CHAPTER II. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE COLONIAL ASSEMBLIES-PETITIONS AND REMONSTRANCES—BOLDNESS OF THE NEW YORK ASSEMBLY-FRANKLIN SENT TO ENGLAND-HE IS CONSULTED BY LEADING MEN-THE KING RECOMMENDS A STAMP TAX—A STAMP ACT IN PARLIAMENTSPEECHES OF TOWNSHEND AND BARRE-STAMP ACT PASSED-FRANKLIN'S LETTER TO THOMPSON-THE ACT AND BARRE'S SPEECH IN AMERICA-PATRICK HENRY AND HIS RESOLUTIONS— STAMP DISTRIBUTORS SCORNED AND BADLY TREATED—THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS-OPERATIONS OF THE ACT-NON-IMPORTATION AGREEMENTS. HE Boston resolves and Otis's pamphlet, entitled "Rights of the Τ' most profoundly, and created a burning zeal for freedom. A committee of correspondence, appointed by the Massachusetts Assembly, had sent a circular letter to the assemblies of other colonies on the subject of resistance to taxation. A like committee in Rhode Island sent a letter to the Pennsylvania Assembly, in which it was urged that if all of the colonies would unite in an expression of views, and present them to Parliament through their agents, the end sought for might be obtained. The Pennsylvania Assembly, delighted with the suggestion, took action accordingly. So also did those of several other provinces; and petitions and remonstrances against the proposed stamp tax were soon on their way to England, bearing wise thoughts and bold assertions. They were a series of able state papers sent from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina. That from New York was the boldest of all. exemption from ungranted and involuntary taxation," said that Assembly, "must be the grand principle of every free state. Without such a right vested in themselves, exclusive of all others, there can be no liberty, not happiness, no security, nor even the idea of property. Life itself would be intolerable. . We proceed with propriety and boldness to inform the Commons of Great Britain, who, to their infinite honor, in all ages asserted the liberties of mankind, that the people of this colony nobly disdain the thought of claiming that exemption as a privilege. They found it on a basis more honorable, solid and stable; they challenge it, and glory in it, as a right." “An Late in October (1764) the Pennsylvania Assembly chose Dr. Franklin (then fifty-eight years of age) agent of that province in England. He was then involved, as a leader of the popular party against the Proprietary government of Pennsylvania, in a bitter political dispute, and his appointment was vehemently opposed by his antagonists. It was made in spite of their remonstrances and protests, and he sailed on a mission the result of which powerfully affected the destinies of nations. The agents of some of the other colonies appearing lukewarm on the subject of a stamp tax, their powers were transferred to Franklin, and he became a sort of national representative of the British colonial empire in America. All had confidence in his integrity, ability, statesmanship and knowledge of the character, temper and views of the American people, and much was expected from the influence of his well-known name in England. "His appointment," afterward wrote Dr. Smith, provost of the College of Philadelphia, "appears to have been a measure provided by the councils of Heaven.” Soon after Franklin's arrival in England, he was waited upon by Grenville and other politicians, and consulted about the stamp tax. Pitt, in retirement at Hayes, sent for the philosopher, and also consulted him on the subject. Franklin told everybody that it was an unwise measure; that the Americans would never submit to be taxed without their consent; and that such an act, if attempted to be enforced, would endanger the unity of the empire. But the wise counsels of Franklin, and the voices from the colonists in America protesting against being sheared by "The Gentle Shepherd," were of no avail. Grenville was determined to have a revenue from America. Unwilling to incur the whole odium of the measure, he adroitly placed it upon the general grounds of whig policy, and so committed the party to the scheme. On the assembling of Parliament after the Christmas holidays (January 10, 1765), the king, in his speech, presented the American question as one of "obedience to the laws and respect for the legislative assembly of the kingdom." The stamp tax was to be the test. He seemed to be insensible to the danger to his realm of the storm then gathering in America. He recommended the carrying out of Grenville's scheme, and assured the Parliament that he should use every endeavor to enforce obedience in the colonies. So assured, Grenville, on the 7th of February, introduced his famous motion for a stamp act, composed of fifty-five resolutions. It provided that every skin or piece of vellum, or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, used for legal purposes, such as bills, bonds, notes, leases, policies of insurance, marriage licenses, and a great many other documents, in order to be held valid in courts of law, was to be stamped, and sold by public officers appointed for the purpose, at prices which levied a stated tax on every such document. CHAP. II. BRITISH PRETENSIONS DEMOLISHED. 