Give Me Liberty: The Struggle for Self-Government in Virginia

by Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

It was just this lull which alarmed some of the younger leaders in Virginia. As long as the tax on tea remained they realized that the danger to liberty persisted. So when the Assembly met in the spring of 1773, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, and others held private consultations in the Raleigh Tavern on how to awaken the people, not only of Virginia, but of all the colonies, to the need of a common defense.[12]

A momentous series of meetings they proved to be, for out of them came the intercolonial system of committees of correspondence and the Continental Congress. "We were all sensible that the most urgent of all measures was that of coming to an understanding with all the other colonies to consider the British claims as a common cause to all, and to produce a unity of action," Jefferson stated afterward. "And for this purpose that a committee of correspondence in each colony would be the best instrument for intercommunication. And that their first measure would probably be to propose a meeting of deputies from every colony, at some central place, who should be charged with the direction of the measures to be taken by all."[13]

On March 13, the resolution to appoint the committee of correspondence for Virginia was introduced in the House of Burgesses by Dabney Carr, and adopted unanimously. To the committee were appointed some of the first men in the colony—Peyton Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Edmund Pendleton, etc.

William Lee, writing from London, said that this action "struck a greater panic into the Ministers" than anything since the passage of the Stamp Act. And well it might, for soon the entire country was covered with committees, who kept in close touch with each other, formulated public opinion, and prepared the way for revolutionary action.

The need for these bodies became glaringly evident when the British Government adopted a policy of repression which aroused the spirit of resistance to the highest pitch. At the time the East India Company was on the verge of bankruptcy. In order to save it the government agreed to remit the long-standing duty of twelve pence a pound on tea entering Great Britain. When the tea was re-exported to America the price, even after the three pence duty there had been paid, would be nine pence less than formerly. George III approved of the plan heartily, and confidently expected the colonists to swallow the pill of Parliamentary taxation, now that it was coated with the sugar of reduced prices.

Never was a man more mistaken. The Americans, after struggling for a century and a half to win liberty, were not going to sell it for a cup of tea. When the East India Company ships arrived, angry mobs forced some to turn back with their cargoes, some were boarded and the tea destroyed. When the brigantine Mary and Jane arrived in Norfolk with nine chests of tea, a crowded meeting at the courthouse demanded that they be sent back. When the importers complied they received a vote of thanks.[14] The York County committee, headed by Thomas Nelson, debated whether a ship which came in with two chests of tea should not be burnt, but contented themselves with forcing her to leave without the expected cargo of tobacco.

Tea was banned in every patriotic household. One evening at Nomini Hall, Mrs. Robert Carter made "a dish of tea" for her husband. "He smelt, sipt, looked." "What is this?" he asked. Then "splash" he emptied the cup in the fire.[15] But what chiefly aroused the ire of the British Ministry was the so-called Boston Tea Party, when fifty or sixty men, disguised as Indians, boarded the tea ships and threw box after box in the harbor, while a large crowd looked on and applauded.

This provoked the British Government into making their most serious blunder—the passage of what the Americans called the "Intolerable Acts." The port of Boston was closed; the Massachusetts government was altered to increase the power of the Governor; in certain cases accused persons might be sent to England for trial; the Governors were authorized to requisition buildings for the use of royal troops; the boundaries of the province of Quebec were extended to the Mississippi on the west and the Ohio on the south.

The American patriots now realized that they must act with vigor and firmness or lose all that they held most dear. The King and Parliament were determined to force the issue. When the Virginia Assembly met in May, 1774, Henry, Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, and several others met in the Council Chamber in the Capitol to agree on some measure to arouse the people to a sense of the danger. After some discussion it was decided to propose to the Burgesses that they make June 1, the date set for the closing of the port of Boston, a day of general fasting and prayer. The resolution was introduced by Robert Carter Nicholas, and passed without opposition.[16]