additional, heavy burthen imposed upon a People already
laden with Debts, contracted chiefly in Defence of the Common
Cause & necessary to continue by express Stipulation for a
number of years to come, will be severely felt by us & our
Children; but what makes the approaching Storm appear still
more gloomy & dismal is, that, if it should be suffer'd to break
upon our Heads, not only we & our Children, but our latest
Posterity may & will probably be involved in its fatal Consequences.
It may, perhaps, be thought presumptious in us to
attempt or even to desire any Thing which may look like a
restraint upon the controlling Power of Parliament: We only
wish that our just Liberties & Privileges as free born British
Subjects were once properly defin'd & we think that we may
venture to say that the People of Virginia, however they may
have been misrepresented, would never entertain the most distant
Inclination to transgress their just Limits. That no Subjects
of the King of Great Britain can be justly made subservient
("subject" erased) to Laws without either their personal
take to be the most vital Principle of the British Constitution;
it cannot be denied that the Parliament has from time to time,
where the Trade of the Colonies with other Parts was likely
to interfere with that of the Mother Country, made such Laws
as were thought sufficient to restrain such Trade to what was
judg'd its proper Channel, neither can it be denied that, the
Parliament, out of the same Plentitude of its Power, has gone
a little Step father & imposed some Duties upon our Exports;
but to fix a Tax upon such Part of our Trade & concerns as are
merely internal, appears to us to be taking a long & hasty
Stride & we believe may truly be said to be of the first Importance.
Nothing is farther from our Thoughts than to shew
the least Disposition to any Sort of rudeness, but we hope it
cannot be taken amiss that we, apprehending ourselves so
nearly concern'd, should, at least, whilst the Matter is in
Suspence, humbly represent against it, & take every Measure
which the Principles & Laws of our Constitution appear clearly
to justify, to avert a Storm so very replete with the most
dangerous Consequences. We cannot but consider the Attempts
which have been made the more extraordinary, when
we reflect upon the Part we have taken in the late American
War, & that we have always with the greatest Chearfulness
submitted to & comply'd with every Requisition which has been
made of us with the least Colour of Reason or Pretence of Necessity.
We would therefore have you, Sir, & do most earnestly
recommend to you, as the greatest Object of our present
Concern, the exerting your whole weight & Influence so far as
Decency will allow in opposing this & every other Measure of
the Sort; and since we find, upon other Occasions, that you
have met with a ready Disposition in the Agents of the other
Colonies to co-operate with you, whenever the general Interest
of the Continent of America seems to have been concern'd, we
are of Opinion that their Aid & Assistance, in all Probability
can never, upon any Occasion whatever, be more seasonably
you will endeavour to avail yourself of it."
These words from the committee were marked by that
profoundly respectful style to which the colonies were accustomed
to make known their wants to the Mother Country, yet
in their clear and emphatic claim of right and grave and earnest
remonstrance, the notes of warning to England are unmistakable.
There was in them the suggestion of a hope that such a
course as direct taxation would not be seriously prosecuted,
but when at the same meeting the chairman, John Blair, of
Williamsburg, laid before the committee a fresh letter from
the agent dated April 11, received since their last meeting,
which went to inform them that Mr. Grenville had tried the
sense of the House of Commons on the authority of Parliament
to lay a stamp tax, and the House was practically unanimous
in sustaining him, their spirit rose indignantly and a
postscript having a sharper ring was immediately penned at
the table. It read as follows:
"Since writing the foregoing Part of this Letter, we have
received your last of 11 Ap'; Every Mention of the parliam'ts
Intention to lay an Inland Duty upon us gives us fresh Apprehension
of the fatal Consequences that may arise to Posterity
from such a precedent; but we doubt not that the Wisdom of a
British parliam' will lead them to distinguish between a Power
and Right to do any act. No man can say but that they have a
power to declare that his Majesty may raise Money upon the
people of England by Proclamation, but no man surely dare be
such an Enemy to his Country as to say that they have a Right
to do this. We conceive that no Man or Body of Men, however
invested with power, have a Right to do anything that is contrary
to Reason & Justice, or that can tend to the Destruction
of the Constitution. These things we write to you with great
Freedom and under the greatest Concern, but your Discretion
will teach you to make a prudent use of them.
If a Sum of Money must be raised in the Colonies, why not
in a constitutional Way? & if a reasonable apportionmt be laid
before the Legisl' of this Country, their past Compliance with
his Majesty's several Requisitions during the late expensive
war, leaves no room to doubt they will do everything that can
be reasonably expected of them.
Our Gen' Assembly will meet the 30th of Octr next for
Dispatch of Business, & we hope you will have Influence
enough to postpone any Determination on this Subject till we
can furnish you with their Sentim'ts thereon."[28]
The proposed action of Parliament in regard to the Stamp
Act was general talk in Williamsburg before the meeting of the
Assembly on October 30, for besides this letter of the agent and
the letter from the Massachusetts committee on the Sugar Act,
other letters arrived at Williamsburg, which according to
James Mercer,[29]
threw most people into a "flame." Two days
after the House met, the Speaker, John Robinson, who was
absent from the Committee of Correspondence in July, laid before
it the Massachusetts letter which he had received addressed
to him as speaker of the House of Burgesses, and on
November 7 the Committee of Correspondence was ordered to
lay before the House the agent's letters received since the
meeting of the last Assembly, and their answers thereto. On
November 13, all these communications were referred to the
Committee of the whole House, sitting on the state of the
Colony, and on the next day this committee, through their
chairman, Peyton Randolph, reported four resolutions which,
after being twice read, were agreed to, with some amendments,
both by the House and the Council.[30]
The first three of these directed an address to be prepared
to the King, a memorial to the House of Lords, and a
memorial (subsequently changed to Remonstrance) to the
House of Commons. The committee named to prepare them
Carter, George Wythe, Edmund Pendleton, Benjamin Harrison,
Archibald Cary and John Fleming.
The fourth resolution directed the committee appointed to
correspond with the Agent of the colony in Great Britain to
answer the letter of the Committee of the House of Representatives
of Massachusetts and assure them that "the Assembly
of Virginia are highly sensible of the very great importance
it is as well to the Colony of Virginia as to America in general
that the subjects of Great Britain in this part of its Dominions
should continue in possession of their ancient and most valuable
right of being taxed only by consent of their Representatives,
and that the Assembly here will omit no measure in their
power to prevent such essential injury being done to the Rights
and Liberties of the People."
In the addresses as prepared and in the resolutions directing
what the special committee named should make them say,[31]
four things are noticeable. There is first no recognition of the
supreme power of Parliament. Then stress is laid not upon a
Sugar Bill but upon the Stamp Act. Next, instead of protesting
against taxation alone, the protest is addressed to all legislation
regarding the internal policy of the Colony. Then, so different
from the Massachusetts petition, there is the emphatic
assertion of right, which rings out over and over again. Not
only is the right to be free from taxation, except with the consent
of their representatives, called "their ancient and most
valuable right," but broader still, this character is given to
their right of being governed by such laws respecting their
consent with the approbation of their sovereign or his substitute.
It was denominated "a right which as men and descendants
of Britons, they have ever quietly possessed, since
first, by royal permission and encouragement, they left the
Mother Kingdom to extend its commerce and dominions."
The Assembly evidently intended to make the issue not
one simply of "no taxation without representation," but "no
legislation without representation." Manly as these papers
are, there is something pathetic about them. They speak of the
burden of debt which the people of Virginia have incurred
out of patriotic loyalty in the late war, and since, in defending
the common cause from the Indians, and declared that additional
taxes by the British Parliament would be "intolerable,"
and they appealed to the loyalty which they had always demonstrated
as a sufficient vindication of the purity of their intentions.
These and similar demonstrations from other colonies,
north and south, though none more decided, were insufficient,
as we know, to shake the purposes of the ministry. Montague
got Sir William Meredith to present the Virginia remonstrance
to Parliament. It came next after a petition from
Jamaica, but the objection was made to both that the rules
of the House of Commons prevented any petition against a
money bill being received or read. It was absurdly contended
by Grenville that the Americans were represented in Parliament.
But Virginia found an advocate in General Conway
who said "The practice of receiving no petitions against
money bills is but one of convenience, from which in this instance
we ought to vary. The question regards two millions of
people, none of whom are represented in Parliament. Gentlemen
cannot be serious when they insist on their being virtually
represented."
Charles Yorke entered into an elaborate defense of the
Stamp bill, and less than forty were willing to receive the
Virginia petition. A third from South Carolina, a fourth
voice, and a fifth from Massachusetts, the weakest of all, for
it was silent on the right of taxation, shared the same refusal.
So despite all remonstrances from many sources, the
Stamp Act was passed by Parliament on the 8th of March, and
and on March 22 it received the royal assent by commission, as
George III was suffering under one of his temporary attacks
of lunacy. There was an important delay in its operation,
however, which proved fatal to its success. The bill had a
provision that it was not to go into effect till November 1, and
this afforded time for the contagion of resistance, so strongly
manifested in Virginia, from the first, to spread throughout
the colonies.
Paper Currency in Colonial Virginia, William and Mary College Quarterly, V,
150-157; XII, 241-243; XX, 226-261.
Hutchinson says of the petition of Massachusetts: "The petitions from the
other colonies were deemed inadmissible because they denied the authority of parliament.
That objection could not be made to this petition." Hutchinson: History
of Massachusetts III, 114.
Landon Carter, John Robinson, Richard Henry Lee and George Wythe were
all four immediately concerned in preparing the resolutions and the memorials
which were entered in this action of the Assembly. It would appear that Landon
Carter was the first to move that action should be taken. Then R. H. Lee moved
that a remonstrance to the House of Commons be drawn. Then John Robinson,
the Speaker, moved that memorials to the King and the Lords be prepared. Following
this, George Wythe prepared the remonstrance to the House of Commons
and R. H. Lee the memorials to the King and to the Lords. See William and
Mary College Quarterly, Vol. XX, pp. 185, 186, where evidence is given.
CHAPTER III
SELF-GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION REVIEWED
In the last chapter, the Virginia Assembly described their
right of "being governed by such laws respecting their internal
policy and taxation as are derived from their own consent,
with the approbation of their sovereign or his substitute,"
as a right which "as men and descendants of Britons,
they have ever quietly possessed since first by royal permission
and encouragement they left their Mother Kingdom to
extend its commerce and dominion."
This statement, though not true absolutely, was true approximately,
and for nearly all the Colonial period. During
the first twelve years under Sir Thomas Smythe, as Treasurer
of the London Company, the Colony had the aspect of a military
encampment governed by martial law, enforced with
great severity by the Presidents of the local Council and the
absolute governors, Gates, Delaware, Dale and Argall, who
succeeded them. But this severity was contrary to the spirit
of the charters of 1606, 1609 and 1612, which guaranteed to
the inhabitants "all the liberties, franchises and immunities
of English subjects."
After the expiration of this period, under the liberal management
of Sir Edwin Sandys and the Earl of Southampton,
the Colony entered on a free existence, and the London Company
in 1618, pursuant to the charter of 1612, which authorized
them "to ordain and make such laws and ordinances for
the good and welfare of the said plantation as to them shall
be thought requisite and meet, so as always the same be not
contrary to the laws and statutes of our realm of England,"
of Governor, Councillors, and representatives of the
people, and having "free power to treat, consult and conclude
as well of all emergent occasions concerning the public weal
of said colony and every part thereof, as also to make, ordain
and enact such general laws and orders, for the behoof of the
said colony, and the good government thereof, as shall from
time to time appear necessary or requisite." The election of
representatives at this time by the "inhabitants" was the
first expression of democracy on this continent, and the House
of Burgesses, because it represented the people, ultimately
became the ruling power in Virginia.
When the charter was revoked by King James in 1624,
there was for a short time a suspension of General Assemblies,
and the government was carried on by the governor and council
through proclamations that had the force of law, but in the
short period of four years the old order was restored, and the
General Assembly resumed its exercise of legislative authority.
Its jurisdiction covered the general field of legislation,
but like all Englishmen, the members were especially sensitive
as to any law involving a tax. So in 1624 they asserted for the
first time on the American continent the indissoluble connection
of representation and taxation. In that year the governor,
though representative of the King, was inhibited from
laying any taxes on the people without the consent of the
General Assembly, and this law was re-enacted twice afterwards,
in 1632 and 1642. In 1635, when Sir John Harvey refused
to send to England a petition against the King's proposed
monopoly of tobacco, which would have imposed an
arbitrary tax, the Assembly deposed him from the government
and sent him back to England, an act without precedent
in America. In 1652 when the people feared that Parliament
would deprive them of that liberty they had enjoyed under
King Charles I, they resisted, and would only submit when
the Parliamentary Commissioners signed a writing guaranteeing
to them all the rights of a self-governing dominion.
And when after the restoration of King Charles II, the
country was outraged by extensive grants of land to certain
court favorites, the agents of Virginia, in an effort to obtain
a charter to avoid these grants, made the finest argument in
1674 for the right of self-taxation to be found in the annals
of the 17th century. Even this early we find the agents insisting
"that neither his Majesty nor any of his ancestors or
predecessors had ever offered to impose any tax upon this
plantation without the consent of his subjects there."[32]
On this interesting occasion the suggestions of the Virginia
agents were accepted by the committee for foreign plantations,
and on their favorable report, King Charles II, on October 19,
1675, ordered a charter to be drawn up expressive of the understanding.
It made the colony dependent on the crown and
included special provisions for an Assembly having power to
enact laws and lay taxes.
But the delays were numerous, and Bacon's Rebellion
broke out in the interval. So, as a result, the charter was
stopped in the signet office, before it received the great seal,
and an instrument much reduced from the original purpose obtained
all the formalities and received the King's signature.
But this charter had the important feature, found in the
arrested charter and the old charters of 1606, 1609, 1612, of
making the colony dependent not on Parliament but solely on
the Crown. Nor did its failure to mention the legislature and
taxing power abrogate the pretensions of the colony in any
particular. This omission left the King's commitment in
council unaffected, and it did not impeach the powers of the
Legislature, for the omission was made up by King Charles
and his successors, who inserted the several clauses relating
to it, found in the arrested charter of 1676, in the commissions
issued from time to time to the Governors.
Democracy was at the bottom of Virginia's political life
and expressed itself in the House of Burgesses; and when
that House ceased to be representative, as it did during Sir
fourteen years, the people under the lead of Nathaniel
Bacon, Jr., who styled himself "General by consent of the
people," took the reins into their own hands and established a
government democratic in all particulars. The doctrine generally
accepted in other places that the colonists were bound
by those acts of Parliament in which that province was named,
and appeared, seems to have had little recognition in Virginia.
Parliamentary acts were often reenacted in Virginia by the
Virginia Assembly so as to give them the air of local authority.
Thus the Toleration Act of Parliament was sanctioned by the
colonial law as was the act establishing the Post Office in
America. Against this latter act, however, as Spotswood says,
"there was much murmuring among the people, who were
made to believe that Parliament could not levy any tax (for so
they called the rates of postage) here, without the consent of
the General Assembly."
When we consider the story of colonial Virginia as a whole
we find that the source of most of the troubles that make for
history was the existence of two authorities owning different
allegiances. The governors who had a negative on the laws,
used their influence in behalf of British interests, which were
often opposed to the interests of the colony. Hence there was
much wrangling over the prerogatives of the Crown and the
privileges and rights of the people. In these quarrels the
Council generally sided with the popular house, which was
very surprising to the authorities in England, who gave them
their commissions as councillors, and which was often very
unlike what happened in other colonies.
In illustration of this unfortunate antagonism was the
administration of Alexander Spotswood, a man of strong
convictions and patriotic views, but possessed of high notions
of his rights and prerogatives. He complained in 1713 that
the Assembly elected by the "mob of this country" would lay
no tax on the people "let the occasion be what it will," and
in 1715 he said that "such was their temper and understanding
laws and such was their humour and principles that they
would aim at no other acts than what invaded the prerogative
or thwarted the government."
Governors succeeding Spotswood learned to have more
discretion, and avoided carrying their pretentions so high,
and it is probable that Virginia for the remainder of the colonial
period saw more of peace and harmony than any of the
colonies. Out of the five royal governors that lived afterwards
in the palace at Williamsburg, Drysdale, Gooch, Dinwiddie,
Botetourt and Dunmore, three, Drysdale, Gooch and Botetourt
were as conciliatory as circumstances permitted, and even Dinwiddie
and Dunmore had really little of the old spirit of their
predecessors Harvey, Berkeley, Culpeper, Howard, Nicholson
and Spotswood. George Bancroft says in his history that it
would have been "ill for the American Revolution" in Massachusetts,
if instead of a Bernard or a Hutchinson, a man as
conciliatory as Botetourt had been sent to that colony.
The idea, however, of local supremacy, and legislative
control over the taxing power received several interesting vindications
in Virginia not long before the Stamp Act issue, as
developed in the last chapter.
While no one of these incidents in the life of Colonial Virginia
can be called the beginning of the American Revolution,
they were certainly the most important preludes to it.
When Robert Dinwiddie arrived as governor in the Colony,
1751, he brought information whose consideration consumed
much of the time of the first session of the Assembly convened
by the Governor on February 27. In 1745, a committee had
been appointed by the General Assembly to revise the laws of
the colony. The committee reported its work in the shape of
many bills to the Assembly of 1748, which spent one of the
longest sessions on record in considering and passing them.
