1773-1774.
Duty on Tea--Dunmore, Governor--Proceedings of Assembly--
Private Meeting of Patriots--Committees of Correspondence--
Washington--Dunmore visits the Frontier.
IN the year 1770, all the duties on articles imported into America
having been repealed, save that on tea, the American merchants refused
to import that commodity from England. Consequently a large stock of it
was accumulated in the warehouses of the East India Company; and the
government in 1773 authorized the company to ship it to America free
from any export duty. The light import duty payable in America being far
less than that from which it was exempted in England, it was taken for
granted that it would sell more readily in the colony than before it had
been made a subject of taxation. It was, indeed, by some looked upon as
now rather a question of commerce than of taxation; the main object of
the British government appears to have been to put an end to the trade
between the colonies and Holland, (a trade contraband according to the
letter of the law, but the law had been practically long obsolete,) and
to give to the East India Company a monopoly of the colonial markets.
But it was in general regarded in America as a test question of revenue.
The tea-ships arrived in America, and measures were taken to prevent the
landing of the tea; at Boston several cargoes were thrown overboard in
the night of December the eighteenth, into the sea, by a party of men
disguised as Indians, acting under the advice of Samuel Adams, and other
leading patriots. Other colonies either compelled the masters of the
tea-ships to return with their cargoes, or excluded them from sale; and
thus not a chest of it was sold for the benefit of the company. Tea had
hitherto been imported by Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts
into the colonies to the value of three hundred thousand pounds annually
from Holland and her dependencies. In Virginia the use of this beverage
was now generally abandoned.[569:A]
Intelligence of the occurrences at Boston having reached England,
parliament ordered the port of that town to be closed on the fourth day
of June; and other strong measures were adopted in order to reduce
Massachusetts to submission. The colonies, like the captives in the cave
of Polyphemus, were conscious of being involved in a common danger; and
that if one should fall a victim, the destruction of the rest would be
only a question of time.
When John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, the newly-appointed governor of
Virginia, reached Williamsburg, early in 1772, he found that he had
already incurred suspicion on account of the appointment of Captain Foy
as his clerk, or private secretary, with a salary of five hundred
pounds, to be derived from new-created fees. Foy had distinguished
himself at the battle of Minden, and had been afterwards governor of New
Hampshire. Dunmore summoned the assembly which met in February; and his
apparent haughtiness at the first rather heightened the prejudice
against him. He, however, relinquished the objectionable fees, and thus
conciliated so good a feeling that the assembly expressed their
gratitude in warm and affectionate terms. Some important acts were
passed during this session, including several for the promotion of
internal improvement--for improving the navigation of the Potomac; for
making a road from the Warm Spring to Jenning's Gap; for clearing the
Matapony; for circumventing the falls of James River by a canal from
Westham; and for cutting a canal across from Archer's Hope Creek to
Queen's Creek, through Williamsburg, to connect the James River with the
York. The Counties of Berkley and Dunmore were carved out from
Frederick.[569:B]
The assembly was prorogued to the tenth of June. Dunmore,
notwithstanding his recent complaisance, evinced his distaste for
assemblies by proroguing them from time to time, until at length a
forgery of the paper-currency of the colony compelled him to call the
legislature together again, by proclamation, March 4th, 1773--the
thirteenth year of the reign of George the Third. His lordship's
measures in apprehending the counterfeiters had been more energetic than
legal, and the assembly, not diverted by their care for the treasury
from a regard to personal rights, requested that his proceedings might
not be drawn into a precedent.
The horizon was again darkened by gathering clouds. A British armed
revenue vessel having been burnt in Narraganset Bay, an act of
parliament was passed making such offences punishable by death, and
authorizing the accused to be transported to England for trial. Virginia
had already, in 1709, remonstrated against this last measure. The
conservatives, the _statu quo_ party in the assembly, as usual, differed
with the movement party as to the proper measure to be adopted. Patrick
Henry, Mr. Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, Francis L. Lee, Dabney Carr,
and perhaps one or two others were at this gloomy period in the habit of
meeting together in the evening in a private room of the Raleigh, to
consult on the state of affairs. In conformity with their agreement,
Dabney Carr, on the twelfth of March, moved a series of resolutions,
recommending a committee of correspondence, and instructing them to
inquire in regard to the newly-constituted court in Rhode Island.
Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry made speeches of memorable eloquence
on this occasion. Mr. Lee was the author of the plan of intercolonial
committees of correspondence; and Virginia was the first colony that
adopted it. The resolutions passed without opposition, and Dunmore
immediately dissolved the house. These resolutions "struck a greater
panic into the ministers" than anything that had taken place since the
passage of the stamp act.[570:A]
The committee of correspondence appointed were Peyton Randolph, Robert
C. Nicholas, Richard Bland, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund
Pendleton, Patrick Henry, Dudley Digges, Dabney Carr, Archibald Cary,
and Thomas Jefferson. On the day after the dissolution, this committee
addressed a circular to the other colonies. Robert Carter Nicholas
published, during this year, a pamphlet in defence of colonial rights.
Dabney Carr, although young, was, according to Mr. Jefferson, a
formidable rival at the bar to Patrick Henry, and promised to become a
distinguished statesman; but he died shortly after, in the thirtieth
year of his age, greatly lamented. The judge of the same name was his
son. Washington was a member of this assembly, and supported the
patriotic measures, perhaps, however, as yet little dreaming that the
colonies were on the verge of revolution and war. He was still on
friendly terms with Governor Dunmore, who appreciated his abilities and
character. He, indeed, intended about this time, in compliance with the
governor's invitation, to accompany him in a tour of observation to the
western frontier of Virginia, where both of them had an interest in
lands; but this was prevented by the illness and death of Miss Custis,
the daughter of Mrs. Washington by a former marriage.
Dunmore visited the frontier and remained some time at Pittsburg, and
endeavored, by the help of Dr. Conolly, to extend the bounds of Virginia
in that quarter; and this was attributed to a design to foment a quarrel
between Virginia and Pennsylvania; but the suspicion was probably
without sufficient foundation.
FOOTNOTES:
[569:A] Some of the loyal ladies adhered to the use of it. The wife of
Bernard Moore, of Chelsea, in King William, daughter of a British
governor, Spotswood, according to family tradition, continued to sip her
tea in her closet after it was banished from the table.
[569:B] The name of Dunmore was, in 1777, changed to Shenandoah.
[570:A] MS. letter of William Lee, dated at London, January 1st, 1774.