upon a perfect equality; that the laws made and CHAP. to the taxes imposed extend alike to all. Where IV. then in this case is the danger of oppression, or BUT these arguments, clear and convincing as THIS act, although carried by triumphant majorities, was assailed by an ardour and eloquence uncommonly resplendent and animated. The right indeed was questioned but in a single instance; the virtuous name of Conway, however, rendered this simple protest respectable. Its injustice and inexpedience became the themes of more elevated and copious declamation. COLONEL BARRE, a speaker of distinguished eminence, in reply to the observation of Charles Townshend on the ingratitude of the Americans, where he calls them children planted by our care and nourished by our indulgence, broke out into act. 1765. CHAP. IV. the following lofty strain of indignant eloquence: "Children planted by your care! No! your op pression planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny into a then uncultivated land, where they were exposed to all the hardships to which human nature is liable, and among others, to the savage cruelty of the enemy of the country, a people the most subtle, and, I will take upon me to say, the most terrible that ever inhabited any part of God's earth. And yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met all these hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own country from those who should have been their friends. They nourished by your indulgence!" No! they grew by your neglect. When you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule over them, who were the deputies of some deputy sent to spy out their li berty, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them: Men, whose behaviour on many occasions has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them: Men promoted to the highest seats of justice, some of whom were glad, by going to a foreign country, to escape being brought to the bar of justice in their own. "They protected by your arms!" "They have nobly taken up arms in your defence; have exerted their valour, amidst their constant and laborious industry, for the defence of a country, the interiour of which, while its frontiers were drenched in blood, has yielded all its little savings to your enlargement. Believe me-remember, I this day told you so; the same spirit which ac. tuated that people at first, still continues with them: But prudence forbids me to explain myself further. God knows, I do not at this time speak from party heat. However superior to me in ge neral knowledge and experience any one here may be, I claim to know more of America, having seen and been conversant in that country. The people there are as truly loyal, I believe, as any subjects the king has; but a people jealous of their liberties, and who will vindicate them if they should be violated: But the subject is delicate-1 will say no more." IN America this opposition to the statute was of a more perilous and awful nature. Roused by the declared intention of parliament to tax the colonies, the people passed rapidly from apprehension to resentment; from resentment to rage and indignation. A hope, however, generally prevailed that the obnoxious declaration would not be able to stand its ground against the unanimous protest of the American people. In this state of gloomy suspense, public sentiment rested like a cloud highly charged with electric matter, and from whose sides the slightest agitation would elicit the thunder and forked lightening. THE passage of this hateful statute burst at once the dark and portentous cloud which for some time had been collecting there, into the most violent expressions of rage and indignation. The vessels in the harbour of Boston hung out their colours half mast high as an emblem of the public distress, and the most gloomy determination. It was the emblem of death and spoke more forcibly than words, the most fearful desperation. Muffled bells, by their hollow sounds and tedious pauses, tended still farther to keep alive these funereal associations. Sensations like these rendered the soul familiar with images of death, and insensibly raised it into the region of terror and sublimity. Every object that met the senses nourished those impressions. Their wives CHAP. IV. IV. CHAP. and children and parents were threatened with unmerited injuries; with slavery, ten thousand times worse than death. THE act itself, the hated instrument of so many calamities, was seized on the first moment of its appearance, and burnt by the populace with the effigies of its most active supporters. "The masters of those vessels which had conveyed the stamps to America were compelled to deliver up their execrated cargoes to an enraged multitude, who treated them with the same ignominy which the act itself had experienced. Those who had accepted commissions to act as distributors of stamps, were forced by public oath to renounce all concern in them at this or any future juncture; and in some instances the houses of those who were most obnoxious were demolished, and their effects plundered or destroyed. The justices of the peace in many parts gave public notice, that they would never by acting in that capacity, be instrumental to the subversion of their country's liberties; the gentlemen also of the law, fired by the same patriotic enthusiasm, universally renounced, in the exercise of their profession, the use of the British stamps. But the most alarming opposition was made by the merchants, who entered into solemn engagements not to import any more goods from Great Britain till the stamp act was repealed. By the first of November, (1765), the day on which the act was to take place, not a sheet of stamped paper was to be found throughout the colonies; so that all business which could not be legally carried on withcut stamps was entirely at a stand. Every where the courts of justice were shut, and the ports closed.”* Belsham. DURING these tumults not the slightest exertion was made by the colonial governments to repress or allay the public ferment; nor did the least apprehension of any such interference exist among the people. They were in their estimation sanctioned by God and the constitution of their country; the bands that had heretofore upheld the edifice of government, were all at once snapt by the brutal violence of their oppressors, and it would have been equally stupid and wicked in them to have waited until the yoke had been fastened on their necks: They had the approbation of their own consciences, and of every thing that was dear and venerable in their country. THE assembly of Virginia was in session when the passage of the stamp act was announced, and their proceedings exhibited a noble proof of their steady adherence to the maxims of their ancestors, and their ardour in the cause of American liberty. Ir appears that notwithstanding the prevalence of correct opinions on politics in Virginia, a strong minority, styling themselves the friends of government, continued to keep their ground in the legislature. This party, composed in general of the great landed proprietors, by acting in concert were always able to embarrass and sometimes to defeat the measures of the patriots. Disgusted by the studied delays and insidious sophistry of this class during the preceding session, Johnson declared his intention of bringing into the assembly Patrick Henry, a young lawyer distinguished alike for an eloquence copious and overbearing, and an opposition to the claims of the British parliament bordering on sedition. Conformably with this declaration, the seat of Mr. Johnson was purposely vacated, and young Henry, by the influence of his friend, became a CHAP. IV. |