History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia Part 44

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 pa.s.sed 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 Sat.u.r.day; and was fond of starting debates among them, and observed the workings of their minds; and by stories, real or fict.i.tious, studied how to move the pa.s.sions 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 a.s.sembly from the County of Fluvanna, enjoyed the t.i.tle 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 a.s.sistance 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 a.n.a.logy 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 pa.s.sing 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 coa.r.s.eness in them; that his pa.s.sion 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 antic.i.p.ate 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 Yorks.h.i.+re, 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. f.a.n.n.y, 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 partic.i.p.ate 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 emanc.i.p.ate 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 G.o.d."[527:A]

The Rev. Jonathan Boucher, was born in c.u.mberland 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 pa.s.sed 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 inst.i.tution 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 inst.i.tution of slavery, no master is denounced for holding slaves, nor advised to emanc.i.p.ate 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 subst.i.tuted, 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 c.u.mberland, 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 Inst.i.tution 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 princ.i.p.al 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 s.h.i.+ps, 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 inst.i.tutions, 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 a.s.semblies, 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 a.s.semblies, 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 acc.u.mulated 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 const.i.tution, 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 ent.i.tled 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 pa.s.sed 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 coa.r.s.e 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]