The Revolutionary History of Virginia
Edmund Randolph
[1809 / Part 2 of 5]
The History of the Revolution
No. 24. The facts, which at the beginning of this year, were preying
upon the recollection and patience of the thinking part of the colony,
were principally these: that their submission to the mutilation of
their rights under the charter of 1609, by grants of land from the
king to Lord Baltimore, the Culpeper family, and other favorites; the
victories, which the avarice of some of the royal governors in a
summary mode of extorting money, had gained from the approbation of
the crown; and the parliamentary declaration of a right to bind the
colonies in all cases whatsoever, were swelling into a gigantic map of
precedent, which at a future day might be turned to the destruction of
their liberties. The duty also on tea too paltry to justify incurring
the hazard of general discontent, bespoke a raging appetite for
Colonial revenue. Every day intelligence arrived from England of
authorized contempts of American prowess and courage, and of a
callousness to American remonstrances. The British officers on board
of the vessels stationed on our coast, echoed the insulting
expressions which had been imported, and drew from the people a
counter vehemence; which amounted to a pledge against yielding or
shrinking. Aspersions on a nation, are not divided, as responsibility
is among a multitude of individuals, each assuming to himself only his
fraction; but rather resemble in their effect the ancient mode of
battle, in which every man made the common cause his own peculiar
case. Virginia read with composure the denunciation against the
colonies, acquired hourly a more precise and determined sense of
colonial rights, and wafted incense across the Atlantic to that
phalanx of orators in parliament, who, besides, our gratitude and
admiration, had some reward in using the complaints of America as
banners under which they attacked the ministry. The veil of sanctity
had been roughly torn from the king and his most conspicuous servants,
and the corruption of parliament had been probed by the letters of
Junius, whose concealment seemed to be a lucky refuge from an impotent
prosecution to those who by office were bound to seem to labour for a
discovery of their author.
In times of general sensibility, almost every public event is
tortured into an affinity with the predominant passions. The law,
which established the fees of the ministerial officers, attending the
courts, and the costs of litigation had been originally temporary, and
constantly renewed before the day limited for its expiration. But from
the dissolution of the general assembly, the usual opportunity of
prolonging it beyond the stated termination of its existence had
passed away, and a suspension which from this cause took place in the
proceedings of the courts on the 12th day of April 1774, proclaimed a
derangement in the machine of government which was immediately
converted into the misrule of the king. But notwithstanding this
relaxation of law, order was maintained, and licentiousness
discouraged by general morality. Independent companies had separated
themselves from the militia at large, were clothed in uniforms, and
yet professed obedience to the militia laws. George Washington had
accepted the command of many of them. The old who had seen service in
the Indian war of 1755 roused the young to resist the ministry; and
the sons, who had committed themselves by strong military declarations
reacted on their fathers with new opinions, new demands and new
prospects; and yet this military ardor thus unrestrained interfered
not with a forbearance towards those who repined at the loss of the
government of England. It left the point, to which the general temper
was insensibly advancing, the severance of the colonies from the
parent state, as an evil which either need not be apprehended, or
might be arrested at any moment. It caused the people to overlook the
harm of combustible materials, which were at hand, and which a single
spark might at any time kindle into an explosion.
No. 25. In May, the general Assembly met, and in reply to a speech of
empty professions from the governor, they avowed their loyalty to the
king, and their good will to Dunmore. They say that the fatherly
attention of their most gracious sovereign to the happiness of his
subjects, in making the good of his people the first object of his
thoughts cannot but impress their minds with the liveliest sense of
duty and gratitude. They proceed thus: "It will ever afford us
much pleasure to observe an increase of your lordship's domestic
felicity, and with the greatest cordiality we embrace the first
opportunity to congratulate your lordship on the arrival of the
amiable and most respectable lady Dunmore, with so many branches of
your noble family; an event, which we consider as having brought with
it the surest pledges of our mutual happiness." To aim at a
reform of the mere etiquette of public language is perhaps little less
than knight-errantry; but to infect with the compliments of ordinary
discourse, the genuine dignity of a legislature, ill accords with that
sincerity of principle, upon which they then claimed the merit of
acting. They expected nothing good from Dunmore. They had seen reason
to fear much mischief from him.
This address was received by him as the harbinger of success to his
stratagems; and anxious to hold at his disposal a military force he
worked a dispute of boundary between Virginia and Pennsylvania into a
topic of great irritation. In a message to the house of burgesses, he
informs them, "that a considerable body of his majesty's subjects
had settled in Virginia, contiguous to the western boundary of
Pennsylvania: that he had appointed militia officers to defend them on
any emergency and magistrates to preserve order: that the governor of
Pennsylvania pretended a claim to that country: that he (Dunmore) had
taken steps to enforce the authority of Virginia in that district: and
that he submits to the house; as the governor of Pennsylvania meant to
obstruct by every possible means, the government of this colony in the
disputed district, whether provisions be not necessary to render the
legal power of the officers and magistrates there effectual."
On the day following the message, inflamatory letters from John
Conolly, a man of intrigue and hardihood of enterprize, and devoted to
Dunmore, were communicated by him to the house, as fuel to the fury,
projected against the province of Pennsylvania, and as an alarm from
Indian hostility. Cautious as the house were, they could not wholly
shun the snare spread for them. They were no less averse to the very
semblance of submission to usurpation, than to a precipitate quarrel
with a sister colony. While therefore they express their regret at
such a dissention, they declare it to be their duty to protect the
people of Virginia from oppression, let it arise from what quarter it
might, but that to inflict the punishment of imprisonment or death on
the officers of either government on account of an unsettled line was
to deviate from the plain and simple plan of accomodation, observed in
former contests of this nature. They then request the governor to fix
a temporary boundary line, until the king should act, and to exert his
powers under the laws against invasions and insurrections, which they
did not doubt, would for the present be sufficient to repel the
attacks of the Indians, who had perfidiously commenced hostilities.