The work, which was an arduous one, was completed in 1749,
and a copy sent on to the Board of Trade, but it was not till
some months after Dinwiddie's arrival, when the laws had been
action was communicated.
Then it was found that the King had disallowed ten of the
acts, and what was worse, he had affixed the royal signature to
the remaining fifty-seven. Now it was one of the standing
instructions to the governors that when a law finally received
the sanction of the King, it could not be repealed or amended
till the new act received an approval from the same authority,
for which reason it had become a custom to attach a clause
to such new act suspending its operation till it was approved
by his Majesty. It followed that it was greatly to the advantage
of the people here that the King's signature should be
withheld, since thus the laws might be altered quickly to suit
changes in conditions, arising in the course of events.
When laws were disallowed, they could not be re-enacted
except by special permission of the King given after full hearing
in Council.
Thus either kind of action, approval or disapproval, by the
King made for delay. It made for expense as well, for in these
days men in authority in England were not above the purchasing
power of money.
The announcement, which was made by proclamation April
10, 1752, created something like a panic in the Colony. The
Council and House acted promptly and appointed a joint committee
to consider what ought to be done. The most important
of the repealed acts was one for regulating the proceedings of
the General Court—the Supreme Court of the Colony. In
accordance with the recommendations of the Committee, a
bill was at once introduced to declare valid the proceedings of
the Court from the commencement to the repealing of the act.
This bill passed both houses the same day and was signed by
the Governor. On April 15, a strong representation to the
King was adopted by the two houses of the reasons for passing
the ten acts and of the inconvenience of the rule in reference
to acts finally ratified by the King, and begging a reversal of
governor for assistance in getting their representation properly
before the King, which he promised without hesitation
to do.
The effect of the Assembly's address was to cause his
Majesty to send instructions to Dinwiddie to give his assent
to two of the ten laws, and the matter is only important now
because it shows how contradictory were the relations between
the Mother Country and the Colony, and how even the King's
supervisory power was often a source of great embarrassment
to the country.
The behavior of Governor Dinwiddie in this affair was
very pleasing to the Assembly, and their gratitude found
expression in the naming of a county after him and at the close
of the session in a present of £500.
This harmony, however, did not continue. The next session
of the Assembly began November 1, 1753, and the question of
the pistole fee divided with the French the attention of the
Assembly.
According to a statement made by Colonel Richard Bland,
one of the leaders of the House, there were in the Secretary's
office, when Dinwiddie came to Virginia, nearly a thousand
patents made out and ready to be passed under the Colony
seal, and more than that number of surveyors certificates for
land for which patents should have been issued long before.
When those interested applied for their patents, they were told
that they must wait till the close of the session of Assembly.
After the Assembly adjourned the Governor made known the
fact that hereafter a pistole fee would be required before he
would attach his signature to a patent.
The order raised a storm, and feeling against the Governor
was very much inflamed by the fact that the order was not
given till the House had passed the resolution making him the
handsome gift referred to. The matter came regularly before
the present House on the petitions from freeholders of various
namesake.
The House took the view of the petitioners and regarded
the imposition as a tax and used this resolute language[34]
in their
address to him on the subject: "The rights of the people are
so secured by law that they cannot be deprived of the least part
of their property but by their own consent." As these words
occur, word for word, in Bland's "A Modest and True State
of the Case," edited by Worthington C. Ford in his Virginia
Tracts, the address was clearly Bland's work. Bland in his
"True State" compared the pistole fee with the ship money
exacted by Charles I.
The passionate feeling of resentment experienced by the
Assembly is shown by their action in passing a resolution:
"That whoever shall hereafter pay a pistole as a fee to the
governor for the use of the seal to the patents for lands shall be
deemed a betrayer of the rights and privileges of the people."[35]
The contention of Dinwiddie was that he was acting in
obedience to his instructions and advice of the Council, that all
unoccupied land was the King's property; and that he was only
demanding a fee that was common in other colonies. This was
not at all satisfactory. No fee had been exacted in Virginia
except in Lord Culpeper's time, and this the King had on complaint
of the legislature promptly discontinued, so Dinwiddie
in breaking a custom of nearly an uninterrupted century's
standing was exceedingly unwise. Fundamentally speaking he
was wrong. The plain truth was that the king held the vacant
lands not for himself but in trust for the people of Virginia,
and the imposition of the pistole fee interfered with the
natural rights of the people to dispose of their own property.
The General Assembly appealed the case to England, and
sent over Peyton Randolph, the Attorney-General of Virginia,
as their attorney, and the dispute was heard before the Board
of Trade. Before this tribunal, Lord Worthington, representing
he demanded of Lord Mansfield, who acted for Dinwiddie, how
he could fix a real tax upon the people of Virginia without the
consent of the Legislature, and Mansfield returned no direct
reply. The Privy Council on hearing the argument on both
sides ordered a compromise, without reflecting, as Chalmers
says, that "every disputed right is relinquished by concession."
Dinwiddie was held right in principle, but he was commanded
to exact no fee for patents issued for less than 100
acres, or for any person imported, or on lands to the west of
the mountains, or on lands the preliminary steps for getting
patents had been taken before April 22, 1752, when Dinwiddie
issued his order. It was also declared that no patent should
issue for a larger body of lands than 1,000 acres, and that the
Attorney-General, Peyton Randolph, should be restored to the
office which Dinwiddie had declared vacant on his departure
for Europe, as agent for the Assembly.
The fact adverted to that the imposition of the Pistole fee
interfered with the natural right of the people to dispose of
their own property was the point in the controversy which
rose a year later over the Two Penny act—the third and most
important of the preludes to the opening of the Revolutionary
drama. It involved a principle identical with that involved
in the resistance to the Stamp Act.
Virginia had a State Church represented by about sixty
ministers, who were most of them Englishmen from the English
universities. Many causes have contributed to give them
a reputation in history which is by no means a just one. They
have suffered at the hands of travelers, who are given to generalizing
from a few special cases. They naturally opposed
the spread of dissent, and as a result were condemned by the
dissenters. Reformers, like Jarratt and Meade, have abused
them because such is the unconscious spirit of reform to see
little good in anything with which it disagrees. Finally, they
suffered from the patriotic writers, who, in spite of the demonstration
of the Virginia clergy in favor of the colony, when war
crown at this time. Some of the ministers were, without doubt,
men of loose morality, but Rev. Andrew Burnaby, who spoke
discriminatingly, reported the majority to be of "sober and
exemplary lives." This did not mean that this majority did
not drink and play cards, for drinking and playing cards were
universally indulged in before the Revolution.
Probably all that Burnaby meant to say was that the Virginia
clergy would bear comparison with the English clergy,
of whom he was one, and were as a body superior in their
habits to the majority of the laity.
By an act passed in 1696, the salaries of the clergy were
settled at 16,000 pounds of tobacco. At that time that commodity
was rated 10s per hundred, which made their provision
eighty pounds sterling per annum. In the year 1748, when the
laws were revised, the act which established the salaries of
the clergy was re-enacted with some amendments. This act
being approved by the governor went immediately into effect
in Virginia, and was one of the fifty-seven acts which received
the royal approval in England and became, according to the
usual form of instructions to the governors, as already
explained, irrepealable except by an act of equal dignity, that
is, one having also the royal approval. In December, 1755, the
Assembly passed an act to remain in force for ten months,
allowing all tobacco dues to be paid at the option of the payer,
at sixteen shillings, eight pence for each hundred pounds of
tobacco. Because the price set was equal to two pence a pound,
the law was called the "Two Penny Act."
The act had no suspending clause for the King's approval,
but was to go into effect at once and the reason alleged in the
preamble for its passage was "a great drouth," which threatened
to reduce the tobacco crop, and make taxes too heavy in
this period of war.
The law was perfectly general in its application, but the
clergy was the only part of the community that complained.
After the passage of the bill through the House of Burgesses,
Thomas Dawson, one of the professors in the College of William
and Mary and commissary to the Bishop of London, made
a strong speech against it, but in vain. After its passage
through the council, four of the clergy, also professors, John
Camm, William Preston, Thomas Robinson and Richard Graham,
called upon Governor Dinwiddie, and begged him to use
his veto. This gentleman, who had his whole heart and soul in
the French war, replied: "What can I do? If I refuse to
approve the act, I shall have the people on my back." He
promised, however, to refer the question to the Council for
advice, a step not calculated to help the cause of the clergy,
as that body had already approved the bill in their legislative
capacity. Now, as his official advisers, they counselled him to
sanction the bill, taking the ingenious ground that it did not
lessen the quantity of tobacco to be paid, but only explained
it by ascertaining the equivalent in money. After this advice
Dinwiddie approved the bill.
Then the local clergymen tried to get Commissary Dawson
to call a convention of the clergy, but he thought such a call
imprudent and advised them to ask the intervention of the
Bishop of London, who was their diocesan. This, some of the
clergy accordingly did, and Commissary Dawson wrote in their
behalf. But this was not entirely satisfactory, and the effort
was again made to get the Commissary, now elected president
of the College, to call a convention. When he refused to do
this, he was bitterly condemned by the four before mentioned
professors, and they joined with seven other ministers and
advertised in the Virginia Gazette for a clerical convention to
be held August 31, 1757, a course which greatly incensed Governor
Dinwiddie, who was condemned by them. But the two
pence per pound permitted by the Act, having by this time
turned out the average value of tobacco, only nine of the
brethren thought it worth while to attend the convention; and
these forebore to make any complaint. So the cloud at this
time broke, and the trouble in its acute stages passed away,
which were manifested especially in the College circle.
On various charges the Board of Visitors, in 1757, removed
three of the professors, Camm, Robinson and Graham, and a
fourth, William Preston, escaped removal only by returning
to England. The College exercises were practically suspended
and many parents sent their children to the new College at
Philadelphia. Among the charges laid at the door of the Rev.
William Preston and the Rev. Thomas Robinson was the fact
of their marrying and "keeping contrary to all rules of seats
of learning, their wives, children and servants in the College,
which occasioned much confusion and disturbance."[36]
In June, 1758, Dinwiddie was superseded as governor by
Francis Fauquier, son of Dr. George Francis Fauquier. He
was generous and liberal in his manners, and as a fellow of the
Royal Society of England, he had a scholarly character and
fine literary taste. He was fond of science and delighted in
the society of such men as Dr. William Small, Professor of
Natural Philosophy in the College, and of George Wythe, celebrated
for his love of learning in classics, philosophy and law.
He left an impression of taste and refinement on the Colony
which eminently aided it in the leadership that for nearly a
century it was called upon to assume. Had it not been for his
passion for gambling, which spread a contagion through the
colony, he would have been nearly everything that could have
been wished for in a royal governor. On the question of
American rights, Fauquier was, as far as his situation would
admit, entirely on the popular side, the natural result of his
devotion to scientific studies which made him hostile to dogmas
of all kinds. In 1760, he expressed great apprehensions
to William Pitt that the colonists would not submit to any
Stamp Act.
Some months after his arrival, the General Assembly met
in October, 1758, and framed another Two Penny act to continue
for twelve months. Like the act of 1755, the new act did
operation of the same until sanctioned by the Crown. The
clergy took action again, and a deputation consisting of the
Commissary, Rev. Thomas Dawson, and two eminent ministers,
Rev. John Camm and Rev. William Robinson, called upon
the Governor to get him to veto the measure, but Fauquier was
even more unsatisfactory than Dinwiddie. This is the account
of their interview as given by Mr. Robinson: "We humbly represented
to his Honor that the act which we were threatened
was contrary to reason and common justice. His answer was,
that was not a point to be considered. We then gently put him
in mind that it was contrary to his instructions. He answered
that is a point not to be considered. It was asked what was
the point to be considered, and he frankly told us the sole point
to be considered was what would please the people."[37] The
reason of the new act was "some unseasonable weather,"
made more serious by the fact of the war with the French.
The apprehension this time turned out correct, and the
scarcity of tobacco made the market price rise to six pence
per pound. The Clergy determined to appeal to the King and
a convention of thirty-five ministers assembled at the College.
They drew up a memorial and intrusted it to Rev. John Camm,
formerly Professor of Divinity in the College and minister of
Yorkhampton Parish, which was one of the parishes adjoining
Williamsburg, and lying in York County.
This action of the clergy put an entirely new phase upon the
question. The clergy were undoubtedly within their moral and
legal rights in opposing the bill as long as it could be reasonably
opposed in the colony, but an appeal to the King against
the colonists was to say the least very unwise, if not unjustifiable.
The clergy could not have been ignorant that the assertion
of the royal prerogative had provoked more than once the
deep resentment of the people for whom they ministered. Only
a few years before the Assembly had protested against this
very branch of prerogative that they now invoked, which made
consent. But their action in appealing the strength of their
individual cause became lost in the much more important question
whether in a matter purely local, a matter indeed involving
a question of local taxation, any other will than that of the
Assembly should prevail.
Mr. Camm, the agent of the clergy, went to England in the
early part of 1759, and with the assistance of the Archbishop
of Canterbury obtained an interview with the King, to whom
he presented the clergy's petition. The King referred the
paper to his Privy Council, who on May 14, 1759, referred it
to the Board of Trade, and the latter thought it expedient to
ask the opinion of Dr. Thomas Sherlock, Bishop of London.
The Bishop's letter of reply[38]
which is dated June 14, 1759,
fully sustained the memorial and denounced the Two Penny
Act as "unjust to the clergy, inconsistent with the dignity of
the Crown, and tending to draw the people of the plantations
from their allegiance." In this communication the Bishop
took notice of the great change which in the last few years had
ensued in the temper of the Virginians, and that what made the
change more serious was the evident disposition of the governor
and council to act in concert with them.
July 4, 1759, the Board of Trade reported to the King that
their opinion was that he should declare "his royal disallowance
of the acts of December, 1755, and October, 1758," which
was accordingly done in council on August 10 following. Mr.
Camm was elated and immediately wrote to his attorney in
Virginia to bring suit for his salary against the collectors of
Yorkhampton parish, but it was not without considerable loss
of time that he was furnished with a copy of the order and
additional instructions for Governor Fauquier. So after a
stay in England altogether of 18 months he set out on his
return to Virginia and arrived at Hampton on June 20, 1760,
where in order to refresh himself after the tedium of the sea
Rev. Thomas Warrington.
During the absence of Camm great excitement prevailed
in Virginia, and after his suit began in the General Court the
General Assembly on November 14, 1759, adopted a resolution
directing the Committee of Correspondence of Virginia to
instruct the agent of the General Assembly Edward Montague
(for Virginia had then two agents, one representing the General
Assembly and one representing the Council) to employ the
necessary counsel in any appeal to England relative to the Two
Penny Act. The letter of the Committee is dated December
12, 1759, and takes the ground that the act of 1758 was intended
as an aid to the act of 1748, fixing the ministers' salaries, and
not a deviation from it. They further defended the act by
citing various acts of a similar nature, which had been passed
and sent to England, and no objection made to them.
At about the time when the Bishop's Letter began to be
circulated among the clergy in the Colony, two champions of
the people sprang into the arena and assumed to reply to the
Bishop's strictures. These were Col. Landon Carter, of
"Sabine Hall," in Richmond County, and Col. Richard Bland,
of "Jordan's," in Prince George County.
Both of these men were informed on the history of Virginia,
and probably neither of them had much love for the clergy.
We know that some years before, Col. Carter became incensed
with a reverend gentleman, who preached a sermon against
pride, which he took to himself. As a consequence, Col. Carter
had vowed, it is said, that he would never be satisfied until,
despite the King, Bishop, government or any court of judicature,
he turned the said reverend gentleman out of his office and
"clipped the wings of the whole clergy in the Colony."[39]
Col.
Bland had officiated as a lay reader in his church in Prince
George County and the Journal of the House of Burgesses
clearly shows that he was the author of both the Two Penny
bills. Col. Carter's pamphlet, which was entitled "A Letter
was dated December, 1759, and printed in Williamsburg
the same month. Col. Bland's pamphlet was dated March 29,
1760, and printed soon after. Each of these pamphlets set out
to defend Virginia against the Bishop's charges. They contended
that the General Assembly, in fixing the salary of the
clergy in 1748 at 16,000 pounds of tobacco, had in mind its value
in ordinary years, and had not intended that it should amount
to three times that sum.
As to the claim that the act had not the royal approval and
was also against the Governor's instructions, Col. Carter
argued that there were exceptions to all cases and that "justice
to the people" and "charity to the poor" made this tobacco
act an exception. Col. Bland took the ground of the Salus
populi suprema est lex and argued that necessity made its own
law, and that in certain cases even royal instructions "may be
deviated from with impunity."
Rev. William Robinson in a letter dated November 20, 1760,
informed Dr. Sherlock, the Bishop of London, that the two
pamphlets were received with great applause in the Colony,
"which," he said, "sufficiently showed to what a pitch of insolence
many are arrived at not only against our most worthy
Diocesan, but likewise against his Majesty's most honorable
Privy Council." He thought that the tendency of the whole
affair was "to bring about a change in our religion as may
alter the constitution of the State."
