Chapter LVIII
1747-1752.
Statistics of Virginia--Whitefield--Davies--Conduct of the Government toward Dissenters--Resignation of Governor Gooch-- His Character--The People of the Valley and of Eastern Virginia--John Robinson, Sr., President--Richard Lee, President--Earl of Albemarle, Governor-in-Chief--Lewis Burwell, President--Population of the Colonies.
FROM Bowen's Geography, published at London in 1747, the following particulars are gathered: in 1710 the total population of Virginia was estimated to be 70,000, and in 1747 at between 100,000 and 140,000. The number of burgesses was 52. Of the fifty-four parishes, thirty or forty were supplied. The twelve vestrymen having the presentation of ministers were styled "the patrons of the church." The governor's salary, together with perquisites, amounted to three thousand pounds per annum. The president of the council acting as governor received a salary of five hundred pounds, and also a small amount paid him as a councillor. The professors of William and Mary College, when they began with experiments on plants and minerals, were assisted by the French refugees at Manakintown. Dr. Bray procured contributions of books for the library.[444:A]
Sweet-scented tobacco, the most valuable in the world, was found in the strip of country between the York and the James. The number of hogsheads of tobacco shipped from Virginia and Maryland together annually was 70,000, of which half was consumed in England, and half exported to other countries.
This trade employed two hundred ships, and yielded his majesty's treasury a revenue of upwards of £300,000, in time of peace. Jamestown at this time contained several brick houses, with sundry taverns and eating-houses,--sixty or seventy houses in all. Williamsburg or Williamstadt contained twenty or thirty houses. There was a fort or battery erected there mounting ten or twelve guns. Governor Nicholson caused several streets to be laid out in the form of a W, in honor of King William the Third, but a V or one angle of it was not as yet completed, and the plan appears to have been given up. The main street was three-quarters of a mile long, and very wide; at one end of it was the college, and at the other the capitol. The college was thought to be something like Chelsea Hospital. The capitol, in the shape of an H, is described as "a noble pile." The church was "adorned and convenient as the best churches in London." Besides these there were an octagon magazine for arms and ammunition, a bowling-green, and a play-house. There were several private houses of brick, with many rooms on a floor, but not high. It was observed that wherever the water was brackish, it was sickly; but Williamsburg was on a healthy site.[445:A] Gloucester was at this time the most populous county; Essex or Rappahannock "overrun with briars, thorns, and wild beasts." The Atlantic Ocean is denominated the "Virginian Sea."[445:B]
Whitefield, while at Charleston, in South Carolina, during the spring of 1747, being presented with a sum of money, expended it in the purchase of a plantation and negroes for the support of the orphan-house.[445:C] Having come on to Virginia, in a letter written from Williamsburg in April of that year, he says to a friend in Philadelphia: "Men in power here seem to be alarmed; but truth is great and will prevail. I am to preach this morning." By a remarkable coincidence, Samuel Davies, so pre-eminently instrumental in organizing and extending Presbyterianism in Middle Virginia, happened to come to Virginia about the same time. He was born in the County of New Castle, Pennsylvania, now Delaware, November 3d, 1723, of Welsh extraction, on both paternal and maternal side. He was educated principally in Pennsylvania, under the care of the Rev. Samuel Blair, at Fagg's Manor, where he was thoroughly instructed in the classics, sciences, and theology. By close study his slender frame was enfeebled. He married Sarah Kirkpatrick in October, 1746. Deputed to perform a mission in so perplexing a field, without experience, and in delicate health, he started with hesitation and reluctance. Passing down the Eastern Shore associated with the labors of Makemie, Davies came to Williamsburg. Here he applied to the general court for license to preach at three meeting-houses in Hanover, and one in Henrico. The council hesitated to comply; but, by the governor's influence, the license was obtained on the fourteenth of April. The members of the court present on this occasion were William Gooch, Governor; John Robinson, John Grymes, John Custis, Philip Lightfoot, Thomas Lee, Lewis Burwell, William Fairfax, John Blair, William Nelson, Esqs.; William Dawson, Clerk. This was only two days after Whitefield had preached in Williamsburg, and he and Davies were probably there at the same time. Davies, proceeding at once to Hanover, was received with joy, since, on the preceding Sunday, a proclamation had been attached to the door of Morris's Reading-house, requiring magistrates to suppress itinerant preachers, and warning the people against gathering to hear them. After a brief sojourn, returning home, he languished under ill health, aggravated by the sudden death of his wife, and threatening to cut him off prematurely. He, however, recovered sufficient strength to return to Hanover in May, 1748, and settled at a place about twelve miles from the falls of the James River. In this second visit he was accompanied by the Rev. John Rodgers, who, finding it impossible to obtain permission to settle in Virginia, returned to the North. Governor Gooch favored the application, but a majority of the council stood out against it, saying: "We have Mr. Rodgers out, and we are determined to keep him out." Some of the clergy of the established church were vehement in their opposition to Davies and Rodgers. A majority of the council lent their countenance to this opposition, but Gooch took occasion to rebuke it in severe terms. John Blair, nephew of the commissary, Commissary Dawson, and another member of the council, whose name is forgotten, united with the governor on this occasion in treating the strangers kindly, and endeavored to procure a reconsideration of the case, but in vain. According to Burk,[447:A] most of the intelligent men of that day, including Edmund Pendleton, appear in the character of persecutors. It must be remembered, however, that the council and its friends had no right to proclaim religious freedom, and that the controversy depended on the true interpretation of the act of parliament and the Virginia statutes. These made the law, and the council was but the executive of the law, without authority to repeal or amend it.
Davies was now left to labor alone in Virginia. In April the court decided the long-pending suits against Isaac Winston, Sr., and Samuel Morris, by fining them each twenty shillings and the costs of prosecution. Severe laws had been passed in Virginia in accordance with the English act of uniformity, and enforcing attendance at the parish church. The toleration act was little understood in Virginia; Davies examined it carefully, and satisfied himself that it was in force in the colony, not, indeed, by virtue of its original enactment in England, but because it had been expressly recognized and adopted by an act of the Virginia assembly.
In October, 1748, licenses were with difficulty obtained upon the petitions of the dissenters for three other meeting-houses lying in Caroline, Louisa, and Goochland. Davies was only about twenty-three years of age; yet his fervid eloquence attracted large congregations, including many churchmen. On several occasions he found it necessary to defend the cause of the dissenters at the bar of the general court. When on one occasion, by permission, he rose to reply to the argument of Peyton Randolph, the king's attorney-general, a titter at first ran through the court; but it ceased at the utterance of the very first sentence, and his masterly argument extorted admiration; and during his stay in Williamsburg he received many civilities, especially from the Honorable John Blair, of the council, and Sir William Gooch. Samuel Davies happening to be in London at the same time with Peyton Randolph, some years afterwards, mentions him in his Diary as "my old adversary," and adds, "he will, no doubt, oppose whatever is done in favor of the dissenters in Hanover." Davies, who was a man of exquisite sensibility, repeatedly alludes to the torture to which his feelings had been subjected by the mortifications that he suffered when appearing before the general court.
There was eventually obtained from Sir Dudley Rider, the king's attorney-general in England, a decision confirming the view which Davies had taken of the toleration act. He expressed himself in regard to the governor and council as follows: "The Honorable Sir William Gooch, our late governor, discovered a ready disposition to allow us all claimable privileges, and the greatest aversion to persecuting measures; but considering the shocking reports spread abroad concerning us by officious malignants, it was no great wonder the council discovered a considerable reluctance to tolerate us. Had it not been for this, I persuade myself they would have shown themselves the guardians of our legal privileges, as well as generous patriots to their country, which is the character generally given them."
In his "State of Religion among the Dissenters," Davies remarks: "There are and have been in this colony a great number of Scotch merchants, who were educated Presbyterians, but (I speak what their conduct more loudly proclaims) they generally, upon their arrival here, prove scandals to their religion and country by their loose principles and immoral practices, and either fall into indifferency about religion in general, or affect to be polite by turning deists, or fashionable by conforming to the church." Of the dissenters in Virginia he says, that at the first they were not properly dissenters from the original constitution of the Church of England, but rather dissented from those who had forsaken it.
Sir William Gooch, who had now been governor of Virginia for twenty-two years, left the colony, with his family, in August, 1749, amid the regrets of the people. Notwithstanding some flexibility of principle, he appears to have been estimable in public and private character. His capacity and intelligence were of a high order, and were adorned by uniform courtesy and dignity, and singular amenity of manners. If he exhibited something of intolerance toward the close of his administration, he seems, nevertheless, to have commanded the esteem and respect of the dissenters. After his departure from Virginia he continued to be the steady friend of the colony. A county was named after him.[449:A] During Sir William Gooch's administration, from 1728 to 1749, the population of Virginia had nearly doubled, and there had been added one-third to the extent of her settlements.[449:B] The taxes were light, industry revived, foreign commerce increased, and Virginia enjoyed a prosperity hitherto unknown. The frugal and industrious Germans were filling up one portion of the valley and the Piedmont country; the hardy, well-disciplined, and energetic Scotch-Irish were peopling the other portion of the valley, and planting colonies eastward of the Blue Ridge. Like the strawberry, the population continually sent out "runners" to possess the land. The contact and commingling of the English, the French, the German, the Scotch, the Irish, while it brought about some collision, yet produced an excitement which was salutary and beneficial to all. So the meeting of the opposite currents of electricity, although accompanied by a shock, results in the renovation of the atmosphere. The people of Eastern Virginia and the inhabitants of the valley have each been benefited by the other; each section has its virtues and its faults, its advantages and its disadvantages, and Virginia does not derive its character from either one, but the elements of both are mixed up in her. This is not the result of chance, or the mere work of man, but the order of a superintending Providence that presides in human affairs.
The government of Virginia now devolved upon John Robinson, Sr., president of the council, but he dying in a few days, Thomas Lee succeeded as president. Had Lee lived longer, it was believed his influence and connexions in England would have secured for him the appointment of deputy governor. He was father of Philip Ludwell, Richard Henry, Thomas L., Arthur, Francis Lightfoot, and William. As Westmoreland, their native county, is distinguished above all others in Virginia as the birth-place of great men, so perhaps no other Virginian was the father of so many distinguished sons as President Lee.
The Earl of Albemarle, after whom the county of that name was called, was still titular governor-in-chief. Of this nobleman, when ambassador at Paris, Horace Walpole says: "It was convenient to him to be anywhere but in England. His debts were excessive, though ambassador, groom of the stole, governor of Virginia, and colonel of a regiment of guards. His figure was genteel, his manner noble and agreeable. The rest of his merit was the interest Lady Albemarle had with the king through Lady Yarmouth. He had all his life imitated the French manners till he came to Paris, where he never conversed with a Frenchman. If good breeding is not different from good sense, Lord Albemarle, at least, knew how to distinguish it from good nature. He would bow to his postillion while he was ruining his tailor."
Lee was succeeded by Lewis Burwell, of Gloucester County, also president of the council. During his brief administration, some Cherokee chiefs, with a party of warriors, visited Williamsburg for the purpose, as they professed, of opening a direct trade with Virginia. A party of the Nottoways, animated by inveterate hostility, approached to attack them; and the Cherokees raised the war song; but President Burwell effected a reconciliation, and they sat down and smoked together the pipe of peace. A New York company of players were permitted to erect a theatre in Williamsburg. President Burwell, who was educated in England, was distinguished for his scholarship; he is said to have embraced almost every branch of human knowledge within the circle of his studies. The Burwells are descended from an ancient family of that name of the Counties of Bedford and Northampton, England. The first of the family, Major Lewis Burwell, came over to Virginia at an early date, and settled in Gloucester. He died in 1658, two hundred years ago. He appears to have married Lucy, daughter of Captain Robert Higginson, one of the first commanders that "subdued the country of Virginia from the power of the heathen." She survived till the year 1675.
Matthew Burwell married Abigail Smith, descended from the celebrated family of Bacon, and heiress of the Honorable Nathaniel Bacon, President of Virginia. Nathaniel Burwell, who died in 1721, married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Robert Carter, Esq. Carter's Creek, the old seat of the Burwells, is situated in Gloucester, on a creek of that name, and not far back from the York River. The stacks of antique diamond-shaped chimneys, and the old-fashioned panelling of the interior, remind the visitor that Virginia is truly the "Ancient Dominion." There is the family graveyard shaded with locusts, and overrun with parasites and grape-vines. The family arms are carved on some of the tomb-stones; and hogs show that the Bacon arms are quartered upon those of the Burwells.[451:A]
FOOTNOTES:
[444:A] The value of coins in Virginia was:--
£ s. d. Spanish double doubloons 3 10 00 Doubloons 1 15 00 Pistole 0 17 06 Arabian Chequin 0 10 00 Pieces of eight 0 5 00 French crowns 0 5 00 Dutch dollars 0 5 00
All English coins at the same value as in England.
[445:A] Williamsburg is said to be now a very healthy place, except during the months of vacation.
[445:B] Bowen's Geography, ii. 649, 652.
[445:C] Port Folio for 1812, p. 152.
[447:A] Hist. of Va., iii. 121.
[449:A] His son married a Miss Bowles, of Maryland, who, after his death, married Colonel William Lewis.
[449:B] Chalmers' Introduction, ii. 202.
[451:A] The population of the colonies at this time was as follows:--
Increase per cent. COLONIES. per annum. Connecticut 100,000 4·65 Georgia 6,000 ... Maryland 85,000 5·00 Massachusetts 220,000 4·46 New Hampshire 30,000 4·17 New Jersey 60,000 6·25 New York 100,000 4·86 North Carolina 45,000 16·67 Pennsylvania[451:B] 250,000 23·96 Rhode Island 35,000 5·21 South Carolina 30,000 6·84 Virginia 85,000 2·34 --------- ---- All classes 1,046,000 6·23
By this table it appears that the greatest advance in population took place in Pennsylvania and North Carolina; the least in Virginia. The average increase of all the colonies was a little more than six per cent. in forty-eight years, from 1701 to 1749.
[451:B] Delaware included in Pennsylvania.
Chapter LIX
1752.
Dinwiddie, Governor--Ohio Company--Lawrence Washington--His Views on Religious Freedom--Davies and the Dissenters-- Dissensions between Dinwiddie and the Assembly--George Washington--His Lineage--Early Education--William Fairfax-- Washington a Surveyor--Lord Fairfax--Washington Adjutant-General.
A NEW epoch dawns with the administration of Robert Dinwiddie, who arrived in Virginia as lieutenant-governor early in 1752, with the purpose of repressing the encroachments of the French, of extending the confines of Virginia, and of enlarging the Indian trade. A vast tract of land, mostly lying west of the mountains and south of the Ohio, was granted by the king about the year 1749, to a company of planters and merchants. This scheme appears to have been brought forward in the preceding year by Thomas Lee of the council, and he became associated with twelve persons in Virginia and Maryland, and with Mr. Hanbury, a London Quaker merchant, and they were incorporated as "The Ohio Company." Lawrence and Augustine Washington were early and prominent members of this company. The company sent out Mr. Christopher Gist to explore the country on the Ohio as far as the falls. He was, like Boone, from the banks of the Yadkin, an expert pioneer, at home in the wilderness and among the Indians, adventurous, hardy, and intrepid. Crossing the Ohio, he found the country well watered and wooded, with here and there plains covered with wild rye, or meadows of blue grass and clover. He observed numerous buffaloes, deer, elk, and wild turkeys. Returning to the Ohio and recrossing it, Gist proceeded toward the Cuttawa or Kentucky River. Ascending to the summit of a mountain, he beheld that magnificent region long before it was seen by Daniel Boone.[453:A]
On the 13th of June, 1752, a treaty was effected with the western Indians at Logstown, on the Ohio, by which they agreed not to molest any settlements that might be made on the southeast side of the Ohio. Colonel Fry and two other commissioners represented Virginia on this occasion, while Gist appeared as agent of the Ohio Company.
Thomas Lee, the projector of this company, having not survived long after its incorporation, the chief conduct of it fell into the hands of Lawrence Washington. Governor Dinwiddie and George Mason were also members. There were twenty shares and as many members. Lawrence Washington, being desirous of colonizing Germans on the company's lands, wrote to Mr. Hanbury as follows: "While the unhappy state of my health called me back to our springs,[453:B] I conversed with all the Pennsylvanian Dutch whom I met with, either there or elsewhere, and much recommended their settling on the Ohio. The chief reason against it was, the paying of an English clergyman, when few understood and none made use of him. It has been my opinion, and I hope ever will be, that restraints on conscience are cruel in regard to those on whom they are imposed, and injurious to the country imposing them. England, Holland, and Prussia, I may quote as examples, and much more, Pennsylvania, which has flourished under that delightful liberty so as to become the admiration of every man who considers the short time it has been settled. As the ministry have thus far shown the true spirit of patriotism, by encouraging the extending of our dominions in America, I doubt not by an application they would still go farther, and complete what they have begun, by procuring some kind of charter to prevent the residents on the Ohio and its branches from being subject to parish taxes. They all assured me that they might have from Germany any number of settlers, could they but obtain their favorite exemption. I have promised to endeavor for it, and now do my utmost by this letter. I am well assured we shall never obtain it by a law here. This colony was greatly settled, in the latter part of Charles the First's time and during the usurpation, by the zealous churchmen, and that spirit which was then brought in has ever since continued, so that, except a few Quakers, we have no dissenters. But what has been the consequence? We have increased by slow degrees, except negroes and convicts, while our neighboring colonies, whose natural advantages are greatly inferior to ours, have become populous."[454:A] He also wrote to Governor Dinwiddie, then in England, to the same effect. He replied that it would be difficult to obtain the desired exemption for the Dutch settlers, but promised to use his utmost endeavors to effect it. It does not appear whether the ministry ever came to a decision on this subject. The non-conformists augured favorably of Dinwiddie's administration. The Rev. Jonathan Edwards, in a letter addressed to Rev. John Erskine, of the Kirk of Scotland, says: "What you write of the appointment of a gentleman to the office of lieutenant-governor of Virginia, who is a friend to religion, is an event that the friends of religion in America have great reason to rejoice in, by reason of the late revival of religion in that province, and the opposition that has been made against it, and the great endeavors to crush it by many of the chief men of the province. Mr. Davies, in a letter I lately received from him, dated March 2d, 1752, mentions the same thing. His words are, 'We have a new governor who is a candid, condescending gentleman. And as he has been educated in the Church of Scotland, he has a respect for the Presbyterians, which I hope is a happy omen.'" Jonathan Edwards was invited in the summer of 1751 to come and settle in Virginia, and a handsome sum was subscribed for his support; but he was installed at Stockbridge, in Massachusetts, before the messenger from Virginia reached him.[454:B]
Dinwiddie, the new governor, an able man, had been a clerk to a collector in a West India custom-house, whose enormous defalcation he exposed to the government; and for this service, it is said, he was promoted, in 1741, to the office of surveyor of the customs for the colonies, and now to the post of governor of Virginia. She was at this time one of the most populous and the most wealthy of all the Anglo-American colonies. Dinwiddie, upon his arrival, gave offence by declaring the king's dissent to certain acts which Gooch had approved; and in June, 1752, the assembly remonstrated against this exercise of the royal prerogative; but their remonstrance proved unavailing. The Virginians were in the habit of acquiring lands without expense, by means of a warrant of a survey without a patent. Dinwiddie found a million of unpatented acres thus possessed, and he established, with the advice of the council, a fee of a pistole (equivalent to three dollars and sixty cents) for every seal annexed to a grant. Against this measure the assembly, in December, 1753, passed strong resolutions, and declared that whoever should pay that fee should be considered a betrayer of the rights of the people; and they sent the attorney-general, Peyton Randolph, as their agent, to England, with a salary of two thousand pounds, to procure redress. The board of trade, after virtually deciding in favor of Dinwiddie, recommended a compromise of the dispute, and advised him to reinstate Randolph in the office of attorney-general, as the times required harmony and mutual confidence. The assembly appear to have been much disturbed upon a small occasion. During Randolph's absence Dinwiddie wrote to a correspondent in England: "I have had a great deal of trouble and uneasiness from the factious disputes and violent heats of a most impudent, troublesome party here, in regard to that silly fee of a pistole; they are very full of the success of their party, which I give small notice to."
