Empire (9 page)

B
y December 13th, the House had received from the Council corrected drafts of the address, memorial, and remonstrance. Only the address to “the King’s Most Excellent Majesty” survived intact and as originally written, and would remain unchanged. The House in Committee again edited, emended, and rearranged the memorial and remonstrance, which were again approved by the Committee and returned to the Council for further review.

On December 18th, the House, now reduced in size by the departure of a number of burgesses who had gone home, made its last changes. Chairman Peyton Randolph moved that the House go out of Committee and into a formal session to hear last arguments for and against the documents, and to conduct individual votes on them. His motion was seconded by Colonel Richard Bland. After a short recess, the remaining burgesses, numbering about eighty, made their way through the crowd in the lobby and public space to their places on the benches. Hugh Kenrick and Edgar Cullis secured seats on the upper tier of the benches on the Speaker’s left.

Young Thomas Jefferson managed to find a place on one of the front benches of the public space; there were few other benches provided for the convenience of spectators, most of whom were content to stand. Behind Jefferson sat a plainly dressed man of about thirty. This man had a high forehead, blue-gray eyes, and an aquiline, almost hawklike nose. His frock coat and breeches were dark, as was the ribbon of his tie-wig. In the course of this final reading of the protests, his neighbors seemed to think that he wanted to rise in protest of the protests. His narrow face would grow red with anger, and his wide mouth whispered inaudible maledictions. He watched the proceedings with an intensity that went beyond mere curiosity and idle interest. He behaved like a man who wished he had a say in the business.

Thomas Jefferson had noticed and recognized the stranger, whom he had met once during the Christmas holidays years ago, when he was en route to the College, but chose not to greet him other than with a nod of the
head. And the man did not seem to recognize Jefferson. The law student was too engrossed by the spectacle of the House in session, and pushed aside memory of things he and another had said about the stranger not long ago.

The House reconvened in a formal session. An assistant clerk, William Ferguson, was directed by John Randolph, the clerk of the House, to rise and read each of the final drafts. Speaker John Robinson opened the floor after each reading to any member who wished to make remarks. No one rose to speak for or against the address to George the Third, which notified the king that “the Council and Burgesses of your ancient Colony and Dominion of Virginia…beg leave to assure your Majesty of our firm and inviolable Attachment to your sacred Person and Government,” and asked that he “be graciously pleased to protect your People of this Colony in the Enjoyment of their ancient and inestimable Right of being governed by such Laws respecting their internal Polity and Taxation…with the Approbation of their Sovereign or his Substitute…. ” It was the shortest of the documents; Ferguson read it in five minutes.

John Randolph then conducted a vote, which Ferguson and another assistant recorded. The address was unanimously approved.

The memorial to the “Right Honorable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled” was next read to the House. It gently reminded these esteemed persons, in many more words than were addressed to the king, that since the colonies were not represented in Parliament, that body had no authority to tax them, and presumed that their “lordships will not think any Reason sufficient to support such a Power in the British Parliament…a Power never before constitutionally assumed, and which if they have a Right to exercise on any Occasion must necessarily establish this melancholy Truth, that the Inhabitants of the Colonies are the Slaves of Britons…. ” The memorial ended on a bright note, hoping that their Lordships would not construe the document as anything but the “purest Loyalty and Affection as they have always endeavored by their Conduct to demonstrate that they consider their Connexions with Great Britain, the Seat of Liberty, as their greatest Happiness…. ”

Speaker Robinson, when Ferguson had finished, glanced around the House. No one indicated a desire to speak. He nodded to John Randolph, who began to take a vote. As each burgess rose and said “Aye,” the clerks recorded a stroke in their ledgers.

George Wythe, seated between Richard Bland and Peyton Randolph —
older brother of John and younger brother of Peter Randolph, Surveyor General and a member of the Council — glanced over the clerks’ table that was situated on the floor between the benches, and noticed his protégé, Thomas Jefferson, sitting among the spectators in the public space. He was about to smile in approval when he noticed another face behind his student.