In the meantime, Mr. Camm on June 27, 1760, in company
with Mr. Warrington and Mr. Robinson came up from Hampton
to Williamsburg. After their arrival they called upon the
Governor at the Palace and handed him the order of the Privy
Council and the instructions to put them into effect. Mr. Robinson's
account of the interview is not calculated to give us a
very high opinion of the behavior of men in high society in
those days. The Governor flew into a great passion and called
with great vociferation to his negroes, telling them when
assembled, with his finger pointed at Mr. Camm's face, to
under no circumstances to permit him to revisit the Palace."
Says Camm's friend, Mr. Robinson: "There was something
peculiar in this last indignity, for it is the greatest
affront that can be put upon a freeman here to give orders concerning
him to his slaves."
The two clergymen therefore left the palace, and repaired
to the Mayor before whom Robinson made an affidavit that he
had seen Mr. Camm deliver the papers to the governor, a procedure
on the part of Mr. Robinson which long rankled in Fauquier's
bosom and which he never entirely forgave.
After this Mr. Camm tried to induce Mr. Dawson to call
the clergy that he might report to them the result of his mission,
but Mr. Dawson, who was friendly to the governor,
declined. The commissary indeed appears at this time to have
been in a very unhappy condition not only in regard to the
clergy of whom he was the nominal head, but in regard to the
professors of the College of which he was the president.[40]
In August, 1760, two of the new professors, Rev. Jacob
Rowe and Rev. Goronwy Owen, becoming merry with the wine
cup, led the boys of the College in a row with the boys of the
town, and the former was removed and the latter to save himself
resigned. The commissary himself began to drink hard
and was indicted by the grand jury for drunkenness. When he
was arraigned before the College Board, he confessed the
offense, but had the honor to have an excuse made for him by
his friend, Governor Fauquier, who said that it was no wonder
that the poor man got drunk, since he had been driven to desperation
by persons of his own cloth. His death a few weeks
later on December 2, 1760, seems to show that he was suffering
under a complete breakdown, and was really not responsible
for his conduct. In his obituary in the Maryland Gazette, no
doubt the work of his friend Fauquier, Mr. Dawson is praised
for his "moderation, meekness, forgiveness and long suffering,"
and it is also stated that "it is much to be feared he fell
he, unhappy man, frequently experienced in his passage
through this State of Probation."
In his place, and to the disgust of Governor Fauquier
especially, Rev. William Robinson was appointed by the
Bishop of London commissary and Rev. William Yates succeeded
as president of the College.
Governor Fauquier issued a proclamation in regard to the
royal disallowance, but by using the word "repeal," not to be
found in the order of the Privy Council, he disseminated the
notion that the Two Penny Act, which had now expired by its
own limitations, was only annulled from the time of the proclamation
and not from its inception, which of course made the
remedy of very little value.
Afraid to risk all upon Mr. Camm's suit in the General
Court, various other ministers, acting independently, instituted
separate actions in the county courts. Among these were
Rev. Thomas Warrington, who sued in Elizabeth City County,
Rev. Alexander White, who sued in King William County, and
Rev. James Maury, who brought suit in Hanover County.
Mr. Camm, now pretty well warmed up to the fight, wrote
a pamphlet about August, 1763, which he called "A Single
and Distinct View of the Act vulgarly called the Two Penny
Act," in which he severely criticised "the justice and charity"
ascribed to the same by Col. Carter in his pamphlet in 1759,
and the Salus Populi argument of Col. Richard Bland's in
1760. Unable to find a publisher in Williamsburg, he had it
published by Jonas Green that year at Annapolis, in Maryland.
Col. Bland retorted in a letter published in the Virginia
Gazette, October 28, 1763, and Camm, replied in a letter entitled
"Observations," published shortly after. Personalities flew
about quite freely, and in the early part of 1764, Col. Carter
came to Bland's assistance with a pamphlet entitled "The
Rector Detected: Being a just defense of The Two Penny Act
against the artful misrepresentations of the Reverend John
Camm, rector of Yorkhampton, in his Single and Distinct
as a specimen of the Justice and Charity of Colonel Landon
Carter." Bland's letter in the Gazette and Camm's "Observation"
were published by Bland in his pamphlet "The Colonel
Dismounted" hereafter described.
In the meantime, the separate actions in the county courts
by the ministers were tried with varied results. In the suit of
Rev. Thomas Warrington, of Elizabeth City County, the jury
gave damages if the court considered the law invalid, but the
court held the act to be valid and refused to enter up judgment
for the plaintiff.[41]
In the case of the Rev. Alexander White, St.
David's Parish, King William County, all the questions were
left to the jury, and they found against him. In both these
cases, appeals were taken to the General Court, where Mr.
Camm's suit was pending.
None of the suits which were brought excited such interest
as that instituted by Rev. James Maury, of Fredericksville
Parish, Hanover County. In this case the court decided the
Two Penny Act to be null and void, and a jury was summoned
for the December term, 1763, to ascertain the damages. The
vivid grouping of authentic incidents around the trial has no
rival in the story of the writ of assistance in Massachusetts.
If Otis in Massachusetts, in the language of John Adams, was
"a flame of fire," his light soon burnt low, when the crisis of
the Stamp Act was reached. On the other hand, Patrick Henry,
who now flamed before the people of Virginia in Hanover in
the Parsons' cause, blazed at the latter period like a "Pillar of
Fire" before the whole American people, and afterwards
shone with scarcely diminished lustre throughout the rest of
the period preliminary to the Revolution.
This is the way in which Camm's friends, Commissary
William Robinson, told the story of the action in Hanover:
account of the trial, which is published in Maury, Memoirs
of a Huguenot Family, 421-423), "cause on the same question
was more extraordinary than either of the former
brought in the county courts. For here the court adjudged
the Act to be no law. But the jury, summoned afterwards
on a writ of inquiry to settle the damages, tho it was
proved by unexceptionable evidence uncontradicted, that
the tobacco for which the plaintiff had been allowed 16s 8d
a hundred, was worth 50 shillings a hundred, had the effrontery
to bring in one penny damages for the Plaintiff.
To this important Verdict they were persuaded by the
strange argument of a young lawyer; who professed afterwards
that he had acted solely from desire of popularity.
He was pleased to tell the jury that the use of the clergy
consisted only in their promoting obedience to civil sanctions;
that for daring to complain of a just law passed by
such a power as the Governor & Assembly, they ought to
be severely punished; that he hoped they would make an
example of Maury in particular, as far as they could at
present, by giving him a penny damages, and that the
King by taking upon him to disallow the Act of the Governor
& Assembly had forfeited all right of obedience
heretofore due from his subjects in Virginia. For all of
which he received no Check from the Court, nor has he
hitherto been taken notice of by any other power; tho' he
pleaded before a numerous audience of magistrates & Assembly
men & persons of all ranks in the Colony, some of
whom did murmur at the time `treason, treason!' * * *
After the trial was over this Lawyer excused himself to
the plaintiff by telling him that he had no ill will against
him or wished to hurt him, but that he said what he did to
make himself popular. He has succeeded in making himself
popular in that part of the country where he lives. He has
since been chosen a representative for one of the counties
in which character he has lately distinguished himself in
the House of Burgesses on occasion of the Arrival of the
Act of parliament for Stamp duties. While the Assembly
was sitting, he blazed out in a violent speech against the
Authority of parliament and the King, comparing his
Majesty to a Tarquin, a Caesar, and a Charles the First
and not sparing insinuations that he wished another
Cromwell would rise."
It may be proper to say here that Henry's part in this controversy
has been often misunderstood. His speech has been
taken as the beginning of Virginia's protest against the prerogative,
whereas the first Two Penny Act disregarding the
accepted constitution was eight years before him. Nor was
his action an advocacy of the poor against the rich, as the latter
class fared best under the Two Penny Act. As a matter of
fact, "Henry fought the battle of the whole colony and of the
ruling powers more than of any other element."[42]
The result in Mr. Maury's case was very disheartening to
all of the clergy except their intrepid leader, Rev. John Camm,
who was not to be beat so readily. In the spring of 1764 he
published a pamphlet in reply to Colonel Carter's "Rector
Detected," entitled "A Review of the Rector Detected or the
Colonel Reconnoitered. Part of the First." In this very spicy
production Camm took notice of Colonel Carter's rather singular
argument that the passage of the Two Penny Act without
a suspending clause, instead of exhibiting a treasonable intent,
was proof of "the most dutiful regard imaginable to the Sovereign,"
"whose innate goodness could not require such a clause
in a thing so universally desired." Said Camm in reply:
"If so old and deep a politician as the Colonel, so able a
Writer, a Man so acute at Demonstration, can express himself
in this unguarded Manner in print on the Subject of
the Prerogative, producing the Freedom he takes with
the Power of the Crown as an Expression of Regard to his
Day, when a court had previously adjudged the Two
Penny Act to be no law, and a Jury was summoned on a
Writ of Inquiry to settle the Damages which the Plaintiff
has sustained by the said Act, adjudged no law, should tell
the Jury that the King, by disallowing the said Act, had
forfeited the Allegiance of the People of Virginia; and
that the Parsons, for opposing the said Act by legal
Means, instead of obtaining Damages, deserved to be
severely punished. No Wonder that the Jury, in Opposition
to unexceptional Evidence, instead of bringing in the
Difference between 50s a Hundred and 16s 8d upon 16,000
Weight of Tobacco, which latter price the Plaintiff had
been paid, brought in 1d Damages for the Whole. No
Wonder that the Court refused to let the Evidence be
recorded. No wonder that there was a small Cry of
Treason among the Bystanders. No wonder that the
Court, though called upon by the opposite Pleader to take
Notice of his Adversary's Behavior, permitted the
Offender to proceed in his treasonable Harangue without
any Reprimand or Interruption. No wonder that though
this Harangue was made in the Presence of various
Magistrates, and some Assemblymen, yet no further
Notice has been taken of this remarkable Transaction.
No Wonder that after the Trial was over the Pleader
excused himself to the Plaintiff for the Injury he had done
him, alleging that what he had said of the King's forfeiting
the Allegiance of the People, and ill Behaviour,
was only intended to render himself popular. I hope he
is mistaken and that to insult Majesty is not the high Road
to Popularity in this loyal Colony, whatever it may be to
abuse and oppress the Clergy."
In April, 1764, Mr. Camm's case, which I fear had been purposely
delayed before the General Court, came up for a hearing
after more than three years' sleep on the docket. The
friend of the established church, but who assumed the ground
first suggested by Fauquier's use of the word "repeal" in his
proclamation that the King's order was prospective and could
have no effect on the Two Penny Act, which had expired before
the disallowance came to hand. The result was that the majority
of the Court—John Blair, John Tayloe, William Byrd,
Presley Thornton and Robert Carter Burwell—decided
against Camm's conclusions, and in favor of the validity of the
act;[43] As the court was not equally divided, Governor Fauquier
did not vote, but after the judgment was given he arose and
declared that it had his full concurrence.
About July, 1764, Col. Bland came out in a pamphlet written
eight months before, as a reply to Camm's "Single and
Distinct View." It was entitled: "The Colonel Dismounted,
or the Rector Vindicated, in a letter addressed to his Reverence,
containing a dissertation upon the Constitution of the
Colony."
He took the ground which it appears had been urged in the
General Court in Camm's case, a very reasonable one, that a
law passed by the Assembly and approved by the Governor
was legal, however much the governor himself might be subject
to punishment as overstepping his instructions.
The chief importance of this pamphlet lies in its earnest
discussion of the Virginia constitution under the British Sovereign.
Indeed, in his perception of the real authority of an
American colony Bland is not only ahead of James Otis,
Samuel Adams or any other pamphleteer or writer in time, but
is far ahead of them in his views. This pamphlet is the great
initial paper of the American Revolution.
It covered the whole ground of the American contention
short of its most advanced stages. It argued that "any law[44]
upon us by Act of Parliament is arbitrary and may be
opposed." These words exempted laws for the regulation of
trade, but plainly included taxes for revenue purposes,
whether laid directly or indirectly by imports. Bland denied
that Parliament had any right to make any laws affecting Virginia's
home affairs, and asserted that Virginia's Code of Law
consisted of the common law, the statutes of England made
before the settlement at Jamestown, and the statutes of her
own General Assembly.[45]
Mr. Camm appealed his case to England, and in the very
letter which the Virginia Committee of Correspondence wrote
to their agent in London, July 28, 1764, protesting against the
Stamp Act, instructions were given to him to see that the suit
appealed by Camm was properly defended. In 1765 Camm
published in Williamsburg what appears to be a final pamphlet
in the controversy, entitled "Critical Remarks on a Letter
Ascribed to Common Sense," in which he shows up the inconsistencies
in the argument of Bland and Carter not without
considerable effect. His appeal to the Privy Council was heard
in 1767, but the Privy Council, anxious at that time to conciliate
Virginia, dismissed the suit on the ground that it was
improperly brought.
Mr. Warrington appealed to the General Court, but it
declined to hear the case pending Camm's appeal in England.
After the adverse action of the Privy Council the General
Court in Virginia at the October term, 1767, decided against
Warrington, and even refused to permit an appeal to England,
arguing that the decision in Camm's case had decided the whole
decision was on a mere technicality and did not preclude
a new suit.
Still unconquered, Mr. Camm prevailed upon the convention
of the clergy, which assembled in 1769, on the incoming
of Lord Botetourt to appoint a committee to consider an application
to the Governor for a mandamus to remove Warrington's
cause to England. Robinson was now dead, and James
Horrocks, who was both commissary and president of the College,
advised against the application, and it is probable that
Botetourt refused to issue the writ: for we see no more of the
Parsons' causes in the record.
If at any time casuistry was employed by the assembly,
the governor, the courts, or the juries, it shows better than
anything else the determination of the Virginians to defeat the
King's will. The people of Virginia felt that the salaries paid
the clergy were taken from their pockets, and, as with the
Stamp Act, they claimed the right to control their own money
without interference from abroad. Such, indeed, were the sentiments
expressed to the world by the House of Burgesses at
this very time on the subject of the duties on tea.[46]
Such is the history of the controversy over the Two Penny
Acts. Unlike the question of the Writs of Assistance in Massachusetts,
which occupied but short attention in that colony, and
involved only rights applicable to any British citizen, this
controversy convulsed the Colony of Virginia for 14 years and
interested all orders of society. It was carried to England and
was discussed by the Bishops, the Board of Trade, the Privy
Council and the King. Unlike the result in Massachusetts,
where Writs of Assistance were enforced, down to the Boston
which the historian Lecky declares greatly encouraged their
opposition to the measures of the ministry.[47]
![illustration](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:252994/full/!1600,1600/0/default.jpg")
Patrick Henry
See Minutes Elizabeth City County, March 2, 1763, in William and Mary
College Quarterly, XX, pp. 172-173.
Members of the council who voted that the Two Penny Act was invalid were
Richard Corbin, Peter Randolph, Philip Ludwell Lee and Robert Carter. Perry:
Historical Papers, Virginia, p. 495.
Bland's style is remarkably smooth, as compared with James Otis and other
contemporary writers. One wonders how Dr. Moses Coit Tyler could describe it
as "jerky and harsh," after his words of eulogy for much inferior writers. But
that the Doctor, in spite of his really deserved reputation as a critic, could make
some terrible mistakes, is shown in his very ill-founded allusion to the "fresh
and unadorned rascality" of the famous option law. Tyler, Henry, 37. Dr.
George Elliott Howard says: "There is small ground for so harsh a judgment."
Howard, Preliminaries of the American Revolution, 1, 94.
The main authority for the Two Penny Act controversy are Papers Relating
to the History of the Church in Virginia, edited by William Stevens Perry. Copies
of the different pamphlets mentioned in the text are found in the Virginia State
Library. Other helpful material is found in H. J. Eckenrode, Separation of
Church and State; Howard, Preliminaries of the American Revolution, in Hart's
American Nation; Henry, Life and Speeches of Patrick Henry; Wirt, Henry;
and Tyler, Henry.
CHAPTER IV
THE STAMP ACT—ITS PASSAGE AND REPEAL
In America the intelligence of the passage of the Stamp
Act caused the deepest despondency. Despite the strength
and power of the resolutions adopted at the session of 1764,
the leaders of the Assembly had not reached a condition of
mind to commit the colony to a course that might be construed
as treason. These leaders consisted of a remarkable body of
men, that had no equal in America for talents, culture and
learning, of whom John Robinson, the Speaker, Richard Bland,
Landon Carter, Peyton Randolph, Robert Carter Nicholas,
George Wythe and Edmund Pendleton were the most important.
Richard Henry Lee was one of the leaders also, who,
though a young man and of a less conservative mind, was content
to go along with the older men. Indeed, he thought
so little of rebellion at this time that at the beginning of the
session of 1764 he applied for the post of stamp distributor,
which he appears to have considered not at all inconsistent
with his taking a prominent part not long after in preparing
the protests against the Stamp Act.
At this time Otis and the other Massachusetts leaders were
talking of the supremacy of Parliament and preaching the doctrine
of submission to the Stamp Act when passed.
After the passage of this fatal measure passive resistance
appears to have been the policy adopted in the colonies. Nonimportation
and the encouragement of domestic manufactures
were the prevailing measures. In Virginia the more radical
planters were contented to go clothed in Virginia cloth manufactured
on the plantations. In Massachusetts Otis continued
to preach the doctrine of submission and declared that Parliament
people," though he contested its justice. In all the colonies
unmistakable signs were given of acquiescence in the Stamp
Act but by a people greatly dissatisfied.