The natural prejudice felt by the aristocracy of Virginia against Dinwiddie, as an untitled Scotchman, was increased by a former altercation with him. When, in 1741, he was made surveyor-general of the customs, he was appointed, as his predecessors had been, a member of the several councils of the colonies. Gooch obeyed the order; but the council, prompted by their old jealousy of the surveyor-general's interfering with their municipal laws, and still more by their overweening exclusiveness, refused to permit him to act with them, either in the council or on the bench. The board of trade decided the controversy in favor of Dinwiddie.[456:A]
It was during Dinwiddie's administration that the name of George Washington began to attract public attention. The curiosity of his admirers has traced the family back to the Conquest. Sir William Washington, of Packington, in the County of Kent, married a sister of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and favorite of Charles the First. Lieutenant-Colonel James Washington, taking up arms in the royal cause, lost his life at the siege of Pontefract Castle. Sir Henry Washington, son and heir of Sir William, distinguished himself while serving under Prince Rupert, at the storming of Bristol, in 1643, and again a few years after, while in command of Worcester. His uncles, John and Lawrence Washington, in the year 1657, emigrated to Virginia, and settled in Westmoreland. John married a Miss Anne Pope, and resided at Bridge's or Bridge Creek, in that county. It is he who has been before mentioned as commanding the Virginia troops against the Indians not long before the breaking out of Bacon's rebellion. He and his brother Lawrence both died in 1677; their wills are preserved; they both appear to have had estates in England as well as in Virginia. His grandson, Augustine, father of George, born in 1694, married first in April, 1715, Jane Butler; and their two sons, Lawrence and Augustine, survived their childhood. In March, 1730, Augustine Washington, Sr., married secondly, Mary Ball. The issue of this union were four sons, George, Samuel, John Augustine, and Charles, and two daughters, Elizabeth or Betty, and Mildred, who died an infant. George Washington was born on the twenty-second day of February, N. S., 1732. The birth-place is sometimes called Bridge's Creek, and sometimes Pope's Creek; the house stood about a mile apart between the two creeks, but nearer to Pope's. Of the steep-roofed house which overlooked the Potomac, a brick chimney and some scattered bricks alone remain. George, it is seen, was the eldest child of a second marriage.
Not long after his birth his father removed to a seat opposite Fredericksburg; and this was the scene of George's boyhood; but the house has disappeared. He received only a plain English education, having obtained his first instruction at an old field school, under a teacher named Hobby--the parish sexton. The military spirit pervading the colony reached the school; in these military amusements George Washington was predominant; but he found a competitor in William Bustle.
Augustine Washington, the father of George, died in April, 1743, aged forty-nine years. He left a large estate. Not long afterwards Lawrence Washington married Anne, eldest daughter of the Honorable William Fairfax, and took up his residence at Mount Vernon, in Fairfax County. Augustine resided at Bridge's Creek, and married Anne, daughter of William Aylett, Esq., of Westmoreland County. George remained under the care of his mother, and was sent to stay for a time with his brother Augustine, to go to a school under charge of a teacher named Williams. It is probable that, as he taught him his daily lesson, he little anticipated the figure which his pupil was destined to make in the world. While he became thorough in what he learned he became expert in manly and athletic exercises. As he advanced in years he was a frequent guest at Mount Vernon, and became familiar with the Fairfax family at Belvoir, (called in England Beaver,) a few miles below, on the Potomac.
In the year 1747, when George was in his fourteenth year, a midshipman's warrant was obtained for him by his brother Lawrence. His father-in-law, William Fairfax, in September of the preceding year, had written to him: "George has been with us, and says he will be steady, and thankfully follow your advice as his best friend." From his promise to be steady, it may be inferred that he was then not so. And from his consenting to follow thankfully his brother's advice, it would appear that the plan of his going to sea originated with Lawrence, and not from George's strong bent that way, as has been commonly stated.
While the matter was still undetermined, his uncle, Joseph Ball, who, having married an English lady, had settled as a lawyer in London, wrote as follows to his sister Mary, the mother of Washington, in a letter dated at Strafford-by-Bow, May the 19th, 1747: "I understand that you are advised, and have some thoughts of putting your son George to sea. I think he had better be put apprentice to a tinker; for a common sailor before the mast has by no means the liberty of the subject; for they will press him from a ship where he has fifty shillings a month, and make him take twenty-three, and cut, and slash, and use him like a negro, or rather like a dog. And as to any considerable preferment in the navy, it is not to be expected, as there are always so many gaping for it here who have interest, and he has none. And if he should get to be master of a Virginia ship, (which it is very difficult to do,) a planter that has three or four hundred acres of land, and three or four slaves, if he be industrious, may live more comfortably and have his family in better bread, than such a master of a ship can. He must not be too hasty to be rich, but go on gently and with patience as things will naturally go. This method without aiming at being a fine gentleman before his time, will carry a man more comfortably and surely through the world than going to sea, unless it be a great chance indeed. I pray God keep you and yours.
"Your loving brother, "JOSEPH BALL."[458:A]
At length the mother's affectionate opposition prevented the execution of this scheme. George Washington now devoted himself to his studies, especially the mathematics and surveying.
The marriage of his brother, Lawrence Washington, with Miss Fairfax, introduced George to the favor of Thomas Lord Fairfax, proprietor of the Northern Neck, who gave him an appointment as surveyor. He was now little more than sixteen years of age. After crossing the Blue Ridge, the surveying party, including George Fairfax, entered a wilderness where they were exposed to the inclemency of the season, and subjected to hardship and fatigue. It was in the month of March, in the eventful year 1748; snow yet lingered on the mountain-tops, and the streams were swollen into torrents. The survey-lands lay on the Shenandoah, near the site of Winchester, and beyond the first range of the Alleghanies, on the south branch of the Potomac, about seventy miles above Harper's Ferry. This kind of life was well fitted to train young Washington for his future career: a knowledge of topography taught him how to select a ground for encampment or for battle; while hardy exercise and exposure invigorated a frame naturally athletic, and fitted him to endure the privations and encounter the dangers of military life. He now became acquainted with the temper and habits of the people of the frontier, and the Indians; and grew familiar with the wild country which was to be the scene of his early military operations. His regular pay was a doubloon (seven dollars and twenty cents) a day, and occasionally six pistoles (twenty-one dollars and sixty cents.)
Appointed by the president of William and Mary College, in July, 1749, a public surveyor, he continued to engage in this pursuit for three years, except during the rigor of the winter months. Lord Fairfax had taken up his residence at Greenway Court, thirteen miles southeast of the site of Winchester. A graduate of Oxford, accustomed to that society in England to which his rank entitled him, fond of literature, and having contributed some numbers to the Spectator, this nobleman, owing to a disappointment in love, had come to superintend his vast landed possessions, embracing twenty-one large counties, and live in the secluded Valley of the Shenandoah. Here Washington, the youthful surveyor, was a frequent inmate; and here he indulged his taste for hunting, and improved himself by reading and conversing with Lord Fairfax.
FOOTNOTES:
[453:A] Sparks' Writings of Washington, ii. 478; Irving's Washington, i. 59.
[453:B] At Bath, in Virginia.
[454:A] Sparks' Writings of Washington, ii. 481.
[454:B] Foote's Sketches, 219.
[456:A] Chalmers' Hist. of Revolt of Amer. Colonies, ii. 199.
[458:A] Bishop Meade's Old Churches, etc.
Chapter LX
French Encroachments--Mission of Washington--Virginia resists the French--First Engagement--Death of Jumonville-- Lieutenant-Colonel Washington retreats--Surrenders at Fort Necessity.
AT the age of nineteen, in 1751, Washington was appointed one of the adjutants-general of Virginia, with the rank of major. In the autumn of that year he accompanied his brother Lawrence, then in declining health, to Barbadoes, in the West Indies, who returned to Virginia, and after lingering for awhile died at Mount Vernon, aged thirty-four.
In the same year also died the Rev. William Dawson, Commissary and President of William and Mary College. Davies expresses veneration for his memory.
After the arrival of Governor Dinwiddie, the colony was divided into four military districts, and the northern one was allotted to Major Washington. France was now undertaking to stretch a chain of posts from Canada to Louisiana, in order to secure a control over the boundless and magnificent regions west of the Alleghanies, which she claimed by a vague title of La Salle's discovery. The French deposited, (1749,) under ground, at the mouth of the Kenhawa and other places, leaden plates, on which was inscribed the claim of Louis the Fifteenth to the whole country watered by the Ohio and its tributaries. England claimed the same territory upon a ground equally slender--the cession made by the Iroquois at the treaty of Lancaster. A more tenable ground was, that from the first discovery of Virginia, England had claimed the territory to the north and northwest from ocean to ocean, and that the region in question was the contiguous back country of her settlements. The title of the native tribes actually inhabiting the country commanded no consideration from the contending powers. The French troops had now commenced establishing posts in the territory on the Ohio claimed by Virginia. Dinwiddie having communicated information of these encroachments to his government, had been instructed to repel force by force if necessary, after he had remonstrated with them; he had also received a supply of cannon and warlike stores. A treaty with the Ohio tribes was held September, 1753, at Winchester, when, in exchange for presents of arms and ammunition, they promised their aid, and consented that a fortlet should be erected by the governor of Virginia on the Monongahela.
Dinwiddie, deeming it necessary to remonstrate against the French encroachments, found in Major Washington a trusty messenger, who cheerfully undertook the hazardous mission. Starting from Williamsburg on the last day of October, he reached Fredericksburg on the next day, and there engaged as French interpreter Jacob Van Braam, who had served in the Carthagena expedition under Lawrence Washington. At Alexandria they provided necessaries, and at Winchester baggage and horses, and reached Will's Creek, now Cumberland River, on the fourteenth of November. Thence, accompanied by Van Braam, Gist, and four other attendants, he traversed a savage wilderness, over rugged mountains covered with snow, and across rapid swollen rivers. He reconnoitred the face of the country with a sagacious eye, and selected the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers, where they form the beautiful Ohio, as an eligible site for a fort. Fort Du Quesne was afterwards erected there by the French. After conferring, through an Indian interpreter, with Tanacharisson, called the half-king, (as his authority was somewhat subordinate to that of the Iroquois,) Washington provided himself with Indian guides, and, accompanied by the half-king and some other chiefs, set out for the French post. Ascending the Alleghany River by way of Venango, he at length delivered Dinwiddie's letter to the French commander, Monsieur Le Gardeur de St. Pierre, a courteous Knight of the Order of St. Louis. Detained there some days, young Washington examined the fort, and prepared a plan and description of it. It was situated on a branch of French Creek, about fifteen miles south of Lake Erie, and about seven hundred and fifty from Williamsburg. When he departed with a sealed reply, a canoe was hospitably stocked with liquors and provisions, but the French gave him no little anxiety by their intrigues to win the half-king over to their interests, and to retain him at the fort. Getting away at last with much difficulty, after a perilous voyage of six days they reached Venango, where they met their horses. They growing weak, and being given up for packs, Washington put on an Indian dress and proceeded with the party for three days, when, committing the conduct of them to Van Braam, he determined to return in advance. With an Indian match-coat tied around, taking his papers with him, and a pack on his back and a gun in his hand, he proceeded on foot, accompanied by Gist. At a place of ill-omened name, Murderingtown, on the southeast fork of Beaver Creek, they met with a band of French Indians lying in wait for them, and one of them, being employed as a guide, fired at either Gist or the major, at the distance of fifteen steps, but missed. Gist would have killed the Indian at once, but he was prevented by the prudence of Washington. They, however, captured and detained him till nine o'clock at night, when releasing him, they pursued their course during the whole night. Upon reaching the Alleghany River they employed a whole day in making a raft with the aid only of a hatchet. Just as the sun was sinking behind the mountains they launched the raft and undertook to cross: the river was covered with ice, driving down the impetuous stream, by which, before they were half way over, they were blocked up and near being sunk. Washington, putting out his setting-pole to stop the raft, was thrown by the revulsion into the water, but recovered himself by catching hold of one of the logs. He and his companion, forced to abandon it, betook themselves to an island near at hand, where they passed the night, December the twenty-ninth, in wet clothes and without fire: Gist's hands and feet were frozen. In the morning they were able to cross on the ice, and they passed two or three days at a trading-post near the spot where the battle of the Monongahela was afterwards fought. Here they heard of the recent massacre of a white family on the banks of the Great Kenhawa. Washington visited Queen Aliquippa at the mouth of the Youghiogeny. At Gist's house, on the Monongahela, he purchased a horse, and, separating from this faithful companion, proceeded to Belvoir, where he rested one day, and arrived at Williamsburg on the 16th day of January, 1754, after an absence of eleven weeks, and a journey of fifteen hundred miles, one-half of it being through an untrodden wilderness. A journal which he kept was published in the colonial newspapers and in England. For this hazardous and painful journey he received no compensation save the bare amount of his expenses.
The governor and council resolved to raise two companies, of one hundred men each, the one to be enlisted by him at Alexandria, and the other by Captain Trent on the frontier, the command of both being given to Washington. He received orders to march as soon as practicable to the fork of the Ohio, and complete a fort, supposed to have been already commenced there by the Ohio Company. The assembly which met December, 1753, refused Dinwiddie supplies for resisting the French encroachments, "because they thought their privileges in danger," and they did not apprehend much danger from the French. The governor called the assembly together again in January, 1754, when at length, after much persuasion, they appropriated ten thousand pounds of the colonial currency for protecting the frontier against the hostile attempts of the French. The bill, however, was clogged with provisoes against the encroachments of prerogative. Dinwiddie increased the military force to a regiment of three hundred men, and the command was given to Colonel Joshua Fry, and Major Washington was made lieutenant-colonel. Cannon and other military equipments were sent to Alexandria. The English minister, the Earl of Holdernesse, also ordered the governor of New York to furnish two independent companies, and the governor of South Carolina one, to co-operate in this enterprise.
Early in April, 1754, Washington, with two companies, proceeded to the Great Meadows. At Will's Creek, on the twenty-fifth, he learned that an ensign, in command of Trent's company, had surrendered, on the seventeenth, the unfinished fort at the fork of the Ohio, (now Pittsburg,) to a large French force, which had come down under Contrecoeur from Venango, with many pieces of cannon, batteaux, canoes, and a large body of men. This was regarded as the first open act of hostility between France and England in North America. In the war which ensued Great Britain indeed triumphed gloriously, yet that triumph served only to bring on in its train the revolt of the colonies and the dismemberment of the empire.
Washington, upon hearing of the surrender of the fort, marched slowly for the mouth of Red Stone Creek, preparing the roads for the passage of cannon which were to follow. Governor Dinwiddie, about the same time, repaired to Winchester for the purpose of holding a treaty with the Indians, which, however, failed, only two or three chiefs of inferior note attending.
Virginia refused to send delegates to the Albany Convention; and the assembly and governor united in disapproving of Franklin's Plan of Union, adopted on that occasion. Dinwiddie during the previous year had proposed to Lord Halifax a plan of colonial government, dividing the colonies into two districts, northern and southern, in each of which there should be a congress, or general council, for the regulation of their respective interests.
The money appropriated by the assembly for the support of the troops was expended under the care of a committee of the assembly, associated with the governor, and the niggardly economy of this committee gave great disgust to Washington and the officers under him. He declared that he would prefer serving as a volunteer to "slaving dangerously for the shadow of pay through woods, rocks, mountains." Expecting a collision with the enemy, he wrote to Governor Dinwiddie, "We have prepared a charming field for an encounter." Ascertaining that a French reconnoitering detachment was near his camp, and believing their intentions hostile, he determined to anticipate them. Guided by friendly Indians, in a dark and rainy night he approached the French encampment, and early on the twenty-eighth of May, with forty of his own men and a few Indians, surrounded the French. A skirmish ensued; M. De Jumonville, the officer in command, and ten of his party were killed, and twenty-two made prisoners. Several of them appeared to have a mixture of Indian blood in them. The death of Jumonville created no little indignation in France, and became the subject of a French poem. It is said that Washington, in referring to this affair, remarked that "he knew of no music so pleasing as the whistling of bullets." This being mentioned in the presence of George the Second, he observed, "He would not say so if he had been used to hear many." The king had himself fought at the battle of Dettingen. Inquiry being many years afterwards made of Washington as to the expression, he replied, "If I said so, it was when I was young." Charles the Twelfth, of Sweden, expressed delight when he first heard the whistling of bullets. Of Washington's men one was killed and two or three were wounded. While the regiment was on its march to join the detachment in advance, the command devolved, at the end of May, on Lieutenant-Colonel Washington by the death of Colonel Fry. This officer, a native of England, was educated at Oxford. Coming over to Virginia, he appears to have resided for a time in the County of Essex. He was some time professor of mathematics in the College of William and Mary, and afterwards a member of the house of burgesses, and engaged in running a boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina to the westward. In concert with Peter Jefferson, father of Thomas, he made a map of Virginia, and he was, as has been mentioned before, a commissioner at the treaty of Logstown, in June, 1752. He died universally lamented.
Washington, in a letter addressed to Governor Dinwiddie about this time, said: "For my own part, I can answer that I have a constitution hardy enough to encounter and undergo the most severe trials, and I flatter myself, resolution to face what any man dares, as shall be proved when it comes to the test, which I believe we are upon the borders of." The provisions of the detachment being nearly exhausted, and the ground occupied disadvantageous, and the French at the fork of the Ohio, now called Fort Du Quesne, having been reinforced, and being about to march against the English, a council of war, held June the twenty-eighth, at Gist's house, thirteen miles beyond the Great Meadows, advised a retreat, and Colonel Washington fell back to the post at the Great Meadows, now styled Fort Necessity, which he reached on the first of July. His force, amounting, with the addition of an independent company of South Carolinians, to about four hundred men, were at once set to work to raise a breast-work and to strengthen the fortification as far as possible. Forty or fifty Indian families took shelter in the fort, and among them Tanacharisson, or the half-king, and Queen Aliquippa. They proved to be of more trouble than advantage, being as spies and scouts of some service when rewarded, but in the fort useless. Before the completion of the ditch, M. De Villiers, a brother of De Jumonville, appeared on the 3d of July, 1754, in front of the fort with nine hundred men, and at eleven o'clock A.M., commenced an attack by firing at the distance of six hundred yards, but without effect. The assailants fought, under cover of the trees and high grass, on rising ground near the fort. They were received with intrepidity by the Americans. Some of the Indians climbed up trees overlooking the fort, and fired on Washington's men, who returned the compliment in such style that the red men slipped down the trees with the celerity of monkeys, which excited a loud laugh among the Virginians.
The rain fell heavily during the day; the trenches were filled with water; and many of the arms of Washington's men were out of order. The desultory engagement lasted till eight o'clock in the evening, when the French commander, having twice sounded a parley, and the stock of provisions and ammunition in the fort being much reduced, it was accepted. About midnight, during a heavy rain, one half of the garrison being drunk, a capitulation took place, after the articles had been modified in some points at Washington's instance. The French at first demanded a surrender of the cannon; but this being resisted it was agreed that they should be destroyed, except one small piece reserved by the garrison upon the point of honor; but which they were eventually unable to remove.
These guns, probably only spiked and abandoned, were subsequently restored, and lay for a long time on the Great Meadows. After the Revolution it was an amusement of settlers moving westward, to discharge them. They were at last removed to Kentucky.
The troops were to retain their other arms and baggage; to march out with drums beating and colors flying, and return home unmolested. The terms of the surrender, as published at the time from the duplicate copy retained by Colonel Washington, implied ("by the too great condescension of Van Braam," the interpreter) an acknowledgment on his part that M. de Jumonville had been "assassinated." It appears that Washington was misled by the inaccuracy of Van Braam in translating the word, he being a Dutchman, and the only officer in the garrison who was acquainted with the French language. It was so stormy at the time that he could not give a written translation of the articles, and they could scarcely keep a candle lighted to read them by, so that it became necessary to rely upon the interpreter's word. The American officers present afterwards averred that the word "assassination" was not mentioned, and that the terms employed were, "the death of Jumonville." The affair is involved in obscurity: for why should the French require Washington to acknowledge himself the author of "his death," unless the killing was unjustifiable? On the other hand, with what consistency could Villiers allow such honorable terms in the same articles in which it was demanded of Washington that he should sign a confession of his own disgrace?
