Duty on Tea—Dunmore, Governor—Proceedings of Assembly—Private Meeting of Patriots—Committees of Correspondence—Washington—Dunmore visits the Frontier.
In the year 1770, all the duties on articles imported into America having been repealed, save that on tea, the American merchants refused to import that commodity from England. Consequently a large stock of it was accumulated in the warehouses of the East India Company; and the government in 1773 authorized the company to ship it to America free from any export duty. The light import duty payable in America being far less than that from which it was exempted in England, it was taken for granted that it would sell more readily in the colony than before it had been made a subject of taxation. It was, indeed, by some looked upon as now rather a question of commerce than of taxation; the main object of the British government appears to have been to put an end to the trade between the colonies and Holland, (a trade contraband according to the letter of the law, but the law had been practically long obsolete,) and to give to the East India Company a monopoly of the colonial markets. But it was in general regarded in America as a test question of revenue.
The tea-ships arrived in America, and measures were taken to prevent the landing of the tea; at Boston several cargoes were thrown overboard in the night of December the eighteenth, into the sea, by a party of men disguised as Indians, acting under the advice of Samuel Adams, and other leading patriots. Other colonies either compelled the masters of the tea-ships to return with their cargoes, or excluded them from sale; and thus not a chest of it was sold for the benefit of the company. Tea had hitherto been imported by Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts into the colonies to the value of three hundred thousand pounds annually from Holland and her dependencies. In Virginia the use of this beverage was now generally abandoned.[569:A]
Intelligence of the occurrences at Boston having reached England, parliament ordered the port of that town to be closed on the fourth day of June; and other strong measures were adopted in order to reduce Massachusetts to submission. The colonies, like the captives in the cave of Polyphemus, were conscious of being involved in a common danger; and that if one should fall a victim, the destruction of the rest would be only a question of time.
When John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, the newly-appointed governor of Virginia, reached Williamsburg, early in 1772, he found that he had already incurred suspicion on account of the appointment of Captain Foy as his clerk, or private secretary, with a salary of five hundred pounds, to be derived from new-created fees. Foy had distinguished himself at the battle of Minden, and had been afterwards governor of New Hampshire. Dunmore summoned the assembly which met in February; and his apparent haughtiness at the first rather heightened the prejudice against him. He, however, relinquished the objectionable fees, and thus conciliated so good a feeling that the assembly expressed their gratitude in warm and affectionate terms. Some important acts were passed during this session, including several for the promotion of internal improvement—for improving the navigation of the Potomac; for making a road from the Warm Spring to Jenning's Gap; for clearing the Matapony; for circumventing the falls of James River by a canal from Westham; and for cutting a canal across from Archer's Hope Creek to Queen's Creek, through Williamsburg, to connect the James River with the York. The Counties of Berkley and Dunmore were carved out from Frederick.[569:B]
The assembly was prorogued to the tenth of June. Dunmore, notwithstanding his recent complaisance, evinced his distaste for assemblies by proroguing them from time to time, until at length a forgery of the paper-currency of the colony compelled him to call the legislature together again, by proclamation, March 4th, 1773—the thirteenth year of the reign of George the Third. His lordship's measures in apprehending the counterfeiters had been more energetic than legal, and the assembly, not diverted by their care for the treasury from a regard to personal rights, requested that his proceedings might not be drawn into a precedent.
The horizon was again darkened by gathering clouds. A British armed revenue vessel having been burnt in Narraganset Bay, an act of parliament was passed making such offences punishable by death, and authorizing the accused to be transported to England for trial. Virginia had already, in 1709, remonstrated against this last measure. The conservatives, the statu quo party in the assembly, as usual, differed with the movement party as to the proper measure to be adopted. Patrick Henry, Mr. Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, Francis L. Lee, Dabney Carr, and perhaps one or two others were at this gloomy period in the habit of meeting together in the evening in a private room of the Raleigh, to consult on the state of affairs. In conformity with their agreement, Dabney Carr, on the twelfth of March, moved a series of resolutions, recommending a committee of correspondence, and instructing them to inquire in regard to the newly-constituted court in Rhode Island. Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry made speeches of memorable eloquence on this occasion. Mr. Lee was the author of the plan of intercolonial committees of correspondence; and Virginia was the first colony that adopted it. The resolutions passed without opposition, and Dunmore immediately dissolved the house. These resolutions "struck a greater panic into the ministers" than anything that had taken place since the passage of the stamp act.[570:A]
The committee of correspondence appointed were Peyton Randolph, Robert C. Nicholas, Richard Bland, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, Patrick Henry, Dudley Digges, Dabney Carr, Archibald Cary, and Thomas Jefferson. On the day after the dissolution, this committee addressed a circular to the other colonies. Robert Carter Nicholas published, during this year, a pamphlet in defence of colonial rights.
Dabney Carr, although young, was, according to Mr. Jefferson, a formidable rival at the bar to Patrick Henry, and promised to become a distinguished statesman; but he died shortly after, in the thirtieth year of his age, greatly lamented. The judge of the same name was his son. Washington was a member of this assembly, and supported the patriotic measures, perhaps, however, as yet little dreaming that the colonies were on the verge of revolution and war. He was still on friendly terms with Governor Dunmore, who appreciated his abilities and character. He, indeed, intended about this time, in compliance with the governor's invitation, to accompany him in a tour of observation to the western frontier of Virginia, where both of them had an interest in lands; but this was prevented by the illness and death of Miss Custis, the daughter of Mrs. Washington by a former marriage.
Dunmore visited the frontier and remained some time at Pittsburg, and endeavored, by the help of Dr. Conolly, to extend the bounds of Virginia in that quarter; and this was attributed to a design to foment a quarrel between Virginia and Pennsylvania; but the suspicion was probably without sufficient foundation.