1765-1766.
The Stamp Act--Virginia opposes it--Loan-office Scheme--Members
of Council and Burgesses--Repeal of Stamp Act--Treasurer
Robinson's Defalcation--Offices of Speaker and Treasurer
separated--Lee's Speech--Miscellaneous--Family of Robinson.
ON the 7th day of February, 1765, Grenville introduced in the house of
commons the stamp act, declaring null and void instruments of writing in
daily use in the colonies, unless executed on stamped paper or
parchment, charged with a duty imposed by parliament. The bill, warmly
debated in that house, but carried by a vote of five to one, met with no
opposition in the house of lords, and on the twenty-second of March
received the royal sanction. At first it was taken for granted that the
act would be enforced. It was not to take effect till the first day of
November, more than seven months from its passage. The Virginians were a
proud race, the more jealous of their liberties, having, like the
Spartans, the degradation of slavery continually in their view,
impatient of restraint, and unwilling to succumb to the control of any
superior power, "snuffing the tainted breeze of tyranny afar." Many of
them even affected to consider the colonies as independent states, only
linked to Great Britain as owing allegiance to a common crown, and as
bound to her by natural affection.
The assembly met on the 1st day of May, 1765. Patrick Henry took his
seat in it on the twentieth. Notwithstanding the opposition of the
people to the stamp act, yet the place-men, the large landed
proprietors, who were the professed adherents of government, still held
the control of the legislature. Disgusted by the delays and sophistries
of this class during the preceding session, one of the Johnsons, two
brothers that represented Louisa County, declared his intention to
bring into the house Patrick Henry, who was equally distinguished by his
eloquence and by an opposition to the claims of parliament, verging on
sedition. Johnson accordingly, by accepting the office of coroner,
vacated his seat in favor of Henry, who thus came to be one of the
representatives of that frontier county in the assembly of 1765--an
incident connected with events of transcendent importance.
On the twenty-fourth, Peyton Randolph reported to the house, from the
committee of the whole, a scheme for the establishment of a loan-office
or bank. The plan was to borrow L240,000 sterling from British
merchants, at an interest of five per cent.; a fund for paying the
interest and sinking the principal to be raised by an impost duty on
tobacco; bills of exchange to be drawn for L100,000, with which the
paper money in circulation was to be redeemed, the remaining L140,000 to
be imported in specie, and deposited here for a stock whereon to
circulate bank notes, to be lent out on permanent security, at an
interest of five per cent., to be paid yearly, a proportion of the
principal at the end of four years, another proportion at the end of
five years, and afterwards by equal payments once in four years, until
the whole should be repaid.
When it was urged in favor of this scheme, that from the distressed
condition of the colony, men of fortune had contracted debts, which, if
exacted suddenly, must ruin them, but which, with a little indulgence,
might be liquidated, Mr. Henry exclaimed: "What, sir! is it proposed
then to reclaim the spendthrift from his dissipation and extravagance by
filling his pockets with money?" Thomas Jefferson, then a law-student at
Williamsburg, was present during this debate, and the manner in which
Henry uttered this sentence was indelibly impressed on his memory.
The resolutions embodying this scheme were passed by the house, and a
committee of conference was appointed at the same time, and before the
vote upon them was taken in the council. In this conference the managers
on the part of the house were Edmund Pendleton, Mr. Archibald Cary, Mr.
Benjamin Harrison, Mr. Burwell, Mr. Braxton, and Mr. Fleming. The
council[540:A] refused to concur in the scheme. Had it been carried into
effect, the indebtedness of Virginia at the eve of the Revolution would
have probably been greatly augmented.
Virginia led the way in opposing the stamp act. On the 30th of May,
1765, near the close of the session, Patrick Henry offered the following
resolutions:--
"Resolved, That the first adventurers and settlers of this his
majesty's colony and dominion, brought with them, and
transmitted to their posterity and all other his majesty's
subjects since inhabiting in this his majesty's said colony,
all the privileges, franchises, and immunities that have at
any time been held, enjoyed, and possessed by the people of
Great Britain.