Of the Virginia regiment, three hundred and five in number, twelve were killed, and forty-three wounded. The loss sustained by Captain Mackay's Independent Company was not ascertained. Villiers' loss was three killed, and seventeen dangerously wounded. The horses and cattle having been captured or killed by the enemy, it was found necessary to abandon a large part of the baggage and stores, and to convey the remainder, with the wounded, on the backs of the soldiers. Washington had agreed to restore the prisoners taken at the skirmish with Jumonville; and to insure this, two captains, Van Braam and Stobo, were given up as hostages.
Washington, early on the 4th of July, 1754, perhaps the most humiliating of his life, marched out according to the terms; but in the confusion the Virginia standard, which was very large, was left behind, and was carried off in triumph by the enemy. But the regimental colors were preserved. In a short time the Virginians met a body of Indians who plundered the baggage, and were with difficulty restrained from attacking the men. Washington hastened back to Will's Creek, whence he proceeded to Williamsburg. The assembly voted him and his officers thanks, and gave him three hundred pistoles to be distributed among his men; but dissatisfaction was expressed at some of the articles of capitulation when they came to be made public.[468:A] Among the prisoners taken at the time when Jumonville was killed, was La Force, who, on account of his influence among the Indians, was looked upon as a dangerous character, and was imprisoned at Williamsburg. He managed to escape from prison in the summer of 1756, but was recaptured near West Point; and he was now kept in irons. This severe usage, and his being detained by Dinwiddie a prisoner, in violation of the treaty of Fort Necessity, cannot be justified, and was unjust to Stobo and Van Braam, who were, consequently, long retained as prisoners of war, and for some time confined in prison at Quebec. It is true that the French suffered the Indians to violate the article of the treaty securing the troops from molestation; but an excuse might be found in the difficulty of restraining savages.
Much blame was laid on poor Van Braam at the time, and in the thanks voted by the assembly his name was excepted, as having acted treacherously in interpreting the treaty. Washington, who had shortly before the surrender pronounced him "an experienced, good officer, and very worthy of the command he has enjoyed," appears to have been at a loss whether to attribute his misinterpretation to "evil intentions or negligence," but was rather disposed to believe that it was owing to his being but little acquainted with the English language. Van Braam appears to have been rather hardly judged in this affair.[468:B] Stobo, a native of Scotland, who emigrated early to Virginia, was brave, energetic, and a man of genius, but eccentric; his fidelity was never doubted. He was an acquaintance of David Hume, and a friend of Smollett, and was, it is said, the original of the character of Lismahago.
FOOTNOTES:
[468:A] Washington's Writings, ii. 456.
[468:B] Ibid., ii. 365, 456; Va. Hist. Register, v. 194; Hist. of Expedition against Fort Du Quesne, edited by Winthrop Sargent, Esq., and published by the Pennsylvania Hist. Society, 51.
Chapter LXI
1754-1755.
Dinwiddie's injudicious Orders--Washington resigns--Statistics-- Braddock's arrival--Washington joins him as aid-de-camp-- Braddock's Expedition--His Defeat--Washington's Bravery--His account of the Defeat.
THE Virginia regiment quartered at Winchester being re-enforced by some companies from Maryland and North Carolina, Dinwiddie injudiciously ordered this force to march at once again over the Alleghanies, and expel the French from Fort Du Quesne, or build another near it. This little army was under command of Colonel Innes, of North Carolina, who, having brought three hundred and fifty men with him from that colony, had been appointed, upon Colonel Fry's death, commander-in-chief. Innes had been with Lawrence Washington at Carthagena. The force under Innes did not exceed half the number of the enemy, and was unprovided for a winter campaign. The assembly making no appropriation for the expedition, it was fortunately abandoned.
Two independent companies, ordered from New York by Dinwiddie, arrived in Hampton Roads, in his majesty's ship Centaur, Captain Dudley Digges, in June, 1754. They were marched to Will's Creek, where they were joined by an independent company from South Carolina; and these troops, under command of Colonel Innes, during the autumn, built Fort Cumberland in the fork between Will's Creek and the north branch of the Potomac, on the Maryland side, about fifty-five miles northwest of Winchester. It was called after the Duke of Cumberland, captain-general of the British army. The fort was mounted with ten four-pounders, and some swivels; and contained magazines and barracks. A prosperous town has arisen on the spot.
The North Carolina troops at Winchester, not duly receiving their pay, disbanded themselves in a disorderly way, and returned home. Dinwiddie wrote to the board of trade that "the progress of the French would never be effectually opposed, but by means of an act of parliament compelling the colonies to contribute to the common cause independently of assemblies;" and to the secretary of state: "I know of no method to compel them to their duty to the king, but by an act of parliament for a general poll-tax of two shillings and six pence a head, from all the colonies on this continent." This scheme had been suggested a long time before.
In 1738 the assembly of Virginia, which had long exercised the right of choosing a treasurer, had placed their speaker, John Robinson, in that office; and he continuing to hold both places for many years, exerted an undue influence over the assembly by lending the public money to the members. Dinwiddie ruled on ordinary occasions, but Robinson was dictator in all extraordinary emergencies.[470:A]
When the assembly met in October, 1754, they granted twenty thousand pounds for the public exigencies; Maryland and New York also contributed their quotas to the common cause; and Dinwiddie received ten thousand pounds from England. He now enlarged the Virginia forces to ten companies, under the pretext of peremptory orders from England, and made each of them independent, with a view, as was alleged, of terminating the disputes between the regular and provincial officers respecting command. The effect of this upon Washington would have been to reduce him to the grade of captain, and to subject him to officers whom he had commanded; officers of the same rank, but holding the king's commission, would rank before him. This would have been the more mortifying to him, after the catastrophe of the Great Meadows. He, therefore, although his inclinations were still strongly bent to arms, resigned, and passed the winter at Mount Vernon. He was now twenty-two years of age.
In the meanwhile Horatio Sharpe, professionally a military man, and Lord Baltimore's lieutenant-governor of Maryland, was appointed by the crown commander-in-chief of the forces against the French. Colonel William Fitzhugh, of Virginia, who was to command in the absence of Sharpe, had endeavored to persuade Washington to continue in the service, retaining for the present his commission of colonel. Replying in November, 1754, he said: "If you think me capable of holding a commission that has neither rank nor emolument annexed to it, you must entertain a very contemptible opinion of my weakness, and believe me to be more empty than the commission itself." Washington was dissatisfied with Dinwiddie's action in this matter.
The population of the American colonies at this period was estimated at 1,485,000, of whom 292,000 were blacks, and the number of fighting men 240,000; while the French population in Canada was not over 90,000. Virginia was reckoned the first of the colonies in power, Massachusetts the second, Pennsylvania the third, and Maryland the fourth; and either one of these had greater resources than Canada. Yet the power of the French was more concentrated; they were better fitted for the emergencies of the war, and they had more regular troops.[471:A] The colonies were not united in purpose; and the Virginians were described by Dinwiddie as "an indolent people, and without military ardor."
Sharpe's appointment was sent over by Arthur Dobbs, Governor of North Carolina, who arrived in Hampton Roads on the first of October. Sharpe, proceeding to Williamsburg, concerted with Dinwiddie and Dobbs a plan of operations against Fort Du Quesne. This plan was abandoned, owing to intelligence of the French being re-enforced by numerous Indian allies.
In February, 1755, General Edward Braddock, newly appointed commander-in-chief of all the military forces in America, arrived in Virginia with a small part of the troops of the intended expedition, the remainder arriving afterwards, being two British regiments, each consisting of five hundred men, the forty-fourth commanded by Sir Peter Halket, the forty-eighth by Colonel Dunbar. Braddock went immediately to Williamsburg to confer with Dinwiddie. Sir John St. Clair, who had come over to America some time before, was already there awaiting the general's arrival.
In compliance with Braddock's invitation, dated the second of March, Washington entered his military family as a volunteer, retaining his former rank. This proceeding aroused his mother's tender solicitude, and she hastened to Mount Vernon to give expression to it.
From Williamsburg Braddock proceeded to Alexandria, then sometimes called Belhaven, the original name, where he made his headquarters, the troops being quartered in that place and the neighborhood until they marched for Will's Creek. On the thirteenth of April the governors of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, met General Braddock at Alexandria, to concert a plan of operations. Washington was courteously received by the governors, especially by Shirley, with whose manners and character he was quite fascinated. Overtaking Braddock (who marched from Alexandria on the twentieth) at Frederictown, Maryland, he accompanied him to Winchester, and thence to Fort Cumberland. Early in May Washington was made an aid-de-camp to the general. Being dispatched to Williamsburg to convey money for the army-chest, he returned to the camp with it on the thirtieth.
The army consisted of the two regiments of British regulars, together originally one thousand men, and augmented by Virginia and Maryland levies to fourteen hundred. The Virginia captains were Waggener, Cock, Hogg, Stephen, Poulson, Peyrouny, Mercer, and Stuart. The provincials included the fragments of two independent companies from New York, one of which was commanded by Captain Horatio Gates, afterwards a major-general in the revolutionary war. Of the remaining provincials one hundred were pioneers and guides, called Hatchetmen: there were besides a troop of Virginia light-horse, and a few Indians. Thirty sailors were detached by Commodore Keppel, commander of the fleet that brought over the forces. The total effective force was about two thousand one hundred and fifty, and they were accompanied by the usual number of non-combatants. The army was detained by the difficulty of procuring provisions and conveyances. The apathy of the legislatures and the bad faith of the contractors, so irritated Braddock that he indulged in sweeping denunciations against the colonies. These led to frequent disputes between him and Washington, who found the exasperated general deaf to his arguments on that subject. The plan suggested by him of employing pack-horses for transportation, instead of wagons, was afterwards in some measure adopted.
Benjamin Franklin, deputy postmaster-general of the colonies, who, at Governor Shirley's instance, had accompanied him to the congress at Alexandria, visited Braddock at Frederictown, for the purpose of opening a post-route between Will's Creek and Philadelphia. Learning the general's embarrassment, he undertook to procure the requisite number of wagons and horses from the Pennsylvania farmers. Issuing a handbill addressed to their interests and their fears, and exciting among the Germans an apprehension of an arbitrary impressment to be enforced by Sir John St. Clair, "the Hussar," he was soon able to provide the general with the means of transportation.[473:A] It was a long time before Franklin recovered compensation for the farmers; Governor Shirley at length paid the greater part of the amount, twenty thousand pounds; but it is said that owing to the neglect of Lord Loudoun, Franklin was never wholly repaid. Washington and Franklin were both held in high estimation by Braddock, and they were unconsciously co-operating with him in a war destined in its unforeseen consequences to dismember the British empire.
Braddock's army, with its baggage extending (along a road twelve feet wide) sometimes four miles in length, moved from Fort Cumberland, at the mouth of Will's Creek, early in June, and advanced slowly and with difficulty, five miles being considered a good day's march. There was much sickness among the soldiers: Washington was seized with a fever, and obliged to travel in a covered wagon. Braddock, however, continued to consult him, and he advised the general to disencumber himself of his heavy guns and unnecessary baggage, to leave them with a rear division, and to press forward expeditiously to Fort Du Quesne. In a council of war it was determined that Braddock should advance as rapidly as possible with twelve hundred select men, and Colonel Dunbar follow on slowly with a rear-guard of about six hundred,--a number of the soldiers being disabled by sickness. The advance corps proceeded only nineteen miles in four days, losing occasionally a straggler, cut off by the French and Indian scouts. Trees were found near the road stripped of their barks and painted, and on them the French had written many of their names and the number of scalps recently taken, with many insolent threats and scurrilous bravados.
Washington was now (by the general's order) compelled to stop, his physician declaring that his life would be jeoparded by a continuance with the army, and Braddock promising that he should be brought up with it before it reached Fort Du Quesne. On the day before the battle of the Monongahela, Washington, in a wagon, rejoined the army, at the mouth of the Youghiogany River, and fifteen miles from Fort Du Quesne. On the morning of Wednesday, the 9th of July, 1755, the troops, in high spirits, confident of entering the gates of Fort Du Quesne triumphantly in a few hours, crossed the Monongahela, and advanced along the southern margin. Washington, in after-life, was heard to declare it the most beautiful spectacle that he had ever witnessed--the brilliant uniform of the soldiers, arranged in columns and marching in exact order; the sun gleaming on their burnished arms; the Monongahela flowing tranquilly by on the one hand, on the other, the primeval forest projecting its shadows in sombre magnificence. At one o'clock the army again crossed the river at a second ford ten miles from Fort Du Quesne. From the river a level plain extends northward nearly half a mile, thence the ground, gradually ascending, terminates in hills. The road from the fording-place to the fort led across this plain, up this ascent, and through an uneven country covered with woods.[474:A] Beyond the plain on both sides of the road were ravines unnoticed by the English. Three hundred men, under Lieutenant-Colonel Gage, subsequently commander of the British troops at Boston, made the advanced party, and it was immediately followed by another of two hundred. Next came Braddock with the artillery, the main body, and the baggage. Brigadier-General Sir Peter Halket was second in command. No sooner had the army crossed the river, at the second ford, than a sharp firing was heard upon the advanced parties, who were now ascending the hill about a hundred yards beyond the edge of the plain.[475:A]
At an early hour De Beaujeu had been detached from Fort Du Quesne, at the head of about two hundred and thirty French and Canadians, and six hundred and thirty Indian savages, with the design of attacking the English at an advantageous ground selected on the preceding evening. Before reaching it he came upon the English. The greater part of Gage's command was advanced beyond the spot where the main battle was fought, when Mr. Gordon, one of the engineers in front marking out the road, perceived the enemy bounding forward. Before them with long leaps came Beaujeu, the gay hunting-shirt and silver gorget denoting him as the chief. Halting he waved his hat above his head, and at this signal the Indians dispersed themselves to the right and left, throwing themselves flat on the ground, or gliding behind rocks and trees into the ravines. The French occupied the centre of the Indian semicircle, and a fierce attack was commenced. Gage's troops, recovering from their first surprise, opened a fire of grape and musketry. Beaujeu and twelve others fell dead upon the spot; the Indians, astonished by the report of the cannon, began to fly. Rallied by Dumas, who succeeded Beaujeu, they resumed the combat: the French in front, the Indians on the flank. For a time the issue was doubtful: cries of "Vive le Roi" were answered by the cheers of the English. But while the officers of the Forty-fourth led on their men with waving swords, the enemy, concealed in the woods and ravines, secure and invisible, kept up a steady, well-aimed, and fatal fire. Their position was only discovered by the smoke of their muskets. Gage, not reinforcing his flanking parties, they were driven in, and the English, instead of advancing upon the hidden enemy, returned a random and ineffectual fire in full column.
In the mean time Braddock sent forward Lieutenant-Colonel Burton with the vanguard. And while he was forming his men to face a rising ground on the right, the advanced detachment, overwhelmed with consternation by the savage war-whoop and the mysterious danger, fell back upon him in great confusion, communicating a panic from which they could not be recovered. Braddock now came up and endeavored to form the two regiments under their colors, but neither entreaties nor threats could prevail. The baggage in the rear was attacked, and many horses killed; some of the drivers fell, the rest escaped by flight. Two of the cannon flanking the baggage for some time protected it from the Indians; the others fired away most of their ammunition, and were of some service in awing the enemy, but could do but little execution against a concealed foe. The enemy extended from front to rear, and fired upon every part at once. The general finding it impossible to persuade his men to advance, many officers falling, and no enemy appearing in sight, endeavored to effect a retreat in good order, but such was the panic that he could not succeed. They were loading as fast as possible and firing in the air.
Braddock and his officers made every effort to rally them, but in vain; in this confusion and dismay they remained in a road twelve feet wide, enclosed by woods, for three hours, huddled together, exposed to the insidious fire, doing the enemy little hurt, and shooting one another. None of the survivors could afterwards say that they saw one hundred of the enemy, and many of the officers that were in the heat of the action would not assert that they saw one.[477:A]
The Virginia troops preserved their presence of mind, and behaved with the utmost bravery, adopting the Indian mode of combat, and fighting each man for himself behind a tree. This was done in spite of the orders of Braddock, who still endeavored to form his men into platoons and columns, as if they had been manoeuvring in the plains of Flanders or parading in Hyde Park. Washington and Sir Peter Halket in vain advised him to allow the men to shelter themselves: he stormed at such as attempted to take to the trees, calling them cowards, and striking them with his sword. Captain Waggoner, of the Virginia troops, resolved to take advantage of the trunk of a tree five feet in diameter, lying athwart the brow of a hill. With shouldered firelocks he marched a party of eighty men toward it, and losing but three men on the way, the remainder throwing themselves behind it, opened a hot fire upon the enemy. But no sooner were the flash and report of their muskets perceived by the mob behind, than a general discharge was poured upon them, by which fifty were killed and the rest compelled to fly.[477:B]
The French and Indians, concealed in deep ravines, and behind trees, and logs, and high grass, and tangled undergrowth, kept up a deadly fire, singling out their victims. The mounted officers were especially aimed at, and shortly after the commencement of the engagement, Washington was the only aid not wounded. Although still feeble from the effects of his illness, on him now was devolved the whole duty of carrying the general's orders, and he rode a conspicuous mark in every direction. Two horses were killed under him, four bullets penetrated his coat, but he escaped unhurt, while every other officer on horseback was either killed or wounded. Dr. Craik afterwards said: "I expected every moment to see him fall. His duty and situation exposed him to every danger. Nothing but the superintending care of Providence could have saved him from the fate of all around him." Washington, writing to his brother, said: "By the all-powerful dispensations of Providence I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation, for I had four bullets through my coat and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, although death was levelling my companions on every side."
More than half of the army were killed or wounded, two-thirds of them, according to Washington's conjecture, by their own bullets; Sir Peter Halket was killed on the field; Shirley, Braddock's secretary, was shot through the head; Colonels Burton, Gage, and Orme, Major Sparks, Brigade-Major Halket, Captain Morris, etc., were wounded. Out of eighty-six officers, twenty-six were killed and thirty-seven wounded. The whole number of killed was estimated at four hundred and fifty-six, wounded four hundred and twenty one, the greater part of whom were brought off; the aggregate loss, eight hundred and seventy-seven. The enemy's force, variously estimated, did not exceed eight hundred and fifty men, of whom six hundred, it was conjectured, were Indians. The French loss was twenty-eight killed, including three officers, one of whom, Beaujeu, was chief in command; and twenty-nine badly wounded, including two officers. The French and Indians being covered by ravines, the balls of the English passed harmless over their heads; while a charge with the bayonet, or raking the ravines with cannon, would have at once driven them from their lurking places, and put them to flight, or, at the least, dispersed them in the woods. Any movement would have been better than standing still.
During the action, or massacre, of three hours, Braddock had three horses killed under him, and two disabled. At five o'clock in the afternoon, while beneath a large tree standing between the heads of two ravines, and in the act of giving an order, he received a mortal wound. Falling from his horse, he lay helpless on the ground, surrounded by the dead. His army having fired away all their ammunition, now fled in disorder back to the Monongahela. Pursued to the water's edge by a party of savages, the regulars threw away arms, accoutrements, and even clothing, that they might run the faster. Many were tomahawked at the fording-place; but those who crossed were not pursued, as the Indians returned to the harvest of plunder. The provincials, better acquainted with Indian warfare were less disconcerted, and retreated with more composure.
Not one of his British soldiers could be prevailed upon to stay and aid in bearing off the wounded general. In vain Orme offered them a purse of sixty guineas. Braddock begged his faithful friends to provide for their own safety, and declared his resolution to die on the field. Orme disregarded these desperate injunctions; and Captain Stewart, of the Virginia Light-horse, (attached to the general's person,) and his servant, together with another American officer, hastening to Orme's relief, brought off Braddock, at first on a small tumbrel, then on a horse, lastly by the soldiers.
