CHAPTER LXVII.

1763.

Rev. Jonathan Boucher's Opinions on Slavery—Remarks.

The Rev. Jonathan Boucher, a minister of the established church, in a sermon preached at Bray's, in Leedstown, Hanover Parish, on occasion of the general peace proclaimed in 1763, expressed himself on the subject of slavery as follows: "The united motives of interest and humanity call on us to bestow some consideration on the case of those sad outcasts of society, our negro slaves; for my heart would smite me were I not in this hour of prosperity to entreat you (it being their unparalleled hard lot not to have the power of entreating for themselves) to permit them to participate in the general joy. Even those who are the sufferers can hardly be sorry when they see wrong measures carrying their punishment along with them. Were an impartial and competent observer of the state of society in these middle colonies asked whence it happens that Virginia and Maryland—which were the first planted, and which are superior to many colonies, and inferior to none in point of natural advantages—are still so exceedingly behind most of the other British transatlantic possessions in all those improvements which bring credit and consequence to a country, he would answer, 'They are so because they are cultivated by slaves.' I believe it is capable of demonstration, that except the immediate interest he has in the property of his slaves, it would be for every man's interest that there were no slaves, and for this plain reason, because the free labor of a free man, who is regularly hired and paid for the work he does, and only for what he does, is in the end cheaper than the eye-service of a slave. Some loss and inconvenience would no doubt arise from the general abolition of slavery in these colonies, but were it done gradually, with judgment and with good temper, I have never yet seen it satisfactorily proved that such inconvenience would be either great or lasting. North American or West Indian planters might possibly for a few years make less tobacco, or less rice, or less sugar, the raising of which might also cost them more; but that disadvantage would probably soon be amply compensated to them by an advanced price, or (what is the same thing) by the reduced expense of cultivation. *  *  *  *  *  *  *

"I do you no more than justice in bearing witness that in no part of the world were slaves ever better treated than, in general, they are in these colonies. That there are exceptions needs not to be concealed: in all countries there are bad men. And shame be to those men who, though themselves blessed with freedom, have minds less liberal than the poor creatures over whom they so meanly tyrannize! Even your humanity, however, falls short of their exigencies. In one essential point I fear we are all deficient: they are nowhere sufficiently instructed. I am far from recommending it to you at once to set them all free, because to do so would be a heavy loss to you and probably no gain to them; but I do entreat you to make them some amends for the drudgery of their bodies by cultivating their minds. By such means only can we hope to fulfil the ends which we may be permitted to believe Providence had in view in suffering them to be brought among us. You may unfetter them from the chains of ignorance, you may emancipate them from the bondage of sin—the worst slavery to which they can be subjected—and by thus setting at liberty those that are bruised, though they still continue to be your slaves, they shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."[527:A]

The Rev. Jonathan Boucher, was born in Cumberland County, England, in 1738, and brought up at Wigton Grammar School. He came over to Virginia at the age of sixteen, and was nominated by the vestry of Hanover Parish, in the County of King George, before he was in orders. Returning to England for ordination, he recrossed the Atlantic, and entered upon the duties of that parish on the banks of the Rappahannock. He removed soon afterwards to St. Mary's Parish, in Caroline County, upon the same river. After remaining here a good many years and enjoying the esteem of his people, he removed to Maryland, and was there ejected from his rectory at the breaking out of the Revolution, when he returned to England. His Discourses, preached between 1763 and 1775, were published by him when he was Vicar of Epsom, in Surrey, in 1797.

Abraham, the father of the faithful, was a slaveholder; upon his death his servants passed by descent to his son Isaac, as in like manner those of Isaac descended to Jacob. They were hereditary bondsmen, and, like chattels, bought and sold. Job, a pattern of piety, was a slaveholder, and, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, won no small portion of his claims to a character of high and exemplary virtue from the manner in which he discharged his duty to his slaves.

The master who faithfully performs his duties toward his slaves is a high example of virtue, and the slave who renders his service faithfully is worthy of equal commendation. If the rights of the slave are narrow, his duties are proportionally limited.

The institution of slavery, divinely appointed, was maintained for five hundred years in Abraham's family. When the patriarchal dispensation came to an end, the right of property in slaves was recognized in the decalogue. The system was incorporated into the Mosaic law, and so continued to the end of the Jewish dispensation, and was nowhere denounced as a moral evil, nor was any reproof uttered by the prophets against the system on account of the evils connected with it.

