51 CHAPTER III. His Marriage. Committees of Correspondence. Boston Port Bill. Members of Assembly enter into articles of Association. Propose a General Congress. First Convention in Virginia. His vindication of the rights of America. Proceedings of the Convention—choose Deputies to a General Congress. Character of that Body. The Convention of Virginia assemble at Richmond. Its Proceedings. Mr. Jefferson chosen a Deputy to Congress. The Powder withdrawn from the Public Magazine by Lord Dunmore. The popular irritation it excited. General Assembly convened. Mr. Jefferson prepares a reply to Lord North's propositions. Collision between the Governor and House of Burgesses. Conduct of Lord Dunmore. 1772-1775. Ox the 1st of January, 1772, Mr. Jefferson married Mrs. Martha Skelton, then twenty-three years of age, of whose attractions and gentle virtues tradition speaks most favourably. She was the widow of Bathurst Skelton, and the daughter of John Wayles, a lawyer of extensive practice. By this marriage Mr. Jefferson acquired a handsome fortune, as Mr. Wayles died in the following year, and divided a large estate among his three daughters. In 1772, the political calm which seems to have supervened in the southern states after the partial repeal of the obnoxious duties, was interrupted by an occurrence in Rhode Island. A Court of Inquiry was there held, with power to send the accused to England for trial; and, on the meeting of the Virginia Assembly in the spring of 1773, this grievance of a sister colony was thought to merit their special notice. Mr. Jefferson seems to have been among the foremost in a cause in which all were zealous. The zeal, however, of the greater number, being more tempered with caution than suited the ardent tempers of a few master spirits, these determined to meet at the Raleigh, to consult on the measures proper to be pursued. The party, consisting of Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, his brother Francis Lightfoot Lee, Dabney Carr, Thomas Jefferson, and two or three others, drew up resolutions, the chief object of which was to appoint a standing Committee of Correspondence and Inquiry, consisting of eleven persons, whose duty it should be to obtain early intelligence of the proceedings of Parliament respecting America; to maintain a correspondence with the colonies; to obtain information respecting the Court of Inquiry recently held in Rhode Island; and to communicate the result of their proceedings to the House of Burgesses. The Legislatures of the other colonies were invited to appoint persons to correspond with the committee. It thus appeared that the policy of selecting one of the weakest colonies for the experiment of an odious measure, would, by the identity of feeling which pervaded them all, not only be unavailing to the British government, but prove a further bond of union to the colonies. Mr. Jefferson mentions in his memoir, that the consulting members proposed to him to move these resolutions in the house the next day; but that he declined the honour in favour of his brother-in-law, Dabney Carr, a new member, to whom he wished to afford so good an opportunity of making his talents known. The resolutions were accordingly moved by Mr. Carr on the 12th of March, supported by him with great ability, and unanimously adopted by the house. It may be fairly presumed, both from Mr. Jefferson's course and that of his associates on this occasion, that these resolutions were drawn, and had been first suggested, by himself. The members of this important committee were Peyton Randolph, Robert C. Nicholas, Richard Bland, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, Patrick Henry, Dudley Digges, Dabney Carr, Archibald Cary and Thomas Jefferson. A generous emulation for the honour of promoting the cause of the Revolution has occasionally given rise to conflicting claims among the several states. Of this character are the rival pretensions of Massachusetts and Virginia to the merit of originating those powerful engines of colonial union and resistance -the Committees of Correspondence. Chief Justice Marshall ascribes their origin to Massachusetts; and states, that, in 1770, the Legislature of that colony appointed a committee to correspond with such committees as might be appointed by the other colonies, all of which, sooner or later, followed the example; and that similar committees were appointed by the other towns of Massachusetts, for the purpose of corresponding with one another. Gordon, however, to whom he refers, speaks only of the last mentioned committees, the origin of which he ascribes to James Warren and Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts, and is silent as to the committees for maintaining correspondence among the several colonies. Mr. Wirt, on the other hand, gives the honour of originating these committees to Virginia; though he admits, on the authority of Mr. Jefferson, that Massachusetts adopted the same measure so nearly at the same time, as to be entitled to equal honour. Mr. Jefferson, noticing this subject in his memoirs, after distinguishing between the two kinds of Corresponding Committees, relies on the authority of Gordon to prove that Massachusetts is entitled only to the honour of originating the inferior Local Committees, while he claims for Virginia a similar honour as to the Committees of National Correspondence. He admits and explains his mistake in the information