obedience,' the more sober part of the audience were struck
with horror. Mr. Lyons called out aloud, and with an honest
warmth, to the Bench, 'that the gentleman had spoken
treason,' and expressed his astonishment, 'that their
worships could hear it without emotion, or any mark of
dissatisfaction.' At the same instant, too, amongst some
gentlemen in the crowd behind me, was a confused murmur of
'treason, treason!' Yet Mr. Henry went on in the same
treasonable and licentious strain, without interruption from
the Bench, nay, even without receiving the least exterior
notice of their disapprobation. One of the jury, too, was so
highly pleased with these doctrines, that, as I was
afterwards told, he every now and then gave the traitorous
declaimer a nod of approbation. After the court was
adjourned, he apologized to me for what he had said,
alleging that his sole view in engaging in the cause, and in
saying what he had, was to render himself popular. You see,
then, it is so clear a point in this person's opinion that
the ready road to popularity here is to trample under foot
the interests of religion, the rights of the church, and the
prerogatives of the crown."[56]

FOOTNOTES:

[33] Perry, _Hist. Coll._ i. 12.

[34] Perry, _Hist. Coll._ 316, 317.

[35] Hening, _Statutes at Large_, vi. 88, 89.

[36] _Ibid._ vi. 568, 569.

[37] Perry, _Hist. Coll._ i. 508, 509.

[38] Hening, _Statutes at Large_, vii. 240, 241.

[39] Perry, _Hist. Coll._ i. 467, 468.

[40] As was alleged in Richard Bland's _Letter to the Clergy_, 17.

[41] Perry, _Hist. Coll._ i. 467.

[42] _Ibid._ i. 466.

[43] _Ibid._ i. 465, 466.

[44] Meade, _Old Families of Virginia_, i. 223.

[45] In the account here given of these Virginia "option laws," I have
been obliged, by lack of space, to give somewhat curtly the bald
results of rather careful studies which I have made upon the question
in all accessible documents of the period; and I have not been at
liberty to state many things, on both sides of the question, which
would be necessary to a complete discussion of the subject. For
instance, among the motives to be mentioned for the popularity of laws
whose chief effects were to diminish the pay of the established
clergy, should be considered those connected with a growing dissent
from the established church in Virginia, and particularly with