The primitive Christian church consisted largely of slaveholders and slaves, and the slavery of the Roman empire, in which the early churches were planted, corresponded with that of Virginia, and where it differed, it was worse. The relation of master and servant is placed by the apostles upon the same footing as that of parent and child, and of husband and wife.[528:A] It is enjoined upon servants to be obedient to their masters, whether "good and gentle, or froward." Christian servants were commanded to obey their masters, whether heathens or believers; and Christians, to withdraw themselves from any, who, rejecting divine authority, should teach a contrary doctrine.[528:B]

In the New Testament no censure is cast upon the institution of slavery, no master is denounced for holding slaves, nor advised to emancipate them. The evils incidental to the relation of master and slave are, in kind, like those incidental to the other domestic relations, and do not render the one unlawful or sinful any more than the others. The evils of slavery are not in the relation, but in the parties to it; therefore the abolition of the relation (the whites and the blacks still continuing together) would not extinguish the evils, but only change them, and a new relation would be substituted, fraught with still greater evils. The two races, separated by a barrier of natural incompatibility, cannot coalesce, nor can they coexist on equal terms.

The evils connected with slavery are, like others, to be remedied by the reforming influence of Christianity. Slavery originated in a curse, but out of it Providence has mysteriously educed a blessing, as from poisonous flowers honey is extracted by the bee.[529:A]

The religious instruction of the slaves in Virginia was, with some honorable exceptions, too generally neglected by the ministers of the established church. The churches afforded but little room or accommodation for the negroes, and the difficulties in the way of imparting instruction to them were no doubt great, yet by no means insuperable. The Rev. Samuel Davies appears to have labored more successfully for their benefit than any other minister in Virginia, either before his time or since. The Rev. Mr. Wright, co-operating with him in this work, established Sunday-schools, for the instruction of negroes, in the County of Cumberland, in the year 1756.[529:B]

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER LXVIII.

1764.

The successful termination of the war with France paved the way for American independence. Hitherto, from the first settlement of the colonies, Great Britain, without seeking a direct revenue from them, with perhaps some inconsiderable exceptions, had been satisfied with the appointment of their principal officers, and a monopoly of their trade. Now, when the colonies had grown more capable of resisting impositions, the mother country rose in her demands. Thus it was that disputes between Great Britain and the colonies, commencing in 1764 and lasting about twelve years, brought on the war of the Revolution, and ended in a disruption of the empire. This result, inevitable sooner or later in the natural course of events, was only precipitated by the impolitic and arbitrary measures of the British government. In the general loyalty of the colonies, new commercial restrictions, although involving a heavy indirect taxation, would probably have been submitted to for many years longer; but the novel scheme of direct taxation, without their consent, was reprobated as contrary to their natural and chartered rights; and a flame of discontent, bursting forth here and there, finally overspread the whole country.

There appears, indeed, to have been no essential difference between internal and external taxation; for it was still taxation; and taxation without representation. But the internal or direct taxation was new, obvious, and more offensive. The restrictions of the navigation act, vehemently resisted at their first enactment, and not less so in Virginia and other Southern colonies than in the North, had never been acquiesced in, but only submitted to from necessity; and long eluded not only by New England, but also by other colonies, by a trade originally contraband, indeed, but which had lost much of its illegitimate character by immemorial usage, and had acquired a sort of prescriptive right by that consent on the part of the British government which was to be inferred from its apparent acquiescence in the violation. For a hundred years preceding the Revolution the commerce of the colonies may be said to have been in the main practically free, as Great Britain was able to furnish the manufactures which the colony needed. But now the mother country undertook to enforce the obsolete navigation act and her revenue laws with a new vigor, which was not confined to the American colonies, but embraced the whole British empire. As applied to the colonies the measure was equally impolitic and unjust: impolitic, because by breaking up the colonial trade with the West Indies, England crippled her own customer; unjust, because this trade had grown up by the tacit consent of the government, and a dissolution of it would be ruinous to the commercial colonies. Besides these new restraints upon commerce, parliament had long endeavored to restrict colonial industry; and although these restrictions fell most heavily on the Northern colonies, their injurious effects were felt by all of them. As far back as the time of Bacon's rebellion, a patriotic woman of the colony congratulated her friends that now "Virginia can build ships, and, like New England, trade to any part of the world." And the parenthesis of religious liberty and free trade enjoyed by Virginia under Cromwell was never forgotten. But, inasmuch as these restrictions fell more heavily on the North than on the South, so the co-operation of the South was the more meritorious as being more disinterested. And the oppressions of Great Britain must have been intolerable, when, notwithstanding all the differences of opinion and of institutions, the thirteen colonies became united in a compact phalanx of resistance.[531:A]

The recent war had inspired the provincial troops with more confidence in themselves, and had rendered the British regulars less formidable in their eyes. Everything unknown is magnificent.