According to Washington's account, in a letter written to Dinwiddie: "They were struck with such an inconceivable panic, that nothing but confusion and disobedience of orders prevailed among them. The officers in general behaved with incomparable bravery, for which they greatly suffered, there being upwards of sixty killed and wounded, a large proportion out of what we had. The Virginia companies behaved like men and died like soldiers; for, I believe, out of three companies on the ground that day, scarcely thirty men were left alive. Captain Peyrouny, a Frenchman by birth, and all his officers down to a corporal, were killed. Captain Poulson had almost as hard a fate, for only one of his escaped. In short, the dastardly behavior of the regular troops (so called) exposed those who were inclined to do their duty to almost certain death; and, at length, in spite of every effort to the contrary, they broke and ran like sheep before hounds, leaving the artillery, ammunition, provisions, baggage, and, in short, everything a prey to the enemy; and when we endeavored to rally them in hopes of regaining the ground and what we had left upon it, it was with as little success as if we had attempted to have stopped the wild bears of the mountains, or the rivulets with our feet; for they would break by in spite of every effort to prevent it."
Braddock was brave and accomplished in European tactics; but not an officer of that comprehensive genius which knows how to bend and accommodate himself to circumstances. Burke says that a wise statesman knows how to be governed by circumstances: the maxim applies as well to a military commander. Braddock, headstrong, passionate, irritated, not without just grounds, against the provinces, and pursuing the policy of the British government to rely mainly on the forces sent over, and to treat the colonial troops as inferior and only secondary, rejected the proposal of Washington to lead in advance the provincials, who, accustomed to border warfare, knew better how to cope with a savage foe.[480:A] Braddock, however, showed that although he could not retrieve these errors, nor reclaim a degenerate soldiery, he could at any rate fall like a soldier.[480:B]
Although no further pursued, the remainder of the army continued their flight during the night and the next day. Braddock continued for two days to give orders; and it was in compliance with them that the greater part of the artillery, ammunition, and other stores were destroyed. It was not until the thirteenth that the general uttered a word, except for military directions. He then bestowed the warmest praise on his gallant officers, and bequeathed, as is said, his charger, and his body-servant, Bishop, to Washington.[480:C] The dying Braddock ejaculated in reference to the defeat, "Who would have thought it?" Turning to Orme he remarked, "We shall better know how to deal with them another time;" and in a few moments expired, at eight o'clock, in the evening of Sunday, the 13th of July, 1755, at the Great Meadows. On the next morning he was buried in the road, near Fort Necessity, Washington, in the absence of the chaplain, who was wounded, reading the funeral service. Washington retired to Mount Vernon, oppressed with the sad retrospect of the recent disaster. But his reputation was greatly elevated by his signal gallantry on this occasion. Such dreary portals open the road of fame.
The green and bosky scene of battle was strewn with the wounded and the dead. Toward evening the forest resounded with the exulting cries and war-whoop of the returning French and Indians, the firing of small arms, and the responsive roar of the cannon at the fort. A lonely American prisoner confined there listened during this anxious day to the various sounds, and with peering eye explored the scene. Presently he saw the greater part of the savages, painted and blood-stained, bringing scalps, and rejoicing in the possession of grenadiers' caps, and the laced hats and splendid regimentals of the English officers. Next succeeded the French, escorting a long train of pack-horses laden with plunder. Last of all, just before sunset, appeared a party of Indians conducting twelve British regulars, naked, their faces blackened, their hands tied behind them. In a short while they were burned to death on the opposite bank of the Ohio, with every circumstance of studied barbarity and inhuman torture, the French garrison crowding the ramparts of the fort to witness the spectacle.
The remains of the defeated detachment retreated to the rear division in precipitate disorder, leaving the road behind them strewed with signs of the disaster. Shortly after, Colonel Dunbar marched with the remaining regulars to Philadelphia. Colonel Washington returned home, mortified and indignant at the conduct of the regular troops.
FOOTNOTES:
[470:A] Chalmers' Revolt, ii. 353.
[471:A] Chalmers' Revolt, ii. 273.
[473:A] Gordon's Hist. of Pa.; Braddock's Expedition, 163.
[474:A] A plan of the ground is given in Washington's Writings, ii. 90.
[475:A] The surprise of the Roman army under Titurius Sabinus on his march, by the Gauls (as described by Cæsar) resembles Braddock's defeat in several particulars.
"At hostes, posteaquam ex nocturno fremitu vigiliis que de profectione eorum senserunt, collocatis insidiis bipartito in silvis opportuno atque occulto loco, a millibus passuum circiter duobus, Romanorum adventum expectabant: et cum se major pars agminis in magnam convallem demisisset, ex utraque parte ejus vallis subito se ostenderunt, novissimosque premere et primos prohibere ascensu atque iniquissimo nostris loco proelium committere coeperunt." Lucius Cotta was the Washington of that defeat: but he fell in the general massacre. "At Cotta qui cogitasset hæc posse in itinere accidere, atque ob eam causam profectionis auctor non fuisset, nulla in re communi saluti deerat, et in appellandis cohortandisque militibus, imperatoris, et in pugna, militis officia præstabat."
The following sentence describes the war-whoop: "Tum vero suo more victoriam conclamant, atque ululatum tollunt, impetuque in nostros facto, ordines perturbant."
[477:A] Bancroft, iv. 189.
[477:B] Braddock's Expedition, 231.
[480:A] Chalmers' Hist. of Revolt, ii. 276. True to his unvarying prejudice against the colonies, he justifies the conduct of Braddock.
[480:B] The History of Braddock's Expedition, by Winthrop Sargent, Esq., is full, elaborate, and authentic. The volume, a beautiful specimen of typography, was printed, 1856, by Messrs. J. B. Lippincott & Co., for the Pennsylvania Historical Society. I am indebted to Townsend Ward, Esq., Librarian, for a copy of it.
[480:C] Gilbert, a slave, is said to have been with Washington at the battle of the Monongahela, and at the siege of York. John Alton is likewise mentioned as a servant attending him during Braddock's expedition.
Chapter LXII
1755-1756.
Stith--Davies visits England and Scotland--Patriotic Discourse-- Waddel, the Blind Preacher--Washington made Colonel of Virginia Regiment--Indian Incursions--Washington visits Boston.
DURING the year 1755 died the Rev. William Stith, president of the College of William and Mary, and author of an excellent "History of Virginia," from the first settlement to the dissolution of the London Company. He was of exemplary character and catholic spirit, a friend of well-regulated liberty, and a true patriot.
The Rev. Samuel Davies, during the year 1754, went on a mission to England and Scotland for the purpose of raising a fund for the endowment of a college at Princeton, New Jersey. His eloquence commanded admiration in the mother country. The English Presbyterians he found sadly fallen away from the doctrines of the Reformation, and their clergy, although learned and able, deeply infected with the "modish divinity"--Socinianism and Arminianism. In Scotland, where he met a warm welcome, he found the young clergy no less imbued with the "modish divinity," and the cause of religion and the spiritual independence of the kirk lamentably impaired by the overweening influence of secular patronage. Davies was of opinion that in genuine piety the Methodists, who commenced their reform in the Church of England, ranked the highest. He returned to Virginia early in 1755, and during the French and Indian wars he often employed his eloquence in arousing the patriotism of the Virginians.
After Braddock's defeat, such was the general consternation that many seemed ready to desert the country. On the 20th of July, 1755, Davies delivered a discourse, in which he declared: "Christians should be patriots. What is that religion good for that leaves men cowards upon the appearance of danger? And permit me to say, that I am particularly solicitous that you, my brethren of the dissenters, should act with honor and spirit in this juncture, as it becomes loyal subjects, lovers of your country, and courageous Christians. That is a mean, sordid, cowardly soul that would abandon his country and shift for his own little self, when there is any probability of defending it. To give the greater weight to what I say, I may take the liberty to tell you, I have as little personal interest, as little to lose in the colony, as most of you. If I consulted either my safety or my temporal interest, I should soon remove with my family to Great Britain, or the Northern colonies, where I have had very inviting offers. Nature has not formed me for a military life, nor furnished me with any great degree of fortitude and courage; yet I must declare, that after the most calm and impartial deliberation, I am determined not to leave my country while there is any prospect of defending it."[483:A]
Dejection and alarm vanished under his eloquence, and at the conclusion of his address every man seemed to say, "Let us march against the enemy!" A patriotic discourse was delivered by him on the 17th of August, 1755, before Captain Overton's company of Independent Volunteers, the first volunteer company raised in Virginia after Braddock's defeat. In a note appended to this discourse, Davies said: "As a remarkable instance of this, I may point out to the public that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country."[483:B]
It is probable that Patrick Henry caught the spark of eloquence from Davies, as in his early youth, and in after years, he often heard him preach. They were alike gifted with a profound sensibility. Henry always remarked that Mr. Davies was "the greatest orator he had ever heard." Presbyterianism steadily advanced in Virginia under the auspices of Davies and his successors, particularly Graham, Smith, Waddell, "the blind preacher" of Wirt's "British Spy," and Brown.
The Rev. James Waddell, a Presbyterian minister, was born in the North of Ireland, in July, 1739, as is believed. He was brought over in his infancy by his parents to America; they settled in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania, on White-clay Creek. James was sent to school at Nottingham to Dr. Finley, afterwards president of the College of New Jersey. In the school young Waddell made such proficiency in his studies as to become an assistant teacher; and Dr. Benjamin Rush, the signer of the Declaration of Independence, recited lessons to him there. He devoted his attention chiefly to the classics, in which he became very well versed. He was afterwards an assistant to the elder Smith, father of the Rev. John Blair Smith, president of Hampden Sidney College, Virginia, and of the Rev. Samuel Stanhope Smith, president of the College of New Jersey. Waddell, intending to pursue the vocation of a teacher, and to settle with that view at Charleston, in South Carolina, set out for the South. In passing through Virginia he met with the celebrated preacher, Davies, and that incident gave a different turn to his life. Shortly after, he became an assistant to the Rev. Mr. Todd in his school in the County of Louisa, with whom he studied theology. He was licensed to preach in 1761, and ordained in the following year, when he settled as pastor in Lancaster County. Here, about the year 1768, he married Mary, daughter of Colonel James Gordon, of that county,[484:A] a wealthy and influential man. In the division of the Presbyterian Church Mr. Waddell was of the "New Side," as it was termed. The Rev. Samuel Davies often preached to Mr. Waddell's congregation; as also did Whitefield several times.
In the year 1776 Mr. Waddell removed from Lower Virginia, in very feeble health, to Augusta County. His salary was now only forty-five pounds, Virginia currency, per annum. In 1783 he came to reside at an estate purchased by him, and called Hopewell, at the junction of Louisa, Orange, and Albemarle--the dwelling-house being in Louisa. Here he again became a classical teacher, receiving pupils in his own house. James Barbour, afterwards governor of Virginia, was one of these, and Merriwether Lewis, the companion of Clarke in the exploration beyond the Rocky Mountains, another. Mr. Waddell resided in Louisa County about twenty years, and died there, and was buried, according to his request, in his garden. During his residence here he was, for a part of the time, deprived of his sight; but he continued to preach. In person he was tall and erect; his complexion fair, with a light blue eye. His deportment was dignified; his manners elegant and graceful. He is represented by Mr. Wirt, in the "British Spy," as preaching in a white linen cap; this was, indeed, a part of his domestic costume, but when he went abroad he always wore a large full-bottomed wig, perfectly white. Mr. Wirt held him as equal to Patrick Henry, in a different species of oratory. In regard to place, time, costume, and lesser particulars, Mr. Wirt used an allowable liberty in grouping together incidents which had occurred apart, and perhaps imagining, as in a sermon, expressions which had been uttered at the fire-side. Patrick Henry's opinion of Mr. Waddell's eloquence has been before mentioned. It was the remark of another cotemporary, that when he preached, "whole congregations were bathed in tears." It might also be said by his grave, as at that of John Knox,--
"Here lies one who never feared the face of man."
The late Rev. Dr. Archibald Alexander married a daughter of Dr. Waddell, and the late Rev. Dr. James Waddell Alexander thus derived his middle name.
August, 1755, the assembly voted forty thousand pounds for the public service, and the governor and council immediately resolved to augment the Virginia Regiment to sixteen companies, numbering fifteen hundred men. To Washington was granted the sum of three hundred pounds in reward for his gallant behavior and in compensation for his losses at the battle of Monongahela. Colonel Washington was, during this month, commissioned commander-in-chief of the forces, and allowed to appoint his own officers. The officers next in rank to him were Lieutenant-Colonel Adam Stephen and Major Andrew Lewis. Washington's military reputation was now high, not only in Virginia, but in the other colonies. Peyton Randolph raised a volunteer company of one hundred gentlemen, who, however, proved quite unfit for the frontier service.
After organizing the regiment and providing the commissariat, Washington repaired early in October to Winchester, and took such measures as lay in his power to repel the cruel outrages of a savage irruption. Alarm, confusion, and disorder prevailed, so that he found no orders obeyed but such as a party of soldiers, or his own drawn sword, enforced. He beheld with emotion calamities which he could not avert, and he strenuously urged the necessity of an act to enforce the military law, to remedy the insolence of the soldiers and the indolence of the officers. He even intimated a purpose of resigning, unless his authority should be re-enforced by the laws, since he found himself thwarted in his exertions at every step by a general perverseness and insubordination, aggravated by the hardships of the service and the want of system. At length, by persevering solicitations, he prevailed on the assembly to adopt more energetic military regulations. The discipline thus introduced was extremely rigorous, severe flogging being in ordinary use. The penalty for fighting was five hundred lashes; for drunkenness, one hundred. The troops were daily drilled and practised in bush-fighting. A Captain Dagworthy, stationed at Fort Cumberland, commissioned by General Sharpe, governor of Maryland, refusing, as holding a king's commission, to obey Washington's orders, the dispute was referred by Governor Dinwiddie to General Shirley, commander-in-chief of his majesty's armies in America, who was then at Boston. He was also requested to grant royal commissions to Colonel Washington and his field-officers, such commissions to imply rank but to give no claim to pay.
The Indians, after committing murders and barbarities upon the unhappy people of the border country, retired beyond the mountains. Colonel Byrd and Colonel Randolph were sent out with presents to the Cherokees, Catawbas, and other Southern Indians, in order to conciliate their good-will and counteract the intrigues of the French.
Colonel Washington obtained leave to visit General Shirley, so as to deliver in person a memorial from the officers of the Virginia Regiment, requesting him to grant them king's commissions; and also in order to make himself better acquainted with the military plans of the North. He set out from Alexandria early in February, 1756, accompanied by his aid-de-camp, Colonel George Mercer, and on his route passed through Philadelphia, New York, New London, Newport, and Providence. He visited the governors of Pennsylvania and New York, and spent several days in each of the principal cities. He was well received by General Shirley, with whom he continued ten days, mingling with the society of Boston, attending the sessions of the legislature, and visiting Castle William. During the tour he was everywhere looked upon with interest as the hero of the Monongahela. Shirley decided the contested point between Dagworthy and him in his favor.
While in New York he was a guest of his friend Beverley Robinson (brother of the speaker.) Miss Mary Philipse, a sister of Mrs. Robinson, and heiress of a vast estate, was an inmate of the family, and Washington became enamored of her. The flame was transient; he probably having soon discovered that another suitor was preferred to him. She eventually married Captain Roger Morris, his former associate in arms, and one of Braddock's aids. She and her sister, Mrs. Robinson, and Mrs. Inglis, were the only females who were attainted of high treason during the Revolution. Imagination dwells on the outlawry of a lady who had won the admiration of Washington. Humanity is shocked that a woman should have been attainted of treason for clinging to the fortunes of her husband.[487:A] Mary Philipse is the original of one of the characters in Cooper's "Spy."
FOOTNOTES:
[483:A] Davies' Sermons, iii. 169; Sermon on the defeat of General Braddock going to Fort Du Quesne; Memoir of Davies in Evan. and Lit. Mag.
[483:B] Davies' Sermons, iii. 38. "Who is Mr. Washington?" inquired Lord Halifax. "I know nothing of him," he added; "but they say he behaved in Braddock's action as bravely as if he really loved the whistling of bullets."
[484:A] Ancestor of the late General Gordon, of Albemarle.
[487:A] Sabine's Loyalists, 476.
Chapter LXIII
1756-1758.
First Settlers of the Valley--Sandy Creek Expedition--Indian Irruption--Measures of Defence--Habits of Virginians-- Washington and Dinwiddie--Congress of Governors--Dinwiddie succeeded by Blair--Davies' Patriotic Discourse.
THE inhabitants of tramontane Virginia are very imperfectly acquainted with its history. This remark applies particularly to that section commonly called the Valley of Virginia, which, lying along the Blue Ridge, stretches from the Potomac to the Alleghany Mountains. Of this many of the inhabitants know little more than what they see. They see a country possessing salubrity and fertility, yielding plentifully, in great variety, most of the necessaries of life, a country which has advantages, conveniences, and blessings, in abundance, in profusion, it may almost be said in superfluity. But they know not how it came into the hands of the present occupants; they know not who were the first settlers, whence they came, at what time, in what numbers, nor what difficulties they had to encounter, nor what was the progress of population. One who would become acquainted with these matters must travel back a century or more; he must witness the early adventurers leaving the abodes of civilization, and singly, or in families, or in groups composed of several families, like pioneers on a forlorn hope, entering the dark, dreary, trackless forest, which had been for ages the nursery of wild beasts and the pathway of the Indian. After traversing this inhospitable solitude for days or weeks, and having become weary of their pilgrimage, they determined to separate, and each family taking its own course in quest of a place where they may rest, they find a spot such as choice, chance, or necessity points out; here they sit down; this they call their home--a cheerless, houseless home. If they have a tent, they stretch it, and in it they all nestle; otherwise the umbrage of a wide-spreading oak, or mayhap the canopy of heaven, is their only covering. In this newfound home, while they are not exempt from the common frailties and ills of humanity, many peculiar to their present condition thicken around them. Here they must endure excessive labor, fatigue, and exposure to inclement seasons; here innumerable perils and privations await them; here they are exposed to alarms from wild beasts and from Indians. Sometimes driven from home, they take shelter in the breaks and recesses of the mountains, where they continue for a time in a state of anxious suspense; venturing at length to reconnoitre their home, they perhaps find it a heap of ruins, the whole of their little peculium destroyed. This frequently happened. The inhabitants of the country being few, and in most cases widely separated from each other, each group, fully occupied with its own difficulties and distresses, seldom could have the consolation of hoping for the advice, assistance, or even sympathy of each other. Many of them, worn out by the hardships inseparable from their new condition, found premature graves; many hundreds, probably thousands, were massacred by the hands of the Indians; and peace and tranquillity, if they came at all, came at a late day to the few survivors.
"Tantæ erat molis--condere gentem."