The prudence and calmness of these sentiments, and the reluctance to
organize a corps of regular soldiers, were answered by an affected
acquiescence, while Dunmore lamented the difference of opinion upon
the inadequacy of the militia.
To charge him with a scheme for embroiling Virginia with Pennsylvania
and thus to paralyze the energy of both, in the threatened rupture
with Great Britain, might perhaps be unjust. The outrages from the
governor of Pennsylvania could not pass without animadversion, and he
is protected from the fulness of censure, by the assent of the house
of burgesses to the employment of some force. But he unnecessarily
appointed officers, whose functions would clash with those of the
officers of Pennsylvania, when in a few months an appeal to the king
would have adjusted the controversy. It would therefore be excessively
harsh, to suspect a man, who laboured to subjugate the colony, and
whose bitterness towards Virginia encreased every day. The
proclamations of Penn and Dunmore are strictly parallel in
disregarding every consideration of peace, and notwithstanding the
exasperation of these individuals regardless of the fatherly care
chief magistrates should exercise over the people committed to their
superintendence, the conduct of the Virginia assembly on this occasion
was a striking instance of the happiness springing from the wisdom of
a legislature, not divested by executive influence from pursuing its
dictates and the interest of their constituents.
No. 26. Amidst the agitations of the time, the Assembly were not
unmindful of agriculture, and were desirous of increasing the
facilities of the farmer, in a speedy preparation of his crops of
wheat for market. That baneful weed, tobacco, which had stained our
country with all the pollutions and cruelties of slavery, had
exhausted the fertility of our soil, had swallowed up in its large
plantations vast territories, which if distributed into portions, were
best adapted to favour population, was yet the only commodity, which
could command money for the planter at a short notice, and the only
one from which the dexterity of the British Merchant could extract
such various emolutions, and was therefore with him a choice subject
of trade. But it had become obvious, that the staff of life was
entitled to legislative stimulus; and a reward of one hundred pounds
was voted to John Hobday for the invention of a machine which pressed
out the wheat with ribbed cylinders, put into circular motion by
horses. In nothing was the tardiness of Virginia in improving
machinery more visible, than in the long dormant state of this
important, though in its first stage, certainly crude combination of
mechanical power. It might be too great a refinement to connect as
cause and effect, the cessation of that spirit, which coveted tobacco,
as the greatest blessing of our state, with the most promising effort
which had been ever made in the legislature for a complete toleration
of protestant dissenters. Let it be some apology for Virginia, that
this indulgence had not in practice been long before conceded in
England, and that for more than a century and a half, the depositaries
of public authority had revered the church of England, as the
safeguard of tranquility, which in the mother country had been once
radically disturbed by the extravagances of her enemies. The history
of the English revolution in 1688 had not universally imparted its
entire essence here, counteracted as it was by the established clergy,
most of whom delighted rather in the lethargy of fixed salaries, than
in the trouble of thought, learning and research, which a vigorous
dissenting minister no longer depressed, might occasion. The law,
however, which was on its passage, was defeated by the dissolution of
the Assembly, in consequence of the fast, now to be mentioned.
No. 27. The town of Boston in Massachusetts, being esteemed the focus
of rebellion, was the peculiar victim of ministerial vengence. A
statute had been enacted, annihilating her ports, after the first day
of June 1774, abolishing her mart of foreign commerce, and stirring up
the neighbouring towns to share in her plunder, by the exclusive
possession of privileges, which Boston had enjoyed, and which were now
to be transferred to her rivals. Men, mad in the career of power
seldom delay, to consult the human heart. They overlook the
sympathies, which act upon nations, sincerely sisters for general
purposes, and which cannot be torpid, although the distance of place
and an exemption from instantaneous suffering may for a moment deceive
with the expectation of at least an indifference on their part.
Mr. Jefferson, and Charles Lee, may be said to have originated a
fast, to electrify the people from the pulpit. Such is the
constitution of things, that an act of public devotion, will receive
no opposition from those, who believe in its effect to appease
offended heaven, and is registered in the cabinet of the politician,
as an allowable trick of political warfare. Those gentlemen, knowing
that Robert Carter Nicholas the chairman of the committee of religion,
was no less zealous than themselves against the attempt to starve
thousands of the American people into a subservience to the ministry,
easily persuaded him to put forth the strength of his character, on an
occasion, which he thought to be pious, and to move for a fast, to be
observed on the first day of June, which few, besides himself could so
well delineate, as a hopeful appeal to the deity and over which his
reputation as a religionist spread popularity.
The style, in which the fast was recommended was too bold to be
neglected by the governor, as an effusion, which would evaporate on
paper. It was a cement among the colonies unconnected as they were in
situation, and dissimilar as they were in manners, habits, ideas of
religion and government from the states abounding in slaves. It
brought home to the bosom of each colony the apprehensions of every
other; and if in the hour of reflection, the ministry could have
foreseen the approach of a closer union among the colonies, these
resolutions might have been well interpreted into the seed of a
revolution. The governor therefore resorted to his power of dissolving
the assembly: a power which hindered the circulation of offensive
matter under the legislative seal, but inoculated the whole colony
with the poison, against which it was directed.
No. 28. The burgesses immediately after the dissolution assembled
with Peyton Randolph at their head, made the cause of Boston their
own; protested with indignation against the taxation of America in the
British parliament, and the baseness of tampering with one section of
the colony, to sever itself from the general sentiment, for the sake
of the sports of another. A congress of deputies from each province
had been discussed in town meetings in New York and Boston, and was
now consigned to the committee of correspondence for execution. A
convention was also voted to be holden in the latter part of the
summer.
The fast was obeyed throughout Virginia with such rigour and
scruples, as to interdict the tasting of food between the rising and
setting sun. With the remembrance of the king, horror was associated;
and in churches as well as in the circles of social conversation, he
seemed to stalk like the Arch enemy of mankind.
No. 29. The counties and corporations elected with alacrity
representatives or delegates as they were called, to that convention.
Their powers were to take under their consideration the present
critical and alarming situation of the continent of North America.
Thomas Jefferson, who was one of those elected, was prevented by
indisposition from attending. But he forwarded by express for the
consideration of its members a series of resolutions. I distinctly
recollect the applause bestowed on the most of them, when they were
read to a large company at the house of Peyton Randolph, to whom they
were addressed. Of all, the approbation was not equal. From the
celebrated letters of the Pennsylvania Farmer (John Dickinson) we had
been instructed to bow to the external taxation of parliament, as
resulting from our migration, and a necessary dependence on the mother
country. But this composition of Mr. Jefferson, shook this conceded
principle, although it had been confirmed by a still more celebrated
pamphlet, written by Daniel Dulany of Maryland, and cited by Lord
Chatham, as a text book of American rights. The young ascended with
Mr. Jefferson to the source of those rights; the old required time for
consideration, before they could tread this lofty ground, which, if it
had not been abandoned, at least had not been fully occupied,
throughout America. From what cause it happened, that the resolutions
were not printed by the order of the convention does not appear; but
as they were not adopted several of the author's admirers subscribed
to their publication. When the time of writing is remembered, a range
of inquiry not then very frequent, and marching far beyond the
politicks of the day, will surely be allowed to them. Mr. Jefferson
was, however, disappointed in a seat at the first session of congress.
His presence at the convention would probably have multiplied the
suffrages in his favor, but the seven, who were nominated to that new
assembly, had the advantage of being better known, of possessing more
exclusive connections, and of being older servants of the public. The
successful candidates were Peyton Randolph. Richard Henry Lee, George
Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, and
Edmund Pendleton, in the order in which they are here named. Some of
the tickets on the ballot, assigned reasons for the choice, expressed
in them. These were, that Randolph should preside in congress; that
Lee and Henry should display the different kinds of eloquence, for
which they were renowned, that Washington should command the army, if
an army should be raised; that Bland should open the treasures of
ancient colonial learning; that Harrison should utter plain truths,
and that Pendleton should be the penman for business. Perhaps
characters were never better discriminated.
No. 30. In defining the objects of the congress the convention of
Virginia did not soar so high, as the electing bodies of some of the
other states. Virginia kept out of sight a truth, which time never
fails to bring to light, that when subjects question a power asserted
by a mother country their measures will be elevated in their progress
farther than was at first expected. Virginia instructed her deputies,
so to touch our commercial connection, as to "procure redress for
the most injured province of Massachusetts bay, to secure British
America from the ravage and ruin of arbitrary taxes, and, speedily
obtain that harmony and union, so beneficial to the whole empire, and
so ardently desired by all British America."
Until congress should act, and their proceedings should be divulged,
the people deemed it unadvisable to make any movement collectively;
but the opposition to the ministry retained its fire. Vigilance was
alone necessary in the mean time with respect to their enemies. After
those proceedings were disclosed, an opportunity did not present
itself for a revision of them in a convention, until that which met at
Richmond in March 1775. But the mouths of all were filled with
eulogium on the patriotic, enlightened and manly conduct of congress.
No. 31. In the enthusiasm of the day, this body was supposed to be
honored by a comparison of it with some of the August Assemblies of
antiquity. So natural is it to court for modern times a lustre
reflected through the medium of antiquity. But America desires no
other tribute of applause for this illustrious body, than that their
agency corresponded with the character of their constituents,
ambitious to shine in the annals of Liberty.
No. 32. But before the posture given to our affairs by congress, had
undergone a discussion in the convention, Dunmore had been gratified
in his vehement lust for embodying a large army of expert riflemen and
woodsmen from the militia of the Western frontiers. He had collected
under cover of the standing law, providing against Indian hostilities,
a brave yeomanry, which if not convertible under his authority to
other purposes, unsuspected and unjustifiable, might at least be more
immediately within the sphere of his influence, from those
blandishments, which a commander in chief can liberally disperse. If
they could be detached from the rest of their countrymen, the most
hardy and most experienced in war of the sons of Virginia, would be
cast into the scale of Great Britain: if he miscarried, as he in fact
did, the necessity of chastising the Indians would always be a veil
over his original views. His conduct of this little army was
mysterious to a degree of folly. Instead of prostrating, as he might,
all the Indian enemy by a concentrated application of his strength, he
divided it into two parts; one of which he confided to Colo. Andrew
Lewis, to be led to the mouth of Kanawha River, and with the other,
far superior, he moved to a point on the Ohio river, distant more than
seventy miles, making seasonable cooperation impracticable. Lewis,
notwithstanding the bravery of himself, his officers and men, at Point
Pleasant, the place of his destination, was defeated by the Shawanese,
Delawares, Mingoes, Tawas, and mortally wounded. His surviving
compatriots, eager to avenge the death of their friends, were on the
wing for the destruction of the Shawanese Villages when tidings of
peace, on the condition of the cessation of the Indian lands on the
eastern side of the Ohio, surrendering their prisoners, and delivering
hostages of performance, gave Dunmore by a false eclat, a feather for
his vanity.
