FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]The writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. A. A. Lipscomb, 14:231.[2]CO5-1329, June 11, 1758.[3]CO5-1329, Blair to Lords of Trade, June 20, 1758.[4]Official records of Robert Dinwiddie1: 375.[5]CO5-1329, June 28, 1758.[6]Charles Campbell,History of Virginia, 508.[7]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1761-1765: xlii-xlvi.[8]William and Mary Quarterly, First Ser. 19: 16.[9]CO5-1329, Jan. 5, 1759.[10]CO5-1329. Read May 23, 1759.[11]Ibid., "Thomas London on the Clergy Bill," June 14, 1759.[12]G. M. Brydon,Virginia's Mother Church2: 318, 319.[13]Charles Campbell,History of Virginia, 509-511.[14]William and Mary Quarterly, First Ser. 19: 19.[15]Ibid., 21.[16]W. W. Henry,Life, letters, and correspondence of Patrick Henry1: 39-41.[17]William and Mary Quarterly, First Ser. 19: 33.[18]Blair, Tayloe, Byrd, Thornton, and Burwell.[19]CO5-1330, Fauquier to the Lords of Trade, May 9, 1764.[20]CO5-1330, Glasgow Merchants to Board of Trade, Jan. 10, 1764.[21]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1758-1761: 40, 41.[22]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large6: 478-483.[23]CO5-1329, Jan. 5, 1759.[24]Ibid., June 1, 1763.[25]CO5-1330, April 8, 1762.[26]Legislative journals of the Council3: 1281.[27]CO5-1330.[28]Ibid.;Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1761-1765: xxvii.[29]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large, 7: 639.[30]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1761-1765: xxx-xxxiv.[31]CO5-1330, Jan. 10, 1764.[32]Ibid., Fauquier to the Lords of Trade, Nov. 3, 1760.[33]Journal of the House of Burgesses, 1761-1765: 350.[34]Virginia Gazette, P. and D., June 27, 1766.[35]D. J. Mays,Edmund Pendleton1: 174-208.[36]Virginia Gazette, P. and D., June 27, 1766.[37]Charles M. Andrews, The American Revolution,American Historical Review31: 219-232.[38]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1761-1765: liv-lviii.[39]Parliamentary history of England, ed. T. C. Hansard, 16: 38, 39.[40]L. P. Gipson,The coming of the Revolution, 81.[41]William Wirt,Sketches of Patrick Henry. The eyewitness account by a French traveler throws doubt on the long accepted statement that Henry replied to the Speaker's charge: "If this be treason make the most of it."American Historical Review25: 745.[42]CO5-1330, June 5, 1765.[43]William and Mary Quarterly, First Ser. 18: 162n.[44]CO5-1330, Fauquier to the Lords of Trade, Nov. 3, 1765.[45]Virginia Gazette, Oct. 25, 1765. Supplement.[46]Virginia Gazette, April 4, 1766.[47]CO5-1331, J. Morgan to Fauquier, April 7, 1766.[48]Tyler's Magazine16: 111-114.[49]Virginia Gazette, P. and D., Apr. 4, 1766.[50]Ibid.[51]Ibid., Apr. 25, 1766.[52]Ibid., June 13, 1766.[53]Ibid., June 20, 1766.[54]Ibid., July 16, 1767.[55]William and Mary Quarterly, First Ser., 8: 173-177.

[1]The writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. A. A. Lipscomb, 14:231.

[2]CO5-1329, June 11, 1758.

[3]CO5-1329, Blair to Lords of Trade, June 20, 1758.

[4]Official records of Robert Dinwiddie1: 375.

[5]CO5-1329, June 28, 1758.

[6]Charles Campbell,History of Virginia, 508.

[7]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1761-1765: xlii-xlvi.

[8]William and Mary Quarterly, First Ser. 19: 16.

[9]CO5-1329, Jan. 5, 1759.

[10]CO5-1329. Read May 23, 1759.

[11]Ibid., "Thomas London on the Clergy Bill," June 14, 1759.

[12]G. M. Brydon,Virginia's Mother Church2: 318, 319.

[13]Charles Campbell,History of Virginia, 509-511.

[14]William and Mary Quarterly, First Ser. 19: 19.

[15]Ibid., 21.

[16]W. W. Henry,Life, letters, and correspondence of Patrick Henry1: 39-41.

[17]William and Mary Quarterly, First Ser. 19: 33.

[18]Blair, Tayloe, Byrd, Thornton, and Burwell.

[19]CO5-1330, Fauquier to the Lords of Trade, May 9, 1764.

[20]CO5-1330, Glasgow Merchants to Board of Trade, Jan. 10, 1764.

[21]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1758-1761: 40, 41.

[22]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large6: 478-483.

[23]CO5-1329, Jan. 5, 1759.

[24]Ibid., June 1, 1763.

[25]CO5-1330, April 8, 1762.

[26]Legislative journals of the Council3: 1281.

[27]CO5-1330.

[28]Ibid.;Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1761-1765: xxvii.

[29]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large, 7: 639.

[30]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1761-1765: xxx-xxxiv.

[31]CO5-1330, Jan. 10, 1764.

[32]Ibid., Fauquier to the Lords of Trade, Nov. 3, 1760.

[33]Journal of the House of Burgesses, 1761-1765: 350.

[34]Virginia Gazette, P. and D., June 27, 1766.

[35]D. J. Mays,Edmund Pendleton1: 174-208.

[36]Virginia Gazette, P. and D., June 27, 1766.

[37]Charles M. Andrews, The American Revolution,American Historical Review31: 219-232.

[38]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1761-1765: liv-lviii.

[39]Parliamentary history of England, ed. T. C. Hansard, 16: 38, 39.

[40]L. P. Gipson,The coming of the Revolution, 81.