The success of the allied arms had put an end to the dependency of the colonies upon the mother country for protection against the French. In several of the provinces Germans, Dutch, Swedes, and Frenchmen were found commingled with the Anglican population. Great Britain, by long wars ably conducted during Pitt's administration, had acquired glory and an extension of empire; but, in the mean time, she had incurred an enormous debt. The British officers, entertained with a hospitality in America, carried back to England exaggerated reports of the wealth of the colonies. The colonial governors and the British ministry had often been thwarted and annoyed by the republican and independent, and sometimes factious spirit, of the colonial assemblies, and longed to see them curbed. The British merchants complained to the government of the heavy losses entailed upon them by the depreciated colonial paper currency. The Church of England was indignant at the violent opposition to the introduction of bishops into the colonies, at the decision of the "Parsons' Cause," and other provocations and indignities. The advice of many governors and military officers had deeply impressed the government with the necessity of laying direct taxes as the only means of retaining the control of the colonies. The British administration, in the first years of the reign of George the Third, was in the hands of a corrupt oligarchy, and the ministers determined to lessen the burden at home by levying a direct tax upon the colonies. The loyalty of the Americans had never been warmer than at the close of the war. They had expended their treasure and their blood freely; and the recollection of mutual sufferings and a common glory strengthened their attachment to the mother country; but these loyal sentiments were destined soon to wither and expire. The colonies, too, had involved themselves in a heavy debt. Within three years, intervening between 1756 and 1759, parliament had granted them a large amount of money to encourage their efforts; yet, notwithstanding that and the extraordinary supplies appropriated by the assemblies, a heavy debt still remained unliquidated. When, therefore, parliament in a few years thereafter undertook to extort money by a direct tax from provinces to which she had recently granted incomparably larger sums, it was conceived that the object of the minister, in this innovation, was not simply to raise the inconsiderable amount of the tax, but to establish gradually a new and absolute system of "taxation without representation." It was easy to foresee that it would be made the instrument of unlimited extortions, and would extinguish the practical legislative independence of the Anglo-American colonies. Neither the English parliament, nor those who were represented by the lords and commons, would pay a farthing of the tax which they imposed on the colonies. On the contrary, their property would have been exempted in exact proportion to the burdens laid on the colonies. Taxes without reason or necessity, and oppressions without end, would have ensued from submitting to the usurpation.[533:A]

After war had raged for nearly eight years, peace was concluded at Paris, in February, 1763, by which France ceded Canada, and Spain the Floridas, to Great Britain. On this occasion the territory of Virginia was again reduced in extent. The conquests, and the culminating power, and the arrogant pretensions of the proud island of Great Britain excited the jealousy and the fears of Europe; while in England the administration had engendered a formidable opposition at home. In the year 1763 the national debt had accumulated to an enormous amount; for which an annual interest of twenty-two millions of dollars was paid. The minister proposed to levy upon the colonies part of this sum, alleging that as the recent war had been waged partly on their account, it was but fair that they should contribute a share of the expense; and the right was claimed for parliament, according to the British constitution, to tax every portion of the empire. The absolute right of legislating for the colonies had long, if not always, been claimed, theoretically, by England; but she had never exerted it in practice to any sensible extent in the essential article of taxation. The inhabitants of the colonies admitted their obligation to share the expense of the war, but insisted that the necessary revenue could be legitimately levied only by their own legislatures; that taxation and representation were inseparable; and that remote colonies not represented in parliament were entitled to tax themselves. The justice of parliament would prove a feeble barrier against the demands of avarice; and as in England the privilege of granting money was the palladium of the people's liberty against the encroachment of the crown, so the same right was the proper safeguard of the colonies against the tyranny of the imperial government. Such were the views of American patriots; yet it was a subject on which wise and good men might differ in Great Britain and in America.