"Resolved, That by two royal charters granted by King James
the First, the colonists aforesaid are declared entitled to
all the privileges, liberties, and immunities of denizens and
natural-born subjects, to all intents and purposes as if they
had been abiding and born within the realm of England.
"Resolved, That the taxation of the people by themselves, or
by persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can
only know what taxes the people are able to bear, and the
easiest mode of raising them, and are equally affected by such
taxes themselves, is the distinguishing characteristic of
British freedom, and without which the ancient constitution
cannot subsist.
"Resolved, That his majesty's liege people of this most
ancient colony have uninterruptedly enjoyed the right of being
thus governed by their own assembly in the article of their
taxes and internal police, and that the same hath never
been forfeited, or any other way given up, but hath been
constantly recognized by the king and people of Great Britain.
"Resolved, Therefore, that the general assembly of this colony
have the sole right and power to lay taxes and impositions
upon the inhabitants of this colony, and that every attempt to
vest such power in any person or persons whatsoever other than
the general assembly aforesaid, has a manifest tendency to
destroy British as well as American freedom."[541:A]
Mr. Henry was young, being about twenty-eight years of age, and a new
member; but finding the men of weight in the house averse to opposition,
and the stamp act about to take effect, and no person likely to step
forth, alone, unadvised, and unassisted, he wrote these resolutions on a
blank leaf of an old law book, "Coke upon Littleton." Before offering
them, he showed them to two members, John Fleming, of Goochland, and
George Johnson, of Fairfax. Mr. Johnson seconded the resolutions.
Speaker Robinson objected to them as inflammatory. The first three
appear to have passed by small majorities, without alteration. The
fourth was passed amended, so as to read as follows: "Resolved, That his
majesty's liege people of this his most ancient and loyal colony have,
without interruption, enjoyed the inestimable right of being governed by
such laws respecting their internal polity and taxation as are derived
from their own consent, with the approbation of their sovereign or his
substitute, and that the same hath never been forfeited or yielded up,
but hath been constantly recognized by the king and people of Great
Britain."
The last of the five resolutions was carried by a majority of only one
vote, being twenty to nineteen, and the debate on it, in the language of
Mr. Jefferson, was "most bloody." Speaker Robinson, Peyton Randolph,
attorney-general, Richard Bland, Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, and all
the old leaders of the house and proprietors of large estates, made a
strenuous resistance. Mr. Jefferson says the resolutions of Henry "were
opposed by Robinson and all the cyphers of the aristocracy." John
Randolph resisted them with all his might. How Washington voted is not
known, the yeas and nays never being recorded on the journal in that
age. He considered the stamp act ill-judged and unconstitutional, and
was of opinion that it could not be enforced. Mr. Henry was ably
supported in a logical argument by Mr. George Johnson, a lawyer of
Alexandria.
In the course of this stormy debate many threats were uttered by the
party for submission, and much abuse heaped upon Mr. Henry, but he
carried the young members with him. Jefferson, then a student of William
and Mary, standing at the door of the house, overheard the debate. After
Speaker Robinson had declared the result of the vote, Peyton Randolph,
as he entered the lobby near Jefferson, exclaimed with an oath, "I would
have given five hundred guineas for a single vote!" One more vote would
have defeated the last resolution.[542:A]
Scarce a vestige of this speech of Henry survives. Mr. Jefferson
declared that he never heard such eloquence from any other man. While
Mr. Henry was inveighing against the stamp act, he exclaimed: "Tarquin
and Caesar had each his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and
George the Third"--("Treason!" cried the speaker; "Treason! Treason!"
resounded from every part of the house. Henry, rising to a loftier
attitude, with unfaltering voice, and unwavering eye fixed on the
speaker, finished the sentence,)--"may profit by the example. If this be
treason, make the most of it." Henry was now the leading man in
Virginia, and his resolutions gave the impulse to the other colonies,
and the spirit of resistance spread rapidly through them, gathering
strength as it proceeded. On the afternoon of the same day Mr. Henry
left Williamsburg, passing along Duke of Gloucester Street, on his way
to his home in Louisa, wearing buckskin breeches, his saddle-bags on his
arm, leading a lean horse, and chatting with Paul Carrington, who walked
by his side.
