voice was musical. He had lost the use of one hand by an accident,
and kept it covered with a bandage of black silk; but his gesture was
graceful. His style of eloquence was chaste, classic, electric, and
delightful. As Mr. Jefferson has said that Patrick Henry spoke as Homer
wrote, so Mr. Lee may be, perhaps, compared to Virgil. Henry and Lee
coincided in political views, co-operated in public life, and were
confidential correspondents and warm and constant friends.

FOOTNOTES:

[531:A] Sabine's Loyalists, 36.

[533:A] Letter from R. H. Lee to his sister, Mrs. Corbin, written in
1778. _Hist. Mag._, i. 360.

[534:A] Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, 37.

[537:A] Wirt's Life of Henry, 47; Old Churches, Ministers, etc., 298;
Grigsby's Convention of '76, p. 46.

CHAPTER LXIX.

1765-1766.

The Stamp Act--Virginia opposes it--Loan-office Scheme--Members
of Council and Burgesses--Repeal of Stamp Act--Treasurer
Robinson's Defalcation--Offices of Speaker and Treasurer
separated--Lee's Speech--Miscellaneous--Family of Robinson.

ON the 7th day of February, 1765, Grenville introduced in the house of
commons the stamp act, declaring null and void instruments of writing in
daily use in the colonies, unless executed on stamped paper or
parchment, charged with a duty imposed by parliament. The bill, warmly
debated in that house, but carried by a vote of five to one, met with no
opposition in the house of lords, and on the twenty-second of March
received the royal sanction. At first it was taken for granted that the
act would be enforced. It was not to take effect till the first day of
November, more than seven months from its passage. The Virginians were a
proud race, the more jealous of their liberties, having, like the
Spartans, the degradation of slavery continually in their view,
impatient of restraint, and unwilling to succumb to the control of any
superior power, "snuffing the tainted breeze of tyranny afar." Many of
them even affected to consider the colonies as independent states, only
linked to Great Britain as owing allegiance to a common crown, and as
bound to her by natural affection.

The assembly met on the 1st day of May, 1765. Patrick Henry took his
seat in it on the twentieth. Notwithstanding the opposition of the
people to the stamp act, yet the place-men, the large landed
proprietors, who were the professed adherents of government, still held
the control of the legislature. D