Upon the death of the Rev. William Yates, in 1764, the Rev. James Horrocks succeeded him as President of the College of William and Mary. About the same time the Rev. William Robinson, commissary, dying, Mr. Horrocks succeeded him in that place. Rev. John Camm, who aspired to the office, was disappointed in it owing to some difficulty with Governor Dinwiddie.

In March, 1764, parliament passed resolutions declaratory of an intention to impose a stamp-duty in America, and avowing the right and expediency of taxing the colonies. This was the immediate fountain-head of the Revolution. These resolutions gave great dissatisfaction in America; but were popular in England, where the prospect of lightening their own burdens at the expense of the colonists recommended them to the English taxpayers. The resolutions met with no overt opposition, but the public discontents were increased when it came to be known that large bodies of British soldiers were to be sent over and quartered in the colonies.

Patrick Henry, during the year, removed from Hanover to Louisa, where he soon endeared himself to the people, although he never courted their favor by flattery. He sometimes hunted deer for several days together, carrying his provision with him, and at night camping out in the woods. He was known to enter Louisa court in a coarse cloth coat, stained with the blood of the deer, greasy leather breeches, with leggings for boots, and a pair of saddle-bags on his arm.[534:A]

In the fall of 1764 there occurred in the house of burgesses a case of contested election, the parties being James Littlepage, the member returned for the County of Hanover, and the other candidate, Nathaniel West Dandridge. Mr. Littlepage was charged with bribery and corruption. The case was tried before the committee of privileges and elections, and Mr. Henry appeared as attorney for Mr. Dandridge. Mr. Henry was coarsely dressed and quite unknown, yet retained his self-possession in spite of the supercilious smiles of aristocracy. The right of suffrage and the purity of the elective franchise afforded him a theme for a speech which astonished the audience; and Judge Winston pronounced the argument "superior to anything he had ever heard."

The speaker of the house, John Robinson, had held that post for a quarter of a century, and combining with it the office of treasurer, his influence was wide and well established. His personal popularity was great, and embraced men of all classes. His strong and cultivated mind was set off by polished manners; his presence, imposing and commanding.

Peyton Randolph, the king's attorney-general, in influence second only to the speaker, was discreet and dignified; thoroughly versed in legislative proceedings; of excellent judgment, yet without extraordinary genius; a sound lawyer; in politics conservative; intolerant to dissenters.

Richard Bland was enlightened and laborious, a profound reasoner, an ungraceful speaker, but an excellent writer; a wise but over-cautious statesman, like Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, marching up with fearless logic to his conclusions, but pausing there, unwilling to carry them into effect.

Edmund Pendleton was the grandson of Philip Pendleton, a teacher, who came over to Virginia about the year 1674 with his brother, Nathaniel, a minister. Philip Pendleton's eldest son, at the age of eighteen, married Mary Taylor, aged only thirteen, and Edmund was the fourth son of this union. From a sister was descended General Edmund Pendleton Gaines, of the United States army. Edmund Pendleton was born (his father dying before his birth) in 1721, in Caroline County. Left poor and without any classical education, it is said that after ploughing all day he pursued his studies at night. Placed in his fourteenth year in the office of Colonel Benjamin Robinson, (brother of the speaker,) clerk of the county court of Caroline, he became acquainted with legal forms. He could hardly have spent much time in ploughing before his fourteenth year. At the age of sixteen he was appointed clerk to the vestry of St. Mary's Parish; and the salary derived from that petty office he expended in the purchase of books, which he diligently read. In his twentieth year he was licensed to practise the law, after having been strictly examined by the eminent lawyer Barradall. About the same time young Pendleton was made clerk of the county court martial. Before he was of age he married, in opposition to the advice of his friends, Betty Roy, remarkable for her beauty. Upon being licensed he soon acquired a large practice. His wife dying in less than two years after the marriage, in his twenty-fourth year he married Sarah Pollard. He now began to practise in the general court. In the year 1752 he was elected one of the representatives of Caroline, and so continued down to the time of the Revolution. Mr. Wirt says that he was a protégé of Speaker Robinson, who introduced him into the circle of refined society. Mr. Grigsby thinks that the term protégé was inapplicable to him, as he was the architect of his own fortune. It is certain that Speaker Robinson found in him his ablest supporter in the question of separating the offices of speaker and treasurer. Mr. Pendleton became the leader of the conservative party, who, while they wished to effect a redress of grievances, were opposed to a revolution of the government, and who stood out against it until opposition became unavailing. Nevertheless, by his integrity, the charm of his manners, and his great abilities, he attained and filled with honor several of the highest posts. As a lawyer, debater, statesman, he was of the highest order in the colony; yet he read little besides law, and was without taste for literature. The report of a law case had for him the charm which a novel has for others. As a writer he was unskilled, and quite devoid of the graces of style and rhythm. His voice was melodious, and his articulation distinct; his elocution graceful and effective; with a serene self-possession that nothing could disturb, he was ever ready to seize every advantage that occurred in debate; but he could lay no claim to the lofty powers which "shake the human soul." Although a new man, he was, as often happens, behind none in his extreme conservative views in church and state. In a brief autobiography, he says of himself: "Without any classical education, without patrimony, without what is called the influence of family connection, and without solicitation, I have attained the highest offices of my country. I have often contemplated it as a rare and extraordinary instance, and pathetically exclaimed, 'Not unto me, not unto me, O Lord, but unto thy name be the praise!'"[537:A]

