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pondence and inquiry be appointed, to consist of eleven persons, to wit: the Honourable Peyton Randolph, Esq. Robert C. Nicholas, Richard Bland, Richard H. Lee, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, Patrick Henry, Dudley Digges, Dabney Carr, Archibald Cary, and Thomas Jefferson, Esquires; any six of whom to be a committee, whose business it shall be to obtain the most early and authentick intelligence of all such acts. and resolutions of the British parliament, or proceedings of administration, as may relate to or affect the British colonies in America; and to keep up and maintain a correspondence and communication with our sister colonies respecting those important considerations; and the result of such their proceedings, from time to time, to lay before this house.

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'Resolved, that it be an instruction to the said committee, that they do, without delay, inform themselves particularly of the principles and authority on which was constituted a Court of Inquiry said to have been lately held in Rhode Island, with powers to transport persons accused of offences committed in America to places beyond the seas to be tried.

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The said resolutions being severally read a second time, were, upon the question severally put thereupon, agreed to by the house nemine contradicente.

"Resolved, that the Speaker of this house do transmit to the Speakers of the different Assemblies of the British colonies on this continent, copies of the said resolutions, and desire that they will lay them before their respective Assemblies, and request them to appoint some person or persons of their respective bodies

to communicate from time to time with the said committee."

The consulting members proposed to Mr. Jefferson to move these resolutions: but he urged that it should be done by Mr. Carr, his friend and brother-in-law, then a new member, and to whom he wished an opportunity should be given of making known to the house his great worth and talents. It was so agreed: he moved them, they were adopted without a dissenting voice, and a committee of correspondence appointed, of whom Peyton Randolph, the Speaker, was chairman. The Governour (then Lord Dunmore) immediately dissolved the house: but the committee met next day, prepared a circular letter to the Speakers of the other colonies, inclosing to each a copy of the resolutions, and left it in charge with their chairman to forward them by expresses.

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We would step aside one moment, for the purpose introducing Mr. Wirt's description of the mind and manners of the gentleman who first presented these resolutions to the house. "In supporting these resolutions," says he, "Mr. Carr made his debut, and a noble one it is said to have been. This gentleman, by profession a lawyer, had recently commenced his practice at the same bars with Patrick Henry; and although he had not yet reached the meridian of life, he was considered by far the most formidable rival in forensick eloquence that Mr. Henry had ever yet had to encounter. He had the advantage of a person at once dignified and engaging, and the manner and action of an accomplished gentleman. His education was a finished one, his mind trained to correct thinking, his conceptions

quick, and clear, and strong; he reasoned with great cogency, and had an imagination which enlightened beautifully, without interrupting or diverting the course of his argument. His voice was finely toned; his feelings acute; his style free, and rich, and various; his devotion to the cause of liberty verging on enthusiasm; and his spirit firm and undaunted, beyond the possibility of being shaken. With what delight the House of Burgesses hailed this new champion, and felicitated themselves on such an accession to their cause, it is easy to imagine. But what are the hopes and expectations of mortals? In two months from the time at which this gentleman stood before the House of Burgesses, in all the pride of health, and genius, and eloquence, he was no more! Lost to his friends and his country, and disappointed of standing in that noble triumph which awaited the illustrious band of his compatriots." We have similar testimony from a different pen. "I well remember," says an eye witness, "the pleasure expressed in the countenances and conversation of the members generally in this debut of Mr. Carr, and the hopes they conceived, as well from the talents as the patriotism it manifested. But he died within two months after, and in him we lost a powerful fellow labourer. His character was of a high order, a spotless integrity, sound judgement, handsome imagination, enriched by education and reading; quick and clear in his conceptions; of correct and ready elocution; impressing every hearer with the sincerity of the heart from which it flowed. His firmness was inflexible in whatever he thought right; but when no moral principle was in the way, never had man more of the milk

of human kindness, of indulgence, of softness, of pleasantry in conversation and conduct. The number of his friends, and the warmth of their affections, were proofs of his worth, and their estimate of it." This was the first and only speech of Mr. Carr in the House of Representatives. He died the 16th of May, 1773, in the thirtieth of his age.

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This system of corresponding committees between. the legislatures of the different colonies, which was thus adopted as the best instrument for communication between the respective colonies, and by which they might be brought to a mutual understanding and a unity of action, has since been asserted to have arisen in Massachusetts, and Judge Marshall, in his Life of Washington, has fallen into the errour. But Mr. Jefferson, and no doubt correctly, asserts the contrary. He imagines the mistake to have arisen from confounding together two distinct committees: adding, "Thus in Massachusetts there were two committees of correspondence, one chosen by the people, the other appointed by the House of Assembly; in the former, Massachusetts preceded Virginia; in the latter, Virginia preceded Massachusetts. To the origination of committees for the interiour correspondence between the counties and towns of a state, I know of no claim on the part of Virginia, and certainly none was ever made by myself." And the letter of Samuel A. Wells, Esquire, to Mr. Jefferson, and the answer of the latter of May 12th, 1829, show conclusively that Massachusetts did not adopt the measure, but on receipt of the proposition from Virginia, and which was delivered as their next session.

On the twelfth of March, 1773, Mr. Jefferson was chosen a member of the first committee of correspondence established by the colonial legislatures, the act already alluded to, as the most important of the revolution in preparing the way for that union of sentiment and action from whence arose the first effective resistance, and on which depended the successful progress and final triumph of the cause.

The year 1774 found Mr. Jefferson still actively engaged in his duties as a member of the legislature of Virginia. The passage by Parliament of the Boston Port Bill, by which that port was to be shut up on the first of June, 1774, was the next event which aroused the indignation and excited the sympathies of the house. It arrived while they were in session in the spring of 1774. It was at this crisis that Mr. Jefferson wrote, and the members, though not then adopting as resolutions, afterwards published his "Summary View of the Rights of British America;" and in which he maintained what was then thought by many a bold position, but which he considered as the only orthodox and tenable one: that the relation between Great Britain and the colonies was exactly the same as that of England and Scotland, after the accession of James, and until the union, and the same as her present relation with Hanover, having the same executive chief, but no other necessary political connexion; and that our emigration from England to this country gave her no more rights over us, than the emigration of the Danes and Saxons gave to the authorities of the mother country over England.

"In this doctrine, however," says he, "I had never

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