No. 33. The dissolution of the assembly in the preceding year, had
demonstrated, that it was no security against the repetition of the
same offences to the governor. He had therefore intermitted to call
one, careless, whether anarchy had ensued or not from the derangement
of our police. In March 1775, the indications were stronger still, and
a convention was holden in the town of Richmond. Among the members
were Peyton Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Pendleton, Benjamin
Harrison, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Robert Carter Nicholas,
Richard Bland and Richard Henry Lee, who have been already drawn to
the size of character which they had then unfolded. To shew in what
numbers Virginia might feel an assurance, others were associated with
them, whose respectability, virtue, and good sense made and fixed
proselytes, by conviction inculcated in private, when they were averse
to address their compatriots in public. Among these were John Harvie,
Thomas Lewis, Henry Tazewell, John Nicholas, Paul Carrington,
Archibald Cary, William Fleming, John Banister, William Fitzhugh,
Charles Carter, Francis Peyton, Meriwether Smith, Thomas Marshall,
James Mercer, Joseph Jones, Thomas Walker, Edmund Berkeley, Lemuel
Riddick, Willis Riddick, Burwell Bassett, Thomas Newton, William
Robinson, Henry Lee, Thomas Blackburn, Edwin Gray, James Taylor, Mann
Page of Spotsylvania, Dudley Digges, Thomas Nelson junior of York,
Champion Travis and Joseph Hutchings. All of them had at stake,
fortunes, which were affluent or competent, and families, which were
dear to them: neither of these blessings would they have jeopardized
upon a political speculation, in which their souls were not deeply
engaged. If some misguided historian should at a future day, revive
the exploded calumny of evil motives which agitated this convention,
let these names be adduced as monuments of absolute refutation.
The first resolution of the convention, was unanimously, "entirely
and cordially to approve the proceedings and resolutions of the
continental congress; to consider the whole continent as under the
highest obligation to them for the wisdom of their counsels and their
unremitted endeavours to maintain and preserve inviolate the just
rights and liberties of his majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects in
America. In correspondence with this resolution a second was passed
for the warmest thanks to the delegates from Virginia for their
cheerful undertaking and faithful discharge of the very important
trust reposed in them." We here perceive Virginia concerned in
branding with injustice, cruelty and oppression the late acts of
parliament involving Massachusetts-bay; in annulling an obedience to
them, as the attempts of a wicked administration to enslave America;
in countenancing that province in the support of all officers who
should refuse to carry into execution the orders of courts, holden by
judges who were appointed, with any other tenure, than that which the
charter and laws directed; in approving the payment of the public
revenue of that province into the hands of the provincial treasurer,
until government should be placed upon a constitutional foundation, or
it should be otherwise ordered by the provincial congress; in
exhorting the people of Massachusetts to act upon the defensive
merely, as long as such conduct might be vindicated by reason, and the
principle of self-preservation, and no longer; and in applauding the
assumption of various powers in the present crisis. In a word,
Virginia pledged herself to Massachusetts for upholding her in all
measures, which she might think expedient.
No. 34. The most conspicuous acts of congress, which the convention
thus recognized, were a letter to general Gage, the British commander
in Boston, requiring him to discontinue the fortifications there. 2. A
declaration of American rights, which is a copious summary of them. 3.
An Association against exportation, consumption, and importation under
certain limitations. 4. An address to the people of Great Britain. 5.
A memorial to the inhabitants of the British colonies. 6. A letter to
the colonies of St. John, Nova Scotia, Georgia, East and West Florida.
&. An address to the inhabitants of Quebec, and 8. an address to
the king.
With these acts, this history has no farther concern, than as
enunciations of these doctrines, to which the conviction of Virginia
had arrived, and as an earnest of measures, which might flow from
them. Now when passion no longer taints the original question, it
probably will not be doubted by any, that an internal taxation of the
colonies by the authority of parliament was a violation of their
rights. In the association nothing was done, but innocently and
without bloodshed to do, as a nation, what every individual had a
right to do as an individual british subject. As the ministry would
have hastened the pace of military vengeance, if the pulse of the
British people had beaten as strongly as their own pride, and their
hunger for items of revenue, the address to that people was a just
retort of the example of divide et impera, and may be also ranked with
the evidences of our anxiety to continue brethren of the same
government. The address to the king, whose personal character and
situation effaced every hope of rousing him to think or act in
contradiction to his advisers, was a deference to the American people,
who could not relinquish the slightest prospect of returning harmony.
And this line of conduct rescued congress from the imputation, to
which the letter to the island of St. John, West Florida and Quebec
might give birth, of a wish to convulse and dismember the British
Empire. True perhaps it is, that Virginia now was resolved to follow,
whithersoever these doctrines, and these measures should lead, and
that had she been asked, what she had in reserve, upon the final
failure of all overtures of reconciliation, a consistent answer could
have been only, that it would have been better not to have stirred at
all, than to be reduced to slavery, aggravated by the disgrace of
pompous and hollow professions.
Accordingly a resolution was passed for immediately putting the
colony into a posture of defence, and for preparing a plan of
embodying and disciplining such a number of men as might be sufficient
for that purpose. Henry moved and Richard Henry Lee seconded it. The
fangs of European criticism might be challenged to spread themselves
against the eloquence of that awful day. It was a proud one to a
Virginian, feeling and acting with his country. Demosthenes
invigorated the timid, and Cicero charmed the backward. The multitude
many of whom had travelled to the convention from a distance could not
suppress their emotion. Henry was his pure self. Those, who had toiled
in the artifices of scholastic rhetoric, were involuntarily driven
into an inquiry within themselves, whether rules and forms and
nicieties of elocution would not have choked his native fire. It
blazed so as to warm the coldest heart. In the sacred place of
meeting, the church, the imagination had no difficulty, to conceive,
when he launched forth in solemn tones, various causes of scruple
against oppressors, that the British king was lying prostrate from the
thunder of heaven. Henry was thought in his attitudes to resemble
Saint Paul, while preaching at Athens, and to speak as man was never
known to speak before. After every illusion had vanished, a prodigy
yet remained. It was Patrick Henry born in obscurity, poor, and
without the advantages of literature, rousing the genius of his
country, and binding a band of patriots together to hurl defiance at
the tyranny of so formidable a nation as Great Britain. This
enchantment was spontaneous obedience to the workings of the soul.