Here have been stated a few items of the first cost of this country, but the half has not been told, nor can we calculate in money the worth of the sufferings of these people, especially we cannot estimate in dollars and cents the value of the lives that were lost.[489:A]
In the year 1756 took place the "Sandy Creek Expedition" against the Shawnees on the Ohio River. With the exception of a few Cherokees, it consisted exclusively of Virginia troops, under the conduct of Major Andrew Lewis.[489:B] Although this expedition proved in the event abortive, yet its incidents, as far as known, are interesting. Nor are such abortive enterprises without their useful effects: they are the schools of discipline, the rehearsals of future success. The rendezvous from which the expedition started was Fort Frederick, on New River, in what was then Augusta County. Under Major Andrew Lewis were Captains William Preston, Peter Hogg, John Smith, Archibald Alexander, father of Rev. Dr. Archibald Alexander, Breckenridge, Woodson, and Overton. Their companies appear to have been already guarding the frontier when called upon for this new service. There were also the volunteer companies of Captains Montgomery and Dunlap, and a party of Cherokees under Captain Paris. A party of this tribe had come to the assistance of the Virginians in the latter part of 1755, and they were ordered by Governor Dinwiddie to join the Sandy Creek Expedition; but whether they all actually joined it is not known. The war leaders of these savages were old Outacité, the Round O, and the Yellow Bird. Captain David Stewart,[490:A] of Augusta, seems to have acted as commissary to the expedition. The whole force that marched from Fort Frederick amounted to three hundred and forty. While waiting to procure horses and pack-saddles, the soldiers were preached to by the pioneer Presbyterian clergymen of the valley, Craig and Brown. Major Lewis marched on the eighteenth of February, and passing by the Holston River and the head of the Clinch, they reached the head of Sandy Creek on the twenty-eighth. This stream was found exceedingly tortuous; on the twenty-ninth, they crossed it sixty-six times in the distance of fifteen miles. Although some bears, deer, and buffaloes were killed, yet their provisions began to run low early in March, when they were reduced to half a pound of flour per man, and no meat except what they could kill, which was very little. There being no provender for the horses, they strayed away. The march was fatiguing, the men having frequently to wade laboriously across the deepening water of the river; they suffered with hunger, and starvation began to stare them in the face. The Cherokees undertook to make bark canoes to convey themselves down the creek, and Lewis ordered a large canoe to be made to transport the ammunition and the remaining flour. The men murmured, and many threatened to return home. Lewis ordered a cask of butter to be divided among them. An advance party of one hundred and thirty, with nearly all of the horses, proceeded down the creek, Lewis with the rest remaining to complete the canoes. No game was met with by the party proceeding down the stream, and the mountains were found difficult to cross. Hunger and want increased, and the men became almost mutinous. Captain Preston proposed to kill the horses for food, but this offer was rejected. About this time some elks and buffaloes were killed, and this relief rescued some of the men from the jaws of starvation. The advance party had now, as they supposed, reached the distance of fifteen miles below the forks of the Sandy. Captain Preston, who commanded it, was greatly perplexed at the discontents which prevailed, and which threatened the ruin of the expedition. The men laid no little blame on the commissaries, who had furnished only fifteen days' provision for what they supposed to be a march of three hundred miles. Major Lewis preserved his equanimity, and remarked that "he had often seen the like mutiny among soldiers." On the eleventh of March ten men deserted; others preparing to follow them, were disarmed and forcibly detained, but some of them soon escaped. They were pursued and brought back. When Major Lewis rejoined the advance party, one of his men brought in a little bear, which he took to Captain Preston's tent, where the major lodged that night, "by which," says Preston, "I had a good supper and breakfast--a rarity." Major Lewis addressed the men, encouraging them to believe that they would soon reach the hunting-ground and find game, and reminded them that the horses would support them for some time. The men, nevertheless, appeared obstinately bent upon returning home, for they said that if they went forward they must either perish or eat horses--neither of which they were willing to do. The major then, stepping off a few yards, called upon all those who would serve their country and share his fate, to go with him. All the officers and some twenty or thirty privates joined him; the rest marched off. In this conjuncture, when deserted by his own people, Lewis found old Outacité, the Cherokee chief, willing to stand by him. Outacité remarked, that "the white men could not bear hunger like Indians." The expedition was now, of necessity, abandoned when they had arrived near the Ohio River, and all made the best of their way home.
It appears to have required two weeks for them to reach the nearest settlements, and during this interval they endured great sufferings from cold and hunger, and some who separated from the main body, and undertook to support themselves on the way back by hunting, perished. When the main body reached the Burning Spring, in what is now Logan County, they cut some buffalo hides, which they had left there on the way down, into tuggs or long thongs, and ate them, after exposing them to the flame of the Burning Spring. Hence Tugg River, separating Virginia from Kentucky, derives its name. During the last two or three days, it is said that they ate the strings of their moccasins, belts of their hunting-shirts, and shot-pouch flaps. The art of extracting nutriment from such articles is now lost.
"The Sandy Creek Voyage," as it was sometimes styled, appears to have been directed against the Shawnee town near the junction of the Kanawha and the Ohio, and perhaps to erect a fort there. The conduct of the expedition was left almost entirely to the discretion of Major Lewis.[492:A] Washington predicted the failure of the expedition, on account of the length of the march, and even if it reached the Ohio, "as we are told that those Indians are removed up the river into the neighborhood of Fort Du Quesne."[492:B]
Old Outacité, or the Man-killer, was in distinction among the Cherokee chiefs, second only to Attacullaculla, or the Little Carpenter. Outacité attained a venerable age, and continued to be a steadfast friend of the whites. At the massacre committed near Fort Loudoun, by his interposition he rescued many from destruction.
Early in April, 1756, another Indian irruption, led on by the French, spread consternation in the tramontane country, and threatened to exterminate the inhabitants. Washington, now aged twenty-four, gave it as his opinion that "five hundred Indians have it more in their power to annoy the inhabitants than ten times their number of regulars." While the unhappy people were flying from the barbarous foe, Washington, in view of the inadequate means of protection, wrote to Governor Dinwiddie: "The supplicating tears of the women and moving petitions of the men melt me into such deadly sorrow, that I solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to the people's ease." In this sentence we find the key to his whole character and history.
The governor immediately gave orders for a re-enforcement of militia to assist him. The "Virginia Gazette," however, cast discredit and blame on Washington and the force under his command. Virginia continued to be too parsimonious and too indifferent to the sufferings of her people beyond the mountains. The woods appeared to be alive with French and Indians; each day brought fresh disasters and alarms. Washington found no language expressive enough to portray the miseries of the country. Affording all the succor in his power, he called upon the governor for arms, ammunition, and provisions, and gave it as his opinion that a re-enforcement of Indian allies was indispensable, as Indians alone could be effectually opposed to Indians. Winchester, incorporated in 1752, was now almost the only settlement west of the Blue Ridge that was not almost entirely deserted, the few families that remained being sheltered in forts. West of the North Mountain the country was depopulated, save a few families on the South Branch of the Potomac and on the Cacapehon. About the close of April the French and Indians returned to Fort Du Quesne laden with plunder, prisoners, and scalps.
Governor Dinwiddie recommended to the board of trade an extensive cordon of forts, to cover the entire frontier of the colonies from Crown Point to the country of the Creek Indians. His project was to pay for these forts and support their garrisons by a land and poll tax, levied on all the colonies by an act of parliament. Washington advised that Virginia should guard her frontier by additional forts about fifteen miles apart. Fort Loudoun was erected at Winchester, the key of that region, under his superintendence. It was a square with four bastions; the batteries mounted twenty-four guns; a well was sunk, mostly through a bed of limestone; the barracks were sufficient for four hundred and fifty men. Vestiges of this fortification still remain. Winchester, after the erection of Fort Loudoun, increased rapidly, owing to its being the rendezvous of the Virginia troops: in 1759 it contained two hundred houses.
It is remarkable that as late as the year 1756, when the colony was a century and a half old, the Blue Ridge of mountains was virtually the western boundary of Virginia, and great difficulty was found in completing a single regiment for the protection of the inhabitants of the border country from the cruel irruptions of the Indians. Yet at this time the population of the colony was estimated at two hundred and ninety-three thousand, of whom one hundred and seventy-three thousand were white, and one hundred and twenty thousand black, and the militia were computed at thirty-five thousand fit to bear arms.
Dinwiddie wrote to Fox, (father of Charles James,) one of the secretaries of state: "We dare not venture to part with any of our white men any distance, as we must have a watchful eye over our negro slaves, who are upwards of one hundred thousand." Some estimated them at one hundred and fifty thousand, equal in number to the whites, but the smaller estimate is probably more correct. The increase of the blacks was rapid, and many lamented that the mother country should suffer such multitudes to be brought from Africa to gratify the African Company, "and overrun a dutiful colony." As to the question whether enslaving the negroes is consistent with Christianity, the Rev. Peter Fontaine remarks: "Like Adam, we are all apt to shift off the blame from ourselves and lay it upon others; how justly, in our case, you may judge. The negroes are enslaved by the negroes themselves before they are purchased by the masters of the ships who bring them here. It is, to be sure, at our choice whether we buy them or not; so this, then, is our crime, folly, or whatever you will please to call it. But our assembly, foreseeing the ill consequences of importing such numbers among us, hath often attempted to lay a duty upon them which would amount to a prohibition, such as ten or twenty pounds a head; but no governor dare pass such a law, having instructions to the contrary from the board of trade at home. By this means they are forced upon us whether we will or will not. This plainly shows the African Company hath the advantage of the colonies, and may do as it pleases with the ministry." "To live in Virginia without slaves is morally impossible," and it was a hard task for the planter to perform his duty toward them; for, on the one hand, if they were not compelled to work hard, he would endanger his temporal ruin; on the other hand, was the danger of not being able, in a better world, to render a good account of his humane stewardship of them.[495:A]
A long interval of tranquillity had enervated the planters of Virginia: luxury had introduced effeminate manners and dissolute habits. "To eat and drink delicately and freely; to feast, and dance, and riot; to pamper cocks and horses; to observe the anxious, important, interesting event, which of two horses can run fastest, or which of two cocks can flutter and spur most dexterously; these are the grand affairs that almost engross the attention of some of our great men. And little low-lived sinners imitate them to the utmost of their power. The low-born sinner can leave a needy family to starve at home, and add one to the rabble at a horse-race or a cock-fight. He can get drunk and turn himself into a beast with the lowest as well as his betters with more delicate liquors." Burk, the historian of Virginia, who was by no means a rigid censor, noticing the manners of the Virginians during the half century preceding the Revolution, says: "The character of the people for hospitality and expense was now decided, and the wealth of the land proprietors, particularly on the banks of the rivers, enabled them to indulge their passions even to profusion and excess. Drinking parties were then fashionable, in which the strongest head or stomach gained the victory. The moments that could be spared from the bottle were devoted to cards. Cock-fighting was also fashionable."[495:B] On the same pages he adds: "I find, in 1747, a main of cocks advertised to be fought between Gloucester and James River. The cocks on one side were called 'Bacon's Thunderbolts,' after the celebrated rebel of 1676."
The pay of the soldiers in 1756 was but eight pence a day, of which two pence was reserved for supplying them with clothes. The meagre pay, and the practice of impressing vagrants into the military service, increased much the difficulty of recruiting and of enforcing obedience and subordination. Even Indians calling themselves friendly did not scruple to insult and annoy the inhabitants of the country through which they passed. One hundred and twenty Cherokees, passing through Lunenburg County, insulted people of all ranks, and a party of Catawbas behaved so outrageously at Williamsburg that it was necessary to call out the militia.
Although Governor Dinwiddie was an able man, his zeal in military affairs sometimes outstripped his knowledge, and Washington was at times distracted by inconsistent and impracticable orders, and harassed by undeserved complaints. It was indeed alleged by some, that if he could have withstood the strong interest arrayed in favor of Washington, the governor would rather have given the command to Colonel Innes, although far less competent, and an inhabitant of another colony, North Carolina. Dinwiddie's partiality to Innes was attributed, by those unfriendly to the governor, to national prejudice, for they were both natives of Scotland.[496:A] Yet it appears by Dinwiddie's letters that he urgently pressed the rank of colonel on Washington.[496:B] Washington, in his letters to Speaker Robinson, complains heavily of the governor's line of conduct, and Robinson's replies were such as would widen the breach.[496:C] The tenor of the governor's correspondence with Washington, in 1757, became so ungracious, peremptory, and even offensive, that he could not but attribute the change in his conduct toward him to some secret detraction, and he gave utterance to a noble burst of eloquent self-defence. Dinwiddie's position was indeed trying, his measures being thwarted by a rather disaffected legislature and an arrogant aristocracy, and the censures thrown upon him, coming to us through a discolored medium of prejudice, ought to be taken with much allowance. However this may be, harsh and rather overbearing treatment from a British governor, together with the invidious distinctions drawn between colonial and British officers in regard to rank, naturally tended to abate Washington's loyalty, and thus gradually to fit him for the great part which he was destined to perform in the war of Independence.
Lord Loudoun, the newly-appointed governor of Virginia, and commander-in-chief of the colonies, now arrived in America, and called a conference of governors and military officers to meet him at Philadelphia. Washington, by the rather ungracious and reluctant leave of Dinwiddie, attended the conference. Yet Dinwiddie, in his letters to Loudoun, said of him: "He is a very deserving gentleman, and has from the beginning commanded the forces of this Dominion. He is much beloved, has gone through many hardships in the service, has great merit, and can raise more men here than any one." He therefore urged his promotion to the British establishment.[497:A] Washington had previously transmitted to the incompetent Loudoun an elaborate statement of the posture of affairs in Virginia, exhibiting the insufficiency of the militia and the necessity of an offensive system of operations. But Loudoun determined to direct his main efforts against Canada, and to leave only twelve hundred men in the middle and southern provinces. Instead of receiving aid, Virginia was required to send four hundred men to South Carolina. The Virginia Regiment was now reduced to a thousand men. Colonel Washington, nevertheless, insisted that a favorable conjuncture was presented for capturing Fort Du Quesne, since the French, when attacked in Canada, would be unable to re-enforce that remote post. This wise advice, although approved by Dinwiddie, was unheeded; and the campaign of the North proved inglorious, that of the South ineffectual. Toward the close of the year, Washington, owing to multiplied cares, vexations, and consequent ill health, relinquished his post, and retired to Mount Vernon, where he remained for several months.
In January, 1758, Robert Dinwiddie, after an arduous and disturbed administration of five years, worn out with vexation and age, sailed from Virginia not much regretted, except by his particular friends. A scholar, a wit, and an amiable companion, in private life he deservedly won esteem. The charge alleged against him of avarice and extortion in the exaction of illegal fees, appears to have originated in political prejudice, and that of failing to account for sums of money transmitted by the British government, rests on the unsupported assertions of those who were inimical to him. His place was filled for a short time by John Blair, president of the council.
The Rev. Samuel Davies, by invitation, preached to the militia of Hanover County, in Virginia, at a general muster, on the 8th of May, 1758, with a view to the raising a company for Captain Samuel Meredith. In this discourse Davies said: "Need I inform you what barbarities and depredations a mongrel race of Indian savages and French Papists have perpetrated upon our frontiers? How many deserted or demolished houses and plantations? How wide an extent of country abandoned? How many poor families obliged to fly in consternation and leave their all behind them? What breaches and separations between the nearest relations? What painful ruptures of heart from heart? What shocking dispersions of those once united by the strongest and most endearing ties? Some lie dead, mangled with savage wounds, consumed to ashes with outrageous flames, or torn and devoured by the beasts of the wilderness, while their bones lie whitening in the sun, and serve as tragical memorials of the fatal spot where they fell. Others have been dragged away captives, and made the slaves of imperious and cruel savages: others have made their escape, and live to lament their butchered or captivated friends and relations. In short, our frontiers have been drenched with the blood of our fellow-subjects through the length of a thousand miles, and new wounds are still opening. We, in these inland parts of the country are as yet unmolested, through the unmerited mercy of Heaven. But let us only glance a thought to the western extremities of our body politic, and what melancholy scenes open to our view! Now perhaps while I am speaking, now while you are secure and unmolested, our fellow-subjects there may be feeling the calamities I am now describing. Now, perhaps, the savage shouts and whoops of Indians, and the screams and groans of some butchered family, may be mingling their horrors and circulating their tremendous echoes through the wilderness of rocks and mountains."[499:A] There appears to be some resemblance between this closing sentence and the following, in Fisher Ames' speech on the western posts: "I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture. Already they seem to sigh in the western wind; already they mingle with every echo from the mountains."[499:B]
FOOTNOTES:
[489:A] Memoir of Battle of Point Pleasant, by Samuel L. Campbell, M.D., of Rockbridge County, Va.
[489:B] Washington's Writings, ii. 125; Va. Hist. Reg.
[490:A] Father of the late Judge Archibald Stewart, of Augusta County, and grandfather of the Honorable A. H. H. Stewart, Secretary of the Interior under President Taylor.
[492:A] Lyman C. Draper, in Va. Hist. Register, 61; Howe's Hist. Collections of Va., 352.
[492:B] Washington's Writings, ii. 125, 135.
[495:A] Huguenot Family, 348, 351.
[495:B] Burk's Hist. of Va., iii. 402.
[496:A] Bancroft, iv. 223.
[496:B] Sparks' Writings of Washington, ii. 262.
[496:C] Washington's Writings, ii. 217, in note.
[497:A] Bancroft, iv. 236.
[499:A] Davies' Sermons, iii. 68.
[499:B] These eloquent words may have been suggested by those of Davies.
Chapter LXIV
1758-1762.
Earl of Loudoun--General Forbes--Pamunkey Indians--Fauquier, Governor--Forbes' Expedition against Fort Du Quesne--Its Capture--Burnaby's Account of Virginia--Washington, member of Assembly--His Marriage--Speaker Robinson's Compliment--Stobo-- Germans on the Shenandoah--Miscellaneous.
THE Earl of Loudoun had been commissioned to fill Dinwiddie's place, but his military avocations prevented him from entering on the duties of the gubernatorial office, and it is believed that he never visited the colony of Virginia. Pitt, now minister, had resolved on a vigorous prosecution of the war in America, and it was quickly felt in every part of the British empire that there was a man at the helm. The department of the Middle and Southern Colonies was entrusted to General Forbes, and he was ordered to undertake an expedition against Fort Du Quesne. Washington rejoined the army. Forbes having deferred the campaign too late, the French and Indians renewed their merciless warfare. In the County of Augusta sixty persons were murdered. The Virginia troops were augmented to two thousand men, divided into two regiments: one under Washington, who was still commander-in-chief; the other, the new regiment, under Colonel William Byrd, of Westover. The strength of Colonel Byrd's regiment at Fort Cumberland (August 3d, 1758,) was eight hundred and fifty-nine.[500:A]
As late as 1758 there were some descendants of the Pamunkey Indians still residing on their original seat. The Rev. Andrew Burnaby makes mention of them in his Travels. A few words of their language were found surviving as late as 1844.
Francis Fauquier, appointed governor, now reached Virginia. Late in June, 1758, the Virginia troops left Winchester, and early in July halted at Fort Cumberland.[501:A] At Washington's suggestion the light Indian dress, hunting-shirt and blanket, were adopted by the army. Contrary to his advice, Forbes, instead of marching immediately upon the Ohio, by Braddock's road, undertook to construct another from Raystown, in Pennsylvania. The general, it was supposed, was influenced by the Pennsylvanians to open for them a more direct avenue of intercourse with the west. The new road caused great delay. In disregard of Washington's advice, Major Grant had been detached from the Loyal Hanna, with eight hundred men, to reconnoitre the country about Fort Du Quesne. Presumptuous temerity involved the detachment in a surprise and defeat similar to Braddock's; Grant and Major Andrew Lewis were made prisoners. Of the eight Virginia officers present five were slain, a sixth wounded, and a seventh captured. Captain Thomas Bullit, and fifty Virginians, defended the baggage with great resolution, and contributed to save the remnant of the detachment. He was the only officer who escaped unhurt. Of one hundred and sixty-two Virginians, sixty-two were killed, and two wounded. Grant's total loss was two hundred and seventy-three killed, and forty-two wounded.
When the main army was set in motion Washington requested to be put in advance, and Forbes, profiting by Braddock's fatal error, complied with his wish. Washington was called to headquarters, attended the councils of war, and, in compliance with the general's desire, drew up a line of march and order of battle. Forbes' army consisted of twelve hundred Highlanders, three hundred and fifty Royal Americans, twenty-seven hundred provincials from Pennsylvania, sixteen hundred from Virginia, two or three hundred from Maryland, and two companies from North Carolina, making in all, including the wagoners, between six and seven thousand men. This army was five months in reaching the Ohio. The main body left Raystown on the 8th of October, 1758, and reached the camp at Loyal Hanna early in November. The troops were worn out with fatigue and exposure; winter had set in, and more than fifty miles of rugged country yet intervened between them and Fort Du Quesne. A council of war declared it unadvisable to proceed further in that campaign. Just at this conjuncture, three prisoners were brought in, and they gave such a report of the feeble state of the garrison at the fort, that it was determined to push forward at once. Washington, with his provincials, opened the way. The French, reduced to five hundred men, and deserted by the Indians, set fire to the fort, and retired down the Ohio. Forbes took possession of the post on the next day, (November 25th, 1758.) The works were repaired, and the fort was now named Fort Pitt. An important city, called after the same illustrious statesman, has been reared near the spot. General Forbes, whose health had been declining during the campaign, died shortly afterwards at Philadelphia. He was a native of Scotland, and was educated as a physician; was an estimable and brave man, and of fine military talents.
