Then Washington heard that a startling new scene in the drama of the Stamp Act had been staged in Williamsburg. Mercer had crossed the Atlantic with a full stock of stamps and had arrived in Hampton Roads at a time when the Colony’s anger over the tax measure was rising to new resentment with the approach of November 1, the date on which a stamp would be required to validate almost any act of business or law. Little besides the Stamp Act was discussed in Williamsburg as October was closing and attorneys, merchants and planters gathered for the usual settlement of accounts at the meeting of the General Court, scheduled for the same fateful November 1.
On October 30, when the throng was close to its crest, Colonel Mercer arrived in Williamsburg and went forthwith to private lodgings, but he brought none of the detested stamps with him from the vessel. Word of his presence reached the Governor who decided immediately to go to Mrs. Campbell’s Virginia Coffee House to be at hand in event of disorder. About mid-afternoon, someone shouted “One and all!” Others took it up and began to move towards the building where Mercer was supposed to be. “This concourse of people,” the Governor said afterwards, “I should call a mob, did I not know that it was chiefly if not altogether composed of gentlemen of property. . . .” The crowd came upon Colonel Mercer at the Capitol. He had shown abundant courage during the French and Indian War and he did not cringe now. The question was shot straight at him: he saw how the people felt about the stamps; was he going to distribute them or would he stand with his own people and resign the office? Mercer kept his head. The issue meant a great deal to him, he said. He could not attempt to answer the question immediately. Friday, the day the stamps had to be used, he would make his answer—in front of the Capitol—at ten o’clock in the morning.
With that he started towards the coffee house. There on the porch, seated together, were the Governor and most of the members of Council. Mercer, of course, went straight to the Governor, whom he had not seen since his arrival. The crowd did not like this. Cries were rising from the street: “Friday is too late,” “The law goes into effect then,” “Promise to give your answer tomorrow.” After various messages and appeals, Mercer reluctantly agreed to give his answer at five o’clock Thursday afternoon.
By the next afternoon at five o’clock the crowd was larger than ever and was collected in the Capitol, where Mercer had promised to appear. In a few minutes he arrived, faced the throng and read a letter which said in part:
I do acknowledge that some little time before[,] I heard of and saw some resolves which were said to be made by the House of Burgesses of Virginia, but as the authority of them was disputed, they never appearing but in private hands, and so often and differently reported to me, I determined to know the real sentiments of my countrymen from themselves and I am compelled to say that those sentiments were so suddenly and unexpectedly communicated to me that I was altogether unable to give an immediate answer upon so important a point. . . .
I should be glad to act now in such a manner as would justify me to my friends and countrymen here and the authority which appointed me but the time you have all allotted me is so very short that I have not yet been able to discover that happy medium and therefore must entreat you to be referred to my future conduct with this assurance in the meantime that I will not directly or indirectly by my deputies or myself proceed further with the Act until I receive further orders from England and not then without the assent of the General Assembly of this Colony and that no man can more ardently or sincerely wish the prosperity of than myself. . . . Your sincere friend and humble servant. . . .
That was enough! Those who had seemed willing to kill him on Wednesday now made a hero of him and carried him out of the Capitol in triumph.
The General Court met the next day, but not a litigant appeared and not a lawyer, except the Attorney General. Fauquier subsequently reported: “. . . I called for Colonel Mercer and asked him in open court whether he could supply the Court with proper stamps that the business might be carried on, according to law. He replied he could not, and gave the substance of the answer he had given the evening before. I then asked the Clerk whether he could carry on the business without them. He said he could not, without subjecting himself to such penalties as he would not expose himself to. . . . Then the Court was unanimous that we might adjourn to the next court in course, which was accordingly done.”
There was more—an effort by Mercer to tender his resignation to the Governor who refused it, and the transfer of all the stamped papers to a war vessel—but that tableau in the General Court was the ominous climax. “The first and most obvious consequences of all this,” Fauquier reported, “must be the shutting up all the ports and stopping all proceedings in the courts of justice.” A few days later the optimistic Governor was wondering whether the Colonials would stand fast: “. . . I am very credibly informed that some of the busy men in opposing the reception of the stamps are already alarmed at the consequences of the imprudent steps they have taken.”
“Credibly informed,” the Governor said he was—not concerning the man who read of this at Mount Vernon, nor Henry, nor that young student Jefferson whose heart had beat high as he listened to Henry cry, “Caesar had his Brutus. . . .”
The temper displayed towards Mercer and his stamps was warning that 1766 might prove a year of grim and stubborn contest in Virginia. Plans had to be based on the possibility that no ships would be cleared, no debts collected and no legal business of any sort transacted because no stamps would be purchased or used. To prevent the rusting of all the wheels of trade the Stamp Act must be repealed. England must realize that the measure was as unenforceable as it was unjust. Should this effort prove vain, then Mount Vernon and every like plantation must produce the articles necessary for self-support.
Washington did not undertake to grow any tobacco in 1766 on the Potomac, though he did not forbid his tenants doing so. He determined, instead, to increase his wheat and, at least experimentally, continue with flax and hemp. In addition, as Capt. David Kennedy offered to rent the Bullskin plantation for £28 per annum, that gentleman should have it. A schooner was finished and rigged and could be used during the spring for fishing and, later, for bringing plank from the Occoquan sawmill. The outlook was not hopeless. Unfavorable conditions would correct themselves if Parliament would abandon direct taxes in frank realization that the Colonies would not yield, could not be made to do so and would be quick and violent in dealing with any attempt to comply with the law.
Hot blood on the Rappahannock did not wait. A merchant and shipowner of Hobbs Hole, Archibald Ritchie, declared at the court in Richmond County during February that he intended to clear his vessels on “stamped paper” and that he could get stamps. The countryside was enraged. Everywhere along the Rappahannock the comment was the same: If merchants yielded, the Stamp Act could be enforced in part at least, and the right of exclusive Colonial self-taxation would be destroyed. On February 27, 1766, a number of prominent planters met at Leedstown to decide what they should do about Ritchie’s defiance. They proceeded to formulate the principles on which they would act and to draw up articles of association.
Then the “Associators” decided to make Ritchie sign a declaration that was duly drafted and approved. The next day, no less than four hundred men assembled at Hobbs Hole—”Sons of Liberty” they called themselves in proud acceptation of the name Col. Isaac Barre had applied during the debate in the House of Commons on the stamp bill. A committee went to Ritchie’s house to demand that he sign the paper. Ritchie protested: Would not the gentlemen name a committee to “reason with him on the subject?” No! His case had been passed upon. It was for him to say whether he would go willingly to the street where the other Sons of Liberty were waiting for him. Ritchie could not hesitate otherwise than at the risk of worse things to come. He went out, listened as the declaration was read to him, signed and swore to this paper:
Sensible now of the high insult I offered this County by my declaration at Richmond Court lately of my d
etermination to make use of stamped paper for clearing out vessels; and having been convinced such proceedings will establish a precedent by which the hateful Stamp Act might be introduced into this Colony to the utter destruction of the Public Liberty, I do most submissively in the presence of the public sign the Paper meaning to show my remorse for having formed so execrable a Declaration and I do hereby solemnly promise and swear on the Holy Evangelist that no vessel of mine shall clear on stamped paper; that I never will on any Pretence make use of Stamped Paper unless that use be authorized by the General Assembly of this Colony.
ARCHIBALD RITCHIE.
At Norfolk, Virginia, the Sons of Liberty resolved to use “all lawful ways and means” that Providence had put in their hands for preserving the right “of being taxed by none but representatives of their own choosing, and of being tried only by a jury of their own peers”; in London, the agents of the Colonies and some of the merchants were pleading before Committees of Commons for the repeal of the Stamp Act. Benjamin Franklin underwent examination at great length, by friends and by adversaries, before Commons in Committee of the Whole, and he won great praise by his answers. The prime distinction he drew in his argument was between a tax on commerce, imposed and accepted in the interest of the empire, and a direct internal tax on the American Colonies, levied without their consent.
Mercer was still another witness before the Committee. He thought the burden of the stamp tax would fall most heavily on the poor because the great part of the taxes were “very trifling” in amount and would mean little to persons of wealth. Mercer made the distinction on which Franklin had laid much emphasis: “The grand objection was to any internal tax, and this is the only institution to which the Legislature has been opposed.”
Other witnesses were equally firm in saying that attempted enforcement of the Stamp Act would be calamitous and that nothing less than complete repeal would satisfy the Colonials or save the merchants. Perhaps the most vehement cry of all was in a petition of the London merchants, who described the markets that had been created in the Colonies for British goods and the benefits that had been Britain’s from commodities the Colonies had shipped in part payment for the products sent them. “. . . this commerce,” the merchants told the Commons, “so beneficial to the State and so necessary for the support of multitudes, now lies under such difficulties and discouragements that nothing less than utter ruin is apprehended without the immediate interposition of Parliament.”
Virginians did not hear promptly of any of this, but they learned that the Rockingham ministry still held office and that friends of the Colonies were urging the repeal of the Stamp Act. Commerce remained at a standstill. Conversation was changed, too. When men of station were not talking of repeal of the act, their speech was of how to carry on the business of plantations in spite of it. Ladies of fashion had pride no longer in what they were importing from England but in what they were doing without. Refusal to send orders to Britain now was as sure a distinction as the high cost of an invoice of fine dress previously had been. The enforced self-dependence of the frontier had become the voluntary law of life in the Tidewater.
In the midst of this period of protest and uncertainty Washington made a journey in April to the Dismal Swamp with his brother-in-law, Fielding Lewis. They found the Negroes making sufficient progress to renew faith in the undertaking. So hopeful were the visitors that they decided to purchase on their own account approximately 1100 acres of Marmaduke Norfleet’s land for £1200 Virginia currency. It was a dangerously large obligation to be assumed at a time of perplexity by a man already in debt to his London merchant for a considerable sum; but Washington believed in the future of the swamp. When he believed in anything he would stake his money on his judgment.