[41]William Wirt,Sketches of Patrick Henry. The eyewitness account by a French traveler throws doubt on the long accepted statement that Henry replied to the Speaker's charge: "If this be treason make the most of it."American Historical Review25: 745.

[42]CO5-1330, June 5, 1765.

[43]William and Mary Quarterly, First Ser. 18: 162n.

[44]CO5-1330, Fauquier to the Lords of Trade, Nov. 3, 1765.

[45]Virginia Gazette, Oct. 25, 1765. Supplement.

[46]Virginia Gazette, April 4, 1766.

[47]CO5-1331, J. Morgan to Fauquier, April 7, 1766.

[48]Tyler's Magazine16: 111-114.

[49]Virginia Gazette, P. and D., Apr. 4, 1766.

[50]Ibid.

[51]Ibid., Apr. 25, 1766.

[52]Ibid., June 13, 1766.

[53]Ibid., June 20, 1766.

[54]Ibid., July 16, 1767.

[55]William and Mary Quarterly, First Ser., 8: 173-177.

It was in October, 1768, when news reached Virginia that Norborne Berkeley, Lord Botetourt, had kissed the King's hand as Governor General. The unrest in the colony had convinced the Privy Council that the government "should no longer be administered by a substitute." So when Sir Jeffrey Amherst declined "going over to America," it was decided to appoint one who would go. For the first time since the death of Nott, Virginia had a resident Governor General. The people of the colony regarded this as a singular honor. When Botetourt arrived in Williamsburg, he found the members of the Council, the Speaker of the House, the Attorney General, and other prominent men waiting to receive him at the gate of the Capitol yard. After they had gone in to the Council Chamber, where the new Governor administered the oath, they stepped over to the Raleigh Tavern for supper. Then Botetourt was escorted to the Palace through the illuminated Duke of Gloucester Street and the Palace Green.[1]

If the British Government had hoped to please the people of Virginia in sending them a Governor General, they were not disappointed. "All ranks vied with each other in testifying their gratitude and joy that a nobleman of such distinguished merit and abilities is appointed to preside over and live among them."[2]But it was not so much his rank as his personality which won all hearts. He was easily accessible, affable to the humblest visitor, sympathetic with the people's grievances.

The new Governor was at once confronted with grave issues. In May, 1767, Charles Townshend had secured an act of Parliament placing duties on glass, lead, painters' colors, and tea imported into the colonies. It was expressly stated that the revenue was to be used to pay the salaries of British officials in America. Another act was passed to enforce the trade laws, and still another to suspend the New York Assembly for its defiance of the Billeting Act.

Again all America seethed. It is obvious, men told each other, that the British Government will not be content until they have made slaves of us. At first they claimed that they were seeking nothing more of us than a revenue. Now they openly avow that these new duties are to be used to make British officials in America independent of the Assemblies. That would be the final triumph of royal authority.

So when Botetourt dissolved the old Assembly and called for a new election, the people selected their ablest and most patriotic men. Among them were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Henry Lee, and Edmund Pendleton. When they met, in May, 1769, Governor Botetourt entered an elegant coach which had been presented to him by King George III, on it the insignia of royalty, drawn by six milk-white horses, and drove from the Palace to the Capitol. After the usual address to the Assembly and the replies of the Council and the Burgesses, Botetourt entertained many of the members at dinner.

In the previous February the Governor had written the Lords of Trade warning them of the temper of the people. "I must not venture to flatter your Lordships that they will ever willingly submit to being taxed by the mother country. The reverse is their creed. They universally avow a most ardent desire to assist upon every occasion, but pray to be allowed to do it in consequence of requisition."[3]

It seems strange, then, that he should have been surprised to hear that the Burgesses had passed several resolutions asserting the rights of the people. They declared that the sole right of imposing taxes "is now, and ever hath been" constitutionally vested in the House of Burgesses; that the people have the right to petition the sovereign for redress of grievances; and that trials for crimes committed in the colony should be tried in the Virginia courts.[4]

The next day the Governor summoned the Council and Burgesses to the Council Chamber, where he said he had heard of the resolutions, that he predicted they would have an ill effect, and that according to his duty, he dissolved them.

But the Burgesses would not be silenced. Filing out of the Capitol, they went to the nearby Raleigh Tavern for an unofficial session. After they had elected Peyton Randolph moderator, they discussed the serious problems facing the colony. They then appointed a committee to draw up a plan for an association, and adjourned until the next day.

The report of the committee, which was signed by eighty-eight men is a document of the greatest importance in the history of the clash between the American colonies and Great Britain. It spoke of the "grievances and distresses" with which the people were oppressed, of the evils which threatened their ruin and the ruin of their posterity by reducing them "from a free and happy people to a wretched and miserable state of slavery." They denounced "the restrictions, prohibitions, and ill-advised regulations in several late acts of Parliament," and declared that the "unconstitutional act imposing duties on tea, paper, glass, etc. for the sole purpose of raising a revenue in America is injurious to property, and destructive to liberty."[5]Those who signed the association promised to discourage luxury and extravagance, agreed not to import goods taxed by Parliament or any of a long list of commodities, until the hated duties were removed.

