The money raised under the act was to be expended in America and not drawn to England. The only evil feature of the act, as a law, was the clause which provided that, at the discretion of the prosecuting officer, any case arising under it should be tried in the Admiralty Courts without a jury. The news of its passage reached America early in April. But except for the spiking of the guns in a fort near Philadelphia, there was no demonstration of any moment until the end of May. Many historians have urged this as a proof that the act would have quietly gone into effect but for the impulse given to agitation by one fiery spirit. This view does not seem to be well founded. The quiet was rather of that There was no tangible issue to contest. When such an issue should arise there surely would be an explosion. It chanced, however, that the matter did not rest until the day came for buying stamps.

sort which precedes a storm.

Henry's Resolutions, 1765.

Patrick Henry had been returned to fill a vacancy in the House of Burgesses, as the popular branch of the Virginia legislature was called. It was his first term of service in any legislative body, and the Burgesses were mainly conservative men of property whose minds, at this time, were fully occupied with an important question of colonial politics. As none of these men proposed to protest against the Stamp Act, Henry, on the next to the last day of the session (May 29, 1765), offered certain resolutions which he forced through by dint of his matchless oratory. There has been some confusion as to the precise form in which the resolutions passed. This was due partly to the fact that on the next day, after Henry had left, the Conservatives repealed the boldest of them. The whole set, preamble and all, had been sent off to the north and south almost as soon as written. They were printed everywhere as the Virginia Resolutions, and are here given entire from a manuscript copy left by Henry:

II.]

Henry's Resolutions, 1765.

51

"Whereas, The Honourable House of Commons, in England, have of late drawn into question how far the General Assembly of this colony hath power to enact laws for laying of taxes and imposing duties payable by the people of this his Majesty's most ancient colony; for settling and ascertaining the same to all future times, the House of Burgesses of this present General Assembly have come to the following resolves:

"Resolved, That the first adventurers, settlers of this his Majesty's colony and dominion of Virginia, brought with them and transmitted to their posterity, and all other his Majesty's subjects, since inhabiting in this his Majesty's colony, all the privileges and immunities that have at any time been held, enjoyed, and possessed by the people of Great Britain.

"Resolved, That by two royal charters, granted by King James the First, the colonists aforesaid are declared and entitled to all privileges and immunities of natural-born subjects, to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within the realm of England.

"Resolved, That his Majesty's liege people of this his ancient colony have enjoyed the right of being thus governed by their own Assembly in the article of taxes and internal police, and that the same have never been forfeited, or any other way yielded up, but have been constantly recognized by the King and people of Great Britain.

"Resolved, Therefore, that the General Assembly of this colony, together with his Majesty or his substitutes, have, in their representative capacity, the only exclusive right and power to lay taxes and imposts upon the inhabitants of this colony; and that every attempt to vest such power in any other person or persons whatever than the General Assembly aforesaid, is illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust, and has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American liberty.

"Resolved, That his Majesty's liege people, the inhabitants of this colony, are not bound to yield obedience to any law

or ordinance whatever, designed to impose any taxation whatsoever upon them, other than the laws or ordinances of the General Assembly aforesaid.

"Resolved, That any person who shall, by speaking or writing, assert or maintain that any person or persons, other than the General Assembly of this colony, have any right or power to impose or lay any taxation on the people here, shall be deemed an enemy to his Majesty's colony."

These resolutions are given in full partly to show the legal phraseology in which the leaders of the Revolution were accustomed to clothe their State papers; but more especially to show the bold and unhesitating language with which Henry was wont to treat any subject. At first they were passed around from hand to hand. Later on they were printed in the newspapers; but it was not until July that they were generally known throughout the colonies.

Meantime, on June 6th, before the Virginia Resolves were known at Boston, Otis had introduced and pushed Stamp Act Congress through a reluctant House of Representatives a called. call for a general meeting of committees from all the continental assemblies in a Congress to secure united action in regard to the Stamp Act. The party opposed to agitation was in the majority in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and two conservative members were joined with Otis to form the Massachusetts committee. The response to this proposition was at first not at all favourable. Henry's resolutions, however, had formulated the opinion of the people at large. One assembly after another accepted the invitation of Massachusetts until all which were in session, except that of New Hampshire, had chosen committees.

In August, the names of the stamp distributers were made public. Then at last an issue was raised. Riots occurred in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York,

II.]

The Stamp Act, 1765.

53

The Stamp Act disobeyed.

Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. The Boston riots were the most serious of all. There the resentment of the mob was directed against the customs officials as well as against the stamp distributer. Much damage was done to property, and the whole affair was disgraceful. Before long, every stamp distributer had resigned. As the stamped paper and the stamps arrived at the several ports, they were stored in the forts or oftentimes on vessels in the harbours. November 1st arrived, the day on which the act was to come into force. Not a stamp could be bought. There was no one in America authorized either to open the packages of stamped paper or to sell stamps. In the condition of temper then prevailing among the people, no royal official seemed disposed to stretch a point to get the stamps into circulation. Soon the royal officials were themselves obliged to violate the act and to clear vessels without using stamped paper - though such clearances were plainly illegal. A few clearances on stamped paper issued by the collector at Savannah, Georgia, were the only instances in which the act was observed. The judges were obliged, after a brief period of waiting, to open the courts regardless of the law. In one case, a clerk of the court, who refused to use unstamped paper, was threatened by the judge with confinement for contempt of court if he persisted in his refusal. The newspapers appeared with a death's head or some ingenious device in the corner where the stamp should have been. In the case of probate business alone does there seem to have been any appreciable inconvenience from the refusal to use the stamps. The Stamp Act Congress met at New York on October 7th. It formulated a Declaration of Rights, on the lines of the Virginia Resolutions, and petitions to the king and to the two Houses of Parliament. The importance of the Stamp Act Congress consists not so much in what it performed as in the fact of its existence. For years the English government had sought in vain to bring the

Stamp Act Congress, 1765.

colonies into some kind of union against the French. Now, in one moment, of their own motion, they came together. The Stamp Act Congress, therefore, marks the beginning of the American Union. Moreover the leaders of the radical party in the several colonies there represented came together and exchanged ideas. For the first time the men of the Revolution met each other face to face. Virginia was not represented, electing a committee; and Otis

owing to the impossibility of and Henry, the two men who gave the first impulse to revolution, probably never met.

English Politics.

The king before this had dismissed the Grenville Ministry for personal reasons. After some attempts to secure the services of Pitt, he was obliged to confide the government to the section of the Whig party, which might well have been called the Regular Whigs, led by the Marquis of Rockingham, of the great house of Wentworth, whom the king had treated with ignominy a short time before. The ministry, possessing neither the confidence nor the goodwill of the monarch, nor any inherent strength of its own, immediately found itself face to face with a serious crisis in the affairs of the Empire. Curiously enough the Stamp tax, which had been chosen on account of what might be called its self-enforcing qualities, was in the existing state of the public mind in America almost incapable of enforcement a whole people could not be compelled to go to law, nor could the colonists be obliged to make wills or read newspapers. They might dispose of their property before death and might read news-letters instead of stamped printed sheets. They certainly could not be forced to buy stamps without the presence of an army; and the ministers must have paid some slight heed to Franklin's remark to the effect that an army sent to America would find no rebellion prevailing there but might indeed make one. There could be no hope from modification of the law, as the act in its present shape could be