given to Mr. Wirt, that this proposition "was nearly simultaneous in Virginia and Massachusetts." It appears, on further inquiry, that the facts are accurately stated by Judge Marshall, and that the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, on the 7th of November, 1770, appointed a committee to correspond with committees in the other colonies, by the following resolution: "Upon motion, ordered, that Mr. Speaker, (Thomas Cushing,) Mr. Hancock, Mr. Hall, Mr. Samuel Adams, and Mr. John. Adams, be a Committee of Correspondence, to communicate such intelligence as may be necessary to the agent and others in Great Britain; and also to the speakers of the several assemblies throughout the continent, or to such Committee of Correspondence as they have, or may appoint. Said committee, from time to time, to report the whole of their correspondence to the House of Representatives, and to confer with such committee as the honourable board have appointed to correspond with their agent, as far as they shall judge it necessary." The claims of Massachusetts to the merit of first suggesting this plan of concerted resistance may indeed be carried still farther back; as in 1765,* after the passage of the stamp act, her House of Representatives had invited a meeting of deputics from all the colonial Legislatures, "to consult together" on their common "difficulties;" and afterwards, in February 1768,† they again addressed a circular letter to all the colonial Assemblies, in which they dwelt on the importance of harmony in their "representations," and proposed to them, severally, a mutual interchange of sentiment. But notwithstanding these examples, and the before mentioned resolution of 1770, it seems to be conceded that the Massachusetts Corresponding Committee did not communicate with the other colonies, in consequence, it is said, of the "severe censures" passed in 'England on the circular letter formerly addressed by her Legislature to the other colonies. As then, Virginia, in 1773, seems not to have been prompted by the example of Massachusetts, and as, moreover, her resolutions did not merely authorize a correspondence with the other colonies, but also formally requested them to "appoint some person or persons of their respective bodies, to communicate from time to time † Ib. p. 191. * Prior Documents, p. 26. The resolution of the House of Representatives of MassachusettsBay, in 1770, appointing a Committee of Correspondence, is given on the authority of Ex-President John Q. Adams, who did the author the favour, in answer to his inquiries, to send him an extract from the Journals of the House. He further remarks, "I presume this was the first appointment of a Committee of Correspondence of this class.' It is noticed by Alden Bradford in his History of Massachusetts, from 1764 to 1775-pages 237 and 276. By Gordon, vol. 1, p. 306, and in the third volume of Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts-Bay, page 318. It is also to this appointment that Judge Marshall refers in his life of Washington, vol. 2, p. 151, first edition. Bradford, in a note, says, it does not appear that this committee wrote to the other colonies, as a former letter to them from Massachusetts had been so severely censured in England." with the said committee;" the disputed honour may be fairly divided between the two, by assigning to Massachusetts the merit of first suggesting the plan, and to Virginia that of giving it efficacy. It may, however, be remarked, that there probably never was a case in which several district communities laboured under a common grievance, requiring the same means and measure of redress, which did not consult how they might best cooperate; and that to have proposed so natural and obvious an expedient should be deemed an honour worthy of being contested by two states, is to be imputed to the importance attached to every thing connected with the Revolution, and to the lustre which the achievement of national independence sheds on all its agents and instruments. The next subject which enlisted the sympathies of Virginia was the Boston port bill, by the provisions of which that town was to be cut off from all foreign trade after the 1st of June, 1774, as a punishment for its destruction of the tea in the December preceding. This act having reached Virginia while the Assembly was in session, Mr. Jefferson says, that a number of the junior members, comprehending Mr. Henry, the two Lees, and two or three others with himself, no longer willing to submit the direction of affairs to the old members, but determining on a bolder course, assembled in the Council Chamber to consult on the measures to be pursued. By way of rousing the people from their recent lethargy, they decided on a day of general fasting and prayer. "With the help of Rushworth," he says, "whom we rummaged for the revolutionary precedents and forms of the puritans of that day, we cooked up a resolution-somewhat modernizing their phrases-for appointing the 1st day of June, on which the port bill was to commence, for a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer, to implore Heaven to avert from us the evils of civil war, to inspire us with firmness in support of our rights, and to turn the hearts of the King and Parliament to moderation and justice." They then resolve that the members would attend in their places on the first of June, at ten in the forenoon, and thence "proceed with the |