After all had affixed their signatures, they gathered around the punch bowl to drink a series of toasts—to the King, the Queen and the Royal Family, Lord Botetourt, A Speedy and lasting Union between Great Britain and her Colonies, The Constitutional British Liberty in America and all true Patriots, the Supporters thereof, the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Shelburne, Colonel Barré, the late Speaker, etc. At last, either because the liquor or the toasts gave out, the meeting came to an end.[6]

It was while the Assembly was in session that Secretary Hillsborough wrote Botetourt assuring him that the King's ministers would soon propose the repeal of the obnoxious duties. Whereupon the Governor called an Assembly and laid the joyous news before them. But the Burgesses must have seen the joker in the announcement when they noted that the repeal would be based, not on any illegality in the duties, but on the fact that they had been laid "contrary to the true principles of commerce."[7]

Yet Botetourt was all optimism. "I will be content to bedeclared infamous if I do not to the last hour of my life ... exert every power with which I am or ever shall be legally invested ... to obtain and maintain for the continent of America that satisfaction which I have been authorized to promise by the confidential servant of our gracious sovereign." Some months later, when the Virginians learned just how the Ministry had carried out this promise, Botetourt had reason to think that he had been led into deceiving them. It is true that all the duties had been taken off save that on tea. But so far from considering this a favor, the colonists resented it as a bait to make them acknowledge the right of Parliament to tax them. The resentment of the people was all the greater because of theirdisappointment. Hillsborough's promise had made them lax in enforcing the association, so in June, 1770, they organized a new one. A long list of imported goods were to be boycotted, industry was to be encouraged, prices were not to be advanced. To see that the agreement was carried out committees were to be organized in every county to examine invoices and expose violators.

It was unfortunate for Virginia that Botetourt's administration was short. He died October 15, 1770. "Truly and justly to express the many great virtues and amiable qualities which adorned this noble lord, as well in his public as private character, would demand the skill of the ablest penman," stated the death notice in theGazette. "Virginia, in his fall, sorely laments the loss of the best of Governors and the best of men."[8]

A few days later a sorrowful procession moved from the Palace to Bruton Parish Church, amid the tolling of the bells in the church, the college, and the Capitol. In front of and beside the hearse were eight mourners carrying staffs draped in black, around them were the pallbearers—six Councillors and the Speaker of the House. Then followed the Governor's servants, the clergy, the professors of the college, the Williamsburg officials preceded by the city mace, and many others, all having white hatbands and gloves. After the service in the church the procession moved to the Wren Building where the lead casket, covered with a crimson velvet cloth, was placed in a vault below the floor of the chapel.[9]

As a token of affection the Assembly employed Richard Hayward, of London, to make a marble statue of Botetourt,which arrived in 1773 and was set up in the piazza of the Capitol. Later it was mutilated by a crowd of vandals as an expression of their hostility to all things British. In 1801 the College of William and Mary acquired it and removed it to the campus in front of the Wren Building, where it stands today an object of veneration for faculty, students, and alumni.

The grief of the people at the loss of Botetourt would have been all the greater had they known who was to be his successor. At the time John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, was Governor of New York, where he was regarded with contempt. At a feast of the Sons of St. Andrew he got drunk, acted like "a damned fool," and "sank himself" so low with vile language that the entire company was abashed. When word reached him that he was to be transferred to Virginia, he expressed resentment. "Damn Virginia!" he cried. "Why is it forced on me? I asked for New York. New York I love and they have robbed me of it." At a farewell dinner given in his honor, "he took too cheerful a glass," and got into a fight.[10]

The people of Virginia were probably not aware of Dunmore's character, for they greeted him cordially upon his arrival in Williamsburg, late in September, 1771. In the evening the city was illuminated, with a candle in every window, as a testimony of joy at his Excellency's safe arrival.[11]

The time was auspicious, for there was a lull in the controversy with the mother country. Though the duty on tea had not been removed, there was general hope that all differences could be adjusted. It is true that Dunmore aroused suspicion by trying to create new fees with which to pay his secretary, but his promptness in relinquishing them soon dissipated it. "A ball and elegant entertainment" at the Capitol given by the Burgesses in his honor testified to a spirit of cordiality.

It was just this lull which alarmed some of the younger leaders in Virginia. As long as the tax on tea remained they realized that the danger to liberty persisted. So when the Assembly met in the spring of 1773, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, and others held private consultations in the Raleigh Tavern on how to awaken the people, not only of Virginia, but of all the colonies, to the need of a common defense.[12]

A momentous series of meetings they proved to be, for out of them came the intercolonial system of committees of correspondence and the Continental Congress. "We were all sensible that the most urgent of all measures was that of coming to an understanding with all the other colonies to consider the British claims as a common cause to all, and to produce a unity of action," Jefferson stated afterward. "And for this purpose that a committee of correspondence in each colony would be the best instrument for intercommunication. And that their first measure would probably be to propose a meeting of deputies from every colony, at some central place, who should be charged with the direction of the measures to be taken by all."[13]

On March 13, the resolution to appoint the committee of correspondence for Virginia was introduced in the House of Burgesses by Dabney Carr, and adopted unanimously. To the committee were appointed some of the first men in the colony—Peyton Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Edmund Pendleton, etc.

William Lee, writing from London, said that this action "struck a greater panic into the Ministers" than anything since the passage of the Stamp Act. And well it might, for soon the entire country was covered with committees, who kept in close touch with each other, formulated public opinion, and prepared the way for revolutionary action.

The need for these bodies became glaringly evident when the British Government adopted a policy of repression which aroused thespiritof resistance to the highest pitch. At the time the East India Company was on the verge of bankruptcy. In order to save it the government agreed to remit the long-standing duty of twelve pence a pound on tea entering Great Britain. When the tea was re-exported to America the price, even after the three pence duty there had been paid, would be nine pence less than formerly. George III approved of the plan heartily, and confidently expected the colonists to swallow the pill of Parliamentary taxation, now that it was coated with the sugar of reduced prices.

Never was a man more mistaken. The Americans, after struggling for a century and a half to win liberty, were not going to sell it for a cup of tea. When the East India Company ships arrived, angry mobs forced some to turn back with theircargoes, some were boarded and the tea destroyed. When the brigantineMary and Janearrived in Norfolk with nine chests of tea, a crowded meeting at the courthouse demanded that they be sent back. When the importers complied they received a vote of thanks.[14]The York County committee, headed by Thomas Nelson, debated whether a ship which came in with two chests of tea should not be burnt, but contented themselves with forcing her to leave without the expected cargo of tobacco.

