CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

1776.

Richard Henry Lee moves a Resolution for a Separation—Seconded by John Adams—Declaration of Independence—Jefferson—General Orders—Thomas Nelson, Jr., and the Nelsons—Benjamin Harrison, Jr., and the Harrisons—George Wythe.

On the 7th day of June, 1776, a resolution in favor of a total and immediate separation from Great Britain was moved in congress by Richard Henry Lee, and seconded by John Adams. On the twenty-eighth a committee was appointed to prepare a declaration of independence, the members being Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert R. Livingston. Richard Henry Lee being compelled, by the illness of Mrs. Lee, to leave congress on the day of the appointment of the committee, and to return to Virginia, his place was filled by Roger Sherman. The declaration, adopted on the 4th day of July, 1776, was composed, in committee, mainly by Mr. Jefferson, but much modified by congress. The Virginia delegates who subscribed it were George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Jr., of Berkley, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, and Carter Braxton.[652:A]

Thomas Nelson, Jr., eldest son of the Honorable William Nelson, some time president of the council of Virginia, was born at York, in December, 1738. His mother was of the family of Burwell. After having been under the tuition of the Rev. Mr. Yates, of Gloucester, he was sent at the age of fifteen to England, where he remained seven years, for the completion of his education. He enjoyed the superintending care of Dr. Porteus,[653:A] and was at the school of Dr. Newcome, at Hackney, at Eton in 1754, and at Cambridge. While on his voyage returning to Virginia he was elected (1774) a member of the house of burgesses, being then just twenty-one years of age.[653:B] He was a member of the conventions of 1774 and 1775, and displayed extraordinary boldness in opposing the British tyranny. He was afterwards appointed colonel of a Virginia regiment. In 1775 and 1776 he was a member of Congress. There is a fine portrait of him still preserved, taken, it is said, while he was a student at Eton, (by an artist named Chamberlin, London, 1754,) the only portrait of him for which he ever sat.[653:C]

The first of the Nelsons of Virginia was Thomas, son of Hugh and Sarah Nelson, of Penrith, Cumberland County, England. This Thomas Nelson was born in February, 1677, and died in October, 1745, aged sixty-eight. He married, first, a Miss Reid, secondly, a widow Tucker. Coming from a border county, he was styled "Scotch Tom." He was an importing merchant. Yorktown was in his day, and for a long time, the chief sea-port town of Virginia. Of his two sons, Thomas being long secretary of the council, was known as Secretary Nelson. Three of his sons were officers in the army of the Revolution.

William, the other son of the first Thomas Nelson, imported goods not only for Virginia, but at times for Baltimore, and even Philadelphia. Negroes were a principal subject of importation; merchants and planters of chief note, some of them leading men in the colony, and patrons of the church, engaged in it; and no odium appears to have been attached to a business in which British capital was so largely interested, which was so constantly encouraged and protected by the British government, and which had been so long an established feature of the colonial system, and so generally concurred in. John Newton, while personally engaged in the slave-trade on board of a Guinea ship, appears to have entertained at the time no scruples whatever on the subject of his employment. It is no matter of surprise that a Virginia consignee of slaves should have received them with a like indifference.

William Nelson married a Miss Burwell, a granddaughter of King Carter. Having been long president of the council, and at one time acting governor, he came to be known by the title of President Nelson. He died in November, 1772, aged sixty-one, leaving an ample estate. His sons were Thomas, Hugh, William, Nathaniel, and Robert. A daughter, Betsy, married, in 1769, Captain Thompson, of his majesty's ship Ripon, which brought over Lord Botetourt. The portion descending to Thomas, oldest son of President Nelson, and who had been associated in business with him, was estimated at forty thousand pounds.

Benjamin Harrison, Jr., of Berkley, was descended from ancestors who were among the early settlers of Virginia. Hermon Harrison came to Virginia in the second supply, as it was called. One of the name was governor of Bermuda. John Harrison was governor of Virginia in 1623. The common ancestor of the Harrisons of Berkley and of Brandon, was Benjamin Harrison, of Surrey. He lies buried in the yard of an old chapel near Cabin Point, in that county.[654:A]

It was long believed that the Harrisons of Virginia were lineally descended from Colonel John Harrison, the regicide and friend of Cromwell, and one of the noblest spirits in a heroic age. This tradition, however, appears to be erroneous. The first of the family in Virginia, of whom we have any particular record, was the Honorable Benjamin Harrison, of Surrey, who was born in that county in 1645, during the civil war in England. It is certain that he could not have been a son of Colonel Harrison, the regicide. He may have been a collateral relation.