When he uttered what commanded respect for himself, he solicited no
admiring look from those, who surrounded him. If he had, he must have
been abashed by meeting every eye fixed upon him. He paused, but he
paused full of some rising eruption of eloquence. When he sat down,
his sounds vibrated so loudly if not in the ears at least in the
memory of his audience, that no other member, not even his friend who
was to second him was yet adventurous enough, to interfere with that
voice, which had so recently subdued and captivated. After a few
minutes Richard Henry Lee fanned and refreshed with a gale of
pleasure; but the vessel of the revolution was still under the impulse
of the tempest, which Henry had created. Artificial oratory fell in
copious streams from the mouth of Lee, and rules of persuasion
accomplished every thing, which rules could effect. If elegance had
been personified, the person of Lee would have been chosen. But Henry
trampled upon rules, and yet triumphed, at this time perhaps beyond
his own expectation. Jefferson was not silent. He argued closely,
profoundly and warmly on the same side. The post in the Revolutionary
debate, belonging to him, was that at which the theories of
republicanism were deposited. Washington was prominent, though silent.
His looks bespoke a mind absorbed in meditation on his country's fate;
but a positive concert between him and Henry could not more
effectually have exhibited him to view, than when Henry with
indignation ridiculed the idea of peace "when there was no peace"
and enlarged on the duty of preparing for war.
The generous and noble minded Thomas Nelson, who now for the first
time, took a more than common part in a great discussion, convulsed
the moderate by an ardent exclamation, in which he called God to
witness, that if any British troops should be landed within the
county, of which he was the lieutenant, he would wait for no orders,
and would obey none, which should forbid him to summon his militia and
repel the invaders at the water edge. His temper though it was
sanguine, and had been manifested in less scenes of opposition, seemed
to be more than ordinarily excited. His example told those, who were
happy in ease and wealth, that to shrink was to be dishonoured.
No. 35. The convention instructed the committee of correspondence, to
procure authentic information whether the house of representatives of
New York had deserted the union with the other colonies, what the real
sense of the people of that province was, to ascertain the names of
the individuals, who might have concurred in the votes, derogating
from that union. In the progress of a revolution we must be satisfied,
if the simple charities of human nature are preserved. But courtesy or
delicacy towards individuals or bodies, suspected, will never shelter
them from an intrusive scrutiny.
Provision was made for the collection of supplies for the relief of
Boston, and the administration of justice was interrupted. Volunteer
companies of infantry and troops of horse were recommended to be
raised and to be in constant training and readiness for action on any
emergency. Money also was recommended to be raised for ammunition.
Although adulation from public bodies for some expedient of policy,
is supposed not to tarnish the individuals, who compose them, we ought
not to palliate our surprize, that a convention possessing such a
force of character as this did, should pollute itself by an unfelt
eulogium on Dunmore. It was no secret that his late expedition against
the Indians was suggested by the belief, that he could intimidate
them, and by intimidating them, direct their tomahawk against the
frontiers most open to their ravages; and yet it was resolved
unanimously, that the most cordial thanks of the people of this
colony, are a tribute justly due to our WORTHY governor Lord Dunmore
for his truly noble, wise and spirited conduct on the late expedition
against our Indian Enemy:---a conduct which at once evinces his
excellency's attention to the true interest of this colony, and a zeal
in the executive department, which no dangers can divert, or
difficulties hinder from achieving the most important services to the
people, who have the HAPPINESS to live under his administration.
Perhaps this glaring sacrifice of sincerity would not have been made,
had it not been for the wretched practice of presuming the commander
in chief, even in the teeth of every rule of presumption, to be the
efficient cause of success obtained by his officers and soldiers. On
them undoubtedly thanks could not be misspent. Foy sneered. Dunmore
clutched with avidity this atom of mischievous popularity, which he
would apply, if possible, to the annoyance of Virginia. No man can
say, that complimentary acts of public bodies, howsoever neutral, they
may seem to be, may not be wrested with evil, unless they certainly
steer to some good.
No 36. Contemporaneously with the arrangements for defence were
adopted resolutions for encouraging manufactures, which had they been
excuted with spirit and perseverance, would have established
independence on a rock, unmoveable to British capitals. In the plan
proposed, are a frank confession of the inability of Virginia to
furnish to herself articles of the first necessity, and magnanimity in
encountering on the principle of liberty the most painful privations.
It inculcates too an useful and instructive truth, that when a people,
devoted to liberty once entertain an apprehension for its safety, they
overleap the calculations of what in ordinary life, would be called
prudence.
Woolen, cotton and linen manufactures, were to be promoted in as many
different branches as possible. Except in some small instances, in
which poor industrious families spun and wove their own clothing, the
foreign merchant annually supplied those manufacturers for the slaves,
and their masters. Flax, hemp and cotton were to be cultivated not
only for the use of each family, but for the accommodation of others
on moderate terms. Cotton had been hitherto made in quantities not
much exceeding a scanty domestic consumption, and flax and hemp were
not frequent or very abundant below the heads of our great rivers.
Saltworks were to be established. We had depended for salt on
importation from abroad. The art of making it, simple as it is, was
then a mystery in chemistry; and the great waters adjoining the sea,
which were alone adapted to its production in the eastern quarter of
Virginia might be visited in all their recesses by any British
cockboat. The salt springs in the west were too remote for the wants
of the lower country.
Salt petre was to be collected and refined, as well as sulphur; and
elementary ingredients of gunpowder had been always bought more
cheaply than they could be made. Gunpowder was to be made. The
compounding of which had been practised only by the riflemen of the
upper country, and had not become an article of merchandize, to be
capable of a competition with that which was imported.
Nails, wire and other necessary articles of iron were to be
manufactured. Many of these had been prohibited by parliament; and a
slitting mill or tilt hammer had never been erected; even hoes and
axes were imported. Steel was to be made upon an extensive scale. The
process, though not difficult, was unknown in use.
Different kinds of paper were to be made. Only one experiment had
been made in Virginia and that was abortive.
Woolcombs, cotton and woolcards, hemp and flax heckles were to be
made.