Not one of the American agents in England imagined the
colonies would think of disputing the Stamp Act with Parliament
at the point of the sword. Benjamin Franklin, the agent
for Pennsylvania, solicited the appointment of stamp distributor
for a nephew.
When the Massachusetts Provincial Assembly met in May,
1765, Thomas Oliver, although he had been appointed stamp
distributor, was elected councillor, and, continuing his protest
along loyal lines, James Otis on June 6 prevailed on that body
to propose to the colonies a Congress to meet in New York in
October to consult on a united representation of their condition
to the King. This, the only action taken by the Massachusetts
Legislature, was aided by the royal governor Bernard, who
thus gained control of the movement and managed to have
two government men, Oliver Partridge and Timothy Ruggles,
associated with Otis, in the delegation of that colony. The
time of the meeting was set so late that it could not have been
expected by Otis or others of its supporters that its action
could affect the operation of the Stamp Act which was to go
into effect in November.
Hutchinson, the chief justice of Massachusetts, wrote to
the ministry his impression of the situation: "The Stamp
Act is received among us with as much decency as could be expected;
it leaves no room for evasion and will execute itself."
It was at this critical hour that Patrick Henry entered
upon public life. His speech as a lawyer in the "Parsons'
Cause," as the suit in Mr. Maury's case against the Two Penny
Act was popularly styled, had given him a great reputation. It
showed that he was a man possessed of two attributes highly
necessary in a great leader of men—courage and eloquence.
He was a new member and at this time about 28 years of age.
Finding that the old leaders were disposed to temporize,
of their hands by offering a set of resolutions asserting the
rights of the Virginia people in language emphatic and void of
the effusive loyalty that had characterized previous papers.
Violent debates ensued and Mr. Henry was supported by most
of the young men in the House, especially those from the western
counties. He was opposed by all the old members who
were championed by John Robinson, the speaker, and George
Wythe, who had drawn the remonstrance to the House of
Commons at the preceding Assembly.
It was in this "most bloody debate," as Mr. Jefferson,
who heard it, describes it, that Henry, while descanting on the
tyranny of the obnoxious act, exclaimed in a voice and with
a gesture that startled the House: "Tarquin and Caesar had
each his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George
the Third. . ." "Treason," shouted the speaker (John Robinson).
"Treason! Treason!" echoed from every part of the
House. Without faltering for an instant, but rising to a loftier
altitude and fixing on the speaker an eye which seemed to flash
fire, Mr. Henry added with most thrilling emphasis, "may
profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of
it."
Five resolutions were adopted, but after Mr. Henry's departure
before adjournment, a motion was made and carried to
expunge the last and most daring of the five. Nevertheless,
there were published in the Virginia Gazette the four remaining
on the Journal and two additional ones, more drastic than
the fifth expunged, which were offered in the committee of the
whole and not reported, and which declared in substance that
the imposition of taxes without the consent of the General
Assembly created no obligation on the people here, and that
any person or persons who shall maintain the contrary should
"be deemed an enemy to his Majesty's colony." In this form
they appeared in other newspapers and were spread throughout
the colonies.
The point of difference between Henry's resolutions as
lay not so much in the wording as in conditions. The first
was a rebellion against action had and the latter a protest
against action proposed. They voiced the inarticulate feelings
of the whole country against submission. Governor Fauquier
styled them this "rash heat," and dissolved the Assembly.[48]
The effect was seen especially in Massachusetts, the most
powerful of the northern colonies. When the news of the
action of Virginia first arrived there, this action appeared so
antagonistic to the course of submission apparently accepted
that there was a marked silence. "On the first surprise"
many persons in Boston, including James Otis, pronounced it
"treasonable."[49]
But this state of mind lasted only a short
time and from having been censured, the spirit discovered in
it suddenly received the plaudits of the whole colony.
The effect also was seen on the call of James Otis for a general
congress to consider the Stamp Act. The circular had
at first received no countenance. The speaker of the New Jersey
Assembly promptly replied that the members of that body
were unanimously against meeting on the present occasion.
The spirit of resistance displayed in the Virginia resolutions
created an entire change in the fortunes of the proposed congress.
All the colonies that had the power to do so fell in line,
and accepted the invitation to meet. Virginia could not do so
because of Fauquier's adjournment of the Assembly on the
first of June.
This Congress met in New York October 7, but instead of
confining itself to the declared purpose of its call, "a dutiful,
loyal and humble petition" to his Majesty, they set out under
the stimulation of Henry's resolutions, "a declaration of rights
and grievances" and inserted it in their Journal. Their address
to the King, Lords and Commons had a similar patriotic
character. But with a Tory, Ruggles of Massachusetts, as
President, and such a submissionist as James Otis for a member,
Fauquier called an Assembly and sent Patrick Henry to New
York, there would probably have been no such clause in the
papers as "all due subordination to that august body, the
Parliament," and such fulsome expressions of loyalty to King
George as "the best of Kings." Nevertheless, as a step in the
march to union, the Stamp Act Congress deservedly holds a
high place in American history.
The newspapers of the country at large were laden with
the proceedings of towns and meetings in different locations,
which passed elaborate series of resolutions. An analysis of
them shows that sentences, and indeed entire resolves of the
Virginia series reappear in those of Connecticut, Maryland,
Rhode Island and other colonies, especially the words "exclusive
legislation in the articles of taxes and internal policies,"
which had entered not only into Henry's resolutions, but had
found a place substantially in Bland's constitutional argument
in the "Colonel Dismounted" (1763), and in the Virginia resolutions
of 1764. It was a continental adoption of Virginia's
ancient principle that there must be not only no taxation without
representation, but no legislation without representation.
The Virginia Gazette teemed with articles against the Stamp
Act, and among the more notable writers were John Mercer,
of Marlborough, and Meriwether Smith, of Essex County.
About the time of the adjournment of the Stamp Act Congress
in the latter part of October, George Mercer, (son of
John Mercer), who had been appointed distributor, arrived in
Williamsburg; when meeting with much opposition from a
multitude composed of leading merchants and representative
citizens, he agreed not to undertake the execution of his office,
"until he received further orders from England, nor then without
the assent of the Assembly of Virginia." All the stamped
papers brought by Mercer were taken aboard his Majesty's
ship, The Rainbow, and none was landed.[50]
Two other things showed how greatly the spirit of Virginia
associations pledged to prevent the enforcement of the Stamp
Act. The Westmoreland association was formed at Leedstown,
February 27, 1766, of gentlemen from the Potomac and
Rappahannock region, and there was another association in
Norfolk, who called themselves "Sons of Liberty," formed on
March 31. Both pledged themselves by strong resolutions
against permitting the employment of stamps by any body. The
resolutions of Westmoreland were written by Richard Henry
Lee, who had now become one of the radical champions of the
rights of the colony.
Perhaps, however, no single agency had greater effect upon
developing thought in America than the publication at Williamsburg,
in March, 1766, and republished later in London, of
a pamphlet by Richard Bland, entitled "An Enquiry into the
Rights of the British Colonies." Here was an opponent of
Henry's resolutions going beyond the doctrines set out a few
months before. In his "Colonel Dismounted," written in
1763, Bland had argued for the absolute legislative power of
Virginia in internal affairs, and Henry had stressed the doctrine
in his fourth resolution. Now Bland took a step decidedly
in advance, and argued that though a part of the British
Empire, "Virginia was no part of the Kingdom of England,"
and that having been settled by Englishmen at their own expense
under particular stipulations with the Crown, it was
under no obligations to receive laws from the Parliament. It
was to the Crown alone that the Colonies owed their existence.
It was to the Crown alone that the Colonies owed allegiance.
Bland admitted that certain statutes of Parliament of later
date than 1606 had passed in Virginia, such as the Navigation
Laws, but this fact was not deemed by him fatal to his contention.
Virginia "submitted as the weaker vessel," but "power
abstracted from right does not give a just title to dominion,"
and though submitted to because of necessity, may be resisted
whenever the sufferer obtains strength enough to do so.
Dr. Moses Coit Tyler in his "Literary History of the American
"a prodigious innovation." But it was afterwards accepted
by the American public and became the ground on which the
union with Great Britain was dissolved. In language still
bolder than Bland's, Jefferson expressed similar views in 1774
in his "Summary View of the Rights of the British Colonies,"
and he states that George Wythe shared with him, at that
time, in similar radical opinions.
And yet too much stress is not to be laid on Dr. Moses Tyler's
words. The doctrine was not one held in 1766 in Virginia
by Bland alone, for we are told by Rev. Andrew Burnaby, who
travelled in Virginia in 1759 that many of the Virginians were
of that opinion.
The defiant attitude assumed by Virginia was attested, not
alone by the Stamp Act resolutions of May 30, 1765, and "the
innovations" advanced by Bland in his pamphlets, but by the
remarkable stand which was taken by one of the county courts.
The policy adopted by the colonists in general was to embarrass
England by loud protests and non-importation associations
into repealing her obnoxious revenue laws, and such a
thing as official resistance was never contemplated. In the address
of the Massachusetts House to Governor Bernard, Samuel
Adams, who wrote it says[51]
that "he knew of no declaration
that the Stamp Act shall not be executed within this province.
Declarations had been made by individuals that they
would not use stamped paper."
Everywhere else except in Northampton County, Virginia,
the courts either declined to transact any business requiring
stamps, or proceeded to business on the plea that there were
no stamps obtainable, and it was absolutely necessary to do
so. In Northampton County alone the court met the issue face
to face and deliberately set aside the Act of Parliament as
contrary to the constitution. This proceeding of the court is
so remarkable that a copy of the record should be given.
"Virginia—sc.:
"At a court held for Northampton County, Feb. 8, 1766:
"On the motion of the clerk and other officers of this court
praying their opinion whether the act entitled `An Act for
granting and applying certain Stamp Duties and other Duties
in America,' etc., was binding on the inhabitants of this colony,
and whether they, the said officers, should incur any penalties
by not using stamped paper agreeable to the directions of the
said act, the court unanimously declared it to be their opinion
that the said act did not bind, affect, or concern the inhabitants
of this colony, inasmuch as they conceive the same to be unconstitutional,
and that the said several officers may proceed
to the execution of their respective offices, without incurring
any penalties by means thereof, which opinion this court doth
order to be recorded. Griffin Stith, C. N. C."
The significance of the action does not stop with its negation
of the Stamp Act. It reaches out and asserts the overruling
power of the judiciary, which was not generally accepted
in the United States till the era of written constitutions. But
Virginia in 1766 did have a constitution, though it was an unwritten
one, and there is no reason why the courts might not
have asserted their protectorship of it.
It is important to be noticed that while the Virginia Assembly
in 1765 acted under the leadership of a comparatively new
man, the division among its members was not a radical one.
The opposition to Mr. Henry proceeded not so much from the
matter of his resolutions as from a doubt as to their expediency
at the time. R. H. Lee, who had taken active part in the preparation
of the resolutions at the preceding session, did not attend
the session in May, 1765, and yet became, as we have
noticed, one of the most "flaming sons of liberty." Peyton
Randolph was afterwards first president of the Continental
Congress. Richard Bland was chairman of the committee of
the whole that reported the resolutions of April 7, 1768,
and George Wythe stood with John Adams in advocacy
Pendleton was chairman of the Committee of Safety and President
of the Convention that declared for independence in May,
1776.
Henry's resolutions brought America to the point of resistance,
but at the critical moment when blows seemed imminent,
there was a change in the administration in England.
Grenville resigned in July, 1765, and the Duke of Cumberland
became Prime Minister. On the night before the Stamp Act
was to go into effect the Duke died and Rockingham succeeded
him. Among the new members were the Duke of Grafton and
General Conway, who were friendly to America. The ministry
thus composed referred the matter of the enforcement of the
Stamp Act to Parliament.
Papers were laid before the House showing the conditions
of the colonies, and, among them the Virginia resolutions as
the original cause of the great disturbance held first place. The
merchants of London trading to North America, showed that
their interests had been greatly affected by the decrease of the
imports, which were not half what they were in previous years.
Witnesses were examined and among the number Benjamin
Franklin.
William Pitt in the House of Commons urged a repeal in
one of the most brilliant of his speeches, in which he denied the
right of Parliament to tax America, ridiculed the idea of their
representation in Parliament, and exclaimed: "I rejoice that
America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all
the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves
would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest."
In the House of Lords, Lord Camden maintained the cause of
the colonies in a speech of great force, in which he said: "Taxation
and representation are coeval with and essential to the
constitution." Under such influences the repeal of the act was
carried, but the majority was obtained only by putting the repeal
on the ground of expediency and by the adoption of a declaratory
resolution stating explicitly that the King and Parliament
authority to make laws and statutes of supreme force and
validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of
the Crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatever."
King George very unwillingly affixed his name to the repeal
act on March 18, 1766, and on May 2, news of the repeal reached
Williamsburg by the ship Lord Baltimore. The joyful intelligence
was celebrated at Norfolk and Williamsburg and other
places by balls, illuminations and the ringing of bells. The
people of Westmoreland County had a portrait painted of
William Pitt, and the General Assembly at its session beginning
Nov. 6, 1766, considered a bill for erecting a statue of
King George and obelisk to the champions of the colonies who
had contributed to its repeal in England, but after a report
from Landon Carter of a suitable inscription for the obelisk
the whole matter was postponed till the next session, when
probably owing to the discovery then made of the emptiness
of the Treasury through John Robinson lending out funds, the
bill was not called up, but suffered to die on the calendar.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
These letters were afterwards, in 1769, printed and published together in a
pamphlet by William Rind of Williamsburg, a copy of which is in the Library
of Congress. Though second only in popular opinion, at that time to the
Farmer's Letters, Dr. M. C. Tyler, nevertheless snubs them in his Literary History
of the American Revolution. On the other hand, Mr. Ford, in his Letters of
William Lee, refers to the "charm of Arthur Lee's style," I, 65.
In John Adams' Diary, Works, II, 343, is the following, under date of August
17, 1774: "This morning Roger Sherman, Esquire, one of the delegates for
Connecticut, came to see us at the Tavern, Isaac Bears' * He said he read
Mr. Otis' Rights, etc., in 1764, and thought that he had conceded away the rights
of America. * * * He would have been willing that Massachusetts should
have rescinded that part of their circular letter, where they allow Parliament to
be the supreme Legislature over the colonies in any case."
The House of Burgesses consisted, at this time, of 118 members, and yet
Hildreth writes: "The Massachusetts House of Representatives consisted, at this
time, of upward of a hundred members, by far the most numerous assembly in
America." Hildreth, United States, II, 543.
Frothingham says: "There was no adequate step taken to meet the threatened
aggression until the House of Burgesses of Virginia convened in May. This
colony, in opposing the administration, was co-equal with Massachusetts in guilt
or merit, but while the bayonet was pointed at the one, blandishment was devised
for the other—it being a cardinal object of the government to divide the colonies
and thus paralyze their efforts." The Rise of the Republic, 233.
CHAPTER VI
THE REVENUE ACT—CRISES OF THE SLOOP
GASPEE, AND THE BOSTON PORT BILL
The concession obtained from the ministry and from Parliament
constituted a great victory, but it fell short of what the
colonists had hoped for, and they did not abate their vigilance.
The retention of the duty on tea was a great disappointment
to Lord Botetourt. In November, 1769, he had called the
Assembly together to inform the members officially of the assurances
he had received not long before from the Earl of
Hillsborough, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies,
that it was the intention of the English government not to propose
any further taxes upon the American people and to take
off the duties on glass, paper and colors. In conveying to
them this personal intelligence he added his own personal
pledge that "he would be content to be declared infamous, if
he did not to the last hour of his life, at all times and in all
places and upon all occasions, exert every power, with which
he was or ever should be legally invested, to obtain and maintain
for the continent of America that satisfaction which he
had been authorized to promise that day."
This speech the Burgesses received with much applause,
and turning themselves from the old disturbing subject of
the interference of Parliament, addressed themselves to the
matter of the western boundary and to various important local
measures, chief among which was the project of a vineyard
to be managed by one, Andrew Esclave, a Frenchman; the
establishment of a hospital for the insane, first recommended
in 1766 by Governor Fauquier, and the erection at the joint
on the Market Square in said city.
These measures were all brought to consummation. Authority
was given to a committee to purchase for the vineyard
not exceeding a hundred acres of land near Williamsburg,
which was afterwards located to the east of the city, and
north of the road leading to Yorktown, being the site of the
battle of Williamsburg, in 1862. Esclave had but little success
but he attributed his failure to unseasonable weather and
asked the indulgence of the people, but the war of the Revolution
put a stop to his labors, and in 1784 the land, with other
public lands, was given by the Legislature to the College of
William and Mary.
The hospital, which is still functioning, was the first of its
kind in the United States, and the Court House, erected by
virtue of the authority then given, still serves the purpose of
the City of Williamsburg and County of James City, and has
been often admired by architects of national reputation for
the accuracy of its proportions.
This Assembly adjourned for the Christmas holidays on
December 21, to meet again on May 21, 1770, and in the interim
knowledge of the action of Parliament became known. The
colonists were made acquainted with the fact that despite the
alterations in the law, the ministry, of which Lord North was
now the head by the retention of the tax on tea, was fixed in
its purpose not to abandon the claim to impose taxes on the
American colonies at their pleasure.
