F ^"^T^^'-^m, BUocA, RicUav^cl. A t'^s vv>Cvit ^^ ^^^ 1753 B^^^Klyv>, ^^^- Class. Book J WINNOWINGS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. VIRGINIA TRACTS. No. I. 250 copies printed. No. y jV ■/ A Fragment on the Pistole Fee, claimed by the Gov- ernor of Virginia, 1753. RICHARD BLAND. EDITED BY WORTHINGTON CHAUNCEY FORD. BROOKLYN, N. Y. : Historical Printing Club. 1891. ^76 79 a, »0 3 c « c "^ Virginia has been unfortunate in neglecting her history until the ma- terial for it has been largely scattered or destroyed. Names that would have been prominent in her colonial and revolutionary history, in council as well as field, have left so little behind them besides a vague and general reputation, that their mention conveys little of definiteness, even to those versed in the subject. In no colony was the aristocratic feeling stronger, and in no colony was the contest be- tween an established aristocracy and a rising democracy more bitter and intense. Yet the details of the strug- gle are almost unknown, and what little has been preserved is lost in the wider sphere of the nation's history. It is with a wish to contribute a little to bringing together the remains of an exceedingly interesting social and po- litical struggle, that I have used every opportunity offered to obtain copies of (5) manuscripts, valuable from their con- nection with Virginia history. In this task, I have found an active and inter- ested coadjutor in Mr. Cassius Francis Lee, Jr., of Alexandria, to whose valu- able aid I wish to pay this general tribute ; for he has been exceedingly generous not only with his own col- lection, but in seeking others for my endeavor. The fruits of this labor will be the issue of the writings of the three Lee brothers — Richard Henry, Wil- liam and Arthur — now in press. In making those larger collections, many stray letters came to my notice, de- serving preservation in a more perma- nent form, and these will constitute a Virginia series in the " Winnowings." The first number is the fragment by Richand Bland on the demand of Governor Dinwiddie of a fee for land patents. Robert Dinwiddie was destined to be unpopular from his first act as Gov- ernor to the last. However welcome he may have been to the large and rapidly increasing number of dissenters in the colony, being himself one of the Church of Scotland, he soon ran coun- ter to the ruling opinion of the politi- cal leaders. His attempt to carry out his instructions brought out a re- monstrance from the Burgesses, who claimed he was exercising unjustly the royal prerogative (1752); and his revival of a land fee, long allowed to slumber, excited a general feeling against him. Virginians had for many years acquired new land by means of a warrant of survey, without a patent or expense. In this way they escaped the payment of any fee for a formal grant, and could enjoy the use of the land without paying a quit rent to the government. It is said that a million of acres were claimed under such ten- ure when Dinwiddie came into the governorship. Acting with the advice of his council, Dinwiddie established a fee of a pistole for every seal annexed to each grant, a charge that was at once questioned by the Burgesses, as an "extraordinary fee," and they wished to know his authority for the imposi- 8 tion.* The Governor, deprecating the idea that he could do anything that was contrary to the welfare of the colony or to his orders, asserted his instructions and the advice of his council. This was an opportunity not to be lost by the Burgesses, and as upholders of the public good they protested that the fee was demanded under no known law, was an infringe- ment of the rights of the people, and a grievance highly to be complained of; that a former use of the seal to extract a fee had been condemned as ** uneasy and burthensome to the col- ony," since which time no other fee had been charged than was estab- lished by law ; that his honor's " in- sisting on the same, will, in our hum- ble opinion, be an infringement of the rights of the People, a great discour- agement to the settling the Frontiers of the Colony, and a Prejudice to his M j's revenue of Quit rents, we think it our indispensible Duty to desire that y'r Honor will recede from your * Dinwiddie Papers ^ I, 44. demands.'"