The Revolutionary History of Virginia
Edmund Randolph
[1809 / Part 5 of 5]
1778.
Virginia persevered in active military preparations: She raised
volunteers for the grand army; a regiment of cavalry; a battalion for
garrison-duty; recruits to fill up deficiencies by loss-and pecuniary
supplies of public exigencies; and she retouched with force the laws,
providing against invasions and insurrections.
But the nerve, which constantly shewed itself against the British
enemy, now struck a serious blow at the administration of justice. It
was generally believed, that a banditti in the neighborhood of
Norfolk, had availed themselves of the cover and aid, which a British
squadron and British forces had lately afforded them, for plunder, and
revenge by various atrocities on many citizens. One Josiah Philips an
alert and audacious leader had eluded every attempt to capture him.
Terrible he certainly was, and his arrest would have merited a high
reward. But the general assembly, without other evidence, than general
rumour of his guilt, or the inefficiency of legal process in taking
him into custody, on the motion of a member, attainted him of high
treason, unless he should surrender by a given day. In a very august
assembly of Virginia, it was contended, that as he deserved to die, it
was unimportant, whether he fell, according to the technicality of
legal proceeding, or not. Probably he deserved death, although if a
judgment can be formed of this by subsequent facts, the prosecution
against him, being as against a robber, not a traitor he was an
offender less heinous, than he was conceived to be. His apology too,
was not perhaps admissible; although it was, that he had never for a
moment acquiesced in the revolution, or in the opposition to Great
Britain; and that his loyalty was not for a moment concealed, but he
received on the first opportunity, and acted under, a military
commission from the crown. He did not surrender himself within the
time prescribed, and was exposed, on being arrested, to the single
question whether he was the person attainted, and upon the
establishment of the affirmative to be led to execution. He waived his
apology because he would not exasperate his jury in his defence
against robbery. What was his peril, while he was roving abroad,
devoted by a legislature to death, unless he should surrender himself,
ought not to have been withdrawn from the view of those, whose duty it
was to fence the constitution against noxious precedents. Nor is it an
expiation of this hasty measure of wrath, that the previous
alternative was offered to him of submitting to a trial. The
denunciation of a government is almost the sure harbinger of
condemnation. Let it be conceded as it ought, that virtuous men were
the authors of this terror to peace and happiness. But examples are
more fatal, when they proceed from respected sources, and the victim
selected, will have the more cause to tremble, as the precedent is the
act of pure hearts. An attainder may probably exist in the sphere of
Virginian legislative power, as an attribute to legislation itself, or
from some connection with the character of grand inquest of the
commonwealth. But it is a dread attribute at best, to be deprecated as
confounding, in defiance of the bill of rights judicial with
legislative authority.
October 1778
We have seen, how in the year 1620, an accidental importation of
African slaves, began this blot in our population and morals. For many
years ships loaded with these wretches had been sent to Virginia by
the capitals of British merchants, who favored their friends by high
commissions on the sales. The plantations were crowded with them and
their descendants. At length, laws were passed by the assembly for
discouraging the importation by duties on each slave imported. But the
influence of the dealers in human flesh, who resided near the British
ministry, baffled the voice of humanity and policy. Hence as soon as
Virginia became mistress of herself, she forbade further importations
under a penalty of money, and of emancipation of the slave. This law
has always found ready advocates for its execution, although the
importation to be animadverted on should be from one of our sister
states.
Under the regal government, the only final tribunal of judicial
sentences rendered in Virginia, was the king in council, for sums not
less than 500lbs. sterling. With the renewal of the judicial functions
in the year 1777, a court of appeals was not immediately instituted;
but at this time (October 1778) it was compounded of the three judges
of the high court of Chancery, the five of the general court, and the
three of the admiralty; each set of judges, being excluded from
sitting in causes, decided in their own courts. The number was too
large for adequate expedition, if the cause should be multiplied; and
let the talents of the whole, be what they might it would seem, that
such a tribunal ought to have been selected from abilities of peculiar
fitness for the field of general jurisprudence rather than to be the
accommodating result of bringing members from different benches,
evidently, in some instances, demanding different and inferior powers
of mind. In this court an esprit de corps was in theory, to be
apprehended, as well as perhaps an occasional invitation from one
class of judges to another.
On the north western side of the river Ohio, within the territory of
Virginia, several British posts had been reduced by the militia of
Virginia, and the inhabitants had acknowledged themselves, citizens of
Virginia, and taken the oath of fidelity to her. This called for the
exercise of a new duty in legislation, to provide for the government
of a conquered country. It was exercised in a style, not generally
observed in the old world. A county appendant to Virginia was erected,
with every salutary and convenient arrangement, which the peculiarity
of its population could demand.
This was another flattering assay of the military genius of Virginia,
to which from the loss of the Virginia records it is impossible at
this late day to do justice. This is to be lamented the more, as the
nature of the expedition bespoke in George Rogers Clarke the leader of
it, energies and skill, for which no military preferment would have
been excessive. Our only gratification therefore must be to give an
account of it in the words of Chief Justice Marshall's history of it
in the 3rd volume of his life of George Washington, page 565.
1779.
The assembly met in May. The charter of Virginia had appropriated to
her many millions of acres of land from the atlantic ocean on the east
to a line dividing the Mississippi, under the treaty of Paris in 1763.
But notwithstanding the prohibition contained in the royal
proclamation against settlements on waste lands, above the heads of
the rivers, multitudes of hardy adventurers had before the revolution
defied the law and the savages, and settled on them. It was foreseen,
that they could not be disturbed without some convulsion; and indeed
as far as men ought to be encouraged, who act deliberately against
law, they had laid in a stock of merit, in forming a barrier against
the incursions of the Indians.
Virginia discovered that she had hardly a choice between an
acquiescence in the rights acquired by the hardihood of occupancy, to
the vacant western lands, and the daily diminution of that important
fund for her public debt. After satisfying therefore those sturdy
claimants and adjusting some legal pretensions, long before existing,
a land office was opened upon a scale, which nourished speculation,
although it was productive of revenue. In the passage of one of the
laws, upon this subject a member of the assembly, who was honorably
interested in charter-importation rights, was pursued by another, who
hated him with a violence, which nothing could satiate but the
expurging of the rights from the list of such as were to be confirmed.
The other, sensible that a direct attack upon them would be too gross,
assaulted the surveys, by which they had been located upon particular
rich lands, for some mistake in form; upon which a vote was obtained
declaring them to be void. Elated by this victory, and poorly versed
in the subject, this hunter after formal defects, did not see the
force of a small amendment in a part of the bill, remote from the
clause, which had been defeated. Thus justice was protected by
dexterity, from malicious ignorance: thus an impotency of character,
cheats itself with a momentary flash of triumph; and teaches us not to
confide in a legislator who does not view the whole ground, and
persevere to the last; as the same consequence might have followed in
a better cause.
No fact had transpired in the conduct of Great Britain, varying the
principles, which had been professed in the act of sequestration in
the year 1777. Hostility had expended all its horrors, but it had not
risen on her part to confiscation, which was the specific condition
prescribed by the legislature to itself on that subject. The reasons
assigned for not continuing British property longer, in the situation
in which it then was, were not without plausibility; but may not a
moralist be permitted to ask, whether this confiscation is not better
justified by the concessions of the enemy in the negotiation of the
peace, than by an observance of uniformity of principle in ourselves.
Note on confiscation. See Jay's treaty. Note
James Town, situated about fifty miles above the mouth of James
river, was the first metropolis of the colony; but when commissary
Blair, who by grants and bounties in England had been able to build
the college of William and Mary, at the Middleplantation, now the city
of Williamsburg, he inculcated the opinion, that as youth ought to
study men, as well as books, this double benefit could not be so
effectually attained, as by the removal of the seat of government to
the vicinity of the college. The prospect was surely, at Williamsburg
a very barren one for a metropolis. Its navigation consisted in two
small creeks, one of which emptied into York, and the other into James
River at the distance of about four or five miles. In speaking of
sites at that day, the capacities, which the subsequent spirit of
improvement has suggested, were foreign to our minds. But Williamsburg
in its utmost splendor, could be recommended as a position for the
seat of government only by the dryness of its soil. During the regal
government it was a serious labour to invent arguments for preferring
it as the resort for the general business of the colony. As population
moved to the westward, the truth spread with it, that it was an
unreasonable deference to the lower country for the inhabitants of the
upper to haven within a few miles of the bay of Chesapeake, for access
to the supreme court, to the legislature, and to the executive. Many
considerations of different complexions, had anchored the metropolis
at Williamsburg. The two public edifices of the capitol and college
had been ingrafted on the public mind by the expensiveness of them,
and were considered as ornaments, not to be disregarded, even if the
dignity of a metropolis should be consulted. The aristocracy, whose
estates and residence were convenient to it, were a little phalanx
around it---a superstitious reverence for time was one of its
defenders, and its enemies, after they were powerful enough to shake
the allegiance to Williamsburg, were at variance as to the spot, to
which the metropolitan offices should be transferred. The royal veto
was always an asylum to Williamsburg. But the revolution spoiled the
metropolis of its false glory, by discovering that there, the public
archives were open to plunder from the crews of hostile ships; public
business to interruption from similar causes, and that its distance
from our western borders, was a grievance to their inhabitants. The
town of Richmond at the falls of James River, where free navigation
terminated, possessed many beauties and advantages, while it had no
other fixed character, than that of being suitable for the reception
of tobacco to be inspected. Thither the general business of the
commonwealth, legislative, executive and judicial were adjourned by
law, to the impoverishment of many industrious and respectable
families in Williamsburg, who had been for years raising a home for
their declining years, in small portions of land within its limits.
This was however a casualty, which conveys no censure on the
legislature. It has had one good effect. It has stimulated the youth
to wing their way in new fields of enterprize rather than to waste
their lives in snatching the contingencies, which might attend the
favor of those who frequented a metropolis, enjoying no advantages
from commerce or manufactures.
With the tacit assent of Europe to American charters, Virginia has
always asserted the nullity of purchases made from the native Indians,
within her limits by individuals, not authorized by the crown. At this
session an express law was passed, for the abolition of them, not as
being then original, but to give more publicity to an old law, which
from the early difficulties of diffusing information by printing, was
little known; and to a principle, which if it had never been formerly
announced, was a plain right of charter.
Some incidents had given birth to suspicions, that the confidential
intelligence communicated to congress, had been abused by members
engaged in trade. An oath was therefore injoined by law upon every
delegate from Virginia present or future, to abstain from all
mercantile connection. If an antidote had been desirable at all, a
better one would have been not to elect a known merchant, and to
displace one who should become so after election. But merchants of
real knowledge, experience and integrity could not be expected to
renounce the means of livelihood for a seat in congress, and it is
notorious, that such as these were among the great authors of
revolutionary success, for the accomplishment of which, military
supplies must come to us through channels, and by circuits and
stratagems unknown to unpractised men. The proceedings of the secret
committee appointed by congress for these ends, are a history of
unexampled utility. Note on Robert Morris.
The law of citizenship was liberal towards every oppressed nation of
the world, and besides, the legislature never hesitated on petition,
to receive flagrante bello, into citizenship the subjects of Great
Britain, who were really inimical to British tyranny over America. The
confiscated estates of several of them, were restored.
For the seal of the commonwealth, the following device was ordained.
Virtus, the genius of the commonwealth, dressed like an Amazon,
resting on a spear with one hand, and holding a sword in the other,
and treading on tyranny; represented by a man prostrate, a crown
fallen from his head, a broken chair in his left hand, and a scourge
in his right.
In the exergon the word Virginia over the head of "Virtus",
and underneath the words, "Sic semper tyrannis."
On the reverse side a group,
Libertas, with her wand and pileus;
On one side of her Ceres, with the cornucopia in
one hand and an ear of wheat in the other.
On the other side Aeternitas with the globe and
phoenix.
In the exergon these words
Deus nobis hoc otia fecit.
We have seen that the erection of the province of North Carolina
curtailed the chartered limits of Virginia, and that the early part of
the last century (beginning with the year 1700) Joshua Fry and Peter
Jefferson as commissioners of Virginia and other commissioners of
North Carolina ran a dividing line from the Atlantic ocean in the
latitude of 36 degrees, 30 minutes north in the supposed direction of
due west. The assembly resolved to continue that line, if it should be
formed on that latitude, due west to Tennessee river. Doctor Thomas
Walker the commissioner from Virginia, and Richard Henderson the
commissioner from North Carolina commenced the work, but differed so
widely on principles and execution, that they diverged at every step,
and left a tract of country in the shape of a wedge to be a ground of
contention, which was not removed for many years afterwards. Virginia
had so habitually copied from English Institutions, even upon the
topic of ease to scrupulous consciences, that until this session
affirmations were not universally substituted in the place of oaths.
The apprehensions entertained for an established church, inspired on
this occasion, when too late, a vigilance and alertness, not
commensurate with reason and right; and thus the solemnity of an oath
had not hitherto seemed to be ensured by any form, not connected with
the touch of the cover of the printed evangelists.
May 1780.
Under the sequestration law of 1777, large sums of paper money were
paid into the treasury in satisfaction of debts due to British
subjects. But the stamina of that currency had at this date been
exhausted to such a degree, that the assembly, contemplating the
possibility of compensation either to the creditor or payer, repealed
the right of making such payments.
Congress were now approaching the ultimation of all projects on
paper-money, when they passed the resolution of the 18th day of March,
1780.
The legislature being called upon to act in conformity with them,
George Mason and Richard Henry Lee advocated them, as being the only
expedient remaining for the restoration of public credit. Patrick
Henry poured forth all his eloquence in opposition; but proposed
nothing in their place. He disseminated, however, the jealousy, which
has since been denominated antifederal, and stated some precise
objections to the plan, as being incompetent upon its own principles.
Had it been finally lost, after having been promulged, as the only
means of safety, and as being founded on the ruins of the former
currencies, the finances of the United States would have been
destitute of the little succour, which the old paper money might still
have afforded for a little time. Every day gained to the existence of
paper money, was a point gained in the war, for it was foreseen,
though not avowed, that at the close of it, its real, not its nominal,
value would be the standard of redemption. For a time this scheme of
congress was negatived. Omnipotent as Henry was while present and
asserting himself in the assembly, he had one defect in his politics:
he was apt to be contented with some general vote of success, but his
genius did not lead him into detail. For a debate on great general
principles, he was never surpassed here; but more laborious men, who
seized occasions of modifying propositions, which they had lost on a
vote, or of renewing them at more fortunate seasons, often
accomplished their purpose, after he had retired from the session. In
this instance, the perseverance of Mason and Lee, introduced in
Henry's absence the same resolutions, and they were carried into a
law.
October 1780.
Until this session, the Church of England has retained by law the
exclusive right of celebrating marriages; but law must always be weak,
when it confronts reason, as well as passion, and is supported chiefly
by considerations, drawn from a preference to a particular religious
sect. Hence the right of celebration was extended to ministers of
other denominations.
Nor were the assembly unmindful of their duty and gratitude to the
officers of Virginia in the army. Provision was made by half pay of
seven years, for the widows and children of such of them, as had died,
or should die in the service; and half-pay was granted for life to the
officers, who should continue in the service to the end of the war.
To Baron Steuben, and others, liberal bounties were allowed in lands.
Steuben had been trained in the armies of Prussia, and was a complete
master of their discipline. He had arrived very opportunely for the
instruction of the American army. He instituted plans of reform, which
invigorated our arms, and his talents were recommended not only by the
most ample encomiums, but also by immediate experience.
Dissatisfaction was afterwards entertained here at the losses of some
military stores, which it was supposed, his force would have enabled
him to protect, had he enjoyed the past activity of his youth; and he
was threatened with a revocation of his grant; but the ebullition
spent itself after cool reflection.
It was conceived in the ardor of self-importance and the humility of
political knowledge, that Great Britain, whose subjects had been
enriched by their trade with Virginia, would be alarmed into some
relaxation of hostility, or some favorable overture, by a
demonstration that she was in danger of losing the facility of proving
book debts, which had enabled her to engross by long and extensive
credits the whole of that trade. An act therefore was passed,
discouraging extensive credits, and repealing the acts for prescribing
the method of proving book debts. It limited the credit to be enforced
in courts of law to six months from the delivery of the article sold,
and compelled them to take notice of the limitation, whether it was
pleaded or not. The real truth was, as to this intercourse, that the
British merchants gained by the custom of the planters the preemption
of their raw materials and commodities; and the imprudence of those
planters often brought ruin upon themselves by their extravagance. But
where they were discreet this connection was the foundation of loans
of money, which were employed in the purchases of lands and slaves to
the great improvement of their fortunes. To foreign nations who should
acknowledge our independence, a lure was thrown out of admitting
consuls with the usual powers, and with the previlege of being heard
in our courts, without waiting the ordinary dilatory routine.
There is no state, which has enacted more wholesome laws against
gaming than Virginia or whose courts have been more punctual in their
excution. The act to suppress excessive gaming will be an evidence of
these assertions. It cannot however, be denied that the vice has not
been extirpated; but being one, which depends for correction on the
censorship, which the people possess over morals, on religion and on
the force of example and character, we are refreshed by a hope of
eradicating it, from the practice being now chiefly in the hands of
the most worthless part of society, who screen themselves from
ignominy, only by the ostentation and allurements of fashionable life.
1781
In a second instance, besides that of independence, a sentiment which
had been nurtured with the greatest care, vanished on a sudden. We had
clung to paper money with the affection due to an old servant, though
impaired in strength. Depreciation was lamented, but we could recount
some of the most brilliant exploits of the revolution, atchieved by
armies, which depended on paper money, and we were infatuated with a
whimsical gratitude for it. But now those were wondered at as
short-sighted philisophers, who ever dreamed, that it was to be
redeemed dollar for dollar. Revolutions may not be always famous for
the purest morality; and it may be that the deception favoring such a
redemption was too long deliberately propagated. Notwithstanding the
dearth of specie, the administration of justice was returned into its
old channel, but a scale of depreciation was formed from the first day
of January 1777, until the extinction of paper money at this session.
Opinions were contrariant as to the time, when depreciation actually
commenced, and the arguments for a somewhat later, and even for a
somewhat earlier origin are not destitute of probability. But equity
in the settlement of contracts was adhered to; and no system could a
priori promise more success, than that, which authorized the courts to
depart from the scale, when it would be unjust to obey it. The paper
on every passage through the hands of its momentary masters, was
clipped of a portion of its value, and furnished no great cause of
complaint to any. But in bargains for the conveyance of real property,
the judges softened the transactions by considerations of compromise.
Still depreciation ruined many estates. It enabled some wicked
guardians or executors, to sink them into their own purses at an
hundredth part of their value, and debtors to extinguish their
obligations with trifles of no import. Rules may seem innocent, during
the pressure of a crisis, but morality becomes deeply wounded, when
the legislature countenances a pollution of it.
Mr. Jefferson, in his notes on Virginia, speaks with great bitterness
against those members of the assembly in the years 1776 and 1781, who
espoused the creation of a dictator. Coming from such authority, the
invective infects the character of the legislature, notwithstanding he
has restricted the charge to less than a majority, and acknowledges
the spotlessness of most of them. This would not have been here
noticed, did it not militate against that genuine republicanism which
has been boasted of in this work, as the attribute of the people. The
subject was never before them, except as an article of newspaper
intelligence, and even then not in a form, which called for their
attention (from instructions). Against this unfettered monster, which
deserved all the impassioned reprobation of Mr. Jefferson, their tone,
it may be affirmed would have been loud and tremendous. Let the error
be traced to the panic, which the novelty of positive war in 1776
produced, and in the year 1781 to the false applications of ancient
history to a case, wholly unlike. Let it be understood, that the
power, which may have saved Rome, would have made Virginia revolt.
The military transactions in Virginia during this year may be said to
have silenced offensive war; and as they bear a strict connection with
other movements in the Southern States, and were influenced by causes,
anterior in time, a wider range will be here taken, than the author
has hitherto allowed himself. He cannot in this place so much fear the
intrusion of matter, which though deeply interesting to himself as a
Virginian, may not be equally so to others.
The decisive catastrophe in the surrender of York Town in Virginia,
is referred by different tempers to different causes. To the sceptical
philosopher it appears, as the necessary effect, of the general system
and constitution of the world and its affairs. By the enthusiastic
christian, the hand of Providence, is seen to lead to that event, by a
special interposition. The historian, even while he feels it to be
consistent with gratitude to heaven, is bound to investigate those
circumstances, which manifestly contributed to its accomplishment.
Of these the number is so great, and arose from points so widely
distant in time and place, from such accidents, from such omissions,
from such miscarriages in some of the seemingly best connected plans,
from such blunders, and misapprehensions, from such acute penetration,
and extensive views, that those, who are incredulous of miracles, must
yet allow that a parallel example is not registered in the annals of
human experience.
1. The labours, precautions, and vigilance of Washington had for many
months, secured the eastern states from danger; and the city of New
York itself, the focus of the British force was not beyond the reach
of alarm. It had long been contemplated by the enemy to direct his
activity against the Southern States.
2. Almost all the military movements upon a large and influential
scale, had spread a gloom throughout the United States, and flattered
the enemy with the hope of general conquest. The siege of Savannah,
which had not been raised, notwithstanding the attempt of the combined
armies to raise it; and the surrender of Charleston, the extermination
of the remaining corps of opposition in the south under the command of
Buford, induced Clinton to consider the states of South Carolina and
Georgia as reannexed to the British dominions, and to embark for New
York, leaving about four thousand British troops under the command of
Lord Cornwallis. He too, from the defeat of Gates at Camden believed
the British arms to be invincible in the Southern States.
