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Show BY THE PRESIDENT . s Installment 10 "Sensible of the importance of unanimity1 unan-imity1 among our constituents," said Jefferson afterwards, looking back to that time when he was young and in the first flush of his radical sentiments, senti-ments, "although we often wished to have gone faster, we slackened our pace, that our less ardent colleagues might keep up with us; and they, on their part, differing nothing from us in principle, quickened ,: , their gait sqinewhat beyond that "which their prudence might of itself have advised." ad-vised." Patrick Henry was received to the place he had earned; and although the older leaders resumed that sway in counsel to which their tried skill and varied experience in affairs fairly entitled en-titled them, there was no longer any jealous exclusion of new men. Henry's Hen-ry's fame crept through the colonies as the man who had first spoken the mind not of Virginians only, ' but of all just men, with regard to the liberties liber-ties of Englishmen in America. Before a year was out Richard Bland himself, parchment man and conservative that he was, had written and published a pamphlet entitled "An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies," which said nothing less than that in all that concerned her internal affairs Virginia was "a distinct, dis-tinct, Independent state," though "united "uni-ted with the parent state by the closest clos-est league and amity, and under the same allegiance." A colony "treated with Injury and violence," he exclaimed, exclaim-ed, "is become an al;en." When antiquarians and lawyers, fresh from poring upon old documents, spoke thus, there were surely signs of the times. Parliament a Mischief Breeder. The government at home kept colonial colo-nial sentiment very busy. Even Lord Rockingham's government, with Burke to admonish It, coupled its repeal of the stamp duties with a "declaratory act" which sought to quiet controversy controver-sy by giving the lie direct to every argument urged against its authority In the colonies. "Parliament has power pow-er to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever," was its round assertion: "a resolution for England's right to do what the treasury pleased with three millions of freemen," cried Chatham. Though Rockingham's government would not act on that right, its successors suc-cessors would without scruple; and they were soon about it, for Rockingham's Rocking-ham's ministry retained office scarcely a twelvemonth. Grenville was, indeed, in-deed, discredited; but Grafton and Townshend were as bad, as stubborn In temper, as reckless in policy. More Taxes for the Colonists. Tae year 1767 saw taxes proposed and enacted on glass, paper, painsers' colors, and tea imported into the colonies, col-onies, with a purpose to pay fixed salaries to the crown's officers in the colonies out of the proceeds; and the contested ground was all to go over again. To show their temper, the new ministers min-isters suspended the legislative powers pow-ers of the Colonial Assembly in New York for refusing to make provision for troops quartered upon the colony. To complete their fiscal arrangements they presently created a custom-house and board of revenue commissioners tor Amfricp.. It was an ominous year, and set opinion forward not a little in the colonies. col-onies. Protests from the Burgesses. The Mouse of Burgesses broke, at its next session (1768), into fresh protests pro-tests and remonstrances, and there was no one to restrain or rebuke it. Fauqu'cr was dead, and gone to his reckoning; the reins of government were in the hands of gentle John Blair, president of the council, a Virginian Vir-ginian every inch, and with never a thought of checking his fellow-colo-nistB in the expression of their just opinion. The autumn brought Lord Botetourt, Bote-tourt, the new governor-general, who came in showy state, and with genial display of courtly manners and good feeling; but his arrival made little difference. dif-ference. The Burgesses smiled to see him come to open their session of 1769 with pageant of coach and six brave display of royal insignia, and the manner of a sovereign meeting Parliament; and turned from him almost al-most in contempt to denounce once more the course of the ministers, argue again the rights of America, declare de-clare they would draw the colonies together in concerted oppositoin, and call upon the other colonies to concur with them alike in their principles and in their purpose. Out With the Governor. Botetourt came hot foot to dissolve them; but they only shifted their place of meeting, gathered again at ;he private house of Mr. Anthony Hay ind there resolved no longer to im. port the things which Parliament haa :axed in despite of them. George Mason Ma-son had drawn the resolutions, at Washington's request, and Washing-:on Washing-:on himself presented them. Mason's thought had hastened very 'ar along the path of opposition under ;he whip of England's policy; and Washington's quite as fa. The government had not only sent troops to Boston and dissolved every assembly that protested, but had advised ad-vised the king to press prosecutions for treason in the colonies, and, should there be deemed sufficient ground, transport the accused to England Eng-land to be tried by special commission. commis-sion. Hot Outburst from Virginia. It was this last measure that had provoked the Burgesses to their hottest hot-test outburst, "At a time when our lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American freedom," wrote Washington to Mason, with a sudden burst of passion, "It seems highly necessary that something should be done to avert the stroke, and maintain the liberty which we have derived from our ancestors. . . . That no man should scruple, or hesitate hesi-tate a moment, to use arms in defence de-fence of so valuable a blessing, on which all the good and evil of life depends, is clearly my opinion. Yet