The Association proved remarkably successful. To this Dunmore himself bore testimony. To the Earl of Hillsborough he wrote in December, 1774: "The Associations ... recommended by the people of this colony, and adopted by what is called the Continental Congress, are now enforcing throughout this country with the greatest rigor. A committee has been chosen in every county whose business it is to carry the Association of the Congress into execution, which committee assumes an authority to inspect the books, invoices, and all the secrets of the trade and correspondence of the merchants, to watch the conduct of every inhabitant without distinction, and send for all such as come under their suspicion into their presence, to interrogate them ...and to stigmatize, as they term it, such as they find transgressing what they are hardy enough to call the laws of Congress."[23]
The American patriots were greatly encouraged by the support they received from many of the ablest men in Great Britain. These men were shocked at the disregard by Parliament of the principle that no man should be taxed without his own consent. Pitt declared that if America fell the British Constitution would fall with her. When troops were sent to Boston, the Duke of Richmond blurted out: "I hope from the bottom of my heart that the Americans may resist and get the better of the forces sent against them."
Today one wonders how the King and Parliament could have turned a deaf ear to the ringing words of Edmund Burke in his famous address on "Conciliation with the Colonies." "As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces toward you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere—it is a seed that grows in every soil.... But, until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your national dignity, freedom they can have from none but you.... Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the Empire.... It is the spirit of the English Constitution which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the Empire, even down to the minutest members."[24]
In the revolutionary changes in Virginia it was the House of Burgesses, not the Council, who took the lead. Washington, Henry, Jefferson, Pendleton, Richard Henry Lee, George Mason were all Burgesses. In fact the members of the Council were placed in a most embarrassing position. Appointed by the King to aid and advise the royal Governor, they owed a double allegiance—to Crown and country. To them the breach was a tragedy, the choice of allegiance a difficult one. So for the most part they played a negative role. In the Council meetings they usually voted with the Governor. But as the crisis grew more acute they drifted away from him to join their countrymen in resisting the assaults on their liberty.
John Page, Junior, in Council supported Dunmore in dissolving the Assembly in May, 1774; yet he remained in town and joined the Burgesses in the procession to the church on the fast day.[25] On the other hand, Robert Carter, though he had refused to drink a cup of tea, would not permit any of his family to observe the day. "By this I conclude he is a courtier," wrote Fithian in his Diary. But he did not long remain a "courtier." "The enemies of government are so numerous and so vigilant over the conduct of every man that the loyalists have been so intimidated that they have entirely shrunk away," wrote Dunmore in July, 1775. "Even the Council ... approves everything done by the Burgesses." The only members he could rely upon were Ralph Wormeley, Gawin Corbin, and the Reverend John Camm.[26] The rest, while not subscribing to the Association, adhered strictly to it.
But John Randolph, the Attorney General, remained faithful to the King to the end. His opposition to the resolutions denouncing the Stamp Act, the boycott, and the calling of the provincial and Continental Congresses brought down on him the wrath of the patriots. Dunmore stated that he was insulted, his life threatened, and his home destroyed.[27] In 1775 he sailed for England with his family, never to return.
In the fall of 1774 Dunmore brought on himself the hatred of the Virginia frontiersmen by his conduct in a war with the western Indians. Placing himself in command of one force, and General Andrew Lewis of another, he gave the order to advance. Lewis defeated the famous chief Comstock in the bloody battle of Point Pleasant, but Dunmore, ignoring the chance to deliver a crushing blow, made a treaty of peace with the Indians.
The frontiersmen, as they turned their faces homeward, cursed the Governor as a traitor, who spared the Indians because he planned to use them against the Virginians should they go to war with Great Britain. Nor were their suspicions groundless, for a few months later Dunmore wrote the Earl of Dartmouth that if the King would send him "a small body of troops" and arms and ammunition, he could raise "such a force among Indians, Negroes, and other persons" as would soon reduce Virginia to obedience.[28]
But at this moment obedience was far from the minds of the people. On March 20, 1775, the second Provincial Congress met in St. John's Church, Richmond. The place was but a straggling village, but it was more centrally located than Williamsburg, and further away from the British warships in the York River. The delegates were unanimous in approving the proceedings of the Continental Congress, and in thanking the Virginia representatives for their services. But it soon became evident that they were divided on the vital question of preparing for war. When Henry introduced resolutions for putting the colony in a state of defense by arming and disciplining a force of militia, some of the leading members drew back. War was unthinkable, they said. The country was too weak, too defenseless, too open to invasion. The only hope was for reconciliation, for the mediation of America's friends in Parliament.
This brought Henry to his feet. "What has there been in the conduct of the British Ministry for the last ten years to justify hope? Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? These are the instruments of subjugation sent over to rivet upon us the chains which the British Ministry have been so long forging. What have we to oppose them? Shall we try argument? We have been trying that for the last ten years.... Shall we resort to entreaty and supplication? We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated; and we have been spurned from the foot of the throne.... If we wish to be free we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!... Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."[29] Henry's eloquence carried the day, yet so fraught with danger was the issue, that his motion was carried by a majority of five only.