The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Cardinal News has embarked on a three-year project to tell the little-known stories of Virginia’s role in the march to independence. As part of this, I will be writing monthly columns about the politics of the era, written the same way I’d write them today. The events described here took place in February 1766.
This project is supported, in part, by a grant from the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission. You can sign up to receive a free monthly newsletter with updates.
Across the New England colonies, we’ve seen mobs protest the hated Stamp Act by ransacking the homes of royal officials and even pelting some of those worthies with stones.
Virginia has taken a more genteel, or at least less physical, approach, content for the House of Burgesses to debate resolutions from the outspoken young Louisa County (formerly Hanover County) lawyer Patrick Henry.
That restrained response may now be coming to an end, as Tappahannock merchant Archibald Ritchie discovered recently when 400 men marched through the town in military fashion and forced him to withdraw his support for the Stamp Act under threat of being “stripped naked to his waist, tied to the tail of a cart and drawn to the public pillory” for public display — and perhaps rougher justice.
Those men in Tappahannock consider themselves patriots and have adopted the name the Friends of Liberty, although those more quietly supportive of royal authority consider them simply vigilantes.
All this over a simple little stamp — or, perhaps, a grievous assault on the rights of British subjects living on this side of the ocean.
How did we get to a point of such civil unrest? And, more importantly, where is all this headed? Let’s review, because news travels only at the speed of horseback and a lot has happened since my last dispatch.
As all know, in the aftermath of the recent conflict that we now call the French and Indian War, the British government in London has chafed at the cost of defending its colonies in North America. First, King George III issued his reviled Proclamation of 1763, which forbids settlement west of a certain line — a certain line that runs through Southwest Virginia and which Virginians had already crossed. Then in March 1765, the British Parliament imposed the equally reviled Stamp Act, hated not just because we colonists resent paying a tax to put an official stamp on certain documents (although there’s that, too), but because we had no say in its imposition. We are being taxed without representation.
We Virginians hate to credit our northern brethren for anything, but the Boston businessman Samuel Adams (better known for his politics than his beer) did sum things up quite succinctly when he said: “For if our Trade may be taxed why not our Lands? Why not the Produce of our Lands & every thing we possess or make use of? This we apprehend annihilates our Charter Right to govern & tax ourselves — It strikes our British Privileges, which as we have never forfeited them, we hold in common with our Fellow Subjects who are Natives of Britain: If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal Representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the miserable State of tributary Slaves.” Adams is right: If London can start imposing any tax it wants, what’s next? Will the government start taxing our carriages?
Led by the freshman legislator Henry, the House of Burgesses passed some resolutions against the Stamp Act.
Other dispatches in this series
Dispatch from 1765: Augusta County mob murders Cherokees, defies royal authority.
Dispatch from 1763: Despite cries of ‘treason!,’ Hanover County jury delivers rebuke to the church – and the crown. (The court case that made Patrick Henry a celebrity.)
Dispatch from 1763: King’s proclamation has united often opposing factions in Virginia (Opposition to the king’s proclamation forbidding western settlement.)
Hot-blooded Massachusetts quickly resorted to violence. A mob in Boston hanged an effigy of the local tax collector, as well as a jackboot painted green — a punnish jab at Prime Minister George Grenville. The governor ordered the sheriff to take these items down but a mob blocked him, then forced merchants to parade under the tree to have their goods symbolically stamped. The protest group now known as Sons of Liberty considers this its founding date.
Not content with that protest, the mob later paraded the effigy to tax collector Andrew Oliver’s home, where they beheaded it, burned it — and also set fire to Oliver’s stable. When Oliver, joined by the sheriff, tried to stop the protesters, they then stoned both of them, and looted the tax collector’s home. He quit the next day, but the mob wasn’t satisfied. The protesters forced him to march through the streets and make a public resignation under the effigy tree — now called the Liberty Tree.
That wasn’t the only outbreak of violence. Mobs stormed and damaged the homes of tax collectors in other Massachusetts towns. In Rhode Island, the mob attacked the homes of various officials connected with enforcement of the Stamp Act. When the local Sons of Liberty found that violence too radical for their taste, the protesters threatened their homes.
Other demonstrations have erupted from Nova Scotia to Britain’s colonies in the Caribbean. When the tax collector arrived in Georgia, he promptly resigned the next day.
The response in Virginia has been more muted — until now. It’s also been complicated by the political rivalry between two powerful families on or near the Northern Neck, the most affluent and politically influential part of the state, the Lees and the Mercers.
When Richard Henry Lee of Westmoreland County first learned that the Stamp Act was likely to happen, he immediately sent letters to London, seeking appointment as a tax distributor. Lee has long been famous for trying to enrich himself and his family by seeking government appointments. He’s been trying for years to gain an appointment to the Governor’s Council — even though one of his brothers already serves on that august body — as well as a long list of other offices. Some might say that Lee is land rich but money-hungry.