arms, I would beg leave to add, should be the last resource." Addresses to the throne and remonstrances remon-strances to Parliament had failed; It remained to try "starving their trades and manufactures," to see if that at last would arrest their attention. No doubt even that would prove of !ttl? avail; 'but it was at least peaceable and worth the trial. Washington on His Feet. The next month, accordingly, he got unhesitatingly to his feet in the private pri-vate meeting of the Burgesses at Mr. Hay's and moved George Mason's resolutions; nor did he forget to subscribe sub-scribe his quota to the fund which was to defray the expenses of the "association" "as-sociation" there formed. The next evening he attended the "Queen's Birth-Night" at the palace with the same naturalness of demeanor demean-or and frankness of dealing towards the governor as before. Botetourt was not all show and gallantry, but was a genuine man at bottom. He had come to Virginia thinking the colonists a pleasure-loving people who could be taken by display and cajoled by hospitality; he had been told they were such in London. A Manly Governor. But he knew his mistake almost as soon as he had made it; and was prompt, even while he upheld prerogative, preroga-tive, to do what he could to deal with them in a liberal and manly spirit. He had acquiesced very heartily at the outset of his administration in a decision de-cision of the council that writs of assistance as-sistance could not legally be issued in Virginia for the process had been tried there too. He made such representations repre-sentations with regard to the state of the colony to the ministers at home as were both just and wise; was assured as-sured in reply that the ministers were willing to make every necessary concession; con-cession; pledged hfs word in Virginia that there should be a substantial change of policy; and died the sooner soon-er (October 15, 1770) because the government gov-ernment would not, after all, redeem his promises. A Doubtful Compliment. "Your governor is becoming very popular, as we are told here," wrote Arthur Lee to his brother, from London, Lon-don, "and I have the worst proof of it in the increased orders for fineries from the ladies." Virginians did not find it easy to break an immemorial habit in order to starve the English trades and manufactures; and it was more than once necessary to urge and renew the non-importation agreements alike among the Burgesses and merchants mer-chants at Williamsburg and by means of local associations throughout the colony. But Washington was punctilious to observe to the letter the agreements he had himself proposed. Again and again he bade his mercantile agents in London assist him to guard against any inadvertent breach of them; not to send him the articles Parliament had picked out for taxation in the colonies. Life still continued to go, it is true, with something of the old sumptuous-ness sumptuous-ness at Mount Vernon. It was in June, 176S, that Colonel Washington ordered a new chariot, "made in the newest taste, handsome, genteel, and light to be made of the best seasoned wood, and by a celebrated cele-brated workman," which was to cost him, fittings and all, 133. For all he grew uneasy lest the colonies' col-onies' disagreement with England should come at last to a conflict of arms, he pushed his private interests with no abatement of thoroughness or self-possession, as if there were no ' fear but that things would long enough j stand as they were. . Washington Acquires Lands. I He had not run surveyor's lines for i Lord Fairfax, or assisted to drive the I French from the Ohio, without seeing i what fair lands lay upon the western I rivers awaiting the owner; and, though there was still doubt how titles were to be established in that wilderness, wilder-ness, he took care, through the good offices of an old comrade in arms, at least to be quietly beforehand with other claimants in setting up such titles as might be where the land lay richest and most accessible. "A silent management" was what he advised, "snugly carried on under the guise. of hunting other game," lest there should be a premature rush thither that would set rival interests a-clashing. A strange mixture of the shrewdness of the speculator and the honesty of the gentleman claims pushed with privacy, but without trickery trick-ery or chicane ran through his letters let-ters to Captain Crawford, and drew as canny replies from the frontiered soldier. Continues His Outdoor Sports. Business gave way often to sport and pleasure, too, as of old, when poll-tics poll-tics fell dull between sessions. Now it was the hunt; then a gunning party in the woods; and again a day or two aboard his schooner, dropping down the river, and drawing the seine for sheepsheads upon the bar at Cedar Point. Even politics was mixed with diversion. diver-sion. He must needs give a ball at Alexandria on the evening of his election elec-tion to the house which was to meet Lord Botetourt, no less than on other like occasions, of whatever kind the business of the assembly was likely to be. Goes to Philadelphia Races. He did not lose his passipn for fine horseflesh, either, at the thickest of the plot. In 1770 he was with Governor Gover-nor Eden of North Carolina at the Jockey club races in Philadelphia, no doubt relieved by the news that all but the tea tax had been repealed. The next year it was the races In Annapolis that claimed him; and in 1773 Jacky Custis held him again at Philadelphia on the same errand. It was wholesome to be thus calmly in pursuit of diversion in the intervals inter-vals of trying business. It bespoke a hearty life and a fine balance in the man. There was one matter to which Washington felt it his bounded duty as a soldier and a man of honor to devote his time and energies, whether politics pressed or not. A grant of two hundred thousand acres of the western lands had been promised by the government of the colony to those who- enlisted for the war against the French and Indians in 1754; but nothing noth-ing had ever been done to fulfill the promise, and Washington undertook to act as agent for his comrades in the business. Selects Farms for Fellow Soldiers. In the autumn of 1770, accordingly, he turned away for a space from the deepening trouble in the east to George Macon. plunge once more into the western ways and search out proper tracts for the grant along the reaches of the Ohio. 