tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post7893634931077671237..comments2024-03-28T04:26:30.557-05:00Comments on Boston 1775: Two Virginia Gentlemen and the Stamp ActUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-49841991573681869602015-11-05T09:09:56.925-05:002015-11-05T09:09:56.925-05:00My posting above simply describes Richard Henry Le...My posting above simply describes Richard Henry Lee's actions. On 24 Sept 1765 he led a demonstration against the Stamp Act focused on an effigy of stamp master George Mercer. At the end of the previous year he had written to Britain asking for the same job, a fact that Mercer and his family revealed in 1766. If you think those events make Lee look “bad,” that’s not because of anything I added to the facts. I wrote nothing about “venal jealousy”; if you inferred that motivation and then didn’t like the conclusion, that’s something for you to work out with your mental image of Lee.<br /><br />You accept Lee's claim of "ignorance with respect to what was going on." The Mercers pointed out that when Lee wrote to London in November 1764, Americans had been debating the prospect of a Stamp Act for months. As my other sestercentennial postings have described, prime minister George Grenville had proposed such a law in Parliament in the spring of 1764 and then delayed it for a year in order to collect feedback from the American colonies. The possible Stamp Act was a big topic of conversation in the Virginia House of Burgesses and other legislatures. The delegates formed committees and sent back reports urging Parliament not to adopt the law. <br /><br />If Lee had inquired about the post of stamp master in late 1763, he could easily have been ignorant of its implications. But by late 1764, the outline of the Stamp Act was clear. The basic question of whether Parliament could enact a tax on the colonies was inherent in the law. Lee couldn’t have missed that. He didn’t know, because no one knew, the breadth and depth of the opposition to that law by late 1765. <br /><br />Lee may well have jumped at an political and economic opportunity and then sincerely changed his mind after reflecting at more length. He doesn’t appear to have pursued the stamp master job past his initial inquiry. Like Jared Ingersoll in Connecticut, Lee may have felt that he’d enforce the Stamp Act more fairly than others and therefore be of service to his fellow Virginians. Those possibilities might mitigate our judgment of Lee. Yet the fact remains that Lee himself didn’t offer such generous thoughts to George Mercer when he was hanging and burning an effigy of the man. J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-20557221345313311212015-11-05T02:28:03.169-05:002015-11-05T02:28:03.169-05:00Thank for raising this and later providing the sou...Thank for raising this and later providing the sources as requested, yet I don't think Lee comes out anywhere or nearly so bad as your original comments imply. From these various items, what I gather is that Lee acted far more out of ignorance with respect to what was going on and developing than venal jealousy. And were it actually the latter (which I hardly think the case), we indeed would have to conclude him to be little better than a moron and utterly reckless of his own character and reputation.William Thomas Shermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12508291440468457337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-51247143186395060732015-11-04T19:44:09.626-05:002015-11-04T19:44:09.626-05:00It looks like you’ve quoted from The Letters of Ri...It looks like you’ve quoted from <i>The Letters of Richard Henry Lee</i> (1911). If you go on to page 9, you’ll find a footnote referring to the controversy. On page 16 is Lee’s version of events.. J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-15278867459128233862015-11-04T19:39:24.851-05:002015-11-04T19:39:24.851-05:00Two short, open-access articles that discuss the c...Two short, open-access articles that discuss the conflict between the Mercers and the Lees can be found at the <a href="http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/lee_richard_henry_1732-1794" rel="nofollow">Encyclopedia Virginia</a> and <a href="http://www.history.org/almanack/life/politics/polhis.cfm" rel="nofollow">Colonial Williamsburg</a> websites. There’s more detail in <a href="http://leefamilyarchive.org/reference/theses/virginia/05.html" rel="nofollow">this chapter</a> of Mary Elizabeth Virginia’s 1992 thesis on Richard Henry Lee. [Let’s now pause to consider how little choice Mary Elizabeth Virginia had when it came to choosing a historical specialty.]<br /><br />The public side of the Mercer-Lee argument played out in the <i>Virginia Gazette</i> newspapers, mostly Purdie & Dixon’s. The first story of <a href="http://research.history.org/DigitalLibrary/va-gazettes/VGSinglePage.cfm?IssueIDNo=66.PD.22" rel="nofollow">this issue</a> shows the Mercers’ accusation, Lee’s admission from a Maryland newspaper, and the Mercers’ comments on it. <br /><br />One of the outcomes of that argument was a duel arranged between Lee’s brother Arthur and George Mercer’s brother James. The book <a href="http://www.williamsburgincharacter.com/catalog/WilliamsburgAtDawn.aspx" rel="nofollow"><i>Williamsburg at Dawn</i></a> tells that story. I haven’t read it, but I’ve read another of the author’s short books, and I therefore expect it’s well researched and juicily written. J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-55890026065274315932015-11-04T18:59:56.383-05:002015-11-04T18:59:56.383-05:00The following I found in the Letters of RH Lee 176...The following I found in the Letters of RH Lee 1762-1778. While there is a 1762 petition seeking a place on "his majesty's council," there is of course no reference to the stamp tax of 65. (Lee's brother William was Sheriff of London in 1774, but I don't know which brother he refers to as already being on the said council.) Meanwhile, here is this from 1764:<br /><br />TO MY DEAR SlR, CHANTILLY, VA. May 31, 1764.