Lee, though, was outmaneuvered by George Mercer of Stafford County, who had the advantage of already being in London at the time. Mercer, who had served under George Washington during the recent war, has lately been involved in land speculation in the Ohio country and had sailed to Britain to act as the agent for the Ohio Company of Virginia, which has seen its prospects dimmed by the king’s Proclamation of 1763. While there, the Stamp Act passed, and Mercer came home to Virginia with the potentially lucrative appointment of tax distributor.
By the time Mercer arrived in Williamsburg in October 1765, Lee had already changed his position and had emerged as a leading champion against the Stamp Act. Whether this was a political conversion of belief or convenience is debatable. Perhaps he really did come to believe that the Stamp Act is an affront to American liberties. Or perhaps he simply sensed the public mood and realized he’d be unlikely to hold onto his seat in the House of Burgesses if he didn’t oppose the measure. In any case, Lee now opposed it — and opposed it hard.
He organized a public rally in Westmoreland County that hung effigies of both Mercer and former Prime Minister Grenville, who by then had been replaced by Lord Rockingham. Around the neck of the Mercer effigy was a sign that declared “Money Is My God” — an ironic thing to say, given how grasping Lee has been. Lee also led a successful public campaign to close county courts across Virginia — with the courts closed, then no one could be punished for violating the Stamp Act. And when Mercer returned to these shores in October, Lee led an assembly of “gentlemen of property” who accosted Mercer as he made his way to the Governor’s Palace.
Mercer, oddly writing in the third person, later filed this account of the encounter: “They insisted he should immediately satisfy the company (which constantly increased) whether he intended to act as a commissioner under the Stamp Act; Mr. Mercer told them that any answer to so important a question that he should make, under such circumstances, would be attributed to fear; though he believed none of his countrymen, as he had never injured them, could have any design against his person; insisted that he ought to be allowed to wait on the Governor and Council, and to receive a true information of the sentiments of the colony (whose benefit and prosperity he had as much at heart as any man in it) and that he would, for the satisfaction of the company then assembled, give them his answer on Friday at ten o’clock. This seemed to satisfy them, and they attended him up as far as the Coffee-House, where the Governor, most of the Council, and a great number of gentlemen were assembled; but soon after many more people got together, and insisted on a more speedy and satisfactory answer, declaring they would not depart without one. In some time, upon Mr. Mercer’s promising them an answer by five o’clock this evening, they departed well pleased; and he met with no further molestation. ”
Make no mistake about Mercer’s fancy words: The crowd of “gentlemen of property” meant to intimidate him, and did. Mercer now claimed he never sought the appointment of stamp distributor and vowed he would distribute no stamps “until I receive further orders from England.” The stamps stayed aboard a royal warship.
Still, Virginian anger against the Stamp Act did not abate, nor did Lee’s agitation against it. (By now, Lee had surpassed Henry as the main voice against the law, partly because Gov. Francis Fauquier has intentionally refused to call the House of Burgesses into session, partly because Henry is a man of more modest means who must pay some attention to his law practice.)
Ironically, the man who of late has done the most to stir up opposition to the Stamp Act is a Tappahannock merchant who announced he intended to comply with it.
Andrew Ritchie is one of the wealthiest men from that section of Virginia, making a living from exporting the region’s agricultural products and importing manufactured goods from Britain. His mercantile ties to Britain also give him a different perspective on the Stamp Act than others. In February 1766, he told a crowd at the Richmond County Courthouse that he had a vessel loaded with Virginia grain, which he intended to ship to the West Indies, unless anyone wanted to buy it for 2,800 pounds. No one did, so Ritchie said he intended to acquire the necessary stamps to make sure his cargo was able to sail into port in the Caribbean.
For him, that might have just been a necessary cost of doing business. For others, it was a political taboo, given the tenor of the times. We’re told that “the countryside was aghast and then enraged” by what Ritchie apparently saw as a mere practicality. Thomas Ludwell Lee wrote to his brother Richard Henry Lee that it was “advisable … to pay Mr. R. a visit and to insist on a declaration in writing, expressing the deepest sorrow for having formed so execrable a design, and promising in the most solemn manner never to use the Stamp Paper unless authorized by the Assembly of Virginia.” The two Lee brothers organized a meeting of like-minded Virginians in Leedstown. “It is proposed that all who have swords or pistols will ride with them and, those who choose, a firelock.”
The suggestion that attendees come armed gives some sense of the mood on the Northern Neck. So does this: Thomas Ludwell Lee pointed out to Richard Henry Lee that Ritchie’s wealth made him a good target. Ritchie’s “profligacy is rather to be esteemed fortunate,” Thomas Ludwell Lee wrote.
The Lees weren’t alone in their anger toward Ritchie. While they were still organizing their meeting in Leedstown, two of Essex County’s most prominent citizens — Francis Waring and William Roane — led a group that converged on Ritchie’s house. We don’t know the size of this group, but it was apparently large enough that it required British troops from a warship docked in Tappahannock to disperse them.
That was the backdrop of the Feb. 27, 1766, meeting at Brays Church in Leedstown in Westmoreland County. Richard Henry Lee introduced six resolutions, which were adopted — and signed by 115 prominent figures from across the Northern Neck counties, including Waring and Roane who had just led the “visit” with Ritchie.
