proved successful. Edmund Pendleton was at the head of the party that resisted it.*

Mr. Lee on this occasion pursued his course in opposition to the confederacy of the great in place, the influence of family connections, and that still more dangerous foe to public virtue, private friendship. The contest appears to have been bitter, and it engendered animosities which survived the lapse of years and the absorbing scenes of the outbreaking Revolution.

A fragment of the speech delivered by Mr. Lee on this occasion has been preserved.† After supporting his views by historical examples, he remarks: "If, then, wise and good men in all ages have deemed it for the security of liberty to divide places of power and profit; if this maxim has not been departed from without either injury or destroying freedom-as happened to Rome with her decemvirs and her dictator-why should Virginia so early quit the paths of wisdom, and seal her own ruin, as far as she can do it, by uniting in one person the only two great places in the power of her assembly to bestow?" The fragment of this speech ends just where Mr. Lee was about to combat the arguments in support of the union of the two offices. Among

This affair formed the subject of some crude verses, entitled "The Contest." The following is an extract:

"And Curtius, too, who, from clear Chellowe's height,

Secrets deep lying in the dark recess

Of -'s clouded brain, can well explore,

Demands my thanks sincere; freed from the froth

Of Metriotes' hyperbolic style,

Or wine burgessian, potent to deceive,
And to produce a vote of huge expense.
The tribute due to genius and to sense
Is yours, judicious Burke! without compeer;
The reverend priest the bayic crown presents;
Accept it, then; nor Grymes of mighty bone,
And fist, sledge-hammer like; nor grimful face
Of Ampthill's rustic chief,† nor the abuse
By him in senatorian consult used,
Eulogies to true merit shall prevent."

Lee Papers in S. Lit. Messenger, 1858, p. 119.

* John Randolph, afterwards attorney-general.

† Archibald Cary,

these arguments were, that innovation is dangerous; that the additional office of treasurer was necessary to give the speaker that pre-eminence that is befitting his station; that the parliamentary powers of the speaker give the chair no influence, as in the exercise thereof in pleasing one he may offend a dozen; that a separation of the offices might induce the government at home to take the appointment out of their hands altogether; and that the support of the dignity of the chair necessarily involved a great

expense.

It could not have been difficult to refute these arguments. The combination of the offices of speaker and treasurer was itself an innovation of as recent date as 1738. The speaker of the English house of commons did not find the office of treasurer necessary to maintain his dignity. If the office of speaker of itself gave no influence, why had it been always sought for? Nor could the separation of the offices induce the home government to take the appointments from the assembly, for that separation was itself virtually a government measure. Chalmers, who was well versed in the documentary history of the colonies, says: "Too attentive to overlook the dangerous pre-eminence of Robinson, the board of trade took this opportunity to enjoin [1758] the new governor* to use every rational endeavor to procure a separation of the conjoined offices which he improperly held."† Lee, Henry, and others, who voted for the separation, were in effect carrying out the wishes of the English government. Nor does it appear probable that the government was any more favorable to the loan-office scheme than to the union of the offices of speaker and treasurer.

Upon the death of Speaker Robinson, Richard Bland was a candidate for the chair, and was in favor of a separation of the offices of speaker and treasurer. He, in the latter part of May, entertained no suspicion of any malversation in office on the part of the late treasurer, although he was aware that such suspicions prevailed much among the people. He was at this time maturing a scheme for a loan-office, or government bank, which he thought would be of signal advantage, and would in a few years enable

* Fauquier.

† Hist. of Amer. Colonies, ii. 354.

Virginia to discharge her debts without any tax for the future. It is singular that he should have been preparing to renew a scheme so recently defeated. Whether he ever again revived it in the assembly, does not appear. Robert Carter Nicholas, at the same time a candidate for the place of treasurer, was likewise in favor of a disjunction of the two offices. To this position he and Bland were brought, as well by the inducements of personal promotion as by a regard for the public good.