^ In reply the Governor urged that he was acting within his. powers^ and for the good of the col- ony. He shortly afterwards prorogued the Assembly. The Burgesses, however, were far from being contented with the Gov- ernor's reply, and prepared an address to his Majesty in regard to the fee, and passed some resolutions "very much in a Republican way of Think- ing," and, according to the Governor, having enjoyed too great license under a former administration, doubtless a sly hit at Gooch, who had " submitted too much" to the legislature, did not act in a "proper constitutional way."t They passed a bill, it is true, granting money for the defence of the western frontier, then threatened by the French occup^ition, but they did it in such a way that the Governor would have vetoed it, were not the crisis import- ant and interesting; and to still fur- ther show their " want of reason and * Dinwiddle Papers, I, 46, 47. ^Dinwiddle Papers ^11, 100, 10 1. lO moderation," they sent the Attorney General of the colony, Peyton Ran- dolph, to London, to argue the pistole fee before the Board of Trade, grant- ing him ^2500 for the mission, to be paid without the concurrence of the other branches of the legislature. The Speaker, who was also Treasurer, is reported to have said he would pay the money if the House should so re- solve. Dmwiddie supposed Randolph was selected, because of their regard- ing him as an enemy of the Governor, and one who would go to length against him. If so, he added, " I pity their ignorance, and narrow, ill- natured spirits."* The Governor also thought that there was a religious element in the agitation, for Randolph was connected with Stith. The people, wrote the Governor, were always " very easy and well satisfied till an evil spirit entered into a High Priest, who was supported by the Family of the Randolphs, and a few more, who by unjust meth- * Dtmviddie Papers, I03. II ods, fired the House of Burgesses to act very inconsistently." The pains taken to stir up the peo- ple on the subject soon led the Gov- ernor to regret that he had ever made the demand, although he could quote the support of his council, of the Board of Trade, and of Sir Dudley Ryder, an English lawyer of high standing. In England, also, the de- mand and the Governor's plea became common talk at the Coffee Houses — the hot-beds of gossip — thanks to Randolph's efforts to put the affair in a popular light. An "unjust" adver- tisement of the controversy was in- serted in the Gazettes, which repre- sented the fee as driving foreigners from the country, preventing immi- gration, and depriving servants, who had served their time, of the right to take up fifty acres, " which will always be granted without that fee;" replied Dinwiddle; "but I know no applica- tion on that head since my arrival ; for if they did apply, it would be to lands far back, that are not worth 12 taking up in such quantities." The pistole was represented as a tax^ an odious word, instead of 3. fee estab- lished by law for a given service. Then came the official representation. '* In behalf of the Governor the debate was conducted by Murray, afterwards Earl of Mansfield, and Mr. Campbell : in behalf of the colony by Healey, since Lord Worthington, and For- rester. With an indelicacy foreign to the temper and manner of Murray, and with a brutal insolence congenial to those of Campbell, the exaction was palliated by their genius, and finally supported by the council of the King. The King was at one time compared to a private land-holder, who might modify his terms with the mercenary dexterity of a huckster. But when the trustee of Virginia was for her domains, how could he affix a real tax upon them without the assent of the legislature, was forgotten to be proved, if indeed it was not designedly waived by the illustrious Mansfield. Camp- bell remembered that the mere name 13 of rebellion might be worthy because an operative resource of argument. He did not hesitate to charge Vir- ginia, tractable as she was, with enter- taining views beyond the rescinding of a paltry fee." * In May, 1754, the agent was re- ported to have gained all that he was sent to demand from the authorities in England; but the Governor felt easy, because he thought the Board of Trade could decide the question in only one way, and that in his favor. In this he was correct, for the Privy Council, after hearing the arguments on both sides, recommended a com- promise, without reflecting, as Chal- mers says, " that every disputed right is relinquished by concession." f No fee was to be charged for a grant of land under 100 acres, or for lands lying westward of the mountains, or on lands the survey of which had been filed in the Secretary's office before * Edmund Randolph. \ History of the Revolt of the American Col- 4>nies, ii. 35. 