The Leedstown Resolutions, as they’re now known, made six points, which I’ll summarize because the original language is rather wordy.
First, the men pledged their allegiance to “our rightful sovereign, George the Third.” This is quite standard and a way to cloak whatever follows under the guise of patriotism rather than rebellion, although the resolutions that followed come close to the latter.
Second, “it is the birthright privilege of every British subject … that he cannot be taxed but by the consent of a Parliament in which he is represented.” If anyone attempts to “deprive this colony of those fundamental rights, we will immediately regard him or them as the most dangerous enemy of the community.”
Third, the Stamp Act violates that principle of no taxation without representation, so “we do determine at every hazard, and paying no attention to danger or death, we will exert every faculty to prevent the execution of the said Stamp Act in any instance whatsoever within this colony.” This is where the resolution starts to tread on risky ground with that whole “no attention to danger or death” part. It’s almost as if they’re saying “Give me liberty or give me death” (a rather catchy phrase, one worthy of Patrick Henry in one of his outbursts). Further, those signing this resolution suggest they might take physical action toward anyone who tries to follow the Stamp Act. “Every abandoned wretch who shall be so lost to virtue and public good, as wickedly to contribute to the introduction or fixture of the Stamp Act in this colony … we will, with utmost expedition, convince all such profligates that immediate danger and disgrace shall attend their prostitute purposes.” By suggesting those who take part in the Stamp Act are in “immediate danger,” the resolution effectively advocates vigilante action.
Fourth, if anyone hears of someone using the tax stamps, they should report this to others in the group so that a meeting may be called.
Fifth, those signing the resolution vowed to seek other supporters.
Sixth, “if any attempt shall be made on the liberty or property” of those signing the resolution, “we do most solemnly bind ourselves … at the utmost risk of our lives and fortunes” to “restore” the person to liberty. In other words, if authorities try to arrest someone for signing these resolutions, all are pledged to rise up to challenge those authorities. It’s almost as if they’re pledging their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to an armed uprising if necessary. (Another catchy phrase, perhaps something worthy of a scholar at the College of William & Mary.)
As a political statement, this Leedstown Resolution is an extraordinary document, one of the few resolutions in the colonies to state things so boldly or in such martial language. As a practical matter, it soon had an effect. The next day, 400 men converged on Tappahannock, calling themselves the Friends of Liberty or Sons of Liberty like those protesters in New England. They formed up in two lines “resembling a military formation” on Main Street while a delegation paid a visit to Ritchie. We know one of the Lees led this group, but aren’t sure which one, although it was probably Richard Henry Lee, given how much he seems to enjoy being the center of attention.
This delegation demanded that Ritchie either sign the Leedstown Resolution or suffer the consequences of yet another resolution passed that day — that “his person should be taken,” stripped to the waist, tied to a cart, and hauled to the pillory “where he should be fixed for one hour and, if in that time he did not comply, that he should be brought up by the whole company to Leedstown, there to be farther determined on, as should seem expedient to the Friends of Liberty.”
Even if you think the Stamp Act is a gross violation of our rights, let’s call this what it is: This is mob rule.
Ritchie asked for time to think this over. He was given none. Faced with the threat of physical violence by “two long lines of faces grim as death’s heads,” he signed a lengthy apology that he surely didn’t believe in.
We now live in a colony where the governor has blocked the legislature from meeting and where the courts are closed, preventing both the imposition of the Stamp Act but also the administration of any other law. Is there no wonder that in such circumstances we see the outbreak of mobs taking matters into their own hands? Where will all this lead?
Addendum: Lee accused of once seeking Stamp Act post
The political fallout continues. Gov. Fauquier has told London authorities that Lee hopes to parlay his new fame into being elected speaker of the House. In turn, the Mercers have leaked the information that Lee once sought the position of tax distributor. Lee is now playing political defense, writing a lengthy op-ed in the Virginia Gazette to defend himself. Lee’s star, burning bright not that long ago, has now dimmed a bit.
Breaking news: Stamp Act repealed
This news has just arrived across the Atlantic: Urged on by Lord Rockingham and prominent parliamentarian William Pitt (who is said to be in line for the prime minister’s post), Parliament has repealed the Stamp Act on March 18, 1766. Pitt accused former Prime Minister Grenville of being “entirely wrong” about the colonies. “It is my opinion that this Kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies,” Pitt declared. The King has now given his assent to the repeal. In gratitude, a Sons of Liberty group in Dedham, Massachusetts, has erected a pillar with a bust of Pitt. Perhaps in gratitude, Virginia could name counties after both Rockingham and Pitt. For now, this crisis in relations between the colonies and London seems to have been averted.
Sources consulted include “Forced Founders, Indians, Debtors, Slaves & The Making of the American Revolution in Virginia” by Woody Holton, personal correspondence with Holton, “Accommodating Revolutions” by Albert Tillson Jr., “Virginia: The New Dominion” by Virginius Dabney, Encyclopedia Virginia, the Essex County Historical Society and the River Country News.