The first Benjamin Harrison (of Surrey) had three sons, of whom Benjamin, the eldest, settled at Berkley. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Louis Burwell, of Gloucester; was a lawyer, and speaker of the house of burgesses. He died in April, 1710, aged thirty-seven, leaving an only son, Benjamin, and an only daughter, Elizabeth.

Benjamin Harrison, Jr., of Berkley, was educated at William and Mary; married a daughter of Robert Carter, of Corotoman;[655:A] and was for many years a burgess for his native county, Charles City. In 1764 he was one of the committee chosen to prepare an address to the king, a memorial to the lords, and a remonstrance to the commons, in opposition to the stamp act. Like Pendleton, Bland, and others, he opposed Henry's resolutions of the following year. He was a member of the committee of correspondence, and of all the conventions held before the organization of the republican government. He opposed Henry's resolutions for putting the colony in a posture of defence, but was appointed one of the committee chosen to carry them into effect. He was elected, in 1774, a delegate to the first congress, of which his brother-in-law, Peyton Randolph, (who married Elizabeth Harrison,) was president. In February, 1776, he remarked in that body: "We have hobbled on under a fatal attachment to Great Britain. I felt it as much as any man, but I feel a stronger for my country." As chairman of the committee of the whole house, Mr. Harrison, on the 10th of June, 1776, introduced the resolution declaring the independence of the colonies, and on the fourth day of July he reported the Declaration of Independence, of which he was a signer. He was six feet in stature, corpulent, and of a florid complexion. He was practical, energetic, frank, epicurean, gouty, good-humored, fearless, and patriotic.[656:A]

The sons of the first Benjamin Harrison, of Berkley, were Benjamin, signer of the Declaration; Charles, a general of the Revolution; Nathaniel, Henry, Collier, and Carter H. From the last-mentioned are descended the Harrisons of Cumberland. Benjamin Harrison, Jr., the signer, married a Miss Bassett. Their children were Benjamin, Carter, Bassett, member of congress, and William Henry, President of the United States. One daughter married a Mr. Richardson, a second married first William Randolph, of Wilton, and then Captain Richard Singleton; a third married David Copeland, and a fourth married John Minge, of Weyanoke, afterwards of Sandy Point. So far the Berkley branch of the Harrisons.

The second son of Benjamin Harrison, of Surrey, was Nathaniel. His eldest son was of the same name, and his only son was Honorable Benjamin Harrison, of Brandon, of the council at the same time with his relative and namesake of Berkley at the commencement of the Revolution. This Benjamin Harrison, of Brandon, was father of the late George Harrison, and of William B. Harrison, of Brandon.