Young Jefferson happened on the following morning to be in the hall of
the burgesses before the meeting of the house, and he observed Colonel
Peter Randolph, one of the council, sitting at the clerk's table
examining the journals, to find a precedent for expunging a vote of the
house. Part of the burgesses having gone home, and some of the more
timid of those who had voted for the strongest resolution having become
alarmed, as soon as the house met, a motion was made and carried to
expunge the last resolution from the journals. The manuscript journal of
that day disappeared shortly after and has never been found.[543:A] The
four remaining on the journal and the two additional ones offered in
committee, but not reported, were published in the _Gazette_. On the
first of June the governor dissolved the assembly.
At the instance of Massachusetts, guided by the advice of James Otis, a
congress met in October, 1765, at New York. The assemblies of Virginia,
North Carolina, and Georgia were prevented by their governors from
sending deputies. The congress made a declaration denying the right of
parliament to tax the colonies, and concurred in petitions to the king
and the commons and a memorial to the lords. Virginia and the other two
colonies not represented forwarded petitions accordant with those
adopted by the congress. The committee appointed by the Virginia
assembly to draught the petitions consisted of Peyton Randolph, Richard
Henry Lee, Landon Carter, George Wythe, Edmund Pendleton, Benjamin
Harrison, Richard Bland, Archibald Cary, and Mr. Fleming. The address to
the king was written by Peyton Randolph, the address to the commons by
George Wythe, and the memorial to the lords was attributed to Richard
Bland.
Opposition to the stamp act now blazed forth everywhere; and it was
disregarded and defied. In the last week of October, George Mercer,
distributor of stamps for Virginia, landed at Hampton, and was rudely
treated by the mob, who, by the interposition of some influential
gentlemen, were prevailed on to disperse without offering him any
personal injury. At Williamsburg, as he was walking toward the capitol,
on his way to the governor's palace, he was required by several
gentlemen from different counties, the general court being in session,
to say whether he intended to enter on the duties of the office. At his
request he was allowed to wait on the governor before replying, and he
was accompanied to the coffee-house where the governor, most of the
council, and many gentlemen were assembled. The crowd increasing and
growing impatient in their demands, Mr. Mercer came forward and promised
to give a categorical answer at five o'clock the next evening. At that
time he met a large concourse of people, including the principal
merchants of the colony. He then engaged not to undertake the execution
of the stamp act until he received further orders from England, nor
then, without the assent of the assembly of Virginia. He was immediately
borne out of the capitol gate, amid loud acclamations, and carried to
the coffee-house, where an elegant entertainment was prepared for him,
and was welcomed there by renewed acclamations, drums beating, and
French-horns and other musical instruments sounding. At night the bells
were set a-ringing, and the town was illuminated. Mr. Mercer was, in
1769, appointed lieutenant-governor of North Carolina.[544:A]
The colonists began to betake themselves to domestic manufactures; and
foreign luxuries were laid aside. In the mean while a change had taken
place in the British ministry; the stamp act was reconsidered in
parliament; Dr. Franklin was examined at the bar of the house of
commons. Lord Camden, in the house of lords, and Mr. Pitt, in the
commons, favored a repeal of the act; and, after providing for the
dependence of America on Great Britain, parliament repealed the stamp
act in March, 1766. On the second day of May news of the repeal reached
Williamsburg by the ship Lord Baltimore, arrived in York River, from
London. The joyful intelligence was celebrated at Norfolk; and at
Williamsburg by a ball and illumination.