3. It was little expected, until the return of the Marquis La Fayette
from France, that he was incessantly occupied while there in
soliciting from his monarch, and had finally obtained a promise of a
powerful land and naval armament for the campaign of 1780 in the
United States. Sir Henry Clinton was compelled by the delay of the
assembly of transports, to postpone the attack of the French troops
under the command of Rochambeau, and thus lost the prospect of a
brilliant coup de main. Embarrassments of every sort had obstructed
the execution of a plan, which General Washington had embraced with
ardor for an enterprize against New York.
4. Major Ferguson had fatally remained longer near the mountains in
North Carolina, than had been originally intended by Cornwallis; and
exposed himself to a defeat by the corps of militia who had
voluntarily assembled. The intercepting of Ferguson's messenger to
Cornwallis, destroyed his expectation of being covered in a retreat by
the latter, who was himself thus driven out of North Carolina. Clinton
had resolved on a diversion in Virginia, and for that purpose had
detached about 3000 men under general Lesslie, with whom Cornwallis
was to form a junction for operations in the South, but the defeat of
Ferguson occasioned an order from Cornwallis to him to proceed to
Wilmington in North Carolina.
5. Tarleton had been defeated by Morgan, at the Cowpens early in
January of this year 1781,---the party, which Tarleton had left in his
rear with the baggage, immediately upon intelligence of the diseaster,
set fire to such of it, as they could not remove, and rejoined
Cornwallis's main army. He was thus deprived of a fifth of his
numbers; and lost as far as respects infantry, the most active part of
his army. Had Morgan's corps been destroyed, Cornwallis would have
pressed forward without a check, through North Carolina into Virginia.
As it was, he did move with great dispatch, and was disabled from
overtaking Morgan, by the sudden rise of the Catawba river.
6. Cornwallis had been victorious at Guilford, but at a great price.
We are now brought to the contemplation of Virginia in a more special
manner.
On the 4th of January, the infamous General Arnold, who commanded a
detachment of about 1000 men from the army at New York, reached
Westover on James River, distant about 140 miles, from the capes, and
twenty from the city of Richmond.
General Nelson was active in summoning the militia. But Arnold, as
soon as he had landed, marched with the greater part of his army to
Richmond. The efforts of the militia could not oppose his advance nor
prevent lieutenant Colo. Simcoe, of a British legion, from destroying
many buildings, much private property, and many military stores, which
had been deposited for safety at Westham, about five miles above it.
Arnold proceeding through Smithfield, and by Mackie's Mill, where he
destroyed some stores, returned to Portsmouth. It must be confessed,
that Arnold received less interruption than he ought among a people,
contending for liberty, but it is a well known fact, that the "lower
country of Virginia, extending from the ocean to the falls of the
rivers, is particularly unfavorable to the promt assembling of
militia. The white population is not numerous, and is divided by large
navigable rivers not to be passed, unless boats are previously
prepared for the purpose; nor then if the smallest vessel should
oppose the attempt."
There were other forcible reasons, which detained the militia at
home. The helpless wives and children were at the mercy not only of
the males among the slaves; but of the very women, who could handle
deadly weapons; and these could not have been left in safety, in the
absence of all authority of the masters, and of union among neighbors.
Indeed the militia was destitute of arms of every sort, and upon so
sudden an invasion, had not an opportunity of equipping themselves in
an instant even in their imperfect manner; but they shewed afterwards
how highly they valued their great stake by exertions of bravery and
constancy.
The aids from France conspired so directly to the successes of this
year, in Virginia, that the mission of lieutenant Colo. Laurence to
Paris from Congress forms naturally a part of this history. He was
charged to procure from the French king a supply of money, and a naval
superiority in the American seas.
In the year 1777 we have already seen, that upon the first
propounding of the articles of confederation to the legislature of
Virginia, they were eagerly, and from an affection to the union,
adopted by her. She as well as other states, has not fulfilled with
punctuality in time quantity and sum, all her obligations, flowing
from the league. But most sincere was she in her expectation of
performing what she undertook; and that sincerity was the more
meritorious, as that instrument from its extensive delegations of
powers, clashed with her strongest jealousies, and might invade some
of her choicest interests. In February 1781, the ratification was
completed by all the states, some of which had been reluctant, until
others, possessing large vacant territories, should consent to
consider them as the common stock of the United America, wrested from
the British King by the united prowess of her arms. The demand was not
without an appearance of plausibility, as to Virginia; for according
to the colonial relation between that state and her sovereign, in him
as lord paramount were vested all vacant lands, and under his grant
alone could they be acquired. But a keen pursuit of interest obscured
the true aspect of the Virginian title.