Tea was banned in every patriotic household. One evening at Nomini Hall, Mrs. Robert Carter made "a dish of tea" for her husband. "He smelt, sipt, looked." "What is this?" he asked. Then "splash" he emptied the cup in the fire.[15]But what chiefly aroused the ire of the British Ministry was the so-called Boston Tea Party, when fifty or sixty men, disguised as Indians, boarded the tea ships and threw box after box in the harbor, while a large crowd looked on and applauded.

This provoked the British Government into making their most serious blunder—the passage of what the Americans called the "Intolerable Acts." The port of Boston was closed; the Massachusetts government was altered to increase the power of the Governor; in certain cases accused persons might be sent to England for trial; the Governors were authorized to requisition buildings for the use of royal troops; the boundaries of the province of Quebec were extended to the Mississippi on the west and the Ohio on the south.

The American patriots now realized that they must act with vigor and firmness or lose all that they held most dear. The King and Parliament were determined to force the issue. When the Virginia Assembly met in May, 1774, Henry, Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, and several others met in the Council Chamber in the Capitol to agree on some measure to arouse the people to a sense of the danger. After some discussion it was decided to propose to the Burgesses that they make June 1, the date set for the closing of the port of Boston, a day of general fasting and prayer. The resolution was introduced by Robert Carter Nicholas, and passed without opposition.[16]

Lord Dunmore. From the copy in the possession of the Virginia Historical Society of the original portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

The Governor's Palace, Williamsburg. Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg, Inc.

The resolution stated that it was necessary to have a day of "fasting, humiliation, and prayer, devoutly to implore thedivine interposition for averting the heavy calamity which threatens destruction to our civil rights, and the evils of civil war; to give us one heart and mind firmly to oppose, by all just and proper means, every injury to American rights; and that the minds of his Majesty and his Parliament may be inspired from above with wisdom, moderation, and justice to remove from the loyal people of America all cause of danger from a continued pursuit of measures pregnant with ruin." Dunmore thought the resolution reflected on the King and Parliament, and so made it necessary for him to dissolve the Assembly.[17]

But on June 1, in all parts of Virginia, the people dropped their daily tasks to assemble in the churches. Every face reflected the universal alarm, as the eastern aristocrat, the frontiersman in his buckskin clothes, the great landholder, and the small planter knelt in prayer. In Williamsburg the citizens and as many of the Burgesses as had remained in town, assembled at the courthouse and moved in solemn procession to the church to listen to a sermon by the chaplain of the House.[18]There had been no such solemn occasion since the French and Indian War, and it came as an electric shock to the people.[19]

In the meanwhile, events of great importance were taking place in Williamsburg. When Dunmore dissolved the Assembly, the Burgesses, instead of dispersing, met as they had done five years before in the Raleigh Tavern. Here, as they sat in the beautiful Apollo Room, they renewed the association to boycott English goods; proposed to the committees of correspondence in every colony that they appoint deputies to a continental Congress; and suggested that each county in Virginia should elect representatives to a convention to meet at Williamsburg on August 1.[20]

Despite their revolutionary activities, the members of the Assembly maintained cordial relations with the Governor. When Lady Dunmore joined her husband earlier in the spring, she was greeted with cheers by the people of Williamsburg. On May 26, the Burgesses gave a ball and entertainment in the Capitol in her honor. My lady seems to have been a most graceful dancer. When she and the Governor visited Norfolk where a ball was given them, the city authorities sent to Princess AnneCounty for Colonel Moseley to come "with his famous wig and shining buckles" to dance the minuet with her. So when the fiddles struck up away she went "sailing about the room in her great, fine hoop-petticoat, and Colonel Moseley after her wig and all."[21]

Most of the Burgesses of the Assembly of 1774 had hardly rested from their journey home when they had to repack their saddlebags, mount their horses, and set out again for Williamsburg to attend the provincial convention. When they had assembled they once more renewed the association, and then proceeded to the election of delegates to the Continental Congress. Randolph was chosen because it was thought he would preside, Washington because he might be called on to command the army, Henry and Richard Henry Lee because of their eloquence, Bland, Harrison, and Pendleton because of their ability as political leaders.

As these men turned their faces toward Philadelphia, their minds must have reverted to the series of violations of the rights of the people which had brought on the crisis. The questions George Washington asked himself no doubt were in the minds of all. "Does it not appear as clear as the sun in its meridian brightness that there is a regular, systematic plan formed to fix the right and practice of taxation upon us?... Does not the uniform conduct of Parliament for some years past confirm this?... Is not the attack upon the liberty and property of the people of Boston ... a plain and self-evident proof of what they are aiming at? Do not subsequent bills ... convince us that the administration is determined to stick at nothing to carry its point?"[22]

Congress met in the "plain and spacious rooms" on the lower floor of Carpenter's Hall which had been completed four years before. After some debate they adopted a Declaration of Rights and Grievances, stating the American case against taxation without representation and demanding the repeal of the "unpolitic, unjust, cruel, and unconstitutional" Intolerable Acts. They then framed a "Continental Association" to be enforced by local committees.

The Association proved remarkably successful. To this Dunmore himself bore testimony. To the Earl of Hillsborough hewrote in December, 1774: "The Associations ... recommended by the people of this colony, and adopted by what is called the Continental Congress, are now enforcing throughout this country with the greatest rigor. A committee has been chosen in every county whose business it is to carry the Association of the Congress into execution, which committee assumes an authority to inspect the books, invoices, and all the secrets of the trade and correspondence of the merchants, to watch the conduct of every inhabitant without distinction, and send for all such as come under their suspicion into their presence, to interrogate them ...and to stigmatize, as they term it, such as they find transgressing what they are hardy enough to call the laws of Congress."[23]

The American patriots were greatly encouraged by the support they received from many of the ablest men in Great Britain. These men were shocked at the disregard by Parliament of the principle that no man should be taxed without his own consent. Pitt declared that if America fell the British Constitution would fall with her. When troops were sent to Boston, the Duke of Richmond blurted out: "I hope from the bottom of my heart that the Americans may resist and get the better of the forces sent against them."

