unanimous rejection; but it was laid on the table of the body, which was bent on a petition to the king, and “a negotiation" with his ministers. 1775. The month of May went by, and congress had not so much as advised Massachusetts to institute a May. government of its own; it authorized no invasion of Canada, and yielded a reluctant assent to the act of Connecticut in garrisoning Ticonderoga and Crown Point. If great measures are to be adopted, the impulse must come from the people. CHAPTER XXXVII. MASSACHUSETTS ASKS FOR GEORGE WASHINGTON AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF. 1775. June. JUNE 1-JUNE 17, 1775. IN obedience to the injunctions of Lord North and Lord Dartmouth, who wished to reconcile some one of the several colonial assemblies to their insidious offer, the first day of June, 1775, saw the house of burgesses of Virginia convened for the last time by a British governor. Peyton Randolph, the speaker, who had been. attending as president the congress at Philadelphia, arrived at Williamsburg with an escort of independent companies of horse and foot, which eclipsed the pomp of the governor, and in the eyes of the people raised the importance of the newly created continental power. The session was opened by a speech recommending accommodation on the narrow basis of the resolve which the king had accepted. But the moment chosen for the discussion was inopportune; Dunmore's menace to unfurl the standard of a servile insurrection, and set the slaves upon their masters, with British arms in their hands, filled the south with horror and alarm. Besides, the retreat from Concord raised the belief that the American forces were invincible; and the spirit of resistance had so prevailed that some of the burgesses appeared in the uniform of the recently instituted provincial troops, wearing a hunting-shirt of coarse homespun linen over their clothes, and a woodman's axe by their sides. The great civilian of Virginia came down from Albemarle with clear perceptions of public duty. When parliament oppressed the colonies by imposing taxes, Jefferson would 1775. June. have been content with their repeal; when it mutilated the charter and laws of Massachusetts, he still hoped for conciliation through the wisdom of Chatham; but, after Lexington green had been stained with blood, he would no longer accept acts of repeal, unless accompanied by security against future aggression. The finances of Virginia were at this time much embarrassed; beside her paper currency afloat, she was burdened with the undischarged expenses of the Indian war of the previous year. The burgesses approved the conduct of that war, and provided the means of defraying its cost; but the governor would not pass their bill, because it imposed a specific duty of five pounds on the head, about ten per cent on the value, of every slave imported from the West Indies. The last exercise of the veto power by the king's representative in Virginia was for the protection of the slave-trade. The assembly, having on the fifth thanked the delegates of the colony to the first congress, prepared to consider the proposal of the ministers. The governor grew uneasy, and sent them an apology for his removal of the powder belonging to the province. "I was influenced in this," said he, in a written message, "by the best of motives; " and he reminded them that he had ventured his life in the service of Virginia. But the burgesses took testimony which proved his avowed intention to raise, free, and arm slaves, extended their consultations through several days, and selected Jefferson to draft their reply. While the house was thus employed, Dunmore received an express from Gage to acquaint him of his intention to publish a proclamation, proscribing Samuel Adams and Hancock; and, fearing he might be seized and detained as a hostage, he suddenly, in the night following the seventh of June, withdrew from the capital, and went on board the "Fowey" man-of-war, at York. He thus left the Ancient Dominion in the undisputed possession of its own inhabitants as effectually as if he had abdicated all power for the king; giving, as a reason for his flight, his apprehension of "falling a sacrifice to the daringness and atrociousness, the blind and unmeasurable fury of great numbers of the people." 1775. June. The burgesses paid no heed to his angry words; but, when they had brought their deliberations to a close, they, on the twelfth of June, addressed to him as their final answer, that, "next to the possession of liberty, they should consider a reconciliation as the greatest of all human blessings, but that the resolution of the house of commons only changed the form of oppression, without lightening its burdens; that government in the colonies was instituted not for the British parliament, but for the colonies themselves; that the British parliament had no right to meddle with their constitution, or prescribe either the number or the pecuniary appointments of their officers; that they had a right to give their money without coercion, and from time to time; that they alone were the judges, alike of the public exigencies and the ability of the people; that they contended not merely for the mode of raising their money, but for the freedom of granting it; that the resolve to forbear levying pecuniary taxes still left unrepealed the acts restraining trade, altering the form of government of Massachusetts, changing the government of Quebec, enlarging the jurisdiction of courts of admiralty, taking away the trial by jury, and keeping up standing armies; that the invasion of the colonies with large armaments by sea and land was a style of asking gifts not reconcilable to freedom; that the resolution did not propose to the colonies to lay open a free trade with all the world; that, as it involved the interest of all the other colonies, they were bound in honor to share one fate with them; that the bill of Lord Chatham on the one part, and the terms of congress on the other, would have formed a basis for negotiation and a reconciliation; that, leaving the final determination of the question to the general congress, they will weary the king with no more petitions, the British nation with no more appeals." "What then," they ask, "remains to be done?" and they answer: "That we commit our injuries to the justice of the even-handed Being who doth no wrong." "In my life," said Shelburne, as he read Jefferson's re 1775. June. port, "I was never more pleased with a state paper than with the assembly of Virginia's discussion of Lord North's proposition. It is masterly. But what I fear is that the evil is irretrievable." At Versailles, Vergennes was equally attracted by the wisdom and dignity of the document; he particularly noticed the insinuation that a compromise might be effected on the basis of the modification of the navigation acts; and, as he saw many ways opened of settling every difficulty, it was long before he could persuade himself that the infatuation of the British ministry was so blind as to neglect them all. From Williamsburg, Jefferson repaired to Philadelphia; but, before he arrived there, decisive communications had been received from Massachusetts. That colony still languished in anarchy, from which they were ready to relieve themselves, if they could but wring the consent of the continental congress. "We hope," wrote they, in a letter which was read to that body on the second of June, "you will favor us with your most explicit advice respecting the taking up and exercising the powers of civil government, which we think absolutely necessary for the salvation of our country." The regulation of the army was a subject of equal necessity. Uncounted and ungoverned, it was already in danger of vanishing like dew, or being dissolved by discontents. The incompetency of Ward for his station was observed by Joseph Warren, now president of the congress, by James Warren of Plymouth, by Gerry and others; every hour made it more imperative that he should be superseded; and yet his private virtues, and the fear of exciting dissensions in the province, required the measure to be introduced with delicacy and circumspection. The war was to become a continental war, the New England army a continental army; and that change in its relations offered the opportunity of designating a new commander in chief. To this end, the congress of Massachusetts formally invited the general congress "to assume the regulation and direction of the army, then collecting from different colonies for the defence of the rights of America." At the same time, Samuel Adams received a private letter from Joseph Warren, interpreting the words as a request |