resolution, in which was summed up the essentials of the preceding four, declared "That the General Assembly of this colony have the sole right and power to levy taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this colony; and that every attempt to vest such power in any other person or persons whatsoever, other than the General Assembly aforesaid, has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American freedom."
Had lightning from the clouds fallen in the midst of that Assembly, they could not have been more startled. The boldest were astonished; the timid were alarmed; the loyal few were amazed and indignant. Many threats were uttered, and those who were willing to submit abused Mr. Henry without stint. A violent debate ensued, and Henry's energies were aroused in all their majesty and might. His eloquence, sometimes deeply pathetic, at other times full of denunciatory invective, shook that Assembly like thunder peals. In the midst of his harangue he exclaimed, in clear bell-tones, "Cæsar had his Brutus—Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third—"
"Treason!" cried the excited speaker; and "Treason! Treason!" was shouted from every part of the House. Henry did not falter for a moment. Rising to a loftier altitude, and fixing his eyes, beaming with the fire of exalted genius, upon Robinson, the speaker, he concluded the sentence with, "may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it." *
The moment Henry sat down, Randolph, Pendleton, Bland, Wythe, and others, who afterward became the boldest and most ardent opposers of British power, arose to their feet, and denounced the resolutions as disloyal, and dangerous to the public welfare. Their hearts were with Patrick Henry, but their heads adjudged his course to be premature and injudicious. Again Henry took the floor, and his eloquence, like an avalanche, crushed the most sturdy opposition. The resolutions were carried; the fifth by a majority of only one. They formed the first gauntlet of positive defiance cast at the feet of the British monarch, and gave the first impulse to the storm of revolution which soon swept over the land. In Henry's absence, the next day, the resolutions were reconsidered and modified, and the fifth one stricken out. But manuscript copies were already on their way to other colonies, and the timidity of the Virginia Burgesses did not soften their force. **
Francis Fauquier was at that time lieutenant governor, and the acting chief magistrate of Virginia. He was a man of great private worth, and, for his many virtues and righteous administration of affairs, he was exceedingly popular. As a man, he sympathized with the Legislature; but as the king's representative, he was obliged to use his prerogative in suppressing disloyalty. Therefore, as soon as he was informed of the action of the Burgesses in adopting Henry's resolutions, he dissolved the Assembly and ordered a new election. The eloquence of Henry seemed to have touched every heart in the Old Dominion; and every where the people re-elected the friends of the resolutions, and filled the seats of their opposers with tried patriots.
Within a fortnight after those resolutions went abroad, Massachusetts invited the other colonies to meet her in a general representative Congress at New York. Fauquier refused to call the Virginia Assembly together for the purpose of appointing delegates thereto. Confiding in the patriotism and integrity of the other colonies, the members elect signed a letter to the Congress, in which they promised to acquiesce in any action that might be had. That Congress was held in October, 1765 and the rights of the American col-
* Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry. Robinson had reasons for disliking Henry, and would gladly have crushed his influence, in the bud. Already he had thwarted the speaker in his attempts to insure his power and put money into his own purse at the public cost, by defeating a bill which provided for new issues of paper money, on the loan-office plan. By virtue of his office as speaker, Robinson was treasurer of all sums voted by the Assembly, and he had the means of loaning money to his friends and to himself. He had already done so, and was now anxious to have a colonial loan-office established by which he might shift the responsibility of loaning to men unable to repay, from himself to the colony. Henry foresaw the evils of this scheme, and his wisdom was made manifest, when, in the following year, Robinson died, and his defalcations were made known.
** See a notice of copies of these resolutions in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, on page 466, volume i.
Repeal of the Stamp Act.—Lord Botetourt.—Thomas Jefferson.—Dissolution of the Assembly.—The Apollo Room.
onies were so lucidly set forth in their declaration, that the people lacked no sure guide in their future course. *