Fulling mills, and mills for breaking, swingling and softening hemp
and flax were to be erected. Grindstones, although the rough material
was daily before our eyes, had been neglected to be made. Malt liquors
made in Virginia were to be substituted for foreign, and hops and
barley were to be encouraged.
Had these recommendations been observed, as closely as they might
have been, without inconvenience to the planter, farmer and mechanic,
this country, the climate and soil of which promised to industry an
ample profit, would not have been behind any state in improvement, or
dependent on any nation for its manufactures.
How Virginia had fallen into this dearth of things so easily
attainable is to be solved by the peculiarities of her situation from
an ancient date. As soon as that noxious weed, tobacco, had obtained
the currency of fashion in Europe, and the introduction of slavery had
sheltered the white population from the labor and exposure incidental
to its cultivation; it was seen, that the raw materials of manufacture
could be invested, with greater profit, in purchasing what she wanted
from England, where labour was cheap; the arts subdivided; capitals
existed for every valuable business; and science and experience had
astonished with new facilities and improvements;---than in the
application of her manual force to the tedious progress of
manufactures. They must be nurtured from the lowest state of infancy;
without funds at double expence, and without the collateral aids,
which each manufacture requires from many others. Besides the woolen,
cotton and linen fabrics of England had become the standards of taste
and necessity in Virginia. To similar sources and to the tumult of war
may be traced the tardiness in seizing the first moments of
self-government for the exercise of self denial. Nature had been too
propitious to Virginia to generate the noble art of living upon
little. Comfort sprang up, was luxuriant, but was also an opiate to
the activity of native invention, little short of the effect of
possessing mines of gold and silver.
No. 37. What course of reflection these facts and others like them,
known to exist elsewhere in the colonies excited in the minds of many,
eminent for learning and philanthropy, but novices in the feelings of
the new world, threatened with chains and mounting to some high but
dubious destiny is exemplified in a letter of the celebrated
historian, doctor Robertson, written in October 1775. Speaking of the
colonies he says, that "the ministry have been trifling for two
years, when they should have been serious, until they have rendered a
very simple piece of business extremely perplexed. They have permitted
colonies, disjoined by nature and situation, to consolidate themselves
into a regular systematical confederacy, and when a few regiments
stationed in each capital, would have rendered it impossible for them
to take arms, they have suffered them quietly to levy and train
forces, as if they had not known and seen, against whom they prepared."
"This (that is the liberty to buy and sell, where and with whom
they pleased) they will one day attain, but not just now, if there be
any degree of political wisdom or vigour remaining. At the same time,
one cannot but regret, that prosperous and growing states should be
checked in their career." Be it right or wrong, the convention
was struck, with R. H. Lee's quotation from scripture, that the race
was not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, and believed that
those were doubly armed, whose cause was just. May the cause of
liberty be ever conducted with prudence, but never benumbed by too
frigid estimates of difficulty or danger.
No. 38. One of the last acts of the convention was dictated by a
proclamation of the governor. He was as humble a proficient in the
season as in the wisdom of doing things. That proclamation in
declaring that the king had given orders, that all vacant land should
be put up in lots at public sale, that the purchasers should hold
them, subject to a reservation of one halfpenny sterling per acre, by
way of annual quitrent, etc., augmented the preexisting inflammation.
It was an innovation on the established usage of granting land within
the colony, announced, that revenue was to be hunted for in disregard
of charters and ancient habits, and to be embraced in its minutest
shapes. To attack this new head of the hydra of precedent, a committee
was appointed of Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Thomas Jefferson,
Robert Carter Nicholas and Edmund Pendleton, to inquire whether his
majesty may of right advance the terms of granting lands in this
colony, and to make report to the next general assembly or convention.
But this affair was lost in the subsequent events, and at any other
time would probably have died away with those numerous thoughtless
acquiescences with which our history is strewed, in exercises of
doubtful prerogative.
No. 39. It being apprehended, that Peyton Randolph, who with his
former colleagues had been elected to the succeeding congress holden
in Philadelphia in May 1775, might be detained by sickness or his
duties as the speaker of the house of burgesses, Thomas Jefferson was
named, as his eventual successor.
The convention then considered the delegation of its members as at an
end, and recommended to the people to choose delegates to represent
them for one year. In civil commotions it has always been the artifice
of parties, to invent for their opponents names to which odium or
ridicule is attached. The Branchi of Florence, the Guelphs and
Ghibellines of France; and the whigs and tories of England were the
offspring of this species of stratagem. The enemies to parliamentary
taxation and the ministry stigmatized those who favored either, as
tories, and assumed to themselves the appellation of whigs. The origin
of these distinctions, Hume in his history of England described.
(History of England, Vol. VIII, Chapter 68, page 126).
Mr. Jefferson in his notes on Virginia, page 285, remarks, that a
tory has been properly defined to be a traitor in thought, but not in
deed. In some cases it may have been the harsh language of the most
violent and intemperate; but it cannot be admitted, that thinking men,
who valued freewill as a gift of heaven, were thus indiscriminate in
their severity. What multitudes could now be cited, who confounded by
the new order of things, suddenly flashing upon their minds, and still
entangled by the habits of many years, were branded as tories, though
spotless as to treason even in thought; who could not comprehend what
was to be the issue of provoking the fury of the British nation, and
were yet innocent even as to wishes of harm to their country; who
believed in a chance of reconciliation, if excesses were spared; who
might not feel sufficient irritation at the distant danger of an
abstract principle. It is the glory of our country, that the influence
of a contrary sentiment, while it might diminish cordiality, left
without molestation, very many men, to adorn and profit the republic.