Peyton Randolph, also from his vantage point of a bench behind the Speaker’s chair, noticed the face, too, and leaned closer to whisper to Edmund Pendleton, “Is that not the blustery scamp of the Dandridge suit last month? I thought we had sent him back to Hanover, chastised and mortified!”

“Who?” asked Pendleton.

“Mr. Henry,” said Randolph with a surreptitious nod in the direction of the subject, “there, sitting behind Mr. Wythe’s new student.”

Pendleton squinted and identified the man. “Why, yes,” he said, “it is he. What is he doing here?”

“I could not say, sir. But I will say now that we should regret having signed his license to practice law. I should have been happier endorsing his license to operate a tavern.”

Pendleton snorted once. “I have heard that he failed in that enterprise, too.”

The memorial was unanimously approved.

The remonstrance was twice as long as the memorial, and took William Ferguson twenty minutes to read to a restive assembly, for he paused before reading those sections of it that had been the subject of vigorous debate.

Hugh Kenrick voted “Aye” for the address and memorial, and intended to approve the remonstrance as well. But he fidgeted so much during the last reading that Edgar Cullis, seated next to him on the top tier of benches, and who had a vague notion of what bothered his colleague, glanced at him once with amused annoyance and sidled a little away from him.

The remonstrance to the “Honorable the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses of Great Britain, in Parliament assembled,” reminded the Commons that the “Council and burgesses…met in General Assembly…judge it their indispensable Duty, in a respectful manner, but with decent Firmness, to remonstrate against” the proposed stamp taxes for the colonies, and that they conceived it was “essential to British Liberty that Laws imposing Taxes on the People ought not to be made without the Consent of Representatives chosen by themselves.” The document then reviewed in detail the logic behind that assertion, delicately raising the fact that since
the colonies were self-governing by grace of
royal
charters, and not by Parliamentary leave or plan, it was unfair and “inconsistent with the fundamental Principles of the Constitution” to exercise a taxing power.

The remonstrance concluded with a litany of dire consequences for the colonies and Britain, even if the remonstrance conceded Parliament’s power to levy internal taxes. The Council and Burgesses protested their “Reverence to the Mother Kingdom…in promoting her Glory and Felicity,” and assured the gentlemen of the Commons that “British Patriots will never consent to the Exercise of anticonstitutional Power, which even in this remote Corner may be dangerous in its Example to the interior Parts of the British Empire, and will certainly be detrimental to its Commerce.”

When Ferguson finished, a great sigh of relief rushed through the House. Everyone present knew that this was the high point of this session of the General Assembly. Speaker Robinson surveyed the chamber, tapped the silver knob of his cane with a finger, and waited for the noise of so much relief to subside. Then he asked, “What say anyone on this remonstrance?” It was a rhetorical query, half question, half warning to anyone who might have an objection or even a compliment. He wished to move on to the last business of the House, and in a few days go home.

To his surprise, a burgess rose from one of the upper benches to his left, one of the new burgesses, one whom he had deliberately ignored in the past, for the man had been pointed out to him over the last weeks. Unsavory things about this gentleman had been whispered in his ear. The Speaker therefore did not wish to encourage him to participate in the House’s business. In this policy he had the tacit approval of his senior colleagues. But all the other burgesses, and all the spectators at the end of the chamber, saw the man rise, and they looked at him with inquisitive expectation. Speaker Robinson could not now ignore him without displaying flagrant discourtesy and bias. He wondered what this man could possibly have to say. He sighed, grimaced, and nodded.

Hugh Kenrick nodded in return with an icy smile, then glanced around the chamber at his listeners. Unlike a member of the Commons, he was not bound by the rule of addressing his remarks to the Speaker. He had faced crowds and mobs before, and was unafraid. To his left, Edgar Cullis, wanting to cringe, sat back on the bench, crossing his legs and folding his arms. He was afraid, for he had heard a sampling of his colleague’s oratory months ago.