Frivolous as charters may appear, in a dialectic or a strictly
prudential school, they are established on a conventional law of the
European world, and have been confirmed by solemn decisions in the
forum of the United States. Their seeming original defect, could raise
a question only upon some principle of Indian occupancy, or from some
conflict from the occupancy of other nations, but as between the king
and Virginia, there could be none. The first adventurers migrated and
the colony was settled on his faith, that he as the supreme lord and
trustee would hold the lands within the chartered limits for their
use. He was conquered; but a sister state could not be spoiled of
rights, of which he was the mere fiduciary for her. It was suspected
by Virginia, that the great land-companies had contrived to infuse
some discontents with her title to her just domains; hoping to operate
upon congress, in case they should be ceded to the United States,
with specious purchases from the aborigines, which Virginia had always
exploded. It is a decisive evidence of the truly federal temper of
Virginia that she renounced the difficulty by her liberality.
The instrument of a federal government contained in it the radical
absurdity of depending for its full operation upon the harmony and
fidelity of thirteen separate sovereignties without a particle of
power in the general council to coerce a delinquent state. Upon the
fund of the enthusiasm, which animated all at the beginning of the
revolution, and from the danger and dreaded consequences of
subjugation, the war had hitherto been supported; and it cannot be
said that the confederation would, if consummated, have produced any
other effect, among the states themselves, than to rivet by a solemn
compact the principle of honour, by which each state was obliged to
the others, by their declaration intended to inspire mutual
confidence, at the first assumption of arms. But impotent as it must
always have been in many of the great considerata of war, it furnished
at least a standard for ascertaining the universally admitted duties
of each; of stamping with irrevocable certainty the fiat of
independence, and of assuring to foreign nations, that its unfinished
state was not the effect of any disunion, by which those nations might
be injured. Perhaps it would not be too great a refinement to add that
the habit of looking to this act, as the central impulse of the union,
preserved the temper for a calm and accurate revision and improvement
of it at a future day.
The naval superiority, by which the enemy had been enabled to block
up in the harbour of Newport, the French fleet from its first arrival
on the American coast, was now destroyed for a time by a storm on the
east end of Long Island. The first glimpse of this advantage kindled
the promptitude of Washington to seize the opportunity of detaching
twelve hundred men from the lines of New England and New Jersey, under
the command of La Fayette, for the head of the Chesapeake, where they
were to embark for Virginia under the convoy of a French frigate,
which Admiral Destouches was expected to supply.
Flushed with the intelligence that the action between the British and
French Fleets, on the 16th of March, off the capes of Virginia, had
rendered the transportation of a reinforcement to Arnold at Portsmouth
perfectly safe, two thousand troops, under the command of General
Philips were detached from New York. The immense superiority which
their arrival must give to the enemy, over any military force, which
Virginia could assemble, reversed the destination of La Fayette, to
whom the defence of this state was now happily committed.
At this session of the assembly, the usual antidote for public
distress was resorted to. Two persons were named with acrimony, as
delinquent Baron Steuben, for not having succeeded in protecting the
stores in the vicinity of the point of Fork; and Thomas Jefferson, the
governor, at the time of Arnold's invasion, as not having made some
exertions, which he might have made, for the defence of the country.
It was even hinted in the course of some debate, that the grant, which
had been made to Steuben, of lands, by an act of Assembly, ought to be
rescinded. What was the opinion of the commander in Chief upon his
conduct, does not appear, nor is it known, that any court of inquiry
ever sat upon it. But his bravery had been too well tried to be
doubted; and his fidelity was spotless, although his flight might
require explanation. Colo. George Nicholas and Mr. Patrick Henry were
those who censured Mr. Jefferson. They aimed to express themselves
with delicacy towards him, without weakening the ground, on which they
supposed, that their suspicions would be found ultimately to stand.
But probably without design, they wounded by their measured endeavour,
to avoid the infliction of a wound. Colo. Nicholas moved, however, for
an inquiry into the conduct of the governor at the succeeding session.