<br />At a time when universal selfishness prevails, and<br />when (did not a very few instances evince the contrary)<br />one would be apt to conclude that friendship, with<br />Astrea, had fled this degenerate world, how greatly<br />happy must be the man who can boast of having a<br />friend. That this happiness is mine, the whole tenor<br />of my life s correspondence with you proves most<br />clearly.<br />Many late determinations of the great, on your side<br />of the water, seem to prove a resolution, to oppress<br />North America with the iron hand of power, unre<br />strained by any sentiment, drawn from reason, the<br />liberty of mankind, or the genius of their own govern<br />ment. Tis said the House of Commons readily re<br />solved, that it had right to tax the subject here,<br />without the consent of his representative; and that, in<br />consequence of this, they had proceeded to levy on us a<br />considerable annual sum, for the support of a body of<br />troops to be kept up in this quarter. Can it be sup<br />posed that those brave adventurous Britons, who orig<br />inally conquered and settled these countries, through<br />great dangers to themselves and benefit to the mother<br />country, meant thereby to deprive themselves of the<br />blessings of that free government of which they were<br />members, and to which they had an unquestionable<br />right ?...[etc.]William Thomas Shermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12508291440468457337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-42258559011704243212015-11-04T18:21:48.912-05:002015-11-04T18:21:48.912-05:00I have read this same post, "Thursday, Octobe...I have read this same post, "Thursday, October 29, 2015, Two Virginia Gentlemen and the Stamp Act," three times (just to make sure I am not perhaps going blind or something), and I see nowhere in this article your source for Lee's seeking the post in question (or, for that matter, that he led the mob -- but this last is a comparatively small point.) I will grant I am far from being an expert on Richard Henry Lee, but what you are asserting about him is no little absurd; so perhaps you could in a future post furnish us with a follow up; including an examination of Lee's purported character and motives as you see them -- with documentation.William Thomas Shermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12508291440468457337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-25368771261042227052015-11-04T11:51:11.593-05:002015-11-04T11:51:11.593-05:00You've jumped well beyond what I wrote, Mr. Sh...You've jumped well beyond what I wrote, Mr. Sherman, while not acknowledging some of the details I did write.<br /><br />As I said, Mercer came into possession of documents showing that Lee had inquired about the stamp master job when the possibility first arose. This led to a controversy in the Virginia newspapers in 1766. Lee acknowledged that he had indeed pursued that job, but argued that he didn't understand the full implications of the Stamp Act at the time. Mercer and his proponents definitely tried to leave the impression that Lee had come out so strongly against the law because he had been disappointed.<br /><br />And indeed, it's possible that if Lee had gained the post of stamp master his history would have been quite different. Most of the stamp masters who survived until the war ended up being Loyalist or neutral, not strong advocates for independence. Being a target for mob violence might put one off the idea of greater democracy. But we'll never know about a counterfactual like that.<br /><br />I think one valuable part of the whole Stamp Act story is how the political sides were not well defined in 1765. Men like Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens, and Timothy Ruggles were feeling their way through the issues without knowledge of what would come next, or how the American populace or the London government would respond. Jared Ingersoll provided the report from London that inspired the whole "Sons of Liberty" movement and then ended up ruining his career in America by taking the stamp master job. Patrick Henry launched a career with some fiery speeches and proposals that turned out to say far less than people perceived, yet far more than most people had thought possible at the time. J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-84849279424877167952015-11-04T00:27:40.685-05:002015-11-04T00:27:40.685-05:00Do you mean to suggest that Richard Henry Lee took...Do you mean to suggest that Richard Henry Lee took up the cause of American Independence because he was denied job preferment by the British government, and, no less and for of all posts, that of stamp duty enforcer? What are your sources on these various allegations against him you raise? And even if someone else accused him of disappointment at being denied a British government appointment, does it necessarily follow that that individual's claim is credible?William Thomas Shermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12508291440468457337noreply@blogger.com