Burnaby, who visited Virginia about this time, in describing Williamsburg, mentions the governor's palace as the only tolerably good public building. The streets being unpaved are dusty, the soil being sandy. The miniature capital had the rare advantage of being free from mosquitoes; and it was, all things considered, a pleasant place of residence. During the session of the assembly and of the general court, it was crowded with the gentry of the country. On these occasions there were balls, and other amusements; but as soon as the public business was dispatched the visitors returned to their homes, and Williamsburg appeared to be deserted. Lightning-rods were now generally used in Virginia, and proved efficacious. At Spotswood's iron mines, on the banks of the Rappahannock, there were smelted, annually, upwards of six hundred tons of metal. Coal mines had been opened with good success on the James River near the falls. Not a tenth of the land in Virginia was cultivated; yet, besides tobacco, she produced considerable quantities of fruit, cattle, and grain. The bacon was held to be superior in flavor to any in the world; but the mutton and beef inferior to that of Great Britain. The horses were fleet and beautiful; and the breed was improved by frequent importations from England. Delicious fruits abounded, and in the early spring the eye of the traveller was charmed with the appearance of the orchards in full blossom. There were fifty-two counties and seventy-seven parishes, and on the pages of the statute-book forty-four towns; but one-half of these had not more than five houses, and the other half, for the most part, were inconsiderable villages. The exports of tobacco were between fifty and sixty thousand hogsheads, each weighing eight hundred or a thousand pounds. Their other exports were, to the Madeiras and the West Indies, cider, pork, lumber, and grain; to Great Britain, bar-iron, indigo, and a little ginseng. The only domestic manufacture of any consequence was Virginia cloth, which was commonly worn. There were between sixty and seventy clergymen, "men in general of sober and exemplary lives." Burnaby describes the Virginians as indolent, easy, good-natured, fond of society, and much given to convivial pleasures. They were devoid of enterprise and incapable of enduring fatigue. Their authority over their slaves rendered them vain, imperious, and destitute of refinement. Negroes and Indians they looked upon as scarcely of the human species; so that in case of violence, or even murder committed upon them, it was almost impossible to bring them to justice. Such was Burnaby's report on this subject. During the reign of James the Second, John Page, in a religious work composed by him, thought it necessary to combat, in an elaborate argument, the opinion that a master had the power of life and death over his slave.
Washington, after furnishing a detachment from his regiment as a garrison for Fort Pitt, then considered as within the jurisdiction of Virginia, marched back to Winchester. Thence he proceeded to Williamsburg to take his seat in the assembly, having been elected by the County of Frederick. He resigned his military commission in December, after having been engaged in the service for more than five years. His health had been impaired, and domestic affairs demanded his attention. On the 6th day of January, 1759, he was married to Martha, widow of John Parke Custis, and daughter of John Dandridge, a lady in whom were united wealth, beauty, and an amiable temper.
By an order of the assembly, Speaker Robinson was directed to return their thanks to Colonel Washington, on behalf of the colony, for the distinguished military services which he had rendered to the country. As soon as he took his seat in the house, the speaker performed this duty in such glowing terms as quite overwhelmed him. Washington rose to express his acknowledgments for the honor, but was so disconcerted as to be unable to articulate a word distinctly. He blushed and faltered for a moment, when the speaker relieved him from his embarrassment by saying, "Sit down, Mr. Washington, your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language that I possess."
Captain Stobo, a hostage in the hands of the French, was detained for years at Quebec, enduring frequently the hardships of actual imprisonment, and for a time being under condemnation of death. At length he was released from this apprehension and from close confinement, and in May, 1759, in company of several others, effected his escape. Eluding the enemy by prudence and gallantry, he and his associates made their way to Louisburg. Here Stobo was gladly welcomed, and he joined General Wolfe, to whom his information proved serviceable; and he appears to have been present at the capture of Quebec. Shortly afterwards he returned to Virginia, (November, 1759.) The assembly granted him a thousand pounds, requested the governor to promote him, and presented their thanks to him for his fidelity, fortitude, and courage, by Mr. R. C. Nicholas, Mr. Richard Bland, and Mr. George Washington. Stobo returned to England, where his memoirs were published. In 1760 he was made a captain in Amherst's Regiment, then serving in America; and he held that position in 1765.
Van Braam, who had been kept prisoner at Montreal, was not released until the surrender of that city to the British in the ensuing year. He returned to Williamsburg shortly afterwards. In 1770 he obtained his share of the Virginia bounty lands; and in 1777 was made major in the Royal Americans, then in the West Indies.
During this year (1759) Rev. Andrew Burnaby visited Mount Vernon, of which he remarks: "This place is the property of Colonel Washington, and truly deserving of its owner. The house is most beautifully situated upon a very high hill on the banks of the Potomac, and commands a noble prospect of water, of cliffs, of woods, and plantations. The river is near two miles broad though two hundred from the mouth; and divides the dominions of Virginia from Maryland."
Burnaby, in his Travels, describes the condition of the Germans on the Shenandoah as follows: "I could not but reflect with pleasure on the situation of these people, and think, if there is such a thing as happiness in this life, that they enjoy it. Far from the bustle of the world, they live in the most delightful climate and richest soil imaginable; they are everywhere surrounded with beautiful prospects and sylvan scenes, lofty mountains, transparent streams, falls of water, rich valleys, and majestic woods; the whole, interspersed with an infinite variety of flowering shrubs, constitute the landscape surrounding them; they are subject to few diseases; are generally robust, and live in perfect liberty; they are ignorant of want, and acquainted with but few vices; their inexperience of the elegancies of life precludes any regret that they possess not the means of enjoying them; but they possess what many princes would give their dominions for--health, content, and tranquillity of mind."
In the year 1761 died the Rev. Thomas Dawson, President of the College of William and Mary; he was succeeded by the Rev. William Yates. During the same year died the Rev. Samuel Davies.[505:A] He accepted the presidency of the College of New Jersey in 1759, and died on the 4th of February, 1761. In this year was incorporated the town of Staunton, in Augusta County, and in the following year Romney, in the County of Hampshire.
During the tragic scenes of the French and Indian war, the persecutions of the dissenting Presbyterians, whose aid was so necessary in defending the frontiers, were essentially lessened. They were indebted to the confusion and dangers of the times for a freedom in matters of religion which was denied them in a period of tranquillity. Their ministers now enjoyed the privilege of preaching where they pleased, and were no longer restrained by the Virginia intolerant construction of the toleration act. The Baptists began to multiply their number in Virginia, and their new enthusiasm became the object of persecution. But events were about to turn the tide of popular prejudice, and direct it against the clergy of the established church, and to give to the dissenters a stronger foothold and a higher vantage ground. Those ministers of the establishment who had been vainly endeavoring to repress the progress of dissent by ridicule, detraction, and insult, some of them combining with and leading on a mob of "lewd fellows of the baser sort" in these persecuting indignities, now began to find it necessary to defend themselves against the rising storm of public indignation.
FOOTNOTES:
[500:A] The officers were Lieutenant-Colonel George Mercer, Major William Peachy, Captains S. Munford, Thomas Cocke, Hancock Eustace, John Field, John Posey, Thomas Fleming, John Roote, and Samuel Meredith.
[501:A] See in Bland Papers, i. 9, Robert Munford's letter, dated at the Camp near Fort Cumberland. He was father of the translator of Homer, and grandfather to George W. Munford, Esq., Secretary of the Commonwealth.
[505:A] John Rodgers Davies, his third son, was at Princeton College at the same time with Mr. Madison, and leaving it, at the commencement of the revolutionary war, became an officer in the army, and as such enjoyed the esteem of Washington. He is said to have been engaged in the auditor's office at Richmond. He removed to Sussex County, and died there.
Chapter LXV
1763.
The Parsons' Cause--Patrick Henry's Speech.
IN the year 1763 occurred the famous "Parsons' Cause," in which the genius of Patrick Henry first shone forth. The emoluments of the clergy of the established church for a long time had consisted of sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco, contributed by each parish. The tobacco crop of 1755 failing, in consequence of a drought, and the exigencies of the colony being greatly augmented by the French and Indian war, the assembly passed an act, to endure for ten months, authorizing all debts due in tobacco to be paid either in kind or in money, at the rate of sixteen shillings and eight pence for every hundred pounds of tobacco. This was equivalent to two pence per pound, and hence the act was styled by the clergy the "Two Penny Act." As the price of tobacco now rose to six pence per pound, the reduction amounted to sixty-six and two-thirds per cent. At two pence the salary of a minister clergy was about one hundred and thirty-three pounds; at six pence, about four hundred pounds. Yet the act must have operated in relief of the indebted clergy equally with other debtors, and many of the ministers were in debt. It was by no means the intention of the assembly to abridge the maintenance of the clergy, or to bear harder upon them than upon all other public creditors; and as they, under the new act, in fact, received in general a larger salary than they had received in any year since it was first regulated by law, they, above all men, ought to have been content with it in a year of so much distress.[507:A] The taxes were enormous, and fell most heavily upon planters of limited means; and the tobacco-crop was greatly fallen off. The Rev. James Maury, in whose behalf the suit was afterwards brought, had himself at the time expressly approved of the Two Penny Act, and said: "In my own case, who am entitled to upwards of seventeen thousand weight of tobacco per annum, the difference amounts to a considerable sum. However, each individual must expect to share in the misfortunes of the community to which he belongs."[508:A] The law was universal in its operation, embracing private debts, public, county, and parish levies, and the fees of all civil officers. Its effect upon the clergy was to reduce their salary to a moderate amount in money, far less, indeed, than the sixteen thousand pounds which they were ordinarily entitled to, yet still rather more than what they had usually received. The act did not contain the usual clause, by which acts altering previous acts approved by the crown were suspended until they should receive the royal sanction, since it might require the entire ten months, the term of its operation, to learn the determination of the crown. The king had a few years before expressly refused to allow the assembly to dispense with the suspending clause in any such act. The regal authority was thus apparently abnegated; necessity discarding forms, and the safety of the people being the supreme law. Up to the time of the Revolution the king freely exercised his authority in vetoing acts of the assembly when they had been approved by large majorities of the house of burgesses and of the council. The practice was to print all the acts at the close of each session, and when an act was negatived by the king, that fact was written against the act with a pen.[508:B]
No open resistance was offered to the Two Penny Act; but the greater number of clergy petitioned the house of burgesses to grant them a more liberal provision for their maintenance. Their petition set forth: "That the salary appointed by law for the clergy is so scanty that it is with difficulty they support themselves and families, and can by no means make any provision for their widows and children, who are generally left to the charity of their friends; that the small encouragement given to clergymen is a reason why so few come into this colony from the two universities; and that so many, who are a disgrace to the ministry, find opportunities to fill the parishes; that the raising the salary would prove of great service to the colony, as a decent subsistence would be a great encouragement to the youth to take orders, for want of which few gentlemen have hitherto thought it worth their while to bring up their children in the study of divinity; that they generally spent many years of their lives at great expense in study, when their patrimony is pretty well exhausted; and when in holy orders they cannot follow any secular employment for the advancement of their fortunes, and may on that account expect a more liberal provision."[509:A] Another relief act, similar to that of 1755, fixing the value of tobacco at eighteen shillings a hundred, was passed in 1758[509:B] upon a mere anticipation of another scanty crop.[509:C] Burk[509:D] attributes the rise in the price of tobacco to the arts of an extravagant speculator; but he cites no authority for the statement, and the acts themselves expressly attribute the scarcity, in 1755, to "drought," and in 1757 to "unseasonableness of the weather."[509:E] The crop did fall short, and the price rose extremely high; and contention ensued between the planters and the clergy. The Rev. John Camm, rector of York Hampton Parish, assailed the "Two Penny Act" in a pamphlet of that title, which was replied to severally by Colonel Richard Bland and Colonel Landon Carter. An acrimonious controversy took place in the Virginia Gazette; but the cause of the clergy became at length so unpopular, that a printer could not be found in Virginia willing to publish Camm's rejoinder to Bland and Carter, styled the "Colonels Dismounted," and he was obliged to resort to Maryland for that purpose. The colonels retorted, and this angry dispute threw the colony into great excitement. At last the clergy appealed to the king in council. By an act of assembly passed as early as the year 1662, a salary of eighty pounds per annum was settled upon every minister, "to be paid in the valuable commodities of the country--if in tobacco, at twelve shillings the hundred; if in corn, at ten shillings the barrel." In 1696 the salary of the clergy was fixed at sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco, worth at that time about eighty pounds. This continued to be the amount of their stipends until 1731, when, the value of tobacco being raised, they increased to about one hundred or one hundred and twenty pounds, exclusive of their glebes and other perquisites. In Virginia, besides the salaries of the clergy, the people had to bear parochial, county, and public levies, and fees of clerks, sheriffs, surveyors, and other officers, all of which were payable in tobacco, the paper currency of the colony having banished gold and silver from the colony.[510:A] The consequence of this state of things was that a failure in the crop involved the people in general distress; for by law if the salaries of the clergy and the fees of officers were not paid in tobacco by the tenth day of April, the property of delinquents was liable to be distrained, and if not replevied within five days, to be sold at auction. Were they to be exposed to cruel imposition and exactions; to have their estates seized and sacrificed, "for not complying with laws which Providence had made it impossible to comply with? Common sense, as well as common humanity, will tell you that they are not, and that it is impossible any instruction to a governor can be construed so contrary to the first principles of justice and equity, as to prevent his assent to a law for relieving a colony in a case of such general distress and calamity."[510:B] Sherlock, Bishop of London, in his letter to the lords of trade and plantations, denounced the act of 1758, as binding the king's hands, and manifestly tending to draw the people of the plantations from their allegiance to the king. It was replied, on the other hand, that if the Virginians could ever entertain the thought of withdrawing from their dependency on England, nothing could be more apt to bring about such a result than the denying them the right to protect themselves from distress and calamity in so trying an emergency. In the year when this relief act was passed, many thousands of the colonists did not make one pound of tobacco, and if all of it raised in the colony had been divided among the tithables, "they would not have had two hundred pounds a man to pay the taxes, for the support of the war, their levies and other public dues, and to provide a scanty subsistence for themselves and families;" and "the general assembly were obliged to issue money from the public funds to keep the people from starving." The act had been denounced as treasonable; but were the legislature to sit with folded arms, silent and inactive, amid the miseries of the people? "This would have been treason indeed,--treason against the state,--against the clemency of the royal majesty." Many landlords and civil officers were members of the assembly in 1758, and their fees and rents were payable in tobacco; nevertheless, they cheerfully promoted the enactment of a measure by which they were to suffer great losses. The royal prerogative in the hands of a benign sovereign could only be exerted for "the good of the people, and not for their destruction." "When, therefore, the governor and council (to whom this power is in part delegated) find, from the uncertainty and variableness of human affairs, that any accident happens which general instructions can by no means provide for, or which, by a rigid construction of them, would destroy a people so far distant from the royal presence, before they can apply to the throne for relief, it is their duty as good magistrates to exercise this power as the exigency of the state requires; and though they should deviate from the strict letter of an instruction, or, perhaps in a small degree from the fixed rule of the constitution, yet such a deviation cannot possibly be treason, when it is intended to produce the most salutary end--the preservation of the people."
The Rev. Andrew Burnaby, who passed some months in Virginia about the time of this dispute, travelling through the colony and conversing freely with all ranks of people, expresses himself on the subject in the following manner: "Upon the whole, however, as on the one hand I disapprove of the proceedings of the assembly in this affair, so on the other I cannot approve of the steps which were taken by the clergy; that violence of temper, that disrespectful behavior toward the governor, that unworthy treatment of their commissary, and, to mention nothing else, that confusion of proceeding in the convention,[512:A] of which some, though not the majority, as has been invidiously represented, were guilty; these things were surely unbecoming the sacred character they are invested with, and the moderation of those persons who ought in all things to imitate the conduct of their Divine Master. If instead of flying out in invectives against the legislature, of accusing the governor of having given up the cause of religion by passing the bill, when, in fact, had he rejected it, he would never have been able to have got any supplies during the course of the war, though ever so much wanted; if instead of charging the commissary[512:B] with want of zeal, for having exhorted them to moderate measures, they had followed the prudent counsels of that excellent man, and had acted with more temper and moderation, they might, I am persuaded, in a very short time have obtained any redress they could reasonably have desired. The people in general were extremely well affected toward the clergy."[512:C]
The following paper exhibits the view maintained by Richard Henry Lee on this mooted topic:--
"Reasons and Objections to Mr. Camm's Appeal.
"OBJECTED, on the part of Mr. Camm: That the law of 1758, as it tended to suspend the act of 1748, which had obtained the royal approbation, and as it was contrary to his majesty's instructions to his governor, was void ab initio, and was so declared by his majesty's order of disapprobation of 10th of August, 1759.
"ANSWER.--Whatever might be allowed to be the effect of these objections, and however they might affect those who made the law, it would be very hard that they should subject to a heavy penalty two innocent subjects,[512:D] who have been guilty of no offence but that of obeying a law passed regularly in appearance through the several branches of the legislature of the colony while it had the force of a law upon the spot. It would be to punish them for a mistake of the assembly. But the objections do not prove either that the law was a nullity from the beginning by its tending to suspend the act of 1748, or by being assented to by the governor, contrary to his majesty's instructions to him, or that it became void by relation, ab initio, from any retrospective declarations of his majesty. As to the law in question tending to suspend the act of 1748, which had received the royal approbation, a power given by the crown to make laws implies a power to suspend or even repeal former laws which are become inconvenient or mischievous, as the law of 1748 was; otherwise a country at the distance of three thousand miles might be subject to great calamities, before relief could be obtained, for which reason such power is lodged in the legislature of the country.
"As to the governor's consent being contrary to his majesty's instructions to him, it is imagined that his majesty's instructions to the governor are private directions for his conduct in his government, liable to be sometimes dispensed with upon extraordinary emergencies, the propriety of which he may be called to explain. The instructions are not addressed to the people nor promulgated among them; they are not public instruments, nor lodged among the public records of the province. The people know the governor's authority by his commission; his assent is virtually that of the crown, and by his assent the law is in force till his majesty's disapprobation arrives and is ratified, consequently everything done in the colony till then conformably thereto is legal.
"As to the order in council having declared the act void ab initio, it seems to have been a mistake, the order being as usual generally expressed that the act be disallowed, declared void, and of none effect, which purposely left the effect of the law, during the interval, open to its legal consequences.
"The king's commission to his governor directs him that he shall transmit all laws in three months after their passage. That when the laws are so signified, then such and so many of the said laws as shall be disallowed and signified to the governor should from thenceforth cease, etc. Upon appeal from the Cockpit to the privy council, the cause was put off sine die."
When the clergy appealed to the king, they sent over the Rev. John Camm to plead their cause in England, and agents were employed by the assembly to resist it. Mr. Camm remained eighteen months in England in prosecution of the appeal. The king at length, by the unanimous advice of the lords of trade, denounced the Two Penny Act as an usurpation, and declared it null and void: and the governor, by express instructions, issued a proclamation to that effect. Fauquier was reprimanded for not having negatived the bill, and was threatened with recall; and he pleaded in excuse that he had subscribed the law in conformity with the advice of the council, and contrary to his own judgment. The board of trade deemed the apology unsatisfactory.[514:A]
But the king's decision not being retrospective, the repeal of the act not rendering it void from the beginning, was in effect futile, the act having been passed to be in force for only one year.