Today one wonders how the King and Parliament could have turned a deaf ear to the ringing words of Edmund Burke in his famous address on "Conciliation with the Colonies." "As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces toward you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere—it is a seed that grows in every soil.... But, until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your national dignity, freedom they can have from none but you.... Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the Empire.... It is the spirit of the English Constitution which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the Empire, even down to the minutest members."[24]

In the revolutionary changes in Virginia it was the House of Burgesses, not the Council, who took the lead. Washington, Henry, Jefferson, Pendleton, Richard Henry Lee, George Mason were all Burgesses. In fact the members of the Council were placed in a most embarrassing position. Appointed by the King to aid and advise the royal Governor, they owed a double allegiance—to Crown and country. To them the breach was a tragedy, the choice of allegiance a difficult one. So for the most part they played a negative role. In the Council meetings they usually voted with the Governor. But as the crisis grew more acute they drifted away from him to join their countrymen in resisting the assaults on their liberty.

John Page, Junior, in Council supported Dunmore in dissolving the Assembly in May, 1774; yet he remained in town and joined the Burgesses in the procession to the church on the fast day.[25]On the other hand, Robert Carter, though he had refused to drink a cup of tea, would not permit any of his family to observe the day. "By this I conclude he is a courtier," wrote Fithian in hisDiary. But he did not long remain a "courtier." "The enemies of government are so numerous and so vigilant over the conduct of every man that the loyalists have been so intimidated that they have entirely shrunk away," wrote Dunmore in July, 1775. "Even the Council ... approves everything done by the Burgesses." The only members he could rely upon were Ralph Wormeley, Gawin Corbin, and the Reverend John Camm.[26]The rest, while not subscribing to the Association, adhered strictly to it.

But John Randolph, the Attorney General, remained faithful to the King to the end. His opposition to the resolutions denouncing the Stamp Act, the boycott, and the calling of the provincial and Continental Congresses brought down on him the wrath of the patriots. Dunmore stated that he was insulted, his life threatened, and his home destroyed.[27]In 1775 he sailed for England with his family, never to return.

In the fall of 1774 Dunmore brought on himself the hatred of the Virginia frontiersmen by his conduct in a war with thewestern Indians. Placing himself in command of one force, and General Andrew Lewis of another, he gave the order to advance. Lewis defeated the famous chief Comstock in the bloody battle of Point Pleasant, but Dunmore, ignoring the chance to deliver a crushing blow, made a treaty of peace with the Indians.

The frontiersmen, as they turned their faces homeward, cursed the Governor as a traitor, who spared the Indians because he planned to use them against the Virginians should they go to war with Great Britain. Nor were their suspicions groundless, for a few months later Dunmore wrote the Earl of Dartmouth that if the King would send him "a small body of troops" and arms and ammunition, he could raise "such a force among Indians, Negroes, and other persons" as would soon reduce Virginia to obedience.[28]

But at this moment obedience was far from the minds of the people. On March 20, 1775, the second Provincial Congress met in St. John's Church, Richmond. The place was but a straggling village, but it was more centrally located than Williamsburg, and further away from the British warships in the York River. The delegates were unanimous in approving the proceedings of the Continental Congress, and in thanking the Virginia representatives for their services. But it soon became evident that they were divided on the vital question of preparing for war. When Henry introduced resolutions for putting the colony in a state of defense by arming and disciplining a force of militia, some of the leading members drew back. War was unthinkable, they said. The country was too weak, too defenseless, too open to invasion. The only hope was for reconciliation, for the mediation of America's friends in Parliament.

This brought Henry to his feet. "What has there been in the conduct of the British Ministry for the last ten years to justify hope? Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? These are the instruments of subjugation sent over to rivet upon us the chains which the British Ministry have been so long forging. What have we to oppose them? Shall we try argument? We have been trying that for the last ten years.... Shall we resort to entreaty and supplication? We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated; and we have been spurned from the foot of the throne.... If we wish to be free we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we mustfight!... Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."[29]Henry's eloquence carried the day, yet so fraught with danger was the issue, that his motion was carried by a majority of five only.

A few days later Dunmore wrote to Dartmouth denouncing the proceedings of the Convention. "The most dangerous, as well as the most daring attempt is the resolution which is adopted for raising a body of armed men, horse and foot as well. The plan for imbodying, arming, and disciplining of which is by these resolutions published as the final order for putting the same into execution."

Almost overnight Virginia was converted into an armed camp. Everywhere there was the sound of drums, the sharp commands of drillmasters, marching and countermarching. Even in Williamsburg the streets were full of men with arms in their hands. In the Valley of Virginia, Fithian jotted down in hisDiaryon June 6: "Here every presence is warlike, every sound is martial! Drums beating, fifes and bagpipes playing.... Every man had a hunting-shirt, which is the uniform of each company. Almost all have a cockade and bucktail in their hats to represent that they are hardy, resolute, and invincible natives of the woods of America."[30]

These warlike preparations drove Dunmore to take a step, which aroused the fury of the patriots. In Williamsburg there still stands a little octagonal building which was used as a magazine in colonial days. Here were stored twenty barrels of powder and several guns. To keep the independent companies from seizing the powder the Governor ordered a party of sailors to take it on board an armed schooner nearby in the James River. Before daybreak, on April 20, they made off with most of it, and it was later put on board theFoweyman-of-war.[31]

Despite the gloom of early dawn the removal of the powder was observed, and the beating of drums gave the alarm. The independent companies got under arms, the people assembled, and the Governor was threatened with violence unless he returned the powder. The mayor and other city officers, leavingthe troops nearby, went to the Palace with an address which Dunmore thought amounted to a peremptory demand for the powder. Should he refuse they could not answer for the dreadful consequences.