George Wythe was born in 1726, in Elizabeth City County, Virginia, on the shore of the Chesapeake. From his maternal grandfather, Keith, a Quaker, he inherited a taste for letters. His ancestor, Thomas Wythe, was burgess for that county in 1718. The father of George was a prudent farmer of estimable character.[656:B] George, the second son, losing his father at an early age, enjoyed but limited advantages of school education, and his early tuition was principally directed by his mother; and it is related that he acquired a knowledge of the Latin classics from her instructions.[656:C] Mr. Jefferson mentions that while young Wythe was studying the Greek Testament, his mother held an English one to aid him in the translation. It has been since inferred, from an examination of his manuscripts, that this last was the only kind of assistance that he received from her in the Latin and Greek. He studied law under his uncle, John Lewis, of Prince George; but, upon the death of his elder brother and his mother, becoming master of a competent fortune, he fell into habits of idleness and dissipation. Like Swift, however, he was not one who, having wasted part of his life in indolence, was willing to throw away the remainder in despair; and in the society of Governor Fauquier and Professor Small he imbibed their love of learning; and at the age of thirty applied himself unremittedly to study. He became, eventually, distinguished by his attainments in classical literature; and he pursued other studies with a like success. But he often deplored the loss of so many early golden years. His learning, judgment, and industry soon raised him to eminence at the bar. A member of the house of burgesses as early as 1758, he continued in it until the Revolution. At its dawn Mr. Wythe, in common with Thomas Jefferson and Richard Bland, assumed the ground that the crown was the only connecting link between the colonies and the mother country. In 1764 Mr. Wythe was a member of a committee of the house of burgesses appointed to prepare a petition to the king, a memorial to the lords, and a remonstrance to the commons, on the subject of the stamp act. He prepared the remonstrance in conformity with his radical principles; but it was greatly modified by the assembly. In May, 1765, he, in common with Nicholas, Pendleton, Randolph, and Bland, opposed Henry's resolutions as premature. Mr. Wythe likewise voted (March, 1775,) against Henry's resolutions for putting the colony in a posture of defence; but he was in favor of the scheme of Colonel Nicholas for raising a large regular force. Early in 1775 Mr. Wythe joined a corps of volunteers as a private soldier; in August he was elected a member of congress. He was returned by the City of Williamsburg to the convention of that year; but being in attendance on congress his place was filled by Joseph Prentis. Mr. Wythe signed the Declaration of Independence, which he had strenuously supported in debate.[657:A] Mr. Wythe married first a Miss Lewis, and secondly a Miss Taliaferro.[658:A] He died childless. He is described as being distinguished for integrity, patriotism, and disinterestedness; temperance and regular habits gave him good health; engaging and modest manners endeared him to every one; his bow was one of most expressive courtesy. His elocution was easy, his language chaste, his arrangement lucid; his frequent classic quotations, smacking a little of pedantry; his style, which aimed at the antique, was deficient in elegance and rhythm. Learned, urbane, logical, he was not quick and ready, but solid and profound. He was of middle size, well-formed, his forehead ample, nose aquiline, eye dark gray, expression manly and engaging. His religious opinions were supposed to be skeptical; but the closing scene of his life is said to have been that of a sincere professor of the Christian faith.

FOOTNOTES:

[652:A] Extracts from Orderly Book:—

"Spring Field, July 17th, 1776.

"General Lewis hopes that the reports of some of the officers gaming to excess is without foundation: he begs that the field-officers will make diligent enquiry into it, and if true, to arrest such officers, that a total stop may be put to so infamous practices.

"Officer for the day LIEUTENANT-COLONEL WEEDON."

"Spring Field, July 24th, 1776.

"The Declaration of Independency is to be proclaimed to-morrow in the City of Williamsburg, by order of the council, when all the troops off duty are to attend."

"Williamsburg, July 26th, 1776.

"Parole—Stephen.

"A fatigue of one captain, two subalterns, two sergeants, and sixty rank and file, to be warned from the College Camp, to carry on the work intended to be thrown up on the road to Jamestown.

"Colonel Buckner will please to order a fatigue proportioned to his number of men, to work on the road from Burwell's Ferry to Williamsburg, at such a place as he shall judge proper to fortify. One company of the second regiment to take post to-morrow at Mr. Burwell's, to erect a work at the mouth of King's Creek. The rest of the second regiment to march to-morrow to Mr. Digges's, to fortify there."

[653:A] He afterwards sent, by Parson Bracken, a volume of his sermons, a present to young Nelson. The parson liked them so well that he preached them all before he delivered the book.

[653:B] Old Churches, of Va., i. 207.

[653:C] His statue is to stand on the monument in Richmond.

[654:A] The following is his epitaph:—

"Here lyeth
the body of the
Hon. Benjamin Harrison, Esq.,
who did justice, loved mercy, and walked humbly with his God;
was always loyal to his prince,
and a great benefactor to his country.
He was born in this parish the 20th day of September, 1645, and departed this
life the 30th day of January, 1712-13."

[655:A] Two daughters of this union were killed at Berkley by the same flash of lightning: a third married a Randolph, of Wilton.

[656:A] Convention of 1776, p. 96; Allen's Biog. Dictionary.

[656:B] Grigsby's Convention of 1776, p. 125.

[656:C] Wirt's Patrick Henry, 65.

[657:A] Convention of '76, p. 122. On his return to Virginia toward the close of the session of the convention then sitting, he was appointed one of a committee to prepare devices for a seal of the commonwealth.

[658:A] Pronounced "Tolliver," originally an Italian name, Tagliaferro.