George Wythe was born in Elizabeth City, (1726,) his father having been a burgess from that county. George, on the side of his mother's family, named Keith, inherited a taste for letters. After studying the law, having come into possession of a competent estate, he wasted several years in indolence and dissipation; but he afterwards became a close student, having imbibed a taste for learning from the society of Governor Fauquier and Professor Small. He became accomplished in classic literature, and profoundly versed in the law. He is described as having been simple and artless, incapable of the little crooked wisdom of cunning, and his integrity was incorruptible.

Richard Henry Lee was distinguished by a face of the Roman order: his forehead high but not wide, his head leaning gracefully forward; his person and face fine. He was an accomplished scholar, of wide reading. His voice was musical. He had lost the use of one hand by an accident, and kept it covered with a bandage of black silk; but his gesture was graceful. His style of eloquence was chaste, classic, electric, and delightful. As Mr. Jefferson has said that Patrick Henry spoke as Homer wrote, so Mr. Lee may be, perhaps, compared to Virgil. Henry and Lee coincided in political views, co-operated in public life, and were confidential correspondents and warm and constant friends.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER LXIX.

1765-1766.

On the 7th day of February, 1765, Grenville introduced in the house of commons the stamp act, declaring null and void instruments of writing in daily use in the colonies, unless executed on stamped paper or parchment, charged with a duty imposed by parliament. The bill, warmly debated in that house, but carried by a vote of five to one, met with no opposition in the house of lords, and on the twenty-second of March received the royal sanction. At first it was taken for granted that the act would be enforced. It was not to take effect till the first day of November, more than seven months from its passage. The Virginians were a proud race, the more jealous of their liberties, having, like the Spartans, the degradation of slavery continually in their view, impatient of restraint, and unwilling to succumb to the control of any superior power, "snuffing the tainted breeze of tyranny afar." Many of them even affected to consider the colonies as independent states, only linked to Great Britain as owing allegiance to a common crown, and as bound to her by natural affection.

The assembly met on the 1st day of May, 1765. Patrick Henry took his seat in it on the twentieth. Notwithstanding the opposition of the people to the stamp act, yet the place-men, the large landed proprietors, who were the professed adherents of government, still held the control of the legislature. Disgusted by the delays and sophistries of this class during the preceding session, one of the Johnsons, two brothers that represented Louisa County, declared his intention to bring into the house Patrick Henry, who was equally distinguished by his eloquence and by an opposition to the claims of parliament, verging on sedition. Johnson accordingly, by accepting the office of coroner, vacated his seat in favor of Henry, who thus came to be one of the representatives of that frontier county in the assembly of 1765—an incident connected with events of transcendent importance.

On the twenty-fourth, Peyton Randolph reported to the house, from the committee of the whole, a scheme for the establishment of a loan-office or bank. The plan was to borrow £240,000 sterling from British merchants, at an interest of five per cent.; a fund for paying the interest and sinking the principal to be raised by an impost duty on tobacco; bills of exchange to be drawn for £100,000, with which the paper money in circulation was to be redeemed, the remaining £140,000 to be imported in specie, and deposited here for a stock whereon to circulate bank notes, to be lent out on permanent security, at an interest of five per cent., to be paid yearly, a proportion of the principal at the end of four years, another proportion at the end of five years, and afterwards by equal payments once in four years, until the whole should be repaid.