The Governor not only refused, but prepared to resist any attack with the aid of several British officers and a few men from the warships. Had not Peyton Randolph and Robert Carter Nicholas persuaded the angry troops to disperse, the war in Virginia would have begun with an assault on the Palace. As it was, parties of armed men continued to pour into Williamsburg, and word came that several hundred cavalry were at Fredericksburg, ready to march, and that Patrick Henry was leading a force up from the south. In alarm the Governor sent Lady Dunmore and his children to one of the warships, and threatened to arm the slaves and reduce Williamsburg to ashes.[32]

The more conservative leaders among the Virginians, who were still hoping for a compromise with Great Britain, were able, though with great difficulty, to restrain the troops. At Fredericksburg the men pledged themselves to be in readiness at a moment's notice to defend the laws, the liberties, and the rights of Virginia and any sister colony, and then dispersed.[33]Henry's force got within fifteen miles of Williamsburg, and halted only when Richard Corbin, the Receiver General, paid for the powder from the royal funds by handing him a bill of exchange for £330.

Fate decreed that hostilities should begin, not in Virginia, but in Massachusetts. The Virginia delegates were just preparing to leave for the second Continental Congress when the news of the skirmish at Lexington and Concord arrived. New England was already at war. The question in everyone's mind was, would the rest of the country follow? Washington's answer was to wear his military uniform. Along the road he and the other Virginia delegates were cheered on by crowds of enthusiastic people, amid the blaring of bands and the firing of guns.

It was with difficulty that some of the conservative members of Congress prevented a declaration of independence. And though a petition to the King was agreed on, the taking over of the New England army around Boston and appointing Washington commander in chief, was in effect a declaration of war.Yet, as Washington was leaving for the east to draw the sword, Pendleton returned to Virginia to resume his post as Speaker in a last attempt to re-establish the old government.

He was welcomed to Williamsburg like a conquering hero. A detachment of cavalry met him at the Pamunkey River and escorted him the rest of the way. Two miles from the city they were joined by a company of infantry. At sunset, as they entered Williamsburg, they were received by the ringing of bells and the cheers of the crowds in the streets. At dark every house was illuminated.

Dunmore thought "this pompous military exhibition" had been planned "to raise the importance of the members of this new created power, the Congress, before the people." And the "appearance of numbers of the Burgesses in the clothes of the American troops, wearing a shirt of coarse linen or canvas over their clothes and a tomahawk by their sides," added fuel to the fire.[34]

The Assembly had been in session but three days when several overzealous young men broke into the magazine to take out some of the arms. They stumbled against a cord which had been attached to a gun pointed at the entrance, which went off wounding two of them. This aroused the people to action, and the next day at noon an angry crowd, among them several Burgesses, entered themagazineand carried off about 400 stand of arms. A committee of the House of Burgesses persuaded the people to return the arms, and then set a military guard around the magazine. "So the custody of the magazine and public stores is thus wrested out of the hands of the Governor," complained Dunmore.[35]

At the opening of the Assembly the Governor began by urging the acceptance of the resolutions which Lord North had pushed through Parliament in February, as the basis for reconciliation. These resolutions promised that if any colony would raise of its own authority the cost of its own government, Parliament would not tax that colony. In other words, if the Americans guaranteed to pay into the hands of the King's Governors funds sufficient to make them independent of the Assemblies, Parliament would not take their money from them to do so. The Burgesses must have been indignant when Dunmore toldthem that he had strong hopes a consideration of this offer would bring to an end the disputes with the mother country.[36]

The reply of the Burgesses, which was almost certainly written by Jefferson, is notable because of the clearness with which it exposed the unconstitutionally of the British position. They had viewed the proposal with pain and disappointment, for it merely changed the form of oppression without lightening its burden. "The British government has no right to intermeddle with the support of civil government in the colonies. For us, not for them, has government been instituted here.... We cannot conceive that any other legislature has a right to prescribe either the number or pecuniary appointment of our officers." The claim of Parliament of the right to tax the people of the colony had no precedent. Even the act of 1680 giving the King a perpetual revenue was passed, not by Parliament, but by his Majesty "with the consent of the General Assembly."[37]

The Burgesses were not willing to purchase exemption from an unjust taxation by saddling the people with a perpetual tax to be disposed of by the King or Parliament. "We have a right to give our money as the Parliament does theirs, without coercion.... It is not merely the mode of raising, but the freedom of granting our money for which we have contended, without which we possess no check on the royal prerogative."

Upon receiving assurance that no harm was intended his family, Dunmore had brought them back to the Palace. But on June 8, before daybreak, he, Lady Dunmore, the children, his secretary, and some of the servants stole out and went on board theFowey. "My house was kept in continued alarm and threatened every night with an assault," Dunmore explained. "Surrounded as I was by armed men ... and situated so far from any place where men-of-war can approach, ... I could not think it safe to continue in that city."[38]

The Assembly urged the Governor to return, but he refused. So on the night of June 24, a large body of men forced their way into the Palace by bursting open a window, and carried off several hundred stand of arms which had been kept in the hall. Some days later another group entered the building, wentfrom room to room breaking into cabinets, and carried off arms of various sorts.[39]

And now Williamsburg became an armed camp. Bands of horse and foot, in uniforms and each company displaying their distinctive badge flocked in. Some of them lodged in the Capitol, the cavalry encamped on the Palace Green.[40]One wonders whether these men knew that a century earlier Nathaniel Bacon had assembled his men on or near this spot, or whether any of them realized that they had fought for the same cause as they, the cause of liberty?