615 The bill made all offences against its provisions cognizable in the courts of admiralty. To the odiousness of the tax itself was added the provision for its collection by arbitrary power under the decrees of British judges, without any trial by jury. When the stamp act, framed in proper order by a commissioner, came up for debate, Charles Townshend, the most eloquent man in the House in the absence of Pitt, made a speech in defence of it, which was concluded in the following words: "And now, these Americans, children planted by our care, nourished up by our indulgence until they have grown to a degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our armies, will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy weight of that burden which we lie under?" Colonel Barré, who had shared with Wolfe the dangers and fatigues of the campaign against Quebec, and who, having lived in America, knew the people well, instantly sprang to his feet, and with eyes flashing with indignation, and with outstretched arms, delivered an unpremeditated phillippic of extraordinary power, in which most wholesome truths were uttered. He exclaimed with scorn: "They planted by your care! No, your oppressions planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated and inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable, and among others to the cruelties of a savage foe the most subtle, and I will take upon me to say the most formidable, of any people on the face of God's earth; yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met all hardships with pleasure compared with those they suffered in their own country from the hands of those who should have been their friends. They nourished up by your indulgence! They grew by your neglect of them. As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule over them in one department and another, who were, perhaps, the deputies of deputies of some member of this House, sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them-men whose behavior on many occasions has caused the blood of those Sons of Liberty to recoil within them-men promoted to the highest seats of justice; some who, to my knowledge, were glad, by going to a foreign country, to escape being brought to the bar of justice in their own. They protected by your arms! They have nobly taken up arms in your defence; have exerted a valor amid their constant and laborious industry, for the defence of a country whose frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior parts yielded all its little savings. to your emoluments. And believe me-remember I this day told you so— that the same spirit of freedom, which actuated that people at first, will accom pany them still; but prudence forbids me to explain myself further. God knows that I do not at this time speak from motives of party heat; what I deliver are the genuine sentiments of my heart. However superior to me in general knowledge and experience, the respectable body of this House may be, I claim to know more of America than most of you, having seen and been conversant in that country. The people, I believe, are as truly loyal as any subjects the king has; but a people jealous of their liberties, and who will vindicate them if ever they should be violated. But the subject is too delicate. I will say no more." The House remained in silent amazement for a few moments after this impassioned utterance of truths. The members were generally too ignorant of America and its people to comprehend Barré's speech. The intelligent Horace Walpole confessed that he knew almost nothing about the colonists. The members of the House knew that Great Britain was strong and believed the colonies were weak; and without being "merciful," as Beckford had suggested, they passed the obnoxious bill on the 27th of February by a vote of two hundred and fifty against fifty. In the Lords it received very little opposition, and on the 22d of March, the king made it a law by signing it. A few days afterward the monarch was crazy. It was the first of four attacks of the dreadful malady of insanity which afflicted him during his long life, and finally deprived him of the power to rule. So was produced the principal wedge which cleaved asunder the British empire. The infatuated ministry openly declared that it was "intended to establish the power of Great Britain to tax the colonies." On the night of the passage of the act, Dr. Franklin wrote to Charles Thompson, afterward the Secretary of the Continental Congress: "The sun of liberty is set; the Americans must light the lamps of industry and economy." News of the passage of the stamp act, and a report of Barré's speech by Ingersoll, the half tory agent of Connecticut, reached the colonists at the same time. The former excited the hot indignation of the people; the latter was applauded, printed, and sent broadcast over the land. Barré's title of Sons of Liberty, given to the patriots, was eagerly adopted, and the name soon became familiar on the lips of Americans. Everywhere the act was denounced. The people in villages and cities gathered in excited groups and boldly expressed their indignation. The pulpit thundered condemnation and defiance in the name of a righteous God; at public gatherings the orators denounced it; the newspapers teemed with seditious essays, and the colonial assemblies rang with rebellious utterances. Among the foremost of those who boldly denounced the act in almost treasonable language was Patrick Henry, then about twenty-nine years of age. He had lately been CHAP. II. VIRGINIA RESOLUTIONS. 617 elected a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, who were in session at that time in the old Capitol at Williamsburg. When the news was published to that body by the Speaker, a scene of wild excitement ensued. Henry calmly tore a blank leaf from an old copy of Coke upon Littleton, on which he wrote five resolutions and submitted them to the House. The first declared that the original settlers brought with them and transmitted to their posterity all the rights enjoyed by the people of Great Britain. The second affirmed that these rights had been secured by two royal charters granted by King James. The third asserted that taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves, was the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, and without which the ancient constitution could not exist. The fourth maintained that the people of Virginia had always enjoyed the right of being governed by their own Assembly in the article of taxes, and that this right had been constantly recognized by the king and people of Great Britain. The fifth resolution, in which was summed up the essentials of the preceding four, declared "That the General Assembly of this colony have the sole right and power to levy taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this colony; and that every attempt to |