History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia Part 45

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 coa.r.s.ely 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 cla.s.ses. 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 d.i.c.kinson, 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 cla.s.sical 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 protege of Speaker Robinson, who introduced him into the circle of refined society. Mr. Grigsby thinks that the term protege 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 cla.s.sical 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 cla.s.sic 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, cla.s.sic, 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:

[531:A] Sabine's Loyalists, 36.

[533:A] Letter from R. H. Lee to his sister, Mrs. Corbin, written in 1778. _Hist. Mag._, i. 360.

[534:A] Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, 37.

[537:A] Wirt's Life of Henry, 47; Old Churches, Ministers, etc., 298; Grigsby's Convention of '76, p. 46.

CHAPTER LXIX.

1765-1766.

The Stamp Act--Virginia opposes it--Loan-office Scheme--Members of Council and Burgesses--Repeal of Stamp Act--Treasurer Robinson's Defalcation--Offices of Speaker and Treasurer separated--Lee's Speech--Miscellaneous--Family of Robinson.

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 pa.s.sage. 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 succ.u.mb 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 a.s.sembly 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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.sembly 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 princ.i.p.al 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 princ.i.p.al 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 pa.s.sed 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:--

"Resolved, That the first adventurers and settlers of this his majesty's colony and dominion, brought with them, and transmitted to their posterity and all other his majesty's subjects since inhabiting in this his majesty's said colony, all the privileges, franchises, and immunities that have at any time been held, enjoyed, and possessed by the people of Great Britain.

"Resolved, That by two royal charters granted by King James the First, the colonists aforesaid are declared ent.i.tled to all the privileges, liberties, and immunities of denizens and natural-born subjects, to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within the realm of England.

"Resolved, That the taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know what taxes the people are able to bear, and the easiest mode of raising them, and are equally affected by such taxes themselves, is the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, and without which the ancient const.i.tution cannot subsist.

"Resolved, That his majesty's liege people of this most ancient colony have uninterruptedly enjoyed the right of being thus governed by their own a.s.sembly in the article of their taxes and internal police, and that the same hath never been forfeited, or any other way given up, but hath been constantly recognized by the king and people of Great Britain.

"Resolved, Therefore, that the general a.s.sembly of this colony have the sole right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this colony, and that every attempt to vest such power in any person or persons whatsoever other than the general a.s.sembly aforesaid, has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American freedom."[541:A]

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 una.s.sisted, he wrote these resolutions on a blank leaf of an old law book, "c.o.ke 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 pa.s.sed by small majorities, without alteration. The fourth was pa.s.sed 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 subst.i.tute, 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 b.l.o.o.d.y." 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 unconst.i.tutional, 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 Caesar 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 att.i.tude, 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, pa.s.sing 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 ma.n.u.script 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 a.s.sembly.

At the instance of Ma.s.sachusetts, guided by the advice of James Otis, a congress met in October, 1765, at New York. The a.s.semblies 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 pet.i.tions to the king and the commons and a memorial to the lords. Virginia and the other two colonies not represented forwarded pet.i.tions accordant with those adopted by the congress. The committee appointed by the Virginia a.s.sembly to draught the pet.i.tions 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 a.s.sembled. 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 princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sent of the a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sembly, for that separation was itself virtually a government measure. Chalmers, who was well versed in the doc.u.mentary 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 a.s.sembly, 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 a.s.sembly.

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 a.s.sembly, 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 a.s.sembly, 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[540:A] The following is a list of the council in 1764:--