Hugh spoke. “I will say this only: that the language of the remonstrance
wants keenness and vigor. This and its companion obsecrations correctly raise and stress all the intrinsical points that arouse our fears and concerns, but cloak them in coddling, pious terms so as not to disturb the confident composure of their intended correspondents. But this habit defeats the purpose of our communications and saps their force. And that composure, gentlemen, in all justice ought to be swiftly disturbed, to better awaken our colleagues in that greater House to the undeniable wrongness of their contemplated action, to warn them in no vague, fawning terms of the folly of their solution to their own extravagance, to advise them of the inherent belligerency of their means and ends. I feel compelled to remind this House that
humility
is not a practical, manly virtue in these circumstances. Humility has never met arrogance in the field and vanquished it. There are,” said Hugh, his glance falling briefly on the attentive face of Colonel Washington across the chamber, “many soldiers here today who can attest to that truism. The supplicant who comes before his master with a bowed head, sirs, cannot see the sword raised above him. The ground and the shadow of his own disgrace on it may be the last things he will see before the sword whistles in the air and descends on his neck. I know that the Council and this House have discharged their tasks in the composition and final form of these missives, and believe their duties done. I will endorse these documents, but under this protest.”

Hugh nodded again to Speaker Robinson, and resumed his seat.

Behind Thomas Jefferson, a man clapped his hands once, and said to himself, “Hear, hear!” This gesture seemed to trigger a burst of commotion among the spectators. Jefferson turned to face the stranger, who merely smiled in challenge and said no more. Jefferson turned again to study the man with whom he had shared his thoughts over a supper.

The spectators were in a state of excitement. A minister remarked with bitter anger, “That man is pagan! Humility never fails to vanquish arrogance — in the eyes of God!”

“Perhaps,” answered a merchant next to him, “but only after one is dead, and what good would that do?”

“That fellow is capable of treason,” observed a lawyer.

“But not Parliament?” retorted his companion, another lawyer. “Who has been the persistent intruder: We, or that ‘greater House,’ sir?”

“It is merely somber raillery,” commented an instructor of the classics from the College to his wife. “You might have noticed that he insinuated the fate of Charles the First. That will cause him trouble!”

“He insinuated nothing,” replied his wife. “I like his manner. When one is being assaulted with rocks, one should not respond by tossing pasties!”

A dozen burgesses shot up instantly amid the commotion on the benches. Speaker Robinson, sitting rigidly in his high-backed chair, did not know whom to recognize first. John Randolph, whose duty it was to gavel the House into order, was so stunned that he sat fixated on the empty space next to the gavel: a ritual had been overlooked in the haste to finish the business of the documents; the gold-plated mace of the House still rested under the clerks’ table, when over an hour ago it should have been returned to its place on the black-cloth table to signify a formal session. He silently but angrily reproved one of his clerks, nodding to the empty space. The clerk rose and retrieved the mace, and laid it on the table. Only then did Randolph hear the desperate tapping of a cane, and with a blink looked at Speaker Robinson. He picked up the gavel and struck it several times on an oaken anvil, shouting, “Order in the House! Order in the House!”

Speaker Robinson stared resolutely into space, refusing to look at anyone, waiting for the burgesses to obey the gavel. Over a long minute, the noise abated; one by one the standing members resumed their seats. When he was satisfied that the House had regained its dignity, Robinson, with a quick scowl at Hugh Kenrick, said, “What say anyone to that…
reprimand
?”

Again, several burgesses rose, and the Speaker nodded to one. The others fell back into their seats. The recognized burgess said, “In reply to that member’s remarks, I say that any correspondence with the stewards of the British Empire must conform to language commensurate with the occasion, and strive to reply in kind — not in the rude parlance of vagabonds and ruffians!”

“Hear, hear!” murmured several men on the benches. The burgess sat down with a smug, triumphant smile.

Colonel Bland was recognized. “In rebuttal to that member’s contention, I say that bellicose words merely invite bellicose actions. One witnesses that phenomenon often enough outside the less congenial taverns and public places in this town and throughout the colony.
And,
I might note, in the histories of nations! We owe our
mother
country civility, and the respect due her.”