Peyton Randolph was made speaker; and Mr. Nicholas, who had been already appointed in May treasurer ad interim, by Governor Fauquier, was elected to that post by the assembly.

Lewis Burwell, George Wythe, John Blair, Jr., John Randolph, and Benjamin Waller were appointed to examine the state of the treasury. The deficit of the late treasurer exceeded one hundred thousand pounds. Mr. Robinson, amiable, liberal, and wealthy, had long been at the head of the aristocracy, and exerted an extraordinary influence in political affairs. He had lent large sums of the public money to friends involved in debt, especially to members of the assembly, confiding for its replacement upon his own ample fortune, and the securities taken on the loans. Mr. Wirt says that at length, apprehensive of a discovery of the deficit, he, with his friends in the assembly, devised the scheme of the loan-office the better to conceal it. The entire amount of the defalcation was eventually recovered from the estate of Robinson, which was sold in 1770 by Edmund Pendleton and Peter Lyons, surviving administrators.* Burk attributes Robinson's death to the mortification that he suffered on account of his defalcation. Bland and Nicholas, in their letters addressed to Richard Henry Lee, allude to it in terms of exquisite delicacy. The first of the family of Speaker Robinson of whom we have any account was John Robinson, of Cleasby, Yorkshire, England. His son John was Bishop of Bristol, and British envoy at the court of Sweden; he was also British plenipotentiary at the treaty of Utrecht, being, it is said, the last divine employed in a service of that kind. He was afterwards Bishop of London, in which office he continued until his death in 1723. Leaving no

* Hening, viii. 349.

issue he devised his real estate to his nephew, Christopher Robinson, who had settled on the Rappahannock. His eldest son, John Robinson, born in 1682, was president of the council. He married Catherine, daughter of Robert Beverley, the historian. John Robinson, Jr., their eldest son, was treasurer and speaker, and is commonly known as "Speaker Robinson."* He resided at Mount Pleasant, on the Matapony, in King and Queen, the house there having been built for him, it is said, by Augustine Moore, of Chelsea, in King William, father of Lucy Moore, one of his wives. Her portrait is preserved at Chelsea; his is preserved by his descendants. His other wife was Lucy Chiswell. buried in the garden at Mount Pleasant.

* Old Churches of Virginia, i. 378, in note.

He lies

CHAPTER LXX.

1766-1768.

Bland's Inquiry-Duties imposed by Parliament-Death of Fauquier-Succeeded by Blair-Baptists persecuted-Blair's Letter.

IN the year 1766 there was published at Williamsburg "An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies," from the pen of Richard Bland.* In discussing the question, "Whether the colonies are represented in the British Parliament?" he traces the English constitution to its Saxon origin, when every freeholder was a member of the Wittenagemote or Parliament. This appears from the statutes 1st Henry the Fifth, and 8th Henry the Sixth, limiting the elective franchise, that is, depriving many of the right of representation in parliament. How could they have been thus deprived, if, as was contended, all the people of England were still virtually represented? He acknowledged that a very large portion of the people of Great Britain were not entitled to representation, and were, nevertheless, bound to obey the laws of the realm, but then the obligation of these laws does not arise from their being virtually represented. The American colonies, excepting the few planted in the eighteenth century, were founded by private adventurers, who established themselves, without any expense to the nation, in this uncultivated and almost uninhabited country, so that they stand on a different foot from the Roman or any ancient colonies. Men have a natural right to quit their own country and retire to another, and set up there an independent government for themselves. But if they have

The title-page is as follows: "An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies, intended as an Answer to 'The Regulations lately made concerning the Colonies, and the Taxes imposed upon them, considered.' In a Letter addressed to the Author of that Pamphlet, by Richard Bland, of Virginia. Dedit omnibus Deus pro virili portione sapientiam, ut et inaudita investigare possent et audita perpendere. Lactantius." Williamsburg: printed by Alexander Purdie & Co., MDCCLXVI.