With Dunmore on theFoweyand the Assembly in Williamsburg, the remainder of the session was rather futile. There was renewed bickering over the removal of the powder, the Burgesses drew up a long address to the Governor criticizing his administration, and accusing him of misrepresenting conditions in Virginia in one of his letters to the Earl of Dartmouth. The Assembly adjourned on June 24, until October 12, and on that date, when only thirty-seven members showed up, adjourned again until March 7, 1776. This time less than a fourth of the Burgesses attended, and immediately adjourned to May 6, when several members met, "but did neither proceed to business nor adjourn, as a House of Burgesses." And so died the Virginia Assembly after more than a century and a half of existence, in which it had fought and won the good battle for liberty. It now remained for other bodies to defend and preserve that liberty for future generations.[41]

Even while the Assembly was in session the government, in reality, had passed into the hands of the conventions and the committees of safety. As early as December, 1774, Dunmore wrote that the royal government had been "entirely overthrown." "There is not a justice of peace in Virginia that acts except as a committeeman. The abolishing of the courts of justice was the first step taken, in which the men of fortune and pre-eminence joined equally with the lowest and meanest. The General Court ... is in much the same predicament."[42]All that was needed to take the government completely out of the hands of the Governor and the Assembly was an executive head. And this was supplied by the third convention which met inRichmond in July, 1775, by the appointment of a "general committee of safety."

To this body were appointed some of the ablest men in the colony—Pendleton, George Mason, John Page, Richard Bland, Thomas Ludwell Lee, and others. It was given almost dictatorial powers, for it had the supervision of military affairs, appointing officers, collecting supplies, and naming paymasters; it corresponded with the county committees, arrested Loyalists, held inquiries.[43]

The convention, having created a body to take over the functions formerly exercised by the Governor and Council, itself practically replaced the dying Assembly. It prepared for the defense of the colony by raising two regular regiments and several thousand minutemen, reorganizing the militia, and setting up works for the manufacture of arms and powder. It authorized the Treasurer to issue £350,000 of paper money. It levied taxes on tithables, coaches, land, licenses, legal papers, etc.[44]

A state of war now existed. If they could have laid hands on Dunmore, the patriots no doubt would have kept him in confinement. And on one occasion he barely escaped. It was in July that he went in a barge to a farm which he owned on a creek about seven miles from Williamsburg. He and Captain Montague, of theFowey, had just finished dinner when the servants rushed in to warn them that the Americans were coming. They had barely time to run to their boat and push off. Two of their men were captured, and another, jumping into a canoe, paddled desperately with bullets whizzing past his head.[45]

As early as May, 1775, Dunmore wrote Dartmouth that he could not maintain even an appearance of authority without "a force to support it." Dartmouth replied that he was sending him 3,000 stand of arms, 200 rounds of powder and ball for each musket, and four light brass cannon. "I see that Gage has ordered sent you a detachment of the Fourteenth Regiment. I hope with the Negroes, Indians, etc., you can reduce Virginia.... It is the King's firm resolution that the most vigorous efforts should be made, by sea and land, to reduce his rebellious subjects to obedience."[46]

Dunmore was soon in control of Virginia waters. The sloop of warOtterarrived late in June, theMercury, carrying twenty guns, on July 10, to be followed by theLiverpool, a frigate of twenty-eight guns; theKingfisher, and theDunmore. But the Governor was never able to raise a land force capable of contending with the Virginians. With the arrival of seventy men from St. Augustine and one company from Rhode Island to add to the marines, he could muster about 200 men. This small force he hoped would be a nucleus for an army of Tories and Negroes, and on November 7 he issued a proclamation declaring martial law, summoning all "loyal" citizens to join him, and offering freedom to any slaves who would take up arms for the King.[47]

In the meanwhile, he had moved with his little fleet into the Elizabeth River. It was necessary for him to find provisions, and he counted upon the Scottish merchants of Norfolk and other Tories in the lower counties to supply him. When the local committee of safety denounced all who sent food out to the ships as enemies of liberty, he threatened to bombard the city.

The Norfolk printer, John Holt, ignoring the guns of the warships which pointed out over the town, continued to issue his gazette and to urge the people not to give up their liberty. On September 30 a party of British rowed ashore, marched to the printing office, and carried off the press, the type, the ink, the paper, and two of the printers. As they embarked they gave three huzzas, in which a crowd of Negroes joined. "I am now going to have a press for the King," Dunmore said.[48]

On November 16, Dunmore took possession of Norfolk, where he raised the royal standard. To his great satisfaction the Scottish merchants and their clerks, some Negroes, and others took the oath. He then began to fortify the city with earthworks.[49]He would have done better to build forts at different points on the long, circuitous road by which alone Norfolk could be approached, between the Dismal Swamp and the heads of several branches of the Elizabeth River. Not until it was too late did he fortify Great Bridge where the Southern Branch flowed between two marshes, each crossed by a long causeway.

In the meanwhile, the Virginia troops had been concentrating at Williamsburg, under the command of Colonel Woodford. They now crossed the James, marched through Suffolk, and headed for the Great Bridge. Many of the men were from the western counties, and were armed, not with muskets, but with rifles. They were deadly shots, as the British soon found to their sorrow. When the Virginians reached Great Bridge, the British, instead of waiting for them to attack their almost impregnable position, themselves took the initiative. The regulars led the way over the causeways and the bridge, followed by the Tories and Negroes.[50]"Reserve your fire until they are within fifty yards," the Virginia officers ordered. Then the shirtmen, aiming as coolly as though they were shooting deer, let fly. The regulars were cut to pieces, the Tories and Negroes refused to fight, so with the coming of darkness the British left their posts and streamed back to Norfolk.[51]

When Dunmore heard of this defeat he raved like a madman, and even threatened to hang the boy who brought the news. With the shirtmen advancing on the city, flight was all that was left him. Soon the streets were jammed with panicky soldiers, men, women, and children, hastening to the wharves to take refuge on the warships or the fleet of merchantmen. They were none too soon, for on December 11, the Virginians, reinforced by a body of North Carolinians under Colonel Howe, entered the city.