At the session of November, 1766, Mr. John Robinson, who had for many
years held the offices of speaker and treasurer, being now dead, an
investigation of his accounts exposed an enormous defalcation. A motion
to separate the offices, brought forward by Richard Henry Lee, and
supported by Mr. Henry, proved successful. Edmund Pendleton was at the
head of the party that resisted it.[545:A]
Mr. Lee on this occasion pursued his course in opposition to the
confederacy of the great in place, the influence of family connections,
and that still more dangerous foe to public virtue, private friendship.
The contest appears to have been bitter, and it engendered animosities
which survived the lapse of years and the absorbing scenes of the
outbreaking Revolution.
A fragment of the speech delivered by Mr. Lee on this occasion has been
preserved.[545:B] After supporting his views by historical examples, he
remarks: "If, then, wise and good men in all ages have deemed it for the
security of liberty to divide places of power and profit; if this maxim
has not been departed from without either injury or destroying
freedom--as happened to Rome with her decemvirs and her dictator--why
should Virginia so early quit the paths of wisdom, and seal her own
ruin, as far as she can do it, by uniting in one person the only two
great places in the power of her assembly to bestow?" The fragment of
this speech ends just where Mr. Lee was about to combat the arguments in
support of the union of the two offices. Among these arguments were,
that innovation is dangerous; that the additional office of treasurer
was necessary to give the speaker that pre-eminence that is befitting
his station; that the parliamentary powers of the speaker give the chair
no influence, as in the exercise thereof in pleasing one he may offend a
dozen; that a separation of the offices might induce the government at
home to take the appointment out of their hands altogether; and that the
support of the dignity of the chair necessarily involved a great
expense.
It could not have been difficult to refute these arguments. The
combination of the offices of speaker and treasurer was itself an
innovation of as recent date as 1738. The speaker of the English house
of commons did not find the office of treasurer necessary to maintain
his dignity. If the office of speaker of itself gave no influence, why
had it been always sought for? Nor could the separation of the offices
induce the home government to take the appointments from the assembly,
for that separation was itself virtually a government measure. Chalmers,
who was well versed in the documentary history of the colonies, says:
"Too attentive to overlook the dangerous pre-eminence of Robinson, the
board of trade took this opportunity to enjoin [1758] the new
governor[546:A] to use every rational endeavor to procure a separation
of the conjoined offices which he improperly held."[546:B] Lee, Henry,
and others, who voted for the separation, were in effect carrying out
the wishes of the English government. Nor does it appear probable that
the government was any more favorable to the loan-office scheme than to
the union of the offices of speaker and treasurer.
Upon the death of Speaker Robinson, Richard Bland was a candidate for
the chair, and was in favor of a separation of the offices of speaker
and treasurer. He, in the latter part of May, entertained no suspicion
of any malversation in office on the part of the late treasurer,
although he was aware that such suspicions prevailed much among the
people. He was at this time maturing a scheme for a loan-office, or
government bank, which he thought would be of signal advantage, and
would in a few years enable Virginia to discharge her debts without any
tax for the future. It is singular that he should have been preparing to
renew a scheme so recently defeated. Whether he ever again revived it in
the assembly, does not appear. Robert Carter Nicholas, at the same time
a candidate for the place of treasurer, was likewise in favor of a
disjunction of the two offices. To this position he and Bland were
brought, as well by the inducements of personal promotion as by a regard
for the public good.
Peyton Randolph was made speaker; and Mr. Nicholas, who had been already
appointed in May treasurer _ad interim_, by Governor Fauquier, was
elected to that post by the assembly.
Lewis Burwell, George Wythe, John Blair, Jr., John Randolph, and
Benjamin Waller were appointed to examine the state of the treasury. The
deficit of the late treasurer exceeded one hundred thousand pounds. Mr.