At Mr. Camm's instance a suit was brought against the vestry of his parish of York Hampton, for the recovery of the salary in tobacco, the assembly having, in the mean while, determined to support the vestries in their defence. The case was decided against the plaintiff, Mr. Camm, who, in accordance with the advice of the board of trade, thereupon appealed to the king in council. The appeal was dismissed upon some informality. Camm experienced the perfidy of courtiers, and it being the policy of the government to avoid a collision with the assembly, the clergy were left in the lurch, to take their chances in the Virginia courts of law. The Rev. Mr. Warrington, grandfather of Commodore Lewis Warrington, endeavored to bring a suit for his salary, payable in tobacco, in the general court, but it was not permitted to be tried, the court awaiting the determination of Camm's case in England, which was in effect an indefinite postponement. Mr. Warrington then brought suit in the county court of Elizabeth City, and the jury brought in a special verdict, allowing him some damages, but declaring the law valid, notwithstanding the king's decision to the contrary. The Rev. Alexander White, of King William County, brought a similar suit, and the court referring both the law and the fact to the jury, they gave the plaintiff trivial damages. The County of Hanover was selected as the scene of the most important trial of this question, and as all the causes stood on the same foot, the decision of this would determine all. This was the suit brought by the Rev. James Maury, of an adjoining parish. The county court of Hanover (November, 1763,) decided the point of law in favor of the minister, thus declaring the "Two Penny Act" to be no law, as having been annulled by the crown, and it was ordered that at the next court a jury, on a writ of inquiry, should determine whether the plaintiff was entitled to damages, and if so, how much? Maury's success before the jury seemed now inevitable, since there could be no dispute relative to the facts of the case. Mr. John Lewis, who had defended the popular side, retired from the cause as virtually decided, and as being now only a question of damages. The defendants, the collectors of that court, as a dernier resort, employed Patrick Henry, Jr., to appear in their behalf at the next hearing. The suit came to trial again on the first of December, a select jury being ordered to be summoned. On an occasion of such universal interest, an extraordinary concourse of people assembled at Hanover Court-house, not only from that county, but also from the counties adjoining. The court-house (which is still standing, but somewhat altered,) and yard were thronged, and twenty clergymen sat on the bench to witness a contest in which they had so much at stake. The Rev. Patrick Henry, uncle to the youthful attorney, retired from the court and returned home, at his request, he saying that he should have to utter some harsh things toward the clergy, which he would not like to do in his presence. The presiding magistrate was the father of young Henry. The sheriff, according to Mr. Maury's own account, finding some gentlemen unwilling to serve on the jury, summoned men of the common people. Mr. Maury objected to them, but Patrick Henry insisting that "they were honest men," they were immediately called to the book and sworn. Three or four of them, it was said, were dissenters "of that denomination called 'New Lights.'" On the plaintiff's side the only evidence was that of Messrs. Gist and McDowall, tobacco-buyers, who testified that fifty shillings per hundred weight was the current price of tobacco at that time. On the defendant's side was produced the Rev. James Maury's receipt for one hundred and forty-four pounds paid him by Thomas Johnson, Jr. The case was opened for the plaintiff by Peter Lyons. When Patrick Henry rose to reply, his commencement was awkward, unpromising, embarrassed. In a few moments he began to warm with his subject, and catching inspiration from the surrounding scene, his attitude grew more erect, his gesture bolder, his eye kindled and dilated with the radiance of genius, his voice ceased to falter, and the witchery of its tones made the blood run cold and the hair stand on end. The people, charmed by the enchanter's magnetic influence, hung with rapture upon his accents; in every part of the house, on every bench, in every window, they stooped forward from their stands in breathless silence, astonished, delighted, riveted upon the youthful orator, whose eloquence blended the beauty of the rainbow with the terror of the cataract. He contended that the act of 1758 had every characteristic of a good law, and could not be annulled consistently with the original compact between king and people, and he declared that a king who disallowed laws so salutary, from being the father of his people degenerated into a tyrant, and forfeited all right to obedience. Some part of the audience were struck with horror at this declaration, and the opposing advocate, Mr. Lyons, exclaimed, in impassioned tones, "The gentleman has spoken treason!" and from some gentlemen in the crowd arose a confused murmur of "Treason! Treason!" Yet Henry, without any interruption from the court, proceeded in his bold philippic; and one of the jury was so carried away by his feelings as every now and then to give the speaker a nod of approbation. He urged that the clergy of the established church by thus refusing acquiescence in the law of the land counteracted the great object of their institution, and, therefore, instead of being regarded as useful members of the State, ought to be considered as enemies of the community. In the close of his speech of an hour's length, he called upon the jury, unless they were disposed to rivet the chains of bondage on their own necks, to teach the defendant such a lesson, by their decision of this case, as would be a warning to him and his brethren not to have the temerity in future to dispute the validity of laws authenticated by the only authority which, in his opinion, could give force to laws for the government of this colony.[517:A] Amid the storm of his invective the discomfited and indignant clergy, feeling that the day was lost, retired. Young Henry's father sat on the bench bedewed with tears of conflicting emotions and fond surprise. The jury, in less than five minutes, returned a verdict of one penny damages. Mr. Lyons insisted that as the verdict was contrary to the evidence, the jury ought to be sent out again, but the court admitted the verdict without hesitation. The plaintiff's counsel then in vain endeavored to have the evidence in behalf of the plaintiff recorded. His motion for a new trial met with the same fate. He then moved, "that it might be admitted to record, that he had made a motion for a new trial because he considered the verdict contrary to evidence, and that the motion had been rejected," which, after much altercation, was agreed to. He lastly moved for an appeal, which too was granted. Acclamations resounded within the house and without, and in spite of cries of "Order! Order!" Patrick Henry was reluctantly lifted up and borne in triumph on the shoulders of his excited admirers. He was now the man of the people. In after-years, aged men who had been present at the trial of this cause reckoned it the highest encomium that they could bestow upon an orator to say of him: "He is almost equal to Patrick when he plead[517:B] against the parsons."[517:C]
This speech of Henry's was looked upon by the clergy and their supporters as pleading for the assumption of a power to bind the king's hands, as asserting such a supremacy in provincial legislatures as was incompatible with the dignity of the Church of England, and as manifestly tending to draw the people of the colonies away from their allegiance to the king. Mr. Cootes, merchant on James River, on coming out of the court, said that he would have given a considerable sum out of his own pocket rather than his friend Patrick should have been guilty of treason, but little, if any, less criminal than that which had brought Simon Lord Lovat to the block. The clergy and their adherents deemed Henry's speech as exceeding the most inflammatory and seditious harangues of the Roman tribunes of the common people. The Rev. Mr. Boucher, rector of Hanover Parish, in the County of King George, accounted one of the best preachers of his time, said: "The assembly was found to have done and the clergy to have suffered wrong. The aggrieved may, and we hope often do, forgive, but it has been observed that aggressors rarely forgive. Ever since this controversy, your clergy have experienced every kind of discourtesy and discouragement."[518:A]
It was evident that the municipal affairs of Virginia could not be rightly managed, or safely interfered with, by a slow-moving government three thousand miles distant. The act of 1758 appears to have been grounded on humanity, the law of nature, and necessity.
Henry's speech in "the Parsons' Cause," and the verdict of the jury, may be said in a certain sense to have been the commencement of the Revolution in Virginia; and Hanover, where dissent had appeared, was the starting-point. Wirt's description of the scene has rendered it classic, and notwithstanding the faults of a style sometimes too florid and extravagant, there is a charm in the biography of Henry which stamps it as one of those works of genius which "men will not willingly let die."
FOOTNOTES:
[507:A] Colonel Richard Bland's Letter to the Clergy.
[508:A] Memoirs of Huguenot Family, 402.
[508:B] Journals of the house of burgesses thus marked are in the possession of Mr. Grigsby.
[509:A] Colonel Bland's Letter to the Clergy, 6.
[509:B] Hening, vii. 240.
[509:C] Ibid., vi. 568.
[509:D] Hist. of Va., iii. 302.
[509:E] See also A. H. Everett's Life of Patrick Henry, in Sparks' American Biog., (second series,) i. 230.
[510:A] Burnaby's Travels.
[510:B] Bland's Letter to the Clergy, 14.
[512:A] The record of this convention of the clergy, which is probably in the archives of the See of London, would be extremely interesting at the present day.
[512:B] Robinson.
[512:C] Travels through the Middle Settlements in North America in the year 1759 and 1760, with Observations upon the state of the Colonies, by the Rev. Andrew Burnaby, A.M., Vicar of Greenwich. Second edition. London, 1775.
[512:D] The collectors.
[514:A] Old Churches of Va., i. 217.
[517:A] Letter of Rev. James Maury, in Memoirs of Huguenot Family, 421, 422.
[517:B] In Virginia to this day the preterite of "plead" is pronounced "pled." Wirt actually prints the word "pled," and has raised a smile at his expense. It is proper, however, to observe that "plead" and "read" followed the same analogies even in England in the seventeenth century. Many of the quaint words used by the common people, obsolete among the well educated, and usually set down as illiterate mistakes, are really grounded in traditional authority. Thus the word "gardein," for guardian, is the old law term: and the verb "learn," still often used actively, was, according to Trench, originally employed indifferently in a transitive sense as well as intransitive. The common people are often right without being able to prove it.
[517:C] Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry; Hawks, 124; Old Churches, etc., i. 219.
[518:A] Anderson's Hist. Col. Church, iii. 158.
LXVI. PATRICK HENRY
PATRICK HENRY, the second of nine children, was born on the 29th day of May, 1736, at Studley, in Hanover County. The dwelling-house is no longer standing; antique hedges of box and an avenue of aged trees recall recollections of the past. Studley farm, devoid of any picturesque scenery, is surrounded by woods; so that Henry was actually,--
"The forest-born Demosthenes, Whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas."[519:A]
His parents were in moderate but easy circumstances. The father, John Henry, was a native of Aberdeen, in Scotland; he was a cousin of David Henry, who was a brother-in-law of Edward Cave, and co-editor with him of the Gentleman's Magazine, and his successor. Some say that John Henry married Jane, sister of Dr. William Robertson, the historian, and that in this way Patrick Henry and Lord Brougham came to be related. John Henry, who emigrated to Virginia some time before 1730, enjoyed the friendship and patronage of Governor Dinwiddie, who introduced him to the acquaintance of Colonel John Syme, of Hanover, in whose family he became domesticated, and with whose widow he intermarried. Her maiden name was Sarah Winston, of a good old family. Colonel Byrd describes her as "a portly, handsome dame," "of a lively, cheerful conversation, with much less reserve than most of her countrywomen. It becomes her very well, and sets off her other agreeable qualities to advantage." "The courteous widow invited me to rest myself there that good day, and to go to church with her; but I excused myself by telling her she would certainly spoil my devotion. Then she civilly entreated me to make her house my home whenever I visited my plantations, which made me bow low, and thank her very kindly." She possessed a mild and benevolent disposition, undeviating probity, correct understanding, and easy elocution. Colonel Syme had represented the County of Hanover in the house of burgesses. He left a son who, according to Colonel Byrd, inherited all the strong features of his sire, not softened in the least by those of his mother.[520:A]
John Henry, father of Patrick Henry, Jr., was colonel of his regiment, county surveyor, and, for many years, presiding magistrate of Hanover County. He was a loyal subject, and took pleasure in drinking the king's health at the head of his regiment. He enjoyed the advantage of a liberal education; his understanding was plain but solid. He was a member of the established church, but was supposed to be more conversant with Livy and Horace than with the Bible. He appears to have made a map of Virginia which was published in London in 1770.[521:A]
When James Waddel first came to Virginia he visited the Rev. Samuel Davies in Hanover, near where Colonel John Henry lived, and being introduced to him, on a Sunday, he accepted an invitation to accompany him home. At parting, Mr. Davies remarked to young Waddel, that he would not find the Sabbath observed in Virginia as in Pennsylvania; and he would have to bear with many things which he would wish to be otherwise. Soon after the settlement of Colonel John Henry in Virginia, Patrick, his brother, followed him, and after some interval became, by his brother's interest, (April, 1733,) rector of St. George's Parish, in the new County of Spotsylvania, where he remained only one year. He afterwards became rector of St. Paul's Church in Hanover. John Henry, in a few years after the birth of his son Patrick, removed from Studley to Mount Brilliant, now the Retreat, in the same county; and it was here that the future orator was principally educated. The father, a good classical scholar, had opened a grammar-school in his own house, and Patrick, after learning the first rudiments at an "old field school" in the neighborhood, at ten years of age commenced his studies under his father, with whom he acquired an English education, and at the age of fifteen had advanced in Latin so far as to read Virgil and Livy; had learned to read the Greek characters, and attained some proficiency in the mathematics. At this age his scholastic education appears to have ended, and, as he mentioned to John Adams in 1774, he never read a Latin book after that. His attainments, however, evince that he could not have been so deficient in application to study as has been commonly supposed. With a taste so prevalent, and for which his kinsmen, the Winstons, were peculiarly distinguished, he was fond of hunting and angling. He would, it is said, recline under the shade of a tree overhanging the sequestered stream, watching in indolent repose the motionless cork of his fishing-line.
He loved solitude, and in hunting chose not to accompany the noisy set that drove the deer, but preferred to occupy the silent "stand," where for hours he might muse alone and indulge "the pleasing solitariness of thought." The glowing fancy of Wirt has, perhaps, thrown over these particulars some prismatic coloring. Young Henry, probably, after all, fished and hunted pretty much like other lads in his neighborhood. It would, perhaps, not be easy to prove that he was fonder of fishing and hunting than George Mason, George Washington, and many other of his cotemporaries. From his eleventh to his twenty-second year he lived in the neighborhood where Davies preached, and occasionally accompanied his mother to hear him. His eloquence made a deep impression on young Henry, and he always spoke of Davies and Waddel as the greatest orators that he had ever heard. Whether he ever heard Whitefield does not appear.
Isaac Winston was one of the persons informed against in 1748 for allowing the Rev. John Roan to preach in his house. Two of the sisters of Patrick Henry--Lucy, who married Valentine Wood, and Jane, who married Colonel Samuel Meredith--were members of Davies' congregations.
At the age of fifteen Patrick Henry was placed, about the year 1751, in a store, to learn the mercantile business, and after a year so passed the father set up William, an elder brother, and Patrick together in trade. There is reason to believe that his alleged aversion to books and his indolence, have been exaggerated by Wirt's artistic romancing. There is no royal road to learning; men do not acquire knowledge by intuition. Aversion to study is by no means unusual among the young; nor is it probable that Patrick Henry was much more averse to it than the generality of youth; indeed, his domestic educational advantages were uncommonly good, and the early development of his mind proves that he did not neglect them. The mercantile adventure, after the experiment of a year, proving a failure, William, who, it would appear, had less energy than Patrick, retired from the concern, and the management was devolved upon the younger brother. Patrick, disgusted with an unpromising business, listened impatiently to the hunter's horn, and the cry of hounds echoing in the neighboring woods. Debarred from these congenial sports, he sought a resource in music, and learned to play not unskilfully on the flute and the violin, the latter being the favorite instrument in Virginia. He found another source of entertainment in the conversation of the country people who met at his store, particularly on Saturday; and was fond of starting debates among them, and observed the workings of their minds; and by stories, real or fictitious, studied how to move the passions at his will. Many country storekeepers have done the same thing, but they were not Patrick Henrys. That he employed part of his leisure in storing his mind with information from books, cannot be doubted. Behind the counter he could con the news furnished by the Virginia Gazette, and he probably dipped sometimes into the Gentleman's Magazine. At the end of two or three years, a too generous indulgence to his customers, and negligence in business, together perhaps with the insuperable difficulties of the enterprise itself, in a period of war, disaster, and public distress, forced him to abandon his store almost in a state of insolvency. William Henry, the older brother, was then wild and dissipated; but became in after-life a member of the assembly from the County of Fluvanna, enjoyed the title of colonel, and had a competent estate. In the mean time Patrick had married the daughter of a poor but honest farmer of the neighborhood, named Shelton; and now by the joint assistance of his father and his father-in-law, furnished with a small farm and one or two slaves, he undertook to support himself by agriculture. Yet, although he tilled the ground with his own hands, whether owing to his negligent, unsystematic habits, much insisted on by Wirt and others, or to the sterility of the soil, or to both, or to neither, after an experiment of two years he failed in this enterprise, as utterly as in the former. It was a period of unexampled scarcity and distress in Virginia; and young Henry was suffering a reverse of fortune which befell many others at the same time; and it would be, perhaps, unjust to attribute his failure exclusively or even mainly to his neglect or incompetency. However that may be, selling his scanty property at a sacrifice for cash, for lack of more profitable occupation he returned to merchandise. Still displaying indifference to the business of his store, he resumed his violin, his flute, his books, and his curious inspection of human nature; and occasionally shut up his store to indulge his favorite sports. He studied geography, and became a proficient in it; he examined the charters and perused the history of the colony, and pored over the translated annals of Greece and Rome. Livy became his favorite, and in his early life he read it at least once in every year. Such a taste would hardly have developed itself in one who had wasted his schoolboy days in the torpor of indolence. It is true that Mr. Jefferson said of him in after years, "He was the hardest man to get to read a book that he ever knew." Henry himself perhaps somewhat affected a distaste for book-learning, in compliance with the vulgar prejudice; but he probably read much more than he got credit for. He did not, indeed, read a large number of books, as very few in Virginia did then; but he appears to have read solid books, and to have read them thoroughly. He was fond of British history. Having himself a native touch of Cervantic humor, he was not unacquainted with the inimitable romance of Don Quixote. But he did not read books to talk about them. Soame Jenyns was a favorite. He often read Puffendorf, and Butler's Analogy was his standard volume through life.
His second mercantile experiment turned out more unfortunate than the first, and left him again stranded on the shoals of bankruptcy. It was probably an adventure which no attention or energy could have made successful under the circumstances. These disappointments, made the more trying by an early marriage, did not visibly depress his spirit: his mind rose superior to the vicissitudes of fortune. The golden ore was passing through the alembic of adversity. He lived now for some years with his father-in-law, who was then keeping the tavern at Hanover Court-house. When Mr. Shelton was occasionally absent, Mr. Henry supplied his place and attended to the guests.
In the winter of the year 1760 Thomas Jefferson, then in his seventeenth year, on his way to the College of William and Mary, spent the Christmas holidays at the seat of Colonel Dandridge, in Hanover County. Patrick Henry, now twenty-four years of age, being a near neighbor, young Jefferson met with him there for the first time, and observed that his manners had something of coarseness in them; that his passion was music, dancing, and pleasantry; and that in the last he excelled, and it attached everybody to him. But it is likely that the music of his voice was more attractive than even that of his violin. Henry displayed on that occasion, which was one of festivity, no uncommon calibre of intellect or extent of information; but his misfortunes were not to be traced in his countenance or his conduct: self-possessed repose is the characteristic of native power; complaint is the language of weakness. A secret consciousness of superior genius and a reliance upon Providence buoyed him up in the reverses of fortune. While young Jefferson and Henry were enjoying together the Christmas holidays of 1760, how little did either anticipate the parts which they were destined to perform on the theatre of public life! Young Henry embraced the study of the law, and after a short course of reading, was, in consideration of his genius and general information, and in spite of his meagre knowledge of law, and his ungainly appearance, admitted to the bar in the spring of 1760. His license was subscribed by Peyton and John Randolph and Robert C. Nicholas. Mr. Wythe refused to sign it.
In the "Parsons' Cause" Henry emerged from the horizon, and thenceforth became the star of the ascendant.
FOOTNOTES:
[519:A] Lord Byron so calls him, in the Age of Bronze.
[520:A] Several persons of the name of Winston came over from Yorkshire, England, and settled in Hanover. Isaac Winston, one of these, or a son of one of them, had children: 1. William, father of Judge Edmund Winston. 2. Sarah, mother of Patrick Henry, Jr., the orator. 3. Geddes. 4. Mary, who married John Coles. 5. A daughter who married ---- Cole. She was grandmother to Dorothea or Dolly Payne, who married James Madison, President of the United States. Of these five children, William, the eldest, called Langaloo William, married Alice Taylor, of Caroline. He was a great hunter; had a quarter in Bedford or Albemarle, where he spent much time in hunting deer. He was fond of the Indians, dressed in their costume, and was a favorite with them. He was also distinguished as an Indian-fighter. He is said to have been endowed with that rare kind of magnetic eloquence which rendered his nephew, Patrick Henry, so famous. Indeed it was the opinion of some that he alone excelled him in eloquence. During the French and Indian war, shortly after Braddock's defeat, when the militia were marched to the frontier, this William Winston was a lieutenant of a company, which, being poorly clothed, without tents, and exposed to the rigors of an inclement season, became very much dissatisfied, and were clamorous to return to their homes. At this juncture, Lieutenant Winston, mounting a stump, made to them an appeal so patriotic and overpowering that when he concluded, the general cry was, "Let us march on; lead us against the enemy!" This maternal uncle of Patrick Henry, Jr., being so gifted with native eloquence, it may be inferred that he derived his genius from his mother. William Winston's children were: 1. Elizabeth, who married Rev. Peter Fontaine. 2. Fanny, who married Dr. Walker. 3. Edmund, the judge, who married, first, Sarah, daughter of Isaac Winston; second, the widow of Patrick Henry, the orator, (Dolly Dandridge that was.)
[521:A] A copy of this rare map is in possession of Joseph Homer, Esq., of Warrenton, Virginia. Appended to it is an epitome of the state and condition of Virginia. The marginal illustration is profuse, and, like the map, well executed.
Chapter LXVII
1763.
Rev. Jonathan Boucher's Opinions on Slavery--Remarks.