In Virginia people were not, therefore, satisfied with the
result, and on June 10, 1770, the Assembly adopted a petition
to the King stating their disappointment that "the late agreeable
prospect" had not laid the foundation for harmony as
they expected, and praying for the absolute repeal of all laws
imposing taxes or authorizing the transportation of persons
beyond the sea for trial before distant courts of Admiralty,
without the formality of a jury.
As further evidence of their dissatisfaction, it was determined
possible. Now the merchants of Virginia had an organization
among themselves called the "Cape Company," which
held annual meetings in Williamsburg. The perverse course
of the British Ministry, brought to Williamsburg on June 22,
1770, a large convention. They elected Andrew Sproule, of
Norfolk, chairman, and he and his associates joined with the
gentlemen of the House of Burgesses in an association against
purchasing any manufactures imported from Great Britain, or
any wines or any slaves from anywhere, and against using tea
until the obnoxious laws of Parliament were repealed. Of the
new association, Peyton Randolph was made President, and
the terms of the organization provided for a committee of
five persons in every county to enforce the association and the
President could call a meeting of the association, at his discretion,
and must do so on the request of twenty members of
the body.[69]
It is stated that the course of the British ministry so preyed
upon Lord Botetourt that he asked his recall, and not long
after the adjournment of the Assembly he fell sick of bilious
fever, which, aggravated by chagrin and disappointment,
reached a fatal termination on October 15, 1770. His death
was deeply lamented, and the funeral ceremonies were elaborate.
His remains, encased in three coffins, one of them a leaden
affair, heavily ornamented with silver, were deposited, according
to his request, under the floor of the Chapel of William and
Mary College. During the war for Southern Independence the
vaults were broken open by vandals of the Federal Army in
their search for treasure. Only the leaden coffin was found
intact, and the lid of this was ripped open and the skeleton exposed.
The silver plate with Botetourt's name and death upon
it was carried north, and in 1890 returned to the President of
the College, through Fitzhugh Lee, the Governor of Virginia,
by an Albany jeweler, to whom it had been sold by a woman,
who was described as the "widow of a private Brown."
The General Assembly voted a large sum of money to
erect a statue to Botetourt's memory, and this statue, made in
London in 1773 by Richard Haywood, is now, after various
vicissitudes, standing in front of the College of William and
Mary, in a rather shattered condition.
After Botetourt's death, the executive authority for the
third time devolved on John Blair, President of the Council,
who resigned because of ill health and old age, and thereupon
William Nelson succeeded him as President of the Council.
His father, Thomas Nelson, came from the north of England,
about 1690, and settled at Yorktown in 1705, where he
became the leading merchant and acquired a great fortune.
Thomas Nelson, a son, became Secretary of State of the Colony,
and William Nelson, another son, inherited much of his
father's wealth, which he largely increased by his extensive
business at Yorktown. He became a member of the Council of
State in 1745 and served as such until his death at Yorktown,
November 19, 1772. In his politics he was a conservative, and,
while strongly opposed to taxation by parliament, he did not
approve what he deemed the hasty action of Patrick Henry
and the other progressives. During his administration, which
lasted about a year, quiet prevailed in Virginia as elsewhere,
disturbed only by the great freshet, which flooded the rivers in
the eastern part of the colony, and by an agitation started
by some zealous churchmen in the Middle States for an
American Episcopacy.
America was in the see of the Bishop of London, but New
York and New Jersey were dissatisfied and deputed the Rev.
Dr. Cooper, President of Kings College, and Rev. Mr. McKean,
deputies to visit the south in regard to petitioning the
King for an American bishop. At their urgent solicitations
James Horrocks, President of William and Mary College
and Commissary to the Bishop of London, called a convocation
of the clergy. Twelve ministers, out of about 100, in pursuance
of the call, met at the College June 4, 1771, and adopted a resolution
Professor of Divinity, was the chief agitator, and he was
warmly opposed by Rev. Samuel Henley, and Rev. Thomas
Gwatkin, the two professors of philosophy in the College, and
by two clergymen among the generality, Rev. Richard Hewitt
and Rev. William Bland. Formal protests were published in
the Gazette by the four protesters against the legality as well
as the regularity of the proceedings. This brought on a severe
paper war. Mr. Camm appeared in the newspaper as the advocate
of a bishop, and Mr. Henley and Mr. Gwatkin against a
bishop. This newspaper war continued with much violence
and personal abuse till the meeting of the Assembly in July,
1771. Horrocks went to England that summer on the plea of ill
health, which his death not long after proved well founded,
though he was suspected of embarking for the purpose of
having himself appointed as "the First Right Reverend
Father of the American Church."
The movement for a bishop created a great stir not in Virginia
only, but in all the other parts of America as well. In
Virginia it was looked upon as a scheme to deprive the vestrymen
of the powers which they wielded over the appointment
and control of their clergymen, and to strengthen the general
plan of English authority. So the Assembly at its session beginning
July 11, 1771, very promptly put a quietus on the
movement by extending its thanks through Richard Henry
Lee and Richard Bland to Messrs. Henley and Gwatkin for
"their wise and well-timed opposition."
Among the advocates of the scheme was the Rev. Jonathan
Boucher, who held the opinion that the refusal of Virginia
to consent to a bishop was to "unchurch the church." But as
a matter of fact the opposition of the majority of the clergymen
in Virginia was not so much to a bishop, for a hierarchy
was a part of their tenets, as to a too intimate connection with
the English system, interfering like the Stamp Act, with the
personal rights of the citizens. In New England the proposition
the religious views of those people.
This scheme of creating a bishop had been entertained more
than a hundred years before, and Dean Swift at one time cherished
hopes of the office, with power, as it is said, to ordain
deacons and priests for all the colonies, and parcel them out
into deaneries, parishes, etc., and to recommend and present
thereto.
Notwithstanding the dissatisfaction with the act of Parliament
modifying the Revenue Act, the flame of rebellion
burned very low during the next two years. In the interval
quiet prevailed in all the colonies except in Massachusetts,
where the mob, by assaulting some British troops stationed in
Boston, had created a temporary excitement on the very day,
March 5, 1770, on which Lord North moved the repeal of the
duties on glass, lead and paper. One of the soldiers was
knocked down and another was hit with a club. Either with
orders, or without them, six or seven shots were fired by soldiers
in the street or by persons from the windows of the Custom
House just above them. Four citizens were killed and
others were wounded. Bernard had now returned to England,
and in his absence Hutchinson, who was lieutenant governor
as well as chief justice, was acting governor. He handed over
the soldiers accused to be tried by a Boston jury and ordered
the rest of the troops to be moved from the town to Castle
William, in Boston Harbour. Some of the ablest lawyers in
Massachusetts, including John Adams, volunteered for the defence
of those under arrest, and as it was impossible to prove
that any order to fire had been given, the officer who had commanded
the guards was discharged. Two of the privates
were convicted of manslaughter, and claiming benefit of clergy,
were burnt in the hand and dismissed. The affair seems to
have been nothing more than a scrap between the mob and
the soldiers in which the former, who began the row, got the
worst of it, but it soon acquired the name of the "Boston Massacre,"
chiefly New Englanders, began writing American history.[70]
At any rate after the removal of the troops the people in
Massachusetts went about their business very much as they
did elsewhere, "and it seemed for a time that at last the behests
of Parliament would be obeyed, and the duties levied at
the Custom House be paid." The efforts for non-importation
did not prove satisfactory. In the very nature of the case it
was difficult to make such a system complete. The merchants
of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania widely
evaded the agreement. "More tea," says Hutchinson, "was
imported legally into Massachusetts than into all the other
colonies."[71]
In June, 1770, New York broke down and announced
her intention to confine the inhibition to tea alone.
Her example was demoralizing, and on December 9, 1770, William
Nelson wrote "the spirit of association which hath prevailed
in this colony for some time past, seems to me, from the
defection of the Northern provinces, to be cooling every day,"
and no general bonds remained to hold the colonies together.
In the fall of the year 1771 arrived in Williamsburg as
governor-in-chief of Virginia, John Murray, Earl of Dunmore,
a Scotch nobleman and peer of the realm. He was born in
1732; was descended in the female line from the royal house of
Stuart; succeeded to the peerage in 1765; appointed governor
of New York in January, 1770, and of Virginia in July, 1771.
This gentleman has been severely criticised by the Virginians,
The conditions would have made it very difficult for him under
any circumstances to have escaped some measure of blame, and
he has evidently been blamed in some cases without any just
reason and merely from suspicions or prejudice.
Certainly his first expressions, on the meeting of the Assembly
February 10, 1772, were very sensible and suggestive. In
this speech he assured the Assembly that they might depend
on his "zealous co-operation" in "directing the skill and invigorating
the industry of the people, in regulating and encouraging
agriculture, in opening new sources of wealth and
promoting the dependence of the colony and Mother Country
on one another." In this speech it will be noticed that he was
perhaps the first royal governor to state that "dependence"
was not that simply of Virginia on England but England on
Virginia. His next step was to surrender a list of fees for
commissions to county officers, inspectors of tobacco, presentations
to a parish and other offices, exacted by his predecessors
without any authority of law, and for this act he was cordially
thanked by the Virginia Assembly.
Pursuant to his message various enterprises were undertaken
by the Legislature, such as improving the navigation of
the Potomac; clearing Mattapony River; circumventing the
falls of James River by a canal from Westham to a point below
Richmond; and a canal from Archer's Hope Creek to Queen
Creek, through Williamsburg, connecting James River with
York River; requiring gates to be furnished in mill dams
for the passage of fish; opening roads and repairing others
already opened. Seldom before in the history of the colony had
such improvements been suggested, much less received a serious
consideration, and this first legislation under Dunmore
marks really the beginning of the first industrial era in the history
of Virginia. To one measure, however, desired by the
House, he did not give his countenance, and this was the proposed
removal of the capital from Williamsburg to another
part of the state. In this opposition he had, however, the support
approved by the House at the time of the burning of the capitol
in 1746.
In the meantime, over in England, while Parliamentary
interference did not go further, the King, by instructions,
which offended the popular sentiment in America, raised issues
in nearly every colony. A set of instructions was not framed
to apply to all the colonies alike, but special instructions were
sent to each colony as local circumstances dictated. "Hence,
the patriots could not create a general issue upon them."[72]
Out of an order which restrained the governors of the colonies
from assenting to any restriction of the slave trade
sprang the noble petition to the King of the Virginia Legislature
in February, 1772, in which they spoke of the importation
of slaves as a trade of "great inhumanity" and "one calculated
to endanger the very existence of your majesty's American
dominions." This petition, which is at once pathetic and
prophetic in its appeal, was one of the measures to check the
slave trade. Again and again the Assembly had passed laws
restraining the importation of negroes from abroad, but these
laws had been disallowed by the King of England.
Similarly, a grievance existed in Massachusetts because
of royal orders which made the salaries of Governor Hutchinson,
the judges, and subordinate officers of the courts, payable
out of the imperial treasury. Such a mode of payment tended
to make these officers wholly independent of the local conditions
and bound them to England. Samuel Adams took advantage
of the quarrel, during the latter part of 1772, to organize
an opposition through committees of correspondence in the
Massachusetts towns. He seemed to have intended spreading
his committees, if possible, to towns outside of the province and
indeed to making them national. But the plan did not succeed,
and after four months it had not been adopted in any
other State—"not one town outside of Massachusetts, I think,
choosing a committee of correspondence."[73]
Indeed, the issue on the royal instructions, as applied to
the salaries of officials, by Adams, was too essentially local
to meet the requirements. Lord Dartmouth supplied the
want in a fresh royal instruction, dated September 4, 1772, but
not made public until four months later.
This time the scene of the Revolutionary occasion was in
Rhode Island, the smallest of the colonies, not Massachusetts.
Incensed by the vigorous manner in which the British sloop
Gaspée was enforcing the navigation act, a party of disguised
men in June, 1772, boarded the vessel while accidentally
stranded, wounded the captain, and destroyed the vessel by
fire. The affair deserved punishment, but the exasperated
ministry went too far. Lord Dartmouth sent an order under
the sign manual of the King, creating a commission to enquire
into the circumstances. It was instructed that the offence of
the men concerned in the attack on the Gaspée was high treason,
and was directed to arrest the parties charged with the
crime and to send them to England for trial. This measure
raised again the question of the fundamental right of the trial
by jury. In the presence of this great national issue, Rhode
Island acted very tamely, and its assembly would issue no
circular calling for aid and left the chief justice, Stephen
Hopkins, who asked their advice, to his own discretion.
The issue was once more met by Virginia, and all America
was roused by the call. The House of Burgesses met on
March 4, 1773, when the Rhode Island court of enquiry received
their attention. The lead was now taken from the older
members Peyton Randolph, George Wythe, Richard Bland
and Robert Carter Nicholas by a caucus of whom Patrick
Henry was the chief, and numbered also Richard Henry Lee,
Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, Francis Lightfoot Lee, and
Dabney Carr. Their remedy was a system of intercolonial
committees. Jefferson, who probably drew the paper, was requested
to present it to the assembly, but he desired that that
honor should be accorded his brother-in-law, Dabney Carr.
Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee made impressive
adopted. Eleven members were appointed a committee
of correspondence to communicate with the other colonies.
Lord Dunmore was now governor in the place of Botetourt, deceased,
and on March 15, he dissolved the House. The following
day the committee of correspondence agreed upon a
circular which the speaker, Peyton Randolph, was directed
to send to the other colonies.
This action of Virginia was statesmanlike and proved an
inspiration. The supineness of Rhode Island, the neighbor
of Massachusetts, had provoked Nathanael Greene, the future
general, into saying that its Assembly had lost its ancient public
virtue. But it now applauded the example of Virginia, and
chose a corresponding committee. Five of the other colonies
also accepted the proposals and returned their warm and
earnest thanks. Their resolutions setting forth the object of
the committees were generally a transcript of those of Virginia,
and were sent to the Assemblies in a circular letter
usually signed by the Speaker. "Heaven itself," says one
New England writer, "seemed to have dictated to the noble
Virginians." The intercolonial committees "struck a greater
panic in the ministers," wrote William Lee from London,
"than anything that had taken place since the passage of the
Stamp Act." The British ministry, in fact, saw in it for the
first time a real union of American interests, and regarded it
as the sure precursor of a continental congress.
The effect on the court of enquiry was demoralizing. The
members vacillated, and were afraid to call for military force.
The commission held a final session in June, 1774, when they
agreed upon an elaborate report, in which they conceded that
the commander of the Gaspée, in detaining vessels indiscriminately,
exceeded the bounds of his duty. The commission then
adjourned. "The design of transporting Americans to England
was given up. This was the close of the issue of Royal
instructions."[74]
Some Massachusetts writers claim that these international
committees of correspondence sprang from the town committees
of Massachusetts, but the claim is without foundation.
The subject has been thoroughly examined by James Miller
Leake in his "The Virginia Committee System and the American
Revolution," one of the Johns Hopkins University
studies. Preliminary to a union of the colonies there was the
necessity of a unity of sentiment in each province itself. Virginia
was the most united in public sentiment of all the colonies,
but in Massachusetts there was much division in the
towns, even in Boston itself, and local committees of correspondence
were therefore needed to make unity there.
The Virginia intercolonial committee of correspondence
appears to have developed out of a "committee of correspondence"
appointed in 1758 by the General Assembly to deal with
an agent in London in regard to all public matters arising
there. This committee was sometimes required to discharge
other public functions, such as to reply to the Massachusetts
circular on the Sugar Bill in 1764. Both this committee and the
intercolonial committee were standing committees of the
Legislature. Each possessed the power to exercise its proper
function in the recess between the sessions of the Legislature.
The proceedings of each had to be laid before the body by which
it was appointed and to which it was amenable. In function
and manner of appointment they bore a close resemblance to
one another. The Virginia intercolonial committee was appointed
by its Assembly, while in Massachusetts the Assembly
had nothing to say about Sam Adams' local committees, which
were appointed by the towns. The task of the Virginia committee
was infinitely a more difficult one and a more important
one than that of the local committees in Massachusetts. It was
to secure united action among disjointed colonies, which really
constituted two separate nationalities, and which only an extreme
sense of mutual oppression could even temporarily drive
together.
Among the first to recognize this true method of uniting
![illustration](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:253034/full/!1600,1600/0/default.jpg")
Richard Henry Lee
letter to John Dickinson, he declared that "to understand each
other and timely to be informed of what occurs, both here and
in Great Britain, it would seem that not only select committees
should be appointed by all the colonies but that a private correspondence
should be conducted between the lovers of liberty
in every province." His brother, Dr. Arthur Lee, than whom
very few performed a greater part in stirring up opposition to
England, wrote from London to Samuel Adams January 10,
1771, suggesting as a means to counteract the breaking down
at that time of the non-importation associations, which had
destroyed confidence in England of any successful opposition,
"the establishment of a correspondence among the leading
men of each province that you might harmonize in any future
measure for the general good in the several Assemblies. Unanimity
among yourselves will render you formidable and
respected here."
Whether Samuel Adams was guided in his actions by Lee
or not, the necessity of unification of the towns of Massachusetts
appears as a corollary to Lee's suggestion uttered to
Samuel Adams a year or more before.
