Field, John Posey, Thomas Fleming, John Roote, and Samuel Meredith.

[501:A] See in Bland Papers, i. 9, Robert Munford's letter, dated at the
Camp near Fort Cumberland. He was father of the translator of Homer, and
grandfather to George W. Munford, Esq., Secretary of the Commonwealth.

[505:A] John Rodgers Davies, his third son, was at Princeton College at
the same time with Mr. Madison, and leaving it, at the commencement of
the revolutionary war, became an officer in the army, and as such
enjoyed the esteem of Washington. He is said to have been engaged in the
auditor's office at Richmond. He removed to Sussex County, and died
there.

CHAPTER LXV.

1763.

The Parsons' Cause--Patrick Henry's Speech.

IN the year 1763 occurred the famous "Parsons' Cause," in which the
genius of Patrick Henry first shone forth. The emoluments of the clergy
of the established church for a long time had consisted of sixteen
thousand pounds of tobacco, contributed by each parish. The tobacco crop
of 1755 failing, in consequence of a drought, and the exigencies of the
colony being greatly augmented by the French and Indian war, the
assembly passed an act, to endure for ten months, authorizing all debts
due in tobacco to be paid either in kind or in money, at the rate of
sixteen shillings and eight pence for every hundred pounds of tobacco.
This was equivalent to two pence per pound, and hence the act was styled
by the clergy the "Two Penny Act." As the price of tobacco now rose to
six pence per pound, the reduction amounted to sixty-six and two-thirds
per cent. At two pence the salary of a minister clergy was about one
hundred and thirty-three pounds; at six pence, about four hundred
pounds. Yet the act must have operated in relief of the indebted clergy
equally with other debtors, and many of the ministers were in debt. It
was by no means the intention of the assembly to abridge the maintenance
of the clergy, or to bear harder upon them than upon all other public
creditors; and as they, under the new act, in fact, received in general
a larger salary than they had received in any year since it was first
regulated by law, they, above all men, ought to have been content with
it in a year of so much distress.[507:A] The taxes were enormous, and
fell most heavily upon planters of limited means; and the tobacco-crop
was greatly fallen off. The Rev. James Maury, in whose behalf the suit
was afterwards brought, had himself at th