'Twas a two months' journey, for he did not stop till he had gone close three hundred miles beyond Fort Pitt. And when he was home again no one in the government who could lend a hand in the matter got' any peace from the stirring, thorough man until the business was put finally into shape. There was a tidy profit in the grant for himself; for his own share was large, and he providently bought, besides, be-sides, the shares of others who were unwilling to spend or co-operate in the matter. But there were months upon months cf weary, unrequited service for his comrades, too, given with hearty diligence and without grudging. grudg-ing. Buys Great Meadows. Their portions were as well plactd as his own. they were to find, when it came to the survey. He came off from the business very rich in western west-ern lands buying the Great Meadows, among the rest, for memory's sake but richer still in the gratitude and admiration of the men for whom he had labored. Meanwhile events darkened ominously. omi-nously. A new administration had been formed In England under Lord North, and had begun its government by re-pealing re-pealing all the taxes of 1769 except that on tea- But it was parliament's right to tax them that the colonists were fighting, not the taxes themselves, them-selves, and one tax was as hateful as a hundred. The year had been marked in sinls- tar fashion, moreover, by a broil between be-tween townsmen and troops in tho streets of Boston, in which arms had been used and rr.en slain, and in the : heated imaginations of the colonists the affair had taken on the ugly aspect as-pect of a massacre. The year 1771 went quietly enough for Virginians Botetourt was dead, and that good merchant of York, William Wil-liam Nelson, president of the council, sat In the place of authority throughout through-out the year. Although the whole country refused the taxed tea, the attention at-tention of the ministers, as it happened, hap-pened, was fixed chiefly upon Massachusetts, Massa-chusetts, where trade centered at a growing port and opposition had a local habitation. Quiet in Virginia. In Virginia there was no place to send troops to, unless the whole country coun-try were occupied, and so long as Mr. Nelson was acting governor, Colonel Washington could go without preoccupation to the races, and gentlemen gentle-men everywhere follow their own devices de-vices in the quiet counties. There was rioting rebellion, even in North Carolina, so uneasily did affairs af-fairs go there; but Governor Tryon was a soldier as well as a despot, and did not need to trouble his neighbors about that. An Unpopular Governor. It was not until the first months of 1772 that Virginians began to read plain signs of change in the face of their new governor, John Murray, earl of Dunmore a dark and distant man, who seemed to the Virginians to come like a satrap to his province, who brought a soldier with him for secretary secre-tary and confidential adviser, set up a fixed etiquette to be observed by all who would approach him, spoke abruptly and without courtesy, displayed dis-played in all things an arbitrary temper, tem-per, and took more interest, it presently pres-ently appeared, in acquiring tracts ot western land than in conducting the government of the colony. The year of his coming was marked by the secret destruction of the revenue reve-nue schooner Gaspe in Rhode Island, and by many significant flaws of temper tem-per here arid there throughout the colonies; col-onies; and 1775 saw affairs at last come to a crisis. Dunmore and the Burgesses. Dunmore had summoned the burgesses bur-gesses to meet him upon his first coming, com-ing, but had liked their proud temper as little as they liked his, and was careful not to call them together again till March, 1773, though he had promised prom-ised to convene them earlier. There was instant trouble. In view of the affair of the Gaspe, parliament had 'again resolved upon the trial of malcontents in England, and the burgesses were hot at seeing the sentiments of the colonies so flouted. Conservative men would still have waited to try events, but' their fellow-members of quicker pulse were diligent to disappoint them. Leadership fell to those who were bold enough to take it; and Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Dabney Carr and Thomas Jefferson, radicals all, drew together, .a self-constituted committee of guidance. Evening after evening they met in a private room at the Raleigh, with now and again one or two other like spirits called into counsel, to consult what should be done. Richard Henry Lee proposed that the colonies should be invited to join Virginia in appointing committees ol correspondence, through which to devise de-vise steady concert of action, and that Virginia's committee, to be appointed . at once, should be instructed to look into the character of the new court of trial lately established in Rhode Island. Is-land. An Understanding With New England. Dabney Carr was directed to move the resolutions, and the eloquence of Lee and Henry won for them an instant in-stant and hearty acceptance. Dunmore promptly dissolved the assembly, as-sembly, and Washington' was free to set out for New York to place Jacky Custis at King's college, lingering on the way in Philadelphia to see the races, and pick up the talk of the hour during half a dozen evenings at the rooms of the Jockey club, at the balls and assemblies- pf the gay town, and at the hospitable tables of his friends. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |