The Road to Monticello

by Hayes, Kevin J. ;

  His profession as a lawyer brought him back to Williamsburg twice yearly. The autumn of 1768 he returned in time for the next session of the General Court, which was scheduled to begin the second Monday of October. That same month, Norborne Berkeley, Baron de Botetourt, arrived to assume his position as colonial governor. Before coming to Virginia, Botetourt had had a distinguished career in business and politics in England. He served as a Member of Parliament for more than two decades before he revived the barony of Botetourt and began serving in the House of Lords. A personal friend of King George III, Lord Botetourt also served briefly as groom of the king’s bedchamber. In his business activities he invested heavily in several industries in Bristol, England, including the Warmley Copper Works, which failed in 1768. The failure put Botetourt in serious financial straits, prompting him to seek the lucrative position of governor of Virginia after Fauquier’s death.5

  Botetourt’s legislative experience well qualified him for the position. And unlike other governors, he was willing to reside in Virginia. Former governors had stayed in England, collecting their sizable salaries while taking little direct responsibility for colonial governance. Instead, they sent their lieutenants to Virginia to do the actual work of governing. Virginians admired Botetourt for coming to the colony himself instead of sending a lieutenant.

  He made a dramatic entry into Williamsburg when he arrived at dusk on Friday, October 21, 1768. As he entered the city, members of the Virginia Council greeted their new governor and accompanied him to the capitol, where he took the oath of office. News of his arrival rapidly circulated around Williamsburg, and its citizenry sought to welcome him as best they could. The city was illuminated for the occasion, as householders placed candles in their street-facing windows. Jefferson joined the throng to welcome the new governor. His financial accounts show that he bought some extra candles this day, too.6

  Botetourt arrived with a fair-sized personal library, which gave a good impression to those privileged enough to gain entry to the Governor’s Palace during his term. The library Botetourt brought with him to Virginia, a modest but discriminating collection of more than three hundred volumes, showed his guests that he was a man of taste and refinement but by no means overly pedantic. His was not a scholar’s library: his collection of ancient authors consisted mainly of books boys read in school. He had a good collection of histories, including many of the most important historical works pertaining to North America. Apparently, Botetourt had done his homework in preparation for his role as governor.7

  His excellent collection of belles lettres included a number of multi-volume works by prominent French and English authors—an eight-volume French edition of Molière, Sir Thomas Hanmer’s six-volume edition of Shakespeare, an eight-volume French edition of Voltaire. He also had a copy of one of Voltaire’s works in English translation, Ignorant Philosopher. Seeing this item listed anonymously in the inventory of the governor’s estate as “1 Ignorant philosopher,” a nineteenth-century wit commented, “Lord Botetourt was fortunate in not having more. It would be hard to find a modern library without a dozen.”8

  Dissolving the Assembly upon taking office was standard procedure for colonial governors, and Botetourt was no exception. Upon his arrival that autumn, he dissolved the Virginia Assembly, forcing counties to hold new elections. Six months would pass before the next Assembly, time enough for him to endear himself to them. He turned himself into a patron of education: he encouraged students at William and Mary, became rector of the college, and established the Botetourt Medal to reward scholastic excellence. A statue of Governor Botetourt now stands there to commemorate his contribution to the college. His exemplary behavior earned the gratitude of the Virginia colonists. Jefferson never became close friends with Botetourt as he had with Fauquier, but he recognized the new governor’s “great respectability, his character for integrity, and his general popularity.”9

  The voters of Albemarle County chose a new burgess at their spring elections: Thomas Jefferson. Now he would be going to Williamsburg not only in his professional capacity as an attorney—someone who carries out the law—but also as a legislator, someone who makes the law. Though the contemporary entries in his memorandum books make no mention of his legislative activities, they do convey a newfound, and wide-eyed, sense of excitement.

  Verling’s Virginia Company of Comedians had disbanded before the close of the previous year. No other acting companies came to town that season. Still, there was plenty to see in Williamsburg, and Jefferson was an anxious as anybody to see what he could. Henry Tyler, a hog farmer from Sussex County who had raised a beast weighing more than half a ton, had brought it to Williamsburg and was charging people a shilling and three pence each just to see it. Tyler had brought his hog to a fine market. Many people, Jefferson included, paid the price of admission. That hog was huge. But there was no telling precisely how huge. An “attempt was made to weigh him with a pair of steel-yards, graduated to 1200 lb.,” Jefferson noted, “but he weighed more.” The animal stuck in his memory and entered the pages of history when Jefferson recalled it in Notes on the State of Virginia.10

  Though no live actors trod the boards of the Waller Street theater during the spring of 1769, some puppets did. Peter Gardiner, a traveling puppeteer and illusionist, brought his elaborate stage show to Williamsburg. Gardiner’s puppets, four feet tall and richly dressed, seemed almost lifelike. In early April Jefferson attended Gardiner’s show. That evening the puppeteer staged a performance of The Babes in the Wood, a theatrical adaptation of a traditional story so well known that its title characters had become proverbial.

  The evening’s entertainment also included a variety of other acts: “a curious view of Water Works, representing the sea, with all manner of sea monsters sporting on the waves”; indoor fireworks representing “the taking of the Havannah, with ships, forts, and batteries, continually firing”; a “curious Field of Battle, containing the Dutch, French, Prussian, and English forces, which shall regularly march and perform the different exercises to great perfection”; and a man who put his head on one chair, his feet on another, and suffered “a large rock of three hundred weight to be broke on his breast with a sledge hammer”—an early precursor to the man who catches cannonballs. Gardiner gave his audience good value; a seat in the gallery for the whole show could be had for the same price as it cost to see the giant hog. Jefferson apparently enjoyed the extravaganza—he went back twice more before the month was out.11

  The Assembly had been something of a spectacle for Jefferson in the past. Now, instead of observing the legislative proceedings from the lobby, he would be participating in them from the floor of the House of Burgesses. On Monday, May 8, 1769, Jefferson, now twenty-six years old, joined the other burgesses gathered at the capitol. Typically, the first morning of the legislative session was filled with formalities. Soon after the burgesses assembled, Nathaniel Walthoe, clerk of the Governor’s Council, delivered a message from Lord Botetourt ordering them to attend him in the Council chamber. They proceeded there and entered en masse. Wearing a handsome pale crimson, cut velvet suit, the governor was dressed to capture their attention.12 Though no acting companies came to Virginia this spring, Botetourt’s eye-catching costume let perceptive observers recognize a piece of theater when they saw it.

  “Gentlemen of the House of Burgesses,” the governor stated. “You must return again to your House, and immediately proceed to the Choice of a Speaker.”

  They made their way back to their own chambers, where they elected Peyton Randolph, one of Jefferson’s old mentors, to the position of Speaker of the House. In recent years, Jefferson had encountered Randolph professionally as an attorney, and the two would continue to come in contact as America worked its way toward independence. Jefferson greatly appreciated his friend’s leadership. In a character sketch of Randolph, he called him “a most excellent man; and none was ever more beloved and respected by his friends. Somewhat cold and coy towards strangers, but of the sweetest aff
ability when ripened into acquaintance. Of attic pleasantry in conversation, always good humored and conciliatory.”13

  His assessment of Randolph’s character was not entirely positive, however. Randolph was quite fat, and Jefferson, who recognized a direct relationship between a person’s physical and mental condition, saw that Randolph’s girth hindered his legal and intellectual activity. Continuing his character study, Jefferson wrote: “With a sound and logical head, he was well read in the law; and his opinions, when consulted, were highly regarded, presenting always a learned and sound view of the subject, but generally, too, a listlessness to go into its thorough development; for being heavy and inert in body, he was rather too indolent and careless for business, which occasioned him to get a smaller proportion of it at the bar than his abilities would otherwise have commanded.”14

  Having dispatched a message to the governor informing him that they had chosen a speaker, the burgesses awaited his response. Nathaniel Walthoe returned to the House, and the House again went to the Council chamber. With the burgesses gathered before him, Governor Botetourt began to speak. A contemporary observer recorded that the governor’s “deportment was dignified and his delivery was solemn. It was said by those who had heard and seen George III speak and act on the throne of England, that his Lordship on the throne of Virginia was true to his prototype. He spoke very slow, with long pauses.”15 Botetourt delivered to the burgesses a prepared speech officially introducing himself and expressing his hopes for an amicable legislative session.

  After hearing the governor’s address, the burgesses returned to the House to begin their legislative business, the first order of which was to prepare an address of their own, which would thank the governor for his remarks. Before it could be prepared, the House had to pass a formal set of resolutions outlining its general contents. Edmund Pendleton—“the ablest man in debate I have ever met with,” Jefferson called him—asked the newest burgess from Albemarle county to draft the necessary resolutions.16 In other words, Jefferson’s first official responsibility as a legislator required him to apply his skills as a writer.

  Regardless of his command of the English language, Jefferson remained inexperienced in the art of parliamentary procedure. After the House passed the resolutions he had drafted, it appointed him to the committee assigned to write the address. This committee included several distinguished members: Richard Bland, Richard Henry Lee, and Robert Carter Nicholas. Bland had retained Jefferson as legal counsel on several occasions, so the two were well acquainted. Given the fact that he was “profound in Constitutional lore,” Bland impressed Jefferson very much. Among Virginia’s legislators and politicians, Bland was, in Jefferson’s words, “the most learned and logical man of those who took prominent lead in public affairs.”17 In the coming years, much the same epithet would suit Jefferson himself.

  Since he had written the resolutions, the committee assigned Jefferson the task of preparing the address. Upon its completion, he presented it to the other committee members. Much to his chagrin, the committee found the address unsatisfactory. Some committee members thought it followed “too strictly the diction of the resolutions, and that their subjects were not sufficiently amplified.” Jefferson prided himself on his verbal economy, but his fellow committee members let him know that, in deference to the governor, this occasion called for amplitude. Since Nicholas was most vocal in his opposition to the draft, he took the responsibility to rewrite it. As Jefferson remembered, “Mr. Nicholas chiefly objected to it, and was desired by the committee to draw one more at large which he did, with amplification enough, and it was accepted—being a young man, as well as a young member, it made on me an impression proportioned to the sensibility of that time.”18

  Despite their verbal differences, Jefferson’s set of resolutions and Nicholas’s address have much in common. Both thank the governor for the speech he had given to open the new Assembly, appreciate his willingness to reside in Virginia, express confidence in his abilities, and assure him that the burgesses would dutifully fulfill their responsibilities as legislators—fairly dull stuff, all in all, the kind of words any respectful legislator might say upon welcoming a new governor. Private remarks Jefferson made around that same time hold a much sharper edge. A series of maxims he inscribed in his memorandum book shortly afterward includes the following: “No liberty, no life.”19

  Eager to learn and to serve, Jefferson volunteered for much additional committee work. The opening day of the legislative session, he was appointed to the Committee of Privileges and Elections and the Committee of Propositions and Grievances. As a general rule, the work of these two committees was routine, but Jefferson found it fascinating.

  Participating on the House floor differed significantly from listening from the lobby. Albemarle’s newest representative quickly noticed shortcomings in his own knowledge and lapses in procedural matters within the Assembly. Having visited the Maryland Assembly three years earlier and spoofed it with the urbanity of a traveler, Jefferson had no intention of letting the Virginia Assembly become the object of humorous derision. Around the time the House of Burgesses was in session that spring, he ordered several books to supplement his knowledge.20 This list of books shows Jefferson applying his rigorous study habits to the business of governing the colony.

  One of the purchases seems a direct result of his work on the Committee of Privileges and Elections: Determinations of the Honourable House of Commons, Concerning Elections, and All Their Incidents. This anonymous work concerns procedural matters regarding both the elected and the electorate. Arranged into short sections discussing a variety of subjects, it essentially constitutes the do’s and don’ts of running for office.

  Take the subject of treating, for example. In colonial Virginia, candidates for office traditionally treated their electorate to spirits on election day. The evidence suggests that Jefferson had followed custom and treated Albemarle voters to some grog prior to his first election.21 In Determinations … Concerning Elections, he read about the impropriety of this tradition: “No Candidate, after the Teste of the Writ, or after any Place becomes vacant, shall, by himself or any other Means on his Behalf, or at his Charge, before his Election, directly or indirectly give, present, or allow to any Person having a Vote, any Money, Meat, Drink, Entertainment, or Provision … in order to be elected.”22

  Other works covered matters of legislative assemblies, both theoretical and practical. Jefferson’s list includes two works that assert the history and power of Parliament: William Petyt’s Jus Parliamentarium and Thornagh Gurdon’s History of the High Court of Parliament, Its Antiquity, Preeminence and Authority. Jefferson was not alone in ordering these two works to help understand and shape the colonial legislature. Philadelphia bookman Isaac Norris, Jr., for instance, ordered the same titles for the use of the Pennsylvania assembly.23 Both authors had similar designs: Petyt and Gurdon each took the history of Parliament back to the medieval chroniclers to argue for a legally sovereign Parliament and reassert the powers of Parliament that existed before the Norman Conquest.

  William Hakewill’s Modus Tenendi Parliamentum; or, The Old Manner of Holding Parliaments, another work Jefferson ordered that spring, was compiled from the journals of the House of Commons and was designed to show how a lower house had worked and should work. Introducing his compilation, Hakewill stressed the importance of the exchange of ideas to the legislative process. He remarked, “That which is to bear the stamp of a Law, must be a long time a moulding: there must be previous debates, bandings of arguments, and clashings of opinions pro and con go before.” Jefferson would cite Hakewill in Notes on the State of Virginia to support the idea that the law of the majority not only could be found in common law but also was “the natural law of every assembly of men, whose numbers are not fixed by any other law.” Later, in A Manual of Parliamentary Practice, Jefferson would make numerous detailed references to Hakewill, references that verify the close attention he paid to the work.24

  The legis
lative business of the Assembly remained fairly routine through the first week, but the following Tuesday, May 16, the burgesses began considering their response to the Townshend Acts and the increasingly aggressive attempts of the British to enforce them. Named for their sponsor, Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, these Acts consisted of two different measures. The first called for the suspension of the New York Assembly as a means of penalizing the colony for not complying with an earlier statute regarding the quartering of British troops. The second measure imposed customs duties on glass, paint, paper, and tea. An Act passed subsequent to this measure provided for its enforcement by establishing colonial commissioners responsible for collecting the customs duties.

  Previously, the Massachusetts House of Representatives had passed a resolution to send a circular letter to the other colonial legislatures urging them to oppose the Townshend duties. When news of what the Massachusetts legislators were doing reached England, British authorities instructed colonial governors to dissolve any assembly that approved the circular letter from the Massachusetts House. Parliament not only accepted this policy, but also recommended reviving an old statute allowing the government to bring anyone accused of treason to England for trial. When these issues came before the House of Burgesses, there was little question what to do: the Virginia legislators agreed to support the action of their Massachusetts counterparts. They also passed a series of resolutions stipulating that Parliament had no right to tax the colonists and that the colonists had the right to petition the king to redress their grievances. To that end, the Virginia House ordered that an address to the king be prepared and appointed a committee to draft it.

  The House also ordered that copies of these resolutions be sent to the legislative bodies of the other American colonies and on Wednesday, May 17, ordered the resolutions printed. The committee presented the address to the whole House, which approved the measure. With such serious business completed, the burgesses returned to more routine matters. Minutes later Nathaniel Walthoe interrupted their proceedings with an urgent message from the governor, who commanded the attendance of the burgesses. They proceeded to the Council chamber to hear what he had to say.25