se, an electric bolt from the clouds mercifully
released his wearied spirit from its earthly thrall.

The people were now fairly aroused. "Give us a just representation in
the national council," they said, "and we will cheerfully submit to the
expressed will of the majority." Great Britain was too proud to listen
to conditions from her children; too blind to perceive the expediency of
fair concession. She haughtily refused the reciprocity asked, and
menaced the recusants. In the war just closed, the colonists had
discovered their inherent strength, and they were not easily frightened
by the mother's frown. Upon the postulate of Otis they planted the
standard of resistance and boldly kept it floating on the breeze until
the War of the Revolution broke out.

[Illustration: PATRICK HENRY.]

Heedless of the portentous warnings already given, the British ministry
conceived another scheme for taxing the Americans. The famous Stamp Act
was elaborated in council, discussed in parliament, and made a law by
sanction of the king's signature in the spring of 1765. That act imposed
certain duties upon every species of legal writing. It declared invalid
and null every promissory note, deed, mortgage, bond, marriage license,
business agreement, and every contract which was not written upon paper,
vellum, or parchment impressed with the stamp of the imperial
government. For these, fixed rates were stipulated. In this measure the
Americans perceived another head of the Hydra, Despotism. The _Writs of
Assistance_ touched the interests of commercial men; the Stamp Act
touched the interests of the whole people. The principle involved was
the same in each; the practical effect of the latter was universally
felt. Fierce was the tempest of indignation which followed the
annunciation of its enactment, and throughout the colonies the hearts of
the people beat as with one pulsation. Sectional differences were
forgotten. The bold notes of defiance uttered in New England and New
York were caught up and echoed with manifold vehemence in Virginia.
Patrick Henry, the idle boy of Hanover, had just burst from the
chrysalis of obscurity, and was enchanting his countrymen with the
brilliancy of his eloquence. He had been but a few days a member of the
Virginia House of Burgesses, when intelligence of the passage of the
Stamp Act reached the Old Dominion. Upon a scrap of paper torn from the
fly-leaf of an old copy of "Coke upon Littleton," he wrote thos