When it was urged in favor of this scheme, that from the distressed condition of the colony, men of fortune had contracted debts, which, if exacted suddenly, must ruin them, but which, with a little indulgence, might be liquidated, Mr. Henry exclaimed: "What, sir! is it proposed then to reclaim the spendthrift from his dissipation and extravagance by filling his pockets with money?" Thomas Jefferson, then a law-student at Williamsburg, was present during this debate, and the manner in which Henry uttered this sentence was indelibly impressed on his memory.

The resolutions embodying this scheme were passed by the house, and a committee of conference was appointed at the same time, and before the vote upon them was taken in the council. In this conference the managers on the part of the house were Edmund Pendleton, Mr. Archibald Cary, Mr. Benjamin Harrison, Mr. Burwell, Mr. Braxton, and Mr. Fleming. The council[540:A] refused to concur in the scheme. Had it been carried into effect, the indebtedness of Virginia at the eve of the Revolution would have probably been greatly augmented.

Virginia led the way in opposing the stamp act. On the 30th of May, 1765, near the close of the session, Patrick Henry offered the following resolutions:—

Mr. Henry was young, being about twenty-eight years of age, and a new member; but finding the men of weight in the house averse to opposition, and the stamp act about to take effect, and no person likely to step forth, alone, unadvised, and unassisted, he wrote these resolutions on a blank leaf of an old law book, "Coke upon Littleton." Before offering them, he showed them to two members, John Fleming, of Goochland, and George Johnson, of Fairfax. Mr. Johnson seconded the resolutions. Speaker Robinson objected to them as inflammatory. The first three appear to have passed by small majorities, without alteration. The fourth was passed amended, so as to read as follows: "Resolved, That his majesty's liege people of this his most ancient and loyal colony have, without interruption, enjoyed the inestimable right of being governed by such laws respecting their internal polity and taxation as are derived from their own consent, with the approbation of their sovereign or his substitute, and that the same hath never been forfeited or yielded up, but hath been constantly recognized by the king and people of Great Britain."

The last of the five resolutions was carried by a majority of only one vote, being twenty to nineteen, and the debate on it, in the language of Mr. Jefferson, was "most bloody." Speaker Robinson, Peyton Randolph, attorney-general, Richard Bland, Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, and all the old leaders of the house and proprietors of large estates, made a strenuous resistance. Mr. Jefferson says the resolutions of Henry "were opposed by Robinson and all the cyphers of the aristocracy." John Randolph resisted them with all his might. How Washington voted is not known, the yeas and nays never being recorded on the journal in that age. He considered the stamp act ill-judged and unconstitutional, and was of opinion that it could not be enforced. Mr. Henry was ably supported in a logical argument by Mr. George Johnson, a lawyer of Alexandria.

In the course of this stormy debate many threats were uttered by the party for submission, and much abuse heaped upon Mr. Henry, but he carried the young members with him. Jefferson, then a student of William and Mary, standing at the door of the house, overheard the debate. After Speaker Robinson had declared the result of the vote, Peyton Randolph, as he entered the lobby near Jefferson, exclaimed with an oath, "I would have given five hundred guineas for a single vote!" One more vote would have defeated the last resolution.[542:A]

Scarce a vestige of this speech of Henry survives. Mr. Jefferson declared that he never heard such eloquence from any other man. While Mr. Henry was inveighing against the stamp act, he exclaimed: "Tarquin and Cæsar had each his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third"—("Treason!" cried the speaker; "Treason! Treason!" resounded from every part of the house. Henry, rising to a loftier attitude, with unfaltering voice, and unwavering eye fixed on the speaker, finished the sentence,)—"may profit by the example. If this be treason, make the most of it." Henry was now the leading man in Virginia, and his resolutions gave the impulse to the other colonies, and the spirit of resistance spread rapidly through them, gathering strength as it proceeded. On the afternoon of the same day Mr. Henry left Williamsburg, passing along Duke of Gloucester Street, on his way to his home in Louisa, wearing buckskin breeches, his saddle-bags on his arm, leading a lean horse, and chatting with Paul Carrington, who walked by his side.

