In the meanwhile Fauquier had been waiting impatiently for his copies of the King's veto and his instructions in the matter. Month after month passed and nothing came. Finally, late in June, ten months after they had been written, Camm appeared with them at the door of the Palace. Fauquier took them, and then denounced him for slandering him in England. Then he called out in a loud voice for his Negro servants, and when they had assembled, pointed his finger at Camm. "Look at that gentleman and be sure to know him again, and under no circumstances permit him to revisit the Palace," he said.[14]
As time passed the war of pamphlets was renewed. In 1763 Camm wrote assailing Carter and Bland and trying to answer their arguments. But so unpopular was the cause of the clergy that no one in Virginia would publish what he wrote, and he had to have it done in Maryland. Bland retorted in a letter in the Virginia Gazette, and Camm came back in a letter which he called "Observations."[15]
Interest now centered on a test case in which the Reverend James Maury brought suit for his salary in tobacco in the Hanover County court, in November, 1763. The court declared the Two-penny Act no law, since it had been vetoed by the Crown, and ordered that at the next court the jury should determine how much damages, if any, should be paid. Maury's case seemed as good as won, and the attorney for the defendants, Mr. John Lewis, retired from the case. In his place they engaged a young, little-known lawyer, named Patrick Henry.
It was on December 1, 1763, that a great crowd assembled at the Hanover courthouse, filling the little room and overflowing into the yard. Among them were twenty clergymen. But when Henry saw his uncle there, he persuaded him to leave. John Henry, Patrick's father, presided. When several gentlemen refused to serve on the jury, the sheriff was forced to fill their places with men of the small farmer class. Several were dissenters.
The case was opened by Mr. Peter Lyons, attorney for the plaintiff. When he had concluded, Henry rose to reply. At first he seemed hesitant and awkward. But soon he warmed up to his subject. His eyes kindled, his gestures were bolder, he seemed to grow more erect, his voice resounded through the room. His audience were spellbound, and on every bench, at the door, in every window people leaned forward, their eyes fixed on the youthful orator.
Henry contended that there was a contract between King and people. The King owed the people protection; the people owed the King obedience and support. But should either violate the contract, it released the other from the obligation. The Two-penny Act was good and essential, and its disallowance was a breach of the contract. It was an instance of misrule, a neglect of the interests of the colony. The King, from being the father of his people, became a tyrant who had forfeited the obedience of the subjects. At this point Mr. Lyons cried out: "The gentleman has spoken treason." And from various parts of the room arose a murmur of "treason! treason!"
But Henry turned to the ministers seated before him and denounced them and the rest of the clergy in blazing words for trying to triple their salaries at the expense of the people. "Do they manifest their zeal in the cause of religion and humanity by practicing the mild and benevolent precepts of the Gospel of Jesus?... Oh no! Gentlemen. Instead of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked these rapacious harpies would ... snatch from the hearth of their honest parishioner his last hoe-cake, from the widow and her orphaned child their last milch-cow."[16] At this the ministers got up and left the room. When the jury brought in a verdict of one penny damages, the throng shouted their approval. Strong arms lifted Henry aloft and bore him out of the courthouse.
Henry's contention in essence was that the people of the colonies had a right to govern themselves. And in this he was but finding legal arguments for the existing state of affairs. The Assembly, after a century and a half of battling with Kings and Governors, had made itself to all intents and purposes supreme. In annulling the Two-penny Act the King crossed lances with the representatives of the people and had come off second best. The jury, sitting in the little country courthouse, under the urging of an obscure lawyer, had defied him. Thus, two years before the Stamp Act, Virginia inaugurated the policy of resistance. Most of Henry's arguments were borrowed from the Carter and Bland pamphlets, but whereas they pleaded, he secured positive action. In so far as the Two-penny Act was concerned, the King's veto power was annulled.
Bland summed up the constitutional argument behind this action in a pamphlet written at the time of the trial but published only eight months later. "Under an English government all men are born free, are only subject to laws made by their own consent.... If then the people of this colony are free born, and have a right to the liberties and privileges of English subjects, they must necessarily have a legal constitution, that is a legislature, composed in part of the representatives of the people, who may enact laws for the INTERNAL government of the colony, ... and without such a representative I am bold to say no law can be made."[17]
But the stubborn Mr. Camm was determined not to give up. In April, 1764, his cause came up in the General Court after a delay of five years. The case against him was argued by Robert Carter Nicholas, who claimed that when the Governor had approved a law it was legal, even though in so doing he broke his instructions. A majority of the court[18] were convinced and voted that the Two-penny Act of 1758 was valid despite the King's veto.[19] Camm appealed the case to the Privy Council. It came up in 1767, and was thrown out on a technicality. In this way they avoided giving further offense to the colony without admitting the validity of their claims.