THE Rev. Jonathan Boucher, a minister of the established church, in a sermon preached at Bray's, in Leedstown, Hanover Parish, on occasion of the general peace proclaimed in 1763, expressed himself on the subject of slavery as follows: "The united motives of interest and humanity call on us to bestow some consideration on the case of those sad outcasts of society, our negro slaves; for my heart would smite me were I not in this hour of prosperity to entreat you (it being their unparalleled hard lot not to have the power of entreating for themselves) to permit them to participate in the general joy. Even those who are the sufferers can hardly be sorry when they see wrong measures carrying their punishment along with them. Were an impartial and competent observer of the state of society in these middle colonies asked whence it happens that Virginia and Maryland--which were the first planted, and which are superior to many colonies, and inferior to none in point of natural advantages--are still so exceedingly behind most of the other British transatlantic possessions in all those improvements which bring credit and consequence to a country, he would answer, 'They are so because they are cultivated by slaves.' I believe it is capable of demonstration, that except the immediate interest he has in the property of his slaves, it would be for every man's interest that there were no slaves, and for this plain reason, because the free labor of a free man, who is regularly hired and paid for the work he does, and only for what he does, is in the end cheaper than the eye-service of a slave. Some loss and inconvenience would no doubt arise from the general abolition of slavery in these colonies, but were it done gradually, with judgment and with good temper, I have never yet seen it satisfactorily proved that such inconvenience would be either great or lasting. North American or West Indian planters might possibly for a few years make less tobacco, or less rice, or less sugar, the raising of which might also cost them more; but that disadvantage would probably soon be amply compensated to them by an advanced price, or (what is the same thing) by the reduced expense of cultivation. * * * * * * *
"I do you no more than justice in bearing witness that in no part of the world were slaves ever better treated than, in general, they are in these colonies. That there are exceptions needs not to be concealed: in all countries there are bad men. And shame be to those men who, though themselves blessed with freedom, have minds less liberal than the poor creatures over whom they so meanly tyrannize! Even your humanity, however, falls short of their exigencies. In one essential point I fear we are all deficient: they are nowhere sufficiently instructed. I am far from recommending it to you at once to set them all free, because to do so would be a heavy loss to you and probably no gain to them; but I do entreat you to make them some amends for the drudgery of their bodies by cultivating their minds. By such means only can we hope to fulfil the ends which we may be permitted to believe Providence had in view in suffering them to be brought among us. You may unfetter them from the chains of ignorance, you may emancipate them from the bondage of sin--the worst slavery to which they can be subjected--and by thus setting at liberty those that are bruised, though they still continue to be your slaves, they shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."[527:A]
The Rev. Jonathan Boucher, was born in Cumberland County, England, in 1738, and brought up at Wigton Grammar School. He came over to Virginia at the age of sixteen, and was nominated by the vestry of Hanover Parish, in the County of King George, before he was in orders. Returning to England for ordination, he recrossed the Atlantic, and entered upon the duties of that parish on the banks of the Rappahannock. He removed soon afterwards to St. Mary's Parish, in Caroline County, upon the same river. After remaining here a good many years and enjoying the esteem of his people, he removed to Maryland, and was there ejected from his rectory at the breaking out of the Revolution, when he returned to England. His Discourses, preached between 1763 and 1775, were published by him when he was Vicar of Epsom, in Surrey, in 1797.
Abraham, the father of the faithful, was a slaveholder; upon his death his servants passed by descent to his son Isaac, as in like manner those of Isaac descended to Jacob. They were hereditary bondsmen, and, like chattels, bought and sold. Job, a pattern of piety, was a slaveholder, and, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, won no small portion of his claims to a character of high and exemplary virtue from the manner in which he discharged his duty to his slaves.
The master who faithfully performs his duties toward his slaves is a high example of virtue, and the slave who renders his service faithfully is worthy of equal commendation. If the rights of the slave are narrow, his duties are proportionally limited.
The institution of slavery, divinely appointed, was maintained for five hundred years in Abraham's family. When the patriarchal dispensation came to an end, the right of property in slaves was recognized in the decalogue. The system was incorporated into the Mosaic law, and so continued to the end of the Jewish dispensation, and was nowhere denounced as a moral evil, nor was any reproof uttered by the prophets against the system on account of the evils connected with it.
The primitive Christian church consisted largely of slaveholders and slaves, and the slavery of the Roman empire, in which the early churches were planted, corresponded with that of Virginia, and where it differed, it was worse. The relation of master and servant is placed by the apostles upon the same footing as that of parent and child, and of husband and wife.[528:A] It is enjoined upon servants to be obedient to their masters, whether "good and gentle, or froward." Christian servants were commanded to obey their masters, whether heathens or believers; and Christians, to withdraw themselves from any, who, rejecting divine authority, should teach a contrary doctrine.[528:B]
In the New Testament no censure is cast upon the institution of slavery, no master is denounced for holding slaves, nor advised to emancipate them. The evils incidental to the relation of master and slave are, in kind, like those incidental to the other domestic relations, and do not render the one unlawful or sinful any more than the others. The evils of slavery are not in the relation, but in the parties to it; therefore the abolition of the relation (the whites and the blacks still continuing together) would not extinguish the evils, but only change them, and a new relation would be substituted, fraught with still greater evils. The two races, separated by a barrier of natural incompatibility, cannot coalesce, nor can they coexist on equal terms.
The evils connected with slavery are, like others, to be remedied by the reforming influence of Christianity. Slavery originated in a curse, but out of it Providence has mysteriously educed a blessing, as from poisonous flowers honey is extracted by the bee.[529:A]
The religious instruction of the slaves in Virginia was, with some honorable exceptions, too generally neglected by the ministers of the established church. The churches afforded but little room or accommodation for the negroes, and the difficulties in the way of imparting instruction to them were no doubt great, yet by no means insuperable. The Rev. Samuel Davies appears to have labored more successfully for their benefit than any other minister in Virginia, either before his time or since. The Rev. Mr. Wright, co-operating with him in this work, established Sunday-schools, for the instruction of negroes, in the County of Cumberland, in the year 1756.[529:B]
FOOTNOTES:
[527:A] Anderson's Hist. of Church of England in the Colonies, second ed., iii. 159.
[528:A] Ephesians, vi.; Colossians, iii., iv.
[528:B] 1 Timothy, vi.
[529:A] Brief Examination of Scripture Testimony on the Institution of Slavery, by the Rev. Thornton Stringfellow; Essay on Abolition of Slavery, by the Rev. Dr. George A. Baxter; Rights and Duties of Masters, by the Rev. Dr. J. H. Thornwell; The Christian Doctrine of Slavery, by the Rev. George D. Armstrong, D.D.
[529:B] Foote's Sketches, first series, 291.
Chapter LXVIII
1764.
Disputes between Colonies and Mother Country--Stamp Act-- Patrick Henry--Contested Election--Speaker Robinson-- Randolph--Bland--Pendleton--Wythe--Lee.
THE successful termination of the war with France paved the way for American independence. Hitherto, from the first settlement of the colonies, Great Britain, without seeking a direct revenue from them, with perhaps some inconsiderable exceptions, had been satisfied with the appointment of their principal officers, and a monopoly of their trade. Now, when the colonies had grown more capable of resisting impositions, the mother country rose in her demands. Thus it was that disputes between Great Britain and the colonies, commencing in 1764 and lasting about twelve years, brought on the war of the Revolution, and ended in a disruption of the empire. This result, inevitable sooner or later in the natural course of events, was only precipitated by the impolitic and arbitrary measures of the British government. In the general loyalty of the colonies, new commercial restrictions, although involving a heavy indirect taxation, would probably have been submitted to for many years longer; but the novel scheme of direct taxation, without their consent, was reprobated as contrary to their natural and chartered rights; and a flame of discontent, bursting forth here and there, finally overspread the whole country.
There appears, indeed, to have been no essential difference between internal and external taxation; for it was still taxation; and taxation without representation. But the internal or direct taxation was new, obvious, and more offensive. The restrictions of the navigation act, vehemently resisted at their first enactment, and not less so in Virginia and other Southern colonies than in the North, had never been acquiesced in, but only submitted to from necessity; and long eluded not only by New England, but also by other colonies, by a trade originally contraband, indeed, but which had lost much of its illegitimate character by immemorial usage, and had acquired a sort of prescriptive right by that consent on the part of the British government which was to be inferred from its apparent acquiescence in the violation. For a hundred years preceding the Revolution the commerce of the colonies may be said to have been in the main practically free, as Great Britain was able to furnish the manufactures which the colony needed. But now the mother country undertook to enforce the obsolete navigation act and her revenue laws with a new vigor, which was not confined to the American colonies, but embraced the whole British empire. As applied to the colonies the measure was equally impolitic and unjust: impolitic, because by breaking up the colonial trade with the West Indies, England crippled her own customer; unjust, because this trade had grown up by the tacit consent of the government, and a dissolution of it would be ruinous to the commercial colonies. Besides these new restraints upon commerce, parliament had long endeavored to restrict colonial industry; and although these restrictions fell most heavily on the Northern colonies, their injurious effects were felt by all of them. As far back as the time of Bacon's rebellion, a patriotic woman of the colony congratulated her friends that now "Virginia can build ships, and, like New England, trade to any part of the world." And the parenthesis of religious liberty and free trade enjoyed by Virginia under Cromwell was never forgotten. But, inasmuch as these restrictions fell more heavily on the North than on the South, so the co-operation of the South was the more meritorious as being more disinterested. And the oppressions of Great Britain must have been intolerable, when, notwithstanding all the differences of opinion and of institutions, the thirteen colonies became united in a compact phalanx of resistance.[531:A]
The recent war had inspired the provincial troops with more confidence in themselves, and had rendered the British regulars less formidable in their eyes. Everything unknown is magnificent.
The success of the allied arms had put an end to the dependency of the colonies upon the mother country for protection against the French. In several of the provinces Germans, Dutch, Swedes, and Frenchmen were found commingled with the Anglican population. Great Britain, by long wars ably conducted during Pitt's administration, had acquired glory and an extension of empire; but, in the mean time, she had incurred an enormous debt. The British officers, entertained with a hospitality in America, carried back to England exaggerated reports of the wealth of the colonies. The colonial governors and the British ministry had often been thwarted and annoyed by the republican and independent, and sometimes factious spirit, of the colonial assemblies, and longed to see them curbed. The British merchants complained to the government of the heavy losses entailed upon them by the depreciated colonial paper currency. The Church of England was indignant at the violent opposition to the introduction of bishops into the colonies, at the decision of the "Parsons' Cause," and other provocations and indignities. The advice of many governors and military officers had deeply impressed the government with the necessity of laying direct taxes as the only means of retaining the control of the colonies. The British administration, in the first years of the reign of George the Third, was in the hands of a corrupt oligarchy, and the ministers determined to lessen the burden at home by levying a direct tax upon the colonies. The loyalty of the Americans had never been warmer than at the close of the war. They had expended their treasure and their blood freely; and the recollection of mutual sufferings and a common glory strengthened their attachment to the mother country; but these loyal sentiments were destined soon to wither and expire. The colonies, too, had involved themselves in a heavy debt. Within three years, intervening between 1756 and 1759, parliament had granted them a large amount of money to encourage their efforts; yet, notwithstanding that and the extraordinary supplies appropriated by the assemblies, a heavy debt still remained unliquidated. When, therefore, parliament in a few years thereafter undertook to extort money by a direct tax from provinces to which she had recently granted incomparably larger sums, it was conceived that the object of the minister, in this innovation, was not simply to raise the inconsiderable amount of the tax, but to establish gradually a new and absolute system of "taxation without representation." It was easy to foresee that it would be made the instrument of unlimited extortions, and would extinguish the practical legislative independence of the Anglo-American colonies. Neither the English parliament, nor those who were represented by the lords and commons, would pay a farthing of the tax which they imposed on the colonies. On the contrary, their property would have been exempted in exact proportion to the burdens laid on the colonies. Taxes without reason or necessity, and oppressions without end, would have ensued from submitting to the usurpation.[533:A]
After war had raged for nearly eight years, peace was concluded at Paris, in February, 1763, by which France ceded Canada, and Spain the Floridas, to Great Britain. On this occasion the territory of Virginia was again reduced in extent. The conquests, and the culminating power, and the arrogant pretensions of the proud island of Great Britain excited the jealousy and the fears of Europe; while in England the administration had engendered a formidable opposition at home. In the year 1763 the national debt had accumulated to an enormous amount; for which an annual interest of twenty-two millions of dollars was paid. The minister proposed to levy upon the colonies part of this sum, alleging that as the recent war had been waged partly on their account, it was but fair that they should contribute a share of the expense; and the right was claimed for parliament, according to the British constitution, to tax every portion of the empire. The absolute right of legislating for the colonies had long, if not always, been claimed, theoretically, by England; but she had never exerted it in practice to any sensible extent in the essential article of taxation. The inhabitants of the colonies admitted their obligation to share the expense of the war, but insisted that the necessary revenue could be legitimately levied only by their own legislatures; that taxation and representation were inseparable; and that remote colonies not represented in parliament were entitled to tax themselves. The justice of parliament would prove a feeble barrier against the demands of avarice; and as in England the privilege of granting money was the palladium of the people's liberty against the encroachment of the crown, so the same right was the proper safeguard of the colonies against the tyranny of the imperial government. Such were the views of American patriots; yet it was a subject on which wise and good men might differ in Great Britain and in America.
Upon the death of the Rev. William Yates, in 1764, the Rev. James Horrocks succeeded him as President of the College of William and Mary. About the same time the Rev. William Robinson, commissary, dying, Mr. Horrocks succeeded him in that place. Rev. John Camm, who aspired to the office, was disappointed in it owing to some difficulty with Governor Dinwiddie.
In March, 1764, parliament passed resolutions declaratory of an intention to impose a stamp-duty in America, and avowing the right and expediency of taxing the colonies. This was the immediate fountain-head of the Revolution. These resolutions gave great dissatisfaction in America; but were popular in England, where the prospect of lightening their own burdens at the expense of the colonists recommended them to the English taxpayers. The resolutions met with no overt opposition, but the public discontents were increased when it came to be known that large bodies of British soldiers were to be sent over and quartered in the colonies.
Patrick Henry, during the year, removed from Hanover to Louisa, where he soon endeared himself to the people, although he never courted their favor by flattery. He sometimes hunted deer for several days together, carrying his provision with him, and at night camping out in the woods. He was known to enter Louisa court in a coarse cloth coat, stained with the blood of the deer, greasy leather breeches, with leggings for boots, and a pair of saddle-bags on his arm.[534:A]
In the fall of 1764 there occurred in the house of burgesses a case of contested election, the parties being James Littlepage, the member returned for the County of Hanover, and the other candidate, Nathaniel West Dandridge. Mr. Littlepage was charged with bribery and corruption. The case was tried before the committee of privileges and elections, and Mr. Henry appeared as attorney for Mr. Dandridge. Mr. Henry was coarsely dressed and quite unknown, yet retained his self-possession in spite of the supercilious smiles of aristocracy. The right of suffrage and the purity of the elective franchise afforded him a theme for a speech which astonished the audience; and Judge Winston pronounced the argument "superior to anything he had ever heard."
The speaker of the house, John Robinson, had held that post for a quarter of a century, and combining with it the office of treasurer, his influence was wide and well established. His personal popularity was great, and embraced men of all classes. His strong and cultivated mind was set off by polished manners; his presence, imposing and commanding.
Peyton Randolph, the king's attorney-general, in influence second only to the speaker, was discreet and dignified; thoroughly versed in legislative proceedings; of excellent judgment, yet without extraordinary genius; a sound lawyer; in politics conservative; intolerant to dissenters.
Richard Bland was enlightened and laborious, a profound reasoner, an ungraceful speaker, but an excellent writer; a wise but over-cautious statesman, like Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, marching up with fearless logic to his conclusions, but pausing there, unwilling to carry them into effect.
Edmund Pendleton was the grandson of Philip Pendleton, a teacher, who came over to Virginia about the year 1674 with his brother, Nathaniel, a minister. Philip Pendleton's eldest son, at the age of eighteen, married Mary Taylor, aged only thirteen, and Edmund was the fourth son of this union. From a sister was descended General Edmund Pendleton Gaines, of the United States army. Edmund Pendleton was born (his father dying before his birth) in 1721, in Caroline County. Left poor and without any classical education, it is said that after ploughing all day he pursued his studies at night. Placed in his fourteenth year in the office of Colonel Benjamin Robinson, (brother of the speaker,) clerk of the county court of Caroline, he became acquainted with legal forms. He could hardly have spent much time in ploughing before his fourteenth year. At the age of sixteen he was appointed clerk to the vestry of St. Mary's Parish; and the salary derived from that petty office he expended in the purchase of books, which he diligently read. In his twentieth year he was licensed to practise the law, after having been strictly examined by the eminent lawyer Barradall. About the same time young Pendleton was made clerk of the county court martial. Before he was of age he married, in opposition to the advice of his friends, Betty Roy, remarkable for her beauty. Upon being licensed he soon acquired a large practice. His wife dying in less than two years after the marriage, in his twenty-fourth year he married Sarah Pollard. He now began to practise in the general court. In the year 1752 he was elected one of the representatives of Caroline, and so continued down to the time of the Revolution. Mr. Wirt says that he was a protégé of Speaker Robinson, who introduced him into the circle of refined society. Mr. Grigsby thinks that the term protégé was inapplicable to him, as he was the architect of his own fortune. It is certain that Speaker Robinson found in him his ablest supporter in the question of separating the offices of speaker and treasurer. Mr. Pendleton became the leader of the conservative party, who, while they wished to effect a redress of grievances, were opposed to a revolution of the government, and who stood out against it until opposition became unavailing. Nevertheless, by his integrity, the charm of his manners, and his great abilities, he attained and filled with honor several of the highest posts. As a lawyer, debater, statesman, he was of the highest order in the colony; yet he read little besides law, and was without taste for literature. The report of a law case had for him the charm which a novel has for others. As a writer he was unskilled, and quite devoid of the graces of style and rhythm. His voice was melodious, and his articulation distinct; his elocution graceful and effective; with a serene self-possession that nothing could disturb, he was ever ready to seize every advantage that occurred in debate; but he could lay no claim to the lofty powers which "shake the human soul." Although a new man, he was, as often happens, behind none in his extreme conservative views in church and state. In a brief autobiography, he says of himself: "Without any classical education, without patrimony, without what is called the influence of family connection, and without solicitation, I have attained the highest offices of my country. I have often contemplated it as a rare and extraordinary instance, and pathetically exclaimed, 'Not unto me, not unto me, O Lord, but unto thy name be the praise!'"[537:A]
George Wythe was born in Elizabeth City, (1726,) his father having been a burgess from that county. George, on the side of his mother's family, named Keith, inherited a taste for letters. After studying the law, having come into possession of a competent estate, he wasted several years in indolence and dissipation; but he afterwards became a close student, having imbibed a taste for learning from the society of Governor Fauquier and Professor Small. He became accomplished in classic literature, and profoundly versed in the law. He is described as having been simple and artless, incapable of the little crooked wisdom of cunning, and his integrity was incorruptible.
Richard Henry Lee was distinguished by a face of the Roman order: his forehead high but not wide, his head leaning gracefully forward; his person and face fine. He was an accomplished scholar, of wide reading. His voice was musical. He had lost the use of one hand by an accident, and kept it covered with a bandage of black silk; but his gesture was graceful. His style of eloquence was chaste, classic, electric, and delightful. As Mr. Jefferson has said that Patrick Henry spoke as Homer wrote, so Mr. Lee may be, perhaps, compared to Virgil. Henry and Lee coincided in political views, co-operated in public life, and were confidential correspondents and warm and constant friends.
FOOTNOTES:
[531:A] Sabine's Loyalists, 36.
[533:A] Letter from R. H. Lee to his sister, Mrs. Corbin, written in 1778. Hist. Mag., i. 360.
[534:A] Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, 37.
[537:A] Wirt's Life of Henry, 47; Old Churches, Ministers, etc., 298; Grigsby's Convention of '76, p. 46.
Chapter LXIX
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 £240,000 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 £100,000, with which the paper money in circulation was to be redeemed, the remaining £140,000 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 Cæsar 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.