in resolutions passed the house of Burgesses in May, 1765. They formed the first opposition to the Stamp Act, and the scheme of taxing America by the British Parliament. All the Colonies, either through fear, or want of opportunity to form an opposition, or from influence of some kind or other had remained silent. I had been for the first time elected a Burgess, a few days before, was young, inexperienced, unacquainted with the forms of the house, and the members that composed it. Finding the men of weight averse to opposition, and the commencement of the tax at hand, and that no person was likely to step forth, I determined to venture, and alone, unadvised, and unassisted, on a blank leaf of an old law-book wrote the within. Upon offering them to the house, violent debates ensued. Many threats were uttered, and much abuse cast on me, by the party for submission. After a long and warm contest, the resolutions passed by a very small majority, perhaps of one or two only. The alarm spread throughout America with astonishing quickness, and the Ministerial party were overwhelmed. The great point of resistance to British taxation was universally established in the Colonies. This brought on the war, which finally separated the two countries, and gave independence to ours. Whether this will

prove a blessing or a curse, will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy-If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable.-Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation.

"Reader! whoever thou art, remember this, and in thy sphere, practise virtue thyself, and encourage it in others.-P. HENRY."

These resolutions, as Mr. Henry has said, were vehemently opposed by some of the most powerful speakers of the house, and it required all his persuasive eloquence to gain for them the sanction of a majority. It was in his speech in favour of these resolutions that he was interrupted with the cry of "treason," from the Speaker and several members of the House. A manuscript copy of the Resolutions was immediately sent to Philadelphia and thence to New York; in both of which places they produced such alarm among the timid and loyal inhabitants, that scarcely a word was heard in the streets above a whisper. In Rhode Island and Connecticut, where it had been previously supposed that the people would tamely submit to the exactions of the law, the intelligence of what had been done in Virginia, aroused the most violent feelings. Mobs collected in every part and burned the effigies of the friends of the Stamp Act. In Boston the people were excited to still louder expressions of discontent-the Resolutions there were openly published in the Newspapers-handbills were published calling upon the people to resist with their lives the imposition of the tax. All these disorders were attributed by Governour Bernard to the inflammatory resolutions of Mr. Henry.

By degrees the people of all the Colonies began to entertain but one feeling on the subject, which pervaded all classes of society. Town meetings were every where held, and the representatives of the people were every where instructed to show by some Legislative act, their detestation of the usurpation of Parliament. In the town of Plymouth, in Massachusetts, the instructions given to their representative deserve to be recorded. After some expressions of loyalty,

and attachment to the British constitution, they say: "You, sir, represent a people, who are not only descended from the first settlers of this country, but inhabit the very spot they first possessed. Here was first laid the foundation of the British Empire, in this part of America, which from a very small beginning, has increased and spread in a manner very surprising, and almost incredible, especially when we consider that all this has been effected without the aid or assistance of any power on earth; that we have defended, protected, and secured ourselves against the invasions and cruelties of savages, and the subtlety and inhumanity of our inveterate and natural enemies, the French; and all this without the appropriation of any tax by Stamps, or Stamp Acts, laid upon our fellow subjects, in any part of the King's dominions, for defraying the expense thereof. This place, Sir, was at first the asylum of liberty, and we hope, will ever be preserved sacred to it, though it was then no more than a barren wilderness, inhabited only by savage men and beasts. To this place our fathers, (whose memories be revered,) possessed of the principles of liberty in their purity, disdained slavery, fled to enjoy those privileges, which they had an undoubted right to, but were deprived, by the hands of violence and oppression, in their native country. We, Sir, their posterity, the freeholders, and other inhabitants of this town, legally assembled for that purpose; possessed of the same sentiments, and retaining the same ardour for liberty, think it our indispensable duty, on this occasion, to express to you these our sentiments of the Stamp Act, and its fatal consequences to this country, and to enjoin upon you, as you regard not only the welfare, but the very being of this people, that you (consistent with

our allegiance to the King, and relation to the government of Great Britain) disregarding all proposals for that purpose, exert all your power and influence in opposition to the Stamp Act, at least till we hear the success of our petitions for relief. We likewise, to avoid disgracing the memories of our ancestors, as well as the reproaches of our own consciences, and the curses of posterity, recommend it to you, to obtain if possible, in the honourable House of Representatives of this Province, a full and explicit assertion of our rights, and to have the same entered on their publick records, that all generations yet to come, may be convinced, that we have not only a just sense of our rights and liberties, but that we never, with submission to Divine Providence, will be slaves to any power on earth."

This was the sort of spirit which now animated the great body of the American people from Massachusetts to South Carolina. Nor was it indeed confined to the Continent, for the people in the West India Islands showed a determination equally strong to resist the Stamp Act.

CHAPTER IV.

Meeting of the first Continental Congress at New York-They publish a manifesto, and petition the King and Parliament-1st. of November 1765 observed throughout the Colonies as a day of mourning-Publick funeral of Liberty in New Hampshirenon-importation agreement-the people refuse to use Stamps-effects of the popular ferment upon the Parliament-debates upon its repeal-effects of the non-importation upon the Merchants of London-their petition to the King and Parliament-Repeal of the Stamp Act-universal joy of the Americans in consequence.

On the sixth day of June 1765, a resolution was moved by Mr. James Otis, in the Assembly of Massachusetts, setting forth the expediency of calling a continental Congress, to be composed of deputies from the Legislatures of each respective Province, to consult on the present circumstances of the Colonies, and to consider the most proper means of averting the difficulties under which they laboured. The Governour and other friends of the Ministerial party, finding that it would be vain to oppose such a measure in the present state of popular excitement, made a merit of necessity and appeared to take the lead in it, that they might on the passage of the resolution, be enabled to form their committee out of the friends of the government. The resolution passed without much opposition. New York was fixed upon as the place of meeting, early in the month of October ensuing. The committee appointed, on the part of Massachusetts were James Otis jun. Oliver Patridge, and Timothy Ruggles-of whom Governour Bernard, in his letter to the Lords of trade, thus expresses his approbation. "Two of the three chosen are fast friends to government,