Young Jefferson happened on the following morning to be in the hall of the burgesses before the meeting of the house, and he observed Colonel Peter Randolph, one of the council, sitting at the clerk's table examining the journals, to find a precedent for expunging a vote of the house. Part of the burgesses having gone home, and some of the more timid of those who had voted for the strongest resolution having become alarmed, as soon as the house met, a motion was made and carried to expunge the last resolution from the journals. The manuscript journal of that day disappeared shortly after and has never been found.[543:A] The four remaining on the journal and the two additional ones offered in committee, but not reported, were published in the Gazette. On the first of June the governor dissolved the assembly.

At the instance of Massachusetts, guided by the advice of James Otis, a congress met in October, 1765, at New York. The assemblies of Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia were prevented by their governors from sending deputies. The congress made a declaration denying the right of parliament to tax the colonies, and concurred in petitions to the king and the commons and a memorial to the lords. Virginia and the other two colonies not represented forwarded petitions accordant with those adopted by the congress. The committee appointed by the Virginia assembly to draught the petitions consisted of Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, Landon Carter, George Wythe, Edmund Pendleton, Benjamin Harrison, Richard Bland, Archibald Cary, and Mr. Fleming. The address to the king was written by Peyton Randolph, the address to the commons by George Wythe, and the memorial to the lords was attributed to Richard Bland.

Opposition to the stamp act now blazed forth everywhere; and it was disregarded and defied. In the last week of October, George Mercer, distributor of stamps for Virginia, landed at Hampton, and was rudely treated by the mob, who, by the interposition of some influential gentlemen, were prevailed on to disperse without offering him any personal injury. At Williamsburg, as he was walking toward the capitol, on his way to the governor's palace, he was required by several gentlemen from different counties, the general court being in session, to say whether he intended to enter on the duties of the office. At his request he was allowed to wait on the governor before replying, and he was accompanied to the coffee-house where the governor, most of the council, and many gentlemen were assembled. The crowd increasing and growing impatient in their demands, Mr. Mercer came forward and promised to give a categorical answer at five o'clock the next evening. At that time he met a large concourse of people, including the principal merchants of the colony. He then engaged not to undertake the execution of the stamp act until he received further orders from England, nor then, without the assent of the assembly of Virginia. He was immediately borne out of the capitol gate, amid loud acclamations, and carried to the coffee-house, where an elegant entertainment was prepared for him, and was welcomed there by renewed acclamations, drums beating, and French-horns and other musical instruments sounding. At night the bells were set a-ringing, and the town was illuminated. Mr. Mercer was, in 1769, appointed lieutenant-governor of North Carolina.[544:A]

The colonists began to betake themselves to domestic manufactures; and foreign luxuries were laid aside. In the mean while a change had taken place in the British ministry; the stamp act was reconsidered in parliament; Dr. Franklin was examined at the bar of the house of commons. Lord Camden, in the house of lords, and Mr. Pitt, in the commons, favored a repeal of the act; and, after providing for the dependence of America on Great Britain, parliament repealed the stamp act in March, 1766. On the second day of May news of the repeal reached Williamsburg by the ship Lord Baltimore, arrived in York River, from London. The joyful intelligence was celebrated at Norfolk; and at Williamsburg by a ball and illumination.

At the session of November, 1766, Mr. John Robinson, who had for many years held the offices of speaker and treasurer, being now dead, an investigation of his accounts exposed an enormous defalcation. A motion to separate the offices, brought forward by Richard Henry Lee, and supported by Mr. Henry, proved successful. Edmund Pendleton was at the head of the party that resisted it.[545:A]

Mr. Lee on this occasion pursued his course in opposition to the confederacy of the great in place, the influence of family connections, and that still more dangerous foe to public virtue, private friendship. The contest appears to have been bitter, and it engendered animosities which survived the lapse of years and the absorbing scenes of the outbreaking Revolution.

A fragment of the speech delivered by Mr. Lee on this occasion has been preserved.[545:B] After supporting his views by historical examples, he remarks: "If, then, wise and good men in all ages have deemed it for the security of liberty to divide places of power and profit; if this maxim has not been departed from without either injury or destroying freedom—as happened to Rome with her decemvirs and her dictator—why should Virginia so early quit the paths of wisdom, and seal her own ruin, as far as she can do it, by uniting in one person the only two great places in the power of her assembly to bestow?" The fragment of this speech ends just where Mr. Lee was about to combat the arguments in support of the union of the two offices. Among these arguments were, that innovation is dangerous; that the additional office of treasurer was necessary to give the speaker that pre-eminence that is befitting his station; that the parliamentary powers of the speaker give the chair no influence, as in the exercise thereof in pleasing one he may offend a dozen; that a separation of the offices might induce the government at home to take the appointment out of their hands altogether; and that the support of the dignity of the chair necessarily involved a great expense.