14 April, 1752. It was this last item that was the chief cause of dispute between the Governor and the Burgesses, for he held that at least the quit-rents, due sometimes for years of occupancy, should be paid before the patent was sealed and issued, confirming the title. " It has been too long a practice here, to have orders for land, return their surveys, works, and improvements to the Secretary's office, by which they pretend to a legal right, and enjoy the lands for years before they take out a patent for them, by which the Crown has been greatly defrauded." But the bitterest dose for the Governor was the order from the Board of Trade to restore Randolph to office, **as the times require that harmony and con- fidence should be everywhere estab- lished." How ungracefully he obeyed is shown in his correspondence. "Your kind favor to Mr. R. in recommend- ing him to me to re-instate him in the post of Attorney General, is very con- descending. When I consider the ar- guments I made use of to him not to 15 undertake that inconsistent duty, and the many unjust and false reflections on me personally in the public papers, makes this recommendation very dis- agreeable to me; however, for the reasons your Lordships are pleased to assign, which are both just and neces- sary, on his arrival, if he, in a decent and proper manner, makes acknowl- edgment of his errors, and promise of more regular conduct for the fu- ture, I shall be glad of every opportu- nity to moderate the heats of the people at this dangerous time.* He thought Randolph's conduct ungrate- ful, for he had given him a greater share of his favor and countenance than any other in the Government. Another person who had fallen un- der Dinwiddie's displeasure was the Speaker of the House and Treasurer of the colony, John Robinson. This double office gave him powers over the money matters of the colony that were too great in the Governor's opin- ion, and in the end, too great for *Dinwiddie Papers, 363. i6 Robinson's character. As Speaker he could control legislation, and as Treas- urer he could take it upon himself to pay out money without the concur- rence of the Governor, Council or Burgesses, acting under a resolve of the Burgesses alone. That this was conduct contrary to the spirit of the government of the colony cannot be denied; and as one of the leaders of the House, Robinson inspired Dinwiddie with a dislike of him that soon ripened into distrust. When the matter of Randolph's wages came before the House, party spirit ran high, and in opposition to the Governor. An appropriation bill for i^20,000 for the defence of the frontiers gave the opportunity for tacking on as a rider the ;^2,500 due Randolph. The Council rejected the whole bill, and the Burgesses determined not to pass the vote of supply without it; and the bill was again before the Council, where, according to the Governor, " some of that Board are not so con- sistent as I could wish," and he was «; doubtful if they would vote against the bill as they did against the resolve. The rider was properly a private measure, and if insisted on, must compel the Governor to reject the whole in spite of the urgency. " There is such a Party and spirit of opposi- tion in the lower House that it is not in the Power of the Governor to sup- press, unless he is to prostrate the rules of Government, and act incon- sistent with his Instructions. I have really gone thorow monstrous fatigues, which I should not much regard if I could answer the commands of his Majesty, but such wrong headed Peo- ple (I thank God) I never had to do with before."* The wrong-headed- ness continued, and the Governor prorogued the Assembly, hoping that a month of sober thought would cool its factious .spirit. "A Governor," sighed Dinwiddie, "is really to be pitied in the discharge of his duty to his King and country, in having to do with such obstinate, self-conceited *JJinwidJie Papers^ 300. |8 People." In the next session, not only were supplies voted without the obnoxious rider, but the Speaker waited upon the Governor, " acknowl- edged the great ill manners shown me by their House, and begged my pardon, which I granted, and I think we are now on a very good footing, which I desire may long continue, and surely it will be their own faults if it does not, as I shall now continue to do everything in my power to establish it, agreeable to instructions." When Randolph sailed for England, the Governor had depriv^ed him of his office of Attorney General, and ap- pointed George Wythe in the place. **But as the habits of a seducing and of a not wholly unambitious profes^ sion never warped him from friend- ship or patriotism, he [Wythe] ac- cepted the commission with the cus- tomary professions of gratitude, not disclosing his secret and honorable determination that he would resign it to his predecessor on his return."