But having gained Norfolk, the two commanders now debated what they should do with it. If a large force of British attacked it by land and sea it could not be defended, and the garrison would be captured.[52]On the other hand, for the enemy it would be invaluable as a base for attacks on any point in eastern Maryland, Virginia, or North Carolina. Howe wrote the Virginia convention, hinting for permission to burn the city.

Dunmore's folly gave him an excuse for doing so without waiting for a reply. Food and water were becoming scarce on the crowded ships in the river, many of the refugees became ill, several died. So Dunmore threatened to bombard the city if the patriots cut off supplies, and moved the warships to a position close by. But now the riflemen, firing from warehousesnear the wharves, began picking off his men whenever they appeared on deck. On the afternoon of January 1, 1776, the warships opened fire, and several boatloads of soldiers rowed up to the wharves and set fire to the adjacent buildings.[53]

It was a striking evidence of the sacrifices which the colonial Virginians were willing to make in the cause of liberty that twice they applied the torch to one of their towns to prevent the enemy from using it as a base. The burning of Jamestown by Bacon and his men foreshadowed the burning of Norfolk by the revolutionary troops a century later. Seizing upon the fires set by the British as an excuse, the soldiers went from house to house to spread the flames. In all nearly nine hundred houses were destroyed. A month later, by command of the convention, the Americans burned down what was left of the city, 416 houses in all.[54]

The burning of Norfolk was a drastic step indeed. All who witnessed the plight of the people as they trudged along the roads leading out of the city to seek refuge in nearby farms must have condemned it as an act of useless cruelty. But in the end it probably saved more suffering than it entailed. Had the city been spared, the British would almost certainly have occupied it and held it throughout the remainder of the war, just as they held New York. It would have been a haven for Tories from all the adjacent states, the British would have made it a great naval and military base, from it expeditions would have been launched up the great Virginia rivers as Berkeley had launched expeditions from the Eastern Shore.

Since the Virginians had no fleet of warships capable of driving Dunmore out of their waters, they decided to starve him out. They even threatened to move the entire population of parts of Norfolk and Princess Anne Counties to prevent provisions from reaching him. In May he gave orders for the fleet to leave the Elizabeth River and proceed to Gwynn's Island, in the Chesapeake Bay, near the mouth of the Rappahannock River. Here he established a camp. But when General Andrew Lewis set up batteries on the mainland and opened fire, the place became untenable. One shot struck theDunmoreand wounded the Governor. "Good God! that ever I should come to this!" he shouted. A few days later his fleet sailed down thebay and out through the capes. With it went the last vestige of British authority in Virginia.[55]

Now the question of independence was in the minds of all. The small planter as he set out his tobacco crop debated it with himself; the blacksmith talked it over with his client as he shod his horse; it was the topic of conversation in the church yard before the sermon began; the members of the convention debated it as they rode along the muddy roads. In May, 1775, Dunmore wrote: "It is no longer to be doubted that independence is the object in view."[56]But in this he was wrong. The colonists did not want independence. They were Englishmen, most of them, speaking the English language, living under English law, attached to English institutions. They had hardly ceased to speak of England as "home." They looked to the British navy for protection, they were keenly alive to their economic dependence upon the mother country, they were weak and disunited. The colonies went into the war hugging the hope that there might yet be reconciliation, with Washington referring to the British soldiers as the Ministerial troops, and the American chaplains, in public services, praying for the King.

The colonies, in taking up arms, sought only to maintain existing conditions. The King and the Ministry were the real revolutionists, not the Americans. It was Washington who wrote in 1769, that "at a time when our lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American freedom, something should be done to avert the stroke and maintain the liberty which we have derived from our ancestors." Washington by no means considered himself a rebel. He was championing the British constitution and American rights under it against the illegal aggressions of a reactionary Ministry.

But the war had not been long in progress before the people saw that they must preserve their freedom at the bayonet's point, or make abject submission. When, in the summer of 1775, Richard Penn and Arthur Lee went to England with the last effort of Congress for reconciliation, the so-called Olive Branch, they were rebuffed. The King and his Ministers refused to see them. While they were in London a proclamationwas read at Palace Yard and Temple Bar by heralds, prohibiting all intercourse with the colonies.

Moreover, the ties of reverence and affection gave way rapidly before the anger and bitterness of war. The news that the King was purchasing troops from certain German rulers for use against them aroused the Americans to fury. Angry men gathered everywhere, in the coffee houses, on the village greens, or around the courthouses to discuss the burning of Portland in the midst of a Maine winter, or the arming of the slaves by Dunmore.

It was at this moment that Tom Paine'sCommon Sensemade its appearance. Although this pamphlet was bombastic, radical, and filled with absurdities, it fell in with the trend of the day, and so tended to crystallize thought in favor of independence. More than 100,000 copies were sold, and it was estimated that every third person in the colonies read it. "Where, some say, is the King of America? I'll tell you friend. He reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the royal brute of England. A government of our own is our natural right. Ye who oppose independence now, ye know not what ye do: ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny."

Reluctantly the leaders of thought in Virginia came to the conclusion that the British government was forcing them into independence. Jefferson wrote John Randolph in November, 1775, that he loved the union with Great Britain, "but by the God that made me I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose, and in this I think I speak the sentiments of America."

Yet the Virginia convention, in August, 1775, had declared: "We again and for all, publickly and solemnly declare, before God and the world, that we do bear faith and true allegiance to his Majesty George the Third, our only lawful and rightful King."[57]

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