It could not have been difficult to refute these arguments. The combination of the offices of speaker and treasurer was itself an innovation of as recent date as 1738. The speaker of the English house of commons did not find the office of treasurer necessary to maintain his dignity. If the office of speaker of itself gave no influence, why had it been always sought for? Nor could the separation of the offices induce the home government to take the appointments from the assembly, for that separation was itself virtually a government measure. Chalmers, who was well versed in the documentary history of the colonies, says: "Too attentive to overlook the dangerous pre-eminence of Robinson, the board of trade took this opportunity to enjoin [1758] the new governor[546:A] to use every rational endeavor to procure a separation of the conjoined offices which he improperly held."[546:B] Lee, Henry, and others, who voted for the separation, were in effect carrying out the wishes of the English government. Nor does it appear probable that the government was any more favorable to the loan-office scheme than to the union of the offices of speaker and treasurer.

Upon the death of Speaker Robinson, Richard Bland was a candidate for the chair, and was in favor of a separation of the offices of speaker and treasurer. He, in the latter part of May, entertained no suspicion of any malversation in office on the part of the late treasurer, although he was aware that such suspicions prevailed much among the people. He was at this time maturing a scheme for a loan-office, or government bank, which he thought would be of signal advantage, and would in a few years enable Virginia to discharge her debts without any tax for the future. It is singular that he should have been preparing to renew a scheme so recently defeated. Whether he ever again revived it in the assembly, does not appear. Robert Carter Nicholas, at the same time a candidate for the place of treasurer, was likewise in favor of a disjunction of the two offices. To this position he and Bland were brought, as well by the inducements of personal promotion as by a regard for the public good.

Peyton Randolph was made speaker; and Mr. Nicholas, who had been already appointed in May treasurer ad interim, by Governor Fauquier, was elected to that post by the assembly.

Lewis Burwell, George Wythe, John Blair, Jr., John Randolph, and Benjamin Waller were appointed to examine the state of the treasury. The deficit of the late treasurer exceeded one hundred thousand pounds. Mr. Robinson, amiable, liberal, and wealthy, had long been at the head of the aristocracy, and exerted an extraordinary influence in political affairs. He had lent large sums of the public money to friends involved in debt, especially to members of the assembly, confiding for its replacement upon his own ample fortune, and the securities taken on the loans. Mr. Wirt says that at length, apprehensive of a discovery of the deficit, he, with his friends in the assembly, devised the scheme of the loan-office the better to conceal it. The entire amount of the defalcation was eventually recovered from the estate of Robinson, which was sold in 1770 by Edmund Pendleton and Peter Lyons, surviving administrators.[547:A] Burk attributes Robinson's death to the mortification that he suffered on account of his defalcation. Bland and Nicholas, in their letters addressed to Richard Henry Lee, allude to it in terms of exquisite delicacy.

The first of the family of Speaker Robinson of whom we have any account was John Robinson, of Cleasby, Yorkshire, England. His son John was Bishop of Bristol, and British envoy at the court of Sweden; he was also British plenipotentiary at the treaty of Utrecht, being, it is said, the last divine employed in a service of that kind. He was afterwards Bishop of London, in which office he continued until his death in 1723. Leaving no issue he devised his real estate to his nephew, Christopher Robinson, who had settled on the Rappahannock. His eldest son, John Robinson, born in 1682, was president of the council. He married Catherine, daughter of Robert Beverley, the historian. John Robinson, Jr., their eldest son, was treasurer and speaker, and is commonly known as "Speaker Robinson."[548:A] He resided at Mount Pleasant, on the Matapony, in King and Queen, the house there having been built for him, it is said, by Augustine Moore, of Chelsea, in King William, father of Lucy Moore, one of his wives. Her portrait is preserved at Chelsea; his is preserved by his descendants. His other wife was Lucy Chiswell. He lies buried in the garden at Mount Pleasant.

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