* * Edmund Randolph. 19 Randolph made his submission, was reinstated in office, and the pistole fee was collected under the new in- structions from England, until the increasing discontents in the colony- led to its reduction by one-half. What occurred in the colonies dur- ing the dispute can only be conjec- tured from a k\v scattered sentences in the Governor's letters, for there exists no file of the Virginia Gazette, in whose columns the partisans of both sides must have inserted their views and peppery "open letters." One fragment — a manuscript — has es- caped destruction, written by Richard Bland, a man of political prominence in his day, and of bookish tastes.* He was born May 6, 1710, studied at William and Mary, and completed his education at the University of Edin- burgh. Entering the House of Bur- gesses in 1745, he became one of the leading members. Being readier with the pen than he was with the tongue, he is better known by the two or *John Adams ko described h.m. 20 three controversial pamphlets that have come down to us, than by tra- ditions of his learning or eloquence. Grigsby says, " his great learning lay in the field of British history in its largest sense; and especially in that of Virginia. With all her ancient charters, and with her acts of As- sembly, in passing which for nearly a third of a century he had a voice, he was familiar; and in this department he may be said to have stood supreme. When a great occasion occurred, a tract from his pen was looked for and hailed as a chart of the times." * His first venture in controversy of which we have record, was his ** Let- ter to the Clergy of Virginia," in which he took the side of the Gover- nor and Assembly against the clergy, in the famous Two-penny contest, in- volving an attack upon Church prop- erty in Virginia by the legislature. The tract was sent to London to show "to what a pitch of insolence many * Tin Virginia Convention of lyyd, 57. 21 are arrived at, not only against our most worthy diocesan [the Bishop of London] and the clergy, but likewise against his Majesty's most Honorable Privy Council. Such dispositions to ferment and encourage disaffection to the church and clergy, if suffered to proceed, may at a crisis, bring about such a change in our religion as may alter the Constitution of the State." * The people welcomed the pamphlet with much applause, but the clergy wondered at Bland's effrontery in ad- vancing such " palpable untruths." "What name does he deserve, who has dared to publish inventions of his own against plain matters of fact? Truly a name so abhor'd, that it finds not room in Civil conversation." He was a *' forward apologizer" for the Assembly, and his pamphlet was "scurrilous," "making up with false personal accusation, calumny and rail- ing, what they wanted with respect to reason and argument." And at this * ly/u. Robinson to the Bishop of [London ?} 20 November, 1760, Perry's Church in Virginia. 22 day it must generally be admitted that the clergy had the right of the ques- tion on their side: and that Lord Hardwick gave good judgment when he said that "there was no occasion to dispute about the authority by which the act was passed, for that no court in the judicature whatever, could look upon it to be law, by reason of its manifest injustice alone." Nor was this the only tract that Bland composed on church questions, showing that the anathemas of the clergy did not much affect him. Roger Atkinson asserts that he wrote a treat- ise against the Quakers on water bap- tism. In 1770, on the authority of Governor Tazewell, he wrote against the American Episcopate, and at least was, with Richard Henry Lee, de- puted by the Burgesses to thank cer- tain clergymen for their opposition to that scheme — the "pernicious project of a few mistaken clergymen."* Tra- dition has also ascribed to him a tract on the tenures of land in Virginia, now *Burk, History of Virginia, III, 365. 