The early days of May brought developments that seemed to justify faith in the future. As if she were proud to be the messenger, the ship Lady Baltimore arrived in York River May 2 with news for which the entire Colony had been hoping: the Stamp Act had been repealed! After a resounding debate in which Pitt was the strategist against the measure, Commons had voted to erase the offending tax from the statute books. On the first division, the Lords voted fifty-nine to fifty-four for the execution of the Stamp Act, but in the end they accepted the repeal bill. Royal assent was given March 18. Merchants had been so confident this would be the action of Parliament that some of them already had started cargoes to America. Commercial England’s gratification was as nothing compared with the jubilation of America. Resistance had justified itself, one element proclaimed; faith in King and Parliament, said others, had been vindicated.
So completely were Washington’s fellow-planters convinced of the sympathy of Parliament with the Colonies’ interpretation of constitutional principles that scarce attention was paid in Virginia to a “Declaratory Act” that had been responsible, in part, for the willingness of the Lords to reverse their vote against repeal. The measure, passed almost simultaneously with the repeal bill, referred to the assertion by the Colonies of the exclusive right of taxing themselves. In plain words the Colonies were told they did not possess that right without qualification. The act set forth that Crown and Parliament “had, hath and of right ought to have the full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the Colonies and people of America, subjects of the Crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever.” Further, Colonial proceedings of every sort that challenged or disputed the powers of King and Parliament were “utterly null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever.”
This declaration was warning to the Colonies that the repeal of the Stamp Act was not to be regarded as an admission that the law itself was unconstitutional or that the provisions of it were arbitrary and tyrannical. Parliament, in fact, did more than assert full authority to do again what it voluntarily had undone: it served notice that it could and, if need be, would declare Colonial laws of no effect—a power that previously had been exclusively the prerogative of the Crown. This was minimized, if not ignored by the leaders of the General Assembly who felt that it mattered little, as they saw it, that powers had been declared that never would be exercised by Parliament.
It was tragic for the leaders of the General Assembly that the news of the repeal should be followed on May 11 by the death of Speaker Robinson, who for many years had seemed to exemplify good will. Death was not his worst fate. Robinson was buried with honor and lament; Robert Carter Nicholas was named in his place as Treasurer. Then in a short time the new official reported that Robinson was delinquent in some vast, undetermined sum, which enemies styled defalcation and apologists declared to be loans made to protect the estates of friends.
Governor Fauquier formally proclaimed the repeal of the Stamp Act on June 6 and thereby gave justices and lawyers, merchants and planters the signal to go back to work. Washington wrote his merchants: “The repeal of the Stamp Act, to whatsoever causes owing, ought much to be rejoiced at, for had the Parliament of Great Britain resolved upon enforcing it, the consequences I conceive would have been more direful than is generally apprehended both to the Mother Country and her Colonies. All therefore who were instrumental in procuring the repeal are entitled to the thanks of every British subject and have mine cordially.”
It was gratifying to get rid of so provocative an issue; doubly so because conditions at Mount Vernon called for the undiverted attention of the owner. The transfer from tobacco to wheat was not easy. A controversy was brewing with Carlyle & Adam over the proper weight of wheat per bushel. That firm, moreover, was far from prompt in paying. Information was discouragingly meagre concerning the growing and shipment of flax and hemp and the collection of the bounty offered by Parliament. Goods from England were high in price and, sometimes, poor in quality or shipped without regard to specifications. Unpleasantness found its place in letters and ledger-entries; the happiness of domestic life left no record except in the heart. Private life was better, not worse.
In this atmosphere the new Burgess fro
m Fairfax received the usual summons to Williamsburg: Fauquier had set a date for a session of the General Assembly in March, then May, then July, and once again in September, only to postpone it finally to November. Washington went in style this time, with coach-and-six and with Martha and the children. He found himself immediately on the scene of a vigorous contest for the office of speaker, vacated by the death of Robinson. The potentates were divided over a choice between Peyton Randolph and Richard Bland. The majority were for Randolph, who proceeded at once to take the chair and organize the House. First action was a unanimous vote for the appointment of a committee to examine the state of the Treasury and, in particular, to scrutinize all receipts and check all issues of Virginia paper money after 1754. Bland was named chairman, with ten associates from among the ablest members of the House.
The committee had to go back in Robinson’s accounts to April, 1755, from which date it followed all the issues of Treasury notes, all the collections and all the major disbursements—a long and troublesome task. The committee concluded that the balance due by Robinson was £100,761, and his administrators asked three years in which to settle. The Assembly was loath to prolong the period during which the Colony might be crippled by the defalcation. After discussion in Committee of the Whole, the decision was, first, to request the Governor to institute suits against Robinson’s estate, and, second, to instruct the Attorney General, after obtaining judgment against Robinson’s securities, not to issue executions in a larger sum than was necessary to make good the difference between what Robinson owed and what his estate would yield. Measures thought to compass all that could be done at the moment to recover the £100,000 of which the people had been defrauded were enacted. The legislation was prompt and uncompromising, but the humiliation persisted: through Robinson, the integrity of the ruling class had been assailed.
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