No. 40. In April 1775, Dunmore eager to acquit himself with some
noise towards his royal master, and misconceiving action, whether well
or ill directed to be synonymous with duty, adopted a measure, which
in any aspect could not promote his interest, as a scheme to deprive
the city of Williamsburg of ammunition and arms must inevitably
precipitate a general tumult. There was a paltry magazine in that
city, the then metropolis, which had served as a receptable for a few
military stores of government, and for the gunpowder of the merchants
there, who from caution retained but small quantities for the course
of retail. These were, by Dunmore's order, secretly, in the night,
conveyed on board of a vessel of war; thus adopting a policy in one
sense grovelling, and in another not far removed from assassination,
as it was believed at the time, and more strongly suspected from what
happened afterwards, that he designed, by disarming the people, to
weaken the means of opposing an insurrection of the slaves, whom he
purposed to invite to his standard, and for a protection against whom
in part the magazine was at first built. The citizens ran to arms, as
soon as the rapine was detected, and would have assaulted the governor
in his residence, had they not been dissuaded by the calmer counsels
of Peyton Randolph and Robert Carter Nicholas. The violence projected
was, however, rather suspended, than extinguished. It was suspended to
afford to the governor an opportunity of promising to replace the
gunpowder, in conformity with an address from the corporation. But
instead of the candor and frankness incumbent on official stations, he
replied with evasion and falsehood. Public office, if it cannot
gratify with pleasant things, ought at least not to sap confidence by
the desertion of truth. Dunmore says, that "hearing of an
insurrection in a neighboring county, he had removed the gunpowder
from the magazine, where he did not think it secure, to a place of
perfect security, and that upon his word and honor, whenever it was
wanted in any insurrection, it should be delivered in half an hour:
that he was surprised to hear that the people were under arms on this
occasion, and that he should not think it prudent to put powder into
their hands in such a situation." The impetuosity of a multitude,
once arrested, does not instantly return to its former extravagance,
although their demands may not be completely satisfied; and now, after
some farther effervescence, it gradually subsides into perfect
tranquillity.
No 41. In other parts of Virginia, Dunmore's excuse for the removal
of the powder, was spurned at with indignation, for its departure from
fact, and his equivocation about an insurrection, the interpretation
of which when it might happen, he reserved to himself. In the county
of Hanover, in which Patrick Henry lived, the standing committee,
created by the convention and the armed volunteer company refused to
acquiesce; and Henry at the head of the latter marched to extort from
the King's receiver-general, Richard Corbin, out of the royal coffer,
the value of the powder. That officer drew a bill of exchange on
London for the amount, being upward of three hundred pounds sterling,
which sum was paid into the treasury. It was Henry's ulterior
intention to visit Williamsburg with his company of men, and in some
manner or other, to hold Dunmore responsible for the restitution of
the powder. But when he had advanced within fifteen miles of that
city, he was met by Richard Carter Nicholas and Thomas Nelson, who
represented to him, that as his object had been accomplished in the
bill of exchange, he and his party would best consult the peace of
Virginia by returning in peace and they prevailed upon him to return.
Of itself the money was of no account, but the occurence disrobed the
regal government of superstitious reverence; and thereby forwarded a
most essential branch of the impending revolution. Henry was
proclaimed a traitor by Dunmore, and his personal safety was thereby
incorporated with the American cause. It conferred upon him a degree
of military prominence, which might be a basis for future elevation in
any line.
No. 42. Dunmore caught the glimpse of greater pliability in a new
assembly, than in that, which had been dissolved. The joint address of
the two houses of parliament to the king, his answer and the
resolution of the house of commons on the 7th day of February 1775,
had been transmitted to him with rapidity, and he summoned the
legislature for the first day of June 1775. In his speech to them at
the commencement of the session he tells them, "that the joint
address and answers no longer permit a doubt, that their well founded
grievances properly represented would meet with that attention and
regard which are justly due to them: that the resolution of the
commons will, he trusts, have the effect of removing the jealousy,
which has been the principal source of disquiet and uneasiness in the
minds of the people; that he therefore entertains the strongest hopes,
that nothing will remain, after a just consideration of the nature and
tendency of that resolution, to prevent their seriously exerting
themselves, to bring the disputes, which have unhappily raged between
the mother country and the colonies to a good end; to which the step
already taken by the house of commons, must be considered as a
benevolent tender, and an auspicious advance on the part of the parent
state." He then adds, "That it must now be manifest to all
dispassionate people, that the parliament, the high and supreme
legislature of the empire, far from having entertained thoughts so
inconsistent with the wisdom and public virtue, which have
distinguished that august body, of oppressing the people of the
colonies, or of promoting the interest of one at expence of another
part of their fellow-subjects have only been extending their care,
that the whole in consideration of the enjoyment of equal rights,
privileges and advantages, should be obliged, according to their
abilities and situations to contribute a portion towards the burthens,
necessary for the support of the civil government and common defence.
The tenor of these overtures from parliament will best appear from
the perusal of them. The answer of the house of burgesses is a manly
repulse of the snare.
To His Excellency the Right Hon. John Earl of Dunmore, Governor of
Virginia, &c, &c.;My Lord,
We his Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, the Burgesses of
Virginia, now met in General Assembly, have taken into our
consideration the joint Address of the two houses of Parliament, his
Majesty's Answer, and the Resolutions of the Commons, which your
Lordship has been pleased to lay before us. Wishing nothing so
sincerely as the perpetual continuance of that brotherly love which we
bear to our fellow subjects of Great Britain, and still continuing to
hope and believe that they do not approve the measures which have so
long oppressed their brethren in America, we were pleased to receive
your Lordship's notification, that a benevolent tender has at length
been made by the British House of Commons, towards bringing to a good
end our unhappy disputes with the Mother Country. Next to the
possession of liberty, my Lord, we should consider such a
reconciliation as the greatest of all human blessings. With these
dispositions we entered into consideration of that Resolution; we
examined it minutely; we viewed it in every point of light in which we
were able to place it, and, with pain and disappointment, we must
ultimately declare, it only changes the form of oppression, without
lightening its burthen. We cannot, my Lord, close with the terms of
that Resolution, for these reasons: Because the British Parliament has
no right to intermeddle with the support of Civil Government in the
Colonies. For us, not for them, has Government been established here.