2.1 ndt to be identified. Gould it have been the complete letter on this pistole fee, of which the fragment is here given? Rumor also asserted that he had been collecting materials for a history of Virginia. *' He was very Competent to the undertaking, being a man of erudition and intelligence;"* and his methods were distinctly mod^ ern, for he had learned the art of bor- rowing books, and omitting the for- mality of returning them.f He was generally known as the ''Antiquary." A man of property and importance in the colony, he took his place by the side of Pendleton, Wythe, Landon Car- ter, and Peyton Randolph, who were almost conservatives m the troublous period following the stamp act. Not that he was inactive on the side of the colonies. He was one of the commit- tee to draw up an address to the King, a memorial to the House of Lords, and a remonstrance to the Commons, &n the proposed Stamp act, but op- * IVashingion to Jeremy Belknap, 15 June, 1798. \The Virginia Company, I, viii. 24 posed the hot-headed action intended when the act had become a law. In 1 766 he pubhshed an *' Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies; in- tended as an answer to *The Regu- lations lately made concerning the Colonies, and the Taxes imposed upon them considered/" a tract that was well received on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1769-70 he signed the resolutions of non-importation, and three years later was one of the com- mittee of correspondence and inquiry of the Colony.* In 1774 he was sent to the first Continental Congress in the notable Virginia delegation, and asserted that " he would have gone up on this occasion, if it had been to Jericho." t Roger Atkinson described him at this time as a "wary, old, ex- perienced veteran of the bar and in the senate; has something of the look *The proceedings of this committee have just been published in Vol. viii., of the Calendar of Virginia State Papers^ — a noble series, that every Stale should imitate. \ John Adams' Diary. 25 of old musty parchments such as he handleth and studieth much."* Returning from this Congress, he took his seat in the Virginia Conven- tion, and asked that certain *' false and scandalous reports" highly reflecting on him in his public character, might be examined ; " to wit : that he had made application to the Earl of Dart- mouth, or some of the Ministry, to an appointment to collect the taxes im- posed on America by Parliament; and that as an inducement to them to grant the same, had promised to pro- mote the Designs of the Ministry against America; and also, that his conduct in General Congress had been such that he was obliged suddenly to decamp from the city of Philadelphia. That he had served as a member of the General Assembly for upwards of thirty years, and hoped the part he had always taken would have secured him, in his age, from an imputation * Mende, Old Churches and Families of Vir- ginia, I, 220. 26 so injurious to his character." * Six days later the Convention examined into these charges and after a full in- quiry, found the "said reports to be utterly false and groundless, and tend- ing not only to injure the said Rich- ard Bland in his public character, but to prejudice the glorious cause in which America is now embarked," and unanimously resolved to bear to the world its testimony that Bland had manifested himself the friend of his country, and uniformly stood forth an able asserter of her rights and liberties, f * Virginia Convention, 22 July, 1775. \ From the fact that the Convention directed a copy of this resolve to he forwarded to Arthur Lee, in London, the charges against Bland may have originated there, and the I\ev. Samuel Siiield, the Rev. John Hurt, Samuel Overton, and Joseph Smith, "propagators" of the charges, were merely repeatersof what had been communicated to them. One Samuel Overton was captain of a company of militia raised in Hanover county in 1755. It was before this company that the Rev. Samuel Davis delivered a sernion in this year, containing the re- markable prediction about Washington: "that heroic youtli, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot 27 In this Convention, Bland was of no little importance, being the chair- man of the committee of the whole House, when sitting on the state of the Colony. On August nth he was chosen a delegate to the second Con- tinental Congress, standing sixth on the list, but on the next day he begged to be excused on account of his ad- vanced age and loss of sight. His request was granted, and a handsome testimonial of approbation and regard voted him. This did not involve a retirement, for a few days later he was chosen a member of the important Committee of Safety — a body that possessed powers of a revolutionary but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so. signal a manner for some important service for his country." — Sermons, iii., 58. Arthur Lee, in his capacity of intelligencer, was singularly rash in his charges against leading characters. Some of the instances were Joseph Reed, John Langdon, John Jay, and perhaps he had communicated the suspicions against Bland. The office of spy is not calculated for a man natur- ally suspicious and hot headed. A letter of Rich- ard Blan