Accordingly, in response to these tidings, the
House of Burgesses, in the autumn of 1764, had taken the earliest
opportunity to send a respectful message to the government of England,
declaring that the proposed act would be deemed by the loyal and
affectionate people of Virginia as an alarming violation of their
ancient constitutional rights. This message had been elaborately drawn
up, in the form of an address to the king, a memorial to the House of
Lords, and a remonstrance to the Commons;[64] the writers being a
committee composed of gentlemen prominent in the legislature, and of
high social standing in the colony, including Landon Carter, Richard
Henry Lee, George Wythe, Edmund Pendleton, Benjamin Harrison, Richard
Bland, and even Peyton Randolph, the king's attorney-general.

Meantime, to this appeal no direct answer had been returned; instead
of which, however, was received by the House of Burgesses, in May,
1765, about the time of Patrick Henry's accession to that body, a copy
of the Stamp Act itself. What was to be done about it? What was to be
done by Virginia? What was to be done by her sister colonies? Of
course, by the passage of the Stamp Act, the whole question of
colonial procedure on the subject had been changed. While the act was,
even in England, merely a theme for consideration, and while the
colonies were virtually under invitation to send thither their views
upon the subject, it was perfectly proper for colonial pamphleteers
and for colonial legislatures to express, in every civilized form,
their objections to it. But all this was now over. The Stamp Act had
been discussed; the discussion was ended; the act had been decided on;
it had become a law. Criticism upon it now, especially by a
legislative body, was a very different matter from what criticism upon
it had been, even by the same body, a few months before. Then, the
loyal legislature of Virginia had fittingly spoken out, concerning the
contemplated act, its manly words of disapproval and of protest; but
now that the contemplated act had become an adopted act--had become
the law of the land--could that same legislature again speak even
those same words, without thereby becoming disloyal,--without
venturing a little too near the verge of sedition,--without putting
itself into an attitude, at least, of incipient nullification
respecting a law of the general government?

It is perfectly evident that by all the old leaders of the House at
that