CRISIS OF THE BOSTON PORT BILL
Succeeding this interesting episode of the sloop Gaspée,
the English ministry, despairing of accomplishing their purpose
by frowns and threats, determined to try to enforce the
revenue act by appealing to the cupidity of the colonies. They
persuaded Parliament to take off the duties imposed in England
on tea and allow the three pence collectible in America
only to stand, supposing that the Americans would not decline
to buy tea at the cheap price possible. After the proposal
became a law, the East India Company, having large supplies
stored in their warehouses in England, began to ship cargoes
of tea to Charleston, New York, Philadelphia and Boston.
Hutchinson says that the association against tea had been
great friends to liberty," that "the first news failed to arouse
any alarm, and the patriots were excited to action by friends in
England."[75]
Among those who were instrumental in this particular, Dr.
Arthur Lee again proved his usefulness. In a letter to Samuel
Adams, dated October 13, 1773, he informed him of the proposed
law, and dwelt at large upon its dangers. He declared
that the introductions of the tea ought to be opposed. "The
commodity may under this maneuver come cheaper to the consumer,
but whatever touches our liberties should under every
temptation be avoided. Besides, when once they have fixed
the trade upon us they will find ways enough to enhance the
price."
Doubtless Lee in giving this advice to Samuel Adams had
orderly action in view, and Adams was prominent in meetings
at Faneuil Hall to prevent the landing of the tea, but there is no
evidence of his advising a resort to violence.
But once more the influences at Boston to which I have
hitherto alluded made Massachusetts the occasion of the Revolutionary
movement. In Charleston, New York and Philadelphia,
the consignees, being without any support, declined
to receive the tea and resigned; but in Boston, where Thomas
Hutchinson had succeeded Francis Bernard as governor, the
Tory and military influences were so strong that the consignees—two
of whom were Hutchinson's sons, were tempted
to hold on. Then the mob materialized again, and on the night
of December 16, 1773, a band of men disguised as Indians
boarded the vessel, cut open the tea chests and threw the entire
cargo overboard, valued at £15,000.
It has never been ascertained who constituted this marauding
party, and it is impossible to suppose that any man of note
had any part in it, else concealment to this time would have
been improbable. Howard believes[76]
that Samuel Adams was
that this lawless destruction of private property "can be
justly looked upon as an honor to his memory." But more
than that this disguise looks cowardly, and Adams, standing
by out of danger himself, and urging them on, appears even
more cowardly than the actors. The brutal outrage perpetrated
on Captain Smith in Norfolk during the Stamp Act had
at least the element of openness about it. The South Carolinians
in refusing to buy the tea shipped to Charleston till it
all rotted in the warehouses presented a more honorable and
patriotic aspect than the actors in the "Tea Party" in Boston.
But the English government hastened to put itself in the
wrong, though the action of the rioters was disavowed by
decent people in Boston. The provocation to extreme action
was undoubtedly great and no one at this time can blame England
for feeling indignant. But the remedy adopted went
far beyond the necessities of the case and evoked sympathy in
the other colonies. It did more, it emblazoned in history as
particularly worthy an act which on cool consideration has not
as good standing as lynching negroes in the South in our day
for unmentionable crimes.
The English government, stimulated by Governor Hutchinson,
breathed of nothing but threats of execution and transportation
beyond the seas, and Boston was made to suffer for
the deeds of irresponsible persons. Boston was condemned,
and Parliament passed bills to shut up the port and to abrogate
the charter of Massachusetts in some essential particulars.
Boston's remedy was found in an appeal put forward by
her town meeting to the people of the colonies to join her in a
total cessation of commerce with Great Britain. But the invitation
was received at first very coldly in the northern section
where New York and Philadelphia were in no hurry to
take action. Fortunately, "Warmer hearts," writes Bancroft,
"beat below Mason's and Dixon's line."
In April, 1774, arrived in Williamsburg Lady Dunmore
and her children, George, Lord Fincastle, the Honorables
Augusta and Susan Murray. They were welcomed with an
illumination of the city, and the three young noblemen were
put to school at the college. The late measure of Parliament
was as yet unknown in Virginia, and the feeling of loyalty still
predominated with all classes.
When the assembly met in May, 1774, Williamsburg presented
a scene of unwonted gaiety, and a court herald published
a code of etiquette for the regulation of the society of
the little metropolis. There were balls, dancing, assemblies,
theatricals, and a large concourse of people from the country.
George Washington arrived and dined with Lord Dunmore.
The scene, however, changed as soon as the news of the act
of Parliament with reference to the closing of the port of
Boston reached the city. Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson,
R. H. Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee, and three or four other gentlemen
of the Progressive Party drew up a resolution, which
they persuaded Robert Carter Nicholas of the conservative
element to offer, denouncing the action of the British government
and setting apart the first day of June on which the port
bill was to commence, for a day of fasting, humiliation and
prayer throughout the colony. These resolves were printed
in the Virginia Gazette of May 26, and on seeing them Lord
Dunmore ordered the house immediately that day to come
upstairs to the council chamber, where he addressed them in
the following language: "Mr. Speaker, and gentlemen of the
House of Burgesses, I have in my hand a paper published by
order of your house, conceived in such terms as to reflect
highly upon his majesty and the parliament of Great Britain,
which makes it necessary for me to dissolve you, and you are
dissolved accordingly."
The members, thereupon, left the capitol, and next day
(May 27) gathered in the Apollo Hall at the Raleigh Tavern,
and with Peyton Randolph, their late speaker in the chair,
completed the work which they had intended by voting that the
attack on Massachusetts was an attack on all the colonies, to be
annually held, that as a punishment to the East India Company,
no East India commodity, hereafter, should be imported,
and that, if the unconstitutional principle of taxing the colonies
should be persisted in, commercial intercourse with
Great Britain should be altogether suspended.
Two days later, on May 29, letters from the North arriving
by way of Philadelphia and Annapolis, with information of the
desire of Boston for immediate non-intercourse, the twenty-five
members still remaining in town called a convention of the
people to meet on August 1.
By the proceedings thus described, Virginia maintained
herself at the front of the Revolutionary movement. It was
the glory of Virginia that she was not only the first colony in
America to identify herself with Boston, but the first to call a
Congress of the colonies. For although unknown to our
patriots in Williamsburg, the suggestion of a Congress was
made in advance during the same month of May by the committee
of correspondence in New York, and a town meeting in
Providence, these were mere local affairs without any general
authority.[77]
The action at Williamsburg, on the other hand,
was that of an organized, legislative body, presided over by a
speaker, and presuming to declare officially for a whole colony.
The Virginia Burgesses took the lead in calling not only a
Congress, but an annual Congress of the colonies involving a
permanent union, first started by the institution of the inter-colonial
committees of correspondence. On June 3, Connecticut
adopted a call for Congress, but the action of Virginia was
decisive, and the assembly of Rhode Island followed her lead
on June 15, Massachusetts on June 17, Pennsylvania on July
22, till all had fallen in line. The colonies which had not acted
now appointed their committees of correspondence, and the
local committees, which had not crossed the border of Massachusetts,
now under the stimulating influence of Virginia's
through all the colonies.
The position of Virginia, as leader of the colonies, at this
critical juncture of their affairs, is abundantly attested by the
literature of the day. The Philadelphia Committee of Correspondence
wrote June 3, (1774): "All America look up to
Virginia to take the lead on the present occasion." The Delaware
committee wrote, May 26, that because of the "high
opinion of the zeal and firmness of those of your colony in the
common cause of America, we are persuaded that their resolutions,
at this important crisis, will have great weight here."
The Connecticut committee June 13, praised "the wise,
spirited, and seasonable proceedings of your truly patriotic
House of Burgesses, in early proposing a correspondence between
and union of the colonies and the manly, pious and
humane attention more lately manifested to the distresses of
the town of Boston." Perhaps stronger evidence still is to be
found in a letter dated July 6, 1774, to Governor Dunmore from
Lord Dartmouth, who had succeeded Lord Hillsborough as
Secretary of State in management of the colonies. Lord Dartmouth
wrote: "There was reason to hope from appearances
in the other colonies that the extravagant proposition of the
people of Boston would have been everywhere disregarded.
But it now may well be doubted whether the extraordinary
conduct of the Burgesses of Virginia, both before and after
their dissolution as a House, may not become (as it has already
become in other instances) an example to the other colonies."
On August 3, 1774, Dartmouth wrote again to Lord Dunmore:
"The proceedings of the Burgesses of Virginia do not
encourage me to hope for a speedy issue to the present discussion,
and we have seen too much of the prevalence of the example
they have set the other colonies, not to be greatly
alarmed at what may be the result of the unconstitutional
meeting (Congress) they are endeavoring to promote."
To Patrick Henry, who led the people in Virginia, George
Mason, whose ability to judge cannot be questioned, referred
![illustration](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:253042/full/!1600,1600/0/default.jpg")
George Mason
heard," and "as the first man on the continent as well in
ability as public virtues."
In the interval between the dissolution of the General
Assembly and the meeting of the convention on August 1,
1774, the Freeholders of every county in Virginia held meetings
and adopted patriotic resolutions, pledging provisions for
Boston, asserting the rights of the colonies, and endorsing the
strictest non-intercourse with Great Britain. There were
some, indeed, who thought the policy of non-intercourse on
the one hand too tame as a means of resistance to government,
and on the other too harsh in its application to the Virginia
creditors in England, and wanted the ground to be taken at
once that no attention whatever should be paid to the tea act
or any other act of Parliament infringing on colonial rights.
The champion advocate of this policy was Thomson Mason, of
Stafford, brother of George Mason, who set out his views in
six able articles published in the Virginia Gazette, under the
title of "A British American."
The convention duly met, appointed a delegation to the
Congress, and adopted an extensive system of non-intercourse,
and all signed the paper except Thomson Mason, who refused
for the reasons stated above.
And yet nothing, indeed, could testify more for the elevated
principles of the Virginians than their action at this time. Not
only did they by non-intercourse voluntarily invite the hardships
of the Boston Port Bill to their own firesides, but the
policy thus adopted was more hurtful to their interests than
to the interests of the people of England, and far more than
to the interests of the four colonies of New England, as by
their home industries the latter was much less dependent on
the mother country, and their exports and imports did not
amount to half the exports and imports of Virginia and Maryland.[78]
Among the members of the convention was George Washington,
who united a great moral and intellectual power with
an imposing physical appearance. It is said of him that he was
a man of strong emotions kept in check by perfect self-control.
It is probable that his apprehension of his own natural vehemence
made him as a rule silent in deliberative bodies. History
tells of two occasions when his habitual self control gave way
and his emotions swept in a mighty tumult over every obstacle.
One was at Monmouth when he was provoked beyond endurance
at the pusillanimous conduct of General Charles Lee.
The other, it seems, was in this convention when the modest,
taciturn officer rose in the might of his strength and blazed in
the glory of oratory. Thomas Lynch, of South Carolina, told
John Adams that "Colonel Washington made the most eloquent
speech at the Virginia Convention that ever was made.
Said he, `I will raise one thousand men, subsist them at my
own expense, and march myself at their head for the relief of
Boston.' "[79]
Mr. Jefferson, the young member for Albemarle, was the
draftsman of instructions for the delegates, which were
deemed too bold as a first measure. They assumed, though
with a spirit more decided, the extreme ground taken by Bland,
in 1766, that the colonies were independent in all respects of
Parliament, and summed up with trenchant pen that easily
gave him the first place among American writers the rights
and wrongs of the continent. Another set of instructions,
probably drawn by Mr. Henry, falling short of the position
adopted by Mr. Jefferson, was preferred, but Mr. Jefferson's
paper was "read generally by the members, and approved by
many, and by the convention printed in pamphlet form under
the title of `A Summary View of the Rights of British America.'
" This magnificent pamphlet passed through various
extent, if not the topics, the phrases, of the American Revolution.
Indeed, it contained every idea of the Declaration of
Independence adopted two years later, except the explicit
statement of separation.
In the great Congress of the States, which assembled at
Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, Virginia shone resplendent
in the constellation which composed her delegation. The delegates
elected to Congress were Peyton Randolph, Speaker of
the House of Burgesses, and President of the Virginia Convention,
Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick
Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison and Edmund
Pendleton. Joseph Reed, president of the Pennsylvania convention
of 1775, has left this record of the prevailing impression:[80]
"We are so taken up with the Congress that we hardly
think of talking of anything else. About fifty have come to
town and more are expected. There are some fine fellows come
from Virginia, but they are very high. The Bostonians are
mere milk-sops to them. We understand that they are the
capital men of the colony, both in fortune and understanding."
The pre-eminence of Virginia was promptly recognized by
the election of Peyton Randolph, chairman of her delegation
as president, and the appointment of his colleagues on all the
important committees. Patrick Henry made the great opening
speech, and he and Richard Henry Lee took the palm as
orators.[81]
Richard Henry Lee drafted the memorial to the
"inhabitants of the British colonies," and Patrick Henry
drew up an address to the King, but its sentiments proving
too strong for the conciliatory attitude of Congress, a rather
tame substitute, prepared by John Dickinson, of Pennsylvania,
was preferred. Col. Washington did not write State
must have been prodigious. When returned to his home,
Patrick Henry was asked by a neighbor who he thought was
the greatest man in Congress, and he answered: "Col. Washington,
who has no pretensions to eloquence, is a man of more
solid judgment and information than any man on that floor."
His speech in the convention proved, however, that Washington
could be an orator, when the occasion was great enough,
and he let himself out.
At this meeting, Congress in defining the attitude of America,
abandoned the Otis doctrine of the supremacy of Parliament
and placed itself squarely upon the Virginia platform.
An article drawn by John Adams claimed for the
colonies the exclusive power of Legislation "in all cases of
taxation and internal policy," but consented to the operation
of such acts of the British Parliament, as were bona fide restrained
to the regulation of trade. In strict conformity with
a petition of the Massachusetts Legislature in 1773,[82]
the retrospect
of grievance was only carried back to 1763, and all
the acts of Parliament passed since that time were pronounced
inadmissible. To give effect to this attitude, they adopted, in
all essential particulars, the plan of non-intercourse proposed
by the Virginia convention and recommended the appointment
of a committee in every county, city and town in America to
carry it out.
Exports and imports of New England for the year 1770 amounted to £2,408,530,
while the exports and imports of Virginia and Maryland amounted to
£5,118,753. Hildreth, History of the United States, II, 559.
Diary of John Adams, Works, II, 360. On John Adams' journey to Philadelphia
to attend the first Continental Congress, he stopped in New York, "went
to the Coffee House, and saw the Virginia paper; the spirit of the people is
prodigious; their resolutions are really grand." Ibid., II, 352.
At the beginning of the session of Congress, in 1774, John Adams was told
that "the Virginians speak in raptures about Richard Henry Lee and Patrick
Henry, one as the Cicero and the other the Demosthenes of the age." Works,
II, 357. Towards the end of the session he wrote: "Lee, Henry and Hooper
are the orators." Ibid., II, 396.
The leader of the mob, in 1770, was Crispus Attucks, a half Indian and
half negro, who was killed by the British soldiers. And yet in spite of his having
really disgraced the cause which he assumed to represent, the Massachusetts
Legislature, in 1887, erected a monument to him and his fellow rioters against
the protest of both the Massachusetts and New England Historical Societies, who
declared the shooting to be the result of a brutal and revengeful attack upon the
soldiers. History is full of such morbid perversions of human sympathy. The
cause of anti-slavery has been disgraced by the effort to canonize John Brown, an
outlaw and murderer.
Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts Bay, III, 351. In the Virginia Gazette
for October, 1773, is a statement of the number of chests of tea on which the
duty was paid in Massachusetts in 1769, 1700, 1771, 1772 and 1773 to October 23.
CHAPTER VII
THE REVENUE ACT—CRISIS OF INDEPENDENCE
Congress adjourned to meet on May 10, 1775, and in the
interval the different colonies were active in enforcing the
association and preparing for defense. Undoubtedly, the most
prominent figure in America at this time was Patrick Henry,
and in March, 1775, at the second Virginia convention in Richmond,
he made that speech for "Liberty or Death," which
stamped him as among the greatest orators of all ages. On
this occasion, R. H. Lee and General Thomas Nelson also
spoke eloquently, and Jefferson was not silent. "He argued
closely, profoundly and warmly on the same side."[83]
Henry's bill was opposed by Robert Carter Nicholas, who
regarded the proposed action as premature, but was so far
from the Tory policy that after the measure was carried over
his vote, he came forward with a proposition that went beyond
Henry's for raising 10,000 regulars to be enlisted for the war.
If this measure had been successful, the military progress
would have been greatly enhanced. Short enlistments were
the bane of the Revolution.
March 28, Dunmore issued a proclamation requiring all
civil officers to do their utmost to prevent the appointments
of deputies for Virginia to the next Continental Congress.
This proclamation, however, had no other effect than to irritate
the colonists and weaken the influence of the government.