The motion was carried with the concurrence of his friends and his
foes, of the former, to afford him an opportunity for exculpation; of
the latter, who conceived him to be ruined. He appeared at that
session, as a delegate from Albemarle, and at the appointed day called
for some accusation. Neither of those gentlemen having pledged
themselves to become prosecutors, they did not feel it to be a
personal duty on either to appear as such. But Mr. Jefferson did not
affect to be ignorant of the general imputation, which had been
circulated, but was destitute of any precise shape; and in an address
to the house, which amounted to a challenge of impeachment; he
reviewed his administration so, as to draw forth votes of eulogium,
which by some men unambitious of true fame, would have been deemed
cheaply purchased by past calumnies. He ought to have been satisfied,
because they were the undivided voice of his country, which had been
prejudiced against him.
Nelson, who as a brigadier in the militia had been actively employed,
was unanimously elected, successor to Mr. Jefferson, whose second year
of office had expired, and who declined to be nominated for the third.
Whether ambition, or some nobler motive brought La Fayette to America
it is not necessary to ask, before we assign him, that portion of
applause, which he deserved, as the commander of the military force in
Virginia. He is at this day venerated by every planter who had an
interview with him, or by their descendants to whom he has been
transmitted by their forefathers. His military praise may be well
conceived, though not rightly appreciated by unmilitary men. The
materials of an army, which he had to manage, were not to be governed
with the discipline of Europe, nor to be contemned with the hauteur of
nobility. But he had learnt from Washington, how to conciliate friends
among militia, and to place in the registers of public safety,
necessity, and justice, every act, which savoured of severity. The
trifling circumstance of the fondness with which fathers baptized
their children with the name of Fayette, and with which several
positions which he look, have been mentioned, since his depression, as
the poor Marquis's camp, or field, are utterances from the heart of
the benevolence of his character. Deference to the civil authority,
and tenderness for civil rights, were his characteristic qualities.
His merit as a soldier is appreciated by these inportant facts, that
he saved his army, imperfect as it was in the part composed of
militia, from the superiority of Cornwallis in numbers, in equipments,
in naval cooperations, in the experience of service, and in the
impetuosity of attack. What a long chain of events thus led to fix
Cornwallis in York Town. What a multitude of links, a charm in very
few of which, might perhaps have averted this contingency?
May 1782.
Slavery had been rivetted in Virginia by disabilities of
emancipation, except with the approbation of the executive for
notorious services. The society of quakers which had never ceased to
ply the assembly with the bill of rights, and the topics, arising from
human nature, succeeded in a law, permitting the owners to emancipate
slaves, under certain limitations. Full of their late triumph over the
British at York Town, the assembly seemed to think, that the political
sky was so clear from all danger, that they did not anticipate, and
therefore did not guard against, the evils, which this indulgence to
one of the best feelings of the human heart, may from the conversion
of black into free population, from the want of due precautions,
occasionally produce.
Members of congress had been eligible to the general assembly, and
many of them had availed themselves of the reputation, which the
supposition of their being versed in the interest of the Union had
given them, to obtain seats in the state legislature, assume a degree
of importance, and forward by the influence of Virginia in Congress,
their own ideas. This perhaps would not have been so much objected to,
had it not been feared that these delegates with double powers, would
have aimed at vesting in congress larger authority, than that for
which state-jealousy was yet ripe. Indeed their journies from Congress
to the state legislatures, commonly issued in the generation of some
faction. For at that time, congress was an assemblage of different
diplomatic corps, rather than a national senate.
Taxes imposed in coin had never been known in the rudest state of
Virginia; tobacco being always a species of currency, which was a
substitute for the precious metals. But paper money and the
circumstances of the country had banished coin into the most secret
recesses, so as to leave too little of it for a circulating medium.
Grain and other commodities, were therefore receivable by the
collector. The people had the credit of paying large sums in value
into the public treasury, when from waste, fraud, spoliation and other
diminitions, the defalcations which they underwent before their
arrival thither, demonstrated the unfitness of specific articles, to
be chosen as the sinews of war.
Kentucky mounted a step nearer to an independent sovereignty, by
obtaining a district court, beyond the controul of any Virginian
jurisdiction, except the court of appeals. This is the strongest
example in the history of a government keeping equal pace with a
portion of the people, inclined to dismember it, and even seconding
their wishes, sincerely and zealously.
To what a tissue of feebleness and contradiction the old
confederation was reduced, was exemplified by the application to the
assembly to grant to congress a power, to be without which was a
phenomenon, indeed. Below high-water-mark, congress might confiscate
hostile property; but they could not oppose.
|