Robinson, amiable, liberal, and wealthy, had long been at the head of
the aristocracy, and exerted an extraordinary influence in political
affairs. He had lent large sums of the public money to friends involved
in debt, especially to members of the assembly, confiding for its
replacement upon his own ample fortune, and the securities taken on the
loans. Mr. Wirt says that at length, apprehensive of a discovery of the
deficit, he, with his friends in the assembly, devised the scheme of the
loan-office the better to conceal it. The entire amount of the
defalcation was eventually recovered from the estate of Robinson, which
was sold in 1770 by Edmund Pendleton and Peter Lyons, surviving
administrators.[547:A] Burk attributes Robinson's death to the
mortification that he suffered on account of his defalcation. Bland and
Nicholas, in their letters addressed to Richard Henry Lee, allude to it
in terms of exquisite delicacy.
The first of the family of Speaker Robinson of whom we have any account
was John Robinson, of Cleasby, Yorkshire, England. His son John was
Bishop of Bristol, and British envoy at the court of Sweden; he was also
British plenipotentiary at the treaty of Utrecht, being, it is said, the
last divine employed in a service of that kind. He was afterwards Bishop
of London, in which office he continued until his death in 1723. Leaving
no issue he devised his real estate to his nephew, Christopher
Robinson, who had settled on the Rappahannock. His eldest son, John
Robinson, born in 1682, was president of the council. He married
Catherine, daughter of Robert Beverley, the historian. John Robinson,
Jr., their eldest son, was treasurer and speaker, and is commonly known
as "Speaker Robinson."[548:A] He resided at Mount Pleasant, on the
Matapony, in King and Queen, the house there having been built for him,
it is said, by Augustine Moore, of Chelsea, in King William, father of
Lucy Moore, one of his wives. Her portrait is preserved at Chelsea; his
is preserved by his descendants. His other wife was Lucy Chiswell. He
lies buried in the garden at Mount Pleasant.
FOOTNOTES:
[540:A] The following is a list of the council in 1764:--
The Honorable JOHN BLAIR, President.
William Nelson, | Philip Ludwell Lee,
Thomas Nelson, | John Tayloe,
Peter Randolph, | Robert Carter,
Richard Corbin, | Presley Thornton,
William Byrd, | Robert Barwell, Esquires.
Of the members of the house at this time may be mentioned the names of
Cabell, Cary, Wythe, Pendleton, Harrison, Marshall, Washington, Carter,
Robinson, Lee, Bland, Mercer, Page, Braxton, Henry, Nelson, and
Randolph.
[541:A] Two other resolutions were offered, but not by Henry, to the
effect that the people of Virginia were not under any obligation to obey
any laws not enacted by their own assembly, and that any one who should
maintain the contrary should be deemed an enemy to the colony. These two
did not pass.
[542:A] Paul Carrington, in after years, distinctly remembered seeing
Thomas Jefferson among the auditors in this debate.
[543:A] Wirt's Henry, 56-61.
[544:A] Martin's Hist. of N. C., ii. 203, 250.
[545:A] This affair formed the subject of some crude verses, entitled
"The Contest." The following is an extract:--
"And Curtius, too, who, from clear Chellowe's height, Secrets deep lying
in the dark recess Of ----'s clouded brain, can well explore, Demands my
thanks sincere; freed from the froth Of Metriotes'[545:C] hyperbolic
style, Or wine burgessian, potent to deceive, And to produce a vote of
huge expense. The tribute due to genius and to sense Is yours, judicious
Burke! without compeer; The reverend priest the bayic crown presents;
Accept it, then; nor Grymes of mighty bone, And fist, sledge-hammer
like; nor grimful face Of Ampthill's rustic chief,[545:D] nor the abuse
By him in senatorian consult used, Eulogies to true merit shall
prevent."
[545:B] Lee Papers in _S. Lit. Messenger_, 1858, p. 119.
[545:C] John Randolph, afterwards attorney-general.
[545:D] Archibald Cary.
[546:A] Fauquier.
[546:B] Hist. of Amer. Colonies, ii. 354.
[547:A] Hening, viii. 349.
[548:A] Old Churches of Virginia, i. 378, in note.