In order to counteract the effects of the American Association,
Parliament, about the same time, passed bills cutting off
the trade with foreign markets of all the colonies, except New
York, North Carolina and Georgia, whose assemblies had not
adopted the plan. All petitions and addresses from every
source—from Congress, the colonies, the merchants of England
and the city of London, were rejected. William Lee[84]
wrote from London on April 3, 1775, that the contest "must
now come to a final decision, and in my opinion, it will end in
an absolute independence of the colonists." On May 15, he
wrote:[85]
"The eyes of all Europe are upon America, and the
ministers attend much to the motions in Virginia, for they
think you will fight; which they have been taught to think the
New England people will not do." Doubtless this opinion of
the New Englanders went back to the year 1768, when the
Bostonians, after a great deal of bluster and with an act of
Parliament in their favor, permitted the troops to land and be
quartered in the town. They had not resisted then, and "the
King and his friends, as they are called, think there will be no
resistance now."
But the King was mistaken. On April 19, 1775, came the
first shedding of blood at Lexington. This created no new
condition, but only intensified those which existed. The difference
was only one of degree in violence, and sturdy blows
now took the place of parliamentary acts and colonial boycotts.
Whatever the situation created by the conflict at Lexington,
the British deserve the blame or credit of it, for they were the
aggressors.
Almost contemporaneous with the affair at Lexington was
an incident in Virginia which has often been characterized as
the beginning of the Revolution in that colony. The magazine
in Williamsburg contained twenty barrels of powder and a
considerable number of guns, and Lord Dunmore became apprehensive
that its contents would be seized to arm the militia.
James Innis,[86] usher of the grammar school at the college,
patrolled the streets, and kept a pretty strong guard. But at
length they grew a little negligent, and before daybreak, on
Thursday, April 20, Captain Henry Collins, with the assistance
of some marines and sailors, who had been concealed at
the palace, secretly carried off in his lordship's little wagon, all
the powder it would conveniently carry—about sixteen and a
half barrels—to the Magdalene armed schooner, stationed
under his command at Burwell's Ferry on James River, about
six miles from Williamsburg. It was carried down to the
Fowey man-of-war of 24 guns (commanded by Captain Montague),
who received it and sailed with it around to Yorktown.
When intelligence of this event was noised in Williamsburg,
there was great excitement, and the militia rushed to
arms and could, with difficulty, be restrained by Peyton Randolph,
the speaker, and Robert Carter Nicholas, the treasurer,
from rushing to the palace and seizing the person of the governor.
The common hall assembled, drew up an address, and
waited upon the governor in a body. Their address was presented
to him by Peyton Randolph, the recorder of the city,
and contained a hot remonstrance against his ill-advised
action. To this Dunmore returned a verbal answer, excusing
his conduct by a reported insurrection of slaves in Surry
County, and pledging his honor that, whenever the powder was
needed, it should be forthcoming. This reply, though not
satisfactory, quieted the citizens, and was regarded as a promise
to return the powder shortly.
The news of the removal of the powder spread in a very
short time throughout the colony, and soon more than six
hundred cavalry assembled at Fredericksburg, but before
marching to Williamsburg, they sent thither Mann Page, Jr.,
to enquire whether the gun powder had been replaced in the
magazine. He arrived in Williamsburg on the morning of
April 27, after a ride of twenty-four hours, and left in the
corporation, advising against any violent proceedings. Next
day Mr. Randolph set out for the congress, and reached the
house of Edmund Pendleton in Caroline County, from which,
on Saturday, the 29th, he joined with his host in sending a
second letter of similar import to Fredericksburg. The same
advice was given by Washington in a letter to James Mercer,
with the result that, after a long and animated discussion, the
committee of 102 deputies, appointed by the troops, consented,
by a majority of one only, not to go to Williamsburg. When
Dunmore heard of this assembling of troops, he grew very
wrathy and sent word to the mayor of Williamsburg, Dr. William
Pasteur,[87] "that, if any injury was offered to himself or
the officers who acted under his directions, he would proclaim
liberty to the slaves and reduce Williamsburg to ashes."
On May 2, the council met at the palace, and discussed the
situation. John Page, the youngest member, boldly advised
the governor to give up the power and arms, as necessary to
restore the public tranquillity. Dunmore, enraged, struck the
table with his fist, exclaiming: "Mr. Page, I am astonished
at you." The other councillors, President William Nelson,
John Camm (president of the college), Ralph Wormeley,
Richard Corbin, Gawin Corbin and William Byrd remained
silent. The result of the meeting was the issuance of a proclamation
by the governor, assuring the public that he meant no
harm and promising to return the powder "as soon as the
present ferment should subside."
The same day the committee of Hanover County met at
New Castle, and, urged by Patrick Henry, authorized him to
proceed to Williamsburg with a company of troops and demand
once, and was reinforced on the way by companies from
Charles City,[88] New Kent and King William. Ensign Parke
Goodall, with sixteen men, was detached to "Laneville," on the
Mattapony, the seat of Richard Corbin, the king's deputy-receiver-general,
to demand the estimated value of the powder;
but the king's money was kept then in Williamsburg, and
it was learned that Colonel Corbin was in that place. Captain
Henry, in the meantime, with the main body, continued his
march to Williamsburg, and the news of his approach caused
great excitement. Lady Dunmore and her children precipitately
fled to the protection of the Fowey at Yorktown, while
Lord Dunmore planted cannon at the palace, armed his negro
servants, and ordered up a detachment of marines from the
ships.
Henry, with 150 men, reached Doncastle's ordinary in
New Kent sixteen miles from Williamsburg, on the evening of
May 3, and late that night, Colonel Carter Braxton, who lived
at "Elsing Green," on the Pamunkey, arrived in town from
Henry's camp. The alternatives presented by him were the
restoration of the gunpowder or its value paid down; and,
the latter being acceded to by Dunmore, Colonel Braxton returned
with a bill of exchange for £320 from Richard Corbin,
the receiver-general, and delivered it to Henry in his camp at
sunrise of May 4. At ten o'clock of the same day, a detachment
of forty sailors and marines from the Fowey, under
Captain Stretch, arrived at the palace by way of the governor's
park.
The affair of the powder being settled, Captain Henry
wrote a letter to the treasurer, Robert Carter Nicholas, offering
to remove the treasury of the colony to a safer place or to
send a guard for its protection. But Nicholas returned the
answer that "the minds of the people of Williamsburg were
proposed guard." Indeed, more than one hundred of the citizens
of Williamsburg patrolled the streets and guarded the
treasury in the night. Upon this, Captain Henry and his men
broke up camp and returned to their respective homes.
Two days later, May 6, the governor, relieved of apprehensions,
issued a proclamation denouncing the outrages of "a
certain Patrick Henry of Hanover County, and a number of
his deluded followers," and calling upon the people to "vindicate
the constitutional authority of the government." The
reply was not long in forthcoming; for addresses and resolutions
approving his conduct poured in upon Mr. Henry from
all parts of the colony: and when, on May 11, he set out to attend
the general congress, he was honored with an escort to the
Potomac River composed of young gentlemen from Hanover,
King William and Caroline counties, and had to repeatedly
stop on the way to receive addresses of thanks and applause.
About this time Dunmore received orders from Lord North
and Lord Dartmouth, at the head of the British government,
to submit the propositions called "The Olive Branch," and he
issued, on May 12, a summons for a meeting of the assembly.
The troops from the Fowey, called by the people of Williamsburg,
in derision, "Montague's boiled crabs," were sent back
to the river, Lady Dunmore and her children returned to the
palace, and the council published an address, in which they expressed
"their detestation and abhorrence of the licentious
and ungovernable spirit that had gone forth and misled the
once happy people of this country." The council now shared
the public odium with Dunmore, and were severely criticized
in the newspapers.
In contrast with the unpopularity of Dunmore were the
honors extended to Peyton Randolph. After his return to
Philadelphia he was again elected president by the continental
congress, but when, soon after, the news arrived that the House
of Burgesses was to meet, he resigned and set out for Virginia.
At Ruffin's Ferry, on the Pamunkey, he was met by a
formed an escort. Two miles from Williamsburg they were
joined by a company of infantry, and at Williamsburg itself,
where they arrived at sunset, they were welcomed with cheers
and the ringing of bells. "There were illuminations in the evening,
and the volunteers, with many other respectable gentlemen,
assembled at the Raleigh, spent an hour or two in
harmony and cheerfulness, and drank several patriotic
toasts."
The House of Burgesses organized on June 1, by the reelection
of Randolph as speaker, but hardly had they addressed
themselves to the business of the session, before an incident
occurred, which had no small effect in increasing the public
irritation. On Saturday night, the third of June, a few overzealous
young men broke into the magazine for the purpose of
getting arms. A cord, communicating with two spring guns,
had been so placed that the arms could not be approached without
touching it. One of the guns went off and wounded three
of the intruders—one of them a popular young man named
Beverley Dickson, quite seriously. While the conduct of the
young men was not openly approved by the people of Williamsburg,
the contrivance resorted to for the protection of
the arms was deemed wicked and malicious. Dunmore's unpopularity
was increased by the publication at this time of a
letter of his to Lord Dartmouth, representing the condition of
the colony as one of open rebellion—a statement perfectly
true, but one which the colonists were not yet prepared to
admit.
Before proceeding to consider Lord North's proposals, the
house appointed a committee to inspect the magazine and enquire
into the stores belonging there; and James Innis, captain
of the Williamsburg volunteers, was required to place and
maintain a guard for its defence. Dunmore thought it best to
repeat his reasons in a message to the house for removing the
powder, and promised that "as soon as he saw things in a state
of security, he would certainly replace it." But difficulties
belonging to the British ship Fowey were to be again introduced
into the town, the people assembled in the streets with
arms in their hands, and were with difficulty convinced that
the report had no foundation.
In this situation of affairs some news that now arrived
from the north proved too much for Dunmore's nerves. An
express from General Gage, at Boston, acquainted him of his
intention to publish a proclamation proscribing Samuel
Adams and John Hancock, as Dunmore had done Patrick
Henry; and fearing that he might be seized and detained as a
hostage, Dunmore suddenly, about two o'clock in the morning
of June 8, withdrew from the palace with his family, his secretary,
Captain Edward Foy, and some of his domestics; and
went on board of the Fowey man-of-war.
The people of Williamsburg were very much surprised at
this denouement, and the Council and House of Burgesses
tried to induce Dunmore to return, but in vain. They, nevertheless,
continued their work on the bills of the session, and
June 12, Thomas Jefferson, as chairman of a committee, made
a masterly report to the house in answer to Lord North's so-called
"Olive Branch." The Burgesses approved the conduct
of the late war with the Indians, and provided the means of defraying
the cost; but the governor would not pass the bill,
because it imposed a specific duty of five pounds on the head,
about ten per cent. on the value, of every slave imported from
the West Indies. The last exercise of the veto power by the
king's representative in Virginia was for the protection of the
slave trade. At length, having finished their legislation, they
entreated him to meet them at the capitol for the purpose of
giving his formal consent, as was usual, to the bills and resolves
passed by the assembly. He replied that he could not
go to the capitol, but would be glad to see them on board his
majesty's ship in York River.
The Burgesses voted this message "a high breach of the
they adjourned to meet on October 12.
Dr. H. J. Eckenrode notes[89]
the deep-rooted attachment
of the Virginians to mere legal practices and constitutional
forms. The same men who met as a House of Burgesses, in
connection with the royal governor, met also as a revolutionary
assembly and adopted ordinances without his approval.
The legal figment was kept up till it was worn threadbare.
On October 12, 37 members of the House of Burgesses met,
but this not proving a quorum they adjourned to meet on the
first Thursday in March, 1776. On that day 32 members
came together, which was not a sufficient number to proceed
to business, and they adjourned till the first Monday in
May following. Finally, on the 6th of May, there were still
several members of the House, who met in Williamsburg, but
they neither proceeded to business nor adjourned and the clerk
wrote Finis under the record.
This was in the same contradictory spirit that characterized
the colonists everywhere who professed to be loyal to
King George and yet were in open rebellion against him.
On Monday, July 17, 1775, the third revolutionary convention
met in Williamsburg. Measures were taken for raising
two regiments of regular troops for one year and two companies
for the protection of the western frontier, for dividing
the colony into sixteen districts and for exercising the militia
as minute men, so as to be ready for service at a moment's
warning. Furthermore, it filled an imperative need, by creating
in the place of Dunmore a revolutionary executive, known
as the Committee of Safety, on August 17.
Several of the most noted leaders elected were absent as
delegates to congress, Peyton Randolph, whose health was
bad, Henry, Jefferson, Wythe and Richard Henry Lee, and so
the highest vote on the Committee of Safety was given to
Edmund Pendleton, who thereby became chosen president
thereof. He, with Richard Bland, who declined to go to Congress
Braxton, Dudley Digges, and John Tabb, conservatives, and
George Mason, Thomas Ludwell Lee, William Cabell and
James Mercer, progressives, composed the Committee of
Safety.
The election was a conservative victory. It was due to the
absence of Richard Henry Lee and Jefferson, both of whom
were in Philadelphia, and more to the loss of Patrick Henry,
who aspired to military glory as colonel of one of the Virginia
regiments. It restored to the conservatives the power
which they had lost since 1769.
This transfer of power from progressives to conservatives
led to the postponement of hostilities with Dunmore for some
months. And after hostilities, and as late as January, 1776,
when Dunmore was a defeated fugitive, and the Committee of
Safety ruled in his stead, there was an effort made through
Richard Corbin, president of the Council—himself somewhat
of a Tory—to induce Dunmore to commission the President
of the Convention as acting governor for the adjourned meeting
of the Assembly. Dunmore refused to grant the commission,
thus frustrating the last efforts of the conservative leaders
to continue the government under the colonial constitution.
It must be remembered, however, that this conservatism was
largely influenced by the still greater conservatism of Congress,
for in October, 1775, Wythe, a conservative himself,
declared from his seat in that body that "it was from a reverence
for Congress that the convention of Virginia had neglected
to arrest Lord Dunmore."
Congress met at its second session in Philadelphia on May
10, 1775, the day agreed on. The position of honor was again
accorded to Virginia. Peyton Randolph was re-elected president,
and his colleagues occupied important positions on the
committees. Washington was made Commander-in-chief of
the New England army at Boston, and it was a few days later
that the battle of Bunker Hill was fought.
Under the influence of the conservatives from the Middle
States, in comparison with whom Edmund Pendleton was a
King drawn in almost abject terms by John Dickinson, and
during the months of waiting for an answer, Congress was
careful to avoid doing anything that might endanger the acceptance
of its petition. For this reason it put aside a plan of
confederation proposed by Franklin, and refused to make adequate
preparation for resistance. It declined to sanction the
institution of government in the colonies or authorize Washington
to attack the British in Boston. The most decided
papers of this Congress came from the Virginians. These
were Richard Henry Lee's "Address to the people of Great
Britain" and Jefferson's "Reply to the Resolutions of the
House of Commons," known as Lord North's "Olive Branch,"
and already referred to. The latter paper adopted the sentiments
recently expressed by the same gentleman for the Virginia
Assembly. Jefferson also prepared a declaration of the
causes of taking up arms, but it was too strong for Mr. Dickinson,
from Pennsylvania, and an entire new statement by
him, with the exception of the last four paragraphs and a half
of Jefferson's report, was adopted by Congress. This address
was read in every market place with thundering applause.
The commanders read it at the head of our armies. But it will
probably not be denied by any reader at this time that this
celebrated production owed most of its popularity to the part
which proceeded from the pen of Thomas Jefferson.[90] Congress
adjourned on August 1 and did not meet again till September
5.
In the meantime the royal governor after the adjournment
of the House of Burgesses made his way to Norfolk. Later
in the month the Magdalene sailed for York with Lady Dunmore
and the rest of the governor's family, bound for England.
They were convoyed across the bay by the Fowey man-of-war.
The Fowey itself was shortly afterwards relieved by
the Mercury and Mars, and sailed with Capt. Edward Foy, the
governor's secretary, on board to Boston. The governor took
remained inactive for several months for lack of troops. This
was the opportunity of the Revolutionary Committee of
Safety, who should have arrested him, and we have noticed Mr.
Wythe's explanation of the failure to do so. Acquiring a little
strength he finally resorted to hostile measures which compelled
the unwilling committee to attack him. This led to his
proclamation of November 7, declaring the colony in rebellion
and setting the example followed by Lincoln in 1862, of proclaiming
freedom to the slaves. He was finally driven from the
State in July, 1776, but not before he had inflicted considerable
loss by harassing visits to the plantations on the rivers. In the
course of these hostilities Norfolk was destroyed.
Similar influences impelled Congress to action. A copy of
its petition to the King was handed to Lord Dartmouth, August
21, and the response from his majesty two days later was
a proclamation declaring the colonists as rebels. Intelligence
of the fate of this second petition reached Philadelphia,
October 31, and the city newspapers of the next day contained
the King's proclamation. They also had the statement
that ten thousand Hanoverians were about to join the
British forces in America, and on this day an express from
Washington told of the burning of Falmouth in Maine by the
British commander.
This was too much, and Congress authorized Washington,
who had closely besieged the British army in Boston, to attack,
and he acted by seizing Dorchester Heights and compelling
Howe to evacuate the city, in March, 1776. The South afterwards
became the centre of interest. Dunmore was ravaging
Virginia, and there was the menace of Sir Peter Parker's
expedition against Charleston. The battle of Moore's Creek
Bridge had been fought, and there the Tories had been routed
by Richard Caswell, February 27. In this state of things the
fire of resistance declined in the North and flamed up in the
South.