Agreeable to our ideas, provision has been made for such Officers as
we think necessary for the administration of public affairs; and we
cannot conceive that any other Legislature has a right to prescribe
either the number of pecuniary appointments of our Officers. As a
proof that the claim of Parliament, to interfere in the necessary
provisions for support of Civil Government is novel, and of a late
date, we take leave to refer to an Act of our Assembly, passed so long
since as the 32d year of the reign of King Charles II, entitled "An
act for raising a public revenue, and for the better support of this
his Majesty's colony of Virginia."---This act was brought over by
Lord Culpeper, then Governor, under the Great Seal of England, and was
enacted in the name of the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with
the consent of the general assembly.
Because, to render perpetual our exemption from an unjust taxation
we must saddle ourselves with a perpetual tax, adequate to the
expectations, and subject to the disposal of parliament alone, whereas
we have a right to give our money, as the parliament do theirs,
without coercion, from time to time, as public exigencies may require.
We conceive, that we alone are the judges of the condition,
circumstances, and situation, of our people, as the parliament are of
theirs. It is not merely the mode of raising, but the freedom of
granting our money, for which we have contended. Without this, we
possess no check on the royal prerogative; and what must be lamented
by dutiful and loyal subjects, we should be stripped of the only
means, as well of recommending this country to the favours of our most
gracious sovereign, as of strengthening those bands of amity with our
fellow-subjects, which we would wish to remain indissoluble.
Because, on our undertaking to grant money, as is proposed, the
commons only resolve to forbear levying pecuniary taxes on us; still
leaving unrepealed their several acts passed for the purpose of
restraining the trade, and altering the form of government of the
eastern colonies; extending the boundaries and changing the government
and religion of Quebec, enlarging the jurisdiction of the courts of
admiralty, taking from us the right of trial by jury, and transporting
us into other countries to be tried for criminal offences. Standing
armies too are still to be kept among us; and the other numerous
grievances, of which ourselves, and sister colonies, separately, and
by our representatives, in general Congress have so often complained,
are still to continue without redress.
Because at the very time of requiring from us grants of monies, they
are making disposition to invade us with large armaments, by sea and
land; which is a style of asking gifts not reconcileable to our
freedom. They are also proceeding to a repetition of injury, by
passing acts for restraining the commerce and fisheries of the
provinces of New England, and for prohibiting the trade of the other
colonies with all parts of the world, except the islands of Great
Britain, Ireland and the West Indies. This seems to bespeak no
intention to discontinue the exercise of this usurped power over us in
future.
Because, on our agreeing to contribute our proportion towards the
common defence, they do not propose to lay open to us a free trade
with all the world; whereas to us, it appears just that those who bear
equally the burthens of government, should equally participate of its
benefits. Either be contented with the monopoly of our trade, which
beings greater loss to us, and benefit to them, than the amount of our
proportional contributions to the common defence; or, if the latter be
preferred, relinquish the former; and do not propose, by holding both,
to exact from us double contributions. Yet we would remind government,
that on former emergencies, when called upon as a free people, however
cramped by this monopoly, in our resources of wealth, we have
liberally contributed to the common defence. Be assured, then, that we
shall be generous in future as in past times, disdaining the shackles
of proportion, when called to our free station in the general system
of the empire.
Because, the proposition now made to us involves the interest of all
the other colonies. We are now represented in general congress, by
members approved by this house, where our former union, it is hoped,
will be so strongly cemented, that no partial application can produce
the slightest departure from the common cause. We consider ourselves
as bound in honour, as well as interest, to share one general fate
with our sister colonies, and should hold ourselves base deserters of
that union to which we have acceded, were we to agree on any measures
distinct and apart from them.
There was, indeed, a plan of accommodation offered in parliament,
which, though not entirely equal to the terms we had a right to ask,
yet differed but in few points from what the general congress had held
out. Had parliament been disposed sincerely, as we are, to bring about
a reconciliation, reasonable men had hoped, that by meeting us on this
ground, something might have been done. Lord Chatham's bill, on the
report, and the terms of the congress on the other, would have formed
a basis for negotiation; which a spirit of accommodation, on both
sides, might perhaps have reconciled. It came recommended, too, from
one whose successful experience in the art of government should have
ensured to it some attention from those to whom it was rendered. He
had shown to the world, that Great Britain, with her colonies, united
firmly under a just and honest government, formed a power which might
bid defiance to the most potent enemies. With a change of ministers,
however, a total change of measures took place: the component parts of
the empire have, from that moment, been falling asunder; and a total
annihilation of its weight, in the political scale of the world, seems
justly to be apprehended.
These, my Lord, are our sentiments on this important subject; which
we offer, only, as an individual part of the whole empire. Final
determination we leave to the general congress, now sitting, before
whom we shall lay the papers your Lordship has communicated to us. To
their wisdom we commit the improvement of this important advance. If
it can be wrought into any good we are assured they will do it. To
them, also we refer, the discovery of that proper method of
representing our well-founded grievances, which, your Lordship assures
us, will meet with the attention and regard so justly due to them. For
ourselves we have exhausted every mode of application which our
invention could suggest as proper and promising. We have decently
remonstrated with Parliament, they have added new injuries to the old.
We have wearied our King with supplications; he has not deigned to
answer us. We have appealed to the native honour and justice of the
British nation, their efforts in our favour have been hitherto
ineffectual. What then remains to be done? That we commit our injuries
to the even-handed justice of that Being who doth no wrong; earnestly
beseeching him to illuminate the councils, and prosper the endeavors,
of those to whom America hath confided her hopes; that, through their
wise direction, we may again see, reunited, the blessings of liberty
and property, and the most permanent harmony with Great Britain.
June 14, 1775.
|