Much has been written about the time of the birth of the
the Tory governor, claiming that Samuel Adams was the
first man to declare for it in any public meeting. But against
this it must be remembered that the Tory governor was speaking
of Massachusetts only, and moreover his horror of rebellion
disposed him to put a construction on words that did not
necessarily mean independence. Where and when did Samuel
Adams make such a declaration? All his State papers in Massachusetts
breathe of nothing but loyalty to the crown, and
none even of his private letters come out explicitly for independence
till the publication in January, 1776, of Tom Paine's
famous pamphlet "Common Sense."
The same remark is true of his cousin and fellow patriot
John Adams, whose statement in his autobiography written
30 years later, that he talked openly in Congress for independence
during the latter part of 1775 seems contradicted by a
letter written by him as late as February 17, 1776, which has
the following: "Reconciliation if practicable and peace if
attainable you very well know will be agreeable to my inclinations,
but I see no prospect, no probability, no possibility."
As a matter of fact there is evidence that others preceded
both in entertaining the idea. Among the earliest was William
Lee, brother of Dr. Arthur Lee, who in his letter from
London, April 3, 1775, already quoted, predicted "absolute
independence." After the news of the fate of the second petition
to the King, several anonymous articles appeared in the
newspapers in favor of independence, and there were written
also some private letters suggesting it by prominent, but not
leading men. Doubtless among the very first to entertain ideas
of independence was George Washington. In a letter to Mr.
Reed, of Pennsylvania, dated February 10, 1776, he said:
"With respect to myself, I have never entertained an idea of
an accommodation, since I heard of the measures which were
adopted in consequence of the Bunker Hill fight." Nevertheless,
there is no evidence that Washington, even after the
King's proclamation in August, 1775, went about urging independence.
that spirit which politicians have of throwing flowers to their
rivals in public favor, he was called by Jefferson "the Palinurus
of the Revolution." It is stated that he was one of the
caucus in Congress who met and shaped its policy, but as this
work was one in secret, the value of his individual labors cannot
be given its due weight. Certain it is, that he was not
prominent as a speaker or writer, and if he was really responsible
for the lukewarmness and vacillation of Congress at this
time it is not much to his credit.
The truth is "independence" before Paine's great paper
was an academic thought. It had in several cases some air of
movement but it did not stir the mass of the people appreciably.
It remained for Paine to breathe into it the breath of
life and make it a vital impelling force. It was not till then
that the idea of independence as it took shape in the Declaration
of Independence was really and truly born.
The changed state of affairs, at that time and subsequently,
made its appeal felt more keenly in the South than in the
North. So evident was this that Samuel Adams, in a letter[91]
of April 30, 1776, commented upon the reported necessity of
"allaying the heat of the South by the coolness and moderation
of the North." In this spirit Congress laid on the table an
address[92]
made by a Committee threatening Great Britain with
Independence, and some weeks later Col. Landon Carter
wrote[93]
in his Diary of a report in Virginia that "Independence
was thrice proposed in the Congress and each time
thrown out by a vast majority, and that more than nine-tenths
of the people to the northward are violently against it."
The delegates of Massachusetts were greatly embarrassed
by the lack of enthusiasm for independence at home. On
March 26, 1776, Elbridge Gerry, one of the delegates, wrote[94]
"I sincerely wish you would originate instructions, expressed
as a court in favor of independency. I am certain it would
turn many doubtful minds and produce a reversal of the contrary
instructions adopted by some assemblies." Writing still
later, May 1, to the same gentleman, he used this language:[95]
"Virginia is always to be depended upon, and so fine a spirit
prevails among them, that unless you send some of your cool
patriots among them, they may be for declaring independency
before Congress is ready." The apprehension expressed in
this paragraph was, as we shall see, verified by the event, as
Virginia declared for independence more than six weeks before
Congress acted. In a letter of May 28th, Gerry enclosed
papers containing the Virginia and North Carolina instructions
and said: "Their conventions have unanimously declared
for independency and have in this respect exceeded
their sister colonies in a most noble and decisive measure. I
hope it will be forthwith communicated to your honorable
assembly and hope to see my native colony following this
laudable example."[96] James Warren in reply,[97] 12th of June,
acknowledged the receipt of this letter, and the enclosed
papers. "I have endeavored," he adds, "to use to the best
purpose the intelligence you gave me, and to animate your
native colony to follow the laudable example of the South.
Their spirit is in your taste, and I can in imagination see you
enjoy it."
Notwithstanding the urgings of Gerry and Warren, the
Council branch of the Legislature, which held its session in
May, at Watertown, negatived a resolution of the House of
Representatives looking to independence. The House then
proceeded separately on the question, and on the 10th of May,
it voted this curious resolution that "the towns ought to call
meetings to determine whether, if Congress should declare the
solemnly engage with their lives and fortunes to support them
in the measure." This looks as if the House was trying to
shirk the question and to throw the responsibility on the towns.
And the towns, by repeating the "ifs," seemed in their resolutions
to hand the question over to their representatives in
the ensuing Provincial Congress. Boston thought reconciliation
"dangerous and absurd," but professed her willingness
"to wait, most patiently to wait, till the wisdom of Congress
shall dictate the necessity of making a declaration of independence."
A new House of Representatives convened on the 2d
of June, but it was not till July 3, that they took final action
on independence. On that day they addressed a letter[98] to
their representatives in the Continental Congress advising
them of the result of the vote in the majority of the towns,
which were in favor of independence, if Congress deemed it
advisable. They gave no direct instructions of their own, but
submitted their letter "to be made use of as you shall think
proper." On June 21, Joseph Hawley wrote[99] from Watertown:
"General Washington: the most important matters are
soon to be decided by arms. Unhappy it is for Massachusetts,
and I fear the whole continent, that at this season we have a
large and numerous assembly. More than one-half of the
members are new members. Their decisions are most afflictingly
slow, when everything calls for the utmost ardor and
dispatch. The Lord have mercy upon us!" Compare the
timidity of action of Boston and Massachusetts with the
bold declaration of Cumberland County and the Virginia
Convention.
The only Northern colony that made any expression of its
sentiments previous to the Virginia convention, in May, 1776,
was Rhode Island. There the assembly, on May 4, suppressed
all recognition of King George but declined to give a direct
answer to the query of representative Stephen Hopkins "concerning
dated May 4, 1776, the delegates were given a power to
vote for any measure calculated to "secure their rights," and
independence was not named. Frothingham says[100] "that it
roused no enthusiasm and made no mark."
The spirit of John Adams outran the cautiousness of his
constituency, and May 10, 1776, a resolution proposed by
him was adopted by Congress recommending to all the colonies,
"where no government sufficient to the exigencies of
their affairs have been hitherto established, to form such
government as might conduce to their happiness in particular,
and that of America in general." In his preamble to this
resolution adopted May 15, the very day on which Virginia
decided on her own motion to assume an independent government,
it was asserted that "it is necessary that every
kind of authority under the Crown of Great Britain should
be totally suppressed." Though this was a step in advance,
it was not a formal separation, and in view of the former
protestations of Congress in favor of reconciliation did not
carry with it the idea of separation from the British Empire.
The course of the Southern colonies was far more decided
than that of the colonies of the North. On the 23rd of
March, 1776, South Carolina, without directly alluding to
independence, empowered her delegates to concur in any measure
which might be deemed essential to the welfare of
America. About the same time the Provincial Congress of
Georgia, in choosing a new set of delegates to Philadelphia,
authorized them to "join in any measure which they might
think calculated for the common good." North Carolina,
largely settled by Virginia emigrants, went a great step
further, and her Provincial Congress on April 12, 1776, empowered
her delegates to "concur with the delegates in the
other colonies in declaring independency and forming foreign
alliances, reserving to the colony the sole and exclusive right
were not instructed to propose independence, and none
of them ever arose from their seats in Congress to put the
ball in motion.
That unapproachable honor was reserved for Virginia,
and there was no delay beyond what the date fixed for the
meeting of her convention entailed. But long before this
time the sentiments of her people for independence were
plainly expressed. On this question, the evidence which has
come down to us bears summing up.
"Common Sense" appeared first in a Philadelphia paper,
January 9, 1776. In the notice of a new edition proposed on
January 25, it was stated that "several hundred are already
bespoke, one thousand for Virginia."[101]
On January 31, Washington
praised "its sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning."[102]
On February 24, 1776, Dr. Walter Jones, the representative
in the convention from Richmond County and afterwards
a prominent member of Congress, reported[103]
it a "most
incomparable performance." On March 29, Col. Landon Carter
reported[104]
Richard Henry Lee "as a prodigious admirer,
if not partly a writer in it." On April 2, John Lee wrote[105]
from Essex County: "Independence is now the topic here,
and I think I am not mistaken when I say, it will (if not
already) be very soon a Favorite Child."
John Page wrote,[106]
on April 12, to R. H. Lee, from Williamsburg,
the seat of government, that "almost every man
here, except the Treasurer (Robert Carter Nicholas) is willing
to declare for Independence." A week before John Page's
letter, Major-General Charles Lee in a letter to Washington
had declared the Provincial Congress of New York as "angels
of decision" compared with the Committee of Safety at Williamsburg.
of the Committee of Safety, shows what a revolution had
occurred in that center of conservatism. On April 20, William
Aylett, of King William County, reported[107] to R. H.
Lee: "The people of this county almost unanimously cry
aloud for Independence," and the same day Richard Henry
Lee, then attending Congress in Philadelphia, wrote[108] to Patrick
Henry to propose a separation in the Virginia convention
which was to meet in May. "Virginia," he writes, "has hitherto
taken the lead in great affairs, and many now look at
her with anxious expectation, hoping that the spirit, wisdom
and energy of her councils will arouse America from the
fatal lethargy into which the feebleness, folly and interested
views of the Proprietary governments, with the aid of Tory
machinations, have thrown her most unhappily."
On April 5, the committee of Cumberland county, appointed
a sub-committee, of which Carter Henry Harrison[109]
was the
chairman, to draw up instructions for the delegates in convention
to be chosen for that county on court day, April 22.
Accordingly, on that day the people of Cumberland adopted
resolutions drafted by Mr. Harrison, in which this imposing
language was used: "We therefore, your constituents, instruct
you positively to declare for an independency; that you solemnly
abjure any allegiance to his Brittanick Majesty and
bid him good night forever, that you promote in our convention
an instruction to our delegates now sitting in Continental
Congress to do the same," etc. This is as far as we know
the first positive order in the United States given for independence
by any official body, and on the next day (April 23),
Charlotte county instructed[110]
its delegates to use their best
endeavors that "the delegates which are sent to the General
yoke." The rest of the counties followed in resolutions very
similar, and in this spirit and with such aims the new convention
was chosen, and on the 6th of May, met in Williamsburg
according to order. Just four days later Gen. Charles Lee
wrote that the languor of Congress frightened him.
On May 15 a paper was adopted which directed the Virginia
delegates in Congress to propose to that respectable
body to declare the United Colonies "free and independent
States absolved from all allegiance to or dependence upon
the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain." By the same
paper, a committee was appointed to prepare a declaration
of rights and plan of government for the colony. The author
was Edmund Pendleton,[111]
President of the convention. It
was proposed by Thomas Nelson, and championed before the
convention by Patrick Henry. "As a Pillar of Fire which, notwithstanding
the darkness of the prospect, would conduct
to the promised land he inflamed, and was followed by the convention."[112]
In this way did Virginia solve the last political
problem of the preliminary stages of the Revolution, and in
consequence the greatest joy prevailed in Williamsburg. The
troops were drawn out and paraded before Brigadier-General
Andrew Lewis, in Waller's Grove, at the east end of the
town, near the theatre. Then publicly toasts were drunk,
and each of them was accompanied by a discharge of artillery.
The British flag, which floated from the capitol, was
immediately struck and a continental hoisted in its room.
And all this time the "Liberty Bell of Virginia," which still
hangs in the old church steeple—the most remarkable relic
doing duty in the United States—was making merry with its
musical peals.
![illustration](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:253068/full/!1600,1600/0/default.jpg")
Edmund Pendleton
On June 12, the convention of Virginia adopted unanimously
a Declaration of Rights, and on June 29, unanimously, a
State constitution by which it was declared that the government
of this country, as formerly exercised under the Crown
of Great Britain, is "totally dissolved." The Declaration of
Rights was the work of George Mason, and the body of the
Virginia constitution was substantially his, though the beautiful
preamble proceeded from the pen of Thomas Jefferson.
These celebrated papers were copied and adopted substantially
as their own by most of the other colonies. Immediately
after the approval of the plan of government the convention
elected Patrick Henry first governor, adopted a State seal
prepared by George Wythe, and passed an ordinance requiring
all magistrates and other officers to swear allegiance to
the "Commonwealth of Virginia."
The constitution of Virginia has been called the first written
charter of government ever adopted by a free and independent
people. Up to the meeting of the Virginia convention,
in May, 1776, Congress had kept open the door of reconciliation,
and in this spirit it had at different dates during
the year 1775 advised Massachusetts, New Hampshire, South
Carolina, and Virginia, in which the functions of the old
royal government were suspended, to form new governments,
if they deemed it necessary, "during the continuances of the
present disputes between Great Britain and the colonies."
Virginia at that time did not deem it necessary to make a
written constitution which was to be temporary only, for
she had her popular convention, which met from time to
time, and in August, 1775, she had created a Committee of
Safety, which had general executive control and was empowered
to issue all commissions without any recognition
of King George.
Richard Henry Lee, had been associated with John Adams
in preparing the preamble adopted in Congress on May 15,
and now on June 7, he rose from his seat, and in obedience to
the instructions of Virginia, proposed the celebrated resolutions:
and (3) For establishing a plan of confederation. His
main supporters were John Adams, of Massachusetts, and
George Wythe, of Virginia—two of the really great men in
Congress. But it appearing in the course of the debates that
the delegations of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware
and South Carolina were not yet ready, it was thought
prudent to postpone the final decision. And that this might
occasion as little delay as possible, a committee, with Thomas
Jefferson at the head, was appointed June 11, 1776, to prepare
a Declaration of Independence. The adoption of these
great measures on July 2, and July 4, respectively, consummated
the work which Virginia had begun. Far above and
beyond all other writers Jefferson deserves the name of the
"Penman of the Revolution," for his was not a work confined,
like Samuel Adams,' to a province, but into his "Declaration
of Independence" he poured the soul of a continent. An eminent
critic[113] has pronounced this paper "as the most commanding
and the most pathetic utterance in any age, in any language,
of national grievances and of national purposes," and
the editor[114] of the latest edition of the writings of Thomas Jefferson
does not shrink from calling it "the paper which is
probably the best known that ever came from the pen of an
individual."
In so great a drama as I have attempted briefly to unfold
there were many actors. On June 3, 1776, John Adams again
declared what so many had said before: "We all look up to
Virginia for examples." Among the Virginia exemplars of
this period were Richard Bland, Peyton Randolph, Edmund
Pendleton, George Wythe, Robert Carter Nicholas, Dr. Arthur
Lee, Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, George Mason,
Thomas Nelson, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson;
but undoubtedly the hero of the period was Patrick Henry.
His was the unquestionable merit of having prepared resistance
the country in the Stamp Act, and during all the period succeeding
he had been always a leading spirit and often the soul
of action. He consolidated the opposition against the act
of Parliament for trying Americans in England, put life into
the counsels of Congress at Philadelphia in 1774, and championed
with his eloquent tongue the intercolonial committees
of correspondence and the resolutions of the Virginia convention
for independence. His was the one voice that never was
silent from the beginning to the end.[115] John Adams uttered
the contemporary sentiments of the people of Massachusetts
when he pointed him out, in 1776, as the "author of the first
Virginia resolutions against the Stamp Act, who will have the
glory with posterity of BEGINNING AND CONCLUDING THIS GREAT
REVOLUTION."
Edmund Randolph, History of Virginia, MSS. The idea that Mr. Jefferson
was no speaker is not sustained by this paragraph, nor by another from the same
history and which is as follows: "Indefatigable and methodical Jefferson
spoke with ease, perspicuity and elegance." See the full extract in William and
Mary College Quarterly, XIX, 62.
Dr. William Pasteur was the son of a surgeon, Dr. Jean Pasteur, who, in
1700, came to Virginia from England in the Huguenot colony of that year. Dr.
William Pasteur married Elizabeth Stith, daughter of William Stith, president
of the college. He died in 1795, leaving his estate to his sister, Anne Craig, wife
of Thomas Craig, and to his niece, Anne Smith, wife of Granville Smith. At this
time Dr. Pasteur was partner with Dr. John Galt in the practice of medicine
and surgery.
According to a MS. letter of President John Tyler to the New England
Historical and Genealogical Society, the Charles City company was commanded
by his father, John Tyler, Sr.
Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, 505; see also Tyler's Historical and
Genealogical Quarterly, Vol. II, p. 222.
See resolutions published for the first time in William and Mary Quarterly,
II, 252-255. Carter Henry Harrison was brother of Benjamin Harrison, signer
of the Declaration of Independence.
It was really a composite paper framed from others offered the day before
in the committee of the whole by Patrick Henry, Meriwether Smith and Mr. Pendleton
himself. Henry, Life and Speeches of Patrick Henry, I, 394-396. Mr.
Pendleton was the leader of the conservative forces, which shows how events had
brought the people together in common opposition.
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